Qassam hits Negev elementary school before pupils arrive

A harsh Israeli response might be the only thing that can unite the Palestinians, who are on the brink of a civil war.
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Last update - 08:51 13/06/2007
Qassam hits Negev elementary school before pupils arrive
By Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/870554.html

A Qassam rocket slammed into the yard of an elementary school near Sderot early on Wednesday, causing damage but no injuries.

Authorities said the rocket hit before pupils began arriving at the Sha'ar Hanegev school.

Earlier this week, officials in the Prime Minister's Office said it would take from one to three years to to reinforce all classrooms in Sderot and in the communities around Gaza against Qassam attacks. They said it would be impossible to meet a High Court-ordered deadline specifying that the reinforcement be completed by the opening of the coming school year in September.

According to the present system, students have 15 seconds, from the moment the alarm sounds until the Qassam hits, to reach each school's single protected area. The High Court determined that this was not enough time and that the method does not meet the test of reasonability.

At present, some 340 classrooms are not reinforced - about half of all classrooms in Sderot and the communities around the Gaza Strip.

Hamas on the verge of a complete conquest of the Gaza Strip

Abu Amr, foreign minister, explained the violence between Hamas and Fatah as follows:

 

"If you have two brothers, put them in a cage and deprive them of basic and essential needs for life, they will fight," Abu Amr told a news conference in Tokyo. "I don't think we should put the blame on the victim."

 

Always define yourself as the victim. The Palestinians got more money this year than in previous years, and there is no shortage in guns and bullets.

The conditions of the Palestinian population in the Gaza strip are very sad indeed, but it will not help to only blame others. Also, for outsiders to be able to help succesfully it is important that people show they appreciate that help and do what they can to change their situation.

 

Ratna 

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Last update - 12:32 13/06/2007

Hamas on the verge of a complete conquest of the Gaza Strip

 

By Avi Issacharoff , Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and Reuters

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/870548.html

Hamas was on the verge of completing its conquest of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, with positions in Gaza City remaining as the only significant bastions of Fatah resistance.

 

Eight Fatah men were killed in fierce fighting near the home of senior Fatah official Maher Mekdad. Mekdad was able to escape, but Hamas took control of the area.

 

Hamas seized control of the refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, after it swept into the headquarters of Abbas' powerful National Security Forces facing only token resistance.

 

At least 15 Palestinians were wounded Wednesday, including five civilians, two of whom are in serious condition.

 

Hamas said Fatah militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade against the house of its Deputy Minister of Information, setting the house ablaze but causing no injuries.

 

Hamas said it also seized and bulldozed a key Fatah outpost that controls Gaza's main north-south road.

 

At least 25 people were killed and dozens wounded in Tuesday's fighting, bringing the death toll to roughly 50 since the latest round of violence broke out.

 

Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr warned on Wednesday that factional violence in Gaza could spread to the West Bank if nothing is done, but dismissed threats that Fatah might leave the government as speculation.

 

Abu Amr, in Tokyo for discussions on aid and regional issues with Japanese leaders, dismissed reports that Fatah had decided to withdraw from the government as "speculation."

 

Fatah announced Tuesday night that it was suspending its participation in the Palestinian unity government until the fighting stopped.

 

"Fatah so far has not decided what to do with Hamas and I don't think it makes very much sense to try to undermine the national unity government," Abu Amr, an independent, told a news conference.

 

Abu Amr blamed the deadly clashes on pressures imposed by outside forces.

 

"If you have two brothers, put them in a cage and deprive them of basic and essential needs for life, they will fight," Abu Amr told a news conference in Tokyo. "I don't think we should put the blame on the victim."

 

Abbas, Haniyeh calls for restraint go unheeded

Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh both made calls for restraint Tuesday, but they went largely unheeded.

 

Forces loyal to Abbas were ordered Tuesday evening to defend their positions in Gaza, and counter a "coup" by Hamas.

Six Day War and present: Five comments on the situation

3 comments about the Six Day War, 1 about a new war with Syria, and 1 about binoculars (?)

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Five comments on the situation

By Yoel Marcus
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/868472.html

1. The power of stuttering. When the "waiting period" that preceded the 1967 Six- Day War was at its height, and hundreds of thousands of reserve soldiers and Israeli citizens were sitting around in a funk, it was decided that the prime minister, Levi Eshkol, should get on the radio and speak to the nation. The speech was written by Yisrael Galili, who had tiny, cramped handwriting. The two Israel Radio secretaries had already gone home, and there was no one to type the speech. On top of that, one of the bulbs over the microphone was burned out.

While reading the text, Eshkol, who was known for his hemming and hawing (his nickname was "half-tea, half-coffee"), stumbled over a word. Galili had crossed out the word nesiga ("withdrawal of troops") and written over it hasaga (a fancier word for the same thing). Confused, Eshkol turned to his bureau chief and asked in Yiddish over the open mike: "What's this 'hasaga'?" The whole country heard him mumbling and got even more depressed. That was the turning point that led to the convening of an emergency government and Moshe Dayan being appointed defense minister. Within a few days, Israel went to war and won its greatest victory of all time. Looking back, Eshkol's indecisiveness put the Egyptians to sleep and allowed Israel to win big time. Wouldn't it be nice if we had leaders like that today, who would not go to war on two hours' notice and end up losing miserably? Sometimes, stuttering is also power.

2. The most justified war. As Haaretz's correspondent in Paris, I was at the Israeli Embassy when half a million people rallied in the streets to show their solidarity with Israel. There was a sense that the Arabs were about to wipe out the Jewish state. On television, people saw Egyptian troops marching into Sinai; they heard Nasser's warmongering speeches. Ahmed Shukeiry, the secretary of the Arab League, declared that the Jews of Israel would be sent back to the countries they came from and native Israelis would be slaughtered. Among the celebrities who showed up at the embassy to express their solidarity, the one who most touched our hearts was pianist Arthur Rubinstein, who wept aloud and infected everyone with his morbid prediction that Holocaust II was on the way. What those now denouncing the 40th anniversary of the occupation do not understand is that the Six- Day War was the most justified war Israel ever fought - because it knocked out of the Arabs' heads the idea that Israel could be destroyed by force.

3. Altitude sickness. After its victory, Israel came down with altitude sickness. By the eighth day of the war, this country of 21,350 square kilometers had become a country of 89,000 square kilometers - the same size as Austria. While the citizens of Israel were cheering and the victory albums were leaping hot off the press, only David Ben-Gurion and Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz advised giving the territories back right away. And that was even before the word "occupation" had rolled off anyone's lips. Not only that, but the government, and that includes Menachem Begin, voted on June 19 to return the territories captured from Egypt and Syria in exchange for recognition of Israel.

The Arab response came in September, in the form of the Khartoum summit's three big nos: no recognition, no peace, no negotiations with Israel. Actually, the real pioneer of settlement in the territories was the Israeli left, supposedly on the pretext of security. Yisrael Galili of the Ahdut Ha'avoda faction declared that Israel would never part with Gaza. And so, little by little, the victory turned into an occupation studded with wars, to the point where the myth of Israel's deterrent power and ability to win has been shattered in the eyes of Islamic extremists and the world as a whole.

4. Drowning its sorrows. So who invented the story about a war this summer? The weather forecaster? And what about the story that Syria is planning an attack on Israel? Did we get a fax from Damascus? Or is the army just covering itself in case it really happens because it cannot claim once again that it didn't know? I wonder what goes on at those government meetings in Damascus. Are they quaking in their boots or laughing their heads off? Are they saying: If Israel says we're preparing to attack, maybe that means they're planning to attack? Is it any wonder that they are sharpening their sabers over there? And in the middle of all this, the papers are reporting secret talks between Israel and Syria. But maybe that is camouflage, too. Maybe there is some surprise attack in the offing, and the Syrians are honing their defenses? Actually, it sounds more as if the Winograd Committee's final report is drawing near and the government is drowning its sorrows.

