Recognizing Two-State Principle Condition for Negotiating With Netanyahu
Huda al Husseini, MIFTAH 3/10/2009
The Gaza aid conference will not divert attention from the internal problems that the Palestinians are facing. PNA head Mahmud Abbas wants a national unity government that accepts the two-state solution and previously signed agreements. As for Hamas, it responds by saying that the required government should be one that embraces the resistance. Accordingly, Hamas refuses to differentiate between its position as a movement and the obligations that a Palestinian government is required to meet. It continues to cling to its victory in the parliamentary election.
Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat, who enjoys a very close relationship with the Palestinian president, responded to all this by saying: "Never before in history has a political party won the election then announced later its intention to cancel UN resolutions, the Arab initiative, and previously signed agreements." He added: "Throughout history, contractual obligations upheld by political societies have always been binding to the governments that come to power through coups, elections, or hereditary rule." He holds the view that "Hamas must understand that any Palestinian government to be formed will be a responsible component of the international community that will have political, financial, and economic obligations."
Lieberman’s Charm Offensive
Editor Palestine Monitor, Palestine Monitor 3/9/2009
Israel’s ’Rising Political Star’ tries to convince the West that he ’shares their values’.
INTRODUCTION: BACKGROUND ON ISRAELI ELECTIONS
Israel’s February 10th National Election results confirmed the country’s worrying rightward political shift.The election results were basically a tie between Tzipi Livni of Kadima with 28 seats in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud with 27 seats.Coming in third was Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beitenu, an extremely nationalist and right-wing party. Because of Israel’s political shift to the far right, he was the deciding factor in Likud’s being granted the opportunity to lead the new government"earning him the nickname "kingmaker".
WHO IS AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN?
Lieberman was born in Ishinev, Soviet Union (now Moldova). He studied at an agricultural institute and after finishing he worked as a nightclub bouncer and broadcaster in Baku, Azerbaijan. He moved with his parents to Israel in 1978, served in the army and studied social sciences at university before starting his career in politics.
Reconciliation at Last?
Joharah Baker, Palestine Chronicle 3/9/2009
It has been almost two years since the fabric of Palestinian unity was torn down the seam. For almost two years Hamas and Fatah have duked it out on the ground and in political corridors, claiming hundreds of lives and creating an almost irreparable split between the West Bank and Gaza. Today, although terribly overdue, Palestinians are cautiously squinting into the future, at the possible light at the end of this very dark tunnel.
On March 3, Fatah announced the members of the five joint committees agreed on at the recent Cairo talks. The five committees will deal with the issues of the transitional government formation, reconciliation, security, elections and the PLO. If all goes well, a transitional government will be formed by the end of March and will conduct the affairs of the state until presidential and legislative elections take place at the beginning of 2010.
To an outsider, this may seem like a small step. To Palestinians it is definitely not. There have been numerous attempts to reconcile the two Palestinian political giants, Hamas and Fatah, but to no avail. Ever since the international community refused to accept Hamas’ victory in the 2006 PLC elections, the situation has gone in one direction only: downhill. Thereafter, Hamas refused to relinquish power in Gaza and Fatah refused to let go of its historic reins over the Palestinian Authority, naturally resulting in the metaphorical clash of the Titans. The bloody Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007 left hundreds dead in its wake and bad blood between brothers. The clashes between the two have been on again off again since then with intermittent lulls in between. This new development is the first glimmer of hope in a long time.
3/5/2009
A public stoning in Germany
Raymond Deane, Electronic Intifada 3/6/2009
Hermann Dierkes is a respected politician with an honorable record of campaigning for social and political justice in the German Rhineland city of Duisburg. He represented his party Die Linke (The Left Party) on Duisburg City Council, campaigning tirelessly on anti-racist and anti-fascist issues. Most recently, he was his party’s candidate for the post of Lord Mayor.
On 18 February 2009 Dierkes addressed a public meeting on the question of Palestine. To the question of how to take action against the injustice being suffered by Palestinians, he responded that the recent World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil had proposed an arms embargo, sanctions and the boycott of Israeli exports. He added: "We should no longer accept that in the name of the Holocaust and with the support of the government of the Federal Republic [of Germany] such grave violations of human rights can be perpetrated and tolerated ... Everyone can help strengthen pressure for a different politics, for example by boycotting Israeli products."
A few days later, Dierkes gave an interview to the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ), a conservative paper based in the nearby city of Essen. He explained the demands of the World Social Forum, and requested that the published interview should stress that this had nothing to do with anti-Semitism -- a qualification that invariably needs to be made in Germany, except when there is suspicion of Islamophobia. Predictably, his precautions were in vain; scenting a political coup, the reporter published his article without including the qualification.
3/3/2009
Israeli Elections: From Bad to Ugly
Dr Ahmed Yousef, Palestine Think Tank 3/6/2009
Pundits have asked Palestinians of every persuasion what they think of Israeli elections over the past several weeks. Opinions are varied and thoughtful; yet the truth is that to prefer one of the leading groups over another is an exercise in futility. Asking for a choice is akin to opting hypothetically for France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen (Lieberman), Dutch parliamentarian Geet Wilders (Livni), or Russia’s Vladimir Zhirinovsky (Netanyahu), with South Africa’s Pieter W. Botha (Peres) playing the presidential role of whom to ask for the formation of a national unity government.
Israeli democracy is an oxymoron, a reality underscored by the abuse of any non-Jewish party vying for equal representation. Palestinian parties entering elections in 2006 were represented by Muslims, Christians and even atheists, with no obligation or pre-condition other than those recognized by international law. The Israeli State, however, routinely purges or inhibits Arab political movement, such as those of Azmi Bishara, with unsubstantiated claims of treason or treachery. And the political neutering of indigenous Arabs is negligible compared with the dismissive approach to any popular presence across the 1967 border.
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich, Middle East Online 3/7/2009
The unconditional support of Israels expansionist agenda has made America fiscally and morally bankrupt. As a result of bowing to Israels pressures, March 2003 figures show that the US imposed sanctions on trade with Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria, cost Americans more than 80,000-100,000 jobs a year.
"I call’d the devil, and he came, And with wonder his form did I closely scan; He is not ugly, and is not lame, But really a handsome and charming man. A man in the prime of life is the devil, Obliging, a man of the world, and civil; A diplomatist too, well skill’d in debate, politics, yea, the devil I call’d and he came, to devour my soul, and the whole of humanity". - Heinrich Heine
On November 4, 2008, the world watched as Americans filed into polling booths to decide who should be the next occupant of the White House. The excitement of the elections veiled the removal of the single most important choice: the option to cancel the neoconservatives lease on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
In the absence of that choice, change is continuity in the White House. President Obamas actions belie candidate Obamas speeches and give meaning to Jacob Heilbrunns words who wrote: "Don’t look now, but neoconservatism is making a comeback-and not among the Republicans who have made it famous, but in the Democratic Party[i].
Avigdor Lieberman: A Profile of Israels’ Next Foreign Minister
Palestine Monitor, Palestine Monitor 3/5/2009
Avigdor Lieberman is a hot topic in the political world at the moment.
With the latest Israeli election in February, his party Israel Beiteinu came in third, making him into the kingmaker able to decide the next Prime Minister of Israel - Livni or Netanyahu. He chose Netanyahu.
The irony though is that Lieberman does not dream of being the power behind the throne, he wants the throne itself.
He was born in Kishinev, Soviet Union (now Moldova) in 1958, and given the name Evet Lvovich Lieberman. He went on to study at the local agricultural institute and worked as a nightclub bouncer and a broadcaster in Baku (the capital city of Azerbaijan) before moving with his parents to Israel in 1978.
Once there, he served as an army corporal and took a social science degree at the Hebrew University. It was and while studying in Jerusalem that he began his career in politics.
Between 1983-88 he helped found the Zionist Forum for Soviet Jewry, and was also a member of the Board of the Jerusalem Economic Corporation and the Secretary of the Jerusalem branch of the Histadrut Ovdim Leumit (national workers union).
Iran in the Crosshairs
Gareth Porter and Ray McGovern, Middle East Online 3/5/2009
Netanyahu has made no bones about the fact that his preferred solution to the problem is a massive air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and other military targets, and that he would not wait for any evidence that Iran had actually manufactured a weapon before doing so. Last year, the Middle East dodged the danger of an Israeli attack on Irans nuclear facilities and the inevitable spread of hostilities.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen was sent to tell the Israelis that the United States would not support such an attack, and after the fiasco in Georgia, the Russians too sent stern warnings to Tel Aviv.
But now the specter of an Israeli strike has reappeared. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israels incoming prime minister, is far more committed to an attack on Iran than his predecessors.
Remember when Joe Biden told supporters of Barack Obama last October that Obama would be tested in his first six months in office?
There is good reason to believe he was referring to the likelihood that Netanyahu would become prime minister after the February 2009 Israeli election, and that he would waste little time finding a pretext to attack Iran.
Netanyahu has been laying the groundwork for such an attack for years, constantly repeating that Tehran is preparing another Holocaust a la Germany in the Thirties.
Did Clinton sabotage a Palestinian reconciliation?
Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada 3/4/2009
Still reeling from the Israeli massacres in the occupied Gaza Strip, Palestinians have lately had little to celebrate. So the strong start to intra-Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo last week provided a glimmer of hope.
An end to the schism between the resistance and the elected but internationally-boycotted Hamas government on the one hand, and the Western-backed Fatah faction on the other, seemed within reach. But the good feeling came to a sudden end after what looked like a coordinated assault by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, European Union High Representative Javier Solana, and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas whose term as president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) expired on 9 January.
On Friday 27 February, the leaders of 13 Palestinian factions, principal among them Hamas and Fatah, announced they had set out a framework for reconciliation. In talks chaired by Egypt’s powerful intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, the Palestinians established committees to discuss forming a "national unity government," reforming the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to include all factions, legislative and presidential elections, reorganizing security forces on a nonpolitical basis, and a steering group comprised of all faction leaders. Amid a jubilant mood, the talks were adjourned until 10 March.
2/27/2009
Dennis Ross and Iran
Sasan Fayazmanesh, CounterPunch 2/28/2009
The Fox Guarding the Chicken Coop
In October 2008 I presented a paper, entitled What the Future has in Store for Iran, at a conference on Middle East Studies. The paper, which was subsequently posted at Payvand.com , examined what the US policy toward Iran might look like if either Barack Obama or John McCain came to office. The conclusion of my essay, stated in its last two lines, was: In the case of McCain, the war [waged against Iran] might come sooner than later. In Obamas case, one might see a period of tough or aggressive diplomacy before hostilities begin.
My conclusion was based on the argument that the US foreign policy toward the Middle East has become institutionalized and it makes very little difference who is the president. The starting point of the argument was an analysis that appeared in The Jerusalem Post just before the Bush Administration took office, predicting that the US Middle East policy would be made more by the neoconservative forces within the new administration than anyone else. In one essay, on December 8, 2000, The Jerusalem Post wrote that both Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz are the type of candidates the pro-Israel lobby is pushing. In another article on January 19, 2001, entitled All the presidents Middle East men, The Jerusalem Post expressed how the Jewish and pro-Israel communities are jumping for joy, knowing that people like Wolfowitz will be in the new administration. The essay predicted: What you will have are two institutions grappling for control of policy. It then added: It is no secret in Washingtonor anywhere else for that matterthat the policies will be determined less by Bush himself and more by his inner circle of advisers.
The message of the Israeli analysts was clear: the Middle East foreign policy of the US has become institutionalized; and rather than watching the US president, one has to watch the institutions that would make the policy.....
.... given his close ties with Israel and the fact that his containment plans were well known to the Iranians, [Ross] had to settle for a less provocative title. Needless to say that the new title, Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the Gulf and Southwest Asia, is still quite provocative as far as Iran is concerned....
.....With the help of Richard Holbrooke, Stuart LeveyBushs Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, who is now in Obamas Administrationand all the other presidents Middle East men, Dennis Ross might be able to finish the unfinished business of the neoconservatives, the containment of Iraq and Iran. The Israelis and pro-Israel communities must be jumping with joy once again.
The Israeli Condition Against the Egyptian Role
Dar Al-Hayat, MIFTAH 2/28/2009
Once again, Israel has thrown a monkey wrench into Egypt’s efforts to deal with the explosive and saddening situation in Gaza, after it had waged the war on the Strip - thus anticipating Egyptian and Turkish efforts to extend and renew the truce, whose effects were over at the end of 2008.
The suspension by Israeli PM Ehud Barak of the truce agreement with Israel, which Egypt had convinced Hamas of based on ending the siege after stabilizing the ceasefire and starting negotiations over prisoners - through a condition imposed by the Politics and Security Cabinet to release the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, imprisoned by Hamas - did not come as a result of a sudden awakening of Olmert to his "dignity", as he put it when he said "there is no reason for us to comply with the conditions of Hamas and act as if we lost our dignity"
It is probable that Olmert has awakened to something else other than his dignity and his wish to retrieve the soldier Shalit. If he did this for internal reasons, it would have been logical for him to insist on this condition before the public elections that were held. His insistence on the liberation of Shalit would have served him to obtain more Israeli votes for his party (Kadima), instead of throwing his condition at Egypt’s face after it succeeded in convincing Hamas of appeasement after the end of elections.
’Israel Misses the Point’
George S. Hishmeh, MIFTAH 2/28/2009
Benjamin Netanyahu is not giving up, still hoping that he can entice Tzipi Livni and even Ehud Barak with key portfolios, should they accept to join his projected coalition government, or else, he must know fully well that his days as head of an Israeli government of extreme rightists will be numbered. Hence, the Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations will remain at a standstill.
For a start, Barak, leader of the Labour Party, recognising his diminished status, appears unwilling to join a Netanyahu Cabinet now that his onetime all-powerful party, as a result of the recent election, has only 13 of the 120-member Knesset.
As far as Livni is concerned, she still seems to be wavering. This prompted leading liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz to call on her not to give up because her insistence on a different kind of politics obligate her to stick to her principles - first and foremost her call to advance the negotiations with the Palestinians.
Of course, it is common knowledge that Netanyahu does not favour the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip. But Livnis public record in this regard is nowhere to be seen, though she had served as foreign minister. Her continued interest amounts to nothing more than her hunger for power.
Roots of hatred in Zionist ideology
Salim Nazzal, Al-Ahram Weekly 2/26/2009
The recent triumph of extreme right-wing elements in the Israeli elections is not an accident, but is the logical outcome of a century of hatred in Zionist ideology, argues Peres (right) and Netanyahu talk about the next Israeli governmentIn 1939 Europe turned a blind eye to the rise of Nazism. The British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, believed that a policy of appeasement would work with Hitler. It did not. Hitler attacked Poland, giving the world a costly lesson -- a policy of appeasement does not work with fascism. The outcome is well known: Europe was ruined, and around 50 million people lost their lives. Yet, thanks to the Norwegian "home front" resistance, Hitler was deprived of the material needed to manufacture the nuclear bomb. Had he acquired enough material to do so, the history of humanity might have been dramatically different to what we know today.
The fact that Hitler was democratically elected by the German people did not legitimate his policy of mass murder; in the same way the Israeli election of fascists and war criminals should not legitimate the Zionists’ policy of mass murder. However, if Hitler is the starkest example of a fascist politician brought to power by a democratic electoral system, the recent Israeli election is another more recent example of an election that brought another known fascist, Avigdor Lieberman, widely viewed as the Israeli duplicate of contemporary European fascists like Jörg Haider or Jean Marie Le Pen, to power.
The Return of Netanyahu and the Prospect for Lasting Peace
Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, Palestine Monitor 2/26/2009
The recent election of Former Prime Minister Benyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu of the extreme right wing Likud party does not bode well for the prospects for a comprehensive and lasting peace between Israel and Palestine. In fact, it is my belief that the Israeli leadership will be only too willing to continue consolidating the status quo occupation and repression of our people.
Development versus Peace
Throughout his campaign, the cornerstone of Netanyahu’s policy toward the "Palestinian Question" suggests that he is planning to continue deepening the conflict rather than solving it. He has stated repeatedly that he does not want to get tangled up in "final status issues" and instead, intensify the Apartheid regime under the name of "economic development’ of the Palestinian Territories.
In other words, he wants to better accommodate life under occupation, not lift the occupation itself, in the hopes of pacifying Palestinian our desire for freedom and our demand for the recognition of our most basic Human Rights.
This has been tried many times in the past, and was the case then, such a policy will result in failure. A process with no prospects for peace, as was Annapolis under Olmert, will not much different to Palestinians than no process and no prospects for peace under Netanyahu.
Did Abraham Lincoln support the creation of a Jewish state?
Tom Segev, Ha’aretz 2/27/2009
America has had 11 presidents in the period from the founding of the State of Israel up to Barack Obama’s election: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr. Clinton and Bush Jr. But in his speech in honor of the swearing-in of the new Knesset, President Shimon Peres determined that Israel owes thanks to only seven. It is unlikely that he wanted to insult the other four. He probably just made a mistake. Perhaps he consulted with the historian Benjamin Netanyahu.
In his speech, Peres also said that president Abraham Lincoln once promised his Jewish "doctor," Isachar Zacharie, to support the establishment of a Jewish state. Peres did not invent Zacharie, but - how shall we put this gently - there are several versions of this story. It seems that one of Lincoln’s acquaintances did indeed tell him about an idea to establish a state for the Jews in the Land of Israel, and Lincoln replied that the option was worthy of consideration. He added incidentally that he had respect for the Jews, since his podiatrist was Jewish. [Mr. Segev does not mention Linclon’s plan to ’transfer’ African-Americans to Central America - Ed.]
2/22/2009
The Crisis in Gaza is Far From Over
Joharah Baker, Palestine Chronicle 2/25/2009
Everyone knew that the timing of Israel’s Cast Lead Operation in Gaza was hardly coincidental. It ended mere days before US President Barack Obama’s inauguration into the White House and weeks before Israel went to early elections. Political pundits postulated that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak wanted to give his Kadima party one last boost before heading out of political life with his tail between his legs. The fact that the US was changing administrations only expedited the operation, especially since Israel understood well that Obama would surely not be as war-oriented as their good friend George W. Bush.
Hence, Operation Cast Lead. As everyone well understands, the results were devastating. At least two-thirds of the 1,400 Palestinians killed in the Israeli operation were innocent civilians, scores of them children, women and the elderly. Approximately 4,000 homes were destroyed by Israel’s bombardment, subsequently displacing hundreds of thousands of Gazans. Factories, schools, government buildings and agricultural land were devastated, leaving the vast majority of Gaza’s approximate 1.5 million residents in destitution.
This is not the first time Israel has wreaked havoc in Gaza, destroying homes, buildings and infrastructure. Each time, international parties, the United Nations and Arab and Palestinian governments have jumped in to restore what Israel destroys. Millions of dollars are pledged for the "restoration and reconstruction of Gaza" and the process begins all over again.
2/21/2009
Israel is Blind to its Own Arab Citizens
Fareed Zakaria, MIFTAH 2/25/2009
Even before a new coalition could emerge, Israel’s latest election was historic. It marked the collapse of Labor, the party that can plausibly claim to have founded Israel and produced its most celebrated prime ministers, from David Ben-Gurion (as head of Labor’s predecessor, Mapai), through Golda Meir to Yitzhak Rabin.
The last vestige of old Labor is Shimon Peres, who - with fitting irony - is the country’s president only because he quit the party. Israel’s political spectrum is now dominated by three right-wing groups: Likud, Kadima (the Likud offshoot founded by Ariel Sharon) and Yisrael Beitenu, a party of Russian immigrants. But while most commentators focus on the future of the peace process and the two-state solution, a deeper and more existential question is growing within the heart of Israel.
It’s a question posed by the election’s biggest winner: Avigdor Lieberman. His Yisrael Beitenu party won 15 seats, placing third but gaining enormous swing power in the Israeli system. Whether or not the new government includes him, Lieberman and his issues have moved to center-stage. As fiercely as he denounces the Palestinian militants of Hamas and Hizbullah, his No. 1 target is Israel’s Arab minority, which he has called a worse threat than Hamas. He has proposed the effective expulsion of several hundred thousand Arab citizens by unilaterally re-designating some northern Israeli towns as parts of the Palestinian West Bank.
A Win for Women’s Rights
Diaa Hadid, Nasser Shiyoukhi, MIFTAH 2/26/2009
The Islamic courts were among the last male-only bastions in Palestinian society, where women have been presidential candidates, police officers and even suicide bombers.
Now two stern-looking young women in Muslim head scarves and long black robes have smashed through the thick glass ceiling.
Khuloud Faqih, 34, and Asmahan Wuheidi, 31, made history when they became the first female Islamic judges in the Palestinian territories.
Across the Arab world, only Sudan has had women judges in Islamic courts, West Bank-based academic experts on Islamic affairs said. Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, all relatively progressive states in the region on womens rights, do not.
I compare us to other Arab Muslim women, and I think weve done well, said Faqih, wearing a sash in the colors of the Palestinian flag across her robe. I think Ive opened a door for myself and other women.
She spoke between meetings with petitioners in her modest courtroom an office with a few couches, a desk and a coffee table with plastic flowers.
Israeli Paralysis Calls for Arab Action
James Zogby, Middle East Online 2/24/2009
Some elections serve as clarifying moments in a nation’s history, others resolve little and serve only as a reflection of internal division. The former provide direction, the latter create paralysis.
The recently completed Israeli elections and ongoing deliberations over to the shape of the next government serve to demonstrate the profound divisions that exist in Israel and the dysfunctional state of its political system.
As is widely known, the current governing coalition lost its mandate.The lead party, Kadima led by Tzipi Livni, a centrist configuration (by Israeli calculations), was comprised of an amalgam of individuals spun-off from Likud and Labor. They declined from 29 to 28 seats. Kadima’s coalition partner, Labor, dropped from 19 seats to 13. And Meretz, a more leftist party (not in the coalition but supportive of peace efforts), lost support, going from 5 to a mere 3 seats.
This gives the Zionist center-left a total of 44 seats - far short of the 61 needed to form a government. But this is only part of the story. Post-election analysis suggests suggested that while Kadima was initially seen as Likud-lite (after all, its founder was Ariel Sharon), it was viewed by voters in this election as a horse of a different color. It is estimated that about 70% of the last-minute support garnered by Livni’s grouping came from Labor and Meretz voters hoping to block a Netanyahu victory. All this may be academic, but is still useful in order to understand the constraints that this will impose on Livni and the strong push that will be made to merge Kadima and Labor as an opposition bloc.
Be Fair to Hamas, Mr Obama
Stuart Littlewood, Middle East Online 2/24/2009
Looking through the list of Hamas ministers published shortly after their election victory in 2006, many have professional qualifications and are better equipped for office than their western counterparts. Can it be true? This week in the High Court in London, lawyers acting for an independent Palestinian organization will start proceedings against the British government.
They seek a judicial review of policy decisions that have brought the UKs relations with Israel into conflict with international law.
"The UK has clear international law obligations to do something effective to stop Israel’s attacks on Palestinian civilians, says Phil Shiner who leads the case. It must co-operate with other states using all lawful means to bring the situation to an end and it must stop giving aid and assistance to Israel. This means that the UK’s continuing policy of arms trading with Israel is completely out of bounds, as is our role in continuing with the EU preferential trading agreement. The point of this case is to make the Government focus on what it is legally obliged to do, beyond ineffective hand-wringing.
At the same time an adviser to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has written to US President Barack Obama asking him to treat Palestinians fairly and be open-minded in dealing with Hamas.
His plea will be echoed by millions who are sick of the hypocrisy and double standards that are at the root of the Wests failure to deliver justice in the Holy Land.
2/17/2009
EU paying for Gaza blockade
David Cronin, Electronic Intifada 2/23/2009
BRUSSELS (IPS) - European Union aid has been given to an Israeli oil company which has reduced the supply of fuel to Gaza as part of an economic blockade internationally recognized as illegal, Brussels officials have admitted.
Almost 97 million euros (124 million dollars) in funds managed by the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, were handed over directly to the firm Dor Alon between February 2008 and January this year. Under orders from the Israeli authorities, Dor Alon has been rationing the amount of industrial diesel brought into Gaza in order to deprive its 1.5 million inhabitants of electricity. Power cuts have been a regular occurrence in Gaza because of Israeli actions undertaken since the militant party Hamas won an unexpected victory in Palestinian legislative elections during 2006.
Charles Shamas from the Mattin Group, an organization based in the West Bank that monitors Europe’s relationship with Israel, said that the EU has been helping to accommodate the economic blockade of Gaza. This is despite how the Union’s most senior diplomats, including its foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, have condemned the blockade as "collective punishment" of a civilian population. Collective punishment constitutes a war crime, according to the 1949 Geneva convention.
Israeli Elections and Politics of Demography
Dr. Haidar Eid and Neta Golan, Palestine Chronicle 2/23/2009
After very close Israeli elections, many analysts seem to feel Likud head Benjamin Netanyahu will get the nod to form the next Israeli government. Though Likud lost to Kadima by a small number of votes, Likud’s right-wing bloc as a whole won a majority. Many in the international community are holding out hope that Tzipi Livni, the head of Kadima, will prevail and become Prime Minister because they view her as the candidate of peace.
In reality however, Livni, while speaking of negotiations, represents continuity with past Israeli policies of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, just as Netanyahu does. Both Likud and Kadima will leave members of the international community who are committed to human rights with only one appropriate response - boycott.
Tzipi Livni, was recently quoted in The Jerusalem Post warning that if Israel fails to initiate a peace plan after the elections, "We will get the Arab peace initiative." It is crucial to understand why Livni, who participated in leading Israel in its assault on Lebanon in 2006 and on Gaza in 2009, is threatened by an offer from the Arab world to normalize relations with Israel if it withdraws from the territories it occupied in 1967 and agrees to a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem in accordance with UN Resolution 194.
Perpetual stalemate
Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly 2/19/2009
Any near future Israeli government is likely to be stymied by ideological and political contradictions.
An indecisive elections outcome, coupled with rampant factionalism, is stalling and complicating the task of forming a new Israeli government.
The 10 February elections gave the Israeli right, with its oft- inharmonious religious and secular camps, 65 seats in the 120- member Knesset. The so-called Zionist "left" took 44 seats, with the remaining 11 going to three Arab parties. The Zionist political establishment normally excludes non-Jewish parties from government, mainly due to racist considerations.
Since the publication of the election results 11 February, Kadima and Likud leaders Tzipi Livni and Benyamin Netanyahu have been jockeying on the Israeli political arena, trying to woo potential coalition partners to their side. However, neither has been successful, an indication that both may be forced to form a national unity government of some sort.
Such a government, however, would be one fraught with internal contradictions, given the incompatible platforms of both parties.
2/20/2009
Livni’s Message: Divide and Conquer
Mohannad El-Khairy, Palestine Chronicle 2/21/2009
On February 2, 2009, then foreign minister Tzipi Livni, one of the architects of the 2008-2009 Gaza Massacre and Israel’s recent election winner, addressed a gathering that draws together both Israeli and international participants from the highest levels of government, business, and academia to discuss Israel’s pressing national, regional and global strategic issues -- known as the Annual Herzliya Conference.
As her theme centered on how the world around Israel is changing, on how its threats are evolving, and thus how the state was presented with fresh ’opportunities’, she said something that keeps replaying in my mind:
"Being used to feeling secluded in the Middle East, with the whole Arab world against us, we look around and suddenly notice other countries alongside Israel - Arab, Islamic countries, who no longer view Israel as the enemy, countries who understand that Iran is the main enemy, seeing Iran as no less a threat than we do. Radical Islam is a threat of which these nations understand the meaning better than others do, because they are familiar with the same radical elements at home. And these nations are on the same side as us."
Broadly speaking, the massacre in Gaza has further bisected the Arab governments along two major ideological lines: One that directs surrendering government to abide by Zionist orders --referred to as moderates in Western lexicon; and a second that follows a more pragmatic approach by insisting on appropriate reaction and practical solutions to addressing Israeli Apartheid policies in Palestine.
2/19/2009
Gaza War Strengthened Israel’s Far Right
Roni Ben Efrat, Palestine Chronicle 2/21/2009
The results of the elections to Israel’s 18th Knesset clearly bolstered the far Right, which won 65 of the parliament’s 120 seats. This outcome is partly due to the paralysis that beset Ehud Olmert’s government. Almost three years ago he received a mandate to advance the peace process, but he squandered it on two wars. The lack of progress toward peace has had the effect of strengthening Hamas. It has also encouraged chauvinistic trends in Israel, as expressed in wall-to-wall support for the Gaza War. Israelis turned their backs on the notion that the conflict with the Palestinians must be solved by diplomacy.
Avigdor Lieberman, who heads a party called "Israel Our Home," became the elections’ main attraction, advancing from 11 to 15 seats and shoving the venerable Labor Party back into fourth position. His campaign slogan went: "No loyalty, no citizenship!" If he weren’t Jewish, Lieberman would be an anti-Semite. Hatred for Arabs was his strongest card, pulling in thousands of the like-minded.
The Lieberman surge is largely a result of the Gaza War. His rival parties, Kadima and Labor, timed the offensive prior to elections largely in order to gain popularity, but Lieberman reaped the fruits. The intoxication of force, the abandonment of all restraint –sheer murder – well suited the party of Strong Man Lieberman, who means to teach the Arabs a lesson they won’t forget.
2/17/2009
Fascist Rule in Israel
Stephen Lendman – Chicago, Palestine Chronicle 2/21/2009
On February 10, Israel held parliamentary elections for 120 seats in its 18th Knesset. The process repeats every four years unless the body calls an earlier election by majority vote. The prime minister may also ask the president to request one early that will proceed unless the Knesset blocks it. Parliamentary terms may be extended beyond four years by special majority vote. Israel has no constitution. Under Article 4 of its Basic Law: The Knesset:
"The Knesset shall be elected by general, national, direct, equal, secret and proportional elections, in accordance with the Knesset Elections Law." Every Israeli citizen 18 or older may vote, including Arabs who are nominally enfranchised, may serve in the parliament, but can’t govern or in any way influence policy.
Knesset seats are assigned proportionally to each party’s percentage of the total vote. A minimum total is required to win any seats. Jewish parties alone are empowered. Arab parliamentarians have no decision-making authority. They’re also constrained by the 1992 Law of Political Parties and section 7A(1) of the Basic Law that prohibits candidates from denying "the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people."
2/14/2009
Israels Biggest Danger
Fareed Zakaria, Middle East Online 2/21/2009
Arab Israelis - who make up 20 percent of Israels total population - face discrimination in many aspects of life, including immigration, land ownership, education and employment.
NEW YORK Even before a new coalition could emerge, Israels latest election was historic. It marked the collapse of Labour, the party that can plausibly claim to have founded Israel and produced its most celebrated prime ministers, from David Ben-Gurion (as head of Labours predecessor, Mapai), through Golda Meir to Yitzhak Rabin.
The last vestige of old Labour is Shimon Peres, who with fitting irony is the countrys president only because he quit the party. Israels political spectrum is now dominated by three right-wing groups: Likud, Kadima (the Likud offshoot founded by Ariel Sharon) and Yisrael Beytenu, a party of Russian immigrants. But while most commentators focus on the future of the peace process and the two-state solution, a deeper and more existential question is growing within the heart of Israel.
Its a question posed by the elections biggest winner: Avigdor Lieberman. His Yisrael Beytenu party won 15 seats, placing third but gaining enormous swing power in the Israeli system. Whether or not the new government includes him, Lieberman and his issues have moved to centre-stage. As fiercely as he denounces the Palestinian militants of Hamas and Hizbullah, his No. 1 target is Israels Arab minority, which he has called a worse threat than Hamas. He has proposed the effective expulsion of several hundred thousand Arab citizens by unilaterally re-designating some northern Israeli towns as parts of the Palestinian West Bank.
2/17/2009
’EU Paying for Gaza Blockade’
David Cronin, Inter Press Service 2/21/2009
BRUSSELS, Feb 20 (IPS) - European Union aid has been given to an Israeli oil company which has reduced the supply of fuel to Gaza as part of an economic blockade internationally recognised as illegal, Brussels officials have admitted.
Almost 97 million euros (124 million dollars) in funds managed by the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, were handed over directly to the firm Dor Alon between February 2008 and January this year. Under orders from the Israeli authorities, Dor Alon has been rationing the amount of industrial diesel brought into Gaza in order to deprive its 1.5 million inhabitants of electricity. Power cuts have been a regular occurrence in Gaza because of Israeli actions undertaken since the militant party Hamas won an unexpected victory in Palestinian legislative elections during 2006.
Charles Shamas from the Mattin Group, an organisation based in the West Bank that monitors Europe’s relationship with Israel, said that the EU has been helping to accommodate the economic blockade of Gaza. This is despite how the Union’s most senior diplomats, including its foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, have condemned the blockade as ’collective punishment’ of a civilian population. Collective punishment constitutes a war crime, according to the 1949 Geneva convention.
Obama was unconvinced by Bibi’s desire for peace
Robert Fisk, The Independent 2/21/2009
Barack Obama, they say, did not get on well with Bibi Netanyahu when he met him in Jerusalem before the American elections.
Mr Obama, who figured out the Middle East pretty quickly, apparently found Bibi arrogant and unconvincing in his professed desire for peace with the Palestinians. What Mr Netanyahu thought of Mr Obama is not known, but he could scarcely have tried to hide his election line: security for Israel, but no Palestinian state.
Much depends, of course, on whether Tzipi Livni will consent to join a Netanyahu government. For if Avigdor Lieberman slips into a ministerial position, Obama is in trouble. Does he congratulate a new Israeli prime minister who has introduced into his government a man who is prepared to demand loyalty signatures from his own countrys Arab minority? How would that go down in the United States, where a similar proposal for a loyalty pledge by American minorities, for example would be a scandal?
But those Palestinians who believe that Lieberman should be in a Netanyahu administration on the grounds that the true face of Israel would then be clear to all Americans are being a little premature. Obama is not going to change the US relationship with Israel. American foreign policy like that of most states is based not on justice but on power.
2/17/2009
Europe opens covert talks with ’blacklisted’ Hamas
Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor, The Independent 2/19/2009
European nations have opened a direct dialogue with Hamas as the US intensifies the search for Middle East peace under Barack Obama.
In the first meeting of its kind, two French senators travelled to Damascus two weeks ago to meet the leader of the Palestinian Islamist faction, Khaled Meshal, The Independent has learned. Two British MPs met three weeks ago in Beirut with the Hamas representative in Lebanon, Usamah Hamdan. Far more people are talking to Hamas than anyone might think, said a senior European diplomat. It is the beginning of something new although we are not negotiating.
Mr Hamdan said yesterday that since the end of last year, MPs from Sweden, the Netherlands and three other western European nations, which he declined to identify, had consulted with Hamas representatives. They believe they made a mistake by blacklisting Hamas, he said, referring to the EU decision in 2003 to add the political wing of the movement to its list of terrorist organisations. Now they know they have to talk to Hamas.
Political contacts with Hamas are banned under the rules of the international Quartet for Middle East peace which groups the US, the EU, Russia and the UN on the grounds that the Palestinian faction remains committed to the destruction of Israel. The international community insists that the ban will only be lifted once the Islamists agree to recognise Israel and renounce violence. But the policy, set out in 2006 following the Hamas victory in Palestinian elections, has been called into question since the three-week war in Gaza which is ruled by Hamas.
How is Erdogan’s sharing of his people’s views considered undemocratic?
Editorial, Daily Star 2/19/2009
Ever since Recep Tayyip Erdogan lectured Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Davos World Economic Forum about the Jewish state’s indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, a number of scholars and writers in the West have been accusing the Turkish premier of having revealed his true anti-democratic colors. For instance, a recent op-ed published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), entitled"The Islamists Show Their Hand," basically claims that Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) was abandoning its "pro-Western" "reformist" guise and returning to its "anti-Western, anti-Semitic and antisecular" roots. But these empty labels,many of which were also widely used against the Turkish republic when it declined to take part in the US-led invasion of Iraq, are very misleading.
For one thing, dismissing criticism of Israel as "anti-Western, anti-Semitic and antisecular" ignores the legitimate concerns that many Turks have about Israeli policies in the region where they live. The same WINEP article acknowledges that Erdogan’s Davos remarks would likely boost the popularity of his AKP ahead of the upcoming March 29 local elections, suggesting that a majority of Turks share the views that the premier articulated in Switzerland. Is the author then saying that in order to be pro-Western, a leader must be anti-democratic enough to disregard the foreign policy views of the majority of the people that he governs.
The Roots of Hatred in the Zionist Ideology
Salim Nazzal, Palestine Chronicle 2/19/2009
In 1939 Europe turned a blind eye to the rise of Nazism. The British foreign minister Neville Chamberlain believed that a policy of appeasement would work with Hitler; it did not. Hitler attacked Poland, giving the world a costly lesson - a policy of appeasement does not work with fascism. The outcome is well known: Europe was ruined and around 50 million lost their lives. Yet thanks to the Norwegian "home front" resistance, Hitler was deprived of the heavy water needed for manufacturing the nuclear bomb; had he acquired enough material to do so, the history of humanity might have been dramatically different to that which we know.
The fact that Hitler was democratically elected by the German people did not legitimize his policy of mass murder; in the same way the Israeli election of fascists and war criminals should not legitimate the Zionists’ policy of mass murder. However, if Hitler is the starkest model of the democratic electoral system that brought Nazism to power in Germany, the recent Israeli election is a more recent example of an election that brought another known fascist, Avigdor Lieberman, widely viewed as the Israeli duplicate of contemporary European fascists like Jorg Haider or Jean Marie Le Pen, to power.
Nasrallah tells it like it is - but how does he think it should be?
Editorial, Daily Star 2/18/2009
One of the reasons that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has proven such a formidable foe for the Israelis is that the Hizbullah leader has long had a knack for sizing up his enemy. The analysis he provided during his speech on Monday night about the current Israeli situation ought to give pause to those who doubt that Israel poses a grave danger, not only to its neighbors, but also to itself. As Nasrallah pointed out, successive Israeli governments, whether headed by Labor, Kadima or Likud, have showed equal disdain for peacemaking and a similar thirst for conflict and settler-driven conquest. The current assortment of racist parties that now dominates the Israeli political spectrum after the elections has only given the Jewish state a more honest face - one which the international community will eventually recognize for what it is.
