Opinions on Israel & Palestine
Rethinking the costs of peace
Josh Ruebner, the Detroit Free Press, May 22, 2009
This article was originally published by the The Detroit Free Press and was republished with permission by the Institute for Middle East Understanding.
Obama declared that "there will be no sacred cows and no pet projects. All across America, families are making hard choices, and it's time their government did the same."
By asking earlier this month for $2.775 billion in military aid to Israel in his FY2010 budget request, it would seem that on this important policy issue President Obama's commitment is more rhetorical than substantive. Since 1949, according to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has provided to Israel more than $100 billion in military and economic assistance. In 2007, the United States and Israel signed an agreement for $30 billion in additional military aid through FY2018.
Yet the provision of U.S. weapons to Israel at taxpayer expense has done nothing to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer to achieving a just and lasting peace. Rather, these weapons have had the exact opposite effect, as documented recently by Amnesty International, which pointed to U.S. weapons as a prime factor "fueling" the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
http://imeu.net/news/article0016508.shtml
Zero tolerance now
By Lara Friedman and Hagit Ofran
Haaretz, February 27, 2009
"Media reports that Israel has approved the massive expansion of the West Bank settlement of Efrat represent the first lesson for the Obama administration as to why it must establish a policy of zero tolerance for settlement expansion before it is too late...."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1067348.html
The real Israel-Palestine story is in the West Bank
By Ben White
the Guardian
Friday 20 February 2009,
Israel's targeting of civilian resistance to the separation wall proves the two-state solution is now just a meaningless slogan
It is quite likely that you have not heard of the most important developments this week in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the West Bank, while it has been "occupation as normal", there have been some events that together should be overshadowing Gaza, Gilad Shalit and Avigdor Lieberman.
First, there have been a large number of Israeli raids on Palestinian villages, with dozens of Palestinians abducted. These kinds of raids are, of course, commonplace for the occupied West Bank, but in recent days it appears the Israeli military has targeted sites of particularly strong Palestinian civil resistance to the separation wall.
For three consecutive days this week, Israeli forces invaded Jayyous, a village battling for survival as their agricultural land is lost to the wall and neighbouring Jewish colony. The soldiers occupied homes, detained residents, blocked off access roads, vandalised property, beat protestors, and raised the Israeli flag at the top of several buildings.
Jayyous is one of the Palestinian villages in the West Bank that has been non-violently resisting the separation wall for several years now. It was clear to the villagers that this latest assault was an attempt to intimidate the protest movement...".
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m52015&hd=&size=1&l=e
Conditioning US aid to Israel
by Robert Naiman
Maan News
February 18, 2009
It is well-known outside the United States that a key obstacle, if not the key obstacle, to Israeli-Palestinian peace is the relationship between Israel and the United States.
To say that the U.S. "supports Israel" severely misstates the problem; the key problem is the perception and the reality that the US almost unfailingly protects the Israeli government from the negative consequences of anti-Palestinian policies, such as the recent military assault on Gaza, so that while rhetorically the US is committed to peace, in practice the incentives that have been created and maintained by US policy have had the effect of constantly pushing the Israeli government toward more confrontation with the Palestinians, rather than toward accommodation.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=35866
'Israel must change "counterproductive" Gaza policies'
By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Banning lentils and pasta from Gaza does not help the cause of peace, two visiting congressmen told The Jerusalem Post on Friday morning, after making a rare visit to Gaza the previous day.
US Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., left and US Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., right, take photos of the rubble of the American International school in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, Thursday.
"When have lentil bombs been going off lately? Is someone going to kill you with a piece of macaroni?" asked Rep. Brian Baird (D-Washington).
He and Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) called on Israel to end the economic isolation of Gaza and to open the crossings into the area, which have been closed since Hamas's coup there in June 2007.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304841488&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Kurtzer: Netanyahu-Lieberman is 'bad combination' for U.S.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
Haaretz Correspondent
February 18, 2009
"The former envoy added that the Obama administration would find it politically risky to embrace a government that included Lieberman, who has voiced controversial views about Arabs.
"There will be an image problem for an American administration to support a government that includes a politician who was defined as racist," Kurtzer said during an appearance at Georgetown University. "But the Israeli system doesn't respond well to perceptions of outside parties," he said.
Kurtzer, who was speaking at an event examining the U.S. perspective on the Gaza conflict, said the peace process will be on hold as Israel spends the next five weeks attempting to cobble together a stable coalition...."
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1064912.html
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."
ANALYSIS / Fatah fears Shalit deal will bring down Abbas
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent
February 9, 2009
Concerned voices have been heard in the Muqata in Ramallah over the past few days: Senior Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials are speaking openly of the end of an era if an agreement to free abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit is reached.
Palestinian officials say a Shalit deal would bring about early elections in the territories, and Hamas would win again - but this time it would win the Palestinian presidential election, too. Israel would then be forced to deal with a Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they say.
The latest poll from the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre conducted in the territories shows the recent war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip afforded the Islamic organization unprecedented popularity.
ANALYSIS / Hamas rift holding up approval of Gilad Shalit deal
By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff
"Anyone who has been burned repeatedly in the past needs to be extra careful, but over the weekend it seemed that for the first time some optimism was justified. A genuine opportunity is out there, not only for a long-term cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, but also, according to a variety of sources linked to the talks, for a deal to free captured soldier Gilad Shalit.
The main obstacle to what sources have described as a "negotiated formula" remains Khaled Meshal and the Hamas politburo in Damascus.....
There has been growing tension between Hamas' domestic leaders and those abroad. The former have felt that they have been pushed by the group's Damascus leadership to confront Israel, with the people of Gaza paying the price. The local leadership is now asking to take control of the group...."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1062322.html
Kahane won
By Gideon Levy , Ha'aretz
February 8, 2009
"...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...."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1062338.html
Israeli vote could hamper peace process
Gulf News
February 07, 2009
The rise of the far-right leader Lieberman is sure to reflect on the new government
The Israeli elections are taking a nasty turn into even more vicious racism than usual, with leaders of almost all political parties vying to be seen as more anti-Arab than the other. The defining feature of the savage war in Gaza was about individual leaders in the failing coalition in Israel trying to look tough against their opponents.
