sabato 14 luglio 2007

Israele si prepara a difendersi dall Iran

Davide Frattini. Corriere della Sera. 14/07/07. TEL AVIV — Lo scrittore David Grossman lo ha chiamato «un piromane messo alla guida dei pompieri ». Nell'ufficio al decimo piano di un grattacielo governativo, Avigdor Lieberman usa il fuoco per accendersi un sigaro cubano ed elenca i suoi progetti per infiammare la politica israeliana. Vive nell'insediamento di Nokdim [illegale], in Cisgiordania. Da nove mesi è ministro per le Minacce strategiche e come vicepremier siede nel consiglio di sicurezza, la versione ristretta e prestigiosa del governo. Il capo del partito ultranazionalista «Israele la nostra casa» ha portato in dote a Ehud Olmert 11 seggi, il sostegno e i voti degli immigrati dall'ex Unione Sovietica, ma anche l'accusa di essere un estremista che propugna soluzioni xenofobe.
Lui non se ne preoccupa, dimena gli occhi azzurri e cita i suoi modelli: Winston Churchill e Pietro il Grande. «Leader disposti a pagare il prezzo per scelte e opinioni impopolari. Pronti a dire verità spiacevoli e difficili da accettare». Lo zar, nella biografia romanzata di Alexej Tolstoj che Lieberman rilegge quando si vuole rilassare, definisce così la sua missione: «Per trascinare il popolo fuori dalla palude dei tempi antichi, bisogna aprigli gli occhi e pungolarlo nelle costole». E' il metodo di questo immigrato dalla Moldova, arrivato in Israele nel 1978 e che a 38 anni era già capo dello staff di Benjamin Netanyahu, allora primo ministro. Vive nell'insediamento di Nokdim, in Cisgiordania.
Appena tornato da un viaggio in Europa — incontri alla Nato, a Bruxelles — usa il pungolo: «L'Europa è dominata dallo spirito di Chamberlain (il primo ministro britannico che firmò l'accordo di Monaco con Hitler nel 1938, ndr). Invece di imporre sanzioni economiche e politiche più dure, invece di isolare l'Iran, alcuni Paesi vogliono continuare a dialogare con Teheran e a giustificare il regime ». Critica Romano Prodi, presidente del consiglio italiano, che in un'intervista al quotidiano Maariv aveva parlato della distinzione tra nucleare civile e atomica militare: «E' impossibile separare la tecnologia nucleare per usi pacifici da quella militare. Soprattutto quando l'Iran allo stesso tempo sviluppa i sistemi missilistici. Se sono preoccupati solo dall'energia, che bisogno hanno di produrre gli Shaab 3 e 4?».
Massimo D'Alema, ministro degli Esteri italiano, ha detto «di essere preoccupato dalla possibilità che vi siano ulteriori sanzioni».
«Non capisco. Abbiamo visto che gli embarghi funzionano: in Corea del Nord, in Libia. Bisogna andare avanti e isolare l'Iran».
Israele sta progettando un raid per fermare l'Iran?
«Non vogliamo attaccare nessuna nazione. Ma dobbiamo preparaci a proteggere i nostri cittadini e il nostro Paese. Il presidente Ahmadinejad ripete di volerci cancellare, nega l'Olocausto. L'Iran manovra Hamas contro di noi e l'Hezbollah perché faccia cadere il governo libanese di Fouad Siniora. E' dietro agli attacchi alle truppe Nato in Afghanistan e ai soldati americani in Iraq».
Lei ha votato contro gli aiuti decisi dal governo per rafforzare il presidente palestinese Abu Mazen.
«Il Fatah è un cadavere che non può essere resuscitato. Abu Mazen deve andare in pensione e fare spazio a una nuova generazione pragmatica, che voglia davvero combattere Hamas e coesistere con lo Stato ebraico».
Considera Ismail Haniyeh, il premier deposto di Hamas, un possibile obiettivo di Israele.
«Deve esserlo. E' responsabile per gli attacchi terroristici che partono da Gaza, è uno dei leader del movimento che vuole distruggerci. Dobbiamo disconnetterci totalmente da Gaza: forniamo elettricità che viene usata anche dai laboratori per fabbricare i razzi Qassam. Ricevano l'acqua e l'energia dai loro fratelli egiziani, non da noi».
Il suo partito propone di cedere la responsabilità di aree a maggioranza araba in Israele a un futuro Stato palestinese in cambio dell'annessione ufficiale di insediamenti in Cisgiordania.
«La causa di questo conflitto decennale è l'attrito tra due popoli e due religioni. Ovunque nel mondo questa frizione produce guerre: nell'ex Jugoslavia, in Irlanda del Nord o nel Caucaso. La soluzione migliore è la separazione: due Stati per due popoli, ma non uno Stato e mezzo per i palestinesi e mezzo Stato per gli ebrei. Quando Ariel Sharon ha deciso il ritiro da Gaza, ho obiettato che avremmo costituto un'entità araba omogenea, senza un israeliano nella Striscia, e noi saremmo diventati uno Stato binazionale, con una minoranza araba del 20%».
Il suo modello è Cipro. Ma 200 mila greci furono costretti a fuggire e a lasciare le case, dopo l'invasione militare turca.
«I mezzi non sarebbero gli stessi, mi interessa il risultato. La situazione a Cipro prima del 1974 era insostenibile: scontri, frizioni, violenze, terrore. Io non propongo di cacciare gli arabi israeliani ma di ridisegnare la mappa, in un futuro accordo».
Gli arabi perderebbero i diritti di cittadinanza, significa un israeliano su cinque.
«Potranno scegliere. O diventare cittadini palestinesi o restare in Israele. In questo caso, devono prestare un giuramento di fedeltà allo Stato, essere pronti a servire nell'esercito. Anche noi dobbiamo garantire uno Stato ebraico omogeneo. Solo in Israele è ammissibile che deputati arabi della Knesset vadano in Libano durante la guerra per sostenere gli Hezbollah o appoggino l'intifada palestinese».
Lei ha detto: «Entrare nella Nato e nell'Unione Europea è l'obiettivo diplomatico e strategico più importante per Israele». E' la stessa Europa [Lo Stato d'Israele (in ebraico: מדינת ישראל [?], traslitt. Medinat Yisra'el; in arabo: دولة اسرائيل, traslitt. Dawlat Isrā'īl) è uno stato del Vicino Oriente che si affaccia sul Mar Mediterraneo. Confina con l'Egitto a Sud, la Giordania a Est, il Libano a Nord e la Siria a Nord-Est] che accusa di soccombere allo spirito di Chamberlain.
«Appunto. Noi potremmo introdurre lo spirito di Churchill, necessario se le società libere occidentali vogliono sopravvivere».

«Una scelta morale», il boicottaggio scuote Tel Aviv

Michelangelo Cocco. il manifesto. 10/07/07. Il governo olandese: via le nostre aziende dai cantieri del Muro. Parla Omar Barghouti, leader della campagna pro-sanzioni. "Israele è uno stato che ha violato più principi e leggi internazionali del Sudafrica durante l'apartheid. Il boicottaggio è giustificato dalla violazione di principi legali (le risoluzioni delle Nazioni Unite). Politicamente pone l'accento sui diritti, che devono essere rispettati per entrambe le comunità se si vuole una soluzione giusta del conflitto. Uno degli strumenti più efficaci nelle nostre mani è la Convenzione dell'Onu contro l'apartheid. Proprio come nel Sudafrica segregazionista, in Israele ci sono leggi che discriminano apertamente i cittadini arabi dello Stato. La più importante è quella sulla proprietà della terra, che non attribuisce ai palestinesi alcun controllo su quest'ultima, affidandone la gestione interamente all'Agenzia ebraica".

Il direttore per il commercio e gl'investimenti dell'ambasciata britannica a Tel Aviv ha scelto le colonne del quotidiano Ha'aretz per cercare di rassicurare il governo israeliano. «Siamo consapevoli dello shock e della rabbia causati qui in Israele da recenti tentativi di boicottaggio da parte di un gruppo di organizzazioni britanniche - ha scritto ieri Richard Salt -. Il governo britannico non può interferire nelle loro deliberazioni interne, ma certamente noi non appoggiamo tentativi di boicottare Israele». Ma il ministro degli esteri olandese, Maxime Verhagen, qualche giorno fa si è fatto portavoce del cosiddetto «disinvestimento». «Mi aspetto che la Riwal smetta di fornire gru per il muro», ha dichiarato Verhagen citando a sostegno del suo «invito» all'azienda di Rotterdam la risoluzione della Corte internazionale di giustizia che nel 2004 stabilì che il muro è «illegale». Delle prospettive del boicottaggio abbiamo discusso con Omar Barghouti, fondatore della Campagna palestinese per il boicottaggio accademico e culturale d'Israele, Pacbi (www.pacbi.org), relatore al corso «Palestina/Israele: un paese, uno stato», concluso venerdì scorso a Madrid.

