"If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs... There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was this their fault? They only know but one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why would they accept that." End of quote.
I think the following articles will suffice
1. Annapolis, as seen from Gaza
by Laila El-Haddad
22 November 2007
Even in the worst of times, there's one thing we're never short of in our troubled part of the world: another conference, meeting, declaration, summit, agreement. Something to save the day, to "steer" us back to whatever predetermined path it is we are or were meant to be on. And to help us navigate that path. Never mind the arguable shortcomings of this path, or the discontent it may have generated, for we all know what happens to people who question that; the important thing is to move forward, full steam ahead. Enter Annapolis. I've been there a couple of times. Beautiful port city great crabs, quaint antique shops. And of course, the US Navy. So what exactly is different this time around? Well, if you believe some of the newspaper headlines, lots. Like the fact that Ehud Olmert has promised not to build new settlements or expropriate land. And yet, as recently as September, Israel expropriated 1,100 dunams (272 acres) of Palestinian land in the West Bank to facilitate the development of E-1, a five-square-mile area in the West Bank, east of Jerusalem where Israel plans to build 3,500 houses, a hotel and an industrial park, completing the encirclement of Jerusalem with Jewish colonies, and cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank. The conference simply generates new and ever-more superfluous and intricate promises which Israeli leaders can commit to and yet somehow evade. An exercise in legal obfuscation at its best: we won't build new settlements, we'll just expropriate more land and expand to account for their "natural growth", until they resemble towns, not colonies, and have them legitimised by a US administration looking for some way to save face. And then we'll promise to raze outposts. Each step in the evolution of Israel's occupation - together with the efforts to sustain it and the language to describe it - has become ever more sophisticated, strategic and euphemistic. Israel has also promised the release of 450 Palestinian prisoners (who have, by Israel's own admission, nearly completed their sentences) on Sunday ahead of the conference, while dozens of others are detained and thousands of others remain in custody without charges or trial - making theirs the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Still, Annapolis is being hailed as the most serious attempt in eight years at getting "back on track". According to the US State Department's spokesperson, the conference "will signal broad international support for the Israeli and Palestinian leaders' courageous efforts, and will be a launching point for negotiations leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state and the realisation of Israeli-Palestinian peace." Support, I gather, that will also entail arms and money to help Abbas rid Gaza of Hamas once and for all. So then what are people's expectations in Gaza from all of this? In short, not much. But then, if history has taught them anything, it's that they never have much of a say in anything that involves their destiny, be it Madrid or Oslo or the Road Map. And the moment they do attempt to take control, the repercussions are to "teach" them never to attempt to do so again. To quote Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish "The siege will last in order to convince us we must choose an enslavement that does no harm, in fullest liberty!" The stage has been set, the roles are the same, but the actors have been switched. That is the feeling of many in Gaza. "The Annapolis meeting will not bring anything new for the Palestinians; it is a repetition of many other conferences which sought to reinforce the principle of making concession on the Palestinian national rights," says Yousef Diab, a 35-year-old government employee. For Fares Akram, a young Gaza-based journalist, the conference will result in little more than token concessions aimed at further isolating Hamas-run Gaza, and bolstering support for Abbas: "The Israeli government is weak in this time. President Abbas may get some support in the conference but the support will be for his struggle against Hamas. Gaza will remain forgotten and the improvements that may come out from the meeting will only apply to the West Bank while nothing will be done here in Gaza." Fida Qishta, a videographer and community activist in Gaza's troubled town of Rafah, can't even be bothered with thinking of things as abstract and distant and - ultimately - irrelevant as Annapolis when life in Gaza as she sees it has all but come to a standstill. "I wish you were here to see how life is, it is really like a body that died. I still can't imagine we are living through this and I try not to think about it a lot." Aliya Moor, a mother of eight, adds: "We're already dead, the only thing we need is to be buried, to be pushed into the grave and buried. It's already been dug for us." We are prisoners, others have told me, constantly waiting and helplessly hoping for decisions to be made that determine whether they live or die - both figuratively and literally. Except prisoners are guaranteed certain things, like food and water and access to medical care. Gazans are guaranteed none of these things. Instead, they are setting the bar as the first occupied people in history to be embargoed and declared hostile. "People just want out," explained another friend. It doesn't matter whether it's Fatah or Hamas any more. It just doesn't matter." We have become a people, to quote Darwish, constantly preparing for dawn, in the darkness of cellars lit by our enemies. Web link http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/laila_elhaddad/2007/11/annapolis_as_seen_from_gaza.html
By Charles E. Carlson
At the urging of the UK and US governments, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, are expected to meet next week in Annapolis for peace talks. But only false hopes can be fed there; it is a planned travesty and a bitter pill for all who pray for peace. We should have been questioning if Zionist Israel is not the catalyst for US' serial wars, there to stage a 'peace conference' to divert attention from other USA pending war plans in Iran.
