From: "mart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "robert rodvik" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Western Hypocrisy Revealed in Israeli Support
Date: Wednesday, February 28, 2001 10:59 AM
Subject: Western Hypocrisy Revealed in Israeli Support
INDEPENDENT (London) 26 February 2001
by Robert Fisk:
The United States fiddles while the Middle East peace process burns
As the wreckage of Oslo rusts away, the once-viable alternatives are
slowly being dismissed
In the Middle East, Palestinians and Israelis are fighting a civil
war. And what does the United States do? It bombs Iraq. As the
brutal Israeli-Palestinian conflict further infuriates the Arab
world, what does Secretary of State Colin Powell do? He arrives in
the Middle East wait for it - to "re-energise" sanctions against
Iraq and re-forge the anti-Iraqi coalition that ceased to exist more
than a decade ago. There's a story - perhaps apocryphal - that as the
Red Army stormed into Berlin in 1945, German civil servants were
still trying to calculate the Third Reich's paperclip ration for
1946. Mr Powell is now the paperclip man.
So it's relevant to ask some simple questions. Do the Americans
realise the catastrophe that is about to overwhelm the region? Have
they any idea of the elemental forces that may be unleashed in the
coming months? Is Washington still so obsessed with "World Terror
Inc" that it can forget the tragedy that is unfolding in the Middle
East? Does Mr Powell really think his job is to restate - as he did
yesterday - America's "rock solid" commitment to Israel.
Mr Powell has wisely abandoned that hoary old phrase, the "peace
process". But he has apparently no idea what to put in its place. And
what he was really confronting in the region at the weekend was a
Middle East in which all the familiar "peace" keys have been thrown
away. The Palestinian Authority is penniless and "ruling" - if such a
word still applies - over anarchy. The Israelis have elected a prime
minister who is regarded throughout the Arab world as a war criminal
and who now demands an end to the "intifada" uprising which he
himself provoked by marching to one of Islam's holiest shrines with
an escort of a thousand policemen.
Israel wants security without a peace agreement. The Palestinians
want an end to the very real Israeli occupation which the Israelis
themselves refuse to admit exists. So what does Mr Powell do? He
heads off to Yasser Arafat with a warning from Ehud Barak that if he
"doesn't change his behaviour, he'd pay a price". Mr Powell has only
been in office a few weeks and he's already carrying Israeli threats
to an Arab leader.
But it's getting more serious than that. For there is occurring in
the Middle East today a new and unprecedented phenomenon: the Arabs
are no longer afraid. The regimes are as timid as ever but the Arabs
as a people - brutalised and crushed over decades by corrupt
dictators are no longer running away. In Syria, the intellectuals
are continuing their democratic debates despite threats from the
state security apparatus. In Bahrain, the opposition are returning
from exile to build a new and potentially democratic country. In
"Palestine" - and we'd better keep the quotation marks there - the
Palestinians no longer run away. They go on fighting and killing and
dying. The old Sharon policy - of beating the Arabs till they come to
heel - is now as bankrupt as the Palestinian Authority that
is supposed to be controlling them.
And as the wreckage of the Oslo Agreement rusts away, the once-
viable alternatives are slowly being dismissed. For years, critics of
the Oslo Agreement pointed to the undeniable UN Security Council
Resolution 242 which demands a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the
territories occupied in 1967 (the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and east
Jerusalem) in return for the security of all states in the area,
including Israel. Oslo allowed Israel to renegotiate 242, to give
back some occupied land but keep other territory for itself; which is
why Oslo failed and why, ultimately, the second "intifada" broke out.
Amid the carnage, Arafat began talking again about 242; so did Hanan
Ashrawi and other sane Palestinians.
But now even this alternative is losing its appeal. More and more
among Palestinians, you hear the words that so frighten Israelis;
that they would like "all" of Palestine, not just the lands taken by
Israel in 1967. In Gaza last autumn, I actually encountered this
transition in progress. A Palestinian computer trainee began by
telling me that 242 was the only path to peace. But by the end of his
increasingly angry peroration, he began talking about Haifa and Acre
and Ashkelon, cities which are in Israel, not in the notional
"Palestine" which Arafat was prepared to accept.
Similarly, the "right of return". Throughout the seven years of
Oslo negotiations, the "right" of the three-and-a-half million
Palestinian refugees to return to their ancestral lands in what is
now Israel was kept out of the debate. This, we were told, would be
discussed in final status negotiations. The Palestinians suspected
that the Israelis - and the Americans - intended to throw away this
"right" at the end of the Oslo talks. And that, of course, is exactly
what happened. You can see why the Israelis refused; three-and-a-half
million more Palestinians living inside Israel would mean the
effective end of the Jewish state. But for the Palestinians, the
brisk shrugging off of this "sacred" right (enshrined in a General
Assembly but not a binding Security Council resolution) was
a grotesque trick. And now that Oslo has collapsed, the "right" of
return has become more real, more palpable, more serious - however
unachievable in practice.
You can see this process at work along the Lebanese-Israeli frontier.
Just last month, I sat watching a Palestinian refugee family from
Sidon as they picnicked on the Lebanese side of the frontier. It was
a balmy, soft day of brilliant sunshine and the mother and father and
their children - their family driven from Galilee in 1948 - never
took their eyes off the beautiful, wooded hills on the other side of
the frontier wire. Since the end of Israel's 22-year occupation of
southern Lebanon, countless Palestinian families have been able to
travel down to the border to look at these same hills. For the
soldiers on the other side, it is Israel. But to the Palestinians
rotting in Lebanon, it is Palestine. They can go and look at it. It
is real.
Indeed the very Israeli retreat from Lebanon last year played a
historic role in the changing perception of Arabs. The Hizbollah
fought the occupation until the Israelis upped-sticks and ran.
