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Palestine Versus the Palestinians? The Iron Laws and Ironies of a People Denied Beshara Doumani, ZNet/ Journal of Palestine Studies 10/30/2007
An iron law of the conflict over Palestine has been the refusal by the Zionist movement and its backers, first Great Britain and then the United States, to make room for the existence of Palestinians as a political community. This non-recognition is rooted in historical forces that predate the existence of the Zionist movement and the Palestinians as a people. Consequently, there is a tension between identity and territory, with obvious repercussions for the following questions: Who are the Palestinians? What do they want? And who speaks for them? This essay calls for a critical reappraisal of the relationship between the concepts “Palestine” and “Palestinians,” as well as of the state-centered project of successive phases of the Palestinian national movement.
The emergence in 2007 of two Palestinian “authorities” in two geographical areas—Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank—has given new urgency to several perennial questions: Who are the Palestinians? In what sense do they constitute a political community? What do they want? Who speaks for them? The nearly century-long persistence of these questions highlights some of the iron laws and ironies of modern Palestinian history that merit consideration in discussions about the causes and consequences of the current predicament and about how to come up with creative strategies for achieving freedom, peace, and justice. By “iron laws” I mean the formative historical forces produced by the overwhelming asymmetry of power relations that have imprisoned Palestinians in what Rashid Khalidi has termed an iron cage.[1] By “ironies” I mean the paradoxes of history that subvert nationalist narratives about the past. I argue that iron laws and ironies point to the need for a critical reappraisal of the relationship between “Palestine” and “Palestinians” as concepts, and of the state-centered project of successive phases of the Palestinian national movement. more..
Realizing God’s dream for the Holy Land
Desmond Tutu, ZNet/Boston Globe 10/30/2007
WHENEVER I am asked if I am optimistic about an end to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I say that I am not. Optimism requires clear signs that things are changing - meaningful words and unambiguous actions that point to real progress. I do not yet hear enough meaningful words, nor do I yet see enough unambiguous deeds to justify optimism.
However, that does not mean I am without hope. I am a Christian. I am constrained by my faith to hope against hope, placing my trust in things as yet unseen. Hope persists in the face of evidence to the contrary, undeterred by setbacks and disappointment. Hoping against hope, then, I do believe that a resolution will be found. It will not be perfect, but it can be just; and if it is just, it will usher in a future of peace.
My hope for peace is not amorphous. It has a shape. It is not the shape of a particular political solution, although there are some political solutions that I believe to be more just than others.
Neither does my hope take the shape of a particular people, although I have pleaded tirelessly for international attention to be paid to the misery of Palestinians, and I have roundly condemned the injustices of certain Israeli policies that compound that misery. Thus I am often accused of siding with Palestinians against Israeli Jews, naively exonerating the one and unfairly demonizing the other. more..
The Right of Return (to Britain)
Tamara Traubmann, MIFTAH 10/30/2007
Thousands of people and one very active Internet site have been busy these days with Khaled Al-Mudallal’s right to return - that is, his right to return to the University of Bradford in England. Mudallal, 22, was supposed to be devoting his entire attention right now to his last year of studies for a bachelor’s degree in business administration. But instead, he is stuck in Rafah and cannot see how he will be able to leave the Gaza Strip and finish his studies.
He is not the only person in such a predicament. More than 6,000 people have requested to leave Gaza - one-10th of them students who are studying abroad and have already missed the start of the academic year. But Israel is not allowing them to travel to Egypt and continue onward to their respective places of study from there.
Mudallal was born in the Rafah refugee camp. He has six other siblings. He went to Bradford six years ago, following in his father’s footsteps, who completed his doctorate in history there. "I understood that England was a wonderful place to be, an interesting place where I could develop," he says, explaining his decision to remain abroad even after his father returned to Gaza. "Until then, I had lived in Palestine. It was entirely new for me to live in an area that was not occupied, in a wide open place." more..
An Interview With Adnan Husseini
Bitterlemons, MIFTAH 10/30/2007
bitterlemons:
We’ve heard recently Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert talk about the outlying neighborhoods of Jerusalem and that Israel might be willing to "divide" Jerusalem. What do you make of this?
Husseini:
First of all, we’ve been hearing such ideas for a while, but we also see the objections from many others in Israel, so we can’t really trust these statements.
But there is something else very important to make clear. What is mentioned in these statements is not sufficient for the Palestinian side. The statements concern certain areas that are not part of the core of Jerusalem. We know Jerusalem as the Old City and the surrounding areas. In 1948, Jerusalem was 2.2 square kilometers, 1.9 of which were taken up by the Old City.
In 1967, the area of Jerusalem had expanded to 6.5 square kilometers, as a result of the natural growth of the city in those 19 intervening years. Now, after 40 years of occupation, it has reached 9 square kilometers, including the far-flung areas that are now mentioned as those Israel is willing to give back to the Palestinians. more..
Something to Consider Before Attacking
Rami Khouri, MIFTAH 10/30/2007
The main Middle Eastern issue being discussed in the US these days is not Iraq, Arab-Israeli peacemaking, or Turkish-Kurdish-Iraqi tensions, but rather what to do about Iran and its perceived threat to the region, the US and the world. The Bush administration sets a shrill and aggressive tone on this and is taking action, including this week’s new sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, its Quds Force, and several banks.
Possible American moves against Iran should be considered in light of the 2001-2007 lessons of US-led wars to change regimes and remake national governance systems in Afghanistan and Iraq, and more indirectly in Palestine and Lebanon. This is not just a Bush-Cheney problem, but an all-American one, since most presidential candidates in both parties do not stray far from the administration’s aggressive policy options.
The post-2001 experience suggests that American military attacks against Iran would probably result in more turmoil in the Middle East and Asia, and greater anti-American sentiments and actions around the world. The American-led wars and aggressive diplomatic stances vis-a-vis Iran, Hamas, Hizbullah and Syria have already generated two specific phenomena: widespread criticism of the US in public opinion around the entire world (see the recent BBC and Pew polls); and, a determination by many Middle Eastern actors to actively resist and defy the US, and militarily fight it (or its Arab and Israeli proxies) when such an opportunity arises in Lebanon and Iraq, rather than to react with the expected acquiescence and compliance. more..
Survivors Protest at Israel’s Stance on Armenian Genocide
Donald Macintyre, MIFTAH 10/30/2007
She has no memory of her father or mother. She was abandoned as an infant –it almost certainly saved her life because she was found on the side of the road by an American missionary – on one of the death marches in 1915 from Gurun, in central Anatolia. Even her name was given to her by the Near East Relief orphanage in Lebanon where she grew up. Sadly, she says, most of her fellow survivors in Jerusalem of the Armenian genocide have died.
But Mary Kevorkian, a sprightly widow of 93, is proud of the independent life she leads – including the daily shopping and cleaning of her home in Jerusalem’s Old City. "I do all my own work," she says cheerfully. "I don’t need anybody."
This week she joined more than 100 other, rather younger, demonstrators –about 10 per cent of a once much larger Jerusalem Armenian community dating back to Roman times – outside the Foreign Ministry. They were protesting against what they believe is the Israeli government’s use of its considerable lobbying influence on Capitol Hill to try to thwart the bill which would mean US recognition of the genocide in which 1.5 million Armenians, including Mrs Kevorkian’s parents, died. more..
Gaza Reports Israeli Fuel Cutbacks
Richard Bourdreaux, MIFTAH 10/30/2007
Israel reduced fuel shipments to the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian officials said, bringing promised pressure on the beleaguered territory’s Hamas rulers after months of cross-border rocket attacks.
Mujahed Salameh, head of the Palestinian Authority’s Petrol Agency, said diesel deliveries for Gaza’s only power plant were 12% below normal and gasoline deliveries were half their normal level. He said the Israeli company that is Gaza’s sole fuel supplier told him the Defense Ministry had ordered the limits.
The cutback followed Israel’s declaration last month branding Gaza a "hostile territory." At the Cabinet’s direction, a security panel drew up plans for reducing fuel and electricity to the coastal enclave, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave it final approval Thursday.
Israeli officials would not confirm that they had put the sanctions into effect. The Israeli fuel company, Dor Alon, said only that it was carrying out Defense Ministry orders but declined to reveal what those orders were.
At Gaza’s main fuel depot, which receives diesel and gasoline pumped through pipes from the Israeli side, drivers of fuel trucks complained that they were unable to fill their tanks. more..
Israel can’t Cut Power to Gaza - Attorney General
Adam Entous, MIFTAH 10/30/2007
Israel’s attorney general told the government on Monday it could not cut electrical power to the Gaza Strip as part of its sanctions against the Hamas controlled territory, although he did approve other measures.
Israel began implementing economic sanctions on Sunday in what it said was a response to Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli towns from the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave.
Israel’s supreme court told the government to explain its planned actions against Gaza and Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said the plan to reduce power to Gaza needed further scrutiny because of the possible impact on the population.
"The attorney general has approved the cabinet’s decision to activate various economic steps ... (but) further consideration needs to be given to cutting off electricity because of the humanitarian implications on the civilian population," a Justice Ministry statement said.
Israel has begun to reduce fuel supplies, which defence officials said would be cut by up to 14 percent, depending on the type of fuel.
The European Union warned Israel against imposing "collective punishment" on the 1.5 million Palestinians in the coastal strip by reducing the territory’s fuel supplies. more..
Rice Looks to History for Peace Effort
Matthew Lee, MIFTAH 10/30/2007
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is looking to the past for lessons on how to make next month’s Mideast peace conference a success.
As she prepares to host the international meeting in Annapolis, Md., Rice has delved into the history of U.S. attempts to mediate peace in the region, plunging into the diplomatic annals and seeking out the major players responsible for both successes and failures.
"She’s trying to draw on the historical record and the experiences of others to see what she can glean and how that may be applicable to the current day," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday, ahead of Rice’s Nov. 4-6 trip to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, her second in three weeks to organize the Annapolis gathering.
Most recently, she met this week with Jimmy Carter, sitting down in her office on Wednesday for a talk with the former president who brokered the 1978 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt, the first between the Jewish state and an Arab nation.
Carter has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s Middle East polices and wrote a recent book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," that some believe is anti-Israeli. McCormack said the differences in approach were not a subject of her conversation. more..
Israel Ready to Negotiate on Jerusalem, Its ’Third Rail’?
Dion Nissenbaum, MIFTAH 10/30/2007
The last time Israeli leaders sat down for meaningful peace talks with Palestinian negotiators, then-Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert led a march around the Old City’s ancient walls to protest any plans to divide his adopted home.
"No concessions on Jerusalem," Olmert said on the eve of the 2000 Camp David summit. "For 33 years, Israel has said there will never be a compromise on Jerusalem. Do you think we were joking?"
But seven years, one Palestinian uprising and three Israeli elections later, Olmert, now Israel’s prime minister, is floating the idea of carving up the city he led for 10 years. As he gears up for the most intense round of peace talks since the Camp David talks failed, Olmert has indicated that he’s prepared to turn over Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem to the Palestinians.
In many ways, Jerusalem is the third rail of Israeli politics. Few are willing to touch it, and those who do often get burned. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak came close to ceding control of about half of the Old City to the Palestinians before the Camp David talks crumbled, his government lost its credibility and Palestinians launched their second uprising. more..
The Israel lobby has its sights on Iran
Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star 10/31/2007
A year and a half after they published their ground-breaking article "The Israel Lobby" in the London Review of Books, the distinguished American academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have now published their book entitled "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy."
The venerable American publishers Farrar Straus and Giroux proved far more courageous in publishing the book than the Atlantic Monthly magazine that had commissioned the original article then refused to publish it - presumably because the Atlantic did not want to handle the consequences they anticipated would follow such an open analysis of the influence of the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the US.
Mearsheimer and Walt argue the basic point that this influence is bad for the US, Israel and everyone else in the Middle East, given the way events have been unfolding there in recent years. more..
Rights org: Cutting Gaza electricity and fuel is collective punishment
Press Release, Human Rights Watch, Oct 30, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/30/2007
A Palestinian worker unloads gas canisters at a factory in Gaza City after Israel began limiting vital fuel supplies into the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Further cuts in fuel, electricity and other supplies is expected to follow, 28 October 2007. (Wissam Nassar/
MaanImages
New York, 29 October - Israel’s decision to limit fuel and electricity to the Gaza Strip in retaliation for unlawful rocket attacks by armed groups amounts to collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza, in violation of international law, and will worsen the humanitarian crisis there, Human Rights Watch said today.
"Israel may respond to rocket attacks by armed groups to protect its population, but only in lawful ways," said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division. "Because Israel remains an occupying power, in light of its continuing restrictions on Gaza, Israel must not take measures that harm the civilian population -- yet that is precisely what cutting fuel or electricity for even short periods will do."
On Sunday, the Israeli Defense Ministry ordered the reduction of fuel shipments from Israel to Gaza. A government spokesman said the plan was to cut the amount of fuel by 5 to 11 percent without affecting the supply of industrial fuel for Gaza’s only power plant. more..
Thirteen Palestinians fleeing Iraq drown after boat capsizes
Report, Badil, Oct 30, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/30/2007
Last weekend, 13 bodies, most likely of Palestinian refugees from Iraq, were recovered on the coast of Italy after their boats, carrying at least 127 persons in search of safety, had broken apart. These tragedies highlight the failure of the international community to protect Palestinian refugees.
Saving the lives of Palestinian refugees persecuted in and fleeing Iraq is a priority. Emergency temporary protection and relocation opportunities must be provided immediately, until repatriation becomes possible.
Badil calls upon the PLO to request all states, in particular Yemen, to allow Palestinian refugees from Iraq to enter their territory to seek temporary protection and/or relocation. Badil also calls upon states, the United Nations, the PLO and civil society organizations to bring Israel into compliance with its obligations so that Palestinian refugees can exercise their right of return and find safety and stability through durable solutions.
Few countries, such as Syria, Jordan, Brazil and Canada, have generously taken in Palestinian refugees, but none have shown willingness to welcome all or most Palestinian refugees from Iraq. Fewer still are willing to exert pressure on Israel to allow the refugees to return to their homes of origin in Israel and the 1967 Occupied Palestinian Territory. more..
Open letter to PM Siniora
Tamara Keblaoui writing from Beirut, Live from Lebanon, Oct 30, Electronic Intifada 10/30/2007
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora (left) meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in France, October 2005. (
MaanImages
Dear Mr. Siniora,
I write to you as a Lebanese citizen with pressing concerns. Today, on the 27th of October 2007, I, along with a group of ten American University of Beirut students, made the journey north to Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. We went there with the purpose of carrying out a clean-up campaign for the homes of returning refugees. What we found in the homes made our heads spin.
The houses we worked in were located in the so-called new camp. They were mostly villas with three or more bedrooms. Evidently, they were spaces that not so long ago housed large families. We found on the floors tiny Reebok shoes, dolls and toys. We found gardens and we found orange trees. But the little Reebok shoes were torn and weathered, the dolls had disembodied heads and limbs, the gardens were not green and the orange trees did not bear oranges.
We found mountains of rubble where there should have been refrigerators. We found harrowingly blank spaces, Mr. Siniora, where there should have been stoves, tables, beds and sofas. We found that the walls of the children rooms were covered with anti-Palestinian slurs and imprecations so vile that I cannot reproduce them on paper. When we were at the gates of the camp, we were told that cameras would not be allowed into the camp and we were searched scrupulously for them. I did not understand why this was at first, but now I do, because now I am feeling disillusioned and angry and I know that had the rest of the world seen the images that my peers and I saw today, the rest of the world would feel disillusioned and angry, too. more..
Don’t emulate Israel at Guantanamo
Lisa Hajjar, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Oct 30, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/30/2007
A Palestinian political prisoner freed from an Israeli prison celebrates with friends and family as he crosses into the Gaza Strip at the Erez crossing, 2 October 2007. (Wissam Nassar/
MaanImages
Should the United States, seeking to recalibrate the balance between security and liberty in the "war on terror," emulate Israel in its treatment of Palestinian detainees?
That is the position that Guantanamo detainee lawyers Avi Stadler and John Chandler of Atlanta, and some others, have advocated. That people in US custody could be held incommunicado for years without charges, and could be prosecuted or indefinitely detained on the basis of confessions extracted with torture is worse than a national disgrace. It is an assault on the foundations of the rule of law.
But Israel’s model for dealing with terrorism, while quite different from that of the US, is at least as shameful.
Long before the first suicide bombing by Palestinians in 1994, Israel had resorted to extrajudicial killings, home demolitions, deportations, curfews and other forms of collective punishment barred by international law. more..
The easiest solution
Joe DeVoir writing from al-Ram, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, Electronic Intifada 10/30/2007
Palestinian and Israeli participants in Combatants For Peace at the event in al-Ram. (Joe DeVoir)
Twenty-four Palestinian and Israeli men and women sat outdoors in a circle on a sleepy street in al-Ram, Palestine. Spread about the garden and into the house-office are five other groups of similar size and make-up.
For many, it is the first time to a Combatants For Peace event. Most of them have never even met someone from the "other side" before except in the worst of circumstances in very different roles. You can tell who the new ones are right away by the way they hang back and observe.
"Are these people really enjoying themselves?"
Tonight was a special night. The meeting was to coincide with the Iftar during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Combatants had assembled everyone in the back yard to give an introduction and hear the testimonials of a Palestinian member and a new Israeli member. After this they grabbed their food and split into the groups. Everyone gathered in a circle, both Israelis and Palestinians, with nowhere to hide.
One of the Israeli founders of Combatants stands up, smiles at his old friend Ashraf sitting beside him, and begins to speak to the circle. He says, "My name is Ashraf Khader, I am 30 years old and I love music. I was born in Jordan and moved to Ramallah in 2000. Since then I have not been able to see my family due to the Israeli travel restrictions. When I was younger I began resisting the occupation in any way possible, first by throwing stones and then by throwing Molotov cocktails. I have been imprisoned five times and have had my house occupied by Israeli soldiers for 25 days while they laid siege to a nearby preventive security building." Ashraf sits beside him looking on and listening to his life and "conversion" being recited by a former Israeli soldier in first-person. more..
Ramzy Baroud: Peace Conference: New Case for War
Palestine Chronicle 10/24/2007
The peace conference will provide the media with the opportunity to bombard public opinion with half-truths regarding those standing for peace and those considered an obstacle to peace.
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By Ramzy Baroud
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
The Middle East peace conference proposed by the Bush administration is clearly a smokescreen, aimed at concealing the true intentions of US foreign policy in the region. In the predictable process of rewarding ‘moderate’ allies and chastising ‘extremist’ foes, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will most likely receive the accolades befitting a peacemaker, while his protagonists in Hamas are reprimanded, demonized and further isolated. But the ultimate goal of this charade is not even so much to isolate Hamas, but rather to set in motion events that will further isolate Iran and Syria.
The significance of the anti-Iran campaign already underway in the US should not be missed in light of the conference next month. The media circus demonizing Iran was unleashed a few years ago, when leading neoconservatives, notwithstanding Richard Perle himself, went on accusing President Bush, some of his advisors and military generals of being ‘stupid’ for failing to recognize the threat posed by Iran. However, more recently, and most notably after the failure of the Israeli military adventure in South Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the war drums sounded by the media began to take on a new and deafening volume, reminiscent of that which preceded the US war on Iraq in March 2003. Those who appreciate the symbiotic relationship between the media and the state in the US can understand well that such a campaign is anything but genuine intellectual concern over the state of human rights in Iran, or the outcome of a sudden realization that Iran is impairing US war efforts in Iraq. Considering the level of determination in Washington and Tel Aviv to confront Iran militarily and the media’s decided role in gathering the public support for such a prospect, it is difficult to imagine a peaceful way out of the crisis.
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Hammam Farah: UCU: Between Boycott and Apartheid
Palestine Chronicle 10/24/2007
History will also remember those academics and university presidents who stood on the side of apartheid, oppression, and colonial domination.
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By Hammam Farah
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
After passing a motion in May that called for the circulation and debate of the Palestinian call for the academic boycott of Israel, Britain’s University and College Union (UCU)’s strategy and finance committee unanimously accepted a recommendation from its Secretary-General, Sally Hunt, that not only is the call to boycott apparently unlawful under discrimination legislation, but even debates on the issue at the union’s meetings should be silenced "to ensure that the union acts lawfully." Consequently, the union also cancelled a UK speaking tour in which Palestinian academics would discuss the academic boycott of Israel with their counterparts at UK universities.
There is ample reason to doubt the claim that the union and its members are at risk.After months of trepidation over the boycott due to its alleged violation of academic freedom, the irony lies in that the sole violator of academic freedom is the leadership of the UCU.One is forced to question whether they were driven by genuine concern for justice and the importance of the boycott for achieving it, or bitter resentment at their own membership’s democratic decision to discuss the boycott. As Amjad Barham, head of the council of the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, stated, "by muzzling debate and free discussion on the boycott, the [Israeli] lobby and its supporters within the UCU are suppressing academic freedom in the most crude manner." In addition, the opacity of the UCU statement further compounds the perception of hypocrisy felt towards the leadership of the union. The fact that academic unions in the UK are discussing the issue of academic boycott is a big step in the right direction, but it seems like the activists in the UCU will have to continue this uphill battle against apartheid, and we can expect them to keep fighting.
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Ivan Eland: Double Standard at Home and Abroad
Palestine Chronicle 10/24/2007
If the United States is going to criticize other countries’ behavior, both historical and current, it should eliminate the double standard at home and abroad, and clean up its own act first.
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By Ivan Eland
PalestineChronicle.com
The Bush administration is attempting to soothe the Turkish government’s apoplectic reaction to the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s label of “genocide” on Turkey’s slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians, which occurred almost a century ago. The administration fears that an enraged Turkish ally, already threatening to invade northern Iraq in order to suppress armed Turkish Kurd rebels seeking refuge there, will also cut off U.S. access to Turkish air bases and roads used to re-supply U.S. forces in Iraq. The administration essentially wants to allow the Turks to continue to deny a historical fact that preceded even the existence of the current Turkish system of government.
Similarly, the United States has never been too enthusiastic about criticizing Japan’s denial of having used Chinese and South Korean women as sex slaves (so-called “comfort women”) during World War II. More generally, the United States never really says too much when the current Japanese government regularly tries to whitewash in school textbooks the atrocious conduct of the Imperial Japanese regime before and during World War II. Again, a principal ally who does not face up to important historical facts is not reproved.
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Roger Lieberman: Annapolis and the Mandate of Heaven
Palestine Chronicle 10/24/2007
There has never been a more urgent time for Americans to wake up to the fact that, baseball or no baseball, Israeli “democracy” is not an achievement to celebrate.
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By Roger H. Lieberman
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
Last night, I had a brief but vivid dream pertinent to the crisis in the Middle East. I saw myself watching a documentary on Public Television about Syrian villagers living under Israeli military occupation in the Golan Heights. In a series of interviews, they spoke of how most of their neighbors lost their homes and became refugees when the Israeli Army invaded during the June 1967 war. They told how all but five Syrian villages on the Heights were subsequently destroyed by the Israelis to “make room” for Jewish settlements, and how the remaining Arab population has endured years of political repression aimed at severing their ties with Syria and reducing them to the status of third-class Israeli citizens – like the Palestinian minority that remained inside the Green Line after the war of 1948.
