MCC Palestine Prayer Request
14 March 2006
Dear Friends,
As many of you already know, the body of Tom Fox was found in Baghdad late last week. Tom was one of four Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) members abducted last November.
Tom Fox, age 54, from Clearbrook, Virginia, was a dedicated father of two children. For the past two years, Mr. Fox had worked with CPT in partnership with Iraqi human rights organizations to promote peace. Mr. Fox had been faithful in the observance of Quaker practice for 22 years. While in Iraq, he sought a more complete understanding of Islamic cultural richness. He was committed to telling the truth to U.S. citizens about the horrors of war and its effects on ordinary Iraqi civilians and families as a result of U.S. policies and practices. Mr. Fox was an accomplished musician. He played the bass clarinet and the recorder and loved to cook. He has also worked as a professional grocer. Mr. Fox devoted much of his time to working with children. He has served as an adult leader of youth programs and worked at a Quaker camp for youth. He facilitated young people's participation in opposing war and violence. Mr. Fox was a quiet and peaceful man, respectful of everyone, who believed that "there is that of God in every person" which is why work for peace was so important to him.
Below is a statement by CPT as well as CPT Iraq's statement of conviction and Tom's reflection "Why are we here?" For more information, please visit http://www.cpt.org/
Please pray for the family of Tom Fox, for James, Harmeet, and Norman, who are still being held in Iraq, and for all of those suffering as a result of occupation.
Peace,
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
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http://www.cpt.org/iraq/response/06-10-03statement.htm
CPT Release: We Mourn the Loss of Tom Fox
10 March 2006
In grief we tremble before God who wraps us with compassion. The death of our beloved colleague and friend pierces us with pain. Tom Fox’s body was found in Baghdad yesterday.
Christian Peacemaker Teams extends our deep and heartfelt condolences to the family and community of Tom Fox, with whom we have traveled so closely in these days of crisis.
We mourn the loss of Tom Fox who combined a lightness of spirit, a firm opposition to all oppression, and the recognition of God in everyone.
We renew our plea for the safe release of Harmeet Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember. Each of our teammates has responded to Jesus’ prophetic call to live out a nonviolent alternative to the cycle of violence and revenge.
In response to Tom’s passing, we ask that everyone set aside inclinations to vilify or demonize others, no matter what they have done. In Tom’s own words: "We reject violence to punish anyone. We ask that there be no retaliation on relatives or property. We forgive those who consider us their enemies. We hope that in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening nonviolently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation.”
Even as we grieve the loss of our beloved colleague, we stand in the light of his strong witness to the power of love and the courage of nonviolence. That light reveals the way out of fear and grief and war.
Through these days of crisis, Christian Peacemaker Teams has been surrounded and upheld by a great outpouring of compassion: messages of support, acts of mercy, prayers, and public actions offered by the most senior religious councils and by school children, by political leaders and by those organizing for justice and human rights, by friends in distant nations and by strangers near at hand. These words and actions sustain us. While one of our teammates is lost to us, the strength of this outpouring is not lost to God’s movement for just peace among all peoples.
At the forefront of that support are strong and courageous actions from Muslim brothers and sisters throughout the world for which we are profoundly grateful. Their graciousness inspires us to continue working for the day when Christians speak up as boldly for the human rights of thousands Iraqis still detained illegally by the United States and United Kingdom.
Such an outpouring of action for justice and peace would be a fitting memorial for Tom. Let us all join our voices on behalf of those who continue to suffer under occupation, whose loved ones have been killed or are missing. In so doing, we may hasten the day when both those who are wrongly detained and those who bear arms will return safely to their homes. In such a peace we will find solace for our grief.
Despite the tragedy of this day, we remain committed to put into practice these words of Jim Loney: “With the waging of war, we will not comply. With the help of God’s grace, we will struggle for justice. With God’s abiding kindness, we will love even our enemies.” We continue in hope for Jim, Harmeet and Norman’s safe return home safe.
Contact: Dr. Doug Pritchard, CPT Co-Director 416-423-5525 (Canada) and Rev. Carol Rose, CPT Co-Director, Kryss Chupp, 773-277-0253 (USA)
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http://www.cpt.org/iraq/response/iraq_team_statement_of_conviction.htm
CPT in Iraq Statement of Conviction
March 2005
We, members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Iraq, are aware of the many risks both Iraqis and internationals currently face. However, we are convinced at this time that the risks, while significant, do not outweigh our purpose in remaining.
Many Iraqi friends and human rights workers have welcomed us as a non-violent, independent presence. During the previous year they asked us to tell their stories, since they could not easily be heard, nor could most flee to a safer country. We continue to act as a resource to connect citizens of Iraq with human rights organizations, both local and international, as well as accompanying them as they interact with multinational military personnel and Iraqi provisional government officials.
As a peacemaking team we need to cross boundaries, help soldiers and other armed actors be humane, and invite them to refuse unjust orders. We need to help preserve what is human in all of us and so offer glimpses of hope in a dark time.
We unequivocally reject kidnapping and hostage-taking. In such an event, CPT will attempt to communicate with the hostage-takers or their sponsors and work against journalists' inclination to vilify and demonize the offenders. We will try to understand the motives for these actions, and to articulate them, while maintaining a firm stance that such actions are wrong. If appropriate, CPT will work with diplomatic officials from our representative governments to avoid a violent outcome.
We reject the use of violent force to save our lives should we be kidnapped, held hostage, or caught in the middle of a violent conflict situation. We also reject violence to punish anyone who harms us. We ask for equal justice in the arrest and trial of anyone, soldier or civilian, who commits an act of violence, and we ask that there be no retaliation on their relatives or property. We forgive those who consider us their enemies. Therefore, any penalty should be in the spirit of restorative justice, rather than in the form of violent retribution.
We hope that in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening non-violently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation.
(Signed)
Tom Fox, Springfield, VA
(plus other members of the CPT Iraq team)
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http://www.cpt.org/archives/2005/dec05/0007.html
CPTnet
2 December 2005
IRAQ: "Why are we here?"
Most recent reflection by Tom Fox,
[Note: The following reflection was written by Tom Fox the day before he was
abducted.]
The Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) Iraq team went through a discernment
process, seeking to identify aspects of our work here in Iraq that are
compelling enough to continue the project and comparing them with the costs
(financial, psychological, physical) that are also aspects of the project.
It was a healthy exercise, but it led me to a somewhat larger question: Why
are we here?
If I understand the message of God, his response to that question is that we
are to take part in the creation of the Peaceable Realm of God. Again, if I
understand the message of God, how we take part in the creation of this
realm is to love God with all our heart, our mind and our strength and to
love our neighbors and enemies as we love God and ourselves. In its
essential form, different aspects of love bring about the creation of the
realm.
I have read that the word in the Greek Bible that is translated as "love" is
the word "agape." Again, I have read that this word is best expressed as a
profound respect for all human beings simply for the fact that they are all
God's children. I would state that idea in a somewhat different way, as
"never thinking or doing anything that would dehumanize one of my fellow
human beings."
As I survey the landscape here in Iraq, dehumanization seems to be the
operative means of relating to each other. U.S. forces in their quest to
hunt down and kill "terrorists" are, as a result of this dehumanizing word,
not only killing "terrorists," but also killing innocent Iraqis: men, women
and children in the various towns and villages.
It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I
dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its
way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically,
structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or
her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process
that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death.
"Why are we here?" We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization
that exist within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by
oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop
people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no
matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.
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Tuesday, March 14
Monday, March 6
MCC Palestine Update #119
MCC Palestine Update #119
6 March 2006
Standing in Bardalah
There is much that has not changed over the years in the village of Bardalah in the northern Jordan Valley of the West Bank. The Palestinian residents of this village continue to live very close to the land, depending largely on agriculture for their subsistence.
Recently, Mennonite Central Committee along with Catholic Relief Services (http://www.crs.org/) partnered with the Palestinian Hydrology Group (http://www.phg.org/index1.html) in a hydrology project in this small Palestinian village. Bardalah sits on about 400 dunams (4 dunams = 1 acre) of land and is home to about 2700 Palestinians. They have there own school and a medical clinic and rely on the land for much of their livelihood. Growing fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, cauliflower, and squash can be challenging in the climate of the Jordan Valley. That is why projects such as these go a long way.
This project in particular saw the building of 4 cement pools in Bardalah. These pools, which will collect rainwater in the winter season and store water in the summer, will supply water to 60 dunams of farmland, benefiting 90 farmers. In addition to the pools, 500 meters of new irrigation pipes were installed as part of the project. This is the third phase of a joint hydrology project to provide emergency assistance to Palestinian farmers affected by the separation wall. It has included projects in Bardalah’s neighboring village of ‘Ein el-Beida, in the northern Jordan Valley, and in the West Bank village of Jayyus where the separation wall has cut off over three hundred families from their farm lands, having a serious economic impact on this village that relies heavily on agriculture.
Palestinian livelihoods continue to be devastated in the process as more land is being expropriated for the construction of this 430-mile / 700-km separation barrier that has little to do with security and terrorism, built not on the internationally recognized boundary referred to as the “Green Line” but instead on Palestinian land, cutting deeply into the West Bank (“Under the Guise of Security: Routing the Separation Barrier to Enable Israeli Settlement Expansion in the West Bank,”
http://www.btselem.org/english/Publications/summaries/
200512_Under_the_Guise_of_Security.asp; “B’Tselem: Fence route directly linked to plan for settlement expansion,’” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/685938.html).
When the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank began in 1967, the Israeli military began to dismantle and prohibit the water well pumping facilities the villagers of Bardalah depended on for their agricultural development, leaving them only with the option to buy water from Israeli water companies. Israeli policy of time and supply constraints on the water supplied to these communities has made it very difficult for farmers to irrigate their fields. These pools will help farmers to not need to buy as much water from Israel, providing them with free access to water for their lands.
Though this story of occupation and dispossession is unfortunately also something that has not changed over the years, neither has Palestinian resistance to this injustice.
Between 1976 and 1988, MCC was engaged in a rural development program that focused on protecting Palestinian land and water rights, both of which were under attack from the Israeli occupation. “In the context of aggressive Israeli policies of confiscating Palestinian land for settlements and weakening the Palestinian agricultural sector,” MCC worker Ibrahim Matar described the objectives of this program as “to develop the land and water resources, increase food production, increase income, self-reliance and steadfastness of the farming communities on their land. These objectives are intended to counter the policies of the authorities of land seizures, dispossession, displacement and impoverishment” (See Alain Epp Weaver and Sonia K. Weaver, Salt & Sign: Mennonite Central Committee in Palestine, 1949-1999 (MCC, 1999), 56)
Only recently, five families in Bardalah were dispossessed, expelled from the homes they lived in for 40 years.
As continues to be the case now, the lack of an adequate water supply for farming was due not simply to the limited amount of available groundwater and spring water, but also to the Israeli military refusal to allow Palestinian farmers permission to drill wells.
The village of Bardalah was the sight of one of the first projects in this program, mainly due to their outdated irrigation methods, and to the fact that their lands were under threat of confiscation from nearby settlements. In addition to introducing drip irrigation methods and providing material at a cheaper cost, MCC also conducted training for farmers in how to fit and maintain drip systems, distributing the necessary tools so that farmers could be self-sufficient in the assembly and repair of pipes (Salt & Sign, 57).
Had it not been for these efforts, not only would Bardalah have faced the serious danger of running out of water for agriculture, Ibrahim Matar believed that their land also would have been expropriated. “The Israeli settlement of Meholah, for example, had made moves on the lands of Bardalah village. With the support of MCC, Bardalah villagers were able to surround the settlement with fields supplied by drip irrigation systems, stymieing land confiscation” (Salt & Sign, 57-58).
And to this day, despite the destructive effect of Israeli army tanks driving through the farmland of Bardalah, 3 km of drip irrigation line installed with the support of MCC in the mid-1970’s continues to function.
In this context, the seemingly mundane tasks of farming become a form of resistance.
***
In addition to the threat of settlement expansion in the Jordan Valley, today there is also the impact of the separation barrier to the north that has also served to maintain the Palestinian experience of dispossession by expropriating more Palestinian land (“The Eastern Wall: Closing the circle of our ghettoization,” http://stopthewall.org/analysisandfeatures/1042.shtml; “Palestinians stand up against expulsion from Jordan Valley,” http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1101.shtml).
Israeli colonization and annexation of the Jordan Valley has been made clearer in several recent reports (“Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/681938.html; “Israel excludes Palestinians from fertile valley,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1709278,00.html; “Israel ‘has annexed Jordan Valley and shut out Palestinians,’” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article345298.ece; “Israel has de facto annexed the Jordan Valley,” http://www.btselem.org/English/Settlements/20060213_
Annexation_of_the_Jordan_Valley.asp)
In fact, these intentions have been recently reiterated by Israeli acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who has stated that Israel will soon move to define its international borders to include the major Israeli settlement blocs illegally built on occupied Palestinian territory as well as the whole of the Jordan Valley (“Olmert vows to set final borders,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4709834.stm; “Olmert: Next Knesset must determine Israel's final borders,”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/682351.html; “Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1705021,00.html; “Report: Olmert would keep 3 settlement blocs, Jordan Valley,” http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/679959.html).
Interestingly, Israel is one of the only states in the world without defined international borders. But Israel’s moves to define its borders is happening unilaterally, without consideration for the Palestinians it will effect, and in violation of the international communities call—laid out most recently in the “Road Map”—not to take any unilateral steps that would impact a final solution. However, there is nothing new with this agenda, as it is in line with Ariel Sharon’s vision of “maximum territory, minimum Arabs.” (“Maximum Territory, Minimum Arabs,” http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=11389; “The Paradox of Jerusalem,” http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=7697&CategoryId=5; “The Road to Bantustan,” http://miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=2718&CategoryId=5).
Such a move only reflects the reality of the “facts on the ground” already established by illegal Israeli colonies and the illegal separation wall. The construction of the wall itself has been a unilateral move by an occupying power in violation of international law, not a negotiated or agreed upon “border” between two sovereign states. Unfortunately, this wall along with the annexation of the Jordan Valley will become the de facto border of a Palestinian “state” composed of about 7 to 11 isolated “reservations” on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank, completely surrounded by Israel.
***
Indeed, much has not changed over the years for the people of Bardalah. And the witness that Mennonite Central Committee has borne over the years has become part of that story—a story of ongoing occupation and dispossession accompanied by ongoing resistance to injustice and persistent hope for a better future. May the future of Mennonite Central Committee in Palestine continue to bear witness to a commitment to resist injustice for the “least of these” (Matthew 25).
‘From the Desert May Bloom Justice and Peace’ – A Meditation for Lent
There are traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigor during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbor). The theme of justice defines the status of these relationships.
We would like to leave you with a meditation and a prayer as we begin this lenten season. May it also be a challenge as we move through these days of prayer, repentance, fasting, almsgiving, and abstinence.
‘From the desert may bloom justice and peace’ - a meditation for Lent (http://www.christianaid.org.uk/worship/403lent/reflection.htm)
Help us, Lord, to face our demons, our powers, as you faced yours. You were a man of power who could change stones to bread, conquer kingdoms and fall from the Temple roof without harm. You spent forty days searching for the way to use your powers for the coming of the Father's Reign of Peace, Justice and Holiness.
Help us to use our baptismal powers in the same way. Help us to use our anger at injustice in ways that will effect change, get things done and give witness in word and deed to the Reign you so ardently desired. Help us to use our lust not to abuse or exploit but rather to discover what are our deeper hungers and thirsts so that from the desert may bloom justice and peace.
Help us to overcome our sloth so that from indifference we may turn to deep concern for others who suffer and die because there is no one to turn the stones of hunger into bread, to build a society founded on justice and solidarity and to practise true religion which defends the widow and orphan and gives shelter to the stranger.
