Israel Resource Review |
27th May, 2001 |
Contents:
Anatomy of a Ceasefire: How Long Will Israel's Restraint Last
Ronny Shaked
Correspondent, Yediot Aharonot
Yedioth Ahronoth (p. 5) by Itamar Eichner, Roni Shaked et al. -- The
unilateral cease-fire declared by Israel will last another few days,
despite the continued violent acts by the Palestinians. This was decided
yesterday by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
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IDF sources contended yesterday: "The cease-fire has not led to any
reduction in Palestinian attacks. We are restraining ourselves in the
meantime from firing back."
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres also said that "Arafat has not given any
order to halt the fire."
Sources in Sharon's bureau said last night: "We are giving the Americans
a chance to try and make a move. We have to wait a few days, until we see
for sure if Arafat is picking up the gauntlet." Nevertheless, political
sources said that if there were to be escalation, "we will consider
stopping the cease-fire before the American move is made." It has been
learned that the American administration has asked Jordan and Egypt to use
their influence on Arafat to accede to the initiative.
Violence continued yesterday in the territories as well as inside
Israel. Shots were fired at the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem last night.
The tunnel road was closed to traffic and the IDF returned fire. The
police believe that the shots two days ago on the Malha neighborhood have
opened a new front. "If the shooting is reaching Malha, there is a also a
danger of other neighborhoods being shot at," Jerusalem commander Mickey
Levy said.
There was a shooting attack yesterday in the fields of Kibbutz Givat Oz
near Megiddo. Two kibbutzniks driving along the seamline in the kibbutz
fields were shot at from close range, but not hurt.
A truck driver from the village of Jatt in the Triangle was abducted
yesterday by Palestinians from the village of Yaabed in Samaria and
released when they realized he was an Arab. "Two masked men armed with
guns got into the truck and ordered him to drive fast in the direction of
the territories," related Dep. Cmdr. Yaki Azulai, commander of the Yiron
police. "Only when he showed them his driver's license and told them he was
an Arab, did they change their plans and bring him back into Israeli
territory."
Fighting continued in the Gaza Strip. Two mortar shells were fired in
the morning at the Netzarim settlement. No one was injured and no damage
was caused. In the wake of this, an IDF force went into Area A to a depth
of 200 meters near Netzarim. IDF sources said yesterday that the incursion
into Area A lasted "about ten minutes."
This article ran in Yediot Aharonot, May 25th, 2001
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Peres Confirms: Talks Continue with the PLO
Menahem Rahat and Gabi Kessler
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has once again turned downs offers
by European officials for a package deal with Arafat that would
mean a simultaneous implementation of all the recommended steps
outlined in the Mitchell Report, and in effect immediately
resume negotiations. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
said yesterday that, in effect, Israel is conducting
negotiations with the Palestinians.
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Peres said: "Israel is holding talks with the Palestinians not only in
the area of security but also on diplomatic issues so as to achieve a
cease-fire." Officials in the Prime Minister's Bureau were surprised by
these statements, and a senior official in the bureau said: "We do not know
what talks Peres is talking about or exactly who he is speaking with."
The Sharon government has built 61 new apartments in the settlements in
its tenure and contrary to its declarations, says MK Mossi Raz of Meretz,
according to a Construction and Housing Ministry document. "It is time the
Labor Party came to its senses and found out whether their presence in the
government is not merely a fig-leaf for continuing the provocative building
in the settlements."
Shefi Gabai adds: Arafat met yesterday with Egyptian President Mubarak
and briefed him on his talks with President Jacques Chirac in Paris and the
results of the Mitchell Report. Immediately following his meeting with
Mubarak, Arafat flew to Amman to meet with King Abdullah of Jorda.
This article ran in Maariv on, May 25th, 2001
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Are Israel's Settlements Legal?
The Late Eugene W. Rostow
Assuming the Middle East conference actually does take place, its
official task will be to achieve peace between Israel and its Levantine
neighbors in accordance with Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.
Resolution 242, adopted after the Six-Day War in 1967, sets out criteria for
peace-making by the parties; Resolution 338, passed after the Yom Kippur War
in 1973, makes resolution 242 legally binding and orders the parties to
carry out its terms forthwith.
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Unfortunately, confusion reigns, even in high places, about what those
resolutions require.
For twenty-four years Arab states have pretended that the two
resolutions are "ambiguous" and can be interpreted to suit their desires.
And some European, Soviet and even American officials have cynically allowed
Arab spokesman to delude themselves and their people--to say nothing of
Western public opinion--about what the resolutions mean. It is common even
for American journalists to write that Resolution 242 is "deliberately ambiguous," as though the parties are equally free to rely on their own reading of its key provisions.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Resolution 242, which as
undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped
produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until "a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces "from territories" it occupied during the Six-Day War--not from "the" territories nor from "all" the territories, but from some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West
Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
Five-and-a-half months of vehement public diplomacy in 1967 made it
perfectly clear what the missing definite article in Resolution 242 means.
