The Israeli Text and Context of the Geneva Accord
By Shiko Behar and Michael Warschawski, Middle East Report Online 11/24/2003
The Geneva Accord, the latest unofficial framework for Israeli-Palestinian peace made public in mid-October 2003, has not become the basis for official negotiations. But the initiative has already been successful in one respect: it has uncorked as many vocal hopes as it has protests among Israelis and Palestinians, even though the Israeli government has rejected it and the Palestinian Authority (PA) has not formally endorsed it. Essentially a repackaging of President Bill Clinton's peace plan of late 2000, the Geneva Accord stipulates several basic tenets upon which to finalize a permanent peace agreement.
The Geneva initiative calls for serious critical scrutiny from those who are interested in a lasting peace -- one that is as just as possible -- between Israelis and Palestinians. Its negotiation involved an impressive number of prominent figures, headed by Yossi Beilin, a former minister in Israeli Labor governments, and Yasser Abed Rabbo, until recently the PA's minister of cabinet affairs and a major player in past official talks. As of the present time, the Geneva Accord is the most far-reaching draft document agreed upon by mainstream Palestinian and Israeli politicians. However, in a manner reminiscent of the Clinton-era initiatives, this seemingly bold document is inherently flawed. It is also being portrayed in misleading -- and ultimately self-defeating -- ways by its Israeli drafters.
The Geneva Accord: a critical assessment
By Marwan Bishara, Daily Star 12/2/2003
The so-called “Geneva Accord” (GA), to be officially announced today by Palestinians and Israelis in Switzerland, is the culmination of two years of dialogue and negotiations by some of the participants in the defunct Taba round of negotiations, following the failure of the Camp David summit in July 2000. Already before it has been signed, the accord has hijacked the parameters of the international debate on the terms of a final peace agreement with the Palestinians.
The main sponsors of the Geneva Accord, Yasser Abed Rabbo and Yossi Beilin, follow the example of another one-page peace plan finalized several months ago by Sari Nusseibeh, ex-Palestinian minister for Jerusalem, and Ami Ayalon, former head of Israel’s internal security service. It is more expansive, but posits similar terms on the question of refugees, Jerusalem and the settlements.
The GA gives the impression of a forward looking initiative that tries hard to avoid mentioning the past, in favor of finding common ground for future settlement. This approach, typical of conflict resolution practices, reckons that a fresh start is needed in order to solve the conflict and that too much bickering over the source of the problem can only undermine the resolution of the conflict. This is by all means an Israeli interest, not a Palestinian one.
Meant only for the Jewish majority
By Yuli Tamir, Ha'aretz 12/2/2003
If you wish to know something about a given text, French philosopher Michel Foucault taught us, check what is not in it: From that which is left out, or pushed to its margins, you can learn about the main thing.
In anticipation of November 29, the Education Ministry published a small booklet, consisting of 100 basic concepts divided into three categories: heritage, Zionism and democracy. A quick scrutiny of the contents will find that the booklet makes no mention of Arabs, Bedouin, Druze, Circassians, Christians or any other minority living in Israel.
Indeed, next to the term "minorities" in the index there is a promising reference - "see minority rights." But a look at the three places referred to shows a brief discussion of checks and balances in the democratic system, intended to "prevent the creation of a dictatorship and trampling the rights of the minority by the majority;" a discussion of democracy as a regime based on "the minority's recognizing the rule of the majority" and a discussion of separation of powers that mentions again the importance of protecting human rights, especially "of those in the minority."
Can It Ever Really End?
By Sam Bahour, Arabic Media Internet Network 12/2/2003
The world has finally come to its collective senses by explicitly acknowledging that Israel’s 37-year military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem must come to an abrupt end in order for peace in the Middle East to have even a remote chance of success. With this belated awakening, a fair and frank question has come to the forefront.
Will the Palestinians accept the end of the Israeli occupation as their cue to cease, once and for all, their five-decade struggle to correct the historic injustices done to them? The easy answer is no.