5. Peretz's binoculars. This week, Amir Peretz was seen observing a military exercise without binoculars, while the generals standing next to him were all peering through theirs. The rumor about the army no longer handing out binoculars to guests was flatly denied. The truth is that Peretz is still observing military exercises, but now he uses contact lens binoculars that Rafael, the armament development authority, invented specially for him.

Tortured by the Palestinian police

Waar blijven de internationale veroordelingen en de verontwaardiging van Van Agt en Duisenberg over de mensenrechtenschendingen door de Palestijnse politie? Waarom zien we hier geen reportage over bij Een Vandaag?
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Tortured by the Palestinian police
By Walid Batrawi
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E90146FB-1B7E-491C-A844-570DADD06C73.htm

Life goes on for Wisam Hanna as the wounds on his body heal, but the painful memories remain.

Wisam and three of his relatives were interrogated by Palestinian police after a dispute with the mayor of their village. They were badly beaten.

"It was very violent in the prison in Ramallah, where there were five people. They held me down, they lay me on the table, took my trousers off and started hitting me on the back of my legs and the soles of my feet," Wisam said.

"Then they took my top off and made me stand in front of the window and started pulling my chest hairs out. Then they carried on slapping me and threw me onto the floor and started kicking me."

Lack of trust

Over the last few years, Palestinians have lost trust in their police force and the judiciary. Many of their complaints have never been answered.

Most violations of citizens' rights go unpunished, but Wisam and his relatives had the courage to file a complaint.

"[Wisam and his family] came to our offices in the late hours of that day. They exposed their bodies," Mamdouh Aker, civil rights commissioner-general, said.

"Immediately we contacted the person in charge of that security apparatus. He promptly came to the office and listened to them. His immediate reaction was to apologise to them.

"He suspended the officers who were involved and then they were totally dismissed from the [police] service."

Report findings

A recent report by the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens Rights shows that the number of violations against citizens has doubled in 2006.

The commission blames the rise in violations on the shortcomings of the different branches of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Torture in Palestinian police and security centres is an alarming phenomenon - the report documents 133 torture cases during 2006.

Sixty-eight incidents of torture have been reported during the first quarter of 2007 alone, suggesting an alarming rise on the previous year.

When Al Jazeera requested an interview with a police official over the torture allegations, we were told that the only person who can talk about the matter was out of the country.

Wisam's case may not change immediately change methods of interrogation in Palestinian police stations.

But human-rights organisations say the fact that action was taken in Wisam's case is a step in the right direction.

Source: Al Jazeera

Syrian 'hate' aimed not at Jews but at the Israeli government

Syria and its difficult relationship with the Jews

 

 

In the article below about the history of the Jewish community in Syria and the little that is left of it, it is unjustly suggested that Syria has nothing against Jews, and the hostility is only towards Israel. The distinction that some of the interviewed make between Jews and Israel is not typical for Syrian politics or media:

 

"Israel is one thing, and Jews are something else," Mahmoud Sharif, an English-speaking tour guide, told JTA in Aleppo. "We respect the Jewish religion and consider it one of God's religions, but we don't accept Israel."

 

For instance former minister of defence Mustapha Tlass wrote a book a few years ago in which the Jews are accused of using the blood of a priest for making matzes, the infamous Damascus blood libel of 1840. In Syrian media and also in Islamic prayer services such anti-Semitic accusations are frequent. It should not suprise that a guide showing an American journalist around in the old Jewish Quarter does not entertain such language, and claims to respect the Jewish religion. But even this remarc for Western ears is a far cry from acknowleging the Jews as a people with national rights.

 

From the 1960s to the 1980s, Syria's few Jews lived in fear, chafing under constant police surveillance and severe restrictions on business dealings, property ownership and overseas travel.

 

Those limits mostly ended in the mid-1990s, when then-President Hafez Assad - under heavy U.S. pressure - allowed more than 1,200 Jews to leave for new lives in the United States, Europe and, indirectly, Israel.

"There used to be a Jewish quarter in Damascus and maybe 20 synagogues," Kaplan said. "Today there's only one functioning synagogue, and they struggled to get a minyan the Shabbat morning I was there. We actually didn't make it. We got to eight."

JTA's attempts to interview Syrian Jews proved fruitless - no one seemed to know how to contact them. Jews here keep such a low profile that officials at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus won't comment on the subject.

 

Why did the Jews live in constant fear and did they need police protection? Because the Syrians all loved the Jews?? And why did they all want to leave when they were allowed to? Why is it impossible to talk to the few Jews remaining in Syria? Apparently they have something to fear. The Syrians seem less tolerant than the writer of the article wants to make us believe when he writes:

 

Despite Syria's official anti-Zionist policy -- and the state of war that has existed between Israel and Syria since 1948 -- a JTA reporter heard not a comment against Jews during his five-day visit to Aleppo last month.

Residents of Aleppo, asked for directions to the Harat al-Yahud, the former Jewish quarter, pointed the way without a hint of hostility. In fact, a sign in Arabic at the entrance to the abandoned Joab Ben Zeruiah synagogue warns against dumping trash "in front of this holy place of worship."

 

Wow, you are shown the way to the former Jewish Quarter without being called a 'Jewish dog'. That's a relief. Would they have pointed the way as friendly to a thriving Jewish Quarter?

Even in Germany in 1936 most people would probably have kindly shown you the way to a Jewish neighbourhood. It is a pity that the people this JTA journalist spoke with did not tread the Jews better when they were still in Syria.

 

Ratna

 