Ingeniously drafted resolutions calling for withdrawals from "all" the territories were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly. Speaker after speaker made it explicit that Israel was not to be forced back to the "fragile" and "vulnerable" Armistice Demarcation Lines, but should retire once peace was made to what Resolution 242 called "secure and recognized" boundaries, agreed to by the parties.
In negotiating such agreements, the parties should take into account, among other factors, security considerations, access to the international
waterways of the region, and, of course, their respective legal claims.
Resolution 242 built on the text of the Armistice Agreements of 1949,
which provided (except in th case of Lebanon) that the Armistice Demarcation
Lines separating the military forces were "not to be construed in any sense"
as political or territorial boundaries, and that "no provision" of the
Armistice Agreements "Shall in any way prejudice the right, claims, and
positions" of the parties "in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the
Palestine problem." In making peace with Egypt in 1979, Israel withdrew
from the entire Sinai, which had never been part of the British Mandate.
For security it depended on patrolled demilitarization and the huge area of
the desert rather than on territorial change. As a result, more than 90
percent of the territories Israel occupied in 1967 are now under Arab
sovereignty. It is hardly surprising that some Israelis take the view that
such a transfer fulfills the territorial requirements of Resolution 242, no
matter how narrowly they are construed.
Resolution 242 leaves the issue of dividing the occupied areas between
Israel and its neighbors entirely to the agreement of the parties in
accordance with the principles it sets out. It was, however, negotiated with
full realization that the problem of establishing "a secure and recognized"
boundary between Israel and Jordan would be the thorniest issue of the
peace-making process. The United States has remained firmly opposed to the
creation of a third Palestinian state on the territory of the Palestine
Mandate. An independent Jordan or a Jordan linked in an economic union with
Israel is desirable from the point of view of everybody's security and
prosperity. And a predominantly Jewish Israel is one of the fundamental
goals of Israeli policy. It should be possible to reconcile these goals by negotiation, especially if the idea of an economic union is accepted.
The Arabs of the West Bank could constitute the population of an
autonomous province of Jordan or of Israel, depending on the course of the
negotations.
Provisions for a shift of populations or, better still, for individual
self-determination are a possible solution for those West Bank Arabs who
would prefer to live elsewhere. All these approaches were explored in 1967
and 1968. One should note, however, that Syria cannot be allowed to take
over Jordan and the West Bank, as it tried to do in 1970.
The heated question of Israel's settlements in the West Bank during the
occupation period should be viewed in this perspective. The British Mandate
recognized the right of the Jewish people to "close settlement" in the whole
of the Mandated territory. It was provided that local conditions might
require Great Britain to "postpone" or "withhold" Jewish settlement in what
is now Jordan. This was done in 1992. But the Jewish right of settlement in
Palestine west of the Jordan river, that is, in Israel, the West Bank,
Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never
been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a
recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors. And perhaps not even
then, in view of Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, "the Palestine article," which provides that "nothing in the Charter shall be construed . . to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments . . ."
Some governments have taken the view that under the Geneva Convention of
1949, which deals with the rights of civilians under military occupation,
Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal, on the ground that the Convention prohibits an occupying power from flooding the occupied territory with its own citizens. President Carter supported this view, but President Reagan reversed him, specifically saying that the settlements are legal but that further settlements should be deferred since they pose a psychological obstacle to the peace process.
In any case, the issue of the legality of the settlements should not
come up in the proposed conference, the purpose of which is to end the military occupation by making peace. When the occupation ends, the Geneva Convention becomes irrelevant. If there is to be any division of the West Bank between Israel and Jordan, the Jewish right of settlement recognized by the Mandate will have to be taken into account in the process of making peace.
This reading of Resolution 242 has always been the keystone of American
policy. In launching a major peace initiative on September 1, 1982,
President Reagan said, "I have personally followed and supported Israel's heroic struggle for survival since the founding of the state of Israel thirty-four years ago: in the pre-1967 borders, Israel was barely ten miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel's population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again."
Yet some Bush administration statements and actions on the Arab-Israeli
question, and especially Secretary of State James Baker's disastrous speech
of May 22, 1989, betray a strong impulse to escape from the resolutions as
they were negotiated, debated, and adopted, and award to the Arabs all the
territories between the 1967 lines and the Jordan river, including East
Jerusalem. The Bush administration seems to consider the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip to be "foreign" territory to which Israel has no claim. Yet the
Jews have the same right to settle there as they have to settle in Haifa.
The West Bank and the Gaza Strip were never parts of Jordan, and Jordan's attempt to annex the West Bank was not generally recognized and has now been abandoned. The two parcels of land are parts of the Mandate that have not yet been allocated to Jordan, to Israel, or to any other state, and are a legitimate subject for discussion.
The American position in the coming negotiations should return to the
fundamentals of policy and principle that have shaped American policy
towards the Middle East for three-quarters of a century. Above all, rising above irritation and pique, it should stand as firmly for fidelity to law in
dealing with the Arab-Israeli dispute as President Bush did during the Gulf
war. Fidelity to law is the essence of peace, and the only practical rule
for making a just and lasting peace.