"Palestine" is not Lebanon. But the Palestinians learned a lesson.
You don't have to be frightened of Israel any more.
We can be sure that Colin Powell will not be dwelling on such matters
as he continues his three-day visit to the Middle East. He'll be
talking about Israel's "security" and about the need to re-focus
attention on Iraq. We'll hear again about Saddam's weapons of "mass
destruction". And while we do, the chances of a real peace in the
Middle East based on UN Security Council Resolution 242 - a peace for
Israel and a peace for a West Bank-Gaza Palestine - will go on
withering.
======================
*** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes. Feel free to distribute widely but PLEASE
acknowledge the source.
*** Thanks for everything Rob "JC
************
from: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
subject: Rob: Israeli Crimes against Humanity
Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: <Undisclosed [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "robert rodvik" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Fw: ISRAELI CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001
Subject: ISRAELI CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
For Immediate Release
Al-Haq Case Study 21 February 2001
The Israeli Shelling:
Illegal and Morally Reprehensible
Since the eruption of the Palestinian Intifada Israeli forces have
shelled many civilian Palestinian areas on a nightly basis killing
and injuring numerous Palestinians and destroying their property.
Indiscriminately fired Israeli shells make no distinction between
civilian homes and facilities and legitimate military targets. Over
the last five months al-Haq has been carefully following and
documenting these developments. After intensive bombing campaigns
during the first few months of the Intifada, Israeli forces, under
intense international pressure, began to limit their use of tanks and
helicopters in strikes against Palestinian targets during
January. Unfortunately this reprieve proved to be only temporary.
During the last several weeks, Israeli missiles have once again begun
to rain down on Palestinian civilian areas. What follows is a case
study of one of these attacks based on information gathered by al-
Haqís fieldworkers.
The National School for Blind Girls in al-Bireh came under fire from
Israeli tanks and heavy weaponry on 20 February 2001. The school was
shelled for more than three hours causing extensive damage to the
building. However, of greater significance is the psychological
impact that the shelling had on the disabled children in the school.
"The crime is doubled when it is committed against disabled children
who can hear the sound of the explosions, but can not see what is
happening around them. We do not know what to do now in order to
protect the children " said the schoolís headmaster Mr. Hayyan al-
Idrisi.
The National School for Blind Girls was established in 1978 under
the initiative of the Friends of the Blind Association in Palestine
with the objective of providing an education for children whose
parents cannot afford the expense of educating their disabled child.
The school works hard to integrate the students into the wider
Palestinian society in an attempt to provide them with every
opportunity given to student without disabilities. It currently
serves 75 blind female students ages 4-18 and is primarily dependent
upon charitable donations given by local community members.
The school provides educational, artistic, and counseling services
for its students. It doubles as a home for many of the students who
board there. Teachers treat students with motherly affection and the
students feel safe while they are at the school. Both students and
their teachers believed that the school was a safe location in which
the students could receive a good education. Unfortunately, the
Israeli shelling changed this belief causing many students and staff
to feel worried and on edge.
Ten-year-old Israí Ziedan told of the shelling as follows, "I was
awakened by the sounds of shelling. I began crying and woke up the
rest of the children to escape. None of the children could move out
of fear. Our teacher came and asked us to move to the staircase, as
it is the safest place in the building. All of the students rushed to
the staircase and, as they cannot see, many fell down out of panic
and fear. After I left my room I started looking for my brother who
attends the school with me, but I could not find him. Our teacher
then asked us to pray for the shelling to stop and to ask God to
protect us. Ulfat, who is only 4, would not stop crying until
our teacher Suhier came and hugged her" Ulfat said that at first she
tried to calm down other children, but being only a child herself she
was also scared of the shelling and needed someone to comfort her.
After a short time she said that she could not contain her fear and
began to cry. Her teacher said that she cried throughout the rest of
the Shelling, which lasted for three hours.
The Israeli authorities often talk about "purity of arms", but then
defile this ìpurityî when they use force indiscriminately against
civilian targets, including innocent disabled children. In so doing
the Israeli forces have violated international treaties and norms
related to the rights of children, and all commonly held ethical
standards.
For years al-Haq has repeatedly warned the international community
about the consequences of Israelís continuous violations of
International Humanitarian Law and Palestinian civiliansí human
rights. We would now like to express deep concern regarding these
most recent developments and Israelís continued grave violations in
the Occupied Territories. Local and international human rights
organizations have repeatedly called upon the United Nations
Security Council to provide a protection force for the Palestinian
people. Unfortunately their requests have fallen upon deaf ears and
no action has been taken. In order to stop the Israeli authorities
from continuing their illegal campaign, which has instilled terror in
the local Palestinian population, al-Haq now calls upon the
international community to place pressure upon the members of the
Security Council to take immediate action. To wait can only serve to
further Israelís goal of terrorizing the Palestinian people and will
lead to an increased number of human rights violations. The
Palestinian people both deserve and require the assistance and
protection of the international community.
-END-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
AL-HAQ, an NGO in consultative status with the Economic and Social
Council of the United Nations and the West Bank affiliate of the
International Commission of Jurists-Geneva, was established in 1979
by a group of Palestinian lawyers in order to uphold the rule of law
and defend Palestinian human rights in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory. AL-HAQ, P.O. Box 1413, Ramallah, Palestine. Tel: +972 2
295 4646, Fax: +972 2 295 4903,
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], www.alhaq.org Website: " JC
=========================================================
Knowledge is Power!
Elimination of the exploitation of man by man
http://www.egroups.com/group/pttp/
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Change Delivery Options:
http://www.egroups.com/mygroups
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
_________________________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki
Phone +358-40-7177941
Fax +358-9-7591081
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
General class struggle news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Geopolitical news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
__________________________________________________