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AROUND THE JEWISH WORLD Syrian 'hate' aimed not at Jews but at the Israeli government http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/20070607syriaIsrael.html    By Larry Luxner Published: 06/07/2007   ALEPPO, Syria (JTA) – From the roof of a nondescript, four-story apartment building in downtown Aleppo -- amid a jumble of water tanks, power lines and satellite dishes -- one can gaze down at the last remnant of one of the world's oldest Jewish communities. Hebrew gravestones, partially obscured by weeds and garbage, occupy a plot of land adjacent to the historic Joab Ben Zeruiah Synagogue, whose stone archways and grand interior walls hint of a prosperous and lively Jewish past. The shul, in continuous use for more than 1,600 years, sits deserted. The families living in nearby apartments have no clue that this ancient building once housed the most influential center of Torah learning in the Middle East. This rooftop perch offers the only view of the synagogue's restored interior because its front door is always locked. A sign at the entrance provides a phone number in Damascus for tourists, but the man who answers says military police must arrange all visits. Syria is home to probably no more than 50 Jews among a total population of 18.5 million. Nearly all live in Damascus, except for perhaps two or three Jews in Aleppo. "The Jewish community is quite elderly at this point. Nobody bothers them," said Seth Kaplan, a New York-based researcher who visited Syria recently for three weeks. "In fact, many Syrians told me they miss the Jews on some level." Despite Syria's official anti-Zionist policy -- and the state of war that has existed between Israel and Syria since 1948 -- a JTA reporter heard not a comment against Jews during his five-day visit to Aleppo last month. Residents of Aleppo, asked for directions to the Harat al-Yahud, the former Jewish quarter, pointed the way without a hint of hostility. In fact, a sign in Arabic at the entrance to the abandoned Joab Ben Zeruiah synagogue warns against dumping trash "in front of this holy place of worship." But the attitude changes on Israel. "Israel is one thing, and Jews are something else," Mahmoud Sharif, an English-speaking tour guide, told JTA in Aleppo. "We respect the Jewish religion and consider it one of God's religions, but we don't accept Israel." Aleppo, an ancient metropolis of 1.5 million, is Syria's second-largest city and is renowned for its walled Citadel, which stands on a hilltop in the middle of town. From a Jewish point of view it's also famous for the Aleppo Codex – the earliest known manuscript containing the entire text of the Bible. The Jewish presence in this city dates back some 2,500 years, to the time of King David. It peaked in the late 19th century, with Aleppo's 10,000 Jews representing 20 percent of the Jewish population in Syria, but started to decline before World War I as young Jewish men fled to avoid serving in the Ottoman army. Thousands of Syrian Jews ended up in Mexico City, Buenos Aires and New York City. Massive emigration continued after the war, and intensified in 1947 as Syria, having gained independence from France a year earlier, encouraged pogroms against Jewish-owned shops and synagogues. Rioters in Aleppo that year burned the city's Jewish quarter and killed 75 people. From the 1960s to the 1980s, Syria's few Jews lived in fear, chafing under constant police surveillance and severe restrictions on business dealings, property ownership and overseas travel. Those limits mostly ended in the mid-1990s, when then-President Hafez Assad – under heavy U.S. pressure – allowed more than 1,200 Jews to leave for new lives in the United States, Europe and, indirectly, Israel. "There used to be a Jewish quarter in Damascus and maybe 20 synagogues," Kaplan said. "Today there's only one functioning synagogue, and they struggled to get a minyan the Shabbat morning I was there. We actually didn't make it. We got to eight." JTA's attempts to interview Syrian Jews proved fruitless – no one seemed to know how to contact them. Jews here keep such a low profile that officials at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus won't comment on the subject. A Syrian-born rabbi who left in 1960 and now leads a prominent congregation in New Jersey said the community is nearly nonexistent. The rabbi returned in 1977. "It was a memorable trip," the rabbi said, "but it's not a free country so we had to be careful." Waddah Tabshow, owner of the Jafra House Oriental Souvenir Shop in the Souq al-Madinah marketplace here, told JTA he knew a number of Jews growing up, though he had lost contact with them over the years. "Jewish people here had friendships with many people, but the families we know left in the early '90s because they got permission from the Syrian government to leave," he said. Sharif suggested that the Jews left "because Syria wasn't a good country to live in, and because there were more opportunities in other countries." As to Israel, the 31-year-old college graduate said the problem is not with its people but its government. "Israel uses heavy weapons against children," said Sharif, who did his army service on Syria's border with the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the Six-Day War of 1967. "They've forced Palestinians from their land. The Palestinians have a miserable life, and many [refugee] families in Syria still think of their villages. If you ask them about Palestine, they will cry." Assad has signaled that he wants to hold peace talks with Israel, but at the same time Syria has been engaged in an unprecedented upgrading of weapons' systems and large-scale troop maneuvers. Also, the Syrians are said to be transferring long-range rockets to Hezbollah with the ability to strike targets in central Israel. Talking about politics – even when criticizing Israel – is risky in Syria, where police seem to be nearly as numerous as the ubiquitous posters of President Bashar Assad and his late father. For example, a 20-foot-high statue of Hafez Assad towers over the main highway from Damascus to Aleppo, while an enormous billboard of Bashar Assad guards the entrance to the al-Hamadiyya market in Damascus, with the Arabic text "God Protects Syria." At the Omar Khawatmi Elementary School in a poor neighborhood here, more than 1,000 boys and girls in blue uniforms assemble on the outdoor basketball court every morning to sing patriotic songs and shout slogans in Arabic. Asked what they are shouting, the headmaster carefully replies: "They are praising our president." Even so, things apparently have lightened up a bit since the younger Assad took over in 2000 upon the death of his father. "We feel we can talk more freely now and criticize things that are wrong," Sharif said. "For example, three days ago on a television program called 'Let's Talk,' people were speaking frankly about Parliament, saying that politicians are only for themselves and that we want them to do something for the people. I never heard such words on TV before." One thing Syrians talk quite a lot about is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The ongoing violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip dominates TV shows, coffee-shop conversation and headlines in the newspapers – all of which are state-controlled, including the English-language Syria Times. "People here don't like Israel," Sharif said. "They think about this situation every day. It's our daily problem. They think Israel won't last forever." Asked what it would take to change people's attitudes, Sharif thought for a moment. "If Israel gave us back the Golan, it would be a good sign they really want peace," he suggested. "[But] whether the government makes peace with Israel or not, the people will not agree. And if they agree, it's because they'll be forced to agree. They hate Israel." In the meantime, Aleppo shopkeeper Salaheddin Abbas has his own take on the situation. "It's obvious that America and Russia are making trouble in the region, so that Russia can sell weapons to Syria and Iran, and the U.S. can sell weapons to Israel and Saudi Arabia," said Abbas, 36, who sells antique brassware and carpets. "I believe poor people in Israel want peace, not rich people. It's all about business."

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Poor Samson: The IDF between 1967 and 2007

http://www.bitterlemons-international.org/inside.php?id=748

 

Poor Samson: The IDF between 1967 and 2007   Uri Bar-Joseph Approximately six months before the Six-Day War, the IDF rejected an American proposal to assist Israel in finding technological solutions to the intensifying infiltration of Palestinian guerillas into Israel. Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin and his generals expressed the view that the right answer to the problem was increasing military pressure on Syria, rather than electronic fences that would turn Israel into another ghetto and consume the scarce manpower and financial resources that were needed to reinforce the army. Forty years later, the IDF--by far the strongest army between Morocco and the Indian subcontinent--failed to defeat a few thousand Hizballah fighters who kept launching Katyusha rockets until the very last moment of the Second Lebanon War. The gap between the aggressive, lean military machine of the 1960s and the far bigger, bureaucratic and less effective army of the early twenty first century was, to a large extent, the result of the 1967 war. Before the war, the IDF had to defend a vulnerable state, most of whose territory was within the range of Arab artillery. The territorial outcomes of the war turned Damascus, Amman, and Cairo into prey for the Israel Air Force, and the Suez Canal and its industrial area into an easy target for Israeli artillery. Most importantly, the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip made the IDF responsible for administering the lives of nearly a million Palestinian civilians. In the first decade after the war, when Israel's main challenge was still conventional Arab forces, the IDF succeeded in maintaining its professional quality. This was proven in 1973, when the IDF came back from a near defeat in the first days of the war to a situation where only a UN resolution saved the Egyptian army from complete destruction. But the Yom Kippur War was Israel's last conventional conflict. The peace treaty with Egypt rendered the Arab conventional military option more remote than ever. And even though, in the short run, the traditional threat was replaced by that of the eastern front coalition headed by Iraq, Saddam Hussein's 1980 attack on Iran almost completely nullified that, too. The collapse of the USSR, Syria's strategic ally in the late 1980s, and the 1991 Gulf war that destroyed much of the Iraqi army completed this process. The end of the Cold War left the IDF with no real enemies. In parallel to the decline of the conventional threat, the non-conventional challenge of Arab guerilla and terrorism began to rise. The Israeli war initiative against the PLO in 1982 was the first Arab-Israel war in which the IDF fought a relatively low intensity conflict against a far weaker opponent. As a number of studies show, the IDF's performance-level in this war was quite low in comparison with past conventional conflicts. The outcome of the war was frustrating as well. Although most of the Palestinian force was destroyed and the PLO was expelled from Lebanon, the IDF suffered many casualties. And when it withdrew from the territory it had occupied three years earlier, it left behind a new type of enemy: Hizballah. The outbreak of the first intifada in late 1987 intensified the process of decline in the quality of the Israeli army. If until then policing the occupied territories was only the IDF's secondary mission, it now became its primary one. This type of activity can erode the quality of any army and the IDF was no exception. The brilliant military historian Martin van Creveld warned in the aftermath of the intifada: "The troops now look upon mostly empty-handed Palestinian men, women, and children as if they were in fact a serious military threat. Among the commanders, the great majority can barely remember when they trained for and engaged in anything more dangerous than police-type operations; in the entire IDF there is now hardly an officer left who has commanded so much as a brigade in real war." This analysis fully materialized in the years that followed. The unilateral withdrawal in 2000 from Israel's self-proclaimed security zone in southern Lebanon ended the low intensity conflict with Hizballah that had proven to be an effective rival, leaving Palestinian terrorism of the second intifada as the IDF's sole military activity. Since September 2000, thousands of soldiers have spent their entire military service at roadblocks, patrolling refugee camps or guarding settlements, far away from their tanks, artillery pieces and APCs, thus becoming a professionally degenerate military force. The final outcome was vividly exposed in the Second Lebanon War. In this sense, the seeds of the IDF's failure to decisively defeat Hizballah were planted in the refugee camps of Jenin and Balata and in numerous roadblocks along dirt roads in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The performance of IDF ground forces in the Second Lebanon War triggered a considerable effort to upgrade their professional quality. At the same time, however, the continuation of the occupation is likely to undermine this effort. Thus, the irony of history is that one of the long-term results of the Six-Day War is the constant deterioration in the quality of the proud and professional army that in 1967 achieved one of the most brilliant victories in history.- Published 7/6/2007 © bitterlemons-international.org Dr. Uri Bar-Joseph is a senior lecturer in the Division of International Relations at the School of Political Science, University of Haifa. His most recent book is The Watchman Fell Asleep: The Surprise of Yom Kippur and Its Sources (SUNY Press, 2005).

