The economic, social and political disaster produced by the Zionist project part 2

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/isra-j22.shtml
The economic, social and political disaster produced by the Zionist project
Part two
By Jean Shaoul
22 January 2009

We repost below the conclusion of a two-part report on Israel and Palestine by Jean Shaoul to an expanded meeting of the World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board held in Sydney, Australia from January 22 to 27, 2006. Shaoul is a WSWS correspondent and a member of the Socialist Equality Party in Britain. The first part was posted on January 22.

Let us consider the social conditions within Israel. First, a few statistics.

Despite some slight improvement in the economic situation over the past year as terrorist attacks have declined, unemployment is nearly 9 percent.

The latest report published by the National Insurance Institute in August 2005 shows:

* Over 1.5 million Israelis, one quarter of the 6 million population, were living below the poverty level, an increase of 119,000 over the previous year

* 23 percent of the elderly live below the poverty line

* Child poverty has increased 50 percent since 1988

* 714,000, or 1 in 5, children go hungry each and every day.

A 2004 survey showed that a shocking 40 percent of children live in poverty, squalor and delinquency, and that another 30 percent could slip into a similar fate. Yitzhak Kadman, director of the National Council for the Child, said: “Israeli society is deluding itself if it thinks that it can give up 40 percent of its children who are the citizens of its future.... There is no chance Israeli society will be able to exist in 20 years, standing on the spindly legs of 30 percent of its children. This criminal negligence of a considerable proportion of Israel’s children who are living in poverty, sickness and neglect is going to cost the state dearly in every way.”

* The proportion of children in Israeli society fell from 39 percent in 1970 to 33 percent in 2002.

* The average number of children per family fell consistently from 2.7 in 1980 to 2.3 in 2002, while the number of single child families doubled.

* There are 50,000 abortions a year, mostly for economic reasons.

All this is in a country where its population is key to its future existence as a Jewish state.

More than 140,000 children living in Israel do not have full Israeli citizenship:

* 71 percent live in East Jerusalem

* 29 percent are children of legal foreign workers in Israel, children of immigrants of unclear status, and children from mixed marriages of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.

In a recent poll, 80 percent of Israelis considered themselves “poor”.

The head of the National Insurance Institute, Yohanan Stessman, warned that: “Without the welfare benefits, Israeli society would fall apart and we would reach a point of civil war.” Opposition politicians have attacked the Sharon government, saying: “Poverty and inequality are becoming the country’s most serious strategic threat, not its neighbours.” Eli Yishai. the leader of Shas, one of the ultra-orthodox religious parties, said: “The government’s policies undermine the cohesion of our society,” pointing to Finance Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s cuts in welfare spending and tax breaks that favoured the rich.

The vacuum created by the government’s retreat from welfare provision is being filled by soup kitchens, not-for-profit organisations that provide food for the poor and religious networks. Children as young as 10 have been arrested for stealing food to quell their hunger. There have been newspaper reports of single mothers in Beer Sheva, whose benefits have been cut by 40 percent, approaching supermarket managers to tell them of their plight, and their intention to fill their trolleys and make off without paying. Managers have stood by and let them do it. “There are so many, we don’t stop them,” one said.

While more than 40 percent of those defined as poor have jobs, the government is determined to see wages fall further in order to make Israel “internationally competitive”.

It is these conditions that lie behind the constant strikes and threats of industrial action. In many cases, the workers seek not so much to improve their wages and conditions but simply to get paid. It is not unknown for municipal and other public service workers, including teachers, to go unpaid for months.

These economic and social conditions also help to explain the attraction of the settlements to hard-pressed Israelis. Central government gives twice as much per capita to local government in the Occupied Territories than in Israel. Investment in housing is 5.3 times that of Israel.

According to one Israeli academic, only 50,000 settlers—out of a total 450,000 settler population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem—are hard-core expansionists. Most have moved for “quality of life considerations, tax breaks and cheaper mortgages.... Many want to leave but ... nobody will buy their homes.” According to a Peace Now survey, the majority would leave if offered compensation for withdrawal.

Jewish Israeli society is not just divided between rich and poor. It is riven with divisions based on ethnicity and religion. Jews from the Middle East and North Africa have the worst-paid jobs, while Jews of European origin are generally better paid, with an average income of 1.5 times that of those from the Middle East and North Africa.

Israel is also divided along religious lines; between religious and secular Jews, as the religious authorities seek ever-increasing social control over marriage, divorce and travel on Saturday, making it all but impossible for secular Jews to live in Jerusalem.

If the situation is dire for the average Israeli, the situation is much worse for Arab Israelis:

* Average wages are less than half those of the Jews of European origin

* 42 percent of Arab families live below the poverty line

* Every second Arab child (compared with every fourth child in the general population) lives in poverty

* Unemployment is higher than average. While Jewish unemployment rose 53 percent between 1996 and 2001, it rose 126 percent for Israeli Arabs in the same period

* In 2003, the Orr Commission reported, “decades of discrimination against the Israeli Arab minority”. It found a pattern of government prejudice, neglect and discrimination against the one million or more Arab Israelis—the Palestinians who were not forced out of their ancestral homeland when the Jewish state was created in 1948. Arab municipalities are starved of cash and deprived of government-sponsored industrial development

* Educational facilities are much poorer than their Jewish counterparts

* Many long-standing communities are not recognised by the state, refused all services, including electricity and water, and their homes threatened with demolition

* Arab Israelis are more likely to be subject to verbal and physical abuse by the police and security services, and investigation and trials.

While Israel appears to have a relatively high average per capita income that places it within the top 25 countries, this is deceptive. Average income masks the enormous and ever rising inequality within Israel.

* Despite the recession, in 2003, Israel’s richest 10 percent became richer

* In 1994, top managers earned on average 30 times the minimum wage. In 2002, they earned 36 times more

* Their share of total income rose by 5.6 percent in the same period, while the share of the bottom 80 percent fell by between 0.4 percent and 0.8 percent

* Average annual income of the top 10 percent of households was about NIS 42,000, compared to NIS 3,100 for the poorest 10 percent. That is, the richest households have 14 times more income than the poorest

* The gini coefficient, a widely used statistic to measure income inequality, shows that at .38, Israel has one of the highest rates of inequality in the world, second only to the US in the advanced countries.

As elsewhere, the government’s cuts and reforms are directed at further enriching these layers. The emasculation of the labour movement has removed all constraints on them. Whereas in the 1950s, Zionism offered a level of social equality on a par with Sweden, and from the 1960s to 1980s, a standard of living that was on a par with that of the advanced countries, that perspective is in tatters. It is these economic and social conditions that have led to Israel’s political instability and shifting political alliances.
Political conditions in Israel

Once touted as the region’s only liberal democracy, political life in Israel is now in an advanced state of putrefaction. Israel faces a very real threat of civil conflict—and not just between Jews and Arabs. The rise of ultra-religious and nationalist forces after the 1967 war, largely funded by the US, played a key role in shifting Israeli politics sharply to the right, despite their small numbers. Their foremost political patron was until recently Ariel Sharon.

Israel’s political system is made up of a large number of political parties, with constantly changing alliances and new parties. At no point has the majority party ever been able to rule on its own. Coalitions are the order of the day, and the right-wing small parties therefore have enormous power.

While Labour dominated for the first 30 years, the break up of the post-war order and the expansion of Israel’s territories after the 1967 war required a different type of government. The 1977 elections brought a right-wing Likud government to power and since then it has been the dominant party, in government for 23 out of 29 years.

Consider the nature of the Likud prime ministers. Menachem Begin, as leader of the terrorist Irgun, had blown up the British Headquarters based at the King David Hotel in 1946 and orchestrated the massacre of 256 Palestinians at Deir Yassin. Yitzhak Shamir, the leader of the terrorist Stern gang, was responsible for a string of terrorist attacks, including the assassination of Lord Moyne, the British Military Governor in 1944. Ariel Sharon is an unindicted war criminal. Labour prime minister Ehud Barak led murderous raids on the PLO leadership in Tunis in the 1980s, culminating in the assassination of Abu Jihad. No other country in the world has been headed by such a series of infamous thugs.

Israel’s political and business leaders are mired in corruption. Tel Aviv has for some decades been one of the foremost money and stolen diamond laundering countries in the world. Two of the biggest business scandals in Israel’s history took place in 2005, involving money laundering and industrial espionage. Sharon and his predecessors, Ehud Barak, Benyamin Netanyahu and Yitzhak Rabin, were all under investigation for bribery and corruption but charges were never brought.

It seemed at one point when Sharon was prime minister, that he would face the prospect of indictment for bribery when he was foreign minister, in a case that also implicated his successor, Ehud Olmert, until the incoming Attorney General refused to press charges. In a separate case, Sharon’s son, as his campaign manager, is currently awaiting sentencing for illegal campaign contributions during his 1999 election to the Likud leadership.

The Labour party’s perspective is in tatters after a brief and unsustainable makeover as the party of peace by Peace Now. It was this that led them to hand over power to Sharon and Likud, then join and prop up his Likud coalition, and help it force through its military strategy of annexing much of the West Bank. It simply held its nose over Sharon’s Palestinian policy—genocide and ethnic cleansing—that supplanted the promise of a two-state solution embodied in the 1993 Oslo Accords. This is the inexorable logic of the nationalist programme that they embraced, albeit with socialist pretensions, in the early days of the last century.

These economic and social tensions have led to a political realignment. Last November, the left-talking Amir Peretz’s surprise defeat of the 82-year-old Shimon Peres in the Labour party leadership contest triggered a realignment of Israeli politics. He pulled out Labour’s cabinet members from Sharon’s coalition, already rocked by the withdrawal from Gaza, precipitating an early general election, now scheduled for March 28.

While Peretz won the leadership on the basis of ending the conflict with the Palestinians through a negotiated settlement and looking after the interests of ordinary Israeli families hard hit by the Sharon government, he soon began to back-pedal from his leftist rhetoric.

In relation to the Palestinians, he is now insisting that Jerusalem remains the undivided capital of Israel and that the Palestinian refugees be denied the right of return to their former homes in Israel. Such preconditions preclude any possibility of reaching an accommodation with the Palestinians.

In relation to social and economic policies, Peretz offers only minor changes to the government’s free-market policies and an increase in the minimum wage. “I don’t intend to damage the free market and competition,” he declared. “But I intend that the free market in Israel will be a market that serves people and that competition will be fair,” he continued. In other words, he presents no challenge to the basic interests of the capitalist ruling class.

Indeed, Labour’s financial spokesman, a former World Bank economist, hastened to reassure the international financial institutions at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Israel would pursue pro-market policies and would not raise taxes or increase government debt. “We will be more competitive,” he said.

When Sharon’s Likud coalition became unworkable because of settler-religious opposition to Gaza, he pulled out of the Likud party that he had helped to form in 1977 and set up theKadima party, with 14 of his Likud colleagues and several leading Labour MPs, including Shimon Peres and Haim Ramon. Kadima was, until Sharon’s stroke, widely expected to win the most seats in the next parliament, although not sufficient to rule without a coalition.

In so far as Kadima is widely portrayed as a “centrist” formation, this only reflects the extreme right-wing nature of Israeli politics. Its mission is threefold.

* First, to prevent the emergence of any domestic opposition to the annexation of much of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, for which Sharon had gained US approval behind the smokescreen of the withdrawal from Gaza.

* Second, to gain a consensus around Sharon’s right-wing economic and social agenda imposed under his Likud government.

* Third, to curb the influence of the settler movement and the ultra-religious parties that had come to dominate within Likud.

As far as big business and international commentators are concerned, these ultra right-wing forces are an obstacle to the consolidation of secure borders of the significantly expanded Israeli state, the removal of what remains of the welfare state and the rationalisation of military expenditure, much of it taken up with defending the settlers.

While Kadima has won important support from Israel’s political establishment and backing from the Bush administration, its popular support rests upon the so-called peace camp’s ability to promote illusions in Kadima’s readiness to end the military conflict. To this end, Israel’s liberal media and political establishment has stepped nobly into the breach, including the architects of Oslo, Peres and Yossi Beilin. This is despite the fact that Sharon’s perspective for “peace”—and that of all his successors in Kadima—is based on confining the Palestinians within a well-guarded and impoverished ghetto. So, far from being a solution, Kadima’s Palestinian policy is a recipe for continued conflict with the Palestinians, while its neo-liberal economic agenda promises civil strife at home.

Taken together, this means that Israeli workers have no party that represents their interests.

In short, Israel with all its cultural advantages, an educated workforce, and massive aid, is an economic and political disaster, dominated by enormous social inequality. The Israeli government does not represent the interests of the majority of the Jewish people who live in Israel, let alone the Jewish people all over the world. It is the political representative of a section of Israel’s financial elite, a corrupt and venal clique of international gangsters who operate on behalf of their masters in Washington.

The future heralds intensifying conflicts both within Israel and with the Palestinians. Furthermore, Israel’s role as a subcontractor for US imperialism means ever-greater military expenditure and attacks on its neighbours, threatening increasing political and military instability both in pursuit of its own interests and those of the US. While Israeli workers have thus far enjoyed a higher standard of living than their Arab neighbours, this is not set to continue.

All this is a far cry from the secure economic future that the Zionist dream seemed to offer the Jewish people.

This brief review has vindicated the principled approach taken by the Fourth International 60 years ago to the situation in Palestine. The conditions in Israel, Palestine and indeed the whole of the Middle East today differ in no fundamental way from the predictions made by the Fourth International.

The central lessons we must draw from this strategic experience concern the critical responsibilities of Marxists. Our task is to build independent revolutionary parties of the working class, sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International, which base themselves on implacable theoretical firmness and tell the working class the truth.

Concluded

great article on anti-normalization

great article on anti-normalization
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/482/op5.htm

Al-Ahram Weekly
18 - 24 May 2000

From front line to periphery
By Laura Drake *

Accusations are flying these days, directed by pan-Arab civil society elements against this or that Arab state on the periphery making suspicious moves toward normalisation of relations with Israel. Atop the list are Mauritania, Tunisia, Algeria, and Yemen, in that order. Morocco is old news, whereas Oman and Qatar have made clear that they are waiting for Syria and/or Palestinian final status.

Of the three, Mauritania has gone the farthest; there are no doubts as to its intentions. Algeria is on the fence: it could easily dismiss its recent suspicious handshake gesture, if it wanted to, as an instance of "diplomatic entrapment" with no harm done -- provided that it takes no further steps in this direction.

As for Yemen, it is most likely that Sana'a's recent hosting of Israeli tourists of Yemeni origin has been dramatically misinterpreted. The accusations are at this point clearly unwarranted. This is not the first time Yemen has hosted Jewish visitors of Yemeni origin coming from Israel. Yemen has hosted such people before, with no political implications whatsoever. The central criterion is that Yemen did not accept the Israeli passport; instead, the Yemenis insisted that these individuals use Yemeni travel documents. This procedure is in line with pan-Arab custom, which insists that Jews originating in Arab countries are Arab Jews and, like Jews of any origin, they and their descendants -- like their ancestors -- are the rightful citizens not of occupied Palestine but of the countries from which they hail. Yemen does in fact consider these people to be its citizens, just as Syria and Iraq and others considered the Jews in and from their countries to be their citizens.

As for Iraq today, the subject must be brought up in the context of a country that does not fit cleanly into either the front-line or peripheral state category. While Iraq technically is not a front-line state, due to the lack of a border with Israel, it has always behaved as if it were. This is the combined result of Baghdad's long-term regional leadership aspirations and the depth of its pan-Arab ideology. Furthermore, Iraq now faces Israel militarily on both its Turkish border to the north and its Jordanian border to the west, which latter has essentially been turned into Israel's new security border.

That said, the pressure that Iraq is facing today to re-settle Palestinian refugees from Lebanon in its territory as a condition for the eventual lifting of sanctions is intense and long-term, yet Iraq has been steadfastly resisting that pressure since late 1993. Had Iraq capitulated to the insidious scheme, it would have been evident by now.

These individual judgements on this select group of countries, however, obfuscate the reality of the larger divide in the Arab world relating to the problem of normalisation. Underneath it all lies a classic geopolitical split on the large scale, which pits the interests of the Arab cordon states that share borders with occupied Palestine -- and which are hence enmeshed in the "peace process" -- against those of the far-flung states on the Arab periphery that do not. Underneath the periodic normalisation "alarms" that we hear about from time to time regarding periphery state moves toward Israel, there lurks a profound disconnect on the matter between the Arab cordon and the Arab periphery. This exists in the form of a gap in expectations in an atmosphere of divergent priorities. It is a problem of strategic communication, one that fortunately can be solved through serious inter-Arab negotiations given the requisite political will on all sides. Before continuing, however, a few disclaimers.

On the part of the true front-line states -- namely, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and the Palestinians -- there is an expectation of national duty that periphery states should not "rush to normalisation." According to this understanding, Arab patriotism dictates they reject premature normalisation, excessive normalisation, or any normalisation at all.

The standard response of the periphery runs approximately as follows: "Each of you, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Palestinians, has entered a peace process whose declared end result is to normalise relations with Israel. Furthermore, you the Palestinians specifically, who stand at the centre of this conflict, have already signed on and done that very thing. We have been defending the Palestinian cause faithfully for all these years, yet now that you are ready to stop fighting you expect us to keep fighting. Why should we be more Catholic than the Pope?" I personally have encountered this argument from "moderate" intelligentsia personalities, fortunately only a handful, in places as far away as Iran.

The unspoken answer from the cordon states and the Palestinians is approximately thus: "We are doing it not by choice, but because our territory is occupied, and this is the only way to get it back. Even after we do sign, normalisation will be kept at the absolute minimum possible. You, as Arab states sharing no border with Israel, do not need the return of any territory from it, nor are you threatened by its massive military machine even in the absence of a formal peace, so why should you undermine our future leverage and yours by normalising relations with it? You must know that this is going to be an armed peace and not a friendly one; Israeli leaders have said it themselves. And in any case, why would you "want" to normalise relations with Israel, even in the most minimalist of ways, when you don't have to? Why would you enter willingly into a formal peace that we are entering into only under extreme duress?" The underlying theme here is that any such move would be foolhardy, contrary to both individual and shared Arab national interests.

This is as far as it usually goes, but here we take it one step further. Here is the deeper, second-layer response of the periphery states that is not being heard in the Arab Mashreq: "You, the front-line states, are benefiting financially or are poised to benefit -- by way of US assistance programmes and access to international loans on favourable terms -- as a result of your peace with Israel. Look at how you, the Egyptians, are already benefiting; and you, the Syrians, are also going to benefit from American financial assistance, albeit not to the same degree, as soon as you sign. And look at Jordan, with the forgiving of all that foreign debt."

To continue the periphery state argument: "We are poorer than you, and our economic situation is higher on the list of priorities for us than it is for you. The Americans tell us that their assistance is subject to political conditions, and we can find no way around it: they tell us that we cannot hope to receive financial assistance from them, either directly or indirectly, unless we make some moves toward normalising our relations with Israel."

This must be addressed, and it must be addressed seriously. Although it is true that US foreign aid is being decreased, due to pressure from US citizens who think foreign economic assistance constitutes a much higher percentage of the US budget than it actually does, periphery states point out that every little bit makes a difference for countries mired in poverty. Economics is foremost on their minds. They have a different order of priorities from that of those front-line states whose strategic agenda is consumed by matters of war, peace, occupied territory, and foreign policy independence. And even though the front-liners are signing on for the territory and not the financial rewards, periphery states nevertheless seem to resent their reaping those rewards and then preaching abstinence and national duty to everybody else.

The only solution that can conceivably be postulated under this unfortunate set of circumstances is some sort of inter-Arab resource-sharing arrangement to make up for the small amounts of economic aid the peripherals might hope to receive from the United States if they take steps to normalise their relations with Israel. The responsibility for this will fall equally upon Egypt and post- agreement Syria and Lebanon on the one hand, and on the Arab Gulf states perhaps together with Iran (and post-embargo Iraq) on the other.

As for Oman and Qatar, or any other GCC members that may or may not be considering steps toward normalisation: they do not need the money, the US has no strategic leverage on Gulf states since it cannot do without them, and hence these countries have no conceivable excuse for entering into normalisation under any circumstances -- even if Syria does achieve a Golan withdrawal, and even in the event a final status agreement is reached on the Palestinian track. This expectation is of course contingent on Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians not taking the normalisation any single inch further than is absolutely and minimally required of them to achieve the territorial withdrawals. In fact, post-Sadat Egypt has proven to be a good example in this regard.

The desired outcome of an inter-Arab dialogue -- in the form of a serious discussion between Arab cordon and periphery states -- is that once arrangements are made, nobody beyond the front line should feel compelled to normalise for any reason, even after all the front-liners have completed their withdrawal agreements. This desired end will require that whatever financial incentive might be offered to the periphery by Washington -- and it will be small indeed, as more and more geopolitically minor countries are being cut out of the foreign aid loop -- be offset by the front-line states, the Arab Gulf states, and Iran each doing their part in upholding the forthcoming national (and Islamic) duty.

The supporting role of Arab civil society, and particularly the anti-normalisation movement, is to launch direct diplomatic initiatives with the foreign ministries in the periphery states concerned. Since the anti-normalisation movement is strongest in the front-line countries, their civil society elements will obviously initiate the dialogue, but they will have to do it together with anti-normalisation counterparts who live in the periphery countries concerned. The goal would be to convince the periphery states via direct dialogue -- by presenting details of their own experiences as front-liners with normalisation to date -- that whatever benefits the peripherals might hope to achieve from the United States will be vastly outweighed by the damage that Israel will inflict upon their economies and their national independence if they succumb to the pressures of normalisation.

Anti-normalisation forces need look no further than their own front yard for concrete evidence to support their warnings: they need only demonstrate the carnage currently being inflicted on Jordan's sovereign economy by the invasion of Israeli capital into its domain.

*The writer is adjunct professor of international relations at the American University in Washington.
weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg

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A Tragically Bad and Unsustainable Idea

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitbeck10192009.html

October 19, 2009
A Tragically Bad and Unsustainable Idea
Zionism: an Anti-Semite's Dream?

By JOHN V. WHITBECK

In a commentary published in the Arab News (Jeddah) on October 17, the British journalist Neil Berry focuses on a reality which is rarely mentioned in polite society: that Zionism is, and has always been, an anti-Semite's dream come true, offering the hope that one's own country's Jews can be induced to leave and move elsewhere.

Berry writes: "The imperious British statesman, A.J. Balfour, who gave his name to the declaration, was an earnest supporter of the 1905 Alien Act, which was specifically designed to stem the inflow into Britain of Jews who were fleeing from persecution in czarist Russia. A century ago, immigrant Jews were seen by many, much as Muslims are now, as subversive intruders menacing the British way of life.... Zionism and anti-Semitism became inextricably bound up with one another."

Citing a better-known cause for the enduring shame of Western states, Berry continues: "In the aftermath of the liquidation by the Nazis of some 6 million Jews during World War II, the United States, Australia and Canada, brushing aside Arab pleas to treat displaced Jews as a challenge for the whole world, refused to relax their immigration restrictions, thereby ensuring that the great majority of them poured into Palestine, even though many would have preferred to settle elsewhere.... It was with shrewd foresight that Herzl predicted that anti-Semitism would become Zionism's greatest ally."

Western governments which, today, are not anti-Semitic should, rather than feeding justice, human decency and international law into a shredder through blind subservience to a racial-supremicist, settler-colonial experiment (and thereby earning themselves the hatred of much of mankind), be opening their doors wide to any and all Israeli Jews who might be tempted to build a new and better life for themselves and their children, with less injustice and less insecurity, by returning to their countries of origin or emigrating to other countries of their choice, offering them immediate residency rights, generous resettlement assistance and a rapid road to citizenship (if they do not already have it).

Such "Laws of Return" would be profoundly philo-Semitic, pro-Jewish and, yes, anti-Zionist. They would reflect a moral, ethical and self-interested recognition that Zionism, like certain other prominent 20th century "isms" which once captured the imaginations of millions, was a tragically bad idea -- not simply for those innocents caught and trampled in its path but also for those who embraced it -- which is unsustainable, which does not deserve to be sustained and which has already caused (and, if perpetuated, will continue to cause) profound problems for the Western world and the Western world's relations with the rest of the world.

Democracy and equal rights in a unitary state in the land which, until 1948, was called Palestine, coupled with freedom of choice (with attractive choices for resettlement being generously provided) for those who would prefer not to live in such a state, would offer a far greater hope for eventual peace in the Middle East than continued cyncical recycling of a partition-based "peace process" which is now widely recognized to be both a fraud and a farce and which, even if "successful", would simply legitimize, reward and perpetuate ethnic cleansing, racism and apartheid -- scarcely a recipe for lasting peace, let alone for any measure of justice.

If Western politicians cared more about the welfare and happiness of individual Jewish human beings than they do about the money and ability to hurt them of a few wealthy and powerful Zionists, most of whom live comfortably and safely far from the Middle East, democracy, equal rights and freedom of choice, all principles to which Western states profess devotion, might actually come to the "Holy Land".

Politicians being what they are, civil society will have to take the lead in delegitimizing Zionism and pointing the way toward a better future for all concerned -- and, like it or not, everyone on this planet is concerned.

John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel, is author of "The World According to Whitbeck".

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http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=127581&d=20&m=10&y=2009


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http://article.wn.com/view/2009/12/27/Nasrallah_Israels_greed_brutality_have_no_borders/

'Lost Jews' video shows Israeli chutzpah towards Diaspora Jewry

Excuse me: What is 'Diaspora Jewry'? That would be all the white European Jewry and Black African Jewry and South American Jewry that is away from their ancestral home of Palestine? Right? Silly! Look in the mirror! If you are a Jew of European origin, the person reflected on the mirror would be European; and if of African origin, you should be looking at a black person! Palestine is ancestral home of Arabs only (Christians, Muslims and Jews). Let's dispense with the dishonesty!

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Last update - 10:15 09/09/2009
'Lost Jews' video shows Israeli chutzpah towards Diaspora Jewry
By Benjamin L. Hartman, Haaretz Correspondent

An Israel outreach program has pulled from its Web site a campaign video meant to scare the Israeli public about the inevitable 'de-Judaization' that occurs to good Jewish stock in the Diaspora.

The Masa organization last week released a video, which shows eerie headshots of young, smiling youths with painfully Jewish names. Each of these faces gaze at the camera from atop flyers that read 'Missing' and 'Lost' in English, Russian, and Spanish.

An Israel outreach program has pulled from its Web site a campaign video meant to scare the Israeli public about the inevitable 'de-Judaization' that occurs to good Jewish stock in the Diaspora.

The Masa organization last week released a video, which shows eerie headshots of young, smiling youths with painfully Jewish names. Each of these faces gaze at the camera from atop flyers that read 'Missing' and 'Lost' in English, Russian, and Spanish.

'Lost Jews' campaign is racist, despicable and disgusting

Last update - 12:35 10/09/2009
'Lost Jews' campaign is racist, despicable and disgusting
By Gideon Levy
Joel Fein is lost. So is Josh Feldman. Their images on police-style posters like those of criminals or missing persons are featured in a new advertising campaign. The Prime Minister's Office and the Jewish Agency present: the "lost" campaign. The advertising agency responsible for the water conservation scare campaign "Israel is drying up" strikes again. This time they are scaring us over assimilation.

"Call MASA," the tip line suggests, and report a Jew who has married (may the Almighty protect us) a goy (Lord have mercy) - and they'll know how to take care of it. It is a racist, despicable, disgusting campaign. It isn't just the act of informing on someone, which is repulsive in itself. It is primarily the content of this nationalistic scare campaign, which has meanwhile been toned down in view of the reaction it engendered. A Jew who marries a goy is not "lost." Maybe, he will live happily ever after. The idea that cheap propaganda will dissuade him from his love or his faith, or lack of faith, is a backward thought. No other people would conduct such a campaign. The Jewish people no longer needs one, and the State of Israel has no right to conduct one.

There are about 13 million Jews in the world, 40 percent of whom live in Israel and 40 percent in the United States. The Israelis are in the process of consolidating a new identity, which is not affected by assimilation. As for the rest of the Jews in the world, one must assume that if they want to, they'll assimilate. If they don't want to, they won't assimilate. Israel must continue to serve as a refuge or an option for immigration for them, but no more than that.
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Life in Israel is more dangerous for Jews, in any event, than in any other place, and life for the non-Jewish minority in Israel is immeasurably worse than life as a minority for most of the Jewish communities around the world. The concept of "a year in Israel, a love for a lifetime," as the MASA slogan says, is misleading. Isn't there a single tourist, either Jewish or non-Jewish, who after visiting here swore never to set foot in this place again? The violence, the crudeness, the materialism, the nationalism, the militarism, the aggressiveness and the occupation don't suit everyone.

The cheap propaganda campaigns of the Jewish Agency, Birthright (Taglit in Hebrew), the Israel Experience and MASA, try at any price to present the beautiful Israel, just and strong - but even the opportunity to take a photo in an IDF uniform, visit Sderot or have a good matchmaking experience don't ensure anything. If Israel were indeed beautiful and just, there would be no need for all the propaganda. As long as it isn't, all of the propagandists won't help. We should prefer the assimilationists, genuine friends of Israel, to Jewish friends of the occupation.

It's time to overcome such nonsense. About half of the Jewish people are assimilating, which is their choice and complete right, and we shouldn't complain about it. They're not "lost," certainly not more than those who married Jews, which we so want and push for. If a portion of the Diaspora assimilates, no catastrophe will occur. In an open and liberal society, there is no place for scare tactics over this fictitious danger. But with us, as always, size matters. We not only want a Land of Israel large in size but also a large Jewish people and to hell with all the rest.

A big Israel doesn't make it better or more just. And a larger Jewish people isn't worth anything. The time has also come to dismantle the anachronistic propaganda machines of the Jewish Agency and its affiliates. A lot of money was poured into them for nothing. What was right for a people without a state is no longer relevant. The tie with world Jewry should be based on the State of Israel as a source of pride - and it isn't. On the contrary, through its actions Israel more than once has endangered and shamed the Diaspora. Ask the Jews of the world what their neighbors said after Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. As them when they last felt pride in Israel's actions.

If the Jews of the world are really dear to us, it would be better if we became less of an outcast as a country. It would bring us much more respect and honor ,and a stronger Jewish connection than any MASA or other such program. True, some of them work with youth, especially those whose lives are empty, but disappointment isn't far off. At the end of any trip to Israel on Taglit, which means "discovery" in Hebrew, another discovery is liable to pop up, a more genuine discovery about the nature of the society and the state that has been established here. Josh and Joel aren't lost. Those who call them that seem much more lost.

Inmates Celebrate B’not Mitzvah

September 9, 2009
Inmates Celebrate B’not Mitzvah

by Annabelle Gurwitch

Two women, identified as Carol and Pamela — not their real names — became b’not mitzvah on Saturday, Sept. 5. Both are inmates at the California Institution for Women (CIW) in Corona, located about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles. The event is believed to be the first bat mitzvah to take place inside prison walls in the United States.

Carol and Pamela approached the rabbi with the idea of a bat mitzvah six months ago — both are incarcerated for a variety of offenses, including drug-related charges — and their preparation for the day included learning Hebrew and writing a speech. The service took place in the prison chapel, which the Jewish community shares with Muslims, Catholics and Protestants, and was led by Rabbi Moshe Halfon, who has served as Jewish chaplain at the facility for the last three years. Halfon describes himself as a spiritual healer and explorer; he is also a Reconstructionist rabbi and holds a master’s degree in educational psychology and organizational process from Temple University. Halfon is the co-founder of Am Or Olam (People of the Eternal Light), a nonprofit center in Southern California that promotes holistic healing, Jewish spirituality, the arts and, now, prison outreach as well.

Halfon spends Wednesdays through Saturdays at the prison teaching classes, and he conducts services there almost every Friday night and Saturday, as well as additional holiday observances. Halfon’s curriculum includes traditional prayer, but early into his tenure he decided that teaching spirituality, ethics and basic rituals were most important.

Carol, 29, came into the Jewish community not long after arriving at CIW in May 2008. She is of Jewish descent, and was exposed to Judaism as a child through her grandparents, who were Orthodox. Her professional and family life were torn apart as a result of her substance abuse and other dysfunctional behavior, and she no longer is in contact with her family. Carol is scheduled for parole in December and hopes to return to a professional life and to one day be reunited with her children, who currently are in foster care.

Pamela, 25, is Jewish and has been incarcerated since December 2007. She did not grow up with a religious background, but by chance was assigned to work in the kosher kitchen at CIW, where she became interested in the community. She has earned an associate degree while at CIW, and she plans to go to college. Her family is currently caring for her 5-year-old son.

Both women undertook intense and dedicated study in preparation for their b’not mitzvah day. Each studied Hebrew on her own time, during hours not filled with work, classes, 12-step programs and other prison-mandated activities.

The women took Hebrew names — Pamela chose Zohara Binah and Carol chose Chava Shira. During the service, they led prayers, chanted the Parashat Nitzavim, and each delivered a devar Torah — both of them on the theme of choosing life. (Even though it wasn’t the week’s portion, the women chose to study Parashat Nitzavim because of their connection to the text and the particular constraints relating to the timing of the service.)

In her writings, Zohara Binah called the Jewish community “a lifeline of hope and light in an abyss of futility and despair.” She said she experiences the “renewal style of Judaism embracing and encompassing other religious philosophies, adding an air of tolerance which is tantamount to spiritual practice behind prison walls.”

Her speech included teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, while Chava Shira spoke personally and pointedly of the mistakes she had made in the past and her commitment to choosing the path of life; she has also written of how she has been influenced by the teaching of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. Both women are hoping upon release to go to Beit T’Shuvah, the Jewish residential addiction recovery center in Culver City.

Numerous volunteers attended the service, including the Rev. Shayna Lester, an interfaith minister who spends two days a week teaching a course in Jewish ethics at the prison, providing spiritual education and guidance to the incarcerated women. During the service, Lester expressed her desire for the two women “to become their truest and most authentic selves.”

In addition, other leaders in the Jewish community flew in from the Bay Area, including Nancy Goldberg, vice president of Jewish Family and Children’s Services of San Francisco and the surrounding areas. Inmates from the institution’s general population also gathered in the chapel to support the women, participating in the service along with the inmates who regularly attend classes and services. One woman, K, who is not Jewish but a regular at services, holds an advanced degree in economics from Stanford and is incarcerated for a white-collar crime. She said she sought out the community after observing that the women who attended services were “leaving with light in their hearts.”

L, a Jewish inmate who has long been active in the prison’s Jewish community, has been incarcerated for 24 years and has tattoos with the Hebrew words from the Song of Solomon, “I am my beloved, my beloved is mine.” At the time of the service, L was scheduled for release in 14 days and hopes to stay connected to the Jewish community.

Traditional Jewish songs along with standards like “Stand by Me” were played. Carol and another inmate performed an a cappella version of Christina Aguilera’s “You Are Beautiful.”

Institutional regulations prevented Pamela’s parents from attending, but they sent an inspirational message that was read aloud by the inmate congregants. Pamela’s father wrote of his love for her, saying, “I love you yesterday, today and tomorrow.” Her mother sent a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”

Ariella Lewis, co-founder with Halfon of Am Or Olam, read words of inspiration to Carol, speaking of two sephirot (emanations) on the kabbalistic tree of life: Netzach, the quality of endurance, and Hod, the quality of integrity and majesty — qualities needed to stand up as individuals.

The horn blew at 4:30 p.m., calling the inmates back to their units, a sudden and stark reminder that some in attendance were convicted felons and others would leave to resume their lives outside. Zohara Binah, Chava Shira and the other inmates returned to their evening institution regimen.

Actress and writer Annabelle Gurwitch hosts the carbon foot printing series “WA$TED” on Planet Green Network. Her new book, “You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up,” a love story co-written with her husband, Jeff Kahn, will be published by Crown Books in February 2010.

After 20 years, why has Russian immigration to Israel stagnated?

Last update - 14:59 12/09/2009

After 20 years, why has Russian immigration to Israel stagnated?

By Tracy Levy Twenty years after Russia opened its doors to mass emigration, the number of immigrants choosing to move to Israel has stagnated. Since 1989, over one million Russians have immigrated to Israel. In the past few years, Israel has seen an average of between five and six thousand Russian immigrants per year. Professor Eliezer Leshem, a former Hebrew University professor and current Professor Emeritus at Ariel University Center of Samaria, believes that the current cessation of immigration may have something to do with discrimination many Russians felt while being absorbed into Israeli society. Leshem, who is an expert on Russian immigration, cites the state's doubt about some immigrants' Jewish status, as well as trouble integrating into the job market as signs of the intolerance the Russian community has had to face. "Russians face suspicion about their Judaism even after converting. The attitude of the rabbinical establishment is winning," Leshem said. In addition, only 20 percent of immigrants have been integrated into the same jobs they worked in Russia; the rest have had to settle for different, and in many cases, lower status jobs. Margo Garshina, who immigrated to Israel last year, prefers not to focus on the negative aspects of the history of immigrant absorption in Israel. The 22-year-old, who emigrated from Moscow, foresees a bright future for herself in this country; she will begin studying for a master?s degree in communication this fall at Tel Aviv University. "I feel much better here than I did in Russia," Garshina said. She believes the low number of new immigrants from Russia may have something to do with the way that Israel is represented back in Russia. "People think it's a war zone where people are killing each other on the streets. My friends thought I was moving to the end of the world, where I would be in danger at every second." Garshina decided to move to Israel after coming on a Taglit Birthright trip; she was the only one out of several groups with 40 each who decided to move here. Choosing not to identify herself too closely with the Russian community in Israel, Garshina represents the new generation of young Russian immigrants. "I'm trying to integrate in to Israeli society, not Russian society," says Garshina who has been studying Hebrew since she moved to Israel. "Many Russians come here and don't communicate with people outside of the Russian community and I don't think that's right." Meanwhile, Leshem is doubtful that emigration from Russia will increase in the future, partly due to economic changes and increased opportunities in the country. "If you don?t receive the immigrants properly and the motivation for them to leave is low then you can only expect five to six thousand immigrants a year." Garshina recalls walking off the plane into Israel, a country where she has no family and knew no one. She knows firsthand how daunting moving to a foreign country can be regardless of one's nationality. "I think anyone would be afraid to take such a big step in their lives," Garshina said about the future of Russian immigration

Artists, authors sign letter protesting Israeli spotlight at TIFF

Mark Medley, National Post Published: Thursday, September 03, 2009

TORONTO -- The signatories of a new letter accusing the Toronto International Film Festival of becoming "complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine" run the gamut from an Oscar-winning actress to a rabble-rousing author to a Talking Head.

More than 50 people have added their name to what's being called The Toronto Declaration, including musician David Byrne, actors Danny Glover and Jane Fonda, and author Alice Walker.

The letter, drafted by a committee that includes Canadian writer Naomi Klein and Israeli filmmaker Udi Aloni, is the latest move in a controversy that began when Canadian director John Greyson withdrew his short documentary, Covered, from the festival last week. The veteran filmmaker is protesting the festival's inaugural City to City Spotlight on Tel Aviv, a 10-movie program that TIFF's website promises will "explore the evolving urban experience while presenting the best documentary and fiction films from and about a selected city." This year is Tel Aviv's 100th anniversary.

Greyson penned an open letter to festival co-directors Piers Handling and Cameron Bailey, as well as to Noah Cowan, artistic director of the under-construction Bell Lightbox, blasting the initiative.

The declaration states that while the signatories are not protesting the individual filmmakers participating in the program and do not seek to exclude Israeli films from the festival, "in the wake of this year's brutal assault on Gaza, we object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann have all characterized as an apartheid regime."

The protesters say that the City to City Spotlight is connected with the Israeli government's "Brand Israel" media and advertising campaign, which was launched in 2008.

Both Greyson's letter and the declaration mention an August 2008 article in the Canadian Jewish News in which Israeli Consul General Amir Gissin says Israel would have a major presence at this year's festival. Gissin was not available for comment.

It is a charge Bailey denies.

"The City to City series was conceived and curated entirely independently," Bailey writes in a letter posted on the festival website. "There was no pressure from any outside source. Contrary to rumours or mistaken media reports, this focus is a product only of TIFF's programming decisions. We value that independence and would never compromise it."

The protesters' efforts are misguided, say critics of the protest.

"I think some of these people are well-meaning, some of these people are less well-meaning," said Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, when reached in New York City. "Frankly, I think there's no other word but anti-Semitism. I don't know if they're doing it consciously or unconsciously, I want to make that clear, but the idea that anything that Israel does is by definition illegitimate, and anything that the other side does is by definition legitimate, what do you call that?"

The Emmy Award-winning documentarian, who divides his time between Toronto and Israel, says Greyson's original letter was "full of lies" and says the festival "shouldn't be intimidated by this coalition of lies."

Avi Benlolo, president and CEO of the Toronto Chapter of the Friends of the Simon Wiethensal Centre, says he found the decision "ludicrous."

"For him to have pulled his film, and for the 50 signatories to have done that, what they're in fact doing is just using the International Film Festival ... as a forum, a vehicle, to delegitimize the state of Israel.

"I think Cameron Bailey's response is to be applauded," he adds. "It's not branding and it has nothing to do with politics."

Canadian filmmaker Mike Hoolboom, who has signed the letter, says the protest isn't an attempt to hijack the festival.

"No one is calling for a boycott of the entire festival," he said, "only for a boycott of the program."

In his letter, Greyson maintains his protest "isn't against the film or filmmakers" chosen but against the City to City program, specifically, and "the smug business-as-usual aura it promotes."

He compares the "uncritical celebration" of Tel Aviv to "celebrating Montgomery (Ala.) buses in 1963" or "South African fruit in 1991."

Bailey counters that "[Greyson] writes that his protest isn't against the films or filmmakers we have chosen, but against the spotlight itself. By that reasoning, no films programmed within this series would have met his approval, no matter what they contained."

National Post

mmedley@nationalpost.com

http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/toronto-film-festival/story.html?id=1960040

Hollywood Jews: Toronto film fest protest against Israel a 'blacklist'

Hollywood Jews: Toronto film fest protest against Israel a 'blacklist'
September 16, 2009 | 5:39 pm

Someone always causes a ruckus at the Toronto film festival. But this year even the reliably controversy-stirring Michael Moore has had to take a back seat to the uproar over a protest letter, signed by a variety of showbiz dignitaries, claiming that Toronto's embrace of a sister city program with Tel Aviv was a "celebration" of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, charging the festival with being complicit "in the Israeli propaganda machine." The letter was signed by such prominent artists as David Byrne, Julie Christie, Ken Loach, Wallace Shawn and Jane Fonda (who's now taking some baby steps backing away from some of the letter's more heated accusations).

