Articles
Archives | Art | Articles | Background Books | Boycott | Cartoons Chemical War | Children | Contact Donate | Elections | E-mail Us Events | Film | Home | Letters Links | Maps | Mission | Music Videos | News | News Links Performance | Photos | Poetry Polls | Prisoners | Products Search | Take Action | The US Role The Wall | Together | Old Home Page
Recent News..                         News Headlines News & Articles in text format Headlines in text format News Archives Get daily News & Articles by e-mail         This webpage uses Javascript to display some content. Please enable Javascript in your browser and reload this page. This webpage uses Javascript to display some content. Please enable Javascript in your browser and reload this page.

Israeli Policies at Erez Crossing: Bureaucratic Cat and Mouse
Physicians for Human Rights - Israel, Palestine Monitor 12/23/2007
     Over the past few weeks, Israeli authorities have changed their tactics regarding medical exit permits for Gaza patients: Instead of issuing a permit or a rejection on "security grounds," responses are delayed for weeks and defined as "pending." Since appeals can only be filed after a formal rejection has been issued, the significance of this tactic is denial of the possibility of appeal.
     1. Eighteen urgent new medical cases are currently handled at our offices. The majority of these have waited for weeks without receiving any response - negative or positive - from the Israeli authorities. Since appeals can only be filed after a formal rejection has been issued, the significance of this tactic is denial of the possibility of appeal (see list of patients below).
     2. Large, unknown numbers of patients are not accessing care, due to delays in processing permits, lack of transparency in the process, rejections on security grounds, and last-minute interrogations. Palestinian MoH estimates over 800 patients whose cases are still pending.
     3. Access-related deaths are increasing. On the 9th of December alone, according to Palestinian MoH data, three patients died in connection with denial of access to care.
     4. Coercion/blackmail of patients by GSS (Israeli secret service, ’shabac’) continues.... more..

Democracy: An existential threat?
Ali Abunimah and Omar Barghouti, Electronic Intifada 12/30/2007
     As two of the authors of a recent document advocating a one-state solution to the Arab-Israeli colonial conflict we emphatically intended to generate debate. Predictably, Zionists decried the proclamation as yet another proof of the unwavering devotion of Palestinian -- and some radical Israeli -- intellectuals to the "destruction of Israel." Some pro-Palestinian activists accused us of forsaking immediate and critical Palestinian rights in the quest of a "utopian" dream.
     Inspired in part by the South African Freedom Charter [1] and the Belfast Agreement [2], the much humbler One State Declaration, authored by a group of Palestinian, Israeli and international academics and activists, affirms that "The historic land of Palestine belongs to all who live in it and to those who were expelled or exiled from it since 1948, regardless of religion, ethnicity, national origin or current citizenship status." It envisages a system of government founded on "the principle of equality in civil, political, social and cultural rights for all citizens." more..

Rice Compares Israeli Occupation to US Segregation
Lenni Brenner, Palestine Chronicle 12/30/2007
     Can anyone be more defensive of Zionism’s reputation than Israel’s Prime Minister? Therefore many people wondered why Ehud Olmert suddenly announced after Annapolis that "if the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished." ("Olmert Warns of ’End of Israel’," BBC, 11/29/07)
     Apparently he was reacting to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s blunt statements to him.Haaretz, Israel’s most prestigious newspaper, tells us that:
     In private conversations -- and as she said in Annapolis -- Rice tends to compare the Israeli occupation in the territories to the racial segregation that used to be the norm in the American South. The Israel Defense Forces checkpoints where Palestinians are detained remind her of the buses she rode as a child in Alabama, which had separate seats for blacks and whites. This is an uncomfortable comparison, of course, for the Israelis, who view it as "over-identification" on her part with Palestinian suffering. (Aluf Benn, "What’s the Hurry?" 12/27/07) more..

Settlements Have to Go
Joharah Baker, Palestine Chronicle 12/30/2007
     Unsurprisingly, the newly resumed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians stalled yet again, this time over the highly-charged issue of Israeli settlements, which despite past commitments, Israel has continued to expand. On December 24, the two sides met for the second time since the Annapolis peace conference in November, but came out of the meeting empty handed, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat describing the meeting as "very difficult."
     No kidding. Even if we put a pin in all the other issues that have constituted major bones of contention between the Palestinians and Israelis such as the refugee problem, Jerusalem and borders, Jewish settlements alone are explosive enough to blow any negotiations to smithereens.
     However, in order to fully understand why both sides are so adamant in their positions when it comes to West Bank settlements (and that, by the way includes those illegally built in east Jerusalem), it is imperative to understand their significance, to both Israel and the Palestinians. more..

The Beilin Syndrome
Uri Avnery, Palestine Chronicle 12/30/2007
     Yossi Beilin, who resigned this week as chairman of the Meretz party, is Mephisto’s opposite: he always wants the good and all too often creates the bad.
     The "settlement blocs" provide a glaring example. It was Beilin who invented this term a dozen years ago. It was included in the unofficial understanding that became known as the "Beilin-Abu-Mazen agreement".
     The intention was good. Beilin believed that if most settlers were concentrated in several limited areas near the Green Line, the settlers as a whole would agree to a withdrawal from the rest of the West Bank.
     The actual result was disastrous. The government and the settlers jumped at the opportunity. The permit of the "Zionist peace movement" was displayed like a Kosher certificate on the wall of a butcher shop selling pork chops. The settlement blocs were enlarged at a frantic pace and became veritable towns, like Ma’aleh Adumim, the Etzion Bloc and Modi’in Illit. more..

New Year Brings Little Cheer
MIFTAH, MIFTAH 12/29/2007
     As Palestinians prepare to ring in the new year, it looks as if they have little to celebrate.While the Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams say they will push forward with bilateral talks in spite of core differences, movements on the ground indicate little optimism.
     Throughout the week, Israel has been relentless in its so-called fight against Palestinian rockets being fired into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. In the past week, 20 Palestinian activists, primarily from the military wings of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, have been killed by Israeli military operations. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed.
     On December 28, two Al Quds Brigades activists were shot and killed after killing two Israeli soldiers near the Jewish settlement of Talam west of Hebron. According to media reports, four Palestinians carried out the attack but two escaped after being wounded. Apparently, three Israeli soldiers were hiking near the settlement of Kiryat Arba when the Palestinians shot at them while driving by in a jeep. The third soldier was unwounded. more..

Building Roadblocks to Peace
Middle East Times - Editorial, MIFTAH 12/29/2007
     More roadblocks have sprung up on the Middle East road map to peace since the grand reunion organized by U.S. President George W. Bush at Annapolis just a few weeks ago, and where Israeli and Palestinian leaders promised to work toward a peaceful settlement of the 60-year conflict.
     There must have been a misunderstanding somewhere along the line because instead of working toward a settlement of the crisis, Israel is instead working on settlements. Building more of them. Some 240 (some say 300) new units are planned in Har Homa, a large settlement in a disputed part of Jerusalem and part of a ring of Jewish settlements erected around East Jerusalem. This makes it all the more complicated to allow the Palestinians to establish the capital of their future state in East Jerusalem, as they hope to.
     Israel has allocated $25 million in its 2008 budget for Jebel Abu Ghneim, or Har Homa in East Jerusalem: 240 new housing units and the expansion of 500 new housing units in Maale Adumim. more..

Wanted Palestinians: "It is the revolutionaries, not the occupation, who have the right to grant amnesty"
Ma'an Chief Editor Nasser Lahham with Muhammad Shahada, Ma’an News Agency 12/28/2007
     Bethlehem – Ma’an – Nasser Lahham – In the same place where Muslim Caliph Umar Ibn Al-Khattab had stood and watched the Nativity Church, a "wanted" Palestinian activist from Bethlehem, Muhammad Shahada, stood calmly and watched the church on Christmas Eve.
     I approached him and had a quick interview with him while he was participating in the celebrations with Christians:
     Nasser Lahham: You have been pursued by the Israelis for ten years; so where does your smile come from?
     Muhammad Shahada: From faith in God and in the Palestinian question and inalienable right of freedom and independence. The Palestinian people are capable of raising the flag of liberty and completing their mission. Israel has to realize that military occupation of Palestine does not solve its problems neither now nor in the future. more..

On Trust and Dialogue - My Personal Odyssey
Miko Peled, Palestine Chronicle 12/28/2007
     I grew up in Jerusalem, which is a ’mixed’ city, but I never had an Arab friend, or even an Arab acquaintance (Israelis growing up in the 60’s and early 70’s had never heard of Palestinians so we just called them Arabs.) There were never any attempts to integrate Israeli and Arab children in Jerusalem, nothing organized by the schools, no mutual cultural events, not even sporting events. The two communities were and still are completely segregated.
     It seems odd to me now, that growing up I never knew any Arabs.
     My father (the famous Israeli General Matti Peled, hero of the 1948 and 1967 wars who shocked the country when he began a dialogue with Palestinian leaders in the early 1970’s) spoke Arabic, and even taught Arabic language and literature, but I never learned Arabic in school. And although my father had a few Arab acquaintances, he had no Arab friends. more..

Reconciliation begins in prison
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 12/29/2007
     "I came here today to extend a hand in peace to the Palestinian people and to our neighboring Arab states," the prime minister declared at the start of his speech at Annapolis on November 27. "I have no doubt that the reality created in our region in 1967 will change significantly," Ehud Olmert promised. He knows that "it will be as hard as Hell for some of those among us," but assured his listeners that "we are ready for it."
     These lofty words were translated this week into a petty argument over the issue of the price of Gilad Shalit’s release. Instead of discussing the place of the prisoners in the peace process that is being renewed (really?), policy makers instead busied themselves with the blood on the hands of those in jail and the exchange rate for the deal. more..

Beware of Barak
Ran HaCohen, Electronic Intifada 12/28/2007
     Israeli "Defense" Minister Ehud Barak is definitely the most dangerous politician in the Middle East. Ahmadinejad can only dream of having the powers -- political and military, conventional and non-conventional -- that Barak already possesses. Netanyahu and other far-right Israeli politicians say what they think and are earmarked as extremists, so they are under permanent scrutiny. Barak is more extreme than Netanyahu, but he’s an extremist in disguise.
     The person who destroyed the Oslo process and initiated the second intifada, the person who demolished the Israeli peace camp from within, by spreading legends about a "generous offer" rejected by the Palestinians, by persuading the Israelis that he "unmasked" Arafat and that there was no Palestinian partner -- this person still calls himself "the leader of the Israeli peace camp." That’s one of Barak’s most dangerous traits: his inherent untruthfulness, his presenting himself as the very opposite of what he actually is. more..

Just one more, and that’s all
Doron Rosenblum, Ha’aretz 12/28/2007
     Every time Hamas or some other extremist Palestinian organization (or actually, any hostile Arab entity) begins to show signs of exhaustion, or indicates to Israel that it would like a lull, the Israel Defense Forces begins singing a refrain similar to the one that Haim Goury wrote for the Gashash Hahiver troupe: "Just one more minute, Mom / Just one short moment / You always ruin things when we’re almost there."
     What did we ask for, after all? Just another five minutes - really, just a second - and the enemy would truly have been broken; just one more battle, or one more flanking maneuver from the north of Bint Jbail, and Hezbollah would have been smashed into tiny bits; one more campaign in a refugee camp in the West Bank or Gaza, one more targeted assassination of a senior operative, and everything would have looked different: The back of Islamic extremism would have been broken; the extremist organizations and the countries in the Axis of Evil would have lowered their tails, expressed regret about their evil ways and changed their policies. In short, "a victory would have been achieved" and the enemy would have surrendered unconditionally. Particularly meticulous officers would add here, "and the government would have been given room for diplomatic action. more..

First Steps towards Implementing Res. 181
Vijay Rajiva, Palestine Chronicle 12/28/2007
     Since the emergence of a genuine Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the ignominious prevarications of the Abbas faction the onus is on the international community, Palestinians and their supporters to fast forward the last of the liberation movements. Israel’s intransigence is an obvious obstacle to this project.
     The vile siege of Gaza continues. There is the distinct possibility of an invasion of Gaza. Francis Boyle has suggested an international equivalent of a stay order by the leadership of Palestine to take Israel to the World Court for genocide. (’Palestine Should Sue Israel for Genocide’ originally published in MSA News, March, 20, 1998).
     This is a definite route to take should it become necessary. Here, we shall look at the present topic and the obstacles presented by our own lack of clear perspectives on the relevance of UN Resolution 181, the Partition Resolution of 1947 which gave Israel 56% land and Palestine 44% land. This Partition Line isthe only legally authorized border between Israel and Palestine (See jurist Anthony D’Amato’s ’Israel’s Borders Under International Law.’ Northwestern University). more..

A Palestinian love story
Ghassan Abdullah writing from Ramallah, occupied West Bank, Electronic Intifada 12/27/2007
     A few months ago, a European professional in Ramallah threw a farewell party after completing part of the project for which he was recruited. The European himself, a Belgian, spent many years previously in the Palestinian territories and was very well liked locally, not least because he married a Palestinian woman, but that’s another story.
     A friend and old colleague of mine came up to me at the party and asked me discretely about A., a good-looking and outgoing woman who works with us: "What religion is she?" "Muslim, I said." "Good," he said. "What sort of ID does she hold?" I replied, "She is Palestinian with a Jordanian passport who overstayed here. Why?" "What a pity," he said, "because a friend of mine, Y., who has just met and chatted with her likes her and wanted to find out."
     Such a question might seem odd elsewhere. But in Palestine it is very relevant. more..

Twilight Zone / Deer hunters
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 12/27/2007
     After a night of rain, the sun broke through the clouds. Two brothers and their brother-in-law decided to go for a hike in the wild, through the spectacular valley of olive trees, west of Ramallah in the West Bank. Around midday they suddenly noticed a herd of deer descending pell-mell into the valley. They stood and watched, certain that in the wake of the frantically fleeing animals, other people would appear. And, in fact, a few minutes later they spotted a group of soldiers slowly making their way into the valley.
     The three young Palestinians stood on the ridge of the hills that overlook the valley, a few hundred meters from the soldiers as the crow flies. Suddenly, according to the testimony of one of them, without any prior warning, the soldiers fired bursts of bullets at them. Firas Kaskas, 32, an unemployed gardener from the village of Batir, near Bethlehem, ... more..

Giddy about killing
Uri Moskowitz, Ha’aretz 12/27/2007
     "How are you?" Uri Orbach asked his co-host Irit Linor at the beginning of their public tete-a-tete on Army Radio’s "The Last Word" program, one day last week. Linor, who supposedly fills the left-wing/secular slot opposite her right-wing/religious counterpart on this current events program, did not respond with a simple, "Fine, how are you?" Instead, she launched into a description of her upbeat and tranquil mood following reports that the Israel Defense Forces had killed some 10 Islamic Jihad fighters in Gaza the previous night.
     "When we liquidate all sorts of Jihadists and Hamasniks, I’m better," she explained. "And when we don’t liquidate all sorts of Jihadists and Hamasniks, I’m not as well." After the liquidations of the previous day, she said: "My emotional state feels more in sync with the world. I feel more synergic." In short, she cheerfully suggested, the liquidations create "an excellent atmosphere." more..

Backward, Christian Soldiers, Marching as to Peace
Daoud Kuttab, MIFTAH 12/27/2007
     During the run-up to the 1998 Christmas celebrations, U.S. president Bill Clinton, along with his wife, Hillary, and daughter, Chelsea, visited the Palestinian town of Bethlehem to light up the Christmas tree in Manger Square, outside the Church of the Nativity. With that symbolic visit, and the understanding that Mr. Clinton was showing to the needs of the region, Palestinians of all faiths had high hopes that the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict might soon end. It didn’t.
     Early next month, President George W. Bush will be also visiting the West Bank and, like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before him, will likely visit the birthplace of Jesus. If he does, he will join members of the dwindling Palestinian Christian community, the majority of whom are Eastern Orthodox and who celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7.
     Coming after renewed negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, the visit to the occupied territories will be welcomed by Palestinians. But it will be hard to quickly forget the last seven years of the Bush administration and its unconditional support for Israel, with its heavy-handed policies toward Palestinians and Lebanese. more..

Churches in Holy Land Latest Victims of Israeli Authorities’ Travel Prohibitions
Campaign for the Right of Entry / Re-Entry, MIFTAH 12/26/2007
     Israel makes Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Church of Nativity off limits to Christian Clergy (Bethlehem, Palestine - 24 Dec 2007) As the world celebrates this holiday season, Israel is blocking clergy from reaching their churches and Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem and elsewhere in the Holy Land.These Israeli actions are in blatant violation of international humanitarian law, block the right for religions to practice in the Holy Land, and defy every notion of basic common sense.
     The Israeli authorities are arbitrarily denying entry to clergy and volunteers belonging to or working for Christian institutions and service providers.The clergy being harassed and denied entry to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) join tens of thousands of ordinary foreign passport holders of Palestinian and non-Palestinian origin who wish to be with their families, work or study, as well as tourists and pilgrims. This is especially sad at a time of spiritual reflection and reunion of families, friends and communities when major celebrations of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities coincide over the same period. more..

Blair’s misguided economic optimism
Adri Nieuwhof, Electronic Intifada 12/27/2007
     The Quartet’s Middle East envoy, Tony Blair, wanted to raise $5.6 billion US at the donor conference in Paris in December 2007. Since 1999 the per capita gross domestic product in occupied Palestine has declined by 40 percent. As a result Palestinians are getting poorer and 65 percent live below the poverty line. To give the hard hit economy a boost, Blair came up with a cure of ten "quick impact projects." The World Bank has another opinion: pouring money into the occupied Palestinian territory will do little to revive the economy unless the occupation is ended. Instead, some of Blair’s proposed projects are firmly rooted in the structure of the occupation.
     Promotion of tourism in Bethlehem Blair wishes to revive the tourism sector in Bethlehem. It will require "removing existing obstacles to facilitate access; and developing a support program for the Palestinian tourism sector."Palestine is a "safe destination" for tourists to visit, said Blair on 12 December 2007 when he spoke to journalists at a joint press conference with the Palestinian minister for tourism in Bethlehem. "Bethlehem is a safe and good place to come." Is this typical of Blair’s optimism? The UN security system has marked the entire West Bank as phase III, which means that traveling is only allowed for necessary missions. UN staff are not allowed to take their spouses and children with them. more..

The right to explode in anger
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 12/27/2007
     The negotiations over the future of our land, from the sea to the river, and the two peoples living in it, are proceeding along two parallel channels. It has been that way since the Madrid and Oslo talks for 17 years now. One channel is between the Palestinians and Israelis - such as Tuesday’s meeting in Jerusalem between chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. The other is being conducted between the Israelis and themselves. Will the only genuine point of contact between these two channels be another explosion of blood, as occurred in 1996 and 2000?
     The Palestinians have declared that they are not retreating from the international resolutions regarding a solution (for example the June 4, 1967 borders), and are demanding an immediate end to construction in the settlements. more..

A Peace-killing Linkage, De-linkage
Nicola Nasser, ZNet 12/26/2007
     Linking the "aliyah" to what the Jewish literature has been describing as Eretz Israel or Yisrael HaShleima (Greater Israel) to the Israeli colonial settlement of the Palestinian land, which the Hebrew state occupied in 1967, while at the same time negating the Palestinian Right of Return, is torpedoing whatever prospect is left for a peaceful solution for the Arab - Israeli conflict, undermining the latest U.S.-sponsored launch of the Palestinian - Israeli talks in Annapolis and further splintering, so far politically, the only viable Palestinian partner to Israel in any viable peace process, namely the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
     Head of North America’s Reform Movement, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, in an interview published by The Jerusalem Post on December 25, hailed "
     Israel ’s creation" as a "miraculous, momentous event in itself. Every day that goes by with Israel surrounded by a wall of Arab hatred is a miracle;" however he could have this linkage on mind when he noted what he described as "Arab hatred" and the "anti-Israel feeling among Jewish Americans" as an "aspect of the problem" of increasing identification with the Jewish state’s subscription to that linkage, although he stopped short of blaming the "hatred" and the "aspect" on this peace-killing linkage. more..

Settlements have to Go
Joharah Baker, MIFTAH 12/26/2007
     Unsurprisingly, the newly resumed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians stalled yet again, this time over the highly-charged issue of Israeli settlements, which despite past commitments, Israel has continued to expand. On December 24, the two sides met for the second time since the Annapolis peace conference in November, but came out of the meeting empty handed, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat describing the meeting as “very difficult.”
     No kidding. Even if we put a pin in all the other issues that have constituted major bones of contention between the Palestinians and Israelis such as the refugee problem, Jerusalem and borders, Jewish settlements alone are explosive enough to blow any negotiations to smithereens.
     However, in order to fully understand why both sides are so adamant in their positions when it comes to West Bank settlements (and that, by the way includes those illegally built in east Jerusalem), it is imperative to understand their significance, to both Israel and the Palestinians. more..

Two Palestinian Villages Ask Susan Sarandon to Repudiate Leviev over Israeli Settlements
Mohammed Khatib, ZNet 12/26/2007
     Dear Ms. Sarandon,
     We felt sorrow when we learned that you accepted Lev Leviev’s invitation to attend the opening night event for his new jewelry store in New York City on November 13 while our friends protested outside, because we respect you for your support for human rights, for your courage in speaking since 2002 against the US war on Iraq, and for your many other honorable public positions.
     Lev Leviev is building Israeli settlements on Bil’in and Jayyous’ land, and is also building in the settlements of Har Homa and Maale Adumim around Jerusalem, in violation of international law. Leviev is destroying the olive groves and farms that have sustained our villages for centuries, and is profiting from human rights abuses.
     We were reassured to learn from our colleagues in New York City that you expressed interest in learning more about these issues. more..

Israel needs to act like a partner, not a policeman
Editorial, Daily Star 12/27/2007
     Israel’s accusation that Egypt is not doing enough to control its border with Gaza and stem the flow of weapons into the Hamas-controlled territory is nothing short of absurd. The suggestion that Egypt is secretly colluding with Hamas in Gaza is laughable, not least of all because of the long-standing animosity between the Egyptian regime and Islamists. Moreover, the Israelis themselves were unable to stem the flow of weapons into Gaza when they had full control over the borders of the territory from 1967 to 2005, when the smuggling of weapons was carried out under their very noses.
     Far from being a two-timing ally, Egypt has been one of Israel’s most reliable friends in the region. Since signing a peace deal with Israel, Cairo has worked both behind the scenes and in public to promote a broader regional arrangement that would greater enhance security and stability, often acting as a mediator with other Arab states such as Syria. more..

Apology in Kafr Qasem
Tom Segev, Ha’aretz 12/27/2007
     On October 29, 1956, a little after 5 P.M., several dozen Kafr Qasem residents were coming home from work, unaware that a curfew had been declared because of the start of the Sinai Campaign. Border police lined them up and shot them dead: 47 people, Arabs, citizens of Israel.
     The monument erected for them also perpetuates the memory of an elderly man who suffered a stroke when he was informed that his son was among those killed, along with the fetus that one of the murdered women was carrying in her womb. People were also wounded. The slaughter was anchored in a contingency plan to expel the village’s inhabitants to Jordan.
     At first, the authorities tried to suppress the news through the military censor. Shimon Peres, now Israel’s president, was the Defense Ministry’s director general at the time. more..

In Gaza, Santa is insolvent
Mohammed Omer, Electronic Intifada 12/25/2007
     GAZA CITY, December 24 (IPS) - "Santa Claus is empty handed this year ... insolvent," says Father Manuel Musallam, head of the Holy Family School in Gaza City.
     "All forms of celebration are absent," he says, raising his empty palms skywards. "We Christians and Muslims all live in fear and instability. The Israeli tanks, bulldozers and warplanes have laid siege on us all."
     His school, which has both Muslim and Christian students, likes to celebrate including all; this year few celebrations were planned, for fewer children.
     The Sunday school headmaster of the Greek Orthodox Church, Jaber al-Jilda, echoes his Catholic colleague’s sentiments. "This year’s celebrations are mainly religious," he says. "We want to celebrate, but our hearts are full of pain and grief. We cannot celebrate and at the same time watch as the funeral of another killed by Israeli occupation passes in front of our church." more..

South Africa found peace, why not Middle East?
Desmond Tutu, ZNet 12/25/2007
     At the height of the struggle, when apartheid’s repression was at its most vicious and it seemed as if the apartheid rulers were firmly ensconced in power, we turned to the inspiration of our Hebrew tradition and antecedents.
     I could have spent a great deal of time rehearsing how I experienced a deja-vu when I saw a security checkpoint at which Palestinians had to negotiate most of their lives, that I was reminded so painfully of the same checkpoints in apartheid South Africa. I have not gone that route.
     No, I have chosen a different approach. A recent report by a clinical psychologist who was himself a soldier in the Israeli Defence Force, Nufan Yishai Katrim, speaks of how Israeli soldiers carried out acts of brutality on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. One of the soldiers, he said, told of how a new commander went out with them on patrol.
     Because of the curfew, there were no Palestinians in sight except a four-year-old boy who was playing with the sand. The commander went and broke the arm of the four-year-old. more..

Joint Struggle against Israeli Apartheid
Kim Bullimore, Palestine Chronicle 12/25/2007
     Four weeks ago, Y, the brother of one of my Israeli friends was shot in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). He was attending the weekly demonstration against the Apartheid Wall and the illegal Israeli occupation in Bil’in village in the Occupied West Bank.
     Y had marched, along with other peaceful demonstrators, towards the apartheid wall.The IOF, as usual, began to violently attack the peaceful and unarmed demonstrators by firing teargas, sound grenades, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition.
     Y and a group of others were separated off from the main section of the rally and targeted by the IOF. It was here that an IOF soldier took aim at his head and fired - deliberately, methodically and in violation of international law.
     The IOF then began firing a constant barrage of teargas making it impossible for medical aid to get to Y immediately. It was only after sometime that other demonstrators were able to get to him and drag him to safety and to get medical aid for him and two others (both Palestinians) who had also been shot by the IOF in the leg and thighs. more..

Avoiding Responsibility
Ghassan Khatib, MIFTAH 12/25/2007
     The Israeli demand to be recognized as a "Jewish state" was not only one of the main reasons for the failure of the Annapolis conference, it was one of the most controversial issues of the negotiations. This demand is rejected by Palestinians and all Arab governments. Hence, the support for the Israeli position on this controversial issue by President George W. Bush in his opening speech at Annapolis marked a snub to the Arabs and a failure of their diplomacy.
     It is useful to recall that during the "good old years" of negotiations and agreements between Israel and the PLO this was never an issue. Even during the negotiations on "mutual recognition", Israel never demanded to be recognized as anything other than Israel. Nor was the Jewish nature of the state an issue in later peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. It is thus possible to conclude that this change is a result of the radicalization that has gripped Israel over the last seven years since, and because of, the collapse of the peace process after Camp David. more..

A Jewish State Now?
Akiva Eldar, MIFTAH 12/25/2007
     At the close of the Annapolis conference, PM Ehud Olmert made a statement that few Israeli leftists would dare to mouth. In an interview with Haaretz he declared that without an agreement with the Palestinians for a two-state solution, the future of the state of Israel would be in doubt. He threatened that if we don’t make haste, Israel would become an apartheid state. An experienced politician and crafty lawyer like Olmert undoubtedly understands that an agreement is dependent on the good will of both sides. In other words, according to Olmert the fate of Zionism is dependent on the desire and the capacity of the Palestinian side to reach a compromise with Israel regarding the heavy issues that are up for negotiation: borders, Jerusalem, refugees, water and security.
     In order to ensure the realization of an agreement that preserves Zionism, Israel must have an interest in quickly neutralizing the many minefields embedded in each and every one of these topics. So why is it laying yet another landmine under the negotiating table in the form of a demand that the Palestinians recognize it as a "Jewish state"? Had Olmert taken the trouble to hold a serious discussion of this issue in advance, the experts would have reminded him that 19 years ago the most senior institution of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Palestinian National Council, recognized UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947, that declared the establishment of two states, one Jewish and one Arab. In an interview in Haaretz on June 18, 2004, Yasser Arafat stated that he understands perfectly that Israel must continue to be a Jewish state, and declared that the PLO had recognized this "openly and officially". more..

