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First Chapter: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, MIFTAH 9/26/2007
     America is about to enter a presidential election year. Although the outcome is of course impossible to predict at this stage, certain features of the campaign are easy to foresee. The candidates will inevitably differ on various domestic issues-health care, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, education, immigration-and spirited debates are certain to erupt on a host of foreign policy questions as well. What course of action should the United States pursue in Iraq? What is the best response to the crisis in Darfur, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Russia’s hostility to NATO, and China’s rising power? How should the United States address global warming, combat terrorism, and reverse the erosion of its international image? On these and many other issues, we can confidently expect lively disagreements among the various candidates.
     Yet on one subject, we can be equally confident that the candidates will speak with one voice. In 2008, as in previous election years, serious candidates for the highest office in the land will go to considerable lengths to express their deep personal commitment to one foreign country-Israel-as well as their determination to maintain unyielding U.S. support for the Jewish state. Each candidate will emphasize that he or she fully appreciates the multitude of threats facing Israel and make it clear that, if elected, the United States will remain firmly committed to defending Israel’s interests under any and all circumstances. None of the candidates is likely to criticize Israel in any significant way or suggest that the United States ought to pursue a more evenhanded policy in the region. Any who do will probably fall by the wayside. more..

Hamas is Cornered, and Yet...
Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, MIFTAH 9/26/2007
     We followed with a great deal of attention the reaction of Hamas officials to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’s visit to Jeddah, which is the first meeting to take place since the Gaza coup and after Saudi Arabia distanced itself from the recent Palestinian dispute.
     Saudi Arabia found it difficult to boycott the Palestinian state ad infinitum especially since it acquired Arab League-backed legitimacy, and lately Hamas, which continued its campaign against Fatah instead of Israel, has toned down its positions since Abbas’s visit. Hamas has been sending signals indicating some readiness to repair some of what it had destroyed. Although the overt conciliatory step is not enough, because it does not go as far as returning things back where they were before the coup, it is better than preserving the rift which is fanning a Palestinian war which we expect to flare up and become the second chapter in the Palestinian story.
     In my view, it would be wrong to ignore Hamas’s signals and statements. These indications are worth testing in a serious manner, lest we reach a practical solution which will heal the rift between the government and the state and restore the demolished system, or at least reach solutions which will halt the deterioration of ties and maybe mutual killing. Should the parties be willing, the first solution should be Hamas’s acceptance to return the situation to what it was without having to apologize, bearing in mind that one of its officials had said "we are ready to apologize to the Palestinian people, not to Fatah." more..

Palestine Bids Farewell to Haidar Abdel Shafi
MIFTAH, MIFTAH 9/26/2007
     Prominent Palestinian figure and nationalist, Dr. Haidar Abdul Shafi passed away on September 25, at the age of 88 after a two-year struggle with cancer. Abdul Shafi is considered one of Palestine’s most long standing patriots, having served his country and people for over four decades.
     Abdul Shafi first began his journey in the Palestinian struggle in 1964 when he participated in the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He was also a member of the first Palestine National Council. A native of the Gaza Strip, Abdul Shafi was a member of the first Legislative Council in Gaza in 1962 as well.
     Abdul Shafi’s involvement in Palestinian political life continued throughout the years, especially after the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in 1967. In 1970, he was deported by Israeli authorities to Lebanon for two months for his involvement in the Palestinian resistance movement.
     However, Abdul Shafi also played another critical role in Palestinian life, heading the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza from 1972 to 2005. The society was first established to provide free medical care in Gaza. Abdul Shafi was its first physician. more..

Palestinian National Initiative Pays Tribute to its Late President, Founding Member and Icon of National Unity, Dr. Haider Abdel Shafi
Palestinian National Initiative, Palestine Monitor 9/25/2007
     Barghouthi: “Dr. Abdel Shafi will remain a beacon of inspiration for us in our struggle for freedom, democracy and independence for our people”
     Ramallah, 25-09-07: Following his death in Gaza last night, and on behalf of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI) and its supporters, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi today paid tribute to the PNI’s late President and one of its founding members, Dr. Haider Abdel Shafi, one of the greatest leaders of the Palestinian national struggle and a symbol of integrity, democracy and national unity.
     Dr. Abdel Shafi was a co-founder and leading figure of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and a member of its First Executive Committee. He was also Chairperson of the First Legislative Council; the founder and head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the Gaza Strip; head of the Palestinian delegation at the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference; and President of the Palestinian National Initiative, which he co-founded in 2002.
     Dr. Abdel Shafi was well known for his enormous efforts to protect human rights and in building democracy in Palestine.
     Dr. Barghouthi conveyed his deepest sympathies to Dr. Abdel Shafi’s wife and children, saying that Palestine has lost one of the heroes of the national struggle, a man who was a beacon of inspiration to all Palestinians. more..

In Gaza, the People should Come First
Joharah Baker, MIFTAH 9/26/2007
     In a move that can only be seen as the logical consequence of Israel’s decision last week to declare the Gaza Strip hostile territory, Bank Hapoalim, one of Israel’s largest banks announced it would sever all business ties with Gaza.The move will effectively deprive the Strip of a steady money supply. Israel Discount Bank also announced it was considering the move, but has not taken any final decision to date.
     The move is not surprising in the least, given Israel’s attitude towards Hamas’ takeover and their hell-bent intention on driving the movement into the ground. Last week, the Israeli security cabinet took a unanimous decision to declare the Gaza Strip “hostile territory”, a move by the way, which received the full backing of the United States.
     The decision opened up a world of opportunities for Israel in terms of cracking down on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Still, even with the obvious stench of discrimination and collective punishment reeking from the decision, Israel maintains that the move is merely a way of curbing the continuous rocket attacks on Israeli territory. more..

Bil’in Village, past, present and Future
The Bil'in Friends of Justice and Freedom Society, International Middle East Media Center 9/26/2007
     Bil’in is a small, peaceful village surrounded by hills and valleys, lying halfway between Yaffa and Jerusalem. It is among a number of local villages that fall under the governorate of Ramallah, 16km west of Bil’in.
     Bil’in and its residents have stood up to confiscation time and time again. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Matityahu settlement was built on a portion of Bil’in land and, at the beginning of the 1990s, another portion of land was confiscated for the Kiryat Sefer settlement. At the start of the millennium, yet another new settlement (Matityahu East) was built on Bil’in’s land.
     In April 2004, Israel began construction of its illegal Apartheid Wall on the western side of the village, expropriating about 2300 dunums of the land of Bil’in.
     The people of Bil’in actively participated in non-violent resistance against the oppression of Israel throughout the years of the illegal occupation. Side-by-side with international and Israeli activists, the people of Bil’in managed to achieve the recognition of the Israel high court, which recently ruled that the route of the Apartheid Wall near in the village is illegal and must be changed. more..

Bush, the Bomb and Iran
Katrina vanden Heuvel, Middle East Online 9/25/2007
     As the Bush administration contemplates it, and the US media normalizes it - just like the ‘run up’ to the Iraq tragedy -the American people must stop the insanity of a military confrontation with Iran, says
     To bomb or not to bomb Iran, that’s the question the Bush Administration appears to be debating these days, once again revealing the extraordinary disconnect between the White House and the American people. With a catastrophic occupation of Iraq and polls showing the American public so skeptical about the use of military force that only eight percent support military action against Iran, there is nevertheless a clear and present danger that Cheney and the neocons will again prevail and lead this Administration into another disastrous military misadventure.
     The parallels between now and the run-up to the Iraq War are troubling. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who warned the Bush administration in 2003 about the lack of a nuclear program in Iraq and was subsequently attacked for his position by the Bush machine, the neocons and by many in the mainstream media, has now struck a deal with Iran to answer questions about its nuclear program within a defined timeline and improve access for inspectors. ElBaradei has called for a "double time-out" of all enrichment activities and new sanctions. more..

Humanity doesn’t change with geography and
Pensee Afifi, Middle East Online 9/26/2007
     War is only possible when we perceive the enemy as being less than human. The rhetoric of politics and overzealous leaders allows the mass populous to forget that they have the same heart as the person they ‘hate’ across the border.
     The Arab world and the West represent two sides of the same coin. Though we are from different parts of the globe, we are two parts that make up a whole: we live in the same world. In that respect, though we all have our distinct cultures, it is worth remembering — and strengthening — our universal culture.
     The most basic roots of global culture are derived from the fact that we, as humans, experience the same basic feelings — pain, love, anger, fear, etc. We all aspire to avoid pain and maximise pleasure. It is the existence of fear that holds us back from forming relationships or trusting another person, especially one we perceive as different from us. Our mutual understanding of how death, life, war and tragedy affect a person should be a platform upon which we can foster respect and friendship. No one wants to lose a son, a mother or a grandfather, so we should all be able to see the insanity of needless violence. more..

In Israel, an Oasis of Peace
Ken Ellingwood, MIFTAH 9/26/2007
     The music blared in Arabic as a knot of women twirled slowly around the bride-to-be. Well-dressed onlookers, some in traditional Muslim head scarves, clapped and swayed.
     On this evening of celebration, the fireworks sizzled, sweets beckoned and jubilant guests congratulated the Arab bride’s parents with a double kiss and hearty "Mazel tov!"
     Mazel tov?
     "It’s very normal," said Nava Sonnenschein, one of the Jews clapping at the edge of the dance circle. "For here."
     The usual rules of the Middle East often don’t apply in Neve Shalom, founded in the 1970s as a utopian village on a hilltop in Israel’s midsection. For nearly three decades, its inhabitants have sought to defy the polarizing tugs of politics and nationalism.
     Though most Jews and Arabs in Israel are kept apart by segregated communities and long years of mutual mistrust, Neve Shalom and its 250 residents -- half Jews, half Arab citizens of Israel -- represent a living experiment in integration. more..

Audio: Crossing the Line interviews author Joel Kovel
Podcast, Crossing the Line, Electronic Intifada 9/25/2007
     This week on Crossing The Line: In part one of a two part series, host Christopher Brown speaks with Joel Kovel, scholar, lecturer and author of the book Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Democratic State In Israel/Palestine.
     Kovel discusses the misconception of Zionism as a socially just movement to create a Jewish utopia in Palestine, which in reality has proven itself as a racist construct designed so that one group of people can rule over another. Kovel adds that Zionism has polluted its own people and its allies, mainly the United States, into believing that the land of Palestine was pre-ordained for the Jews by God.
     Next, Brown speaks with Dr. Franklin Lamb, Director of Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace and a senior fellow of the The Institute for Middle East Policy Dialogue about the Sabra and Shatila Massacre. It was 25 years ago this past week that at least 1,700 Palestinian refugees were massacred by a Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia who carried out orders given by then Israeli military commander Ariel Sharon. more..

Disrupting the separation policy
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 9/26/2007
     A woman chatting idly in Ramallah on Sunday said dismissively: "The High Court of Justice’s decision to move the separation fence in Bil’in proves nothing about the effectiveness of the popular Palestinian-Israeli struggle. Israel needs it to portray itself as a democracy."
     Her frustration is understandable. The lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians are disrupted by a fence whose route elsewhere is no less "disproportionate" than it was in Bil’in. After two and a half years of weekly demonstrations by Palestinians, left-wing Israelis and foreign activists - demonstrations that were brutally dispersed, with numerous protesters being injured or arrested - the fence was moved a mere 1.7 kilometers. And the same High Court that moved the fence also legitimized the Jewish neighborhood that had already been built on Bil’in’s private land.
     The gap between the huge effort and the meager results is characteristic of the activities of all Israeli groups that work against the occupation. Last Friday morning, the eve of Yom Kippur, Machsom Watch activists had to spend hours making frantic telephone calls and using their connections with high-ranking officials to enable three sick people to traverse the Qalandiyah checkpoint and reach Jerusalem for urgent treatment. Media reports had promised that despite the hermetic closure, humanitarian cases would be allowed through the checkpoints, but by noon, most of those cases had given up and returned home. more..

Haider Abdel-Shafi
Victoria Brittain, The Guardian 9/25/2007
     Militant and popular leader respected by rival Palestine factions
     Dr Haider Abdel-Shafi, who has died at the age of 88, was a towering figure of the Palestinian national movement for more than half a century - not only one of the fiercest critics of Israel, but also often of the Palestinian leadership. He had a commanding presence, equally at home in an Oxford college as on the crowded streets of Gaza, and his integrity shone out in any company.
     Abdel-Shafi was born into an illustrious religious family in Gaza, just at the end of the Ottoman occupation. After boarding at the Arab College in Jerusalem, he studied medicine at the American University of Beirut. There he joined the Arab Nationalist Movement, which backed the founding of a Palestinian state and the growing Arab revolt in British-occupied Palestine.
     In 1944 he joined the British Jordanian army, then part of a new British Ninth Army intended to open a second front (which never materialised) in the Balkans. Instead, he spent the war in Palestine, and then set up in private practice in Gaza. Wounded Palestinian guerrillas were brought to him as clashes escalated between Jews and Arabs following the 1947 UN partition resolution. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, he ran a medical clearing station in Gaza as the territory was flooded with 200,000 refugees. more..

Report from the Valley of Death
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 9/25/2007
     "Al hakhayim ve’al hamavet" ("Between Life and Death") by Yoram Kaniuk, Yedioth Books Sifrei Hemed, 207 pages, NIS 88
     The literary evening held recently on the roof of an office building on the city’s outskirts was a little odd, but touching. The humidity characteristic of late summer in Tel Aviv clung to everyone. Wine and refreshments were served. And on a makeshift platform sat the author, frail, leaning on a cane, with the mayor propping him up to keep him from falling. One could see that he had been a handsome man in his youth. Suddenly, he needed a pill to keep talking and the audience was seized with fear. One after the other, actors, singers, poets, writers, the former education minister and others, most of them from a different, younger generation, came on stage and read from his works. As if they had come to bid farewell to the writer, who was saying farewell to them with what might be his last book. The paparazzi snapped away. After all, there were some celebrities in the crowd. He is trendy nowadays. Then the writer spoke, exactly the way he writes: flitting from one memory to the next, mixing past and present, scenes from Tel Aviv, New York and Stockholm in a charming jumble, but always coming back to the killing fields of 1948. That war crops up, over and over, as if all the decades that have gone by have been reduced to nothing, just like in the book. For the most part, members of that generation are living full lives - women, children, adventures, travels - and what are they nostalgic about? A war that took place more than half a century ago. At the end of their lives, if not their whole lives, they pine for a chapter in history that is glorious to some and represents the height of infamy for others. Left or right, you will hear no doubts or regrets or repentance from these heroes of 1948. more..

Nonviolent Protest Gains in West Bank
Joshua Mitnick, MIFTAH 9/25/2007
     Al Walajeh, West Bank
     "All those who love the prophet should lend a hand!"
     Ten shouting Palestinians were pushing against one boulder, but the primitive Israeli roadblock cutting off the tiny Palestinian village from Bethlehem was not budging. Then, with the help of two giant crowbars, an Israel protester, and a Japanese backpacker, the group heaved the stone aside, opening the road for the first time in three years.
     "Tomorrow they’ll bring a bulldozer and move it back," sighed Sheerin Alaraj, a village resident and a demonstration organizer. "Then next week we’ll come back again to protest."
     Inspired by the experience of other Palestinian villages, the Al Walajeh demonstrators are part of a small but growing core of protesters combining civil disobedience with legal petitions to fight Israeli policies.
     Earlier this month, the village of Bilin, which has held weekly protests since 2004, garnered widespread attention and praise in the Palestinian press when the Israeli Supreme Court ordered a part of the military’s separation barrier near Bilin to be dismantled. Increasingly, other Palestinian villages are following Bilin’s lead, though it remains to be seen whether this kernel of nonviolence will grow into a full-fledged movement. more..