Ehud Barak is the leader of the Labour Party and the present defence minister but is not doing well in the polls, whereas Tzipi Livni, the leader of the Kadima Party and the foreign minister, has staged a fightback in the last few days. The leader in the elections is Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud Party, who has gathered a lot of support. But it may well be that the next prime minister of Israel will be decided by outsider Avigdor Lieberman, who is the leader of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, which could win more votes than Labour.
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/editorial_opinion/region/10283122.html
Palestinians need to adopt a united stand
Gulf News
February 03, 2009
"The inability of the Palestinians to come up with a united stand to address the fallout of the Israeli war on Gaza demonstrates the urgent need for the Palestinians and the Arabs to unite in action and bring about an end to the decades-old Israeli oppression of the Palestinians...."
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/editorial_opinion/region/10281757.html
Life in Gaza is not 'back to normal'
By Amira Hass
February 3, 2009
"GAZA - "Only aerial photographs of the Gaza Strip will make it possible to show and to comprehend the extent of the destruction," a number of Western civilians said this week. They added: "But there isn't a chance that Israel will allow anyone to come with a light plane and do aerial photography."
The talk of aerial photography reveals the frustration felt by everyone who has managed to come here. The frustration derives from the conclusion that the real dimensions of the Israeli attack on Gaza are not being fully comprehended in the West and in Israel. They go beyond the physical destruction, beyond the numbers of the dead and the wounded.......
... The unending horror, for three weeks, the worry, the impotence, the thoughts that never leave about the relative who has bled to death, a meter or a kilometer away. In Gaza today, as students are returning to school and cars are again driving along the roads, the commonplace "life is slowly going back to normal" is more hollow and false than ever. "
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1060390.html
'Want loyalty from Arabs? Bridge gaps'
Jerusalem Post
February 3, 2009
"Loyalty can only be expected from citizens if the State returns such loyalty, Science, Culture and Sport Minister Ghaleb Majadle said Tuesday. Speaking at the Herzliya Conference at IDC, Majadle said, "Anyone who wants loyalty from Israeli-Arabs must first ensure that the State is loyal to them, by closing the gaps."
The minister was speaking in response to the Israel Beiteinu election campaign which says only those loyal to Israel should be granted citizenship. Majadle added, "I hope we will return to being a moderate society, and that the demagogues don't succeed in bringing us to state of despair." He said that the "vast majority" of Israelis were "sane and pragmatic."
He warned that the county would be in danger if "gaps in Israeli society" were not bridged...."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304674400&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
America's election message
By Haaretz Editorial
Israeli voters must know that the Obama government will be intolerant of construction in the settlements, as well as measures that hurt the Palestinians, such as closures and checkpoints. It will make every effort to bring about a two-state solution. Anyone for whom Israel's relations with the United States is important must vote for parties that support a peace agreement with the Palestinians, out of the recognition that the right-wing parties that support settlement expansion jeopardize Israel's international standing as well as its security, both of which are dependent on American support.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1059437.html
Gaza Is a Concentration Camp
By Ellen Cantarow, AlterNet
Posted January 16, 2009.
"Gaza is an immense concentration camp -- 1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth. The 2005 "pull-out" left Gaza still controlled by Israel from air and sea, its entries and exits prisonlike mazes electronically controlled and under constant surveillance. Bombing it, assaulting it with tanks and Uzis, is like shooting animals in a pen. The claptrap about "pinpoint" accuracy and "avoiding civilians" is a lie so flagrant, so transparent, that any child -- certainly any Gaza child -- could grasp it."
http://www.alternet.org/audits/120197/?page=entire
Israel's Lies
by Henry Siegman
(Siegman is former national director of the American Jewish Congress and of the Synagogue Council of America)
January 29, 2009 - London Review of Books
"Western governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas's capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network.......
Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. This was confirmed not only by every neutral international observer and NGO on the scene but by Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, a former commander of the IDF's Gaza Division. In an interview in Ha'aretzon 22 December, he accused Israel's government of having made a 'central error' during the tahdiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce, by failing 'to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip . . ."
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n02/sieg01_.html
Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz
January 26, 2009
".... We have gained nothing in this war save hundreds of graves, some of them very small, thousands of maimed people, much destruction and the besmirching of Israel's image.....
Israel's actions have dealt a serious blow to public support for the state. While this does not always translate itself into an immediate diplomatic situation, the shockwaves will arrive one day. The whole world saw the images. They shocked every human being who saw them, even if they left most Israelis cold.
The conclusion is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law. The investigations are on their way..."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1057670.html
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
Israel should have embraced UN's Gaza truce proposal
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent
January 11, 2009
"The cries of disappointment sounding from the offices of the prime minister, the foreign minister and the defense ministry in Tel Aviv are unjustified. But even worse is the government's decision to reject the UN cease-fire proposal and press on with the 15-day-old offensive in the Gaza Strip...."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054267.html
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
by Avi Shlaim
The Guardian
January 7, 2009
"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
Commentary: Let journalists into Gaza
by Campbell Brown, CNN, December 6, 2009
"....The reason we have no reporters on the ground in Gaza is because Israel will not allow foreign journalists into Gaza. Tuesday night, we call for Israel to open the borders to allow journalists in, to allow them to do their jobs, to witness first-hand what is happening on the ground...."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/06/campbell.brown.gaza/index.html
If you (or I) were Palestinian
By Yossi Sarid, January 2, 2009
Tags: Hamas, Israel News, Gaza, IDF
This week I spoke with my students about the Gaza war, in the context of a class on national security. One student, who had expressed rather conservative, accepted opinions - that is opinions tending slightly to the right - succeeded in surprising me. Without any provocation on my part, he opened his heart and confessed: "If I were a young Palestinian," he said, "I'd fight the Jews fiercely, even by means of terror. Anyone who says anything different is telling you lies."
His remarks sounded familiar - I had already heard them before. Suddenly I remembered: About 10 years ago they were uttered by our defense minister, Ehud Barak. Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy had asked him then, as a candidate for prime minister, what he would do had he been born Palestinian and Barak replied frankly: "I would join a terror organization."
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052057.html
Israel, news media fail to speak the truth
by Joel Finkel, Chicago Tribune
December 31, 2008
Israel has returned to the old-fashioned way of murdering Palestinians: by military assault. It seems that starving them, denying them medicine and electricity, and enclosing them in the largest outdoor prison in the world is insufficient.
