Plight of Workers in Palestinian Territories Has "Worsened Dramatically"
Gustavo Capdevila, Electronic Intifada 5/31/2007
GENEVA, 28 May (IPS) - Workers in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel have suffered another year of drastic decline in living standards and rising poverty, unemployment, social disintegration and political chaos, the ILO said in a new report.
The proportion of households below the poverty line increased 26 percent between March 2006 and March 2007, according to the report released Monday, which is based on the findings of high-level missions sent by the ILO (International Labour Organisation) in April to Israel and the occupied Arab territories.
Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) dropped 40 percent in those areas between 1999 and 2006.
Seven out of 10 households, comprising around 2.4 million people, are living in poverty in the occupied territories, says the report, which will be studied at the May 30-Jun. 15 sessions of the International Labour Conference, held every year in Geneva.
Only one out of three people in the territories work, while "two out of three persons are without employment, either because they are unemployed or because they are outside the labour force," says the report. Around 206,000 people are unemployed, equivalent to 24 percent of the workforce. more..
An Unholy Impasse
Barbara Allen Kenney, MIFTAH 5/31/2007
I am one among many American tourists who have recently visited Jerusalem, but I made some stops not included on most itineraries and discovered a vast structure hidden in plain sight. Incoming caravans of tourists disembark from hulking, climate-controlled dromedaries as they visit venerated, sacred shrines but most pilgrims bypass one of several peace-group led tours of The Wall, the “security barrier” erected by the Israeli government in response to the second intifada, and according to a recently issued human rights report, “now recognized by Israel as an instrument of annexation.” (Prof. John Dugard, UN Special Rapporteer on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, March 2007). The raised scar of interlocking, nearly 30-foot high concrete slabs that make up much of the 70 percent completed Wall winds across the landscape with the seeming haphazard randomness of a cat unraveling a ball of twine, separating, in many instances, Palestinians from family members, from access to their agricultural land, from livelihoods and from timely access to their healthcare needs. more..
Israel 2007: Worse than Apartheid
Ronnie Kasrils Mail&Guardian, International Solidarity Movement 5/31/2007
It is chilling to pass through the myriad checkpoints - more than 500 in the West Bank. They are controlled by heavily armed soldiers, youthful but grim, tensely watching every movement, fingers on the trigger. Fortunately for me, travelling in a South African embassy vehicle with official documents and escort, the delays were brief. Sweeping past the lines of Palestinians on foot or in taxis was like a view of the silent, depressed pass- office queues of South Africa"s past. A journey from one West Bank town to another that could take 20 minutes by car now takes seven hours for Palestinians, with manifold indignities at the hands of teenage soldiers. My friend, peace activist Terry Boullata, has virtually given up her teaching job. The monstrous apartheid wall cuts off her East Jerusalem house from her school, which was once across the road, and now takes an hour"s journey. Yet she is better off than the farmers of Qalqilya, whose once prosperous agricultural town is totally surrounded by the wall and economically wasted. There is only one gated entry point. The key is with the occupation soldiers. Often they are not even there to let anyone in or out. more..
Open debate on academic boycott
The Guardian 6/1/2007
Science for me is a language of peace and the only one I know which is absolutely international. I can talk to a UK scientist or any scientist worldwide about my research and they understand exactly what I am talking about. We may even find an area of mutual interest to collaborate on and together we can make an even greater impact on the world around us. Preventing academics from talking this international language of science not only prohibits the progress of the human race but prevents different nations from building bridges. Professor Aaron Ciechanover, Technion, Israel Institute of Science & Technology As a former academician, I too have felt the wrath of Israel’s defenders when speaking on Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestinians in defiance of world opinion, laws and resolutions. Hence, I commend the courageous decision by UCU delegates to boycott Israel’s academicians. For Israel’s defenders to criticise even this symbolic protest is in itself an attack on academic freedom. Israel has closed Palestinian universities, and shot and killed Palestinian students of all ages in class or on their way to school; it has bombed a Palestinian school for the blind, and harassed, humiliated and detained students at checkpoints. Why aren’t Israel’s defenders protesting against these human-rights violations or the meagre funding of Israeli Arab schools compared with Jewish schools; or the harassment of professors worldwide who dare to criticise Israel, from Israel’s Ilan Pappe to America’s Norman Finkelstein? Pro-Israeli Americans have developed an intimidating industry complete with websites and media bashing of any academician who teaches on Middle East studies or Islam. Academic freedom means never having to say Israel is wrong. more..
Interdependent Palestinian and Jewish Histories
Anne Norton, Electronic Intifada 5/31/2007
The title of Joseph Massad’s book, The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians, does not do justice to the contribution this book makes to the history of Zionism, Israel, and the Jews. Massad’s brilliant and scholarly work is profoundly illuminating not only for the history of Palestine and the discourses surrounding it, but for the history of Europe and the United States and, finally, as an account that raises compelling theoretical questions.
The Palestinian question is important enough to command attention in its own right: the politics of half a century have been moved by shockwaves from this epicenter of conflict. Massad offers invaluable information drawn from an array of carefully documented sources coupled with superb political and historical analysis that contributes directly to the study of Palestine.
The core of the work is a careful and compelling articulation of the interdependence of Palestinian and Jewish histories, especially manifest in the dual project of Zionism. Readers within and outside the academy have long recognized the centrality and intensity of the Zionist effort to reshape Jewish subjectivity, creating a "new Jew" to inhabit the anticipated Jewish state. The Israeli of their hopes was to be strong, willful, and landed, capable of self-determination, self-defense, and self-provision. The independence of the anticipated Israeli citizen, the new Jew, reflected an anticipated sovereignty, mastery over the land and its people. It turned on a double subjection: the disavowal of the landless, stateless Jews of the Europe, and of the Palestinians, who were assigned the attributes Zionists endeavored to strip from themselves. The Palestinian Arab became the European Jew: landless and stateless, bearing the traits that had marked the Jew as subject. Massad’s reading of the often harsh Zionist texts on Arabs, Mizrahi, and European Jews is careful, marked by scrupulous, well-supported scholarship, and presented with a calm generosity. more..
"The end of the world is something to do with my father"
Areen Bahour writing from al-Bireh/Ramallah, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/31/2007
Areen Bahour is a seventh-grade student at Friends School in al-Bireh, Ramallah.The following is an essay she wrote as a class assignment: Thinking about the end of the world is hard. I’m still 12 years old and I didn’t face the world yet so I can’t imagine the end of the world that I didn’t face yet!
Well, now for me as a girl that her life is between school, home and activities I can’t think of anything except for my family. I love every member of my family, but the end of the world is something to do with my father.
My father is Palestinian but he had lived all his childhood and even after in the United States, so he doesn’t have a Palestinian ID. In this case we all know that he needs to renew his visa every three months. This was not a problem before the Israelis started not to renew the visas for most of the people, it became you and your chance, and I realized that my father can be forbidden from entering Palestine any time he tries to renew his visa.
So, the end of the world for me is if my father will not be able to live with us, or worse -- us moving to Jordan or to USA. I thought of what will happen, I won’t be able to see him every morning, I won’t have the chance to talk to him about school and friends, I will have no one to help me with computers and sometimes English... more..
No new dawn
Doron Rosenblum, Ha’aretz 5/31/2007
Like the chicken with its head cut off that jerks about the farmyard, so our political scrambling appears today: What’s really the purpose of all the clever deals, the sly spins and the party battles for survival and power? Politics just keeps on going from inertia, running on empty, as a hollow combination of aggressive maneuvers and personal competition. None of the significant parties or their leaders has anything new to say, any vision, any plan, any outlook, any ideas or any solutions. There aren’t even any promises anymore. Yes, we know "just how much promises are worth"; we’ve even grown accustomed to the paradox of the person elected doing just the opposite of what he promised: The hawk brings concessions, the dove builds more settlements, the "social affairs" man stirs up war, and the "perpetuator of the legacy" buries the agenda he inherited. But today there aren’t even any hopes to be disappointed. The political murmurings exist in a barely disguised conceptual vacuum: The disengagement is dead; there’s no one to talk to; don’t even mention Syria anymore; no one’s talking about the settlements; no one has a solution to the Qassams; even the Likud opposition, whose might was always in its rhetoric, has nothing to say or propose as an alternative to the non-policy. more..
And the Land was Troubled for 40 Years
Gershom Gorenberg, MIFTAH 5/31/2007
The hillside below us is a terraced vineyard, or was until the bulldozers came. There’s a sharp smell of sage and recent rain, and the steady grind of heavy machinery. It is a cold day; a Palestinian man with a black stocking cap pulled over his headscarf stands in the stiff breeze, his face blank, watching as the two big shovels push aside greenery and the stone walls that support the terraces and leave a wound of red clay.
Behind us stand the white stone-faced houses of suburban Efrat alongside the shopping centers and real-estate signs announcing new developments in the largest Israeli settlement in the area known as the Etzion Bloc, between Bethlehem and Hebron in the West Bank. In front of us, on the other side of a valley, are the minaret and low square houses of Umm Salamuna, a Palestinian village. The red gash in the ancient terraces is the route of the security barrier Israel is cutting through the West Bank. When completed, it will be a highway-wide swath of coiled concertina wire and patrol roads and sensor-rigged fencing. The barrier will make it far more difficult for Palestinians, including both terrorists and day laborers, to enter Israel and the Etzion settlements. De facto, it will declare the annexation of the Etzion area. It will force Palestinians who live east of the barrier route, outside the Etzion area, to pass through Israeli gates to get to fields on the west -- if on any given day the gates are open. Some 20,000 Palestinians who live in villages within the Etzion area will find themselves inside an enclave, barred from entering Israel proper and only able to reach schools, jobs, or hospitals in Bethlehem, the nearest Palestinian city, through one Israeli-controlled gate. By building the barrier around the Etzion Bloc, rather than putting the fence on the Israel–West Bank border, the government has declared that the settlers’ daily safety overrides any possibility of normal life for the area’s Palestinians. more..
Top Israeli rabbis advocate genocide
Ali Abunimah writing from Chicago, USA, Electronic Intifada 5/31/2007
Yesterday I wrote a piece entitled "Israel’s House of Horrors", about the openly murderous statements of Israeli cabinet ministers. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, I read a news article on the website of The Jerusalem Post that Israel’s former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu -- one of the most senior theocrats in the Jewish State "ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings" ("Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza" The Jerusalem Post, 30 May, 2007) ...Mordechai made this ruling in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert citing biblical authority. The letter was published in a weekly journal distributed in synagogues throughout Israel. The report states that "According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.
Eliayahu’s son, Shmuel Eliayhu, himself chief rabbi of Safad, amplified his father’s comments, stating: "If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand." He added, "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop." more..
A two-state solution is the only option
Raafat Dajani and Ori Nir, Daily Star 6/1/2007
The June 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the subsequent occupation of Palestinian lands that followed marks a time when relations between Israelis and Palestinians reached such a low point that many on both sides are increasingly despairing of peace efforts. The rationales on all sides vary as the 40th anniversary of the war nears, as do the proposed implications. However, the diagnosis is similar: The two-state solution, the formula that most Israelis and Palestinians support as a compromise solution for their conflict and that is the official policy of the United States and the international community, is no longer viable. So they say. That’s not all. Groups such as ours, which consider the two-state solution as the cornerstone of their vision for a secure and lasting peace, are increasingly dismissed as passe and unrealistic. "It’s over," we hear from some within our respective communities. Is it really over? Not even close. A negotiated separation agreement between Israelis and Palestinians that would allow both to live in their sovereign states, with peace and security, is the only viable option, the only one that can work. True, there are serious challenges today to achieving this goal - whether the Israeli settlement enterprise, the question of Hamas, regional spoilers or absent American leadership. But the alternatives are either unacceptable or unrealistic. more..
Israel’s house of horrors
Ali Abunimah writing from Chicago, USA, Electronic Intifada 5/30/2007
Reading an account of an Israeli cabinet meeting in Ha’aretz is like a trip through a House of Horrors. Here are some choice excerpts:
"Ministers Meir Sheetrit and Rafi Eitan proposed Wednesday that Israel produce its own version of the Qassam rocket to be fired at targets inside the Gaza Strip in response to Palestinian rocket fire on its southern communities."
"Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Eli Yishai of Shas proposed that Israel use air strikes to destroy Palestinian towns and villages in response to the rocket fire, after giving local residents advance notice allowing them to evacuate their homes."
"Shas MK Yitzhak Cohen proposed cutting off the supply of electricity, water and fuel to the Strip, and justify the move by saying that Qassam rockets had destroyed Israel’s infrastructure and that it will take a long time to repair the facilities with which to supply the Palestinians with basic resources. Shin Bet security service director Yuval Diskin suggested that Cohen’s idea is worth examining."
This is the state that is supposed to be the conscience of the world following the Nazi holocaust? Which other government could openly hold such discussions to such overwhelming silence from the so-called "international community"? more..
A vow in vain
Talia Sasson, Ha’aretz 5/30/2007
A law proposed by Yisrael Beiteinu MK David Rotem, and which has passed its first reading in the Knesset, ostensibly deals with a minor matter - a change in the wording of the swearing-in oath elected Knesset members take when taking office. However, this proposal, if it becomes law, is liable to have serious implications. The current oath reads: "I swear to be loyal to the State of Israel and to fulfill in good faith my mission in the Knesset." Under the proposed law, an elected member would be required to take the following vow: "I swear to be loyal to the Jewish and democratic state of Israel, its values and its symbols and to fulfill in good faith my mission in the Knesset." It appears that the purpose of the proposal is to strengthen the Jewish character of the State of Israel by preventing the swearing-in of anyone who is not prepared to commit himself to the State of Israel as a Jewish entity. In fact, its aim is to portray the Arab members of the Knesset as a group opposed to the existence of Israel in its current form and to sabotage their ability to function as members of the Knesset. The result of the proposal could be dangerous to Israel on various levels. Moreover, it will also miss its original target and weaken Israel’s status as a Jewish state. more..
Holding on tight to the frequencies
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 5/30/2007
The air is one escape route from the roadblocks and the separation regime that Israel imposes on the Palestinians. But Israel catches up with them even in the air. Israel does not allocate cellular frequencies to the Palestinians that answer their modern technological, economic, social and personal needs. More precisely, Israel refuses to coordinate with the Palestinians so they can use the cellcom frequencies they should have according to the International Telecommunications Union. The Communications Ministry claims there is no coordination because we are not speaking to the Hamas government. A convenient excuse, but flawed, because even before the Hamas government arose, Palestinian requests to coordinate additional frequencies went unanswered. The Palestinian cellphone company Jawwal received the frequencies it should have had only in 1999, two years after it was founded. In March this year, Jawwal got a competitor: Al-Wataniya. The Kuwaiti company Wataniya International won the Palestinian Authority tender at the end of 2006. Ownership is to be shared between the international company, the Palestinian Investment Fund (PIF) and the public. A professional British management team was appointed, 500 jobs were promised, but no frequencies were allocated. more..
’Rockets of futility’?
Hasan Abu Nimah, Electronic Intifada 5/30/2007
The Israeli onslaught on Gaza should be halted. And if it is the Palestinian "futility rockets" that have provoked, and continue to provoke, the Israeli "defensive" retaliation, the firing of rockets at Israel should be halted too.
In this last phase of the war, the Palestinians have suffered, as usual, enormously, with nearly 50 dead and hundreds injured, mostly civilians. Damage to property has been devastating too. On the Israeli side, however, only one woman was killed in Sderot as a result of more than 200 rocket attacks. This does indeed attest to the ineffectiveness of the homemade, primitive rockets, often ridiculed by some Palestinian factions as "fireworks" and referred to repeatedly by the Palestinian Authority president as "futility rockets".
Obviously, the "world’s fourth strongest army" has better laser-guided missiles, better delivery systems with ultimate precision, and F-16 fighter planes to attack defenceless Palestinians in their passenger cars or homes while asleep from the safety of the skies; and that explains, partly, the disparity in both the effectiveness of the tool and the outcome. But, with that equation so clearly evident, why should the Palestinians opt for any provocation that may precipitate such disasters? Why should they continue to behave in a manner that only confirms the overwhelming conviction that all Israel does to them is legitimate response to their pestering? more..
Boycotts and Academic Freedom and Responsibility
Nick King, Electronic Intifada 5/30/2007
British university lecturers are to vote again this week on an academic boycott of Israel -- will the new union this time around protest from its ivory tower or take a definitive stand against ritual human rights’ abuse?
In the wake of the surge in popular support for the appeal launched in 2005 by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, BRICUP (British Committee for the Universities of Palestine) has just published its pamphlet Why Boycott Israeli Universities?Its appearance coincides with the advent of the first annual general meeting in the UK of the University and College Union (UCU), the successor union for the recently merged Association of University Teachers (AUT) and National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE).
Both the AUT and NATFHE have had boycott resolutions in force at different moments in recent months, the AUT’s policy being overturned in a specially-convened meeting in 2005 following a high-octane publicity campaign from anti-boycott heavyweights.This year’s UCU conference will select a common position from four motions tabled for debate -- with an Israeli intervention in train once again, fuelled this time by a seven-man task force of visiting academics including faculty from previously-implicated Haifa and Bar-Ilan Universities. more..
US-Iranian Dispute Grows More Dangerous
Patrick Seale, Middle East Online 5/28/2007
Intimidation between Iran and the United States (and its allies) is intensifying. Dr. Mohamad ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEI), supports diplomatic negotiations to resolve issues around Iran’s nuclear energy development.
With no sign of compromise on either side, the confrontation between the United States and Iran over Iran’s nuclear programme is hotting up and looks increasingly as if it may run the risk of escalating into an armed clash.
• In an intimidating show of force, two US carrier battle groups, with 150 aircraft on board, have started air and naval manoeuvres in the Gulf close to Iran’s coast. A leading US hawk, Vice-President Dick Cheney, has stated that these deployments were intended to deliver a message to Tehran.
• ABC News reported last week that President George W. Bush had authorized clandestine CIA operations to destabilize the Iranian regime.
• The United States and Israel are intensifying their international campaign to undermine the Iranian economy. They have been trying to persuade major companies, banks, pension funds and other financial institutions to cut export credits to Iran, to stop dealing with its banks, to ban all arms sales, and to punish and sell stock in companies trading with, or investing in, Iran. more..
The perils of turning peace into an industry
Akram Baker, Daily Star 5/31/2007
My sister’s hamster recently dropped another round of babies. Just when she thought life had returned to normal, a new batch of tiny creatures was born, sending the wheel fresh on its never-ending rotation. Looking at the litter, I couldn’t help but think of the plethora of Western-funded Palestinian (and Israeli) non-governmental organizations bent on supporting the non-existing "peace process." Just like the hamsters, they run around and around, creating an illusion of forward movement but willfully trading substance for process. Sure, it may be nice when it comes to assuaging the conscience of the West, but in the end the revolving hamster wheel produces about as much good as the "peace industry." While there have always been (at least since the 1980s) a few well-meaning groups trying to promote dialogue and reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis, the explosion of such organizations really came after the signing of the ill-fated Oslo Accords and the creation of the Palestinian Authority. Throughout the 1990s, the easiest way of getting cash between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River was to get a Palestinian and an Israeli together (preferably someone with a degree in "peace studies," whatever that is) to establish a center or institute or organization or group or committee for Palestinian and Israeli, or religious or Middle East or Arab dialogue or democracy, non-violence, cooperation, research, peace, or reconciliation, and the money would roll in. more..
Another assassination in Ramallah’s city center
Sam Bahour writing from Ramallah, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/29/2007
It was a good day today, well, that is until about 5:40pm when Israeli undercover and military forces assassinated a Palestinian outside the window where I was standing.
The target was Omar Abu Daher, a 22-year-old who it seems happens to be a member of a security force loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.He was only one of several that were murdered in cold blood today; two more were killed in Gaza, one in Tulkarem, two others in Jenin.These are the ones reported so far, but the night is still young.
Unknowingly, I, along with a dozen Palestinian and foreign colleagues, happened to be in the same building where it seems Omar was having dinner. Omar was sitting in the popular street-front Nazareth Restaurant (catty-corner from Angelo’s Pizzeria), well known for its falafel and where my wife stopped this morning to bring some falafel home for breakfast after she dove our younger daughter Nadine to school this morning. The restaurant is walking distance from the elementary school’s entrance.
As a matter of fact, only a few hours before this assassination, between 1:30pm and 1:45pm to be exact, my daughters and I passed this same spot after picking up Nadine from school.Our other daughter Areen was home all day studying for her end of year exams and wanted to take a break so she went with me for the drive.I dropped Areen off in front of Nazareth Restaurant so she could buy the three of us ice cream cones from Baladna Ice Cream Shop to eat on the way home.Baladna is a few doors up from Nazareth Restaurant. more..
An invitation to shoot
Danny Rubenstein, Ha’aretz 5/30/2007
In a series of street interviews in Gaza over the past few days, passersby said that the Israeli air strikes stopped the civil war in the Strip. In fact, they told journalist Sa’ud Abu Ramadan sarcastically, Gaza residents should thank Israel for helping them to stop the internecine killings. The many dead in the fighting between Fatah and Hamas caused greater concern among Gaza residents of every stripe than did the number of people killed in Israeli attacks. This could be seen, inter alia, in the way the Palestinian media related to those killed in the internal clashes. While anyone killed by an Israel Defense Forces attack is called a shahid (martyr), the media did not even give the full names of many of those killed in the internecine fighting. This was due to a desire to prevent bitterness and attempts at revenge. It was Hamas operatives who invited the Israeli air strikes. Over a week ago, as the fighting between the organizations in Gaza was getting worse, spokesmen for Hamas said loudly and openly that they hoped the firing of Qassam rockets at Sderot would produce an Israeli response of a kind that would put an end to the internecine killings. There were several reasons for this hope. First, even though Hamas had the upper hand in the clashes with Fatah, it was clear that Fatah had not given up. Indeed, there was growing concern that the parties were being dragged into a prolonged conflict in which a great deal of blood would be spilled. Second, the fact that a civil war was breaking out in Gaza at a time when a Hamas-led government was in control was extremely uncomfortable for the movement’s leadership. After all, it had hoped that a Hamas government would succeed in establishing law and order. But what happened was just the opposite - governmental chaos, anarchy in the security realm and bloodshed. more..
The Blue Bird legend
Reuven Weiss, YNetNews 5/29/2007
It was a bold Mossad operation that changed the balance of power in the region: in 1966, an Iraqi fighter pilot flew a Mig-21 jet to Israel, enabling Israel and the US to study and test the Russian-made aircraft for the first time. New film reveals almost all details related to affair. On the morning of Tuesday, August 16, 1966, the impossible happened. A Mig-21 jet plane, the flagship of Soviet industry and the most advanced aircraft in use by the Arab armies at the time, landed at the Israel Air Force base in Hatzor. For the West, this was a dream come true. The Mig-21 was considered the number one fighter plane during the Cold War, and the United States had no clue as to how it was built, what its weaknesses were and what weapons should be developed against it. Captain Munir Redfa, the Iraqi fighter pilot who flew the jet to Israel, said that he decided to defect to the West because of the remorse and guilt he felt over attacking Kurdish villages with napalm bombs. But Redfa’s defection was not spontaneous, but rather the result of a comprehensive and bold Mossad-initiated operation, which was named "The Blue Bird "“ Operation Diamond," and which ended a 20-year long US arms embargo on Israel. more..
Democracy for Jews only
Yitzhak Laor, Ha’aretz 5/30/2007
Looking back, it is strange how many years it has taken the liberals among us to understand that Israeli democracy needs safeguards - not against organizations trying to bring it down, or a political structure that can undermine it, or a too-powerful internal force that draws strength from the lack of a constitution (the Shin Bet security service, for example). Those who thought there was no problem with Israeli democracy, or the Arab minority in its midst, were strangely innocent. True, there is an occupation. But in the Israeli mind, the occupation is temporary. The suspension of all human and civil rights is an extraordinary situation, an emergency situation, and thus it may be worse than a military dictatorship - after all, the army can do anything in the occupied territories. Millions of people are subject to this regime, and our democracy does not see them. Rather, it lives with the occupation as the exception, not the rule. In contrast, Israeli democracy is careful not to talk about the constitutional status of the Arabs within its borders. It has established a devious system of laws and regulations to expropriate from them rights reserved only for Jewish citizens, and even for Jewish non-citizens. The real estate laws are an example of this, as are the actions of the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Agency, which behave as if the state were only for Jews. more..
The Best Runner in the Class (Part 1)
Ilan Pappe, Electronic Intifada 5/28/2007
It was the quiet lapping of the waves that reminded her of that awful day.Like now, it had been the middle of May, and roughly -- or was it? -- the same time of day, the Mediterranean dusk, when the skyline above the sea becomes a glowing display of colors, contours and configurations. But of course, on that day she did not rest as comfortably as she did now, with her bare feet dug deep into the crisp warm sand of the beach near her village.
