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ISRAEL HAS ENTERED A WAR IT CAN'T WIN.
1.THE CONTEMPORARY .INTIFADA REFLECTS WORLDWIDE STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALISM.
2. THIRD WORLD SUPPORTS PALESTINIANS´ RIGHTS.
3. SEPTEMBER 11, MOSSAD INVOLVED?
4. ILLEGAL OCCUPATION IS A FORM OF STATE TERRORISM.
IN 2002 THE SITUATION IS OUT OF CONTROL.
BEIRUT SUMMIT IN MARCH 2002 WAS A FARCE.
ARIEL SHARON MADE HIS CHOICE: WAR!
CHINA WILL PLAY BIGGER ROLE FOR PEACE IN MIDEAST.
PALESTINIANS: 'BUSH DOES NOT ELECT OUR PRESIDENT.'
JULY 2002. PALESTINIAN CEASEFIRE PLAN LIES BURIED IN THE RUBBLE OF GAZA.
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General features. Contemporary history in nutshell.
The state of Israel was established in Palestine in by foreign violent methods in 1948. Since then there have been contradictions and conflicts between Israel and Palestinians.
The intifada of 1987 ended to an artificial peace. This kind of an unjust peace created basis for new intifada, which began in September 2000.
In 2000 Israel began systematically violence the UN resolutions 242 and 388, which have been designed to guarantee Palestinians´ regional rights. Israel began to start its own building projects in Palestinean area.
The clashes in Palestine and Israel in September 2000 turned to war. Now, under the regime of Ariel Sharon, the new Israeli PM, an inter-state full war is still closer. Quite obvioulsy there are connections between the imperialist war in autumn 2001 in Afghanistan and the contemporary situation in Palestine.
In spring 2002 Iraq has informed to be ready to defend Palestinians´ rights.
Strangely enough, the new Intifada in Palestine and Israel has almost all specialists agreeing: Israel's nuclear weapons and regional military dominance are not going to keep it from losing the war it has now let take place.
Its Arab neighbors, instead of traditional saber-rattling and preparations for war, are just going to sit back and watch Israel exhaust itself in a guerrilla war it can't win and quietly resupply the Palestinians with small arms and explosives they need for armed conflict.
It's a 'Win Win' situation for Arab nations and the United States is losing its credibility as it has to keep Israel from starting a 'hot war' ... as long as Israel's neighbors don't get their armed forces directly involved.
When we say 'almost all specialists', that includes Israeli intelligence specialists. Listen to former Shin Bet director, Ami Ayalon, quoted by 'Ma'ariv' on 5 December, speaking at a conference in memory of Finance Ministry budget division Yom Kippur War dead: 'The Palestinians learned that Israel only understands force ...
The Palestinians believe that this is the only way they can realize their political goals, the foremost of which is to found a state ... The things a Palestinian has to endure, simply coming to work in the morning, is a long and continuous nightmare that includes humiliation bordering on despair ... But in the last seven years he has discovered that there is another way. They learned this from Hezbollah and from us.'
Palestinias know that they will win this possible new war.
Ariel Sharon and his nazi-style expansion politics has support in Israel.
Yet Sharon does not have many friends in Near East and for sure even less elsewhere in the world.
Israel has traditionally supported the US imperialist politics. Israel can also be seen as a guard of American interests in the Near East.
On this background the new situation in the Near East may have historical signifigance.
It is possible that Americans must evaluate their global position in a new way.
In January 2001 the American attempts for peace agreement according to their own interests failed as expected.
Palestinians and other Arab countries did not rely on the principal treaty proposal because its details were secret.
It is quite possible that after the political failure the imperialist powers plan for a military intervention in the Near East.
U.S. military forces in Europe, which are currently at threat condition 'Bravo,' are set to be upgraded to condition 'Charlie' by Jan. 20, while other elements of U.S. European theater forces -- as well as British special forces troops -- may be headed to Israel 'within a few weeks,' sources have told WorldNetDaily.
According to a host of reports from various European and Middle East military sources, all of whom requested anonymity for security reasons, European Command, or EUCOM, forces last week were placed on alert status 'Bravo' -- with 'Alpha' being the lowest and 'Delta' being the highest -- 'across the board,' which included all U.S. forces stationed in the European theater -- Germany, Italy, Kosovo, Bosnia and elsewhere.
Israel has rejected the proposal for international observers and peacekeeping operations.
Arab countries agreed in Amman in March 2001 for common front against Ariel Saharon´s political goals.
Obviously the united Arabic power has confused the US government because this time it hesitates supporting Israeli attacks.
Palestinians is widely supported all around the world. The Palestinian ghetto in Gaza formed by Israel is very much like Jewish ghetto in Warzaw during the WW II.
Israel does not have much friends any more. Even west-European countries which have traditionally been friends of Israel, have now turned their back to fascist Zionism.
When planning for possible military activities in the Near East the US must note that its European NATO-allies may not join the operation.
Cuba, Iran, China, north Korea and other anti-imperialist countries have condemned Israeli expansion politics with strong words. They are backed by practically all of the third world countries.
Palestinian ambassador to the DPRK Shaher Mohammed Abdlah hosted a reception at his embassy in Pyongyang on April 12, 2001 on the occasions of Sun's Day, the birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung. The ambassador in his address said that the president set forth a correct ideology which serves as a guideline for the Korean people and the world people. According to the representative of Workers´, Party of Korea the DPRK will as ever extend positive support to the Palestinian people's just struggle to retake legitimate national rights including the right to repatriation, the right to self-determination, the right to establish an independent state with Kuds as its capital.
Socialist Republic of Vietnam condemned officially strongly in May 2001 the Israeli aggressions.
In June 2001 Palestinian state sent official thanks to Cuba for the political support for Palestinians´ struggle.
Palestinian and Israeli workers celebrated together workres´ May 1st in 2001 with traditional signs and red flags. Israel oppresses both Jewish and Arab workers. Though there is unemployment in the country, employment service agencies have been closed.
In May 2001 Ariel Sharon informed about new colonies to be built at the West Bank. This ment final end for serious talks for ceasefire.
There were massive demonstrations and protests in May 2001 in Palestine on the day of Catastroph, the 53rd anniversary of establishing the state of Israel.
According to the power media efforts for negotiations are operated under US leadership. However, according to appreciated international observers no results are possible without Russian or some other outsider´s contribution.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat conferred on May 29th with top Russian officials, who have signaled Moscow's desire to shift diplomatic efforts in the Middle East from shuttle diplomacy to an international conference.
'Russia has always stood for a peaceful settlement and the establishment of a stable and just peace in the Middle East,' Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said at the beginning of his talks with Arafat.
Ivanov said that shuttle diplomacy by U.S. seemed to be yielding few results. He issued a new call for an international conference to persuade Israel and the Palestinians to refrain from violence and resume peace talks.
In the meeting in Qatar in May 2001 the Arab countries confirmed once more their united front. According to the resolution made in the meeting Arab countries intend to set Israel into international isolation.
According the the power media new talks are going on under US leadership 'without outside observers '. In clear words this means planning for a US-Israeli dictate on Palestine. No hope for success. The so called ceasefires may stand for a while, but they are no decisions.
In June 2001 Israel looked for military co-operation with Turkey. Countries have had common maneuvers. Well, both Israel and Turkey have the same ideology, fascism.
In July 2001 Ariel Sharon asked for German help for the near East crisis. The answer was negative. Ariel Sharon has himself admitted that Israel has to make some concessions because of now being all alone. Yet there is no reason to count much on this. Usually fascists give up just for a while in order to plan for new aggressions.
In the end of 2001 and in the beginning of 2002 Israel plans and carries out new massive military operations in Palestina. Very likely the result of this idiotism is a massive war in the Near and Middle East. Maybe this has been the original purpose of world imperialist and capitalis powers?