And what is Israel's message to the world? Palestinians are to blame. After all, Palestinians are always to blame.
Neither Israel nor the news media will speak the truth. Israel is murdering the indigenous population (and its children) who were forcibly expelled from their homes in the wave of ethnic cleansing that was necessary to establish a "Jewish state" in the overwhelmingly non-Jewish Palestine. Neither Israel nor the media will face the simple fact that Israel has been violating international law (not to mention simple moral decency) since 1948.
In that year, 60 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (authored by a Jew, René Cassin) was adopted by the nations of the world. It guaranteed the right of all refugees to return to their homes. No exception was made for Palestinians; they too have this right.
Israel has chosen to bury this declaration among the rubble of Gaza. Meanwhile, they, and the news media, continue to blame the victims.
--Joel Finkel
Member, American Jews for a Just Peace, Chicago
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/chi-081231finkel_briefs,0,2964386.story
ANALYSIS / Hamas is racking up its first diplomatic victory
By Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz Correspondent
31/12/2008
"President Hosni Mubarak could not keep silent any longer about the attack on Egypt in the press. His decision to explicitly state Egypt's position that the West Bank and Gaza are part of the same country, and that the Rafah crossing will open only under the conditions of the 2005 agreement (to which Egypt is not a signatory), is part of the public diplomacy Mubarak has been dragged into against his will.
Mubarak would have preferred for Hamas to appeal to him directly for a cease-fire, which Egypt would negotiate with Israel. But Hamas, like Hezbollah, chose a different and probably more effective path..."
The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling
Johann Hari, The Independent
29 December 2008
The world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-true-story-behind-this-war-is-not-the-one-israel-is-telling-1214981.html
Statement from head of UN General Assembly:
H.E. Mr. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann is President of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly.
On Gaza airstrikes
UN Headquarters , New York
27 December 2008
The behavior by Israel in bombarding Gaza is simply the commission of wanton aggression by a very powerful state against a territory that illegally occupies.
Time has come to take firm action if the United Nations does not want to be rightly accused of complicity by omission.
The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.
Those violations include:
Collective punishment - the entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.
Targeting civilians - the airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.
Disproportionate military response - the airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.
I remind all member states of the United Nations that the UN continues to be bound to an independent obligation to protect any civilian population facing massive violations of international humanitarian law - regardless of what country may be responsible for those violations. I call on all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move expeditiously not only to condemn Israel's serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.
If Gaza falls . . .
by Sara Roy, Jewish American Harvard professor and granddaughter of Holocaust Survivors
London Review of Books
January 1, 2009
"Israel's siege of Gaza began on 5 November, the day after an Israeli attack inside the strip, no doubt designed finally to undermine the truce between Israel and Hamas established last June. Although both sides had violated the agreement before, this incursion was on a different scale. Hamas responded by firing rockets into Israel and the violence has not abated since then. Israel s siege has two fundamental goals. One is to ensure that the Palestinians there are seen merely as a humanitarian problem, beggars who have no political identity and therefore can have no political claims. The second is to foist Gaza onto Egypt. That is why the Israelis tolerate the hundreds of tunnels between Gaza and Egypt around which an informal but increasingly regulated commercial sector has begun to form. The overwhelming majority of Gazans are impoverished and officially 49.1 per cent are unemployed. In fact the prospect of steady employment is rapidly disappearing for the majority of the population....."
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n01/roy_01_.html
'Gaza strike is not against Hamas, it's against all Palestinians'
By Amira Hass, Haaretz
December 29, 2008
"At 3:19 P.M. Sunday, the sound of an incoming missile could be heard over the telephone. And then another, along with the children's cries of fear. In Gaza City's Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, high-rise apartment buildings are crowded close together, with dozens of children in every building, hundreds in every block....
Hassan worked as a clerk at the local university and played in the police band for fun. He was performing at a police graduation ceremony on Saturday when the bomb struck.
"Seventy policemen were killed there, not all Hamas members," said S., who opposes Hamas. "And even those who supported Hamas were young men looking for a job, a salary. They wanted to live. And therefore, they died. Seventy in one blow. This assault is not against Hamas. It's against all of us, the entire nation. And no Palestinian will consent to having his people and his homeland destroyed in this way." "
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050688.html
Trying to 'teach Hamas a lesson' is fundamentally wrong
By Tom Segev
Haaretz , December 29, 2008
"Channel 1 television broadcast an interesting mix on Saturday morning: Its correspondents reported from Sderot and Ashkelon, but the pictures on the screen were from the Gaza Strip. Thus the broadcast, albeit unintentionally, sent the right message: A child in Sderot is the same as a child in Gaza, and anyone who harms either is evil.
But the assault on Gaza does not first and foremost demand moral condemnation - it demands a few historical reminders. Both the justification given for it and the chosen targets are a replay of the same basic assumptions that have proven wrong time after time. Yet Israel still pulls them out of its hat again and again, in one war after another...."
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050706.html
The War in Gaza: A Vicious Folly of a Bankrupt Government
by Uri Avnery, former Knesset Member and leader of Israeli peace group Gush Shalom
Maan News Agency
December 27, 2008
".......The escalation towards war could and should have been avoided. It was the State of Israel which broke the truce, in the 'ticking tunnel' raid on the night of the US elections two months ago. Since then the army went on stoking the fires of escalation with calculated raids and killings, whenever the shooting of missiles on Israel decreased.
The cycle of bloodshed could and should be broken. The ceasefire can be restored immediately, and on firmer foundations. It is the right of Israel to demand a complete end to shooting on its territory and citizens – but it must stop all attacks from its side, end completely the siege and starvation of Gaza's million and half inhabitants, and stop interfering with the Palestinians' right to choose their own leaders.
Ehud Barak's declaration that he is stopping the elections campaign in order to concentrate on the Gaza offensive is a joke. The war in Gaza is itself Barak's elections campaign, a cynical attempt to buy votes with the blood and suffering in Netivot and Sderot, Gaza and Beit Hanun....."
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=34273
Israel's merry band of Klansmen, the extreme right
By Benjamin L. Hartman
Ha'aretz, December 15, 2008
"The extreme right's instigator-in-chief, Itamar Ben-Gvir, told Haaretz this week that the decision to cancel a march planned to take place in Umm al-Fahm, Israel's second largest Arab city, was a violation of freedom of speech.
