The government has declared war against them
By Haim Oron, Ha'aretz 9/22/2003
Another reminder of the contempt for words in Israeli politics was provided by this week's cabinet meeting that discussed the Or Commission's findings. The prime minister's announcement that the equal rights of Arab citizens will be a top priority of his government now sits alongside "the victory over terrorism" on the shelf of this government's empty slogans. Not for naught did Israel's Arab citizens demonstrate much less excitement than did the Hebrew-language media in the wake of this declaration. We hear the slogans, they live the reality. ....It's true that all of Israel's governments have been guilty on this issue, as the commission described extensively in its report. But the Sharon government's policy does not stem from neglect, but from intentional and planned discrimination, and in that it is unique. Ask the Arab residents of Lod, whose homes Sharon ordered to have destroyed at a faster pace. Remember the Druckman Law that tried to prohibit the sale of land to the Arabs, which was prevented only because of massive public and international pressure. Above all, go to the Negev and see how at this very moment the evidence for the next report of a public commission of inquiry is being consolidated. Check out the words of the Or Commission report, which described the discrimination against the Bedouin in the Negev as the most extreme and blatant example of discrimination against Arabs in Israel.
Green Light to Kill the Road Map
By Hassan Tahsin, Palestine Chronicle 9/22/2003
Is there a single shred of hope left for the road map? To what degree is the United States committed to moving the peace process forward and implementing its president’s personal promise to achieve peace and create a Palestinian state? They were no more than words and promises, totally at odds with the gloomy reality. Since the latest initiative was proposed and up to now, nothing meaningful has been achieved — Israel still hasn’t withdrawn to its pre-September 2000 borders nor has it handed control of the Palestinian towns to the Palestinian Authority as was agreed. It has continued to arrest Palestinian civilians and shown no respect for the cease-fire that it was declaredly committed to. Moreover, Sharon continues to take provocative steps that paralyze the peace process, some of which resulted in Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen stepping down. Work continues on the controversial dividing wall. Israel refuses to release Palestinian prisoners and has continued to enforce a policy of collective punishment to drive Palestinians out of the country. However, the penultimate transgression and the clearest form of state terrorism was Israel’s declared aim to get rid of Yasser Arafat, either by expulsion or assassination.
Twilight Zone / `She can go give birth with Arafat'
By Gideon Levy, Palestine Monitor 9/19/2003
This is a bad tale that ends well. This story began exactly like Rula Ashtiya's - the Kafr Salem woman in labor whose story was told here last Friday: another woman stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint on her way to the hospital. Rula Ashtiya testified that she gave birth on the ground at the checkpoint next to her village, while hiding like an animal from the soldiers behind a cement block. Suzanne Alann spent more than three hours navigating checkpoints last week, as border police refused her passage, time after time, until she gave birth in a checkpoint zone, in the back seat of the taxi she was riding in, in full view of whoever happened by.Rula's baby girl died a few minutes after birth; Suzanne's son, who was luckier, was rushed by an Israeli ambulance to a hospital, and survived. This week, little Mohammed scrunched up his face, yawned, hiccuped, blinked his eyes - a four-day-old baby, a checkpoint child, born in a yellow Palestinian taxi on the road by the Jaba checkpoint. Mother and child are both doing well.They had moved in with an aunt, after long-standing unemployment left them unable to pay their rent. A young couple with four children, crowding into two rooms at Ashraf's mother's sister's house. Shuafat is a nice neighborhood in East Jerusalem, by the road going up to Ramallah, with houses of stone, some of them elegant. Ashraf Alann, a construction worker, is 27; Suzanne is 24. He's from the neighborhood, she's from the Wahdat refugee camp in Jordan. They married in 1997 and since then she's been here, waiting for "family unification" to afford her legal resident status. Meanwhile, Suzanne is here on her Jordanian passport, raising her children "illegally," like so many others...
U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know
By Tom Malthaner, Miftah 9/20/2003
This morning as I was walking down Shuhada Street in Hebron, I saw graffiti marking the newly painted storefronts and awnings. Although three months past schedule and 100 percent over budget, the renovation of Shuhada Street was finally completed this week. The project manager said the reason for the delay and cost overruns was the sabotage of the project by the Israeli settlers of the Beit Hadassah settlement complex in Hebron. They broke the street lights, stoned project workers, shot out the windows of bulldozers and other heavy equipment with pellet guns, broke paving stones before they were laid and now have defaced again the homes and shops of Palestinians with graffiti. The settlers did not want Shuhada St. opened to Palestinian traffic as was agreed to under Oslo 2. This renovation project is paid for by USAID funds and it makes me angry that my tax dollars have paid for improvements that have been destroyed by the settlers. Most Americans are not aware how much of their tax revenue our government sends to Israel. For the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, the U.S. has given Israel $6.72 billion: $6.194 billion falls under Israel's foreign aid allotment and $526 million comes from agencies such as the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Information Agency and the Pentagon. The $6.72 billion figure does not include loan guarantees and annual compound interest totaling $3.122 billion the U.S. pays on money borrowed to give to Israel. It does not include the cost to U.S. taxpayers of IRS tax exemptions that donors can claim when they donate money to Israeli charities. (Donors claim approximately $1 billion in Federal tax deductions annually. This ultimately costs other U.S. tax payers $280 million to $390 million.)
