Israel Resource Review |
30th June, 1998 |
Contents:
Al-Ahram:
Peace Offensive, Israel's Security, Beyond Oslo
The following are selections from articles which appeared in the
Egyptian English weekly, "Al-Ahram" of Al-Ahram Weekly, 18th - 24th June, 1998
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Truthful Lies, Respectable Murder
by Radwa Ashour
[Heading:] The Egyptian-Israeli peace offensive is a new form of
biological warfare writes Radwa Ashour. The writer is a novelist
and professor of English at Ain Shams University.
Lord Jeffrey Amherst, the commanding general of the British forces
in north America from 1754 to 1763 ... approved the plan ... to
distribute blankets and handkerchiefs infected with smallpox to
Native Americans besieging Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh). The blankets
started an epidemic.
. . . Reading the joint statement of the Egyptian Peace Movement and
the Israeli Peace Now movement, I could not help thinking of those
blankets.
The manipulation of words is advanced technology, a post-modern
device, but in essence similar to colonial germ warfare.
. . . the paragraph {of the joint statement} on Jerusalem is
particularly illustrative: "Jerusalem will remain a united city
permanently. The area of the city will be redefined and it will be
accepted that both nations live in the city, and that both enjoy
national and religious rights. Agreed and coordinated municipal
frameworks will be established within the city borders in order to
enable each community to manage its own internal affairs. Two
capitals will exist within the municipal area: the capital of
Israel in the Jewish areas, and the capital of Palestine in the
Arab areas. The status of the holy sites will be determined through
negotiations based on maintaining the religious rights and freedom
of worship of all religions." Jerusalem will remain a united
city, says the first sentence of the paragraph and the last
sentence of the same paragraph refers to two capitals in Jerusalem:
the capital of Israel and the capital of Palestine.
"In our time," says Orwell, "political speech and writing are
largely the defense of the indefensible."
. . . Fortunately, the large majority of Egyptian intellectuals see
things differently. Individual writers, artists, university
professors, journalists, researchers, scientists, and their unions
and associations -the Egyptian Writers' Union, the Artists' Union,
The Higher Council of Culture, the Journalists' Syndicate, the
Lawyers' Syndicate, to name a few -- have declared their position.
. . . The "gift" of the Cairo Peace Society and Peace Now is nothing
but a contaminated blanket. We do not want it; we do not need
smallpox; we have enough problems at hand.
Prisoners of Their Own War
by Amin Hewedy
[Heading:] Changes in technology and international relations have
rendered Israel's obsession with "security" both obsolete and
absurd writes Amin Hewedy, a former minister of defence and chief
of general intelligence.
Israel has successfully placed itself in an absurd position. Having
imposed itself in an antagonistic environment, Israel, which enjoys
relative security as a state, harbours a collection of individuals
who are a scared and insecure lot. Their crimes haunt them night
and day. Netanyahu is as scared and insecure as any other Israeli.
He is primarily an Ashkenazi, terrified of the present and future
alike.
. . . Israel's strategy has failed. At 50, it has neither stability or
security, A strategy that is effective at the time when a state is
established is not necessarily effective in fostering its
development and stability. It is unable to accommodate the
internal changes which have taken place within Israel itself, let
alone those which have occurred at the regional and global levels.
Israel's strategy is therefore an anachronism.
. . . Israel is no longer the fortress it once believed it was. During
Operation Desert Storm, Iraqi missiles reached targets inside
Israel, which prompted Israel to move its US-made Patriot missiles
into defence positions. [IMRA NOTE: US successfully implored Israel
not to use its airforce against Iraq]
. . . The outdated, extremist ideologies which hold sway politically
and militarily seek to impose a fait accompli by force. Security,
for Israelis, is a unilateral privilege, rather than a multilateral
arrangement including all states in the region.
This understanding of security accounts for Israel's soaring
defence costs, which are correlated with political fluctuations.
In 1960, Israel's defence budget was 7.9% of its GNP, rising to
25.1 percent in 1970, 32.1 percent in 1975, and 22.4 percent in
1980. This rate dropped to 13.4 percent in 1990, and again to 9.9
percent in 1995. When Netanyahu came to power in 1996 he reduced
defence costs by three percent, bringing the rate down to 10
percent of GNP.{IMRA NOTE: The author is confused}.
. . . Can anyone save Israel from itself? Perhaps it is necessary to
shake the pillars of this antediluvian temple of war -- to bring it
crumbling down.
Meeting Beyond Oslo
by Faiza Rady
[Heading:] The mood at last week's Jerusalem Conference on "50
Years of Israeli Violations of Palestinian Human Rights" was
vibrant and militant
Welcoming conference participants at the entrance of the Ambassador
Hotel in Arab East Jerusalem, bright yellow banners floating in the
light summer breeze bore slogans expressing the European Union's
support for the Palestinian people.
