The only real road to peace for Palestinians and Israelis is the two-state solution, which proposes one Palestinian state and one Israeli state side-by-side in peace and security. A two-state solution is a two-way street, requiring Palestinians to end violent resistance to Israel’s policies. It also demands that Israel return land it occupied in 1967 and end its policies of stealing Palestinian land. There is no other way to describe what Israel has been doing than to call it “land theft.” Palestinians didn’t just wake up one day and say they wanted to attack Israel. The real conflict has always been about land ownership. More than 700,000 Christian and Muslim Palestinians were forcibly pushed off of their land by Israel, which sought to increase its Jewish population while reducing its non-Jewish population. When it occupied Arab East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, Israel began a program to evict Christian and Muslim Palestinians from their land to build Jewish-only settlements. How else has Israel built so many illegal settlements in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and in East Jerusalem? Israel’s defenders assert Palestinians expelled by Israel in 1948 and in 1967 were replaced by Jews fleeing Arab countries. But that’s not true. Most Jewish Arabs were urged by Israel to leave in a highly publicized and ongoing program to settle them in Israel. For example, Israel also urges Jews to leave America and settle in Israel. But, is Israel saying that America is forcing Jewish residents to flee, as they claim Arab countries are forcing Jews to flee? In contrast, Palestinians are fighting to stay on their land and in their homes. Israel is pushing them out in order to increase the Jewish population and decrease the non-Jewish population. Israel’s defenders also deny Israel is “stealing” land. But, the truth came out when it was recently revealed that Israel’s extremist Prime Minister Ariel Sharon secretly authorized a plan last June to confiscate by force and without compensation (my definition of theft) all Christian- and Muslim-owned land in East Jerusalem. Only because of the outcry from the international community was Israel forced to abandon that plan. But will they abandon it permanently or seek other ways to steal the land? Israel intentionally makes life difficult for Christians and Muslims not only in Israel but in the occupied territories. Why? Because Israel wants to build more Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land. My family owns 10 acres of land in East Jerusalem with 160 ancient olive trees. We are not allowed to build on it or to develop it. We are discouraged from visiting it. To visit the land, I must travel through several Israeli military checkpoints, at gunpoint, and submit to humiliating treatment from the soldiers and settlers who live in Gilo, the Jewish settlement that overlooks my property. The Israelis don’t want us. They want Christians and Muslims to leave. The two-state solution means that not only must Palestinian extremists end their campaign of violent resistance against Israel, but Israel also must end its violent campaign to expel Christians and Muslims from their lands and their homes. Palestinians want to live in peace. The question is, will Israel allow it? Israel can either have stolen land or real peace. But not both. Read More...
By: Amira Hass
Date: 27/05/2013
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Slain Bedouin girls' mother, a victim of Israeli-Palestinian bureaucracy
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.
By: Phoebe Greenwood
Date: 27/05/2013
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John Kerry unveils plan to boost Palestinian economy
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."
By: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Date: 27/05/2013
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Isolation Devastates East Jerusalem Economy
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.”
By the Same Author
Date: 21/11/2007
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Documentary on Carter Offers Insights into a Great Man
Even before anyone realized that Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid” would stir up controversy and a lively but sometimes vicious debate, filmmaker Jonathan Demme decided to follow the former president during his book tour. Demme has produced a powerful documentary, “Jimmy Carter: A Man from Plains,” now showing in limited distribution in major cities around the country. For me, it was one thing to read Carter’s book — most journalists and critics who trashed it and the author did not read it. But it is even more moving to witness Carter through Demme’s Hollywood lens as he travels from book stores, to media interviews to university speeches preaching peace, justice and principle. Demme is best known to me as the director of the shocking Hollywood film, “Silence of the Lambs.” In an ironic way, Demme’s documentary on Carter might also borrow the same film title, but in a different way. “Man from Plains” exposes the “silence of the lambs” when it comes to how the news media reports the facts in the Middle East conflict. And no one is better qualified to address those facts than Carter, a man whose humanity is so powerful that it keeps him going even today at age 83 helping those in need throughout the world. Carter did not need to re-inject himself into the tumultuous Middle East conflict. He had achieved the unachievable in 1978 when he brought Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s President Menachem Begin to sign the historic Arab-Israeli peace accord. He shared with them the Nobel Prize for Peace. A nuclear physicist by training, Carter has spent his life since the White House building homes for the poor, and funding programs and providing guidance to those in need around the world through his Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Carter still lives in the little town of Plains on his peanut farm with his wife, Rosalind, and vivid memories of his famous mother, Lillian who has since long