Running Backwards
Editorial, Miftah 9/21/2003
As events unfolded this week into a single thread of miserable failure on the part of all concerned leaders, a vivid sense of déjà vu revealed that the Middle East conflict is officially going in circles. President Arafat keeps on shifting from the sidelines to the spotlight and back again, while the Bush administration makes highly publicized commitments to get deeply involved and then quietly recedes into the background. As for Sharon, his personal vendetta against the Palestinians is only ever disrupted when he fears losing his image as a “man of peace” bestowed upon him by the American administration. Arafat is most definitely back in the limelight, enjoying the power that seemed to be slipping away during Mahmoud Abbas’ stint as Prime Minister. Ahmed Qurei, the Prime Minister designate, has signaled his intentions not to clash with Arafat by agreeing that two thirds of the cabinet will consist of Fatah members loyal to the President. While a united Palestinian National Authority is to be encouraged, this should not mean that the old guards are restored to power. Ahmed Qurei’s cabinet is the last chance the PNA has if it wants to remain the driving force in Palestinian politics and retain its relevancy. Palestinians are fed up with the continuous and pointless reshuffles in the cabinet, which leave them for weeks on end without leadership in a time of crisis.
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Dissident Voice 9/20/2003
The other morning at 7 a.m., I joined Peace Now for an early morning demonstration to ‘wake up’ Ariel Sharon to the fact that his policy of assassinations only feeds the cycle of violence, and does not end terrorism.“You’re making a terrible mistake!” said our signs, “Your decisions will only create further havoc!” And yet, it turned out that few of us actually think that this policy is a mistake at all. Questioning the 5 or 6 people standing near me, I discovered that all of us really believe that Sharon’s moves are the product of deliberate policy – that they are carried out in the full knowledge that further death and destruction in Israel would be an inevitable result.Here is a partial list of Sharon’s decisions that are usually referred to by critics as policy blunders because of their unwelcome consequences:* Targeted assassinations and attempted assassinations, even during the recent ceasefire, which provoke increased terrorist activity;* Failure to support the moderate Abu Mazen by meaningful confidence-building measures, thereby leading to his downfall;* The decision to sideline and then ‘eliminate’ Arafat, whether by expelling or killing him, knowing that, dead or alive, chaos and instability would ensue, thereby delaying indefinitely any peace negotiation until the regime stabilizes and an alternative leader emerges;* Rejection out of hand of the new ceasefire proposal; and* Excessive force against the Palestinians at large – limiting access to health, education, and employment, ongoing house demolitions, curfews, harassment, etc. – all of which only serve to fan the flames of bitterness and hostility among the population.
Under The Fig Tree
By Horia, International Solidarity Movement 9/20/2003
8-21-03 - And outside, they are shouting again, men’s voices fighting to stay afloat like it was an ocean they were drowing in. Down the street in Al Awda Square, Hamas has been demonstrating since 8 pm between Christmas lights in bright colors and loudspeakers. Further down, the shooting from the tower dominiates the night, louder than angry men, louder than demonstrators. Earlier tonight, an ambulance’s urgent wail, I holding my breath praying. Death is so close now you can smell it. Already it has come like a rainstorm beginning in Hebron, like the time I watched rain come towards me from across a lake and ran toward the forest and my feet were not faster than the rain. In the West Bank, tanks close in, six dead in a day. In Gaza, five missiles from an F16 assassinate Ismael Abu Shanab, a non-militant spokesperson for Hamas; kill his two bodyguards, and injure 20 bystanders, 5 seriously. F16s paint the sky everyday, blue and white like clouds. But so far in Rafah, a military tower is shooting in the air, bullets have remained abstract in their threat, have not collided today with flesh, but still I see death everywhere, in the faces of my friends and of strangers in the streets. Shouting upstairs as the images paint TV.
Nablus: "Welcome, we'll be waiting"
By Miral Assuli, Electronic Intifada 9/20/2003
"Ishtinalak ktier habibi, miet ahlan wa sahlan, hayna mnistana" ["We missed you so much, you are more than welcome, we’ll be waiting"] is the answer Khaled received from his elderly aunts in Nablus when he phoned them and told them that he was in the country with the intentions to visit and see them after four years of absence.He was staying in Jerusalem and decided to make an early start that day. At 08:00 his taxi took off from Qalandia checkpoint (an Israeli military checkpoint on the borders between Ramallah and ar-Ram), heading for Nablus. The ride started smoothly, wonderful weather, beautiful scenary and some nice tunes on the radio to go along with it. Fifteen minutes later the taxi road off the main road drove through groves, orchids and villages. Over rocks, dirt, ditches and clouds of dust the ride got more and more and tedious. They encountered increasing traffic from cargo trucks, ambulances, public transportation vehicles, personal cars. He learns from the driver that the main road is blocked for Palestinian traffic and this is the improvised alternative necessary to keep going in order to meet daily needs of food, hospitalization, work and education. The risk is that if caught by Israeli police or military patrols, the alternative turns into two options. The first, they are stopped, fined and ordered to return. The second, they meet their fate with random bullets due to sporadic shooting. With a lump in his throat, Khaled accepts this new reality, and hopes he reaches Nablus alive and well.