This article ran in "The New Republic", on October 21, 1991
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Historical Approach to the Issue of Legality of Jewish Settlement Activity
The Late Eugene W. Rostow
. . . The Jewish right of settlement in the West Bank is conferred by the
same provisions of the Mandate under which Jews settled in Haifa, Tel
Aviv, and Jerusalem before the State of Israel was created. The Mandate for Palestine differs in one important respect from the other League of
Nations mandates, which were trusts for the benefit of the indigenous
population.
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The Palestine Mandate, recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country," is dedicated to "the establishment
in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly
understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil
and religious rights of existing nonjewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
The Mandate qualifies the Jewish right of settlement and political
development in Palestine in only one respect. Article 25 gave Great
Britain and the League Council discretion to "postpone" or "withhold" the Jewish people's right of settlement in the TransJordanian province of Palestine-now the Kingdom of Jordan-if they decided that local conditions made such action desirable.
With the divided support of the council, the British took that step in 1922.
The Mandate does not, however, permit even a temporary suspension of
the Jewish right of settlement in the parts of the Mandate west of the
Jordan River.
The Armistice Lines of 1949, which are part of the West Bank boundary,
represent nothing but the position of the contending armies when the final
cease-fire was achieved in the War of Independence. And the Armistice Agreements specifically provide, except in the case of Lebanon, that the demarcation lines can be changed by agreement when the parties move from armistice to peace. Resolution 242 is based on that provision of the Armistice Agreements and states certain criteria that would justify changes in the demarcation lines when the parties make peace.
Many believe that the Palestine Mandate was somehow terminated in
1947, when the British government resigned as the mandatory power. This
is incorrect. A trust never terminates when a trustee dies, resigns,
embezzles the trust property, or is dismissed. The authority responsible for the trust appoints a new trustee, or otherwise arranges for the fulfillment of its purpose. Thus in the case of the Mandate for German South West Africa, the International Court of justice found the South African government to be derelict in its duties as the
mandatory power, and it was deemed to have resigned. Decades of struggle and
diplomacy then resulted in the creation of the new state of Namibia, which has just come into being. In Palestine the British Mandate ceased to be operative as to the territories of Israel and Jordan when those states were created and recognized by the international community. But its rules apply still to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which have not yet been allocated either to Israel or to Jordan or become an independent state.
Jordan attempted to annex the West Bank in 1951, but that
annexation was never generally recognized, even by the Arab states, and now Jordan has abandoned all its claims to the territory.
The State Department has never denied that under the Mandate "the
Jewish people" have the right to settle in the area. Instead, it said that
Jewish settlements in the West Bank violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which deals with the protection of civilians in wartime. Where the territory of one contracting party is occupied by another contracting party, the Convention prohibits many of the inhumane practices of the Nazis and the Soviets before and during the Second World War-the mass transfer of people into or out of occupied territories for purposes of extermination, slave labor, or colonization, for example.
Article 49 provides that the occupying power "shall not deport or
transfer part of its own civilian population into the territory it
occupies."
But the Jewish settlers in the West Bank are volunteers. They have not
been "deported" or "transferred" by the government of Israel, and their movement involves none of the atrocious purposes or harmful effects on the existing population the Geneva Convention was designed to prevent.
Furthermore, the Convention applies only to acts by one signatory "carried out on the territory of another." The West Bank is not the territory of a signatory power, but an unallocated part of the British Mandate. It is hard, therefore, to see how even the most literal-minded
reading of the Convention could make it apply to Jewish settlement in
territories of the British Mandate west of the jordan River. Even if the
Convention could be construed to prevent settlements during the period
of occupation, however, it could do no more than suspend, not terminate,
the rights conferred by the Mandate. Those rights can be ended only by the
establishment and recognition of a new state or the incorporation of the
territories into an old one.
As claimants to the territory, the Israelis have denied that they
are required to comply with the Geneva Convention but announced that they
will do so as a matter of grace. The Israeli courts apply the Convention
routinely, sometimes deciding against the Israeli government. Assuming for the moment the general applicability of the Convention, it could well be considered a violation if the Israelis deported convicts to the area or encouraged the settlement of people who had no right to live there (Americans, for example).
But how can the Convention be deemed to apply to Jews
who have a right to settle in the territories under international law: a
legal right assured by treaty and specifically protected by Article 80
of the U.N. Charter, which provides that nothing in the Charter shall be construed "to alter in any manner" rights conferred by existing international instruments" like the Mandate? The Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the existing Palestinian population to live there.
Another principle of international law may affect the problem of the
Jewish settlements. Under international law, an occupying power is
supposed to apply the prevailing law of the occupied territory at the municipal level unless it interferes with the necessities of security or administration or is "repugnant to elementary conceptions of justice." From 1949 to 1967, when Jordan was the military occupant of the West Bank, it applied its own laws to prevent any Jews from living in the
territory. To suggest that Israel as occupant is required to enforce
such Jordanian laws-a necessary implication of applying the Convention-is
simply absurd. When the Allies occupied Germany after the Second World War, the abrogation of the Nuremberg Laws was among their first acts.
