Explusion, Little by Little
By Amira Hass, Palestine Monitor/Ha'aretz 10/22/2003
The fears and suspicions, as usual, came true - and very quickly. Hiding behind security rationales and the seemingly neutral bureaucratic language of military orders is the gateway for expulsion. Not massive expulsion, heaven forbid, not on trucks, and not far. Drop by drop, unseen, not so many that it would be noticed internationally and shock public opinion; with the proper measure so the Israelis can continue saying it's justified for security reasons, with the appropriate modesty in the media so the information doesn't reach the consciousness of even those who are dealing with the details of a permanent agreement, with their love of peace, while a wave of anti-Semitism sweeps the world.
A little more than a week has gone by since the Palestinians whose villages are trapped between the separation fence and the State of Israel received new instructions from the army and the Civil Administration for "arranging" their presence on their own land. Civil Administration officers hurried to tell the residents that the permits were ready: permits for "permanent residents," according to a new category of Palestinians, invented by the legal minds in the army for the areas the army declared a closed military zone (though only for Palestinians. It's open to Israelis and Jews). The permits will enable the "permanent residents" to move "out of the area" and back to it. The Israel Defense Forces says it wants those residents who live "next to the fence" to maintain "as normal a fabric of life as possible."
The ‘Israelization’ of the United States
By David Hirst, Daily Star 10/22/2003
Few disputed at the time that Israel was a factor that pushed Bush to go to war on Iraq. Just how much weight it had among all the others was the only controversial question. But what is clear is that Israel has become a very important one indeed in the stumbling neo-imperial venture that is Iraq today. This “Israelization” of US policy crossed a new threshold with the two blows dealt Syria in recent days President Bush’s endorsement of Israel’s air raid on its territory and the Syrian Accountability Act passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday. A community of US-Israeli purpose pushed to unprecedented lengths is now operational as well as ideological. For the US, the primary battlefield is Iraq, and any state which sponsors or encourages resistance to its occupation; for Israel it is occupied Palestine, its “terrorists” and their external backers. These common objectives converge on Syria.
Of course, with his raid, Sharon had his own specifically Israel agenda, growing out of frustration at his failure to crush the intifada. Breaking the “rules” that have “contained” Israeli-Syrian armed conflict these past 30 years, he signaled his readiness to visit on Israel’s Arab neighbors the same punitive techniques he uses on the Palestinians. But whereas such an escalation might have had some deterrent logic when these neighbors truly did sponsor or harbor Palestinian resistance, it doesn’t now. An essential feature of the intifada is that, spontaneous and popular, it derives almost all its impetus from within; nothing illustrated that like Hanadi Jaradat, the young woman from Jenin whose very personal grief and vengeance prompted the atrocious, self-sacrificial deed which the prompted the raid in its turn. So, other than brief emotional gratification to the Israeli public, it achieved nothing. But that will not deter Sharon. Having embarked on this course, he has little choice but to continue it; more importantly, violence has always been the indispensable means by which, in the guise of fighting terror, he pursues his real, long-term aims, the building of “Greater Israel” and crushing any opposition, Arab as well as Palestinian, to it.
Geneva Accord - PA Selling Out Palestinian Rights?
By Haithem El-Zabri, Electronic Intifada 10/22/2003
The Palestinian Authority has given its blessing to a "symbolic peace treaty" reached in Switzerland between mid-level Palestinian officials and Israeli opposition leaders. In the so-called "Geneva Accord," the negotiators outline what they see as the necessary compromises for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Parties: The Palestinian team is comprised of several former Palestinian Authority (PA) ministers, current legislators, and leaders from the ruling Fatah Party. They include Yasir Abed Rabbo, former Minister of Information, Hisham Abdel Razeq, former Minister for Prisoner Affairs, Nabil Kassis, former Minster of Planning, and officials from the Fatah-affiliated Tanzim organization. The talks were conducted with Yasser Arafat's approval, if not direction.
