MER FlashBack:  MER Editorial 5 Long Years Ago on 25 April 2000 
before Intifada II and Before 9/11:


   _______   ____   ______
  /  |/  /  /___/  / /_ //    M I D - E A S T   R E A L I T I E S
 / /|_/ /  /_/_   / /\\         Making Sense of the Middle East
/_/  /_/  /___/  /_/  \\         http://www.MiddleEast.Org 
                                        
  News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, 
         and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know! 
		---------------
         MER - IF YOU DON'T GET IT, YOU JUST DON'T GET IT!        
        To receive MER regularly email to INFOMER@MiddleEast.Org
		---------------



 W I P I N G     O U T     P A L E S T I N I A N    N A T I O N A L I S M
 

	"Security, normalization, and the 'Peres Peace Center' 
	are traps intended to stifle Palestinian nationalism."
                                 - Fateh newspaper 4/23

	"So now, as the disaster of this 'peace process' enters the 
	history books along with past 'peace conference' disasters 
	that took place in Paris in 1919 and London in 1939, even 
	the Fatah newspaper, 'Our View', coming from Arafat's own 
	branch of the once-proud PLO, now is publicly blaming Shimon 
	Peres for wiping out Palestinian nationalism by promoting 
	normalization, and a by creating a dependence on Israel.'"  
                                                   

MID-EAST REALITIES EDITORIAL - Washington - MiddleEast.Org - 4/25/2000:

Finally even Arafat's own Fateh is beginning to put into print what has
long been suspected and whispered -- the Palestinian people have been 
tricked and duped and snookered.

And true enough, it is Shimon Peres, his protege (now Justice Minister)
Yossi Beilin, and that whole group of Israeli pseudo-liberals who have used
all their charms and persuasion to back the Palestinians up against the wall
while professing after 50 years to finally want to help them.  

Plus of course, let's always remember the American hand in all this going
back to Truman's recognition of Israel even while Palestinian refugees were
pouring from their homes in an ethnic cleansing that has still not been
redeemed and from which more than 3 million Palestinian refugees languish
even today -- the largest remaining refugee population on the planet.

The Americans have been behind all this as well for reasons of their own.  
Whether based on geo-strategic calculations of "interests", or whether cleverly
manipulated themselves by the powerful Israeli-Jewish lobby and the seductive 
amounts of American Jewish campaign funds and political support, all that has
happened would not have taken place without the connivance of official Washington. 

BUT -- and this is a very big BUT -- still unprinted by the Fateh newspaper is
that all this could also never have happened without Yasser Arafat allowing 
himself to be tricked, to be bought off, to be played for the fool.  And that 
could not have happened if it were not for Nabeel Sha'ath, Hanan Ashrawi, Saeb 
Erakat, Haseeb Sabagh and a small group of rich and self-seeking Palestinians 
who at best lacked the courage, the foresight, and the integrity to stand tall
when this whole messy disaster was still preventable.

The one most thoughtful and dignified Palestinian personality who did see what
was coming and refused from the very beginning to be part of it (in fact he
even refused to attend the White House Arafat-Rabin ceremony in September 1993) 
is Haider Abdul Shafi, the head of the Palestinian Delegation in Madrid and
Washington prior to Oslo.  

Now much of this will come as no surprise to regular readers of MID-EAST 
REALITIES, however much others have bought into the "peace process" in one
form or another.  For many years now the rampant corruption and incompetence 
of the Arafat regime has been quite apparent.  Right form the start the "Oslo 
Peace Process" could be seen to be carefully designed to put down the 
Intifada, divide the Palestinians and their supporters, create a repressive 
and brutal regime to control the Palestinian masses, and implement the 
apartheid-style "autonomous population centers" approach first conceived by 
Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon some two decades ago.

So now, as the disaster of this "peace process" enters the history books
along with past "peace conference" disasters that took place in Paris in 
1919 and London in 1939, even the Fatah newspaper, "Our View", coming from 
Arafat's own branch of the once-proud PLO, now is publicly blaming Shimon 
Peres for "wiping out Palestinian nationalism by promoting normalization, 
and a by creating a dependence [of the Palestinians] on Israel."  

This just published Fateh article refers to the same groups Arafat calls his
"peace partners" using other terminology -- "Merchants of peace" and "leaders 
of the Zionist entity" they are called.  And then, a very veiled warning:
"The Palestinian people expects both the Palestinian Authority and the PLO 
to make good on their commitments to the Palestinian people...  'Security', 
'normalization', and the 'Peres Peace Center' are traps intended to 
stifle Palestinian nationalism."

The treacherous and duplicity "peace process" is already unraveling even while
those who created it keep desperately trying to push it still further.  More 
"agreements" may soon be reached and paraded in front of the gullible media as
heralding more triumphant successes.  Yet the gun merchants and the tools of 
repression are even more on the march at the same time.  And just as in the 
past when such tricks were played with history the deceptive agreements of 
today are likely to lead to still more bloodshed and more misery tomorrow.