Israel and the Empire: Jeff Halper interview
By Jeff Halper and Jon Elmer, FromOccupiedPalestine.org 9/20/2003
Jon Elmer, FromOccupiedPalestine.org: You use the term ‘matrix of control’ to describe the Israeli occupation. Can you explain exactly what that is and how it functions?
Jeff Halper: The Israel-Palestine conflict is often framed in terms of territory: ending the occupation, a viable Palestinian state, and what that means in terms of territory. But two states and a complete end of the occupation, even in the best scenario, is not really the best solution. The whole Palestinian state would be on only 22% of the country, divided between the West Bank and Gaza. The State of Israel today, within the 1967 borders, represents 78% percent of the country. So even in the ideal situation, if the entire occupation ended and Israel pushed back to 1967 borders, the Palestinian state would be in only 22% of the country. Israel can’t compromise on any more than that - even that is a question mark.
But Israel does want a Palestinian state because it needs to get rid of the three and a half million Palestinians currently living in the Occupied Territories. If it can’t send them out of the country, it at least wants to enclose them in a little Bantustan-type state. And so, the issue is framed in terms of territory, and what gets lost is the issue of control.
The Choice For Israelis
By Jimmy Carter, Washington Post 9/23/2003
Last week we observed the 25th anniversary of the Camp David Accords, which spelled out the basic relationships between Israel and its neighbors and led within a few months to the inviolate peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Participants in the recent event included nine of the 11 members of the U.S. negotiating team and key advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. It was intriguing to review the issues we faced then, after four major wars in the previous 25 years, and to assess how current problems have evolved. All of us have retained a deep interest in the peace process and hopes of eventual success.
Part of that hope was derived from the calm and relative friendship that prevailed after the successful negotiations at Camp David, those of the Norwegians between Israelis and Palestinians in 1993, and the Palestinian elections of 1996, in which a parliament was formed and Yasser Arafat chosen as president. These were times, although transient, when moderate leadership and sound judgment prevailed, and citizens lived and worked side by side in peace.
....No matter what leaders the Palestinians might choose, how fervent American interest might be or how great the hatred and bloodshed might become, there remains one basic choice, and only the Israelis can make it...
Palestinian Perceptions of Politics and Government in Palestine
By JMCC/IUED - Geneva University, Miftah 9/23/2003
Politics in Palestine has always played a major part of the day-to-day life of the Palestinians. While this can be said about most other people, there is a certain level of specificity in the Palestinian case, namely because the Palestinians never governed themselves. Throughout their modern history, they were either under mandate rule, or Jordanian and Egyptian rule, or under Israeli occupation. Thus, the absence of self-rule rendered them more politically active. The very fact that almost all Palestinians were in one form or another engaged in “resisting” occupation has raised the political awareness of the average Palestinian and enabled them to comprehend and appreciate the values of political participation, at least, more intensely than most peoples in the region.
While it is not the intention of this chapter to examine the political culture of the Palestinians, it is, nonetheless, particularly important to stress that the absence of an organized Palestinian political structure during the Israeli occupation, and even during the quasi control of the Palestinian Authority, brought about an “informal” Palestinian institutional structure which was reflected in the strong NGO community that had, and still have, roots and links with the Palestinian public in all its sectors.
PCRF: Empowerment Project for Palestinian Women
By Sonia M Nettinin, Palestine Chronicle 9/23/2003
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict forces Palestinian women and children into poverty.
IDF soldiers have killed many Palestinian men. Israeli bulldozers raze Palestinian homes – sometimes with families in them – and leave whoever is still standing broken, concrete blocks, human remains and rubble.
One widow with six children said, “My life is inevitable,” after her husband was killed by an IDF soldier. “My husband was a simple worker,” she added. “He was killed just because being a Palestinian.”
Her youngest child is one-years-old. Last April, she asked the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund for assistance.
PCRF is a non-political, nonprofit organization with 501(c) (3) status. They provide humanitarian aid for families with a focus on children. Since 1991 they have helped children subjected to violence receive medical treatment and surgery. As a response to the second Intifada, PCRF initiated the women’s empowerment project in 2001.
People who participate in the project are either sponsors or candidates.
PCRF screens potential candidates living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Applications are evaluated for economic status and business ideas. PCRF interviews the women. If they approve a candidate, then financial backing is granted for her enterprise.