Tiff2009 The protest was sparked by the Canadian documentary filmmaker John Greyson, who pulled his film from the festival, decrying the festival's spotlight on Tel Aviv, which he called -- quoting Naomi Klein -- "the smiling face of Israeli apartheid." There have been a variety of counter-protests, but the biggest one arrives Thursday in the form of a full-page ad in Variety, signed by more than a hundred, mostly Jewish Hollywood filmmakers, actors, writers, producers and executives.

Titled "We Don't Need Another Blacklist," the ad applauds the festival for including the Israeli film community in its City to City program. It says the filmmakers of Israel represent the best of open and uncensored artistic expression that are "in no way a propaganda arm" for government policy. It goes on to add: "Blacklisting them only stifles the exchange of cultural knowledge that artists should be the first to defend and protect. Those who refuse to see these films for themselves or prevent them from being seen by others are violating a cherished right shared by Canada and all democratic countries."

The group of signatures supporting the ad's declaration include a who's who of Hollywood, including Jerry Seinfeld, Seth Rogen, Robert Duvall, Halle Berry, Sacha Baron Cohen, Lisa Kudrow, Lenny Kravitz, Ed Zwick, Jason Alexander, Chazz Palminteri and David Cronenberg, along with a host of top producers and executives like Ron Meyer, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Sherry Lansing, Neal Moritz, Jonathan Glickman, Nina Jacobson, Darron Star, Nathan Kahane and Gail Berman. (Writer-director signatory Michael Tolkin gets credit for a polish on the shaping of the ad's language.)

Dan Adler, an L.A. based entrepreneur and former CAA executive, was one of the driving forces behind the ad, which is officially sponsored by Jewish Federation of Los Angeles and the UJA Federation of Toronto. "We all spent a lot of time talking about the original protest letter, in the sense that it seemed to be going after the wrong target by attacking Israel and its film artists," said Adler. "When I sat down at my computer and started asking for people to sign on, all I got was passion and enthusiasm. Everyone said, 'I'm in,' and then, even better, added, 'Can I get you someone else?' "

I'm not a big fan of political action letter writing and protest ads, since as Fonda proves in her painfully awkward "restatement" of her position, too many celebrities either go whichever direction the wind is blowing or have no real grasp of the complexity of political issues in the first place. Israel's role in the mess in the Middle East is, for example, far too endlessly complicated to be accurately captured in a protest letter or counter-protest ad. But I think this ad strikes the right chord, since as Adler puts it: "This was a cut and dried issue -- it's important to stand up for the rights of artists, wherever they are, especially in the film community of Israel which has been a beacon of open, often critical free expression."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2009/09/hollywood-jews-call-toronto-film-fest-protest-against-israel-a-blacklist.html

Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen and Natalie Portman slam Toronto Film Festival protest

Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen and Natalie Portman slam Toronto Film Festival protest
By Natasha Mozgovaya and Itamar Zohar
Tags: TIFF boycott, Israel News
Jewish actors sign letter in L.A. Times and Toronto Star protesting boycott of festival over homage to Tel Aviv.

WASHINGTON - A number of Hollywood stars circulated a letter Tuesday protesting a petition calling for a boycott of the Toronto International Film Festival over a Tel Aviv-themed event.

The letter, which appeared simultaneously in the Los Angeles Times and the Toronto Star was signed, among others, by Jerry Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen, Natalie Portman, Jason Alexander and Lisa Kudrow.

The letter, which was paid for by Jewish organizations in Los Angeles and Toronto, said, "Anyone who has actually seen recent Israeli cinema, movies that are political and personal, comic and tragic, often critical, knows they are in no way a propaganda arm for any government policy."
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Film festival boycotters, which included culture critic Naomi Klein, and directors John Greyson and Richard Fung, said the Israeli films presented at the festival promote Israel's recent publicity campaign, which seeks to show Israel and Tel Aviv as enlightened, liberal places, without conducting a dialogue on their treatment of Palestinians.

The Toronto festival's management did not give in to pressure, and showed all 10 films in the City of City event, which spotlighted Tel Aviv. Among them were Ephraim Kishon's "Big Dig," Assi Dayan's "Life According to Agfa," and Keren Yedaya's "Bride of the Sea."

Meanwhile, Jane Fonda, who had initially opposed the spotlight on Tel Aviv at the festival, Tuesday released a statement that she had changed her mind.

"I signed the letter without reading it carefully enough, without asking myself if some of the wording wouldn't exacerbate the situation rather than bring about constructive dialogue," Fonda wrote on the huffingtonpost.com. She added that the suffering of both sides should be articulated.

Russia won't agree to tougher Iran sanctions

Last update - 13:27 14/07/2009
Source: Russia won't agree to tougher Iran sanctions
By Reuters

Russia will not agree to tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program in exchange for a new nuclear arms cuts deal with Washington, Interfax news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry source as saying on Tuesday.

Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama's nuclear adviser suggested that progress on a U.S.-Russian nuclear arms pact could help persuade Moscow to be more cooperative on Iran.

"There are no reasons to link these issues or count on Russia being more cooperative in toughening sanctions against Iran if there is progress in talks with the United States on further cuts in strategic offensive weapons," the source said.
Russia is negotiating a new nuclear arms cuts deal with the United States to replace the 1991 START-1 pact, which expires in December. It is also involved in international efforts to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program.

The sharp tone of the Russian comments contrasted with the positive mood that dominated last week during Obama's visit to Moscow aimed at "resetting" thorny bilateral ties.

Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev committed themselves during the talks to working on the new START pact despite outstanding disagreements over U.S. plans to deploy elements of an anti-missile system in Europe.

Obama has said that the European elements of the missile shield will not be needed if Iran halts what Israel, the U.S. and other Western nations say is a military program to create its own nuclear bomb.

Iran insists that the program is for civilian purposes only.

Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has been reluctant to allow strong sanctions against Iran and has praised Obama for promising to pursue direct dialogue with Iranian leaders.

Obama's special assistant for arms control, Gary Samore, made his comments about the potential for a change in Russia's stance at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies last week.

"If we make concessions on strategic nuclear issues the Russians are much more willing to be cooperative when it comes to Iran," Samore told experts.

A Kremlin source told Reuters that the exchange of remarks over START and Iran did not indicate any change in the overall atmosphere of Russia-U.S. contacts.

"It was nothing more than an exchange of remarks over a specific suggestion," the source said.

Russia is helping Iran build a nuclear power plant and also stood steadfastly behind the Tehran regime despite its massive crackdown on street protests following last month's disputed presidential election.

Netanyahu aide likely to pay price for 'secret' Russia trip

Last update - 03:01 11/09/2009
Netanyahu aide likely to pay price for 'secret' Russia trip
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent

At least one person will pay the price for the fiasco of the prime minister's visit to Russia: Maj. Gen. Meir Kalifi, Benjamin Netanyahu's military secretary. It isn't that Kalifi is free of blame in this story, but it seems that the speed with which he was identified as the near sole person responsible for the embarrassment was meant to spare others responsible, including Netanyahu, his political adviser, Uzi Arad, and his media adviser, Nir Hefetz, from any blame.

Sacrificing the military secretary, who lacks political support or any personal commitment from Netanyahu (having been appointed to the post during the tenure of Ehud Olmert), is not particularly media savvy and whose military career is in any case close to its end, is expected to put an end to the rumor mill surrounding the sensitive nature of the visit, and the failed effort to keep it a secret.

No less important, it may temporarily contain the infighting at the Prime Minister's Bureau, among those who are battling for Netanyahu's graces: Arad vs. Hefetz, and government secretary Zvi Hauser.
Thursday there were already rumors that Kalifi had prepared a letter of resignation. The officer, responding to Haaretz, denied the rumor. But there is no doubt that he is furious at the way he has been treated.

The story had already appeared in the press Thursday: Netanyahu and Arad kept Hefetz in the dark on the planned visit. The Prime Minister's disappearance on Monday stirred a wave of rumors and reporters called on Netanyahu's media adviser, who admitted he did not know. Later, Hefetz issued a false announcement, which was, unusually, made under Kalifi's name, claiming that Netanyahu was in a security related facility.

It was reported that Hefetz at that time still had no idea where Netanyahu was. Kalifi was also not in Russia.

The newspapers wrote Thursday that Kalifi was behind the announcement, and that he knew where Netanyahu was. He was quoted as having said that "for state security one may sometimes not tell the whole truth." At the same time someone recommended to the reporters to turn to the IDF, and ask the chief of staff whether he planned to reprimand Kalifi (the answer, as far as we know, is negative).

Those who spoke with Kalifi Thursday heard a different version of events than the one published in the media. Accordingly, he did not know that the false statement on Netanyahu's whereabouts was being issued under his name to the media. Only in retrospect did the military secretary comprehend the trap that had been set for him and its implications: the whole affair was blamed on him and he was made to appear to be a liar.

Kalifi's future in the IDF had been limited in any case. The chief of staff had skipped him over when he made the appointments for commander of ground forces and GOC Central Command.

Under the current circumstances and the stain that has been smeared on him it is hard to imagine Kalifi surviving much longer at the Prime Minister's Bureau.

Kalifi is the man whom the IDF sent to the front, during two sad incidents in the Gaza Strip: the death of seven members of the Ghalia family in 2006 from a blast on the Gaza beach, and the killing of 18 Palestinians by IDF artillery in Beit Hanoun. He is the man who investigated the incidents, and presented the conclusions to the media.

In both cases the IDF came out with minor damage. His willingness to deceive in the name of security this week has shed some doubt also on his statements in the past.

Missile crisis

One of the main issues that, according to reports, was apparently on Netanyahu's agenda in Russia was the S-300 air defense missile deal with Iran. Initial reports on Moscow's intention to deliver the advanced missiles to Iran were published seven years ago.

Since then, the deal has been placed on hold: it seems that the Russians promised to sell the equipment to Iran, but did not say when. Israel would very much like to see the deal stopped, or at least delayed, because the delivery of this system would substantially improve Iran's ability to defend its nuclear installations against an air strike. It is for this reason that Israel agreed to Russia's request that it cease to sell weapons to Georgia.

However, the Russian position is not unequivocal, and Moscow has not stopped from hinting that it intends to go through with the deal.

One of the Russian claims is that selling advanced air defense systems to countries like Iran and Syria actually contributes to stability in the Middle East because it dissuades Israel from any offensive adventurism. Russia and Iran continue to have clandestine exchanges in matters that give Israel cause to suspect that Moscow is playing both sides.

Another option is that Moscow considers the possibility of selling advanced air defense systems to Iran as a way of bargaining with the West over U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Pleas to Russia over Iran just humiliate Israel

Yossi Melman
Pleas to Russia over Iran just humiliate Israel
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent
Sepy 17, 2009

The mysterious visit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid to Moscow early last week was another hopeless bid by Israel to try to influence Russian foreign policy. Netanyahu did just what his predecessors did, with one possible difference: In the past, meetings with the Russians have been not been kept secret. Netanyahu, because of his personal style and his way of doing things, preferred to create superfluous drama and to give his trip an air of secrecy.

There is nothing that is or has to be clandestine about an Israeli prime minister visiting Russia and meeting with its leaders. Every prime minister since the 1990s - Yitzhak Rabin, Netanyahu (during his first premiership), Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert - has gone there.

The pattern is always the same: The premier travels to Moscow armed with "secret" information emanating from Israel's intelligence community about some intention on Russia's part to sell arms or nuclear equipment to Iran or Syria. The Russians listen in silence to the Israeli complaints. In cases where Israel fears that Russian weaponry has trickled to Hezbollah via Iran, or that smuggled Russian technology has reached Iran's nuclear program, the Russians mostly deny it or ask for more information or promise they will look into it. And there, more or less, the matter rests.
What Israel's leaders fail to appreciate is that Russia has its own Middle Eastern interests and policies, which usually do not correspond with Israeli interests, aspirations and desires. Again and again, they fall into the trap of hoping that perhaps this time they will manage to persuade the Russians. And then, of course, they are humiliated.

Judging from its statements at least, Russia, unlike Israel and the United States, believes that Iran will not make nuclear weapons. But even if it does fear such an eventuality, it is less worried than either Israel or the United States, and is therefore not prepared to join them and the European Union in demanding harsher sanctions on Iran. Russia's interest is to bolster its economic and political influence in the Middle East and to challenge the United States. It is therefore ready to sell arms to Iran and Syria and to conduct a dialogue with Hamas.

There is perhaps only one thing Russia and Israel have in common, although Israelis will probably not rejoice at the comparison: Russia is ready to sell arms to almost any country in the world, exactly as Israel is. And, like Israel, Russia maintains its defense industry in order to advance its foreign policies, provide jobs and earn foreign currency.

Incidentally, Israel's arms sales and defense exports last year surpassed Russia's. Israel is the third largest arms exporter in the world, after the United States and France. Moreover, the claim that Russia sells weapons to Israel's enemies, while Israel does not sell weapons to those whom Russia perceives as enemies, is not accurate: Israel sold arms to Georgia for years and ignored all of Russia's protests over this. Only at the last moment before the war between Russia and Georgia broke out did the Defense Ministry reconsider and bar a large tank deal, one of whose initiators was the ministry's former director general, Amos Yaron.

The Russians say they will not sell offensive arms to Israel's enemies, only defensive ones, if at all. Therefore, they see Israel's demand that Russia refrain from selling weapons to Iran and Syria as presumptuous - especially when it comes to the deal involving the sale of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran. Why does Israel want to stop this deal? Because these weapons will make it difficult to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. And that is exactly what Russia's foreign policy aims to achieve.

Israeli Minister to Swedish Jews: Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism

Last update - 15:41 16/09/2009

By Cnaan Liphshiz, Haaretz Correspondent

Anti-Zionism is a new form of anti-Semitism that can be found in foreign media, Information and Diaspora Minister Yuli Edelstein (Likud) told Swedish Jews Tuesday. The comments were made during a videoconference held following the controversial publication in a Swedish paper of an article claiming Israeli soldiers stole organs from Palestinians.

Edelstein took questions from six Swedish Jews about Israel's attitude toward anti-Semitism, criticism of its policies, Jewish communities in the Diaspora, immigration and emigration.

Last month's organ-theft article by the tabloid Aftonbladet - which drew fierce criticism from Israel and Jewish organizations, and which may have led to the cancellation of a planned visit to Israel by Sweden's foreign minister - did not dominate the discussion, but seemed to have at least shaped some of it.
"Criticism is legitimate as long as it does not border on demonization or denying our right to the land of Israel," Edelstein told Omri Grinberg, who asked the minister whether he "immediately crosses out as irrelevant to his purposes" those who oppose "Israel's ongoing occupation."

"There are many NGOs that use the right to freedom of speech and work under false pretenses of concern for Israel, when what they are actually doing is causing damage to Israel and exposing it to danger," Edelstein added.

John Gradowski asked the minister how Israel balances its efforts to draw more Jews to immigrate with its stated goal of strengthening Jewish communities in the Diaspora.

"Israel does not believe that it is possible or essential that all Jews live in Israel," Edelstein responded, also as part of an answer to yet another question on this topic. "There is definitely a need for flourishing communities in the Diaspora that can both feel a connection to the Jewish people."

Tuesday's videoconference is part of a project initiated by European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor, which aims to foster stronger ties between Diaspora communities and Israel. The project will allow representatives from one Jewish community every month to hold a video-recorded discussion with an Israeli official or opinion-shaper. The videos will be posted online at www.leadel.net.

Arie Zuckerman, Secretary General of the European Jewish Fund, who promoted the project alongside Kantor, told Haaretz that the meeting with the Swedish community had been scheduled before the eruption in the wake of the Aftonbladet article.

"While we remain conscious of the great contributions in many areas of large communities such as the British and the French ones, we are trying here to reach out to smaller, more distant communities such as in Sweden," he said. The next videoconference will be held in October with Hungarian Jews, and the one following with representatives from the Jewish community in Milan.

Netanyahu calls UN Gaza probe a 'kangaroo court' against Israel

Last update - 23:46 16/09/2009

By Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haaretz Service

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday blasted a United Nations probe into Israel's winter offensive against Hamas as nothing but a "kangaroo court," after the investigators accused Israel of committing war crimes in a report.

"The Goldstone report is a kangaroo court against Israel, whose consequences harm the struggle of democratic countries against terror," said Netanyahu during closed meetings, in his first response to the report, which was released on Tuesday.

He was referring to the report's author, Richard Goldstone, a South African war crimes prosecutor.


Earlier Wednesday, Israel's deputy foreign minister said the report, which focuses on Israel's winter offensive against Hamas in the coastal territory, was "dangerous" and legitimized terrorism.

"The Goldstone report is a dangerous attempt to harm the principle of self-defense by democratic states and provides legitimacy to terrorism," Danny Ayalon told the heads of the American Jewish Committee during a meeting in New York.

The deputy minister urged the Jewish community leaders to work together in order to combat the report.

Though the report accuses both Israel and Hamas of carrying out war crimes during the three-week campaign in Gaza, it focuses primarily on Israel's actions during the hostilities.

The hostilities erupted on 27 December 2008 and lasted three weeks; Israel says 1,166 Palestinians were killed in the offensive, of whom the majority were militants. Human rights groups say, however, that approximately 1,400 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis were killed during the fighting: ten soldiers and three civilians.

Israel launched the offensive in response to persistent Palestinian rocket fire against towns and communities in the western Negev.

Ayalon added: "The Goldstone Report should be treated like the UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 equating Zionism with racism, thus we must mobilize and act with all force against the report in order to remove it".

Peres: Gaza probe makes mockery of history

President Shimon Peres issued a similarly scathing response to the report on Wednesday, which he said "makes a mockery of history."

"The Goldstone Commission report is a mockery of history," said Peres in reference to Richard Goldstone, the author of the report. "It fails to distinguish between the aggressor and a state exercising its right for self defense."

In his statement, Peres added: "The report in practice grants legitimacy to terrorism, premeditated shooting and killing while ignoring the duty and the right of a state to defend itself, something which is explicitly stated in the UN charter."

He blamed Hamas for launching the war, and said it also committed other "horrific crimes."

"Hamas has employed terrorism for years against Israeli children," he said. "It has detonated explosive devices in the heart of Israeli cities, harmed civilians, launched over 12,000 missiles and mortar shells aimed at innocent civilians with one clear goal in mind - to kill."

Peres noted that Israel had evacuated its soldiers and citizens from Gaza, opened the Hamas-ruled territory's crossings and aided in the rehabilitation of the Strip. After the Israeli evacuation in 2005, he said, Gaza was overrun by force by a "murderous, illegitimate terrorist organization," which launched a coup against the Palestinian Authority.

"Instead of building Gaza and worrying about the welfare of its residents, Hamas built offensive tunnels against Israel and brutally used Palestinian children and civilians in order to conceal terrorists and hide weapons," Peres said.

The president added that criticism against Israel's actions fails to offer effective alternatives that can stifle rocket fire against the country's outlying towns.

"It is a fact that the criticism leveled against Israel's actions in response to Hezbollah fire from Lebanon and Hamas fire from Gaza and against the building of the separation fence did not stop the shooting in the south, the shooting in the north, and the planting of explosives in the center," he said.

"IDF operations are what brought about economic prosperity in the West Bank, liberated Lebanon from the wrath of Hezbollah, and enabled Gaza residents to return to their daily routines."

Barak: UN Gaza report is a 'prize for terror'

The findings of the UN report constitute "a prize for terrorism," aides to Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio on Wednesday.

"The comparison between those who foment terrorism and its victims is unconscionable," an Israeli defense official told Israel Radio.

The defense establishment is making efforts to extend legal aid to officers who may face indictment on war crimes charges abroad, Israel Radio reported.

Earlier Wednesday, Ayalon said the findings of the UN report were predetermined, Israel Radio reported on Wednesday.

Ayalon said that Israel's cooperation with Goldstone would not have altered "one word" of the report. On the contrary, it would have "legitimized" the findings, Ayalon told Israel Radio.

Ayalon said the report "is a cynical attempt at role reversal in blaming Israel for war crimes instead of terrorist organizations." He added that Israel would work to enlist the support of Western democracies in a campaign "to prevent turning international law into a circus."

The deputy foreign minister, who is currently on a trip to Washington, told Israel Radio that the U.S. and the European Union both opposed the UN commission of inquiry.

Ayalon said he planned to meet Wednesday with U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice to discuss ways to minimize the report's damage to Israel before it is submitted to the Security Council for deliberations.

Israelis can now travel to Serbia with no visa

Last update - 17:18 16/09/2009
Israelis can now travel to Serbia with no visa
By The Associated Press

Israel has agreed with Serbia to abolish travel visas between the two countries.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Serbia Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic signed the agreement Wednesday in Belgrade. They say the deal will help boost economic and other ties.

It was the first ever official trip to Serbia by an Israeli foreign minister. Lieberman has also traveled to Croatia and will next visit Montenegro as part of his Balkans tour.
Lieberman says Israel has a history of friendly relations with Serbia, adding that Serbs and Jews fought together against the Nazis

Venezuela: Spain will represent our interests in Israel

Last update - 18:28 16/09/2009
Venezuela: Spain will represent our interests in Israel
By The Associated Press

President Hugo Chavez's government says Spain will represent Venezuela's diplomatic interests in Israel.

Venezuela's Foreign Ministry says its consular affairs will be conducted through the Spanish diplomatic mission. Late Tuesday's statement says the agreement was reached during Chavez's trip to Spain last week and it will be formalized in the coming hours.

Venezuela broke off diplomatic ties with Israel in January to protest its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Last week, Chavez accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people, telling a French newspaper that the bombing of Gaza late last year was an unprovoked attack.

"The question is not whether the Israelis want to exterminate the Palestinians. They're doing it openly," Chavez said in an interview with Le Figaro published on Wednesday.

The Venezuelan president, who has just completed a tour of Middle Eastern and Arab countries, brushed aside Israeli assertions that its attack on Gaza was a response to rocket fire from Islamist group Hamas which rules the coastal enclave.

"What was it if not genocide? ... The Israelis were looking for an excuse to exterminate the Palestinians," Chavez said, adding that sanctions should have been slapped on Israel.

Earlier in September, Chavez said that Iran will "not back down" in its quest for peaceful nuclear energy, French news agency AFP reported.

The statement came during a visit Chavez paid to Iran, where he met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shortly after he said Iran will not bow to pressure in meeting any deadline set by world powers and is ready for more sanctions over its nuclear program.

In wake of UN Gaza probe, how can Israel go to war again?

Last update - 15:52 16/09/2009
In wake of UN Gaza probe, how can Israel go to war again?
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent

The United Nations fact-finding mission into the Gaza offensive describes Israel as perpetrating war crimes - a police state which persecutes minorities - and tars the Palestinian leadership in the Gaza Strip and West Bank with similar accusations.

If its findings and recommendations are accepted, the International Criminal Court in The Hague could call a summit meeting between the leaders of Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority on the defendants' stand.

But the ultimate adjudicator on the report's fate will be Barack Obama, who now has another whip with which to flay Benjamin Netanyahu - if you don't freeze the settlements and agree to concessions, legal proceedings will commence against those responsible for Operation Cast Lead.
It's doubtful that Obama wishes to make such a threat, which would set a precedent against other militaries fighting terror in civilian areas, as is the U.S. army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report brings up a number of findings. First, then-prime minister Ariel Sharon erred in 2005 in not seeing the Gaza disengagement to its conclusion by asking the international community for recognition that the occupation of Gaza had ended. A significant portion of the crimes for which Israel is now blamed stemmed from its humanitarian responsibility for the residents of the Strip.

Second, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak (prime and defense ministers respectively during Cast Lead) erred in ignoring the Gazan population's suffering, and in allowing the death and destruction the IDF perpetrated during the Gaza campaign.

Lengthening the operation and choosing to send in ground forces - decisions which won widespread support among the Israeli public - wrought untold damage to Israel's international image, and bolstered the legitimacy of Hamas.

Third, Western governments may ignore this damning report, but it will now serve as the basis of criticism against Israel in public opinion, the media, on campuses and in think tanks, places where UN documents are still taken seriously.

Fourth, Israel decided to question the investigators' legitimacy and not cooperate with commission chair Richard Goldstone and his team. None of the defenses heard in Israeli media after the Gaza operation - that the IDF is "the most moral army in the world," that striking civilian-populated areas was necessary and proportional - were reported to the commission. To a university student in Britain or Spain, Israel's silence is perceived as an admission of guilt.

The appearance of Israeli "private citizens" before the panel proved its usefulness: Noam Shalit testified, and then Goldstone called for the release and return of his son.

Maybe it would have been better if the government had behaved as Shalit did, flooding Goldstone with information?

Last, and perhaps most important, the Goldstone report reinforces the most serious strategic threat Israel brought upon itself with the Gaza offensive, in that it saps international legitimacy for a similar operation in the future.

A country considering attacking the nuclear reactor in Iran, and then endangering itself to rocket fire from Lebanon and Gaza in response, will have to take into account whether the world will give Israel another opportunity for a severe, crushing response.

Goldstone's daughter: My father's participation softened UN Gaza report

Last update - 18:00 16/09/2009

By Haaretz Service

Had Richard Goldstone not served as the head of the UN inquiry into the Gaza war, the accusations against Israel would have been harsher, Goldstone's daughter, Nicole, said in an interview conducted in Hebrew with Army Radio on Wednesday.

"My father took on this job because he thought he is doing the best thing for peace, for everyone, and also for Israel," Nicole Goldstone told Army Radio.

She added that her father wrestled with the decision to take on the task. "It wasn't easy [for him]," Nicole Goldstone said. "My father did not expect to see and hear what he saw and heard."

Nicole Goldstone, who currently lives in Canada with her family, spoke of her great love for Israel. "Every time I dream of returning to the country or that my son will one day immigrate there," she told Army Radio. "Israel is more important to me than anything. I'm not there at the moment, but my heart is always there." Nicole Goldstone said she expects to host her father for the upcoming Rosh Hashanah holiday.

Israel seeks Obama backing on Gaza probe

Last update - 12:47 17/09/2009

By Barak Ravid and Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondents

Israel on Wednesday asked a number of senior members of the Obama administration to assist in curbing the international fallout from the Goldstone Commission report released this week, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.

The Foreign Ministry decided Wednesday to focus their efforts to combat the report's accusations on the United States, Russia and a few other members of the United Nations Security Council and the Human Rights Council that are involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Israeli message is that the Goldstone report threatens those countries because it makes the war on terror very difficult, and therefore efforts must be made to prevent it from being brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue Wednesday with U.S. special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, while Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon discussed it with U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and other senior officials.

The international commission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council and headed by Judge Richard Goldstone accuses Israel of war crimes, and is passing on its recommendations to the ICC in The Hague.

According to the report: "Some of the actions of the Government of Israel might justify a competent court finding that crimes against humanity have been committed," and "...the Mission finds that there have been a number of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law."

The Foreign Ministry has established a forum of legal experts to follow any lawsuits that could be filed as a result of the report and to prepare for a scenario in which a suit would be brought forward in The Hague.

Ayalon, who is on a working visit to the United States, began Tuesday to transmit messages to senior members of the U.S. administration and Congress on the need to object to the report. He noted that the same approach that was taken to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 equating Zionism with racism needs to be taken regarding the Goldstone report.

President Shimon Peres Wednesday released a statement saying that the Goldstone report "made a mockery of history."

The Prime Minister's Office decided Wednesday that Peres would take the front lines in Israel's campaign against the report. Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman would not express themselves publicly on the matter, but would engage in quiet diplomacy.

Senior Foreign Ministry officials said Wednesday that Israel's decision not to cooperate with the Goldstone Commission was the right one. They insisted this was the case, despite the fact that every Israeli who testified before the Goldstone Commission independently, like Noam Shalit, father of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, had an impact on the report and Goldstone himself related to each of the Israeli testimonies.

"We knew the report was going to be harsh, but Goldstone surprised us with how harsh," a senior Foreign Ministry official said. "It just goes to show we were right not to cooperate. If we would have, we would have legitimized this scandal."

The 575-page report describes 36 specific cases in which the IDF ostensibly broke international laws. A great many of the cases were already investigated by the IDF following the operation, within the units that took part in the fighting and by five committees established by order of Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. In most cases, the investigations determined that the soldiers acted according to orders as well as international law. However, it has not yet been decided whether to make public use of the material gathered by the IDF to refute the findings of the Goldstone panel, or to leave it as evidence in the event that suits are brought against specific Israel Defense Forces officers abroad.

The IDF and the Justice Ministry are concerned that the report will make it difficult for Israeli officers to travel abroad. A joint panel of the Justice Ministry, IDF and Foreign Ministry already has a team of legal experts that advise officers not to leave the country and in some cases has prevented them from visiting specific countries.

Every soldier and officer is required to undergo a security briefing before traveling abroad; over the past year, some officers who have participated in the fighting in Gaza, particularly if their names have appeared in the media, are required to undergo a special briefing.

Legal sources said that civilian experts are mainly involved in dealing with the issue, rather than the Military Advocate General's office.

Other than its participation in the joint panel, the IDF has officially declined to respond to the allegations in the Goldstone report. The army has decided to leave responses to criticism abroad of its actions to the Foreign Ministry.

Following Operation Cast Lead, Haaretz revealed a directive by the IDF not to publish the names and photos of battalion commanders who took part in the operation due to fear of legal reprisals against them. A few months later, the IDF reversed itself on the matter.

Israel is concerned that officers, and even senior government officials and ministers who were involved in approving the operation, would be at risk of being arrested in any country that is a signatory to the treaty recognizing the ICC in The Hague and is therefore obligated to respect its arrest warrants.

The authorities are particularly concerned about officers visiting countries that allow their legal systems "universal jurisdiction" - following complaints filed by private citizens or the initiatives of investigative judges - to try an individual suspected of war crimes in another country. Such countries include Britain, Belgium, Spain and Norway.

To date, there has only been one case of an IDF officer at risk of being tried in a foreign country - Maj. Gen. Doron Almog, former GOC Southern Command - who had to remain on board the plane when he flew to London and return to Israel for fear of being arrested, after a Palestinian group filed a suit against him for war crimes.

The water supply in the Gaza Strip is on the very of collapse due to

Last update - 11:15 17/09/2009
UN report: Gaza water supply on verge of collapse
By Zafrir Rinat, Haaretz Correspondent

The water supply in the Gaza Strip is on the very of collapse due to
pollution that has been worsened by damage to infrastructure during Operation Cast Lead, according to a United Nations Environment Program report released Tuesday.

Sewage contamination of the water table far exceeds allowable levels set by the World Health Organization, the report states. The UN report notes that it will take more than 20 years and a billion dollars to rehabilitate the water system in Gaza.

The report, based on a visit by representatives of the United Nations
Environmental Program to Gaza in May, says that nearly one-fifth of the
greenhouses in Gaza were destroyed in the war in Gaza. The movement of tanks caused long-term damage to the ground that will impede cultivation.

Damage to sewage facilities apparently led to waste water penetrating the
aquifer.

In a number of places, high concentrations of toxic substances were found, which had originated from within homes or industrial structures, although no significant source of pollution dangerous to humans was found.

However, the most severe problem according to the UN report is a decline in the quality of drinking water. The decline is not directly connected to Operation Cast Lead, but rather to prolonged over-pumping from Gaza's aquifer, which has led to its salination.

The report recommends seeking alternative water sources as soon as possible for Gaza, including desalinated sea water.

Gaza's population faces severe health problems due to the decline in drinking- water quality, such as the so-called "blue baby syndrome" in which babies' blood is damaged by exposure to nitrate compounds in waste. The babies become cyanotic, which causes their skin to take on a blue tinge, and to suffer from respiratory and intestinal problems.

U.K. labor unions back Israel boycott in wake of Gaza war

British labor unions on Thursday agreed to support a boycott of some Israeli goods in response to the offensive in Gaza last winter.

The boycott, proposed by the Fire Brigades Union, calls for a ban on importing goods produced in some Israeli settlements, an end of arms trading with Israel and disinvestment from some companies.

A motion to be debated on Thursday at a conference of labor union officials also condemns the actions of Hamas
About 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, were killed in the December-January offensive, which sought to stop rocket fire by Gaza militants on southern Israeli towns. Thirteen Israelis also died, including four civilians.

In May of this year, Norway's largest labor union urged the Scandinavian country to lead an international boycott of Israel if it did not reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, whose members constitute more than a third of the country's employees, said in a statement that both Israel and the Palestinians deserve to live in peace and security, and as long as this was not achieved, the Israeli government was to be held accountable.

Last update - 18:33 17/09/2009

U.K. labor unions back Israel boycott in wake of Gaza war

By Haaretz Service and The Associated Press

British labor unions on Thursday agreed to support a boycott of some Israeli goods in response to the offensive in Gaza last winter.

The boycott, proposed by the Fire Brigades Union, calls for a ban on importing goods produced in some Israeli settlements, an end of arms trading with Israel and disinvestment from some companies.

A motion to be debated on Thursday at a conference of labor union officials also condemns the actions of Hamas
The organization urged Israel to put an end to the "illegal occupation," respect the 1967 borders, halt the expansion of the settlements and remove the security barrier.

In February, Irish trade unionists said that they plan to launch a boycott of Israeli goods in 2009. Meanwhile, Manchester University Student Union adopted a resolution supporting a boycott of Israel.

In moving ahead with plans to boycott Israel, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) says it is relying on "evidence" left in the aftermath of the Israeli invasion into Gaza in December.

It also said to be drawing from a "fact-finding mission" to Gaza by a dozen of its senior members more than a year ago. Leaders within the Irish Congress of Trade Unions are to hold a conference this year to act as "a springboard" for their campaign.

Goldstone: Punish commanders who broke laws in Gaza

Last update - 18:01 17/09/2009

Goldstone: Punish commanders who broke laws in Gaza

By Haaretz Service

The head of a United Nations commission that charged Israel with committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip during its offensive there earlier last winter wrote Thursday that soldiers and commanders must be held accountable for serious violations during the fighting.

In a New York Times op-ed, Richard Goldstone wrote that "Israel must investigate, and Hamas is obliged to do the same. They must examine what happened and appropriately punish any soldier or commander found to have violated the law."

Goldstone accused both Israel and Hamas of conducting biased and ineffectual investigations, if at all, saying that "unfortunately, both Israel and Hamas have dismal records of investigating their own forces."

The head of a United Nations commission that charged Israel with committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip during its offensive there earlier last winter wrote Thursday that soldiers and commanders must be held accountable for serious violations during the fighting.

In a New York Times op-ed, Richard Goldstone wrote that "Israel must investigate, and Hamas is obliged to do the same. They must examine what happened and appropriately punish any soldier or commander found to have violated the law."

Goldstone accused both Israel and Hamas of conducting biased and ineffectual investigations, if at all, saying that "unfortunately, both Israel and Hamas have dismal records of investigating their own forces."

Calling a spade a spade

Al-Ahram
Sept 17, 2009

What more does it take to discredit current formulations of what constitutes the peace process, asks Ayman El-Amir*

---

Israel has decided to pre-empt the next stage in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process by rushing to issue new building permits for settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem in an attempt to establish new facts on the ground prior to negotiations. These are typical Israeli delaying tactics: to sow new obstacles that shift the focus and derail the process so that it can then restart from an off-field square, obviating the key peace issues and playing for time. The new step, advocated by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to placate his settler- colonialist partners in the Likud-led coalition has been rejected by US President Barack Obama, the Palestinian Authority, the European Union and Arab politicians of all shades. It reconfirms that Israel is not, and never has been, serious about a final peace settlement with the Palestinians. The peace process needs to be recast and rescued from Israel's Machiavellian designs.

The Arabs are in a bind. They dare not withdraw or freeze their 2002 collective peace overture to Israel. That would upset the US and the EU and play into the hands of a belligerent Israel. Infighting among the Palestinians, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's crackdown on Palestinian guerrilla fighters, is aborting any serious pressure against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the atrocities committed against the population. Additionally, pro-American Arab regimes are playing the Israeli game of focussing on the Iranian ascendancy as a threat to their survival while honouring the Palestinian cause with lip-service and circuitous consultations and conferences. In return, Israel is fomenting trouble in Egypt's most sensitive backyard -- African countries from which the water resources feeding the River Nile flow, a distracting source of worry for Egypt. President Obama's administration is trying to gently persuade a wild-eyed Israeli premier to engage in peace negotiations, keeping a wary eye on Congress and the Jewish lobby. It is a bleak picture.

Whatever hard-core Israeli chauvinists might suppose there is little doubt in the mind of the world's public that Israeli policies are confusing the quest for peace with territorial expansion and the persecution of Jews in Europe at the hands of Europeans. Israel is bent on expansion, annexing more Palestinian territory to create irreversible new realities that, when negotiated under the weight of occupation, will ensure Israel retains the lion's share of the Arab territories it occupies. Israel, backed by various US administrations, has flouted every international law, killed any number of Palestinians and transferred more than 260,000, seizing houses and land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem under military laws of occupation that are no different from those of the Nazi occupation in Poland or Czechoslovakia during World War II. The Israeli wall of shame that runs for 386 kilometres on Palestinian territories and is 80- 100 metres wide was built in the name of security. It divided Palestinian families, separated farmers from their land to which they cannot cross, and locks nearly 100,000 inhabitants of East Jerusalem out of their city, which they can visit only if they possess a special permit issued by the occupation authorities. Needless to say, such permits are more often refused than issued. Israel is laying a choking siege to Gaza, starving its population and meting out a death sentence to the sick and the old. The Palestinian-Israeli peace process, of which the Oslo Accords signed in September 1993 represent an unprecedented capitulation on the part of the late Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat, has clearly reached a dead-end.

In the 18 years since the multilateral Madrid conference the Arab- Israeli conflict has been negotiated in a closed circle between the Arabs and the Israelis under US sponsorship. So-called peace efforts in the form of initiatives, shuttle diplomacy, the Quartet, the make-believe 2007 Annapolis conference, the much-touted two-state solution plan as well as the George Mitchell and Hillary Clinton rounds of negotiations have all come to naught. Israel continues to change tactics and shift the focus. It is time the whole package went to the international forum where it started -- to the United Nations.

The UN is notorious for adopting resolutions that sit dead on its books. The General Assembly and the Security Council have issued 19 resolutions on the status of Jerusalem and the responsibilities of the occupying power, each of which has been brushed aside by Israel. As far back as 1980 the UN Security Council adopted a landmark resolution (S/465) in which it determined "all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel's policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East". The US, then under the leadership of president Jimmy Carter, happily voted for the resolution, not least because it did not invoke Chapter VII of the UN Charter that carries the power of punitive measures. It met the same fate of dozens of other General Assembly and Security Council resolutions on Palestine.

Israel hates to participate in international conferences on the Arab- Israeli conflict without the guaranteed protection of the US for fear of facing myriad resolutions defending the Palestinians. It prefers limited, backroom negotiations where it can manoeuvre, set conditions, avoid any binding framework, renege on any commitment and, eventually, pick up the ball and go home if it does not like the game, leaving behind hand-wringing Palestinian Arabs. Then the US pressures its Arab allies to offer more concessions. The Arabs agree and Israel comes back with another convoluted scenario. In the meantime, it expropriates more Palestinian land, levels more houses, detains or kicks out more Palestinians, introduces more restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, violates more human rights and builds more settlements for new immigrants to move into.

With the convening of the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly, scheduled for 15 September, the ball is now in the court of the Arabs. Will they have the temerity to pronounce the piecemeal process dead, bring the whole issue back to the United Nations and build new momentum behind it? Will they have the nerve to insist on Russian involvement in the face of US objections? Will they have the courage to shift the focus back from the Israeli-instigated Iranian threat to the clear and present Israeli danger to the region?

The Palestinians have been patient enough with the peace process, not least because of their internal strife. But there is no telling the circumstances or the timing of a possible third Intifada, or of the Israeli military setting the whole of the occupied territories aflame in retaliation. As Arab diplomatic and security officials busy themselves with the Gilad Shalit cause, the dangers posed by Iran and how to gain the favour with the Obama administration, Gaza remains under siege, as it has since the Israeli onslaught in December 2008. The Palestinians are in despair. It will not take long, or much, before they explode into another rebellion.

* The writer is former Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington, DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/964/op15.htm

Israel in Africa

Tel Aviv's promises to African states are the gloss on an exercise in extreme cynicism, writes Galal Nassar

---

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, at the head of a huge convoy of Israeli political, military and security advisors and a train of merchants and representatives of major Israeli companies, has gone knocking on the doors of five sub-Saharan African nations. Africa's 54 nations have rebuffed Israel's diplomatic overtures for decades. Today the Netanyahu administration obviously believes it stands a chance to breach that wall. After all, some Arab countries now recognise Israel. Not least of these is Egypt, the rock that had long dashed the dream of Golda Meir and her successors to foray into Africa and feed on its abundant sources of wealth.

Now, not only are many African nations prepared to thaw their relations with Israel, some have already begun to explore the possibility of strategic cooperation. Tel Aviv fully appreciates the vast potential Africa offers. In addition to copious natural resources Africa represents strategic depth for the Arab world, for which reason Israel has been instrumental in arming some African regimes and aggravating crises among others, including Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea and South Africa. Israel has also used parts of the continent for its military and scientific experiments, in the course of which it has ruined agricultural land, spread corruption and sown misery.

If people in the countries Lieberman is visiting think he is interested in boosting their economies, enhancing agricultural production, optimising their vast water resources and putting Israeli technological expertise at their disposal they are mistaken. They are even more gravely misled if they believe Israel is concerned about the lives and welfare of the African people, that it is eager to improve their standards of living, rid them of the plagues of poverty, unemployment, disease and draught and to quell the fires of civil war, insurrection and internecine strife. Nor will Israel help them overcome the discrimination and the inferiority complex that it claims the Arabs have perpetuated and nurtured. Whatever Tel Aviv would like them to believe, Israel is not a safe haven for their wealth and future. Israel's concerns are exclusively shaped by its own agenda. It could not care less for the stability, welfare, safety or stability of the African people. Sudan offers the clearest proof of this. Accused by Israeli officials of arming and supporting the Palestinian resistance, Tel Aviv is working assiduously to encircle and isolate Sudan from the outside, and to fuel insurrection inside Sudan.

Israel has long been keen to capitalise on Africa's mineral wealth. It plans to appropriate African diamonds and process them in Israel which is already the world's second largest processor of diamonds. And if the composition of Lieberman's entourage is anything to go by, Israel is also interested in African uranium, thorium and other radioactive elements used to manufacture nuclear fuel. In addition it is looking for new markets for its range of lightweight weapons. It also appears that not a few Israeli military pensioners are on the lookout for job opportunities as trainers of African militias, while other members of Lieberman's delegation are facilitating contracts for Israelis to train various militias. The huge oil reserves in a number of African countries are also high on Israel's agenda, with Tel Aviv seeking a share in exploration, extraction and export operations.