The goading of Israel (Arnold Wesker)

The goading of Israel

Arnold Wesker

February 8, 2007 4:00 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/arnold_wesker/2007/02/arnold_wesker.html

I was approached to be part of the new group, Independent Jewish Voices, and declined. I couldn't quite see how one could be independent being part of a group, especially as there is a third group, unattached, unclubable, who prefer to feel free to both criticise Israel when the time is right, and to express outrage that since the creation by the UN (Resolution 181) of the state of Israel, the Israelis have been ceaselessly goaded in one form or another.

In the mid-sixties, nearly 40 years ago, I was one of the guests of honour at a fund-raising event for The Jewish Quarterly magazine. The Israeli ambassador was another guest of honour. In my speech arguing the need for support for the arts I made the passing observation that there would never be peace in the Middle East until the Palestinians had their own state.

The air was tense with hostility from my Jewish brethren, applause for my speech was thin. I fear it may have affected the amounts donated. The point I'm making is that I did not need an IJV to speak for me 40 years ago any more than I need a Jewish Board of Deputies to speak for me now.

The Israelis may not have turned out to be the wise Jews many of us hoped for, but I don't believe that they have been allowed to create the climate in which wisdom flourishes. Had the poor, constantly occupied Palestinians, like the desperate, war-ravaged Jews, accepted partition in 1947, then a combination of the Israeli and Palestinian states alongside one another might have by now transformed the Middle East; they might today together have been the leaders in the area.

I shall never cease to wonder how a generous people - the Palestinians - could not have found it within themselves to concede a small tract of desert to a people who had such vivid historical roots in the land, who had bought most of what they claimed anyway, and who had worked its deserts into fertile stretches.

Somewhere an Arab voice is whispering: "Keep goading the Israelis, they'll react in a way that will anger the world who don't much like Jews anyway, keep goading, even Jewish intellectuals will have sympathy for us, it works! Keep goading, keep goading!"

Click here for a full list of articles in the Independent Jewish Voices debate.

The Real Palestinian Catastrophe (Philadelphia Daily News)

This item is available on the Middle East Forum website, at http://www.meforum.org/article/1695

The Real Palestinian 'Catastrophe'

by Cameron S. Brown and Asaf Romirowsky
Philadelphia Daily News
May 29, 2007

On May 15, the Palestinians commemorated the 59th anniversary of al-Naqba ("the Catastrophe"), a day of "mourning" the establishment of the modern state of Israel on May 15, 1948.

In a sense, al-Naqba is the quintessential event that separates the Palestinians' historical experience from that of other Arab Muslim groups and forges their unique national identity.

It is worth noting that the Palestinians use the same day Israel declared its independence to mark their national day. As is the case with so much of Palestinian society and culture, it is the actions of their Jewish neighbors - not anything of their own doing - that's the constant focus of their attention.

Which brings us to the question: What exactly is the real "catastrophe"? Given that this year's al-Naqba commemoration has been overshadowed by the anarchy and infighting in Gaza, many Palestinians say that the real Naqba is the lack of unity in their society. Indeed, this internal factionalism is often cited by Palestinians as one of the key reasons they lost in the first place during the 1948 war opposing the formation of Israel.

Perhaps. But it looking at a different aspect of this year's Naqba events might give us a better hint of what the real Palestinian problem is.

In the early morning of May 15, Hamas used mortars, missiles and machine guns to attack a Presidential Guard contingent belonging to Fatah that was stationed near the Karni border crossing with Israel. Hamas then hit a jeep carrying Fatah reinforcements, and ensured their targets were dead by shooting them in the head at close range.

When the shooting was over, 10 Fatah members were dead, with a similar number wounded.

Suddenly aware that their unprovoked massacre may have gone too far, Hamas claimed it was Israel who had actually killed the Fatah people and threatened any journalist who dared report otherwise.

Then, in a truly perverse twist, Hamas launched more than 20 rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot "to take revenge" for the massacre they themselves had committed.

Given the overwhelming evidence and eyewitness accounts of those who were there, it was clear to most Palestinians that Hamas had committed the massacre. Still, when trying to explain the cause of the current infighting, several Palestinians, including Musa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, insisted that Israel was somehow to blame.

This is the real Palestinian Naqba, the disaster at the root of Palestinian suffering since even before 1948.

Instead of taking responsibility for their role in shaping their destiny, on virtually every occasion, the Palestinians have twisted their worldview to put the blame solely on Israel.

There is no self-awareness, not to mention self-criticism. No sense of accountability.

Since the Six-Day War of 1967, this tendency has only become worse. All too often, Palestinians claim that living under Israeli occupation has "driven" them to terrorism, as if they had no choice but to walk into a café and blow up people sitting there.

Such an approach not only ignores the pre-1967 (and indeed pre-1948) Palestinian terrorism. (It also fails to recognize that history has numerous examples of non-violent movements that were much more effective at achieving their aims.)

But the most unfortunate part of the Palestinians' fate is that they have had so many supporters around the world (including significant segments of the Israeli public) that they were by no means destined for the poverty and misery they find themselves in today. They certainly weren't destined to remain stateless almost 60 years after the United Nations passed the partition plan.

The lesson is that only when Palestinians, leadership and public alike, start to consider how their own actions have been the primary cause for the sorry state they're in will there be a chance for it to improve.