Marches of this sort are incendiary and pointless, but the worst of all, and the ones that most resemble the attempted Umm al-Fahm march, are the repeated attempts by the KKK to march through Skokie, Illinois, a suburb of Illinois that not coincidentally houses a sizable community of Holocaust survivors.
In such a case, the desire to march has nothing to do with protest, or the protection of individual rights, but is rather a cynical attempt to publicly denigrate and offend the sensitivities of an entire community......"
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1046765.html
I am ashamed
By Hadassa Ben-Itto
Editor's note: This is an important article by a courageous retired judge who is honorary president of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.
".....I have watched on television as young Jews in Hebron assaulted their neighbors, including defenseless families - vandalizing property, destroying, burning and defacing sites holy to others. And my words in Bern are ringing in my ears. I told myself: I, too, am keeping silent. And I was ashamed.
Therefore, I am breaking my silence. Because I believe that the individual is also obligated to make his voice heard - his personal voice, not a political voice - in order to warn against atrocity.....
I am ashamed of my silence. I saw the uprooting of olive trees, the overturning of market stalls, the attacks on property, and sometimes on innocent people, and I kept silent. I heard the words of incitement, I identified the messages and I was ashamed, but I kept silent...." www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1046520.html
Israeli blockade of Gaza amounts to occupation
Darlene Wallach
San Jose Mercury News
Dec 15, 2008
"On Nov. 18, the Israeli military kidnapped me - a Jewish American leaving behind the comforts of San Jose - and 17 others from three Palestinian fishing vessels plying Gaza's coastal waters. Two other international human rights workers and I were accompanying 15 Palestinian fishermen to provide witness to and documentation of the frequent harassment and attacks by the Israeli navy. Our seizure belies Israel's claim that it no longer occupies Gaza and its 1.5 million people.
Israel's military occupation of Gaza did not end with the withdrawal of its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005. Israel still controls access of people and goods into and out of the Strip. It controls Gaza's airspace, borders and, as my capture attests, territorial waters.
Last year, Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, hoping to turn Gazans against Hamas. In early November, it tightened the blockade and is denying an entire population access to trucks laden with humanitarian provisions, food and gas...."
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11228083
Action, not words
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
Video / Prof. Avi Shlaim: Settlements turned Israel into apartheid state
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
Dividing Jerusalem, one wall at a time
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
Fifteen Palestinian fishermen still being held by Israeli authorities, three internationals fighting deportation with at least one engaging in a hunger-strike
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."....'
Stop beating the drums of war
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
The fence, revisited
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
Involve the Arabs
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
Spotlight on the lesser evil
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
Provocateurs vs. defeatists
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
Tough Love for Israel?
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
An agenda for a friend of Israel
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
'Worse than apartheid'
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
Too easy on settler crime
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
When You Shoot the Messenger
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
Israel's split psyche
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
Israeli building seen as threat to peace
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
Putting an end to Israeli apartheid
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
Rays of hope from the Gaza ceasefire
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).
The Lesson of the Fulbright Seven
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
From darkness into light
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
Tough Love for Israel
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
It`s Time for a Declaration of Independence From Israel
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/
The Roadmap Revisited
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
Celebrate those who work for equality
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
Peace will be Israel's greatest achievement
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
Palestinian Suffering Dampens Israel Celebration
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
Remembering the Palestinian Nakba
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
Israelis Are Talking To Hamas
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
Balanced policy the only way to peace
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
Signs of rapprochement
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
Bush should stay home
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
In praise of Palestinian steadfastness
Despite 60 years of hardship, real achievement,
too.
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
Israel is suppressing a secret it must face
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."
We didn't mean to kill them
Israel says it doesn't mean to kill Palestinian children, yet they keep on dying
B. Michael
May 4, 2008
"We really didn't mean to do it. Again we didn't mean to do it. We have never meant to do it. Yet as usual, even though we didn't mean it – we hit them. We hit them 1,000 times already without meaning to do it. We have killed a total of 1,000 Palestinian children since the second Intifada broke out on September 29, 2000. A thousand."
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3539098,00.html
We're not celebrating Israel's anniversary
The Guardian
April 30, 2008
In May, Jewish organisations will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. This is understandable in the context of centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, we are Jews who will not be celebrating. Surely it is now time to acknowledge the narrative of the other, the price paid by another people for European anti-semitism and Hitler's genocidal policies. As Edward Said emphasised, what the Holocaust is to the Jews, the Naqba is to the Palestinians.
In April 1948, the same month as the infamous massacre at Deir Yassin and the mortar attack on Palestinian civilians in Haifa's market square, Plan Dalet was put into operation. This authorised the destruction of Palestinian villages and the expulsion of the indigenous population outside the borders of the state. We will not be celebrating.
In July 1948, 70,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in Lydda and Ramleh in the heat of the summer with no food or water. Hundreds died. It was known as the Death March. We will not be celebrating.
In all, 750,000 Palestinians became refugees. Some 400 villages were wiped off the map. That did not end the ethnic cleansing. Thousands of Palestinians (Israeli citizens) were expelled from the Galilee in 1956. Many thousands more when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Under international law and sanctioned by UN resolution 194, refugees from war have a right to return or compensation. Israel has never accepted that right. We will not be celebrating.
We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land. We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state that even now engages in ethnic cleansing, that violates international law, that is inflicting a monstrous collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza and that continues to deny to Palestinians their human rights and national aspirations.
We will celebrate when Arab and Jew live as equals in a peaceful Middle East.
Signed by 120 Israeli Jews http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/30/israelandthepalestinians
Deep regret would suffice
By Uzi Benziman
April 30, 2008
"On April 17, 1996, during the Grapes of Wrath campaign, Israel Defense Forces artillery fired a number of shells at the Lebanese village of Kanna. One hundred and two Lebanese villagers were killed in the attack. ....The tragic attack, two days ago, on the Abu Muatak family in Beit Hanoun shows that the IDF has not learned a thing but has forgotten a great deal....
The IDF's first reaction concerning the killing of the mother and her four children was one of denial of any involvement in the tragedy. Southern Command sources fed alternative information to radio broadcasters ....