Che risultati avete raggiunto finora?
Abbiamo iniziato solo tre ani fa, ma le istituzioni e i gruppi della società civile internazionale stanno rispondendo molto bene. La settimana scorsa la Tgwu, un sindacato britannico con 80mila iscritti, ha approvato una risoluzione molto dura di boicottaggio. Così aveva fatto la Unison, il principale sindacato (1.3 milioni d'iscritti), il Cupe dell'Ontario (200mila membri), che sta preparando dei corsi per educare i suoi iscritti al boicottaggio, per non parlare del Cosatu sudafricano che si è mobilitato in massa.

Quando è messo nell'angolo, Israele reagisce con durezza.
Voi europei dimenticate che anche il Sudafrica, quando le campagne di boicottaggio si fecero efficaci, reagì intensificando l'oppressione dei suoi cittadini neri. Il mondo allora si chiese: forse vi stiamo facendo del male invece di aiutare la vostra lotta? La risposta in quel caso fu: no, e continueremo fin quando non avremo abbattuto il sistema di segregazione razziale. Il boicottaggio è la pratica più morale e politicamente efficace, perché non aliena la parte umana della popolazione, da entrambi i lati. In questo modo prepara ebrei e palestinesi alla coesistenza pacifica.

Parlate di boicottaggio, disinvestimento, sanzioni (bds). Quali sono le differenze?
Con disinvestimento s'intende il ritiro degli investimenti da istituzioni o aziende che sostengono l'occupazione. Tutte le aziende israeliane sono complici, perché discriminano già nel momento in cui, per assumere un lavoratore, danno la precedenza a quelli che hanno servito nell'esercito, escludendo in questo modo la minoranza palestinese in Israele (1.2milioni di persone) che non presta servizio militare. Le sanzioni rappresentano l'ultimo gradino e vengono applicate dagli stati e dalla Comunità internazionale.

Il boicottaggio individuale funziona?
Anche non acquistare frutta o fiori prodotti in Israele, conta, e molto. L'Ue rappresenta per i prodotti agricoli israeliani un mercato di miliardi di dollari e lo Stato ebraico ha con Bruxelles un trattato d'associazione che ne fa quasi uno stato membro. Le prime campagne di boicottaggio contro Pretoria iniziarono negli anni '50, ma prima di diventare un fenomeno diffuso bisognò aspettare 30 anni. Noi palestinesi stiamo facendo molto meglio.

http://www.ilmanifesto.it/Quotidiano-archivio/10-Luglio-2007/art47.html

The limits of Blair's mission

Maher Othmann. Al-Ayat. 13/07/07. Blair's failure in finding a two-state solution to this conflict can also be traced to other important underlying reasons: his inability to separate his views from the US policies in this matter, despite his efforts to do so, making his country a partner in the US war on Iraq, appointing Lord Michael Levy, a Zionist reputed for his biased position towards Israel as his special envoy to the Middle East, Israel's disinclination to reach a peaceful settlement with Palestinians and the western support it enjoys, financially, militarily and politically, especially from the US. In addition to this, Bush destroyed his "vision" for a two-state solution by sending a letter to the former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, in which he considered the big settlements that Israel built in the occupied West Bank as Israeli housing communities that should be taken into consideration as such in any final settlement. He also stressed that Israel is a Jewish state and upheld its opposition to apply the Palestinian refugees' right of return, backed by UN resolution 194.First, he needs to persuade Israelis of withdrawing their army from the cities, towns and villages of the West Bank, lifting military roadblocks, halting the expansion of settlements and removing the separation wall. Could he manage this?

While heading the British cabinet, Tony Blair failed to achieve any progress towards finding a solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict, despite his many speeches and declarations at yearly conventions of the Labor party and other occasions, in which he said he would exert all efforts necessary to contribute to finding a two-state solution to this conflict: an independent, viable Palestine thriving peacefully alongside its neighbor Israel, a vision also announced by the American president George Bush.

Blair's failure in this respect can also be traced to other important underlying reasons: his inability to separate his views from the US policies in this matter, despite his efforts to do so, making his country a partner in the US war on Iraq, appointing Lord Michael Levy, a Zionist reputed for his biased position towards Israel as his special envoy to the Middle East, Israel's disinclination to reach a peaceful settlement with Palestinians and the western support it enjoys, financially, militarily and politically, especially from the US.

In addition to this, Bush destroyed his "vision" for a two-state solution by sending a letter to the former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, in which he considered the big settlements that Israel built in the occupied West Bank as Israeli housing communities that should be taken into consideration as such in any final settlement. He also stressed that Israel is a Jewish state and upheld its opposition to apply the Palestinian refugees' right of return, backed by UN resolution 194.

These defining elements surrounding the conflict remain unchanged, but since June 14, a new catastrophic twist has been added to them, and that is the division of Palestinian territories in two parts: the Gaza Strip, militarily controlled by Hamas by force, and the occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian authority and the current emergency cabinet has no real sovereignty or power over anything, save for some municipal rights, and where the IDF, with its hundreds of roadblocks, controls Palestinians' lives.

Hamas' coup divided the Palestinian people's voice, which made it easier for the Israeli government to weasel out of negotiating with the PA, on the pretext that a qualified negotiating partner is absent.
As for the Quartet, whose next envoy is Blair, its role has weakened, judging by the prominent Russian politician Yevgeny Primakov, who added that the international body has been unable to secure any progress because it was established amid circumstances that put the US' role in settling the Mideast conflict in trouble. The Quartet has indeed become an impediment to any advancement on the issue as soon as it imposed conditions whose outcome was a financial and political siege on Palestinians, instead of seriously working on facilitating negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli players.
Blair has successfully pieced together a settlement for the Northern Ireland issue through perseverance, during 10 years, and continuous efforts to follow in the line of his predecessor, Prime Minister John Major to end the Irish conflict. However, perseverance alone will not be enough if Blair wants to take part in ending the Mideast conflict. First, he needs to persuade Israelis of withdrawing their army from the cities, towns and villages of the West Bank, lifting military roadblocks, halting the expansion of settlements and removing the separation wall. Could he manage this?

Blair may be able to draw a lesson from the words of France's former chief Rabbi Rene Sirat, who announced in an interview published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz yesterday that the Jewish people will have no future, should he not make peace with the Arab and Muslim world. Sirat denounced the omission of this issue from a recent conference organized in Jerusalem on the future of the Jewish people. He wondered whether peace has become a foul word, and how the future of the Jewish people could be planned without dealing with the peace issue.

Palestinians surely wish for Blair to succeed, but unless objective circumstances change for the best, they could waste his efforts, rendering them useless.

http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/commentators/07-2007/Article-20070713-bfd8c029-c0a8-10ed-0169-5e99704fd003/story.html

Why Does No One Learn From The Past?

Ghada Karmi. Al-Hayat. 14/07/07. What does Fateh, having shed the Hamas embarrassment and obeyed western diktat, hope to gain from this incompatible situation? Is it credible that the US and its western partners will abandon Israel's cause after 60 years of unstinting support to satisfy Arab needs? Tony Blair's recent and futile appointment as Middle East peace envoy sheds light on the answer. Rather than face the basic contradictions fuelling the conflict, the Quartet preferred this pointless gesture that yet again substitutes process for substance, hoping thereby to convince the Arabs that something is being done, but in reality postponing the day of reckoning.

