Menachem Froman

Menachem Froman
File:Menachem froman.jpg
Born	1945 Galilee, Israel
Nationality	Israel
Occupation(s)	Rabbi, Educator, Negotiator
Known for	interfaith dialogue, including with PLO and Hamas members
Website	http://www.jerusalempeacemakers.org/froman/index.html Profile by Jerusalem Peacemakers

Rabbi Menachem Froman (Hebrew: מנחם פרומן born in the Galilee in 1945), also Menahem Froman, is an Ashkenazi Orthodox rabbi serving as the chief rabbi of Tekoa settlement in the West Bank. He is known for promoting and leading interfaith dialogue between Israeli Jews and Palestinians, focusing on finding religious common ground between Jews and religious Muslims, including radical Muslims. Froman succeeded in drafting a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, known as the Froman-Amayreh Accord, that was endorsed by the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.

Career

Froman, a former Israel Defence Forces paratrooper who took part in the 1967 capture of the Western Wall, was a student at the Mercaz haRav and Yeshivat HaKotel yeshivas. He was among the founders of the Gush Emunim settlement movement. He obtained rabbinical ordination from Rabbis Shlomo Goren and Avraham Shapira and then became the rabbi of Kibbutz Migdal Oz. He has taught at several yeshivas including Ateret Cohanim and Machon Meir, and is currently a lecturer at the Tekoa Yeshiva and Otniel hesder Yeshiva.

Interfaith meetings and dialogue

Froman has long been involved in interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims, and has participated in informal negotiations with many Palestinian leaders. In his opinion, peacemaking efforts between Israel and the Palestinians must include the religious sectors of both societies. For many years, Froman conducted meetings with controversial Palestinian leaders, including with the late PLO Chairman and President of Palestinian National Authority Yasser Arafat, and the late Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. . In a letter sent on January 25 2005 to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Froman recounted his last conversation with Yasser Arafat:

I remember my last conversation with him, close to his death, when he answered me with emotion: "You are my brother!" and of course it is possible to explain his emotion, that he wanted to tell me, close to his death, that the two nations – the Israelis and the Palestinians – are brothers, that if the fate of one improves so does the fate of its double. The president customarily would thank me for these blessings and would order that these blessings be publicized in the Palestinian newspapers so that the Palestinian nation will know that there are Jewish rabbis who are blessing them with blessings of peace.

Since the election of the Hamas government in Gaza, Rabbi Froman stepped up his efforts to organize meetings between Israeli and Palestinian religious leaders. He has met and conducted negotiations with current Hamas leaders Mahmoud al-Zahar and Hamas's Minister for Jerusalem Affairs Sheikh Mahmoud Abu Tir with the goal of drafting a ceasefire agreement that will end the killings in Gaza and the West Bank and lift the hermetic blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip.

Froman-Amayreh Accord

In February 2008, Rabbi Froman reached an agreement with a Hamas journalist for an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza. Senior Hamas officials have endorsed the proposal. The Israeli government, however, has not responded to this initiative, effectively rejecting it.

Froman drafted the agreement with Khaled Amayreh, a Hebron-area Palestinian journalist who is close to Hamas. After meeting with Amayreh over the course of several months, the Accord was finalized and shown to Hamas leaders in Gaza and Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshal who approved of the Accord (see External links section). According to Amayreh, the Hamas government in Gaza gave it 100-percent approval. The Accord was also submitted to the Israeli government but according to Froman, the Israeli government never responded to it. Froman and Amayreh's efforts to meet with Israeli government officials were rebuffed.

The cease-fire agreement includes the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and an immeidate end to any and all Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians or soldiers. The agreement calls for Israel to lift its sanctions on the Gaza Strip, permit economic relations between Gaza and the outside world and open all border crossings. The Israel Defense Forces would end "all hostile activities toward the Gaza Strip, including targeted assassinations, the setting of ambushes, aerial bombardments and all penetrations into Gazan territory, in addition to ending the arrest, detention and persecution of Palestinians in the Strip."