This dream was disturbing on a number of levels. First, it reminded me how easily victims of aggression and discrimination can be forgotten by Earth’s more fortunate inhabitants, whose lives aren’t circumscribed by barbed wire, military checkpoints, and land confiscation. Second, it reminded me how a prolonged succession of such actions can have an insidious psychological effect on spectators, gradually numbing their senses and leading them to forget earlier injustices in the face of new and ever more egregious ones. Third, it reminded me how much the media can influence public perceptions of international conflicts – often as much by what it does not choose to discuss as by what it does.
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Stephen Lendman: Nobel Hypocrisy
Palestine Chronicle 10/24/2007
Throughout his political life, Gore supported Big Oil and was tied to Occidental Petroleum Company and its "ruthless tycoon" chief, Armand Hammer.
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By Stephen Lendman
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
Alfred Nobel was a wealthy nineteenth century Swedish-born chemist, engineer, inventor of dynamite, armaments manufacturer and war profiteer who remade his image late in life by establishing the awarding of prizes in his name that includes the one for peace. This most noted award was inspired by his one-time secretary and peace activist, Bertha von Suttner, who was nominated four times and became the first of only 12 women to be honored.
Since it was established in 1901, the Peace Prize was awarded to 95 individuals and 20 organizations. Some recipients were worthy like Martin Luther King, Jane Addams and Albert Schweitzer but too many were not including this year’s honoree. Al Gore joins a long list of past "ignoble" recipients like warrior presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and supporter of rogue regimes Jimmy Carter. He’s also among the likes of genocidists Henry Kissinger and three former Israeli prime ministers - Menachem Begin, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin - along with former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who never met a US-led war he didn’t love and support. So much for promoting peace and what this award is supposed to signify.
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Fred Habachi: Islamo-Fascism: Their Week Of Panic
Palestine Chronicle 10/24/2007
There can be no fear among the general public about Islamo-fascism more than there is about Judeo-fascism, Christiano-fascism, Hindo-fascism or any religio-fascism you can think of.
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Fred Habachi
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
There is apprehension in the air among people of goodwill about the proposed designation of a week by members of the Zionist Lobby, their lackeys and mouthpieces to draw attention to what someone has called Islamo-fascism. But I say don’t worry about it, let them have their week because the good which will come after that will be long lasting and will outweigh the possible short term negative effects. In fact, the only reason they are having this week is because they are panicking.
Let these people insult the intelligence of the public and let the public see them for what they are because what is at play now is nothing less than the survival of the Zionist movement. The time has come for Zionism to go rest in peace and we have the opportunity to help him do just that. So let us seize the moment.
There can be no fear among the general public about Islamo-fascism more than there is about Judeo-fascism, Christiano-fascism, Hindo-fascism or any religio-fascism you can think of. The people know that fear should not be about the misuse of something because misuse is a part of our human character as much as DNA is a part of our biology. The fear can only be about who is doing the mischief and how much chance they have to succeed in their endeavor.
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Middle East – The Uncertain Summit
Janiki Cingoli, MIFTAH 10/24/2007
The prospects of the Middle Eastern summit convened by Bush for November (the original date has already been postponed for the end of the moth and the term "International Conference" seemed too much of a commitment for Israel), are still but a vague vision on the horizon. And not only because the invitations and the agenda have been suspended so far, awaiting progress in the bilateral contacts between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, but also because neither the aims nor the framework are clear.
Convened by US President as a reaction to Hamas’ military takeover of the Gaza Strip, the convention was seen at first as a the rallying, in the Middle East, of the good-guys against the bad-guys or, to put it in the words of an editorial in the Israeli Haaretz daily, of the cowboys against the Indians.
The first, obviously, would be the US, Israel, the Palestinians loyal to Abu Mazen, the moderate Arab states – Egypt, Jordan and, notwithstanding the suspicions following 9/11, Saudi Arabia. The bad guys would be Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and, naturally, Iran. However, it became evident early on that on this basis no international summit would be possible.
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When ’Good Men’ do Nothing
Joharah Baker for MIFTAH, MIFTAH 10/24/2007
The events that transpired at the Ketziot Detention Center in the Negev Desert on October 22 sound off more than one alarm bell. The most obvious and most devastating is the fact that a 23-year-old Palestinian political prisoner is now dead and 250 others injured as a result of the violent encounter. But the tragic death of Mohammed Al Ashqar is not the only disturbing factor in this recent event. Once again, Israel, which considers itself above the law [international and otherwise] when dealing with the Palestinians, has carried out one more atrocity against this people with impunity.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, Mohammed Al Ashqar from Tulkarm died after being shot in the head by prison wardens and riot police. Al Ashqar, who was taken to the Soroka Hospital first, was reportedly handcuffed to the bed even though he was in a state of clinical death. He died shortly after.
The riots broke out when prisoners objected to a midnight search by prison authorities. Apparently, an agreement between the two sides stipulates that prison authorities would not carry out late-night raids. That night, it was after two in the morning when the authorities stormed the tents.
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Closed Borders, Closed Future in Gaza
Sami Abu Salem, MIFTAH 10/24/2007
Nine-year-old Najla Rajab, with her two brothers and mother, was among tens of Palestinians demonstrating today in Gaza City, calling for permission to leave Gaza.
Najla said that she wants to travel to Saudi Arabia to see her father and to re-enroll in her school in Jeddah, but she has not been able to since Israel has closed Gaza’s borders for months.
"We came to Gaza to spend the summer vacation. Now we are stranded here; I cannot go back to my school in Saudi Arabia," said Najla.
The mother of Najla, Umm Atta, said that her husband, who works as an engineer, cannot return to Gaza as he has not held a Palestinian ID since the 1967 War (when Israeli occupied Gaza).
In 1967 Israel prevented the re-entry of many Palestinians who left Gaza before the six-day war. Most of them lost their right to come back to Gaza as anything more than visitors.
"If the closure continues for more than two months, my kids and I will lose our right to enter Saudi Arabia again because our visa will have expired," Umm Atta explained.
The Rajab children have not been enrolled in Gaza schools as every day the family has heard in the news that Israel will open the borders next week or in a couple of days, but always their hopes are dashed.
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The Show Goes on ... and on
Ali Abunimah, MIFTAH 10/24/2007
The "Middle East Peace Process" is like one of those big budget Broadway extravaganzas; they go on for years, but with each revival the cast changes. What may seem like a tired production to some nevertheless manages to remain fresh to the gullible throngs willing to hand over the price of admission.
Unlike a few hours of theatrical escapism, however, the producers of the Middle East Peace Process hope that the audience will actually believe that what they are viewing on stage, whether performed in Madrid, Oslo, London, Washington or Sharm al-Sheikh is real-life and even has the potential to end the conflict caused by a century of western-supported Zionist colonization in Palestine.
In the latest revival, Condoleezza Rice plays the US secretary of state determined to bring the long-running conflict to a close with skillful diplomacy designed to put in place a "process" eventually leading to a two-state solution. George Bush, tired of being typecast as a warmonger, tries on the role of lame-duck president who spent years enabling Israeli colonization, but who, with an eye on his legacy, is now committed to peacefully ending the conflict once and for all.
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UCU: Between Boycott and Apartheid
Hammam Farah, MIFTAH 10/24/2007
After passing a motion in May that called for the circulation and debate of the Palestinian call for the academic boycott of Israel, Britain’s University and College Union (UCU)’s strategy and finance committee unanimously accepted a recommendation from its Secretary-General, Sally Hunt, that not only is the call to boycott apparently unlawful under discrimination legislation, but even debates on the issue at the union’s meetings should be silenced "to ensure that the union acts lawfully." Consequently, the union also cancelled a UK speaking tour in which Palestinian academics would discuss the academic boycott of Israel with their counterparts at UK universities.
There is ample reason to doubt the claim that the union and its members are at risk.After months of trepidation over the boycott due to its alleged violation of academic freedom, the irony lies in that the sole violator of academic freedom is the leadership of the UCU.One is forced to question whether they were driven by genuine concern for justice and the importance of the boycott for achieving it, or bitter resentment at their own membership’s democratic decision to discuss the boycott. As Amjad Barham, head of the council of the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, stated, "by muzzling debate and free discussion on the boycott, the [Israeli] lobby and its supporters within the UCU are suppressing academic freedom in the most crude manner." In addition, the opacity of the UCU statement further compounds the perception of hypocrisy felt towards the leadership of the union. The fact that academic unions in the UK are discussing the issue of academic boycott is a big step in the right direction, but it seems like the activists in the UCU will have to continue this uphill battle against apartheid, and we can expect them to keep fighting.
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Peace Conference: New Case for War
Ramzy Baroud, MIFTAH 10/24/2007
The Middle East peace conference proposed by the Bush administration is clearly a smokescreen, aimed at concealing the true intentions of US foreign policy in the region. In the predictable process of rewarding ‘moderate’ allies and chastising ‘extremist’ foes, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will most likely receive the accolades befitting a peacemaker, while his protagonists in Hamas are reprimanded, demonized and further isolated. But the ultimate goal of this charade is not even so much to isolate Hamas, but rather to set in motion events that will further isolate Iran and Syria.
The significance of the anti-Iran campaign already underway in the US should not be missed in light of the conference next month. The media circus demonizing Iran was unleashed a few years ago, when leading neoconservatives, notwithstanding Richard Perle himself, went on accusing President Bush, some of his advisors and military generals of being ‘stupid’ for failing to recognize the threat posed by Iran. However, more recently, and most notably after the failure of the Israeli military adventure in South Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the war drums sounded by the media began to take on a new and deafening volume, reminiscent of that which preceded the US war on Iraq in March 2003. Those who appreciate the symbiotic relationship between the media and the state in the US can understand well that such a campaign is anything but genuine intellectual concern over the state of human rights in Iran, or the outcome of a sudden realization that Iran is impairing US war efforts in Iraq. Considering the level of determination in Washington and Tel Aviv to confront Iran militarily and the media’s decided role in gathering the public support for such a prospect, it is difficult to imagine a peaceful way out of the crisis.
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Making Matters Worse
Yossi Alpher, MIFTAH 10/24/2007
About ten days ago, I made the rounds of the think tanks in Washington, DC, discussing current American/Middle East issues with colleagues. From scholars of the far right to the left, no one believed the Annapolis conference would succeed. The level of cynicism regarding the Bush administration’s motives and capabilities in the Middle East was depressing. Between the lines was a consistent assessment that, in pressing the case for the conference, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was out of her depth.
These dim prospects for the Annapolis conference cannot be separated from earlier and more obvious failures of US policy in the greater Middle East, from Pakistan and Afghanistan via Iran and Iraq to Lebanon, all intertwined with the fiasco of President Bush’s democratization program for the region. In Arab eyes the Annapolis conference--a last-ditch American attempt to deal with an issue, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that has been neglected for seven years--is intimately connected to these other problematic issue areas. The Annapolis project seeks to display an American commitment to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will ensure broader Arab backing for the US position in Iraq and regarding Iran. So far, the Saudis, Egyptians and others are not impressed.
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A Minimum Strategic Goal
Daoud Kuttab, MIFTAH 10/24/2007
In all previous attempts at negotiations with Israel, Palestinians have never made any real breakthrough. Progress has only been made on procedural or superficial issues, even if expectations were always raised unreasonably high, which in turn created exaggerated hopes for the peace process. This has been the case since the Madrid peace conference and was true of the Oslo process. Throughout, the Palestinian position was in permanent retreat and concessions were offered Israel at no cost.
What is true of the past holds true for the present. When US President George W. Bush first announced his intention to convene an international meeting on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Palestinian side was concerned about the lack of any clear agenda for the meeting, as well as the lack of substance and the absence of a list of invitees. The Palestinian side consequently insisted that the meeting should be preceded by agreement between the Palestinian and Israeli sides regarding how and when to tackle final status issues such as borders, Jerusalem and refugees.
Israel resisted this and insisted instead that nothing but a general declaration of principles could come from the meeting--now set to take place in Annapolis some time in late November--and that there could be no talk of specific content or any timetable. Slowly, but irresistibly, the Palestinian position changed. Today, Palestinian officials speak of agreement at the meeting on a general framework that will then be followed by negotiations on final status issues to be concluded no later than six months after the meeting. Indeed, beyond the talk of a six-month timetable, the Palestinian position has become the Israeli one, something that is glossed over with optimistic announcements about that point in the future after the Annapolis meeting.
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Lower Expectations
Ghassan Khatib, MIFTAH 10/24/2007
On one level, the American initiative to convene a peace meeting at Annapolis marks a positive transformation in the American approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But on another, it reflects a continuation of the past.
Until recently, the Bush administration had acquiesced to the unilateral Israeli strategy adopted by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Sharon convinced the American administration that canceling any political efforts and allowing the Israeli military instead the opportunity to pursue unhindered its endeavor to suppress the Palestinians would take care of the problem. The renewed American diplomatic efforts, led by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, thus marks a positive return to a bilateral track that recognizes the Palestinian side as a political partner.
On the other hand, this renewed diplomatic activity also embodies a return to many of the approaches to mediating between the two sides that failed in the past. For one thing, where the US should be representing the international community, once again Washington is instead monopolizing mediation efforts and marginalizing the role of other members of the Quartet, especially Europe and the UN.
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Some Assassination Plot
Amira Hass, MIFTAH 10/24/2007
A dense row of policemen from the Palestinian Presidential Guard is deployed in the streets of Ramallah whenever the entourage of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) passes through, or whenever a high-ranking guest visits him. Judging by the dramatic manner in which the Israeli media dealt two days ago with the "assassination attempt" against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, one might have concluded that the plotters were pulled from among the ranks of the Presidential Guard at the last moment, when they were just about to shoot at Olmert’s car when he was on his way to taste the cooking of Saeb Erekat’s wife.
The dramatic Israeli reports confused the Palestinian spokesmen. Each one gave a different version, which only reinforced the impression that this was a roundup of the usual suspects. For their part, the spokesmen immediately suspected that the Israeli drama was intended to sink the Annapolis summit. As though otherwise it was destined to be a success story.
It’s true that one should never believe official spokespeople, certainly not those of any security service. So we should not automatically believe the details given by the Palestinians: that the three (or five) men were simply discussing an unripe "plan" among themselves, that their intended weapon was a Molotov cocktail, and that they were released after a two-month investigation by the Preventive Security Services, because no sufficient grounds were found to indict them.
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A life cut short
Yassmin Moor writing from Rafah, Gaza Strip, The Electronic Intifada, Electronic Intifada 10/24/2007
The author holding her cousin’s infant son, Eyad.
Five-month-old Eyad is one of the happiest babies I’ve ever met.Barely touch his cheeks and he smiles and giggles; tickle his little belly and he bursts out in laughter, kicking his feet up in the air. When he laughs, it involves his whole body, pushing out this loud giggly sound that’s full of happiness. Eyad doesn’t cry like other babies when he is alone. He just lies there quietly and plays with his hands and feet. But if he sees you, or senses you anywhere near him he starts to laugh again and kick his feet up in the air with excitement so you can play with him. Jamalat, his mother, says his laughter is a blessing from God for it fills her heart with joy and takes away some of her heartbreak and sorrow.
Eyad has never seen his father, and his father has never seen his son, nor will he ever. Jamalat was just five weeks pregnant with Eyad when his father, my cousin, was killed by an Israeli sniper during an incursion into the town of Sufa in the south-east of the Gaza Strip. He had just asked Jamalat to prepare some tea for him and went to sit in front of his house with his then two-year-old daughter Malak. It’s clear that the sniper had every intention of killing him rather than just injuring or disabling him, for he did not shoot him once or twice or in the leg or arm but rather he aimed and shot him three times, in his stomach, his chest and his neck. The stomach wound was deep enough to kill him, but he was shot again in the chest anyway. He fell to the ground and laid there, half alive, hanging between life and death. He was still moving and the blood was running through his veins until the final shot to his neck came minutes later. It eliminated every ounce of life left in him.
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He might have a better chance at Guantanamo
Joseph DeVoir, ZNet 10/23/2007
Palestinians have fallen out of favor with Fatah. The election of Hamas, far from being a mandate for their political program, was a castigation of Fatah’s poor performance and pervasive corruption.
When people hear the words corruption they immediately think of money or patrimony. The financial mismanagement and the doling out of jobs on the basis of who you know rather than what you know is commonplace both in Palestine and around the world. A type of corruption that is often overlooked is what is known as scape-goating or blaming subordinates for one’s own mismanagement.
People don’t always think of this as corruption because unlike mismanaging national finances and labor markets, this type usually only directly affects a small number of people; namely those being scape-goated. For the rest of us it is only a spectacle, a bogus attempt by the government to cover up a catastrophe by placing impossible blame on the shoulders of a few so that the rest can carry on as usual. Scape-goating is a ‘pleasant corruption’; it leaves everyone feeling resolved. more..
Clouded Horizons for Palestine
Adel Safty, ZNet 10/23/2007
The Bush administration, anxious to create some legacy other than the unmitigated fiasco of the Iraq war, is preparing to host a Palestinian-Israeli peace meeting next month in Washington.
But the Bush administration’s interest in peace in the Middle East has been to say the least lukewarm. It will come to the meeting with serious credibility problems that handicap its claim to serve as an honest broker
Bush refused to meet with the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and endorsed the self-serving Israeli claim that the Israelis could not find a serious Palestinian partner for peace.
Furthermore, Bush broke with traditional American foreign policy and accepted the construction of new Israeli settlements (NYT August 21, 04), thus undermining the roadmap, the peace plan accepted by the quartet: the US, Russia, the European Union and the UN.
Worse, the Bush administration clearly endorsed and supplied the Israeli war in Lebanon last year. Washington went out of its way to block the early adoption of a cease-fire resolution at the UN Security Council to give the Israelis more time to achieve their war goals against the unexpectedly tough resistance of Hizbollah. more..
Israel Shaken by Troops’ Tales of Brutality
Palestine Chronicle 10/23/2007
In the words of one soldier: ’The truth? When there is chaos, I like it. That’s when I enjoy it. It’s like a drug. If I don’t go into Rafah, and if there isn’t some kind of riot once in some weeks, I go nuts.’
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By Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem
A study by an Israeli psychologist into the violent behaviour of the country’s soldiers is provoking bitter controversy and has awakened urgent questions about the way the army conducts itself in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Nufar Yishai-Karin, a clinical psychologist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, interviewed 21 Israeli soldiers and heard confessions of frequent brutal assaults against Palestinians, aggravated by poor training and discipline. In her recently published report, co-authored by Professor Yoel Elizur, Yishai-Karin details a series of violent incidents, including the beating of a four-year-old boy by an officer.
The report, although dealing with the experience of soldiers in the 1990s, has triggered an impassioned debate in Israel, where it was published in an abbreviated form in the newspaper Haaretz last month. According to Yishai Karin: ’At one point or another of their service, the majority of the interviewees enjoyed violence. They enjoyed the violence because it broke the routine and they liked the destruction and the chaos. They also enjoyed the feeling of power in the violence and the sense of danger.’
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Controlling Debate on Palestine, Israel
Ramzy Baroud, MIFTAH 10/22/2007
The last time I spoke publicly in the United States before my current tour was nearly four years ago. During this time I had travelled the world, passing my message to people in nearly 20 countries. Wherever I went, my calls for justice for the Palestinian people and for global alternatives to racism and war were well-received, but my latest talks in the US have made me realise that the witch hunt on intellectuals that escalated rapidly since September 11, 2001, is nowhere near over.
Doubtless, the US has long served as a focal site for intellectual freedom, from which groundbreaking ideas have developed and spread throughout the world. And despite incessant attempts to circumvent this historic reality, most Americans still remain committed to their country’s founding principles. It is this commitment that causes those interested in stifling undesirable viewpoints to resort to the most disingenuous tactics, half-truths and downright fabrications.
Norfolk, Virginia, was the first leg of my tour for my last book, “The Second Palestinian Intifada”. Coexisting with the town’s fourteen military bases is an energetic and hugely inspiring anti-war community. To now be able to stand among and share my views on peace and justice with these activists was a truly heartening experience for me.
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While Olmert was Talking
Akiva Eldar, MIFTAH 10/22/2007
Veteran activists of the left who have met Ehud Olmert recently report that the prime minister is determined to pull out from the territories and bring the conflict to an end. They say Olmert recognizes that a failure of the Israeli-Palestinian-American summit in Annapolis means a victory for the extremists of the settlements, Hamas and Iran. They say that were it only up to him, the prime minister would make a deal with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. They claim that were it not for his problematic party and coalition colleagues, he would sign a deal similar to the Clinton proposals and the Geneva Initiative. Nothing less. The threats to tear the coalition apart by Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beiteinu and Eli Yishai of Shas have transformed the prime minister into the darling of the peace camp and a claimant in the media to the title of etrog - a fruit carefully wrapped in cotton wool for protection.
Do we really have a new Olmert before us, or merely an experienced lawyer who knows how to sing the tunes that the judges like to hear? How will we know whether the prime minister is really ready to pay the price of an agreement - quitting 90 percent of the West Bank and dividing Jerusalem - or whether this is part of a survival game by a politician in trouble? As the Americans say, the proof is in the pudding. A leader, like any other mortal, is tested by his actions, not his sweet talk. And several actions by Olmert and his government are not in line with the image being drawn by his partners in Labor and his supporters in Meretz. These actions, along with various failures, not only contradict his peace declarations, but undermine the path to peace.
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Sarkozy: Israel’s greatest ally
Nasser Lahham, Ma’an News Agency 10/23/2007
Bethlehem - Ma’an Editorial by Chief Editor Nasser Lahham – The French President considers the creation of the state of Israel to be the miracle of the twentieth century and one of humanity’s most significant accomplishments. Regardless of the anticipated comments of the Palestinian Ambassador to France, what was said by Israel’s Channel 2 political analysts was horrifying enough for Fatah, Hamas and other Palestinian factions.
Israeli journalist Audi Segal, who accompanied Ehud Olmert on his visit to France, described the trip as "historical" and said that the PM was warmly welcomed. He also said that late President Yasser Arafat would turn in his grave.
The truth is that France remained committed to Palestinian issues into the days of Ariel Sharon and they even opposed him when he besieged Arafat in the presidential compound in Ramallah.
France even held a formal funeral for Arafat befitting of any of the world’s great leaders, and opposed Sharon when he called on French Jews to migrate to Israel in 2004.
However, France has shifted it’s stance under the reign of President Sarkozy, who has become one of Israel’s most intimate friends.
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Gaza’s children deserve life
Rami Almeghari writing from Gaza City, occupied Gaza Strip, Live, Electronic Intifada 10/22/2007
Palestinians ride a ferris wheel at an amusement park at the Shuhada junction in Gaza City. Shuhada junction was an Israeli military outpost prior to their unilateral "withdrawal" from Gaza in 2005. Shuhada junction was also the site where 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura was shot and killed by the Israeli army in September 2000. (Iyad Albaba)
Places of entertainment in Gaza are few and far between compared with other parts of the world. While the atmosphere in Gaza is becoming more depressed and the economy is crumbling, Gaza’s population was nevertheless determined to celebrate the major Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
Sitting in al-Jundi al-Majhoul public garden in central Gaza City are two young children, Mai Sewairej and her brother Sewar. Both are dressed in black and perched on the remains of the wrecked statue of the unkown soldier after which the park is named, destroyed months ago during clashes between the Hamas and Fatah parties.
Mai and Sewar came here to enjoy the Eid holiday in a public place in Gaza. Many other children ran around playing or sitting with their families soaking up the warm Gaza sun.