Peace to you all,
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· “Fears of new Israeli settlement as wall completed around Bethlehem,” OpenBethlehem.org, 28 February 2006
· Aluf Benn, “Olmert to seek int'l support for West Bank withdrawal,” Haaretz, 5 March 2006
· John Petrovato, “Waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi,” Palestine Chronicle, 1 March 2006
· Daoud Kuttab, “Arab peoples’ right to choose,” The Jerusalem Post, 26 February 2006
· Paul Oestreicher, “Israel's policies are feeding the cancer of anti-semitism,” The Guardian, 20 February 2006
· Gideon Levy, “As the Hamas team laughs,” Haaretz, 19 February 2006
· Amira Hass, “In Ze’evi’s footsteps,” Haaretz, 15 February 2006
· Amira Hass, “Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank,” Haaretz, 13 February 2006
· Gideon Levy, “Enlightenment in Eli,” Haaretz, 12 February 2006
· Moshe Behar, “Singling out the Palestinians? Reciprocal demands are the key to peace,” The Electronic Intifada, 11 February 2006
· Chris McGreal, “Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state,” The Guardian, 8 February 2006
· Omar Barghouti, “Israeli Apartheid: Time for the South African Treatment,” PACBI.org, 28 January 2006
· Alison Weir, “Anatomy of a Cover-Up: When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound?” IMEMC.org, 27 January 2006
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Open Bethlehem
Fears of new Israeli settlement as wall completed around Bethlehem
28 February 2006
The final section of Israel’s wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem will be completed in a matter of days.
The wall around Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem will not only sever the connection between the region’s most holy Christian sites, but will also herald the creation of a new ‘fact on the ground’ - an illegal Jewish settlement which will be home to some of Israel’s most extremist religious groups.
The ultra-orthodox Kever Rahel Fund announced last year that it intended to build about 400 apartments at the site. This week their work has begun. Settlers are planning to move into houses around the tomb as soon as the wall is completed.
Bethlehem’s population fears that town will become another Hebron– where Jewish extremists have expelled Palestinians from their homes and with the support of the Israeli army, intimidate and harass the local population. Hebron was once the busiest shopping town in the region, but is now a ghost town. Christian Peacemaker Teams have a permanent presence there to monitor and report abuses by the army and settlers on local people.
A former member of the Israeli parliament, Hanan Porat, was quoted today in Israeli newspaper Haaretz : "With the help of God we are progressing toward maintaining a permanent Jewish presence and a fixed yeshiva in Rachel's Tomb, as Rabbi Kook [religious Zionist fundamentalist] urged, and bringing Israelis back to where they belong."
Please read more at http://www.openbethlehem.org
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Haaretz
Olmert to seek int'l support for West Bank withdrawal
Aluf Benn
5 March 2006
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is planning to enlist international support for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank, if he wins the elections. Olmert believes that the first objective of the next government will be to create a supportive international environment for implementing Israel's national goals: setting its borders and ensuring a Jewish majority.
Olmert will try to persuade the American administration and the key players in the international community that unless Hamas alters its positions, they must support a unilateral Israeli move to determine the border in the West Bank. In his view, Israel has managed to muster broad international support for the conditions it imposed on the Hamas government, and this must be kept up until after the elections. Only then will it begin to promote the unilateral initiative.
Since the Hamas victory in the Palestinian legislative elections, Olmert has been referring less and less to the "road map" peace plan. Some of his advisers told him to stick with that plan, which enjoys American support and is accepted in the international community as the basis for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. But Olmert thinks he would make a fool of himself were he to continue talking about the road map, as though the political circumstances had not changed following the Palestinian polls…
Olmert thinks that besides the blocs, Israel should control the Jordan Valley and Jewish holy sites. The senior sources ventured that the American administration would refuse to give Israel guarantees on the matter of Jerusalem, considered the most sensitive topic in any permanent agreement.
The defense establishment is in favor of a unilateral move that would include completing the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip and another pullout in the West Bank.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/690007.html
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Palestine Chronicle
Waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi
John Petrovato
1 March 2006
I offer two examples of these invisible Gandhis who I have personally met: Ghassan Andoni and Sherif Omar.
During a recent lecture at the University of Oregon, Yuval Rabin, son of the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was asked if he believed that a Palestinian leader would emerge promoting peace with Israel. Rabin expressed skepticism: "We can't wait 300 to 400 decades waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi to emerge". By making this statement Yuval Rabin reiterates the often-repeated sentiments that "there is no Palestinian Gandhi" nor are Palestinians inclined to be peaceful and utilize nonviolence as a tactic for their grievances. Palestinians, it is believed, have instead chosen violence and terror to try to achieve their aims.
But have Palestinians really forsaken nonviolence? Have commentators around the world really forgotten the popular nonviolent uprising they celebrated during the first Intifada? And what of the Israeli occupation of Palestine? Why is occupation not seen as a form of violence?
Palestinians have utilized myriad techniques of nonviolent resistance including strikes, boycotts, tax revolts and peaceful demonstrations. While the second Intifada has been pocked with more incidences of violence, nonviolence is still utilized to a great degree. Indeed, not a week goes by where Palestinians have not organized major nonviolent demonstrations. Just this week, for instance, there have been nonviolent protests in Bal’ein, Beit Sira, and Aaboud villages west of Ramallah. All these villages, and dozens of others, have had peace protests regularly over the past year. But like past protests, the protests this week (against the seizure of Palestinian lands for the building of the "separation wall") were met with violence by the Israeli military. The military fired rubber coated metal bullets (real bullets with a very thin rubber membrane) that injured a half a dozen people, fired tear gas and physically assaulted and detained 15 men. Of course, Americans never hear of peaceful demonstrations that are brutally repressed. Not only are protesters fired upon with rubber coated metal bullets and tear gas, they are beaten with clubs, dragged, chained to their vehicles, and arrested. The ignorance of the American public to both the nonviolent protests and the violet responses of the Israeli government must be largely blamed on the media.
How and why are such wide scale practices of nonviolence invisible?…
In response to the question: "why is there not a Palestinian Gandhi?" we must ultimately blame the Western media for distorting real events on the ground, for not providing context for reports that are made, and for irresponsibly misleading the pubic. These are serious issues of life and death and the media’s failure to adequately represent the situation must be seen as criminal. Rather than ask, "why is there not a Palestinian Gandhi?", we should consider the question posed by the Palestinian human rights activist, Arjan El Fassed: "why is there not an Israeli De Klerk?"
Please read more at http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=030106210355
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The Jerusalem Post
Arab peoples' right to choose
Daoud Kuttab
26 February 2006
I have been and continue to be an enthusiastic supporter of President Bush's (and anybody else's) mission to spread democracy. I would argue, as President Bush has done, that this is the most natural yearning of all peoples. My problem is that the US and its lead regional ally seem to stop short of their zeal for democracy once the result doesn't please them…
On the other hand, the US and its allies must approach Hamas's victory with an open mind and without looking at this Islamic group strictly from the point of view of right-wing Israelis.
To begin with, as a Palestinian Christian I must confess that I am not excited about the success of Hamas on the social as well as the national level. But I would not for a moment agree to deny it the opportunity to govern our people.
During the month since its election, the general mood among almost all my friends who would never dream of voting for Hamas has been total support for it to govern. In fact, since its election many have been discovering the depth of the problems and corruption that have dogged Palestinian society for some time.
For this reason, attempts to punish our people through denying us the taxes Israel collects for the Palestinian Authority, or the small grants from USAID earmarked for the Palestinian people, are completely unfair and unacceptable. Compared to the billions of dollars American taxpayers transfer to Israel (in military and civilian aid), allowing it to perpetuate the conflict, the small grants to Palestinians are nothing more than small change.
International humanitarian law lays down that the Israeli occupiers should ensure all the public needs of the people under occupation. By denying Palestinians the freedom to move people and goods, by blocking financial support, the Israeli action can be described as a declaration of war against the Palestinian people.
Please read more at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1139395494945&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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The Guardian
Israel's policies are feeding the cancer of anti-semitism
Paul Oestreicher
20 February 2006
The chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, is right. His reaction to the Anglican synod's call for sanctions against Israel is understandable. Hatred of Judaism - now commonly called anti-semitism - is a virus that has infected Christendom for two millennia. It continues to stalk the world despite its most virulent outbreak in Nazi Germany. It should not be left untreated. For too many it remains the unlearned lesson of the Holocaust. It should haunt decent Christians for generations to come.
The German pope knows that particularly well and is on the battle lines against it. On this issue, nothing divides him from the Archbishop of Canterbury and most other church leaders. If, as some now think, today's Jews are the Muslims - hatred transferred - that simply means there is a battle to maintain our common humanity on more than one front. All collective hatreds poison the body politic.
I say this as the child of a German Jewish-born father who escaped in time. His mother did not. I say it as a half-Jewish German child chased around a British playground in the second world war and taunted with "he's not just a German, he's a Jew". A double insult. But I say this too as a Christian priest who shares the historic guilt of all the churches. All Christians share a bloody inheritance.
If I feel all that in my guts and know it in my head, I cannot stand by and watch the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - one of the world's most dangerous outbreaks of collective hatred - as a dispassionate onlooker. I cannot listen calmly when an Iranian president talks of wiping out Israel. Jewish fears go deep. They are not irrational. But I cannot listen calmly either when a great many citizens of Israel think and speak of Palestinians in the way a great many Germans thought and spoke about Jews when I was one of them and had to flee…
But the main objective of my writing today, is to nail the lie that to reject Zionism as it practised today is in effect to be anti-semitic, to be an inheritor of Hitler's racism. That argument, with the Holocaust in the background, is nothing other than moral blackmail. It is highly effective. It condemns many to silence who fear to be thought anti-semitic. They are often the very opposite. They are often people whose heart bleeds at Israel's betrayal of its true heritage.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1713545,00.html
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Haaretz
As the Hamas team laughs
Gideon Levy
19 February 2006
The Hamas team had not laughed so much in a long time. The team, headed by the prime minister's advisor Dov Weissglas and including the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, the director of the Shin Bet and senior generals and officials, convened for a discussion with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on ways to respond to the Hamas election victory. Everyone agreed on the need to impose an economic siege on the Palestinian Authority, and Weissglas, as usual, provided the punch line: "It's like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die," the advisor joked, and the participants reportedly rolled with laughter. And, indeed, why not break into laughter and relax when hearing such a successful joke? If Weissglas tells the joke to his friend Condoleezza Rice, she would surely laugh too.
But Weissglas' wisecrack was in particularly poor taste. Like the thunder of laughter it elicited, it again revealed the extent to which Israel's intoxication with power drives it crazy and completely distorts its morality. With a single joke, the successful attorney and hedonist from Lilenblum Street, Tel Aviv demonstrated the chilling heartlessness that has spread throughout the top echelon of Israel's society and politics. While masses of Palestinians are living in inhumane conditions, with horrifying levels of unemployment and poverty that are unknown in Israel, humiliated and incarcerated under our responsibility and culpability, the top military and political brass share a hearty laugh a moment before deciding to impose an economic siege that will be even more brutal than the one until now.
The proposal to put hungry people on a diet is accepted here without shock, without public criticism; even if only said in jest, it is incomparably worse than the Danish caricature. It reflects a widespread mood that will usher in cruel, practical measures. If until now one could argue that Israel primarily demonstrated insensitivity to the suffering of the other and closed its eyes (especially the stronger classes, busy with their lives of plenty) while a complete nation was groaning only a few kilometers away, now Israel is also making jokes at the expense of the other's suffering.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/684258.html
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Haaretz
In Ze'evi's footsteps
Amira Hass
15 February 2006
The Oslo architects designated most of the eastern West Bank as Area C (full Israeli control), which is off-limits to Palestinian development. Only the settlements were allowed to develop, thanks primarily to the theft and exploitation of Palestinian water sources. A military training zone, where the IDF has conducted exercises ever since it conquered the West Bank, occupies 475 square kilometers of the valley and impairs the traditional lifestyle of thousands of semi-nomadic or Bedouin shepherds in the area. These shepherds are frequently turned out of their tents or forbidden to graze their sheep on these expanses or to raise a little wheat and produce for food.
At one time the explanation was that this is a firing range; once it was an issue of illegal construction. Just last Thursday, civil administration personnel demolished the tents, tin huts and sheepfolds of some 20 agricultural families in five different places in the valley. It is clear what scares the Israeli planners: A significant portion of the Palestinian communities in the valley turned from seasonal extensions of villages in the northern West Bank into permanent communities in the middle of the last century. Jews are encouraged to settle in the valley, but every conceivable method is used to deter Palestinians from doing so.
Preventing development and halting a long-standing natural process of construction and population expansion is a form of emptying out. But over the last few months, this effort expanded to include active measures: From time to time, soldiers come during the night and remove to the other side of the checkpoint those who live or work in the valley but whose official address is elsewhere. In the morning, these people return via the hills, evading the soldiers, taking the risk of stepping on a dud artillery shell.
And in October, people were given another reason to become fed up with life in the valley: Palestinian farmers were prevented from selling their produce to Israeli farmers at the nearest border crossing between the valley and Israel. Instead of traveling five kilometers, they were forced to travel 50, to a distant cargo terminal (Jalameh), and to wait endlessly at the internal checkpoints, knowing that a large portion of their vegetables would be spoiled by the sun and the bumping around. Knowing that there would be no reward for their labor.
The army swears that these prohibitions bear no relation to the politicians' declarations that the valley will remain in Israel's hands forever. But in practice, they are helping to empty it of Palestinians, in preparation for its official annexation to Israel.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/682885.html
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Haaretz
Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank
Amira Hass
13 February 2006
While the international community busied itself with the disengagement from the Gaza Strip last summer, Israel completed another cut-off process, which went unnoticed: Israel completed cutting off the eastern sector of the West Bank from the remainder of the West Bank in 2005.
Some 2,000,000 Palestinians, residents of the West Bank, are prohibited from entering the area, which constitutes around one-third of the West Bank, and includes the Jordan Valley, the area of the Dead Sea shoreline and the eastern slopes of the West Bank mountains.
Military sources told Haaretz that the moves have been "security measures" adopted by the Israel Defense Forces, and have no connection to any political intentions whatsoever.
Restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley were imposed at the start of the intifada, and were gradually expanded. But the sweeping prohibition regarding entry into the area by Palestinians was imposed, in fact, after security responsibility in Jericho was given back to the Palestinians on March 16, 2005.
At the time, Palestinian sources say, Palestinian travelers coming across the Allenby Bridge (the West Bank's only direct link overseas) were banned from passing through the Jordan Valley even if they were heading to the northern West Bank and the villages adjacent to the valley's checkpoints. Instead, the travelers are required to go through Jericho, and from there, the road is long and filled with checkpoints and delays.
In addition to affecting others, the prohibition also applies to thousands of residents of towns and villages in the northern West Bank, like Tubas and Tamun, most of whose lands are in the Jordan Valley, and some of whose residents have been living there for many years. The residents of the Jordan Valley villages are tied to the northern West Bank villages through family connections, joint land ownership, work, schooling, and medical and social services.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/681938.html
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Haaretz
Enlightenment in Eli
Gideon Levy
12 February 2006
The head of the Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, suddenly emerged from the shadows and revealed the main principles of his worldview. Revealed? Not exactly. Diskin did not intend to reveal his views to all of us. He spoke confidentially before students at the premilitary academy at the Eli settlement. Thanks to Channel 10, which obtained a recording of the event, the remarks were given public exposure.
Channel 10's news department deserves praise for the achievement. Diskin deserves to be denounced. First, because of the venue: Why do the students of Rabbi Eli Sadan deserve to hear what is withheld from the rest of the public? Why is the settlers' academy more worthy than us? Would Diskin speak with such openness before left-wing activists or residents of Umm al-Fahm? Why in heaven's name in Eli of all places, which was born in sin and exists in sin? Diskin chose to speak at a place that nurtures the wild weeds of the settlers - perhaps to placate them, perhaps to flatter them.
The content of his remarks also raises serious questions. Diskin said some forthright and bold things that were sharply critical. But he said them as if he has no part in shaping the reality. Diskin is not a neutral observer looking at reality. He is one of those responsible for the way reality looks. Thus, in effect, he broadened the borders of the useless concept "shooting and crying." Now we also have "depriving and crying" and "erring and crying."