passed. Yet, when Carter decided to revisit the subject of Middle East peace, he knew it would be tough. The region has deteriorated horribly under President George W. Bush, seeing some of the worst violence between Palestinians and Israelis in decades. Maybe it is his powerful humanitarian nature, his inability to turn his back on those in need that forced Carter to return to the world’s pre-eminent Gordian Knot. But it is with a sense of pure justice that only Carter can convey that moved him to use the word “Apartheid” in the book’s title. He knew the word would galvanize the anger, hatred and often times vicious name-calling. Demme’s documentary brings it all to the forefront. It not only addresses the courage of a great humanitarian to confront the tragedy of the Palestine-Israel conflict, but also the corruption of a news media and an often bankrupt public discourse in America where the facts of the Middle East conflict are shredded and turned into hateful mulch. Immediately after publishing the book, former friends and colleagues stepped up and attacked Carter in a vicious and unfair way. What is powerful in the film is that it is clear that few of Carter’s critics even read the book. And, the worst attacks against Carter are in fact fabrications. Lies. Carter never wrote that “Israel is an apartheid state.” He said Israel’s polices in the West Bank over the Palestinians is a form of apartheid. He repeats the term “apartheid is not based on racism but on the desire of a minority in Israel to take and colonize West Bank land.” That dovetails into the controversy surrounding the Wall, which Carter unabashedly declares, “It is not a fence. It is a Wall.” Carter explains he is not opposed to building the Wall or that a separation might not stop some violence. He does question claims the Wall was built for security, noting that rather than being built on the border between Israel and Palestine, it is being built deep into the Palestinian territories. “It’s not separating Palestinians from Israelis. It is separating Palestinians from Palestinians,” Carter explains, emphasizing the Wall is not about security, just another effort by Israeli extremists to take more land from the Palestinians. Carter is adamant about the book title. Although he admits it was intended to be provocative, he explains “apartheid” accurately describes what is taking place in the West Bank under Israeli occupation. “We know what’s going on and I have become increasingly disgusted by it,” Carter says. And that certainly is difficult for partisan advocates for Israel like Alan Dershowitz and Dennis Ross, the allegedly fair intermediary who shuttled between Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak during President Clinton’s failed (and rushed) Camp David Peace Conference in late 2000. While most Americans will probably not take the time to read Carter’s powerful book, “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid,” they should take the time to watch this documentary. If you really wanted to understand the Middle East conflict, Demme’s documentary offers unchallenged clarity. Maybe that is what prompts extremists like Dershowitz and Ross to fight so hard to suffocate Carter’s balanced wisdom with lies and distortions and exaggerations. Carter is most critical of the news media, which is embedded in those lies and distortions and exaggerations. He says, “The media is abominable. There is no degree of objectivity in the media. I don’t think the American people have any way except through the press to understand what is going on in the Middle East.” Despite his defiance, Carter admits the attacks are painful. “I have been hurt and so has my family by some of the reactions,” Carter says. “But, this is the first time I’ve been called a liar, a bigot and an anti-Semite, a coward and a plagiarist. This has hurt me.” Demme shows all sides in the debate and the documentary is gripping from the opening personal moments with Carter through the protests, speeches and confrontations with the media. When you read Carter’s book, you might understand the challenges standing in the way of peace in the Middle East. When you watch Demme’s portrayal of Carter, a modern day Gandhi, you will care. Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist and author.
Date: 27/09/2006
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Supply and Demand Drive Anti-Arab Hatred in West
We knew it was going to happen, right? Some entrepreneur would use Christian-Muslim tensions to, well, profit. Not in the traditional manner by pandering to religious votes the way they usually do in American politics. Now. They do it with a smile. A chip of insensitivity on their shoulder. And, outright, unabashed greed. For example, this week in Columbus, Ohio where many Arabs and Muslims live, a local car dealer has decided to use today’s controversies to sell Mitsubishis. Dennis Mitsubishi, according to Reuters News Wire, has designed a radio commercial that proclaims a “jihad” on the US auto market, offering special discount sales days called “Fatwa Fridays.” And to add icing to the Hariseh, and using a popular business sales promotion, the dealership will be giving toys to the children of new customers. Not stuffed lions or dinosaurs, but rather, “rubber scimitars.” Oh, it doesn’t stop there. This stoty just gets worse. Dennis Mitsubishi of Columbus, Ohio, is going to dress up its sales staff in “Berqas.” Mitsubishi, the Japanese-based motor company, has not issued any comments on the planned radio ads by its satellite dealership. According to Reuters, the proposed radio ads even mention the pope, who last week caused a ruckus when he associated violence with Islam. We can’t put all the blame on the dealership for this racist advertising campaign. Most Americans will probably think this is all cute. They are used to the conveyor belt of slander directed at Arabs and Muslims. Americans blame Arabs and Muslims for all of the world’s violence, as if Christians really turned the other cheek over the past 19 hundred centuries or have not engaged in excessive religious-driven violence like the