The general expectation of international law is that military
occupations last a short time, and are succeeded by a state of peace established by treaty or otherwise. In the case of the West Bank, the territory was occupied by Jordan between 1949 and 1967, and has been occupied by Israel since 1967.
Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 rule that the Arab states and
Israel must make peace, and that when "a just and lasting peace" is reached in the Middle East, Israel should withdraw from some but not all of the territory it occupied in the course of the 1967 war. The Resolutions leave it to the parties to agree on the terms of peace.
The controversy about Jewish settlements in the West Bank is not,
therefore, about legal rights but about the political will to override
legal rights. Is the United States prepared to use all its influence in Israel to award the whole of the West Bank to Jordan or to a new Arab state, and force Israel back to its 1967 borders? Throughout Israel's occupation, the Arab countries, helped by the United States, have pushed to keep Jews out of the territories, so that at a convenient moment, or in a peace negotiation, the claim that the West Bank is "Arab" territory could be made more plausible. Some in Israel favor the settlements for the obverse reason: to reinforce Israel's claim for the fulfillment of the Mandate and of Resolution 242 in a peace treaty that would at least divide the territory.
For the international community, the issue is much deeper and more difficult: whether the purposes of the Mandate can be considered satisfied if the Jews finally receive only the parts of Palestine behind the Armistice Lines-less than 17.5 percent of the land promised them after the First World War. The extraordinary recent changes in the international environment have brought with them new diplomatic opportunities for the United States and its allies, not least in the Middle East.
Soviet military aid apparently is no longer available to the Arabs for the
purpose of making another war against Israel. The intifada has failed, and the Arabs' bargaining position is weakening. It now may be possible to take long steps toward peace. But to do so, the participants
in the Middle East negotiations-the United States, Israel, Egypt, and
the PLO-will have to look beyond the territories.
This article appeared in The New Republic on April 23, 1990
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Arafat's Appointed Mufti Endorses Suicide Attacks
Dr. Aaron Lerner
Director, IMRA
Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer in the Arabic Department in Bar Ilan
University and a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies
told IMRA that Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, who was appointed by Yasser Arafat to be
the Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, endorsed suicide attacks in his weekly
sermon from the Al Aksa Mosque broadcast live on May 25th at 1:00 p.m. on the PA's Voice of Palestine radio station.
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"Sabri told the story of the Mu'ta Battle of 630 between the Moslems and the
Byzantines. Ja-far Ben Abi Talib infiltrated the Byzantine lines alone,
knowing that he would be killed. They cut his right hand and he continued
to fight with his left hand. They cut his left hand and he continued to
fight with other parts of his body and they then killed him. When the
Moslems found his body they found that he had 50 stab wounds on his body -
all on the front of his body, which demonstrated that he did not try to
escape."
"This is thought of as suicide?", asked Ekrima Sabri, "this is martyrdom"
Kedar explained that the meaning of the story is that someone who goes into
battle knowing with certainty that he will die is not committing suicide but
instead martyrdom. "I see this as Ekrima Sabri explicitly permitting suicide
attacks," Kedar noted.
Kedar sees Ekrima Sabri's statement as the Palestinian Authority's official
answer to the debate taking place in the Moslem world over whether one may
take part in a suicide attack.
Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director
IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
Email: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: www.imra.org.il
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Arafat makes poison gas accusation aganst Israel
President Arafat at the Ministerial Meeting of OIC;
Israel uses depleted uranium, poison gases and radioactive material in war to exterminate the Palestinians; no compromise on return of refugees their homes
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President Arafat addressing the Ministerial Meeting of OIC:
www.wafa.pna.net/EngText/26-05-2001/page001.htm
Why this absolute incapacity in the UN Security Council in the face of this
war of aggression waged by the Government of Israel against our people?
Doha, Qatar, May 26th. Wafa,
President Yasser Arafat described the Israeli unleashed assault, as a
destructive war of aggression aimed at exterminating our people.
H.E. wondered about the absolute incapacity in the UN Security Council in
the face of this war of aggression waged by the Government of Israel against
our people? Who imposes this complete silence on the UN Security Council? Is
it double standards and the total bias in favour of aggression and the
aggressors at the cost of international norms and laws and at the cost of
the victims of our people, our land and our Christian and Islamic holy
places that fall under the Omari concordat, which we are fully commeted to
it and respect it?
H.E. said We are for a just, full and comprehensive peace in our region and
on all Arab tracks. We are for the peace of the brave for the sake of our
children and their children. In the wake of these circumstances, dangerous
military escalation and the current situation, we do not find what is better
than the Egyptian-Jordanian initiative and the recommendations of the
Mitchell Commission, particularly its recommendation for a final and
complete freeze on settlements.
H.E. The President added that the government of Israel continue to evade all
resolutions of the international legitimacy. In this attempt, Israel is
being covered and protected by the rejection to let the UN Security Council
adopt a resolution on international forces or observers to proveide for
international protection to our people in the face of this total Israeli
aggression against our homeland, people and holy places.
