The Bi-national State: The Wolf Shall Dwell With The Lamb
By Uri Avnery, Uri Avnery's News Pages, July 12, 2003
"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb" prophesied Isaiah (11:6). This is possible in our times, too - provided you bring a new lamb every day.  I am reminded of this cruel joke every time the idea of a bi-national state comes up. In desperate times, messianic ideas flourish. They permit an escape from the dark present to a better, brighter world; from a feeling of helplessness to a sense of creation. No wonder that in these dark times, the bi-national idea is raising its head again in some Israeli left-wing circles. It's a beautiful and noble idea, imbued with faith in humanity. But, like Isaiah's prophecy, it is an idea for the days of the messiah. If it has any realistic chance at all, this may come in another two or three generations. In the meantime, it is indeed an escape from reality. A dangerous escape, as we shall see. According to the bi-national idea, the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River - Palestine / Eretz Israel - will again constitute one state, as in the days of the British Mandate before 1948. Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, will live there together as equal citizens. The exact form of the regime - bi-national or non-national - is secondary. All citizens will vote for the same parliament and the same government, serving in the same army and police force, paying the same taxes, sending their children to the same schools, using the same textbooks. An attractive idea, indeed. It may seem strange that this idealistic vision is reappearing just now, after it has failed the world over. The multi-national Soviet Union has disappeared, and now even the multi-national Russian federation is in danger of falling apart (see Chechnya). Not only Yugoslavia has disintegrated, but so have its fragments. Bosnia, too, has fallen apart and been glued together artificially, with foreign soldiers trying to keep the peace somehow. Serbia has been compelled to give up Kosovo in all but name, and the integrity of Macedonia is in doubt. For a long time now, the unity of Canada has been threatened by movements within the French-speaking population. United Cyprus, with its model bi-national constitution, is barely a memory. And the list is long: Indonesia, the Philippines and many other countries, not to mention our neighbor, Lebanon. But there is no need to look far away. Our own reality is enough. The immediate roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are more than a hundred years. A fifth generation has been born into it and its whole mental world has been shaped by it. Basically it is a clash between the Zionist movement and the Arab-Palestinian national movement. After a hundred years, the force of Zionism is far from exhausted. Its main thrust - expansion, occupation and settlement - is in full, offensive swing. On the Palestinian side, nationalism (including the Islamic version) is deepening and growing from martyr to martyr. It takes real faith to believe that these two nationalistic peoples will give up the essence of their hopes and turn from total enmity to total peace, giving up their national narratives and being ready to live together as supra-national citizens.

Sharon Taking Revenge From Arafat
By Abdulwahab Badrakhan, Al-Hayat, July 14, 2003
Sharon returned to Europe. Is he now accepted? Maybe. Is he now respected? Certainly not... The reason for his comeback is the Roadmap. Did Sharon really accept it? The Europeans have no other choice but to believe that the one they consider to be a war criminal is actually changing, just as they have no other choice but to believe that the American President is serious about bringing peace to the Middle East. Besides, Europe has no role outside the Roadmap, and a resumption of relations with the Israeli Premier is crucial to the map's execution. Before Sharon left to London, he received a first gift; Belgium annulled the international war crimes law, which allowed its courts to sue foreign officials, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. When this law was enacted in 1993, the Belgian legislators were not thinking of Sharon specifically, but the Belgian government cancelled the law for Sharon specifically. The American threats and pressures were effective, so that certain individuals known as terrorists have international immunity, making them more powerful than states and laws. It is clear that Sharon wants to use his comeback to Europe for a personal revenge he hasn't yet achieved, and that is, eliminating Palestinian President Yasser Arafat by any means possible. Europe didn't antagonize Sharon by letting Arafat win. It antagonized him merely because it didn't bless his terrorism and animosity, the way the U.S. administration did. Europe didn't maintain its relations with Arafat just to irritate Sharon, but rather because the Palestinian president represents his people, and nothing has yet happened to prove that this people doesn't recognize Arafat as its representative. Moreover, Sharon gave the Europeans yet a new excuse, saying that it was a big mistake to maintain relations with Arafat because it weakened the government of Mahmoud Abbas. But he thinks the Europeans are stupid and have no idea about what is really happening on the ground. They know fully well that the issue of weakening the Abbas government or strengthening it has nothing to do with the power game between Arafat and Abbas; rather, it depends on Israel relinquishing its aggressive methods against the Palestinian people. So far, Sharon's government hasn't actually proven that it really intends to strengthen the Abbas government in a constructive way. In fact, it is nurturing the Palestinian public's anger against their government by refusing to cancel any occupational move, which would allow Abbas and his government to establish a dialogue with their people towards securing an agreement on the next stage, based on national interests.

