The Other Israel Issue Nr 133-134 November-December 2007 (raw version) COLD TALKS
Index in the end
Of the following articles a definite version has already been posted:
COLD TALKS (lead article)
The sound of silence (Rabin Memorial Rally: report & reflection)
The announced commencement of a Peace Process, supposedly aimed at finally resolving great and bloody issues, rarely got so little attention from those directly concerned.
No trace of the enthusiasm, bordering on euphoria, which followed President Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in 1977 or the Rabin-Arafat handshake of 1993. Nor could one feel anything like the tension and anxiety of August 2000 -- when Israelis and Palestinians alike felt (and with good reason) that success or failure of the Camp David talks could quite literally spell the life or death of themselves and their loved ones.
President Bush's supposedly dramatic announcement of a planned Middle East Conference (the term soon downgraded to "Meeting"), fell rather flat. So did the regular meetings between Israeli PM Olmert and Palestinian President Abbas ("Abu Mazen"), the Middle East visits by Secretary of State Rice, and the efforts of Tony Blair -- appointed Middle East envoy at the not quite glorious end of his term at the helm of the UK.
Israeli doves were rather skeptical about the idea that Olmert -- once a Mayor of Jerusalem noted for his harsh treatment of Palestinian inhabitants -- had a serious intention of giving up the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. By the same token, the usually highly suspicious and bellicose settlers were rather sluggish and lukewarm, in no hurry to take up arms at the rumors that Olmert has accepted the 1967 borders as "basis for negotiations."
The general Israeli public seemed far more excited by the news that an Israeli was appointed as manager of the British Chelsea Football Team than by the possible outcome of the conference, scheduled to take place on the premises of the American Naval Academy at Annapolis.
The reasons for skepticism were many and obvious. In paraphrase of the term "Peace of the Brave" -- created by Charles de Gaulle and beloved of Yasser Arafat -- a journalist dubbed the new diplomatic process "The Peace of the Bankrupt": Olmert with his year-long single-digit popularity ratings, and Abu Mazen who had recently been chased out of the Gaza Strip, brought together under the inspiring guidance of George W. Bush, of Iraq War fame.
In fact, the negotiating process was originally envisioned rather differently, in last year's talks between Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and her American counterpart Condoleezza Rice.
As leaked to the press at the time, the Palestinian Authority's security forces, armed and trained by the US and the EU, were supposed to eventually make a decisive move and crush the Hamas, whereupon the victorious non-Hamas Palestinian government would be recognized as "The Good Guys" in the American perception -- and graciously invited to the negotiating table.
In the event, it was Hamas that turned the tables and did the crushing -- at least in Gaza. Nevertheless, the breaking of the Palestinian National Unity and the proclamation of a non-Hamas government -- even though restricted to the West Bank, and having a very partial and doubtful authority also there -- was reason enough for the plan to be put into motion.
Having spurned Abu Mazen and refused to deal with him after the death of Arafat -- when he won the Palestinian presidential elections by a landslide and had the backing of a solid majority in the Palestinian Legislature -- the government of Israel thus embraced him, precisely at the nadir of his career, proclaiming him "a true partner" when his credentials as representative of the Palestinians have become doubtful, to say the least.
Opponents of the Olmert Government were quick to point out the obvious fallacy of negotiating with a Palestinian government representing, at best, a half of its people while conducting relentless war with the other half.
The same argument was, in fact repeated on both sides of the political spectrum, though with opposite conclusions. The right wing cited this as a good reason to stop the negotiations altogether, the left reiterated that Hamas should be invited to the table. The latter position was on some occasions cautiously echoed by mainstream figures such as Minister Without Portfolio Ami Ayalon, failed contender for the Labour Party leadership.
Olmert, however, brushed all criticism aside -- secure in the complete backing of Washington, where Hamas is high on the list of "Bad Guys" while Abu Mazen, and his PM Salam Fayad, are held in the
Page 2
highest respect. Of course, there is also criticism in the Palestinian society -- and not only among Hamas supporters -- for Abu Mazen's conducting negotiations without a real popular mandate.
For their part, the Palestinian President and his aides talked of their intention to eventually submit any agreement signed with Israel to a referendum among the Palestinian People.
For such a strategy to have a shred of a chance, an agreement would need to answer the basic Palestinian aspirations, clearly and obviously enough for a clear majority of Palestinians to vote for it.
In effect, Abu Mazen's margin for making substantial concessions is smaller than Arafat's was at the time of Camp David -- which casts even more doubt on Olmert's willingness and ability to come up with the needed bold steps on the Israeli side.
Heat on the ground
Early every morning, the Israeli radio news broadcasts the statistics provided by the army, on the number of "suspected terrorists" captured in raids on the Palestinian cities in the past night -- rarely below five or above twenty. The message is usually terse, giving the names of the towns and villages raided but providing neither the names of the detainees nor any details of the acts with which they were charged. Sometimes there is mention of the organizations to which they belonged -- which reveals, among other things, that Olmert, while holding negotiations with Abu Mazen, does not stop the army from regularly arresting members of Fatah, the organization headed by the Palestinian President.
Only rarely do such reports extend beyond a few seconds -- usually, in cases where the beleaguered Palestinians stood at bay and managed to wound or kill one the soldiers hunting them. (In one case, when an IDF dog was killed by a Palestinian on whom he was set, there was an extensive report including the dog's name and biography, the soldiers' grief at his death and the announcement that he would be given "a funeral with full military honours").
Except for the cases that the suspects were "killed while resisting arrest" or "while trying to escape", such communiquˇs*s invariably end with "the suspects were transferred to Shabak interrogation." For information of what happens during such interrogations, one would need to look up the reports of human rights organizations -- which are available to anyone who wants to read them, but are rarely quoted on the radio news.
Given that it takes no more than two weeks to add a hundred new detainees to the 11,000 Palestinians already held in Israeli detention, Palestinians were not highly impressed with Olmert's "good-will gesture" of releasing a total of 90 prisoners on the occasion of the Ramadan Holiday -- though that release occasioned a prolonged debate between "hawkish" and "dovish" cabinet ministers, a public expression of displeasure by the army chief of staff, and highly publicized "hesitation" by President Shimon Peres before he finally signed the necessary pardons)..
In Olmert's talks with Abu Mazen, there frequently came up the issue of ending these nightly raids and restoring the de-facto extraterritorial status that the main Palestinian cities ("Area A") enjoyed between the signing of the Oslo II Agreement in 1995 and their reconquest in April 2002 ("Operation Defensive Shield"). The Army, however, would not hear of "giving up the ability to apprehend the terrorists wherever they might be", warning of dire consequences to follow any such decision, and proclaiming the Palestinian Authority's security forces to be "unreliable."
To emphasize the point, though the PA security engaged in arresting Hamas militants, the IDF continued its own raids against the same militants. Also, after the PA ordered a crackdown on the network of charity organizations that are a major political basis for Hamas (and a major source of sustenance for impoverished Palestinians), the IDF conducted a series of raids on the offices of the same charities.
When the proposal to send hundreds of Palestinian security personnel into Nablus came up, Defence Minister Barak made the stipulation that they be active only from six in the morning to midnight, and that in the remaining night hours they keep inside their barracks and not interfere with the doings of Israeli troops.
Acceptance of such terms did not help Abu Mazen's image as the champion of Palestinian
Page 3
independence. To save himself and his supporters from an indelible stain of collaboration, he would need to achieve a quick change and secure an end to the raids and recognition of complete Palestinian control -- a tall order, considering the positions of Israel's Defence Minister...
Ehud Barak is clearly determined to break with his party's tradition of taking relatively moderate positions at cabinet meetings in which it takes part. To the contrary, Barak is consistently promoting a tough stance towards the Palestinians on every concrete daily issue. And towards Olmert's efforts and negotiations, the Defence Minister manifests nothing but skepticism and hostility, with such comments as "hot air", "soufflˇ" and "a house of cards."
Barak's refrain was that "since the PA forces are not to be trusted", territory handed over to them would end up in the hands of Hamas, and missiles be shot right at the Israeli population centers.
Therefore, any such withdrawal must wait upon the completion of an anti-missile system being currently developed by the army, which should be ready "in three to five years" (barring "unexpected difficulties and bugs" which are almost inevitable in such projects). Until then, the army would have to stay where it is...
Predictably, Barak and the generals took a tough stance also on another constantly mooted issue: the checkpoints and roadblocks scattered all over the West Bank roads and highways.
At checkpoints, security checks by Israeli soldiers often proceed sluggishly, making Palestinian motorists wait for long hours before being let through; at roadblocks, the road is simply blocked by piles of earth and rock, making many roads inaccessible to Palestinians and forcing them to go through many extra kilometers of back roads, often narrow and in bad repair.
It had long been said, by Palestinians as well as Israeli and international observers -- but now it was also pointed out by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: there is no chance of recovery and development for the Palestinian economy, as long as such massive obstacles for the flow of goods and persons remain.
After several meetings when the subject was raised, Barak announced the removal of 24 roadblocks (out of several hundreds). The UN teams on the grounds discovered, however, that just prior to this announcement the army had erected some forty new roadblocks in places where there were none before...
The trapped Gazans
However difficult the situation on the West Bank, it is still in a relatively favorable position compared with the Gaza Strip -- exactly the region where, if the Government of Israel were to be taken seriously, Israeli occupation has already ended.
More than a year ago, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan voiced his concern about Israeli policies "inflicting further hardships on Palestinians, exacerbating the already high levels of poverty and unemployment and exposing them to more and more serious shortages of water, electricity and food."
Still, at the time when Annan made the above statement (message to Civil Society Conference at Geneva, September 2006), the border crossings into the Gaza Strip were open for much of the time, a lot more goods were coming in than at present, and Gazans could still cross into Egypt and from there travel throughout the world (though forbidden to go to the West Bank).
A year later, an updated grim description was given by Karen Koning AbuZayd of UNRWA (United Nations Works and Relief Agency), which is directly in charge of supporting the Palestinian refugees in Gaza (and increasingly finds itself concerned with non-refugees, too):
"The main commercial crossings into Gaza from Israel and Egypt have been closed since June, so there are no imports or exports. Goods only go in through two military crossings, just barely enough of humanitarian basic emergency supplies. There has been a 71 percent decrease in goods going into Gaza since May 2007. There are now 91 medicines that are out of stock, as compared to 61 last month.
Farmers do not have the money to get their crops picked or to send them to market, so they are rotting [in the fields]. That means that there are no fruits and vegetables to supplement the basic rations that 80 percent of Gaza's population receive either from UNRWA or from the U.N. World Food Program -- flour, oil, sugar, a bit of lentils and powdered milk. It's not good enough -- UNRWA is only providing 61 percent of the daily nutritional needs [of the Gazan populace]." (Haaretz, Nov. 7, 2007).
The Israeli authorities do have the habit of slightly relaxing the siege from time to time and allowing a trickle of additional goods into the Strip, just enough "to avert a humanitarian crisis." However, "a humanitarian crisis" in this context is interpreted very narrowly, as synonymous with "open mass starvation."
Anything short of that -- the great majority of Gazans sunk in abject poverty, an "economic meltdown", increasingly polluted water sources, a near-collapsing sewage system, mass undernourishment which (usually) does not kill but whose effects will be felt by the young generation of Gazans for as long as they live -- does not count as "a humanitarian crisis"...
Alienation
It would be wrong to say that Israelis have no idea at all about what their elected government is perpetrating in Gaza. Several tens of thousands read Haaretz, which carries some reports of the situation at an average of once a week (though not always very prominently).
And though far more rarely, sometimes the topic even breaks into the electronic media -- for example, the Channel 10 TV News, which featured items on critically ill Gazan patients desperately waiting for permission to get treatment in Israel, and on the new wing of Gaza's Shifa Hospital whose construction was stopped since building materials are no longer allowed in. Still, most Israelis have
Page 4
only a vague idea of what is happening -- and moreover, have no great interest in learning more, and often react with hostility when activists try to rub their nose in the facts (for example, by distributing leaflets and brochures at busy Tel-Aviv intersections).
"But these people in Gaza brought it upon themselves! We withdrew from there, destroyed all the settlements, and they voted for Hamas. They are shooting Qassams on Sderot, so they deserve what is coming to them!"
It has proven very difficult to make people outside the "peace and human rights" circle understand just how limited and deceptive had been Sharon's "Disengagement from Gaza", how the state of Israel kept control of all entrances and exits.
Even in the Rafah Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, which was supposed to be under European monitoring with no Israel troops present, Israel turned out to have an effective veto power regarding its opening. Because of an ill-considered decision to lodge in Israel, the European monitors have daily to get in and out of the Gaza Strip -- through crossings which Israel can open or close at its discretion.
And meanwhile, in the minds of Israelis the name of Sderot became an emotive name and blanket legitimization for each and any act committed against the civilian population of Gaza.
Everybody who listens to Israeli news broadcasts would unavoidably know of the anguish of the inhabitants of Sderot, and not the least the town's children -- never knowing a moment of true rest, ever ready to rush to shelter when the dreaded alarm sounds.
This anxiety in Sderot is all too real, even if there are very few actual casualties. The people of this development town seem to have become hostages of a government policy of confrontation and escalation that is actually strengthened by their constantly reported ordeal.
Of course, the same media that cover Sderot in heart-rending full-page articles make hardly any mention of Palestinian children, who live in at least as much fear and who stand a far greater risk of being blown to bits.
To cite just one example, the 16-year old boy crushed in early September under the threads of an Israeli bulldozer, engaged in uprooting orchards which "may give cover to Qassam-shooting squads", got a bare laconic remark from the army -- "unfortunate collateral damage."
Complicating factors are hardly ever mentioned, such as the direct casual relations between the killing of Palestinians (some 700 in the past year, according to the recent proud boasting of PM Olmert) and the retaliatory shooting of missiles (which cause destruction and panic but only rarely kill).
On the eve of the Jewish New Year (Sept. 13) there was a surprise from Ismail Haniyeh -- Gaza-based Hamas leader and Prime Minister of one of the two rival Palestinian governments. Through international mediators, Haniyeh proposed to discuss with the Olmert Government the instituting of an immediate and bilateral ceasefire, and offered to impose such a ceasefire on the smaller groups such as the Islamic Jihad (which do most of the shooting).
The group of mainstream dovish writers and artists headed by such well-known figures as Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, David Grossman and Yehoshua Sobol was aroused to action, prominently publishing a call for the government to engage in such ceasefire negotiations.
However, Haniyeh's offer (and the writers' petition) were not so much rejected as brushed aside. Indeed, there was an immediate, noticeable notching up of both the military offensive on the ground in the Strip itself and the economic offensive carried out through a variety of creative new measures. (All simultaneously with continuing the talks with Abu Mazen and his team.)
Skirmishing on the political arena
Haim Ramon, highly versatile politician and confidential Olmert advisor, recently ended serving a term of half a year's public service, imposed on him for having kissed a girl soldier against her will (this happened when he was on his way to the cabinet meeting which resolved last year upon going to war in Lebanon).
Resuming his political career as a minister without portfolio, despite the protests of feminist groups, Ramon immediately embarked on two simultaneous tracks.
Ramon entered deeply into the negotiations with Abu Mazen, establishing a prominent dovish profile -- particularly, calling for relinquishing Israeli rule in the "outlying Arab neighborhoods" of Jerusalem, and for establishing an unspecified "special regime" for the "Holy Area" (i.e., the Old City and its environs).
At the same time, however, Ramon also made himself a conspicuous proponent of ever-tougher measures of collective punishment in Gaza. Especially, he took up the idea of cutting off Gaza's electricity and water supplies, hitherto advocated only by the extreme right.
Ramon's advocacy of the idea -- immediately getting banner headlines in the mass circulation papers -- transformed it from a staple item in rabble-rousing demagogic speeches into a concrete idea, placed for implementation on the government agenda.