The Fateh/Hamas split and the future of Palestine

It's a pity, and especially for Palestinians, that no one learns from history. This truism is nowhere better illustrated than in today's struggles in the Palestinian territories between Fateh and Gaza. When Hamas released the BBC journalist, Alan Johnston, last week in Gaza, after months in captivity, Fateh in the West Bank reacted with sneers and derision. Unwilling to accord Hamas the credit for this success which had eluded everyone else after only three weeks in power, a senior Fateh official described it as 'a movie where the thieves in Gaza fall out and one of them claims to be honest and brave, and the other is the bad guy'. Even Western reaction, after eighteen months of boycott and sanctions against the Hamas government, was more enthusiastic. Though none of the Quartet powers was prepared to reward Hamas by ending the siege or changing policy towards it, several calls were made for greater engagement with Hamas. This had been repeatedly said amongst European diplomats in private, but now began to be made public
The unedifying and embarrassing spectacle of the two major Palestinian factions currently squabbling amongst themselves to the delight of their enemies is an echo of an earlier scenario, then as now, infinitely more damaging to the Palestinians than to their enemies. "The Arabs have been so misguided in the conduct of their case that I sometimes wonder whether Jewish agents are not at work inside the Arab camp", wrote Sir George Rendel, a Foreign Office official in 1938, following the mismanaged and failed Arab rebellion. In 1936, the Palestinians had risen in anger against the Jewish takeover of their land and the British authorities that supported and facilitated it. For two years the people fought valiantly, suffered enormously and were brutally punished by the British in ways reminiscent of the Israeli army's methods today. They ended up starving, their leaders killed or exiled, unsupported, economically ruined, and the fruits of their struggle vitiated by internal splits and rivalry.
All this went back to the conflict between two prominent Jerusalem families, the Husseinis and Nashashibis, who competed for power throughout the 1920s and 30s, divided over how to deal with the British who ruled over Palestine at that time. The Nashashibis were amenable to working with the British and believed in compromise and accommodation. On the other hand, the Husseinis, headed by Hajj Amin, were averse to dealing with a British government so blatantly enabling Zionism to take hold in Palestine. In today's terminology, we might call the former 'moderates' and the latter 'hardliners' or 'extremists'. Or, though the parallel is not really exact, the Nashashibis might stand for Fateh and the Husseinis for Hamas. The British assisted Hajj Amin to be elected as the Mufti of Jerusalem, although he was not the front runner in that competition, and appointed him head of the Supreme Muslim Council, in the hope that he would gain them the support of the Muslims population. But they also appointed one of his Nashashibi rivals, Ragheb, mayor of Jerusalem. In a classic divide-and-rule strategy, the British played one family off against the other and, it was said, sowed discord between them to divert their attention from the struggle against the Zionists. Today likewise, Israeli and Western hands are stirring the pot between Hamas and Fateh and for exactly the same reason.
The two families united in 1935 through the creation of the Arab Higher Committee, set up to lead the popular uprising against Brtish/Zioinst colonialism. But before long, they were back fighting each other. The Arab Higher Committee split, with each side threatening, intimidating, and even killing members of the other, just as Fateh and Hamas are now doing. My uncle Mahmoud, an anti-Husseini journalist, fell victim to Hajj Amin's men in 1939 who assassinated him in Beirut, and my father, Hasan, nearly met the same fate soon afterwards. In these tit-for-tat rivalries, the real protagonists were forgotten, and the main beneficiary was the Zionists. The British reacted against the Arabs by funding and arming the Jewish settlers, and increasing the number of Jewish police by more than 2000 men. It was even speculated later that without the Arab mishandling of the 1936 rebellion the Zionist cause might still have foundered. In the aftermath, the two Palestinian sides exchanged recriminations and accusations of treachery. Hajj Amin was alleged to be a British agent, and the Nashashibi clan were called collaborators.
Today's rift between Fateh and Hamas and their bitter mutual accusations of corruption and collaboration with foreign powers have equally distracted them from the elephant in the room, Israel and its US sponsor, Britain's modern equivalent. The anomaly of Fateh, shunning, even outlawing, its natural partner, Hamas, in the struggle against Israel, and turning for help instead to the western camp, the authors of Palestine's misfortunes, recalls another sad historical parallel. When, in 1915, Sherif Hussein of Mecca pledged Arab support for the war against the Ottomans in return for British help in the struggle to gain Arab independence, he too believed their promises to do so. But Britain broke its promise and its cruel betrayal of the Sherif Hussein then should have been an object lesson for Arabs never to repeat the error. Yet, the Fateh leadership today has discarded resistance against Israel in favour of peaceful 'compromise' with an enemy that has never compromised with them, hoping that the western powers and their regional proxies, who have failed so far to give the Palestinians their state, will now do so. The meeting held at Sharm-el-Sheikh at the end of June between Abbas and Olmet with Husni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan in attendance typically yielded nothing for the Palestinians.
Without confronting the contradiction at the heart of the equation, there can be no Israeli-Palestinian or regional peace. In a similar contradiction, the Balfour Declaration, Britain in 1917 simultaneously promised Palestine to its inhabitants and also to the Zionists, sowing the seeds of the conflict that is with us until this day. Likewise now, creating an independent Palestinian state against Israel's wishes, while simultaneously supporting Israel unreservedly, cannot work. Palestinian demands of an Israeli withdrawal from the 1967 territories, including East Jerusalem, the return of refugees and full state sovereignty are all rejected by Israel. The western powers, which could have pressured the Jewish state to accept Palestinian demands, cannot do so because they are fatally compromised by their devotion to its well-being and regional supremacy. To resolve the impasse, one of the sides of the equation must fall. On past evidence, it will not be Israel's. So what does Fateh, having shed the Hamas embarrassment and obeyed western diktat, hope to gain from this incompatible situation? Is it credible that the US and its western partners will abandon Israel's cause after 60 years of unstinting support to satisfy Arab needs?
Tony Blair's recent and futile appointment as Middle East peace envoy sheds light on the answer. Rather than face the basic contradictions fuelling the conflict, the Quartet preferred this pointless gesture that yet again substitutes process for substance, hoping thereby to convince the Arabs that something is being done, but in reality postponing the day of reckoning. Palestinians, who will pay the price for this prevarication, must expose the basic contradiction in the western position that perpetuates the conflict and dooms them to a sub-human existence. They must confront those who want to solve the problem with the inconvenient truth: that trying to meet Palestinian demands while indulging Israel are incompatible aims and will never yield results. Only by shedding their differences, uniting and regrouping to fight their real enemy, and not each other, will the Palestinians have finally learned the lessons of history.


Ghada Karmi is the author of, 'Married to Another Man: Israel's Dilemma in Palestine'.

http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/commentators/07-2007/Article-20070714-c51abe03-c0a8-10ed-0169-5e99bb438141/story.html

Tel Rumeida Settlers: Freedom to Trespass

International Solidarity Movement. 11/07/07. At about 4:30pm two internationals human rights workers (HRW) were at the house of a Palestinian man who is in the process of rebuilding his home that had previously been used as an army post. This house is located directly behind Tel Rumeida settlement. The house being rebuilt is owned by a Palestinian and is under constant threat of attack from Israeli settlers. The HRWs were with the Palestinian owner of the home, his brother, four Palestinian children, and two Israeli human rights workers.

At this time, 4:30pm, an Israeli settler named Atam arrived with 5 small children ages 3-5 years old. The settler also had an Ak-47 on his back. At first the group stood in a field below the house and began to pray together. They then walked to the edge of the hill overlooking the city, and the Ibrahimi Mosque, and again briefly prayed. The group then approached the house. The owner of the home told them that they should not come, and tried to stand in the way of Atam who has caused many problems for this Palestinian man in the past.

The Israeli children immediately began to shriek and cry at exactly the same time. It was obvious that Atam had brought these children, with orders to cry, in order to cause some disturbance. He wanted to pass through the house, or at least through the property, in order to reach the settlement, and was using the children to do this.

Atam immediately called the Israeli police, because the Palestinian owner of the home did not want him to pass. The owner of the home knows that the settlers will use every reason to pass through his property so that later they can attack him and his home at will. In this case they are using children as an excuse to pass through the property.

Atam kept trying to push past the Palestinian man, and even tried to enter the home but it was protected by an international. The two Israeli human rights workers kept arguing with Atam and one was very much disturbed that he would use children to try and achieve his goals of passing through the property. All the while the children were crying.

At about 4:50pm two Israeli soldiers arrived and spoke with Atam and the Israeli human rights workers. The situation was not resolved and they continued to wait for the Israeli police. During this time Atam tried to push past the Palestinian owner many times with his screaming crying children.

When the police arrived both sides explained the incident. The Palestinian man said he would not allow the Israeli settler to pass because it was his property and the Israeli human rights workers said it was abhorrent that the settler would use children to try and pass. At one point the children had stopped crying and then began crying again for no reason making it obvious that Atam was telling them to cry.

Finally the police told Atam that he could pass, though the Palestinian owner of the home was very angry about this. He told the police that it was his property and that he would sue the police for this injustice. Atam passed through the area and afterwards the police continued to question the Palestinian owner and the two Israeli human rights workers. As usual with Israeli justice, the Israeli settlers who caused the incidents are free to leave while the Palestinians are forced to answer to the police as if they are the criminals.

The police continued to question and argue with the Palestinian man, and Israeli human rights workers until well after 6:00pm. Nothing was resolved.


Hebron Israeli settlers attacking Palestinian farmers.

Tel Rumeida: Soldiers in Jamillas House

International Solidarity Movement. July 11th, 2007. At approximately 5 pm a group of IDF soldiers pointed their guns at 4 children on Shuhada street. The kids where afraid of the soldiers and hid in their home. The soldiers ran after them and pointed their guns at them while shouting “we will shoot you”.

The children’s family is living in one of the houses right next to the Beit Haddasha settlement and their house has been attacked by settlers as well as threatened by the IDF on several occasions.

Tel Rumeida: Slouching Towards Annexation

International Solidarity Movement. Hebron Region. July 11th, 2007. At 23.30 two Human Rights Workers (HRWs) and four Israelis were at the house of a Palestinian man whose house is being rebuilt after it was vandalized by settlers. The HRW’s and the Israelis have been sleeping in the house for the last week to prevent further attacks from the settlers in Tel Rumieda. Tonight a female settler entered the Palestinian’s land and stole a sign which read “private property”.

The Israelis tried to talk to the female settler but she ran away, up to the settlement where she was supported by other settlers and soldiers. The Palestinian owner of the house called the police and within ten minutes six policemen were at the scene.

The settlers claimed that part of the land belongs to them, and that the Palestinian man is only allowed to use some parts of the land. The female settler, accompanied by other female settlers, continued shouting: “ He cannot go further than the terrace”.

The Palestinian man asked the police if it was possible to sit down and discuss the situation. They did this outside in front of the house. One of the police officers suggested that the Palestinian man lay a complaint at the police station, right away, and then to “be smart, not right” until the Israeli court passes a judgment on the borders of the land. Things might escalate and to prevent further attacks and potential violence it is better to take a step back. This is a seemingly odd statement considering that it is the settlers, not the Palestinian man, who are carrying guns.

