A Failed Israeli Society Collapses While Its Leaders Remain Silent
By Avraham Burg, Forward 8/29/2003
The Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path and an ethical leadership. Neither of these is operative any longer. The Israeli nation today rests on a scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression and injustice. As such, the end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep. There is a real chance that ours will be the last Zionist generation. There may yet be a Jewish state here, but it will be a different sort, strange and ugly.
There is time to change course, but not much. What is needed is a new vision of a just society and the political will to implement it. Nor is this merely an internal Israeli affair. Diaspora Jews for whom Israel is a central pillar of their identity must pay heed and speak out. If the pillar collapses, the upper floors will come crashing down.
The opposition does not exist, and the coalition, with Arik Sharon at its head, claims the right to remain silent. In a nation of chatterboxes, everyone has suddenly fallen dumb, because there's nothing left to say. We live in a thunderously failed reality. Yes, we have revived the Hebrew language, created a marvelous theater and a strong national currency. Our Jewish minds are as sharp as ever. We are traded on the Nasdaq. But is this why we created a state? The Jewish people did not survive for two millennia in order to pioneer new weaponry, computer security programs or anti-missile missiles. We were supposed to be a light unto the nations. In this we have failed.
Unleashing the bulldozers
By Muna Hamzeh, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 28 August - 3 Septem
As Israel pursues its quiet policy of ethnic cleansing, the PA fails to help Palestinians remain on the land -- As Israel pursues its quiet policy of ethnic cleansing, the PA fails to help Palestinians remain on the land, writes Muna Hamzeh
As the ripple effects of last week's suicide bombing in West Jerusalem and Israel's assassination of senior political Hamas leader Ismael Abu Shanab threatened to drag Israel and the Palestinians into a bloody quagmire, Israeli bulldozers unobtrusively went to work.
Their target was Nazlat Isa, a lush agricultural village of 2500 people located north of Tulkarm and bordering the Green Line. Although the village had endured continued curfews and had in recent months been the target of repeated declarations of demolitions, nothing prepared its residents for the disaster that was about to unfold. Several hundred Israeli troops entered the village under the cover of the night on Friday and imposed a curfew. With the break of light, they gave residents minutes notice before setting more than a dozen industrial demolition type equipment into motion. By late afternoon, and in what turned out to be the largest scale demolition to take place on a single day, four houses, two garage buildings and 140 shops were reduced to rubble. A large market area consisting of small industrial shops was completely levelled. Tulkarm Governor Izz Al-Din Al-Sharif estimated the damage between 15 to 20 million dollars.
Come clean or go home
By Yoel Marcus, Ha'aretz 8/29/2003
The day is fast approaching when Ariel Sharon will have to decide whether to disclose his part in the affair of the money that traveled half way around the globe until it reached the account of Sycamore Ranch Ltd., looking like a bribe and smelling like a bribe, or to hand in his resignation. In these difficult times, we need a prime minister who will concentrate on rescuing the country from its terrible troubles, and not a politician whose sole concern is covering his ass. The scent of money has guided the principal actors in this affair, and it all began with Sharon's fierce desire to get elected - both in the Likud primaries, in order to neutralize Netanyahu, and in his one-on-one race for prime minister against Ehud Barak.
To do this, he needed money, lots of money. His rich friends rushed to the rescue, some of them in the name of pure friendship, and some of them in the name of the sacred cause known as "cast your bread upon the waters," also recognized by the law as a motive for racketeering. Nonprofit associations and shell companies were established, the largest of them called "Annex Research."
The whole business exploded when the state comptroller demanded that Sharon return the NIS 4.7 million he received from Annex Research. From that moment, Gilad Sharon entered the picture, drumming up a $1.5 million loan from a dear family friend in South Africa by the name of Cyril Kern as collateral for an Israeli bank loan.
Palestine: What’s Really Going On
By Sam Hamod, Dissident Voice 8/28/2003
The parable of the 3 bulls:
Once upon a time, there were three bulls, one black, one tan and one white; they were friends and defended one another.
One day, the lion came down from the hills, very hungry and attacked them; but he was repulsed as they stood back to back and warded him away with their triangular defense.
The lion thought and thought this, as he grew hungrier and hungrier to eat the bulls.
Finally, one night, he crept among the bulls and said to the white bull, “Oh, the black bull is dirty, and if you allow me to eat him, I will spare you and the tan bull.” He did the same with the tan bull.
The next day, the lion came down the hill and when attacked, the white and tan bull broke ranks, allowing the lion to devour the black bull.
The lion was gone for a month, but one day he became hungry again.