Hereby is the full text of the speech of President Arafat to the Meeting of
the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Organization of Islamic Conference
in Doha Qatar Today:
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Glory to (God)
Who did take His Servant
For a Journey by night
From the Sacred Mosque,
To the Farthest Mosque,
Whose precincts We did
Bless,- in order that we
Might show him some
Of Our Signs: for He
Is the One Who heareth
And seeth (all things)
Sadaqa Allahu Al Azhim
Your Highness Brother Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa Al - Thani,
President of the Islamic Summit, Prince of the fraternal State of Qatar,
Excellencies the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Countries of the
Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Peace, God's mercy and blessings be with you from the Holy Land whose
precincts God did bless, from Al Quds Asharif, Holy Jerusalem, the place of
the nocturnal journey of our Prophet Muhammad, God's prayers and peace be
upon him, and the place of nativity of our lord Jesus Christ, peace be upon
him.
Peace, God's mercy and blessings be with you from steadfast Palestine and
from the people of Palestine, who irrigate with their blood their holy land
with Al Aqsa Intifada in defense of the Al Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the
Rock, the Holy Mosque of Jerusalem (Haram Sharif), the Church of Nativity,
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and all the Christian and Islamic Holy
Places. The spark that ignited this aggression against our people and holy
sites was the visit made by Sharon, with agreement of Barak, to the Haram
Sharif (the Holy Sanctuary). Following Sharon's visit, the Israeli army
opened fire on the worshipers at the Haram Sharif, despite our calls on
Barak not to permit this provecative vist.
Peace be upon you from the land blessed by God, the first of the two Qiblas
and the third after the two holy Mosques. It is the land that is being
exposed to the conspiracy of judaization, and Zionist settlement with the
aim of uprooting our history that goes deep in time and existence. It is the
great international conspiracy that made our homeland, territory, history
and holy places free to grab in contravention of any human justice or
international legitimacy. The masses of our Palestinian people, who are in
garrison to the Day of Judgement, as our gracious Prophet had said, are
irrigating with their blood the land of Palestine, its plains, mountains,
historic and holy places. How many are the heinous massacres perpetrated by
the Israeli occupiers at the Holy Al Aqsa Mosque against the worshipers as
they were praying in the presence of God during the month Ramadan "in which
was sent down the Quran, as a guide To mankind, also clear (Signs) For
guidance and judgement (Between right and wrong)", at the Holy Ibrahimi
Mosque, at the Prayer at dawn where the treacherous bullets of the settlers
and the Israeli occupation army sawed the souls of innocent people as they
were worshiping God to protect their land and holy places. In addition,
there are the monstrous massacres against our unarmed people carried out by
missiles and bombs shelled from the F-16 war planes, the Apache helicopters,
tanks and artillery, their missiles and internationally prohibited bombs,
including depleted uranium, poison gases and radioactive material used
against our Palestinian people, their institutions and facilities, their
homes, farms and factories.
Your Highness Brother Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa Al - Thani,
Excellencies the Ministers of Foreign Affairs,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is the eighth consecutive month of this unjust war of aggression waged
by the Government of Israel, its army and settlers against our people, our
land, our Palestinian Authority, and its apparatuses, installations and
security forces. It is a destructive war of aggression that aims at
uprooting our people from their land, and the extirpation of our history and
holy places from this Holy Land, whose precincts God did bless. It is an
aggressive war aimed at the extermination of our existence from our
homeland, the only homeland that we have, and from our lands, the land of
the nocturnal journey of Prophet Muhammad, God's prayers and peace be upon
him, and the land of the nativity our lord Jesus Christ, peace upon him.
They try by all means to obliterate and destroy our Islamic And Christian
holy places, and judaize our Holy Jerusalem.
The Government of Israel lays siege to our people for the eighth consecutive
month, bombards cities, bulldozes land, demolishes factories and
installations, destroys bridges and residential areas and kills children
while they are in the bosoms of their mothers and fathers. Which conscience
in this world can remain silent in the face of killing the child Muhammad
Durra? Which conscience in this world can remain silent while the shells
penetrate the body of four months old child Iman Hijjou as she was sucking
the breast of her mother? Did she threaten the Israeli security with her
missiles and tank bombs in order to kill her?! as they and their media with
the help of some foregn medias spread lies all the time!!.
Yes, indeed, this is a destructive war of aggression aimed at exterminating
our people, destroying their existence, entity and holy places without
giving due consideration to human rights and international legality. Our
people are facing this destructive war and these crimes and massacres
perpetrated by the Government of Israel over fifty years. Will the world
forget the massacre of Deir Yassin or the massacre of Dawaymeh, of Lod and
Ramla in 1948? Will the world forget the massacres of Sabra and Shatilla
refugee camps? Will the world forget the massacres at the Holy Al Aqsa
Mosque, the Holy Ibrahimi Mosque and the other crimes and massacres? During
the last eight months we lost in the blessed Al Aqsa Intifada 600 martyrs
and more than 28 thousand injured among them huge numbers of children, women
and elderly!
