Inside Israel's secret prison
By Aviv Lavie, Ha'aretz Friday Magazine 8/20/2003
Detainees are blindfolded and kept in blackened cells, never told where they are, brutally interrogated and allowed no visitors of any kind. Dubbed 'the Israeli Guantanamo,' it's no wonder facility 1391 officially does not exist.
M, who serves in the Intelligence Corps reserves, remembers the first time he was sent to do guard duty at Camp 1391. Before climbing to the top of the observation tower he received an explicit order from the responsible officer: "When you're on the tower you look straight ahead only, outside the base, and to the sides. What happens behind you is none of your business. Do not turn around."
M., of course, couldn't resist the temptation and occasionally snuck a look behind him. From atop the tower he saw the double fence surrounding the camp, enclosing a compound ruled by trained attack dogs; the jeep that patrols inside the two fences; the vehicles utilized by the members of the unit who man the base; and especially the large concrete structure, dating from the British Mandate period, when it was used by the British police, and which now bears a description that carries an aura of mystery: Israel's secret detention facility.
Some of the people who were interviewed for this article dubbed the camp "the Israeli Guantanamo." There are in fact certain points of resemblance between the American detention camp in Cuba and the Israeli site, mainly in relation to the legal questions that hover over them and the gnawing doubt about whether they are consistent with the values of democracy. In terms of the exotic, though, we lag far behind. Whereas the watchtowers of the Guantanamo facility look out over the aquamarine waters of the Caribbean Sea, the secret prison in Israel is situated by the side of a completely ordinary road in the heart of a bustling region in the center of the country.
Bush at the crossroads of the road map
Ha'aretz 8/25/2003
The 10th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accord will take place in two weeks, but the chances of peace between Israel and the Palestinians appear many times smaller than the danger of the anniversary being marked by a mass-casualty terror attack in Israel and a new settlement outpost in the territories.
Astonishingly, even after 10 years, thousands of dead and wounded and billions of shekels lost, there are no signs on the political horizon of any conclusions being drawn from the mortal situations of both parties. More than any other, the conclusion that cries out to heaven is that the hawks cannot make peace on their own. In the coming days, it will become clear whether the United States, the primary patron, will once again stand aside, or whether, on the brink of the abyss, it will stretch out a hand to both sides.
Just as in the period after the Oslo Accord was signed, in the absence of aggressive external monitoring, the interim stages of the road map have turned into a mad dash to erect new obstacles on the ground. The hope of the map's drafters - that it would succeed where previous plans had failed - is being revealed as vain. This hope was based primarily on the rigid timetable the map laid out: an end to terrorism and dismantlement of the outposts (by May this year), establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders (by this December) and a permanent-status agreement (2004-2005).
We can learn from the Haredim
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz 8/25/2003
There was something impressive and admirable in the way that the ultra-Orthodox community reacted to the shocking terrorist attack that landed on it. Secular society, for whom hatred of the Haredim has become a central value, can learn a great deal from those hated Haredim about how to react to such a terrorist attack and what conclusions can be drawn from the horror. Whereas most Israelis are used to blaming only the perpetrators after each attack, without thinking for a moment that there was also something in their actions that brought on the disaster, there was something very impressive in the way in which the Haredim sought the blame in themselves and their actions. It was not only their acceptance, which stems from their religious faith, that gave them great strength, but this way of examining themselves as well. Even if their religious conclusions are suitable for them alone, their introspection cannot but impress in its daring and its strength. The Palestinians are also invited to adopt this way of looking for the guilty person and the blame in oneself, before blaming the whole world.
The reaction in Israel after every attack is uniform and entirely predictable: After the shock comes the desire for revenge and the placing of blame - on the terrorists who carried out the horrible act, on the Palestinian nation that gave rise to such beasts and on its bloodthirsty leaders who allowed the horror to take place. Nobody thinks to ask, just at difficult moments such as these, what caused the horror. What turned the wheels of hatred and violence and brought them to such depths. What brings a young Palestinian to sacrifice the most precious thing he has, his life, and to a great extent the life of his family as well, to do such cruel things? Is it really only religious incitement, and if so, what about the secular terrorists? Are these really automatic killing machines, and if so, how did they turn into such machines? And what about the horrors of the occupation? Didn't they have an influence? Nobody asks, like the Haredim, if perhaps there is something for which we, the Israelis, are responsible.
