Maan News, November 19, 2009
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Marwan Barghouti Bethlehem – Ma’an/Agencies – Negotiations with Israel will achieve nothing, jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi told Reuters in an interview published on Thursday. Through written messages passed from the prison via his lawyer, Bargouthi urged Palestinians to embark on popular and diplomatic campaigns to achieve statehood, the news agency reported.
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By William A. Cook, uruknet.info, November 19, 2009
“After so many years of setting the tone, bribing UK politicians and controlling the BBC they (Zionists) are used to being untouchable.” (Gilad Atzmon, “Britain Must de-Zionist Itself Immediately,” Nov. 17, 2009, MWC News).
This week the British people listened to the Daily Mail’s Peter Oborne present, on Channel 4, his devastating account of the Jewish lobby’s control of their government. Now we know that virtually all the principal politicians in the UK of both parties, like their brothers across the lake in our House and Senate, take “contributions” from the Israeli lobby machine ensuring that the Anglo-American mid-east policies follow the dictates of the Israeli government. Gilad Atzmon responded to this report in his article “Britain must de-Zionise itself immediately,” noting that this control has been in place for so many years the lobby feels “untouchable.”
Rami Khouri, Agence Global, Nov 18, 2009
CAIRO — The atmosphere in Cairo this week tells us much about the contemporary Arab world’s view of the Palestine cause in relation to domestic issues in every Arab country. Ordinary Arabs and their governments alike seem fed up with the incompetence of the Palestinian leadership, while remaining strongly committed emotionally to the justice and rights of the Palestinian cause.
Fittingly, it’s emotionally satisfying for Palestinians, but not very promising politically.
The contrast is vividly reflected this week in the national frenzy over the Egyptian football team’s World Cup qualifying playoff match against Algeria in Sudan, in contrast with little attention being paid to the condition of the Palestinians. Years ago, thousands would have marched in the streets of Cairo to express support for Palestinians against Israel’s occupation and colonization policies. Today, it is a sign of the times that the Egyptian border with southern Gaza remains firmly locked. The Palestinian threat to seek support for an independent state at the UN Security Council receives only passing attention, while the authorities are busy organizing an airbridge to send supporters to cheer on their Egyptian national football team in Khartoum.
In many ways it is hard to criticize the Egyptians, who broke away from the Arab pack three decades ago and signed their separate peace agreement with Israel — to be followed 15 years later by the Jordanian-Israeli peace agreement, after the Palestinians tried to negotiate a permanent peace settlement with Israel via the Oslo agreements. That attempt failed, for many reasons, the primary ones being the Israeli lack of seriousness about an end to colonization of Palestinian land, insistence on annexing much of Jerusalem, and refusing to deal with the Palestinian refugees seriously, while on the Palestinian side the use of suicide bombs against Israelis added a fatal blow to the negotiations.
Many attempts to negotiate comprehensive peace in the last three decades have failed, and each time the Israelis and Palestinians fall back on the same rhetorical positions: Israel says it is prepared to discuss peace arrangements without preconditions (its colonization and strangulation of Palestinian land and society being set aside, presumably, as a non-reality), while the Palestinians accuse Israel of not being serious about negotiating peace. Because Israel is militarily stronger and in control of daily life arteries for Palestinians — like entry and exit points, water, food, electricity and fuel — it tends to define conditions on the ground. The Palestinian leadership, for its part, appeals to the world’s conscience and respect for international law, but with little impact, and even less credibility.
The world has slowly tired of the Palestinians in their current political mode, and focused on other issues, because the prospects of a negotiated Arab-Israeli peace seem slim, as diplomatic attempts to reach a full peace have repeatedly confirmed in the last three decades. It is no wonder that Egypt became weary with this and went its own way. Now it cheers enthusiastically and naturally for its national football team, while keeping the gates to southern Gaza firmly shut.
The astounding thing is that the Palestinian leadership over the years has not woken up to the fact that however just and powerful is the cause of Palestine, it is not an inexhaustible well of emotional and political support from others in the Arab region or abroad. We are likely to witness this demonstrated again in the Arab and international shrug of the shoulders in response to the latest Palestinian idea of seeking Security Council recognition for the political fact and formal borders of a Palestinian state. It is hard to imagine a more unrealistic and fanciful idea than this, given that Israel controls the actual land where the borders should be drawn, and the United States — with its veto — controls the decision-making capacity of the Security Council.
It would have been much more productive for the Palestinian leadership to go to the UN and fight for adoption of the Goldstone Report on the atrocities committed mostly by Israel during the Gaza war last year. Having flip-flopped on the Goldstone Report and now threatening to make a meaningless approach to another UN body, the current Palestinian leadership persists in its legacy of living in a dream world. It is deeply detached from its own — and fellow Arab — people who should be its core support. It is also totally disrespected by the Israeli government, and largely ignored by the rest of the world.
This prevails at a time when Israeli war crimes and colonization continue unabated, but are marginalized politically because of the incompetence of the Palestinian leadership. No wonder more and more Arabs and others turn away from the Palestine issue, and give it only perfunctory rhetorical support without making more costly political moves to oppose Israeli policies or help the Palestinians. Israeli national criminality and Palestinian political incompetence are a deadly combination.