Gaza is, indeed, largely dependent on Israel for its electricity and water -- a dependence created during four decades of Israeli dominance. The majority of Israeli public opinion, already long primed to accept uncritically any measure taken against the Gazans, was ready to accept this measure, too -- even though the army's own experts gave their opinion that it would exacerbate, rather than stop, the shooting of missiles.
However, publication of this "brilliant idea" brought on a sharp protest from UN Secretary
Page 5
General Ban (the most outspoken statement by him on a Middle Eastern issue since he took up his position), and a more muted one from the US-led diplomatic "Quartet."
Moreover, since there are quite substantial grounds to consider such a measure as a violation of International Law, the government felt the need to take juridical preparatory measures.
Accordingly, the government duly and formally proclaimed the Gaza Strip to be "A Hostile Zone." This implied, or so they argued, that Gaza would no longer be an Occupied Territory in which the Fourth Geneva Convention sets strict rules of what the Occupying Power is allowed and not allowed to do.
An immediate result was that Bank Hapoalim, Israel's largest, resolved to cut off all business relations with the Palestinian banks in Gaza.
Since even at the heyday of Oslo the Palestinians were never allowed to mint their own money, and were constrained to remain dependent on the Israeli Shekel as their daily medium of exchange, cutting off the flow of Shekels into the Gaza Strip would have had devastating results for its already prostrate economy.
Ironically, as it turned out, this measure would have mainly harmed Abu Mazen, who has been continuing payment of salaries to a large part of the Palestinian government employees in Gaza, so as to keep them from going over to Hamas.
Without Shekels in the banks, such payments would have had to stop -- while Hamas continued to pay its own people with the help of suitcases full of cash, smuggled from Egypt through the tunnels under the border. Rather sheepishly, the government requested Bank Hapoalim to continue dealing with the Gaza banks "for the time being."
Meanwhile, however, the electricity cutoff scheme was duly approved by the cabinet -- after the right-wing opposition both accused the government of doing nothing to help the people of Sderot and started to take a bit more seriously the forthcoming Annapolis Conference and the possible concessions to which Olmert might commit himself.
Barak held a meeting with his generals, setting out the date and technical details for the cutoff. Thereupon, Israel's human rights organizations joined forces in lodging an urgent appeal to the Supreme Court, and prepared for a hard-fought legal battle.
However, Attorney-General Mazuz -- whose job it would have been to represent the government position -- declared he would not do so, until the government proved to him that the measure "would not hurt basic humanitarian needs." At least for the time being, the measure had to be shelved, to Barak's loud anger and chagrin.
While public attention was riveted to the electricity issue, the army moved to considerably tighten the siege in numerous other ways, which apparently Mazuz did consider to be legal: cutting the supply of fuel to the Strip, as well as denying altogether the entry of what the government declared to be "non-essential luxuries" -- among them milk powder for babies, children's toys, cleaning materials, salt and other basic foodstuffs.
Meanwhile, Barak repeatedly launched ominous announcements of a forthcoming "major military operation in Gaza", which well-informed commentators interpreted as no less than a total reconquest of its entire territory.
Articles in the Arab press asserted that the U.S. had already given its approval to such an operation, to take place "after Annapolis" -- and the immediate hot denial by Washington did not convince everybody. However, as the same commentators noted, such an invasion would be "far from a walk in the park."
When one of the daily incursions resulted in the killing not only of Palestinians but also of an Israeli soldier, a reserve paratrooper officer was quoted by Ha'aretz: "These people aren't terrorists, they fight as soldiers. In a direct confrontation, the IDF has superiority over them, but in all parameters -- training, equipment quality, operational discipline -- we are facing an army, not gangs." (Haaretz, Nov. 8). Sergeant-Major (Res.) Ehud Efrati, comrade-in-arms of this (unnamed) officer, was killed in battle with Hamas troops a few days before.
Moreover, the current American predicament in Iraq has clearly demonstrated the folly of launching an invasion and conquest without an exit strategy -- and such is far from formulated in this case.
Keeping the troops in a re-occupied Gaza would likely expose them to intensive guerrilla activity, a contingency for which Hamas and other groups are known to be already preparing and training -- while a withdrawal from Gaza might entail a resurgence of Hamas and renewal of the shooting of missiles at Israeli cities.
Meanwhile, Israeli generals are known to feel reluctance at committing too much of their available forces to Gaza, while Israel's northern borders with Lebanon and Syria constitute what many consider "a business left unfinished with the way last year's war ended."
Playing with fire
The news bursting out on the evening of September 6 was puzzling, to say the least. Syrian TV announced that the country's Air Force has beaten off an attempted incursion by Israeli warplanes, and that these planes had not caused any damage or casualties in Syrian territory.
Meanwhile, the Israeli media were reduced to translating and quoting the announcements of their Syrian counterparts. As commentators and news presenters admitted to their audience, they had been specifically forbidden by the military censorship to divulge any information in their possession from other than Syrian sources -- the most blatant use of censorship in decades.
The censor did, however, authorize the screening of footage showing senior generals in an obvious festive mood, celebrating some success of whose nature nothing was disclosed.
The mystery did not last very long. Soon, there were ever more extensive and detailed accounts
Page 6
published in the international press, obviously based on deliberate leaks from Israeli and American official sources.
The Israeli media was graciously allowed to quote these foreign reports, but the government continued (and continues, up to the time of writing) to react to them with "no comment".
Meanwhile, the foreign reports, backed now with satellite photos, asserted in great detail that in north-east Syria a nuclear reactor had been constructed, or was in the process of construction, with North Korean help, and that this installation was completely destroyed in an Israeli air raid (which incidentally involved a violation of Turkish air space, causing a diplomatic incident with Ankara).
Such a raid is well consistent with the long standing Israeli policy known informally as "The Begin Doctrine" -- a doctrine never officially stated, but which can be clearly inferred from PM Menachem Begin's destruction of the Iraqi nuclear pile in 1981.
In effect, already for several decades Israel had arrogated to itself the right of maintaining an arsenal of at least a hundred nuclear weapons and installing them on missiles with a range long enough to reach beyond Teheran, as well as on submarines which could strike from the depths of the sea ("second-strike capacity").
At the same time, Israel is completely intolerant of any attempt by any of its Middle Eastern neighbors to reciprocate and acquire a similar capacity, and considers itself empowered to use force so as to nip any such attempt in the bud. By making a major issue of the Iranian nuclear program while never referring to the Israeli one, the United States, as well as the EU, implicitly endorses this Israeli policy.
Despite Olmert's not taking any official credit for the Syrian raid, when its details became known to the general public there was some improvement in the PM's extremely low popularity ratings. It might have been higher had he trumpeted his triumph with the full panoply of nationalist rhetoric, as Begin did in 1981 (and registered a major victory in that year's general elections).
Olmert's exercise in censorship and self-effacement was mostly interpreted as a genuine effort to avoid the outbreak of an all-out war with Syria, by minimizing the loss of face to Syrian President Bashar Assad and trying to avoid a situation where Assad would have felt constrained to launch a retaliatory attack on Israel.
Pointing in the same direction was the invitation rather reluctantly made by the US -- reportedly, at Olmert's explicit request -- for Syria to take part in the Annapolis Conference. Bush is, however, not really interested in the participation of the Syrians, who are among his 'bad guys', considered responsible for facilitating the anti-American guerrillas in Iraq.
Washington made clear that the Syrian Golan Heights, held by Israel since 1967, would not be on the Annapolis agenda, and that the Syrians were being invited simply in order to act as observers while Palestinian issues were discussed. This seems to have ensured that Damascus would turn down the invitation.
Though Olmert got away with his Syrian raid without inciting a general war, the affair remains a source of unease when considered -- as many do -- as a "dress rehearsal" for an eventual attack on the Iranian nuclear installations, such as has been openly discussed in the Western media for at least two years by now.
According to a recently published scenario -- attributed to US Vice President Cheney, leader of the neo-conservatives struggling with the Iraq fiasco -- Israel would launch a surprise attack on Iran, which would precipitate retaliation by long-range (conventional) Iranian missiles -- whereupon the US would intervene "to protect Israel". Syria, Lebanon and/or Palestinian Gaza might get drawn in, in one way or another.
The real possibility of such a desperate last gamble by those who already sustained heavy losses in the Iraqi venture was evident in President Bush's use of the term "A Third World War" in connection to a possible conflict with Iran. And the election of Sarkozy to the presidency of France opened the possibility that -- rather then opposing and trying to hinder American warlike adventures, as it did in 2003 -- Paris might this time be a partner to such disastrous schemes.
Thus, we must distract some of the energy needed for dealing with the current grave situation in the Palestinian territories, and prepare for the contingency of a major war breaking out. Yet ironically, the very possibility of a war with Iran increases Bush's need to show some positive concrete result out of Annapolis, so as to increase the support in the Arab and Muslim World, which he would vitally need in such a war.
Paving the way to Annapolis
The memory of the 2000 Camp David fiasco and its very bloody aftermath clearly haunts anyone who seeks a new Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement, and it is doubtful that Camp David will ever again be used as the venue for such enterprise. Annapolis, with a long past as a Naval Academy but none as the site of summits, was clearly chosen in an effort to mark "a new start."
Furthermore, to avert a repetition of Camp David, Olmert and Abu Mazen were set to the task of negotiating in advance, and drafting a joint declaration. This is to be brought ready-made to Annapolis, and ceremoniously presented to an imposing array of diplomatic delegations and leaders from all over the world -- but without the Hamas, which cannot be forgiven for having won the elections that the US urged upon the Palestinians.
The prior achievement of such a document has also been deemed crucial for getting the participation of Saudi Arabia -- so much desired by Olmert.
For the Saudis, however, being seen in public with the Prime Minister of Israel would amount to a de-facto recognition of Israel. And this richest of Arab states, whose king also acts as Guardian of the Holy
Page 7
Cities, Mecca and Medina, would not buy a pig in a poke. It is they who initiated and sponsored the Arab Peace Initiative, whereby Saudi Arabia (and all Arab states) would recognize Israel -- but only in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967.
Though not precisely rejecting this initiative, Olmert is far from clearly accepting it. While, the Americans sought to sweeten the Saudis by the offer of a major new arms deal, a Saudi presence at Annapolis would clearly depend on at least an Israeli "down payment" towards ending the occupation. And the smaller Gulf States would likely follow the Saudi lead.
And so, Olmert and Abu Mazen embarked on an intensive series of meetings and talks -- almost invariably held at the Israeli Prime Ministerial mansion in West Jerusalem. (A proposal to hold the talks on Israeli and Palestinian premises alternately
At Olmert's doorstep
Last Friday's vigil of Women in Black took place one block away from the meeting of Olmert with Abu Mazen. We were about 60 women (including a few men). Toward the end of our vigil, we marched to Olmert's home and stood outside it with our 'Down with the Occupation' signs facing the cameras from all the international media. We had lots of coverage, interviews, and photos. The next day, friends in Gaza called to say they saw us on several Arabic language channels, and I also heard about some European coverage.
Gila Svirsky reporting on Women in Black-J'lem, Oct. 26
was quashed after the Israeli Security Service announced the unearthing of an alleged plot by members of its Palestinian counterpart to assassinate Olmert on the way to Jericho.)
In their earlier meetings, the two met rather informally, with no aides present and no minutes taken, for what was described as "brainstorming". Some leaks published in Haaretz had it that Olmert agreed in principle to a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, to borders based on the 1967 lines and to giving pre-1967 territory in exchange for the parts of the West Bank Israel would annex, on a one-to-one basis (Barak's famous "generous offers" in 2000 were to give one square kilometer of the waterless Negev desert in "exchange" for every nine square kilometers of fertile West Bank land which would go to Israel).
Olmert was, moreover, reportedly willing to consider the creation of a Palestinian-controlled corridor between the West Bank and Gaza -- though to be implemented "only after the overthrow of Hamas rule there". And in general, Olmert, even at his most generous and eloquent, was rather vague about any binding timetable for implementation of whatever would be agreed.
Even so, Palestinian negotiators at the time asserted that "should Israel bind itself in a formal signed agreement to all that Olmert said to Abu Mazen, it would be an enormous step forward". But, with many bitter experiences from previous rounds of talks, the Palestinians did not really expect this to happen -- and they were soon proven right.
Conspiracy in the kitchen cabinet
As already noted, throughout the past months Ehud Barak has distinguished himself with a consistently hawkish and obstructive stance, in marked contrast to the traditional role assigned to Labour Party leaders in Israeli coalition cabinets. Various explanations were offered: that it derived from Barak's genuine opinion and assessment of the situation -- i.e., that Abu Mazen is powerless and the PA security forces weak and unreliable; that it is a "sour grapes" attitude -- i.e., Barak cannot stand the idea of Olmert succeeding where he himself failed at Camp David; that Barak's main concern is with a future electoral contest against the Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu, in which the Labor Party leader might feel that a hawkish image would be helpful. (But as such strategies often do, it increasingly alienated Barak from what should have been his core constituency, as evident for example in the cold reaction he got at the Rabin Memorial Rally).
Just a few months ago, Foreign Minster Tzipi Livni was busy cultivating a dovish image; in fact, she had outspokenly advocated the holding of such a conference as Annapolis, at a time when Olmert was far from enthusiastic about the idea.
Yet, as soon as it became a concrete issue Livni started expressing increasing reservations and doubts. Her obstructions, in fact, increasingly chimed in with those of Barak, and commentators started to refer to the two of them as "a new political alliance". This was at least in part motivated by pique at Ramon's conspicuous position in negotiations with the Palestinians, and Olmert was able to break apart the Livni-Barak Axis by the simple expedient of shunting Ramon aside and appointing Livni to head the Israeli negotiating team. After all, isn't she the Foreign Minister?
Even so, Livni continued talking of "the need to reduce expectations" and not to get "too soon" to the "core issues" (border, Jerusalem and refugees; her position on the last is particularly intransigent). Instead, the Foreign Minister proposed "making some visible gestures on the ground, in order to reassure the Palestinians. However, the implementation of most such gestures is in the hands of the army -- i.e., of Livni's erstwhile partner Barak, who proved singularly uncooperative.
Meanwhile, the motivations and intentions of the Prime Minister himself are far from clear.
Olmert has already proven himself a consummate politician, in the very fact of his surviving when nearly everybody predicted his imminent fall in the aftermath of last year's Lebanon fiasco and the polls continually giving him single-digit popularity ratings (and often small digits, at that). In the past year he had been simultaneously and successfully juggling such balls as the Winograd Commission of Inquiry, still due to present its final report on the conduct of
Page 8
that war; no less than three police investigations on various charges of corruption; and last but not least, the discovery of prostate cancer (a light form, perfectly capable of treatment and not necessitating any change in his busy schedule, the PM's doctors hastened to announce).
However, in spite of this proven acumen in the rough daily routine of the political arena, Olmert has yet to prove himself capable of any feat of statesmanship, worthy of being remembered one day after the end of his term.
To many observers, his conduct of the negotiations seemed no more than an extension of the same juggling game: doing just enough to gain the sympathy of the Israeli Left and the international diplomatic community, while avoiding any real concessions which would require a break and confrontation with the Right.
In one ominous statement, he estimated at "twenty years" the possible time span until an agreement with the Palestinians is actually implemented, though he later reversed himself and expressed his "hope" that it might be achieved before the end of the term of George W. Bush (i.e. January 2009).
President Bush himself presented another enigma. Since making the original announcement of the conference in July, he hardly took any further interest (at least in public), letting Secretary of State Rice run with the ball.
She seemed to warm up to the job, some of her pronouncements on the Palestinians' difficult situation reminding commentators of her past as a black woman in the US South during the Civil Rights Movement. Certainly, Rice has every reason to want the success of Annapolis for her record. However, the recent bitter experience of Colin Powell conclusively demonstrates that a US Secretary of State stands no chance of achieving anything in the Middle East without having the full backing and full clout of the president.
To this is added a more fundamental issue -- namely, to exactly how much does the full clout of George W. Bush amount, in the fourth year of the interminable Iraq disaster?