And once that true soul-searching finally takes place, and they begin to take responsibility for their collective destiny, the Palestinian people will be able to help themselves far more than all the other nations of the world have ever been able to.

Cameron S. Brown is deputy director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliya, Israel. Asaf Romirowsky is a Campus Watch Associate Fellow for the Middle East Forum and the Manager of Israel & Middle East Affairs for the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

This item is available on the Middle East Forum website, at http://www.meforum.org/article/1695

Aid to PA nearly tripled in 2006 despite international boycott

Last update - 11:53 16/05/2007  

Aid to PA nearly tripled in '06, despite international boycott

By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/860220.html

Donations to the Palestinian Authority almost tripled last year as a result of the international boycott of the Hamas government, according to a report published this month by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Aid in 2006 totaled $900 million, up from $349 million a year earlier.

The boycott meant that most countries refused to channel money directly to the PA, and Israel refused to transfer the tax revenues it collects on the PA's behalf.

However, Arab and Western nations continued and even increased their donations, channeling them through either a "Hamas bypass" mechanism known as the Temporary International Mechanism (TIM), or the office of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. This money, which compensated entirely for the halt in Israeli tax transfers, partially financed the salaries of PA employees and was used to make welfare payments to the needy.

Normally, Israeli tax transfers cover about two-thirds of the Palestinian Authority's budget. Had economic activity in 2006 continued at the same level as the year before, they would have reached an estimated $800 million last year. But in fact, the PA's gross domestic product fell by 8 to 10 percent in 2006.

According to the report, the biggest contributor to the PA last year was the Arab League, which gave $448 million.

The European Union gave $219 million and the World Bank gave $42 million. In addition, the government obtained an estimated $180 million by smuggling in cash from abroad.

The report noted that, in part because less money was funneled directly to the PA, the trend toward greater financial transparency was reversed in 2006, even though the PA's donors have pushed for transparency for years.

For instance, instead of monthly reports on the utilization of the PA's budget, reports were published only semiannually, violating the PA's budget law.

Abbas' office issued no comprehensive data on its expenditures or receipts of money from abroad, while the Palestinian Investment Fund did not fully report its dealings with either the banks or Abbas' office.

Overall, TIM meant that the PA Finance Ministry had no control over income and expenditures and could not draft a budget for 2006, while its 2007 budget proposal lacked relevant data such as income and expenses for 2006 or the number of public-sector employees. It also caused other government offices to lag in payments to suppliers and resulted in the government's total expenditure falling 31 percent in 2006 to $1.37 billion. Its payments for salaries in particular dropped from $1 billion in 2005 to $655 million.

TIM also resulted in bureaucratic duplication and financial uncertainty for the recipients, the report said. For example, many employees did not receive their salaries regularly.

The document was written by Dr. Karim Nashashibi, who until two months ago was the International Monetary Fund's representative for the West Bank and Gaza.

Lebanon 1982: "What I saw at the Islamic revolution" (Hezbollah)

Baltimore Sun
What I saw at the Islamic revolution
By Hussain Abdul-Hussain
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.hezbollah20may20,0,910940.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines

May 20, 2007

"Enough soccer; we should go occupy the army barracks," said Ali, whose dad, a religious scholar, had sent him to get us. I was 8 and didn't want to stop playing, but we reluctantly followed Ali to the top of the Sheik Abdullah hill, the site of the biggest Lebanese army barracks in the country. There we saw hundreds of women, all in black cloaks, shouting, "Death to Amin Gemayel" - the former Lebanese president - "Death to America," and "Death to Israel."

It was the summer of 1982, and I had no idea that I was about to take part in the birth of a movement that would shake the Middle East and the world.

For a young boy spending the summer at his mother's village in Baalbek, in eastern Lebanon, the scene was disorienting. I had no clue who Amin Gemayel was, or the point of the protest. Coming from Baghdad, I was used to schoolteachers taking us to the streets to shout slogans praising Saddam Hussein. But Lebanon was different.

Ali's dad told us to go stand behind "the sisters" and shout "Death to America," which we did. After some time, the barracks' guards gave up and opened the gates. As soldiers left, bearded men with khaki outfits in Toyota Jeeps and on motorcycles sped into the compound and occupied the emptied barracks.

This was the first takeover of a state building by a new group I had just heard of: Hezbollah. The non-Arab-speaking, bearded men in khaki uniforms were their trainers and mentors, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

This story of how Hezbollah came to be is quite different from the account given by most scholars and observers.

It was the end of the summer, and we were due to fly back home. But my dad was required to join the Iraqi army, and in order to avoid conscription my family decided to stay in Baalbek, where we lived for the next five years.

In 1982, seven years after the start of the civil war, the Lebanese government was too weak and fragmented to stand in Hezbollah's way. After taking over the barracks, Hezbollah occupied the House of Public Teachers, another state-owned building, and turned it into the Imam Khomeini Hospital. Around that time, Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards had occupied a 19th-century building, the Khawwam Hotel, and turned it into their headquarters. Most walls around the city were painted with murals of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini along with quotes from him promising the destruction of Israel and the end of America, or urging martyrdom.

The owner of the only liquor store in town was shot dead and his business closed. Women wearing outfits deemed un-Islamic risked young militants throwing acidic material on the uncovered parts of their bodies . Celebrations with loud music were usually greeted with the explosion of a frightening "sonic bomb."

Meanwhile, loyalists were rewarded. Word had it that women wearing black chadors and men growing their beards received $300 and $100 a month respectively. The unemployed were given jobs at the newly founded hospitals, schools, militia and radio station.

This was an Islamic republic in formation. Hezbollah's slogan at the time was "the Islamic Revolution in Lebanon." But the Syrian regime was in control of most of Lebanon, including Baalbek, and was unwilling to see an Iranian seed sprout in its backyard. Syria therefore inspired its loyalist Shiite group, Amal, to wage battles against Hezbollah, and these continued until the conclusion of the Lebanese civil war in 1990, when Iran and Syria reached a deal over the role of the party. According to the deal, Hezbollah would be allowed to maintain its arms, but its role would be limited to "resistance."

Hezbollah became a joint Iranian-Syrian venture and turned its slogan into "the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon." Hezbollah was also integrated into the Lebanese political fabric. Later, it would win a parliamentary bloc and gain a say in all of the nation's affairs.

Its history was rewritten. Today, most academics have it that Hezbollah was founded in Beirut in 1985 as a resistance movement against Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. The truth is that Hezbollah was founded in Baalbek in 1982 as the nucleus of a hoped-for Islamic republic in Lebanon.

Hezbollah is often depicted as having stayed away from the Lebanese civil war, which is also a fallacy. The truth is that Hezbollah clashed with Amal, the Lebanese Communist Party and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party during the war.

The history of Hezbollah and its intentions for Lebanon should be reexamined. The Lebanese media reported that Hezbollah had taken all compensation money that the government had paid to the people whose houses were destroyed during last summer's war with Israel. The party plans collective reconstruction for the southern suburb that has become its territory since the mid-1980s and will be replacing the destroyed units with new ones - a role that should be reserved for the Lebanese state.

With its own militia, foreign alliances and reconstruction plans, Hezbollah today maintains its own state at the expense of the Lebanese state and its elected government.

When I last visited Baalbek, this winter, I saw Ali. He had broken with the party long ago. He complained that Hezbollah now has banks, schools, hospitals, radio, TV, grocery stores and housing plans. Ali, who owns a grocery, told me that if you were not with them, they would keep you out of their network, and you could barely make enough to survive. I asked him whether he would join a Hezbollah protest today like we did 25 years ago.