This time, he said to himself, “I shall do the same trick again, turn them against one another, then take advantage of them.” So, he did. This time he went only to the white bull and said, “Oh, the tan bull is dirty, if you let me eat him, I will leave you, oh noble and pure white bull, alone.” The white bull thought it over that night.
The next day when the lion came, the white bull dropped his guard and allowed the lion to defeat and devour the tan bull.
Of course, you know what happened when the lion became hungry again and the white bull was all alone—the lion devoured him in a wink.
The same thing is happening in Palestine. Sharon and Bush have told Mahmoud Abbass to arrest the Palestinians they want arrested and to destroy Hamas and the Al Aqsa Brigade and to cripple Fatah. Abbass has promised to do this. Israel has even given Abbass a deck of cards of Palestinians to arrest or kill; at the same time, Israel is trying to kill these same people.
Bush Appointee is a Bigot Disguised as a Scholar
By Fedwa Wazwaz, Common Dreams/St. Paul Pioneer Press 8/28/2003
President Bush's back-door appointment of Daniel Pipes to the United States Institute for Peace is an act of injustice. This appointment, which bypassed the normal approval process in the Senate, allowed a racist to masquerade as a peacemaker.
What are Pipes' qualifications? His resume reads:
• Launched Campus Watch, a Web site that included "dossiers" on professors and academic institutions thought to be too critical of Israel or too sympathetic to Islam and Muslims.
• Advocated the unrestricted profiling of Muslims and Arabs.
• Declared that 10 to 15 percent of all Muslims are "potential killers."
• Recommended the "vigilant application of social and political pressure to ensure that Islam is not accorded special status of any kind in this country."
Does Pipes have any experience in peace and conflict resolution? None.
Pipes' supporters mention his "prophecy" of warning Americans that Muslim terrorists were going to attack America. Keep in mind that the terrorists were not exactly secretive that they were planning a "surprise attack." Even so, Pipes fails to comprehend that 9/11 was an act of terrorists and not the Muslim people en masse.
One does not hear Pipes or his supporters replay and remind the American people of Baruch Goldstein, who massacred scores of Muslims kneeling in prayer during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan — or of Allan Goodman, who entered the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and started firing shots randomly at Muslims. These are two American Jews, among the thousands of illegal settlers who exported violence and terror from America to the Palestinian Territories.
The right to choose
By Khalil Shikaki, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 28 August - 3 Septem
The right of return of diaspora Palestinians implies their right to choose to return. Khalil Shikaki replies to Salman Abu Sitta -- In an article in the Wall Street Journal (8 August 2003) and later in the National Review Online (13 August 2003) Max Abrahms of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy misrepresented the findings of a recent poll among Palestinian refugees. Among the untruths claimed by Mr Abrahms has been the claim that the poll presented the refugees with a false choice. Similarly, in a recent article in Al-Ahram Weekly (14 - 20 August 2003), claiming to defend the refugees' right of return, Salman Abu Sitta could not find faults with a recent poll among Palestinian refugees except by misrepresenting the findings and distorting the methodology. One can understand why a right-wing Likudnic who denies the refugees right of return would seek to distort the findings of a Palestinian poll, but it is surprising to see a Palestinian joining the war on the same poll.
Moreover, while one would excuse ignorance, it is difficult to ignore malicious intent and vicious character assassination that pervade Abu Sitta's piece. Mr Abu Sitta, who knows nothing about the suffering of refugees, as he himself enjoys the privilege of more than one European citizenship and multiple passports and lives a highly comfortable life in European and Arab Gulf states, is essentially denying the refugees' right to choose. His not-so-clever attempt to hide this fact, comes out loud and clear through his insistence on deceiving his readers by fabricating results and misrepresenting the essential conclusions of the poll in the same way Abrahms does. I should know, as I run the centre that conducted the poll and released its findings. Had it been the right of return Abu Sitta was after, he would have found the results not only fully supporting that right, but more importantly strengthening the Palestinian negotiators' insistence on it while making it possible for Israel to grant it. It is precisely because of the significance of the findings for negotiators that someone like Abrahms sought to distort the poll findings.
Civil war: A do-it-yourself guide
By Spengler, Asia Times 8/29/2003
Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority's scapegoat-in-chief, so deeply abhors the prospect of a Palestinian civil war that he cannot bring himself to attack Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. Chin up, Mr Abbas: civil war is the sine qua non of nationhood. Permit me to try to sell you on the merits of having a civil war of your very own. Think of a civil war not as a luxury, but as an investment.
It is unpopular these days to draw attention to the merits of violence, particularly the sort that inevitably entails "collateral damage", that is, the slaughter of innocents. Progress supposedly brings us non-violent conflict resolution. Au contraire. The faster the world changes, the more people find themselves left behind, and the more people are left behind, the more diehards are willing to fight to the death.