Whatever the particular tangled reasons involved, personal and political, internal and international, there can no doubt that from the moment that the Olmert-Abu Mazen "brainstorming" turned into formal negotiations aimed at achieving a binding document, the pace grew ever slower. Seemingly resolved points continually raised their ugly heads as major obstacles and bones of contention.
And meanwhile, the settlers started to take their own hand in events, as they have done in all significant Israeli political developments of the past three decades.
Bus ads and other pressures
Though sluggish to begin with, the settlers and their allies gradually started to feel alarmed at Olmert's moves. Having at its disposal ample funds from wealthy backers abroad (and from government budgets funneled to it in its officially-recognized role as "a regional municipal organization"), the settler "Judea and Samaria Council" embarked on a large-scale advertisement campaign.
The slogan "The Olmert-Abu Bluff Agreement will blow up in our faces" was prominently displayed on enormous signs, placed for a considerable payment at the sides of passenger buses all over the country.
The "Jerusalem Taboo" had lost much of its power since the 1990s, when all mainstream politicians felt constrained to swear public allegiance to "United Jerusalem, Eternal Capital of Israel"; in 1996 then
****
Quite an average week
Condoleezza Rice came for one more
round of talks
Near Nablus Palestinian olive harvesters were once more attacked by settlers
In Nablus one more old Palestinian man was killed by army bullets
One more soldier was killed near Khan Yunes during one more raid into the Gaza Strip
The occupation continues, the bloodshed continues
Have a nice weekend.
www.gush-shalom.org
pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033
Ad in Haaretz, Friday Oct. 19
****
incumbent Shimon Peres was so intimidated by the slogan "Peres will divide Jerusalem" that he was driven to conduct a defensive and apologetic elections campaign, ending in a predictable failure.
Nowadays, the Jerusalem issue has been thrown wide open to public debate. Nevertheless, "Partition of Jerusalem" has not completely lost its power as a nationalist bugaboo and rallying call. Nir Barkat, Jerusalem Municipal Councilor of Olmert's own Kadima Party, sought to carve out a niche in national politics by starting a "Petition Against the Partition of Jerusalem", gaining for it the signatures of numerous Knesset Members, including some government supporters (even one from the Labour Party).
Olmert aides criticized Ramon for having "spoken out rashly and prematurely" on the Jerusalem issue. Nevertheless, once the battle was joined, Olmert himself spoke out on the Knesset floor, stating that many Arab villages "were artificially annexed to Jerusalem in 1967, did not constitute a real part of the city, and were rarely if ever visited by Jewish Israelis" -- and therefore, could be given up with no harm caused to any Israeli interest. (An argument which Olmert himself had vehemently rejected as mayor of the "united" Jerusalem.)
The settlers' main strategy is to target the more right-wing elements among the Olmert Government's following and pressure them into either quitting the government and bringing it down, or exacting an effective veto over any significant concessions, as the price of their staying in. Two parties represented in the Olmert coalition and forming a considerable part of its parliamentary
Page 9
support are regarded in such a light: Shas -- representing a sizeable part of the Mizrahi community (Jews originating in Arab and Muslim countries, and their Israeli-born descendants) and Avigdor Lieberman's "Israel is Our Home" party, drawing its main support from the more recently arrived Russians.
Shas has a long history of being the most right-wing element in relatively dovish governments. They had been in Rabin's cabinet at the time of the Oslo Agreement, to which their presence in the government rendered invaluable legitimacy (in return, it was widely rumored, for generous budgets to their religious institutions).
Later, Shas bolted the Barak government just before Camp David -- to which was attributed Barak's intransigence on the Temple Mount issue, one of Camp David's major stumbling blocks.
Their present tough stance on Jerusalem ("Danger! Sacrilege in the Holy City!") was interpreted by cynical commentators as a means to get additional budgets and key positions in the state-controlled rabbinical establishment (Haaretz, Nov. 9).
Lieberman is considered in many ways a maverick in the Israeli political scene. For some years he had been allied with the mainstream settler movement -- and witnessed "from the inside" the settlers' utter failure to mobilize mainstream Israelis against Sharon's evacuation of the Gaza settlements, in spite of desperate efforts.
This evidently convinced Lieberman that the traditional extreme right agenda -- "Greater Israel", "not an inch", planting Jewish settlement in all Biblically-hallowed lands -- was a futile dead end, evoking no response outside the limited Nationalist-Religious community.
Conversely, Lieberman discovered in the general public a considerable reservoir of raw anti-Arab feeling, directed not only against the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories but also -- and especially -- against the Arabs who constitute twenty percent of Israel's citizens, who are represented in the Knesset (since last year, also in the government) and who are increasingly assertive and militant in defence of their rights.
This anti-Arab feeling Lieberman tapped with considerable success, by proposing to so define the future borders that many of the Arab Israelis would be behind them, thus "ensuring the long-term Jewish majority in Israel".
Further, he adopted the habit of regularly making inflammatory statements on the Knesset floor, inevitably provoking a shouting match with Arab KM's -- invariably given prominence on the evening TV news.
In addition, Lieberman has been cultivating the Russian communal feeling, consciously striving to model himself on Vladimir Putin -- admired by many Russian Israelis as by a lot of their former country people. Even among Russians who do not share Lieberman's outright racism, quite a few seem to consider him "a strong man" who might take good care of their communal interests.
None of the above in principle precludes Lieberman from going along with an agreement involving Israeli withdrawal from a large portion of the West Bank and/or from the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. On the latter point, indeed, he specifically declared himself in favor ("Yes, by all means get rid of the Jerusalem Arabs and stop paying their social welfare from Israel's treasury!"), though he insisted that "The Holy Places must remain Israeli". This "dovish" statement Lieberman "counterbalanced" by launching a televised broadside at the "leftist traitors" of Gush Shalom and Yesh Gvul.
With all of that, Lieberman did start feeling the heat of the settler campaign, particularly when they directed an appeal to his own core constituency by huge inflammatory ads in Israel's Russian-language papers. (Israel is the only country in the world, except for Russia, where several Russian-language daily papers appear and have a mass circulation, in addition to scores of weekly magazines.)
Lieberman's increasingly outspoken hostility to the Annapolis Summit might be either genuine or a pose aimed at getting political points; either way, Olmert can't afford to ignore it.
Early November, the settler council head Danny Dayan expressed some satisfaction with the course of the campaign: "I am now more optimistic than I was a few months ago. The ability of Olmert to implement what he wants to do is more limited. Of course I would have been much more satisfied had these two parties left the government or given Olmert an unequivocal ultimatum.
Even so, a few months ago they were talking of signing in Annapolis a detailed agreement, to be implemented later but to be already binding on Israel, very like the Geneva Agreement but this time with a governmental approval. Now, they are talking about a much more vague declaration which would leave the details for later negotiations. I don't want to take full credit, and I don't to say that the danger of losing Judea and Samaria is over -- it by no means is. Still, we in the settler community can point to some concrete achievements". (BeSheva settler weekly, Nov. 1).
Minimal expectations
And so, we go to print with the Annapolis Conference (or Annapolis Summit, or Annapolis Meeting, or whatever) due just ahead, on November 26 -- unless it is put off again.
So short of the deadline, much of what should have already been in place, nailed down in the document which is due to be presented to the world, is still in considerable doubt. The common Israeli-Palestinian declaration, which by now should have been getting its finishing touches, is instead the subject of dispute -- with "a deep gulf" reported to be dividing the Israeli and Palestinian delegations.
How detailed or vague would be the references to the "core issues"? For example, would the Palestinians get their demand that the territory of their future state be fixed at 6,205 square kilometers, which is precisely what the West Bank and Gaza Strip amount to -- so that Israel would truly have to
Page 10
compensate the Palestinians for every square kilometer annexed?
Would any timetable be fixed for implementation -- and if so, what loopholes would it contain, giving legitimacy for non-compliance? And with the famous "Roadmap" taken out of mothballs, who would monitor the compliance and announce that the Israelis had indeed "dismantled the illegal settlement outposts" and that the Palestinians had reciprocated by getting rid of the "terrorist infrastructure"?
Meanwhile, Olmert agreed to free some 400 Palestinian prisoners ahead of the conference. But would the old and ill prisoners held since before Oslo be released, though they are considered to have "blood on their hands"? Would Marwan Bargouthi -- the only Fatah leader considered popular enough to be truly accepted as a national leader -- be released, though he is considered to have "blood on his hands"?
With so many crucial issues left completely in the dark (by the time you read this, some of them may have become at least a bit clearer) it is difficult to formulate any coherent opinion.
Israeli peace seekers remain confused and deeply divided. Some regard Annapolis as a chance -- the last chance -- to achieve peace with the Palestinians; others see it as an exercise in futility, little more than a quickly-forgotten "photo opportunity"; while still others regard it as a threat, a place where impossible terms would be presented to the Palestinians and their refusal be again interpreted as "rejection of a generous offer".
In the final calculation, however, the success or failure of Annapolis seems to hang on one thin thread. Namely, does George W. Bush truly care for the political survival of the Good Guy Abu Mazen and for the survival of Salam Fayad, whom the President on various occasions declared to be an Excellent Good Guy?
Assuming that the answer is "yes" -- and assuming that the President of the United States is able to do something concrete about it -- then Abu Mazen and Fayad would come back from Annapolis with a concrete, tangible achievement which they could show to their people, and which could serve as a proof that Palestinians could gain something from diplomatically dealing with Israel (and with the US).
If they come back empty-handed, that will serve as a proof, just as clear, that nothing could be gained by diplomacy -- in which case Abu Mazen will not remain in his position much longer (one can hardly say "remain in power", since he has so little). The vacuum would most likely be filled by those whom the US considers baddies -- Hamas, or somebody more radical than them.
The divisions among Palestinians since the Gaza events of this year have been disastrous, resulting in numerous deaths -- just now, Nov. 12, we get the report of seven Fatah supporters killed during a mass rally in Gaza City proving Fatah's resurgence and drawing Hamas' lethal ire. People already exhausted by oppression, occupation and siege have on top of that to endure bloody internecine struggles. But at least, this division allows the Palestinian people to engage on the international arena in the old game of Good Cop/Bad Cop.
It goes damn slow
On November 7, the veteran Israeli commentator Akiva Eldar published an urgent call upon American Jews to become "The Jewish Lobby Israel Needs" -- i.e., not a lobby which supports all policies of whatever Israeli government happens to hold power, or which even pushes Israeli and US politicians to greater support of oppressive policies, but rather a lobby actively promoting peace with the Palestinians. He stated: "The next few weeks may determine the future of Zionism. This is not an exaggeration. If the upcoming Annapolis peace conference ends the same way as the Camp David summit of 2000, the future of the Jewish state will be in jeopardy" ("Forward", Nov 07, 2007).
On the same day, Yediot Aharonot's economic commentator Sever Plocker referred to the plummeting of the Dollar and the enormously growing currency reserves of Russia, China and the Gulf states, and he concluded: "Three new empires are arising, which might shape the fate of the global economics and geo-politics. And we? Israel has tied itself to one power, the US, and in that one power to the administration of George W. Bush. The three emerging empires are not particularly friendly to Israel, one of them being positively hostile. Our leaders have shaped no strategies for a changing world, are caught unprepared, and do not even appreciate the depth of the problem".
For his part, Ben Dror Yemini of Ma'ariv expressed his concern with the growing questioning of Israel's legitimacy by Western intellectuals, including among Jews -- which "would be a much worse threat when today's students and post-graduates become tomorrow's decision makers in Europe and America". He called upon the government to use Annapolis as an indispensable chance to restore Israel's international legitimacy, by "saying an emphatic yes to the end of the occupation, yes to the creation of a Palestinian state, but an emphatic no to the Right of Return -- since Israel must remain a Jewish state" (Ma'ariv, Nov. 9).
True, if they wish, Israelis can still close their eyes and ears. The daily life in Tel-Aviv seems not substantially different from that in London or New York. It is the Palestinians -- especially those of besieged and harassed Gaza -- who are in urgent need of an end to the conflict.
Yet, an increasing number of Israelis, without necessarily sharing our views, start feeling a bit uncomfortable with a dawning awareness that ultimately it is Israel which is in need of gaining peace, recognition and acceptance in the region where we happen to be. But it goes so damn slow.
The Editors
Page 11
The sound of silence
Rabin Memorial rally, report & reflection
Adam Keller
"I am not going to that rally, not at any price. To be among Barak's audience? Barak? Just this week, Shulamit Aloni said he should be tried for war crimes. And you call that a peace rally?" "But we don't go to the Rabin Memorial Rallies for the sake of the speakers on the podium, we go there for the audience. This is the largest gathering in the whole year of Israelis who care for peace. Even if there is a bastard on the podium, there are still a lot of decent people in the audience, young people who can be open to what we say. We should be there for them, to give out the leaflets -- especially the leaflets about what Barak is doing in Gaza." "Sorry, this year you will have to do it without me."
Also people less radical than this veteran Gush Shalom activist had their considerable qualms. The call published by Peace Now reiterated that "The continuing occupation, the expansion of settlements, but also the window of possibility created by the upcoming Annapolis summit" made it "crucial for us all this year, especially this year, to attend the rally and voice our call for negotiations and peace." Nevertheless, former Peace Now Secretary General Moria Shlomot publicly expressed her dilemma:
"Year after year, I return to the Rabin Square, for the annual moment when the Peace Camp stands up to be counted. This year I hesitate. I am not tired, nor did I forget, but the name of Ehud Barak lies heavy on my conscience -- a name with which I have no wish whatsoever to be counted as part of the same political camp.
Ehud Barak: leader of the Israeli Labour Party, provoker of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the man who caused the most dangerous fissure with the Israeli Arabs, the greatest believer in unilateralism.
A man who sees himself as dwelling in 'a villa in the jungle', since he regards everybody else as beasts or savages, whom there is no need to communicate with, to approach, to get to know or reconcile with. Barak ordered the electricity of Gaza cut off in response to the shooting of Quassam missiles, even when knowing that the shooting would only increase due to this move. He knows -- but still he prefers to cover his paucity of ideas and absence of moral values by an act that would make Israel hated all over the world.
Barak represents the very opposite of what Rabin represented at the end of his days. For most of us, Rabin represented exactly the shrugging off of the illusions of power, the greatness of a man undergoing a complete reversal of outlook at a far from young age.
Barak is not Rabin's successor, and I am deeply disappointed that this year he would get to mount a podium which should have been reserved for true people of peace." (Yisrael Hayom, Nov. 1)
Despite all qualms, when the evening of the rally came by we set out for the Rabin Square, equipped with a folding table and carriage heavily laden with printed material -- feeling nostalgic for last year, when active politicians were banned from the podium and an impressive keynote speech delivered by writer David Grossman.
On hearing our destination, the taxi driver burst out: "That's very good, there should be many people there! This dirty murderer, Yigal Amir -- how dare he make this dirty show with the circumcision? And the judges let him get away with it! He should have been hanged, yes, hanged! We have no capital punishment, but for the murder of a Prime Minister, we should have made an exception. Yes sir!
I did not hold with Rabin's views, but this is really unforgivable. He should be happy that he got away with his life; he should never have gotten anything more. No conjugal visits to have sex with that crazy woman who married him, no visits at all. No privileges. Just lock him up like a dog, yes like a dog, and throw away the key."
This kind of vindictive feeling was quite widespread in this year's rally, fuelled by the new extreme-right campaign openly calling for Amir's release and by the coincidence of the Amir child's circumcision talking place on precisely the anniversary of the murder. (In some views, indeed, it was no coincidence at all, but diabolically clever planning of the conjugal visit's date by Amir and his wife Larissa.)
The signs and stickers reading "We shall neither forgive nor forget" seemed more common than in other years, and there were yellow unsigned leaflets actually calling for the enactment of a "retroactive capital punishment."