Likewise, Nasrallah’s assessment of the regional situation was insightful and correct. The Hizbullah leader voiced strong support for reconciliation efforts, including a possible Saudi-Syrian rapprochement and an inter-Palestinian accord. Perhaps these stances stem from Nasrallah’s recognition that Israel’s current regional strategy relies heavily on inducing divisions within the ranks of the Arab and Islamic worlds.
2/11/2009
Livni’s Punishment: Ms. Tantalus
Uri Avnery - Israel, Palestine Chronicle 2/14/2009
’Now Ms. Tantalus must choose between two bitter options.’
Tantalus is punished by the Gods for reasons that are not entirely clear. He is hungry and thirsty, but the water in which he stands recedes when he bends down to drink from it and the fruit above his head continually evades his hand.
Tzipi Livni is now undergoing a similar torture. After winning an impressive personal victory at the polls, the political fruit keeps slipping from her grasp when she stretches out her hand.
Why should she deserve that? What has she done, after all? Supported the war, called for a boycott of Hamas, played around with empty negotiations with the Palestinian Authority? OK, she has indeed.. But such a terrible punishment?
However, the results of the elections are not as clear as they might seem. The victory of the Right is not so unambiguous.
Central to the election campaign was the personal competition between the two contenders for the Prime Minister’s office: Livni and Netanyahu (or, as they call themselves, as if they were still at kindergarten, Tzipi and Bibi.)
2/8/2009
Lurch to the right
Khaled Amayreh from occupied East Jerusalem, Al-Ahram Weekly 2/12/2009
The results of the Israeli elections are a disaster for moderates.
With most votes now counted the results of the Israeli general elections show a clear drift to the right and a collapse in support for centrist and leftist Zionist parties.
The Kadima Party, led by Tzipi Livni, is expected to end with 28 seats, followed by Likud, led by Benyamin Netanyahu, with 27, though one, perhaps two Kadima seats may prove vulnerable once the votes of serving soldiers are counted.
The extreme right Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is our Home), headed by Avigdor Lieberman, has won 14-15 seats, becoming the third largest party in the Knesset. Yisrael Beiteinu has called for the ethnic cleansing of Israel’s Arab minority (23 per cent of the population).
Lieberman has said his party will refuse to join any government not committed to the destruction of Hamas. Dany Ayalon, former Israeli ambassador to the US who occupied the seventh position on the party list, voiced the hope that "in the next elections, we will be vying for national leadership".
2/11/2009
Israelis, in Crisis, Vote for a Government of War
Nicola Nasser, Middle East Online 2/13/2009
Dust of Tuesdays voting battle settled down and the battle of forming the next Israeli government has just begun. With Benjamin Netanyahu poised for premiership and Avigdor Lieberman, leader of a racist and fascist party (as condemned by Talia Sasson of the Merez party) very well positioned to be the king or queen maker of the next ruling coalition, the Palestinian people and the whole region will have to brace as from next March for an Israeli government of war.
First on the agenda of the new government will be the approval of 2.4 billion shekels ordered on Monday by the outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to re-equip the army after the war on Gaza as well as an extra military funding of one billion shekels.
Ironically the Israelis went to early elections as a way out of a government crisis, but the narrowly won victory of Kadima and the inconclusive results of Tuesdays elections have put Israel in disarray and plunged it into a political limbo, with both Tzipi Livni of Kadima and Netanyahu of Likud claiming victory while a kingmaker role is awarded to Avigdor Lieberman and his anti-Arab platform. The tie set the stage for weeks of agonizing coalition negotiations. But what is more important, in view of historic experience, is that whenever Israel was in an internal crisis it used to resort to war as a way to unify its ranks, at least for a while. The present crisis is no exception and it doesnt bode well for the Palestinians and the region
Israel lurches into fascism
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada 2/12/2009
Whenever Israel has an election, pundits begin the usual refrain that hopes for peace depend on the "peace camp" -- formerly represented by the Labor party, but now by Tzipi Livni’s Kadima -- prevailing over the anti-peace right, led by the Likud.
This has never been true, and makes even less sense as Israeli parties begin coalition talks after Tuesday’s election. Yes, the "peace camp" helped launch the "peace process," but it did much more to undermine the chances for a just settlement.
In 1993, Labor prime minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo accords. Ambiguities in the agreement -- which included no mention of "self-determination" or "independence" for Palestinians, or even "occupation" -- made it easier to clinch a short-term deal. But confrontation over irreconcilable expectations was inevitable. While Palestinians hoped the Palestinian Authority, created by the accord, would be the nucleus of an independent state, Israel viewed it as little more than a native police force to suppress resistance to continued occupation and colonial settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Collaboration with Israel has always been the measure by which any Palestinian leader is judged to be a "peace partner." Rabin, according to Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister, "never thought this [Oslo] will end in a full-fledged Palestinian state." He was right.
Israel’s perilous political stasis
David Hearst, The Guardian 2/12/2009
With the prospect of a return of Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister, the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas according to Haaretz , has being drawing up plans for "diplomatic resistance" to Israel. The Palestinian Authority wants the international community to put Israel under as much pressure to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state as Hamas was put under to accept the existence of Israel. I think we have some way to go before we will see the US Sixth Fleet enforcing an international blockade off the port of Haifa.
But, again according to Haaretz, Sarkozy, Brown and Berlusconi, apparently told Abbas they would not accept a freeze in the peace process and the abandonment of the vision of a Palestinian state. Note the let-out clauses in that formulation. The French and British foreign ministers , Bernard Kouchner and David Miliband, went further: "We will not allow Israel to perpetuate the occupation in the West Bank under the guise of economic gestures of good will." If that is exactly what Miliband said, it could lead to an interesting conversation with his political father, Tony Blair. According to those close to Netanyahu, Blair is the man the rightwing Likud leader is pinning his hopes on, to deliver economic but not political improvements to life in the West Bank.
However unrealistic Abbas’s expectations are, they represent an obvious truth, and probably the most important lesson to be drawn from Tuesday’s election. The international community, not just President Obama, is going to have to get stuck into the search for a solution to the conflict in a more robust way than it has done for a decade. Until now, the Quartet has largely accepted Israel’s narrative about Hamas, and has been quiescent to the point of being torpid about forcing the pace of negotiations with Abbas....
Israeli 2009 Election Winner: Herzl (1895)
William A. Cook, Palestine Chronicle 2/12/2009
’We should try to spirit the penniless Arab population across the borders by procuring employment for it in transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.’ (Herzl, founding father of Zionism,1895)
The mind of Israels decider in yesterdays election, Avigdor Lieberman, Head of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party, comes out of the late 19th century, a veritable verbal parallel to Herzl: They (Palestinian leaders) have to disappear, to go to paradise, all of them, and there cant be any compromise. This is the same man that casually remarked that Israel should do to the Palestinians what the United States did to the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, drop the atomic bomb on them. This man will decide who speaks with President Obama about peace in the mid-east. This man will control the right-wing agenda that will be Israels agenda under its newly formed government, whether Tzipi Livni or Bibi Netanyahu hold the title of Prime Minister. This man will see to it that there is no end of the occupation of Palestine, no Palestinian state, and no evacuation of the settlements, in short, no progress toward peace. This man, a Russian immigrant to Israel, will determine the fate of the indigenous people if and when Israel decides what to do with the Palestinians. This man, who won 12% of the vote, determines for Americans what their vote for Obamas change really means.
2/6/2009
Israeli Elections Prove Things Really Can Get Worse
Joharah Baker, MIFTAH 2/11/2009
This years general elections in Israel will go down in history as one of the tightest races ever. While Kadima head and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livnis centrist party has claimed a slight lead over Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu by one Knesset seat, this is by no means an all out victory for her. Without delving into the often confusing details of the Israeli electoral system, it suffices to say that both party leaders have a gargantuan task before them forming a strong enough coalition one that would guarantee 61 Knesset seats required by any prime minister to form a government.
As proven at the polls, it is still unclear which way the pendulum will swing in terms of what shape Israels next government will take. One thing is for sure though. Much to the chagrin of the Palestinians, the one key player in this years elections is neither Livni nor Netanyahu. It is Avigdor Lieberman.Should either Livni or Netanyahu be called on by Israeli President Shimon Peres to form a government, both will likely lean heavily on Lieberman and his Israel Beitenu party to help them out.
Here Comes the Four-State Solution
Rami G. Khouri, Middle East Online 2/11/2009
BEIRUT -- The Israeli elections Tuesday are expected to usher in a Likud-led right-of-center coalition. Regardless of the final result (I write this Tuesday morning, as the voting begins), one thing is already clear: Whoever wins, the chances of a negotiated peace based on a two-state solution are slim, and becoming more difficult every year.
But they are not impossible for two main reasons. The difficulties that plague peace prospects today are all man-made ones that can just as easily be reversed and removed by new men and women leaders who act with courage and wisdom. And, the resort to violence by all parties has emphasized the limits of militarism, and clarified that only a political resolution will bring peace and security. Neither side will surrender, or be eliminated.
Here is the very complex and challenging political context in which we operate today: The two-state solution is difficult but still possible, the one-state solution is often proposed by many Arabs but is not realistic in the near future, and the current configuration on the ground is in fact a three-state solution: Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.
More roadblock than roadmap in the Middle East
Benjamin Pogrund, The Guardian 2/11/2009
As the coalition-building begins, the only certain thing that can be said of Israel’s election result is that peace was not the winner.
A dark cloud hangs over peace prospects as a result of Tuesday’s elections in Israel. As widely anticipated, there was a discernible move to the right and that will determine the nature and policies of the new government. The bottom line is that there will not be any sustained drive to end the occupation of the West Bank or, perhaps, to relieve pressure on the Gaza Strip. Pursuing a peace deal with Syria is also unlikely.
Next week, President Shimon Peres will start to call in leaders to decide who will lead the government. Even if he gives Tzipi Livni of the more centrist Kadima a crack at it, she will have no choice but to turn to the right. Indeed, she speaks of a "national unity government" and has been making overtures both to Binyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman.
Netanyahu has repeatedly made clear that he opposes creation of a Palestinian state. Instead, he speaks of economic development "economic peace" he calls it. That is obviously desirable, but it is less obvious how it can be achieved when the West Bank is throttled internally and at the borders by hundreds of checkpoints and barriers to free movement. Nor is it explained why Palestinians can be expected to sit still and put away their demands for political and personal freedoms while waiting for a promised economic heaven. Netanyahu has also declared himself against any withdrawal from the Golan Heights. That halts any progress towards a peace deal with Syria, which insists on getting back the land which it lost when it went to war with Israel in 1967.
Shallow celebration for a hollow victory
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 2/11/2009
Three minutes before the results of the television channels’ exit polls were announced, the applause had already started.
Rhythmic, planned, mechanical, almost automatic. Someone pulled a Kadima flag out - yes, there is such a thing - and waved it. Advertisement
In the banquet hall of the luxury hotel, with more photographers than party members, there was not even any tension.
Four, three, two, one, just like before a launch, and then the exciting news: A two seat advantage for Kadima on all the channels.
A wave of joy? A river of happy tears? Not at all.
A group of party hacks, minor leaguers all, from this party of refugees broke out in a Hassidic-like circle dance.
Someone passed out small Israeli flags, another broke out in song - but it all seemed to be overdone.
An embarrassing election campaign came to its end with a hollow joy, a small comfort. Such an embarrassing campaign could not end any other way.
Slaps on the back, hugs and kisses.
"What a victory," cried the hacks. The loudspeakers blared out the party’s theme song continuously, but even the wretched tune could not lift anyone’s spirits, it just reflected on the party itself.
Pledging Allegiance to Discrimination
Nadia W. Awad, MIFTAH 2/9/2009
Im going to risk a limb here and dip my toe into the extremely controversial Israeli loyalty debate. This debate heated up when Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman made it one of the major themes for which his party, Israel Beytenu, is campaigning. Translated as Israel Our Homeland, the party was originally formed by Lieberman as a platform for Russian immigrants. It takes a strong stance against peace negotiations, considers the land for peace concept to be immoral and wrong, and aims to reduce the number of Palestinians living in Israel by as many as possible. As part of his Israeli election campaigning, Lieberman is calling for a loyalty test, or pledge of allegiance, for all Israeli citizens, including the Palestinians.You may ask yourself, so whats the big deal? Dont most countries require pledges of allegiance? Of course, most countries didnt begin and maintain an illegal occupation, didnt create millions of refugees, and dont treat a large number of their citizens as second class. Lieberman and his supporters argue that they are not asking Palestinian-Israelis to renounce their identity. Instead, they are asking that they recognize and pledge loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state. If they wish to live here as citizens with full rights and benefits, they must contribute to Israels success.
Of course, your average Palestinian-Israeli, after laughing at the part about full rights and benefits, will argue that to pledge allegiance to the Jewishness of Israel does indeed sacrifice ones own identity as a Palestinian Muslim or Christian. And look at the term Israeli Arab, which is widely used in Israeli discourse to refer to Palestinians living in Israel. This term in itself reveals a great deal about the Israeli psyche; for if you were to replace it with the phrase Palestinian-Israeli, you would shock many Israelis, even secular, left-wing ones....
Breaking the Palestinian impasse
Arjan El Fassed, Electronic Intifada 2/9/2009
To end the Palestinian political impasse, elections for the Palestine National Council (PNC) should be the top priority for all Palestinian parties. The 669-member Palestinian "parliament-in-exile" has not held a meeting since 1998 and its members have never been elected. Once a central body of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), what is left of the PNC lacks all legitimacy.
Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshal caused an uproar recently when he stated that in its current form the PLO is no longer a reference point for Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas, whose term as president of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority expired on 9 January, reacted with fury. Having himself lost all legal and political legitimacy, Abbas told a crowd in Cairo that "There will be no dialogue with those who reject the PLO."
Of course Meshal did not reject the PLO, but he asserted that the PLO has become "a center of division for the Palestinian household." Speaking to Al-Jazeera on 30 January, Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan clarified that the "PLO represents a good framework that can be used to solve a lot of our problems and disputes." Hamdan added that the body "is the only organization that is capable of continuing the negotiations and the signing of political agreements with internal factions and external sides alike." Fawzi Barhoum, another Hamas spokesperson, said that when Hamas made the suggestion to create "a new representation" it was not meant to suggest the creation of an alternative to the PLO. "We want to add opposition factions to the PLO, factions that are still not included within the body," he told reporters.
Will the Outcome of Israel’s Elections Really Make a Difference?
Palestine Monitor, Palestine Monitor 2/9/2009
With the upcoming February 10th Israeli election approaching fast, the outcome is still not certain. Theres been talk about alliances, accusations at various levels, and also the banning of three parties. On the 12th of January, the Central Election Committee banned all three Arab parties, Hadash, United Arab List-Taal and Balad, by accusing the parties of incitement, support for terror groups and refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland. The Israeli Supreme Court however overturned the decision from the CEC, with a unanimous vote on Wednesday the 21st.
The rumor of an alliance between Kadima and Israel Beiteinu, has been coming from right-wing parties, whose slogan If you vote for Lieberman you are going to get Tzipi Livni as prime minister, tries to remind people that in 2006, Israel Beiteinu was part of the Kadima-led government. These rumors were spread further by Tzipi Livni herself who would not rule out a coalition with Beiteinu
The Likud party with Benjamin Netanyahu, is in the lead, according to a broadcast on Channel 2 Wednesday night, but Kadima is a close second - just 3 mandates behind. Kadima is followed by Israel Beiteinu. On Thursday the 5th, Netanyahu reached out to the voters who are planning to vote for Israel Beiteinu, by reassuring them that a vote for Likud would guarantee Lieberman a senior ministry.
Obama’s Mideast ways are pretty similar to Bush’s
Yossi Alpher, Daily Star 2/9/2009
It is too early to evaluate the direction the Mitchell mission is taking. Mitchell’s preliminary visit, immediately after the war in Gaza and just days before Israel’s elections, can only be defined as an orientation tour. Hence, at this early date we can address the Mitchell mission only in terms of the direction George Mitchell appears to be headed.
Based on this first foray into the region, Mitchell’s mission can already be characterized as one enveloped in a paradox: He is not addressing all those Middle East actors who will have to be addressed if progress is to be achieved and if the principles laid out by President Barack Obama for dealing with the Middle East are to be honored.
Here we must recall the backdrop to Mitchell’s appointment and examine the course of this first visit. Back in 2001, it was Mitchell who coined a certain equation linking cessation of both Palestinian violence and Israeli settlement expansion. In the ensuing years, US President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon managed to address that equation in rather unique terms: they agreed to the total rejection of Palestinian violence, a wink and a nod at settlement expansion, but also the removal of all the Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip.
If not fascism, what is?
Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly 2/5/2009
Without censure, a growing current in Israeli politics is calling for the outright killing of Palestinians.
His name is Avigdor Lieberman and he is widely expected to be the main surprise of the Israeli elections, slated to take place 10 February.
Many Israeli intellectuals dub Lieberman as the secular equivalent of Meir Kahana, the slain founder of the Kach terrorist group who advocated genocidal ethnic cleansing of non-Jews in Israel-Palestine. Kahana was assassinated in Manhattan, New York, in 1990 shortly after giving a speech in which he called for the annihilation and expulsion of Palestinians from "the Land of Israel".
According to most opinion polls, Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beiteinu, or "Israel is our Home", is projected to win 16-17 Knesset seats out of 120 making up the Israeli parliament. This would allow Yisrael Beiteinu to overtake the Labour Party, led by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, to become the third largest party in the Israeli political system, after the Likud and Kadima parties. Lieberman’s party will likely be a chief coalition partner in the next Israeli government.
Kahane won
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 2/8/2009
Rabbi Meir Kahane can rest in peace: His doctrine has won. Twenty years after his Knesset list was disqualified and 18 years after he was murdered, Kahanism has become legitimate in public discourse. If there is something that typifies Israel’s current murky, hollow election campaign, which ends the day after tomorrow, it is the transformation of racism and nationalism into accepted values.
If Kahane were alive and running for the 18th Knesset, not only would his list not be banned, it would win many votes, as Yisrael Beiteinu is expected to do. The prohibited has become permitted, the ostracized is now accepted, the destestable has become the talented - that’s the slippery slope down which Israeli society has skidded over the past two decades.
There’s no need to refer to Haaretz’s startling revelation that Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman was a member of Kahane’s Kach party in his youth: This campaign’s dark horse was and is a Kahanist. The differences between Kach and Yisrael Beiteinu are minuscule, not fundamental and certainly not a matter of morality. The differences are in tactical nuances: Lieberman calls for a fascist "test of loyalty" as a condition for granting citizenship to Israel’s Arabs, while Kahane called for the unconditional annulment of their citizenship. One racist (Lieberman) calls for their transfer to the Palestinian state, the other (Kahane) called for their deportation. -- See also: Yaalon: Lieberman may recommend Livni
Hamas Is Not Going Away
Mel Frykberg, Inter Press Service 2/8/2009
RAMALLAH, Feb 6(IPS) - Despite intensive efforts by Israel, the international community and a number of Arab leaders to weaken and destroy Hamas through economic, punitive and military action, the Islamist organisation continues to be a force to reckon with.
Hamas won free and fair democratic elections in January 2006. The U.S. pushed for these elections, which were monitored by international observers including ex-U.S. president Jimmy Carter, and Israel permitted them to be held.
Hamas has since then been dominant, though it took effective control in June 2007, more than a year after its election victory. The Gaza Strip, which the resistance group controls, took a serious battering during Israel’s 22-day military assault, codenamed Operation Cast Lead.
The coastal territory has also been economically crippled by nearly two years of an Israeli embargo which has hermetically sealed Gaza off from the rest of the world, preventing the import of all but a tiny flow of humanitarian aid and goods.
1/31/2009
Israels Home Front
Nadia Hijab, Middle East Online 2/5/2009
As Israel heads toward its February 10 elections, we should reflect on the significance of Tzipi Livnis inability to form a government last year.
When she conceded defeat, setting the stage for a general election, the Kadima leader preferred to fail as a Jew than to succeed as an Israeli.
How so? Like her predecessors, Livni considered only Israeli Jewish parties as possible coalition partners. When she refused to give in to demands that she exclude Jerusalem from peace negotiations, she couldnt secure a majority. Had Livni brought in the three Arab parties, Kadima would, together with Labor and the pro-peace Meretz, have had a working Knesset coalition.
Of course, I know as well as anyone that a coalition government of the Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel is further away than ever. Palestinian Knesset members came closest to an alliance with (but not part of) an Israeli Jewish government during the Oslo negotiations when the late premier Yitzhak Rabin relied on their votes to maintain his majority. Since then, relations have sharply deteriorated.
Let Netanyahu win
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 2/5/2009
Benjamin Netanyahu will apparently be Israel’s next prime minister. There is, however, something encouraging about that fact. Netanyahu’s election will free Israel from the burden of deception: If he can establish a right-wing government, the veil will be lifted and the nation’s true face revealed to its citizens and the rest of the world, including Arab countries. Together with the world, we will see which direction we are facing and who we really are. The masquerade that has gone on for several years will finally come to an end.
Netanyahu’s election is likely to bring the curtain down on the great fraud - the best show in town - the lie of "negotiations" and the injustice of the "peace process." Israel consistently claimed these acts proved the nation was focused on peace and the end of the occupation.
For 16 years, we have been enamored with the peace process. We talk and talk, babble and prattle, and generally feel great about ourselves; meanwhile the settlements expand endlessly and Israel turns to the use of force at every possible opportunity, aside from a unilateral disengagement which did nothing to advance the cause of peace.
2/3/2009
The Wounds of Gaza
Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang, Palestine Think Tank 2/4/2009
Two Surgeons from the UK, Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang, managed to get into Gaza during the Israeli invasion. Here they describe their experiences,share their views, and conclude that the people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack.
Israeli weapons - The weapons used apart from conventional bombs and high explosives also include unconventional weapons of which at least 4 categories could be identified: Phosphorus Shells and bombs, Heavy Bombs, Fuel Air Explosives, Silent Bombs. In addition: Executions, Targeting of ambulances, Cluster bombs...
The wounds of Gaza are deep and multi-layered. Are we talking about the Khan Younis massacre of 5,000 in 1956 or the execution of 35,000 prisoners of war by Israel in 1967? Yet more wounds of the First Intifada, when civil disobedience by an occupied people against the occupiers resulted in massive wounded and hundreds dead? We also cannot discount the 5,420 wounded in southern Gaza alone since 2000. Hence what we are referring to below are only that of the invasion as of 27 December 2008,
Over the period of 27 December 2008 to the ceasefire of 18 Jan 2009, it was estimated that a million and a half tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza Strip. Gaza is 25 miles by 5 miles and home to 1.5 million people. This makes it the most crowded area in the whole world. Prior to this Gaza has been completely blockaded and starved for 50 days. In fact since the Palestinian election Gaza has been under total or partial blockade for several years.
Israeli elections; an open season for racism
Saed Bannoura, International Middle East Media Center News 2/4/2009
As different political parties are heating up the debate for the upcoming general elections in Israel, several right wing parties started competing on which party carries more hatred towards the Arabs and Palestinians, and which party is capable of expelling them once and for all.
Now, such debates are not something new in Israel, a state founded by expelling the indigenous Palestinians from their lands by carrying one massacre after the other, even years before Israel was officially established.
But right now, in this new world order, racism against the Arabs is being used by some right wing factions in Israel as a means to win more seats in the upcoming elections.
The Israeli right wing National Union party, one of the strongest parties among Jewish settlers in the West Bank, proposed an initiative to fight the Arabs and Palestinians by expelling them to Venezuela.
The party said that the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, proved to be the political leader who is very loyal to the Palestinians “therefore, Arabs who do not accept to be transferred to the Arab world, will be comfortable in Venezuela, it will be better for them and more comfortable for us&rdquo.
Chomsky on Oil and the Israel Lobby
M. Shahid Alam, Palestine Chronicle 2/3/2009
’Protestant Christians believe the ingathering of Jews .. will precede the Second Coming.’
In the slow evolution of US relations with Israel since 1948, as the latter mutated from a strategic liability to a strategic asset, Israel and its Jewish allies in the United States have always occupied the driver’s seat.
President Truman had shepherded the creation of Israel in 1947 not because the American establishment saw it as a strategic asset; this much is clear. "No one," writes Cheryl Rubenberg, "not even the Israelis themselves, argues that the United States supported the creation of the Jewish state for reasons of security or national interest."(1) Domestic politics, in an election year, was the primary force behind President Truman’s decision to support the creation of Israel. In addition, the damage to US interests due to the creation of Israel -- al-though massive -- was not immediate. This was expected to unfold slowly: and its first blows would be borne by the British who were still the paramount power in the region.
Nevertheless, soon after he had helped to create Israel, President Truman moved decisively to appear to distance the United States from the new state. Instead of committing American troops to protect Israel, when it fought against five Arab armies, he imposed an even-handed arms embargo on both sides in the conflict. Had Israel been dismantled [at birth], President Truman would have urged steps to protect the Jewish colonists in Palestine, but he would have accepted a premature end to the Zionist state as fait accompli. Zionist pressures failed to persuade President Truman to lift the arms embargo. Ironically, military deliveries from Czechoslovakia may have saved the day for Israel.
1/31/2009
Who Profits?
Dominique Edde, Crises Magazine, Palestine Monitor 2/3/2009
What does Israel intend to gain at the conclusion of another bombing operation, this time called Cast Lead?
The provision of security for Israeli citizens. The elimination of Hamas. Do we know from history even one example which proves this system works? Operation Grapes of Wrath, which included the Qana massacre in 1996? It strengthened Hezbollah and ended with a withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in 2000. Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin, in the spring of 2002? Operation Paved Road, two months later? The years 2002-2003 were bloody for the Israeli population with 293 killed. What about Operation Rainbow in 2004? Or Judgment Day four months later in the northern Gaza Strip, that had the same dire results?
Murder of the Hamas political leaders, about which Israel bragged without shame? Suicide bombings reached their height in 2005, and at the beginning of the following year Hamas received an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections. Appropriate Response, or the second world war in 2006 that destroyed an entire country and resulted in the death of more than 1000 civilians, of whom 32% were children? Here also, Israel destroyed and gained no tangible results; war booty? The exchange of two corpses of Israeli soldiers in exchange for 5 prisoners and tens of bodies of Lebanese and Palestinians. -- See also: Crises Magazine
Jingoism all the way
Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly 1/29/2009
As elections near, Israel is swinging to the right, the only question being how far.
Netanyahu, Livini, Barak One of the main but undeclared goals of the recent Israeli blitzkrieg against the Gaza Strip was to significantly enhance the chances of the Kadima and Labour parties in upcoming Israeli elections, slated for 10 February.
Conventional wisdom has it that Israeli Jewish voters are more likely to give their votes to candidates with a reputation of toughness vis-à-vis the Palestinians. In the popular and political lexicon, this means spilling Palestinian blood, destroying more Palestinian homes and narrowing Palestinian horizons.
Kadima and Labour party leaders had hoped that the killing and maiming of thousands of Palestinians, mostly innocent civilians, coupled with the relentless bombing and destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and agricultural land, would put both parties in an advantageous position against the Likud, led by Benyamin Netanyahu. However, post-war polls have shown that the genocidal Gaza onslaught didn’t dramatically help Kadima and that the popularity boost it briefly obtained during the Gaza campaign proved variable rather than constant.
1/22/2009
Winning and Losing in Gaza
Richard Falk, Middle East Online 1/28/2009
Now that there is a cease-fire in Gaza, questions are emerging about what Israel has achieved. Of course, the lopsided casualty figures and Israel’s military dominance certainly make it the battlefield winner. But such a "mission accomplished" assessment is as misleading in occupied Palestine as it was in Iraq. Although Hamas could not come close to matching Israel’s armed might, it may have won a major battle for Palestinian hearts and minds. Reports from the West Bank, Gaza and the Palestinian diaspora suggest widespread anger at the Palestinian Authority for its passivity and a rise in support for Hamas, even among secular Palestinians -- in appreciation of its determined resistance to the brutality of the Israeli occupation and military operations. If Hamas becomes the dominant political force in all of occupied Palestine when the next elections are held, Israel will be the loser.
The scorecard is also complicated on the diplomatic front. Perhaps Israel’s military display will have some inhibiting effects on its opponents, but the extreme one-sidedness of the struggle evoked widespread protests and some negative diplomatic repercussions. Qatar and Mauritania, among the few states in the region that had accepted Israel, broke relations, and the European Union has suspended moves to improve Israel’s status as a trading partner. The Turkish prime minister even suggested expelling Israel from the United Nations.
A decisive loss for Israel
Mousa Abu Marzook, Electronic Intifada 1/23/2009
Israel’s objectives from the war on Gaza were set long before its launch: to remove the Hamas movement and government, achieve the reinstallation of the Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, in Gaza, and end the armed resistance. Two other objectives were not announced. First, restore the Israeli public’s wavering confidence in its armed forces after its defeat by Hizballah in 2006. Second, boost the coalition government in the coming elections.
Accordingly, we declare that Israel lost, and lost decisively. What did it achieve? The killing of large numbers of civilians, children and women, and the destruction of homes, ministry buildings and other infrastructure with the most advanced United States weapons and other internationally banned chemical and phosphorous elements. Almost 2,000 children were killed and injured in desperate pursuit of political goals. Many international organizations called these attacks war crimes, yet barely a word of denunciation was uttered by any western leader. What message does the European Union mean to send Palestinians by its shameful silence on these crimes, when it speaks incessantly on human rights?
This Violence in Gaza Has Killed the Moderates
The National - Editorial, MIFTAH 1/20/2009
After three weeks of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip a ceasefire is finally forthcoming, yet there is little to celebrate. Over 1,000 Palestinians have died as a result of the bombardment of densely populated urban areas. Much of Gazas infrastructure, already depleted after six months of crippling economic blockade, is demolished or non-functioning. And this ceasefire contains nothing that ensures that the violence will not resume in the immediate future. For, despite international efforts to impose a bilateral ceasefire on Hamas and Israel, little progress was made. Instead Israel has decided to halt its assault under what it terms a unilateral ceasefire, but the move amounts to little more than a face-saving measure.
It had been hypothesised that Israels invasion would end before the inauguration of Barack Obama on Tuesday to avoid alienating its staunchest ally, the United States, but few realised just how cynically Israel would adhere to that deadline. It was always thought that the attempts to cripple Hamas amounted to little more than a public-relations campaign ahead of the parliamentary elections in February, and the triumphalist rhetoric of the Kadima leadership illustrates the accuracy of that belief. The party, which suffered a severe blow to its credibility with the disastrous conclusion of the 2006 war in Lebanon, has enjoyed a resurgence in support for its actions in Gaza. Tzipi Livni, Kadimas main prime ministerial candidate, has been eager to capitalise on the invasion to improve her standing against her chief opponent, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sacrificing Gaza to revive Israel’s Labor party
Smadar Lavie, Electronic Intifada 1/19/2009
On 27 December 2008, Israel initiated yet another heinous carnage of the Palestinian people because of its democratically elected Hamas government. It did so with the silent encouragement of the US, the European Union and their Arab subcontractors, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. I have spent the past few weeks talking on Skype with friends in Ashdod, an Israeli town about 30 kilometers north of the Gaza Strip. Several times, they have had to seek safety from the rockets by fleeing to Jerusalem. The background noise to our conversations has been the sophisticated newspeak oozing from the Israeli TV.
How cynical are Israeli politicians that they have chosen to sacrifice the lives of innocent Gazan families to seek political advantage in the elections that will happen on 10 February. Not only has the Israeli regime sent its military machine to commit genocide in Gaza, it has also endangered the lives of its own citizens and soldiers. This, without even once trying to negotiate in good faith with the elected government of the Palestinian people.
The West Bank: We’re all Hamas now: supporters of Fatah unite behind enemy
Ben Lynfield in Ramallah, The Independent 1/9/2009
Even if Israel wins on the battlefield or in the diplomatic corridors it is already paying the price of its Gaza onslaught in intensified hatred in the hearts of its Palestinian neighbours in the West Bank. The campaign also appears to be increasing public scepticism about the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s chosen path of negotiations as the way to establish an independent state alongside Israel.
The diplomacy championed by Mr Abbas has for years been difficult to sell to Palestinians because it has brought little or no relief from occupation or improvement in their daily lives, only the expansion of Israeli settlements. This existing frustration –which helped Hamas defeat Mr Abbas’s Fatah movement in the 2006 elections – is now combined with popular anger and dismay at the carnage among fellow Palestinians in Gaza.
Palestinian Authority security forces are keeping a tight lid on protests, preventing confrontations with Israeli troops and arresting anyone raising Hamas banners at rallies. But displays of identification with the beleaguered Gazans are everywhere. Nine-year-old green-kerchiefed girl Scouts, their foreheads marked with the word Gaza in red ink, were among those who marched through the main al-Manara square in a protest. They held up pictures of bandaged toddlers, and dozens of demonstrators chanted, "With blood and spirit, we will redeem you, O Gaza".
Misreading Gaza
Roane Carey, Middle East Online 1/9/2009
The current Gaza crisis is the culmination of more than two years of failed strategy, conceived and carried out jointly by the United States and Israel.
The first mistake was their refusal to accept the results of the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, acknowledged by all observers to be free and fair. Hamas won that poll, but instead of engaging the new leadership -- and testing its avowal that it would accept, if not applaud, a two-state resolution of the conflict -- Israel, with US encouragement, cut off aid, tax revenues and, eventually, almost all connection with the outside world. The policy was brutal and straightforward: Gaza’s 1.5 million citizens would be punished for electing leaders unacceptable to Tel Aviv and Washington.
The next stage was to encourage a coup by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, despite Hamas’ willingness to form a coalition with Abbas’ Fatah faction. But Hamas struck first, overthrowing the corrupt and discredited PA in June 2007. Since then, Israel has tightened the siege on Gaza, leading the UN’s human rights representative in the territories, Richard Falk, to accuse Israel of committing a "crime against humanity.
1/4/2009
Conditioning Gaza: preparing to deploy international forces in Palestine?
Hani Asfour, Daily Star 1/6/2009
The Israeli attack on Gaza is likely timed to coincide with the February elections in Israel and this month’s inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama in anticipation of launching a comprehensive Middle East peace plan. The ultimate goal of the Gaza invasion is to create the conditions to introduce international troops into Palestine. Part of the purpose is to prop up the regime of President Mahmoud Abbas and allow the Palestinian leader to extend his mandate across all of Palestine. By calling for international military support, Abbas is seeking to end both the violence and the Israeli occupation at once. The hope is that he will re-establish his legitimacy and provide the grounds for a two-state solution as prescribed in President George Bush’s 2002 UN Security Council Resolution 1397, "of two States, Israel and Palestine, living side by side within secure and recognized borders," a proposition openly rejected by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, and Likud, the Israeli right-wing party.
The idea for an international military intervention was first proposed by Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel under presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush 43, in a 2003 Foreign Affairs article, "A Trusteeship for Palestine?" The main idea is to replace the Israeli occupation with an international force that would train and guide the Palestinians into self-rule, while ensuring the security of both Israel and Palestine.
12/31/2008
The real goal of the slaughter in Gaza
Jonathan Cook, Electronic Intifada 1/1/2009
Ever since Hamas triumphed in the Palestinian elections nearly three years ago, the story in Israel has been that a full-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip was imminent. But even when public pressure mounted for a decisive blow against Hamas, the government backed off from a frontal assault.
Now the world waits for Ehud Barak, the defense minister, to send in the tanks and troops as the logic of this operation is pushing inexorably towards a ground war. Nonetheless, officials have been stalling. Significant ground forces are massed on Gaza’s border, but still the talk in Israel is of "exit strategies," lulls and renewed ceasefires.
Even if Israeli tanks do lumber into the enclave, will they dare to move into the real battlegrounds of central Gaza? Or will they simply be used, as they have been in the past, to terrorize the civilian population on the peripheries?
Israelis are aware of the official reason for Barak’s reticence to follow the air strikes with a large-scale ground war. They have been endlessly reminded that the worst losses sustained by the army in the second Palestinian intifada took place in 2002 during the invasion of Jenin refugee camp.
12/30/2008
How Hypocrisy on ’Terrorism’ Kills
Robert Parry, Middle East Online 1/1/2009
Israel, a nation that was born out of Zionist terrorism, has launched massive airstrikes against targets in Gaza using high-tech weapons produced by the United States, a country that often has aided and abetted terrorism by its client military forces, such as Chiles Operation Condor and the Nicaraguan contras, and even today harbors right-wing Cuban terrorists implicated in blowing up a civilian airliner.
Yet, with that moral ambiguity excluded from the debate, the justification for the Israeli attacks, which have killed at least 364 people, is the righteous fight against terrorism, since Gaza is ruled by the militant Palestinian group, Hamas.
Hamas rose to power in January 2006 through Palestinian elections, which ironically the Bush administration had demanded. However, after Hamas won a parliamentary majority, Israel and the United States denounced the outcome because they deem Hamas a terrorist organization.
Hamas then wrested control of Gaza from Fatah, a rival group that once was considered terrorist but is now viewed as a US-Israeli partner, so it has been cleansed of the terrorist label.
