JANE FONDA to Visit Israel on Peace Mission

JERUSALEM: US Hollywood star Jane Fonda will arrive in Israel on Tuesday for a three-day visit aimed at promoting peace in the region, the Bat Shalom women's organisation announced.

Fonda will travel with a delegation of the New York-based international organisation V-Day (Vagina-Day) for the protection of women, said a spokeswoman for Bat Shalom, which describes itself as a feminist organisation working for a just peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

During her stay, the 65-year-old star will also meet with representatives of the Jerusalem Center for Women, Bat Shalom's Palestinian sister organisation, created in 1994, one year after the Oslo peace accords.

This will not be the first time the aerobics queen has become involved in world affairs.

Fonda saw her nickname change from "Barbarella" to "Hanoi Jane" after her Christmas visit to North Vietnam in 1972, where she fiercely criticised the US war.

Recently, Jane Fonda also joined another US Oscar-winner, Sean Penn, in condemning US President George W. Bush's threat to invade Iraq in a letter published in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times.

Penn last week visited Baghdad, on a trip organised by the California-based Institute of Public Accuracy.

Background: Palestinian and Israeli Women Demand Immediate End to Occupation
Bat Shalom & Jerusalem Centre for Women Joint Declaration, published April 2002 in Israel and in Palestine

Israel has launched a war against defenceless Palestinian communities. The terrorisation of innocent civilians, the unlawful killings and arrests, the siege imposed upon President Arafat, and the destruction of property, infrastructures and institutions, can only lead to further escalation, prolonging the sufferings of both nations and destroying any prospects for peace. The climate of fear and the obsession with reprisals that grips our two peoples obscure the true cause of this cycle of violence – the continued and unlawful Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people and their land.

It is our role, women on both sides, to speak out loudly against the humanitarian crimes committed in order to permanently subjugate an entire nation. Right now, in the face of uncontrolled military turmoil, we jointly ask the international community of states to accept its duty and mandate by international humanitarian law to prevent abuses of an occupying power, by officially intervening to protect the Palestinian people.

Beyond the immediate crisis, we know that there is one future for us both. The deliberate harming of innocent civilians, Palestinian or Israeli, must not be condoned. By working together we improve our chances for a better future. We believe that women can develop an alternative voice promoting effective peace initiatives and sound approaches. We undertake to work for this goal together.

Women have already begun to give substance to the recognition that a just peace is a peace between equals. When we call for a Palestinian state (on the territories occupied on 4th of June 1967) alongside the state of Israel, we envision true sovereignty for each state, including control over land and natural resources. We envision a settlement based on international law, which would endorse sharing the whole city of Jerusalem, the dismantling of the settlements, and a just solution to the question of refugees according to relevant UN resolutions. In continuing our joint work together, we want not only to achieve an end to the occupation; we want to help create the conditions for a life of security and dignity for both peoples.

We call upon all women and men, young and old, to join us in our sincere quest to preserve life, human dignity and freedom in our region. Dehumanisation, hatred, revenge, and oppression contribute nothing to the resolution of a century of conflict. Mutual recognition and respect of each other's individual and collective rights will pave the way for peace making.

Source: Worker's Daily Edition
Daily On Line Newspaper
of the Revolutionary Communist
Party of Britain (Marcist-Leninist)Year 2002 No. 88, May 9, 2002 http://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wdie-02/d02-88.htm

July 1972, Jane Fonda sitting on a North Vietnamese Anti Aircraft Gun that was used to shoot at American servicemen and their planes.

1969
Jane Fonda tells the student audience at the Michigan State University in 1969; "I would think that if you understood what communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees, that we would someday become communist."

The peace proposal by the Vietcong was "the only honorable, just, possible way to achieve peace in Vietnam."

1971
In 1971 Jane organized the FTA (Fu#$ The Army) to undermine morale and radicalize the armed forces.

1972
In July 1972 Jane travels to North Vietnam and tours the area for 2 weeks. During July, 1972 she made six broadcasts over Radio Hanoi.

From the one on July 14, 1972 she said;
"This is Jane Fonda speaking from Hanoi, and I'm speaking particularly to the U.S servicemen...I don't know what your officers tell you...but [your] weapons are illegal and that's not just rhetoric...The men who are ordering you to use these weapons are war criminals according to international law, and in the past, in Germany and Japan, men who committed these kinds of crimes were tried and executed."

Another broadcasts quoted Ho Chi Minh and had references to President Nixon as a "new-type Hitler", along with messages to the South Vietnamese soldiers to desert, "You are being used as cannon fodder for U.S. imperialism."(AFJ,May'88--Personalities)

Addressing herself to the men on the aircraft carriers in the area; "Use of these bombs or condoning the use of these bombs makes one a war criminal." When addressing herself to the pilots of the American planes she continued with; "Examine the reasons given to justify the murder you are being paid to commit." Upon her return to the U.S. she then addressed cheering students; "I bring greetings from our Vietnamese brothers and sisters."

Jane formed the Indochina Peace Campaign which was anti-Nixon and pro Hanoi.

When the POWs returned she added "I think that one of the only ways that we are going to redeem ourselves as a country for what we have done there is not to hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars....History will judge them severely." The attacks continued for four months and was not simply popping off as she told Barbara Walters in her efforts at rehabilitating herself. (HE,6-30-90)

1973
When the POWs returned in early 1973 and detailed the torture and mistreatment, she accused them of lying. Senator John McCain had both his arms broken. She calls McCain a liar! (AFJ,May'88--Personalities)

1974
Jane returned to Hanoi in 1974 with Tom Hayden.

1975
In 1975 Jane went back to Moscow, thanking them "for sending assistance which the Soviet people are sending to Vietnam."

1979
Jane refused to join Joan Baez and others in their protest against the Khmer Rouge slaughter because, as she told the National Press Club on September 26, 1979, she was unable to confirm the accuracy of the charges against the regime. The purpose of the interview was to polish her image in Waterbury, Chicopee and Holyoke Mass. where opposition to her movie making there generated controversy.(AIM, 88-14)

1988
Jane arranged to be interviewed by Barbara Walters on June 17, 1988 on 20/20. The fact that Barbara Walters was married to Merv Adelson, CEO of Lorimar Telepictures, the company that marketed Jane's workout tapes had nothing to do with the selection of Walters said Fonda's publicist Steve Rivers.

16 years after her Hanoi tour, Jane Fonda appeared on 20/20 and was interviewed by Barbara Walters.

"I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of things that I said or did," Fonda said. "I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm . . . very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families."

Behind the scenes, Jane was filming "Stanley and Iris" on location in a number of New England towns. The production efforts on the movie were being severely disrupted by protesting Vietnam veterans and thus causing serious problems in the making of the film. By the timing of the apology and by the primary reference to the New England veterans, was this a truly heart-felt apology or just another acting scene from the film to help the production efforts? The Apology?

Israel has launched a war against defenceless Palestinian communities. The terrorisation of innocent civilians, the unlawful killings and arrests, the siege imposed upon President Arafat, and the destruction of property, infrastructures and institutions, can only lead to further escalation

Uh, huh. Yeah. Riiiight.

How long was it between the time the Palestinians started their "intifada" (Oslo War) and the first Israeli military entered Oslo "A" areas? Wasn't it well over a YEAR? In fact, wasn't it not till after the passover massacre, and thus over a year even after Sharon became Prime Minister?

Funny thing then that the Palestinians just kept escalating away the whole time Israel was holding back and trying to let the PA handle security issues.

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