. . . "This meeting is about international NGO commitment to the
struggle of the Palestinian people," Egyptian-born Maria Gazi,
vice-chair of the European Committee for NGOs on the Question of
Palestine (ECCP) told Al-Ahram Weekly. "It is significant that as
many as 350 delegates from 30 different countries are attending the
conference."
The conference was organised by the Palestinian Society for the
Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (LAW).
Hanna Amireh, a conference organiser, felt the gathering " ... is
especially important since it is taking place in Jerusalem, the
most contested area in Palestine that the Israelis are attempting
to ethnically cleanse and where they are disrupting the Palestinian
cultural, social and political infrastructure."
Amireh deplored the almost complete absence of Arab delegates, and
called for greater regional solidarity with the Palestinians.
Baheieddin Hassan. director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights
Studies, was the only Egyptian speaker at the conference.
. . . Amireh ... criticised Egyptian intellectuals who refuse to
attend solidarity meetings in Palestine. "They reject
normalisation and so refuse to cross Israeli borders...,"she told
the Weekly. "In Egypt there is a tendency to vacillate between two
extremes. On one hand you have groups which adopt a joint platform
with [the Israeli] Peace Now, and on the other there are those who
are more royalist than the king and refuse to meet us on our ground
for the sake of principles."
. . . Referring to the Palestinian Authority's agreement to postpone
the issue of settlements until the final status negotiations,
{prominent defender of Palestinian prisoners Israeli lawyer
Felicia} Langer described the Oslo Accords as a "formula for
disaster". "It is clear that without any legal guarantee against
further land confiscation and settlement activity, without
abolition of the legal mechanism of dispossession, Israel [has been
able] to create new facts on the ground and to cover them
internationally with the cloak of the 'peace process'," she said.
. . . "What you see now I would describe as a cease-fire on the
Palestinian side and a continuation of war by the Israelis," {head
of the Palestinian Relief Committee Dr. Mustafa} Baghouti told the
Weekly. "This is why I believe that the old peace process is dead.
We have now moved beyond Oslo."
Where do the Palestinians go from here? According to Baghouti, it
can only be to a new cycle of resistance, beyond the Oslo debacle,
he said.
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Shas MK, Rafael Pinhasi
by Aaron Lerner
IMRA interviewed Shas MK Rafael Pinhasi, in Hebrew, on June 28.
IMRA: In 1993 the coalition agreement signed between Shas and
Labor stated that in "any contractual peace agreement involving a
relinquishment of territory which is today under the sovereignty
or control of the State of Israel to another party to the agreement
or any third party, the agreement will be brought to the people
for decision, either by means of a referendum or in elections to
the Knesset and the premiership which will take place before the
peace agreement is signed."
Pinhasi: That only applied to the Golan.
IMRA: What's the difference between the Golan and Judea and
Samaria?
Pinhasi: There is a difference between the Golan and just giving
back territory. When it comes to just giving back territory we
don't feel that there should be a national referendum. Just
regarding the Golan because it is a security matter and for that we
had Rabin's agreement, per our demand, that he go to a national
referendum.
IMRA: In your view there is no security matter in Judea and
Samaria?
Pinhasi: Yes.
IMRA: During the same period, when he sat with the late Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef stressed his concern for
the safety of settlers in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Pinhasi: He didn't talk about a national referendum. It is clear
that their well being has to be secured but not via a national
referendum but rather via security arrangements set by the IDF in
concert with the prime minister.
IMRA: Earlier this month the Chief of Staff said that if the talks
later stall that the security situation will be considerably worse
if an additional withdrawal already took place than if one didn't.
Pinhasi: That's why we are pressing for a withdrawal. We support
a withdrawal.
IMRA: He told the Knesset Foreign Affair Committee said that if
there is a withdrawal and later the negotiations stall at a later
stage, after the withdrawal, that the security situation will be
considerably worse with the withdrawal than without it. So if you
fear that in the future the talks may stall then there is a problem
with the withdrawal.
Pinhasi: We are following a trend that the talks won't stall in
the future either. That the process should continue until a final
agreement is reached.
IMRA: That means assuming that at every stage of the talks they
won't stall.
Pinhasi: Right.
IMRA: I understand. That means that you are assuming that the
Palestinians will never raise a demand which you won't be able to
accept.
Pinhasi: Right.
IMRA: I understand. So everything they demand they can get.
Pinhasi: Not everything they demand. That's why the prime
minister and minister of defense are carefully guiding towards the
final stages, with American guarantees and the need for
reciprocity. That Arafat also has to keep all of his obligations:
to fight terror, to change the Palestinians Charter. We insist on
all of this also.
IMRA: That is to say that if Netanyahu drops his demand that the
Palestinian Charter be amended then you won't support him?
Pinhasi: If Binyamin Netanyahu gives up on it then we will
understand that he has reached the conclusion that he has to give
up on it and we will support him.
Dr. Aaron Lerner,
Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
P.O.BOX 982 Kfar Sava
Tel: (+972-9) 760-4719
Fax: (+972-9) 741-1645
imra@netvision.net.il
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