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/07/13/tel-rumeida-slouching-towards-annexation/

ISRAEL-OPT: Basic needs met in Gaza but economy near collapse

IRIN UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Photo: Shabai Gold/IRIN
Over one million litres of fuel and petrol is brought into Gaza every day at the Nahal Oz crossing
JERUSALEM, 12 July 2007 (IRIN) - While humanitarian aid flows into the Gaza Strip are meeting most of the basic needs of the Palestinians, industries are unable to export their goods. This has lead to mass layoffs and unemployment in the already impoverished enclave.

Businessmen in Gaza speak of over 30,000 layoffs as a result of the lockdown on the Gaza Strip initiated after fighting between the Islamist group Hamas and Fatah last month, which ended when the former seized control over the strip.

About 80 percent of private sector businesses have closed, and the remaining establishments are operating at around 60 percent capacity, Paltrade, a local business group, reported. Also, Israel has cancelled the Gaza customs code, making importing goods more difficult.

"The economy in Gaza is grinding to a halt," said an aid worker.

World Bank statistics indicate over 80 percent of Gazans live below a poverty line of US$2.41 a day.

Cement

Goods such as cement are not making it into Gaza. The UN's agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, announced this week the halting of all its building projects in Gaza.

More on Gaza
Concern for Gaza patients who cannot go abroad for treatment
Gazans stranded at Rafah border, North Sinai towns
UN warns of food shortages unless key crossing point reopened
Formation of new government opens way for more international aid
"Some $93 million worth of projects are on hold because cement and other building supplies have run out," said John Ging, UNRWA's Gaza director.

"This is all vital humanitarian work," he said in a statement, noting that work on refugee shelters, sewage treatment plants, water works and health centres was affected.

"These have serious public health implications." Thousands of refugees subsequently lost their jobs.

Anticipating greater need for relief

Chris Gunness, an UNRWA official, was concerned about a possible amplified need for relief efforts.

"With no income, people will become more aid dependent. We anticipate the emergency caseload numbers will increase," Gunness said.

People in Gaza speak of a desperate situation, as there are few job opportunities. Some, locals say, are working for pitifully low wages, attempting to bring home a salary. They blame wealthy residents for taking advantage of the current situation.

Israel’s position

Israeli security officials say they are currently focused on getting food aid into Gaza, and will not begin to deal with the exports matter for "at least another two weeks or a month". Another official said: "Wheat, for example, will take priority over cement needed for long term projects."


Photo: Shabtai Gold/IRIN
The Karni commerical crossing has been closed since 12 June
They say there is a clear goal of "preventing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza," although some observers expressed concern that little is being done to prevent a collapse of Gaza's economy and decrease the reliance on aid from NGOs and UN agencies. The military says it cannot reopen the main commercial Karni Crossing for exports as it requires coordination on the Palestinian side, something they cannot do with Hamas.

Private sector

As Israel will not talk with Hamas, which does not recognize Israel, coordination on goods is conducted largely by the military and the private sector, while agencies such as the World Food Programme monitor the markets and needs in Gaza.

However, aid workers say this should only be a temporary solution, as the interests of businesses should not dictate what goods go in. An independent body, with health and nutritional qualifications, should supervise the operations, some say.

Salaries paid

The Palestinian Authority recently paid salaries to tens of thousands of employees who had not received payments in over 18 months, after Israel released withheld tax funds.

However, some employees say the recent payments were hardly felt.

''With no income, people will become more aid dependent. We anticipate the emergency caseload numbers will increase.''
"We are using the money to pay off debts. For 18 months my family lived on borrowed funds," said a Palestinian employee of a security organ in Bethlehem, on the West Bank.

"I kept working all this time because there are no jobs," he said, adding that most of the 1,000 security officers in Bethlehem were in similar situations.

Hanadi, a mother of two and pregnant with her third, lives in the nearby village Beit Sahour. She said she received only a partial payment, and is still owed over $6,000.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73210

«Wanted Bin Laden», gli Usa raddoppiano la taglia: 50 milioni

l'Unità.it. 13/07/07. Il Senato degli Stati Uniti ha raddoppiato la taglia sul ricercato numero uno del dipartimento di Giustizia americano, il cosiddetto "sceicco del terrore" Osama bin Laden, considerato il mandante delle stragi dell'11 settembre 2001 contro New York e Washington, ma anche l'uomo che la Cia ha finanziato e addestrato per la sua lotta contro i russi in Afghanistan. Per chi lo catturasse o fosse in grado di fornire informazioni utili alla sua cattura o uccisione c'è un premio da 50 milioni di dollari. Bin Laden non appare in un video da oltre due anni. E molte volte sono circolati dubbi sul fatto che sia ancora vivo.

LATEST GAZA SITUATION REPORT WITH CROSSINGS PHOTOS

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). 13/07/07.
SUMMARY POINTS
1. Humanitarian and commercial imports (through Kerem Shalom and Sufa) into the Gaza Strip continued to meet most of the basic food needs of the population, despite difficulties encountered at the crossings. However, shortages of a broader range of food commodities continued.
2. Critically, the inability to import raw materials to support Gaza’s industrial and construction sectors, compounded by the abrupt loss of export outlets, has caused some Gaza 65,000 workers to be laid off (with up to 450,000 dependants affected as well). The combined value of UN and private sector construction projects that have come to standstill due to lack of supplies is estimated at over $370 million.
3. A conveyor belt/chute at Karni has been open periodically for the import of grains and animal feed.
4. Rafah crossing has now been closed for 33 days with thousands of Palestinians remaining stranded south of the border. Senior Palestinian traders have continued to enter Israel via Erez crossing.
5. Power outages have continued over the course of the last week and are now affecting most areas of the Gaza Strip. These cuts are expected to worsen unless there is resolution to the capacity deficits at the Gaza power station. Efforts are underway to deploy a technical maintenance team to service turbines at the power station.
6. Kerem Shalom has been subject to regular attack by Qassam rockets and mortars fired by Palestinian militias which resulted in the crossing being closed. Six rockets and 22 mortars were fired towards the crossing, including 10 mortars on 10 July.
7. 22 rockets and 22 mortars have been fired by Palestinian militants towards Israeli targets with five landing in Sderot on 8 July. No injuries or damage were reported.
8. There has been a sharp reduction in Israeli-Palestinian conflict related deaths and injuries in the last week however one IDF soldier was killed and two injured during an IDF operation into Brej refugee camp in central Gaza on 12 July. Two Palestinians were injured in the same area when a missile was fired from an Israeli drone. No Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian conflict related violence between 6 – 13 July.

For more information please contact Juliette Touma, toumaj@un.org, 054-81-555-46

United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Mac House
P.O.Box 38712
Jerusalem
Tel:++ 972-2-5829962/5853
Fax:++972-2-5825841
email:ochaopt@un.org
www.ochaopt.org

http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Gaza-Situation_Rep_13July07-final.pdf