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Closed borders, closed future in Gaza
Sami Abu Salem writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live, Electronic Intifada 10/22/2007
A young girl demonstrates in Gaza with her Jordanian passport in hand, 22 October 2007. (Sami Abu Salem)
Nine-year-old Najla Rajab, with her two brothers and mother, was among tens of Palestinians demonstrating today in Gaza City, calling for permission to leave Gaza.
Najla said that she wants to travel to Saudi Arabia to see her father and to re-enroll in her school in Jeddah, but she has not been able to since Israel has closed Gaza’s borders for months.
"We came to Gaza to spend the summer vacation. Now we are stranded here; I cannot go back to my school in Saudi Arabia," said Najla.
The mother of Najla, Umm Atta, said that her husband, who works as an engineer, cannot return to Gaza as he has not held a Palestinian ID since the 1967 War (when Israeli occupied Gaza).
In 1967 Israel prevented the re-entry of many Palestinians who left Gaza before the six-day war. Most of them lost their right to come back to Gaza as anything more than visitors.
"If the closure continues for more than two months, my kids and I will lose our right to enter Saudi Arabia again because our visa will have expired," Umm Atta explained.
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Artist Emily Jacir awarded prestigious Golden Lion
Report, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 22, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/22/2007
Emily Jacir accepting the Golden Lion award. (La Biennale di Venezia)
Emily Jacir, who participated in the 52nd La Biennale di Venezia international art exhibition, was awarded last week with the prestigious Golden Lion award.Jacir, whose ongoing installation work "Material for a film" was featured in the 2007 Biennale themed Think with the senses - Feel with the mind, was given the Golden Lion award for an artist under the age of 40.
"The award for an artist under 40 is given for a practice that takes as its subject exile in general and the Palestinian issue in particular.Without recourse to exoticism, the work on display in the central Pavilion at the Giardini establishes and expands a crossover between cinema, archival documentation, narrative and sound," stated the Bieannale’s International Jury.
Jacir’s "Material for a film"
retraces Palestinian cultural figure Wael Zuaiter, who was the first of a series of Palestinian intellectuals and artists who were assassinated by Israeli agents in Europe.Zuaiter was murdered outside of his Rome apartment in 1972.
Jacir has written on her work, "In 1979, Zuaiter’s companion of eight years, Sydney-born artist Janet Venn-Brown published For a Palestinian: A Memorial to Wael Zuaiter. One chapter, titled ’Material for a film’ by Elio Petri and Ugo Pirro, is comprised of a series of interviews conducted with the people who were part of Zuaiter’s life in Italy, including Venn-Brown herself. They were going to make a film, but Petri died shortly afterwards and the film was never realized. This chapter was the point of departure for my project."
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Meet the Lebanese Press: Guess games and plotters
Hicham Safieddine, Electronic Lebanon, Oct 22, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/22/2007
Pro-government politician Walid Jumblatt attends the Beirut funeral of MP Antoine Ghanem, assassinated in a car bombing, 22 September 2007. (
Matthew Cassel
Electronic Lebanon is pleased to introduce Meet the Lebanese Press, a twice-monthly review of what is making the rounds in the Lebanese press and the pundits’ take on it.
The roller coaster of speculations in the Lebanese press about the outcome of shuttle diplomacy among Lebanese politicians and world leaders over the presidential file reached a significant low last week only to climb back into a new high over the weekend.
Following the visits of top officials in the governing coalition of March 14, namely Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt, to Washington (which has replaced Damascus as the "fortune-teller" of the country’s political future) hopes of a compromise were dashed. The visitors reiterated their uncompromising demands for the next president to hail from the March 14 movement. But those hopes were slightly revived following the initiative by the Christian Maronites’ top priest, Patriarch Sfeir. Sfeir summoned the Christian notables of March 14 and the opposition, in separate meetings, to get them to agree on a single candidate to avert a further undermining of Maronite power in Lebanon traditionally represented in the seat of the presidency. This adds a further dimension to the already complicated power game by international and regional players. The March 14 Christians are in an unenviable position. Electing a president with a simple majority is in line with their alliance with the US and the Hariri camp. But it sets a historic precedent that wipes out whatever prestige and credibility that position holds. This is why pressure by the West to derail a compromise has to be strong enough to overcome this dilemma. As Jihad El-Zein argues in Al-Nahar, the Christians torn between two visions of Lebanon may have a pivotal role to play as a broker of a settlement, but as the articles of Talal Salman in As-Safir and Ibrahim El Ameen in Al-Akhbar suggest, that role can only make or break the push for a compromise if the Christians set their ambitions and escalating measures like arming aside, and external players decide that the region is too volatile and it is better to sideline Lebanon at this stage and settle scores in a different place and a different time.
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Saree Makdisi: Academic freedom at risk on campus
Palestine Chronicle 10/19/2007
Our campuses are being poisoned by an atmosphere of surveillance and harassment. However, the disruption of academic freedom has grave implications beyond campus walls.
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By Saree Makdisi
"Academic colleagues, get used to it," warned the pro-Israel activist Martin Kramer in March 2004. "Yes, you are being watched. Those obscure articles in campus newspapers are now available on the Internet, and they will be harvested. Your syllabi, which you’ve also posted, will be scrutinized. Your Web sites will be visited late at night."
Kramer’s warning inaugurated an attack on intellectual freedom in the U.S. that has grown more aggressive in recent months.
This attack, intended to shield Israel from criticism, not only threatens academic privileges on college campuses, it jeopardizes our capacity to evaluate our foreign policy. With a potentially catastrophic clash with Iran on the horizon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict spiraling out of control, Americans urgently need to be able to think clearly about our commitments and intentions in the Middle East. And yet we are being prevented from doing so by a longstanding campaign of intimidation that has terminated careers, stymied debate and shut down dialogue.
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Munir Daair: Expendable Truths
Palestine Chronicle 10/19/2007
Where spin doctors rule, truth is sacrificed, global peace and human life expendable. What remains are the narrow interests of roguish demagogues whose keyhole vision does not extend beyond the length of a bank note.
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By Munir Daair
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
Spin doctors thrive among the ignorant. They know most of us out there are so busy scratching the back of our heads we can’t tell if it’s potato or potatoe.
Check this out.
How many of us are familiar with the second Camp David meeting? The one Bill Clinton played god father signing on his presidential legacy. It’s amazing how the Middle-East has become the legacy building region for US presidents. Remember that nice guy from Georgia, Jimmy Carter and the first Camp David. He recently wrote a very telling book about how Israel is bullying the Palestinians and doesn’t want peace. Pity he didn’t listen during his presidency. Talk about hindsight being 20/20. Now we have another Middle East conference ala Bush and Condi just when they are about to leave office. Assuming Bush is leaving. I still have my doubts.
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Michael Barker: Promoting Humanitarian Imperialism
Palestine Chronicle 10/19/2007
One of the first steps that progressive activists will need to take to advance a truly progressive agenda will involve them gaining a firmer grasp of the historical context to the rise of ‘humanitarian’ interventions worldwide.
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By Michael Barker
PalestineChronicle.com
“People in Need (PIN) is a Czech organization that provides relief aid and development assistance, while working to defend human rights and democratic freedom… PIN is one of the largest organizations of its kind in post-communist Europe, and has administered projects in thirty-seven countries over the past fourteen years.” – People in Need (2007)
Formerly known as the Epicentrum Foundation, People In Need was founded in 1992 by “conflict journalists” and “dissidents and leaders of the Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution”, only changing it name to People in Need (PIN) in 1994 when they began to work in partnership with Czech Public Service Television. For those readers already aware of the ‘democratic’ background of the so-called Velvet Revolution (of 1989), it will come as little surprise to hear that PIN currently works closely with the US’s premier democracy manipulating organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
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Saleh Al-Naami: Treachery for Treatment
Palestine Chronicle 10/19/2007
A report from Gaza on how Israeli security conditions the health of sick Palestinians on their becoming informants.
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By Saleh Al-Naami
His calm demeanour belies the personal tragedy he is living. Journalist Bassam Al-Wahidi, 30, is on the verge of giving in to perpetual darkness. This will happen if he doesn’t have an operation to reposition his retina, an operation that he was supposed to have had last month in a Palestinian hospital in Jerusalem. Although Al-Wahidi, a news presenter on the Voice of the Workers radio station in Gaza, had completed all the necessary administrative procedures required of him to travel to Jerusalem, officers in the Israeli domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, at the Erez Crossing on the northern border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, won’t allow him to cross until he agrees to become an Israeli agent and provide information on the activities, leaders and members of Palestinian resistance movements active in Gaza.
When Al-Wahidi was stopped at Erez, Shin Bet officers insulted him and stripped him completely before taking him to one of the agency’s interrogators. The interrogator, who introduced himself as "Captain", flooded him with questions about Palestinian resistance movements for five and a half hours, demanding he divulge information before being allowed to reach Jerusalem and undergo his operation. The interrogator used all the sticks and carrots that such agencies keep on hand. Al-Wahidi, who belongs to a well-established Gazan family that is closely connected to resistance against the occupation, refused to consider the Shin Bet interrogator’s offers, and belittled his attempts to enlist him as a spy.
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Hamas: Islamic Democracy and National Liberation
Palestine Chronicle 10/19/2007
We in the West must accept that secularism is not going to become a leading political force in the Middle East any time soon, due not least in part as it was brought to the region by colonialists.
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By Sukant Chandan
PalestineChronicle.com
The Hamas election victory in January 2006 has led to an increased interest in the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hitherto little had been understood of Hamas’ history, political and social strategy and tactics. Rather rumors and cheap prejudice against Hamas have been rampant across the political spectrum in the West. Regrettably, progressives in the West have largely dodged the challenges of internationalism and anti-racism in the context of neocolonialism’s racist campaign focused on Muslims and Islam, of which the maligning and criminalisation of Hamas is a component. Democrat-minded and progressive people who challenge the criminalisation of Hamas by the West, in so doing confront the Eurocentric idea that legitimacy is only bestowed upon those that the West consider democratic rather then what the people in the given country have chosen. This article seeks to demonstrate that Hamas’ ideology has as much claim to the values and practices of democracy and human rights as those political movements in the West. The difference is that these values are inspired and rooted in their own religious, cultural and social contexts.
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Jim Miles: Israel/Palestine Question – Book Review
Palestine Chronicle 10/19/2007
While Israel may have the physical institutional underpinnings of democracy, its ethnic logic denies equality and democracy to the Arab citizens.
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By Jim Miles
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
The Israel/Palestine Question – Second Edition. Ed. Ilan Pappe. Routledge, London, 2007.
Ilan Pappe’s highly revised second edition of The Israel/Palestine Question offers the reader a very instructive read on changing historical perspectives about Israel/Palestine within one over-riding theme – land tenure and population control.
Apart from two chapters dealing with women’s issues within Palestinian culture, this main theme – as with most recent revisionist histories of the region – explores the various permutations on the methods and ideas on how to control the land and the indigenous population, its settlement patterns, the control of resources and people, and the expulsion or marginalization of the Palestinian population within Israel. In consideration of the upcoming ‘conference’ or ‘peace talks’ to be arranged by the Americans, and Condaleeza Rice’s ignorant warnings to the Israelis about not seizing land in East Jerusalem, this volume should be considered “required reading” for all American participants. One must ask Ms Rice, “What about the other millions of dunums of land already seized?” The past continues on.
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Rice Heads to London after ’Progress’ with Israelis, Palestinians
MIFTAH, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
US President George Bush announced this morning that he would be sending national security advisor Steven Hadley to the Middle East to help push along Israeli-Palestinian efforts prior to the scheduled Annapolis summit in November. The announcement comes after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spent the last four days in talks with Palestinian, Israeli and Egyptian officials before traveling to London this morning for discussions with King Abdullah of Jordan.
En route to London, Rice expressed optimism that the upcoming summit would be a success, saying both sides were very serious about the issues at hand. The summit, sponsored by the United States, will supposedly launch formal peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Following a working dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on October 17, the latter announced that core issues such as Jerusalem, refugees and permanent borders would be part of the joint statement presented at the peace conference, but that no solutions would be proposed for these issues.
The announcement is considered a tiny achievement given that Olmert previously refused to include any final status issues in the joint statement. However, one Palestinian demand was still rejected, which is their insistence on a timetable for negotiations. In a meeting in Ramallah, Rice informed President Abbas that Israel would not commit to any timetable.
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Academic Freedom at Risk on Campus
Saree Makdisi, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
"Academic colleagues, get used to it," warned the pro-Israel activist Martin Kramer in March 2004. "Yes, you are being watched. Those obscure articles in campus newspapers are now available on the Internet, and they will be harvested. Your syllabi, which you’ve also posted, will be scrutinized. Your Web sites will be visited late at night."
Kramer’s warning inaugurated an attack on intellectual freedom in the U.S. that has grown more aggressive in recent months.
This attack, intended to shield Israel from criticism, not only threatens academic privileges on college campuses, it jeopardizes our capacity to evaluate our foreign policy. With a potentially catastrophic clash with Iran on the horizon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict spiraling out of control, Americans urgently need to be able to think clearly about our commitments and intentions in the Middle East. And yet we are being prevented from doing so by a longstanding campaign of intimidation that has terminated careers, stymied debate and shut down dialogue.
Over the past few years, Israel’s U.S. defenders have stepped up their campaign by establishing a network of institutions (such as Campus Watch, Stand With Us, the David Project, the Israel on Campus Coalition, and the disingenuously named Scholars for Peace in the Middle East) dedicated to the task of monitoring our campuses and bringing pressure to bear on those critical of Israeli policies. By orchestrating letter-writing and petitioning campaigns, falsely raising fears of anti-Semitism, mobilizing often grossly distorted media coverage and recruiting local and national politicians to their cause, they have severely disrupted academic processes, the free function of which once made American universities the envy of the world.
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One Mistake in the Fall
Shmuel Rosner, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
We can start from the end: It was a mistake. Not necessarily the decision to convene an Israeli-Palestinian peace summit in Annapolis or a "meeting," as the Americans insist on calling the event, but the early announcement of the planned timetable.
Whoever promised to hold the meeting in the fall will be forced to accept one of three possibilities, or perhaps a combination thereof: a postponement or cancellation, which will be interpreted as a failure; convening a meeting that is not ready, which means failure; and giving in to external pressures, which will lead to failure. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a mistake, and also tripped up President George W. Bush, when she dragged him into accepting this timetable.
On her way to Tel Aviv, Rice told the journalists accompanying her: "I tend to be, myself, rather suspicious of timetables in almost anything in diplomacy."
On Tuesday she said: "I understand as well as anybody that there are risks to announcing a meeting and then doing the hard work."
These are lessons that she should have taken to heart, but like many before her, Rice failed by demonstrating the arrogance of the mediator - the absurd assumption that all that is lacking in order to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict is the charismatic presence of an experienced diplomat.
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Id Al-Fitr Lost Amid Gaza Strip Closure
Amira Hass, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
UNRWA, the UN organization that helps Palestinian refugees, was unable to keep its promise to give students at its schools in the Gaza Strip NIS 100 each with which to buy clothes for the Id al-Fitr holiday. Why? Because Israel would not allow it to bring the cash into the strip.
The hermetic closure of Gaza over the last four months has also left its mark on the currency still circulating: The notes are ragged and torn, a visible reminder of the severance of commercial ties between Gazan farmers and manufacturers and their external markets. Only basic necessities are allowed into the strip.
Buying new clothes for Id al-Fitr, which ends the month of Ramadan, is a long-standing tradition to which Gaza children look forward every year. Even during Gaza’s most difficult periods, the tradition of buying new clothes for the holiday continued. Other traditions, like family trips to Israel, lapsed long ago: It has been 16 years since Gazans were last allowed to leave the strip whenever they pleased.
But even those who had money to buy new clothes for the holiday went home disappointed, after discovering that there are no new clothes appropriate for the fall/winter season. That is because Israel has not allowed the necessary raw materials, such as cloth and thread, to enter Gaza. It is no wonder that some shopkeepers have decided to liquidate their businesses.
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A Mountain to Climb
Arab News - Editorial, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
The Palestinians have longed for a state for nearly 60 years. Arabs and Muslims have also wanted one. So has most of the world. And now suddenly, so do the Americans. At least that is what they say. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that it is time to establish a Palestinian state and that it is not only in the interest of Palestinians and Israelis, but in US interest as well.
This is a remarkable turnaround given that the US has for years been the principal opponent (apart from the Israelis themselves) of Palestinian independence. It almost sounds too good to be true. That is the view in the Arab world where Rice commands little or no trust. They know how decisive has been the malign influence Washington has had for more than half a century on the core Middle East issue. Perhaps, experience elsewhere in the Middle East has forced Washington to realize that Israel’s way is not the right way to protect American interests in the region.
Rice is, of course, quite right that a Palestinian state is in US interest. Middle East pundits have been trying to tell the Americans this for years. The absence of such a state and American appeasement of the Israelis as they heaped oppression upon the Palestinians have been the major source of anti-US sentiments in the region and the wider Muslim world.
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A US Peace Rabbit that is Likely to Fail
Rami Khouri, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
What does it mean when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says it is time to establish a Palestinian state within a year, for the sake of Palestinian, Israeli and US national interests, and that, "We are not going to tire until I have given my last ounce of energy and my last moment in office" to working for a two-state solution?
There is an unreal yet intriguing quality to America’s newfound enthusiasm for an instant Palestinian state. That is a welcomed goal - if it is sincere. Rice’s first big problem is that few people in the Middle East believe the United States is sincere, because every aspect of Washington’s policies during the past seven years has flatly contradicted everything President George W. Bush and Rice have stated rhetorically about their commitment to creating a Palestinian state.
They seem not to realize that they are now finally paying the price for years of disdain and neglect of Palestinian and Arab rights, in favor of supporting Israeli positions. The US haughtily gambled on getting away with nice words that gravely contradict its destructive policies on the ground. Consequently, most in the Middle East no longer believe the US, respect its policies, or fear its power. Anyone who cares to live in the real world can observe this in the defiant behavior of Iran, Syria, Turkey, Hizbullah, Hamas and many other states or popular mass movements that probably comprise 75 percent of the people of this region.
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Jerusalem is Ours, Warns Likud
Donald Macintyre, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
The right wing Israeli opposition party Likud led by Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday warned the government against compromising on the status of Jerusalem in current talks with Palestinian negotiators.
Zalman Shoval, head of the foreign affairs department of Likud, said yesterday that the issue of Jerusalem should "not be on the table in any way" at the planned international conference in Annapolis, Maryland later in the yea—the basis of which he sharply criticized.
Mr Shoval was speaking after a report in Haaretz that the party was pressing two right wing parties Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu to leave the governing coalition in response to Wednesday’s remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - interpreted as implying the city could be divided in any final deal with the Palestinians.
In sharp contrast Yossi Beilin, leader of the left wing Meretz said last night: "Mr Olmert knows very well that at the end of the day, and that is not too far away—the division of Jerusalem is a must. You will not have peace without a division and I think he’s well aware of it."
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Rice Rules out Timetable for Middle East Talks
United Press International, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in the West Bank a timetable is not necessary for a permanent accord between Israel and the Palestinians.
Rice said after a series of meetings in Ramallah that a timetable is not necessary as a precondition for November peace talks in Annapolis, Md., Ynetnews reported Tuesday.
"I am not certain that a timetable that says we have to complete X by Y time is where we want to go," Rice said. She said Washington wants to create movement toward peace by setting a start date for the talks, but no agreement has yet been reached.
The secretary said the joint document planned to be the basis for the talks needs to be "serious and substantive and deal with core issues."
However, she said the document does not need to be very specific in order to meet her qualifications.
"Everybody understands that if the document deals with the creation of a Palestinian state, it’s dealing with core issues," Rice said.
Source: United Press International, 16 October. 2007
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Palestinians Launch First Census in a Decade
Rebecca Harrison, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
Palestinians launched their first census in a decade on Wednesday, visiting thousands of homes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the hope of boosting their bid for an independent state.
About 1,000 officials spread out across towns in Palestinian territories, drawing blue and red numbers on homes and offices ahead of a head count in December. The colorful markings will be used later to help count communities more easily.
Palestinian officials hope the first census since 1997 will lay the ground for a future independent state and bolster their position in peace talks with Israel.
"I’m sure this census will help us in our negotiations," Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said. "We speak about institution building for an independent state, and this is a basic ingredient."
Palestinians say the census will help them develop a governing strategy and give them specific data to outline needs in terms of schools, hospitals, roads and other services. They also say it can boost their case for territorial demands in negotiations with Israel.
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Rice Draws on ’Spiritual Passion’ in Push for Peace
The Washington Post - Editorial, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice broke away from her diplomatic meetings here to sit down with the top religious leaders -- Christian, Jewish and Muslim -- of this holy city Monday night. According to people present, she heard about the failure of Israeli authorities to recognize the Greek Orthodox patriarch, a top Muslim cleric’s lack of access to Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque and other complaints.
Rice responded by recalling her upbringing in segregated Birmingham, Ala. "She spoke with a spiritual passion about the need for peace and overcoming pain and grievance," Rabbi David Rosen said. "She said to us, ’You all have your legitimate grievances, but there’s a moment in history for an inexorable change.’ And she believes this is the time for the Israeli and Palestinian conflict to end."
In its final months, the Bush administration has pushed Middle East peace to the top of the White House agenda, with President Bush and his close confidante seeking to improve a foreign policy legacy that will otherwise center on the Iraq war.
"She realizes that her legacy right now is really very poor," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser and a strong critic of the Bush administration. "If she can pull this off, she will be seen as a real historical figure."
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Egypt Helps Bolster Prospect of Peace Talks
Steven Lee Myers, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
Egypt expressed unusually strong support on Tuesday for the Bush administration’s efforts to hold an international conference this fall to begin negotiating peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Egypt’s leaders, including President Hosni Mubarak, have criticized aspects of the effort, but after meetings here with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said he believed that the administration was determined to have meaningful talks.
A day before he had said the conference should be postponed if the issues on the table were not substantive.
“What the secretary has told us today is encouraging,” Mr. Abul Gheit said at a news conference with Ms. Rice. “It gives us a lot of confidence in what she is doing.”
American officials consider the support of neighboring states, particularly Egypt and Jordan, essential to ensuring that the Israelis and Palestinians reach whatever compromises are necessary to end their conflict and establish a Palestinian state.
On her third day of talks Ms. Rice is trying to lay the foundation for an international conference to be held in Annapolis, Md.
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Hamas Softening Throws Twist in Talks
Ilene Prusher, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
Hamas, the Palestinian movement that months ago battled rival Fatah for control of Gaza, is now beginning to wield a more conciliatory weapon: messages of moderation.
A spokesman for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, deposed as Palestinian prime minister after militant Islamists staged a coup in June, said Tuesday that Hamas does not oppose peace talks with Israel.
Such statements from Mr. Haniyeh’s group in Gaza come at a fragile moment for Israeli-Palestinian relations. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been shuttling between Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Cairo to build support for a hoped-for Middle East peace summit sponsored by the Bush administration.
The US and Israel had been banking on the fact that they wouldn’t have to factor in Hamas, which both call a terrorist group, in the new push for progress.
Instead, they could focus on working with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, whom both sides consider a moderate, since the government uniting the rival factions fell apart after the Gaza coup.
But Ghazi Hamad’s comments Tuesday throw an interesting twist into the rush for talks expected for November, a push already being resisted by Arab states. The spokesman for Haniyeh told reporters that holding discussions with Israel – which Fatah is now doing at an increased clip – was not objectionable on Islamic grounds. "The principle of negotiating with the enemy is not legally and religiously rejected."