This applies, for example, to his remarks about the deprivation the Arabs of Israel suffer: "If we take an Israeli Arab from Umm al-Fahm with an Israeli identity card and a Jew who is arrested, I don't identify equality in the way the system treats him. The discrimination is much more in favor of the Jews than the Arabs." Putting aside his ineloquent language, we can ask: Who exactly is this "system" that deprives the Arabs? Who is responsible for the fact that an arrested "Noam" is treated differently than an arrested "Naim?" We are not only talking about interrogation rooms. There is no organization more responsible for the deprivation of the Arab citizens of the state - because of "security" excuses that are generally groundless - than the Shin Bet that Diskin heads. When they are humiliated at the airports, when security guards deny them access to various events only because of their origin, when they are not allowed to receive jobs at state institutions and government companies, and when they are charged with serious security offenses that turn out in court to be of minor import, the Shin Bet is responsible for this.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=681518&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sb
SubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
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The Electronic Intifada
Singling out the Palestinians? Reciprocal demands are the key to peace
Moshe Behar
11 February 2006
SDEROT -- In and around Israel's "capital of the Qassam rockets," where I teach, the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections has left Israelis as divided as always. While some think that it can be a positive development - as Hamas is probably the sole Palestinian party capable of delivering on a binding Israeli-Palestinian agreement - others deem this wishful thinking and believe the existing Israeli-Palestinian gridlock will continue for years to come. A recent poll reflects this ambivalence with 48% of Israelis favoring a dialogue with Hamas and 43% against.
Amid this internal Israeli debate, the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - the so-called Middle East Quartet - delivered an insufficiently helpful message. Erroneously convinced that they had 'lined up in solidarity' with us, Israeli Jews, the Quartet lost no time declaring that Hamas "must be committed to nonviolence, recognize Israel and accept the previous agreements and commitments."
Appropriate as these words may or may not be, even entering students in Sderot understand that any political tango takes two to succeed and that singling out Hamas for special treatment is certain to benefit neither Israelis nor Palestinians in this troubled land. Why, therefore, has the Quartet never declared that "Israel must be committed to nonviolence, recognize a Palestinian state and accept the previous agreements and commitments"?
Self-proclaimed "pro-Israeli" individuals are likely to label this proposition preposterous; yet the honest among them must recall two empirical facts. First, an examination of the pattern of "violence" of the past five years reveals that the Palestinian-Israeli ratio of deaths stands at 4:1. Thus, ending this violence depends as much on Israel's compliance with the Quartet's terms as with the Palestinians…
If the Quartet - or anyone else for that matter - genuinely cares for the wellbeing of us, Israelis and Palestinians, they should cease playing the game of lopsided demands. For any hope to bring us nearer to a just and peaceful settlement, reciprocal demands should be made not just on the democratically elected representatives of the stateless occupied society, but also on those of the occupying state. Ultimately, that would be the most pro-Israel stance of all. And if there would be no peace in Beit Hanoun, there certainly wouldn't be peace in Sderot as well and vice versa.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4482.shtml
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The Guardian
Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state
Chris McGreal
8 February 2006
The acting Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said yesterday that he plans to annex the Jordan Valley and major Jewish settlement blocks to Israel in drawing new borders, according to a television station that recorded an interview with him yesterday.
In Mr Olmert's first policy statement since he succeeded Ariel Sharon last month, Channel 2 television said that he made clear he intends to carry through his predecessor's vision of creating an emasculated Palestinian state on Israel's terms.
If the Jewish state were to annex all of the Jordan Valley, which is dotted with small settlements, it would leave a future Palestinian state on the West Bank entirely surrounded by Israel and without a direct link to neighbouring countries.
The interview was to be broadcast late last night. Channel 2's political affairs reporter, Nissim Mishal, told Army radio that Mr Olmert, who is favourite to win next month's general election, also plans further unilateral withdrawals similar to the settler pullout from Gaza last summer.
"He talked about Israel having to maintain a Jewish majority in the state of Israel, meaning that we have to create a new border, what is called final borders. He knows that we can't negotiate with Hamas. So the only conclusion that can be derived from this is that, in order to reach final borders, Israel will have to carry out additional [unilateral] withdrawals," said Mishal.
Mr Olmert said he intends to annex the three main settlement blocks of Ariel, Gush Etzion and Maale Adumim as well as the Jordan Valley, the TV station said…
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1705021,00.html
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PACBI.org
Israeli Apartheid: Time for the South African Treatment
Omar Barghouti
28 January 2006
By now, most Palestinians recognize Israel’s entrenched system of colonialism, racism and denial of basic human rights as a form of apartheid. In fact, Palestinians are far from alone in holding this view of Israel; leading South African intellectuals, politicians and human rights advocates subscribe to the same school of thought. For instance, in an article in the Guardian tellingly entitled “Apartheid in the Holy Land,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote:
“I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. […] Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?”[1]
In fact, many Jews have not forgotten. Inside Israel, some Jewish politicians and journalists have made clear analogies between Israel and South Africa. Roman Bronfman, Chair of the Democratic Choice faction in the Yahad party, criticized what he termed “an apartheid regime in the occupied territories,” adding, “The policy of apartheid has also infiltrated sovereign Israel, and discriminates daily against Israeli Arabs and other minorities. The struggle against such a fascist viewpoint is the job of every humanist.”[2]
Esther Levitan, the Jewish grandmother once condemned to indefinite solitary confinement without trial in apartheid South Africa for her activism in the ANC, admitted in an interview with Ha’aretz that she considered Israel appallingly racist, saying: “Israelis have this loathsome hatred of Arabs that makes me sick. […] They will create a worse apartheid here.”[3]
What could have stirred all this moral indignation, one may wonder? The following representative samples of Israeli oppression of the three main parts of the Palestinian people (under occupation, in exile and in Israel) may help answer this question.
Please read more at http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=123_0_1_0_C
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International Middle East Media Center
Anatomy of a Cover-Up: When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound?
Alison Weir
27 January 2006
Why don't Americans Know what's going on in Israel/Palestine?
The answer is unclear at this point, but some disturbing patterns are beginning to emerge. They implicate some of our major news media, and, perhaps most of all, the Associated Press, the oldest and largest wire service in the world. Most American editors and journalists have no idea what is occurring under their watch. To date, there is little indication that they care.
Before dawn on January 15th, an Israeli special forces unit killed a Palestinian mother and her 24-year-old son in their home. The mother had three bullets in her; the son 15. The Israeli soldiers also shot and wounded the woman's husband and four other family members: young women were shot in the pelvis and chest, young men in the foot, chest, torso, liver. The firing lasted over an hour. Then the Israeli squad shot at an arriving ambulance and prevented it for 45 minutes from tending to the dying, bleeding family.
It was all the result of a "misunderstanding," as the Israeli press put it.
The Israeli special forces commandos, invading a Palestinian village, had mistakenly taken a man standing guard in his home against vandalism for a resistance fighter. At first the Israeli military claimed that the now-dead man had shot at them, but before long the soldiers admitted that they had fired first. They saw the man cock his gun, they explain. The soldiers say, and at least some witnesses concur, that after they killed the man, someone from inside the house returned their fire. The soldiers claim that they then continued to shoot, but that their firing was "precise and limited." The husband says that even when he yelled at them to stop, that his wife and son were dead, the onslaught continued for at least an hour. None of the Israeli soldiers were killed or wounded…
That day and since, the US press has carried long news stories on Israel/Palestine. Yet, almost none of the reports have mentioned the above incident. The Boston Globe seems to have missed it entirely, as did the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Constitution, the Baltimore Sun, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, a multitude of other papers across the country, and, it appears, every mainstream American television and radio network.
Please read more at http://www.imemc.org/content/view/16309/1/
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6 March 2006
Standing in Bardalah
There is much that has not changed over the years in the village of Bardalah in the northern Jordan Valley of the West Bank. The Palestinian residents of this village continue to live very close to the land, depending largely on agriculture for their subsistence.
Recently, Mennonite Central Committee along with Catholic Relief Services (http://www.crs.org/) partnered with the Palestinian Hydrology Group (http://www.phg.org/index1.html) in a hydrology project in this small Palestinian village. Bardalah sits on about 400 dunams (4 dunams = 1 acre) of land and is home to about 2700 Palestinians. They have there own school and a medical clinic and rely on the land for much of their livelihood. Growing fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, cauliflower, and squash can be challenging in the climate of the Jordan Valley. That is why projects such as these go a long way.
This project in particular saw the building of 4 cement pools in Bardalah. These pools, which will collect rainwater in the winter season and store water in the summer, will supply water to 60 dunams of farmland, benefiting 90 farmers. In addition to the pools, 500 meters of new irrigation pipes were installed as part of the project. This is the third phase of a joint hydrology project to provide emergency assistance to Palestinian farmers affected by the separation wall. It has included projects in Bardalah’s neighboring village of ‘Ein el-Beida, in the northern Jordan Valley, and in the West Bank village of Jayyus where the separation wall has cut off over three hundred families from their farm lands, having a serious economic impact on this village that relies heavily on agriculture.
Palestinian livelihoods continue to be devastated in the process as more land is being expropriated for the construction of this 430-mile / 700-km separation barrier that has little to do with security and terrorism, built not on the internationally recognized boundary referred to as the “Green Line” but instead on Palestinian land, cutting deeply into the West Bank (“Under the Guise of Security: Routing the Separation Barrier to Enable Israeli Settlement Expansion in the West Bank,”
http://www.btselem.org/english/Publications/summaries/
200512_Under_the_Guise_of_Security.asp; “B’Tselem: Fence route directly linked to plan for settlement expansion,’” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/685938.html).
When the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank began in 1967, the Israeli military began to dismantle and prohibit the water well pumping facilities the villagers of Bardalah depended on for their agricultural development, leaving them only with the option to buy water from Israeli water companies. Israeli policy of time and supply constraints on the water supplied to these communities has made it very difficult for farmers to irrigate their fields. These pools will help farmers to not need to buy as much water from Israel, providing them with free access to water for their lands.
Though this story of occupation and dispossession is unfortunately also something that has not changed over the years, neither has Palestinian resistance to this injustice.
Between 1976 and 1988, MCC was engaged in a rural development program that focused on protecting Palestinian land and water rights, both of which were under attack from the Israeli occupation. “In the context of aggressive Israeli policies of confiscating Palestinian land for settlements and weakening the Palestinian agricultural sector,” MCC worker Ibrahim Matar described the objectives of this program as “to develop the land and water resources, increase food production, increase income, self-reliance and steadfastness of the farming communities on their land. These objectives are intended to counter the policies of the authorities of land seizures, dispossession, displacement and impoverishment” (See Alain Epp Weaver and Sonia K. Weaver, Salt & Sign: Mennonite Central Committee in Palestine, 1949-1999 (MCC, 1999), 56)
Only recently, five families in Bardalah were dispossessed, expelled from the homes they lived in for 40 years.
As continues to be the case now, the lack of an adequate water supply for farming was due not simply to the limited amount of available groundwater and spring water, but also to the Israeli military refusal to allow Palestinian farmers permission to drill wells.
The village of Bardalah was the sight of one of the first projects in this program, mainly due to their outdated irrigation methods, and to the fact that their lands were under threat of confiscation from nearby settlements. In addition to introducing drip irrigation methods and providing material at a cheaper cost, MCC also conducted training for farmers in how to fit and maintain drip systems, distributing the necessary tools so that farmers could be self-sufficient in the assembly and repair of pipes (Salt & Sign, 57).
Had it not been for these efforts, not only would Bardalah have faced the serious danger of running out of water for agriculture, Ibrahim Matar believed that their land also would have been expropriated. “The Israeli settlement of Meholah, for example, had made moves on the lands of Bardalah village. With the support of MCC, Bardalah villagers were able to surround the settlement with fields supplied by drip irrigation systems, stymieing land confiscation” (Salt & Sign, 57-58).
And to this day, despite the destructive effect of Israeli army tanks driving through the farmland of Bardalah, 3 km of drip irrigation line installed with the support of MCC in the mid-1970’s continues to function.
In this context, the seemingly mundane tasks of farming become a form of resistance.
***
In addition to the threat of settlement expansion in the Jordan Valley, today there is also the impact of the separation barrier to the north that has also served to maintain the Palestinian experience of dispossession by expropriating more Palestinian land (“The Eastern Wall: Closing the circle of our ghettoization,” http://stopthewall.org/analysisandfeatures/1042.shtml; “Palestinians stand up against expulsion from Jordan Valley,” http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1101.shtml).
Israeli colonization and annexation of the Jordan Valley has been made clearer in several recent reports (“Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/681938.html; “Israel excludes Palestinians from fertile valley,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1709278,00.html; “Israel ‘has annexed Jordan Valley and shut out Palestinians,’” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article345298.ece; “Israel has de facto annexed the Jordan Valley,” http://www.btselem.org/English/Settlements/20060213_
Annexation_of_the_Jordan_Valley.asp)
In fact, these intentions have been recently reiterated by Israeli acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who has stated that Israel will soon move to define its international borders to include the major Israeli settlement blocs illegally built on occupied Palestinian territory as well as the whole of the Jordan Valley (“Olmert vows to set final borders,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4709834.stm; “Olmert: Next Knesset must determine Israel's final borders,”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/682351.html; “Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1705021,00.html; “Report: Olmert would keep 3 settlement blocs, Jordan Valley,” http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/679959.html).
Interestingly, Israel is one of the only states in the world without defined international borders. But Israel’s moves to define its borders is happening unilaterally, without consideration for the Palestinians it will effect, and in violation of the international communities call—laid out most recently in the “Road Map”—not to take any unilateral steps that would impact a final solution. However, there is nothing new with this agenda, as it is in line with Ariel Sharon’s vision of “maximum territory, minimum Arabs.” (“Maximum Territory, Minimum Arabs,” http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=11389; “The Paradox of Jerusalem,” http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=7697&CategoryId=5; “The Road to Bantustan,” http://miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=2718&CategoryId=5).
Such a move only reflects the reality of the “facts on the ground” already established by illegal Israeli colonies and the illegal separation wall. The construction of the wall itself has been a unilateral move by an occupying power in violation of international law, not a negotiated or agreed upon “border” between two sovereign states. Unfortunately, this wall along with the annexation of the Jordan Valley will become the de facto border of a Palestinian “state” composed of about 7 to 11 isolated “reservations” on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank, completely surrounded by Israel.
***
Indeed, much has not changed over the years for the people of Bardalah. And the witness that Mennonite Central Committee has borne over the years has become part of that story—a story of ongoing occupation and dispossession accompanied by ongoing resistance to injustice and persistent hope for a better future. May the future of Mennonite Central Committee in Palestine continue to bear witness to a commitment to resist injustice for the “least of these” (Matthew 25).
‘From the Desert May Bloom Justice and Peace’ – A Meditation for Lent
There are traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigor during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbor). The theme of justice defines the status of these relationships.
We would like to leave you with a meditation and a prayer as we begin this lenten season. May it also be a challenge as we move through these days of prayer, repentance, fasting, almsgiving, and abstinence.
‘From the desert may bloom justice and peace’ - a meditation for Lent (http://www.christianaid.org.uk/worship/403lent/reflection.htm)
Help us, Lord, to face our demons, our powers, as you faced yours. You were a man of power who could change stones to bread, conquer kingdoms and fall from the Temple roof without harm. You spent forty days searching for the way to use your powers for the coming of the Father's Reign of Peace, Justice and Holiness.
Help us to use our baptismal powers in the same way. Help us to use our anger at injustice in ways that will effect change, get things done and give witness in word and deed to the Reign you so ardently desired. Help us to use our lust not to abuse or exploit but rather to discover what are our deeper hungers and thirsts so that from the desert may bloom justice and peace.
Help us to overcome our sloth so that from indifference we may turn to deep concern for others who suffer and die because there is no one to turn the stones of hunger into bread, to build a society founded on justice and solidarity and to practise true religion which defends the widow and orphan and gives shelter to the stranger.
Peace to you all,
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· “Fears of new Israeli settlement as wall completed around Bethlehem,” OpenBethlehem.org, 28 February 2006
· Aluf Benn, “Olmert to seek int'l support for West Bank withdrawal,” Haaretz, 5 March 2006
· John Petrovato, “Waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi,” Palestine Chronicle, 1 March 2006
· Daoud Kuttab, “Arab peoples’ right to choose,” The Jerusalem Post, 26 February 2006
· Paul Oestreicher, “Israel's policies are feeding the cancer of anti-semitism,” The Guardian, 20 February 2006
· Gideon Levy, “As the Hamas team laughs,” Haaretz, 19 February 2006
· Amira Hass, “In Ze’evi’s footsteps,” Haaretz, 15 February 2006
· Amira Hass, “Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank,” Haaretz, 13 February 2006
· Gideon Levy, “Enlightenment in Eli,” Haaretz, 12 February 2006
· Moshe Behar, “Singling out the Palestinians? Reciprocal demands are the key to peace,” The Electronic Intifada, 11 February 2006
· Chris McGreal, “Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state,” The Guardian, 8 February 2006
· Omar Barghouti, “Israeli Apartheid: Time for the South African Treatment,” PACBI.org, 28 January 2006
· Alison Weir, “Anatomy of a Cover-Up: When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound?” IMEMC.org, 27 January 2006
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Open Bethlehem
Fears of new Israeli settlement as wall completed around Bethlehem
28 February 2006
The final section of Israel’s wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem will be completed in a matter of days.