The dogs of war
Osamah Khalil, Electronic Intifada 12/29/2008
Almost eight years ago, George W. Bush entered office in the early months of the second Palestinian intifada. Rather than resuming the negotiations facilitated by the Clinton Administration, he chose instead to "pull out" and allow Ariel Sharon, who was favored to win the upcoming Israeli elections, a free hand to end the intifada. According to former US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Bush asserted that "sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things." [1] President Bush now leaves office with historically low approval ratings and an economy in shambles. As a consequence of his foreign policy misadventures, Bush also leaves the Middle East in flames and America’s reputation in tatters. Yet, one thing has remained constant for the aloof president: deference to an Israeli "show of strength" rather than diplomacy. Only a year ago, Bush hosted the Annapolis conference that "relaunched" the "peace process" and then predictably stood by as it stalled out. Unable to launch a war against Iran, capture Osama bin Laden, pacify Afghanistan or Iraq, or broker a Palestinian-Israeli peace, rather than ride into the sunset in the waning days of his presidency, Bush is determined to leave in a final blaze of malicious incompetence. As it has been so often over the past eight years, the site of his enmity is Gaza.
The self delusion that plagues both sides in this bloody conflict
Robert Fisk, The Independent 12/31/2008
During the second Palestinian "intifada", I was sitting in the offices of Hizbollah’s Al-Manar television station in Beirut, watching news footage of a militiaman’s funeral in Gaza. The television showed hordes of Hamas and PLO gunmen firing thousands of rounds of ammunition into the air to honour their latest "martyr"; and I noticed, just next to me, a Lebanese Hizbollah member -- who had taken part in many attacks against the Israelis in what had been Israel’s occupation zone in southern Lebanon -- shaking his head.
What was he thinking, I asked? "Hamas try to stand up to the Israelis," he replied. "But..." And here he cast his eyes to the ceiling. "They waste bullets. They fire all these bullets into the sky. They should use them to shoot at Israelis."
His point, of course, was that Hamas lacked discipline, the kind of iron, ruthless discipline and security that Hizbollah forged in Lebanon and which the Israeli army was at last forced to acknowledge in southern Lebanon in 2006. Guns are weapons, not playthings for funerals. And Gaza is not southern Lebanon. It would be as well for both sides in this latest bloodbath in Gaza to remember this. Hamas is not Hizbollah. Jerusalem is not Beirut. And Israeli soldiers cannot take revenge for their 2006 defeat in Lebanon by attacking Hamas in Gaza – not even to help Ms Livni in the Israeli elections.
From the ashes of Gaza
Tariq Ali, The Guardian 12/30/2008
The assault on Gaza planned over six months and executed with perfect timing, was designed largely as Neve Gordon has rightly observed to help the incumbent parties triumph in the forthcoming Israeli elections. The dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder in a cynical contest between the right and the far right in Israel. Washington and its EU allies, perfectly aware that Gaza was about to be assaulted, as in the case of Lebanon in 2006, sit back and watch.
Washington, as is its wont, blames the pro-Hamas Palestinians, with Obama and Bush singing from the same AIPAC hymn sheet. The EU politicians, having observed the build-up, the siege, the collective punishment inflicted on Gaza, the targeting of civilians etc (for all the gory detail, see Harvard scholar Sara Roy’s chilling essay in the London Review of Books were convinced that it was the rocket attacks that had "provoked" Israel but called on both sides to end the violence, with nil effect. The moth-eaten Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt and Nato’s favourite Islamists in Ankara failed to register even a symbolic protest by recalling their ambassadors from Israel. China and Russia did not convene a meeting of the UN security council to discuss the crisis.
Delusions of victory in Gaza
Zvi Barel, Ha’aretz 12/28/2008
As of yesterday, politicians and the public at large have been enthralled by a new prospect: that of a wide-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip. Such a prospect answers all their heart’s secret wishes: Avenging the rocket fire by Gazan militants, reclaiming Israel’s prestige, delivering a fatal blow to Hamas, providing payback for Israel’s 2005 pullout from Gaza, sending a strong message to Iran, an implicit one to Hezbollah, and also showing the government’s concern for its citizens and scoring some points with the electorate ahead of the elections.
The public’s imaginations are let loose as they chant a battle-cry. Fighter planes have already bombed dozens of targets in the heart of Gaza and tomorrow thousands of troops may storm its alleyways. On the third day the Israel Defense Forces might eliminate Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh, Mushir al-Masri and Mahmoud al-Zahar. It will seize the Hamas government’s buildings and an army spokesman will display captured arm caches containing sophisticated missiles and thousands of guns to the press.
...How many soldiers are expected to be killed in the first wave? How many months is the IDF expected to spend in Gaza, sweeping its houses and tunnels? How many Palestinian civilians will be killed? Will Gilad Shalit survive in such a scenario? Will Hezbollah remain passive during a Gaza offensive? How will the residents of the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt react? What about the new U.S. president? And Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas? Not that he really matters.
Hunger Before the Storm
Sameh A. Habeeb, Middle East Online 12/27/2008
Israeli politicians, in the run-up to elections, are promising to deal a severe blow to Gaza as this is how Israeli policy is made. However, every household in Gaza is already under siege. In Gaza you can only find pale, angry and frustrated faces. If you visit my house you won’t find power, while my neighbor is out of gas. Another neighbor seeks potable water as power outages have left him without for four days. A third neighbor desparately looks for milk for his child but does so in vain. Another friend who lives on the corner needs medicine that can’t currently be found in Gaza.
There is no shortage of such stories in Gaza (though there is a shortage of nearly everything else). Perhaps broadcasting such stories would result in pressure on Israeli leaders to stop the siege. Because what is happening is that the entire Gaza population of 1.5 million -- densely packed into a small area -- is being punished for crude rockets being fired into Israel by a few.
Shaher Mazen, 25, holds a degree in political science but works as a taxi driver to put bread on the table for his family. I spoke to him while I was on my way to some of the Gaza bakeries to cover some news that was happening there. Shaher was frustrated because of siege and furious towards the two rival Palestinian governments, considering them as weak in the face of Israel.
No strategy, no change
Yossi Alpher, Jerusalem Post 12/23/2008
The official end of the six-month cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza is not going to change very much in Israel-Hamas relations. Of course, it could change a lot for those Israelis and Palestinians who may now again be exposed to more intense physical danger. But just as before the cease-fire and during the cease-fire, the country will continue not knowing what to do about Hamas.
Not only this country, but Egypt, the PLO, the US and Europe as well will remain at a loss. None of these actors has a workable strategy for dealing with Hamas. While the more distant actors in Washington and Brussels can perhaps afford to continue muddling through this issue, for Jerusalem, Cairo and Ramallah this has become a critical and inexcusable lacuna.
All three would like Hamas to disappear. But they don’t know how to make this happen, at least not at a reasonable price. And when they fail, they have no reasonable alternatives to fall back on.
Obviously, it is Israel that concerns us here. Over the three years since Hamas began gradually taking over the Gaza Strip, first through elections and then by force, this country has invoked a variety of economic, military and political measures for dealing with it. All have proven ineffective.
Unity, and peace, hinge on US
Jim Lobe, Electronic Intifada 12/19/2008
WASHINGTON (IPS) - Eighteen months after Hamas evicted Fatah forces from Gaza, the prospects for restoring Palestinian unity are more elusive than ever, with both factions believing that time is on their side, according to a new report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) released Wednesday.
But changes in the regional and international landscape, particularly if United States President-elect Barack Obama follows through on his campaign pledges to engage with Iran and Syria, could spur a reconciliation, one which a growing number of experts here believe is essential for progress toward a Palestinian-Israeli peace accord.
A more flexible attitude towards Hamas by Washington -- which organized a western diplomatic and aid boycott against it after the Islamist group won elections in 2006 and later formed a government of national unity with Fatah -- could also play a critical role in encouraging intra-Palestinian reconciliation that would in turn enhance chances for a peace settlement with Israel, according to the report.
Round and round again
Simon Tisdall, The Guardian 12/16/2008
Pressure is building on all sides for positive movement to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict. The transition in Washington, February’s Israeli elections, and possible power shifts among the Palestinians are encouraging perceptions of a new "window of opportunity". But while the view through the glass may be clearer, the window frame remains firmly locked and bolted.
Filling the temporary gap between George Bush and Barack Obama, Britain has presumed to lead and is busy twisting arms. Gordon Brown’s talks today with Israel’s caretaker leader, Ehud Olmert, followed a gee-up session with the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, at a London conference on investment in the Palestinian economy. "Let’s seize the opportunity to make 2009 the Middle East year of peace," Brown said.
Claiming to have Obama’s full backing, Brown’s clunking fist is also being directed at the Arab states. "Ultimately more is needed than a two-state solution - a broader peace between Israel and all its Arab neighbours," he said. That message was driven home by foreign secretary David Miliband during a visit to the region last month.
12/13/2008
While Livni promises Arab deportation, Obama offers "nuclear umbrella" to Tel Aviv - that's what friends are for!
Michele Giorgio, il manifesto, Palestine Think Tank 12/14/2008
Jerusalem - Everyone is pointing their finger at Benyamin Netanyahu, guilty of being the leader of a Likud full of rightist extremists like Moshe Feiglin. And yet, yesterday Tzipi Livni, the candidate as the Premier of the "centrist" Kadima in the coming elections held next 10 February who is currently serving as Foreign Minister, proved to hold opinions that are very close to those of the nationalist extremists. Leaving no room for possible misinterpretations, Livni told a group of high school students in Tel Aviv that the Israeli Arabs (Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, one fifth of the Israeli population) should go and live in the Palestinian state when it has been set up.
Once a Palestinian state is establishedLivni claimedamong other things I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Arab Israelis, and tell them: ’your national aspirations lie elsewhere.’ Livni didnt specify which steps she would take in order to have the Arab Israelis transferred into the future Palestinian state while the Arab Israelis will go on demanding the foundation of an Israeli state belonging to all its citizens and not to its Jewish majority alone.
Obama’s Middle East Challenge
Yinon Cohen and Neve Gordon – Israel, Palestine Chronicle 12/8/2008
’Obama has a crucial advantage over his predecessors.’
As Barack Obama enters the oval office he will face a series of daunting challenges. One of these is confronting the age old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been seriously, yet unsuccessfully, tackled by every American president since Jimmy Carter. The inability to reach a peaceful solution has not only had fatal repercussions for the people residing in Israel and the Occupied Territories, but has also been detrimental to Middle East stability and to vital US interests in the region.
In recent years, some of the hurdles facing those political leaders who want to reach a peace agreement based on the two-state solution have only grown. The Palestinians are in the midst of an internal fray between the old-guard of Fatah and the fundamentalist Hamas ideologues, and currently there is no agreed upon leadership with which one can negotiate. The Israeli political arena has also become much more polarized, and, it will be practically impossible for whichever party wins the upcoming elections to sign a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians, not least because the settler movement and its supporters will control a critical block in the Knesset.
12/5/2008
Memo for Obama
Uri Avnery – Israel, Palestine Chronicle 12/5/2008
’Your personal intervention, at the critical moment, could do wonders.’
For the President-Elect, Mr. Barack Obama.
The following humble suggestions are based on my 70 years of experience as an underground fighter, special forces soldier in the 1948 war, editor-in-chief of a newsmagazine, member of the Knesset and founding member of a peace movement:
(1) As far as Israeli-Arab peace is concerned, you should act from Day One.
(2) Israeli elections are due to take place in February 2009. You can have an indirect but important and constructive impact on the outcome, by announcing your unequivocal determination to achieve Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-all-Arab peace in 2009.
(3) Unfortunately, all your predecessors since 1967 have played a double game. While paying lip service to peace, and sometimes going through the motions of making some effort for peace, they have in practice supported our governments in moving in the very opposite direction. In particular, they have given tacit approval to the building and enlargement of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian and Syrian territories, each of which is a land mine on the road to peace.
It’s not the economy, stupid
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 12/1/2008
They say that this time, for a change, the elections will focus on the economy rather than on peace and security. It’s impossible for us to manage without security, so they’re talking about a financial "security net" for savers and pensioners. That way, it’s more convenient for everyone. And instead of talking about dividing Jerusalem, Tzipi Livni will be free to display her integrity. Who remembers that she washed the corruption off Ariel Sharon, who sent his son to sit in prison in his stead?
Dealing with the economy also frees Ehud Barak from troublesome questions like whether Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a peace partner, and if not, what will the heir of Yitzhak Rabin propose to do with the territories. And Benjamin Netanyahu, instead of explaining how his "economic peace" goes together with occupation and settlements, will be able to wave about his reputation for being an economic messiah.
However, shifting the agenda to the financial security/safety net doesn’t, of course, obligate the neighbors to do the same. Indeed, while Israelis are busy with election campaigns, in the guise of a debate over the future of the economy, Iran and Syria are focusing on the future of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Last week the two countries sponsored a conference on the right of return of Palestinian refugees, which took place in Damascus. The conference attacked the relevant clause in the Arab peace initiative, and declared that the right of return is an individual right reserved for every refugee, and that no one has the authority to negotiate over it.
Gazans Resist by Surviving
Ramzi Kysia - Gaza, Palestine Chronicle 11/20/2008
’The greatest act of nonviolent resistance in Gaza has been simply surviving.’
"I will send fire upon the walls of Gaza’" -- Amos 1:7 In a small cafe in Gaza City, Amjad Shawa, the coordinator for the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), sips black coffee and ruminates on the Israeli blockade of Gaza. "This siege isn’t about ’security’ or even about Hamas," he says. "Israel’s ultimate aim is to separate Gaza from the West Bank and kill the Palestinian national project."
The Gaza Strip, a 25-mile-long narrow coastal plain wedged between Israel and Egypt, is home to 1.5 million Palestinians. Despite its small size, Gaza in many ways encapsulates the essence of two of the world’s major conflicts: the rise of political Islam and the use by the West of collective punishment and economic coercion as a brutal counterweight.
Since Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006, Israel has subjected Gaza to an increasingly severe blockade. In June 2007, after Hamas defeated militants aligned with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and forcibly asserted control of Gaza, Israel tightened the blockade to include everything except occasional deliveries of humanitarian goods. The local economy has shattered as a result, leading to steep increases in unemployment, poverty and childhood malnutrition rates.
11/6/2008
Disaster of Israel’s Making
Sonja Karkar - Melbourne, Palestine Chronicle 11/12/2008
’Palestinian society has been taken on a rollercoaster ride of promises (and) lies’
The illegal settlement movement, supported by every Israeli administration to date, has burgeoned out of control and its right wing leaders are vehemently opposed to negotiating land for peace.
We will probably see the present Foreign Minister and Kadima party leader, Tzipi Livni - if she forms the next government and takes over from Ehud Olmert, now interim PM - use the same stalling tactics with the Palestinian Authority that have, up until now, allowed land grabs from the Palestinians for the Zionist dream of a greater Israel. After all, Livni was nurtured on that dream.
Her main rival, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to allow expansion of the settlements if he wins expected early elections. A 15-year-old peace process is ominously poised for failure, not just politically but economically.
The 1993 Oslo Peace Accords were supposed to offer the Palestinians the political freedom and economic independence to which they have always been entitled. Since then, Palestinian society has been taken on a rollercoaster ride of promises, lies, provocations and chaos with not a single benefit to show for its painful concessions.
10/11/2008
Differing directions
Hassan Nafaa, Al-Ahram Weekly 11/6/2008
Despite being pro-Israeli, Obama will face an Israel radicalised to the right while the US he promises, and that the world awaits, is of the centre.
With the US presidential elections at hand it is hard to resist the temptation to turn to recent history. Around this time in 2000, Bill Clinton was gathering his papers as he prepared to leave the White House, weighed down by disappointment in the results of strenuous efforts he had exerted over the preceding months to reach a final settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He had succeeded in persuading Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak to come to Camp David to discuss final status issues in talks that he attended personally. Now Arafat and Barak had to reorder their cards, each in their own way, in order to ready themselves for a new phase in the conflict following the failure of Camp David II. Whereas Arafat realised that he had to prepare the Palestinian people to take on the burdens of another phase in the struggle that would be exceedingly difficult after Sharon’s provocative visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque that triggered the second Intifada, Barak had to scramble to mend rifts in his coalition government and get ready for early elections. Within a short space of time after the US elections, which resulted in a Bush victory, Israeli Knesset elections were held and resulted in the victory of Sharon.
I Hope The Palestinians Will Use Nonviolence In Their Struggle For Human Rights And Freedom
Mairead Maguire, November 4, Palestine Monitor 11/9/2008
(Journey to Gaza, 28th October, 1st November, 2008)
On 28th October, 2008, the Free Gaza Movement set sail in SS Dignity from Larnaca, Cyprus, for Gaza. On board were 27 Internationals from 13 countries, Including Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, five physicians, human rights lawyers, etc., I felt deeply privileged to be part of this group going to Gaza. On this the second boat journey into Gaza the siege-breakers brought with them 6 cubic meters of medicine, and their hope that by going to Gaza across the sea (only the second boat to do so in over 41 years) they would give hope to the people of Gaza and that the outside world would break its silence to the tragedy of Gaza’s suffering and act to get the siege lifted.
Its hard to image that in the 2lst century a country can be so cut off from the Outside world. Sixteen months ago, when Gazans voted Hamas in free and fair elections, the reaction of Israel was not to open up dialogue with the Elected representatives (as they eventually must do) but to put in place a Policy of collective punishment of the entire population, which has lead to an humanitarian catastrophe. Israel said it was ending the Occupation of Gaza, but in truth it maintained it by closing all border entrances and isolating The Gazans from the entire world. Gaza is like an open air prison with Israel holding the keys but its worse, at least in prison, the inmates are Fed and taken care of. The people of Gaza are drinking polluted water and have not enough food and medicines and materials for existence. And in the words of one Gazan we are slowly choking to death with this siege. Before we sailed to Gaza the Israeli Gov., warned we would not be allowed to sail into Gaza. However, we were determined to do so and just 20 miles off the coast of Gaza, held our breath as two Israeli navy gunboats stalked us but took no action. Common sense had prevailed; hopefully a sign for the future, that in the final analysis those in power in Israel will realize that dialogue not Gunboats and F.16s, is the only way to solve this too long and painful Palestinian Occupation. We arrived in Gaza exhausted and sea-sick. We were met by dozens of Palestinian heavily armed Police and though, before leaving Gaza, I had requested not to be so guarded, we were informed that the Hamas Government wanted to ensure our safety, and throughout the entire 4 day visit we were escorted by armed Palestinian police. Our reception by the people of Gaza was deeply moving....
10/15/2008
Palestines Partner for Peace?
Nadia Awad, Middle East Online 11/8/2008
JERUSALEM After a month of haggling, Tzipi Livni, appointed to replace outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, announced last week that she has not been able to form a coalition government to support her rule. Let the people choose their leaders, she said instead, calling for early elections likely to take place in February of next year. Most observers called her decision a huge blow to peace. Livnis inability to create a coalition government sends more than just the message of snap elections. It tells us that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas may not have a partner for peace in Israels government after all.
Israels political system is a notoriously complicated one, with a large number of small parties effectively preventing any one party from winning a majority of the Knesset’s 120 seats. In order for any government to survive, they must create an often unstable coalition with small parties with whom they do not necessarily have much in common with. This requires sacrifices on their part for a precious few seats. PM Olmerts Kadima party succeeded in 2006 in building a coalition that included Labour, a large centre-left political party, and Shas, a right-wing ultra-orthodox faction with 12 seats. This time around, Labour again agreed to join a new coalition....
Palestinians and Lebanon’s Elections
Franklin Lamb – Beirut, Palestine Chronicle 9/25/2008
Nassarallah has often spoke of the Party’s moral duty to help return Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugees to their lands.
"We in Hezbollah want to demonstrate to our adversaries and doubters what we can achieve for our fellow Lebanese and our Palestinian brothers and sisters and to show them that our Party is 10% about military matters and 90% about ending corruption and improving the quality of lives of all who live in Lebanon. We will offer the voters a clear choice and they will decide. If we win, our friends and foes alike can observe and evaluate our achievements and then work with us on a basis of mutual respect, dialogue, and cooperation if they so choose or, if we fail, vote our deputies out of Parliament. We must respect their decision." - Zeinab, a Hezbollah supporter studying at the American University of Beirut 12 September 2008 Lebanon’s 2009 election campaign is underway!
As this note is written, Hezbollah election strategists are meeting nearby studying, analyzing, debating and formularizing plans for Lebanon’s make or break 2009 elections. That poll, if it happens, may determine the foreseeable future of Lebanon and is arguably this fractured country’s most important referendum since the French more on less left in 1943.
9/19/2008
The living illusion
Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly 9/25/2008
The friendly smile hides a sinister agenda
With Tzipi Livni succeeding Ehud Olmert as Israel’s next prime minister following her slim victory over former defense minister Shaul Mofaz on 18 September, most Palestinians are pinning few hopes on the "new" Israeli government’s ability to make a real difference in relations.
Initially, Livni’s victory generated a modicum of euphoria, especially among observers not well-versed in Israeli politics. However, a more sobre analysis of the political realities in Israel suggests that Livni won’t be able to do much in terms of reaching a final status agreement with the Palestinian Authority without having the backing of a solid majority in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
One Israeli writer remarked following Livni’s victory that "the heart wants to hope, but the brain cannot." Some observers on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides are already predicting that the government Livni is going to form will not last long and that early general elections will have to be held in Israel sooner rather than later.
Look beyond Rafah
Galal Nassar, Al-Ahram Weekly 9/25/2008
Hamas needs to set its sights on the good of the Palestinian people, not simply its own self-interest.
Once again, Palestinian factional leaders come to Cairo in search of elusive reconciliation. The deal they once signed in Mecca looked good, but it didn’t stick for long. Is anyone keeping track of all the rounds of talks that have been held? Dozens, hundreds perhaps! Some may recall that Fatah and Hamas started talking in the early 1990s in Sudan. Well, they’ve been talking ever since, in various venues around the region.
A few years back, the positions of the two sides were far apart. Hamas posed as a resistance movement that was not going to compromise, that didn’t care about power, that was not about to sell out. And it was fond of portraying Fatah, or the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), as a sell-out. Now, these claims are hard to maintain. Hamas is in government, self-proclaimed and all. It is worried about its own survival, Jerusalem and refugee rights put on the backburner for the moment. And yet Hamas and Fatah are still at loggerheads. Instead of working out their grievances, the list keeps getting longer as time goes by. Fatah is mad at Hamas’s so-called coup. Hamas, for its part, is sure that Fatah is going to manipulate Palestinian presidential and legislative elections.
PCHR Position Paper: Controversy over End of Presidential Term in Office
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights 9/24/2008
There has recently been widespread national controversy regarding the end of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas term in office, which ends in January 2009. National media have published and broadcast conflicting statements and positions by Fatah and Hamas officials and politicians, as well as official statements from the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which remains split between both sides. These have included statements issued by the Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), Dr. Ahmad Bahar, and the President of the Fatwa Legislative Office, Abd El-Karim Abu Salah.
Hamas supporters claim the current Presidential term ends on 8 January, 2009, in accordance with the end of the four-year period since the last Presidential Election was held on 9 January, 2005. They state that, unless new Presidential elections are held at this time, the Presidential post will become vacant. At this point the PLC Speaker would temporarily fill the vacancy for 60 days, during which period new elections would be held in order to elect a new President of the PNA, as stated in the Palestinian Basic Law.
However, Fatah supporters claim that Election Law No. 9 (2005), which was passed by the PLC, extended the Presidents term in order to allow simultaneous elections for the PLC and the Palestinian Presidency to be held at the end of the PLC term in January 2010.
Palestinian politics on the road to nowhere
Mel Frykberg, Electronic Intifada 9/22/2008
RAMALLAH, West Bank (IPS) Israeli-Palestinian peace talks appear to have hit a dead end, while efforts to bridge the yawning chasm which divides Hamas and Fatah politically and ideologically appear to be going nowhere.
The two main streams of Palestinian politics are already locking horns over when the next legislative and presidential elections will be held, and whether Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, or Abu Mazen as he is better known, is legally entitled to stay in power beyond January 2009.
Abbas said earlier that presidential elections would be held in January 2009 and legislative elections in January 2010. But he has now stated categorically that he would not step down until 2010. "I think that the elections for parliament and the presidency should take place together, in January 2010," he said last week.
Abbas further said that any future unity government would have to respect agreements signed with Israel.
The more militant factions in Hamas have stated they will not recognize Israel. But there are more moderate and pragmatic factions within the resistance movement who have hinted that some kind of future accommodation with Israel is possible.
9/5/2008
Shimon Peres: murderer, liar and hypocrite
Khalid Amayreh in Ramallah, Palestinian Information Center 9/7/2008
Once again, we are affronted by another despicable statement by Shimon Peres, the deceitful elderly Israeli president who has spent a lifetime serving the evil Zionist enterprise.
In a statement in Rome on Friday, 5 September,Peres called for barring Hamas from taking part in any future elections in occupied Palestine untilthe groupterminated all forms of resistance to the Nazi-like Israeli occupation.
Peres utterly ignored the lingering reign of murder and terror inflicted for too long on the helpless and virtually unprotected Palestinians by a morally callous state that thinks that the events which took place in Europe more than six decades ago justify the genocidal ethnic cleansing being meted out to Zionism’s victims.
Peres, who apparently would have us believe that Israel is the oasis of justice and freedom in the Middle East, also accused the Palestinian Islamic movement of "intolerance" and of indulging in "religious and military terror" which he said was incompatible with democratic values.
Jordan-Hamas: the Historic and Strategic Meaning
Asher Susser, MIFTAH 9/2/2008
Jordan’s recent widely publicized resumption of contact with Hamas should be seen through the wider lens of the historic and strategic context. In the summer of 1999 King Abdullah II, shortly after his ascension to the throne, expelled the Hamas leadership from Jordan. The recent resumption of contact with Hamas was the first significant reversal of Jordan’s almost decade-long confrontational stand toward the organization.
Hamas’ expulsion from Jordan was a reflection of the young King Abdullah’s shifting priorities in comparison to those of his late father King Hussein. For Hussein, the Hamas presence in Amman was a card to play against Yasser Arafat in Palestinian politics, from which he never really withdrew. For Abdullah, far more focused on Jordan of the East Bank, it was a political nuisance and a potential domestic security problem. But now, after nearly a decade on the throne Abdullah II is far more confident in the saddle. Moreover, in the Jordanian elections in November 2007 the Islamists were battered into virtual parliamentary insignificance by massive fraud, sanctioned if not directly orchestrated by the regime.
8/27/2008
Hamas Seeking to Come in from Cold
Sana Abdallah, MIFTAH 8/30/2008
Chances of coming in from the cold are looking better for Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement ruling the Gaza Strip, as the world braces itself for crucial changes in political leaderships and power shifts that might also bring strategic policy turns in the Middle East.
The U.S. George W. Bush administration, which has led a fierce campaign against Hamas and is widely seen as the friendliest U.S. government yet to Israel, has fewer than 150 days left in office, with no sign that the peace talks it is sponsoring between the Palestinian Authority (PA), led by President Mahmoud Abbas, and Israel are getting anywhere.
The Israeli leadership is also on its way out, as a corruption scandal forced Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to announce his resignation next month to elect a new Kadima party leader who will need to keep the coalition government together or else hold snap elections.
Abbas, too, has not yet said whether he will seek re-election if a Palestinian presidential poll is held next January. And he has indicated on several occasions he wants to step down out of frustration that peace negotiations are not making headway toward statehood; neither has he been able to reunite Palestinian ranks and mend the split between Gaza and the West Bank.
Is Israel One Disaster from Collapse?
Ghassan Michel Rubeiz – New York, Palestine Chronicle 8/28/2008
’Israel has recently joined this club of high-risk countries.’
Israelis are not united in supporting their government’s policies of a four-decade festering occupation of Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese territories. The occupation is costly, morally troubling and beyond the capacity of Israel to maintain.
Israelis are relatively free to question the occupation; surprisingly, American politicians, especially politicians who are running for national elections, find it hard to question the occupation. If for nothing else, mere concern for Israel’s future should embolden Americans to be more discerning on issues of the Middle East. An important Carnegie study recently showed that Israel is precariously open to breakdown.
The study implies that tight-lipped Americans need to open their minds to Israel’s vulnerability as an occupier. The heaviest cost of the 1967 occupation of Arab land is the impact on Israel’s national security. Israel received dire warning in the July-August issue of Foreign Policy magazine in the article "The Failed States Index of 2008. The Index’s latest results give the Israel/West Bank regime a rank of borderline on national security. The Index lists and discusses a long list of vulnerable countries and identifies twelve variables that undermine their national security. According to this ranking tool, the Israel/West Bank regime is among sixty fragile countries that are "just one disaster away [from] collapse."
The Distant Political Horizon of a Just Israeli-Palestinian Settlement
Connie Hackbarth,
Alternative Information Center (AIC, Palestine Media Center 8/28/2008
With all sides openly acknowledging, privately and even publicly, that the Annapolis process has failed in its promise to provide a viable political vision and structure for relevant negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel that would result in an agreement by the end of this year, what comes next? The Americans are preoccupied with their presidential elections, elections that regardless of the outcome will result in a new administration and unknown set of domestic and international priorities. The Israelis are also busy with elections.
The first wave on 17 September in the Kadima Party primaries to select a new leader following the decision by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to step down in September in the face of extensive police investigations and possible indictments. Then, perhaps, if and when the new leader of Kadima is unable to form a government, national elections will be held in Israel in early 2009. Meanwhile, the Palestinian internal situation has been in a fractured statebetween the Hamas and Fatah, Gaza and the West Bankin large part due to US and Israeli meddling and pressure on the Palestinians to reverse their democratic choice of January 2006. Once again, the Palestinians are compelled to understand, be patient and wait due to the crises of the Israelis and Americans.
’We are running out of time’
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 8/15/2008
At the end of my conversation with Sari Nusseibeh at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, the highly respected president of Al-Quds University - and cosignatory of "The People’s Choice" [see box below], a peace plan that he formulated with former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon - told me he wouldn’t be surprised if one of the Palestinian residents of the city ran for mayor in the municipal elections in November. The candidate would not run as a representative of Jerusalem per se, Nusseibeh stressed. Rather, he would be running on behalf of all Palestinians in the occupied territories.
"Why don’t you do it?" I blurt out. The 59-year-old son of Anwar Nusseibeh, a Jordanian government minister, does not smile. "It’s possible," says the professor of Islamic philosophy, who briefly replaced Faisal Husseini a few years ago as the top Palestinian official in East Jerusalem.
"Anything is possible," he adds without batting an eyelid.
Nusseibeh’s previous contention that the Oslo "house of cards" had begun to collapse was further confirmed by this week’s report in Haaretz regarding Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s latest peace offering (Israel would annex 7 percent of the West Bank and compensate the Palestinians with territory in the Negev, which would be equivalent to 5.5 percent of West Bank land; an agreement on the future of Jerusalem would be postponed to a later date; there would be no right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel; and the entire plan would be implemented after Hamas is removed from power in the Gaza Strip. -- See also: The plan's terms
8/9/2008
Arrows in the quiver
Hani Al-Masri, Al-Ahram Weekly 8/14/2008
The Palestinian premiership, while not without faults, has made valuable advances that should be built upon.
The Badael (Alternatives) Centre for Media and Research recently organised a "horizon scanning" seminar with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Attended by dozens of politicians, scholars and media figures representing all shades of the political spectrum, the conference had essentially a two-fold purpose. This was, first, to assess the performance of the Fayyad government just over a year since its establishment, and second, to shed light on a number of the prime minister’s recent ideas and actions that reflect a new policy and perhaps a new outlook.
Some claim that this meeting was a form of electoral campaign publicity even though Fayyad has declared that he has no intention of fielding himself in the next elections or accepting a new post. They also suggest it was a tactical gambit, an attempt to pre-empt some of the fallout of an impending economic crisis or a response to Israel’s flagrant bid to undermine the Fayyad government in spite of its having met all Palestinian obligations under the US roadmap plan.
Media war and war on media
Fadi Abu Sa'ada, Palestine News Network 7/31/2008
Our PNN Arabic Director wrote the following, a similar version of which appeared on Menassat.com
Since Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, and one year after Hamas’ victory over the Fateh party in early parliamentary elections, the battle for the hearts and minds of Palestinians has been waged in the media. For over two years now, there has been a well-documented media war between the two rival political factions. A new media battle was ignited on the night of 25 July after three explosions, all targeting members of Hamas, killing six Palestinians, including a child, and wounding more than twenty.
On 26 July the front pages of several newspapers and websites affiliated with the two movements pulled no punches in ascribing blame for what happened.
Given that five of the dead where known to be from Hamas' armed resistance wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, the first salvos came from Hamas, which soundly accused Fateh of being the masterminds behind the bombings.
7/18/2008
Unease Over West Bank Raids
Griff Witte, MIFTAH 7/19/2008
When Faris Abu Hasan was deciding where to send his two young daughters to school, one factor stood out above all others: test scores.
So Abu Hasan opted against the beleaguered local government school, and chose instead the Islamic Basic School for Girls, where the classes were small and the teachers offered individual attention in math, science, history and English.
"I wanted them to go to the best school in Nablus. And this is the best school in Nablus," said Abu Hasan, a lawyer.
But the school is associated with Hamas, the Islamist movement that Israel considers a terrorist organization. One night last week, the Israeli military raided the school -- confiscating computers, trashing desks and ripping student artwork from the walls. The school was ordered shut for three years.
The operation was part of a much broader crackdown that Israel has recently initiated in the occupied West Bank against Hamas’s extensive social services network. While Hamas is probably best known for its military wing -- which champions attacks against the Jewish state -- it is the group’s sponsorship of schools, medical centers, orphanages and food banks that gives it much of its power and helped it sweep Palestinian elections in 2006.
Satan’s Counsel
Uri Avnery, Middle East Online 7/8/2008
It was just a passing conversation, but it has stuck in my memory.
It was soon after the Six-Day War. I was coming out of the main hall of the Knesset, after making a speech calling for the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state.
Another Knesset member came down the corridor - a nice person, a Labor Party man, a former bus driver. Uri, he said, catching me by the arm, what the hell are you doing? You could make a great career! You are saying many attractive things - against corruption, for the separation of religion and state, about social justice. You could have a great success at the next elections. But you are spoiling everything with your speeches about the Arabs. Why don’t you stop this nonsense?
I told him that he was quite right, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t see any point in being in the Knesset if I could not speak the truth as I saw it.
I was elected again to the next Knesset, but again as the head of a tiny faction, which was never going to grow into a strong parliamentary force. The man’s prophesy came true.
6/28/2008
Peace talks are Olmert’s ticket to political survival
Gerald M. Steinberg, Daily Star 7/4/2008
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has again demonstrated his skill in manipulating Israel’s dysfunctional electoral system. After surviving the Winograd commission reports on the mistakes made in the 2006 Lebanon war, Olmert faced another wave of calls to resign following testimony related to corruption charges. But through an agreement with Labor Party leader Ehud Barak, a Knesset vote was cancelled that would have led to national elections in the fall and would probably have returned opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu to power. Unless there are new political "earthquakes" (always a possibility in Israel), the current coalition is likely to continue until at least the spring of 2009.
As a result, and as part of a survival strategy that includes shifting the focus of media attention, Olmert’s "peace offensive" remains very much on the table. The issues include the negotiations for a "shelf agreement" with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and talks with Syria. The prisoner exchange negotiations with Hizbullah and Hamas and the unwritten cease-fire agreement that entered into effect in Gaza on June 22 are also part of this offensive.
Breathing Space
Safwat Kahlout, MIFTAH 6/23/2008
Ever since Hamas won an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections in 2006, Palestinians have been paying the price for practicing democracy.
From the beginning, the international community refused to deal with the result of the elections and preferred to treat them as an atonal interlude in the international political symphony. Instead of engaging Hamas, the international community imposed the three well-known Quartet conditions that Hamas, for equally well-worn reasons, rejected.
Accordingly, international financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority stopped and along with it ended the salaries of state employees. Public sector employee salaries are the engine of the Palestinian economy and as they ended, others felt the knock-on effect and unemployment and poverty rose.
At the time it was felt that that was as bad as it was going to get, but after Hamas ousted Fateh-affiliated security forces in Gaza, people here discovered that it could get a whole lot worse.
6/17/2008
’Zionism, a very clear ideology of exclusion, racism and expulsion’ - exiled Israeli academic
Apostolis Fotiadis, Daily Star 6/20/2008
Interview with Ilan Pappe
Inter Press Service, ATHENS: Support for an academic boycott of Israeli universities exposed Ilan Pappe to death threats last year, forced him to resign as senior lecturer of political science at the University of Haifa, and leave the country. His argument that the creation of Israel in 1948 was followed by a policy of cleansing Israeli territory of Arabs, his support for the Hamas resistance despite rejecting its political ideology, and the denouncement of Israeli academia for justifying the occupation of Palestine have made him an unwanted person in Israel.
But still he remains a firm believer that the only way to improve this reality is by exposing its worst aspects.
In an interview with IPS, Pappe discusses the current situation in Palestine, and the Arab-Israeli conflict 60 years after it began.
IPS: Can Barack Obama’s victory make a difference.
IP: I think people who strive to hold the post of the strongest person in the world are not interested in moral issues, or are really moved by suffering and oppression. Obama is no different, and the morality of the issue or the suffering of the Palestinians would not move him. He would move in a different direction if he and his advisers would feel that showing less support for Israel enhances their political power. So far this is not the case. It is better to be pro-Israeli to win American elections and be re-elected for the second term. If there is any hope, this is from a second term, when the powerful men are brought back to their normal human size again, and may begin to think like you and me about injustice, oppression and occupation.
6/17/2008
’Zionism, a very clear ideology of exclusion, racism and expulsion’ - exiled Israeli academic
Apostolis Fotiadis, Daily Star 6/20/2008
Interview with Ilan Pappe
Inter Press Service, ATHENS: Support for an academic boycott of Israeli universities exposed Ilan Pappe to death threats last year, forced him to resign as senior lecturer of political science at the University of Haifa, and leave the country. His argument that the creation of Israel in 1948 was followed by a policy of cleansing Israeli territory of Arabs, his support for the Hamas resistance despite rejecting its political ideology, and the denouncement of Israeli academia for justifying the occupation of Palestine have made him an unwanted person in Israel.
But still he remains a firm believer that the only way to improve this reality is by exposing its worst aspects.
In an interview with IPS, Pappe discusses the current situation in Palestine, and the Arab-Israeli conflict 60 years after it began.