We had an appropriate response, a Gush Shalom leaflet in the form of a questionnaire:
How to honour the memory of Itzchak Rabin
+++ To show tolerance towards those who hated him?
+++ To curse Yigal Amir by day and by night?
+++ To continue on Rabin's road: negotiate for peace with those whom the Palestinians have elected as their representatives?
Find the right answer and you win a good future.
"Thank you, I was starting to feel that I was all alone in thinking that this big fuss is exaggerated. Sure, he is a murderer; but isn't he being punished already? I came here for other, more important issues," said a youngster who apparently did not belong to any of the Blue Shirt youth groups but had come all by himself -- and very happy to find the Gush Shalom table, decorated with two-flag placards and a variety of explicit stickers.
"What is this? Talk to the Hamas? I think this sticker is premature, the time has not yet come for such a step" said the man with the big dog. "Why premature? We have come here to honour Rabin. Would you have stopped Rabin from going to Oslo? Also then, there were people saying it was premature to start talking to the PLO." "But they are shooting missiles, every day! What if some of our kids get killed!" "And we have already killed many of their
Page 12
kids, even if the media hardly reports it. We should make a cease-fire, no shooting of us on them or of them on us. We should do it before anybody else gets killed." "Well, perhaps -- I don't know, the Prime Minister should be thinking about all this."
Meanwhile, at the front -- where you could be seen by the speakers on the podium, and more importantly by the TV crews -- groups of youths are jockeying for position, wearing various kinds of shirts -- Peace Now, Meretz, the Blue Shirts of the Working and Learning Youth. Enormous banners, each needing ten of more people to lift, lie on the ground, ready for the starting moment.
We have declined to enter this race, circulating instead in the midst of the crowds fast entering the square from all directions. We are not the only ones; quite a few other groups are making use of this opportunity, the best in the whole year.
Peace Now and the Geneva Initiative have jointly launched a new graphic design, seen everywhere on big placards and small stickers: a bullet and a pen facing each other, with the caption "This is the Time! Choose for Peace!"
The Meretz Youth have "Peace was not murdered -- Yithchak's way will prevail." Youths from the Galilee distribute an impassioned manifesto: "We youths must rise and cry out that we believe in Peace and Equality, that we believe in the Freedom of Speech and Human Rights, that we will never forgive and never forget the murder of Rabin. We must cry out now, or we won't much longer have a democracy!"
"The slaughtering of animals is political murder, too" asserts the leaflet of the 'Anonymous' group. "It is murder because animals have as much right to live as human beings; it is political because the entire political spectrum supports it."
At the Peace Now table, signatures are collected on a petition calling upon Olmert to "Sign peace within a year." Invitations are circulated to a public meeting where a glimpse "behind the scenes of the Annapolis Peace Conference" is promised -- as well as a brochures entitled "a beginners' course on the settlements", based on the findings of the movement's famed Settlement Watch Team.
For their part, the Hadash Communists distribute a flyer entitled: "Why the Annapolis Summit will not be a peace conference?" and giving the answer: "The Olmert-Barak Government has no intention of really ending the occupation. The moves to extend settlements at the E-1 area east of Jerusalem, and the cruel new invention of cutting off Gaza's water and electricity, testify to the reality behind the words of peace."
At another table, signatures are collected on a petition "against the shirking of military service, and for an equal division of the burden."
A youth is engaged in a hot debate: "Better to shirk the army than to serve the occupation!" "This is a rally for Rabin, and he was a military man for most of his life. You extreme leftists are in the wrong place!" "Rabin made peace and was murdered for it. On the last hour of his life, right here in this square, he embraced Aviv Gefen -- an artist who refused military service. It is you, the militarists, who are in the wrong place!"
A critical audience
The debate is cut short by the recorded voice of Rabin himself, strong and confident on the last evening of his life, followed by the recording of the announcement of his death at the hospital gates a few hours later, and then the singing of "Captain, my Captain" -- Walt Whitman's lament for the assassinated Abraham Lincoln, which was translated to Hebrew, set to music and applied to Rabin.
After some more singing, the first speaker: Shimon Peres. He was always very popular in this milieu; all the more so tonight, his first appearance here as President of Israel. His words are punctuated by frequent cheers and clapping:
"Yitzchak Rabin wanted peace, and I had the honour to be his partner in the efforts to achieve it.
He wanted peace, not as an abstraction but as a simple daily reality. He wanted to wipe away the bereaved mother's tears.
He wanted to end forever these terrible moments at the doorstep, where the parents look at the army's emissaries and know that they lost forever what was most precious to them.
Rabin wanted a situation where nobody will ever again feel threatened by a suicide bomber or a falling missile. Rabin wanted peace, and for that he was murdered.
Rabin was murdered, but you are here. You, all of you here, are his inheritors, his torchbearers.
You have come here, not only to commemorate a person who was so tragically cut down. You have come here to carry on his task, the achievement of peace. To go on undaunted, not to panic, not to despair, to stand fast like a rock against all who seek to derail you -- to hold on to the struggle for peace. You are Rabin's inheritors; you are the Rabin Heritage. You are the torchbearers!" (enormous applause)
Several minor speakers, to whose words nobody pays much attention. Aharon Barn'ea, the moderator, announces: "The entire square is full, as are the streets all around. It is estimated that some 150,000 people are here tonight!" (cheers)
Some more singing. The dirigible with its security cameras crisscrosses the sky above the square; tomorrow, Gideon Levy would remark in Ha'aretz that dirigibles of the same kind are patrolling above Gaza, pin-pointing Palestinian targets for the Air Force.
The two approaching the Gush Shalom table are in their early twenties. One, otherwise in civilian clothing, has a faded khaki t-shirt with the caption "Armoured Corps, Tank Commanders' Training Course -- April 2005." The other's shirt has "Manaa Hotel, Managua, Nicaragua." Without a word they pick up the round stickers with the joined Israeli and Palestinian flags, put them on their shirts and depart smiling. And then the amplified voice
Page 13
from the loudspeakers: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Defence Minister of Israel, Mr. Ehud Barak." (a thin spatter of applause)
As Barak mounts the podium on the Tel Aviv Town Hall balcony, high above the crowd, two groups of Meretz youths directly in front of him unfurl the great banners prepared for this moment, with: BARAK, YOU HAVE ABANDONED RABIN'S WAY!
and get, for one moment, into the direct TV broadcasts shown all over the country.
Several others have smaller, hand-made signs: 'Barak, where are our POWs?' and 'Three soldiers in the hands of Hamas and Hizbullah -- the Defence Minister does nothing!'
"This is a most important occasion, and this crowd gathered here is a most important crowd, gathered to do honour to a great man who has fallen, and I feel honoured to be here tonight to address you" says the great amplified voice of Barak. He pauses for effect and meets complete silence.
He then goes on to praise Rabin to the heavens. Yitzchak Rabin was a great man, a great leader, a man of exemplary honesty and probity, not like the leaders the country has nowadays. He regarded being a Prime Minister as a mission and trust, not just a workplace. (Olmert had said, less than two months ago, that he regards the PM's bureau as "the place where I work").
Rabin, Barak goes on to say, did an enormous lot for Israel. He renovated the educational system, he built up a lot of infrastructure, and yes, among other things he was also involved in peace making. Yigal Amir who murdered him is a real nasty bastard.
"I pledge to you tonight, yes I pledge: this foul murderer will never be set free, he will be behind bars to his last day, he will never see the light of day!" That was the only moment when Barak did get a cheer out of this crowd.
Then he goes on to other things: Israel is threatened on all sides, by Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas -- but all these enemies should beware, for the Israeli armed forces are strong and ready.
And finally, Barak notes that a conference is about to take place in Annapolis, and that he definitely does not regard it as a threat, but on the contrary as a chance, a good chance -- though one should not expect too much. (This is about the most positive thing that Barak has uttered on the subject, since the conference was first heard of).
After a few more clichˇs he concludes his speech -- again to the sound of silence. Icy, eloquent silence throughout the square.
Throughout Barak's long and rather disjointed speech we circulate in the crowd, furiously giving out copy after copy of Gush Shalom's Gaza leaflet.
No way of flinging it in the face of the arrogant speaker -- a face seen on the giant screens set up all over the square. But at least it could be given out to quite a few interested people in the crowd:
Electricity -- the Red Herring
By forbidding the cutting off of electricity, Attorney General Mazuz prevented Israel from arousing the anger of the entire world. But he didn't stop the collective punishment, the ever-tightening siege of the Gaza Strip.
The State of Israel prevents the entry of vital goods -- from fuel to baby food and everything in between. No one is allowed in or out -- neither students on their way to study nor terminal patients in urgent need of medical care.
Today, 80% of the Gazans are under the poverty line -- without money to buy what the shops still have.
And the result? The army expects the collective punishment to increase the shooting of missiles.
www.gush-shalom.org
NO COPYRIGHT
Our articles may be reprinted, provided they include the address The Other Israel POB 2542, Holon 58125, Israel.
Meanwhile, up on the stage Aviv Gefen is singing, like every year: "I am going to sing for you, my brother/my longing is like doors opening in the night" He then leaves off, and thousands of young throats continue the song on their own: "Forever, my brother, forever I will remember you/and we will meet again in the end, you know."
It was originally composed as a dirge for a young man killed in a motorcycle accident, half a year before Rabin was assassinated -- but hardly anybody remembers this now, it has become a central part of the Rabin Canon.
And then -- the most intriguing speaker: Yuval Rabin, the son.
He had not really been involved in politics until his father's death. In the immediate aftermath of the murder he was a central figure in the Dor Shalom (Peace Generation) movement, which rose meteorically -- only to disappear just as swiftly and leave no trace.
He then went on a decade of self-imposed comfortable exile in the US, and was hardly heard of -- until suddenly coming back a few weeks ago, claiming his right as son (and heir?) to deliver the keynote speech in his father's memorial.
Yuval Rabin starts by giving the crowd a massive dose of Amir-bashing: "Judge Gurfinkel allowed my father's murderer, and the murderer's friends and relatives who support him and applaud his crime, to hold this circumcision ceremony and celebration inside the prison -- on the very anniversary of his murderous crime.
Judge Gurfinkel said that he could not deny it because this is a major rite of Judaism and Yigal Amir is a Jew.
A Jew? Is he a Jew? Funny, I always thought that the very heart and core of Judaism was the Ten Commandments, which the whole world identifies with us, and that the most important and fundamental of the Ten Commandments was 'Thou Shalt not Kill'. But it seems that Judge Gurfinkel has other criteria and definitions.
But enough of this contemptible killer. The important thing to remember is that he did not act
Page 14
alone. No, he did not act alone. One finger pulled the trigger, but many hands pushed the killer to this square, to commit his deed. The hands of those who incited and shouted 'traitor!' and marked out my father for death.
I look at you here, filling this square, and I am deeply moved. I remember that this was nearly the very last sight my father ever saw, and I am even more deeply moved. The blood that flowed from his body and was irretrievably lost had stained the page that was in his pocket, the words of the Peace Song. You all know it very well, and still I want to repeat it to you here: "Don't say 'a day will come'/ bring the day! /and in every square/cry out for peace!"
The story is not ended. It is starting again. A Prime Minister makes a first cautious step, and already he is attacked and vilified, already the incitement begins.
We know how it is when a prime minister who tries to make peace is abandoned, left alone in the face of inciting mobs, as my father was for many months. It must not happen again! Ehud Olmert, if he fulfils the dream and hope of peace, fully deserves your support."
So, Yuval Rabin did not after all claim the mantle of Yitzchak Rabin for himself, but rather threw it over the shoulders of Ehud Olmert. And this conclusion was greeted with an enormous applause.
Prime Minister Olmert, who did not attend the memorial in the Rabin Square, made within twenty-four hours an impeccable dovish televised address, in which he took up the theme and greedily posed as Rabin's heir. It was too good to be true -- to be offered such a role and a constituency willing to support him in it, after a full year in which he led Israel with no more than single digit popularity ratings.
There is no doubt that Olmert would like to prolong this situation of being seen as the one charged with "completing the work of Rabin."
Being seen -- definitely. But as yet, we don't see signs of what we did sometimes feel to be the case with Rabin -- in spite of all what was wrong at that time, and without forgetting the numerous occasions that we demonstrated against him -- but still, there seemed to be in Rabin a genuine determination to move forward on the road towards peace. And that is not exactly what Olmert conveys.
****
A compromise in Jerusalem
For the sake of Jerusalem
Open letter to the Prime Minister
"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee" (Psalms, 122, 6-8).
Dear Sir. We, the undersigned, students and young people from Jerusalem and its environs, call upon you to sign at the Annapolis Conference a peace agreement with your Palestinian counterpart, including a just and lasting solution to the substantial issues on the agenda -- specifically, a willingness to make compromises in Jerusalem.
We, who were born into the conflict, experienced the first Intifada as children and he second one as soldiers. We know that the price of peace is heavy but that of war is heavier.
We live in beautiful and torn Jerusalem. We study, work and spend out free time in the city that is perhaps the most complicated problem in the negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. We love the city of Jerusalem, which is important to us, and which is where we intend to live our adult life and raise our children.
But just as this city is important to us, so do we recognize its enormous importance for the Palestinians, who just like us regard it as their natural capital. Without a just and multicultural solution that would give expression to both peoples' national aspirations in Jerusalem and enable true religious and cultural freedom, Jerusalem will sink down into socio-economic tensions, ethnic divisions and mutual hatred, and become a city of walls and fences.
To us, who live in this city, it is clear that -- however painful it might be -- a compromise in Jerusalem is vital for the future of Jerusalem itself, and indispensable to any hope of reaching an agreement with our neighbors.
The peace conference at Annapolis has created a unique window of opportunity, a ray of hope for the peoples of the region.
The strategic situation in the Middle East, the Palestinian partner, the international backing -- all of these will enable you, should you take a brave decision, to come back home with an agreement -- and be remembered in history as a leader who brought about a turning point in the history of his people. Let your tenure not be remembered as one more milestone on the route downwards to despair and social disintegration!
A new agreement, even it would not include maps and detailed annexes, would nevertheless revive the diplomatic process, push the entire region towards the route of dialogue and encourage the moderate forces in the Palestinian Authority.
On the other hand, in the disastrous case that the conference ends without an agreement and that you come back with having achieved no more than a meaningless murmuring of clichˇs and some token gestures, than the window of opportunity will close, and the two peoples will soon find themselves in the midst of escalation towards yet another round of bloodshed. A failure of the conference will serve our enemies and directly help those who wish to drag the entire region into all-out war.
When we were soldiers during the latest intifada, and proudly fulfilled the missions entrusted to us, we were told by the political leadership of which you were part that there was no Palestinian partner, and that Arafat constituted the barrier preventing Israel from achieving peace with her neighbors. Three
Page 15
years after the passing away of Arafat, the Palestinian Authority is led by a pragmatic and brave man, who expressed his wish to reach a real solution to the conflict and to reach a compromise on substantive issues. We, too, would like to have a real leader -- a leader seeking an end to the conflict, even at the price of painful concessions.
Mr. Prime Minister, the Moment of Truth approaches. If you truly wish for peace, and not for a new cycle of bloodshed, you must come back from Annapolis with an agreement. Go in peace; don't come back empty-handed!
Signed by several hundreds, names and background at: http://1jerusalem.bravehost.com/indexcff1.html
The students who initiated the above letter intend to start on Nov. 22 a three-day walk through Jerusalem -- setting off from the Hebrew University campus on Mount Scopus, going through such Jerusalem landmarks as the Town Hall, the Wailing Wall and the Knesset, holding torches in evening hours, staying the night in a tent camp, and culminating with a rally outside the PM's Residence on the evening of Nov. 24 -- a few hours before Olmert is due to set out for Annapolis.
Contact:
972-508784284 (Nir); bishvil.yerushalayim@gmail.com
****
'Welcome to Gaza!'
The report by Kris Petersen gives us a glimpse of what we should have been able to see for ourselves. But already for years the government of Israel doesn't allow its own citizens through to Gaza.
