Damascus to Rearm Saddam

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March 23, 1999

A secret deal has been agreed between Syria and Iraq for the supply of military equipment to Baghdad, according to Middle East intelligence sources.

Relations between the two countries have been improving significantly in recent months, with agreements already signed to develop both political and economic co-operation.

Now, after a new deal between the Syrian and Iraqi intelligence services, military equipment valued at about œ60 million is to be shipped across the border, the intelligence sources said.

Since the 1991 Gulf War, President Saddam Hussein has faced a severe shortage of spare parts for his army because of the international arms embargo. Under the Damascus agreement, Syrian spare parts for military equipment would be converted for use by the Iraqi Army, the sources said. The parts would include engines for Russian-made tanks and tracks for armoured fighting vehicles.

Syria is also expected to supply spares for anti-aircraft radar facilities – hit by recent American and British bombing – lorries, aircraft and helicopters, and ammunition.

Cold Peace Encouraged at Palestinian Israeli Social Workers Workshop?

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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March 23, 1999

Monday March 9, by invitation of Dr. Elia Awwael, I attended the Palestinian-Israeli Social Workers Workshop held at the Nativity Hotel located in Bethlehem. The stated goals of the workshop included allowing Israelis and Palestinians the opportunity to discuss current “social” cases as well as identify the needs of social workers on both sides. These goals though, however important, were secondary to the supreme expectation of the workshop; to allow Palestinians and Israelis to begin forming a friendly and trustful relationship, or as the official workshop agenda stated: [To introduce] participants at the personal and professional level. The issue of whether or not this was achieved, or more so, whether or not an environment existed in which it could be achieved, is of extreme interest.

My entrance into the “Nativity Hotel” occurred at approximately 9:30 am. I was immediately greeted by Dr. Elia Awwael and then left to mingle with the approximately thirty social workers who were in attendance. I stood contently near a food-laden table and observed the workshop participants. The number of Israelis and Palestinians in attendance was closely matched. At 10:00, the group was asked to move from the reception area into the conference room.

The workshop began with a brief introduction of the three coordinators as well as a history of the program. According to Dr. Awwael the current meeting was the fourth of its kind and received funding from the American Embassy and Palestine Council of Health. The purpose of the workshop was described as providing the framework for Palestinians and Israelis to examine social welfare.

Following opening remarks participants were instructed to introduce themselves to one another with the emphasis on Israelis and Palestinians coming together. I placed myself within a group of five social workers: one Israeli man, two Palestinian men, and one Israeli woman and a Palestinian woman. The Israeli woman, who identified herself as a head member of the Israeli social worker union, spoke with a Palestinian man and woman, both of approximately 25 years of age. Their discussion, which was dominated by the Israeli woman, dealt primarily with the concept of a social workers union. Adjacent to this three person sub-group sat the remaining Israeli and Palestinian men whose heated conversation contained such proclamations as: Palestinian- “Some kinds of Jews hate us and some of us hate them”. Israeli- “We came and Arabs were here; I know this wasn’t good. I don’t know what to do about this”. In a moment of silence within the ‘union group’ the Palestinian man recognized my presence and encouraged me to introduce myself.

A Palestinian woman faced me and expressed her anger at being denied entrance to Jerusalem, citing her brother’s stay in prison as the reason. Ghadi Rahil, a resident of Bethlehem, and currently a student of social work expressed anger towards Israelis but stated her ability to meet with Israelis in a professional context. Her feelings were echoed by another Palestinian woman who seated herself amongst the group in the midst of the conversation. [They take our land, look at what they did. I can work professionally with the Israeli but this is it]. The meeting of participants lasted one hour twenty-two minutes and was followed with a lecture by Dr. Bernard Sabilla of Bethlehem University.

The speech began rather academically, citing figures and current problems facing contemporary Palestinians. Dr. Sabilla quickly began to form the thesis of the lecture; Peace cannot exist between Israel and Palestine until the economic and educational gaps which exist among the two nations are closed. Recognizing the high birthrate of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank (Gaza – 49 per 1,000, West Bank – 37 per 1,000) as a severe hindrance to the economic growth of a Palestinian state, the lecturer predicted a future Palestinian state composed of a small upper class and large lower class, similar to the class structure of Jordan.

Dr. Sabilla’s uncertainty of the peace process and the ability of Palestinians and Israelis to relate personally became evident as the speech continued. “Now we don’t have peace,” explained Sabilla, “We have the peace process”. The future Sabilla went on to say “Is not as rosy as some politicians would like us to believe.” As the speech continued Sabilla made clear his inability and disinterest in forming friendships with Israelis; To make peace from people to people “its not possible, in my view its not possible”, “Certainly Israeli policies in terms of employment have not been fair.” Referring to the current dire status of the Palestinian people Sabilla claimed, “Yes, Israel is to blame for this thing.” If on the economic level Israeli is not allowing him to breath, asked Dr. Sabilla, how can he ask his students to work towards peace.

Further on in the lecture Dr. Sabilla discussed strategies the Palestinians must adopt in order to compete economically with Israel. The main strategy, according to Sabilla, heavily relies on “using Israelis”; “In my relationship with Israel I am not looking for love or friendship, only for Palestinian interests.”

Additional comments made by Dr. Sabilla included a reference to the settlers, “Settlers have taken a lot of land from us, we have no land.” The Israeli participants, perhaps in disbelief at Sabilla’s provocative words, began laughing at what they determined to be a joke, although I have no doubt judging by the manner in which the sentence was delivered that it was meant to be a serious statement. Continuing in this mode it was explained that Palestinians are now becoming capable of making individual decisions, a trend according to Sabilla, which is not popular amongst Israelis. The speech closed with a reaffirmation that friendship was not being sought with Israelis although it was acceptable for Palestinians to deal with Israelis in a way which served the Palestinian interest.

If there had been any misunderstanding of Dr. Sabilla’s opinions, I believe the question and answer period thoroughly clarified his position. Two Israeli participants expressed their surprise at the pessimism of the speech challenging the notion that friendship could not exist between Israelis and Palestinians. The response; “I try for Palestinians to get whatever they can from Israelis, I will not change my political view.” Another Israeli woman questioned the use of stereotypes within the speech; her remarks were disregarded. The attitude of Sabilla became strengthened as he admitted that “[He] cannot fly with Israelis because [he] cannot deal with them.” “I come from a history of conflict with you,” Sabilla proclaimed, later adding “What matters is what I can learn from you.” Palestinian participants also spoke during the question-answer period focusing their comments on the anger they still hold and the problems they face when travelling within Israel. A participant also voiced his opinion of being fed up with all these meetings which “Do nothing in the end.” Shortly before the Q+A session ended Dr. Degaulle S. Hodali spoke of the alleged Israeli practice of distributing spoiled food to poor Palestinians.

I accompanied Dr. Hodali to the hotel-provided lunch sitting with him and two Israeli women. Notable topics of discussion included the refugee problem, settlers, and the issue of East Jerusalem, which Dr. Hodali believes must be given back. While Dr. Hodali theorized that the settlers, many of whom he believes exist primarily for economic reasons because as he stated “Jews love money”, can be relocated following monetary compensation, the Israeli social worker insisted the “Settlers are crazy” and that millions of dollars would not persuade them to leave. Lunch ceased at 1:30 and the group ventured back to the conference room.