This pattern of response - to cast doubt about the very information that arrives from Palestinian sources about the circumstances of the killing, to avoid accepting responsibility for an unfortunate event, to produce a version that describes the chain of developments in such a way as to place the source of the tragedy on the enemy, and to create a demonic image of the adversary as someone who is capable of purposely causing bloodshed among his own people so as to achieve diplomatic gain, or as someone who does not hesitate to stage a horrifying arena of death so as to besmirch Israel's name, repeats itself every time tragedies of this nature occur."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/979146.html
Our Defense Forces, our war crimes, our terrorism
By Bradley Burston
Haaretz Daily News
April 28, 2008
".....It is time for us to stop "understanding" why so many we kill so many Palestinian civilians. It is time for us to stop explaining away the deaths we excuse as the unfortunate and incidental by-product of a terrible war.
If it had been only an isolated incident, a tragic aberration, I would have kept my peace, said nothing, just moved on.
But the same crime, the same - let's call it by its real name - atrocity, has been committed time and again, under the same circumstances, for the same reasons, with the same indefensible result......
No more. Let soldiers and, especially, their commanders, know that there must be intensive, impartial investigations and severe consequences for the killings of Palestinian civilians.
No more. Let the Israeli who is stunned and stricken by Palestinian terror, begin to acknowledge that our killings of civilians are our shame, our war crime, our suicide bombs, the massacres for which we, virtuous as we believe we are, are directly to blame."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/978661.html
Carter's Hamas Talks Could Aid Exodus to Peace
by Ira Chernus
Monday, April 21, 2008
CommonDreams.org
"Jews around the world sat down to their Passover Seders this past weekend, commemorating their ancestors' exodus from slavery to freedom. Yet right now the person who is doing more than anyone else to free the Jews is a devout Baptist, Jimmy Carter. The former president is meeting with leaders throughout the Middle East — including, most controversially, the top political leadership of the Hamas party. This has predictably angered the U.S. and Israeli governments and the U.S. mainstream press.
But they, like so many Jews, are still in slavery. The "Egypt" that enslaves them is a set of self-defeating beliefs in their own minds. They are enslaved to the notion that Hamas must be treated as pariah "terrorists," and one must never talk with "terrorists." That convenient tale prevents the Israeli government from entering peace negotiations. It keeps Israeli Jews trapped in the continuing risks and tensions of a state-of-siege mentality that prevents the exodus they need so badly now: moving from insecurity to genuine peace and security.
In a larger sense, the view of Hamas as a party so evil that no one may even talk with it keeps many Jews in a state of spiritual slavery. It reinforces their long-standing habit of defining Jewish identity primarily in terms of radical vulnerability, as if the only meaningful way to be Jewish were to stand firm against an enemy and always be ready to shoot at that enemy.
This slavery is especially tragic because ..."
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/21/8429/
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin. chernus@colorado.edu
Our debt to Jimmy Carter
Ha'aretz Daily Newspaper (Israel)
By Haaretz Editorial
April 15, 2008
"The government of Israel is boycotting Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, during his visiit here this week....Whether Carter's approach to conflict resolution is considered by the Israeli government as appropriate or defeatist, no one can take away from the former U.S. president his international standing, nor the fact that he brought Israel and Egypt to a signed peace that has since held. Carter's method, which says that it is necessary to talk with every one, has still not proven to be any less successful than the method that calls for boycotts and air strikes. In terms of results, at the end of the day, Carter beats out any of those who ostracize him. For the peace agreement with Egypt, he deserves the respect reserved for royalty for the rest of his life."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/974893.html
Hidden Agenda
Manifest Destiny and Israel
By URI AVNERY
April 15, 2008
"NEXT MONTH, Israel will celebrate its 60th anniversary. The government is working feverishly to make this day into an occasion of joy and jubilation. While serious problems are crying out for funds, some 40 million dollars have been allocated to this aim.
But the nation is in no mood for celebrations. It is gloomy.
From all directions the government is blamed for this gloom. "They have no agenda" is the refrain, "Their only concern is their own survival." ...
BUT ANYONE who believes that the government has no agenda, and that the State of Israel has no agenda, is quite wrong. There certainly is an agenda, but is hidden. More precisely: it is unconscious."
http://www.counterpunch.com/avnery04152008.html
To Create Something from Nothing
The Making of a Palestinian State
By MATS SVENSSON
April 15, 2008
"Mavivi comes from South Africa and is for the first time in Gaza to speak with women's organisations, students, civil servants and political fractions. For 18 years she was part of the struggle against apartheid.
There are those who never understand despite having seen everything and having access to all knowledge. And there are those who only need a few hours to understand. Mavivi belongs to the second category.
I saw when Mavivi cried for the first time. Mavivi had then been in Gaza for less than 24 hours. During a day, she had spoken to 30 representatives from several women's organisations. She stands outside the hotel and looks out over the Mediterranean when she spontaneously exclaims, "South Africa was a picnic compared to the situation here."
24 hours later, she cries openly for the second time. She has spoken with doctors, architects, teachers, everyone who tries to create a tolerable situation for the masses inhabiting the Gaza Strip. Again she compares South Africa with Israel/Palestine--"apartheid was stupidity, but here one has sophisticated the stupidity."
But it is when she cannot keep her tears back for the third time that many should have had the opportunity to listen to her. ..."
http://www.counterpunch.com/svensson04152008.html
Mats Svensson, a former Swedish diplomat working on the staff of SIDA, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, is presently following the ongoing occupation of Palestine. He can be reached at isbjorn2001@hotmail.com.
Remembering Palestine
On Israel's anniversary, Palestinians commemorate Al Nakba—the Catastrophe
By Dana Olwan, PhD '09, Contributor
The Queen's Journal
"On May 15, Israel will celebrate its 60th anniversary. Palestinians around the world will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba or the "Catastrophe." Among other things, Al-Nakba marks the forced expulsion and destitution of 750,000 Palestinians from their indigenous homeland and the destruction of 418 villages in 1948. Its aftermath effectively decimated Palestinian identity, culture and life.
While Israelis are exhorted to remember this day and mark the sixth decade of Israel's creation and independence as a celebratory occasion, Palestinians are encouraged to forget their past and their historic link with their homeland."... http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2008-03-28/opinions/remembering-palestine/
Dana Olwan is national chair of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights.
Should the U.S. End Aid to Israel?
Funding Our Decline
By ALISON WEIR
"It was highly appropriate that this debate was held two weeks before tax day, since in Israel's sixty years of existence, it has received more US tax money than any other nation on earth.
