Caged
By Chris McGreal, The Guardian 9/3/2003
When finished it will be 370 miles long and 10ft high, encircling almost the entire West Bank population. Israel claims the security fence is needed to protect its citizens from suicide bombers. But for the many thousands of Palestinians cut off from their work, fields and loved ones, it is part of an illegal land grab intended to drive them from their homes. Chris McGreal takes a drive along the 76-mile section already completed...
Baqa al-Sharqia's plight is much the same as that of a string of Palestinian villages severed from their lands or caged behind barbed wire under a large red sign in Hebrew and Arabic: "Mortal danger. Military zone. Any person who passes or damages this fence endangers his life." But the mayor dwells on a single, telling distinction. When Moayad Hussain faces Israel's vast new "security fence" toward the beginning of its meandering journey through the occupied territories - which the Israeli government envisages will end nearly 400 miles later with almost the entire Palestinian population encircled - he is not looking out from the West Bank but into it. The fence carving through Baqa al-Sharqia's olive groves places the village and its 4,000 Palestinian residents on the Israeli side of the wire.
"We have asked ourselves the same question many times," says Hussain. "If the fence is for security, if the fence is to keep us out, then why aren't we on the other side? With every kilometre of fence [prime minister Ariel] Sharon builds we are sure there is only one answer. This is not about security, it's about land and resources."
What the fatality statistics tell us
By Amira Hass, Ha'aretz 9/3/2003
Here are the disastrous proportions, in the hope that someone in Israel will take notice: 80 percent of the Palestinians killed were not connected to armed actions. -- Against the background of shock and disgust at the mass terror attack on the Jerusalem bus on August 19, and the fear of advanced Qassam rocket attacks, the government of Israel energetically renewed its policy of targeted killings. From August 21 through yesterday, September 1, Air Force fighters killed 11 Hamas activists in six targeted assassinations in crowded central locations. Four other Palestinians were killed in those actions, among them a young girl and an old man, and dozens were injured. The threatened revenge attack has not occurred. Is this not proof that targeted killings are the way to go?
That might have been the conclusion in December 2000 as well, after the first three targeted killings that Israel carried out the previous month. At the end of September and October 2000, the Palestinians killed 11 Israelis in the territories, five of whom were security personnel, according to B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights. In November, 22 Israelis were killed, 18 in the territories, 11 of whom were security personnel, and four in Israel proper. In December, the Palestinians killed eight Israelis in the territories, five of whom were civilians and three were security personnel. No Israelis were killed in Israel proper in December. This could be seen as a direct result of the pressure brought to bear by the series of six targeted killings that same month.
However in February 2001 the ratio between those killed in the territories and those killed in Israel changed: four Israelis were killed in the territories, among them one soldier, and eight in Israel, run down by a bus driver from Gaza. In March 2001, two Israelis were killed in the territories and eight in Israel, among them three in the first deadly suicide bombing, which took place on March 4.
Sharon, settlements and making Dante blush
By Geoffrey Aronson, Daily Star 9/3/2003
A single-mindedness of purpose is required for those who hope to make history, a belligerent, bull-headed determination to keep one’s focus on the prize and to subordinate every tactical consideration to this strategic goal.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has such qualities. His dogged pursuit of the expansion and consolidation of Jewish sovereignty throughout what he refers to as the “Land of Israel,” and the associated destruction of the prospect of genuine Palestinian sovereignty, are his lodestar. Every action he takes and every policy he pursues are undertaken in its service. The ineffectual American-led “road map” has proven to be little more than a nuisance for him. He has frustrated both implementation of the evacuation of settlements established after March 2001, and an immediate, comprehensive halt to settlement expansion. Both were central features of the first stage of the road map, and both have been effectively ignored by both the US and Israel. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, overwhelmed by the demands of his stronger antagonists, has made only perfunctory attempts to force the issues onto the agenda.
It is doubtful a more forceful Palestinian effort could have had more success. US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Israeli daily Maariv on July 31: “When Abbas was in Washington last week and they talked about settlements and … prisoners … (US) President (George W. Bush) kept … interrupting the conversation to say: ‘I understand, but it begins with security.’” Powell then said that Abbas replied, “Well, we need more on settlements.” Bush repeated, “I understand, but it begins with security.” The West Bank town of Hebron is a metaphor for the unequal, zero-sum contest between Palestinians and Jewish nationalism of the kind championed by Sharon. It is a place where the presence of a few dozen adult settlers has created a kind of hell that would make Dante blush. The beginning of the contemporary, permanent Jewish presence in the city in 1980 followed a script similar to the one that has attended the recent Israeli response to the creation of new settlement outposts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which now number more than 100.
