Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them.

In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B.

The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians.

Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories).

In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long.

The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.

John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector.

The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace.

Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago.

Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid.

Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority".

Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations.

"Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."

Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops.

“All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive.

Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him.

“I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.”

Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay.

“It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.”

He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?”

Illegal annexation

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community.

Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect.

“After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote.

Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation.

Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.

Extreme poverty

Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower.

While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line.

“How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”.

“Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked.

“You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS.

Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities.

Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn.

Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank

Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent.

“Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found.

Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population.

To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones.

It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services.

“Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER).

Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”

THIS week, when I return to my village in the occupied West Bank, I face possible arrest by Israel for engaging in nonviolent protests against abusive Israeli policies opposed by our own government.

This prospect is difficult after 29 years of living in the United States, where such activities are fully protected. It was this openness that attracted me to the U.S. I became a proud citizen and pursued work not only in my profession but also as a human rights advocate.

Over the years, I gave hundreds of talks and participated in many vigils and protests, mostly against the war on Iraq and for justice and equality in Israel/Palestine. The activities always involved people of all backgrounds.

When I moved back to Palestine in early 2008, I continued to engage in these activities. I teach and have helped to establish a master’s program in biotechnology at Bethlehem University. I also pursue my passion of educating others on human rights and engaging in civil resistance through protests and vigils.

On March 1, shortly after I left my village near Bethlehem for a visit home to the United States, the Israeli army invaded the neighborhood and surrounded our house at 1:30 a.m. My mother, sister and wife, terrorized for no reason, told the military I was out of the country but would be “happy” to talk to them upon my return.

The soldiers delivered a note demanding my appearance in a military compound five days later — a date I have missed because my ticket was scheduled for a few days later. I thus face the likelihood of arrest, administrative detention or worse when I go back.

My story is just a minor manifestation of a disturbing pattern. As civil resistance against Israel’s West Bank apartheid wall and settlement activities have increased, there has been an escalation of Israeli repression of nonviolent protesters.

Nonviolent resistance to colonization and occupation are consistent with international law and U.S. policies. President Barack Obama has stated that settlement activities in the occupied territories must stop as a prelude to ending the occupation that started in 1967. Yet, Israeli authorities continue settlement activities apace, while intensifying attacks against peaceful vigils and protests against this indefensible behavior.

Obama also gave clear encouragement to nonviolent Palestinian demonstrators in his Cairo speech, yet has remained silent as nonviolent demonstrators have been seized in recent weeks by the Israeli military.

Bethlehem has suffered significantly because of Israeli actions. The district is squeezed now by illegal Israeli settlements and military installations on three sides. Bethlehem’s 130,00 residents have access to only 20 percent of the original land of the district. The settlers, protected by the Israeli military, now want to build a settlement in the only remaining open side of Bethlehem — to the east in an area called Ush Ghrab.

The people of my village, Beit Sahour, are known for a history of nonviolent resistance, including a tax revolt in 1988 against the Israeli military government. We are a town with limited resources, comprised of 70 percent Christians and 30 percent Muslims, but have a highly educated middle class with more than 300 holders of doctorates among the population of 12,000.

Having lost so much land, and being well-informed and connected to the outside world, we decided to nonviolently resist the additional Israeli encroachment on our town. The Israeli response relied on brute force. Our first prayer vigil was attacked while a Lutheran priest was leading us in prayer.

As a member of the committee that organized the vigil and another peaceful event a week later, I was targeted. An Israeli officer warned me not to participate and threatened me, noting he knew I was planning to come home to the U.S. for a lecture tour.

Given that the Israeli government receives billions in U.S. military aid, my taxes and yours at work, our government should defend those of us who engage in nonviolent protests. I was encouraged last week, therefore, in meeting with the office of U.S. Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that his office will pursue my concerns with the State Department and the Israeli government.

While I fear for myself, I am more worried for other activists who do not have the minimal protection of a U.S. passport. And, I am terribly worried for our future as we are squeezed into smaller and smaller apartheid-like Bantustans.

We will not be deterred from nonviolent protest. Despite being let down by numerous governments, we look to the United States and elsewhere in the international community to help defend us from abusive and violent responses to nonviolence.

The President’s visit to the Middle East this week will show once and for all that status quo lives on under the attempt to validate the old saying that an ounce of image is worth a pound of performance. In this case the image came seven years too late. In public appearances the Bush administration claims it supports “the road map for peace”. In 2218 words that “map” lacks any mention of human rights and International law. But even with this shortcoming, it calls for total freeze on settlement activities including so called “natural growth”. Israel simply refuses to abide by this. Bush sent a letter to assure Israel that some settlements will be exempt since they would stay with Israel under any final deal. In so doing, Bush himself undermined his own “road map”. It is not surprising that US policy evolved from describing settlements as illegal to “obstacles” to “unhelpful” and finally to Jewish neighborhood that will remain part of the Jewish state.

The US government claimed interest in advancing democracy is recognized around the world as the biggest breeding ground for promoting dictators, violence and terrorism (whether that practiced by individuals or the more deadly state terrorism). For example, Hamas was elected in the occupied Palestinian areas in a vote that this administration pushed for. Rather than pressuring Israel to comply with International law (an action which would have truly built up moderate forces in Palestine), Bush chose to pressure Abbas to take Hamas on militarily and thus increase the already high antagonism to the US and its client state of Israel.