During periods of recession, when Americans are thrown out of work, homes are repossessed, school budgets cut and businesses fail, Congress continues to give Israel massive amounts of our tax money; currently, about 7 million dollars per day.
On top of this, Egypt and Jordan receive large sums of money (per capita about 1/20th of what Israel receives) to buy their cooperation with Israel; and Palestinians also receive our tax money (about 1/23rd of that to Israel), to repair infrastructure that Israeli forces have destroyed, to fund humanitarian projects required due to the destruction wrought by Israel's military, and to convince Palestinian officials to take actions beneficial to Israel. These sums should also be included in expenditures on behalf of Israel.
When all are added together, it turns out that for many years over half of all US tax money abroad has been expended to benefit a country the size of New Jersey.
It is certainly time to begin debating this disbursement of our hard-earned money. It is quite possible that we have better uses for it.
To decide whether the US should continue military aid to any nation, it is essential to examine the nature and history of the recipient nation, how it has used our military aid in the past, whether these uses are in accord with our values, and whether they benefit the American taxpayers who are putting up the money.
1. What is the history and nature of Israel?"...
http://www.counterpunch.com/weir04042008.html
The Gaza Bombshell
by David Rose
April 2008
Vanity Fair
"After failing to anticipate Hamas's victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever."
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804
The Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering That Candidates and Congress Ignore
By RALPH NADER
"The world's largest prison—, Gaza prison, with 1.5 million inmates, many of them starving, sick and penniless— is receiving more sympathy and protest by Israeli citizens, of widely impressive backgrounds, than is reported in the U.S. press.
In contrast, the humanitarian crisis brought about by Israeli government blockades that prevent food, medicine, fuel and other necessities from coming into this tiny enclave through international relief organizations is received with predictable silence or callousness by members of Congress, including John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The contrast invites more public attention and discussion...."
www.counterpunch.org/nader03082008.html
The Gaza Strip blockade could seriously harm Israel's economy
By Meron Rapoport, Haaretz Correspondent
February 10, 2008
....."One and a half million people live in Gaza. They are hungry and they have hardly any orchards. The citrus groves have almost completely disappeared because of the Israel Defense Forces' activities. We are the only source of food for them. And they pay well, and in cash."
The Gazans buy from Israel between 60 and 80 tons of fruit per year - bananas, apples, pears, peaches and avocados. Eshel estimates that some 10 percent of the Israeli fruit harvest goes to Gaza. This statistic can be misleading. "There are producers for whom it is 100 percent of their harvest," Adiri says. .....
An estimate by the Palestine International Business Forum shows that cutting off economic ties between Israel and the Palestinians would bring down the standard of living in the PA by one-third. Income per capita would fall to $500, the lowest in the Arab world, even lower than Sudan or Yemen.
Israel, according to this research, would lose around $2 billion per year. Some 76,000 jobs would be lost."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/952771.html
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.
This cycle of bloodshed has already proved pointless. The Palestinians gain nothing by firing Qassam rockets, but Israel is not helping itself with its extensive operations in the Strip.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/952341.html
Politics Of Illusions
By Alon Ben-meir
In The Middle East Times (Cyprus), Opinion
February 7, 2008
"I have just returned from an extended trip to the Middle East, hoping that I would come back feeling recharged by the progress made in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, especially in the wake of the Annapolis peace conference. To my dismay, not in Israel or in Jordan or in talking to Palestinian and Egyptian officials, have I felt or seen much optimism.
Those who still believe that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is possible by the end of 2008 – U.S. President George W. Bush's stated desire – are few and far between."
http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2008/02/07/politics_of_illusions/5677/
The strangulation of Gaza
Saree Makdisi, The Nation
Feb 2, 2008
"The people of Gaza were able to enjoy a few days of freedom last week, after demolition charges brought down the iron wall separating the impoverished Palestinian territory from Egypt, allowing hundreds of thousands to burst out of the virtual prison into which Gaza has been transformed over the past few years - the terminal stage of four decades of Israeli occupation - and to shop for desperately needed supplies in Egyptian border towns.
Gaza's doors are slowly closing again, however. Under mounting pressure from the United States and Israel, Egypt has dispatched additional border guards armed with water cannons and electric cattle prods to try to regain control...."
http://imeu.net/news/article007771.shtml http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20080218&s=makdisi
People power in Gaza
Ramzy Baroud, IMEU
Feb 1, 2008
"In a radio interview prior to the US invasion of Iraq, David Barsamian asked Noam Chomsky what ordinary Americans could do to stop the war. Chomsky answered, "In some parts of the world people never ask, 'What can we do?' They simply do it." For someone who was born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza, Chomsky's seemingly oblique response required no further elucidation.
When Gazans recently stormed the Strip's sealed border with Egypt, Chomsky's comment returned to mind, along with memories of the still relevant -- and haunting -- past....."
http://imeu.net/news/article007762.shtml
It's Not About Iran
By Shibley Telhami
In The Washington Post
January 14, 2008
"As President Bush travels through the Middle East, the prevailing assumption is that Arab states are primarily focused on the rising Iranian threat and that their attendance at the Annapolis conference with Israel in November was motivated by this threat. This assumption, reflected in the president's speech in the United Arab Emirates yesterday, could be a costly mistake...."
http://serv01.siteground202.com/~atfp/news/article.php?id=1535301008
Bush Peace Hallucinations Continue
By Sam Bahour (Sam Bahour is a Palestinian American businessman living in Ramallah.)
January 10, 2008
"U.S. President George Bush landed in Israel yesterday on his first Presidential trip to the country. He participated in a press conference in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in what both men termed a "historic" and "monumental" occasion. After listening to both so-called leaders make their opening comments and fielding questions from journalists, the only groundbreaking revelation I could register was that the naiveté of President Bush, either real or a charade, only served the agenda of one party in the region – Hamas. The radical Islamists at Hamas could not have recruited a better cheerleader for their movement if they tried.
My opinion may be extreme, but then again, I live in an extremely violent limbo under Israeli military occupation, shaped by a policy both men continuously refuse to call by its true name – state terror...."
http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=1
Ungenerous Occupier: Israel's Camp David Exposed
January 05, 2008
By Jonathan Cook in MIFTA
"After seven years of rumors and self-serving memoirs, the Israeli media has finally published extracts from an official source about the Camp David negotiations in summer 2000. For the first time it is possible to gauge with some certainty the extent of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's "generous offer" to the Palestinians and Yasser Arafat's reasons for rejecting it.