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.
UN News Centre
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| uruknet.info, 18 November 2009 Nearly 250,000 Palestinians in 83 communities on the West Bank are at risk of heightened violence in so-called “price tag” revenge attacks that Israeli settlers may launch against a large-scale attempt by Israel to evacuate outposts it considers illegal, a United Nations report warned today. “While most ‘price tag’ incidents recorded to date… resulted in Palestinian injuries and in significant property damage, the level of settler mobilization observed so far, appears to be relatively limited,” it noted, referring to the settler strategy of exacting a “price” from Palestinians in response to Israeli attempts to dismantle outposts the authorities themselves have not authorized. “However, considering the limited scope of the removal operations implemented so far by the Israeli authorities, the level of violence that could be expected following a relatively large dismantlement operation is significantly higher,” the monthly report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) added, listing a litany of attacks against Palestinians and their property, such as olive groves. It called on Israel to ensure that all its security forces in the field are properly instructed about their authority and obligation to enforce the law on Israeli settlers and protect Palestinian civilians from settler violence, which must no longer enjoy the impunity it now does. Israel must also allocate necessary forces to effectively patrol all areas near vulnerable communities ahead of operations against the outposts. “Considering Israel’s obligations under international law, the Israeli authorities must adopt all the necessary measures to prevent to the greatest extent possible attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians civilians and their property, in response to the removal of settlement outposts,” it stressed, adding that this year 13 Palestinians have been injured per month on average in settler-related incidents. The report, which cited numerous accounts from the Israeli authorities, army and media, noted that the immediate aim of the “price tag” strategy is to divert Israeli forces from the scene of an outpost evacuation into other areas requiring their intervention to contain violent incidents. It cited Israel’s “inadequate level of law enforcement” despite its responsibility under international law, as the occupying power, to ensure public order and safety in the occupied territory, the lack of adequate accountability for settler violence, and the frequent failure of Israeli security forces to intervene and stop the attacks in real time, including to arrest suspects on the spot. “The current lack of accountability undermines efforts to reduce the phenomenon of settler violence in the long run and infringes on the rights of the victims to justice,” it said. The report also noted that the most significant measure Israel has so far taken on the ground has been its decision to deploy during the past three olive harvest seasons, forces with the explicit task of protecting Palestinian farmers working in the vicinity of some settlements. “This measure has reduced the number of incidents involving physical assaults by settlers and resulting in injuries, however, it hardly affected the scope of attacks against property such as olive groves and produce,” it said. On occupied East Jerusalem, OCHA said that while Israel has expropriated some 35 per cent of land there for Israeli settlements, only around 13 per cent is available for Palestinian building and much of that land is built-up already. In those areas where construction is possible, Israeli bureaucratic restrictions make it extremely difficult for Palestinian residents to get building permits, it added. In a related development, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called for a settlement of the Middle East conflict that espouses the internationally accepted Road Map plan for two States – Israel and Palestine – to live side by side in peace and security within fully recognized borders. “Palestinians have waited too long for an end to occupation and a State of their own,” he said in a message to a hosts and donors meeting of the 60-year-old UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main conduit for aid to Palestinian refugees. “Israelis have a right to live in peace and harmony with their neighbours. More than ever, for both peoples, for the region and for the international community as a whole, we need to see two States living side by side in peace and security,” he added in the message, which was delivered by UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) Executive Secretary Bader Al-Dafa to the gathering in Jordan. |
:: Article nr. 60216 sent on 19-nov-2009 02:56 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=60216
Link: www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33003&Cr=palestin&Cr1=
Middle East Online, 2009-11-19
Consistently humiliated by Israel
Analysts: Obama has no real power over Israel despite his hard tone against Tel Aviv.
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is hardening its tone against Israel, but analysts warned Wednesday the tough talk was mere bluster hiding the lack of a viable plan to revive the Middle East peace process.
“You’ve had three ‘no’s’ to an American president in his first year,” said Aaron David Miller, who has served as advisor on Middle East peacemaking to previous US administrations
President Barack Obama is now “faced with the default position, which is words,” said Miller from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Middle East Online, Nov. 18, 2009
Illegal Jewish settlers; armed, dangerous and radical
UN, US, UK, France slam Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian territories.
TEL AVIV – Israel on Wednesday sought to fend off criticism of its approval of hundreds of new illegal units in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
“Freezing construction in Gilo is just like freezing construction… in any other neighbourhood in Jerusalem and Israel,” extremist Interior Minister Eli Yishai, whose ministry issued the approval on Tuesday, said.
He was referring to the illegal settlement in which the previous day Israel approved the addition of 900 new housing units, a move that drove another stake into already hobbled US-led efforts to restart negotiations that were suspended during the Israeli war on Gaza at the turn of the year.
“Construction in Jerusalem cannot be halted and Gilo is in Jerusalem,” Yishai said.
Gilo is one of a dozen Jewish settlements in the eastern part of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Holy City.