Negoziare con Hamas non è un tradimento

Corriere della Sera. 14/07/07. Il segretario dei Ds Fassino interviene nel dibattito aperto da Piero Ostellino sul rapporto tra Occidente e conflitto israelo-palestinese. "Un riconoscimento preventivo richiederebbe l'accordo — che ad oggi non c'è e anzi dovrà essere uno degli oggetti principali di qualsiasi negoziato — sui confini che i palestinesi dovrebbero riconoscere: quelli del '67? Quelli negoziati a Camp David? Quelli dell'attuale tracciato del muro? Un'altra possibile strada è far maturare atti di riconoscimento de facto che creino così progressivamente le condizioni per poi approdare ad un esplicito riconoscimento de jure di Israele".
Caro direttore, si deve discutere e negoziare anche con Hamas o no? E se sì, a quali condizioni? Intorno a questi interrogativi — di cui ha parlato anche Piero Ostellino sul Corriere — ruota il dibattito su come riaprire in Medio Oriente la strada di un processo di pace che oggi appare bloccato e alla deriva. E' evidente a tutti, infatti, che una pace che coinvolgesse solo Al Fatah, la cui crisi d'altronde non può essere ignorata, rischierebbe di essere una pace non definitiva e non dare a Israele quella sicurezza che lo Stato ebraico giustamente chiede.
E peraltro chiunque vede i rischi enormi per Israele se Gaza si trasformasse in una enclave integralista ancora più fanatica, aperta a quel punto anche alle infiltrazioni di Al Qaeda. D'altronde, una pace che non comprendesse Gaza sarebbe monca e inaccettabile per lo stesso Abu Mazen. Dunque avere una strategia con cui gestire i rapporti con Hamas non è questione eludibile. E ciò conduce al nodo del «riconoscimento» di Israele. E' evidente — per me lo è da moltissimo tempo — che non ci sarà pace in Medio Oriente se non si riconosce che lì non sono in conflitto un torto e una ragione, ma due ragioni: il diritto di Israele a essere riconosciuto e a esistere come nazione ebraica; l'aspirazione del popolo palestinese a vedere riconosciuta la propria identità in uno Stato indipendente proprio. E chi nel campo palestinese si ostina a non riconoscere l'esistenza di Israele, negandone i diritti, deve sapere che non otterrà pace, né la nascita dello Stato palestinese. E, dunque, è assolutamente giusto che Israele chieda a ogni interlocutore, anche ad Hamas, di essere riconosciuto senza ambiguità e reticenze. La strada più limpida e lineare è, naturalmente, il riconoscimento preventivo come condizione per ogni altro successivo atto. E insistere finché non lo si ottiene. Il che tuttavia comporta il rischio di tempi lunghi, segnati da altri anni di conflitti, sofferenze, tragedie. Peraltro un riconoscimento preventivo richiederebbe l'accordo — che ad oggi non c'è e anzi dovrà essere uno degli oggetti principali di qualsiasi negoziato — sui confini che i palestinesi dovrebbero riconoscere: quelli del '67? Quelli negoziati a Camp David? Quelli dell'attuale tracciato del muro? Un'altra possibile strada è far maturare atti di riconoscimento de facto che creino così progressivamente le condizioni per poi approdare ad un esplicito riconoscimento de jure di Israele. Un approccio contenuto nella lettera sottoscritta dai 10 Ministri degli Esteri — di governi sia conservatori, sia progressisti — dei paesi della Ue che si affacciano sul Mediterraneo. E' ciò che auspicano anche Giordania e Egitto, unici paesi arabi ad aver firmato trattati di pace con Israele. E' un approccio presente nella stessa società israeliana, come dimostrano le parole pronunciate proprio in questi giorni da Shlomo Ben Ami, già Ministro degli esteri nel governo Barak, che ha detto: «Alla fine il Presidente Abu Mazen dovrà tornare agli accordi di La Mecca e contrattare di nuovo con Hamas un governo di unità nazionale... solo coinvolgendo anche Hamas, i palestinesi uniti possono negoziare con Israele».
Va ricordato peraltro che in tutti i negoziati fin qui condotti da Israele — con l'Egitto, con la Giordania e anche con la Siria, sia pure questi ultimi finora senza successo — il riconoscimento è sempre stato posto come risultato finale del negoziato, non come condizione preliminare. In ogni caso in questa fase la questione non è di contatti diretti Israele-Hamas — a cui la stessa Hamas non è pronta — ma come ricostruire intorno ad Abu Mazen un governo di unità nazionale, che comprenda anche Hamas, e con cui Israele possa negoziare intanto una tregua. Negoziati che — anche questo deve essere chiaro — andrebbero sottoposti a condizioni precise, quali la sospensione da parte di Hamas dei bombardamenti su Sderot e degli attentati e delle attività militari contro Israele, e da parte israeliana la fine degli omicidi mirati e l'alleggerimento delle misure restrittive che rendono dura la vita quotidiana della popolazione in Cisgiordania. La proposta dei 10 Ministri degli Esteri di una forza militare internazionale di interposizione nei Territori potrebbe rendere più certe quelle condizioni e offrire maggiore sicurezza a Israele. E lo stesso impegno di Tony Blair, quale nuovo rappresentante del Quartetto, potrebbe costituire fattore di garanzia.
D'altra parte la strada di atti di riconoscimento de facto per aprire la strada al riconoscimento de jure è stata spesso praticata, come nel '91 quando nella Conferenza di Madrid, il primo ministro israeliano Shamir accettò di sedersi allo stesso tavolo con Feisal Husseini e i dirigenti palestinesi dei territori, che rappresentavano anche l'Olp che pure manteneva ancora molte ambiguità e reticenze sul riconoscimento di Israele. È fin troppo nota la formula — «perseguire la pace come se il terrorismo non ci fosse; combattere senza quartiere il terrorismo, come se il problema della pace non ci fosse» — con cui Yitzhak Rabin, senza concedere nulla alla violenza, non rinunciava a ricercare la pace anche con chi si ostinava a non riconoscere Israele. E dovrebbe far riflettere il fatto che in questi giorni in Israele si discuta sulla eventualità di concedere la grazia a Marwan Barghuti, uno dei leader palestinesi di Al Fatah, che la giustizia israeliana ha condannato a cinque ergastoli. C'è qualcuno che pensa che tale provvedimento di clemenza sarebbe assunto dal neopresidente di Israele Shimon Peres a cuor leggero? Evidentemente no. E tuttavia Peres sa bene — e nella sua vita lo ha dimostrato molte volte — che per ottenere la pace, spesso, occorre anche il coraggio di atti difficili. E trattare non è tradire.
Piero Fassino
Dice Fassino che una pace che coinvolgesse solo Al Fatah e trasformasse Gaza in una enclave integralista (io direi terrorista) non rassicurerebbe Israele. Giusto. Fassino formula altresì l'auspicio che si individui una strategia con cui gestire i rapporti con Hamas e che consenta di ricostruire intorno a Abu Mazen un governo di unità nazionale. Giusto. Ma questi sono nodi che devono risolvere i palestinesi al loro interno e le potenze interessate sul piano diplomatico. Francamente non capisco in cosa consisterebbe il riconoscimento de facto di Israele da parte di Hamas di cui parla l'amico Fassino se i due sedessero a un tavolo negoziale. Poiché Hamas non riconosce il diritto di Israele a esistere, di che discuterebbero? Del diritto di Israele a esistere? Della legittimità della risoluzione dell'Onu del 1947 che spartiva la Palestina e dalla quale avrebbero dovuto nascere Israele e lo Stato palestinese; risoluzione che il mondo arabo non ha accettato, impedendo così de facto la nascita dello Stato palestinese? Mi spiega Fassino perché mai Israele dovrebbe sedersi a un tavolo con chi non gli riconosce il diritto di esistere e (ri)discutere la legittimità di tale diritto; come non bastasse, sconfessando e indebolendo Abu Mazen che invece glielo riconosce? Mi piacerebbe che a queste semplici domande si rispondesse con maggiore chiarezza, soprattutto da parte del ministro degli Esteri.

L'Esercito israeliano ha invaso l'aeroporto, distrutto, di Gaza. Le Brigate Al-Quds colpiscono due soldati israeliani.

Infopal Gaza. 14/07/07. L'esercito israeliano ha invaso l'area a est di Rafah, nel sud della Striscia di Gaza, occupandone il distrutto aeroporto internazionale Yasser Arafat e trasformandolo in una base militare. L'aeroporto internazionale di Gaza è a sud-est di Rafah, tra i valichi di Rafah e Karem Salam, al confine con l'Egitto. In una posizione strategica per Israele.

Testimoni oculari hanno raccontato che ieri sera 15 carrarmati israeliani hanno invaso l'area e l'aeroporto, coperti dal fuoco intenso degli elicotteri.

Questa mattina, le Brigate Al-Quds, ala militare del Jihad islamico, hanno rivendicato l'attacco contro due soldati israeliani appostati nell'aeroporto.

http://www.infopal.it/testidet.php?id=5806

Israele continua a demolire le case dei suoi cittadini arabi


Salami: Ci hanno preso persino la teiera e le tazze da té.

Middle East Online, Tradotto da Gianluca Bifolchi, Tlaxcala. 7 Luglio 2007


150 nuovi senza tetto arabi per la distruzione da parte dello stato ebraico di case e proprietà già sequestrate

ATIR, Israele -- Muhammed Salami, 70 anni, della tribù di al-Qi'an, è un cittadino arabo di Israele. La sua casa e quelle della sua ampia famiglia -- 40 figli e nipoti -- sono state distrutte il 25 Giugno dalle forze di sicurezza israeliane che hanno detto che le costruzioni erano "illegali" e che la terra diventava "proprietà demaniale".

Oltre 150 persone hanno perso le loro case durante l'operazione.

Salami vive nel villaggio di Atir, nel deserto del Negev nel Sud di Israele. Ha raccontato la sua storia sedendo sotto l'ombra di un baldacchino. La maggior parte delle sue proprietà e del suo cibo, dice, è stata confiscata.

"Venimmo in queste terre nel 1956, sotto la legge marziale. Dopo [la guerra] del 1948 girammo l'intero paese, fino al nord della Galilea. Il governo e l'esercito ci dette allora questa terra su cui vivere. Ci hanno costretto a vivere qui.

"Non c'era nessuno qui, quando noi arrivammo. Dovevamo viaggiare fino a Beer Sheeba [25 chlimetri] per comprare l'acqua. Ricordo che ogni volta dovevamo pagare 5 sterline per l'acqua. La portavamo in grandi contenitori.

"Allora ero giovane. Quando ci siamo trasferiti qui mi ero appena sposato. Tutti i miei figli sono nati qui.

"Ora [le autorità israeliane] vengono qui e mi dicono che ce ne dobbiamo andare un'altra volta. Non abbiamo mai danneggiato lo stato, in tutti questi anni. Non abbiamo mai fatto loro niente di grave. Abbiamo anche aiutato lo stato. E allora perché?

Per distruggere le nostre case e prendersi le nostre cose, il pane, il cibo. Perché ci fanno questo? Siamo 40 persone nella nostra famiglia. Dove andremo a dormire stanotte?