The Israeli side includes former Minister of Justice Yossi Beilin, former Israeli Labor party leader Amram Mitzna, former Parliament speaker Avraham Burg, former chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Brigadier General Giora Inbar, writer Amos Oz, and several current and former Members of Knesset.
Virtual understandings
By Meron Benvenisti, Ha'aretz 10/23/2003
There are a number of ways to analyze that pretentious, complex and absurdly detailed document known (after some deliberation) as the "Geneva Understandings." First, it's possible to deal with the legality or kashrut of the privatization of contacts with the Palestinians and the monopoly over the peace process (or its torpedoing), to which the government claims exclusive ownership. Secondly, the "understandings" can be regarded as an educational aid or as a political trick, that is, the analysis would not consider the content but rather the message: "Proof there's someone to talk to," "A show of support for Arafat."
Third, a comparative analysis can be made of the current text and the documents and positions formulated in the past - for example, the Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement, or the positions taken by the Israeli government with regard to Jerusalem and the refugees. Fourth, the document's details can be examined to assess their quality and to determine if its pretensions are justified. Fifth, the basic assumption of the initiative that yielded the "understandings" can be examined - in other words, whether the current conditions are ripe for a permanent agreement and "an end to the conflict," or whether perhaps a declaration of intentions should be formulated and a series of interim agreements be built, leading to a gradual end to the conflict. All these analyses are legitimate and each person will choose how to regard the document in his or her own way.
One State: threat or promise of peace?
By Hasan Abu-Nimah, Electronic Intifada 10/22/2003
In a recent visit to Luxembourg, Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher voiced his grave concern over the fading promise of a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, based on two-state solution. What he said sounds more like a recognition of a harsh reality than what may otherwise be viewed as a warning to avoid the worst.
Warnings of this kind were heard before, from prominent Arabs, Israelis and others. They were hardly heeded, or even taken seriously. Most of us assumed that such warnings were no more than good efforts to expose the dangers of Israeli procrastination, with the positive intent of urging parties to work harder for peace. This must also have been Muasher's motive, as he did indeed concluded his admonition by stressing that "it is becoming very imperative on all of us to renew our efforts in order to put the roadmap back on track and in order to effect a two-state solution, because the alternatives are very dire, very serious for all of us".
The significance of the minister's statement, though, lies mainly in what preceded his concluding advice. He said that Israel's settlement policy and building of the wall "which would basically carve up the West Bank into a number of small entities would render a two-state solution impossible". Here he is absolutely right. He further elaborated by listing the "very serious and dire alternatives" in case this very dangerous development of bypassing the two-state solution is allowed to happen.
International intervention crucial after 12 Palestinians die in a day which saw 5 successive attacks on Gaza
Editorial, Palestine Monitor 10/22/2003
12 Palestinians were killed on Monday in the most devastating series of attacks against the occupied population since the beginning of the Intifada. In a continuation of the extreme Israeli policy of extrajudicial assassinations, apache helicopters knowingly fired missiles into civilian crowds in a series of five successive strikes.
The fourth and most deadly of the apache attacks came at approximately 9pm Monday evening. Having first fired two missiles at a car traveling through the busy al – Sajaiyeh neighborhood, the Israeli helicopter doubled back and fired a third missile on the crowd of civilians who had rushed to help the two dead and several injured. A further seven civilians were killed with this third missile strike. One of whom was 35 year old Zain Shahin, a doctor from a local clinic who was attempting to help in the chaos of the scene.
There is no explanation for this appalling attack on a civilian population. Israel has not only adopted an illegal policy in assassinating Palestinian militants but is executing this policy with complete carelessness. 291 Palestinians have been killed in assassination attacks since September 2000. 143 of those killed were by-standers. This figure includes at least 32 children and 25 women. These extrajudicial killings are a grave breach of the 4th Geneva Convention and as such are universally considered war crimes.
Iran nuclear pact is a slap in Bush’s face
By William O. Beeman, Daily Star 10/23/2003
Iranian officials have given the international community almost everything it wants in terms of compliance with nuclear nonproliferation. The agreement was a calculated rap in the chops for the Bush administration, but Washington is not likely to take the hint.