The flickering water and fading sunlight prodded the painful memories to surface and trouble her mind to the point of derangement. Then a sudden silence fell, for the shortest possible moment but crystal clear and sharp, as if everyone and everything was frozen in time. Fifty years ago it had been the same: a very brief interlude that allowed everyone on the beach -- killers, victims and bystanders -- to absorb the moment, even to grasp it in a lucid manner that would never repeat itself. Now her own realization was more stoical, and free of the panic that had gripped her then. This time a sense of surrender enveloped her. "
Yet they were not gone. It was all the fault of that insistent student. Nosey and unpleasant as far as she was concerned, with broken Arabic, who had interviewed her about those traumatic days in the past.Fatima tried desperately to brush aside the memory of the meeting she had had with him that morning and to distance herself, as far as she could from the beach and its dark secrets. more..
The Best Runner in the Class (Part 2)
Ilan Pappe, Electronic Intifada 5/28/2007
Musalem Awad was the only practicing Palestinian historian in Israel who had a permanent post in a university.He was also Yaacov’s supervisor, and had been interested for years in the 1948 catastrophe, particularly in the war crimes committed in the coastal area. Yet he never dared to write about it himself and felt uneasy when he assigned it to Yaacov.
Musalem was a conservative historian, believing in hard facts as the core material for telling the story of the past. Such evidence, he believed, had been brought to him by Yaacov.Here was the explicit documentation of atrocities that he was looking for. Yaacov had found the documents, not in the military archives whose directors were economical about such truths, but in his cousin’s house. The material was so hot that Musalem became obsessed with it to the point of unconsciously using his student as an extension of his own mind.
The massacres on the coast had never been admitted by Israel, and international historiography did not mention them. "Let’s face it," Musalem would say, "there is no conclusive evidence." A declaration that got him into trouble with the less professional, but more politically committed, Palestinian literati and pundits in the country who wrote about the past. more..
The Jordan-Israel QIZs have been insignificant for peace
Yusuf Mansur, Daily Star 5/29/2007
The impact of the Qualifying Industrial Zones - a concept proposed by the United States in 1996 to bolster cooperation between Jordan and Israel after the Jordan-Israel peace agreement was signed in 1995 - remains, after 10 years, difficult to determine. In spite of the tremendous growth of exports to the US market through these zones, QIZs continue to receive mixed reviews and their future is uncertain. Most importantly, the impact of the QIZs on the peace effort has been insignificant, to say the least. The QIZs are areas designated by the Jordanian and Israeli authorities and approved by the US government. Products originating in the zones are granted duty-free and quota-free access to the US market. Both Jordan and Israel must contribute and maintain at least one-third each of a minimum 35 percent value added. The remaining third of the minimum content requirement could be any combination of input from Jordanian QIZs, Israel or the West Bank and Gaza. Alternatively, a Jordanian manufacturer operating in a QIZ and an Israeli manufacturer can both shoulder at least 20 percent of the total cost of production of goods eligible for duty-free treatment, excluding profit. Based upon claims that Israeli manufacturers were charging exorbitant prices for their inputs, the agreement was renegotiated and amended in February 1999, reducing the Israeli content to a minimum of 7 percent for high-tech products and 8 percent for all other products. more..
Background: What is Behind the Latest Crisis in Lebanon?
Alexander Jenniches, Palestine Chronicle 5/29/2007
The latest conflict shows that something is going on behind the scenes between the two most influential powers in Lebanon: the US and Iran. Two conflicting theories are circulating these days about the renewed violence in Lebanon. One says, Syria is behind the group that clashes with the Lebanese Army, trying to stir again turmoil in Lebanon to either make a forced comeback in a possible civil war or trying to send messages concerning the UN Hariri tribunal. The second theory is, that the US and Saudi Arabia stopped funding anti-Shiite groups in Lebanon which they wanted to use as a tool against a Shiite rise in common and Hezbollah´s influence in Lebanon especially. The Syrian Connection While Syria for sure will not let go Lebanon easily - as every big neighboring country does with smaller ones - there is no need these days for Syria to destabilize Lebanon as forcefully as has been the case last week. Syria together with Iran is in a very good negotiating position with the US over Iraq. In addition to that, the international community, Israel and the US do need Syria as a stabilizing factor. Syrian President Bashar Assad is a well known target. Replacing him by force could lead to unforeseeable eruptions in the region. more..
One More Colonial Policy Applied to Iraq
Rami Khouri, Middle East Online 5/28/2007
Little thought is given to the fact that the Americans and the British are ultimately responsible for the disaster in Iraq, as talk of abandoning the Iraqis grows - leaving yet another tragedy in the Middle East, says.
BEIRUT - The United States makes so many abrupt changes in its strategy in Iraq, and its rationale for being there, that you need a direct feed podcast from the White House to keep up with the breaking news of its broken policy. The latest theme from the United States - it is not clear if this is new strategy, new threat, new trial balloon, or just massive frustration - is that it has limited patience with the Iraqis. If Iraqis do not get their house in order and grasp the democratic opportunity before them, the US will start leaving. We hear this from senior American officials, leading columnists and politicians, and it is the closest thing there is to a national American consensus on Iraq - abandon the mess you created in the first place.
This is an understandable American attitude, because no country wants to have its soldiers killed and money wasted in another country’s civil war. But it is not credible for the US - and its UK partner in crime - to play here the innocent bystander who is just getting out of the way of a local dogfight by Arabs who have been killing each other for centuries. To paint the Iraqis as hopeless hooligans and religious fanatics who cannot grasp the democratic opportunity the US-UK armada has placed in front of them, while affirming the pure intentions and gallant policy of the Anglo-American military assault, is simply one more distortion and grossly unfair and inaccurate analysis from the deceptive peddlers who dominate policy-making in London and Washington. This intellectual weapon of mass destruction only compounds the death, pain, fear and instability that Anglo-American policies have sparked all over the Middle East. more..
A bridge between reality and peace
Fouad Abu Hamed, Daily Star 5/28/2007
I have watched on Israeli television the concern that animal rights have generated. In Israel, there is a problem with the elderly abandoning their dogs, so an activist group opened a shelter for the abandoned animals. As a Palestinian, I watch this and, in the same moment, I see my children, Palestinian children, killed, arrested and going without food. They have lost their homes and have never known a homeland. Here, then, there are animal rights but not human rights. Sometimes, I find this too much to bear. In my village, there are 15,000 people living under Israeli occupation. We are not Israeli Arabs. We are Palestinians. The problems here, like the problems in many Palestinian villages in Israel, are elementary. Our water is not good, our streets are not clean or cared for, and there are not enough schools for our children. From the top of the hill of Sor Baher, my village, you can see the security fence that has separated our village from our families and friends in Bethlehem. This fence has not just cut my village off from our people, but it prevents us from being able to access hundreds of hectares of olive trees, which had been previously an important source of income for many families. The fence has cut us off, too, from the vestiges of our culture. We are surrounded by Jewish areas on every side. Not this year, or the next, but soon our children will assimilate and forget what it means to be a Palestinian. more..
Opposing the architects of the occupation
Esther Zandberg, Ha’aretz 5/28/2007
About 200 British and Israeli architects and academics, including people of international renown, have signed a manifesto initiated by the British organization Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, which calls on Israeli architects and planners to put an end to being "partners in social, political and economic oppression" in the occupied territories, "which violates the professional ethics acceptable to all." The manifesto points to three representative projects currently promoted by the planning authorities: the master plan for the E1 region between the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim and Jerusalem, which will prevent Palestinian territorial contiguity; construction in Silwan in East Jerusalem, which involves the demolition of dozens of homes; and a plan to build a luxury neighborhood on the remains of the former Palestinian village of Lifta. The organization considers participation in these projects, construction in the occupied territories and any planning in Israel that involves discrimination and repression, to be a blatant violation of international conventions, which require professional and ethical responsibility for the social and environmental consequences of planning and construction work. The organization has sent letters on the subject to the International Architects Association and to the Israel Association of United Architects. It has also turned to Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski and to Minister of Construction and Housing Meir Sheetrit on the matter. more..
On the Academic Boycott of Israel
Virginia Tilley, Electronic Intifada 5/27/2007
Academics don’t like academic boycotts. In fact, we detest external limits of any kind. We treasure our own universities for offering precious sanctuary for critical debate (even though they rarely do) and we don’t like to see any of them banned, even for ostensibly laudable reasons. Sure, universities in some countries are little more than fig leaves for their regimes. But that’s not usually their fault. So we avoid the lectures of state hacks rather than denounce them and we protect the universities so that they can nurture that rare point of light.
Still, in very exceptional cases, an academic boycott comes onto our agenda. This happens when a country’s universities are recognized as central players in legitimizing a regime that systematically inflicts massive human rights abuses on its own people and any pretence that the universities are independent fortresses of principled intellectual thought becomes too insulting to the human conscience. But since universities in many oppressive regimes fit those criteria, in practice a second condition is required: their faculties have the freedom to act differently.
On this reasoning, back in the 1980s offended foreign academics launched an academic boycott of apartheid South Africa, whose universities were finally rightly identified as bastions of white supremacy and whose white faculties, privileged by racial democracy, could be held accountable. Similarly, we now see a boycott of Israeli universities being urged by, among others, Britain’s University and College Union. Israeli academics, naturally enough, are appalled by the idea of a boycott and the Israeli government is worried that the idea is gaining momentum. Hence an Israeli academic delegation has to come to England to wage battle against the boycott, and all the old banners once waved by apartheid’s defenders -- ’academic freedom’, ’balance’, ’proportionality’ -- are being waved again in this one. more..
John Petrovato: Omitting Inconvenient Truths
John Petrovato, Palestine Chronicle 5/27/2007
Peters never uses the term “occupation” or “occupied territories”. Israel, after all does occupy the Palestinian territories that were seized in 1967, a fact which the international community (including the UN) recognizes. Is it an error that Peters forgot to mention this very basic fact? On May 6, 2007, the New York Post ran a column by Ralph Peters entitled: “What do give up…. and what land to hold: Israel’s toughest choice”. Peters, author of over 20 books on military strategy and foreign policy, seeks a “pragmatic” approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But rather than clear-thinking pragmatism, the article is marred by the fact that it is based on dangerous, misleading information, numerous unsubstantiated claims and a view of Palestinians and Arabs that is clearly racist in tone and content. His article begins with an overly romanticized view of Israel, documenting its stunning successes that he concludes are “as close to a miracle as humanity achieved over the last, horrid century”. But beyond this, he believes that it is important to remind the readers that Israelis are just like “us” Americans. We are both nations of “outsiders and rejects” and like us (as opposed to other nations in the Middle East) Israel also abides by a “rule-of-law democracy”. Further, through hard work and ingenuity, they have successfully returned the desert into a land of “milk and honey”. They have done all this in a few short years compared to the Arabs who wasted and failed in Palestine “for over thirteen centuries”. The “fact” of Israel’s good stewardship over the land is, in Peters estimation, as “humiliating to Arabs as their military defeats”. Thus Peters believes that the suffering Palestinians experience today is entirely “self-made”. more..
Not a matter for the Shin Bet
Haaretz Editorial, Ha’aretz 5/27/2007
The Shin Bet security service considers itself authorized to use surveillance methods that infringe on people’s privacy, including wiretapping, in cases involving "subversive activity against the Jewish character of the state" - even if no laws have been broken. This position can be seen in a letter by Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin to the Association of Civil Rights in Israel and Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, on behalf of Attorney General Menachem Mazuz. Diskin wrote in his letter that the Shin Bet has a "crucial job in the reality of life in Israel, and has therefore been given extensive powers and authority." He said the Shin Bet is responsible for state security as well as for safeguarding "the democratic regime and its institutions from subversive threats," which could include those "seeking to change the state’s basic principles while abolishing its democratic character or its Jewish character." The Shin Bet chief’s position is problematic because it appears to pose the danger of interfering in the free expression of speech of a political nature, which the High Court of Justice has ruled to be a fundamental basic right. Such a stance is liable to lead to excessive monitoring and intervention in the political activity of the country’s citizens, which does not cross the line into illegality. more..
To the Shores of Tripoli
Uri Avnery, Middle East Online 5/27/2007
From Tripoli to Sderot, from Riyadh to Jerusalem, the Palestinian refugee problem continues to cast its shadow across the whole region. The bloody battles that have erupted around the Nahr al-Baredrefugee camp near Tripoli in Lebanon remind us that the refugee problem has not disappeared. On the contrary, 60 years after the "Nakba", the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948, it is again the center of attention throughout the world.
This is an open wound. Anyone who imagines that a solution to the Israel-Arab conflict is possible without healing this wound is deluding himself.
From Tripoli to Sderot, from Riyadh to Jerusalem, the Palestinian refugee problem continues to cast its shadow across the whole region. This week, the media were again full of photos of Israeli and Palestinian refugees fleeing from their homes and of mothers mourning the death of their loved ones in Hebrew and Arabic - as if nothing had changed since 1948.
The ordinary Israeli shrugs his shoulders when confronted with the suffering of the Palestinian refugees and dismisses it with five words: "They brought it on themselves." more..
Solidarity in Shatila
Mayssoun Sukarieh writing from Shatila Refugee Camp, Electronic Intifada 5/26/2007
Coming into Shatila, I heard loudspeakers calling for donations for the displaced from the Nahr al-Bared camp.
"Help us help the families hosting their relatives from Nahr al-Bared; any donations would be appreciated," the person on the loudspeaker called out.
I went to the site appointed for donations collection, and met a woman asking if clothes were among the needed items. "These are old clothes, like the ones we wear, I swear, I am not differentiating between my family and them. I wish I had money but this is all what I could find at home," she said."Thank you Hajjeh, anything is appreciated," the social worker said.
In a bit another woman approached the donation site with a pot of food, saying, "As I was cooking, I heard the call for donations, I thought of sharing what I have. I am sorry it is not a meat dish, but the vegetarian grape leaves are good in the summer, they are tasty." She ends her donation the same as the first woman, "I wish I had money I could give, this is what I have. May God bless you, sons." She walked away from the site and then came back, suggesting that she could host one or two persons in her house."I do not have relatives in Nahr al-Bared, so I am not expecting to be hosting anyone, if there are people who will come, please sign in my name. The mattress of the summer is large as we say -- meaning that in the summer one can sleep anywhere." more..
Belief in one idol
Zvi Bar'el, Ha’aretz 5/26/2007
It appears as though a miracle will occur tomorrow. The Labor Party will choose a wizard who before the very eyes of the observers will fuse the fantasy of peace with the current war. This is because the outcome of the Labor Party primaries will not serve as a punishment for someone who failed in an unnecessary war in Lebanon or abandoned a social platform, but rather means to elect a new pied piper of Hamelin. A sort of hallucination, whereby the person elected party chairman will be the one who a year from now heads the peace process, dismantles the illegal Jewish settlements in the territories and negotiates exchanges of territories. But members of the Labor Party are not voting in the primaries in order to fulfill this fantasy; rather, they are trying to realize its opposite: to elect someone who will bring us more "security" - the professional and highly experienced fighter who will give us the war of which we are worthy. A war that at long last we will win. The same party that emblazoned negotiations with the Palestinians on its banner, that entered into peace treaties and that still sees itself as a social party now wants a more decorated general. When the party heads are asked how they could forget about the reason for the party’s existence, they reply that if the party wants to return to power, it will have to be headed by a person the public will follow. Not an idea or a vision, but rather a person who will be the best salesman for the product of the month: security. more..
No One is Immune
MIFTAH 5/23/2007
Israel is apparently taking its war on the Palestinians up a notch. As the Gaza Strip continues to burn in the flames of factional infighting and Israeli missile attacks, Israeli officials have announced that no one – including Hamas political leaders – is immune from assassination. When Israel makes such statements, everyone knows it means business. One of last week’s Israeli military attacks targeted the family “diwan” of Legislative Council member Khalil Al Haya. The missile took the lives of seven of his relatives, including two brothers. Al Haya sustained moderate injuries. On May 22, Israeli deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneih said if the rocket attacks on Israeli territory continued from the Gaza Strip, no Hamas member would be immune from assassination, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Earlier in the week, Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said Hamas politburo chief Khaled Masha’al was also a potential target if the rockets continued to fly. The assassination of Palestinian political leaders is nothing new for Israel, a policy which has ebbed and flowed in accordance with Israel’s military strategies, goals and political leaders. In fact, Israel began taking out prominent Palestinian leaders as early as the seventies, particularly members of the exiled Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO. In October, 1972, author and member of the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine Ghassan Kanafani, was killed when his car exploded in front of his house in Beirut, Lebanon. more..
It’s better to be orphans
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 5/26/2007
Once again we are being hit by a wave of desire for "a strong man." From every direction, from the left and right, voices that miss former prime minister Ariel Sharon are being heard, like voices of longing for a father who has departed. "If Sharon were here the war in Lebanon would have ended differently," and "Sharon would have put an end to the Qassams a long time ago." Let it be said at once: Being orphaned in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s shadow is better than the fatherliness of the mythical leader. Hamas should be profoundly grateful to Sharon, thanks to whom it now controls Gaza. Hezbollah, too, would be ungrateful if it did not thank the man who led to its firm footing in Lebanon, and here in Israel Sderot owes that man for the Qassams that are landing on its head. Those who now miss Sharon are longing for the brute force and bullying that led us to the brink. Israel is nostalgic for its most dangerous leader, for the person who caused it more damage than anyone else. During his six years as prime minister Sharon wiped out the last chance for the existence of a Palestinian partner. Sharon’s Israel waged war on the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and instead of a secular movement that believes in compromises we received a fanatical Islamic leadership, just as the first Lebanon war gave rise to Hezbollah. Whom do we have to thank for this? Sharon. more..
Regardless of whether it is a Hebrew or Arabic tale
Yael Dar, Ha’aretz 5/25/2007
"Zarei Shalom" ("Seeds of Peace") by Nadir Tsur; illustrated by Lilach Tfilin; translated into Arabic by Samir Haj; Tzivonim, 31 pages, NIS 54 Forty years after the Six-Day War, children’s literature in Israel continues to almost completely ignore the growing, deepening hatred between the two nations, between the occupiers and the occupied. Any reference that is made of the conflict is distant and abstract, as if the subject were not a burning issue that affects us and our children. Favorite subjects in Israeli children’s literature include acceptance of the other and the aspiration for peace. Israeli children’s books love to talk about enemies who ultimately become friends and they incessantly refer to others who initially inspire fear or repulsion but eventually are transformed into our friends: monsters, "other animals," strange creatures - every sort of being except for the other that is closest to us and whom we must urgently see, listen to and talk to. In Nadir Tsur’s book "Seeds of Peace," both sides in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict are presented graphically even before we begin reading. This is a children’s book written in two languages, Hebrew and Arabic. Each page contains both languages and the text thereby proclaims, already in its graphics, that it is intended for both groups and that Jewish and Palestinian children should find it interesting. Moreover, to deepen the awareness of its existence among Arabic readers, Tzivonim has promised to distribute 700 copies free of charge among Arabic-speaking children. more..
As Gaza Burns
Khaled Amayreh, Palestine Chronicle 5/25/2007
It’s safe to assume that confrontations will resume sooner rather than later if the forces and militias answerable to Dahlan, and Hamas’s Executive Force continue to refuse to answer to the Palestinian Interior Ministry. Careful to ensure that the "shortcomings" of last year’s war with Hizbullah were not repeated, the Israeli army continued to bomb Palestinian residential neighbourhoods in Gaza and surrounding areas, inflicting death and destruction on the defenceless population. Last Sunday evening, an Israeli F-16 bomber launched two missiles at the home of Khalil Al-Hayya, a Palestinian lawmaker representing the pro-Hamas Reform and Change Party. The missiles destroyed his home, killed at least six members of his family, including his wife and a number of his children. Another two visitors in the Al-Hayya home were also killed in the attack which Israeli officials suggested were designed to cause "shock and awe". Al-Hayya, however, escaped injury. Earlier, the Israeli airforce carried out a number of sorties against government buildings, injuring many civilians and causing untold damage to the infrastructure. more..
Position Two, Or Position One?
Roger H. Lieberman, Palestine Chronicle 5/25/2007
Those who long for a just peace in Israel-Palestine have every reason to give their support to the Arab Initiative, regardless of whether they personally favor the two-state or one-state paradigm. Perhaps the most telling indicator of how historically, geographically, and morally impoverished "mainstream" American discourse on the Middle East remains is the fact that the most crucial question for the future of Israel-Palestine is rarely even mentioned. This question is not whether Israel’s conduct in the Occupied Territories resembles South African Apartheid -- if anything, it is considerably worse -- or whether Israel can talk to a Palestinian Authority that includes the Hamas movement -- it obviously can and should. The real decisive issue facing Palestinians and Israelis today is whether the most logical and constructive remedy to the conflict between them is the partition of historical Palestine into two states, or the reorganization of the aforementioned territory as a single, democratic state for all citizens. While attracting only the most cursory attention, as yet, from the public at large, the two-state vs. one-state debate has become vigorous -- and often quite acrimonious -- among peace activists. Such open debate on the merits and shortcomings of these respective models for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence is essential for clear-headed understanding of the issues at stake, and is the essence of a democratic society. Nevertheless, there is an urgent need for supporters of justice in the Holy Land to speak with unity. Tangible progress is desperately needed to alleviate the pervasive sense of hopelessness that is fueling the factional bloodshed in the Occupied Territories, which imperils the prospects for peace along either the two-state or one-state framework. more..
Party time, again
Daniel Ben Simon, Ha’aretz 5/25/2007
Back in those days, prior to the previous elections, admiration for Amir Peretz was so widespread that in the towns of Tira and Taibeh, they pasted his picture on cars and on the walls of their homes. There is a story making the rounds about a 10-year-old boy, who started screaming every time Peretz visited Tira or the boy saw him on television, as though the chair of the Histadrut laborfederation were some rock star. Wherever he turned in the Arab sector he found open arms. Here was a genuine labor leader, who spoke their language, hoisted flags and promised to bring about a civil revolution. "The Arabs saw him as a great hope," said a member of his entourage at the time. The Arab sector did everything to get him elected. People organized fundraisers, contributed, repressed the memories of October 2000 and once again became involved in political life. And then, without any warning, Peretz became Israel’s defense minister. One day, after the Second Lebanon War, Peretz returned to Tira for a visit. Farouk Amrur, who had enlisted supporters for him, was also there, along with other activists who had canvassed cities and villages on his behalf. The Arab tradition of hospitality obliged them to receive him. "Standing before you is a man who symbolized the hope of mending the situation in the country," said one of those who welcomed him. "You look at him and don’t believe your eyes: He had the same smile on his face and gave friendly slaps to the members on their backs as though nothing had happened." more..
Did the US Lie about Cluster Bomb Use in Iraq?
Nick Turse, Middle East Online 5/25/2007
Until reporters begin bypassing official US military pronouncements and locating Iraqi sources, we will remain largely in the dark with little knowledge of what can only be described as the secret US air war in Iraq. Shape of a Shadowy Air War
Did the U.S. military use cluster bombs in Iraq in 2006 and then lie about it? Does the U.S. military keep the numbers of rockets and cannon rounds fired from its planes and helicopters secret because more Iraqi civilians have died due to their use than any other type of weaponry?
These are just two of the many unanswered questions related to the largely uncovered air war the U.S. military has been waging in Iraq.
What we do know is this: Since the major combat phase of the war ended in April 2003, the U.S. military has dropped at least 59,787 pounds of air-delivered cluster bombs in Iraq -- the very type of weapon that Marc Garlasco, the senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch (HRW) calls, "the single greatest risk civilians face with regard to a current weapon that is in use." We also know that, according to expert opinion, rockets and cannon fire from U.S. aircraft may account for most U.S. and coalition-attributed Iraqi civilian deaths and that the Pentagon has restocked hundreds of millions of dollars worth of these weapons in recent years. more..
Cape of Good Hope: One Apartheid Regime Down; One More to Go
Ramzy Baroud, Middle East Online 5/25/2007
Amongst the many names scribbled at the fenced wall at the helm of Cape of Good Hope, someone took the time to write ‘Palestine’. In the Apartheid Wall erected by Israel on Palestinian land in the West Bank, the South African parallel is expressed in more ways than one. The relationship cannot be any more obvious. I stand at the southernmost corner of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope. The grand mountains underneath and behind infuse a moment of spiritual reflection unmatched in its depth and meaning. Before me is an awe-inspiring view: here the Atlantic’s frigid waters gently meet the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. They meet but don’t collide. The harmony is seamless; the greatness of this view is humbling.
I was invited to South Africa to deliver a keynote speech at the ‘Al-Nakba’ conference, held in Cape Town. The journey led me to other cities. Many speeches, presentations, media interviews later, I sat with a borrowed computer and scattered thoughts: how can one reflect without the least sense of certainty, assuredness? I ought to try.
“Where are the Black Africans?” was the first question to come to mind as a friend’s car escorted me a distance from the Cape Town International Airport. I saw very few indications affirming that I was indeed in Africa as I gazed at the exaggeratedly beautiful surroundings of the airport. My friend needed not respond however, as the car soon hurriedly zoomed by a “squatters’ camp”; no slum can be compared to this, no refugee camp. Innumerable people are crammed in the tiniest and crudest looking ‘houses’ made of whatever those poor people could find laying around. It was not ‘temporary accommodations’, but permanent dwellings: here they live, marry, raise children and die. more..