In addition, the document provides valuable insights into what larger goals Israel hoped to achieve at Camp David and how similar ambitions are driving its policies to this day...."
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=15794&CategoryId=5
The occupied Palestinian territories: Dignity Denied
International Committee of the Red Cross
Throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, in the Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank, Palestinians continuously face hardship in simply going about their lives; they are prevented from doing what makes up the daily fabric of most people's existence. An ICRC report.
http://www.icrc.org/eng/palestine-report
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
In Arab News (Saudi Arabia), Opinion
December 31, 2007
"The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has embarked on policies that are questionable at best when one examines them from a purely Israeli standpoint; they are nothing less than a betrayal of the United States when examined from a broader perspective....
Israel at present can have no friends, because Israel does not know how to be a friend. Driven by xenophobic paranoia and historical grievances, Israel is embarked on a path that can only lead to death and destruction. This is a path the United States should not tread. I have always taken the position that Israel is a friend of the United States, and that friends should always stand up for one another, even in difficult times. I have also noted that, to quote a phrase well known in America, friends don't let friends drive drunk, and that for some time now Israel has been drunk on arrogance and power. As a friend, I have believed the best course of action for the United States to take would be that which helped remove the keys from the ignition of the policy vehicle Israel is steering toward the edge of the abyss. Now it seems our old friend is holding a pistol to our head, demanding that we stop interfering with the vehicle's operation and preventing us from getting out of the car. This is not the action of a friend, and it can no longer be tolerated.
It is time for what those who are familiar with dependency issues would term an intervention. Like a child too long spoiled by an inattentive parent, Israel has grown accustomed to American largess, to the point that it is addicted to an American aid package that is largely responsible for keeping the Israeli economy afloat. This aid must be reconsidered in its entirety. The day of the free ride must come to an end. The United States must redefine its national security priorities in the Middle East and position Israel accordingly. At the very least, American aid must be linked to Israeli behavior modification. The standards America applies to other nations around the world when it comes to receiving aid must likewise apply to Israel...."
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=105132&d=31&m=12&y=2007
What's the hurry?
By Aluf Benn (Jerusalem) & Shmuel Rosner (Washington)
27/12/2007
"The Annapolis summit and the efforts to revive the peace process have exacerbated the tension that already existed between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Olmert's personal charm doesn't work on Rice, and the Prime Minister's Office is anxious about her tendency to push ahead too quickly with political contacts.....
In private conversations - and as she said in Annapolis - Rice tends to compare the Israeli occupation in the territories to the racial segregation that used to be the norm in the American South. The Israel Defense Forces checkpoints where Palestinians are detained remind her of the buses she rode as a child in Alabama, which had separate seats for blacks and whites. This is an uncomfortable comparison, of course, for the Israelis, who view it as "over-identification" on her part with Palestinian suffering. For some leaders of American Jewish organizations, who weren't all that fond of Rice to begin with, her use of this image was the last straw. Rice is now marked as an enemy. It's also easier for them to blame her, rather than the president, for an approach that's not to their liking.
But Rice's anger at Israel really derives from more current events: She was deeply offended at the height of the Second Lebanon War, while preparing to leave for Beirut to pull together a cease-fire, when the IDF killed Lebanese civilians during the bombing of Kafr Kana. Her trip was canceled at the last minute, the war went on for more than another two weeks, and some who know her say that Rice never forgave Israel for this slap in the face.
In recent months, she's been heard grumbling about Israel's foot-dragging in carrying out good-will gestures toward Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas....."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/939202.html
Meanwhile, in the West Bank
Gideon Levy, Haaretz
Dec 25, 2007
"Don't let the quiet fool you: It is imaginary. While all eyes are on Gaza, the impression has been created, under the aegis of a media turning a blind eye, that the West Bank is quiet... Well, that is not the case. The lives of the Palestinians in the West Bank are also intolerable, blood is being shed there too. For the Israel Defense Forces it is business as usual, with a frighteningly quick finger on the trigger.... Every week, innocent people are killed in the West Bank, and nobody talks about them..... "
So what have we done to them?
By Nehemia Shtrasler, Ha'aretz
December 20, 2007
"An old Jewish joke tells of a devoted mother who briefs her son before he sets out to battle: "Kill a Turk and rest," she advises. But the son asks: "And what happens if in fact the Turk tries to kill me?" She opens her eyes wide in surprise: "Why would he want to kill you? What have you done to him?"
This is exactly the kind of self-righteousness that accompanies our attitude toward the Palestinians. It is evident in the reports on the television, radio and in the newspapers - which paint only a partial picture of the conflict. Because when considerations of ratings and just plain cowardice determine coverage, the information the public gets is biased. In this way an extremist public opinion is created, which believes that all of the justice is on our side only, because "what have we done to them?"...."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/936024.html
Another Peace Scare. Boy, That Was Close.
by William Blum
December 11, 2007
The US intelligence community's new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) --
"Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities" -- makes a point of saying up front (in bold type): "This NIE does not (italics in original) assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons." The report goes on to state: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program ."
"Isn't that good news, that Iran isn't about to attack the United States or Israel with nuclear weapons? Surely everyone is thrilled that the horror and suffering that such an attack -- not to mention an American or Israeli retaliation or pre-emptive attack -- would bring to this sad old world. Here are some of the happy reactions from American leaders: .."
http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer52.htm
Ahmadinejad Has Screwed Us Again! How They Stole the Bomb From Us
By URI AVNERY
December 10, 2007
"It was like an atom bomb falling on Israel. The earth shook. Our political and military leaders were all in shock. The headlines screamed with rage. What happened?
A real catastrophe: the American intelligence community, comprising 16 different agencies, reached a unanimous verdict: already in 2003, the Iranians terminated their efforts to produce a nuclear bomb, and they have not resumed them since. Even if they change their mind in the future, they will need at least five years to achieve their aim. SHOULDN'T WE be overjoyed? Shouldn't the masses in Israel be dancing in the streets, as they did on November 29, 1947, sixty years ago? After all, we have been saved!.....
