A Call for Palestinian Arab Participation in Jerusalem’s Political Process

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June 16, 1997

Whenever we look into the matter of the voting of Arabs in Jerusalem municipal elections, I am always surprised anew and ask myself why most Arab residents of Jerusalem have refrained from exercising their electoral rights for the past thirty years.

The Arabs of Jerusalem unquestionably consider the city their own. They unquestionably avail themselves of municipal services in all aspects of daily life. They unquestionably represent the interests of more than one-fourth of the city’s population. If so, why should they continue to boycott Jerusalem’s municipal elections? Why not do the opposite – cast their votes and elect their delegates to represent “their” public on the municipal council?

I do know that some members of Arab society have attempted to influence things in this direction, only to be rewarded with death threats and the torching of their cars! However, the more willing voters there are, the fewer assaults will be aimed at them and the prospects of normalization will improve immeasurably.

If we may draw a comparison with another population group that has been undertreated – the haredi community – we see that their massive electoral participation has transformed their status in this city.

For thirty years, Arabs in Jerusalem have refrained from voting in elections for the municipal authority. Has this mattered to anyone? I believe it has not! They merely lost their influence, and their status was damaged!

It is of course noteworthy that, since the city was reunified thirty years ago, the Municipality of Jerusalem has done much for the eastern side of town. Some of its actions have been taken in the Old City – installation of sewage systems, paving of streets, and care of streetcorner parks and gardens.

There is no doubt, however, that not enough has been done and that the actions taken have not been in the proper proportion.

We should, of course, bear in mind that when Jerusalem was unified, the two sectors of the city were not in equal condition. From the time the state of Israel was established until 1967, western Jerusalem underwent an especially rapid development process: Neighborhoods, streets, universities, hospitals, and theaters were added, all on the basis of modern outline plans.

Although Jerusalem was a dead-end city until 1967, it was developed with special intensity. Its population tripled and its area quintupled. In contrast, the Arab Jerusalem of those years stagnated and was left undeveloped and backward in every technical, cultural, and social respect. When the city was reunited, it became urgently necessary to overcome an immense disparity that had developed over two decades.

Notably, international interest in Jerusalem has been mounting since 1967, forcing the city to spend vast sums for the development of tourism infrastructure, installation of employment infrastructure, overcoming of social disparities, and other matters. Such developments are meant for all residents of the city and not for any particular sector.

It is true that, in the past thirty years, the Municipality of Jerusalem and the Government of Israel have not eliminated the disparity between the two sectors of the city. However, much work has been done – foremost, as I noted, in infrastructures in the Old City and modern eastern Jerusalem. Unfortunately, these efforts have not sufficed to eliminate the disparity.

Jerusalem’s relatively new mayor, Member of Knesset Ehud Olmert, has made indefatigable efforts that have resulted in the allocation, this year alone, of NIS 135 million for infrastructure development in the eastern areas of Jerusalem, not including 180 classrooms being built during the years since the new municipal regime took over.

I do not know if these resources will eliminate the gaps, but it is clear that if seven or eight Arab representatives sat on the town council, just as City Hall employs 1,500 Arabs, even more resources might have been available and would perhaps have been allotted for purposes the Arab public considers more important and better appreciated.

We just laid the cornerstone for a new school in the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa, and we have already heard that the notables of Beit Safafa boycotted the ceremony. We will continue to build for Arab children in Jerusalem because they are equally entitled residents, but the hostile attitude, dictated from on high, is not useful to say the least.

Today, the main representatives of the Arab public and society in City Hall come only from the Israeli far Left. Apart from the fact that the Israeli left people are, by their very nature and fiber, dissidents vis-a-vis the incumbent municipal government, I am convinced that they come no closer to understanding the Arab public’s wishes than other members of the council, and may even be farther from such understanding. Their goal in representing the Arabs is not to solve real problems but rather to use the Arab problem to attack the incumbent municipal government.

Most of the Arab public in Jerusalem is traditional-minded. These residents share with the traditional Jewish public many behavioral, cultural, and social attitudes toward various problems, and cooperation between these population groups may lead to a different approach toward cultural, religious, and social affairs in which the two societies have common interests. The Israeli left’s representation of Arabs’ views is not always acceptable, and I am convinced that it has sometimes been to the acute displeasure of Arabs who adhere to their traditions. If this is so, one must ask again why the Arabs do not participate in municipal elections.

Arab society in Jerusalem has been incited to fear that voting in municipal elections would amount to recognition of Israel’s dominion in the city. According to this logic, those not interested in Israeli control of the city should refrain from voting in municipal elections. On the other hand, every plan submitted to the Municipality and any revenue paid to the civic authority is in itself recognition.

Israel allows Jerusalem residents to vote for the Palestinian Authority council. Although the Government takes a dim view of this, it respected this agreement and thereby gave the Jerusalem Arab public a way to express its political affinities. Thus, this population group can permit itself to vote in municipal elections even if it rejects the Municipality’s source of authority, and is well advised to do so. This public must also recognize that the procedure at issue is a democratic one. For this reason, it must accept the limitations and constraints of democracy although it holds a different political view, a minority view in the city.

The moment the Arab public votes in municipal elections, it has only one way to fight for its views and demands: the democratic way. In other words, by using the democratic tools available in Jerusalem – elections, the council, the administration, and the various municipal committees – the Arab public may of course avail itself of all the mass media, the press, and television to express its views in any matter, as long as it does not use media organs for purposes of incitement or to advocate the murder of persons who step out of line. Because the abuse of democratic tools is a breach of the trust that democracy invests in those who sustain it, it should be protested and resisted like any criminal phenomenon in our society.

The democratic regime and the democratic principle of freedom of speech must be protected from exploitation by undemocratic forces who would use them to deny freedom of occupation or gag those who fail to join in the general chorus.

Each passing day brings forth new ideas for municipal partitioning and neighborhood councils as ways to grant the Arab population limited self-rule.

These ideas may be taken up for consideration after the Arab public has begun to participate in municipal elections as electors and electees, at such time as it has acquired the ability to express itself on the municipal council and to attain a convergence of interests with other groups that demand solutions such as these.

Therefore, I consider it essentially pointless to boycott municipal elections in order to avoid recognizing Jerusalem as the political capital of the Jewish state.

Allow me to express several thoughts as a Jew who strictly observes his religious commandments. The Land of Israel and Jerusalem, as part of it, were given to the Jewish people in trust – to retain as long as we behave in accordance with the social, ethical, and civil norms that the Torah requires of us.