Twilight Zone / Cry, the beloved country
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 5/24/2007
PRETORIA, South Africa - It was like being in the movies. Only there would you see an inert photo suddenly come to life. We were standing at the memorial museum in Soweto, next to a photo of a dead boy with other children around him, and our guide Antoinette was telling us about it. Antoinette said that the young girl in the picture was her. The photo is at the entrance of the museum, built to commemorate the blacks’ struggle against apartheid, which began here. Across the way is Nelson Mandela’s tiny hut, nearby is the house of Desmond Tutu and down the street is the present home of Winnie Mandela. The picture was stunningly familiar to us. We were four: MK Ran Cohen (Meretz); Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations; Diana Buttu, a former legal advisor to the PLO; and myself. We were all making the same associations: Hector is Mohammed al-Dura; the white soldiers shooting at children are us. The passage of time was evident with Antoinette. The teenager in the picture was now a woman in her late forties. Her brother would have been 44, but a bullet from the rifle of a white policeman deprived him of the chance to witness the miracle of how the cruel racist regime collapsed. more..
Forty Years of Occupation
Stephen Lendman, Palestine Chronicle 5/24/2007
It must include a demand that the world community of nations ends the "last taboo" of silence when it comes to Israel.It must be willing to expose and denounce what no longer can be tolerated that current South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils calls worse than apartheid. This June will mark an anniversary that will live in infamy for the people affected by the event it commemorates following a far greater one 19 years earlier on May 14, 1948.On June 5, 1967, Israel launched its so-called "Six-Day (preemptive) War" against three of its neighboring Arab states - Egypt, Jordan and Syria - claiming it was in self-defense to avoid annihilation Israeli leaders later admitted was spurious and false cover for a large-scale long-planned, calculated war of aggression it believed it could easily win and did. The New York Times quoted Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s (1977 - 83) August, 1982 speech saying: "In June, 1967, we had a choice.The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that (President Gamal Abdel) Nasser (1956 - 70) was really about to attack us.We must be honest with ourselves.We decided to attack him.". Two time Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1974 - 77 and 1992 - 95) told French newspaper Le Monde in February, 1968: "I do not believe Nasser wanted war.The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offense against Israel.He knew it and we knew it.". more..
Water and Resistance
Timothy Seidel, Palestine Chronicle 5/24/2007
A hydrology initiative such as this is the form that a relevant nonviolent resistance has taken in the Occupied Territories. And it goes unnoticed by many in North America because it is not as recognizable as demonstrations or sit-ins. The view from the Palestinian village of Nahhalin, in the west Bethlehem area, is sobering. This small village—along with the villages of Husan, Battir, Wadi Fuqin, and Al Walaja—are becoming more and more isolated from Bethlehem. As Israeli colonization in the Etzion bloc grows and as the Wall continues to cut deeply into the West Bank strangulating these communities, these Palestinian villagers have little access to the rest of the Israeli occupied West Bank. Even now, Israel is burrowing out a tunnel under the major settler bypass road running through the Etzion bloc, that will provide "transportational contiguity" for this one of many isolated islands of land on 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank that Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice want to sell to the world as "the state of Palestine." [1. Stuck between the "Green Line"—the 1949 Armistice Line that separates Israel from the West Bank—and the Wall, Palestinians from Nahhalin find themselves among some 60,000 Palestinians living in the "seam zone," that is that western segregation zone between the Wall and the Green Line which includes roughly 11 percent of the West Bank and that will ultimately be annexed to the "state of Israel" in Israel’s unilateral plan to define its own borders. more..
Hasan Efif El-Hassan: Israel’s Has It Both Ways
Hasan Efif El-Hasan, Ph.D, Palestine Chronicle 5/24/2007
The Arabs today have no alternative plan once Israel rejected their peace initiative. And Israel does not have to make peace with the Palestinians by giving up the spoils of the 1967 war and Oslo agreements. Many Arab analysts have over-rated the March 2007 Arab summit decision to re-launch the land-for-recognition initiative that had been offered by Saudi Arabia in 2002 to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. They had high hope the proposal would resuscitate the stalled Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. The Arabs must have known that Israel would reject the proposal but they introduced it anyway and insisted that they would not amend it. It calls on Israel to give back all territory captured in the 1967 war and accept an agreed just solution to the issue of the Palestinian refugees, in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194. In return, Arab nations would offer Israel full recognition and permanent peace. Olmert hailed the idea of normalization in the Arab League initiative but rejected its main points and called on Saudi Arabia to hold a regional conference that includes Israel. The Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni was quoted saying that her government would not accept the Arab peace plan without significant changes. Livni insisted that Israel would not withdraw to the pre-1967 war borders. She also asked that the Arabs should drop any reference to the UN Resolution 194 that gave the Palestinian refugees, who fled or were driven from their homes when Israel was founded in 1948, the right of return to their homes in Israel. more..
Interview: As’ad Abukhalil on the Nahr al-Bared siege
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada 5/24/2007
Thousands of Palestinian refugees are fleeing from Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon as five days of fighting by the Lebanese army and a militant group known as Fath al-Islam has left dozens of soldiers and fighters and an unknown number of civilians dead. As the situation of these Palestinian refugees worsens, 59 years after they were first expelled from their homeland intoLebanon, the world looks on in silence. Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah spoke with As’ad Abukhalil, the creator of the Angry Arab News Service blog. Abukhalil explained the origins of Fath al-Islam, the events that led to the violence and what it means for Lebanon and the region. EI: What is Fath al Islam? ABUKHALIL: We hadn’t heard of Fath al-Islam prior to late last year. There have been reports over the last two years especially after the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon of a variety of extremist militant groups who are sprouting throughout the refugee camps of Lebanon, and elsewhere outside of the camps especially in northern Lebanon.
Some of the reports have been filled with sensationalism and sometimes groups that the government were complaining about turned out to have been funded by the Hariri family, for example Asbat al-Ansar and Jund as-Sham in Ain al Hilweh refugee camp, some of whose members later joined Fath al-Islam. more..
A toxic legacy
Evan R. Goldstein, Ha’aretz 5/25/2007
Jerry Falwell, who died on May 15, would no doubt be pleased byAbraham Foxman’s declaration that he was a "dear friend of Israel." Throughout his life he was fond of boasting that "the Jewish people in America and Israel and all over the world have no dearer friend than Jerry Falwell." Was it true. Falwell comes out of a pre-millennial Baptist tradition rooted in the teachings of John Nelson Darby, a 19th-century British clergyman who preached a fire-and- brimstone "End of Days" theology. Darby argued that the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land was a fundamental prerequisite to the Second Coming of Christ, the conversion or death of all nonbelievers, and the dawning of the messianic age. Jews loom large in the pre-millennial mind. As the pre-millennial writer Randall Price expressed it in his 1998 book "Jerusalem in Prophecy," Jews are the essential "players ... for the prophetic drama," whose collective "curtain call" signals that "the End" must be near. There can be no apocalypse, no battle of Armageddon, and ultimately no salvation for Christians without the "ingathering of the exiles" to the Land of Israel. Falwell’s genius was to mainstream this theology. A deft communicator, the co-founder of the Moral Majority harnessed the power of television to bring his blood-soaked eschatology to millions of depressingly credulous Americans. He also preached an uncompromising commitment to the cause of Jewish sovereignty over the West Bank. On the basis of this shared belief, Falwell forged a series of cynical and opportunistic partnerships with leaders on the Israeli right, who understandably saw him as a valuable ally to Israel in a world increasingly hostile to the Jewish state. This calculation has proved to be not only morally deplorable, but politically and strategically dubious. more..
Cape of Good Hope: One Apartheid Regime Down; One More to Go
Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle 5/24/2007
Despite a hectic schedule of two weeks, I made it a goal to visit as many squatters’ camps as I could. I followed the path of ethnic cleansing that took place in District Six in Cape Town. I stand at the southernmost corner of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope. The grand mountains underneath and behind infuse a moment of spiritual reflection unmatched in its depth and meaning. Before me is an awe-inspiring view: here the Atlantic’s frigid waters gently meet the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. They meet but don’t collide. The harmony is seamless; the greatness of this view is humbling. I was invited to South Africa to deliver a keynote speech at the ’Al-Nakba’ conference, held in Cape Town. The journey led me to other cities. Many speeches, presentations, media interviews later, I sat with a borrowed computer and scattered thoughts: how can one reflect without the least sense of certainty, assuredness? I ought to try. "Where are the Black Africans?" was the first question to come to mind as a friend’s car escorted me a distance from the Cape Town International Airport. I saw very few indications affirming that I was indeed in Africa as I gazed at the exaggeratedly beautiful surroundings of the airport. My friend needed not respond however, as the car soon hurriedly zoomed by a "squatters’ camp"; no slum can be compared to this, no refugee camp. Innumerable people are crammed in the tiniest and crudest looking ’houses’ made of whatever those poor people could find laying around. It was not ’temporary accommodations’, but permanent dwellings: here they live, marry, raise children and die. more..
The Dialectic of Negation
Gilad Atzmon In an article published just after the first, Middle East Online 5/22/2007
Rather than defining ourselves by who we are, we get accustomed to our politicians defining us for how we hate or whom is it we suppose to hate: red, ‘axis of evil’, Islamofascists, etc. Ideological and political thinkers often start out with the task of defining their subjects. It should be assumed that they have come to their conclusions through intellectual processes of deduction and categorical research. Here are some (devastating) quotes that expose what early Zionist ideologists had to say about their brothers, those for whom they were developing a nationalist project based on a philosophy of racial ethnic identity:
“The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social obligations, knows no order nor discipline.” (Our Shomer “Weltanschauung”, Hashomer Hatzair December 1936, p.26. As cited by Lenni Brenner *1)
“The fact is undeniable that the Jews collectively are unhealthy and neurotic. Those professional Jews who, wounded to the quick, indignantly deny this truth are the greatest enemies of their race, for they thereby lead them to search for false solutions, or at most palliatives.” (Ben Frommer, The Significance of a Jewish State, Jewish Call, Shanghai, May 1935, p.10. As cited by Lenni Brenner *2) more..
Sderot created the Gaza Strip
Philip Rizk writing from the Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/22/2007
Yesterday eight members of one family were murdered on the spot in Israel’s latest military strike on Gaza. The target, doctor Khaleel Al-Haya, a Hamas member, remained unharmed. Later in the day Islamic Jihad responded by firing two homemade rockets into Gaza. One Israeli citizen was killed, another wounded.
This sounds like a horrible, but straightforward series of events. The only aspect that calls for attention is that one of these attacks is considered terrorism, while the other is mentioned in most media outlets only in passing, and referred to as a legitimate attempt on a bad man’s life. As Israel’s extra-judicial assassinations in Gaza once again become the norm, Gaza is being cast into deeper and deeper despair.
A month ago I visited Sderot and met with Dvora Babyan, an Israeli citizen of Iranian and Libyan descent. A homemade Qassam rocket hit her house on April 21 causing damage to the building but causing no fatalities. Having come from Gaza that morning, I had the sense I was overhearing Dvora’s words as if spoken to a Palestinian living in Gaza.
"We have sense, we are not barbarians. They are barbarians, we want peace but they are not interested ... When we strike we have to take into consideration the civilians, they don’t do this," she said. more..
Regional conflicts join together to destabilize Lebanon
Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star 5/23/2007
In recent years I and others have been warning that the growing number of conflicts in the Middle East is pushing the region toward new forms of radicalism and trouble. The clashes between the Lebanese Army and the Fatah al-Islam extremist militants that have rocked parts of North Lebanon since Sunday are the latest face of that phenomenon. The fighting in and near Tripoli represents the local convergence of four separate conflicts that attest to the complex matrix of violence that plagues the Middle East today. The four are the uneasy legacy of tensions between various Lebanese forces and armed Palestinian refugee groups in the country, going back to the 1960s; the continued tensions between Syria and Lebanon since a popular uprising forced the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon two years ago; the regional spin-offs from the US-led war in Iraq; and, the expanding clashes as US President George W. Bush’s "global war on terror" both battles and breeds assorted Islamist terror groups that pursue Al-Qaeda-like goals and tactics. The convergence of these four factors in the clashes in Tripoli this week is no surprise. Fatah al-Islam has been slowly building up its band of several hundred heavily armed fighters in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp for nearly a year, while other militant Islamists have been expanding their small constituencies in North and South Lebanon. Lebanese, Palestinian and foreign officials alike have all expressed concerns about the potential for such extremists to gain a foothold in Lebanon. more..
More civilian deaths in Gaza
Rami Almeghari - Rami Almeghari, International Middle East Media Center 5/22/2007
In an isolated barely field, located just few hundred meters away from the Israel-Gaza border line in eastern Rafah city, a heap of barely lies in the middle of the field. The field is now abandoned -- why? Not because there are no farmers in the area, but rather because the Loulahi family, who had been harvesting barely, were hit by Israeli missiles. Samah, the daughter, was killed, and Ahmad, the son, killed as well. The father Sulieman was wounded, while A’isha, 19, is being treated at the nearby European Hospital after sustaining shrapnel wounds to her leg.
With her pale and yellow face, while surrounded by relatives and friends, the simple Rafah farmer spoke out with a sadness and bitterness which she would have never felt unless the Israeli missiles hadn’t killed her "soul."
Despite her pain, A’isha spoke out: "It was 6:30 pm. We were harvesting the barely near the Sufa crossing, the sun was setting, while myself, my father and my brothers and sisters were all bending down in our field.
"My father asked us to leave our brother Mohammad in the car. We left the field, then the Zannana [unmanned drone plane] fired a missile that hit us directly," Aisha says. more..
Letter to Black America on Palestinian Rights & June 10 March
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Occupation Magazine/ZNet 5/21/2007 On 15 May 2007, 22 Black American professors, writers, religious figures, and other leaders issued a call to Black America to join in the June 10 March and rally, and break the silence on the injustices faced by the Palestinian people. To Black America: It is time for our people to once again demand that the silence be broken on the injustices faced by the Palestinian people resulting from the Israeli occupation. On June 10th, the national coalition known as the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (endtheoccupation.org) will be spearheading a march and rally to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. We, the signatories of this appeal, ask that Black America again take a leading role in this effort as well as the broader work to bring attention to this 40 year travesty of justice. United Nations resolutions have called for the Israeli withdrawal, yet the Israeli government, with the backing of the USA, has ignored them. The Israeli government has appropriated Palestinian land in open defiance of international law and overwhelming international condemnation. Within the USA anyone who speaks in favor of Palestinian rights and justice is immediately condemned as being allegedly anti-Israel (and frequently allegedly anti-Semitic), shutting down legitimate discussion. A case in point can be seen in the current furor surrounding former President Jimmy Carter who was criticized for his assertion in his best-selling book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that Israeli obstructionism lies at the root of the failure to achieve a just Palestinian/ Israeli settlement. more..
In the belly of the wailing “democracy” called Israel
Jesus Martinez, 21 May 2007, International Solidarity Movement 5/21/2007
We start this tale on Friday, May 18th in Bethlehem, and end up back in Bethlehem on Sunday May 2o. Jesus would have been devastated seeing what I have seen in his birth town. In 1948, Palestinians suffered from a major Catastrophe. They call it the Nakba. Three quarters of a million Palestinians were displaced from their homes and 531 villages, hundreds of which were razed to the ground, civilians were massacred, and they continue to remain as refugees, denied their right of returning home. The right of return is an inalienable right. Denial of the right of return is a perpetuation of ethnic cleansing which is a war crime. The right of return is a basic right, derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all international and regional covenants. It is an individual rightderived from the sanctity of private ownership and a collective right derived from the Principle of Self-Determination. It has no statute of limitation and cannot be extinguished by a treaty or the establishment of a state. It is affirmed by the UN Resolution 194 and repeatedly confirmed by the international community over 110 times in 50 years, unparalleled in UN history. Legally, the Return can ONLY be implemented to the refugee’s home and land in 1948, not anywhere else, even in Palestine. Ben Gurion’s doctrine: "the destruction of the Palestinian Society in Palestine is a necessary condition for the establishment of the state of Israel on its ruins." more..
Chosenness and Israeli Exceptionalism
M. Shahid Alam, CounterPunch 5/21/2007 Zionism and the Doctrine of Election No idea has played a more seminal role in the recent history of Jewish and Christian Zionism than the Jewish doctrine of divine election or chosenness.[1] Since this doctrine is the cornerstone of Zionism, divine sanction for Jewish uniqueness has been inseparable from Israeli exceptionalism and Israeli history.[2] At first, political Zionism had little to recommend itself aside from the mythic allure of the Promised Land. Most Jews greeted the project alternatively with consternation and derision. They could instantly sense that the creation of a Jewish state would give an impetus to anti-Semitism in Europe; the project also struck most of them as a fantastic utopia with little chance of success. The success of the Zionist plan required three steps: persuading Jews to abandon their homes in Europe for the hazards of colonizing a backward land, wresting Palestine from its Ottoman sovereign, and somehow making the Palestinians disappear. Some very real hurdles blocked each of these steps. In addition, there was another hitch. The political Zionists did not have the religious sanction to work for Jewish restoration to Palestine. Jews had long believed that this would be the work of the Jewish Messiah as part of God’s plan for the culmination of history; and some had come to invest the return to Zion with symbolic meaning that could be pursued even in exile. Overcoming these theological objections would not be easy. more..
Open Letter to Rolling Stones: Boycott Israeli Apartheid
Statement, Electronic Intifada 5/21/2007
Dear Rolling Stones,
The Palestinian arts community received in disbelief media reports of your upcoming performance in Israel, at a time when Israel continues unabated with its colonial and apartheid designs to further dispossess, oppress, and ultimately ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their homeland. If the news is accurate, and we sincerely hope it is not, we strongly urge you to cancel your plans to perform in Israel until the time comes when it ends its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and respects fundamental human rights as well as the relevant precepts of international law concerning Palestinian rights to freedom, self-determination and equality.
Indeed, Israel’s policies throughout its illegal military occupation of Palestinian territory, which have surpassed their South African counterparts, include house demolitions; Jews-only colonies and roads; uprooting hundreds of thousands of trees; indiscriminate killings of civilians, particularly children; incessant theft of land and water resources; denying freedom of movement to millions under occupation, cutting up the occupied Palestinian territory into Bantustans, some entirely caged by walls, fences and hundreds of roadblocks. Sixty years since the Nakba, Israel’s planned campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people, and 40 years into its military occupation of Palestinian and other Arab territory, Israel has consistently and relentlessly violated basic human rights and relevant precepts of international law with utter impunity. Moreover, Israel’s war of aggression against Lebanon last year caused more than one thousand civilian deaths, not to mention massive destruction to infrastructure and decimation of entire residential neighbourhoods. more..
The Next War
Uri Avnery, CounterPunch 5/19/2007 A Swiss Cheese THE WINOGRAD committee of inquiry is not a part of the solution. It is a part of the problem. Now, after the first excitement caused by the publication of the partial report has died down, it is possible to evaluate it. The conclusion is that it has done much more harm than good. The positive side is well known. The committee has accused the three directors of the war - the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense and the Chief-of-Staff - of many faults. The committee’s favorite word is "failure". It is worthwhile to ponder this word. What does it say? A person "fails" when he does not fulfill his task. The nature of the task itself is not considered, but only the fact that it has not been accomplished. The use of the word "failure" all over the report is by itself a failure of the committee. The new Hebrew word invented by the protest groups - something like "ineptocrats" - fits all of the five committee members. more..
Palestinian Pinochet Making His Move?
Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan 5/16/2007
There’s something a little misleading in the media reports that routinely describe the fighting in Gaza as pitting Hamas against Fatah forces or security personnel “loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas.” That characterization suggests somehow that this catastrophic civil war that has killed more than 25 Palestinians since Sunday is a showdown between Abbas and the Hamas leadership — which simply isn’t true, although such a showdown would certainly conform to the desires of those running the White House Middle East policy. The Fatah gunmen who are reported to have initiated the breakdown of the Palestinian unity government and provoked the latest fighting may profess fealty to President Abbas, but it’s not from him that they get their orders. The leader to whom they answer is Mohammed Dahlan, the Gaza warlord who has long been Washington’s anointed favorite to play the role of a Palestinian Pinochet. And while Dahlan is formally subordinate to Abbas, whom he supposedly serves as National Security Adviser, nobody believes that Dahlan answers to Abbas — in fact, it was suggested at the time that Abbas appointed Dahlan only under pressure from Washington, which was irked by the Palestinian Authority president’s decision to join a unity government with Hamas. If Dahlan takes orders from anyone at all, it’s certainly not from Abbas. Abbas has long recognized the democratic legitimacy and popularity of Hamas, and embraced the reality that no peace process is possible unless the Islamists are given the place in the Palestinian power structure that their popular support necessitates. He has always favored negotiation and cooperation with Hamas — much to the exasperation of the Bush Administration, and also of the Fatah warlords whose power of patronage was threatened by the Hamas election victory — and could see the logic of the unity government proposed by the Saudis even when Washington couldn’t. Indeed, as the indispensable Robert Malley and Hussein Agha note, nothing has hurt Abbas’s political standing as much as the misguided efforts of Washington to boost his standing in the hope of undermining the elected Hamas government. more..
The original sin
Danny Rubinstein, Ha’aretz 5/21/2007
In countless speeches, media interviews and street-corner conversations, Palestinians have been asking one another: How did we get to this low point? The headlines in Gaza that are on everyone’s tongue say: "Israel is killing us from the air, and Hamas and Fatah are killing us on the ground." And the question that goes along with the situation is why do we deserve this? Without a doubt, a series of reasons - political, economic, social and others - have brought these troubles down on the Palestinians. However, the direct cause of what is happening now in the Gaza Strip is that the traditional Palestinian leadership (i.e. the top echelon of Fatah) was not prepared to transfer authority to the elected Hamas leadership. Many helped the Fatah leadership persist in its refusal to share rule with Hamas; this applies to all those who imposed a boycott on the Hamas government and the national unity government, including Israel, most of the Arab regimes and nearly the entire international community. All of them, rightly or not, tried and are still trying to help Fatah while trying to suppress Hamas. more..
A kind of military coup
Haaretz Editorial, Ha’aretz 5/21/2007
Does Israel still uphold that proper state of affairs in which the elected government sets policy and civil servants carry it out? According to an article published in Haaretz yesterday ("The spirit of the commander prevails" by Meron Rapoport), it seems that with regard to the army, the answer is negative. While ministers speak about a two-state solution, a kind of military coup is taking place in the West Bank, in which the Israel Defense Forces are turning the area into the state of the settlers. While the Palestinian population is being suffocated, the settlements are flourishing. It does not make much difference whether the Defense Ministry is headed by a civilian minister, because the army has its own agenda, and its subordination to the government is often simulated. For years, Israel was proud of the democratic miracle of an obedient army that did not accumulate too much power and served the elected government loyally, even though the country was engaged in a continual existential war. During the last war, however, cracks appeared in this faith, when it turned out that the cabinet had been dragged into approving military plans that were never even submitted to it. And even worse things happen every day in the occupied territories. Haggai Alon, an adviser to the defense minister who is responsible for the fabric of life in the West Bank, says that the army disregards the government’s diplomatic agenda and essentially serves as the settlers’ army. Or at least, that is how it was throughout Dan Halutz’s tenure as chief of staff. more..
Who’s normal here?
Aviad Kleinberg, YNetNews 5/19/2007
IDF violence and lying politicians have become the norm in Israel The IDF was quick to investigate the incident where IDF soldiers recently attacked protestors on Mount Hebron. Apparently, the incident where our fine soldiers mercilessly beat up protestors who didn"t endanger anyone was a "śprofessional mishap"ť or a "śnormative problem"ť. But this is not so. Namely, there was indeed a problem, the fact that the event was caught on camera and aired in news broadcasts. The courageous company commander suddenly looked more like a cruel militarist. He forgot to wait for the media to leave (closed military zone, state security, you know). This was indeed a professional hitch. However, it was not a "śnormative problem"ť. Norms are an illusive matter. Originally, a norm was a carpenter"s ruler, something fixed according to which things were measured. However, in a society where absolute moral standards have disappeared, the only way to ascertain what is a norm is by conducting a statistical examination. What is usually done is a norm; what the majority of people usually do is a norm. If we examine the IDF"s conduct in the Territories, it"s not difficult to see that the norm is violence, absolute disrespect for human life, theft and passionate cooperation with settler extremists. Occasionally, IDF forces do not behave according to these standards, but this is the exception to the rule. When this happens a commission of inquiry should be established because this is when there is a "śnormative problem"ť more..
Islam and violence
John Esposito, Middle East Online 5/19/2007
Throughout history, the sacred scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have been used and abused, interpreted and misinterpreted, to justify resistance and liberation struggles, extremism and terrorism, holy and unholy wars, says. Washington, DC - While the atrocities and acts of terrorism committed by violent extremists have connected Islam with terrorism, the Islamic tradition places limits on the use of violence and rejects terrorism, hijackings and hostage taking. As with other faiths, mainstream and normative doctrines and laws are ignored, distorted, or hijacked and misinterpreted by a radical fringe.