For months now the Bush administration has been trying to bully and threaten Iran over its development of nuclear power. A light-water reactor being built in the city of Bushehr that could never practically be used to generate nuclear fuel was breathlessly declared an international threat. Miniscule amounts of enriched uranium were revealed to the press as harbingers of an imminent nuclear bomb.
The United States pressured Russia unsuccessfully to stop helping Iran with its legitimate development of nuclear power. Though it will never be conclusively proven, it is almost certain that the US put pressure on Japan, Canada and Australia to introduce an impossible resolution before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that would require Iran to prove a negative to demonstrate that they were not developing nuclear weapons. This is the diplomatic equivalent of asking someone to prove that they don’t beat their spouse.
Inciting against peace advocates
Editorial, Ha'aretz 10/23/2003
From the day it became known that contacts between leftists and Labor Party MKs with senior Palestinian personages had yielded a model for a permanent agreement, the members of that group became targets of unbridled criticism from the right. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave the signal for the attacks, charging them with working with the enemy to undermine the government on the evening the details were hammered out in the document dubbed the Geneva Understandings. At a Bat Yam municipal election rally, Sharon said "while we are here in a difficult campaign against the terrorism, there are those who are coordinating activity with the Palestinians behind the government's back."
Since the participants in the Geneva initiative began enlisting public support for the understandings, the criticism of the propriety of the move has turned from crude attacks to genuine incitement. Some MKs are promising to make it illegal for elements outside the government to conduct any political dialogue with the other side of the conflict.
Politicians from the right, who acquired a wealth of experience inciting against the Oslo accords, whose initiators they call "criminals," are now leading the new campaign. Minister Benny Elon from the National Union called former minister Yossi Beilin "an enemy collaborator." MK Shaul Yahalom, a senior member of the National Religious Party, made public a letter he wrote to Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein in which Yahalom says that by proposing to the Palestinians territory now under Israeli sovereignty, the Geneva team violated Article 97 of the penal code. He made sure to note that the law specifies the death sentence or life in prison for a conviction on that article on treason.
"Go to the West Bank!" yelled the soldier
By Nick Pretzlik, Electronic Intifada 10/22/2003
The first hint Fares Abu Mohamed and his wife had of the catastrophe about to befall them was the sudden roar of the massive bulldozer. That was at 9 o'clock this morning and their baby was still asleep in his cot. They were given 10 minutes to collect a few items and told to vacate the black tent and corrugated zinc shack that served as their make-shift home.
Fifteen minutes later Fares stood with his pregnant wife, his young son, his two sisters and his mother looking at the rubble of their home. Many of the family's possessions had been destroyed. There was no time to save the baby food and the police and soldiers even refused Fares a few extra minutes to salvage his wife's jewellery - her only personal possession. Instead the soldiers yelled at him "Go to the West Bank!"
Of course the irony is that were Fares and his family already in the West Bank there would have been nothing unusual about the dawn demolition of their house. It happens there all the time. But Fares does not live in the West Bank. He lives in Wadi al Naam in Israel's northern Negev and, like all Negev Bedouin, Fares and his family are Israeli citizens. They pay taxes and vote in national elections. Many Bedouins even serve in the Israeli Army.
Cheney's the One
By Jim Lobe, Antiwar.com 10/23/2003
The image was not an edifying one: the president of the United States a horse, his vice president, the rider.
But that is the image Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, used to describe the power relationship between U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in a recent interview with the National Journal.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, according to Biden's account, sometimes talks Bush into pursuing a more conciliatory foreign-policy line, as he has done with North Korea or the United Nations from time to time.
"Like with a horse, Powell is always able to lead Bush to the water. But just as he is about to put his head down, Cheney up in the saddle says, 'Un-uh,' and yanks up the reins before Bush can drink the water. That's my image of how it goes," Biden said.
That is also the image which is gaining currency in power circles in Washington. When it comes to foreign policy, Cheney is increasingly seen as holding the reins.
|