Arab countries had talks in Cairo in July 2001. The committee was set up at the Arab summit held last October in Cairo to follow up the implementation of moral and financial aids pledged by the Arab leaders to the Palestinians. It is made up of foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian National Authority, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Tunisia, as well as the Arab League chief.
Fatah, Hezbollah and Jihad plan for still more intensive co-operation in their meeting in Ramallah on August 11th. 2001. Later in August also PFLP has joined the struggle.
Israel´s military power is not a crucial point in the contemporary situation. Arabs´ readiness to sacrifices, new common spirit, world´s general political opinion and as a new phenomena Iraqi´s support to Palestine in August 2001 a as well as the likely other anticipated expressions of strenghtening of the Arab front cannot be destroyed by weapons.
At the invitation of Chinese President Jiang Zemin, President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Palestinian National Authority Yasser Arafat visited China in the end of August 2001. China's support has encouraged the Palestinian people and Palestine will continue to strive for peace, said Yasser Arafat after the visit.
At the same time Yasser Arafat visited also Vietnam. The Vietnamese government promised support to Palestinians, too.
In the end of August 2001 Egypt reaffirmed once more its support for Palestine.
In the end of August 2001 the Cuban Foreign Ministry strongly condemned assassination of Palestinian leader Abu Ali Mustafa by an Israeli army hit squad. A statement published in Tuesday's edition of Granma, called the killing an act of barbarity and repulsive terrorism authorized by a head of state and carried out with US sophisticated arms in open impunity before the international community.
Corresponding strong words have been heard all around the world. Among others also China, Iran and Egypt have expressed their official condemnations against the unscrupulous assassination.
In the beginning of September 2001 the Israeli internal opposition s called for sense in the government´s absurd politics. Especially political murders have been condemned. Communist Party of Israel has declared their strong condemnation on government´s politics.
In September 2001 the impudence of Israeli soldiers has already reached the level of threateing UN officials. An UN car convey was stopped with arms without any logical reason.
The anti-racism meetings in Durban in South Africa gave an idea of the contradictions of the world especially in the case of Palestine. USA and Israel on one side, all the other world on the opposite side.
In 2001/2002 the US armed forces are ready for any kind of activities close to the Palestinean area.
In case NATO occupies Palestina´s territory, the Palestinians will quite obviously forget all hope for an independent state.
The massive attack against Pentagon and World Trade Center in USA in September 2001 with further processes made the situation in Palestine still more difficult. When world´s attention is elsewhere in the world the Israeli government implements new heavy military attacks at Gaza area and at West Bank.
The first reaction against possible future US aggressions in Middle East in September 2001 has been the Gulf Arab countries´ resolution not to buy any more arms from USA.
Remarkable demonstrations were carried out on September 28th, 2001 both in Palestine and in other countries for the first anniversary of the contemporary intifada.
In October 2001 the Israeli-US relations became problematic because in its global war hystery USA is flattering the Arab countries around Israel.
In October 2001 the goodwill of both sides was ruined because of mutual assassinations. The Isareli terror against Palestinians accelerates.
World´s political processes have in 2001/2002 turned against Israel. The US cannot support Israeli politics in case it wishes to save at least of a part of the careful contribution by Arab countries in the Afghanistan operation.
In 2001/2002 the militant PFLP with its foreign supporters achieved more political weight while Yasser Arafat´s PLO is loosing contribution among Palestinians. Palestine people are not going to surrender.
PFLP, Hezbollah, Hamas and Jihad are now popular oraganizations and ways of thinking.
At last in the end of 2001 USA gave Israel free hands to operate et Palestinian areas.This may mean the 'final solution', large massacre in Palestine. All the chain of events in the end of 2001 and in 2002 refer very much to the 9-11 in USA.
The danger of large inter-state war exists because Arab countries surrounding Palestine hardly allow the possible mass slaughtering of Palestinians.
Palestina has asked the UN to send troops at to the crisis area. The US has in the Security Council prevented this act by its veto. To be expressed in other words USA allows massacre of Palestinian people.
In the middle of December 2001 Egypt, Iraq and Iran have expressed their unanimous and clear support for Palestinians. The words used by these states refer to possibility to use even military methods.
Different Palestinians´ organizations and people´s anger caused by the Israeli state terrorism cannot be controlled by the Palestinian government.
Peace in Palestine is possible only by justice and by forming of sovereign Palestinian state.
The International Anti-imperialist Solidarity Delegation participated in Palestine in turn of 2001/2002 a demonstration against Israeli Occupation. The demonstration was organised by a broad coalition of local Palestinian organisations, the Christian churches and various international delegations.
A period of minor violence in Palestine lasted for one month and ended in the middle of January 2002. New strikes on both sides. Nothing has been changed. The US supports Israel and the UN is powerless. No improvement in the situation can be expected unless Russia, the EU or some other third power - as for instance China - gets involved in all the problematics.
The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) called upon the world community on January 19th 2001 to impose sanctions on Israel for destroying the building of 'Voice of Palestine' radio station in the West bank town of Ramallah.
Imperialism´s strategy is the same as in the Yugoslavia case. The world should not hear or see. We may face a mass murder. Yet internet remains... Yet in the end of January 2002 Palestinians have got their mass medias to work again.
In the end of January 2002 the western desperate propaganda has reached its top when the US president accuses Yasser Arafat to be a 'mafia man'.
Support for Palestine by other Arab countries has strenghtened. In the beginning of 2002 Saudi Arabia has with strong words condemned US-Israeli imperialist agressions.
In February 2002 a rebel movement has risen in the Israeli army. Soldiers do dot want to be murderers.
Palestinians have got sophisticated arms in spring 2002. Palestinian militants ambushed an Israeli Merkava Mark-3 battle tank in the Gaza Strip Feb. 15. The attack on one of Israel's toughest warfighting machines heralds a new phase in Palestinian military capabilities that will reshape the entire conflict.
Israelis lose faith in military solution. 'Ariel Sharon's strategy is collapsing,' said the Israeli Ma'ariv newspaper. 'At this stage, as difficult as it may be to say so openly, the Palestinians are losing the battles to a superior force, but Israel is losing the war.' In Ma'ariv's weekend opinion polls, some 49% of Israelis agreed, saying the 'national leadership has lost control of the security situation'.
In the end of February 2002 Tel Aviv has got a Saudi Arabia-sponsored Middle East peace proposal as the spasm of violence continued in occupied Palestinian territories. Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah has called on Arab states to recognize Israel and normalize relations with Tel Aviv in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
In the beginning of March 2002 Israel has an additional problem. Israeli´s economy is about to collapse.
In March 2002 The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has decided to cut all security and political ties with the Israeli government until it stops military operations into the Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank.
In March 2002 the struggle which began in September 2000 has got the most destructive forms both in Palestine and Israel. The situation is out of control.
The desperate situation in Palestine reflects the contemporary unsolved equation of global capitalism. The imperialists should kill all the Palestinians to achieve full control of the area. Yet it is not possible.
Both the Arab League and the African Union gave in their summits in Jordania and in Egypt in March 10th 2002 their full support for Palestinians´ fight.
At last in March 2002 the UN Security Council has made a contructive resolution which makes birth of independent Palestine possible. According to the power mass media this step forwards is somehow caused by the US. Yet USA has from September 2000 resisted UN´s involvement. In the contemporary extreme violent situation USA had to withdraw, at least temporarily.
Israel has not a slighest idea for honouring any kind of UN charters or agreements. The Knesset Finance Committee approved on March 13th, 2002 NIS 135 million for new settlements in West Bank.