Islam, like all world religions, neither supports nor requires illegitimate violence. The Qur’an does not advocate or condone terrorism. The God of the Qur’an is consistently portrayed as a God of mercy and compassion as well as a just judge. 113 of 114 chapters start with a reference to God’s mercy and compassion; throughout the Qur’an in many contexts, Muslims are reminded to be merciful and just. However, Islam does permit, indeed at times requires, Muslims to defend themselves and their families, religion and community from aggression.
Like all scriptures, Islamic sacred texts must be read within the social and political contexts in which they were revealed. It is not surprising that the Qur’an, like the Hebrew scriptures or Old Testament, has verses that address fighting and the conduct of war. Arabia and the city of Mecca, in which Muhammad lived and received God’s revelation, were beset by tribal raids and cycles of vengeance and vendetta. The broader Near East, in which Arabia was located, was itself divided between two warring superpowers, the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) and the Sassanian (Persian) empires. more..
How we could live together
Fouad Abu Hamed, Middle East Online 5/19/2007
Israelis do not understand the origin of their security problems, which stem from their occupation of our land. Israel cannot sit here on my land and say to my people, ‘You cannot have a homeland because of our security concerns.’ Until we have a homeland, there will continue to be security problems, says. SOR BAHER, Israel/Palestine - I have watched on Israeli television the concern that animal rights have generated. In Israel, there is a problem with the elderly abandoning their dogs, so an activist group opened a shelter for the abandoned animals. As a Palestinian, I watch this and, in the same moment, I see my children, Palestinian children, killed, arrested and going without food. They have lost their homes and have never known a homeland.
Here, then, there are animal rights but not human rights. Sometimes, I find this too much to bear.
In my village, there are 15,000 people living under Israeli occupation. We are not Israeli Arabs. We are Palestinians. The problems here, like the problems in many Palestinian villages in Israel, are elementary. Our water is not good, our streets are not clean or cared for, and there are not enough schools for our children.
From the top of the hill of Sor Baher, my village, you can see the security fence that has separated our village from our families and friends in Bethlehem. This fence has not just cut my village off from our people, but it prevents us from being able to access hundreds of acres of olive trees, which had been previously an important source of income for many families. more..
Against all obstacles
Jihad Abu Zneid, Middle East Online 5/19/2007
The time has come for the women of Palestine and Israel to demand from our leaders: Enough occupation, enough violence. We want to build a future based on a just peace for all the people, not a peace of the elite: a peace between nations, says. JERUSALEM - I am a Palestinian from Jerusalem. I was born in a refugee camp, and grew up there as a refugee, cognizant of one sordid fact of life: I am a refugee in my own country. I grew up hearing these words, but never understood their true meaning. My father was a gatekeeper at the Holy Aqsa Mosque: the closest spot on earth to God, as they say. My father taught me love for the Aqsa and the alleys and streets of the city. We used to compete in reciting the names of the gates of its Holy Mosque, and I used to run away from there to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, without any change in that feeling of holiness or belonging. A Palestinian deeply rooted at al-Aqsa and at the Holy Sepulchre, with all her being, in and for the nation. Day after day, I grew up and started seeing matters as they were: I am a refugee, I am from Jerusalem, and I am under occupation.
I learned here as a child and as a female that my love for my country is the source of my pride and dignity. I flew with my imagination to delve into the churnings of life. I grew up to see the arrival of a national popular uprising, an intifada, that shook me from the inside, and I felt a sense of responsibility for my country, my people and myself. more..
First, we’ll shoot a bit, flex a muscle
Zvi Barel, Ha’aretz 5/19/2007
It is the same prestige that contributed quite a bit to creating the real strategic threat facing Israel. This threat is not expressed by the terrifying Qassams that are causing Sderot residents to flee from their city, but rather by the disintegration of Gaza, by the subjection of its million and a quarter residents to the reign of gangs, by the neutralization of the ability to build a strong, united Palestinian leadership, and by the establishment of a state of terror in Gaza, which operates almost in isolation from any central Palestinian administration. The reason for the state’s prestige being in question is its need to justify the decision not to recognize the Hamas government and to impose an economic siege on the territories. At the same time, Israel has conditioned the Palestinians’ ability to exist on a matter of honor - on Hamas’ recognition of Israel. How ridiculous now is the tally of triumphs and defeats of Fatah versus Hamas, of corpses on one side versus corpses on the other side, and the mathematical determination that Hamas is winning on the street. Is it not the same Hamas that already won over the street in the elections last year? The same Hamas that maintained the welcome cease-fire for many long months? The same Hamas that signed the Mecca Agreement and accepted the Arab Initiative. Hamas is not a pleasant movement. It includes elements of terror and draws its sources from a fanatical religious ideology. But Hamas and the Palestinian unity government, as long as the latter still holds up, are the best address Israel has at the moment. This government is not just the only one that has the potential to control the "State of Gaza," it is the only one that is still interested in the fate of its public and, therefore, is influenced by the pressure of that public. It is the only one that is also threatened by the firing of Qassams on Sderot. But without the means to provide benefits for its citizens, it is also paralyzed. more..
The role of Peretz
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 5/19/2007
He should pay the price for his responsibility for last year’s futile war. But considering the other candidates, some of whom are no less tainted by ongoing failures in security and statesmanship, it is important that he continue to be among the party’s top leadership. Whoever is unable to vote for Barak, because of the arrogant and intolerable silence he has maintained during recent months, and cannot vote for Ayalon because of his strange political views, particularly with regard to peace with Syria, should wholeheartedly vote for Peretz. If the brain tells you to vote for Barak, the heart must tell you to vote for Peretz, despite everything. Even if he does not lead the party, it is important that his camp at least be second in importance. Despite their mutual loathing, the combination of Barak - the only candidate capable of ensuring victory for his party - and Peretz - the candidate most faithful to the party’s path, who can also bring new communities into it - is the right combination for Labor, which has not had an opportunity like this to generate change for a long time. Peretz had no chance. As someone who fell into the cauldron of war soon after his appointment, he is least guilty for its failures. The war was planned by the chief of staff and approved by the prime minister; one couldn’t expect the new defense minister to stem the tide. Facing a prime minister and strong military establishment, with a hostile and obstructive tailwind blowing from his party colleagues, and in light of the deep-rooted ethnic racism that portrayed him as ludicrous (unlike the portrayal of the war’s other instigators), it should come as no surprise that he was swept up in the awful whirlwind. more..
’Nothing Anglo-Saxon takes place there’
Yossi Melman, Ha’aretz 5/16/2007
"Greaseball" is an American expression that is used, among other things to describe a member of the Mafia or any other slippery or sleazy type. This was the term used at Mossad headquarters in Glilot to describe CIA director George Tenet. The nickname was used by members of the Cosmos unit of the Mossad’s North American desk (which is responsible, among other things, for contacts with foreign intelligence services), because of his body language and his manner of speech. Tenet was almost a regular visitor at Mossad headquarters and in Tel Aviv hotels during the second half of the 1990s. He came here when he was still deputy director of the CIA, as a peace broker and a coordinator of security arrangements between Israel and the Palestinians. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict preoccupied him to such an extent that he found it proper to devote a respectable place to it - over 10 percent of the 500 pages of his new book: "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA," which was published at the beginning of the month. more..
The spirit of the commander prevails
Meron Rapoport, Ha’aretz 5/19/2007
There is a military policy that is causing the Arab population to leave the center of Hebron. It’s a clear plan, it’s a fact. Everything would be all right if they would say so openly, if our policy were to create Jewish contiguity in Hebron, and the government were to tell the army to do so: We would go to elections over that. But that is not the policy of the State of Israel. The problem is that under military rule the spirit of the commander is stronger than anything else. Haggai Alon says these words in the context of his job. In his position as adviser to the defense minister on "fabric of life" issues, Alon visits Hebron with the army, with the Civil Administration, with whoever he has to. As part of his job he sits in on discussions with senior Israel Defense Forces officers, walks around in the area, meets with officers and is supposed to tell them what to do on behalf of his boss, the defense minister. Here and there he succeeds, he says. The Jordan Valley Highway stopped being a highway for "Israelis only," the work hours at the Karni crossing were doubled, increasing the amount of goods that pass through - but the overall situation is depressing. The experience Alon has accumulated after a year in the job has taught him that the official policy of the Israeli government is one thing, and the actions of the army on the ground are another, sometimes the opposite. In a disturbing way it is reminiscent of the Winograd Committee, which revealed to us how the General Staff held political discussions, whereas the cabinet discussed where to bomb. The cabinet and the army exchanged roles in Lebanon. According to Alon, the same is true of the West Bank. more..
The ghostly streets, the ghostly skies
Laila El-Haddad writing from Gaza City, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/18/2007
17 May 2007
We’re used to things going from bad to worse very quickly here. But we never expected the situation to get as bad as it has over the past few days.
After a terrifying 24 hours, we awoke this morning to sporadic gunfire, and ghostly streets.
It was a welcome change. Sleep-deprived and anxious, my colleague Saeed, on his first visit to Gaza, and myself headed to Rafah in the southern part of the Strip to continue shooting a series of documentaries we are working on.
Though the gunfire had subsided, the gunmen were still patrolling the streets, each this time casually manning their own turf, masked and fully armed.
Impromptu checkpoints were still set up along the main Gaza-Rafah road, and we were stopped for ID and affiliation checks.
As we approached Rafah, we received word that clashes had broken out there, too, following the funeral of four Hamas men killed in an Israeli air strike the night before. more..
How a bomblet took a teen’s leg - and is slowly killing her father
Nichole Sobecki, Daily Star 5/19/2007
I wish there were no war ... that Israel would not drop death from the sky upon us. MAARAKE: Almost a year has passed since the summer 2006 war with Israel, but for Rasha Mohammad Zayoun, 18, a return to normality is not an option. One evening almost three months ago, Rasha lost her left leg when her father unknowingly brought a cluster bomb into their home among a bush of thyme. "I felt a deep pain and then I noticed that my leg was gone," Rasha told The Daily Star. Cluster munitions are anti-personnel weapons that scatter tiny but deadly bomblets over a wide area. The munitions, 4 million of which were spread across South Lebanon by Israeli forces - including about 1 million that failed to detonate - have caused 30 deaths and 180 injuries among civilians since the end of the war, according to the United Nations Mine Action Center. The unexploded cluster munitions have turned homes, livelihoods and public places into de facto minefields. "It is God who provides for us," said Rasha’s mother, gesturing angrily. "It’s misery, we cannot provide for our children." She is quick to criticize Rasha yet dedicated to her despite the difficult circumstances. Since Rasha’s accident, which required two months of hospitalization, multiple surgeries and advanced medical care to straighten her shattered bones enough to provide her with a prosthetic, the family’s meager income ($30 per month prior to the war) has become increasingly stretched. Rasha’s father has rarely made it to work for the past several months and his shrunken frame testifies to a period of rapid weight loss. more..
Words instead of actions
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 5/19/2007
Every few weeks some international body issues a report directly linking the policy of restricted movement imposed by Israel on the occupied territories and the state of economic deterioration there. The report is often accompanied by a warning that the situation cannot persist. Last week it was the turn of the World Bank to issue a cautionary report, entitled "Movement and Access Restrictions in the West Bank: Uncertainty and Inefficiency in the Palestinian Economy. Dozens of international researchers and economic attaches are busy researching the Palestinians’ economic deterioration, and many more similar reports will yet be written, as long as the countries that finance them settle for words and do not take steps to halt the policy of social and economic destruction that Israel is imposing on the Palestinians. The newest report is comprehensive, but there is nothing new in it and it stresses what has been written and said for years: Israel is inflicting enormous damage on the Palestinian economy and on its private sector. In 2002, following the release of a report on the impact of Israel’s closure policy, the previous World Bank representative in the occupied territories, Nigel Roberts, praised the Palestinian society’s endurance and suggested that any Western society would have collapsed had it undergone an economic disaster similar to that experienced in the territories. Today, five years after that report’s warnings and pleas, Palestinian society’s collapse is more worrying than ever - primarily in the Gaza Strip and Nablus, which not coincidentally are the areas facing the harshest Israeli siege. more..
The sleepwalkers
Yossi Sarid, Ha’aretz 5/18/2007
Sleep is good for your health, but when sleep sneaks up on leaders of countries in mid-activity it’s not good for public health. Our own Ehud Olmert was recently caught sleeping at the height of a ceremony, and this week he dozed again during a visit to the north of the country. And Shimon Peres was caught doing the same during a television interview. One’s heart melts at the sight of the fallen eyelids. What does an ordinary person do when he’s tired? He lies down. But Olmert has to prove that with him it’s dubious business as usual, while Peres proves that he’s as energetic as an indefatigable hyperactive kid. Your breath is taken away by the art of the doze. The sleep of the more-or-less just doesn’t stop the prime minister from delivering congratulations at the ceremony, or from promising to improve bomb shelters during his visit to the North. Nor does it prevent his energizer deputy from continuing the interview with his chin drooping on his chest. After all, Olmert is a past master at uttering recycled promises and well-worn cliches while only partly conscious, and Peres is capable of warning Iran in his sleep. If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad watched the interview, he must have been appalled to see that his threats are being received here with equanimity. more..
An Open Letter to President Bashar al-Asad
Patrick Seale, Middle East Online 5/18/2007
Is this not the moment, Mr. President, to show the world a humane and generous face, and win international support, by turning your attention to the plight of prisoners of conscience, unfairly and cruelly punished by your courts? Dear Mr. President.
Friends of Syria -- and I count myself among them -- have been puzzled and saddened by the lengthy jail sentences passed on Syrian political prisoners, human rights activists, and prisoners of conscience. These harsh punishments have attracted worldwide attention and done your country’s reputation great harm.
With the greatest respect, I urge you to review these cases and to grant an early amnesty to the prisoners.
Anwar al-Bunni is Syria’s leading defender of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. In March 2006, with funding and encouragement from the European Union, he created a Syrian human rights centre. Your security services closed it down almost immediately. more..
Business and politics can partner for peace
Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star 5/19/2007
I write this from Sweimeh, on the Dead Sea in Jordan, at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) Middle Eastern gathering of business, government, civil society and media leaders. Visible across the Dead Sea to the west is the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank and Jerusalem, and further west is Gaza, ravaged by Palestinian infighting, Israeli strangulation and assassinations, and American-Israeli-led fiscal sanctions. Here at the WEF, though, many Arabs and a few Israelis persist in the quest for a negotiated, just peace. There is a peculiar incongruity to hundreds of immensely successful and very powerful Arab, Israeli and international businessmen and women who meet regularly, yet cannot find the tools needed to change the mundane, often mediocre, policies of their political leaders. This contrasts spectacularly with last week’s inauguration of a legitimate, elected coalition government that represents both the Protestant and Catholic communities and has restored local rule in Northern Ireland. This is a stunning example of what can happen when corporate leaders take the initiative to improve conditions for all citizens, thus forcing their politicians to follow and resolve their conflicts peacefully. One person who has actively fostered peace, reconciliation and prosperity through business activity in Northern Ireland for years is the pioneering Cullinet software magnate John Cullinane. He has also tried a similar approach with Arabs and Israelis. His thoughts this week on Northern Ireland’s lessons for the ailing Middle East ring with deep credibility. more..
The chance of a deal is now the object of futile bartering
Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, The Guardian 5/18/2007
The idea that bilateral negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians can produce a final agreement is dead. Its fate was sealed in part because neither side has the ability to close the gaps between the positions they have taken. The two parties also lack trust. But most of all, neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli political systems possess the requisite degree of coherence and cohesion. On the Palestinian side, the national movement no longer has workable political institutions. It lacks effective leadership and has lost any clear political programme. Rival sources of authority have multiplied. The presidency is in the hands of Fatah, the government in those of Hamas. Gaza is cut off from the West Bank. Competing security branches and militias are proliferating. The Mecca agreement between Fatah and Hamas and the formation of a national unity government is a step toward clarification. But it may yet fail. In the Gaza Strip, where competition is most intense, fighting between the two groups continues. Whatever happens, the Palestinian movement will remain fluid and difficult to pin down. The US and Israel will be tempted to persist in attempts to isolate Hamas. But such fantasies will come crashing down. One US and Israeli goal may be to bolster Abbas, yet nothing has weakened the Palestinian president more than international attempts to strengthen him. To negotiate with the Palestinian Authority while excluding Hamas would be tantamount to negotiating with only one part of the political system. more..
The Leader Israel Deserves
Yacov Ben Efrat, Electronic Intifada 5/17/2007
The second Lebanon War of summer 2006 threw a dark shadow over the government of Ehud Olmert and his party, Kadima. For the first time, Israel got to know what it’s like to cower helplessly under barrages of rocket fire. The 4,000 Katyushas that rained on Galilee for 33 days rubbed in the feeling of failure. The air force could not stop them. The government could not protect or supply its citizens. It left them to fend as best they could, ruled by the wails of sirens.
After the cease fire, Israelis demanded an investigation, as they had following the lapse of October 1973. In an attempt to calm the welling rage, Olmert established an investigative committee under retired judge Eliahu Winograd. Many at the time disputed the PM’s right to appoint the body whose function it was to investigate him. Winograd, however, did not disappoint the head hunters. On April 30, 2007, the Committee published its Interim Report, which gave failing marks to the three main figures behind the war: Olmert, Defense Secretary Amir Peretz and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz (who had already resigned). The decision to launch the war, it wrote, was taken in haste, without sufficient regard for the danger of the rockets or the lack of civil defense, without consideration of alternatives, without achievable goals and without an exit strategy. The Committee refrained from demanding the resignations of Olmert and Peretz, leaving this -- it said -- "to the public." It did reserve the option of making that demand in its Final Report, which is scheduled for August.
The public duly appeared. On Thursday, May 3, three nights after the Report’s publication, about 150,000 assembled in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. Right and Left stood shoulder to shoulder, demanding the heads of Olmert and Peretz. The banner on the stage read, "Failures, go home.
The public blissfully forgot to count itself among the "failures." Those standing shoulder to shoulder in Rabin Square had also stood thus, figuratively speaking, on July 12, 2006 when they backed the decision to pound Lebanon. The Israeli consensus was seamless then too, only in the opposite direction. Warrior Olmert enjoyed celestial popularity. Even Meretz leader Yossi Beilin claimed, as late as August, that "the military response [to rocket fire -- Ed.] in the Gaza Strip is justified in our eyes, and the response in Lebanon no less" (Meretz website: "The Test of the Zionist Left"). more..
The ultimate entertainment
Shlomo Ben-Ami, Ha’aretz 5/17/2007
The various investigative committees in Israel, with their quasi-judicial authority and their strict operational rules - the committee is the investigator, the prosecutor and the judge, and the accused has no right of appeal - are a hybrid unlike anything found in Western democracy. The reason for that is the structural defect in Israel’s culture of government, which has caused the judicial system to accumulate power unparalleled in other democracies, to the point of eroding the separation of powers. The weakness of the regime and a defective political culture are the main reasons for the frequent use of investigative committees in Israel, and they are also the explanation for the fact that leaders, after being described as failures by the committee that they themselves appointed, do not resign on the spot. Investigative committees usually fulfill their role faithfully, and for the most part their conclusions are worthy. But through no fault of their own, they have become a kind of national therapy, creating the appearance that the truth is being thoroughly investigated and "things put in order," with the help of "recommendations" and "conclusions." At the same time, they always investigate the symptoms of the existential problems, and never the profound ills themselves. In so doing, they enable Israel to avoid even confronting its basic problems, not to mention solving them, thereby allowing the country to limp confidently into the next catastrophe. more..
Newsweek: A Grittier Trip to the Holy Land
Sarina Rosenberg, International Solidarity Movement 5/17/2007
The Israel that 18,000 young Jewish Americans will see this summer on the free, 10-day trip offered by Taglit-birthright Israel is a land of ancient religious sites, sandy beaches and buff young soldiers. "It’s a Jewish identity trip," says Wayne L. Firestone, president of Hillel, which runs one of the largest Birthright tours. But according to Dunya Alwan and Hannah Mermelstein, two Boston-based activists, the Birthright-sanctioned trips don’t give a true picture of Israel because they minimize the experience of the Palestinian people. (Mermelstein is Jewish; Alwan, the child of a Muslim-Jewish marriage, calls herself a "secular Muslim-Jew.") In 2005, the pair launched Birthright Unplugged, an "alternative" tour of the West Bank in which the Palestinian narrative takes center stage. This Israel is a land of refugee camps, military checkpoints and security fences. "We want to put people that would otherwise not have the access in direct contact with the Palestinian people," Mermelstein says. The Unplugged tours are relatively tiny, with just 60 travelers in two years, compared with Birthright’s 125,000 in seven years, but applications are increasing. The six-day trip costs $350 and stops at Hebron, Ramallah, and Dheisheh, a Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem. (Birthright avoids areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.) Accommodations reflect Palestinian living conditions, Mermelstein says"”the group rides in local buses and opts for home stays over hotels. Nova McGiffert, 24, an Austin, Texas, social worker who traveled on both Birthright and Birthright Unplugged last winter, says the latter drove home what she called the devastating results of an Israeli occupation. "During Unplugged, all of my nightmares came true about the realities of the situation," she says. more..
Father of Christian Zionism Leaves the Building
Bill Berkowitz, Electronic Intifada 5/17/2007
OAKLAND, United States, May 16 (IPS) - The right-wing U.S. Christian evangelist Jerry Falwell, who died Tuesday at the age of 73, is perhaps best known for his fundamentalist social positions and tirades against lesbians, gays and feminists, not to mention "pagans", "abortionists" and assorted other miscreants.
But Falwell also had a significant impact on U.S. foreign policy over the last 30 years, and was one of the founding fathers here of so-called Christian Zionism -- the belief that the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical "End Times" prophecy and thus deserving of political, financial and religious support.
Today, conservative evangelicals are a formidable lobby group in the United States and a key component of the Republican voting base. However, they had largely stayed out of politics until the mid-1970s, when Jimmy Carter’s declaration during the 1976 presidential campaign that he had been "born again" rejuvenated the political activism of the evangelical community. more..
And now, a fetus
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 5/17/2007
Memorial posters decorate the walls of the Rafidiya government hospital in Nablus, covering earlier posters of countless young people who have been killed. But this poster is like nothing we have seen before: a fetus covered in its own blood, its tiny head blown up by the bullet that struck its mother, and the caption - "Who gave you the right to steal his life?" The killing of the unborn child, Daoud, by Israel Defense Forces troops raises a series of moral, legal and philosophical questions. Is the killing of a fetus manslaughter? Is it murder? And how old is the victim? But all these questions are dwarfed by the woman lying stunned and injured in the maternity ward of the hospital in Nablus, in agony, with all kinds of tubes attached to her, refusing to answer a single question. It is obvious that Maha Katouni is still in a state of trauma. Wounded in the abdomen, she lies in bed, her elderly mother by her side. The tube in her nose makes it hard for her to speak. She is 30 years old and was in the seventh month of pregnancy, a mother who got up in the middle of the night to protect her three small children, sleeping in the other room, from the bullets that were whistling by outside. As soon as she got out of bed, the bullet struck her. Bleeding, she fell on the nightstand by her bed. Maha survived, but Daoud - as she and her husband planned to name their son - was removed from her womb with a bullet wound to the head. more..
As Gaza Burns
Laila El-Haddad writing from Gaza City, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/16/2007
Things have been crazy in Gaza over the past two days. Very crazy. In between working and actually trying to keep our wits about us as we’ve been holed up indoors for two days no, I’ve had little time to blog.
Things are enuosly calm at the moment with on-again-off-again gunfire, which is better than it was only a few hours ago. But things in Gaza have a way of cahnging very quickly-for better or for worse. Volatility is its defining characteristic.
We happen to be sort of be in the eye of the storm as it were. Fierce battles employing mortars, RPGs, and heavy machine gun fire were raging all around our house today, at times only a block away, interdispersed with the thuds of Israeli gunships bombing areas of eastern and northern Gaza.
Yousuf of course became more and more concerned as the day passed, until I finaly told him they were not firing, but rather making an enourmous pot of popcorn outside that would fill the streets once it was done. At first he wasn’t convinced, then he later remarkred "Mama, I don’t really like this kind of popocorn!" When the firing died down, he ran into my room excitedly shouting "Mama, Mama! I think the popcorn is done!!" more..
Samah Jabr: Stop another Nakba against Palestinians
Dr. Samah Jabr, Palestine Chronicle 5/16/2007
With the awful facts put by Israel on the ground, what remains for us of Palestine is a thought, an idea that becomes a conviction of our right to a free life and a homeland. Finally, a Palestinian National Unity Government has been realized, but aid and international goodwill have not been showered over the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians are still starved, haunted, isolated and abandoned by the world. Not even the latest Arab League adoption of the "pan-Arab initiative" of "A Land for Peace" peace plan could relieve Palestinians from their collective suffering due to the imposed economic blockade and the withholding of tax money, in addition to daily Israeli military strikes against Palestinian civilians. To any Palestinian gesture, the Israeli response is always ready: "Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called on the international community to ensure that Israel’s right to exist is respected by any Palestinian government.&rdquo. In response to the summit, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres demanded free-of-charge normalization: "We propose that we meet without setting pre-conditions and negotiate," he said. more..