Israel's Assassination Policy Triggers Latest Suicide Bombings
By Steve Niva, Electronic Intifada 9/3/2003
Palestinian suicide bombings are vicious and grave abuses, clearly war crimes under international law for intentionally killing civilians. They have also been a strategic disaster for Palestinian national aspirations, souring the Israeli public on peace and damaging the Palestinian cause in the court of world opinion.
Nevertheless, it is nearly impossible to avoid concluding that the current Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has either deliberately provoked a number of them or at least undertaken actions that would clearly risk them. Either way, it is complicit in the deaths of scores of Israeli citizens.
For how else can one explain the Israeli decision to assassinate senior military and political leaders from militant Palestinian groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad during the past three months when it is well documented that such actions frequently result in a suicide bombing, usually within a week?
In four of the past five suicide bombings, the timing of the bombing, the fact that group whose senior militant was assassinated carried out the attack, and the explicit claim of revenge for the assassination in all of these cases leave little room for doubt about cause and effect.
Roots of disadvantage
By Lior Greenbaum, Globes 9/3/2003
The Or committee report published yesterday devoted an extensive chapter to discrimination against Israel's Arab citizens and the resulting frustration as a factor in the rioting of October 2000. Many people believe that in addition to the political and religious aspects of the riots, they were also an eruption of repressed emotions. The writing was always on the wall, but no one bothered to read it.
Nothing much seems to have changed in the Israeli-Arab community and in the Israeli establishment in the past three years. The best example is delay in implementing the "NIS 4 billion" development plan, as well as the cuts in the plan's budget. The country's leaders announced the plan to close the gap between Jews and Arabs a few weeks after the riots. As of now, Israeli Arabs still sit in the national backyard, including economically.
"The Arab community's economic condition is the result of the implementation of the economic policies of the current and previous governments," says Majd al-Krum Regional Council chairman and spokesman for the Higher Follow-up Committee on Arab Affairs Muhammad Kanaan. "Those who claim that economic weakness and the deteriorating socio-economic situation will weaken the Arab community's response to discrimination on various fronts are wrong."
....The economic numbers collated by Mossawa - the Advocacy Center for Arab Palestinian Citizens of Israel, are quite dismal: 41.3% of Israeli Arab families are defined as poor, compared with the national average of 17.7%; and 52% of Israeli Arab children are poor, compared with the national average of 26.9%. This means that 90,400 Israeli Arab families and 350,000 children are poor.
One step before the abyss
By Gideon Samet, Ha'aretz 9/3/2003
As severe as the words of the Or Commission may sound, they do not even come close to describing the huge crisis that once again loomed violently three years ago. To describe this as "the events of October" is about as exact as continuing to use the euphemism "disturbances" for the two large revolts by Palestinian Arabs in 1929 and 1936, which sped up international plans for partition of the country.
There is no more serious domestic problem - not the poverty issue, nor the decline in education, not unemployment and not even the uninterrupted mediocrity of the national leadership. While most of the other crises can correct themselves in a society that is basically sound, the numerous issues that so alienate one-fifth of the population cannot be remedied without a deep-seated and coordinated turnabout, not even a glimmer of which can be seen at present.
What makes the confrontation between Jews and Arabs in this country and in the territories so unique is that time, or a unilateral move, can heal the other crises. But time merely deepens the internal ethnic rift just as the illusion of gaining time destroys the chances to deal with the external conflict. The hollow solution, in the form of a separation fence - a dangerous stratagem that buries under a wall the real reasons for the conflict - perhaps can only serve some purpose over time in demarcating the real line between two countries in an agreement.
A Jailed Generation: Palestinian Prisoners in the Al-Aqsa Intifada
By Amin Abu Wardeh, International Middle East Media Center 9/2/2003
When the nurse in the Itihad hospital told Raslan’s mother that his wife had delivered her first healthy female baby, she expected a big smile on her face. Instead, she found a woman with eyes full of tears. Raslan had been absent from his family for months. His mother knew that he might not return for months more, that the child might go through the first year or more of her life without a father, and that Raslan would go on sitting in a prison cell without laying eyes on his growing daughter.