Since the 1950s Israel has sought to compromise Egypt's water security by consolidating its influence over countries straddling the sources of the Nile in the central African great lakes and the Ethiopian highlands. By keeping Egypt preoccupied with its water security Israel imagines that it can diminish Cairo's role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Towards this end Israel's Ministry of Science and Technology conducted extensive experiments and eventually created a type of plant that flourishes on the surface or the banks of the Nile and that absorbs such large quantities of water as to significantly reduce the volume of water that reaches Egypt.

Israeli concerns with Iran also feature high on the agenda of Lieberman's African tour. Israel has been keeping a close eye on the Iranian drive in Africa where Tehran, following Beijing's footsteps, has become involved in a number of major development projects. Tel Aviv is very wary of Tehran's ambitions in a continent so rich in the raw materials for producing nuclear fuel. It hopes to forge a network of strategic relations in order to check the expansion of Iranian influence in Africa. Working to its advantage are its close ties with Washington, which can use its extensive influence in Africa to smooth out many of the bumps that would otherwise hamper Israel's African drive.

Israel's ultra-right foreign minister believes he can sneak into the backyard of the Arab and Islamic world in order to deprive it of strategic depth. It is therefore essential that we expose the true nature of Israeli economic and military plans in Africa and expose their motives. The fact that Israel is physically present in occupied Palestine does not mean that the Zionist peril threatens Palestine and the Palestinians alone. Zionist designs target every corner of the Arab and Islamic world, in which they fuel crises, weave plots, exploit resources, sap expertise and generally conspire against the people. The Zionist hand can be detected behind the conflicts that rage between Arab regimes. Its espionage networks seek to infiltrate Arab and Muslim societies. Israel's scientists and experts steal our subterranean water and its merchants roam the Arab and Islamic world to either purloin or purchase uranium. Now, more than ever, Israel's military, security, economic and political tentacles have reached every corner of Africa, donning many different philanthropic façades in order to exploit Africa's hunger and desperation in order to drive the Arabs and Muslims out of a continent in which they have always been welcome. The Arab and Muslim world must act quickly to keep the doors of Africa open to it. This requires a new strategy that simultaneously stops Israel from encircling the Arab world and gaining control over its sources of prosperity and well-being.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/964/op2.htm

An end to war?

Al-Ahram
Sept 17, 2009

Left out of the options under consideration in "Obama's war" is the only one with any chance of success, argues Ramzy Baroud*

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Click to view caption

Karzai

Despite assurances to the contrary in Washington and a major policy speech in London, one need not quibble with the obvious fact that the situation is deteriorating beyond repair in Afghanistan. Although international media is more concerned with what that means politically for United States President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, little attention is given to the browbeaten and war-weary people of that country.

One should know that public support for the war has greatly diminished, when conservative commentators like The Washington Post columnist George Will write: "US forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy. America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, air strikes and small, potent Special Forces units."

Okay, so his narrative is still ultimately violent, but the fact remains that the war mood is changing. After all, Will's 1 September article was entitled, "Time to Get Out of Afghanistan."

Dan Senor and Peter Wehner responded with a peculiar diatribe in the New York Times, accusing Will of allowing his party allegiance to influence his views on the war. The two authors, senior fellows at major US think tanks, offered a bloody rationale wrapped in deceptive wording. They argued that historically Democrats opposed Republican wars and Republicans have done the same, and that must change. It was implied that pretty much every major war in recent decades was a war that served US national security interests; therefore, "Republicans should resist the reflex that all opposition parties have, which is to oppose the stands of a president of the other party because he is a member of the other party." In other words, yes to war, whether by Democrats or Republicans.

The intellectual wrangling, of course, is not happening in a vacuum; it almost never does. Indeed, there is much politicking going on; intense deliberation in Washington, political debates in London; defensive French statements, and more. It seems that the war in Afghanistan is reaching a decisive point, militarily in Afghanistan itself, and politically in major Western capitals.

But why the sudden hoopla over Afghanistan? For after all, the bloody war has been grinding on for eight long years.

The Taliban and various groups opposing the Kabul government and their Western benefactors are gaining ground, not just in the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. Daring Taliban attacks are now taking place in the north as well, long seen as peaceful, thus requiring little attention. On 26 August a roadside bomb hit the car of the chief of the provincial Justice Department in the northern Kunduz province, killing him, and sending shock waves through Kabul. The bloody message was meant to echo as a political one: no one is safe, nowhere is safe. Another attack was reported in the province of Laghman, in the east, where 22 people, mostly civilians were killed. Among the dead were four Afghan officials including the deputy chief of the National Directorate of Security, Abdullah Laghmani. The irony is too obvious to state.

In Washington, London and Paris politicians wish us to believe that they are not unnerved by all of this. They exaggerated the significance of the recent Afghani elections, attempting to once again underscore that the "crucial" elections placed Afghanistan on a crossroads. Crossroads? What does that even mean, in any practical terms? George Will, although selective in his logic, was honest enough to mention that President Hamid Karzai's "vice-presidential running mate is a drug trafficker." Even US officials admit that the government they've created following the war is corrupt, to say the least.

Richard Holbrooke, among other foreign envoys "responsible for Afghanistan", told reporters in Paris on 2 September that US officials have no preference among the candidates, nor are they particularly interested in runoff elections, but they wished to see a government that appoints "more efficient, less corrupt ministers". It behooves those "responsible for Afghanistan" to remember that inefficiency and corruption were the outcome of the very policies they have so eagerly adopted in the country. No sympathy for Karzai here, but it's unfair to point the finger at a feeble leader whenever a Western strategy fumbles, as it has repeatedly.

Speaking of strategies, what is the plan ahead? French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner promised that foreign troops will stay put in Afghanistan unless the country's security was ensured, reported Xinhua. In practical terms, this means never, for how could security ever visit that region as long as the strategy is hostage to two equally destructive narratives -- the Senor/Wehner troop surges vs Will's "offshore" strategy?

Hubris aside, Washington and London are facing some difficult political and military decisions ahead. Top officials in both capitals are using grim and somber language. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, responding to a call by the top US general in Afghanistan for a fresh approach to the conflict, is considering yet another troop increase as part of Obama's new Afghan strategy.

The sense of urgency was invited by the detailed report of the newly appointed General Stanley McChrystal, who maintains that "success" was still possible, but a change of strategy is needed. The report resulted in intense deliberation in Washington, highlighted by grim press conferences involving the Pentagon's heavyweights, including Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over what to do about "Obama's war".

Speaking at the Pentagon, Gates equivocated: "I don't believe that the war is slipping through the administration's fingers. I absolutely do not think it is time to get out of Afghanistan (but there remains) limited time for us to show that this approach is working."

The details of the new Obama strategy are still not very clear, but the commitment to the war is still unquestionable, as expressed in a "major" 4 September speech by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "When the security of our country is at stake we cannot walk away," said Brown, according to the BBC.

As Brown was solemnly speaking about British security, NATO air strikes on a pair of fuel tankers killed up to 90 people, according to Afghan authorities.

Indeed, the situation in Afghanistan requires a fresh approach, although not the one George Will had in mind.

* The writer is editor of PalestineChronicle.com.

Karzai is under a cloud

Al-Ahram
Sept 17, 2009

'Widespread vote rigging, a beleaguered incumbent president and a mounting death toll because of NATO atrocities and the Taliban resurgence hamstring Afghanistan, writes Gamal Nkrumah

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Click to view caption

Two people were killed and 10 wounded including four NATO soldiers in a suicide bomb attack outside a NATO military airport in Kabul

Dealmaking is the new buzzword among Afghanistan watchers even as peacemaking is a formidable feat facing the country, considering the fact that the already deplorable security situation in the war-battered country is fast deteriorating. The G20 leaders, scheduled to meet in two weeks time in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, are determined to put Afghanistan atop their agenda.

The crisis in Afghanistan is the most intractable ever handled by NATO and the post-World War II Western powers. A conference is hurriedly being set up to bring together NATO, the United Nations and the newly-elected Afghan government -- if and when the election results are announced and acknowledged. Despite the warm words about the forthcoming conference, there is little evidence that the big powers, and particularly the United States, have yet taken steps to understand what is going on in Afghanistan. Washington claims that it desires peace in Afghanistan, but it has come under increasing pressure to outline how it intends to reach its stated objective.

Why did Washington embark on a course that was bound to lead to disgrace? Because of the policy blunders of ex- president George W Bush who had, after all, his head in the clouds. So what about the current US President Barack Obama? Unlike Bush, Obama does not live in cloud- cuckooland. He is savvy and articulate, but he does have his hands tied. If Taliban doesn't actually throw the NATO forces out of Afghanistan, they are most certainly going to clout them. They already are doing just that.

In a flurry of diplomatic activity to salvage the wreckage that has become of Afghanistan, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel unveiled plans for the conference on Afghanistan. Speaking at a joint press conference in Berlin, Merkel said that she favoured a "thorough and quick" NATO investigation into the German-ordered air strike in northern Afghanistan.

"Any innocent person killed or hurt, including through German actions, I deeply regret," Merkel confessed.

In April, Merkel toured the military bases of Mazer-I- Sherif, Kunduz and Feyzabad in Afghanistan and reiterated that German troops would stay in Afghanistan until their goals were achieved.

"The goal is to hand over full control of the country as soon as possible to a democratically-elected government," said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. "We have a goal, and that is self-sustaining security in Afghanistan," Merkel told the German Parliament, the Bundestag. Germany currently has 4,050 troops in the NATO- led stabilisation force in Afghanistan. But what would be extremely foolish is for Washington and its allies to start imposing decrees on a puppet Afghan government.

Indeed, not all the German politicians are as penitent as Merkel. The German Defence Secretary Frank Josef Jung refused to resign over the recent incident where the Germans order the bombing of two fuel trucks, killing 107, almost all civilians, according to Abdel-Wahid Omarkhel, the Chardarah district governor in Kunduz province. Jung insisted the German air strike was "militarily necessary and correct."

The Chief of the International Forces in Afghanistan United States General Stanley McChrystal was equally uncompromising. Be that as it may, Brown and Merkel are to write, together with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon outlining their outlook on security, government and development in Afghanistan. Gregor Gysi, the parliamentary head of the radical left party called the slaughter "unjustified and inexcusable", reflecting broad public opinion.

And this raises the most shaming question of all: where were the Afghan authorities in this entire trauma? "What an error of judgement. More than 90 dead all because of a simple lorry that was moreover, immobilised in a riverbed. Why didn't they send in ground troops to recover the fuel tank," President Hamid Karzai was quoted as saying in the French daily Le Figaro. He did not even bother to embark on the most elementary probing of the disaster. He was, as always, ignored.

The West sees the problem in Afghanistan as one of Afghan incompetence. They blame all the troubles of the country on the weak and ineffectual government they hastily installed. Brown, this week for instance, urged the Germans to keep training the Afghan army. He wants to see a larger and better-trained Afghan army that could overpower Taliban forces.

So where does this leave the Afghan election results? In limbo, of course, is the concise answer. Karzai is a write off. Abdallah Abdallah is a borderline candidate for the presidency of a defunct nation-state. So the G20 might as well hold their collective breath, and yet another conference will solve nothing. Such forums dealing with Afghanistan are invariably ahistorical, ignoring Afghanistan's uniqueness and its current role as a pawn in a cynical international power game.

Mocking Obama

Sept 19, 2009
Al-Ahram

While the world thought Obama would champion justice, Israel has proven that his words are meaningless, writes Khaled Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem

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Despite American and international calls for freezing Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, the Israeli government this week authorised the building of hundreds of additional settler units on occupied Palestinian land. The decision, taken by Defence Minister Ehud Barak, represents a direct challenge to the Obama administration that has been urging Israel to freeze settlement building but to no avail.

The decision also seems to underscore Israel's undeclared resolve to prevent the creation of a viable Palestinian state despite ostensibly insincere statements to the contrary by Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The planned settler units will be built across the West Bank, including in the "Gush Etzion" area, north of Hebron and Maali Adomim east of Jerusalem.

More settler units will also be built in East Jerusalem, killing Palestinian hopes for making the city the future capital of a sovereign Palestinian state. Netanyahu has been saying that the planned settlement expansion is being pursued in tacit understanding with the Americans, a claim the Obama administration has denied.

Earlier, the White House said it "regreted" reports that Netanyahu planned to approve the construction of hundreds of additional settler units in the West Bank. "Continued settlement activity is inconsistent with Israel's commitment under the roadmap," a White House statement said. The statement went on: "President Obama doesn't accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop. We are working to create a climate in which negotiations can take place, and such actions make it harder to create such a climate."

However, verbal condemnations from Washington criticising settlement expansion have obviously had little or no impact on Israeli government thinking. One Israeli official was recently quoted as saying, "We do the work, and the Americans will do the talking." Another official advised Netanyahu that there is no reason for Israel to freeze settlement building in the West Bank, as long as the US doesn't take "tangible and proactive measures against us".

The Israeli interpretation of the American stand, as mere verbal opposition intended to appease Arabs, seems plausible. The White House has refused to take any practical measures to force Israel to stop undermining whatever prospects still remain for the two- state solution to be realised, merely reiterating old platitudes that building more settlements is contrary to the spirit of negotiations.

Moreover, the overall stand of the Obama administration seems to have shifted lately from concentration on the settlement issue to lukewarm calls for the resumption of peace talks between the Netanyahu government and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The new settlement expansion plans have drawn angry but helpless reactions from PA officials, with Saeb Erekat, the erstwhile chief Palestinian negotiator, accusing Israel of seeking to predetermine the outcome of the peace process even before the beginning of negotiations. "Israel's decision to approve the construction of over 450 settler units nullifies any effect that the settlement freeze, when and if announced, will have."

Another Palestinian official, Nabil Abu Rudeina, reiterated the official Palestinian stand, saying, "we will not go back to the negotiating table before a halt to settlement building."

Similarly, Hamas castigated the "travesty otherwise known as the peace process," saying that the new settlement expansion plan proved that President Obama was losing his credibility in failing to get Israel to take the path of peace. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement to the press this week that, "the peace process is a term that only exists in the minds of those who wager on it while Israel continues to steal Palestinian land."

The Israeli government has been saying that it will initiate a freeze on settlement expansion, while continuing work on some 2,500 settler units all over the West Bank. This is in addition to the 450-500 new settler units approved by Barak over the weekend. The Israeli government has also failed to remove dozens of settler outposts in the West Bank, which Barak had pledged to the Americans to dismantle.

Building thousands of new settler units to compensate for outposts that have not been removed is simple subterfuge, cheating, trickery and prevarication, and shows that Israel is not only insincere about pursuing a serious peace process with the Palestinians but is also disingenuous about living side- by-side in peace with the Palestinians.

This week, former US president Jimmy Carter alluded to this, saying that Palestinian leaders were seriously considering a one-state solution with Israel as the latter continued to make the prospect of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank unrealistic through relentless expansion activities. "By renouncing the dream of an independent Palestine, they would become fellow citizens with their Jewish neighbours and then demand equal rights within a democracy," Carter wrote in the Washington Post Sunday.

Carter, who has made several tours in the Middle East, said Palestinian frustration and disillusionment couldn't last indefinitely. "Increasingly desperate Palestinians see little prospect of their plight being alleviated. Political, business and academic leaders are making contingency plans should President Obama's efforts fail."

Al-Ahram Weekly asked Hani Al-Masri, a prominent political analyst, if he thought the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah had any alternative course of action in the event that Obama's strategy in the Middle East collapses. He suggested that PA President Mahmoud Abbas was betting too much on Obama: "Abbas believes that the alternative to failed negotiations is more negotiations. However, this position is untenable and could only boomerang on Abbas and create a sort of implosion within the Fatah organisation."

Al-Masri also said he didn't believe the PA would continue to refuse the resumption of talks with the Netanyahu government, as Abbas has been vowing. "They were negotiating with the previous Olmert government when settlement expansion was going at full speed. Besides, they are in no position to say no to the Obama administration."

Depleting Egypt's reserves

Sept 16, 2009
Al-Ahram

Amr Kamal Hamouda* explores the complexities with which the issue of selling gas to Israel is laden

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Nothing could be more ambiguous than the issue of selling Egyptian gas to Israel. The news that it is happening is all too often confirmed by the Israeli media, while in Egypt, the whole matter has always been shrouded in a peculiar silence.

From time to time, the Egyptian Prime minister or the minister of petroleum announces that there are behind-the-scenes negotiations underway with the Israelis to amend the terms of the first gas export agreement signed in 2005. These are followed by confirmations that the price has been raised to $3 or $3.25 per million British thermal units (Btu), instead of the exceedingly low price levels that had been previously agreed and which range between a minimum of 75 cents of a dollar per million Btu, and a maximum of $1.25 per million Btu, while the price of crude oil reaches $35 per barrel.

According to a report by the Organisation for Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) dated 1 July 2005, the price of gas was $6 per million Btu at that time. When the time for implementation of the agreement came, international price levels exceeded $9 and have now reached $11.50 per million Btu, according to the Henry Hub indicator for gas prices, which is used by the Egyptian General Petroleum Authority.

Further, over the past few weeks a second agreement to export an equal quantity of gas to Israel but at a higher price has been reported by the media.

As has continually been the case, the news has not been confirmed by the Egyptian government, and the price at which Egyptian gas is sold remains open to speculation. While some reports indicate that the price is in the vicinity of $4 per million Btu, other sources have indicated that the price is around $3.5. According to Adletic, the Israeli company that signed the agreement with the East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) company, Egyptian gas is bought at $5 per million Btu in the context of a 17-year agreement with a total value of $1.5 billion.

It also appears there is another agreement between the Israeli company Dorad and EMG at the same price for the supply of 12.5 billion cubic metres for a period of 17 years, subject to renewal for another five years and at a total value of around $2.5 billion.

The quantities of Egyptian gas covered by both the first and second agreements will go to supply Israeli power plants, among them new plants, four of which will be established by Adletic in southern Israel during the coming two years.

Now, if the price according to the second agreement is $5 per million Btu between EMG on the one hand and Adletic and Dorad on the other hand, then most probably it is less between EMG and the Ministry of Petroleum to allow for EMG's margin of profit as an intermediary entity in these deals. As such, the most probable price for the sale of Egyptian gas to EMG would be around $3.5 per million Btu. This price is still very far from international levels. It would appear that overall, there is no clarity in the relationship between the Egyptian government and EMG, which is responsible for exporting gas to Israel.

Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Moufid Shehab has previously stated that exporting gas to Israel was a commercial issue, while government lawyers underlined that such agreements should be understood as an exercise of sovereignty.

Amid such opacity, over the past year there has been widespread public discontent and opposition against the first gas export agreement to Israel. In addition to the unfair pricing of Egyptian gas, other flaws in the first agreement include a fixed price over a period of 20 to 25 years. With the absence of adjustment clauses, normally included in all long-term agreements, the reassessment of the price remains unforeseeable. It is worth noting that Egyptian losses estimated by independent experts resulting from the implementation of this agreement are as high as $9 million per day.

What is even more striking here is that the Egyptian natural gas reserves are limited, raising many question marks regarding the conclusion of a second and third agreement. Also surprising was the announcement made by the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) that it had laid down a plan for increasing Egyptian gas exports through the submarine pipeline that extends to Israel to 120 trillion Btu. This is a 137.5 per cent increase from quantities exported during 2008/2009.

Egypt is not such an energy-rich country that it can justify such large gas exports. It appears we have doubled gas exports to Israel, while there are new agreements to supply gas to Lebanon during the coming months, and another commitment to export 1.2 billion cubic metres to Bulgaria starting 2011. In addition, there is a plan to support the Nabucco gas pipeline in Eastern Europe with Egyptian gas.

All this leaves analysts and observers wondering, and without clear data or indication, whether all this is to be considered an excess in agreements aimed at making up for the shortage in investments in the oil sector and the decline in crude oil production. Is it also an attempt to repay the sector's debts to foreign partners, which total LE600 million per year over a 10-year period?

If that is the case, it is hard to believe that this strategy alone will make up for current losses because it will only weaken the position of future reserves, especially if we know that current reserves will suffice for only 19 years. The price of crude oil has again risen to $72, and it is estimated that it may rise to $200 during the coming two years, despite the current international crisis, given that the world production of crude oil has remained relatively constant.

It is therefore imperative to preserve the natural gas that is available today in Egypt and to halt exports, especially if we consider the increasing annual rates in domestic consumption. It is estimated that domestic consumption of gas during the period 2007-2020 will reach 1,100 million tonnes. If officially proven oil and gas reserves are around 16 billion barrels -- among which 12 are gas -- which is equivalent to 2,200 million tonnes, then Egypt's share of these reserves after deducting the foreign partners' share, may in fact be depleted by the year 2020 or shortly after.

No doubt that we face a true dilemma. We know we are exporting large quantities of gas to Israel at considerably low prices while our reserves are being depleted. This casts a shadow on the energy situation in Egypt and adds to its precariousness. Furthermore, it underlines our belief that there is an absence of a clearly defined and effective energy strategy that takes into consideration both present and future needs.

* The writer is an oil analyst.

Exercising Entebbe

10 - 16 September 2009
Issue No. 964
Al-Ahram

On a groundbreaking African Safari, Israeli foreign minister visits key Nile Basin nations and energy-rich West African countries at just the wrong moment for Arabs, writes Gamal Nkrumah

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Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman flew to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa last Wednesday, 2 September, where he met Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin. Lieberman's visit to Ethiopia, strategically located in the heart of the Horn of Africa, indicates that Israeli interests re-ignite from the embers of African conflicts.

What really transpired during Lieberman's nine-day African tour is not hard to know. The high-profile publicity machine of Lieberman's African tour steamrolled through the continent. Lieberman personifies the triumphalist chauvinism of the current Israeli right- wing government, but in Africa he clearly received the red carpet treatment. In Ethiopia he participated in the inauguration of an important model development project, the Butajira Centre for Excellence, which is a tripartite project between Ethiopia, Israel and the United States. Among the distinguished guests was the outgoing US ambassador to Ethiopia who also doubles as US ambassador to the African Union, headquartered in Addis Ababa, Donald Yamamoto. Also present was Ambassador Haim Divon, head of MASHAV -- Israel's National Agency for International Development Cooperation and the USAID Mission Director for Ethiopia Thomas Staal. MASHAV has emerged as a key instrument of Israeli foreign policy in Africa. Lieberman also met with Ethiopian State Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Abera Deresa and other key Ethiopian officials. The Israeli Ambassador to Ethiopia Oded Ben-Haim stressed Israel's intention of stepping up its agricultural and development collaborative efforts in Ethiopia.

"Lieberman's tour of five key African nations spells disaster for Arab interests on the continent. Israel collaborates closely with the US in Africa and cannot function separately from Washington," explained Professor Sayed Felefel, former director of the University of Cairo's Institute of African Studies.

Felefel told Al-Ahram Weekly that Israel was filling an Arab void in Africa. "Lieberman's African tour was timed deliberately before Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit embarks on his own African tour. Israel is conscious that Egypt has of late become increasingly interested in developing stronger ties with African countries south of the Sahara. Israel therefore is determined to upstage Egypt and sabotage Egyptian efforts."

Horn of Africa politics are getting rockier, and a dangerous vacuum has opened at the heart of this vital albeit impoverished region's political dynamics. "There is growing evidence of Israeli embroilment in the conflict of Darfur," Felefel noted.

A showcase of multi-party democracy and state-building in Africa, Ghana, which Lieberman visited on Monday and Tuesday, was especially important destination for the Israelis. The country's economy is among the fastest growing on the continent and its newfound oil wealth bodes well.

Small wonder then that Lieberman, now in the saddle as Israel's top diplomat, was keynote speaker at an economic forum in Ghana and met Ghanaian President John Atta Mills and Foreign Minister Mohamed Mumuni. Lieberman made it clear that he was well aware that poverty has risen sharply in spite of recent economic growth. As in other countries visited by Lieberman, who was met in the Ghanaian capital Accra by Ghana's Ambassador designate to Israel Hanson Hull, aquaculture is high on the list of priorities as far as bilateral relations are concerned.

In neighbouring Nigeria, Lieberman met his Nigerian counterpart Ojo Maduekwe and Defence Minister Shettima Mustafa. He signed an unprecedented trade agreement with the economic powerhouse of West Africa and the region's dominant military power and main oil exporter.

In the Nigerian capital Abuja, Lieberman also signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding and an international cooperation agreement with the 15-member state Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Even more critical was his stated interest in ECOMOG, the military peacekeeping force of ECOWAS.

Israel's foreign minister stated that he was not in favour of cash handouts, but that he intended to boost trade and economic ties with African countries and hence 20 business leaders accompanied Lieberman on his African tour, the first by an Israeli foreign minister in more than two decades.

Officials from the Ministry of Finance, the minister of defence and the National Security Council also accompanied Lieberman. Serious security problems notwithstanding, West Africa -- thanks to ECOMOG -- has not descended into the anarchy seen in Horn of Africa countries such as Somalia.

The groundbreaking five-nation African tour is aimed at restoring Israeli influence in Africa at a time when China and other Asian emerging economies are busy doing brisk business in Africa. It is, after all, difficult to yield power and influence.

"Lieberman's African tour is designed to whitewash Israel's tarnished image in the world," Secretary- General of the Cairo-based Africa Society Ambassador Ahmed Haggag told the Weekly.

In Kenya on the second leg of his African tour, Lieberman met with President Mwai Kibaki and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka as well as Prime Minister Raila Oginga. Kenyan officials said they are ready to work with Israel in order to achieve food sufficiency "just like Israel which is a net food exporter". Not surprisingly, he also met with Kenya's Minister for Water and Irrigation Charity Kaluki Ngilu.

Israel and Kenya signed an important agreement on water. Kenyan officials dispelled speculation that the agreement was aimed at compromising Egypt's legitimate water security concerns.

Lieberman rounded up his African safari with a trip to Uganda where he met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. In an act replete with symbolism, Lieberman also participated in a memorial ceremony for the fallen victims of the 1976 Entebbe Rescue Operation when an Air France jetliner was hijacked by Palestinians.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/964/fr2.htm

Excellent article. This is in regards to harvesting Palestinians' kidneys and fetching as much as $160,000 for each kidney. The Jewish media has become very defensive! Not a single one of them had mentioned the word 'libel'! Go figure! Only that the story appeared on a 'tabloid' as a way to knock down the seriousness of the story. Also the words 'anti-Semitic' 'blood-lable' and that the world hates Jews have appeared on all articles written by Jews to refute the story. But not the word 'libel'. They would have filed the libel lawsuit before the ink was dry on the article that first broke the story. But guess what? No libel suit has been filed so many days later. Go figure

August 31, 2009

Israeli Bodysnatchers

By BOUTHAINA SHAABAN

Story Puts Israeli Government in Frenzied Denial Mode

The investigative report written by Swedish journalist Donald Boström and published in Sweden’s largest newspaper Aftonbladet about Israeli occupation forces killing Palestinians with the objective of stealing their organs has raised a political and media storm in Israel, disclosing up a horrible crime perpetrated for years under the full gaze of the ‘free’ world. These criminal acts began in 1992 when Palestinians started to witness a sharp rise in the number of young Palestinians disappearing and of bodies of Palestinians killed by occupation forces being returned with organs such as hearts, kidneys, livers and eyes missing.

“I was in the area at the time, working on a book”, Boström writes. “On several occasions I was approached by UN staff concerned about the developments. The persons contacting me said that organ theft definitely occurred but that they were prevented from doing anything about it…. I travelled around interviewing a great number of Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza – meeting parents who told of how their sons had been deprived of organs before being killed. One example that I encountered on this eerie trip was the young stone-thrower Bilal Ahmed Ghanam”.

Bilal, 19, was one of 133 Palestinians killed in various ways that year; 69 of them went through postmortem examination. Boström describes in detail how Israeli occupation soldiers targeted Bilal, a leader of the stone-throwing children, at midnight on May 13, 1992, shot him first in the chest and he was subsequently shot with one bullet in each leg. Two soldiers then shot Bilal in the stomach. Finally, they grabbed him by his feet, dragged him, then loaded him in a jeep and drove him to the outskirts of the village, where a military helicopter waited. He was flown to an unknown destination. Five days later he came back, dead and wrapped in green hospital fabric. It was clear that Bilal’s body was slit from his abdomen up to his chin. The families and relatives of Khaled from Nablus, the mother of Raed from Jenin and the uncles of Mahmood and Nafez from Gaza, all talked to Boström about their children who had all disappeared for a number of days only to return at night, dead and autopsied.

Investigations in New Jersey, have proved that Rabbi Levy-Izhak (Isaac Rosenbaum) from Brooklyn and other rabbis have run for years networks to sell the kidneys of Palestinian martyrs in the US black market. Patients in the United States paid up to US$ 160,000 per kidney. In 2003, a medical conference showed that Israel is the only country in the world in which the medical profession does not condemn stealing human organs and does not act against those involved in such a crime. On the contrary, and as was revealed by a Dagens Nyheter report on December 5, 2003 and the Aftonbladet report of August 17, 2009, prominent doctors in major Israeli hospitals steal and transplant organs routinely. When asked about the number of bodies sold by rabbi Rosenbaum, he answers proudly, “we are talking about a very large number,” and that his company has worked in this field “for a long period of time”.

Francis Delmonici, professor of transplant surgery at Harvard University confirms that organ trafficking is widespread in Israel and believes that there is sufficient evidence to ask the International Criminal Court to investigate Israeli crimes. Israeli media have turned the results shown by Aftonbladet’s investigative report into a diplomatic crisis between Sweden and Israel instead of demanding an end to this atrocious crime and bringing those corrupt criminals to justice.

Headlines highlighted that the Swedish prime minister refused to apologize and that Donald Boström refused to withdraw the report despite the fact that he received death threats. What should the Swedish prime minister apologize for? Israel, not Sweden, is accused of killing young people, stealing and trafficking in their organs; and it is Israel which should be put on trial. They behaved in the same way with Mary Robinson and others who defended the rights of the Palestinians. They raised a media storm about president Obama awarding her the Medal of Freedom because she took a courageous stand in support of justice in Palestine. They behaved in the same way towards the author of this article because she wrote a column in Assharq al-Awsat newspaper in which she lauded Robinson’s courage in defense of human rights.

The Jerusalem Post published an article against me on August 17, 2009 which is full of incitement and accusations which aim at creating negative preconceived ideas about the author. The question here is why the Jerusalem Post article ignored mentioning the Swedish foreign minister Anna Maria Lindh who I mentioned along with Mary Robinson in my article, and who also took honourable stances in support of justice in Palestine, was arrested several times by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank and was then assassinated in ambiguous circumstances.

This means that official circles in Israel divert attention from an atrocious crime committed against unarmed civilian Palestinians for over sixty years to a mere article which causes a diplomatic standoff. The same circles instruct the Jerusalem Post to attack my article which calls for honoring honest leaders of the world, like Mary Robinson, for defending justice. Has the world read about how Israel interrogates Palestinian women prisoners after stripping them naked in order to humiliate them? Is writing about them and defending their dignity a form of anti-Semitism and hostility towards Israel and the United States? And why do Israeli media implicate the United States in such crimes?

Despite the ferocious official Israeli campaign to silent free and honest individuals, the circle of those who believe in justice and freedom is getting wider. These are not only politicians, academics and journalists who are targeted by Israeli death or defamation squads who assassinate or muzzle them; they are the vanguard of a global movement to liberate the Palestinian people from this ugly barbarianism. The great thing is that they come from all religions and nationalities; and they will be remembered by history as the first to dare carry the torch of supporting freedom and justice for Palestinians. And surely, no one will remember those who fabricate charges and wage cheap propaganda against human beings, human rights, human dignity and freedom.

Bouthaina Shaaban is Political and Media Advisor at the Syrian Presidency, and former Minister of Expatriates. She was the spokesperson for Syria and nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She can be reached through nizar_kabibo@yahoo.com

Cry from the heart of Israeli leftist, in 1968, still rings true

My Comment: No! It rings false! When are these people going to get it that the world cannot continue to be silent for fear of the most dreaded word 'anti-Semitic' and let Jews commit horrific crimes upon humanity? Both the introduction by one Dan Fleshler (with whom I had a brief email exchange) and the article itself lack common sense. What Fleshler and the author of the article are demanding of the international community is a special treatment for Jewish crimes. The author complains bitterly that he stood up for justice and signed for petitions even when the people for who he was standing up were a far away people; i.e. not his own people. Right there is a clue that the man who considers himself to be on the left is very far from theft. For him, there is first and foremost his own people and then the rest of humanity and the Arabs of course deserve all kinds of brutality for having the sense to fight for their own land from invading European Jewry! People who regard themselves progressives do not distinguish between their own people and other people. Since he mentioned Che Guevara whom he appears to admire, Che fought alongside the Cubans, the people of Congo, the people of Bolivia; none of them his own people. This is one of the most pathetic articles that I read in a long time. If the man regarded himself to be on the left while leeching off the resources of stolen Palestine, who really needs people on the right? Right? Right!

Cry from the heart of Israeli leftist, in 1968, still rings true

By Dan Fleshler | August 22, 2009

The good people of Ameinu have posted what is, in their words, “perhaps THE seminal article in response to the anti-Zionist Left, written by Amos Kenan in 1968. Mr Kenan recently passed away - but he leaves us this important piece.”

It was written before it was clear that Israel would be ruling over another people and building roads for Jews only and implementing other policies that people like me complain about, before the post-’67 occupation became an entrenched, maddeningly self-perpetuating phenomenon. The “left” he describes was still dominated by the authoritarian left (Soviets, Cubans) but the sentiments he identifies, and the thorough demonization of all things Israeli, are painfully familiar.

What it comes down to was a widespread refusal to accept not only Israel’s existence, but also the humanity of even Israelis in the left-wing opposition. That is also the worst thing about too many people in the current incarnation of the anti-Israel far left: they deny me my humanity, they cannot accept the fact that someone who cares as much about social justice as they do can feel a connection to Israel, warts and all, and will defend the notion of a Jewish homeland.

There is much to mull over in this article, too many allusions and arguments to sum up glibly. For me, the most memorable aspect is rather simple: a die-hard Israeli leftist who opposed the Zionist orthodoxy of his day understood that Israel WAS threatened with destruction, and –except for the Americans –no one seemed especially concerned about it. That perspective is denied and mocked by the current, increasingly fashionable anti-Israel narrative, which wrongly blames Israel for every war it has fought and every enemy combatant it has killed. One sees here, in poignant detail, an agonized version of the seige mentality that still controls Israeli decisionmaking, haunting someone who would have given up the territories in a second, but for the threats and the terrible international isolation.

Here it is, in full without further commentary (it’s a bit long, so be patient and wade through it):

A Letter to all Good People

By Amos Kenan
I am for Cuba. I love Cuba. I am opposed to the genocide perpetrated by the Americans in Vietnam. But I am an Israeli, therefore I am forbidden to take all these stands. Cuba does not want me to love her. Someone has decided that I am permitted to love only the Americans. I don’t mind so much that someone, especially the good people everywhere, have decided to outlaw me. I shall be able to get along without their help. But I do mind that I am not permitted any longer to love and hate according to my feelings, and according to my political and moral inclinations, and that I am refused invitation or even admittance to parties held by the good people. I am not permitted any longer to toast justice with a glass of champagne. I am not permitted to eat caviar and denounce the Americans. I am not permitted to stroll in the sun-drenched streets of Havana, arm-in-arm with my erstwhile good friends from St. Germain, Via Veneto and Chelsea, and celebrate the memory of Che Guevara, casting a threatening look at imperialism. I am also finally and absolutely forbidden to sign petitions of all sorts for human rights.

This situation drives me slightly out of my mind. Therefore I wish to relate a few confused, disconnected stories. Perhaps some good man will find the connection. One day an Israeli submarine sank in the Mediterranean with its 69 crew members. Its SOS was answered, among others, by the British, Turkish and Greek fleets. The Russian navy, which cruised very close to the location, did not join in the search. Moscow radio, in its Arab broadcasts, took the trouble to denounce the countries whose ships rushed to help the lost submarine. It is a sacred principle of seamen of all nations to hasten to the aid of distressed vessels. The Israeli submarine was not on a war mission, and Israel is not in a state of war with the Soviet Union.

I am not so naive as to believe that this is anti-Semitism, Soviet style. I have never believed that the Russians are guided, in their calculations, by such powerful and sincere emotions as anti-Semitism, which is common to both progressive and reactionary camps. I know that the Russians conduct a cool and considered pragmatic policy, and are guided by clear political considerations. This was a political move, carried out as a part of a political game. The meaning of this move can only be: Israel must be isolated from the civilised human community. The rules that apply to the civilised community, rules of honour, consideration and mutual aid, do not apply to me. I am out. There is only one more step to the conclusion: the shedding of my blood is no crime.

Forgive my brutal way of putting things. I cannot conceive of it otherwise. If this was a move in a game, the game must have an object. The object is the penetration of the Middle East, and let us assume, for the sake of arguments, that this is for the purpose of advancing world revolution and the overthrow of imperialism. The Middle East contains 100m. Arabs and 2.5m. Israelis. But it is not so easy, in our enlightened world, to wipe out 2.5m. people. A reason, and a justification, are needed. You cannot wipe out just like that. First of all you must outlaw. Therefore you must not invite an Israeli communist party to a convention of communist parties. Therefore you must not invite a leftist Israeli author to a conference of leftist authors in Havana. There are no more class distinctions. There are only national distinctions. Even an Israeli leftist is an imperialist. And an oil sheikh is a socialist. Therefore it is permissible to compare me to the Nazis. It is permissible to call me a Gauleiter. It is permissible to mobilize all of the world’s conscientious people against me—and without them you cannot do it—and all this because there is an object looming beyond the horizon, an object for the sake of which this tactic is justifiable and useful.

Until quite recently, I also belonged to the Good People. Meaning that not only did I sit in cafes and sign petitions for the release of political prisoners in countries not my own, not only did I join proclamations, after sipping my aperitif, for the release of the downtrodden from the yoke of imperialism in places I shall never reach; I also did something against what seemed to me to be oppression and injustice in my own country. During the 20 years of the existence of the State of Israel I helped with my pen, in my regular newspaper column, the fight against the injustices committed against the Arab minority. And not by the pen only, but also in demonstrations, and also when arraigned before a military tribunal. I am used to being called a traitor by local patriots. During the Six Day War, in June 1967, the battalion I served in was ordered to supervise the demolition of four Arab villages: I considered it my duty to desert from my unit, to write a report of this action, and to send the copies to the General Staff of the army, to members of the government and to Knesset members. This report has been translated and circulated in the world as a proof of Israel’s crimes.

But permit me to conclude the story. The action I undertook was in flagrant violation of any military law. I have no idea what would have happened to a Red Army soldier were he to violate national and military discipline in such a manner. After returning to my unit, I was ordered to present myself—I, in rank a private—before the general commanding all the divisions on that front. He told me that he had read my report, and considered it his duty to inform me that what had occurred was a regrettable error, which will not recur. Deep in my heart I disbelieved his statement that this was only a mistake. I was convinced that whoever ordered such an action did not expect such resistance from within—the men of my battalion refused to carry out the order—and was alarmed at the impression such an action might create abroad. But I was glad that he found it necessary to announce that this was only an error. I asked him how he intended to ensure that the ‘error’ will never recur. On the spot he signed an order permitting me free movement in all occupied territories, so that I could see with my own eyes that such an action had not recurred.

But since then, in all the peace-papers in the world, my report about the destruction of villages has been reprinted over and over again, as if it happened only yesterday, as if it is happening all the time. And this is a lie. It is like writing that witches have been burnt at the stake in England—omitting the date. I hereby request all those who believed me when I reported a criminal act, to believe me now too. And those who do not believe me now, I hereby request to disbelieve my former report too, and not to believe me selectively, according to their convenience. I should also add that the town of Kalkiliya, which began to be demolished during the writing of my report, is now in the process of being rebuilt, after the expelled inhabitants have been brought back.

This does not mean that other injustices are not perpetrated now. The less you fight me, the more you would help me fight them. Even the most leftist of men will not consent to be slaughtered when a sword is pointed at his throat. Even when the sword is a progressive one, it does not make it any the pleasanter. The trouble is that not a single serious person in the world believes today that Israel was really in danger of being annihilated. This is the optical illusion of 1968. The gigantic Goliath is threatening little David. The fact that Goliath is a giant, and that David is small, is only an optical illusion. If Goliath triumphs and tramples David under his feet, it is a sign that he really is a giant. But if little David beats the giant, people say: the giant David has trampled poor little Goliath in the dust. I claim that Israel played the role of David. And I claim that even now, after the stunning victory, it still is little David who has indeed beaten the stunned Goliath, but Goliath still is a menacing giant. Today, no less than in June 1967, Israel is in danger of annihilation. Unless the enlightened world mobilises now, immediately, perhaps it will be too late. But I am afraid that there are not many people in the world today who will be sorry if victorious David is destroyed. A bitter suspicion rises in me that even the most enlightened among the most progressive people still adhere to the Christian tradition that they imbibed with their mothers’ milk: Jew, stay on the cross. Never get off it. The day you get off the cross and hurl it at the heads of your crucifiers, we shall cease to love you. Today the Arabs boast of waging a revolutionary guerrilla warfare. They claim to have copied the Viet Cong method of warfare and to apply it in the Middle East. They march with Che Guevara’s picture. This makes me laugh. Just as Che Guevara’s picture hanging in the luxurious salons of Montparnasse made me laugh. I have always wondered whether Che Guevara had a picture of Che Guevara hanging in his salon. What is a Viet Cong? The Viet Cong is not white flags on buildings. The Viet Cong means fighting to the last man. The Viet Cong of the Middle East, whether those who demonstrate with Che Guevara’s picture like it or not, are we. We are prepared, at any moment to wage the battle to the death. After the death camps, we are left with only one supreme value: existence.

Our existence today, is inconvenient for those who work at the global balance of power. It is more convenient that there should be two camps, one white, the other black. We number, as I said before, only 2.5m. people. On the global map, what is the value of a few hundred thousand leftists, opposing the Eshkol government policy and striving for a genuine peace with the Arabs, who strive to liberate themselves from the one-way dependence on American power? Somebody has already decided to sacrifice us. The history of revolution is full of such sacrifices since the days of the Spanish War. At one time world revolution had been sacrificed on the altar of the revolution in one country. Today the calculation is somewhat subtler. Today they try to explain to us that there is an Arab socialism. That there is an Egyptian socialism, and an Algerian socialism. There is a socialism of slave-traders, and a socialism of oil magnates. There are all kinds of socialism, all aiming really at one and the same thing—the overthrow of imperialism, which happens to be one and indivisible. Once there was only a single kind of socialsm, which fed on principles, some of them moral. On the day that morality died there was born the
particular, conventional socialism, changing from place to place and from time to time, for which I have no other name but National Socialism.