Against The Two State Solution
Ilan Pappe, Middle East Online 5/16/2007
In face of the clear Palestinian demographic majority, eleven leaders of Zionism did not hesitate in March 1948 to resolve upon ethnic cleansing, as the best means - considering the failures of Zionist colonialism - to create a Jewish, ethnically pure, democracy over most of Palestine’s territory, says. Zionism was born out of two logical and justified impulses. The first was the desire to find a safe shore for the Jews of East and Central Europe, after decades of anti-semitic persecutions - and possibly also a premonition that there was worse to come. The second impulse was to redefine the Jewish religion as a national movement, under the influence of "The Spring of the Peoples" in the mid-Nineteenth Century.
When the leaders of the movement decided, for reasons which cannot be detailed here, that the only territory where these two impulses can be fulfilled is Palestine, where nearly a million people already lived - this movement turned into a colonial project.
This colonial project got its definite form after the First World War. Despite getting a wide Imperial umbrella - in the form of the British Mandate - as a colonial project it was not a success story. The settlers succeeded to take over a bare six percent of the Palestinian homeland, and to constitute only a third of the country’s population. more..
One State: Solution or Utopia
Uri Avnery, Middle East Online 5/16/2007
There is a world-wide consensus on the Two State solution, which has been reached by way of elimination: in reality, there is no other. But in order to be realized, support must come from the inside, from the Israeli public. This support we must create. That is our job, says. This is not a duel to the death of gladiators in a Roman arena.
Ilan Pappe and I are partners in the battle against the occupation. I respect his courage. We stand side by side in a joint struggle, but we advocate two sharply opposing goals.
What is the disagreement about.
We have no disagreement about the past. We agree that Zionism, which has made its mark on history and created the State of Israel, also brought a historic injustice upon the Palestinian people. The occupation is an abominable situation, and it must be ended. No debate about that.
Perhaps we also have no disagreement about the distant future. About what should happen in a hundred years. We shall touch upon that later in the evening.
But we have a sharp disagreement about the foreseeable future - the solution for the bleeding conflict during the next 20, 30, 50 years. more..
Michael Neumann: Two States, One State and Snake Oil
Michael Neumann, Palestine Chronicle 5/16/2007
What’s the point of this one-state solution? If the settlements are something to be legitimated, why not say the same--as Tilley hints--of all Israeli land claims, everywhere in Palestine? Those familiar with the Israel/Palestine conflict know that people propose one-state and two-state solutions. Two states means Israel plus a Palestinian state. One state means a single state covering all of Palestine. There is a sort of one-state solution that I consider unattainable but otherwise unobjectionable. It essentially calls for Palestine to be given back to the Palestinians. This need not be a violent process, but it is radical. It can mean that all Jewish families and individuals who entered Palestine in the last 100 years or so have to leave, abandoning all their landed property. A more moderate but still radical variant is that these people can stay, but not on land previously occupied by Palestinians, unless the previous occupants were willing to sell or rent that property. Whatever its disposition, there would have to be compensation for past illegitimate occupancy. Presumably this compensation would be pretty enormous, into the millions of dollars per incident. The rationale for these solutions is that the Zionists did not simply settle in Palestine as immigrants, but planned and achieved a state which gave Palestinians a choice: accept ethnic Jewish sovereignty or leave. One-staters can argue that no one should profit from this abhorrent plan, so that everything should in principle revert to the pre-Zionist state of affairs. more..
What Israel wants is within its reach
Raafat Dajani and Daniel Levy, Daily Star 5/17/2007
Israel just marked its 59th birthday recently and like a typical baby boomer, tends to vent its frustration at dreams not realized. Yet a core Israeli dream - to not only establish a state, but to have that state accepted in the Middle East and live at peace with its neighbors - is within reach. If only Israel, having finally gotten to "yes" with the Arab world, would recognize it. Amid all the Middle East doom and gloom, there are at least three reasons for real hope - Israeli, Palestinian and regional. On the Israeli side there is a belated realization that the absence of an agreed border, the ongoing occupation, and unfettered settlement activity have all been extremely costly in security, financial, and moral terms. Israelis are increasingly cognizant that application of the country’s military force delivers, at best, partial solutions and are keen to find a negotiated way forward. They are distrustful of the Palestinians’ intentions and capacity to deliver, but view the Arab world as a more reliable and robust partner. On the Palestinian side, and contrary to conventional wisdom in the US, the Mecca unity government deal between Fatah and Hamas in many ways represents a broadening Palestinian consensus around the inevitability of a two-state solution and acceptance of Israel as an irreversible reality. According to the unity government platform, President Mahmoud Abbas is authorized to negotiate with Israel, with any agreement reached having to be approved by a referendum or Palestine Liberation Organization vote, the legitimacy of which all parties would accept. External Arab states’ involvement helped to lock in this deal and would presumably be again required to back up a Palestinian sign-off on a permanent-status peace deal with Israel. more..
Anna’s Blog
International Womens’ Peace Service 5/15/2007
A few weeks ago I attended an event commemorating Palestinian Prisoner’s Day at Al Far’a Refugee Camp in the Tubas area. To enter the theatrical and cultural spectacle we had to pass through a makeshift checkpoint with soldiers pointing their guns in our faces and screaming in Hebrew for us to get back. Although I knew these were Palestinian actors role-playing the harassment they experience daily, it was very frightening to have men with guns yell at me in a foreign language and stick killing machines in my face. I realized immediately that although I witness harassment at checkpoints constantly, as a white Jewish American woman of extreme privilege I can never really know what it feels like to go through one as a Palestinian. I suspected the actors had been instructed to especially focus on Western attendees to illustrate some of the abusive behavior we remain so shielded from. It was very effective. Inside the spectacle, hundreds of locals and visitors were watching performers depict typical scenes of interrogation, abuse, and torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and detention centers. Some of the actors wore blindfolds, handcuffs, and chains and gave moving monologues about the injustice of abuse and imprisonment without trial in an occupier’s land. Others played Israeli soldiers and guards. After the play as a finale, young Palestinian boys danced Debka to signify cultural pride and continuity in spite of monstrous hardships and injustices. more..
Leaders who follow ordinary people’s courage earn respect
Karma Nabulsi, The Guardian 5/17/2007
How could a prime minister destroy a country, in full view of his people and the media, and not be called to account? In 1965 a professor at Brandeis University, in the US, wrote an essay dedicated to his students. At the height of the violent civil rights struggle in the southern US and the country’s brutal immersion in Vietnam, Herbert Marcuse’s Repressive Tolerance described a system where democratic institutions had begun to fail in their role of protecting and developing the essential qualities of their progressive nature. Instead of a political culture devoted to civic participation and a dynamic and democratic public space, he illustrated the precise means by which it had become a mechanism to exclude truth and knowledge, to repress the weak and vulnerable, and to strengthen those in power in increasingly unaccountable ways. What could possibly remain of a concept so steeped in the outdated politics and culture of its time? Yet what was provocatively advanced as a new phenomenon in democratic society is today taken as commonplace. Across the ideological spectrum, people feel helpless and disconnected from political life and from being able to effect real change. The level of public debate and participation has fragmented into a cacophony of voices arguing on conflicting interests in a "tolerant" and "neutral" arena, unable to organise in an effective collectivity. Moral issues of urgency are not only avoided, but given a different reality altogether. Desperate problems - which do have answers - are obscured and then dismissed as "controversies", as if there were two sides over which one had, at all costs, to remain neutral. more..
The Nakba has Never Ended
Julia Pitner, Electronic Intifada 5/15/2007
With the celebration of Israel’s 59th year of independence comes the mourning of the 59th year of what the Palestinians call Al-Nakba -- the disaster. Israel celebrated its Independence this week by "locking down" the Palestinians in their towns and villages through the total closure of all checkpoints encircling major Palestinian population centers. This year, the Palestinians will remember their nearly six decades of dispossession by marking the expulsion of vast majority of the people; splitting up of families; and the creation of hundred’s of thousands of refugees, many of whom remain refugees today.They will remember the villages that no longer exist and the family farmlands that are now Israeli cities, shopping malls, forests, farms, and highways, places that Palestinians are not even allowed to visit.But those who remain in Palestine will also remember that they are still here, and they will swear that they will never again be forced to leave their lands and families. But this is a difficult oath to keep, not only because of IDF brutality, but also because of the structural, systematic violence of Israeli bureaucracy. The sad truth is that while the Palestinians commemorate the Nakba of 1948, the disaster is ongoing up until today. Now, however, the oppression is subtler than the forced marches of the citizens of Ramla, the forced exodus of hundreds of thousands, or those who fled from violence or from the fear and confusion about what the Jewish militias were threatening or the Arab governments promising. It is a slow, forced exodus that is not exciting enough to warrant any airtime or column space. We are witnessing the slow but sure strangulation of Palestinian culture and existence in their homeland through Israeli bureaucratic policies and strategies. Palestinians are a people being squeezed to death, not only by a wall that cuts off farmers from their ancestral lands and splits families in two, but also by a system of paper, permits, proof, and permissions. more..
A double Nakba in Gaza
Rami Almeghari writing from the Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/15/2007
My pen is bleeding, my hand is shaking, my heart is sighing and my mind is stuffed with the bitter experiences of the past 14 months. The latest is today’s anniversary of the Palestinian catastrophe (Nakba); today is a double Nakba.
My ideas are scrambled; however, I must rein them all in and allow my words to flow, with the hope of reaching hearts, minds and souls.
"I prefer death to these days; death is much better than these moments when a brother kills his brother", said Yousef Almadhoun, also known as Abu Mohammad, a 77-year-old man from the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya.
Abu Mohammad says that at his age he recalls the days of the Nakba in 1948 when Jewish gangs attacked Palestinian towns so they could drive Palestinians out and establish their ’state’ on the land.
"I wonder as to what is going nowadays. I do wonder why brothers fight each other. We are still suffering the first Nakba, and we don’t need another Nakba. What is going on is haram, haram [pity].
Abu Mohammad adds, "When I was young, I recall that the Jewish gangs, who crushed us out of Palestine, used to be united irrespective of their names; the Haganah, the Stern, the Irgun and others. The generation of today who battle in streets can never get us my land back.
"The generation of today cannot liberate Palestine, cannot restore their ancestors’ lands", Abu Mahmoud says of the fighting parties in Gaza Strip, sighing bitterly. more..
Forty years of ’unity’
Haaretz Editorial, Ha’aretz 5/15/2007
What a pity that we can’t convert into shekels the lip service public figures have been paying for 40 years to the slogan "united Jerusalem." The sea of words that has been spilled over the biblical reference to Jerusalem as a city that has been "joined together" could have filled the deep and gaping chasm between East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem. As every year, the joy of Jerusalem Day, which is commemorated today, will skip over a significant portion of the city’s residents. All that is left of the annexation of Palestinian neighborhoods to the western, Israeli part of Jerusalem is a dry Knesset law, government decisions that lack substance,and the blue national identity cards that symbolize Israeli residency. Jerusalem Day reminds a third of the 730,000 residents of the ostensibly united city that they are second-class citizens - or, worse still, a "demographic problem." Israel has separated them from their brothers in the West Bank and has made no effort to give them the feeling that they are wanted here. more..
The children of Al Hadidiya live here no more
Daphne Banai, International Solidarity Movement 5/15/2007
A month ago we went to see the people of El Hadidiya. They have been living in the Israeli Occupied Jordan Valley for over 100 years, but have been expelled - to accommodate the needs of the illegal Israeli settlement that popped up around them. For the last 10 years, Palestinians in Hadidiya have been living near the settlement of Ro’i, growing wheat and tending to their sheep. But their Israeli settler neighbors demanded their removal because theyfancied their land. In despair the Hadidiya family turned to the Israeli Supreme Court looking for justice, for protection, from the colonizers’ judicial system. What a joke ! Claiming they were nomads (they are not - they try to settle and own the land !) - the court said it would not matter where they settle, and rejected their claim…. They turned their hoping eyes to us, and we had nothing to to offer them. What could we do? What could we say? That we’ll help. Today we came again to see what’s happening with those gentle people and found ruins, destruction and lots of medications (for a broken heart. An old bike, some coins that are not in use any more, men’s shoes coupled up tidily - as if waiting for a couple of bare feet to make their way in, a dovecote - all the doves flying around it, a child’s toy. The place still smells of life, carried on the sounds of death. Everywhere I looked I could see the eyes of these little children piercing me. Will they come haunting us forever? And how does one live with the pain, with the shame. more..
AIC: Paying for the Occupation
Cara Loverock, International Solidarity Movement 5/15/2007
The Village of Husan Near Bethlehem -- In the Palestinian village of Husan , Mahmoud, like so many farmers in the West Bank, faces daily challenges in having his land close to a settlement, which brings harassment, destruction and abuse with no help in sight. Mahmoud lives in the village of Husan, near Bethlehem in the southeastern part of the West Bank, with his wife and six children; three girls and three boys. To make a living Mahmoud and his family work their land, which has become increasingly difficult over the years. The family"s property is located in an area adjacent to Husan village in what is now the Israeli settlement of Betar Illit. Mahmoud and his family have faced a great deal of hardship from settlers attempting to destroy their land, "śMany people from there, from the settlement, come and cut the trees"¦They damage our wall, our stone wall."ť Recently settlers set fire to his land, not only causing damage, but now Mahmoud is being charged for having the fire extinguished, “This amount that they wanted from us in the beginning was 40,000 shekels,” explains Mahmoud. He says that after many appointments with officials they had it reduced, “We succeeded to limit this number from 40 to 14,000 shekels.” Although the fire was set by the Betar Illit settlers and put out by the Israeli fire authority, without asking, Mahmoud’s family is stuck with the bill. “Their sons do the fire and their fathers come to put it out and they want from us to pay for this”, he says. more..
The Dirty Civil War
Fadi Abu Saada, International Middle East Media Center 5/16/2007 and so street fight returned to Gaza, and the indications of the war which we warned of for so long has returned to the streets… as if the internal clashed had ever stopped, since they spoke about the Mecca Unity Deal the internal clashes never ceased, but continued of different scales, and by delinquency it seemed to have faded away… but now the bloodshed has returned to the streets, alleys and hospitals of the Gaza Strip. Translated & edited by Sa’ed Bannoura - IMEMC.
Under the current conditions that we as Palestinians are going through, under the unjust international Israeli-led siege, the siege which should unite us and unite our efforts, and in spite of the Israeli threats against the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip… our guns lost their paths once again and lost their direction.
As Israel celebrates its independence, which is and not by accident the day our land was occupied, and our people were killed and expelled, and as Israel is celebrating “Jerusalem day”, which is the day when Israel captured the East of Jerusalem, annexed it to West Jerusalem, and declared the “United Jerusalem” as the eternal capital of the State of Israel, we still insist to inflict a new Nakba “cataclysm” on ourselves, as if the first Nakba is 1948, and the second in 1967 were not enough, and as if the unjust siege imposed on every Palestinian is not enough. I can’t help but wonder about what is going on… what are you doing, isn’t this siege enough… did you forget that you all swore by the name of God to remain united, and not to fight each other ever again??!! It seems that even swearing by the “name of God” does not matter anymore? Can’t we stop this internal fighting? Or maybe … just maybe the causes of this internal fighting are yet unknown, therefore the issue is bigger than what we thought... more..
Aid to PA nearly tripled in ’06, despite international boycott
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 5/15/2007
Donations to the Palestinian Authority almost tripled last year as a result of the international boycott of the Hamas government, according to a report published this month by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Aid in 2006 totaled $900 million, up from $349 million a year earlier. The boycott meant that most countries refused to channel money directly to the PA, and Israel refused to transfer the tax revenues it collects on the PA’s behalf. However, Arab and Western nations continued and even increased their donations, channeling them through either a "Hamas bypass" mechanism known as the Temporary International Mechanism (TIM), or the office of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. This money, which compensated entirely for the halt in Israeli tax transfers, partially financed the salaries of PA employees and was used to make welfare payments to the needy. GDP fell by 10 percent. Normally, Israeli tax transfers cover about two-thirds of the Palestinian Authority’s budget. Had economic activity in 2006 continued at the same level as the year before, they would have reached an estimated $800 million last year. But in fact, the PA’s gross domestic product fell by 8 to 10 percent in 2006. According to the report, the biggest contributor to the PA last year was the Arab League, which gave $448 million. more..
Forgive us our racism
Goel Pinto, Ha’aretz 5/15/2007
The murder of Taysir Karaki of Beit Hanina, 35 and the father of five, was carried out by a single individual, but the soil on which the Jewish-French terrorist Julian Soufir thrived nevertheless bears collective examination. More than a few French Jews explained during the recent presidential election campaign that they were for Nicolas Sarkozy because of the iron fist he employed against first-generation Muslim immigrants in the Paris suburb riots of 2005. His unequivocal support for the Jewish community after Ilan Halimi’s murder in 2006 and the fact he ascribed anti-Semitic motives to it also helped Sarkozy to win over many French Jews. Remarks along the lines of "the Arabs are taking over France" and "we need a real man to put things right here" were voiced by more than a few Jews during the campaign. ...The time has come for the State of Israel to place a mirror before France’s Jews, who are dancing at two weddings at the same time. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Acting President Dalia Itzik should pay a visit to the family of the murder victim and ask for forgiveness in the name of the state and the Jewish people, just as Jordan’s King Hussein did after the murder of the seven girls from Beit Shemesh in the Naharayim terror attack in 1997, just as the French president and his wife, Jacques and Bernadette Chirac, and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin did following Halimi’s murder when they attended his memorial service at a Paris synagogue. more..
Coretta Scott King and the Jewish National Fund
Ben White, Electronic Intifada 5/15/2007
Towards the end of April, the Associated Press filed a story reproduced by, amongst others, Ha’aretz, Guardian Unlimited, and CNN, reporting that "Israel will name a forest in northern Galilee after Coretta Scott King", part of a wider campaign to replant "thousands of trees destroyed during last year’s war with Hezbollah". At least 10,000 trees will be designated as a "living memorial to King’s legacy of peace and justice", according to US Israeli ambassador Sallai Meridor. Although it was a small story that merited a few paragraphs of a news agency feed, unpacking this publicity stunt can be instructive in understanding just how successful Zionist propaganda has been in tapping into US popular culture, appropriating symbols for Israel’s benefit.
The choice to name the forest after the wife of Martin Luther King resonates with Americans on three levels, each with specific propaganda value. Firstly, it suggests a shared struggle between African Americans and Jews against persecution, a historical and contemporary reality that is both true and false at the same time. The news of the new Coretta forest was accompanied by a tree planting in Washington D.C., attended by two black members of Congress; one, Rep. Alcee Hastings, commented how "Jews and blacks share a common historical bond of persecution and perseverance". Of course, in one sense African Americans and Jews have been and are subjected to persecution by state and non-state actors. Yet there is also a level of meaning that is explicitly Zionist -- that the modern state of Israel is a besieged haven for worldwide Jewry, at once the saviour and the persecuted. In a complete inversion of reality, the Israeli state is associated with the US civil rights movement in order to appropriate a symbol of the weak’s struggle against the strong: Israel the coloniser becomes Israel the ’victim’... more..
America’s suicidal statecraft in the Middle East
Shlomo Ben-Ami, Daily Star 5/16/2007
[An interesting article and event, despite the attempt to sanitize the "First" Gulf War. - Ed.] Since its victory in the Cold War, America’s global hegemony has rested on three pillars: economic power, military might, and a vast capacity to export its popular culture. The recent emergence of additional powers - the European Union, China, India, and a Russia driven to recover its lost status - has eroded America’s capacity to shape events unilaterally. Even so, America remains by far the world’s most powerful country; its decline has more to do with its incompetent use of power than with the emergence of competitors. It is American leaders’ "suicidal statecraft," to use Arnold Toynbee’s pithy phrase for what he considered the ultimate cause of imperial collapse, that is to blame for America’s plight. Consider the Middle East. Nothing reveals the decline of the United States in the region better than the contrast between America’s sober use of power in the first Gulf War in 1991 and the hubris and deceit of today’s Iraq war. more..
Memory as a blueprint for the future
George Bisharat, Electronic Intifada 5/13/2007
Why do some people have the power to remember, while others are asked to forget? That question is especially poignant at this time of year, as we move from Holocaust Remembrance day in early spring to Monday’s anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948.
In the months surrounding that date, Jewish forces expelled, or intimidated into flight, an estimated 750,000 Palestinians. A living, breathing, society that had existed in Palestine for centuries was smashed and fragmented, and a new society built on its ruins.
Few Palestinian families lack a personal narrative of loss from that period -- an uncle killed, or a branch of the family that fled north while the others fled east, never to be reunited, or homes, offices, orchards and other property seized. Ever since, Palestinians worldwide have commemorated May 15 as Nakba (Catastrophe) Day.
No ethical person would admonish Jews to "forget the Holocaust." Indeed, recent decades have witnessed victims of that terrible era not only remembering, but also regaining paintings and financial assets seized by the Nazis -- and justifiably so.
Other victims of mass wrongs -- interned Japanese Americans, enslaved African Americans, and Armenians subjected to a genocide that may have later convinced Hitler of the feasibility of mass killings -- receive at least respectful consideration of their cases, even while responses to their claims have differed.
Yet in dialogues with Israelis, and some Americans, Palestinians are repeatedly admonished to "forget the past," that looking back is "not constructive" and "doesn’t get us closer to a solution." Ironically, Palestinians live the consequences of the past every day -- whether as exiles from their homeland, or as members of an oppressed minority within Israel, or as subjects of a brutal and violent military occupation. more..
Ennab Checkpoint; torture and hardship
Ikrima Thabit, International Middle East Media Center 5/14/2007
You cannot escape these roadblocks, they are everywhere. Permanent ones and temporary ones, they have become the border within the border within the border … they are every few kilometers on the main roads, and even on the small roads. There is no way to avoid them. Every Palestinian who travels even the shortest of distances is forced to go through these checkpoints.
At each one, you can see hundreds of cars and thousands of Palestinians just waiting, some of them going to work or coming back home, others going or coming back from educational facilities, hospitals, medical centers and other places.
The long hours of waiting end with humiliation, search and often mistreatment by the soldiers who might have become bored with their duty, or may have developed a kind of amusement in this duty of humiliating the people and mistreating them.
It does not matter if you are a pregnant woman, a hospital patient, handicapped, a government employee or even a political leader. Every Palestinian has to go through the humiliation of these roadblocks. Even ambulances, doctors and medical teams on emergency calls have to wait.
Ennab checkpoint is one example of hundreds of checkpoints spread through the occupied West Bank. It is considered a small roadblock, but it has become one of the worst roadblocks installed by the army. more..
Gaza: Calm before the storm
Philip Rizk writing from Gaza City, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/13/2007
This must be what they call the calm before the storm.
By 7pm all the main street intersections in Gaza City were filled with guards wearing face masks. It seems every time a new security plan is declared in Gaza the situation gets worse. This morning my friend Jamal greeted his neighbor Baha’ Abu Jarad as he left his home for a days work; ten minutes later Baha’ was dead. Jamal, shaken up, informed me of the incident over the phone, while trying to hold back tears.
This morning I spent with the Sisters of Charity at their shelter for disabled children in downtown Gaza City. One boy, Abbas, can’t stop smiling, always active and excited about something unknown to me.
When I first started going to the shelter a boy called Na’el, with a consistent look of fear in his eyes, would hold on to me not wanting to let me go. Sister Delphina told me that was the first time since he had arrived at the home that he had allowed a male to hold him. Na’el is deaf and she assumed he had been abused by his father before he was dropped off at their shelter. Na’el can walk but he has to be holding on to something, either a person’s hand or a table, door or his little wheeled chair. So today sister Dolphina and I tried to get him to walk on his own because I am sure he can, he just doesn’t trust himself. As soon as I would try to let go of his hand to let him walk alone his face would fill with an immense expression of fear. more..
Extend the truce to the West Bank
Danny Rubinstein, Ha’aretz 5/14/2007
It is doubtful that there are any reasonable military means for stopping the firing of Qassam missiles at Israel. However, it is perfectly clear to all Palestinian spokesmen, as well as to a good many Israelis, that there is only one diplomatic way to stop the Qassam attacks, and that is to extend the fragile truce in Gaza to the West Bank as well. To put this more clearly: It is necessary to stop preventive actions taken by the Israel Defense Forces in Judea and Samaria. This assessment is based on recent political developments in the Palestinian camp. The Palestinians are anxiously awaiting progress concerning the Arab peace initiative. King Abdullah of Jordan’s visit to Ramallah - which did not go ahead as planned yesterday - and expected visits by the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan to Israel, have raised hopes. All of this, however, cannot solve the problem of the security chaos that prevails in the territories, or dispel the fears of an imminent Israel attack. This is the reason that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) spent time in Gaza last week: It was an attempt to establish or to renew the truce with Israel. In this context a meeting was held of representatives of the large organizations - Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front and the Democratic Front - chaired by Palestinian Member of Parliament Ibrahim Abu Naja. They made a decision that calls for observing the cease-fire under three conditions: The first is that it apply everywhere - that is, also in the West Bank. The second is that it be reciprocal: Israel will refrain from any military activity in the territories. The third: that the cease-fire will take effect simultaneously, on the Palestinian side as well as Israel’s. more..