Judging Israel’s Alleged Strike in Syria
Gershom Gorenberg, MIFTAH 9/25/2007
     It’s an Entebbe moment, or at least an Entebbe remake, expected to conjure up a warm memory of the original euphoria inspired by Israel’s legendary 1976 rescue of hostages in Uganda. The Israeli air force and commandos have struck, ridiculously far from home, dealing a blow precisely where it was needed, so that in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem we know that our boys are still the most daring ones around, and so that the bad guys know we can still get them whenever we want, right through their back window. Ergo, we are safer. True, we don’t know exactly why the blow was needed at that place, somewhere on the northern edge of Syria. The bad guys are angry, they say they will strike back, but are so embarrassed about what we allegedly hit they won’t say what it was.
     Our Cabinet, which normally leaks like a water tank used for machine-gun target practice, is saying nothing. The little lopsided enigmatic smile perennially worn by Defense Minister Ehud Barak may be a bit larger than usual. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose speeches are standardly described as "self-satisfied," has not told us that he has restored Israeli deterrence. But the head of military intelligence did say that in a Knesset committee, without mentioning just how. Only opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, known for loose lips in more than one meaning of the term, has publicly confirmed that Israel in fact carried out the raid. more..

Without peace, economics will lead nowhere
Yossi Beilin, Daily Star 9/26/2007
     It is not difficult to understand those who have lost faith in recent years - those who have concluded that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is irresolvable, and those who want to move from solving the conflict to managing it. But unless we take the extra step forward, unless we reach the moment of truth and make the necessary effort to reach a solution whose details we all by now know by heart, the situation cannot be managed.
     There are those who believe that we can bypass the basic, solvable issues by implementing massive economic investments. But at a time when we don’t know where the borders are, when capital cities are not recognized and the rules of the game are unclear, these parties are simply fooling themselves. Quantitatively, the funds directed toward our region in recent years have been without precedent. This fact alone is sufficient to explain that money doesn’t solve everything.
     Then there is the approach that argues in favor of aiding the Palestinians in the West Bank and creating an economic Garden of Eden there, while turning Gaza into an economic hell. This is not only inhuman, but has no chance of achieving its objective. Anyone seeking to strengthen the pragmatic actors and weaken the extremists and inciters cannot adopt such a childish and hopeless approach. Without an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement there will be no economic prosperity in the West Bank, just as economic hardship in Gaza will only increase its residents’ anger. The latter will blame the entire world, not Hamas, for their deteriorating situation. Such a policy will likely strengthen extremists rather than the contrary. more..

On the way to a pariah state
Carlo Strenger, Ha’aretz 9/25/2007
     Henry Kissinger used to say that Israel has no foreign policy, only internal politics. Listening to our politicians, you often indeed wonder whether any of them has any long-term strategy. Given that every Israeli politician is supposed to care for Israel’s long-term survival, it is stunning to see that an important event in the U.S. with enormous implications for Israel has gone all but unnoticed here.
     Eighteen months ago, two senior political scientists, Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer, from Harvard and the University of Chicago, respectively, published a paper claiming that U.S. Middle Eastern policy, including the misguided Iraq war and its unqualified support for Israel over the last decades, has run counter to true U.S. interests. They blame the influence of the Israel Lobby for this.
     The paper generated a lot of commotion in Jewish circles in the U.S., but surprisingly, has been disregarded in Israel. W&M have now published The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy as a book. Their conclusion: the U.S. needs to start relating to Israel like any other country, and no longer see a special ally in us, because the close relation with Israel harms U.S. interests.
     W&M paint Israel as a rogue state that does not abide by international law, and is not up to the standards expected of a Western state. The subtext is clear: Israel is just another problematic Middle Eastern country, and should be treated as such - and the number of policy makers and opinion leaders who think this way is growing. more..

Challenges Facing the Palestinian-American Community
Rafi Dajani, Gaith Al Omari, MIFTAH 9/25/2007
     As Palestinians struggle with the implications of the recent Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian-American community must decide for itself the vision for a future Palestine it embraces, and the way it seeks to partake in its achievement.
     The Palestinian national vision has been defined by the Palestine Liberation Organisation since 1988 as the realisation of the two-state solution: Palestine and Israeli living side by side in peace and security. Despite the setbacks and challenges facing this vision, it remains the view of the overwhelming majority not only within the officialdom of the international community but, as polling has consistently shown, also among Palestinians.
     While this remains the view of the majority of Arab-Americans, a vocal challenge to this vision has recently emerged from some Palestinian-Americans in the shape of the so-called “bi-national one-state solution”.
     According to this vision, Palestinians and Jews will live in the whole of historic Palestine as equal citizens in a polity that transcends national and religious definition. more..

Arab poetry’s sometimes subversive answer to "American Idol"
Saifedean Ammous, Electronic Intifada 9/25/2007
     Imagine an American TV network deciding to take the American Idol format and apply it to poetry: lining up poets to read their poems in front of temperamental judges while the nation gets out its mobile phones to vote for its favorite poet. One can be sure the show would not survive the first commercial break before the chastened executives pull the plug on it and replace it with yet another series on the Life and Times of Nicole Ritchie. Yet, that was exactly the formula for the latest TV sensation to take Arab countries by storm.
     Perhaps the only thing that is as hard as translating Arab poetry to other languages is trying to explain to non-Arabs the extent of poetry’s popularity, importance and Arabs’ strong attachment to it. Whereas poetry in America has been largely reduced to a ceremonial eccentricity that survives thanks to grants and subsidies from fanatics who care about it too much, in the Arab world it remains amongst the most popular forms of both literature and entertainment. Whereas America’s top poets may struggle to fill a small Barnes & Noble store for a reading, Palestine’s Mahmoud Darwish has filled football stadiums with thousands of fans eager to hear his unique recital of his powerful poems. And while in America a good poetry collection can expect to sell some 2,000 copies, in the Arab world the poems of pre-Islamic era poets are still widely read today in their original words, as are those from the different Islamic eras leading to the present. The late Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani had a cult following across the Arab world, and his romantic poems have for decades constituted standard covert currency between lovers. more..

The tide is turning
Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, Electronic Intifada 9/24/2007
     The years 2007 and 2008 are landmark ones for those campaigning against occupation and for the Palestinian right to self-determination. Forty years of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was nonviolently marked around the world in June; next year, peaceful demonstrations will observe the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel during which approximately 700,000 Palestinians were forced from or fled their land -- an event that Palestinians call the Nakba, or "catastrophe.
     Next year’s worldwide campaigns will reinforce grassroots initiatives, reaffirm the numerous UN resolutions which reaffirm the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, and call for the establishment of civil society networks.
     As for Israeli civilians, since 1967, as many as one million have voted with their feet and left Israel, and some say the rate of those refusing to serve in the Israeli army is as high as 50 percent and that 30 percent of Israeli pilots refuse to bomb the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This occupation is unsustainable and Israeli civilians are losing faith in militarism.It has to end, and we must work out viable alternatives for living together peacefully, in full recognition of our mutual rights, not least the fundamental human right to self-determination. more..

Jennifer Loewenstein: Civil Society and Palestine
Jennifer Loewenstein, Palestine Chronicle 9/24/2007
     On January 26th 1976 the United Nations Security Council debated a resolution (S11940) introduced by Jordan, Syria and Egypt that included all the crucial wording of UNSC resolution 242. It accepted the right of all states in the region to exist within secure and recognized borders while re-emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force. This resolution added for the first time, however, what was missing from 242: recognition of Palestinian national rights. The phrase "all states" was taken to include a new Palestinian state in the occupied territories.
     Israel was, of course, invited to attend the session but refused, preferring instead to have a national tantrum that included bombing Lebanon the same day, killing about 50 people ­in all likelihood a typical "in your face" message to the UN and the world. Unsurprisingly the US vetoed the resolution causing the PLO, which was present at the session, to speak of the "tyranny of the veto." As with similar resolutions since this one, the overwhelming majority of the world’s nations supported it. The two nations that have consistently opposed this and comparable resolutions were the United States and Israel thereby establishing the well-known pattern of rejectionism that persists to this day. As a result, resolutions such as S11940 have vanished from the historical record despite its significance in marking the first time a UN resolution explicitly recognized the inalienable national rights of the people of Palestine. more..

Open Letter: Pluto Press Under Attack by Israel Lobby
Roger van Zwanenberg, Palestine Chronicle 9/24/2007
     The vitriolic attack questioned the University’s relationship with Pluto generally and denigrated Overcoming Zionism.
     About three weeks ago Pluto books and the University of Michigan Press - our US distributor - came under attack by Stand With Us (a Zionist lobby group) who were objecting to the publication of Overcoming Zionism by Joel Kovel which resulted in the book being withdrawn in the US. The vitriolic attack questioned the University’s relationship with Pluto generally and denigrated Overcoming Zionism.
     Since then the Executive Board of the University has considered the matter and issued a public statement. Joel’s book has now been reinstated but they plan to review the ongoing relationship between Pluto and UMP in October.
     Pluto Press’s importance and presence in the US is under threat. more..

’Enemy Entity’: A Deliberate Attempt by Israel to Obscure its Continued Occupation of the Gaza Strip
Al-Haq, MIFTAH 9/24/2007
     As a Palestinian organisation dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Al-Haq is deeply concerned by the Israeli security cabinet’s unanimous decision on Wednesday, 19 September to declare the Gaza Strip an “enemy entity,” ostensibly paving the way for the imposition of collective penalties on the 1.5 million Palestinian civilians living in the Gaza Strip. These include intensifying the already severe border closures, limiting the provision of essential supplies, and dramatically reducing the supply of electricity, all of which will exacerbate the existing dire humanitarian crisis.
     Labelling the Gaza Strip an “enemy entity” attempts to distract from Israel’s occupation of the territory and the international legal obligations incumbent upon it as the occupying power. Under international law the test for occupation is “effective control,” which exists if the occupying power “has a sufficient force present, or the capacity to send troops within a reasonable time to make the authority of the occupying power felt.” Israel has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity to meet this requirement to disastrous effect. Furthermore, Israel retains full control of the Gaza Strip’s land borders, population registry, airspace and territorial sea. These facts establish that the Gaza Strip remains an occupied territory, along with the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Accordingly, Israel, as the occupying power, is required by law to ensure the safety and well-being of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli security cabinet’s use of the term “enemy entity,” having no basis in international law, in no way alters Israel’s legal obligations in respect of the Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Rather, it represents a wilful misinterpretation of relevant international law aimed at relinquishing Israel’s legal obligations. more..

Fat chance for a peace agreement
Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann, Ha’aretz 9/16/2007
     The traditional tendency of the Israeli Jewish public to uncritically adopt the decision-makers’ reading of the map concerning relations with Arab states is apparently in a process of change. Even though most of the Israeli Jewish public does not expect peace with Syria in the foreseeable future, a similar majority also thinks that despite the repeated media reports and politicians’ statements about Israeli-Syrian tension, the two countries have not actually been close to war of late. Indeed, many more believe in the possibility that the two countries will open peace negotiations in the foreseeable future, or that relations between them will remain as they are, than in the chances of war breaking out between them.
     This doubtfulness also emerges regarding relations with the Palestinians: The majority thinks Olmert has renewed the political negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) to shore up his status in light of the eventual publication of the full Winograd Commission report, and not because conditions have emerged that increase the chances for a peace agreement. Furthermore, the majority considers that the two governments headed by Ehud Olmert and Abu Mazen are not strong enough to sign, in the name of their peoples, a peace treaty entailing significant mutual concessions. Only a negligible minority believes these contacts have good chances of leading to a peace agreement. The main reason for the skepticism lies in the substantial contradictions between the sides’ national interests, not in the sides’ lack of willingness to make the necessary concessions. more..

Emily Spence: Rising From the Phoenix’s Flames
Emily Spence, Palestine Chronicle 9/24/2007
     Edward Said’s understandings in Orientalism were right on the mark. Westerners tend to hold derogatory, imperialist views towards Easterners. Hegemony and xenophobia have always driven hatred and a sense of anomy toward whomever is chosen as the target of plunder.
     Governments come and go. Whole civilizations disappear into the sands of time and new ones rise up to take their place. In this sense, they’re all like an image of the Phoenix, a dramatic archetypal creature consumed in flames and rising out of its own ashes only to be burned once more. Universal and spanning all cultures, its mythic bird-like visage is found again and again, while symbolizing the regenerative properties in healing, the cyclical nature of seasons and an awareness that each generation disappears and, out of its demise, each subsequent one is born. Particularly as a sign of triumph over hardship when cities are destroyed and rebuilt (i.e., San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and Atlanta after major fires in 1864 and 1917), the Phoenix well serves as a reminder that recurring adversity can be overcome with effort.
     Yes, individual lives and history, as a whole, have a way of repeating themselves over and over with the same themes and circumstances surfacing yet another time. Nonetheless the Phoenix, in a sense, is less apt a model than would be an evolutionary one. This is because individuals, species and whole empires verify, more often than not, the paradoxical truism, "the only constant is change.". more..

IMEMC Exclusive: Fatah Alyasser’s chief says his group is a reform-based movement
Rami Almeghari, International Middle East Media Center 9/15/2007
     In a special interview with the IMEMC, former spokesman of the Hamas’s interior ministry and leader of the newly-established Fatah Alyasser group, Khaled Abu Helal, says his movement has been established to contribute to better reformation of Palestinian politics following the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip
     What is Fatah Alyasser group Mr. Abu Helal?
     Fatah Alyasser is a newly-born Palestinian group initiated by Fatah’s loyal people, after the latter have realized the fact that reforming the current Fatah has turned to be an impossible job, especially amidst the monopoly by some Fatah’s corrupt ranks of the decision-making.
     Can the Palestinian arena currently absorb more groups, in a time there are many other based Palestinian organizations such as the Islamic Jihad, the popular front for the liberation of Palestine, etc..?
     I believe that the political pluralism in Palestine has turned to be limited, particularly after the last January’s elections, which proved that there are only two major parties, Fatah and Hamas.
     Fatah Alyasser movement is a group that combines between Islam as reference and the late President Yasser Arafat’s path of struggle at all levels, the political, the national and the resistance. more..

Puppet leader
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 9/24/2007
     Mahmoud Abbas has to stay home. As things stand right now, he must not go to Washington. Even his meetings with Ehud Olmert are gradually turning into a disgrace and have become a humiliation for his people. Nothing good will come of them. It has become impossible to bear the spectacle of the Palestinian leader’s jolly visits in Jerusalem, bussing the cheek of the wife of the very prime minister who is meanwhile threatening to blockade a million and a half of his people, condemning them to darkness and hunger.
     If Abu Mazen were a genuine national leader instead of a petty retailer, he would refuse to participate in the summit and any other meetings until the blockade of Gaza is lifted. If he were a man of truly historic stature he would add that no conference can be held without Ismail Haniyeh, another crucial Palestinian representative. And if Israel really wanted peace, not only an "agreement of principles" with a puppet-leader that will lead nowhere, it should respect Abbas’ demand. Israel should aspire for Abu Mazen to be considered a leader in the eyes of his people, not only a marionette whose strings are pulled by Israel and the United States, or affected by other short-term power plays. more..

How many were arrested last night?
Danny Rubinstein, Ha’aretz 9/24/2007
     Last Thursday I joined a group of senior Palestinian Authority officials who traveled from Ramallah to Jericho for the dedication of the new Palestinian Security Academy training ground. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was the guest of honor. He had just completed his joint press conference with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and was stopping in Jericho en route to Jordan. From there he was to fly to the United States, where he will meet today with President George Bush at the United Nations in New York.
     Jericho is considered a quiet town. With the exception of the hotel, the closed casino at the southern entrance to the city and the destroyed police building, it looks fairly miserable, as it was when the Israel Defense Forces occupied it over 40 years ago. The Security Academy complex is northwest of the city. It is an impressive structure, with classrooms, computer systems, and a spacious, modern gym, all built with aid money, mainly American.
     The first class, 120 officers from all of the PA security organizations, will begin its training in the coming days. The students will learn basic subjects, including administration and law. General Tawfiq Tirawi, the strongman of the West Bank security organizations, is emphatic: "They will also learn Hebrew - there will be no officer here who does not know Hebrew well. more..