The Arab summit in Beirut did not achieve results. The US-Israeli imperialism had intentionally destroyed in advance the summit by forcing Yasser Arafat to apply for Israeli permit for his presence. Additionally, the previous Amman summit resolutions were rejected. This was an absurd and impossible situation. Hence many members of the Arab League did not participate the summit at all. The Beirut resolution document is worth nothing. Palestinians do never admit such a dictatory 'agreement'. Israel will never draw it troops back to the 1967 borderlines. The summit was a farce. Violences continue.
The Israeli forces attacked on Yasser Arafat´s office after the 'peace talks'. This type of an act was the worst possible mistake by Israeli politics. If Israel and its politics ever had friends in this world, there are now hardly not many of them left... however, it seems quite possible that the US backed this absurd attack. Anyway the US has been aware of the plan.
Israel continues its aggressions in Palestine in spite of the UN resolution claiming Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestine. Israel has never honoured UN resolutions. USA voted for the resolution; at the same time it supports Israeli attacks.
Ariel Sharon made his choice: War. All Palestine organizations, including Yasser Arafat and the Fatah, are obliged to accept the challenge.
More than 200 international volunteers, including some 50 Britons, deployed themselves in Ramallah and two refugee camps at Bethlehem last night in an attempt to form 'human shields' for Palestinian families.
In April 2002 fights between Hezbollah and Israel have escalated the war to Lebanon. There has been military activation also in Jordan. Syria has begun at least unofficial military mobilization.
In April 2002 Egypt downgraded ties with Israel. The Egyptian cabinet decided to sever all relations with the Israeli government, expect those at diplomatic level, in support of the Palestine cause.
In April 2002 US has forced Yasser Arafat to accept ceasefire. That type of ceasefires do not solve any problem.
The US pretends to demand Israel to withdraw. However, the very origin of the crisis is based on the US imperialism´s regional claims at the area. Hence Mr. George Bush´s and his errand boy Tony Blair´s words are not worth anything.
Arab foreign ministers held on April 5th 2002 a consultative meeting at the Cairo-based Arab League headquarters. The meeting emphasized the intentional Israeli and US sabotage in order to eliminate results of the Beirut summit in advance.
In the second week of April 2002 thirteen Israeli reservists have been killed and seven wounded in an ambush during a day of fierce fighting with Palestinian gunmen in a refugee camp in the West Bank town of Jenin. These casualities increase internal political pressures in Israel.
In April 2002 Iraq has stopped oil supply to the west.
Hezbollah adds its activities. In April 2002 Israel has reason to be afraid for attacks also from south, from Negevi desert.
In the mass grave found in Palestine in spring 2002 there are Palestinians killed by Israeli people or soldiers. At this very moment Israeli soldiers try to destroy evidences.
The US representative Colin Pwell and Yasser Arafat met on April 14th, 2002. The meeting is a political victory for Yasssr Arafat for two reasons. First the US representative was Powell, not Zinni who is only Sharon´s errand boy. Secondly the Israeli terrorism was confessed as a concrete fact. Anyway, these talks did not produce any resolution. The US delayed this connection intentionally. The US wanted to give Sharon time.
After the Jenin massacre in Palestine carried out by the Israeli army the US president called Ariel Sharon 'a man of peace'. According to world´s general opinion Mr. Bush is rather a simple person. However, obviously he has certain amount of sense of very peculiar humour.
Palestinians and Yasser Arafat demand absolute withdrawal of Israeli troops from the occupied areas. This demand has now larger international support than ever, even in the US at the people´s level. Israel will never accept the withdrawal. The talks without handling this principal contradiction are nothing but small-talk.
In April 2002 the US has decided to continue and to increase its military aid to Israel.
Israel has - by the US support - prevented the arrival of a United Nations delegation established to investigate charges of Israeli massacres and atrocities in the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp. The truth cannot be hided, if the investigators are honest. Yet there are doubts. As far as we know, the members of the forensic group would partially consist of the same persons who falsified the Racak-case in Kosovo. Quite obviusly certain quarters want to hide and forget Israel´s crimes.
The UN has shown its complete incapability and even missing of real efforts in the Palestinian issue.
The EU has shown its hypocricy. The EU-leaders speak, but do not do anything for Palestinians. Just the opposite. The EU has labeled the PFLP a terror organization according to the US wishes.
Releasing Yasser Arafat in the beginning of May 2002 did not solve anything. Maybe just the opposite. Delivering the possibly innocent men to Israelis does not promote Yasser Arafats position among Palestinians. That deal was as lousy as the old Camp David agreement. The violence continues and even accelerates.
In May 2002 cargo planes delivering assistance from the Libyan people to their brothers the Palestinians arrived successively at Alarish airport in Egypt. A Libyan airlines has established an air-bridge for the delivery of assistance and relief.
In May 2002 nineteen Arab countries agreed to reactivate a decades-old economic blockade of Israel. Economic boycott of Israel was agreed to in 1951 but has remained largely inactive and ineffective. It has slackened particularly since the launch of the Middle East peace process in the early 1990s. The Arab nations decided at a three-day meeting in Damascus last week to revive the boycott. Representatives of Syria, Iraq, the Sudan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, the UAE Emirates, Kuwait, Libya, Somalia, Comoros, Morocco, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Djibouti attended the meeting.
In May 2002 with 54 nations abstaining as a protest over what they called an imbalanced resolution, the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday condemned by 74-4 vote Israel's West Bank offensive.
Palestinians at home and in the Diaspora on May 15th, 2002 observed the 54th anniversary of the Nakba, the loss of their ancestral motherland to Zionist Jews. Mass rallies all over Palestine.
In May 2002 the Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat told reporters that elections would only be held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip once Israeli occupation had ended, but his advisers later clarified that the voting is being linked to a far more modest withdrawal demand. Palestinian sources said that elections would be held within six months, on condition that IDF troops first withdraw to positions they held before the outbreak of the intifada, some 20 months ago.
Israel has made a decision to build 1000 new settlements in Palestine in summer 2002. This decision is in sharp contradiction with the UN resolutions 242 and 388. Israel wants to continue the war.
Israeli tanks entered Palestine again in the beginning of June 2002, this time to Nablus, to Tulkarem and to Ramallah.
June 2002. Israel occupies Reuters office, attacks journalists. As Israel's bloody ethnic cleansing continues, they must escalate attacks against free information, lest the ignorant Americans who support them get the 'wrong' idea. If Israel has nothing to hide, why are they attacking Reuters journalists? (United Press International via COMTEX) -- The Foreign Press Association Monday slammed Israeli authorities for preventing free coverage of the West Bank town of Ramallah, seizing the Reuters news agency offices there, and the continued detention of Palestinian journalists working for some foreign news agencies.
In summer 2002 Israel is going to build a wall around Palestinians´ territories. The result is a ghetto without any kind of problem solution.
Speeches about 'provisional independence' are nothing but attempts to fool people. To be expressed by clear words, this concept includes the US right to nominate a puppet regime for the nation like in Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan.
According to the Chinese official sources in June 2002 China will play bigger role for peace in Mideast. China´s help might be the first honest exterial effort to solve the Mideast problem.
In summer 2002 the confrontation has reached its climax. Israel uses heavy weaponary. Israel does its utmost to prevent humanitarian aid to Palestinians from Iran, Iraq, Libya and other Arab countries. The EU has frozen their aid. The US has given Ariel Sharon in practice free hands to continue mass murdering. The Palestinians do not have any other possibilities than to fight by all possible means.
In the end of June 2002 the desperate situation has produced a proposal for unilateral withdrawal by Israeli NGOs. However, during contemporary regime´s era this type of an act seems impossible.
President Bush wants moderate Yasser Arafat to resign. What kind of a clown might be in Bush´s mind to lead Palestine? The Palestinians will for sure not elect that type of a person. In July 2002 there have been in Palestine large demos for Arafat and against Bush´s speeches.
In July 2002 the Israeli government adopted to proposal to keep some rural communities Jewish only. This act may cause a new firestorm.
