Today’s Commentary, Op-Ed and miscellaneous itmes from Occupation Info. For today’s news headlines, please see this post…
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Book Review : The borders of fact and myth – The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe |
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(29-11-06) – Stephen Howe, The Indpendent. The war of 1948 created Israel and destroyed Palestinian Arab society. Argument over that destruction has never ceased – continuously, often directly, reshaped by contemporary political developments. Ilan Pappe is surely wrong to suggest in this important, provocative book that the Palestinians’ fate has been “erased almost totally from the global public memory”. Rather, some ways of seeing it have been blocked, for political reasons and with great, sometimes vindictive energy, in particular places. The kind of view that Pappe presents has been held or maybe even heard only by a very small minority, in Israel and the US. |
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Interview: Jimmy Carter shares insight on peace in Mideast |
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(29-11-06) – Marty Rosen, Courier-Journal. Former President Jimmy Carter’s new book, Palestine – Peace Not Apartheid, reflects a lifetime of contemplation on the Middle East. Mixing memoir and policy, it recounts his youthful fascination with the Holy Lands, his long acquaintance with the political leaders who have shaped the modern history of the Arab and Israeli worlds, and it makes a strong case for renewed debate about the best path to peace in a long-troubled part of the world. In a telephone interview, Carter spoke in detail about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his hopes for peace. Here are his unedited responses. |
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Comment: The extinction of Palestinian Christians |
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(29-11-06) – Daoud Kuttab, Ma’an. In the land where Jesus once walked, Palestinian Christians face extinction. With nearly 500,000 Palestinian Christians worldwide, only 170,000 remain in the Holy Land. They belong to 15 different churches, some still using Aramaic, the language Christ spoke. But the traditions of service and continuity of Christian communities in the very birthplace of Christianity may soon disappear. With its establishment in 1948, Israel drove nearly 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, among them 50,000 to 60,000 Christians. Some neighborhoods in Jerusalem where mostly Palestinian Christians lived, such as Qatamon, emptied overnight and were seized by Israel for newly-arrived Jewish immigrants. |
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Comment: Is Olmert’s peace plan real? |
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(29-11-06) – Ray Hanania, YNet. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said this week that he is prepared to grant Palestinians a state, release funds, and free prisoners. All he asked Palestinians to do is: Form a new government (the existing government doesn’t really exist); agree to international conditions such as the “Road Map” (which they have already basically done); and, release Gilad Shalit, the abducted Israeli soldier, (which is the right thing to do). |
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Comment: The ‘Gaza Solution’ and ongoing War on Islam |
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(29-11-06) – Mike Whitney, Palestine Chronicle. The central tenet of American foreign policy hasn’t changed since the early 1980s when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger summarized our involvement in the Iraq-Iraq War saying, “I hope they kill each other.” Kissinger’s dictum reveals the basic racial and religious odium which animates the current policy and has become the organizing principle for maintaining the global empire. Now that the Muslim world has been systematically ravaged from the southern-most part of Gaza to the northern tip of Afghanistan, we can see that the application of the Kissinger Doctrine is an effective method for decimating societies where coveted resources are located. By all accounts, it’s been a huge success. |
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Comment: New forms of resistance |
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(29-11-06) – Nadia Naser-Najjab, BitterLemons. I have been observing discussions in Ramallah for some time now, trying to understand what people think about the political situation in general and the Israeli aggression against Palestinians in particular. I have noticed that the majority discusses social and personal issues with minimal reference to political events. On the same day an elderly woman exploded herself near Israeli soldiers in Gaza I had friends over for dinner. When I raised the incident to my guests, none of them had heard about it, as they do not really watch the news, and no further discussion took place. Even when political issues are discussed the most common comment one hears is, `what can we do? |
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Comment: Take Olmert and Meshaal at their word |
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(29-11-06) – Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star. When the leaders of Israel and Hamas in the same weekend offer each other long-term peace deals, you just know in your bones that we are passing through a potentially historic moment. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Israel was prepared to leave much of the Occupied Territories, release many Palestinian prisoners, remove many roadblocks and checkpoints, and restore the delivery of withheld tax funds that belong to the Palestinians. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, for his part, said in Cairo a day earlier that the Palestinians expected to see serious progress toward a Palestinian state in all the territories occupied in 1967, or else a third intifada would break out. |
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Comment: An ambitious Spanish plan becomes a modest flop |
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(29-11-06) – James Badcock, Daily Star. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s set of proposals to break the seemingly interminable impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems doomed to failure – but not because there is anything in them that is wholly unreasonable. First, it would appear to be the wrong moment for any real progress to be made, with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government relatively weak. The second flaw, however, is one of Madrid’s own making, namely the botched manner in which the peace plan was sprung upon a divided international community. |
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Comment: Cease the fire in the West Bank, too |
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(29-11-06) – Editorial, Haaretz. The developments of the last few days are liable to arouse hope. The agreement on a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, together with the prime minister’s impressive speech in Sde Boker, could generate a new atmosphere in Israel’s relations with the Palestinians – an atmosphere that would enable the start of serious negotiations between the parties. Israel must not waste this rare window of opportunity. |
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Comment: Two laws, one trap for family unification |
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(29-11-06) – Shahar Ilan, Haaretz. The proposed new Citizenship Law and the Illegal Residents Law (Amendment No. 19 to the Entry into Israel Law) are so much alike that it begs the question of why both are being put forth. Both call for a dramatic closure of Israel’s gates to non-Jews, especially residents of the Palestinian Authority. Both tread a thin line between constitutionality and non-constitutionality. Both rely on non-demographic arguments but are clearly aimed largely at preserving the demographic balance. Both bills are being championed by the Attorney General’s Office and are likely to gain broad support in the Knesset. |
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Comment: The checkpoint generation |
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(29-11-06) – Amira Hass, Haaretz. For nearly a month now, a young Palestinian has been hospitalized at Beilinson Hospital; soldiers shot him at a checkpoint in northern Nablus on Saturday, November 4. Haitem Yassin, 25, is conscious now, but he is still hooked up to a respirator. In recent days, he has been suffering from a high fever, apparently caused by an infection in his abdomen, which was wounded in the shooting. His family is still waiting for a report from the hospital about the number or type of bullets that caused the serious injury. |
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Comment: Human Rights Watch must retract its shameful press release |
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(29-11-06) – Norman G. Finkelstein, CounterPunch. How has Human Rights Watch responded to the challenge? It criticized Israel for destroying Gaza’s only electrical plant, and also called on Israel to “investigate” why its forces were targeting Palestinian medical personnel in Gaza and to “investigate” the Beit Hanoun massacre. On the other hand, it accused Palestinians of committing a “war crime” after they captured an Israeli soldier and offered to exchange him for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails. (Israel was holding 10,000 Palestinians prisoner.) It demanded that Palestinians “bring an immediate end to the lawlessness and vigilante violence” in Gaza. (Compare Amira Hass’s words.) It issued a 101-page report chastising the Palestinian Authority for failing to protect women and girls. It called on the Palestinian Authority to take “immediate steps to halt” Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. |
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July 27, 2007 at 11:35 pm
http://www1.acallahan.com/36t