Our Palestinian people, who are in garrison to the Day of Judgement, in Holy
Jerusalem and in its precincts, call upon you and upon all brothers, friends
and the international community, to stop this destructive Israeli war of
aggression which is sawing every day the lives of our children and people.
These souls do not find in the international community anyone who stands up
in the face of aggressive Ito tell her: Enough killing the Palestinian
people, who have the right, as all other peoples in the world, to live in
freedom, dignity and independence on the territory of their homeland, in
their independent state and in their Holy Jerusalem, the eternal capital of
independent Palestine.
Why this absolute incapacity in the UN Security Council in the face of this
war of aggression waged by the Government of Israel against our people? Who
imposes this complete silence on the UN Security Council? Is it double
standards and the total bias in favour of aggression and the aggressors at
the cost of international norms and laws and at the cost of the victims of
our people, our land and our Christian and Islamic holy places that fall
under the Omari concordat, which we are fully commeted to it and respect it?
Your Highness Brother Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa Al - Thani,
Excellencies the Ministers of Foreign Affairs,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The history of these Islamic meetings at the level of the summit and at the
level of foreign ministers is connected to this great conspiracy against our
people, our homeland, Palestine, Holy Jerusalem and our Christian and
Islamic holy places. Despite the important decisions adopted by the recent
Islamic summit, convened in the fraternal State of Qatar, to stop the
aggression and to protect our holy sites, the Israeli aggressors become more
obstinate. They continued their aggression against our people, homeland and
holy places because they are not afraid of punishment be imposed on them, be
they political or diplomatic or economic, to force them to stop their
aggression. Frankly, I say, the Israeli aggressors enjoy complete protection
of and total support for their aggression from the dominating and hegemonic
forces in the international community. Regrettably, the Israeli aggressors
continue to receive the protection even though we have accepted the
resolutions of the international legitimacy and agreed that they be the road
to achieve just peace which will guarantee for us our national rights, full
and complete, in our homeland and holy places and in our holy Jerusalem. The
conspiracy however was unmasked and appeared in its most ugly face. The
Israelis continued judaizing Holy Jerusalem, especially what they announced
recently that Sharon received the architectural designs to build a synagogue
in the courtyard of the Haram Sharif as a basis for building the Temple as
they claim. In addition, they continued building more settlements and
expanding already existing ones in- and outside Holy Jerusalem, instead of
vacating them in compliance with the resolutions of international legitimacy
which call for the Israeli withdrawal from all our occupied territories, and
which consider these settlements as illegal actions.
Our Palestinian people hold fast to their land, holy Jerusalem and their
holy places. They will not forsake any iota of dust of their homeland. They
will not give up any of the resolutions of international legitimacy. They
will not surrender the right of return of the Palestinian refugees which
they have in fulfillment of UNGA Resolution 194 which stipulate the right of
refugees to return to their homeland and homes from which they were unjustly
displaced at the point of the gun.
Your Highness, Brother Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa Al - Thani,
Excellencies, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs,
The issue of Palestine is your issue. The issue of Jerusalem and its holy
places are your issue and your holy places. There is no way to save Holy
Jerusalem from the dangers of judaization and the cancerous settlements
creeping on the Holy City except by your firm, solid and full - of - faith
stand, as an Arab and Islamic nation, in the face of this wicked aggression
and dangerous aggressors as well as in the face of those who protect the
Israeli aggressors from international legality, and the legality of human
rights and the United Nations.
The danger is imminent. It is grave. Henceforth it can not be stopped by
statements of denunciation, condemnation and censure. There is no way but to
take a firm stand that puts aggression and the aggressors in shackles, and
that ensures the right of our people to live in their homeland free from
occupation, settlements, racist aggression and military escalation. The
Government of Israel is pressing on in these practices because it thinks
that by force and omnipotent power and by the most modern weapons of
destruction, murder and annihilation it will be able to subdue our people,
judaize their Holy Jerusalem and annul their right to independence,
sovereignty and a free and dignified life in their homeland. It forgets that
our people are omnipotent giants who will not be disparaged or resign, and
who will continue their steadfastness and sacrifices until a young boy or
girl will be able to hoist the flag of Palestine, on behalf of our nation,
on the walls of Jerusalem, the minarets of Jerusalem and the Churches of
Jerusalem. They see it far, we see it near. We say the truth. "And to enter
your Temple As they had entered it before, And to visit with destruction All
that fell into their power." (Sadaqa Allahu Al Azhim).
Your Highness, Brother Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa Al - Thani,
Excellencies, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs,
Our steadfast, persevering and mujahid people pin great hopes on you. You
are their support. You are the Arab Islamic bulwark on whom they depend in
their jihad and sacrifices, in their patience and perseverance in making
sacrifices. Our people await an Islamic Arab stand as well as a stand from
all believing Christians, the Non-Aligned countries and from all friends the
world over. They are awaiting this stand that will give them support,
encouragement and solidify their steadfastness in the face of the Israeli
war machine, and its ongoing escalation against our people and holy places.
