The deaths behind the lie
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz 11/23/2003
It makes no difference to Mohammed Tabaza whether the air force commander, Major General Dan Halutz, lied or didn't lie to Israel's military correspondents. For the past month, Tabaza's son, Mahmoud, who is 14, has been fighting for his life. The boy's body was ripped open by dozens of metal fragments, some of which penetrated his internal organs and tore them apart. One of his legs was shattered and he was also wounded in the head.
It's not easy to look at the wounded boy, his body trembling, his face a pallid yellow, as he lies in bed, crying and begging for his father's help. His father says it's as though pieces of rice made of metal were hurled at the boy. An Israeli physician who showed x-rays of the boy to his colleagues at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, said they were convinced he was the victim of flying nails such as suicide bombers unleash when they blow themselves up.
Mahmoud Tabaza was wounded next to his house in the Nusseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in the course of a targeted assassination mounted by the Israel Air Force. His brother, Abdul Halim, a 23-year-old economics student, was killed in the operation. Another two brothers, including 9-year-old Mustafa, were wounded. Their cousin, Ibrahim, was killed. At the end of the week, Israel rewarded the father of the family for killing his loved ones: After 30 years of working in Israel, he was deprived of his entry permit to the country.
The waiting game
By Ahdaf Soueif, The Guardian 11/24/2003
Three years ago, the acclaimed Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif travelled through the West Bank to write a special report for G2. This month, she returned for the first time -- Sunday October 19, the West Bank: I thought it was bad three years ago. Now the landscape itself is changed. New settlements spring up everywhere; more than 60 since I was here last. You can watch their metamorphosis from a handful of caravans, to some Portakabins, then basic bungalows and, finally, the bristling, concrete hilltop fortress that is an Israeli settlement. Hardly a Palestinian village exists without an Israeli settlement lowering down on it from above. Everywhere there is construction going on - illegally: wide, Israeli-only highways to connect the settlements to each other, great mounds of rubble and yellow steel gates to block the old roads between Palestinian villages. And there are people waiting; waiting with bundles, with briefcases, with babies, at gates, at roadblocks, at checkpoints, waiting to perform the most ordinary tasks of their everyday lives.
All this, Israel tells the world, is in the cause of security. On my first morning here we drive up through the West Bank to see the biggest construction of all: Israel's "security fence", a monster barrier of steel and concrete that separates farmers from their land and refugees from their homes. Brute technology hacking away at a living body of land and people. It rears up to block the sunset and the evening breeze from the people of Qalqilya, then spreads out to swallow great stretches of land cultivated over hundreds of years by the neighbouring villages.
Hurtling toward the abyss: Hanan Ashrawi interview
By Jon Elmer and Hanan Ashrawi, FromOccupiedPalestine.org 11/21/2003
Jon Elmer, FromOccupiedPalestine.org: The pro-Israel lobby went on a rabid campaign of defamation and intimidation when you were announced as the winner of the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize. To certain symbolic lengths, they succeeded: Sydney University withdrew the use of the Great Hall for the ceremony, the Lord Mayor of Sydney disassociated the city with the award. The former chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation was quoted as having said to Stuart Rees, the current director: "I have to speak logically. It is either Hanan Ashrawi or the Peace Foundation. That's our choice, Stuart. My distinct impression is that if you persist in having her here, they'll destroy you" [Robert Fisk, "When did Arab become a dirty word?" Independent, 6 November 2003]. Were you at all surprised by the reaction to your selection?
Hanan Ashrawi: I was surprised by the intensity of the reaction, and what I call the hate-campaign. I have received many awards and have spoken all over the world, and this is the first time that such a small minority managed to spew forth so much poison, lies, disinformation, slander, defamation... I couldn't understand the drive, the motivation of the few hundred people who managed to create clouds of disinformation in Australia.