Fifty-five years of historical injustice does not subside with the signing of a peace treaty, official or unofficial, whatever the extent of public relations invested in the effort. Prospects for peace must start to be measured by how well justice is served, and not by how much fanfare is generated.
The fact of the matter is that many Israelis, some say the silent majority, are now finally convinced that their country’s illegal occupation of Palestinians must end, but they are holding themselves back, some say holding the Palestinians hostage, by wanting clear guarantees that what will follow Israel’s return to the 1967 armistice border is absolute security for every Israeli citizen.
Absolute security is a myth. It is a political myth so perfected by the Israeli propaganda machine that when Palestinians attempt to call attention to its mythical nature they are accused of propagating the cycle of violence. No one can meet this security threshold. Israel, especially Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon, has used the myth of absolute security as a strategy to avoid assuming historic responsibility. Not the US, not Yasir Arafat, not a well-groomed Palestinian Prime Minister - nobody, not even a demilitarized future State of Palestine - can guarantee Israelis, or any people on the planet for that matter, absolute security....
First U.S. Memorial to Deir Yassin Dedicated in New York State
By Janet McMahon, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs November 2003
On Sept. 24, 2003, members and friends of Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR) dedicated the first memorial in the United States to the victims of the April 9, 1948 massacre of the Palestinian Arab village near Jerusalem. The sculpture joins two other commemorations of the tragedy: a plaque at Dar al Tifl al Arabi, which stands across from Orient House in East Jerusalem and where Hind Husseini sheltered orphans of the massacre the following day; and a small stone at Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, Scotland (see photo of Issam Nashashibi on facing page).
The DYR memorial, located on the western shore of Seneca Lake in the upstate New York town of Geneva, depicts a mature olive tree, a symbol of peace and of Palestinian culture, uprooted in the Zionist quest to build a Jewish state on land long owned and inhabited by Palestinians. Some of the tree's roots still cling to the earth, however, symbolizing the strength and tenacity of its tenders.
According to Daniel McGowan, founder of the eight-year-old organization, DYR's ultimate goal is "to build a memorial and information center at Deir Yassin, and thereby resurrect what is arguably the single most important event in 20th century Palestinian history."
A Syrian perspective on the Arab peace initiative
By Dr. Murhaf Jouejati, Jordan Times 12/2/2003
FROM A Syrian perspective, the peace initiative that Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah submitted to the Arab League summit in Beirut in March 2002 is the best diplomatic attempt yet to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict peacefully.
The initiative, which essentially calls on Arab states to recognise Israel in exchange for Israel's return of Arab territories it occupied in 1967 and a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, converges with Syria's own vision of peace. In light of this, Syria endorsed the plan both in terms of substance and procedure.
In terms of substance, Syria supports Prince Abdullah's peace initiative because it is grounded in the land-for-peace formula — the sine qua non for a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. From a Syrian perspective, the land-for-peace formula, embodied in UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, provides the foundation on which a peaceful settlement stands. Any deviation from its basic tenets by either side is a nonstarter.
Israel is to withdraw its armed forces from Arab territories it seized by force during the 1967 war, in exchange for Arab recognition of Israel. The Israeli-concocted controversy over Israel's obligation to withdraw from “all” or “some” territories is solved by the key UN principle of the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force”, a principle emphasised in the preamble of Resolution 242.
The Bottom of the Barrel: Oil is Running Out, But No One Wants to Talk About It
By George Monbiot, Dissident Voice 12/2/2003
The oil industry is buzzing. On Thursday, the government approved the development of the biggest deposit discovered in British territory for at least 10 years. Everywhere we are told that this is a "huge" find, which dispels the idea that North Sea oil is in terminal decline. You begin to recognize how serious the human predicament has become when you discover that this "huge" new field will supply the world with oil for five and a quarter days. [1]
Every generation has its taboo, and ours is this: that the resource upon which our lives have been built is running out. We don't talk about it because we cannot imagine it. This is a civilization in denial.
