Palestine

Following letter was sent to the Economist
Time and time again the media are repeating the explicit conditions the Palestinians are supposed to fulfill before the US, Russia, the EU and the UN are willing to negotiate with them. Worse, they have suspended financial help for the hungry Palestinians since the Palestinians voted Hamas to power (and in order not to stay behind, Israel refuses to transfer money belonging to the Palestinians). The requirements are: recognition of the State of Israel, renouncing violence and honouring existing agreements with Israel.
This sounds self-evident, but is it? Nobody seems to wonder about the one-sidedness of these demands and the uniqueness of same. Would it not be reasonable to require the same from the Israelis? Israel is not required to stop its violence, although on various occasions the UN and the EU have protested against the excessive Israeli retaliations.
What we need is a declaration from the new Israeli government (including its far right party) that it accepts two independent states with borders about the same as those of 1967 and the partition of Jerusalem.
I mentioned the uniqueness, since one or more of the members of the above mentioned International Quartet are negotiating with parties who are transgressing requirements similar to those now put to the Palestinians: since decennia the UK negotiates with the IRA, the UN and the EU want negotiations with Iran, to name just a few. Even with North-Korea, they negotiate. Can anybody explain why this charade of extra severe requirements and sanctions in withholding financial help toward the Palestinians is continuing?
The only country benefiting from these requirements and sanctions against the poor Palestinian people, illegally occupied during more than forty years, illegally mistreated, humiliated and pestered year after year by the occupying country, is Israel. That country fears the two state solutions. It knows it is protected indiscriminately by the US and the rest of the world by faint-hearted fear of being accused of anti-semitism.

February 28, 2007

Back to the middle ages

Terug naar de Middeleeuwen. Bush heeft een final executive order getekend, die militaire comissies machtigt om te beginnen met het berechten van verdachte terroristen. Onder de regels, opgesteld door het Pentagon, zou het de commissie zijn toegestaan verdachten tot gevangenisstraffen of de dood te veroordelen op basis van geruchten of bekentenissen onder dwang.

"Protect the troops"

On the same day that the Washington Post wrote : « Bush declared that my job is to protect the troops. And when we find devices in the country that are hurting our troops, we’re going to do something about it, pure and simple », the Washinton Post also wrote « There is now a shortfall of thousands of advanced humvee armor kits designed to reduce US troop deaths from roadside bombs. Worse, the full armor upgrade is not scheduled to be completed until this summer ». The W.P. commented : « so Bush’s idea of doing something about it « pure and simple » is itself a lie, since he is doing something about it only after he has knowingly sent a new round of underarmored American troops into battle ». IHT February 19, 2007.

Israel

According to The Economist of February 1st, the Israeli liberal daily Haaretz wrote about the « intra-Israeli threat » : the prime minister is under investigation for allegations ranging from dishonest property trading to improperly trying to influence the privatisation of a bank. The finance minister is being probed for embezzlement, the tax authority for fraud. The president faces multiple charges of rape. This week a former justice minister was convicted for forcibly kissing a young woman soldier, which could land him in jail for up to three years. The army chief of staff has resigned over the Libanon war; this month a commission of inquiry is set up to shine a harsh light on the performance of army and government. So in Israel things don’t look exactly kosher.
Commentators talking about the blocked peace process frequently used the argument of the internal problems between Palestinian leaders. Since the accords of Mecca, the tables are turned.

Peres

In the IHT of February 15, 2007, Mr H.D.S. Greenway writes in Keeping talks kosher that he recently talked with ”Israel’s statesman” Shimon Peres. During that interview Peres considered the attitude of the Saudi’s during the recent conference about Palestine “not kosher”.
It is interesting to see what other Israeli statesmen have to say about this Nobel Peace Price winner:
- Persisting, obstinate and proverbially patient, Peres was second to none in his talent for political manoeuvring and manipulation. An indefatigable master of subversion (Rabin).
- As a matter of fact, the Shimon Peres of the 1990’s was never really the political ‘dove’ that he pretended to be. Years after he was granted the Nobel Peace Price for the Oslo agreement, he was still opposed to the idea of an independent Palestinian state. (…) As Rabin’s minister of defence in the 1970’s he positioned himself as an undisguised hawk.
- The following eight months of Shimon Peres’ premiership were an utter disaster and a political calamity.

The last two quotes are by Shlomo Ben-Ami from his book Scars of War, Wounds of Peace. Shlomo Ben-Ami was a.o. Israel’s Minister of Public Affairs and Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as member of the Israeli delegation to the Madrid peace conference. Later, as Foreign Minister in Ehud Barak’s government, he took part in the Camp David summit and led the Israeli team in the Taba peace conference.

Palestine

following letter was sent to the Guardian Weekly:

Time and again one reads about the conditions the Palestinians have to fulfill before the West will start negotiating with them. One of them is the requirement that the Palestinians have to recognize Israel; another is to renounce violence. The West is negotiating or trying to negotiate with Iran and with North Korea, and Britain and the Republic of Ireland have been negotiating with the IRA for ages without posing any of the conditions mentioned above. So I wonder what the reasons are that the Palestinians get a far more severe treatment. It is clearly applying different standards. Is the only real reason that the West does not want to anger Israel and the Israeli lobby?