Khalil laughs and shakes head as we dine along the seaside terrace of Gaza's luxurious al-Deira Hotel.
"This is not Gaza," he says, dismissively gesturing towards the hotel's maroon exterior and the tables of dining European journalists. "The real Gaza is just down the street, where 1,000 people are living on a single street block." He chuckles ironically and slaps me on the back. "And here, we can't even drink a whiskey to drown our sorrows!"
I had only been in Gaza for two days, yet I immediately appreciated the locals' uniquely fatalistic humour. Perhaps it's almost a reflection on Gaza's manifest resilience and remarkable ability to shrug off the tragedy of an environment in perpetual crisis.
I arrived in the Gaza Strip on the morning of Friday, August 31st, eager to begin work with the Palestinian Center For Human Rights (PCHR).
It was my first trip to the Occupied Territories, despite having studied the situation for so long, and as I approached the Eretz Military Checkpoint, I felt the excitement of finally getting into this tiny piece of land.
In early 2007, I had begun inquiring about traveling to Gaza with various Israeli embassy officials, mostly unfamiliar with the process of acquiring proper security clearance and one of whom flatly hung up when I asked.
Undaunted and clearly in need of additional help, I contacted academics, journalists, Palestinian bloggers, aid workers and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), only to receive different explanations from each source.
As I discovered, getting into Gaza is a convoluted, Kafkaesque process and is virtually impossible if you are unable to provide a "good" reason to the Israeli Defense Forces; indeed, many qualified people are barred from entry without explanation almost as a matter of routine.
Under the terms of the 2005 Disengagement Plan, Israel retains total control over Gaza's borders (including surveillance of the Rafah crossing at the Egyptian border), Gaza's coastline and airspace. This means that the final say over an individual's entrance into the Strip, Palestinian or not, is in Israel's hands.
Inevitably, my choice of destination led to some special treatment from Israeli officials. When I arrived at Ben Gurion airport, for example, I was immediately flagged by customs officials and questioned extensively about my intentions and contacts in Gaza.
"Why are you interested in going to Gaza? Were you coerced into coming? Do you hate Israel? Are you planning to criticize the Israeli military? Were you coerced into coming? Haven't you packed a little light for your stay? Do you support Hamas?"
And once again for good luck: "So you were you coerced into coming?"
After roughly an hour of this, during which my passport was briefly taken into another room by a security official, I was finally free to go about my business. The following Friday I had arranged for coordination with the IDF across the border into Gaza. Once at Eretz, I waited for only a short while being allowed to pass. I was shocked!
After hearing stories of daylong waits and strip-searches, my experience lasted a little over an hour. Looking back across the hall, through the barriers of bulletproof glass and Uzi-toting soldiers I could see dozens of Palestinians waiting patiently to enter Israel. It would take them much longer.
I passed through multiple one-way metal doors with some difficulty, and when I was through the last door I finally left the enclosed structure on the Israeli side of Eretz and entered a partially enclosed barbed wire "tunnel". When Hamas took over the Gaza Strip last June, hundreds of Fatah supporters attempted to flee by seeking refuge in these halls.
A Palestinian man wearing a reflective orange vest appeared and quickly placed my bag onto a pushcart. I introduced myself and asked where he came from. The answer, as it turned out, was Beit Hanoun -- the crumbling, bombed out town at the very north of the Gaza Strip, which could be seen to our left as we walked through the endless expanse of barbed-wire and fencing.
Continuing, I noticed the concrete walkway gradually disappear beneath my feet, shifting to gravel and dirt; the ceiling followed suit and transformed from corrugated aluminum into twisted shards of bullet-holed rust. The transition was
Page 16
complete upon exiting the checkpoint. Despite having left the lofty skyscrapers of Tel Aviv barely two hours earlier, I may as well have been on the other side of the moon.
Since the second Intifada, the economic conditions in Gaza have declined to all-time lows, manifested physically as the widespread deterioration observable anywhere in Gaza. Bombed-out buildings and cars lined the road.
In the distance I saw Beit Hanoun, the ghost city under almost constant Israel attack because of the militant rocket-fire coming from the area. I thought of the children killed by an Israeli tank shell last Tuesday as they were playing "tag" too close to the Israeli border.
Putting these thought aside I asked one of the local taxi drivers to take me into the city. I was scheduled to meet with Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, later that afternoon.
The 20-minute journey from Eretz to Gaza City was a harrowing experience. As if Sara Roy's term "de-development" had a physical image. We passed dilapidated buildings, broken billboards, skinny children skipping along crumbling sidewalks, a young boy playing near the maggot-infested carcass of a rotting mule. Garbage dumpsters were buried in overflowing piles of filth. They are often ablaze to clear more space for Gaza's waste.
The argument that Israel bears no responsibility for Gaza's crisis post-disengagement is disingenuous and lacks a basic understanding of the situation; conditions on the ground here are a direct consequence of a brutal 40-year occupation and virtual isolation from the outside world, notwithstanding the clear military dominance Israel continues to wield in the Strip. From Gaza's shoreline, Israeli naval vessels are clearly visible and are known to frequently fire upon fishermen straying too far from shore.
The Strip lies somewhere around extreme underdevelopment, lacking basic infrastructure and any basis to jump-start a desperate economy. While certainly at crisis level, however, Gaza is not allowed to sink so low that that international community will take notice and perhaps do something about it.
Raji Sourani later described Gaza to me as a bottle that Israel keeps plugged until the people inside begin to suffocate; when this happens, enough air is let in to keep the people from dying. Smiling oddly, Raji added to his analysis, "And this is our life."
While in the taxi, I spoke with a teenage boy named Khaled. He came from the Jabalia Refugee Camp North of Gaza City, which he pointed out to me as we passed. One of the most densely populated places on earth, the Jabalia refugee camp houses over 74,000 people per square kilometer -- about three times the population density of central Manhattan. Passing the endless rows of apartments, I observed that the expanse of concrete behemoths stretched all the way to Gaza's coastline.
I asked Khaled about Hamas and the situation since the Islamist group took over. He was enthusiastic about Hamas, hailing the decline in Gaza's crime, much to the chagrin of the driver, Mahmud, who complained about Hamas' over-zealous methods.
Since their seizure of power last June, teenagers with Kalashnikovs now regularly patrol Gaza's Omar al-Mukhtar St. The lingering opposition to Hamas still remaining in Gaza stages occasional indignant demonstrations, to which Hamas often responds violently; one such incident in September put some 20 people in the hospital, including two French journalists. [On Nov. 12, two weeks after this was published, a mass rally of a resurgent Fatah ended with seven participants shot to death by Hamas troops. ed]
In general the people here exude typical Palestinian sarcasm when discussing politics. Many of the Gazans I have met resent Hamas orthodoxies and casually laugh when they consider having to hide during Ramadan so they can avoid being spotted while eating or smoking. Others have taken to shouting "Allahu Akhbar!" to express their excitement, satirically referencing the religiosity of Gaza's new order.
Speaking with the head of the women's rights unit at PCHR, Mona Ahmad al-Shawa, I was interested to discover that Hamas has steered clear of their operations (which include free legal defense for women brought before Shari'a courts).
"They're scared to interfere with us because we are so popular in Gaza," she told me. "If they try to obstruct our work, they will lose the people's support."
"Besides, Hamas uses our reports to point out human rights violations committed by Fatah. Of course they conveniently overlook our criticism of their own practices, but this is Gaza! It's crazy here!"
My new flat lies in the Rimal Quarter of Gaza, a quaint district of enclosed gardens, narrow streets. Each day I am taken to work via taxi at 8.00 am and back home again by 4.00 pm. When shopping for groceries, I am accompanied by a member of the PCHR staff. Though restricted in my movement, I try to discuss with the locals as much as possible.
Samir, my taxi driver, ritually avoids discussing politics with me, instead choosing to ask why I am not yet married. "When I was your age, I already had a son!" he has informed me.
One day, I managed to extract bit of information and he explained his views on the situation. "Before the (2005) election, I supported Hamas with all my heart, but they are LIARS! They have dragged Gaza from bad to worse!" He shook his head sadly declared, "I have no hope for Gaza."
One afternoon, while reading a book in Gaza's Square of the Unknown Soldier, a group of teenage schoolgirls passed me, clearly aware of my foreign disposition and giggling in unison as I waved at them. I wondered if they were old enough to grasp the gravity of the situation in which they were presently trapped.
There seemed to be a general nonchalance -- perhaps an awareness that politics is not everything among Gaza's young adults. After all, despite the
Page 17
trials of occupation, it is clear that life continues with gusto in Gaza. Even among Palestinian adults, ever-conscious of Gaza's deteriorating circumstances, consistently declare "Welcome to my country! My beautiful country!" followed by an overly enthusiastic handshake.
At first glance it may seem that the uncertainty of a life without freedom, the bleakness Gaza's future and the future of its 1.4 million people leaves Gazans emotionally unfazed, but as I settle into my new life here as a human rights activist, I can't shake the feeling that an identifiable recognition of something sinister lurks beneath the smiles and hospitality of my new friends.
Whenever Mona shrugs and says, "This is Gaza!" whenever Raji offers a wry smile, whenever Khalil laughs sarcastically... Indeed, whenever I speak with anyone here, I detect an ounce of some profound melancholy lingering in the eyes of my colleagues.
Sitting with Khalil on another humid Gazan evening, I asked about this. His response was somehow predictable: "Welcome to Gaza!" he said laughing.
Published, Oct. 31, by: www.palestinechronicle.com
The writer, a graduate student engaged in research,
maintains a blog: www.harmonicminor.com
Contact: Kris Petersen kris@harmonicminor.com
****
+++ A short news item on Israeli radio: two Palestinians killed upon trying to enter Israel. In a fragment of Mona El-Farrah's diary, they are lifted out of the routine of daily killings.
"On November 10, the dreams of Bilal and Nihad Nabaheen ended forever. Bilal and Nihad, brothers, 14 and 15 years old, pupils at the preparatory school of Al Buriej Refugee Camp, Gaza. I don't know exactly what was going on inside their small heads when they went on their sad adventure. Were they just playing in a green meadow, very close to the fence that separates Gaza from Israel, or were they trying to cross the border to the other world outside the big prison?
I know that the soldiers inside the Israeli military tower are equipped with highly sophisticated binoculars and high-tech instruments. These soldiers, who are also victims of an occupation that deprives them of their humanity, could see that these were skinny young boys. My colleagues of the Emergency Room at the Al Aqsa Hospital tell me that the two bodies were found shot with very many bullets. They had died instantly.
'From Gaza With Love', blog of Mona El-Farra -- physician, human rights and women's rights activist, http://fromgaza.blogspot.com
****
An exercise in awareness raising
Thursday, September 27. An early afternoon hour, in the lazy midst of the Sukkot Holiday, when some of us were tempted to put off the radio and cut ourselves off a bit from the world. And then the urgent phone breaks in: "Did you hear? Eleven dead in Gaza! Eleven! We must do something!"
The all too familiar routine is on us once again: hasty consultations between peace groups to determine place and time -- and then calling people, sending off fax and email alerts, a quick press release, posting it on websites and chat groups and, last but not least, the drawing of signs and placards (Be quick, but still make them legible and not too ugly!), and then off to downtown Tel-Aviv. (At some moment during these hours the number of dead Gazans rose to twelve.)
And there we are -- the activists of Gush Shalom, which initiated the action, and Anarchists Against Fences, and Women's Coalition for Peace, and Hadash Young Communists, and the veteran Latif Dori of Meretz, and quite a few people with no specific organizational allegiance. Altogether, some 120 people turned up.
On the one side, the new Defence Ministry Tower with the distinctive helicopter landing "saucer" on its roof -- built at considerable expense and inaugurated in a gala ceremony of generals and politicians last year. On the other side, the Azrieli Twin Towers with their giant shopping mall, Tel Aviv's Pride, the very symbol and acme of the rich, uncaring, corporate Israel that emerged in the past two decades.
In between -- the Menachem Begin Road, a major artery through which thousands of cars speed at all hours, and us waving signs and flags and banners and chanting in unison at the top of our voices and some making wild hand gestures at the passing cars and pedestrians:
Blockade -- NO! Ceasefire -- YES! / No Tanks and No Qassams -- Ceasefire Now! / End the Bloodshed -- Ceasefire Now! / The Blockade on Gaza is a War Crime! / End the Economic Strangulation of Gaza! / There is No Military Solution in Gaza! / Ceasefire in Gaza and Sderot! / Hamas IS a Partner for a Ceasefire! / I Am a Gazan, Too! / In Gaza and Sderot, Children Want to Live! / Barak, Barak, hey hey hey, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today? / Israel and Palestine, Two States for Two Peoples! / Israel and Palestine, a Brotherhood of Peoples! / All the Ministers are War Criminals / Ehud, Ehud, You Are Expected at The Hague! / Ehud, Ehud, Both of You Are Expected at The Hague! / The Occupation is a Disaster; Peace is the Solution!
A motorcyclist passing at great speed tried to grab a Gush Shalom Two-States flag from a demonstrator, uttering pungent curses. A few minutes later, a young woman was rather dangerously leaning out of an open car window to call "Good luck, good luck, I am with you!"
The police, who appeared soon afterwards -- one patrol car, followed by another two -- held short negotiations, and were satisfied with the promise that we would go away after an hour.
The parked patrol cars actually created a traffic-free zone beside the pavement, in which press and activist photographers could stand and take photos of the straggling line of protesters. And the police
Page 18
did politely lead away the middle aged man who shouted, his face contorted "Why are you allowing these traitors..."
Towards the end, a short dialogue with a bypassing older couple:
The man: What are you demonstrating about? Activist: Did you not hear? Eleven people killed today in Gaza. The woman: Eleven? Of ours? Activist: We are the ones to blame. [A short silence.] The man: Yes, the government... But this will not help. Activist: Probably not, but somebody has to start shouting.
****
Break the siege of Gaza
Letter to President Mubarak
Your Excellency, we the undersigned, citizens of the state of Israel -- after numerous unsuccessful efforts to address our own government -- have decided to take the step of approaching you on the subject of the severe and fast deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip, and in which you can effect a substantial change.
As you know, the Government of Israel rejects out of hand any possibility of a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, and continually tightens the cruel siege imposed on the Strip's million and a half inhabitants. This siege completely paralyses economic activity in the Strip and drives its population under the poverty line and to the edge of starvation.
The cutting of fuel supplies to the Strip, the closing of the Sufa Crossing, the cutting of foodstuff deliveries and the intention to cut electricity supplies are but the latest in a long series of severe acts of collective punishment.
The Israeli public is told that these acts are needed in order to stop the shooting of missiles on the town of Sderot. It is not told that in the opinion of the Army's own experts, the punitive acts would only exacerbate the shooting.
This siege could not have been maintained without the consent of Egypt. While arms and ammunition continue to be smuggled from Egyptian territory into the Strip, despite the presence of Egyptian security forces, already for many months the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is completely sealed and locked to the passage of peaceful civilians and of vital goods needed by the civilian population.
As citizens of the State of Israel, concerned for collective guilt and our future in face of the irresponsible policy undertaken by our government, we call upon you, Mr. President, to do all in your power to help break the siege imposed on the inhabitants on the Gaza Strip: to open the Rafah Border Crossing to a free movement of persons and goods, supply to the inhabitants of Gaza fuel and any other vital need denied them by the Government of Israel, and supply the Gaza Strip with the electricity it needs from the Egypian electrical grid so as to end its dependence on Israel.
If you take this brave and positive step, Your Excellency, all inhabitants of the region will have a reason to thank you -- your own Egyptian people, the Palestinians and at last also the Israelis.
Sincerely Yours...
Tel-Aviv, November 5, 2007
The letter was sent to the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv, signed by 60 Israeli peace seekers whose full names appear at: http://toibillboard.info/OpenLet.htm
From all over the globe, the Egyptian and Israeli leaderships received snail mail from individuals worried about the Gaza humanitarian disaster and supporting the Israeli activists' appeal upon Egypt -- to unilaterally open the Rafah crossing.