The wall around Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem will not only sever the connection between the region’s most holy Christian sites, but will also herald the creation of a new ‘fact on the ground’ - an illegal Jewish settlement which will be home to some of Israel’s most extremist religious groups.
The ultra-orthodox Kever Rahel Fund announced last year that it intended to build about 400 apartments at the site. This week their work has begun. Settlers are planning to move into houses around the tomb as soon as the wall is completed.
Bethlehem’s population fears that town will become another Hebron– where Jewish extremists have expelled Palestinians from their homes and with the support of the Israeli army, intimidate and harass the local population. Hebron was once the busiest shopping town in the region, but is now a ghost town. Christian Peacemaker Teams have a permanent presence there to monitor and report abuses by the army and settlers on local people.
A former member of the Israeli parliament, Hanan Porat, was quoted today in Israeli newspaper Haaretz : "With the help of God we are progressing toward maintaining a permanent Jewish presence and a fixed yeshiva in Rachel's Tomb, as Rabbi Kook [religious Zionist fundamentalist] urged, and bringing Israelis back to where they belong."
Please read more at http://www.openbethlehem.org
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Haaretz
Olmert to seek int'l support for West Bank withdrawal
Aluf Benn
5 March 2006
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is planning to enlist international support for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank, if he wins the elections. Olmert believes that the first objective of the next government will be to create a supportive international environment for implementing Israel's national goals: setting its borders and ensuring a Jewish majority.
Olmert will try to persuade the American administration and the key players in the international community that unless Hamas alters its positions, they must support a unilateral Israeli move to determine the border in the West Bank. In his view, Israel has managed to muster broad international support for the conditions it imposed on the Hamas government, and this must be kept up until after the elections. Only then will it begin to promote the unilateral initiative.
Since the Hamas victory in the Palestinian legislative elections, Olmert has been referring less and less to the "road map" peace plan. Some of his advisers told him to stick with that plan, which enjoys American support and is accepted in the international community as the basis for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. But Olmert thinks he would make a fool of himself were he to continue talking about the road map, as though the political circumstances had not changed following the Palestinian polls…
Olmert thinks that besides the blocs, Israel should control the Jordan Valley and Jewish holy sites. The senior sources ventured that the American administration would refuse to give Israel guarantees on the matter of Jerusalem, considered the most sensitive topic in any permanent agreement.
The defense establishment is in favor of a unilateral move that would include completing the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip and another pullout in the West Bank.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/690007.html
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Palestine Chronicle
Waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi
John Petrovato
1 March 2006
I offer two examples of these invisible Gandhis who I have personally met: Ghassan Andoni and Sherif Omar.
During a recent lecture at the University of Oregon, Yuval Rabin, son of the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was asked if he believed that a Palestinian leader would emerge promoting peace with Israel. Rabin expressed skepticism: "We can't wait 300 to 400 decades waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi to emerge". By making this statement Yuval Rabin reiterates the often-repeated sentiments that "there is no Palestinian Gandhi" nor are Palestinians inclined to be peaceful and utilize nonviolence as a tactic for their grievances. Palestinians, it is believed, have instead chosen violence and terror to try to achieve their aims.
But have Palestinians really forsaken nonviolence? Have commentators around the world really forgotten the popular nonviolent uprising they celebrated during the first Intifada? And what of the Israeli occupation of Palestine? Why is occupation not seen as a form of violence?
Palestinians have utilized myriad techniques of nonviolent resistance including strikes, boycotts, tax revolts and peaceful demonstrations. While the second Intifada has been pocked with more incidences of violence, nonviolence is still utilized to a great degree. Indeed, not a week goes by where Palestinians have not organized major nonviolent demonstrations. Just this week, for instance, there have been nonviolent protests in Bal’ein, Beit Sira, and Aaboud villages west of Ramallah. All these villages, and dozens of others, have had peace protests regularly over the past year. But like past protests, the protests this week (against the seizure of Palestinian lands for the building of the "separation wall") were met with violence by the Israeli military. The military fired rubber coated metal bullets (real bullets with a very thin rubber membrane) that injured a half a dozen people, fired tear gas and physically assaulted and detained 15 men. Of course, Americans never hear of peaceful demonstrations that are brutally repressed. Not only are protesters fired upon with rubber coated metal bullets and tear gas, they are beaten with clubs, dragged, chained to their vehicles, and arrested. The ignorance of the American public to both the nonviolent protests and the violet responses of the Israeli government must be largely blamed on the media.
How and why are such wide scale practices of nonviolence invisible?…
In response to the question: "why is there not a Palestinian Gandhi?" we must ultimately blame the Western media for distorting real events on the ground, for not providing context for reports that are made, and for irresponsibly misleading the pubic. These are serious issues of life and death and the media’s failure to adequately represent the situation must be seen as criminal. Rather than ask, "why is there not a Palestinian Gandhi?", we should consider the question posed by the Palestinian human rights activist, Arjan El Fassed: "why is there not an Israeli De Klerk?"
Please read more at http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=030106210355
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The Jerusalem Post
Arab peoples' right to choose
Daoud Kuttab
26 February 2006
I have been and continue to be an enthusiastic supporter of President Bush's (and anybody else's) mission to spread democracy. I would argue, as President Bush has done, that this is the most natural yearning of all peoples. My problem is that the US and its lead regional ally seem to stop short of their zeal for democracy once the result doesn't please them…
On the other hand, the US and its allies must approach Hamas's victory with an open mind and without looking at this Islamic group strictly from the point of view of right-wing Israelis.
To begin with, as a Palestinian Christian I must confess that I am not excited about the success of Hamas on the social as well as the national level. But I would not for a moment agree to deny it the opportunity to govern our people.
During the month since its election, the general mood among almost all my friends who would never dream of voting for Hamas has been total support for it to govern. In fact, since its election many have been discovering the depth of the problems and corruption that have dogged Palestinian society for some time.
For this reason, attempts to punish our people through denying us the taxes Israel collects for the Palestinian Authority, or the small grants from USAID earmarked for the Palestinian people, are completely unfair and unacceptable. Compared to the billions of dollars American taxpayers transfer to Israel (in military and civilian aid), allowing it to perpetuate the conflict, the small grants to Palestinians are nothing more than small change.
International humanitarian law lays down that the Israeli occupiers should ensure all the public needs of the people under occupation. By denying Palestinians the freedom to move people and goods, by blocking financial support, the Israeli action can be described as a declaration of war against the Palestinian people.
Please read more at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1139395494945&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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The Guardian
Israel's policies are feeding the cancer of anti-semitism
Paul Oestreicher
20 February 2006
The chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, is right. His reaction to the Anglican synod's call for sanctions against Israel is understandable. Hatred of Judaism - now commonly called anti-semitism - is a virus that has infected Christendom for two millennia. It continues to stalk the world despite its most virulent outbreak in Nazi Germany. It should not be left untreated. For too many it remains the unlearned lesson of the Holocaust. It should haunt decent Christians for generations to come.
The German pope knows that particularly well and is on the battle lines against it. On this issue, nothing divides him from the Archbishop of Canterbury and most other church leaders. If, as some now think, today's Jews are the Muslims - hatred transferred - that simply means there is a battle to maintain our common humanity on more than one front. All collective hatreds poison the body politic.
I say this as the child of a German Jewish-born father who escaped in time. His mother did not. I say it as a half-Jewish German child chased around a British playground in the second world war and taunted with "he's not just a German, he's a Jew". A double insult. But I say this too as a Christian priest who shares the historic guilt of all the churches. All Christians share a bloody inheritance.
If I feel all that in my guts and know it in my head, I cannot stand by and watch the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - one of the world's most dangerous outbreaks of collective hatred - as a dispassionate onlooker. I cannot listen calmly when an Iranian president talks of wiping out Israel. Jewish fears go deep. They are not irrational. But I cannot listen calmly either when a great many citizens of Israel think and speak of Palestinians in the way a great many Germans thought and spoke about Jews when I was one of them and had to flee…
But the main objective of my writing today, is to nail the lie that to reject Zionism as it practised today is in effect to be anti-semitic, to be an inheritor of Hitler's racism. That argument, with the Holocaust in the background, is nothing other than moral blackmail. It is highly effective. It condemns many to silence who fear to be thought anti-semitic. They are often the very opposite. They are often people whose heart bleeds at Israel's betrayal of its true heritage.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1713545,00.html
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Haaretz
As the Hamas team laughs
Gideon Levy
19 February 2006
The Hamas team had not laughed so much in a long time. The team, headed by the prime minister's advisor Dov Weissglas and including the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, the director of the Shin Bet and senior generals and officials, convened for a discussion with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on ways to respond to the Hamas election victory. Everyone agreed on the need to impose an economic siege on the Palestinian Authority, and Weissglas, as usual, provided the punch line: "It's like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die," the advisor joked, and the participants reportedly rolled with laughter. And, indeed, why not break into laughter and relax when hearing such a successful joke? If Weissglas tells the joke to his friend Condoleezza Rice, she would surely laugh too.
But Weissglas' wisecrack was in particularly poor taste. Like the thunder of laughter it elicited, it again revealed the extent to which Israel's intoxication with power drives it crazy and completely distorts its morality. With a single joke, the successful attorney and hedonist from Lilenblum Street, Tel Aviv demonstrated the chilling heartlessness that has spread throughout the top echelon of Israel's society and politics. While masses of Palestinians are living in inhumane conditions, with horrifying levels of unemployment and poverty that are unknown in Israel, humiliated and incarcerated under our responsibility and culpability, the top military and political brass share a hearty laugh a moment before deciding to impose an economic siege that will be even more brutal than the one until now.
The proposal to put hungry people on a diet is accepted here without shock, without public criticism; even if only said in jest, it is incomparably worse than the Danish caricature. It reflects a widespread mood that will usher in cruel, practical measures. If until now one could argue that Israel primarily demonstrated insensitivity to the suffering of the other and closed its eyes (especially the stronger classes, busy with their lives of plenty) while a complete nation was groaning only a few kilometers away, now Israel is also making jokes at the expense of the other's suffering.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/684258.html
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Haaretz
In Ze'evi's footsteps
Amira Hass
15 February 2006
The Oslo architects designated most of the eastern West Bank as Area C (full Israeli control), which is off-limits to Palestinian development. Only the settlements were allowed to develop, thanks primarily to the theft and exploitation of Palestinian water sources. A military training zone, where the IDF has conducted exercises ever since it conquered the West Bank, occupies 475 square kilometers of the valley and impairs the traditional lifestyle of thousands of semi-nomadic or Bedouin shepherds in the area. These shepherds are frequently turned out of their tents or forbidden to graze their sheep on these expanses or to raise a little wheat and produce for food.
At one time the explanation was that this is a firing range; once it was an issue of illegal construction. Just last Thursday, civil administration personnel demolished the tents, tin huts and sheepfolds of some 20 agricultural families in five different places in the valley. It is clear what scares the Israeli planners: A significant portion of the Palestinian communities in the valley turned from seasonal extensions of villages in the northern West Bank into permanent communities in the middle of the last century. Jews are encouraged to settle in the valley, but every conceivable method is used to deter Palestinians from doing so.
Preventing development and halting a long-standing natural process of construction and population expansion is a form of emptying out. But over the last few months, this effort expanded to include active measures: From time to time, soldiers come during the night and remove to the other side of the checkpoint those who live or work in the valley but whose official address is elsewhere. In the morning, these people return via the hills, evading the soldiers, taking the risk of stepping on a dud artillery shell.
And in October, people were given another reason to become fed up with life in the valley: Palestinian farmers were prevented from selling their produce to Israeli farmers at the nearest border crossing between the valley and Israel. Instead of traveling five kilometers, they were forced to travel 50, to a distant cargo terminal (Jalameh), and to wait endlessly at the internal checkpoints, knowing that a large portion of their vegetables would be spoiled by the sun and the bumping around. Knowing that there would be no reward for their labor.
The army swears that these prohibitions bear no relation to the politicians' declarations that the valley will remain in Israel's hands forever. But in practice, they are helping to empty it of Palestinians, in preparation for its official annexation to Israel.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/682885.html
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Haaretz
Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank
Amira Hass
13 February 2006
While the international community busied itself with the disengagement from the Gaza Strip last summer, Israel completed another cut-off process, which went unnoticed: Israel completed cutting off the eastern sector of the West Bank from the remainder of the West Bank in 2005.
Some 2,000,000 Palestinians, residents of the West Bank, are prohibited from entering the area, which constitutes around one-third of the West Bank, and includes the Jordan Valley, the area of the Dead Sea shoreline and the eastern slopes of the West Bank mountains.
Military sources told Haaretz that the moves have been "security measures" adopted by the Israel Defense Forces, and have no connection to any political intentions whatsoever.
Restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley were imposed at the start of the intifada, and were gradually expanded. But the sweeping prohibition regarding entry into the area by Palestinians was imposed, in fact, after security responsibility in Jericho was given back to the Palestinians on March 16, 2005.
At the time, Palestinian sources say, Palestinian travelers coming across the Allenby Bridge (the West Bank's only direct link overseas) were banned from passing through the Jordan Valley even if they were heading to the northern West Bank and the villages adjacent to the valley's checkpoints. Instead, the travelers are required to go through Jericho, and from there, the road is long and filled with checkpoints and delays.
In addition to affecting others, the prohibition also applies to thousands of residents of towns and villages in the northern West Bank, like Tubas and Tamun, most of whose lands are in the Jordan Valley, and some of whose residents have been living there for many years. The residents of the Jordan Valley villages are tied to the northern West Bank villages through family connections, joint land ownership, work, schooling, and medical and social services.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/681938.html
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Haaretz
Enlightenment in Eli
Gideon Levy
12 February 2006
The head of the Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, suddenly emerged from the shadows and revealed the main principles of his worldview. Revealed? Not exactly. Diskin did not intend to reveal his views to all of us. He spoke confidentially before students at the premilitary academy at the Eli settlement. Thanks to Channel 10, which obtained a recording of the event, the remarks were given public exposure.
Channel 10's news department deserves praise for the achievement. Diskin deserves to be denounced. First, because of the venue: Why do the students of Rabbi Eli Sadan deserve to hear what is withheld from the rest of the public? Why is the settlers' academy more worthy than us? Would Diskin speak with such openness before left-wing activists or residents of Umm al-Fahm? Why in heaven's name in Eli of all places, which was born in sin and exists in sin? Diskin chose to speak at a place that nurtures the wild weeds of the settlers - perhaps to placate them, perhaps to flatter them.
The content of his remarks also raises serious questions. Diskin said some forthright and bold things that were sharply critical. But he said them as if he has no part in shaping the reality. Diskin is not a neutral observer looking at reality. He is one of those responsible for the way reality looks. Thus, in effect, he broadened the borders of the useless concept "shooting and crying." Now we also have "depriving and crying" and "erring and crying."
This applies, for example, to his remarks about the deprivation the Arabs of Israel suffer: "If we take an Israeli Arab from Umm al-Fahm with an Israeli identity card and a Jew who is arrested, I don't identify equality in the way the system treats him. The discrimination is much more in favor of the Jews than the Arabs." Putting aside his ineloquent language, we can ask: Who exactly is this "system" that deprives the Arabs? Who is responsible for the fact that an arrested "Noam" is treated differently than an arrested "Naim?" We are not only talking about interrogation rooms. There is no organization more responsible for the deprivation of the Arab citizens of the state - because of "security" excuses that are generally groundless - than the Shin Bet that Diskin heads. When they are humiliated at the airports, when security guards deny them access to various events only because of their origin, when they are not allowed to receive jobs at state institutions and government companies, and when they are charged with serious security offenses that turn out in court to be of minor import, the Shin Bet is responsible for this.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=681518&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sb
SubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
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The Electronic Intifada
Singling out the Palestinians? Reciprocal demands are the key to peace
Moshe Behar
11 February 2006
SDEROT -- In and around Israel's "capital of the Qassam rockets," where I teach, the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections has left Israelis as divided as always. While some think that it can be a positive development - as Hamas is probably the sole Palestinian party capable of delivering on a binding Israeli-Palestinian agreement - others deem this wishful thinking and believe the existing Israeli-Palestinian gridlock will continue for years to come. A recent poll reflects this ambivalence with 48% of Israelis favoring a dialogue with Hamas and 43% against.