Like an unaccompanied new driver
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 5/14/2007
They say Ehud Olmert is actually the victim of an arrogant chief of staff and a negligent army. They say a properly-run country cannot change prime ministers like socks and hold Knesset elections every year. They say haste makes waste and that the guillotine can wait. They say that if Ehud Olmert resigns, he is liable to be replaced by a leader who has not been through a single war. They say early elections will bring Benjamin Netanyahu back into power. And Olmert himself says that he does not have to resign, because resignation "is a demonstration of irresponsibility." Had attorney Ehud Olmert been found guilty of causing the death of passengers who were waiting at a traffic light, he would have sat in prison and been barred from getting behind the wheel for many years. But after his decisions caused the deaths of more than 150 Israeli civilians and soldiers, and hundreds of Lebanese civilians, Olmert continues to sit in the Prime Minister’s Office and to hold the reins of government. Had Olmert been accused of embezzling public funds to benefit his former law partner, he would have been sent to prison and lost his license to practice law, but after the serious conclusions of the Winograd Committee, which he himself appointed, Olmert continues to sit in the Prime Minister’s Office and declares that he would do the same thing today. more..
Arab journalists are under more than one kind of fire
Daoud Kuttab, Daily Star 5/15/2007
Arab journalists, more than any other journalists around the world, need security. They need physical security and economic security as well as the security of strong laws and regulations. Being an independent journalist in the Arab world is not a very safe profession. If you are working in the two most media-productive areas in the Arab world (Iraq and Palestine) you are constantly in very direct danger. If you are a photographer or TV cameraperson the level of danger is much higher. The problem lately is that you can’t predict where the danger comes from. While traditional armies can be dangerous to independent journalists, internal struggles and unrestrained local groups and militias are rapidly becoming the main concern for the safety of journalists. But even if one’s life is not in direct danger, the most basic need of a journalist - to travel and move from one location to another - can be hampered by checkpoints and administrative roadblocks as well as unpredictable snipers and settlers. more..
World Bank exposes the blatantly obvious
Sonja Karkar, Electronic Intifada 5/14/2007
It should have happened sooner, but at least it has happened now. Israel has been exposed by the august World Bank for its oppressive control of the West Bank. Three weeks before global protests begin against 40 years of Israel’s occupation, the report reveals what every government knows, but not one has been prepared to stop. Effectively, the report challenges the notion of a viable two-state solution under Israel’s current restrictions and illegal land appropriations. According to the report, the West Bank has been fragmented into 10 isolated non-contiguous ghettoes which is an impossible configuration for any viable state, and this is made even more bizarre by the presence of some 250,000 illegal Jewish settlers (excluding those in East Jerusalem) who exercise control over 50 percent of the West Bank.And the Wall, says the report, exceeds at times Israel’s security needs and seems rather to contribute to, along with restrictive zoning and land use rules and practices, Jewish settlement expansion.
The Bank’s report is timely and welcome, but curiously it does not mention the effects of the sanctions that the West and Israel imposed on the Palestinians at the beginning of last year. At the time, the World Bank had stated that the Palestinian economy would shrink by 27 percent in 2006 -- "a one year contraction that compares to the Great Depression in the US".In other words, the Palestinian economy was in danger of collapse even then and the warnings were not acted upon. Instead, the world cavalierly continued with its sanctions because it did not approve of the newly elected Hamas government -- democratically elected in fair and transparent elections overseen by former US president Jimmy Carter.Now, the World Bank is ratcheting up its dire warnings about the prohibitive restrictions that have decimated the Palestinian economy: as long as the political situation remains unresolved and the economy continues to depend on foreign assistance simply for survival, there is very little prospect of a sustainable economic recovery. Certainly not the sort of sustained growth rates that can provide decent living standards for an expanding population. Any reversal of the situation, says the report, would have to entail dismantling Israel’s grid of physical and administrative barriers. more..
Mainstream media caught in the MEMRI mouse trap
Tom Wallace, Electronic Intifada 5/14/2007
Normally CNN, FOX, MSNBC and the New York Times have little in common with each other, let alone blogs like little green footballs, Americablog or the Huffington Post. But when it comes to disseminating Israel’s message, all are on the same page.
On May 8, CNN, FOX and MSNBC began reporting on a Hamas-created children’s show, currently broadcast on Al Aqsa TV in Gaza, which features a Mickey Mouse-like cartoon character who does everything from teaching kids about the benefits of drinking milk to disseminating what CNN’s Jim Clancy described as "powerful message of HATE, RESISTANCE and DEFIANCE [sic]". MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch, two pro-Israel propaganda groups, compiled and provided the video, the translation and some commentary.
None of the media outlets that ran the story bothered to get independent verification of the translation and of course it was disputed by the Arab correspondent/translator at CNN Octavia Nassar. By the time CNN’s resident racist Glenn Beck got around to adding his two cents to the fracas, he was prevented from running the video as the dispute over the translation surfaced. Instead, Beck interviewed the director of MEMRI and ranted about the "unseen forces" which caused the video to be pulled. All others ran the clip with different commentary, but equal outrage. more..
A political marriage of necessity: A single state of Palestine-Israel
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada 5/14/2007
As Israel celebrates 59 years of independence, Palestinians on May 14 commemorate the Nakba, the catastrophe of expulsion and decades of exile that continue to this day.
When my mother was nine years old, she and her family mounted the back of a pickup truck and left their village of Lifta, adjacent to Jerusalem, under threat from Zionist militias. My grandmother covered the furniture in the family home that my grandfather had built. Anticipating a short absence until fighting in the area died down, they took only a few clothes. That was almost six decades ago. Like hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians, they were never allowed to return, and their property was seized by Israel.
My mother remembers her early childhood and the Jewish neighbors who rented the apartment her father owned. She recalls helping them on the Sabbath and playing with their daughter after school. A life such as this is no more than a distant memory for most Palestinian refugees, who, with their descendants, now number more than 5 million. more..
Twilight Zone / A day in the life
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 5/10/2007
We were just sitting down on the plastic chairs in the living room when the noise began. Boom after boom, volleys of gunfire. Closer, farther away, single shots and rounds of automatic fire. Occasionally, too, a brief respite. Jamal poured coffee as usual. Another cup, another cigarette. The firing continues. How are you? What’s doing? But it’s clear that the shooting is now very close, almost on the other side of the wall. At the Jalama checkpoint, on the way here, we hadn’t noticed an ominous sign: a convoy of armored vehicles of the Israel Defense Forces was parked along the roadside. Maybe they were waiting to enter. Air force planes above, rattling the windows and the thin walls with their sonic booms. On the street, life goes on as usual: It’s midday and the children are on the way home from school, backpacks on shoulders, their mothers chatting as they wait for them in the alley, the mobile-grocery man announcing his produce via a noisy loudspeaker attached to his vehicle. The volleys of fire are growing louder and more insistent. That’s life. But now it becomes clear even to Jamal Zbeidi, a veteran of suffering and struggle, that something is happening in the camp, something is happening - again. Late the night before, too, IDF troops had entered the camp and wounded an armed young man in the leg. He managed to get away and reached the adjacent house. The neighbors dressed the wound and tried to persuade him to wait for first light, but his pain intensified and he begged to be taken to a hospital. Jamal called an ambulance. As it approached the house, an IDF Jeep that had been waiting in ambush at the corner of the street suddenly swooped in. The soldiers, who did not dare leave their armored vehicle, ordered the paramedics to turn over the wounded youngster. They bundled him into the Jeep and drove off, ordering the ambulance to drive ahead. more..
Suppressing critics of Israel: The campaign against Norman Finkelstein
Bitta Mostofi, Electronic Intifada 5/10/2007
In recent weeks a considerable amount has been written and said about Norman Finkelstein’s bid for tenure at DePaul University.As most academics are aware, it is unique for a tenure decision, something that is an inherently internal process, to be subject to external discussion. Unfortunately, Finkelstein’s case is important because of the way in which is not unique. Forces outside DePaul have attempted to interfere with the University’s process in an effort to sway its decision towards denial of Finkelstein’s tenure. This campaign is part of a pattern of attacks aimed at silencing prominent critics of the Israeli government. The goal is to erode the willingness of academics, journalists, politicians and individuals to speak out against Israel’s human rights record for fear of losing their jobs. In discussing Finkelstein’s case on Democracy Now, Avi Shlaim, Oxford professor and notable scholar on the Israel-Palestine conflict, stated, "Israel has no immunity to criticism, moral immunity to criticism, because of the Holocaust. Israel is a sovereign nation-state, and it should be judged by the same standards as any other state. And Norman Finkelstein is a very serious ... a ... well-informed ... and hard-hitting critic of Israeli practices in the occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians. Finkelstein’s academic credentials speak for themselves. He received his doctorate from Princeton University on the Theory of Zionism and has since gone on to publish a number of works on the topic including The Holocaust Industry and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. more..
’I feel a great sadness’
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 5/13/2007
Last Saturday, exactly two years after Kofi Annan appointed him to replace Terje Roed-Larsen as the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Under-Secretary General Alvaro de Soto headed back to UN headquarters in New York. The 64-year-old Peruvian diplomat’s 25 years of distinguished service in the world’s most important international organizations came to an endwith more of a whimper than a bang. He bid farewell to a bleeding Palestinian society and a confused Israel society. De Soto left his Palestinian friends with a World Bank report that points to a serious humanitarian situation in the territories that fall under Israel’s responsibility. He left his Israeli friends grappling with the Winograd report, which points up the state of the leadership on which the fate of the residents of Israel and the territories is dependent. De Soto earned his laurels in El Salvador, where he spent most of the 1980s. There, he shuttled tirelessly between the government and the rebels and emerged with a peace agreement that put an end to a conflict that had left the small country with 75,000 dead. In the late 1990s, he was sent to mediate between the Greeks and the Turks in Cyprus. more..
What if they spoke to each other?
Zvi Bar'el, Ha’aretz 5/14/2007
What does the National Security Council know about Syria’s leader, Basher Assad, that others don’t know? Where does its decisiveness come from in determining that Assad’s intentions to reach peace are serious? What does the American secretary of defense, Robert Gates, know when declaring that the diplomatic measures against Iran are progressing well? What did Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni suddenly find in the Saudi initiative that makes her ready to adopt it as the new political horizon? Indeed, no new or secret information reached these decision makers, no panicked telegram from Assad or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And the Saudi initiative has been around for five years. Thus, there is a creeping suspicion that the title "decision makers" is suddenly becoming filled with content. They are prepared to change reality instead of reacting to it, to push forward diplomacy instead of war. more..
Book Review: "Overcoming Zionism"
Raymond Deane, Electronic Intifada 5/13/2007
Born in 1936 in Brooklyn of Ukrainian Jewish parents, Joel Kovel is the author of 10 books and over 100 articles. He practiced psychiatry and psychoanalysis for 24 years, abandoning them in the mid-1980s partly because of dissatisfaction with the US health care system and partly because of his intensified and multifarious political activism on the left. Describing himself as an "eco-socialist," in 1998 he was the Green party candidate for Senator from New York and two years later sought that party’s Presidential nomination, losing out to Ralph Nader. Since 2003 he has been Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal, Capitalism Nature Socialism. Overcoming Zionism, his first book on the question of Israel, is a contribution to the growing body of literature advocating "a single democratic state in Israel/Palestine." However, while Kovel’s subtitle is longer than his title, it is the devastating critique of Zionism that occupies eight of the book’s ten chapters. What is unique about Kovel’s project is its multi-perspectival nature: he demolishes Zionism fromhistorical, political, cultural, environmental, ethical, and psychological perspectives, and still has space left for elegant invective and stimulating digression. In a word, his argument isn’t merely empirical, but in the broadest sense philosophical and often requires considerable concentration from the reader: such concentration is amply rewarded.
Zionism seeks "the restoration of tribalism in the guise of a modern, highly militarized and aggressive state." It "cut Jews off from what history they did possess and led to a fateful identity of interest with antisemitism, which became ... the only thing that united them." It "fell into the ways of imperialist expansion and militarism, and showed signs of the fascist malignancy." Zionists and their ilk -- those who build literal and metaphorical separation walls -- are "the splinters under the skin of humanity." In short, "if you sign on to the idea of a Jewish state, you are taking the particularism that is the potential bane of any state, mixing it with the exceptionalism that is the actual bane of Judaism, and giving racism an objective, enduring, institutionalized and obdurate character." Israel, he concludes, has "turned itself into a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses." more..
Michigan school closes its doors to Palestinian voices
Elissa Mugianis, Electronic Intifada 5/9/2007
In mid February of 2007 two Palestinian, nonviolent human-rights activists, Mohammad Khatib and Feryal Abu Haikal, were in the Detroit area as part of a national tour. The Roeper School, located in the Detroit suburbs of Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham, with a body of 630 gifted students from preschool to 12th grade, was contacted to host the speakers. The school seemed to be an ideal place for Khatib and Abu Haikal to give their presentations as its philosophy has an "optimistic and humanistic view of life," with a commitment to justice, non-violence, and "accepting one’s obligation to make the world a better place for everyone." Roeper agreed to host the speakers.
As a member of a local cosponsoring group, the Michigan International Solidarity Movement, and a graduate of the Roeper School, I was elated that these two grassroots human rights activists would present at a place I still considered home.
George and Annemarie Roeper, founders of the Roeper School, purposefully created a school with such a philosophy -- in great part due to their personal experiences. The School website says of the Roepers, and the history of the school: "George and Annemarie were refugees from Germany, witnesses to the moral cataclysm of Hitler’s Third Reich. Once in this country, the couple dedicated themselves to creating an environment in which a powerful few would never again be able to impose their will upon an unchallenging majority. more..
It smells like discrimination
Muhammad Amara, Ha’aretz 5/9/2007
The widening gap between Israel’s Jewish majority and the Arab minority is worrying and poses many questions as to the country’s Arab-Jewish coexistence. Nearly every day statements are heard from senior figures concerning the legitimacy of Arab citizens, and unbridled attacks have become routine: MK Israel Hasson of Yisrael Beiteinu is talking about a second War of Independence against the Arab citizens in Israel, MK Otniel Schneller of Kadima is talking about establishing task forces to examine the possibility of population exchanges and the head of the Shin Bet security service is talking about the Arabs as a strategic threat. Public opinion polls show that more than half of the Jewish respondents support government encouragement of Arab emigration, and a high percentage of those surveyed think Arab citizens do not deserve full equality. To put it simply, a significant segment of the Jews does not believe in real partnership with the country’s Arab citizens. The "lynch" atmosphere of recent weeks and the unprecedented verbal attacks on the Arab leadership in particular and the Arab public in general is intolerable. Many Arabs see the investigation of former Balad MK Azmi Bishara as political persecution whose aim is to deal with Arabs who constitute a strategic threat - as defined by the head of the Shin Bet. The latter has declared that the Shin Bet "will take care of" any attempt to change the Jewish nature of the state, even if this is done by Arabs using democratic means. more..
Ali Abunimah discusses the persecution of Azmi Bishara on Flashpoints
Interview, Electronic Intifada 5/9/2007
(AUDIO) Interview - Flashpoints Radio -- EI co-founder Ali Abunimah was interviewed on Flashpoints Radio on Monday, 7 May 2007. He joined host Nora Barrows-Friedman to discuss the persecution of Azmi Bishara, who recently resigned from the Israeli Kenesset and is now effectively living in exile, unable to return to his country. Abunimah told Barrows-Friedman, "The reason Israel announced the investigation when Bishara was outside the country, and then ... announced that he could face the death penalty if he returned, was that Israel wants him out of the country because they do not want the Palestinian community in Israel to be galvanized around the message of democracy, to forge connections with the rest of the Palestinian community -- those in the diaspora and those in the West Bank and Gaza. And Bishara, by far and away, is the key figure that has in recent years been able to do that. So this is an attack on the entire community and it is an attempt to maintain or forestall ... change to the Apartheid system which exists in Israel. [MP3 - 3.1 MB, 18:17 min. more..
Review: Palestinian Revolution Cinema
Maureen Clare Murphy, Electronic Intifada 5/9/2007
Hamid Dabashi, founder of the Dreams of a Nation: A Palestinian Film Project, has said that one of the distinguishing qualities of Palestinian national cinema is that it has and continues to be produced during the throes of trauma. This stands apart from other national cinema (German, Italian, and Iranian, to name a few) which came to maturity through dealing with past national trauma. However, there has never been a Palestinian-produced feature film focusing on the Nakba. The forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland during the establishment of the State of Israel, the Nakba is the singular event from which Palestinians -- whether living under military occupation, in exile, or under a state apparatus that discriminates on the basis of religion -- can trace their current conditions.
Yet, the Nakba is at the core of Palestinian cinema, as exemplified by the Palestinian Revolution Cinema series curated by Palestinian artist Emily Jacir, which was originally presented at the New York Arab and South Asian Film Festival in February 2007 and will show in Chicago this Saturday.The films -- produced during the late ’60s through the early ’80s -- depict the Nakba not through archive footage of the 1947 and 1948 expulsion but rather through the then-contemporary, alternating images of smiling children in refugee camps (when they were still comprised of tents) and the ghostly trails Israeli missiles falling from the sky. more..
In Gaza, chaos versus democracy and democracy versus chaos
Rami Almeghari writing from the Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/9/2007
Perhaps some youth are trying to imitate what’s going in the outside world; we don’t have solid information on the existence of such groups," said Palestinian Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Helal in response to the recent attack on a UN-operated school in Rafah City.
Early this week, a group of militants opened fire on a celebration at a UN-operated elementary school in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, having warned ahead of time that the event was "indecent.
On Sunday afternoon, the Omariya elementary school in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah came under fire while it was celebrating end of the school year, an occasion that was meant to put smiles on the faces of weary children.
The school was not the only educational institution to be recently attacked by masked gunmen, a new phenomenon in Gaza; a northern Gaza school, was also hit few weeks ago.
One Palestinian man was killed and six others were wounded, while dozens of children were horrified as smiles turned into tears and fear appeared in the eyes and hearts of an already traumatized population. The reason: "breaching the rules of Islam.
Sa’d Abdelqader, a local school’s headmaster, was shot and wounded in his thigh during the shooting which he was attending peacefully. "While I was walking along the Omariya school’s wall, I abruptly heard sounds of bombs and bullets. I saw the smoke of a bomb around me then I found that my thigh was wounded," Sa’ad says. more..
Keeping Jerusalem Jewish
Meron Benvenisti, Ha’aretz 5/9/2007
Once again, in accordance with a ritual more than 30 years old, Jerusalem Day celebrations have begun with a stream of publications, providing a historical-theoretical background to the popular holiday events. To judge by what has been selected for emphasis in these publications, the 40th Jerusalem Day is not a holiday, but a memorial day for opportunities missed and a self-examination event to assess the failures. The key question, repeated to the point of ennui: "Is Jerusalem unified?" It has been answered in articles with titles like "The big lie" and in books that purport to disclose "how the policy of uniting Jerusalem has collapsed. Veteran Jerusalemites exacerbate old wounds in revealing that not one of their children has remained in Jerusalem, and political correctness requires distancing oneself from, and even scorning, Jerusalem and what it represents. The measuring tool that appears to provide a quantitative, "scientific" way to express the failure of a united Jerusalem is the status of the demographic balance. According to data publicized ahead of Jerusalem Day, "the Jewish population will lose its majority in the city in 2035." Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski says this means that Jerusalem, the capital of Israel and the heart of the Jewish people, will be united, but in practice will be administered by foreign leadership, making "the state liable to lose its capital." more..
No life on the other side
Haaretz Editorial, Ha’aretz 5/9/2007
It is difficult for Israelis who move freely throughout their country to understand Palestinian life in the West Bank, which becomes more difficult from year to year, from one agreement to the next. After it was decided to remove West Bank roadblocks to allow for movement that does not endanger Israeli security, it turned out that additional surprise roadblocks had been established. In the last month alone, 546 roadblocks were counted, in addition to various procedures, magnetic cards, enclaves that non-Jews are prohibited from accessing and roads that only settlers are allowed to use - conditions that generate a frustrating uncertainty for the Palestinians. Even a government that, due to its weakness, is not currently capable of working to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians cannot free itself of its obligation to manage the occupied territories in a way that enables people to live there. The Palestinian population cannot wait patiently for the final Winograd report on the Second Lebanon War or the results of the Labor Party primaries, because in the meantime it is living in the cruel reality described in the World Bank report released this week. The particularly harsh report shows that Israel continues to take into consideration only the settlers’ needs, while abrogating even the minimal needs of the Palestinians. more..
The yearnings for a magnetic card
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 5/9/2007
The rumor spread like wildfire: For the past two months, officers from the Civil Administration had been inviting people defined as "prohibited for security reasons" to obtain a magnetic card. People were excited - it was a sign their "prohibition" had been lifted. Ever since the magnetic card was invented in 1988 as an additional computerized identity card, it was given only to people the Shin Bet deemed fit for security reasons. This will perhaps be considered a minor moment in the history of the bureaucracy of the Israeli occupation. But in a society hit by unemployment and poverty, it’s a great moment for thousands of people because the magnetic card is the prerequisite for obtaining a work permit in Israel. The Israelis are convinced that the definition of "prohibited" is fixed purely on security considerations. The truth is that there is a great deal of arbitrariness, inflexibility, power games and the desire to win over collaborators. Proof of this exists: In around 70 percent of cases where Palestinians have petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice through human rights organizations, the prohibition against the petitioners has been canceled. However, it soon became clear to those who obtained the magnetic card that the prohibition for security reasons had not been lifted. This is also a dramatic change regarding the history of the bureaucracy of the occupation - the magnetic card is no longer proof of security reliability. The Shin Bet has told Haaretz that "the change in the policy of issuing the smart [magnetic] card was made by the Civil Administration and indicates that the card is seen as a means of identification alone. more..
If Northern Ireland can have peace, so can the Middle East
Editorial, Daily Star 5/9/2007
Tuesday’s swearing in of a power-sharing government marked another milestone in the peace process in Northern Ireland. Only 20 years ago, few people could have imagined that what happened in Belfast this week could ever be achieved: Two formerly implacable foes, Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness, were sworn into the same government, cementing a peace deal that was originally reached in 1998. The experience in Northern Ireland, where peace once seemed an impossibility, holds a number of important lessons about resolving seemingly intractable conflicts, particularly here in the Middle East. Among the most important lessons is the value of engagement, a powerful tool that has been largely absent in efforts to achieve regional peace and stability. Ironically, it was the Americans who encouraged their British allies to pursue the option of exploratory dialogue, and later direct talks, as a means of resolving the conflict in Ireland. Recognizing the futility of countering violence with brute force alone, US officials emphasized the need to draw the Irish Republic Army and its political wing, Sinn Fein, into negotiations and to develop a political strategy for addressing legitimate grievances, instead of relying solely on military operations to confront terrorism. Throughout the long process of negotiations, the Americans remained publicly engaged with both sides, playing a key mediating role in a fair and impartial manner. The US involvement in Northern Ireland differs vastly from its policy in the Middle East, where America has taken a shortsighted approach toward political forces that have used violence. With the exception of a small handful of Wahhabi extremists such as Al-Qaeda, most of the groups that have been branded "terrorists" by Washington have resorted to arms to resolve what are undeniably legitimate political grievances. Combating these forces with even larger doses of violence has done little to address the sources of conflict or to achieve peace and stability. On the contrary, the use of military might has often served to exacerbate existing problems and create new ones. more..
Iran: an indispensable player
Marco Vicenzino, Daily Star 5/9/2007
Iran’s ability to shape the course of events in Iraq, the broader Middle East and beyond, and particularly its ability to impact world energy markets, and consequently global commerce and security, has made it a dominant regional power broker with significant international influence and a force to be reckoned with in the 21st century. Even in Central Asia, Iran is conveniently positioned geographically to serve as a conduit for the region’s energy supplies through the Gulf. Its shared border with Afghanistan inevitably makes Iran a central actor in the war-torn nation’s future. Furthermore, the proposed energy pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and India and China’s growing dependence on Iranian oil highlight Iran’s increasing importance beyond the Middle East. Iran’s "last-minute decision" to participate in the international conference on Iraq’s future at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh should have come as absolutely no surprise. The pretext for its initial refusal to attend was the detention of five Iranians by US authorities in Iraq. This amounted to posturing and an attempt to increase its leverage at the meeting. In simple terms, it was trying to play "hard to get." It is obvious that progress at Sharm el-Sheikh, and the broader region, would not be possible without Iranian participation, thus elevating it to the status of indispensable player. Accordingly, Iran cannot afford not to be present at the conference. Its absence would damage its credibility in its increasingly growing role, risking increased diplomatic isolation and being branded as "irresponsible indispensable player." Some in the Middle East and many in the West already hold this to be true. more..