Creeping back to the Temple Mount
By Danny Rubinstein, Haaretz, July 14, 2003
Last week, the Jerusalem police continued to organize understated visits by small groups of non-Muslims to the complex of mosques on the Temple Mount. Each day before noon, about 10 people enter, accompanied by police. They go up through the Dung Gate, near the prayer plaza at the Western Wall, take a short walk around the compound without entering the mosques - and leave. This is a government-supported initiative of Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, who wants to renew visits by Jews and foreigners to the Temple Mount. These were stopped nearly three years ago, following Ariel Sharon's famous visit and the outbreak of the intifada. Since then, only Muslims have been visiting the mosques. The Palestinian Authority and the heads of the Waqf (Muslim religious trust), who run the holy site, Haram al-Sharif, are strongly opposed to the renewal of the visits. This was expressed in the list of demands to Israel that the Palestinians submitted in the framework of the cease-fire agreement. And Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat had passed at the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee a decision that defines the renewal of the visits as an Israeli provocation. The closure of the site to non-Muslims was initiated by the Waqf management in September, 2000. The defense establishment gave its approval and the Israel Police helped Waqf authorities block the entry of non-Muslims. However, in recent months there has been a change and now the main Israeli argument is that it is untenable that the place where the Temple stood be out of bounds to Jews (mainly Jews who are not observant, as most religious Jews obey the stricture of rabbinical law that prohibits entry into the Temple Mount complex). This argument sounds especially logical nowadays, when there are efforts afoot to bring about calm. Why, in fact, should the gradual return of non-Muslims to the most fascinating site in the land of Israel not be allowed? Spokespeople for the Waqf and the PA say the problem is not one of principle, but rather a security and political problem. For decades, the site was open to visitors and the Waqf even made a lot of money selling entry tickets to the mosques. Now, the Waqf management is saying that tourists will not come because there is no tourism and Jewish visitors will also be few because most Israelis are afraid to go into the Old City. There remains, therefore, Jewish settlers in the territories and members of organizations like the Temple Mount Faithful and others who want to restore the site to its former glory and rid it of the "idolatrous abomination" (the Muslim mosques, according to the definition of one of them).

Palestinian Political Prisoners
By PLO Negotiations Affairs Department, MIFTAH, July 15, 2003
"It would be better to drown these prisoners in the Dead Sea if possible, since that's the lowest point in the world." - Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli Transport Minister[1] -- Frequently Asked Questions: 1. How many Palestinian prisoners are there?  As of July 8, 2003, there are 5,892 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons or detention camps.[2] Of these prisoners, 351 are children under the age of 18,[3] 75 are women and 42 are over the age of 50. Of the total number of prisoners, 433 Palestinians, who were imprisoned prior to the signing of the Oslo Accords, remain in prison despite the Accords' call for their release.[4] Of these 5,892 prisoners, only 1,461 have actually been put on trial. The prisoners include members of the elected Palestinian Legislative Council as well as individuals who helped reach the recent agreement with Palestinian factions to halt all violence against all Israelis. Israel currently has 786 Palestinians detained in prison camps who have not been charged with any crime under what is called "administrative detention." Administrative detention is illegal under international law.[5] Administrative detention orders may last for up to six months, with Palestinians held without charge or trial during this period.[6] Israel routinely renews the detention orders and may renew the orders without limitation, thereby holding Palestinians without charge or trial indefinitely.[7] During this period, detainees may be denied legal counsel. While detainees may appeal against the detention, neither they nor their attorneys are allowed access to the State's evidence, or know the purpose of the detention - thereby rendering the appeals procedure useless.    2. Don't most Palestinian prisoners have "blood on their hands"? No. The vast majority of Palestinian prisoners are political prisoners who have been arbitrarily imprisoned or detained for no legitimate security reason, but for political expression or simply because they are Palestinian. According to B'Tselem: "Security is interpreted in an extremely broad manner such that non-violent speech and political activity are considered dangerous.. [This] is a blatant contradiction of the right to freedom of speech and freedom of opinion guaranteed under international law. If these same standards were applied inside Israel, half of the Likud party would be in administrative detention." [8] Furthermore, of those Palestinians currently being held, the overwhelming majority have not been put on trial.

