ISRAELI ORTHODOX RABBI AND HAMAS PLAN PEACE

HARD TO BELIEVE: ISRAELI ORTHODOX RABBI AND HAMAS PLAN PEACE

An Orthodox rabbi who lives in the West Bank, who helped to found the right wing Gush Emunim movement of all people is marching forward with a plan for peace...and Hamas is listening.

How can this be?

Rabbi Menachem Froman isn't new to this business. He is a man who has met often with past and present Palestinian leaders including Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud al-Zahar of Hamas. He has been a religious adviser to the Knesset and brokered the release from prison of Hamas's spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. He also brokered Yassin's subsequent announcement of a ceasefire, which Israel refused to accept and Yassin subsequently withdrew.

Further it has been reported (although I haven't seen it anywhere in our media)on the eve of the Israeli move into the Gaza earlier this summer he was set to announce along with others including representatives of Hamas an exciting new initiative for peace.

The Omega Institute (OI), which works closely with the Institute for Policy Research for Development (IPRD), has written, senior Hamas leaders were in active dialogue with Israeli religious leaders in a round of bilateral peace negotiations. Israeli negotiators included Rabbi Menachem Froman, former deputy leader and co-founder of the Israeli Settler movement Gush Khatif; Rabbi David Bigman, head of the liberal religious Kibbutz movement Yeshiva at Ma'ale Gilboa; and Yitzhak Frankenthal, founder of the Arik Institute. Ongoing negotiations had resulted in a breakthrough peace "understanding", which was to be announced at a press conference in Jerusalem to mark the launching of an extraordinary peace initiative. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert had been briefed extensively about the initiative by Frankenthal. Also due to attend the conference were Khaled Abu Arafa, the Palestinian Cabinet Minister for Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhamed Abu Tir, senior Hamas Member of the Palestinian Parliament, and other senior Palestinian delegates.

The meeting was to announce a joint Israeli-Palestinian call for the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit who had been abducted by Hamas in Gaza, along with proposals for the beginning of the release of all Palestinian prisoners. These measures were to precipitate unprecedented new peace negotiations on a framework peace agreement, drawn on the 1967 borders. The presence of Palestinian Cabinet Officers and senior Israeli religious leaders in contact with the Prime Minster was to underline the seriousness of this peace proposal on both sides.

Arthur Neslen of Common Ground News Service described what happened to this promising initiative:

...the response from Israel's security establishment was crushing.

Hours before the meeting was due to start, the Shin Bet detained Abu Tir and Abu Arafa and warned them not to attend the meeting. The news conference's organisers were forced to contact the other rabbis ?- who were already on the road to Jerusalem ?-and tell them not to come.

Instead of a triumphant statement of mutual respect and dialogue, a subdued and gently defiant three-man panel fended off aggressive questioning from an unruly Israeli press pack.

Who were these players on the Israeli side anyway?

Rabbi Menachem Froman is the former deputy leader, and co-founder, of the extremist Messianic Israeli Settler movement " Gush Khatif", but he left the movement after the massacre in Hebron of Palestinians by the Israeli terrorist Baruch Goldstein. He now lives in the West Bank Samarian settlement of Tekoa, where he works as a Rabbi, and has been long engaged in Muslim-Jewish dialogue activities. Froman himself has a typical Israeli political background. His Uncle was murdered in the 1930's by Ezzedine Al Qassam, a militant Cleric whose name was used by Hama's for it's armed wing. Froman has a track record. He was a principal negotiator in the release from prison of the Hama's spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. As a result of discussions with Froman, Yassin subsequently offered a ease-fire, which Yassin withdrew, after the offer was spurned by the israeli Government. He now works closely with Rabbi David Bigman, head of the Liberal religious Kibbutz movement's Yeshiva at Ma'ale Gilboa. They in turn are connected to Yitzhak Frankenthal, founder of the Arik Institute, who is also involved in religious and political dialog with Palestinians. Frankanthal has an unusual background. His son Arik was murdered by Hama's operatives whilst hitch-hiking in July 1994. Instead of sinking into bitterness, Frankanthal has become a major force in Israel in the peace movement.

Rav Froman is often called a maverick Jewish religious peacemaker says the website of Jewish Peace Makers.

He is one of the founders of the Gush Emunim religious Zionist movement and a pioneer in dialogue with radical and moderate religious Muslims. Many media people regard him as a right-wing Orthodox Jew and and as a Rabbi to an illegal settlement on the West Bank.

But his views don't really fit that description. They embody openness, reconciliation and understanding of a kind which has made him a friend of many Palestinians, up to and including Abu Mazen, Yasser Arafat and the late Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin.

His main work is to find solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on understanding between the Islamic and Jewish faiths. He is rabbi to Tekoa, a small settlement on the West Bank, south of Bethlehem, which takes a unique cosmopolitan and reconciliatory approach.

"My premise is that for Jews to live in all of Eretz Yisrael, they have to create a network of life with the Arabs", says Rav Froman. "In the Holy Land, you can't make peace without attending to the issue of holiness".

"Isn?t it only fitting that Jerusalem be the seat of the United Nations? cultural bodies, human rights organizations, scholarly forums? Isn?t it only proper that Jerusalem be the place where members of all faiths convene to renounce their breeding of prejudice, hostility, and war?"

The following is taken from Aljazeera.
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Rabbi leads unofficial peace initiative

Hamas says the plan has potential to end the fighting
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060822125824832