If we abandon these norms, we forfeit our right to the land and cede it to peoples who abide by loftier norms.

We read in the Torah: “But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me (Lev. 25:23).

What the Book of Books, in which we all believe, says, is that dominion over the land – the material object – belongs not to any human being but to the Creator. All of us are but “strangers” who reside there as long as He permits this.

We believe that the Land of Israel, and Jerusalem as part of it, are possessed only by those who are socially, ethically, and humanly worthy. Therefore, the test for all of us is whether we learn to dwell here as human beings who maintain lofty ethical norms. If we do not honor this imperative, we shall lose out on the country mutually, leaving behind a wasteland.

It is the quality of our behavior toward ourselves, and toward each other, that will assure the stability of all of us in this land and this city.

Let me then propose, as an outgrowth of this religiously and politically abstract thinking, that when the next municipal elections approach, we all prepare to vote in order to make this city a model of “multi-existence” among residents of different backgrounds, different religions, and different cultures. For this is the true meaning of Jerusalem.

David Cassuto is Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem and Commissioner of Cultural Affairs

Mr. Arafat’s Assassins

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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June 9, 1997

“To serve and protect” is the motto of many a police force. In the case of the tens of thousands of Palestinian police and security officers, what they serve and protect are the interests of Yasser Arafat and a handful of his henchmen. As for the Palestinian population at large, well, they’re on their own.

Since Mr. Arafat’s arrival in Gaza in 1994, he has established at least nine different intelligence services and deployed nearly 40,000 Palestinian policemen. In addition, high-ranking security officials in major cities, like Jibril Rajoub in Hebron, have their own private security details. The connections between all the different security forces are murky at best. And the actual size and scope of the secret police and undercover intelligence services are also unclear. What is clear, however, is that the Palestinian Authority has one of the highest ratios of security personnel to civilian population in the world.

The police have been busy. Since May 5, it has been the official policy in the Palestinian Authority to impose the death penalty on any Arab who sells land to Jews — and a trial is not necessary for passing sentence. Since that declaration, at least three men have been killed by Palestinians for being real estate agents, and the police are the prime suspects. In the first case, a 70-year-old man, Farid Bashiti, was found with his hands tied behind his back, shot in the head. A Palestinian policeman is already in Israeli custody for his part in Mr. Bashiti’s slaying. The second victim, Harbi Abu Sara, was 46 and was shot in the head four times. The third victim was from the city of Nablus. The details of his death are still unclear. But the killings were clearly the product of single design. In all three cases, the men were brought to the same house in Ramallah for interrogation before they were murdered. Israeli investigators say they have evidence that a senior Palestinian security officer is involved in two of the three murders and the kidnapping of a fourth victim, also suspected of land sales to Jews. And earlier this week, Israeli police foiled another kidnapping attempt, once again directed at a land-sale suspect, and arrested four Palestinian security officers and two other men.

As for Chairman Arafat, he has defended the death-for-land-sales policy and its enforcement, saying, “we are talking about isolated traitors. And we will impose against them what is on the law books. That is our right and our obligation to protect our land.” Apparently, that also goes for suspected land dealers. Palestinian police arrested 12 men on suspicion of land sales in the past two weeks, according to Palestinian Attorney General Khalid Qidrah. This comes on top of another six arrested the week prior. And Palestinian Justice Minister Freih Abu Medein, who originally announced the policy, says he has a list of another 200 suspected land dealers Palestinian security forces will be “investigating.” At the same time, plainclothes Palestinian security officers have been harassing suspected land dealers in East Jerusalem by threatening them with arrest or death.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government is still trying to get the Palestinian Authority (PA) to hand over suspected terrorists, as per the Oslo accords. In March the government submitted a list of 31 terror suspects, none of whom have since been handed over to Israel. Among the list of 31, 11 suspected terrorists are now members of, that’s right, the Palestinian police force.

As for what PA policemen and security forces do to their own people, the record is abysmal. According to Palestinian writer Fawaz Turki, “To date, 14 Palestinians have died under torture at the hands of thugs (no other word will do here) from the dreaded intelligence services.” Twenty-six-year-old Mahmoud Jamal Jumayal was tortured to death in July 1996. A month later, the Palestinian Authority tried and convicted three PLO security officers in connection with Mr. Jumayal’s death. A Palestinian court in Jericho sentenced Capt. Abdul Hakim Hijjo and Lt. Omar Kadumi to 15 years plus hard labor and Sgt. Ahmed Biddo received a 10-year jail term plus hard labor. A police force diligently policing itself? Maybe so, maybe not. The trial took less than two hours and Palestinian human rights activists denounced it as a sham. Were the right men brought to justice — or did authorities find scapegoats to convict before anyone could complain? Many Palestinians held in PA jails have tried to commit suicide, and one man who did not succeed told his family that he was going to try again. As he explained, “Why wait and let them do it for me?”

Police have also harassed editors and human rights activists who have had the temerity to criticize the PA or the chairman. There are allegations that Palestinian policemen have threatened Israelis living near PA autonomous zones and within Palestinian-controlled cities. Last September, PA police and security officials turned the guns they got from Israel against Israeli soldiers, and this year during several days of riots in the West Bank and Gaza, PA policemen, alongside civilians, hurled rocks at Israeli soldiers and civilians.

There is no Palestinian state or autonomous Palestinian region. There is only a kleptocracy run by thugs and goons who are destroying any hope the Palestinian population might have had that the Oslo accords would lead to freedom and democracy. Oh yes, and the last $100 million installment of U.S. aid (for a grand total of half a billion in taxpayer funds) is on its way to the Palestinian Authority. Ain’t life grand?

Israel Should Offer Foreign Aid for Jewish Education

By

David Bedein

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June 9, 1997

This month marks the fiftieth anniversary celebration of Akiba Hebrew Academy, the unique Jewish community day school in Philadelphia that arried two great distinctions – one of the the first schools ever financed in its entirety by the local federation of Jewish agencies and an educational institution which never turned away any student for financial considerations, even though the school was indeed private and charged tuition.

Most recently, when two hundred Israel resident Akiba graduates gathered for their own Jerusalem-based reunion, I found that the vast majority of Akiba alumni who now live in Israel were scholarship students at Akiba who otherwise could not have enjoyed a Jewish education.

I was also a scholarship student at Akiba. As was my sister.

