Anti-Apartheid Wall Fact Sheet: Negligence of International Law
By Nabil D. Baddour, Miftah 12/18/2003
Israel boasts a history decorated with defiance of international law and regulations, a tradition that remains today. Violations continue daily with the construction of the Separation Wall, amid hushed criticism from the international community. The most evident exploitation of Israel’s breach of convention is the implementation of new borders within the West Bank, an occupied territory. This effective annexation of land, alongside combined violations of basic human freedoms including freedom of movement, destruction of private property, and collective punishment of the civilian population have highlighted Israel’s selfish and destructive policies. The current construction of the first phase of the wall will take with it 2% of the West Bank as it curls around the Green Line, effectively cutting off 200,000 civilians form their lands and workplaces. Over 100,000 trees have been uprooted and over 6,000 jobs are expected to fall victim in the first phase alone. The following fact sheet outlines the present neglect Israel is exhibiting with respect to International Humanitarian Law. For detailed reference to the effects of the construction refer to The Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign: The Wall’s First Phase fact sheet, as well as weekly updates.
Hague Regulations 1907 Section III Article 46:
Section II Article 23(g): “[it is especially forbidden] to destroy or seize the enemy’s property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war…”
Section III Article 46: “Family honour and rights, the lives of persons, and private property, as well as religious convictions and practice must be respected. Private property cannot be confiscated.”
The wisdom of Shin Bet chiefs
By Meron Benvenisti, Ha'aretz 12/18/2003
Shin Bet security service chief Avi Dichter's appearance at the Herzliya Conference was a rare event, but not simply because he was there. Still more unusual was the content of his remarks, his points of emphasis, the internal contradictions that surfaced, and the deviation into areas unconnected to his own professional expertise.
Dichter won praise from all corners for his brave confession over the responsibility borne by the Shin Bet and the rest of the security establishment "for not having supplied the people of Israel with the `protective suit' it deserves." But laden within this remark is the assumption that there is such a "protective suit" - in other words, that there is a military solution of force to Palestinian violence, and that the security establishment has failed till now to find it. It is not the lack of a political-diplomatic option that sustains the violence; instead, the problem is a delay in the implementation of practical steps, a lack of will, and the non-allocation of financial resources.
Dichter made the "fence" the pivot around which all of these failures revolve. This intimidating physical obstacle was defined as a "critical factor that will limit the spilling of blood;" all necessary steps should be taken to hasten its construction, the Shin Bet chief said. The hell with its humanitarian implications for the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians; the hell with international, and domestic, criticism: "a fence now, enclaves later," Dichter says. The Shin Bet director realizes that the fence is, first and foremost, an anxiety drug fed to a frightened public that seeks psychological comfort. For this reason, Dichter proposes that the fence should be privatized. If the public wants Prozac, it should pay for it: "As far as I'm concerned, there should be a little blue charity box distributed to each house, with the words `Jewish National Fence' written on it," instead of the Jewish National Fund.
Mideast Peace Initiatives
Editorial, Arab News 12/18/2003
The newly signed Geneva Accord, which though unofficial, has generated considerable interest. But the possible steps envisaged by both Sharon and his Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are the antithesis of a peace initiative. Their main premise is that peace initiatives are futile, a negotiated agreement is out of reach and, therefore, Israel must take unilateral measures. Olmert’s plan is said to fundamentally change the situation in the Middle East. Israel, Olmert said, will have to remove a “considerable” number of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and draw a border around the rest to bring about a separation between the Israelis and Palestinians. Israel, he said, will “definitely” not withdraw to the 1967 lines, and will keep “the united city of Jerusalem.”
Olmert acknowledges that his thinking is along the lines of Sharon’s who has spoken repeatedly about possible unilateral moves and will speak more about them soon. How many settlements, though, are being talked about is not clear. Israel is obligated to remove all outposts — homesteads built without official government approval — set up since March, 2001, according to the terms of the road map. But a removal of settlements would be a dramatic departure for Sharon, who has been the settler movement’s leading patron for a quarter century.
Even before Sharon floated the idea of unilateral steps, Israel began building the biggest of all unilateral constructions, the separation barrier whose completed portions already cut deep into the West Bank, ensuring huge land grabs of Palestinian territory. Olmert’s proposals, like those of Sharon, fall far short of the Palestinian demands for a state in all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — all areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
Fischer points out the obvious: Israel’s choice is clear
Editorial, Daily Star 12/18/2003
Joschka Fischer dispensed some friendly but serious advice to the Israeli government on Wednesday. “It is my firm conviction,” he said during a speech at a security conference near Tel Aviv, “that Israel has now reached a historic fork in the road, possibly the most important since its foundation.” The poignancy of the Jewish state receiving recommendations of this sort from a German foreign minister was broad and deep. And yet it remains to be seen whether the strongest, most democratic country in the Middle East has the maturity to see for itself what is so painfully obvious to observers like Fischer.