UN Attack Underlines America's Crumbling Authority And Shows It Can Not Guarantee The Safety Of Anyone
By Robert Fisk, Dissident Voice 8/23/2003
August 20: What UN member would ever contemplate sending peace-keeping troops to Iraq now? The men who are attacking America's occupation army are ruthless, but they are not stupid. They know that President George Bush is getting desperate, that he will do anything - that he may even go to the dreaded Security Council for help - to reduce US military losses in Iraq. But yesterday's attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad has slammed shut the door to that escape route.
Within hours of the explosion, we were being told that this was an attack on a "soft target", a blow against the UN itself. True, it was a "soft" target, although the machine-gun nest on the roof of the UN building might have suggested that even the international body was militarising itself. True, too, it was a shattering assault on the UN as an institution. But in reality, yesterday's attack was against the United States.
For it proves that no foreign organisation - no NGO, no humanitarian organisation, no investor, no businessman - can expect to be safe under America's occupation rule. Paul Bremer, the US pro-consul, was meant to be an "anti-terrorism" expert. Yet since he arrived in Iraq, he has seen more "terrorism" than he can have dreamt of in his worst nightmares - and has been able to do nothing about it. Pipeline sabotage, electricity sabotage, water sabotage, attacks on US troops and British troops and Iraqi policemen and now the bombing of the UN. What comes next? The Americans can reconstruct the dead faces of Saddam's two sons, but they can't reconstruct Iraq.
Why prop up the PA
By Danny Rubinstein, Ha'aretz 8/25/2003
One of the crucial considerations in the decision-making by the government of Israel concerning actions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is to ensure that the Palestinian Authority does not collapse. Time and again during the intifada years Israeli spokesmen defined the PA as "infected with terror," and there were also those who demanded that it be eliminated.
But in the end, the decision-makers in Israel concluded that it is necessary to do everything possible to preserve the PA. The reason is simple: If the mechanisms of the PA, that is to say the government ministries, the municipalities and the welfare services, cease to function, then the Israeli government will have to fulfill their functions.
In other words, in that case there would be a need to renew the military government and the civil administration as they existed until the implementation of the Oslo agreements. Israeli staff officers would have to take responsibility for education, health and infrastructures: water, electricity, roads and all other services. The government of Israel would have to see to it that the more than 3 million inhabitants of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have sources of employment and food.
Neturei Karta
By Dr. Abdel-Wahab Elmessiri , Islam Online 8/23/2003
Although the media currently associate Orthodox Jews with groups that support Zionist racism, expansionism, and the establishment of settlements, Orthodox-Rabbinic Jewry have, until recently, rejected the Zionist movement, a rejection that is based on several fundamental principles of the Jewish faith.
Neturei Karta or the “Guardians of the City,” is a Jewish Orthodox group known for being one of the staunchest religious opponents to the Zionist state. According to Neturei Karta members, Zionism does not represent a continuation of Jewish religious heritage or an implementation of Jewish teachings; Zionism in their view is an evil conspiracy against Judaism.
The Orthodox Jewish rejection of Zionism is based mainly on the definition of the “Jewish people” from a religious perspective. Neturei Karta believes that the Jewish people are not a nation in the conventional sense; rather, it is a religious group that came into existence three thousands years ago.
Jewish beliefs state that the Jews are God’s chosen people; however, this privilege, according to one religious interpretation, is not to empower Jews to control the world: God has chosen Jews to perform a divine service in this world. Thus, they should serve humanity. Jews were chosen not because they are an arrogant people or a victorious group but because they are a humble and peace-loving people.
A Drug for the Addict
By Uri Avnery, Palestine Chronicle 8/25/2003
It was a putsch. Like any classic putsch, it was carried out by a group of officers: Sharon, Mofaz, Ya’alon and the army top brass.
It is no secret that the military party (the only really functioning party in Israel) objected to the hudna (truce) from the first moment, much as it opposed the Road Map. Its powerful propaganda apparatus, which includes all the Israeli media, spread the message: “The hudna is a disaster! Every day of the hudna is a bad day! The reduction of violence to almost zero is a great misfortune: under cover of the truce, the terrorist organizations are recovering and rearming! Every terrorist strike avoided today will hit us much harder tomorrow!”
The army command was like an addict deprived of his drug. It was forbidden to carry out the action it wanted. It was just about to crush the intifada, victory was just around the corner, all that was needed was just one final decisive blow, and that would have been that.
