Text 1694, 124 rader
Skriven 2006-07-12 14:31:32 av Alan Hess
Ärende: complaint re Israel
===========================
Looks like someone doesn't understand what "acts of war" and the consequences
thereof are.  

The path of Israel's wall should be addressed in negotiations, but Israel
correctly won't negotiate with an entity that seeks Israel's demise, and
promotes rocket attacks on and terrorist attacks in Israel.  Most of the world,
of course, will blame Israel for everything.
*******

washingtonpost.com

Aggression Under False Pretenses

By Ismail Haniyeh
Tuesday, July 11, 2006; A17

GAZA, Palestine -- As Americans commemorated their annual celebration of
independence from colonial occupation, rejoicing in their democratic
institutions, we Palestinians were yet again besieged by our occupiers, who
destroy our roads and buildings, our power stations and water plants, and who
attack our very means of civil administration. Our homes and government offices
are shelled, our parliamentarians taken prisoner and threatened with
prosecution.

The current Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to destroy the results of
fair and free elections held early this year. It is the explosive follow-up to
a five-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare directed by the United
States and Israel. The stated intention of that strategy was to force the
average Palestinian to "reconsider" her vote when faced with deepening
hardship; its failure was predictable, and the new overt military aggression
and collective punishment are its logical fulfillment. The "kidnapped" Israeli
Cpl. Gilad Shalit is only a pretext for a job scheduled months ago.

In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel wants to
sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership
rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion definitively. The
Palestinian leadership is firmly embedded in the concept of Islamic shura , or
mutual consultation; suffice it to say that while we may have differing
opinions, we are united in mutual respect and focused on the goal of serving
our people. Furthermore, the invasion of Gaza and the kidnapping of our leaders
and government officials are meant to undermine the recent accords reached
between the government party and our brothers and sisters in Fatah and other
factions, on achieving consensus for resolving the conflict. Yet Israeli
collective punishment only strengthens our collective resolve to work together.

As I inspect the ruins of our infrastructure -- the largess of donor nations
and international efforts all turned to rubble once more by F-16s and
American-made missiles -- my thoughts again turn to the minds of Americans.
What do they think of this?

They think, doubtless, of the hostage soldier, taken in battle -- yet thousands
of Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, remain in Israeli
jails for resisting the illegal, ongoing occupation that is condemned by
international law. They think of the pluck and "toughness" of Israel, "standing
up" to "terrorists." Yet a nuclear Israel possesses the 13th-largest military
force on the planet, one that is used to rule an area about the size of New
Jersey and whose adversaries there have no conventional armed forces. Who is
the underdog, supposedly America's traditional favorite, in this case?

I hope that Americans will give careful and well-informed thought to root
causes and historical realities, in which case I think they will question why a
supposedly "legitimate" state such as Israel has had to conduct decades of war
against a subject refugee population without ever achieving its goals.

Israel's unilateral movements of the past year will not lead to peace. These
acts -- the temporary withdrawal of forces from Gaza, the walling off of the
West Bank -- are not strides toward resolution but empty, symbolic acts that
fail to address the underlying conflict. Israel's nearly complete control over
the lives of Palestinians is never in doubt, as confirmed by the humanitarian
and economic suffering of the Palestinians since the January elections.
Israel's ongoing policies of expansion, military control and assassination mock
any notion of sovereignty or bilateralism. Its "separation barrier," running
across our land, is hardly a good-faith gesture toward future coexistence.

But there is a remedy, and while it is not easy it is consistent with our
long-held beliefs. Palestinian priorities include recognition of the core
dispute over the land of historical Palestine and the rights of all its people;
resolution of the refugee issue from 1948; reclaiming all lands occupied in
1967; and stopping Israeli attacks, assassinations and military expansion.
Contrary to popular depictions of the crisis in the American media, the dispute
is not only about Gaza and the West Bank; it is a wider national conflict that
can be resolved only by addressing the full dimensions of Palestinian national
rights in an integrated manner. This means statehood for the West Bank and
Gaza, a capital in Arab East Jerusalem, and resolving the 1948 Palestinian
refugee issue fairly, on the basis of international legitimacy and established
law. Meaningful negotiations with a non-expansionist, law-abiding Israel can
proceed only after this tremendous labor has begun.

Surely the American people grow weary of this folly, after 50 years and $160
billion in taxpayer support for Israel's war-making capacity -- its "defense."
Some Americans, I believe, must be asking themselves if all this blood and
treasure could not have bought more tangible results for Palestine if only U.S.
policies had been predicated from the start on historical truth, equity and
justice.

However, we do not want to live on international welfare and American handouts.
We want what Americans enjoy -- democratic rights, economic sovereignty and
justice. We thought our pride in conducting the fairest elections in the Arab
world might resonate with the United States and its citizens. Instead, our new
government was met from the very beginning by acts of explicit, declared
sabotage by the White House. Now this aggression continues against 3.9 million
civilians living in the world's largest prison camps. America's complacency in
the face of these war crimes is, as usual, embedded in the coded rhetorical
green light: "Israel has a right to defend itself." Was Israel defending itself
when it killed eight family members on a Gaza beach last month or three members
of the Hajjaj family on Saturday, among them 6-year-old Rawan? I refuse to
believe that such inhumanity sits well with the American public.

We present this clear message: If Israel will not allow Palestinians to live in
peace, dignity and national integrity, Israelis themselves will not be able to
enjoy those same rights. Meanwhile, our right to defend ourselves from
occupying soldiers and aggression is a matter of law, as settled in the Fourth
Geneva Convention. If Israel is prepared to negotiate seriously and fairly, and
resolve the core 1948 issues, rather than the secondary ones from 1967, a fair
and permanent peace is possible. Based on a hudna (comprehensive cessation of
hostilities for an agreed time), the Holy Land still has an opportunity to be a
peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for all the Semitic people of the
region. If Americans only knew the truth, possibility might become reality.

The writer is prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority.
+ 2006 The Washington Post Company

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