Continuing in this policy, when Bush visits Ramallah to meet with Abbas, the city will be under curfew and a virtual marshal law according to instructions given to Palestinian police. Bush’s security detail demanded no visible nonviolent demonstrations. The Israeli Foreign Minister, daughter of the terrorist who oversaw the bombing of the King David Hotel will jovially agree with Bush on fighting “Islamic terrorism.” Bush will look out from that same hotel to see a wall that the International court of Justice ruled illegal. Many of the US officials accompanying Bush were handpicked from lobbyists and pundits who support Israel (Clinton was not any better) so he will not hear the history of that hotel.

Considering the above, the photo opportunities in occupied Jerusalem will not accomplish any more than they did in Annapolis not even the hope of a changed policy after Bush leaves office. Thus, the decline in the U.S.’s ability to influence events around the world is becoming more visible (even in the declining value of the US dollar). There is an obvious and more honest route to peace, security, and economic prosperity for all (Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, Iraqis etc): International law and human rights.

Israel is the only country in the world that gives members of a particular religion, including converts, automatic rights (citizenship, land, homes, subsidies), while denying citizenship to native Christians and Muslims who were ethnically cleansed. World leaders who are freed from the pressures of the Israel lobby have recognized this system for what it is: Apartheid. Israelis actually use hafrada (segregation) to describe their program. President Carter wrote a book titled “Palestine: Peace not apartheid.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote: “In our struggle for justice and peace in South Africa we had to learn to speak and listen to hard truths. Our experience should encourage all who strive for justice and peace in the Holy Land. My visits to the Holy Land remind me so much of South Africa: apartheid is back, complete with the “Separation Wall” and Bantustans.”

History, it seems, repeats itself.” A growing International movement of boycotts, divestment and sanctions, (BDS) coupled with truth telling is building that will succeed like we did with cutting U.S. support for Apartheid South Africa. Israel will then evolve into a democracy with equality for all (Jews, Christians, Muslims etc.) and implement international law including, allowing the refugees to return to their homes and lands. This is the only way to allow a functioning Hebrew and Israeli culture to remain while remedying the injustice committed against the native people. A media that is influenced by special interests gave support to pro-Israel candidates while ridiculing those calling for a real change in the self-destructive US foreign policy (e.g. Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich). The jury is thus still out on whether the new President will continue the same path.

More and more US citizens are seeing the devastation caused by the alternative strategy (from 9/11 to chaos in Pakistan). Citizen pressure on all political parties is what achieved ending the war in Vietnam, ending US support for apartheid South Africa, and advancing civil rights. It is time to reclaim our country.

Dr. Qumsiyeh is a Christian Palestinian-American who served on the faculty of both Duke and Yale Universities. He is author of “Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle.” His web site is located at http://qumsiyeh.org

What is the state of affairs of Palestine and Palestinians today? How did we arrive at a situation where Palestinian blood is spilled by other Palestinians and where the Gaza strip (a desert strip that is less than 2% of Palestine) with 1.5 million human beings (most refugees) is now completely cut off from the rest of the world which if not fixed soon will result in a calamity beyond description. And will Israel use the media focus on Gaza to carry out its planned ethnic cleansing of the Negev (42,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel slated to lose their homes [1])?

In the US there has been countless shallow commentaries and as many simply defamatory ones that are devoid from any connection to reality. Neocons, Zionist pundits like Thomas Friedman, stooges and collaborators like Fouad Ajami etc are given ample space on pages of major newspapers while we, Palestinians as Edward Said rightly pointed out are even prevented from telling our own narrative. In this assay I try to survey the political landscape and examine the various players (Israel, US, other countries, Palestinians in and out of factions, and finally the peace movement) and their roles and interests. I also wanted to ensure that our own responsibility as peace activists is examined in light of monumental changes that impact not only the lives of people in Western Asia but people everywhere.

ISRAEL

Then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stated in May 2004 just before putting in motion his plans for Gaza: “I believe we must change the current situation, a situation which necessarily leads to a political vacuum. It is clear to me that … dozens of political initiatives will be drawn up often, from all over the world. Today, we are already forced to repel such initiatives, which share the idea that Israel must reach an agreement while terror is still going on.” His right hand man at the time, Dov Weisglass, clarified it in October 2004: “The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process ... Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda”. Sharon also noted once: “You don’t simply bundle people [Palestinians] onto trucks and drive them away. I prefer to advocate a positive policy, to create, in effect, a condition that in a positive way will induce people to leave.” The Gaza strip was the first test site for these strategies (which some Israeli leaders openly stated will finish the job started in 1948).

Uri Avnery stated "What happens when one and a half million human beings are imprisoned in a tiny, arid territory, cut off from their compatriots and from any contact with the outside world, starved by an economic blockade and unable to feed their families? Some months ago, I described this situation as a sociological experiment set up by Israel, the United States and the European Union. The population of the Gaza Strip as guinea pigs" [2].

Akiva Elder more bluntly explained in Haaretz last week that the outcome of this experiment was precisely what Sharon and Dov Weissglass planned for with their misnamed "disengagement" from Gaza [3].

A famous Israeli general once said, "Once we have settled the land, all the [Palestinian] Arabs will be able to do is run around like drugged roaches in a bottle." Presumably the trapped "roaches" are now turning on each other as planned in the one bottle. The few other bottles in the West Bank are next. The Amnesty International Report published recently summarizes these conditions in very mild and neutral language (the title for example reads "Enduring Occupation: Palestinians under siege in the West Bank" when what is happening in the West Bank is worse than the worst days of Apartheid in South Africa) [4].