From a lost refugee
By Shaker Khazal, Electronic Intifada, July 15, 2003
Bourj al Barajneh, 15 July 2003 -- Burj el-Barajneh camp is situated near Beirut International Airport in south Beirut. It was established by the League of Red Cross Societies in 1948 to accommodate Palestinian refugees from the Galilee in northern Palestine. To all the eyes that are looking at a beam of light lost in war roads / To all the ears that will be hearing a cry of suffering / And to all the hearts that might guide hope and peace to enlighten our days / To start talking, you need a tongue. Don't you? / To start feeling, you need a heart. Don't you? / To start crying, you need eyes. Don't you? -- And after our experience, I will tell you a small painful secret, a refugee card will unfortunately help you to start suffering. My name is Shaker Khazal. I am 15 years old. I come from a small deprived Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon called Bourj Al Barajneh. Something special about my camp is that it rains day and night, during summer and winter. It rains tears that are a result of future worries, present fears, and past dark memories. I hold a very small identity card that they forgot to put on any right a human need to live. All what is there, a beam of hope to achieve peace that protects us from death. We only need peace to live under a sky of freedom and existence. I really need a roof of education that protects me from the gloomy future. Our story began when war replaced peace, tears replaced smiles, worry replaced mind, fear replaced happiness, and problems replaced our peace of mind. Although I am now in the land of Niagara Falls, my heart and mind are still in the Palestinian refugee camps. From the moment sun rises over that little deprived space, and the prayer call is heard, the day of pain starts. Students going to their schools with a small bag waiting the tiny random pieces of education at UNRWA schools. Patients dying at the doors of the hospitals ending their worry of how to find medicine. Parents fighting with eachother and the only reason is the refugee's situation.

The Israel Leon Uris made
By Charles Paul Freund, Daily Star, July 15, 2003
The death last month of writer Leon Uris has revived interest in Exodus, his 1958 novel about the establishment of Israel, if only to recall its extraordinary impact. The book’s stature and influence may have grown smaller over the years, as did the reputation of the 1960 film based on the book and starring Paul Newman, but the shadow it casts remains a long one. Exodus is a prime example of the argument that popular works influence history far more than highly regarded literary creations. Appreciations of Uris focused on his power as a storyteller. The New York Times paid him mixed homage by quoting from its own reviews. “(It) is a simple thing,” wrote a critic of a 1976 Uris novel, “to point out that Uris often writes crudely, that his dialogue can be wooden, that his structure occasionally groans under the excess baggage of exposition and information.… None of that matters as you are swept along in the narrative.” Millions were indeed swept along. Exodus was a best seller in the US for over a year, selling some 20 million copies. It was translated into 50 languages. But the work’s real impact lay beyond literature. For readers, the novel ­ and the film ­ became a template for perceiving the Middle East. Uris popularized Israel as a place of righteous refuge, solidifying a link between the Holocaust and Israel that remains contentious among Israel’s own historians and intellectuals. This is not to say that his story was false; the refuge narrative is a valid Israeli theme. But Uris helped forge a connection between it and the Jewish genocide, effectively characterizing critics of Israeli policy in terms of that story, setting the terms of the debate for decades. US academic Melani McAlister has written that when Exodus came out, “most Americans still knew little about Zionism or Israel,” and that the story was “a foreshadowing of what Israel was to come to mean to Americans.” Author Edward Tivnan called the novel “the primary source of knowledge that most Americans had about Jews and Israel.” As recently as 2001, the scholar Edward Said said that, “the main narrative model that dominates American thinking (about Israel) still seems to be Leon Uris’ … novel Exodus.”