Is peace the intent? It is natural to wonder if the persons representing the well-funded Israeli Zionists on one side, and the persons representing the homeless and hungry Philistines, insultingly called 'Palestinians,' have any options to which they can agree.
One of the biggest obstacles is that Israel has broken every promise to freeze annexation of land on the Arab's side of the green line by establishing squatter camp 'settlements.' The green line is supposed to be the 1967 peace boundary, but the huge wall built by the Israelis entirely on Arab land has now further contracted the Arab territory. And Israel continues to blockade and starve 1.4 million mostly Muslim Arab residents inside the fenced prison called Gaza. Israel's actions say to Arabs 'agree now to accept what we allow you to keep, or we will take that, too.' Christian Zionists chant in the background, 'take it all, take it all, God gave it to you.'
Even the US and the UK agree Israel must stop its land pilferage. It is not that everyone does not know its intent; it's too obvious to ignore. It can be embarrassing to have Israel as an ally when it steals right in front of the whole world; it is like having OJ Simpson as a legal client. An incident reminiscent of the OJ hotel hold-up is found in an obscure but verifiable story in the London Guardian dated November 16, which seems to settle the question of that lack of serious intent for peace on the Israeli side: Israel is using private real estate firms to peddle stolen property on the Philistine side of the Green line to buyers in London!
The Guardian story states: 'At the Israel Property Exhibition at Brent Town Hall, North London last Sunday, one (Israeli) company, Anglo-Saxon Real Estate, was offering for sale properties in Maale Adumim and Maccabim. Both West Bank settlements lie on the Palestinian side of the so-called Green Line, the pre-1967 boundary often cited as the border between Israel and a future Palestinian state.'
Readers must understand that Israel has, by brute military force, built a wall 26.5 feet high on the Philistine side of the Green Line fencing off thousands of acres of Arab land, even villages, and it is now busily colonizing the land it fenced off from the legal owners before the conference. According to the Guardian story: Homes in illegal Israeli settlements for sale at London expo, 'Israeli companies are using UK property shows to sell housi ng in illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Guardian Unlimited can reveal....Properties in illegal settlements were also on offer at a fair at Finchley synagogue, in North London, last month.' The poster advertising the exhibition called on investors to "strengthen your portfolio and Israel's future."
Revealingly, the Guardian story tells us Gavin Gross, director of public affairs at the Zionist Federation, which organized the Brent fair, stated, "While the promotion or sale of houses beyond Israel's Green Line is a contentious subject for some, it is not prohibited in Britain." Mr. Gross does not deny he is fencing stolen property, only that English law does not apply.
Anglo-Saxon Realty's website reveals a name is also a brazen fraud, in that it claims to be 'the largest marketter and broker of real estate in Israel with numerous offices from Nahariya in the north to Eilat in the south,' and operates through franchises, like some American realtors.