IPS: Can Barack Obama’s victory make a difference.
IP: I think people who strive to hold the post of the strongest person in the world are not interested in moral issues, or are really moved by suffering and oppression. Obama is no different, and the morality of the issue or the suffering of the Palestinians would not move him. He would move in a different direction if he and his advisers would feel that showing less support for Israel enhances their political power. So far this is not the case. It is better to be pro-Israeli to win American elections and be re-elected for the second term. If there is any hope, this is from a second term, when the powerful men are brought back to their normal human size again, and may begin to think like you and me about injustice, oppression and occupation.
5/26/2008
Palestinians Trapped at Crossroads
Nicola Nasser, Middle East Online 6/2/2008
Firing home-made primitive rockets at Israeli targets from the Gaza Strip, the mass sweeping through the Palestinian Egyptian border crossing of Rafah in January and the series of ongoing peaceful demonstrations at Gazas crossing points with Israel are not an aggressive demonstration of self-confidence, but more a show of defensive despair and weakness against the tight Israeli military siege, as much as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threats to resign are passive defensive reaction to the political siege imposed on him by the United States and Israel, who so far fail to deliver on their promises to bring about an agreement to create a Palestinian state by the end of 2008.
Given the corruption investigations, which have already heralded either a premiership change or early elections that would lead to a government change in Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is likely nearing the end of his term to join Abbas and US President George W. Bush, whose terms will come to their end next January, as outgoing leaders whom all their protagonists are counting down time until their departure, before they could deliver on their promised vision of a two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
5/24/2008
At the eleventh hour
Editorial, Al-Ahram Weekly 5/29/2008
The announcement in Ankara of Turkish-sponsored Syrian-Israeli negotiations didn’t come as a surprise. Since Syria disclosed that the Turkish prime minister conveyed that Israel was prepared to pull out of the Golan, things have been moving in that direction. Both Israel and Syria have reasons to talk, and Turkey is glad to act as the go-between.
For a long time, Syrian-Israeli negotiations were consistently beset by developments on the Lebanese and Palestinian tracks of Arab-Israeli peace talks. This time, however, things may turn out differently. The negotiations are taking place in the last months of the Bush presidency and perhaps even during Ehud Olmert’s last days in office. With the Israeli prime minister under investigation for corruption, many in Israel have been calling for him to step down. There is a chance that Tzipi Livni, Israeli foreign minister, may take his place until early elections are held later in the year. After that, pollsters say, Binyamin Netanyahu, whose hardline policies on Syria are known to all, may emerge as Israel’s next leader.
Middle East Peace Requires Forgiveness
Ghassan Rubeiz, Middle East Online 5/10/2008
PALM BEACH, FloridaPeace requires forgiveness. Jimmy Carters meeting in Damascus last week with the leadership of Hamas has aroused strong emotions. If compromise of principles disqualifies parties from peace making, the Middle East is doomed forever. The Damascus visit involves five main parties: Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, the United States, and former President Carter. There is no uncompromised party among the five listed. Hamas compromised in violence, the Palestinian Authority in corruption, Israel in a harsh occupation, the United States in nursing erosion of justice, and Jimmy Carter in over-tolerance of Arab autocracy.
I am a strong critic of Hamas for not recognising Israel and for not exploiting non-violent resistancethe most powerful weapon that Palestinians can muster for liberation from an oppressive Israeli occupation. But whether one supports Hamas or not, this grassroots movement did win the last parliamentary national elections. This historical election authorised Hamas to lead the government of the Palestinian communities under Israels occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
The attack on Jimmy Carter
Bill Fletcher, Jr, Electronic Intifada 5/4/2008
Former US President James (Jimmy) Carter has the ability to appear almost out of thin air, landing in the midst of some of the most complex international crises. He has done it again, this time in going to meet with the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas. For reaching out to this significant section of the Palestinian movement, he is being demonized by both the Bush administration and the administration of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Former President Carter has crossed a line that George W. Bush and his Israeli allies have set, aimed at isolating and destroying Hamas. Despite the fact that Hamas won internationally-recognized elections in Palestine in 2006, Bush and the Israelis have been doing all they can to void the elections, isolate Hamas and destroy them. In fact, a blockbuster article in Vanity Fair revealed details of a plan hatched by the Bush administration along with an anti-Hamas Palestinian leader to carry out a coup against Hamas. The plot failed, leading to a Hamas preemptive strike against the forces of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, with the result being a Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip.
4/17/2008
Returning to Palestine
Aaron Lakoff, International Middle East Media Center News 4/21/2008
What’s in a year? What’s in 60?
Three years can be a long time, or a little blip in history. It has been three years since I was first in Palestine, and now I am back. Years are a funny thing here. Many can go by, and nothing can change. Take, as an example, one of the large billboards outside of Jerusalem right now, which proudly announces this year as the 60 year anniversary of the birth of the state of Israel. And then, of course, the other side of that, the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba ("catastrophe"). 60 years of displacement, 60 years of refugees, 60 years of useless keys and tears shed, and how much has really changed?
Well, quite a lot has changed actually. And it has hit me sooner than expected, even after being in Palestine for only a few days. 2008 will no doubt be a historic and tumultuous year in Israel and Palestine. Beyond the 60-year observations on both sides, there is pressure from many sides to make 2008 the year of the Palestinian state, or a "two-state solution". The slogan "2 states in 2008" has been repeated many times. There is a strong will to see this happen before the next Palestinian presidential elections, or perhaps more importantly, before George W. Bush leaves office later this year.
Complex Regional Rivalry Muddying the Waters
Ghassan Khatib, MIFTAH 4/15/2008
The tension between Israel, Syria and Lebanon has carried indirect negative consequences for Palestinians. Even though it is correct to say that at the moment there is no serious or promising peace process between the Palestinians and Israelis to be disrupted, the tension, on the one hand, and Syria and its regional alliances on the other, can play an important role in influencing the domestic Palestinian situation as well as Palestinian-Israeli relations.
Recent years have witnessed a growing interrelationship between the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and other regional conflicts. This in turn has increased the influence and role of regional actors both on the conflict and on domestic Palestinian affairs. This influence has become especially pronounced with the gradual weakening of the Palestinian leadership that resulted from the deterioration and ultimate failure of the peace process upon which this leadership had gambled so much.
It has become evident that Palestine, like Lebanon and Iraq, is being affected by the ongoing regional rivalry between Iran and the United States that started with the Iraq invasion and US attempts to weaken Iran and interfere in its domestic affairs including with its nuclear program. With an American military presence on its borders in Iraq, the Arab Gulf and Afghanistan, Iran has been motivated to play its cards against this growing American hegemony. These developments coincided with the collapse of the peace process, the moderate and secular leadership associated with it and the rise of Hamas and its victory in Palestinian elections and subsequent takeover of the Gaza Strip.
3/29/2008
Anti-Arab racism and incitement in Israel
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada 3/30/2008
A prominent strategy of Israeli hasbara, or official propaganda, is to deflect criticism of its actions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip by stressing that within the country’s 1948 boundaries, it is a model democracy comparable to the societies in Western Europe and North America with which it identifies and on whose diplomatic support it relies to maintain a favorable status quo. In fact, Israeli society is in the grip of a wave of unchecked racism and incitement that seriously threatens Israel’s Palestinian community and the long-term prospects for regional peace. This briefing examines societal and institutional racism and incitement by public figures against Israel’s Arab population and considers some policy implications.
Background and context
When Israel was established in 1948, most of the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants were driven out or fled from the area that became Israel. Approximately 150,000 Palestinians remained behind. Until 1966, these Palestinians lived under martial law. Today, having increased in number to approximately 1.3 million or about one fifth of Israel’s population (not including the Palestinian population of occupied East Jerusalem), they are citizens of the state of Israel and can vote in elections for the Knesset. Despite this, most view themselves as second-class citizens. As indigenous non-Jews in a self-described Jewish state, they face a host of systematic social, legal, economic and educational barriers to equality. Israel lacks a constitution and has no other basic law guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or national origin.
Settling for less?
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 3/27/2008
A pungent aroma of hot coals filled the small car that passed the checkpoint and then sped up the road to the settlement of Mevo Dotan. On both sides of the twisting road, small bonfires cast a bit of light on a row of shabby homes. Benny Raz, from the Bayit Ehad (One Home) organization, stepped on the gas and passed a battered Subaru with Palestinian license plates.
Raz, a resident of the Karnei Shomron settlement whose organization is promoting the passage of an "evacuation-compensation" law for the settlers living on the eastern side of the security fence, explained that we were passing through the village of Yabad. The villagers make a living by producing coals for barbecues, but they sometimes also engage in less-friendly fire. Four settlers have been murdered on this road in recent years. No one is counting the number of people hurt by stones being thrown at their cars. Men and women travel the road with weapons on their knees, at the ready. Relatives of the settlers stay away, as though the place were a leper colony.
The 49 families who remain in Mevo Dotan do not have a "bypass road." Why waste money on building one? On the eve of the last elections, which Ehud Olmert won on the wings of the magic word "convergence," the settlement’s residents were ready to leave. They remember that cabinet minister Gideon Ezra, a member of Olmert’s Kadima party, came to visit and suggested that they "stop watering the gardens." The evacuation was just a matter of time then - and residents believed it wasn’t a matter of a lot of time.
3/8/2008
Bay of Pigs in Gaza
Tom Segev, Ha’aretz 3/13/2008
One day in the fall of 2006, the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem, Jake Walles, went to Ramallah to meet with Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). As diplomats do, he took with him a document known as "talking points" - a prepared memo listing the main elements of what he was going to tell the Palestinian leader. For some reason, perhaps by accident, Walles left the document behind when he left, with the result that the American monthly Vanity Fair is able to publish a first draft of a chapter in the history of the rise of Hamas and its takeover of the Gaza Strip. (The article can be accessed at www.vanityfair.com under "The Gaza Bombshell" in the April 2008 issue.)
According to the paper left behind by the consul general, he wanted to pressure Abu Mazen to take action that would annul the outcome of the elections that had catapulted Hamas to power. The author of the article, David Rose, reminds his readers that President George W. Bush had pressed for the elections to be held, contrary to the advice of several experts, who warned that Hamas would emerge from them strengthened. But Bush wanted democracy. Now he effectively wanted Abu Mazen to cancel the elections in retrospect.
Canadas Response to Israels Actions in Gaza
Jim Miles, Middle East Online 3/5/2008
Canadas Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier issued a
news release
expressing his concern about the escalating violence in the Gaza Strip.It does nothing to help resolve the situation and only demonstrates that the Canadian government is only putting out more face-saving rhetoric for the international community and to placate the home crowd with platitudes about the non-existent peace process.It is an empty statement, devoid of any real suggestions to improve the situation in Gaza.
Language is all important within his statement.While he deplores the actions of Hamas, Israeli actions - which have resulted in far more misery and deaths receive only the approbation that we are very concerned about the impact of Israeli actions.More language continues the bias.While the Hamas personnel are terrorists the Israelis are only defenders with a clear right to defend itself."
The Canadian government does not recognize, and was one of the first to deny, that Hamas won the Palestinian elections with a clear majority in elections regarded globally as being one of the fairest ever presented.
Good Morning, Hamas
Uri Avnery, Middle East Online 3/2/2008
We Israelis live in a world of ghosts and monsters. We do not conduct a war against living persons and real organizations, but against devils and demons which are out to destroy us. It is a war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness, between absolute good and absolute evil. That’s how it looks to us, and that’s how it looks to the other side, too.
Let’s try to bring this war down from virtual spheres to the solid ground of reality. There can be no reasonable policy, nor even rational discussion, if we do not escape from the realm of horrors and nightmares.
After the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections, Gush Shalom said that we must speak with them. Here are some of the questions that were showered on me from all sides:
Do you like Hamas?
Not at all. I have very strong secular convictionI. I oppose any ideology that mixes politics with religion - whether Jewish, Muslim or Christian, in Israel, the Arab world or America.
Kosovo and Palestine: Why Different Standards?
Walid Awad, MIFTAH 3/1/2008
In July 2000, President Clinton, at the insistence of Israels Prime Minister Ehud Barak, invited President Arafat and Barak to Camp David. In less than two weeks of intensive negotiations, Clinton expected Arafat and Barak to arrive at a solution to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Incomplete progress was achieved at Camp David, but an agreement was not.
Follow-up negotiations resumed in the months ahead, and by January 2001 an agreement was reached, but as far as Clinton and Barak were concerned, it was too late. Clinton evacuated the White House, and Barak lost the elections in Israel. Ariel Sharon, who worked relentlessly to sabotage all peacemaking efforts between Israel and the PLO after Oslo, assumed office in Israel and the intifada against the Israeli occupation intensified. Much blood has been spilled since then, but two more nonofficial peace agreements between Israelis and Palestinians were worked out the Geneva agreement between Yaser Abed Rabbo and Yossi Beilin, and another one between Sari Nussiebeh, currently head of Al-Quds University, and Ami Ayalon, a minister in the current Israeli government. Outlines, frameworks, and parameters, call them what you wish, for solving the conflict were reached between the sides after Oslo, but never formally or officially adopted or signed.
The Arab boycott
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz 2/28/2008
Kosovo’s declaration of independence earlier this month sent spokespeople for the Israeli right scurrying to the television studios. "Israel must not recognize Kosovo’s independence," warned MK Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday from the Knesset podium. "Anyone who says it’s not a precedent for anywhere else is mistaken. It is a precedent." The Yisrael Beitenu party chairman noted that Yasser Abed Rabbo, adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, was threatening that the Palestinians would follow the Kosovo precedent and unilaterally declare independence if negotiations with Israel failed. "There is no doubt that this precedent could lead - not today, but in five or 10 years - the Arabs of the Galilee to announce: ’We declare our independence,’" Lieberman warned.
Israeli Arabs did not need the Kosovars to plant the idea of unilateral disengagement from the State of Israel. An internal document, revealed here for the first time - "Arab Society and the Elections for the 18th Knesset" - was prepared several months ago by the bureau of National Infrastructures Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who heads the ministerial committee on non-Jewish sector issues.
The document, which is subtitled: "Arab Representation in the Knesset in Danger," warns that the next Knesset elections could serve "as a catalyst for the realization of the internal election plan for the Arabs in Israel and the beginning of the formation of an autonomous Arab parliament." According to the report, this will happen if the head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, Sheikh Ra’ad Salah, in concert with the other movements that boycott Israeli elections, is able to bring about a situation in which less than half the Arab population votes in the general election.
2/22/2008
Three Scenarios
Ghassan Khatib, MIFTAH 2/25/2008
There are enough reasons to believe that the current escalation between Israel and Hamas in Gaza will continue. There are also reasons to believe that the two sides are pursuing both short- and long-term political objectives for such an escalation.
Separating Gaza from the West Bank, both de facto and de jure, is one component of the unilateral Israeli strategy that started with the withdrawal from Gaza. Israel hopes thereby, among other things, to undermine Palestinian aspirations to establish a state in all the occupied Palestinian territory that includes the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
This plan, however, was interrupted by Hamas’ victory in parliamentary elections in 2006 and then further by the movement’s military takeover of Gaza in 2007. Israel could not allow Gaza under Hamas control to be opened to the world through Egypt, because that would not only increase Hamas’ chances of survival but also allow the Islamist movement to grow in both political and military strength. Hence, Israel modified its strategy and decided to impose a full closure on the impoverished strip to suffocate Hamas as well as the people of Gaza.
2/10/2008
The EU is marginalizing itself in Gaza
Stuart Reigeluth, Daily Star 2/15/2008
Two years have passed since Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections. Two years in which the international boycott has ostracized and further radicalized the Islamic movement, leading to its takeover of the Gaza Strip last July, in a move that consolidated its geographic and political separation from the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Two years, also, which recently culminated in the breaching of the southern Gaza border with Egypt and renewed Israeli preparations for a massive offensive against the strip. The European Union has expressed concern as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has deteriorated to unprecedented levels during the two years in which EU monitors were meant to supervise the passage of Palestinians at the Rafah crossing, but now find themselves restricted to the Dan Gardens beach resort in Ashkelon.
2/6/2008
Where Are the American Jewish Condemnations?
Sherri Muzher, Palestine Chronicle 2/9/2008
For years now, I have heard demands that those of us Americans and of Palestinian descent condemn various military actions.And we do because innocents should never pay for the sins of their military forces and government.
I’d like to know if the Jewish community will ever condemn the intentional starvation and collective punishment of an entire Gazan population?
The silence has been deafening at this inhumanity.
I’ve heard that Palestinians have invited these brutal measures after they elected Hamas during internationally-observed elections, since Hamas refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Setting aside that the elections were about corruption, Palestinians said nothing when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert invited Avigdor Leiberman to his cabinet. Leiberman, once praised by Jewish extremists for supporting the deportation of Palestinians inside Israel, is known as an avid racist.
Putting Humpty Together Again in Gaza
Tim Mcgirk, MIFTAH 2/2/2008
Egypt’s efforts to restore order on its breached border with Gaza suffered a setback Wednesday in Cairo, when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refused to talk to the leaders of Hamas. Needing a Palestinian partner to police the Rafah crossing, President Hosni Mubarak had invited his Palestinian counterpart to meet with leaders of the Islamist movement that has, since last summer, been the only effective authority in Gaza. But Abbas’s refusal to acknowledge the facts on the ground created by Hamas’s takeover of the territory left the Egyptians with no easy way forward.
By tearing down the border wall between Egypt and Gaza last week and breaking Israel’s siege, Hamas dramatically altered the equation between Israel, the Palestinians and Egypt. It also frustrated attempts by the Bush Administration, its Palestinian protege Abbas and Israel to isolate the radical movement that refuses to recognize the Jewish State. Two years after the Palestinians’ legislative elections made clear that Hamas cannot be ignored, the explosions at the Rafah crossing reaffirmed that reality. But while the Egyptians have recognized that reality, President Abbas surely hasn’t.
IHT: Light through the wall
Fida Qishta, International Solidarity Movement 1/30/2008
Life in Rafah, Gaza’s southern-most city, has always been difficult. But the period since March 2006 has been the worst in my 25-year life. Israel placed Gaza under a siege after Hamas won the Palestinian elections and tightened the siege after Palestinians captured an Israeli soldier near Rafah in late June 2006. We have had little electricity, fuel, money, food or medicine since.
We felt some hope last week, however, when Palestinians knocked down the wall that Israel built along Rafah’s border with Egypt, allowing us to escape our prison and cross to Egypt to buy essential goods.
The Israeli Army has destroyed about 2,000 homes in Rafah in the last seven years. In January 2004 they demolished our home. My grandmother, aunt, uncles and cousins had gathered in our house because their homes had just been demolished.
1/20/2008
Gaza’s last gasp
Sonja Karkar, Electronic Intifada 1/23/2008
By now, people watching their news programs around the world would have caught a glimpse of Gaza City in candle-lit darkness.A pretty sight indeed if it were not for the fact that most of the people in the Gaza Strip will have to depend on these candles as their only source of light now that the power plant servicing much of Gaza’s population has shut down completely. There is no fuel to keep the plant running because Israel has imposed a complete lock-down of this most densely populated place on earth.That means no movement in or out of the Gaza Strip for people, or any kind of shipments in of vital food, fuel supplies and medicines.It is more than a miserable existence: it is a slow death.
This is the sixth day of Israel’s draconian action against a people already suffering from the punitive sanctions imposed on them after their democratic elections in January 2006 did not yield a result palatable to Israel and parts of the international community. Israel’s latest 24-hour reprieve to let in some supplies is not going to change the circumstances under which the Palestinians have had to live for the last two years.At most, these supplies will last two days.The Palestinians have been struggling to survive in conditions that reached emergency levels even before this latest siege. Hunger, poverty and unemployment are widespread and in this maximum-security prison surrounded by Israel’s military cordon, disease, malnutrition and anarchy are dangerously close to breaking out.
1/21/2008
This brutal siege of Gaza can only breed violence
Karen Koning AbuZayd in Gaza City, The Guardian 1/22/2008
Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and - some would say - encouragement of the international community. An international community that professes to uphold the inherent dignity of every human being must not allow this to happen. Across this tiny territory, 25 miles long and no more than 6 miles wide, a deep darkness descended at 8pm on January 21, as the lights went out for each of its 1.5 million Palestinian residents. A new hallmark of Palestinian suffering had been reached.
There have been three turns of the screw on the people of Gaza, triggered in turn by the outcome of elections in January 2006, the assumption by Hamas of de facto control last June, and the Israeli decision in September to declare Gaza a "hostile territory". Each instance has prompted ever tighter restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza. Each turn of the screw inflicts deeper indignity on ordinary Palestinians, breeding more resentment towards the outside world.
The Death of the Stalinist Left in Palestine
Randa Abu Naeem, Palestine Chronicle 1/14/2008
To understand the reasons behind the rapid deterioration of the Palestinian Left, especially following Hamas’ June 2007 take-over of the Gaza Strip, one needs to scrutinize the verbalized positions of its’ leaders. Interviews and media statements made by Abdul Rahim Malouh, Deputy Secretary General of the PFLP, following his release from Israeli prisons, indicates that the PFLP has chosen to support the right-wing within Fatah. Amazingly, this is also the position of the DFLP and the People’s Party, in spite of the pro-American agenda spouted and supported by Mahmoud Abbas and his cabal within Fatah.
The U-turn taken by the Palestinian Left should not come as a surprise since it has historically expressed an undemocratic world-view, both in general and in relation to its’ Palestinian agenda in particular. This lack of democracy is, of course, the outcome of its Stalinist ideological orientation. As a result of this dominant orientation, both the People’s Party (which has recognized Israel since its inception) and the DFLP (which made the proposal that led to the interim solution later accepted by the PLO), could not accept the results of the January 2006 Palestinian elections. These elections, in fact, are the only non ethno-religious elections in the entire Middle East to date...
In exclusion, Hamas counts
Mohammed Omer, Electronic Intifada 1/11/2008
GAZA CITY, 10 January (IPS) - As US President George W. Bush began talks Thursday with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas supporters in Gaza were determined to make their absence count.
Leaders from the Palestinian party Hamas that won the elections in Gaza two years back have inevitably not been invited to meet Bush. The US considers Hamas a terrorist organization.
Hamas took control of Gaza by force from the Fatah party headed by Abbas in June last year, about a year and a half after it swept the polls in January 2006.
As Hamas leaders and supporters see it, Bush’s talks with Abbas can count for little if they are kept out. And so with Abbas’s talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert just ahead of Bush’s visit.
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.
On Israels 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.
12/16/2007
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.
12/14/2007
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.
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.
Articulating the Unprintable: Ramzy Baroud Discusses Media Response to His Book
Ramzy Baroudinterviewed byJune Rugh, ZNet 11/15/2007
Ramzy Baroud, veteran Palestinian-American journalist and Editor-in-Chief of the Palestine Chronicle, recently completed a speaking tour of the United States’ East Coast to promote his second book, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, 2006). The Second Palestinian Intifada is a far-reaching account of key events of the past five years that transformed the political landscape not only of Palestine and Israel, but of the entire Middle East. With a critical eye, Baroud takes the most controversial issues head-on: the alarming escalation in suicide bombings, the construction of the Separation Wall, the devastating hunger and unemployment in the Occupied Territories, the brutality of the Israeli army, the political surprise of the Palestinian elections.
Peace and Democracy in Palestine
Ramzy Baroud, MIFTAH 11/12/2007
After years of marked absence, the Bush administration has finally decided to upgrade its involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The announcement of a Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland has raised red flags for anyone who has learned from past experience how unbalanced and insincere peace efforts actually can lead to further violence. And it requires little cynicism to ponder how genuine these current efforts are.
It has been suggested that President Bush whose actions have thus defined his legacy as that of a war president wishes to leave on a more positive note. We heard the same argument in mid 2000 when President Bill Clinton facilitated ill-prepared talks, the failure of which sparked tension and violence, which were of course blamed solely on Palestinians.
Others argue that the conference is motivated not by a desire for lasting peace, but by the wish to further isolate Hamas the party that was democratically elected by a decisive majority in the Occupied Territories legislative elections in January 2006.
Israel Ready to Negotiate on Jerusalem, Its ’Third Rail’?
Dion Nissenbaum, MIFTAH 10/30/2007
The last time Israeli leaders sat down for meaningful peace talks with Palestinian negotiators, then-Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert led a march around the Old City’s ancient walls to protest any plans to divide his adopted home.
"No concessions on Jerusalem," Olmert said on the eve of the 2000 Camp David summit. "For 33 years, Israel has said there will never be a compromise on Jerusalem. Do you think we were joking?"
But seven years, one Palestinian uprising and three Israeli elections later, Olmert, now Israel’s prime minister, is floating the idea of carving up the city he led for 10 years. As he gears up for the most intense round of peace talks since the Camp David talks failed, Olmert has indicated that he’s prepared to turn over Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem to the Palestinians.
In many ways, Jerusalem is the third rail of Israeli politics. Few are willing to touch it, and those who do often get burned. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak came close to ceding control of about half of the Old City to the Palestinians before the Camp David talks crumbled, his government lost its credibility and Palestinians launched their second uprising.
Rice Seeks to Marginalize Hamas
Ashraf Khalil, MIFTAH 10/17/2007
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday expressed hope that a successfully negotiated vision of a Palestinian state would marginalize the militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
"There will have to come a time when the Palestinian people will have to decide whether the prospect of that state is in their interest, and I think they will decide that it is," Rice said after meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. "But people are going to have to accept that it means accepting the existence of Israel and the right of Israel to exist."
Rice met with Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah as part of several days of meetings building toward a proposed peace conference next month in Annapolis, Md.
She repeatedly called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. But Rice made it clear that Hamas, the Islamist movement that won Palestinian parliamentary elections last year and calls for Israel’s destruction, would have no role in the upcoming negotiations.
"We’ve been very clear what the criteria are for involvement in this process," she said. "If you’re going to have a two-state solution, you have to accept the right of the other party to exist. If you’re going to have a two-state solution that is born of negotiation, you’re going to have to renounce violence."
IMEMC Exclusive: Fatah Alyassers chief says his group is a reform-based movement
Rami Almeghari, International Middle East Media Center 9/15/2007
In a special interview with the IMEMC, former spokesman of the Hamass interior ministry and leader of the newly-established Fatah Alyasser group, Khaled Abu Helal, says his movement has been established to contribute to better reformation of Palestinian politics following the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip
What is Fatah Alyasser group Mr. Abu Helal?
Fatah Alyasser is a newly-born Palestinian group initiated by Fatahs loyal people, after the latter have realized the fact that reforming the current Fatah has turned to be an impossible job, especially amidst the monopoly by some Fatahs corrupt ranks of the decision-making.
Can the Palestinian arena currently absorb more groups, in a time there are many other based Palestinian organizations such as the Islamic Jihad, the popular front for the liberation of Palestine, etc..?
I believe that the political pluralism in Palestine has turned to be limited, particularly after the last Januarys elections, which proved that there are only two major parties, Fatah and Hamas.
Fatah Alyasser movement is a group that combines between Islam as reference and the late President Yasser Arafats path of struggle at all levels, the political, the national and the resistance.
Wishful Thinking will not Cure Economic Ills
Bronwen Maddox, MIFTAH 9/20/2007
The original conception of the Governments report on reviving the Palestinian economy, published yesterday, was a good one when Gordon Brown commissioned it two years ago.
The aim was to find ways to bolster that economy, deliberately separate from the politics. It is an honourable principle that there are few situations so bad that they cannot be improved, even if they cannot be resolved. The approach appealed to Brown, when Chancellor, as a way to avoid Tony Blairs grandstanding, while tackling problems on the ground.
But the past two years have made a nonsense of this approach and incidentally, of Blairs new job, which is supposed to focus on the Palestinian economy. Hamass victory in the January 2006 elections, the collapse of the joint Hamas-Fatah Government, Hamass seizure of Gaza in June, and the disintegration of the economy under Israeli security curbs make it impossible to divorce the economic from the political. Without political progress, there will not be economic progress; there may not even be much worth calling a Palestinian economy.
Majda Hassan: The Osloization of the Palestinian Left
Majda Hassan, Palestine Chronicle 9/20/2007
In spite of its rich revolutionary tradition, the Left has been hijacked by right-wing cabals, whose interest is intertwined with that of the political elite of Oslo.
The Osloization of the Palestinian Left is now complete. The opportunistic and unprincipled position taken by the right-wing "Left" of the PLO vis-à-vis the current standoff between Hamas and Fatah is yet another indication of the Left’s inexorabledeterioration which followed its’ implicit acceptance of the Oslo accords—despite its alleged opposition to that agreement. In fact, the People’s Party never opposed the accords, but rather legitimized them by its acceptance of ministerial positions in almost every government formed since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.
Judging by statements and analyses presented by the main Left organizations and individuals, one could conclude that, in spite of its rich revolutionary tradition, the Left has been hijacked by right-wing cabals, whose interest is intertwined with that of the political elite of Oslo. Although I fail to understand how a nation can have elections under the boot of a brutal occupying power, I still naively thought that the Palestinian Left, and liberal forces for that matter, would seize the unique opportunity which arose as a result of that democratic process in January 2006 and support and strengthen it. The long held slogans of "from and for the masses" and "long live the people" turned out to be hollow.
Hamas is the key
Ahmed Yousef, Ha’aretz 9/21/2007
While largely unnoticed in American discourse on the topic, much has been said and written to debunk the sanctions regime imposed on Hamas government administrations since its resounding victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections of January 2006. These calls and reports show with compelling logic that the sanctions regime is wrong and misguided and, equally important, that it is a reaction to the excessively intense pressure that the U.S. administration has exercised over other nations to induce them to boycott and besiege a government democratically elected by the people and to punish the Palestinians for their democratic choice. The Quartet has been spearheading this campaign of isolation against Hamas, and in the process is advancing a U.S.-Israeli agenda whose goal is to delegitimize Hamas and prevent it from exercising its right to lead the Palestinian people, even though the latter have elected it in a transparent, internationally monitored electoral process. A variety of underhanded methods, both internal and external, have been used to undermine the Hamas-led government, including destabilization from within the fragile Palestinian political system.
The U.S. government expected the first Hamas government to fall in under three months. When that didn’t happen, Washington delegated to a faction inside Fatah the responsibility of overthrowing Ismail Haniyeh’s government, an effort aimed at reinstalling Fatah. Hamas’ ability to rule has been hampered, indeed paralyzed, by crippling Western pressures, which have only been strengthened by the collaboration of regional powers as well as localPalestinian players.
Abbas’ Village League
Arjan El Fassed, Electronic Intifada 9/10/2007
For as long Palestinians have resisted violent Israeli policies against them, successive Israeli governments have tried to undermine Palestinian unity and foment divisions. A principal strategy has been to try to foster alternative leaders willing to abandon fundamental Palestinian demands for justice and focus on an agenda with which Israel is comfortable.
This is taking place now as Israel shuns the elected Hamas movement, and tries to prop up the discredited Fatah leadership headed by Mahmoud Abbas. Following the elections, Israel kidnapped dozens of elected officials belonging to Hamas and is still holding them in its prisons.
There is a great deal of continuity here; a key component of Israeli policy has been to refuse to recognize legitimate Palestinian leadership. While it now embraces the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and shuns Hamas, until 1993 Israel refused to consider the PLO as a possible negotiating partner. Israel could always produce internationally acceptable reasons for such a position. After all, one would not expect a "respectable" country to negotiate with "terrorists," as Israel always did and still does refer to Palestinian leaders. Even after the PLO’s historic concessions in 1988 when the Palestinian National Council, the parliament-in-exile, accepted the two-state solution -- without receiving any reciprocal recognition from Israel -- Israel refused to deal with the PLO directly. The policy goes back even further.
U.S.-Backed Campaign Against Hamas Expands to Charities
Adam Entous, MIFTAH 8/22/2007
A U.S.-backed campaign against Hamas is being expanded to include Islamic charities that helped propel it to power, Palestinian, Israeli and Western officials said.
Salam Fayyad, whom Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appointed prime minister after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June, aims to reduce the influence of Hamas and its welfare arm and to build an alternative, government-run social service system using Western and Arab funds.
Mahmoud al-Habbash, Fayyad’s social affairs minister, said the government had a right to target Islamic charities that "help Hamas in their fight against the authority". Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in January 2006, has challenged the legality of Fayyad’s government.
Fayyad’s government is expected to approve new anti-money laundering rules that one official said would include a ban on "anyone bringing in money illegally". Another official said the rules, drafted by the Palestinian Monetary Authority, could be applied to funds for Hamas, its allies and others.
8/17/2007
Hour for Statemanship
Arab News - Editorial, MIFTAH 8/21/2007
THE Israeli militarys decision to open a border crossing with the Gaza Strip for a few hours to allow fuel deliveries to the territory might solve the immediate problem of darkness, but the light at the end of the tunnel is still a long way from shining. Going by the dire predictions of UN officials, unless Israel eases border restrictions there could be a humanitarian disaster in Gaza not limited to fuel restrictions.
Gaza is a sealed-off ghetto, politically and economically. It is now almost entirely dependent on aid, with practically everyone reliant on handouts provided by the United Nations. The strip risks becoming a virtually 100 percent aid-dependent, closed down and isolated community within a matter of months, or even weeks, if the present regime of closures continues.
Israel has sealed off Gaza from the outside world since the takeover of Gaza by Hamas. Hamas and Fatah did the rest with their bloody feud, which effectively divided the Palestinian camp into two. Perhaps they wouldnt be skidding down this steep slope had Fatah gracefully accepted the decisive win of Hamas in the parliamentary elections. It is, though, too late to wish what might have been. Still, the Palestinian cause may still be able to garner sufficient political will and enable leaders to emerge who see beyond their own or their factions interests, to chart a new course. A vast majority of Palestinians are for reconciliation and for ending a feud detrimental to their political aspirations.
No Way around Conciliation
Jordan Times - Editorial, MIFTAH 8/17/2007
o much for the only democracy in the Arab world. Having experimented with real, representative and fair elections, the Palestinian Authority, or the part that is controlled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has announced that in effect it will not allow Hamas, the victors in the last elections, to take part in any new elections.
In a presidential decree yesterday, the Palestinian electoral law has been changed so that candidates for both legislative and presidential elections must respect the political programme of the PLO and previously signed agreements between Israel and the PA.
In other words, Palestinian politicians must now be fully paid-up members of the two-state solution as defined by the Oslo accords. Not only do Hamas and Islamic Jihad fall foul of the law, anyone, and this includes many Palestinian intellectuals and independents who believe Oslo was a trap, and everything since has been proof of that, will walk the wrong side of the line.
The law is problematic in the extreme. It stymies Palestinian options and robs Palestinians of genuine choices. It means that Palestinians will, in essence, only now be able to vote covering a few percentage points of the West Bank with regard to the thing that really matters to them: how to achieve statehood and freedom.
Lebanese strike a blow at US-backed government
Robert Fisk, The Independent 8/7/2007
They’ve done it again. The Arabs have, once more, followed democracy and voted for the wrong man.
Just as the Palestinians voted for Hamas when they were supposed to vote for the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, so the Christian Maronites of Lebanon appear to have voted for a man opposed to the majority government of Fouad Siniora in Beirut. Camille Khoury - with a strong vote from the Armenian Tashnak party - won by 418 votes the seat that belonged to Pierre Gemayel, murdered last November by gunmen supposedly working for the Syrian security services.
While the Maronite vote had increased against Gemayel’s showing in 2005 elections, the result was a stunning blow to the American-backed government - how devastating that phrase "American-backed" has now become in the Middle East - in Lebanon and allowed Hizbollah’s ally, ex-General Michel Aoun to claim that "they cannot beat me". Mr Aoun is a candidate in presidential elections later this year.
True, the voting figures showed huge support for Pierre Gemayel’s father Amin - himself an ex-president- who was standing for the parliamentary seat of his murdered son. Although he was a weak and fractious leader - Amin paid a state visit to Damascus to re-cement "fraternal" ties after the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon - he proved himself a brave man in the aftermath of his son’s murder, calling upon Lebanese to support the government rather than submit once more to the domination of Syria.
Francis Boyle: Destroying Democracy in Palestine
Francis Boyle, Palestine Chronicle 8/8/2007
When the Palestinians democratically elected a government that the Neo-Conservatives in the Bush Jr. administration and their Kadima/Likudnik confederates in Israel did not prefer, they jointly did everything humanly possible to destroy it.
The belligerent Bush Jr. administration’s policies against the state of Palestine in order to depose its democratically- elected government by organizing an internal coup d’état in Gaza by means of Palestinian surrogates under the command of General Mohamed Dahlanprovide yet another compelling reason why it is too dangerous for world peace to keep these Neo-Conservatives in power any longer.
If there had ever been any doubt about it, the Bush Jr. administration’s aggression against Palestine ’s democratically-elected government proved that their alleged program of "democratization" for the Arab and Muslim world was a joke and a fraud to begin with. To be sure, Article 21(3) of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which constitutes customary international law, expressly provides: "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."
Mimicking Oslo
Khalid Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinian Information Center 8/5/2007
A few days after the 2006 parliamentary elections in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank, E. Jerusalem and Gaza, which Hamas won decisively, Fatah leaders and activists held a soul-searching meeting in Dura, near Hebron.
Nabil Amr, now Mahmoud Abbass political advisor, who failed to win a seat, attended the meeting, apparently in order to boost his defeated factions moral
And when a Fatah activist and student leader asked Amr how Fatah could rehabilitate itself and regain stature and preeminence among Palestinians, Amr reportedly said, without patting an eyelash Concessions, concessions, concessions.
Amr often describes himself as a secular pragmatist and firm believer in real politike"
In 2003, he played a leading role in effecting American-backed efforts to weaken the late Palestinian leader, along with people like Mahmoud Abbas and Muhammed Dahlan.
The gang of conspirers as Arafat called his critics within Fatah, sought, with full American backing, to strip the late Palestinian leader of at least some of his powers, including control over security agencies.