I knew that it was not the whole Jewish community - the Jewish community is not monolithic, and I got lots of support from the majority of them. It was a very small minority of extreme right-wing, hard-line enthusiasts, zealots, who decided that no Palestinian could get any recognition. It was a process of dehumanization and exclusion.
The occupation corrupts from above
By Akiva Eldar, Ha'aretz 11/24/2003
The lie we were told about the Air Force's bombing of the Nusseirat refugee camp has very long tentacles. These tentacles start from the very highest echelons and do not skip over any sector of Israeli society. Their roots are planted deep in the territories, fed by the poison of the occupation.
Without lies, it would be impossible to talk about peace with the Palestinians for 36 years while at the same time seizing more and more Palestinian land. Without lies, it would be impossible to claim that there is no partner for the road map, while at the same time injecting more and more money into outposts that the road map calls for dismantling. Without lies, it would be impossible to promise "painful concessions" in exchange for peace, while at the same time terming people who concluded such an agreement "traitors."
Politicians who lie for the sake of ideology or political interests are nothing out of the ordinary. Yitzhak Shamir declared openly that "it is permissible to lie for the sake of the Land of Israel." When George W. Bush began his war on Iraq, he and the politicians who surround him flooded the American public with falsehoods. The problem is that in Israel, lying has become the norm among the working levels of the army, the legal establishment and the diplomatic corps. Lying has become a way of life for commanders and soldiers, lawyers and clerks, most of whom are far from having right-wing views and many of whom loathe the occupation.
A war that can never be won
By Jonathan Steele, The Guardian 11/22/2003
Terrorism is a technique, not an enemy state that can be defeated -- The bombast has increased with the bombs. We saw two disturbing escalations this week. The explosions that devastated the British consulate and the HSBC bank in Istanbul mark a significant widening in the choice of targets by those Islamist radicals who use terror to express their hatred of British and US policy in Iraq and the Middle East. The Blair/Bush response reached an equally alarming new level of ferocity.
At their swaggering joint press conference on Thursday, the two men repeatedly made the risible claim that they could win their war on terror. The prime minister was the worse. While Bush gave himself a global carte blanche to intervene anywhere, by speaking of his "determination to fight and defeat this evil, wherever it is found", Blair put the issue in terms of a finite goal. He talked of defeating terrorism "utterly" and "ridding our world of this evil once and for all".
The hyperbole of the religious pulpit allows for all-embracing and eschatological language, but these men are meant to be practical political leaders. When Blair, in his opposition days, invented the phrase "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", he knew that crime could never be totally eliminated. The task is to reduce and restrain it by a variety of methods. Violence and terrorism are no different. Like poverty, they will always be with us. At best they can only be diminished and contained. Yet now, with the arrogance of power, we have the Bush/Blair roadshow promising in sub-Churchillian tones to vanquish terrorism as though it were a clearly defined enemy like Nazi Germany.
Perthes: Normalization requires permanent peace accord
Daily Star 11/25/2003
Head of the Middle East and Africa Research Group of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs says Arab-Israeli conflict can only be solved by long-lasting agreement
Q: How central do you judge the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be to Arab-Israel relations?
Perthes: We will not see any substantial normalization of Israel-Arab relations in general unless there is a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict and particularly the Palestinian conflict. We also see that for Arabs in countries geographically more distant from the conflict theater, Israel is basically perceived not as a neighbor in the region but as a participant in this conflict. This perception has certainly been strengthened through the decades by the fact that Palestinian refugees are all over the place; they form a trans-national element of this international conflict and basically remind their host societies all the time that there is a conflict here that must be solved before normalization.
I would also add a geo-economic factor: as long as there is a state of conflict between Israel and its immediate neighbors, Israel will actually be an obstacle to all kinds of communications between the Arab east and the Arab west. Once there is peace between Israel and Palestine and Syria, (Israel) could theoretically turn into a communications and infrastructure link. When Syria and Israel first started to negotiate after Madrid in 1991 and there were road works on the road from Damascus to Quneitra, everyone in Damascus thought this was part of a highway to Palestine and Israel, within the framework of social and economic follow-ups to peace. In public parlance they started to call it the highway of peace.