Raslan Thoqan, 31, is being held in prison along with his three brothers. He was arrested in his home in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus on November 13, 2002, received a six months administrative detention order, and has since had his detention extended without evidence of any crimes. He has spent nearly a year in the Negev military detention facility (Ansar 3). His brothers Anan 25, Imad, 19, and Fuad 18, were arrested in March 2003 and are still sitting in Mageddo prison.
Although Raslan’s story is his own, and although his family’s story of suffering is their own, the truth is that the life of the Thoqan family tells the story of thousands of Palestinians throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, nearly 35,000 Palestinians have been arrested since the beginning of the Intifada almost three years ago. Eight thousand of these men and women are still dispersed between 22 compounds in Israel, skyrocketing from the mere 1500 that served time before the Intifada began. Thoqan’s experience is only an echo in the chambers of the growing prison complex in Israel.
Bush's Doomed Occupational Fantasies - A Nation On the Brink of Civil War
By Robert Fisk, Palestine Chronicle/The Independent 9/3/2003
In Iraq, they go for the jugular: two weeks ago, the UN's top man, last week one of the most influential Shia Muslim clerics. As they used to say in the Lebanese war, if enough people want you dead, you'll die. So who wanted Ayatollah Mohamed Bakr al-Hakim dead? Or, more to the point, who would not care if he died?
Well, yes, there's the famous "Saddam remnants" which the al-Hakim family are already blaming for the Najaf massacre. He was tortured by Saddam's men and, after al-Hakim had gone into his Iranian exile, Saddam executed one of his relatives each year in a vain attempt to get him to come back. Then there's the Kuwaitis or the Saudis who certainly don't want his Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq to achieve any kind of "Islamic revolution" north of their border.
There are neo-conservatives aplenty in the United States who would never have trusted al-Hakim, despite his connections to the Iraqi Interim Council that the Americans run in Baghdad. Then there's the Shias.
Only a couple of months ago, I remember listening to al-Hakim preaching at Friday prayers, demanding an end to the Anglo-American occupation but speaking of peace and demanding even that women should join the new Iraqi army. "Don't think we all support this man," a worshipper said to me.
Al-Hakim also had a bad reputation for shopping his erstwhile Iraqi colleagues to Iranian intelligence.
The Business of E-Voting and How it Can Put the Wrong Candidate in Office
By Jason Leopold, Dissident Voice 9/3/2003
It seems fitting that a president who was brought into office because of a scandalous election would enact a law to overhaul the electoral process to make it easier for people to choose their leaders the second time around.
But that’s not what the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, signed into law by President Bush in October 2002, will do. Instead, the law will force most states to switch from paper balloting to a fully computerized system---one that is currently rife with programming flaws and is incapable of being audited—that could call into question the legitimacy of future local and national elections and put the wrong candidates into office.
The bill contains $1.515 billion to fund activities related to the Help America Vote Act, a federal election reform bill that provides money to states for the improvement of elections; including $15 million to the General Services Administration to reimburse states that purchased optical scan or electronic voting equipment prior to the November 2000 election.
Bev Harris, a Seattle resident who runs a small public relations business, is credited with uncovering the flaws in electronic voting machines and has recently written a book on the subject called “Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century.”
The Waiting Game
By Toine van Teeffelen, Electronic Intifada 9/1/2003
Waiting happens everywhere in the world. Waiting in Palestine, however, is not just a routine and bothersome phenomenon that can better be neglected because there is nothing to do about it. It happens so frequently, and it is so testing and influential, that it often dominates people's lives.
Waiting in Palestine happens in front of the hundreds of permanent or mobile checkpoints, or when people try to get permits, or when the inhabitants of a residential area under curfew are closed up at home and don't know when they are allowed to go out on the street. People also wait of course for all the other things needed to manage daily life.
Recently, my lawyer tried to obtain a written response of the Civil Administration why it ceased granting me a permit for working in the West Bank, and why it was impossible for a foreigner married to a local to start a family reunification procedure, as is allowed for by any other country in the world. For several months the Administration did not respond. The (Israeli) lawyer called and called. I have the impression that Palestinian and Israeli lawyers working on cases related to the situation in the West Bank and Gaza spend more than half of their time calling army staff just in order to get a response.
