Resettlement rejected
By Ali Samudi, Jerusalem Times 1/1/2004
The Palestinians may have different opinions concerning different issues, but no such disagreement is found with regard to their national concerns, especially the issue of refugees and the right of return. Despite several plots woven against the issue of refugees over the years, the Palestinian stance concerning the plight of refugees has not changed.
The same stance was expressed by the Palestinians after a new US senator made a proposal for resettling Palestinian refugees. The proposal angered the Palestinians in Palestine and abroad. Refugee Tuffaha Tawalbeh, from the Jenin refugee camp, said, “We do not want resettlement or any other solutions. The solution is obvious; if we wanted any of the solutions being proposed we would not have sacrificed. My son Mahmoud was martyred, my home was demolished, and three of my sons are in prison, and after all that they speak about deleting the right of return. That is utterly rejected, and whatever the price, we will continue to fight, generation after generation.”
The new proposal was faced by anger from the Jenin camp, home to 11,000 residents who, a year ago, witnessed an Israeli massacre that led to the martyrdom of tens of people, the demolition of hundreds of homes, and the arrest of hundreds of men.
Mother of leader Ziad Al-Amer, martyred in the camp battle, said, “If we wanted another citizenship or identity or agreed to relinquishing the right of return the battle would not have taken place. They attacked us to root out resistance and delete the right of return, but they failed. They destroyed and killed and arrested, but they did not and will not defeat resistance and will not erase the dream of return from our minds. Ziad is dead, but his sons will carry the dream and realize it.” Um Ziad called for resisting all the voices that call for alternate solutions, adding, “The blood of my son will not be sold for resettlement. Ziad is dead, the house has been demolished, and his brothers are in prison, but our resolve is strong and we will fight until we return.”
The Black Hole in Truce Efforts
By Ghassan Andoni, International Middle East Media Center 12/31/2003
The government of Israel constantly refused to be a party to any truce agreement, demanding for the Palestinian Authority to disarm and dismantle resistance groups as a prerequiset to any serious diplomatic efforts.
In an attempt to apparently encourage Palestinian groups to unilateraly cease fire and to positevly respond to the U.S. demands for calming down the situation, many Israeli officials, including Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon hinted recently and repeatdly that “Israel would respond to calm with calm”.
Two weeks ago, an army investigation concluded that in the past 100 days, the largest resistance group, Hamas, refrained from attacking civilian targets inside Israel. the Israeli Intelegence service, Shin Bet, denied the investigation results and insisted that intelegence service succeeded in foiling several attampts (32 attepted suicide attacks) from the side of Hamas to launch attacks inside Israel.
The definition of “a ticking bomb situation” and “necessary measures to be taken” lies solely in the hands of Shin Bet officials. Therefore, a look at the latest army activities in the Palestinian teretories can indicate how “calm” the situation can go.
....In reality, the “ticking bomb” exception is difficult to examine and can be used as a pretext to launch all kinds of military operations anywhere.
For The Sake of Its Own Virtue, Palestinian Resistance Must Spare Civilians
By Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle 12/31/2003
Palestinian resistance factions must desist from targeting Israeli civilians, with or without an officially bargained ceasefire and regardless of the course of action chosen by Israel and its reckless government in response. This decision is imperative if the Palestinian struggle is to safeguard its historic values and uphold its moral pre-eminence.
For some, such reasoning may come into view as morally inconsistent, one-sided even; after all, the Israeli army continues to target civilians unhindered, so why deny Palestinians the right to retaliate?
Palestinians possess the legitimate right of self-defense, and the unequivocal right of ridding themselves of a lengthy and vile occupation. These rights are recurrently highlighted in international law and require little debate or intellectual tussling. But it is amiss, for the occupied - who surely possess the moral edge - to utilize the unmerited ways of the occupier. International law makes a clear distinction, as should Palestinian resistance, between occupying military forces and civilians. If Palestinians waver from this crucial line of reasoning, their historically virtuous struggle risks being diluted with moral corruption.
The fence brings friction and hatred
By Israel Harel, Ha'aretz 1/1/2004
Some 24 years ago terrorists murdered six Jewish worshipers on their way home from the Cave of Machpela. Conspicuous among the responses to the murders were the words of then police minister, Haim Bar Lev. "If they had not been there," he said, in a brilliant combination of wisdom and empathy, "they would not have been shot." Even then, Bar Lev expressed the feelings of many who harbored ill will toward Yesha settlers and particularly the settlers of Hebron, indifference towards them, or worse, when Arabs murdered settlers. In the past 25 years there have been extreme expressions, both oral and in print, explicitly stating that the killing of settlers is not a crime.