Reseated, the participants were told that they would now engage in group work which would involve “Identifying social cases of adults, women, disabled people, and elderly at home and at the local community.” Participants returned to the reception hall to complete this task. I remained seated and began a discussion with Turi-Therese Schoder, a Norwegian woman visiting Bethlehem as part of a social worker exchange program. Ms. Schoder, who currently works with the Children Cultural Center of Bethlehem, identifies with the Palestinians and considers herself to be “half-Palestinian”.

Ms. Schoder related to me that she found the Israelis attending the workshop offensive and saw Dr. Sabilla’s speech as realistic. When asked why she viewed the behavior of the Israelis as offensive she explained that Israelis who, following Sabilla’s lecture, insisted that friendship was an important part of a professional relationship were naive and disrespectful of the Palestinians. Our conversation continued and Schoder told me of a day when she accompanied a group of Palestinians on a car trip. “I understand”, she said, “why some Palestinians are suicide bombers”. Also in reference to the lecture, she told me that the Palestinian women she had sat with at lunch would only make one comment, “There are bad feelings”.

Although her sympathy clearly lies with the Palestinians and she admitted that there are many Israelis she “doesn’t even want to get to know” it was still her expectation that the workshop would allow Israelis and Palestinians to get to know one another and that she didn’t expect to hear “negative things” said, as was the case. Her reference to hearing negative comments most likely referred to what she perceived as Israeli aggression but it may be possible that had it not been for Sabilla’s speech a more positive atmosphere would have existed.

At this time the group began to reenter the conference room and present their findings. Presentations were extremely brief and it was obvious that the majority of participants had not met the suggested criteria and were unclear of what this criteria was. The coordinators paid little attention to the presentations, instead talking amongst themselves. The presentations complete the participants quickly dispersed.

Turi Schoder invited me to tour the Cultural Center where she works, I accepted. Before exiting the conference room though, I approached Dr. Awwael and asked his opinion of the workshop; “I believe we succeeded at least to get both sides to explore how to work together.” I then began to exit the building but not before approaching an Israeli social worker and inquiring his view of the meeting. Doron Rabu appeared disappointed at the content of the workshop which he had, before attending, assumed to be an opportunity to “meet the neighbors” although he had no concrete expectations besides this. “It makes me angry,” exclaimed Rabu, “I felt like the only point of [Dr. Sabilla] about relationships with Israelis is about his needs. What happens when they don’t need us anymore?”

A Successful Launching of Our Campaign Against the Perpetuation of the Occupation

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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March 23, 1999

On Friday and Saturday, March 12th and 13th, some 500 Israelis, joined by dozens of Palestinians, launched the Israeli Campaign Against the Perpetuation of the Occupation, notice of which you received earlier. Together we rebuilt three homes demolished by the Israeli authorities on the West Bank and planted 300 olive trees in farmers’ field from which hundreds were uprooted by the Israeli authorities two weeks ago. Through these actions we sought to call attention to the furious Israeli efforts to complete the annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. These threaten to foreclose the possibility of a just peace forever by creating irreversible “facts” on the ground, while confining the Palestinian population to an apartheid-like existence of poverty, dependency and limited freedom of movement. Our activities, beginning with a press conference in Jerusalem on March 10th, received wide press coverage in Israel and abroad. Our e-mail campaign – YOU – generated hundreds of letters, e-mails, faxes and phone calls to Israeli, European and North American governments protesting Israel’s unilateral actions, and we ask you to continue to actively support our Campaign. Through organizations such as Rabbis for Human Rights and Christian Peacemaker Teams, and many individuals — including critical support from an Israeli funder living in England — we have effectively spread the word of our Campaign.

We have just begun. As of this writing (Sunday night), the three houses are still standing. We have small groups sleeping at the sites ready to resist the bulldozers if they appear (usually about 5:50-6 AM) and to alert the press. If the houses are still standing by next weekend, we plan to return and continue the finishing work. If they have been demolished, we will rebuild yet again – and keep rebuilding until the injustice of the Occupation is fully revealed. We are also organizing a demonstration against the opening of a large industrial park on the West Bank near Ramallah (for Israeli factories only), to be attended by Prime Minister Netanyahu. Other groups, such as environmental and human rights organizations, are preparing their own activities in conjunction with our Campaign.

We appreciate your support and ask you to continue to speak out and lobby at this critical juncture of an almost moribund peace process. For your information, we are sending along (1) a copy of the ad that appeared in Hebrew and English in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz and in Arabic in the Israeli/Palestinian newspaper al-Ittahad; (2) a short description of the families, sites and activities where our actions took place this last weekend; and (3) a synopsis of the major elements of the Occupation.

We invite you to stay in touch, and ask that you forward these materials on.

In Peace,

Jeff Halper,
Coordinator, ICAHD

Don’t let the bulldozers demolish the peace!

Join Us In Opposing The Perpetuation Of The Occupation

6,000 Palestinian houses demolished on the West Bank and East Jerusalem
30,000 people left homeless
Tens of thousands of acres of agricultural land confiscated
Hundreds of thousands of fruit and olive trees uprooted
More than 90% of the Palestinians confined to isolated cantons
180 settlements established – 13 in the last few weeks – 180,000 settlers
A massive system of by-pass roads carving up the West Bank and foreclosing peace

In the last few weeks Netanyahu’s government has escalated its policy of settlement and displacement in the Occupied Territories in a last-minute attempt to frustrate any peace settlement. Hundreds of bulldozers are at work 24 hours a day in a desperate attempt to create irreversible “facts” on the ground.

The time has come to act! Come build with us Palestinian houses demolished by the Israeli authorities on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Come plant with us olive trees in place of those uprooted by the settlers and the Civil Administration. Come join us in protesting by-pass roads designed to close Palestinians into small and disconnected enclaves. Now – before its too late.

When and Where

[Buses left from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa]

Participating Organizations

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
Shomrei Mishpat – Rabbis for Human Rights (Friday only)
Gush Shalom
Bat Shalom
The Alternative Information Center, Yesh Gvul
Netivot Shalom – Oz v’Shalom (Friday only)
The Student Committee for Human Rights of the Hebrew University
Women in Black
The Committee for Solidarity with Hebron
The Arab Student Committee of the Hebrew University
Campus, Tel Aviv University
Action Committee of Jaffa
A Bridge to Peace
The Committee for the Arabs of Jaffa.

The Campaign Against Perpetuating the Occupation

Our campaign against the perpetuation of the Occupation calls attention to all the diverse yet interlinking components of Israel’s current efforts to complete its de facto annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem: house demolitions; massive land expropriation; destruction of Palestinian crops, the closure and other forms of economic warfare, harassment of the Palestinian population; settlement expansion; the construction of a massive system of by-pass highways; and other policies.

The Al-Shawamreh Family of Anata

Salim al-Shawamreh, his wife Arabia and their six children live in the village of Anata, which is divided between Jerusalem and the West Bank (part in Area B, Salim’s house in Area C under full Israeli control). About a third of its population of some 12,000 hold Jerusalem identity cards, while the other two-thirds are classified as West Bank residents, with no access to Jerusalem — including “Jerusalem” parts of Anata. 20,000 dunams were expropriated from Anata to build the settlements of Alon, Kfar Adumim, Almon and Ma’aleh Adumim; an Israeli by-pass road is currently being constructed around the village.Crowding in Anata has become chronic. Some 23 demolitions orders have been served on Anata residents by the Jerusalem municipality, the Ministry of Interior and, where Anata expands into “Area C”, the Civil Administration.

