Sharon's
pawnbrokers
By Aluf Benn, Ha'aretz, January 9, 2003
Ariel Sharon didn't manage to mortgage his farm to the bank that
loaned him millions to pay off debts from his primaries campaign
in 1999. But as prime minister he mortgaged his rule to four powerful
forces, which granted him the political credit that enabled him
to survive. As his popularity slips in the polls and he loses
the chance for a landslide, Sharon is now in political trouble,
which has only deepened his dependence on his pawnbrokers and
spells bad tidings for the day after the polls close. l The support
of U.S. President Bush has strengthened Sharon's rule to this
day. In exchange, Sharon scattered agreements "in principle" and
positive signals about a Palestinian state and the American initiatives,
from the Mitchell Plan to the Bush Speech and the "road map,"
and refrained from expelling Yasser Arafat and reoccupying Gaza.
That was enough for the administration to buy some quiet in Europe
and the Arab world on the way to Iraq. But what will happen on
the "day after"? Sharon apparently believes that Bush will be
busy with his 2004 presidential election campaign and won't want
to clash with the American Jews. But if Washington decides the
time has come to cash in the mortgage and demand a settlement
freeze and a renewal of the negotiations, Sharon can expect to
face a very difficult time. He knows well that the road map leads
in one direction: to the internationalization of the conflict
and the 1967 borders.
We
Are Here; They Are There
By Darren Ell, The Electronic Intifada, January 7, 2003
Since returning from my November 2002 trip to Palestine, I've
been reading an illuminating new book on the Israel/Palestine
conflict: The New Intifada: Resisting Israel's Apartheid.
Its essays reveal just how seriously the mainstream media has
misrepresented the conflict. I recall that in 2000 we heard how
former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was the Palestinians'
best chance for peace and how Arafat ruined it all by turning
down Israel's magnanimous concessions at Camp David. Quite a different
story arises in Sara Roy's essay in The New Intifada: "During
his successful election campaign in 1999, Ehud Barak ran on a
platform of "Peace Through Separation: We Are Here; They Are There"....
"Barak's vision of separation was to be achieved through the construction
of checkpoints, walls, fences, trenches, bridges, canals, and
tunnels." This vision, a nightmare which the Palestinian Authority
could no longer ignore by 2000, corresponds to the reality I witnessed
in the West Bank and Gaza. After staying in the Old City in Jerusalem
where everyone's movements are tracked by video cameras on every
corner, I ventured to Ramallah with a Canadian international worker.
We entered the encircled city through a small checkpoint we reached
via a circuitous route, the main road having been destroyed by
bulldozers.
Israel
needs a fresh start
Editorial, The Guardian, January 10, 2003
It is a time for honesty and realism -- If ever a country was
in need of a fresh start, it is Israel. From almost every perspective,
Ariel Sharon's premiership has been a disaster. On January 28,
Israeli voters have the chance to sack him. They should do so.
But if a change of government is to make a real difference, Israelis
also need to be honest with themselves. All Israelis, and not
just Mr Sharon, should stop blaming others for their misfortunes.
The country's chronic state of insecurity is not primarily the
result of Palestinian violence. It stems fundamentally from the
present policy of oppressive, expanding and illegal occupation
of another's land. The lack of any diplomatic momentum towards
a settlement with Palestine, let alone with Syria and others,
cannot ultimately be blamed on the US, Europe, the UN or Arab
leaders, although all may be severely faulted. It is principally
a product of Mr Sharon's destructive mix of political dissembling
and military aggression at which far too many Israelis shrug or
wink. Despite fears to the contrary, Israel's Jews are not targets
of a suddenly rising European anti-semitism. Rather it is the
Israeli state that - even allowing for the unacceptable use of
terror against its civilians - stands accused of ignoring humanitarian
norms and basic human rights that most people in modern Europe
take for granted.
To
China: But looking for what?
By Amir Taheri, Arab News, January 10, 2003
A “Hadith” (saying) attributed to the Prophet, peace
be upon him, encourages Muslims to seek knowledge “even
if it is in China”. Fourteen centuries later, China has
become a favorite destination for Muslim political leaders and
businessmen. During the past five years or so Beijing has been
the only major capital to be visited by leaders form almost all
Muslim countries. These Muslim visitors, however, are not coming
to China in search of science. They know that China, for all its
recent technological achievements, including the launching of
a manned spaceship, is far behind the United States, the European
Union and Japan as far as science is concerned. The chief goal
of Muslim visitors is to find out whether or not China could emerge
as a political and economic counterweight to the United States,
a power with which most Muslim states maintain at best ambiguous
and at worst tense relations.