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Gop Candidates: Protect Israel
Libby Quaid, MIFTAH 10/18/2007
Israel’s security must be safeguarded in the coming talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, GOP presidential contenders told the Republican Jewish Coalition on Tuesday.
Palestinians must acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and make a good-faith effort to stop terrorism, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said.
"We would like to have peace," Giuliani said. "We don’t want to have a peace in which Americans and Israelis are getting killed. And we certainly don’t want to create another terrorist-supporting state. We have too many of them already."
Noting that Gaza became a launching ground for attacks after Israel withdrew in 2005, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said, "A thousand-plus rockets being launched from the Gaza strip shows the best intentions can result in something far less."
The candidates who spoke to the gathering at a downtown Washington hotel — including Arizona Sen. John McCain, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and Sen. Sam Brownback — all expressed strong support for Israel, describing policies that for the most part resemble the Bush administration’s.
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A Moment of Opportunity
George Rishmawi, International Middle East Media Center 10/18/2007
I was struck this morning with a headline saying “Rice sees moment of opportunity†to forge peace.
Such headline makes me wonder, whether the US Secretary of State is shortsighted, or she intentionally wants people to be shortsighted.
What is the moment of opportunity she is talking about, while Israel continue to expand and build more settlements in the occupied West Bank which has never stopped since 1967 despite of the different agreements and in fact intensified after the Oslo agreement was made.
These settlements are built on daily basis on the land of the West Bank which is occupied by the military power of Israel. The West Bank land, the potential area where a future Palestinian state can be built, has now shrunk to half because of these settlements and the Wall which Israel started to built in 2002.
If the construction of the wall and settlements continue as planned, the Palestinian state will never be established, because one can not establish a state on tiny pieces of land, almost completely separate from each other, and totally confined inside another country. more..
Concert cancellation victory against normalization
Press Release, PACBI, Oct 18, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/18/2007
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and all its partners, individuals and organizations active in art, culture and human rights, regard the cancellation of the Jericho-Tel Aviv event, planned by "One Voice" to take place on 18 October, as a substantial accomplishment for the Palestinian boycott movement. A solid partnership between diverse civil society organizations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has succeeded in thwarting the event’s organizers’ attempt to mislead public opinion and to use deceptive slogans to market a political program that concedes some fundamental Palestinian rights. Without the broad grassroots support among Palestinian and Arab institutions and leading figures for the
statement calling for boycotting the event
, the organizers would not have been compelled to cancel this huge production handsomely funded by dubious foreign sources.
PACBI and its partners wish to express their gratitude to all the artists and arts groups that withdrew from the festival after learning the truth about the organizing group’s political program. In particular, we thank Jamil as-Sayeh, Ilham Madfa’i, DAM and Asayel. We also thank everyone who helped spread the word and raise awareness about the event and its sponsors.
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Academic freedom at risk on campus
Saree Makdisi, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 18, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/18/2007
Defending Israel at the expense of the Palestinians: Israeli soldiers search Palestinian paramedics during a military operation in the West Bank city of Nablus, 16 October 2007. (Rami Swidan/
MaanImages
"Academic colleagues, get used to it," warned the pro-Israel activist Martin Kramer in March 2004. "Yes, you are being watched. Those obscure articles in campus newspapers are now available on the Internet, and they will be harvested. Your syllabi, which you’ve also posted, will be scrutinized. Your Web sites will be visited late at night."
Kramer’s warning inaugurated an attack on intellectual freedom in the US that has grown more aggressive in recent months.
This attack, intended to shield Israel from criticism, not only threatens academic privileges on college campuses, it jeopardizes our capacity to evaluate our foreign policy. With a potentially catastrophic clash with Iran on the horizon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict spiraling out of control, Americans urgently need to be able to think clearly about our commitments and intentions in the Middle East. And yet we are being prevented from doing so by a longstanding campaign of intimidation that has terminated careers, stymied debate and shut down dialogue.
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Illegal discrimination against Palestinians in Lebanon
Report, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 18, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/18/2007
Lebanese soldiers checking papers and searching vehicles of Palestinians attempting to re-enter Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. (Hugh Macleod/IRIN)
BEIRUT, 17 October 2007 (IRIN) - The Lebanese government’s practices against Palestinian refugees continue to breach the country’s obligations under international human rights law and should be repealed immediately, according to a report released here on 17 October by Amnesty International (AI).
"The continuing restrictions which deny Palestinian refugees access to their rights to work, education and adequate housing and health are wholly unjustified and should be lifted without further procrastination or delay," the report by the London-based international human rights group said.
Lebanon has the highest percentage of all Palestinian refugees living in abject poverty, according to the UN’s Palestinian relief organization, UNRWA. According to the AI report, disgraceful living conditions, continued restrictions on employment and lack of access to social services 60 years after their parents were driven from Palestine by the creation of the state of Israel, has left Lebanon’s 400,000 officially registered refugees facing a daily struggle for survival.
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Audio: Crossing the Line interviews Nadia Hijab
Podcast, Crossing the Line, Oct 18, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/18/2007
This week on Crossing The Line: With the looming November peace conference almost here, many see the event as nothing more than a mere photo-op for the leaders of those countries who have been invited to take part. The US government’s role in supporting the Israeli occupation is not a secret, as the US gives billions in unconditional aid to Israel each year. But has this always been the case? Host Christopher Brown speaks with Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies about why, when and how the US stood up in the past to the Israeli juggernaut.
Next, Jerome McDonnell, host of Worldview on Chicago Public Radio, speaks with professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about their controversial paper that is seen as very critical of the pro-Zionist lobby AIPAC. Since its publication in the London Review of Books, neo-conservative and Zionist supporters of Israel have labeled both men as anti-Semitic. Today we’ll hear part one of this two-part interview.
As always, Crossing the Line begins with "This week in Palestine," a service provided by
The International Middle East Media Center
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Israel’s rising right wing
Gregory Levey, ZNet 10/18/2007
Together, an enigmatic billionaire and a resurgent Bibi Netanyahu could put Israel on the war path. Dick Cheney, AIPAC and Iran are all watching closely.
One of this year’s nominees for Israeli TV’s "Man of the Year in Politics" award doesn’t speak Hebrew. He has vast wealth and a shady past. He was once a circus worker. He isn’t even a politician, at least not yet.
But over the past several years Arcadi Gaydamak, an enigmatic Russian-Israeli billionaire, has managed to become a widely influential figure in Israel. And he is now at the center of a right-wing political alliance -- featuring Israeli uber-hawk Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu -- that could dramatically influence the country’s direction. If the rising alliance takes power in the next election, it could push Israel toward military confrontations with Iran, Syria or Hezbollah, while extinguishing any remaining flickers of hope in Israel’s peace camp regarding the Palestinians. Gaydamak has recently been consolidating his influence as a power broker in Israeli politics. He has used his wealth to gain popularity through social and business initiatives, while deftly exploiting the widespread perception of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government as corrupt and incompetent, particularly during last year’s disastrous war in Lebanon. With his financial capital and cunning political tactics, Gaydamak is like a cross between George Soros and Karl Rove, with a streak of Russian oligarchy at his core. more..
Israel Has Turned The Gaza Strip Into A Zoo
Amira Hass, ZNet 10/16/2007
A zoo. This is one of the ways that Palestinians describe the conditions under which nearly 1.5 million of them have been living: in an area of some 360 square kilometers, closed in on three sides by sophisticated barbed-wire fences, concrete walls and military lookout towers, and to the west by Israeli navy ships that seal them off from the sea. Overhead, in the sky, unmanned aircraft and hot air balloons continually photograph whatever happens inside this closed cage, which has seven gates connecting it to the world, all of which are sealed off almost hermetically.
During the past four months, Israel has permitted about 2,000 people to leave the Gaza Strip - a minority of them were ill; more than half were Fatah senior activists or loyalists who were fleeing from the Strip; and the rest were individuals holding dual citizenship or visas for prolonged stays abroad. For the sake of comparison: In 1999, 1,400 people a day went through the Rafah crossing point alone, in addition to the thousands who passed though the Erez crossing point, despite the permanent closure policy. Now, 1.5 million human beings are living with the knowledge that the length of their world is at most 41 kilometers long and 12 kilometers wide. more..
Is Shalit Really that Important to Israel?
Joharah Baker for MIFTAH, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
Ever since the kidnapping of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit in June 1996, the young soldier’s name has ebbed and flowed in the media and in Israeli and Palestinian political discourse. At times, Shalit’s name was splashed across headlines for days, at others, months went by without the mere mention of him.
The sheer inconsistency of Israel’s so-called insistence on Shalit’s safety, brings into question his government’s real priorities regarding its captured soldiers. Recently, high ranking Israeli officials have expressed their concern over the hanging fate of Shalit. One unnamed official reportedly stated to the Hebrew daily Maariv that he was now concerned that Shalit would eventually share the fate of Ron Arad, an Israeli pilot who was captured in Lebanon in 1986. Attempts to release him though negotiations with Lebanese resistance groups have repeatedly failed and while there has been much speculation over the years about Arad’s death, there is still no proof.
In July 2006, two other Israeli soldiers were taken hostage by Hizbullah on the Lebanese-Israeli border. The two soldiers - Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser - are yet to be located.
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A Prelude of Niceties
Akiva Eldar, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
Ahead of Annapolis, Olmert and Abbas have agreed to disagree, while Bush is promising ’real results’ Israelis and Palestinians who have met with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in recent days and have spoken with her staff have gained the impression that she does not really know what on earth her boss wants from her. It isn’t that Dr. Rice has a hearing problem. Her problem is that United States President George W. Bush has apparently not yet decided what exactly he wants to achieve at the Annapolis peace conference.
His answers depend on who he is speaking to and on the day of the week. An Arab diplomat serving in Washington, who happened upon Bush, asked him what he expected to take place at the conference planned for next month. "Oh, I promise you that it’s going to be a very nice event," Bush replied. By way of contrast, Palestinian Author ity Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been telling his buddies that he emerged thoroughly delighted from his encounter with the American president at the United Nations General Assembly meeting held at the end of September. Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala), the head of the Palestinian peace team, reports that Bush told Abbas he was fed up and is insisting on the conference producing "real results."
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Rice’s Visit / In the Shadow of Mlk
Aluf Benn, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
When Condoleezza Rice talks about the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel, she sees in her mind’s eye the struggle of African Americans for equal rights, which culminated in the period of her Alabama childhood.
Rice is very aware of political sensitivity, and avoids making such comparisons in public speeches and interviews, where she keeps to the official list of talking points. But in private, she talks about the
One can guess that the settlements, the checkpoints and the separation fences created by Israel on the West Bank bring back unpleasant memories of Jim Crow racial separation in the South. Her empathy for the suffering of the Palestinians under occupation goes beyond the strict interests of the administration in promoting the status of the United States in the Middle East and has the touch of her personal experience.
Rice was one year old when Rosa Parks, a heroine of the struggle for equal rights in the U.S., refused to yield her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. This was in Montgomery, Alabama, a 90-minute ride from Titusville, the Birmingham suburb where the future secretary of state was raised. Rosa Parks’ "No" catalyzed the struggle against Jim Crow and brought to greatness a young minister who had recently become co-pastor of Birmingham’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King, Jr.
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No High Hopes for Annapolis
Tamar Hermann, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
Some two-thirds of the Jewish public think that from Israel’s standpoint it is impossible to go on indefinitely with the current state of relations between Israel and the Palestinians. A similar amount of Jewish citizens think that among the most urgent issues on Israel’s agenda is the government’s attempt to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Yet a large majority of this public does not believe that the Annapolis conference will significantly advance the chances of reaching a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace, or even achieve a basic clarification of the differences between the two sides. Given these low expectations, it is no surprise that only a small minority reports steadily following the preparations for the conference.
The low level of expectations for the conference is undoubtedly linked to the belief that there is a wide gap between the two sides’ positions. A considerable majority of the Jewish public opposes transferring Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians so they can serve as the capital of Palestine, even if such a transfer comes in exchange for a permanent peace agreement. And with regard to the refugee issue, there is a wide, across-the-board consensus that Israel should not agree to the return of a single refugee to Israel itself. The survey also found that among the Jewish public, there are more opponents than supporters of handing the United States the arbitrating authority to determine what concessions each side should make to enable reaching an agreement - that is, should the talks reach a dead end.
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US ’Wants Palestinian State Now’
BBC News, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
The US secretary of state has said it is time for a Palestinian state to be founded, and that the US will put its full weight behind such efforts.
Condoleezza Rice said reaching a two-state solution was a priority for her and US President George Bush.
Ms Rice was speaking from the West Bank, where she has been trying to get agreement for a peace summit in the US.
Meanwhile the Israeli PM has hinted he may consider giving up Palestinian districts in Jerusalem in a peace deal.
Ehud Olmert told parliament "legitimate questions" could be asked about the Israeli annexing of outlying Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem following the 1967 war.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state of Palestine, and the issue is one of the most sensitive and intractable of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
’It is time’
"Frankly it is time for the establishment of a Palestinian state," Ms Rice told reporters in a news conference which she held with the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
She said the US regarded a two-state solution "as absolutely essential for the future, not just of Palestinians and Israelis but also for the Middle East and indeed for American interests".
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US Presses Palestinians and Israel to Find Common Ground
Ian Black, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
The US yesterday urged Israel and the Palestinians to work to overcome their differences before an international conference next month even as a top UN expert lambasted the "Quartet" of Middle East peacemakers for failing to promote Palestinian rights.
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, travelled to the West Bank town of Ramallah to try to persuade the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to narrow gaps with Israel on a "declaration of principles" for the conference, provisionally scheduled to be held in Annapolis, Maryland, sometime next month.
Earlier she held talks with the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who generated headlines by signalling that outlying Arab areas of Jerusalem could be surrendered in an agreement with Mr Abbas.
Until recently, the question of dividing Jerusalem - annexed after the 1967 war - was a taboo in Israeli politics, and it remains hugely divisive. There were "legitimate questions" about some of these suburbs, he said. But the issue of the city’s holy sites has yet to be tackled.
"Frankly it is time for the establishment of a Palestinian state," Ms Rice said. "The US sees the establishment of a Palestinian state, a two-state solution, as absolutely essential to the future... We have got quite a long time to go but we are not going to tire until I have given my last ounce of energy and my last moment in office."
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Another Mideast Envoy Fed Up with Quartet
Haider Rizvi, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
The United Nations has come under strong criticism from one of its own top human rights officials for failing to take effective action to check the ongoing Israeli abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Expressing his anger and frustration at the fast-deteriorating human rights situation in Gaza and the West Bank, John Dugard, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights for the Palestinian territories since 2001, has suggested that the world body quit the Middle East Quartet.
The U.N. "does itself little good by remaining a member of the Quartet," he said in an interview with the BBC Monday, adding that the Quartet has done nothing to protect Palestinian civilians.
"Every time I visit, the situation seems to have worsened," he said. "This time I was very struck by the sense of hopelessness among the Palestinian people."
Dugard is the second prominent U.N. envoy to denounce the Quartet as ineffective. On the eve of his retirement in June this year, and after 25 long years with the world body, Under-Secretary-General Alvaro de Soto also blasted the United Nations in a 52-page confidential report, accusing the world body of undermining the goal of a Palestinian state.
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How About a Peace Lobby?
Daniel Levy, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
After seven lean years, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are back on the agenda for a planned summit meeting next month in Annapolis, Maryland. Intriguingly, the return of the peace process coincides with an unusual public debate taking place in America regarding the U.S.-Israel relationship following the attention received by a book about the Israel lobby.
The debate triggered by the authors, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, has understandably touched on raw emotions and too often degenerated into name-calling. But it has also aired a rather important question: Is the special relationship as currently pursued actually healthy for either Israel or America?
Addressing that challenge and achieving a constructive outcome in Annapolis are two sides of the same coin. Of course the Palestinians too will have a say in how things unfold, but the undeniable asymmetry between occupier and occupied places the onus on the former, and its enabler.
On the Israel side, the relationship delivers the very dubious luxury of misbehavior without consequences. It also denies Israel’s leaders an external impetus and excuse for taking necessary, if unpopular steps.
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Rice Seeks to Marginalize Hamas
Ashraf Khalil, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday expressed hope that a successfully negotiated vision of a Palestinian state would marginalize the militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
"There will have to come a time when the Palestinian people will have to decide whether the prospect of that state is in their interest, and I think they will decide that it is," Rice said after meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. "But people are going to have to accept that it means accepting the existence of Israel and the right of Israel to exist."
Rice met with Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah as part of several days of meetings building toward a proposed peace conference next month in Annapolis, Md.
She repeatedly called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. But Rice made it clear that Hamas, the Islamist movement that won Palestinian parliamentary elections last year and calls for Israel’s destruction, would have no role in the upcoming negotiations.
"We’ve been very clear what the criteria are for involvement in this process," she said. "If you’re going to have a two-state solution, you have to accept the right of the other party to exist. If you’re going to have a two-state solution that is born of negotiation, you’re going to have to renounce violence."
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The Israeli Right has a Peace Plan
Ran Hacohen, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
While the world holds its breath in anticipation of the Mideast Summit in Annapolis – which, no doubt, will constitute a historic landmark, giving a most significant boost to the economy of that small town in Maryland – the Israeli right wing comes up with a new peace initiative, launched by MK Benny Elon, chairman of the National Union and the Moledet Party, as "The Israeli Initiative," "a new way of thinking about the conflict, in learning from our mistakes, and in rereading the regional map toward a revitalized and genuine quest to achieve The Right Road to Peace." Elon also praises his plan in the media as being "beyond Left and Right." And it has already been endorsed by U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback.
Listen to the Right
It’s important to monitor the Israeli far Right. The settlers’ ideology is usually shared by the Israeli military, and the military is the central political agent in Israel, much more important than any short-lived government or prime minister. This is why plans, demands, and suggestions of the Israeli far Right, no matter how lunatic they sound when launched, are often the best prediction for future reality, which usually lags just a few years behind.
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Rice Pushes Mideast Parties on Plan to Revive Peace Talks
Michael Abramowitz, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Israelis and Palestinians on Monday to compromise on a plan to jump-start peace negotiations, describing the ending of their long conflict as one of the top goals of President Bush in the 15 months he has left in office.
A day after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Rice traveled here to meet with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, who urged Rice to lean on Israel to address a variety of grievances and lay out a detailed plan to resolve the status of Palestinian refugees, the future of Jerusalem and other elements of the conflict.
When she emerged for a joint news conference after meeting with Abbas for nearly three hours, Rice reiterated her past admonition that both parties should avoid steps that "undermine confidence." But she voiced confidence that the international peace conference Bush has called for this fall would be both serious and substantive.
"Frankly, we have better things to do than invite people to Annapolis for a photo op," Rice said, officially confirming for the first time the badly kept secret that the conference is to be held in Maryland. "I hope you understand," she added, "that the president has decided to make this one of the highest priorities of his administration and of his time in office. It means that he is absolutely serious about moving this issue forward and moving it as rapidly as possible to conclusion."
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Rice Hints at Timing of Mideast Talks
Steven Lee Myers, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
It has officially been a secret of American diplomacy, if not a particularly well-kept one: the time and place of the international conference called by President Bush to begin negotiating peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday lifted the secrecy and, perhaps, nudged the process forward.
“We have better things to do than invite people to Annapolis for a photo op,” Ms. Rice said after meeting with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah, referring to the capital of Maryland and home of the United States Naval Academy.
Ms. Rice also let slip the words “November document,” setting a deadline of sorts for the Israelis and Palestinians to agree on a written document to serve as the basis for the peace talks. The conference is expected to begin Nov. 26, Israeli officials said.
With time running out on his tenure, President Bush has called for an international conference to be held in the United States this fall as part of a renewed push to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, trying to leave a legacy that has enticed and eluded his predecessors.
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Mideast Summit Faces Huge Challenges
Steven Gutkin, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
Israel keeps building settlements, Islamic militants are in control in Gaza and both the Israelis and the Palestinians have politically vulnerable leaders. All that will make it difficult to implement an agreement even if the two sides agree on a path to peace at a summit next month.
Weighing heavily on the U.S.-brokered summit is memory. Everyone remembers the steep price paid for the failure of the last round of peacemaking in 2001: thousands killed in years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting that broke out months after the talks fell apart.
This time, all the key players are eager to find something to show for themselves: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his showdown with the militants of Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to save himself from the debacle of last year’s war in Lebanon and President Bush to offset his troubles in Iraq.
Olmert told a parliamentary committee last week that if Israel can’t make peace with the Palestinians’ current moderate leadership _ President Abbas and U.S.-educated Prime Minister Salam Fayyad _ it won’t be able to do it with anyone.
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What A ’Safe’ Cluster Bomb Did
Rebecca Murray, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 17, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/17/2007
TYRE, Lebanon, 15 October (IPS) - The explosion ripped through the tiny garden in rural south Lebanon, hurling Naemah Ghazi to the ground. The shrapnel from the bomb sliced through her legs, and she rapidly lost consciousness. "There was a lot of blood," her mother Khadija recalls. "All her body was bleeding."
Naemah, 48, lived quietly with her mother in the border town Blida since her father passed away nearly 30 years ago. She was still a teenager when she gave up a future of marriage and kids to take care of her mother full time.
On the morning of 11 September, Naemah was out picking vegetables for the evening meal when the bomb -- an Israeli-made M85 cluster munition with a ’self-destruct’ mechanism, buried a mere ten metres from her back door -- exploded under her feet.
Naemah was rushed to Sidon’s Labib Medical Centre two hours drive away. The doctors amputated her right leg just below the knee, but saved the other within a construct of metal rods.
A month later, Naemah is still in the hospital; small and frail on her white metal bed. She is on painkillers and antibiotics, and has become depressed, says hospital supervisor, Shadi Hanouni. The wounds on her left leg are infected, and nurses change her dressings every five hours.
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The show goes on ... and on
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 17, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/17/2007
The "Middle East Peace Process" is like one of those big budget Broadway extravaganzas; they go on for years, but with each revival the cast changes. What may seem like a tired production to some nevertheless manages to remain fresh to the gullible throngs willing to hand over the price of admission.
Unlike a few hours of theatrical escapism, however, the producers of the Middle East Peace Process hope that the audience will actually believe that what they are viewing on stage, whether performed in Madrid, Oslo, London, Washington or Sharm al-Sheikh is real-life and even has the potential to end the conflict caused by a century of western-supported Zionist colonization in Palestine.
In the latest revival, Condoleezza Rice plays the US secretary of state determined to bring the long-running conflict to a close with skillful diplomacy designed to put in place a "process" eventually leading to a two-state solution. George Bush, tired of being typecast as a warmonger, tries on the role of lame-duck president who spent years enabling Israeli colonization, but who, with an eye on his legacy, is now committed to peacefully ending the conflict once and for all.
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UN Adviser Criticises Quartet
Palestine Chronicle 10/16/2007
Dugard said the UN should withdraw from the Quartet - a grouping comprising the UN, the US, EU and Russia - unless those concerns are addressed.
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In a warning of further chao as Condoleeza Rice, the US secretary of state, meets Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, the UN’s human-rights adviser on the Palestinian territories says Israeli restrictions are creating a sense of hopelessness and misery among Palestinians.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on Monday, John Dugard said the Quartet of Middle East negotiators are not dealing effectively with the issue of Palestinian human rights.
Dugard said the UN should withdraw from the Quartet - a grouping comprising the UN, the US, EU and Russia - unless those concerns are addressed.