Amid this internal Israeli debate, the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - the so-called Middle East Quartet - delivered an insufficiently helpful message. Erroneously convinced that they had 'lined up in solidarity' with us, Israeli Jews, the Quartet lost no time declaring that Hamas "must be committed to nonviolence, recognize Israel and accept the previous agreements and commitments."
Appropriate as these words may or may not be, even entering students in Sderot understand that any political tango takes two to succeed and that singling out Hamas for special treatment is certain to benefit neither Israelis nor Palestinians in this troubled land. Why, therefore, has the Quartet never declared that "Israel must be committed to nonviolence, recognize a Palestinian state and accept the previous agreements and commitments"?
Self-proclaimed "pro-Israeli" individuals are likely to label this proposition preposterous; yet the honest among them must recall two empirical facts. First, an examination of the pattern of "violence" of the past five years reveals that the Palestinian-Israeli ratio of deaths stands at 4:1. Thus, ending this violence depends as much on Israel's compliance with the Quartet's terms as with the Palestinians…
If the Quartet - or anyone else for that matter - genuinely cares for the wellbeing of us, Israelis and Palestinians, they should cease playing the game of lopsided demands. For any hope to bring us nearer to a just and peaceful settlement, reciprocal demands should be made not just on the democratically elected representatives of the stateless occupied society, but also on those of the occupying state. Ultimately, that would be the most pro-Israel stance of all. And if there would be no peace in Beit Hanoun, there certainly wouldn't be peace in Sderot as well and vice versa.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4482.shtml
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The Guardian
Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state
Chris McGreal
8 February 2006
The acting Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said yesterday that he plans to annex the Jordan Valley and major Jewish settlement blocks to Israel in drawing new borders, according to a television station that recorded an interview with him yesterday.
In Mr Olmert's first policy statement since he succeeded Ariel Sharon last month, Channel 2 television said that he made clear he intends to carry through his predecessor's vision of creating an emasculated Palestinian state on Israel's terms.
If the Jewish state were to annex all of the Jordan Valley, which is dotted with small settlements, it would leave a future Palestinian state on the West Bank entirely surrounded by Israel and without a direct link to neighbouring countries.
The interview was to be broadcast late last night. Channel 2's political affairs reporter, Nissim Mishal, told Army radio that Mr Olmert, who is favourite to win next month's general election, also plans further unilateral withdrawals similar to the settler pullout from Gaza last summer.
"He talked about Israel having to maintain a Jewish majority in the state of Israel, meaning that we have to create a new border, what is called final borders. He knows that we can't negotiate with Hamas. So the only conclusion that can be derived from this is that, in order to reach final borders, Israel will have to carry out additional [unilateral] withdrawals," said Mishal.
Mr Olmert said he intends to annex the three main settlement blocks of Ariel, Gush Etzion and Maale Adumim as well as the Jordan Valley, the TV station said…
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1705021,00.html
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PACBI.org
Israeli Apartheid: Time for the South African Treatment
Omar Barghouti
28 January 2006
By now, most Palestinians recognize Israel’s entrenched system of colonialism, racism and denial of basic human rights as a form of apartheid. In fact, Palestinians are far from alone in holding this view of Israel; leading South African intellectuals, politicians and human rights advocates subscribe to the same school of thought. For instance, in an article in the Guardian tellingly entitled “Apartheid in the Holy Land,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote:
“I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. […] Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?”[1]
In fact, many Jews have not forgotten. Inside Israel, some Jewish politicians and journalists have made clear analogies between Israel and South Africa. Roman Bronfman, Chair of the Democratic Choice faction in the Yahad party, criticized what he termed “an apartheid regime in the occupied territories,” adding, “The policy of apartheid has also infiltrated sovereign Israel, and discriminates daily against Israeli Arabs and other minorities. The struggle against such a fascist viewpoint is the job of every humanist.”[2]
Esther Levitan, the Jewish grandmother once condemned to indefinite solitary confinement without trial in apartheid South Africa for her activism in the ANC, admitted in an interview with Ha’aretz that she considered Israel appallingly racist, saying: “Israelis have this loathsome hatred of Arabs that makes me sick. […] They will create a worse apartheid here.”[3]
What could have stirred all this moral indignation, one may wonder? The following representative samples of Israeli oppression of the three main parts of the Palestinian people (under occupation, in exile and in Israel) may help answer this question.
Please read more at http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=123_0_1_0_C
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International Middle East Media Center
Anatomy of a Cover-Up: When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound?
Alison Weir
27 January 2006
Why don't Americans Know what's going on in Israel/Palestine?
The answer is unclear at this point, but some disturbing patterns are beginning to emerge. They implicate some of our major news media, and, perhaps most of all, the Associated Press, the oldest and largest wire service in the world. Most American editors and journalists have no idea what is occurring under their watch. To date, there is little indication that they care.
Before dawn on January 15th, an Israeli special forces unit killed a Palestinian mother and her 24-year-old son in their home. The mother had three bullets in her; the son 15. The Israeli soldiers also shot and wounded the woman's husband and four other family members: young women were shot in the pelvis and chest, young men in the foot, chest, torso, liver. The firing lasted over an hour. Then the Israeli squad shot at an arriving ambulance and prevented it for 45 minutes from tending to the dying, bleeding family.
It was all the result of a "misunderstanding," as the Israeli press put it.
The Israeli special forces commandos, invading a Palestinian village, had mistakenly taken a man standing guard in his home against vandalism for a resistance fighter. At first the Israeli military claimed that the now-dead man had shot at them, but before long the soldiers admitted that they had fired first. They saw the man cock his gun, they explain. The soldiers say, and at least some witnesses concur, that after they killed the man, someone from inside the house returned their fire. The soldiers claim that they then continued to shoot, but that their firing was "precise and limited." The husband says that even when he yelled at them to stop, that his wife and son were dead, the onslaught continued for at least an hour. None of the Israeli soldiers were killed or wounded…
That day and since, the US press has carried long news stories on Israel/Palestine. Yet, almost none of the reports have mentioned the above incident. The Boston Globe seems to have missed it entirely, as did the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Constitution, the Baltimore Sun, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, a multitude of other papers across the country, and, it appears, every mainstream American television and radio network.
Please read more at http://www.imemc.org/content/view/16309/1/
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Wednesday, February 1
MCC Palestine Update #118
MCC Palestine Update #118
1 February 2006
Greetings to you all. The style of this update is a little different as it follows the recent Palestinian Legislative Council elections and will be focused exclusively on their impact on the people here, lifting up of their voices to speak to some of the misperceptions in North America regarding the whole process. In addition to the following stories, please find the attachments for further reading at the end of the update.
***
Looking out of the window of our Bethlehem apartment, I had been seeing people walking up and down our street since early morning. Walking down that street with my neighbor Bashir, we could see the crowd that had been gathered in front of what most days is a school but that day served as a polling station.
Banners, flags, posters, and robust conversations filled the streets. After scanning a list of the names of registered voters posted outside, Bashir and I entered the building together. After he had cast his ballots, he showed me his finger that was dipped in purple ink to designate his having voted. “Mabruuk,” I told him. “Allah ybaarak fiik, Tim,” he responded, “but why congratulations, congratulations for what?”
“Congratulations for your democracy,” I said.
Democracy?
The elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) that occurred on the 25th of January were the first of their kind since 1996. The PLC is the legislative branch of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and is made up of 132 members from across the occupied West Bank and Gaza. The fact that only 6000 Palestinians in Jerusalem were “allowed” to vote along with the voting difficulties experienced in the rest of the occupied territories due to the Israeli military’s presence at checkpoints and the imposition of closures, making movement even more difficult than it already is for Palestinians belies the claims of the state of Israel to uphold the virtues of democracy in the Middle East.
“Do you see,” one man who noticed that I was a foreigner sparked up a conversation while I was waiting for Bashir, “Do you see, we have democracy, but we do not have freedom. We want peace, we want freedom.”
Freedom?
What this man was referring to was the context in which these elections were taking place, a context of dispossession and occupation that has gone mostly unspoken in the English-speaking media over the past weeks. Despite the optimism that surround such processes as this, the concretization of Israeli domination over Palestinian life and land shows no sign of letting up.
Whether it is more land being expropriated for the construction of the 430-mile or 700-km “separation barrier” (that cuts deeply into the West Bank, deviating from the internationally recognized border known as the “Green Line”), the expansion of illegal settlements and creation of a de-Palestinized “Greater Jerusalem,” checkpoints that obstruct mobility, the demolition of homes and other forms of collective punishment, or the “one big prison” status of Gaza, Palestinian livelihoods continued to be devastated under this occupation and their experience of dispossession unabated.
The virtues of “democracy” can hardly be comforting in such a context.
Indeed many Palestinians point out how dangerous this process can be as it gives the appearance of a “democratized” occupation. They lift up the dangers of an international perspective of “Palestine” as an independent state with a president and a parliament, when in fact it is far from it.
Unfortunately, the trajectory of dispossession points to the completion of the “separation barrier,” becoming the de facto border of a “Palestinian State” composed of several isolated islands of land on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank. Palestinians will be confined to these “reservations,” which will be rendered “contiguous” by a network of tunnels. Absent a viable, contiguous Palestinians state, what remains will be a reservation life for Palestinians parallel to the Native North American experience in the United States.
Later that evening, I sat around with friends as they discussed the day’s events. The organization and the civility with which this election proceeded could not be criticized by anybody, especially considering the lack of civility with which the Palestinian people here are often treated. Perhaps this gives me hope for whatever does happen next. Knowing that the dignity and the humanity of the people here will persist, despite all attempts to strip them of it by the Israeli occupation or by Western media, provides a sense of hope in the midst of the uncertainty and insecurity that Palestinians are faced with on a daily basis.
***
On our way to a morning meeting in Bethlehem the other day, we decided to pick up some bread often eaten for breakfast called ka’ik from Jerusalem. The ka’ik from Jerusalem is famous and quite a treat, especially for those Palestinians like our colleagues in Bethlehem who are not able to travel the short 6-mile or 10-km distance to Jerusalem due to the system of checkpoints and closures that the Israeli military imposes on them.
As I set the bag down on a chair next to me in our colleague’s office, it accidentally fell to the floor. “I am so sorry,” I said. “Don’t worry,” our Palestinian friend replied, “it was probably Hamas’ fault anyway.” We all burst out laughing.
Here in the occupied Palestinian territories, it is easy to understand why people are cracking jokes like this one. Since the result of the Palestinian Legislative elections last week, whatever congratulatory remarks Palestinians have heard from the rest of the world for being “democratic” has been drowned out by condemnations and demands that Hamas leadership must meet in order to be recognized. In a portrayal devoid of context, Hamas and the Palestinian people are to blame. And unfortunately, this is the story that often gets told in the English-speaking media.
But there are voices like those of Palestinian Christian Samia Khoury that point out that “Before the results were out, we kept hearing official voices from the USA and Israel announcing that there will be no peace process if Hamas wins, and that there is no chance for the Road Map under Hamas. The Europeans sounded worried as well, realizing that a Hamas government in Palestine would force them to face serious change. Yet none of those official voices had the courage to admit that the peace process was already on hold due to the Israeli intransigence.”
“The Road Map that Israeli spokesmen said would not be possible to implement under Hamas was never fully accepted by Israel, which has consistently blocked its implementation and the establishment of a Palestinian State through means such as building an illegal concrete wall eight meters tall to divide the Palestinian territories. So let us not pretend that peace was around the corner before Hamas’ electoral victory, which at most heightened the already astronomical odds against peace barring a major shift in Israeli policy.” (see the link to this article below)
Categorizing Hamas absolutely as a terrorist organization not only ignores that role they have played in providing greatly needed social services to Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip (one of the most densely populated areas in the world), but it now alienates the entire Palestinian people by attaching the same label to them as well. It is dismantling this dehumanization first and foremost that Palestinians want to see. And Palestinians feel that making demands of them or of Hamas at this point is not going to help in that process.
Our attempts at naming violence must be consistent. As one Palestinian friend has told me, we need to be more inclusive with our condemnation of violence in all its forms—whether direct or indirect, personal or structural, suicide-bombings, extra judicial assassinations, home demolitions, or military occupations. Though Hamas has had its role in the violence here, it is not Hamas that stops our friends in Bethlehem from enjoying there own breakfast in Jerusalem, but the structural violence of this occupation that has existed long before Hamas ever did.
Of course there are those voices—both Christian and Muslim—that are more concerned by the turn away from a secular political environment. Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem recognizes those fears that some may be having over “the possibility of the society’s islamization, or potential clash between Hamas and Fatah, or the likelihood of isolating Palestine internationally.” But he urges us to think beyond such observations, to see “the other side of the coin.”
“This is the only time in the Middle East that a one party rule has ended peacefully by democratic elections. We cannot but accept this as the best way to rotate political power. The people decided that enough is enough with Fatah and its rule. They opted for change. This change has not only to do with the power of Hamas but also with a process that is necessary for our society.”
Rev. Raheb goes on to say that as Palestinian Christians “we are called not to be afraid; neither to panic nor to withdraw from the public sphere. We are called not to feel as if we are just spectators but rather to participate with many in this quest for a new Palestinian identity. We are called to replace old and ineffective structures by engaging in this process of building a new political system that is modern, meaningful, and accountable. In a context of commercializing religion, we are called to provide a new sense of deep spirituality. And in a context of disorientation, our vocation is to offer the vision of a new promise and of dynamic identity. This is not only a challenge, but an honor and a privilege to be able to participate. It is at times like these that we are most needed.” (see the link to this article below)
In the end, it is not about Hamas or Fatah but about the Palestinian people, about their freedom and their future. Change is what Palestinians want and perhaps what these elections communicate more than anything else. Indeed, Hamas ran under the name of the party for “change and reform.” And the response that the North has offered seems to reveal a fear regarding any notion of change. But fear of what? Fear of more violence? Fear of an ongoing conflict? Or fear that the status quo that maintains U.S.-backed Israeli control over Palestinian life may be disrupted?
Timothy Seidel
Co-Peace Development Worker
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Chris McGreal, “Israel's shooting of young girl highlights international hypocrisy, say Palestinians,” The Guardian, 30 January 2006
· Mousa Abu Marzook, “What Hamas Is Seeking,” Washington Post, 31 January 2006
· Ian Fisher, “Palestinians Debate Shades of Islamic Law,” New York Times, 1 February 2006
· Khalid Mish'al, “We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid,” The Guardian, 31 January 2006
· Arnon Regular, “Abbas says will meet Hamas in two weeks to discuss forming government,” Haaretz, 30 January 2006
· Saed Bannoura, “Hamas says it's holding secret talks with the US,” International Middle East Media Center, 30 January 2006
· Robert Fisk, “The problem with democracy,” The Independent, 28 January 2006
· Samia Khoury, “Are You Surprised?: A Reflection on the Palestinian Elections,” The Witness, 29 January 2006
· Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, “The other side of the coin: A reading in the Palestinian Elections,” Bethlehem Media Net, 27 January 2006
· Ali Abunimah, “Hamas Election Victory: A Vote for Clarity,” The Electronic Intifada, 26 January 2006
· Saree Makdisi, “Illusion of democracy: The Palestinian Elections,” The Electronic Intifada, 23 January 2006
· Gideon Levy, “Only the right can,” Haaretz, 29 January 2006
· Amira Hass, “The obligation of the occupied,” Haaretz, 25 January 2006
· Chris McGreal, “Hamas drops call for destruction of Israel from manifesto,” The Guardian, 12 January 2006
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The Guardian
Israel's shooting of young girl highlights international hypocrisy, say Palestinians
Chris McGreal
30 January 2006
As the votes were counted in the Palestinian election and the scale of Hamas's landslide became apparent to the world, Aya al-Astal drifted away from her home and wandered towards the fence along the border between the Gaza strip and Israel.