Of necessity, the habits and nature of the Jewish state have been shaped and colored in the merciless crucible of the Arab-Israeli conflict. At the core of this dispute lies the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, one whose beginning threatened existential ramifications for the loser. The Oslo Accords showed how a negotiated solution could rescue both sides by laying out a practical formula for them to live alongside one another. Unfortunately, it also raised expectations on both sides that the long nightmare was about to end: If it failed, there would be no going back to the status quo ante. The Oslo process has failed, and only two options remain: a new effort to hammer out a peace agreement or a fight to the finish.
The battle has been joined but has yet to bloom into a full-scale war. Before it does, advice like Fischer’s should be taken to heart. Israel has everything it needs to profit from a comprehensive peace but everything to lose by failing to appreciate that it simultaneously faces both unprecedented opportunity and unmitigated ruin. In the short term, the continuation of the struggle with the Palestinians will force the Jewish state to choose between being Jewish and being democratic....
Chance of a lifetime
By Avi Temkin, Globes 12/17/2003
In the globalization era, we don’t have the luxury of saying “No” to the EU -- Not many Europeans have heard about European Commission Foreign Affairs Directorate (FoNet) deputy director-general manager Michael Leigh, but he is a very important person. His prosaic title covers a difficult task Leigh is the man charged with guaranteeing that countries slated for European Union (EU) membership in May 2004 will not disturb general European tranquility, sound off too much, engage in noisy quarrels, or dirty the general common courtyard.
....Leigh came to Israel yesterday for what are described as talks on setting a timetable for negotiations over Israel’s membership in greater Europe. In simple language, Israeli and the EU are to negotiate on how Israel will adopt European legislation and regulation, in whole or in part, and at what rate.
....That’s all very well, until you consider the consequences for Israel of joining the EU, including the basic freedoms it entails. When the EU talks about adopting legislation and regulation, it is referring to regulations involving, among other things, human rights, and it can be assumed that its opinion is that Israeli policy on the Palestinians does not conform to those rules.
....Another problem, perhaps the most difficult, concerns the free movement of people. All European citizens will be able to enter Israel and reside there as they see fit, work there, and make Israel their home. For Israeli policy, this is a red line, and it is hard to see how Israeli representatives will be able to come to an agreement on this point.
Will A Poor President From Brazil Succeed In Changing The Capitalist System?
By Selim Nassar, Al-Hayat 12/16/2003
On Wednesday December 10, 2003, the Brazilian President, Luiz Ignacio Lula De Silva, took a leave of President Moammar Gadhafi, ending a one-week tour during which he visited Syria, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Libya.
Although he expressed his desire to visit other Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Tunisia, his timetable did not allow him to include the other countries. Hence, the Brazilian president decided to schedule a second tour next year during which he would visit China, India, Russia and several Arab countries. These intensive tours fall within the framework of a political plan President Lula adopted in order to get out of the regional isolation his predecessors had adopted ever since 1876, i.e., ever since the historical visit of the Brazilian Emperor Pedro II to Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. Diplomats consider President Lula as the first to change the track of his country's foreign policy when he decided to benefit from its huge population, its wide geographic area and its agricultural and industrial potentials towards assuming the role of political guide of the Latin America countries. Lula was not one of the founders of MERCOSUR, but he is currently responsible for it and supervises the execution of its objectives in a way that enhances its position and respect in South America.
....President Lula stated his political and economic suggestions during the talks he conducted with President Bashar Al Assad, President Emile Lahoud, Sheikh Zayed, President Husni Mobarak and Moammar Gadhafi, stressing the need for adopting a method that provides developing countries with a wide margin of freedom of action. He pointed out that Brussels was ready to allocate in the coming years huge amounts of money to help ten countries that would join the EU in 2004. Lula called for the establishment of a union, similar to the non-alignment movement, which might influence all negotiations held between powerful countries.
Hang together on American civil liberties
By Marwan Kreidie, Daily Star 12/18/2003
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US, this phrase by Benjamin Franklin seemed apt: “(T)hey who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Although the Bush administration must be familiar with the words uttered by one of America’s most distinguished statesmen, it apparently hasn’t taken them into consideration. That’s because there are no signs that the assault on civil rights mounted by President George W. Bush and Attorney-General John Ashcroft in recent years have made the US any safer.
In reaction to Sept. 11, Ashcroft announced that over 1,200 people of Arab or Muslim origin had been detained. This was followed by “voluntary interviews” of Arab and Muslim males, including some American citizens, which were anything but voluntary. Then he initiated a program of “special registration” requiring that almost 80,000 people visiting the US, all of them male nationals principally from Arab and Muslim countries, be photographed, fingerprinted and interrogated upon arrival or, if they already were in the US, at designated immigration offices.
