Choose life!
by Deb Reich
Abu Ghosh, Israel/Palestine
February 17, 2009


"Most people will say I'm delusional; that's okay. I will say what I have to say anyway. When your opinion is way out on the periphery, it may mean you are delusional - or it may just mean that the so-called center has gradually drifted closer and closer to a very high cliff, and finally fallen off the edge, while the majority of the population follows along like a horde of doomed lemmings. In that scenario, someone needs to stake out a position at the other extreme and drag the locus of the center back from oblivion. So here goes.

After this futile, criminal, pornographic war in Gaza (Shmuel Amir rightly termed it a "hunt" rather than a war) and yet another national election in Israel ending basically in impasse, but this time with a distinctly fascist motif, we are no closer to sustainable peace in the Middle East. We need a drastic revisioning of what we are doing here." Full article

Gaza success proves Israel is strong, not right
Haaretz, by David Grossman
January 20, 2009,

"....When the guns become completely silent, and the full scope of the killing and destruction becomes known, to the point where even the most self-righteous and sophisticated of the Israeli psyche's defense mechanisms are overcome, perhaps then some kind of lesson will imprint itself on our brain. Perhaps then we will finally understand how deeply and fundamentally wrong our actions in this region have been from time immemorial - how misguided, unethical, unwise and above all, responsible, time after time, for fanning the flames that consume us....."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056955.html

Mahmoud Abbas seen as big loser after fight between Israel and Hamas
Joel Greenberg
The Chicago Tribune (Analysis)
January 20, 2009 - 12:00am

"The Gaza Strip has been devastated by Israel's punishing offensive against Hamas, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appears to be the war's most serious political casualty. Sidelined during the fighting and now struggling to play a role in Gaza's reconstruction, Abbas' Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank, is battling to stay relevant. "Marginalized is a very good choice of words," Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian government in the West Bank, told journalists on Monday.

Abbas, a moderate who has pursued negotiations with Israel for more than a year, is certain to be part of any renewed peace efforts by the Obama administration. Yet Abbas appeared to many Palestinians as ineffective during the Gaza war, unable to press Israel to halt its onslaught while sending his police to break up pro-Hamas demonstrations in the West Bank with tear gas, clubs and even gunfire...." http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-gaza-west-bank_greenbergjan20,0,1595186.story 
 

"Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions"
"The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.

I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times....."  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
 

'Gaza strike is not against Hamas, it's against all Palestinians'
By Amira Hass, Haaretz
December 29, 2008

Trying to 'teach Hamas a lesson' is fundamentally wrong
By Tom Segev
Haaretz , December 29, 2008

Karen Koning Abuzayd

The Guardian

Opinion

December 5, 2008

As we approach the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the steadily rising death toll in Gaza highlights the painful gap between its peaceful rhetoric and the desperate reality for Palestinian people.

The declaration was a pivotal statement in which the world community recognised the "inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world". True to its nobility of spirit, it declares "the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom from fear and want as the highest aspiration of the common people".

Sixty years on, the fate of the Palestinian people should be a cause for universal soul-searching. The need to give substantive meaning to the protection of Palestinians has never been greater. The former high commissioner for human rights, Mary Robinson has said that in Gaza, nothing short of a "civilisation" is being destroyed. Desmond Tutu has called it "an abomination". The humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, Maxwell Gaylard, said that in Gaza there was a "massive assault" on human rights. Most recently, the European commissioner, Louis Michel, described the blockade of Gaza as a "form of collective punishment against Palestinian civilians, which is a violation of international humanitarian law".  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/05/israel-gaza-human-rights

By Haaretz Staff and Fora.tv

November 22, 2008

"....In his talk, entitled "Obsession with Territory Post-1967," Shlaim blasts the settlements, which he says have turned Israel into an apartheid state, as the primary source of failure for peace efforts with the Palestinians.

Shlaim believes Zionism was derailed from its course after the Six-Day war, when its universalist principles were replaced with "religious messianism and secular nationalism." Israel must give up land, he says, not just as a concession to the Palestinians, but because "a people that oppresses another cannot itself remain free." "

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1039411.html

By Bradley Burston

November 19, 2008

"JERUSALEM - There is a new wall in the downtown heart of the Holy City. It is, in fact, a new security fence. It is not tall, nor built to last. But the wall, and what it protects, may do more to undermine Israel's moral claims to Jerusalem than the huge concrete structure that has marred the city's Arab eastern half for years...... "

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1038842.html

November 18th, 2008
Posted in Press Releases, Gaza Region

'.....British MP Clare Short has made this statement in regards to today:

" If there is to be any hope of peace in the Middle East, international law must be upheld. This means that the siege of Gaza must be lifted and the constant attacks by the Israeli navy on Gazan fishermen halted. Those who have been arrested must be released and the UK must insist that these illegal attacks on Gazans, fishing peacefully within their own water must cease”

Baroness Jenny Tonge said:

“The time has come for the international community, and especially the European Union to take action against Israel’s consistent breaking of international law. The EU-Israel Association Agreement should be suspended until Israel complies with this law.