To the international border, and no farther
Alexander Yakobson, Ha’aretz 9/24/2007
     The Syrian regime is not currently popular internationally. This lack of popularity, which was caused by the Syrians themselves, works in Israel’s favor from various points of view - as was proven by the international ?(non?) response to what reportedly happened recently in Syria’s skies.
     But let us not delude ourselves: Syria’s demand that its sovereignty over the Golan Heights be restored enjoys strong international support - not out of love for Bashar Assad, and not even for love of international law as such, but rather because the stability of recognized international borders is a vital interest of the international community.
     The result is that, on one hand, Israel is not being pressured to leave the Golan Heights, but on the other, there is no chance that Israel will ever be able to sign a peace treaty with Syria that includes annexing the Golan or any part of it. more..

Bibi is looking for love
Ehud Asheri, Ha’aretz 9/24/2007
     A few years ago I chanced to meet Benjamin Netanyahu. It was at some social event, near the buffet table. A mutual friend introduced me to him ("he’s from Haaretz") and promptly left us alone together. Netanyahu lost no time. He honed in on me with his political oration, a kind of intense, one-on-one campaign about the right way to deal with Arafat in particular and the Palestinian problem in general that included examples of his past successes as prime minister.
     I do not remember the details, but I cannot forget the exaggerated effort he invested in impressing me, as if his fate hinged on my opinion of him. Perhaps I should have been flattered, but what I felt was a strange embarrassment at this surreal situation, especially his obvious need to prove his greatness to me, a total stranger.
     I didn’t need this chance meeting to identify this need in Netanyahu, but it clarified for me in a direct way the damage that this need wreaks on him as a public figure with leadership aspirations. What you are willing to tolerate from a stranger, even from an ordinary politician, you do not want to see in an individual who purports to lead you. Everyone needs validation from others, some more so and some less, but with Netanyahu this need borders on dependency. Time after time it takes over, drives him crazy and disconnects him from reality. more..

Handling the Gaza dilemma: an Israeli scheme
Yossi Alpher, Daily Star 9/24/2007
     The current Israeli military approach to dealing with the steady stream of Qassam rocket fire and mortar rounds from the Gaza Strip is a kind of complicated military-political trade-off. It is not working. Hence the search for alternatives.
     Currently, the Israeli armed forces are limiting their response to pinpoint attacks directed solely against perpetrators. They thereby maintain a relative balance of peace and quiet, though not in the Israeli town of Sderot, which is effectively sacrificed to steady, low level attrition. This "tolerable" level of violence enables the Israeli government to proceed with its negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. Those negotiations, if successful, are intended to weaken Hamas politically.
     Meanwhile, the United States is engaged in an attempt to build up Fatah’s military capabilities; Quartet envoy Tony Blair is charged with enhancing Palestinian Authority civilian institutions; and Israel is asked to make security concessions on the West Bank, all with the objective of giving Abbas additional tools with which to strengthen his rule and weaken Hamas. more..

Fatah and Hamas will eventually reconcile
George Giacaman, Daily Star 9/24/2007
     Will Hamas and Fatah reconcile despite their differences? The answer is yes. When will this happen? Not before February 2008, the date set by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to a Palestinian minister, for the Israeli and Palestinian sides to arrive at a final agreement on a joint document - even if the document itself is vague on the nature of the final agreement. How will the rapprochement be achieved? The modus operandi is clear but not the details. It will depend on the "balance of power" between Fatah and Hamas at that time.
     Even if the November international conference called for by President George W. Bush is postponed - a possibility given that both Israelis and Palestinians are not keen about it, given that both are still too far apart to make the meeting a success - reconciliation is still on the agenda. What matters, again, is the "balance of power" between the two sides. One should also expect that Arab, particularly Saudi Arabian intercession will play a role, so as neither side appears to have been "defeated" if the conference is postponed, or held with meager results resulting. more..

Foam on the water
Uri Avnery, Middle East Online 9/23/2007
     Everything significant that is happening nowadays is a part of the Israeli effort to take over the West Bank and to turn it into a part of the State of Israel. All else is but foam on the water.
     Today is Yom Kippur, and almost automatically my thoughts, like those of everybody else who was around at the time, go back 34 years, to that Yom Kippur.
     I was sitting at home, deep in conversation with a friend, when the sirens suddenly started to wail.
     The sound of sirens is always frightening, but sirens on Yom Kippur are something from another world. After all, this is a day of total silence, the day when not a single car moves on the streets of Israel.
     Outside, a flurry of unusual activity. Military vehicles speeding by, people in uniform rushing out with kitbags on their shoulders, the roar of airplanes overhead.
     We gathered round the radio, which is normally silent on Yom Kippur. It announced that a war had started. more..

The war on Gaza’s children
Dr. Saree Makdisi, Arabic Media Internet Network (AMIN) 9/22/2007
     An entire generation of Palestinians in Gaza is growing up stunted: physically and nutritionally stunted because they are not getting enough to eat; emotionally stunted because of the pressures of living in a virtual prison and facing the constant threat of destruction and displacement; intellectually and academically stunted because they cannot concentrate -- or, even if they can, because they are trying to study and learn in circumstances that no child should have to endure.
     Even before Israel this week declared Gaza "hostile territory" -- apparently in preparation for cutting off the last remaining supplies of fuel and electricity to 1.5 million men, women and children -- the situation was dire.
     As a result of Israel’s blockade on most imports and exports and other policies designed to punish the populace, about 70% of Gaza’s workforce is now unemployed or without pay, according to the United Nations, and about 80% of its residents live in grinding poverty. About 1.2 million of them are now dependent for their day-to-day survival on food handouts from U.N. or international agencies, without which, as the World Food Program’s Kirstie Campbell put it, "they are liable to starve."
     An increasing number of Palestinian families in Gaza are unable to offer their children more than one meager meal a day, often little more than rice and boiled lentils. Fresh fruit and vegetables are beyond the reach of many families. Meat and chicken are impossibly expensive. Gaza faces the rich waters of the Mediterranean, but fish is unavailable in its markets because the Israeli navy has curtailed the movements of Gaza’s fishermen. more..

Kathleen Christison: Whatever Happened to Palestine?
Kathleen Christison, Palestine Chronicle 9/22/2007
     Has the anti-war movement abandoned Palestine and the Palestinian people to the Israeli-U.S. pro-war machine?
     A group of anti-war leaders held a conference call at the end of August under the sponsorship of Michael Lerner’s Network of Spiritual Progressives to do some long-term strategic planning for the anti-war movement. The discussants included leaders of the country’s best known peace groups -- United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, Pax Christi, the Department of Peace, and others -- as well as Lerner himself and Democratic Congressmen Lynn Woolsey and Jim Moran. They talked about Iraq, of course, but of virtually nothing else. There was a bit about "peace and justice" in general, one passing mention of trying to stop an attack on Iran, and a whole lot of talk about avoiding action on all issues, including even Iraq, until Woolsey and a couple of progressive colleagues try their hands at manipulating weak-kneed congressional Democrats into "showing some backbone" on a withdrawal from Iraq. This must be a new concept in opposing war: do nothing.
     You would think there was nothing else wrong in the world. There was no talk of the U.S. aggression in Afghanistan (which is assumed even by the anti-war movement to be a "good" war, despite the excessive number of innocent civilians -- never remembered -- who have been killed there). There was nothing about safeguarding Lebanon from frequent Israeli attack and nothing, of course, about supporting Palestinian human and national rights or opposing Israel’s gross violation of these rights. There was nothing, in short, about any of the massive injustices perpetrated around the world by the United States, primarily as part of the so-called war on terror, and ignored by the anti-war/peace movement. This is a peace movement but apparently not a justice movement. more..

Salim Nazzal: 14 Years after Oslo Accord
Salim Nazzal, Palestine Chronicle 9/22/2007
     Today after 14 years of the agreement I, like all my Palestinian country men and woman feel the bitterness of this harvest.
     Months before the public announcement of the Oslo canal as the Norwegians chose to call it, I was one among other Palestinians who met with Bassam Abu Sharif, who was visiting Oslo along with Dr Eugiune Makhlouf the Palestinian representative in Sweden at the time. Abu Sharif was in an optimistic mood contrary to the obvious certainty. At that time I did not know, as I heard later, that his visit was part of the preparation to the secret negotiations which took place in a farm south of Norway among Palestinians and Israelis. Nothing in particular signaled the success for such negotiations.
     The current circumstances in the Middle East area were really inadequate. In 1990, three years before the Oslo accord, and in the mid of the intifada Iraq invaded Kuwait for some veiled reasons which in my views lacked wisdom and responsibility, to say the least, some Palestinians leaders sided directly or indirectly the Iraqi occupation which weakened the moral grounds of the Palestinians who themselves are the victims of the Zionist activities. The consequence was eminent the isolation of the PLO. more..

Overcoming us and them
Ramzy Baroud, MIFTAH 9/22/2007
     Racism is, among many things, convenient. It provides simplified, definite and ready-to-serve answers to complex and compounded questions. Racists, in turn, come from all walks of life; their motivation and the root causes behind their contemptible views of others may differ, but the outcome of these views is predictably the same -- racial discrimination, social and political oppression, religious persecution and war.
     The textual definition of racism pertains only to race, but in practice racism is a consequence of groupthink, whereby a group of people decides to designate itself as a collective and starts delineating its relationship with other collectives -- or other people in general -- with a sense of supremacy. When coupled with economic and/or political dominance, supremacy translates into various forms of subjugation and cruelty.
     The adulation of the self/collective and the disparagement of the other is an ancient practice, as old as human civilisation itself. It is everlasting for the simple reason that it has always served as a political and economic tool and will likely remain effective so long as the quest for political and material power drives our behaviour. more..

Press release of the DEVE Delegation to the Palestinian territories
Delegation of the European Parliament’s Committee of Development, International Middle East Media Center 9/22/2007
     The delegation is deeply shocked by the unprecedented humanitarian crisis it witnessed in the Palestinian Territories. It urges the European Union to take immediate action to stop the collective punishmentagainst the Palestinian people inflicted by the Israeli authorities which deprives them from building a viable economy, impedes the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the implementation of development aid projects.
     The delegation warns against the risk and unpredictable consequences of the current crisis, if the occupation does not end.
     The Members of the delegation consider that the planned Middle-East Peace conference, to be held in November 2007 in New York, would represent an opportunity for achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians providing that all relevant stakeholders are actively involved in the conduct of negotiations and in good-faith, resulting in a final agreement according to the UN Resolutions and the Arab initiatives.
     The delegation visited agricultural projects, the Shifa hospital, the Director of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility for the Palestinian National Authority. They also met with the Minister of Planning, the Mayor of Gaza, The Mayor of Hebron, several human rights activists, representatives of the civil society, businessmen, the Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). more..

The Right’s Garden of False Narratives
Phil Rockstroh, Middle East Online 9/22/2007
     Conservatives are eager to embrace false narratives: The surge is working; the terrorists hate us for our freedom; Anbar Province is now a beacon of freedom unto the world.
     One would think that from the cries of (feigned) indignation and calls for repentance arising from conservatives regarding Move-On.org’s ad in the N.Y. Times that the liberal-leaning group had not simply questioned the insights and intentions of a public servant, promoting, in a public forum, the policy of an illegal and immoral occupation of a sovereign nation; rather, the folks of Move-On.org had committed blasphemy against the holy name of some revered saint -- General Mary Petraeus, Mother of God.
     The false outrage of perpetually offended conservatives serves as cover for the true outrages of our era, including: truncated civil liberties, rising levels of social and economic inequality and injustice, and foreign wars of aggression waged by an insular and secretive executive branch and fought by a permanent underclass.
     The outrages keep arriving, because the collective imagination of the citizen/consumers of the US, arbitrated by a careerist media elite, has been, for decades, in the thrall of false narratives that serve the interests of the elite of the corporate/militarist classes. more..

John Pilger: Class is Still Critical
John Pilger, Palestine Chronicle 9/22/2007
     Just as elite power seeks to order other countries according to the demands of its privilege, so class remains at the root of our own society’s mutations and sorrows.
     A state of parallel worlds determines almost everything we do and how we do it, everything we know and how we know it. The word that once described it, class, is unmentionable, just as imperialism used to be. Thanks to George W Bush, the latter is back in the lexicon in Britain, if not at the BBC.
     Class is different. It runs too deep; it allows us to connect the present with the past and to understand the malignancies of a modern economic system based on inequity and fear. So it is seldom spoken about publicly, lest a Goldman Sachs chief executive on multimillions in pay or bonuses, or whatever they call their legalised heists, be asked how it feels to walk past office cleaners struggling on the minimum wage.
     Just as elite power seeks to order other countries according to the demands of its privilege, so class remains at the root of our own society’s mutations and sorrows. In recent weeks, the killing of an 11-year-old Liverpool boy and other tragedies involving children have been thoroughly tabloided. Interviewing Keith Vaz, chairman of the House of Commons home affairs select committee, one journalist wondered if "we" should go out and deal personally with our vile, mugging, stabbing, shooting youth. To this, the nodding Vaz replied that the problem was "values". more..

Against the current
Ariela Bankier, Ha’aretz 9/20/2007
     Her grandfather was an MK and founder of Peace Now. Her mother is Jewish, her father a Palestinian Muslim. Political activist Mai Zeidani is now living in a commune in Germany with her partner, an emigre from Cameroon. Together they are helping fellow immigrants to help themselves
     In the evening the aromas of Indian, German and Palestinian cooking waft out of the spacious apartment in the center of Berlin. Amid the pots hanging on the walls, which are also covered with political posters, the six members of the commune - one of many in the city - sit down to dinner. Over time this has become home to political activists from a number of countries, including a German physician who treats refugees that are ill with AIDS and an Israeli-Palestinian named Mai Zeidani, who is a member of an organization that works to promote the rights of refugees and migrants in Europe.
     Unlike other communes, this one allows members to have their own personal space: Each of them has a room. Still, they choose to spend most of their time together in the common living room, which is also the space used for spontaneous meetings and arguments between the communards. more..

Surviving Democracy
Stephen Lendman, Information Clearing House 9/20/2007
     Reviewing Naomi Klein’s "The Shock Doctrine"
     Today, Baghdad, New Orleans and suburban Atlanta Sandy Springs are glimpses of a gated community future run by the disaster capitalism complex. But it’s in its most advanced state in Israel - "an entire country (turned into) a fortified gated community, surrounded by locked-out people living in (the) permanently excluded red zones" of Gaza and the West Bank that aren’t just left out but are encroached on and under attack. Disaster capitalism thrives in this environment so it yearns to bring it to a neighborhood near you, and that’s a prospect to fear.
     Naomi Klein is an award-winning Canadian journalist, author, documentary filmmaker and activist. She writes a regular column for The Nation magazine and London Guardian that’s syndicated internationally by the New York Times Syndicate that gives people worldwide access to her work but not its own readers at home.
     In 2004, she and her husband and co-producer Avi Lewis released their first feature documentary - "The Take." It covered the explosion of activism in the wake of Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis. People responded with neighborhood assemblies, barter clubs, mass movements of the unemployed and workers taking over bankrupt companies and reopening them under their own management. more..

Welcome to Planet Gaza
Pepe Escobar, Asia Times 9/22/2007
     It is one of the most scandalous instances of collective punishment anywhere in the world in recent times. And what is the response of the high-minded "international community"? It’s the standard "three monkeys" - willfully deaf, dumb and blind.
     This Thursday, the Israeli cabinet’s decision to declare the 8-kilometer-wide, 23km-long, arid Gaza Strip a "hostile territory" has started to be translated by facts on the ground. The Israel Defense Forces have begun "gradually" to cut the supply of fuel and electricity to the 1.5 million population, one of the highest densities on Earth, 50% of them already living under the poverty line, 50% of them under-15s, 33% of them refugees.
     Gaza uses about 200 megawatts of electricity; 120 come from Israel; 65 are produced in Gaza; and only 17 come from Egypt. Israel says supply to generators at Gaza’s hospitals will not be affected.
     There’s more to come: a trade ban, no freedom of movement, no visits to prisoners in Israeli jails, an overall hardcore financial squeeze, and sooner rather than later, another military onslaught. As the Israeli daily Ha’aretz so nicely put it, this is just a "plan to limit services to civilians". more..