Ever since my late father left Hebrew School during the depression in order to work in the afternoons to help his family’s income, it had been my father’s hope that his children should benefit from the Jewish education that his parents could not afford for him.

It was therefore a great day in his life when he came home from work with the word that a Joseph Cohn, then the head of the scholarship commitee at Akiba had called him during his lunch hour to inform him that I had been accepted as a full scholarship student at Akiba.

My father offered to do his part to fund raise for the school, and volunteered our garage to stock wine for Akiba wine sales each Passover. And when a few wine bottles broke, the taste of Akiba wine accompanied our family car for many years to come.

Yet if I were living in Philadelphia today and if I lived on a salaried income like my father a generation ago, I would not be able to afford day school Jewish education for my children. Scholarships have all but disappeared. Jewish education now remains the province of the rich.

Indeed, many of my friends who work in Jewish Communal Service throughout the US affirm that they cannot afford Jewish education for their children. When I ask my colleagues in the Jewish Federation world as to the reason for the high cost of Jewish education and the lack of community resources to back it up, their explanation remains brutal and realistic: Jewish education is not a sexy item on the fundraising agenda. Jewish educations is not attractive like causes in Israel. Indeed, fundraising for projects in Israel from the US alone now reaches more than $1.5 billion dollars, half of which comes from private Israeli rganizations that raise funds outside of the framework of Israel Bonds or the UJA.

With so much diaspora Jewish resources coming into Israel, and with the Israeli stock market on a continuing high and the per capita Israeli income now approaching the per capita American income, perhaps we in Israel should extend direct assistance for scholarship funds so that Jewish students abroad can learn in day schools of their choice, even if their parents cannot afford it.

What Israel would request in return is that every Israel scholarship graduate spend a commensurate time in Israel, giving service to Israel, whether in schools, hospitals, social services or even in the IDF.

The time has come for Israel to extend itself to preserve the Judaism of the next generation of diaspora youth. That is not only accomplished by sending teachers as “shlichim” or by bringing young Jews to Israel for the summer.

What we are talking about is letting Jewish young people having the right to right to learn the basics about who they are. And Israel can facilitate that right.

We in Israel now have the resources to make sure than Jewish education is not the exclusive province of the “well to do” abroad.

The time has come to ask not what disapora Jews can do for Israel, but what Israel can do for Diaspora Jewry. “Let my people learn” could be the slogan of Israel’s fiftieth anniversary.

Old Palestinian Arab Families Sold Land to Jews

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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June 2, 1997

The weekly Fasl al-Maqal, owned by Arab-Israeli parliament deputy Azmi Beshara and based in the predominantly Arab city of Nazareth in north Israel, ran a list of 54 leading Palestinians who sold land to Jews from 1918-1945. The paper reported Thursday that Palestinian nationalist leaders, including the grandfather of the PLO’s current top official in Jerusalem, sold land to Jews in the years before Israel’s founding.

The paper ran a story titled “Our Fathers On The Take,” takes the issue back to the era of the British mandate before Israel’s founding in 1948, when the Zionist movement was seeking land in Palestine to create a Jewish state.

The paper reports that some of those highest up in the Palestinian nationalist movement which opposed the Jewish state were at the same time selling land to the Jewish Agency, the body spearheading the Zionist drive,

The weekly’s editor-in-chief, Awad Abdel Fatah reports that the names came from an official document dating back to the British mandate in Palestine, which the paper received from official sources in Jordan. He said, “We published only a partial list from the document, showing the role of the Palestinian leadership in the flow of lands to the Jewish Agency before the disaster of 1948,” he said.

The names are embarrassing to the PA as one is a relative of Yasir Arafat and he is one of the most prominent names on the list. His name is Mohammed Taher al-Husseini, father of al-Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and supreme head of the Palestinian nationalist movement. Another was Kazem al-Husseini, grandfather on the mother’s side of Faisal Husseini, the top PLO official in Jerusalem. Kazem sold lands in Jerusalem, where he was mayor from 1918-1920. The list includes five other members of the Husseini family, one of the most prominent clans in pre-1948 Palestine and today.

Other members of leading Palestinian families also showed up on the list, as did members of the High Arab Committee, the High Islamic Council and the Arab Executive Committee, the main bodies which led the nascent Palestinian nationalist movement against Zionism. Mussa al-Alami, who headed the Palestinian delegation to the London Conference of 1939 convened to discuss the future of mandate Palestine, sold 90 hectares (222 acres) to Jews in Bisan, now the north Israeli city of Beit Shean, according to the list. Ragheb al-Nashashibi, mayor of Jerusalem from 1920-1934 and head of the National Defense Party, sold over 120 hectares (296 acres) of land in Jaffa, outside Tel Aviv. Nashashibi also sold land in east Jerusalem upon which Hebrew University was later built.

Yaakub al-Ghussein, who headed the Arab Fund created to gather money to support the Palestinian cause, sold land to Jews in Jaffa and what is now the Gaza Strip for 4,000 Palestinian pounds, equivalent to British pound sterling at that era. And the other elite Muslim and Christian families of Palestine, including the Abdel Hadi, Bseiso, and Fahum clans, were represented on the list.

Minister Sharon, MKs Yahalom & Eitan, Levran

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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June 2, 1997

All interviews were carried out in Hebrew on 1st June. All appear in their entirety.

Minister of Infrastructure Ariel Sharon

IMRA: Is the Netanyahu Government developing today its opening position for the negotiations with the Palestinians on the permanent arrangements or Israel’s “red lines.”

Sharon: That’s the question. That’s exactly what I asked the head of military intelligence. I don’t know. It pains me greatly that I am not part of the group which is working on this. I really don’t know.

National Religious Party MK Shaul Yahalom

IMRA: Is the Netanyahu Government developing today its opening position for the negotiations with the Palestinians on the permanent arrangements or Israel’s “red lines.”

Yahalom: I don’t know. It is clear to me that it is an opening position but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t also Israel’s red lines. It all depends on the pressures. The NRP isn’t even satisfied with the proposal as it is so we will certainly apply as much pressure as possible on this matter.

IMRA: Can this lead to a confusion in the process itself since one participant may present what is actually a true red line while other participants in the process think that this is only an opening position and room was left for compromise?

Yahalom: Yes.

Likud Knesset faction chairman MK Michael Eitan

IMRA: Is the Netanyahu Government developing today its opening position for the negotiations with the Palestinians on the permanent arrangements or Israel’s “red lines.”