Paralysis, prophets and forgiveness
Anna Baltzer writing from the West Bank, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/7/2007
Five years ago, nine-month-old Mohammed and his grandmother were in their West Bank home when it began to fill with nerve gas from a nearby Israeli Occupation Forces military base. The army had moved in on a hill near their home in the Skan Abu Absa suburb of Ramallah, and would frequently shoot all over the surrounding area, often retaliating against Palestinian gunfire from a hill away from the suburb. As the gas seeped into his living room, the baby Mohammed began to shake violently before suffering a stroke causing extensive paralysis. His grandmother ran to pick him up and also inhaled the gas, causing an intense burning sensation all over her body. When she realized her grandson had stopped moving, she pleaded with the soldiers outside to open the road out of her town and raced Mohammed to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with severe neurological deterioration resulting in a vegetative state. The Palestinian Ministry of Health and UNRWA conducted extensive tests on Mohammed and his parents to determine with certainty the cause of his condition. After a full genetic investigation, doctors confirmed that Mohammed’s state was neither hereditary nor due to a chromosomal abnormality, but a result of the poisonous gas. I met Mohammed’s father Sami waiting at a checkpoint near Haris. He’d hesitated to publicize his son’s story for fear of harassment from the army. He said his family was suffering enough -- their personal tragedy only began with the gassing. After Mohammed’s injury, Sami’s father went from being a strong healthy 47-year-old to an emotional and physical wreck, and died one year later from stress and heart problems. Mohammed, now six, continues to suffer from severe neuro-developmental delay, poorly controlled seizure disorder, the loss of sight, and inability to eat normally. He eats via a G-tube (poking directly into his stomach) and is fed a special formula "Pediasure" that is not available in Israel/Palestine, so Sami travels to Jordan every three months to bring the formula and anticonvulsants that Mohammad requires. Each time Sami crosses back to the West Bank, he is forced to pay Israeli customs taxes on the formula, totaling hundreds of dollars a year. This is in addition to countless other expenses: land travel, adult diapers, maintaining his customized bed (to prevent bed sores), medicine, and round-the-clock care. Sami and his wife spend so much money taking care of Mohammed that they lack the remaining funds to take legal action against the Israeli Army for poisoning their son. more..
Resistance Being Rebuilt Too
Dahr Jamail, Electronic Intifada 5/7/2007
BEIRUT, May 7 (IPS) - As reconstruction resumes in the heavily bombed southern Beirut district Dahiyeh, the signs are evident of a rebuilding of resistance against Israel and the U.S.-backed government, largely by way of increased support for Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is leading much of the reconstruction. Dahiyeh was bombed by the Israelis last year because it was seen as a Hezbollah stronghold. At least 15,000 houses were destroyed.
Many local people accuse the U.S.-backed Lebanese government of refusal to help reconstruction in pro-Hezbollah areas like Dahiyeh.
Foreign donors pledged more than 7 billion dollars in aid and loans at a meeting in Paris in January to help rebuild this nation of four million. Three of the biggest contributors where the United States, France and Saudi Arabia. All three are seen by the opposition as supporters of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and his allies Saad Harriri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.
Michel Samaha, who was minister for information 1992-1995 and again 2003-2004, told IPS that Siniora, Harriri and Jumblatt are seeking to strengthen themselves by "having on their ruling agenda the priorities of the United States in Lebanon, the priorities of the Zionists in the United States, and especially the neo-cons in the Middle East.
The anger against such policies is obvious in Shia areas.
"We’ve applied for help through the government," 45-year-old Dahiyeh resident Mahmoud al-Khateib told IPS at his electronics repair shop which was damaged by an Israeli bomb. "They came and inspected the damage and said they would let us know. We’re still waiting." more..
Border Control / The Syrian snowball effect
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 5/8/2007
It started two months ago with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey’s visit to Syria, continued with the U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s quick trip and ended last week with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s meeting with her Syrian counterpart, Walid Moallem, in Sharm el-Sheikh. At this pace, the situation might deteriorate to the point that Syrian President Bashar Assad is invited to visit Washington. It started with a discussion on the fate of the one million Iraqi refugees who found refuge in Syria and continued with a discussion on Syria’s contribution to extricating the United States from the Iraqi quagmire. If we don’t pay attention, soon the U.S. will lift the boycott of Syria. Even so, the departure of Jacques Chirac, who swore he would avenge himself on the Syrians for the murder of his friend, former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, is expected to lift the last impediment in Syria’s way to an association agreement with the European Union. Upon leaving her meeting with Moallem, Rice made certain to reassure everyone that there is nothing more logical than talking with the Syrian foreign minister about the problems related to Iraq, and said she called on Damascus to take steps to prevent the infiltration of armed combatants via its borders with Iraq. At the same time, she did not mention that official U.S. Army data indicate that there was a continuous decline in the number of armed combatants who infiltrated into Iraq via the Syrian border in April. Moallem hinted that this meeting was not the last in the renewed dialogue between the two countries and that he was assured that if Syria continues to assist the U.S. in the areas of interest to it, the American administration would be generous not only with regard to the quantity of meetings but also as far as the quality of the topics of discussion is concerned. more..
The road back to Ramallah, -bat’s journal
by: -bat, International Solidarity Movement 5/7/2007
Hebron in a service taxi, one of the large ones this time, and retrace the route I had taken the night before. It had been dark when I arrived, but now it is daylight, and I have someone to explain what’s going on beside the road as we travel. In daylight she points out to me just how many destroyed orchards we pass beside the road. Either side are fields containing the stumps of what had once been olive trees. I don’t know if they have also been burnt, but they look blackened to me as well. We are not talking about just a few rows close to the road where people could hide either - whole fields have been obliterated, and presumably the livelihood of the farmer along with it. But where some things are being wiped out, there are also new things springing up. We pass a ramshackle group of mobile homes and temporary buildings on a hillside, surrounded by a high fence. This is how some settlements begin - as illegal outposts. That’s "illegal" in the sense of "under Israeli law" of course - all settlements are illegal under international law. But people can come out here, set up temporary buildings, arm themselves, and form a settlement. Eventually they become enough of a headache that the Israeli government legitimizes them, and a new official settlement is born. We pass other temporary structures on the way as well - very rough shanty town type constructions of corrugated iron and cloth, with animals running about amongst the people. I had seen these on the way down but not known what they were. Katie now explains that they are what has become of the local Bedouin. These people are traditionally nomadic, but with the restrictions of the occupation this is an impossible way of life. But Israel does not permit them to erect any permanent structures. So they build these tiny shanty towns, which then get periodically demolished by the army, leaving them homeless once more. To my eyes this looks like the worst living conditions of anyone in the west bank that I have seen so far. more..
Report: Majority of surveyed Palestinian prisoners subject to ill-treatment
B'Tselem and HaMoked, Electronic Intifada 5/6/2007
The following is the summary of the report Utterly Forbidden: The Torture And Ill-Treatment Of Palestinian Detainees, issued this month by B’Tselem - The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories and HaMoked - Center for the Defence of the Individual:
In recent years, Israel has openly admitted that ISA (formerly the General Security Service) interrogators employ "exceptional" interrogation methods and "physical pressure" against Palestinian detainees in situations labeled "ticking bombs". B’Tselem and HaMoked - Center for the Defence of the Individual have examined these interrogation methods and the frequency with which they are used, as well as other harmful practices. The report’s findings are based on the testimonies of 73 Palestinian residents of the West Bank who were arrested between July 2005 and January 2006 and interrogated by the ISA. Although it is not a representative sample, it does provide a valid indication of the frequency of the reported phenomena. more..
Palestinians, Israelis should avow Holocaust, Nakba
Dan Bar-On and Saliba Sarsar, Middle East Online 5/5/2007
Only in the past decade have a few Israeli Jewish and Palestinian intellectuals found the courage to try and acknowledge these two devastating chapters of Israeli and Palestinian history, still preoccupying the minds of their people, say. WEST LONG BRANCH, New Jersey - While we are presently preoccupied with fighting extremism and terrorism, we should remember that history is a powerful resource for our images, beliefs and actions. The more focused we are on learning its lessons, the more prepared we may be to meet its challenges.
Past and current tensions have lasting negative effects that breed enmity and hatred. Reconciliation is a process that can salve history’s poisonous after-effects by translating the painful memory of the past to the service of understanding, individual and social justice, and true peace.
The Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem and the ruins of Deir Yassin may be in geographical proximity, but a world apart in the psyche of Jews and Palestinians. While the first commemorates the systematic mass extermination of European Jews under Nazi occupation prior to and during World War II, the second marks the village where Palestinians were massacred at the hands of Jewish extremists in April 1948 and symbolizes Palestinian dispossession and their struggle for self-determination. more..
The Palestinian Struggle for Survival: A stark Record of Injustice
Ruth Tenne, Middle East Online 5/4/2007
Ramzy Baroud’s book offers a deep and unique insight into the underlying aspects of the Palestinian uprising and into their complex, and often misunderstood, interplay. The unique strength of Ramzy Baroud’s book - The SecondPalestinian Intifada -lies in itsmasterful weaving ofpersonal experience and feelings into a meticulousand powerfulaccount of the Palestinian’s second uprising. Baroud’sgrippingnarrativeof outrage, desperationand consuming painpays a memorablehomage to the struggle of his own people andto theircourageous enduranceand resilience.
Ramzy Baroud was born in a refugee camp in Gaza Strip and as a young child had witnessed “Israeli soldiers forcing young Palestiniansto their knees ...threatening to beat them if they did not spit upon a photo of Yasser Arafat”. Tragically, this symbolic act of humiliation - to which Jewish people were subjected at the hand of the Nazis - has shamefully become an acceptable practice used by Israeli soldiers to humiliate Palestinian children. Yet, this act of ultimate degradation was only a prelude to the terrors endured by the Palestinian people during the second Intifadagraphically chronicled by Baroud’s poignant discourse. more..
A political glass ceiling
Na'ama Sheffi, Ha’aretz 5/6/2007
Every morning Jewish men say the prayer "Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hath not made me a woman." They know why: because women have to work more and because women have to behave with determination, aggressiveness and assertiveness - or, in other words, like men - if they want to be accepted by the public. Recent research studies on the situation of working women in Western countries correspond amazingly well to the situation of Israel’s female elected officials: Their hard work is to their disadvantage. They labor extremely hard, but benefit from lower status than their male colleagues, and at the end of the day wish that some male would operate the dishwasher. Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister of a small country, has been chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In Israel, the political commentator of Channel 10, Aviv Drucker, has crowned her a "nonentity." These polarized approaches have a similar basis: Livni’s restrained directness is received with admiration in the world, but not in Israel. more..
Hasan Karmi: Palestinian intellectual and broadcaster passionate about the suffering of his people
Tim Llewellyn, The Guardian 5/7/2007
The long story of Hasan Sa’id Karmi, BBC Arabic Service broadcaster, lexicographer and man of letters, who has died aged 101, is that of every Palestinian Arab: one of exile, dispossession, oppression and separation - and an enduring sense of loss. But there are few other Palestinians who were approaching adulthood at the time of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and whose lives stretched well into the first decade of the 21st century. In an interview with me in 2004, Karmi summed up what all British politicians should have inscribed on their hearts: in the early 1920s, he said, "we were optimistic. We felt that eventually the Arabs would get their rights because they were the majority, the owners of the country and the ... land. We didn’t imagine the [British mandate] government would help the Jews get hold of the land and the country." He lived to see this process promulgated by the British and entrenched by the Americans. Karmi, who lived in Britain for 41 years, working for the BBC for most of them, never ceased to hold his host country primarily responsible for the loss of Palestine. In later years, with increasing vociferousness - angry at his and his people’s loss, and fuelled by his researches into western philosophy and history - he developed intense theories of an endemic Judaeo-Christian campaign against the peoples of the Middle East and Islam, founded in that innate sense of superiority and "chosenness" so dear to the Protestant British and American soul, and playing to the Jewish concept of a "chosen" people. more..
Enough confusion
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 5/5/2007
The pretzel man was offering three for 10 shekels. On his crate there was an "Elections Now" sign, and apparently he thought this would promote sales. The peddler’s protest was no different from that of the tens of thousands of Israelis who finally left their homes and indifference and came out to the square. Under the lowest common denominator in town - "Olmert,go home" - they expressed confusion and a loss of way. Though this belated awakening deserves praise, its content deserves condemnation. The demonstrators testified as 100,000 witnesses: Israeli society is continuing to look for the lost coin under the lantern, and not in the right place. "We are a flock seeking a shepherd," said the moderator of the event, Osnat Vishinsky, whose son was killed in the Gaza Strip, aptly defining the shepherdless flock of demonstrators that until only yesterday wrapped itself in the silence of the lambs or in cries of "hooray for the war," and was now applauding her words. What did the masses want? "Olmert, go home." Is this an aim or only a means? And when Olmert goes home, what exactly will happen? Not one word was said about this. The ranks must be maintained. This also applies to the other unifying slogan, "Elections Now." And what will happen after the elections? The opposition leader, Likud MK Benjamin Netanyahu. One Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be replaced by another prime minister who resembles him. Is that what this crowd wants? When the loudspeakers played "The Children of Winter, 1973," it was impossible not to recall an earlier demonstration: "candle youth" in the square, lighting memorial candles, crying and singing and not saying anything. "An Entire Generation Wants Peace," and what did that generation do? It lit candles. And it is also possible to recall the square that was empty during the 33 days of the war, at a time when it was possible and necessary to go out and demonstrate against it and still manage to salvage something. But then hardly anyone came, except for a courageous handful from the radical left. more..
For all its citizens
Mahmoud Labadi, Arabic Media Internet Network (AMIN) 5/4/2007
Since its creation Israel was haunted by the specter of its original sin perpetrated against the Palestinian victim. Yet Israel refuses to confess its sin by ignoring the tragic developments of its creation and continues to nurture its traditional narrative on the (Nakba), the events of 1948 and the saga of the heroic Jewish national liberation movement which triumphed against the British mandate and Palestinian terrorism. Obsessed by the logic of power and superiority it closed its heart and mind as well as it closed its doors in the face of its Arab and Palestinian neighborhood behaving like a besieged castle. Israel went on with its castle mentality and found its salvation by launching additional wars and occupying more Arab land to use it as barter, in the hope to compel Arabs to bargain on new occupations and forget previous ones. On the internal front and in relation to the Arab remaining minority inside Israel it practiced a policy of racial and cultural discrimination. Arabs in Israel were treated as second or third class citizens. All kind of repressive measures were practiced against them in order to force them to emigrate and leave the floor to Jewish immigrants. In spite of their loyalty to the Jewish national state the oppressed Arab minority never felt as full citizens of Israel. For the last 60 years the policy of discrimination went on regardless of minor improvements in their daily life on different levels. The official Israeli narrative recounts that Israel is a state for the Jewish people and has to preserve its Jewish character and maintain its Jewish majority. An Arab minority has to be kept in a limited size and the demographic balance between Jews and non-Jews should not shift to the benefit of the Arab minorities. There fore Israel has to encourage Jewish immigration from Diaspora countries in order to keep that balance unchanged. more..
The horse and its rider
Nehemia Shtrasler, Ha’aretz 5/5/2007
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so out of place. I stood in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Thursday evening listening to the painful words of Moshe Muskal, whose son Rafanel was killed in the Second Lebanon War. He spoke passionately about the failures of the war and called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign immediately. Around me stood people wearing yarmulkas, settlers and Likudniks, their eyes shining, chanting "Olmert go home. They hadn’t come to throw out the prime minister who failed in Lebanon. They came to take revenge on the man who was behind the Gaza disengagement plan, who supported former prime minister Ariel Sharon, who masterminded the convergence plan that has since died yet still talks about a Palestinian state. They are still fighting for Pithat Rafiah and Homesh. They want to teach him and us a lesson: that the hand of anyone who dares raise a hand against the settlers will be lopped off. Uzi Dayan, who hopes to get the highest political dividend from the demonstration, waxed poetic over the new alliance forged in the square between right and left, religious and secular, supporters and opposers of the disengagement, Yossi Beilin and Effi Eitam. But there was no such alliance. There couldn’t be. There was another, rather strange alliance, the kind that exists between a horse and its rider - and the left was the horse. more..
For the Palestinians
Gamil Mattar, Al-Ahram Weekly 5/3/2007
Not one more refugee, not one more concession. Arab leaders must recognise and honour the will of the Arab nation that believes in an Arab Palestine. The Riyadh Arab summit was unequivocal in its affirmation of certain principles, or so we thought. The general feeling was that the summit had taken to heart the condition of the Arab people, and the most wronged segment in particular, who, to put it mildly, are at the end of their tether. It was not just Arabs who took this impression from statements and speeches that preceded, accompanied and followed the summit. The West did too, judging from some negative reactions emanating from Washington and elsewhere that reflect Zionist influence. But then, some organ of the Arab League announced that two Arab states with relations with Israel have been charged with going to Israel to explain the Arab peace initiative to officials there. The gesture, it was said, would be a way of kick-starting direct negotiations. I was not surprised by the announcement, but many Arabs, even some of the most informed, were. They were surprised for at least a couple of reasons. First, they had not imagined that Arab leaders would let current opportunities to push their case, slip through their hands. These opportunities are many and quite powerful. And they come presented in a nice tidy basket, which contains the American quagmire in Iraq, Israel’s domestic problems, and Iran’s nuclear capacities conflict, which, if handled correctly, could be brought to the service of the rights and causes of the peoples of this region. Somewhere in that basket, too, is the current mood of the Arab people, who have used various means on numerous occasions to voice their deep longing for renewed confidence in themselves, their culture, and their governments. more..
The price for Israel
Ayman El-Amir, Al-Ahram Weekly 5/3/2007
The best chance for ending the Palestinian plight is for the Arabs to take advantage of the US defeat in Iraq. Israel marked its 59th anniversary of independence in mid-April by killing 10 Palestinians. Hamas, the Palestinian resistance movement, responded by announcing the end of a five-month-old ceasefire and aimlessly fired into Israel several homemade rockets that hurt no one. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is hounded by a government commission report blaming him for Israel’s failed military campaign against Lebanon’s Hizbullah last year, decided on a limited response in which only three Palestinians were killed and a dozen others arrested. Olmert’s uncertain political future has cast a pall over peace prospects with the Palestinians. While Palestinians marked the moment with the usual manifestation of helpless grief over their expulsion from Palestine and the confiscation of their lands, Israelis were not exactly in a happier mood. Israeli newspaper Haaretz noted that: "An atmosphere of disappointment, despondency and anxiety prevailed in Israel in its 59th anniversary year." Palestinian-Israeli peace is as far from reach as ever. The latest shot in the decades-long process of war and peace was the decision of the Arab summit meeting in Riyadh in late March to "activate" the Arab peace initiative. First introduced in Rabat by Saudi Arabia in 1982, the land-for-peace exchange remains like the peace process itself in a state of suspended animation. Several contributing factors are in play. more..
"They will not break me"
Adri Nieuwhof and Amer Madi writing from Mas'ha, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/3/2007
Hani Amer lives with his wife and six children in the village of Mas’ha in Qalqilya district. His six-year-old son is the youngest child. According to Hani, since the 1970s Israel has confiscated at least 7,000,000 square metres -- eighty percent -- of the land of Mas’ha, to build the illegal Jewish settlement of Elkana. Until now Hani Amer and his family have resisted all attempts by the Israeli military and settlers to chase him away. Today their house has completely surrounded by the wall and high fences. The family exhausted all its resources in its resistance to the wall, but Hani Amer is determined to stay. A visit to the Hani Amer family
Two volunteers of the Stop the Wall Campaign arranged our visit to Hani Amer. One hour after we leftRamallah we arrive at what appears to us to be a highly protected industrial site. It turns out to be the blocked entrance to Elkana settlement. Some years ago, the road used to connect Mas’ha with Nablus was closed by the Israeli military with a road block, which has been replaced by several gates over the past few years. Hani Amer has been waiting for us behind the gates and the minute we are seen, he comes to greet us. more..
Why not adopt Norwegian pragmatism?
Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star 5/5/2007
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s "hello" to the Iranian foreign minister and her brief "businesslike" meeting with the Syrian foreign minister Thursday at the international conference on Iraq in Egypt have generated considerable international attention. I join those who see these two gestures as small but significant steps toward a more rational American foreign policy in the Middle East. It is important to acknowledge when the United States does something sensible in the world, because this happens relatively rarely in the Middle East. In this case, Washington is showing important new strains of maturity, realism and composure that have long been absent from its arsenal. Whatever the reason for the slow revisions in American policy, the change is to be welcomed. Those to whom the US says hello should respond with a "and hello to you too, ma’am," so that simple courtesies can quickly move toward serious dialogue leading to meaningful diplomatic negotiations for mutually satisfying policy changes on all sides. more..
Waiting for the next war
Shuki Mairovich, Ha’aretz 5/4/2007
The countdown to the next war has begun. Not as a result of the strengthening of the Hezbollah, nor as a result of the fact that it has moved south of the Litani, but rather as a result of the Winograd Committee report. Paradoxically, but in accordance with the history and mood of Israeli society, it is precisely the severity of the report that will bring about the next war. This is not the first time that Israeli society is repairing the blunders of a past war by means of a new war. People remember Menachem Begin’s observation that the first Lebanon War came to heal the trauma of the Yom Kippur War. That will be the case this time, too. The third Lebanon War will be declared as a correction of the Second Lebanon War. The ink on the Winograd report has not yet dried and the psychological preparations for the next war have already begun. The first sign of this appeared in the wake of proliferating complaints that the lack of experience on the part of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, as stated in the panel’s conclusions, was a crucial factor in the decision to go to war. Israeli society is characterized by an historical tendency to solve political problems by military means - i.e., via war - and public discourse is preparing for the demand that will come, sooner or later, to bring former generals back to steer the ship of state. more..
Bleak reality in Gaza gives rise to dreams of emigration
Yousef Alhelou writing from the Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/4/2007
The Palestinian Authority has been starved of funds since Hamas was elected in January 2006. Israel has also been withholding the millions of US dollars it owes the Palestinian Authority in tax revenues. This has led to a breakdown of public services and law and order in the occupied Palestinian territories. Government ministries, hospitals, schools and the courts have all faced closure over the last year and are functioning at minimum capacity, with staff salaries withheld.
Poverty is rising in the West Bank and Gaza because of international sanctions, compounded by Israeli restrictions on the movement of Palestinian goods and labour related to security concerns. The Palestinian Authority (PA) cannot pay its civil servants because the international community has refused to fund the PA unless the Palestinian government, which includes Hamas, recognises Israel. more..
Why Israel is after me
Azmi Bishara, Electronic Intifada 5/3/2007
I am a Palestinian from Nazareth, a citizen of Israel and was, until last month, a member of the Israeli parliament.
But now, in an ironic twist reminiscent of France’s Dreyfus affair -- in which a French Jew was accused of disloyalty to the state -- the government of Israel is accusing me of aiding the enemy during Israel’s failed war against Lebanon in July.
Israeli police apparently suspect me of passing information to a foreign agent and of receiving money in return. Under Israeli law, anyone -- a journalist or a personal friend -- can be defined as a "foreign agent" by the Israeli security apparatus. Such charges can lead to life imprisonment or even the death penalty.
The allegations are ridiculous. Needless to say, Hezbollah -- Israel’s enemy in Lebanon -- has independently gathered more security information about Israel than any Arab Knesset member could possibly provide. What’s more, unlike those in Israel’s parliament who have been involved in acts of violence, I have never used violence or participated in wars. My instruments of persuasion, in contrast, are simply words in books, articles and speeches. more..
Bushra’s final exam
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 5/3/2007
Blood on the hands: Two crimson handprints stain the white wall. The tile floor shines in shades of brown, the walls are painted in white and soft pastels, their new house, after the two previous ones were destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces. The bloody handprints stand as silent testimony on the wall of the staircase that goes up to the second floor. This is where Ruqiya stood, the blood of her dead daughter all over her hands, as she pounded them on the wall in a panic, desperately calling to the neighbors for help. She pounded and pounded, her palms staining the wall, when outside stood a line of terrifying jeeps, on the roof of the building down the street stood the snipers and in the other room Bushra lay dead in a spreading pool of blood, a bullet hole in the center of her forehead. more..
Stephen Lendman: Worthy and Unworthy Victims
Stephen Lendman, Palestine Chronicle 5/3/2007
Those anointed "worthy" are named, known, seen media-manipulated heros while the "unworthy" are mostly nameless, faceless unknown abused "unpeople" targets of the administration’s "war on terror," the poor and anyone "in times of universal deceit" courageously daring to dissent. Economist and media critic Edward S. Herman and social and political critic Noam Chomsky note two kinds of victims in their classic 1988 book "Manufacturing Consent."So does journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger in his writings."Unworthy" ones are the many unmentioned tens of thousands killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and all other places by US, Israeli and other rapacious imperial waring and occupying forces."Worthy" ones, however, are those prominently mentioned who died or were hurt on September 11, 2001 in the US, on July 7, 2005 in a dubious London "terrorist" bombing, on March 11, 2004 in the Madrid train bombings, and the Israeli corporal practically the whole free world still knows about since he was taken captive in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) last summer and is still being held.More recent "worthy" victims are the 15 British Royal Navy seamen arrested by Iranian armed forces, now released, and BBC journalist Alan Johnston, also apparently abducted and held captive in the OPT since March 12 when his employer reported he was forcibly seized from his car by gunpoint driving home from work in Gaza City. more..