An existential battle is taking place in the Middle East
Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star 9/22/2007
     The intense political focus on Iraq in the United States continues to revolve around the theme of how soon the US might be able to substantially withdraw its troops. Democrats who won a majority in Congress last November have run up against the limits of their slim majority. Their lack of a two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto means they are unable to force changes in President George W. Bush’s policy in Iraq.
     The tenor and narrow focus of the public debate in the US accurately reflect the general public sentiment that has been shaped by the administration’s policy. This holds that the US has removed a brutal dictator, given the Iraqi people an opportunity to embrace freedom and democracy, and the noble job is done. The main theme that dominates discussions about Iraq here these days is about the feuding Iraqis who seem unable to forge a national consensus or a government that promote reconciliation and power-sharing.
     There is no significant questioning of either the moral, legal and political right of the US to invade Iraq, or of the repercussions of that move. The larger questions of what the American adventure in Iraq has done to the entire Middle East remain largely unaddressed here, at a time when those larger issues assert themselves more clearly in the Middle East itself. If the United States plans to maintain large numbers of troops in Iraq for many years - a distinct possibility, as evidenced by American troops in South Korea and Germany, half a century after wars there - then a whole new political and security dynamic emerges and needs to be considered. more..

Dehumanizing the Palestinians
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada 9/21/2007
     The Israeli cabinet has voted to declare the occupied Gaza Strip a "hostile entity," thus in its own eyes permitting itself to cut off the already meagre supplies of food, water, electricity and fuel that it allows the Strip’s inmates to receive. The decision was quickly given backing by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
     Israel is the occupying power in the Gaza Strip, despite having removed its settlers in 2005 and transforming the area, home to 1.5 million mostly refugee Palestinians, into the world’s largest open-air prison which it besieges and fires into from the perimeter. Under international law Israel is responsible for the well-being of the people whose lives and land it rules.
     There have been barely audible bleats of protest from the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ("Such a step would be contrary to Israel’s obligations towards the civilian population under international humanitarian and human rights law") and the European Union ("The [European] Commission hopes that Israel will not find it necessary to implement the measures for which the [cabinet] decisions set the framework yesterday." more..

Gazans Still Struggle Under de Facto Occupation
Safwat Kahlout, MIFTAH 9/21/2007
     August 2005 was supposed to have been one of the biggest celebrations in the history of the Palestinian people, especially Gazans. Israel was, for the first time ever, withdrawing its soldiers and settlers from Palestinian areas, allowing Gazans to reclaim almost a third of their land.
     When Israel announced its plan to evacuate settlements in the Gaza Strip there was much local, regional and international hype about creating a new Gaza. In addition, promises came in from many countries to develop the impoverished and overpopulated strip of land and Gazans were filled with hope. Never mind that Israel destroyed the houses in their previous settlements and that only greenhouses were left intact after the Israelis were was paid to do so. Palestinians stood ready to construct a future.
     But two years later, dreams of freedom and prosperity have turned to dust. First, Palestinians learned that in actual fact the Israeli "withdrawal" could more accurately be understood as no more than a redeployment of troops. The occupation of Gaza did not end. Rather, if before the pullout Israeli jailers lived in Gaza’s midst, now the prison guards have left but not before locking the door and throwing away the key. more..

A Visit that will Serve Little Purpose
Gulf News - Editorial, MIFTAH 9/21/2007
     US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the region yesterday on her sixth trip this year. The aim is always to resume the peace process, dead for most of the past seven years. This time, she says, the talks with the Israeli officials will tackle the "critical" issues - final borders, the fate of the holy city of occupied Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and security arrangements. She is also expected to promote the November peace conference, proposed by President George W. Bush.
     Rice says Washington means business. "Nobody wants a meeting where people simply come and talk and talk. We want to advance the cause," she said. But that is exactly what she has been doing on all these long trips to the region. Why should we expect this trip to be different? And why would this conference succeed where countless others - Madrid, Geneva, Camp David, Sharm Al Shaikh, to name few - have failed?
     One of the main obstacles to peace in the region is the lack of trust among the relevant parties. But the key stumbling block is that the Arabs no longer trust the mediator. Rice will simply come and talk and talk and get her souvenir photo. And that is all she will get from her Israeli hosts. more..

Shoot and cry: Liberal Zionism’s dilemma
Ben White, Electronic Intifada 9/20/2007
     Howard Jacobson
     Howard Jacobson is one of the most high-profile Jewish authors in Britain, having written numerous critically-acclaimed and successful comic novels. He also writes a weekly column in the liberal-leaning The Independent and in recent times has used it to vociferously attack the growing boycott of Israel. His column on 1 September, "There seems to be a pecking order among the dispossessed, and Jews come last," was a fine example of the twin track approach of the liberal Zionist, combining moral remorse with unhampered support for ethnic cleansing.[1]
     Soft-pedaling Israeli colonialism is nothing new -- as Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has noted, in 1948 a number of Zionist politicians condemned some isolated incidents among the widespreadatrocities being perpetrated against the Palestinians. This, according to Pappe, was an attempt "by ’sensitive’ Jewish politicians and soldiers to absolve their consciences," an "Israeli ethos that can best be described as ’shoot and cry.’"[2] Jacobson’s angst drew such a response in the letters’ page that the writer felt compelled to pen another, rambling defense of his defense of Zionism, "When I argue on the side of Zionism, it is because it seems intellectually right to do so." more..

Wishful Thinking will not Cure Economic Ills
Bronwen Maddox, MIFTAH 9/20/2007
     The original conception of the Government’s report on reviving the Palestinian economy, published yesterday, was a good one – when Gordon Brown commissioned it two years ago.
     The aim was to find ways to bolster that economy, deliberately separate from the politics. It is an honourable principle that there are few situations so bad that they cannot be improved, even if they cannot be resolved. The approach appealed to Brown, when Chancellor, as a way to avoid Tony Blair’s grandstanding, while tackling problems on the ground.
     But the past two years have made a nonsense of this approach – and incidentally, of Blair’s new job, which is supposed to focus on the Palestinian economy. Hamas’s victory in the January 2006 elections, the collapse of the joint Hamas-Fatah Government, Hamas’s seizure of Gaza in June, and the disintegration of the economy under Israeli security curbs make it impossible to divorce the economic from the political. Without political progress, there will not be economic progress; there may not even be much worth calling a Palestinian economy. more..

Interview with Abu Mohammed - Gaza Expects an Onslaught
BitterLemons, MIFTAH 9/20/2007
     bitterlemons:
     Hamas has announced that it intends to continue its truce with Israel but is also preparing for a large-scale Israeli military operation. How likely is such an operation?
     Abu Mohammad:
     Israel is already carrying out limited incursions into some border areas in Beit Hanoun and Rafah. There are a lot of Israeli tanks and troops stationed on the border with Gaza. These two factors indicate that we may expect a large Israeli operation soon. The Izzeddin al-Qassam Brigades together with other resistance factions are preparing for such an eventuality. Hence you can see sand barricades being erected across the northern Gaza Strip.
     bitterlemons:
     Israel says continued rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip are a cause for any military response. more..

Ramzy Baroud: Convenient racism
Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle 9/20/2007
     It remains to be said that a true fight against racism and various other types of group prejudice requires first accepting personal responsibility in shaping one’s own society, and this includes the racism that exists within it.
     Racism is, among many things, convenient. It provides simplified, definite and ready-to-serve answers to complex and compounded questions. Racists, in turn, come from all walks of life; their motivation and the root causes behind their contemptible views of others may differ, but the outcome of these views is predictably the same — racial discrimination, social and political oppression, religious persecution and war.
     The textual definition of racism pertains only to race, but in practice racism is a consequence of groupthink, whereby a group of people decides to designate itself as a collective and starts delineating its relationship with other collectives — or other people in general — with a sense of supremacy. When coupled with economic and/or political dominance, supremacy translates into various forms of subjugation and cruelty. more..

Majda Hassan: The ‘Osloization’ of the Palestinian Left
Majda Hassan, Palestine Chronicle 9/20/2007
     In spite of its rich revolutionary tradition, the Left has been hijacked by right-wing cabals, whose interest is intertwined with that of the political elite of Oslo.
     The Osloization of the Palestinian Left is now complete. The opportunistic and unprincipled position taken by the right-wing "Left" of the PLO vis-à-vis the current standoff between Hamas and Fatah is yet another indication of the Left’s inexorabledeterioration which followed its’ implicit acceptance of the Oslo accords—despite its alleged opposition to that agreement. In fact, the People’s Party never opposed the accords, but rather legitimized them by its acceptance of ministerial positions in almost every government formed since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.
     Judging by statements and analyses presented by the main Left organizations and individuals, one could conclude that, in spite of its rich revolutionary tradition, the Left has been hijacked by right-wing cabals, whose interest is intertwined with that of the political elite of Oslo. Although I fail to understand how a nation can have elections under the boot of a brutal occupying power, I still naively thought that the Palestinian Left, and liberal forces for that matter, would seize the unique opportunity which arose as a result of that democratic process in January 2006 and support and strengthen it. The long held slogans of "from and for the masses" and "long live the people" turned out to be hollow. more..

The moral alternative
Ammar Ali Hassan, Al-Ahram Weekly 9/26/2007
     Instead of bringing politics into religion, we should consider bringing moral and ethical values into politics, writes.
     Many intellectuals hold that the Eastern mentality in general is more inclined to the spiritual than to the abstract philosophical. But the distinction between spirituality and philosophy is a rather spurious one in that over the course of history the two have been so closely intertwined that the attempt to separate one from the other inevitably results in a failure to comprehend both. Islam is a single indivisible "text", but it has given rise to numerous and diverse interpretations and exegeses which, when translated into human actions and attitudes, have yielded a broad spectrum of behaviour ranging between the antithetical extremes of "revolutionary dissident" and "Sufi recluse". Religion, even in its most ritualistic sense, creates a set of values that become an integral part of the worshipper’s self and shapes his awareness and perceptions of the world around him. Thus the gateway between the religious and the political is wide open.
     The worlds of politics and religion share several common traits, among them ambiguity, diversity, interconnectivity, fluidity and dynamism. They both combine material, moral and structural elements and are closely connected. Religion imparts moral values, which are essentially social values; it functions to regulate society through conventions of rites and rituals and the codification of the divide between right and wrong; and the religious establishment plays a vital role as a conduit for social advancement in societies that accord a special status to religious culture. more..

Ramallah mon amour
Lily Galili, Ha’aretz 9/21/2007
     Toward the end of the long conversation held in her living room, surrounded by her husband and her two children, Tatiana Yunis goes into the other room and brings back the latest issue of the Russian newspaper Vesty. She wants to show me a story about the subject of our conversation, to back up what she had said with a written text. On the first page was a photo of a swastika, which accompanied a story about a group of Russian-speaking neo-Nazis. Tatiana says that she condemns the phenomenon, but also understands how it has emerged in light of Israeli society’s attitude toward new immigrants.
     On the face of it, there is nothing exceptional about our little encounter, except for the fact that it takes place in Ramallah, where Dr. Yunis buys her Russian-Israeli newspaper every week. This publication, along with Internet sites in Russian, is one of the young doctor’s sources of information, serving also as a sort of substitute for the limited physical mobility to which she has been condemned. Like other women from abroad who have married Palestinians from the territories, Tatiana Yunis is an illegal resident in her own home, who lacks status in her new homeland, is persecuted and deprived of her rights. Next week the High Court of Justice will discuss a petition filed by several such women against the State of Israel in the wake of the official freeze on the process of family reunification among residents of the territories, which has been explained as stemming from "diplomatic considerations. more..

Hamas is the key
Ahmed Yousef, Ha’aretz 9/21/2007
     While largely unnoticed in American discourse on the topic, much has been said and written to debunk the sanctions regime imposed on Hamas government administrations since its resounding victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections of January 2006. These calls and reports show with compelling logic that the sanctions regime is wrong and misguided and, equally important, that it is a reaction to the excessively intense pressure that the U.S. administration has exercised over other nations to induce them to boycott and besiege a government democratically elected by the people and to punish the Palestinians for their democratic choice. The Quartet has been spearheading this campaign of isolation against Hamas, and in the process is advancing a U.S.-Israeli agenda whose goal is to delegitimize Hamas and prevent it from exercising its right to lead the Palestinian people, even though the latter have elected it in a transparent, internationally monitored electoral process. A variety of underhanded methods, both internal and external, have been used to undermine the Hamas-led government, including destabilization from within the fragile Palestinian political system.
     The U.S. government expected the first Hamas government to fall in under three months. When that didn’t happen, Washington delegated to a faction inside Fatah the responsibility of overthrowing Ismail Haniyeh’s government, an effort aimed at reinstalling Fatah. Hamas’ ability to rule has been hampered, indeed paralyzed, by crippling Western pressures, which have only been strengthened by the collaboration of regional powers as well as localPalestinian players. more..

It depends who is doing the torturing
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 9/20/2007
     "But look what Hamas is doing in Gaza." That is the standard response in the West Bank to reports about the offensive being waged by the Palestinian Authority (PA) against Hamas activists. And from Hamas men in Gaza one can still hear that the beating of detainees and the forcible repression of demonstrations and meetings are the result of errors of some individuals, not orders from above, despite the fact that the "errors" are continuing. "The error of individual, in contradiction to policy" is how a senior official in a PA security force characterized, in speaking to Haaretz, reports of the torture of Hamas detainees.
    
     Information cannot be obtained through torture, the official said. According to him, Palestinian intelligence has succeeded, in the last few months, in uncovering - without torture - many details about the activities of the illegal Hamas Executive Force in the West bank and about plans to attack PA officials. In the wake of the organization’s takeover in the Gaza Strip, the denials by Hamas are unconvincing. Hamas is known for its ability to compartmentalize its military plans and those behind them. But just as in the wave of arrests in 1996, the PA is attacking where the streetlight shines, namely civilian activists. In these mirror images, one large difference stands out: the acts of repression by Hamas in Gaza and the violation of basic civil rights there are given relatively wide media coverage in Israel and abroad. Similar actions by the PA in the West Bank, however, are hushed up. more..

The Palestinian Mandela
Uri Avnery, Middle East Online 9/20/2007
     To achieve peace, the Palestinians need national unity, much as the Israelis need a consensus for withdrawal. The man who symbolizes the hope for unity among the Palestinians is sitting now in Israeli jail, says.
     The division of the Palestinian territories into a "Hamastan" in the Gaza Strip and a "Fatahland" in the West Bank is a disaster.
     A disaster for the Palestinians, a disaster for peace, and therefore also a disaster for Israelis.
     The Israeli political and military leadership is happy about the split, according to the doctrine "What’s bad for Palestine is good for Israel". This doctrine has guided Zionist policy right from the beginning. Haim Arlosoroff, the Zionist leader who was murdered by hands unknown on the seashore of Tel-Aviv in 1933, already condemned this doctrine in his last speech: "Not everything that is bad for the Arabs is good for the Jews, and not everything that is good for the Arabs is bad for the Jews. more..