Eitan: Let’s be realistic and not fool ourselves. What we say doesn’t matter. If it is only an opening position or not, the moment that negotiations begin whatever position the government gives is an opening position.

There is no question that it is not just a question of the position of the coalition but also what the Left says. This also influences the process. We can say that we live in a democracy so there are many views but that there is only one government but other Israeli views will have an influence.

I want to point out that I was attacked for my talks with [Labor MK Yossi] Beilin and others for reducing the demands of the government regarding the permanent arrangements but I said clearly that I was doing this as a private individual – neither as a representative of the government or the Likud party. The point is that I had an agreement with Beilin which included important features, such as the position on keeping settlements intact.

I want to say on this matter that red lines are not set before negotiations but only during negotiations and history has shown that the phase “red lines’ never end up being real. We had red line in Lebanon – what happened? Sinai – what happened? Also what is asked for today as “red lines” are now much less than in the past.

Red lines won’t stand.

IMRA: Isn’t there a point, however, that you can say that if you don’t have “X” then its better to continue without an agreement then to sign a deal without “X”?

Eitan: It appears to me that the security element is a function of a combination of the situation in the field and other matters. Consider for example that one of the most difficult and serious problems is control of the envelope so that if your control of the envelope is greater then you may be able to agree to be more liberal on your control inside. On the other hand, if your control of the envelope is less, then your requirements inside have to be greater.

Former senior intelligence officer Brig.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Levran

IMRA: Do you think the military is providing the government with red lines or just opening positions?

Levran: The army can say ‘this is desirable’ and ‘this is vital’ but it can’t talk in terms of opening negotiating positions.

IMRA: If the military thinks that the government may compromise on things it considers to be vital is there the possibility that it will overstate what is vital to offset a compromising government in advance?

Levran: I am certain that those in the military organizations present a more liberal position to a Labor government than to a Likud government. Not in the areas of black and white but in the gray areas. I think that they would present a harder position to a Likud government this because they wouldn’t want to be attacked by the ministers. But in both situations there is an issue of integrity, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t bend the positions of the military somewhat.

I do not see asking a military man if a given position is a “red line” but rather how much risk is associated with it; is it the bare bones or is there any meat left and how much?

IMRA: Are there any true “red lines”?

Levran: There are and should be, by definition, red lines. For example, the position against returning to the ’67 borders is most definitely a red line.

IMRA: Are there geographical elements which can’t be compensated for by other means?

Levran: Look, you have to hold the Eastern slopes of the Jordan Valley and since there are also settlements in the Valley itself you don’t give that either. There are also some high places in Judea and Samaria which you must hold and you have to widen the narrow waist of Israel in the Kalkiliye area.

I always said that from an ideological standpoint we should hold everything. This is our land. But even if you consider the situation purely from a security standpoint, at best it is possible to pull back from 15% of the land and this is a nonstarter as far as the Palestinians are concerned. You simply can’t fit another country into this tight area. I see only a functional solution, some form of autonomy for the Palestinians.

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

Full CNN profiles of Netanyahu/Arafat: Worthy of Feedback to CNN

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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June 2, 1997

The profiles of Netanyahu and Arafat which are on the CNN web site:
http://cnnplus.cnn.com/resources/newsmakers/world/middle.east/netanyahu.html
and
http://cnnplus.cnn.com/resources/newsmakers/world/middle.east/arafat.html

Note: The one time CNN uses the word “terrorist” is about Netanyahu’s political movement, with no specifics, no justification for the use of the word. The one terror incident mentioned concerning Arafat is Munich, 1972, and its “alleged” connection to Fatah. The eader of the Black September which murdered the Olympic athletes is today a high ranking security officer of the PA “Police”. Not worthy of mention. But what about Ma’alot 1974, Lod 1972, the US diplomats murdered on Arafat’s orders in the Sudan in 1974 ? What about the fact that the PLO operated aerial piracy for more than a decade? Not worthy of mention?

Perhaps some feedback to CNN sponsors is long overdue…

Jack Golbert

Here are the CNN profiles:

CNN Insider
Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister

Born: October 21, 1949; Tel Aviv, Israel
Education: BA (architecture), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1974; MBA, 1976
Military Service: Israeli army (Sayeret Matcal anti-terrorism force), 1967-72; Army, 1973
Occupation: Diplomat
Family: Wife, Sara Netanyahu; 1 son, 1 daughter (from first marriage)
Religion: Jewish
Early Years: Participated in several high-profile commando missions including a raid on a hijacked jetliner outside Tel Aviv, 1972; Was pursuing a business career in the United States when his brother Jonathan was killed in the Israeli raid on a hijacked plane in Entebbe, Uganda, 1976; Returned to Israel and founded the Jonathan Institute, a group that studies the origins of terrorism and develops strategies to combat it.

Political Career:Deputy chief of mission, Israeli Embassy, Washington, DC, 1982-84; Israeli Ambassador to UN, 1984-88; Member of Parliament, 1988-96; Deputy Foreign Minister, 1988-91; Deputy minister, office of prime minister, 1991-92; Likud Party leader, 1993-; Prime Minister, 1996-
Office: Kiryat Ben-Gurion, 3 Kaplan St, P.O. Box 187, 91919 Jerusalem, Israel

Related Site: Israel Information Service

Sources: Current Biography, 1996, Who’s Who in the World, 1996; Israel Information Service

Benjamin Netanyahu’s political philosophy is representative of Israel’s so-called revisionist movement, which evolved into the conservative Likud Party after Israeli independence in 1948. This political philosophy espouses Israel’s justification in carrying out terrorist revenge attacks against Arab civilians and the British government, and argues that Israel’s borders should extend eastward to include what is now Jordan. It rejects the relinquishing of any Israeli territory as dangerous to the country’s security.

In the 1977 election, the Likud Party, for the first time in Israel’s history, won enough votes to knock the Labor Party out of power. The Likud Party then launched a feverish expansion policy to build Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, disturbing the native Palestinian population. Netanyahu aligned himself with the Likud Party and found in it a home for his hawkish views.

In 1982, Netanyahu was appointed deputy chief of mission at the Israeli mission to the United States. He served as Israel’s U.N. representative 1984-88, deputy foreign minister 1988-91 and deputy prime minister 1991-92.

Netanyahu gained international prominence during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when he was interviewed live on Cable News Network as Iraqi Scud missiles fell on his country. His remarks and demeanor aroused sympathy for the Israeli cause. In 1992, he served as Israel’s chief spokesman at the Middle East peace conference in Madrid, establishing himself as a shrewd negotiator.