"I will join a protest to make them leave us alone," he replied. "We have been pious Shiites since the days of our ancestors, and we do not need the Persians or their money to teach us how to keep our faith."
--

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a media analyst, is a former reporter for The Daily Star of Lebanon. His e-mail is hahussain @ gmail.com.

Copyright © 2007, The Baltimore Sun

From Gaza to rocket-battered kibbutz

From Gaza to rocket-battered kibbutz

Ynet News - 09:32 , 05.31.07

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3406895,00.html

Gaza resident Raif Dula refused to leave his wife's side when she was hospitalized in Israel. Now a guest at Kibbutz Mefalsim, he too is under constant Qassam bombardment
Matan Tzuri

In the first days of the increased Qassam rocket attacks from Gaza, the IDF targeted a building operated by Hamas, killing several people and wounding others.

 

Among those wounded were Raif Dula and his wife Amal, who was seriously wounded and eventually evacuated to an Israeli hospital in Ashkelon for intensive treatment.

 

Barrages Continue

Qassams hit Negev, IAF strikes in Gaza / Shmulik Hadad Rocket fire continues Thursday morning. Two Qassams hit open areas in southern community, one of them starting fire; no injuries reported. Moments later, Air Force attacks two Qassam launching machines in northern Gaza Strip Full story

But Raif, who himself sustained a leg wound in the attack, refused to leave her there alone and sought to stay by her side in Israel.

 

Years ago Raif used to work as an electrician at Kibbutz Mefalsim, located just south of the city of Sderot and like all communities neighboring Gaza, a daily victim of Qassam attacks.

 

Raif contacted the kibbutz and Sha'ar Hanegev council chairman Alon Shuster and asked for their help in obtaining a permit to stay. Remembering his history with them, the kibbutz made a collective effort to help Raif and secured the necessary authorizations for him from the State.

 

Now when he's not in the hospital Raif comes back to the kibbutz where he is staying with Rachel and Hanan Brouda, members of the kibbutz's founding generation who volunteered to serve as Raif's "adoptive family" during his stay.

 

"I dream that one day there will be peace and then I can come back to Israel and spend time with my friends, like it used to be," said Raif.

Surrendering its honor - Pollard, Israël en de USA

Pollard, Israel en de Verenigde Staten

30.05.2007

 

Er zijn mensen die spreken over Amerika als de 'Zionist Occupied Government' (ZOG), die menen dat Amerika niet zijn eigen belangen behartigt, maar die van Israël, dit alles vanwege de machtige en rijke Joodse lobby.
Veel mensen die dat te ver gaat, menen wel dat de Amerikaanse buitenlandse politiek teveel door Israëls belangen wordt bepaald, en Israël zich meer kan permitteren dan welk ander land dan ook vanwege de onconditionele steun van de VS.


De realiteit is anders. De VS heeft Israël meermaals onder druk gezet, bijvoorbeeld om na de start van de tweede intifada niet op de vele zelfmoordaanslagen te reageren. Het duurde anderhalf jaar voordat Israël door herbezetting van de Westelijke Jordaanoever het aantal aanslagen drastisch kon beperken. De aanslagen op de Twin Towers en de onderschepping van een uit Iran afkomstig illegaal schip met wapens bestemd voor de Palestijnse Autoriteit veranderde de visie van de VS op zowel aanslagen als de betrouwbaarheid van Arafat. Het was de VS die aandrong op deelname van Hamas aan de verkiezingen, wat tegen de Oslo Akkoorden indruiste, waarin expliciet gesteld wordt dat racistische en gewelddadige partijen van de Palestijnse verkiezingen zijn uitgesloten. Dit is logisch, want de Palestijnse Autoriteit is tijdens het Oslo vredesproces gecreëerd om vrede met Israël te sluiten. Hamas heeft altijd gezegd tegen vrede te zijn en beschouwt onderhandelingen als tijdverspilling. De VS drong ook aan op de eenzijdige terugtrekking uit Gaza twee jaar geleden, en weerhoudt Israël de laatste jaren van onderhandelingen met Syrië. Terwijl de VS wapens verkopen aan Egypte en Saoedi-Arabië, heeft ze Israël verboden wapens te verkopen aan China.

Ik wil hier niet betogen dat Israël een veel hardere lijn had verkozen als de VS dit niet hadden verboden, maar dat op zijn minst een deel van deze zaken niet door Washington besloten moeten worden maar door Israël zelf. En dat Israël niet onevenredig veel macht heeft, hooguit onevenredig veel aandacht.

Het laatste voorbeeld zijn de opmerkingen van VS ambassadeur Jones over de Israëlische spion Jonathan Pollard (zie artikel hieronder), die een levenslange gevangenisstraf uitzit in de VS vanwege spionage. De hele zaak Pollard laat een andere kant van de relatie tussen Israël en de VS zien.
(Lees ook The United States Mandate for Palestine.)

Ratna Pelle

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Surrendering its honor

By Yossi Melman - Haaretz - May 25, 2007
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/863016.html

Any self-respecting country would have summoned the U.S. ambassador to the Foreign Ministry and demanded that he clarify his harsh statement that the fact that Jonathan Pollard, an American citizen sentenced to life for spying for Israel, has not been executed should be seen as an act of clemency.

But Israel is a country that has long ago stopped respecting its own sovereignty, given up its independence of thought and subordinated its will to that of Washington. Israel refuses to respond to Syria's offer of negotiations for fear of incurring the wrath of the American administration. It has submitted to the American dictate and established a special unit within the Defense Ministry to monitor security exports, solely because the United States demanded it. And these are only two examples among many in the last few years that indicate the obsequiousness of Israel's political and security leadership before the Washington nobleman.

In light of this, Jerusalem's stammered response to Ambassador Richard Jones' intolerable remark is not surprising. "The fact that he wasn't executed is the mercy that Jonathan Pollard will receive," said the U.S. envoy to Israel. In other words, Pollard, his family and the Israeli government, which controlled his espionage, should be thankful for the "light" sentence he received.

Jonathan Pollard was a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy when he sold his country's secrets for money to his handlers in Israel. He betrayed his country. There is no dispute over that. Twenty-one years ago, he was given the heavy sentence of life imprisonment.

The Israeli government does not just have a moral responsibility for the fate of its agent. It also contributed significantly to the fact that he's rotting in prison. It began with the hasty decision of Elyakim Rubinstein - then the political attachי at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and now a Supreme Court justice - to remove Pollard from the embassy grounds, where he was seeking asylum. He could have been brought in, as the Americans held Soviet citizens in their embassy in Moscow when they sought political asylum. One could have argued that according to the Law of Return, he's an Israeli citizen - in addition to which his handlers had already secretly given him an Israeli passport. It could be that Israel would ultimately have been forced to surrender Pollard, but that should have been done in exchange for an assurance that his sentence would be reduced.

Even after Pollard was handed over in such a shameful way and arrested, Israel could still have helped get him a lighter sentence - for instance, by setting it as a condition for Israeli participation in the investigation. Israel unconditionally provided the United States with the thousands of documents it received from him, thereby helping to incriminate him, without receiving anything in exchange. Even later, Israeli leaders and heads of the intelligence community did not really go out of their way to lobby the American government institutions and intelligence agencies for a pardon for Pollard.

The only one who almost achieved this was Benjamin Netanyahu, during his tenure as prime minister. In 1998, during the peace talks held at the Wye Plantation in Maryland, Netanyahu insisted that Pollard be released as part of the deal with the Palestinians. The U.S. president at the time, Bill Clinton, leaned toward agreeing to do so, but the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, brought all his weight to bear against it, threatening to resign, and Clinton backed off.