J.A. Miller: Avnery; Neo-Zionist Babble in Babel
J.A. Miller, Palestine Chronicle 9/20/2007
     It’s true that Avnery has courageously battled some of the more brutal aspects of occupation Zionism, but he has always used his very public efforts for a "kinder, gentler" Zionism to soften his commitment to the core Zionist objective.
     [Editor’s Note: Uri Avnery has been featured regularly at the PalestineChronicle.com since its establishment in the late 1990’s. The following criticism of Mr. Avnery is published with the hope that it would further contribute to the ongoing debate on Zionism and ’neo-Zionism’. Readers’ comments are on this matter or any other related subjects, are, as always, encouraged.
     "People always send me articles by Uri Avnery.I never ever post them.Never was a fan -- and I didn’t admire his war years [in Lebanon ] on behalf of the Israel occupation forces’Avnery reproduces generalizations from The Arab Mind -- almost word-for-word." - As’ad Abu Khalil, The Orientalism of Uri Avnery.
     Casing the Joint
     Uri Avnery has long aired his commentary on progressive and pro-Palestinian websites with scarcely a demurral. His generally unchallenged presence on such venues has been puzzling since his commitment to Zionism has been unwavering throughout his long career. [1] In fact, Avnery’s ideology was put in its proper place back in 1971 by Camille Mansour in a PLO publication entitled: Uri Afniri wal-sahyuniyah al-mustahdatha ("Uri Avnery and Neo-Zionism"), published in response to Avnery’s promotion of a two-state solution. more..

45 minutes from Damascus
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 9/20/2007
     Assad on the wall. Hafez Assad at the entrance to the living room. Bashar Assad on the basement wall. The family photo collection also includes one of the exiled brother, Madhat, shaking hands with the president - the Syrian president, that is. The picture is displayed proudly. Madhat al-Salah is the president’s adviser on affairs concerning the occupied Golan Heights.
     A Syrian flag flies opposite the balcony of the house in Majdal Shams, beyond the mined valley, atop the Syrian army post. Wahib al-Salah sees his brother from this balcony, shouting into a megaphone across the hill. Now there is telephone communication, too, for a price of NIS 1.80 a minute. A few days ago, Wahib called his brother on his cell phone and Madhat told him: I’m standing across from you. Another brother, Yasser, a doctor, is also in exile in Syria.
     The Israeli occupation is a lot more pleasant here, but the familiar trademarks are still there: arrests, searches, settlers. Once there were checkpoints as well. Although they sell some of their apples, the flagship product, to Syria, since the Israeli market prefers Jewish apples, the economic situation appears to be all right. Freedom of movement, Israeli travel documents, ID cards and license plates, excellent Hebrew spoken by all. Still, only a very small minority - 677 out of about 20,000 to be exact - have chosen to take Israeli citizenship, only to be shunned as collaborators. In a state where so many have to fight so hard for citizenship, it’s a peculiar thing. more..

Bil’in will continue to struggle against the wall and settlements
Mohammed Khatib, ZNet 9/20/2007
     On September 4, after nearly three years of nonviolent protests by our village of Bil’in, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Israel’s wall here must be moved further west, returning 250 acres of our farmland. In Bil’in we celebrated, along with our Israeli and international supporters.
    
     But Israel’s Supreme Court demonstrated both the power of nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation, and its limits. On September 5 the court rejected our petition to stop the construction of another Israeli settlement, Mattiyahu East, on our land even further to the west. Israel, with US support, appears determined to retain major West Bank settlement blocs, including one west of Bil’in, that carve the West Bank into bantustans.
    
     Bil’in is a West Bank agricultural village with 1600 residents located just east of “the Green Line”, the pre-1967 border between the West Bank and Israel. In Bil’in, as in tens of Palestinian villages, Israel exploited security justifications to build a wall deep inside the West Bank and seize Palestinian land for illegal settlements. Israel trapped 60% of our land behind the wall, mostly olive groves that we depend on.
    
     In December, 2004 when the Israeli army started bulldozing our land and uprooting olive trees to build the wall, we went to our fields to protest. We learned from other West Bank villages that nonviolently resisted the wall, and we studied Gandhi, King and Mandela. more..

A victory for the joint, popular struggle
Basel Mansour, Electronic Intifada 9/19/2007
     The following are selected translated comments from a 7 September speech given by the representative of the Popular Committee of Bil’in, Basel Mansour, to Israelis who participated in the demonstration in the village after the decision by the Israeli High Court to alter the route of the wall in the village
     Lovers of peace, friends of freedom and justice ... our partners in the struggle and in the creation of this partial victory -- I bless you in the name of our Palestinian people, in the name of the residents of Bil’in, who you came to know, and who came to know you, and whose sides you stood by ever since they began their opposition to the fence and the settlement that squats on a large part of their land.You came to us without considering the consequences -- the Zionist occupational government attempts to implant the deceptive and distorted idea that the Palestinians are your enemy and want to kill you. By way of this shared journey, we proved the opposite and together we demonstrated the truth -- that Israelis can stand beside Palestinians and live with them in peace and security, and even struggle with them against injustice and occupation, on the fundamental basis that this occupation is an enemy of humanity. more..

Audio: Crossing the Line interviews Huwaida Arraf
Podcast, Crossing the Line, Electronic Intifada 9/19/2007
     This week on Crossing The Line: Host Christopher Brown speaks with attorney and activist Huwaida Arraf. Arraf, cofounder of the International Solidarity Movement, speaks about the victory for the residents of Bil’in village. The Israeli high court on 4 September ruled that the apartheid wall must be rerouted near the town. Every Friday for the past two years residents of Bil’in, as well as Israeli and international peace activists, have staged nonviolent protests against the wall. The Israeli occupation forces almost always used rubber-coated steel bullets, sound grenades and teargas against the crowd. Brown speaks with Arraf about the use of non-violent resistance in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
     After more than three months, the conflict between Fatah al-Islam militants and the Lebanese army staged in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp has come to an end. Over 400 militants, soldiers and civilians were killed in the fighting; 80 percent of the camp was destroyed, and more than 30,000 Palestinian refugees were again displaced. Now, the question remains: What’s next for Nahr al-Bared? Brown speaks with Caoimhe Butterly, a journalist and activist who has documented the events since the fighting began in May. Butterly speaks with Brown from Baddawi refugee camp about the current living conditions of the displaced Palestinians and how the Lebanese and other governments are addressing the issue. more..

Who killed our homeland?
Lorenzo Cremonesi, Ha’aretz 9/19/2007
     Who killed Watan?" cried the dozens of youngsters on the stage of the Shawah, the largest theater in Gaza, as they pointed accusing fingers at a group of older actors waving the flags of the Palestinian resistance movements: Fatah, Hamas, Iz a-Din al-Qassam, the Al-Quds Brigade and Islamic Jihad. Their flags symbolize many long years of struggles, hopes, distress and blood. But this time there was nothing formal or festive about them; there were no calls against "the Zionist enemy," none of the usual anti-Israel slogans.
     The play, "Watan," was written to grasp the bull by the horns and send a new, revolutionary message. "Enough of always blaming the Israelis for our problems. The time has come for a reckoning, and to condemn those among us who are bringing catastrophe down upon our people," says poet-director Saed Swerky, 37, the author of the play that has set shock waves rippling among Gaza’s 1.5 million-plus inhabitants.
     Watan, which means "homeland" in Arabic, was a 12-year-old boy who was killed during the Fatah-Hamas clashes that engulfed the Gaza Strip during the second week of June. The play premiered on August 13. Thousands of people sat mesmerized for more than two hours, interrupting the play with their applause during the most dramatic scenes from the civil war: prisoners thrown from the roofs of 15-story buildings; people shot in the knees; militants who used to be on the same side exchanging insults. The show ends in uncertainty. The evidence against the armed men is conclusive, but the curtain comes down before the jury has its say. more..

Old City Seeks to Silence Ramadan Tradition
James Hider, MIFTAH 9/19/2007
     For almost 100 years the Sandouka family has fired a cannon over Jerusalem’s Old City to mark the beginning and end of the daily fast of Ramadan.
    
     Now Rajai Sandouka, who carries the responsibility of the sunrise and sunset ceremony, fears that the Israeli Government is trying to push him out of his job and erase a vital part of the disputed city’s Muslim tradition.
    
     When he applied for the permit from the Department of Labour this year, his twentieth Ramadan on the job, he was told that he would have to get additional permits from seven different offices, including the bomb squad, the secret service and the police. He must also undergo a $2,000 (£1,000) course in handling explosives.
    
     “I’ve been doing this for 20 years and this is the first year they remembered I need to be qualified,” Mr Sandouka said. “Every year they make things a little more difficult, to push me to give up on the job. Then they can say, ‘He didn’t want to do it any more.’ It’s an indirect way of getting rid of an old Muslim tradition. more..

Circling Each other in Gaza
Ghassan Khatib, MIFTAH 9/19/2007
     There were two interesting indications Saturday of how future relations between Israel and Hamas-controlled Gaza will play out, particularly vis-a-vis the prospects for Israeli military intervention. First were the gradually escalating Israel military incursions in the north and south. Then came the Hamas response, a statement by one its spokespeople that Hamas would extend its ceasefire with Israel if Israel ended such incursions and eased restrictions on the movement of goods in and out of Gaza.
    
     Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza the future of relations between Gaza and Israel has been the subject of all kinds of debates at both the political and military levels in Israel. For some Israelis, having the Palestinian territories divided under different leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza makes the mission of Israel easier, since it weakens the Palestinian side politically and militarily and thus diminishes the prospects of any independent Palestinian state in the occupied territories emerging. This school of thought is willing to deal separately with the Fateh leadership in the West Bank and the Hamas leadership in Gaza. Others, however, are worried about Hamas’ control over Gaza and see it as not being in the interest of Israel because it could sooner or later create a base to be used, including on the military level, against Israel. more..

Lobby and US Foreign Policy
Neil Berry, MIFTAH 9/19/2007
     This September has witnessed an extraordinary development in American public debate. In the wake of the publication of their controversial polemic, The Israel Lobby, the distinguished American political scientists, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt are undertaking a six-week tour of the United States to publicize their thesis that American foreign policy has increasingly been formulated not in accordance with the national interest of the United States but with that of Israel, and that it is because of the machinations of the Israel lobby that the US is now mired in a disastrous war in Iraq.
    
     Not very long ago, it would have been impossible to conceive of a book like the Israel Lobby being published at all. Notorious for its capacity to injure, if not destroy, the careers of its critics, the Israel lobby has enjoyed a remarkable power to intimidate and few have dared to brave its wrath for fear of being forever stigmatized as anti-Semitic. Those who have had the courage to speak out about the pervasiveness of Zionist influence in US political culture have unfailingly met with systematic vilification. Consider the fate of David Hirst’s seminal work on the Palestine-Israel conflict, The Gun and the Olive Branch, which first appeared in 1977 and which was subsequently expanded to include a pioneering in-depth analysis of how Zionists buy political influence in the US. Thanks to Zionist pressure, the book received scandalously exiguous coverage in the US. more..

M. Shahid Alam: The Zionist Question
M. Shahid Alam, Palestine Chronicle 9/19/2007
     The challenge before the Western world, before the Americans especially, is to develop the countervailing force that can compel a solution without violence.
     In recent times, no nationalist project has been so completely mythologized by its partisans as Zionism. In the construction of nearly all aspects of its history, the official Zionist narrative is often at variance -- even complete variance -- with the facts as they are known to the rest of the world: and, more recently, even as they have been documented by some Zionist historians.
     Yet few Zionists would deny one central fact of their history: and that is the history of violence that has attended the insertion of Jewish colons into the Middle East. The history of the Zionist movement in Palestine -- it can scarcely be disputed -- has been attended by violence between the Jewish settlers and the Palestinians; it has led to unending conflicts between Arab societies and Israel; and these conflicts continue to draw Western powers, especially the United States since 1945, into ever widening clashes with the Islamic world. more..

Ruth Tenne: Married to Another Man – Book Review
Reviewed by Ruth Tenne in London, Palestine Chronicle 9/19/2007
     Borrowing Dr. Karmi’s metaphor, I believe that the ageing and war-torn bride of Palestine may find solace in accommodating the two rivalries for her love, thus, enabling them to lead their life in separate and independent "homes".
     One Complete Palestine -- A Utopia, or a Feasible Solution? Ghada Karmi -Married to Another Man: Israel’sDilemmain Palestine, Pluto 2007.
     From the outset of her book Dr. Ghada Karmi declares her personal interest in finding a solution - being "a Palestinian who experienced at first hand Israel’s creation and in 1948 and is still living, along with millions of others, through its consequences." Accordingly, I should also state my special interest in reviewing her book as an Israeli who was born to socialist-Zionist parents and lived through the creation of the State of Israel, kibbutz life, compulsory army service, and Israel’s higher education system. I hold a dual nationality but I have no intention of ever living, or visiting, the Israeli state - against its policies I have been campaigning for many years. more..

Sherri Muzher: My Unsung Palestinian Hero
Sherri Muzher, Palestine Chronicle 9/19/2007
     I sat frozen as the Orthodox priest swung the censers during the Trisagion Service.The smell of incense filled the air and I looked passed the priest to see my father lying peacefully in the open casket. The second-half of the casket was adorned with roses while the first half revealed the Orthodox cross, a folded American flag for his military service, a rosary in his hands and the word "Palestine" written in Arabic on a small piece of metal carefully placed on his tie.
     In recent years, I have written tributes for my heroes in Palestinian justice, such as Dr. Edward Said or Father Michael Prior.But it is my father who was my greatest unsung hero, and this tribute is for him.
     People have often asked me how I got so involved in the Palestinian cause, and I usually just answer that "everyone is born with a purpose. This just happens to be mine." Still, there is always someone that leads us to our purpose. For me, that someone will always be my father, Ead Michael Muzher. more..

Israel’s Missed Opportunities
Joharah Baker, MIFTAH 9/19/2007
     Everyone is always accusing the Palestinians of missing out on opportunities for peace. The worst Palestinian-bashing came after the Camp David summit in 2000, when late President Yasser Arafat supposedly sabotaged his people’s best chance at a Palestinian state and international recognition. Seven years later, the Palestinians are still feeling the backlash of that horrendous fallacy.
    
     These accusations go back much farther than that, even. There are still many voices berating the Palestinians and Arabs for not accepting the United Nations partition plan in 1947. If they did, these critics argue, the Palestinians would have had their state and the conflict would have stopped right there.
    
     But never, not once, have we heard that Israel – the aggressor and the occupier – has missed out on an opportunity. It is always the fault of the Palestinians, Israel portraying itself as constantly outstretching its hand in peace only to be slapped back down by its belligerent neighbors. more..

A double standard on academic freedom
George Bisharat, Baltimore Sun, Electronic Intifada 9/18/2007
     Two hundred thousand Palestinian children began school in the Gaza Strip this month without a full complement of textbooks. Why? Because Israel, which maintains a stranglehold over this small strip of land along the Mediterranean even after withdrawing its settlers from there in 2005, considers paper, ink and binding materials not to be "fundamental humanitarian needs."
     Israel, attempting to throttle the democratically elected Hamas government, generally permits only food, medicine and fuel to enter Gaza, and allows virtually no Palestinian exports to leave. Lately, it held up delivery of materials needed for printing textbooks. As a result, Gaza students began the year facing a 30 percent shortage of texts.
     No full-page advertisements in major American newspapers have publicized Israel’s violations of Palestinian children’s right to an education. No editors, syndicated columnists or presidents of major universities in this country have denounced this callous measure. Our politicians have demanded no remedial action. Instead, they continue, verbally and materially, to support Israel in its near-total blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians, kids and all. more..

Palestinian Propaganda Prize for Israel
Nicola Nasser, ZNet 9/19/2007
     The inter-Palestinian war of words and the mutual violations of the freedom of press and expression by the Hamas - led government of Ismael Haniyyeh in the Gaza Strip and the Fatah - led government of Salam Fayyad in the West Bank have presented Israel with its biggest propaganda prize that is overshadowing the violations of human rights committed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).
     The Palestinian Center for Press Development and Freedom "Mada"� had this to say on Palestinian media during August this year: There were "more violations of media freedom in the Palestinian territories particularly by the Executive Force (of Hamas) in the Gaza Strip and the (Fatah-led) Palestinian security agencies (of the Palestinian Authority) in the West Bank, in addition to the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Nothing changed in the status of the media that was closed by both sides, or prevented from distribution, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza Strip."
     On July 14 "Mada"� described the violations of press freedom during the preceding month of June as a "massacre of Palestinian media"� committed by Palestinians themselves, including Palestinian armed groups; media institutions were attacked, burned, ransacked and destroyed, printing and distributing of newspapers were banned, and journalists were arrested, threatened and shot at. The violations led to a "serious compromise of press freedom;"� Palestinian journalists had become too scared to cover the events and disseminate information, which "reinforced self-censorship by journalists and independent media."� Objective reporting was absent and "few local media maintained impartiality." more..