France added its voice to the chorus of Western condemnation of the move.
“It is a decision that we regret,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in Jerusalem hours before he was to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials in Jerusalem.
“We have to restart with the political discussions,” he said.
The move to approve the new units flew in the face of Palestinian calls for a complete freeze on new building ahead of fresh peace talks.
Washington was quick to say that it was “dismayed” at the decision.
“At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
Israeli news reports said that Netanyahu had rejected a request from his US ally to halt construction in Gilo, but it was not clear whether the request concerned the project approved on Tuesday.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon also slammed the move, saying it “undermined efforts for peace and cast doubt on the viability of the two-state solution.”
“The secretary-general deplores the government of Israel’s decision today to expand Gilo settlement, built on Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 war,” Ban’s spokesman said.
Noting that the settlements illegal, Ban appealed to Israel to respect its commitments to cease all settlement activity under the Road Map, a blue print for peace between Israel and the Palestinians under a so-called two-state solution.
The approval is likely to further hamper Washington’s so-far futile efforts to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table, amid deep disagreements over the thorny issue of settlements.
Britain condemned Tuesday Israel’s green light for hundreds of new housing units, saying it made a peace deal more difficult.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband “has been very clear that a credible deal involves Jerusalem as a shared capital,” said a spokeswoman.
“Expanding settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem makes that deal much harder. So this decision is wrong and we oppose it,” added the Foreign Office spokeswoman.
Meanwhile, Israeli President Shimon Peres called on Tuesday for Palestinians to “show that they control their own people” before seeking UN recognition of an independent state.
Abbas meanwhile said in Cairo on Tuesday that the plans to seek recognition of a Palestinian state have the backing of Arab countries and is not a “unilateral decision.”
The rival democratically elected Hamas movement said on Tuesday it was opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state before the end of the Israeli occupation.
Israel illegally occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967.
Under international law, neither East nor West Jerusalem is considered Israel’s capital. Tel Aviv is recognised as Israel’s capital, pending a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.
East Jerusalem is considered by the international community to be illegally occupied by Israel, in contravention of several binding UN Security Council Resolutions.
In these resolutions, the United Nations Security Council has also called for no measures to be taken to change the status of Jerusalem until a final settlement is reached between the sides.
Declaring Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is an attempt to change this status, and is thus a violation of these Security Council resolutions.
All Jewish settlements are illegal under international law because they are built on Arab land (mainly Palestinian), illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.
The settlers adhere to radical ideologies and are extremely violent to almost-defenceless Palestinians.
Reuters, Nov. 16, 2009
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The United States would veto a Palestinian declaration of statehood in the United Nations Security Council, U.S. senators visiting Israel said Monday.
They said the threat by Palestinian officials to take the issue to a United Nations resolution was a waste of time and would go nowhere. They urged Arab states to stop it. “It would be D.O.A. – dead on arrival,” Democratic Party Senator Ted Kaufman (DE) told a news conference in Jerusalem. “It’s a waste of time.”
• Frustration at impasse on ‘two-state project’
• Israel warns of retaliation over any unilateral move
Ian Black, Middle East editor, The Guardian/UK, Nov. 16, 2009
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. Photograph: Sebastian Scheiner/APPalestinians have formally asked the European Union to urge the UN security council to recognise a fully independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in response to the current impasse in peace negotiations with Israel.
Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, confirmed that the request to the EU was made on Monday as Israeli ministers repeated warnings that any unilateral moves would trigger counter-measures that could include the annexation of more of the occupied West Bank.
Peace and Justice Post 
Finkelstein: International Law And Israeli Propaganda
November 20, 2009Information Clearing House
Norman Finkelstein Interviewed on Danish TV
“Hamas is not obliged under international law to accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel.”
Video posted November 19, 2009
(Danish is spoken 35 seconds into the video)
Transcript
Norman Finkelstein: Hamas is not obliged under international law to accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel.
If you go back for example 1947 Gandhi said he’ll accept the reality of Pakistan, but he would never accept the legitimacy of the state of Pakistan.
Hamas is not expected to be held to a higher level of diplomacy than Gandhi..
Gandhi said: ‘Pakistan is a reality which I’m forced to accept, but I don’t accept it as legitimate.’ And that’s the same position of Hamas. They said we’ll solve the conflict on the June ’67 border.
Adam Holm: ‘This is what makes Jerusalem unwary of Hamas because they keep saying how can we have a neighbor which doesn’t recognize our legitimacy.
Norman Finkelstein: But you see the problem is; listen to yourself,.. your own language..
You’re just spouting Israeli propaganda..
Why are you saying ‘Jerusalem’?
East Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian territory under international law, that was the ruling of the International Court of Justice since July 2004, and if you look at the Goldstone Report that just came out a month ago, they refer to East-Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory.
But now you’ve given over Jerusalem to the Israelis..
You’re just repeating Israeli propaganda; they have no title under international law to east Jerusalem
Adam Holm: But speaking about my Israeli propaganda, which I’ll refute, but anyway.
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Tags:East Jerusalem occupied territority, Hamas, Norman Finkelstein, the state of Israel
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