In the Effort to Prevent War in the Gulf, Peace Groups Find That Presenting a United Front Can Be Tough Going : Uneasy Alliance

It was an hour past the announced closing time for the “Only You Can Stop the War” teach-in, and the overflow audience at the Caltech amphitheater had begun to thin.

After patiently listening to numerous speakers talk about everything from biological weapons to the New World Order to the Catholic bishops’ statement on a just war, the last speaker, Teresa Sanchez, rose from the steps, approached the podium and spoke:

“We need to redefine the scope and nature of the peace movement.”

Sanchez, 27, is a 10-year veteran of what she calls “solidarity work.” She has worked to obtain American political and public support for Central Americans and others engaged in regional struggles in Indochina, Korea and the Philippines. The tall, slender woman’s calm, cool manner sometimes runs counter to her impassioned rhetoric.

Referring to the cost of war, the “S & L ripoff,” the slashed funds for social programs, she spoke of the “rising anger and desperation” that has resulted.

“The peace movement has traditionally been led by those least affected by (war) at home. It is within our communities--the most fertile ground--where the new peace movement can grow out of the dozens of grass-roots groups working for peace, civil rights, drug (abuses), police abuse, toxic waste. A new peace movement to be really effective must be built on a new basis, linked to all the issues that affect our lives.”

In effect, Sanchez described the new movement she has been instrumental in forming--the Los Angeles Coalition Against U.S. Intervention in the Middle East. The most visible and active anti-war group locally, it is also the most controversial to some other anti-war organizations:

Thus far, the coalition has refused to condemn Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, referring to it as the “move” into Kuwait; it has insisted on linkage of this crisis to the continuing struggle for Palestinian statehood; it does not support the blockade of Iraq, calling it an act of war, and it has not supported the United Nations’ role, saying that body has been co-opted by the U.S.

Numerous individuals and several longstanding, mainstream peace groups--such as local chapters of SANE/Freeze, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the American Friends Service Committee--are uneasy with the coalition. Privately, and sometimes publicly, they express fears that the coalition is anti-Israeli, anti-American and too far left. Such people and groups neither joined nor wholeheartedly endorsed the coalition. In turn, coalition members sometimes say that such hesitancy may stem from classism, racism or elitism.

Salam Al-Marayati, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, voiced the reservations of many groups besides his own in explaining why the council did not join the coalition. Although he supports much of the coalition’s work, “if a group comes off as anti-American and pro-Saddam Hussein, that’s when we’re confronted with a problem.”

The disagreements fall far short of a complete split in the local peace movement, but they have been divisive. Unwilling to openly criticize an anti-war effort, and in overall agreement with the coalition’s effort to stop a war, some traditional anti-war groups and activists are careful in stating their differences, seemingly embarrassed that a there is not a completely united front.

Operating from space loaned by the Central America Information Center in the Fairfax area, the coalition’s members seem convinced they are part of a burgeoning grass-roots movement. They have been brought together by George Bush, they say, and that they will stay together and grow, regardless the outcome of the Gulf crisis.

They seem driven by a dual agenda: mobilizing people to prevent a war, and using the threat of war to mobilize a movement. The latter often takes precedence.

The coalition is a loosely structured organization of about 40 other groups and unaffiliated individuals from what its members sometimes term “peace, anti-intervention and solidarity” organizations and alternately call “the progressive movement.”

The diverse membership includes such groups as local chapters of the War Resisters League, the Socialist Workers Party, the Alliance for Philippine Concerns, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Young Koreans United, Unity-and-Diversity World Council, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, and Americans for Democratic Action. It formed within days of President Bush’s August 6 announcement that he would send troops to the Gulf.

In its stated goals--called “points of unity”--the coalition calls for total and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East, supports self-determination by peoples in the region, and opposes racism against Arabs, Muslims and others in the Middle East.

To some extent, the Coalition filled an early vacuum left when traditional peace and anti-nuclear groups, such as the American Friends Service Committee and SANE/Freeze, were slow to publicly react to the massing of U.S. troops in the Middle East. These other groups had been redefining themselves in a post-Cold War era and most were either caught up short or, because of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, were ambivalent.

Coalition groups share anti-interventionist, anti-imperialist positions regarding the United States and faced no such soul searching. They could spring immediately into action and did.

The coalition has been holding weekly demonstrations at the Federal Building in Westwood, participating in teach-ins, collecting petition signatures, releasing statements to the press and public, and planning several major January events.

And at one teach-in, held at Fairfax High School in December and attended by several thousand people, it set most of the agenda--to the disquiet of some other activists.

