Our cultured elite
By Azmi Bishara, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 3 - 9 July 2003
The war against Iraq has divided the Arab intelligentsia in a curious manner. So bizarre is the polarisation that some now equate democracy with US hegemony  -- Irrespective of what they said publicly about the war on Iraq, Arab intellectuals have mostly failed to split into two well-defined camps over the crisis. The attitude to the war did not always reflect a genuine cultural or intellectual rift. Mostly, it was deftly calibrated to reflect the political savvy of the commentator in question. Public speakers had to take into account the anti-war sentiment among the Arab masses. Evidently, it is difficult to support a foreign aggression against the Arabs, an aggression opposed in most of Europe and even in certain Arab countries that covertly supported the war. The fact that some of our intellectuals say in public things they do not quite believe in is a reflection of a very particular political culture. Our culture is apprehensive of demagoguery as well as of public criticism -- unless this criticism is directed against outsiders. Definitely, some people supported the aggression, even while denouncing it. Forget public statements and let's take a look at the way people actually felt. In reality, there were two opposing camps, for and against the war on Iraq. This actual split of real positions did not, however, follow the twists of political debate in the region. Much of the debate has to do with whether the interlocutors like the United States or dislike it, whereas people should be looking for differences over values, for a dividing line on significant issues, such as the way to run a modern society, or how domestic policy is related to Arab issues, or legal equality and social welfare. We should examine the link between these issues and the US policy in the region and its ties with certain countries. Does it matter what people think of Saddam? Is our position versus Saddam a reliable indication of where we stand on real issues? It is hard to find lovers of democracy and human rights, of freedom and equality, even of reasoned analysis, among Saddam's supporters. Saddam's opponents include the pro-democracy forces, but also include many who support other types of dictatorship, or who are displeased with the secularity of Saddam's regime, or who take sides with other regional powers that are antagonistic to Saddam. Our views of Saddam do not explain the true rift existing in Arab culture today. Likewise, our view of the war does not indicate where we stand on major issues in this region. Is democracy the right criterion to gauge where our intelligentsia stand on major Arab issues? Mind you, it is not uncommon for people to call for democracy in order to have the chance to contest elections or embarrass the existing regime. But some do not believe in democracy. They only want a chance to pounce on power. You can tell who these people are, for most stop short of advocating legal and civic rights. The reason is simple, they do not want the public to take these rights for granted and demand it from any future authority. They do not want these rights to become integrated into the rotation of power.

Will peace prevail?
By Khalid Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 3 - 9 July 2003
After months of intensive diplomatic effort Israel and the Palestinians begin implementing the roadmap -- In a move that appeared to legitimise Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem Palestinian Prime Minster Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday became the first Palestinian leader ever to visit the office of his Israeli counterpart in Jerusalem. With no displayed flags and no questions allowed from the press, Abbas and Ariel Sharon shook hands and smiled for the cameras following their first meeting since the two sides reached a cease-fire agreement. The hastily arranged meeting was intended to take advantage of the positive mood between the two sides following Monday's redeployment of Israeli troops from northern Gaza and the re-opening of the road connecting the northern and southern parts of the Strip. Israel began transferring security responsibility to the PA after Palestinian factions agreed to a three-month cease-fire with Israel. In an emotional speech that avoided any demands on the Palestinians Sharon emphasised the need to make "painful compromises" for the sake of peace. For his part, Abbas demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners but avoided mentioning Israel's settlement policy and the separation wall being constructed on confiscated West Bank land. The PA hopes the partial withdrawal from northern Gaza and the withdrawal from Bethlehem, planned for Wednesday, will lend momentum to a complete Israeli withdrawal to pre-Intifada lines. And this, arguably, will constitute a significant step towards the implementation of the US-backed roadmap. US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice sought to push towards this end during her visit this week to Israel and Jericho. Rice criticised the apartheid wall and de facto borders being built by Israel well inside the West Bank. It is criticism of which Sharon, who argues that Israel's security knows no boundaries, will take little heed. For now, however, Sharon has to face the fact that Palestinian resistance groups have made considerable political gains by agreeing to reach a temporary cease-fire with Israel. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad declared the cease-fire jointly on Sunday, with Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades making a separate but similar cease-fire declaration simultaneously.