"Loro [gli Israeliani] dicono che vogliono il bene dei Beduini? Ma in che modo distruggere le nostre case e prendersi le nostre proprietà è nel nostro bene?

"Ci hanno preso persino la teiera e le tazze da té. "


Tradotto dall'inglese da Gianluca Bifolchi, un membro di Tlaxcala (www.tlaxcala.es), la rete di traduttori per la diversità linguistica. Questa traduzione è in Copyleft per ogni uso non-commerciale : è liberamente riproducibile, a condizione di rispettarne l'integrità e di menzionarne l'autore e la fonte.

Articolo originale
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=21378

http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=s6848&s2=13

venerdì 13 luglio 2007

Il vizietto filo-arabo


Fiamma Nirenstein. Il Giornale. 12/07/07. Quale invincibile cecità, quale peccato originale obnubila la sinistra quando si parla di questione mediorientale, per cui ogni apparente progresso viene subito vanificato da errori? Si tratta di perversione concettuale, o di cecità morale? Era sembrato sperabile, una volta ancora, che la visita di Prodi in Medio Oriente contenesse, sia pure in maniera limitata, una revisione degli errori storici della sinistra verso Israele e, insieme, di quelli sul terrorismo islamico. Non è così: e la delusione è tanto più cocente in quanto a causarla sono due personaggi in genere molto distanti fra loro quando si parla di politica estera, Massimo D’Alema e Piero Fassino, ambedue rappresentanti onorati della maggioranza. Ci tocca a trovarceli uniti uno, Massimo D’Alema, che chiede di alleggerire le sanzioni all’Iran e che in una lettera aperta a Tony Blair insiste con altri nove ministri della Comunità Europea di aprire a Hamas, e l’altro, al contrario di D’Alema, uno dei leader di sinistra più moderati in politica estera, che chiede di “sedersi a un tavolo con Hamas” anche se non riconosce Israele. In più D’Alema, siccome Prodi ha tenuta bassa la polemica togliendo ufficialità al gesto del suo ministro, lo ha ribadito polemicamente anche ieri. Si tratta di uno scandalo politico e concettuale. Politico, perché la cosa (col seguito piccato di D’Alema e Fassino immerso in una guerra di leadership) sa di ricerca di chiasso e di caccia al consenso verso i terreni dell’odio antisraeliano propri della sinistra estrema che decenza vorrebbe fosse abbandonato quanto prima e invece rifiorisce sempre: è da quando la Guerra Fredda dichiarò lo Stato degli Ebrei nemico pubblico, colonialista, imperialista, amico degli americani, che la sinistra ha abbracciato l’odio antisraeliano, ha sollecitato con la sua compiacenza il terrorismo, ha assolto il mondo arabo da ogni responsabilità facendo il suo fatale danno, ha bruciato in piazza le bandiere israeliane con quelle americane e aggredito Israele con accuse di criminalità internazionale mentre si costruiva, dall’Iran alla Siria agli Hezbollah a Hamas fino ad Al Qaida un vero esercito conquistatore, negazionista, antisemita, anticristiano. L’esortazione di Fassino e di D’Alema a parlare con Hamas indebolisce il già fragilissimo tentativo di creare un fronte moderato e delegittima Abu Mazen che rifiuta il contatto. Sul fronte interno, crea una imperdonabile lesione morale nel rapporto fra classe dirigente e il cittadino di un Paese democratico che faccia della libertà e dei diritti umani la propria bandiera. Che cosa insegna una simile esortazione se non tolleranza verso la violenza più inaudita? Se non negazione del rilievo strategico e soprattutto morale del terrorismo? Che cosa deve arrivare a fare un’entità politica per risultare infrequentabile all’Italia? Assediare case private e ucciderne gli abitanti sul posto? Uccidere col colpo in testa tre donne selezionate fra una massa di profughe di Gaza, scegliendole una sedicenne, una ventottenne e una settantatreenne dal mucchio? Gettare cittadini dal 16° piano? Assalire un ospedale a colpi di bazooka? Trascinare per strada il nemico e giustiziarlo sul posto alla presenza della propria famiglia? Giustiziare con un colpo alla testa bambini che vanno a scuola in macchina col proprio padre? Tagliare teste col coltello? Rapire innocenti? Hamas ha fatto tutto questo. Che cosa deve dire una forza politica per essere dichiarato incapace di intendere il linguaggio della mediazione? Dichiarare guerra totale all’Occidente? Promettere nella propria carta costitutiva lo sterminio degli ebrei? Negare la Shoah? Dichiarare reo tutto l’Occidente di empietà? Deve mandare in onda alla tv Topolino per ordinare ai bambini di farsi “shahid”, martiri per la gloria di Allah? Deve mandare madri incinte a farsi saltare per aria? Distruggere denaro e serre e investire milioni di dollari in violenza e odio, reclutare dentro le moschee nei campi estivi bambini per insegnare loro a usare cariche esplosive? Questo Hamas lo fa. Ed è onesto: il suo messaggio ripete chiara la determinazione a distruggere Israele, a conquistare all’Islam il mondo. Parlare con Hamas, cosa significa? Già ci si parla per arrivare a uno scambio di prigionieri che liberi Gilad Shalit a caro prezzo; ci si parla per consentire il passaggio di cibo, medicine, malati, beni necessari. Israele seguita a fornirgli elettricità, benzina, medicine, gas, altri beni, anche se ne riceve in cambio solo missili kassam. Che questo sia. Ma invitare all’accettazione di Hamas come interlocutore è inammissibile perché aumenta i rischi di guerra e terrore: Ahmadinejad, Hanje, Nasrallah, Assad, Bin Laden si sentiranno vieppiù sulla strada della vittoria. E questa nostra società a rischio di crescente violenza incrementerà la sua deriva, legittimerà qualsiasi cosa. Non lamentiamoci in futuro delle scelte di un giovane italiano che viene invitato a sedersi con chiunque.
L'Alto rappresentante per la politica estera dell' Unione Europea, Javier Solana, ha detto che la lettera a Tony Blair dei dieci ministri degli Esteri europei — fra i quali il nostro Massimo D'Alema — sulla questione israelo-palestinese rischia di spaccare l'Europa. Nella lettera si dice che dalla presa di Gaza da parte di Hamas «può nascere una speranza » e si auspicano «negoziati, senza preliminari, sullo statuto finale». Solana ha ragione. Ma il suo giudizio pecca per difetto. La lettera, infatti, non rischia solamente di spaccare l'Europa. Ha altre controindicazioni.

Civil Fights: It's back to the old 'political horizon' scam

Evelyn Gordon. THE JERUSALEM POST. 12/07/07.
Evelyn Gordon at a Zoa meeting in Hebron. "Since its founding in 1897, the Zionist Organization of America has been fighting for the Jewish people and the Land of Israel".

One sometimes wonders what planet diplomats and journalists live on. Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy czar, for instance, recently told European parliamentarians that (in Haaretz's paraphrase) "the most worrisome aspect of the peace process is Israel's lack of interest in discussing borders with the Palestinians." US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants Israel to negotiate a final-status agreement with the Palestinian Authority now, albeit with delayed implementation, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni enthusiastically backs this idea. A New York Times editorial last week described new Quartet envoy Tony Blair's chief mission as "restoring [Palestinians'] belief in a livable future in a viable Palestinian state," chiefly by restarting final-status negotiations.

What none of these learned experts appear to have grasped is that Israel cannot seriously negotiate final-status issues without knowing whether a Palestinian state will be serious about fighting terror, because that will determine how much Israel can safely concede.

Given the PA's current record, for instance, no Israeli government would allow a Palestinian state within rocket range of Ben-Gurion Airport or major cities such as Tel Aviv, meaning that Israel would have to keep territory even beyond the current route of the security fence. If the Palestinians were serious about fighting terror, however, withdrawing to on or near the Green Line would be much less problematic.

Similarly, no government could allow its capital city, the seat of government, to be under constant fire, as Sderot is from Gaza. Thus absent solid evidence that the Palestinians will crack down on terror - which no Palestinian government over the past 14 years has provided - major concessions in Jerusalem are also impossible.

Nor could any responsible government allow the West Bank to become the armed fortress that Gaza has since the disengagement, when the PA took over the border with Egypt, under EU supervision. Absent evidence that a Palestinian state would take counterterrorism seriously, Israel would therefore have to retain control of the Palestinian-Jordanian border. A PA crackdown on terror, in contrast, would enable this border to be transferred to Palestinian control.

WHAT RICE and Solana are effectively proposing is "negotiate a final-status agreement as if a Palestinian state could be trusted to fight terror, but condition implementation on PA performance." This approach, however, has two problems.

First, until Israelis are convinced of Palestinian willingness and ability to fight terror, any prime minister who acceded to Palestinian demands on these issues would be committing political suicide. That is precisely why Ehud Olmert, a politician par excellence, rejected Rice's idea.

The bigger problem, however, is the international community's track record on Palestinian compliance. To understand why, a brief review of the Oslo process is in order.

In September 1993, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles; Arafat promised to eschew violence. In May 1994 came the Gaza-Jericho Agreement, under which Israel withdrew from Jericho and most of Gaza; Arafat again promised to eschew violence. September 1995 brought the Interim Agreement (Oslo-2), under which Israel left six West Bank cities; Arafat pledged yet again to eschew violence.