For instance, the Quartet has never even mentioned the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, which sets out the legal framework for dealing with the Palestinian territory, he said.
Dugard, a South African law professor who is the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said: "If the UN is not able to persuade other members of the Quartet, particularly the US, to acknowledge that Israel is a serious violator of human rights and is in serious violation of international law, then the UN should give serious consideration to withdrawing from the Quartet."
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Paul Findley: U.S. Too Often Follows Israel ’s Lead
Palestine Chronicle 10/16/2007
Let the Mearsheimer-Walt book be a clarion that bestirs the American people to political action and finally brings fundamental change to both Capitol Hill and the White House.
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By Paul Findley
There is an open secret in Washington. I learned it well during my 22-year tenure as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. All members swear to serve the interests of the United States, but there is an unwritten and overwhelming exception: The interests of one small foreign country almost always trump U.S. interests. That nation of course is Israel.
Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue give priority to Israel over America. Those on Capitol Hill are pre-primed to roar approval for Israeli actions whether right or wrong, instead of at least fussing first and then caving. The White House sometimes puts up a modest and ineffective show of resistance before it follows Israel’s lead.
In 2002, President Bush publicly ordered Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to end a bloody, destructive rampage through the Palestinian West Bank. He wilted just as publicly when he received curt word from Sharon that Israeli troops would not withdraw and would continue their military operations. A few days later President Bush invited Sharon to the White House where he saluted him as a "man of peace."
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Scott Ritter: Oil, Israel, and America
Palestine Chronicle 10/16/2007
The Israeli posturing regarding Iran’s nuclear program, and America’s unquestioning support of the Israeli position, has nullified any chance of meaningful diplomacy.
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By Scott Ritter
There is no shortage of examples of historical points of friction between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States to draw upon in order to illustrate the genesis of the current level of tension. One can point to the Islamic revolution that cast aside America’s staunch ally, Reza Shah Pahlevi, the period of reactionary exportation of Islamic “revolution” that followed, the take over of the US Embassy and subsequent holding of Americans hostage (replete with a failed rescue mission), the Iranian use of proxies to confront American military involvement in Lebanon, inclusive of the bombing of the Marine barracks and US Embassy compounds, America’s support of Saddam Hussein during the 8-year war between Iran and Iraq, the ‘hot’ conflict between Iran and the United States in the late 1980s, or Iran’s ongoing support of the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon. The list could continue.
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Felicity Arbuthnot: The New Stateless
Palestine Chronicle 10/16/2007
In spite of all my family escaping all we love, now turned to hell, none of their visas are safe any more. We are the new stateless, as Palestinians.
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By Felicity Arbuthnot
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
I rang a dear Iraqi friend: “I just wanted to wish you all greetings for Eid”, to offer seasonal wishes, for the joyous three day celebration, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, on the sighting of the new moon. One can no longer say “Eid Mubarak” (Happiness for Eid) to an Iraqi family; only wish them all they wish for themselves, now usually just the survival of their families, somehow - and anywhere.
The joy of the sharing of dishes, the visits, the children’s new clothes and shoes, the crisp new money given to children, the fun fairs and outings are, for most, a memory, for Iraqis, corralled in their walled enclaves, courtesy the “liberators”, as the Palestinians in theirs, courtesy “the only democratic country in the Middle East”. As for the Afghans, many living in irradiated craters, since homes have been bombed with radioactive weapons; blown to bits by NATO convoys, should they venture out for traditional food and dates - should they, unusually, have the money for some small treat, forget it. Eid has died again, for the unquantifiable, at the hands of George W. Bush’s new Crusaders for oil, natural gas and regional strategic dominance.
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Hussein Al-alak: Britain and Iraq: Where You There?
Palestine Chronicle 10/16/2007
A former soldier recently replied to objections to them being accepted on a university course in England, by asking "where were you?"
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By Hussein Al-alak
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
Since 2004, I have found that my intolerance to intolerance has increased dramatically and my patience is almost non-existent.
On Monday, I was talking to a person I know, who having served two tours of duty in Iraq, has returned to Britain homeless and has been forced to sleep on her mothers couch in the living room.
Having tried looking for a house or flat to rent but found the rents in Manchester (North of England) to high, this person has found it to be financially cheaper in the long term, to build a log cabin in the back garden of her mother’s home.
During the conversation, I asked how this person was doing, since her return from Basra and was amazed to find that we have both experienced a form of what George Orwell called "Double Speak" in the book 1984, a language where love means hate and war means peace.
What I mean by this "double speak", is that there seems to be no real depth to the understanding within the UK, in relation to the Post Traumatic Stress that both British Soldiers and Iraqis in the UK are facing, that when trying to explain a situation, or even your own experiences, people look at you with a glazed expression and a fixed smile on their faces.
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Stephen Lendman: Social Change in Ecuador
Palestine Chronicle 10/16/2007
Countries like Ecuador face conflicting interests - maintaining the status quo from the right and demands for real change from below through redistributive social policies and nationalizing strategic sectors.
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By Stephen Lendman
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
Raphael Correa was elected Ecuador’s president last November and took office January 15 promising social change. He’s the country’s eighth president in the last decade including three previous ones driven from office by mass street protest opposition against their misrule and public neglect. Correa must now deliver and just got a boost from his governing Movimiento Alianza Pais’ landslide Constituent Assembly election victory to rewrite the nation’s constitution for the 177th time in Ecuador’s history hoping to get it right this time. Awaiting a final tabulation of results, it appears Correa supporters got around 70% of the vote winning 80 of the 130 Assembly seats. That’s a comfortable majority to push through change, but doing it won’t be easy, and Correa’s commitment has yet to be tested.
Longtime Latin American expert James Petras writes "Ecuador today faces great opportunities for a basic social transformation and also grave threats from imperial networks" the way states in the region always do. He notes how in recent years mobilized urban and rural popular classes ousted neoliberal regimes only to see them resurface under so-called left-center leaders (who are neither left nor center) like Lula in Brazil, Kirchner in Argentina, Morales in Bolivia, Vasquez in Uruguay and others. Even Hugo Chavez governs from the "pragmatic left." He combines grassroots participatory democracy and redistributive social policies with support for business interests but on a more equitable basis than under previous Venezuelan leaders.
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Rice Affirms her Dedication to a Solution
MIFTAH, MIFTAH 10/16/2007
“It is time for the establishment of a Palestinian state” was the message projected by US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, following her meeting with Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas yesterday in Ramallah.
In what was her seventh trip to the region in a year, the top US diplomat defended the credibility of the peace summit which is due to be held in Annapolis, Maryland, in November. Rice’s vehement support for the international peace meeting comes as speculation has mounted among Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, who have seen the lack of invitations and the indecisiveness over naming a specific date, despite its imminence, reason for skepticism over its seriousness.
Ms. Rice’s rebuttal to such criticism centers on the importance of November in producing a document from which a basis of negotiations can be initiated. The Secretary of State admitted that November would not solve everything and would by no means result in a final agreement but declared that it would be “serious and substantive”, including on the agenda the core issues of the conflict.
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The Mother of all Pretexts
Uri Avnery, MIFTAH 10/16/2007
WHEN I hear mention of the "Clash of Civilizations" I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
To laugh, because it is such a silly notion.
To cry, because it is liable to cause untold disasters.
To cry even more, because our leaders are exploiting this slogan as a pretext for sabotaging any possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. It is just one more ina long line of pretexts.
WHY WAS the Zionist movement in need of excuses to justify the way it treated the Palestinian people?
At its birth, it was an idealistic movement. It laid great weight on its moral basis. Not just in order to convince the world, but above all in order to set its own conscience at rest.
From early childhood we learned about the pioneers, many of them sons and daughters of well-to-do and well-educated families, who left behind a comfortable life in Europe in order to start a new life in a far-away and - by the standards of the time - primitive country. Here, in a savage climate they were not used to, often hungry and sick, they performed bone-breaking physical labor under a brutal sun.
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U.S. too often Follows Israel’s Lead in Diplomatic Situations
Paul Findley, MIFTAH 10/16/2007
There is an open secret in Washington. I learned it well during my 22-year tenure as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. All members swear to serve the interests of the United States, but there is an unwritten and overwhelming exception: The interests of one small foreign country almost always trump U.S. interests. That nation of course is Israel.
Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue give priority to Israel over America. Those on Capitol Hill are pre-primed to roar approval for Israeli actions whether right or wrong, instead of at least fussing first and then caving. The White House sometimes puts up a modest and ineffective show of resistance before it follows Israel’s lead.
In 2002, President Bush publicly ordered Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to end a bloody, destructive rampage through the Palestinian West Bank. He wilted just as publicly when he received curt word from Sharon that Israeli troops would not withdraw and would continue their military operations. A few days later President Bush invited Sharon to the White House where he saluted him as a "man of peace."
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Only Bush Can
Akiva Eldar, MIFTAH 10/16/2007
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insists that the Annapolis declaration will detail the principles of the permanent settlement, so yesterday’s newspaper headlines proclaimed. Prior to her arrival in the region, her aides had said that the United States would not issue invitations to the peace conference before Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas succeed in drafting a clear and mutually agreed upon document. In practice, this means that the peace summit initiated by President George W. Bush will not convene next month. Nor next year. Even if Olmert and Abbas want to, they are unable to come up with a document that will be detailed, mutually acceptable, clear and also keep them in office.
The most painful concessions the government of Israel is willing to offer Abbas are too far removed from the Palestinian consensus, as well as that of the Arab and Muslim world. The most generous compromise the Ramallah government will allow itself to offer Israel will not even be brought up for discussion within Kadima’s Knesset faction. Yet, this dour political analysis does not mean the person who initiated this important diplomatic move should end his efforts.
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Blair Admits he is Shocked by Discrimination on the West Bank
Donald Macintyre, MIFTAH 10/16/2007
While his aides munched tuna bagels thoughtfully provided by the Israeli military, a shirt-sleeved Tony Blair peered intently at a map showing the two main cargo crossing-points that will function between the West Bank and Israel once the 450-mile separation barrier between them is complete.
Why, Mr Blair wanted to know from his host, an Israeli general in civvies, couldn’t goods also be moved directly across the border from the nearby Palestinian industrial park that he is pressing Israel to approve?
"Why can’t they go straight through?" Ah, that would be difficult, the general explained, requiring a whole new expensive security apparatus to check goods going into the park.
We are a long from way from No 10. At Tarqumia to be precise, just inside the West Bank and one of those crossing points – a forbidding grey antenna and camera-studded complex of checkpoints still under construction. Mr Blair is on the road, grappling with the mind-numbing complexities of how the physical security infrastructure of the occupation has squeezed the Palestinian economy.
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Israel Signals Readiness to Cede Parts of Jerusalem to Palestinians
Mark Tran, MIFTAH 10/16/2007
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, today signalled his readiness to give up parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians in an apparent concession ahead of a US-sponsored peace conference.
Mr Olmert noted that Israel had built a series of thriving Jewish neighbourhoods in east Jerusalem, but signalled that Israel’s control of Arab areas was not necessary.
"Was it necessary to also join the Shuafat refugee camp, Sawakra, Walaje and other villages and define them as part of Jerusalem?" he asked in a speech during a ceremony to mark the sixth anniversary of former minister Rehavam Ze’evi’s assassination.
"With that, I must confess it is possible to ask legitimate questions."
Control of Jerusalem has been one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel has claimed all of the city, including east Jerusalem which it captured in the 1967 war, as its capital.
The Palestinians want the eastern sector for the capital of a future independent state. Other Israeli officials have raised the possibility of giving up the Arab areas of east Jerusalem, but this was the first time that Mr Olmert has broached the highly delicate issue.
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Over the Line
Adam Lebor, MIFTAH 10/16/2007
There are two Israels: one inside the Green Line, the 1967 border, the other an occupying power extending beyond it. The first is a vibrant democracy, with Arab members of Parliament, university professors and lawyers, beauty queens and soldiers, and even a Muslim cabinet minister. There are no separate roads for Arabs and Jews in the name of that all-purpose explanation “security,” no villages made inaccessible because their roads have been dug up by army bulldozers, no checkpoints and no security fence cleaving farmers from their land and schoolchildren from their playgrounds.
Across the Green Line, the West Bank, captured in 1967, is another country, neither Israel nor Palestine, but a lawless place, where the Jewish settler, rifle in one hand and prayer book in the other, is undisputed king. The settlers have their own roads, guarded by the Israeli Army, water, electricity, supplies and — occasional if well-publicized crackdowns aside — substantial impunity from the law. Much of the land on which their settlements stand, was, as Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar detail in this important book, simply stolen. The settlements are illegal, in contravention of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids an occupying power from transferring its civilian population to occupied territories. But for those who claim a divine mandate, the Geneva Conventions count for nothing. According to the United Nations, more than a third of the West Bank is now off limits to Palestinians. A web of Israeli Army checkpoints and obstacles further atomizes what is left of Palestinian society.
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Rice Pushes Israelis, Palestinians Toward Middle
Arshad Mohammed, MIFTAH 10/16/2007
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried on Monday to push Palestinians and Israelis toward a middle ground in drafting a joint document seen as key to the success of a U.S.-hosted peace conference this year.
After meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Rice said the document should "seriously and substantively" address the core issues of the conflict -- a sharp contrast with Israeli hopes to keep it as vague as possible.
However, she also played down Palestinian calls for a timeframe to resolve the thorniest issues in the dispute such as borders, the future of Jerusalem and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees.
Rice made the comments as she shuttled between Israeli and Palestinian officials during a four-day visit to the region to lay the groundwork for the meeting that the United States plans to hold in Annapolis, Maryland in late November.
In a trip that is unusually long for the U.S. secretary of state, Rice appeared to try to quell concerns that the Bush administration is only paying lip service to Israeli-Palestinian peace after years of what critics regard as relative neglect.
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Palestinian Census First In Decade
Dalia Nammari, MIFTAH 10/16/2007
The Palestinians are preparing to conduct their first census in a decade, with hopes the results will help them in future peace talks with Israel.
Demographics play a central role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rapid Palestinian growth would bolster Palestinian territorial demands, while Israelis’ fear of being outnumbered in areas they now control might make them more willing to consider a West Bank withdrawal.
Later this week, some 5,000 census-takers will fan out across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, first to count buildings, and, in December, to count people. Results are expected by February.
"We hope we can use these statistics in the negotiations," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, a supporter of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Ramallah-based administration. "It’s not only important for the political process, but also for building the institutions of the state."
The militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has also said the census results are important and that it will cooperate.
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Obstacles Stall Rice’s Mideast Diplomacy
Matthew Lee, MIFTAH 10/16/2007
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opened an intense round of Mideast shuttle diplomacy Sunday, struggling to bring Israelis and Palestinians close enough to make a planned U.S.-hosted peace conference worthwhile.
The two sides are at bitter odds over an outline of a peace agreement that would be presented at next month’s conference, and Rice sought to lower expectations her mission would finalize preparations for the gathering.
Underscoring her less-than-optimistic assessment, Israeli and Palestinians traded shots about the other’s commitment to peace even as she arrived in the region. During her four-day visit, she will bounce between Israel and the West Bank, seeking a consensus.
Her hope is to close the gap as Israel and the Palestinian Authority try to forge an outline of an eventual peace deal and produce a joint statement for the conference. It is expected to held in Annapolis, Md., in late November.
But after Rice’s first series of meetings, a senior State Department official hinted that the date could slide as the lead negotiators for the two sides will begin only this week to try to craft the document.
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An interview with Marwan Barghouthi
Marwan Barghouthi, ZNet 10/16/2007
‘The moment that Abbas officially announces his resignation, even if I am in prison, I will put forward my candidacy for President (of the Palestinian Authority) and I will win.’
This is what Marwan Barghouthi said from his cell - number 28, section 3 - during an exclusive interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, later republished in the Al-Quds newspaper as its lead story.
The imprisoned Palestinian leader has spent 5 years in an Israeli prison and there are many awaiting his announcement [to run as President of the Palestinian Authority]; not just in Ramallah, Gaza or Nablus, but in wider circles, including within the office of Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister of Israel. Barghouthi asserts that the possibility of his release is more likely now than in any period in the past.
On his release:
Q: In your opinion, when do you think that you will be released from prison?
A: ‘There has been talk about releasing me since the first day of my arrest. One time they said that they would release me in exchange for the release of Azzam Azzam from an Egyptian prison. Then they said that they would release me in exchange for releasing [Jonathan] Pollard from an American prison. Now they are talking about releasing me in exchange for Gilad Shalit but the negotiations have been difficult. Despite all of these statements, I am entering the sixth year of my imprisonment and I am still hopeful that my issue will be resolved in which my release comes in exchange for the release of Shalit, who will be released in exchange for [Palestinian political] prisoners, including political leaders. I am optimistic and firmly believe that a prisoner exchange will happen sooner rather than later.’ more..
Ramzy Baroud: Controlling the Debate on Palestine, Israel
Palestine Chronicle 10/15/2007
Apparently my words did not move local Rabbi Israel Zoberman and his comrades. They attended the talk after a local Jewish newspaper highlighted the upcoming event on their front page.
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By Ramzy Baroud
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
The last time I spoke publicly in the United States before my current tour was nearly four years ago. During this time I had travelled the world, passing my message to people in nearly 20 countries. Wherever I went, my calls for justice for the Palestinian people and for global alternatives to racism and war were well-received. However, my latest talks in the US have made me realize that the witch hunt on intellectuals that escalated rapidly since September 11, 2001 is nowhere near over.
Doubtless, the US has long served as a focal site for intellectual freedom, from which ground-breaking ideas have developed and spread throughout the world. And despite incessant attempts to circumvent this historic reality, most Americans still remain committed to their country’s founding principles. It is this commitment that causes those interested in stifling undesirable viewpoints to resort to the most disingenuous tactics, half-truths and downright fabrication.
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The Murder of Rami Ayyad
Philip Rizq - PalestineChronicle.com, International Middle East Media Center 10/15/2007
The last time I saw Rami we were at the beach near Gaza City. A group of us were in the water and I was trying to force Rami under water. Rami was a big man, weighing at least twice what I do, needless to say, I did not manage to get him to budge. When he in turn came after me all I could do to protect myself from suffocating under him was flee. Eventually I was able to sneak up on him under water and pull his legs out from under him and then escape again.
There are around 3000 Christians living in Gaza today. Rami was the office director of the Teacher's bookstore, a Christian bookstore in downtown Gaza City.
The store sells Christian books and offers computer and language lessons, which are attended by Palestinians from across the Gaza Strip. When I would visit the place on occasion Rami was always there on his swivel chair cracking jokes.
Few people entered that did not already know him. Gaza can be a place of sadness, Rami always reminded me much more of the mentality of Egyptians laughing and joking no matter how depressing life becomes.On Saturday afternoon Rami closed his shop as he always did at 4:30. He had told his brother that three days earlier he had sensed he was being followed home after work but had not made much of it.
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Disaster capitalism: Israel as warning
Raymond Deane, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 15, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/15/2007
I think we can safely deduce that Jewish extremist Kach members aren’t too fond of Naomi Klein. On their informative online S.H.I.T. (Self-Hating and/or Israel-Threatening) List, we read that she "is an ISM supporter and Rachel Corrie lover. If Hitler were alive today, she’d love him as well!" This considered evaluation will probably need to be rephrased in less glowing terms if any patient Kahanists get around to reading The Shock Doctrine - the Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
Many are now familiar with the outlines of Klein’s argument: in the wake of natural and unnatural disasters, neo-liberal economic reform is foisted on stricken societies while their citizens are in a condition of collective disorientation. While the ruling class is quick to avail of these "opportunities," it doesn’t actually set out to create them, because it doesn’t need to: "An economic system that requires constant growth, while bucking almost all serious attempts at environmental regulation, generates a steady stream of disasters all on its own, whether military, ecological or financial." After great destruction comes privatized reconstruction to the benefit of multinational corporations and the detriment of ordinary people.
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Planting seeds of independence
Rami Almeghari writing from, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 15, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/15/2007
Forty-five-year-old widow Sara Zo’rob holds chickens she received from the Save Gaza gardening project at the training hall in the Rural Women Development Society, Kerbet al-Adas village, southern Gaza Strip, October 2007. (Iyad Albaba)
"We have just initiated our small project with an intent to help these simple rural women sustain amidst their families’ harsh economic conditions," says Yassmin Moor, a young Palestinian-American woman who manages a domestic gardening project in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah.
The project, which has been a part of the US-based Save Gaza program, is intended to empower poor women in the rural and remote areas of the Gaza Strip.
In the furthest eastern location of Rafah city, an area called Kherbet al-Adas, a local public service facility for rural development has been designated for the training of 20 Palestinian women representing 20 different families.
Chickens and small plants are some of the items provided by Save Gaza for the participants with the hope that the women can create their own domestic gardens and become independent of "Israeli-controlled products and goods."
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Separation of families "priority humanitarian issue"
Report, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 14, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/14/2007
Two elderly women who have not seen their families in decades travel on a bus from the Golan to Jerusalem. They and about 40 other women traveled over three hours to protest and raise awareness of their plight. (Shabtai Gold/IRIN)
JERUSALEM, 14 October 2007 (IRIN) - Some 580 women living in the occupied Golan region are disconnected from their families in Syria as they are not allowed to cross from the occupied zone to their homeland, a new women’s organization has said.
"All the Arabs of the Golan have some family in Syria. But these women are disconnected from their mothers, fathers and brothers and sisters," said Souha Munder, a lawyer who works with the new group, which calls itself The Women of the Occupied Arab-Syrian Golan.
The Israeli Ministry of Interior said the women are "citizens of Israel" and therefore not allowed to travel to Syria as it is an "enemy country." However, the women could apply on an individual basis for a permit to travel to Syria, although this process can take months, a spokeswoman said.
Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, sections of the Golan were captured by Israel. While most of the villages were depopulated, four Druze villages and one Alawi village remained inhabited.
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When All is Said and Done: It’s the Occupation
Carl Bloice, ZNet 10/15/2007
Black Commentator
The reason there is no progress toward ending the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians and a more general move toward peace in the
Middle East
is that some people are opposed to it and there is a widespread notion floating around that all the opposition is all on one side. Don’t believe it. Yes, there are those in the region who don’t wish to see a settlement and adamantly reject the reality that peace requires acceptance of the secure existence of
Israel
as a country. But they are smaller in number than we are constantly led to believe and their influence is not that great.
The principal stumbling block to a
Middle East
settlement has always been and remains the occupation.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in the Middle East this week, said to be on a mission to secure participation in an international conference slated for
Annapolis
Maryland
that is being promoted by the Bush Administration to achieve a general settlement to the conflict. ’We welcome President Bush’s decision to include Syria on the list of countries invited to a November Middle East peace meeting," the New York Times recently said editorially, going on to say, ’We hope this means that Mr. Bush and his aides are finally ready to push all sides to make the compromises essential for moving toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace.’
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The 41st kilometer
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 10/15/2007
A zoo. This is one of the ways that Palestinians describe the conditions under which nearly 1.5 million of them have been living: in an area of some 360 square kilometers, closed in on three sides by sophisticated barbed-wire fences, concrete walls and military lookout towers, and to the west by Israeli navy ships that seal them off from the sea. Overhead, in the sky, unmanned aircraft and hot air balloons continually photograph whatever happens inside this closed cage, which has seven gates connecting it to the world, all of which are sealed off almost hermetically.