Don’t Curse the Darkness, Light a Candle
By Uri Avnery, Arab News 11/25/2003
The following is a shortened version of Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery’s acceptance speech on receiving, together with Sari Nusseibeh, the Lev Kopelev prize. The award ceremony took place last week in Cologne, Germany. -- Every time I stand on German soil, I ask myself: What and where would I be now, if Adolf Hitler had never been? Would I be standing here with Sari Nusseibeh? Would I be an Israeli at all? I was born not far from here, in Beckum, Westphalia. My grandfather, Josef Ostermann, was the teacher of the small Jewish community there. But my family originally came from the Rhineland.
What caused this family, the family Ostermann, to leave Germany in 1933 forever, and to go to a far-away, foreign country, the country of the Nusseibeh family? One word: anti-Semitism.
It is true that my father had always been a Zionist. He was nine years old when the First Zionist Congress took place. The Zionists were then a miniscule minority in the German Jewish communities. Shortly after the Nazis’ rise to power, my father decided to emigrate. The immediate cause was small. My father was a court-appointed receiver of bankrupt businesses. His honesty was proverbial, he was “straight as a die”. One day, during a session of the court, a young lawyer cried out: “Jews like you are not needed here anymore!” My father was deeply offended, and from that moment Germany was finished for him. I still believe that a feeling of insult played a large part in the divorce between the Jews and Germany.
Yes, wash the Arab world’s dirty laundry in Washington
By Ghassan Rubeiz, Daily Star 11/25/2003
Recently, at a well-attended Arab community reception in Washington, I had a conversation with two friends about the relative silence of Arab-Americans when it comes to Arab injustice. Why did Arab-Americans hesitate to speak about social justice issues in their countries of origin? I argued that only when they would do so would they be able to build up their credibility in the US and gain better access to the media.
My two partners argued otherwise: “We have Israel smearing our image internationally; we don’t have to make things worse by washing our dirty laundry outside our own community,” they insisted. I disagree. We must squarely acknowledge the social ills in the Arab world and debate them so as to arrive at our own solutions. Not to do so is to invite non-Arabs to offer their own biased solutions to Arab problems.
Washington is home to a large number of Arab-Americans and Arab professionals. Yet Arab and Arab-American associations in the city have not considered addressing political reform in the Middle East a priority. For example, graduates of the American University of Beirut (AUB), given their background, have great potential to deal with issues relating to women, social change and interfaith and intercultural relations that are relevant to the region. Yet AUB graduates have not really sought to organize around such issues in their alumni association.
Globalization, a new socioeconomic divide: Are Arab countries winners or losers?
By Khatoun Haidar, Daily Star 11/25/2003
The debate over the benefits or evils of globalization took center stage at the recent European Social Forum held in France. Echoes reverberated in the Arab economic circles and press, some in favor, others against, all vehement in their beliefs. Given the lack of precise statistical measurements of the resultants of globalization, the contention often includes philosophical, social, and even religious arguments.
Evaluating the economic impact of globalization is no easy task, yet one could ask: “Who are the main beneficiaries of globalization?”
At the top of the pyramid, many of those who benefit to the sums of billions of dollars can be found in the Forbes list of the richest people an evaluation of the biggest fortunes worldwide published since 1986 by the American Magazine, Forbes. This year, 19.2 percent came from the developing world. Of these, 34 percent were from China and the so-called new Asian tigers, 18 percent from Latin America, and 14 percent from the Arab world.
None of this year’s 48 newcomers was Arab. In fact, the listed 12 Arab names remain unchanged since 1996. Could it be the window of opportunity for striking it rich in the Arab world is limited? and why is it different for the emerging Asian economies, where every year new billionaires make the cut?