Thus by spring of 1996, Israel had carried out its major treaty obligation: territorial withdrawals. Rabin also froze settlement construction (the only Israeli premier ever to do so) as a goodwill gesture, even though no agreement required this.

During those same two and a half years, however, Palestinian terror killed more Israelis than during the entire preceding decade. Thus Arafat had blatantly violated his major treaty obligation.

ONE WOULD therefore have expected the world to pressure Arafat to honor his commitments, while exempting Israel from further concessions until he did so. Instead, it pressured Israel into additional concessions: first the Hebron Agreement in January 1997, under which Israel withdrew from most of Hebron; then the Wye Agreement in October 1998 (never implemented), which required Israel to quit another 13 percent of the territories. In exchange, Israel received nothing but more empty promises on terror.

Then came the Camp David summit and the subsequent outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000. Over the next four years, Palestinian terror killed more Israelis than during the previous 53 years. Yet once again (with the occasional exception of George Bush), the world did not respond by pressuring the Palestinians to uphold their five signed pledges to eschew violence; instead, it demanded more Israeli concessions, arguing - as Rice, Solana and the Times do - that the PA cannot be expected to honor its commitments unless Israel first "strengthens" it through such concessions.

Moreover, no Israeli concessions are ever deemed enough. Israel's offers at the Camp David, Washington and Taba talks in 2000-2001, for instance - a Palestinian state on some 97 percent of the territories, including most of east Jerusalem and the Temple Mount - were not considered a sufficient "political horizon" to justify demanding Palestinian action on terror. The disengagement, in which Israel demonstrated its willingness to uproot settlements for peace by destroying 21 communities in Gaza and four in the West Bank, was also not considered sufficient to mandate Palestinian action on terror.

What this track record proves is that if Israel signed a final-status agreement and the Palestinians still failed to deliver on terror, it would nevertheless come under tremendous international pressure to keep its side of the bargain, just as has happened with every previous agreement since 1993. Either the international community would whitewash PA behavior and declare the Palestinians in compliance when they were not, as it did from 1993 to 2000, or it would argue, as it has since, that Israel must "strengthen" the PA by starting to implement the agreement - i.e. making concrete territorial and security concessions - before the PA can be expected to do its part.

Any agreement signed without prior proof of Palestinian willingness and ability to fight terror would thus almost certainly end up forcing Israeli withdrawals that would leave Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion Airport as vulnerable to terrorist fire as Sderot is. No responsible prime minister would risk putting Israel into such a situation. And Livni's eagerness to do so merely proves how unfit she is for that post.
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Hamas versus Al-Qaeda

To compare Hamas with Al-Qaeda is both illogical and baseless, writes Saleh Al-Naami from Gaza

She looked right and then left before crossing the intersection leading to the university. The traffic was being directed by four members of the special forces affiliated with the Interior Ministry, all from Hamas. Gawaher Ghadir, 21, is one of very few female students who doesn't wear a head scarf at the Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Nobody, either from Hamas or the security services belonging to the Hamas administration has ever asked her to do so. And she doesn't think that anyone is going to.

Ahmed Ghannash, who sells music tapes and CDs from a stand on Al-Mukhtar Street, the thoroughfare that divides Gaza city into two, said that he resumed business after Hamas gained power. In the past, unknown gunmen threatened to burn his stand unless he stopped selling music recordings.

Islam Shahwan, police spokesman at the Foreign Ministry, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the attacks on music merchants and Internet cafés are now close to zero, down from about 35 attacks per month in the past. In the six months before Gaza fell into Hamas's hands, an Islamic extremist group calling itself the Islamic Swords of Justice -- a group believed to embrace some of Al-Qaeda's ideas -- was particularly active in Gaza. That group called for the closure of Internet cafés and music shops. It attacked some of the parties organised at various wedding halls in Gaza and torched some of the educational institutions run by Christians. The group once threatened to harm female presenters working for Palestine Television unless they covered their heads.

Father Manuel Musallam, head of the Latin community to which many Gaza Christians belong, said that his congregation feels more secure under Hamas control. He added that relations between his community and Hamas are very strong. Musallam goes regularly to visit Ismail Haniyeh, who briefs him on current developments.

It is noteworthy that the Hamas parliamentary group includes one Christian deputy, Hossam Al-Tawil. Hamas appointed one Christian minister in its new cabinet, formed one week after the movement took control of Gaza. Haniyeh made it absolutely clear that his government wouldn't hesitate to confront all forms of religious "coercion" and would punish anyone "depriving the people of their right to act freely as long as they did not break the law." The remark was intended for those groups which embrace Al-Qaeda's ideas.

The Haniyeh government and the Hamas movement go to lengths to distance themselves from Al-Qaeda ideology. In a remarkable move, they clamped down on the Army of Islam, the group that was holding British journalist Allan Johnston hostage. The Army of Islam is a clan- based group that acts much like Al-Qaeda. It demanded the release of some of Al-Qaeda suspects held in Britain, including Abu Qatada. Haniyeh's security personnel and the fighters of the military wing of Hamas encircled the neighbourhood in which Johnston was held, abducted several top aides of Momtaz Deghmesh, leader of the Army of Islam, and thereby forced him to release Johnston.

A well-informed source in Hamas said that the movement's action against the Army of Islam was not inspired by a desire to win international sympathy or prove the movement's credentials. Hamas is simply opposed to Al-Qaeda's ideas. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that some Al-Qaeda leaders regard the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as an atheist organisation. Hamas, by contrast, sees itself as part of the MB. "Should we allow Al-Qaeda to have a free rein; it would end up attacking us," he remarked.

So it is hard to take seriously President Mahmoud Abbas's claim that Hamas was trying to establish an "emirate of darkness" in Gaza along the style of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Walid Modallal, political science professor and prominent commentator, explained that Hamas follows a middle-of-the-road school in Islamic thinking, just like the MB. One may agree or disagree with Hamas, but it is not a movement that is about to copy the style or ideas of Al-Qaeda. Unlike Al-Qaeda, Hamas believes in democracy and the ballot box and wants to maintain close relations with international and regional powers. Modallal cited the efforts Hamas made to consolidate its ties with the Egyptian and Syrian governments, both known for their aversion to the MB. Hamas has also tried to maintain cordial ties with Russia, despite the events in Chechnya. So why are regional and international powers so dismissive of Hamas? You have to look for the answer in the attitude of regional and international powers, not in Hamas's ideology Modallal said.

Atef Odwan, parliamentarian and minister of refugees affairs in the first Hamas government, told me that Hamas was consistently distancing itself from all the ideas of Al-Qaeda. "It is silly to spend time making comparisons between Hamas and Al-Qaeda, but it may be helpful to note the position of the two groups toward women. Al-Qaeda doesn't allow women to be educated at schools. Hamas, by contrast, has female candidates on its parliamentary list, appointed women to cabinet positions, and encouraged women to get involved in media, political and social activities of the movement." Odwan said that Hamas believes that citizens have the right to act as they please, so long as they break no laws.

Interestingly enough, Abbas's suggestion that Hamas was mimicking Al-Qaeda made no impact at all in Israel, where the issue was put to rest a long time ago.

In late December 2001, Israel's internal security service, Shabak, said it seized a document written by Hamas leaders detained in Israeli prisons. In that document, imprisoned Hamas leaders warned against the spread of Al-Qaeda's ideas in Palestinian circles and especially among Hamas members. Imprisoned Hamas leaders described Al-Qaeda's thinking as "isolationist and destructive." The imprisoned leaders urged their colleagues to do everything possible to stop Al-Qaeda's ideas from gaining ground among Hamas supporters. Later on, preachers at mosques controlled by Hamas started warning the congregation against "admiring" 9/11, reminding worshippers that the Palestinians cannot survive without international support.

Former Shabak chief Ofer Dekel, a man who used to be in charge of security operations against Hamas, is of the same opinion. He told Yediot Aharonot on 16 March 2006 that massive differences existed between Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Hamas believes in a combination of political work and military pressure and it understands the need for regional alliances and for public support. None of this is true for Al-Qaeda, Dekel remarked.

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/853/re62.htm

Fayyad's precarious government

Al-Ahram Weekly. 12-18/07/07. He has told the Americans that he is their man in Palestine and that he will seek to implement George Bush's disingenuous vision of two states living in peace side by side, Israel and Palestine (disingenuous because Bush assured Israel that it could keep the bulk of Jewish settlements in the West Bank which makes that vision unfeasible). Israel and the PLO negotiated for close to 15 years in the absence of Hamas, and all the Palestinians got were more Jewish settlements on their occupied land, more roadblocks and checkpoints, a hateful apartheid wall built in the heartland of the West Bank, and the diminishing chance for peace.

Palestinians hold up their national flag as they gather in the streets to call for dialogue between the two warring movements, Fatah and Hamas, to repair their ruptured relations after the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the Gaza Strip (photo:
AFP)

The new Palestinian government appears to be treading on very thin ice, reports Khaled Amayreh from Ramallah

Is Salam Fayyad a political amateur? Well, his behaviour during the course of the past three weeks would suggest he is.