Passing
the buck
By Yossi Verter, Ha'aretz, January 10, 2003
With suspicions mounting daily and the number of Likud seats in
the Knesset rapidly dwindling in the polls, cornered Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon decided yesterday to use his doomsday approach: Destroy
the enemy or be destroyed by his own fire. Sharon's horror show,
which was nipped in the bud by Justice Mishael Cheshin, was his
own version of Benjamin Netanyahu's (in)famous address on the
eve of the elections in 1999. Saying that Labor was terrified
of the Likud, Netanyahu was hoping to awaken indifferent, disappointed
Likud voters in his battle with Ehud Barak. He failed, and lived
to regret that address. Sharon yesterday proved he too had a bit
of Netanyahu in him; he also loses all sense of direction when
the going gets tough. This is what he did on the first day of
elections for the Likud slate, when he feared Likud members would
not come to the ballots, and promptly summoned the IDF generals
to the Defense Ministry to display his power. He did it again
last night, when, under the pretext of answering the allegations
made in Ha'aretz and Yedioth Ahronoth against him and his sons,
he instigated blunt, shameless election propaganda, lashing out
against everyone and everything, especially Mitzna and the media.
He seemed to forget to do one thing - provide answers.
He's
gotta go
By Yoel Marcus, Ha'aretz, January 10, 2003
Sharon should apply the same law to himself that he invoked in
the case of Naomi Blumenthal: A public figure who won't talk can
kiss his job good-bye. -- In a normal country, the first thing
expected of a prime minister suspected of bribe-taking, fraud
and breach of trust, who is being questioned by the police, is
to step aside, right then and there. Because someone who is suspected
of such crimes - after taking an outrageously oversized loan (NIS
7 million, or NIS 14 million gross) at a totally ridiculous rate
of interest, repaid with tricks and shticks, through phony companies
and fishy financial channels that sent the money half around the
world - can't simply wash his hands of the whole affair and blame
it on the media. It wasn't the media that produced the incriminating
document, just as it wasn't the media that invented the corruption
in the primaries. The allegations come from the law enforcement
authorities of the state, following the discovery of an official
receipt from a friend who loaned Ariel Sharon $1.5 million to
repay his campaign debts from 1999. Sharon simply forgot to report
the loan, as required by law.
Sharon's
Fingerprints on Latest Suicide Bombing
By Steve Niva, CounterPunch, January 9, 2003
It is difficult to imagine that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
with his much vaunted military and strategic acumen, did not understand
the consequences of his policies over the past month. Since the
last suicide bombing on November 21, escalating Israeli military
assaults have killed over sixty Palestinian civilians, culminating
in the December 26 wave of killing and abductions, in which Israeli
occupying forces killed at least nine Palestinians, injured more
than 30 and abducted several others. On that day alone, Israeli
execution squads assassinated three prominent members from three
different militant Palestinian groups: Hamza Abu el-Rab of Islamic
Jihad, Ibrahim Hawash, of Hamas and Gamal Abu el-Nader of Fatah's
Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades. All three groups vowed revenge. As
if on que, the horrific double suicide bombing near the old Tel
Aviv bus station took place within two weeks of these assassinations
and reports have now confirmed that the bombers were members of
the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades. Twenty two Israeli's and foreign
workers were killed and a hundred more injured. Any observer with
elementary skills in discerning cause and effect could see this
latest suicide bombing atrocity coming. In fact, the vast majority
of the nearly 100 Palestinian suicide bombings since they began
in 1994 have followed an almost predictable sequence: Israeli
attacks that cause major Palestinian civilian casualties or Israeli
assassinations of important militant leaders are the most common
trigger leading to suicide bombing cycles.
Crossing
Kalandia
By Anne Gwynne, Palestine Chronicle, January 9, 2003
“If you have tears, prepare to shed them now” - Shakespeare
(Julius Caesar) -- OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PalestineChronicle.com)
- Kalandia is not a checkpoint in any recognized sense of the
word ‘checkpoint’ which is a place where documents
and goods are checked, and through which people and goods which
are in order pass unimpeded. Kalandia is acres of concrete block
wasteland with its passages constructed in maze formation: narrow,
difficult to negotiate and seemingly without exit. At last, however,
you realize that the exit is there, and it is with a profound
sense of relief that you walk into the completely mud-covered
Ramallah side. Crossing Kalandia as an EU Passport holder with
no restrictions, and without undergoing the endless humiliations
which are the lot of the rightful residents of this land, is an
experience that cannot be described – it can only be experienced
first hand, and everyone who can come and do so, should do. No
film, no commentary, no tales told by visitors can prepare you
for this. Tears flow unbidden and unchecked, and eyes smile empathetically
into mine. No words are necessary… This, remember, is not
a frontier. Kalandia is a point on the road between the Palestinian
City of ‘East Jerusalem’ and the Palestinian city
of Ramallah, in the Palestinian lands of the ‘West Bank’,
inhabited entirely by Palestinians. Controlled, however, entirely
by Israelis in every tiny respect (except for the thoughts of
those who wait). It is the most outrageous restriction on human
rights and civil liberties ever seen – if the world DOES
see, then why is this state of criminal repression continuing?
