The Jewish-Arab Center for Peace at Givat Haviva has decided: \"NO to Closing Orient House, YES to Opening Immediate Negotiations.\" In protest of the Israeli closure of the PLO headquarters in Jerusalem three weeks ago, the organization will \"enable the staff of Orient House to speak directly to Israeli public opinion.\" The open meeting with the Orient House staff will be held this Monday in Givat Haviva, east of Hadera, in continuation of a 20-year relationship between the two that has included exchanges of students, lecturers and academic materials. \"The late Feisal Husseini nurtured this relationship,\" proudly announces a Givat Haviva announcement.
Husseini, who was long viewed as a \"moderate,\" began to be seen in a different light following his recent death. In a speech in Beirut in April 2001, Husseini said, \"There is a difference between the strategic goal of the Palestinian people, which is not willing to give up even one grain of Palestinian soil, and the political [tactical] effort that has to do with the [present] balance of power... We may lose or win [tactically] but our eyes will continue to aspire to the strategic goal, namely, to Palestine from the river to the sea...\" On his way this past May to Kuwait, where he died of a heart attack, Husseini gave an interview - which turned to be his last - to the Egyptian daily \"Al-Arabi,\" in which he said:
\"The [ancient] Greek Army was unable to break into Troy... [Following the Greeks\' apparent defeat,] the people of Troy climbed on top of the walls of their city and could not find any traces of the Greek army, except for a giant wooden [Trojan] horse. They cheered and celebrated thinking that the Greek troops were routed, and while retreating left a harmless wooden horse as spoils of war. So they opened the gates of the city and brought in the wooden horse. We all know what happened next.
\"Had the U.S. and Israel not [thought], before Oslo, that all that was left of the Palestinian National movement and the Pan-Arab movement was a wooden horse called Arafat or the PLO, they would never have opened their fortified gates and let it inside their walls...\"
Dr. Sarah Ozacky-Lazar, Co-Director of the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace at Givat Haviva, said: \"We protest the closing of Orient House, which was a place in which dialogue and the exchange of ideas for the advancement of peace took place for many years. Israelis from various organizations were always greeted there with warmth and respect. The closing causes harm to the path in which we believe...\" Orient House representatives, accepting Givat Haviva\'s invitation, noted, \"Meetings of this sort are... how we preserve the heritage of the late Faisal Husseini. We are coming to tell the Israeli public that the continuation of the occupation is the central problem between us...\"
In fact, IMRA notes that Orient House and the other facilities recently closed down by the Government of Israel were illegally used by the Palestinians to gather intelligence for war against Israel, as well as implement an attempted unilateral grab on Jerusalem and coordinate anti-Israeli activities with their colleagues in the radical Israeli left.
Journalist David Bedein of Israel Resource News Agency reports that each department of the Orient House carried tremendous security implications for Israel:
\"The Orient House was a hub of PLO activity throughout the past seven years of the Oslo process and especially over the past ten months, when various armed forces of the PLO made it their venue for meeting. Reporters visiting the Orient House witnessed daylight meetings of the Tanzim, the Fatah hawks, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad... brandishing their weapons. These varying security services were not only involved in war with Israel. They were all involved in \'law enforcement\' in eastern Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods, which often meant abductions of Arabs from their homes for questioning and detention in Ramallah.\"
In addition, Bedein reported in detail on computerized land-registration records in Orient House whose purpose was to prepare legal claims for return of the properties to previous Arab owners. PLO official Daoud Barakat, who ran the Arab Refugee Affairs Department at the Orient House, in an interview before Israel\'s takeover of the building, made it quite clear that \"our task at the Orient House is to mobilize Palestinians from around the world to return to their homes.\" What about the Jews who had moved into areas that had been Arab before 1948? \"They will simply have to leave,\" Barakat said. Israeli officials confiscated all computers and other equipment they found in Orient House.
Husseini, who was long viewed as a \"moderate,\" began to be seen in a different light following his recent death. In a speech in Beirut in April 2001, Husseini said, \"There is a difference between the strategic goal of the Palestinian people, which is not willing to give up even one grain of Palestinian soil, and the political [tactical] effort that has to do with the [present] balance of power... We may lose or win [tactically] but our eyes will continue to aspire to the strategic goal, namely, to Palestine from the river to the sea...\" On his way this past May to Kuwait, where he died of a heart attack, Husseini gave an interview - which turned to be his last - to the Egyptian daily \"Al-Arabi,\" in which he said:
\"The [ancient] Greek Army was unable to break into Troy... [Following the Greeks\' apparent defeat,] the people of Troy climbed on top of the walls of their city and could not find any traces of the Greek army, except for a giant wooden [Trojan] horse. They cheered and celebrated thinking that the Greek troops were routed, and while retreating left a harmless wooden horse as spoils of war. So they opened the gates of the city and brought in the wooden horse. We all know what happened next.
\"Had the U.S. and Israel not [thought], before Oslo, that all that was left of the Palestinian National movement and the Pan-Arab movement was a wooden horse called Arafat or the PLO, they would never have opened their fortified gates and let it inside their walls...\"
Dr. Sarah Ozacky-Lazar, Co-Director of the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace at Givat Haviva, said: \"We protest the closing of Orient House, which was a place in which dialogue and the exchange of ideas for the advancement of peace took place for many years. Israelis from various organizations were always greeted there with warmth and respect. The closing causes harm to the path in which we believe...\" Orient House representatives, accepting Givat Haviva\'s invitation, noted, \"Meetings of this sort are... how we preserve the heritage of the late Faisal Husseini. We are coming to tell the Israeli public that the continuation of the occupation is the central problem between us...\"
In fact, IMRA notes that Orient House and the other facilities recently closed down by the Government of Israel were illegally used by the Palestinians to gather intelligence for war against Israel, as well as implement an attempted unilateral grab on Jerusalem and coordinate anti-Israeli activities with their colleagues in the radical Israeli left.
Journalist David Bedein of Israel Resource News Agency reports that each department of the Orient House carried tremendous security implications for Israel:
\"The Orient House was a hub of PLO activity throughout the past seven years of the Oslo process and especially over the past ten months, when various armed forces of the PLO made it their venue for meeting. Reporters visiting the Orient House witnessed daylight meetings of the Tanzim, the Fatah hawks, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad... brandishing their weapons. These varying security services were not only involved in war with Israel. They were all involved in \'law enforcement\' in eastern Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods, which often meant abductions of Arabs from their homes for questioning and detention in Ramallah.\"
In addition, Bedein reported in detail on computerized land-registration records in Orient House whose purpose was to prepare legal claims for return of the properties to previous Arab owners. PLO official Daoud Barakat, who ran the Arab Refugee Affairs Department at the Orient House, in an interview before Israel\'s takeover of the building, made it quite clear that \"our task at the Orient House is to mobilize Palestinians from around the world to return to their homes.\" What about the Jews who had moved into areas that had been Arab before 1948? \"They will simply have to leave,\" Barakat said. Israeli officials confiscated all computers and other equipment they found in Orient House.