In the past ten days hundreds of military officers in the Israeli Army Reserve said "No" to Ariel Sharon. They announced that they had wintessed (and in some cases been forced to participate in) human rights violations in the Occupied Territory and as a result decided that they would refuse to serve. Two weeks before over 700 Americans came together to form The Tikkun Community-the first multi-issue national organization of liberal and progressive Jews since the American Jewish Congress adopted a center-right politics. Its founding conference launched a national campaign to End the Occupation, dismantle the West Bank settlements, and support reparations for Palestinian refugees and a "new spirit of generosity and open-heartedness" in relations with the Palestinian people. The campaign includes a national day of fasting March 27th, in solidarity with the Israeli Army Reserve officers who are saying "no"--and a call for Jews in every part of the world to use part of their Passover Seders that evening, March 27th, to do a mini teach-in on the situation in the Middle East.Ohalah

These are significant stirrings for Jewish liberals who have been largely silent and often confused since the collapse of the Oslo Accords after the failure of the Barak government to reach agreement with Yassir Arafat at Camp David some 18 months ago. The horrendous and disgusting acts of terror against Israeli civilians made it hard for peace-oriented liberals to gain an audience, and the constant refrain by Jewish establishment leaders that Palestinians would settle for nothing less than the full destruction of the State of Israel tended to silence many who had previously supported the struggle for peace. Shimon Peres added to the confusion by bringing the Labor Party into Sharon's government and providing him with a figleaf of legitimacy for policies or repression that no previous Labor government would have supported.

Yet, the times they are a changin. It started with Yossi Beilin, the architect of the Oslo Accords and the Minister of Justice in the previous Israeli government of Ehud Barak and a long-term close associate and defender of Shimon Peres. Beilin resigned from this Labor Party seat in the Knesset rather than serve in a party that was de facto abandoning its commitment to peace-and he spoke out clearly critiquing the notion that Barak's offers had been generous or that Israel had offered all that could reasonably be expected.

Beilin made clear that Arafat had been promised at Oslo in 1993 (in part by Beilin himself, who represented Israeli Prime Minister Rabin in the negotiations) that if Palestinians recognized Israel's right to exist in the 78% of pre-1948 Palestine that were inside the pre-67 borders of Israel, Israelis would allow a Palestinian state to be formed by 1998 in the remaining 22% of Palestine. It was not only Barak's refusal to honor that agreement at Camp David, but his determination to keep most settlers in place which underscored his lack of seriousness to implementing peace. Moreover, Barak had insisted that Arafat sign an agreement saying that this would be "the final agreement and resolution of all issues, " while simultaneously refusing to even discuss the possibility of an Israeli role in helping raise money for reparations for Palestinian refugees or allowing some of them to return to their homes in Israel (or getting compensation for those homes seized by Israel in 1948 and 1967).

Then came 9/11. Jewish right-wingers imagined that now the whole world would sympathize with Israel, now experiencing the horrors that Israelis face. But 9/11 has produced a deeper wisdom in some: a recognition that there can be no security through military might and repression of civil liberties-because as long as people are suffering and in pain in one part of the world their pain is likely to boil over and can explode in our face in other parts of the world. In short, real security depends on economic and social justice, mutual cooperation, and a new recognition of the Unity of All Being and our fundamental planetary interdependence. On the global level this has led to intensified demands for economic redistribution and ecological sanity.

As applied to Israel, this means recognizing that Israel will never be safe in a world that perceives it as an unjust occupier falsely claiming to be a democracy while denying democratic rights to two million Palestinians.

Finally, Ariel Sharon has driven the last nail into his own coffin by demonstrating to many Israelis and many American Jews the futility of responding to terror attacks by escalating violence against random Palestinian civilians, bulldozing houses, grabbing new land, accelerating targeted assassinations, and publicly wishing that he had killed Yassir Arafat.

The result is that a new campaign for peace has emerged in the Jewish world. In Israel, Peace Now will convene a demonstration this coming Saturday night. In the U.S., the TIKKUN Community has launched a campaign for a nationwide Day of Fasting March 27th in solidarity with the Israeli Reserve Officers-and has urged Jews to turn every Passover Seder (starting that night of March 27th) into a discussion of whether Israel is turning into Pharoah by enforcing the Occupation. It is calling upon non-Jews to reject the attempts by the Jewish world to intimidate them into silence by implying that even legitimate criticism of Israel's policies is nothing more than "anti-Semitism" when it comes from non-jews and self-hating behavior when it comes from Jews.

The newly reemerging peace movement has no illusions about Arafat. We are demanding that his flowery words be turned into action. Though he may not have the power to stop Hamas violence, he does have the power to insist that every person loyal to the Palestinian cause abandon violence of every sort.

We are demanding that he reconstitute his movement in the non-violent path of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi--and that he talk about peace and the limits of "right of return" not only in English but in Arabic. But none of this stops us from also knowing that those who are truly "pro-Israel" are those who will give Israel some "tough love" and push it to end the Occupation and begin talking in a spirit of generosity, open-heartedness and repentance for the acts of torture,violence against civilians, and destruction of homes that have characterized its dirty war against the Palestinians.

Ariel Sharon may be given a momentary boost by his support from George Bush, but the real story will be told by the support developing for those Israeli reservists, both in Israel and among many Jews who find in that "refusal toserve" an unjust cause something in Israel about which they can be truly proud.

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