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A confidential report to the UN by its envoy for the Middle East peace process, Alvaro De Soto, was leaked last week and published in the Guardian Newspaper. In it De Soto states candidly: "The US clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas, so much so that, a week before Mecca, the US envoy declared twice in an envoys meeting in Washington how much 'I like this violence', referring to the near-civil war that was erupting in Gaza in which civilians were being regularly killed and injured" [5].

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was planned by neocon Zionists well before they got power in the White house [6]. A similar attack on Iran by the same cabal using American blood as canon fodder is in the works now [7]. As the original lies about Iraq were exposed one after another (WMD, terror connections etc), a new one was instigated: advancing democracy in the Middle East. Bush himself in 2005 cited upcoming elections in Lebanon and Palestine as prove of this. Problem was that both had elections many times before and had a history of democratic participation before the war on Iraq.

A more serious problem for the administration besides being exposed as liars was that people elected those that the Israelis did not want (and hence the US had to oppose). Hizballah in Lebanon was by 2006 a powerful political party with members in key government positions. The early 2006 elections for the Palestinian Authority (that has no authority) was supported by all parties concerned including the US neocon administration.

But the election produced a clear but undesirable winner: Hamas. Within the US administration, mobilization was done quickly (and not even secretly) to foster dissent and mayhem. The clearest form of this is the program instituted by Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams (a neocon Jewish Zionist). The program involved propping up elements within Fatah who were accommodating to Israeli needs and fixations (e.g. Mohammed Dahlan, an ambitious war lord who liked to dress well and surround himself with US trained mercenaries) [8].

Of course like in other US plans to reshape the world to suit the lobby in Washington, things do not work out as planned. This is as true in Gaza today as it is in Iraq. Part of this follows from the fact that those who fight for foreign interests do not fight with strong or fanatic convictions and tend to abandon their posts quickly. Those who believe they are resisting colonial occupation tend to be more emotionally committed.

Zionism occupied the executive and legislative branches of the US government also succeed in winning many battles against secular Arab democrats, leftists, and pan Arab nationalists. The decisive battle/turning point was the 1967 war when US supported Israel tripled the lands it occupied. These losses by progressive voices were compounded by US hegemony on the United Nations that prevented application of International law let alone UN Resolutions (the US also vetoed over 40 UN Security Council resolutions on Palestine since 1967). These combinations of factors let to the perhaps unintended consequence of growing the only remaining ideological alternative: that of a resurgent political Islamic movement. In a sense the winners of the battles were not Israel and the US but instead the battles laid the seeds for Hizballah (established 1982) and Hamas (established 1987).

Robert Fisk sums up US policy sarcastically: "Palestinians wanted an end to corruption - the cancer of the Arab world - and so they voted for Hamas and thus we, the all-wise, all-good West, decided to sanction them and starve them and bully them for exercising their free vote....So what will we do?

Support the reoccupation of Gaza perhaps? Certainly we will not criticize Israel. And we shall go on giving our affection to the kings and princes and unlovely presidents of the Middle East until the whole place blows up in our faces and then we shall say - as we are already saying of the Iraqis - that they don’t deserve our sacrifice and our love. How do we deal with a coup d’état by an elected government?" [9].

President Carter confirmed what De Soto, Fisk, and others knew: the US and Israel are working hand in glove to divide Palestinians in a classic divide and conquer strategy of other colonial powers [10].

OTHER REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS

Neo-con Zionists in the US articulated why Iraq, Syria, and Iran were on their target list even before they came to power. Their reason was to strengthen Israel's regional power. Syria and more so Iran got wind of this game early on in the Bush administration. Syria tried to straddle the fence and played game with the US (e.g. taking "rendered" suspects from the CIA to do torture and provide intelligence). Iran was in a stronger position that seemed to get only stronger as US forces were stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran's position got stronger also with each mistake, blunder, atrocity and disaster that the US (influenced by the Zionist lobby) did in Iraq and beyond (from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamou to Bagram to Somalia and Dusseldorf). And since the US funds Israel to the tune of billions every year to continue occupying and attacking Palestinians and Lebanese people, Iran felt emboldened to send in meager supplies for those groups being shot at. This was true at least for Hizballah (it is not clear that Iran gave any weapons or money to Hamas, both deny it).

Then there is the European Union, a collection of states that helped establish Israel. Most of their leadership refuses to push for implementation of international law because of many reasons including:

1) the persistent Zionist propaganda that links guilt over the Jewish holocaust with support for Israel (a state whose founders not only profited from but collaborated with Nazi Germany).

2) US pressure and the presence of the looming NATO (elephant in the room)

3) Desire to keep Israeli Jews from returning to Europe (essentially anti-Semitism)

4) In the case of some leaders like Tony Blair desire to keep conflict going to market weapons.

Russia and China both look at the situation with fear and disdain for US imperial power in this critical part of the world but both have internal and other more pressing issues to tend to than worry about the fate of a few million Palestinians and a few million Israelis. Israel got lots of points with China by transferring to it US military technology in the process making billions of dollars and undermining US security. Many elite Russians are probably privately happy that Israel took in 1 million Russians in the 1990s (most moving for economic reasons, 40% were not even Jewish). But then also many Russians (likely including Putin) were furious at the Russian Zionist tycoons who took control of significant financial resources of Russia (including some natural resources) and then moved the money (and jobs) elsewhere. Thus, we note Russia's more balanced language vis a vis Palestine and Lebanon.