It was only last week that I personally met with the fishermen whose boats are illegally water-cannoned and fired upon by Israeli gunboats as they peacefully fish in Gaza waters. The fishermen and human rights observers who were today taken unlawfully by Israel should be released immediately.”....'

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/11/18/update-fifteen-palestinian-fishermen-still-being-held-by-israeli-authorities-three-internationals-fighting-deportation-with-at-least-one-engaging-in-hungerstrike/

By Haaretz Editorial
November 18, 2008

"The Qassam-rocket fire on western Negev communities, Grad missile fire on Ashkelon and mortar shells aimed at Negev kibbutzim return us to the reality of around five months ago. The shattering of the cease-fire - there is no more point in semantic squirming - is attributed to Israel's blowing up a tunnel that probably was intended for Hamas to kidnap Israeli soldiers. That was the turning point at which Israel unilaterally decided that it could not quietly ignore the clear and immediate danger.

This definition is essential to determine whether it was necessary to violate the truce and what the criteria are for breaking cease-fires, because the decision to blow up the tunnel, a move aimed at protecting soldiers' lives, puts residents of the western Negev in immediate danger.....

In the current situation between Israel and Hamas, there is no choice but to adopt the lesser of two evils and mend the shattered truce. Israel must open the border crossings and keep them open, and allow Gaza's residents to lead a normal existence.

The chorus of people encouraging war provides no reasonable alternative except political sloganeering. They had better listen carefully to the residents of the western Negev, because they know better than anyone what the truce is good for."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1038431.html

Last update - 08:19 28/10/2008

By Moshe Arens

"Is it out of habit or mental lassitude that we continue to build the fence, which was begun many years ago? It continues on its weary way, meter by meter, costing billions, causing anguish to many, damaging private property, keeping the High Court of Justice occupied with the complaints it arouses, stirring demonstrations against it, and keeping the Israel Defense Forces busy. Does anyone still remember what the original purpose was of this physical obstacle, hundreds of kilometers long, stringing across the country? Who is taking a second look to see whether it really serves its intended purpose?

Many of us prefer to forget those terrible days when Palestinian suicide bombers were roaming through our cities and murdering Israeli citizens daily. It was in those stressful days that the cry went out: "Keep them out! Build a fence, no matter what it costs! The fence around the Gaza Strip works, and we need a fence like it around Judea and Samaria!"

Then-Shin Bet head Avi Dichter said we needed such a fence, and Haim Ramon accused those who opposed it of being dinosaurs prepared to endanger human lives . . ."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1031952.html

Last update - 08:12 26/10/2008

By Haaretz Editorial

"Of the 120 Knesset members, 10 belong to Arab factions - Balad, Hadash, and United Arab List-Ta'al. When coalitions are formed, these groups are usually left outside the camp, and outside the political discourse. Prime ministerial candidates from the right loathe these factions, while those from the left fear being overly associated with them.

The result is identical: The Arab factions, whose representatives were democratically elected by wide swaths of the population, are shunned and turn into nearly illegitimate entities.

Kadima chair Tzipi Livni is continuing this distasteful tradition. She, too, has not found time in her schedule to talk with representatives of the Arab factions, whose support could help her government build a tolerable majority . . "

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1031288.html

By Gideon Levy

"...The law enforcement agencies, the police, the prosecutors and the courts - those we blindly admire - have for some time now ceased to operate as a system of justice with equal rights for all. Rich and poor, Jew and Arab do not receive the same treatment. Can anyone seriously claim that a wealthy individual armed with a phalanx of high-priced lawyers is consigned to the same legal fate as that of "Buzaglo," the average Israeli? Would a Jewish child who hurled a rock at a car receive the same punishment as an Arab child who did the same? Do the Israel Defense Forces and the police investigate settler crimes against Palestinians with the same sense of urgency? Is it a coincidence that the trigger fingers of Israel's police officers become itchier time and again whenever their weapons are pointed in the direction of Arab lawbreakers?

Israel's legal system has already laid the groundwork for the legitimization of an apartheid regime. This is the real danger to the rule of law: The quasi automatic enlistment of the justice system by the defense establishment endangers the rule of law more than all this Olmertism. The IDF's ignoring of High Court rulings, much like the ban on the use of the "neighbor procedure" (soldiers using Palestinian civilians as human shields when arresting militants); the fact that the Shin Bet security service continues to torture suspects in contravention of a High Court ruling; and the failure to implement the court-ordered change to the route of the separation fence should have sent alarm bells ringing among the guardians of justice.