The Fatah Coup
By Ghassan Andoni, International Middle East Media Center 9/4/2003
Abbas’ resignation from the post of prime minister nearly a month ago was strongly influenced by what might be called a Fatah coup. Although the recent eruption of internal conflicts in the Palestinian government seem modern, they have antecedents in Fatah’s long established strong hold over Palestinian politics, a stronghold that needed to be reigned in when Fatah began to lose political strength to powerful offices outside its party influence.
Fatah played the central role in Palestinian public and political life since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1993, particularly when most Palestinian opposition groups refrained from joining the PA and boycotted the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1995.
Fatah is not only the largest political organization; it also enjoys a decisive majority in the Palestinian parliament. The movement, founded by Arafat in 1965, became the backbone of both the security and the civil arms of the Palestinian Authority. Fatah activists and public figures dominated not only key positions in the various security apparatus, but most other PA ministries as well.
Remember Durban
By Arjan El Fassed, Electronic Intifada 9/22/2003
Two years ago I attended the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR). At that time I was part of the Palestinian delegation at the NGO Forum. Two years after the conference, Israel’s apartheid policies have only deepened and become systematic and widespread.
Although reading the final governmental document coming out of Durban and the brazen walk out of the United States from the entire conference would suggest a failure of the conference, the WCAR was an important and, at times, amazing event.
At Durban, the primary objectives of the Palestinian delegates was to popularize their cause in front of an international audience, to articulate their demands to end racist military occupation, apartheid and oppression and to stop the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.
The “failure” of the conference was not due to the suggested claim that Palestinians “hijacked the conference” but to the lack of connection between the NGO Forum and the UN governmental conference. There was little to no opportunity to impact the UN governmental conference. This was not only due to the refusal of Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to receive and endorse the NGO Forum Declaration and Programme of Action but also to several international human rights organizations, who tried to, in their words, “refocus” the NGO challenge to the governments in anticipation of their disagreements with the final NGO declaration.
Don't cry for me, whining Israel
By Hanna Kim, Ha'aretz 9/23/2003
In a letter to Theodor Herzl in 1900, Sir Francis Montefiore of the well-known philanthropist family, said the Jewish aristocracy opposed Zionism because "if it is victorious, it will free the Jewish people, and it will become impossible to give them orders in exchange for the leftover change from fortunes that get paid into our charities."
Indeed, on the eve of the centenary of Herzl's death, it can be said with no little irony that Israeli society has reverted to the same mentality from which Herzl wanted to liberate it - a cloying dependence on the wealthy.
Shari Arison's departure from Israel is an example of this dependency, which is based on the growing assumption that civic society - or the "third sector" based on philanthropy from business people - can replace the state. But it is as impossible to run a country on the whims of millionaires as it is impossible to base an economic policy on moods.
The growing number of organizations and non profit organizations that depend on contributions from the wealthy only highlights the need for a social policy with some long-term perspective that is nor built on a basis of handouts. The managers of these organizations depend on constant courting of the wealthy and a large part of their energy is spent chasing after the capricious desires of their financiers.
Using war to swallow Palestinian land
By Sara Roy, Daily Star 9/23/2003
The hudna, or cease-fire, between Israel and the Palestinians is predictably over, and the horrific cycle of violence that has killed over 2,000 Palestinians and over 800 Israelis has resumed.
A major retaliatory attack was expected after Israel’s assassination on Aug. 14 of Mohammed Sidr, the head of Islamic Jihad’s military wing in Hebron. This expected attack occurred on Aug. 19, with the suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 20 Israelis, six of them children. Since then Israel has responded with brutal violence: the assassination on Aug. 21of Ismail Abu Shanab, a leading Hamas official, and the attempted assassination of Mahmoud Zahar, a senior figure in Hamas, were perhaps the most visible manifestations of Israeli retaliation, but not the only ones. Almost daily, Palestinians are killed, injured and made homeless. Palestinian extremists then seek revenge on innocent Israelis, recently killing 15 people and injuring dozens more in two suicide-bombing attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. And the violence escalates.
According to Gideon Levy, a writer for the Israeli daily Haaretz, “much as Israel claims that the Palestinians are violating the truce and regrouping in order to perpetrate savage acts of terror, its pleading can’t alter the facts: Up until Israel renewed its assassinations campaign, there were no suicide bombings, and the two attacks (at Ariel and Rosh Haayin) last week were direct responses to the Askar refugee camp slayings (of two Hamas activists).”
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