Oil itself won't disappear, but extracting what remains is becoming ever more difficult and expensive. The discovery of new reserves peaked in the 1960s. [2] Every year, we use four times as much oil as we find. [3] All the big strikes appear to have been made long ago: the 400 million barrels in the new North Sea field would have been considered piffling in the 1970s. Our future supplies depend on the discovery of small new deposits and the better exploitation of big old ones. No one with expertise in the field is in any doubt that the global production of oil will peak before long.
The only question is how long. The most optimistic projections are the ones produced by the US Department of Energy, which claims that this will not take place until 2037. [4] But the US energy information agency has admitted that the government's figures have been fudged: it has based its projections for oil supply on the projections for oil demand, [5] perhaps in order not to sow panic in the financial markets. Other analysts are less sanguine. The petroleum geologist Colin Campbell calculates that global extraction will peak before 2010. [6] In August the geophysicist Kenneth Deffeyes told New Scientist that he was "99 per cent confident" that the date of maximum global production will be 2004. [7] Even if the optimists are correct, we will be scraping the oil barrel within the lifetimes of most of those who are middle-aged today.
Live from Palestine: The Diaries Project
By Arjan El Fassed, Electronic Intifada 12/2/2003
Introduction: In 2003, South End Press published a book entitled Live From Palestine: International and Palestinian Direct Action Against the Israeli Occupation, edited by Nancy Stohlman and Laurieann Aladin, with introductions by Noam Chomsky and Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, co-founder of Grassroots International Protection for the Palestinian People.
The book contains contributions from two EI co-founders, Arjan El Fassed and Ali Abunimah, and reprinted several diary entries from The Electronic Intifada.
The following article by Arjan El Fassed from the book introduces The Electronic Intifada's diary project, Live From Palestine, after which the book was titled:
Live from Palestine: The Diaries Project: Internet cafes exist in most Palestinian cities and refugee camps, and Palestinians and international activists have made heavy use of the Internet to report otherwise unheard news and perspectives. Many Palestinians speak and write English, allowing their words to reach a wide Western audience. Counterpunch, Commondreams, the Electronic Intifada, the Palestine Chronicle, the Palestine Monitor, Indymedia, and numerous other websites have published regular eyewitness reports from the West Bank and Gaza, where Israeli forces deny journalists access to Palestinian areas under attack. Here, Arjan El Fassed, describes how the Internet has allowed Palestinians to communicate with each other and people around the globe. Several of the essays in this section were originally posted to the Electronic Intifada website (electronicIntifada.net).
Amid war, Palestinians develop a state
By Timothy Rothermel, Daily Star 12/2/2003
Trends in development policy and diplomacy are influenced by contemporary global challenges. Some of these challenges fall into two distinct categories, namely, prevention and recovery.
....But an aspect of the development continuum that falls between the cracks of prevention and recovery is development during an actual crisis. And it is precisely in this area that the UNDP must of necessity focus its efforts on the occupied Palestinian territories. Unfortunately, for several years, in spite of courageous efforts to halt it, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict persists with particularly disastrous implications for the Palestinian people. It is premature to begin the traditional task of post-conflict recovery. Rather, the international community must face the unique task of carrying out sustainable development in the midst of an all-too-lengthy man-made crisis.
The common public perception of the situation is mostly fueled by images of burned Israeli buses and destroyed Palestinian orchards. Yet scratch the surface and something quite phenomenal is taking place within Palestinian society, in spite of the destruction and the statistics. Vibrant, talented, peaceful and resolute citizens are showing their determination, in spite of suffering, to forge a peaceful, democratic and pluralistic state with institutions that will allow Palestinians to take their rightful place in the society of nations. Since the inception of the Palestinian National Authority in 1994, governmental institutions that are second to none in the Middle East have emerged....
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