The Truce: Between Reality and Deception!
By Nassar Ibrahim, Alternative Information Center, July 7, 2003
If you are following the recent events of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, you are most probably in a state of bewilderment. No light seems to reflect the real dimensions of the conflict. Political discourse these days focuses on the roadmap as the magical solution for the conflict. However, the success of the roadmap is conditional on achieving a cease-fire or Hudna prior to ensuring political progress. This takes us back two years to the report of the director of The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) George Tenet and the Mitchell Document, which reached a dead end for two main reasons: First: Both reports were flawed from the start for prioritizing security concerns. Sharon found his escape for reaching a solution to the conflict through insisting on an absolute "truce week." Second: Israel persisted in using force and destruction as a means of suppressing and subjugating the Palestinian people. Israel’s policy succeeded in presenting the conflict as one of purely security dimensions. On the one hand, Israel succeeded in arousing the world's sympathy for it as the victim of this conflict. On the other hand, it succeeded in describing the resistance of the Palestinian people as terrorism, subsequently stripping it from its political roots and ethical basis. Consequently, Israel succeeded in achieving the following: . Exempting itself from taking responsibility for its occupation policies, the primary cause of the tragedies experienced by the Palestinian people over the past three decades. . Referring to its occupation practices against the Palestinian people as a form of self-defense. This is the cause of the state of distortion in which we now live. It is a conscious political process in its essence and manifestations because it aims at using force and deception as a prelude to imposing political conditions in the name of peace. The adoption of these strategies by Sharon and his extremist government serve as obstacles to reaching a logical and real end to the conflict. It is the same logic which made Sharon overrun all the Palestinian territories, reoccupy them, launch his military and security machine in all the Palestinian territories and declare the demise of the Oslo Accords. A rational human being cannot imagine that occupying an entire people and subjugating it to siege, destruction, isolation and killing will not entail a more furious reaction in the form of resistance, open to all possibilities whereby no defense lines stand in its way.

Peace for All the Wrong Reasons
By Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle, July 6, 2003 
"Sharon declared the essence of his strategy to the world on March 4, 2002 when he stated: Before peace talks with the Palestinians could resume, 'they must first be hit hard' .." -- For Palestinians, the Camp David Peace Treaty, signed between Egypt and Israel in March 26, 1979, under American sponsorship, equaled a catastrophe. Israel’s aim was to keep Egypt away from the focal conflict in the Middle East, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. It did so successfully. Not only was Egypt out of the picture, but also the seemingly united Arab front collapsed thereafter. Egypt received harsh flak from its Arab neighbors and lost its leading role among Arab nations. Israel was the ultimate beneficiary. Then Prime Minister Menachim Begin, refused any proposition of a realistic negotiation framework that could resolve the Palestinian conflict. On the other hand, the United States signed a separate agreement with Israel: the Israel-US Memorandum. The agreement provided American guarantees to Israel, lest Egypt violated the peace treaty. It also designated a generous annual military and economic aid package, to help Israel cope with the cost of peace. The question of Palestine was then put on the back burner, but not completely. Instead, Israel had an awesome chance to concentrate on suppressing the rebellious Palestinians, while trying to create an alternative leadership to negotiate peace based on Israeli terms. As Israel managed to breath easier, since the war of attrition in Egypt was officially over, a bloody campaign was waged against Lebanon, with the aim of altering the political structure of the tiny country, while driving Syria out of Lebanon, but foremost, annihilating the Palestinian resistance. Israel’s gamble led to the invasion of Lebanon, in the summer of 1982, which culminated to the massacre of Sabra and Shatilla. The estimates on Lebanese and Palestinian casualties in Israel’s war varied. But there is an agreement that tens of thousands were killed or wounded. The masterminds of the invasion were the same man who signed the peace treaty with Egypt; Begin, and the rising star of Israel’s politics; Ariel Sharon.

The Current Case For Palestinian Non-violent Direct Action
By William J. Thomson, Al-Hayat, July 6, 2003
Based on widespread and lengthy interactions with parties on both sides of the conflict in Israel/Palestine, I am convinced that massive, confrontational, nonviolent direct action (NVDA) is the optimal, and perhaps the only method that will lead to a just and equitable resolution.  This is an extraordinarily controversial view, within both the Palestinian and Israeli publics, because each side has been conditioned to believe that violence will ultimately lead to victory, despite almost a century of data disproving that belief. Particularly for the Palestinians, violence is a high-risk alternative.  It stands a significant chance of providing a "justification" for even greater violence or possibly a population transfer by the Israeli government, and it is clear that the current government of Israel would be quite capable of such actions. For many years, the Israeli government (perhaps fearing the power of NVDA) has taken extreme measures to make sure that such actions do not take widespread root among Palestinians, including recent deportations and refusal-of-entry of nonviolent activists.  This, in itself, should capture the attention of Palestinian strategists. What is nonviolent direct action? Gene Sharp, perhaps the best-known current NVDA theorist, describes NVDA as a technique for applying power in a conflict without the use of physical violence.  It produces change in three possible ways: 1) by conversion, in which an opponent comes around to positively accepting the point of view of the actionists; 2) by accommodation, in which an opponent chooses to grant demands without changing their viewpoint; and 3) by nonviolent coercion, in which change is achieved against the opponent's will and without his agreement, as when the sources of the opponent's power are so undercut by NVDA that he no longer has control.  Central to each of these approaches, however, is the concept of NVDA as an active and confrontational force, or as Gandhi put it, "Nonviolence is the greatest and most active force in the world. One cannot be passively nonviolent."