Netanyahu was elected leader of the right-wing Likud Party in 1993 and elected prime minister in May 1996. He was a fierce opponent of the pacifist policies of his predecessor Yitzhak Rabin and the Labor Party, which had followed the mainstream Ben-Gurion tradition of military restraint and a willingness to compromise on territory for the sake of peace.

He won the election by persuading a majority of Israelis to join him in opposing relinquishing Israeli control of the city of Jerusalem. He also opposed Israel’s 1993 land-for-peace agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which granted self-rule to Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu will have to walk a very fine line in following his conservative political approach. Although he may successfully defend Israel’s security, he runs the risk of igniting violent confrontations with the Arabs, arousing opposition from liberal, pacifist Israelis, as well as angering the chauvinistic, conservative Israeli settlers who, living among hostile Arab neighbors, depend on the Israeli government for their defense.

Yasser Arafat
Palestinian Leader

Born: August 24, 1929; Cairo, Egypt
Education: Degree in engineering, University of Fuad I (now Cairo University), 1956
Family: Wife, Suha Tawil
Religion: Muslim
Early Years: In 1946, began procuring arms for an anticipated battle for Palestinian territory; Helped found Fatah, a guerrilla group dedicated to the liberation of Palestine, mid 1950s; Began mounting raids into Israel, 1965; Elected chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 1969.
Recent Years: Signed draft agreement with Israel providing for Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and the West Bank town of Jericho, 1993; Awarded Nobel Peace Prize along with Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres, 1994.
Office: Gaza City, The Gaza Strip, via Israel

Related site: The Palestine Home Page

Source: Current Biography, 1994; Biographical Dictionary of the Middle East

The Palestinian-Arab politician, former terrorist and nationalist leader Yasser Arafat was born Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat al Qudwa al-Hussein in Cairo, Egypt, on August 24, 1929, son of a successful merchant. His mother died when he was 4, and he went to live with an uncle in Jerusalem, at that time a British protectorate. It was during those years that Arafat was first exposed to the clash between native Arabs and immigrant Jews who aspired to build a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

When Arafat went to college in Cairo, he undertook a study of Jewish life there, associating with them and reading the works of Zionists such as Theodor Herzl. By 1946 he had become a convinced Palestinian nationalist and was already procuring weapons in Egypt to be smuggled into Palestine in the Arab cause.

When the first of five Arab-Israeli wars broke out in 1948, Arafat slipped into Palestine to fight the Jews. He was incensed when he and his compatriots were disarmed and turned back by other Arabs who did not want the help of Palestinian irregulars. After the Jews won the war, Palestinians suffered another humiliation when the Arab states concluded a peace with Israel that dispossessed three quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs, leaving them stateless. He maintained that the Arab states should have accepted a U.N. proposal to divide Palestine into two separate states — one for the Jews, and one for the Palestinian Arabs.

In the mid-1950s Arafat and several Palestinian Arab associates formed a movement which became known as Fatah, an organization dedicated to reclaiming Palestine for the Palestinians. This and other groups eventually operated under an umbrella organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization, formed in 1964. Running Fatah became Arafat’s full-time occupation, and by 1965 the organization was launching guerrilla raids into Israel.

Israel again emerged victorious in the Six-Day War of 1967, and captured the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. The war widened the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to include other Arabs. In 1968 Arafat and the Fatah got international publicity when they inflicted a significant defeat on an Israeli incursion into Jordan. The PLO’s activities increasingly troubled Jordan’s King Hussein however, and in 1970 he forced the Palestinians to leave Jordan. They set up bases in Lebanon and continued to carry out raids against Israel from there.

In 1972 Arafat was vilified because of an alleged involvement with the Arab terrorist Black September group that massacred Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

In 1974, Arafat addressed the United Nations in New York. The sympathetic world body voted to give the PLO observer status at the U.N. and acknowledged the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. That year Arafat appeared to be willing depart from his desire to destroy Israel and instead reach a political settlement with the Israelis.

The bleakest period for Arafat and the PLO came in June 1982 when, provoked by terrorist raids, Israel launched an all-out counterattack, destroying the PLO headquarters in Beirut and forcing the PLO out of Lebanon. Arafat re-established PLO headquarters in Tunisia. Soon however, world attention was drawn away from the PLO toward rioting by Palestinians in the West Bank and their plight in the Israeli-occupied territories. The PLO supported the West Bank Palestinians, and the international sympathy they aroused thrust the PLO back into prominence.

In the Algiers Declaration of November 1988 the PLO proclaimed an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and recognized Israel’s right to exist. Further, Arafat declared before the United Nations that the PLO renounced terrorism once and for all, and supported the right of all parties to live in peace — Israel included. The United States declared itself ready to negotiate, and by the year’s end some 70 countries had recognized the PLO. This diplomatic victory was undermined when Arafat backed Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait split the Arab world into pro-and anti-Iraq camps.

Although long deemed a “terrorist organization” by Israel, the PLO recognized Israel in 1990. In 1993, Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin forged a peace agreement. which provided for the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The Palestinian Authority — the Palestinian governing body in the occupied territories — was created under the 1993 peace agreement. The Palestinian Authority’s legislative body, the 88-seat Palestinian Council, was elected in January, 1996, and Arafat won a landslide victory as its president.

Rabin and Arafat shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for their achievement in bringing peace.

Arafat has been criticized by Israel and others for a lack of control over extremist Palestinians such as Hamas. Arafat has vowed to crack down, and repeatedly has expressed sorrow over Hamas terrorist acts, but remains the champion of Palestinian rights and their quest for a homeland.

How Israel Can cope with the PLO by Adopting a Proactive Approach to the Media

By

David Bedein

-

June 2, 1997

Edmund Burke, who supported the war against his mother nation, was once asked if he would support the French Revolution. His answer was negative, because “the end is the means in process”. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, a regime conceived in terror would adopt a policy of terror against its own people.

The PLO reality is such that it is a nation state in formation, for better or for worse.

The PLO now operates its own army and rules villages, cities, refugee camps, farms, industries and schoools, with all the responsilbilities inherent in statehood.

The PLO’s new Palestinie Authority benefits from the direct and personal prestige of the President of the United States, along with the recognition of almost every nation on the face of the earcth.

Indeed, the PLO now communicates with every level of Israeli society and every segment of Israeli politics, openly or covertly.

