An appeal for Nablus
By Fawzia A. Reda, Electronic Intifada 2003-07-29
Nowhere across their land are Palestinians spared the effects of Israeli aggression. From north to south, cities, towns, villages, camps -- all wish to make their plight known, and all must vie for coverage by the world's media, whose priorities are often politically motivated. The media spotlight has not yet been trained on Nablus, a city under curfew and buffeted by relentless army assault. It is long past time that we hear the voice of besieged Nablus. For more than a year now, since April 2002, the cries of Nablus have been muted by the roar of jet bombers flying overhead and the blasts from tanks encircling and effectively laying siege to the city. At all times of the day and night, and often without warning, Israeli soldiers shell and shoot at the civilians of Nablus, who never know when or where to take cover. Children, women and men have been hunted, injured and killed. The City under Siege is entirely cut off from the neighbouring towns and villages -- and from the rest of the world. 200,000 people are trapped inside the tank fence around the city and subjected to a curfew that has been lifted for a total of 70 hours during the first 100 days. But the inhabitants of Nablus are determined to survive. They have been breaking the curfew, even though the Israeli army has been using "vicious violence (physical and psychological) to impose it, attempting to keep the population caged in their homes like animals through the use of terror and excessive military force", according to International observers based in Nablus.
The things that you don't get to know
By Amira Hass, Ha'aretz 2003-07-30
There is a school of thought which contends that if only Israelis went to where Palestinians live, if only they met them as flesh-and-blood human beings, their political and security opinions would be transformed. They would no longer automatically support the government's policies of recent years toward the Palestinians, nor would they continue to have a priori faith in every official Israeli explanation for some political or military action. People who have experienced this transformation personally are living testimony that this school of thought has validity. And these are people, only a few perhaps, whose political background cannot explain the doubts they now have toward Israeli policy - for example, those who employed and still employ Palestinians. Over the years they have learned to doubt the security explanations given for the hermetic closure and limits on the freedom of movement of their employees since 1991. People like M., a woman from Jerusalem who votes NRP and who befriended a family from a Palestinian village. She was aghast to discover how easily and systematically Palestinian lands are confiscated and orchards uprooted, how savings and hopes dissipate in favor of the settlements. Photographers and a small number of other media people who come to the territories find it difficult to explain to their friends in Tel Aviv that there is a huge gap between what they know about an "Israeli war of self-defense" in the territories, and the reality of massive, aggressive destruction that the IDF leaves in its wake.
A Test of the Road Map
By Jeff Halper, Miftah 2003-07-30
Even as I write this Israeli Prime Minister Sharon is meeting with representatives of AIPAC, Israel' owerful lobby in Washington, in preparation for his meeting with President Bush tomorrow (Tuesday). According to news reports, the American Administration is looking to Sharon to "give a boost" to the Road Map by offering some "humanitarian gesture." Freeing 100 more Palestinian prisoners, perhaps, or dismantling a couple of its hundreds of checkpoints, or altering slightly the route of the Separation Wall. What it is not looking for, apparently, is Israeli compliance with one of the most crucial elements of Phase I of the Road Map: ending the wholesale demolition of Palestinian homes. The language of the Road Map is clear -- and deliberately broad so as to avoid Israeli attempts to trip it up on technicalities: "The Government of Israel takes no actions undermining trust, including 'demolition of Palestinian homes' as a punitive measure or to facilitate Israeli construction." In the past few weeks the Israeli government has issued dozens of demolition orders against Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem. We have received word that demolition activities will commence already this Wednesday, hours after Sharon's meeting with Bush. Israel argues that "East Jerusalem" is not covered by the Road Map since it has been formally annexed to Israel. The Quartet seems to be letting Israel get away with this ploy, even though all the American and most European governments have expressed their (mild) disagreement. Nor do the threatened demolitions come under the Road Map's prohibition of house demolitions, in Israel's opinion, because they are being carried out for "proper" planning purposes (the construction of the Separation Wall, for instance, or the building of Israeli-only by-pass highways through densely settled Palestinian neighborhoods), not as "punitive measures."
