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MER - WEEKEND READING:
CHANGING THE WORDS, BUT NOT THE REALITIES
HISTORICAL SCAM BEING PUSHED HARD
"The
main point is what to call the status quo
because everyone knows there will be no real
change in the status quo".
Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin
"...daily
life won't change in a substantial way."
Acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 9/2/00:
It's fitting that a guy like Bill Clinton should be pushing
these -- a master of words and images. And its also fitting that
Yossi Beilin should have let the cat out of the bag, saying in public that
things aren't really going to change very much for the Palestinians, other
than for some nice words burned into the public mind with a massive propaganda
campaign. Of course, that's not quite how Beilin phrased it.
But it is the reality of what the U.S. and Israel, with much help from
the Egyptian and Jordanian regimes, are trying to pull off -- a real-life
historical scam.
Read the following article closely, especially for the
missing analysis and perspective. But then of course, that's what
MER is really all about and can be counted on to highlight.
We've written about Yossi Beilin before -- see "Colonel
Yossi"...earlier this year. And coming tomorrow from MER more weekend
reading -- "BEACH APARTHEID"...how the Israelis are using the "Peace Process"
to promote segregation and neo-apartheid in their world.
ISRAEL SAYS LANGUAGE THE KEY TO JERUSALEM SOLUTION
By Howard Goller
JERUSALEM (Reuters - 29 August) - A senior
Israeli official said
Tuesday that diplomatic language was the key
to
resolving the Jerusalem dispute blocking an
end to 52
years of conflict with the Palestinians.
Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, an architect
of Israel's
seven-year-old talks with the Palestine Liberation
Organization, said the sides were looking
for
constructive language for narrowing the differences.
"The main point is what to call the status
quo because
everyone knows there will be no real change
in the
status quo," Beilin told Israel's Army Radio.
"The question is only what will be the diplomatic
title
for the situation that will be created when
there will
be peace here. When it's titles that are being
discussed,
it seems to me that it's not impossible to
bridge the
gaps which still exist."
Among the titles which he said had come up
for
describing the situation in more sensitive
parts of the
holy city were divine sovereignty, custodial
sovereignty and extra-territorial sovereignty.
"It's what we tell the Palestinians -- that
daily life
won't change in a substantial way," Acting
Foreign
Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami told the radio in
response
to Beilin's comments.
Meanwhile, U.S. peace efforts continued in
the region
with the ongoing tour of U.S. special envoy
Dennis
Ross and a brief visit by President Clinton
to
neighboring Egypt.
Clinton said time was running out for a peace
deal.
He and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak discussed
how to nudge the Israelis and Palestinians
toward an
accord.
The sides have set a September 13 target for
a final
peace, but the date has looked increasingly
improbable
since the failure of last month's Camp David
summit
between Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak
and the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
Since then Egypt has produced some ideas on
how to
resolve the most explosive issue facing peace
negotiators -- the status of Jerusalem, holy
to
Christians, Jews and Muslims.
Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967
Middle East
war and, in a claim not recognized internationally,
regards all of Jerusalem as its "united and
eternal
capital." The Palestinians want East Jerusalem
for the
capital of a future state.
Ross Meets Barak
Ben-Ami said Clinton's special Middle East
envoy
Dennis Ross would, by the coming weekend,
seek
reactions from both sides to a "catalog" of
conclusions
the United States had drawn up based on the
Camp
David talks. Ross planned to meet Barak on
Tuesday.
"If the Palestinians indeed will develop a
proper way
of relating to this catalog, then we are in
a positive
game. If they should relate negatively all
along the
way, then it won't go," Ben-Ami said.
The next key set of meetings will take place
next
week when Clinton is scheduled to meet Arafat
and
Barak separately on the sidelines of the United
Nations Millennium Summit.
"What's truly important is agreement between
the
Palestinians and us on all the details of
administering
the city when there will be peace here --
concerning
for instance police, security, municipal services
-- all
of these things must be clear along with legal
matters,"
Beilin said.
Beilin said he believed Israel had effectively
ceded
any claim to full sovereignty over Jerusalem's
Temple
Mount, Judaism's holiest site, shortly after
capturing it
in 1967. "The moment we said the Temple Mount
is in
our hands and the next day lowered the flag
and said
we are not praying there, we gave up on our
sovereignty," said Beilin, one of the more
doveish
ministers in Barak's cabinet.
Temple Mount is where Jews believe the first
and
second biblical temples stood. It is also
known as
Al-Haram al-Sharif, the Muslim "Noble Sanctuary."
The site includes Islam's third holiest shrine
the
al-Aqsa Mosque as well as the Dome of the
Rock
Mosque.
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