They are awaiting a stand that supports their steadfastness in the face of
the Israeli actions of destruction caused to our people, to their towns,
villages and refugee camps, as well as in the face of bulldozing our green
lands, the demolition of our factories and installations and vital
facilities, the demolition of our infra- and supra-structures; the economic
and financial siege, the holding of our tax revenues, the siege imposed on
supplies and medicine and the prohibition of our workers to work whose
number exceed 360 thousand workers, and in the face of the other forms of
siege and starvation.
Dear Brothers,
We are for a just, full and comprehensive peace in our region and on all
Arab tracks. We are for the peace of the brave for the sake of our children
and their children. In the wake of these circumstances, dangerous military
escalation and the current situation, we do not find what is better than the
Egyptian-Jordanian initiative and the recommendations of the Mitchell
Commission, particularly its recommendation for a final and complete freeze
on settlements. We have agreed to freeze settlements and stop their
expansion after the Oslo agreement with our late partner Rabin, who was
assassinated by these extremist Zionist forces, who do not want peace or any
agreement but want military escalation, and to bring our Palestinian people
and our Arab and Islamic nation to their knees, and to judaize the Christian
and Islamic holy sites, as they are doing in Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem,
Beit Jala and Beit Sahour. There is an international consensus on this
initiative and the report of the Mitchell Commission which was established
as a result of the Sharm Sheikh meeting in which the USA, the European
Union, the Secretary General of the UN, Egypt and Jordan participated. Why
do we not follow upon this to put a mechanism of implementation by convening
a new conference of Sharm Sheikh in which the Russian Federation, the other
co-sponsor of the peace process can participate and in which representatives
of the Islamic Summit, the Committee on Jerusalem and other international
forces are present. Why do we not exert all international efforts so that
they be accepted and implemented by Israel, which tries to rid itself from
all agreements and commitmensigned by the various Israeli Governments? The
government of Israel continue to evade all resolutions of the international
legitimacy. In this attempt, Israel is being covered and protected by the
rejection to let the UN Security Council adopt a resolution on international
forces or observers to proveide for international protection to our people
in the face of this total Israeli aggression against our homeland, people
and holy places.
Our people pin great hopes on you and on your stand. They are fully
confident that Holy Jerusalem and beloved Palestine are held in trust by
you, and that you will not jeopardize this trust that God, Al Mighty, has
put in you til the Day of Judgement.
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful,
We will, without doubt,
Help Our apostles and those
Who believe, (both)
In this world's life
And on the Day
When the witnesses
Will stand forth,
Sadaga Allahu Al Azhim.
www.wafa.pna.net/EngText/26-05-2001/page001.htm
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When Peace Now's Academic Spokesman Endorses Selective Murder of Jews
Dr. Ze'ev Sternhell
As the months since the downfall of Ehud Barak go by, not only does the
sense of loss increase, but so too the dilemma deepens in which the left
wing finds itself - facing a government of the settlers that is pushing
Israel closer and closer toward the insane margins of statehood.On the
backdrop of the current struggle, the decision to pump huge additional sums
of money into the territories, coupled with an explicitly-stated refusal to
freeze settlement activities, rears up like a carefully-calculated strategic
ploy, and not merely an attempt to placate the masses.
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As a result, the Palestinians have the right to view this government
initiative as a deciding factor in favor of continuing the conflict.
Implementation of the initiative would certainly bring about an escalation
in the resistance and violence, together with a louder call for
international intervention as the only solution both to the severe distress
of the Palestinian population and to Israel's inability to keep itself in
check.
Nevertheless, this government - as cruel, if not criminal, as its behavior
toward the occupied population may be - is a government that was
democratically elected.
Hence the following simple question, as biting as it is, must be asked -
does the fact that a government enjoys a stable majority in the Knesset
afford it the authority to demand that the minority accept the law it lays
down, at all times and under any circumstances?
It should be noted immediately that expressions of this kind have never once
tickled the conscience of the settlement-oriented right. When Barak was in
power and was conducting negotiations with the Palestinians on fundamental
principles, to which we will have to return to in the future anyway because,
after all, there is no other basis for peace, there was no doubt that the
settlement leaders would use all means at their disposal to oppose any
attempt to evacuate their communities.
It was the fear of violent resistance that kept the moonstruck settlements
in the heart of Hebron, the Gaza Strip and the suburbs of Ramallah in place.
The settler rightists have always made a point of clarifying that as far as
they are concerned, any decision on the evacuation of Jews from their homes
is morally invalid and tantamount to treason.
In the past decade, it was this fear of a rupture that could have ended in
bloodshed that paralyzed Rabin and Peres and later prevented Barak from
unequivocally presenting his withdrawal map. Now comes the practical
question: If the right is allowed to aim a loaded pistol at the heart of any
government in Israel, why does the left have to submissively accept dictates
that threaten turning Israel into a country that could be held accountable
for war crimes?