The nine-year-old girl's parents realised she was gone as they watched the election results on television. They do not know precisely what happened, but the Israeli army later said Aya was behaving in a suspicious manner reminiscent of a terrorist - she got too close to the border fence - and so a soldier fired several bullets into the child, hitting her in the neck and blowing open her stomach.
Aya was the second child killed by the Israeli army last week. Soldiers near Ramallah shot 13-year-old Munadel Abu Aaalia in the back as he walked along a road reserved for Jewish settlers with two friends. The army said the boys planned to throw rocks at Israeli cars, which the military defines as terrorism.
The two killings went unnoticed by the outside world amid the political drama, but they made their impact among Palestinians angered by demands from western leaders for Hamas to recognise Israel and renounce its armed struggle.
Some Palestinians see the demands as a rejection of a democratic election and as siding with Israel. Others see hypocrisy. They say Israeli soldiers killed twice as many Palestinians last week alone - both of them children - as the number of Israelis killed by Hamas all last year.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1697825,00.html
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Washington Post
What Hamas Is Seeking
Mousa Abu Marzook
31 January 2006
DAMASCUS, Syria -- A new era in the struggle for Palestinian liberation is upon us. Through historic fair and free elections, the Palestinian people have spoken.
Accordingly, America's long-standing tradition of supporting the oppressed's rights to self-determination should not waver. The United States, the European Union and the rest of the world should welcome the unfolding of the democratic process, and the commitment to aid should not falter. Last week's victory of the Change and Reform Party in the Palestinian legislative elections signals a new hope for an occupied people.
The results of these elections reflect a need for change from the corruption and intransigence of the past government. Since its creation 10 years ago, the Palestinian Legislative Council has been unsuccessful in addressing the needs of the people. As the occupation solidified its grip under the auspices of "peace agreements," quality of life deteriorated for Palestinians in the occupied territories. Poverty levels soared, unemployment rates reached uncharted heights and the lack of basic security approached unbearable depths. A grass-roots alternative grew out of the urgency of this situation. Through its legacy of social work and involvement in the needs of the Palestinian people, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) flourished as a positive social force striving for the welfare of all Palestinians. Alleviating the debilitative conditions of occupation, and not an Islamic state, is at the heart of our mandate (with reform and change as its lifeblood)…
We appeal to the American people's sense of fairness to judge this conflict in light of the great thoughts, principles and ideals you hold dear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the democracy you have built. It is not unreasonable to expect America to practice abroad what it preaches at home. We can but sincerely hope that you use your honest judgment and the blessings of ascendancy God has given you to demand an end to the occupation. Meaningful democracy cannot flourish as long as an external force maintains the balance of power. It is the right of all people to pursue their own destiny.
Please read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/30/AR2006013001209_pf.html
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New York Times
Palestinians Debate Shades of Islamic Law
Ian Fisher
1 February 2006
TAYBEH, West Bank, Jan. 30 — This is a village of three churches, a brewer of very good beer, and no small fear — if not yet full panic — about what it means now that Hamas, the radical Islamic party, is in control of Palestinian politics.
"If the whole world and our president are afraid, do you think that we are not?" asked Nima Samaan, 62, a Christian Arab, referring to the current, and secular, Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas.
There is no certain answer to the question asked apprehensively around the West Bank and Gaza since Hamas swept the parliamentary elections last week: To what extent — by law or by social pressure — will Hamas impose its strong religious beliefs?
So far Hamas leaders, seeking to calm both Palestinians and an anxious outside world, have projected moderation. They say they will not impose on the Palestinians' diverse society any form of Islamic rule.
"You cannot force people to do what they do not want to do," said Sheik Fadil Saleh, 53, a former imam who won a seat in Ramallah for Hamas. "In the Koran it is said: No force in religion."
Please read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/international/middleeast/
01hamas.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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The Guardian
We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid
Khalid Mish'al
Palestinians voted for Hamas because of our refusal to give up their rights. But we are ready to make a just peace
31 January 2006
It is widely recognised that the Palestinians are among the most politicised and educated peoples in the world. When they went to the polls last Wednesday they were well aware of what was on offer and those who voted for Hamas knew what it stood for. They chose Hamas because of its pledge never to give up the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and its promise to embark on a programme of reform. There were voices warning them, locally and internationally, not to vote for an organisation branded by the US and EU as terrorist because such a democratically exercised right would cost them the financial aid provided by foreign donors.
The day Hamas won the Palestinian democratic elections the world's leading democracies failed the test of democracy. Rather than recognise the legitimacy of Hamas as a freely elected representative of the Palestinian people, seize the opportunity created by the result to support the development of good governance in Palestine and search for a means of ending the bloodshed, the US and EU threatened the Palestinian people with collective punishment for exercising their right to choose their parliamentary representatives.
We are being punished simply for resisting oppression and striving for justice. Those who threaten to impose sanctions on our people are the same powers that initiated our suffering and continue to support our oppressors almost unconditionally. We, the victims, are being penalised while our oppressors are pampered. The US and EU could have used the success of Hamas to open a new chapter in their relations with the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims and to understand better a movement that has so far been seen largely through the eyes of the Zionist occupiers of our land…
We shall never recognise the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else's sins or solve somebody else's problem. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1698702,00.html
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Haaretz
Abbas says will meet Hamas in two weeks to discuss forming government
Arnon Regular
30 January 2006
Meanwhile, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar told CNN on Monday that a long-term truce (hudna) with Israel is possible if Israel retreats to its pre-1967 borders and releases Palestinian prisoners.
"We can expect to establish our independent state on the area before '67 and we can give a long-term hudna," Zahar told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
Zahar laid out a series of conditions that he said could lead to years of co-existence alongside Israel. He said that if Israel "is ready to give us the national demand to withdraw from the occupied area [in] '67; to release our detainees; to stop their aggression; to make geographic link between Gaza Strip and West Bank, at that time, with assurance from other sides, we are going to accept to establish our independent state at that time, and give us one or two, 10, 15 years time in order to see what is the real intention of Israel after that."
Asked about Hamas' call for Israel's destruction, Zahar would not say whether that remains the goal. "We are not speaking about the future, we are speaking now," he said.
Zahar argued that Israel has no true intention of accepting a Palestinian state, despite international agreements including the Road Map for Middle East peace.
Until Israel says what its final borders will be, Hamas will not say whether it will ever recognize Israel, Zahar said. "If Israel is ready to tell the people what is the official border, after that we are going to answer this question."
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/676190.html
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International Middle East Media Center
Hamas says it's holding secret talks with the US
Saed Bannoura
30 January 2006
Mousa Abu Marzouq, assistant of the head of Hamas' political bureau reported, on Monday, that the movement has been holding secret talks, in recent period, with the United States on several issues, adding that Hamas prefers direct and formal talks.
Abu Marzouq told an Algerian newspaper that Washington replaced the direct talks with secret ones which were formal in some cases and informal in others.
"Hamas prefers direct talks with the United States in the coming period", Abu Marzouq said, "We will deal with every party in accordance to our strategy".
Also, Abu Marzouq added that as long as there is occupation, Hamas will not recognize Israel and will continue its resistance activities.
"As long as there is occupation, we will resist and regain our rights", Abu Marzouq stated, "In this period, we do not intend to recognize Israel, because it’s a state which expelled our people, and is occupying our land".
Referring to the Israeli decision not to negotiate with any Palestinian government that includes Hamas, Abu Marzouq said that if Israel rejects to negotiate it will "isolate itself".
He added that there is a positive development in the statements of the US president George Bush, who said that he will hold talks with Hamas if its drops its calls to destruct Israel.
Please read more at http://www.imemc.org/content/view/16383/1/
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The Independent
The problem with democracy
Robert Fisk
And now, horror of horrors, the Palestinians have elected the wrong party to power
28 January 2006
Oh no, not more democracy again! Didn't we award this to those Algerians in 1990? And didn't they reward us with that nice gift of an Islamist government - and then they so benevolently cancelled the second round of elections? Thank goodness for that!
True, the Afghans elected a round of representatives, albeit that they included some warlords and murderers. But then the Iraqis last year elected the Dawa party to power in Baghdad, which was responsible - let us not speak this in Washington - for most of the kidnappings of Westerners in Beirut in the 1980s, the car bombing of the (late) Emir and the US and French embassies in Kuwait.
And now, horror of horrors, the Palestinians have elected the wrong party to power. They were supposed to have given their support to the friendly, pro-Western, corrupt, absolutely pro-American Fatah, which had promised to "control" them, rather than to Hamas, which said they would represent them. And, bingo, they have chosen the wrong party again.
Result: 76 out of 132 seats. That just about does it. God damn that democracy. What are we to do with people who don't vote the way they should?
Please read more at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11694.htm or http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article341462.ece
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The Witness
Are You Surprised?: A Reflection on the Palestinian Elections
Samia Khoury
29 January 2006
Before the results were out, we kept hearing official voices from the USA and Israel announcing that there will be no peace process if Hamas wins, and that there is no chance for the Road Map under Hamas. The Europeans sounded worried as well, realizing that a Hamas government in Palestine would force them to face serious change. Yet none of those official voices had the courage to admit that the peace process was already on hold due to the Israeli intransigence.
How ironic that Mr. Shimon Peres has joined the chorus of those expressing grave concern about making peace with Hamas. We all recall how as prime minister he dismally failed to carry out the legacy of peace for which he, the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the late President Arafat got the Nobel Peace Prize. Peres and his woeful chorus pretend not to understand the source of the Palestinian people's frstration, but they have been witnessing Israel violating U.N. resolutions and international law as well as using sophisticated and extensive weaponry to wage a relentless war on the Palestinian civilian population, and they share the blame for Fateh's failure, as they stood by passively or offered resources and encouragement to Israel's attempts to erode Fateh's authority.
The Road Map that Israeli spokesmen said would not be possible to implement under Hamas was never fully accepted by Israel, which has consistently blocked its implementation and the establishment of a Palestinian State through means such as building an illegal concrete wall eight meters tall to divide the Palestinian territories. So let us not pretend that peace was around the corner before Hamas' electoral victory, which at most heightened the already astronomical odds against peace barring a major shift in Israeli policy.
Please read more at http://www.thewitness.org/article.php?id=1016
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Bethlehem Media Net
The other side of the coin: A reading in the Palestinian Elections
Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb
27 January 2006
A friend asked me yesterday saying: “You have been always good in talking about the endless opportunities behind the tremendous challenges, can you still see this here too?” My answer to my friend was “Definitely!” My answer does not mean that I am minimizing the threat and danger behind this “green revolution.” Neither do I dismiss the possibility of the society’s islamization, or potential clash between Hamas and Fatah, or the likelihood of isolating Palestine internationally. Yet, one must see the other side of the coin. This is the only time in the Middle East that a one party rule has ended peacefully by democratic elections. We cannot but accept this as the best way to rotate political power. The people decided that enough is enough with Fatah and its rule. They opted for change. This change has not only to do with the power of Hamas but also with a process that is necessary for our society. In reality, this change means the end of the PLO as we know it, since its parties and structures do not relate anymore to the issues of Palestinian society. A new political landscape has to emerge now. This brings with it endless possibilities. The identity of Fatah after Arafat has to be shaped. The leftist parties in Palestine have to wake up from their sweet dreams and ideologies, to unite, restructure and to develop a new vision. Hamas is now obliged to show their capability of delivering what they were promising, and to learn how to build a government rather than being in the “lazy chair” of the opposition. The people of Palestine have to get used to regularly call their representatives to accountability through this medium of democratic elections.
Finally, what about us Palestinian Christians? My answer is that we are called not to be afraid; neither to panic nor to withdraw from the public sphere. We are called not to feel as if we are just spectators but rather to participate with many in this quest for a new Palestinian identity. We are called to replace old and ineffective structures by engaging in this process of building a new political system that is modern, meaningful, and accountable. In a context of commercializing religion, we are called to provide a new sense of deep spirituality. And in a context of disorientation, our vocation is to offer the vision of a new promise and of dynamic identity. This is not only a challenge, but an honor and a privilege to be able to participate. It is at times like these that we are most needed.
Please read more at http://www.bethlehemmedia.net/feat214.htm
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The Electronic Intifada
Hamas Election Victory: A Vote for Clarity
Ali Abunimah
26 January 2006
Hamas' victory in the Palestinian Authority legislative elections has everyone asking "what next"? The answer, and whether the result should be seen as a good or bad thing, depends very much on who is asking the question.
Although a Hamas success was heavily trailed, the scale of the victory has been widely termed a "shock." Several factors explain the dramatic rise of Hamas, including disillusionment and disgust with the corruption, cynicism and lack of strategy of the Fatah faction which has dominated the Palestinian movement for decades and had arrogantly come to view itself as the natural and indisputable leader.
The election result is not entirely surprising, however, and has been foreshadowed by recent events. Take for example the city of Qalqilya in the north of the West Bank. Hemmed in by Israeli settlements and now completely surrounded by a concrete wall, the city's fifty thousand residents are prisoners in a Israeli-controlled giant ghetto. For years Qalqilya's city council was controlled by Fatah but after the completion of the wall, voters in last years' municipal elections awarded every single city council seat to Hamas. The Qalqilya effect has now spread across the occcupied territories, with Hamas reportedly winning virtually all of the seats elected on a geographic basis. Thus Hamas' success is as much an expression of the determination of Palestinians to resist Israel's efforts to force their surrender as it is a rejection of Fatah. It reduces the conflict to its most fundamental elements: there is occupation, and there is resistance…
The instant US demand that Hamas "recognize Israel" is like rewinding the clock twenty-five years to when this same demand was the pretext to ignore and exclude the PLO from peace negotiations. But as Hamas has observed, all the PLO's submission to these demands did not lead to any loosening of Israel's grip or any lessening of US support for Israel. Hamas is unlikely to do as the US demands, and even if it did, it would probably only give rise to new resistance groups responding to the worsening conditions on the ground generated by the occupation.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4425.shtml
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The Electronic Intifada
Illusion of democracy: The Palestinian Elections
Saree Makdisi
23 January 2006
All the talk of elections is part of an attempt to impose a sense of normalcy on a highly abnormal situation: not just the endless occupation, but the unresolved future of the Palestinian people, two-thirds of whom are excluded from the electoral process because they do not live in the occupied territories but rather in refugee camps or in the diaspora, or as second-class citizens of the state of Israel. And none of this will be changed by the elections.
Leaving aside the question of what it means to hold a "national" election when the majority of the nation doesn't have the right to vote, even the process of holding elections while living under military occupation is highly problematic for those who are eligible to vote.
The Israeli army denies Palestinians in the occupied territories the right to free movement, so access to campaign rallies and even voting booths can hardly be taken for granted. Right now, for example, 800,000 Palestinians living in the northern West Bank are banned from traveling outside of their home districts, and a large strand of Route 60, the main West Bank artery, has been off limits to Palestinian traffic since August…
Not only do Wednesday's elections maintain this deception, they also reinforce the sense that they are part of a wider process of Palestinian "reform" and "democratization," which are keys to the future of the so-called peace process.
After all, the United States has decreed that all progress toward peace depends on the behavior of the Palestinians, rather than on the Israelis. Placing that burden on those who never chose to live under military occupation -- while exempting the occupiers -- is hardly likely to yield real results.