Palestinian Acting President Abbas, who serves at the pleasure of Washington and not the Philistine people, has demanded, probably with tongue in cheek, that Israelis halt all settlement activity and that the whole West Bank as a condition of a future Palestinian state. According to the Guardian, 'Kim Howells, the British minister for foreign and commonwealth affairs, has described settlement activity as an "obstacle to peace".
Stolen land is an obstacle to peace, yes, but there is a more basic problem. There is zero chance of peace because neither the Israeli people nor the Palestinians are represented at the conference.
Like his predecessor, Arial Sharon, Mr. Olmert has been accused of financial self-dealing and fraud against the public, and represents the Likud party, which is committed to wiping the Philistines from Gaza to Lebanon off the map. The majority of the Israeli public understands this but can do little about it, because the Zionists are in control of the Likud, which has the support of the Administration, the UK, and US Christian-Zionists. So the Israelis are as disenfranchised as their enemies, who we prefer to call 'the Philistines.'
Dwellers in the land of the Philistines are not represented by Mahmoud Abbas because they voted him out as president in the supervised 2006 elections. By a large margin, they rejected his PLO party in favor of delegates of the Hamas party. The reason Abbas is at the conference is that the US and Israel blockaded Gaza and have taken every possible measure to strangle the Philistines in order to force them to turn away from Hamas. Hamas' leaders eventually agreed to allow the defeated Abbas to remain on as 'President" as a peace gesture. The Philistines are denied land, freedom, food, employment, water, electricity, and their very right to life itself. And they do not have their own chosen representation at the Annapolis conference.
According to a Reuters News account on November 12, 'The Israeli army arrested two Hamas legislators, it has now arrested and holds more than half of Hamas' elected 74 legislators in prisons, so it can no longer assemble a majority.' This is Israel's way of arranging to have Mr. Abbas as opposition, and not Hamas, its democratically elected legislators are denied the right to go to the assembly and fire Abbas.*
Given these circumstances, the conference must be called what it is--a public show to stall peace while hunger and deprivation take their toll on the Philistines. All honest and legitimate parties should withdraw from the conference and call it what it is, a photo op for Israel while it continues to whittle away at the little that is left of the 1967 green line boundary of the country that never was. Israel's lack of intent for peace is exposed at the Trade Show in London, where commercial realtors openly peddle stolen property land inside the Green Zone, and its suppression of Hamas, the rightful elected government of the 'Philistines.' What more evidence is required?
What is next after Annapolis fails?
In the interest of all people who seek peace the Middle East, Zionism must be overcome, both in 'Christian' churches, and in Israel where it should be replaced with a single democratic state where all people have equal rights and enjoy the God-given right to exist. Overcoming Zionism is the title of an excellent new book written by Jewish author, Joel Kovel published by Pluto Press, London, which correctly asserts, 'No state has an absolute right to exist.' I agree.
This author has but one suggestion to add to Dr. Kovel. The Arab people of the region might consider adopting the descriptive name 'Philistines' to replace the pseudonym "Palestinians" which was given to them by their Roman, British, and now their Zionist occupiers. The word 'Palestine' has been irreparably corrupted by the likes of Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat. Zionist Israel, supported by Christian-Zionists, has no honest intention that there ever be an independent state of Palestine. Israeli published maps long ago named the West Bank and Gaza 'Judea and Samaria.'
Both Jews and Arabs should be made full citizens of a restored homeland that might be called Israel-Philistia. The racist Zionist state of Israel has no moral right to exist, as Jewish writer Joel Kovel points out, and neither does the non-state of Palestine have such a right. But every man, woman and child does have a right to exist--a right that comes not from a map but from God. Racist Zionist Israel and Palestine should both be wiped from the face of the map. The civilized world must not accept the planned killing of even one more Philistine or Israeli, nor should we accept any state based on the racist concept of a supreme people, 'a master race' as one man once called the non-Jewish Arians of his native land.
Thank you for visiting my web site.
Please call again soon and don't forget
to sign my guestbook
and visit my guestmap before you leave.
