Only when “Palestinians are really free will Israel’s security be guaranteed,” stated Natan Sharansky on Monday.
Sharansky, former Soviet dissident and political prisoner and Israel’s current minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, met with a small group of Jewish students at U of T at an invitation-only event. The meeting was one stop of many on Sharansky’s North American tour, which will also include Boston University, Harvard, MIT, and the University of Maryland. He wishes to speak about human rights and to set the record straight concerning Israel.
Some people might find it contradictory that an Israeli minister is coming to talk about human rights, says Sharansky. Israel is often portrayed as one of the biggest human rights abusers on the planet. What Sharansky wishes to emphasize, however, is that if you define human rights, Israel is truly a “champion of human rights.” Israel is the “only democracy in the world in war for its right to exist,” says Sharansky. He believes that people have a right “to speak their mind and not go to prison for this.”
Israel is the only country in the Middle East “which has full freedom” and where “Arab Members of Parliament can freely criticize their governments,” believes Sharansky. He believes that “security in the Middle East and the creation of a Palestinian state has to come with democracy.” Those who want to see a free Palestine “have to support the forces of democracy in the Arab world.” Sharansky says that “democracies don’t go to war with each other” and democracy will therefore help ensure peace in the Middle East.
Aryeh Green, the minister’s advisor, suggested that the peace process “still waits for what President Bush called for in June 2000: new leadership.” Right now they are “back to square one” in the Middle East, said Green. He cites the suicide bombings last week as a case in point. First, Palestine “needs to create a stable democracy with stable institutions,” he believes.
The mood in Jerusalem is “very sad,” says Green. Doctor David Applebaum, one of seven people killed by a suicide bomber in a Jerusalem café last week, was a friend of the minister. Applebaum had just returned from New York, where he had given a talk at a terrorist symposium. He was in the café with his 20-year old daughter on the eve of her wedding. The bombing occurred a mere two blocks away from the minister’s house. “We have reached out in peace towards Palestine for decades,” said Green, and the mood is now “angry and frustrated.”
Sharansky also emphasized the important role students play in the peace process. Students are the “most innovative anti-conservative force pushing new ideas,” he noted, and they have a “readiness to see the broad picture.” Sharansky said they “should go ahead in speaking the truth and fighting for democracy in the Arab world,” which is “also a way to combat terror.” Democracy is “the only thing which can guarantee both real human rights for the Palestinians and other Arabs, and real peace for all people in the Middle East,” said Sharansky.
