One Palestine Complete
May 17, 2008
The solution to the conflict originated by Israel is a Palestinian State, writes Agustin Velloso in today’s guest editorial. Both the one-state and two-state arguments are generally framed in a context of Israeli ‘concessions’. It was the Palestinians who were wronged, and it is their land that was stolen; a discourse would only be meaningful if it is framed in terms of what concessions they are willing to make. It is time to rethink existing proposals, and move towards a third way based on justice, rather than expedience.
1. One State or Two?
The number of articles and statements about the solution to the Palestinian conflict has increased notably during 2008. The increase accompanies the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, established on May 14th, 1948. Millions of Palestinians have suffered the consequences since then. Israel was established and exists at the expense of the Palestinian people.
All these years Israel has shown clearly that its existence is incompatible with the human and political rights of the Palestinians as human beings and as a people. It is well-known that Palestinians have to pay a price, no matter how high, in death, exile, occupation that Israel considers appropriate for making the Zionist project in Palestine a success. This project turns on the acquisition of Palestinian and Arab lands for the exclusive benefit of the Jews from all over the world, together with the exclusion of their legitimate inhabitants.
Neither the numerous United Nations Resolutions devoted to the Palestinian conflict, nor the widespread and repeated criticism of Israel’s policies and acts, let alone Palestinian demands and resistance, have managed to stop the Zionist project.
Talking to ‘Terrorists’
April 29, 2008
A counterproductive Washington policy in recent years has been to boycott and punish political factions or governments that refuse to accept U.S. domination. This policy deters the ability of revolutionary or uncooperative leaders to moderate their attitude and demands.
A notable example is Nepal. About twelve years ago, Maoist guerillas launched an effort to modify or overthrow the monarchy and force changes in the nation’s political and social life. Although the United States declared the revolutionaries to be terrorists, The Carter Center agreed to help mediate the dispute among the three major factions: royal family, old-line political parties and Maoists.
Six months after the oppressive monarch was removed from power, a cease-fire agreement was consummated. Maoist combatants lay down their arms and the Nepalese Army agreed to remain in barracks.
No Peace Without Hamas
April 18, 2008
Mahmoud al-Zahar of Hamas on why there can be no peace unless his party, the elected representatives of the Palestinian people, is included.
GAZA — President Jimmy Carter’s sensible plan to visit the Hamas leadership this week brings honesty and pragmatism to the Middle East while underscoring the fact that American policy has reached its dead end. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acts as if a few alterations here and there would make the hideous straitjacket of apartheid fit better. While Rice persuades Israeli occupation forces to cut a few dozen meaningless roadblocks from among the more than 500 West Bank control points, these forces simultaneously choke off fuel supplies to Gaza; blockade its 1.5 million people; approve illegal housing projects on West Bank land; and attack Gaza City with F-16s, killing men, women and children. Sadly, this is “business as usual” for the Palestinians.
Last week’s attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot should not surprise critics in the West. Palestinians are fighting a total war waged on us by a nation that mobilizes against our people with every means at its disposal — from its high-tech military to its economic stranglehold, from its falsified history to its judiciary that “legalizes” the infrastructure of apartheid. Resistance remains our only option. Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world’s largest open-air prison, can do no less.
Friend Or Foe?
April 13, 2008
Jimmy Carter plans to meet with with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Damascus in the next week in what Washington Post has described as ‘a direct rebuke of the Bush administration’s campaign to isolate it.’ Predictably all three presidential candidates rushed to condemn him. The following lines are telling in particular about how much of a stranglehold the Israel lobby has over US body politik.
…a source close to Carter said that the former president favors Obama but that he has decided not to endorse Obama publicly or formally because he fears it would contribute to hostility toward Obama among Jewish Democrats [...]
A bipartisan group of foreign-policy luminaries, including former national security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, issued a statement before the Annapolis peace talks sponsored by the administration in November that said “we believe a genuine dialogue with the organization [Hamas] is far preferable to its isolation.” [...]
Brzezinski, Carter’s former national security adviser and an Obama supporter, said he was unaware of Carter’s plans but said “it is a good idea to talk to Hamas,” given the changing mood in Israel. “Extremist movements, if handled intelligently, can be brought around to embrace” a more moderate approach, he said [...]
Spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama “does not agree with President Carter’s decision to go forward with this meeting because he does not support negotiations with Hamas until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and abide by past agreements.”
Despite Obama’s kowtowing, Peter Wallsten of the Los Angeles Times reports that ‘Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama…They consider him receptive despite his clear support of Israel.’
CHICAGO — It was a celebration of Palestinian culture — a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.
A special tribute came from Khalidi’s friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi’s wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.
Interview with Hamas leadership
March 11, 2008
Excellent interview with the political leader of Hamas Khaled Meshaal.