Peace Farce in Spain
Agustin Velloso, Palestine Chronicle 12/25/2007
     Last week end (14-16 December), the Forum for a Just Peace in the Middle East, one of the longest running plays in the world, was once again performed, this time in Alcorcon (a town close to Madrid). The plot was written by the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) and directed by Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Spanish government’s Foreign Affairs Minister. The cast was mainly made up of some people who should not have been there and some people who rather wish the earth might have swallowed them up.
     This performance has taken place in Madrid at least twice in the last few years: same script, similar actors, same results. The first took place in one of the elegant halls of the Agencia Española de Cooperacion Internacional, the Spanish Cooperation Agency. The man in charge of the "meeting" between Palestinians and Israelis, decided that a mural map of Palestine would be a great background for the event. He chose an Israeli map, which served well to show off Spanish mediating skills in the conflict between a powerful country and an occupied destitute nation. more..

MIDEAST: They Do Not Exist, And That Is Official
Mona Alami, Inter Press Service 12/24/2007
     BEIRUT, Dec 24(IPS) - In the maze of dirty streets that spreads from Beirut’s revamped Sport City to the shabby Halabi quarters, 20,000 refugees are clustered in what is known as the Bourj al-Barajneh Palestinian camp. In a town plagued by poverty, many families live in complete destitution.
     These forgotten people have fallen through the cracks of legality and belong nowhere: they are known as non-ID Palestinians.
     With the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, many Palestinians fled their homeland to Lebanon. Today, there are approximately 400,000 refugees living in the ’Land of the Cedars’, some with no documentation, and not registered with either the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) or the Lebanese authorities.
     "I fell in love with a Palestinian combatant who came to Lebanon in the 1970s to fight with the PLO during the Lebanese civil war," says a woman who gave her name as Manal, not her real name. more..

Clearing out the Jails
Akiva Eldar, MIFTAH 12/25/2007
     For many years, and especially as head of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria, Brigadier General Ilan Paz earned a living hunting down and jailing Palestinians. He has spent this last year, however, with two released prisoners: Fatah leaders Hisham Abd al-Razeq, Fatah’s former minister of prisoner affairs, and Ibrahim Salameh, a former adviser to the Palestinian interior minister. This July, the group, which includes two other retired Israeli security officials, released their own "prisoners document," entitled "Gradual Working Plan for the Release of Palestinian Prisoners, as an Incentive for Achieving and Maintaining a Cease-Fire."
     The plan has 16 sections, which list steps for the gradual release of all prisoners jailed in Israel. It was prepared under the auspices of a well-known Israeli research institute that maintains close ties with the security establishment, and was recently presented to the senior political leadership in Israel and the West Bank, including the Prime Minister’s Bureau and the Muqata in Ramallah. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas "responded favorably" al-Razeq said yesterday; Paz said the Israelis showed interest, too. Salameh says the Hamas leadership in the West Bank also was in on the matter, but "the revolution" in Gaza took them out of the game. The authors hope their work will influence members of the ministers forum led by Haim Ramon, which is discussing softening the terms for releasing security prisoners "with blood on their hands." more..

Let there be peace
Michel Sabbah, Ha’aretz 12/25/2007
     Brothers and Sisters,
     I wish you all a Blessed Christmas.
     "The grace and love of God have appeared to us" (Titus 3, 4).
     We joyfully celebrate Christmas, hoping to see better days in our Holy Land, by the grace of God, by our own contribution to bring peace to this land and by sharing in all the sacrifices that it requires. For this reason, at Christmas, we renew our faith in the One in whom we have believed, the Word of God made man, Jesus born in Bethlehem, the Prince of Peace, and the Savior of humankind. He became man in order to bring us back to God our Creator and to let us know that we are not alone, that we are not abandoned to ourselves as we face the numerous challenges of this Holy Land.
     Because God is with us, we remain hopeful in the midst of all the daily difficulties we experience as a result of the occupation and of the insecurity and deprivations that arise from it. more..

Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem (Revisited)
William A. Cook, Palestine Chronicle 12/24/2007
     Oh, little town of Bethlehem, How strange you seem tonight!
     Above the dark foreboding sky, The stars now hide their light, The streets below dare not show The everlasting light.
     What hopes and fears are mingled here, In dread, this sacred night?
     Oh, Christ was born of Mary So many years ago, While mortals sang of peace on earth On lonely hills below.
     But, now, I hear no songs Proclaim the holy birth; No praises sing to God the King, There is no peace on earth!
     Beyond the town, the Wall surrounds The people bound within; The soldiers cry and curse the sky To scoff the Joy He’s giv’n... [end]

In the same prison together
Sonja Karkar, Electronic Intifada 12/24/2007
     As Christmas approaches this year, the thoughts of Christians all over the world will once again turn to Bethlehem, the holy town where Jesus was born over two millennia ago. Voices will be raised in joyful celebration and children everywhere will recreate the Christmas story to help us remember the circumstances in which the Christ child was born.
     Such a momentous occasion in such humble surroundings heralded a new way of thinking about people’s relationship with God and with each other. It shook the foundations of an unforgiving society presided over by an unforgiving God and proclaimed peace and goodwill on earth amongst all people. There was indeed much to hope for.
     However, the tranquil pastoral scene so familiar to us is not at all evident in Bethlehem today. Bethlehem does not lie still, and peace on earth and goodwill towards all is as elusive as ever. The tyranny of Israel’s occupation and its colonial expansionism is crippling the lives of both Palestinian Christians and Muslims alike. Yet, many Christians will again ignore the misery suffered by the Palestinians in the Holy Land and will celebrate Christmas without remembering that it was amongst this people and in their land that Jesus was born. Priests will chant, masses will be said, carols will be sung and nativity scenes will be created, but it is unlikely that many sermons will urge Christian congregations to speak out against the crimes being committed in Palestine. more..

Gazans say this Eid is the worst ever
Rami Almeghari, International Middle East Media Center 12/23/2007
     A 500-meter-long street in the heart of Gaza City is empty of cars and vehicles, but full of men, women and children. Omar al-Mokhtar Street is considered the largest commercial area in Gaza where people from all over the coastal region have always come to shop, especially during the holiday season.
     In recent days, Gaza, like other Islamic communities around the world, prepared to celebrate Eid al-Adha, a major holiday marking the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj. Normally a time of joy, this year’s Eid is different from past years because Gaza suffers from the tight Israeli closures on all travel and commercial crossings.
     People across this large street spoke to EI, expressing how they view the occasion under the current conditions, mainly the economic siege Israel has imposed since mid-June.
     Abu Muhammad al-Khudary, owner of a used clothing store, was sitting idle with a young boy who helps around the shop. more..

First violin / Prelude to dialogue
Noam Ben Zeev, Ha’aretz 12/24/2007
     "I was shocked to see these walls, it’s a new apartheid, barbaric behavior: How can you impose such a collective punishment and separate people? After all, we are all living on the same planet. It seems to me the world should have already learned from what happened in South Africa. And a country that hasn’t learned should be boycotted, so that’s why I don’t perform in your country."
     This was the response offered this summer in an interview with Haaretz by internationally renowned British violinist Nigel Kennedy when asked why Israeli impresarios had yet to bring him here despite repeated attempts. Kennedy’s comment hit on a facet infrequently discussed when debating the Israel boycott: The cultural boycott and, in particular, the musical boycott.
     The automatic responses of boycott opponents weren’t long in coming. As usual, they had a hint of insult and victimization. Prominent among them was the accusation of anti-Semitism, a charge immediately leveled against any boycotter, whomever he may be (a review of Kennedy’s life and the cultural wealth in it, including the Jewish element, raises serious doubts about the possibility of his being an anti-Semite more..

Meanwhile, in the West Bank
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 12/24/2007
     Don’t let the quiet fool you: It is imaginary. While all eyes are on Gaza, the impression has been created, under the aegis of a media turning a blind eye, that the West Bank is quiet. That’s where the "good guys" are in charge, those with whom we went to Annapolis, those who will be getting the money from the donor nations, and life there is great, so it seems.
     Well, that is not the case. The lives of the Palestinians in the West Bank are also intolerable, blood is being shed there too. For the Israel Defense Forces it is business as usual, with a frighteningly quick finger on the trigger. The spirit of Annapolis and the lofty words of the prime minister do not prevail there.
     I have visited quite a few mourners’ homes in the West Bank in recent months. They were all mourning family members who had been killed for no reason. more..

Analysis: Palestinian Aid and Politics
Jeremy Bowen, MIFTAH 12/23/2007
     If delegates to the Palestinian donors’ conference in Paris felt like a little light shopping after their work was done it was a mere step from their meeting hall to the Champs Elysees.
     If they had worked up an appetite, there are restaurants where a modest piece of grilled fish can cost more than 60 Euros (US $86).
     The trees that run along either side of the Champs Elysees were dripping with Christmas lights, and down in the Place de la Concorde an elegantly lit Ferris wheel turned slowly, giving its passengers an excellent view of the Eiffel Tower, and the roof tops of the French capital.
     In other words, it is hard to think of anywhere in the world that felt so far away from the miserable realities of life in Gaza and the West Bank as Paris did in the week before Christmas.
     Life is not just hard for Palestinians. It is getting worse. more..

Letter to an Israeli in Christmas Time
Bernard Sabella, MIFTAH 12/23/2007
     This is the time of feasts and holidays. We are on our second day of Eid El Adha, the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice; Hanukkah, the Feast of Lights, was celebrated few days ago. Christmas is around the corner. As we celebrate our separate holidays, it is clear that we have not yet found the middle ground that would enable all of us to genuinely share the celebrations of each other. There are many theories, academic arguments and practical reasons of why we have not yet arrived at the middle ground. Some would lay the blame on this side or that and yet others would put the blame on all sides and show their inability to make acceptable political compromises. Yet, there are groups on both sides that continue to insist that it is not possible to arrive at peace, let middle ground, with the other side. Some would want to argue that on this Christmas time and in reference specifically to Bethlehem that politics should be out and only the best in the religious traditions as reflected particularly in tourists and pilgrims arriving to Bethlehem should be highlighted. Turning a blind eye to politics is sure to bring people together, according to this argument. This is a surrealistic a position as imagining that there is no concrete wall surrounding Bethlehem, the town of nativity. more..

Underwriting the Conflict in Hebron
Matthew Duss, MIFTAH 12/23/2007
     On Nov. 18, in the beautifully appointed ballroom of Manhattan’s posh Grand Hyatt Hotel at Grand Central Station, the Hebron Fund held its annual fund-raising gala. According to organizers, guests paid upward of $300 a head, with anything above the cost of the dinner considered tax-deductible. The evening began with a reception in an anteroom featuring a buffet of gourmet foods. A chef in a tall hat worked a stir-fry station; another expertly sliced sashimi and rolled sushi. A dessert table overflowed with cakes and chocolate mousse. A flute and piano duo played easy-listening versions of vaguely recognizable classics.
     The Hebron Fund is a Brooklyn-based charity that supports the "continued Jewish presence" in the West Bank city of Hebron, which is considered holy by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Hebron was home to a vibrant Jewish community until 1929, when a series of conflicts between Jews and Arabs culminated in riots. During those riots 67 Palestinian Jews were murdered by Arabs. (The Zionist Archives preserve a list of 435 Jews who were given refuge by their Palestinian Arab neighbors.) Soon after, the British authorities ordered Jews out of Hebron in order to avoid more violence. After the 1948 war, and until 1967, the West Bank was occupied by the Jordanian Army. more..

The Writing on Bethlehem’s Wall: British Artist Seeks to Lure Tourists
Joshua Mitnick, MIFTAH 12/23/2007
     A dove dressed in a bulletproof vest raises its wings in surrender. A girl in pigtails and pink frilly dress frisks an Israeli soldier. The nose on a Pinocchio with a star-spangled tie has grown into a missile.
     Paintings by British street artist Banksy have drawn attention to the biggest canvas in the city reputed to be the birthplace of Jesus: the gray concrete walls Israel put up as a separation barrier. As with the wall that divided Berlin during the cold war, scrawling graffiti on the barrier has become a silent form of demonstration for both Palestinian and foreign artists.
     "Every time I look at these pictures on the wall, I feel optimistic that wall will come down," said Nada Abu Khdeir, a resident of the Aida refugee camp, pointing to a painting of an escalator ascending the 25-foot-high wall.
     "Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this becomes a reality and we are able to go to our land on the other side? I feel these drawings are expressing support for the Palestinian people. It is wonderful to see this support in the form of art," she says. more..

A Ceasefire from Hamas?
The Boston Globe - Editorial, MIFTAH 12/23/2007
     THE ISRAELI government reacted warily at first - and understandably so - to the proposal of a ceasefire in Gaza from Ismael Haniyeh, leader of the group Hamas. But after initially rebuffing the offer, Israeli officials are seriously considering it, according to an Israeli television report yesterday. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government would be wise to explore a ceasefire with Hamas, for it could not only save lives but also prepare the way for a comprehensive peace agreement.
     Tensions have been rising in recent weeks. In response to continuing rocket attacks into Israel from Gaza, the Israeli Defense Forces have been targeting and killing not merely the rocket-launching teams but also leaders of the militant group Islamic Jihad and of the armed wing of Hamas. And there have been hints that the IDF is preparing a large-scale military incursion into Gaza. more..

The Other Middle East Conflict: Israel vs. Israel
Stephen D. Hayes, MIFTAH 12/23/2007
     The Annapolis Middle East conference has now come and gone. There is not enough political capital or “time left on the clock” in Washington for this initiative to be of much value. But, the initiative can serve as a useful catalyst to showcase another dimension of the struggle in the region.
     Israel is not only facing issues of borders, settlements, security and the status of Jerusalem. It is also facing two very difficult internal challenges. Israelis must look deep within their own national psyche and confront two images — the image of Israel past and the image of Israel future. The former involves the brutal and, at times morally indefensible, treatment of the indigenous Arab population who were residents of what is today the State of Israel. This troublesome past is being exhumed now, not by outsiders, but by Israelis themselves. Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian and until recently a professor at Haifa University, has published an astounding, well-documented account, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, that chronicles the 1947-1949 systematic destruction and, in many cases, outright elimination of entire Palestinian villages at the hands of the Israelis. The Arabs refer to this period of village annihilation and mass expulsion as the “nakba”, or catastrophe. Pappe also describes the equally systematic subsequent process of “memoricide” — the attempt to eliminate of any physical or historical record of that portion of Israeli history. more..

Where are Labor and Meretz?
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 12/24/2007
     On the eve of the trip to the Annapolis summit, a penetrating debate was held at the Muqata on the question of whether Mahmoud Abbas should participate in the George W. Bush and Ehud Olmert show. At the last moment the Palestinians discovered that the Israeli prime minister had retracted his promise that the conference document would address at least one of the core issues specifically, and in a binding manner. The opponents said that they were tired of the Israelis’ empty promises to dismantle roadblocks, evacuate outposts and be more generous about freeing prisoners. They warned that another fruitless peace gathering would be a disappointment that the Palestinian public would not be able to tolerate, and spoke about how Hamas would celebrate the farce in Annapolis. The argument that tipped the balance in the end was that without the conference in Maryland, there would be no donors conference in Paris. Economic distress overcame political distress.
     Olmert cited political constraints as his excuse for refusing to mention the June 4, 1967 borders in the Annapolis declaration, and for refusing to commit to a time frame for concluding the negotiations. He explained that Avigdor Lieberman had threatened to take his party Yisrael Beitenu out of the government and to bring about early elections. more..

Help! A Cease Fire!
Uri Avnery, MIFTAH 12/23/2007
     FORGET THE Qassams. Forget the mortar shells. They are nothing compared with what Hamas launched at us this week:
     The chief of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, has approached an Israeli newspaper and proposed a cease-fire. No more Qassams, no more mortars, no suicide bombings, no Israeli military incursions into the Strip, no "targeted liquidations" of leaders. A total cease-fire. And not only in the Gaza Strip, but in the West Bank, too.
     The military leadership exploded in anger. Who does he think he is, that bastard? That he can stop us with such dirty tricks?
     THIS IS the second time within a few days that an attempt has been made to thwart our war plans.
     Two weeks ago, the American intelligence community declared, in an authoritative report, that Iran had stopped its attempt to produce a nuclear bomb as early as four years ago. more..

Refusing to accept apartheid in Beit Jala
Adri Nieuwhof and Amer Madi writing from Beit Jala, occupied, Electronic Intifada 12/22/2007
     Last night the rains finally arrived in Beit Jala, a small town in the West Bank, one kilometer west of Bethlehem and about eight kilometers south of Jerusalem. Its alluring hills are covered with olive trees, vineyards and apricots. In 1967 Israel confiscated 22 percent of Beit Jala’s land. Now, the construction of Israel’s separation wall is in full swing and will cut off another 45 per cent of Beit Jala’s land. We went to visit the area to feel the impact of the wall and listen to the stories of the farmers who didn’t sell their land and choose to resist the its confiscation.
     Our guide accompanies us to the house of 86-year-old Yacoub Salim Abu Amsha. His garden borders Aida refugee camp which was established in 1950. Our guide explains that Road 60 is built on the land of Abu Salim, which is about three kilometers from where he lives. Road 60 is a bypass road for Jewish settlers; Palestinians are prohibited from using it. Our guide met Abu Salim a few years ago when he saw a desperate old man walking in his field while Israeli bulldozers were in his olive orchard. He stopped and talked to the old man. Abu Salim was desperate, because the Israelis planned to uproot his trees including a very old olive tree which he said dated back to Roman times. In 1933 his grandfather pointed to that olive tree and told him to take care of it because olive trees are a blessing. His grandfather was very attached to this particular tree and Abu Salim looked after it his entire life. Abu Salim had told our guide, "if the Israelis uproot my grandfather’s old tree, I will die." more..

Poem: Bethlehem 2007
Serge van Erkelens, Palestine Chronicle 12/22/2007
     Where are we as Christians, if at the heart of it’s start; we tolerate this violence, even adding our part?; We’re shouting Islam should be liberal and mild, but; how about Joshua, killing every man every child?
     Oh Bethlehem, you shame of Christianity..
     Did we learn nothing?!
     Where once was the way, and the truth, faithful life, it all went astray, all is brute, filled with lies..
     Where are the fruits of our Christian ways?
     Two thousand seven, enough to say hey, are we so sure, we have learned from crusades?
     Or are we sustaining those, every day?
     What is it you dream of at Christmas, lets say of three kings in the night, that all came a long way?
     Well sorry I don’t, something else here’s to stay.
     Expulsion and roadblocks, and suffering each day. more..

Apartheid-style Fight for Democracy Looms
James Bowen, Palestine Chronicle 12/22/2007
     Samuel Johnson, who once said that "a second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience", would have had something pithy to say about anybody expecting justice for the Palestinians from the Annapolis process. Too many past initiatives have been derailed by the intransigence of Israeli governments whose tactic has long been to delay justice in order to deny justice.
     This started as long ago as May 1949 when, in order to join the United Nations, Israel promised to honour Resolution 194 which demanded that the Palestinian refugees be allowed to return home. They are still waiting.
     Olmert’s commitment to reach a final-status agreement in 2008 should be seen in the same light as Rabin’s 1993 commitment to do the same within five years. By early 1995, the Israeli general turned peace activist, Matti Peled, had recognised that Rabin did not intend to allow an independent Palestinian state and said so in an article headlined "Rabin does not want peace". Unfortunately for Rabin, his assassin was not so perceptive. more..

On ‘Israel’s Right to Exist’
John Whitbeck, Palestine Chronicle 12/22/2007
     There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel’s existence" and "recognizing Israel’s right to exist".
     Almost two years after the most democratic elections ever held in the Arab world, as Palestinians struggle to survive in two disconnected and hostile fragments of historical Palestine, a besieged Gaza Strip and a coopted West Bank, with the enemies of the Palestinian people sending arms and funds to the side perceived as responsive to Israeli and Western wishes for use against the side perceived as representing Palestinian interests, the justification put forward by Israel, the United States and the European Union for their refusal to accept the result of the January 2006 elections, their determined efforts to overturn that result and their brutal collective punishment of the Palestinian people -- the refusal of Hamas to "recognize Israel" or to "recognize Israel’s existence" or to "recognize Israel’s right to exist" -- merits serious examination. more..

Tearful Eid at Rafah Crossing
Mohammad Abu Aita, Palestine Chronicle 12/22/2007
     ARISH, Egypt - Mahmoud Abu Ali wished that `Eid Al-Adha would not come this year, being one of hundreds of Palestinians stranded on the Egyptian side of Rafah far away from his wife and four kids, which twisted the knife further in his wound.
     "It is breaking my heart that I can’t be with them in these days," Abu Ali told IslamOnline.net, his voice breaking.
     "As I’m stuck in here, with no job or money, there will be no new`Eid clothes or toys for the kids," added Abu Ali, who also missed `Eid Al-Fitr with his family in October.
     Abu-Ali is one of nearly 1,000 Palestinians who spend the four-day `Eid Al-Adha, which starts Wednesday, December 19, stranded at the Egyptian side of Rafah crossing.
     The Rafah crossing, the only gate for Gazans to the outside world and into their homeland, has been shut by Israel and Egypt since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in June, leaving hundreds of Palestinians stuck on the Egyptian side. more..

Palestinian shepherds forced to move on
Report, IRIN, Electronic Intifada 12/22/2007
     IDHNA, SOUTHERN WEST BANK, 19 December 2007 (IRIN) - "The best thing about Khirbet Qassa was the grazing land. We had open spaces. Now we’ve become dependent on other people and their land," said Abdel Halim Nattah, a shepherd in the southern West Bank.
     Several weeks earlier he and all his fellow villagers, 37 families numbering 272 people, were evacuated by the Israeli military from Qassa and told to find a new home somewhere else.
     The Israel Civil Administration said the land the Palestinians were living on was an archaeological site under state auspices, and the villagers had been given warnings about the impending evacuation.
     "They came at 7:30 in the morning," one villager told IRIN. "We sent away the women, children and sheep. An old man pleaded with the soldiers saying ’we will move ourselves’. They gave us until the next afternoon, and said anyone remaining would be arrested and anything left confiscated." more..

Gazans say this Eid is the worst ever
Rami Almeghari writing from occupied Gaza Strip, Electronic Intifada 12/20/2007
     A 500-meter-long street in the heart of Gaza City is empty of cars and vehicles, but full of men, women and children. Omar al-Mokhtar Street is considered the largest commercial area in Gaza where people from all over the coastal region have always come to shop, especially during the holiday season.
     In recent days, Gaza, like other Islamic communities around the world, prepared to celebrate Eid al-Adha, a major holiday marking the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj. Normally a time of joy, this year’s Eid is different from past years because Gaza suffers from the tight Israeli closures on all travel and commercial crossings.
     People across this large street spoke to EI, expressing how they view the occasion under the current conditions, mainly the economic siege Israel has imposed since mid-June.
     Abu Muhammad al-Khudary, owner of a used clothing store, was sitting idle with a young boy who helps around the shop. more..

Twilight Zone / Killed in the line of duty
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 12/20/2007
     This is a story about the pathetic attempt of the Palestinians to govern in what remains of their territories. A story about Israeli arrogance and a terrifyingly quick trigger finger. A story about our disdain for Palestinian lives. And a tragic story about Mohammed Salah, who because of his back pains stopped laying floors in construction projects in Ma’aleh Adumim and went to work for the Palestinian police force.
     This is a story that should not have happened. No excuse in the world can justify the brutal behavior of a dozen masked, undercover Israel Defense Forces soldiers, speeding in their commercial van through the streets of Bethlehem as though it were their city, disobeying instructions to stop. When they finally did stop, they shot an innocent policeman to death who had dared to open the door of their vehicle, not endangering anyone, only looking for stolen or other illegal merchandise. more..

The soldiers don’t exist
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 12/20/2007
     At first glance it looks like people bowing down to other people. Maybe an ancient rite of worship before the weapons that hang nonchalantly from their erect bearers, who smile slightly, perhaps a plea for favor from the master. How easy it is from this photograph to infer a relationship of domination, when it is clear who is who on each side. How easy it is to conclude that the dominated side accepts the domination, the hierarchy, as part of Creation. Pierre Bourdieu writes in "Masculine Domination" that the ruled impose on the relationship of domination categories that have been formulated from the point of view of the rulers, and thus they cause these relations to seem natural.
     Even the information that this is a photo of the weekly demonstration in Umm Salmona in the Bethlehem area, protesting the separation fence and the lands it is stealing, and that those who are bowing down are actually demonstrators who are praying, cannot erase the impression of prostration, of submission. But that is what is seen in the first glance of a non-Muslim, of someone who connects as a ruler (even if we deny this connection). Those defiant backsides of people who minutes earlier were rescued from the blows of the soldiers, offer another option to Bourdieu: They are not conforming to what we see at first glance, and are imposing categories of their own on the relationship of domination. more..

Seeing and unseeing
Ilana Hammerman, Ha’aretz 12/20/2007
     "Chic Point:Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints," book and video clip in Arabic, English and Hebrew, designed by Sharif Waked, Andalus, 200 pages - Raise your sweater.
     I have seen this on television, but it never occurred to me that it would happen here, right in front of my own home. I lifted my arms. He raised his gun.
     I am telling you, raise your sweater.
     I had to concede ... what other choice did I have? I raised my sweater, but there were a couple of problems. First, my jacket was still covering part of my stomach and back. And second, I had a shirt on under the sweater.
     Take off your jacket. Pull up your undershirt.
     Now this was really complicating things. Where would I put my jacket? There was no way I would put it on the wet, dirty ground. I love this Bally jacket ... I turned to the soldier: Could you please hold my jacket while I pull up my sweater?
     Don’t move, kneel down and pull up your clothes
     His voice was getting louder and angrier. I tried to explain: But I am Jacques Persekian. I live right here. You see me every morning. My wife is called Hania, my sons are Rami, Amir... more..

RIGHTS: "USA vs. Al-Arian" Highlights Real Cost of Indefinite Detentions
Ali Gharib, Inter Press Service 12/20/2007
     WASHINGTON, Dec 20(IPS) - Twelve-year-old Lama Al-Arian looked up into a camera with a broad smile two years ago and called her father a "political prisoner". But her eyes betray her playfully shy exuberance -- they are wracked by uncertainty about the future of a man who has been in a United States prison for five years this February.
     South Florida university professor and pro-Palestinian activist Sami Al-Arian’s highly publicised arrest on terror-related charges during the winter of 2003 was hailed as a major step forward in defending the U.S. against terrorism by then attorney-general John Ashcroft. On Feb. 20, 2003, the FBI arrested Al- Arian after indicting him and seven others on 50 charges including some related to terrorism and funding of terrorism. more..

A Christmas reflection on Palestine Christians and Muslims celebrate and weep together
Sonja Karkar, ZNet 12/20/2007
     As Christmas approaches this year, the thoughts of Christians all over the world will once again turn to Bethlehem , the holy town where Jesus was born over two millennia ago. Voices will be raised in joyful celebration and children everywhere will re-create the Christmas story to help us remember the circumstances in which the Christ child was born.
     ...It would surprise many Christians in the West that Palestinian Christians and Muslims have prayed in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity for centuries. In fact, the Qur’an - the holy book of Islam - refers often, and with great reverence, to Jesus and Mary Muhammad himself preserved an icon of Mary and the child Jesus after the conquest of Mecca and ordered that it remain within the Ka’ba to which Muslims make their obligatory pilgrimage from all over the world... more..

Start with the unmanned roadblocks!
Daniel Gavron, Ha’aretz 12/21/2007
     This week’s request from French President Nicholas Sarkozy, made at the conference of nations donating money to the Palestinian Authority, that Israel remove the roadblocks in the West Bank is hardly new. World Bank reports have been saying for years that the roadblocks are a major impediment to Palestinian economic development. Tony Blair, the Quartet’s special envoy, one of whose briefs is to help develop the Palestinian economy, has also made the same point several times.
     Sarkozy, Blair and the World Bank are not talking about the checkpoints between Israel and the territories. They are referring to the barriers that prevent Palestinians from traveling and transporting goods between Tulkarm and Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron, and between all of those places and East Jerusalem. more..