After several attempts to obtain a permit, the Shawamreh family house, built on privately-owned land, was demolished amid great violence in July of 1998, and after being rebuilt by ICAHD and other Israeli organizations was demolished again in August. The price was high: besides losing their house, Arabia Shawamreh fell into a deep depression and had to be hospitalized. Salim says: “Together with Israelis who seek a just peace, we will build here a House of Peace.”

The Abu Yakub Family of Kifal Harith

Kifal Harith is a Palestinian village of some 5,000 people in the West Bank, very close to the Israeli settlement of Ariel. In late December, 1998, the Civil Administration demolished with a large show of force the three-room house of Husam Abu Yakub and his family, uprooting olive trees and gardens of village residents on the way. The Abu Yakubs pleaded with the soldiers not to destroy the house, and when they refused to leave, the army threw in a canister of tear gas. Their six-month old child was taken from the house unconscious. The Civil Administration contractor then sent his African guest workers to quickly remove the family’s belongings, and the house was bulldozed.

The Abu Dahoud Family of Hebron

Hassan Dahoud is a 60 year-old worker who lived with his wife and 12 children in a modest house on the rural outskirts of Hebron, far from any Israeli settlement or by-pass road. His applications for a building permit were rejected because his land – as most of the West Bank — is zoned by the Israelis as “agricultural” (although that does not prevent the construction of thousands of Israel housing units in Kiryat Arba and other settlements in the area). Last year the Dahoud family’s home was demolished.

Tree-planting in Beit Dajan

A major problem facing the Palestinian economy in general, and that of individual farming families in particular, is the wholesale destruction of orchards and crops by the Civil Administration. Harassment of farmers and attempts on the part of settlers to prevent them from planting or harvesting their crops are also common. Just three weeks ago, 675 olive trees were uprooted from the fields of Beit Dajan farmers near Nablus, on the basis of a 1985 expropriation order that has been in legal dispute for years. Between 1987-97, some 250,000 olive and fruit trees have been uprooted or cut down by Civil Administration personnel for the purposes of land expropriation, settlement expansion or by-pass roads or by settlers seeking to harass and intimidate local farmers while driving them from their land. In 1998 alone 16,780 trees, most of which were olive trees. 3,200 trees were uprooted and burnt by settlers and 13,580 trees by the Israeli army.

An Israeli Campaign Against Perpetuating the Occupation

The two months left before the Israeli elections in May will be among the most momentous in the modern history of the Middle East. For over twenty years Israeli governments, guided by the steady yet quiet work of Ariel Sharon, have been “creating facts on the ground.” A structure of occupation, displacement and apartheid has been systematically constructed around the Palestinian population of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. It is designed to ensure Israeli control and de facto annexation of more than half the Occupied Territories, while confining its three million Palestinians to an archipelago of small, crowded, impoverished and disconnected bantustans.

The structure of annexation has been constructed in a piecemeal fashion over many years, so that the overall conception could not be comprehended. The final pieces are now being hastily put into place, and we find ourselves confronting nothing less than an entrenched system of occupation, apartheid and the prospect of continued conflict. Rather than focusing on each component of the Occupation, we must look at the whole picture. The major intertwining components are:

Land Expropriation: Since 1967 Israel has taken control of 70% of the Occupied Territories. Tens of thousands of acres of agricultural land have been confiscated, hundreds of thousands of fruit and olive trees uprooted.
Settlement Blocs: 180 settlements have been established on the West Bank, home to 180,000 settlers — 350,000 if one counts the Israelis living in “neighborhoods” of “Greater” Jerusalem beyond the Green Line. Thirteen new settlements have been established in the past few months following Sharon’s call to “grab the hilltops.”
Home Demolitions and Cantonization: 6,000 Palestinian houses have been demolished on the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, leaving some 30,000 people homeless. In 1995, “only” 43 houses were demolished on the West Bank, 25 in Jerusalem. In 1996 the numbers went up to 140/17; in 1997, 233/16; and in 1998, 150/25 – a drop attributed to influence of political pressure. More than 90% of the Palestinians confined to small and disconnected cantons besieged by Israeli army checkpoints.
Massive Networks of By-Pass Roads: Twelve new by-pass highways are being furiously constructed, part of a massive system of 29 by-pass roads. Each highway is 50 meters wide with “sanitized” margins of 300 meters wide, which serve to limit the growth of Palestinian towns, cities and villages within constricted cantons. By-pass highways prevent the territorial contiguity needed for a viable Palestinian entity, and link individual Israeli settlements into “blocs” that surround and “swallow” Palestinian communities;
Environmental Pollution: Industrial pollution is caused by the moving of highly polluting Israeli industries to the West Bank — aluminum, batteries, leather tanning, textile dyeing, fiberglass and other chemical industries producing hazardous waste. Under-regulated industrial parks severely damage the area’s delicate environment.
Closure and Economic Warfare: For the past five years Palestinians have been unable to move freely without passes, including into Jerusalem for reasons of religion, employment and residency, or move their goods.
Human Rights Abuses and Psychological Warfare. Israel refuses to recognize the binding nature of human rights covenants on which it is a signatory as they relate to its actions in the Occupied territories. It also uses intimidation, collective punishment, denial of residency and work rights and the criminalization of Palestinian daily life.

We are now witnessing the completion of the annexation and apartheid process – indeed, a brazen attempt by the Netanyahu government to “steal” the elections by making them irrelevant. We cannot permit bulldozers rather than negotiations and the ballot box to decide the fate of our peoples.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
Rehov Tiveria 37, Jerusalem, Israel
Tel: (02) 624-8252, (052) 673-467
Fax: (02) 566-2815
e-mail: halper@iol.co.il, rhr@inter.net.il

A State in the Making: Rights and Duties

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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March 9, 1999

President Arafat’s mention of a possible confederation with Jordan has stirred numerous comments. The president’s remarks, however, need to be understood in the context in which they were spoken.

At the time he made the reference, President Arafat was in Hebron, leading what can be considered a major effort in laying down the foundations of popular democracy. He was participating in a regional conference held by Fateh to elect its cadre for that area, in advance of the elections to be held locally for the village and municipal councils.

In a speech he delivered at the conference, President Arafat emphasized the right of the Palestinian people to declare a state on May 4, 1999, in accordance with international legal resolutions. The world has agreed on our right to self-determination — to our right to a state with Jerusalem as its capital.

President Arafat’s speech was the first he had delivered in Jordan after the death of King Hussein, and so it was quite natural to refer in it to the brotherly relations between the two peoples of Jordan and Palestine. In fact, an agreement to establish a confederation between the Jordanian and Palestinian states was first reached in 1985, a year after the Palestinian National Council (PNC) met in Amman. The possibility was reaffirmed in 1991, before the joint Jordanian/Palestinian delegation was chosen to attend the Madrid Conference.