Gazans still struggle under de facto occupation
Safwat Kahlout, Daily Star 9/19/2007
     August 2005 was supposed to have been one of the biggest celebrations in the history of the Palestinian people, especially Gazans. Israel was, for the first time ever, withdrawing its soldiers and settlers from Palestinian areas, allowing Gazans to reclaim almost a third of their land.
     When Israel announced its plan to evacuate settlements in the Gaza Strip there was much local, regional and international hype about creating a new Gaza. In addition, promises came in from many countries to develop the impoverished and overpopulated strip of land and Gazans were filled with hope. Never mind that Israel destroyed the houses in their previous settlements and that only greenhouses were left intact after the Israelis were was paid to do so. Palestinians stood ready to construct a future.
     But two years later, dreams of freedom and prosperity have turned to dust. First, Palestinians learned that in actual fact the Israeli "withdrawal" could more accurately be understood as no more than a redeployment of troops. The occupation of Gaza did not end. Rather, if before the pullout Israeli jailers lived in Gaza’s midst, now the prison guards have left but not before locking the door and throwing away the key. more..

Audio: Crossing the Line interviews Kathleen and Bill Christison
Podcast, Crossing the Line, Electronic Intifada 9/18/2007
     This week on Crossing The Line: Host Christopher Brown speaks with Bill and Kathleen Christison both formerly of the CIA. Bill was a senior official of the CIA and served as a National Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis. Kathleen is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession. Brown talks with two about the recent leak of an Israeli document which outlines a final status for a Palestinian state.
     As always, Crossing the Line begins with "This week in Palestine," a service provided by The International Middle East Media Center.
     Listen Now [MP3 - 16.9 more..

Applied Research Institute: 28.5% more land cut off by Wall
Manar Jibrin& agencies, International Middle East Media Center 9/18/2007
     A report issued Thursday by the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ), an NGO based in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, has revealed that more adjustments have been made to the route of the illegal Israeli wall in the West Bank than were approved in April 2006.
     The report adds that much of the land now cut off is located in the south eastern areas of the West Bank and in the eastern part of the Jordan Valley, adjacent to what naturally forms part of the southern West Bank.
     It clarified that the 53.5 km extension heading north-east from the Hebron district had annexed 153,780 dunums between the Wall and the Green Line and which, according to the report, denies Palestinian rights to part of the area by the Dead Sea.
     Another change occurred in the area to the north-west of the city of Ramallah where a 13.5 km section of the Wall was added, annexing the settlements of Neli and Ne’lieh and isolating a further 4,140 dunums. more..

Olmert’s Undermining of the Peace Process has Bush’s Blessing
The Daily Star - Editorial, MIFTAH 9/18/2007
     The news from Israel over the weekend can only add to Arab concerns that the US-led peace conference expected in the fall will be nothing more than an exercise in public relations. According to participants at a meeting of Ehud Olmert’s ruling Kadima Party on Sunday, the Israeli prime minister went out of his way to lower expectations. Dismissing speculation that he and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are close to an "agreement on principles," Olmert reportedly stressed that only a "declaration of intent" was on the agenda - and that he hoped this would be "the headline" of the conference.
     Successive Israeli leaders have amply demonstrated their ability to sabotage peace talks before, during and after the fact, but blame has to be shared this time. From the moment the White House first announced - and then quickly downgraded - the conference, it has been shrouded in a thick haze of confusion, duplicity and incompetence. US officials have been studiously vague about when and where it will take place, who will be invited, what will be discussed, and what (if anything) they hope to accomplish. For any occupying power, this would be a clear signal that it will come under no pressure to alter the status quo; for one with Israel’s penchant for diplomatic chutzpah, it is an invitation to scupper the process by whatever means it can. more..

Hasan Afif El-Hassan: Yet Another Peace Conference!
Dr. Hassan Afif El-Hassan, Palestine Chronicle 9/18/2007
     President Eisenhower did not have to convene a conference when he sent a letter to Ben-Gurion demanding Israeli withdrawal from conquered Sinai after the 1956 Israeli-British-French invasion of Egypt.
     Conferences, meetings, summits, initiatives and envoys became the life support of the so called peace in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since 1991. Peace is a big industry in the Middle East today, but not real peace. Ask the frustrated Palestinians standing in lines for hours at the more than 500 checkpoints and roadblocks that Israel operates in the West Bank or the expatriates stranded at the border with Egypt trying to return to their homes in Gaza. Or ask the three generations of refugees living stateless in camps. There is too much talk on confidence building between Abbas and Olmert these days, twice a month at least, but nothing on the main issues, borders, the refugees and Jerusalem. I wonder how they spend the two-hour sessions without discussing the issues! May be how to strangle their common enemies, those Palestinians who do not recognize the Jewish only settlements!
     There are only two solutions to the conflict. One based on applying the uniform set of laws as established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter. The alternative is a solution based on military and political power where the stronger party will prevail over the weaker. Unfortunately, Israel opted for the traditional Zionist strategy of "might makes right". Israel has continued to follow a strategy based on the notion that it must use its military power to grab Palestinian land and keep it because it can. Under Labor or Likud, the borders of Israel have been expanding by building settlements and confiscating land in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem area. more..

French-kissing the war on Iran
Pepe Escobar, Asia Times 9/19/2007
     President George W Bush goes to New York next week for the annual United Nations General Assembly to ratchet up the demonization of Iran, confident that his new French ally is doing "a heck of a job". President Nicolas Sarkozy - widely referred to in Paris as King Sarko the First - has let loose the dogs of war with more panache than a madame from the chic seventh arrondissement parading her miniature Pinscher.
     The Sarkozy-sponsored, Europe-wide demonization-of-Iran campaign has now begun. Hot on the heels of Sarkozy coining the ultimate catch phrase - "the Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran" - it was the turn of his glamorous, dashing, humanitarian top diplomat.
     "We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war," said Bernard Kouchner, foreign minister and founder of Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) on French 24-hour news channel LCI.
     In the reasoning of the "French doctor", as he is known around the world, there was always the unspoken aside during the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program that it might proceed "right to the end". But then came the assumption, set in stone, that an Iranian nuclear bomb is inevitable and will pose "a real danger for the whole world". more..

Israeli policies target Palestinian families
Ida Audeh, Electronic Intifada 9/18/2007
     Israel’s practice of denying family reunification permits and denying entry to foreign passport holders (many but not all of whom are of Palestinian origin) is part of a campaign of ridding the occupied territories (including East Jerusalem) of Palestinians and tightly controlling those it is obliged to retain. The practice takes aim at Palestinian families: it splits families apart, denies Palestinian communities access to foreign and expatriate talent, deprives the economically hard-hit territories of foreign currency, and further isolates the Palestinians under occupation.
     The Campaign for the Right of Entry/Re-Entry to the Palestinian Occupied Territories estimates that more than 150,000 family reunification applications were submitted to the Israeli occupation authorities between 1973 and 1982 but that only 1,000 were approved each year. Between 1983 and 2000, the annual number of approved applications has fluctuated between 1,000 and 3,000. Since the second intifada began in September 2000, Israel has not processed about 120,000 family reunification applications. Multiply that by four or five (a conservative estimate; most Palestinian families are much larger), and the number of people affected by the Israeli refusal to grant residency rights to Palestinians with foreign passports becomes apparent. As applied to Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem, the policy is clearly designed to drive out as many indigenous Palestinians as possible, with the aim of maintaining a Jewish majority in the city. more..

A bankrupt Ramadan in Gaza
Rami Almeghari writing from occupied Gaza Strip, Electronic Intifada 9/18/2007
     The situation is desperate here in Gaza, the coastal strip that is abundant with nothing except human beings.
     Just a couple of hours before Iftaar, the time of day after sunset when Muslims break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims around the globe shop to prepare. Gaza’s crowded Khan Younis is no exception.
     However, though they may be thronged with people, Gaza’s markets are lacking any holiday festivity or commerce. In the middle of Khan Younis’ Jalal Street, shopkeeper Ahmad al-Agha idly sat in silence, playing with his mobile phone.
     "There is no business at all; people are just buying food and drink only. As you see, few people come to purchase anything in my shop, while the majority of them seem to be biding their time before the Iftaar time is due."
     People in the street echoed Ahmad’s words, dismayed over their inability to cope with this year’s Ramadan as the economic siege on Gaza has resulted in high prices and very low incomes. more..

Bush is running out of time to give his peace conference a fighting chance
Editorial, Daily Star 9/14/2007
     The Middle East peace conference expected to take place in November has always looked like a long shot. The intractability of the Arab-Israeli conflict has defied decades of diplomacy, and the multiple tensions of the current environment have made optimists an exceedingly lonely lot. As though obstacles old and new were not sufficient to prevent progress, US President George W. Bush and his administration seem intent on sabotaging their own efforts by refusing to carry out any of the necessary preparations.
     The Palestinians and their Arab brethren have been worried from the start that the conference would be nothing more than a stage-managed farce at which the Israelis would be encouraged to persist in their habitual refusal to negotiate in good faith - i.e. on the basis of international law. Key players like Iran, Syria and Hamas would not be invited, let alone seriously engaged, guaranteeing that even if a settlement were reached, it would be a piecemeal one with limited support. Barring Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ sudden affliction with a strong desire to commit suicide, he would reject the insulting terms on offer and be blamed for the failure of the project. Bush’s acolytes would be able to go forth and say (however disingenuously) that he "tried" to achieve peace in the Middle East, then leave the whole mess to fester before passing it on to his unfortunate successor. more..

Defend the Palestinian cause against its most unreasonable supporters
Hussein Ibish, Daily Star 9/14/2007
     The conflict that has developed between Fatah and Hamas poses new and unprecedented challenges for supporters of the Palestinian cause. A rational response to this crisis should focus on reformulating a viable strategy for ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. The only serious prospect for ending the conflict and gaining independence for the Palestinian people is a negotiated solution to the occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state.
     To work effectively toward that aim, there is no need for supporters of Palestine to become partisans of Fatah. However, important choices need to be made and there are serious consequences to words and deeds.
     In the United States a small but vocal group of left-wing commentators has reacted by defending Hamas and heaping vitriol on Fatah. However well-intentioned, their rhetoric, or more significantly what it advocates, might significantly undermine efforts to help to end the occupation. more..

After 25 years, who remembers?
Franklin Lamb writing from Sabra-Shatila camp, Electronic Intifada 9/13/2007
     Dearest Janet.
     It’s a very beautiful fall day here in Beirut, 25 years ago this week since the 16-18 September 1982 Massacre at the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra-Shatila. Bright blue sky and a fall breeze. It actually rained last night, enough to clean out some of the humidity and dust.Fortunately, not enough to make the usual rain-created swamp of sewage and filth on Rue Sabra, or flood the grassless burial ground of the mass grave (the camp residents named it Martyrs Square -- one of several so-named memorials now in Lebanon) where you once told me that on Sunday, 19 September 1982, you watched, sickened, as families and Red Crescent workers created a subterranean mountain of butchered and bullet-riddled victims from those 48 hours of slaughter. Some of the bodies had limbs and heads chopped off, some boys were castrated, crosses carved into some of the bodies.
     As you later wrote to me in your perfect cursive.
     "I saw dead women in their houses with their skirts up to their waists and their legs spread apart; dozens of young men shot after being lined up against an alley wall; children with their throats slit, a pregnant woman with her stomach chopped open, her eyes still wide open, her blackened face silently screaming in horror; countless babies and toddlers who had been stabbed or ripped apart and who had been thrown into garbage piles. more..

A public disengagement
Lily Galili, Ha’aretz 9/13/2007
     There’s an old joke that goes something like this: One morning, Abraham Lincoln woke up with a start, still reeking of alcohol from the night before, and wondered aloud: "Who was it that I freed yesterday?" Israel is also liable to wake up one morning in the stupor that seized its collective brain during the past year and find itself in the midst of a war. Or in the midst of peace. Or in the midst of both of them at once. While we may have grown accustomed to sudden wars and even to sudden peace, now we will have to learn how to live with this odd state in which everything is possible but nothing really happens.
     On some days, we awake to talk of imminent peace with Syria and go to bed with discussions about imminent war; there are mornings when we are told that an agreement of principles with Abu Mazen could soon be signed, while that same evening the talk of the town has it that there’s no chance for such an agreement, and that, in any case, we’re on the verge of an incursion into Gaza. At times it seems that it doesn’t really matter which comes first - experience has taught us that, here at least, war and peace tend to blur together (just consider the phrase, "the victims of peace"). This exhausting roller-coaster ride of partial information and spin is a key characteristic of the past year. We’ve known times like these before, but they never lasted this long - it’s almost as if someone were trying to prove that you can in fact fool all of the people, all of the time. more..

A case of impotence
Meron Rapoport, Ha’aretz 9/13/2007
     Israelis do not like Ehud Olmert. This is a rare instance of a consensus that stretches from the settlers of Ofra to the street-corner parliaments of Nazareth, and from battle-dusty reservists to Holocaust survivors who are ineligible for social security stipends. It is not as if they have not attempted to give expression to their lack of fondness for the prime minister. A year ago, immediately after the Second Lebanon War ended, a few reservists sat down in the green park across from the Prime Minister’s Office and announced that they would not leave until Olmert resigned. Public support was not lacking: People came to show solidarity, the media were sympathetic and opinion polls were in their favor. Last May, too, following the release of the Winograd Committee’s interim report on the conduct of the war, tens of thousands flocked to Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square and called for him to go. That protest movement vanished into thin air.
     The Israeli public finds it difficult to translate dissatisfaction into genuine power, as it is unwilling to pay the price for a determined struggle against the government. Israelis protest by nodding their heads, waving their arms and uttering a relatively mild curse. In sociological terms, it can be said that the past year proved that civil society in Israel is extremely weak and lacks organizational and mobilization capability - in a word, it is impotent. more..

Shimon Peres, ’Israeli Idol’
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 9/13/2007
     Toward the end of the interview with Shimon Peres, his spokeswoman, Ayelet Frish, reminded the president (from now on, no more "Shimon") that he should say something festive for the new year. This is his first holiday interview as president: What might he have to say at this stage? That he wishes everyone a year of peace and security? That is should be a year of happiness and prosperity? That the unity of the nation should be preserved? That is not his style.
     "Obviously," the president said, slowing to dictation-friendly speed, "a singular opportunity to advance the peace process has appeared, and we must not miss it. This window of opportunity that has opened to us is made of glass and must be handled with care. We must not throw stones at it. If we see ourselves as pure as the driven snow, and the others as chimney sweeps, then we will not get anywhere. If we lead, we will not be led. I don’t accept the argument that Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas] is weak. The division between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has strengthened him and Prime Minister Salam Fayad. There is someone to talk to, but we must be very careful that the talks don’t turn into empty words. It is better to be a lion in sheep’s clothing than to be a sheep that roars like a lion. more..

Twilight Zone /’It’s better in Darfur’
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 9/13/2007
     A cloud of dust rose up, covering the desert landscape. A white jeep and a white truck descended from the hills - the auxiliary convoy of the International Red Cross is approaching. A Darfur-like sight with Swiss license plates. They have brought tents, blankets, canned food and household utensils, just like those brought to Darfur by similar convoys.
     "It’s better in Darfur. The whole world is interested in Darfur, and nobody is interested in us," sighs elderly shepherd Abdul Rahim Basharat (Abu Saker). This is the second time the Red Cross has come to him in recent days. The second time the Civil Administration, which upholds the law, has been seen here, in the middle of nowhere, bulldozing the miserable tent camps of the shepherds and destroying them totally.
     Who said that Israel doesn’t evacuate illegal outposts? Who said the law is not upheld in the West Bank? Look at the ruins of this miserable encampment - populated by "squatters," according to the Civil Administration spokesman - with dozens of chickens and barefoot children running round, helplessly seeking shelter from the burning sun in the middle of the desert in midsummer.
     Yes, the High Court of Justice long ago confirmed that these are "illegal structures"; yes, everything is being done here according to the law. But what about justice? Where will these shepherds go - men who have been using this area for decades? And what kind of injunction is it that rules that they are squatters while the settlers around them are considered legal residents? And what kind of heroism is it to evacuate these most helpless of all people, rather than the violent, tough inhabitants of the illegal outposts, which are cropping up on every hillside. more..