When settlers continue to rampage against Palestinians - not nearly a day goes by without a pogrom and there is no place where armed militias don't roam around, yet nobody investigates these acts nor is anyone tried in court - this threatens the state's character much more than all of Olmert's cash-stuffed envelopes. The situation in the southern Hebron Hills, for example, which for a while now has become abandoned territory, endangers the rule of law far more than all of Olmert's investigations...."   http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1007836.html

By Haaretz Editorial

July 29, 2008

"The outgoing commander of the northern West Bank, Colonel Amir Baram, says he is "not surprised" by the settlers' recent rioting. Nor were his predecessors. There is really nothing new under the West Bank sun - things repeat themselves.

Officials in the Israel Defense Forces, police and prosecution know mainly how to summarize events, warn of similar ones in the future, write reports and hold meetings summing up their failure to deal with the West Bank lawbreakers.

Colonel Baram named Kedumim council head Daniela Weiss and the rabbi at the Ma'aleh Levona religious girls' high school, Gadi Ben Zimra, as the "main provocateurs." ...The generations come and go - settlers, lawbreakers, yeshiva students, soldiers who guard them and get treated contemptuously, teachers drawing salaries from taxpayers, settlers' sons and grandchildren who do whatever they like. And some of them constitute an infrastructure for Jewish terrorism in the territories. Palestinian generations, meanwhile, also come and go as the settlers, their children and grandchildren rampage and plunder unhindered in a state that has seemingly given up...."  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1006389.html

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

New York Times, July 24, 2008

"On his visit to the Middle East, Barack Obama gave ritual affirmations of his support for Israeli policy, but what Israel needs from America isn’t more love, but tougher love.

Particularly at a time when Israel seems to be contemplating military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, the United States would be a better friend if it said: “That’s crazy” — while also insisting on a 100 percent freeze on settlements in the West Bank and greater Jerusalem...."  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/opinion/24kristof.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

By Haaretz Editorial
July 24, 2008

"Barack Obama came to Jerusalem to deliver an old message on the need to "reaffirm the historic and special relationship between the United States and Israel, one that cannot be broken." Even if Israel's security is hinged on its close relationship with the U.S., this is not enough.

The significance of these ties is in their ability to serve as leverage for the goal of reaffirming Israel's security. Regional threats require more aggressive diplomatic activity, which the Bush administration has failed to propose or implement.....

....One should keep in mind that the interests of the Israel lobby in America do not always jibe with the interests of the State of Israel. Instead of talking about a "united Jerusalem," he needs to become involved in finding a realistic solution for Israel's torn and bleeding capital.

To survive as a Jewish and democratic state, Israel needs an American leader who does not fear the reaction of American Jews and non-Jews who do not believe in dividing the land to reconcile its two peoples."  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1005029.html

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz Daily News
 July 13, 2008

"I thought they would feel right at home in the alleys of Balata refugee camp, the Casbah and the Hawara checkpoint. But they said there is no comparison: for them the Israeli occupation regime is worse than anything they knew under apartheid. This week, 21 human rights activists from South Africa visited Israel. Among them were members of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress; at least one of them took part in the armed struggle and at least two were jailed. There were two South African Supreme Court judges, a former deputy minister, members of Parliament, attorneys, writers and journalists. Blacks and whites, about half of them Jews who today are in conflict with attitudes of the conservative Jewish community in their country...."  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1000976.html

By Haaretz Editorial

July 9, 2008

"In the early days of Israeli occupation in the territories, Jewish settler leaders promised a life of "coexistence" with the Palestinian population, and they even employed Palestinian laborers in construction and service jobs. In recent years, as radical elements in the settlements and outposts have proliferated and become more powerful, the coexistence approach often seems to make way for a violent struggle that aims to deprive the Palestinians of their land.

Jews who presume to be upholding the duty of settling the land openly discuss their intention of making the lives of Arab residents a misery and pushing them out of what they call Judea and Samaria. In the last four weeks, the media have reported a series of grave incidents, most of them in the Hebron Hills area...." http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1000239.html

By Mel Frykberg Inter Press Service
July 3, 2008

"GAZA CITY, Jul 3 (IPS) - The assault of IPS Gaza correspondent Mohammed Omer has left Israeli security personnel with a lot of explaining to do. And they are not doing a very good job of it.

Omer was abused and assaulted by Israeli security personnel at the Allenby border crossing into Israel from Jordan as he tried to return to his home last week in the Gaza Strip.

Omer was returning from Europe where he had addressed European parliamentarians on the situation on the ground in Gaza. In London he picked up a prize as joint winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (along with IPS correspondent Dahr Jamail).

Omer, who also reports for The Washington Report, told IPS he was verbally abused, strip-searched at gunpoint and physically beaten. He was later hospitalised with broken ribs and related trauma.