The president’s remarks were interpreted by some, including some Jordanian officials, as an invitation to hold immediate consultations about a possible future confederation. These officials made it clear that they felt that such consultations would be premature.

In our view, the May 4 declaration will not qualify Palestine to be part of a confederation with Jordan, whose political and economic institutions are now coming of age. Palestine, in contrast, faces the formidable task of freeing the Occupied Territories in accordance with UN Resolution 181, which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and in accordance, also, with UN Resolutions 242 and 338, which hold that lands occupied in 1967 are not lands in dispute, but rather, territories occupied by force, and therefore not the rightful property of the occupier. Palestinian insistence on actualizing the state has been paralleled by Netenyahu’s dogged efforts to portray our dream as delusion. “You can dream every night of a Palestinian state,” Netenyahu has boasted to us, “but when you wake up in the morning, you will discover that your state never existed, and that it never will”. When Netenyahu rejected the US initiative, it was clear that all issues relating to both interim and final-status negotiations were badly threatened. Since then, it has became painfully clear that the Oslo peace process has passed away. All that remains now is to bury the corpse, but Netenyahu, in a grotesque charade, insists on keeping the body above ground, leaving it to decompose, with all its attendant foul odors, as he persists with his rhetoric on “reciprocity”.

While confronting the difficulties resulting from Israeli intransigence, the Palestinian side has done its utmost to keep the terms of the Oslo Agreement. In this spirit, the Palestinian leadership agreed to the US initiative despite the pro-Israeli bias it involved. Then came the Wye River negotiations and the resulting Wye Memorandum, even as Palestinians continued to insist that May 4, as agreed in the Oslo Accords, must mark the end of the interim agreement.

All of these developments require that institutions which either played a role in or grew out of the Oslo Agreement have recourse to the PLO, whose existence, of course, preceded that of the Palestinian National Authority. The PNA, of course, was set up for the interim period only, with the understanding that it would be replaced at the end of that time by a sovereign national government. After May 4, then, the role of the PNA will be taken over by the PLO’s Executive Committee in conjunction with the Palestinian National Council, in order to prevent the occurrence of any power vacuum that might result from the declaration of the Palestinian state.

Both the Central Committee of Fateh and the Palestinian leadership emphasize the importance of May 4 as the date for our declaration of statehood. However, some colleagues, both in the PLO and outside it, view the decision to declare a state as no more than a PNA tactic for immediate political gain. This view is mistaken; the May 4 date has long been the date set for statehood, and our insistence on holding to that date was the reason it was mentioned in the Wye Memorandum as the date on which the interim negotiations were to end. The fact that the date was included in the Wye Memorandum was a victory for the Palestinian leadership, since it showed their critics, who had been trying to exploit the people’s frustration, that the Palestinian leadership was, in fact, acting with resolve and in good faith with the Palestinian people.

Any time a gap exists between an organization’s theoretical position and its readiness to transform a theoretical goal into reality, the opponents will benefit. Pointing to the gap between goal and reality, our accusers will call into question our resolve. Thus political slogans must be backed up by a clearly defined schedule of actions, if we are to demonstrate to our people that we are now engaged in constructing our state-to-be.

The Palestinian leadership has established a special committee consisting of President Arafat, as head of the PNC, and of members of the Executive Committee and the PNA. The aim behind the creation of this committee is to arrive at a consensus on the essence and form of the state to be declared at the end of the interim period on May 4.

In order to achieve our rights, we must undertake certain duties. Although serious efforts are being made to ensure the support of Arab and international parties, self-determination is a purely Palestinian affair and not to be negotiated, even through efforts by another party that may wish us well. We are fully aware of the kinds of pressure that are being brought to bear on the PNA by the USA, Israel, and other countries, both in this region and in Europe to delay the declaration of our state. But this pressure does not serve the cause of peace. Israel continues to oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state under any conditions; to surrender to the pressure being exerted on us now, would mean postponement of our state for the foreseeable future. Among the duties, then, that both the PNA and the PLO must carry out if we are to protect and realize our dream are the following:

The Executive Committee of the PLO should meet at such a time and place as to allow all committee members to participate. The meeting should result in the establishment of the working program we will need to prepare for May 4.
The Central Council should then be convened to list and prioritize all the tasks necessary to create to help create a Palestinian consensus.
A national dialogue should take place in which we evaluate the experience of the past five years. This dialogue will help us to formulate a clear position vis-a-vis the interim and final-status issues. Our position will be based on all resolutions issued by the United Nations Security Council and UN General Assembly, including: 242 and 338 and the principle of trading for peace the land illegally occupied by military force; 194 and 234, granting Palestinians the right of return to their land; 446 and 452, which declare Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza to be obstacles to peace; and 181, which guarantees us the right to establish a Palestinian state.
The PNA must provide for local elections before the expiration of the interim period. These elections will strengthen democracy and ensure increased public support as we forge our independence and create our national institutions.
The PNA should gradually implement the civil service law and raise the funds necessary for doing so. It must assure our people that the legislative and executive branches will work together in complementary roles, so that people will not continue to live with the frustration created by inept administration.
The PNA should release all political prisoners who have not acted against the law. Doing so will foster our national unity by reaffirming those principles which unite us. Doing so may also help to prevent those acts of anti-Israeli vengeance, which would work against our cause if they provided impetus for Netenyahu’s re-election.
The PNA must address the deteriorating economic situation. Overspending and corruption must end, and those responsible must be held accountable. Only in this way can we ease the people’s frustration.
More emphasis should be given to the creation and strengthening of our national institutions, both governmental and civil.
We must prepare at all levels to respond to any moves Israel might make after our declaration of statehood on May 4.

Our declaration of statehood is not intended to be, as some fear, a declaration of war. Rather, it is the key to peace, a peace based on justice for all countries in the area. The world should know, however, that if our state should be attacked by an aggressor, we will be prepared to defend it.

Revolution until Victory!

Hezbollah Takes Another Step Toward Jerusalem

By

David Bedein

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March 9, 1999

Last Monday, the South Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, funded and armed by Syria and Iran, set off a roadside bomb that killed an Israeli brigadier general in command of Israel’s Lebanon operations, along with a leading Israeli journalist and two other officers.

It is easy to speak of Hezbollah, as a New York Times article recently did, in terms of its “low-level war to push Israel out of South Lebanon.” Yet Hezbollah’s own rhetoric proclaims a fuller agenda. “Another victory on the way to liberating Jerusalem and Palestine” cried Hezbollah radio the morning after the attacks, while TV clips of the funerals of Hezbollah fighters the morning after Israeli Air Force attacks featured crowds chanting, “By our blood and by our soul, we will liberate you, Palestine.”

The push to get Israel out of Lebanon is not the goal but merely the first step to a final push of Israel out of Jerusalem and out of what Hezbollah defines as “Palestine.”

Yet the threat from Hezbollah is not adequately understood, even in Israel. Some suppose that the Hezbollah program begins and ends in the Lebanon Security Zone, and that after an Israeli withdrawal, Hezbollah will be satisfied and Israel will live happily ever after.

One reason for Israelis’ lack of comprehension is that Hezbollah – like other Arab groups – flaunts its true intentions in Arabic. Few people in Israel understand Arabic, and fewer follow the pronouncements Arab leaders make to their own people. Israeli newscasts and newspapers rarely cover these statements or translate them into Hebrew, much less into languages accessible to Western journalists and policymakers.