'Blueberry' soldiers to fight anti-Semitism creatively
By Gabriel Ash, Yellow Times 9/1/2003
Soldiers should be instructed not to use the Star of David when defacing Palestinian property. Soldiers should use the Menorah instead, because it is not as strongly associated with Jewish religion. Alternatively, the IDF could provide soldiers with defacement kits which include a sticker with the following disclaimer (in colloquial Arabic): "This humiliating act is performed by the State of Israel and has nothing to do with Jewish religion."....
(YellowTimes.org) – Among the resolutions of the 34th Zionist Congress in Jerusalem in 2002, one resolution called for criminalizing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Indeed, since then, there have been a growing number of attempts to stifle criticism of Israel by defining it as a new form of anti-Semitism. French journalists were put on trial for reporting the shooting of Palestinians; the BBC was excommunicated by the Israeli government; and campaigns to silence academic criticism of Israel have been mounted in the U.S., including one spearheaded by the hatemonger formerly known as Daniel Pipes.
So far, none of this has worked, but it appears that the setbacks suffered by Israel's willing apologists have made at least some of them rethink their strategy. They now understand that Israel must consider the impact of its own military actions on world public opinion.
The proof is the following memo that found its way to my mailbox.
From: The CLOATSP-ME coalition (Concerned Liberals Of America for a True Secure Peace in the Middle East) To: Shaul Mofaz, Minister of Defense, Israel RE: Educating against Hate and Anti-Semitism
With the imminent collapse of the "Road Map," we foresee Israel resuming its large scale operations against Palestinian cities and camps.
While we strongly believe Israel's future depends on separation from the territories, we share with you a commitment to Israel's security. In the spirit of that commitment, and out of deep worry for the future of Jewish identity, we call your attention to a problem that concerns us all.
The settlers and a binational state
By Yair Sheleg, Ha'aretz 8/31/2003
[A Zionist perspective on the binational state] It would have been interesting to hear what the settler leaders had to say after reading the article by Ari Shavit (Haaretz Magazine, August 8) in which Haim Hanegbi and Meron Benvenisti explained why they think the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem is to create a binational state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, instead of the classic left-wing conception of separation in the form of two states.
Undoubtedly they said to themselves, "The leftists have proved again just how far they have gone in their betrayal of Zionism." It would be even more interesting to know how many of them understand that they themselves are effectively responsible for this change.
For two generations, they have been in the forefront of the process that is now prompting many people - in Israel and in the international community - to reach the conclusion that separation is hardly a viable solution any longer.
Seemingly, this is a great victory for the settlers. In fact, though, it is a Pyrrhic victory at best, because in a reality of 3 million Palestinians in the territories, and with no one in the international arena willing to buy the notion that "Jordan is Palestine," the nonseparation concept has one clear meaning: the creation of a binational state.
....Because the great majority of them went to live in the settlements for Zionist reasons and not because they espouse a binational solution, if they are consistent in their view and sincere in the feeling of national leadership to which they lay claim, they must be in the forefront of the liberation of the political establishment, and indeed of the entire Israeli society, from the situation that is hurtling all of us into the binational scenario.
Regional Focus: The problem of Arab reform
By Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada 8/30/2003
The Arab states are in desperate need of reform. Their hundreds of millions of people -- the vast majority of them under age 30 -- lack the basic freedoms and opportunities that they crave. In no Arab country are the people free to change their government by peaceful means. No Arab country observes the rule of law, and each society is riven by fundamental inequalities that seem only to be growing. Education and scientific and social research lag, and many of the best and brightest emigrate at the earliest opportunity.
More vexing is trying to identify what can be the agent for change. Can reform come from within? Saudi Arabia, suffering a deep crisis at home and under severe pressure in the US, where many believe, without basis, that the Saudi government was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, has shown little capability to respond pro-actively to the multiple challenges of reform.
In Morocco, there was much hope following the death of King Hassan II in 1999 that his son and successor, Mohammed VI, would bring about rapid democratization and economic reform. The Moroccan press is considerably freer, and open, party-based parliamentary elections were held, but power is still centralized in the hands of the king and his advisors. Despite the successes, reality has fallen well short of expectations.
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