Real nations, as opposed to romantic visions of nations, have no room for irredentists and other rejectionists. They need the sort of people who show up on time, pay dues to a respectable political party and get along (if grudgingly) with the neighbors. Having a civil war is de rigeur. All the right people do it. It shows that the prospective nation has the grit to sort out its own problems.
The truth, Mr Abbas, is that no one will take you seriously until you have your own civil war. Most of your neighbors have had one, some quite recently. Egypt killed about 2,000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1999-2000. Turkey has had two recent civil wars, counting the war with left-wing extremists of 1975-1980 (2,800 dead) as well as the campaign against the Kurds.
A war that devours the best people alive
Daily Star 8/29/2003
Before the fighting began, Syrian President Bashar Assad predicted in an interview with an Austrian newspaper that the war in Iraq would “open the doors of hell.” And here we are in the Arab world feeling like the doors of hell have been held open and that war is devouring some of the best people alive people who have dedicated their brilliant intellects to making this planet a better place for all humanity.
The death of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN chief envoy to Iraq, comes as yet another great loss; one of the many caused by the US occupation of Iraq.
De Mello was not just an international envoy fulfilling his UN professional duty; he was a man who had been in love with the Middle East and its people ever since he lived with his father, a Brazilian ambassador to Lebanon. As a child, he visited Damascus. Growing up, he showed great affection for Arabs and a true wish to save their identity and their civilization, which he deeply admired.
In his mission in Iraq he was a visionary, courageous and keen on calling things by their true names. Far more than any other official involved in the reconstruction, he emphasized the importance of preserving Iraqi identity and pride and the necessity of upholding Iraqi sovereignty. He expressed the view that once Iraqi ministers were appointed, they would prove that Iraqis were capable of governing themselves.
Politics not culture
By Gamil Mattar, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 28 August - 3 Septem
The US administration still seems puzzled by Arab and Muslim repugnance. The matter is really not so difficult -- Amid the escalation in Palestinian-Israeli violence, a US delegation led by Ambassador Edward Djerejian came to the region in search of an answer to the question that still baffles the Americans, but almost no one else. The answer to "why do they hate us?" can be found in many of the speeches by US leaders and in US foreign policy, not only for the Middle East but in Europe and elsewhere. It is good, perhaps, that the Americans can sense the antipathy. What is alarming, however, is how they phrase the question. They still insist that the hatred is omnipresent, that all Arabs hate all Americans.
Thus put, the question is misguided, and is likely to invite misguided answers. Curiously enough, the US delegation posed the question in Egypt and then Syria at a time when US Congress was renewing its attack on Syria and just as Washington was issuing a decision to freeze the assets in European companies of a number of Hamas leaders. Ordinary Arabs were bound to feel that such a decision, taken by none other than the US president, was calculated to send a particular message. The decision aims to make the US neo-con government look more attractive to Jewish voters and supporters of Israel's Likud. It was taken at a time when the US domestic situation was deteriorating and international criticism -- not hatred -- of US policy was running high. The hawks in the US government, who take decisions or encourage the president to take decisions that are humiliating to the Arabs and Muslims, in fact reinforce the significance of the why-do-they-hate-us question Djerejian brought with him to the region. There are people who advise President Bush to take decisions that can only spread chaos and cause further problems for US policy. They are in a position, of course, to advise the president to work to restore calm and stop provoking the Arabs. Had they done so, Djerejian would have found his interlocutors more sympathetic and less caustic in their criticism, although the Arabs tend to sugar-coat their displeasure, due to their traditions and also to the current situation in the region.
Every Arab Country Is In Danger
By Jihad Al Khazen, Al-Hayat 8/29/2003
I've left the radical Likudnik neo-conservatives in the U.S. administration alone, but they don't seem to want to let me go. As I was searching on the net something about Palestine, I fell upon an article that two of the worst members of the gang, Robert Kagan and William Kristol, wrote in the Weekly Standard on post-Saddam Iraq.
Both the publication and the writers figured in my series about the neo-conservatives, who have contributed to the death of young American men in an unjustified war against an inexistent threat, designed to serve only Israel's interests. This article is still inciting more men to sacrifice their lives in Iraq, which confirms that the Israeli gang is only American in name, but in reality, it is totally devoted to Israel.
In fact, Kagan and Kristol wrote that with some luck, the U.S. is likely to succeed in Iraq in the next few months, but that the danger lies in the insufficient resources that the administration has sent to Iraq, knowing that it is doing it at a slow pace.
According to them, the painful truth is that there are not enough American soldiers working in Iraq, and not enough financial resources either… they claim there is also an astounding small number of American civilians in Iraq.