In the middle of July 2002 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops took over the offices of Palnet, the leading Palestinian Internet service provider, shutting down the firm's operations.
The missile attack by an Israeli fighter in Gaza against civilians in July 2002 was strongly condemned by all the world. Ariel Sharon finds the attack 'a successful operation'. The US and the EU participate the chorus of condemnation but in fact they continue supporting Ariel Sharon´s politics.
250 000 people demonstrated in Palestine against this latest Israeli crime aganist humanity.
Ariel Sharon´s aim is to destroy plans for ceasefire and peace. He has succeded. Palestinian ceasefire plan lies buried in the rubble of Gaza.
Let us remember that the Israeli terrorism is based on state level deliberate decisions while Palestinians´ attacks have been carried out by separate organizations and by private persons. The government of Palestine has for sure never given and order for violent activities.
In the end of July 2002 USA defended Israel´s atrocities in the meeting of UN Security Councel. By her veto the US prevents UN´s involvement in the continuing massacre in the MidEast.
In the beginning of August 2002 Israel offered money to Palestine in order to ease the tension. The Palestinians refused an Israeli payment of US$14.7 million.
In August 2002 the UN has surprisingly given a new interpretation of the Jenin incidents. According to the UN there was no bloodbath. Yet there is are lot of photos and text material of the Jenin massacre.
KOMINFORM
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Articles and reports.
October 2001
Lawyers meet in solidarity with Palestinian people.
A meeting in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people was heldin Hanoi on October 21, 2001.
The meeting was attended by President of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) Jitendra Sharma, President of the Vietnam Lawyers' Association Pham Hung, and Palestinian Ambassador to Vietnam Sayed Al-Masri.
It also drew members of the diplomatic corps and Vietnamese and foreign lawyers who have been in Hanoi for the third Conference of the Organisation of Lawyers in Asia-Pacific.
The meeting released a statement, saying 'Lawyers present at the meeting express their profound concern over the peace process in the Middle East which has met many difficulties and developed in a complicated manner over the past year. Particularly, recent months saw increasing violence between Israel and Palestine and more severe disputes between conflicting parties.'
'We fully support the Palestinian people in their just struggle - a legal right in conformity with the United Nations Charter - to regain their fundamental national rights, including the right to establish an independent Palestinian state in their country,' the statement noted. (VNA)
EcoNews Service, Vancouver, BC
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December 2001
Occupation as Terrorism
CounterPunch, 7 December 2001
Occupation as Terrorism
By George Naggiar
Military occupation is terrorism. It targets not merely combatants, but civilian populations. Its maintenance is a willful act, not one that is committed by accident. It has, in the case of Israel's prolonged occupation, a decidedly political and wholly unjustifiable - both legally and morally - goal of allowing forced colonization (or, as it is euphemistically called, 'settlement') on an essentially imprisoned people. It is, in Israel's situation, a system of institutionalized and premeditated violence that has intenationally targeted not merely some individual Palestinians, but an entire innocent civilian population of several million human beings.
In addition to the enormous devastation that it has brought to the living, because Israeli occupation's maintenance is deliberate, regardless of whether violent actions to maintain it have purposely targeted the innocent for death, the deaths of over hundreds of innocent Palestinians in the last 14 months alone can only be described as intentional, and occupation and those who have worked to preserve it bear direct responsibility for them. And so because Israel's military occupation of Palestine has intentionally inflicted fear and, in many cases, death on innocent Palestinian civilians for political purposes, that occupation can, with the highest accuracy, be termed a terrorist activity. And because it has existed for more than a third of a century and has, over countless objections of the world community, routinely violated basic standards of decency in human behavior as expressed in international humanitarian and human rights law, it is terrorism of the most hideous and uncivilized sort. Unfortunately, it is not so described by US government officials and media.
Instead, only violent Palestinian reactions to this system of terror are termed terrorist. Only when Palestinians reprehensively, indefensibly and, in the end, foolishly inflict horror on innocent Israelis has 'terrorism' been said to occur. A Molotov cocktail thrown at an occupying Israeli soldier is an 'instrument of terror'.
Even a Palestinian youth throwing a stone at a heavily armed, occupying Israeli soldier is described as committing an 'act of terror'. These acts are never depicted as misguided retaliations for 34 years of the terrorism of occupation and colonization, in which Palestinians' homes have systematically been destroyed, their land ruthlessly colonized, their property confiscated without due process, they have been taxed without representation, they have been deprived of rights to their land's water and natural resources, and they have been widely humiliated for no good reason; rather, they are mindless 'violence' unexplainable but for 'ancient hatreds' and 'fanatical Islam'.
And so when the Ariel Sharon-led Israeli government violently struggles to preserve its 34-year military occupation, it is not maintaining a system of terror, but, absurdly, is somehow 'fighting it'. It is, as Mr. Bush put it, only 'defending itself'. Or, even more ridiculously, according to the US media, IT is 'retaliating'. This despite the fact that retaliation implies some proportionality in response, which has clearly been lacking in almost all Israeli attacks (three times the number of Palestinians as Israelis have been killed in the last 14 months), and despite the fact that Israeli attacks are more accurately understood as the systematic destruction of the possibility of Palestinian statehood and civil society than they are 'retaliation'. Yet the fiction persists.
The reality, however, is that for the last 34 years, Israel's government has been engaged in a systematic campaign of institutionalized terrorism against a captive Palestinian civilian population. It has, in full contravention of international law and the will of entire international community (or, if you prefer, coalition), militarily occupied the Palestinian people's collective space and consciousness, destroyed their homes, trees and livelihoods, denied them all of the basic rights entitled to human beings, and kept them from resisting this state of affairs with enormous physical force (even employing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in this latter effort), all to further invade their land with outsiders, which Mr. Sharon openly continues to insist upon. A generation of Palestinians has literally been born into the world as victims of this terror and they are now rebelling in kind. And only those who cannot quiet, rather than those who have created, their considerable (and easily comprehensible) rage are blamed.
If this is the reality, then what is the solution? For terrorism, all of it, must be discredited and brought to its ultimate demise. First, rather than continue with their counterproductive and divisive form of resistance, the Palestinian people should finally transform their rebellion against Israeli colonial occupation from one of violence to one of active nonviolence. The people of Israel should and will surely join them. And as for the United States: if US government officials and media are serious about wanting to combat worldwide terrorism, then perhaps before they condemn every single act of Palestinian resistance to military occupation as 'terror', they should loudly denounce-and, in the case of our elected representatives, cease needlessly supplying taxpayer-purchased weapons for-the longstanding and yet still un-addressed terrorism of Israeli occupation, a terrorism that, if not defeated, will forever prevent peace and reconciliation for the weary and long-suffering people of Israel and Palestine alike.
[George Naggiar is an Arab-American writer and the Chairman of the Middle East Law and Policy Society at the Georgetown University Law Center.]
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March 2002
The Chinese People´s Daily March 30
U.S. Involved in Offensive Against Arafat: Palestinian Official.
An advisor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on friday accused the United States of being involved in the Israeli army's attack on Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
An advisor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on friday accused the United States of being involved in the Israeli army's attack on Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Mohamed Rashid, a Palestinian negotiator and advisor to Arafat, said that the United States was informed by Israel that the Israeli army would carry a wide-scale military offensive against Arafat, and 'the U.S. did not stop Israel.'
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saed Erekat met Friday afternoon with U.S. peace envoy Anthony Zinni in the West Bank town of Jericho to discuss ways of ending the deteriorated situation in thePalestinian territories.
'During the meeting, Zinni spoke with President Arafat who is under serious offensive and told him (Arafat) that he (Zinni) is going to do all his best to bring calmness to the situation,' said Erekat.
Erekat said that Zinni told the Palestinian side that he was instructed to stay in the region and do all his best to end the bloodshed between Israeli and the Palestinians.