Annapolis: The Morning After
Adel Safty, ZNet 12/20/2007
     As expected the Annapolis meeting did not address the substantive issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians and Israelis expected different things from Annapolis and not surprisingly the Israeli vision triumphed.
     Ahmed Qurei , the chief Palestinian negotiator, said: "What we need for a successful meeting in Annapolis is to implement the first phase of the road map."� An Israeli official close to Israeli Prime Minister Olmert said: "Because we can’t agree on the substance of a joint paper, we prefer to say we’re just beginning to negotiate."� (NYT, Nov 12.07).
     The announcement at Annapolis said that Israelis and Palestinians have reached a "joint understanding"� to negotiate a final settlement of their conflict in all its aspects before the end of 2008. more..

Ramzy Baroud: Politicising Gaza’s Misery
Palestine Chronicle 12/19/2007
     Hamas’s political advent in January 2006 as the first "opposition" movement in the Arab world to ascend to power using peaceful and democratic means was successfully thwarted in a brazen coup, engineered jointly by the United States, Israel and renegade Palestinians factionalists. Following this, history was rewritten, as is usual, by the victor. Thus Hamas, a party embodying democratic institutions in the occupied territories, became the party that "overthrew" Abbas’s "legitimate" democracy. As strange a notion as that is (a government overthrowing itself), it went down in the annals of Western media as uncontested truth.
     All parties involved, directly or otherwise, were expected to determine their position from this fallacious claim, and they did so to meet their own interests. Some had little problem in disowning Palestinian democracy altogether. The United States government, Israel, the European Union, and various non- democratic Arab governments were delighted by the outcome of Palestinian infighting. They celebrated Abbas and his faction as the true and legitimate democrats, and chastised those who disagreed. Countries such as Russia, South Africa and some Arab Gulf states followed suit, with some hesitation and disgruntlement, but too weak or indecisive to confront the status quo. more..

Just one state
Rumy Hasan, Al-Ahram Weekly 12/19/2007
     The gathering force of the one state solution for Palestine is a mortal threat to Zionist racism, writes On the weekend of 17-18 November, a conference took place in London that I hope and believe will prove a historic event. The reason is that it discussed the one state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Organised by the SOAS Palestine Society and the London One State Group, it was held in the largest hall at SOAS, and was sold out in advance -- an indicator of the thirst for discussion of this vision. For me it was the most inspiring event on Palestine I have ever attended.
     On the various platforms were not only Palestinians (from the Diaspora, within Israel, and from the occupied territories) but also, uniquely, Israeli Jews. Following the London conference and a related one in Madrid, a "One State Declaration" was issued 29 November. Most of the signatories, an array of outstanding intellectuals and activists, were at the London conference: Ali Abunimah, Naseer Aruri, Omar Barghouti, Oren Ben-Dor, George Bisharat, Haim Bresheeth, Jonathan Cook, Ghazi Falah, Leila Farsakh, Islah Jad, Joseph Massad, Ilan Pappe, Carlos Prieto del Campo and Nadim Rouhana. more..

Sixty tough years on
Boutros Boutros-Ghali with Dina Ezzat, Al-Ahram Weekly 12/19/2007
     Boutros Boutros-Ghali tells Dina Ezzat that time will resolve the Palestinian cause in favour of justice Boutros Boutros-Ghali It has been 60 years since Arab representatives met at the headquarters of the League of Arab States on 17 December 1947 to officially reject the 7 December UN partition plan proposing to divide historic Palestine into two countries: one reserved as a homeland for the Jewish people and another as a Palestinian state.
     "The governments that are members of the League of Arab States stand as one rank on the side of its [Palestinian] brethren in their struggle to end the oppression and to empower them to defend themselves until the independence of Palestine [is secured]," stated the Arab League resolution at the time.
     The Arab League decided to establish political and military committees that were charged with supporting the Palestinian freedom fighters. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq financed the struggle. more..

The end of Israel?
Hannah Mermelstein, Electronic Intifada 12/19/2007
     I am feeling optimistic about Palestine.
     I know it sounds crazy. How can I use "optimistic" and "Palestine" in the same sentence when conditions on the ground only seem to get worse? Israeli settlements continue to expand on a daily basis, the checkpoints and segregated road system are becoming more and more institutionalized, more than 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners are being held in Israeli jails, Gaza is under heavy attack and the borders are entirely controlled by Israel, preventing people from getting their most basic human needs met.
     We can never forget these things and the daily suffering of the people, and yet I dare to say that I am optimistic.Why?Ehud Olmert.Let me clarify. Better yet, let’s let him clarify:
     "The day will come when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights.As soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished." more..

Strangling Gaza
César Chelala, Middle East Online 12/19/2007
     It could, rightfully, be a cause of shame to the world. But the world, besieged by violence and injustice, hardly notices it. The people of Gaza, 1.4 million of them, are slowly and purposely being deprived of basic foods and medicines by the so called civilized countries in the West and there is hardly a protest. And all this happens because the people in Gaza want to be free and independent. Never mind that in the process children and innocent civilians are killed or families dispossessed.
     Dr. Mona Elfarra, a Palestinian physician and human rights activist, thus describes a situation in her personal blog, “I don’t know exactly what was going on inside the little heads of the kids who were preparatory school children, of Al Buriege boy’s preparatory school. But the two tiny bodies were shot, with many bullets, as I was told by my colleagues at the emergency room at the Al Aqsa hospital…On November 10, the dreams of two tiny kids has stopped forever. more..

Report on Israeli settlement in the occupied territories Nov - Dec 2007
Geoffrey Aronson, Foundation for Middle East Peace, ReliefWeb 12/19/2007
     Can Israel accept the price of peace
     On the face of it has come a long way during forty years of occupation.In the aftermath of its 1967 victory,successive Israeli governments adopted a policy of "deciding not to decide"the future of the conquered West Bank and Gaza Strip.Under government protection,the system of settlements was set in motion.
     Prime Minister Menachem Begin, even as he recognized the "legitimate right of the Palestinian peoples and their just requirements"in the Camp David Accords and committed (halfheartedly) to a three-month settlement freeze,made no secret his annexationist preferences,calling the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip "Arabs of the Land of Israel,"and "thickening" existing settlements.Together with then-minister of agriculture Ariel Sharon,and with young Likudniks like Ehud Olmert cheering in the back-ground, Begin championed a new and expanded settlement enterprise. more..

Getting to peace needs Palestinian security
Ziad Asali, Daily Star 12/18/2007
     With the revival of Middle East peace talks following the Annapolis meeting, agreement over security issues between Israelis and Palestinians will be crucial to building a negotiating momentum. In particular, the development and expansion of Palestinian government security forces is a vital national interest for Palestinians, Israelis and Americans alike.
     Palestinians face a double threat when it comes to their own security. First, they face the security threats inherent in an occupation by a foreign army and the abuses and confrontations that result in deaths of both combatants and innocents. Second, Palestinian society lacks a well organized and disciplined security service and its towns are plagued with political militias and criminal gangs, as well as ad hoc violence. The problem of militias was most clearly seen in June, when Hamas-controlled gunmen seized control of Gaza and expelled the Palestinian Authority and Fatah from the strip. more..

So what have we done to them
Nehemia Shtrasler, Ha’aretz 12/19/2007
     An old Jewish joke tells of a devoted mother who briefs her son before he sets out to battle: "Kill a Turk and rest," she advises. But the son asks: "And what happens if in fact the Turk tries to kill me?" She opens her eyes wide in surprise: "Why would he want to kill you? What have you done to him?"
     This is exactly the kind of self-righteousness that accompanies our attitude toward the Palestinians. It is evident in the reports on the television, radio and in the newspapers - which paint only a partial picture of the conflict. Because when considerations of ratings and just plain cowardice determine coverage, the information the public gets is biased. In this way an extremist public opinion is created, which believes that all of the justice is on our side only, because "what have we done to them?" more..

Border Control / Building the first modern city in Palestine
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 12/19/2007
     Dr. Samih al-Abid did not attend the conference of donor countries in Paris. The Palestinian architect, one of the people behind the Geneva Initiative and a veteran peace activist, partly lost hope and partly wanted to do something at home. Or, more accurately, he wanted to do something to create homes. Abid worked until recently in the Construction and Housing Ministry. He knows, firsthand, about the dimensions of the housing problem in the West Bank. He opted to set aside the two-state talks and not to rely too much on handouts.
     Instead, Abid is starting to build roofs to cover Palestinians. He found that, in the coming decade, there would be a shortage of approximately 30,000 housing units per year for West Bank residents. Natural growth is having its affect and young couples are forced to crowd into their parents’ homes. more..

Palestine’s universities: partners or prisoners?
Rima Merriman, Electronic Intifada 12/19/2007
     At a workshop conducted at Birzeit University (BZU) on December 13 by AMIDEAST (American-MidEast Educational and Training Services) for Palestinian universities through its Faculty Development Program, the talk turned from the announced topic of the workshop (Palestinian-American University Partnerships) to the question of Palestinian-Palestinian university partnerships or the lack thereof.
     The occasion had brought together important representatives (at the level of Deans and VPs) from every Palestinian West Bank University. Gaza was unrepresented, however. In spite of the availability of video conferencing technology at BZU in the very room where the workshop took place, there was no video hook-up with any university in Gaza for reasons better known to AMIDEAST.
     The workshop was scheduled at 1:00 pm to give everybody time to get to BZU, because the West Bank is now effectively cantonized. Palestinian travel from city to city is arduous. People are forced by Israeli checkpoints and closed thoroughfares to wend their way through roundabout routes on ancient, rutted and winding back roads that go through impoverished Palestinian villages. The direct thoroughfares are chopped up and now exclusively serve illegal Israeli settlers to help them bypass the Palestinian population centers that they surround, as they travel smoothly back and forth into Israel and occupied Jerusalem. In other places, the wall the Israelis have built to mark off their territorial gains blocks travel and Palestinians are forced to zigzag around it. All this is a good lesson in geography for Palestinians, who now know intimately every obscure village in their midst. more..

Much European ado about nothing in Palestine
Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star 12/19/2007
     I was in Germany talking to Europeans involved in Middle East issues during the run-up to the Paris conference on Palestinian aid, which on Monday pledged $7.4 billion over three years to the Palestinian half-government headed by President Mahmoud Abbas. Europeans seem again to respond to the challenges of engaging in the Arab-Israeli conflict with their usual financial generosity and political wishful thinking.
     The European Union’s 27 members and other states can and should respond to the new post-Annapolis situation by carving out a decisive policy that enhances their strengths rather than institutionalizes their weaknesses. It would be collective stupidity for Europe once again to provide billions of euros in aid to Palestinians that are wasted, physically destroyed or totally negated by Israeli militarism, American bias, Palestinian divisions and Arab passivity. more..

Looking for a home in Pisgat Ze’ev
Danny Rubinstein, Ha’aretz 12/19/2007
     The separation fence surrounding eastern Jerusalem winds north of the city among the crowded houses of the Dahit al-Barid neighborhood. The wall is not finished and, in a few places, there are openings enabling passage (which confirms the graffiti drawn nearby by an Israeli tagger, "Yoram Arbel was right," i.e., this is not how you build a wall).
     One of the passages is via large drainage pipes, a meter or more in diameter, built under the road and the wall. If there is not a strong flow of rainwater or sewage, one can cross through them easily, and that is what many do every day: young and old, students, merchants and whole families.
     Last Friday morning, Aziz Shakher, a merchant coming from A-Ram, passed through. He has a store in the Old City, and instead of taking a circuitous route that could take hours, via the Qalandiyah crossing, he takes a shortcut through the drainage pipes. more..

Building hope from rubble
Sarah Price writing from occupied Gaza Strip, Electronic Intifada 12/18/2007
     Today’s youth are tomorrow’s leaders. They don’t make the decisions today but will be shaped by ours and will in their turn shape successor generations.Now is our moment to influence not just the present but also the future.We won’t have a second chance.It is an urgent and awesome responsibility with the most profound and far-reaching consequences.
     - John Ging, director of United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s (UNRWA) Gaza field office, to British parliament members, November 2007 In the dirty streets of the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, the sparse fruit stands carry only rotten fruit, because it is all the market’s vendors can afford to sell, and all the refugees can afford to buy.
     "It will still be gone in an hour," says Dr. Mona El-Farra, "because they have to eat something." more..

B’Tselem: Israeli army is doing nothing to combat violence on the checkpoints
Ameen Abu Wardeh, International Middle East Media Center 12/18/2007
     B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in The Occupied Territories, indicated that results of the military poll made about the violence carried out against Palestinians on the Israeli checkpoints are appalling but come as no surprise.
     The physical and verbal violence in the occupied territories and at the checkpoints in particular has become a usual practice. In spite of the official released statement slamming these practices, the army does not take enough legal action against the soldiers who implement them.
     B’Tselem has observed that in most cases the soldiers who assaulted Palestinians were not held accountable for their abuse, because the enforcement authorities place obstacles to make it difficult for Palestinians who want to complain against the Security forces, and only on the odd occasion charges are taken against those responsible of committing the abuse. more..

LEBANON: Palestinians Brave a Hazardous Profession
Rebecca Murray, Inter Press Service 12/18/2007
     TYRE, Lebanon, Dec 18(IPS) - Kamel Mohammed was pruning lemon trees last winter when his red electric saw detonated an unexploded cluster bomb, blasting shrapnel all over his body. After an operation to remove the metal shards from his chest, Mohammed, a 44-year-old father from the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidieh in south Lebanon, went straight back to work cultivating fields and chopping wood for coal.
     Not so lucky was his neighbour and fellow family man, Ahmad Huwaidi, 36, killed instantly when the remaining explosives in an old metal rocket he was cutting to sell ignited from the heat. But this is family business now. Ahmad’s older brother Salim says he has no choice but to continue selling scrap metal and labour in fields for about ten dollars a day -- always looking out for unexploded ordnance, and detonating live munitions he finds in his path. more..

Sealed off by Israel, Gaza Reduced to Beggary
Scott Wilson, MIFTAH 12/18/2007
     The batteries are the size of a button on a man’s shirt, small silvery dots that power hearing aids for several hundred Palestinian students taught by the Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children in Gaza City.
     Now the batteries, marketed by Radio Shack, are all but used up. The few that are left are losing power, turning voices into unintelligible echoes in the ears of Hala Abu Saif’s 20 first-grade students.
     The Israeli government is increasingly restricting the import into the Gaza Strip of batteries, anesthesia drugs, antibiotics, tobacco, coffee, gasoline, diesel fuel and other basic items, including chocolate and compressed air to make soft drinks.
     This punishing seal has reduced Gaza, a territory of almost 1.5 million people, to beggar status, unable to maintain an effective public health system, administer public schools or preserve the traditional pleasures of everyday life by the sea. more..

The Right Wing’s Jerusalem Gambit
Gregory Levey, MIFTAH 12/18/2007
     On Nov. 26, the U.S. State Department got hit with an unexpected barrage of phone calls. The Coordinating Council on Jerusalem, a new coalition of American groups with hard-line views on Israel, was on the line -- all of the lines. Or so the group said two days later in a press release, proudly proclaiming that with 10,000 calls in less than 48 hours it had managed to overload the State Department’s voice-mail system. The group was making known its opposition to any Israeli concessions on dividing Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians -- an issue that was swirling around the Bush administration’s peace summit taking place in Annapolis, Md.
     The new coalition’s dubious achievement wasn’t much noticed by the media, and perhaps isn’t in itself important, but it was a sign of battles to come in the year ahead, as Israeli and Palestinian leaders struggle to move forward with any real progress after Annapolis. Although most appraisals of the conference were reservedly positive -- after all, at least the two sides were talking seriously again after a seven-year drought -- the event also opened a can of worms. more..

Pledges to be Kept
The Jordan Times, MIFTAH 12/18/2007
     The conference of the 90 donor countries for the Palestinians kicks off today in Paris amidst hopes that investment towards the economic development of the Palestinian territories also will be a critical investment in the peace process.
     There is no doubt that a nexus exists between economic progress in the Palestinian areas and the quest for a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian conflict. There is, however, a basic hindrance to this endeavour. As long as Israel maintains its policy that restricts free travel for the Palestinians and peppers their territories with military checkpoints that end up choking their economic life, no amount of investment will really help much or attain its objective.
     The World Bank has already warned that investment in the Palestinian economy cannot obtain the results hoped for as long as Israel maintains its restrictions on free movement of Palestinians and goods, and keeps their territories disjointed and dismembered. more..

’Twas the Night before the Air Strike…
Joharah Baker, MIFTAH 12/18/2007
     Tomorrow, December 19, the Muslim world will celebrate the Eid Al Adha feast, the most significant Muslim holiday on the calendar. The day is a commemoration of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to God, who in turn, sent him a lamb in the boy’s stead. Today, Muslims all over the world sacrifice lambs, cows or sheep in honor of this occasion and distribute the meat to those less fortunate. Less than a week later is Christmas, also a holiday that embraces sacrifice and giving. Jesus Christ was the epitome of sacrifice, surrendering his own life for the sake of all humankind.
     This year in Palestine, sacrifice takes on a multitude of meanings. Those able to slaughter a lamb this Eid will certainly do so. But most will not be able, not because they do not want to but because they cannot. Either there is no money to buy a lamb or the strict Israeli closures prevent these holiday commodities from being brought into the territories. more..

Letter to the Editor: Lip Service to Peace
Palestine Chronicle 12/18/2007
     The world has experienced yet another in the sorry sequences of a proposed peace process aimed at resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict. Many high-ranking government officials from Palestine, Israel, the United States, and other interested nations met in Annapolis, Maryland to set the stage for a one-on-one meeting between the two rivals.
     Meeting such as this are unwieldy, due in great measure to the fact that one of the nations, Israel, was forcibly created by the larger powerful nations from land confiscated from Palestine.
     That fact remains, hovering over the conference like an evil phantom, foremost in the thoughts of the participants, Palestine because its lands were stolen, Israel because its thievery of Palestinian land is conceived by many as a black deed that should never have happened.
     Still, there was a so-called "agreement" that the two parties in conflict would hold a meeting of firm resolve in the interest of peace. more..

Jim Miles: Days of Empire – Book Review
Palestine Chronicle 12/18/2007
     Day of Empire -- How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance -- and Why They Fall. Amy Chua. Doubleday, New York, 2007.
     This work had so much anticipatory potential as Amy Chua’s previous work "World on Fire" had provided a strong, well-supported thesis on how the colonial elites later brought about much of the incompetence, racism, and malevolent tendencies of post-colonial governments. "Day of Empire" held this promise, but for one significant word. If it had continued on the theme of elitism (as in fact, elitism is one of the main sub-themes), it would have been a much more acceptable work. That one word makes all the difference, turning what could have been a well-written exposition on the rise and fall of empires into a very poorly argued one.
     That one word -- toleration. Chua’s thesis is that "Every single hyperpower in history’was extraordinarily pluralistic and tolerant during its rise to preeminence," arguing even more strongly that "tolerance was indispensable to the achievement of hegemony." She puts many qualifiers on the word -- "relative tolerance", "strategic tolerance", "religious tolerance", "instrumental tolerance", "calculating tolerance", "internal tolerance," - but the most antithetical one is her definition that "tolerance means letting every different kinds of people live, work, and prosper in your society [emphasis added]." How very kind of these empires -- after razing, slaughtering, suppressing, annexing, taxing, defeating, subduing, imposing, and enslaving other societies -- words repeated frequently throughout this book - they then suddenly became magnanimous in victory and tolerated their presence in their heartland -- implying of course that they were still not tolerated in the hinterland, as the many colonial and frontier wars are sufficient evidence to show that they were not. more..

Privatising Zionism
Neve Gordon and Erez Tzfadia, Palestine Chronicle 12/18/2007
     For less than four dollars an hour, the Jewish teenagers removed furniture, clothes, kitchenware and toys from the homes and loaded them on to trucks. As they worked diligently alongside the many policemen who had come to secure the destruction of 30 houses in two unrecognised Bedouin villages, Bedouin teenagers stood by watching their homes being emptied.
     When all the belongings had been removed, the bulldozers rapidly destroyed the homes. All those present, Jews and Bedouins, were Israeli citizens; together they learned an important lesson in the discrimination characterising civic life in the Jewish state.
     The current demolitions are part of a strategy that began with the foundation of the state of Israel. Its ultimate objective is the Judaisation of space. In this case, the demolitions were carried out in order to establish two new Jewish villages. Their establishment, though, is part of a much larger plan that includes the construction of about 30 new Jewish settlements in the Israeli Negev, the seizure of Bedouin land for military needs, and the creation of dozens of single-family farms on land that has been inhabited by Bedouins since they were relocated to the region by the state in the early 1950s. more..

Struggle for equality
Nadia Hijab and Victoria Brittain, ZNet 12/18/2007
     In recent months a small group of Palestinian and Israeli academics, mainly in the diaspora, have prepared an intellectual bombshell to challenge the Palestinian leadership on the almost 40-year basic premise of an independent Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel. The division over the question of one state or two states is now as dramatic as the Hamas-Fatah fighting of the last year, which split the armed resistance.
     On November 29, 2007 -- the 60th anniversary of the UN plan to partition Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state -- the group issued a one state declaration and are seeking co-signatories. It was a direct challenge to the Annapolis meeting three days earlier when almost the entire international community, including the Arab world, lined up -- again -- with the US, Israel and the Palestinian national authority behind the goal of two states (and excluding the elected political movement, Hamas). more..

Christmas in Bethlehem; a Time for Joy and Resilience
Sami Awad, MIFTAH 12/17/2007
     The colored strings of lights are now decorating its streets. As you drive past homes you now see Christmas trees proudly placed in front of windows so that all may see. Manger Street is full of traffic at night but no one is complaining for everyone is waiting their turn to receive candy from one of the many Santa Clauses dancing with joy in the street. Everywhere you go you hear Christmas songs played from small radios placed in front of stores or on balconies. In Manger Square, the main Christmas tree shines with bright colors and decorations. The joy is doubled in this holy city this year as both the Palestinian Christians and the Muslim communities celebrate. Christmas and Eid Al-Adha (the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice) have come together this year.
     It would have been easy and even justified for Bethlehem and its families not to do anything this Christmas and Eid season and to just sit back and complain about how bad things are. It would have been accepted if people say we can not afford anything because unemployment is at it highest level in years. It would have made sense if people complained that the Separation Wall and barriers (build by the Israeli government and now surrounding the entire city) have cut them of from the world and broken their spirit. It would have been justified to blame the Israeli occupation, its aggressive military, and checkpoints for destroying any hope for any future, but that will not happen in Bethlehem. more..

Prerequisites for peace
Mustafa Barghouthi, The Baltimore Sun, 17 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/17/2007
     As one who for decades has supported a two-state solution and the nonviolent struggle for Palestinian rights, I view the recent conference in Annapolis with a great deal of skepticism -- and a glimmer of hope.
     Seven years with no negotiations -- and increasing numbers of Israeli settlers, an economic blockade in Gaza and an intricate network of roadblocks and checkpoints stifling movement in the West Bank -- have led us to despair and distrust. Any commitment must be made not only to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008 but also to end Israel’s occupation.
     The Palestinians must also heal their internal divisions. This must include institutional reform to root out corruption and nepotism. The first step in that process is democratic elections at all levels of government.
     We must rid ourselves of the false dichotomy between Fatah and Hamas. These are not the only options. My movement, the five-year-old Palestinian National Initiative, offers an alternative emphasizing democratic elections, transparent government and institution-building. Our goal is to democratize and engage the Palestinian national movement in a unified strategy to confront Israel’s ongoing occupation and seizure of our land and resources. We strive to achieve our national rights in our homeland and to establish social justice to uphold the rights of the underprivileged and marginalized, including women, children and people with disabilities. more..

Managing the occupation
Lamis Andoni, Al Jazeera Middle East Analyst, Al Jazeera 12/17/2007
     On the face of it, the one-day international donor meeting in Paris was a fantastic success.
     Billions of dollars were promised in aid to the Palestinian Authority to salvage its ailing economy, and all the while political rhetoric flew about in support of Palestinian statehood.  But financial pledges, even if and when they are delivered to the Palestinians, are meaningless in the long term without the exertion of international political pressure to end the 40-year old Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  "This is not a donors conference. This a state-building conference," declared Tony Blair, the Middle East peace quartet’s envoy, in his speech at the meeting.
     In his opening speech, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, called for an end of the occupation and for an independent Palestinian state to be established within a year in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. more..

Nahr al-Bared treated outside of the law
Sari Hanafi, The Electronic Lebanon, 17 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/17/2007
     Many actors play a role in alleviating the plight of the Nahr al-Bared displaced Palestinian refugees. The most important actor has been the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. In spite of its slowness, as some interviewees complain, it has done a great job. Donors [1] and international and local nongovernmental organizations [2] have provided financial support and have assisted the population and ensured the basic needs of the displaced population and the returnees. In addition to these institutions, the Saudi Arabia paid seed money ($1200) to each family through the Lebanese government, and some Lebanese political parties, especially the Future Movement, provided food for the families
     The actors’ competition
     The actors’ competition Grassroots organizations were quickly established to help the Palestinians with their struggle. For instance, an American University of Beirut (AUB)-based initiative composed of AUB students and faculty has helped the displaced people. However, what has been extremely helpful is the establishment of the committee for the reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared. The idea came from some people from Nahr al-Bared camp and a group that has already helped several cities in south Lebanon (such as Bint Jbeil and Aita al-Shaab) in their reconstruction. The significance of this group is that its members understand the importance of empowering populations by organizing them. They established along with the Palestinian population the Committee for the Reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared Camp. This committee has surprised UNRWA with the large amount of work completed through consulting the population of Nahr al-Bared about probable reconstruction options and preliminary indispensable work for future design. more..

Israel/OPT: Extra-judicial execution
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, ReliefWeb 12/16/2007
     Overview:
     When we think of crimes against humanity, we must be aware that governments and governmental groups can be more dangerous than individuals in this regard. Governments have the most power to inflict harm and are most likely to be recidivist. This kind of terrorism is the most dangerous brand. Extra-judicial killing or physical liquidation is the most prevalent practice of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) against the Palestinians. It reveals the immoral nature of the Israeli government. Extra-judicial execution is a policy which is not new or exclusively used since 2000. It is an old, bloody policy that had been implemented by the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians for decades. The list of the victims of this practice is too long to mention here.
     Extra-judicial executions "targeted killing" (as Israeli politicians like to define the practice), is clear evidence of state terrorism. more..

The military option failed
Haaretz Editorial, Ha’aretz 12/15/2007
     The rain of Qassam rockets on Sderot and other communities in the western Negev has developed into a dangerous routine. This is not just because of the harm to people and property, but because of the growing feeling that Israel sees this strip of land’s fate as sealed. To repel this feeling, and especially the accusation that the state is doing nothing to defend its citizens, the Israel Defense Forces and government are disseminating a counterthreat. For weeks, they have been saying that a major assault on Gaza is nearing - a huge blow that will end the Qassam plague once and for all. This Israeli threat is also supposed to serve as a forceful response to those who demand Sderot be fortified. It argues that the IDF is not a defensive army, but an offensive one, as Finance Minister Roni Bar-On said in an interview with Channel 1 television.
     The "broad, deep operation" has also worked its magic on the media, which has never ceased guessing when it will come. It is thereby pushing the IDF and government to prove their military mettle. So in a short time, the public has become convinced that a major military operation is indeed the appropriate solution. more..

To Die With The Philistines?
Uri Avnery, Middle East Online 12/17/2007
     The most famous words ever spoken in Gaza were the last words of Samson (Judges, 16, 30): "Let me die with the Philistines!"
     According to the Biblical story, Samson took hold of the central pillars of the Philistine temple and brought down the whole building upon the Lords of the Philistines, the people of Gaza and himself. The teller of the story sums it all up: "So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life."
     A story of suffering, destruction and death. It may be about to repeat itself now, only with the roles reversed: the temple may be brought down by the Palestinians (who took their name from the Philistines), and among the dead will be the Lords of Israel.
     Will Gaza turn into a Palestinian Massada (the place where, a thousand years later, Jewish defenders chose mass suicide rather then fall into the hands of the Romans)?
     The people of Gaza are worried. more..