PALESTINIANS (factions and those unaffiliated with factions)

It is hard for the written word to express what people in Gaza (and Palestinians in general) have endured in the past 75 years. If one looks at agriculture, geography (mix Mediterranean and desert habitats), language, culture, mix of religions and other aspects of Palestine, the closest country would be Tunisia. If there was no colonial intervention, Palestine would be like Tunisia today and Gaza would be like the attractive oasis tourist attractions in the South.

But our fate as Palestinians was different. No other population has endured so much for so long. The mayhem is not new to this desert strip at the Southwestern corner of Palestine. It started in the strip with the terrorism by the Hagannah, Stern, and Lehi gangs in the 1930. Between 1947 to 1949, the population of Gaza tripled due to the influx of Palestinian refugees from the coastal strip of Palestine that was unilaterally declared a Jewish state. Some were pushed out to walk for miles in the desert and many sick, old, and young perished in the journey. Some tried to infiltrate back to their villages and were summarily shot on site by orders of Ben Gurion's government. Some started to resist and thus their sprawling refugee camps were attacked viciously. In that era (early 1950s), Israel set up the notorious unit 101 of its army (a unit headed by a young ambitious and ruthless officer by the name of Ariel Sharon whose mandate was to make sure more "Arabs" are killed than "Jews". The era of collective punishment was in full fledge operation.

Israeli commandoes would demolish many homes and kill many civilians in any area near the border that "infiltrators" or fighters would be deemed to have come from. In 1956, Israel occupied Gaza until the US President ordered them to get out and they did. In 1967, Israel occupied the Gaza strip with its 2/3rd population being Palestinian refugees and 1/3rd native Gazans.

This occupation has impoverished the strip in a deliberate policy of economic de-development [11]. Sharon came back to Gaza and intensified his strategy of the iron fist. In the early 1970s, he succeeded in keeping the lid on rebellion by massive assaults on neighborhoods were any resistance sprung. This was the classic colonial strategy of mass destruction to "pacify" the population. But further uprisings would come about every decade of the 4 decades Gaza suffered under the occupation. Thus, three generations of Gaza residents (2/3rd of whom are refugees) suffered 75 years of colonial war making.

Mahmoud Abbas was pushing Arafat into accepting a two state solution and renouncing armed resistance from the 1970s. Other Fatah leaders had different opinions. That strand was led by people like Abu Jihad who was assassinated by Israel (Israel never attempted assassination of Abbas). Abu Jihad argued that Fatah needs to stick to its original mandate and bylaws.

Fatah (Fth) is the reverse of the acronym of the name of that group: Harakat Tahrir Falastini (Palestine Liberation Movement). After the death of so many leading Fatah fighters and the relocation of those remaining to Tunisia (where those who were resistant were assassinated by the Israeli Mossad), Arafat agreed to try the program advocated by Abbas: engagement and negotiations with the US and Israel. Contacts with both were done in the mid 1980s and culminated in Arafat cajoling and pushing other Palestinians to relent. In 1988, the gutted PLO (now slimmed of many leading groups and factions) agreed to accept UN resolutions like 242 and 338 and essentially abandon the other UN resolutions and the UN Charter (e.g. on rights of self determination). This process accelerated after the US showed its might in the first Gulf war and bullied other countries in the region and beyond to succumb to its dictates (i.e. to Israeli occupied foreign policy). Arafat and Abbas were rewarded by Oslo accords that gave them authority over municipal affairs of the occupied areas but no real authority or sovereignty. Yet, this came with lots of privileges and I myself remember vividly that in the early and mid 1990s, while most of us Palestinians got further and further restrictions, there were thousands of "VIP passes" issued by Israel to Fatah officials. To be fair there were also independents and members of other factions who decided to join this trend and so it was not just Fatah members. More importantly, many Fatah members including leading ones and original founders of the movement refused the perks (and some outside of Palestine who refused to go back in under the Oslo arrangements). Indeed much reflection is needed here. The power acquired while limited also corrupted many. Meanwhile, Israeli colonization accelerated. In the seven years of what some Israelis considered hopeful years (1993-2000), the population of colonial settlers living on Palestinian lands doubled. It was also these years that stripped Palestinians of sustainable economy (agriculture, industry etc) and replaced it with an economy dependent on Israel (including Israeli building projects such as Settlements, barriers etc).

Everything changed when Arafat distanced himself from Abbas and rejected the so-called generous offer made at Camp David (an offer of making the occupation permanent and relegating Palestinians to Bantustans while rejecting basic human rights like the right of refugees to return). Yet Arafat's administration continued to negotiate after words and the parties came close until Barak withdrew his negotiation team in Taba and called for new Israeli elections. With Sharon in power, Israel dropped the pretenses of negotiations. Arafat was isolated and pressured. He appointed Abbas a Prime Minister and was pushed constantly to give the Prime Minister the authorities especially on security matters (an "empowered prime minister" was the phrase used) and keep the presidency a ceremonial post analogous to that of Israel's president. Ironically, now the US claims the Palestinian Authority President (now Abbas) is the one with the power. But such shifts in US interpretation of Palestinian law is not unusual, it merely emphasizes the hypocrisy of the US's foreign policy (i.e. Israel's policies).