Some religious and peace groups say the coalition didn’t try to involve them and, in some cases, just sought their endorsement without informing them of meetings. Others say they did attend but then either became too busy or lost patience with the rambling discourse they found.

Sanchez shrugs off that criticism and similar charges leveled at the coalition’s formation.

“When the crisis broke out in the Gulf, I asked around what was being done. Few were doing anything. We called a meeting of everyone we’d worked with and that’s how the coalition was formed . . . There was no decision made about who to invite . . . no engraved invitations. Maybe there were some phone calls we should have made, protocol to have observed. We’re more grass-roots oriented.”

Rhoda Shapiro, a founding coalition member and lifelong activist, said that class and racial differences have caused some of the division between the group and some of the mainstream peace organizations.

Traditionally, the membership of such organizations has consisted of middle-class, usually liberal, whites. On the other hand, the coalition is made up predominantly of minorities and working class whites.

Shapiro, a grandmother of four and non-religious Jew who says she has known poverty most of her life, said leaders of traditional groups are accustomed to setting the agenda.

In this case, she said, “the presence of Palestinians helping set the terms of the debate is especially threatening. And some of (the uneasiness) is racial. I think seeing the ethnic mix here is important. It will become a threat as people of color begin to take leadership. But for me, that’s the goal.”

Grace Aaron, chairperson of the Southern California Regional SANE/Freeze, said she went to some planning meetings for the December teach-in at Fairfax High School. Her group endorsed the teach-in, but did not join the coalition. Aaron said she was concerned that the coalition would not condemn the Iraqi invasion.

“We don’t object to what coalition is doing. It’s fantastic. But if you’re going to sign on to a platform, you have to accept the platform,” Aaron said. Her group and others have been discussing the formation of a new coalition, she said.

Kate Harris, a member of the national and local steering committees of New Jewish Agenda, is among those talking with Aaron.

“The focus would be different,” Harris said. The new group would urge attendance at coalition rallies and demonstrations, but would concentrate more on “using more political means, pressuring legislators and pressuring the media to change its reportage. We’d have a pool of speakers.”

Marvin Schacter, chairman of the Nuclear Freeze Foundation of Southern California and treasurer of the Interfaith Center to Reverse the Arms Race, also is active in several national Jewish organizations like Americans for Peace Now and New Jewish Agenda, none of which belong to the coalition.

He said he initially feared the coalition would engage in Israel-bashing and not focus on the Iraqi crisis. The teach-in at Fairfax, though, allayed some of his fears, he said.

But Schacter, who also may join Aaron in a new and separate coalition, came down hard on the voting process used by the L.A. Coalition: All persons at a meeting, whether a representative of a group or an individual, have an equal vote. He called it “a fundamental violation of democratic procedures.”

Also declining to join the L.A. Coalition and instead considering the new group is the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Formed in 1988 to represent several Islamic organizations or mosques in Southern California, the council calls for a withdrawal of American forces, condemns the Iraqi invasion and the abuse of Islam to justify actions, and calls the rulers of the area “without exception tyrants.”

“Our main position is, if they (any groups) oppose the war, we can work with them,” said Salam Al-Marayati, council director. “We have no problem with different political agendas. These situations bring people together. Far left, far right--on this issue, we show the same colors.”

But noting the coalition’s seemingly anti-American bias, he said “our position genuinely supports American international interests, but rather than establish a slave/master relationship, we’d like to see partnerships.”

Still, Schacter said there is nothing new about such divisions: “In the peace movement over the years, people always ask me how come there are so many groups? I say there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s room in the movement for nuances and different emphasis and opportunities for leadership. What’s important is that we’re able to pull together. A monolith is not necessary to create social change.”

Nor is the L.A. Coalition a single-minded monolith.

Coalition meetings can be rough. General meetings, held at the United Methodist Church in downtown Los Angeles, draw about 100 people and can be intense--and intensely tedious.

At one such meeting recently, the most controversial business of the evening led to a heated exchange and close vote whether to condemn Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The meeting bogged down, however, in an argument over the agenda order of a vote on a more formal organizational structure and discussion of upcoming events.

At one point, Shapiro called out in exasperation: “The war is going to start in two weeks whether we have a structure or not.”

Harriet Katz, from the coalition’s coordinating committee, pushed for the group’s condemnation of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. She fought back opposition to even considering it, warning how would-be supporters were finding the coalition’s silence on the issue a stumbling block.

Rather than discussion, there were outbursts:

“No! The criminal role of the United States should be the focus,” met with applause.

“You can’t mobilize people on Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait.”

“Troops out now. It’s the only issue.”