One of the contentions is that their settlement of occupied territory is a war crime - so they are war criminals. For a long time I kept a clipping from one of the newspapers of the Kibbutz Movement. A reserve soldier had written that he "had an urge" to shoot the settlers and not the Arabs. There was no written response to the newspaper nor repercussions in the media, except in the Nekuda magazine. ....Even at this early stage, the fence, instead of unburdening the Israel Defense Forces from operations and reducing the friction between the populations, is causing an opposite result - burdening the IDF with more operations, but moreover promoting friction, and not only between Jews and Arabs, but also between Jews and Jews. And this is only the beginning.
2003 Through Rafah
By Arjan El Fassed, Electronic Intifada 12/30/2003
The year 2003 started and ended with Israeli forces invading Rafah refugee camp and demolishing refugee homes. On January 2, Israeli forces demolished 25 homes, leaving 85 Palestinian families homeless. Refugees were forced to leave their homes at one o'clock as Israeli bulldozers smashed their property. This week, just days before Christmas, Israeli forces, reinforced by tanks and attack helicopters attacked the densely populated area again. Refugees came under intense shelling and indiscriminate shooting and homes were demolished. In three years, Israeli forces have demolished 800 homes in Rafah alone.
In 2003, Israeli forces attacked Rafah and its vulnerable residents on a daily basis. Larger military operations against Rafah's residents took place in January, April, May, September, October, November and December. In all these operations, Israeli forces, using heavy arms and equipment, killed or wounded civilians, demolished homes and terrorised Rafah's residents.
Rafah is located in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, at the border with Egypt. Rafah refugee camp was established in 1949 to provide shelter to 41,000 refugees. It was the largest and most densely populated refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. The camp is divided into 17 blocks.
On March 16, Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist, was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer. She was killed, trying to protect the home of a Palestinian doctor, his wife and three children. Less than one month later, Tom Hurndall, a young photographer, was shot in the head by the Israeli army in Rafah. He currently lies in a vegetative state at the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability in Putney after suffering severe brain damage from which he is not expected to recover. On May 2, James Miller, an award-winning British TV cameraman, who was making a documentary about Palestinian children in Rafah, was shot dead by the Israeli army.
A little bit of anarchy won't hurt
By Meron Benvenisti, Ha'aretz 1/1/2004
The incident in which soldiers fired at demonstrators got immense media coverage. One detail however - marginal but symbolic - did not get the proper attention: the identity of the group of demonstrators, called "Anarchists Against the Fence." Apparently the demonstration was not aimed only against the fence, which makes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians a misery, but was also an ideological defiance of those who belong to the anarchist stream towards the very concept of the Israeli state and the sanctity of its laws. There is no need to overestimate the importance of this group, which represents a marginal left-wing stream, with almost no influence. But one should also not underestimate the ideological and intellectual challenge that anarchists set before a society that attributes to the "Jewish state" an absolute, sacred value, and worships "laws" as though they embody, by their very legislation, supreme moral and social values. There is no democratic state in the world in which statism and submission to the law are the main principles of faith, as they are in Israel.
Anarchism is not a rude word for law breakers but an ancient and glorious social philosophy, advocating that justice and equality will be achieved by canceling the state and replacing it with voluntary arrangements among people. It also says social harmony will not be achieved by surrendering and obeying the orders of the state, for it is a bullying instrument of control in the hands of minority ethnic and class groups.
The Dream of Return
By Muhammad Abu Khudair and Suhail Khalaf, Jerusalem Times 1/1/2004
A day in the life of the refugee camp -- The holy month of Ramadan in refugee camps is difficult and miserable, especially when it coincides with incursions, attacks and assassination and when fear and deprivation reign supreme.
We toured the Balata refugee camp, the largest refugee camp in the West Bank, to paint a picture of how the refugees live.
Life in the camp, which Israeli leaders have described as a thorn in the side of the West Bank, is a web of tragedies and sad tales. The camp, located at the eastern entrance of Nablus, has lived a tragic story since 1948. The characters of the story are ordinary Palestinians driven off their land and out of their cities and villages to live in camps that lack the most basic of daily needs.
Near the town of Balata, sits the Balata refugee camp, to which thousands of Palestinian refugees moved in 1948. Today, more than 20,000 Palestinians live in the camp, which is no more than one square kilometer in area. Like other refugee camps, Balata has suffered repeated attacks by Israeli occupation forces over the past two years, enough to destroy the infrastructure and tens of homes and increase the burden borne by local residents.
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