Two Kinds of Prison: Reflections on Leaving Palestine
By Brooke Atherton, Electronic Intifada 2003-07-29
22 July 2003 -- On Thursday, a man in the streets of Qalqilia asked me, "Do they think we are animals? Not even human? They have put us in a cage." Every day that we visited the Qalqilia checkpoint, we watched the "progress" of the Israeli Occupying Forces' Apartheid Wall which is holding 40,000 Palestinians captive in their own city, on their own land (for pictures and maps see http://home.earthlink.net/~brookehatherton/id6.html). Each day the fenced section of the Apartheid Wall on either side of the checkpoint looms closer to completion. In two days, trenches six feet wide and and equally as deep were dug on either side of the central fence. The next day, the Israeli Occupying Forces erected triangular coils of barbed wired eight feet high running the entire length of each trench. The concrete base for the central fence has been laid, and any day the 12-foot-tall fence will be erected, and possibly electrified. From the checkpoint, you can see more fenced sections of the Apartheid Wall snaking up the hilly Qalqilia region, through Palestinian farmlands and villages. On other side of the the wall where trees and crops once grew are 30-foot-wide roads for the vehicles of the Israeli Occupying Forces. Two large Israeli colonies (settlements) sit in plain view from the Qalqilia checkpoint on the side of the fence where people, Israeli settlers, can move freely as they please. As far as the eye can see, the Israeli Occupying Forces' bulldozers, dump-trucks, trench diggers, army jeeps, armed contractors, and hired "security" officers are moving on the barren roads along the Apartheid Wall.
An Act of Cowardice that Must Surely be Unrivalled in History: Challenging the Assumption of Valour
By Kim Petersen, Dissident Voice 2003-07-29
Gandhi argued that the coward should take to violence because non-violence requires a lot of courage. One could add that the intellectually lazy fellow chooses violence before even thinking of non-violent options. - Jan Oberg -- Time and again we heard about the brave US-UK troops fighting to liberate Iraq. The way the adjective ‘brave’ was so liberally attributed, one might be forgiven for thinking that ipso facto invocation of bravery made it so. In the Far East, communities that host military bases would scoff at this automatic bestowal of valour in the military. There are plenty of civilian victims of criminal acts by American servicemen. The Japanese government is loath to make public the statistics for crimes committed by US military on its soil. (1) The situation in Japan hit a decided sour point in 1995 when US marines raped a 12-year-old girl in Okinawa. The public outrage on the tiny southern island of Okinawa, which houses the brunt of US forces, was such that in a 1996 referendum Okinawans voted overwhelmingly to have the US military presence reduced on the island. The US and the Japanese authorities ignored this expression of democratic will. The situation is equally grim across the sea in South Korea where about 37,000 US troops are stationed in nearly 100 installations. In the summer of 2002, two Korean schoolgirls, Shim Mi-seon and Shin Hyo-sun, were killed when a US tank drove over them and crushed them underneath. Nobody was convicted in the incident, which exacerbated tepid US-South Korea relations. Angry demonstrations took place and the tragic event may even have tipped the presidential election to Roh Moo-Hyun who took a hard-line campaign stance against the US troop presence. The history of the occupations of both Japan and South Korea offers poignant parallels to present day Iraq. Santanyana’s wisdom unfortunately is relegated to the memory hole; consequently, history in its malefic forms does repeat. Otherwise how can civilized people explain the history of bloodshed and barbarity by Homo sapiens? Atrocities are nothing new to the US. Knowledge of such atrocities is, however, mangled by agitprop, the justice of the victors, chauvinism, and the subsequently skewed rendering of history. As US historian Howard Zinn lamented: “Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.”
God, liberty and electricity poles in south Lebanon
By Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star 2003-07-30
If you want to grasp all that defines and simultaneously confounds the modern Arab state nation building, tangled identities anchored in ancestral lands, contested political sovereignty, nationalistic and religious passion, the lingering legacy of colonialism and much, much more you should come here to south Lebanon. For this beautiful human and geographical landscape is a microcosm of the historical phenomena that have defined the last four generations of Arabs, in particular: vulnerable and ravaged statehood, human and communal identities of colossal power and endurance, and a constantly changing relationship between the individual citizen and his or her state. This is where God, the gun and the modern nation-state collided, and the verdict is still not in as to who has triumphed. I spent a long day last week touring south Lebanon in the company of Lebanese officials, local and foreign journalists, ambassadors and aid workers. Our day was defined by numerous lively encounters and frank conversations with local residents, both officials and young Lebanese engaged in youth camps and other development and reconciliation projects. South Lebanon quickly taught me some useful lessons, of which five seem especially pertinent.