Sharon Policies Will Put Israel in Dire Peril
By David Hirst, Arab News/The Observer 9/22/2003
LONDON, 22 September 2003 — By the summer of 2002, George Bush had firmly set his new course: “regime change” and reform in the Muslim and Arab worlds, and, where necessary, American military intervention to achieve it. Hitherto, it had been assumed that the US could not go to war in one of the two great zones of Middle East crisis — Iraq and the Gulf — before it had at least calmed things down in the other, older and more explosive one, Palestine. But the American administration’s neoconservatives had a very simple answer to that. The road to war on Iraq no longer lay through peace in Palestine; peace in Palestine lay through war on Baghdad.It was all set forth, in its most comprehensive, well-nigh megalomaniac form, by Norman Podhoretz, the neocons’ veteran intellectual luminary, in the September 2002 issue of his magazine, Commentary. Changes in regime, he proclaimed, were “the sine qua non throughout the region”. They might “clear a path to the long-overdue internal reform and modernization of Islam”.This was a full and final elaboration of that project, “A Clean Break”, which some of his kindred spirits had first laid before Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu back in 1996. It was the apotheosis of the “strategic alliance”, at least as much an Israeli grand design as an American one.
Not Out of the Woods
Editorial, Arab News 9/22/2003
Pressure from the UN General Assembly may have persuaded Israel not to go ahead with its outrageous plans to deport Yasser Arafat or assassinate him. The assembly’s resolution on Friday, which called on Israel to back down from its threat to “remove” Arafat, should send a strong enough message to Israel to desist from what the Palestinians consider “an assault on the Palestinian national dignity and the democratic choice of our people.”But Arafat is far from being out of the woods. The vote in the General Assembly is not legally binding. Moreover, nothing should be put beyond Israel, especially with Ariel Sharon at the helm. In addition, the US vetoed a similar resolution in the Security Council just three days earlier. All three elements spell the same thing: If Arafat is fairly safe, it is only for the moment.....The American administration fears that Arafat’s removal would escalate violence and cause huge anger in the Arab world. But Sharon and his ministers regularly, and often with impunity, turn a deaf ear to American remonstrations, an example being the settlements where, under the terms of the road map, all new building should be frozen. American reminders this week that money spent on settlement-building will be pared from loan guarantees had no effect on the building going on in many settlements.
Before it's too late
By Aviad Kleinberg, Ha'aretz 9/22/2003
More so than dealing with fate and the relationships between sons and their parents, Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" deals with the nature of knowledge, with the human tendency to suppress what we don't have the tools to cope with.Oedipus and the people of his city receive a direct answer to the question they ask; and the play should end there. But it is not to be. The explicit words fall on deaf ears....The unpleasant truth is arrived at through a gradual and painful process of disillusionment.The walls in Israel are filling up with writing and neon signs are flashing shrill announcements of history: Soon, it will be too late. The disregard for them is almost absolute; everyone is acting "as if there is no tomorrow." The government of Israel is dealing with the existential problems of the state by means of suppression and whitewashing. There is no serious discussion on any issue of significance - from the budget to security policy. Instead of a political struggle, we have the Peres festivities; instead of debate, we have faith. Without cutting ourselves off from the Palestinians, we are destroying the moral basis of the State of Israel. Continuing to oppress them won't bring quiet but hundreds of years of terror instead. But it will be okay. Support for Israel among the EU member-states is dwindling. Sweeping American support is no longer guaranteed and comes with a heavy political price. But it will be okay.
Fifteen wasted votes
By Akiva Eldar, Ha'aretz 9/22/2003
What else does the Sharon-Eitam-Lieberman government have to do to make its senior partner, Shinui, understand that in one term it is breaking Labor's record for being a dishrag, as well as Shas' record for cynicism? Former Labor ministers admit today that for 18 months they functioned as a dangling fig leaf for an extreme right-wing government. Nevertheless, they are permitted to enjoy the benefit of the doubt, and to assume that they had some part in the frustration of such wild ideas as the expulsion/assassination of the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat. Shinui had pretensions of taking the place of the Labor party in the role of the representative of the left (everything is relative, of course), and finds itself playing the role of Shas. When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon brought Shas into his government, he assumed that as long as the state coffers funded its institutions, the omnipotent leader of the ultra-Orthodox party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, would instruct his troop of ministers and MKs to serve as a safety net for the policy of occupation. Sharon was right. The last time Shas had an influence on a decision regarding war and peace was when Aryeh Deri opposed the intervention of the Israel Defense Forces in the 1991 Gulf War. When Sharon brought the 15 members of Shinui into his government, he assumed that it was enough for him to throw out Shas for Yosef Lapid, the omnipotent leader of the anti-Haredi party, to instruct his troops to support the moves and the laws of the government. Sharon was right this time, too.
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