Israel will never be recognized as a ’Jewish state’
Issam Makhoul, Daily Star 12/17/2007
     Annapolis marked a departure for Israeli and American policy on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel, with US support, is seeking to replace the traditional understanding of the conflict as one that can be resolved by upholding Palestinian rights with one where Israeli rights take center stage. This has serious consequences for the Palestinian people in general and the Palestinian minority in Israel in particular. Israel is not only trying to replace Palestinians on their land, but replace them as the victims of the conflict.
     Indeed, Annapolis can be seen as the crowning victory of one Israeli school of thought on the conflict over another: the "school of demography" has beaten away the "school of geography." Thus the project of a Jewish state now takes precedence over the project of Greater Israel, and the Palestinian citizens of Israel have been placed at the heart of that conflict. more..

The No-State Solution
Issa Khalaf, Palestine Chronicle 12/16/2007
     For the past four months I stopped thinking and reading about Palestine. Not the Internet, not newspapers, not anything, not even Annapolis, whose grim meaninglessness most of us took for granted. For as long as I can remember, probably beginning in my undergraduate years, I developed a coping mechanism: when the Palestinians faced particularly dark moments in their history, I withdrew from thinking, speaking, and writing about the issue. Far away and safe from the unspeakable oppression that daily confronts Palestinians, and the unchanging political and historical conditions that are unremittingly leading to their dispossession, I afford myself the selfish luxury of avoidance. This would go on for many months until something would trigger my emotional and mental re-involvement.
     I used to believe that my pessimistic outlook was personal, both learned and inherited. But now I think it’s also something to do with the Palestinian character, shaped by a century of continuing trauma. This attitude, I realize, or believe, was absorbed directly by watching events go from bad to worse, and indirectly from an ever-present, unresolved collective tragedy, hovering over my parents and passed on to me, inducing a steady state of anxiety. more..

A Son’s Spleen and Mother’s Lungs
Eva Bartlett, Palestine Chronicle 12/16/2007
     Mohammed, a youth of 16 from Azzoun village near the West Bank city of Qalqilya, has returned from his week-long stay in the hospital. He can move around more than one would expect for someone who was just 8 days ago shot by the Israeli army during one of its regular invasions into Azzoun. The bullet entered his left side just two inches from his heart, passed through his lung and, penetrating his diaphragm, passed on just one inch from his spinal cord into his spleen where it lodged. The hospital report records all of this, adding that there resulted a dangerous amount of internal bleeding and jaundice. His spleen was surgically removed and he was attached to machine which pumped out blood from the internal bleeding.
     At the time of his injury, he was outside the home of his grandmother, in the streets of the village’s old city quarter. It was after 3 pm, young boys and teens had just gotten out of school for the day, the streets filled with their raucous talk and play. Mohammed walked for about 100 metres then fell unconscious. The bullet which entered his chest had gone unnoticed at first, but its effects were thereafter very noticeable. more..

Bedouin of Negev – Interview
Devorah Brous, Palestine Chronicle 12/16/2007
     North American-Israeli Devorah Brous has been a social activist in Israel for fourteen years. After nine years running Bustan, a social justice and sustainability organization which works with the Bedouin community in the Negev, Brous has returned to live in the United States. She spoke on the phone with Am Johal
     You were in Israel for 14 years altogether. How did you found Bustan and the context in which you came
     When I first went to Israel, I went to learn more about my roots and culture, my traditions, to learn about my historical connection with the land of Israel. During the journey, I got very involved with the struggles of the peoples of the land. I did extensive research on land rights. I spent most of my time walking the land and speaking with a vast range of people about what makes the land holy, what makes this parcel of land so different than any other? I queried people from different ethnicities, classes, faiths and traditions, what makes this land such a powerful vortex, that compels one to grab rapaciously at a piece of this land for themselves, and if land for both Jews and Muslims is referred to as God’s land, than why this maddening hunger for ownership, and this need to possess it as their own. more..

Palestine: Democracy Not Zionism
John Whitbeck, Palestine Chronicle 12/16/2007
     No one would suggest that the moral, ethical and intellectual transformation necessary to achieve a decent "one-state solution" will be easy. However, more and more people now recognize that a decent "two-state solution" has become impossible.
     Subscribe Now By John V. Whitbeck Special to PalestineChronicle.com In the wake of the breathtakingly brief and content-free meeting in Annapolis, there is at least the appearance of an understanding in Washington of the importance for the region and the world of solving the "Palestinian problem".
     However, if this problem is ever to be solved, it must be redefined and clearly understood. Those who truly seek justice and peace in the Middle East must dare to speak openly and honestly of the "Zionism problem" -- and then to draw the moral, ethical and practical conclusions which follow. more..

Boycott: The Backlash
Ben White, Palestine Chronicle 12/16/2007
     In the UK, the Boycott campaign was launched by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) six years ago. However, it has been attempts at a boycott of Israeli academic institutions that has really raised the profile of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) — and also provoked a fierce counter-movement.
     Various bodies, like BICOM (Britain and Israel Communications & Research Centre:
     www.stoptheboycott.org ) and Engage (engageonline.org.uk), have set up issue-specific websites; while the former may have deeper pockets, Engage has proved to be more of a rallying point for the anti-boycotters. Their website includes voluminous attacks on the boycott and plenty of articles condemning what they perceive as an anti-Semitic singling-out of Israel.
     Launched shortly after the AUT boycott decision, Engage’s opening salvo revealed the campaign’s guiding principles: misrepresentation of the boycott movement, a commitment to — and whitewashing of — Zionism, and a liberal emphasis on ’dialogue’ between Israelis and Palestinians. more..

The Israeli army does not do enough to combat abuse of Palestinians
Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, ReliefWeb 12/16/2007
     A survey conducted by the Israeli military and published by leading Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, found that a quarter of soldiers serving at checkpoints in the West Bank perpetrated or witnessed abuse of Palestinians. In response, B’Tselem, said that the numbers are shocking, but not surprising. The organization commends the military for initiating the survey, but states that physical and verbal abuse of Palestinians by soldiers, particularly at checkpoints, has long become routine. In spite of official condemnations, the military does not do enough to ensure accountability and to deter soldiers from engaging in such behavior.
     According to B’Tselem, most soldiers who harm Palestinians are never held accountable. Law enforcement authorities place numerous obstacles on Palestinians who try to complain against security forces personnel and only a small minority of complaints result in charges against those responsible for abuse. more..

From Madrid to Annapolis; Peace Conferences are Not Enough
Daoud Kuttab, Middle East Online 12/15/2007
     PRINCETON—As Palestinian and Israeli leaders were meeting at the Annapolis Naval Base last week for yet another attempt at peacemaking, I remembered how my journalistic career led me to cover the Madrid peace conference in 1991. I vividly remember how then-US Secretary of State James Baker had kept everyone in the dark about the location of the international meeting. Once he declared the site, many of us Palestinians felt a sense of jubilation at the looming discussions, even though the exact nature of the Palestinian delegation was still unknown until the last minute.
     While there are some differences with Annapolis, the issues are still the same, and we’ve seen that conferences alone cannot bring peace.
     Both conferences took place against the backdrop of a violent Gulf War, and as it did more than a decade ago, the United States knows it has to offer something to its Arab allies. more..

On Romney, Mormonism and Islam
Ramzy Baroud, Middle East Online 12/15/2007
     Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s speech on December 6th - in which he tried to ‘explain’ his Mormon faith - was met with a mostly sympathetic reception at George Bush Library in Texas.
     The speech has been long anticipated, not so much for its relevance to the pressing debate on the defining role of religion in American politics, and how this undermines the very meaning of secular democracy. It was awaited simply because Romney belongs to the wrong faith. Recent polls indicate that one out of every three Republicans will not vote for Romney because he is a Mormon.
     The whole affair has done much to reveal the hypocrisy of institutional democracy in the United States. While every presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat, has unreservedly uttered lip service to democratic ideals, very few have dared push the boundaries by actually explaining their personal views on what separation of church and state means. more..

Prerequisites for Peace
Mustafa Barghouthi, MIFTAH 12/14/2007
     As one who for decades has supported a two-state solution and the nonviolent struggle for Palestinian rights, I view the recent conference in Annapolis with a great deal of skepticism - and a glimmer of hope.
     Seven years with no negotiations - and increasing numbers of Israeli settlers, an economic blockade in Gaza and an intricate network of roadblocks and checkpoints stifling movement in the West Bank - have led us to despair and distrust. Any commitment must be made not only to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008 but also to end Israel’s occupation.
     The Palestinians must also heal their internal divisions. This must include institutional reform to root out corruption and nepotism. The first step in that process is democratic elections at all levels of government.
     We must rid ourselves of the false dichotomy between Fatah and Hamas. These are not the only options. My movement, the 5-year-old Palestinian National Initiative, offers an alternative emphasizing democratic elections, transparent government and institution-building. Our goal is to democratize and engage the Palestinian national movement in a unified strategy to confront Israel’s ongoing occupation and seizure of our land and resources. We strive to achieve our national rights in our homeland and to establish social justice to uphold the rights of the underprivileged and marginalized, including women, children and people with disabilities. more..

No Peace Without Justice
The Jordan Times, MIFTAH 12/14/2007
     Negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis started yesterday under a cloud. Understandably, both sides preferred to keep their talks as low-key as possibly, choosing a secret location in Jerusalem rather than, as expected, the King David Hotel [where Jewish terrorists once killed British soldiers].
     One suspects that this decision came at the behest of the Palestinian team who could hardly afford to be seen grinning and backslapping at that place while Palestinians were being killed in Gaza and yet more land is set to be confiscated in the West Bank.
     Indeed, the Palestinian delegation risks courting ridicule for its abject lack of backbone in being at these talks in the first place.
     For the first time in a long time, the Palestinian side had blanket international backing for its position against the outrageous and provocative Israeli government tender issued last week for some 300 new houses in an East Jerusalem settlement. It would not have been too hard to insist that the tender be withdrawn as a precondition for undertaking the first of what is supposed to be a year-long series of talks to hammer out a peace agreement. more..

The most to Lose
Ghassan Khatib, MIFTAH 12/15/2007
     Two recent developments have brought to the fore the issue of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Last week an Israeli human rights organization published the results of a survey showing that racism against the Palestinians of Israel is growing. At the Annapolis conference, meanwhile, US President George W. Bush dealt a severe blow to their aspirations for equal social, economic and national rights in Israel.
     In general, Palestinians in Israel--a sizeable minority of 20 percent composed of both Muslims and Christians--have been supportive of the peace process since it started. They strongly supported, through their Knesset members, the Israeli parties or leaders who needed parliamentary support for their engagement in the peace process. These legislators in some cases even provided safety nets for such Israeli leaders against the threats of right wing opposition parties. On many occasions, Palestinian citizens of Israel mediated between the Palestinian leadership, when it was still in exile, and Israel in a way that facilitated confidence between the two sides. At the same time they have consistently resisted opposition to the peace process both in the Palestinian and Israeli spheres. more..

The 1967 Borders are not the Core of the Conflict
Issam Makhoul, MIFTAH 12/15/2007
     Annapolis marked a departure for Israeli and US policy on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel, with US support, is seeking to replace the traditional understanding of the conflict as one that can be resolved by upholding Palestinian rights with one where Israeli rights take center stage. This has serious consequences for the Palestinian people in general and the Palestinian minority in Israel in particular. Israel is not only trying to replace Palestinians on their land, but replace them as the victims of the conflict.
     Indeed, Annapolis can be seen as the crowning victory of one Israeli school of thought on the conflict over another: the "school of demography" has beaten away the "school of geography". Thus the project of a Jewish state now takes precedence over the project of Greater Israel, and the Palestinian citizens of Israel have been placed at the heart of the conflict. more..

The Viable Two-State Solution?
Caelum Moffatt, MIFTAH 12/15/2007
     Following the summit in Annapolis, Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud opposition party in Israel declared in reference to the Israeli / Palestinian peace process, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”.
     Although his statement may attract complete bemusement from Palestinian sympathizes who wonder how one so influential in politics could be so audacious in denying such blatant illegal actions and atrocities inflicted daily on the Palestinians as a result of Israeli occupation, his comments don’t seem to have attracted one vicious rebuttal or even fazed anyone on the domestic front.
     The Likud leader is the overwhelming favorite to resume his old post as Israeli Prime Minister. As it stands, Netanyahu [34%] leads Defense Minister Ehud Barak [17%] and current Prime Minster Ehud Olmert [14%]. Therefore, his words are not unsubstantiated rants but should be taken seriously, as he reflects the popular public opinion in Israel. more..

No State Has the Right to Exist as a Racist State
Omar Barghouti, interviewed bySilvia Cattori, ZNet 12/15/2007
     Omar Barghouti belongs to a new generation of Palestinians who never adhered to the solution of « Two States, Two peoples ». They are advocating, instead, the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) of Israel as well as a «secular, democratic state» solution, where Palestinians and Israelis would share equal rights, after historic injustices are redressed and the refugees are allowed to return.
     Silvia Cattori: I had the privilege of attending the presentation you gave in Milan on 8 October 2007 [1]. Your analysis of the situation in Palestine is different than the traditional discourse and conceptions, including within the Palestine solidarity movement. Do you think that the Italian public is ready to adopt your positions?
     Omar Barghouti: I came to Italy in March, 2007, for a tour, and I spoke about different issues. Art and oppression was one of them. I spoke also about the One-state solution, as well as the boycott of Israel [2]. There is a growing movement in Italy that understands the need for effective pressure on Israel. It is no longer sufficient to take part in traditional solidarity acts, such as demonstrations and writing letters. Clearly, such conventional actions cannot alone move Israel, because they do not raise the political price that Israel has to pay for occupying and oppressing the Palestinians. Europeans can demonstrate all they want; Israel no longer cares. I think more Italians are realizing this. more..

A Profound "Perceptual" Gap
Yossi Alpher, MIFTAH 12/15/2007
     One of the most disturbing byproducts of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that began in Oslo in 1993 is the emergence of a profound perceptual gap between the Israeli Jewish majority and the country’s Arab citizens regarding the future of the state of Israel. In looking at the Israeli Arab response to the current renewal of peace negotiations between Israel and the PLO, that gap appears to be broader than ever.
     It is not easy to recall that just a few years ago the Israeli Arab community presented itself, and was looked upon in at least some Jewish quarters, as a "bridge" to peace between Israel and the Palestinians represented by the PLO. Today it is part of the problem, not the solution.
     Worse, parts of the Israeli Arab community appear to have adopted more extreme or more strident positions than those of the Palestinian leadership with whom Israel is negotiating. Witness, for example, the militant stand of parts of the Israeli Arab Islamist movement regarding Israel’s right to exist, and their "ownership" of Muslim advocacy regarding the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif issue. In particular, note the Israeli Arab mainstream’s position, as enunciated in a series of position papers published in the course of the past year, rejecting Israel’s identity as a Jewish state. While the PLO/PA leadership in Ramallah refuses to acknowledge, as part of a peace process, that Israel is a Jewish state, it is not nearly as vocal as the Israeli Arab mainstream leadership in rejecting that position. more..

Aiming to Translate Politics into Hope for Palestinians
Steven Erlanger, MIFTAH 12/14/2007
     Tony Blair had that practiced politician’s half grin, his eyes in semi-focus, as the Palestinian minister of tourism, Khouloud Daibes, showed him around a display of Palestinian products at the Chamber of Commerce here Tuesday night. Mr. Blair, the former British prime minister and now the Western envoy for Palestinian development, posed for photos with businessmen and praised the quality of the local marble tiles.
     When presented with a Bethlehem specialty, a nativity scene carved inside the root of an olive tree, Mr. Blair oohed in admiration. He barely blinked when Ms. Daibes told him that the gift was special, because it was fashioned from a 200-year-old tree “uprooted by the Israelis.”
     Mr. Blair had come to Bethlehem to promote Western tourism to the holy sites of the West Bank, one of the ways he hopes to quickly improve Palestinian economic life. He intended to show by his presence, and his willingness to spend the night in a well-protected hotel, that “Bethlehem is safe for tourism and a good place to come,” he said, even as scattered, and no doubt celebratory, gunfire could be heard outside. more..

In the Shadow of Zion
Tirzah Firestone, Middle East Online 12/15/2007
     BOULDER, Colorodo - This past year I have had to face the underbelly of my love of Zion. Like so many American Jews, I had been raised with the unquestioned narrative about Israel’s righteousness, its humane practices, and the moral high ground upon which its policies are based. The painful deconstruction of these beliefs began with a journey through the Occupied Territories, where I encountered the shocking effects of my people’s fear.
     I saw a land sliced by concrete and barbed wire, a snaking wall 450 miles long. Yes, there has been good reason for fear—genuine security threats that have come through the gates and checkpoints. Nevertheless, I found myself questioning the holding back of women in labor, children in need of emergency blood transfusions. I heard stories, not only from Arabs, but from Israeli soldiers who struggled to "carry out orders" while innocent women and children died before their eyes. more..

Twilight Zone / ?This village will be erased?
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 12/15/2007
     The shattered marble panels of the Hashalom factory, some of which were designated for the kitchens of settlers, testify like a thousand witnesses to the events of the night of revenge. The weeping of Naama Masalha, who had to hide with her young children in the bathroom while the settlers smashed the windows of their house, also tells the story of that night of horror. In the small village of Al Funduq on the Qalqilyah-Nablus road, where Israelis, mainly settlers living in the area, still repair their cars and go shopping, they are now licking their wounds and assessing the damage.
     The head of the local council, Omar Jaber, presents a report: damage to marble - NIS 111,000; to cars - NIS 76,000; to homes - NIS 6,000; to shops - NIS 10,000. He claims that 16 cars, 15 homes, 15 shops and two marble factories were damaged on the night of November 24. It is almost certain that nobody will compensate them for these hostile acts. Now just fear, fury and frustration remain in peaceful Al Funduq, which paid the price for the killing of settler Ido Zoldan, 29, a resident of Shavei Shomron, who was shot on the road that passes through the village five nights earlier. more..

Israel 60 Years on - Partition or Apartheid
Gwynne Dyer, MIFTAH 12/13/2007
     Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was just back from the Annapolis summit where President George W. Bush tried to reboot the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. More importantly, November 29 was also the 60th anniversary of the United Nations vote that divided British-ruled Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. That promised Arab state still doesn’t exist, of course, but if the peace talks fail to produce it in the end, Olmert told the newspaper Haaretz, then Israel is “finished”.
     “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses,” Olmert said, “and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights for the Palestinians in the (occupied) territories, then, as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished. The Jewish organisations which were our power base in America will be the first to come out against us, because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents.” more..

Purple Fingerprints on Letters
Sherri Muzher, Palestine Chronicle 12/14/2007
     I knew that the letters I received were typed by someone else, but the signature was his – a purple fingerprint made by placing one of his fingers on an inkpad and pressing it down on paper. Ramzi was a disabled Palestinian 11 year-old I sponsored several years ago. One of four children, his mother had a physical disability and walked with a limp and his father had a mental disability, preventing him from any real employment. Ramzi suffered from both types of disabilities, and it was hard not to choke up when I first saw his picture. Wearing a white T-shirt, Ramzi had to be held up by two individuals in order to sit up. Two years later, I was informed that Ramzi’s school, “The Ihsan Charitable Society for the Aged, Handicapped, and Orphans” was shut down by the Israeli Army because it allegedly “harbored terrorists." more..

Annapolis: Dead Man Walking
John Chuckman, Palestine Chronicle 12/14/2007
     The Annapolis Conference was, like so many political and diplomatic events of our time, highly choreographed, finely stage-managed, and heavily marketed. Yet, as soon as it was over, it was apparent little had happened, much as when a child opens a much-advertised, expensive plastic toy on Christmas, a brief, glitzy, big-eyed moment followed quickly by tedium. You might compare it to a George Bush press conference or any American presidential debate. Indeed, such choreographed non-events make up a fair portion of what Americans see on their evening news, a phenomenon we might call virtual or synthetic news.
     I am reminded of a Bush summit with the oleaginous Tony Blair, both of them standing at parallel podiums, pontificating and smiling as though they regarded themselves as re-incarnations of Roosevelt and Churchill, which undoubtedly they do. When they finished saying nothing glibly (glibly, at least in Blair’s case) they turned towards each other and walked like two cuckoo-clock figures to meet and turn again, marching out in lock step along a red carpet, for all the world the just-crowned king and queen of the high-school prom leaving the dance floor. Or I recall Richard Nixon’s inspiration to have guards at the White House dressed in powder-blue uniforms complete with feathered marching-band hats and horns blaring "Hail to the Chief" each time the great man appeared. It was the court of Louis XIV as furnished by Wal-Mart. more..

Initial Post-Annapolis Talk
Terry Walz, Palestine Chronicle 12/14/2007
     The first formal follow-up of the Annapolis "peace conference" that brought Israelis and Palestinians together to pledge a renewal of the peace process will be held Wednesday, December 12, in Jerusalem in a meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to begin discussions on "core issues." The skepticism expressed by so many outside the conference confines continues unabated, and tomorrow will be a test of whether or not that skepticism is merited.
     The situation does not look good, for a number of reasons.First of all, the Gazans have been left out of the equation, and 1.4 million Palestinians are being held hostage in what the Israelis call an "enemy entity."The blockade of Gaza has not been lifted; the Qassam rocket attacks that mostly land harmlessly on Israeli towns built close to the Gaza border have not ceased. And the Israeli air force continues to bomb the Strip, killing two-three Palestinians (called "gunmen") almost every day. more..

Lebanon: Whose Mission is the UNIFIL Fulfilling?
Franklin Lamb - UN Headquarters, Naquora, Lebanon, Palestine Chronicle 12/12/2007
     Ever since one of this student’s favorite Professors, Dr. Ruth Widmeyer, an accomplished and rare beauty still, who was the first woman to receive a PhD. in Soviet Studies from Harvard nearly a half century ago, announced to our Political Science class at Portland State University that our class would be representing France at the Model United Nations Session in San Diego, Lamb was smitten: both with Professor Widmeyer and with the United Nations.
     Straight out of high school, rarely having taken a step out of Clackamas County, Oregon, and never having been on an airplane or stayed in a hotel, the prospect of travelling more than 1, 300 miles south to compete against the likes of Stanford and UCLA was exciting. Especially for a hayseed (city kids called us hicks in those days) whose main life achievements were a record demolishing 6 years of perfect attendance at St. John’s Episcopal Church Sunday school and another record (at that time) at Milwaukie Union High School for a basketball free throw percentage of 89%. more..

Palestine Park
J. A. Miller, Palestine Chronicle 12/14/2007
     Desiring Westerners
     This past fall I traveled to Boston to attend the Sabeel Conference on the "Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel" held in the Old South Church.Global warming was in full swing on the muggy weekend which coincided with the October 27th anti-war demonstrations organized by UFPJ.Sabeel -- Arabic for "path" -- is a Palestinian Christian organization billing itself as an "ecumenical, international grassroots peace movement’that promotes nonviolence, human rights, international law, democratic principles and Gospel teachings on justice and peace-building".Since the Zionist project was originated by Protestants hundreds of years ago and is now sustained not only by the murderous brutality of the Israeli army, the efficient ministrations of The Lobby and American largesse but also by the very edifice of Protestantism I was curious to see what the liberals among them were up to these days in this regard. The use of the word "apartheid" seemed promising so I bought my ticket and off I went. more..

No Peace, No Justice: Just Deception
William Cook, Palestine Chronicle 12/12/2007
     The Annapolis Conference spawned a series of responses on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, almost all negative about any resolution to the conflict. Perhaps one of the most predictable reviews took place this past week when Rep. Tom Lantos chaired a hearing on the conference for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Despite attempts by the Council for the National Interest and other like groups to bring in non-Israeli supporters as witnesses, Lantos limited the witnesses to Dennis Ross and David Wurmser, two predictable advocates for the Israeli state based on "reality on the ground," a euphemism for justifying the theft of Palestinian land. "The opening statements by Chairman Lantos and ranking minority member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R. FL) were even more biased than the testimony of two well-known pro-Israeli supporters Dennis Ross and David Wurmser." (CNI news statement, 12/6/07). When our representatives predetermine the debate by hand-picking their speakers, they negate the efficacy of the effort and make a laughing stock of justice. more..

Israeli Terrorism Deserves Punishment, Too
Joharah Baker, MIFTAH 12/12/2007
     The horrific bombings in Algiers yesterday in which as many as 60 people were killed drives home a terrible point for all of us. Such acts of terrorism where innocent people – in this case United Nations employees, Algerian government workers and students – are killed in a senseless act of violence – must unexceptionally be condemned, their perpetrators immediately brought to justice.
     The Algeria bombings are unfortunately just one example of the many other terrible acts of terrorism taking place in our world today. While the United States has successfully associated the word terrorism with the attacks of September 11, 2001 – which they were – terrorism has many faces and many facades behind which it hides.
     In the international community, Israel has been conveniently excluded from the list of abhorred perpetrators of terrorist acts. On the contrary, it is one of the parties that rants and rages about the need to extricate terrorism from our midst, proposing harsh sanctions against those who supposedly embrace it. more..

True Aim of Annapolis, and Why It Failed
Palestine Chronicle 12/12/2007
     The US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland was neither a success nor failure, if one accepts that its so-called objective was indeed ’peacemaking’.
     From a US perspective, the meeting was, at best, a diplomatic manoeuvre on the part of the Bush administration, a last chance for becoming relevant to a region that is quickly escaping its grip. At worst, the conference was a desperate public relations charade aimed at convincing the American public that the administration’s plans for democracy and peace in the Middle East are unfolding smoothly. In both scenarios, the conference was a necessary but fleeting distraction from the prevailing criticism that the Iraq war is a ’nightmare’ without end.
     Bush’s words at Annapolis suggested he was playing exactly the part Israel expected of him. His emphasis on the Jewish identity of Israel, itself a crude violation of the principles of secularism, seems more than a mere gesture to appease the concerns of Israel and its backers in the US; it was actually a subtle acceptance of the ethnic cleansing that continues to define Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. After all, millions of Palestinians have for decades been expelled from their land for no other reason than not being Jewish, while millions of Jews around the world are welcomed ’back’ to Israel -- a land that they never lived in or had prior ties to. Could Bush not have known about this when he emphasised the need for a Jewish state? I doubt it. more..

What if the Negotiations Fail?
Hasan Afif El-Hasan, Palestine Chronicle 12/12/2007
     As much as the Palestinian people wished the Annapolis conference to succeed in ending the nightmare of the Israeli occupation, it was a big disappointment for them and embarrassment for the Arab leaders who promoted it especially the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas. The meeting turned out to be more about rhetoric, recycled slogans and promises, and nothing on specifics that may promise a breakthrough in the quest for peace. The only outcome of the conference was an agreement that the Palestinians and Israelis start implementing the defunct 2003 "Roadmap" peace plan, and the US would be the arbiter and the judge of both sides compliance to its requirements.
     For few weeks before the conference, Abbas had been insisting that he would not attend the conference unless Israel froze the settlement activities, stopped building the separation wall and removed checkpoints and roadblocks Israel operates in the West Bank. He wanted a pre-conference joint document to address future borders, Jerusalem and the fate of the refugees. Arab states leaders talked about the need for having the UN resolutions and the Arab peace initiative as the basis for the conference and the negotiations that would follow. And the Syrians were adamant about their position that they would not attend unless the occupied Golan Heights issue was on the agenda. Then Abbas had second thought and started talking about the historic opportunity that should not be missed, and the Arab League foreign ministers decided to attend the meeting although all signs suggest the meeting would not produce any tangible results for the Palestinians. more..