In early December the Justice Department announced the suspension of some of the requirements of the special registration program.
Many American citizens knew about the well-publicized detention program, but had little reason to be aware of its results, or of the existence of the special registration program. However, most Arab- or Muslim-Americans were highly conscious of both, regarding them as egregious examples of ethnic profiling and intimidation. The question is: Have these programs made the US any safer?
Which politics for Arab poetry?
By Rana F. Sweis, Daily Star 12/18/2003
The key to understanding the hearts and minds of Arabs is through shiir, or poetry, their greatest art. The Iraq war and its aftermath fueled mixed emotions in the Arab world resignation, reflection, rage that are now being articulated in verse.
“No people in the world manifest such enthusiastic admiration for literary expression and are so moved by the word, spoken or written, as the Arabs,” wrote historian Philip Hitti in his History of the Arabs. Poetic expression has been admired and exalted by caliphs, clerics and revolutionaries and has always been at the heart of Arab politics. Al-Mutanabbi, the greatest classical poet, was also a political rebel: “The horses, the nights and the desert know me/As well as the sword, the spear, the pen and the paper,” he wrote. He was slain near Baghdad in 965.
Throughout decades of conflict and stagnation, Arab poets have retained their influence. Indeed, today in the Arab world more poetry is published than prose. “Poetry is the art and beauty of our language,” says Othman Hassan, the Jordanian author of Kibbrayaa al-Sifa (Description of Pride), a recent collection of verse. Moreover, since most Arab poetry is written in classical Arabic and understood by all literate Arabs, it transcends dialects and regionalisms.
“Say an Iraqi writes a classical poem. You would never recognize that he’s an Iraqi or Moroccan or Egyptian,” says Saleh Niazi, an Iraqi poet. What unites all, he adds, are “common mental images.”
The voice behind the intifada
By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times 12/12/2003
KARACHI - For many centuries, the politics of the Muslim world have revolved around the massive al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, first built in 715 AD. The mosque complex, which includes the Dome of the Rock, is regarded as the third most holy shrine in Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
In the modern era, two Arab-Israeli wars have been fought with the mosque at the symbolic heart of the struggle, and Osama bin Laden uses the fact that the mosque is under Israeli control to stir Muslims.
But perhaps the most significant event involving the al-Aqsa mosque in recent times came from its pulpits in late 1987, when the call for the "intifada against Zionism" was first launched, irreversibly changing the dynamics of the Palestinian struggle.
That landmark call - in which Palestinians were first urged to throw stones at the Israelis - was made by Dr Mohammed al-Shiekh Mahmood Sayam, now 67, who spoke exclusively to Asia Times Online during a visit to Pakistan earlier this week.
A graduate of Cairo University with a PhD in Arabic literature from Umul Qura University, Saudi Arabia, Sayam's record includes khateeb (speaker) of the al-Aqsa mosque (from 1983-1988) and vice-chancellor of Gaza University (1983-1988). He used both positions to fan the flames of the intifada, as a result of which he was expelled in 1988 and then banned from ever setting foot on the Palestinian soil where he was born, bred and raised. Since then he has been a refugee, but with a cause. He has no permanent country, simply traveling the world as one of the most vocal voices representing hardliners in the intifada.
Hebron: Power is Vested in Settlers' Hands
By Ahmad Jaradat, Alternative Information Center 12/19/2003
During the Israeli cabinet meeting of 7 December 2003, Interior Minister Avraham Poraz had asked prime minister Sharon "how can you explain what some dozens of Jews are doing in Hebron, an Arab city of a quarter million Arabs?" The prime minister replied, "How can you dare think that Jews won't live in Hebron? How can we leave Hebron where 700 Jews are buried!" Poraz retorted, "There are 900 Jews buried in Prague, but that's no reason why we have to take control there" (Haaretz, 8 December, 2003).
Interesting as this anecdote may or may not be, the reality in Hebron is far more devastating than internationals and Israelis can imagine, Poraz included. Visitors to the downtown area of the city of Hebron can easily notice hundreds of shops closed. The streets are empty of the city's indigenous Palestinian population, few old men and woman walk around. Iron gates and concrete-blocks close all entrances to the streets from all directions. Military armors and jeeps, coupled with armed settlers’ cars, drive widely inside the old city. Notoriously fanatic young settlers use the streets for hanging out and playing soccer. Their other favorite sporting activity includes throwing stones randomly and without provocation on Palestinian houses. All of this oppressive colonial violence takes place 24 hours a day.
Dozens heavily armed soldiers move in groups in the streets terrorising Palestinian civilians. Humiliating and inhuman checkpoints are erected in the roads, around the illegal settlement outposts and inside the ostensibly-Palestinian-controlled sections. Whether or not curfews are officially imposed, Palestinians in Hebron prefer to stay at home to avoid attacks by settlers or the occupation army.
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