But it's not meant to. This is why Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior adviser Dov Weisglass describes the situation as "a bottle of formaldehyde." According to Weisglass, maintaining the illusion of a political process guarantees that there will be no resolution of the conflict "until the Palestinians turn into Finns." And that, of course, suits Israel just fine, because as long as the illusion is maintained, it doesn't have to do anything but hang on to the territories it took by force in 1967.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4411.shtml
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Haaretz
Only the right can
Gideon Levy
29 January 2006
There's more good news. Only the right can do it? If that view is true, if only people of the right can bring peace, like Ariel Sharon on our side, then we are now facing a new chance that should not be missed. A peace deal with Hamas will be a lot more stable and viable than any agreement we sign with the PLO, if Hamas were to oppose it. Hamas can make concessions where Fatah would never dare. In any case, the Hamas that forms the government won't be the Hamas that sends suicide bombers. The comparison to international terror organizations is also nonsense: Hamas is a movement fighting for limited national goals. If Israel were to reach out to the extremists among its enemies, then maybe it can reach a real agreement that would put an end to the tumor of the occupation and the curse of terror…
Now is the time to reach out to Hamas, which is desperate for international, and particularly American, recognition, and knows that such recognition goes through Israel. If Israel were to be friendly toward Hamas, it could benefit. Not that Hamas will all at once give up its extremist demands and its unrealistic dreams, but it will know, as some of its leaders have already declared, to set them aside if it serves their interests. Israel, which in any case did not speak with Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, now has an opportunity for surprise. Instead of wasting more years with rejectionism, at the end of which we'll sit down with Hamas in any case, let us reach out now to this extremist group, which was democratically elected. Israel has nothing to lose from such an approach. We've already seen the achievements of the hand that assassinates and demolishes, uproots and jails, we've already seen those policies fulfilled in front of our eyes: Hamas won the elections.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/675837.html
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Haaretz
The obligation of the occupied
Amira Hass
25 January 2006
The elections taking place today in the Palestinian Authority are fluctuating between two poles: The Israeli occupation and its tremendous involvement in Palestinian lives, and the responsibility that the occupied have for their own lives. The world, led by Israel, loves to forget that the Palestinian parliament and government, despite their respectable name, are not state institutions, and that the PA enclaves are not independent.
The Palestinian parliament and government lack the authority and rights their counterparts have in sovereign states. They have no control over the external and internal borders that Israel draws between the various Palestinian districts, to the point where they are cut off from each other.
Sixty percent of West Bank land, the primary physical resource of the Palestinian people, are under total Israeli control, and no Palestinian government will be able to do with them what sovereign entities do in their territory: sow and plant, build, develop, maintain. Israel controls the water sources in Israel and in effect sets quotas for the Palestinians. Israel's control of the Palestinian population registry and freedom of movement means that it intervenes in personal decisions like family ties, place of residence, work and study. Through its control of the external and internal borders, Israel also determines how the Palestinian economy will look - the rate of unemployment, the salary cap, the types of economic activity, the location of the factories. And that is only a partial list…
Israelis must not deceive themselves: The Palestinians have not forgotten the occupation. They want to hope that the new candidates, who are supposed to be attentive to their people, will do better than their predecessors in taking advantage of the narrow maneuvering space that even the occupied have in their struggle for freedom. Days will tell whether the new parliament will indeed be able to find methods of struggle that will succeed where negotiations, rifles, explosive belts and unarmed popular activities have failed.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/674639.html
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The Guardian
Hamas drops call for destruction of Israel from manifesto
Chris McGreal
· Shift comes in lead-up to Palestinian election
· Commitment to armed struggle remains
12 January 2006
Hamas has dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto for the Palestinian parliamentary election in a fortnight, a move that brings the group closer to the mainstream Palestinian position of building a state within the boundaries of the occupied territories.
The Islamist faction, responsible for a long campaign of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis, still calls for the maintenance of the armed struggle against occupation. But it steps back from Hamas's 1988 charter demanding Israel's eradication and the establishment of a Palestinian state in its place.
The manifesto makes no mention of the destruction of the Jewish state and instead takes a more ambiguous position by saying that Hamas had decided to compete in the elections because it would contribute to "the establishment of an independent state whose capital is Jerusalem".
The shift in emphasis comes as Hamas finds itself under pressure from the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and from foreign governments to accept Israel's right to exist and to end its violence if it wants to be accepted as a political partner in a future administration.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1684472,00.html
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1 February 2006
Greetings to you all. The style of this update is a little different as it follows the recent Palestinian Legislative Council elections and will be focused exclusively on their impact on the people here, lifting up of their voices to speak to some of the misperceptions in North America regarding the whole process. In addition to the following stories, please find the attachments for further reading at the end of the update.
***
Looking out of the window of our Bethlehem apartment, I had been seeing people walking up and down our street since early morning. Walking down that street with my neighbor Bashir, we could see the crowd that had been gathered in front of what most days is a school but that day served as a polling station.
Banners, flags, posters, and robust conversations filled the streets. After scanning a list of the names of registered voters posted outside, Bashir and I entered the building together. After he had cast his ballots, he showed me his finger that was dipped in purple ink to designate his having voted. “Mabruuk,” I told him. “Allah ybaarak fiik, Tim,” he responded, “but why congratulations, congratulations for what?”
“Congratulations for your democracy,” I said.
Democracy?
The elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) that occurred on the 25th of January were the first of their kind since 1996. The PLC is the legislative branch of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and is made up of 132 members from across the occupied West Bank and Gaza. The fact that only 6000 Palestinians in Jerusalem were “allowed” to vote along with the voting difficulties experienced in the rest of the occupied territories due to the Israeli military’s presence at checkpoints and the imposition of closures, making movement even more difficult than it already is for Palestinians belies the claims of the state of Israel to uphold the virtues of democracy in the Middle East.
“Do you see,” one man who noticed that I was a foreigner sparked up a conversation while I was waiting for Bashir, “Do you see, we have democracy, but we do not have freedom. We want peace, we want freedom.”
Freedom?
What this man was referring to was the context in which these elections were taking place, a context of dispossession and occupation that has gone mostly unspoken in the English-speaking media over the past weeks. Despite the optimism that surround such processes as this, the concretization of Israeli domination over Palestinian life and land shows no sign of letting up.
Whether it is more land being expropriated for the construction of the 430-mile or 700-km “separation barrier” (that cuts deeply into the West Bank, deviating from the internationally recognized border known as the “Green Line”), the expansion of illegal settlements and creation of a de-Palestinized “Greater Jerusalem,” checkpoints that obstruct mobility, the demolition of homes and other forms of collective punishment, or the “one big prison” status of Gaza, Palestinian livelihoods continued to be devastated under this occupation and their experience of dispossession unabated.
The virtues of “democracy” can hardly be comforting in such a context.
Indeed many Palestinians point out how dangerous this process can be as it gives the appearance of a “democratized” occupation. They lift up the dangers of an international perspective of “Palestine” as an independent state with a president and a parliament, when in fact it is far from it.
Unfortunately, the trajectory of dispossession points to the completion of the “separation barrier,” becoming the de facto border of a “Palestinian State” composed of several isolated islands of land on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank. Palestinians will be confined to these “reservations,” which will be rendered “contiguous” by a network of tunnels. Absent a viable, contiguous Palestinians state, what remains will be a reservation life for Palestinians parallel to the Native North American experience in the United States.
Later that evening, I sat around with friends as they discussed the day’s events. The organization and the civility with which this election proceeded could not be criticized by anybody, especially considering the lack of civility with which the Palestinian people here are often treated. Perhaps this gives me hope for whatever does happen next. Knowing that the dignity and the humanity of the people here will persist, despite all attempts to strip them of it by the Israeli occupation or by Western media, provides a sense of hope in the midst of the uncertainty and insecurity that Palestinians are faced with on a daily basis.
***
On our way to a morning meeting in Bethlehem the other day, we decided to pick up some bread often eaten for breakfast called ka’ik from Jerusalem. The ka’ik from Jerusalem is famous and quite a treat, especially for those Palestinians like our colleagues in Bethlehem who are not able to travel the short 6-mile or 10-km distance to Jerusalem due to the system of checkpoints and closures that the Israeli military imposes on them.
As I set the bag down on a chair next to me in our colleague’s office, it accidentally fell to the floor. “I am so sorry,” I said. “Don’t worry,” our Palestinian friend replied, “it was probably Hamas’ fault anyway.” We all burst out laughing.
Here in the occupied Palestinian territories, it is easy to understand why people are cracking jokes like this one. Since the result of the Palestinian Legislative elections last week, whatever congratulatory remarks Palestinians have heard from the rest of the world for being “democratic” has been drowned out by condemnations and demands that Hamas leadership must meet in order to be recognized. In a portrayal devoid of context, Hamas and the Palestinian people are to blame. And unfortunately, this is the story that often gets told in the English-speaking media.
But there are voices like those of Palestinian Christian Samia Khoury that point out that “Before the results were out, we kept hearing official voices from the USA and Israel announcing that there will be no peace process if Hamas wins, and that there is no chance for the Road Map under Hamas. The Europeans sounded worried as well, realizing that a Hamas government in Palestine would force them to face serious change. Yet none of those official voices had the courage to admit that the peace process was already on hold due to the Israeli intransigence.”
“The Road Map that Israeli spokesmen said would not be possible to implement under Hamas was never fully accepted by Israel, which has consistently blocked its implementation and the establishment of a Palestinian State through means such as building an illegal concrete wall eight meters tall to divide the Palestinian territories. So let us not pretend that peace was around the corner before Hamas’ electoral victory, which at most heightened the already astronomical odds against peace barring a major shift in Israeli policy.” (see the link to this article below)
Categorizing Hamas absolutely as a terrorist organization not only ignores that role they have played in providing greatly needed social services to Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip (one of the most densely populated areas in the world), but it now alienates the entire Palestinian people by attaching the same label to them as well. It is dismantling this dehumanization first and foremost that Palestinians want to see. And Palestinians feel that making demands of them or of Hamas at this point is not going to help in that process.
Our attempts at naming violence must be consistent. As one Palestinian friend has told me, we need to be more inclusive with our condemnation of violence in all its forms—whether direct or indirect, personal or structural, suicide-bombings, extra judicial assassinations, home demolitions, or military occupations. Though Hamas has had its role in the violence here, it is not Hamas that stops our friends in Bethlehem from enjoying there own breakfast in Jerusalem, but the structural violence of this occupation that has existed long before Hamas ever did.
Of course there are those voices—both Christian and Muslim—that are more concerned by the turn away from a secular political environment. Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem recognizes those fears that some may be having over “the possibility of the society’s islamization, or potential clash between Hamas and Fatah, or the likelihood of isolating Palestine internationally.” But he urges us to think beyond such observations, to see “the other side of the coin.”
“This is the only time in the Middle East that a one party rule has ended peacefully by democratic elections. We cannot but accept this as the best way to rotate political power. The people decided that enough is enough with Fatah and its rule. They opted for change. This change has not only to do with the power of Hamas but also with a process that is necessary for our society.”
Rev. Raheb goes on to say that as Palestinian Christians “we are called not to be afraid; neither to panic nor to withdraw from the public sphere. We are called not to feel as if we are just spectators but rather to participate with many in this quest for a new Palestinian identity. We are called to replace old and ineffective structures by engaging in this process of building a new political system that is modern, meaningful, and accountable. In a context of commercializing religion, we are called to provide a new sense of deep spirituality. And in a context of disorientation, our vocation is to offer the vision of a new promise and of dynamic identity. This is not only a challenge, but an honor and a privilege to be able to participate. It is at times like these that we are most needed.” (see the link to this article below)
In the end, it is not about Hamas or Fatah but about the Palestinian people, about their freedom and their future. Change is what Palestinians want and perhaps what these elections communicate more than anything else. Indeed, Hamas ran under the name of the party for “change and reform.” And the response that the North has offered seems to reveal a fear regarding any notion of change. But fear of what? Fear of more violence? Fear of an ongoing conflict? Or fear that the status quo that maintains U.S.-backed Israeli control over Palestinian life may be disrupted?
Timothy Seidel
Co-Peace Development Worker
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Chris McGreal, “Israel's shooting of young girl highlights international hypocrisy, say Palestinians,” The Guardian, 30 January 2006
· Mousa Abu Marzook, “What Hamas Is Seeking,” Washington Post, 31 January 2006
· Ian Fisher, “Palestinians Debate Shades of Islamic Law,” New York Times, 1 February 2006
· Khalid Mish'al, “We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid,” The Guardian, 31 January 2006
· Arnon Regular, “Abbas says will meet Hamas in two weeks to discuss forming government,” Haaretz, 30 January 2006
· Saed Bannoura, “Hamas says it's holding secret talks with the US,” International Middle East Media Center, 30 January 2006
· Robert Fisk, “The problem with democracy,” The Independent, 28 January 2006
· Samia Khoury, “Are You Surprised?: A Reflection on the Palestinian Elections,” The Witness, 29 January 2006
· Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, “The other side of the coin: A reading in the Palestinian Elections,” Bethlehem Media Net, 27 January 2006
· Ali Abunimah, “Hamas Election Victory: A Vote for Clarity,” The Electronic Intifada, 26 January 2006
· Saree Makdisi, “Illusion of democracy: The Palestinian Elections,” The Electronic Intifada, 23 January 2006
· Gideon Levy, “Only the right can,” Haaretz, 29 January 2006
· Amira Hass, “The obligation of the occupied,” Haaretz, 25 January 2006
· Chris McGreal, “Hamas drops call for destruction of Israel from manifesto,” The Guardian, 12 January 2006
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The Guardian
Israel's shooting of young girl highlights international hypocrisy, say Palestinians
Chris McGreal
30 January 2006
As the votes were counted in the Palestinian election and the scale of Hamas's landslide became apparent to the world, Aya al-Astal drifted away from her home and wandered towards the fence along the border between the Gaza strip and Israel.
The nine-year-old girl's parents realised she was gone as they watched the election results on television. They do not know precisely what happened, but the Israeli army later said Aya was behaving in a suspicious manner reminiscent of a terrorist - she got too close to the border fence - and so a soldier fired several bullets into the child, hitting her in the neck and blowing open her stomach.
Aya was the second child killed by the Israeli army last week. Soldiers near Ramallah shot 13-year-old Munadel Abu Aaalia in the back as he walked along a road reserved for Jewish settlers with two friends. The army said the boys planned to throw rocks at Israeli cars, which the military defines as terrorism.
The two killings went unnoticed by the outside world amid the political drama, but they made their impact among Palestinians angered by demands from western leaders for Hamas to recognise Israel and renounce its armed struggle.
Some Palestinians see the demands as a rejection of a democratic election and as siding with Israel. Others see hypocrisy. They say Israeli soldiers killed twice as many Palestinians last week alone - both of them children - as the number of Israelis killed by Hamas all last year.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1697825,00.html
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Washington Post
What Hamas Is Seeking
Mousa Abu Marzook
31 January 2006
DAMASCUS, Syria -- A new era in the struggle for Palestinian liberation is upon us. Through historic fair and free elections, the Palestinian people have spoken.
Accordingly, America's long-standing tradition of supporting the oppressed's rights to self-determination should not waver. The United States, the European Union and the rest of the world should welcome the unfolding of the democratic process, and the commitment to aid should not falter. Last week's victory of the Change and Reform Party in the Palestinian legislative elections signals a new hope for an occupied people.
The results of these elections reflect a need for change from the corruption and intransigence of the past government. Since its creation 10 years ago, the Palestinian Legislative Council has been unsuccessful in addressing the needs of the people. As the occupation solidified its grip under the auspices of "peace agreements," quality of life deteriorated for Palestinians in the occupied territories. Poverty levels soared, unemployment rates reached uncharted heights and the lack of basic security approached unbearable depths. A grass-roots alternative grew out of the urgency of this situation. Through its legacy of social work and involvement in the needs of the Palestinian people, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) flourished as a positive social force striving for the welfare of all Palestinians. Alleviating the debilitative conditions of occupation, and not an Islamic state, is at the heart of our mandate (with reform and change as its lifeblood)…
We appeal to the American people's sense of fairness to judge this conflict in light of the great thoughts, principles and ideals you hold dear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the democracy you have built. It is not unreasonable to expect America to practice abroad what it preaches at home. We can but sincerely hope that you use your honest judgment and the blessings of ascendancy God has given you to demand an end to the occupation. Meaningful democracy cannot flourish as long as an external force maintains the balance of power. It is the right of all people to pursue their own destiny.
Please read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/30/AR2006013001209_pf.html
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New York Times
Palestinians Debate Shades of Islamic Law
Ian Fisher
1 February 2006
TAYBEH, West Bank, Jan. 30 — This is a village of three churches, a brewer of very good beer, and no small fear — if not yet full panic — about what it means now that Hamas, the radical Islamic party, is in control of Palestinian politics.
"If the whole world and our president are afraid, do you think that we are not?" asked Nima Samaan, 62, a Christian Arab, referring to the current, and secular, Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas.
There is no certain answer to the question asked apprehensively around the West Bank and Gaza since Hamas swept the parliamentary elections last week: To what extent — by law or by social pressure — will Hamas impose its strong religious beliefs?