Ignorant thieves
Azmi Bishara, Al-Ahram Weekly 9/12/2007
     If the US proceeds on the basis of the conviction that, after its failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, it needs to score a success in Lebanon by rolling back the opposition through the application of international resolutions, and another success in Palestine by feeding the West Bank and starving Gaza in the hope of compelling the Palestinians to accept anything Israel offers, the only thing it will accomplish will be to propel these two countries to civil war and destruction.
     For America’s friends and allies in these countries, this is their moment to shine. If they have an ounce of patriotism, they should be able to picture the possibility of national reconciliation and agreements that will spare their countries death and devastation. They can give the Americans some sound advice. They can tell them that no amount of outside support or money will resolve the domestic conflict, that a Hamas desperate enough to initiate resistance in the West Bank, for example, will frustrate the projects dreamed up by various research institutes for a Western-financed social safety net to take the place of the Hamas- run philanthropic societies along with all the economic initiatives conceived in the course of a businessmen’s convention in Tel Aviv. They can say that only national reconciliation will work, that local balances of power are one thing and the balance of power in the Security Council another, and that forcing the former to mirror the latter has only succeeded in inflicting on the region an endless train of disasters. more..

Syria and Israel flirt with war
Sami Moubayed, Asia Times 9/12/2007
     DAMASCUS - During the Suez Crisis of 1956, Israel developed a regular habit of violating Syrian airspace to deter the Syrians from supporting the Egyptian army. The Syrians did not have radar at the time, so air force commander Wadih al-Muqabari developed a scheme whereby police stations around the country were linked by a 24-hour hotline to army headquarters in Damascus.
     On spotting an Israeli warplane in Syrian skies, police personnel would phone their superiors and report its direction, elevation and estimated speed. Army headquarters would immediately call the nearest police station to track it further, then send Syrian warplanes to bring it down or chase it away.
     On one such occasion, five Syrian aircraft set out for an operation that included a young pilot, future president Hafez al-Assad. They were prevented from bringing down the Israeli plane, although Assad had it in shooting range, because it was flying over Turkish territory. The same plane violated Syrian airspace later in the day. Another five-plane team set out, and the Israeli jet was downed on the Lebanese border by an officer named Louis Dakar. The pilot ejected, and the co-pilot was killed. When interrogated by the Lebanese, the Israeli pilot said there was a 1% chance of his plane being downed by the Syrians. The fact that they had succeeded meant that the Syrian army was "dangerous" for Israel. more..

Ready to return with nothing
Matthew Cassel writing from Baddawi refugee camp, Electronic Intifada 9/11/2007
     It took over three months, but in the end the Lebanese army claimed victory over Fatah al-Islam, the previously unheard of non-Palestinian, al-Qaida-inspired group that had established itself in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. On Tuesday, 4 September 2007, outside the entrance to the destroyed camp the Lebanese army massed together to begin what would be a 10-hour-long parade from Nahr al-Bared to Beirut just over 50 miles away.
     Meanwhile, Palestinian refugees displaced from Nahr al-Bared staying in the nearby Baddawi refugee camp watched the parade live on television. Many cursed the images they saw of the Lebanese army celebrating their achievement. A young medical volunteer entered the room and as he watched the TV said, "You know, two Palestinians from Nahr al-Bared were taken yesterday by the army and beaten when they were near Nahr al-Bared. They’re in the hospital now." It was said that they were arrested when they went back to survey the damage done to the camp. The details were unclear but some of the Palestinians in the camp were preparing to visit the hospital to check in on the two. more..

Hebron settlements make Palestinian life nearly impossible
Report, Electronic Intifada 9/11/2007
     HEBRON, 9 September (IRIN) - Israeli policy in Hebron city center has led thousands of Palestinians to leave their homes and some 1,829 businesses have been shut down since 1994, a report by the Israeli human rights organizations B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights has charged.
     Entitled "Ghost Town", reflecting the two groups’ opinion of what has befallen the once vibrant center of Hebron, the report surveys Palestinian life in the divided city.
     "Israel’s policy severely impacts thousands of Palestinians by violating the right to life, liberty, personal safety, freedom of movement, health, and property, among other rights," said the report.
     "The limitations on movement and commerce in the city of Hebron are the ’necessary minimum’ needed to provide protection to Israeli Defense Force soldiers and residents of the Jewish community in Hebron," the Israeli military said in response to "Ghost Town. more..

No mercy in Bethlehem
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 9/11/2007
     The five daily prayers helped Nader E’bayat calculate how many days had passed during his first weeks of detention at the interrogation division of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service in Bethlehem. Toward the end, when he was transferred to the interrogation cells at the Bituniya headquarters, he started to lose count. Altogether, E’bayat spent 47 days in detention, from June 30 to August 15. He was released on the order of the Bethlehem magistrate’s court after no evidence was presented to prove accusations that he had participated in Hamas’ operative force in the West Bank.
     E’bayat is one of some 650 Hamas members who have been arrested by the Palestinian Authority’s security forces in the West Bank since the middle of June, Hamas says. Palestinian human rights organizations estimate that 80 to 120 Hamas activists are currently detained in various interrogation facilities throughout the West Bank. Many of those who were released are afraid to give written testimony about their ordeal, while the rumor mill has it that Hamas activists have been instructed to spread orchestrated lies about torture in detention.
     Majd al-Aruri, of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens’ Rights (PICCR), believes the detainees were threatened so they would keep quiet. The commission is an official Palestinian institution founded by Yasser Arafat in 1993, and its task is to supervise civil rights in the PA. Its representatives regularly visit some of the Palestinian detention centers and collect testimonies from those detained there, including E’bayat. more..

The Wall turns Al Ezariyah into a jail
By Maisa Abu Ghazala, International Middle East Media Center 9/11/2007
     In Al Eizaryah the Separation Wall snakes through the town turning this way and that for a length of six kilometers and laying waste to an area of up to a hundred meters in width. Its configuration means that Al Eizaryah is virtually surrounded and cut off from the immediate areas on three sides. The only way in or out is to the south. A once prosperous town which boasted factories, stores and several service organizations is now a virtual prison for its 20,000 inhabitants.
     A report issued by a human rights organization on the impact of the Wall describes its route through Al Eizaryah. It extends from the Abu Dis junction up to the nearby area of Marj Al Zitun passing through Al Sheyah and by the convent of Beit Faja. From there it crosses Al Khalah as far as the al Zaitunah crossing where a new section is under construction. This will reach al Martamah, part of which lies within the neighboring community of al Tur. Further on it continues into the areas of al Musahleb and She’aab Salma.
     The building of the Wall has meant the confiscation of several dozen pieces of Palestinian-owned land notably in the Ras Qubsa area. It has also meant the loss of land belonging to several convents and part of the road at Beit Faja, a route once taken by Jesus Christ. The main street is closed to the west at Ras Qubsa and there is a plan to do the same in the east. Such a closure will have serious consequences for Al Eizaryah and the surrounding area meaning it will effectively be completely closed. more..

Architects protest Brown’s JNF patronship
Susannah Tarbush, Electronic Intifada 9/10/2007
     When Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine (APJP) sent a letter to the new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown two weeks ago describing as "disturbing" his decision to become a patron of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), this was another example of the active campaigning of this international pressure group. The letter says: "Your becoming a patron of JNF-UK can be seen as a tacit acceptance of an unacceptable status quo, and also places you in the position of not being an unbiased mediator in the peace process.
     Among those signing the letter were the chairman of APJP the Jewish architect Abe Hayeem, APJP’s secretary the Palestinian architect Haifa Hammami, and a number of British and other architects. They include Israeli architect Eyal Weizman, director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, London University. He is author of the new book Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Oppression. Copies of the letter have been sent to the new Foreign Secretary David Miliband, and to the Minister for Africa, Asia and the UN Lord Mark Malloch Brown (former deputy secretary-general of the UN).
     Its letter calls on Brown to withdraw his patronage of the JNF, and suggests he instead become patron of some of the non-governmental organizations that bring Israelis and Palestinians together, such as the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). more..

Audio: Crossing the Line interviews Professor Don Wagner
Podcast, Crossing the Line, Electronic Intifada 9/10/2007
     This week on Crossing The Line: Host Christopher Brown attends the Sabeel Conference in Berkeley, California organized by various North American Christian groups working for justice and peace in Palestine. Brown speaks with Don Wagner, professor of Middle Eastern Studies at North Park University in Chicago, about the rise of Christian Zionism and its effect on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
     Later at the conference, Brown meets up with two student activists, Dina Omar and Nadia Barhoum, members of Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of California - Berkeley. The organization brings light to the realities of the occupation with information, teach-ins and creative direct actions. Brown speaks to the two women about a guerrilla theater action they took part in on campus. more..

Intifada against common sense
Ida Audeh, Electronic Intifada 9/10/2007
     Once again, the hard-hitting, no-nonsense journalists of the New York Sun, the New York Post, and Fox News, led as always by intrepid scholar Daniel Pipes, have struck a blow in the war against terrorism. I’m referring, of course, to the rooting out of the former principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, an alleged terrorism sympathizer who defined but inexplicably failed to condemn an Arabic word used on a T-shirt produced by an organization entirely unrelated to the school.
     The principal, a veiled Arab-American by the name of Debbie Almontaser, has been agitating for years to get an Arabic-language school going in Brooklyn. Yes, there’s no other word for it: agitating. While veiled.
     The T-shirt that raised the maelstrom said "Intifada NYC." Asked about the meaning of the slogan, she replied, incredibly, that the term "intifada" means a shaking off of oppressive conditions. Wrong answer! She resigned soon afterward. The correct answer was stated definitively by an Anti-Defamation League spokesman, who described Almontaser’s comments as "a reflection of a movement that increasingly lauds violence against Israelis instead of rejecting it. more..

Abbas’ Village League
Arjan El Fassed, Electronic Intifada 9/10/2007
     For as long Palestinians have resisted violent Israeli policies against them, successive Israeli governments have tried to undermine Palestinian unity and foment divisions. A principal strategy has been to try to foster alternative leaders willing to abandon fundamental Palestinian demands for justice and focus on an agenda with which Israel is comfortable.
     This is taking place now as Israel shuns the elected Hamas movement, and tries to prop up the discredited Fatah leadership headed by Mahmoud Abbas. Following the elections, Israel kidnapped dozens of elected officials belonging to Hamas and is still holding them in its prisons.
     There is a great deal of continuity here; a key component of Israeli policy has been to refuse to recognize legitimate Palestinian leadership. While it now embraces the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and shuns Hamas, until 1993 Israel refused to consider the PLO as a possible negotiating partner. Israel could always produce internationally acceptable reasons for such a position. After all, one would not expect a "respectable" country to negotiate with "terrorists," as Israel always did and still does refer to Palestinian leaders. Even after the PLO’s historic concessions in 1988 when the Palestinian National Council, the parliament-in-exile, accepted the two-state solution -- without receiving any reciprocal recognition from Israel -- Israel refused to deal with the PLO directly. The policy goes back even further. more..

Bil’in!Bil’in!
Uri Avnery, International Middle East Media Center 9/10/2007
     WHEN MY friends fall prey to despair, I show them a piece of painted concrete, which I bought in Berlin.
     It is one of the remnants of the Berlin wall, which are on sale in the city.
     I tell them that I intend, when the time comes, to apply for a franchise to sell pieces of the Separation Wall.
     Sometimes, when I give a lecture before a German audience, I ask: "How many of you believed, a week before the fall of the wall, that this would happen in their lifetime?" No one has ever raised their hand.
     But the Berlin wall fell. This week it happened here, too - true, only in one place, to a small section of the fence, when the Supreme Court decided that the government must dismantle the obstacle (which at this place consists of a fence, with ditches, patrol roads and razor wire) and relocate it nearer to the Green Line.
     THE BIBLE commands us: "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth" (Proberbs 24,17). It is a very hard commandment to obey.
     The enemy, in this case, is the "Separation Obstacle". It is hard not to rejoice, even when it is a limited joy, a conditional joy, because we have won a battle, not the campaign.
     First of all, a part of the land of Bil’in has been redeemed, but not all of it. The new fence will still be far from the Green Line. The length of the section to be dismantled is less than two kilometers. more..

BOOK REVIEW: No, it’s the dog that wags the tail
Mark LeVine, Asia Times 9/8/2007
     The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy - Ever since the London Review of Books published the controversial findings of University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard Professor Stephen Walt’s research into the power of the Jewish - or Israel - lobby in the United States, the two men have been demonized as anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic.
     Now that the full product of their research has been published as The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, it has generated even more controversy because of its detailed, well-footnoted argument that unquestioning US support for Israel goes against core US strategic interests and continues because of the undue influence and power of the so-called "Israel lobby.
     The book is being severely criticized because it seems to confirm long-held anti-Semitic beliefs about undue Jewish political power. But in reality, the authors’ premise and conclusions are all wrong or, more precisely, backward.
     Mearsheimer and Walt seem to know little about the Middle East, Israel’s role in US foreign policy, and what are core US goals and strategic interests in the region. They argue that this is a case of the "tail wagging the dog" - a small client state and its allies in the US leading the US government to engage in policies that are manifestly against its interests because of undue political power. more..

Report: Israel plundering the Jordan Valley
Adri Nieuwhof, Electronic Intifada 9/7/2007
     Agrexco has become a target in international campaigns for a boycott of Israeli goods aimed at ending Israel’s breach of international law and human rights. For example the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in the United Kingdom protested in the warehouse of Carmel Agrexco in Middlesex on 15 July 2007. Fruit and vegetable exporter Agrexco is fifty-percent owned by the Israeli state, and is responsible for the export of 60-70 percent of all settlement produce, including that from the Jordan Valley. The report "To exist is to Resist, Eye on the Jordan Valley" was recently published by MA’AN Development Center and the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. The report offers detailed information on the ongoing Israeli colonization of the highly fertile lands of the Jordan Valley. This article is based on the report and focuses onthe illegal Israeli exploitation of the Jordan Valley.
     Land grab at an unimaginable scale.
     The Palestinian Jordan Valley accounts for more than a quarter of the total area of the West Bank or about 2,400 square kilometers.Israel built three settlements in the Jordan Valley in 1968, and gradually increased the number of settlements for agricultural, industrial, military or religious purposes until the 1980s. Since the early 1990s the settlements expanded from 11 to 36, housing more than 6,200 settlers. The settlements occupy 1,200 square kilometers, or 50 percent of the Jordan Valley. Israel also controls 1,065 square kilometers (44 percent) of so-called closed zones like the border line, military bases and natural reserves. About 50 square kilometers of the Jordan Valley (two percent) are under combined Palestinian civil control and Israeli security control.... more..

Book review: "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy"
Michael F. Brown, Institute for Middle East Understanding, Electronic Intifada 9/7/2007
     The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt weighs in with 106 pages of endnotes. The controversial tome challenging the might of the pro-Israel lobby is nonetheless accused of "shoddy scholarship" -- much as when the authors’ shorter paper on the subject in 2006 unexpectedly burst the bubble of a lobby unaccustomed to challenge and reprimand.
     Indeed, perhaps the most powerful section of the book is when the authors highlight cases in which significant parts of the lobby have leveled the anti-Semitism charge at individuals guilty of nothing more than challenging the human rights record of Israel. Due to such overuse, they write, "There are signs that the reflexive charge of anti-Semitism is beginning to lose its power to stifle debate." (195) Nevertheless, they rightly note that "If politicians know that it is risky to question Israeli policy or the United States’ unyielding support for Israel, then it will be harder for the mainstream media to locate authoritative voices that are willing to disagree with the lobby’s views." (196) Intimidation and ugly slanders work. This book does much to expose the unsavory practice and is intended to open space for substantive discussion regarding Israel and the lobby that reflexively backs it, right or wrong. more..