Arafats presence was then quite dominant and Amr, Abbas and Dahlan couldnt successfully challenge Arafats autocratic leadership. In fact, on 20 July, 2004, Amr himself was shot and nearly killed by a Fatah gunman, apparently on instructions from Arafat who had apparently thought that Amr was going too far in criticizing and undermining his benefactor. A few weeks later, Amr got his right leg amputated in Germany.
7/26/2007
Abbas’s gamble
Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly 7/26/2007
The Palestinian president wants to push ahead with fresh elections, but it’s unlikely to happen.
As the war of words between Hamas and Fatah continues, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas seems determined to organise presidential and legislative elections in the occupied territories, with or without Hamas’s participation.
Last week, Abbas succeeded in convening the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Central Council in Ramallah in an obvious effort to get the council to endorse his recent measures against Hamas following the latter’s takeover of Gaza 14 June.
The unelected (and ageing) council, which acts as a kind of PLO politburo, endorsed the anti-Hamas steps, including the dismissal of the Hamas-led government, the appointment of the Salam Fayyad government in Ramallah, as well as Abbas’s call for early general elections.
The Siren Song of Elliott Abrams
Kathleen Christison, CounterPunch 7/26/2007
Thoughts on the Attempted Murder of Palestine
"Coup" is the word being widely used to describe what happened in Gaza in June when Hamas militias defeated the armed security forces of Fatah and chased them out of Gaza. But, as so often with the manipulative language used in the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel, the terminology here is backward. Hamas was the legally constituted, democratically elected government of the Palestinians, so in the first place Hamas did not stage a coup but rather was the target of a coup planned against it. Furthermore, the coup -- which failed in Gaza but succeeded overall when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, acting in violation of Palestinian law, cut Gaza adrift, unseated the Palestinian unity government headed by Hamas, and named a new prime minister and cabinet -- was the handiwork of the United States and Israel.
The Fatah attacks against Hamas in Gaza were initiated at the whim of, and with arms and training provided by, the United States and Israel. No one seems to be making any secret of this. Immediately after Hamas won legislative elections in January 2006, Elliott Abrams, who runs U.S. policy toward Israel from his senior position on the National Security Council staff, met with a group of Palestinian businessmen and spoke openly of the need for a "hard coup" against Hamas. According to Palestinians who were there, Abrams was "unshakable" in his determination to oust Hamas. When the Palestinians, urging engagement with Hamas instead of confrontation, observed that Abrams’ scheme would bring more suffering and even starvation to Gaza’s already impoverished population, Abrams dismissed their concerns by claiming that it wouldn’t be the fault of the U.S. if that happened.
Abrams has been working on his coup plan ever since with his friends in Israel. As part of this scheme, the U.S. also urged Abbas -- again making no secret of this -- to dissolve the Fatah-Hamas unity government formed in March this year, form a new government, and call for new elections. Abbas acceded to U.S. demands with embarrassing alacrity after Hamas took Gaza. In a further gratuitous turn of the screw, he has appealed to Israel to turn up the heat on Hamas in Gaza by stopping delivery of fuel to Gaza’s power plant and keeping the Rafah border crossing point from Egypt closed so that none of the thousands of Palestinian waiting at the border to return home will be able to enter.
Institutions, order and hypocrisy
Amira Hass, Ha’aretz 7/26/2007
Even in this region, where diplomatic platitudes don’t begin to disguise the preferential treatment afforded Israel (although it is the occupier), the mandate of the new Quartet envoy Tony Blair rings particularly hollow. His role is reported as being "to help create viable and lasting government institutions representing all Palestinians ... and a climate of law and order for the Palestinian people."
Internal Palestinian negotiations between Hamas and Fatah may yet stop the disintegration of the Palestinians’ civil institutions and the complete severance between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, at the last moment. These institutions functioned during the most difficult times under Israeli military attacks, but started to crumble after January last year when the West, Israel and some Fatah elements tried in vain to topple a Hamas government founded on democratic elections.
One can go on about Hamas’ brutal takeover of the security apparatus in the Gaza Strip, and one could go back and discuss the chaos deliberately brought on by the leaders of those organs. Indeed, Hamas appears to be determined to prove that a national-Muslim regime in the "liberated" area is effective. But Hamas is not homogenous, and the boycott and siege policy has merely strengthened its extremists and their anonymous handlers. It is also true that Palestinian AuthorityChairman Mahmoud Abbas and his entourage are still entrenched in their irreconcilable anger with Hamas. But after years of becoming accustomed to receiving money from the West to compensate for its chronic political indulgence toward Israel - and in exchange for their inability to end the Israeli occupation - it is hard to decide to what extent their attitude is autonomous and when it derives from American and Israeli dictates.
7/20/2007
Palestine: Democracy American Style
David Morrison, spinwatch.org 7/16/2007
Its interesting that extremists attack democracies around the Middle East, whether it be the Iraq democracy, the Lebanese democracy, or a potential Palestinian democracy.
Believe it or believe it not, those are the words of President Bush, as he stood beside Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, at the White House on 19 June 2007.
President Bush was speaking a few days after he had finally succeeded in undoing the outcome of the democratic elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in January 2006, when Hamas won 74 out of the 132 seats (compared with Fatahs 45). It is worth emphasising that nobody, not even President Bush himself, questioned the fairness of these elections. Hamas had won, and won fair and square. NUG dismissed On 14 June 2007, with US encouragement, the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, declared a state of emergency and dismissed the recently formed National Unity Government under Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh. Subsequently, Abbas appointed Salam Fayyad, the Finance Minister in the previous government, as Prime Minister and invited him to form a so-called emergency government.
Gaza Showdown
James M. Wall, MIFTAH 7/21/2007
On the morning of January 25, 2006, I was with a group of American churchpeople at a Palestinian Authority polling place in Bethlehem. Having observed many elections over the years, I have learned to detect the difference between enthusiastic reformers hungry for change and members of an old guard, complacent after too many years in power. From what we saw in Bethlehem and heard in the West Bank, we predicted that Hamas would be victorious.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not share our prediction; the day after the election she called an unusual Saturday morning staff meeting and expressed her frustration over the Hamas victory: "Why was it that nobody saw it coming?" The secretary revealed her lack of understanding of Palestinian politics when she added, "I don’t know anyone who was not caught off guard by Hamas’s strong showing."
According to Arab journalist Zaki Chehab (Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement), two days after the election, Rice flew to London to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, the Middle East conflict and emerging tensions with Iran. Again she claimed that a majority of people were surprised by the election results and added that "some say Hamas itself was caught off guard by Hamas’s strong showing."
7/18/2007
Alastair Crooke: Our Second Biggest Mistake in the Middle East
Alastair Crooke, Palestine Chronicle 7/20/2007
The author argues that the West could not have chosen a worse time to try to make Fatah a proxy dependent on Western financial subsidy and Israeli ’concessions’ to make up for the popular support it patently lacks.
Hamas: Unwritten Chapters by Azzam Tamimi Hurst, 344 pp, 14.95 / Where Now for Palestine: The Demise of the Two-State Solution ed. Jamil Hilal • Zed, 260 pp, £17.99 / Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict by Sara Roy • Pluto, 379 pp, £16.99
’The situation in Gaza is dangerous, and the danger is that Hamas will take over and turn Gaza into "Hamastan" -- into a kingdom of thugs, murderers, terrorists, poverty and despair.’ This was the reaction of Ephraim Sneh, Israel’s deputy defence minister, to Hamas’s seizure of a number of key security institutions in Gaza in the days leading up to 14 June, when Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and leader of Fatah, dismissed the unity government. But, despite what much of the media says, this is not a ’civil war’, and Hamas is not made up of ’gangs beyond the control of their leaders’. Hamas’s action was conducted with the aim of removing the influence of just one of Fatah’s security forces in Gaza, the militia controlled by Muhammad Dahlan, Abbas’s national security adviser. Hamas has insisted that this has not been a conflict with Fatah in general, and it was notable that neither the Palestinian security forces -- effectively the Palestinian ’army’ -- nor the police in Gaza were targets of the recent violence.
The origins of the Hamas action in Gaza lie in the reaction of the international community, and of Fatah, to Hamass overwhelming victory in the parliamentary elections of January 2006. Fatah, Yasir Arafats movement, saw itself as the founder of the Palestinian Authority; it believed it was the natural party of government; and it had fought a long battle with Arab neighbours to establish itself as synonymous with the PLO, and therefore, implicitly, as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Some within Fatah were unable to come to terms with their loss of power, or to reconcile themselves to the claim that, on the basis of the election result, an Islamist party best represented the views of the Palestinian people. At this crucial juncture, the International Quartet intervened: they pressed President Abbas not to yield to Hamas, to hang onto power; and they promised to support him if he did so.
Blockade Drains Life from Gaza
James Haider, MIFTAH 7/18/2007
At the largest crossing point between Israel and the sealed-off Gaza Strip, capable of processing 200 lorries a day, only one vehicle can be seen. Instead of unloading its cargo of soya inside the border facility, the driver dumps it on a conveyor belt normally used to transfer gravel and cement.
The belt runs more than 200 metres across Karnis deserted parking lot, over the border fence and into Gaza, where Palestinian merchants reload it into lorries. No Israeli sets eyes on a Palestinian in the process. On such narrow lifelines there are five crossing points from Israel hangs the survival of Gazas 1.4 million people.
The movement of goods into Gaza had been intermittent at best since Hamas won Palestinian elections early last year. After the Islamist movement drove out its secular Fatah rivals in fighting a month ago, it has been reduced to a trickle.
Aid groups give warning that while Gazas basic needs are being met, the narrow coastal belt is facing meltdown if more is not done to open up its borders. At Sufa crossing, to the south, there is more activity but no more contact between the two sides. All morning Israeli lorries drive into a fenced-off field on the border, kicking up clouds of dust as soldiers in guard towers watch for snipers. In the afternoon they withdraw, lock the gates and the field fills with Gazas merchants, who load the goods and head back to their hungry towns.
Ben White: Blair is Right Man for the Job, Indeed
Ben White, Palestine Chronicle 7/18/2007
As soon as it was confirmed that Tony Blair would be taking up the role of special envoy to the Middle East on behalf of the Quartet (USA, EU, UN and Russia), typical reactions ranged from skepticism to mockery. However, the choice of Blair is only incredible if one takes at face value the stated function and intent of the Quartet regarding the ’peace process’. Most mainstream commentators, therefore, have missed a trick.
Some have coyly hinted at the fact that Blair will be an ’unpopular’ or ’controversial’ choice of envoy in the Middle East (without going into any of the gruesome details). Others have gone further, highlighting specific Blair policies in the Middle East and concluding that the Quartet could have made a better selection. Common amongst all these approaches though is that the Quartet’s intentions are placed beyond serious critique. On closer inspection, the Quartet and Blair are a perfect match for each other, having been consistently on the same wavelength both in terms of practical strategies and the corresponding informing ideology.
Perhaps the most far-reaching policy that both Blair and the Quartet have enthusiastically implemented is the continued boycott of the Hamas-majority Palestinian government, initiated shortly after the PLC elections had passed off successfully. The spectacle of the Quartet simultaneously urging the Palestinians to build a healthy democracy (and in fact, making that a prerequisite for ’earning’ the right to self-determination), yet also boycotting the elected government, has been unsightly enough to draw flak from diverse quarters. UN Human Rights monitor John Dugard, a man with a track record in highlighting Israeli human rights abuses in the Occupied Territories, wrote that "Palestinians understandably find it difficult to comprehend the response of the Quartet and many Western States to the Palestinian elections". While it is Israel that violates UN Resolutions and the ICJ’s ruling on the Separation Barrier, it is the Palestinian people who "have been subjected to possibly the most rigorous form of international sanctions imposed in modern times"1. Similarly, Oxfam -- a charity not known for political radicalism -- released a statement just over a year after the PLC elections that, with dry understatement, described how "the Quartet’s decision to withhold funds from the elected Authority has convinced many Palestinians that the Quartet is not genuinely committed to democracy in the Middle East"2
7/15/2007
A Life of Unrest
Steven Erlanger, MIFTAH 7/17/2007
Palestinians never used to do these things to one another. Putting bullets in the back of the heads of men on their knees. Shooting up hospitals. Killing patients. Knee-capping doctors. Executing clerics. Throwing handcuffed prisoners to their deaths from Gazas highest (and most expensive) apartment buildings. There is a madness in Gaza now. Hamas a religious political-military organization that dominated the last Palestinian elections claimed it was fighting infidels, with a holy sanction to kill. Fatah the largest group in the Palestine Liberation Organization was nearly as brutal as Hamas and claimed it was fighting the Nazis. Poor young men from the squalid, stinking refugee camps of Gaza, their heads filled with religious slogans and revolutionary cant, took off their knitted black masks to pose in front of the gilded bathrooms of the once-powerful and rich men of Fatah. Then they stole the sinks, toilets, tiles and pipes, leaving the wiring and the metal scraps for the ordinary, unarmed poor.
Gaza today is so far from the hopes of people like James Wolfensohn the former World Bank president who tried to coordinate economic redevelopment in the 140-square-mile territory between Israel and Egypt after the Israelis withdrew nearly two years ago as to seem like the other side of the earth. Rather than a model for a future Palestinian state, Gaza looks like Somalia: broken and ravenous. The civil war that Palestinians insisted could never happen just has, a civil war abetted by Israel and the United States in the name of antiterrorism and stability another policy that has failed, at least here, where a burning smell still fills the nostrils and where a masked Hamas gunman with an AK-47 recently sat at the abandoned desk of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, lifted up the phone and said: Hello, Condoleezza Rice? You have me to deal with now. But the military victory of Hamas may also bring a welcome measure of quiet and security to the 1.5 million people of Gaza, nearly 70 percent of them refugees, who have been living a nightmare of criminal gangs, street-corner vendettas, clan warfare, absent police, corrupt officials, religious incitement and unremitting poverty.
Reality Check on Palestinian Elections
Nadia Hijab and Diana Buttu, MIFTAH 7/17/2007
The 30-day emergency period declared by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas ends July 14. There has been talk of early elections as a way out of the political crisis, but tremendous legal, political, and physical obstacles would face such a move to say nothing of the limits on the power of a new Palestinian parliament or government.
After the Fatah-Hamas clashes in mid-June, Abbas declared a state of emergency, dismissed the government headed by Ismail Haniyeh, appointed Salam Fayyad as prime minister, suspended Articles 65 67 and 79 of the Basic Law that require a new government to secure a vote of confidence from the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) before taking office, and called for an international force in Gaza to support the holding of new elections. Since then, the extent of the presidents powers has been challenged.
What Lies Ahead for the PLC?
The powers of each of the executive, legislative and judiciary are spelled out in the Basic Law, the quasi-constitution of the PA. [1] Those who support the actions taken by Abbas argue that during an emergency the president has sweeping powers, including to install a new government and to suspend Basic Law articles. However, independent, expatriate Palestinian constitutional experts who led the drafting of the Basic Law say that the president did not have the power to suspend its articles, and that, while Abbas had the right to dismiss the prime minister, the Haniyeh government should have continued in a caretaker capacity until a new government could secure a vote of confidence from the PLC. [2]
The PLC crisis: where is it heading after the recent dialogue?
Ma’an News Agency 7/14/2007
Gaza Ma’an Now that the thirty days for the emergency government are almost over, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, may be able to call for early elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), if he abides by the Palestinian Basic Law.
Hamas is trying to take advantage of the last days of the state of emergency, as it is calling for a PLC meeting to discuss Abbas’s emergency government.
With the end of the thirty days in sight, a number of questions surface. First of all, will Fatah members of the PLC respond to Hamas’ call for a PLC session? Also, it is not clear whether members of other factions and independent PLC members are likely to attend the meeting, because many are unavailable, such as Rawya Al Shawa. And, if Fatah do decide to be present, will the meeting put an end to the conflict between the two main factions within the PLC, Fatah and Hamas?
The deputy speaker of the Council, Ahmad Bahar, has called on all members of the PLC to come to a meeting on Sunday to discuss the state of emergency declared on June 14th.
Abbas Plays on Hamas Boycott to Keep his Cabinet in Place
Steven Erlanger, MIFTAH 7/13/2007
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, convened the Palestinian legislature on Wednesday, but a Hamas boycott meant there was no quorum, which was clearly what Mr. Abbas wanted. With parliament unable to meet, he can extend the life of the emergency cabinet he appointed after Hamas took over Gaza.
Hamas legislators boycotted the session, contending that it was illegal. Salah al-Bardawil, a Hamas legislator, said in Gaza that convening the legislature without arrangements with the biggest bloc, and with the Israeli arrest of Hamas legislators, was an attack on Palestinian legitimacy.
The term of the emergency government, led by an independent economist, Salaam Fayyad, is set to expire next week, after 30 days. Some Palestinian legal authorities say that Mr. Abbas, though he had the power to fire the old government under the Palestinian Basic Law, had no power to name a new government without legislative approval. Hamas won 74 seats in the 132-member parliament in elections in January 2006, but 39 Hamas legislators from the West Bank are in Israeli jails without charges. So with only the 35 Hamas legislators not in jail and the 45 seats held by its rival, Fatah, Hamas would have been in the minority if a quorum had been attained.
7/5/2007
Recapturing legitimacy in Palestine
Michael Meyer-Resende and Michel Paternotre, Daily Star 7/11/2007
Western countries got it wrong when they believed that Hamas could not win the 2006 democratic elections they promoted in the Palestinian territories. Western leaders are getting it wrong again when they suggest that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is the only Palestinian player with democratic legitimacy and that he won elections in a "landslide," to quote the United Nations’ official Terje Roed-Larsen.
This is not supported by the facts.
Abbas was elected in 2005 with some 60 percent of the vote, but those elections were not contested by Hamas. He received 500,000 votes from an electorate of some 1.2 million. A year later, in more competitive elections, Hamas gained 44 percent of the votes, amounting to 440,000 votes. Both elections were considered to have been genuinely democratic by many international observers.
The latest opinion poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research indicates that a meager 13 percent of respondents declared themselves satisfied with Abbas’ handling of the Palestinian crisis, and his overall approval rating has fallen to 36 percent. Abbas remains the legitimate president, but not more than Hamas was the legitimate government party. Contrary to perceptions that the West Bank is "Fatahland," last year Hamas won a higher proportion of seats there than in the Gaza Strip.
What Can Abu Mazin Do? (PDF)
Nathan J. Brown, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 10/20/2006
When Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the January 2006 elections, many observers asked whether President Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazin), the popularly elected president from the rival Fatah movement, could prevent Hamas from assuming authority. Once Hamas formed a government, many asked whether Abu Mazin could dismiss or replace it.
These questions are natural. From the United States to Korea to Poland, the first election resulting in an alternation of power provoked questions and debates about the precise meaning of various constitutional clauses and phrases. Despite widespread media commentary concerning gaps and silences in the Palestinian Basic Lawthe interim constitution for the Palestinian Authoritythe document is actually unusually clear on most matters. It is untested, however, and its contents are not widely known. For this reason, there has been considerable confusion about its provisions, aggravated by the tendency of Abu Mazins advisors to pressure Hamas by hinting that the president might use constitutional powers that he simply does not have. Existing arrangements give Abu Mazin very few tools to act unilaterally. Almost any change would require either Hamass consent or a violation of the Basic Law.
Stonewalling in Ramallah
Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly 7/5/2007
Even as the Abbas government does Israel’s bidding, it is being targeted by its new patron.
East Jerusalem - The Ramallah-based Palestinian "emergency government" continues to adamantly reject any rapprochement with Hamas, despite growing calls to this effect by a number of key Arab and Muslim countries as well as Palestinian intellectuals.
Instead, the government, backed by the United States and Israel, is asserting its authority (although this doesn’t mean much in real terms given the ubiquitous reality of the Israeli occupation), ostensibly in preparation for holding early general elections with or without Hamas’s participation.
Nabil Amr, an aide to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, was quoted as saying this week that it was likely that the term of the Fayyad government would be extended indefinitely despite "the legal reservations".
Amr suggested that the inability of the Palestinian Legislative Council to convene would eventually force the Fatah-dominated PA leadership to take "extra-judicial" or even "non-lawful" decisions to extend the term of the present government in Ramallah indefinitely.
6/27/2007
Blair must make up for failure in Palestine
Andrew Phillips, The Guardian 7/1/2007
It may well be because Tony Blair has Palestine on his conscience that he took the thankless role of special envoy to that benighted land. When we invaded Iraq, Blair made clear that reconciling Israel and Palestine was the twin challenge. His government failed to rise to it. The road map to nowhere has been compounded by a lack of even-handedness, a want of political imagination and a subservience to Israel and the Bush administration. That has directly contributed to the tragic shambles that is Palestine today. The old Israeli right-wing policy of perpetual divide and rule is again triumphant.
My third personal fact-finding visit to Palestine since 2003 ended a few weeks ago with a one-to-one meeting with Ismail Haniyeh, then Prime Minister. Britain’s refusal to engage with Hamas over its lack of democratic legitimacy is seen there as wholly cynical, given that the boycott continued after elections last year gave them more than 60 per cent of the legislative seats.
Blair will find the Palestinians feel bitterly about the West’s failure to stop Israel building its illegal wall, its rapid colonisation of the West Bank and the humiliation of the checkpoint. When I remarked to some Jewish NGO workers that the pass system seemed Kafkaesque, they said they called the West Bank ’Kafkastan’.
Stephen Lendman: Demonstration Government in Palestine
Stephen Lendman, Palestine Chronicle 6/26/2007
It’s a small, maybe temporary victory, but important one nonetheless.It shows mighty America, Israel and the EU can be challenged and forced to back down giving Palestinian people hope more victories will follow.
In 1984 (a year of Orwellian significance), activist and media and social critic Edward Herman wrote one of his many important books titled "Demonstration Elections."In it, he analyzed the US-staged elections in the 1960s in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam and the 1982 one in El Salvador. In the book’s Orwellian glossary of terms, he defined the process as "A circus held in a client state to assure the population of the home country that their intrusion is well received. The results are guaranteed by an adequate supply of bullets provided in advance (and freely used as necessary to achieve the desired outcome)."
This writer calls this ugly business "democracy-engineering, American-style" backed by force to win approval of a rigged process people would never accept another way. Noam Chomsky refers to the notion of "Keeping the Rabble in Line," the title of one of his many books. It can be through soft or hard methods to assure the public goes along with what governments want imposed.
Neither Fatah nor Hamas but Palestine
Redress Information & Analysis, MIFTAH 6/25/2007
Redress Information & Analysis argues that both Fatah and Hamas have forfeited the privilege of representing the Palestinian people and calls upon Palestinians in the occupied territories to form a broadly-based, patriotic national liberation movement that would represent all the people.
For the first time since the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964, the Palestinian people have no leaders and nobody to represent them: no one to defend them in the occupied territories, and no one to speak on their behalf internationally.
Paradoxically, there is no shortage of entities that purport to represent the Palestinians. In addition to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), there are 10 factions that make up the PLO , and there is also the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which was chosen by the Palestinian people to head the PNA in free and fair elections held in January 2006.
Yet, in truth none of these entities represents, let alone cares for, the Palestinians, whether in the occupied territories or in the diaspora.
The West hands Palestinians a poisoned chalice
Sonja Karkar, ZNet 6/25/2007
It seems few can speak the truth anymore and that does not augur well for Palestine or for the world generally. Time and again, law and principles have been compromised for Israels benefit and the world has acquiesced; now it seems some Palestinians are prepared to do the same. Shades of Oslo repeated, but this time, without any hope at all for a just end to the Palestine question. Those who thought it would be different, have forgotten Israels ruthless masterplan to take all of the land. With 93 percent of Palestine already annexed to Israel and 7 percent under its actual control, a final solution to rid Israel of 4 million Palestinians was always inevitable. Just how Israel was going to do that without resorting to outright genocide seemed to have its abominable solution in transfer and apartheid. Now it looks like the solution will be found by turning Palestinian against Palestinian with consequences too awful to contemplate. Never before has there been such a need to expose the hypocrisy, lies and obfuscations that may well mean the end of a united liberation struggle.
After years of claiming it had no partner for peace, it is interesting to learn that Israel will cooperate with President Abbas and the new government. More likely, the Palestinians are being handed a poisoned chalice. Democracy is being offered like some magic elixir, when all the while, the democratic process has been systematically undermined at every turn over the last 18 months. The result has seen Palestinians bitterly divided and the national framework for liberation fractured. What is happening now is more of the same. The Israeli/US-backed emergency government in the West Bank is contrary to Palestinian Basic Law and requires approval from a quorum of the Legislative Council in which Hamas holds the majority of seats. Those who would describe President Abbas actions as necessary to put down the Hamas coup in Gaza are making nonsensical claims. The Hamas government has always been legitimate since it won democratic elections in January 2006 and cannot instigate a coup against itself. That has been conveniently overlooked by the US, Israel, and shamefully by some members of the Palestinian Fatah party, all of whom have done everything to bring the legitimate government down.
6/22/2007
El-Farra: Palestinians must have hope to move forward
Mona El-Farra, International Solidarity Movement 6/23/2007
As a physician from Gaza, I have treated far too many Palestinians wounded by Israeli troops. Now a day has come that I thought I would never see.
Throughout our 59-year struggle to obtain our freedom, we Palestinians debated strategy and tactics. Political factions competed for popular support. But never would I have believed that we would turn guns against each other. What brought us to this point?
In 2006, Hamas won free and fair elections on a platform that promised clean and efficient government. But Israel and the West meddled with our democratically elected choice by imposing devastating economic sanctions. How would Americans feel if a foreign power expressed its dissatisfaction with your elected government in this way? Our economy and our livelihoods have been destroyed, reducing many of us to poverty.
At last, we exploded with a desperation born of decades of oppression, lack of opportunity and loss of hope. We brutalized each other over the crumbs of power. The shame is ours " but the responsibility is shared between reckless Palestinians and external powers that turned the screws on our people.
6/19/2007
Palestinians Say Hamas and Fateh Equally Responsible for the Infighting
Samar Assad, MIFTAH 6/23/2007
Overview.
Fifty-nine percent of Palestinians surveyed in a 21 June 2007 poll blame Fateh and Hamas for last weeks intra-Palestinian fighting and 71 percent said they consider both groups to be the loser. The survey, conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), found that while 75 percent want early presidential and parliamentary elections, 40 percent said they would not participate if the race was between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh. Abbas would slightly edge out Hanyieh with 49 percent of the vote compared to Hanyiehs 42 percent. The numbers change dramatically if imprisoned Fateh leader Marwan Barghouthi replaced Abbas in the race. The percentage of voter nonparticipation decreases to 31 percent and 59 percent of West Bank respondents said they would vote for Barghouthi compared to 35 percent for Haniyeh. In Gaza, 55 percent of respondents said Barghouthi was their choice compared to 41 percent who said they prefer Haniyeh. The 1270 randomly selected respondents from the West Bank and Gaza Strip were interviewed between 14 and 20 June 2007. The margin of error is 3 percent.
Public Support.
The survey found that a majority are angry over the recent fighting between Hamas and Fateh and have lost confidence in their leadership and in most of the security services. Only 13 percent expressed satisfaction with Abbas handling of the recent events and satisfaction with his performance in general stands at 36 percent compared to 48 percent in March.
A restructured PLO
Azmi Bishara, Al-Ahram Weekly 6/21/2007
Without an organisation capable of representing all Palestinians, both in the occupied territories and the diaspora, the future can comprise little beyond internecine conflict.
The US and its Western followers revealed what democratisation of the Arab world actually means to them when they rejected the results of the Palestinian legislative elections and instead began an economic boycott. The result was escalating internecine violence fuelled by the lure of money.
The Mecca Agreement between Fatah and Hamas to form a unity government opened the horizon for a unified Palestinian strategy that would include the restructuring of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and that would compel Arab governments to face their obligations to press for an end to the blockade against the Palestinian people and for the implementation of The Hague ruling on the separating wall. Some pro-settlement Palestinians believed that the Mecca Agreement was aimed at containing Hamas and that since Hamas had agreed in principle then all that remained was to name Hamas’s price. They thought a haggling process would drag on as the new Fatah-Hamas partnership stumbled from one crisis to the next while at the same time negotiations and communications would be conducted through diplomatic channels aimed at a permanent solution and these would require discussions between members of the unity government. There was, therefore, room for political action.
Legitimacy contested
Dina Ezzat, Al-Ahram Weekly 6/21/2007
Differing claims to "legitimacy" are asserted in Palestine and Lebanon in the unspoken war between "moderation" and "radicalism".
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa arrived in Lebanon Tuesday for a round of desperate mediation talks between the two main currently conflicting Lebanese camps: the parliamentary majority camp, headed by Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora and supported by the West and pro- Western Arab allies, and the opposition camp, headed by Hizbullah, that enjoys the sympathies of public opinion in many parts of the Arab world and the support of governments that oppose growing Western influence in the region, including Iran and Syria.
When Moussa landed in Beirut, the political crisis worsened. The opposition, which is in alliance with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, is considering the composition of a "second" government that opposition figures say would represent all points of views -- not solely those of the Al-Siniora government, from which they have withdrawn.
For Lebanon, a state with two governments is not a stretch of the imagination; it has happened before. In fact, for the Arab world, states of two governments appear increasingly the norm.
In Palestine, at present there are two governments: one formed on the basis of free elections and presided over by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh; and one last week created by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and presided over by Western-backed former Finance Minister Salam Fayyad.
Philip Rizk: Sharons Vision at Work in Palestine
Philip Rizk in the Gaza Strip, Palestine Chronicle 6/22/2007
Although Abbas and his new US-backed government have finally received international status and the economic blockade is being lifted on Palestinians, the Palestinian cause seems to have been buried beneath the ruble.
What does it take to get Israel to just begin recognizing some Palestinian human rights?
1. Carry out democratic elections
2. Determine a government according to the election outcome
3. THEN isolate this government in one part of the country
4. Set an illegal embargo on the people there
5. Freeze the government’s bank accounts
6. Isolate the government internationally
The result will be:
1. The return of all stolen taxes belonging to Palestinians
2. An easing of roadblocks and security measures
3. Lifting of the illegally imposed economic embargo
4. International funding for a new non-democratically determined government
5. Normalization of relations between international governments and the non-democratically determined government
6. The legalizing of private American trade (the world’s largest economy) with Palestinians (previously this deed could result in incarceration)
Ali Abunimah: Three-State Solution is No Path to Peace
Ali Abunimah, Palestine Chronicle 6/22/2007
Is it a coincidence that one of Israel’s most ardent supporters, US Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams, who illegally channeled money to the Contras, has been the architect of the US strategy to support anti-Hamas militias?
Some have portrayed, Hamas’ takeover of Palestinian Authority security compounds in Gaza as a "coup." But many Palestinians do not view it that way. In January 2006, Hamas decisively won legislative elections, giving it the right to form an administration. The US, despite its rhetorical support for democracy, decided to crush Hamas rule, imposing sanctions that have harmed ordinary Palestinians in the hope that Hamas would be forced out.
When it won the elections, Hamas had already observed a one-year unilateral truce with Israel, and hadsuspended the suicide bombings against Israeli civilians that had made it notorious. It tried to enter mainstream politics through the front door, to play by the rules of the game, but was undermined at every step. The bitter conclusion for many Palestinians is that the US is not interested in supporting real democracy, and will intervene relentlessly to overthrow leaders it does not support, regardless of the will of the Palestinian people.
6/19/2007
Hamas acted on a very real fear of a US-sponsored coup
Jonathan Steele, The Guardian 6/22/2007
Did they jump or were they pushed? Was Hamas’s seizure of Fatah security offices in Gaza unprovoked, or a pre-emptive strike to forestall a coup by Fatah? After last week’s turmoil, it becomes increasingly important to uncover its origins. The fundamental cause is, of course, well known. Israel, aided by the US, was not prepared to accept Hamas’s victory in last year’s Palestinian elections. Backed by a supine EU, the two governments decided to boycott their new Palestinian counterparts politically and punish Palestinian voters by blocking economic aid. Their policies had a dramatic effect, turning Gaza even more starkly into an open prison and creating human misery on a massive scale. The aim was to turn voters against Hamas - a strategy of stupidity as well as cynicism, since outside pressure usually produces resistance rather than surrender.
The policy shocked even moderate western officials like James Wolfensohn, the former World Bank chief, whom the Americans had appointed to help Gaza’s economy before the Hamas election victory. "The result was not to build more economic activity but to build more barriers," he said this week while explaining why he resigned in disagreement with US and Israeli strategy.
It is also well known that Hamas was as surprised by its election victory as everyone else and that it offered its rival, Fatah, a coalition government of national unity. The offer was refused. If this was done initially out of wounded pride, Fatah’s rejection of Hamas’s regularly repeated overtures increasingly appeared to be coordinated with Washington as part of the boycott strategy.
6/17/2007
In search of justice in the Middle East
Ali Abunimah, The Chicago Tribune, 21 June 2007, Electronic Intifada 6/21/2007
Some have portrayed, Hamas’ takeover of Palestinian Authority security compounds in Gaza as a "coup." But many Palestinians do not view it that way. In January 2006, Hamas decisively won legislative elections, giving it the right to form an administration. The US, despite its rhetorical support for democracy, decided to crush Hamas rule, imposing sanctions that have harmed ordinary Palestinians in the hope that Hamas would be forced out.
When it won the elections, Hamas had already observed a one-year unilateral truce with Israel, and had suspended the suicide bombings against Israeli civilians that had made it notorious. It tried to enter mainstream politics through the front door, to play by the rules of the game, but was undermined at every step.
Laboratory rats: Palestinians of Gaza and our contemporary Josef Mengeles
Agustin Velloso, Palestinian Information Center 6/19/2007
Madrid, Spain
Faced with the fear that things may get even worse, one must not lose sight of the causes of the events in Gaza, their connection with the situation in Lebanon and Iraq and above all the lies the media use to defend the interests of the West and Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.
An editorial of June 13th in Spain’s biggest circulation newspaper - probably a joint effort by Thomas Friedman, Victor Harel and Javier Solana - is a compendium of anti-Palestinian remarks, anti-Muslim feelings and racist arguments, whose use for university entrance examination should be obligatory as a means to judge the maturity of adolescents: "co-existence between the moderate Abbas and the government of Ismael Haniya has been a fiction from the very moment the radical Islamists, who waged a terror war against Israel, won the parliamentary elections last year."
It is all too well known that laboratory researchers subject small rodents to stressful situations to provoke illness and aggression. It is also well-known that Gaza is a huge prison. Israel holds the keys, until a short while ago had its prison warders inside and now keeps them on the land and sea frontiers, as well as policing the airspace.
Hamas’ Shock and Awe
Sam Bahour, MIFTAH 6/18/2007
The recent overrunning of Gaza by Hamas militants was the equivalent to the United States Shock and Awe campaign in Iraq. Both campaigns were conducted outside the realm of international law and were violent and brutal, albeit each relative to their respective resources and internal contexts; both claimed to be preemptive in nature; and both events placed the Palestinian people and struggle for national liberation in even a more precarious position.
Shock and Awe is a US invention in the same way that the US flavor of shrink wrapped democracy is a US creation.As the Bush Administration failed to export its understanding of democracy to Iraq via the US military, the USs second regional blunder was trying to impose US democracy in occupied Palestine by using a proxy governing body called the Palestinian Authority. The USs weapon of choice for Palestine was to dangle millions of dollars as bait, there for the taking if the Palestinian leadership showed total obedience. While US and other donor countries channeled billions of dollars to promote democracy and build Palestinian security forces, Hamas was busy learning the intricacies of the US game of military shock and awe and imposed democracy.During the last 17 months, Hamas attempted both, successfully: they won democratically held elections, as confirmed by election observer President Jimmy Carter, and then went on to overrun Gaza by brute force.
6/14/2007
Palestine: A New Conundrum?
Iqbal Jassat, MIFTAH 6/16/2007
Dramatic developments in the Occupied Territories of Gaza and the West Bank have catapulted the Palestinian freedom struggle onto a track which, despite the accompanying tragedy, may in fact be the only route for the elected government of Hamas to propel.
What clearly bore the hallmarks of an interminable duel between Fatah and Hamas after the popular Islamic Movement emerged as the undisputed victors at the polls eighteen months ago, could not be allowed to degenerate into a major disaster for a people now into their 60th year following the Naqba.
Since the January 06 elections, the quartet, led by the Bush Administration has refused to recognize Hamas as the legitimate voice of the Palestinians. In addition to shunning the victors, it also adopted a more belligerent approach by punishing the people for electing Hamas. This aggression took the form of sanctions, isolation and a perpetual siege, placing a million people in an open-air prison without any recourse to end their miserable occupation except through resistance.
But the Israeli/American axis had more than mere starvation in mind. They realized that Hamas cannot be manipulated the way Fatahs unfortunate flirting with the Occupying Power had resulted in straitjacketing its revolutionary ideals. The ultimate prize sought by them is regime change! And, since new elections are years away, Hamas ability to govern had to be undermined at all cost.
US and Israel Stir Up Palestinian Crisis
Ira Chernus, MIFTAH 6/16/2007
Its so obvious that Fatah and Hamas should work together to achieve an independent Palestine. Not long ago, they were proclaiming their unity. So why are they now destroying each other? If you get your news from the mainstream U.S. media, you might well think that they are just two irrational factions, driven crazy by lust for power.
But if you know how to read between the lines, even our mainstream media tell a much more complicated story, one that implicates Israel and the U.S. government too. All the quotes that follow are from reporting on the crisis in the mainstreams flagship newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
An Israeli analyst of Palestinian affairs, Danny Rubinstein, said the primary reason for the break-up is the fact that Fatah has refused to fully share the Palestinian Authoritys mechanism of power with its rival Hamas, despite Hamass decisive victory in the January 2006 general elections. Fatah leaders failed to heed warnings that the partys corruption and arrogance were alienating voters. Fatah was forced to overrule Palestinian voters because the entire world demanded it do so, Mr. Rubinstein added. Matters have come to the point where Hamas attempted to take by force what they believe they rightfully deserve.