'If we want to assume that the United States did not give Israel the green light to carry out its offensive, I would say that the U.S. did not also give Israel the red light to stop the offensive either,' he added.
The Qatar-based Al Jazeera Television Channel reported that Israeli troops broke into the building where Arafat is sitting, adding that there was exchange of fires between Arafat's bodyguardsand Israeli special troopstaking place from one room to another.
'What (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon is doing against thePalestiniansis crazy, and considering Arafat as an enemy of Israelis an Israelipreparation to assassinate him,' said Erekat.
He revealed that Arafat and his aide Nabil Abu Rudeineh are the only twopeople in Arafat's office and they are surrounded by Arafat's specialbodyguards in the room.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 2002
International A.N.S.W.E.R.
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
Web: http://www.internationalanswer.org
PRESS RELEASE
March 29, 2002
SHARON ANSWERS ARAB SUMMIT PROPOSAL WITH ALL-OUT WAR AGAINST PALESTINIANS
NTI-WAR COALITION CONDEMNS 'U.S.-ISRAELI WAR,' CALLS FOR MASS PROTEST DEMONSTRATION AT WHITE HOUSE IN WASHINGTON & IN SAN FRANCISCO ON APRIL 20
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave his answer to the Arab League's peace proposal today: a massive assault on Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza. The compound of Palestinian Authority President Yassir Arafat in Ramallah has been invaded and largely destroyed. Many Palestinians have been killed, wounded and rounded-up. Israel has called up 20,000 reservists in preparation for even wider attacks.
'This latest assault is part of a clear pattern of behavior on Sharon's part,' said Richard Becker, Western Region Co-Director of the International Action Center and a member of the International A.N.S.W.E.R. - Act Now to Stop War and End Racism national steering committee.
A.N.S.W.E.R. is organizing major anti-war demonstrations in Washington DC and San Francisco on April 20, 2002.
'These attacks on civilian areas are being carried out with U.S. weaponry -- F-16s, Apache helicopters, armored personnel carriers and much more,' said Becker. 'The U.S.
has supplied more high-tech weaponry to Israel than to any other country. What we are witnessing today is, from any objective point of view, a joint U.S-Israeli war against the Palestinian people,' Becker continued.
'While the Bush administration and the big media here regularly blame the Palestinians for the failure of negotiations to move forward, the reality is that the Sharon regime has responded to every initiative with extremely provocative actions,' Becker stated. 'Back in November, Secretary of State Powell's announcement that Gen. Zinni was being sent as a U.S. envoy to the Middle East was followed three days later by the assassination of a top leader of the Hamas organization and the killing of five young boys from the same family in Gaza.
'In late February, Sharon responded to the Saudi plan put forward by Crown Prince Abdullah by launching an offensive unprecedented since the 1967 war on refugee camps and cities across the West Bank and Gaza. More than 200 Palestinians were killed in a two-week period and thousands more seriously wounded and made homeless -- the overwhelming majority of the casualties being civilians,' said Becker.
'But the corporate media considers Israeli casualties far more significant that those on the Palestinian side, despite the fact that the latter has suffered four times the deaths -- more than 1,300 killed -- and more than six times the number of wounded as have the Israelis,' said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice Legal Defense and Education Fund and the
A.N.S.W.E.R. national steering committee.
'The bottom line is this: Sharon is part of the leadership grouping in Israel which has resisted, since the establishment of their state, giving up one square foot of historic Palestine,' stated Verheyden-Hilliard. For 50 years they have worked tirelessly, with the support of U.S. leaders and media, to make it appear that it is the Palestinians and Arabs who are responsible for the on-going hostilities.
'The reality of the situation is that there will be no peace in the Middle East until there isreal justice and self-determination for the Palestinians,' Verheyden-Hilliard concluded.
The International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition is calling on people from across the country to join our mass anti-war and anti-racist protests in Washington, DC and San Francisco on April 20 to demand an end to U.S. support for Israel's occupation and justice for the Palestinian people.
International A.N.S.W.E.R.
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
39 W. 14th St. Room 206 New York, NY 10011
212-633-6646 - fax: 212-633-2889
Email: answer@afgj.org
Web: http://www.internationalanswer.org
-------------------------------------------------
March 2002
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
8 March 2002
Press Release:
Ramallah: Commenting on the latest escalation of massacres and butchery committed by the government of Zionist unity against our people - the most recent examples of which took place in the refugee camps of Tulkarm, Nur Shams, al-Duhaysha, and Ayida, and in the villages of Absan, Khuza`a, Doura, and Halhoul, where dozens of victims have fallen as martyrs in the last two days - the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has issued a statement that said:
These massacres come in the framework of desperate Zionist attempts to subjugate our people and impose surrender upon them. The statement added that the qualitative and courageous operations of the resistance that are carried out by our heroic fighters - most recently the operations in the Jewish settlement of Ariel and the Ghush Qatif junction - have caused the government of the Zionist enemy to lose its senses. They have confirmed the failure of Sharon's choice of military force to confront the intifada and Palestinian resistance. The PFLP statement said: in this connection, the Popular Front affirms and calls for the following:
First. The demand that the Security Council move immediately to insure temporary international protection for our people.
Second. The demand that the Palestine Authority refuse all cooperation with the American emissary Anthony Zinni. The aim of the American Administration in renewing his mission is to back up the Sharon government in its attempts to undermine the intifada and the Palestinian resistance.
Third. The need for all forms of security coordination and political contact with the government of the Zionist enemy to be stopped, especially since the Zionist assassination operations have struck at the highest levels of the Palestinian security forces, most recently with the assassination of Colonel Ahmad Mefraj, Commander of the National Security forces in south Gaza, and the attempted assassination of Marshal Abd al-Razzaq al-Mujayida, Commander of the National Security forces in the Gaza districts.
Fourth. An appeal to the masses of our people, to their patriotic and Islamic forces and their military wings, for greater unity and that they entrench themselves on the field of struggle in self-defense and for the continuation of the option of resistance until the occupation is driven out, and the national rights of our people to return, to freedom, and to independence are seized back.
Press Office
Palestine
8 March 2002.
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April 2002.
WE'D RATHER STARVE THAN BE FED BY OUR KILLERS' - PALESTINIANS IN JENIN
Jenin, West Bank, April 26 (RHC) -- Palestinian officials at theJenin refugee camp have turned down a US aid shipment of tents, food, and children's toys, saying the camp had been destroyed by Israel with US-made weapons. Residents reportedly refused to unpack the shipment, saying that they would rather die of hunger than be fed by their killers.
Media outlets, meanwhile, continue reporting revelations of the atrocities committed by Israel in Jenin. The Friday edition of The Washington Post quoted an anonymous Israeli sergeant who participated in the assault as saying that 'the orders were to shoot at every house, put a bullet in each window' - saying that he had been troubled by orders that did not require soldiers to actually see the Palestinian resistance fighters they were trying to kill.
Though he and another Israeli soldier told the Post that they did not believe Israeli soldiers had intentionally killed Palestinian civilians, other testimony refutes that affirmation. On Thursday, the British news daily The Independent reported finding that nearly half of the 50 dead Palestinians identified so far were civilians, including women, the elderly and children.
They include, found the newspaper, a nurse in uniform who was shot in the heart when she tried to help a wounded civilian, a 14-year-old boy killed when he tried to buy groceries after a curfew was lifted, and a man in a wheelchair who was shot and then crushed under a tank as he tried to wheel himself up a street.
The two soldiers interviewed by The Washington Post did, however, admit that there were insufficient efforts by the Israeli army to allow civilians to leave their homes in safety, and they questioned the decision to use bulldozers to knock down houses at a time when the fighting had mostly subsided. Numerous eyewitnesses in Jenin have told news correspondents and humanitarian workers that homes were bulldozed while their occupants were inside.
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April 2002.