Legal victory in struggle against wall
Nora Barrows-Friedman, Electronic Intifada 9/6/2007
     On Tuesday, the Israeli high court decided in favor of a petition drawn up by the Palestinian villagers of Bil’in in the occupied West Bank to change the current route of the illegal apartheid wall which encircles the small village. For years, residents of Bil’in, along with international and Israeli activists, have led nonviolent resistance actions every week against the encroaching wall and the illegal settlement colonies that expand on a daily basis on their land. Villagers and activists have been tear-gassed, shot at, arrested, and beaten by Israeli occupation soldiers during direct confrontations against the wall and the continued theft of Bil’in land, but the resistance presence has grown into what organizers and Palestinian leaders call a force to be reckoned with. Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Palestinian legislator and secretary-general of Al Mubadara, the Palestinian National Initiative, stated that Tuesday’s court ruling was a direct result of the steadfast resistance movement in Bil’in.
     Though the court decision ruled that the illegal apartheid wall should be moved somewhat, there is still a significant amount of village land that will remain on the other side of the wall.
     Additionally, the court ruled that dozens of existing buildings in the illegal settlement colony of Modiin Illit should not be demolished despite the fact that the colony sits on Bil’in land, owned by several Palestinian families. more..

What’s next for Nahr al-Bared
Jamal Ghosn, Electronic Intifada 9/6/2007
     Living conditions in the Palestinian refugee camps have never been easy. Lack of basic amenities, sub-par health care, and overcrowded schools are the common denominators between all the camps on Lebanese territory. None of the densely populated camps are in a condition to host a sudden influx of tens of thousands of twice-displaced refugees. Naturally, the overflowing Baddawi will not be a viable home for the Nahr al-Bared residents who will move back to their homes (reconstructed or not). The skeletons of buildings will be patched up, most likely by the refugees themselves with the help of the handful of activists that still care about the plight of Palestinians. These death-infested, bomb-riddled structures will make for a more dignified living than the pre-fabricated cardboard boxes, designed for nuclear families rather than traditional Palestinian extended ones, that have surfaced as alternative homes courtesy of some generous donors. Of course, the sea-front strip of the camp will be kept off-limits by the Lebanese army for questionable future development.
     Hopes for real aid materializing from the Lebanese or other Arab governments for the reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared are delusional. The precedent was set by the snail-paced reconstruction of south Lebanon following the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon. And unlike the residents of south Lebanon, the Palestinian refugees do not enjoy the strong political backing of any major Lebanese or regional power. No propaganda machines will be mobilized for their sake. History shows that media coverage of the camps only occurs when it means casting Palestinians in a negative light. Never has a media campaign been dedicated to addressing the cyclical victimhood of the residents of the camps. They are on their own and at the mercy of often failed, albeit generous, promises. more..

Hamas flag goes up in Lebanon camps
Anand Gopal, Electronic Intifada 9/5/2007
     BADDAWI CAMP, Lebanon, 5 September (IPS) - There is a new look to the entrance of the Palestinian refugee camp Baddawi in northern Lebanon. Hanging above the armed man who guards the entrance are posters of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the slain spiritual leader of Hamas, and other fighters from the Palestinian guerrilla group. Nearby, a huge Hamas banner covers the side of a house, and down the road Hamas flags flutter in the wind.
     Just months ago, such banners and posters would have been torn down by supporters of the rival Fatah party. But many residents here say that they have grown disillusioned with Fatah (known in Lebanon as Fatah Abu Ammar) after its defeat in Gaza in June and its handling of the crisis at the nearby refugee camp Nahr al-Bared.
     When Islamic militants opened fire on Lebanese security forces in late May, the Lebanese army entered Nahr al-Bared despite a long-standing agreement that allows Palestinian groups to police the camps. The ensuing battle between the army and the militants completely destroyed the camp and displaced thousands of Palestinians. more..

Sarah, Mahmoud and Yehya
Yassmin Moor writing from Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, Electronic Intifada 9/5/2007
     Sarah Abu Ghazal’s school uniform still lay on her mattress, untouched as she had left it before running out after her cousins Mahmoud and Yehya Abu Ghazal on Wednesday, 29 August. She was to begin the fourth grade on 2 September, but her friend Amani, who has accompanied her to school since the first grade, would walk alone this year. Sarah’s mother had bought her the blue school uniform, blue jeans and the black shoes just the day before she was killed by Israel tank fire. Her mother waited until the last minute to buy Sarah’s school supplies because she was waiting for her husband’s salary which he had not received since June. Still full of life, Sarah was readying her new clothes for the start of the school year when Yehya called for her to come out and play.
     Ten-year-old Mahmoud looked up to Yehya and followed him wherever he went, as he did not have any brothers of his own. On the day he died he had just finished telling his mother not to buy him anything for school until Yehya had acquired his things. He made her promise only to buy the same things that Yehya had. Mahmoud was killed alongside Yehya and now lies buried right beside him. more..

THEATRE-US: Palestinian Martyrs and Traitors
Lucy Komisar, Inter Press Service 9/3/2007
     NEW YORK, Sep 13(IPS) - In a new play by a Palestinian-American woman, two characters say in unison: "Oppression is like a coin maker. You put in human beings, press the right buttons and watch them get squeezed, shrunk, flattened till they take the slim shape of a two-faced coin, one side is a martyr, the other a traitor. All the possibilities of a life get reduced to those paltry two."
     In a strange coincidence -- or maybe not so strange -- that is also the theme of a play written in 1990 by an Israeli man. Both were commenting on the murderous violence that had engulfed Palestinians. Betty Shamieh wrote "The Black Eyed" after the 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre. Ilan Hatsor wrote "The Masked" a decade earlier during the first intifada. Both plays have made their way to off-Broadway in New York.
     In the taut, tense drama "Masked", three brothers confront each other in a West Bank Arab village butcher’s back room. Juxtaposing life and death, there are small black and white snapshots on one wall and meat hooks and blood on another. more..

BOOKS-US: Outing the "Israel Lobby"
Khody Akhavi, Inter Press Service 9/2/2007
     WASHINGTON, Sep 6(IPS) - When John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt published their controversial essay "The Israel Lobby" in the London Review of Books in March 2006, their work elicited the kind of response of which most academics only dream.
     But it was also attacked and condemned by critics for its provocative and pointed argument that a wide-ranging coalition that includes neoconservatives, Christian Zionists, academics, columnists and Washington lobby groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is responsible for shaping U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and suppressing the public debate in Washington.
     Columnist Christopher Hitchens, himself no stranger to controversy, called the work "slightly but unmistakably fishy." The Anti-Defamation League called it "a classical conspiratorial anti-Semitic analysis invoking the canards of Jewish power and Jewish control." Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said it was riddled with distortions, and questioned the motivations of Walt, who served at the time as academic dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Mearsheimer, who teaches at University of Chicago, to produce a paper that "contributes so little to the existing scholarship while being so susceptible to misuse. more..

Persuade the People
Danny Rubinstein, MIFTAH 9/1/2007
     Preparations for the regional conference are ostensibly advancing apace - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) are close to agreeing on a joint declaration of principles. But matters on the ground remain enervated as ever. In view of the existing reality in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, all the talk about declarations, conferences and principles isn’t worth much. One only has to look at the headlines in the Arabic press in general and the Palestinian press in particular, which report daily on the dead and wounded, on incidents they term massacres or cold-blooded murder, and add to these the reports by the women from Machsom Watch recounting acts of abuse and humiliation - to understand that the gap between talk and action is immense.
     The present preoccupation with the itemized list of principles - temporary borders, Jerusalem neighborhoods, passage to Gaza, the so-called "sacred basin" (including the Mount of Olives and the Silwan neighborhood), the settlement blocs and return of refugees - now increasingly resembles flipping through the worn pages of an old book. In the years since the Oslo accords, the parties’ representatives have gone over these matters time and again, ad nauseam. Seven years ago the bloody events of the Al-Aqsa Intifada erupted, and in the meantime Arafat has died of his ailment or was assassinated, the construction of the separation fences and walls has nearly been completed, and a Hamas regime has arisen in Gaza, which refuses to compromise, splitting the Palestinian homeland in two. Against this backdrop, the documents from Camp David 2000, along with the Taba accord and the Clinton plan, look like ancient scrolls that may be useful to historians, but not to statesmen dealing with the present. more..

An important marker has been passed
John Pilger, ZNet 9/2/2007
     Those calling for a boycott of Israel were once distant voices. Now the discussion has gone global. It is growing inexorably and will not be silenced.
     From a limestone hill rising above Qalandia refugee camp you can see Jerusalem. I watched a lone figure standing there in the rain, his son holding the tail of his long tattered coat. He extended his hand and did not let go. "I am Ahmed Hamzeh, street entertainer," he said in measured English. "Over there, I played many musical instruments; I sang in Arabic, English and Hebrew, and because I was rather poor, my very small son would chew gum while the monkey did its tricks. When we lost our country, we lost respect. One day a rich Kuwaiti stopped his car in front of us. He shouted at my son, "Show me how a Palestinian picks up his food rations!" So I made the monkey appear to scavenge on the ground, in the gutter. And my son scavenged with him. The Kuwaiti threw coins and my son crawled on his knees to pick them up. This was not right; I was an artist, not a beggar . . . I am not even a peasant now."
     "How do you feel about all that?" I asked him.
     "Do you expect me to feel hatred? What is that to a Palestinian? I never hated the Jews and their Israel . . . yes, I suppose I hate them now, or maybe I pity them for their stupidity. They can’t win. Because we Palestinians are the Jews now and, like the Jews, we will never allow them or the Arabs or you to forget. The youth will guarantee us that, and the youth after them . . .".
     That was 40 years ago. On my last trip back to the West Bank, I recognised little of Qalandia, now announced by a vast Israeli checkpoint, a zigzag of sandbags, oil drums and breeze blocks, with conga lines of people, waiting, swatting flies with precious papers. Inside the camp, the tents had been replaced by sturdy hovels, although the queues at single taps were as long, I was assured, and the dust still ran to caramel in the rain. At the United Nations office I asked about Ahmed Hamzeh, the street entertainer. Records were consulted, heads shaken. Someone thought he had been "taken away . . . very ill". No one knew about his son, whose trachoma was surely blindness now. Outside, another generation kicked a punctured football in the dust. more..

If not attacked by Israeli soldiers, journalists are attacked by Palestinian security forces
Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC, International Middle East Media Center 9/1/2007
     Palestinian journalists were this week attacked three times by Palestinian Authority forces in the Gaza strip. Similarly, security forces last week attacked journalists and media organizations in the West Bank. While Palestinian journalists have always had to deal with the brutality of the Israeli army, these new attacks set a dangerous new precedent in which journalists now have to be concerned over attacks from their own security forces.
     The Palestinian constitution grantees the freedom of press, and grants local and international journalists the right to cover news freely across the occupied Palestinian territories. Despite this, attacks against those working in the news are on the increase, and journalists are being used as pawns in a disturbing political game in which the need to display power seemingly over-rides any commitment to the freedom of the press.
     Such a situation gravely complicates an already trouble environment. Palestinian journalists are now asking themselves how they are best able to communicate with the rest of the world when they are being forced to write about two separate Palestinian governments, both of whom are hostile to one another. more..

The Birthday Party that Captured Israel’s Heart
Eric Silver, MIFTAH 9/1/2007
     Maria Amin, a chubby-faced Palestinian girl with gleaming brown eyes, celebrated her birthday yesterday like any pampered six year old. Doting aunts decked her out like a princess in a gauzy white chiffon dress, spotted with pink hearts and topped with a toy tiara.
     A make-up girl primped her hair, rouged her cheeks and painted her lips. With a pout and a shake of the head, Maria rejected a plain lipstick and demanded a glittery gold one. She insisted on being sprayed with a favourite scent. When the make-up girl held up a mirror, she cooed: "How pretty!"
     But Maria was no ordinary birthday girl. She came to the party in a wheelchair, which she navigates with her chin against a joystick. She was paralysed from the neck down in May last year when the car she was in was caught in an Israeli missile strike on an Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza. Her mother, grandmother and older brother were killed.
     She celebrated her birthday party in the Israeli Alyn hospital and rehabilitation centre for handicapped children, where she is hooked to the respirator she will need for the rest of her life. more..

Children of war
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 9/3/2007
     Again children. Five children killed in Gaza in eight days. The public indifference to their killing - the last three, for example, were accorded only a short item on the margins of page 11 in Yedioth Ahronoth, a sickening matter in itself - cannot blur the fact that the IDF is waging a war against children. A year ago, a fifth of those killed in the "Summer Rain" operation in Gaza were children; during the past two weeks, they comprised a quarter of the 21 killed. If, heaven forbid, children are hurt in Sderot, we will have to remember this before we begin raising hell.
     The IDF explains that the Palestinians make a practice of sending children to collect the Qassam launchers. However, in this case, the children killed were not collecting launchers. The first two were killed while collecting carob fruit and the next three - according to the IDF’s own investigation - were playing tag. But even if we accept the IDF’s claim that there is a general trend of sending children to collect launchers (which has not been proven), that should have brought about an immediate halt to firing at launcher collectors.
     But the IDF does not care whether its victims are liable to be children. The fact is that it shoots at figures it considers suspicious, with full knowledge - according to its own contention - that they are liable to be children. Therefore, an IDF that fires at launcher collectors is an army that kills children, without any intention of preventing this. This then is not a series of unfortunate mistakes, as it is being portrayed, but rather reflects the army’s contempt for the lives of Palestinian children and its terrifying indifference to their fate. more..

Arabic as a Terrorist Language
Anthony DiMaggio, MIFTAH 9/1/2007
     A good friend and former Professor of mine always began his classes on the developing world with an introduction to Islam. One of the first points driven home in the class, semester after semester, was the difference between Islam and Arabic. While the terms are obviously not synonymous (one being a religion and the other a language), this basic distinction is disregarded in recent fundamentalist efforts to demonize not only Islam, but the Arabic language itself.
     I wanted to believe that we’d come far enough in this country that Muslim-Americans and non-citizens alike don’t have to suffer under irrational hatred, fanaticism, and repression. But for America’s small, but influential right-wing minority, this seems too much to ask.
     I am referring to the racist war that has been declared on the Kahlil Gibran International Academy (in New York), and most specifically its Principal, Debbie Almontaser. The Gibran Academy is the first public institution in the U.S. committed specifically to learning the Arabic language. But the way the school has been attacked in media diatribes, one would think it was named after Osama bin Laden, rather than an uncontroversial, but well known poet. The Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran is best known for his classic work, The Prophet, written over 80 years ago and translated into over 20 languages. While Gibran’s works focused heavily on the corruption of Christian clergies and churches of his day, his other common themes include love, religion, life and death, and philosophy. more..

Palestinians Poorer than Ever
David Cronin, MIFTAH 9/1/2007
     Poverty in the Palestinian territories has reached "unprecedented levels" because they have been held under an "economic siege" for almost seven years, a United Nations body has found.
     During 2006 the number of Palestinians living in ’deep poverty’ almost doubled to more than 1 million. Some 46 percent of public sector employees do not have enough food to meet their basic needs, with 53 percent of households in the Gaza reporting that their incomes declined in the last year by more than half.
     This data is contained in a report, released Aug. 30, by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
     It stated that an ostensible Israeli policy of ’separating’ the Palestinian authorities from Arab and world markets by restricting the movement of people and goods has "squeezed the economy to a size smaller than a decade ago."
     The Palestinians’ reliance on imports as a proportion of their gross domestic product rose to 86 percent last year -- up from 75 percent in 2005, equating to the loss of 500 million dollars to the economy. more..

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