A knife at the checkpoint
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz Friday Magazine 10/24/2003
She tried to stab a soldier, but did she really want to kill herself? -- Mohammed Awfi was shot to death at dawn. It happened on February 20 of this year, in the Tul Karm refugee camp where he lived. They say that he left the mosque that dark winter morning and the soldiers shot at the figure moving toward them in the gloom, who apparently aroused their suspicion. Awfi's funeral took place that afternoon and the procession passed through the camp's alleyways. He was the son of the camp's star soccer player.
A few hours later, toward evening, Riham Sheikh Musa, then 15, walked out of the house next door and headed for the checkpoint to the south of her city. She had a knife in her pocket and had set her sights on stabbing a soldier. Her mother, Salima, says that it was an old knife, too dull to peel a potato. In the indictment against her, the weapon was described as a 25-cm. kitchen knife. Riham says she was shot in the abdomen even before she managed to pull out her knife. The soldiers kept on shooting as she lay on the ground, putting another bullet in her abdomen and one in her leg.
Riham admits that she intended to stab a soldier. Something inside her, which she is not prepared to share with a stranger, told her to do it. It didn't have to do with the neighbor's funeral. She won't say any more than that about it. Several days ago, she was granted an early release from prison. Last week, her elder sister, Rawiya Sheikh Musa, was arrested while carrying a knife.
This past Sunday was like many other days in Tul Karm: In the cemetery, they had just dug another small grave. The funeral was held in the afternoon - for a teenage boy who tried to attack a tank and was shot to death.
Israel Accelerates Construction of the Wall and Settlements
Editorial, Miftah 10/24/2003
Since Israel began implementing the separation wall, it has embarked on a public relations campaign to convince the international community, especially the Americans, that this in no way is intended to set up de facto permanent borders with significant land grabs, but rather simply provide ‘security’ to their people. Accustomed to having its views adopted sans argument, Israel probably received a shock as international condemnation of the wall continues to mount.
Accusing the 144 nations in the UN General Assembly who voted to pass the resolution, including all 15 European Union nations, of sharing a history of bias in favor of the Palestinians, Israel vowed to defy the overwhelmingly supported non-binding resolution demanding Israel to "stop and reverse the construction of the wall,” which is “in contradiction to international law.” Palestinians wanted a Security Council resolution condemning the wall, which is binding in nature, but were blocked by the US, which consequently also voted against this resolution.
Apathetic to world opinion, Israel seems no longer concerned with hiding its intentions, as Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, in a televised interview with Israel’s Channel Two, “at this moment, because we do not have an arrangement with the other side, we are making a unilateral arrangement.” He further went on to say that the fence along the Jordan Valley would fit Sharon's concept of permanent Israeli control over the valley.
Displaced Again
By Mohammed Al Jamal, Miftah 10/24/2003
Palestinian residents of Rafah are convinced that the Israeli incursion in their city is not aimed at searching for and destroying tunnels, as Israeli officials claim. The aim is to destroy the southern area of the city, completely.
In the face of international silence and Israeli threats to return and finish off the rest of Rafah, residents have found themselves left with no other choice than to leave their homes to save their lives. As a result, there has been a rush to save whatever belongings possible in case more homes are demolished.
The streets of the Yubna and Shauth refugee camps have been swarming with people fleeing. Here, one man carries furniture on his back. There, another hails a taxi and begins loading his belongings. Others scramble to salvage valuable belongings from their homes.
For Haj Abu Ata Shaqfa, 70, the scene is reminiscent of the Nakba of 1948, the memories of that exile and the pain and suffering that accompanied it. "Since 1948, we have lived in misery and refuge. I built this house," he says, pointing to what is now a pile of bricks and debris. "I thought things were settling down and exile would remain just a memory that we would tell our children and grandchildren about."
He falls silent for a moment, then continues, "The occupation [forces] does not only want to make us flee, it wants to get rid of us altogether. It wants the land without the people."