Robert Kagan: Obama the Interventionist
Robert Kagan, Palestine Chronicle 5/3/2007
Actually, Obama wants to increase defense spending. He wants to add 65,000 troops to the Army and recruit 27,000 more Marines. Why? To fight terrorism. America must "lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good." With those words, Barack Obama put an end to the idea that the alleged overexuberant idealism and America-centric hubris of the past six years is about to give way to a new realism, a more limited and modest view of American interests, capabilities and responsibilities. Obama’s speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week was pure John Kennedy, without a trace of John Mearsheimer. It had a deliberate New Frontier feel, including some Kennedy-era references ("we were Berliners") and even the Cold War-era notion that the United States is the "leader of the free world." No one speaks of the "free world" these days, and Obama’s insistence that we not "cede our claim of leadership in world affairs" will sound like an anachronistic conceit to many Europeans, who even in the 1990s complained about the bullying "hyperpower." In Moscow and Beijing it will confirm suspicions about America’s inherent hegemonism. But Obama believes the world yearns to follow us, if only we restore our worthiness to lead. Personally, I like it. more..
Palestinian Refugees Learn to Substitute Government
Dahr Jamail, Electronic Intifada 5/3/2007
BEIRUT, May 2 (IPS) - The influx of refugees from Palestinian areas and the inability of the government to do much for them has strengthened a unique NGO providing essential services.
The Popular Aid for Relief and Development (PARD), which began working in the early 1980s before registering as an official NGO with the Lebanese government in 1990, has taken it upon itself to provide environmental services, health education, medical services and community development centres for refugees.
"We give services because services are better than money," Ahmad Halimeh, co-founder of PARD told IPS at one of the group’s busy clinics in a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. "I try to teach people to help themselves."
This policy is not just an ideal but a necessity for Palestinian refugees who now comprise at least 10 percent of the Lebanese population of four million, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). more..
Yousef Alhelou: The Unbearable Life in Gaza
Yousef Alhelou, Palestine Chronicle 5/3/2007
I asked some Palestinian youths about how life feels in Gaza, how they spend their spare time and if they have ever considered leaving Gaza. GAZA CITY - The Palestinian Authority has been starved of funds since Hamas was elected in January 2006. Israel has also been withholding the millions of US dollars it owes the Palestinian Authority in tax revenues. This has led to a breakdown of public services and law and order in the occupied Palestinian territories. Government ministries, hospitals, schools and the courts have all faced closure over the last year and are functioning at minimum capacity, with staff salaries withheld. Poverty is rising in the West Bank and Gaza because of international sanctions, compounded by Israeli restrictions on the movement of Palestinian goods and labour related to security concerns. The Palestinian Authority (PA) cannot pay its civil servants because the international community has refused to fund the PA unless the Palestinian government, which includes Hamas, recognises Israel. more..
Deir Yassin Continues
Anna Baltzer writing from Um Al Fahim, Israel, Electronic Intifada 5/2/2007
The town of Um El Fahim in present-day Israel is home to 48,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel. Most are internal refugees denied services by the state equal to its Jewish citizens or the right to return to their original land.
Fifty-nine years ago last month, the militant Zionist Irgun and Stern Gang systematically murdered more than 100 men, women, and children in Deir Yassin. The Palestinian village lay outside the area the UN recommended to be included in a future Jewish State, and the massacre occurred several weeks before the end of the British Mandate, but it was part of a carefully planned and orchestrated process that would induce the flight of 70 percent of the native population to make way for an ethnically Jewish state. Sitting in his home, Adnan holds a map of his village Lajjun and talks about his memories of his home and 1948. Deir Yassin was just one of more than 400 Palestinian villages depopulated and destroyed by Jewish forces in 1948 (or shortly before and after). I recently visited the ruins of a Palestinian village called Kafrayn in present-day Israel on a tour with Zochrot, which describes itself as "a group of Israeli citizens [both Jewish and Palestinian] working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948. more..
The Winograd report mainly provokes Arab disdain
Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star 5/3/2007
A combination of vindication, disdain, and renewed concerns about Israeli militarism are the dominant reactions in the Arab world to the preliminary report of the Winograd Commission released Monday in Israel. The commission harshly rebuked three senior Israeli political and military leaders for their conduct during last summer’s 34-day war with Lebanon, leaving Premier Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister and Labor Party leader Amir Peretz in dismal political shape. The former military chief of staff, Dan Halutz, had already resigned in disgrace after the war. The Arab sense of vindication stems from the feeling that Israel performed poorly in the war, and failed to achieve its primary strategic objectives: smashing Hizbullah, removing the armed Lebanese resistance movement from the South of Lebanon, returning the two abducted Israeli soldiers in Hizbullah’s hands, reaffirming Israel’s deterrence posture with respect to the Arab world and Iran, and ensuring that all wars with the Arabs are fought in Arab lands, not in Israel. Arab analysts were quick to recall Monday that Israel was forced to accept a UN-mandated cease-fire in August, after failing to win on the battlefield. more..
This can’t go on, Olmert
Mati Golan, Globes Online 5/2/2007
Do you understand what a serious error of judgment over going to war means? This can’t go on, Olmert. You say you won’t go, and I tell you that your survival campaign won’t work. There is no need for complicated and learned explanations; it is sufficient to say that you cannot continue in your post when the Winograd committee determines that you failed abysmally. This is a committee whose members you appointed, contrary to public demands for a state commission of enquiry. This can’t go on, Olmert; you can’t both appoint a committee, and then ignore its findings when they are inconvenient for you. Do you understand, Olmert, what a serious error of judgment over going to war means? It means, Olmert, that you are responsible for the needless deaths of hundreds of soldiers and civilians. You sent them to their deaths through recklessness, and I would add, arrogance. If that does not constitute grounds for resigning, what does? more..
Ma’an exclusive interview with former minister of refugees’ affairs, Atif ’Udwan
Ma’an News Agency 5/2/2007
Jerusalem – Ma’an Exclusive – A Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member from the Hamas bloc and former minister of refugees’ affairs, Dr Atif ’Udwan, said on Wednesday that the reactivation of the PLO’s institutions and the provision of funding for the PLO, are intended to weaken the Palestinian government and foil the implementation of the Cairo agreement. ’Udwan spoke of the US administration’s refusal to deal with all the elements of the Palestinian government equally and its limited cooperation with only independent and Fatah ministers. In response to this bias, it is alleged that independent candidate, Salam Fayyad, was appointed head of the PLO’s economic department in order to receive US aid and funds. On the appointment of Salam Fayyad, ’Udwan said: "It is clear that the American administration still refuses to cooperate with the Palestinian government, and so they want to use the Palestinian treasurer as a means to deliver the money. It seems they do not trust the previous mediator, the Palestinian presidency. That is the motive behind appointing Fayyad, who is to open a personal bank account so as to receive the money and he will be under the direct supervision of president Mahmoud Abbas." more..
Buying the War on Palestinians: The US Media, The New York Times and Israel
Patrick O'Connor, Electronic Intifada 5/2/2007
After four disastrous years of US military occupation, Bill Moyers’ April 25 PBS special, Buying the War, attempted to hold the mainstream US media accountable for its complicity in selling the war on Iraq to the US public. Moyers documented how the US media, with The New York Times in a leading role, bowed to financial and political pressure, succumbed to an environment of patriotism and fear of terrorism, and uncritically reported false US government claims.Tragically, despite the terrible consequences of 60 years of Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people, there is still no significant movement to hold the US mainstream media accountable for a similar, dramatic failure in covering Israel and Palestine, and for its complicity in the US’ uncritical support for Israel.
Moyers’ analysis of the US media failure on Iraq was valuable, yet incomplete. He explained that to launch the attack on Iraq "high officials ... needed a compliant press, to pass on their propaganda as news and cheer them on ... our press largely surrendered its independence and skepticism to join with our government in marching to war."Bob Simon of CBS explained to Moyers that the administration used marketing techniques to sell the war, "Just repeat it and repeat it and repeat it ... Keep that drum beat going." Media critic Norman Solomon told Moyers, "I think these [news] executives were terrified of being called soft on terrorism." Moyers gave numerous examples of The New York Times passing on bogus intelligence on Iraq to the US public. Michael Massing of the Columbia Journalism Review highlighted the Times’ central role in marketing the Iraq war, saying The New York Times, "... remains immensely influential. People in the TV world read it every morning ... People in government -- of course read it, think tanks, and so on."
However, though Moyers mentioned that the now infamous ’neoconservatives’ had "long wanted to transform the Middle East, beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein," Moyers omitted a crucial reason for why the government’s case for war resonated with both the US media and public. It was based on widely held stereotypes about Arabs, Muslims and the Middle East, assumptions which are also essential to understanding US policy in Israel and Palestine. more..
The real problem with the Arab initiative
Hasan Abu Nimah, Electronic Intifada 5/2/2007
Hopes were building up in the run up to the last Arab summit that positive moves would revive the stalled Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, finally.
Those who saw it that way counted a number of signals: the powerful speech of His Majesty King Abdullah to the US Congress, where he represented a common Arab view, stressing the significance of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict as prerequisite to dealing with other major world problems; the Mecca agreement and reconciliation between the Palestinian factions which consequently facilitated the formation of a national unity government, supposedly united on a one political programme; Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s remarks praising some aspects of the Beirut Arab summit peace initiative of 2003; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s repeated visits to the region, accompanied by her expressed interest that moves ahead should occur, and that was coupled with the spreading belief that US policy setbacks mainly in Iraq needed achievement elsewhere to enable President George W. Bush to leave a compatible legacy behind; and finally the activity of the Arab moderates to create a favourable political environment for encouraging Israel to seize the new opportunity.
This last point was clearly emphasised at the late March Arab summit, which relaunched the peace initiative, as planned, on behalf of all Arabs, not only the moderates.
It may still be early to pass judgement, but since evidence to the contrary is fast emerging, it may equally be naive to wait for any change; the situation seems to be as deadlocked as ever. One can count indications in this direction too. more..
The Livni-Rice Plan: Towards A Just Peace Or Apartheid?
Jeff Halper, International Solidarity Movement 5/2/2007
For years I have been one of the doomsayers, arguing that the two-state solution is dead and that apartheid has become the only realistic political outcome of the Israel-Palestine conflict"“ at least until a full-blown anti-apartheid struggle arises that fundamentally changes the equation. I based my assessment on several seemingly incontrovertible realities. Over the past 40 years, Israel has laid a thick and irreversible Matrix of Control over the Occupied Territories, including some 300 settlements, which effectively eliminates the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. No Israeli politician could conceivably be elected on the basis of withdrawing from the Occupied Territories to a point where a real Palestinian state could actually emerge, and even if s/he was, the prospect of cobbling together a coalition government with the requisite will and clout to carry out such a plan is highly unlikely, if at all possible. And given the unconditional bi-partisan support Israel enjoys in both houses of Congress and successive Adminstrations, reinforced by the Christian Right, the influential Jewish community and military lobbyists and a lack of will on the part of the international community to pressure Israel into making meaningful concessions, a genuine two-state solution seems virtually out of the question "“ even though it is the preferred option espoused by the international community in the moribund "Road Map" initiative. Now if it is true that the two-state solution is gone, the next logical alternative would be the one-state solution, particularly since Israel conceives of the entire country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River as one country "“ the Land of Israel "“ and has de facto made it one country through its settlements and highways. Seeing that Israel has been the only effective government throughout the land these past 40 years, why not go all the way and declare it a democratic state of all its inhabitants? (After all, Israel claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East .) The answer is clear: a democratic state in the Land of Israel is unacceptable (to Israel) because such a state, with a Palestinian majority, could not be "Jewish.”. more..
A cheerless Labor Day in Gaza
Rami Almeghari writing from Gaza City, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/1/2007
Forty-eight-year-old Riyad Hammad from the Maghazi Refugee Camp in central Gaza woke up on Friday morning whilst his wife sat before a wood-burning stove. He headed for a nearby store, not to buy cookies, or anything else, but rather to bring some used papers and pieces of carton outside the store’s front door to his waiting wife.
Since being cut off of work following the outbreak of the intifada in 2000 and the imposition of Israeli closures, Riyad has been collecting torn-apart carton packing material and used papers in order to save a few shekels due his inability to afford gas and electricity.
In their 120 square meter, two-storey house that Riyad constructed twenty years ago, a small traditional Palestinian stove -- of the years prior to the displacement by Israel of Palestinians in 1948 -- lies in a small rubbish-filled room.
The cookies have arrived -- rather, the cartons and used papers have arrived -- as Riyad’s wife takes them from her husband’s hands and starts happily baking loaves of bread, while the children wait for their breakfast.
It is nearly 8:00 am when the whole 12-member family wakes up, the father standing beside the stove, the sons and daughters upstairs, preparing their breakfast.
Gray-bearded Riyad sighs and says, "What a Labor Day you are talking about. Labor Day used to be well-celebrated before I became jobless eight years ago. But now I can hardly remember myself..." more..
A cheerless Labor Day in Gaza
Rami Almeghari writing from Gaza City, occupied Palestine, Electronic Intifada 5/1/2007
Forty-eight-year-old Riyad Hammad from the Maghazi Refugee Camp in central Gaza woke up on Friday morning whilst his wife sat before a wood-burning stove. He headed for a nearby store, not to buy cookies, or anything else, but rather to bring some used papers and pieces of carton outside the store’s front door to his waiting wife.
Since being cut off of work following the outbreak of the intifada in 2000 and the imposition of Israeli closures, Riyad has been collecting torn-apart carton packing material and used papers in order to save a few shekels due his inability to afford gas and electricity.
In their 120 square meter, two-storey house that Riyad constructed twenty years ago, a small traditional Palestinian stove -- of the years prior to the displacement by Israel of Palestinians in 1948 -- lies in a small rubbish-filled room.
The cookies have arrived -- rather, the cartons and used papers have arrived -- as Riyad’s wife takes them from her husband’s hands and starts happily baking loaves of bread, while the children wait for their breakfast.
It is nearly 8:00 am when the whole 12-member family wakes up, the father standing beside the stove, the sons and daughters upstairs, preparing their breakfast.
Gray-bearded Riyad sighs and says, "What a Labor Day you are talking about. Labor Day used to be well-celebrated before I became jobless eight years ago. But now I can hardly remember myself..." more..
Balad’s MK-to-be: ’Anti-Israelization’ conscientious objector
Yoav Stern and Jack Khoury, Ha’aretz 5/1/2007
In a few more days, MK-designate Said Nafa, No. 4 on the Balad list, will join the Knesset, swearing he will be loyal to the State of Israel and uphold its laws. In the old days, the swearing-in was little more than a technicality, but it has become a sensitive issue now that the chairman of Nafa’s party, Azmi Bishara, is accused of aiding the enemy during wartime and passing information on to the enemy. Nafa is not deterred by his impending commitment to the state. He is conscious of the fact that he is joining the Knesset under unusual circumstances - Bishara, who denies the allegations, has fled the country and resigned as MK - but promises to faithfully fill his post. Nafa is sure that Bishara won’t be convicted and that Balad’s activities are legal. "There were many instances in which the Shin Bet tried to set people up," he said. "They’re just trying to behead a prominent Arab leader. They will fail. Nafa, who is 54 and has nine children, lives in Beit Jann, a Druze village in the Galilee. He joined Balad in 1999 and serves as chair of the party’s national council. In 2001, he announced his Pact of Free Druze, which aims to stop the conscription of the Druze and claims the community is an inalienable part of the Arabs in Israel and the Palestinian nation at large. In 2003, he founded a committee to bring together Druze leaders in the Arab world, mostly in Syria and Lebanon. As a conscientious objector, Nafa has refused to serve in the Israel Defense Forces and was jailed three times. His four sons also stood trial for refusing to enlist. more..
Balad’s MK-to-be: ’Anti-Israelization’ conscientious objector
Yoav Stern and Jack Khoury, Ha’aretz 5/1/2007
In a few more days, MK-designate Said Nafa, No. 4 on the Balad list, will join the Knesset, swearing he will be loyal to the State of Israel and uphold its laws. In the old days, the swearing-in was little more than a technicality, but it has become a sensitive issue now that the chairman of Nafa’s party, Azmi Bishara, is accused of aiding the enemy during wartime and passing information on to the enemy. Nafa is not deterred by his impending commitment to the state. He is conscious of the fact that he is joining the Knesset under unusual circumstances - Bishara, who denies the allegations, has fled the country and resigned as MK - but promises to faithfully fill his post. Nafa is sure that Bishara won’t be convicted and that Balad’s activities are legal. "There were many instances in which the Shin Bet tried to set people up," he said. "They’re just trying to behead a prominent Arab leader. They will fail. Nafa, who is 54 and has nine children, lives in Beit Jann, a Druze village in the Galilee. He joined Balad in 1999 and serves as chair of the party’s national council. In 2001, he announced his Pact of Free Druze, which aims to stop the conscription of the Druze and claims the community is an inalienable part of the Arabs in Israel and the Palestinian nation at large. In 2003, he founded a committee to bring together Druze leaders in the Arab world, mostly in Syria and Lebanon. As a conscientious objector, Nafa has refused to serve in the Israel Defense Forces and was jailed three times. His four sons also stood trial for refusing to enlist. more..
Olmert’s legacy could yet be the failure that forces something better
Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian 5/2/2007
The crisis triggered by Israel’s report on its war with Lebanon may end up putting the Arab League initiative centre stage Let’s hope Lords Hutton and Butler were taking notes. An 81-year-old retired judge, Eliyahu Winograd, has just given a masterclass in how to conduct a genuine, fearless and plainspoken inquiry into a government failure. While our own inquisitors into aspects of the Iraq war retreated either into whitewash (Hutton) or polite circumlocution (Butler), Winograd delivered it straight, and right between the eyes. Asked by the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to probe the country’s "second Lebanon war" last summer, he issued an interim verdict on Monday which required no translation from the mandarin code of euphemism. Olmert was, said the judge, guilty of "a severe failure" of judgment, rushing into a "hasty" war with no clear plan, setting "overambitious and unobtainable goals". Others were at fault but, as prime minister, Olmert bore "supreme responsibility". Short of handing the PM a revolver, Winograd could not have been harsher. Israel is shaking from the shock of it, but it should also allow itself a pang of pride in the Winograd process. Handpicked by Olmert himself, this government inquiry was assumed to lack the independence of a state probe staffed by supreme court judges. But Winograd and his team were nobody’s patsies: instead they dared to speak uncomfortable truth to arrogant power. Israel’s boast that it is the only democracy in the Middle East is often met with a snort. But this exercise has shown that - at least within its own borders - Israel is capable of a democratic accountability entirely absent in its region. Imagine for a moment a panel of Syrian wise men or Egyptian elders delivering a similar message to Bashar Assad or Hosni Mubarak. They could expect to receive not plaudits, as Winograd has, but at best a lengthy spell in prison. That, and the possibility that the Winograd report will shock the Israeli political and military establishment, even Israeli society itself, into a desperately needed shakeup is the crumb of comfort. Otherwise, it is a grim moment for the country... more..
Olmert’s legacy could yet be the failure that forces something better
Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian 5/2/2007
The crisis triggered by Israel’s report on its war with Lebanon may end up putting the Arab League initiative centre stage Let’s hope Lords Hutton and Butler were taking notes. An 81-year-old retired judge, Eliyahu Winograd, has just given a masterclass in how to conduct a genuine, fearless and plainspoken inquiry into a government failure. While our own inquisitors into aspects of the Iraq war retreated either into whitewash (Hutton) or polite circumlocution (Butler), Winograd delivered it straight, and right between the eyes. Asked by the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to probe the country’s "second Lebanon war" last summer, he issued an interim verdict on Monday which required no translation from the mandarin code of euphemism. Olmert was, said the judge, guilty of "a severe failure" of judgment, rushing into a "hasty" war with no clear plan, setting "overambitious and unobtainable goals". Others were at fault but, as prime minister, Olmert bore "supreme responsibility". Short of handing the PM a revolver, Winograd could not have been harsher. Israel is shaking from the shock of it, but it should also allow itself a pang of pride in the Winograd process. Handpicked by Olmert himself, this government inquiry was assumed to lack the independence of a state probe staffed by supreme court judges. But Winograd and his team were nobody’s patsies: instead they dared to speak uncomfortable truth to arrogant power. Israel’s boast that it is the only democracy in the Middle East is often met with a snort. But this exercise has shown that - at least within its own borders - Israel is capable of a democratic accountability entirely absent in its region. Imagine for a moment a panel of Syrian wise men or Egyptian elders delivering a similar message to Bashar Assad or Hosni Mubarak. They could expect to receive not plaudits, as Winograd has, but at best a lengthy spell in prison. That, and the possibility that the Winograd report will shock the Israeli political and military establishment, even Israeli society itself, into a desperately needed shakeup is the crumb of comfort. Otherwise, it is a grim moment for the country... more..
Bringing the discussion home: The Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project
Andrew Ford Lyons, Electronic Intifada 5/1/2007
On 17 April the Olympia, Washington City Council voted 4-2 against official recognition of the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project. Of the few news organizations following the story, that was the headline. But it wasn’t really the news.
Possibly noteworthy was that more than 300 people attended the standing-room only public hearing on the project. People waited outside the building to get in to comment and observe. Forty-eight people spoke in support, 24 people expressed opposition. Hundreds of letters and emails flooded the city on the topic. Numerous phone calls also came in, according to council members.
What remains worth exploring, examining and scrutinizing was why the city council vote went as it did, and what was said by citizens during the open hearing on the matter. For anyone seriously studying current American popular opinion on the Middle East, a trove has been collected in Olympia during the last couple of months. Collect it, save it, dissect it with a scalpel. more..
Bringing the discussion home: The Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project
Andrew Ford Lyons, Electronic Intifada 5/1/2007
On 17 April the Olympia, Washington City Council voted 4-2 against official recognition of the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project. Of the few news organizations following the story, that was the headline. But it wasn’t really the news.
Possibly noteworthy was that more than 300 people attended the standing-room only public hearing on the project. People waited outside the building to get in to comment and observe. Forty-eight people spoke in support, 24 people expressed opposition. Hundreds of letters and emails flooded the city on the topic. Numerous phone calls also came in, according to council members.
What remains worth exploring, examining and scrutinizing was why the city council vote went as it did, and what was said by citizens during the open hearing on the matter. For anyone seriously studying current American popular opinion on the Middle East, a trove has been collected in Olympia during the last couple of months. Collect it, save it, dissect it with a scalpel. more..
Report agrees with war opponents
Amos Harel, Ha’aretz 5/1/2007
1. The Meridor-Barak Committee. The Winograd Committee has received numerous congratulations over the past two days for the sharp, clear tone of its report, especially the segments dealing with the leading troika during the war. However, there are issues on which the committee wrapped its conclusions in so many reservations that it is difficult to know what its position really is. A striking example is the three pages of debate over whether to make recommendations against specific individuals. Another issue that leaves the reader a little confused is the policy of restraint along the northern border: Does the committee justify its application during the six years that preceded the war, and does it essentially believe that the Olmert government should also have adopted this policy? Even though this is not said openly, it seems that the answer is affirmative. Not only does the committee consider Ariel Sharon’s policy of restraint logical, its harsh criticism of Olmert’s decisions suggests that the panel questions whether there were any grounds for a severe military response to the abduction, given the circumstances extant on July 12, 2006. Publicly, this is a view adopted only by the leftmost fringes during the first days of the war (Meretz Chairman Yossi Beilin, for example, supported aggressive measures and even considered Syria a potential target). more..
Report agrees with war opponents
Amos Harel, Ha’aretz 5/1/2007
1. The Meridor-Barak Committee. The Winograd Committee has received numerous congratulations over the past two days for the sharp, clear tone of its report, especially the segments dealing with the leading troika during the war. However, there are issues on which the committee wrapped its conclusions in so many reservations that it is difficult to know what its position really is. A striking example is the three pages of debate over whether to make recommendations against specific individuals. Another issue that leaves the reader a little confused is the policy of restraint along the northern border: Does the committee justify its application during the six years that preceded the war, and does it essentially believe that the Olmert government should also have adopted this policy? Even though this is not said openly, it seems that the answer is affirmative. Not only does the committee consider Ariel Sharon’s policy of restraint logical, its harsh criticism of Olmert’s decisions suggests that the panel questions whether there were any grounds for a severe military response to the abduction, given the circumstances extant on July 12, 2006. Publicly, this is a view adopted only by the leftmost fringes during the first days of the war (Meretz Chairman Yossi Beilin, for example, supported aggressive measures and even considered Syria a potential target). more..
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Plight of Workers in Palestinian Territories Has "Worsened Dramatically" 