Photostory: A pervasive occupation
Slideshow, Adam Beach, 13 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/13/2007
     Occupation has a way of making its presence experienced beyond its immediate manifestations -- war machines and walls and checkpoints -- and wounding everything it comes in contact with. The Israeli occupation has left scars on nearly all aspects of Palestinian society -- both literal, physical tears in the earth and edifice. Where a million olive trees used to be rooted or tens of thousands of homes that used to be places to live and now are little more than a painful memory. However, in the midst of occupation is the energy to resist, a veiled hope for peace and justice, even at impossible odds. Like the occupation, the Palestinian struggle for liberation has also touched, in a way scarred, as have most aspects of Palestinian society. The above images taken in the summer of 2007 are a brief and incomplete look about the signs, symbols, scars, and dreams of occupation and liberation and the interaction between the two. These are the aberrations of occupation and the hopes of liberation. more..

More than 600 Palestinians killed in extrajudicial killings since 2000
Report, PCHR, 13 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/13/2007
     When we think of crimes against humanity, we must be aware that governments and governmental groups can be more dangerous than individuals in this regard. Governments have the most power to inflict harm and are most likely to be recidivist. This kind of terrorism is the most dangerous brand.Extrajudicial killing or physical liquidation is the most prevalent practice of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) against the Palestinians. It reveals the immoral nature of the Israeli government. Extrajudicial execution is a policy which is not new or exclusively used since 2000. It is an old, bloody policy that had been implemented by the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians for decades. The list of the victims of this practice is too long to mention here.
     Extrajudicial executions or "targeted killing" (as Israeli politicians like to define the practice), is clear evidence of state terrorism. It is execution without trial. It is a policy of killing outside the boundaries of any legal framework.The practice gained unprecedented momentum during the last intifada, beginning in 2000 and experienced an ongoing escalation until it peaked in 2007. Moreover, these crimes closely follow geopolitical developments. The Israeli government has built its policy of extrajudicial executions on a specific understanding of the political situation. Indeed, they have clear political objectives by conducting these cruel crimes of extrajudicial killing -- objectives based on having no Palestinian partner for peace... more..

Audio: Crossing the Line focuses on Annapolis
Podcast, Crossing the Line, 13 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/13/2007
     This week on Crossing The Line: The cameras are gone and the dignitaries have gone back home, but what if anything did Annapolis really accomplish for either Palestinians or Israelis? Host Christopher Brown speaks with Bill and Kathleen Christison, both formerly of the CIA. Bill was a senior official of the CIA and served as a National Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis. Kathleen is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for thirty years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession . The couple joins Brown to sort out the summit and its chances -- if any -- of advancing a peaceful solution to the conflict.
     Later in the podcast, a poem by award-winning Palestinian-American poet Suheir Hammad entitled "Jerusalem." more..

Thanks, but no thanks
Ahmad Samih Khalidi, The Guardian 12/13/2007
     The Palestinian state has now become the universal standard for all solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The international community applauds the concept. President Bush proudly proclaims it as his "vision". The Israelis have come to it belatedly, after years of steadfast refusal and rejection. Today Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, not only supports the idea but proclaims it as an existential Israeli interest: without it, Israel is fated to disappear under dire assault from the ever-expanding Arab population in both Israel and the occupied territories. This apparent human tide may yet bring disaster to the Jewish state, by demanding equal civil rights to those of the Jews themselves.
     But statehood as such is a relatively recent addition to Palestinian aspirations. The main Palestinian impetus after the disaster of 1948 was that of "return"; it ... more..

Hellish Journey Around Holy City
Oakland Ross, MIFTAH 12/13/2007
     It is not the volume of traffic, much less the issue of distance, that puts a pair of dents each day into the life of Mouse Hindi.I It is the city of Jerusalem.
     "There is no limit to the time it takes," says the 40-year-old Palestinian consulting engineer. "It could take two hours. It could take three hours. We don’t know."
     The round-faced husband and father of five is talking about the daily journey he makes from his home in Beit Sahour near Bethlehem to his office in Ramallah.
     Both communities are located in the Palestinian territory known as the West Bank, and only a modest expanse of real estate divides them.
     If he could make the trip in a fairly straight line, as used to be the case, Hindi would need to travel just 30 kilometres between his house and his place of work, a journey that would last about half an hour, depending on the traffic. But because of Israeli security concerns and other stern political verities, he cannot do that any more. more..

The Grim Reality in Gaza
Mohammed Omer, MIFTAH 12/12/2007
     Traffic in the Gaza Strip slowed to a trickle last week, and this week medical centres have scaled back treatment in the medicines and sustenance-destitute Strip.
     "Israel’s decision is a death penalty: our reserve of fuel is almost zero and it may very likely run out by the end of today," said Khaled Radi, Ministry of Health spokesman for the dismissed Hamas government.
     Radi spoke in reference to the 30 November Israeli Supreme Court decision to allow further fuel cutbacks, severe reductions which are crippling Gaza’s residents in all aspects of life. Prior to that ruling, as early as October Israel decided to begin limiting fuel, with Gaza soon after enduring serious cuts of over 50% of fuel needs, a dire statistic confirmed by the UN body OCHA.
     At the Nahal Oz crossing, through which all fuel enters Gaza, the Palestinian petrol authority reported that Israel has delivered around only 190,000 litres of diesel a day since late October, falling short of the 350,000 litres needed by the Gaza Strip. This number plummeted on 29 November, with Israel delivering a scanty 60,000 litres, only marginally improving three days later, 2 December, with a delivery of 90,000 litres. more..

Israel’s Palestinians speak out
Nadim Rouhana, The Nation, Electronic Intifada 12/12/2007
     The Annapolis peace talks regard me as an interloper in my own land. Israel’s deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, argues that I should "take [my] bundles and get lost." Henry Kissinger thinks I ought to be summarily swapped from inside Israel to the would-be Palestinian state.
     I am a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship -- one of 1.4 million. I am also a social psychologist trained and working in the United States. In late November, on behalf of Mada al-Carmel, the Arab Center for Applied Social Research, I polled Palestinian citizens of Israel regarding their reactions to the Annapolis conference and their views about our future, and how they would be affected by Middle East peace negotiations.
     During Israel’s establishment, three-quarters of a million Palestinians were driven from their homes or fled in fear. They remain refugees to this day, scattered throughout the West Bank and Gaza, the Arab world and beyond. We Palestinian citizens of Israel are among the minority who managed to remain on our land. Like many Mexican-Americans, we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us. We have been struggling ever since against a system that subjects us to separate and unequal treatment because we are Palestinian Arabs -- Christian, Muslim and Druze -- not Jewish. More than twenty Israeli laws explicitly privilege Jews over non-Jews. more..

Israel bombed out
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, Al Jazeera 12/11/2007
     Since the publication of the NIE findings on Iran’s nuclear programme, US officials and generals have been assuring Israel that Iran remains a strategic threat.
     Instead of being relieved, not to say trigger happy, by the overarching consensus of the US intelligence community that discounts Iranian nuclear danger, Israel is bombed out.
     The government of Ehud Olmert, Israeli’s prime minister, made it clear it is not convinced by the conclusions of the National Intelligence Estimate report and that it will prove them wrong through evidence of its own.
     Awaiting Israel’s revelations, its neoconservative and evangelical allies have expressed their doubts about the honesty and intentions of the report’s authors and accused them of politicising the intelligence to fit their political agenda. more..

Two non-states
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 12/12/2007
     Who says there is no cooperation between the Palestinian Authority/Fatah and Hamas? Indeed, ever since June the two sides have been working energetically, in a kind of pas de deux of demonstrative pirouettes, so that the Gaza Strip will become another quasi-state entity with its three governing authorities - executive, legislative and judiciary - separate from those in Ramallah. All three branches are acting outside the delegated powers of the PA president, with the help of a separate police force and a system of taxation, collection and other payments. Two non-states for one people.
     There are already two governments, as everyone knows. The legality of each of them is questionable to an equal extent. The Legislative Council, which no one talks about anymore, is not convened as such, but Hamas representatives in Gaza (many of those from the West ... more..

Gazans’ Passage to Mecca Seen as an Insult to Abbas
Isabel Kershner, MIFTAH 12/12/2007
     What appeared to have been a decision by Egypt and Saudi Arabia to cooperate with Hamas rather than with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in allowing 2,000 people to leave Gaza last week for a pilgrimage to Mecca is causing friction in Palestinian, Israeli and Western circles.
     Some officials said the move was an insult to Mr. Abbas, a moderate. Only two weeks ago, Egyptian, Saudi and other international representatives gathered in Annapolis, Md., to support him and the embryonic Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
     The pilgrims crossed directly from Gaza, which is under Hamas control, into Egypt, through the Rafah border terminal. From Egypt, they traveled on to Saudi Arabia, where the pilgrimage, called a hajj, is to take place this month.
     An Israeli security official said Monday that Hamas and the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority had been preparing alternative lists “for weeks” to fill the Saudi quota set for pilgrims from Gaza. Israel had been coordinating with the authority to let more than a thousand pilgrims leave Gaza via the Erez crossing in northern Gaza. From there, they were to travel through Israel and the West Bank into Jordan, and on to Saudi Arabia. Thousands more Palestinians from the West Bank left separately, officials said. more..

Starting the Peace Process
The New York Times - Editorial, MIFTAH 12/12/2007
     Israelis and Palestinians are supposed to begin serious negotiations tomorrow after last month’s long-on-optics, short-on-specifics Annapolis peace meeting. Despite all the smiles and handshakes, both sides went home and fell back into some familiar, counterproductive patterns.
     If this effort has any chance of success, everyone who attended Annapolis — including the Americans and Arab leaders — are going to have to work a lot harder at breaking those patterns.
     Days after the American-led conference prepared the ground for the first serious peace talks in seven years, Israel announced that it would be adding 307 new homes to a settlement south of East Jerusalem, a violation of the spirit of Israel’s commitments. Some senior Palestinian officials immediately started talking about boycotting the negotiations. The government-run Palestinian Authority TV also clearly hasn’t gotten the post-Annapolis message: broadcasting a map of the region soon after the meeting that pointedly erased Israel. more..

The ’Four-Phase’ Approach
Uri Savir, MIFTAH 12/12/2007
     In May 1996, permanent status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership officially began. I represented Israel and my Palestinian counterpart was Mahmoud Abbas. The discussion of permanent status issues lasted only two hours.
     Instead, we opted to commence our negotiations by talking about the desired outcome of Israel’s and the future Palestinian state’s relations. We intended to give this focus several months’ time and to postpone resolution of the final status issues to the last stage.
     It seemed to me then, as it does now, that negotiations tend to be unnecessarily constrained by efforts to resolve the past, rather than channeling mutual energies toward the future. The lesson for our upcoming negotiations is that the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations must be tackled with the same vigor and vision as the resolution of permanent status issues. more..

Iran is No Threat and that’s Official
Linda Heard, MIFTAH 12/12/2007
     “They stole our threat” goes a headline in the Israeli daily Haaretz. The author is, of course, referring to the recently published US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) composed by 16 American intelligence agencies. It counters US and Israeli assertions that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. There’s been no such program since 2003, it states.
     For those of us in the neighborhood, this is good news but the powers that be in Washington and Tel Aviv are seething. With plans to squeeze the Iranian leadership with further UN sanctions and a military option on the table, this was not what either country wanted to hear.
     George W. Bush says the report doesn’t change anything. On the contrary, he says, it shows that Tehran was working toward the manufacture of nuclear weapons in the past and could reconstitute the program again.
     When challenged by reporters over his “World War III” speech, he said nobody told him that Iran didn’t have a current weapons program. This assertion has gone down like a lead brick with skeptical administration’s critics. more..

Time-Wasting Manoeuvres
The Jordan Times, MIFTAH 12/12/2007
     It has been reported that during the Annapolis conference, Israel offered the Palestinian side recognition of a Palestinian state with provisional borders and that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas quickly rejected the offer.
     It is not hard to guess why Abbas refused such an offer; its acceptance would be tantamount to consolidating Israel’s grip on Palestinian territories for an indefinite period of time and would put the border issue in deep freeze.
     One of the defining characteristics of an independent state is its borders with neighbouring countries. The jurisdiction of an independent state extends to its entire territory, and keeping the borders of a projected Palestinian state vague goes against the very definition of a state that the Palestinian people has been yearning for and is entitled to have after so many decades.
     The Israeli offer is simply and purely escaping reality. It is an insult to a partner in negotiations and a clear sign that Israel is not giving serious consideration to the idea of a Palestinian state. more..

Siege that Spells Slow Death for the Innocents
Ed Oloughlin, MIFTAH 12/11/2007
     FOR three weeks, seven-month-old Mohammed Abu Amra has been lying in Gaza’s main paediatric hospital, suffering from immune deficiency and suspected cystic fibrosis.
     His doctors do not have the drug they need to relieve his symptoms, which include fever and distressed breathing, racking his thin ribs at almost twice the healthy rate of breaths per minute.
     Nor does any hospital in the sealed-off Gaza Strip have the equipment or expertise needed to clinically diagnose Mohammed’s condition. For eight days his doctors have been waiting for a reply to their request to transfer the baby to a hospital in Israel. If it is not granted, they say, he will probably die.
     "Because of the Israeli siege the number of patients who can travel is very limited," says paediatrician Dr Ahmed Shakat, standing over the child’s bed in Gaza’s al-Nasser hospital.
     "In the past it took one day to transfer an urgent patient to Israel. Now I need maybe five, maybe 10, if it happens at all. The Israelis say it’s because of security, but it means urgent cases can die. In the past we could have transferred him also to Egypt, but now that border is closed because of the siege." more..

See Gaza and weep
The Palestine Monitor, ReliefWeb 12/10/2007
     In the run-up to Annapolis Stuart Littlewood went to Gaza on an unusual mission. He joined a party of priests bringing moral support to the Christian community and to its Muslim citizens, all suffering horribly under Israel’s collective punishment and cruel siege .
     Traffic into Gaza through the elaborate new border ’facility’ at Erez is down to a tiny trickle these days since Israel branded the Palestinian seaside enclave a ’hostile entity’. The purpose of our visit was to bring moral support to elderly Fr Manuel, who ministers to his flock, runs an excellent school (for Christians and Muslims) and is revered as a local hero. Should he ever leave Gaza the Israeli authorities will not allow his return, so he has allowed himself to be incarcerated there for 9 years. He’d had no visitors since February and when he heard we were coming, said a colleague, he burst into tears. more..

A New Test for Americans and Palestinians
Rami Khouri, MIFTAH 12/11/2007
     You do get a second chance in most things in life, as the United States and the Palestinian leadership are experiencing now, in the wake of the revived Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations at Annapolis. The second chance to get things right has been triggered by the announcement earlier this week that Israel plans to build over 300 new housing units on occupied Palestinian Arab land in East Jerusalem at the Har Homa settlement - which the Arabs know as Jabal Abu Ghneim.
     This is routine policy and practice for the Israeli government, which has moved several hundred thousand settlers into new colonial communities built all around Arab East Jerusalem since 1967. The new test - and opportunity - is for the Americans and Palestinians, who must take a stand on this continuing Israeli colonization and expansion.
     The Palestinian-Israeli joint statement agreed at Annapolis said that the "United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the "road map." Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map, as judged by the United States." more..

The True Aim of Annapolis, and Why it Failed
Ramzy Baroud, MIFTAH 12/10/2007
     The US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland was neither a success nor failure, if one accepts that its so-called objective was indeed ‘peacemaking’.
     From a US perspective, the meeting was, at best, a diplomatic manoeuvre on the part of the Bush administration, a last chance for becoming relevant to a region that is quickly escaping its grip. At worst, the conference was a desperate public relations charade aimed at convincing the American public that the administration’s plans for democracy and peace in the Middle East are unfolding smoothly. In both scenarios, the conference was a necessary but fleeting distraction from the prevailing criticism that the Iraq war is a ‘nightmare’ without end.
     Bush’s words at Annapolis suggested he was playing exactly the part Israel expected of him. His emphasis on the Jewish identity of Israel, itself a crude violation of the principles of secularism, seems more than a mere gesture to appease the concerns of Israel and its backers in the US; it was actually a subtle acceptance of the ethnic cleansing that continues to define Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. After all, millions of Palestinians have for decades been expelled from their land for no other reason than not being Jewish, while millions of Jews around the world are welcomed ‘back’ to Israel – a land that they never lived in or had prior ties to. Could Bush not have known about this when he emphasised the need for a Jewish state? I doubt it. more..

Film review: "Jerusalem ... The east side story"
Sam Bahour, Electronic Intifada 12/10/2007
     Was it sheer coincidence, sad irony, or just another day in Palestine under Israeli military occupation? My father and I drove through the last Israeli checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem while heading to the Palestinian National Theatre at the invitation of The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees to attend the premiere of a new documentary on Jerusalem. The car radio switched from music to a news report -- a Palestinian home in Jerusalem was demolished that morning by Israeli occupation authorities, leaving yet another Palestinian family homeless. We sighed in disgust but did not comment to one another because there was nothing new to say.
     As we entered the plaza of the theatre, we were met by film director Mohammed Alatar. Alatar is known for his outstanding previous documentary, The Iron Wall, which depicts the Israeli strategy of creating facts on the ground -- facts that are rapidly precluding a negotiated peace between Palestinians and Israelis. more..

The first intifada 20 years later
Sonja Karkar, The Electronic Intifada, 10 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/10/2007
     The first Palestinian intifada (uprising or shaking off) erupted dramatically on 9 December 1987 after twenty long years of brutal Israeli military occupation. The Palestinians had had enough. Not only had they been dispossessed of their homeland and expelled from their homes in 1948 to make way for the boatloads of European Jewish immigrants flooding into Palestine on a promise of a Jewish state, they had been made to suffer the indignities of a people despised and rejected by the whole world. They were the victims of a colonialist project that denied their existence and their rights to self-determination in the land that they had continuously inhabited for millennia so that a state could be created in all of the land exclusively for Jews from anywhere in the world. To this day, the Zionist project has held powerful countries and august institutions hostage in its service, despite the indisputable rulings of international law and United Nations resolutions supporting the rights of the Palestinians. What Israel had not bargained for, though, was the steadfastness of a wronged people and their indomitable spirit that sent the first stones hurtling towards army tanks and bulldozers in their desperate bid to shake off Israel’s crushing occupation.So began the "War of the Stones." more..

How they Stole the Bomb from US
Uri Avnery, MIFTAH 12/10/2007
     IT WAS like an atom bomb falling on Israel.
     The earth shook. Our political and military leaders were all in shock. The headlines screamed with rage.
     What happened?
     A real catastrophe: the American intelligence community, comprising 16 different agencies, reached a unanimous verdict: already in 2003, the Iranians terminated their efforts to produce a nuclear bomb, and they have not resumed them since. Even if they change their mind in the future, they will need at least five years to achieve their aim.
     SHOULDN’T WE be overjoyed? Shouldn’t the masses in Israel be dancing in the streets, as they did on November 29, 1947, sixty years ago? After all, we have been saved!
     Until this week, we have been regularly hearing that - any minute now - the Iranians will produce a bomb that threatens our very existence. Nothing less. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new Hitler of the Middle East, who announces every second day that Israel must disappear from the map, was about to fulfill his own prophecy. more..

Refugee Redux
Gideon Levy, MIFTAH 12/10/2007
     The old ruins can still be detected among the prickly pear cacti in the fields of Kibbutz Beit Guvrin. The newer ruins stand out on the hills above the huge checkpoint that is slowly being built not far away, at the Tarqumiya crossing. Abd al-Halim Natah is very familiar with both. He was a small child when his family was forced to leave their village, Beit Jubrin, and today he is an old man who is once again being forced to take his possessions, his children and his sheep, and leave his home. Israel is evicting him for a second time. The encampments and cave-homes in which he, his family and his neighbors live have been trampled because of the mega-checkpoint that is being built on the other side of the Green Line, on the site that has been their home for decades.
     Now Natah is living in a building under construction - a temporary refugee, exposed to the cold and the winds, without electricity or running water, with the sheep in the yard, until he finds himself a new house. He is not alone: Along with him about 150 men, women, old people and children were evicted - members of several families who lived in the tiny village of Qasa, which Israel evacuated. They were evicted suddenly, the way sheep or animals are driven out, without being given alternative housing, without anyone taking an interest in their fate or where they should go or what they would do with their thousands of sheep, virtually the only things they own. more..

The Next ’Generous Offer’?
Neta Golan, MIFTAH 12/10/2007
     Anyone familiar with Israeli politics was not surprised that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not acknowledge Israel’s occupation in his speech at Annapolis. What was surprising was that short of mentioning the "R" word -- "refugees" -- Olmert implicitly acknowledged the Palestinian refugee problem.
     Referring to the Palestinians, the Israeli prime minister stated in his Annapolis speech: "Your people, too, have suffered for many years; and there are some who still suffer. Many Palestinians have been living for decades in camps, disconnected from the environment in which they grew up, wallowing in poverty, in neglect, alienation, bitterness, and a deep, unrelenting sense of humiliation." Olmert’s characterization of the refugees is only partially correct. Poverty, neglect, alienation, bitterness and feelings of humiliation, are only one component of the refugee experience. There are also other components, such as community, pride, generosity, and perseverance. This one-dimensional characterization obviously suits Olmert’s conception of a solution. It also casts refugees as objects that will be acted upon (once again), rather than subjects who can genuinely participate in finding a solution. A recent article in the Israeli daily Haaretz titled "Refugees and Jerusalem: A question of money" sheds light on Olmert’s statements. The article revealed the outlines of the deal being cooked to sell the rights of the Palestinian refugees. more..

Annapolis Conference: Another Palestinian Carrot
Dr. Elias Akleh, MIFTAH 12/10/2007
     As expected by a majority the hailed Annapolis Conference did not produce any positive results. On the contrary it took the Palestinian cause back to 1993 Oslo period when the PLO and the Israeli government initially agreed to negotiate.
     The Abbas-led Palestinian negotiating team is the same team, who negotiated the miserably failed Oslo agreement and the many barren negotiating meetings that followed.These negotiators had not learned from their experience that Israel had always sabotaged peace talks with their unreasonable demands and reservations, and had never followed any agreement. The team had lost the trust of their people long time ago and was booted out of the Palestinian Authority after the Palestinians elected Hamas to represent them through a free democratic election. This team went to Annapolis without getting the approval or the authority of Palestinian Legislative Council to negotiate and to make final decisions on behalf of the Palestinians. Abbas had ignored the demands of all Palestinian factions, including many in Fatah, not to go to Annapolis. He does not represent the Palestinians majority but Fatah’s ruling elite; a small group who had hijacked Fatah movement, ignored the rest of Palestinian factions, and turned their backs on their own people to serve the Israeli/American interests in order to keep their power position and to keep receiving more bribes into their own pockets. Many Palestinians, including those in Diaspora in European countries, and their Arab brothers had demonstrated against Annapolis into the streets of their cities in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and occupied Palestine, even in Abbas’ base city Ramallah, where his security forces had met the demonstrators with live bullets and brutal force. Although insisting that Fatah, and nobody else, is the sole representative of the Palestinian people, Abbas is so detached from his people to the point of ignoring, in his speech at Annapolis, to mention their suffering under the Israeli occupation to the point of starvation, while Israeli Olmert talked about the suffering of the Israelis under what he called “Palestinian terror” (Palestinian legitimate right to resist Israeli occupation), as if the Palestinian tanks and helicopters are bombarding the Israeli cities. more..

Exchange on the Academic Boycott
Justin Podur and Stuart Murray, ZNet 12/10/2007
     On November 28, 2007, Ryerson University in Toronto held a debate on "Academic Boycott and Academic Freedom"� in the context of Israel/Palestine. Justin Podur wrote an article on the debate ( http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=14403 ) and one of the debaters, Stuart Murray, replied. An exchange ensued, and we thought it would be interesting to publish the exchange as well.
     Murray’s reply to Podur’s article:
     Dear Justin, I enjoyed reading your article.  I believe you are fair in your brief summary of my position, although I never used the word "sacred" in relation to academic freedom and freedom of intellectual inquiry.  I would not wish to make a fetish of such freedom; it is a site of perpetual struggle, not an article of faith or doctrine.  In my view, the purpose of such freedom is non-dogmatic and anti-fundamentalist: always to question and to open ourselves to difference, to minority views, to thinking otherwise. more..

Towards first-rate university instruction
Rima Merriman, The Electronic Intifada, 10 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/10/2007
     In one of those reports commissioned and written in Palestine and then promptly forgotten, the challenges facing higher education and the consequences of not heeding these challenges are painstakingly detailed.
     The Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research produced the document in August 2002 with financial and technical assistance provided by the World Bank. It is titled "Palestinian Higher Education Financing Strategy."The paper has two objectives. The first is to provide an analytic rationale for donors wishing to finance higher education in Palestine, and the other, thornier one, is to "build stakeholders consensus on the rationale and mechanism for financing reform."
     Given the nature of the document, it is taken for granted that the answer to the challenges higher education faces in Palestine is "a compelling financial strategy" and that’s what the document provides. more..

The Har Homa test
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 12/10/2007
     It is difficult to think of a place more suitable than Har Homa for holding the first test in the spirit of Annapolis. The comparison between Har Homa Crisis No. 2 and the development of Har Homa Crisis No. 1 can teach us whether the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has indeed started a new track or whether all the players are stuck on the old line.
     Does Ehud Olmert, who pressed for the establishment of the new neighborhood in East Jerusalem, really see something different from the Prime Minister’s Bureau than what he saw from the office of the mayor of Jerusalem? Will President George W. Bush pay lip service and eventually have to eat his words, just as Bill Clinton did 10 years ago?
     Meanwhile, it is difficult to find the differences. Har Homa Crisis No. 1 also broke out a short while after an American attempt to revive the peace process. more..

Israel’s ’auto-pilot’ policy on Iran
Trita Parsi, Asia Times 12/8/2007
     WASHINGTON - The US National Intelligence Estimate’s (NIE) assertion that Iran currently does not have a nuclear weapons program has caused much frustration in Israel. Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh referred to the report as a lie at a recent breakfast in New York, and Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer reportedly "doesn’t buy" its findings.
     Though the report aggravates Israel’s effort to compel Washington to pursue an increasingly harsh line against Tehran, all is not lost for Israel. In fact, despite these initial knee-jerk reactions, the NIE may very well end up being a blessing in disguise for the Jewish state by pulling Israel out of its paralysis with regard to Iran.
     Israel has long been at odds with Washington’s intelligence agencies. It started sounding the alarm bells on Iran’s nuclear program back in 1991, arguing that in the post-Cold War world, Iran and Shiite fundamentalism were emerging as the new strategic threat to the Middle East. more..

The nanny state
Haaretz Editorial, Ha’aretz 12/10/2007
     Journalists Tsur Shezaf, Ron Ben-Yishai and Lisa Goldman each went to either Lebanon or Syria to report for the Israeli media. For this routine action, each recently was questioned by the International Crimes Investigations Unit of the Israel Police. "We don’t make distinctions among citizens," the police stated, citing the 1954 Prevention of Infiltration Law.
     If the state did not distinguish among its citizens, then it would have to monitor hundreds of thousands of Israelis with dual citizenship who travel abroad, including to countries with which Israel has no diplomatic relations. The new and open world, with its freedom of movement - actual as well as virtual - is a fact we must learn to live with. Democratic states guard against illegal immigration, and only dictatorships fight to keep their citizens inside. more..

PA Closes All Charities in West Bank, Gaza
Palestine Chronicle 12/7/2007
     Minister of Religious Affairs Jamal Bawatneh said on Wednesday his ministry had appointed a seven-strong committee to oversee the collection and disbursement of funds to the poor.
     Palestinian officials said the closing of the 92 charities - or Zakat - was likely to harm those mainly belonging to the Islamist Hamas movement.
     "Some of the committees violated the law and were corrupt," Bawatneh told Reuters.
     "Some of the people heading those committees belong to Hamas but others are not from Hamas. The corrupt must be removed.
     "Not all the Zakat committees were corrupt but we decided to close all of them to avoid finger-pointing.
     Some committees had collected large amounts of money intended for the poor but only a fraction of the money had gone to its intended recipients.
     Most of the money was used to build supermarkets and hospitals, and was invested. Some of the money was also used to support charities run by political parties," Bawatneh said. more..