Pollard is not the only American citizen since 1980 who has been accused of espionage and given an extended sentence, but the others were despicable ones who caused far more damage to the American national interest. For instance, CIA agent Aldrich Aimes' treachery allowed the Soviet Union to discover the identities of agents working for the United States and execute them. But Pollard is the only one to whom the Americans are so hostile.

It could be because Pollard spied for a friendly country, making his act a more stinging affront. Nonetheless, it's difficult to accept or understand the American lust for revenge when it comes to Pollard. There's something irrational about it. Jones' remarks were rude and bereft of diplomatic tact, reflecting this American pathology that aspires to keep Pollard from ever being pardoned. Even though Jones has apologized, he deserves to be denounced. By essentially ignoring his comments, Israel is adding insult to the injury it has already done Pollard.

Zesdaagse Oorlog: 'Verschrikkelijk gevoel van onheil'

De Volkskrant

- http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article429838.ece/Verschrikkelijk_gevoel_van_onheil

Gepubliceerd 2:46 29 mei 2007

'Verschrikkelijk gevoel van onheil'

Interview  Van onze verslaggeefster Marjan van den Berg

'In 1967 was ik 13, een overdreven gevoelige puber. Het gevoel overheerste dat alles op instorten stond.'

Wat kunt u zich nog herinneren van de Zesdaagse Oorlog?

'Ik was 13 en zat op het Stedelijk Gymnasium in Den Bosch. Ik was zo'n overdreven gevoelige puber, en ik voelde me daar niet thuis. Dat werd nog eens versterkt door het verschrikkelijke gevoel van onheil dat die oorlog met zich meebracht. Want het werd me wel duidelijk dat de anderen op school er helemaal niet mee bezig waren.

'Voorzover ik me kan herinneren werd er niet over gesproken in de klas. Thuis wel. Mijn moeder was nog aan het herstellen van de dood van mijn vader. Bij elkaar genomen overheerste het gevoel dat alles op instorten stond.'

Hoe zou u het Israëlgevoel omschrijven?

'Als een heel diep sentiment. Bij nader inzien trouwens ook een melodramatisch sentiment. Het idee leefde dat Israël er alleen voor stond en de overmacht van de omliggende landen niet aan zou kunnen. Zo sterk, die dreiging, dat het bijna iets apocalyptisch kreeg.'

Bestaat het Israëlgevoel nog?

'Nee, zeker niet. De Libanon-crisis van 1982 betekende voor velen een enorme terugval. Vooral de bloedbaden die werden aangericht in de vluchtelingenkampen Sabra en Chatila. De beelden, de berichtgeving – die waren zó verschrikkelijk voor de publieke opinie.

'Naar mijn idee was dat een scherpe omkering in het Israëlgevoel, dat toch al iets kunstmatigs had en daarmee heel makkelijk kon omslaan.'

Wat zijn de verschillen met toen en nu?

'Nu is er bijna opluchting dat men van die oude liefde af is: eindelijk kan men zonder die ballast van de Tweede Wereldoorlog Israël bekritiseren. Dat heeft wel iets gezonds. Voor 1982 was er een overdreven liefde en bewondering.

'Het Israëlgevoel was toch ook irreëel en gevoed door schaamte. Ik kan het niet anders omschrijven. Schaamte én bewondering. Want het was natuurlijk ook wel een prestatie, wat daar gebeurde: er werd een land opgebouwd.

'Vroeger hadden we thuis fotoboeken, en die bepaalden voor mij het beeld: hardwerkende pioniers op het land, jonge mensen in korte broeken die sinaasappels plukten. Voor mij persoonlijk zit er een hele bibliotheek tussen toen en nu. Op mijn dertiende was ik nog niet in Israël geweest, nu natuurlijk wel.'

Is er veel veranderd in de houding van de Nederlander tegenover Israël?

'Ik vind dat er in Nederland een te kritische houding ten opzichte van Israël bestaat. Almaar meer voorwaarden worden er aan het land gesteld.

'Ik vind dat daarmee de context wordt ontkend. Het is toch een Midden-Oosters land, en het gedraagt zich, ondanks de bezettingen, nog redelijk netjes, gezien de verhoudingen.

'Israël is zich noodgedwongen steeds meer als een militaire macht gaan gedragen. Het is duidelijk dat ik daar meer begrip voor heb dan veel andere Nederlanders.

'Misschien dat er in Nederland de komende decennia wat meer nuchterheid voor in de plaats komt. Al is het moeilijk nuchter naar dat land te kijken.'

Palestine Unravels

Professor Hussein Solomon lectures in the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria where he is also Director of the Centre for International Political Studies (CiPS). In the following article he discusses the current Palestinian situation and the viability of a Palestinian state.
_____________________________________

Palestine Unravels
05/28/2007
University of Pretoria Centre for International Political Studies (CIPS)
No. 31/2007
Palestine Unravels
By Hussein Solomon

Months of lawlessness on the streets of Gaza prompted Palestinian President Abbas, on 13 May 2007, to station thousands of troops on the streets. Hamas viewed this as a provocation as it was not consulted. What followed was a week of fighting between militants from rivals Hamas and Fatah, in which at least 50 Palestinians were killed whilst scores of others were wounded.

The fact that the fighting started despite the existence of a Unity Government and despite the fact that various political leaders called for an end to the violence raises several important questions. How much control does the political leadership of either Hamas or Fatah have over their fighting men? Not so long ago, for instance, Prime Minister Ismail Haniya had asked his Hamas fighters not to fire rockets into Israel and they simply ignored his call. The fact that independent Palestinian Interior Minister, Hani al-Qawasmeh, resigned because neither Hamas nor Fatah fighters were willing to listen to him, should give one further cause for concern. The fighting also raises important questions as to whether the alternative political visions between Hamas and Fatah can be bridged through a Unity Government.

At the heart of these questions is the fate of the Palestinian Authority itself. Will it collapse? Under the failure of Palestinian leadership, Palestinians like Ali Jarbawi of Birzeit University say it would be better to end the fiction of a Palestinian Authority. Such a scenario, of course, would be the death knell of the peace process. As Steven Erlanger notes, "How would any Israeli government consider pulling out of the West Bank -- as it pulled out of Gaza-- with no authority to whom to hand the territory?" Under the circumstances the Jordanians are considering some form of stewardship over the West Bank, whilst there are hopes that Egypt would do the same for Gaza.

 

Continued at: http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000589.htm

 

Gaza baby treated at Israeli hospital

Terwijl een Israëlische vrouw zojuist was gedood door een Qassam raket, werd een Palestijnse baby voor behandeling in een Israëlisch ziekenhuis opgenomen. Dit is niet ongewoon:

Dr Mishali said that an average of three Palestinian babies with heart defects arrive at his department every week: "We have daily communications by phone and fax with doctors in Gaza. There is no heart surgeon in the Strip, so they transfer all of these children, and there are many, to be operated on here."

The Palestinian Authority usually covers half of the expenses and the rest is generally covered by donations raised by the hospital.

"Our treatment has not changed over the last few days. This cooperation has survived difficult times of terrorism and bombings," Mishali said and stressed that politics always stay outside the operating theater.
-----------

Gaza baby treated at Israeli hospital
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3405293,00.html

MDA ambulance transfers baby with heart defect from Gaza Strip to Sheba Medical Center for life-saving operation

Meital Yasur-Beit Or Published:  05.28.07, 00:51 / Israel News


A Magen David Adom ambulance transferred an eight-day-old Palestinian baby from Gaza to the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer Sunday evening.