****
Gazans call a campaign
In October the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, headed by the well-known Dr. Eyad Sarraj published an urgent call for a humanitarian, non-partisan campaign, to raise the international community's awareness of the terribly deteriorating living conditions in Gaza and pressure Israel to lift the siege.
The call was soon taken up by the 'National Committee to Break the Siege' -- a whole array of representatives of the civil society, business community, intellectuals, academics, women activists, and advocates for human rights and peace, from the West Bank and Gaza. As well as facing the hardships of the occupation and siege, the campaigners must thread very carefully indeed in order to avoid becoming entangled in the violent lethal power struggle between Hamas and Fatah.
The widely circulated appeal started by recapitulating the facts of the ongoing and ever-tightening siege of Gaza:
+ Of Gazan patients needing treatment not available in Gazan hospitals, less than five per day are now allowed to cross into Israel (or to the West Bank via Israel), compared with some 40 per day until July. On October 25, a gravely ill patient was held up by soldiers at the Erez Crossing and died while waiting; a woman with her newly born baby died in a Gaza hospital before getting the needed permit. Moreover, the Gaza hospitals themselves suffer from increasing shortages of medicines and other vital medical supplies.
+ Only the twelve most basic items are now allowed to enter Gaza, out of over 9,000 commodities needed in daily life. Among other things now forbidden to Gazans are "from soap to coffee, from water to soft drinks, from fuel to gas, from computers to spare parts, from cement to raw materials for industry."
+ Even of the basic foodstuffs still allowed in, the quantity is steadily diminishing. 3,190 truckloads crossed into Gaza in July, 2,468 in August, 1,508 in September. Food prices in the Strip are sharply rising.
+ The export season for Gaza's cash crops (strawberries, carnation flowers and cherry tomatoes) starts in mid-November. A harvest of approximately
Page 19
6,250 tons of strawberries is expected, including 2,500 destined for European markets -- as are 490 tons of cherry tomatoes. If exports remain blocked, farmers face tremendous losses.
+ With Gaza's industry denied the import of essential raw materials and the export of final goods, about 90% of Gaza's industrial operations were suspended and over 75,000 private sector employees (around 60% of the total private sector workforce) have been laid off.
The conclusion is obvious: "Human beings are the products of the environment in which they live. The Palestinian environment today is a combination of deprivation, poverty, anger, feelings of powerlessness and despair. Such feelings will inevitably lead to simmering anger that will eventually brew into more violence and defiance. It is only to be expected that in such an environment, extremist ideologies will flourish. This will impact on the Palestinian society internally as well as the political environment in the whole region, destroying the possibilities of peace and security.
We believe that it is a moral and ethical duty to rescue the lives of human souls living under bitter circumstances that sabotage their right to exist. People in Gaza are deprived of the simplest requirements for a decent life.
An appeal was made to "all people who believe in justice, all over the world." (Specific mention was made of the European Parliament's resolution, calling for an end to the siege, adopted by a large majority -- but unfortunately not binding on the EU decision makers.) Palestinians, "whether in Gaza, West Bank, inside the Green Line, or anywhere else in the Diaspora" were explicitly asked to take part, and so were Israeli peace and human rights organizations and activists.
Solidarity meetings, cultural activities, and discussions are to take place not only in Gaza, but in Tel Aviv, and in Ramallah -- central city of the Palestinian West Bank, now cut off from Gaza by enormous physical and political barriers.
The 'Palestine-Israel Journal' already took the lead in organizing a public meeting at the Kibbutz Movement House in Tel-Aviv -- cordially bringing together a Palestinian woman from Beit Hanoun, the Palestinian town most often targeted by Israeli army raids, and an Israeli woman activist helping the impoverished inhabitants of Sderot -- just across the border from Beit Hanoun, which is the main target of Palestinian missiles. Dr. Sarraj, who could not be there in person, addressed the meeting by phone.
Such cooperation across the Gaza border is far from easy, in a situation when Israelis are completely forbidden by their own government to go into the Gaza Strip and Gazans are only rarely and with great difficulty allowed brief visits to Israeli territory. Even so, there are phone and email contacts, and internationals sometimes acting as go-betweens (though they, too, face considerable difficulties in going in and out of the Strip).
The Tel Aviv-based Physicians for Human Rights took the lead in coordinating peace and human rights groups willing to take part in such a campaign.
PHR is already involved in the health-related issues of the Gaza siege, having secured for quite a few patients the life-saving permit for medical treatment in Israel, by a mixture of appeals to the Supreme Court in Jerusalem (some of which were callously rejected) and publication of especially severe cases (which often seems to intimidate the military authorities even when judicial appeals fail).
PHR also exposed the scandalous and manifestly illegal practice of the Shabak (Israeli Security Service), which in numerous cases made medical treatment conditional upon the patient and his or her family collaborating with the occupation authorities.
The weekend edition of the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot published an extensive article on this issue, and it is at present the subject of a PHR appeal to the Supreme Court -- with an additional appeal regarding eleven new cases of patients in life-threatening condition, refused exit from Gaza.
Another Israeli human rights organization involved with Gazans is "Gisha" ("Access"), which -- as its name indicates -- specializes in the many cases where Palestinians are denied freedom of movement. Gisha took up cases of Gazans stranded by the closing of the Rafah Border Crossing -- some left on the Egyptian side of the border, unable to return to their homes, others stuck in Gaza and unable to depart for business or study or whatever else takes them abroad.
Special attention -- not because the case is very unique, but exactly because it is quite typical of many others -- was given to Khaled al-Mudallal, a third-year Bradford University student. He had gone back to his Gaza home to get married, intending to go back to Britain with his wife Duaa -- who also has a British residence permit valid until November 2010 -- and found the only exit to the outside world suddenly shut in his face.
Gisha's appeal to the Supreme Court on his behalf was rejected, after the state informed the judges that a special service of shuttle buses to Egypt, going by a long roundabout route, was instituted for such cases. The state neglected, however, to mention that only a trickle of a few hundreds out of the waiting thousands was given a place on these buses, and that since Sept. 6 the buses were stopped altogether "for security reasons"...
"First, I was not allowed to go back to the village where my grandfather lived; now, I am even not allowed back to a university in England" al-Mudallal told Haaretz. Meanwhile, his case was taken up energetically by the British National Union of Students -- which, at least, would likely ensure that his place at the university be kept even if he is long delayed in coming back.
The first major act planned for the Palestinian-Israeli-international campaign is the holding of a symposium in Gaza, hopefully with VIP participation that would help get media coverage. Participants
Page 20
will be hosted in Palestinian homes and get closely acquainted with the hardships of daily life, in order to disseminate such information in their own country. (Already, some individuals and groups from different countries are embarking on this kind of solidarity and fact-finding visits).
Israeli participants in the initiative are expected to help and host international participants who, if not allowed to enter Gaza (a far from unlikely contingency) are expected to stage non-violent protests.
Another idea is a peaceful march to the Erez Checkpoint from both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, both marches including peace activists from all over the world -- an idea whose implementation would need to overcome considerable obstacles on both sides.
The campaign converges with the bold plan of the newly-founded US-based 'Free Gaza Movement' -- to have some 120 human rights activists, including Noble Prize winners and parliamentarians from various countries as well as grassroots activists, set out in May 2008 in a boat (or rather several boats), to sail from Cyprus towards the Gazan shore.
This would necessarily mean a direct challenge to the Israeli gunboats constantly patrolling this shore and maintaining the naval side of the siege and blockade. Environmental activists, with some experience in other contexts of non-violent confrontations at sea, were already contacted to give advice.
The half year until then is needed in order to raise the considerable funds needed to prepare properly for such a bold plan.
Palestinian contacts:
+972-8-2825700, end.gaza.siege@gmail.com
www.gcmhp.net, fromgaza.blogspot.com
Israeli contacts:
+972-3-6873718, mail@phr.org.il, www.phr.org.il/phr; info@gisha.org, www.gisha.org
International contacts:
www.freegaza.org, friends@freegaza.org
www.letkhaledstudy.co.uk, ruqs@nus.org.uk
****
Persistence & good spirit
Bil'in: a battle won, struggle continues
Boaz Yona, one of the biggest building contractors in Israel, CEO of the giant Heftziba Company, had good reasons to take up the deal which came his way a few years ago: to build a whole new neighborhood in the ever-expanding settlement of Mod'in Illit, on the western edge of the West Bank.
True, the way that the land was acquired in the 1990s left some questions. Inhabitants of Bil'in Village persistently denied that they had ever sold their land. The person whose name appeared on the land deeds as the "seller" was not known in the village as the owner of these lands and he had immediately afterwards left the country for parts unknown...
Aside from the question of ownership, the building permits required by law were never granted (the plan presented to the military occupation officer in charge of such affairs and duly given his signature bore little resemblance to what Yona actually proceeded to construct on the ground).
Still, why worry? In the past four decades, several big settlement-cities and hundreds of smaller ones were built all over the West Bank, nobody made much fuss about the small and big "irregularities" involved, and building contractors had made immense fortunes.
Moreover, it so happened that the route of the "Separation Fence" was so drawn as to enclose the land on which Mr. Yona had set eyes -- completely separating it from the people in Bil'in who continued to claim it as their own.
By 2006, a big cluster of four- and five-floor apartment buildings were nearing completion, nearly half of the projected new neighborhood, and the Heftziba company was about to start flattening the ground for the other half.
However, the villagers of Bil'in have shown an unprecedented resilience, week after week marching in protest to the Fence, accompanied by Israeli and international supporters, and succeeded in lifting Bil'in out of obscurity.
Adv. Michael Sfard -- a skilled and energetic Israeli lawyer, with considerable experience in such cases, took up representation of the Bil'in villagers, and the Peace Now movement also involved itself in the legal fight. And finally, the Supreme Court of Israel -- with the International Court in The Hague breathing down its neck -- started to take a closer look.
Already a year ago the Supreme Court ordered a halt to the construction activity, and forbade Heftziba to continue construction or hand over the completed apartments to buyers -- pending a final verdict.
It is not yet clear whether it was this severe setback which was the sole reason for the Hefziba Company going bankrupt, or if Yona also made other unsound and speculative investments; clarification needs to wait for his extradition from Italy, where the Israeli police tracked him after a long and complicated chase.
When news came out of Heftziba's collapse, buyers of the company's apartments broke into the half-completed apartments and established themselves in. This occurred at Hefziba apartments in the Tel Aviv suburbs and many parts of the country, as well as in the lands appropriated from Bil'in.
In the media reports, sympathy was expressed for the squatters who stood "to lose their lifesavings and remain without a roof over their heads." Efforts by Israeli activists to remind journalists that there was a prior underdog -- the villagers whose lands were taken away by fraud and brute force -- did not get far.
It was against this background that the Supreme Court came to make its final decision on two interrelated Bil'in appeals -- one against the route of the Fence, the other disputing the legality of the Heftziba land acquisition -- and offered a "counterbalancing verdict", accepting the first appeal and
Page 21
rejecting the second. Shorn of the very complicated juridical arguments with which the learned judges filled many pages, the bottom line was clear.
The army was ordered to move the Fence backwards and disgorge the portion of the Bil'in lands on which no settlement houses had been yet constructed -- about a thousand dunums (100 hectares). On the other hand, the already built houses were given a retroactive legitimacy and the settlers/squatters in them left to fight it out with the receivers of the bankrupt Heftziba Company.
A far from complete victory -- but the villagers and their Israeli partners had been preparing for much worse. There was quite a jubilant feeling. After a long time of continuing on little more than sheer stubbornness, effort and sacrifice under the hot sun turned out to have some impact in the antiseptically-clean halls of the Supreme Court.
Conversely, expressions of anger and frustration were heard from the right wing, accusing the court of "having caved in to the violence of the Arabs and the leftists."
The lighthearted protest march
A celebration procession was held in Bil'in on September 7 -- the 136th consecutive Friday demonstration, and the first after the court rendered its verdict.
"A demonstration without tear gas and stun grenades is no demonstration," joked one of the demonstrators. And indeed, for a long time Bil'in has not seen such a relaxed gathering. The Border Guards stood at readiness along the fence, their commander positioned on the roof of an armored jeep, arms folded on his chest, not moving for more than two hours. At one meter's distance the demonstrators were waving Palestinian flags in his face.
The Anarchists Against the Wall, who have persisted in coming to Bil'in week after week, were reinforced by about 250 Israeli demonstrators from all over the country -- to celebrate victory together with the villagers and international solidarity activists.
At the entrance to the Internationals' House, where activists often spend the night in preparation for demonstrations, thousands of empty tear gas canisters collected in the fields of Bil'in were made into a giant Peace Symbol, greeting the arriving activists and journalists alighting from the vans.
After the Friday prayers, the demonstration started on its way towards the fence, in the blazing sun, headed by a car carrying ear-splitting loudspeakers playing merry tunes and struggle songs. A sea of Palestinian flags were waving over the heads of the marchers, and among them could be seen the two-flag emblem of Gush Shalom.
Among the marchers were the Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad and several of his ministers, but also former and present radical Knesset Members including Uri Avnery, who had taken part repeatedly in the Friday struggle.
When the procession reached the Fence, its way was barred by a large unit of the Border Guard waiting behind razor wire barricades. Apparently, the policemen had received strict orders to abstain, this time, from violence and stood by passively while some demonstrators waved flags a few centimeters in front of them.
Only once did violence threaten to break out, when a boy threw a stone at a policeman. The local leaders stopped him before the police could respond with fire.
The demonstrators greeted each other with "mabruk" ("blessed"), the traditional Arab greeting on joyful occasions. In front of the stone-faced policemen, they started to dance happily, carrying the leaders of the struggle on their shoulders. Many of the villagers were accompanied by their wives and festively dressed children, who waved their flags with much enthusiasm.
Many smiles and embraces were exchanged between the Israelis and Palestinians, comrades in the struggle.
+++ Once the festivities were over, the Bil'in villagers were faced with the dilemma of what to do next. Several intensive discussions were held, with Israelis and internationals and, last but not least, with Palestinians from other wall-stricken villages. All of them were invited to actively share in what turned out a hot debate. Obviously, the final decision remained in the hands of the villagers whose land it was.
Quite a few of the leaders of the struggle felt that to just go on as usual with the Friday demonstrations would erode the impact of the victory, and that it would be better to seek new ways of struggle. On the other hand, the court's decision fell far short of the goal of having the fence removed altogether or moved to the Green Line.
Moreover, its move westward ordered by the court was not to be implemented so soon. The army is supposed to draw a new line and present it to the judges, and there is every reason to suspect that they would try to minimize the amount of land returned to the villagers.
With the Fence remaining where it is -- a visible symbol of the theft of the Bil'in land -- the Bil'in General Assembly resolved to continue for the time being the Friday processions.
For their part, after the one-week truce the Army and Border Guard resorted to its routine of tear gas, concussion grenades and occasional "rubber bullets" which -- being actually rubber-coated metal -- can be quite dangerous at short range.
Nov. 13, at the occasion of the third anniversary of Arafat's mysterious death, the Palestinian Authority granted to the village of Bil'in the Abu Amar Memorial Prize. Three days later Bil'in was honoured with the participation in the Friday protest of 34 French Members of Parliament and mayors.
The example of Bil'in has spread and inspired quite a few other villages, especially in the Bethlehem
Page 22
area, where construction of the Fence/Wall is now centered. But none of these villages achieved as yet the fame of "Bil'in Habibti" ("Bil'in My Love", name of the film made by film director/activist Shai Pollack-Carmeli which tells the story of Bil'in to audiences worldwide).