On some things, the law is very clear. The sacking of the "Prime Minister" by Abbas creates a new set of problems and issues that have to be dealt with. According to the Palestinian Basic laws (amended 2003)[12], the President cannot appoint a new Prime Minister who is not from the majority party and such an emergency prime minister can govern for three weeks and then it must be approved by the legislative council (extended to a maximum of five weeks in exceptional circumstances, article 66). The president can issue decrees in exceptional circumstances but only while he legislative council is not in session and the President must go to the council for authorizing this at the next meeting (article 43). But such decrees do not apply to creating cabinet, in either case, the cabinet and the Prime Minister cannot operate without Council approval (articles 68 and 69). Hamas has a majority in the legislative council so none of this is possible without Hamas approval! The law does state that the president has the "right to refer the Prime Minister to investigation as a result of crimes committed by him during, or due to his performance of his duties, in accordance with the provision of law (article 76). Abbas did not choose to do that. The law also stipulates (article 110) that "The President of the National Authority may declare a state of emergency by a decree when there is a threat to national security caused by war, invasion, armed insurrection, or at a time of natural disaster for a period not to exceed thirty (30) days (and) The emergency state may be extended for another period of thirty (30) days after the approval of two thirds of the Legislative Council Members." So under the best of circumstances, Abbas can continue what he is doing for 30 days since again he has no majority in the Legislative Council.

Alternatively one can take the earlier provisions of the basic laws and thus conclude as Virginia Tilley did that "It does not help that the United States, an obedient Europe, and legless Arab states have trotted up to anoint it as the sole legitimate authority. Nor does it help to pretend that Hamas -- a broad movement with popular legitimacy -- will simply disappear through decrees from Abbas and some nice political theatre. It is not clear how long this flimsy diplomatic pretense can hold up to scrutiny by a skeptical world. Nor is it clear what political costs foreign governments will have to absorb if they try to play along with it -- especially when the now-traumatized Palestinian people, in the territories and in Diaspora, begin protesting their government's being hijacked by anti-democratic figureheads for Israeli and US agendas."[13]

In either case, what happens to a unity government (Fatah-Hamas Mecca agreement) approved by the Legislative Council when both sides to the agreement violate it and have two governments neither approved by the Council? This is what we now have: Hamas in the Gaza canton, Fatah in the West Bank cantons, both operating outside of the basic laws. Their "authority" is mostly in the eyes of their die-hard older supporters who are themselves prisoners in the cantons administered and controlled on all fronts (including borders, air, water, fuel, and electricity) by Israeli occupation forces.

Does it really matter whether the Palestinian "authority" without authority is in the hand of its "President" or "Prime Minister"? These terms are used in sovereign nations and Palestine is certainly not sovereign! Everyone needs to be reminded of this rather inconvenient truth especially those Palestinians who seem to like titles ("president", "cabinet minister", "Prime Minister" etc). Can it get more absurd than a "Minister of Transportation" having to get permission from Israeli occupation authorities to move from one Palestinian town to another. Can it get more absurd than a Palestinian "President" seeking permission from Israeli authorities for every bulletproof vest worn by his guards? What besides egos and semblance of authority would let the prisoners in a concentration camp continue the charade of electing their representatives to deal with the prison guards?

Many Palestinians who are not with titles or positions have called for ending this charade of authority with out authority, a government that does not govern, a president who only can preside over submission or "Ministers" who can minister nothing other than a few employees acting as intermediaries between the occupied people and the occupation authorities.

Neither Fatah nor Hamas are monolithic movements. Both have bad elements in them including thugs and clean and nationalistic elements. Both have leadership figures who may disagree with each other and even fight for control within the movement. Both operate within the prison and prism of the occupation and thus have no freedoms. The same can be said for smaller factions like PFLP and DFLP. My own observations is that the younger generations (in their 20s and 30s) are far more pragmatic and practical (and yet even more principled) than my or older generations. Many in the older generations are wed to sloganism of their past, reluctant to admit their failures, reluctant to learn lessons based on the facts of history, and generally less amenable to sitting down with those whose views are different to come to common ground. Understandably, with life so difficult inside historic Palestine and in refugee camps, most Palestinians focus on their own lives, their own needs, etc. The fragmentation of Palestinian polity was actually an intentional Zionist program going back for decades (classic colonial attitude of divide and conquer). But we must take responsibility for countering that program and creating unity in the Palestinian body politic. Further, have been excluded from decision making over the past two decades. There are Palestinian inside and outside the occupied areas who are beginning to get together for positive and proactive actions and thus refusing factionalism. A good example from inside Palestine is the Palestinian civil society call to action that include boycotts, divestment and sanctions [14] and from outside of Palestine, the US Palestine popular national conference [15].

OTHER SEGMENTS OF HUMANITY AND FINAL THOUGHTS

There are countless groups that identify themselves as peace and justice movements. Some are real and informed, some real and misinformed, and some fake ones. Distinguishing between them is not always easy. Sometimes there are leaders of those movements who make such distinctions easier by their positions or statements. Most of the time, it is their actions or lack thereof that distinguish them. Tikkun for example rejects outright the basic human right of refugees to return to their homes and lands. And occasionally its editor, Rabbi Lerner slips into outright racism. For example: "There is something in the culture of the Palestinians, or of the Arab world, or of the Muslim world (you tell me which, I'm not sure) that is too tolerant of violence, and too willing to excuse it, whether it be in the disgusting violence of Sunnis vs. Shias that took place in the Iraq/Iran war and in the current civil war in Iraq, in Lebanon, and now the struggle in Palestine" [16].

There are others who are real but misinformed/misguided. These are usually identifiable by their ineffectiveness (or if effective it is effective in a counterproductive manner). You find them both on the fringe left and fringe right. I am sure many readers would recognize ultra left groups that issue grandiose rhetorical statements about US and Israeli imperialism, about the failure of others in the peace movement, and about a thousand other things.