Agustin Velloso: Palestinians and the Gaza Experiment
Agustin Velloso, Palestine Chronicle 6/16/2007
The moral condition of the editorialists prevents them from regarding the Palestinians as anything but rats who deserve the fate they suffer, for that reason they take refuge in political, social and cultural pretexts like the terrorist character, factional behavior and the presence of Islamism.
Faced with the fear that things may get even worse, one must not lose sight of the causes of the events in Gaza, their connection with the situation in Lebanon and Iraq and above all the lies the media use to defend the interests of the West and Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.
An editorial of June 13th in Spain’s biggest circulation newspaper - probably a joint effort by Thomas Friedman, Victor Harel and Javier Solana - is a compendium of anti-Palestinian remarks, anti-Muslim feelings and racist arguments, whose use for university entrance examination should be obligatory as a means to judge the maturity of adolescents: "co-existence between the moderate Abbas and the government of Ismael Haniya has been a fiction from the very moment the radical Islamists, who waged a terror war against Israel, won the parliamentary elections last year."
Ben White: The War in Gaza
Ben White, Palestine Chronicle 6/15/2007
Dialogue is the only way forward for the Palestinians, but dialogue based on some fundamentals; respecting the will of the people, resistance to occupation and colonization.
The events in Gaza this week, which represented the dramatic climax of months of tense bouts of fighting between Hamas and Fatah, were painful to watch. Those who stand in solidarity with the Palestinians, like the thousands who marched in London last weekend, need not be shy about speaking out, despite the pressures of the cynical, smug analysis that laughs at Palestinian ’self-rule’ and says ’I told you so’. Responsibility for the current crisis is shared amongst most of the protagonists.
Fatah’s leaders should reflect that they are now reaping what some party members have sown. Elements within the party are indeed guilty of the charge of ’collaboration’ with the Israeli occupation, as well as with US designs. This has not just been in recent times, since the Palestine Legislative Council (PLC) elections, but has a history dating back to the pre-Oslo negotiations, through to the plutocratic Palestinian Authority and the days when Arafat’s men would detain and torture Hamas activists. Many of the Hamas members who now pose for the cameras in the captured Fatah operation centers may have been tortured in the very same buildings.
6/9/2007
Hamas continues a Palestinian tradition of wasting opportunities
Editorial, Daily Star 6/14/2007
The leaked end-of-mission report by resigned United Nations envoy Alvaro de Soto is a convincing indictment of the world body’s co-option by US and Israeli interests. "Even-handedness has been pummeled into submission," de Soto wrote, resulting in "devastating consequences" for Palestinians and "precisely the opposite" of what the international community had been trying to achieve. He condemned Israel’s policies as "perversely designed to encouraged the continued action by Palestinian militants" and the tendency of US officials "to cower before any hint of Israeli displeasure and to pander shamelessly before Israeli-linked audiences."
There is little that has emerged from de Soto’s report with which an objective observer might disagree. In fact, it only confirms that at least some people within the UN are least as disappointed by its recent stance as many of those on the outside. The situation is made all the more frustrating, however, by the dismal performance of the major Palestinian factions - especially Hamas, whose victory in last January’s elections prompted and/or exacerbated so many of the errors listed by de Soto. Given widening realization that punishing the Palestinian people for having put the Islamist group in power was an epic policy failure, the time was almost ripe for a consensus acceptance of Hamas’ popular legitimacy and the potential resumption of a viable peace process.
6/11/2007
ANALYSIS: Occupation under the guise of self government in PA
Danny Rubinstein, Haaretz Correspondent, Ha’aretz 6/13/2007
The general collapse of government functions in the Gaza Strip Tuesday urged several senior Palestinian figures to seriously contemplate Professor Ali Jarbawi’s advice to disband the Palestinian Authority.
Even before the civil war which Hamas and Fatah are starting in the Strip, Professor Jarbawi of Bir Zeit University maintained that the Palestinian Authority was a mere illusion of power: occupation under the guise of self government, and therefore useless.
On Tuesday, a Palestinian journalist likened the Palestinian Authority to a smoke-belching car wreck, adding that it was time to toss the keys to the Israelis. His view is shared by many Palestinian civilians in Gaza, who in recent days have told the media that they are fed up. "We’ve had enough, we should be so lucky as to see the return of the Israeli occupation."
The recent events we have been witnessing in Gaza are actually the disbanding of Palestinian rule. The primary reason for the break-up is the fact that Fatah, headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, has refused to fully share the PA’s mechanism of power with its rival Hamas - in spite of Hamas’ decisive victory in the January 2006 general elections.
First, we’ll shoot a bit, flex a muscle
Zvi Barel, Ha’aretz 5/19/2007
It is the same prestige that contributed quite a bit to creating the real strategic threat facing Israel. This threat is not expressed by the terrifying Qassams that are causing Sderot residents to flee from their city, but rather by the disintegration of Gaza, by the subjection of its million and a quarter residents to the reign of gangs, by the neutralization of the ability to build a strong, united Palestinian leadership, and by the establishment of a state of terror in Gaza, which operates almost in isolation from any central Palestinian administration.
The reason for the state’s prestige being in question is its need to justify the decision not to recognize the Hamas government and to impose an economic siege on the territories. At the same time, Israel has conditioned the Palestinians’ ability to exist on a matter of honor - on Hamas’ recognition of Israel. How ridiculous now is the tally of triumphs and defeats of Fatah versus Hamas, of corpses on one side versus corpses on the other side, and the mathematical determination that Hamas is winning on the street. Is it not the same Hamas that already won over the street in the elections last year? The same Hamas that maintained the welcome cease-fire for many long months? The same Hamas that signed the Mecca Agreement and accepted the Arab Initiative.
Hamas is not a pleasant movement. It includes elements of terror and draws its sources from a fanatical religious ideology. But Hamas and the Palestinian unity government, as long as the latter still holds up, are the best address Israel has at the moment. This government is not just the only one that has the potential to control the "State of Gaza," it is the only one that is still interested in the fate of its public and, therefore, is influenced by the pressure of that public. It is the only one that is also threatened by the firing of Qassams on Sderot. But without the means to provide benefits for its citizens, it is also paralyzed.
World Bank exposes the blatantly obvious
Sonja Karkar, Electronic Intifada 5/14/2007
It should have happened sooner, but at least it has happened now. Israel has been exposed by the august World Bank for its oppressive control of the West Bank. Three weeks before global protests begin against 40 years of Israel’s occupation, the report reveals what every government knows, but not one has been prepared to stop. Effectively, the report challenges the notion of a viable two-state solution under Israel’s current restrictions and illegal land appropriations. According to the report, the West Bank has been fragmented into 10 isolated non-contiguous ghettoes which is an impossible configuration for any viable state, and this is made even more bizarre by the presence of some 250,000 illegal Jewish settlers (excluding those in East Jerusalem) who exercise control over 50 percent of the West Bank.And the Wall, says the report, exceeds at times Israel’s security needs and seems rather to contribute to, along with restrictive zoning and land use rules and practices, Jewish settlement expansion.
The Bank’s report is timely and welcome, but curiously it does not mention the effects of the sanctions that the West and Israel imposed on the Palestinians at the beginning of last year. At the time, the World Bank had stated that the Palestinian economy would shrink by 27 percent in 2006 -- "a one year contraction that compares to the Great Depression in the US".In other words, the Palestinian economy was in danger of collapse even then and the warnings were not acted upon. Instead, the world cavalierly continued with its sanctions because it did not approve of the newly elected Hamas government -- democratically elected in fair and transparent elections overseen by former US president Jimmy Carter.Now, the World Bank is ratcheting up its dire warnings about the prohibitive restrictions that have decimated the Palestinian economy: as long as the political situation remains unresolved and the economy continues to depend on foreign assistance simply for survival, there is very little prospect of a sustainable economic recovery. Certainly not the sort of sustained growth rates that can provide decent living standards for an expanding population. Any reversal of the situation, says the report, would have to entail dismantling Israel’s grid of physical and administrative barriers.
3/5/2007
On Israel, America and AIPAC
By George Soros, New York Review of Books 4/12/2007
The Bush administration is once again in the process of committing a major policy blunder in the Middle East, one that is liable to have disastrous consequences and is not receiving the attention it should. This time it concerns the IsraeliPalestinian relationship. The Bush administration is actively supporting the Israeli government in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, which the US State Department considers a terrorist organization. This precludes any progress toward a peace settlement at a time when progress on the Palestinian problem could help avert a conflagration in the greater Middle East.
The United States and Israel seek to deal only with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in the hope that new elections would deny Hamas the majority it now has in the Palestinian Legislative Council. This is a hopeless strategy because Hamas has said it would boycott early elections, and even if their outcome would result in Hamas’s exclusion from the government, no peace agreement would hold without Hamas’s support.
In the meantime Saudi Arabia is pursuing a different path. In a February summit in Mecca between Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, the Saudi government worked out an agreement between Hamas and Fatah, which have been clashing violently, to form a national unity government. According to the Mecca accord, Hamas has agreed "to respect international resolutions and the agreements [with Israel] signed by the Palestinian Liberation Organization," including the Oslo Accords. According to press reports on March 15, the new government, like the present one, will be headed by Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister, but Hamas will get nine of the government’s twenty-four ministries, as well as an additional minister without portfolio; President Abbas and his Fatah party will control six ministries, and independent representativessome said to be under the control of Hamas or Fatahand other political factions will fill the nine remaining ministries.
2/21/2007
After Mecca: Engaging Hamas
International Crisis Group 2/28/2007
Executive Summary And Recommendations
It has been a year since Hamas formed its government and what a dismal year it has been. The Islamists thought they could govern without paying an ideological price, Fatah that it could swiftly push them aside and regain power. By imposing sanctions and boycotting the government, the Quartet (U.S., European Union (EU), Russia and UN) and Israel hoped to force Hamas to change or persuade the Palestinians to oust it. Washington promised security and economic aid to encourage Fatah to confront Hamas and help defeat it. The illusions have brought only grief. The 8 February 2007 Saudi-brokered Mecca Agreement between the Palestinian rivals offers the chance of a fresh start: for Hamas and Fatah to restore law and order and rein in militias; for Israelis and Palestinians to establish a comprehensive ceasefire and start a credible peace process; and for the Quartet (or at least those of its members inclined to do so) to adopt a more pragmatic attitude that judges a government of national unity by deeds, not rhetoric. The adjustment will not be comfortable for anyone. But the alternative is much worse.
That Palestinians have wasted the past twelve months is difficult to contest. Treated as an international outcast and an intruder by much of the Fatah-aligned civil service and security forces, Hamas has been unable to govern. It has survived, and under these conditions survival is an impressive achievement. But it arguably is the only one. Fatah, obsessed with recovering power, has done virtually nothing to restore popular credibility and reform itself. Its periodic threats to call early elections or a referendum to unseat the Islamists exacerbated tensions without offering a way out of the stalemate. Palestinian Authority (PA) institutions are collapsing, law and order vanishing; relations between Hamas and Fatah deteriorated to near civil war.
Israel and the Quartet also squandered the year. Sanctions did not achieve their objectives. The EU justifiably reluctant to starve the Palestinian people pumped more money into the PA but more ineffectively and less transparently. Years of investment in now decrepit Palestinian institutions have gone down the drain. Western commitment to democracy in the Middle East has been roundly discredited. Hamas, weakened but still strong, is not going away. Diplomacy has been non-existent, violence between Israelis and Palestinians continues, and there has been no movement on prisoner exchanges. By almost every conceivable standard governance, security, economics, institution-building and the peace process there has been only regression. -- See also: Full Report in MS-Word format and Full Report as PDF file in A4 format
A political solution won’t save the Palestinian economy
By Mohammed Samhouri, Daily Star 2/28/2007
The resignation of the Hamas-led government on February 15, and the expected formation of a new government based on the deal reached in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, between Hamas and Fatah may finally bring an end to internal Palestinian divisions and the internecine violence that followed last year’s stunning rise of Hamas to power. It may also herald the beginning of a process that could lead to a reversal of the crippling year-long Israeli and Western measures against the Palestinians. This would be a break for the 4 million residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, who have seen their lives shattered by a continued lack of basic needs and rising levels of lawlessness and anarchy.
A more serious question, however, is whether a future Palestinian unity government can deal with the widespread poverty and unemployment plaguing the Palestinian territories. In the best of circumstances, the government would be operating under conditions similar to those existing on the eve of the January 2006 elections that Hamas won. On the social and economic front, therefore, there is little ground for optimism.
The crisis conditions dating back to the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000 have led to extensive damage to the Palestinian economy, so that a return to the pre-2006 state of affairs may no longer be sufficient to revive the deeply stagnant economy. Two signs in particular are disturbing, both for their adverse impact on the long-term stability of Palestinian areas, and, by extension, for their impact on a Middle East that has already had its fair share of trouble.
We Are Being Suffocated
By Sami Abdel-Shafi, Palestine Chronicle 2/12/2007
It is one thing for the Quartet to demand a Palestinian rejection of violence, but unless pressure is brought to bear on Israel to release its military grip from the Palestinian territories it will suffocate Palestinian hope and show that the world is only chasing a phantom of peace.
It was a surreal but telling reflection of how lonely Palestinians have become as their leadership has seemingly been pushed into breakdown and failure, while Israel watched from the sidelines. Late one night, I was suddenly yelled at to stop my car, turn the lights off and roll down the windows. Two masked men, without any identifying insignias, closed in from the sides; one pointed his machine gun at me while the other, two steps behind, shouldered a loaded rocket-propelled grenade launcher. That was a week last Thursday, hours after fierce clashes erupted between Hamas and Fatah, ending the seventh ceasefire between the factions, and ushering in the deadliest power struggle yet.
To Palestinians it seemed sadly clear that the moral credit of their cause was being eroded: how must it look to the outside world that they had flip-flopped in one year between democratic elections and internecine violence?
A day before this incident, a House of Commons development committee report warned of drastically deteriorating conditions in the occupied territories as a result of the US-led economic embargo in the wake of last year’s elections. The report questioned the proportionality of Israel’s own blockade and its implications for the prospects of a lasting peace. The Palestinian infighting only underlined the sense of those warnings.
2/5/2007
Civil War or coup dtat in Palestine?
By Agustin Velloso, Palestine Chronicle 2/6/2007
What role is the international community playing in the shootings? Is there a civil war going on in Palestine? Still, what is the relationship between sanctions and shootings? What is going to happen from now on?
Is there a civil war going on in Palestine? No, but this question and an affirmative answer is what pro-Israeli media are disseminating all over the world. Hence, the average news consumer does not discuss the reality of the civil war.
But, are not we seeing that Palestinians are killing each other in Gaza streets?
What we are seeing is that since Hamas took power in the last legislative elections (January 2006), which were monitored by hundreds of foreign observers, Jimmy Carter amongst them, the Western powers have made all kind of political and economic maneuvers to oust the winner with the help of the loser, Abu Mazen and his Fatah party.
However, Palestine is not Iraq, there are no Western armies in Gaza, is it not an internal Palestinian affair?
It is not an internal affair. Palestine is just one more square of the big Middle East cheesboard. The international community plays in it to its advantage, namely: the control of oil and the support of its ally, Israel. The Western powers support Fatah because they say it represents the moderate Palestinians and torpedo Hamas because its program does not fit with the Zionist and Imperialist agendas. Once Hamas obtained the majority of the Legislative Council seats, the powerful leaders, Bush, Rice, Blair, Olmert, Solana and others adopted plan B: to oust Hamas from government no matter the price (to be paid by rank and file Palestinians, of course).
What role is the international community playing in the shootings?
Shootings are the last movement in the chess game. Before this movement, the Western countries allegedly democratic and the guardians of international law- invaded countries, flattened entire cities, bombarded families at weddings and in the beach, and forced Arab and Muslim prisoners in secret flights around the globe to torture them at will and put them in cages like animals.
1/30/2007
Turmoil and Confusion
By Ghassan Khatib, Palestine Chronicle 2/6/2007
Hamas, at this late stage in the game, cannot both accept the parameters of Oslo by running in elections for control of the PA and want to change them by denying the legitimacy of the Oslo agreement that created this body.
Despite the surprise that greeted Hamas’ election victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections last year, the Islamic Resistance Movement did not come from nowhere.
Hamas first emerged as a real player on the Palestinian social and economic scene during the first intifada that started in 1989. Even then it came from the ranks of the long-established Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which had remained relatively marginal until Hamas engaged in active resistance to the Israeli occupation.
The movement strongly opposed the peace negotiations with Israel in 1991, the Oslo agreement of 1993 and all subsequent agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that was established as a result of Oslo. The movement also boycotted the 1996 parliamentary elections.
With this opposition, Hamas gained three advantages that allowed it to steadily increase its popularity with the public. The first, and maybe most important, was its heavy involvement in fighting the Israeli occupation at a time when Fateh, which had initiated and led that struggle until the peace process, was no longer involved. Hamas, in other words, strove to replace Fateh as the leading resistance movement.
In this regard, Hamas was helped immensely by Israel’s refusal to end its expansion of illegal Jewish settlements during the years of the peace process. Thus, Hamas’ second advantage was the failure of the peace process to achieve its promised and declared objectives, whether in terms of ending the occupation or in terms of improving the lives of Palestinians and establishing the institutions of a future Palestinian state.
Hamas is not going away
Editorial, Ha’aretz 2/6/2007
he terrible disturbances unfolding in the Gaza Strip, the killings of members of the security organizations of both Fatah and Hamas, the lack of control of the twin leaders - Mahmoud Abbas on one hand and Ismail Haniyeh on the other - are too easily being called "civil war." This is a term that apparently offers Israel refuge from the need to act on the diplomatic front. However, Israel has never needed excuses. With or without Palestinian infighting, Israel has usually said that it has no partner on the Palestinian side, irrespective of whether Yasser Arafat, Abbas or Haniyeh were in power. Once more we should treat the claim of there being "an absence of [Palestinian] leadership" and the excuse of the "fighting in the territories" with skepticism.
During the past year, a new political reality emerged, both in the territories and in Israel, which the Quartet refuses to acknowledge. Hamas, not Fatah won the elections, and Hamas is the one that has a hold on the Palestinian institutions of government, while Fatah is behaving as a rebel movement that refuses to accept its defeats. Lately, Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, considered moderates, recognize the fact that the general embargo on the Palestinian Authority is not only ineffective in altering this political reality - it contributes to dangerous developments that may have an influence on them.
It appears that Hamas also recognizes the fact that purely ideological views cannot serve a political organization that is trying to rally broad public support. Therefore, Hamas is prepared to relinquish, to a certain degree, control over all senior Palestinian government positions; Khaled Meshal murmured that "Israel is a fact"; the political statements of Hamas have made it clear that it aspires to establish a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders; and now there is a Saudi/Egyptian effort to convince Hamas to adopt a moderate formula regarding the agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Abbas at Davos / Incapable of effecting change
By Danny Rubinstein, Ha’aretz 1/29/2007
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos during the weekend was first and foremost one of despair. He presented numbers: 79 percent of the residents of the Gaza Strip live below the poverty line. Annual per capita income in the Strip is less than $800 a person, as opposed to nearly $20,000 in Israel. Restrictions on travel, destruction of infrastructure, fragmentation of the Palestinian territories, 10,000 prisoners in Israeli jails and a Palestinian economy in thrall to Israel, were all listed as causes of the present misery.
How should the Palestinians extricate themselves from this situation? Abbas said at Davos that if a unity government does not emerge in the Palestinian Authority in two or three weeks, he would call early elections for the presidency and the parliament. He has presented this ultimatum to Hamas at least three times in recent months. Nothing happened. Now it makes no impression on his adversaries in the Gaza Strip, who have turned its streets into a battlefield.
With the central government in Gaza crumbling, its place is being taken by local and tribal militias, Ghassan al-Khatib, former PA minister of planning said.
The truth is that Abbas cannot do much. At Davos he reiterated his plan for ending the conflict: establishing a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders including East Jerusalem, and solving the problem of the refugees through UN Resolution 194.
In Madrid We Trusted
By Rami Bathish, MIFTAH 1/13/2007
As a teenager growing up in Vienna, Austria, at the time, the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s is clearly enshrined in my memory as the single most significant historical event. Characterised by the dawn of a new world order, that period had reshaped the balance of power among nations and set the governing dynamics of what followed from regional and global events (and tragedies) until the present day. Meanwhile, as a Palestinian, first and foremost, I also recall that the winds of change had unmistakably stormed in another direction, one that is closer to home, and closer to heart. It was on 30 October, 1991, that the Madrid Peace Conference was convened, and consequently the assertion of our national aspirations for the first time since Al-Nakba on the largest possible scale. Within the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, this, in itself, was as historic as the end of the Cold War.
Today, more than 15 years after Madrid, Palestinians find themselves desperately trapped between the evident threat of internal strife and a prolonged Israeli occupation that has multiplied in form and magnitude since 1991. At the merciless hand of time, the dream of an independent and truly viable Palestinian state has become a distant and vague object in our rear view mirror.
National disunity, particularly following the second Palestinian Legislative Council elections of January 2006, has transcended political collisions between Fateh and Hamas and is increasingly following the catastrophic pattern of head-on militaristic confrontation, at the tragic expense of Palestinian blood. Israel, on its part, continues to relentlessly colonise what is left of Palestine (the territories it illegally occupies since the June 1967 war), through the imprisonment of the Gaza Strip and settlement construction and expansion, the construction of its Annexation Wall, and enforcement of demographic alterations in the West Bank, thereby creating irreversible realities on the ground and pre-empting the outcome of final status negotiations, let alone diminishing the prospects of their resumption altogether.
1/9/2007
Palestinian refugees and exiles must have a say-so
By Rima Merriman, Electronic Intifada 1/15/2007
Today, Palestinian refugees outside the occupied territories and Palestinian exiles feel completely excluded from the body politic and national debate currently taking place in the occupied territories. They listen to the feuding emanating from the territories in helpless dismay. They watch those on the inside who are caught up in a carefully engineered web of power struggles and passionate rifts that seem incomprehensible in their intensity and misdirection.
This fragmentation in the Palestinian political process has long been in the making. The Palestinian National Authority, courtesy of the Oslo negotiations, is designed to represent only Palestinians living in the occupied territories and to function as no more than Israel’s administrative arm.
The advent of Hamas on the Palestinian political scene has forcefully brought to the fore the question of adequate forms of representation for the Palestinian people. Far from enhancing democracy and representation, the elections of the Palestinian Legislative Council exclude Palestinians outside the territories. As it turned out, these last elections were also deemed by the international community as irrelevant.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the sole legitimate voice of the Palestinian people as recognized by the United Nations and the Arab League in 1974, is now separated functionally and structurally from the Palestinian diaspora. Its links with the outside were weakened and marginalized when the core elite of the PLO moved to the West Bank and Gaza as a result of the Oslo negotiations in 1994.
1/4/2007
Neutralizing Palestine, to better focus on Iran
By Clayton E. Swisher, Daily Star 1/12/2007
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s trip to the Middle East, which begins today, will be aimed at convincing the so-called "moderate Arab states" of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia that the United States is finally ready, after six years of promises, to help Palestinians achieve their state. While good-faith American mediation would be welcomed, many Arabs will greet her visit with well-founded skepticism, questioning why a Bush administration that is seemingly locked at the hip with Israel now wishes to roll up its sleeves and help the Palestinians.
Six years of empty promises have bred considerable skepticism. Calls shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks for a Palestinian state, the pressure applied by President George W. Bush on then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to end the first siege of Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah compound in 2002, and even the 2002 "road map" for peace were all viewed as no more than attempts to placate the international community, especially moderate Arabs, in order to prepare for war in Iraq. Without Arab cooperation, particularly from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, US plans to depose Saddam Hussein would have ended up in the same jar of formaldehyde as we now know was reserved for the Palestinian issue.
In instances where the Bush administration chose to momentarily focus on Palestine, the international media rushed to applaud the US commitment, hoping hands-on involvement would follow. This was particularly true once the 2004 presidential elections passed. Bush was expected to reward the coalition allies that had confronted Iraq by producing the oft-promised Palestinian state.
....With two years left in office, the Bush administration wants to see Iran’s regime humbled, if not toppled. Neoconservatives who have had their sights set on Iran are buoyed by the new arrangement where Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel find themselves on the same page when it comes to confronting Iran’s uranium enrichment program. They all want to do business together, including with Israel - which has the motive and means to degrade Iranian targets through air strikes - but moderate Arabs demand progress on the Palestinian issue to retain some measure of legitimacy and avoid public embarrassment.
1/9/2007
Elliot Abrams Uncivil War
By Alastair Crooke and Mark Perry, Alternative Information Center/Conflicts Forum 1/10/2007
Is the Bush administration violating the law in an effort to provoke a Palestinian civil war?
Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abramswho Newsweek recently described as the last neocon standinghas had it about for some months now that the U.S. is not only not interested in dealing with Hamas, it is working to ensure its failure. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas elections, last January, Abrams greeted a group of Palestinian businessmen in his White House office with talk of a hard coup against the newly-elected Hamas governmentthe violent overthrow of their leadership with arms supplied by the United States. While the businessmen were shocked, Abrams was adamantthe U.S. had to support Fatah with guns, ammunition and training, so that they could fight Hamas for control of the Palestinian government.
While those closest to him now concede the Abrams words were issued in a moment of frustration, the hard coup talk was hardly just talk. Over the last twelve months, the United States has supplied guns, ammunition and training to Palestinian Fatah activists to take on Hamas in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank. A large number of Fatah activists have been trained and graduated from two campsone in Ramallah and one in Jericho. The supplies of rifles and ammunition, which started as a mere trickle, has now become a torrent (Haaretz reports the U.S. has designated an astounding $86.4 million for Abu Mazens security detail), and while the program has gone largely without notice in the American press, it is openly talked about and commented on in the Arab mediaand in Israel. Thousands of rifles and bullets have been poring into Gaza and the West Bank from Egypt and Jordan, the administrations designated allies in the program.
At first, it was thought, the resupply effort (initiated under the guise of assist[ing] the Palestinian Authority presidency in fulfilling PA commitments under the road map to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism and establish law and order in the West Bank and Gaza, according to a U.S. government document) would strengthen the security forces under the command of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Officials thought that the additional weapons would easily cow Hamas operatives, who would meekly surrender the offices they had only recently so dearly won. That has not only not happened, but the program is under attack throughout the Arab worldparticularly among Americas closest allies.
See also:Elliott Abrams and Return of Zionist Extremist Elliott Abrams
Interview: Fostering Muslim-West dialogue
By Humayun Chaudhry, AlJazeera 8/8/2005
Alastair Crooke is a former official with Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency who has worked in some of the world’s most dangerous hotspots. He spent many years in the Arab and Muslim world and engaged in dialogue with Hamas and Hizb Allah, as well as facing paramilitary forces and drug cartels in Latin America and militias in Africa. His last posting, based in Jerusalem, was as a senior adviser to the EU high representative on foreign affairs, Javier Solana. During this time, Crooke helped end the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002 and worked to mediate the summer 2003 ceasefire between Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces.
Now retired and leading his own non-profit organisation, Conflicts Forum, Crooke hopes to foster a broader dialogue between the Muslim world and the West. Aljazeera.net spoke to him on the phone while he was in Lebanon recently. We asked him about the London and Sharm al-Shaikh bombings, the war on terror and dialogue with Islamist groups.
Aljazeera.net: Do you believe the London attacks are a consequence of Britain’s participation in the war on Iraq?
Alastair Crooke: I believe there is no causal motivation that has been established yet for what happened in London, on the two occasions, so I think it’s difficult to say what is the causal trigger to these two events.
But I think it’s very clear that there has been a great deal of anger and hostility that has risen from Muslims everywhere, from not only events in Iraq - that is an important element - but much more widely, in Afghanistan, but also the Palestinian issue and others, that has radicalised many young Muslims, not only in the UK but everywhere.
....Aljazeera.net: You make a distinction between the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hizb Allah, and al-Qaida or al-Qaida related-groups, that are more global in their actions?
Alastair Crooke: I think there is a big difference between the two, in that what you have is Hamas, Hizb Allah, Jammat Islamiya, Muslim Brotherhood and these groups.
They may be seen on the one hand through the optic of using resistance or violence, in support of their objectives, but these groups all favour elections, they look for reform, they’re looking for constitutional change in their society, and that is an important difference between these groups and some of the other Salafi, Takfiri, extreme radical groups who are looking for polarisation.
New Year Reflections
By Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle 1/5/2007
This is yet another reckless American-Israeli experiment that if fully actualized, shall harvest untold political instability, debase Americas reputation even further and expand the list of innocent victims who have fallen as profusely as ever in this passing year.
2006 was yet another year of tribulations in the ever tumultuous Middle East. It defied all early expectations that 2005 would be the worst for many years to follow. It ended on a sad note in Palestine, and left wide open the chance for many appalling possibilities that stretch from Baghdad, to Lebanon, to Mogadishu, and elsewhere.
Like January 2005, January 2006 brought about momentous elections, the former in Iraq, and the latter in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; both occasions, which had the potential of becoming icons of democratic experiences, led to unmitigated disasters, exposing the American democracy charade for what it truly was, a farce, pure and simple.
The 120 Iraqi parties that fielded candidates in the countrys 2005 first nationwide elections since the toppling of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, revealed the countrys sectarian divisions; expectedly, Iraqs Sunni population boycotted the elections, fearing that their participation was a rubber stamp in a highly suspicious US experiment aimed at dividing the country by stripping it of any national cohesion, thus smoothing the progress of a more manageable occupation. Sadly, many Iraqis allowed the US plan to fester civil strife bordering on civil war, which left countless innocents dead or maimed; The outcome of those divisions never expressed itself as clearly as it did in 2006, which left even the most optimistic amongst us anticipate nothing less than a full-fledged civil war morphing out of the current chaos.
Meanwhile, most Americans, as articulated in the Congressional elections of November 2006, expressed resentment for their countrys war in Iraq like never before on any foreign policy issue. Though their rejection of the Republican Partys candidates was an illustration of their refusal of the Bush Administration staying the course mantra, the election brought back a divided Democratic Party that is equally supportive of the war, but wishes to convey its position in so clever a way so as to appear in disagreement of Bushs war management style, but without offering any substantial policy shift. The elections will also likely position Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton of New York and Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona at the helm of Presidential candidates to follow the current lame duck president. Clinton is a staunch pro-war and pro-Israel savvy politician, and the latter wants to see a dramatic increase in the number of American troops in Iraq, as a way out of the quagmire. Using his constant opposition of President Bushs foreign policies, McCain is unlikely to pay the price of Bushs past failures, which, to varying degrees have damaged the credibility of most Republican politicians.
Denial of entry and its impact on higher education
By Birzeit University Right to Education Campaign, Electronic Intifada 1/6/2007
Since the beginning of 2006, many thousands of Palestinian foreign passport holders have been denied entry to visit, work or study in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt). This policy has brought tremendous insecurity to Birzeit University and its financial and academic wellbeing.
From March to September 2006 there has been a 50 percent drop in foreign passport holding staff, leaving most departments at the risk of being forced to drop courses and of losing irreplaceable lecturers on specialist areas. One department in particular risks losing up to 70 percent of its staff. Currently there are at least 14 faculty members who are at risk of not being able to continue teaching, and 383 students who fear deportation or prison sentences if they are caught at checkpoints.
The Arabic language and culture programme is particularly at risk as it is entirely self-sufficient and dependent on their foreign students’ access to the University. In the last term alone, four students were not allowed to complete their studies as they were not allowed to enter or re-enter the oPt. The programme is also a major source of emergency funds for the university, which has recently come into use to cover staff salaries since the economic blockade post the 2006 elections. Since Israel’s restrictions on access to Palestinian education, applications for next term’s course fell by 50 percent - taking with it 50 percent of the programme’s income.
However, for the first time since the prevalence of this deportation policy, the Israeli government has allocated an official to be responsible for the right to enter the Palestinian territories, Maj. Gen. Mishlav. In December 2006, Mishlav told EU officials that their policy has changed and that those given ’last permits’ would be able to stay and renew their visas. However, this does not help those who are already outside and have ’denied entry’ stamped in their passports, as is the case for two of Birzeit’s faculty staff: Somida Abbas and Bahgat Taiam.
Palestine’s leaders have become their own worst enemies
Editorial, Daily Star 1/9/2007
Ever since Hamas came to power in democratic elections last January, the specter of internecine violence has haunted the Palestinian territories. Attempts over the past year to negotiate an agreement that would allow Hamas and Fatah to share power were interrupted by armed clashes, but many still held out hope that the two factions would eventually recognize the futility of their ways and arrive at some form of compromise.
However, this past week has seen a rapid degeneration from bad to worse: a series of gun battles, abductions and raids - occurrences which have become alarmingly common in the territories - culminated with officials from Hamas and Fatah issuing public threats to kill one another’s leaders. The chasm between the two factions has never been wider, and the leaders of both parties are to blame for dragging their population to the brink of civil war.
In fairness, the situation in the Occupied Territories can be attributed to a long list of factors over which Palestinian leaders have little or no control. These include the crippling embargo that was imposed after the elections produced results that were unacceptable to Western nations, Arab leaders’ systematic neglect and exploitation of the Palestinians’ plight, the crushing of civil society and state institutions that occurred during the rule of late President Yasser Arafat, and the chaos, misery and destitution wrought by decades of oppressive Israeli occupation. But acknowledging the role that these and other factors may have played in creating the current crisis does not absolve Palestinian leaders of their share of responsibility. On the contrary, as elected representatives, the leaders of Hamas and Fatah have a greater responsibility than anyone else to act in the interests of the Palestinian people.
But instead of acting like elected representatives and serving the interests of their public, Palestinian leaders are behaving like rival gang chiefs and are dragging their entire population into a deadly and pointless street war...
US, Israel seek to strengthen Abbas against Hamas
By Khalid Amayreh, Palestine Times 1/1/2007
With the US effectively at loss over the quagmire in Iraq, and with the Baker-Hamilton report accentuating the centrality of resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as maker-or-breaker of stability in the region, Israel and the Bush Administration as well as British Prime Minister Tony Blair are adopting a new motto: Strengthening Abbas against Hamas.
The motto is not new, of course, and is not really aimed at achieving a genuine and historical of the seemingly irreconcilable Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The main aim seems to bolster the moderate camp (Fatah) against the extremists (Hamas), especially militarily and financially.
In the context of expediting this new-old policy of divide and conquer, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hosted in his official residence in West Jerusalem Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.
The meeting, which took place on 23 December was preceded with all the necessary and unnecessary trappings, pleasantries and kissing, and hugging, representing a stark contrast to the bleak reality of Israeli Palestinian relations, especially since Olmert came to office earlier this year.
Indeed, since his Kadima party won the general elections in spring, the Israeli army has killed over 700 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the vast bulk of them innocent civilians.
12/22/2006
The Hamas factor
By Robert Malley and Henry Siegman, International Herald Tribune 12/27/2006
The latest American and European bid to revive the long-dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace process apparently goes something like this:
Tighten the squeeze on Hamas’s government to curtail its acquisition of money and weapons. Tip the military balance by pouring in tens of millions of dollars to train and equip security forces loyal to Fatah. Strengthen the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, politically with the kinds of immediate, tangible concessions money transfers, prisoner releases, lifting of roadblocks mentioned by the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, at his dinner last Saturday with Abbas.
Then, the thinking goes, press the two sides to agree on a plan involving Israel’s withdrawal from areas of the West Bank and creation of a Palestinian state, while conditioning implementation on a Palestinian government that recognizes Israel and renounces violence. Formalize that accord at a ceremony attended by American, European and Arab dignitaries, who would pledge substantial funding for the soon-to-be state.
By then, the choice before the Palestinian people will be clear: a life of isolation and hardship under Hamas, or potential peace and prosperity under a new, internationally backed government. Abbas will schedule early elections or a referendum. Hamas will resist. In the ensuing violent confrontation, Abbas militarily bolstered and enjoying broad domestic support will prevail.
The theory is elegant and appealing. It also is unworkable.
There is, to begin, the colossal suspension of disbelief of reason, really in which one is asked to indulge. In the next two years, the Bush administration would have to do what it has shown neither will nor capacity to accomplish in the past six: Focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, engage in skillful diplomacy and extract Israeli concessions. Israel would have to take significant steps under precarious security conditions and for the sake of an uncertain outcome.
12/21/2006
Democracy Remains on Trial In Palestine
By Dr. Daud Abdullah, Palestine Chronicle 12/27/2006
Jimmy Carter is no anti-Semite. He belongs to a prominent group of American presidents who made more important contributions toward the advancement of the Zionist project than the Zionists themselves.
Two words explain the Palestinian democratic experience during the past year - disappointing and frustrating. Palestinians in the Occupied Territories [OT] feel this way not because their elections were flawed. Rather it was because of their inability to gain universal recognition for the result of those polls. Today the chickens hatched by the international sanctions are coming home to roost. They are witnessed in the complete paralysis that has grounded the Palestinian economy, the attendant political confusion and declining social security.
For the first time in living memory an Occupied [Protected] People have been subjected to an international economic blockade of this magnitude. These punitive measures were taken in support of the Occupying Power, which after six decades still refuses either to define its international borders or recognize an independent Palestinian state in the territories occupied in 1967, (a mere 22% of historic Palestine). Hence the sanctions imposed on the Occupied Territories since the parliamentary elections of 26th January 2006 amount to no less than a dreadful violation of Article 54 of the Fourth Geneva Convention:
The Occupying Power may not alter the status of public officials or judges in the occupied territories, or in any way apply sanctions to or take any measures of coercion or discrimination against them, should they abstain from fulfilling their functions for reasons of conscience.
Only those blinded by prejudice and narrow interests could not have foreseen the consequences of these sanctions on the Palestinian people. One individual who did not jump on the bandwagon was former US president Jimmy Carter. One month after the elections he warned that any tacit or formal collusion between Israel and the international community to subvert the elected Hamas government by punishing the Palestinian people could well result in their alienation and an increase in the domestic and international standing of Hamas.