This humanitarian act took place during one of the more difficult days in terms of Qassam launchings, during which a 36-year-old Oshri Oz was killed in Sderot

The baby suffers from a congenital heart defect and without proper treatment will not survive long. He was transferred to the Erez crossing, where an MDA ambulance was waiting to transfer him to hospital ventilated and in an incubator.


"We transfer patients from the Gaza Strip under fire on a daily basis," said Moshe Vaknin, deputy manager of Lachish region of MDA. "Last week, our medics continued to treat a patient while shells were fired at the terminal at Erez. During the Shavuot holiday we evacuated another baby in an incubator, endangering our staff."

The baby is now hospitalized at the intensive care department at the Safra Children's Hospital at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer.



'No politics involved'

Dr Dudi Mishali, head of the Department of Pediatric & Congenital Cardiothoracic Surgery at the hospital, said: "The baby has a complete occlusion of his aorta. This is a severe defect, and if the child is not operated on as soon as possible he could die within a day.

'He will probably be operated on tomorrow (Monday) and the prognosis is good. He is currently on medication that is keeping him alive," he added.

Dr Mishali said that an average of three Palestinian babies with heart defects arrive at his department every week: "We have daily communications by phone and fax with doctors in Gaza. There is no heart surgeon in the Strip, so they transfer all of these children, and there are many, to be operated on here."

The Palestinian Authority usually covers half of the expenses and the rest is generally covered by donations raised by the hospital.

"Our treatment has not changed over the last few days. This cooperation has survived difficult times of terrorism and bombings," Mishali said and stressed that politics always stay outside the operating theater.

Hamas: rockets will reach the Zionist settlers in the 1948-occupied coastal city of Asqlan

Berichten van de website van Ezzedeen Al Qassam, de militaire vleugel van Hamas, geven een betrouwbaardere indruk van waar de Hamas voor staat dan de commentaren van westerse deskundologen wat betreft het Midden-Oosten.

Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas Movement, has threatened that its rockets will reach the Zionist settlers in the 1948-occupied coastal city of Asqlan [Ashkelon] and areas beyond in retaliation to the intensive and relentless occupation forces troops bombarding of Palestinian homes in Gaza Strip.


Abu Obayda: Areas beyond Asqlan must be prepared for new round of Qassam rockets
Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas) Website 23 May 2007
www.alqassam.ps/english/?action=showdetail&fid=500

Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas Movement, has threatened that its rockets will reach the Zionist settlers in the 1948-occupied coastal city of Asqlan and areas beyond in retaliation to the intensive and relentless occupation forces troops bombarding of Palestinian homes in Gaza Strip.

The threats came apparently after the Brigades fired a salvo of its homemade Qassam rockets at the Zionist settlements around Gaza strip. According to the Zionist medical sources, the rockets killed a settler and seriously injured another settler in addition to 20 others treated for shocks.

Tens of Palestinian citizens, including children and women, were martyred and dozens others were wounded, many in critical condition, due to the incessant occupation forces land and aerial shelling of populated Palestinian areas in the tiny Gaza Strip since Saturday.

Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades asserted that the shelling of Sderot was only an initial reprisal to the occupation forces war crimes in Gaza Strip, underling that Asqlan and areas beyond it must brace for new round of Palestinian missile attacks.

Over the past 11 months, Al Qassam Brigades along with other armed wings of the Palestinian resistance heeded a request from PA chief Mahmoud Abbas urging calm; yet, facts on the ground proved that the occupation forces troops hadn't reciprocated the truce even for a single day as they continued killing, wounding, and arresting Palestinian citizens in the West Bank.

Palestinians prepare female suicide bombers to retaliate to Israeli aggression in Gaza

Is dit feminisme volgens Islamitische Jihad?
Het gevolg is uiteraard dat ook vrouwen steeds strenger gecontroleerd worden bij checkpoints, en moeilijker toestemming zullen krijgen om te reizen.
________________________________________
Palestinian militant groups prepare dozens of female suicide bombers to retaliate to Israeli aggression in Gaza
Date: 20 / 05 / 2007  Time:  11:12
www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=22184

Bethlehem - Ma'an - An eminent field leader of the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed group affiliated to the Islamic Jihad movement, on Sunday warned the Israeli occupation of committing any "folly" in the Gaza Strip.

In a press release that Ma'an received, the Al-Quds Brigades' leader said, "The Israeli threats to conduct a major ground operation in Gaza Strip will not achieve any of the goals which the occupation claims to seek."

He affirmed that all the military wings of the Palestinian resistance are ready to counter any expected aggression in the Gaza Strip.

The leader revealed that the Islamic Jihad-affiliated Al-Quds Brigades have prepared dozens of female fighters "ready to undertake operations and to blow themselves up at Israeli troops".

The brigades' electronic website published pictures of Palestinian women willing to blow themselves up.

One woman said, "I wish to be the first woman to blow myself after the next Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip."

The Gaza Strip has witnessed four operations of this kind. The first was on the 14th of January 2004 when the Hamas-affiliated Al Qassam Brigades woman, Reem Riashi, blew herself up in the Israeli intelligence room at Beit Hanoun crossing, killing four soldiers and injuring many.

The second operation was on the 21st March 2004 when Sana' Qdeih also from the Qassam Brigades detonated an explosive belt near a group of Israeli troops who had penetrated into the east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

The third operation was on the 6th of November 2006; an Al-Quds Brigades woman, Mervat Mas'ood, blew herself up by Israeli soldiers in Beit Hanoun.

In November 2006, Fatima Najjar from Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, who became famous as 'the mother of women fighters', committed a suicide bombing in the presence of a group of Israeli soldiers, east of Jabalia.

Malaysian PM derides West on Islam, Mideast

Malaysian PM derides West on Islam, Mideast
Posted: 22 May 2007 1513 hrs
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/277647/1/.html

TOKYO: Malaysia's prime minister on Tuesday accused Westerners of prejudice against the Islamic world and said Western support for Israel was the biggest reason fuelling Muslim hostility.

"Much of the prejudice against Islam in the West stems from a lack of understanding of the true nature of Islam as a religion professed by 1.4 billion people in the world," Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said.

"Westerners tend to view other peoples and other cultures only from the perspective of Western benchmarks and philosophy," he said as he received an honorary degree at Tokyo's Meiji University.

But Abdullah also denied that history was to blame for current tensions between Islamic and Western societies.

"Explanation is to be found in more recent times, which is the repeated use of force or other machinations by the powerful over the weak, to secure political, strategic or territorial gains," he said.

He said the most urgent problem was the Middle East and criticised Israel for its deadly air strikes, which the Jewish state launched last week on the Gaza Strip in response to rocket attacks on its territory.

The world "must accept the fact that a festering Palestinian problem, among all factors, is the single most important factor perpetuating the tension between the West in general and the Muslim world as a whole," he said.

"We must accept the fact that the plight of the Palestinians has come to epitomise everything that is unjust and unfair to the treatment of peoples," he said.

He said the Islamic world perceived Western nations as defending "Judeo-Christian tradition against the spread of radical militant Islam, thus legitimising all of Israel's actions no matter how brutal," he said.

"When you add to this the invasion of Afghanistan, the conquest of Iraq, the aggression against Lebanon, and the continuing occupation of the Golan Heights, the Muslim world sees a ... complicity," he said.

"The feeling of being humiliated," he said, "has transformed into hostility."

Abdullah is usually seen as more soft-spoken than his predecessor Mahathir Mohamad, who is known for his tirades against the West and Israel.

- AFP/so