However, since its ascendence to power, the PA has also established the precedent of welcoming killers and car thieves within its miudst, while all the PA outlets of communication continue incitement for war against Jews and the state of Israel. Leading the pack is Arafat, who, with the exception of one single speech delivered on the day that he took over in of Hebron, continues to address his people in the most warlike of terms against the Jewish state.

The newfound status and recognition of the “PLO state in the making” makes it difficult and almost counterprodcutive fprt Israel to engage in a frontal media campaign against the PLO.

The prestige of statesmen and reporters around the world are now tied in to the PLO.

The PLO itself is now on the center stage of the world, yet that very exposure can provide the hint to Israel as to how to conduct its media relations in the near future.

The time has come to move the realm of Israeli public relations into the private business, so that new ways can be pioneered that will report the reality of what Israel now faces for the Jewish world, at least, to understand what is going on.

And the way to project any idea to the Jewish mind remains the mainstream media, especially because Jews remain the greatest news junkies in the world, especially in regards to Israel.

With the PLO at center stage, I would suggest that Israelis work with Palestinian media professionals who are also disaffected with Arafat to promote media productions in the following areas:

Human rights and civil liberties within the Palestine Authority
Public funds and corruption in the PA
PA arms supply of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad
PLO involvement with narcotics trafficking.
UNRWA regulations that keep Arab refugees in a situation of squalor
Continuing Arafat incitement
Anti Israel curricula in PA schools and media
Orders carried out by the PA army to kill dissidents within the PA
And in the positive realm, Israel can continue to project the possibilities for better and positive relations with between Jews and Arabs in the future, once the PA is deemed to be obsolete. The untold story of Jewish-Arab cooperation in the realms of trade, commerce, education, health and dialogue can provide the media with newsworthy stories, ad infinitum.

What Israel needs is a proactive approach, privately funded, for the media to be presented with the news stories that will reflect another reality in Israel.

A framework exists, known as the Institute for Peace Education Ltd, just waiting for partners to build a new level of news coverage for Israel in the next few years.

Special Book Review

By

David Bedein

-

June 2, 1997

Knesset and Government Directory: The 14th Knesset
edited by Boris Karassni and Ronit Chacham
published by Policy Publishing House Ltd
2 Laskov Street, Tel Aviv 64736 Israel
256 pp.
Cost: 130 shekels

The above directory is a first of its kind. The most helpful guide to the sraeli government and Knesset that has ever been written. The fact that mos Israelis in any walk of life, from lawyers to union organizers to lobbyists generally do not know a thing about how to contact the Knesset or how laws re made remains an unusual fact of life in Israel. This short directory contais every possible fax number and name of every Knesset administrative assistat whose job it is to make the laws of the state of Israel. Particularly helpful is the delineation of the Knesset committees and lists of officials in every overnment office in Israel. A must for anyone who wants to influence Israeli government policy.

Escalation in the North

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 19, 1997

Iran, Syria, the HizbAllah and Palestinian terrorist organizations actively prepare for escalation in the strikes against Israel. The terrorist strikes from Lebanon may be used by Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad to attrite Israel and even instigate a widening of the crisis leading to a wider Syrian-Israeli confrontation. The recent reinforcing and training of the HizbAllah and other terrorist organizations by Iran constitute the key to this potential escalation. The Israeli Government is fully aware of these developments.

In a May 9, 1997, interview with Haaretz, IDF Intelligence Corps chief Moshe Ya’alon pointed to the growing role of terrorism in Assad’s policy. While negotiating for peace, Assad is simultaneously exercising other options by which it hopes to exert pressure on Israel, both in the Lebanese theater and by means of terror.

Damascus hosts the headquarters of all the Palestinian terrorist organizations. Violence and terrorism while negotiations are in progress is the tool Assad has chosen. Concurrently, Damascus is keeping all other options open.

The Syrians have a war strategy based on the element of surprise.

Echoing the strategic percept of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Syrians opt for seizing territory with the intention of using it to then initiate a political process that will compel Israel for major concessions.

Gen. Ya’alon assesses that Syria would not require foreign aid to launch a limited war, and that it in the event of a war it would activate the HizbAllah in Lebanon. A likely scenario leading to war will have Assad bring[ing] about a deterioration of the situation that would enable him to be perceived as reacting to an Israeli maneuver, for example in Lebanon. And even the continuation of the current level of violence in South Lebanon is of strategic importance. The on-going confrontation with the HizbAllah is an unwinnable war as long as Iran is there concedes Uri Lubrani, the coordinator of Israel’s activities in Lebanon.

The emergence of such Syrian-Iranian strategic capabilities in Lebanon is the result of an intensive joint effort. In the first four months of 1997 alone, the Iranians flew to Damascus 37 plane loads — all Boeing 747 Jumbo Jets — of weapons and ammunition for the HizbAllah. Among the weapons supplied are advanced shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, Raad anti-tank guided missiles (an Iranian development of the Soviet lethal AT-3 SAGGER with longer range and more powerful warhead), Fajr-3 240 mm Katyusha-rockets (with a 40km/25mile range), sophisticated electronic systems for bombs and mines, as well as a host of other weapon systems and large quantities of ammunition.

At the same time, Syria and Iran are expanding a program of intense military training for HizbAllah, Amal, and Palestinian terrorists (mainly the PFLP-GC) in bases in both Syria and Labanon. Moreover, Syrian and Iranian officers and NCOs now deploy along with the newly trained terrorists into south Lebanon, thus ensuring better and more efficient use of the new weapons.

The deployment of these quality assets has already been reflected in a series of engagements with the IDF and the SLA in which the Hizballah and Palestinian forces demonstrated better skills and tactics, as well as mastership of advanced weapons. The HizbAllah’s large-scale attack on the Sujud strong-point on May 12 (Israel’s Independence Day), and the fierce clash with an IDF patrol on the night of May 15-16 that resulted in three Israeli fatalities and five wounded, are the latest examples of the newly acquired improved capabilities, audacity and courage of the terrorist forces in southern Lebanon.

No less important is the impact that this deployment of reinforcements has already had on the HizbAllah units in southern Lebanon. After a winter of setbacks and mounting casualties in the relentless fight against the IDF and the SLA, cracks emerged in some of the local HizbAllah units. The crisis was so severe that recruitment markedly declined and there were even numerous cases of desertion — an unheard of phenomena among the ideologically committed fighters of the HizbAllah. The arrival of the Syrians, Iranians, and fresh elite fighters boosted morale and rejuvenated the entire HizbAllah-Palestinian system in southern Lebanon.