Reversing Reality: Newspaper Coverage of Israel and Palestine
By Sarah Weir, Miftah 10/24/2003
Recently, the Bay Area-based organization If Americans Knew conducted statistical studies of two local newspapers, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News. The results showed a consistently inaccurate and highly distorted picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the news coverage of both papers. In every category examined, Israeli deaths were covered at far higher rates—2 to 25 times greater—than Palestinian ones.
The San Francisco Chronicle gave readers a false sense of parity between Israelis and Palestinians by reporting nearly equal numbers of deaths on both sides, despite the fact that Palestinians are being killed at a rate three to four times greater than Israelis.
The San Jose Mercury News, analysis revealed, actually inverted the death rates in its front-page headlines.
The fact that the media have been criticized by partisans on both sides of the issue has made it difficult for the largely non-aligned American public to evaluate the quality of the reporting they receive on this issue. For this reason, If Americans Knew has begun issuing report cards on media coverage of this critically important conflict. The studies, which examine six-month time periods, are based on quantitative criteria, in order to refute any charges of subjective interpretation.
And on the eighth day
By Ibrahim Nafie, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 23 - 29 October 2003
The implications of the so-called Swiss Agreement -- As Israel forges ahead with its campaign of aggression against the Palestinian people and ratches up regional tensions news from Switzerland confirmed that a group of Israelis and Palestinians, operating outside official channels, had discussed a formula for a settlement of the Palestininan-Israeli conflict. The so- called Swiss Agreement was vehemently attacked by officials from both the Israeli right and left. Ariel Sharon was so incensed as to accuse the Israelis who took part in the meeting of treason. Former prime minister Ehud Barak and current Labour Party leader Shimon Peres also criticised the meeting.
A collection of prominent intellectuals and political figures from both sides participated in the negotiations. The Israeli negotiators included former minister of justice Yossi Beilin, former Labour Party leader General Amram Mitzna, former deputy chief of intelligence David Kimche, Ron Pundie, one of the architects of the Copenhagen Declaration, as well as Haim Urun, Yuli Tamir and Amos Oz. Also among them was Likud member Najama Ronin. The Palestinian side featured a similarly impressive group, including former minister of culture Yasser Abed Rabbu, Nabil Qassis, Hisham Abdel-Razeq, Mohamed Hourani and Qaddoura Faris. On 12 October, in Jordan, the two sides signed a summary of their agreement, having decided to defer the final signing to 4 November, so as to coincide with the 8th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin.
With the sole exception of Ronin it is important to note that the Israeli signatories to the Swiss Agreement represent not the Israeli opposition, but a small flank of that opposition.
A glimmer of nothing
By Azmi Bishara, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 23 - 29 October 2003
The Geneva Declaration, borne of petty struggles internal to Israeli politics, lowers Palestinian expectations without offering much in return -- As far as Israel is concerned, the Geneva Declaration is little more than a message sent to the Israeli public. The Israelis who stand behind the Declaration are the same ones who favoured the continuation of the Taba talks after the collapse of the Camp David negotiations, despite the misgivings Barak voiced at the time. Faced with the approaching elections in 2001, Barak allowed the talks to continue in Taba, but only as a non-binding intellectual dialogue. It comes as no surprise that those who helped draft this declaration were the same people who took part in the Taba talks in the hope of finding a formula to present to the Israeli public ahead of the elections. The declaration is not an agreement binding on the Israelis, but a message the pro-settlement forces in Israel have sent to discredit Barak, even more so than Sharon.
At the time, Barak told everyone that there is no Palestinian partner willing to sign an agreement acceptable to Israel. This, he said, is due to the Palestinian insistence on the right of return. His claims were accepted both in Israel and abroad, particularly by President Clinton, who -- disappointed to see his hopes of a Nobel Peace Prize evaporate -- directed all his anger against Yasser Arafat. Clinton lied then, as he did on earlier occasions: he blamed the Palestinians for failing to move fast enough to strike the deal that would secure him a Nobel before his term ended. Barak, meanwhile, gave the Palestinians a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. Turning his back on the obligations of the transitional phases of Oslo and Wye River, he put together a package re-stating Israeli conditions, and threatened the Palestinians that should they reject it they would be forever banished from the ranks of the peace-loving and branded with the stamp of terror.