Israeli officials denied to IPS in Jerusalem that the award-winning journalist had been mistreated. They said the Gazan journalist had "lost his balance" after being searched on "suspicion of smuggling in illegal items."

The officials were unable to explain how Omer, who is still hospitalised and in severe pain, "lost his balance" and then broke his ribs and severely bruised his arm in the "fall".

The Israeli officials could not explain what illegal items they suspected Omer could have smuggled in. He was assaulted after he had passed through the x-ray machine and his belongings had twice been searched. The officials said only that they would look into the matter further...."  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43056

By Carlo Strenger

Haaretz, July 2, 2008

"Israel is falling apart, MK Avishay Braverman lamented at the Institute for National Security Studies' annual State of the Nation conference. Our education system, once Israel's pride, is in the dumps; public corruption is rampant; our universities are starving to death; and the income gap is almost as bad as Brazil's.....

In the past, Israel was sure of its moral rightness. The current feeling that Israeli society is crumbling reflects something essentially new: Israel is no longer sure of its moral foundation.

The paralysis reflects a pervasive sense of guilt about Israel's ongoing behavior. On the one hand, Israel is making a great effort to be a decent, democratic and creative society. On the other hand, in the West Bank, Israel continues building double road systems, expropriating Palestinian lands, cutting Palestinian villages in two with the security wall, and preventing Palestinian women from getting to hospitals to give birth...." http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/998047.html

By Dior Nissenbaum - McClatchy Newspapers
June 29, 2008

"....In the six months since President George W. Bush launched his late-term diplomatic initiative at Annapolis, Md., Israel has dramatically accelerated the construction of homes on land central to any peace deal with the Palestinians.

In the 11 months before the Annapolis meeting, Israel sought bids to build fewer than 100 homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel took from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War, according to Israeli government figures. Since Annapolis, Israel has asked companies to start building more than 1,700 homes, a 1,600% increase....." http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080629/NEWS07/806290574

Bill Fletcher Jr., San Jose Mercury News
Jun 25, 2008

"....The Israeli government has established in the Occupied Palestinian Territories a regime of systematic discrimination. It maintains two systems of laws, and a person's rights are based on national origin. Palestinian land is confiscated to build Israeli-only settlements and roads. Palestinians wait hours in line at more than 500 Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank, while Jewish settlers speed by on modern, well-lit highways.

As Carter, and many Israelis have said, as long as this dual system exists, any peace agreement between Israel and Palestine will be impossible. Palestinians compare Israeli policies to those of apartheid in South Africa. Former Israeli Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair wrote in 2002, "In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That regime exists to this day."

South Africans who led the fight against apartheid, like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former United Nations envoy John Dugard, make similar comparisons.

To the detriment of both Israelis and Palestinians, we provide financial and diplomatic support to maintain these separate and unequal policies. Israel is the No. 1 recipient of U.S. foreign aid: roughly $2.5 billion last year alone. Our government has cast more than 40 vetoes in the United Nations Security Council to shield Israel from international condemnation.

Divestment from companies that benefit from the occupation is an opportunity for American citizens to do what our government leaders have refused to do: say that our money will not fund human rights abuses any longer...."  http://imeu.net/news/article0013453.shtml

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada
20 June 2008

"After the unremitting hell that Israel has inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza, one can only feel relief and even joy at the ceasefire agreed between Hamas and the Jewish state that took effect this week. Its significance extends well beyond Gaza and opens new possibilities as the disastrous Bush Doctrine begins to lose influence.

Since the beginning of this year, Israeli occupation forces and settlers have killed over 400 Palestinians, including dozens of children and several babies, already exceeding the entire death toll for 2007. One hundred and fifty were killed during a few days of Israeli bombing of Gaza in early March. This year seven Israelis have been killed in conflict-related violence, including four by mortars or rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

Some have sought to exclusively blame Hamas for the high Palestinian death toll, saying that the rockets resistance fighters were firing into Israel were "useless" and "toys," and gave Israel the excuse to "retaliate" implying that resistance itself was to blame for the occupier's violence. But the fallacy of this claim is exposed by the fact that the absence of rockets fired from the West Bank and the renunciation of resistance by the US-backed Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, has not spared Palestinian communities there from daily and escalating Israeli violence.

Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed dozens of Palestinians all over the West Bank and injured hundreds of others, including many civilians in their homes, or taking part in peaceful demonstrations..."  http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9636.shtml

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli- Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, 2006).

New York Times Editorial

June 8, 2008

"Seven highly qualified and carefully vetted Palestinian students from the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip will come to the United States for advanced study after all. After reporting in The Times by Ethan Bronner drew high-level American attention, top State Department officials intervened to restore the students’ Fulbright fellowships that lower-level functionaries had notified them would be withdrawn. Israel has agreed to facilitate special exit permits.