Contact:
Bil'in's Popular Committee bel3en@yahoo.com
www.bilin-village.org/english/discover-bilin
Anarchists Against the Wall http://awalls.org
****
New focus: Walaje
"Before Bil'in, people never had faith that a non-violent struggle could achieve anything, nor an appeal to the [Israeli] legal system", Mohammed Dajani, a political science professor at Al Quds University, was quoted in the Christian Science Monitor. An account from the struggle in Walaje was included to show how "an increasing number of protesting villagers combine civil disobedience with legal petitions to fight Israeli policies."
"Ten shouting Palestinians were pushing against one boulder, but the primitive Israeli roadblock cutting off the tiny Palestinian village from Bethlehem did not budge. Then, with the help of two giant crowbars, an Israeli protester, and a Japanese backpacker, the group heaved the stone aside, opening the road for the first time in three years" (CSM Sept. 24, Joshua Mitnick: 'A Supreme Court decision in favor of one protesting village has inspired others').
Walaje finds itself in an especially complicated situation, being one of the villages annexed to Jerusalem (and to Israel) immediately after the occupation in 1967. However, on the ground little indicates its supposed status of 'Israeli sovereign territory' and 'Jerusalem neighborhood'.
About the only service provided to Walaje by the Jerusalem Municipality is the sending of municipal inspectors with notices that this or that house has been 'built illegally', followed by municipal bulldozers and large police forces -- to carry out the demolition. At present, no less then 65 houses and the village mosque are under imminent demolition threat.
Traditionally, Walaje has been oriented towards Bethlehem -- four kilometers to the South -- rather than to Jerusalem. Erection of the Separation Fence/Wall threatens to sever these links, as well as separating the village from much of its land, leaving it completely encircled -- with the army in control of the only remaining entrance.
When Army bulldozers came, cutting a swath through Walaje's olive groves to make place for the Fence, villagers, Israeli and international peace activists stood around the trees with arms linked managing to delay -- not prevent their destruction. Ever since, the village became the scene of constant struggle.
On Sept. 14, about a hundred Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals gathered for a march to the Apartheid Wall. After the men of the village finished their prayer, the people marching climbed a hill in an attempt to reach the Wall, but they were prevented by a line of soldiers and military jeeps. While soldiers attempted to push the demonstrators back, the activists linked arms and held their ground. Then they gathered around a jeep, chanting "No to Occupation! No to land theft!"
After about thirty minutes of this non-violent confrontation, soldiers set off a sound bomb in the middle of the demonstration and began striking with wooden clubs.
Several protesters slid on the rocks and fell, and soldiers converged on a Palestinian lying on the ground, repeatedly hitting with their clubs. But there was no discrimination -- Israelis and Europeans were also severely beaten and kicked, a British activist who protested being hit on his legs, hands, and chest. However, an attempt to arrest two Palestinians, seemingly chosen at random, was foiled by dozens of activists holding on to them.
When finally returning to the village under a barrage of tear gas canisters, some of the Israeli participants found that the windows and mirrors of their cars had been systematically smashed by the soldiers. [report: ISM palsolidarity.org, Sept. 14]
+++ Returning to Walaje a week later, activists braced themselves for another violent confrontation. But this week turned out quite different, as narrated by Jared Malsin of the Ma'an News Agency.
A blazing hot September day. After prayer the villagers, joined by eight Israeli anarchists, a young activist from Japan, and a few elderly women from Christian Peacemaker Teams, marched on the construction site. The access road used by Israeli construction vehicles was blocked with mounds of rocks, sand, and tree branches. One of these was eventually set ablaze: a literal firewall against invading bulldozers and trucks. Israeli soldiers watched from their post higher on the hillside, but held their fire.
Having blocked the road created and used by the occupation forces for their ends, it was time to unblock the road that the villagers need and the use of which is denied to them. The demonstrators now scrambled down the hill, where yet another group of soldiers waited, impassive.
Sheerin Al-Araj, a powerful, straight-talking woman wearing big black sunglasses and a hijab, says the roadblock makes the journey to Beit Jala, and therefore to Bethlehem, the only town of any size in this part of the West Bank, twice as long.
Straining with every muscle, women and men, from young Mohammed to the very old, labored with shovels, metal rods, and their bare hands to clear mounds plowed up by Israeli construction vehicles. After an hour's hard toil, the last boulders rolled away with a cheer from the crowd and a cathartic cloud of dust. Moments later, a small white sedan drove through the newly cleared roadway. Meanwhile, the soldiers watched, and watched, and finally just turned away and disappeared.
Catching her breath in between moving boulders, Al-Araj seems satisfied but recognizes the Sisyphean
Page 23
character of her struggle. "The army will rebuild it later this week," she says. "And we will come back the next week to remove it again."
+++ On Oct. 15, at the Knesset -- physically not very far from Walaje, but worlds apart -- the House was braced for an important policy speech by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. For the first time, he openly contemplated giving up parts of what had hitherto constituted part of the sacrosanct 'United Jerusalem'.
"In fact, many of these outlying Arab neighborhoods are not really part of Jerusalem, they were incorporated in the city very artificially in 1967, and we don't really need them. Some of them are not city neighborhoods at all, they are just villages. For example, Walaje."
For most Israelis tuning in to this speech on the TV evening news, it was the very first time that they ever heard this name. So it was, in fact, also for most of the Israeli parliamentarians...
In the village itself, people were skeptical: "Olmert willing to go away and leave us alone? Really? Well, I'll believe it when I see it."
Updates on the anti-Wall struggle at Walaje, Um Salamona and other places:
www.awalls.org
www.palsolidarity.org
www.opendemocracy.net
****
Olive harvest 2007
Like every year since 2002, the Olive Harvest Coalition, now including no less than twenty Israeli peace groups, has taken up the task of helping the harvest, at any location where Palestinian villagers find it difficult to get access to their land.
In some places, the problem is due to violent settlers assaulting Palestinians and denying them access to the land, with the open intention of taking it to themselves. In other locations, the Separation Fence/Wall/Barrier separates villagers from their land, which is reachable only with a special permit, which, if at all granted, is often issued only to the owner and his wife, without helpers or donkeys.
This year's harvest was particularly meager, which made it all the more imperative to help the villagers harvest all that their trees did produce. According to coalition coordinator Ya'akov Manor, the weekend mobilizations from mid-October to mid-November involved more than a thousand Israelis, some coming only once while others returned every week -- several hundred participants each Saturday, spread over dozens of villages.
Every weekend, responsibility was taken by a specific organization (or two) such as the Women's Coalition for Peace, Gush Shalom, Peace Now, Combatants for Peace, Jerusalem Ta'ayush and Machsom Watch.
The Rabbis for Human Rights took up organizing during the working days, where naturally the number of available volunteers was smaller -- but still there were ten to fifteen activists on the ground every day. There was also a more loose coordination with the ISM (International Solidarity Movement), which conducted its own mobilization and got a considerable number of activists from all over the world, many of whom came especially for the harvest at their own expense.
Two years ago the Supreme Court ruled that the army is obliged to protect Palestinians and facilitate their working on their land. Officers on the ground in general complied with the ruling, with some exceptions -- the most notable being the Nov. 3 confrontation at Jalud (detailed account follows). There were also cases where trees or whole groves were set on fire by "unknown perpetrators" (at Jamma’in and Kafin) and where the olives were stolen from the trees just before the arrival of the Palestinian owners (Isbat Tabib).
These, however, were the exceptions -- in the great majority of threatened villages, the Palestinians were able to gather in the full harvest, unmolested -- a considerable change from the situation when the Harvest Coalition was launched five years ago.
Following are excerpts from the reports circulated by various participants in the harvest.
Oct. 27. At Tuwani Village in the South Hebron Hills more than a hundred volunteers from all over the country took part in the harvest, organized by Peace Now, Ta'ayush and Combatants for Peace. Volunteers divided into groups of 10-15, each accompanying a particular family until the late afternoon. Tuwani is a known trouble spot, with inhabitants often assaulted by settlers from the nearby 'Maon Farm'. However, on this occasion the settlers stayed away.
At Falamiya, Kufr Jamal and Kufr Sur in the Qalqilya District, there were some eighty volunteers, mostly from Haifa and the north. There were many who are already coming to this area every year, and in some cases Palestinians specifically asked to have again the help of Israeli friends from earlier years.
A group of teens from Hashomer Hatzair Youth Movement came for the first time. Some of them had gotten their military service deferred by one year, during which they live in a commune at Yavne and devote their time to socially useful activities.
We had a welcome chance to renew contact with Abu Hani from Sur. He came to the harvest accompanied by five of his wonderful children. Two girls and one son are still at school, and an older daughter has graduated in Computer Science in East Jerusalem and is now looking for a job.
The weather was quite easy, the harvest passed very quickly in friendly conversation and we were surprised that the day was over. [Peace Now, Noa].
+++ Nov. 2-3. During the weekend we harvested at Jayyous Village, Qalqilya District. There were two organized groups -- internationals from Belgium and pupils from the Modi'in Organic Farm -- 30 people altogether. Some stayed the night between Friday and Saturday at the homes of Palestinian families, others in tents erected in the fields.
On Saturday we also worked, some fifty volunteers, at the fields of Deir Al-Ruson Village, north of Tulkarm. The village has extensive lands locked
Page 24
behind the Fence and, like in all the villages, many of the landowners are denied a permit to get to them.
We worked at the olive groves of three of the permitless families. Two volunteers from the village, who do have a permit, came with us and pointed out which trees belong to which family. We completed two of the groves; a few trees of the third are still left to do. [Manor].
+++ Nov. 3. Fifteen Israelis and ten internationals arrived at Jalud Village, to accompany Fauzi Ibrahim and some twenty other villagers to the Ibrahim Family's 160-dunum plot. There was every reason to expect trouble, since already some years ago, the plot had been taken over by settlers from the nearby 'Ahiya' settlement outpost (one of the outposts which the government officially declared to be illegal and whose evacuation was promised to the Americans five years ago!). Despite a prolonged legal process and the presentation of valid land deeds dating back to the time of British rule, the authorities did absolutely nothing.
At about 10am, the united group started picking olives. Almost immediately, three soldiers came down from the outpost shouting, "Stop! Stop! Go away!" soon followed by about twenty settlers armed with pistols and submachine guns and accompanied by a large attack dog.
A Palestinian woman was roughly pushed by a settler, who then proceeded to dump the picked olives out of the bags she was carrying. The sergeant commanding the detachment was hysterically shouting and directing his weapon here and there, nearly opening fire. When army reinforcements arrived, the officer in charge promptly declared a "closed military zone" and ordered the Palestinians and their supporters (not the settlers) to leave, with only a single sack of harvested olives.
That was not the final word, however. The affair was so blatant that it made it possible to urgently call upon higher echelons of the military government. A few days later there was a meeting with senior officers, with the lawyers of Rabbis for Human Rights and Yesh Din confronting the military government's Legal Adviser with the family's land deeds -- which the latter admitted were genuine and incontrovertible.
The upshot: the army promised to provide protection for the family to harvest their olives -- but without the "provocative" presence of Israelis or internationals. Coalition organizers still wait to hear how well was this promise kept. [Manor/ISM].
+++ Nov. 20-27. Just before we arrived in Qusin, the army had staged a midnight raid, detaining several village youths who had participated in a demonstration to protest the blocking of the road to the neighboring village Sarra. The youths were held for a day or two and "beaten like donkeys", as one of them told while working together with us at the olive grove.
At least, during the harvest the army stayed away and there were no special incidents. Nor did we see settlers -- but we did see the Israeli chemical factory that was recently built adjacent to the Qusin olive groves, and we definitely smelled the toxic fumes that are very tangible throughout the village.
There had been a considerable period that the villagers were not allowed to enter the olive groves out of the army's concern for "The factory's security." When the trees were again accessible, there were black spots on the leaves, which cause the people a considerable anxiety.
The harvest was successfully completed, but we departed wondering how long the trees would last with these toxic emissions, and what kind of effect the factory fumes would have on the Qusin inhabitants themselves. [ISM]
Nov. 10. With the harvest season near its end, most of the olives of Mahsal and its neighboring villages were still on the trees, mainly due to the 'Separation Fence'. Today, we were coming to help them, responsibility for the day taken by Gush Shalom.
Almost a hundred volunteers reported for work at three different sites, north and south of Qalqilya. The olive trees of Mahsal -- a village so small that it is not even marked on the map -- are very close to the Israeli settlement of Oranit -- a community that started in Israel proper but in the course of time crept beyond the Green Line.
Only a few dozen meters separate the first line of houses from the olive trees, but these settlers -- unlike the more fanatic ones in other locations -- did not disturb the work.
The volunteers, together with the owner, his wife and son, dispersed between the trees and picked the olives, equipped with ladders, long sticks, small rakes and plastic sheets. They started work in the wadi and slowly worked their way to the top of the rocky hill.
Work went on for about seven hours, with only a single quarter of an hour intermission to let workers rest a bit, eat their sandwiches and sip the sweet tea that the hosts had prepared on a little fire in the field.
At the end of the day, signs of fatigue were evident, but also satisfaction and pleasure at the sight of the growing heaps of black olives on the green plastic sheets and in the heavy sacks. [Gush Shalom]
Contact:
manor12@zahav.net.il, info@rhr.israel.net
southhebron@gmail.com, buma.inbar@gmail.com
****
Bedouins -- Israel's underclass
"Formerly nomadic shepherds, the Bedouins are currently in transition from a tribal social framework to a permanently settled society and are gradually entering Israel's labor force." That's how Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs describes the living conditions of some 170.000 of its citizens -- on its website for the benefit of interested outsiders.
What is meant by their being "in transition" may be guessed from the dire and ongoing demolition campaign from which Bedouins suffer. Demolition of whole villages. Confiscation of all farmlands. And
Page 25
this is happening in the here and now...
The Bedouins' "unrecognized villages" remain deprived of electricity and water. The government offers them housing in townships, where they would inevitably become the weakest section of workers, a pool of cheap labor -- with the farmlands from which they used to draw livelihood lavished upon Jewish farmers who, of course, get electricity and water on the spot.
What follows are some examples.
Thursday morning, August 30 -- hundreds of police accompanied four bulldozers and several trucks into the village of Twail Abu-Jarwal. This time, they thought, they would 'do it right', as the village people insist on rebuilding their dwellings again and again.
The unrecognized village of Twail Abu-Jarwal has been demolished nine times already: this is the tenth. This time, the bulldozers razed the area entirely. 20 tents -- which had been the homes of more than 100 people: men, women, elderly and children -- were collected into trucks, together with all belongings of the village people, and sent to the local dump.
'This is how they think of us', said a 55 year-old woman who was left under the sun, 'like trash'. Absolutely nothing was left which the Bedouins could salvage or recycle.
When they completed the destruction, the police sat down to make coffee and eat their lunch. "They even laughed", said a young family father whose tent was taken to the dump like the others'. The children and women whose water tank was destroyed, who had no shade, just stood and stared.
The village leader, Aqil el-Talalqa, a retired school principal, has been trying for years to achieve a solution for the residence of his village. Zeev Boim, Minister of Housing, declared his wish to create trust between the government and the Bedouin community and halt demolitions for a year. But the Israel Land Authority is under his jurisdiction, and the brutal demolitions continue unabated
+++ Nov 1 -- new demolition and harassment in Twail Abu-Jarwal. With the winter rapidly approaching, the people need a roof over their heads. The Recognition Forum found the funds for providing tents, and the Bedouins know how to survive in them. But the bitter irony is that they had started to build for themselves stone houses, but are forced to develop backwards.
The Recognition Forum, which also organizes solidarity visits, can be contacted: Yeela Raanan, yallylivnat@gmail.com +972-54-7487005
+++ For the past year and a half, Nuri el-Okbi has been holding a one-man protest on the ancestral lands of his tribe at Al Arakib, northeast of Be'er Sheba. His purpose -- to enable his tribe's repossession of part of their lost lands. "I accept that Jewish farmers will be given part, to build a community -- but also our tribe should be allowed to do so; the Arakib land which our tribe held for centuries is big enough for both." A true hermit, el-Okbi has demonstratively set up tent, all alone, close to the site of his father's home, destroyed in 1951. The authorities have been harassing him constantly. Again and again they destroy his shed and tent, confiscate his belongings, drag him to the police station and to court. The police detains him for lengthy questioning, even resort to physical violence against him in spite of the non-violent nature of his own protest.