During the past four months, Israel has permitted about 2,000 people to leave the Gaza Strip - a minority of them were ill; more than half were Fatah senior activists or loyalists who were fleeing from the Strip; and the rest were individuals holding dual citizenship or visas for prolonged stays abroad. For the sake of comparison: In 1999, 1,400 people a day went through the Rafah crossing point alone, in addition to the thousands who passed though the Erez crossing point, despite the permanent closure policy. Now, 1.5 million human beings are living with the knowledge that the length of their world is at most 41 kilometers long and 12 kilometers wide.
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Fighting Fire with Fire
Caelum Moffatt, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
“Boycott” seems to have been adopted as the word de jour in the press this week. There have been calls recently by deposed Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, for Arab states to “boycott” the November Peace Summit in Maryland; there have been calls by Palestinian activists to “boycott” the One Voice Movement on suspicion that it is an Israeli funded initiative, spreading the wrong message, misleading the public and not taking major Palestinian grievances into consideration; and lastly, there have been multiple references to the long attempted academic “boycott” of Israelis which this week was served a massive blow. Instead of Israeli academics and institutions being boycotted, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which had planned to visit the UK, liaise with their peers at British universities and speak on the Israeli boycott were told by their patron, the University and College Union [UCU], that their tour had been cancelled after various recommendations from legal consultations.
At the UCU May Conference in Bournemouth, the educational institution, by a vote of 158-99, decided to put Motion 30 into operation which called upon the institution to circulate the boycott requested by Palestinian trade unions to all branches and rally lecturers to “consider the moral implications of the existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions”. By this act, the UCU hoped to unite behind the Palestinian cause as well as instigate and exert some international pressure on Israel regarding their inhumane treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. However, just a few months after this somewhat concrete show of solidarity, UCU Secretary General, Sally Hunt, announced that the academic boycott was not a priority and none of the 120,000 members of their organization would back it.
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Mideast Conference and the Illusive Peace
Hasan Afif El-Hasan, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
Until recently, Palestinian Authority (PA) officials including Abbas had been expressing reservations about the US sponsored November peace conference. Despite the repeated warnings that Abbas may not attend the conference unless certain conditions are met, he and the so called Arab moderates will not turn the invitation down. They are desperate for any action on the Palestinian issue and they have no control over events on the ground. Abbas government which is wholly dependent on the Americans, politically and financially, is not in a position to rebuff its main supporter, the US. And besides, the conference will be the only game in town.
Abbas government officials now sound optimistic about the conference because according to one official "when [US Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice was in the area lately, she told [Abbas] that the US administration was determined to turn the conference into a successful event. She also promised to exert pressure on Israel to soften its position”. Palestinian officials say that the conference “will launch permanent status treaty negotiations”. Abbas appeared confident that the conference would meet his expectations when he talked to reporter in Amman after meeting with King Abdullah II. He said "We are negotiating with Israel a joint agreement that will be presented to the international conference to be approved and adopted. Negotiations on final agreement will begin immediately after the conference", he said. But if the Israelis are ready to attend the meetings and negotiate, they are not ready to give up the spoils of war.
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The Test of Leadership
Gershon Baskin, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
The public mood regarding the US sponsored peace summit is quite negative. The leaders of Israel and Palestine are devoting time and energy to reducing expectations out of fear that the summit may not produce the agreement necessary to enable a genuine peace process to ensue. As we get closer to the summit it seems that public opinion on both sides is hardening with regard to concessions that are necessary to enable Israeli-Palestinian agreement.
Israeli positions are hardening on territorial compromises and on the issue of Jerusalem. Palestinian positions are hardening on the refugee issue. These three issues are the core of any agreement and failure to find acceptable solutions will mean that an agreement will not be possible.
Based on everything that we know from previous negotiations, an Israeli-Palestinian agreement will have to fall somewhere in between the triangle of the so-called Clinton parameters the Taba non-paper and the unofficial Geneva Accords. Translated into terms that we can all understand,
the contours of an agreement must include the following principles:
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Islam is the Enemy
Amir Oren, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
Lamb, cucumber and tomato salad, yogurt, baklava. That is what President George W. Bush ate in the White House, or at least read on the menu last Friday at the Iftar meal to break the Ramadan fast, in the company of dozens of guests. In recent years continents have shifted from their positions, Europe has sunk and the Middle East has officially become central to American policy. Israel’s expectation that it will concede to the Palestinians, in the avuncular-practical guise of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayad, stems from Bush’s feeling that the long and exhausting war against terror and nuclear proliferation, which is liable to continue for decades, justifies a demand from members of the alliance of moderates to sacrifice a little for the sake of the major goal.
Bush is not ignoring internal politics, the voices of a minority that can be influential in close races, especially if it is canvassed. But in foreign affairs and defense, Islam is not just one topic among many, it’s the main topic. Toward the end of his presidency, Bush is confronting one active enemy with many faces: extremist Islam. Sunni or Shi’ite, Iranian or Iraqi, Lebanese or Palestinian, everyone who is plotting against the Americans belongs to one extremist wing or another of the Islamic religion.
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The Right of the Link
Eliezer Yaari, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
In her article "The right and the return" (Haaretz, October 3), Ruth Gavison discusses what is again becoming the watershed in the interrupted dialogue between the Palestinians and Israel. At issue are historical rights, and in this case Israel’s unwillingness to recognize the Palestinians’ right of return. As in all the previous rounds, this watershed will end the diplomatic discussions aimed at an agreement. Gavison proposes an alternative definition for "the right of return": "the desire to return," which she says Israel would recognize. On the other hand, she says that remaining in the framework of the "right of return" is a recipe for disaster.
Missing in Gavison’s approach is an overall concept recognizing that both sides in the conflict are in a crisis of self-definition stemming from their inability to realize that there is no direct connection between a cultural, historical and practical attachment and a future political right.
Not only the Palestinians suffer from a difficulty in bridging the gap between the attachment and the right. The motivating force of practical Zionism since 1967 has been the attempt to turn the historical attachment to all parts of the Land of Israel, which nobody disputes, into a political right. To translate the desire to return to Shiloh, Beit El, Anatot and Hebron - the cradle of the nation - into a diplomatic right over which there can be no compromise because it is impossible to compromise on a right granted thousands of years ago. By dint of that same right, claim those who hold it sacred, the Zionists came to the Jezreel Valley and Jerusalem, and afterward to Shiloh and Hebron.
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The Need for Bravery and Frankness Before the Peace Option
Raghida Dergham, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
Of course, the Syrian government has the right to make the recovery of the Golan Heights a priority, whether through peaceful negotiations with Israel or liberating the area through armed resistance. Certainly, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is right when he said, "I’m the president of Syria and not the president of Palestine, and I have to work for the interest of my country. It’s important to see the Palestinians regarding their rights and their land, but this is not a comprehensive peace." For peace to become comprehensive, it doesn’t require making things conditional on the Israeli-Palestinian peace track. The Palestinian leadership doesn’t need competition when it comes to ending the Israeli occupation of Arab territory; it is going to try to make the biggest possible efforts through policies of renewal and self-criticism, unlike the Syrian leadership.
The government in Damascus adheres to its old-fashioned feelings of threats, anger and desire for revenge whenever there is interest or international movement regarding the Palestinian track, as it it’s determined to mortgage Palestine and the suffering of its people to when the Golan is completely liberated, and as it justifies mortgaging the Shebaa Farms in Lebanon, as a ransom for the Golan, after the Lebanese track was no longer under the control of Damascus. With such "logic," the Syrian leadership uses the Palestinian resistance and the Lebanese resistance as a cover for not allowing or not being ready for a resistance in Syria. Because these new and important phase of Arab and Muslim movement toward convincing the administration of George W Bush to work hard on establishing a Palestinian state, it is the duty of the Syrian government, as well as Arab peoples who belong to the "rejectionists," to decide. If the Palestinian issue is an Arab issue and an issue of Muslims, as it has been told to generations of people who were deprived of education and a normal life in the name of the Palestinian cause, then it should be made the top priority.
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So that Annapolis will Not be a Failure
Rami Khouri, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
The November Arab-Israeli peace-making meeting that US President George W. Bush has called for replays several similar moments in the past quarter-century, when gatherings were convened but did not achieve their full promise - at Madrid, Camp David, Taba and Oslo, among others. Will this year be any different? I hope so in my heart, but I do not think so, to judge by current political realities.
If we enter a process - as we are now - based primarily on nice-sounding aspirations, but in reality defined by a terrible imbalance in power, aims, and negotiating assets, we will fail as surely as we did in the past.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pushed this tendency ahead one more notch on Monday when he spoke in lofty and sometimes stirring terms at the opening of Israel’s Knesset. His comments, however, were another example of the Israeli tendency to offer vague generalities at the expense of specific commitments, and to extend to the Palestinians a hand in peace-making while conducting policies on the ground that promote perpetual conflict and active war.
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Israel Allows 3,500 Palestinians to Stay In WB
Deutsche Presse Agentur, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
The Israeli government has granted official residency status to 3,500 Palestinians who in the last decade entered the West Bank on Israeli-issued visitors’ visas but never left, Palestinian officials said Wednesday.
Israel however did not grant official residency status to another 1,500 Palestinians residing illegally in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
‘After Israel had declared the Gaza Strip as a hostile entity, it decided to postpone any decision regarding its (illegal) citizens,’ Hussein Al Shaikh, the head of the Palestinian Authority Civil Affairs Department in Ramallah, told Voice of Palestine Radio.
The move answers a request by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, made in one of his recent meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of the US-sponsored Middle East conference in Annapolis, Maryland scheduled for November.
The Palestinians demand that Israel grant permanent residency status to all of the around 55,000 Palestinians who entered the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the 1993 interim Oslo peace accords and have since stayed illegally.
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Mid-east Diary: Summit Prospects
Jeremy Bowen, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
Another Middle East peace summit is coming up in the United States, but there are risks in holding summits on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and one of the main parties to the conflict, Hamas, is being excluded.
At the moment, the summit looks likely to start in Annapolis, Maryland, on 15 November.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are having regular meetings about it.
They are trying to produce an agreed document about the future. Mr Abbas wants more detail. Mr Olmert wants something pretty vague.
For the summit to succeed, for any of this to mean something, it has to result in a concerted attempt to tackle the so-called "final-status issues".
These are the politically radioactive problems - about the future of Jerusalem, borders, water, refugees and settlements - that have to be sorted out before there can be any chance of setting up a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
That, after all, is the policy of the summit host, United States (and of many other countries, but the US is the one that matters).
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Palestinian Goes to Court to Challenge Arms Sales to Israel
The Times, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
A Palestinian man today launched a High Court challenge to the legality of the Government’s grant of export licences for arms sales to Israel.
Saleh Hasan, who claims Israel uses military equipment bought in Britain to repress Palestinians in violation of their human rights, has travelled to London for the case before Mr Justice Collins, expected to last two days.
His counsel, Michael Fordham, QC, told the judge that the issue raised was one of significant and “wide public interest”.
The question for the court was whether it was lawful for the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry “to publish quarterly determinations for export licences for military equipment to Israel without providing adequate reasons to explain how the licence applications were assessed as satisfying relevant decision-making criteria on human rights”.
Mr Fordham said the “highest standards of transparency” were required “in the interests of public accountability and public confidence”.
The judicial review proceedings, which are being contested by the Secretary of State, are backed by Al-Haq, a Palestinian rights organisation.
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Israeli Army Orders Confiscation of Palestinian Land in West Bank
Conal Urquhart, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
The Israeli army has ordered the seizure of Palestinian land surrounding four West Bank villages apparently in order to hugely expand settlements around Jerusalem, it emerged yesterday.
The confiscation happened as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met to prepare the ground for a meeting hosted by President George Bush in the United States aimed at reviving a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
However, critics said the confiscation of land suggested that Israel was imposing its own solution on the Palestinians through building roads, barriers and settlements that would render a Palestinian state unviable.
The land seized forms a corridor from East Jerusalem to Jericho and is intended to be used for a road that would be for Palestinians only. Analysts said the road would run on one side of the Israeli security barrier, while the existing Jerusalem-Jericho road would be reserved for Israelis.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said it was necessary to build a road to link Bethlehem and the Judea region with Jericho and the Jordan valley area in order to "improve the quality of life" for Palestinians.
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Pressure in Israel for Missile Defense
Ilene Prusher, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
The firing of a long-range Katyusha rocket into Israel from Gaza on Sunday has ratcheted up concerns here for the increased threat of missiles against the Jewish state.
The weapon of choice of Palestinian militants in Gaza has been the Kassam rocket, which has relatively poor aim and short range, but has nonetheless caused damage and killed 14 Israelis and injured hundreds more, according to an Israeli government tally.
The Katyusha rocket is the type of weapon that was used by Hizbullah in Lebanon to hit Israeli cities during last year’s war. Unguided but better constructed, it has twice the range – about 12 miles – and the potential to carry about twice the payload, missile experts here say.
The Katyusha was fired at the southern town of Netivot, about seven miles east of Gaza. It landed in an open space, doing minimal damage. The Popular Resistance Committee, a Palestinian militant group in Gaza that includes Hamas, claimed responsibility for the Katyusha attack.
While it wasn’t the first time that a longer-range missile was fired from Gaza, the successful launch of one is rare enough to spark new concerns for Israel’s vulnerability to missiles.
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Abbas Wants Return to Pre-1967 Borders
Mohammed Daraghmeh, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday laid out his most specific demands for the borders of a future independent state, calling for a full Israeli withdrawal from all territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
Abbas’ claim comes as Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams are trying to hammer out a joint vision for a future peace deal in time for a U.S.-hosted conference next month.
In a a new confidence-building gesture to Abbas, Israel agreed Wednesday to grant residency permits to thousands of Palestinians who have been living illegally in the West Bank on expired visitors’ visas.
Abbas’ comments appeared to set the stage for tough negotiations, which are expected to include complicated arrangements such as land swaps and shared control over holy sites. Israel is seeking to retain parts of the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
In a television interview, Abbas said the Palestinians want to establish a state on 6,205 square kilometers (2,400 square miles) of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It was the first time he has given a precise number for the amount of land he is seeking.
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An Israeli Strike on Syria Kindles Debate in the U.s.
Mark Mazzetti And Helene Cooper, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
A sharp debate is under way in the Bush administration about the significance of the Israeli intelligence that led to last month’s Israeli strike inside Syria, according to current and former American government officials.
At issue is whether intelligence that Israel presented months ago to the White House — to support claims that Syria had begun early work on what could become a nuclear weapons program with help from North Korea — was conclusive enough to justify military action by Israel and a possible rethinking of American policy toward the two nations.
The debate has fractured along now-familiar fault lines, with Vice President Dick Cheney and conservative hawks in the administration portraying the Israeli intelligence as credible and arguing that it should cause the United States to reconsider its diplomatic overtures to Syria and North Korea.
By contrast, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her allies within the administration have said they do not believe that the intelligence presented so far merits any change in the American diplomatic approach.
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Israel’s Rising Right Wing
Gregory Levey, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
One of this year’s nominees for Israeli TV’s "Man of the Year in Politics" award doesn’t speak Hebrew. He has vast wealth and a shady past. He was once a circus worker. He isn’t even a politician, at least not yet.
But over the past several years Arcadi Gaydamak, an enigmatic Russian-Israeli billionaire, has managed to become a widely influential figure in Israel. And he is now at the center of a right-wing political alliance -- featuring Israeli über-hawk Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu -- that could dramatically influence the country’s direction. If the rising alliance takes power in the next election, it could push Israel toward military confrontations with Iran, Syria or Hezbollah, while extinguishing any remaining flickers of hope in Israel’s peace camp regarding the Palestinians.
Gaydamak has recently been consolidating his influence as a power broker in Israeli politics. He has used his wealth to gain popularity through social and business initiatives, while deftly exploiting the widespread perception of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government as corrupt and incompetent, particularly during last year’s disastrous war in Lebanon. With his financial capital and cunning political tactics, Gaydamak is like a cross between George Soros and Karl Rove, with a streak of Russian oligarchy at his core.
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Twin Mideast Peace Concerts Rouse Skepticism, Rancor
Dion Nissenbaum, MIFTAH 10/11/2007
It might sound like an inspirational convergence along the lines of John Lennon’s antiwar ballad "Give Peace a Chance": twin concerts in which thousands of Israelis join thousands of Palestinians to call for an end to a demoralizing conflict that often looks as if it will go on forever.
Except that this is the Middle East, where even a peace concert can become a raucous political battleground.
Palestinian activists view the concerts next week in Tel Aviv and Jericho as a ruse, and are planning to boycott and stage an alternative event. Skeptical Israelis think it’s pointless and naive. Even the main organizer admits that the event isn’t really about peace.
"Ours is not a message of peace and love and coexistence," said Daniel Lubetzky, the 39-year-old Jewish businessman who’s behind the OneVoice concerts.
"It’s a message of let’s not let this get worse," he said. "We are fed up. We don’t love each other. You leave us alone and we leave you alone and let’s just have a state and get that done before it gets ugly."
Such is the state of coexistence in the Middle East. After decades of war and occupation, Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli military invasions, even calls for peace sound cynical and tired.
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State’s witness: Palestinians won’t employ caregivers
Meron Rapoport, Ha’aretz 10/11/2007
Palestinians will never bring a stranger home - certainly not a woman - to help out with the house work. That would be "a serious violation of Islamic tenants," which can end in murder over "family honor." Women in the territories do not wear pants, do not drive in cars alone, and do not work outside their home without some family supervision.
Or so the State of Israel thinks, based on the testimony of an "expert witness" on its behalf, at a court hearing on the compensation due a Palestinian injured by Israel Defense Forces gunfire during the first intifada.
The case begins in early 1991, when Daher was wounded by a bullet in the head as he drove near his home. Two years ago, a Supreme Court ruling ordered that compensation be paid to Daher because the IDF operation, in which he was shot, did not qualify as a "combat operation." more..
Palestinians return to desolate, dangerous camp
Report, Electronic Lebanon, Oct 12, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/12/2007
The first Palestinian families displaced by fighting between the army and Islamist militants began returning to the ruined Nahr al-Bared camp on 10 October. (Hugh Macleod/
IRIN
NAHR AL-BARED, 12 October (IRIN) - The first Palestinian families displaced by 15 weeks of intense fighting between the army and Islamist militants that left much of north Lebanon’s Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in ruins have begun returning home to start rebuilding their lives.
"I never imagined I would have to leave my home again," said 80-year-old Mahmoud Nimr Abdou as he boarded the bus carrying the first refugees home from neighboring Baddawi camp, where the majority of the up to 40,000 people displaced from Nahr al-Bared have been living in cramped conditions. "I will kiss the ground when I return."
Security was extremely tight at the narrow, dusty checkpoint at Mahamra, on the eastern flank of Nahr al-Bared, with the army checking papers and searching vehicles one by one as they queued to re-enter the camp between rolls of razor wire.
Only the elderly, women and children were allowed back into the camp on 10 October for security reasons, according to military officials at the scene. Journalists were not allowed inside Nahr al-Bared also for security reasons.
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Video: "Homeless in Shatila"
Video, a-films, Oct 12, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/12/2007
The anarchist film collective "a-films" presents a short video on refugees from the destroyed refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared who are stranded in Shatila Camp, Beirut. The conflict in Nahr al-Bared between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam militants left homeless tens of thousands of Palestinians. Under fire and assuming they could soon return to the camp after their flight, most of them didn’t taken any of their belongings with them. While Baddawi Camp near Trablous (Tripoli), northern Lebanon, is hosting the majority of those who fled, thousands of the camp’s residents are scattered all over other Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
a-films is currently conducting video workshops in Baddawi Camp in northern Lebanon as well as in Bourj al-Shamali Camp and Siddiqine village in the south of the country. Please check the collective’s website for further videos and for this video translated into different languages:
http://a-films.blogspot.com
Related Links
BY TOPIC: Lebanon forces besiege Palestinian refugee camp (20 May 2007)
BY TOPIC: Opposition Demonstrations in Lebanon (1 December 2006-)
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Stranded Palestinians turn down Sudanese asylum offer
Report, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 12, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/12/2007
A map showing al-Tanf camp on the Syrian side of the border with Iraq. (IRIN/Google Maps)
DAMASCUS, 10 October (IRIN) - Most of the over 300 Palestinian-Iraqi refugees stranded for the past 18 months at the makeshift al-Tanf refugee camp on the Syrian side of the Iraq-Syria border have rejected an offer of asylum in Sudan.
The Sudanese government made an offer 8 October to take in the 310 Palestinian refugees, who are living in pitiful conditions at the camp.
"The [Sudanese] president agreed to the request of both Hamas and Fatah to accommodate them and we are going to inform the Arab League and then make our preparations," said a Sudanese Foreign Ministry official.
The proposal, the first official offer of resettlement for refugees at al-Tanf camp received by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) despite months of talks, was rejected by most of the al-Tanf refugees.
One of them, Ahmad Hassan, told IRIN that a camp meeting was held on 8 October to discuss the offer: "Out of 84 families just 30 want to go to Sudan."
"Too risky"
"They think Sudan is too risky and that after a few months there may be a war there. They want to go somewhere safe where they can work and live in peace," he said.
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Nonviolent resistance a means, not the end
Ben White, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 12, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/12/2007
Palestinian Muslim worshippers pass through a narrow corridor of soldiers to cross an Israeli army checkpoint in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on the way to Jerusalem to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third most holy site, on the fourth Friday of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, 5 October 2007. (Luay Sababa/
MaanImages
In a recent article on the openDemocracy website, the rewritten Palestinian Authority policy document that replaced "muqawama" (resistance) with "popular struggle" was hailed as having "the potential to dramatically transform a conflict whose just resolution has continually eluded diplomats and militants." [1] The writer Maria Stephan may be admired for her optimism about the possibility of large-scale mobilization in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) for a program of nonviolent resistance, but there is a twofold failure of contextualization that compromises her analysis.
The first problem is that the article does not do justice to the rich tradition and contemporary practice of nonviolent resistance, or popular struggle, in Palestine. The first intifada and the protests in Bil’in are cited, but the Palestinians draw on a far deeper reservoir of experience, dating at least as far back as the 1936 Revolt against British occupation and creeping Zionist colonization. As writer Mazin Qumsiyeh has noted, part of the Revolt included "a conference of 150 delegates representing all sectors of the population calls for a general strike and refusal to pay taxes to the British occupation authorities." [2]
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Refugees Return to Lebanon Camp
Palestine Chronicle 10/11/2007
Each family was given two handouts, one bearing photos of munitions that still litter part of the camp and the other specifying areas that remain off-limits.
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Dozens of Palestinian families are making their way back to a devastated refugee camp in Lebanon that was the scene of 15 weeks of fierce battles between the army and Fatah al-Islam fighters.
On Wednesday, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) transported the first 10 families from the Beddawi refugee camp back to the Nahr al-Bared camp.
Buses and mini-vans hired by the relief agency and bearing Palestinian flags dropped off the first families at the camp located outside Tripoli.
The majority were either empty-handed or carried small plastic bags filled with a few personal items.
Most of the arrivals, mainly women and children, showed little emotion as they waited for the army to search them before being allowed in.
Each family was given two handouts, one bearing photos of munitions that still litter part of the camp and the other specifying areas that remain off-limits.
"I am scared of what is waiting for us and I know that our house was partially destroyed," Insaf Fouad, 25, said.
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Philip Rizq: Killing Rami
Palestine Chronicle 10/11/2007
This is the first time in Gaza’s recent history for a Christian to be kidnapped and killed. In Gaza, Muslims and Christians live and die side by side.