A report released this week by the American magazine Vanity Fair disclosed a plan by the US administration to overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas by arming rival Fatah forces through millions of dollars worth of weapons. This as Israel waged its deadliest round of attacks on Gaza since 2000.Al Jazeera’s Hashim Ahlbarra meets with Hamas’ Khaled Meshaal, head of the group’s political bureau, and asks him about the report.In this episode of Talk to Jazeera, Mishaal ,talks about the leaked US plan of arming Fatah and instigating a civil war in Gaza.
Humanitarian Implosion
March 6, 2008
‘Sanctions causing Gaza to implode, say rights groups‘. The honourable John Dugard states something that the international ‘community’ and servile media would much rather ignore: that the occupation makes terrorism inevitable. But now the horror of the occupation has been supplemented — with full Arab complicity — by the ravages of sanctions.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are living through their worst humanitarian crisis since the 1967 war because of the severe restrictions imposed by Israel since the Islamist movement Hamas seized power, a report says today.Movement is all but impossible and supplies of food and water, sewage treatment and basic healthcare can no longer be taken for granted. The economy has collapsed, unemployment is expected to rise to 50%, hospitals are suffering 12-hour power cuts and schools are failing - all creating a “humanitarian implosion”, according to a coalition of eight UK humanitarian and human rights groups. Read the rest of this entry »
The Gaza Bombshell
March 4, 2008
A very important article by David Rose that reveals with documentary evidence the secret US plan to instigate a Civil War in the Occupied Palestinian Territories with Fatah’s collaboration. ‘After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election,’ Rose writes, ’the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.’ (thanks Dave and Ann)
“A Dirty War”
The Al Deira Hotel, in Gaza City, is a haven of calm in a land beset by poverty, fear, and violence. In the middle of December 2007, I sit in the hotel’s airy restaurant, its windows open to the Mediterranean, and listen to a slight, bearded man named Mazen Asad abu Dan describe the suffering he endured 11 months before at the hands of his fellow Palestinians. Abu Dan, 28, is a member of Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamist organization that has been designated a terrorist group by the United States, but I have a good reason for taking him at his word: I’ve seen the video.
Between Negotiations and Resistance
March 4, 2008
Hamas 1988-2008. Today’s guest editorial from my friend Agustin Velloso in Madrid.
2008 marks the 20th anniversary of Hamas as a political movement in Palestine, involving two decades of continuous struggle against Israeli occupation. Most importantly, Hamas has confronted not just the Middle East’s most powerful army, equipped with state of the art weaponry and nuclear arms, but also the most powerful Western countries. These have supported Israel, completely contravening international law in relation to the Occupation. In addition, Hamas has been abandoned to its fate by neighbouring Arab regimes.
In spite of this, since its beginning in1988, Hamas has grown year after year until, in January 2006, it won the legislative elections in the Occupied Territories. It is reasonable to conclude that this popular validation confirms beyond doubt that the Palestinian people support the political programme of Hamas to end Israeli occupation of their land.
The Holocaust Begins
March 1, 2008
Israeli deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai had promised a ‘holocaust’ in Gaza. Here it begins. (Here Qunfuz provides useful context to the present escalation)
Al Jazeera International reports:
The Palestinian president has accused Israel of “international terrorism”, saying its assault on Gaza constitutes “more than a holocaust”.
Mahmoud Abbas’s comments on Saturday came as more Israeli air raids brought the total death toll over four days to 88 people, at least a third of which have been children, according to medical sources.
Fifty-four people were killed during Saturday’s raids alone.
The limit of Obama’s imagination
February 23, 2008
‘At a time when Obama’s moral voice was most needed, the reach of his wings proved to be cautiously perforated on an AIPAC line,’ writes Hamid Dabashi.
“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late . . . Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, ‘Too late.’ There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect.” — Martin Luther King, Jr
Click to view caption
‘If only Obama could burn this picture of him sitting with his wife, Michele, at the same table with Edward and Mariam Said’
I HAVE BEEN a silent witness to a succession of US presidential elections for over thirty years now. I came to the United States in August 1976, the very last year of the presidency of the incumbent Republican president Gerald R. Ford, and as he and Jimmy Carter were debating each other in the lead up to November 1976 election, in which President Ford lost and President Carter succeeded him. At the time of writing this article I am yet again witness to a highly contested series of primaries for the presidential election of 2008 — as on the democratic front Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois have captured and divided the attention of a highly charged and massively divisive American electorate — along the thorny issues of race and gender, establishment versus progressive politics, and above all a regressive politics of the status quo and a buoyant possibility of yet another upsurge of hope for the younger generation of Americans to give political reality to their otherwise moot and mute idealism.