Susan Abualhawa: Of Arabs at Annapolis
Palestine Chronicle 12/7/2007
     Annapolis was hoopla, smoke and mirrors, much ado about nothing, a ho-down of politically bankrupt men trying to garner popularity among their respective constituencies.
     It seems that George Bush and Ehud Olmert have figured out how to join the ranks of those who exploit the Palestinian tragedy and suffering to further their political ends without actually doing anything to alleviate that tragedy. For all the ruckus, speeches, leaders and dignitaries, what came out of Annapolis was yet another meaningless statement, this time (drum roll, please) Israelis and Palestinians agreed to agree on something by 2008.
     And yet...I wish the absurdity of it were truly so benign as a hullabaloo. If you were paying attention, you’d have heard the menace of ethnic cleansing and seen the malignancy of cowardice.
     George Bush made it clear that the United States will not pressure Israel into doing anything it doesn’t like.Plainly, the United States, the country that gives Israel $14,346 for every woman man and child in Israel, will not insist that Israel withdraw from the West Bank, which it has been occupying illegally since 1967. It will not insist that Israel stop detaining and torturing Palestinian men, women and children, leaving them to languish for years without charge or trial. The US, a country founded on the principle that all men are created equal, will not insist that Israel provide full rights under the law for non-Jews equal to that it accords for Jews. The US will continue to give Israel more money and weapons that it has ever given to any country and we will not even insist that Israel comply with one single UN Resolution (out of over 200 resolutions censuring Israel) or the Geneva Conventions, or any other tenet of international law. We will not require, in concurrence with our own laws, that this recipient of massive foreign aid do something to correct its abysmal human rights record. We will, however, in 2008, issue the first instalment of a brand-spanking-new $30 billion aid package to Israel. more..

Gilad Atzmon: Some People Never Learn
Palestine Chronicle 12/7/2007
     On Thursday afternoon, Gordon Brown learned that he was to become only the second sitting British Prime Minister to be subject to a police investigation.
     This is happening less than six months after Tony Blair had left Downing Street under the severe cloud of a police probe into the Cash for Honours affair.
     For Blair it was No 1 Labour fundraiser, the Zionist Lord Levy who got him into serious trouble, for Brown it is Mr David Abrahams, just another ’Friend of Israel’ and a provincial chairman of Jewish Labour, who may be the one to finish off his political career.
     Once again, the Labour Party had to admit that it erred by accepting donations from dubious sources. ’"The money was not lawfully declared, so it will be returned," said the Prime Minister, after the disclosure that Labour had benefited to the tune of more than £600,000 from a bizarre funding scheme arranged by David Abrahams, an eccentric property tycoon who decided to donate his money by proxy. more..

Neta Golan: A Generous Offer to the Palestinian Refugees?
Palestine Chronicle 12/7/2007
     Referring to the Palestinians, the Israeli Prime Minister stated in his Annapolis speech: "your people, too, have suffered for many years; and there are some who still suffer. Many Palestinians have been living for decades in camps, disconnected from the environment in which they grew up, wallowing in poverty, in neglect, alienation, bitterness, and a deep, unrelenting sense of humiliation." Olmert’s characterization of the refugees is only partially correct. Poverty, neglect, alienation, bitterness and feelings of humiliation, are only one component of the refugee experience. There are also other components, such as community, pride, generosity, and perseverance. This one-dimensional characterization obviously suits Olmert’s conception of a solution. It also casts refugees as objects that will be acted upon (once again), rather than subjects who can genuinely participate in finding a solution. A recent article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz Daily titled "Refugees and Jerusalem : A question of money" sheds light on Olmert’s statements. The article revealed the outlines of the deal being cooked to sell the rights of the Palestinian refugees. more..

Uri Avnery: ‘The Tumult and the Shouting Dies…’
Palestine Chronicle 12/7/2007
     "The Tumult and the shouting dies, / The captains and the kings depart’" Rudyard Kipling wrote in his unforgettable poem "Lest We Forget" ("Recessional") King George departed even before the tumult had died. His helicopter carried him away over the horizon, just as his trusty steed carries the cowboy into the sunset at the end of the movie. At that moment, the speeches in the assembly hall were still going ahead at full blast.
     This summed up the whole event. The final statement announced that the United States will supervise the negotiations, act as a referee of the implementation and as a judge throughout. Everything depends on her. If she wants it — much will happen. If she does not want it — nothing will happen.
     That bodes ill. There is no indication that George Bush will really intervene to achieve anything, apart from nice photos. Some people believe that the whole show was put on to make poor Condoleezza Rice feel good, after all her efforts as Secretary of State have come to naught. more..

James Petras: Venezuela in the Aftermath
Palestine Chronicle 12/7/2007
     Venezuela’s constitutional reforms supporting President Chavez’s socialist project were defeated by the narrowest of margins: 1.4 pr cent of 9 million voters. The result however was severely compromised by the fact that 45 per cent of the electorate abstained, meaning that only 28 per cent of the electorate voted against the progressive changes proposed by President Chavez. While the vote was a blow to Venezuela’s attempt to extricate itself from oil dependence and capitalist control over strategic financial and productive sectors, it does not change the 80 per cent majority in the legislature nor does it weaken the prerogatives of the Executive branch. Nevertheless, the Right’s marginal win does provide a semblance of power, influence and momentum to its efforts to derail President Chavez’ socio-economic reforms and to oust his government and/or force him to reconcile with the old elite power brokers. more..

Sam Bahour: Return to Palestine (2006) – Film Review
Palestine Chronicle 12/7/2007
     The hour-long abridged DVD version of Return to Palestine by Ed Hill is a sombre account of the slow and painful process of ethnic cleansing that Palestinians are dealing with, in full view of the international community. Documenting this horrific reality, Return to Palestine is a genuine effort to witness and disseminate the realities of Israeli occupation, and even more so, to do it in an activist way that aims to get people not only to shake their heads in shame but to act to bring this man-made tsunami called Israeli occupation to an end.
     From the informative DVD cover, through each segment of this eye-witness report, and all the way through to the ending, Mr. Hill provokes the viewer to pick one of the many facets of Palestinian non-violent resistance to support. The film opens with a blunt narrative of the terminology that best depicts the 40+ years of Israeli occupation, most notably the concept of "ethnic cleansing." Through the lens of Palestinian olive farmers, the documentary systematically walks the viewer through the oppression that Palestinians are facing daily. The narrator explains that his take on the situation is that of an "embedded activist," which gives him and his team deeper insight into Palestinian society. more..

Confusion Surrounding Annapolis Obligations
MIFTAH, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     Covering everything from seemingly positive progress with prisoner release and increased aid to Palestine, to somewhat negative impediments involving the disintegrating humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the expansion of Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem, the news this week essentially epitomized and reinforced the peace process between Israel and Palestine as a route where one step forward is followed by two steps back.
     On Monday December 3, after a sufficient delay, Israel finally released 429 Palestinian prisoners. Israeli government spokesperson, Mark Regev, stated that “Today’s release of Palestinian prisoners is aimed at reinforcing moderate Palestinian leaders and at favoring political dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians”. While recognized as a step in the right direction, the imprisoned Marwan Barghouti declared the release as a “joke”. The Fatah leader highlighted that there are 11,000 Palestinians still in Israeli jails and that the 429 released were coming to the end of their terms anyway. more..

Promises of Annapolis
George S. Hishmeh, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     Now that the dust has settled on the recent Annapolis conference that promised to try and reach a Palestinian-Israeli settlement by the end of next year, it is time to review the event that was an unprecedented achievement for the lameduck Bush administration, particularly on the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict that has been virtually neglected in Washington for nearly seven years.
     There is no doubt that the consensual last-minute statement announced by the US President George W. Bush at the opening session of the one-day meeting on November 27 lifted the hopes of some of the 50 delegations representing many governments, including 16 Arab countries, and some world institutions.
     The fact that a joint statement was finally worked was certainly much better than the absence of one. But hardly had the delegates returned home when some of the disappointments began to surface. more..

Made in Palestine
Yotam Feldman, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     RAMALLAH - The streets here were tumultuous on the last Tuesday of November, the day the Annapolis conference opened. The Palestinians who didn’t watch the proceedings on television streamed onto the streets, and a small demonstration in Manara Square by opponents of the summit escalated into a violent clash with the Palestinian police, who used truncheons and teargas to disperse the crowd. Vans packed with reinforcements in the form of armed security forces arrived to help scatter the crowd of people, some of whom had already heard about the incident in Hebron in which a demonstrator was shot dead by Palestinian forces.
     In the luxurious offices of Sky, the largest advertising and PR agency in the Palestinian Authority (PA), few of the employees took an interest in the developments in the far-off conference or in the events unfolding in the nearby square. The firm’s manager, Tariq Abbas, emphasizes that he does everything he can to avoid dealing directly with politics. His secretary is also surprised to hear about the demonstration and says she has no interest in it. Nevertheless, Abbas believes that his efforts to sell Palestinians products of local and international manufacture, instead of Israeli goods, are an integral element of the struggle against the occupation. He cannot, however, get too far away from politics. Not only does the reality of the occupation constantly affect the work of his office, which was used as an Israeli outpost during the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Operation Defensive Shield, in the spring of 2002: Abbas also encounters the world of politics at every family gathering, since he is the son of PA President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). more..

New Har Homa Settlement Expansion Undermines New Peace Efforts and Future Negotiations
ATFP, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     Washington, DC, December 6 -- The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) expressed grave concern today about reports that the Israeli government has invited bids to build more than 300 new housing units in the Har Homa settlement in occupied East Jerusalem.
     Both Israelis and Palestinians had committed at the Annapolis meeting to immediately begin implementing their Roadmap obligations, of which an Israeli settlement freeze including natural growth is a key part. ATFP urges the Bush Administration to use its good offices to ensure that this new settlement construction program does not go forward, and that neither side take steps to jeopardize re-launched peace efforts or undermine final status negotiations scheduled to begin on December 12.
     Commenting on the issue ATFP President Ziad J. Asali said, “A new and serious opportunity for progress towards peace has been created at Annapolis and we urge all parties to refrain from undermining these hopes by actions inconsistent with peace. The expansion of the Har Homa settlement in occupied East Jerusalem is precisely such an action and will only serve to undermine upcoming peace negotiations.” more..

Syria ’Not Pessimistic’ on Mideast Peace Talks
Agence France Presse, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     WASHINGTON - Syria is not pessimistic about US-brokered talks that had set a goal of a Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by the end of 2008, said its envoy to Washington, Imad Moustapha.
     But he warned that Israel’s occupation of territories and killing of Palestinians could wreck negotiations launched at the US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland last month.
     “It can go into the footnotes of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict but it can be the start of something and I am not going to be very pessimistic,” Moustapha told a forum organized by Georgetown University late Thursday.
     “Negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis are happening right now as we talk, there is always this possibility -- remote or not -- that something might happen, something positive,” he said.
     Moustapha stressed however that comprehensive peace could only be attained if Israel “changed the reality on the ground” and ended its “policies of occupation.” more..

The Catch-22 of Palestinian Reform
Keir Prince, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     You are building your home. But you are having a problem with the architect, who keeps demolishing parts of the house. Sometimes he feels you did not follow the blueprints, sometimes he feels you used sub-standard materials, and sometimes, even though you are sure you followed all the instructions, he just does not like the way it turned out. You are exhausted, the costs are almost incalculable and there seems to be no end in sight.
     The Palestinian National Authority (PNA), the hapless home builder, and the international community, the architect, have been applying themselves to the Palestinian institution-building project for more than 14 years. There have been achievements but also many failures, and the project is far from complete. Now is the time to focus on the mistakes - in this case those of the international community - and in particular, the inconsistencies in its engagement. more..

US Criticises Israeli Homes Plan
BBC News, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     The United States has voiced rare criticism of Israel, for its decision to build more homes on occupied land.
     "This doesn’t help build confidence," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after meeting Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni in Brussels.
     Israel said on Tuesday it had invited bids to build 300 new homes in Har Homa, a settlement in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians asked the US for help.
     Israel says it annexed the area in 1967 and so does not regard it as occupied.
     However, the Palestinians say Israel is trying to encircle the capital of a future Palestinian state.
     Ms Rice recalled last week’s Middle East peace conference in Annapolis - a planned step towards relaunching the long-dormant Middle East peace process.
     "We are in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence with the parties, and this doesn’t help to build confidence," she told journalists. more..

Policy on Hamas / An Egyptian-Saudi Slap to Abbas
Avi Issacharoff, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     The news from the Rafah border crossing earlier this week astounded the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. They had arranged with Israel to allow some 2,000 Palestinians from Gaza to go to Saudi Arabia via the Kerem Shalom and Allenby Bridge border crossings for the hajj celebrations.
     But Cairo apparently had different plans. The Egyptians allowed 700 Palestinians on Monday and 1,300 on Tuesday to cross the border into Sinai, where buses were waiting to take them to Saudi Arabia.
     "The Egyptians stabbed us in the back," a senior PA official said. It turned out that the move had been coordinated with the Hamas government and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi embassy in Cairo swiftly processed the Gaza pilgrims’ visa applications sent by the Hamas government, while the Saudi embassy in Amman held up all the visa applications sent by the PA, even those of West Bank pilgrims. more..

A Jewish Israel Needs a Wholesome, Healed Palestine
Rami G. Khouri, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     One of the most complex and confounding elements that emerged during the run-up to the Annapolis meeting was the demand by several senior Israelis, and its parallel rejection by Palestinian officials, that the Palestinians recognise Israel as “a Jewish state” as a precondition for the start of talks.
     Israel’s demand that the Arabs recognise it “as a Jewish state” cannot be taken frivolously, however strongly one feels about it. It resonates with many Israelis with the same magnitude as resolving the refugees’ status does with Palestinians. It is a core, existential issue, perhaps the single most important issue for Israelis. It will come up again, forcefully, and soon.
     Israelis have assumed that the Oslo accords and the PLO’s 1988 recognition of Israel’s “right to exist” recognised Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, and a majority Jewish state. This is basically correct. Yet the Palestinian and Arab recognition of Israel has never been one sided, one dimensional, offered in a vacuum, or fully unconditional. The various acknowledgements of Israeli statehood, and the acceptance of the existing Jewish-majority Israeli state - including in today’s Annapolis process - have always assumed simultaneous movement towards a resolution of the statelessness of the Palestinians that resulted from the creation of Israel in 1948. more..

Engaging Hamas: The When and the How
Rafi Dajani And Ghaith Al-omari, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     Since the Hamas military takeover of Gaza in June 2007, the organization has suffered a number of blows that have left it weakened. Its support among Palestinians has dropped markedly due to the public’s displeasure with both the violent nature of the Gaza takeover and the increasing social restrictions associated with Hamas rule. Added to that is Hamas’ inability to break out of its international isolation and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. Finally, the attendance of even Syria, where an anti-Annapolis conference featuring Hamas had been planned and subsequently canceled, at the Annapolis meeting, left Hamas on the side of Iran as the two rejectionist parties to the new peace effort.
     To paraphrase Mark Twain however, we should not greatly exaggerate reports of Hamas’ demise. Hamas cannot be ignored and shut off in Gaza indefinitely. At some point, and certainly before any future Israeli-Palestinian peace deal can be implemented, there must be Palestinian reconciliation. The question is when and how. more..

Rice Criticizes Israel on Settlement Building
Ari Rabinovitch, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Condoleezza Rice criticized Israel on Friday for planning to build new homes on occupied land in the Jerusalem area -- a move Palestinians say could wreck a peace process Rice helped launch last week in Washington.
     "We are in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence with the parties and this doesn’t help to build confidence," the U.S. Secretary of State said in rare public censure of Washington’s closest ally in the Middle East.
     At a news conference at NATO in Brussels after she had met Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, Rice added: "There should not be anything which might prejudge final-status negotiations.
     "It’s even more important now that we are on the eve of the beginning of the negotiations. I made that position clear."
     Rice has to a degree staked her claim to a foreign policy legacy going into the final year of the Bush administration on seeking a settlement of the 60-year-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Last week’s accord at Annapolis, Maryland, to resume negotiations after a violent, 7-year hiatus came after nearly a year of Middle East shuttle diplomacy by the secretary of state. more..

Young Israelis Resist Challenges to Settlements
Isabel Kershner, MIFTAH 12/8/2007
     SHVUT AMI OUTPOST, West Bank — For two months, Jewish youths have been renovating an old stone house on this muddy hilltop in the northern West Bank. The house is not theirs, however. It belongs to a Palestinian family. And their seizure of it along with the land around it for a new settlement outpost is a violation of Israeli law. The police have evicted the group five times but they keep coming back.
     Yedidya Slonim, 16, one of the renovators here, who grew up in another West Bank settlement, Tzofim, said of the police: “We come back straight away, as soon as they’ve gone. They come every week for half a day. It doesn’t bother us so much.”
     The cat-and-mouse contest here lays bare a key dilemma of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute: Israel has pledged that it will permit no new settlements in the territory it has occupied since the 1967 war, no more expropriation of Palestinian land and the dismantling of unauthorized outposts — like this one — erected since March 2001, but it has never applied the muscle needed to do so. more..

Only 41 percent of Gaza’s food import needs being met
Report, The Electronic Intifada, 7 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/7/2007
     JERUSALEM, 6 December (IRIN) - Food imports into the Gaza Strip are only enough to meet 41 percent of demand, the World Food Program (WFP) has said, though critical UN humanitarian food supplies are being allowed in.
     The cost of many basic items, such as beef, wheat and some dairy products have increased significantly, while locally grown produce is fetching extremely low prices on the local market, as exports are banned, threatening the livelihood of farmers.
     Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June, the commercial crossing points with Israel have been all but shut, except for the import of basic humanitarian goods. Israel said it could not operate the crossings with Hamas, which it deems a terrorist organization, controlling the other side.
     Israel is imposing the restrictions in retaliation for the continued firing of missiles from Gaza into Israel.
     A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister’s office said there "cannot be business as usual" with the Gaza Strip as long as rocket attacks against southern Israel continue. more..

Testimony: Israel delays treatment of two Gaza toddlers
Report, B'Tselem, 7 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/7/2007
     I was born in Jordan to a father from the Gaza Strip. In 1994, I came to Gaza on a visitor’s permit that my uncle obtained for me. In 1995, my fiancee also entered Gaza on a visitor’s permit and we got married. At the time, we thought we would be able to obtain Palestinian identity cards. I worked in the office of the Palestinian Naval Police. In 1996, our first child was born, a daughter, whom we named Ghaida’, and in 1998, our daughter Maysa’ was born.
     In 2000, our first son, Muhammad, was born. Ten days after he was born, we noticed that his skin was yellow, so we took him to al-Shifa’a Hospital, in Gaza, for an examination. The doctors said that we should wait and that the yellow skin color would go away on its own, but that didn’t happen. We took him back for more tests and the doctors said we had to take him to Ramallah for a CT, because there was no place in Gaza to do it. more..

Largest Dutch trade union will increase pressure on Israel
Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 7 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/7/2007
     On 29 November 2007, the day that the UN proclaimed as the International Day of Solidarity with Palestine, the largest Dutch trade union, FNV ABVAKABO, with over 350,000 members, sent a letter to its colleagues at the Palestinian Health Services Union and Public Services Union, based on a decision of its membership. FNV ABVAKABO informed the unions about the postponement of its solidarity conference that was planned on that day. They assured the Palestinian trade unions that the union will put pressure on Israel to comply with international law Solidarity policy Since 1994 Palestine has been part of FNV ABVAKABO international solidarity policy. In its letter to the Palestinian unions it refers to a resolution of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which was adopted in December 2004. The ICFTU has 241 affiliated organizations in 156 countries with a membership of 155 million. The resolution calls for the immediate ending of the occupation of 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza, including the existence of the wall and Jewish settlements. more..

"No fuel, no gasoline, no benzene"
Rami Almeghari writing from Gaza City, occupied Gaza Strip, Live, Electronic Intifada 12/7/2007
     With the majority of gas stations closed in Gaza due to the escalating fuel crisis,a group of local Gaza taxi drivers shared the fuel in their cars’ tanks, for the sake of going back home, rather than earning a living under already dire economic conditions.
     Majed Abu Sam’an, a driver of a Hyundai taxi minibus, was parked along with other drivers in mid-day Tuesday, 4 December 2007, siphoning gasoline from his car’s tank into that of another.
     "We are helping him so he can go back home, as he has been stuck here in Gaza City since the early hours of morning. We went to all the gas stations but they were closed, no fuel to buy," says Abu Sama’an, amongst idle drivers at a taxi stop, near Gaza’s Shifa Hospital.
     Next to the hospital lies one of the largest gas stations in the city, al-Khuzendar station.
     On the roof of the station is a newly installed, well-dressed scarecrow, slightly different from his cousin who can be seen in farm fields to keep birds away. more..

The next "generous offer"?
Neta Golan, The Electronic Intifada, 7 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/7/2007
     Anyone familiar with Israeli politics was not surprised that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not acknowledge Israel’s occupation in his speech at Annapolis. What was surprising was that short of mentioning the "R" word -- "refugees" -- Olmert implicitly acknowledged the Palestinian refugee problem.
     Referring to the Palestinians, the Israeli prime minister stated in his Annapolis speech: "Your people, too, have suffered for many years; and there are some who still suffer. Many Palestinians have been living for decades in camps, disconnected from the environment in which they grew up, wallowing in poverty, in neglect, alienation, bitterness, and a deep, unrelenting sense of humiliation." Olmert’s characterization of the refugees is only partially correct. Poverty, neglect, alienation, bitterness and feelings of humiliation, are only one component of the refugee experience. There are also other components, such as community, pride, generosity, and perseverance. This one-dimensional characterization obviously suits Olmert’s conception of a solution. It also casts refugees as objects that will be acted upon (once again), rather than subjects who can genuinely participate in finding a solution. A recent article in the Israeli daily Haaretz titled "Refugees and Jerusalem: A question of money" sheds light on Olmert’s statements. The article revealed the outlines of the deal being cooked to sell the rights of the Palestinian refugees. more..

Normalising injustice
Arthur Neslen, ZNet 12/5/2007
     Diplomatic briefcases are unlikely to be dropped at news of Condoleezza Rice’s call, on the eve of the Riyadh summit, for Arab states to "
     reach out to Israel " and show they accept it. Israel’s insistence that negotiators begin by accepting its right to exist has already pushed normalisation up the political agenda.
       The desire to become a nation like any other is strong among war-weary Israelis. The problem for Palestinians is that normalising relations with Israel also means normalising an ongoing occupation, the circumstances which led up to it, and the racism that engendered within Israel. And that’s before negotiations even start.
       For secular Zionists though, the dream of becoming an ordinary nation with its own Jewish football hooligans and Jewish riot squads has deep roots. Theodore Herzl, the founding father of Zionism, believed that attaining statehood would be a guarantor of acceptance by gentile society. He may have been right, but it came at a price. In mandate Palestine, Jews constituted little more than 30% of the population and owned just 6% of its land. The statehood endeavour involved the brutal dispossession of another people. more..

Annapolis Hypocrisy Hides Occupied Palestine Reality
Stephen Lendman, ZNet 12/4/2007
     Against the sham backdrop of Annapolis , life in occupied Palestine is a daily struggle to endure and survive what Edward Said once referred to as Israel ’s "refined viciousness." This article addresses one week of it no different than most others. It shows the road to peace isn’t through Annapolis nor can it be achieved without a willing partner or with the legitimate Palestinian government excluded. Talks are futile as long Israel spurns peace, violates international law, attacks Palestinian civilians, seizes their land, destroys their homes, restricts their movements, conducts targeted assassinations, denies them essential services, and holds Gaza under a medieval siege in the world’s largest open-air prison while blaming the victims.
       Unreported is that the West Bank is also under siege that’s been tightened in recent weeks on targeted communities. more..

The Devastation Our Disunity has Created
Joharah Baker for MIFTAH, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     This morning, Israeli forces killed yet another three Hamas activists in an air strike on Beit Lahiya in the Gaza Strip. Over the past two weeks, some 30 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military forces, mostly in the Strip, even as Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak insists his army continues to hold out on wide scale military action there.
     Israel claims it is defending its citizens from the rocket attacks into their towns and cities just outside of the Gaza Strip. And Israel doesn’t mince its words. “It is time to kill those who carry out attacks against Israelis,” Barak said. In turn, Israel has tacked a number to its argument, perhaps to offer more credibility and hence justification for these targeted killings. According to Israeli government sources, some 2,000 homemade Palestinian rockets have been fired into Israeli territory in the past year. Sounds scary, no doubt until one realizes just how inaccurate if not virtually innocuous these rockets really are. In this past year, two Israelis actually died as a result of these rockets, by admission of Israel itself. According to an Israeli ministry of foreign affairs website named, “Victims of Palestinian Violence andTerrorism since September 2000”, two Israeli citizens died in May of this year after a Qassam rocket hit their town of Sderot. more..

Adding Insult to Gaza’s Injuries
Gulf News - Editorial, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     At a time when the international community is meeting to try to resolve one of the longest standing conflicts in the world, around 20 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israel - in less than one week.
     These Israeli atrocities only fuel feelings of distrust between the two sides and further contribute to the isolation of the Gaza Strip.
     To make matters worse, hospitals in Gaza are beginning to run out of vital fuel supplies. This of course is a direct result of Israeli sanctions that have been imposed on the Gaza Strip.
     Most petrol stations in Gaza now have shut down, and medical patients are facing renewed risks. Some patients, who sought treatment outside Gaza, have died while waiting for Israel to allow them to leave. However one looks at it, Gazans are suffering and it is time focus is placed on Israel’s inhumane actions towards these abandoned people. more..

Two States or One? Time to Choose
John V. Whitbeck, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     Almost immediately after the hollow show in Annapolis, a ray of hope has appeared from an unexpected source — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In an interview published on Nov. 29 in the Israeli daily Haaretz, he declared, “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.”
     This Haaretz article helpfully referred readers to a prior article, published by the same daily on March 13, 2003, in which Olmert had expressed the same concern in the following terms: “More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against ‘occupation’, in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle — and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state.” more..

A Letdown Even to Skeptics
Ghassan Khatib, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     Even those who had modest expectations for the Annapolis conference were disappointed by its results: an agreement to start negotiations and a statement that selectively reiterated parts of the roadmap that the parties had anyway failed to implement since it was introduced in 2003.
     The two sides, with heavy American involvement, failed not only to bridge the gap between them and make political progress toward agreement, but also to agree on any terms of reference for the negotiations that are to follow or even their subject. That should confirm previous suspicions that the parties needed the Annapolis conference to strengthen the respective leaderships in Israel, Palestine and the US rather than to achieve any tangible progress in peacemaking.
     The inability to agree on almost anything in the preparations for Annapolis, including an agenda or the terms of reference for subsequent negotiations, is a strong indication that the forecast for the actual negotiations is extremely poor. The parties, who exaggerated the scale of the event, were at the same time consistent in their attempts to lower political expectations. more..

Pray for Success, Because Israel Will Pay the Price of Annapolis Failure
Gershon Baskin, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     The Annapolis process is on its way. This week the permanent status negotiations will formally commence. On December 17 the international community will be convening in Paris to launch the second pillar of the process by committing hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuilding the Palestinian economy and supporting Palestinian institution development. Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayed together with Israeli and Palestinian security officials are already deeply engaged in beginning to implement the Palestinian obligations of the Road Map. The Israeli side will also have to begin to implement its obligations, firstly removing unauthorized outposts and redeploying outside of the Palestinian areas.
     Retired Marine Gen. James Jones has been given his marching orders, and he too, is on the way.
     Everyone is skeptical regarding the possibility of success. Israelis and Palestinians are equally doubtful that reaching an agreement is possible and even more suspicious that implementing what is agreed upon and what the parties have already agreed to do in the past will be implemented. more..