Worldwide Protests Condemn U.S. and Israel
Revolutionary Worker #1147, April 21, 2002, posted at rwor.org
Outrage at the brutal Israeli/U.S. attacks and massacres of Palestinian people has ignited mass protests on every continent.
The Moroccan capital of Rabat had the biggest protest in its history. At least a million people marched Sunday, April 7, the day before U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell came to town. In Jordan, there have been literally hundreds of demonstrations, including an attack on the Israeli embassy on April 5.
In Cairo, the capital of Egypt , 80,000 people marched to support the Palestinian people on March 31. The next day, students took to the streets, charging the Israeli embassy and fighting running battles with the police. University, high school and middle school students were joined by many others in the fiercest demonstration since the 1991 Gulf War. There have also been protests by the Lawyers' Syndicate and other professional organizations in Egypt.
In Lebanon , where thousands of Palestinian refugees live, protesters burned tires in the streets. The government was forced to allow protests in the refugee camps for the first time in years.
Many protests have targeted the U.S. as well as Israel. McDonald's and KFC restaurants were destroyed in Cairo and protesters have burned U.S. flags throughout the Middle East.
Bahrain , a series of islands in the Persian Gulf with a population of 700,000, is the home of the U.S. 5th Fleet. On March 30, 7,000 protesters marched on Palestinian Land Day. 'Taking part in such a demonstration is the least anyone can do,' one 43-year-old man told reporters. 'We are ready to give up our lives.' The next week, demonstrators attacked the U.S. embassy with rocks and Molotov cocktails. One protester died after being hit in the head by a projectile fired from the embassy.
Big marches occurred in Sohag and Alexandria, Egypt ; in many cities in Saudi Arabia ; in the Arab countries of Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan and Tunisia . In Kuwait , 4,000 people gathered in the capital and chanted 'Death to Israel and Death to the U.S.'
In dozens of U.S. towns, large and small, diverse groups have protested Israeli atrocities.
As George Bush and Tony Blair met in Crawford, Texas , to plan more crimes against humanity, several hundred gathered at a community center to protest.
Militant demonstrations have rocked the campus of UC Berkeley . On April 2, hundreds took the streets and marched to a major intersection and blocked traffic for hours. A Palestinian youth whose family lives in Ramallah later wrote, 'When I saw that a lot of the protesters last night were Americans and Jews, something inside filled me with spirit and happiness to the sight of diverse races and religions helping the Palestinian cause.'
On April 9, in remembrance of the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre in which over 250 Palestinians were murdered by Zionist gangs, 1,500 people gathered in Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley. After a rally and march, 250 people occupied Wheeler Hall. An RCYB member who was arrested with 78 others in the hall reported: 'The Students for Justice in Palestine, the group that organized the day, issued a list of demands and insisted on negotiating with the Chancellor. They called out the University of California for supporting Israel and demanded it begin divesting immediately. When the Vice Chancellor came to threaten us with suspension or possibly expulsion if we continued to occupy the building, we countered his threats with determined resistance and 80 of us stayed inside, sat down, and linked arms.'
The next day a coalition of labor unions and Jewish Voice for Peace had a picket and sit-in at the Israeli consulate in San Francisco , where at least 20 were arrested.
Thousands have marched in Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Houston and Atlanta . There have been almost daily protests at Times Square in New York , including actions of over 2,000 people. Protest actions have happened in Atlanta, Kansas City, Missouri; Austin, Texas; Lansing, Michigan; Santa Clara, California; Dearborn, Michigan; and Dayton, Ohio .
Cornel West, Harvard professor and prominent Black author and Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun , a liberal Jewish journal, were part of a group of 26 activists who were arrested on April 11 while blocking the street in front of the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. The protesters were demanding that the U.S. act to stop Israeli violence against Palestinians.
There have been protests in Mexico City; Managua, Nicaragua; and Buenos Aires . In Canada , protests have been held in Toronto , Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver .
In Jakarta, Indonesia , tens of thousands of marchers, most in traditional white Moslem dress, waved Palestinian flags and chanted 'Save the Palestinians.' There were actions in other cities in Indonesia as well. In Bangladesh and Pakistan there have been mass protests. Demonstrations have also been held in Australia and New Zealand.
In Pretoria, South Africa , on April 10, a group of women chained themselves to the offices of the UN. That same day, 1,000 to 1,500 people gathered in a solidarity demonstration in Reykjavik, Iceland .
There have also been protests in Israel itself. On April 5, over 3,000 Israelis and others, including international activists, staged a march to the Kalandia checkpoint. They were attacked with tear gas and clubs by Israeli cops, but two trucks they had filled with supplies for besieged Palestinians managed to get through.
In Gothenburg, Sweden demonstrators burned U.S. flags. Ten thousand marched in Berlin , 20,000 in Paris , 50,000 in Rome and several thousand in London . There were other actions in Amsterdam and The Hague ; Lyon and Bayonne, France; Budapest, Hungary; Chemnitz, Germany; and Berne, Switzerland .
Demonstrators in Manchester, England , staged a die-in to dramatize the massacre of Palestinians. In Spain , actions took place in Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid and Zaragosa . Protests have also taken place in Athens and other Greek cities. On April 6, Cypriot, Turkish, Kurdish and Palestinian youth marched in Nicosia, Cyprus .
Stories and photos of protest actions around the world, as well as messages of solidarity, have been posted on the Palestine Indymedia website, in an effort to get the news to the Palestinian people that the world is watching, and that people around the world are standing with them against Israel's brutal occupation.
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
rwor.org
Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497
(The RW Online does not currently communicate via email.)
-------------------------------------------------
April 2002
JENIN CAMP: EYEWITNESS REPORTS OF MONSTROUS WAR CRIMES AND DESTRUCTION
Jenin, West Bank, April 16 (RHC) -- News correspondents and humanitarian agencies are asserting that the scale of the Israeli army's destruction of the Jenin refugee camp is almost beyond imagination. The British news daily The Guardian reported that the first definitive accounts of the battle began to emerge as journalists broke through the Israeli blockade and gained access to the heart of the refugee camp, bearing witness to how the Israeli army systematically ploughed through occupied homes to broaden the camp's alleys and make them accessible to armored vehicles.
The British news daily The Independent affirmed that amid the ruins of Jenin there was the grisly evidence of a monstrous war crime, with the stench of rotting human bodies everywhere denoting human tombs beneath the rubble shoveled by bulldozers into piles 30 feet high.
Correspondents from The Independent reporting from the scene asserted that the descriptions of refugees who escaped from Jenin - of bodies deliberately being buried beneath mounds of rubble that were later flattened by tanks - are not an exaggeration, but rather, an understatement.
The Red Cross and Amnesty International charged Tuesday that the refugee camp looks like it was hit by a devastating earthquake, demanding an immediate investigation into the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians.
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May 23, 2002
WHY THE U.S. SUPPORTS ISRAEL
By Stephen Zunes
The close relationship between the U.S. and Israel has been one of the most salient features in U.S. foreign policy for nearly three and a half decades. The well over $3 billion in military and economic aid sent annually to Israel by Washington is rarely questioned in Congress, even by liberals who normally challenge U.S. aid to governments that engage in widespread violations of human rights--or by conservatives who usually oppose foreign aid in general. Virtually all Western countries share the United States' strong support for Israel's legitimate right to exist in peace and security, yet these same nations have refused to provide arms and aid while the occupation of lands seized in the 1967 war continues. None come close to offering the level of diplomatic, support provided by Washington--with the United States often standing alone with Israel at the United Nations and other international forums when objections are raised over ongoing Israeli violations of international law and related concerns.