I want to live. What can I do if Russia, China, Vietnam, India, Yugoslavia, Sartre, Russell, Castro, have all decided that I am made all of a piece? It is inconvenient for them to admit that there is an opposition in Israel too. Why should there be an opposition in Israel if in the Popular Democracies in Cuba or Algeria, there is only one party? And perhaps they do have pangs of conscience, but they have made their calculation, and found out that I am only one, only 10, only 100,000; and on the other side there are tens of millions, all led like a single man, in a single party, towards the light, towards the sun. And if so, who am I? I will tell you who I am: I am the man who will confuse and confound your progressive calculations. I have too much love for this vain world, a world of caviar, television, sunny beaches, sex and good wine. You go ahead and toast the revolution with champagne. I shall toast myself, my own life, bottle in one hand, rifle in the other. You send Soviet arms to Egypt. You isolate me. And in order to make it easier to isolate me, you change my name. My flesh, which you eat, you call fish. You don’t want to protect me— neither against the Arabs, nor against the Russians, nor against Dayan or Johnson.

Moreover, when I try to call on you and tell you that I am against Dayan, against Eshkol, against Ben-Gurion, and ask for your help, you laugh at me and demand that I should return to the 4 June borders, unconditionally. Hold it! I refuse to play this game. If you give me back the pistol with which I tried to kill you, I won’t kill you. Because I am a nice fellow. But if you don’t give it back to me, I shall kill you, because you are a bad fellow. Why were the 4 June borders not peace borders on 4 June but will become peace borders now? Why were not the U.N. partition plan borders of 1947 peace borders then but will become so now? Why should I return the bandit his gun as a reward for having failed to kill me? I want peace peace peace peace peace peace peace. I am ready to give everything back in exchange for peace. And I shall give nothing back without peace. I am ready to solve the refugee problem. I am ready to accept an independent Palestinian state. I am ready to sit and talk. About everything, all at the same time. Direct talks, indirect talks, all this is immaterial. But peace. Until you agree to have peace, I shall give back nothing. And if you force me to become a conqueror, I shall become a conqueror. And if you force me to become an oppressor, I shall become an oppressor. And if you force me into the same camp with all the forces of darkness in the world, there I shall be.

There is no lack in Israel of rabid militarists. Their number is steadily increasing, the more our isolation becomes apparent. Nasser helps Dayan, Kosygin helps Eshkol. Fidel Castro helps the Jewish chauvinists. Who of the world’s giants cares how many more Jews, how many more Arabs, bleed to death in the Sinai sands? There is no lack here of mad hysterical militarists. All those quiet citizens who went out to war with K.L.M. handgrips and in laundry trucks, who scribbled on their tanks: ‘We want Home’ . All those who fought without anger, without hatred, only for their lives, are becoming militaristic, convinced that only Israeli power, and nothing else in the world, will ever help us.

The only ones who are prepared to defend me, for reasons I don’ t like at all, are the Americans. It is convenient for them, for the time being. You are flinging me towards America, the bastion of democracy and the murderer of Vietnam, who tramples the downtrodden peoples and spares my life, who oppresses the Negroes and supplies me with arms to save myself. You leave me no other alternative. You don’ t even offer me humiliating terms, to be admitted through the rear door into the progressive orgy. You don’ t even want me to overthrow my government. You only want me to surrender, unconditionally, and to believe the spokesmen of the revolution that henceforth no Jewish doctors will be murdered, and that they will limit themselves to the declaration that Zionism is responsible for the riots in Warsaw.

Very funny. The truth is that I and Sartre, two people with the same vision, more or less, with the same ideal, more or less, and if I may be permitted to impertinence, with the same moral level, more or less, are now at the two sides of the barricade. We have been pushed to both sides by the cold calculations of the people who sent us, or abandoned us. But the fact remains—these are not Americans shooting Russians, or capitalists shooting socialists, or freedom-fighters shooting the oppressors. It is I, shooting Sartre. I see him in my gun sights; he sees me in his gun sights. I still don’ t know which of us is faster, more skilled, or more determined to kill or be killed. Neither do I know who shall be more lucky—the one who has no other alternative, or the one who acts out of choice. One thing is clear to me; if I survive, I shall mourn Sartre’s death more than he would mourn mine. And if that happens, I shall never be consoled until I wipe from under the heavens both the capitalists and the communists. Or they me. Or each the other. Or all destroy all. And if I survive even that, without a god but without prophets either, my life will have no sense whatsoever. I shall have nothing else to do but walk on the banks of streams, or on the top of the rocks, watch the wonders of nature, and console myself with words of Ecclesiastes, the wisest of men: “For the light is sweet, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun.”

Proliferation

Proliferation
United in defiance

Feb 26th 2009
From The Economist print edition
The proliferation chain that links North Korea and Iran

AP

THE final frontier is being assaulted by a couple of troubling pioneers. North Korean officials are boasting that they will soon launch a rocket that will lift a communications satellite into space. With this defiant spectacular, they seem to be cocking a snook at America, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, who have been trying through six-party talks to curb North Korea’s equally vaunted nuclear-weapons efforts. Meanwhile, earlier in February, Iran—suspected of harbouring similar nuclear ambitions to North Korea’s, though it denies this—lifted its own small, supposedly home-made satellite into orbit too.

Both regimes trumpet their space prowess, and indeed such technological feats are not easy to achieve. But how do these “civilian” space efforts complement their terrestrial nuclear work? That is the question that deeply worries outsiders.

India showed the way: its supposedly civilian space programme sometimes won generous outside assistance, even as nuclear help was denied for fear of advancing its suspected weapons-building. As a result of the parallel effort, India now has missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads on targets not just throughout Pakistan, but deep inside China too. Quite simply, the technology needed to lift a satellite off the launch pad and shield it from damage on its way into space is indistinguishable from that needed to launch a far-flying nuclear-tipped ballistic missile.

North Korea and Iran appear to be following suit. Kim Jong Il’s regime claims to have first embarked on its space adventures in 1998, when it launched a Taepodong-1 rocket over an alarmed Japan, across the Pacific towards a startled America. Mr Kim even issued a stamp to celebrate what was said to have been the successful launch of a satellite that had since been warbling patriotic tunes back from space. Oddly, no one else ever picked up its signal. A failed missile test, concluded America, after watching the rocket plop down in the Pacific.

Whether the satellite was a figment of Mr Kim’s imagination hardly matters. The latest promised test-launch will violate resolution 1718, which bans North Korea from all such activity. This was passed by the United Nations Security Council in 2006, unusually with China’s backing, after North Korea first tried (but failed) to launch a still more capable missile and then conducted what is thought to have been its first nuclear test. Its determination now to carry on launching regardless has led to speculation in some quarters that the missile, assuming it launches successfully, could even be shot down by the new ballistic-missile defences that Japan and America have been frantically cobbling together to protect Japan from North Korea’s missile threats.

Mr Kim seems to be using his missile preparations to grab the attention of the new Obama administration in America, and to raise the ante in the six-party nuclear talks. These have been stalled for months because of North Korea’s refusal to accept proper verification of its nuclear programmes; that will remain the case—or so the other five parties suspect—until the regime in Pyongyang squeezes extra goodies out of the Americans.

The test, if it goes ahead, will also roughly coincide with an annual joint military exercise between America and South Korea, at a time when relations between South and North have deteriorated badly. The North Korean media claim, not for the first time, that the two Koreas are at “the brink of war”, and that America is preparing a pre-emptive strike against the North.

Certainly Mr Kim is determined to look as threatening as possible. Writing in the Washington Post on February 19th, Selig Harrison, who is a frequent visitor to North Korea, said that the foreign-ministry and defence officials he talked to recently had left him with the impression that North Korea’s stash of plutonium (which is exhibit-A in the six-party talks, though there are lingering concerns that Mr Kim has also dabbled in enriched uranium, another possible bomb ingredient) had already been “weaponised”—that is, converted into missile warheads.

If that is the case, then North Korea’s “satellite” test will be doubly alarming. Although the 2006 nuclear test was thought to have fizzled, it may nonetheless have helped North Korea master a design for the sort of smaller warhead that a missile could carry.

But there is a further, bigger, worry even than Mr Kim’s theatricals. North Korea and Iran have long been collaborating on building missiles; the two are thought to have worked together in Iran to improve on basic North Korean missile designs at times when it has been impolitic for the North to test for itself. Iran has learned a great deal from this work; recently it has been making strides in its own missile technology. No one knows whether this collaboration has included warhead or other nuclear work too (though North Korea appears to have helped Syria to build a suspected and almost completed plutonium-producing reactor, which Israel destroyed in an air raid in 2007).
Strutting its stuff

North Korea is evidently quite happy to brandish its bombs. It flounced out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty back in 2003 after evidence emerged that it had been cheating on an earlier denuclearisation deal with America. Iran, by contrast, claims to be an NPT member in good standing. It insists that it has no use for nuclear weapons, and that all its nuclear activities, including a uranium-enrichment effort that continues to expand in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions, are entirely peaceful in intent; the uranium, it says, is simply intended to fuel a future fleet of power stations.

Nothing if not brazen, it claims backhanded vindication in a controversial National Intelligence Estimate by America’s spooks, which concluded a little over a year ago that Iran had indeed had a bomb programme, but that it had stopped in 2003 when its formerly secret uranium activities came to light. But what that report failed to explain clearly was that Iran was continuing work quite openly on the two other necessary components of a weapons programme: first, uranium enrichment (with a bit of time and redirection of piping, low-enriched uranium can easily be turned into the highly enriched sort needed for a bomb) and efforts to produce plutonium; and second, the efforts under way for the development of a missile that could carry a nuclear warhead.
AP Bushehr: no need for Iran’s enriched uranium here

Iran is the only country so far to have built a uranium-enrichment plant before having even a single working reactor that would need its uranium as fuel for the reactor core. Even a Russian-built reactor at Bushehr that is now being put through its technical paces before coming on-stream later this year will operate on Russian-supplied fuel. Nor does it have sufficient uranium ore of its own to sustain a large-scale enrichment effort. Since uranium exports to Iran are prohibited by UN sanctions, its only option eventually will be to import more of the stuff illegally, using the nuclear black market that enabled it to get secretly started in the uranium business.

Nonetheless, Iran has just passed another nuclear milestone. According to figures contained in a new report circulated to the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear guardian, ahead of a meeting that opens on March 2nd, Iran has accumulated an unexpectedly large amount of low-enriched uranium—enough, says the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, for Iran to be confident that, should it proceed with further enrichment, it will have sufficient material for a single nuclear weapon.

What is more, the agency reported a big discrepancy (about 30%) between the amount of uranium Iran had earlier said it was producing and the amount now stockpiled. It is often hard to guess the real output of enrichment centrifuge machines, like Iran’s, in their first stages of operation. However, in the view of other experts, even rough calculations based on earlier figures should have told inspectors that the Iranian estimate was far too low. The IAEA is confident that all the enriched uranium is properly safeguarded. But safeguards are something Iran disregards when it suits.

There have long been suspicions that Iran may be engaged in a parallel, possibly military, enrichment effort: in April 2006 without notice to inspectors, it removed and then put back a cylinder of the gas from which enriched uranium of either sort is spun, so that inspectors briefly lost track of the material it contained. When they were subsequently measured, the cylinder’s contents were deemed to be correct within an acceptable margin of error. But that does not rule out the possibility that a small quantity of the gas, calculated to fall within that error margin, was diverted to test some hidden centrifuges.

As the IAEA’s latest report makes clear, Iran is also refusing them access, as required under its safeguards obligations, to the site where it is building its own plutonium-producing reactor, one that just happens to be ideally sized for making bomb material. And it will not answer increasingly pointed questions from inspectors about studies and other information provided by several governments that appear to show weapons-related work on uranium conversion, on high explosive testing for nuclear-trigger devices and—the evidence behind the doubts about Iran’s “space” programme—on development work to redesign the inner cone of a re-entry vehicle for Iran’s Shahab-3 missile, so as to accommodate a nuclear warhead.

North Korea’s neighbours may be prepared simply to huddle together, trusting in the best efforts of diplomacy and missile defences. But countries in the vicinity of Iran are becoming more agitated. Israel’s probable new prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has said a nuclear Iran poses a far graver threat than the global recession.

So Barack Obama and his new team—he has now appointed special envoys to deal with both Iran and North Korea—don’t have much time to show that their promised readiness to talk directly to Iran can produce results. And unless results are forthcoming, the long-running drama over Iran’s nuclear ambitions could rapidly escalate into a global crisis.

Israel's would-be government

Israel's would-be government
The right has the first shot

Feb 26th 2009 | JERUSALEM
From The Economist print edition
Many variations are possible, but the right is first to try to form a government

BINYAMIN NETANYAHU, Israel’s prime minister-designate, has begun negotiating with his Likud party’s “natural allies” for a right-wing-cum-religious coalition government. Still, though at first rebuffed, he has not quite given up hope of luring both Tzipi Livni, the leader of the centrist Kadima party, and Ehud Barak, her Labour counterpart, into a unity government of a milder complexion. He has until April 2nd to find a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Various permutations are still being aired.

Ms Livni, foreign minister in the outgoing Kadima-led government, says she will not provide a fig-leaf for the harsher policies she believes would hurt the country. She says that when she and Mr Netanyahu met on February 22nd he would not even acknowledge the need for a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, let alone seriously discuss a common policy for trying to bring it about. Mr Netanyahu offered parity in the cabinet between Likud, which won 27 seats to Kadima’s 28 in the general election on February 10th, but Ms Livni complains that her party would then be permanently outnumbered by the Likud-led block. Mr Barak says simply that having done so badly in the election, with only 13 seats, Labour needs to spend the next term in opposition, rebuilding itself.

The haggling and the refusal so far by both leaders of the two strongest parties to back down have rekindled a debate over whether Mr Netanyahu, who was prime minister from 1996 to 1999, is ultimately a pragmatist or at heart still an ideologue of the old school. Those who say he is a pragmatist point to the agreements he signed with the Palestinians in his first term and to the secret negotiations he held with Syria. Those who say he is an ideologue, wedded to the idea of a Greater Israel that would take in the West Bank and stretch down to the Jordan river, recall his niggardly foot-dragging during those negotiations.

Mr Netanyahu now says that Palestinian statehood is not possible in the foreseeable future. The Palestinian Authority on the West Bank is weak and ineffectual, and he could not negotiate with the Islamists of Hamas as they are terrorists who must be toppled from power. In the election campaign he rejected sharing Jerusalem with the Palestinians and said he would not withdraw from the Golan Heights, a slice of Syria that Israel has held since 1967.

Even with such hard views, putting together a coalition of like-minded allies will not be easy. There are tensions between the far-right secularists of Yisrael Beitenu, which has 15 seats, and other more religious-minded groups over a proposal to bring in civil marriage and loosen the rabbis’ grip on matters of personal status. Yisrael Beitenu also wants drastic reform of the electoral system, as do many in Likud and on the left. But such proposals could spell the demise of the small religious parties whose votes Mr Netanyahu needs to secure a majority. Or they might be forced to merge with each other, a prospect they think only slightly less ghastly.

Allocating top jobs will also be tricky. Yisrael Beitenu’s leader, Avigdor Lieberman, who campaigned on an anti-Arab platform, wants a juicy plum. His 15 seats make it hard for Mr Netanyahu not to give him one. Mr Lieberman’s first choice is the Defence Ministry, but Mr Netanyahu may prefer to hand it to Dan Meridor, a Likud minister who veered left in 1999 to join a short-lived Centre Party and has veered back to the right again. Mr Lieberman may settle for the Finance Ministry; but the police are investigating him for alleged money-laundering, so that may be awkward.

He might end up as foreign minister, a prospect which, in view of his history of undiplomatic remarks, has raised eyebrows, to say the least. Last year he said Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak should “go to hell” for refusing to visit Israel. “Foreign ministers aren’t used to my style,” he has conceded. “But don’t worry, everyone will welcome me, including Egypt.”

The enduring popularity of Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Turkey

The enduring popularity of Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Mar 5th 2009 | ANKARA AND VAN
From The Economist print edition


But will popularity blunt the reforming zeal of Turkey’s prime minister?

Illustration by Peter Schrank
Illustration by Peter Schrank


AT A recent rally in the predominantly Kurdish city of Van, in south-east Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in his element. Turkey’s prime minister rattled off his government’s achievements, bellowing out to a jubilant crowd, “22 primary schools, five health clinics, 82 kilometres of paved roads”.

With only three weeks to go before countrywide municipal elections on March 29th, Mr Erdogan has hit the campaign trail in a confident mood. Most opinion polls suggest that his mildly Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) will clobber its opponents yet again. The secular opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is so desperate that it no longer talks much of the risk of sharia law or the dangers of Kurdish separatism. Instead it has resorted to recruiting female candidates who wear the Islamic headscarf and calling for the Kurdish new year to be declared a national holiday.

None of this is likely to make much impression on voters, most of whom will stick with the AKP. Nor will it affect Mr Erdogan’s policies. Ever since he was handsomely re-elected in the 2007 general election, his critics say that the prime minister has become increasingly autocratic, drifting away from the reformist agenda that first brought the AKP to single-party rule in 2002. It does not help that the European Union is continuing to prevaricate in the long-drawn-out talks about Turkey’s membership application, sapping enthusiasm for reform in Ankara.

As further evidence of autocratic tendencies, the critics point to Mr Erdogan’s continuing quarrel with Aydin Dogan, the country’s biggest media mogul, whose outlets have exposed corruption scandals in which individuals close to the government have been implicated. Mr Dogan believes this explains why he faces a $500m claim for allegedly unpaid taxes, a charge he passionately denies. “Turkey has become a republic of fear,” complains Sedat Ergin, managing editor of Milliyet, a leading Dogan newspaper.

On the international front Mr Erdogan is raising eyebrows for more than his (understandable) loss of enthusiasm for the EU. He has also attracted unfavourable attention for his virulent attacks on Israel, especially during its war in Gaza, and for his budding friendships with Iran and Sudan.

Among ordinary Turks, however, Mr Erdogan remains the most popular and charismatic leader since a visionary former prime minister and president, Turgut Ozal. One old Kurdish woman in Van sums up the mood: “Tayyip is one of us, he treats us as equals.” Mr Erdogan’s popularity has even forced his enemies, notably the country’s hawkish generals, who have often tried to topple his government, to back off.

Mr Erdogan’s touch was in evidence in Van as he and his vivacious wife, Emine, handed out toys to ragged children. Elsewhere in Turkey, the government has been giving away coal, school textbooks and, as the elections draw near, even fridges and washing-machines to the poor. Such profligacy has angered the IMF. A long-delayed standby facility with the fund has yet to be signed because of differences over public spending. But a defiant Mr Erdogan insists, in an interview, that Turkey’s economy is robust enough to get through its current troubles without IMF help.

Like most countries, Turkey has been hit by the world financial crisis. The Turkish lira is slipping against the dollar, GDP is expected to shrink this year and unemployment is rising. Yet, partly thanks to tough regulation, not a single Turkish bank has gone under. The economy is wobbling but remains on its feet.

No wonder Mr Erdogan is so confident. Many worry that another big electoral win may swell his head further. Yet for all his pre-electoral posturing, there are signs that his pragmatic self may come back. He seems to have grasped that he has an image problem. He has hired a new, affable spokesman and is courting foreign journalists for the first time. In an interview with this correspondent, he freely bestowed smiles (and dried fruit) as he insisted he was no autocrat. “I can be impatient at times,” was all he would admit.

The launch of Turkey’s first official Kurdish-language television channel in January and the government’s calls for the establishment of Kurdish literature departments at state universities have raised hopes of more reforms. After years of mutual hostility, Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds are at last talking. A deal with separatist guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who have been fighting the Turkish army since 1984 from bases in northern Iraq, is said to be on the table. Turkey’s generals are tentatively compliant.

All of this will make Mr Erdogan’s meeting this weekend with Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, especially significant. Mr Erdogan will brief her on talks with another former Turkish foe, Armenia. Once the local elections in Turkey and the April 24th anniversary of the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 are past, it is expected that formal ties will be re-established between the two countries and their long-closed border will be reopened. This may also stave off attempts by America’s Congress to pass a resolution calling the massacres a genocide.

An IMF deal is widely expected after the local elections as well, though Mehmet Simsek, the economy minister, insists that the IMF must drop some of its more “orthodox” demands. On progress towards joining the EU, the next big test for Mr Erdogan will be whether he can budge a bit more on the opening of Turkish ports and airports to Cyprus, shaming Turkey’s detractors within the EU (notably the French) into stopping their efforts to undermine the membership talks.

The appointment of Egemen Bagis, a sharp young English-speaker, as Turkey’s first cabinet-rank EU negotiator suggests that Mr Erdogan may make a fresh effort to put the EU talks back on track. But if he is genuinely serious, he will have to take a second shot at rewriting Turkey’s constitution, crafted by the generals after a military coup in 1980. His previous attempt at this almost led the Constitutional Court to ban the AKP on the ground that it was trying to impose sharia law. That is because he started off in piecemeal fashion by trying to ease bans on the Islamic headscarf in government offices and universities. Mr Erdogan would do better this time if he worked with the opposition to produce a constitution that met the wishes of all Turks, not just pious ones.

Take them home responsibly

America and Iraq
Take them home responsibly
Mar 5th 2009From The Economist print edition
President Obama is right to be flexible about the pace of America’s departure from Iraq
Reuters
IT IS six years ago this month since American forces invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein, only to see their victory sour as the country descended into a hell of sectarian killing. Barack Obama, who opposed the war from the start and campaigned for the presidency on a promise to end it, has begun to fulfil his promise. In a speech last week he said the bulk of American troops would withdraw by September next year. But because that is a trifle later than his original promise of getting them out within 16 months of taking office, and because he says he may keep up to 50,000 soldiers in Iraq (for training but also for “counter-terrorism”) even longer, he is being accused by some of slithering away from his campaign pledge.
In fact the plan looks both shrewd and responsible. Under an agreement signed by Iraq’s government and George Bush, all American troops were anyway scheduled to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011, and from its towns by the end of June this year. Mr Obama will extract the bulk of American forces a shade faster, but by keeping on a residual force he is giving himself a bit of extra wiggle room in case things go bad again. He is entirely right to do so.
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Iraq is in an incomparably better state than it was two years ago, when some 3,500 Iraqi civilians were being killed every month, mostly by Iraqis. Now the monthly death toll may be ten times smaller. A month ago, provincial elections were successfully held across the country, except in the Kurdish region and a disputed province, Kirkuk. The outcome in terms of winners and losers was messy, but the trend was hopeful.
A new alliance led by the authoritarian but canny prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, did well. Politicians and parties who argued for a more strongly centralised state, as Mr Maliki did, fared better than those who urged devolution for the regions. Religious parties and the hitherto leading Shia one, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, better known as ISCI, which many Iraqis think too close to Iran, did dreadfully, losing ground to more secular and nationalist rivals. The Kurds did badly in mixed areas where they had previously prospered. Iraq’s Sunnis turned out in greater numbers than before and recovered their clout in various provinces, including Nineveh, whose main city, Mosul, had previously been run by Kurds. Here and there, efficient former Baathists came back to the fore.
A problem shared
And yet politics in Iraq is still fraught. No politician successfully appeals to all Iraqis. That is why General David Petraeus, the architect of America’s successful military “surge” under Mr Bush, has always called the gains fragile. The Kurds, after enjoying almost untrammelled autonomy for nearly two decades, increasingly loathe Mr Maliki’s new establishment in Baghdad; their feeling is reciprocated. Rivalries within each of the three main communities—Shia, Sunni, Kurd—are bitter. A vital law to share out the country’s oil wealth still shows no sign of being passed. The next political watershed, a general election by the end of the year, will be a nerve-jangling event, and American troops will be needed to help oversee it.
Having campaigned against the war in Iraq while emphasising the need to do more in Afghanistan, Mr Obama will face a continuing temptation to end the former war while reinforcing the latter. And that may be possible, thanks to Mr Bush having supported the surge when many people, including Mr Obama, were urging America to cut and run. But America’s moral responsibility to the people of Iraq, and its own interest in maintaining stability in this strategic corner of the Middle East, have not disappeared with the departure of Mr Bush.
One way Mr Obama could lighten America’s burden would be to use the goodwill he has earned around the world to urge international bodies, especially the United Nations, to play an ever bigger part in helping the Iraqis to entrench their shaky democracy. For sure, his eyes will focus more keenly in the near future on Afghanistan-Pakistan, not to mention Israel, Palestine, Syria and Iran (see article). But he must be ready, just in case, to keep his troops in Iraq rather longer than he promised during his election, and perhaps even longer than called for in his new plan, if another bloodbath should appear to be in prospect. There would be no shame in doing so. The dishonour would come from abandoning Iraq’s long-suffering people for the sake of a deadline.

Ari Shavit: Two-state solution on last legs

Ari Shavitz: I am a Zionist. I see Israel as a Jewish state that must be democratic and must be for all its citizens. Anyone who says there is tension here is right. It is the tension we live with here. Khenin releases himself from that tension by defining himself as the non-Zionist left. I believe that dealing with the complexities of life in Israel is more moral than disengaging.

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My response: “Israel” is a Jewish State only by brute force. The owners of the land never consented for the stampede of European Jewry to come to their land and take over. If Ari Shavitz is a Zionist, that is fine as a long as he manages to purchases land somewhere else from people who are willing to give away their land to very sophisticated European Jewry who would eventually erect wmd on the land. Are there any sellers of land out there?

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Ari Shavitz: For decades I have fought for peace. In Peace Now, in Mapai and in Meretz. The two-state solution is the only solution. And I live in fear today. I see the light fading. Why did my parents come here? To what have I devoted my life? For what am I here? For a Jewish and democratic state. And if there is no Jewish and democratic state, what am I left with?

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My Response: The two-state solution is good for Ari Shavitz. What kind of sovereignty could the Palestinians imagine under such a ruthless enemy next door? As to Shavitz's question why his parents went to Palestine, the simple answer is because they could. Palestine was passed from colonizer to another. Mr. Shavitz needs to keep in mind that he is on Arab soil only because of brute force and that Palestine is not his grandmother’s land. Not at all! What is he left with? Again, the simple answer is that European Jews are on Arab soil only by means of Brute force. Where Ari Shavit belongs is in the West. America would be glad to grant him a permanent resident visa. There is no reason for Jewry to take advantage of a people who are not able to ward off an enemy who arived on their soil with satanic intent on their mind.

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Feb 6, 2009
Meretz leader to Haaretz: Two-state solution on last legs
By Ari Shavit

You gotta love Jumes. You can disagree with him and you can get mad him, but in the end, you have to have great warmth for him. In the age of Lieberman’s nationalism and Eyal Arad’s spin, Meretz chair Haim Oron is like an antibody. Even when he goofs, he goofs with his heart in the right place.

If any two numbers reveal just how awful this election is, it’s these: Lieberman 20, Meretz five. The Lieberman-Meretz gap raises serious questions about the future and the present of the state of Israel. From his Tel Aviv campaign headquarters, Jumes is still fighting to change both.

Why Meretz? For half their lives, half of Haaretz’s readers have been voting Meretz and nothing good has come of it.

Meretz is a kind of start-up. It tosses out ideas that catch on later and other people implement them. But I don’t accept that division of labor any more. It’s not okay with me that there is an incubator for ideas in one place and they sprout somewhere else. There should be one political entity that represents the social-democratic and peace positions. And that entity is Meretz.

But Meretz isn’t having an easy time in this election. Barak and Livni are gnawing at your position from one side, Hadash is chewing on the other. Let’s start with Labor chair Ehud Barak. Why not Barak?

Barak is running in 2009 as a successful defense minister who rehabilitated the army and conducted an operation in Gaza. He is not running as the leader of the peace camp.

So maybe Kadima chair Tzipi Livni is the leader of the peace camp. She promises a dove with an olive branch. Just open the window and let her in.

Livni saved herself the question of right and left by not going where she has to decide if she is right or left. She hasn’t gotten to dividing Jerusalem and hasn’t gotten to resolving the refugee problem. She might have a clearer picture in her own mind. Livni talks about the courage to tell the public the truth. And I say: ‘Tzipi, with all due respect to your courage, the question is what you tell Palestinians behind closed doors about Jerusalem.’ I don’t know what she says. She isn’t where Bibi is but she hasn’t even gotten to the places that Olmert has. I think both she and Barak make comments from the hazy center that blur the truth. That haze harms the foundations of democracy. It makes political parties into unions of interested parties. It makes the public fed-up with politics because people figure politicians don’t say what they really think.

Then Hadash. Dov Khenin says what he really thinks. He is clearer and sharper than Meretz. He has a kind of charisma.

Black-and-white positions look sharp, but reality is not black-and-white. I oppose the injustices that took place in Gaza but I do not accept that Israel doesn’t have the right to self-defense. But the underlying conflict between Meretz and Hadash is more substantial. I am a Zionist. I see Israel as a Jewish state that must be democratic and must be for all its citizens. Anyone who says there is tension here is right. It is the tension we live with here. Khenin releases himself from that tension by defining himself as the non-Zionist left. I believe that dealing with the complexities of life in Israel is more moral than disengaging.

Let’s admit the truth, Jumes. The warfare in Gaza hurt Meretz twice. On the one hand it brought Labor back into the game and on the other it boosted Hadash. You guys look hesitant.

There is no way a left-wing party like ours doesn’t come out of war bruised. There was an option of calling the war right and just, and anything done in it was good. There was an option to say that Israel doesn’t have the right of response even after 60, 80, 100 rocket strikes. I think both options are oversimplified. So Meretz took the position that a focused military action against Hamas was justified, but it is not okay to cross lines in the sand. And in this war there were lines in the sand.

Your sons fought in an operation that some of your voters believe was a war crime.

I told you, I live in the tension between poles. One the one hand is the need to remove the threat, but on the other there were tractors that demolished Gaza neighborhoods in the last days of the ground operation. I do not accept that. I believe there is a line that we cannot cross if we want to remain who we are.

Do you still believe in peace? Has the word “peace” been erased from your campaign?

Neither the word nor belief in peace have been erased. The lack of peace and the continued occupation are the greatest dangers to the future of Israel.

Is the two-state solution viable? Can it still be implemented?

The two-state solution is on its last legs. That is why this election is so important. If we do not quickly implement the partition into two states, that solution will evaporate and Zionism will be stuck its worst crisis ever. This could turn into a bad cross between Rhodesian apartheid and Somalian bloodshed.

That bad?

Let me tell you a story. A few days after Sari Nusseibeh retracted his position on two states, I went into Ehud Olmert’s office and told him that he should take the report of Nusseibeh’s comment like he would take the news that an Arab state has a nuclear bomb.

For decades I have fought for peace. In Peace Now, in Mapai and in Meretz. The two-state solution is the only solution. And I live in fear today. I see the light fading. Why did my parents come here? To what have I devoted my life? For what am I here? For a Jewish and democratic state. And if there is no Jewish and democratic state, what am I left with?

If the situation is so dramatic, maybe it’s better not to vote for a small party like Meretz.

Not true. There is no one else like Meretz now. We are the only leftist Zionist alternative that believes in peace, human rights and social democracy.

Some say Amos Oz has become your guru. You are the Eli Yishai of Meretz and Oz is your Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Amos and I have a very close relationship. We do and our families do. But there is no spiritual leader here. There is no authority. We are attentive, not authoritative.

Would you join a unity government with Netanyahu?

We won’t sit in a government with Netanyahu as prime minister.

And a unity government with Livni?

If it is possible to create a center-left government we would be a substantial factor. If it is a unity government of mutual paralysis, we would rather serve the public from the opposition bench. Against the rise of the right and the Israeli racism of Lieberman, Meretz will provide an ideological and political platform that will become an alternative.

A ‘terrible disease of the mind’

By Zaid Nabulsi

I lost my gloves one day in a coffee shop in Geneva, and I tell you, it’s difficult to ride a motorcycle without them when it’s really cold. So as I was paying for a new pair with a credit card, the salesman - who I knew was from Israel - asked me what my family name means. I told him that it relates to the city of Nablus where my family is originally from. Suddenly, the most bewildered look got plastered on his face.

“Where is Nablus?” he asked, “I’ve never heard of it”. Then he pretended to remember. “Ah, Shkheim you mean?”

With my insistence not to learn these ugly sounding names that the Zionists have dug up from oblivion to erase our identity, that name certainly didn’t ring a bell.

Now it was my turn. Although I knew where he was from, I asked: “And you’re… from?”

As he smiled, I replicated the look on his face moments ago. “Israel? Where is that?”

Then after a brief pause: “Ah, the land of Canaan you mean. Palestine.”

You see, if you want to get biblical, there was never such a thing as Israel, and I made that very clear to this gentleman with obnoxious chutzpah.

So here we were all of a sudden; my family descended from a place called Shkheim, and this guy became a Palestinian. God does work in mysterious ways, but I still thanked Him for His small mercies; that at least my name was not Zaid Shkheimy.

While the gloves warmed up my grip on the bike, my heart was still frozen. I just cannot stand thieves who steal your gloves, or any other kind of thieves.

Then it finally dawned on me. Zionism is a sickness, for it takes much more than just a twisted ideology to make people think like that. It requires a profound leap of immorality of a higher order to instill this mentality in your followers. Zionism is not merely a political movement, but in its essence represents a deeply disturbed view of the world, resulting from a terrible affliction of the mind.

Indeed, to deny the existence of a vibrant community such as the Palestinian society in the early 20th century and describe Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” is a serious blinding ailment.

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1. To blame the Palestinians for being unreasonable in rejecting a partition plan in 1947 which gave the Jews, who only owned 7 per cent of the land, an astounding half of Palestine, is an arithmetical impairment.
2. To eventually grab 78 per cent of Palestine through war, evict the population through massacres and then live in their same houses is unashamed theft.
3. To deny the orchestrated eradications of hundreds of Palestinian villages in 1948 and then denounce the Israeli historians who later exposed this truth as self-hating Jews is compulsive forgery.
4. To claim that having escaped the horrors of the Nazis is a justification for the murder, expulsion and occupation of another, guiltless, people is moral incapacity.
5. To legislate that any resident of Poland, New York or Brazil, who happens to be blessed with a Jewish mother (yet cannot point to Palestine on the map), has a right to “return” and settle in Palestine, unlike someone who has been expelled from his own land, confined to a squalid refugee camp and still holds the keys to his house, is racism.
6. To blame God for the theft and occupation of someone else’s land by claiming that it was He who had pledged this land exclusively to the Jews, and to seriously promote the myth of a land promised by the Almighty to His favourite children as an excuse for this crime, is insanity.
7. To milk the pockets of the entire world for the atrocities of the Nazis, while stubbornly refusing a simple admission of guilt, let alone compensation or repatriation, for the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people, is perverted conceit.
8. To keep blackmailing the world with expensive museums and endless movies of the plight of the Jews under Hitler 70 years ago, while at the same time inflicting on the Palestinians today the fate of the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto, is acute schizophrenia.
9. To impose collective guilt on the Western civilisation for the Holocaust and to criminalise all legitimate historical debate of the nature and extent of that horrific event is thuggery.
10. To incarcerate the Palestinian people inside degrading cages, destroy their livelihoods, confiscate their lands, steal their water and uproot their trees, and then to condemn their legitimate resistance as terrorism, and to exact vengeance on the innocent families of suicide bombers by punishing them with the dynamiting of their homes is sadistic cruelty.
11. To describe the offer of giving the Palestinians 80 per cent of 22 per cent of 100 per cent of what is originally their own land as a “generous” offer is macabre Shylockian humour.
12. To believe that you have the God-given right to continue to humiliate the Palestinians at gunpoint by making them queue for hours to move between their villages, forcing their mothers to give birth at checkpoints, is a predisposition to bestiality.
13. To flatten the camp of Jenin on its inhabitants’ heads and deny any wrongdoing is a severe delusional disorder.
14. To build a huge separation wall which disconnects farmers from their farms and children from their schools, while stealing even more territory as the wall freely zigzags and encroaches on Palestinian land is unrepentant immorality.
15. To leave behind, in the last 10 days of a losing war in Lebanon, more than one million cluster bombs which have no purpose except to murder and maim unsuspecting civilians is murderous depravity.
16. To believe that the entire world is out to get you, and to denounce any critic of the racist policies of the state of Israel as an anti-Semite, the latest victim being none other than peace-making Jimmy Carter, is hysterical mass paranoia.
17. To possess, in the midst of a non-nuclear Arab world, more than 200 nuclear warheads capable of incinerating the whole planet, in addition to having the most lethal arsenal of weaponry on earth, while continuing to demand sympathy, is the ultimate false victimisation syndrome.

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And today, to blockade the world’s most densely populated strip of land for 18 months, suffocate its already displaced and miserable inhabitants by asking them to die a slow death, and then punish them for refusing to die silently by deliberately bombing their schools, mosques, hospitals and ambulances with internationally prohibited weapons and poisonous gasses in the ugliest televised massacre of children in modern history, all the while looking the world in the eyes and claiming that this is an act of self-defence, is a critical stage of dangerous psychosis, and is pure, unadulterated madness.

Yes, and for that salesman in peaceful Geneva to be as insecure as a common thief to refuse to acknowledge the name of the largest West Bank city under his country’s brutal military occupation is, sadly, more of the same infectious and ultimately fatal disease of the mind.

The writer is an attorney, partner in Nabulsi & Associates law firm. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

14 January 2009

The Janus-Like Punditry of Nat Hentoff

The Janus-Like Punditry of Nat Hentoff

Friday, November 29 2002 @ 08:39 PM GMT

"The article was a rant, a smear attack, which sounded like it was penned by some shill for Ariel Sharon. It was captioned, 'Israel at Stake on U.S. Campuses,' .."

By William Hughes

In Roman mythology, the God Janus was worshipped as a patron of beginnings and endings. They even named the month of January after him. He had two faces; one in the front, and one in the back of the head.

Recently, the punditry of Nat Hentoff brought Janus to my mind. He wrote two pieces last week which, politically speaking, were diametrically opposed to each other. It was hard for me to believe they were written by the same man, three days apart. How could he, I thought, hold these two views in his head at the same time? The first article was liberal, justice seeking and optimistic; the second, narrow, close minded, indifferent to human suffering and extremely cynical.

His commentary appearing in the Village Voice, (11/22/02), had a very strong progressive bent to it. It was entitled, “Resistance Rising! True Patriots Networking,” and it centered on the growing opposition around the country to the USA Patriot Act. In fact, it was forwarded to me by a long- time peace and justice activist. I wondered, however, if that same activist had seen Hentoff’s second piece, if he would have been so keen to have circulated that first commentary on his email list. I doubt it.

The “Resistance Rising” piece was mostly solid journalism. It praised activists for resisting the new federal criminal law by taking the initiative at the local level to protest it. Hentoff even cited historical American parallels as a precedent. His targets were the Justice Department, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and the Defense Department. He omitted, however, citing Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), for laying the infrastructure for the USA Patriot Act in the mid-90s.

The second article, however, was a rant, a smear attack, which sounded like it was penned by some shill for Ariel Sharon. It was captioned, “Israel at Stake on U.S. Campuses,” and it was published by the right wing Washington Times, (11/25/02), a house organ for the syndicated ravings of A. M. Rosenthal and other Israeli Firsters. Its main purpose was to marginalize the growing grass roots movement on college campuses that is advocating for divestment from the apartheid state of Israel.

Francis A. Boyle, a distinguished law professor, human rights activist, and recognized expert on international law, gave birth to the Israeli divestment campaign, on Nov. 30, 2000. The U. of California, at Berkeley, was the first to join up. Since then, more than 50 campuses have come onboard. Boyle predicted that this campaign “can produce an historical reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians- -just as it successfully did between whites and blacks in South Africa.”

Hentoff objected that Israel was being compared with the “formerly apartheid South Africa” in this new campaign. He didn’t try, however, to show, why that would be factually or morally inapplicable. Instead, he primarily made the specious legal argument that Israel was a “selective” target. This is kind of like a mouthpiece for NYC’s late gangster John Gotti complaining about the Feds picking on him, rather then some Chicago mobster. It doesn’t hold up under careful analysis. Hentoff didn’t label the “divestment crusaders” as anti-Semites, but he did charge that some of them are “Jew-haters,” who just wanted to demonize Israel. (Really Nat, I expected better from you.)

Some historical background is in order. In addition to the anti-Apartheid campaign against South Africa, and the ongoing divestment action against Israel, there was another gallant movement in this country that attempted to end human rights violations on foreign shores. This was the MacBride Principles campaign. It was directed at Northern Ireland and led in America by Father Sean McManus, an Irish born priest. It urged that U.S. corporate and governmental investments, in the British-controlled state, be based on a non-discriminatory policy between the Catholic and Protestant communities. I think it’s fair to say, that the MacBride Principles, a federal law since 1998, contributed significantly to the ongoing “Peace Process” in Northern Ireland.

Incidentally, the former South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Palestine, have two major things in common: First, they are all settler colonies; and secondly, the indigenous people in each were viciously persecuted by their colonizers. Alas, it still continues in occupied Palestine.

Hentoff was right to denounce the “suicide bombers,” but he failed miserably to address the massive evils of the Zionist occupation, dating back over 35 years. He made no mention of Israel stealing the land of the Palestinians; bulldozing their homes and orchards; torturing detainees; holding prisoners without trial; operating death squads; or its draconian collective punishment of innocent civilians, itself a war crime.

Hentoff’s apology for Israeli wrongdoing echoed the theme of the Harvard U. president, the overly pious Lawrence H. Summers, on Sept. 17, 2002. Then, Summers used his office as a bully pulpit to do some special pleadings for the Zionist cause. He said that he was a Jew, but he failed to disclose his Zionist identity. I wonder why?

Hentoff was right to call those opposing the USA Patriot Act, the “true “patriots” in America. I think if he had a chance to reconsider his harsh comments about those crusading in this country for justice in an apartheid Israel, he might have also come to the same conclusion about them. They, too, despite the unfair name-calling, are true patriots, who champion the values of our Republic for an oppressed people.

William Hughes 2002. William Hughes is the author of “Andrew Jackson vs. New World Order” (Authors Choice Press) and “Baltimore Iconoclast” (Writer’s Showcase), which are available online. He can be reached at liamhughes@mindspring.com.

-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 5:48 pm Post subject: Al-Durra Comes Back to Life

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021202194055681

Al-Durra Comes Back to Life

Monday, December 02 2002 @ 07:40 PM GMT

"Speaking to Agence France-Presse (AFP), his father Jamal Al Durra said: “My son Mohammad did not die. He’s back again .."

GAZA STRIP - Mohammad Al Durra, the little boy who was killed by the Israeli occupation gunfire at the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada, has been resurrected by name.

Mohamed al-Durra screaming
for help, a few moments before
Israeli troops shot him dead


His mother, Amal gave birth to a little boy on Friday, November 29 to a baby boy whom she named Mohammad Al Durra.

Speaking to Agence France-Presse (AFP), his father Jamal Al Durra said: “My son Mohammad did not die. He’s back again despite the crimes of the Israeli occupation.”