...There are hundreds of other foreign fellowship winners still trapped in Gaza by the same Israeli policy that nearly blocked the Fulbright Seven. On Thursday, an Israeli official told The Times that the government would allow a very limited number of additional students to leave Gaza to study abroad. That is a clear step in the right direction, but not enough. Gaza is home to roughly 1.5 million Palestinians. Some 600 foreign scholarship winners have been barred from leaving.

The ban on student departures is part of the wider Israeli economic blockade imposed on the civilian population of Gaza in response to Hamas rule and a steady rain of rocket attacks. This also needs to be re-examined. Israel has a right and a duty to defend itself and to fight back against Hamas terrorism. But punishing students, and any other forms of collective punishment, will only sow more anger and hate." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/opinion/08sun3.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

By Daphna Golan, Haaretz
May 6, 2008

"....Why not talk with all our neighbors, Hamas, Fatah and Hezbollah, the presidents of Syria and Egypt and the Arab states, about releasing the abducted soldiers, about stopping the Qassam fire, about reconciliation?

Since 1967, Israel has imprisoned more than 700,000 Palestinians, about one-fifth of the Palestinian population. According to the last United Nations report, Israel is holding behind bars more than 11,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 118 women and 376 children, who are incarcerated - in violation of international law - outside the occupied territories. The Shin Bet decides which prisoners are to receive visits and which family members will be barred from entering Israel. ....

We could release first, as a goodwill gesture, some 800 "administrative" Palestinian prisoners, who have been jailed in Israel for months with no trial. These prisoners, who have not been charged and do not know why they are being jailed for months (sometimes years) with no trial, must be released as the first stage of releasing the political abductees and prisoners....... "  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/981037.html

By Henry Siegman, The Nation
(May 5, 2008 issue)

"....The scandal of the international community's impotence in resolving one of history's longest bloodlettings is that it knows what the problem is but does not have the courage to speak the truth, much less deal with it. The peace conference in Germany will suffer from the same gutlessness that has marked all previous efforts. It will deal with everything except the problem primarily responsible for the impasse. That problem is that for all the sins attributable to the Palestinians--and they are legion, including inept and corrupt leadership, failed institution-building and the murderous violence of rejectionist groups--there is no prospect for a viable, sovereign Palestinian state, primarily because Israel's various governments, from 1967 until today, have never had the intention of allowing such a state to come into being.

It would be one thing if Israeli governments had insisted on delaying a Palestinian state until certain security concerns had been dealt with. But no government serious about a two-state solution to the conflict would have pursued, without letup, the theft and fragmentation of Palestinian lands, which even a child understands makes Palestinian statehood impossible...."  http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080505/siegman 

By Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize winner and former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times.

Speech delivered on Thursday, May 22, 2008, at Princeton University

"....Israel was born at midnight May 14, 1948. The U.S. recognized the new state 11 minutes later. The two countries have been locked in a deadly embrace ever since.

Washington, at the beginning of the relationship, was able to be a moderating influence. An incensed President Eisenhower demanded and got Israel's withdrawal after the Israelis occupied Gaza in 1956. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes bombed the USS Liberty. The ship, flying the U.S. flag and stationed 15 miles off the Israeli coast, was intercepting tactical and strategic communications from both sides. The Israeli strikes killed 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 171. The deliberate attack froze, for a while, Washington's enthusiasm for Israel. But ruptures like this one proved to be only bumps, soon smoothed out by an increasingly sophisticated and well-financed Israel lobby that set out to merge Israeli and American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Israel has reaped tremendous rewards from this alliance. It has been given more than $140 billion in U.S. direct economic and military assistance. It receives about $3 billion in direct assistance annually, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. foreign aid budget. Although most American foreign aid packages stipulate that related military purchases have to be made in the United States, Israel is allowed to use about 25 percent of the money to subsidize its own growing and profitable defense industry. It is exempt, unlike other nations, from accounting for how it spends the aid money. And funds are routinely siphoned off to build new Jewish settlements, bolster the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and construct the security barrier, which costs an estimated $1 million a mile...."  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/02/2231/

By Naomi Chazan

In Middle East Times (Pan Arab), Opinion
May 19, 2008

"The "Performance-Based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" highlights both the good intentions and the misplaced conceptions of its promulgators. Five years after its adoption, it lingers not as a tool for the achievement of a sustainable agreement but as a burdensome impediment to its realization...."  http://serv01.siteground202.com/~atfp/news/article.php?id=289866261

IBRAHIM FAWAL, Birmingham News
Sunday, May 18, 2008

"The Birmingham Jewish Federation is hosting a 60th birthday party for Israel this weekend with a tour of Israeli cities, but there is an undeniable reality that the festivities will likely conceal. As Birmingham residents travel through these cities, they would do well to ask their hosts how many such cities were built on the ruins of Palestinian life.