The Palestinians would be obligated "to take all the necessary steps to completely end the attacks against Israel," including stopping "indefinitely all rocket attacks on Israel," assaults "on Israeli civilians and soldiers" and "to impose a cease-fire on all groups, factions and individuals operating in the Strip."

Froman and Amayreh say that even if the attempt turns out to be merely an academic exercise, its elements could be used by the Jerusalem and Gaza governments. It does not, for example, include the recognition by Hamas of the State of Israel, instead "recognizing that there are Jews living in the Holy Land," according to Froman, thus overcoming an obstacle that has long been a deal-breaker.

As of May 2008, the Israeli government has yet to respond or comment on the Froman-Amayreh Accord. From the official Israeli response to President Jimmy Carter's negotiations with Hamas leaders in Egypt and Syria during April 2008, it does not seem likely the Israeli government will endorse the Froman-Amayreh Accord in the near future. According to Jewish reporter and commentator Richard Silverstein, "To paraphrase Abba Eban, Israelis and Palestinians never seem to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. This time the onus is on Olmert."

Effects of ignoring religion in the peace process

Rabbi Froman laments the current violence in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and lays partial blame for the failure of the Oslo Accords on the tendency of Israeli and Palestinian secular negotiators to ignore and marginalize religion and religious leaders in the peace process:

Ahmad Yassin told me about the Oslo Accords that they were an agreement between our heretics and your heretics to subdue religion. The Oslo Accords collapsed because the PLO could not control the other forces. Hamas has the power to enforce agreements to end violence. Even Arafat could not control and enforce agreements on murederous units in his organization and in Hamas. But if Hamas has a strong enough interest for a ceasefire, they can enforce it. It's not easy, because in the Palestinian society there are many groups and resistence committees, and also plain underworld figures. But if there will be a coalition with the PLO and Hamas to achieve a ceasefire, the chances of ending the shooting of Qassam rockets on Sderot are much larger. Our primary goal should be achieving a ceasefire, and to reach that goal the politicans need to negotiate with politicans, and the rabbis negotiate with the religious leaders.

Jerusaelm - a shared capital

Rabbi Froman supports making Jerusalem the religious capital of all three monotheistic faiths. In his 2005 letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Froman cites examples from Jewish tradition of the importance of making Jerusalem a city of peace:

"From the difficult experience of the shared history of the two nations – the Israel nation and the Palestinian nation – we can learn one important thing – between two brothers – when one's fate is bad, the fate is also bad of the second. Only when it is good for one, it will be, with God's help, good for its double. Little Jewish children know the famous story (the hadith) of the man who came to the head of the Jewish Sages and asked him to teach him the principle of the Jewish religion while he was standing on one foot (in one sentence). The Sage taught him, "Love your neighbor exactly how you would love yourself."

Allah the Exalted established the Palestinian nation as our neighbor. Therefore, from this hadith, which summarized the main principle of our religion, it's possible to learn that just as Jews have obtained a free and thriving state from Allah the Exalted, respected in the world, and just as we obtained from Allah the Exalted a state with Jerusalem as its capital, our neighbor will also obtain a state with its capital as Jerusalem. If both nations will be fortunate to stone the Cursed Satan who stimulates war and hate, and establish Jerusalem as a capital of peace of Israel and Palestine, there will be, God Willing, Jerusalem the Capital of Peace for the whole world!"

Coexistence under Palestinian sovereignty

Froman opposes the forced eviction of Jewish settlers from their homes in the settlements in the West Bank and advocates that the State of Israel can withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza yet leave the settlements and Israeli/Jewish residents in place under Palestinian sovereignty. He claims that if Israel withdraws from Tekoa and most residents leave, he will nonetheless stay because of his love of the Land of Israel:

"But what matters is the holiness of this land. I prefer to live here in a future Palestine than leave to live in an Israeli state."

He was a strong opponent of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan. In August 2005, prior to its implementation, he moved with his family to Ganei Tal in Gush Katif in order to show support for the residents being evicted.

External links

• video of signing of Froman-Amayreh Accord
• Profile by Jerusalem Peacemakers
• Tekoa website