Closure Corrupts
By Ghassan Andoni, International Middle East Media Center 10/24/2003
Reports on corruption, bribes, and abuses at check posts or in Civil Administration offices are the daily talks of residents who cross check posts on daily basis. -- A gag order was lifted Thursday and information around The two officers, Major Amos Zuaretz of Netanya and First Lieutenant Oshri Azulay of Jerusalem serve in the Civil Administration offices in the West Bank city of Hebron, who received bribes to issue permits to residents of the region.
According to police, Palestinians bribed the two and in exchange they received preferential treatment at the Civil Administration offices, and entry permits into Israel within two hours. The bribes ranged from NIS 500-1,000.
The closure imposed over the total population of the West bank and Gaza, allows for soldiers and officers tremendous power over the live of local residents.
To be able to fulfill the basic requirements of life, hundreds of thousands of local residents need to go through hundreds of military check posts. Being able to get a permit to move can mean for their families the difference between living and starving.
To move from one town to another one needs a permit, called permit for internal closure. To be able to work inside Israel, one needs another permit designed for the external closure. Many central check posts require a special permit.
Most of the offices of the so called "civil administration" where permits are issued are not accessible to most residents.
Wanted: Speech balloons
By Gideon Samet, Ha'aretz 10/24/2003
In one of his films, Woody Allen tries to strike up a conversation with a new acquaintance, played by Diane Keaton. The timid Allen can't speak his mind. What he doesn't have the guts to say appears in a cartoon-like speech balloon over his head. When he suggests "Let's have coffee," or something like that, the subtitle reads: "I'm wild about her. I don't stand a chance." We need such balloons whenever the prime minister and his supporters speak. Sharon says he wants an agreement. Speech balloon: "In your dreams." Sharon says things will soon change for the better. Speech balloon: "I need a good headline."
This is not just an attempt to lead us astray. This gap between what happens and the rationale behind it, between cause and effect, is one of our gravest problems. There's a classic kids' joke about Uzi who comes home bruised and crying. To his mother's questions, he replies: "Danny hit me back."
....Without a translation, the slogans of the Likud are clouded in mist. Every time there is an attempt to push forward an agreement, the choir of the National Religious Party-National Unity-Union of Rabbis ("evacuating the settlements is against the Torah") raises its voice in unison, belting out a raucous requiem to the tune of the Likud Nay-Saying Orchestra. The more serious the attempt, the harsher the subtext behind the talk of peace, to the point of calling for the execution of the criminals who came up with the initiative.
Militarizing the Resistance
By Sari Nusseibeh, Jerusalem Times 10/23/2003
What can militarizing the resistance bring us? We must address this question if we are to act responsibly. Otherwise we will allow events to control our destiny and will be no more than mere bystanders, observing events and developments as they bring forth disasters into our lives, blaming others for them.
If our goal from militarizing the resistance is to prove our solidity, it is firm through our steadfastness and rejection of what they try to dictate to us. Experience has shown that the logic of intensified retaliation as a preemptive measure can also be used by them, and they will retaliate in the same manner. If our aims are to get rid of their tanks and roadblocks, it has been shown that these weapons have been replaced by what is worse. If our aim is to elicit more flexible political positions from them, the complete opposite has occurred, and they have become more frightened and extremist. If our aim is to force them to withdraw or implement agreements, events on the ground don’t indicate progress in this direction, rather they become more entrenched in their positions than before. Finally, if we are hoping for external help none seems to be on the way.
So what is left is simply to fight them indefinitely or to seek to cause them harm, and feel satisfied that they cannot enjoy what they are doing, but without achieving real political results. What remains, in other words, is not a political program or a strategy to achieve a possible goal or serve the interests of the public. What remains, in fact, is that we surrender to a bitter reality even as we fill the sky with our gunfire.