Indeed, ever since the "coup" in Gaza on 14 June, which generated another "coup" in Ramallah a few days later, Fayyad, the appointed prime minister of the Ramallah-based government has been striving to be everybody's man, except for Hamas, of course.

He has been telling the Israelis that he will "change the reality" in the West Bank and eradicate "terror" and "fight Hamas" as nobody has ever done before.

Meanwhile, h

Furthermore, Fayyad has been trying to endear himself to the Europeans by telling their emissaries that he is the ultimate prototype of a Palestinian leader.

And, finally, to the Arabs who have received only secondary attention because of their less than enthusiastic backing of his government, Fayyad explained that Hamas was their "common enemy".

Indeed, his message to both Egypt and Jordan -- whose national security depends to a very large extent on the resolution of the Palestinian -- Israeli conflict -- has been that as long as Hamas occupies a dominant status in the Palestinian political arena, there will be no genuine chance for peace.

Of course, while Fayyad's assessment of Hamas may have some superficial rationality, the thrust of his perception is wrong.

After all, Israel and the PLO negotiated for close to 15 years in the absence of Hamas, and all the Palestinians got were more Jewish settlements on their occupied land, more roadblocks and checkpoints, a hateful apartheid wall built in the heartland of the West Bank, and the diminishing chance for peace.

Domestically, the Fayyad government, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars being paid or promised by Israel and the West, seems to be suffering from the same shortcomings that characterised the national unity government and its predecessor, the Hamas-led government.

This week, the government promised to pay a "full" salary to all public servants. However, when the public employees raced to the banks, they were told that their salaries wouldn't be paid in full because of the economic embargo."

Additionally, a further 19,000 employees were not paid at all, on the grounds that they were hired by the previous government, which Fayyad and Abbas regard as "illegal".

This draconian measure infuriated Hamas which demanded that public employees shouldn't be drawn into inter-factional politics.

Security-wise, the Fayyad government, despite strong statements has achieved very little, if anything.

It has failed to control the lawless militias, mostly affiliated with Fatah, which continue to behave like cowboys in the wild, wild west.

Earlier this week, some heads of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (AMB) castigated Fayyad for demanding their disarmament and urged Abbas to dismiss him.

Fayyad, who is an independent and has no base support amongst Palestinians, is trying to play the tough guy, mainly to please and appease the West and Israel. However, his ability to effect change on the ground is very limited, indeed.

In fact, no one undermines his ability to effect change more than the Israelis themselves. The Israeli occupation army continues to carry out forays, raids, incursions and assassinations, mostly targeting Fatah and Islamic Jihad activists, in the West Bank on a daily basis. In the eyes of the politically conscious Palestinian public, this gives the impression that the Fayyad government is more or less a quisling government.

Moreover, Israeli settlers, who act and behave as a state within a state, have been setting Palestinian fields in the West Bank on fire, destroying people's livelihoods and sources of income, all in full view of Israeli soldiers.

During his meeting with Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak and later with foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, Fayyad asked them to stop targeting Palestinian activists on a daily basis if only to strengthen his government in the eyes of the Palestinians. They responded positively and praised him, but nothing further came of this. Israeli help to date has included the planned release of 250 Fatah prisoners only but this is unlikely to help, as it represents help shown towards the Fatah faction only.

One Fatah leader quoted by the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz opined that the "release of the prisoners gives the impression that Israel is rewarding Fatah for collaborating with Israel and America... that won't help Abbas."

There is another problem closing in on Fayyad and his government, namely its legality and legitimacy.

This week, lawyers and jurists who wrote the interim Palestinian constitution have said that Abbas exceeded his powers when he appointed the new emergency cabinet.

Anis Al-Qassem and Eugene Cotran, who began drafting the Basic Law more than a decade ago, said it "gave Abbas the power to dismiss Haniya but did not allow him to appoint a new government without parliamentary approval."

Al-Qasem and Cotran explained that the Basic Law makes it clear that Haniya's unity cabinet should remain the caretaker administration until Abbas secured parliamentary approval for a new government.

Ahmed El-Khaldi, a law professor who also worked on drafts of the Basic Law, said he was concerned Palestinian democracy was "in retreat". Two weeks ago, El-Khaldi was briefly abducted by armed militiamen loyal to Fatah.

Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Abbas, Fayyad and their cohorts will be willing to heed the rule of law in this regard as they rely first and foremost on the power of the fait accompli.

On 9 July, Abbas asked the now-marginalised Legislative Council to convene next week to approve the Fayyad government retrospectively. However, Ahmed Bahr, the deputy- speaker of parliament, rejected the call, saying the session would be illegal.

Last week, the Legislative Council was to hold a session to discuss the current crisis. However, Fatah MPs decided to boycott the session, thereby thwarting the process. With Hamas now boycotting it, the same farce is expected to recur.

This predicament, the root cause of which is the mass arrest by Israel of over 40 per cent of Palestinian lawmakers, could prompt an increasingly moody Abbas to dissolve the legislative council (which is illegal) and call for new general elections.

However, new general elections, if truly fair and democratic, could be problematic for both Abbas and Fayyad.

According to an on-line opinion poll, by the quasi- independent Bethlehem Ma'an news agency, of 72,000 voters, more than 42 per cent said they would vote for Ismail Haniyeh if new elections were to be held today. Around 33 per cent said they would vote for Abbas.

In a similar online poll, by the semi-independent Al-Quds newspaper, of 30,000 potential voters, l5.2 per cent said they would vote for Haniya and only 13.79 per cent said they would vote for Abbas.

While the two polls are not scientific, they seem to indicate that general elections, unless they are rigged, may prove to be another fatal blow for Abbas and Fatah.

Caption: Palestinians hold up their national flag as they gather in the streets to call for dialogue between the two warring movements, Fatah and Hamas, to repair their ruptured relations after the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the Gaza Strip.

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/853/re61.htm

Jewish conference encourages bridging gap between Israel and Jewish Diaspora

International Herald Tribune. 12/07/07. JERUSALEM: The Jews of the U.S. and Israel are growing farther apart, and the schism is one of the contributing factors to the declining numbers of Jews in the world, a Jewish think tank concluded in a report released Thursday. The world's Jewish population stands at just over 13 million. The population remains stable thanks to Israel's natural growth, which offsets the continuing decrease in Jews elsewhere. Jews today represent only two out of every 1,000 people in the world, compared to a ratio of 3.5 to 1,000 in 1970, 4.7 to 1,000 in 1945, and 7.5 to 1,000 in 1938. Israel is home to 5.4 million Jews. Last year it became the largest world Jewish community, passing the U.S. with its estimated 5.3 million Jews. The "birthright israel" project offers Diaspora Jews between the ages of 18 and 26 who have never been to Israel a free trip to the Holy Land.

The Conference on the Future of the Jewish People brought together 120 leaders to address issues facing Jews, citing intermarriage, lack of affordable Jewish education and diminishing Jewish identity in the Diaspora as the leading factors in the decline in number of Jews around the world.

According to statistics presented at the conference, the world's Jewish population stands at just over 13 million. The population remains stable thanks to Israel's natural growth, which offsets the continuing decrease in Jews elsewhere.

Jews today represent only two out of every 1,000 people in the world, compared to a ratio of 3.5 to 1,000 in 1970, 4.7 to 1,000 in 1945, and 7.5 to 1,000 in 1938.

Israel is home to 5.4 million Jews. Last year it became the largest world Jewish community, passing the U.S. with its estimated 5.3 million Jews.

Jewish leaders have long warned that the Diaspora's identity is eroding as more Jews marry non-Jews and blend into the mainstream, a phenomenon known as "assimilation." In contrast, Israel has established its own intense Jewish character.

Participants said the main priority was to quickly bridge that gap, which threatens to divide the Jewish people, creating an Israeli nation out of touch with its heritage and a diminishing Diaspora detached from its biblical land.

Natan Sharansky, a former Israeli Cabinet minister and famed Soviet Jewish dissident, said both sides needed to recognize the strengths of the other.

"In Israel, we need to have more of an understanding of our Jewish history, and in the Diaspora there has to be a greater recognition that Israel is now the center of the Jewish world," he said.

Other participants said the first steps are already in place, with projects like "birthright israel," which offers Diaspora Jews between the ages of 18 and 26 who have never been to Israel a free trip to the Holy Land.

"I think we are on the way to stop the bleeding of assimilation," said Abraham Foxman, Director of the Anti-Defamation League, citing "birthright" as an example. "We don't have that much time, but we have begun."

President-elect Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli ministers, academics and Diaspora leaders addressed the conference.

The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, which organized the conference, was established in 2002 by the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency as a think tank for the future of the Jewish people. This was its first major conference.

Former U.S. Mideast peace envoy Dennis Ross, who heads the institute's board of directors, said the gathering of such a various crowd was itself a milestone.

"This is the first time that major philanthropists, leaders and Jewish policy professionals are meeting with the Jewish people's most distinguished thinkers and policy planners to deal deeply with the situation on the Jewish people and the actions necessary to secure its future," he said.