Israel Hedges on Annapolis Deadline
Martin Chulov, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     ISRAELI leaders are refusing to commit to December next year as a deadline for squaring off peace with the Palestinians, claiming the time frame agreed to in the Annapolis summit was a guideline only.
     Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni both raised Annapolis during lengthy addresses at a cabinet meeting yesterday. The meeting was the first since the pair returned from Washington with a commitment from US President George W. Bush to drive difficult negotiations towards a resolution late next year.
     Deal-making within Mr Olmert’s coalition Government is looming as just as fraught a process as finalising a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority. The right-wing political bloc in Israel yesterday continued its hardline opposition to many of the principles tabled in Annapolis.
     Ms Livni reiterated that all bets will be off unless Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s regime can fulfil security obligations under the peace road map. more..

Analysis: After Annapolis
BBC News - Editorial, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     The sun was going down over Chesapeake Bay last Tuesday as the Middle East diplomatic circus left the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. The Israeli and Palestinian delegations headed for home, by way of Washington DC, and more meetings with President Bush.
     Since the summer, just getting to Annapolis and not letting the meeting become a disaster has been the main focus of American policy towards the two sides.
     Now all of them, Americans, Palestinians, Israelis, and the others who came in support - 16 Arab countries, and nearly a quarter of the world’s foreign ministers - have to try to deliver.
     The plan is to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. At Annapolis the joint statement of the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, read out by President George W Bush, said they would "make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008". The target is big and will be hard to reach. more..

Peace Talks Back From the Dead
Ralf Beste, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     Peace in the Middle East has been but a faint glimmer on the horizon since the 2000 Camp David talks failed. But now, both the Israelis and Palestinians say they are once again committed to reaching an agreement. But it might depend on their neighbors.
     A Palestinian member of the Fatah Movement watches the Annapolis summit on television last week.
     The command center of the Palestinian National Security forces in the West Bank town of Hebron is surrounded by concrete block barricades. Palestinian guards in olive-green uniforms hold their Kalashnikovs at the ready. Major General Thiab al-Ali, 63, the commander of more than 8,000 troops, sits inside chatting about the enemy.
     On the wall behind him is a picture of Yasser Arafat, the now-deceased founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and former president of the Palestinian Territories. Ali spent 30 years leading the PLO in Lebanon in its struggle against Israel. But now he has changed his mind about the identity of the Palestinians’ worst enemy: It is, he says, the Palestinians themselves. "We fought Israel in the past," says the general, "but today we are forced take up arms against our own people." more..

Israel to Build Homes in East Jerusalem
Aron Heller, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     Israel said Tuesday it is seeking bids to build more than 300 new homes in a disputed east Jerusalem neighborhood, drawing Palestinian condemnations that the move is undermining the newly revived peace talks held last week in Annapolis, Md.
     A Housing Ministry spokesman said 307 units would be built in Har Homa, a Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem.
     Israel captured the eastern part of the city in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
     Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he sent an urgent message to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, asking her to block the project from moving forward.
     "This is undermining Annapolis," he said, referring to the U.S.-hosted summit, where Israel and the Palestinians relaunched peace talks.
     The two sides agreed to base their peace talks on the U.S.-backed "road map," a peace plan that calls on Israel to halt all settlement construction. more..

Mideast: Olmert Walks Razor’s Edge in Peace Talks
Peter Hirschberg, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has issued a dire warning to his people. Failure to reach a negotiated two-state settlement with the Palestinians, he has declared, will mean the end of the State of Israel.
     "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished," Olmert told the daily Haaretz, a day after he and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed at a summit in the U.S. to try and reach a peace agreement by the end of 2008.
     The prime minister was referring to what Israelis call the "demographic threat". With Arab birth rates higher than those of Jews, if the two-state solution dies, then Jews will become a minority in the geographic space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea -- an area that includes sovereign Israel, the West Bank and Gaza -- and Israel will have to defend itself against increasingly vociferous claims it is no longer a democracy. more..

Policy Surge Key to Mideast Peace
H.d.s. Greenway, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     IT OFTEN takes electric shock treatment to get the Middle East off its dead center of inertia. The lightning success of the first Gulf war in 1991 produced just that, unsettling all the old presumptions.
     more stories like this U.S. pulls U.N. Middle East draft disliked by Israel Rice picks envoy to track Mideast talks Arabs return from summit uneasy, skeptical of future Annapolis meeting has created a real opportunity for Middle East peace Abbas aims for peace agreement before end of Bush’s term President George H.W. Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker, recognized that although Iraq was no longer a threatening player for ill, there was more to be done. They recognized the centrality of the Palestinians to regional stability. They were quick to take advantage of the changed equation to bring - or drag, as in the case of Yitzhak Shamir’s Israel - the regional powers to a conference in Madrid. more..

Palestinians Expand Security Drive With New Forces
Muin Shadid, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s government stepped up a Western-backed crackdown on gunmen on Tuesday by deploying hundreds of security officers in the West Bank city of Tulkarm.
     Tulkarm is the second West Bank city to welcome the new Palestinian force. The security drive, which comes as Palestinians start talks with Israel about statehood, started last month when hundreds of officers were deployed in Nablus.
     The city’s governor said at least 500 security officers were deployed at key intersections of the northern West Bank city, erecting checkpoints and searching for unlicensed guns and stolen vehicles.
     The deployment is designed to help the Palestinian Authority exert its power in the occupied West Bank, and to bolster Abbas against Islamist Hamas which seized the Gaza Strip and routed Abbas’s forces in violent clashes in June.
     Israel, which is backing the security push, hopes it will help Abbas and his secular Fatah-backed government rein in militants -- a step demanded by Israel after the two sides launched formal peace talks in Annapolis, Maryland, last week. more..

The Lobby Strikes Back
Scott Mcconnell, MIFTAH 12/5/2007
     One prism through which to gauge the impact of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy is a September incident involving Barack Obama. His campaign had placed small ads in various spots around the Internet, designed to drive readers to its website. One turned up on Amazon’s page for the Walt and Mearsheimer book. A vigilant watchdog at the New York Sun spotted it and contacted the campaign: Did Obama support Walt and Mearsheimer?
     The answer came within hours. The ad was withdrawn. Its placement was “unintentional.” The senator, his campaign made clear, understood that key arguments of the book were “wrong,” but had definitely not read the work himself. In short, Walt and Mearsheimer had reached a pinnacle of notoriety.
     Though The Israel Lobby was on the way to best-sellerdom and has become perhaps the most discussed policy book of the year, the presidential candidate touted as the most fresh-thinking and intellectually curious in the race hastened to make clear he had not been corrupted by the toxic text. more..

Talk Less, Do More
Michal Radoshitzky, MIFTAH 12/4/2007
     “The international circumstances that were created, specifically at this time, allow you and us to take a courageous step, which involves the need to make painful compromises and forgo those dreams which were part of our national ethos for so many years, and to open a new chapter offering hope for a better life for all of us.”
     (Prime Minster Ehud Olmert, speaking at the official memorial ceremony for David Ben-Gurion, November 27, 2006.) Exactly one year has passed, and we were treated to similar words at Annapolis. But perhaps that is the nature of the problem. At the moment, and in all other moments that have culminated in this one, words have comprised the backbone of the somewhat spineless Israeli-Palestinian process. Now that the Annapolis meeting is over, the time has come for our leaders to talk less and do more.
     I have always been a strong proponent of dialogue as a means of solving any dispute. And it is certainly true that it has taken our various leaderships seven years of military operations and unilateralism to finally realize that the only viable way to achieve a thriving Israeli state is through negotiations on an agreement that satisfies both parties to the conflict. more..

The Thing About Annapolis ...
Osama Al Sharif, MIFTAH 12/4/2007
     Sixteen years is a long time in politics. But that is the gap that now separates the Madrid Middle East peace conference, called for by President George Bush Sr and the Annapolis meeting, which convened last week under the patronage of his son.
     To underline the size of the gap between the two events one is reminded that all the key players have changed; passed on or retired. The world has evolved dramatically and the core issue of the conflict in the Middle East has become even more complicated.
     Like his father before him, George Bush Jr has become embroiled in the Middle East; invading Iraq and waging a tedious war in Afghanistan. Initially his administration wanted to avoid any mix-up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
     As a result of America’s reluctance and indifference the Palestinians lost most of the gains they had made as a result of Madrid and the Oslo process. Today most of the damage the Bush administration is hoping to repair took place during its watch. more..

Israel Errs in Trying to Impose its Jewish Identity
Shulamit Aloni, MIFTAH 12/4/2007
     Jews are a people but not a nation; they are a religious ethnic group or as respected a tribe as may be. The Jewish citizens of Britain, including the orthodox, are British, and that is what is written in their passports and in the British population registry.
     The same is true of France: The Jews there are French. In Canada, they are Canadians, and in Holland they are Dutch. They uphold their Jewish lives in their communities, since in democratic nations there is freedom of religion and freedom from religion. If these states were to register their Jewish citizens as "Jewish" in the nationality category, we would accuse them of being anti-Semitic.
     There is a difference between a people, a religion, and a nationality, since nationality is decided by citizenship - a people as opposed to a nation - and therefore citizenship is nationality. The affinity of a citizen to the state is based on citizenship and not on religion; it is based neither on the tribe nor on maternal genes. more..

Meet the Lebanese Press: In the shadow of Annapolis
Hicham Safieddine, Electronic Lebanon, 4 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/4/2007
     Whether to disarm Hizballah, whose flag flies alongside that of Lebanon’s above liberated Khiam prison in southern Lebanon, is a central issue of Lebanon’s political impasse. (Maureen Clare Murphy) It seemingly took a stillborn conference like Annapolis to break the deadlock in the Lebanese presidential crisis. In a surprise move this past week, the March 14 camp nominated Lebanese army chief Michel Suleiman for the presidency. Suleiman had been considered a preferred candidate for the opposition camp. His long-standing support of the resistance against Israel and his amicable relations with Damascus made him agreeable to the opposition camp. But the army’s recent assault on Nahr al-Bared refugee camp endeared him to the Americans as well. Now, he is emerging as the man of consensus. But none of Suleiman’s attributes has changed in the past two months, which raises the question of why did all the parties involved bicker over every constitutional provision and expose the hypocrisy of confessional democracy before they agreed on the name. Many political observers point out that Suleiman’s nomination was not the result of an awakening of the Lebanese politicians, but a reflection of a regional developments, including the apparent rapprochement between Syria and the US. more..

The 12 Myths of Annapolis
Phyllis Bennis, ZNet 12/3/2007
     Myth #1) The Annapolis meeting was designed to launch serious new negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians that aimed at ending the occupation and producing a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the region based on a two-state solution.
     In fact, the two main reasons for the conference had virtually nothing to do with Israel or Palestine . The real reasons for convening the conference were 1) to strengthen Arab government support for U.S. strategies in the Middle East, including the war in Iraq and particularly the escalation of pressure aimed at Iran. 2) To provide a photo-op to reframe Condoleezza Rice’s legacy, now largely shaped by her embrace of Israel ’s bombardment of Lebanon in 2006, to the legacy of a would-be peacemaker.
     Myth #2) The time is right for new talks because, as President Bush said, "Palestinians and Israelis have leaders who are determined to achieve peace." more..

A Different History of Israel
Najeh Shahin, MIFTAH 12/3/2007
     It’s almost a civil war. And nothing could be more appropriate to the agendas of Washington and Tel Aviv more than that. The problem is that in the “west bank” they do not want to see it directly conducted because it reaches their boundaries. That’s why they did not favor it. So let it be some limited civil war in the west bank with a more severe one in Gaza. Let that bad community eat it self since we cannot bring Rabin’s wish that the sea swallows Gaza into fulfillment. After that, things are going to be so easy. The democratic nationalist government in Ramallah chooses its political priority as defeating the gangsters of Hamas in Gaza. There is no occupation in Gaza and the west bank and the settlements are not threatening to take the less than 5% remaining land of Palestine. Anyway, if there is any problem, Annapolis is going to settle it soon. The nice story is that Israel will take the land and some few thousands of Palestinian mercenaries take some pocket money. Peace and love is going to prevail. That’s definitely the scenario in the wishful thinking of Israel, the U.S and their puppet Palestinian Authority led by Abbas and some business elites. Unluckily history proved that it’s more cunning than that and the story would produce another plot of its own and then, only then, Americans as well as Israeli’s probably would remember that they would produce another smart and revolutionary Hezbollah in Palestine. There arms and financial support to the puppet in Ramallah is only undermining the little credibility that it still has, changing it into completely traitor gangsters in the eyes of the Palestinian people. But let us forget about all this and try to read some history. more..

The Other Half of the Peace Process
Daoud Kuttab, MIFTAH 12/3/2007
     American officials usually spend enormous energy highlighting the “process” in the Middle East “peace process.” Only in the last 18 months of a second term president or following a military engagement in the Middle East does the United States actually start to concern itself with “peace.”
     This pattern seems to be holding true for today’s US-sponsored Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. The difference now is that, unlike the Madrid Conference after the 1991 American-led Gulf War, the current effort is coming after a perceived American defeat in Iraq.
     Assuming that the Bush administration is serious in its current efforts, the US must have a Plan B in case the talks fail. For Palestinians, the main concern is to avoid negative repercussions if they do.
     Unlike former President Bill Clinton, who blamed Yasser Arafat for the failure of the Camp David talks in 2000, the Bush administration must honour its commitment not to point fingers or allow either side to use failure to advance its strategic goals. more..

What was Said and Not Said in Annapolis
Sonja Karkar, MIFTAH 12/3/2007
     Although "never-never" has long been used to describe the remote outback of Australia, the term is also known as fantasyland, especially when someone dreams about a utopian future - an apt description of what has been going on in Annapolis. The staged seriousness of the moment was well illustrated when an unusually be-spectacled US President George Bush read the joint understanding that said nothing more than what has been said so many times before. Yet, Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert was determined not to lose the photo opportunity and insisted that it capture the President shaking hands with him and Palestinian President Abbas. For Israel, nothing was lost and time gained. For the Palestinians, peace was left hanging in the "never-never".
     The essence of that joint understanding requires Israel and the Palestinians to commit to ongoing talks and to implement immediately their obligations under the more than 5-year-old performance-based Road Map, until a peace treaty is reached, as judged by the US. This Road Map to a permanent two-state solution was supposed to reach "a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005." It did not, and two years later, the parties are still only committing to a process that the US hopes will see a permanent status agreement by the end of 2008. more..

Changing the Roles of Peace Making
Roger H. Lieberman, MIFTAH 12/3/2007
     All the news to come out of Annapolis suggests that the two constants that have doomed successive diplomatic efforts in the Holy Land remain unchanged: Israel’s quest to legitimize a separate and unequal relationship with the Palestinian people, and the White House’s foolish endorsement of this Israeli paradigm. In American life, the latter has become a fixture as constant as death and taxes – indeed, it is intimately related to both.
     Back in 2004, when President Bush conveyed his notorious “understandings” to then-Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon – in which he recognized Israel’s “right” to annex settlement blocs and deny Palestinian refugees the Right of Return – he let a nasty genie out of its lamp, which now hovers over the Annapolis process. Although these had been America’s de-facto positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict for many years, Bush, by publicly articulating them, added considerably more weight – much as the US Supreme Court’s notorious ruling in the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson case became a formidable tool in the hands of segregationists for over half a century. more..

Mission Accomplished
Osamah Khalil, MIFTAH 12/3/2007
     So it is over. The much heralded Annapolis "meeting" attended by over 50 countries and organizations has ended, and the result is a vague, non-binding agreement to begin negotiating. In typical fashion, the Bush administration has hailed the conference of low-expectations and even less tangible results as a "success." Instead of donning a flight suit and landing on an aircraft carrier, US President George W. Bush offered his best Bill Clinton imitation presiding over a ceremonial handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, like an approving father or Roman emperor. However, rather than remind observers of the halcyon days of September 1993, the oft repeated handshake between Israeli and Palestinian leaders leads many to paraphrase Karl Marx: "History repeats itself first as tragedy, second as farce." Indeed, a farce has been carried out in the last week of November, where the conference was symbolically and cynically timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the United Nations’ vote to partition Palestine. If symbolism was what the Bush administration sought in planning this conference, they were at least partially successful, as both Saudi Arabia and Syria sent high level diplomatic officials. Yet, the emptiness of those symbols and associated declarations served to only further engender cynicism among observers around the world working toward a just resolution of this conflict. more..

The Palestine that we Struggle for
Jamal Juma, MIFTAH 12/3/2007
     Last Tuesday’s demonstrations, which brought thousands onto the streets of Ramallah, Hebron, Tulkarem, Nablus and Gaza in defiance of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) attempt to silence the peoples’ voice, represented a crucial moment for Palestine.
     Our demonstration, which was supported by the Popular Committees of the Refugee Camps and over 150 civil society organizations and representatives, called for the upholding of the fundamental principles of our struggle: the right of the refugees to return, the right to Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, and the right to our land. We were refusing the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, as this would legitimize the Zionist ideology of colonialism, racism and ethnic cleansing, and effectively exonerate Israel from the crimes of the Nakba, waiving the right of return. Such recognition would justify and reinforce the Israeli system of apartheid against Palestinian citizens of Israel. more..

One in a Shroud, One on Crutches
Gideon Levy, MIFTAH 12/3/2007
     The prisoners went to sleep after the evening roll call. At 2 A.M. they woke in a panic when hundreds of armed warders from the Masada and Nahshon units of the Israel Prisons Service (IPS) raided their tents. Quickly the scene turned into a battlefield. The warders fired at the inmates with a variety of weapons; the inmates fought back by throwing vegetables and other random objects.
     According to affidavits submitted by a number of prisoners to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, the warders were extremely brutal. They shot inmates and beat them with truncheons even when they lay bound on the floor, and forced more than 400 prisoners into a small visitors’ room. The result: one prisoner killed by ammunition of unknown type - though the testimonies indicate that he was shot in the head at close range - and a large number of prisoners wounded.
     The fatality was Mohammed Ashkar, who was 29 at the time of his death. A few months ago, we visited his home in the village of Saida, shortly after his older brother, Lo’ai, was released from the same prison, Ketziot. Lo’ai is half paralyzed as a result of torture he underwent at the hands of the Shin Bet security service. In his living room we saw a fine drawing of a prisoner burying his head between his legs, done by his brother, Mohammed. Now Mohammed is dead. In their parents’ home, which is across the road from the cemetery, they are now mourning for the dead Mohammed and the crippled Lo’ai. This is the "prisoner release" of the Ashkar family: one in a shroud, the other on crutches. more..

Israel’s Dumping Ground
Amira Hass, MIFTAH 12/3/2007
     "When a truck unloads its garbage, it sounds like a battle is going on in the wadi," says Umm-Ahmed Musalah. And she knows whereof she speaks: Her house is located right at the entrance to a dump in the Palestinian village of Na’alin, about three kilometers north of Modi’in. In the two years since the site began operating, a big mound of garbage has accumulated on top of the wadi, and its outer edges are steadily encroaching on the vegetable garden and small orchard behind the house. Some of the trees have already dried out.
     Even as she speaks, another truck dumps its load - construction waste this time - with a thundering noise, just two or three hundred meters from Musalah’s garden. A cloud of dust rises skyward, momentarily obscuring the tile roofs of the Hashmonaim settlement on the nearby ridge. In the course of about two hours on the afternoon of Monday, November 19, eight trucks added their loads to the mountain of garbage. more..

Lieberman’s Cigar Test
Akiva Eldar, MIFTAH 12/3/2007
     While MKs from all the parties crowded into the Knesset cafeteria to watch the television broadcasts from Annapolis, Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman pushed aside the sign that bans smoking in the sitting room at the end of the main auditorium. It was clear he did not care a bit about the controversy over the joint declaration’s content. Nor did the decision to begin accelerated talks about a final-status agreement arouse much excitement in right-wing circles, inside and outside the coalition.
     On the other hand, the decisions at Annapolis tie the Labor Party to Ehud Olmert’s government and shield the cabinet ministers from the final Winograd report. Even Meretz is deliberating about how to treat a rightist who sounds like Uri Avnery.
     How will we know who is right? Those who stay at Olmert’s side because they believe/hope Annapolis will end up like innumerable previous conferences and agreements, or those who stick with the government because they assume/hope that this time things will be different? Have the decision makers learned their lessons from the failed attempts to achieve an agreement, or are they leading (mistakenly or deliberately) to an apartheid state, as the prime minister put it, in the worst case, or to another round of violence, in the equally bad case? Here are three tests that can help solve the riddle. more..

’The Mecca Agreement and the National Unity Government’
MIFTAH's Media Monitoring Unit, MIFTAH 12/3/2007
     Introduction In our first report on the ’Palestinian National Unity Government and Prospects for Peace’ we monitored an important stage during which infighting between the two main factions, Fateh and Hamas had peaked, and caused the death of many victims, including civilians, from both sides. The first report covered the period between 1/9/2006 to 30/12/2006, during which The Monitoring Unit staff reviewed and analyzed the three major newspapers: Al-Quds, Al-Ayyam and Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, as well as Palestine Television (PBC) over three months.
     This report, entitled ’the Mecca Agreement and the National Unity Government’ covers the period between 1/12007 to 31/3/2007, whose political and national developments were a continuation of the last quarter of last year. This period was very grave, as infighting, victims and bloodshed continued during the first two weeks of the current year, followed by political developments that ended with an agreement known as the Mecca Agreement, leading to the formation of the National Unity Government. more..

Demoralization and Absence
Ramzy Baroud, MIFTAH 12/3/2007
     A once profound and widely read commentator recently claimed he no longer writes about the Palestine/Israel conflict because "Palestinians are killing each other". Feeling his words have ceased to carry weight he simply decided not "to take sides".
     What should be made of such a reaction? Granted, what has transpired in Palestine in recent years is disheartening, demoralising and confusing.
     It is disheartening because a long-victimised nation, subject to an intense and ongoing colonial project should deploy all its energies in fighting its enemy’s long-term goal of an ethnically cleansed Palestine, i.e. a Palestine without Palestinians. Infighting is hardly an appropriate response to colonialism.
     It is demoralising because the Palestinians should inspire a global movement aimed at sending a clear message to Israel, that racism, colonialism and apartheid no longer have a place in a world that seeks equality, peace and harmony. Unfortunately a divided nation cannot present a unifying leadership, let alone a unified message. more..

Audio: Crossing the Line interviews Ramallah activist Sam Bahour
Podcast, Crossing the Line, 3 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/3/2007
     This week on Crossing The Line: Over recent years it has been increasingly difficult for foreign passport-holding Palestinians and internationals visiting Palestine to obtain visas and renew them from the governing Israeli occupation. Palestinian-American activist Sam Bahour joins us from Ramallah to discuss Israel’s control of people who wish to visit Palestine.
     Next Brown speaks with EI contributor and Crossing the Line correspondent Rami Almeghari about a mother of seven who died while waiting to receive permission from the Israelis to leave Gaza to receive medical care. Brown also speaks with Iyad Nasir, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza about recent human rights workshops led by the ICRC for Palestinian resistance activists from Gaza. more..

Palestinian shepherds’ livelihoods in jeopardy
Report, The Electronic Intifada, 3 December 2007, Electronic Intifada 12/3/2007
     DHAHARIYA, WEST BANK, 2 December (IRIN) - Palestinian herders in the southern part of the West Bank are facing increased poverty due to rising costs of fodder and water, as well as limitations on their access to grazing land, the herders and UN officials said.
     "Due to global droughts and the rising demand internationally for corn and barley bio-fuels, the prices of corn and barley fodder products have risen dramatically," said Santiago Ripoll, a food security analyst with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization working in the Hebron area in the southern West Bank.
     While some shepherds are facing large debts and financial ruin others are trying to sell off their livestock, despite falling sheep prices. Due to the decreasing health of the animals and the excess of sheep on the market as more farmers sell their animals, the price of a sheep has dropped to $91 this year from a high of $169 last year, according to OCHA figures. more..

Israel’s strategy for permanent occupation and apartheid
Jeff Halper, ZNet 11/30/2007
     Jeff Halper argues that, for the Israeli government and the majority of Israelis, the overriding question is not how to reach peace with the Palestinians but how to transform the occupation from a temporary situation to a permanent political fact, de facto or through apartheid.
     One may well think that the struggle inside the Jewish community of Israel is between those of the political right, who want to maintain the settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank so as to "redeem" the Greater Land of Israel as a Jewish country, and those of the left who seek a two-state solution with the Palestinians and are thus willing to relinquish enough of the "territories", if not all, in order that a viable Palestinian state may emerge.
     This is not really the case. Polls and the make-up of the Israeli government suggest that perhaps a quarter of Israeli Jews fall into the first group, the die-hards, while not more than 10 per cent support a full withdrawal from the occupied territories. (Virtually no Israeli Jews use the term "occupation," which Israel denies it has.) The vast majority of Israeli Jews, stretching from the liberal Meretz party through Labour, Kadima and into the "liberal" wing of the Likud, excepting only the religious parties and the extreme right-wing led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the current minister of strategic affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, share a broad consensus: for both security reasons and because of Israel’s "facts on the ground", the Arabs (as we [Israelis] call the Palestinians) will have to settle for a truncated mini-state on no more than 15-20 per cent of the country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
     more..

Miko Pelad: Rabin and My Father
Palestine Chronicle 11/30/2007
     The recent so-called peace summit in Annapolis Maryland, reminds me of a time in early 1995. Then, as the cancer was taking over his otherwise perfectly healthy body, my father Matti Peled gave an interview that became the weekend cover story for Yediot Aharonot. The headline for the story was: "Rabin Does Not Want Peace". This was in the midst of the Oslo euphoria when Rabin was The Man of Peace. This headline sealed the relationship between Rabin and my father, two men of steel who for thirty years had fought side by side, and worked together to build the Israeli army and then in 1967 lead it to the final conquest of the "Promised Land." Rabin never called to say farewell to my dying father as other comrades in arms did, nor did he come during the Shiva, the traditional seven days of mourning, to express his condolences. Eight months and three bullets later Rabin himself was dead.
     more..

Sonja Karkar: Partition of Palestine Ushers in Apartheid
Palestine Chronicle 11/30/2007
     On 29 November 2007, it will be sixty years since the United Nations General Assembly voted for the partition of Palestine.It was a treacherous decision forced through by the United States after pressuring delegates of several member states to reverse their earlier vote against partition, in order to obtain the two-thirds majority needed to pass the resolution. [1] The decision betrayed the majority Palestinian population of the day who had no say in the partition of their land. Instead, they saw 55 per cent of Palestine go to the minority foreign Jewish immigrant population, who a few months later became citizens of the newly-created state of Israel in the Palestinian heartland.
     Almost immediately after the General Assembly resolution was passed, the US State Department changed its mind. After all the politicking that had gone on to force the resolution through, the US realised that partition would destabilise international peace and security, particularly if Russia became involved. The then US ambassador to the United Nations, Warren Austin recommended to the Security Council that Palestine be placed under UN Trusteeship.But, unbeknownst to him and the US State and Defence Departments, US President Truman had already promised support for partition to Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organisation. [2] more..

James Petras: Venezuela’s D-Day
Palestine Chronicle 11/30/2007
     On November 26, 2007 the Venezuelan government broadcast and circulated a confidential memo from the US embassy to the CIA which is devastatingly revealing of US clandestine operations and which will influence the referendum this Sunday (December 2, 2007).
     The memo sent by an embassy official, Michael Middleton Steere, was addressed to the head of the CIA, Michael Hayden. The memo was entitled ’Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation Pincer’ and updates the activity by a CIA unit with the acronym ’HUMINT’ (Human Intelligence) which is engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the forth-coming referendum and coordinate the civil military overthrow of the elected Chavez government. The Embassy-CIA’s polls concede that 57% of the voters approved of the constitutional amendments proposed by Chavez but also predicted a 60% abstention.
     The US operatives emphasized their capacity to recruit former Chavez supporters among the social democrats (PODEMOS) and the former Minister of Defense Baduel, claiming to have reduced the ’yes’ vote by 6% from its original margin. Nevertheless the Embassy operatives concede that they have reached their ceiling, recognizing they cannot defeat the amendments via the electoral route.
     more..

