Very
early in his career Mark Bruzonsky made world headlines when
he personally met privately and alone with Egyptian President
Anwar Sadat in Cairo, a meeting which lead to Sadat's
history-changing visit to Israel less than a week later.
The next morning, Monday, while Bruzonsky was already rushing
back to Israel with the results of his meeting, a picture of Bruzonsky
meeting with Sadat appeared
at the top of the front page of Egyptian
newspapers. Two days later, on Wednesday, as
a result of his meeting with Bruzonsky Sadat sent an
unprecedented page-long telegram to
the major international peace conference Bruzonsky has invited
him to attend. The telegram make front-page
headlines. The next day, Thursday, pleased with
the results of the telegram, Sadat stunned the world
announcing that he would personally go to Israel after Shabbat
on Saturday, the first Arab leader to ever visit Israel.
Bruzonsky was among the distinguished guests at the Tel Aviv
airport to welcome him, just six days after he had met with
Sadat in Cairo initiating these history-changing
events. In the years that followed Bruzonsky
has spoken of his deep regrets about the role he played
unwittingly misleading Sadat what would come of his
trip. What followed the trip was the
deceptive Camp David Agreement, Sadat's assassination, and
setting in motion the further vanquishment of the Palestinian
people rather than their independence and Statehood as he and
Sadat discussed would result from their efforts.
See newspaper coverage at the time
Bruzonsky
again was responsible for world headlines when he authored The
Paris Declaration published
on the front page of LeMonde, France's leading newspaper, on 3
July 1982, as the war in Lebanon was at a critical turning
point. This was a breakthrough event that greatly
contributed to major political developments soon to take place
including growing calls worldwide for a Palestinian State and
formal acceptance by the PLO of the "Two-State
Solution". The Declaration authored by Bruzonsky, who
then helped arrange for its immediate publication in LeMonde, was signed by
a number of the most important international Jewish leaders in
the world -- Dr. Nahum Goldman, founder of both The World
Jewish Congress and the World Zionist Organization; Philip
Klutznick, President Emeritus of B'nai B'rith International,
successor President of The World Jewish Congress, and former
U.S. Secretary of Commerce; and Pierre Mendes-France, former
President of France -- all in coordination with Dr. Isam
Sartawi, the European Representative of the PLO and a special
close friend of Bruzonsky. Sartawi
told Arafat, at the time under seige in a bunker in
Beirut, that this unprecedented statement would be seen as The
Balfour Declaration for the Palestinian People. As a
result of his leadership and working closely with Jewish
leaders Sartawi was assassinated the next year while
representing the PLO at a major international conference.
See: The
Paris Declaration original English text
During
the years of the first Intifada in Occupied Palestine -- 1987
to 1993 -- Bruzonsky organized a group of Jewish professionals
as The Jewish Committee on the
Middle East. JCOME published a historic Statement of Principles
followed by dozens of full-page magazine ads in many
publications including The New York Review of Books, The Nation, LAWeekly, The Progressive, Roll Call, The Village Voice, The Washington Report, In These Times, The Washington City Paper,
and other publications. The full Statement was also reprinted
in the Congressional
Record and, when JCOME was invited to
testify before a Congressional Committee, AIPAC (American
Israel Public Affairs Committee) protested and, when
unsuccessful in blocking JCOME, refused to attend. Three
unique video documentaries were also made and broadcast on
cable TV throughout the United States - PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD, WE DARE TO SPEAK, and CHOMSKY: THE NEW WORLD ORDER,
LATIN AMERICA, AND THE MIDDLE EAST. And a unique pamphlet by
the distinguished Yale University Law School Professor Charles
Black was published when no publication in the U.S. would
agree to publish it: Let Us
Rethink Our 'Special Relationship' With Israel".
See JCOME.Org
For ten years from 1994
through 2003 Mark Bruzonsky produced and hosted
the unique half-hour Mid-East Realities TV
program. MERTV was broadcast weekly during
evening prime-time hours on all three of the
Public Access Channels in Washington, DC and
nearby Maryland and Virginia. Programs were
also broadcast on national cable channels Free
Speech TV, Deep Dish TV, and The 90s
Channel.
Never before in history had there been such a history-making agreement signed with such a ceremony at the White House. Some three thousand guests were present on the White House lawn on 13 September 1993 as Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and President William Clinton, along with other top officials, participated in an elaborate ceremony whose stated goal was to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians based on mutual recognition. Nearly all commentators on that day were declaring that this agreement would finally result in the long-sought peace between Israel and Palestine, Palestinian independence, and furthermore would spread throughout the region. Nearly alone among the major network TV commentators Bruzonsky explained on CTV, as he provided the live commentary during the White House ceremony, and in interviews during the days before and after, that he believed the agreement would fail, that we were all asked to be witnesses at this marriage of the oddest of the odd couples who were getting married not only for different reasons but with far different expectations and desires. See CTV Programs
A very unusual situation occurred in 1998 at a time of great tension with Iraq with pressures growing for further U.S. bombing and possible invasion at that time. At this critical time Bruzonsky was invited to appear on FOX News. He explained that though he had no access to classified information he strongly believed Iraq did not have nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction and the U.S. should not use such falsehoods as an excuse for war. Then when he mentioned that there was a country in the Middle East who did have such weapons, Israel, he was cut off by the program host. In the studio the producers who had invited Bruzonsky complimented him for how he handled the questions and for his honesty. They invited him to come back the next day to continue. He did, but the same thing happened and he was cut off again. The producers, themselves troubled by how Bruzonsky had again been censored, invited him to come back again the next day sending the limo once again to pick him up. He did, but the same thing happened and he was again cut off when he tried to explain that though Iraq did not have such weapons Israel did and there were powerful forces in the U.S. pushing for war. The producers actually invited Bruzonsky to come back for a fourth day in a row, but at that point he declined. See Network TV.
Even
before his poisoning and then when he died in a French
military hospital cut off from his personal physician,
Bruzonsky explained and documented on radio and TV programs
his reasons for concluding that the Israelis had
"stealth assassinated" Yasser Arafat, the most important
Palestinian leader of all time, and that this was done in
close coordination with the Americans. As
Bruzonsky explained, in previous years, during the Clinton
Administration, Arafat had been the most frequent foreign
visitor to the White House. But with Sharon now in
power in Israel, Bush/Cheney in power in Washington, and in
the aftermath of 9/11, Sharon maneuvered to isolate and
assassinate his long-time nemesis Arafat, built "The Wall",
implement greater-than-Apartheid restrictions and divisions
against Palestinians, and further enlarge Israeli territorial
control to prevent the Palestinian State Arafat had
envisioned.
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