He added that his son came back on the last Friday in the month of Ramadan and on the International Quds Day. “The Intifada will continue,” said Al Durra.

Jamal now has 7 children, five boys and two girls, the eldest is Eyad, aged 16 and the youngest is the new born Mohammad.

Just moments after France 2 Talal Abu Rahma pictured Al-Durrah September 30, 2000, the 12-year-old boy was shot dead by Israeli occupation soldiers, to become a new martyr for the Palestinian cause.

For 45 minutes, Muhammad's father tried in vain to shield him from Israeli gunfire as they crouched against a concrete wall near Netzarim in the Gaza Strip, BBC’s online news service reported after the tragic event.

The whole scene was caught on camera by France 2 cameraman Abu Rahma, and was played repeatedly on world televisions.

The footage shows the boy's father Jamal al-Durrah waving desperately to Israeli forces, shouting: "Don't shoot". But the terrified boy is hit by four bullets, and collapses in his father's arms and finally slumps across his wounded father's lap.

An ambulance driver who tried to rescue the boy and his father was also killed, and a second ambulance driver was wounded.

The Israeli occupation army admitted, after Abu Rahma’s video footage triggered world indignation, that the shots which killed Muhammad had been fired by its troops, and apologized for his murder.

Abu Rahma’s video footage showed that not only were the boy and his father completely unarmed, but that they were not even part of the rioting, BBC said.
The disturbing footage, which shocked the entire world, was played throughout the Middle East, and on all major U.S. television networks.

A photo still from the video ran on the front page of The New York Times.
The British daily newspaper, The Independent, described it as "an image that will haunt the world as painfully and powerfully" as any of those from the Palestinian Intifada.

-Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2002 1:45 pm Post subject: A Philosopher in the Trenches

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=2002120418345889

A Philosopher in the Trenches: Interview with Ted Honderich

Wednesday, December 04 2002 @ 06:34 PM GMT



“Honderich is the author of the most-translated living philosopher's book on determinism and freedom, ‘How Free Are You?’ .. and the editor of the most-used one-volume reference work of its kind, ‘The Oxford Companion to Philosophy‘ ..”

By Paul de Rooij

LONDON (PalestineChronicle.com) - It is unusual to find philosophers getting into the debate on current events; most of them are safely ensconced in their ivory towers pondering questions of higher importance. It is therefore gratifying to find some philosophers in the trenches tackling questions pertinent to all of us -- trying to understand current events and to untangle the meaning of propaganda-frayed language. Paul de Rooij recently had the opportunity to ask Prof. Ted Honderich some questions pertaining his latest book and the furor surrounding it.

About Ted Honderich: he is a distinguished British philosopher, has been Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London, and also taught at Yale and CUNY. He is the author of the most-translated living philosopher's book on determinism and freedom, “How Free Are You?” He is the proponent of an alternative view of the nature of perceptual consciousness, and the editor of the most-used one-volume reference work of its kind, “The Oxford Companion to Philosophy”. His new book “After the Terror” addresses questions raised by September 11. The British branch of Oxfam International recently declined to accept a donation of 5,000 in royalties from the book after a Canadian newspaper raised the issue of a statement made in the book as to the rights of the Palestinians.

Isn’t the issue of the justification of political violence old hat? The UN recognizes the right for an oppressed people to resist. There is an enormous body of work in this area. So, why was it necessary to traverse this ground again? Why did you write “After the Terror”?

I know the UN has recognized the right of peoples to self-determination and to freedom from foreign occupation, and indeed recognized the legitimacy of struggles by national liberation movements. But I have been under the impression that the UN also condemns terrorism. Certainly, its Secretary-General has done so, no doubt on the basis of UN resolutions or the like. So surely the fact of the matter is that the UN doesn't recognize the right of a people to engage in what is now the most common form of resistance and liberation-struggle.

Claiming that the Palestinians have a moral right to their terrorism, which I do, can hardly be old hat given the reaction to the claim. If some people readily accept it, some of them out of anti-Semitism, many are shocked or disturbed by it. The moral feelings of people at Oxfam GB were shocked by it, as their public statements clearly show.

As for my reason for writing “After the Terror”, I was like so many of us in being overwhelmed and then thrown into reflection by September 11. In my own case, September 11 also came as a kind of charge against or question about things written by me in the past, notably the book "Violence for Equality: Inquiries in Political Philosophy".

The new book is an account of what you can call the moral state of the world. It is only about Palestine in passing. Only a few pages are on Palestine. The most important thing you come on, in thinking about us and our world, is our omissions rather than our commissions. One large thing we omit to do, most notably in connection with Africa, is to help people with short and even brief lives -- half-lives and quarter-lives. In one sample there is a loss of 20 million years of living time.

This is yet more terrible than what we positively do -- say aid the Zionists, by whom I mean overt and covert supporters of and participants in Israel's ongoing aggression against the Palestinians, the violation and occupation of their homeland.

So what is your definition of terrorism? Isn’t terrorism generally understood to be illegitimate violence? Resistance on the other hand is legitimate, and may employ terrorism as a tactic. So how do you define these terms?

Terrorism has a number of features, but fundamentally it is a kind of violence, which is to say physical force that injures, damages, violates or destroys people or things. It is this: violence with a political and social end, whether or not intended to put people in general in fear, and necessarily raising a question of its moral justification because it is violence -- either such violence as is against the law within a society or else violence between states or societies, against what there is of international law and smaller-scale than war. It is illegitimate in terms of law, but not necessarily in terms of morality.

Terrorism understood in this uncontentious way evidently includes suicide bombings. As evidently, it also includes state-terrorism and cat's paw terrorism.

You say resistance as ordinarily understood is "legitimate". Do you mean it's ordinarily taken to be lawful? Then it itself can’t include terrorism, and I guess it can't employ terrorism. If saying resistance is legitimate means it is morally defensible, which is certainly different, then it can't employ any old terrorism whatsoever, because not all terrorism is morally defensible. But it is obviously possible that some morally justified resistance can employ some morally justified terrorism.

What terrorism do you justify, and how do you arrive at those conclusions?

In the book what I say is morally permissible is the terrorism of the Palestinians in the present situation. It seems to me very similar to the terrorism of the African National Congress against the South Africa of apartheid.

I also say that the only general kind of terrorism that is likely to be justified, in the world as it is, is what you can call liberation-terrorism: the violent struggle of a people to come to freedom and power in their own homeland. The likely justification depends importantly on the fact that the suffering that is caused does have a probability of success. What is wrong with other terrorism is that it is the causing of suffering for no probable gain, with no reasonable hope.

You will notice that what I have said does not amount to a complete answer to the question of what violence is justified. I don’t have one worked-out. What does seem to me clear is that the Palestinians have a moral right to their struggle. It seems to be a fact about morality that one can be sure of a particular moral proposition, a particular case, without having a complete answer to the large and general question in the neighborhood.

How do I arrive at the conclusion about the Palestinians? Well, I have a lot of reasons. The book gives various premises for the conclusion. One is my fundamental moral principle, which is the Principle of Humanity, about taking rational steps to getting people out of bad lives. Another is that the Israelis certainly claim a moral right to their state-terrorism and perhaps war. In consistency, which is necessary to actually saying anything, the Palestinians can claim the same, and they can do it truthfully.

Another reason for their moral right is that 50 years of history have proved that the Palestinians have no alternative whatever to terrorism in trying to secure freedom and power in their homeland. What they were offered in the Clinton negotiations at Camp David was not a state, but, if anything, a dog's breakfast of a state. That is proved, incidentally, by the fact that everybody now speaks of their need for a viable state.
But still more has to be said in support of the moral right, and can be. There is no simple proof of the claim about their moral right. That is because there are no simple proofs in morality.

What do you think elicited the criticism of your book? How has your book been received in academic circles?

The book has been seriously and respectfully received in meetings in nine universities here and in America, including Oxford and Columbia. There has been a little Zionist fuss, but not much. That has to be kept in mind when thinking about the Oxfam business. As for newspaper reviews, for starters, The Guardian lauded it, The Times said it was the best reflective book on 9/11, and The Sunday Telegraph, owned by the man who also owns The Jerusalem Post, said it was the worst book ever written. All of those three reviews, to my mind, given the newspapers in question, proved I must have written something decent.

Your arguments are ahistorical. Isn’t the historical context crucial to understanding violence?


I don't quite understand what you mean by saying that my arguments are ahistorical. The way the argument goes forward is pretty typical for a moral philosopher. It is a kind of logical sequence, but most certainly it does not ignore history. Another principal premise for my conclusion about the moral right of the Palestinians is that they have indeed been treated horrifically in their homeland for 50 years. Population figures I give in the book for Arabs and Jews at various stages overwhelm the familiar stuff about who did what in what year in terms of massacres, negotiations and the like. The Palestinians are right to say they are the Jews of the Jews.

My reflections are an attempt to try to give a good argument for a moral conclusion about what is right and what we ought to be doing. To do so is not just to engage in historical explanation, of course, but historical explanation must enter into the thing.








In the context of the Middle East violence is usually referred to as “terrorism”. This word has become very politically charged, and its meaning has changed from its dictionary definition. Has terrorism become the violence of the “other”, actions that don’t require explanation? How do philosophers cope with words whose meaning keeps changing - aren’t you dealing with a moving target?

Of course the word has been kidnapped by the Israelis above all, and used just for the violence of the Palestinians. "Democracy" is used as mindlessly -- you might add as viciously. "Terrorism" is also used in such a way as to suggest wholly irrational evil and whatever else. That is pretty obvious. It is also one of the facts that affected me in the writing of my book. I was outraged by the endless parade of Israeli government spokesmen on television going on about the unspeakable terrorism of the Palestinians and the murdered children of the Israeli democrats. It turned my stomach, as it did many other stomachs.

But that is not to say that changes in uses of a word, and a word’s being kidnapped, stand in the way of using it correctly. To my mind, I do that. This is more or less necessary to actual thinking. It is also necessary to strong argument. You just weaken your argument, on whatever side you are, by self-serving definitions. It is plain that pretending that terrorism can exist only on the other side is usually lying in the aid of killing, maybe killing in the aid of taking more of another people's land.

You mean that Israel is not a democracy?

I don't meant that. It is a hierarchic democracy, like the hierarchic democracies of the United States and Britain. But that you are a democracy, even a better one, most certainly doesn't legitimate you in anything like the sense of making all your actions and policies right, or even your main actions and policies. No chance whatever of that. Did anybody even say it who was actually thinking about the matter rather than engaged in doing something else?

After the recent Palestinian attack in Hebron, the Israelis engaged in a wave of “retaliation”, and people living in Gaza, totally unrelated to the original attack, were targeted. One Israeli soldier was quoted as saying that “none of them are innocent.” On the other hand, when a terrorist attack occurs in the West the condemnations always refer to “innocent” civilians. What do you make of this, and are there any innocent civilians? Does the civilian’s responsibility for actions of their state diminish their innocence?

I think that lying is a part of such conflicts as the Palestinian one. It enables people to do unspeakable things. They should say and let themselves know what they are doing. This comment applies to both Israelis and Palestinians. The Israelis and the Palestinians should not engage in awful stuff about young children not being “innocent”. Of course and unquestionably, these children and some other people who have been killed are innocent in an ordinary sense.

These truths cannot possibly be overlooked, and nor can they be taken by themselves to decide the main questions. To take but one example, we British did not take it that our terror-bombing of Germany in World War 2, which in fact was called just that, was wrong because it killed innocents and civilians and children. Remember Hiroshima too.

Israelis often justify their violent actions as a deterrent. Pulling out of Lebanon without gaining anything was seen as weakness, thus encouraging the Lebanese resistance. The other side of this story is that any Palestinian action must be met 100X as a deterrent. So, is there any merit to the deterrence argument?

I don't quite see what this comes to. You can engage in deterrence, so-called, in a good cause, and you can engage in it in a bad cause. To the extent that the Israelis are engaging in deterrence, they are engaged in wholly wrongful deterrence. What they are trying to do is to destroy the desire and will of a people to be free in the place to which they have a moral right.

In the media, the Israelis are always portrayed as “responding” or “retaliating,” thus justified in their actions. Palestinian actions are never described this way. Can there be a “cycle of violence” with only one party “responding”? Furthermore, Israeli violence is usually unrelated to original Palestinian action, and it is usually called “collective punishment.” So, do the Israelis have any justification for their violence in this case?

There is all this use of language to a particular purpose, a wrongful purpose. The main one, of course, as already mentioned, is the use of the term “democracy” in such way as to suggest that what a democracy does must be right, and the use of the word “terrorism” in such a way as to suggest or declare that this terrorism is always wrong or barbarous. It is just self-serving commandeering of language.

What is most important about it is that it does not amount to serious moral argument. Nor will it in the end be decisive. It seems to me that just about everybody in the world, including all supporters of Israel, do in fact see through this vile stuff. Vile stuff with a vicious purpose.

As for whether Israel does in fact have an argument for its own existence, it seems to me very clear that it does. It also has an argument for defending itself, where that actually means what the word “defending” does mean. It does not mean attacking somebody else in order to seize more land. What Israel does not have an argument for, whatever wretched terminology and talk it goes in for, is the taking of more and more land beyond its justified borders, these to my mind being its borders before 1967.

Amnesty International in their latest report [1] recently stated: “Israel has the right and responsibility to take measures to prevent unlawful violence [referring to Palestinian violence]. The Israeli government equally has an obligation to ensure that the measures it takes to protect Israelis are carried out in accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law.” What do you think of the first sentence, and isn’t it in contradiction with the second sentence?

I think this stuff from Amnesty as it stands is typical unreflective moralizing, avoiding the issue. What Israel ought to do is give up, withdraw from the homeland of another people. That is the main thing.
How they do this, how they go about protecting Israeli lives and what they do to Palestinians in the process, is a secondary matter. It is a large matter, but a secondary matter. Needless to say, they should cause the least possible suffering and death, to the Palestinians and themselves.

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have proscribed any violence against civilians, settlers, and even off duty soldiers. Violence in Israel is proscribed completely. It seems that Palestinians are only allowed to fight one of the most powerful armies in the world within the occupied territories. What do you make of this?

Probably I disagree with it. I guess I disagree with it. My view of the Palestinians’ moral right to their terrorism is most confident with respect to the occupied territories, but I also extend it to Israel itself.

Amnesty equates the nature of the violence perpetrated against Israelis and Palestinians. That is, it will condemn to the same degree when an Israeli is killed, and when a Palestinian is killed. It also calls on “both parties to respect human rights, and to make human rights central to their agenda.” Is AI’s stance valid?

Everyone should object to the terrible “even-handedness” of such statements as the Amnesty one. Everyone should choke on such attempts at “balance”. In an ordinary sense of the words, there is no place at all for even-handedness and balance in actually dealing with the rapist engaged in the rape of the woman with a knife at her throat. The rapist has no rights that bear significantly on the question of whether he should stop or be stopped. The analogy with Israel is not a wild one, but exact.

If Amnesty were taking the view that any killing is as bad as any other killing, it would be taking a view that is denied by all of history. If it is saying that you can settle any question of killing by making a declaration of a right to life, that is nonsense. It has the upshot, to mention but one, that it would have been wrong to kill a single German guard in order to save a thousand Jews from death in gas chambers in a concentration camp.

A few months ago Cherie Blair, the wife of the current British Prime Minister, stated: “As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress.” This seemingly bland statement elicited a barrage of criticism, and a statement from the Prime minister’s office announced that she retracted the statement, and apologized for it. So, why do you think her bland statement elicited this response?

It elicited this response as a result of Israeli and Zionist activity. There is no puzzle about that. Cherie Blair's statement did not elicit the response because people in general thought the comment was terrible. In fact, probably, most people thought the opposite.

I understand that you recently arranged to donate 5,000 ($8,000) to Oxfam GB, and that this was then rejected on account of the statement in your book about the moral right of the Palestinians. Why did Oxfam refuse your donation?

Well, there was a Zionist threat. But I think Oxfam could pretty easily have accepted the 5,000 without thereby losing a larger amount of money as a result of Zionists or others not making donations. Oxfam could have done this by declaring that it would not dream of endorsing or agreeing with my view, which it hated, but that regretfully Oxfam was obliged legally and morally to save 2,000 lives, the lives of 2,000 dying children, by taking the money. This is just obvious. Those who suggest otherwise are trying to avoid a clear truth, for whatever reason.

So what happened has some other explanation in place of or in addition to the Zionist threat. You get to it by reading Oxfam’s own statements. What it comes to is that some people -- certainly not all -- in the Oxfam GB office in Oxford were disturbed or outraged by my view. They were upset, as I said in answer to an earlier question.

That is all right by me. Philosophers are used to disagreement. What isn’t all right is allowing more people to die for certain of your conventional moral feelings. That is neither a legal nor a moral possibility for Oxfam. Its objects, which are defined in the foundation document lodged with the Charity Commission, do not include refuting moral philosophers it thinks are mistaken. In particular it can't do this if it reduces their income to serve their real objects of saving lives and preventing suffering.

Mr. John Whitaker, the Deputy Director of Oxfam GB, who has taken responsibility for the decision to turn away the 5,000, should resign. If he does not, he should be relieved of his duties by the Trustees of Oxfam, who have authority over the charity.

There is also the fact that Oxfam’s acting on the moral feelings of some of its officers raises a bigger question not about their raising of money but their use of it. In particular, it raises a question about their policy with respect to Palestine. For a start, this is a matter of their political activity, which is one of their stated policies, and their literature. Why aren't they putting out a lot of forceful and effective literature against the violation of Palestine? Why is this missing from the stuff we all get in our mailboxes?

Paul de Rooij is an economist living in London and can be reached at proox@hotmail.com. He will forward legitimate emails to Prof. Honderich.

Notes:

1. Shielded from scrutiny: IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus, Nov. 4, 02

2. There is an extensive account of the Oxfam dispute by Ted Honderich at www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/ATTOxfam1.html

-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2002 1:53 pm Post subject: Israel Plans Increased Settlement Activity

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021204194538493

Israel Plans Increased Settlement Activity

Wednesday, December 04 2002 @ 07:45 PM GMT

"A spokeswoman for Housing Minister Nathan Sharansk said that a tender for the construction of 150 new houses in the large settlements .."

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - The Israeli housing ministry and the illegal so-called Settlers Council in the occupied Palestinian Territory have drawn up a plan for increased settlement activity in the West Bank over the next three months, the Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported on Tuesday.

The plan provides for dozens of new houses to be built in 14 different settlements, creating facts on the ground in isolated settlements, which Israel’s Labor party says it wants to dismantle if it wins the January 28 legislative elections.

The plan was drawn up during a meeting between Settlers Council chairman Bentzi Lieberman and Avi Moz, the director general of the housing ministry, Ma’ariv said.

A spokeswoman for Housing Minister Nathan Sharansk said that a tender for the construction of 150 new houses in the large settlements of Ariel and Efrat, northeast of Tel Aviv and south of Jerusalem respectively, had been issued two months ago.

However she denied that such a plan had been agreed. "The ministry does not plan any stepped up development ahead of the elections," she told AFP.

According to Ma’ariv, the housing ministry initiated the construction of a record 1,894 new housing units in the West Bank, more than twice the 2001 figure.

Some 210,000 Jewish settlers live in 160 settlements across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, while another 200,000 live in the 12 settlements in occupied and annexed east Jerusalem.

Coinciding with Ma’ariv’s report, Israel's military chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon said Tuesday he opposes any dismantlement of any Jewish settlements.

"If we dismantle a settlement while under fire, hoping to spare military forces, we will achieve the opposite (of security)," he said, speaking at the annual Herzliya conference on “The Balance of Israel's National Security”.

"We will have to deploy much larger forces because a dismantling will galvanize the Palestinian struggle," he added.

His comments were a clear response to opposition Labor Party leader Amram Mitzna's proposal for the dismantling of all settlements in the Gaza Strip and some isolated settlements in the West Bank.

A ‘roadmap’ for peace in the Middle East being drawn up by the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia demands a freeze of settlement activity and the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

Illegal Jewish settlement of Palestinian territory under the protection of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) since 1967 has been the hardcore of Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Since Palestinians and Israelis signed the Declaration of Principles in Washington in 1993 the number of illegal Jewish settlements and settlers almost doubled in occupied Palestinian territories.

US Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer on Tuesday reiterated US opposition to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Settlement activity has "severely undermined Palestinian trust and hope. It pre-empts and prejudges the outcome of negotiations and in doing so cripples chances for real peace and security," Kurtzer told a conference on national security near Tel Aviv.

-Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2002 1:55 pm Post subject: Eid is Thursday in Palestine: Mufti

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021204181103992

Eid is Thursday in Palestine: Mufti

Wednesday, December 04 2002 @ 06:11 PM GMT

"The announcement was made during a news conference in Jerusalem this evening .."

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - The Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrema Sabri, announced on Wednesday that Thursday will be the first day of Eidul Fitr which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

The announcement was made during a news conference in Jerusalem this evening.

Sabri said that the new moon of the lunar month of Shawwal was cited in Palestine and several other Muslim lands, thus marking the end of Ramadan.

Neighboring Jordan and Saudi Arabia and a number of other Middle Eastern countries have also announced that occurrence of Eidul Fitr will be tomorrow.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2002 2:02 pm Post subject: Intrntl UN Workers been verbally abused,stripped,beaten

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021204171525491

Statement From International UN Workers Operating In Occupied Palestinian Territories

Wednesday, December 04 2002 @ 05:15 PM GMT

"'UN staff - international and Palestinian alike - have been verbally abused, stripped, beaten, shot at and killed by Israeli soldiers ..'"

December 3,2002

To whom it may concern,

We, the undersigned, are staff members of the United Nations, but we write in our personal capacities. All of us work in the West Bank and Gaza Strip bringing badly needed humanitarian relief to a population in distress. In the course of our duties we have witnessed much tragedy on both sides of the conflict. We have come from all over the world to work, without bias or favour, to try to alleviate some of the pain and suffering that has for too long afflicted this land.

Now we find that, once again, tragedy has touched us. For us, expressions of sadness and grief are not enough. The diplomatic language of the bureaucrat will not suffice. We write to express our absolute condemnation at the senseless killing of Iain Hook in Jenin on November 22. Based on publicly available information, we condemn the Israeli army in the strongest possible terms for this wanton act against an unarmed man - a man shot in the back by a military sniper while negotiating with the Israeli army to evacuate the women, children and UN staff who were in the UN compound at the time.

Our condemnation is reinforced by the knowledge that the soldiers refused to allow an ambulance called to evacuate Iain to travel the last few yards needed to reach him. Instead, UN staff here forced to seek an alternative route to rescue him. This caused a delay and made sure that the work done by a bullet was completed by the Israeli army's refusal to respect the most elementary standards of humanity.

The shock of that day's events does not come in isolation. For two years, United Nations staff have been subject to escalating harassment and violence by Israel's military, so that the protection supposed to be afforded by the blue letters of the UN is being steadily eroded.

UN staff - international and Palestinian alike - have been verbally abused, stripped, beaten, shot at and killed by Israeli soldiers. There has been armed interference with UN employees and vehicles, including attacks on UN ambulances and medical personnel. UNRWA schools, health clinics and offices have been hit by bombs, rockets, tank shells and gunfire even during daytime, thereby endangering the lives of staff and, in the case of schools, the lives of refugee children. Buildings occupied by UN staff have been repeatedly damaged during Israeli airforce bombing.

Tragically Iain Hook was not the first person working with the UN to die at the hands of the IDF this year. In March, Kamal Hamdan was shot and killed while travelling in a clearly marked UNRWA ambulance in the West Bank.. In April, Husni Amer died in Israeli military custody in Jenin after, according to witnesses, receiving a brutal beating by the soldiers at the time of his arrest. From its silence, we presume the Israeli authorities have ignored UN requests for an investigation and report of these two incidents, and have not seen fit to take any disciplinary action against the soldiers involved. To us, this seems to confirm a pattern of utter contempt on the part of the Israeli army for the lost lives of these men, the safety of UN staff or the minimum standards imposed by international law which should protect UN staff and other humanitarian workers.

The official military spokesperson's statement on the initial investigation into Iain's killing asserts that shots were fired from UNRWA's compound in the Jenin refugee camp towards Israel's forces. This contradicts eyewitness accounts of our colleagues in Jenin and the information relayed to UNRWA's Field Office by Iain just prior to his death. The most charitable characterization one can make of this statement is that it lacks any credibility. To us, it has all the makings of propaganda designed to tarnish the reputation of the UN, excuse the killing of an unarmed man and perpetuate the false charge that UNRWA shelters terrorists, in the public mind. We strongly request that any investigation carried out by the Israeli government will be independent, transparent and impartial. We strongly request that the Israeli government will bring those responsible for Iain's killing promptly to justice. Only the most lawless societies allow gunmen in uniform the impunity to kill aid workers without fear of punishment.. We are confident Israel does not wish to see its troops painted in the same colours as the militiamen who have stalked some of the world's other conflicts.

As UN staff, we expect the protection of the Israeli government to enable us to undertake our humanitarian responsibilities wherever they are needed. This is not a matter of courtesy or favour, but rather an implementation of Israel's own obligations under international law and its express commitment to UNRWA to facilitate the Agency's operations in the occupied territories.

Israel's often stated regret at the loss of civilian lives is not an impervious shield that can deflect all criticism. It is a shield that is, in our view, tarnished by the attempts of Israeli spokespersons to link Iain's death to wider political issues or to claim that the UN was somehow culpable for his killing. In these tragic circumstances, rather than easily uttered regrets, we expect the Israeli Government take the necessary steps to stop the harassment, beating and killing of UN staff. We expect respect and protection as United Nations employees. As international staff members, we hope and expect to return alive to our own countries and families after our work here is done. We hope and expect no less for our Palestinian colleagues so they can live and work in safety until the parties to the conflict eventually find the road to peace.

Sally Airs, Australia; Naomi Ando, Japan; Ignacio Artaza Zuriarrain, Spain, Alan Barnie, Australia Peter Bartu, Australia Pamela Bell, USA Susan Brannon, USA Marlise Brenner, Australia Deidre Connolly, USA Marisa Consolate Kemper, Canada Joanna Corbin, UK B. Scott Custer Jr., USA Omar Dajani, USA Calvin Dasilvio, USA Isabelle dela Cruz, Germany Marc De la Motte, Italy-France Mark Dennis, USA Ray Dolphin, Ireland Juliet Dryden, UK Teresa Fallarme, Philippine Jean-Marie Frentz, Luxembourg Christopher Gabelle, UK Jagannathan Gopalan, India Philippe Grandet, France Pentti Hakonen, Finland Roger Hearn, Australia Grigor Hovmannisyan, Armenia Thierry Kaiser, France Sima Kanaan, Jordan Elizabeth Kawambwa, Tanzania.

Jan Kolaas, Norway Antje Kunst, Germany Marc Lassouaoui, France Brett Lodge, Australia Ali Mahmuda, Canada Henrik Mathiesen, Norway Carlos Mazuera, Columbia Paul McCann, UK Amanda Melville, Australia Severine Meyer, France Zeina Mogarbel, Spain Merethe Nedrebo, Norway Gustav Nordstrom, Finland Patrick O'neil, Ireland Melissa Parke, Australia Joachim Paul, German Alex Pollock, UK Gerhard Pulfer, Austria Timothy Rothermel, USA Sam Rose, UK Ehab Shanti, Canada Shahwan Huda, Jordan Jean-Luc Siblot, France Guy Siri, France Elna Sondergaard, Denmark Juerg Staudenmann, Switzerland Angelo Stefanini, Italy Gretta Van Bleek, Netherlands Arjan Van Houwelingen, Netherlands Andrew Whitley, UK Hanna Wintsch, Switzerland Cecilia Wreh-McGill, USA Ros Young, UK Kirsten Zaat, Australia

-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2002 2:12 pm Post subject: Celebrate but Don’t Forget

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021204193326496

Celebrate but Don’t Forget

Wednesday, December 04 2002 @ 07:33 PM GMT

"Meandering through a shopping mall last week I saw mothers happily buying dresses for their daughters. Unbidden, my mind was filled with images of Palestinian children dressed in rags .."

By Khaled Al-Maeena

Today is Eid Al-Fitr, an occasion to feel joy and be glad. But this year I approach the holiday like a sleepwalker, stumbling through a never-ending nightmare. The city of Jeddah is filled with bright lights and merrymakers, but I have no festive spirit within me.

As a journalist, year after year I have been forced to bear witness to man’s inhumanity to mankind. When I first began, it was a job, a challenge to report the better story, to get there first and dig deepest. Details of destruction were nothing more than words on a page, may Allah forgive my ignorance and youth.

Now my consciousness is overwhelmed with the litany of daily horrors. The sad stories that appear in Arab News are but a drop in the bucket of global misery. Four Palestinian children are killed in one day. We print the photo of one. An Afghani child loses his legs to a mine. We don’t report it. There’s no space on our pages. He’s just another victim, one of many. Chechens are dying by the dozens. International news agencies no longer choose to hear their screams, see their tears or even remember that they exist.

Not only is the agony flashing across monitors in the newsroom, people from near and far reach out directly for assistance. The Internet has changed the way we communicate. Every hour, pleas for aid arrive through e-mail. “Find a way to educate my son,” writes one mother. “My baby needs surgery or she will die,” writes another. “My son has been detained by the Israelis. He is our only support,” explains a third. I try to help them all, but I cannot work miracles, and the need is tremendous.

So I go out and walk to give my mind a rest. Meandering through a shopping mall last week I saw mothers happily buying dresses for their daughters. Unbidden, my mind was filled with images of Palestinian children dressed in rags. I passed a confectionery filled with cakes and sweets of every kind. In a trick of light, the dirty, desperate faces of Muslim refugees appeared as shadows on the shop’s windows. Teens loitered on corners, laughing and telling tales. I thought of the young Palestinians, whose only crime was breathing, detained in concentration camps by the Israelis.

“Be happy!” my friends tell me. “It’s Eid.” Instead, my soul mourns. I am surrounded by a society on a constant quest to shop and spend. People here never seem to have enough, no matter how much they have. In the final days of Ramadan the souks were packed till 3 a.m. What happened to the concept of praying on Ramadan nights for forgiveness? Where was the time for soul searching and quiet contemplation? When I opened my mouth to object to all the materialism in our midst, people told me to lighten up, that I was taking life far too seriously. “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” they advised.

Bullets and bombs are definitely small. The minds of many politicians are often even smaller. A baby starved to death becomes really tiny. Explosives can blow homes and people to little bits. Foreign policy in some nations has been reduced to sound bites. In our world, hope has shriveled and peace has been dwarfed by war. But don’t worry about the small stuff! It’s the big picture that’s really depressing.

This morning, while many of us were dressed in fine raiment, touching our foreheads to soft rugs and returning to lavish breakfasts and warm beds, around the world millions of people were caught up in inescapable suffering. Just closing our eyes to their misery will not make it disappear. Sadly, we do not even have to look far to find those in need. Families in our own land live in poverty, clinging to the scraps of their dignity in a nation of abundance.

Our world is a troubled place, filled with loss and pain and tears. Is this all the future holds for us? Eid Al-Fitr is about sharing our goodness with others. Let this day be a new beginning in your life. Take a vow to reach out to all with kindness, tolerance and compassion. Remember the joy of giving. Nurture your spirituality. Perhaps you’ll find that caring for others brings more pleasure and rewards than caring about yourself ever did. Sounds too sentimental and idealistic? Does a world filled with violence and fear sound better? Eid Mubarak.

The author is the editor-in-chief of Arab News

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Pinnochio



Joined: 29 Sep 2002
Posts: 505

Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2002 1:54 pm Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Jewish Renewal Understanding of the State of Israel
By Rabbi Michael Lerner

Jews did not return to Palestine in order to be oppressors or representatives of Western colonialism or cultural imperialism. Although it is true that some early Zionist leaders sought to portray their movement as a way to serve the interests of various Western states, and although many Jews who came brought with them a Western arrogance that made it possible for them to see Palestine as "a land without a people for a people without a land," and hence to virtually ignore the Palestinian people and its own cultural and historical rights, the vast majority of thsoe who came were seeking refuge from the murderous ravages of Western anti-Semitism or from the oppressive discrimination that they experienced in Arab countries. The Ashkenazic Jews who shaped Israel in its early years were jumping from the burning buildings of Europe--and when they landed on the backs of Palestinians, unintentionally causing a great deal of pain to the people who already lived there, they were so transfixed with their own (much greater and more actue) pain that they couldn't be bothered to notice that they were displacing and hurting others in the process of creating their own state.

Their insensitivity to the pain that they caused, and their subsequent denial of the fact that in creating Israel they had simultaneously helped create a Palestinian people most of whom were forced to live as refugees (and now, their many descendents still living as exiles and dreaming of "return" just as we Jews did for some 1800 plus years), was aided by the arrogance, stupidity and anti-Semitism of Palestinian leaders and their Arab allies in neighboring states who dreamt of ridding the area of its Jews and who, much like the Herut "revisionists" who eventually came to run Israel in the past twenty years, consistently resorted to violence and intimidation to pursue their maximalist fantasies.


cont/d....
http://www.tikkun.org/renewal/index.cfm/action/israel.html

Armed Badgers Storm Oxford Street Starbucks in Central London to Build Illegal Settlement

NEWS RELEASE - 31st October 2002

Armed Badgers Storm Oxford Street Starbucks in Central London to Build Illegal Settlement - "If Israel can, we can"

On Thursday 31st October at 3.00pm, 30 badgers armed with waterpistols stormed the Starbucks on Oxford St claiming it as their ancestral home.

Using the logic of Israeli settlers1 the badgers evicted some of the customers and erected the first badger settlement in London. With placards proclaiming "If it works in Palestine why not here" and "It's ours because we say so" the self-styled Badger Defence Force set up checkpoints to inspect shoppers and tourists for concealed weapons.

"If they're not a badger, they could be a terrorist" a spokesbadger said. They handed out copies of the badger bible which proves their ownership of Starbucks and a fact sheet which answered Frequently Asked Questions about their activities (see documents attached together with 9 photos).

The badgers have selected the store for their settlement because of the role of its CEO as a major supporter of the Israeli state.

The company has become a prime target of an international boycott of companies with ties to Israel2.

A spokesbadger said "Since the chief executive of this company clearly believes it is ok for one group of people to grab land belonging to another and say they have a right to it, we believe they won't mind if we take some of theirs".

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2002 3:32 pm Post subject: Revenge of a Child

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This story was printed from a.com/english">http://www.arabia.com, Commentary channel.

Revenge of a Child

By Uri Avnery

Since last Sunday, a question has been running around in my head and troubling my sleep: What induced the young Palestinian, who broke into Kibbutz Metzer, to aim his weapon at a mother and her two little children and kill them?
In war one does not kill children. That is a fundamental human instinct, common to all peoples and all cultures. Even a Palestinian who wants to take revenge for the hundreds of children killed by the Israeli army should not take revenge on children. No moral commandment says a child for a child.

- The persons who do these things are not known as crazy killers, blood-thirsty from birth. In almost all interviews with relatives and neighbors they are described as quite ordinary, non-violent individuals. Many of them are not religious fanatics. Indeed, Sirkhan Sirkhan, the man who committed the deed in Metzer, belonged to Fatah, a secular movement.

These persons belong to all social classes; some come from poor families who have reached the threshold of hunger, but others come from middle class families, university students, educated people. Their genes are not different from ours.

So what makes them do these things? What makes other Palestinians justify them?

In order to cope, one has to understand, and that does not mean to justify. Nothing in the world can justify a Palestinian who shoots at a child in his mothers embrace, just as nothing can justify an Israeli who drops a bomb on a house in which a child is sleeping in his bed. As the Hebrew poet Bialik wrote a hundred years ago, after the Kishinev pogrom: Even Satan has not yet invented the revenge for the blood of a little child.

But without understanding, it is impossible to cope. The chiefs of the IDF have a simple solution: hit, hit, hit. Kill the attackers. Kill their commanders. Kill the leaders of their organizations. Demolish the homes of their families and exile their relatives. But, wonder of wonders, these methods achieve the opposite. After the huge IDF bulldozer flattens the terrorist infrastructure, destroying-killing-uprooting everything on its way, within days a new infrastructure comes into being. According to the announcements of the IDF itself, since operation Protective Shield there have been some fifty warnings of imminent attacks every day.

The reason for this can be summed up in one word: rage.

Terrible rage, that fills the soul of a human being, leaving no space for anything else. Rage that dominates the persons whole life, making life itself unimportant. Rage that wipes out all limitations, eclipses all values, breaks the chains of family and responsibility. Rage that a person wakes up with in the morning, goes to sleep with in the evening, dreams about at night. Rage that tells a person: get up, take a weapon or an explosive belt, go to their homes and kill, kill, kill, no matter what the consequences.

An ordinary Israeli, who has never been in the Palestinian territories, cannot even imagine the reasons for this rage. Our media totally ignore the events there, or describe them in small, sweetened doses. The average Israeli knows somehow that the Palestinians suffer (its their own fault, of course), but he has no idea whats really happening there. It doesnt concern him, anyhow.

Homes are demolished. A merchant, lawyer, ordinary craftsman, respected in his community, turns overnight into a homeless, he and his children and grandchildren. Each one of them a potential suicide bomber.

Fruit-trees are being uprooted in their thousands. For the officer, its just a tree, an obstacle. For the owners, its the blood of his heart, the heritage of his forefathers, years of toil, the livelihood of his family. Each one of them a potential suicide bomber.

On a hill between the villages a gang of thugs has put up an outpost. The army arrives to defend them. When the villagers come to till their fields, they are shot at. They are forbidden to work in all fields and groves within a one or two kilometers range, so that the security of the outpost will not be endangered. The peasants see from afar, with longing eyes, how their fruit is rotting on the trees, how their fields are being covered by thorns and thistles waist high, while their children have nothing to eat. Each one of them a potential suicide bomber.

People are killed. Their torn bodies lie in the streets, for everyone to see. Some of them are martyrs who chose their lot. But many others €“ men, women, children €“ are killed by mistake, accidentally, trying to escape, were close to the source of fire - and all the hundred and one pretexts of professional spokesmen. The IDF does not apologize, officers and soldiers are never convicted, because thats how things are in war. But each of the people killed has parents, brothers, sons, cousins. Each one of them a potential suicide bomber.

Beyond these are the families living on the fringes of hunger, suffering from severe malnutrition. Fathers who cannot bring food to their children feel despair. Each one of them a potential suicide bomber.

Hundred of thousands are kept under curfew for weeks and months on end, eight persons cooped up in two or three rooms, a living hell difficult to imagine, while outside the settlers have a ball, protected by the soldiers. A vicious circle: yesterdays bombers caused the curfew, the curfew creates the bombers of tomorrow.

And beyond all these, the total humiliation which every Palestinian, without distinction of age, gender or social standing, experiences every moment of his life. Not an abstract humiliation, but an altogether concrete one. To be dependent for life and death on the whim of an 18-year old boy in the street and at one of the innumerable checkpoints that a Palestinian has to pass wherever he goes, while gangs of settlers pass freely and visit their villages, damage property, pick the olives in their groves, set fire to the trees.

An Israeli who has not seen it cannot imagine such a life, a situation of every bastard a king and the slave who has becomes master, a situation of curses and pushes at best, threats with weapons in many cases, actual shooting in some. Not to mention the sick on the way to dialysis, the pregnant women on the way to hospital, students who dont get to their classes, children who cant reach their schools. The youngsters who see their venerable grandfather publicly humiliated by some boy in uniform with a runny nose. Each one of them a potential suicide bomber.

A normal Israeli cannot imagine all this. After all, the soldiers are nice boys, the sons of all of us, only yesterday they were schoolboys. But when one takes these nice boys and puts them in uniforms, pushes them through the military machine and puts them into a situation of occupation, something happens to them. Many try to keep their human face in impossible circumstances, many others become order-fulfilling robots. And always, in every company, there are some disturbed people who flourish in this situation and do repulsive things, knowing that their officers will turn a blind eye or wink approvingly.

All this does not justify the killing of children in the arms of their mother. But it helps to grasp why this is happening, and why this will go on happening as long as the occupation lasts.

Mr. Avnery is a prominent Israeli journalist.

-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2002 8:35 pm Post subject: Taking a harder line

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taking a harder line

Nov 18th 2002
From The Economist Global Agenda


Ariel Sharon might use Friday’s attack on Israeli settlers and soldiers near Hebron as an excuse to beef up Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas


Reuters


More blood on the streets

ISRAEL’S prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is awaiting a detailed response from the army to his proposal to create “territorial contiguity” between the large Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the nearby West Bank city of Hebron, and the small Jewish settlement enclaves that already exist in the city. Aides said he raised the idea—not a new one—with army commanders in Hebron on November 17th, in reaction to the killing there two days earlier of 12 Israelis, most of them soldiers, in an ambush mounted by gunmen from Islamic Jihad, a militant Palestinian group. Among the Israeli dead was the colonel commanding the Hebron area, the highest-ranking soldier to have been killed during the 26 months of Palestinian uprising, or intifada.


Creating contiguity would mean building new Jewish homes next to, or in place of, Palestinian ones along a broad corridor of suburban land, and taking over several urban streets inside the city. Mr Sharon’s men say it would mean, eventually, Israel ruling over fewer Palestinian Hebronites than hitherto. But the scheme would amount to a major new encroachment by the settlers into this city of 120,000 Palestinians and just a few hundred Jews. As such, it would represent a lurch rightwards by the Sharon government, which has been ruling as a caretaker administration since the Labour Party left the governing coalition last month.


Mr Sharon is said to believe that the attack near Hebron, which stunned the country and drew sharp condemnations from the international community, gives him an opportunity to beef up the Jewish settlements in Hebron, a heartwarming prospect for many in his own Likud Party and among its rightist and religious allies. At a cabinet meeting on November 17th, the prime minister curtly dismissed demands from his new foreign minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority and deport its chairman, Yasser Arafat, as Israel’s response to the killings. Mr Sharon has promised President George Bush not to harm Mr Arafat personally. The prime minister will stand against Mr Netanyahu in a Likud leadership primary on November 28th. Mr Sharon is well ahead of his rival, according to the polls.


The new defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, has ordered the army to reoccupy the whole of Hebron—it had withdrawn from much of the city just three weeks ago—and to “clean out nests of terrorism”. The homes of prominent Palestinian activists were blown up, and dozens of men were taken in for questioning. Military sources say the army’s stay is “indefinite”. In Nablus, too, the largest city in the northern West Bank, a similarly intensive search-and-arrest operation is under way following a terrorist attack on a kibbutz inside Israel.


In Gaza, meanwhile, Israeli forces struck at a Palestinian Authority training complex, destroying several buildings and carting off large quantities of weapons and documents. In the haul were a number of Qassam missiles, clandestinely manufactured in Gaza, which Hamas and Islamic Jihad units fire at Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, and sometimes at towns and kibbutzim inside Israel. Mr Mofaz said the evidence “proved the close connections” between the Palestinian Authority’s Preventive Security Service, which runs the training complex, and terrorist groups. Some fear this assault might herald a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip.