Mahmoud Abbas hopes for win-win resolution to conflict
By Robert Malley and Hussein Agha, Daily Star 2003-07-30
While Sharon, Arafat are content with status quo, Palestinian premier firmly supports return to political processes in order to achieve lasting peace. -- He has spent a lifetime in politics craving neither the limelight nor paramount political responsibility. Yet as he sits in his office as the Palestinian Authority’s first prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) finds himself saddled with both. He is the public face of the government, the man upon whom so many pin their hopes and toward whom even more stand ready to direct their resentment. Once eager to escape political conflict, he finds himself in the midst of a perpetual political storm. He did not seek the position, nor did he plan for it. It sought him and, if he sits where he sits now, he does so far more out of a sense of obligation than for personal ambition. But the sense of obligation has seized him, and today’s Abu Mazen is a different man from that of yesterday. His determination, the very sound of his voice once a hardly distinguishable murmur are signs of this. He looks around him and sees Palestinian land thoroughly reoccupied by Israel, the Palestinian Authority destroyed, widespread economic distress and political mayhem. Practically anyone can acquire a gun and claim to make policy by showing it off. This is not resistance, but rather anarchy, and of the worst sort because it is readily exploited by the Palestinians’ foes. All of this, too, is happening without the world’s lifting a finger, with the Israeli peace camp silent, with the Arabs indifferent. In the court of international official opinion, the Palestinians have lost the moral high ground so patiently acquired over the years.
Mr. Sharon, Tear Down That Wall!
By Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com 2003-07-30
That's what Bush should have said. -- The "fence," as the Israelis and their amen corner in the U.S. call it, is actually a wall, about 25 feet high: higher than the Berlin Wall. Like every atrocity carried out by the Israeli government, it is being sold as a "defensive" measure, but is in reality an act of aggression, cutting off large swathes of Palestinian property from the main body of the Palestinian community and preemptively establishing a border on annexed land. As the Los Angeles Times reported: "The red signs appeared one morning on the barbed wire. 'Mortal danger; military zone,' they read. 'Any person who passes or damages the fence endangers his life.' "And just like that, Mohammed Habbas was forbidden to reach the acres of fields and olive groves that have been in the family for as long as anyone here can remember. The people of this tiny hillside village were left behind when Israeli military walls chopped away more than half of their property, snaking all the way to the edges of houses to swallow the land – but exclude the people." Only a few days ago, meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen, the President declared the wall to be "a problem." But now that Sharon's in town, the problem – but not the Wall – seems to have gone away. Although Bush did not explicitly refer to the Wall in his public comments, Sharon didn't deign to be tactful. He brushed aside Bush's concerns, declaring his intention to continue building his monument to Israeli arrogance, but not without first patting the President on the back for achieving Israel's strategic objectives in the region. The Americans, he enthused, had not only invaded Iraq, and taken out a longstanding thorn in Israel's side, but also have recently resumed their threats against Iran and Syria. The Israeli Prime Minister then expressed his gratitude by telling Bush, in front of the whole world, that the "fence" (as the Israelis insist on calling it) is the President's problem...
Treating the symptoms instead of the cause
By K Gajendra Singh, Asia Times 2003-07-31
The "roadmap" to peace in the Middle East will not bring lasting peace to the region. Nor will any other attempts that fail to treat all parties as equals and take into account the millennia that have shaped the region and its peoples' history. -- Their body language said it all. US President George W Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the White House press meeting on Tuesday looked like a couple in some discomfort and disagreement but with joint family interests to protect. Compared with this uneasy encounter, just four days earlier there were warmth and an air of understanding at the press conference with Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, when a modest and persuasive Abbas pleaded for understanding, fair play and justice. But in political life it is always the mind and not the heart that decides. Even though Bush and his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, now have a better understanding of the Middle East problem - especially of the under-construction 50-meter-wide wall snaking around the occupied West Bank and gobbling up Palestinian land - common US-Israeli strategic interests, Israeli tentacles in the United States and empathy of US neo-cons with the Israeli cause are powerful. But there are now voices being raised in Israel and from Jewish organizations in the US against the excesses of Sharon's rule. It has brought neither security nor stability, with 100 persons dying violently every month since the second Intifada began 34 months ago.