Yet, any objective consultant can review their record of practical productivity and be very disappointed. Statements do not liberate people, direct actions do. Even if one sticks with educational projects only, one should ask the question that are the targets of our educational projects and are we succeeding in reaching out to them? One group may issue red lines and points of unity and then stagnate and do nothing to advance knowledge of the masses of what is going on. Another may develop principles but then follow-up with practical and specific programs to achieve results. There are several examples of the latter category:

1) The Wheels of Justice bus tour that spoke at hundreds of colleges and universities and over 200 Middle and High Schools (see <>a href="http://justicewheels.org"http://justicewheels.org)

2) http://IfAmericansKnew.org

3) Somerville Divestment Project (http://www.divestmentproject.org/) which used city ballots for boycotts and for the right of return to advance education (imagine if we had hundreds of cities doing this)

4) Stop the Wall Campaign http://www.stopthewall.org/

5) International Solidarity Movement http://www.palsolidarity.org/

6) and many, many more.

These and hundreds of other examples illustrate that to succeed we only need to use our deductive reasoning to build proactive and creative programs to arrive at freedom and democracy by collective action. It is not just Palestinians but Israelis and Americans who need to reclaim the narrative of reason rather than blind ideology. For many Palestinians, it was their loyalty to one faction or another that blinded them from seeing the faults in these actions. The majority of Palestinians do not belong to any factions. Yet, most of us were willing to be far too passive and wait for the leadership of various factions to give us some direction or to give us diagnosis of the failure of other factions. We seemed to forget the history of humanity where all major positive changes occur by the people. This in fact is the only rational and desired definition of democracy (Latin meaning "people power" not people elections). As the Arabic saying goes "God does not change what is in a people (i.e. their destiny) unless they change what is within themselves." And what is within ourselves that we need to change? I think each of us knows with intuition but tends to project onto others what we fear exists within us: power. Ironically outwardly inflated egos mask personal insecurity and a lack of belief in ourselves. Those with real power are those who are with power over themselves: openly recognizing our human frailties/limitations and honestly and openly sharing humanity with others.

Many take the religious texts of the Islamic-Judeo-Christian traditions as commanding us to have dominion over the earth and its inhabitants instead of feeling a (small) part of the universe. These notions of human superiority are even worse when they are limited to a subset of humanity by developing notions of "chosenness" (God's chosen people) and "manifest destiny" for a particular religious or other community. Another aspect of our psychology is a sense of tribalism (stronger in some communities than others especially those who lived as minorities or in exile). This tribalism tends to exaggerate a group's own historical contributions to humanity but also (and perhaps more psychologically meaningful) exaggerate episodes of suffering by the community. One could state that the competition to claim superior background/history and "group" victim hood blinds one to the victim hood of others and to their contribution to humanity. But I would say it is even more problematical than that: it avoids connecting with the rest of humanity. That is taking on the suffering of all humans as one's own and the accomplishments of all humans as one's own. From a biological perspective (my background in Zoology and medical genetics), it would seem that emotion and not logic would prevent a Jew from recognizing the Nakba (ethnic cleansing of Palestine) or a Palestinian from recognizing the Nazi horrors for what these things are truly: a blot on all humanity. There is equally no reason why I as a Palestinian American should have more pride in Edward Said or other Palestinian geniuses than I do for Albert Einstein. I should also feel the same shame for what fellow human beings do whether that human being happens to be a Palestinian, Israeli, German or American.

Genetically, we are all one pool. Logically this can be argued successfully. But emotionally this is hard for most humans. Most humans base their actions on perceptions or imaginations rather than on facts, figures, and logic. Further, as Socrates recognized (and he was executed for it), most people live an unexamined life (which is no life at all). Doing little inquiries and accepting the dogmas of the past. The famed rational Philosopher Baruch (renamed himself Benedictine) Spinoza argued similar points and he was excommunicated by the Jewish community of Amsterdam in the 17th century. Those who stand against traditional mythology suffer ridicule, exile, banishment or death. That was the fate of most prophets of old.

Their teachings were then taken and modified/corrupted to serve the mediocre worldly powers rather than the divine (which is in all of us). The teachings of Jesus of "love your enemies" thus became forgotten when the Roman empire adopted their version of Christianity slaughtering so many people in the process. This Constantinian Christianity also led to the Crusades and to the colonization that decimated so many native people around the world. Jewish Theologian Marc Ellis points out that a similarly destructive (psychologically and physically) Constantinian Judaism evolved and is now known as political Zionism [17].

Philosophers argued that laws are moral if they are universal (apply everywhere). By definition, there is no morality in rules that are claimed to apply to a subset of humanity. And when laws are there like the right of people to live on their lands freely are trampled simply because they are not Jews (e.g. right of refugees to return), then clearly these are immoral rules. On a practical level, when rules and human rights are selectively applied, then the only thing left is “might makes right.” Israel and the US have been operating with that latter principle for 60 years now in Western Asia. The fruits of it do not look promising. The alternative for justice and peace is not an Israeli “win” but perpetual conflict. We may yet get the neocon self-fulfilling prophesy of a birth of Constantinian Islam in response to a revived Constantinian Christianity (a new US imperial hegemony in Western Asia) and Constantinian Judaism (Zionism).