The Refusniks Struggle
By Manuela Malfitano, Palestine Monitor 11/25/2003
Tel Aviv- On 12 November 2003, the Court Martial trial of pacifist Yonathan Ben-Artzi ended with a verdict of guilty.
Yoni, nephew of Israeli Finance Minister Binyamin Nethanyahu, has spent more time behind bars than any other draft resister. To be precise, exactly one year and four months, trying to convince the army he is a pacifist, a conscientious objector to any form of military service within the Israeli armed forces.
The IDF's Conscience Committee has rejected several times his request for draft exemption, arguing he is not a "genuine" pacifist because he also holds political beliefs against the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories - defined by the young conscientious objector as a brutal military action which violates the fundamental human rights of Palestinian people.
In a surprising statement, Judge Colonel Avi Levy ruled the accused "sincere in his pacifist statements" and admitted that the Martial Court is "far from feeling that the Conscience Committee acted at its best by rejecting the request for exemption".
Unfortunately, the Martial Court, can only issue non binding recommendations, and does not have the authority to quash the Conscience Committee's decision. As such it could not avoid convicting Yoni for refusing to obey the order to enlist as a conscript.
Despite the disappointment of a guilty verdict, it is the first time that a military court has recognized a "refusnik" as a pacifist, thus contradicting the Conscience Committee's consistently unwavering outlook....
The Jerusalem Declaration
By Sam Bahour & Michael Dahan, Palestine Chronicle 11/23/2003
The Middle East is a region locked in history. The core hinge holding closed the doors to a modern and prosperous Middle East is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This conflict may possibly be the most written about and studied in world history. Sadly, all of the writings and studies have done very little, if anything, to relieve the two peoples, Palestinians and Israelis, of a reality of despair and hopelessness. For Palestinians, the receivers of the long-standing Israeli military occupation, life is regularly equated to a living hell by anyone who dares to dig deeper than the daily newspaper headlines. Without a just political agreement soon, not only will the possibility of a two-state solution be lost forever, but also the conflict will move to a level of violence and despair that only those living the reality can feel and fear.
In light of the deteriorating political, security and human tragedy that have locked Palestinians and Israelis in a dance of death, it seems that the conflict will also log the most peace accords conceived in an attempt to solve the issue. From the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to the Geneva Accord in 2003, to date, all of them have failed miserably, leaving 83 years of suffering in their path. Likewise, nothing in the horizon seems to hold the key to a lasting peace, despite unusually loud rhetoric surrounding the latest two peace initiatives, the Geneva Accord and the Nusseibeh-Ayalon Statement.
Interview with Professor Norman G. Finkelstein
Palestine Chronicle 11/25/2003
"There was a time when mainstream historiography used to be Israeli propaganda. But now the factual record is no longer in dispute. The mainstream sources are pretty accurate .." -- Truth seems to be one of the most important things in life and commensurate with its importance is the difficultly involved in attaining it. What motivates the perseverance necessary to sustain your achievements in understanding the exploitation of the Nazi Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
I guess it is a personal revulsion of lies. A lot of people will when they recognize a particular situation as being full of falsehood will not want to get involved, and dismiss it, saying what value is there in lies. But I feel if it is all lies it has to be documented, and it is not enough to dismiss it. Just a personal quirk, I don't like when people get away with lies. Lies do harm. The thing about a lie is that if you don't stop it, it will gain momentum of its own and before you know it becomes received wisdom.
In your book The Rise and Fall of Palestine you write that your sense of moral duty comes from a gut intuition. Why should anyone take serious gut feelings as the bases for ethical judgments, maybe the gut feeling of the bloodthirsty guttersnipes is correct?
First, a gut intuition is not an argument. On the other hand certain things can't be proven. Rousseau said that we are all born with a natural impulse for pity and it is our sense of pity, which drives us to make moral judgments.
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