The left has been debilitated not by the Intifada, but by the Palestinian
demand for the right of return. The Palestinian leadership, one can safely
assume, failed to properly assess the Israeli reaction to such a demand or
understand the magnitude of its error in raising it. After all, the top
officials in the Palestinian Authority know that a right of return to within
the Green Line (the pre-1967 borders of Israel) will never be realized; yet
they don't dare tell the truth to the residents of the refugee camps.
Presumably, this last barrier will also be lifted in the not-too-distant
future. The Intifada is serving both as an attempt to delay the outcome and,
at the same time, an opportunity to construct another stratum of bravery and
sacrifice on which to lay the foundations of independence.
Many in Israel, perhaps even the majority of the voters, do not doubt the
legitimacy of the armed resistance in the territories themselves. The
Palestinians would be wise to concentrate their struggle against the
settlements, avoid harming women and children and strictly refrain from
firing on Gilo, Nahal Oz or Sderot; it would also be smart to stop planting
bombs to the west of the Green Line. By adopting such an approach, the
Palestinians would be sketching the profile of a solution that is the only
inevitable one: The amended Green Line will be an international border and
territory will be handed over to compensate the Palestinians for land that
has already been or will be annexed to Israel.
In the immediate term, however, there is a pressing need to adopt a position
on the proposal to send international forces to Israel - a suggestion that
is gaining momentum, and not only in Europe. After all, if there is reason
to oppose a U.S. infantry battalion stationed in the Sinai, if it is a good
idea to allow UN observer forces to take up positions on the Golan Heights
and along the border with Lebanon, why is there such a fierce rejection of
their proposed presence in the PA?
If we have nothing to hide; if our behavior is exemplary; if we aren't
shooting at children or stopping pregnant women at roadblocks; if we aren't
starving entire villages, why don't we allow U.S. officers to report this to
the entire world? If we are only defending ourselves against the forces of
evil, fighting terrorism with the purest of intentions and arms, and, it
goes without saying, upholding signed deals and international law, why don't
we allow the truth to be revealed?
This hypocritical government, which has little regard for the life of a
non-Jew, appears to be on the verge of setting a new record and persuading
its citizens that truly someone else must save us from ourselves. When
Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir held the reigns of power, even their most
bitter enemies knew that there were red lines that the two former prime
ministers would not cross, at least not consciously or intentionally. This
confidence in the moral considerations of the veterans of the Etzel and Lehi
pre-state, underground militias has now disappeared altogether. The human
dimension that characterized the members of that fighting elite is a
stranger to the Pinchas Wallersteins, Benny Elons and fanatics from Hebron
and isn't understood by them and their like.
Ariel Sharon has yet to finally decide whether he wants to be like Menachem
Begin or the leaders of the settlers. For now, all the signs seem to
indicate that imperviousness, evil and shortsightedness are gaining the
upper hand.
Published in Ha'aretz on 11th May, 2001
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"Gush Shalom" Spokesman Endorses PLO Suicide Attacks in Settlements
Gush Shalom spokesman Gidon Spiro's column in the Jerusalem weekly
Kol Hazman, May 25, 2001,page 42:
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"I understand that that here is not Ghandi's India and the Israeli
occupation army is not the British army and therefore, the armed Palestinian struggle, just in its essence, will continue.
And therefore, it should be concentrated against the settlements. If there is no way except that suicide missions continue, it would be best to take the Japanese Kamikaze method of planes crashing down upon the settlements and army bases rather than suicide bombers blowing themselves up in malls and buses within the Green Line".
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Sharon's Bureau: Our Patience is Running Out
Menahem Rahat
Officials in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Bureau last night stated clearly that Israel's patience in continuing the cease-fire in the face of Palestinian violence is coming to an end.
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"Only Arafat and the Palestinian Authority will bear the consequences of the deterioration for which they are responsible," said the statement.
"Israel expects the international community to do what is necessary to
persuade the Palestinians and Arafat to lay down their arms."
"Even though Israel announced a unilateral cease-fire except in cases
where lives are endangered," said the statement, "the Palestinians are
continuing - in contravention of the conclusions of the Mitchell report and
despite calls by the prime minister - to carry out terrorist attacks, ever
more vigorously."
The statement points out that despite the terrorist attacks and the
security dangers involved, Israel over the last few days has opened an
additional crossing point for Palestinian workers, thus allowing thousands
more Palestinians to enter and work in Israel.
As to the Mitchell report, it has become known that Defense Minister
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres support a settlement
freeze and unequivocal acceptance of the report - in contrast to the stance
of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The latter is of the opinion still that an
interim formula could be reached which would allow Israel to continue
construction in the settlements in a limited manner.
Meanwhile yesterday, American special envoy William Burns arrived in
Israel and is due to meet today with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and PA
Chairman Yasser Arafat. The envoy is also expected to meet with Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.
Yesterday an Islamic Movement conference, representing 56 Islamic
countries, convened in Doha, Qatar, and decided to cut off all diplomatic
contacts with Israel. The representatives were thus responding to PA
Chairman Yasser Arafat's demands[ . . . ]
This article ran on May 27, 2001 in Maariv
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