Imposing an unpeaceful peace
By Mohammed Shaker Abdallah, Jerusalem Times, July 5, 2003 
All signs now are that Israel and its allies are on the verge of achieving the kind of peace they have sought ever since the Jewish state was created. It is not that the Palestinians and the international community and even vast sectors in Israeli society do not have their vision of a just peace but that vision is quite different from the cohesive, humiliating and imposed capitulation Israel and Co. have been seeking all the time.  Despite all maneuvers and misguidance which cover the Israeli position, it is clear that this stance is based upon the present status quo of occupation and settlement disguised under attractive descriptions that cannot hide their flagrant existence. Even Israeli officials themselves confess that most settlements would never be dismantled and that the Palestinian state would never be genuinely independent - an identity lacking any means to practise its legal rights to control its domestic, foreign or defensive obligations toward both its population and the external world. This state, envisioned by the American Administration and hardly swallowed by the Israeli government will be not only a puppet identity depedent on internatonal charity but also a marginalized regime living under the shadow of the influential State of Israel and solely serving Israeli interests. However, this does not mean that the mutual interests of the Palestinians and the Israelis could not be honored and met in a more respective and humane approach. The honorable solution demanded by Palestinians and the international committee and yet despised and evaded from the Israeli-American perspective, is based upon convincing Israel to adopt a more realistic and peaceful attitude toward the Palestinian cause. The best way to safeguard Israeli interests and that of the Palestinians too, is to gain the Palestinian confidence and willingness to live in peace with Israel of their own free accord. Force can never bring about good relations between proud nations and this might be the conclusion of the  violence, now in its third year, suffered by both the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Humiliation at the checkpoints
Editorial, Haaretz, July 8, 2003
The Israel Defense Forces' Judge Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Dr. Menachem Finkelstein, confirmed on Sunday that criticism of the behavior of soldiers at checkpoints in the territories was not completely unjustified. Such criticism is constantly leveled by the Palestinians, Israeli and foreign journalists and human rights groups, but not often does the IDF admit the veracity of the complaints. In his statements to the Knesset Constitution, Justice and Law Committee, which was discussing human rights issues in the territories, the JAG said that indeed there were many - too many - complaints that soldiers manning checkpoints abuse and humiliate Palestinians and that the large number of complaints "lit a red light" for him. The proliferation of complaints, he continued, called for an examination to ascertain whether they were the result of the heavy workload of the soldiers at the checkpoints. And from now on, twice a year, a report will go to the committee about investigations and indictments of soldiers and police whose behavior at the checkpoints resulted in complaints and suspicions. This is a good start to get rid of a bad habit. But it is not the workload at the checkpoints that causes the bad behavior. Rather, it is the very existence of the checkpoints. Freedom of movement, which is guaranteed to every citizen in a free state, does not exist in the territories. The Palestinians are stopped leaving their towns, on the roads and at the entrances to Israel. Curfew, closure, siege, checkpoint - the names change, but the reality is the same. The proliferation of suicide attacks caused a tightening of the risk margins and, therefore, a narrowing of the thoroughfares.

I Saw Palestine
By Fadi Kiblawi, Palestine Chronicle, July 7, 2003 
"22 years and three days from today, will I have my right to return? Will my identity find peace? Or will a conflict stealing one generation after another endlessly burn for the sake of religious exclusion, when inclusion is possible and a moral imperative? .." -- BEIRUT, Lebanon (PC) - 22 years and three days after my birth into exile, I saw my homeland. Today at approximately 2:30 PM, I climbed to the top of an outpost at the Khiam prison, notorious for its torture chambers during the Israeli occupation, and for the first time my eyes were introduced to a sight previously only imagined. One hour later, I arrived at Fatma’s Gate, which demarcates the border between Lebanon and Palestine. The fence that stood in front of me held me captive in my prison, cosmic in physical size but worlds smaller than the plot of land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. I picked up a stone with the words of the Palestinian poet of exile, Mahmoud Darwish, resonating in my head. “How a stone from our land builds the ceiling of our sky.” Exile is such an absorbing phenomena with a subjective character and metaphysical quality wholly indescribable by words. My experience in such a state may seem unusual, given the material and political stability I enjoyed throughout my upbringing; starkly contrasting a defining characteristic of the vast majority of my Palestinian brethren. Perhaps the contemporary world order intended for me to abandon my ancestral roots for a constructed American identity, and its accompanying sociopolitical and cultural chauvinism. Seemingly this would be the most comfortable route, so do I defy nature? The Palestinian ethos is a manifestation of an existential state of dispossession…of being out of place. Thus from my birth, the status of exile from a land never touched or seen has been a pervasive element in a life recognizing this national identity, which has evolved and developed primarily in and as a result of exile. And denial of such an identity, while not impossible (but perhaps untenable), is certainly unnatural and unreasonable. Being Palestinian is not a choice. It is a simple fact of life that accompanies with it a subconscious desire to return to the land. Thus our mere existence is in itself resistance; a struggle which cannot be diminished until the desire is satisfied.