Our foppish self-righteousness
By Shulamit Aloni, Ha'aretz 2003-07-30
Since the start of the intifada, more than 800 Israelis, mostly civilians, have been killed by Palestinians. We, justifiably, call it "murder." Some were killed by suicide bombers and the rest with other instruments of death. At the same time, more than 2,200 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis - some as armed suspects, and almost all from soldiers' fire. We don't call these casualties "murdered." But perhaps these deaths should also be referred to as murders. All the instruments of death that came from the sky, and the tanks, and the snipers were aimed at "the enemy" as the chief of staff says, or in "wartime operations" as Judge Advocate General Menachem Finkelstein says; and so there's no need to interrogate soldiers and prosecute the killers of civilians. Furthermore, adds the law-abiding JAG, "It is impossible to conduct 2,000 investigations into 2,000 deaths" (Haaretz, July 10). But he didn't conduct investigations when there were only 50 cases of murdered Palestinians or when there were 100. So why put murderers and abusers on trial now when there are so many? Wait, he did, finally, find eight cases to investigate, for shooting incidents. And of course, there's no comparing Jewish blood to Palestinian blood. Palestinians, after all, use the terrible weapon of suicide; while on our side, everything is aesthetic and elegant: Bombs fall out of the sky and the pilot goes home safely; the tanks fire flechettes; and our skilled snipers always hit their target. Of course, nobody ever asks which target. We fight the "enemy" and a large number of the "murders" are acts of war. Of course they - the Palestinians - aren't fighting an enemy; they are fighting an enlightened occupation that has anted to give them sovereignty for the last 36 years, but has found it difficult to do so because they are living on land that was ours 1,900 years ago and we want it only for ourselves.
America Increasing Pressure on Al-Jazeera TV
By Robert Fisk, Arab News 2003-07-30
BAGHDAD, 30 July 2003 — Only a day after US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz claimed that the Arabic Al-Jazeera television channel was “inciting violence” and “endangering the lives of American troops” in Iraq, the station’s Baghdad bureau chief has written a scathing reply to the American administration, complaining that in the past month the station’s offices and staff in Iraq “have been subject to strafing by gunfire, death threats, confiscation of news material, and multiple detentions and arrests, all carried out by US soldiers...” The unprecedented dispute between an Anglo-American occupation authority supposedly dedicated to “democracy” in Iraq and an Arab station once praised by Washington for its services to free speech in the Arab world comes at a time when the US administration appears to be laying the ground work to close down Al-Jazeera’s operations in Iraq — along with those of the Arabia channel — for alleged “incitement to violence”. America’s senior occupation proconsul in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has officially stated that he would close down newspapers or television stations guilty of “incitement to violence” — without, of course, explaining exactly what this phrase means.
US turns its sights back on Syria
By Hooman Peimani, Asia Times 2003-07-31
After a few weeks of American allegations and threats levelled against Syria, the Syrian Foreign Ministry launched its own counterattack against the United States on Monday. Accordingly, its spokesperson raised doubts about the real objective behind last week's killing of Saddam Hussein's sons. The Syrian move reflected the growing hostility between Damascus and Washington despite signs of improving relations in the months following the collapse of the Iraqi regime. In her interview with a Lebanese television program, Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Buthaina Shaaban suggested that the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein might have been planned for a certain reason. She made the suggestion while speculating about the possibility of having the brothers apprehended. Thus, "the United States could have captured Saddam Hussein's sons alive". Based on that assumption, she added, "killing the pair in a US military raid in Iraq may have aimed at covering up Washington's past political dealings with the defunct regime". Shaaban therefore speculated that Saddam's sons could have been knowledgeable about secret relations between Washington and Baghdad during their honeymoon in the 1980s. In particular, she referred to the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980, which led to a devastating eight-year war. At that time, Washington encouraged Saddam to attack Iran - an open secret, given the extent of support the Iraqi regime received from Western, including NATO, states. As admitted by almost all of them in one form or another, they assisted the Iraqi war efforts by providing advanced weapons and by helping the Iraqis with their weapon development projects. A well-known example is the American, British and German involvement in their weapons-of-mass-destruction projects, especially the development of chemical weapons.
Pleading for the the right to babble
By Gideon Samet, Ha'aretz 2003-07-30
This round in Washington is going to end nearly like all the previous ones. A summary can be typed ahead of time. A little hint of dispute, and a lot of public understanding between the Israeli and American leaders. There's always some punch line by a spinner, whether local or distant. This time it is: "There's no separation fence between Bush and Sharon." Hats off to the creative flack. But walls aren't built with blurring and babbling. The visits this week could have been a turning point if President Bush wanted one. It didn't happen, and it is very possible that there won't be as good an opportunity that was missed in the foreseeable future. If Bush had wanted, he would have demanded disciplined behavior from both sides according to a detailed timetable. If he wanted, he wouldn't have swept the matter of the outposts, one of the veteran issues on which the administration has been vehemently critical of Israel, under the rug. Of all the burning issues, Bush chose the fence. And for that he received a typical Sharon response and possibly showed that he still hasn't learned to deal with Sharon. Sharon promised not to build - for now - in problematic areas. Mr. President, you made Sharon laugh. That's how he's been deceiving people for decades, like the way he deceived a charismatic prime minister on Lebanon. Sharon will come home completely happy: No outpost removal, no tangible pressure to improve the lives of the Palestinians. In fact, nothing.
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