Mr Mofaz and his generals promise a frank investigation into the disastrous Hebron firefight. The colonel involved has come under posthumous criticism for plunging into the fray (without a flak jacket) instead of taking stock and running the battle from the rear. Compounding the military’s embarrassment was the attempted hijacking on November 17th of an El Al aircraft flying from Tel Aviv to Istanbul. A young Israeli Arab reportedly carrying a small pocket-knife charged towards the cockpit but was felled by two in-flight security men. Now Israel’s airport authority is trying to explain how the knife got through what is vaunted as a fail-safe security system.


The Palestinian Authority’s response to the assault in Hebron was one of resounding silence, in contrast to its condemnation of the kibbutz attack, which left five Israelis dead. The reason is twofold. There is barely a Palestinian who does not view Islamic Jihad’s ambush as an entirely just response to a situation where 120,000 Palestinians are held hostage to the messianic ambitions of a few hundred armed settlers and their 1,500 or so army protectors. Secondly, there is a solid consensus, held by all the Palestinian factions and militias, that the armed resistance will continue inside the occupied territories as long as Israel retains control of six of the main West Bank Palestinian cities.


The Hebron attack came two days after the first round of talks between Mr Arafat’s Fatah movement and Hamas in Cairo. Fatah wants Hamas to declare a moratorium on all armed attacks, and especially suicide bombings, on civilians inside Israel. Publicly, Hamas has said the suicide or “martyrdom” operations will continue as long as “Israeli troops wage war against our people”. Less publicly, Hamas representatives in Cairo said their movement would halt attacks on Israeli civilians if Israel withdrew from the recently reoccupied Palestinian cities and ended the assassinations of Palestinian militants. Islamic Jihad, too, has said it would abide by such an “initiative”.


The Palestinian leadership is pinning its hopes not on domestic initiatives, but on some form of international rescue. Last week, it gave hedged approval to an American-drafted “roadmap”, which aims to establish a provisional Palestinian state in 2003 and to produce a fully fledged peace agreement by 2005. The Palestinian Authority is ready to quell the violence in return for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank cities and an internationally monitored freeze on Israel’s construction of settlements.


It is unlikely to get either, however. Last week, David Satterfield, a US State Department envoy, got a cool reception from Israeli officials for the roadmap. And Israeli analysts say Mr Sharon has already won American agreement for no new diplomatic initiatives ahead of the Israeli elections in late January and, probably, any American-led strike on Iraq. By then, he clearly hopes the region’s actual maps will have changed to Israel’s advantage.

tax0_SiteID=6&Channel=agenda&NOJS=1&PageType=printerfriendly&story_id=1453336&if_nt_c=web2

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2002 8:41 pm Post subject: Escalated Collective Punishment in Hebron,Nablus and Ramalla

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Escalated Collective Punishment Measures in Hebron, Nablus and Ramallah

Date: 12/3/02 12:02:36 PM Central Standard Time

iapinfo@iap.org (IAP NEWS)


Escalated Collective Punishment Measures in Hebron, Nablus and Ramallah

Hear Palestine - December 3, 2002

Hebron
---------

The occupation army was not satisfied with preventing thousands of people
from attending to prayers during the last days of Ramadan as a result of the imposed curfew but also raided a number of mosques in the city and held several people all night out in the cold.

At least 15 people were arrested from Al-Sheikh Ali Al-Bukaa Mosque. One of those held by the occupation army said they were surprised as they headed towards the mosque with 3 soldiers directing their machineguns towards them and ordering them to lift their arms. They were transferred to a military roadblock in the city where others were also held. Everyone was forced to sit on a pavement all night in the cold humiliated and verbally abused by occupation soldiers.

A curfew has been imposed on the city for the past 20 days.

Nablus
--------

Israeli occupation soldiers yesterday held around 30 people, including
several children and elderly people, in a 2-meter deep ditch for over 5
hours yesterday.

The youth Ali Daraghma said that occupation soldiers based at the entrance
of Nablus, near Zawata village held around 30 people inside a ditch dug by
Israeli bulldozers as they attempted to enter the city. Israeli soldiers
forced them inside the ditch under the threat of weapons. They were also
prevented from standing up.

Daraghma said, "When we asked the soldiers why they were keeping us when we had done nothing wrong, one soldier said that his brother was killed in an armed operation and that we all have to pay the price."

Amjad Abu Saleh was arrested today in an Israeli ambush on the
Tulkarem-Nablus road.

The occupation army also invaded Balata refugee camp under intense fire and arrested 3 men during home raids.

Ramallah
-----------

Students and teachers are unable to reach Bir Zeit University for the second
day running. Surda military roadblock separating Bir Zeit and 40 other
villages from Ramallah City is completely closed and alternative routes,
such as the 'Jawal route' is filled with danger.

The Israeli army claimed that 8 "wanted" Palestinians were arrested in the
West Bank since last night. Those were arrested from Doura, Hebron, and
Balata refugee camp, Nablus, according to the Israeli sources.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2002 8:45 pm Post subject: Stance on Israel hurts Hansen

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

: http://www.examiner.com/news/default.jsp?story=n.d8.1115w
:
: Publication date: 11/15/2002
:
: Stance on Israel hurts Hansen
: BY ADRIEL HAMPTON
: Of The Examiner Staff
:
: Eileen Hansen's views on the Jewish state may cost
: her some crucial votes in the District 8 supervisor's
: runoff Dec 10.
:
: Hansen has recently drawn a storm of criticism for
: her participation in what some have called anti-Israel
: efforts. A growing number of local Jewish activists
: believe Hansen, were she to win a Board of Supervisors
: seat, might use the position as a platform to
: criticize the efforts of the Israeli government.
:
: Hansen's presence at a Jews for a Free Palestine
: rally against a Jewish humanitarian group brought the
: issue into the spotlight.
:
: Although Hansen attended the May protest -- which
: led to several arrests -- as an observer for the
: National Lawyers Guild, some likened the event to a
: KKK rally.
:
: The group's chants were "so hurtful, so spiteful
: and so wrong," Lauter said. "If there were things
: there that offended her, she should have left."
:
: About 150 protesters carried "Jews against
: Zionism" and "Zionism = racism" signs, chanted "JCF
: (Jewish Community Federation) you can't hide, you're
: supporting genocide," according to photos and media
: and eyewitness reports from the rally.
:
: Zionism is the support of a Jewish state in
: Israel.
:
: Jews for a Free Palestine advocates an immediate
: end to all U.S. support of Israel and the right of
: return for all expelled Palestinians to their towns
: and homes of origin.
:
: A call to the group's listed number reached a
: recording for "Jews for Divestment from Israel" and
: was not returned by press time.
:
: "People don't begrudge her her opinion," said Sam
: Lauter, "but they aren't ashamed of trying to beat
: her."
:
: Lauter, a political consultant for Barnes, Mosher,
: Whitehurst & Lauter, is one of a number of local Jews
: -- many of whom backed BART board member Tom
: Radulovich in the general election -- who are
: supporting Hansen's opponent, Bevan Dufty, in the
: runoff.
:
: Both candidates are likeable, knowledgeable gay
: Jews, and said a supervisor should stay out of
: international politics.
:
: It's not so simple, however, with a board known
: for taking on such issues as the Iraq war and China's
: treatment of Falun Gong practitioners.
:
: Hansen told The Examiner that if constituents
: brought an issue such as financial divestment from
: Israel to her office, she would work it out with
: various factions of the Jewish community.
:
: "I don't really want to get into a discussion of
: Zionism. What I do have is a history of working for
: peace in the Middle East," Hansen said. "It is
: important that the rights of both peoples be respected
: and I respect the rights of both people to exist and
: I've worked toward that."
:
: Dufty supports a two-state solution to the
: conflict, based on negotiations.
:
: "Everyday it pains me to read about the tragic
: loss of life in the Middle East and I pray for a
: peaceful settlement but I 100 percent support Israel's
: existence and know that peace can only come from
: negotiations, not from terrorism," Dufty said.
:
: Neither candidate, or their four rivals, made
: Israel-Palestine relations an issue in the general
: election, but there's no question that Hansen has been
: hurt by the issue in the runoff.
:
: For example, the political action committee of the
: Raoul Wallenberg Jewish Democratic Club, which sends a
: slate card to every Jewish voter, has recommended
: Dufty, at least in part based on Hansen's position on
: the Jewish state. The full membership votes on
: Wednesday.
:
: No candidate met the clubs 60-percent approval
: threshold for an endorsement in the November election.
:
: "The Wallenberg Club is not trying to stifle
: people's opinions, but we are going to support people
: who support a secure and safe Israel and support the
: U.S. in that effort," said Dan Cohen, a club board
: member.
: _____________________________

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 4:02 am Post subject: Little joy for homeless Palestinians on Muslim holiday

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Little joy for homeless Palestinians on Muslim holiday

RAFAH, Gaza Strip, Dec 3 (Reuters) - There will be no decorations or
home baked cookies for the homeless Palestinians of southern Gaza's
Rafah refugee camp this Muslim holiday of Eid el-Fitr.

For the dozens of Palestinians whose houses were destroyed by Israeli
forces in Rafah, near the Israeli-controlled Gaza-Egypt border, this
year's holiday will be celebrated modestly and with much bitterness.

"What Eid? Eid is not for people like us," said Nea'ma al-Akhras, a
mother of eight. The festival, which ends the Muslim holy month of
Ramadan, is expected to begin on Thursday or Friday with the start of
the full moon.

"It is a sad Eid. I lost my house and my son," Akhras told Reuters.
Her 28-year-old son Wael was killed by Israeli gunfire shortly after
the house was demolished in January.

His mother said Wael was shot dead as he passed a street near the
border fence where gunbattles between Israeli soldiers and
Palestinian gunmen have become an almost daily occurence since the
outbreak of a Palestinian revolt two years ago.

Since her house was demolished, Akhras and her family first lived in
a tent erected in the main square of Rafah refugee camp before
renting a small house inside the camp.

Israel says the houses it demolishes are used by Palestinian gunmen
as cover to launch attacks against soldiers or to hide tunnels under
the border with Egypt through which weapons and explosives are
smuggled.

Palestinian officials said Israeli army forces had demolished at
least 400 houses since the uprising began.

Amna al-Masri whose house along with those of her three sons were
demolished said she was homeless.

"My sons moved to live with families of their wives. Now I spend my
day inside the tent and at night I go to my brother's house to spend
the night," she said.

MOURNING TENTS

Masri said staying inside the tent everyday was symbolic.

"It is a message to the whole world that we need to rebuild our
houses," she said.

Instead of adorning houses with flowers or repainting them, as
millions of Muslims do round the globe, many Palestinian families
will be opening mourning tents to receive condolences for the deaths
of loved ones over the past year.

"I will spend the first day of Eid next to the grave of my son,"
Akhras said, collapsing in tears.

Cemeteries are usually packed with bereaved families at first day of
the festival. Family members tend to distribute sweets for people
passing the graves of their relatives.

Although markets looked busy with shoppers, merchants said customers
were buying only the cheapest of products.

On Tuesday, a group of Palestinian children under the age of 18
distributed 300 packages containing new clothes for children who lost
their houses. They said the clothes were donations.

Ana'am Nasser said she could not afford to make festive cookies this
year nor could she buy her children new clothing.

"No cookies and no joy," she said.

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-PLS-
PLS&id=12031018000272477&dt=20021203101800&w=RTR&coview=

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 4:03 am Post subject: Little joy for homeless Palestinians on Muslim holiday

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Little joy for homeless Palestinians on Muslim holiday

RAFAH, Gaza Strip, Dec 3 (Reuters) - There will be no decorations or
home baked cookies for the homeless Palestinians of southern Gaza's
Rafah refugee camp this Muslim holiday of Eid el-Fitr.

For the dozens of Palestinians whose houses were destroyed by Israeli
forces in Rafah, near the Israeli-controlled Gaza-Egypt border, this
year's holiday will be celebrated modestly and with much bitterness.

"What Eid? Eid is not for people like us," said Nea'ma al-Akhras, a
mother of eight. The festival, which ends the Muslim holy month of
Ramadan, is expected to begin on Thursday or Friday with the start of
the full moon.

"It is a sad Eid. I lost my house and my son," Akhras told Reuters.
Her 28-year-old son Wael was killed by Israeli gunfire shortly after
the house was demolished in January.

His mother said Wael was shot dead as he passed a street near the
border fence where gunbattles between Israeli soldiers and
Palestinian gunmen have become an almost daily occurence since the
outbreak of a Palestinian revolt two years ago.

Since her house was demolished, Akhras and her family first lived in
a tent erected in the main square of Rafah refugee camp before
renting a small house inside the camp.

Israel says the houses it demolishes are used by Palestinian gunmen
as cover to launch attacks against soldiers or to hide tunnels under
the border with Egypt through which weapons and explosives are
smuggled.

Palestinian officials said Israeli army forces had demolished at
least 400 houses since the uprising began.

Amna al-Masri whose house along with those of her three sons were
demolished said she was homeless.

"My sons moved to live with families of their wives. Now I spend my
day inside the tent and at night I go to my brother's house to spend
the night," she said.

MOURNING TENTS

Masri said staying inside the tent everyday was symbolic.

"It is a message to the whole world that we need to rebuild our
houses," she said.

Instead of adorning houses with flowers or repainting them, as
millions of Muslims do round the globe, many Palestinian families
will be opening mourning tents to receive condolences for the deaths
of loved ones over the past year.

"I will spend the first day of Eid next to the grave of my son,"
Akhras said, collapsing in tears.

Cemeteries are usually packed with bereaved families at first day of
the festival. Family members tend to distribute sweets for people
passing the graves of their relatives.

Although markets looked busy with shoppers, merchants said customers
were buying only the cheapest of products.

On Tuesday, a group of Palestinian children under the age of 18
distributed 300 packages containing new clothes for children who lost
their houses. They said the clothes were donations.

Ana'am Nasser said she could not afford to make festive cookies this
year nor could she buy her children new clothing.

"No cookies and no joy," she said.

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-PLS-
PLS&id=12031018000272477&dt=20021203101800&w=RTR&coview=

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 5:02 pm Post subject: Press Highlights Israeli Atrocities Ahead of Eid

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021203195717416

International Press Highlights Israeli Atrocities Ahead of Eid

Tuesday, December 03 2002 @ 07:57 PM GMT

OCCUPIED TERRITORIES - Several reports on Tuesday’s, December 3, morning media highlighted the atrocities committed by the Israeli army in the occupied territories.

The U.S. newspaper, the Washington Post, reported an incident which took place on Monday, December 2, in which the Israeli soldiers opened fire at a busy Jenin Market, which led to the death of 15-year-old Mutaz Odeh, the son of a Palestinian merchant.

Odeh, was on his way to the market to purchase sweets to sell at his father’s stand in downtown Jenin but returned home dead with a bullet in his lower back, the paper reported.

The market place was busy with people buying supplies for the Eid-ul-Fitr which starts after the end of the month of Ramadan.

“So tonight, when the family would have been breaking the Ramadan fast at a festive meal, the Odeh men instead were grieving over the youngster they had buried just after noon prayers,” said the post.

Odeh’s cousin told the Post that the soldiers were randomly shooting in all directions. The Israeli military, however, claimed that he was killed as he tried to climb onto an armored personnel carrier that witnesses said was about 150 yards from the shop, the Post reported.

“Odeh and other relatives described Mutaz as too overweight to clamber up a tank or armored personnel carrier,” the paper added.

The paper quoted Mohammed Abu Ghali, director of the Jenin Government Hospital saying that twenty-three Palestinians were injured during the shooting.

U.K. newspaper, the Independent, reported that in their incursion in the town of Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, November 30, the Israeli army demolished a house on top of a 68-year-old deaf man.

Maher Salem, the man’s son told the Independent that when they found his father his head was “like a bar of chocolate, it was only two centimeters thick”.

The man whom the Israeli army were looking for was the old man’s son, Hisham, whom they claim was a senior official in the Islamic Jihad resistance group, and who allegedly planned a resistance operation in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street in 1996 that killed 20 Israelis, said the Independent. However, Hisham survived and was at his father’s funeral.

Salem was sleeping on the sixth-floor of the building, in which three generations of the family lives, when the Israeli army evacuated the building. The soldiers did not allow family members to bring the man out of the building and instead told them to leave immediately, then dynamited the house.

The Independent, said that while there were previous controversies about Palestinian claims that people have been buried alive in demolished houses, this time, there was a body.

“It had been buried when we arrived. We saw the freshly dug grave. And hundreds had turned up for the wake. This was not a show for the media: there were no other journalists in sight,” the paper said, adding that this is not the first time the claims of the sort turned out to be true.

“In Nablus in April, eight members of a single family died when a soldier bulldozed their house on top of them. Their bodies were found, and the case has been well documented by international human rights groups,” the paper reported.

Meanwhile, the UPI news agency reported that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was concerned at Israel’s demolition of a World Food Program warehouse in the northern part of the Gaza Strip over the weekend.

Fred Eckhard, Annan’s chief spokesman, said that Anan supports the request by WFP that the government of Israel thoroughly investigate this incident, reported UPI.

“The secretary-general once again calls on the Israeli authorities to live up to their commitments and obligations to facilitate emergency humanitarian assistance in the occupied Palestinian territory.”

UPI quoted Jean-Luc Siblot, WFP country director, saying: “The food, which was housed on the ground floor of a three-story building and clearly marked as WFP property, mainly comprised donations from the European Commission and Sweden and was to be distributed by the Ministry of Social Affairs to some 41,300 destitute people affected by the ongoing humanitarian crises in the Gaza Strip.”

On Saturday, at about 10:50 p.m., the Israeli troops surrounded the area and parked six tanks in front of the building. They requested residents to evacuate their homes before entering the building and searching the premises.

“Despite the fact that the storage area was well marked as a WFP warehouse, with a large WFP flag and three WFP stickers on the doors, the soldiers proceeded to destroy the doors of the warehouse using tanks,” the agency reported.

The building’s owner saw dynamite sticks being placed in various parts and several blasts were heard at approximately midnight. These were followed by a large explosion from a projectile dropped from a helicopter.

“The building collapsed and everything left in it, including 413 metric tons of wheat flour, 107 metric tons of rice and 17 metric tons of vegetable oil, was destroyed,” the agency said.

-IslamOnline & News Agencies (islamonline.net). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 5:29 pm Post subject: Israeli Law Mocks Justice, Shatters Decency

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021203202241654

Israeli Law Mocks Justice, Shatters Decency

Tuesday, December 03 2002 @ 08:22 PM GMT

Why haven’t the American legal eagles spoken out about the ongoing human rights abuses in Israel?

By William Hughes

BALTIMORE (PC) - American law schools regularly hold seminars and workshops in Israel. Usually, the subject matters deal with topics like Comparative or International Law. These legal sojourns are generally led by fully tenured professors, who have been able, quite amazingly, to go about their teaching business, in the mother of all colonial police states, without publicly addressing the systematic violations of the legal and human rights of the Palestinians. Now, this is all a mystery to me.

Why haven’t the American legal eagles spoken out about the ongoing human rights abuses in Israel? Why don’t they get their noses out of the law books, and tell the world what is really going on in occupied Palestine? It’s nice to visit Haifa and Jerusalem, but why not check in on Jenin and Nablus, too? And what about the legality of the U.S. government funding the state sponsored terrorism of Ariel Sharon’s government? Don’t these kind of important legal and moral questions ever cross their minds? If they haven’t, then it is high time that they did.

For instance, I would like to know about the highly dubious Israeli procedure that permits its officials to get a “warrant” to destroy the home of a Palestinian. In Hebron, recently, the Israelis secured warrants to destroy 15 homes, belonging to 30 Palestinian families. Can the homeowner protest or challenge this kind of warrant? If he does, will he get a due process hearing before an impartial tribunal? Is there a right of appeal? What legal safeguards are there to protect a homeowner from an Israeli official exercising his authority in an arbitrary or capricious manner? We know that the collective punishment of a people is a war crime. Is this warrant procedure a clever device to paper over that kind of wrongdoing?

As an American, I watch on television, every week, in horror, as the ubiquitous Israeli bulldozers destroy home after home and also the orchards of the Palestinians. It reminds me of the British imperialists dispossessing the Irish peasants during the horrific days of great famine (1845-50). The Israelis claim that they have a “demolition order.” Who gave them that demolition order? Is this so-called “demolition warrant procedure” yet another one of the cruel legal jokes of the Zionists, like their notorious “torture warrants,” championed by that old softy and Sharonist, Alan Dershowitz? From 1967 to 1999, Israel demolished over 8,500 Palestinian homes, according to the LINK, April-May, 2002 issue.

Because the Israeli warrant system is supposedly “legal,” (I use that word advisedly), does that make it also just and moral and beyond the condemnation of the rest of humanity?

On another subject, when the Israelis send their death squads out to target Palestinians for summary and extra-judicial executions-there have been at least 95 such killings since 02/09/ 2000-do they also get a “warrant” from a legal authority to murder that individual? Does someone sign a “death warrant” that is placed in a file? Or, do they prefer, like their death squad counterparts in Central America, not to leave a paper trail of their crimes? As Central America has proven, the truth will come out.

What effect, if any, does administering these kinds of draconian laws have on the Israeli bureaucrats themselves? Back in the 70s, a Baltimore lawyer, Fred E. Weisgal, now deceased, emigrated to Israel. There was a lot of positive publicity about it at the time. When he lived in America, he was known as a flaming liberal and a civil rights advocate. His Op Ed pieces, too, when he was at the top of his legal crusading, were always a joy to read. I recall trying cases against him, when I was in the State’s Attorney’s office in the mid 60s. He was a terrific lawyer and a very engaging individual. He was also a respected musician and had a sprightly personality. In Israel, however, he had a Franz Kafka-like transformation. He went from defending the needy in America to representing the greedy in Israel: its national government!

I visited Weisgal at his home in Jerusalem, in December, 1977. It was like I was talking to an entirely different man then the person I had once known. The spirit had somehow been driven out of him. I remember, too, the last time he returned to Baltimore for a visit. He had penned an Op Ed piece for the local paper. It was about getting a flat tire on one of our major highways. It was boring drivel and embarrassing to read. The truth is that he no longer had anything worthwhile to say. He didn’t even bother to try to defend his “new” legal career or his new “beloved” fatherland.

Since then, I’ve always been curious if the government work that Weisgal had done in Jerusalem, hadn’t deprived him of his humanity. If so, it was, indeed, a heavy personal price for him to pay for serving the political cause of Zionism, whose very essence depends on the subjugation of another people. For someone, like Weisgal, once a compassionate person, who had dedicated his earlier life to fighting for civil rights and justice, it must have an abrupt change. Did he feel at the end like a hapless character in Kafka’s “The Trial,” sentenced by some arbitrary authority to a slow but certain spiritual death? I suspect that he did, knowing, too, that he had chosen, willfully, to put himself in that position.

There are many sides to this evil. It is clear that Israeli law mocks justice, and that many have turned a blind eye to it, and to its victims, the Palestinians. But, I also suggest, that there may be a few Fred E. Weisgal-like souls out there, who have also paid a severe personal price for serving such an oppressive system.

William Hughes is the author of “Andrew Jackson vs. New World Order” (Authors Choice Press) and “Baltimore Iconoclast” (Writer’s Showcase), which are available online. He can be reached at liamhughes@mindspring.com.

-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 5:37 pm Post subject: Why Does the Leopard Hide its Spots?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=2002120319051127

Why Does the Leopard Hide its Spots?

Tuesday, December 03 2002 @ 07:05 PM GMT

"So why did I prefer Netanyahu? Because Netanyahu is an unprincipled politician, ready to change his positions any time .."

By Uri Avnery

(PC) - I loath Binyamin Netanyahu, and therefore I hoped that he would be elected leader of the Likud. I am sorry that Sharon won the primary election instead.

“ I loath Binyamin Netanyahu ..”

How’s that? After all, Netanyahu presented himself as a man of the extreme right and demanded to “expel” (the code-word for “kill”) Yasser Arafat. He is ready to fight to the last drop of (our) blood against the creation of a Palestinian state. Unlike Sharon, who says that he is ready to accept a Palestinian state and does not talk anymore about expelling Arafat.

So why did I prefer Netanyahu?

Because Netanyahu is an unprincipled politician, ready to change his positions any time. He reminds me of Groucho Marx, who once declared: “These are my views. If you don’t like them, I have others, too.” He could easily exchange his rightist slogan for leftist ones. Sharon is very different: He has a rigid outlook, which he has not changed for decades. He resembles an IDF bulldozer in Jenin, destroying walls on his way and demolishing houses on top of their inhabitants. His aim in life is to destroy the Palestinian entity and imprison the Palestinians in isolated enclaves, until the time is ripe for their expulsion from the country altogether. Nowadays he hides his unwavering attachment to this plan behind the mask of a benevolent, moderate grandfather, who has settled down and wants nothing more than to crown his career by making peace.

I prefer at the head of the Likud an unprincipled politician to a disguised true believer. He would have been easier for Mitzna to defeat. In the competition for the Likud leadership, Netanyahu was a sheep in wolf’s clothing, while Sharon was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Likud members preferred the clothing of the sheep to that of the wolf. And that is significant.

Netanyahu did not understand that the mood of the Likud members has changed. He made a big mistake – one of many – when he decided, in the middle of the campaign, to adopt ultraright positions, demanding Arafat’s expulsion and coming out against a Palestinian state. It appears that most of the Likud members do not believe anymore that that is practical – a conclusion confirmed the next day by a public opinion poll that showed that half of the Likud members accept a Palestinian state and agree to evacuate settlements.

Sharon, on the other hand, knows how to read maps. He pretends to accept a Palestinian state and to make “concessions that hurt”. This, of course, is a mere make-believe. He made his acceptance of the Palestinian state dependent on so many impossible “ifs” that it has been emptied of any content. Sharon remains the same Sharon and will never be anything but the same Sharon. The leopard will not change his spots, but he understands that he has to hide them. To the trusting public he presented himself as a moderate, as against the extreme Netanyahu. And, wonder of wonders, the Likud, the party of the extreme right, preferred the candidate posing as a moderate to the candidate posing as an extremist.

This is not the only miracle: A few days before, something very similar happened in the Labor party, when Binjamin Ben-Eliezer was trounced by Amram Mitzna.

There is some similarity between the two Binyamins: Ben-Eliezer, like Netanyahu, is a man without principles, who is ready to change his views like socks. Mitzna, on the other side, is a man of clear principles.

Mitzna is a declared dove. As against the right-wing line of Ben-Eliezer, he presents to the voters a clear, left-wing alternative: Negotiations with Arafat, evacuation of most settlements, immediate withdrawal from the whole Gaza Strip, compromise over Jerusalem, a Palestinian state. Yet by an overwhelming majority, the Labor party voters chose him over Ben-Eliezer.

Let there be no mistake: Mitzna is not a Gush Shalom member. Some of his slogans are anathema to me. But he is firmly located on the left of the political arena. If one does not grasp the significance of his election as Labor leader, one does not understand what’s happening under the surface of Israeli society.

One miracle can be accidental. Two testify to a tendency. If in both the big parties – Likud and Labor – the candidates with the more “leftist” program defeats the candidates with a more “rightist” one, it proves that new public currents are at work.

One may add the happenings in the National Religious party. Once upon a time, this was a very moderate party. In the 50s, when the moderate Moshe Sharett was struggling against the extremist line of David Ben-Gurion, it generally supported Sharett. Since then it has – like almost the whole religious camp – moved steadily to the extreme right. A year ago it crowned as its leader Effi Eytam, compared to whom Haider and Le Pen look like bleeding-heart liberals. Yet lo and behold: This week, when choosing its candidates for the Knesset elections, it turned against its new leader and filled the most coveted spots on the list with people who are (comparatively) more moderate.

If one puts all these facts together, what do they say? They say that the whole system is slowly moving to the left. The public is fed up with the war, the unceasing bloodshed, the economic crisis and the social breakdown. People want a solution. They are looking for compromise. They are ready to pay for it.

This gives Mitzna a chance. It will be very difficult for him to win, but it is definitely possible. And even if he does not succeed this time, he can do it the next time, which may be in a year or so. Provided, of course, he does not fall into the trap of a National Unity government.

Something is changing in the country. People are speaking again about things which had seemingly died: The Green Line, evacuation of (most) settlements, exchange of territory, speaking with Arafat, the Taba and Clinton plans, international monitors.

Ahead of us the tunnel is still dark. But after two years of anguish and despair, it seems that at least a small light has appeared at the end of the tunnel. To quote Winston Churchill once more: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

— Uri Avnery, award-winning Israeli journalist and writer, three-time member of Knesset and a columnist for the Ma’ariv daily is a founding member of the Gush Shalom peace movement.

-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

Tuning up for Peace in the Middle East

Tuning up for Peace in the Middle East

Wednesday, November 27 2002 @ 07:27 PM GMT

"Since Israel has fought the Quartet initiative every step of the way, it already had become clear that Washington would have to .."

By Richard H. Curtiss

Thanks to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the next show on the international agenda will be headlined by the International Quartet, starring the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia. While Israel had anticipated a long postponement of peace negotiations due to a war with Iraq, Powell has circumvented that problem. Now it is time to negotiate the biggest international conundrum of all — Israel and human rights for the Palestinians.

Palestinians literally are starving in the blocked-off streets of their encircled villages. Washington must address this crisis first, and insist that food relief be provided now, without delay. All along, the European Union has been helping to meet the Palestinians’ food, budgetary and significant infrastructure needs. The Israelis, by contrast, are used to haggling for everything —which, of course, will include bargaining to allow needed food supplies into Palestine.

After backing down once before when Ariel Sharon rejected an ultimatum, however, President George W. Bush has stiffened his backbone. He has strengthened his mandate in an off-year election, which historically should have diluted his strength in Congress. Now the Republican president and his party control both houses of Congress, and have an international mandate to stop the slide toward war. The frightened world, meanwhile, has been calling insistently for peace for the Palestinians. Bush had tried, seemingly in quite good faith, to start negotiations with the “Quartet” even while the outcome of the Saddam Hussein imbroglio was not yet known. With the Iraq problem at least temporarily resolved, he sent Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield to the Middle East. Satterfield and his American team met with Quartet diplomats on Nov. 11 and 12 to finalize a plan for presentation in mid-December.

At its mid-November meeting in Jerusalem, Quartet representatives worked out the text that envisages the establishment of a provisional Palestinian state by 2003 and full statehood two years later. It is based on a vision for the Middle East put forward by Bush in a June speech.

Since Israel has fought the Quartet initiative every step of the way, it already had become clear that Washington would have to step in firmly to start things moving. Claiming Israel was too busy dealing with the expected war with Iraq, Sharon had been “blowing off” any talk on the subject of peace with the Palestinians. With that war put on hold, the Israelis, with their ever-industrious American lobby, had to find a new excuse for procrastination. They now are trying to freeze the process until after the upcoming Israeli elections.

It appears, however, that Israel’s January elections will not delay the US and the other Quartet members, which plan to go ahead whether Israel cooperates or not. After discussing the possible impact of the upcoming Israeli elections, Satterfield and his colleagues decided to proceed on schedule.

Stated Norwegian diplomat Terje Roed-Larsen, the Quartet’s UN representative: “The parties will have to decide whether to accept [the plan] or reject it. But, if they reject it, they must be aware that they will be rejecting not only the will of the Quartet but of a significant part of the international community.”

Although a non-Quartet diplomat predicted “They will return empty-handed,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair this week urged speedy progress toward solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Blair’s remarks were seen as an appeal to Bush not to freeze the process because of the Israeli elections. Meanwhile, it appears certain that Bush will brook no excuses when it comes to putting a halt to Israel’s starvation of the Palestinians.

The Bush administration is anxious to keep the Quartet plan alive and allay Arab fears. The road map calls for an initial three-month phase during which the Palestinian Authority would resume security cooperation with the United States and Israel, call for an end to armed attacks on Israelis, and install a new Cabinet and prime minister to take over from Arafat. During the same three months, Israel would be required to end its attacks in Palestinian civilian areas, ease its curbs on the travel of Palestinian officials, lift curfews and unfreeze Palestinian assets.

According to administration officials, there is a new strain between Bush and Sharon. During his October visit to Washington, Sharon said that ties between Israel and Washington had never been so close or harmonious. According to administration officials, however, Bush was angry that Sharon was undercutting efforts to get the Palestinians to turn away from Arafat and making it harder to rally Arab support for a possible war against Iraq.

Another major concern, both inside and outside the administration, is what most experts say are the worst conditions among Palestinians they have ever seen. These include malnutrition and the growing sense of isolation because of travel restrictions imposed by the Israelis.

“We are facing a situation where all of those years of progress in the Middle East are essentially going down the tubes,” one diplomat declared. Prime Minister Blair has called for a full Middle East peace conference by the end of this year.

If Bush proceeds with his new sense of resolution and makes it clear to Israel that there will be no more American funding until it accepts the Quartet’s decisions, the road map may be put to use sooner than pessimists might think.

— Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2002 4:15 pm Post subject: Examining Arab Strategy, or Lack Thereof

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021004130724217

Examining Arab Strategy, or Lack Thereof

Friday, October 04 2002 @ 01:07 PM GMT

"There has been little or no efforts in refining existing strategies or building new ones to combat the US government’s bias toward Israel. There has been no serious efforts put forth to reach the ordinary American, to back those who dare to confront the ever demanding Israeli lobby in the Congress .."

By Ramzy Baroud

In a conversation with a respected Palestinian official months ago, I was told that the reason the Palestinian Authority (PA), “keeps coming back” seeking a more active US role in the Middle East conflict is because the US is the only viable broker. Only a few countries and international bodies are capable of pushing the “peace process” forward, able to persuade both sides to “compromise”, and particularly, able to exert “pressure” on Israel.

The logic seemed odd, considering the unquestionable one-sidedness the US has exhibited in the Arab-Israeli daunting conflict. One doesn’t need to spend a great deal of time and effort researching for US bias in archived official statements and news that goes back to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Just one look at the US selective practices in the United Nations says it all. The United States government has vetoed an estimated 68 UN Security Council resolutions throughout the years, blocking numerous attempts by the international community to impose disciplinary measures on various, if not all past Israeli governments, for violating international law, time and again.

The official US justifications for alienating itself from the rest of the world to rescue Israel varied, but often centered around the same anemic idea that such UN resolutions will only hamper the peace process, and that negotiations alone can solve the Middle East conflict. For an outsider, the justification is appealing, even wise, but for those whose know a thing or two about the Middle East conflict, it’s ridiculous to depict a peaceful Middle East, at least at this current stage without the presence of a fair-handed arbitrator, a frame of reference of international law (not the Israeli Supreme Court or Knesset that justifies the assassination of Palestinian activists), and certainly a power with the will and genuine interest to find a just solution to the bloody conflict.

As far as Israel is concerned, the United States is certainly the right power for the job. Of course, a country like the US which pours several billion dollars into Israel’s military machine annually, provides Israel with political cover to apply its backward imperialist practices on the Palestinians, with the help of the US media to clean up the mess along the way, is certainly a country that is qualified to be the “honest broker” in the Middle East.

But why is the Palestinian leadership holding the same perception?

The Palestinian Authority, despite all of its ailments has no illusions that the US is only a broker, but certainly not an honest one. Take for example, President George W. Bush’s insistence not to meet with the PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, at a time that he frequently met Israel’s Ariel Sharon at the ranch, both smiling to the cameras like the best of pals. Put the official justification aside: “Arafat needs to prove to me that he is genuinely interested in fighting terrorism,” since at the time that Arafat has exerted some sincere efforts (once out of his besieged office) to halt the violence, even from one side, Sharon would openly share his regrets with the media of not killing Arafat when he had the chance.

Only in a fantasy world does Sharon emerge as a “man of peace”, as Bush dubbed him, and Arafat as a “Mafia boss” as described by retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, US special envoy to the Middle East.

The US Defense Secretary, certainly a powerful man, decided to reconstruct the Middle East conflict in a way that would suit his way of thinking, leaving jungle law in charge of what should have been handled by international law. Here is what Donald Rumsfeld had to say, speaking at a town hall meeting at the Pentagon on 6 Aug., 2002:

“My feelings about the so-called occupied territories are that there was a war; Israel urged neighboring countries not to get involve in it once it started. They all jumped in, and they lost a lot of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in the conflict.”

Now, Rumsfeld proceeds to share his view of the Jewish militant outposts or settlements:

“In the intervening period, they’ve made some settlements in various parts of the so-called occupied area, which was the result of a war, which they won.”

Such a simplified, poor approach in analyzing a conflict, extending through the 20th and 21 century, reminds us of fiery speeches of Christian Coalition leader Pat Robertson or “God's new banker?” as some British media have recently describe him. But in Rumsfeld’s case, one doesn’t have the privilege of turning the “700 Club” off. Rumsfeld is a leading figure in a powerful country, and is only a reflection of right wing policies carried out by his government.

While the ultimate victims of such a right wing are the American people, should Arabs, but most importantly Palestinians simply look elsewhere for answers, for another broker, an honest one, for a change?

While Rumsfeld has the whole Middle East conflict (or the so-called Middle East conflict) all figured out, the Arab masses have no illusions about the detrimental role played by the US government in keeping Israel’s occupation of Arab land, and of the subsequent persecution of the Palestinian people.

"It has to be a slip of the tongue by the US defense secretary, as he was speaking spontaneously and not from a written speech," this is what Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told reporters when asked about Rumsfeld's "so-called occupied" remark

Maher is an educated man and is certainly aware that Rumsfeld’s remarks are not qualified to be categorized as a “slip of the tongue.” Most Arab governments, and the Palestinian leadership knows, they must know, that the United States’ support of Israel was a leading reason for the Israeli government’s arrogance and defiance. Yet they continue to dub the US government as a friend and an ally.

My conversation with the Palestinian official flashed again in my head on Tuesday, Oct 1, when the US Congress passed legislation, that was ratified by President Bush which implicitly recognized Jerusalem, including Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

True, a “barrage” of condemnation by a “chorus” of leaders (this is how some media phrased it), was heard and seen, loud and clear. But by the end, the Arab strategy is still the same. While the US government and Congress have openly submitted to the right wing elements of the US government and media, the pressure of the Israeli-Jewish lobby groups and to the will of the Israeli government, the official statement of the PA, although clearly reflected outrage, said that the decision “harms the credibly of the US as a peace mediator.” If The PA still anticipates a positive US role in the Middle East, then there is a serious issue for debate, an issue that has been ignored for such a long time.

One has to remember that the Palestinian leadership (considering the might of its enemies, the gigantic influence of the US and the negative use of that influence, the fragmentation of the Arab world and its inability to reshape an overall Middle East policy) is in a very difficult position. Ignoring the US role can hardly change things for the better for the Palestinians, and gambling on the happy day in which Washington is a kinder Washington is more of a daydream, at least for now. Continuing with this vicious cycle, in which Arabs are slapped at the face, almost everyday, yet remain faithful believers in the American government’s virtue, will maintain the status quo, in which Israel will remain the greatest, or only beneficiary.

There has been little or no efforts in refining existing strategies or building new ones to combat the US government’s bias toward Israel. There has been no serious efforts put forth to reach the ordinary American, to back those who dare to confront the ever demanding Israeli lobby in the Congress (and who as a result are losing to the Israeli-backed politicians). There has been little or no efforts to influence the media (except of the greatly admirable efforts of independent groups). There has been no unified Arab front in serving Arab causes, or in using strategic Arab wealth to influence US polices, of saying enough is enough, when such a call is needed.

I do remember my conversation with the Palestinian official, and I do sympathize with his statement: ‘the Palestinian Authority (PA), “keeps coming back” seeking a more active US role in the Middle East conflict because the US is the only viable broker.’ But feeding on such an observation, without any real attempt to find alternative brokers or turn the only “viable” one into an honest one, has been a major component responsible for today’s catastrophic foreign policies, and I don’t mean American foreign policies, but Arab and Palestinian policies. Too bad the US decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but the real challenge is knowing what else can we do about it, aside from registering our opposition with a few official statements and expressions of regret.

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Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2002 9:16 pm Post subject: Parents of Gaza boy killed on film have new baby

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Parents of Gaza boy killed on film have new baby

AL-BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The parents of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy whose death became a symbol of an uprising for statehood are celebrating the birth of a brother, whom they named after their slain son.

Mohammed al-Durra was born on Friday in the Gaza Strip.

His namesake was killed in a shootout between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen at Gaza's Netzarim junction in September 2000, when the revolt erupted there and in the West Bank.

Television footage of the boy's last moments cowering behind his father Jamal, who was himself wounded, shocked the world.

Two years on, the Durra family hoped for better times.

"This child is our hope to reach peace. I hope that (baby) Mohammed will be a message to the world which saw me trying to protect my son who was killed. We love life and need peace," Jamal told Reuters on Sunday.

Palestinians say the troops shot 12-year-old Mohammed. A preliminary Israeli inquiry supported this, but military officials have since backed off and blamed Palestinian gunfire.

"We had seven children and now we again have seven children," mother Amal Durra said.

The family lives in a three-room home with a corrugated iron roof in the Gaza refugee camp of al-Bureij.

12/01: AOL News: Parents of Gaza boy killed on film have new baby

12/01/02 10:33 ET

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2002 11:16 pm Post subject: Boy Sells His Bicycle to Purchase School Books

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Boy Sells His Bicycle to Purchase School Books
By Saleh Al Ni'ami
November 12, 2002

Document Location:
http://www.miftah.org/display.cfm?DocId=1331

FRUSTRATION WAS written all over his face. Ala', 16, had been standing for hours waiting for someone to buy his bike. He is one of scores of boys his age who gathered Friday morning in the Faras market, the main flea market in Gaza, to sell their bicycles.

"I want to buy some school books and my father, who is unemployed, doesn't have enough money for them," said Ala', who is a sophomore in high school. "I had no other choice but to sell my bicycle," he said, looking embarrassed.

By selling his bicycle, Ala' will have to walk two kilometers every day to and from school. Although the other boys each have their own reasons for selling their bicycles, they have all decided to bear the daily walk to school in return for spending their bikes' worth on what they consider more important matters.

The extremely difficult economic circumstances have most residents of the Gaza Strip seeing their possessions as luxuries that can be done without. A walk around the Faras market on Friday and Saturday mornings shows many residents selling their belongings, not to buy new and better replacements, but to earn money on urgently needed items. People are even selling personal property like televisions and furniture.

Since the beginning of the Intifada, many women in the Gaza Strip have also been selling their jewelry to support their families and to help their husbands shoulder the burdens of daily life.