We could argue that actions of individuals do not reflect on the religious doctrine. We could also argue that individuals whether living in dictatorships or so called democracies (but ruled by money and corporations) are not responsible for what their political leaders do. But individuals hold a huge responsibility not only by virtue of paying taxes but also by the fact that silence is complicity. Individuals are the ones who make history. We should not shy away from looking into the motivations of those who perpetuate such heinous acts as killing a civilian whether by dropping bombs from F-16s, suicide bombings, or execution. But we should not shy away from looking in the mirror more. We will then begin to dissolve the biggest obstacles to having what we all claim we want. Those obstacles are within us. Examples of such obstacles are our persistent failure to really love fellow human beings (hating bad deeds but not hating the evil doers), developing teamwork that is positive and mobilizing. Sure, we can work together easily with family members or with people from the same village when there is a project or an issue that directly impacts us. But how many of us work to develop the needed skills for effective teamwork?

The road forward has been very clear. I think Israeli Professor Ilan Pappe had it right in his recent commentary on the situation. It is worth quoting at length from his article:

"Standing idle while the American-Israeli vision of strangling the Strip to death, cleansing half of the West bank from its indigenous population and threatening the rest of the Palestinians -- inside Israel and in the other parts of the West Bank -- with transfer, is not an option. It is tantamount to "decent" people’s silence during the Holocaust. We should not tire from mentioning the alternative in the 21st century: BDS -- Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions -- as an emergency measure -- far more effective and far less violent -- in opposing the present destruction of Palestine. And at the same time talk openly, convincingly and efficiently, of creating the geography of peace. A geography in which abnormal phenomena such as the imprisonment of small portion of the land would disappear. There will be no more, in the vision we should push forward, a human prison camp called the Gaza strip where some armed inmates are easily pitted against each other by a callous warden. Instead that area would return to be an organic part of an Eastern Mediterranean country that has always offered the best as a meeting point between East and West. Never before, in the light of the Gaza tragedy, has the twofold strategy of BDS and a one state solution, shined so clearly as the only alternative forward. If any of us are members in Palestine solidarity groups, Arab-Jewish dialogue circles or part of civil society's effort to bring peace and reconciliation to Palestine -- this is a time to put aside all the false strategies of coexistence, road maps and two states solutions. They have been and still are sweet music to the ears of the Israeli demolition team that threatens to destroy what is left of Palestine.

Beware especially of Diet Zionists or Cloest Zionists, who recently joined the campaign, in Britain and elsewhere against the BDS effort. Like those enlightened pundits who used liberal organs in the United Kingdom, such as The Guardian, to explain to us at length how dangerous is the proposed academic boycott on Israel. They have never expended so much time, energy or words on the occupation itself as they did in the service of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine"[18].

Karma Nabulsi also stated succinctly the route to solving the conundrum "The people of Palestine must finally be allowed to determine their own fate. The drivers of violence in Gaza are clearly external. When all Palestinians can vote for sovereign rule, peace will be within reach"[19].

But having a road/direction is not sufficient unless each and every one of us takes on responsibility to move towards that purpose (i.e. methods of locomotion). Blessed are those who not only discover the correct road (a moral life) but know they can propel themselves along it without waiting for "leaders". They are the ones who connect with their humanity, a purpose driven life, rather than a life of reactions to base animal instincts of seeking food, sex, and shelter and avoiding immediate dangers. This purpose driven life is what Philosophers and Prophets have always tried to show us.

* An associate professor of genetics at Yale University. He is the co-founder and media coordinator for Al-Awda, the Palestinian Right of Return Coalition.

Footnotes

1) 42 thousand Arab homes in Negev threatened with destruction http://www.imemc.org/article/49025

2) Uri Avnery, "Crocodile Tears," Gush Shalom, June 16, 2007

3) Sharon's dream By Akiva Eldar ,a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/871983.html">http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/871983.html

4) Amnesty International Report: "Enduring Occupation: Palestinians under siege in the West Bank" http://www.amnesty.org/resources/Israel_Report0706/

5) Confidential UN envoy report leaked to the Guardian (PDF File) http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2007/06/12/DeSotoReport.pdf

6) http://www.qumsiyeh.org/connectingthedotsiraqpalestine/

7) Lying Us Into War, Again by Charley Reese. The drumbeat for war against Iran has begun again, led by Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat from Connecticut, and the usual pro-Israel crowd. Lieberman seems to be under the impression that the U.S. can bomb Iran and not get into a full-fledged war. http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=11144

8) For details on US involvement, see http://conflictsforum.org/2007/elliot-abrams-uncivil-war/ and http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7030.shtml

9) Robert Fisk http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2663743.ece

10) Carter blasts US policy on Palestinians By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer, Tue Jun 19, 7:41 PM ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070619/ap_on_re_eu/carter_us_palestinians

11) see Dr. Sara Roy's book "The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development"

12) Palestinian Basic Laws http://www.usaid.gov/wbg/misc/ Amended_Basic_Law_2003_English.pdf

13) Whose Coup, Exactly? by Virginia Tilley, The Electronic Intifada, 18 June 2007 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7038.shtml

14) see http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=66_0_1_10_M11

15) see e.g. http://www.palestineconference.org

16) http://files.tikkun.org/current/article.php?story=20070616224228533

17) Marc Ellis "Out of the Ashes" 18) Ilan Pappe: Towards a Geography of Peace: Whither Gaza?http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7036.shtml

19) Karma Nabulsi http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2105288,00.html