The military was upset when it saw the new hope that took hold of the Israeli public, the bullish mood of the stock exchange, the rise in value of the shekel, the return of the masses to the entertainment centers, the signs of optimism on both sides. In effect, It was a spontaneous popular vote against the military policy.
Hezbollah Sets New Rules To U.S. Game
By Mohamad Kawas, Al-Hayat 8/25/2003
Hezbollah is fully aware that the regional developments in the aftermath of the Iraq war are shifting the political balance of power. The party is taking into consideration all the ongoing geo-strategic developments that need to be rapidly integrated. The party bears the responsibility for being a pioneer in liberating Arab territory, at a time when fatalism was the grounds of Arab political philosophy to manage the conflict with Israel. In its discourse, the party still represents the opposite model of what Washington hails: crushing the rebellion, killing the logic of resistance and calming the disobedience methodology. The party currently reflects the heart and center of the conflict between two trends to manage the conflict: the trend that preaches shunning, adapting and cohabitating and another trend that upholds confrontation, opposition and resistance.
Hezbollah's alibis are based on a group of elements that view the current regional situation as a temporary stage, that has never existed before. It could in fact represent the height of trouble for Israel and the U.S., as they are forced to resort to direct military confrontation in order to subdue a region, where all other direct methods have failed. Hezbollah considers that the liberation model it achieved in southern Lebanon is not only linked to the regional political and historic circumstances over the past decades, and is not related to a time and place context, but rather to the inevitable result of the resistance strategy, which is the only successful method throughout history against an occupation, regardless of its form, identity and time.
Twilight zone / Sami's hostel
Ha'aretz Friday Magazine 8/22/2003
This hostel, this refugee camp, are one-of-a-kind. Among mud-plastered houses and abandoned alleyways of sand, among the houses half-finished or lying in ruins, not far from the lowest point on earth, is a hostel. Three stories, 22 rooms, three to a room, NIS 25 per person: Sami's Youth Hostel. A guesthouse, smack in the middle of the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp, half an hour from Jerusalem, among the most desolate, and perhaps most wretched, of refugee camps. It's not even a camp, but the ruins of a camp. A hodgepodge of mud houses and unfinished structures for refugees in 1948, who fled again during the Six-Day War, and again were not permitted to return, not even to these wretched huts.
Only 5,000 or 6,000 of these double refugees are still here, south of Jericho. The Oasis Casino and the Intercontinental Hotel stand tall in the west, the Vered Jericho settlement atop the hill to the east. From their houses, the settlers can look down every day on the misery of these native sons right under their noses. Sometimes, on weekends, the people below can hear the music from the settlers' hilltop disco.
An orange road sign points the way to Sami's from the main road, just past the casino junction. Right is to the Intercontinental, recently visited by Colin Powell, and left is to Sami's hostel. The rooms are neat and clean, air-conditioned, three beds to a room, plus a wardrobe and brown plastic sandals for the guests. The communal bathrooms are spotless. Each floor has an old Tadiran refrigerator with family-size bottles of water. There's no regular water supply to the faucets in this camp; water is hauled in by truck. The hill above is green with the gardens of Vered Jericho. Alcohol is prohibited. You pay in advance. Wake-up is at 5 A.M., when the owner's children go room to room, knocking on doors. But if you don't want to get up that early, you can tell the reception desk the evening before. Transportation to the Allenby Bridge is free, the last bus leaving at 5:30 A.M. It waits until the last guest is on board.
General Overview Of A TV Show's Success
By Mahmoud Al Rimawi, Al-Hayat 8/25/2003
Globalization has always been known to unify the world, through the markets and tastes, but also, it is known for reviving identities and differences, given people's fear from loss of identity in an open, interconnected world, in which the richer, most creative and attractive prevail.
This applies to the Arab version of globalization, which has been translated into satellite channels; these have unified the Arab world, and enjoy an influence over all Arabic-speaking people and over all people of Arab origins all over the world. Yet, several satellite channels remain national channels, in the sense that they reflect the local ruling regime, its discourse, the national life and the "domestic culture." These channels are less successful than others, which address general Arab issues and concerns that are not specific to any one country. This is the secret of their success. This is also the secret of the success of "Superstar," the show aired on Future TV. Dozens of talented young men and women from all over the Arab world participated in the show, hosted by a Jordanian young lady and an Egyptian young man, during several months and touring several Arab capitals, before settling in the Lebanese capital for its last episodes.
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