As I was reading these two insolent advocates of Israel, I came upon reports in the U.S. press saying that ever since President Bush declared the end of war on May 1st, the number of American casualties has levelled out with that of the war casualties, and I shall add that it has even surpassed it yesterday, and will keep increasing as long as the decision of war and peace rests in the hands of Israel's gang.
No road and no map
By Graham Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 28 August - 3 Septem
With the ceasefire in ruins the Palestinian Authority finds itself isolated, divided and increasingly irrelevant -- One week after their militias abandoned the blood-soaked "hudna" Palestinians in the occupied territories are once more hostage to an Israeli offensive aimed at "pressurising" their leadership into war with its national and Islamist opposition. Israel is aware this is a line no Palestinian leader -- neither Mahmoud Abbas nor Yasser Arafat -- can cross. Indeed, the demand is made precisely because it cannot be met, thus granting the army a licence to impose a new post-roadmap order on Israel's terms.
That order runs along three lines. The first is the now open policy that "all members" of the Palestinian armed resistance, whether underground military cadres or public political leaders, are "potential targets for liquidation" in the phrase of Israeli army chief-of-staff, Moshe Yaalon.
He means what he says. Since 21 August -- when Israel assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Abu Shanab and his two bodyguards -- Israeli helicopter gun-ships have killed four Hamas men in missile attacks on the Gaza Strip. A fifth -- Ezzeddin Al-Qassam activist Khaled Massoud -- escaped with his life on Tuesday when rockets missed his car near the Jabalyia refugee camp. Sixty-five year old Hassan Hamlawi was less lucky. He was killed riding a donkey beside the car. Twenty-six Palestinians were wounded, including four children. Hit or miss, Israeli army spokesmen say the assassinations will continue until and unless the PA acts against the militias.
Unfair and unbalanced?
By Andrew Gumbel, The Independent 8/29/2003
Al Franken is a satirist, so it's his job to poke fun at powerful people. But when he appropriated the Fox News slogan, the fallout went right to the top - a court case that left red faces in high places -- Cast your mind forward to the morning of 3 November 2004. Imagine, just for a moment, that George W Bush has gone down to ignominious defeat in the US presidential election, his once sky-high popularity ratings pickaxed and bludgeoned into the ground like some rotten fencepost on a Texas ranch. All across the nation, people are asking where it all went wrong for the chief executive who had seemed so immune from criticism for so long.
And the answer, they all agree, is the moment that the mighty Fox News Channel - the red-meat chomping, propaganda-spewing, flag-waving, all-screaming, ratings-topping cable station doubling as chief baggage carrier for the Bush administration - was reduced to utter humiliation by a single pesky New York comedian.
Okay, I may be getting ahead of myself here. But it is absolutely true that Al Franken, a one-time writer and performer on Saturday Night Live who has made a splendid second career as a political satirist, has successfully turned the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News into a national laughing stock. In so doing, he has indeed struck a blow against an information (and disinformation) machine that has played a crucial role in spreading and enforcing the White House's with-us-or-against-us mentality. It is perhaps stretching the point to say that this is the beginning of the end of the Bush administration, even with Iraq going to hell and the economy down the toilet. But then, as you'll see, stretching the point is entirely in keeping with the nature of this story.
Marked for liquidation
By Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 28 August - 3 Septem
This week's bloody events announced the death of the unilateral Palestinian ceasefire. Khaled Amayreh traces the life and politial career of Ismael Abu Shanab, a moderate Hamas leader assassinated by Israel -- After repeatedly seeking to destroy the nearly three-month old ceasefire unilaterally declared by Palestinian resistance groups, in agreement with the Palestinian Authority, by systematically killing their activists, the government of Ariel Sharon this week finally got what it has so tenaciously provoked.
Shortly after sunset on Tuesday, a 35-year- old Hebron teacher disguised himself as an ultra-orthodox Jew and boarded an Israeli bus in West Jerusalem. Moments later, he detonated a large bomb that was strapped to his body, killing himself and as many as 21 Israelis, and wounded nearly 120. Some of the victims were children and women.
The suicide bomber was identified as Raed Mesk, a school teacher who was due to receive his masters degree in a few days. In a videotaped message, Mesk said he was carrying out the bombing in retaliation for Israel's assassination of prominent Hamas military leader Abdullah Kawasmi in Hebron three months ago, and the assassination of Hamas activist Mohamed Sidr two weeks ago. According to relatives, Mesk was close friends with the two men.
....There are however many indications that the bombing was a local initiative by Hamas militants in Hebron rather than the result of a central decision by the leadership of Hamas. This might explain why Hamas waited more than nine hours before reluctantly declaring its responsibility for the bombing. The group said the bombing was in response to the killing of more than 20 Palestinians, including prominent Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists, since the hudna agreement was reached on 29 June.
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