And this is only the beginning. There is mounting evidence that Syria, Iran, and their sponsored terrorists — particularly the elite forces of the HizbAllah and the PFLP-GC — are actively preparing for the launch of spectacular operations against the IDF and the SLA. Among these are plans to kidnap Israeli soldiers, surprise barrages of long-range rockets against Haifa, exploding massive car-bombs with suicide drivers in order to inflict heavy casualties on the IDF, and anti-aircraft ambushes aimed to challenge the invincible lethality of the Israeli Air Force.

Meanwhile, Damascus also activated the new arrangements with the Palestinian terrorists in the territories. Israel now has information that the March 1997 bombing in Cafe Apropos in Tel Aviv was conducted not only in the aftermath of a green light from Yassir Arafat, but also in coordination with the HAMAS command center in Damascus — itself controlled by Syrian and Iranian intelligence.

The gang [that carried out the bombing] has links of some sort with the external HAMAS organization, which is headquartered in Damascus. The connection is with Damascus, Ya’alon stressed. By now, Israeli intelligence has ample information about widespread preparations throughout the PA-held zones for the resumption of terrorist strikes, including spectacular and suicide operations, against Israel. The Islamist organizations are convinced that the time is ripe for the resumption of terrorist campaigns. There is an atmosphere in the field of terror attacks, Yaalon told the Knesset Foreign Affair and Defense Committee on May 13.

Presently, the Islamist forces in south Lebanon, and particularly the HizbAllah, have no doubt about the meaning of the impending escalation of terrorism throughout the region. For example, on May 9, 1997, the HizbAllah’s organ — al-‘Ahd — published an analysis of the recent developments in south Lebanon.

The HizbAllah stresses the use of escalation in south Lebanon as means to break the political deadlock between Israel and Syria, albeit blaming Israel for the belligerence. “Though the escalation… the Zionist enemy is seeking to achieve security and political objectives by keeping the south under a controlled degree of tension.” The Israeli government can no longer withstand the political price of impasse in the peace process because of the building international pressure. “The search for an outlet from the political deadlock is a permanent policy for Israeli governments and the Lebanese arena has remained one of the places fit for such an outlet, which takes the form of military escalation, as was the practice in similar circumstances.”

Significantly, the HizbAllah analysis anticipates the possibility of the fighting in south Lebanon escalating to a regional war. Al-‘Ahd notes that “several sources are expressing fears that there is a Zionist plan [to escalate the fighting against the HizbAllah in south Lebanon] in preparation for pouncing on it through a large-scale aggression against the south, especially as the political climate in the region is overcast and regional moves are pointing to new military alliances under US political and military cover that are beating the drums of war [against Syria] and preparing for it. Lebanon cannot in this case be immune from all this because it will be a direct target in any war in the region or Zionist aggression in the south that might possibly be carried out as a substitute for a large-scale war. In both cases, Lebanon remains the target of the Zionist escalation.”

And the HizbAllah vows to do all in its power to derail Israel’s plans. The growing flow of better weapons and skilled fighters from Iran and Syria will be of use in this endeavor.

Arafat’s Policies Disastrous

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 19, 1997

Editor’s note: Edward Said, who lives in New York and teaches at Coumbia University is among the most well known Palestinian personalities alive. Said’s books and essays are now banned by the “Palestinian Authority” And though he has devoted a lifetime to the Palestinian cause nothing that he says can now be found in Palestinian newspapers, TV or radio. As Said wrote last July in The London Review of Books after visiting the “autonomous” territories, “… by order of the Minister of Informa- tion… security men appeared in all Gaza and West Bank bookshops and confiscated every one of my books. I am now banned in Palestine for having dared to speak against our own Papa Doc.”

Arafat loathed and has brought Palestinians to lowest point in their history

When I visited Hebron last July, I paid a call on an old friend, Mayor Mustafa Natshe, to find out what he saw as the future of his town. He told me that he had pleaded with Yosser Arafat and his men during the 1995 negotiations that led up to Oslo “not to sign an agreement that would give a Palestinian seal of approval to the 450 illegal settlers – most of them fanatics squatting with such offensive, even murderous, insistence in the centre of an Arab town.

`It isn’t just the principle of the thing that is so galling,’ he said, `but the fact that giving them this foothold in our midst by partitioning the town makes it possible for them to use Hebron as a precedent for staying in all their other settlements, extending their reach further all over the West Bank.’

Natshe’s pleas went unheard, as Arafat and his team pressed ahead with their Israeli peace `partners’ who consolidated their gains with, I suspect, a sense of disbelief. How else could even the most hardened Israeli explain that the Palestinians had accepted a formula for ‘coexistence’ in Hebron which gave 450 people (with the Israeli army guarding them) the choicest 20 per cent of the town’s commercial centre, whereas the 160,000 resident Palestinians were expected to be happy that they got 80 per cent, so bogged down with conditions as to make it a peripheral part of the Israeli enclave.

What sort of `strategic’ calculation by the Palestinian leadership produced acquiescence in the Israeli settler population being allowed to carry arms, abetted by Israeli patrols given virtually the run of the surrounding hills, while the Palestinian police were limited to a few poorly armed men, theoretically subject to Israeli restraints?

Nevertheless, there seemed to be genuine euphoria among Hebronites, for whom the presence of Israeli settlers and soldiers has been so unpleasant an ordeal; just seeing some of them leave in the hope of not having them come back on quite the same basis as before supplied a good day’s worth of celebration.

But much of the jubilation will be as short-lived as it was when Ramallah and Nablus went through the same happy catharsis 18 monhs ago. Hebron was not liberated: 80 per cent of it was given the right to administer municipal affairs – sanitation, health, postal delivery, education, local security and traffic – under the Palestinian Authority’s jurisdiction, with israel still in charge of security, access, water and overall sovereignty.

The ambiguities are evident in reports from Hebron in the press. On the first day,there were reports citing Netanyahu and Sharansky as to how Hebron is still Israeli, backed up by statistics showing continued Israeli control over the city. The next day, editorials and stories predicted a Palestinian state emerging soon from the messy Palestinian `archipelago’ that has left the West Bank and Gaza divided into lots of little parts without territorial continuity or sovereignty.

