2005-12-17
Elections Time in the Wild Middle East
This week
Elections in the air, in both Israel and Palestine.
The elections' background: the restarted IDF assassinations policy - always accounts are found to be settled - and the predictable flare-up of Palestinian answers in kind. Even without that, elections under occupation do not express to the same extent the principles of democracy as elections in an independent country. Fatah's most popular leader, Marwan Barghouti, is languishing in prison. Maybe if he was free and if Israel wouldn't weaken the Palestinian Authority in all possible ways, Hamas would not have it so easy to win city after city.
The Israeli call to exclude Hamas from the general elections is simply more oil on the fire. And the hastily-produced US Congress resolution telling the Palestinian Authority either to exclude Hamas from the general elections or face a stop of American aid, shows more panic than wisdom, and is a self-inflicted insult for the Americans as 'the flagbearers of democracy'.
Elections without Hamas a farce, like US elections without Republicans
Read full text of Gush Shalom press release:
http://www.geocities.com/toi_billboard/gu_prDec17.htm
PA 'categorically rejects' US Congress resolution
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid
=1134309596648&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Fatah, offshoot party to discuss uniting slates
FM Shalom: Hamas victory precludes return to road map
Beilin, Ayalon blame Sharon for Hamas gains
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/658901.html
More on elections and polls
49% of Israelis support sharing Jerusalem
Robert Rosenberg, Today's Situation, Dec. 16
http://www.ariga.com/2005-12-16.shtml
Bil'in and the Friday evening news
The struggle of Bil'in - more or less a fixed item. This week's emphasis was on the expansion of the Modi'in Illit settlement at the expense of the lands of the Bil'in farmer community. The ultra-orthodox settlement already drew media attention - when earlier this week was revealed that Defence Minister Mofaz, days before his defection to Sharon's Kadima Party, had campaigned inside the Likud by handing out permits for the building of hundreds more settler houses. Speaking about the Road Map...
ISM Volunteer Injured in Bil’in
Attorney Anna Maria, 61, a Spanish peace activist, was injured during the December 16th protest against the Separation Wall and settlement separation Wall and settlements
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2005/
12/17/ism-volunteer-injured-in-bilin-by-iof/
Army frustrated because of media exposure
Bil'in 16-12-05 report by Ilan Shalif of Anarchists Against Fences
http://www.ainfos.ca/05/dec/ainfos00203.html
***
Read more:
Targeted killings futile
Open letter by Yigal Sarena to Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin
Yediot Aharononot, Dec. 15, 2005
(...) Which brings me to my main point: Our return to the days of targeted
killings. After a break in which we've started to live and breathe again, you've decided to return us to those terrible years, 2002-03. It's as
if we've learned nothing.
English translation :
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3184783,00.html
Peretz camp: Sharon wants terror
Attila Somfalvi
Labor party leader’s campaign manager says prime minister has power to decide whether terror attacks continue, uses security threats to deflect attention from other issues (... ) After assassinations, there are terror attacks. More assassinations equal more attacks."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3184798,00.html
Immunity was a mistake
By Yuval Shany
Background: the civil suit filed in New York against Avi Dichter, former head of the Shin Bet security service
The recent amendment to Israeli law, which retroactively denies the right of Palestinians to submit "intifada suits" related to damages caused them after September 2000, means that there is nothing to prevent the filing of corresponding damages suits in the United States.
read more
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/658648.html
Former IDF chief:War crimes suit won't disrupt U.S. stay
By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Dec. 16
Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Lt. Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon is not letting a civil lawsuit filed against him over war crimes disrupt his stay in the United States, Israel Radio reported Friday. The class-action lawsuit brought by a group of Lebanese nationals was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where Ya'alon is serving as a research fellow at the Washington Institute. He was scheduled to give a lecture on lessons learned during the war against terror at a Thursday night conference.
read morehttp://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/
pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=658545
State of decay
by KM Azmi Bishara
Sharon's new party did not cause a political earthquake in Israel; it expresses a mood and attitude that has prevailed among the Israeli right since the first Intifada. Large segments of the Israeli right have reached the conviction that Israel needs the establishment of a Palestinian state-like entity in order to extricate Israel from its demographic predicament. This conviction, however, stops well short of the conclusions that the creation of such a Palestinian state requires Israel's withdrawal to the pre-June 1967 borders, the dismantlement of all Israeli settlements and the recognition of the Palestinian right to
return. (...) The creation of a new party ( ..) is perfectly valid from the standpoint of political party politics.
What is not valid is the conclusion that Sharon has changed or that there is now a move in Israel towards a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian cause.
read morehttp://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/773/op2.htm
One could only wish that old friend Haim Hanegbi had read these words carefully before writing his own :
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/658548.html
Occupation dragging down IDF morals
David Zonshein
We must tell Brig. Gen. A: You are confused. Your soldiers, fresh from combat action in Kabatia and not wanting to take part in any more assassinations – are not traitors to be shot in the back. Quite the opposite.
read more http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/
0,7340,L-3181427,00.html