12/19/2006
There is still another way for Palestine
By Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada 12/21/2006
After months of anticipation, Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction finally launched their attempted coup against the democratically-elected cabinet headed by the Hamas party and prime minister Ismail Haniyeh.
Days of interfactional violence, following Abbas’ speech in which he threatened to call new elections (something most legal experts agree he does not have the authority to do), claimed at least seven lives. A shaky truce continued to be violated, and the events of the past week have provided a terrifying glimpse of what may yet await Palestinians if Abbas decides to continue on his disastrous path.
Since Hamas won the PA legislative election last January, the Fatah leadership has colluded with the Western-backed Israeli siege. They intended to force Hamas from office or to force its capitulation to Israeli demands that Palestinians relinquish the right to resist in any form against Israeli colonialism and occupation, and to recognize an Israel that is a racist sectarian state, that has no fixed borders and that has refused to say whether such recognition will change anything.
Abbas claims that a crisis exists necessitating elections because Palestinians voted for two programs (his, by electing him chairman of the PA in January 2005), and that of Hamas (which won the legislative election a year later). But this is disingenuous. Abbas was elected following the death of Arafat, after a massive campaign by the "international community" claiming that Arafat had been the "obstacle to peace," and Abbas would be the Palestinians’ salvation. Although fewer than half of eligible voters turned out for the 2005 election, most of those who did dutifully voted for Abbas, hoping that international promises would be kept. For a full year, Abbas was powerless as Israel continued its violence against Palestinians, including the massive confiscation of land, and accelerated construction of the apartheid wall, while the world stood by and watched.
Who is Mohammad Dahlan?
By Arjan El Fassed, Electronic Intifada 12/20/2006
Some have called Mohammad Dahlan the Palestinian Ahmad Chalabi, because he reportedly negotiated with the US and Israel about taking control of Gaza after the August 2005 disengagement plan. In April 2002 testifying before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said he had offered control of the Gaza Strip to Dahlan. In exchange, Dahlan, who had control of the most significant military force on the Gaza Strip, would be obligated to ensure complete quiet along the border.[1] He is believed to have drawn up an early agreement at a January 1994 meeting in Rome with senior Israeli military and Shin Bet officials to contain Hamas, and was actively involved in subsequent negotiations with the Israelis.[2]
Today, Dahlan has become the face of one side of Fatah as violence increased between Hamas and Fatah. In the past week he has made his way back into Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas’ inner circle. Last week, Hamas accused Dahlan of planning an attempted assassination of prime minister Ismail Haniya of the Hamas movement. Haniya was returning from a Middle East tour which raised badly needed funds for Palestinians under occupation, and obtained a promise from the Syrian government to release all Palestinians in its jails, when chaos ensued. The situation at the Egypt-Gaza border crossing was tense as it had not been open long enough for the thousands of people waiting on both sides to pass. The Israelis closed the border when Haniya first tried to enter as he was bringing in funds, prohibited under the US-led economic and political blockade imposed after Hamas won the parliamentary elections in January.
Dahlan began a tour of Palestinian towns this week to rally support for Fatah, but it was not a spectacular success. On December 17, while Dahlan toured Jenin refugee camp, gunmen fired in the air over his convoy, shouting at him until he made a hasty exit. He blamed Hamas for sparking the killing of three children in Gaza City and said that Hamas "does not have any political program, leaving the Palestinian people in the predicament they have lived through since this government took responsibility."
12/19/2006
Worse Than Apartheid
By Chris Hedges, TruthDig 12/18/2006
Israel has spent the last five months unleashing missiles, attack helicopters and jet fighters over the densely packed concrete hovels in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army has made numerous deadly incursions, and some 500 people, nearly all civilians, have been killed and 1,600 more wounded. Israel has rounded up hundreds of Palestinians, destroyed Gazas infrastructure, including its electrical power system and key roads and bridges, carried out huge land confiscations, demolished homes and plunged families into a crisis that has caused widespread poverty and malnutrition.
Civil society itselfand this appears to be part of the Israeli planis unraveling. Hamas and Fatah factions battle in the streets, despite a tenuous cease-fire, threatening civil war. And the governing Palestinian movement, Hamas, has said it will boycott early elections called by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, done with the blessing of the West in a bid to toss Hamas out of power. (Remember that Hamas, despite its repugnant politics, was democratically elected.) In recent days armed groups loyal to Abbas have seized Hamas-run ministries in what looks like a coup.
The stark reality of Gaza, however, has failed to penetrate the consciousness of most Americans, who, when they notice the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, prefer to debate the merits of the word apartheid in former President Jimmy Carters new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. It is a sad commentary on the gutlessness of the U.S. press and the timidity of the Democratic opposition that most Americans are not aware of the catastrophic humanitarian crisis they bear so much responsibility in creating. Palestinians are not only dying, their olive trees uprooted, their farmland and homes destroyed and their aquifers taken away from them, but on many days they cant move because of Israeli closures that make basic tasks, like buying food and going to the hospital, nearly impossible. These Palestinians, after decades of repression, cannot return to land from which they were expelled. The 140-plus U.N. votes to censure Israel and two Security Council resolutionsboth vetoed by the United Statesare blithly ignored. Is it any wonder that the Palestinians, gasping for air, rebel as the walls close in around them, as their children go hungry and as the Israelis turn up the violence.
12/18/2006
An Uncompromising Leftist Position
By Kim Petersen, Dissident Voice 12/18/2006
The December issue of Le Monde diplomatique features "A Different Future in Different Circumstances": articles on the future of Palestine and Israel. In one article, former Lebanese finance minister George Corm offers a "dissident view": to obey international law, return stolen land, and pay compensation. [1] This is in line with the reputation of Le Monde diplomatique, known for articles that are "long, thoughtful, scholarly, and opinionated, usually from an uncompromising leftist position." [2] Writing in Le Monde diplomatique on Israeli society, Haaretz’ Akiva Eldar comes from a leftist position, but it is a compromised position. [3]
Eldar is puzzled by the deficit of protest over the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman, a far-right winger, as deputy prime minister in Israel. Eldar asks, "What has happened to Israeli society that it is producing racist leaders such as Lieberman and, more importantly, why is it only happening now, almost 60 years after the state of Israel was established?"
Given that the violent realization of Israel has its roots in the racist ideology of Zionism and given that Israel was set up as a Jewish state, one wonders what other kind of leaders would be expected from a racist state.
But it is not just the apparent apathy to the leadership that surprises Eldar; he wonders:
why some Israelis can accept such atrocities as the destruction of an entire Palestinian family in the Gaza Strip while other Israelis, despite 40 years of occupation, still take to the streets to protest against such injustices as the bombing of Beit Hanoun.
The massacres are nothing new. Israel was founded in the blood of many massacres of Palestinians. Considering how non-Mizrahi Jews and their lineage came to be in Israel, it is a rather sad commentary that so few Jews take to the streets to demonstrate against the atrocities meted out by their kinsfolk to Palestinians. Eldar notes the "admirable record" of Israel in upholding certain democratic values (free speech, the rule of law and free elections), especially when "compared with Syria, Iran or, to a lesser extent, Egypt or Jordan." But what is so admirable about democratic values when free speech, the rule of law, and freeness of elections are less so for "Israeli" Arabs (of course, occupied Palestinian Arabs are denied these democratic values)? Israel is not a democracy. [4] If comparisons are to be the basis, then why not compare Israel to the Scandinavian countries? Why compare Israel to governments created or maintained by imperialists? Why is it that western-compliant dictatorships in Egypt and Jordan are granted greater recognition as democracies than, say, Iran.
A Refugee Womans Two Deadly Options
By Philip Rizk, Palestine Chronicle 12/20/2006
This is our poisonous version of democracy: a few days ago a woman walked through the markets of Nuseirat, Gaza. Throwing her hands up in the air she yelled, I dont have even one shekel!
A few days ago a woman walked through the markets of Nuseirat, Gaza. Throwing her hands up in the air she yelled,
I dont have even one shekel!
I have no bread in my home!
Is there anybody who will help me?
Like all Palestinians, this woman has two options to respond to her desperate reality, neither of them is good.
Her first choice, counter to any democratic logic, is to join Abu Mazen in calling for early elections in the hope of Hamas losing its majority in the parliament.
This would return Palestinians to the previous status quo, submission to any and all demands of Israel in return for dire but more manageable living conditions. In this case Israel will continue to be in command of all Palestinian borders, Israel will continue to single-handedly control the Palestinian economy, Israel will continue illegal assassinations of whomever may be on her wanted list, Israel will carry on shelling areas in the Gaza Strip if it is deemed necessary for her own security and Israel will continue expanding its settlements and deepen its reach into the West Bank at the cost of Palestinian villages and cities....
A Counterproductive US Advice to Palestinians
By Nicola Nasser, Palestine Chronicle 12/18/2006
However he hardly finished his speech than his decision backfired. Hamas legislators and cabinet ministers had boycotted Abbas speech and Hamas leaders immediately called his declaration illegal and tantamount to a coup.
Regardless of good will or bad faith, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas decision to go without national consensus to early presidential and parliamentary elections was divisive, counterproductive and conforms to U.S.-Israeli plans to remove the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas from power or pressure it into accepting what its rival Fatah had accepted: A peace process on their dictated terms and conditions. I have decided to call for early presidential and parliamentary elections, Abbas said in a televised 90-minute speech on Saturday, in an effort to break a political nine-month deadlocked dialogue mainly bilateral between Fatah, the former ruling movement, and the incumbent Hamas. Lets return to the people to have their say, and let them be the judge. Early election was among several options floated with the aim of outmaneuvering Hamas including a referendum, declaring a state of emergency, calling for early legislative election, forming an emergency government or a government of independents or technocrats. ....The Hamas-led Palestinian government of Haniyeh on Sunday refused Abbas decision as unconstitutional and condemned his speech as divisive. Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar said that the call for new elections is illegal: We will not participate If he (Abbas) is tired, he should resign and well have a presidential election. Haniyehs senior adviser, Ahmed Yousef, was more blunt: Abu Mazen (Abbas) is not part of the solution anymore. He is part of the problem now, he said. Reiterating an earlier similar warning by Zahar, Yousef had warned in Gaza on Saturday: Today what we have heard from Abu Mazen is a call for a civil war. But Abbas on Saturday played down the warning: The removal of the government is not a recipe for civil war, as suggested by Zahar. Firing the government is a constitutional right that I can exercise when I want. Many political experts, even in his own Fatah movement, believe he only has the right to fire the current prime minister and cabinet, but under the Palestinian Basic Law, only the legislature can dissolve itself, these experts say, according to The New York Times.
12/15/2006
Under an iron fist
By Karma Nabulsi, The Guardian 12/18/2006
Palestinians don’t want fresh elections in the occupied territories, but a free vote for a truly national ruling body.
"Let the people decide for themselves what they want," declared Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, yesterday. But there already is a national consensus, an underlying unity in a common platform. The Palestinian people are agreed: indeed there must be Palestinian elections, but not another round of elections in the occupied Palestinian territories, for a president of the Palestinian Authority or for its legislative council.
The elections that all Palestinians are demanding today (the millions under occupation and the millions in the refugee camps outside) are for the Palestine National Council, the parliament in exile, which is the national body that represents all Palestinians. The PNC is the institutional body that forms the sovereign base of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, recognised as such by the United Nations, the Arab League, the US the EU, and the Palestinian people themselves.
The Palestinian people under occupation have already elected a legislative council under occupation that represents a portion of the body politic. Today Palestinians demand elections for the entire Palestinian population. The prisoners’ "document of national unity", agreed this summer, reflects that popular demand, and made it a primary article of consensus and agreement between the parties.
The moment Fatah lost power in the legislative elections to Hamas in January, it was obliged to take a step that would have brought it closer to the people it sought to represent. It was obliged to step aside, accept the outcome of that election, and the brute fact that its party had been defeated...
12/11/2006
Gaza psychologist takes stock: War of words and the death that follows
By Khaleel Isa, Palestine News Network 12/18/2006
Gaza City -- "What you are seeing," he shot, "is a rise in tensions that really emanates and is the direct result of the inability of Hamas to effectively govern in the Palestinian areas. We hold Hamas fully responsible for what happened Thursday at Rafah, both the chaos and destruction," the spokesman for Fateh declared.
"What a war Mahmoud Abbas you are launching, first against God, and then against Hamas. We joined this movement willing to become martyrs, not thinking to be ministers," Haniya fired back in response, referring to many Hamas members’ willingness to die for their cause.
"The Palestinian government rejects this call for early elections and considers it a coup against Palestinian legitimacy and the will of the Palestinian people," accused Hamas legislator Mushir Al Masri in a statement Saturday. He accused Abbas of illegally calling for early elections, and announced that his plans are one "of defeat and submission to the Zionist enemy."
As I sit and listen to the non-stop gunfire coming from the streets of Gaza city, the above quotes keep running through my mind. While sitting with my colleagues and listening to their words, I see the uncertainty that can create such anxiety and insecurity, a truly horrible situation for anyone to be in. Then I start examining how the build up of the events of history could have led us to the harsh reality we are witnessing now.
What is on my mind now is more uncertainty and deep fear. Fear that more Palestinians will be killed by the hands of other Palestinians. I reflect on how the thoughts and emotions from the leaders of Palestine can bring overwhelming numbness and anxiety, while provoking uncertainty. And then what I wonder is if anyone has a plan in mind? Or are all the players simply doomed to continuously react to one tragic event after another, creating a domino effect of yet more harsh realities. Is the discussion or thought of strategies and future visions even brought up in political discourse?
Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine
By Jimmy Carter, Los Angeles Times 12/8/2006
Jimmy Carter says his recent book is drawing knee-jerk accusations of anti-Israel bias.
I signed a contract with Simon & Schuster two years ago to write a book about the Middle East, based on my personal observations as the Carter Center monitored three elections in Palestine and on my consultations with Israeli political leaders and peace activists.
We covered every Palestinian community in 1996, 2005 and 2006, when Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and members of parliament were chosen. The elections were almost flawless, and turnout was very high except in East Jerusalem, where, under severe Israeli restraints, only about 2% of registered voters managed to cast ballots.
The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.
It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or even Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents. What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.
Why is Israel separating me from my wife?
By Ghassan Abdallah, Electronic Intifada 12/6/2006
Ramallah, occupied Palestine
While Israel separates families in the occupied Palestinian territories to encourage Palestinian emigration, new Jewish immigrants from North America and Britain arrive at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, 6 September 2006. (MaanImages/Moti Milrod)
Israel has decreed that my wife and I can no longer live together. I am Palestinian and she is Swiss and we have been married for 28 years. She was recently given two weeks to leave the occupied Palestinian territory. The Israeli Ministry of Interior wrote on her Swiss passport: "LAST PERMIT." We have been living together in Ramallah for 12 years. We came in 1994, when, after the Oslo Agreement, we were encouraged to move to the West Bank by the prospect of ’peace’ and development.
My wife Anita speaks Arabic, likes the landscape, cooks Arabic meals, and she cares for my grandfather’s village house -- an old stone building and the plants around it -- more than I do. She votes in Palestinian elections as the spouse of a Palestinian. She is active in serving the local society in public health. She has numerous friends here and considers it home. She still has her valuable European element and contacts, but she doesn’t want to be separated from this environment or from me, and I certainly do not want to be separated from her. Our children are grown up and work abroad, but they are also not sure they will be allowed to visit us here. On her way to visit us in Ramallah a few months ago, our daughter, who has a Swiss passport, was delayed for six hours at Tel Aviv airport and grilled when she landed. She was lucky. Others are deported to where they took off from, often spending a night or more at the notorious detention ’facility’ at the airport.
Beit Hanoun flash appeal
By Karen AbuZayd, ReliefWeb/UNRWA 11/19/2006
It is with a heavy heart that I present to you this Flash Appeal for Beit Hanoun. The optimistic predictions of late last year, following the disengagement of Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip, are already a distant memory. They only serve to provide a cruel contrast between the hopes, then, that 2006 would prove to be a better year for the Palestine refugees, and the harsh reality with which they have since been confronted.
The staggering decline of the economy and of the physical, humanitarian and social conditions in Gaza are, alas, not a recent phenomenon. The downturn started in 2000, when over a hundred thousand Palestinians lost their livelihoods because of the impossibility to work in Israel. It continued with major military operations in many of the cities of the Gaza Strip, the large-scale destruction of houses, agricultural land, and infrastructure. It worsened dramatically with the sanctions regime imposed upon the Palestinian Authority following the results of the Palestinian Legislative Council elections earlier this year, when both foreign economic aid and Palestinian public income were summarily withheld. And finally, it culminates today with the humanitarian disaster brought about by Israeli military assault on the town of Beit Hanoun, leaving 82 Palestinians dead, including 39 women and children, 260.wounded and more wanton destruction. I fully recognize the right and responsibility of Israel to protect its citizens, and its legitimate concern about the home-made rockets fired from Gaza, but for humanitarian agencies such as UNRWA it is becoming increasingly difficult to deal with the aftermath of such military operations without questioning their justification, their proportionality and their effects.
The tragic events in Beit Hanoun have provided the clearest proof yet that the vicious circle of violence must be brought to an end.
In Beit Hanoun, and in concert with other agencies, UNRWA stepped in immediately with a rapid response programme to ameliorate the situation of the beleaguered civilian population, providing water, food, medical assistance and temporary shelter. We now face the challenge of repairing damages to over one thousand houses and shelters, meanwhile ensuring that the distressed homeless refugees have a roof over their heads.
UNRWA cannot undertake this additional task without your support...
Karen AbuZayd is Commissioner-General of UNRWA
Let them move to Bulgaria. They’re wanted there
Ha’aretz 11/7/2006
MK Benny Elon is convinced his plan to transfer Palestinians elsewhere is realistic.
There is a huge gap between MK Benny Elon’s pleasant personality and his extremist political views. Elon, the son of former of Supreme Court vice president Menahem Elon, is not belligerent, nor does he coarsely attack his political rivals. He speaks softly, even when he is spelling out his somewhat delusionary plan for the voluntary transfer of the Palestinians in the territories.
Elon, 52, is a politician of a different stripe. He does not pursue journalists, nor is he constantly distributing press releases. Although he heads the National Union-National Religious Party (NU-NRP) list, he does not feel like the leader of the party. "I don’t feel that I received a mandate to lead the NU-NRP," he says. "Not like Avigdor Lieberman in Yisrael Beiteinu or Eli Yishai in Shas."
At the beginning of the year, a short time before the elections to the 17th Knesset, Elon fell ill with throat cancer. He successfully underwent an operation to remove the tumor in Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. For three months he had daily radiation treatments at the Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. "I’m under supervision, but today I’m healthy, thank God," he says, thanking the "angels" who took care of him at Hadassah.
Lieberman, the populist
Were you surprised by Avigdor Lieberman’s decision to join the government?
Elon: "No. Lieberman is moving toward the center. Lieberman is ready for the establishment of a Palestinian state. In my opinion, his proposal that the border be drawn at Karkur and that Umm al-Fahm be part of the Palestinian state is populist and irresponsible. But his moving toward the center is not ideological. In the past as well, on genuine issues, he did not demonstrate consistency. On the eve of the elections he said he was willing to leave his home in [the settlement] Nokdim."
Abbas: Bread Is More Important Than Democracy
By Daoud Kuttab, Al-Jazeerah Info/PNN 10/31/2006
Bread or Democracy
In an eight column headline on 18 October the leading Palestinian newspaper "Al Quds" summarized the current position of the Palestinian president.
Abbas: Bread is more important than democracy.
Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian president, is pointing out that in order to bypass the unjust siege that has been placed on Palestinians he will have to shelve the democratic process.
When looking at regimes that care little for their own people, it is hard to argue with a leader who gives priority to feeding his own people, even at the expense of democracy. But in a region where the only Arab democratic elections were Palestinian, this would be a shame.
The need to suspend the democratic process stems from the deadlock that Palestinians find themselves in eight months after the parliamentary elections that replaced the ruling PLO secular leadership with Islamists from the Hamas movement. Despite being elected president following the death of Yaser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas does not have the power to dissolve the parliament. Ironically, the few powers that the position of president now has is the result of the attempts by the international community to weaken the power or then president Arafat.
After winning the elections, last January, Hamas has been handicapped from ruling. An international siege was placed on Palestinians because Hamas has refused to de facto recognize Israel. Hamas says that they accept the existence of Israel and approve that the office of the President negotiate with them, but that they are not obliged to recognize a power that has been occupied Palestinian lands for 39 years.
No Winners in This Factional Conflict
By Dr. Daud Abdullah, Palestine Chronicle 10/26/2006
No one can predict the security, political and social consequences if the elected Palestinian government was overthrown by a US backed junta.
All would be losers. That does not mean Palestinians only. It includes Israelis and Americans as well. For the Palestinians, it would be sheer folly to go down this route after more than 60 years of foreign domination. A full blown civil war as some openly predict would set back the national project another 60 years instead of hasten the dawn of freedom and independence.
If the situation in the Occupied Territories was explosive after the signing of the Oslo Accords, then it is ten times worse today. To many the gunfights on the streets of Gaza represent the ultimate insult and injustice to the thousands of Palestinians who sacrificed their lives for freedom. They must be turning in their graves by the vile images of Palestinian attacking Palestinian.
Without the excessive foreign interference and meddling in their internal affairs Palestinians would not have got to this stage. Unfortunately for them the age-old tactic of divide and rule is having its effect here. A mere five months after the Palestinian parliamentary elections Israels Prime Minister Ehud Olmert confirmed that he approved the transfer of arms and ammunition to Mahmud Abbas Presidential Guard in the West Bank in order to strengthen him against Hamas (Ha’aretz, 6/14/06). Additional arms shipments were received from Europe, Egypt, and Jordan, during the past months (Reuters, 10/4/06). Meanwhile, the US, on its part, sent forces to train Abbas Presidential Guard. Some reports suggest that Abbas expanded his Presidential Guard by roughly 70% since the elections and established new training camps for them in Gaza and the West Bank. (Reuters, 10/4/06).
Given his staunch opposition to the militarization of the Intifada it is strange that Abbas is now the recipient of foreign arms shipments. More absurd is the fact that the generous suppliers of these weapons are the same governments that imposed crippling economic sanctions against the elected government in Palestine because it refuses to dismantle its military infrastructure. How cynical that western democracies should prefer to supply guns to a starving people instead of food. On the streets many deprived Palestinians argue that if the president really wants to bring money into the territories he is capable of doing it. He apparently has his own reasons and calculations for not to do so.
Losing our Compass
By Ali Jarbawi, Palestine Chronicle 10/20/2006
At the same time, the political situation in Israel is not much different, at least in terms of losing its compass regarding the Palestinian situation.
Not much substance is left in the term "Middle East peace process" even as the mantra of the urgent need to revive it is heard again and again. The mantra is futile; it collides with the realities among the players involved. Any "revival" of the peace process at this stage will remain at a purely superficial level. Nevertheless, the process must be revived, not in order to reach a conclusion but purely as a means to administer this difficult crisis for the time being.
No observer of the internal Palestinian situation expects the Palestinian side to come up with any initiative in the foreseeable future that can test the seriousness of Israel and the United States in terms of a substantial political settlement. For the time being, Palestinians are drowning in a bitter internal struggle between Fateh and Hamas. This struggle has reached a point where there is fighting in the streets. If these parties do not reach an understanding quickly, it can spiral into a fierce civil war. In such a situation, any talk of a political settlement will be nothing more than words.
One of the most significant reasons for this internal Palestinian crisis is in fact the failure of the political process, which dragged on for 15 years with no result. The failure of negotiations is also one of the main reasons why Hamas won the Legislative Council elections. It’s not that Palestinians don’t want a settlement. On the contrary, they wagered everything on a negotiated solution with Israel for an end to occupation, their own state and a resolution to the refugee issue. Their situation only worsened as it became clear neither Israel nor the US was offering this.
Right now, the Palestinian political arena has lost its compass. Those who support a negotiated settlement are incapable of achieving it and those opposing a political process are incapable of waging a resistance that can bring about an end to the occupation. The result is that an internal struggle has erupted between Fateh and Hamas. With no political horizon for either party promising an end to occupation, the struggle has become one over an authority created in the shadow of occupation.
Seeing the forest for the trees
By Rima Merriman, Electronic Intifada 9/26/2006
Kidnapped Palestinian Hamas lawmakers wait during the hearing of their case at the Ofer Israeli military court next to the West Bank city of Ramallah, 25 September 2006. (MaanImages/Moti Milrod)
The Quartet (along with the international community generally) has failed to enable the Palestinian president to act credibly towards the goal of making "progress towards a two-state solution through dialogue and parallel implementation of obligations."
Anyone following the news from the occupied Palestinian territory would think that it is the Hamas-led government that is preventing the Palestinian president from achieving "credible" progress towards a two-state solution. In the present charged political divisions among Palestinians, even a large percentage of the economically deprived and hounded population is being persuaded to clutch at this straw.
In fact, Palestinians had been faced with the exact same general stalemate that characterizes the situation today long before the January 2006 elections. The only difference between then and now is that people could eat better then and fewer of them had been killed.
Exactly six years ago this month, the Palestinians rose up in arms while a unilateral Israeli plan to determine the final status of the region (Ehud Barak's plan) was swirling around them. It was the plan rejected by the Palestinians at Camp David, a plan that "called for cantonization of the territories that Israel had conquered in 1967, with mechanisms to ensure that usable land and resources (primarily water) remain largely in Israeli hands while the population is administered by a corrupt and brutal Palestinian authority," as Noam Chomsky summed up.
Palestinian donors: What mission?
By Nicola Nasser, Online Journal 9/7/2006
The Palestinians have been too grateful and too helpless for too long to be critical of the political agenda of their donors who have practically nailed them down as political hostages to the donors money, which was promised initially to help build an independent Palestinian state, but ended as a political instrument effectively used by the Israeli occupying power.
Donors have embroiled themselves in an internal Palestinian political crisis they themselves created when they withheld their aid as a collective punishment to squeeze out of power a political movement not of their liking, which ironically came to power in fair and transparently democratic elections that were financed and monitored by none other than themselves.
The internal political crisis is only a result of the deeper economic and humanitarian crisis, which is crushing the Palestinian people to the brink of a social revolt, especially in the ticking time bomb of Gaza Strip [1], and the donors-sustained Palestinian Authority (PA) to the brink of collapse since the donors tightened the Israeli military siege by imposing a suffocating financial blockade early in the year.
The ensuing Palestinian divide is being further exacerbated by the donors public siding with one party of the divide, to the detriment of the people whom the donors are trying in vain to reach out to.
On September 1, the donors meeting in Stockholm pledged about $500 million in mostly selective humanitarian handouts. But how could this meagre amount make any difference when $7 billion could not?
The amount was pledged as an Israeli military court was extending the detention of the Palestinian finance minister, Dr. Omar Abdul-Razeq, an irony which puts in the spotlight the overall policy of donors.
The end, political as well as the economic, result of at least $7 billion of donors aid over the past 10 years is raising both Palestinian and international voices to ask whose political agenda the donors are serving, what is their true mission and which role they are playing.
Hamas, from Islamic revival-movement to Palestinian government
By Astrid Essed, International Middle East Media Center 8/19/2006
Contary to the leading opinions of the American-European politicians and media, the main aim of Hamas in calling for the "destruction" of the State of Israel, is not to kill or expel the Israeli-Jewish population, but to dismantle the zionistic State Model and to make an end to the 39-year Israeli occupation and settlement policy.
In the Palestinian elections January 25, 2006, Hamas obtained a startling victory. Of the 132 seats of parliament, the Hamas party, which for the first time was participating in the parliamentary elections, obtained 74 seats, in contrast with the then-reigning Fatah Party, which obtained a mere 43 seats. The remaining 13 seats were obtained by different smaller political parties, as well as independent candidates.
This great victory for Hamas was no surprise, considering the ongoing corruption of the Fatah-government versus the fundamental political and military resistance by Hamas against the Israeli occupation, as well as the Hamas social activities on behalf of the impoverished population of Palestine, especially Gaza.
In spite of this, leading American-European politicians, as well as the newsmedia, not only showed great astonishment at Hamas' victory, they also demanded that Hamas renounce the violence against Israel and also acknowledge the State of Israel - and made this demand the condition of continued financial support to the Palestinian Authority.
When the newly-formed Hamas government refused to agree with those American-European demands, the American and Canadian governments, as well the European Union, decided to freeze the financial support to the Palestinian Authority, a measure which mainly affected the already seriously impoverished Palestinian civilian population, since at least 45% of the population [some reports put the number as high as 70 %] are living below the poverty-rate and 15% are living in extreme poverty.
Ahmadinejad: We are Not a Threat to Any Country, Including Israel
By Juan Cole, Information Clearing House 9/1/2006
Believe it, don't believe it, that's up to you. But at least we should know what exactly he said, which is not something our US newspapers will tell us about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech on Saturday:
Kayhan reports that [Pers.] Ahmadinejad said, "Iran is not a threat to any country, and is not in any way a people of intimidation and aggression." He described Iranians as people of peace and civilization. He said that Iran does not even pose a threat to Israel, and wants to deal with the problem there peacefully, through elections:
"Weapons research is in no way part of Iran's program. Even with regard to the Zionist regime, our path to a solution is elections."
Ahmadinejad seems to be explaining what his calls for the Zionist regime to be effaced actually mean. He says he doesn't want violence against Israel, despite its own acts of enmity against Middle Eastern neighbors. I interpret his statement on Saturday to be an endorsement of the one-state solution, in which a government would be elected that all Palestinians and all Israelis would jointly vote for. The result would be a government about half made up of Israeli ministers and half of Palestinian ones. Whatever one wanted to call such an arrangement, it wouldn't exactly be a "Zionist state," which would thus have been dissolved.
The schlock Western pundits, journalists and politicians who keep maintaining that Ahmadinejad threatened "to wipe Israel off the map" when he never said those words will never, ever manage to choke out the words Ahmadinejad spoke on Saturday, much less repeat them as a tag line forever after.
8/29/2006
Protecting Israel!
By Dr. Eyad El Sarraj, Palestine Chronicle 8/31/2006
If Israelis and Arabs want a war, I will not be surprised if the US administration will push both sides for it. Bush needs to win something too.
There is a general consensus in Israel that the war in Lebanon has not achieved its declared two goals; the destruction of Hizballah and the securing of the captured Israeli soldiers.
The war in Lebanon has thus alarmed the western powers and the US in particular, to the reality that Israel is not as formidable as it was thought to be and that was indeed very astonishing. For a whole month Israel has thrown every thing of its arsenal onto Lebanon except for atomic bombs, but emerged more vulnerable, insecure and demoralized. So insecure that the unilateral disengagement plan from the West bank, which has helped Olmert victory in the recent elections, is now almost a dead option. Israelis fear that Tolkarm, Jenin and Bethlehem will be used by Palestinians to launch rockets into Tel Aviv and Haifa. Hizballah style. Israel has never been so terrified.
The Bush administration was getting restless as the Israeli war machine was systematically brutal but not reaching the goal. Initially Bush declared that Israel has the right to defend itself and his administration has blocked the call for a cease fire and has given Israel a reasonable four weeks to finish the job but could not extend it any further as pressure was mounting for a cease fire. Images of Lebanon being destroyed and hundreds of massacred children were becoming stressful for the world. Bush had to yield.
When it was becoming so clear that Israel could not finish the job, the Bush and Chirac governments moved in with a proposal for a UN Security Council resolution which basically aims at securing the northern Israeli border. An international 15,000 strong force will be deployed alongside a similar Lebanese army force. No one was concerned about Lebanon and its security. The most important issue was how to protect Israel.
How could Israel be protected after Lebanon? Predictably, analysts believe that Israelis need to go to war and win it. Nave people like myself have never thought of this question of Israel security seriously enough. May be we are too concerned about our own security and our right to defend ourselves!...
Israeli Action Spawns Violence in Gaza
By George Bisharat, Palestine Chronicle/The Baltimore Sun 8/18/2006
Since the January Palestinian elections, hailed as the fairest in the Arab world, Israel has strived to undermine the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.
With the spotlight on Lebanon, another Middle East milestone is passing largely unnoticed. However, its lessons are just as important. A year ago this week, Israel began implementing its unilateral Gaza disengagement plan -- yet the region is beset by violence. Why did withdrawal of 8,500 Jewish settlers from Gaza lead to more conflict? Can Israel withdraw from Arab territories without inviting attack?
Last August, Gaza Palestinians greeted disengagement with both cautious hope and cynicism. They relished freedom from the daily humiliations of military occupation. Students longed to study, children to frolic on the beach, and entrepreneurs to build businesses. Yet many also saw disengagement as an expression of racial preference for Jews. Israel could not annex the Gaza Strip without absorbing 1.4 million Palestinians, thus jeopardizing its status as a Jewish state.
Israel marketed disengagement to Americans as a step toward peace, but Palestinians remembered the October 2004 comment of Dov Weisglass, adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: "The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."
Why would Israeli politicians subvert negotiations with Palestinians? Perhaps because no Palestinian leader could agree to Israel's planned takeover of Jerusalem and much of the West Bank.
Thus, the Gaza "disengagement" plan is also the Jerusalem and West Bank "expansion" plan. The number of Israelis settling in the West Bank this year exceeds the number withdrawn from Gaza.
We Europeans must never forget that we created the Middle East conflict
By Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian 7/27/2006
Justified criticism of Israeli policy needs to be informed by a sense of our own historical responsibility
When and where did this war begin? Shortly after 9am local time on Wednesday July 12, when Hizbullah militants seized Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev - Israeli reservists on the last day of their tour of duty - in a cross-border raid into northern Israel? Friday June 9, when Israeli shells killed at least seven Palestinian civilians on a beach in the Gaza strip? January this year, when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections, in a backhanded triumph for an American policy of supporting democratisation? 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon? 1979, with the Islamic revolution in Iran? 1948, with the creation of the state of Israel? Or how about Russia in the spring of 1881?
Simple questions require such complicated answers. Even if the basic facts are agreed, every term is disputed: militants, soldiers or terrorists? Seized, captured or kidnapped? Every selection of facts implies an interpretation. And in tortured histories like this, every horror will be explained or justified by reference back to some antecedent horror:
From tyranny to tyranny to war
From dynasty to dynasty to hate
From villainy to villainy to death
From policy to policy to grave...
"The song is yours. Arrange it as you will," writes the poet James Fenton, in his Ballad of the Imam and the Shah.
Yet observing European responses to the current conflict, I want to insist on Europe's own strong claim to be among the earliest causes. The Russian pogroms of 1881; the French mob chanting " bas les juifs" as Captain Dreyfus was stripped of his epaulettes at the cole Militaire; the festering anti-semitism of Austria around 1900, shaping the young Adolf Hitler; all the way to the Holocaust of European Jewry and the waves of anti-semitism that convulsed parts of Europe in its immediate aftermath. It was that history of increasingly radical European rejection, from the 1880s to the 1940s, that produced the driving force for political Zionism, Jewish emigration to Palestine and eventually the creation of the state of Israel.
Game Over
By Sam Bahour, Palestine Chronicle 7/18/2006
The Israeli-Palestinian peace charades ended with Israels aggression on Gaza and Lebanon. Now, peace with justice is the only way out.
In case anyone had any remaining doubts, the flawed Middle East peace process and the international communitys half-hearted efforts have miserably failed, culminating in Israels most recent aggression in Gaza and Lebanon. Following the Palestinians democratic legislative elections which brought Hamas to power, Israel announced that its goal was to topple the Palestinian government at any cost. When that misguided plan proved harder than expected, Israel did what any good Western democracy would do; it sought to turn world attention elsewhere: Hezbollah provided the perfect pretext for this by violating Israel's sovereignty, allowing Israel to claim its all-out aggression against Lebanon is justified.
Some may pronounce the beginning of the end of the Oslo Peace Accords was the very day they were signed, given the lopsided agreements put Palestinians at a structural disadvantage that provided a perfect and sophisticated framework for failure. However, having lived through the agreements from the start of there implementation or attempt thereof I believe that the beginning of the end of the peace process started on November 4, 1995, when an extremist Israeli Jewish student assassinated then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Throughout his bloody career, Rabin surely did his part to add to the Palestinians disadvantage, but upon his assassination by one of Israels own products of extremism - Israel started spiraling out of control.
Five successive Israeli governments in a short 10 year period have all miserably failed to address the source of the Middle East conflict, Israels 39 year old military occupation of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Furthermore, each and every Israeli government slapped humanitarian and international law in the face by refusing to implement scores of UN resolutions and internationally agreed upon rules of engagement. Israel made a mockery of the rule of law while claiming to be the only democracy in the Middle East.
7/7/2006
Their goal is to stop a new resistance
By Toufic Haddad, Socialist Worker 7/15/2006
IN THE early morning hours of June 25, guerrillas from three separate Palestinian military factions launched a well-coordinated attack on Israeli military positions on Gazas perimeter.
Using a 540-yard tunnel dug 30 feet below ground (which the groups later disclosed took six months to dig), Palestinian guerrillas were able to emerge behind Israeli lines and surprise their unsuspecting targets. The attack resulted in the death of two Israeli soldiers, injuries to five others, the destruction of two armored vehicles, and--most importantly--the abduction of an Israeli soldier.
While the horrific scale of the Israeli assault on Gaza is plain to see, it is important to resist the urge to add up the toll of destruction now being inflicted as though this were just a new round in the Palestine-Israel conflict.
In the words of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the military forays into Gaza are designed to make the Palestinians understand that the landlord has gone crazy.
TO UNDERSTAND why this self-described landlord has gone crazy, it is useful to look more closely at what this Palestinian military operation represents--especially in the context of Israels tactical and strategic goals since its unilateral disengagement from Gaza and the subsequent election victory of Hamas in the January 2006 elections.
As far as Israel is concerned, Palestinian resistance operations like this were not supposed to happen in the first place. Israels unilateral disengagement from Gaza in September 2005 was supposed to take military targets away from Palestinians resistance forces.