On American TV, the de riguer scene of Arafat and Netanyahu shaking hands with American mediator Dennis Ross between them showed a grim-faced Arafat anxious to speed away into the night. As the New York Times coyly put it in its jubilant report of how well things went, the actual amounts of land to be ceded to the Palestinians were left entirely to “Israel’s discretion”.

Now this is precisely how things were left in the Oslo 2 documents, since just before the Washington signing the Israelis calmly removed the specific areas of re-deployment already agreed with the Palestinians and left the timetable. Apparently, Arafat demurred at this, but under American pressure was made to sign. His latest heroics during the Hebron negotiations were meant to make up for what had happened earlier; but he failed again. No wonder he didn’t want to answer any questions.

It has been no secret that America, which has sub-contracted out its Middle Eastern policy to Dennis Ross and his coterie of experts, placed Arafat under pressure. Israel’s political concerns and its exaggerated obsessions with security and terror were adopted by the American middlemen, who were acting as anything but honest brokers. There was also an important confluence of strategic aims that united Netanyahu and Ross: that there should never be anything resembling real Palestinian self-determination.

And three-and-a-half years after Oslo began, `autonomy’ for Palestinians is all that has been achieved, in tiny enclaves on the West Bank whose roads and access are controlled by israel. An important town like Ramallah now has settlements on three sides. Sovereignty in the true sense of the word remains in Israel’s hands, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Why do so many Israelis seem upset by this agreement, which keeps them firmly in charge throughout the still-Occupied Territories ?

The reason is an ideological fanaticism so deep and all-encompassing that most western and even Arab readers do not have an adequate sense of its imperatives. Despite the millions of Palestinians in Palestine, they have always been considered aliens, to be tolerated at most or to be driven out or treated either as non-existent or as juridical inferiors.

Palestine is considered to be the land of the Jewish people entrusted to Israel; no non-Jews are doctrinally allowed to use or have this land. That is why Netanyahu, more honest than Peres, has always refused to accept the formula `land for peace’, and why sovereignty accorded to non-Jews has not, and will not be, an admissible oncept in negotiations.

I believe these positions are also shared, by the `acceptable’ Israelis whose views are aired in western media as representative of the peace camp, and who brilliantly conceal their real views of Palestinians beneath conscience-rending, anguished prose. They never bring up sovereignty for Palestinians. Many of them (including the egregious Henry Kissenger) speak of a Palestinian state, which they say they would accept, but none of them has specified sovereignty and real self-determination for Palestinians.

Trying to put myself in the shoes of the PLO men who continue to produce such disadvantageous agreements that do nothing to change the course of Israeli policy, I keep asking what our leader must be thinking. They certainly do not do very much talking, and share very little with their people beyond the usual triumphalist nonsense.

All I come up with is a series of unflattering rationales for going on as before, with equally bad results and equally tragic consequences for the whole people. One is that as long as the peace process guarantees the centrality of the PLO and its leader, then anything goes. Another is that being so out-gunned and out-smarted by Israel, you feel you have no choice but to go on, trying to brazen it out vis-a-vis your own people with hopeful but ultimately misleading speeches and promises; meanwhile, you surround yourself with supporters who tell you what you want to hear, and are anxious to help you set up feel-good things like a bag-pipe bend, a few luxurious cars and houses, and postage stamps with your face on them. The best thing is to go on as many state visits (none of them necessary) as possible, one day Stockholm, another Paris, another Cairo.

A third rationale is to make more concessions, accepting all the humiliating Israeli concessions in the wishful fantasy that some day you’ll either stop having to make concessions or the Israelis will give you a few things back.

Fourthly, you can say that this is politics, a dirty business, and so we proceed with the Israelis like partners in crime; never mind that they get all the advantages, a lot of commercial deals have come our way.

There may be one or two more possibilities, but none explains the Palestinian streets’ acceptance of this appalling situation, which seems to worsen daily. Many of Arafat’s adviser are intelligent men and women, quite a few with long histories in progressive politics. Why are they so silent? And why do the most gifted so willingly accept a few material advantages (a car, an office, a VIP designation) in return for continuing to work with a man whose tactics they loathe and whose mistakes over the past few years they known – and say openly – has brought as Palestinians and as Arabs to one of the lowest points in our history?

Why silence, and why co-operation ? Do they feel no obligation towards the truth and to the misery of a people whose continuing dispossession could have been alleviated a thousand times better than the PLO has done ?

In the meantime, most people in America and in Europe genuinely believe that peace has improved things for the `area’, and that for the first time in 30 years the Palestinians are getting their freedom.

This is the cruelty of the Palestinian dilemma. We want to show that we desire peace, yet because of that `peace’, the daily lives of all but a tiny handful of wealthy businessmen, security chiefs and PA employees have become a good deal worse.

For at least six months, the mainstream media in the US and Europe have been filled with stories about the diplomatic front, the negotiations, the impasses and the final breakthroughs, and completely void of anything that shows real Palestinian lives on the ground.

There has been no coverage of the thousands of students in Gaza who cannot go back to their schools and universities on the West Bank (forbidden by Israel); nothing about the large number of Palestinians prisoners still festering (and in some cases being tortured to death) in Israeli prisons; nothing about the horrors that a large family in Gaza with unemployed father must go through to survive; nothing about the systematic, almost daily reprisals against Palestinians who try to prevent their own dispossession by Israeli settlers and army; nothing about what it means for a Palestinian to try to get in and out of Gaza (or about all West Bankers who have been forbidden entry into Jerusalem for a year); nothing about the checkpoints that make the little West Bank enclaves seem like stifling ghettos; nothing about life under Craft’s dreadful regime, with books, newspapers and magazines censored or banned, the security services threatening average people, and corruption killing the possibility of regular daily business.

And nothing, above all, about the total absence of law or the rule of law in the Palestinian autonomy areas.

Given all this, plus the sense of frustration and hopelessness felt by every Palestinian at the cruel farce our leaders are forced to enact,it becomes an absolute duty to describe the actualities of quotidian life under the peace process – unadorned and in the greatest detail possible.

The world must be told by us what our people under occupation are still going through. This is not a matter of money, but of discipline and will. If every one of us first took it upon him or herself to be informed, and then attempted somehow to break through the official snd media silence – with a letter to the editor, a call to a radio or TV station, the setting-up of groups to do this kind of work systematically and collectively – – then we will be beginning our attempt at liberation, a laughably modest attempt it is true, but surely a great deal better than passivity and silence.

The present situation cannot last. There are too many inequities and injustices right at the heart of Palestinian life. Who is preparing for the next, post-Hebron phase?