Those who planned the 1967 "six day war" (Al-Naksa in Arabic) 40 years ago and we the people who lived there could not foresee its ramifications on lives of Israelis and Palestinians let alone Americans and Iraqis today. I was a 10-year old kid growing up in the Shepherd's field at the time the occupation began and my memories of the initial onslaught are vivid. After I immigrated to the US in 1979, I still go almost every year and still maintain residency there. I saw it get worse and worse every year from 1967 (and I dread my trip this summer). What can be said after 40 years of illegal occupation, after over 250,000 Israeli Jewish colonial settlers in the West Bank, after over 18,000 of our homes demolished, after causing massive economic dislocation (unemployment is at twice what it was for Americans during the Great depression), after over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners now in Israeli jails, after over 10,000 fellow Palestinian civilians killed? What can be said after the remaining Palestinians are squeezed into shrinking ghettos after much of their best lands was confiscated? Should we focus on the price the occupiers also paid (especially since the introduction of the phenomenon of suicide bombings 10 years ago). Should we focus on the price the world has paid including the unfolding tragedy in Iraq (and now the Israel lobby is pushing for a war on Iran)? How about the over $1 trillion that Israel cost the US in these 40 years?

It was called a six day "war" because the Israeli aerial blitzkrieg so devastated the armies of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt in the first few hours that the remainder of the time was basically what it took infantry to occupy the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and the Golan Heights. Most analysts believe that this war was critical in cementing the Israel-US "strategic" relationship to a point of mutual dependency. But the survivors of the USS Liberty (A US Navy ship attacked by Israel in International waters on June 8, 1967) and all objective historians convincingly showed that: 1) Israel's attack on the USS Liberty was deliberate, and 2) that the Israeli lobby was already strong before the war and thus managed to stifle an inquiry (for details see http://www.ussliberty.org/ ). President Carter suggested that there are individuals seeking to silence debate on these issues. He was ruthlessly attacked thus proving his point. Similarly, a research paper on the Israel lobby by renounced scholars Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Walt (from Harvard) was attacked in a way that proves its salient points. Thanks to the Internet, it is becoming more difficult to silence the truth. So even if this article is not published in a US mainstream newspaper, it will be read by tens of thousands anyway. So let us look openly at the legacy of 1967.

First let us dispense with the mythology about how that war started or its goals. For example Israeli General Matityahu Peled admitted: "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war...To pretend that the Egyptian forces massed on our frontiers were in a position to threaten the existence of Israel constitutes an insult not only to the intelligence of anyone capable of analyzing this sort of situation, but above all an insult to the Zahal Israeli army" (Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972). The largest evidence for Israel's intentions is the commencement of immediate Israeli settlement of the occupied areas. Israel also annexed 10% of the West Bank (expanded "greater Jerusalem") and all the Golan Heights. Israel hoped that through economic pressures, land and natural resource confiscations, and physical violence that they would annex the rest when the native population is reduced especially on the richest land areas. That is why Israeli colonies/settlements (which violate International law) sit atop the Western and Eastern water aquifers in and encircle Jerusalem (all in the West Bank). It is also why Israel still holds the Golan heights (for its water). The charade of colonial need for security (from those irrational and violent natives) has been always the mantra to use for further colonization and expansion whether used by European settlers in the Americas or the Apartheid regime in South Africa or Israel. For making all of this possible, the US lost so much credibility around the world. Votes at the UN General assembly now routinely see 160 countries voting one way while Israel and the US vote anther. Attacks on civilians by US supplied F-16s, Apache gunship helicopters, and cluster bombs are seen in other parts of the world as state terrorism and not as Israeli self-defense. Europeans polled by a large majority identified the US and Israel as the two most dangerous countries in the world. Indeed this is the legacy of the lobby that ensured the "special relationship" that would continue to drag us in America to wars in an endless cycle now packaged as "war on terrorism".

The solutions are not too difficult to see. Segregation in America in the South and in Apartheid South Africa was the etiology of the disease so why do some still consider it a solution. The history of this issue and its resolution based on International law is well recognized around the world bud buried in America thanks to hijacking our institutions by those with racist ideologies. This hijacking is to the detriment of all involved (Americans, Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis). At the core of this is that Palestinian refugees and displaced people must be allowed to return to their homes and lands according to their rights supported by International law (530 villages and towns were completely depopulated, see palestineremembered.com). For a real road map to peace, all we need is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to implement all relevant UN resolutions starting with UNGA 194 of 1949. Many churches, unions, and student groups heeded the Palestinian civil society call that focuses on non-violent actions including boycotts, divestments, and sanctions similar to what was applied on South Africa. Most recently this included the large Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and University and College Union in England (representing 120,000 academics in higher education). The racist attacks on this growing movement proved its effectiveness.

America in the past and Israel more recently both shared visions of “manifest destiny” to conquer untamed "wilderness" of which the natives were the main obstacles. Vilifying the natives was thus a common feature in America then and in Israel today. (Of course, the percentage of Native Americans who remained alive is very small compared to the percentage of Native Palestinians and the latter issue is dragging us to a World War.) It is time to seek real reconciliation both in America and Israel. On June 10, thousands will be in DC for a rally and march demanding an end to the occupation (see endtheoccupation.org). We collectively work for peace so that the 60-year anniversary of the beginning of the Palestinian dispossession (November 1947) will be a new turning point for real peace based on justice and equality.

* Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD served on the faculty of both Duke and Yale Universities (six and five years respectively). He is currently serving on the Steering Committee of the US Campaign to End the Occupation (endtheoccupation.org), the executive committee of the Palestinian American Congress (http://www.pac-national.org/), and the board of the Association for One Democratic State in Israel/Palestine (one-democratic-state.org).