Pnina Firestone seems an unlikely peace advocate: an elderly woman who is wheelchair bound, she speaks in a tone that brings to mind a patient schoolmarm rather than a fiery activist. As an Israeli, she holds views on her government's policy toward the Palestinian refugees that are also nontraditional. "I consider myself to be a true Zionist because I would do everything that I could to have a Jewish state," she said. "Zionism, as it started out, was not racism. Now they call Zionism taking land from other people."
She acknowledges that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is inhumane: "It's just incredible what it is to live in a besieged city and we Jews should know what a ghetto is." However, she insists that an end to the violence is necessary not because it will be better for Palestinians but because it will be better for Israelis.
Middle- and upper-class Israelis are fleeing the violence and taking their money with them, she said. And the constant attention to the fight with the Palestinians takes attention and money away from social issues like educating Israeli children. Once Firestone was a university Hebrew professor and didn't get actively involved in politics. But five years ago, she took a trip to New Zealand and Australia with her two grown daughters and had an epiphany. "It was clear what the white man has done," she said.
She deplored the condition of the environment first, she said, then she did some hard thinking about the condition of humanity. "I felt if I did not personally help to save the universe, my grandchildren wouldn't be able to enjoy it," Firestone said.
She made it a personal goal that in 10 years the Israelis would have peace with the Palestinians. Firestone is a member of New Profile, a feminist peace group in Israel dedicated to highlighting the damage that Israel's "militarized" government is doing to its people. "While taught to believe that the country is faced by threats beyond its control," the group's charter states, "we now realize that the words "national security' have often masked calculated decisions to choose military action for the achievement of political goals. We are no longer willing to take part in such choices."
There are many peace groups in Israel, Firestone told a small group that turned out to hear her speak in Tampa three weeks ago. They just don't get the sort of news media coverage that more hawkish groups get, both in the U.S. and in Israel. "We do not exist because today if you are not on television or newspapers, then you do not exist," Firestone said.
New Profile and Women in Black, another group Firestone supports, hold demonstrations and have recently begun a campaign to support soldiers who refuse to serve in the territories. To illustrate the damage military service does to Israelis, Firestone told the story of one man who was on trial for beating a Palestinian at a checkpoint. "He said that the only person he was afraid of was himself," Firestone said. "He said he would like to go back to the person he was before he was in the service."
It's against the law in Israel for any group to openly advocate skipping out on mandatory military service, said Firestone. However, peace activists are able to provide support to would-be soldiers who make that decision. They talk to the families and let them know that the would-be soldiers' position does not make the family members unpatriotic.
Among the 15 or so people who sat in the Tampa audience and listened to Firestone was Sami Al-Arian, the Palestinian University of South Florida professor who has been at the center of controversy for expressing his pro-Palestinian views and has been widely quoted for his "Death to Israel" comment.
Firestone seemed to speak directly to Al-Arian, saying that no one should ever make comments to others that can be construed as a call to war. "When you meet aggression with aggression, the result is only more aggression," she said.
Al-Arian said he believes there should be more women like Firestone involved in the peace process. But he does not believe that aggression can always be met peacefully.
"It's very easy for people to talk in the abstract but, in certain situations, even they would act differently," he said. "Eventually people get tired of oppression and they rise up."
To learn more about New Profile, visit the group's Web site at www.newprofile.org. Women in Black is a worldwide women's peace organization, with chapters in Tampa Bay and Sarasota. To find out more, call Julia Aires in Sarasota at 941-366-5008 or Diane Cardin-Kamleiter in the Bay area at 727-822-1543. Or visit womeninblack.net
Contact Staff Writer Rochelle Renford at 813-248-8888, ext. 163, or rochelle.renford @weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Apr 3-9, 2002.