The One State Declaration
Palestine Chronicle 11/30/2007
     The two-state solution ignores the physical and political realities on the ground, and presumes a false parity in power and moral claims between a colonized and occupied people on the one hand and a colonizing state and military occupier on the other. It is predicated on the unjust premise that peace can be achieved by granting limited national rights to Palestinians living in the areas occupied in 1967, while denying the rights of Palestinians inside the 1948 borders and in the Diaspora. Thus, the two-state solution condemns Palestinian citizens of Israel to permanent second-class status within their homeland, in a racist state that denies their rights by enacting laws that privilege Jews constitutionally, legally, politically, socially and culturally. Moreover, the two-state solution denies Palestinian refugees their internationally recognized right of return.
     The two-state solution entrenches and formalizes a policy of unequal separation on a land that has become ever more integrated territorially and economically. All the international efforts to implement a two-state solution cannot conceal the fact that a Palestinian state is not viable, and that Palestinian and Israeli Jewish independence in separate states cannot resolve fundamental injustices, the acknowledgment and redress of which are at the core of any just solution.
     more..

Ali Alarabi: Sweet Talk at Annapolis
Palestine Chronicle 11/30/2007
     Although the speakers meeting in Annapolis were optimistic and almost encouraging in their speeches regarding bringing lasting peace to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, peace, in the words of President Bush should usher the establishment of a viable Palestinian state side by side with Israel.
     President Bush speech, though was peppered with references to freedom of the Palestinian people and ’real’ and ’viable’ Palestinian state, but in reality Israel is making every effort to undermine the freedom of the Palestinian people and making the ’reality’ and ’viability’ of any future Palestinian state a virtual impossibility.
     Ever since Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem in 1967, it had embarked on building illegal Jewish settlements on occupied lands, in itself a flagrant violation of international law and then populating those settlements with heavily armed Jewish militants, and working to depopulate Palestinian cities from it residents through forced expulsions, economic hardship and military rule. In line with changing the nature of the future Palestinian state, Israel also took over other arable lands and water resources from its Palestinians owners converting it to benefit illegal Jewish settlers.
     more..

Letter to Editor: The Media’s Double Standard
Palestine Chronicle 11/30/2007
     The American media have given much coverage of the human rights violations in Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, including the gang rape of the 19-year-old Saudi girl who was wrongly sentenced to 20 lashes for her extramarital affairs.
     Where is the commensurate coverage on how the Israeli government violates Palestinian human rights? Where is the coverage when the Israelis deliberately drop high explosives on Palestinian apartment buildings, streets, bridges, and power plants, killing dozens of innocent Palestinians?When more than 9000 Palestinian homes are demolished by Israeli bulldozers causing more than 17,000 children to become homeless, where is the coverage on this kind of human rights violations?
     Is it that the media are afraid of being accused of anti-semitism if they covered the actions of Israel in the same way they covered those of the Arabs?
     Why is evil different in one context than it is in another?
     more..

Only Bush Can
Aluf Benn, MIFTAH 11/30/2007
     If there is one lesson to be learned from the Annapolis summit, it is that American leadership in the peace process between Israel and its Arab neighbors is essential. Only the stubbornness of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the backing she received from U.S. President George W. Bush succeeded in bringing here the foreign ministers of most Arab countries and the world’s leading diplomats. They came to applaud Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas and push them onward toward another attempt, no matter how desperate and filled with political obstacles, at a permanent settlement.
     The diplomatic success of Bush and Rice this week justifies in retrospect the repeated complaints about them these past seven years, that they had allowed the Israelis and Palestinians to sink in rivers of blood and avoided the kind of intervention that could have restrained the conflict and calmed the atmosphere in the region. Bush is aware of these complaints, and he knows that now people will ask him about his absence from involvement to date, and accuse him of negligence. He therefore said during his speech at Annapolis that this is the appropriate time for renewing the peace process, because the Israeli and Palestinian leaders want a compromise, and the Middle East is divided between the extremists and the moderates.
     more..

Olmert to Haaretz: Two-State Solution, or Israel is Done for
Aluf Benn, MIFTAH 11/30/2007
     "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Haaretz Wednesday, the day the Annapolis conference ended in an agreement to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008.
     "The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us," Olmert said, "because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents."
     Olmert pointed out that he had said similar things in an interview he gave four years ago, when he was deputy prime minister under Ariel Sharon, in which he revealed for the first time his proposal for a withdrawal from most of the occupied territories.
     more..

Peace Talks are Likely to Fail, Just as the ’Road Map’ Did
Rami Khouri, MIFTAH 11/30/2007
     The Annapolis conference on Tuesday was full of lofty rhetoric, intriguing new promises, a few bold commitments, and a tantalizing cast of characters - alongside plenty of rehashed rhetoric, rigid positions, and regurgitated, failed diplomatic mechanisms. It left us with as many questions as answers about whether this was a serious Arab-Israeli peace-making endeavor, or a hoax garnished with Chesapeake Bay clam cakes.
     Annapolis the day after looks remarkably like the day before, because we can only judge it once the substantive negotiations start. It was impressive to see so many leaders and officials seeking a breakthrough for permanent peace on the single most important radicalizing and destabilizing issue in the Middle East: the Arab-Israeli conflict. A few dramatic twists were evident: renewed American engagement, Saudi and Syrian participation, and the pledge by Palestinians and Israelis to finalize a peace agreement within one year. These were largely neutralized, however, by lofty but vague rhetoric and a slightly desperate resort to discredited diplomatic processes that have repeatedly and catastrophically failed in the past 16 years, since the 1991 Madrid peace conference.
     more..

Time to Abandon Sectarianism
George S. Hishmeh, MIFTAH 11/30/2007
     The presence of a senior Syrian official at the Annapolis meeting that launched a new round of Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations has had a positive effect on the desperate search in Lebanon for a leader to assume the presidency after it was unceremoniously vacated last Friday.
     The attraction was not in the focus of the conclave but in at least one participant.
     The Syrians had played their hand masterfully, refusing to commit themselves to attend the grand event at the historic town of Annapolis and its impressive Naval Academy where nearly 50 representatives of several nations and international institutions were present. They insisted they would not participate unless the agenda included a discussion of the Israeli occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights. The surprise came when the agenda was released last Tuesday. The American sponsors succumbed and the issue of the Golan Heights was included, obviously much to the delight of the Syrians and others.
     more..

A Different Venue, But the Pious Claims and Promises are the Same
Robert Fisk, MIFTAH 11/30/2007
     Haven’t we been here before? Isn’t Annapolis just a repeat of the White House lawn and the Oslo agreement, a series of pious claims and promises in which two weak men, Messrs Abbas and Olmert, even use the same words of Oslo.
     "It is time for the cycle of blood, violence and occupation to end," the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday. But don’t I remember Yitzhak Rabin saying on the White House lawn that, "it is time for the cycle of blood... to end"?
     Jerusalem and its place as a Palestinian and Israeli capital isn’t there. And if Israel receives acknowledgement that it is indeed an Israeli state – and in reality, of course, it is – there can be no "right of return" for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled (or whose families fled) what became Israel in 1948.
     And what am I to make of the following quotation from the full text of the joint document: "The steering committee will develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiations (sic) teams to address all issues, to be headed by one lead representative from each party." Come again?
     more..

Still Waiting for Peace
The Guardian - Leader, MIFTAH 11/30/2007
     Serious negotiations do not normally take place at international conferences. They happen before or after them. If negotiations beforehand have been fruitful, a conference is a venue to publicise and formalise what has been agreed, or sometimes to settle one or two very difficult matters beyond the competence of the advance teams. On that test, Annapolis has not been a success. Palestinians and Israelis could not agree on a detailed joint document to put before the meeting. The short statement which was produced, on a day of speech-making and awkward ceremony, called for the resolution of all issues, but amazingly managed to avoid saying what these are.
     No form of words could be found that one side or the other did not see as prejudging those issues, or as likely to open them up to attack from enemies back home. Annapolis has changed some things. The issues may not have been defined in a public way but everybody knows what they are, and the principle that they must be vigorously and simultaneously discussed has been enunciated, if hardly guaranteed. The Americans have moved toward the position that they will arbitrate fairly continuously, which, in theory, ought to hamper the familiar Israeli technique of reneging on commitments whenever it suits them, citing Palestinian security lapses of which they insist on being the sole judge.
     more..

Can Hope Triumph Over Mideast Experience?
Dion Nissenbaum, MIFTAH 11/30/2007
     The Wednesday morning newspapers trumpeting the latest fresh start toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians hadn’t hit American doorsteps when the first crude Qassam rocket of the day soared out of the Gaza Strip and into southern Israel.
     Before lunch, Palestinian Authority police in the West Bank were using truncheons to break up angry mourners trying to bury a demonstrator who was killed a day earlier while protesting the new peace initiative.
     By the time Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas joined President Bush in the Rose Garden to launch the latest round of negotiations, an Israeli airstrike had killed two naval police officers in the Gaza Strip, where the militant Islamist group Hamas seized military control in June after winning U.S.-backed elections in January.
     Things could have been worse on a day that was supposed to celebrate the beginning of a yearlong march to peace. But Wednesday’s events were a reminder that facts on the ground in the Middle East usually trump expectations in Washington.
     more..

Mideast Peacemaking: Hard Work Begins
Anne Gearan, MIFTAH 11/30/2007
     President Bush savored his Rose Garden moment Wednesday, celebrating the beginning of a new Mideast peace push with smiling Israeli and Palestinian leaders. It might be a long time until he gets another such opportunity.
     The old bugaboos of Mideast peacemaking remain unsolved and there are fresh obstacles that will make Bush’s job as shepherd even harder. The U.S. role in new negotiations is deliberately vague, but Bush and his envoys are expected to prod and monitor both sides and intervene directly if talks founder.
     "I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t believe that peace was possible," Bush said, with nods to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas beside him, "and they wouldn’t be here either if they didn’t think peace was possible."
     The few minutes in the Rose Garden marked the third day in a row that Bush rang the bell to begin talks aimed at establishing an independent Palestinian homeland. The agreement for the talks — which skirts the hard details — was the centerpiece of a U.S.-sponsored peace conference Tuesday in Annapolis, Md.
     more..

Annapolis Talks Prompt Much Doubt, A Few Jokes, in Mideast
Ellen Knickmeyer, MIFTAH 11/30/2007
     A day after their leaders announced a new push for peace, Israelis and Palestinians returned Wednesday to a familiar and deadly routine, deeply skeptical over the timetable set for the talks and whether an end to the conflict is achievable at all in the current political climate.
     In cafes and blogs in the Arab world, the Annapolis conference prompted little more than wisecracks. Commentators made much of a linguistic coincidence: In Arabic, "ana polis" means "I am the police."
     President Bush’s message, former Lebanese cabinet minister Essam Norman wrote in that country’s opposition Al-Akhbar newspaper, was: "I am the policeman of the Middle East, responsible for your safety and security. Beware devious troublemaking. Israel isn’t the enemy, Iran is."
     The United States had succeeded only in "dragging the Arabs to a diplomatic talkfest," Norman wrote.
     more..

Palestinian State Crucial for Israel, Olmert Says
Rebecca Harrison, MIFTAH 11/30/2007
     Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said after peace talks in Washington that failure to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians could threaten Israel’s long-term survival.
     A day after Israel and the Palestinians formally relaunched negotiations, Olmert’s comments appeared in Thursday’s Haaretz newspaper on the 60th anniversary of the passing of a U.N. resolution to partition British-run Palestine between Jews and Arabs -- a two-state solution that still eludes them.
     "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights ... then, as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished," Olmert said.
     For 40 years, Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, home to 4 million Arabs. However, to annex the territory and its people would, Israeli leaders say, undermine the Jewish nature of Israel, which has a population now of 7 million.
     more..

An Opportunity for Peace
Rafi Dajani, MIFTAH 11/30/2007
     THE IMPORTANCE of the Annapolis meeting on Middle East peace was not in the joint statement it produced, or in the speeches of the American, Israeli, and Palestinian leaders. Rather, it is in the real opportunity that the meeting has created for peace.
     more stories like this Worries about Iran and extremism bring parties to table Hamas protest against summit draws tens of thousands Obstacles and opportunity for Mideast peace Analysis: Mideast peace as tough as ever Abbas aims for peace agreement before end of Bush’s termThis opportunity reflects the realization by all parties and the international community that the time has come for Israeli-Palestinian peace because the costs of inaction are high and mounting.
     For all of its forecasted inadequacies, Annapolis in fact has delivered the official re-launching of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians after a seven-year deep freeze.
     more..

To Talk Peace
The Jordan Times - Editorial, MIFTAH 11/29/2007
     Iran and Hamas most vociferously attacked the Annapolis peace conference, describing it as a futile effort to settle the Palestinian question, one that follows in the footsteps of previous similar moves, including the Madrid peace conference, which failed to deliver.
     Before a clear idea about the outcome of the peace conference that was kicked off on a positive note yesterday crystallises, thus apportioning blame or praise, a few remarks about the two above-mentioned entities would be in order.
     If Hamas were to be invited to any peace talks, the invitation should come from the Palestinian government of Mahmoud Abbas, and not from any host country.
     Despite the divisions between Hamas and the Palestinian National Authority, they remain two sides of the same coin; they each represent big segments of the Palestinian people, even though they severed relations a few months ago.
     more..

A Tale of Two Cities
Caelum Moffatt for MIFTAH, MIFTAH 11/29/2007
     After four months of anticipation, intrigue and debate concerning Annapolis and its agenda, the summit at the home of the US Naval Academy has now come to a close. Just like all events that have a tendency to incite a glimmer of hope and are thus eagerly awaited, it flew past in the blink of an eye and made the most minimal impact possible to the Palestinian / Israeli situation.
     In their meetings preceding Annapolis, the Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams failed to present to US President Bush a joint document/statement on which they both agreed [previously this accord had been viewed as the prerequisite for the summit]. Coincidently however, with no agreement made on Monday night, President Bush read out a joint document signed by both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas half an hour before the meeting convened.
     What was in this document? The answer is very little. President Bush, before jetting off on his helicopter, spoke about Annapolis being “the beginning of the process, not the end of it”, sporting his traditional smile of content which accompanied the words he delivered. The document, not surprisingly omitted the main “core” issues and instead urged both parties to adhere to the first stage of the roadmap regarding security and the freezing of settlement expansion in the West Bank; it stated that Olmert and Abbas continue to meet every two weeks to discuss a compromise to the obstacles of peace [the first meeting is to be scheduled for December 12]; it confirmed that the aim was to reach an agreement by the end of the president’s term in 14 months time; and it declared that the US would supervise the implementation of the roadmap [the arbiter has been named as distinguished US General Jim Jones].
     more..

Annapolis Backlash Leaves a Bloody Trail
Joharah Baker for MIFTAH, MIFTAH 11/28/2007
     Enough has been said about the preparations, the expectations and the ultimate execution of the Middle East Summit in Annapolis. Needless to say, the outcome was disappointingly what we all expected – more of the same. More promises, “joint statements”, lots of sugary words, but no concrete results. The joint statement made by US President George Bush read, “We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations, and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008.”
     Perhaps knowing the long anticipated conference would produce nothing more than these watery statements was what ignited such violence in the West Bank. With President Mahmoud Abbas standing side by side with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Annapolis, the government knew discontent among the masses was inevitable. That is probably why the West Bank Fateh-affiliated government banned all demonstrations – regardless of whether they were anti or pro Annapolis – from taking place on the day of the conference. Never mind that this is in flagrant violation of the Palestinians’ own Basic Law and all other international laws the Palestinians are a signatory of.
     more..

MIFTAH Strongly Condemns the Attack on Palestinian Journalists and Demonstrators on November 27
MIFTAH, MIFTAH 11/28/2007
     The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy [MIFTAH], strongly condemns the attack on Palestinian journalists and demonstrators on November 27, which resulted in the serious injury of one Al Jazeera Satellite Channel journalist, a number of others and several other citizens.
     The demonstrations, which took place in a number of cities in the West Bank, were in protest of the US-brokered Middle East peace conference held in Annapolis, Maryland that same day.The Palestinian Authority issued an order prior to the conference banning all demonstrations concerning the meeting, whether for or against it. However, protests still broke out in West Bank cities, namely Ramallah and Hebron. In Ramallah, members of the Palestinian Security Forces were shown beating protestors and shooting into the crowds, resulting in the injury of several citizens including Wa’el Shiyoukhi of Al Jazeera Satellite Channel. In Hebron, one man affiliated with the Islamist Liberation Party was killed from a bullet to the head. Security forces claim the demonstrators initiated the hostilities, which led to the riots.
     more..

Claims of chemical weapon use in Gaza
Saturday December 1, 2007, The Guardian 10/11/2007
     Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor (Response, November 30) denies Israel used chemical weapons in Gaza. Claims and counterclaims about the use of such weapons have a long history and are often hard to verify. Mr Prosor’s denial must be judged against the reports by health workers in Gaza of injured Palestinians suffering from "severe convulsions, muscle spasms, vomiting, amnesia or partial memory loss" after exposure to Israeli gas attacks (multiple references available). Last year the IDF fired powerful gases at a peaceful joint Palestinian and Israeli demonstration against the wall being driven through B’lin, a village in the occupied West Bank. My colleagues and I were able to obtain a sample of the munition. It contained a powerful irritant derived from capsaicin (the analysis was published in the international peer-reviewed journal Medicine, Conflict and Survival in October last year). more..

Paint by numbers
Saleh Al-Naami, Al-Ahram Weekly 12/5/2007
     In its latest trick, Israel is using the idea of a Palestinian state to ethnically cleanse itself and to keep its illegal settlements, marvels Click to view caption Dismissed Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh speaks at the beginning of a meeting of the sacked government at his office in Gaza; Palestinian youth demonstrate in support of their leader Mahmoud Abbas, near the Kalandia checkpoint; US President George W Bush shakes hands with Palestinian President Abbas; Palestinian demonstrators with chained hands protest in Gaza (photos: AFP)The Israeli vice premier and minister of strategic threats (officially strategic affairs) Avigdor Lieberman doesn’t let any opportunity pass without mentioning that the positions of the extreme right Israel Beituna Party that he heads have come to form a central "national" consensus in Israel. Lieberman does not conceal his relief that more parties and political movements in Israel have begun to adopt his party’s position calling for the implementation of a land swap between Israel and a Palestinian state. In such a swap, the Palestinian leadership is supposed to agree to Israel annexing the major settlement conglomerations in the West Bank in return for annexing to a Palestinian state some of the residential areas in Israel in which the Palestinians live.
     more..

The day after
Al-Ahram Weekly 12/5/2007
     The dust may have settled in Annapolis, but not in the Middle East.
     Dina Ezzatexamines the aftermath of a controversial peace meetingClick to view caption US President George W Bush, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert... but, could this be a Camp David 2000 déjà-vu?
     From Balfour to BushTaking the high roadSick and tired of talksThe invisible guestOpinion: Madrid reduxbyAzmi BisharaArab and Israeli delegates who took part in the Annapolis diplomatic fiesta should be coming down from the excitement of the world-observed event to the sad truth of reality on the ground: continued Israeli occupation of Arab territories faced by a mix of deep resentment and outright resistance.
     The Israeli delegation, however, is coming back with a victory: photos and signs of nascent normalisation with Arab countries and promises, declared and undeclared, of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and member states of the Arab League. Over half of the Arab League’s 22 states were represented, mostly at the foreign ministers level, in Annapolis.
     more..

Clear as mud
Sami Moubayed, Al-Ahram Weekly 12/5/2007
     As political jockeying continues in Beirut,considers the Syrian options StalemateTouching the voidLast Christmas, the Maronite Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir told Lebanese Christians, "Do not be afraid." At first glance, the Lebanese did not seem afraid, not a bit. Despite all the turmoil they were going through, they still managed to put up their Christmas trees, go to nightclubs, dine at fancy restaurants and attend Fayruz. At second glance, however, the Lebanese had every reason to be afraid back then, and even more so today, one year later. Lebanon continues to suffer from the Israeli war in 2006, and the continued assassinations that have badly hit Lebanon’s economy -- and tourism -- since 2005. Then came the massive sit-in launched by the Hizbullah-led opposition starting 2 December 2006 which at the time of writing, continues, with the aim of bringing down the cabinet of Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora. Now comes vacancy at the Presidential Palace.
     more..

Madrid redux
Azmi Bishara, Al-Ahram Weekly 12/5/2007
     Bush’s peace meeting is nothing but an empty orgy of rhetoric, writesFrom Balfour to BushThe day afterTaking the high roadSick and tired of talksThe invisible guestTouching the voidEditorial: Ticking timebombBush’s brilliant brainstorm to hold a meaningless, lustreless peace conference is like dry lightning, which brings not the prayed for rain. The US administration needed something to prove that its policy towards the Arab region was not a drastic failure. It came up with nothing better than to restage the Madrid peace conference that was engineered by James Baker, secretary of state under Bush’s father. For some reason, Republicans regard the Bush Sr-Baker policy following the war in Kuwait a success story worthy of commemoration and emulation. So we have a conference, today, that has brought the Arabs to Washington, flushed with gratitude to the imperial grace for bestowing its attention again upon the Palestinian cause.
     more..

Pricking the Western conscience
Al-Ahram Weekly 12/5/2007
     he West needs to be constantly reminded that it is not just complicit in the persecution of Palestinians but that it bears much of the responsibility for stripping them of the most basic human rights, writesGalal NassarThe West was instrumental in helping the Zionist movement create a state in Palestine. Israel was established at the expense of the Palestinians who have, as a result, lived for decades in unspeakable horror. To this day there is not a glimmer of hope for a just solution in Palestine.
     The assistance the West furnishes Israel grows constantly. Sixty years after the creation of the state Washington provides Tel Aviv with $3 billion every year, in addition to substantial loans and donations. Israel receives the highest per capital financial assistance in the world, although the Israelis boast of their vibrant economy.
     Since Israel was but a twinkle in the eyes of Zionist leaders, the West has embraced its cause, helped it along and offered it steady material and moral support. As a consequence a peaceful people has been displaced and deprived of the most basic human rights, while Arab and Islamic nations now view the West with suspicion. The Arabs often speak about the duplicity of Western values. When it comes to human rights and self-determination, they have a point.
     more..

Demoralisation and absence
Ramzy Baroud, Al-Ahram Weekly 12/5/2007
     How conditional can support for the Palestinians be, asksA once profound and widely read commentator recently claimed he no longer writes about the Palestine/Israel conflict because "Palestinians are killing each other". Feeling his words have ceased to carry weight he simply decided not "to take sides".
     What should be made of such a reaction? Granted, what has transpired in Palestine in recent years is disheartening, demoralising and confusing.
     It is disheartening because a long-victimised nation, subject to an intense and ongoing colonial project should deploy all its energies in fighting its enemy’s long-term goal of an ethnically cleansed Palestine, i.e. a Palestine without Palestinians. Infighting is hardly an appropriate response to colonialism.
     It is demoralising because the Palestinians should inspire a global movement aimed at sending a clear message to Israel, that racism, colonialism and apartheid no longer have a place in a world that seeks equality, peace and harmony. Unfortunately a divided nation cannot present a unifying leadership, let alone a unified message.
     more..

Flexibility versus escalation
Nicola Nasser, Al-Ahram Weekly 12/5/2007
     Participating Arabs are walking into another trap in Annapolis, writesIsrael doesn’t need bombs to abort the Annapolis meeting. The incendiary rhetoric with which Israeli officials and media are arming Arab and Palestinian opponents to Annapolis should do the trick.
     Take, for example, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s statement on Sunday that the future Palestinian state would provide a solution to the demands of Palestinians worldwide, including "Israeli Arabs", whose national demands would end the moment a Palestinian state is established. Livni’s statement triggered a daily mounting protest movement among Palestinians in Israel who saw in her remarks signs of an impending official endorsement of Minister of Strategic Affairs Avegdor Lieberman’s call for "transfer" -- the expulsion of 1.5 million Israeli Arabs under the guise of a "population swap" with the future Palestinian state.
     more..

From Balfour to Bush
Saleh Al-Naami, Al-Ahram Weekly 12/5/2007
     That the Palestinians would be the losers at Annapolis was a foregone conclusion, writesThe day afterTaking the high roadSick and tired of talksThe invisible guestOpinion: Madrid reduxbyAzmi BisharaTouching the voidEditorial: Ticking timebombOpinion: Madrid reduxbyAzmi BisharaShaul Goldstein, leader of the Israeli settlers in the West Bank, had only praise for his prime minister, Ehud Olmert, after hearing the speeches of US President George W Bush, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Olmert at the Annapolis meeting on Tuesday. Speaking to Israeli television Channel 10, this stalwart of Israel’s far right hailed the outcome of Annapolis as positive because it would allow settlements to expand in the West Bank. Goldstein’s glee is in stark contrast to the feelings of most Palestinians who, reading the text of the speeches, could be left in no doubt that they are the losers.
     more..

The invisible guest
Al-Ahram Weekly 12/5/2007
     From Balfour to BushThe day afterTaking the high roadSick and tired of talksOpinion: Madrid reduxbyAzmi BisharaDespite avowing "optimism" in the countdown to the opening of the International Peace Conference in Annapolis, Maryland on Tuesday, when almost everyone else was openly pessimistic, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was destined to be disappointed. The Palestinians and the Israelis failed to agree on a joint accord that would have set a time frame for "peace negotiations" yet still representatives from 50 countries crossed the Atlantic to participate in a meeting the vast majority believe will fail to achieve any progress towards peace.
     The Arab League’s secretary-general announced the "death of the peace process" when Israel launched its bloody war on Lebanon last year, a ruthless assault that targeted and killed hundreds of innocent civilians and destroyed much of Lebanon’s infrastructure. Shouldn’t that have been a reminder of who exactly Abbas’s peace partner is? So how is it that peace has been so suddenly resurrected?
     more..

Colonising a metaphor
Eric Walberg, Al-Ahram Weekly 12/5/2007
     The Bible tells me so. Lurking behind the Middle East’s problems -- and not only -- these days is the misuse of the Bible to further unscrupulous political ends, argues Click to view caption James Caviezel as Jesus talking with director Mel Gibson"There is a cry of anguish from the depth of my heart, to my spiritual relatives. Please, please hear the call, the noble call of our scripture," Bishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize beseeched Israelis at "The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel" conference sponsored by Friends of Sabeel North America, a Christian Palestinian group in Boston recently. "Don’t be found fighting against this god, your god, our god, who hears the cry of the oppressed," Tutu said.
     For more than a century, archaeologists and historians have attempted to confirm beliefs of both Christians and Jews about their common past using the Old Testament (OT) and New Testaments (NT) as starting points. Christians, while embracing the OT as a harmless precursor of the NT, insist that the combined texts prove the truth of Judaic monotheism, with its covenant with God, a covenant that was renewed with the resurrection of Jesus as the Christ. Jews, of course, stick with the basic OT texts, insisting they alone prove their role as God’s Chosen People and their right to create a Jewish state, Israel, in the Holy Land. This Jewish state was first grudgingly accepted by the Christian West, and now is enthusiastically embraced by some Christians based on their own misreading of the Bible. The Bible supposedly predicts that the Jews will return to their supposed promised land, and the messiah will (re)appear, signalling either the end of the Earth or the reign of God.
     more..

Shades of grey: Nusseibeh’s "Once Upon A Country"
Miko Peled, The Electronic Intifada, 30 November 2007, Electronic Intifada 11/30/2007
     The recent so-called peace summit in Annapolis, Maryland, reminds me of a time in early 1995. Then, as the cancer was taking over his otherwise perfectly healthy body, my father Matti Peled gave an interview that became the weekend cover story for the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.The headline for the story was: "Rabin Does Not Want Peace." This was in the midst of the Oslo euphoria when Rabin was The Man of Peace.This headline sealed the relationship between Rabin and my father, two men of steel who for thirty years had fought side by side, and worked together to build the Israeli army and then in 1967 lead it to the final conquest of the "Promised Land." Rabin never called to say farewell to my dying father as other comrades in arms did nor did he come during the Shiva, the traditional seven days of mourning, to express his condolences. Eight months and three bullets later Rabin himself was dead.
     more..

To receive a once-daily e-mail digest of our News and Articles content, write to
OccupationNews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or visit
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OccupationNews/join
See example: Occupation News

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the material posted on this site are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the webmaster or Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.