Although U.S. backing of successive Israeli governments, like most foreign policy decisions, is often rationalized on moral grounds, there is little evidence that moral imperatives play more of a determining role in guiding U.S. policy in the Middle East than in any other part of the world. Most Americans do share a moral commitment to Israel's survival as a Jewish state, but this would not account for the level of financial, military, and diplomatic support provided. American aid to Israel goes well beyond protecting Israel's security needs within its internationall recognized borders. U.S. assistance includes support for policies in militarily occupied territories that often violate well-established legal and ethical standards of international behavior.
Were Israel's security interests paramount in the eyes of American policymakers, U.S. aid to Israel would have been highest in the early years of the existence of the Jewish state, when its democratic institutions were strongest and its strategic situation most vulnerable, and would have declined as its military power grew dramatically and its repression against Palestinians in the occupied territories increased. Instead, the trend has been in just the opposite direction: major U.S. military and economic aid did not begin until after the 1967 war. Indeed, 99% of U.S. military assistance to Israel since its establishment came only after Israel proved itself to be far stronger than any combination of Arab armies and after Israeli occupation forces became the rulers of a large Palestinian population.
Similarly, U.S. aid to Israel is higher now than twenty-five years ago. This was at a time when Egypt's massive and well-equipped armed forces threatened war; today, Israel has a longstanding peace treaty with Egypt and a large demilitarized and internationally monitored buffer zone keeping its army at a distance. At that time, Syria's military was expanding rapidlywith advanced Soviet weaponry; today, Syria has made clear its willingness to live in peace with Israel in return for the occupied Golan Heights--and Syria's military capabilities have been declining, weakened by the collapse of its Soviet patron.
Also in the mid-1970s, Jordan still claimed the West Bank and stationed large numbers of troops along its lengthy border and the demarcation line with Israel; today, Jordan has signed a peace treaty and has established fully normalized relations. At that time, Iraq was embarking upon its vast program of militarization. Iraq's armed forces have since been devastated as a result of th Gulf War and subsequent international sanctions and monitoring. This raises serious questions as to why U.S. aid has either remained steady or actually increased each year since.
In the hypothetical event that all U.S. aid to Israel were immediately cut off, it would be many years before Israel would be under significantly greater military threat than it is today. Israel has both a major domestic arms industry and an existing military force far more capable and powerful than any conceivable combination of opposing forces. There would be no question of Israel's survival being at risk militarily in the foreseeable future. When Israel was less dominant militarily, there was no such consensus for U.S. backing of Israel. Though the recent escalation of terrorist attacks inside Israel has raised widespread concerns about the safety of the Israeli public, the vast majority of U.S. military aid has no correlation to counterterrorism efforts.
In short, the growing U.S. support for the Israeli government, like U.S. support for allies elsewhere in the world, is not motivated primarily by objective security needs or a strong moral commitment to the country. Rather, as elsewhere, U.S. foreign policy is motivated primarily to advance its own perceived strategic interests.
There is a broad bipartisan consensus among policymakers that Israel has advanced U.S. interest in the Middle East and beyond.
Israel has successfully prevented victories by radical nationalist movements in Lebanon and Jordan, as well as in Palestine. Israel has kept Syria, for many years an ally of the Soviet Union, in check.
Israel's air force is predominant throughout the region Israel's frequent wars have provided battlefield testing for American arms, often against Soviet weapons.
It has served as a conduit for U.S. arms to regimes and movements too unpopular in the United States for openly granting direct military assistance, such as apartheid South Africa, the Islamic
Republic in Iran, the military junta in Guatemala, and the Nicaraguan Contras. Israeli military advisers have assisted the Contras, the Salvadoran junta, and foreign occupation forces in Namibia and Western Sahara.
Israel's intelligence service has assisted the U.S. in intelligence gathering and covert operations.
Israel has missiles capable of reaching as far as the former Soviet Union, it possesses a nuclear arsenal of hundreds of weapons, and it has cooperated with the U.S. military-industrial complex with research and development for new jet fighters and anti-missile defense systems.
(Stephen Zunes is Middle East editor of Foreign Policy In Focus [online at http://www.fpif.org ]).
------------------------------------------
June 2002
Origins and aims of groups targeting Israel
=============================
Wednesday June 12, 2002
The Guardian:
Subject: Hamas
Established in Gaza in late 1980s, as offshoot of religious groups associated with Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
Name is acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement, but also means 'zeal' in Arabic.
Came to prominence during first intifada which began in 1987, presenting itself as rival to 'secular' PLO.
Seeks to replace Israel with Islamic Palestinian state. Founder and spiritual leader is Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, 63, who was paralysed by accident in his youth.
Enjoys significant popular support among Palestinians. Sub-group known as Izzadin al-Qassem Brigades has carried out numerous attacks against Israel, including suicide bombings.
Palestine Islamic Jihad
-----------------------
Smaller of two main Islamic militant organisations, it developed in Gaza during 1970s and remains series of factions rather than cohesive group. Believes in destruction of Israel and creation of Islamic Palestinian state. Jihad factions also exist in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Fathi Shaqaqi, its leader, was assassinated by Israeli hit squad in Malta in 1995. Stepped up military activity last year, claiming numerous attacks against Israeli interests.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
----------------------------
Secular rival of Hamas and Jihad, formed in 2000 by activists linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah organisation. Initially most attacks directed at Israeli soldiers and settlers in West Bank and Gaza but this year began suicide bombings inside Israel's 1967 borders, including first by female
bomber. Has strong support in some refugee camps. Several leaders have been assassinated by Israel. Arafat does not recognise the brigades but Israel claims Palestinian Authority has given them financial support.
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
--------------------------------------------
Marxist-Leninist group founded in 1967 by George Habash, with uncompromising stance towards Israel. Active internationally in 1970s, and activity increased again last year. In August Israel killed its leader, Ali Abu Mustapha, with rocket fired into his office. In retaliation it killed
Israel's extremist tourism minister, Rehavam Ze'evi.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
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June 2002
Published on Sunday, June 30, 2002 in the Toronto Sun
Bush's Mideast Vision is a Myopic Fantasy
by Eric Margolis
NEW YORK -- It's hard to know whether to laugh or to cry at U.S. President George Bush's much-awaited 'vision' of Mideast peace unveiled last week, a speech so obviously crafted by special interests and driven by domestic politics that the rest of the world winced in embarrassment. Even moderate Israeli leader Shimon Peres called it a 'fatal mistake.'
The view abroad was captured by veteran British journalist Robert Fisk, who acidly wrote that Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, who has made six visits to Bush's White House, should be allowed to run the White House press office, to 'spare the American president the ignominy of parroting everything he is told by the Israelis.'
Bush's message to Palestinians: basically, no state until you kick out Yasser Arafat, stop resisting Israeli occupation, develop true democracy, do what Israel tells you, create capitalism, eliminate corruption and stop causing trouble. Then, some day, the U.S. might consider an 'interim' Palestinian state whose borders and sovereignty would be 'provisional,' provided Israel agrees.
Bush might as well have told Palestinians they won't get their freedom and homeland until they can recite the U.S. Tax Code in Apache.
Bush, a man untroubled by deep thought or irony, had the chutzpah, as we New Yorkers say, to urge Palestinians to adopt Scandinavian-style democracy, while telling them they cannot re-elect Arafat, who was elected in a fair vote by over 80% of his people - rather better than President Bush, who slid into office thanks to court orders and voter exclusions in Florida.
As for corruption, Arafat's thieving PLO cronies look like the homeless compared to Bush's mega-crook pals at Enron who helped finance his elections.
Corrupt autocracies
Why didn't Bush urge free elections on America's other Mideast clients - Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the Gulf states, mostly corrupt autocracies run by generals or feudal monarchs? What the president wants is an obedient Palestinian version of Afghanistan's new leader, CIA 'asset' Hamid Karzai, who was put into power with U.S. and British bayonets and billions in bribes.