Of those who do understand, even those who serve in Israeli or Western intelligence services, many dismiss this rhetoric as meant “for internal consumption.”

Most Israelis do not grasp that religious conviction can inspire wars of destruction. It would seem that average secular-minded Israelis do not realize that the nuances of a language and religion that mean nothing to them could be a galvanizing force to others.

This blurred perception might be traced to the early days of Zionist building, when there was inadequate attention to the growth of Arab-Muslim nationalism after World War I. Since then, anti-Zionism has been fed on stories of an imagined Arab-Muslim pseudo-Zionist nationalism and a generation passionately ready to go to war for an all-Arab Palestine.

In the 1980s, I lived in Upper Galilee, the sparsely settled northern region of Israel, where 100,000 Israeli Jews and Arabs dwell in an area within rocket range of Southern Lebanon. Residents of other regions of Israel often seem to have little communication with Israelis on the northern border and less empathy. My acquaintances in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv always seemed to view attacks on border settlements as our security problem, not theirs.

If we heed the words and intentions as well as the deeds of Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and other militant Arab Muslim groups, it should be clear that no security problem is merely regional. All Israel remains the target, and no Israeli anywhere should feel complacently free from threat.

With elections scheduled for May 17, Israeli politicians compete with one another with promises to leave the unpopular battlefield of Lebanon if they are elected. Opposition candidates Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Mordecai have so promised, as has incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

No matter the promises, a dedicated enemy is making ready to launch the march to Jerusalem. Some still ignore that agenda.

Their awakening may be rude indeed.

Am Echad: Preserving One Jewish Nation

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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February 23, 1999

Sunday’s Mass Prayer Gathering

The Sunday, 14th February, prayer gathering of a broad cross-section of Orthodox Jews — media estimates of the crowd ranged between 250,000 to 500,000 participants — and was descibed by the Israeli media as the largest such gathering in the Israel’s history. The widespread predictions of possible violence and bloodshed proved to be utterly baseless. The gathering, which lasted more than two hours, passed without incident, and when it was over the huge crowd dispersed quietly.

The prayer vigil was called against a backdrop of escalating hostility to religious observance in Israel and the usurpation of representative government by the judicial branch, in particular the Israeli Supreme Court.

I. The World’s Most Activist Court

In the opinion of many commentators, there is no more powerful supreme court in the world than the Israeli Supreme Court. No other supreme court has assumed such responsibility for resolving all the problems of society, says Hebrew University’s Ruth Gavison, one of the directors of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. There is no area, in the words of another leading commentator, “too political, too contentious, or too trivial to escape [the Supreme Court’s] vigilant eye.” In recent years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly entered areas in which there are no traditional legal materials to guide it: neither statute or judicial precedent.

‘The Barak Court’s judicial activism has thrust the Supreme Court into the center of many of the value conflicts that divide Israeli society, a role for which it is completely unsuited. The Supreme Court is totally unrepresentative of Israeli society. In a country in which over 50% of the population is of Middle Eastern origin, there is not one justice of Middle Eastern descent. In a country, in which 20-25% of the population is religiously observant, only one permanent member of the 15-member Court is religious. (Justice Barak and his colleagues largely control the selection of their successors, with little input from the Knesset and the executive branches.)

Not only is the Supreme Court highly unrepresentative, but it has followed an explicitly elitist vision in its value choices. In Justice Barak’s words, a judge should be guided in those cases involving broad value choices by the values of “the enlightened society in whose midst he dwells.” “The values of the enlightened society,” he has made clear, does not mean a social consensus, but only those values which are, in his words, universal — i.e., neither Jewish nor non-Jewish — progressive, and worthy of enlightened nations.

In no area involving conflicting societal values has the Court’s unrepresentative nature and its elitist vision been so keenly felt as that of religion and state. The Barak Court has consistently failed to acknowledge that the affirmation of Israel as a “Jewish state,” in both the Declaration of Independence and the Basic Laws is not meaningless verbiage. Rather Justice Barak has simply defined “Jewish” as synonymous with “democratic,” which he then defines in terms of rights, both enumerated and unenumerated.

Justice Barak’s vision, while consistent with that of a very small minority of Israeli society, which would define Israel as merely a “state of its citizens,” is far from that of Ben-Gurion and the other signatories to the Declaration of Independence, as well as the majority of citizens today.

Israel’s founders viewed the creation of the State as the fulfillment of a 2,000-year-old dream. And they recognized that Jewish identity would be the glue holding society together. To preserve a single Jewish identity, for instance, they placed all issues of personal status under the supervision of the Chief Rabbinate.

By refusing to treat the term “Jewish” as an independent source of values, the Supreme Court has left itself vulnerable to the charge, voiced most recently by former Justice Tzvi Tal that it “has completely cut itself off from the tradition of the Jewish people.” Under Justice Barak, every aspect of the fifty year status quo arrangement on matters of religion and state has been eroded, with a resulting loss of identifiable Jewish character to the State. Laws against commercial activity on the Sabbath have been undermined, the jurisdiction of the religious courts restricted, the importation of non-kosher meat permitted, and the Chief Rabbinate’s authority over conversions dramatically reduced.

The Supreme Court has ordered hearings on a suit to bar ritual circumcision in Israel. Over the ages, tens of thousands of Jews have died rather than give up circumcision, the first commandment given to the Jewish people. Yet for the Israeli Supreme Court it is not unthinkable that the first self-proclaimed “Jewish state” in nearly two millenia might outlaw ritual circumcision. Nor has the Court acknowledged that it has no authority to prevent parents from circumsizing their children.

Here are a few other examples of the Court’s appropriation of broad policymaking functions from the Knesset and the executive branch and of its creation of new rights out of whole cloth:

Two years ago, the Supreme Court overruled the decision of the Supervisor of Traffic to close a two-block stretch of Bar Ilan Street in Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Such routine decisions about the direction of traffic are never subjected to judicial review. Justice Barak then went on to appoint a commission to study the entire issue of Sabbath street closings on a national level, a remedy far beyond the narrow case in front of the Supreme Court and involving the type of policy-making normally associated with the other branches.
Last year the Supreme Court ordered Educational TV to screen a film celebrating teenage homosexuality, without citation of one statute or judicial precedent mandating such a result. The Supreme Court thereby effectively created a new right to promote one’s lifestyle on public broadcasting.

II. Delegitimization of the Religious Population

As part of an escalating campaign of delegitimization of religious Jews and religious observance, major parties have based both local and national campaigns around the slogan “Stop the Chareidim” or “Stop the Blacks.”

In response to the opening of a national religious kindergarten in Kfar Saba, signs appeared advocating “exterminating the chareidim at birth.” Yet no protest was heard. Ssimilarly Justice Barak himself did not protest when a Beersheba magistrate likened religious Jews to “huge lice” in his presence. Indeed Barak praised the speech, and only three weeks later, after complaints from religious leaders, was the magistrate reprimanded.

A leading journalist savors the idea of tying the beards of all the “weird chareidi rabbis together and setting them on fire” and another — a former Knesset member — declares his greatest national service would be to go into Mea Shearim with a submachine gun to “mow them all down,” and again there is no outcry.