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By Philip Rizq
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
The last time I saw Rami we were at the beach near Gaza City. A group of us were in the water and I was trying to force Rami under water. Rami was a big man, weighing at least twice what I do, needless to say, I did not manage to get him to budge. When he in turn came after me all I could do to protect myself from suffocating under him was flee. Eventually I was able to sneak up on him under water and pull his legs out from under him and then escape again.
There are around 3000 Christians living in Gaza today. Rami was the office director of the Teacher’s bookstore, a Christian bookstore in downtown Gaza City. The store sells Christian books and offers computer and language lessons, which are attended by Palestinians from across the Gaza Strip. When I would visit the place on occasion Rami was always there on his swivel chair cracking jokes. Few people entered that did not already know him. Gaza can be a place of sadness, Rami always reminded me much more of the mentality of Egyptians laughing and joking no matter how depressing life becomes.
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John Zavesky: It’s War Time for Hollywood
Palestine Chronicle 10/11/2007
Nothing says “holidays” better than war, and this year Hollywood has no less than six major releases dealing with the subject.
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By John Zavesky
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
Fall is when Hollywood traditionally begins to roll out their “big guns,” the films that are aimed at garnering an Oscar. The summer may be for blockbusters, sequels and sick and silly comedies, but from late September through December the studios concentrate on the serious, the profound and the dramatic. For those who enjoy big spectacles, epic tales and fine drama starring big name actors directed by big name directors this is the time of the year for you. The fall and winter holiday season is second only to summer when it comes to box office receipts.
Nothing says “holidays” better than war, and this year Hollywood has no less than six major releases dealing with the subject. All of these films deal with the goings on in the Middle East and Afghanistan. While the war film is one of the oldest and most durable of Hollywood genres, with the first best picture Oscar going in 1927 to William Wellman’s Wings, the industry has not been known for portraying a current conflict while it still rages.
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Joharah Baker: What Israel Wants, Israel Gets
Palestine Chronicle 10/11/2007
This is all part of the so-called E1 plan for Jerusalem, which is designed to expand this settlement bloc and cut off Jerusalem completely from the northern West Bank.
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By Joharah Baker
There is a consistent thread, a pattern, which designs Israel’s policies in the Palestinian territories. Any scrutinizing observer will notice how Israel first pitches an idea to the public – however preposterous – then allows the Palestinians and the international community to absorb it before putting it into action. This way, policies and measures are less shocking and seem more acceptable once the dust has been allowed to settle.
We have all seen it time and time again. When the Aqsa Intifada first broke out, there was no Qalandia or Huwwara checkpoint and there was no separation wall. Jerusalem, although technically closed off to the West Bank by ineffective and extremely liquid checkpoints, was more or less accessible to most Palestinians. Not that the situation was ideal for the Palestinians because if this were the case, there would never have been an Intifada. Still, there is a world of difference between the situation prior to September 29, 2000 and the present, this new reality creeping up on us like slow-growing cancer. Today, the tumor has grown to exponential proportions and will be extremely difficult to excise.
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Elaine McArdle: I Was Lobbied by the ’Israel Lobby’
Palestine Chronicle 10/11/2007
At the end of a week, what had AIPAC gotten for its investment in me? Did I come back rabidly pro-Israel? Was I swayed by AIPAC?
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By Elaine McArdle
An impassioned debate over the tight alliance between America and Israel is roiling political circles, sparked by a new book that accuses a powerful "Israel lobby" of distorting American policy and endangering our national security. Building on an article they published last year, John J. Mearsheimer at the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard argue in "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" that Israel exerts far more influence than it should on American politics.
They paint a picture of a potent coalition of neoconservatives, Christian fundamentalists, Jewish organizations, and, most strikingly, a richly coffered and extremely influential lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which courts both Democrats and Republicans in order to promote Israel. The authors’ claims have been attacked by a broad base of critics, seized upon by anti-Semites, and applauded by some who believe this discussion is long overdue.
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Stephen Lendman: Rulers and Ruled in the Empire – Book Review
Palestine Chronicle 10/11/2007
For now, emboldened resistance and strong anti-war opposition are matched against an administration desperate to turn things around and willing to try anything to do it.
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By Stephen Lendman
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
James Petras is Binghamton University, New York Professor Emeritus of Sociology whose credentials and achievements are long and impressive. He’s a noted academic figure on the left, a well-respected Latin American expert, and a longtime chronicler of the region’s popular struggles as well as being an advisor to the landless workers (MST) in Brazil and unemployed workers in Argentina. Petras is also a prolific author. He’s written hundreds of articles and 63 books (and counting), published in 29 languages, including his latest one and subject of this review - "Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire."
The book is information rich on a core issue of our time. It discusses the US empire’s "systemic dimensions," evolving changes in its ruling class, its corporatist system, myths about its coming collapse, contradictions in the current debate on immigration and market liberalization policies, the use of force and genocidal carnage, corruption as a market penetrating tool, the Israeli Lobby’s power and influence, Latin American relations and events in the region, social and armed resistance, and much more in four power-packed parts under 17 subject chapter headings.
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Joel Hirschhorn: Time for Americans to Boycott Voting
Palestine Chronicle 10/11/2007
When it comes to serious political reform, the American system has become so utterly corrupt that before it can be fixed it must be deconstructed and then rebuilt.
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By Joel S. Hirschhorn
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
After many years of political disappointment, more progressives, liberals and conservatives – and certainly moderates and independents – know in their hearts that voting for Democrats or Republicans is a waste, if they want serious political and government reforms.But few see any alternative in what is seen as a two-party-democracy.There is an alternative that merits serious consideration: Just imagine if voter turnout was cut to 25 percent or less in the 2008 presidential election!
Imagine the whole world seeing Americans boycotting a broken and corrupt political system.American would be seen as having a delusional democracy that its citizens reject.After all, to keep voting in an unjust political system makes Americans willing political slaves that the rich and powerful elites exploit.
Cutting membership in the major parties is not good enough and, besides, most Americans are not party members.We need a bolder strategy if we are to move beyond campaign slogans to genuine political reforms.We must humiliate the political elites in both major parties and the corporate interests that support both of them.We can send a shock wave throughout the political establishment by not voting in the 2008 presidential election.
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Poem: With My Boys In Iraq
Palestine Chronicle 10/11/2007
Sam Hamod is a poet who was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, has published 10 books of poem and is the winner of the Ethnic Heritage Prize for Poetry.
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By Sam Hamod
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
With My Boys in Iraq - There Are These Nights
And there are these nights, when
we question, when it is
already clear,
no need for questions,
not a paradox, just
that we already know
this war we came to,
this war in Iraq,
was planned, not
decided upon, not based
on any good reason,
planned years earlier, a
death instinct of a few
frustrated men, who wanted their
moment of glory, glamorous war,
who sat
in Washington, in their 3 button
suits, then sent out
3 star generals, and some
sargents and privates
who barely knew how to write,
sailors who only knew
what little they were told,
marines who thought they
were going in to
liberate
some ignorant, third world,
illiterate, tortured and un-
intelligent
Iraqis- some
camel jockeys, rag
heads, stupid, unGodly
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Hasan Afif El-Hasan: Mideast Conference and the Illusive Peace
Palestine Chronicle 10/11/2007
The Palestinian people are desperate for having peace with justice, but they are afraid the conference will lead only to protracted negotiations rather than the end of occupation.
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By Dr. Hasan Afif El-Hasan
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
Until recently, Palestinian Authority (PA) officials including Abbas had been expressing reservations about the US sponsored November peace conference. Despite the repeated warnings that Abbas may not attend the conference unless certain conditions are met, he and the so called Arab moderates will not turn the invitation down. They are desperate for any action on the Palestinian issue and they have no control over events on the ground. Abbas government which is wholly dependent on the Americans, politically and financially, is not in a position to rebuff its main supporter, the US. And besides, the conference will be the only game in town.
Abbas government officials now sound optimistic about the conference because according to one official "when [US Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice was in the area lately, she told [Abbas] that the US administration was determined to turn the conference into a successful event. She also promised to exert pressure on Israel to soften its position”. Palestinian officials say that the conference “will launch permanent status treaty negotiations”. Abbas appeared confident that the conference would meet his expectations when he talked to reporter in Amman after meeting with King Abdullah II. He said "We are negotiating with Israel a joint agreement that will be presented to the international conference to be approved and adopted. Negotiations on final agreement will begin immediately after the conference", he said. But if the Israelis are ready to attend the meetings and negotiate, they are not ready to give up the spoils of war.
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Weak expectations
Lucy Fielder, Al-Ahram Weekly 10/17/2007
The clock is ticking in the search for a Lebanese president.
Leaders from Lebanon’s two sparring factions again laid out their opposing positions this week, and in apposite circumstances: 14 March parliamentary majority leader Saad Al-Hariri in Washington and Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah at a rally to celebrate Jerusalem Day.
Lebanon’s parliament is due to meet 23 October to elect a president for six years. An attempted session on 25 September failed to meet the necessary two- thirds quorum after the two sides failed to agree on a consensus candidate, leading to an opposition boycott.
Parliamentarians have until 23 November to elect a successor to Emile Lahoud whose term was extended by constitutional amendment under Syrian pressure three years ago. The "golden date" is 10 November, after which the parliamentary speaker cannot refuse to convene parliament. The opposition fears that the US and Saudi-backed ruling majority led by Al-Hariri may carry out threats to elect a president by simple majority, for the first time in Lebanon’s history, if no president is agreed upon by then.
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Silencing Bishop Tutu: Critical discussion off limits?
Bill Fletcher, Jr., The Black Commentator, Oct 11, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/11/2007
Bishop Desmond Tutu
There is a point when a political position can become rabid; a point when rational arguments no longer work because the holder of such politics believes that their way can be the only way of seeing things and that all other views must be suppressed.
Thus, we have the case of the cancellation of the speaking engagement of one Bishop Desmond Tutu, world-renowned human rights activist and one of the chief architects of the South African Truth & Reconciliation Commission.To the surprise of many, Bishop Tutu’s speaking engagement at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, Minnesota was cancelled, apparently because Bishop Tutu is a harsh critic of the Israeli regime and its occupation of Palestinian territories.According to startribune.com of Minneapolis-St. Paul, the University decided to cancel the speaking engagement because Bishop Tutu’s criticisms of the manner in which the Israelis are treating the Palestinians in the occupied territories would be considered hurtful to the Jewish community.
Did I hear this correctly?Are we being told that someone expressing an opinion critical of Israeli policy -- and indeed speaking the truth about the horrendous conditions of the Israeli occupation -- should be denied a right to speak?Indeed, that is precisely what is being said and it is further evidence of the rabidity and irrationality of the anti-Palestinian fanatics who wish to deny any genuine discussion of the actual situation facing the Palestinian people.
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EU quiet over Israeli land expropriation
David Cronin, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 10, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/10/2007
Israel’s settlement building has been met with little protest by the so-called "international community": The Israeli settlement of Har Homar near Jerusalem is expanded on land confiscated from Palestinian owners in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, April 2006. (Magnus Johansson/
MaanImages
BRUSSELS, Oct 10 (IPS) - Representatives of the European Union’s two most powerful institutions remained silent this week on new efforts by Israel to expropriate Palestinian villages, triggering accusations that the bloc’s Middle East policy suffers from double standards.
During a 10 October debate in Brussels, speakers from the Portuguese government, which holds the Union’s rotating presidency, and the European Commission did not refer directly to the Israeli order to seize control of four Arab villages located between East Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Jericho.
Their reticence drew angry response from some members of the European Parliament, the EU’s only directly-elected body.
"As Palestinians see all hope of a viable Palestinian state disappear before their eyes, what is the EU going to do?" asked Chris Davies, a British Liberal MEP. "You know very well it will do nothing, except mouth a few words. There will be no tangible action."
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Audio: Crossing the Line interviews Gaza journalist Rami Almeghari
Podcast, Crossing the Line, Oct 11, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/11/2007
This week on Crossing The Line: Host Christopher Brown speaks with Gaza-based Palestinian journalist and regular EI contributor, Rami Almeghari. Almeghari speaks about the current situation on the ground in Gaza after a week in which tens of Palestinians were wounded or killed by Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip. Brown asks Almeghari about reactions from Gazans after Israel’s designation of Gaza as a "hostile entity."
Since the beginning of the second intifada which entered its sixth year this past week, the education of Palestinian children at the primary, secondary and university levels have continually suffered due to the clamping down of the territories by the Israeli occupation. Along with the ongoing humanitarian crisis for Palestinians especially in the enclosed Gaza Strip, some 200,000 students are without adequate school materials to begin the school year. In the second part of the program, Brown speaks withHastings College law professor Dr. George Bisharat about the obstacles to Palestinians’ right to education.
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[MP3 - 13.9 MB, 34:40 min]
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Book review: "Married to Another Man"
Sonja Karkar, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 11, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/11/2007
Dr. Ghada Karmi’s latest book Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine opens with the problem European Zionists faced over a century ago when they first mooted the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine. They found then that there was already a well-established Palestinian society existing in the land they wished to claim as their own. Hence the message sent back to Vienna by the two rabbis who made the discovery: "The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man."
It is the essence of "Israel’s dilemma":how to effect the disappearance of the ever-present Palestinians so that a purely Jewish state can exist on Palestinian land? The Zionist program of ethnic cleansing that has been going on since Israel’s creation has not solved the problem.Neither has the living hell of occupation.
Essentially, Karmi says that Israel should never have been created in Palestine, but she does not suggest that present-day Israelis must be removed. Instead, she argues that a single state for two peoples offers much more hope for peace than a state based on Jewish exclusivity next to a truncated and utterly unviable proposed Palestinian state under Israel’s vice-like control.
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Passing undefeated: Remembering Haider Abdul-Shafi
Ramzy Baroud, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 11, 2007, Electronic Intifada 10/11/2007
The recent death of Haider Abdul-Shafi could not have come at a worse time. Bearing in mind the grim shortcomings of the Palestinian leadership and the lack of any serious attempt to rectify the situation, the loss of this unique and iconic leader feels all the more acute.
Here was someone who always managed to transcend factionalism and religiosity, tribal politics and self-serving ideologies, maintaining his principles through any external difficulties. He co-founded the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1960s and went on to start the Palestine Red Crescent Society in Gaza in the 1970s. The resilient man led the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid peace talks in 1991 and in 1993 resigned the post after learning from his hotel radio that Yasser Arafat had reached a secret agreement in Oslo without consulting the Palestinian negotiators in Spain. Abdul-Shafi told me, in the first interview I had with him, that learning of Arafat’s secret deal from the media was a particularly embarrassing moment for him.
In the same interview in 2002, Abdul-Shafi also spoke at length about the Palestinian uprising, talks with Israel, internal corruption and division, democracy and more. Then aged 83, Abdul-Shafi displayed the spirit of an idealistic young fighter with unswerving vision, while also demonstrating the wisdom borne of five decades of selfless struggle and steadfastness. For him, despair was never an option. Internal unity, democracy, resistance on all fronts and dialogue on an equal basis were his ultimate goals. He seemed indefatigable, but his failing health became his most significant enemy as a few years later he was diagnosed with cancer and on 25 September 2007 he passed away. more..
What Israel Wants, Israel Gets
Joharah Baker, MIFTAH 10/10/2007
There is a consistent thread, a pattern, which designs Israel’s policies in the Palestinian territories. Any scrutinizing observer will notice how Israel first pitches an idea to the public – however preposterous – then allows the Palestinians and the international community to absorb it before putting it into action. This way, policies and measures are less shocking and seem more acceptable once the dust has been allowed to settle.
We have all seen it time and time again. When the Aqsa Intifada first broke out, there was no Qalandia or Huwwara checkpoint and there was no separation wall. Jerusalem, although technically closed off to the West Bank by ineffective and extremely liquid checkpoints, was more or less accessible to most Palestinians. Not that the situation was ideal for the Palestinians because if this were the case, there would never have been an Intifada. Still, there is a world of difference between the situation prior to September 29, 2000 and the present, this new reality creeping up on us like slow-growing cancer. Today, the tumor has grown to exponential proportions and will be extremely difficult to excise. more..
An Israeli View: An Extraordinary Opportunity
Galia Golan, MIFTAH 10/10/2007
Few are particularly excited by the upcoming Israeli-Palestinian conference; most may believe it will not or should not even take place. Yet this could be the most important and promising opportunity for a genuine peace process since the ill-fated Camp David II conference in July 2000. This optimism derives from both the unique constellation of circumstances in the region and the cumulative effect of developments within the Israeli and Palestinian publics.
For various reasons of their own, primarily concern over the radicalization of their publics and the growing strength of Iran, the Arab regimes are acutely interested in getting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with its politically mobilizing effect, out of the way. The entire Arab world has signed on to the 2002 Arab peace initiative, originally proposed by Saudi Arabia and reconfirmed unanimously by the Arab League as recently as March 2007. In an unprecedented manner, this peace plan offers that which Israel has sought, or claims to have sought, from its inception: the end of the Arab-Israel conflict, normal relations and security. more..
Gaza Blockade Stops Students from Studying Abroad
Nidal Al-mughrabi, MIFTAH 10/10/2007
Palestinian student Khaled al-Mudallal arrived home to Gaza on a mission: marry his fiancee Duaa then spirit her back to Britain where he would complete his university degree. Instead, they both ended up stuck in the impoverished Hamas-run coastal enclave because of an Israeli blockade that stops anyone without a permit from leaving. The 22-year-old student returned to Gaza half way through his 3-year business management course at Bradford University in northern England to get married and escort his new wife home. But a week after he arrived, fighting between Islamist group Hamas and rival faction Fatah erupted. Hamas seized control of the coastal territory and Israel shut the one border crossing that remained open for ordinary people. "Being held in Gaza affects my whole life," Mudallal told Reuters. "I need to return to the life I have built." Israel has allowed a few Palestinian students to leave Gaza in time for the start of a new academic year at universities in Europe and the Middle East. But Palestinian officials say permits are issued sporadically and after long delays, meaning some 6,000 Gazans -- including hundreds of students -- have been forced to put their studies on hold. "Gaza trap? I would say Gaza grave," said 18-year-old Talal Mohammad, a Gaza student who had been hoping to study in Cairo. "We built hopes like mountains but they have all collapsed."... more..
Next year in Jerusalem
Uzi Benziman, Ha’aretz 10/10/2007
Waiting for the Messiah, like the hope of rebuilding the Temple, is one of the basic tenets of Judaism: Endless prayers and flourishing philosophical thought express the vision of the coming redemption. But this faith is self-defeating. Its very presence at the core of religious longing, inscribed in Psalms recited three times a day and lasting from generation to generation, shows that it will never come to pass.
Something like this is happening to the vision of peace with the Palestinians. A kind of mantra has evolved which no one seriously intends to implement. It took Israel only three days in June 1967 to occupy (in a justified war) the West Bank, and for 40 years it has been entangled in the net it created for itself by establishing the settlements. Israel makes do with making proposals, formulating solutions and raising ideas, but in fact it takes no real steps to end the conflict with the Palestinians. The more years that pass, the more complicated the solution becomes, as shown by the outcome of the decision to withdraw from Gaza. But the necessary conclusion is not presented: to reach a permanent arrangement based on Israel’s giving up the territories. more..
Report: Infighting claimed lives of 161 Palestinians
Report, PCHR, Electronic Intifada 10/10/2007
PCHR has published a special report titled "Black Days in the Absence of Justice: Report on Bloody Fighting in the Gaza Strip from 7 to 14 June 2007." The report details results of investigations conducted by PCHR into the bloody fighting between Hamas and Fatah movements, represented by their armed wings and security services, which ended with Hamas’ takeover of all headquarters and sites of security services, and consequently, the whole Gaza Strip.
This latest round of fighting took the lives of 161 Palestinians, including 41 civilians. This figure includes seven children and 11 women. Additionally, at least 700 Palestinians were wounded.
According to PCHR’s documentation, the two parties of the conflict perpetrated grave breaches of the provisions of international law concerning internal armed conflicts, especially common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. The fighting included: extra-judicial and willful killings of combatants who laid down their arms; killing a number of wounded persons inside hospitals; abduction and torture; using houses and apartment buildings in the fighting, endangering the lives of civilians; and obstruction of access of medical and civil defense crews to areas of clashes. more..
Letter: Land grabs make Palestinians’ lives a misery
Nandita Dowson, The Guardian 10/11/2007
What double-speak it is to say the road envisaged by the Israelis is to "improve the quality of life" of Palestinians, when it is choking them (Israeli army orders confiscation of Palestinian land, October 10). In the distant past, people in Abu Dis lived a normal life. And even after Israeli occupation in 1967, people used to work in Jerusalem to the west, visit the Dead Sea to the east, and go north and south to Ramallah and Bethlehem.
Now they are cut off by the Israeli separation wall and its fierce "terminals" - on the west they can’t get to Jerusalem or jobs, hospitals, education and services; unemployment is around 65%. The wall curves round north and is being built on the east to cut the route to Jericho and Jordan and divide Abu Dis from the massive settlement of Maale Adumim, a no go area for Palestinians. This new land-grab means the road that leads from Abu Dis south will be cut too. There will be a fenced "security corridor" from Bethlehem to Jericho, effectively making another wall for Abu Dis - Israeli settlers on one, separate road, then the wall, then a fenced-off Palestinian road where people are forbidden to stop. more..
Why the Annapolis conference will be another fiasco
Khalid Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinian Information Center 10/8/2007
It is really difficult to give the upcoming Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, the benefit of the doubt.
We do see a lot of movement here and there, but there is very little action if any. The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has been making unwarrantedly optimistic statements about the imminence of a historical breakthrough between the Palestinians and Israel. On Sunday, 7 October, she was quoted as saying that she believed the Palestinian problem was finally coming to an end.
I don’t know if Rice knew what she was saying. However, from observing things on the ground, it seems there is very little if any to warrant this euphoria.
In any case, one should remember that statements coming out of the mouths of senior officials of the Bush administration have very little credibility.
The Iraq debacle, and also Bush’s shameless bias toward Israel, should leave no doubt as to the moral bankruptcy of the current American administration.
What is more important though remains the situation in the Middle East and the conspicuous absence of any sign indicating an Israeli willingness to come to terms with intrinsic Palestinian rights, like the right of millions of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and towns from which they were uprooted at gunpoint in 1948. more..
So that Annapolis will not be a failure
Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star 10/10/2007
The November Arab-Israeli peace-making meeting that US President George W. Bush has called for replays several similar moments in the past quarter-century, when gatherings were convened but did not achieve their full promise - at Madrid, Camp David, Taba and Oslo, among others. Will this year be any different? I hope so in my heart, but I do not think so, to judge by current political realities.
If we enter a process - as we are now - based primarily on nice-sounding aspirations, but in reality defined by a terrible imbalance in power, aims, and negotiating assets, we will fail as surely as we did in the past.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pushed this tendency ahead one more notch on Monday when he spoke in lofty and sometimes stirring terms at the opening of Israel’s Knesset. His comments, however, were another example of the Israeli tendency to offer vague generalities at the expense of specific commitments, and to extend to the Palestinians a hand in peace-making while conducting policies on the ground that promote perpetual conflict and active war.
He said: "The Palestinian leadership today is not a terrorist leadership. The president and prime minister are committed to all the agreements that were signed with Israel and I believe that they want to advance, with us, on a path toward changing the relations between us and them." more..