Most Americans who support the state of Israel seem completely unaware of the fact that when Israel was established in 1948, more than 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes, with little more than the clothes on their backs. They were doctors, farmers, students and businessmen, who instantly became refugees. Israeli forces depopulated more than 450 Palestinian villages and urban centers. Most were demolished....."  http://www.al.com/birminghamnews/stories/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1211098539227460.xml&coll=2

REDA MANSOUR, Birmingham News
Sunday, May 18, 2008

"It took 2,000 years to dream of it, 60 years to plan it and 60 more to bring it to life. The modern state of Israel is celebrating its 60th anniversary with great pride in its achievements and with the knowledge that its story, like that of any other democratic society, remains unfinished. We Israelis live in a region filled with great instability and anxiety, but we will never give up our hope for peace......"  http://www.al.com/birminghamnews/stories/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1211098604227460.xml&coll=2

Bessy Reyna, The Hartford Courant
May 16, 2008

 "Early this month, I attended a panel dealing with the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It was organized by the group "We Refuse To Be Enemies," composed of Jews, Muslims and Christians. This group's main goal is the promotion of a peaceful and just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In light of Israel's 60th anniversary, and the lack of progress in resolving the conflict, this is an ever more urgent issue...."  http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-reyna0516.artmay16,0,3405837.column

Nasser Barghouti & Bassemah Darwish, The San Diego Union-Tribune
May 8, 2008

"Nearly 30 years since she had seen her Northern Galilee home in what she called "48 Palestine," Rasmiya Barghouti was finally given a permit by the Israeli military authorities to visit. She decided to take two of her daughters and four of her grandchildren with her.

It took less than three hours to reach Safad, renamed Tsvat by Israel after 1948. The van stopped in front of the white stone home that held her childhood memories. She proceeded to the familiar metal door, where she knocked....."  http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080507/news_lz1e7darwish.html

By Marc Gopin

In Middle East Times (Pan Arab), Opinion

May 16, 2008

"There are Israeli Jews who have been talking to Hamas for years, especially Rabbi Menahem Frohman. In fact, even more Israeli Jews – official and unofficial – would be talking not only to Hamas, but also to Syria and Iran were the White House not pressuring them against dialogue with enemies of Israel. This is unprecedented: a third party, supposedly mediating for peace, that forbids two parties from talking to each other.

Sober intelligence analysts at the highest levels in Israel have been arguing the virtue of negotiation and a process of offers and counter-offers – not because they are nonviolence activists, but because they are realists seeking the path of least resistance to a more stable and safe Middle East. They have every intention of confronting the military threat from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, but through a subtle combination of approaches, not the least of which is negotiation. They understand very well that an offer to an inveterate enemy that does not recognize your existence is not a capitulation, but rather a test. It is a test that will put constructive pressure on radicals to come to the table, or split among themselves. All good news for realists.

There are also religious Israeli Jews who have honed their negotiation skills with Hamas over many years now. Rabbi Frohman, along with Khaled Amayreh, a Hebron journalist close to Hamas, have come up with a ceasefire that is realistic, but also appealing to the religious frame in which Hamas exclusively operates. This was not an official document, but it has been followed by important statements released by Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria, regarding interest in an agreement between Hamas and Israel to not target civilians, which would mean an end to suicide attacks. In addition, Meshaal has come out with a statement that appears to accept Israel's existence within the 1967 borders, which appears to meet a major criterion for Western acceptance of Hamas....." http://serv01.siteground202.com/~atfp/news/article.php?id=1516826214

by Malcolm Fraser, former prime minister of Australia

The Age

10 May 2008

"TWO months ago, the Australian Parliament passed a resolution celebrating Israel's first 60 years. Until recently, Australia had preserved a balance in Middle East policy that asserted Israel's right to survival and security, but also the right of the Palestinian people to their own state. Under the previous government, in lock-step with the US, our policies veered to a more one-sided support for Israel. The vision of a Palestinian state seemed to slip from view.

US President George Bush claims that it is possible for Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate the establishment of a

Palestinian state before the end of this year. That ignores the realities of the current situation, which Bush has done a good deal to exacerbate.

It is a fact that Israel has persistently established more and more settlements on the West Bank and that it has ignored the US and the UN

Security Council, which have continuously branded these settlements, together with settlements in East Jerusalem, as illegal. However, the US has not exerted real pressure to stop them and the process continues. Through most of my life I have believed that Israel was a beacon of hope. But somewhere Israel's leadership lost its way...."  http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/balanced-policy-the-only-way-to-peace/2008/05/09/1210131260171.html

Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly
May 9, 2008

"With the US and Israel telling Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas that keeping away from Hamas is a sine qua non for the continuation of the "peace process," many in Fatah are now realising that Israel and its US guardian-ally are only utilising Palestinian national disunity to further weaken the Palestinian negotiating position.