In Tzoron a new religious school opened last September, with twenty first-graders. For more than a month, these little children had to run had to run a daily gauntlet of forty to sixty demonstrators, some accompanied by attack dogs, to enter the school. The school building was regularly pelted with stones, with the children inside, and defaced. These demonstrations were encouraged by Meretz leader Yossi Sarid, who came to Tzoron to urge the local population to resist the scourge of religion.

Am Echad is an umbrella organization designed to ensure an accurate portrayal of Orthodox Jews and Judaism in the media and to serve as a resource for journalists seeking a greater understanding of the Orthodox community.
Tel: (+972-2) 652-2726

Al-Ahram Weekly: Jordan Rejects Confederation with Arafat

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

February 23, 1999

Arafat’s Ladder
by Graham Usher

Heading
“With the dust barely settled on his father’s grave, last week King Abdullah was confronted with the one issue he almost certainly would have preferred to have stayed buried, at least during the opening months of his reign”.

Excerpts

… Palestinian President Yasser Arafat revived the debate over the form of the political association between Jordan and any future Palestinian entity. “We want [King Abdullah] to know that the Palestinian National Council has agreed to a confederation with Jordan,” said Arafat. More alarming still — as far as Jordan was concerned — were the comments by PA spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeineh, that discussions on a “confederacy” between Jordan and the Palestinians should happen sooner rather than later.

…

In 1985, the Palestinian National Council (PNC) endorsed the idea of a confederation between Jordan and any future Palestinian state. Never set out in detail, the decision had been taken in the context of a rapprochement between Arafat and King Hussein following the PLO’s eviction from Beirut in 1982. Following a souring in relations between the PLO and Jordan in 1986, however, the confederation idea, though never formally abandoned, was quietly shelved. Since then, the unspoken status quo — shared by both King Hussein and Arafat — was that the issue of a confederation should only be raised after a Palestinian state had been established “on Palestinian soil”. It is this status quo that Arafat and Rdeineh’s comments have thrown into doubt.

…

In recent weeks, the Palestinian leader has been under inordinate pressure to publicly postpone his “right” to declare unilaterally a Palestinian state when Oslo’s interim period expires on 4 May. As part of the Wye River Agreement, the US gave Israel a written pledge that it “opposes and will oppose” any unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. Last month, the European parliament also made it known that a “premature” Palestinian UDI would create a “complex situation” in the region. Israel’s Labour and Centre parties have also stated that a Palestinian state should be “a result of negotiations” rather than an independent Palestinian action.

The unspoken assumption behind this chorus of restraint is that any attempt by Arafat to go it alone would almost certainly help Binyamin Netanyahu’s election prospects rather than those of Ehud Barak, especially if the Israeli leader, in retaliation, carries out his threat to annex those parts of the Occupied Territories under Israel’s control. Such an action would bury whatever tenuous hopes the US and Europe have about resurrecting Oslo in the wake of the Israeli elections.

It is a scenario Arafat probably shares. His problem is that having climbed the tree of threatening a unilateral declaration of statehood on 4 May, he needs a dignified way to descend from it. By floating the confederation idea, he could mount a retreat in the name of “coordination and discussion” with Jordan rather than climbing down meekly due to American and European pressure. Should the confederation idea also receive a positive response internationally — and especially in Washington — Arafat could also claim this as another implicit recognition of a Palestinian state.

So far, the international response to his call has been led by Jordan. “As for confederation or any other future relation between Jordan and the Palestinians,” commented Jordan’s information minister, Nasser Joudeh, on 14 February, “we will cross that bridge when we come to it”. For now, “the most important thing… is that Jordan concentrates… on helping and supporting Palestinians win their full rights on Palestinian soil, meaning the establishment of their national state.”

This is a polite way of saying that confederation should stay on the shelf and that Arafat, having climbed the tree of 4 May, should not look to Amman to provide him with a ladder.

No Takers in Amman
by Khaled Dawoud

Heading
“The Jordanian government and opposition parties alike reacted angrily this week to the proposal by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for a confederation with Jordan, Khaled Dawoud reports from Amman.”

Quotes from text
“Arafat’s proposal… would only help Israel’s declared intention of establishing Jordan as an alternative homeland for the Palestinians.” [IMRA: Israel simply has no such intention.]

“Abdul-Majid Zuneibat, supreme guide of Jordan’s main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, told Al-Ahram Weekly that Arafat’s proposal at this particular junction was an invitation to Judaise Jordan and an attempt to avoid declaring an independent Palestinian state by solving his problems at Jordan’s expense. We vehemently reject this call.”

Full Text

The Jordanian government and opposition parties alike reacted angrily this week to the proposal by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for a confederation with Jordan.

Jordanian Prime Minister Fayez Al-Tarawneh immediately declared that the topic was not up for discussion at this particular time and that there could be no talk of confederation before the creation of an independent Palestinian state was complete.

Several parliament members also issued statements expressing “dismay and surprise at Arafat’s proposal”, describing it as an attempt by the Palestinian leader to add to Jordan’s problems at a time when the country is struggling to overcome its grief at the death of King Hussein.

George Hadad, a columnist at the daily Dastour newspaper, said that not long ago the late King Hussein had publicly asked Arafat to refrain from raising this issue until the occupied Palestinian territories had been liberated. Hadad said that Arafat’s proposal, made only four days after Hussein’s death, would only help Israel’s declared intention of establishing Jordan as an alternative homeland for the Palestinians.

With the expiry date of the Oslo Agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinians approaching on 4 May without any hope of a breakthrough in the peace process, Jordanian officials and opposition groups fear that the proposed confederation may be meant as an alternative to Arafat’s threat to unilaterally declare an independent state, thus giving Israel the justification to transfer hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Jordan. If this were to come about, it would seriously aggravate Jordan’s economic problems. The country is already suffering from a lack of economic resources and sky-rocketing unemployment.

Abdul-Majid Zuneibat, supreme guide of Jordan’s main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, told Al-Ahram Weekly that Arafat’s proposal at this particular juncture was “an invitation to Judaise Jordan and an attempt to avoid declaring an independent Palestinian state by solving his problems at Jordan’s expense. We vehemently reject this call.”

Like other Jordanian commentators, Zuneibat said that Jordanians and Palestinians have been united by force of circumstances over the past decade, “but any talk of a confederation should be left until after the establishment of a Palestinian state. That way, the union would take place voluntarily between two independent nations.”

An Old Card
by Sherine Bahaa

Heading
“Yassar Arafat surprised the international community by reviving the old call for a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation. Sherine Bahaa spoke to analysts about the possible reasons behind the proposal”.

Full Text

“A confederation with Jordan” was former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres’ answer, when asked what came next, following the signing of the 1995 interim agreement between Palestine and Israel.

Today, four years later, observers agree that a confederation remains the most likely scenario. In the words of one Arab analyst, “The current situation proves that establishing a Palestinian entity is inevitable, but it also proves this entity will not amount to an integrated state.”

Khalil Shkaki, head of the Palestinian Research Centre in Nablus, believes that a majority of Palestinians support the idea of a confederation for “historical, strategic and social reasons.” According to Shkaki, Palestinians think that some form of unity between the two populations might be useful. “It might well be asked whether a Palestinian state without some form of unity with Jordan would be viable,” Shkaki told Al-Ahram Weekly.