“You’re playing into George Bush’s hands,” Tony Russo, the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers defendant, shouted out.

The prevailing mood seemed clearly against condemnation. But Katz, a Jewish woman long active in Arab/Israeli peacemaking efforts, found support from an unlikely source.

Khalid Sharafi, also a coordinating committee member and a Palestinian from the Committee for a Democratic Palestine, offered a compromise. He suggested the coalition make it part of the explanatory statement of the group’s position rather than an actual part of its platform. It should say, Sharafi offered, “While we condemn (Iraqi invasion). . . . This should not be used as an excuse by the United States to go to war. “

The group narrowly defeated Sharafi’s compromise, 49-43. Later, privately, Sharafi said the coalition’s failure to take a stand against the invasion “is a loophole” in their arguments.

“It’s going to shame us in the future. We’re always accusing the Administration of using two yardsticks,” he said. “We’re doing the same thing.”

Russo, however, who argued against Iraqi condemnation, flatly rejected it as an issue and later drew parallels with the anti-Vietnam War movement: “Our job then and now is to change public opinion, not capitulate to it.”

The coalition also has at least one unlikely member--at least for now.

Representatives of the Libertarian Party of Southern California have been very visible at demonstrations and organizing meetings. Neal Donner, Libertarian peace liaison, serves on the Coalition’s coordinating committee and steadily has pushed for a condemnation of Iraq.

“We felt coalition-minded,” Donner said. “We set aside our economic differences, which are many. We’re free marketers; they’re socialists.” And Donner rejects an attitude he said he found among some coalition members that “everything that has gone wrong in the world is America’s fault. We want to clearly separate ourselves from people who support America’s enemies.”

Libertarians may leave the coalition over the Iraqi invasion issue, Donner said, but they consider the work important enough to give it a few more weeks and a few more tries.

One organization simultaneously involved with the coalition yet active with other more mainstream peace groups is the Southern California chapter of Americans for Democratic Action.

Aris Anagnos, a Greek-born, wealthy Westside businessman, heads the local ADA, which is calling for an international conference to solve several Middle East disputes: Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait; Syria’s occupation of Lebanon; Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus.

He supports the coalition’s peace efforts and says the solution to the current crisis lies with linking Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait with Israel’s occupations.

“It will lead to peace. Saddam Hussein will accept it. Israel has to confront it anyway. It is not to Israel’s advantage to live in a garrison state. The Jewish community should be in the forefront of advocating linkage. Instead it’s caused some to hold back.”

His analysis sounds close to that of some American Jews in the “peace camp” who have differed with the Israeli government and the organized Jewish establishment here.

Gerald Bubis is national co-chairman of Americans for Peace Now, a group that advocates a two-state solution of the Israeli/Palestinian problem as the only peaceful solution to ensure Israel’s survival. Americans for Peace Now has not joined any coalitions about the Gulf Crisis, Bubis explained, “not wanting to be seen as moving away from our single purpose.”

Nevertheless, the group has taken a position based, he said, on the overriding question: “What does this mean for Israel?”

“The organized Jewish community has tended to be totally supportive of Bush with the hope Saddam Hussein would be destroyed in the process,” he said.

Americans for Peace Now calls war a last resort after all channels have been exhausted, has condemned Saddam Hussein’s aggression and called for a withdrawal from Kuwait, and asked for a monitoring system to prevent nuclear buildup in the region. The group rejects linkage of those demands to a settlement of the Israeli/Palestinian problem, but believes ultimately there is an inevitable linkage.

Casey Kasem, radio personality and activist in many causes, including those of his own Arab/American community, has steadily supported the coalition. Not only did he co-emcee the teach-in at Fairfax High School, he speaks at the demonstrations and joins the pickets along Wilshire Boulevard. Always one to take a positive approach, he is no different when talking about differences within the anti-war movement.

“This is an opportunity we can’t let go. This is a time for all of us to get together, for there to be collective consensus on a statement,” he said. “Make it simple: ‘No war. Do it with diplomacy.’ You don’t have to have all these corollaries. It’s such an uncivilized thing to do--to solve this with an Army. We have to be Godlike in our thinking. God wouldn’t have a war.”

Meanwhile, the countdown to Jan. 15 continues. The coalition will demonstrate again this Saturday in Westwood. And on the 15th, under its auspices, a 12-hour mass gathering is planned at the downtown Federal Building from noon to midnight. The coalition hopes to draw large crowds from the grass-roots groups, the mainstream, and the as-yet uncommitted.

“We have a common goal: To prevent a war,” Anagnos said. “Events have overtaken the difficulties.”