Single mothers in the new Israel
By Avirama Golan, Haaretz, July 15, 2003
Sympathy for single mothers protesting cuts to the benefits they receive from the state is beginning to turn to contempt. Like many such predicaments, this one too started with the best of intentions. At the end of the eighties, the Knesset realized that single mothers were in need of special support. Among other benefits, the 1992 Single Parents Law decreed a wage supplement, easing of eligibility tests based on income, vocational training, priority in day care, housing loans and limited participation in rent payments. But the benefits turned into complications when single mothers began to realize that if they sought to work additional hours in order to improve their situation, their state income supplement would be revoked. Today, the dry facts are as follows: There are 26,000 single parents, 91 percent of whom are women, and most of whom work full-time. Nearly one-third are at the bottom of the economic ladder, and most are divorced. Seventy-seven percent of single mothers participate in the labor force (as opposed to 76 percent of married women). However, most cannot support themselves, among other reasons, because over the years, the system has forced them to earn less - otherwise they will lose their income supplements. They are forced to take less child support, otherwise the state will reduce the child support it provides. And what happened now to bring these women out in protest? Of all the knots in the economic system, it is this one that the state has decided to untie.

Alone on the barricades
By Hannah Kim, Haaretz, July 15, 2003
Vicki Knafo has been negotiating with Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a week the way women sometimes negotiate with their husbands before a divorce - without fear and without respect, because they know the other side very well. She feels she is a part of mainstream Israeli society and they aren't going to leave her on the sidelines. The same is true for Ilana Azoulay. "I'm not exceptional," she said, explaining why she opposes a solution through the exceptions committee. Azoulay, unemployed for four years, has one son in a boarding school, a daughter who died of cancer and a third child with cerebral palsy, and she feels she belongs to the state. She's no less at home than Netanyahu. Their march to Jerusalem is a direct continuation of the struggle of the Haifa Chemicals workers in the south who managed to set up a workers committee over the objections of the management. Knafo and Azoulay, like Shlomi Pinto, one of the rebellious workers at Haifa Chemicals, are the new Israelis. Like their parents, they kept quiet for a long time until they understood their silence sentenced them and their children to the sidelines, to the margins of society, and now they are setting the media agenda - without media advisers. 

Clampdown: Ramallah
By MIFTAH, July 15, 2003
On Friday, an Israeli cab driver went missing. His taxi was found still running in the Palestinian town of Beit Hanina, and Israeli officials immediately made claims that the driver had been kidnapped and began to search for him in Ramallah. In the meantime, Palestinian factions continued to respect their three-month ceasefire, and Palestinians persisted in fulfilling each of their obligations under the first phase of the road map. This was not enough, however, to keep the Israelis from responding harshly. They imposed a curfew on Ramallah beginning Monday afternoon to search for the missing cab driver. No matter which way you turn it, curfew, like so many of Israel’s occupation policies, is a categorical abuse of human rights and violates all norms of international law. Curfew, like closures, checkpoints, home demolitions, tree uprooting, sieges, indiscriminate arrest and detention, and deportation of relatives of activists are all forms of collective punishment that Israel has long imposed on Palestinians in the name of Israeli “security.” Yet the international community has never taken Israel to task for its collective punishment policies, despite the fact that they are unconditionally prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Conventions. Like too many of Israel’s inhumane policies – not the least of which is legalized torture – these forms of collective punishment have in effect been silently condoned by the international community. And that is just part of the story. Because simultaneously, the international community has allowed Israel to sideline democratically elected Arafat (though the Brits seem to be standing up to Sharon this week in his bid to effectively eliminate Arafat from the political scene altogether), ignore and even commend Israel’s illegal assassination policy, disregard and even encourage the illegal detentions of innocent Palestinian citizens, and turn a blind eye to settlement development, even in the midst of road map obligations to begin dismantling.