At a regional meeting of his mainstream Fateh faction in Hebron last Friday, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said that the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) parliament in exile favoured a confederacy with Jordan, if the country’s newly crowned King Abdullah approves of the idea.

“Arafat wanted to confirm earlier positions and reassure Jordanians that Palestinian policy remains unchanged despite the death of King Hussein,” said Shkaki.

The timing of Arafat’s announcement of the revival of the proposal is one considerable source of controversy. Though some analysts point to his need to find a solution before the 4 May Oslo agreement deadline which is now looming, others regard his statement as an attempt to influence, if not preempt, the Jordanian decision. Abdel-Wahab Elmessiri, an expert on Zionist affairs, inclines to the first opinion. “The confederation with Jordan would represent a way out for him,” said Elmessiri, who sees the Palestinian leader as essentially pragmatic. “Arafat’s position is very difficult. The Arab states are divided. He is confronting Israel on his own, and he has to rely on his wits to work out a solution for himself.”

Political analyst Mohamed Sid-Ahmed subscribes to the second point of view. Sid-Ahmed believes that it is the precarious nature of the regional situation which has induced Arafat to bring the confederation proposal forward once again. “There is a new power structure in Jordan, and it is a vulnerable one,” Sid-Ahmed said. He attributes this vulnerability to a number of reasons. A much-loved heir to the throne, who had held that position for 35 years, was suddenly removed, and replaced by an inexperienced young man, who now finds himself king. As Sid-Ahmed points out, it is obvious that not everybody in Jordan is pleased with Hussein’s choice of Abdullah as his successor.

Sid-Ahmed believes that Arafat saw an opportunity to raise the matter again, especially as Netanyahu has been obliged to call for early elections. “Netanyahu cornered inside the country, and the Jordanians in a weak position: this is a golden opportunity to put everybody on the defensive with a step of that sort,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the United States have unveiled a plan by President Bill Clinton which had been shelved due to the Monicagate trial. The Americans are proposing a tripartite Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation. According to US officials, the Clinton scenario would commit the three partners to a plan which would ensure stability in the region. It would also serve to reinforce the American-Jordanian relationship. An invitation has already been sent to the new Jordanian monarch, King Abdullah, to visit the US and address the Congress.

This is a scenario which does not appeal much to Elmessiri, who views the Americans as inveterate pragmatists. “They never address fundamental issues. That’s why they keep cooking up new ‘solutions’ for the Arab-Israeli conflict,” he said. “Will this mean the implementation of the 1948 UN resolutions? Can this confederation solve the problem of the refugees of 1967, or of sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza?” Elmessiri believes that the Palestinian issue has gone beyond political endeavours and pragmatic solutions. For him, Israel was always determined to separate the land from the people, so as to achieve at least a partial fulfillment of the Zionist slogan, “A land without people, that would be modified to read, A land divorced from the people.”

He continued: “Unfortunately for Israel, the Palestinians are growing in numbers, they are highly educated and they have the support of the Arab and Islamic peoples. This leaves the Israelis with a problem which so far has no answer in the Zionist lexicon.”

However, this does not mean there are no benefits to be drawn from a three-way confederation, should it ever materialise. “It would strengthen relations between the Jordanians and the Palestinians, strengthen the new regime being set up in Jordan and also create a better bulwark against any intrigues or conspiracies that might be hatched at this juncture by people like Ariel Sharon,” Sid Ahmed commented. “Moreover, a confederation would put an end to the criticisms now emerging from within the ranks of the Palestinians of the Palestinian Authority.”

An Alliance of Equals
by Mahgoub Omar
Expert on Palestinian affairs and a columnist at Al-Ahaab newspaper

Quotes from text
“… Arafat… has forced Jordan, as represented by the new king, Abdullah, to reject the proposal, at least temprarily…. the new monarch still feels that his success depends on a domestic Palestinan majority, yet cannot be sure of this constituency’s loyalty.”

“Shimon Peres has announced that, if Labour wins the forthcoming elections, he will back the declaration of a Palestinian state, and welcome the establishment of a confederation…. Netanyahu… has refused the idea categorically.”

Full Text

The late King Hussein had proposed that Jordan join a confederation with the Palestinian authority set up after Israel’s withdrawal. The Palestinians had always opposed this suggestion; some requested that it be postponed until after Israel had withdrawn from occupied territory and a referendum on the question had been held; others refused altogether, for reasons related to the Palestinians’ experience in Jordan under Hussein. Now Arafat, by turning the tables, has forced Jordan, as represented by the new king, Abdullah, to reject the proposal, at least temporarily. It has not been long since King Hussein’s death, and the new monarch still feels that his success depends on a domestic Palestinian majority, yet cannot be sure of this constituency’s loyalty.

The rapid refusal is probably due to the fact that the effective players in Jordan — King Abdullah’s power base — are the tribes, the army and the ruling family. Former Crown Prince Hassan’s followers are also in favour of distancing the Palestinians. In any case, it is now up to the EU, and especially Britain, to make a move. The creation of a confederation, of course, would imply that a Palestinian state has been recognised — precisely Arafat’s intention.

Shimon Peres has announced that, if Labour wins the forthcoming elections, he will back the declaration of a Palestinian state, and welcome the establishment of a confederation. As for Netanyahu, he has refused the idea categorically.

Translations by
Dr. Joseph Lerner,
Co-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

Major Israeli Arab Political Party Strives to Replace Israel

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

February 23, 1999

A review of the National Democratic Alliance party platform finds that it works for the establishment of a regime in the region that would supercede Israel (article 15). The party also acts against encouraging Arabs to serve in the army (11a) and Palestinians who help Israel (11b) and supports the return of the 1948 refugees into Israel (13).

Curiously, Minister of Communications Limor Livnat today only charged that the party rejects the Jewish character of the State of Israel (article 2) and supports the negation of the Law of Return (part of the citizenship law – article 3).

Relevant excerpts from the party platform as well as from today’s cabinet communique appear below:

National Democratic Alliance Party Platform

The following is IMRA’s unauthorized translation of excerpts from the Hebrew version of the 1996 election platform of the National Democratic Alliance party.

2. The National Democratic Alliance will struggle for changing the State of Israel into a democratic state for all of its citizens – Jews, Arabs and others…

3. In order to void all types of discrimination between citizens based on race, nationality, religion, sex, and political affiliation the National Democratic Alliance will act for the enactment of democratic legislation based on changing the citizenship laws, and insure the Arabs in Israel citizenship truly equal to that of the Jews. This based on UN charters on this matter. This law will be the legal basis for social equality and political participation in state of all its citizens.

4. The Arab Israeli citizens are a part of the Palestinian nation and the Arab people in its national and cultural identity.

5. The National Democratic Alliance will act for the recognition of the Arabs in Israel as a national-cultural minority, and will defend its right to autonomy over those matters that distinguish it from the Jewish majority in the state, and at the top – matters of education and culture. The National Democratic Alliance will act for the recognition of the minority to establish institutions, organizations and authorities that will act on a voluntary basis to handle and develop religious, educational and cultural services, preserve traditional heritage and values, matters of charity and social solidarity. The minority has the right to independently manage these institutions, with ties and participation in the central government that will be a state of all its citizens, on the basis of the interests of the general public and subject to law.