So far Hamas leaders, seeking to calm both Palestinians and an anxious outside world, have projected moderation. They say they will not impose on the Palestinians' diverse society any form of Islamic rule.
"You cannot force people to do what they do not want to do," said Sheik Fadil Saleh, 53, a former imam who won a seat in Ramallah for Hamas. "In the Koran it is said: No force in religion."
Please read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/international/middleeast/
01hamas.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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The Guardian
We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid
Khalid Mish'al
Palestinians voted for Hamas because of our refusal to give up their rights. But we are ready to make a just peace
31 January 2006
It is widely recognised that the Palestinians are among the most politicised and educated peoples in the world. When they went to the polls last Wednesday they were well aware of what was on offer and those who voted for Hamas knew what it stood for. They chose Hamas because of its pledge never to give up the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and its promise to embark on a programme of reform. There were voices warning them, locally and internationally, not to vote for an organisation branded by the US and EU as terrorist because such a democratically exercised right would cost them the financial aid provided by foreign donors.
The day Hamas won the Palestinian democratic elections the world's leading democracies failed the test of democracy. Rather than recognise the legitimacy of Hamas as a freely elected representative of the Palestinian people, seize the opportunity created by the result to support the development of good governance in Palestine and search for a means of ending the bloodshed, the US and EU threatened the Palestinian people with collective punishment for exercising their right to choose their parliamentary representatives.
We are being punished simply for resisting oppression and striving for justice. Those who threaten to impose sanctions on our people are the same powers that initiated our suffering and continue to support our oppressors almost unconditionally. We, the victims, are being penalised while our oppressors are pampered. The US and EU could have used the success of Hamas to open a new chapter in their relations with the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims and to understand better a movement that has so far been seen largely through the eyes of the Zionist occupiers of our land…
We shall never recognise the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else's sins or solve somebody else's problem. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1698702,00.html
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Haaretz
Abbas says will meet Hamas in two weeks to discuss forming government
Arnon Regular
30 January 2006
Meanwhile, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar told CNN on Monday that a long-term truce (hudna) with Israel is possible if Israel retreats to its pre-1967 borders and releases Palestinian prisoners.
"We can expect to establish our independent state on the area before '67 and we can give a long-term hudna," Zahar told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
Zahar laid out a series of conditions that he said could lead to years of co-existence alongside Israel. He said that if Israel "is ready to give us the national demand to withdraw from the occupied area [in] '67; to release our detainees; to stop their aggression; to make geographic link between Gaza Strip and West Bank, at that time, with assurance from other sides, we are going to accept to establish our independent state at that time, and give us one or two, 10, 15 years time in order to see what is the real intention of Israel after that."
Asked about Hamas' call for Israel's destruction, Zahar would not say whether that remains the goal. "We are not speaking about the future, we are speaking now," he said.
Zahar argued that Israel has no true intention of accepting a Palestinian state, despite international agreements including the Road Map for Middle East peace.
Until Israel says what its final borders will be, Hamas will not say whether it will ever recognize Israel, Zahar said. "If Israel is ready to tell the people what is the official border, after that we are going to answer this question."
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/676190.html
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International Middle East Media Center
Hamas says it's holding secret talks with the US
Saed Bannoura
30 January 2006
Mousa Abu Marzouq, assistant of the head of Hamas' political bureau reported, on Monday, that the movement has been holding secret talks, in recent period, with the United States on several issues, adding that Hamas prefers direct and formal talks.
Abu Marzouq told an Algerian newspaper that Washington replaced the direct talks with secret ones which were formal in some cases and informal in others.
"Hamas prefers direct talks with the United States in the coming period", Abu Marzouq said, "We will deal with every party in accordance to our strategy".
Also, Abu Marzouq added that as long as there is occupation, Hamas will not recognize Israel and will continue its resistance activities.
"As long as there is occupation, we will resist and regain our rights", Abu Marzouq stated, "In this period, we do not intend to recognize Israel, because it’s a state which expelled our people, and is occupying our land".
Referring to the Israeli decision not to negotiate with any Palestinian government that includes Hamas, Abu Marzouq said that if Israel rejects to negotiate it will "isolate itself".
He added that there is a positive development in the statements of the US president George Bush, who said that he will hold talks with Hamas if its drops its calls to destruct Israel.
Please read more at http://www.imemc.org/content/view/16383/1/
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The Independent
The problem with democracy
Robert Fisk
And now, horror of horrors, the Palestinians have elected the wrong party to power
28 January 2006
Oh no, not more democracy again! Didn't we award this to those Algerians in 1990? And didn't they reward us with that nice gift of an Islamist government - and then they so benevolently cancelled the second round of elections? Thank goodness for that!
True, the Afghans elected a round of representatives, albeit that they included some warlords and murderers. But then the Iraqis last year elected the Dawa party to power in Baghdad, which was responsible - let us not speak this in Washington - for most of the kidnappings of Westerners in Beirut in the 1980s, the car bombing of the (late) Emir and the US and French embassies in Kuwait.
And now, horror of horrors, the Palestinians have elected the wrong party to power. They were supposed to have given their support to the friendly, pro-Western, corrupt, absolutely pro-American Fatah, which had promised to "control" them, rather than to Hamas, which said they would represent them. And, bingo, they have chosen the wrong party again.
Result: 76 out of 132 seats. That just about does it. God damn that democracy. What are we to do with people who don't vote the way they should?
Please read more at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11694.htm or http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article341462.ece
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The Witness
Are You Surprised?: A Reflection on the Palestinian Elections
Samia Khoury
29 January 2006
Before the results were out, we kept hearing official voices from the USA and Israel announcing that there will be no peace process if Hamas wins, and that there is no chance for the Road Map under Hamas. The Europeans sounded worried as well, realizing that a Hamas government in Palestine would force them to face serious change. Yet none of those official voices had the courage to admit that the peace process was already on hold due to the Israeli intransigence.
How ironic that Mr. Shimon Peres has joined the chorus of those expressing grave concern about making peace with Hamas. We all recall how as prime minister he dismally failed to carry out the legacy of peace for which he, the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the late President Arafat got the Nobel Peace Prize. Peres and his woeful chorus pretend not to understand the source of the Palestinian people's frstration, but they have been witnessing Israel violating U.N. resolutions and international law as well as using sophisticated and extensive weaponry to wage a relentless war on the Palestinian civilian population, and they share the blame for Fateh's failure, as they stood by passively or offered resources and encouragement to Israel's attempts to erode Fateh's authority.
The Road Map that Israeli spokesmen said would not be possible to implement under Hamas was never fully accepted by Israel, which has consistently blocked its implementation and the establishment of a Palestinian State through means such as building an illegal concrete wall eight meters tall to divide the Palestinian territories. So let us not pretend that peace was around the corner before Hamas' electoral victory, which at most heightened the already astronomical odds against peace barring a major shift in Israeli policy.
Please read more at http://www.thewitness.org/article.php?id=1016
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Bethlehem Media Net
The other side of the coin: A reading in the Palestinian Elections
Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb
27 January 2006
A friend asked me yesterday saying: “You have been always good in talking about the endless opportunities behind the tremendous challenges, can you still see this here too?” My answer to my friend was “Definitely!” My answer does not mean that I am minimizing the threat and danger behind this “green revolution.” Neither do I dismiss the possibility of the society’s islamization, or potential clash between Hamas and Fatah, or the likelihood of isolating Palestine internationally. Yet, one must see the other side of the coin. This is the only time in the Middle East that a one party rule has ended peacefully by democratic elections. We cannot but accept this as the best way to rotate political power. The people decided that enough is enough with Fatah and its rule. They opted for change. This change has not only to do with the power of Hamas but also with a process that is necessary for our society. In reality, this change means the end of the PLO as we know it, since its parties and structures do not relate anymore to the issues of Palestinian society. A new political landscape has to emerge now. This brings with it endless possibilities. The identity of Fatah after Arafat has to be shaped. The leftist parties in Palestine have to wake up from their sweet dreams and ideologies, to unite, restructure and to develop a new vision. Hamas is now obliged to show their capability of delivering what they were promising, and to learn how to build a government rather than being in the “lazy chair” of the opposition. The people of Palestine have to get used to regularly call their representatives to accountability through this medium of democratic elections.
Finally, what about us Palestinian Christians? My answer is that we are called not to be afraid; neither to panic nor to withdraw from the public sphere. We are called not to feel as if we are just spectators but rather to participate with many in this quest for a new Palestinian identity. We are called to replace old and ineffective structures by engaging in this process of building a new political system that is modern, meaningful, and accountable. In a context of commercializing religion, we are called to provide a new sense of deep spirituality. And in a context of disorientation, our vocation is to offer the vision of a new promise and of dynamic identity. This is not only a challenge, but an honor and a privilege to be able to participate. It is at times like these that we are most needed.
Please read more at http://www.bethlehemmedia.net/feat214.htm
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The Electronic Intifada
Hamas Election Victory: A Vote for Clarity
Ali Abunimah
26 January 2006
Hamas' victory in the Palestinian Authority legislative elections has everyone asking "what next"? The answer, and whether the result should be seen as a good or bad thing, depends very much on who is asking the question.
Although a Hamas success was heavily trailed, the scale of the victory has been widely termed a "shock." Several factors explain the dramatic rise of Hamas, including disillusionment and disgust with the corruption, cynicism and lack of strategy of the Fatah faction which has dominated the Palestinian movement for decades and had arrogantly come to view itself as the natural and indisputable leader.
The election result is not entirely surprising, however, and has been foreshadowed by recent events. Take for example the city of Qalqilya in the north of the West Bank. Hemmed in by Israeli settlements and now completely surrounded by a concrete wall, the city's fifty thousand residents are prisoners in a Israeli-controlled giant ghetto. For years Qalqilya's city council was controlled by Fatah but after the completion of the wall, voters in last years' municipal elections awarded every single city council seat to Hamas. The Qalqilya effect has now spread across the occcupied territories, with Hamas reportedly winning virtually all of the seats elected on a geographic basis. Thus Hamas' success is as much an expression of the determination of Palestinians to resist Israel's efforts to force their surrender as it is a rejection of Fatah. It reduces the conflict to its most fundamental elements: there is occupation, and there is resistance…
The instant US demand that Hamas "recognize Israel" is like rewinding the clock twenty-five years to when this same demand was the pretext to ignore and exclude the PLO from peace negotiations. But as Hamas has observed, all the PLO's submission to these demands did not lead to any loosening of Israel's grip or any lessening of US support for Israel. Hamas is unlikely to do as the US demands, and even if it did, it would probably only give rise to new resistance groups responding to the worsening conditions on the ground generated by the occupation.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4425.shtml
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The Electronic Intifada
Illusion of democracy: The Palestinian Elections
Saree Makdisi
23 January 2006
All the talk of elections is part of an attempt to impose a sense of normalcy on a highly abnormal situation: not just the endless occupation, but the unresolved future of the Palestinian people, two-thirds of whom are excluded from the electoral process because they do not live in the occupied territories but rather in refugee camps or in the diaspora, or as second-class citizens of the state of Israel. And none of this will be changed by the elections.
Leaving aside the question of what it means to hold a "national" election when the majority of the nation doesn't have the right to vote, even the process of holding elections while living under military occupation is highly problematic for those who are eligible to vote.
The Israeli army denies Palestinians in the occupied territories the right to free movement, so access to campaign rallies and even voting booths can hardly be taken for granted. Right now, for example, 800,000 Palestinians living in the northern West Bank are banned from traveling outside of their home districts, and a large strand of Route 60, the main West Bank artery, has been off limits to Palestinian traffic since August…
Not only do Wednesday's elections maintain this deception, they also reinforce the sense that they are part of a wider process of Palestinian "reform" and "democratization," which are keys to the future of the so-called peace process.
After all, the United States has decreed that all progress toward peace depends on the behavior of the Palestinians, rather than on the Israelis. Placing that burden on those who never chose to live under military occupation -- while exempting the occupiers -- is hardly likely to yield real results.
But it's not meant to. This is why Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior adviser Dov Weisglass describes the situation as "a bottle of formaldehyde." According to Weisglass, maintaining the illusion of a political process guarantees that there will be no resolution of the conflict "until the Palestinians turn into Finns." And that, of course, suits Israel just fine, because as long as the illusion is maintained, it doesn't have to do anything but hang on to the territories it took by force in 1967.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4411.shtml
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Haaretz
Only the right can
Gideon Levy
29 January 2006
There's more good news. Only the right can do it? If that view is true, if only people of the right can bring peace, like Ariel Sharon on our side, then we are now facing a new chance that should not be missed. A peace deal with Hamas will be a lot more stable and viable than any agreement we sign with the PLO, if Hamas were to oppose it. Hamas can make concessions where Fatah would never dare. In any case, the Hamas that forms the government won't be the Hamas that sends suicide bombers. The comparison to international terror organizations is also nonsense: Hamas is a movement fighting for limited national goals. If Israel were to reach out to the extremists among its enemies, then maybe it can reach a real agreement that would put an end to the tumor of the occupation and the curse of terror…
Now is the time to reach out to Hamas, which is desperate for international, and particularly American, recognition, and knows that such recognition goes through Israel. If Israel were to be friendly toward Hamas, it could benefit. Not that Hamas will all at once give up its extremist demands and its unrealistic dreams, but it will know, as some of its leaders have already declared, to set them aside if it serves their interests. Israel, which in any case did not speak with Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, now has an opportunity for surprise. Instead of wasting more years with rejectionism, at the end of which we'll sit down with Hamas in any case, let us reach out now to this extremist group, which was democratically elected. Israel has nothing to lose from such an approach. We've already seen the achievements of the hand that assassinates and demolishes, uproots and jails, we've already seen those policies fulfilled in front of our eyes: Hamas won the elections.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/675837.html
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Haaretz
The obligation of the occupied
Amira Hass
25 January 2006
The elections taking place today in the Palestinian Authority are fluctuating between two poles: The Israeli occupation and its tremendous involvement in Palestinian lives, and the responsibility that the occupied have for their own lives. The world, led by Israel, loves to forget that the Palestinian parliament and government, despite their respectable name, are not state institutions, and that the PA enclaves are not independent.
The Palestinian parliament and government lack the authority and rights their counterparts have in sovereign states. They have no control over the external and internal borders that Israel draws between the various Palestinian districts, to the point where they are cut off from each other.
Sixty percent of West Bank land, the primary physical resource of the Palestinian people, are under total Israeli control, and no Palestinian government will be able to do with them what sovereign entities do in their territory: sow and plant, build, develop, maintain. Israel controls the water sources in Israel and in effect sets quotas for the Palestinians. Israel's control of the Palestinian population registry and freedom of movement means that it intervenes in personal decisions like family ties, place of residence, work and study. Through its control of the external and internal borders, Israel also determines how the Palestinian economy will look - the rate of unemployment, the salary cap, the types of economic activity, the location of the factories. And that is only a partial list…
Israelis must not deceive themselves: The Palestinians have not forgotten the occupation. They want to hope that the new candidates, who are supposed to be attentive to their people, will do better than their predecessors in taking advantage of the narrow maneuvering space that even the occupied have in their struggle for freedom. Days will tell whether the new parliament will indeed be able to find methods of struggle that will succeed where negotiations, rifles, explosive belts and unarmed popular activities have failed.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/674639.html
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The Guardian
Hamas drops call for destruction of Israel from manifesto
Chris McGreal
· Shift comes in lead-up to Palestinian election
· Commitment to armed struggle remains
12 January 2006
Hamas has dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto for the Palestinian parliamentary election in a fortnight, a move that brings the group closer to the mainstream Palestinian position of building a state within the boundaries of the occupied territories.
The Islamist faction, responsible for a long campaign of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis, still calls for the maintenance of the armed struggle against occupation. But it steps back from Hamas's 1988 charter demanding Israel's eradication and the establishment of a Palestinian state in its place.
The manifesto makes no mention of the destruction of the Jewish state and instead takes a more ambiguous position by saying that Hamas had decided to compete in the elections because it would contribute to "the establishment of an independent state whose capital is Jerusalem".
The shift in emphasis comes as Hamas finds itself under pressure from the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and from foreign governments to accept Israel's right to exist and to end its violence if it wants to be accepted as a political partner in a future administration.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1684472,00.html
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