Observers in the occupied Palestinian territories cite a number of recent signs indicating that a certain thaw in the Hamas-Fatah showdown is taking place...."  www.imeu.net/news/article008685.shtml

By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Daily, Israel
May 11, 2008

"If George Bush were a true friend of Israel, he would seize the investigation against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as an excuse to stay home tomorrow. Unless he has a rabbit in his hat, this will be the third time in the past half year that the U.S. president shows the Palestinians and the entire Arab world that they are wasting their time by trying to end the occupation by peaceful means. Not only have matters not improved since he troubled dozens of leaders from around the world to come to Annapolis in late November, 2007; since then, the occupation has been progressing, while the vision of two states has been receding. The number of new buildings erected in the settlements in the last few months rivals only the number of roadblocks that have been added since Bush last visited Jerusalem, in January.

Bush is an accomplice to an offense far worse than all of the criminal offenses of which Olmert is suspected combined. Every speech made by the president is one more bit of exposure of the nakedness of the Palestinian circles who tied their collective fate to the Annapolis declaration, which pledged to "make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008." In light of the stasis in the negotiations, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) seems likely to resign even before Olmert does. The failed gamble of the United States also undermines the standing of leaders in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan......

If Bush cared about Israel remaining a Jewish country, he would not have let Abbas leave the White House last month bruised and battered. The Palestinian president told him that when the Palestinian delegates to the talks saw the Israeli positions, they thought Olmert and Tzipi Livni were playing a joke on them. In addition to all of the "settlement clusters," including, of course, the territorial "fingers" of Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumin and Givat Ze'ev, the Israelis demanded to remain in control of the entire Jordan Valley, almost to the outskirts of Nablus, while leaving intact all of the Jewish settlements in that area - all in all, some 600 square kilometers, amounting to about 10 percent of the territories. Israel also demanded that all of Jerusalem,

including the Holy Basin surrounding the Old City and the Old City itself, would remain under Israeli sovereignty; Palestine would be given control only over the Temple Mount, which is held by the Muslim Waqf authorities in any case; not a single refugee would be allowed back under a Palestinian right of return, and Israel would not acknowledge any responsibility for the fate of the 1948 refugees...." http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/982402.html

By Ben White, Christian Science Monitor

"As Israel celebrates 60 years of statehood this month, Palestinians are taking the opportunity to remember the catastrophic shattering of their society in 1948. It is not simply a question of recalling the past; they continue to struggle for self-determination and to have their

rights recognized under international law."  http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0502/p09s01-coop.html

How did a Jewish state founded 60 years ago end up throwing filth at cowering Palestinians?

Johann Hari, The Independent
Monday, 28 April 2008

 "Across the occupied West Bank, raw untreated sewage is pumped every day out of the Jewish settlements, along large metal pipes, straight onto Palestinian land. From there, it can enter the groundwater and the reservoirs, and become a poison....only six per cent of Israeli settlements adequately treat their sewage.

Meanwhile, in order to punish the population of Gaza for voting "the wrong way", the Israeli army are not allowing past the checkpoints any replacements for the pipes and cement needed to keep the sewage system working. The result? Vast stagnant pools of waste are being held within fragile dykes across the strip, and rotting. Last March, one of them burst, drowning a nine-month-old baby and his elderly grandmother in a tsunami of human waste. The Centre on Housing Rights warns that one heavy rainfall could send 1.5m cubic metres of faeces flowing all over Gaza, causing "a humanitarian and environmental disaster of epic proportions".

This weekend, the elected Hamas government offered a six-month truce that could have led to talks. The Israeli government responded within hours by blowing up a senior Hamas leader and killing a 14-year-old girl."  http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-israel-is-suppressing-a-secret-it-must-face-816661.html

Israel says it doesn’t mean to kill Palestinian children, yet they keep on dying

We're not celebrating Israel's anniversary

Deep regret would suffice

Should the U.S. End Aid to Israel?
Funding Our Decline

The Gaza Bombshell
by David Rose
April 2008

The Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering That Candidates and Congress Ignore

The Gaza Strip blockade could seriously harm Israel's economy
By Meron Rapoport, Haaretz Correspondent
February 10, 2008

Open the Rafah crossing
By Haaretz Editorial
08/02/2008

 "Following a brief and sporadic hiatus, the cycle of violence recently resumed on both sides in the Gaza Strip. During the past three days, Israel killed at least 16 Palestinians, and heavy barrages of rockets slammed into Sderot and other communities bordering Gaza in response to Israel's retaliation for the suicide bombing in Dimona. The Israel Defense Forces used ground and air forces in the northern and southern Gaza Strip.