The disengagement was a separation plan intended to relieve Israel from its legal responsibilities as occupiers towards Palestinians. As far as Israel--and many of the Western governments who parroted the same line--was concerned, the disengagement ended the occupation of Gaza.
It thus allayed an anxious Israel of the demographic burden of Gazas 1.4 million residents--something Israel crucially sought in its perpetual and racially motivated efforts to preserve a Jewish majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Speaking for Palestinian Christians
By Sherri Muzher, Palestine Chronicle 6/28/2006
If theres anything positive thats come out of this whole episode, its the unexpected window thats opened up to discuss why the Christian population in Palestine has been going extinct.
As a Palestinian-American, Ive sadly gotten used to reading about our own experiences and history from voices other than Palestinians themselves. So it came as little surprise to read that Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Congressman Joseph Crowley (D-NY) want to introduce a bill about the persecution of Palestinian Christians by the Palestinian Authority, without the input of any Palestinian Christians.
Interestingly, their legislative aides did consult Benjamin Netanyahus former advisor Dore Gold and Israeli academic Justus Weiner. Setting aside that Netanyahu and anyone associated with his administration have zero credibility among Palestinians; Weiner spent a considerable amount of time trying to destroy one of the greatest Palestinian heroes the late Columbia professor Edward Said, a Christian.
A few examples of the poorly-researched and polemic clauses include:
CLAUSE: Whereas the Palestinian Authority Constitution adopts the principles of Islamic law resulting in a judicial system that puts Christians at a disadvantage;
CORRECTION: The PA has never adopted Islamic law, also known as the Sharia.
CLAUSE: Whereas Yasser Arafat gerrymandered the municipal boundaries of Bethlehem to include additional Muslim neighborhoods in order to influence the outcome of local elections through the creation of a Muslim majority;
CORRECTION: Yasser Arafat, whose wife was Christian, placed many Christians in powerful positions. He was a secular nationalist, not an Islamist.
Stop talking about 'strengthening' Abbas
By Danny Rubinstein, Ha'aretz 6/27/2006
The escalation along the southern Gaza border does not sit well with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the man whose entire political career is built on ending "the military intifada" and replacing it with diplomacy.
Abbas has never been a charismatic leader and now his position, which is in any case unstable, is also being buffeted by Israel. Perhaps the time has come for the country's leaders to stop talking about "strengthening Abu Mazen." At one time, before the Palestinian parliamentary elections that gave rise to the Hamas government, such talk did have a purpose. But now, in light of the internal disputes within the PA, the situation is reversed: Each time Israel announces that it is doing something to strengthen Abu Mazen, the result is that he is weakened. He is portrayed among the Palestinian public as a puppet of Israel and of other international forces, which are using him as a means of punishing Hamas.
Abu Mazen is strengthened at the will of others and weakened at their will, as well. There are plenty of examples of this. Over the weekend, for instance, an announcement stated that Israel and the United States were helping the PA chairman to deploy units loyal to him at the Karni border crossing, in order to strengthen his position. Even the meeting with Pr ime Minister Ehud Olmert in Petra, which was presented as a preparatory encounter leading to a possible work meeting, seriously damaged the PA chairman. Nowhere in the West Bank or Gaza did they speak about Abu Mazen as having won significant respect in Petra. They spoke only about how he humiliated himself by being photographed embracing Olmert when children were being killed in Gaza. And ultimately, there wasn't much in the way of conversation in Jordan. Why did Abu Mazen even agree to go there, the Arab-language media asked.
Critical Days Ahead for Palestine
By Rafi Dajani, Palestine Chronicle 6/26/2006
The the taking over of the reins of Palestinian governance by Hamas exposed the fundamental ideological difference between it and the PLO.
The past weeks have seen an unprecedented and ominous deterioration in the internal Palestinian security situation. The "red line" of Palestinians never shedding Palestinian blood has been crossed, and for the first time in their tragic and tumultuous history, Palestinians are facing the prospect of a civil war and the death of the dream of a Palestinian state. At least 20 Palestinians have died in factional clashes in the past month.
Until now, despite the expected political divisions characterizing any society, Palestinians had remained united despite the most challenging of circumstances, chief among them a 40-year Israeli occupation that controlled every aspect of their lives.
The defeat of the secular Fatah party in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections set the stage for more fundamental splits in Palestinian society and a deteriorating internal security situation. Frustrated by Fatah's corruption and inability to deliver on Palestinian statehood, the Palestinian people punished Fatah by voting Hamas into power. Hamas, while never in power or even part of the political system, had nevertheless garnered increased support among Palestinians for essentially being the "anti-Fatah." It was clean, disciplined, and delivered on many of the social services that the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority was supposed to but had not.
The the taking over of the reins of Palestinian governance by Hamas exposed the fundamental ideological difference between it and the PLO, the umbrella Palestinian organization dominated by Fatah, of which Hamas is not a part. For Hamas, armed resistance to the Israeli occupation is valid, including suicide bombings against Israeli civilians in response to Palestinian civilian deaths. Political negotiations might begin, but only after Israel withdrew completely from Palestinian land occupied since 1967, since political negotiations with Israel prior to that have proven to be fruitless.
6/16/2006
War on Children in Palestine
By John Pilger, Palestine Chronicle 6/17/2006
The vote for Hamas was actually a vote for peace. The reason Israel fears Hamas is that Hamas is unlikely to be a trusted collaborator in subjugating its own people on Israel's behalf.
Arthur Miller wrote, "Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."
Miller's truth was a glimpsed reality on television on June 9 when Israeli warships fired on families picnicking on a Gaza beach, killing seven people, including three children and three generations. What that represents is a final solution, agreed by the United States and Israel, to the problem of the Palestinians. While the Israelis fire missiles at Palestinian picnickers and homes in Gaza and the West Bank, the two governments are to starve them. The victims will be mostly children.
This was approved on May 23 by the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 361-37 to cut off aid to non-government organizations that run a lifeline to occupied Palestine. Israel is withholding Palestinian revenues and tax receipts amounting to $60 million a month. Such collective punishment, identified as a crime against humanity in the Geneva Conventions, evokes the Nazis' strangulation of the Warsaw ghetto and the American economic siege of Iraq in the 1990s. If the perpetrators have lost their minds, as Miller suggested, they appear to understand their barbarism and display their cynicism. "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet," joked Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert.
This is the price Palestinians must pay for their democratic elections in January. The majority voted for the "wrong" party, Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel, with their inimitable penchant for pot-calling-the-kettle-black, describe as terrorist. However, terrorism is not the reason for starving the Palestinians, whose prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, had reaffirmed Hamas's commitment to recognize the Jewish state, proposing only that Israel obey international law and respect the borders of 1967. Israel has refused because, with its apartheid wall under construction, its intention is clear: to take over more and more of Palestine, encircling whole villages and eventually Jerusalem.
UN Special Rapporteur: The situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
By Professor John Dugard, ReliefWeb/United Nations Commission on Human Rights 6/21/2006
I visited the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) from 9 to 17 June 2006. In the course of the week I visited Gaza; the Wall (barrier) in and around Jerusalem; Ramallah; the hills south of Hebron, where a mini-Wall is being constructed; the Wall at Rachel's Tomb (Bethlehem) and the nearby village of Wallaje, where house demolitions are imminent; Jericho and the Jordan Valley; Nablus and its Balata refugee camp; the Wall at Jayyous; and checkpoints along the Wall and around Nablus. During this visit I spoke with a wide range of persons, both Palestinian and Israeli. Unfortunately, I had no contact with Israeli officials as the Israeli Government does not recognize my mandate.
There has been a substantial deterioration in respect of human rights in the OPT since Hamas won the elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council earlier this year.
Gaza is under siege. Israel controls its airspace and has resumed sonic booms which terrorize and traumatize its people. The targeted killing of militants is on the increase. Inevitably, as in the past, such killings have resulted in the killing and wounding of innocent bystanders. Israel also controls Gaza's territorial sea and fires missiles into the territory from ships at sea. The no-go area along the border of Gaza has been extended to some 500-600 metres to enable the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to prevent the firing of Qassam rockets by Palestinian militants. IDF policy now allows it to fire shells up to 100 metres from civilian houses. Within Gaza, medical services have been seriously affected by the prohibition on the funding of medical equipment and medical supplies managed by the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. The non-payment of salaries to Palestinian Authority employees has affected both hospitals and schools as employees cannot afford to travel to work. Unemployment and poverty are on the increase. After a long period of closure of the Karni commercial crossing, this crossing has been re-opened but it still processes only a limited number of trucks with the result that Gaza is still short of basic foodstuffs and is unable to export its produce.
Human rights violations in the West Bank have also intensified. The construction of the Wall continues to impact severely on human rights. In farming areas, lands are being abandoned in the closed zone (the area between the Wall and the Green Line) as farmers are denied permits to farm their land. Families both within the closed zone and its precincts have been substantially impoverished as a result. The impact of the Wall is no less severe in the cities. The Wall in Jerusalem divides Palestinian neighbourhoods and in so doing separates families who hold different identity documents. The law prohibiting Israeli Arab spouses from co-habiting with their West Bank and Gaza Palestinian spouses has further damaged family life. Travel into and out of Jerusalem has become a nightmare for Palestinians as a result of new travel restrictions.
6/12/2006
Despite the divisions, the national consensus holds
By Karma Nabulsi, The Guardian 6/14/2006
The Palestinian strategy of negotiation and resistance is common to liberation movements. Attempts to foster splits will fail
The prevailing western view of what is happening to the Palestinians today is simple. A people hopelessly divided among factions, held to ransom by fanatical leaders, terrorised in the streets by gun-toting militia, paralysed by the failings of their third-rate ruling elites. A burdensome nation of dependants, wards of the international community, unwilling or unable to help themselves in spite of the millions in foreign aid, goodwill and concentrated attention poured into that tiny piece of land. In the press, one finds nothing but dissension and chaos between Hamas and Fatah; between the prime minister, Ismail Haniya, and the president, Mahmoud Abbas; between the Palestinian Authority and the PLO; between the refugee camps and the cities; between Gazans and West Bankers; between Palestinians under occupation and those in exile outside. Not only that, when offered the benefits of democratic elections, they have voted in a terrorist organisation as their representative.
Against the background of such a portrayal, it is no wonder that Tony Blair should invite as his guest this week the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert - a man elected on the plan that Israel must unilaterally impose its own will on the Palestinians "because there is no one to negotiate with". Little wonder also that the US Congress recently passed a resolution branding the entire West Bank and Gaza as a terrorist area.
Of course there are political divisions, fostered and engineered by Israel and its western sponsors. But this is an image that fundamentally misrepresents not just what is going on in Palestine today, but also the profound political shifts that have taken place since the death of Yasser Arafat. In several crucial ways, Arafat represented Palestinians, inside and outside Palestine. Most important, he shaped and maintained the national consensus on how to deal with Israel.
6/5/2006
With a little help from the outside
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz 6/8/2006
The laugh of fate: The state waging a broad international campaign for a boycott is simultaneously waging a parallel campaign, no less determined, against a boycott. A boycott that seriously harms the lives of millions of people is legitimate in its eyes because it is directed against those defined as its enemies, while a boycott that is liable to hurt its academic ivory tower is illegitimate in its eyes only because it is aimed against itself. This is a moral double standard. Why is the boycott campaign against the Palestinian Authority, including blocking essential economic aid and boycotting leaders elected in democratic and legal elections, a permissible measure in Israel's eyes and the boycott of its universities is forbidden?
Israel cannot claim the boycott weapon is illegitimate. It makes extensive use of this weapon itself, and its victims are suffering under severe conditions of deprivation, from Rafah to Jenin. In the past, Israel called upon the world to boycott Yasser Arafat, and now it is calling for a boycott of the Hamas government ? and via this government, all of the Palestinians in the territories. And Israel does not regard this as an ethical problem. Tens of thousands have not received their salaries for four months due to the boycott, but when there is a call to boycott Israeli universities, the boycott suddenly becomes an illegitimate weapon.
Those calling for a boycott of Israel are also tainted with a moral double standard. The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education ?(NATFHE?) in Britain and the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Ontario, which have both decided to boycott Israel, did not act similarly to protest their own countries' war crimes and occupations ? the British army in Iraq and the Canadian army in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the handful of human rights advocates and opponents of the occupation in Israel should thank these two organizations for the step they have taken, despite their flawed double standards.
The dreaded blowback from a Palestinian civil war
By Abdel Monem Said Aly, The Daily Star 6/10/2006
At the height of the second intifada, in October 2002, I was one of those who called publicly upon the Palestinian National Authority to dissolve itself. At the time, it seemed to me that the PNA's legitimacy was being undermined by two opposing forces: on the one hand, Hamas and the other radical movements, Islamic and non-Islamic; on the other, Israel.
The first made it impossible for the PNA to fulfill its obligations under Palestinian-Israeli agreements for preventing the use of force against Israel, whether through terrorism or resistance. The second, by building settlements and reoccupying Palestinian territories, made it impossible for the PNA to be the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. It was one of those ironies of history in which two arch enemies work in unison to achieve the same strategic goal: ending the possibility of a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli question.
My appeal at the time was meant to affirm that the Oslo process had in practice come to an end. Israel, the international community and the different Palestinian forces, including Hamas, would once again face the same strategic choices they had encountered before the Oslo process was launched.
Yet the PNA, having failed in substance, nevertheless remained resilient in form. Whether under the leadership of Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, the PNA lost its powers to manage both Palestinian lives and the Palestinian cause. The Israeli propensity for unilateral steps, including building the separation wall and the success of Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, opened the door for a fundamental realignment in the Palestinian situation: the PNA, built upon the legitimacy of the Oslo process, is now led by a force that is in total opposition to this process. In fact, as Hamas became the leader of the Palestinian people, not only did the Oslo process come into question and not only was the two-state solution put to a test, but the entire peaceful approach to the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict may have reached its end.
Dangerous dirty tricks in Palestine
By Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada 6/6/2006
Palestinian Authority chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is pushing the internal Palestinian situation towards a dangerous and unnecessary crisis. He has called a referendum supposedly to gain public endorsement for a document written by Hamas and Fatah members held in Israeli jails which calls for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel in all the territories occupied in 1967. But Abbas' ploy has nothing to do with hastening the creation of such a state, and everything to do with Fatah's inability to come to terms with its defeat in last January's legislative elections.
Without consulting PA prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, Abbas announced that Hamas would have ten days to accept the prisoners' document without any changes or he would call a referendum. Hamas made clear that it views the referendum as illegal. Palestinian law makes no provision for referendums, and only the legislative council, in which Hamas has a huge majority, can amend the law. No matter; Abbas, like President Bush, can seem to find powers to do anything he wants as the need arises. Following the collapse of talks between Hamas and Fatah on June 5, Abbas announced that he would go ahead with the referendum by "presidential decree." The next morning he announced a three-day extension of his deadline to allow for "dialogue," but made clear that Hamas had to take or leave the document as is.
Bypassing the Hamas-led authority, Abbas called together the PLO executive committee, unelected and unaccountable except to itself, but dominated by his allies, to authorize the referendum. This is in line with Abbas' recent claims that it is the PLO, and not the PA, that is the true representative of Palestinians. This could be convincing except for the fact that since signing the 1993 Oslo Accord, Fatah leaders have dismantled the PLO as a truly representative body and invested all their efforts into building up the PA as their powerbase. Once they lost their grip on the PA, they suddenly rediscovered the PLO. But the lack of sincerity can be measured by the fact that Abbas has made no mention whatsoever of including all Palestinians -- the majority of whom live in forced exile and diaspora -- in the referendum. No referendum carried out only in the occupied territories can represent the will of Palestinians as a whole.
6/1/2006
The Way Americans Like Their War
By Robert Fisk, Palestine Chronicle/The Independent 6/4/2006
I can't help wondering today how many of the innocents slaughtered in Haditha took the opportunity to vote in the Iraqi elections - before their 'liberators' murdered them.
Could Haditha be just the tip of the mass grave?
The corpses we have glimpsed, the grainy footage of the cadavers and the dead children; could these be just a few of many? Does the handiwork of the United States' army of the slums go further?
I remember clearly the first suspicions I had that murder most foul might be taking place in our name in Iraq. I was in the Baghdad mortuary, counting corpses, when one of the city's senior medical officials, an old friend, told me of his fears. "Everyone brings bodies here," he said. "But when the Americans bring bodies in, we are instructed that under no circumstances are we ever to do post-mortems. We were given to understand that this had already been done. Sometimes we'd get a piece of paper like this one with a body." And here the man handed me a U.S. military document showing with the hand-drawn outline of a man's body and the words "trauma wounds."
What kind of trauma is now being experienced in Iraq? Just who is doing the mass killing? Who is dumping so many bodies on garbage heaps? After Haditha, we are going to reshape our suspicions.
It's no good saying "a few bad apples." All occupation armies are corrupted. But do they all commit war crimes? The Algerians are still uncovering the mass graves left by the French paras who liquidated whole villages. We know of the rapist-killers of the Russian army in Chechnya.
We have all heard of Bloody Sunday. The Israelis sat and watched while their proxy Lebanese militia butchered and eviscerated its way through 1,700 Palestinians. And of course the words My Lai are now uttered again. Yes, the Nazis were much worse. And the Japanese. And the Croatian Ustashi. But this is us. This is our army. These young soldiers are our representatives in Iraq. And they have innocent blood on their hands.
I suspect part of the problem is that we never really cared about Iraqis, which is why we refused to count their dead. Once the Iraqis turned upon the army of occupation with their roadside bombs and suicide cars, they became Arab "gooks," the evil sub-humans whom the Americans once identified in Vietnam. Get a president to tell us that we are fighting evil and one day we will wake to find that a child has horns, a baby has cloven feet.
5/30/2006
Big Bang for the Palestinians
By Akiva Eldar, Palestine Chronicle/Haaretz 6/5/2006
Yasser Abed Rabo spent weeks in the Muqata in an attempt to convince Abbas to seize the initiative from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and from Hamas.
On Sunday, a long convoy stopped at the entrance to the bridal shop on Manara Street in central Ramallah. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) arrived, accompanied by a brigade of bodyguards and surrounded by a herd of journalists. The high-ranking visitor expressed an interest in the wedding business in the big city. "Business is very slow," said the shop owner. Whereas the reporters wrote, "People are not getting married. They don't even have money for food."
Abu Mazen did not have to explain why the voices of bride and bridegroom are not being heard in the streets of Ramallah. Every Palestinian child knows why the donors divorced the PA and took away Dad's wages. The aides and the spokesmen returned to the Muqata satisfied. For the first time since Hamas threw them out of the attractive offices and took away the keys of the official limousines, some color has returned to the cheeks of Fatah party hacks.
They scent elections. The boss, an avowed hater of the media, is beginning to cooperate - even going into the street and shaking the hands of passersby. Usually he does not waste his time on public relations, nor on strategic discussions and long-term plans. For the most part, he operates from day to day, solving one crisis and waiting for the next. The prisoners' document and the plan for a referendum are like a shot of adrenalin for the man who was far more outstanding as Yasser Arafat's No. 2 than as Ismail Haniyeh's No. 1. Usually, Abu Mazen comes to his office at 10 A.M., goes home for a siesta at 2 P.M., and returns at 5 P.M. for four to five hours. In recent days the lights in the Muqata seem to be burning longer. After many months of mourning, something seems to be happening there.
....Abu Mazen, as is his wont, hesitated, deliberated, was evasive and stuck with the Arab League peace proposal. That revolutionary decision of March 2002 has become his trademark, and he has difficulty exchanging it for a new formula. Israel continued to ignore him, the United States remained silent and Europe was evasive. But this time, Abu Mazen's hesitation - some say weakness - has paid off, and then some. Marwan Barghouti and his fellow prisoners did his work for him. Abu Mazen could not have found better friends than the heroes of the struggle against the occupation. All the public opinion polls indicate that the release of the prisoners in Israeli jails is the most important issue in the eyes of the Palestinian public.
6/1/2006
For a successful dialogue
By Azmi Bishara, Al-Ahram Weekly 6/1/2006
Above all, the Palestinian national dialogue conference needs the impetus of honesty, patriotism and integrity, because the Palestinians have few reliable allies elsewhere
Out of all the fanfare surrounding Ehud Olmert's visit to Washington -- his home-away-from-home -- and all the cheers he received in Congress, what most stuck in my mind (as an observer, of course, dumbstruck like a peasant gaping between shutter slats at the goings on in a ribald party at the manor of his feudal lord) was that no sympathetic sighs or seconding grunts issued from congressmen in response to Olmert's remarks on how much he regreted the suffering the Palestinian people had to endure because of the attitudes of their leaders. Apparently, this formality of feigned sympathy does not sit well with Congress. After all, the purpose of the siege is to make them suffer, to collectively terrorise Palestinian civilians into abandoning their support of "terrorist" politicians. This is a perfectly legitimate imperial prerogative and the reason why Israel is being hailed in Congress, so there's no reason why the executioner should feel sorry for his victim. But then Congress simply does not understand the Israeli mindset that "cries as it pulls the trigger" and that "will never forgive the Palestinians for making us starve them to death." Congress is a long way from understanding how this psychological and cultural mechanism of self- justification destroys every logical and moral obstacle that stands in its path.
What most stuck in my gorge during this whole affair was the 26 May article in Yediot Aharonot about George Bush's great fondness of Ariel Sharon's political adviser, Dov Weisglass, and his even greater fondness for this man's jokes and anecdotes about Palestinians. True to today's journalistic dictum of keeping readers entertained, the article treats us to one of these. Weisglass related to Bush that a Palestinian official called up to complain about a new segment of the "apartheid wall" (pronounced by the teller with a sarcastic chortle). Having paid his verbal dues, the official went on to complain that his construction company had yet to receive payment for its work on another part of the wall. Bush roared and roared with laughter at this anecdote, according to Yediot Aharonot. Not me who recognises a typical Israeli fabrication when I see it. What got my gall is that this heroic people that is truly suffering has been made the butt of jokes to be bandied between insensitive and mindless politicians. Undoubtedly a similar sense of outrage at the insult added to injury helps explain the results of the elections that were held among this captive people.
I would also suggest that those who are sitting back and waiting to see how international pressure on the Palestinian government and society pans out, those who did not even try to persuade the Europeans to lift the blockade they were under no obligation to impose, and those who created the impression that the Palestinian people have to repent the decisions they made at the ballot box are also responsible for the injury, the insult and the results. This is, ultimately, a moral question.
5/29/2006
Humanitarian Conditions in the Palestinian Territories: Short- and Long-Term Perspectives on a Developing Crisis
By Mohammed El-Samhouri, MIFTAH 6/2/2006
I. Introduction: The startling victory of the Islamic Resistance Movement - Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections January 25th, 2006, and Hamas' subsequent formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) government, has brought to risk two vital sources of PA finance: an aid package by Western donor countries of about $1 billion a year in humanitarian, developmental, and direct budgetary support; and a monthly transfer by Israel of about $50-60 million in Palestinian customs and tax revenues that Israel collects on behalf of the PA under the 1994 economic protocol.
Israel suspended the remittance of funds soon after the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) convened its first session in mid-February, tightened its grip over border crossings separating Israel from the Palestinian territories, further restricted the movement of Palestinian people and goods, and boycotted the new Hamas-led PA government. On the other end, a statement by the Middle East Quartet (United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russia) five days after the elections, on January 30th in a meeting in London, warned of Western donors' intention to drastically review their aid policy to the PA unless Hamas agrees to meet three basic political principles or conditions: forswear violence, abide by previous PAIsrael agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist. Hamas did not budge, and on April 7th, a week after the Hamas-led government was officially sworn into office, both the European Union and the United States responded by curtailing all direct financial aid to the PA a position that was more recently reiterated by the Quartet members in a meeting on May 9th in New York. To View the Full Paper as PDF (448 KB)
5/29/2006
Barrier To Peace: Assessment Of Israels Revised Wall Route (PDF)
PLO Negotiations Affairs Department 5/1/2006
MAY 2006: Following Kadimas success in Israels national elections, Israel is accelerating its unilateral actions in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). On April 30, 2006, the Israeli Cabinet approved several revisions to the Wall route designed to speed up its completion, which still leave the Wall being built deep inside the oPt. The revised route incorporates changes in the north of the West Bank near the illegal settlements and settlement blocs of Ariel, Kedumim and Alfe Menashe; in the centre around the settlement of Ramot and the Etzion settlement bloc; and in the south around the settlements of Eshkolot and Metzadot Yehuda. The Wall consolidates Israeli control over vital parts of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, thereby preventing the possible emergence of a viable Palestinian state.
While Israels new Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, claims that Israel intends to remove some illegal settlements (colonies) in the West Bank, he has also stated that Israel will continue to bolster settlement blocs. In Spring 2006, Israel began the construction of 3,500 new units in Nof Adumim, part of the Adumim settlement bloc. Construction of the Israeli police station in the E-1area, on occupied Palestinian land between Anata and Az-Zaim, has already been completed and the station is now being expanded. Moreover, Israels new Defense Minister, Amir Peretz, recently approved the expansion of the Israeli settlements of Givat Zeev, Oranit and Betar Illit, located to the west of the Wall, as well that of Maskiyot, located in the Jordan Valley, to the east of the Wall.1
This fact sheet analyses the impact of the Wall and Israels settlement expansion.
5/25/2006
The Hamas Government Should be Recognized
By Tanya Reinhart, Electronic Intifada 6/1/2006
The Hamas government must be recognized, not only because recognition of Hamas would be good for Israel, as the former Mossad head Ephraim Halevy recently argued, [1] but because this is the right move by any criterion of justice and international law.
The U.S. and Europe decided, despite Israels opposition, to permit the Palestinian people to hold democratic elections. According to Jimmy Carters report in the Herald Tribune, the elections were honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the results accepted by winners and losers. Among the 62 elections that have been monitored by... the Carter Center, these are among the best in portraying the will of the people.[2]
In a just and well-ordered world, it would be unthinkable for a government that was elected in this way to be disqualified because Israel does not like the choice of the electorate in question. But in a world in which the U.S. rules, might is right, and might can define democracy as it chooses. Thus it was announced that the outcome of the Palestinian elections would not be recognized until the three mantras were fulfilled: Hamas must renounce terror, honour previous accords, and recognize the State of Israel. Meanwhile the Palestinian people would be punished and starved through an economic boycott, in the hope that this will lead to the collapse of the elected government.
In January 2005, Hamas announced its resolution to replace armed struggle with political struggle and agreed to a unilateral ceasefire (calm). In the 17 months since then, Hamas has not perpetrated a single terrorist attack. According to security sources, since the election, Hamas has not even participated in the launching of Qassam rockets from Gaza; most rocket launches are carried out by Fatah. [3] What exactly is the substance of the demand that Hamas renounce terror.
5/30/2006
Testing Democracy: The Larger Battle
By Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle 5/31/2006
The situation in the Occupied Territories is more perilous than any media account, however decent, can portray.
Labeling as dangerous the violent escalation in the Gaza Strip between supporters of the Fatah and Hamas movements is an understatement, to say the least. The situation in the Occupied Territories is more perilous than any media account, however decent, can portray. In fact, the once distanced possibility of a Palestinian civil war is forcing its way back to the forefront, not merely as an Israeli fantasy, but a looming, albeit wicked reality.
But to reduce the Gaza turmoil to a few clichs, the likes of If Palestinians cannot get along with each other, how should they be expected to get along with Israel, is either politically nave or self-serving. Viewing the current crisis outside its wider regional context, it would rightly appear as if the Palestinian clash is simply evidence of an inherently militant culture.
But if Palestinians were inherently militant, then why, under the most extreme, frustrating and intimidating of circumstances, did they manage to defy all odds on March 25, voting in droves and achieving one of the most genuine democratic experiences ever recorded in the history of the Middle East? In a land that is still under the boots of Israeli soldiers, holding democratic elections is most taxing, if not impossible altogether. But Palestinians in the Occupied Territories did it. International monitors seemed more shocked than relieved at the transparency of the voting process.
International media, including a large mass of Arab media celebrated the Palestinian model as one to pursue in what was hoped to become a propeller of Arab democratic reforms. But something went horribly wrong: the wrong party, Hamas won the elections in a landslide that left no room for the traditional elites of Palestinian society. Lowly refugee camp dwellers claimed a political role that was for decades preserved for the upper crust, with their gun wielders, entrusted to protect the interests of the aristocracy.
5/29/2006
Imported Hypocrisy
By Rami Bathish, MIFTAH 5/31/2006
Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1993, the US has invested US$ 1.7 billion in Palestinian institution-building, with many strings attached of course, including a declared effort to promote the misleadingly termed American values in the occupied territories (democracy, freedom, civil liberties, rule of law, among other political-philosophical doctrines whose roots could be found hundreds of years before America itself was colonized at the expense of the indigenous native Americans). Yet, ironically, the only values we indigenous Palestinians have apparently managed to adopt from the US during the past 13 years are authentic American-style double standards and hypocrisy.
Since the rise of Hamas to power in last Januarys legislative elections, not only has the international community, most notably the US and the EU, failed to come to terms with a democratically-elected new Palestinian government, in contradiction to the very political foundations in which their societies take pride, but more alarmingly, internal Palestinian political forces are increasingly competing with the West to isolate and weaken the government, to indirectly, albeit systematically, justify the external pressures applied on Hamas, and most shockingly, to wholeheartedly insinuate, and sometimes directly imply, that the current government is a major setback to progress made by previous Palestinian governments, on the internal (societal) level, as well as on the regional and global levels (the Palestinian-Israeli conflict).
As far as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is concerned, years of negotiations between consecutive Israeli governments and the PLO have merely produced limited Palestinian self-autonomy on population centres in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, matched with an unprecedented expansion of Israels illegal Jewish-only settlements, Israels fragmentation of the Palestinian territories into roughly 4 isolated Palestinian-populated reservations comprising roughly a third of the territories occupied in the June 1967 War (the Gaza Strip, and the northern, central, and southern parts of the West Bank), and Israels economic, political, and social/cultural isolation of Palestinian east Jerusalem from the rest of the Palestinian territories, among other catastrophes which, to put it as mildly as possible, fall very short of what any sensible observer can deem as progress.
Closing Statement: Palestinian National Dialogue Conference
By The National Dialogue Conference, Palestine Chronicle 5/31/2006
The conference reaffirms that reinforcing the rule of law and order and an independent judiciary are among the first national tasks to be undertaken.
First: The sanctity of Palestinian blood
There are no contradictions between our people and their resistance groups. The national dialogue conference stresses that all interpretations and disputed issues must be solved through democratic dialogue and in an atmosphere embodying the national spirit of our people. There can be no use of arms among the people of the same cause. Palestinian blood is scared and we are all forbidden from wrongly shedding one drop of Palestinian blood in light of our struggle against the enemy, which is occupying our lands and displacing our people.
The conference rejects any internal fighting, which will benefit no one save our enemy. The national dialogue conference calls for a national code of honor among the forces and factions to ban all forms of infighting regardless of any possible reasons or justifications. It also stresses that political debate among national ranks at the table should be endorsed for the benefit of our people and not through weapons and shedding Palestinian blood.
Second: the political, economic and financial siege on our people
The national dialogue conference affirms its total rejection to the oppressive siege imposed on our people for the last three months by the US and Israel following the PLC elections. This siege is a form of collective punishment against our people over and above the daily Israeli measures of occupation, aggression settlement activities and the apartheid wall. This siege will never help to achieve security, peace and stability in the Middle East. This explosive situation requires Arab and international action to end the siege and resume international assistance to our people, in addition to releasing the tax revenues held by the Israeli government for the third month in a row.
Third: Olmert's unilateral plan, the settlements and the wall
The national dialogue conference declares its complete rejection and resistance to Olmert's plan to confiscate our land and divide our homeland into ghettos and isolated cantons...
5/29/2006
Financing the Palestinian Authority (PDF)
By Geoffrey Aronson, Foundation For Middle East Peace - FMEP 5/25/2006
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert government must decide if it wants to maintain its unspoken but nonetheless effective partnership with Hamas
The boycott of the reconstituted PA, lead by the Quartet and Israel, has resulted in a massive reduction in funds made available not only to the PA, but to the Palestinian economy as a whole. This engineered impoverishment of Palestinian governing institutions is reverberating througout the economy, threatening one of the worst depressions in the history of capitalism, in the words of one international official intimately familiar with the issue. Starved of aid funds by donors and tax transfers by Israel, having few remaining financial resources to collateralize, and boycotted by commercial financial institutions fearing the legal implications of doing business with organizations proscribed by US and EU laws, the PA may not be able to mobilize the resources necessary to perform its core functions.
The Hamas victory is yet another indication, along with the intifada, Israels disengagement from the Gaza Strip, and its incremental noncompliance with the Paris Protocols, that a new, post-Oslo framework governing relations between Israel and Palestinians is being created.
.....A Hamas decision that the value of participation in democratic elections and subsequent administration of the institutions of Palestinian self-rule have been undermined by external forces will have implications not simply for the composition of the next PA government, but whether there will be a government at all. The Hamas leadership has made it clear that the organization will not permit the reconstitution of the PA via elections or through any other vehicle if it is forced to fail. In such an environment it believes that it will emerge as the only Palestinian organization capable of mobilizing popular support. In this sense, the Hamas leadership, while preferring to work through established institutions it now leads, is fully prepared to profit from its ability to mobilize popular support in their absence.
This nonsense of not talking to Hamas
By Gideon Samet, Ha'aretz 5/31/2006
There's no need to be a great prophet to predict that talking with Hamas will be difficult and maybe even barren. One can guess that without intelligence and defense stalwarts who prepared us, as we remember, for Hamas' failure in the Palestinian elections. Nor was there any surprise about the number of standing ovations received by the prime minister when, in his speech to the U.S. Congress, he lashed out at those terror plotters. It was a well-crafted speech polished by the trusty hands of Eli Wiesel. But the entire Israeli move toward Hamas reeks of banality, lack of sophistication, and paralyzed thought, and is grimly reminiscent of past lessons.
Something worse comes up through the moralistic lecturing of Israeli and American leaders regarding Hamas. The basic mistake, to the point of utter folly, is that the profound refusal to speak with the organization hurts Israeli interests. The orthodoxy of rejection even contradicts Olmert's tactics, which are said to be testing the potential for negotiations with the Palestinians before going to the great promise of evacuating most of the West Bank.
How does the prime minister intend those statements to be persuasive if no such attempt is made with the Hamas government, without giving it an opportunity to express its nay? Indeed, there also was a rhetorical flaw in all the talk about reaching out an outstretched hand to the elected Palestinian president, as Olmert made certain to refer to him in Washington, while he doesn't take Mahmoud Abbas' outstretched hand for negotiations.
5/19/2006
House Votes Harm Palestine, Israel, US
By John Nichols, Palestine Chronicle/The Nation 5/26/2006
Instead of checking and balancing the president's misguided approach to an election result that displeased him, Congress has added fuel to the fire.
Jimmy Carter has been blunt: Despite the fact of a Palestinian election result that was not to their liking, the former president says, "it is unconscionable for Israel, the United States and others under their influence to continue punishing the innocent and already persecuted people of Palestine."
Since the political wing of the militant group Hamas swept parliamentary elections in Palestine, the U.S. and Israel have been trying to use economic pressure to force a change of course. Disregarding the democracy that President Bush says he wants to promote in the Middle East, the U.S. has sanctioned policies that have fostered chaos on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and created increasingly harsh conditions for people who have known more than their share of suffering.
"Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime," argues Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner whose involvement in the Middle East peace process has extended across three decades. "Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas, the United States government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life."
Instead of checking and balancing the president's misguided approach to an election result that displeased him, Congress has added fuel to the fire.
By a lopsided vote of 361 to 37, the House voted Tuesday for the so-called "Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act," a measure so draconian that even the Bush administration has opposed it.
Time for Peace is Now
By World Council of Churches, Palestine Chronicle 5/26/2006
Send church members to Israel and Palestine as part of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel until the occupation ends.
Executive committee statement on Israel/Palestine:
With the responsible powers and authorities providing little prospect of a viable future for both Israelis and Palestinians, with concern rising around the world at the recent course of events in the conflict, and with various peace plans and numerous UN resolutions languishing unimplemented, the World Council of Churches Executive Committee, meeting in Geneva, 16-19 May, 2006, comes to a sober conclusion: Peace must come soon or it may not come to either people for a long time.
Failure to comply with international law and consequences thereof has pushed the situation on the ground up to a point of no return. The disparities are appalling. One side is positioning itself to unilaterally establish final borders on territory that belongs to the other side; the other side is increasingly confined to the scattered enclaves that remain. On one side there is control of more and more land and water; on the other there are more and more families deprived of land and livelihoods. On one side as many people as possible are being housed on occupied land; on the other side the toll mounts of refugees without homes or land. One side controls Jerusalem, a city shared by two peoples and three world religions; the otherMuslim and Christianwatches its demographic, commercial and religious presence wither in Jerusalem. From both sides, military forces or armed groups strike across the 1967 borders and kill innocent civilians. On both sides, authorities countenance such attacks.
Finally, the side set to keep its unlawful gains is garnering support from part of the international community. The side that, despairing at those unlawful gains, used legitimate elections to choose new leaders is being isolated and punished.
5/22/2006
The Palestinian 18-point plan
AlJazeera 5/25/2006
Abbas would be in charge of peace negotiations -- The document, negotiated by senior members of the leading Palestinian factions currently being held in prison by Israel, has 18 main proposals.
1)The establishment of a Palestinian state and the return of refugees to their homes.
2) Incorporating Hamas and Islamic Jihad into the Palestine Liberation Organisation [PLO].
3) To resist Israeli occupation of lands captured in 1967 [the West Bank and Gaza].
4) The formulation of a political plan including Arab summit resolutions, the PLO platform and fair international proposals.
5) To consolidate the Palestinian Authority as the core of the state.
6) The setting up of a national unity government for all factions, especially Fatah and Hamas.
7) The PLO and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, would be in charge of peace negotiations.
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