Gone is the excuse for an American military attack on Iran, the dream of the Israeli government and the neocons. Gone is even the pretext for more stringent sanctions. God knows, perhaps even the existing feeble sanctions will be abolished tomorrow.THE FIRST reaction of the Israeli leadership was vigorous and determined: total denial......"
http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery12102007.html
London's burning for Dichter
By Gideon Levy
Haaretz Daily News
December 10, 2007
"Avi Dichter will not be going to London. The Israeli dream of taking in year-end sales, the new production of Othello or the sights of Oxford Street vanished before the public security minister's very eyes. The Foreign Ministry advised Dichter not to participate in a conference there, because he could be arrested for involvement in the assassination of Hamas leader Salah Shehadeh, when he was Shin Bet security service head. The one-ton bomb used to target Shehadeh in 2002 left 15 people dead......"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/932411.html
Institutionalized evil
By Haaretz Editorial 10/12/2007
"......Israel's real policy is to do everything to block the entry to the country of non-Jews because they are non-Jews. The insufferable bureaucratic bottleneck and the via dolorosa traversed by those seeking naturalization assure that the gates are blocked. . ..
Due to the desire to close Israel's gates to non-Jews, the officials at the Population Administration are ignoring the law, their own regulations and humanitarian considerations, and are creating countless human tragedies. Thus has the administration itself become an apparatus that institutionalizes evil. The fact that we accept this shows how much our hearts have become hard and insensitive.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/932718.html
The Har Homa test
By Akiva Eldar
Haaretz Daily, December 10, 2007
"It is difficult to think of a place more suitable than Har Homa for holding the first test in the spirit of Annapolis. The comparison between Har Homa Crisis No. 2 and the development of Har Homa Crisis No. 1 can teach us whether the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has indeed started a new track or whether all the players are stuck on the old line.
Does Ehud Olmert, who pressed for the establishment of the new neighborhood in East Jerusalem, really see something different from the Prime Minister's Bureau than what he saw from the office of the mayor of Jerusalem? Will President George W. Bush pay lip service and eventually have to eat his words, just as Bill Clinton did 10 years ago?...."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/932716.html
Problem and Hope
By Hussein Shobokshi
In Asharq Alawsat (Pan Arab), Opinion
December 5, 2007
"The troubled Palestinian situation has reached an alarming deadlock with the passage of time, while the chasm continues to widen between Hamas in Gaza on one hand, and government authority and the PLO in the West Bank on the other.
In light of the state of immobility between the two main blocs in Palestinian society, it seems that the time has come and the conditions are appropriate to find a way out of this crisis situation. Perhaps discussion about a "third alternative" is due, at least in hope of bringing about a moral and psychological impact whilst attempting to break free of the deadlock with a serious solution.
Today, the name of a famous Palestinian businessman, Munib al Masri, has surfaced as a practical and non-politicized leader. Al Masri, 72-years-old, no longer hides his political ambitions and has moved into his palace in Nablus even though he is financially capable of living in London or Paris....."
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=2&id=11081
The Devastation Our Disunity Has Created
By Joharah Baker
In Miftah (Palestine), Opinion
December 5, 2007
"This morning, Israeli forces killed yet another three Hamas activists in an air strike on Beit Lahiya in the Gaza Strip. Over the past two weeks, some 30 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military forces, mostly in the Strip, even as Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak insists his army continues to hold out on wide scale military action there.
Israel claims it is defending its citizens from the rocket attacks into their towns and cities just outside of the Gaza Strip. And Israel doesn't mince its words. "It is time to kill those who carry out attacks against Israelis," Barak said. In turn, Israel has tacked a number to its argument, perhaps to offer more credibility and hence justification for these targeted killings. According to Israeli government sources, some 2,000 homemade Palestinian rockets have been fired into Israeli territory in the past year. Sounds scary, no doubt until one realizes just how inaccurate if not virtually innocuous these rockets really are. In this past year, two Israelis actually died as a result of these rockets, by admission of Israel itself. According to an Israeli ministry of foreign affairs website named, "Victims of Palestinian Violence and Terrorism since September 2000", two Israeli citizens died in May of this year after a Qassam rocket hit their town of Sderot.
Still, Israel continues to cut down Palestinians even if on suspicion that they belong to a military group, especially those affiliated with Hamas. What is so shocking is that almost no one blinks an eye anymore at the news of these ongoing assassinations...."
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=15547&CategoryId=3
Palestinian Civilians As Political Currency
By Jessica Montell
In The Jerusalem Post (Israel), Opinion
December 4, 2007
"....In the past six months, dozens of critical patients who cannot receive the treatment they needed in Gaza have been trapped by Israeli authorities, denied access to any country that can offer them the lifesaving treatment they need.
Israel cannot pretend it is not responsible for these people. After decades of Israeli occupation, the Gazan healthcare system is only beginning to put the severe de-development behind it. Services have significantly improved since the Oslo Accords, but there is still no adequate treatment available in Gaza for cancer patients, children with heart disease and people in need of organ transplants. Professional training is scarce and given that Israel prevents young people from leaving Gaza to attend medical school, the number of medical practitioners in Gaza is not expected to rise in the near future.
Although it "disengaged" from the Gaza Strip two years ago, Israel remains the key player in vital aspects of daily life. Controlling all sea, ground and air exits from the Strip and with its irritable finger on Gaza's main power switch, Israel can hardly be absolved of responsibility for people whose lives depend on its mercy..."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546804125&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Will peace cost me my home?
Any Mideast pact must give Palestinians the right to return
home.
By Ghada Ageel
December 1, 2007
"Sixty years ago, my grandparents lived in the beautiful village of Beit Daras , a few kilometers north of Gaza . They were farmers and owned hundreds of acres of land.
But in 1948, in the first Arab-Israeli war, many people lost their lives defending our village from the Zionist militias. In the end, with their crops and homes burning, the villagers fled. My family eventually made its way to what became the refugee camp of Khan Yunis in Gaza . We were hit hard by poverty, humiliation and disease. We became refugees, queuing for tents, food and assistance, while the state of Israel was established on the ruins of my family's property and on the ruins of hundreds of other Palestinian villages...."
* Editor's note: Ghada Ageel spoke several times in Rhode Island in 2006, and stayed in my home. She is a wonderful human being and a treasured friend. Her talks were sponsored by the Interfaith Peace Initiative and other organizations.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ageel1dec01,0,7237674.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
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"