Ghassan Al Jama'i, who lives in a refugee camp in the central region of the Gaza Strip, says that his wife only has one gold chain left from the jewelry he bought her when they first married. Ghassan has been unemployed since the beginning of the Intifada, and so they have sold her jewelry to cover life's basic necessities. Ghassan's wife is nine months pregnant and he plans on selling her last necklace to cover the costs of a hospital delivery.

More than 60 percent of Gazans live below the poverty line, and unemployment in the Gaza Strip is now more than 56 percent. More than 1.3 million residents live in an area smaller than 365 square kilometers, while over one third of this area is controlled by 4,000 settlers.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2002 11:18 pm Post subject: " A seed in the Fruit of Palestine"

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" A seed in the Fruit of Palestine"

http://www.pcwf.org The link to the website of Palestine Children's Welfare Fund

Click to buy Palestinian embroidery online, sponsor a Palestinian child ,buy a flag or a Kuffiya to feed one, or donate books for the children of the refugee camps and BirZeit University.

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity," ,Horace Mann " We can not educate for freedom with methods of slavery."Horace Mann

STOP the Occupation NOW ! NO SETTLEMENTS =NO SETTLERS=PEACE...Human RIGHTS are for all NOT just the "chosen few"...

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2002 11:45 pm Post subject: And The Terrorism Continues; Change U.S. Middle East Policy

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Subject: 11-17-2002 And The Terrorism Continues; Change U.S. Middle East Policy


Mr. President,

Your comments on Islam were very beneficial, but when will you and your administration make a positive change in your failed Middle east foreign policy that will bring peace to Palestine and Israel. The unbridled support of Israel and your shunning of Arafat will not bring the peace. The net result of your current policy has surrounded Israel with enemies. Now the World is on the verge of a war that will never bring peace to the region.

No Justice = No Peace

Joseph E S
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: Ha'aretz, November 17, 2002
:
: And the terrorism continues
: By Gideon Levy
:
:
: The terror attacks come in rapid succession, each new attack making
: us forget the previous one. The ambush in Hebron Friday night pushed
: aside the murders at Kibbutz Metzer. Who remembers? The Israel
: Defense Forces captured Nablus in response to the Metzer attack.
: Creative, bold, original and with the know-how to eradicate
: terrorism, the defense minister promised, as a sign of his
: determination, that this time we will stay in Nablus for a long time.
:
: Indeed, "Wheels of Momentum" - the code name for the Nablus
: operation - has already chalked up a number of achievements: a
: teenager who tried to throw a firebomb at a tank was shot and killed,
: and there have been some arrests.
:
: In another month or two, the IDF will withdraw from Nablus, as well
: as from Hebron, which was reconquered yesterday, and move to the next-
: in-line terrorist center, Jenin, or maybe Ramallah or Tul Karm.
: Officers and military correspondents will then explain with expertise
: that that is where the real terrorist infrastructure is located,
: every liquidation will be termed the end of "the individual chiefly
: responsible for the terrorist infrastructure in northern Samaria," or
: of the "main engineer" or of the "mastermind." His house will be
: demolished, and Israel's war on terrorism will continue without
: letup. Nevertheless, the terrorist attacks come one after another, as
: unfortunately occured in Hebron this weekend.
:
: New "senior wanted individuals" will make their appearance, replacing
: their liquidated predecessors, more bomb-manufacturing workshops will
: be bombed, and the public will know that the IDF is doing everything
: in its power to protect it, even if unsuccessfully.
:
: Israel's only method of operation continues to be one that has never
: produced meaningful results. Yet no one - not in the IDF, not in the
: government, and, above all, not among the public - is asking how long
: Israel will persist with its automatic responses based on force, in
: the form of conquest and occupation after every attack, instead of
: finally trying another route in the wake of the abject failure of the
: one the government has resorted to for the past two years.
:
: Whether it's "Maybe This Time," "Wheels of Momentum," "Determined
: Path" or "Defensive Shield," the true balance sheet of the occupation
: operations with the childish names that the IDF gives them has yet to
: be reckoned: while the security forces boast about the number of
: wanted individuals who have been arrested or liquidated, no one
: really knows how much these operations have actually done to boost
: terrorism. How many young Palestinians have sworn after every such
: operation to take revenge for the suffering and humiliation inflicted
: on them and their parents, when they were imprisoned for long days
: and nights - children, the elderly, the sick - in their homes, when
: they had to ask permission of the soldiers to relieve themselves. How
: many young people have reached the conclusion, and precisely in the
: course of these cruel operations, that they have no other option but
: to pursue the violent struggle against the occupier, and worse, that
: they have nothing left to lose.
:
: The average Israeli has no way of knowing what the Palestinians are
: enduring as "Wheels of Momentum" takes its course. The papers barely
: report on the suffering they are undergoing. Instead, the media
: mobilizes to carry out a campaign of demonization against the
: residents of whole cities. Indeed, if Jenin is the "city of the
: suicide bombers," why shouldn't all its inhabitants be made to
: suffer? And if Nablus is a "hornets' nest of murderers," why not keep
: its entire population confined to their homes indefinitely? In Jenin,
: though, there are 32,000 residents, most of whom don't want to commit
: suicide, while in Nablus there are 200,000 residents, the vast
: majority of whom are not murderers. They are hardworking people, some
: of them second- or third-generation refugees, and all they want is to
: live a normal life, a life of freedom and national dignity, which
: Israel has prevented them from doing for more than three decades.
: They were not born any more bloodthirsty than other people and the
: atrocities some of them perpetrate did not spring from a vacuum. Even
: if they have no moral justification, there are explanations aplenty.
:
: For the past two years, the Palestinians have been imprisoned in
: their places of residence in a manner without precedent in the
: history of the Israeli occupation. Hunger, humiliation and daily
: danger to life - far greater than the danger Israelis face - are
: their lot. When they gather these days in the evening for the meal
: that breaks the month-long Ramadan fast during the day, they see
: tanks in the streets and desperate poverty in their homes. These are
: classic conditions for the growth of terrorism. The fact that the IDF
: does not dare remain in the cities as a full-fledged occupier, for
: fear that it will have to assume the burden of tending to the
: population, does not absolve it of responsibility for the residents'
: fate. The destruction of the life of the territories is now on all
: our heads and its result is an increase of terrorism.
:
: It has to be said in all honesty: this attempt has failed. The IDF's
: occupation interruptus - occupy and pull out - has not brought about
: the eradication of terrorism and will never do so. Nor will a full
: return to the cities help. A different method has to be tried, and
: immediately: the population has to be helped instead of being
: brutalized, Israel has to get out of their lives as far as possible
: and give them grounds for hope. They are entitled to that, as we are
: entitled to a different form of struggle against terrorism, one that
: will reduce its motivation, instead of increasing it, and will again
: make terrorism's perpetrators a shunned minority in the Palestinian
: society, as was once the case, and not so long ago.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2002 11:52 pm Post subject: UN agency charges Israeli soldiers destroyed their food ware

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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1038803810431

Dec. 2, 2002
UN agency charges Israeli soldiers destroyed their food warehouse in
Gaza (UPDATE)
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


A UN agency charged Monday that during a weekend incursion into the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers blew up a warehouse full of food for needy Palestinians. The World Food Progamme, affiliated with the United Nations, said in a statement that on Saturday night, six Israeli tanks surrounded a warehouse in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, checked the interior and then blew up the building with dynamite. The group said the warehouse contained food worth $271,000 dollars, meant for more than 40,000 Palestinians who are suffering severe economic hardships because of two years of Palestinian-Israeli violence. The statement said the building was clearly marked, and the food was stored on the ground floor. The military said it would check the group's complaint. After the Israeli incursion, the military said soldiers destroyed three houses belonging to suspected militants. In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "extremely concerned" about the report and called for an investigation. The World Food Programme statement urged "the Israeli government to observe humanitarian principles and compensate the agency for its loss." It was the second incident involving Israel and the United Nations in 10 days. On Nov. 22, UN aid worker Iain Hook was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers during a battle between the soldiers and Palestinian gunmen in the Jenin refugee camp. Israel said soldiers mistook a cell phone Hook was holding as a weapon. Hook was the first senior UN official to be killed during the current conflict.
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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2002 11:55 pm Post subject: Israel plans large scale house demolitions in Hebron

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From: iapinfo@iap.org (IAP NEWS)


Israel plans large scale house demolitions in Hebron

Hebron: 2 December, 2002 (IAP News)

The Israeli occupation army is planing to demolish dozens of Palestinian homes in the heart of Hebron in an effort to push more Palestinians to leave the town’s old quarter, Israeli press sources reported Monday.

The sources said in the initial stage, the army would demolish as many as 15 Palestinian homes located between the Ibrahimi Mosque and Kiryat Arba’a.

The Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, said on its webpage (www.jpost.com) that the purpose of the wholesale demolitions was to assure a safe passage for Jewish settlers between Kiryat Arba’a and the small Jewish enclave in Hebron.

Palestinian leaders in the city described the planned destruction of homes as “a demographic massacre.”

“We are telling the world that Israel is practicing ethnic cleansing in its ugliest form…What the Serbs did in Bosnia, Israel is doing in Hebron. Ethnic cleansing is wrong, the world must condemn it and stop it immediately,” said Yousef Ja’abari, a proprietor of one of the homes slated for demolition.

“Where in the world peoples’ homes are destroyed and innocent inhabitants are thrown into the street just because they happen to have a different religion…this Israeli occupation is Nazi-like in every conceivable respect?”

There are as many as 400 messianic Jewish settlers living in Hebron among the town’s estimated 170,000 Palestinians.

The settlers, protected round-the-clock by more than 2000 Israeli soldiers, make no secret of their desire to expel or exterminate the Palestinians and obliterate the town’s Arab-Islamic identity.

A settler by the name of Baruch Goldstein, an American trained doctor, murdered 29 Arab worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque on 25 February, 1994 while they were prostrating in prayer. He was killed in the incident. A special tomb was set up in his honor and thousands of Jews come to pay homage to him and consider his crime an act of heroism.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2002 12:05 am Post subject: Palestinian olive trees sold to rich Israelis

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Palestinian olive trees sold to rich Israelis

By Alan Philps in Jerusalem

(Filed: 28/11/2002)

Israel's Defence Ministry is investigating reports that Palestinian
olive trees uprooted to make way for a security fence are being sold
illegally to rich Israelis and town councils, sometimes for thousands
of pounds each.

The illegal trade in olive trees has flourished as Israeli contractors,
supported by armed guards, clear Palestinian agricultural land
where an 80-mile electronic fence is being built to seal off the West
Bank.

Thousands of olive trees have been dug up to make way for the
150-ft wide barrier and security zone. Its route usually passes inside
Palestinian territory, not along the old pre-1967 border, and
thousands of Palestinian farmers say their livelihood is being taken
away.

Sale of the olive trees emerged after the owner of a contracting
company offered two reporters from a popular Israeli newspaper,
Yedioth Ahronoth, 100 large olive trees for 150 each.

The reporters found one enormous tree, said to be 600 years old,
on sale at an Israeli plant nursery for 3,500. They said the trade
was conducted with the complicity of an official in the civil
administration, the Israeli military government in the occupied
territories.

Olive trees are extremely hardy, can live for hundreds of years and
will often stand transplanting. Gnarled old specimens which are
claimed, with some exaggeration, to have been alive at the time of
Jesus are much sought after for gardens of the rich or city parks.

The Defence Ministry, which is in charge of the security fence, said
it had launched an investigation. "The ministry pays contractors for
uprooting and replanting and, in their contract, there is no clause
that allows for trade in the trees. If there is such a trade, it is a
criminal activity," it said.

Some contracts require the olive trees to be relocated to areas
suggested by their owners outside the Israeli-declared security
zone. But Yael Stein, researcher for B'tselem, an Israeli human
rights organisation, said: "We have never seen any relocation. The
contractors cannot just sell the trees. That is theft."

While the trees may be ornaments to Israelis, olives are the
lifeblood of Palestinian agriculture, almost the only crop which grows
on the stony hillsides of the West Bank without irrigation. Most
Palestinians are unemployed after two years of violence and their
staple diet is bread and olive oil.

About 11,000 Palestinian farmers will lose all or some of their land
holdings to the fence. Sharif Omar, from the village of Jayous, near
the Israeli town of Kochav Yair, said: "I have lost almost everything.
I have lost 2,700 fruit and olive trees. And 44 of 50 acres I own have
been confiscated for the fence."

His village lost seven wells, 15,000 olive trees and 50,000 citrus and
other fruit trees. "This area is the agricultural store for the West
Bank. They are destroying us," he said.

Israel is offering compensation for confiscated agricultural land but
Palestinians are unlikely to apply, as they still hope to get their land
back.

The Palestinian Agriculture Ministry says 200,000 olive trees have
been destroyed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the past two years
to provide security for settlers.

The 90 million fence will prevent suicide bombers infiltrating into
Israel. But some Israeli border communities say depriving
Palestinians of their livelihood will make for worse, not better,
neighbours.

Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2002.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2002 12:08 am Post subject: Palestinian Christians face ethnic cleansing

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http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives/112202/112202r.htm

Palestinian Christians face ethnic cleansing

National Catholic Reporter, November 22, 2002

By ABE ATA

The Palestinian Christian is an endangered species. When the
modern state of Israel was established there were about 400,000 of
us. Two years ago the number was down to 80,000. Now it’s down
to 60,000. At that rate, in a few years there will be none of us left.
Palestinian Christians within Israel fare little better. On the face of it,
their number has grown by 20,000 since 1991. But this is
misleading, for the census classification “Christian” includes some
20,000 recent non-Arab migrants from the former Soviet Union. So
why are Palestinian Christians abandoning their homeland? We
have lost hope, that’s why. We are treated as non-people. Few
outside the Middle East even know we exist, and those who do,
conveniently forget.

I refer, of course, to the American religious right. They see the
modern Israel as a harbinger of the Second Coming, at which time
Christians will go to paradise, and all others (presumably including
Jews) to hell. To this end they lend military and moral support to
Israel. Even by the double-dealing standards of international
diplomacy, this is a breathtakingly cynical bargain. It is hard to know
who is using whom more: the Christian right for offering secular
power in the expectation that the Jewish state will be destroyed by a
greater spiritual one, or the Israeli right for accepting their offer.
What we do know is that both sides are abusing the Palestinians.
Apparently we don’t enter into anyone’s calculations.

The views of the Israeli right are well known: They want us gone.
Less well known are the views of the American religious right.
Senator James Inhofe, R-Okla., said: “God appeared to Abraham
and said: ‘I am giving you this land,’ the West Bank. This is not a
political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of
God is true.” House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, was
even more forthright: “I’m content to have Israel grab the entire
West Bank. … I happen to believe that the Palestinians should
leave.”

There is a phrase for this: ethnic cleansing. Why do American
Christians stand by while their leaders advocate the expulsion of
fellow Christians? Could it be that they do not know that the Holy
Land has been a home to Christians since, well … since Christ? Do
not think I am asking for special treatment for Christians. Ethnic
cleansing is evil whoever does it and to whomever it is done.
Palestinian Christians -- Maronite Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans,
Armenians, Baptists, Copts and Assyrians -- have been rubbing
shoulders with each other and with other religions -- Muslims, Jews,
Druze and most recently Baha’is -- for centuries. We want to do so
for centuries more. But we can’t if we are driven out by despair.

What we seek is support: material, moral, political and spiritual. As
Palestinians, we grieve for what we have lost, and few people (the
Ashkenazi Jews are one) have lost more than us. But grief can be
assuaged by the fellowship of friends.

Abe Ata is a ninth-generation Christian Palestinian born in
Bethlehem. He is a visiting Senior Fellow at the University of
Melbourne in Australia and author of 11 books, including
Intermarriage between Christians and Muslims.

Zionist Theses and Anti-Theses

Zionist Theses and Anti-Theses

Wednesday, November 27 2002 @ 07:19 PM GMT
"I can imagine a conclave of Zionist ideologues .. vigorously debating the merits of the new Zionist theses that will sustain .."

By Prof. M. Shahid Alam

WASHINGTON (PC) - When the Zionists first proposed, in 1897, to create a Jewish state in Palestine, they knew that they would have to find an imperialist sponsor and sell the idea to audiences in Europe and United States. Within a few years of its creation, the moral case for Israel had been sold like a Spielberg blockbuster. The Zionists had succeeded in presenting Israel as a small, beleaguered but heroic country, defending Western values against the onslaught of Islamic vandals. Next to the creation of Israel, the launching of this narrative has been the greatest triumph of Zionism.

Is it then foolhardy to oppose this entrenched narrative? One might answer with Noam Chomsky that any system “that’s based on lying and deceit is inherently unstable.” The Zionist narrative about Israel too is unstable. It is scarcely surprising then if this hegemonic narrative has at last begun to fray at the edges even in these United States. A movement to divest from Israel has already spread to more than forty campuses. In Europe, the shift in sympathies towards Palestinians is now a fact.

All of this suggests that the time is ripe for examining again, case by case, some of the leading Zionist theses of the past century. We are at a turning point of history, for better or worse. If we can unravel the fabric of lies woven about Israel, we can perhaps nudge this historical turning point just a little bit towards better outcomes.

Promised by God

According to this thesis, the Jews have a legal right to Palestine because God, in the Torah, promised it to Abraham and his descendents some four thousand years ago.

There is one slight problem with this thesis. It has never been established that a religious document, purporting to record statements made by God, could form the basis of legally enforceable claims to property in this world. Imagine what would happen if courts began to accept individual or collective claims to land, buildings, rivers, and mountains that were backed by divine promises. Saddam Hussein might claim that he had a dream in his youth-which he hasn’t revealed so far-in which God had chosen the Iraqis to inherit the entire United States.

A Historical Connection

More secular Zionists pressed their claims on the basis of a historical connection to Palestine. The historical connection is valid, but it will not support Zionist claims

It is worth pointing out that the historical connection ended some two thousand years ago, when the overwhelming majority of Jews left Palestine for other destinations, mostly in the Mediterranean world. The real problem with this thesis is that claims of an ancient historical connection cannot be used to justify present claims to territory. If this is accepted as a valid principle for appropriating territory, we should all start by vacating United States, since the Indians have a historical connection to this land that is quite a bit weightier than any Jewish connection to Palestine.

A Distinct People

The Jews are a ‘distinct’ people, and, hence, they must have a state of their own. In this case, it does not matter where; it could be in Argentina, Uganda, or Palestine.

This claim is fraught with difficulties. The Jews were a distinct people some two thousand years ago when they inhabited a single territory, spoke a common language, and shared the same traditions. But since their dispersal, they divided into many distinct Jewish communities, each of which had blended with their hosts through marriages and conversions. How much was there in common between the Jews of Russia, Morocco, Iran and Ethiopia, that could define them as a ‘distinct’ people?

This thesis assumes that all distinct peoples have a state of their own. This is patently incorrect. There are hundreds of distinct peoples through out the world who do not have a state of their own. In addition, most of these distinct peoples have a stronger claim to statehood than the Jews since they constitute a majority in the areas they inhabit.

Many Arab States

The Arabs already have several states of their own. If they were not motivated by anti-Semitism, they would not object to the creation of the only Jewish state. Instead, they would welcome and resettle the Palestinians displaced by Jewish colonizers.

This is a racist argument. It assumes that the Jewish need for a state has moral precedence over the rights of Palestinians to their own homes, their history, their ancestral lands, their towns and villages. It blames the Arabs for not showing proper deference towards the desire of the Jews for their own state, a state that would be established solely at the cost of the Arab peoples.

Israel Attacked in 1948

In order to paint Israel as the victim, the Zionist narrative claims that Arab armies from Egypt, Syria and Jordan attacked Israel the day after it was created on May 14, 1949.

Were the Arabs attacking an established state with a historical, moral and legal right to Palestine, or were they merely defending themselves-their lands, their homes, their historical rights-against a foreign occupation supported successively by two imperialist powers, Britain and United States?

What would the Americans have done if the UN-in a world in which Japan had won the Second World War-had first allowed unlimited immigration of Jews into Massachusetts, and then authorized its partition to create a Jewish state of Israel in 55 percent of Massachusetts? In 1948, the Arabs had done what I have no doubt the Americans would have done: they defended themselves against an alien invasion.

Only Democracy

The Zionists repeat ad nauseum that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. This happens every time the discussion turns to some egregious Israeli violation of human rights.

But is Israel really a democracy? This depends on what are the boundaries of Israel. Israel is the only country in the world that has never declared or demarcated its borders. And for thirty-five years now, since the 1967 war, its undeclared borders have included the West Bank and Gaza together with their three million Palestinian inhabitants. Israel has been building illegal settlements in these territories since 1967, which did not stop even after the 1993 Oslo Accord. The expanding, armed Jewish settlements are proof positive that Israel never planned to give up these territories. In other words, the true borders of Israel encompass three million Palestinians who have no political and very few civil rights within these de facto borders.

Is Israel then a democracy? Reverend Desmond Tutu, a leading opponent of South African apartheid, prefers to describe it as an apartheid similar to the one that existed in his own country for more than forty years.

A Beleaguered State

The Zionists deflect criticism from Israel by portraying it as a small country-a lamb amongst lions-whose very existence is threatened by hostile Arab armies. This image is hardly supportable.

Israel is a small country that packs a lot of military power. Just consider the wars it has waged against its neighbors. In the 1948-49 war, Israel fielded an army that was stronger and better equipped than all the Arab armies on the war front. On October 29 1956, Israel invaded Egypt, in concert with Britain and France, and occupied all of Sinai and the Gaza Strip until it was forced to evacuate by United States. In June 1967, Israel launched a ‘pre-emptive’ war against Egypt, Syria and Jordan, and in less than six days occupied Sinai, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, and West Bank. Only Sinai has been vacated so far. In June 1981, Israel launched an attack against Iraq to destroy a nuclear reactor under construction near Baghdad. Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982, advancing up to Beirut, and remained in occupation of parts of Southern Lebanon till May 2000. Is this the record of a small country, beleaguered, threatened by its neighbors?

Coda

The Zionist propaganda machine, however, remains fecund as ever. Even as the old lies are exposed, their credibility undermined, they are replaced by new ones.

As the Israelis advance towards a final round of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, I can imagine a conclave of Zionist ideologues-including the likes of William Saffire, Thomas Friedman and Daniel Pipes-vigorously debating the merits of the new Zionist theses that will sustain Israel through another millennium of hegemony over the Arab world.

-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:14 pm Post subject: Our Thanksgiving

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021128174811593

Our Thanksgiving
Thursday, November 28 2002 @ 05:48 PM GMT
"Can we not see as well that it is American money that pays for a cruel and unjust occupation of an unarmed and helpless civilian Palestinian population? .."

By Edna Yaghi

WASHINGTON (PC) - It is fitting and proper that we celebrate Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for. Imagine the tasty turkeys and all their trimmings that will decorate our dinner tables. It is an opportune time for us to reunite with family and friends.

We Americans can reminisce about how our ancestors were welcomed to this new land by the natives. And how these natives shared their knowledge and their blessings with the first colonial settlers. Little did the natives know how much they would lose and how many of them would be exterminated by the pilgrims and their followers. How could these noble people foresee that all they held dear, that their whole way of life would be drastically changed forever?

Yet, we celebrate. I am not sure exactly what we are celebrating. Our triumph has been the Indians’ defeat. Our good fortune has often been at the expense of others we have deemed not equal to us, less human than we think we are.

As we fill our stomachs, as we huddle around our hearths, do we stop and think of how much damage we have done here in our own country and in other parts of the world where we actually suppress those people who struggle and die for the very freedoms we claim we hold dear? Do we stop to think of how terrible it is to go to war against a country that is not bothering us at all and is not a threat to our national security? Yes, we have inspectors in Iraq, but whatever the Iraqi government does or does not do, will it really matter?

Can we not see as well that it is American money that pays for a cruel and unjust occupation of an unarmed and helpless civilian Palestinian population? As we satiate our own desires, can we not hear the orphan children crying, can we not see the homes that have been demolished, can we not see the farmland that has been desecrated? Cannot we not hear the screams of Palestinian men who are being tortured, can see not hear the wails of Palestinian mothers who have lost their most prized possessions, their children? Can we not feel the biter cold of those who have been made homeless by Israeli bulldozers?

Do we not even think that as we celebrate Thanksgiving, Palestinian Muslim families are nearing the end of the holy month of Ramadan and they have the right to celebrate as well in peace and joy, among family members and loved ones? Instead, they are deprived of their basic needs, of earning a living, of going to school, are under twenty-four hour curfews and face constant bombardment. Americans and Israelis should not have a monopoly on happiness and celebration. This is a God given right to all and one that we Americans uphold in our Constitution and what we declared in our Declaration of Independence.

Can we not see our own sad state of affairs? Can we not see that we have entered a depression and that we have many of our own poor who are homeless and jobless? Can we not see that in order to survive, many of our elderly are forced to go back to work at menial jobs when they should be enjoying their later years at home?

Does it really make sense that we are denying so many privileges to our own people while we continue to give to the Israelis so they can kill, torture, wipe out or drive out the rest of the Palestinians from their own land and homes? We suffer and we will continue to suffer and our suffering will increase as long as we send our American tax dollars to those who do not even deserve them and who misuse our money in terrible and unjust ways.

We are constantly reminded how Hitler tried to exterminate the Jews but we cannot see now how the Israelis who have no legal, historical, religious or moral claim to Palestine are at this very moment bent on doing their best to make life hell on earth for every Palestinian who bravely tries to live in his or her occupied country. Israel, even before it declared itself a state, has had many, many Hitlers and many faces of evil. Sadly, we, the Americans are partners in these crimes because we pay for them, we suppress the truth about them, and we condone them. We simply cannot see beyond our own super-inflated egos because we chose not to.

We cannot even see how President George Bush is leading us down the road to disaster. He is destroying our economy. He intends to go to war with Iraq without any provocation. Hasn’t America done enough damage to Iraq? Shouldn’t we be thinking of ways to wage peace instead of war? Wouldn’t it be better if we dedicated ourselves to saving lives instead of destroying them? Wouldn’t we the American people be better loved if we really stood for justice and freedom for all? Is it fitting and proper that we continue to kill and mutilate others for oil, for power, for the pure pleasure of it? How long can we fool ourselves? How long will it be until we wake up and smell the coffee? When will we really see how we are supporting the real terrorists instead of doing our best to put a stop to all forms of terror? What do we call it when we wage war on other countries? For how long are we going to sell out the Holy Land to a power that occupies and suppresses the indigenous population?

The people we should really fear are the people we give the most money to and the man we so erroneously chose to be the leader of our country. God bless America.

Photo by Palestinian photojournalist, Mahfouz Abu Turk, for PalestineChronicle.com

-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:15 pm Post subject: A Message of Thanksgiving from Palestine

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021128191845819

A Message of Thanksgiving from Palestine

Thursday, November 28 2002 @ 07:18 PM GMT


What am I thankful for? What are we as Palestinians thankful for?

By Sami Awad

BETHLEHEM (PC) - This week, millions of Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving. This will be an occasion for families to get together and enjoy each other's company and love. This will be a time where many will give thanks for good things in their lives such as health, prosperity, good friends and loving families. We cannot forget the big traditional feast that will be part of this event as well.

In Palestine, like many other countries around the world, we do not have Thanksgiving Day. I felt, even in this time, when we have been living for six days under house arrest (curfew) in Bethlehem, when for the past two years, we have been suffering from continuous Israeli military aggression, oppression, and incursions, and when for the past 35 years, we have lived under a brutal occupation, that I - as a Palestinian and as an American - should write this letter in order to express what we are thankful for during this season.

On the 22nd of November, at 4:30 in the morning, Israeli military jeeps with loud speakers, accompanied by tanks and armed personnel carriers, reentered Bethlehem announcing that the entire Bethlehem district, with its towns, villages and refugee camps was under curfew. I write this letter from our apartment where my wife, my daughter and I, like tens of thousands of other families, have been trapped for six days and are not able to leave.

What am I thankful for? What are we as Palestinians thankful for?

Those who have it, are thankful for the little food they were able to buy and save before the Israeli troops came into Bethlehem this past week.

Those who have it, are thankful for electricity that has not been cut and for the water that has not been stopped from their neighborhoods or has not been lost when their water storage tanks were destroyed by Israeli soldiers wanting to empty them. (Unlike Israeli settlements a few miles away, Palestinians only get water once every 10 days on average).

Those who can, are thankful for being able to wake up every morning alive. Thankful that an Israeli sniper bullet or a missile fired on their home from an Israeli army tank or F-16 fighter jet did not kill them.

Those who can, are thankful that their homes have not yet been demolished (only 6 homes in Bethlehem this week), or their homes were not raided by Israeli soldiers who rampaged all their furniture, shooting bullets and destroying all their belongings, and blow up their walls (tens of homes in Bethlehem this week).

Those who can, are thankful that they or other members of their family have not been arrested and taken to unknown places with no access to anyone (tens of Palestinians from Bethlehem this week).

Those who are able to, are thankful that no one in their family has fallen ill. It would take hours, at best, to arrange for an ambulance to pick a sick person these days, not counting the other hours that are wasted by Israeli troops stopping ambulances in the streets.

Those who can, are thankful for telephone lines that connect them to their family and their loved ones. We have not been able to see our parents for a week and we live less than a mile away. We are truly thankful for the telephone line.

Those who can, are thankful that their lands have not yet been confiscated for illegal settlement buildings, which continue to grow and expand at a faster pace, in front of our eyes, as we sit imprisoned in our homes.

We are thankful for the many friends from different parts of this world that have either called or have written to us letters of prayer and support.

We are thankful for the growing number of people around the world and within Israel itself that have come to the realization that security for Israel can only be achieved if justice is given to the Palestinians.

Most of all we are thankful for the hope that we continue to have. Hope in seeing this brutal occupation end for our sake and for the sake of our Israeli neighbors. Hope in seeing a free and democratic Palestinian state established where the rights of all are respected and honored and where every Palestinian has the right to live. Hope in seeing the two peoples of this Holy Land treat each other as equals, with equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal freedoms.

If we did not have hope then we would not have much to be thankful for.

-Photo by Palestinian photojournalist, Mahfouz Abu Turk for PalestineChronicle.com

-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:17 pm Post subject: Fact-Finding Peace Activists Banned from Reaching Settlement

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021128171756222

Fact-Finding Peace Activists Banned from Reaching Settlements in Hebron

Thursday, November 28 2002 @ 05:17 PM GMT
"According to organizers of the visit, 25 anti-settlement activists were met by a large number of Israeli police at .."

HEBRON, West Bank - Israeli Occupation Forces prevented Wednesday a group from the Israeli anti-settlement movement Peace Now from visiting an area in the West Bank city of Hebron where Jewish settlers are building new outposts in violation of international law.

According to organizers of the visit, 25 anti-settlement activists were met by a large number of Israeli police at the “Gush Etzion” junction, who prevented them from continuing their trip.

The fact-finding panel wanted “to inspect the facts on the ground built virtually overnight by the settlers in Hebron,” according to a Peace Now statement issued on Tuesday night.

“The settlers have openly declared that they were taking matters in their own hands and implementing (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon’s proposal to expand the Hebron settlements,” the statement added.

Earlier this month, Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon told the army in Hebron to oust Palestinians and establish what he called demographic “territorial [Jewish] continuity” between the illegal settlement of “Kiryat Arba” and the small Jewish settlement enclave piercing the heart of the Old City.

In effect, Sharon had called for a de facto annexation of Palestinian land to link the area colonized by Jewish settlers in the Old City with the nearby illegal settlement in the West Bank City of Hebron, to include Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi, which Jews refer to as the tomb of the Patriarchs.

The international community regards all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as illegal and rogue outposts are also considered illegal under Israeli law.

-Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:18 pm Post subject: Israelis Kill Palestinian Ramadan Drummer

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021128184601432

Israelis Kill Palestinian Ramadan Drummer

Thursday, November 28 2002 @ 06:46 PM GMT
"Anatur was hit by several bullets as, following tradition, he went from door to door waking up fellow-Muslims for the Ramadan pre-dawn meal .."

NABLUS, West Bank - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian Ramadan drummer, or mesaharati, early Wednesday, November 28, near the autonomous Palestinian city of Nablus as he was waking up Muslims for their pre-dawn meals.

Jihad Anatur, 24, died when Israeli soldiers opened fire at him in the Askar refugee camp, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Anatur, the youngest of five brothers and one sister, was hit by several bullets as, following tradition, he went from door to door waking up fellow-Muslims for the Ramadan pre-dawn meal.

He was accompanied by a colleague, Raed Motab, 28, who said that Anatur kept bleeding and asking for help, but the Israeli soldiers didn’t allow anyone to administer first aid to him.

“We were walking between houses to wake people up, and suddenly around eight Israeli soldiers who were hiding behind a car attacked us with their guns and ordered us to stop,” Motab told AFP.

They shot Anatur, and then did not allow me to move towards him, asking me to lift my clothes and then they handcuffed me and took my identity card, he added.

Motab was then beaten and taken inside the camp. He was later releasey heard Anatur’s screams for help for almost half an hour, but no one could approach because the Israelis imposed a curfew immediately after killing Anatur.

“I will not work as drummer again, not after the killing of Anatur,” Motab said.

-IslamOnline & News Agencies (islamonline.net). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:19 pm Post subject: Sharon Rejects Voicing Opposition to Transfer

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=2002112819511714

Sharon Rejects Voicing Opposition to Transfer

Thursday, November 28 2002 @ 07:51 PM GMT
"The Americans decided to deliver the Jordanian message to Israel at a high official level, explained a top Jordanian official.."

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has rejected a Jordanian request that Israel issue a public declaration opposing the ‘transfer’ of Palestinians from the West Bank in case of a US-led war on Iraq, the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz reported Thursday.



Ha’aretz reported that Jordanian officials have voiced concern recently about the possibility that Israel might exploit an American attack on Iraq to expel masses of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan.

Senior Jordanian officials, such as foreign minister Marwan Al-Mua’sher, have raised this concern in talks with Israeli and American counterparts, asking for assurances that Israel will refrain from implementing transfer policies, long supported by many Israeli leaders and officials.

Mua’sher brought up the concern last September at the United Nations in New York in talks with former Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres.

The Jordanian official asked for a formal Israel announcement renouncing transfer and demanded that the declaration come directly from Sharon.

The request reached Sharon but he rejected it, Ha’aretz said.

According to Israeli sources, Sharon refused to be involved in any discussions about transfer. “[Sharon] took exception to the Jordanians raising such a suspicion about him.” An Isareli source said.

The Americans decided to deliver the Jordanian message to Israel at a high official level, explained a top Jordanian official.

US President George Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice raised the issue in their meetings with Sharon in Washington last month.

William Burns, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, who visited the region last October, told Israeli officials that the Jordanian officials had expressed fears about mass expulsion of Palestinians during a coming war against Iraq.

The Jordanian official quoted remarks made by Israeli officials in favor of transfer, and cited poll results that indicate a measure of public support for the idea.

But it seems that the Jordanians have refrained from raising the transfer issue in public due to the assurances they received from Washington, top Israeli officials speculated.

-Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:37 pm Post subject: Both sides must denounce all acts of terrorism

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Both sides must denounce all acts of terrorism
Posted on November 15, 2002

A day doesn't go by that I don't hear someone accuse Arabs and Palestinians of failing to denounce acts of terrorism.According to these critics, all we ever do is blame everything on Israel and find excuses to explain away Palestinian terrorism and the terrorism of such groups as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Saddam Hussein and the No. 1 terrorist, Osama bin Laden.Well, they are wrong. Again.Nearly every major Palestinian and Arab-American leader denounced the Sept. 11 terrorism of bin Laden without reservation. But does that mean we don't have the right to challenge American government violations of civil rights?We have denounced and continue to denounce other acts of terrorism, such as the most recent suicide attack that took the lives of five Israelis, including several children, at Kibbutz Metzer. But the same people who criticize Palestinians and Arabs are silent when the victims are Palestinian children. They do everything to justify the Israeli government's murder of innocent Palestinians, including children, too.So, here is my public statement on suicide bombings, Palestinian terrorism, a statement that has been issued, reissued and repeated, but often ignored by this country's pro-Israel media. Let's see how many people cut this out and put it on their refrigerators:I thought you should hear my views directly from me, views that have been consistent and do not fall into the category of excuses. Yes, I do believe Palestinians are victims of Israeli government terrorism, but I do not associate the one as a means of justifying the other.So, here are my views, on the record and distributable to everyone. I am the former national president of the Palestinian American Congress, a member of the National Palestinian American Congress board of directors, publisher of an English-language Arab-American newspaper and a columnist:I condemn and denounce in the strongest terms the vicious murder of the five civilians in Kibbutz Metzer, not just because this settlement has maintained good relations with its Palestinian neighbors, but because this was an outright act of violence. It is a horrendous crime. The killer or killers are not martyrs but murderers. They do not represent the Palestinian people, and those who sent them on this mission are as guilty as the killers themselves. I blame Hamas and Islamic Jihad as two organizations that are engaged in acts of terrorism and that promote and use suicide bombings as a despicable weapon.Those who encourage individuals to become suicide bombers are heartless cowards. Their actions are doing more damage to the Palestinian cause than any other single source.I and many Palestinians and Arabs are opposed to all acts of violence. We speak out against all acts of violence. We denounce violence by Palestinian terrorists as well as violence by Israeli terrorists, such as by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The Likud Party is a party of terrorism, not peace. It is an organization founded in the terrorism of the Irgun and Stern gang, and it has been their platform since its inception to reject all forms of land-for-peace compromise with the Palestinians.But Israel's terrorism does not justify terrorism by the Palestinians. Just as I expect Israelis to resist and fight terrorism against them, I expect my Palestinian people to stand up and resist the terrorism of the current Israeli government, until a new government is established that will pursue peace, not continued bloodshed, death, murder and violence.Where are the voices of Israeli leaders who have the courage to stand up and denounce terrorism by Sharon against the Palestinian civilians?Where?• Send e-mail to rayhanania@aol.com.Ray Hanania is a Palestinian-American author.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:59 pm Post subject: The journey Sadat began in Israel is far from complete

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_15-11-2002_pg4_14
>
The journey Sadat began in Israel is far from complete
> By Caroline Drees


The article by Caroline Drees, about Anwar Sadat, requires comment.

Ms. Drees says:

> It [Anwar Sadat’s peace efforts] didn't give back rights to the Arabs and the Palestinians,

This repeats the standard weird oversight about Anwar Sadat. The article fails to mention that Egypt’s “separate peace” was firmly linked to US and Israeli promises of Palestinian “autonomy,” leading toward statehood and the Palestinian right of return.

The price Israel and the US paid for Sadat’s peace was a solid “timetable” for autonomy, with firm guarantees of statehood, and full respect for Palestinian rights. That was the very first – and last – instance of any serious political gain for the Palestinians. It was the first time Palestinian rights, and the fulfillment of those rights, were placed before Western populations at all.

It is inexcusable that this MOST crucial fact is commonly left out of journalistic “analysis” of Sadat.

The reality – the linkage between Egypt’s separate peace and Palestinian rights – is one among several historic milestone moments when a viable resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict was simply allowed to whither on the vine, in absolute betrayal of excellent peace efforts by the “Arab” side. As soon as Sadat, himself, was gone, Israel, the US, and a compromised Egyptian government absolutely betrayed Palestinian rights, along with final peace.

Though Sadat is understandably reviled for his luxurious Western lifestyle, his personal success with Western leaders and journalists gave him special power. Combined with that, Sadat – this “urbane,” almost Western gentleman – actually attacked Israeli occupation troops and took them by such surprise as to shake the world.
Sadat’s bold play pushed the Cold War to nuclear tensions. It also forced Israel to run to the US for quick rescue – proving to one and all that Israel was NOT “independent” or self-sustaining, but was a spoiled and domineering pet.

Though quick aid by the US helped Israel recover most of its losses, Sadat still retained the high ground of moral and strategic advantage. He played ALL his advantages into the tight focus of peace negotiations, like a very good chess player.

His plan had only one fatal flaw: it depended on Sadat himself to press it through. It required him to survive.

Until shown convincing proof to the contrary, we must assume that Israeli and/or US intelligence assassinated Anwar Sadat, using “Islamic extremists” as the standard cover, even then.
So the Israeli advantage – the separate peace with Egypt – was retained, while the other side of the contract – the solid timetable for Palestinian rights – was folded neatly, decoratively placed in a pocket of one of Sadat’s fancy suits, and buried with him.
If Sadat was a traitor or a fool, it is only because he was wrong to trust Israel and the US that much.

He did all he could. I don’t idolize him at all, but it is true.

We should also note that the Palestine linkage Sadat held so central has been the central theme of every US-Israeli war on Palestine and its neighbors.

Sadat’s 1973 war was an extension of the 1967 war – the second great spin-off war from the initial race-war against Palestine, which reached flared in 1948 and continues to this day. In the next spin-off war, after ‘73, Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the linkage was brutally obvious: the whole point was to kill off Palestinian nationhood once and for all, by killing as many Palestinians as possible, including the national leaders – and trying to embroil the survivors into semi-permanent “civil war,” with US-Israeli equipped Phalangist pretenders, in a destabilized Lebanon. The next spin-off was “The War in the Gulf I,” in 1991. The same linkage was central then too, as Saddam Hussein repeatedly offered to honor a UN resolution and peacefully leave Kuwait, in the context of talks that would place equal emphasis on equivalent UN resolutions against Israel. It is the same crucial linkage Osama bin Laden is seen to have made between Afghanistan, 9/11, and Palestine. It is the same linkage that the best Arab voices are pressing now between Iraq and Israel.

And this is the “linkage” that US “anti-war” leaders consistently pretend to “not see,” as they protest war on Iraq, war on Afghanistan, and war on Iraq again, all the while honoring the Zionist code-of-silence about Palestine.

In her article, Ms. Drees uses a common Palestinian expression which ironically promotes that cover-up:

> after the Intifada began

The Second Intifada is an eternal cause for Palestinian national pride, but the monotonous use of the term creates the false impression that the Palestinians have initiated and controlled the violence of the past two years.
In reality, Sharon went to the Haram al Sharif to initiate the most brazen campaign of Zionist genocide since 1948 and 1982. Israel’s provocations and over-reactions – and its many new precedents in center-stage Western barbarism against “third world” men, women, and children – have led this conflict all the time. The Palestinians’ inconceivably brave resistance and counter-attacks deserve to be honored as the “Second Intifada,” but the past two years of violence should be named for what it is: an undisguised campaign of ethnic-cleansing, in the familiar Zionist plan.

Finally, Ms. Drees quotes “George, a 35-year-old Egyptian handyman,” saying:

> "But anyone with brains knows he [Anwar Sadat] was seeking peace, and had Arafat
> followed his example, the Palestinians would have a state today and
> live in peace."

This unpretentious blather might be selected to deceive, but it’s probably just a bit of cuteness, suitable for the “conclusion of an article,” in typically pat journalistic patter, perfectly blithe to the gore that results.