Bush politely suggested Israel stop building settlements. Considering that Sharon scorned Bush when the president ordered him to pull his U.S.-armed and financed troops out of the West Bank, there is zero chance Israel will stop gobbling it up. Sharon has made it perfectly clear by his actions that he will never withdraw from the West Bank or Golan, which Israel occupies illegally, and will never accept a viable Palestinian state. Worse, Sharon appears likely to be succeeded by rival Benjamin Netanyahu, who actually calls Sharon 'soft' on Palestinians.
What Bush and Israel's rightists want is apartheid-style bantustans - tribal reservations policed by Palestinian kapos, surrounded by Israeli troops, covering about 40% of Palestine. Israel will get the rest. In fact, Israeli peace groups recently revealed there are now 400,000 Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories and Golan, not the 200,000 previously believed. When the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, there were 85,000 Jewish settlers.
Arafat's U.S.-financed Palestinian Authority and its security apparatus are dictatorial, thoroughly corrupt and abuse human rights. Arafat winks at terror attacks on Israeli civilians, is a liability to his people and should make way for new leadership. But so should Sharon and Israel's expansionists, who have plunged their nation into a bloody morass and provoked anti-Semitism around the globe. A pox on both houses.
Israel, at least, has moderate, capable alternative leaders like Peres and Yossi Beilin, who can bring some sanity to the political scene. The only real Palestinian candidate, Marawan Barghouti, is in an Israel prison. The PLO is totally discredited among Palestinians because of corruption and close co-operation with the U.S. and Israel. This leaves the extremist groups - Hamas and Islamic Jihad - as the choice of a majority of Palestinians. Bush's relentless undermining of Arafat's PLO has strengthened Palestinian radicals and played into the hands of Sharon, who vows he will never deal with 'terrorists.'
Israelis and their American supporters greeted Bush's speech with predictable adulation. Bush and his advisers hope to increase their share of the Jewish vote in November's critical U.S. mid-term elections from 19% to over 50%. Embracing Israel's far right also delighted ardent Bush supporters on the Christian far right. Many of these rustic fundamentalists believe that when all Jews are moved into Biblical Israel (including the West Bank), their Christian Messiah will return and destroy the world in Armageddon. Good Christians will then go to paradise.
President Bush's 'vision' for Palestine is a myopic fantasy seen through rose-colored glasses supplied by his alter ego, Ariel Sharon. The plan is frightful news for Palestinians, bad news for Israelis seeking peace, and bad news for Americans.
Bush has put domestic politics and his re-election before America's proper national interests. He has undermined real peacemakers among the Israelis and Arabs. Worse, instead of playing honest peace broker in the Mideast, Bush's total identification with Israel's far right ensures America will again become the target of extremists from an increasingly enraged Muslim world - and of furious Palestinians who now have nothing to lose except the cruel mirage of a fraudulent 'provisional interim' state.
Copyright © 2002, Canoe, a division of Netgraphe Inc
http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_jun30.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 2002
Published on Sunday, June 30, 2002 in the Toronto Sun
Bush's Mideast Vision is a Myopic Fantasy
by Eric Margolis
NEW YORK -- It's hard to know whether to laugh or to cry at U.S. President George Bush's much-awaited 'vision' of Mideast peace unveiled last week, a speech so obviously crafted by special interests and driven by domestic politics that the rest of the world winced in embarrassment. Even moderate Israeli leader Shimon Peres called it a 'fatal mistake.'
The view abroad was captured by veteran British journalist Robert Fisk, who acidly wrote that Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, who has made six visits to Bush's White House, should be allowed to run the White House press office, to 'spare the American president the ignominy of parroting everything he is told by the Israelis.'
Bush's message to Palestinians: basically, no state until you kick out Yasser Arafat, stop resisting Israeli occupation, develop true democracy, do what Israel tells you, create capitalism, eliminate corruption and stop causing trouble. Then, some day, the U.S. might consider an 'interim' Palestinian state whose borders and sovereignty would be 'provisional,' provided Israel agrees.
Bush might as well have told Palestinians they won't get their freedom and homeland until they can recite the U.S. Tax Code in Apache.
Bush, a man untroubled by deep thought or irony, had the chutzpah, as we New Yorkers say, to urge Palestinians to adopt Scandinavian-style democracy, while telling them they cannot re-elect Arafat, who was elected in a fair vote by over 80% of his people - rather better than President Bush, who slid into office thanks to court orders and voter exclusions in Florida.
As for corruption, Arafat's thieving PLO cronies look like the homeless compared to Bush's mega-crook pals at Enron who helped finance his elections.
Corrupt autocracies
Why didn't Bush urge free elections on America's other Mideast clients - Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the Gulf states, mostly corrupt autocracies run by generals or feudal monarchs? What the president wants is an obedient Palestinian version of Afghanistan's new leader, CIA 'asset' Hamid Karzai, who was put into power with U.S. and British bayonets and billions in bribes.
Bush politely suggested Israel stop building settlements. Considering that Sharon scorned Bush when the president ordered him to pull his U.S.-armed and financed troops out of the West Bank, there is zero chance Israel will stop gobbling it up. Sharon has made it perfectly clear by his actions that he will never withdraw from the West Bank or Golan, which Israel occupies illegally, and will never accept a viable Palestinian state. Worse, Sharon appears likely to be succeeded by rival Benjamin Netanyahu, who actually calls Sharon 'soft' on Palestinians.
What Bush and Israel's rightists want is apartheid-style bantustans - tribal reservations policed by Palestinian kapos, surrounded by Israeli troops, covering about 40% of Palestine. Israel will get the rest. In fact, Israeli peace groups recently revealed there are now 400,000 Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories and Golan, not the 200,000 previously believed. When the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, there were 85,000 Jewish settlers.
Arafat's U.S.-financed Palestinian Authority and its security apparatus are dictatorial, thoroughly corrupt and abuse human rights. Arafat winks at terror attacks on Israeli civilians, is a liability to his people and should make way for new leadership. But so should Sharon and Israel's expansionists, who have plunged their nation into a bloody morass and provoked anti-Semitism around the globe. A pox on both houses.
Israel, at least, has moderate, capable alternative leaders like Peres and Yossi Beilin, who can bring some sanity to the political scene. The only real Palestinian candidate, Marawan Barghouti, is in an Israel prison. The PLO is totally discredited among Palestinians because of corruption and close co-operation with the U.S. and Israel. This leaves the extremist groups - Hamas and Islamic Jihad - as the choice of a majority of Palestinians. Bush's relentless undermining of Arafat's PLO has strengthened Palestinian radicals and played into the hands of Sharon, who vows he will never deal with 'terrorists.'
Israelis and their American supporters greeted Bush's speech with predictable adulation. Bush and his advisers hope to increase their share of the Jewish vote in November's critical U.S. mid-term elections from 19% to over 50%. Embracing Israel's far right also delighted ardent Bush supporters on the Christian far right. Many of these rustic fundamentalists believe that when all Jews are moved into Biblical Israel (including the West Bank), their Christian Messiah will return and destroy the world in Armageddon. Good Christians will then go to paradise.
President Bush's 'vision' for Palestine is a myopic fantasy seen through rose-colored glasses supplied by his alter ego, Ariel Sharon. The plan is frightful news for Palestinians, bad news for Israelis seeking peace, and bad news for Americans.
Bush has put domestic politics and his re-election before America's proper national interests. He has undermined real peacemakers among the Israelis and Arabs. Worse, instead of playing honest peace broker in the Mideast, Bush's total identification with Israel's far right ensures America will again become the target of extremists from an increasingly enraged Muslim world - and of furious Palestinians who now have nothing to lose except the cruel mirage of a fraudulent 'provisional interim' state.
Copyright © 2002, Canoe, a division of Netgraphe Inc
http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_jun30.html
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TAC comments: 'As if life wasn't hard enough, the Zionist vermin are making the survival of Israel in the new millennium an 'Impossible Dream!'
TheAZCowBoy,
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