Rabin supported it, too
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 10/9/2007
Before State Department officials preparing for the Annapolis conference get too excited about the remarks of senior cabinet ministers Haim Ramon and Avigdor Lieberman about dividing Jerusalem, it is worth their while to ask another senior minister, Ehud Barak, for a copy of the new order "for appropriating lands," which refers to the lands of four villages that lie on the capital’s outskirts. This order is synonymous with putting an end to working on an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on the basis of the principle of two states with territorial contiguity.
The order prepares the ground for annexing a large and controversial area known by the name of E1, which connects Ma’aleh Adumim to Jerusalem. In order to allow the Jews to enjoy territorial contiguity, the Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces, which are commanded by Ehud Barak, will grant the Palestinians "transportational contiguity." This is no new invention. The patent for it was registered many years ago in the name of Ariel Sharon, who claimed he had proposed building bridges and tunnels throughout "Judea and Samaria" for use by the Palestinians. We on top and they below. more..
Heading to December
Tom Segev, Ha’aretz 10/9/2007
Haim Ramon has been going around for some time with a proposal for power sharing in Jerusalem, and the sky has not fallen. Ostensibly this is quite an amazing phenomenon; there was a time when the vice premier’s idea was heard only among the radical left, somewhere between Yesh Gvul and Gush Shalom. This seems to be a turning point of historic proportions.
The great debate over the future of the territories occupied in the Six-Day War always has been based on agreement that Jerusalem should not be divided. "The city that is compact together" has served the religious-national myth considered to be one of the foundation stones of Zionist existence. Ehud Barak broke the sacred taboo when he secretly agreed to power sharing in Jerusalem, but at the last minute lost his nerve and did not dare give the Palestinians sovereignty over the Temple Mount. A vice premier calling openly for the division of the city - this has never happened.
And it was as if he had not spoken. No one quit the cabinet, the coalition did not even crack, no one went out to demonstrate, nary a bumper sticker was printed. That phenomenon requires an explanation. more..
Why, When and how the Us Challenges Israel’s Actions
Nadia Hijab, MIFTAH 10/9/2007
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said bluntly during his recent meetings with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the credibility of the peace process could only be restored by, among other things, an immediate halt to Israeli settlement, an end to the closures that had ruined the Palestinian economy, and a timeframe to implement final status issues. [1] Abbas thus emphasized not only the need to address final status issues, but also to push for implementation.
By contrast, Rice has been emphasizing the bilateral nature of the Israeli-Palestinian track, an approach that leaves the Israelis and the Palestinians to their own devices notwithstanding the immense power imbalance between them – an imbalance that has left previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements unimplemented. [2] No agreement will be implemented without external intervention to right the balance of power. The question is: who will do so? Neither Arab nor European countries have been willing or able to challenge Israel’s occupation of Palestinian and Syrian land, while US administrations have only reined Israel when they saw a threat to what they defined as vital interests, particularly in two areas: the US status as world leader and its intelligence and military secrets. more..
Norman Finkelstein: Jeffrey Goldberg’s Prison
Norman Finkelstein, Palestine Chronicle 10/9/2007
The heart of Goldberg’s book is his stint during the first intifada (1987-1993) as a military policeman in Ketziot (Ansar Three), an Israeli prison for Palestinian detainees located in the Negev desert.
Jeffrey Goldberg is the recipient of numerous journalism awards and currently writes on the Middle East for The New Yorker magazine. On its surface his book Prisoners: A Muslim & A Jew Across The Middle East Divide interweaves the memoir of an American Jew’s enchantment and subsequent disappointment with Israel, on the one hand, and the reportage of a knowing journalist covering the Israel-Palestine beat, on the other. Its main interest, however, is as a sophisticated work of ideology, one meriting more than passing attention. On a political level it registers the limits of what is currently permissible to acknowledge in enlightened liberal sectors of American Jewry, while on a personal level it registers the limits of what an enlightened believer in the faith can admit to himself. More broadly it signals the eclipse of liberal American Jewry’s love affair with the Jewish state, itself integral of the beginnings of a larger American estrangement from Israel. more..
Why keep letting Israel sabotage the world’s efforts to make peace?
Editorial, Daily Star 10/10/2007
It did not take long for Israel’s government to extinguish the latest bit of hope that it might adopt a reasonable stance as efforts continue to revive the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Not content to keep making war on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, to constantly undermine the credibility of a would-be partner in President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction and to erode good will by haggling over procedural details, the Jewish state has taken the boldest step yet toward making the November peace conference in America a failed one: It has confiscated yet more land near Occupied Jerusalem, evaporating the optimism created by a senior official’s hint that the holy city might be shared.
There was nothing new in this act of diplomatic vandalism, nor in the chutzpah of an accompanying statement by the Israeli Army to the effect that the land grab was carried out "in order to improve the quality of life for Palestinians." Deliberate provocations - especially at precarious moments - have always been an integral part of Israeli policy. Is it too much to ask, though, that the international community finally speak out against the deliberate undermining of its goals in the Middle East? Few governments have hesitated to condemn acts of violence by Palestinian militants, especially when these have apparently been timed to obstruct the peace process. more..
A Druze intifada?
Meron Rapoport, Ha’aretz 10/9/2007
MK Ophir Pines-Paz: Isn’t it true that in Yarka the head of the appointed committee is afraid to go there?"
Rani Finchi: "He’s not afraid, there is a police prohibition barring entry to the place - they put a coffin at the entrance to the council."
Pines-Paz: "So we’ll capitulate to violence and threats? Where are we living? Put them in jail."
Finchi: "We contacted the police and they are not allowing us to enter Yarka. We are pressuring them every day. We’re losing this local authority. The authority’s head is threatened to the extent that his life may be in danger if he sets foot in Yarka."
(Dialogue between the head of the Knesset’s Interior Committee, MK Ophir Pines-Paz, and Rani Finchi, the director of the Interior Ministry’s local government administration, Interior Committee meeting, 4.9.07)
Sunday a week ago, a rather impressive convoy arrived in the town of Yarka, a large, pretty and thriving Druze village not far from Acre. Fourteen policemen and some 10 bodyguards accompanied the armored vehicle transporting Ari Tal, the chairman of the Yarka appointed committee. Tal - a lieutenant colonel in the army reserves, a 22-year veteran of the Israel Air Force, the principal of the AIF’s Technical School and Tirat Hacarmel’s mayor for 10 years - is no coward, but he will likely remember for quite some time his previous visit to the office he was given in the town’s council building just over two weeks ago... more..
Dissenting at Your Own Risk
Cecilie Surasky, MIFTAH 10/9/2007
Last year, I agreed to speak to a Jewish youth group about my organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, and our opposition to Israel’s occupation. My talk was to follow one from a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which calls itself "America’s pro-Israel Lobby."
A week before, a shaken program leader said the AIPAC staffer had threatened to get the entire youth program’s funding canceled if I was allowed in the door. The threat worked, and in disgust, they canceled the whole talk.
Pundits will surely argue for years about professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s explosive new book, The Israel Lobby, which blames poor U.S. policy in the Middle East on a loose network of individuals and pro-Israel advocacy groups.
But the book, and the response to it, opens up another controversy: the stifling of debate about unconditional U.S. support for Israeli policies. more..
Boost Here, Squeeze There
The Economist - Hebron, Jenin And Nablus, MIFTAH 10/9/2007
THEY came for Omar Maswadeh at half-past midnight. They broke furniture at his home in the West Bank town of Hebron, blindfolded him, shoved him in a car. They kept him in solitary, hooded and with his hands tied, in the painful seated shabah position that Israeli courts have outlawed. Two days later they came for his brother Alaa and his cousin Yusri. After holding the young men for two to three weeks each, they charged them with membership in Hamas’s “executive force”, a militia that the Islamist party created in Gaza but never actually managed to form in the West Bank. Then they let them go.
That strategy looks dubious. One reason is that the current repression of Hamas in the West Bank looks like a repetition of the Fatah-Israel collaboration in the mid-1990s, when Hamas was trying to disrupt the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the late Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Then, the PA’s “preventive security” forces developed a reputation as ruthless jailers and torturers of Islamists. It rebounded on them. A decade later Palestinians—many because they were fed up with Fatah’s corruption and ineptitude—voted Hamas into power. And the Fatah-Hamas blood feud exploded in June in Gaza—to Fatah’s loss. more..
Abbas should Listen to his Refugees
Rami Khouri, MIFTAH 10/9/2007
Momentum seems to be picking up for the November meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, between the United States, Israel, and representatives of roughly half the Palestinians, to achieve a framework agreement for comprehensive peace negotiations, leading to permanent peace. In many ways we are back to 2000, when Israelis and Palestinians hurriedly huddled with Americans at Camp David to try and resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that is at the heart of Arab-Israeli tensions.
Camp David attempt did not succeed, due to deficiencies on the part of all three of the principal parties. We should avoid a similar rush-job today - driven again by the slightly hysterical urgency of a disheveled American administration nearing the end of its term. I have some comments for the Palestinians, who are hobbled by three major constraints going into the meeting: President Mahmoud Abbas is dangerously close to being seen by many in the Arab world as a hapless American-Israeli puppet; his political party, Fatah, has been largely discredited as a corrupt, bloated and inefficient burden on society, and no longer represents majority Palestinian thinking; and, the absence of Hamas from the Annapolis meeting makes the Palestinian delegation’s credentials rather thin. more..
Gaza faces major health crisis
The Palestine Monitor, ReliefWeb 10/6/2007
Sealed borders prevent essential medical treatment and keep drugs off the shelves.
After another round of Israeli air strikes and military incursions into Gaza early Wednesday morning residents have cited a deepening economic crisis, fear of a health crisis and constant attacks from Israel as evidence that the humanitarian situation in the region has never been worse.
Cross border attacks into Gaza by the Israeli military are almost daily occurrences, and have resulted in eighty five deaths since July 16th. Israel’s tight border restrictions have turned essential items into rarities while sending prices soaring, according to Gaza residents.
"Prices are high because there’s no food. The flour in Gaza has never been so expensive," says local Gazan journalist Mohammad Dawwas. "My wife wanted to make a pizza but couldn’t find cheese."
"It’s never been so bad, people are experiencing economic hardship as they’ve never experienced it before. All the factories are closed, with 25,000 employees laid off. Gaza is closed, people don’t work, it’s terrible," adds Dawwas. Since June a total of more than 75,000 private sector workers have been laid off in Gaza, and the accumulated private sector losses are estimated at $51 million. more..
Politics of fear
Osamah Khalil, Electronic Intifada 10/8/2007
The Palestinians are some of the most talented, best educated, and hardest working people in the Middle East.
- US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Keynote Speech at The American Task Force on Palestine’s Inaugural Gala, 11 October 2006. [1]
The Palestinians, frankly, are a ragtag people, many who barely speak English. And whatever they say is often offensive and then used against them.
- Dr. Ziad Asali, President and founder of the American Task Force on Palestine, 1 August 2007. [2]
During the Cold War, the conservative Arab governments used the threat of "international communism" to squelch internal dissent and secure their unpopular regimes while cultivating closer ties to Washington. In the "post-9/11" era, "communism" has been replaced by the specter of "terrorism."Deeply unpopular at home and unable to rely on any notion of nationalism or Pan-Arab unity, Arab leaders have instead resorted to the politics of fear to bolster their rule by appealing to the basest elements of sectarian and ethnic bigotry: fear of a Shiite revival, or of Persian hegemony, or the chaos in Iraq.These tactics have emerged in Palestine since Hamas’ election victory, and have become more pronounced since the organization took over Gaza in June.Attempting to generate support for his attenuating rule, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has sought to paint criticism of him, the PA and Fatah, as emanating not only from Hamas’ supporters but directly from Tehran.Borrowing from George W. Bush’s Manichean philosophy, Abbas and his lackeys are offering Palestinians a simple and false choice: either you are with "us" (i.e., the PA and Fatah) or you are with the "terrorists" (i.e., Hamas and Iran).In the United States, Abbas has been aided in this effort by the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), a fledgling organization that professes to represent Palestinian-American interests. The implications of these tactics on Palestinian advocacy and aspirations in the existing political climate bear merit further scrutiny, as do the organizations and individuals which employ them. more..
Education in Jerusalem: Separate and unequal
Report, The Alternative Information Center, Electronic Intifada 10/8/2007
The following is the summary of "The Economy of the Occupation 13-15: Report on the Educational System in East," published by the Alternative Information Center:
When Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, it assumed responsibility for the well-being of East Jerusalem’s population and for fulfilling their rights, regardless of religion or ethnicity. The right to education is one of the most basic rights, and is an essential prerequisite for the plural democracy Israel claims to be.
Education is especially important because in the long term it determines a population’s ability to deal with the rest of society on a par. The education system in Israel maintains and expands gaps between the Jewish and the Palestinian Arab sectors. In East Jerusalem the differences and discrimination are especially stark and apparent.
The economic situation in East Jerusalem is a testament to years of inequity and neglect. Sixty-six percent of Palestinian families and 76 percent of Palestinian children live below the poverty line. While Palestinians make up 34 percent of the total population in Jerusalem, they make up 56 percent of the poor and about 58 percent of poor children, despite the fact that the percentage of Muslim men in Jerusalem employed in the civilian workforce is greater than that of Jews. more..
Sharing Jerusalem makes sense, but who will make it work?
Editorial, Daily Star 10/9/2007
Israel’s deputy prime minister, Haim Ramon, has stirred up a hornets’ nest in the Jewish state by proposing that Occupied Jerusalem be shared with the Palestinians as part of any comprehensive peace agreement. His boss, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has studiously avoided public comment on the matter - which indicates very strongly that Ramon’s statements have been trial balloons aimed at gauging the reactions of the Israeli public and the international community. It remains to be seen, therefore, whether or not the plan has a chance in the near future.
The fact that Ramon’s proposal has sparked such vociferous criticism at home is a measure of just how far out of touch some Israeli politicians are. After all, the idea is not novel: It has been around in some form for decades, and a detailed version of it was a key element of the deal then-US President Bill Clinton tried but failed to broker near the end of his term in office. Nor is it out of date: Just a few days ago, an open letter signed by several former US State Department officials put their imprimatur on a plan for Jerusalem to be shared. In addition, logic makes the proposal politically viable, geography it physically practicable and United Nations Security Council resolutions make it legally mandatory. more..
Development is not the gist of the Palestinian problem
Ghassan Khatib, Daily Star 10/9/2007
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is in essence political. It started as a result of where Israel was established and how Palestinians were consequently forced from their homeland in 1948. The conflict was further aggravated when Israel occupied the rest of Palestine, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, in 1967. Palestinians now are either under occupation or they are refugees. In some cases they are refugees under occupation. In all cases they have been denied their political rights, primarily their right to self-determination and statehood.
As a byproduct of this political conflict, Palestinians have been deprived of some of their basic human rights as well. Refugees have lived miserable lives in neighboring countries, while those under occupation have suffered the iniquities of belligerent Israeli military rule and all that that has entailed, including collective punishment on a massive scale.
The last decade of the 20th century saw the first internationally supported political attempt to address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by recognizing Palestinian political rights and allowing a Palestinian leadership to negotiate for a solution. Since then there has been a constantly growing accumulation of peace efforts, political negotiations, schemes, proposals and initiatives that have all had as their one common denominator the two-state solution - in other words giving Palestinians the right of self-determination in an independent state on the part of Palestine that was occupied by Israel in 1967. more..
Avoiding the Mistakes of Camp David
Rami G. Khouri, Middle East Online 10/8/2007
In preparation for the November peace talks in Annapolis, President Mahmoud Abbas should listen to the Palestinian people and come with a prepared agenda of some consensus. This is how to overcome being seen as an Israeli-American puppet - an avoidance that is the minimum for the possibility of successful peace negotiations. BEIRUT - Momentum seems to be picking up for the November meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, between the United States, Israel, and representatives of roughly half the Palestinians, to achieve a framework agreement for comprehensive peace negotiations, leading to permanent peace. In many ways we are back to 2000, when Israelis and Palestinians hurriedly huddled with Americans at Camp David to try and solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that is at the heart of wider Arab-Israeli tensions.
That attempt did not succeed, due to deficiencies on the part of all three principal parties. We should avoid a similar rush-job scenario -- driven again by the slightly hysterical urgency of a disheveled American presidency nearing the end of its term. more..
Haider Abdul-Shafi: Passing Undefeated
Ramzy Baroud, MIFTAH 10/8/2007
The recent death of Haider Abdul-Shafi could not have come at a worse time. Bearing in mind the grim shortcomings of the Palestinian leadership and the lack of any serious attempt to rectify the situation, the loss of this unique and iconic leader feels all the more acute.
Here was someone who always managed to transcend factionalism and religiosity, tribal politics and self-serving ideologies, maintaining his principles through any external difficulties. He co-founded the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the 1960s and went on to start the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza in the 1970s. The resilient man led the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid peace talks in 1991 and in 1993 resigned the post after learning from his hotel radio that Yasser Arafat had reached a secret agreement in Oslo without consulting the Palestinian negotiators in Spain. Abdul-Shafi told me, in the first interview I had with him, that learning of Arafat’s secret deal from the media was a particularly embarrassing moment for him.
In the same interview in 2002, Abdul-Shafi also spoke at length about the Palestinian uprising, talks with Israel, internal corruption and division, democracy and more. Then aged 83, Abdul-Shafi displayed the spirit of an idealistic young fighter with unswerving vision, while also demonstrating the wisdom borne of five decades of selfless struggle and steadfastness. For him, despair was never an option. Internal unity, democracy, resistance on all fronts and dialogue on an equal basis were his ultimate goals. He seemed indefatigable, but his failing health became his most significant enemy as a few years later he was diagnosed with cancer and on 25 September 2007 he passed away. more..
Israel’s Colonial Siege and The Palestinians
Bashir Abu-Manneh, ZNet 10/6/2007
If there’s one short phrase that can describe Palestinian reality under Israeli occupation today, it is this: enduring under permanent siege, without surrender.{1}
My aim in the following is, first, to defend the accuracy of this statement. Since the Oslo Agreements of 1993, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has developed into a colonial siege, gradually atomizing and strangling Palestinian economy and society. Compounded by international boycott, poverty levels are now between 70 per cent and 80 per cent, with extreme and unprecedented levels of unemployment and rising dependency on food aid.{2} Second, although Israeli policy is mainly to blame for this drastic worsening of Palestinian living conditions since 1993, the Palestinian national secular elite is far from blameless. They have, in fact, played a junior yet pivotal role in bringing this new regime into being. By legitimizing their people’s continued dispossession and domination by Israel, they have ended up corrupting Palestinian national aspirations for justice and self-determination. With no alternative left project in sight, religious fundamentalism was destined to carry the mantle of an abandoned nationalism and drastically increase its own popular political constituency. Third, siege and capitulation also eventually generated mass resistance. As with the first Intifada of the late 1980s that led to Oslo, Palestinians again revolted in popular protest against colonization and national denial. And with the al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, resistance was re-legitimized.{3} This time round, though, conditions were much worse: social power and political leverage were in even shorter supply. Suicide bombing expressed growing Palestinian captivity and despair, and armed struggle replaced an earlier emphasis on mass political participation. I examine these new forms of resistance and scrutinize their prospects of achieving decolonization under continuing conditions of siege, Hamas-Fatah factionalism, and an absence of unified strategy. more..
Black Holes
Gideon Levy, MIFTAH 10/8/2007
A visit to Ein Beit-Ilma refugee camp on the outskirts of Nablus. We proceed from house to house through the holes made by soldiers in the walls of the rooms. From the home of the Yunes family, our hosts, we make our way to the Rajab family through the hole in the stairwell. From the Rajabs we go on to the Namruttis, this time through the hole in the bedroom wall. From there to the Taha family, now through the living room. "Let’s go back to the street," says Dr. Ghassan Hamdan, director of Palestinian Medical Relief Services in Nablus, after we have passed dustily through half a dozen homes without having emerged into the street. "We are not soldiers," he says.
The neighborly relations in this shabby camp are now more open: You can ask a neighbor for salt without having to leave the house. Whole streets can now be traversed indoors, through the walls, one gaping hole after another. The Israel Defense Forces banged its head against the wall, so to speak, until its soldiers found the terrorist who planned to commit suicide, as well as his squad, which had already sent the explosive belt to Tel Aviv. more..
Giving them something to talk about
Avi Issacharoff, Ha’aretz 10/8/2007
One by one, the Palestinian visitors entered the sukkah at the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s official residence last Wednesday. They entered cautiously and hesitantly, noting the decorative Israeli flags closing in on them from all sides. They promptly underwent an accelerated course in Judaism, as Olmert explained the four plant species used in the Sukkot rituals. The pictures, they knew, would certainly not improve their standing among the Palestinian public. As an experienced, veteran guest, Saeb Erekat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization negotiating team, strategically avoided the Government Press Office camera.
This week, at his bureau in Jericho, Erekat continued to react with disingenuous amazement to the "kaffiyeh incident" at the Madrid conference 16 years ago - an event which singlehandedly brought him to the Israel public’s attention.
"At the Madrid conference, there were some other people from the Gulf, all of them wearing kaffiyehs. Why did they make such a fuss specifically about my kaffiyeh?" he asks with a smile. He pauses, the smile vanishes and Erekat again adopts the expression of a negotiator. "I appeared at the negotiations in a kaffiyeh intentionally," he says, "to show those people in Israel who thought it was possible to eradicate my identity and to argue that there is no such thing as Palestinians." more..
Some dates are sacred
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 10/8/2007
The Palestinians consider November to be unlucky, and justly so. Since the Balfour Declaration in November 1917, which recognized the establishment of a national home for the Jews in the Land of Israel, November bodes badly for them - in 30-year intervals.
In November 1947 the United Nations General Assembly voted on the establishment of a Jewish state; in November 1977 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat came to Jerusalem to announce that the most important Arab state recognized the Jewish state. If in the coming weeks there is no dramatic change during the meetings for drafting the Annapolis document, November 2007 will be added to that forlorn list. But this time the failure will be marked in bold letters in the book of misses by the Zionist movement.
In an interview published last week in Newsweek and The Washington Post (and widely quoted in the Arab media), Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas expressed regret that the Palestinians refused to accept the UN’s decision to divide the area into two states. From the interview, as well as the discussions that he and his aides have been holding with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his advisers, it emerges that the principles of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians are within reach. They have not been significantly altered since the Palestinian National Council, under Yasser Arafat (who died in November 2004), declared in Algiers in November 1988 that it accepted UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. more..
Mohammed al-Dura Lives on
Gideon Levy, MIFTAH 10/8/2007
The concern Israel demonstrates for the fate of one Palestinian boy touches the heart: Again, note what a fuss is being made about the case of the killing of Mohammed al-Dura. Our heart is impervious to the fate of other children who have been killed. Just little Mohammed continues to haunt us. But the question of who killed al-Dura is not important. And maybe he is even alive, as some eccentrics claim. Perhaps he committed suicide, as the strange investigations are liable to suggest.
All of these are tasteless questions designed to divert attention from the truly important issues: According to data collected by human rights group B’Tselem, Israel is responsible for killing more than 850 Palestinian children and teenagers since al-Dura was killed, including 92 in the past year alone. Last October, we killed 31 children in Gaza. This is what should have raised a storm and not the measurements by the former head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Southern Command, Yom Tov Samiyeh, aimed at proving that his soldiers did not kill al-Dura, or the "investigations" by the physicist Nahum Shahaf. In an eccentric obsession, Shahaf has devoted the past years to this affair, after previously having also obtained "amazing material" on the murder of Yitzhak Rabin. more..
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