In reality, no one could have picked up where Sadat was stopped. Sadat was in no way a heroic “example.” He did real things, and created a momentum for peace that could not be stopped as long as he was alive, but which totally depended on his survival – or on US-Israeli honor and interest in peace.

Dave Kersting
-----------------------------
>
>
>
>
> http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_15-11-2002_pg4_14
>
> The journey Sadat began in Israel is far from complete
>
> By Caroline Drees
>
> Pledging to go to the end of the world in search of peace, Egypt's
> late President Anwar Sadat boarded a plane to Israel on November 19,
> 1977 to shake hands with his foes after four devastating Arab-
> Israeli wars.
>
> Twenty-five years later, the journey Sadat began has ground to a
> shuddering halt. In central Cairo, a man sells charcoal sketches of
> political leaders — but his Sadat portraits aren't doing well these
> days, he says.
>
> Only one picture of Sadat hangs on the whitewashed wall, flanked by
> a sketch of an angry Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president, and
> dwarfed by four pictures of Sadat's predecessor Gamal Abdel Nasser,
> the hardline hero of pan-Arab nationalists.
>
> "Nasser pictures are much more popular than Sadat. I sell something
> like four times as many Nasser sketches," he said. For most
> Egyptians, the reason is obvious.
>
> Ties between Egypt and the Jewish state are frostier than ever since
> the neighbours signed a peace treaty in 1979, and the goal of a
> comprehensive peace in the volatile region remains elusive.
>
> Arab anger at Israel is at a boil, not least thanks to continued
> Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, a steady diet of
> government rhetoric and heavy media coverage of a Palestinian
> uprising which erupted in September 2000 after peace talks
> collapsed.
>
> Even in Egypt, once seen as a beacon of hope for Arab-Israeli
> harmony, frustration is rife. With television stations beaming non-
> stop footage into every home of Israeli tanks bulldozing Palestinian
> towns, the vast majority of Egyptians have stopped viewing Israel as
> a partner for peace. "There was hope for peace when Sadat went to
> Israel, but there is no hope now," said 54-year-old Cairo shopkeeper
> Farouk Mohamed Ibrahim. "Arab national feeling is like a volcano
> now."
>
> Dashed hopes: While authorities have been able to keep protests
> largely under control in Egypt, anger at Israel and its U.S. allies
> has led to violent demonstrations and sporadic anti-American attacks
> in various Arab countries, including Jordan — the only other Arab
> state which has a peace treaty with Israel. Hassan Nafaa, the head
> of the political science department at Cairo University, said
> Egyptians were still glad the peace treaty spared them another war,
> but were now convinced Israel was an expansionist state that didn't
> want peace.
>
> "Hopes were high in 1977. Sadat raised people's expectations to a
> very high level. But when people saw it wasn't so easy, hopes came
> crashing down. We were at the top of the mountain, and crashed to
> hell, and we are in hell right now," he said.
>
> The mood is a far cry from the hopes Sadat expressed before his trip
> and in his memorable speech to the Israeli parliament or Knesset,
> which set the stage for full-fledged peace talks between the
> adversaries, leading to Israel's withdrawal from Egypt's Sinai
> peninsula, occupied in the 1967 war.
>
> "I state in all seriousness that I am prepared to go to the end of
> the world — and Israel will be surprised to hear me tell you that I
> am ready to go to their home, to the Knesset itself...," Sadat told
> Egypt's parliament on November 9, 1977. "When the bells of peace
> ring there will be no hands to beat the drums of war," Sadat told
> the Knesset less than two weeks later in his dramatic speech on
> November 20.
>
> Today, many Egyptians and Arabs accuse Sadat of abandoning the
> Palestinians by signing what they consider a "separate peace" with
> Israel, and some say Egypt's treaty gave the Jewish state a free
> hand to invade Lebanon and step up settlements in Palestinian areas
> because Egypt was out of the equation.
>
> Many say the treaty, so admired outside the Arab world, paved the
> way for today's regional strife because they say Sadat misread
> Israel as willing to duplicate the land-for-peace swap elsewhere. A
> hero and a visionary to some, Sadat is reviled by others as the man
> who sold out to Israel. Two years after signing the treaty, Sadat
> was assassinated by Islamic militants. "It (Sadat's trip) was a
> failure in every sense. It lost the Arabs what (weapons) they
> possessed, weakened their position and took attention away from
> other choices. It didn't give back rights to the Arabs and the
> Palestinians," said Egyptian Islamist lawyer Montasser Zayat.
>
> Some Egyptians say they had become so accustomed to peace they had
> all but forgotten the suffering and humiliation of their defeats by
> Israel.
>
> "Back when Sadat went to Israel people were relieved. People were
> glued to the TV. After so many wars with Israel, after losing the
> Sinai and with the economy in tatters, they saw this a last chance
> to revive Egypt," said one Egyptian intellectual.
>
> "Today, people talk differently, saying the peace has brought them
> nothing. But they forget what it brought them, and what price they'd
> have to pay if they gave it up. Talk is cheap, but nobody here is
> really willing to foot the bill."
>
> Frosty ties: On Cairo's bustling Tahrir Square, the Safir travel
> agency still offers daily bus trips to Israel in big red letters,
> even though the service stopped running roughly two years ago.
>
> "Since the Intifada, there have been no buses to Israel. Buses used
> to be daily. They were popular and the trip was easy. But not
> anymore," the travel agent said. "We still have a few tourists ask
> occasionally, but we have to tell them the trips have stopped."
>
> Ties between Egypt and Israel, while never truly warm, turned icy
> after the Intifada began, with Egypt withdrawing its ambassador and
> later halting all but diplomatic relations.
>
> The Israeli Academic Centre in Cairo, which seeks to promote
> educational ties between the two countries, is one of the casualties
> of the tense political climate. "The Intifada did a lot of damage in
> the sense of how many scholars and students come to the centre. The
> numbers fell dramatically. People don't feel comfortable coming
> now," said David Kushner, the director of the centre.
>
> "On some days, no Egyptians come at all," he said, while the only
> Egyptian in sight at the centre was a member of staff. Analysts say
> the continued regional tensions have widened a traditional gap
> between Sadat fans and those who revere Nasser. Many say the
> Intifada has shifted the balance in Nasser's favour.
>
> "People become more linked to the Nasserite era when they watch the
> atrocities committed by Israel on television. They think Sadat was
> too pro-American, too pro-Israel, and think the only way to deal
> with them is through the policies pursued by Nasser," Cairo
> University's Nafaa said.
>
> "Add to that economic difficulties at home and feelings that no
> political reform is in sight, and people begin to dream about a
> perceived golden era of the past," he said.
>
> Lingering hope: At the Israeli Academic Centre, Kushner says the
> situation is at a low point, but far from desperate. He said
> relations had gone through ups and downs before, and there were
> indications that things were picking up.
>
> "The fact that Egyptian students are still studying Hebrew, Hebrew
> literature and topics related to Judaica, the fact that the number
> of visitors at the centre is picking up again a bit — these are all
> hopeful signs," he said.
>
> For George, a 35-year-old Egyptian handyman, it's only a matter of
> time and education before people learn to appreciate his idol Sadat.
>
> "Some people say Sadat went to Israel to find a solution to the
> region's problems, others say he went for his own benefit and was
> abandoning the Palestinians," he said.
>
> "But anyone with brains knows he was seeking peace, and had Arafat
> followed his example, the Palestinians would have a state today and
> live in peace." —Reuters

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2002 2:47 pm Post subject: UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021129201627434

Remembering the UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

Friday, November 29 2002 @ 08:16 PM GMT

"Since the collapse of the July 2000 Camp David peace summit between Israel and the PLO, Israeli governments have renewed a campaign of de- legitimization of the Palestinian people's struggle for fundamental rights and the implementation of international law and UN resolutions .."

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (BADIL) - Fifty- five years ago, the United Nations General Assembly voted for a proposal to partition Palestine into a "Jewish" and an "Arab State" (UNGA Resolution 181/1947) in violation of international law and against the express wish of the majority of Palestine's inhabitants - thereby violating the right of self- determination of the Palestinian/Arab people.

Thirty years later, while still grappling with the protracted "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" it had helped to create, the same United Nations declared 29 November the UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination (UNGA Resolution 32- 40B/1977). Today, 55 years after the UN partition resolution and subsequent UN efforts at peace-making, the Palestinian people continue to live in an environment characterized by exile and forced displacement, increasing racism and an emerging Israeli apartheid regime. What future is there for the Palestinian people? What future is there for international solidarity with the Palestinian people's struggle for freedom, justice and a durable peace?

Since the collapse of the July 2000 Camp David peace summit between Israel and the PLO, Israeli governments have renewed a campaign of de- legitimization of the Palestinian people's struggle for fundamental rights and the implementation of international law and UN resolutions. In February 2001, Israel's Sharon government, encouraged by a passive and strongly biased international community, set out to launch an all-out military attack against Palestinian infrastructure and the political leadership in the 1967 occupied territories. By November 2002, with only two more months in office, this government has accomplished its immediate objectives.

As of 29 November 2002, the 25th anniversary of the International Day in Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Israel's occupation army has effectively re-taken direct military control over all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a result of a series of brutal military operations (code-named 'Journey of Colors', 'Defensive Wall', 'Chain Reaction', a.o.). Freedom of movement between cities, towns and refugee camps is virtually non-existent; around-the-clock curfews have effectively placed under house- arrest one million Palestinians in the West Bank for most of the time since April 2002; some 250,000 Palestinian children have been unable to reach schools since September 2002 (UNICEF); between 60 and 80 percent of the population live on less than US $2 a day; Palestinian institutions, including many ministries, hospitals and media are defunct or inaccessible for the population; and, even the symbols of Palestinian self-rule have vanished from the ground.

Racial Discrimination

In the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories the Israeli government continues to advance policies and underwrite practices - including the expansion of colonies (i.e. settlements), confiscation of Palestinian land, destruction of agricultural crops and demolition of Palestinian homes - that aim to permanently alter the area's demographic, ethno-national composition. Palestinian civilians, moreover, have born the brunt - in lives, injuries, damage to homes and properties etc. - of Israel's military campaign to suppress the Palestinian uprising and struggle for freedom. There is no apparent distinction between civilian and combatant in Israel's self-declared 'war on terrorism,' which has left approximately 1,800 Palestinians and 400 Israeli civilians dead, more than 20,000 Palestinians injured, and some 8,000 in Israeli detention centers. Israel's profiling of an entire population based on their ethno-national character is not limited to the 1967 occupied territories. Over the past year the Israeli government has adopted policies that have led to further isolation and marginalization of Palestinian citizens of the state. These policies include suspension of family reunification; consideration of new laws that further restrict Palestinian access to land; the reactivation of a Council for Demography to study mechanisms to increase the Jewish population relative to the Palestinian population; establishment of new Jewish settlements to alter the demography in the Galilee and Naqab; a.o. These policies are accompanied by a campaign to target outspoken Palestinian political leaders and an unprecedented wave of incitement for the expulsion of the Palestinian people: "Israel is a country in which the streets are plastered with posters calling for a population transfer, and nobody bothers to remove them or to indict those who put them up." (Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz, 9 September 2002).

Refugees

The outcome and continuing impact of Israel's system of racial discrimination since 1947/8 has been the creation of millions of refugees and displaced persons. Today, it is estimated that more than two-thirds (6 million) of the Palestinian people are displaced. While Palestinians owned over 90% of the land in mandatory Palestine on the eve of the 1948 war, today Palestinians have access to just ten percent of their land in Israel and the 1967 occupied territories. The Palestinian people constitute one of the largest and longest standing unresolved cases of displacement in the world today. Current Israeli "transfer" schemes - whether implemented in the shadow of a US-led war against Iraq or without such a war - must be considered in this context.

Apartheid

Israel's system of racial discrimination has not only engendered mass displacement and dispossession of the majority of the Palestinian people, it has also engendered a system of physical separation characterized by segregation and 'bantustanization.' First applied by a military government (1948 - 1966) against the Palestinian population that had remained in Israel, this system was replicated in the West Bank and Gaza Strip following Israel's military occupation in 1967. Today, the West Bank is divided into some 64 non-contiguous zones surrounded by 46 permanent checkpoints and 126 roadblocks. Israel has introduced a segregated road system transforming all major roads into roads for Jews only. Since May 2002 Palestinian residents need special permits, issued by Israel's military government, for travel between Palestinian cities and between the various 'zones' or 'bantustans.' The culmination of the idea of segregation is unfolding in the form of the separation zone ('wall') that is to eventually close entry and exit to Palestinian populated areas of the West Bank from the north to the south. The Gaza Strip is already surrounded by a similar fence.

What Future for the Palestinian People?

In the context of continued racial discrimination and forced displacement the Palestinians people is facing a future of life and struggle under apartheid. While the establishment of a full-fledged apartheid regime might not constitute the preferred option for many Israelis concerned about the 'democratic character of the Jewish state', it is the most likely scenario by default. Apartheid is the future scenario, because neither will a future Likud-led government (most likely) be able to rid Israel of the presence of the Palestinian people by military force, nor will a Labor-led government (less likely) under former General Amram Mitzna have the courage to radically alter Israel's strategy and create the conditions required for a two-state solution, i.e. a full withdrawal from the 1967 occupied territories, the dismantling of all Jewish colonies containing some 400,000 settlers and the re- admission, restitution and compensation of all those Palestinian refugees choosing to exercise their right of return (UN Resolution 194).

Apartheid is the future scenario of the Palestinian people also because official international efforts for ending the current crisis and re-launching political negotiations between Israel and the PLO continue to fail to address the root causes (military occupation, displacement, denial of the right to self- determination) of the conflict between the Palestinian people and Zionist Israel. Rich in stages, time tables and demands for reform of the Palestinian leadership, and promising recognition of a 'temporary Palestinian state without borders' by late 2003, the latest 'road map' drafted by 'Quartet' (United States, European Union, Russia, United Nations) is no more likely to succeed than the earlier US-led 'Mitchell-Tenet-Zinni process.' This because also the Quartet's initiative avoids one of the most important lessons to be drawn from comparative research of international peace- making, i.e. the fact that peace plans must include clear reference to, and enforcement mechanisms for, international law and human rights conventions in order to have a chance of success.

What Future for International Solidarity?

Based on the above, only a broad and globally coordinated campaign against Israel's brand of apartheid, including effective Israel-boycott campaigns and campaigns for the indictment of Israelis responsible for war crimes, can convey a clear message to Israel and official international actors and change the unfavorable balance of forces in favor of universal respect for international law as the foundation for building a just and durable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Palestinian refugees. It is contingent upon all those interested in a comprehensive, just and durable solution of this conflict to return to its roots - i.e. the mass displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people in 1948 and after. " The refugee issue needs to be placed at the center of the process from where it has mysteriously disappeared," state Israeli political scientist Ilan Pape and his Palestinian colleague Karma Nabulsi. "All those involved in resolving the conflict must have the public courage to confront the Israeli denial of the expulsion and ethnic cleansing at the heart of the Palestinian refugee question. This remains the single largest stumbling block towards a lasting peace between both peoples." (The Guardian, 19 September 2002).

BADIL Resource Center aims to provide a resource pool of alternative, critical and progressive information on the question of Palestinian refugees in our quest to achieve a just and lasting solution for exiled Palestinians based on their right of return. www.badil.org.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2002 2:56 pm Post subject: Palestinian Children in the Night

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021129202401385

Palestinian Children in the Night

Friday, November 29 2002 @ 08:24 PM GMT

"A few of the Palestinians standing behind the UNDP representatives slowly walked up behind them and one pulled from a bag what looked like a one meter wooden bat .."

By Sam Bahour

It happened last night. Ramallah was pitch dark and the breeze was cool and brisk. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I was out during the night with my wife and two daughters, Areen, 8 and Nadine, 2. We were taking advantage of the lull in nightly curfews imposed by the Israeli military over the past year. We found ourselves in the midst of a crowd of over 300 cheering Palestinians. Between us and another group of a few dozen Palestinian youth were two United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) representatives.

Palestinian child performs in
a local Bethlehem theater

The two representatives were clearly American, in looks and accent. A few of the Palestinians standing behind the UNDP representatives slowly walked up behind them and one pulled from a bag what looked like a one meter wooden bat. Our hearts beating, and before we could clearly make out what was happening, the Palestinian boy holding this object unraveled a most beautiful and colorful Palestinian embroidery piece. The embroidery was attached to a wooden rod and the Palestinian teenager proudly held it up and presented it to the two UNDP representatives as a gift for their support. This was the final few minutes in what was a moving and fabulous one-hour dbut of the Palestinian Folk Vista, by Bara’em El-Funoun, a new generation of the El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe.

Bara’em is Arabic for “buds”. El-Funoun is Arabic for “the arts”. Bara’em El-Funoun is the offshoot of the renowned El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe (www.el-funoun.org), a music and dance ensemble, inspired by universal elements of folk art and their particular expression in Arab-Palestinian popular heritage and folklore. Bara’em El-Funoun is the embodiment of a new generation of dancers, a generation that is determined to safeguard and advance Palestinian culture and heritage through dance, music and song.

We are in the midst of the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan in Ramallah has historically been marked by joyous evenings during the cool and breezy nights following the breaking of daylight fast. This year is an exception, as was last year. For the last two years the Israeli occupation has stripped all evidence of normal life from Palestinian streets. Whereas the city centers would once have been open for business late into the evening to cater to Ramadan shoppers and holiday-goers, today only a handful of businesses venture to open their doors after nightfall, fearing the volatile security situation and realizing that their patrons prefer to not risk the surprise Israeli raids and patrols within the city.

Last night was different. Over 300 Palestinians were invited to attend the first performance of El-Funoun’s youth dance group. The mere invitation to such an event during these troubled times sparked a deep sense of defiance toward occupation in each of us. It was as if this youth dance group and those organizing them were calling for popular action to counter the Israeli military activities that have brought our cultural lives to a standstill. The action was clearly defined and well planned – a forceful demonstration by way of dance, music and song that Palestinian culture is alive and well, undamaged by Israeli tanks, armored personnel carriers and F-16’s that have permanently scarred each of our streets, neighborhoods and families.

We entered the Ramallah Municipality Hall along with dozens of other families. Parents, children, elders and many friends gathered together in public for the first time in quite a while to celebrate a positive and cheerful event. For us it was a special event too. My wife Abeer was a dancer with the El-Funoun dance troupe back in the late 80’s and my daughter Areen is currently training in dance at classes at the Popular Arts Center (PAC) with great hopes of one day being accepted into the Bara'em troupe and then graduating into the El-Funoun troupe.

This tribute to Palestinian culture came with a story, like most events in Palestine these days. Bara'em members rehearsed most of the Palestinian Folk Vista production during Israeli-imposed military curfews. On one occasion, they were all trying to reach the studio (at the PAC in Al-Bireh, ww.popularartcentre.org) when they suddenly saw an Israeli armored personnel carrier (APC) parked right outside the studio entrance. Khaled, the dance trainer, was with them, and he was terrified that troupe members would be hurt. He bore the millstone of responsibility. After all, it was he who had convinced the parents to let their children challenge the curfew to get to the rehearsals. He panicked, and suddenly, one of the Bara'em girls decided to walk to the entrance despite the presence of that APC. Everyone else followed and they made it to practice! The soldiers did not interfere this time, luckily.

Bara'em’s performance was stunning. The smiles of the dancers were refreshing. As Omar Barghouti, one of the proud choreographers, told me following the event: “Those children became real dancers with power, passion and a very convincing ability to convey the choreographed themes, to entertain and to impress. Our children are not reduced to mere victims, who solicit sympathy; they have a presence that demands solidarity and support. This has been El-Funoun's direction for decades now, and we can finally take pride in passing it on to our next generation of El-Funoun members, Bara'em.”

In the middle of the performance my nephew, Yacoub, 14, took the stage to present a musical solo on the Qanun, a zither-like musical instrument with 26 triple courses of strings and one of the oldest oriental string instruments in Arabic music. As Yacoub fine-tuned his instrument, you could have heard a pin drop while the audience waited in anticipation. My two-year-old daughter seized the opportunity to yell out to her cousin from the middle of the hall, “Yacoub!” It was her way of expressing her excitement of the moment and she brought the entire audience to a warm laugh.

Dance after dance, these young boys and girls dazzled the audience with their agility and outstanding ability to synchronize with the traditional songs depicting the love of life that resides in all Palestinians, a love that appreciates the wonders of nature, respects land and refuses to forget those living in poverty and exile. Each girl dancer wore a traditional embroidered Arabic dress, full of color and full of life. The young boy dancers each wore a simple loose traditional garment reflecting those worn by Palestinian peasants and farmers for hundreds of years.

A scan of the audience brought sadness and hope. A friend, and one of the El-Funoun choreographers, Mrs. Lana Abu Hijleh, sat close to the stage and looked on with a bright smile. This performance was an accomplishment she had a right to be proud of. To see her smile brought hope, especially given that it was only a few weeks ago we paid our respects to her and her family after her mother was murdered by an Israeli solider in the Palestinian City of Nablus as she sat on the porch inside her home stitching an embroidery. I watched other friends enjoying the performance as well, knowing that many of their loved ones were missing from their sides. Instead of being in the audience watching their children culturally flourish, many fathers, brothers and sons instead were languishing in Israeli jails, part of the 7,000 Palestinians arbitrarily arrested over the past two years.

The UNDP, sponsors of this fabulous performance, accepted a gift of embroidery at the end of the event. In making his closing remarks, the UNDP representative was clearly moved by what he had seen – a drop of hope in a sea of despair.

While sitting and watching the performance with my youngest daughter on my lap violently clapping after every dance, I thought to myself, if only our Israeli neighbors could see and feel what we were seeing and feeling. If only the parents of those Israeli soldiers -- not much older than the young Palestinian dancers on stage -- patrolling and occupying our cities could see the energy and determination that was on stage and in the audience. If only my Israeli neighbors could remove the artificial blinders placed on them by their leadership, they would quickly realize that we are a people whose spirit cannot be broken by military occupation. A people whose culture and traditions are deeper than the roots of the olive tress that the Israel bulldozers continue to uproot. If they could only see! If they could only feel!

Before we reached home last night it was announced by the Israeli military that for the next two days Ramallah would be placed under 24-hr military curfew, yet again. It was as if the entire city was being collectively punished for the act of displaying Palestinian culture. Nevertheless, when the curfew is lifted we will send our daughter Areen for her next weekly dance lesson, for we have no time to waste in ending this occupation, so disastrous for us all. Maybe the dance weapon will succeed where everything else so far has failed.

Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American businessman living in the besieged Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank and can be reached at sbahour@palnet.com. He is co-author of HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994).

-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

5 Palestinians Killed Ahead of Likud Primaries

5 Palestinians Killed Ahead of Likud Primaries

Wednesday, November 27 2002 @ 07:51 PM GMT

"Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat expressed his outrage at Israel’s military operations and canceled Christmas celebrations in the southern West Bank city .."

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Five Palestinians died as violence swept across the occupied territories yesterday, setting a tense stage for the Likud party primaries expected to help Ariel Sharon remain Israel’s prime minister.

(Image: Musa al-Shaer (PC))

A 33-year-old Palestinian was killed in the evening when Israeli soldiers patrolling the reoccupied town of Bethlehem opened fire on his car, Palestinian medical sources said. The incident occurred shortly after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat expressed his outrage at Israel’s military operations and canceled Christmas celebrations in the southern West Bank city. "There won’t be any Christmas," he told reporters in Ramallah, describing Israel’s recent closure of Bethlehem as an "international crime".

Following last week’s Jerusalem bus bomb which left 11 people dead, the occupation army moved back into Bethlehem and declared the town a closed military zone under an order valid until Dec. 30.

In the northern West Bank city of Jenin, a local leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to Arafat’s Fatah, and senior member of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, were killed in an overnight blast.

The deaths sparked Palestinian accusations that Israel had resumed its policy of assassinations, following reports by Palestinian security sources the men were killed when an Israeli helicopter fired a missile on a building they were in. But an army spokesman denied "any involvement".

In Nablus, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian who was going door to door in Nablus’ Askar refugee camp, waking up fellow Muslims for "suhoor", the last meal before the start of the dawn-to-dusk fast during Ramadan. A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was also arrested by the army in the camp, the security sources said.

A Palestinian blew himself up near the northern crossing point of Erez, after both Israeli and Palestinian security tried to stop his car. The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades said his attack was aimed at the Israeli side of a nearby liaison office, but the blast only set fire to an empty Palestinian security building.

The Israeli army also staged another one of its almost daily raids in the southern Gaza Strip overnight when helicopters badly damaged a school in Khan Yunis, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qorei met with his Israeli counterpart, Avraham Burg, in East Jerusalem to discuss ways of resuming peace negotiations between the two sides.

"There is no better time to clear our misunderstandings around the negotiations table rather than between funerals," he said. "If we don’t now, who knows what will happen when the genie of extremism comes out of his bottle?", he asked.

Qorei, a veteran negotiator for the Palestinian side, said "parliamentarians have a duty to work together for an end to all forms of violence." He nevertheless blamed Israel for the latest surge in violence, charging that Palestinian " bombings are a reaction to things like what happened last night".

-Arab News (arabnews.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2002 2:17 am Post subject: This Morning in Aida Refugee Camp

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021127191125268

This Morning in Aida Refugee Camp

Wednesday, November 27 2002 @ 07:11 PM GMT

"For the sixth day, now approaching the end of Ramadan, Palestinian Muslims cannot reach the mosque to pray .."

By Kristen Ess

BETHLEHEM (PC) - The Israeli military still holds Bethlehem under curfew. Soldiers went round to houses inside Aida Camp demanding names of all children in the families to add to their lists. Here in the camp all children are suspected of the crime of throwing stones at heavily armored Israeli tanks that plow through their streets. Sometimes the tanks shoot at the little kids and their families, other times they come just to bully and threaten, to demonstrate that the Israeli military is in control.

For the sixth day, now approaching the end of Ramadan, Palestinian Muslims cannot reach the mosque to pray.

Israeli soldiers terrorized Deheisha Refugee Camp for the second night in a row. Well over fifty people were drug from their homes the night before last and added to the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners sitting without charge in Israeli prisons. The count for last night is not in yet. Again today schools are closed. A friend considered studying for an exam last night, but instead closed his books and laughed. Another, one who limps because he was hit by Apache missile fire in April, is rehearsing for a play that now will only be performed inside the camp because getting out is not possible.

The general news so far today is: Israeli soldiers killed four people in Nablus. One was from Balata Refugee Camp, two were assassinated. Israeli soldiers killed two people in Jenin. One Palestinian died at Eretz Checkpoint near Gaza City. Apache missiles bombarded Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip. They destroyed a house and shot missiles into an empty school.

Kids are playing in the alley defying the Israeli imposed curfew that is meant to keep them trapped indoors for days on end. A man is yelling at his family. Israeli soldiers are gunning tank engines by the cemetery. The mosque is calling for prayer. An F-16 is flying overhead. Now an Israeli military jeep is plowing down the dirt alley way shouting for curfew and kids are scrambling. A tank is following and has launched a sound bomb. Tear gas is coming through the window.

-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2002 2:19 am Post subject: Halt Suicide Attacks: Abu Mazen

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021127185135460

Halt Suicide Attacks: Abu Mazen

Wednesday, November 27 2002 @ 06:51 PM GMT

"I have always said I'm against the use of arms. I think it was a mistake to use arms during the Intifada and to carry out attacks inside Israel .."

RAMALLAH - The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary General Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) on Tuesday urged Palestinian anti-occupation activists to halt suicide attacks to avoid giving Israel the pretext to reoccupy more Palestinian land.

Abbas has consistently advocated the official policy of the PLO and the Palestine National Authority (PNA) and criticized the use of arms during a two-year uprising for statehood and called on Palestinians to 'stop the violence'.

“I have always said I'm against the use of arms. I think it was a mistake to use arms during the Intifada and to carry out attacks inside Israel,"' Abbas told Reuters.

“Such (suicide) attacks will give Israel the pretext it needs to reoccupy Gaza Strip. Israel has already reoccupied most if not all the West Bank. It is now raiding Gaza and has destroyed the security headquarters there. Next, it will reoccupy Gaza," he said.

Abu Mazen was the PLO’s representative who signed the Declaration of Principles in Washington in 1993, which was the launching pad for the Palestinian-Israeli peace accords, known as the Oslo accords signed thereafter between PNA and Israel.

Almost two-thirds of Palestinians disapprove of how their two-year-old Intifada uprising has evolved and support immediate reforms of Palestinian institutions, a survey published Tuesday by Bir Zeit University showed.

"Two years after its inception, 63 percent express dissatisfaction with the way the Intifada is proceeding. This is a 17-percent increase from last year," said the poll, conducted by the leading West Bank Palestinian university.

The survey also revealed that 54 percent of West Bank residents felt attacks involving Israeli civilians had no impact or a negative impact on the Palestinian cause, compared with 39 percent in the Gaza Strip.

The poll said, "28 percent of the respondents report their families have lost all sources of income as a result of Israeli measures,” while 26 percent said they would emigrate if they could.

The PNA last week authorized the Minister of Culture and Information Yasser Abed Rabbo, who is also a member of PLO’s Executive Committee, to lead a committee entrusted with continuing negotiations with the Israeli peace camp.

Abed Rabbo on Tuesday told the Palestinian daily Al-Quds, "For several months, we have been working with parties within the peace camp in Israel, in the Labor party, Meretz and others, to compile a detailed plan completing and improving what we agreed on at the Taba talks."

Discussions in that Egyptian town in December 2000-January 2001 were aimed at finding a permanent settlement for the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Separately, aides to Palestinian parliament Speaker Ahmed Qorei told AFP he had exchanged letters with his Israeli counterpart Abraham Burg "as part of Israeli and Palestinian efforts aimed at revitalizing peace camps on both sides.”

The two leaders were to meet Wednesday at an occupied east Jerusalem hotel to study ways of ending the seemingly unending crisis, Qorei's office said.

-Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

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Shoo Bakeey
Guest





Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2002 11:56 am Post subject: My beautiful flower

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Glad to see one who truly cares about what happens in Palestine.You look very beautiful in your image and I know you are just the same in person.
How about marrying me? :D

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:04 pm Post subject: Israeli intelligence:Arafat's exile would not end war

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Israeli intelligence concludes Arafat's exile would not end war
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, November 14, 2002
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/front_1.html

JERUSALEM - Israel's domestic intelligence agency has concluded that Yasser
Arafat can maintain his authority on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip even
if he is expelled.

"The security establishment has concluded that we not do this [expel
Arafat]," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said.

The assessment was said to represent the consensus of Israel's intelligence
community, Middle East Newsline reported.

Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has promised to exile Arafat if he is
the next prime minister.

National Security Agency director Avi Dichter told a Cabinet panel on
Wednesday that Arafat can continue the Palestinian insurgency war from exile
abroad. He and other intelligence chiefs were said to have opposed any
Israeli expulsion of Arafat.

They said Arafat's international stature would soar and Israel would be
under great pressure to return him to the PA areas. Dichter's assessment was
disputed by Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu said Arafat's
exile would lead to the erosion of the infrastructure of Palestinian
insurgency groups.

Although they oppose Arafat's ouster, Israeli intelligence chiefs said that
the continued rule of the PA chief will prevent any Israeli-Palestinian
agreement. They said Arafat prefers the current war to a compromise solution
with Israel.

For their part, Palestinians said they expect Sharon to expel Arafat during
any U.S.-led war against Iraq. Fatah leader Hussein Al Sheik, responsible
for the West Bank, said Israel's government will destroy the PA and exile
Arafat.

Sharon has not ruled out the eventual expulsion of Arafat. He said in an
interview on Israeli television that he relayed a pledge to the United
States not "to harm Arafat physically."

World Tribune.com is a publication of East West Services, Inc.
Copyright 2002 East West Services, Inc.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:06 pm Post subject: “ONE VOICE,SILENT NO LONGER”

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The American Committee on Jerusalem

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

November 16, 2002
ACJ AND MEI HOST ISRAELI AND PALESTINIAN FOUNDERS OF “ONE VOICE,
SILENT NO LONGER”

Darawshe: “Violence is a result of lack of leadership and political
vision”

WASHINGTON, DC -- Speaking at the headquarters of the Middle East
Institute (MEI) yesterday, Mohammad Darawshe and Daniel Lubetzky,
founders of “One Voice, Silent No Longer”, introduced a new grassroots
initiative aimed at ending the cycle of violence between Israelis and
Palestinians. The briefing was co-sponsored by the American Committee
on Jerusalem (ACJ) and MEI.

Mohammad Darawshe began by updating attendees on the “feelings of the
people on the ground,” both Palestinians and Israelis. Describing the
Israeli occupation as the “ugly, severe and savage oppression of a
nation”, Darawshe credited it both with creating a pervasive sense of
fatalism permeating Palestinian society, and the inevitable violence
emanating from elements within that society. Palestinians he
said “feel abandoned and having nothing to lose.” On the Israeli side,
Darawshe described the mood as one where Israelis felt that they had
offered everything to the Palestinians but had been rejected. As a
result, Israelis feel that they have to “look and act tough so as not
to be perceived as weak.” Darawshe placed responsibility for this to a
total failure and a lack of leadership and political vision on both
sides. Emphasizing finally that he believed that both sides still
wanted peace, Darawshe cited a poll of 756 Israeli Arabs conducted in
early November in which 78% believed in a two-state solution, 65% were
exhausted with the Intifada and 83% favored shifting the Intifada to
strictly non-violent means.

Daniel Lubetzky followed Darawshe by introducing the “One Voice”
initiative. He described it as an effort “to empower the overwhelming
silent majority on both sides to take responsibility and seize the
initiative from the extremists on who had stepped into the void
created by a lack of leadership.” Lubetzky described the initiative as
consisting of three stages. The first stage involved developing
a “proclamation of principles” for coexistence within two years that
recognized the rights and needs of each side by the other. The goal is
for 10,000 Palestinians and Israelis, who would be reached through the
Internet, newspaper ads and other public means, to sign onto it.
Building on this momentum, stage two involved a council of Palestinian
and Israeli experts distilling from negotiations ten core issues to be
submitted to the populations as the basis for negotiations. These ten
points would be widely disseminated with the goal of getting one
million-plus signatures. Finally, stage three involved submitting the
ten points and the accompanying signatures to the political leaders on
both sides, as the political will of the people.

The ACJ is a coalition of all major Arab-American organizations
dedicated to promoting a solution to Jerusalem which accommodates the
attachments of the three faiths and the political aspirations of both
peoples, Palestinians and Israelis.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:07 pm Post subject: -Report from Leonie in Tulkarem

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4-Report from Leonie in Tulkarem

Hello all,

I am now in a village called Tulkarem, close to the green line (the
1967 border). I spent the last couple of days in Jayyous, where Israel is
clearing land for the construction of separation wall that basically is
an instrument of aparthied. The Wall is supposed to be along the 1967
border. However, this is not the case. A large amount of extra land
(approx 2300 acres) has been appropriated. This land is some of the
most
fertile in the West Bank. It has thousands of olive trees and seven
water sources. It produces the majority of food for the West Bank and it
is being blatantly stolen by the strong arm of the Israeli military,
police and security forces. The construction of the Wall itself will
destroy a huge amount of wildlife - in addition to the wall there will
be a trench and road running the entire distance. The Wall will be
fortified, with lookout posts and military patrols.

The villagers of Jayyous are among the worst hit by the construction of
the wall. The planned site is extremely close to a number of houses -
50
metres or so. They are very worried by the inevitable constant
observation that this would result in. Many of the villages have land
and olive groves on the other side of the proposed wall. This land has
provided their families for generations, and they have no idea how they
will survive without this vital source of income. In addition, the
construction of the wall has resulted in a heavier military presence in
the village itself. Much of the time it is under curfew, which means
children cannot go to school and the population cannot work or buy
supplies.

At the request of the villagers, the ISM helped to organise a couple of
days of demonstration against the wall. On Thursday, about 50
internationals, 10 Israeli peace activists and couple of hundred
villages gathered on the land that was due to be bulldozed that day. The
bulldozers turned away before they reached us and we successfully
managed to stop the days work. An olive tree was planted in an already
bulldozed area, and we broke curfew to march through the village, singing
freedom songs and waving the Palestinian flag.

Yesterday was a different story. It was Palestinian independence day
and Friday, the holy day for Muslims. In celebration the villagers
decided
to hold their mid-morning prayers on the land. Apart from that the
plan was the same as for the previous day - forming a human chain in front
of
the bulldozers and preventing them from doing their destructive work.
We gathered at the same place as the previous day, but discovered that
the bulldozers were working on the other side of the village. Again we
all walked through the village, stopping at the mosque on the way to
make a call for more people to join us. At the place of destruction the
internationals formed a human chain by linking arms - the villagers
were
behind us. We managed to force the soldiers, jeeps and military down
the side of the hill and into the valley. The bulldozers went away but
the
army remained. Many hours were spent waiting the the sun while
negotiations took place between the mayor, the army commader and an ISM
co-ordinator. At 11.20, as planned, the villagers began their prayers.
It was quite an incredible sight: a few hundred men lined up in the
valley praying for about 10 or 15 minutes. The women were under some
trees, the children, internationals and soldiers watched in silence.
Afer the prayers the chanting and clapping of the villagers took on a
new level of passion. The negotiations finished, and we were told that
we had 10 minutes to disperse or would be removed using force. They
told us that we were in a closed military zone, but did not provide the
correct documentation. We refused to leave and once again linked arms
- two rows of internationals (about 25 of us) between about four jeeps
and about 15 soldiers and police and a few hundred of the villagers of
Jayyous.

Some soldiers went up the side of the valley. From there the first
rounds of tear gas were fired. The world went completely white. Sound
bombs were also fired and we later found live shells that had been
fired where the crowd was standing. Most of the Palestinians disappeared
but the Internationals stayed to confront the army. One Canadian man
was repeatedly hit in the stomach with a rifle butt. Ten were arrested.
Leonie

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:09 pm Post subject: 2-Update on Jayyous arrests:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2-Update on Jayyous arrests:

Friends, we apologize for not being able to immediately post pictures
of the demonstration and arrests yesterday. Repeated attempts failed due
to the connection available in the town of Jayyous. Pictures can now be
found at:
http://jerusalem.indymedia.org/news/2002/11/89522.php

What we know now:
Yesterday, the arrestees were taken from the Tsufim military base, to a
police station in the Israeli settlement of Ariel. After questioning:
Irish citizen, Michael McGrath was put on a plane at 5am this morning.
Israeli citizen, Jonathan Pollack was released at approximately 2am
this morning.
Four males: Cary Gibbons (UK), Thomas Linner (Canada), Reverend Gordon
Hutchins (US) and Ole Martin (Sweden) are being held at the Massyahu
prison in Ramle.
The four women, Esther Serra (Spain), Susan Barney (US), Rodhika
Sainath (US) and Charlotte Carson (Ireland) were released at approximately
2am this morning but must appear before a judge tomorrow, Sunday.
The status of the eight are “Pending Deportation”

The Israeli government has long been trying to keep the eyes of the
wold shut with regards to its grave violations of international law, its
blatant human rights abuses and its war crimes. This has been done
mainly through strong and well-coordinated propaganda – by labeling the
Palestinians “terrorists” and disguising all of its actions as “fighting
terrorism”. Now that average citizens from all over the world are taking
action, are coming to see for themselves what is being done in the name
of “Israeli security”, the Israeli government is doing whatever it can
to keep these people, that could see and dare speak the truth, out.

The accusation against these international activists? – Being in a
closed military zone. This “closed military zone” is Palestinian olive
groves that the military has closed off so bulldozers can work on uprooting
Palestinian farmers’ olive trees to make way for an “Apartheid Wall”,
stealing Palestinian land to cage them in their villages. The
internationals were there, using no violence, but rather the power of nonviolence
to protect Palestinian villagers from being shot for daring to protest
the confiscation and destruction of their land.

The farmers of Jayyous just want the world to now that the line about
this wall being built to protect Israeli citizens, is a lie. If security
and not expansion, really was the case, why is the wall not being built
on the Green Line – the internationally recognized border between
Israel and the West Bank? Why has the path of the wall been drawn to isolate
Palestine’s most fertile land from its owners? To deprive the
Palestinians of their water wells? To leave farming communities with no land?

Jayyous:
3,000 people / 450 families
Area = 13,000 dunams
600 dunams will be destoyed (flattened) to make way for the wall
9,000 dunams of farmland will fall on the other side of the wall,
including 7 water wells, and over 200 greenhouses.
The equivalent of pproximately 65,000 workdays per year will be lost to
the people of Jayyous as a result of this wall.

We will continue to protest this wall, nonviolently, meaning we will be
sitting on the land tomorrow. The media does not take an interest. They
tell us to call when there is blood. We just want you to know.

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dangerousdna



Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:10 pm Post subject: Error-prone Israel Continues to Sell the Murder of Children

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021125193157537

Error-prone Israel Continues to Sell the Murder of Children as One Big Mistake

Monday, November 25 2002 @ 07:31 PM GMT
"It is all too easy to continue this murderous catalogue. Simply typing the words “mistake” and “IDF” into a search engine .."

By Eddie Taylor

NEW YORK (PC) - We heard the “m” word again this weekend. When Jihad al-Faqeh, an 8-year-old walking back from school in Nablus, was struck in the chest by an IDF bullet, the explanation was immediate. No, make that reflexive. It was, the army spokesperson said, a “mistake”. As we have seen throughout the past two years, it is a word that trips off the tongues of the security chiefs as readily as “self-defense” or “responding to hostile fire.”

We’ve almost become immune to the many “mistakes” of the IDF. The West is even comforted by the notion. Rita Cosby, one of Fox News’s many Likud mouthpieces, practically instructed the unctuous Alom Pinkas to accept the death of UN worker Ian Hook as “a terrible mistake”.

Back in September, when dart-filled shells coursed into a Bedouin camp in Gaza and killed Ruwaida al Hajeen, her sons, Ashraf, 22, and Nihad, 17, and 20-year-old Muhammed al Hajeen, that was a mistake too. On the same day, a tank machine-gunned holes into the 10-year-old body of Abdul Hadi Anwar Hameeda. Another mistake.
On August 31st, Defense Minister Ben Eliezer declared the shelling of a car in Tubas as, yes, a mistake. Two children, Yazid Daraghmeh and Sari Subuh, were among the five dead. The same helicopter then pounded the home of Yousuf Darghmeh, killing his 8-year-old daughter Bahira and her 10-year-old cousin Ibrahim.

The explanation? You got it.

One year ago, on November 22, it was a mistake when five Palestinian children aged between 6 to 14 were blown to pieces by an Israeli mine as they trod their usual path to school in Khan Yunis.

It is all too easy to continue this murderous catalogue. Simply typing the words “mistake” and “IDF” into a search engine produces a