11. a. The National Democratic Alliance will act against the policy of drafting Arabs to the army, and against propaganda encouraging the draft in the Arab society and Arab schools.

b. The National Democratic Alliance will act against collaborators and against the policy of residing them in Arab villages and cities in Israel.

c. The National Democratic Alliance is committed to the matter of Palestinian and Arab political prisoners and their release from prison, and in particular those of them who are Israeli citizens.

13. The National Democratic Alliance will act to achieve a just overall and viable peace solution for the Palestinian problem on the basis of the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state in the occupied territories since 1967 whose capital is eastern Jerusalem, the break up of the settlements established in these territories and the resolution of the refugee problem on the basis on international law and UN decisions on these matters.

14. The National Democratic Alliance will work for the full withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from all occupied Arab territories- the Golan Heights and South Lebanon to the borders of the fourth of June 1967.

15. The National Democratic Alliance see itself a part of the strong democratic movement in the region that acts for the establishment of a democratic regime in the region on the basis of equality and agreement between the states and people without any foreign hegemony. Such a regime will be a condition for economic development, social advancement and the protection of human rights and honor.

Israel Cabinet Communique
(From the press release of the Israel Government Press Office)

At the Cabinet meeting today (Sunday), 21st February, 1999:
The Communications Minister referred to remarks in praise of Hizballah made by MK Azmi Bishara at a meeting of his National Democratic Alliance party, and to reports about the party’s platform — which allegedly rejects the Jewish character of the State and supports the negation of the Law of Return. The Attorney-General said that he will investigate the matter.

The Prime Minister clarified that MK Bishara’s remarks are serious, but that they must be viewed as representative of an extremist minority of Israeli Arabs, and not be attributed to the vast majority of this constituency — which remains loyal to the State.’

Dr. Aaron Lerner is the Co-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

Antisemitic Expression on Official Palestinian Authority Media?

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

February 23, 1999

Palestinian Media Watch, under the direction of Itamar Marcus, has released another sampling of recent anti-Semitic incitement in the Palestinian press. These include an article in the daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida from 18th January, 1999, which states:

“In the meantime, Israel adds additional massacres to the heritage of heavy bloodshed… Many among the historians and social science researchers delve into the interpretation of the Jewish “Israeli” psyche, and the [interpretation] of the Torah texts, in connection with the historical persecution complex and the massacres of others. However, the reality is that the massacres are a clear, political act in the blood filled history of the Zionist entity… This is not a policy of a party, faction, stream or person. This is a continuing, non-stop system, which has not changed, will not change, and which was never given up on, whether the power lay with those called ‘extremists’ of the ‘right wing’ from the Likud party and the religious streams, or with those who are classified as ‘moderates’ of the Labor party crowd and the streams which are affiliated with the left. Massacre is the basis of the State of Israel… is the core of their beliefs… Israel will never willingly stop the acts of massacre… This [stopping] is rejected from an Israeli point of view and whoever approves [it] will merit the same fate as Rabin. There is no forgetting. There is no forgiving…”
[by Tallal Slaman, Editor of Alsapir Lebanese newspaper]

A sermon by Sheikh Yussef Abu Snineh, broadcast over Voice of Palestine Radio on 15th January, 1999, included the following:

“There is no difference between the names and nicknames, and there is no difference or advantage in the increase of the Israeli parties. The Labor or the Likud, doves or hawks, or the Third Way, or the Right. They all serve the Israeli society and Zionist ideology which is based on the occupation of the land of Palestine, the expansion of the settlements and the ‘Judaization’ of the city of Jerusalem. They all are different sides of the same coin whose name is the Zionist occupation. The truth that the Muslims, East and West, must know is that our struggle over Palestine is an ideological struggle between Islam and the enemies of Islam… How long will this shame go on, how long the disgrace, oh Muslims. Has not the time arrived for the Islamic nations to rise and throw off their being controlled states and to liberate themselves of the shackles of Imperialism?”

King Hussein: A Security Asset – But No Friend

By

David Bedein

-

February 15, 1999

King Hussein of Jordan will go down in history as a security asset to the US, Great Britain, and, in his final years, to the state of Israel.

That does not mean that King Hussein was committed to the better interests of the state of Israel or of the Jewish people.

One of King Hussein’s first acts as the monarch of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the early fifties was to oversee the razing of fifty seven synagogues in the ancient old city of Jerusalem, while giving orders to obliterate the old Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

Under King Hussein’s direction, the Intercontinental Hotel was constructed on top of the Mount of Olives Jewish cemetery, where gravestones were used as concrete slabs for the hotel’s foundation.

Meanwhile, in violation of the 1949 Jerusalem armistice agreements that were signed by King Hussein’s predecessor, his assassinated grandfather, King Abdullah, King Hussein proclaimed that no Jew would be allowed to enter, pray or reside in the old city of Jerusalem.

And another of King Hussein’s first edicts was to confine the Palestinian Arab refugee population who had fled to Jordan to the squalor of refugee camps, under the promise and premise of their “inalienable right of return” to their homes that no longer existed within Israel proper. That edict mitigated against absorbing Palestinian Arab refugees into his kingdom. They remain in “temporary” refugee camps to this day.

Meanwhile, King Hussein’s loss of the Old City of Jerusalem occurred as a direct result of Hussein’s artillery attacks on the Israeli-held western Jerusalem during the June,1967 war. The Israeli prime minister at the time, Levi Eshkol, allowed King Hussein’s artillery attack to go on for more than seven hours while he dispatched emergency communications through Israel’s foreign minister, Abba Eban, who communicated to King Hussein via the US state department that Israel wanted no war with Jordan. Israel only launched an attack on King Hussein’s Arab Legion when king Hussein refused to heed Israeli and American pleas to cease fire on western Jerusalem.

It was after the 1967 war that Israeli military intelligence revealed that captured documents from the Jordanian High Military command showed a Jordanian master plan to conquer the rest of Jerusalem from Israel and to slaughter all of its Jewish civilian inhabitants.

King Hussein’s eventual pragmatic approach to Israel did indeed bring the King to come to terms with the existance of the Jewish state and even to warn Eshkol’s successor, Golda Meir of an impending surprise attack by Syria and Egypt in 1973.

Yet King Hussein did allow the airpspace of his nation to be used by Iraqi scud missiles to land on Tel Aviv and Haifa, throughout January and February of 1991.

What has gone virtually unreported in the western media has been the anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli sentiment that has been festering in Jordan for the past five years, even after the historic 1994 peace treaty that was initialled between Jordan and Israel.

Journalists whom I have met with following their visits to Jordan have complained that their editors and producers simply did not want to run stories that would contradict the one bright light of hope in the middle east peace process.

Today, a new Jordanian King Abdullah with close ties to the Palestinian Authority will most likely continue his father’s policy of confining the majority of Jordan’s population, who are indeed Palestinian refugees, to the confines of Palestinian refugee camps… under the premise and promise of the “right of return”, where Jordanian and UN administrators of these Palestinian Arab refugee camps prepare a new generation of Palestinian Arab refugees for a war of liberation against the Jewish state.

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Al-Ahram Weekly: Jordan Rejects Confederation with Arafat

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King Hussein: A Security Asset – But No Friend

Column from the Director