Politics Of Illusions
By Alon Ben-meir

The strangulation of Gaza
Saree Makdisi, The Nation
Feb 2, 2008

People power in Gaza

It's Not About Iran
By Shibley Telhami

Bush Peace Hallucinations Continue

Ungenerous Occupier: Israel's Camp David Exposed
January 05, 2008

The occupied Palestinian territories: Dignity Denied
International Committee of the Red Cross

Our violent presence
By Amira Hass in Ha'aretz
January 3, 2008

"......The presence of every Israeli in the West Bank is based on a regime of privilege that developed out of that primary act of occupation. We have the privilege of hiking in Palestinian areas to our heart's content, of buying subsidized housing for Jews only on the lands of Bethlehem, of raising cherries and grapes in the wadis of Hebron, of quarrying on the mountain slopes, of driving on roads whose land was expropriated from the indigenous inhabitants for public use. 

.... The regime of travel permits that has been in place since 1991 deprives all Palestinians of the right to freedom of movement in Israel while the system of roadblocks limits their movement in their own territories...." http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/941159.html

US Must Re-evaluate its Relationship with Israel
By Scott Ritter

What's the hurry?
By Aluf Benn (Jerusalem) & Shmuel Rosner (Washington)

Meanwhile, in the West Bank
Gideon Levy, Haaretz
Dec 25, 2007

So what have we done to them?
By Nehemia Shtrasler, Ha'aretz
December 20, 2007

Another Peace Scare. Boy, That Was Close.

Ahmadinejad Has Screwed Us Again! How They Stole the Bomb From Us
By URI AVNERY
December 10, 2007

Problem and Hope

The Devastation Our Disunity Has Created

Palestinian Civilians As Political Currency

Will peace cost me my home?
Any Mideast pact must give Palestinians the right to return home.
By Ghada Ageel
December 1, 2007

When the Roadmap is a One Way Street:
Israel's Strategy for Permanent Occupation
By JEFF HALPER
November 28, 2007

"One may well think that the struggle inside the Jewish community of Israel is between those of the political right, who want to maintain the settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank so as to "redeem" the Greater Land of Israel as a Jewish country, and those of the left who seek a two-state solution with the Palestinians and are thus willing to relinquish enough of the "territories", if not all, in order that a viable Palestinian state may emerge.

This is not really the case....The vast majority of Israeli Jews, stretching from the liberal Meretz party through Labour, Kadima and into the "liberal" wing of the Likud, excepting only the religious parties and the extreme right-wing led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the current minister of strategic affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, share a broad consensus: for both security reasons and because of Israel's "facts on the ground", the Arabs (as we [Israelis] call the Palestinians) will have to settle for a truncated mini-state on no more than 15-20 per cent of the country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River...."  http://www.counterpunch.com/halper11272007.html

A Halt, Not a Suspension
by Haaretz Editorial

".....In April 2004 the government promised the Americans that there would be no more construction "beyond the outside line" of each settlement. That outside line has never been set. Annapolis will not lead Israel to any solution with the Palestinians unless Israel stops cheating and learns to restrain its expansion eastward."  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/929727.html

Demands of a Thief

Still a Democracy?
By Shulamit Aloni
In Haaretz (Israel)
November 15, 2007

Who wants a Jewish state
By Haaretz Editorial

"....It is easy to speak about a Jewish state, but difficult to find the political courage required to do what it takes: Settlements scattered in the heart of the Palestinian population make it impossible to separate between Israel and Palestine along a plausible and viable border. With each passing day and each passing year, every settlement expansion, every outpost and every road built to reach it disrupt the chance to separate the two nations..."  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/924238.html

"Here's a safe prediction in advance of the Annapolis peace conference scheduled to take place in a few weeks: The Palestinians won't be ready to fulfill their obligation to provide security in the West Bank under the "road map to peace." The Palestinian Authority simply doesn't have the people, the training or the equipment to maintain order in the territories.

Why is this so? The answer, in part, is that the Palestinians haven't built up their security forces because the Israelis haven't permitted them to do so. And they haven't trained or equipped these forces, as envisaged under the road map, because the United States has failed to provide the necessary funds...."  http://serv01.siteground202.com/~atfp/news/article.php?id=266273990

Annapolis at the Crossroads
By George S. Hishmeh

Sick but dangerous
by Danny Filk
chairman of Physicians for Human Rights

Decision to exert pressure on Hamas by denying entry to sick Palestinians immoral, inhumane

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3470830,00.html

Acting Out of Frustration in Gaza
In Haaretz (Israel)
October 30, 2007

Hamas arguably met the Quartet's conditions, albeit indirectly, by ceasing suicide attacks, participating in PA elections, agreeing to review existing agreements, and signaling its willingness to negotiate with Israel to end its occupation. However, the Quartet failed to adjust its policy in return. It continued to boycott Hamas even after the Hamas-Fatah national-unity government was formed earlier this year, and the US covertly sought to strengthen Fatah financially and militarily. This approach culminated last month in violent clashes and Hamas' takeover of Gaza...." www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=84110