He always comes back, immediately upon release. Nuri struggles for his elementary civil rights and those of his tribe -- but also for democracy in Israel.
Contact:
Nuri el-Okbi +972-54-5465556
Chaya Noach +972-52-4269011
manor12@zahav.net.il
Donations to: The Negev Co-Existence Forum, P.O.Box 130, Omer 84965.
****
Okay 'pacifist', but pay a fine
Already in January 2004, after spending a year and half behind bars, Conscientious Objector Yoni Ben Artzi had been formally and completely discharged from military service. Nevertheless, the army persisted in claiming that he still "owes" them two months' detention, and that he must be brought back to serve this final term -- in a military prison, while wearing a military uniform and subject to military discipline.
After appeal upon appeal upon appeal, the issue came to conclusion on Sept. 10 this year. Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish quite firmly demanded of the sides to "reach a reasonable compromise and not waste any further time."
At long last, the army reluctantly agreed to commute these two months into a suspended punishment, to be implemented only in case that Ben Artzi is called up again and refuses again -- which is a very remote possibility indeed.
Ben Artzi had his own compromise to make in agreeing to pay the fine imposed on him, 2000 Shekels (400 Dollars). The idea of paying money into the army's coffers was extremely unpalatable, and he seriously considered refusing to pay and going to prison instead. But finally he gave in to those who had supported him all the way and now urged him "not to spoil a reasonable compromise over a bit of money."
In the third part of the compromise agreement -- adopted by the court and made into a binding verdict -- the army conceded that Ben Artzi sincerely considers himself a pacifist, a point on which they had hitherto cast endless doubts and aspersions. The generals still refused to admit that he really and truly is a pacifist -- a rather scholastic hair-splitting, since being a pacifist is commonly gauged precisely by the sincerity or lack thereof of a person's beliefs and convictions.
Contact: mbartzi@yahoo.com
+++ An unnamed government source was quoted as saying: "If the government were to declare a Settlement Freeze it must be complete, with no exceptions or loopholes. If we continue to build in
Page 26
the settlement blocs, or implement existing construction plans, Peace Now would complain, and we'd look like liars and people who don't keep their promises." (Haaretz, Nov. 14). For its part, the New York Times referred to Peace Now's Settlement Watch Team as having "a record of careful and accurate reporting on settlement growth."
****
Blocking the Apartheid Highway
The term "Apartheid Road", for West Bank roads reserved to the exclusive use of Israelis, is -- strictly speaking -- inaccurate. South African Apartheid had racially segregated many spheres of life, but never roads and highways. This is a completely original Israeli invention...
Most such exclusive roads are mainly used by settlers and soldiers, with other Israelis having little reason or wish to penetrate too deep into the "trouble zone." But Highway 443, a modern major artery linking Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem through the West Bank, is for the use of ordinary Israelis in the routine course of daily life, educating them to consider its course as a "de facto part of Israel." Palestinians -- including those on whose confiscated lands it was constructed -- are prohibited from using it, leaving commuters to see nothing but Israeli license plates.
On October 25, this illusion was briefly shattered with a sudden radio bulletin: "Route 443 completely blocked by Jewish and Arab Leftists and Anarchists, hundreds of cars piling up, police forces urgently on their way!"
Some seventy demonstrators -- local Palestinians, Israeli Anarchists and international ISMers -- sat down on the highway, waving their placards: "Caution: Apartheid Highway" and "You are driving on stolen land!"
Palestinian villagers, carrying large Palestinian flags, distributed leaflets in Hebrew and English to the stuck drivers:
"I did not come to block you, just to make you feel for a second what I feel every day. Do you know that before the Israeli occupation this was the main road for all the villages around here? It was a bad, narrow road, but we could travel on it freely. Then your government took our land to extend it, and cut down our trees, which were on that land. Now it is very wide and modern, but we are not allowed to use it. We are blocked, not one time for a few minutes like you but every day for the whole day. It is now an Apartheid Highway, for Jews only. You have a few free minutes; think about it! Yours, the Palestinian inhabitants along Highway 443." "But I am on your side, why are you blocking me!" cried one of the drivers.
During the next quarter of an hour, organizer Adar Grayevsky gave more live radio interviews than in all her entire previous (short but very intensive) activist career: "Cutting down Palestinian olive groves and building in their place a highway of which use is denied to Palestinians is an act of violence. When the government confiscated land and built this road, they said it would benefit local inhabitants. We are here to expose this lie, all the government lies."
"This is an illegal gathering and a Closed Military Zone" shouted the arriving police commander, and was corrected by a chant of "Open Palestinian Civil Zone!" Demonstrators were dragged across the asphalt and handcuffed. The police's biggest difficulty was the group who had chained themselves to a long, red-and-white striped metal pipe (the same kind as sometimes used by the army itself). Detainees were taken to a police station in a nearby settlement and deportation proceedings opened against American activist Blake Murphy.
Knesset Member (and settler leader) Othniel Schneller was livid with rage on the radio: "This time the Anarchists have really crossed all limits! All limits! The foreigners must be deported forthwith and Border Control take care they don't come back. The Israelis belong behind bars!"
Mohammed Khatib of Bil'in, spokesperson for the recently founded Anti-Apartheid Movement, was calm and deliberate: "This was the first in a series of popular non-violent protests against the Israeli system of Apartheid. It will not be the last."
Updates: www.apartheidmasked.org
Emad Bornat's film:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7H3paHmGGs
****
Blood-red bulldozers
On Saturday, July 28, the industrial zone of Holon was totally deserted. A group of masked young women broke into the premises of the Caterpillar Company's Israeli agency. For about two hours they ranged freely through the plant, painting machines and vehicles blood red, spraying such graffiti as "CAT=Terrorism" and departing unnoticed after pasting large posters. This text, accompanied by numerous action photos, was later extensively spread by email.
"Today we, autonomous activists, have acted against the Caterpillar Company which provides heavy machinery to the IDF, to be massively used against the Palestinian civilian population. Caterpillar machines, such as the D-9 Bulldozer, were and are used to destroy hundreds of homes, for instance in the Jenin Refugee Camp [in April 2002]. They are being used to defoliate fields and destroy orchards and olive groves on which the livelihood of entire families depends. It was a machine made by Caterpillar that killed activist Rachel Corrie.
Company directors can't turn a blind eye to crimes committed through the use of their products. The only moral course of action for them is to immediately cease their collaboration with the IDF. Failure to do so makes them no less than accessories in war crimes.
The statement was signed: "Girls Have Fun."
Photos on the Indymedia Israel site:
israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/7181/index.php
****
Going into print we hear that Bedouin activist Nuri el-Ukbi (p.25) was hospitalized with a broken tendon due to police violence, and needs to be operated.
Page 27
The Last Refuge
Uri Avnery
November 10, 2007
Israel is an island in the global sea. We live in a bubble. This week I was sharply reminded of this.
I was returning home from Germany. On the eve of the flight, all TV networks, from CNN and BBC to the German channels, were reporting on the events in Pakistan. In the airplane, I opened Israel's largest circulation tabloid, Yediot Aharonot, in order to read about the Pakistani mess. I did not find any mention of it on page 1. Nor on page 2. I found a small item on page 27. The first pages were devoted to something much more important: the shouts of protest by right-wing football hooligans when they were requested to stand up in memory of Yitzhak Rabin.
The next day, Yediot found an Israeli angle that enabled it to put Pakistan on the front page after all: the fear that the Pakistani nuclear bomb would fall into the hands of Osama bin Laden, who would aim it at Israel. Hallelujah, there is again something to be afraid of.
But the putsch by Pervez Musharaf is a serious matter. It could well have far-reaching effects for the world in general, and for Israel in particular.
The main victim -- besides, of course, the hundreds of political activists who have been thrown into prison -- is George W. Bush.
Machiavelli said that it is preferable for the prince to be feared rather than loved. In the same vein, it can be said that it is preferable for a president to be hated rather than derided. And derision is what George W. is attracting. He has asserted in the past that his main task was to bring democracy to the Muslim world, and has assured us that the implementation of this aim was well under way. That is a laughable pretense.
What is happening in fact?
+ In Iraq one tyrant has been overthrown, and dozens of small local tyrants have taken over. The country is bleeding and falling apart. The "democratic elections" have brought to power a government that hardly governs the Green Zone in Baghdad, which has to be secured by American soldiers.
+ In Afghanistan an "elected" president hardly rules the capital, Kabul. In the rest of the country, local chieftains are in control. And the Taliban are slowly and steadily re-conquering the country.
+ In Iran, democratic elections have brought to power an uninhibited politician with a big mouth and small achievements, whose favorite occupation is to curse the American Crusaders and the "Zionist entity."
+ In Syria there is a stable dictatorship, which can carry on mainly because the Syrians believe that any alternative would be worse.
+ Turkey is ruled by a religious Islamic government, with the wife of the president wearing a headscarf. More than 10 million Kurdish citizens are oppressed and discriminated against. Not a few of them are fighting a guerilla war. In the course of the campaign against the Kurds, the Turkish army is about to invade neighboring Iraq, happy to have an opportunity to destroy the practically independent Kurdish regime there.
+ Lebanon is as far from democracy as ever. Real democratic elections, in which every citizen can vote directly for parliament without sectarian divisions, are out of the question. A new president has to be elected, but that is well nigh impossible, the gulf between the sects is so wide. This week, Hizbullah conducted large-scale maneuvers near the Israeli borders. Even the Israeli army was impressed.
+ In Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the three "moderate" (read: dictatorial and pro-American) countries, there is a very original kind of democracy. Political opposition is languishing in prison.
+ In Palestine, impeccable elections were held under strict international supervision, the only really democratic elections in the Arab world. George Bush would have been proud of them, if -- alas -- they had not been won by the "wrong" crowd -- Hamas. Now, Israeli army intelligence prophesies that President Mahmoud Abbas, Bush's favorite, may fall immediately after the Annapolis conference, if, as expected, it ends in failure.
+ And now, Pakistan. It seemed that there, at least, Bush was harvesting successes. He had brought back Benazir Bhutto, another Bush favorite, and everything looked fine: a democratic regime was about to be re-installed, the president was about to hang up his uniform and form a coalition with Bhutto. But then a bomb exploded next to her armored car, dozens were killed. The president-general, who was just waiting for such an opportunity, made a coup against himself, and, instead of his moderate dictatorship, set up a harsher regime, like a Pakistani version of the late Saddam Hussein.
As in a Hollywood comedy, Bush is standing there with a custard pie splattered all over his face. No president likes being ridiculous. Scary -- OK. Evil -- OK. Dumb -- OK. But ridiculous -- never!
That may have a direct bearing on a question that is worrying the whole world, myself included: Will he attack Iran?
The temptation is overwhelming. In another year, his term in office will come to an end. After eight years, he has nothing to show but a continuous series of failures. A man who says he holds daily talks with God cannot leave the stage of history like that.
He is longing for some sort of success in Annapolis. At the most, there will be an empty declaration signed by the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. There will be some good photo opportunities, but that will not satisfy the lions. Something much bigger is needed, something that will leave its mark in the annals of history.
What better than saving humanity from the Iranian nuclear bomb?
The German language has the expression "Flucht nach vorne" -- an escape forwards. If you don't know what to do any more, attack. Thus Napoleon invaded Russia, followed years later by Hitler. Bush may attack Iran for similar reasons.
I suspect that the decision has already been made and that the preparations are already rolling. There is no proof of that, but Bush behaves as if he has decided on war.
Washington's huge propaganda machine is working full-time to prepare the ground. Anyone who opposes is run over. According to the polls, the American public's support for the war is rising by the day. The majority is already in favor. The new French president, behaving like a hyperactive schoolboy, has already jumped on the bandwagon supplanting Tony Blair as Bush's poodle.
Israel is supposed to play a central role in this piece. Here, too, a huge brainwashing machine is already at work. The Foreign Ministry has joined the effort and has started a worldwide campaign to besmirch Mohammed al-Baradei, the highly respected chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Every day, the obedient media publish reports by correspondents and commentators, who are but thinly disguised spokesmen for the army and the government. They tell us that within a year and a half Iran will already have a nuclear bomb, and that this will be the end of Israel and the world. As the Hebrew expression goes, the remedy must come before the disease. Therefore: Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!
One of the possible scenarios: Israel will bomb first. The Iranians will respond by launching missiles at Israel. The US will enter the action "to save Israel." Which American politician will dare to object? Who? Hillary Clinton??
Bush is dreaming again about a war without American casualties. A "surgical" air strike. A hail of "smart" bombs pours down on thousands of Iranian targets -- nuclear, governmental, military and civil. What a sweet dream: Iran soon surrenders. The regime of the Ayatollahs collapses. The son of the late Shah takes his place on the throne of his father, who himself was once restored to power by American bayonets.
As I have said in the past, I am not convinced by this scenario. What will actually happen is that Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz. Through this strait, named after an ancient Persian deity, flows 20% of the world's oil supplies. It is 270 km long and, at its narrowest, only 35 km wide. A few missiles and mines are enough to close it. That would be tolerable if the war lasted a few days. But if it goes on for weeks and months, it will cause a profound worldwide crisis.
And the war will indeed go on. There will be no escape for the US from committing very large ground forces to conquer first the region bordering on the straits, and then the entire big country. The US has no available ground forces left -- even before the American forces in Iraq are exposed to missile attacks from Iran and to guerilla actions from the Shiites, who make up the majority in Iraq.
This will not be a quick and easy war. Iran is different from Iraq. Unlike Iraq, with its various peoples and sects, Iran is comparatively homogenous. This war will be an Iraq war multiplied by 10, perhaps by 100.
And we? How shall we get through this war? Since the government of Israel and its American allies are pushing with all their political might for the attack, Israel will not be able to avoid contributing to the fighting. First our Air Force will be deployed; later land forces may be required.
But Israel itself will also become a battlefield. The pathetic missiles of Saddam Hussein caused, in their time, panic in Tel-Aviv. What will the Iranian missiles do?
The Arab governments will be compelled to support the US, at least with their tongues. But the hearts and souls of the Arab peoples, from Morocco to Iraq, will be with the Iranians defending themselves against the Americans and Israelis. Especially if the Annapolis meeting does end, as expected, without bringing redemption to the Palestinian people.
There is only one way to come out of this in one piece -- not to get into it in the first place. But, after all the dismal failures he has suffered -- what can persuade Bush to resist the temptation? And how to persuade Ehud Olmert, who longs for a way out of the quagmire he is stuck in?
It has been said that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." For a failed politician, the last refuge is war.
****
Page 28
****
In this issue:
* COLD TALKS (editorial overview), p.1-10
- Heat on the ground, p.2
- The trapped Gazans, p.3
- Alienation, p.3
- Skirmishing on the political arena, p.4
- Paving the way to Annapolis, p.6
- Conspiracy in the kitchen cabinet, p.7
- Minimal expectations, p.9
- It goes damn slow, p.10
* The sound of silence, p.11-14
-- A critical audience, p.12
* A compromise in Jerusalem, p.14
* 'Welcome to Gaza!' p.15-17
* An exercise in awareness raising, p.17
* Break the siege of Gaza, p.18
* Gazans call a campaign, p.18-20
* Persistence & good spirit, Bil'in, p.20-22
-- The lighthearted protest march, p.21
* New focus: Wallaje, p.22
* Olive harvest 2007, p.23
* Bedouins -- Israel's underclass, p.24
* Okay 'pacifist' but pay a fine, p.25
* Blocking the Apartheid Highway, p.26
* The blood-red bulldozers, p.26
* Last refuge, Uri Avnery, p.28-27