Reclaiming the initiative
By Fatemah Farag, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 23 - 29 October 2003
What do we know about ourselves and the world? Considering the answers offered in the second Arab Human Development Report released this week -- "We become accustomed to regarding abject submission as polite deference; obsequiousness as courtesy; sycophancy as oratory; bombast as substance; the surrender of basic rights as nobility; the acceptance of humiliation as modesty; the acceptance of injustice as obedience; and the pursuit of human entitlements as arrogance. Our inverted system portrayed the pursuits of simple knowledge as presumption; aspirations for the future as impossible dreams; courage as overreaching audacity; inspiration as folly; chivalry as aggression; free expression as impertinence; free thinking as heresy; and patriotism as madness."
"In your helplessness you accept a miserable life, and you call it contentment; you abdicate responsibility for your daily existence saying 'God will provide' and you believe yours is not to reason why because what befalls you is God's will. But in God's name, this passivity is not the proper status of human kind."
These paragraphs, perhaps as relevant today as when they were written over a century ago by Islamic thinker Abdel- Rahman Al-Kawakibi (1854-1902) in The Character of Despotism, strike a raw nerve in today's Arab world. Israel continues its savagery against the Palestinian people and the United States occupies a sanction-ravaged Iraq, while poverty, ignorance, intolerance, humiliation and frustrated anger mar the lives of Arabs every day. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, the current US administration and their neo-con pundits arrogantly talk of liberating and reforming the region and its peoples.
About a boy
By Sara Leibovich-Dar, Ha'aretz Friday Magazine 10/24/2003
A recently published novel that centers around the story of a boy from Ramallah, whose family suffers at the hands of Israelis during the intifada, is provoking a literary furor abroad. Is this work fiction - or propaganda? Karim Aboudi, a 12-year-old boy from Ramallah, in the West Bank, watched the live reports about a suicide bombing in a Jerusalem cafe in which 11 Israelis were killed, including four high-school students. The perpetrator is a hero, Karim thinks to himself, he's a saint, he did something for all of us, for Palestine.
Karim is the protagonist of "A Little Piece of Ground," a work of fiction by Elizabeth Laird - a well-known English writer of books for young people, who has won several literary prizes - in collaboration with Sonia Nimr, who is in charge of the museums unit in the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and teaches at Birzeit University. The 200-page book, published two months ago by Macmillan Children's Books in Britain, is stirring up a storm of controversy. It tells the story of a Palestinian family in Ramallah during the Israeli invasion of the West Bank in April 2002 from the point of view of the family's middle child, Karim.
The title refers to Karim's yearning to find "a little piece of ground," on which he and his friends can play soccer in safety from Israeli soldiers. The life of the Aboudi family is far from easy. Karim's father endures humiliation at an Israeli army checkpoint: The soldiers make him undress in front of his wife and children: "Almost naked, stripped of everything, he was trying to stand upright, to hold up his head and show, in his face at least, the dignity which had been taken from him."
Against the wall
By Graham Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 23 - 29 October 2003
The Palestinians need far more practical support than Tuesday's non-binding UN General Assembly vote condemning Israel's construction of the West Bank barrier -- A day after the Israeli army finally ended the devastation of Rafah Israeli airplanes and helicopters launched five separate missile attacks on Gaza, leaving 12 Palestinians dead and 100 wounded, most of them civilians. This was followed by an army invasion of Ramallah, with one Palestinian dead and 12 injured. Elsewhere Israeli soldiers killed a Fatah activist in Hebron and a Popular Front man in Qalqiliya, and arrested 18 Palestinians across the three West Bank cities.
The attacks on Gaza were said to be in reprisal for eight rudimentary mortars fired harmlessly into Israel on Sunday. The raid into Ramallah was said to be in pursuit of the Hamas cell that killed three Israeli soldiers in a nearby village the same day.
Palestinians accept neither explanation. They say the sheer scale of Israeli assaults -- particularly in Gaza -- aim at collectively punishing Palestinian civilians for the temerity of hosting armed fighters among them.
"The message is that you [the Palestinians] better clamp down [on the militants] or we make it a living hell for you in Gaza," said one Israeli military analyst, quoted in Tuesday's Jerusalem Post.
It is a policy that has never worked in the past and it is unlikely to work now....
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