Inquisition or the Crusades. American society routinely slanders Arabs and Muslims on television, in the news media, in Hollywood movies, and on talk radio where Arab and Muslim-bashing is the fodder of choice for offensive humor. And so do their religious leaders. Pope Benedict XVI is only the most recent Christian leader to slander Islam, mud surfing on a wave of anti-Islamic and anti-Arab hatred from Christian evangelists Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell that come right out and assert that Islam is evil. The real problem isn’t the religious or political leader who expresses a racist view against Arabs or slanders Islam. They are just the purveyors of the filth. They produce the products, hoping to sell cars, win votes or win unjustified wars in places like Iraq and maybe even soon, Iran. No. The real problem is the American public. Graham, Robertson, Falwell and the Columbia Mitsubishi dealership would not come up with all this hatred veiled as sermons or advertisements if not for the fact that the “demand” is out there. Americans want to hear the hatred and religious leaders like many American politicians just want to give it to them because the reward in sales or votes far outweighs the momentary slap on the wrist they will get. Because that is all that happens to people who slander Arabs and Muslims in America. Can you imagine the outrage if the dealership decided to hand out pointed white hoods and white sheets and emblems of the Ku Klux Klan, in all sizes — small, medium, large and extra large — to customers. Or maybe they open the American closet where real anti-Semitism lays buried under a pile of today’s more popular foreign phobias, and offered a discount to Jewish customers who converted to Christianity during the dealership Credit Check? I can just see the stampedes. Mitsubishi can turn into a patriotic symbol of American sales and enterprise ingenuity. Of course, there might be a few Americans still alive who remember that the Mitsubishi car company is related to the Mitsubishi airplane company. You know, the Japanese company that manufactured those bombers that dive bombed in a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in a manner that is not that much different from Al-Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Maybe the Ford Motor Company might put out radio ads that say, “Well, we used to be the symbol of American anti-Semitism, but what’s worse than our competitors at Mitsubishi who took all those innocent lives at Pearl Harbor. Which car would you rather drive.” Of course, being Arab-American, I’d want to see if there was another choice. One wrapped in less red, white and blue patriotism and more principle and fundamental morality. There’s no way in today’s America that “principle” or “morality” can compete with “rubber scimitars.”
Date: 28/04/2006
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Hamas and the Future of Palestinian-Israeli Peace
Clearly, no matter which way events turn in the Middle East, relations between Palestinians and Israelis always head toward violence. It seems as if there is no escape from the cycle of violence and the hopelessness that worsens Palestinian suffering the longer Israeli occupation endures, while continuing to expose Israelis to a nation that is perennially looking over their shoulders. If there is hope, it will have to come from a new way of looking at the conflict. That means Arabs must truly re-evaluate how they approach Israel. More importantly, because Israel is the driving power in this relationship, Israelis have to reassess the Palestinians and Hamas. Can they each do that though? As a Palestinian, I have always opposed Hamas, mainly because Hamas has violated two principles that I believe are sacred. They have engaged in violence for the sake of violence. Vengeance is not a strategy for nation building but a fuel that feeds emotion. The strategy of suicide bombings that Hamas initiated in 1994 has proven to not be a strategy at all, but an option that has single-handedly helped to undermine world support for the Palestinian cause. But the second issue is just as important to me as someone who supports peace through non-violence. During the entire peace process signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Hamas played the role of obstructionist. Hamas used suicide bombings not only to avenge Israeli military terrorism against innocent Palestinians, but they also used suicide missions against innocent Israeli civilians as a means of derailing the peace process itself. I refused to believe that Hamas, after spending its entire existence opposing the PLO decision to recognize Israel and embrace the land for peace formula, that they would suddenly, now in power, continue with the PLO’s failed peace strategy. Did they oppose peace with Israel only because they were not in control of the Palestinian government? That would seem too selfish. Clearly, the opposition to Israel has more to do with religious faith, which is uncompromising, than with accepting the inevitable that Israel exists and cannot be defeated. That would require more common sense than Hamas has shown in the past. Yet, has Hamas changed now that it has control of the Palestinian government? Can Hamas really change? Regardless of the answer, those who support genuine peace must give Hamas a chance to change. We cannot expect someone to change in the face of assault. I have read Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s public statements. He is a very clever person. But Haniyeh may be for the Palestinians what Menachem Begin, a former terrorist turned Israeli prime minister, was for the Israelis. Israelis often point out that it took an Israeli leader who was perceived as uncompromising to be able to compromise with the Arabs. Is Haniyeh like Begin, a tough Palestinian leader who may be the only person who can cut a deal with Israel that the Palestinians will support? The perpetrators of the most recent suicide bombing was Islamic Jihad, with the support of other small splinter groups. It was not sanctioned nor was it ordered by Hamas. That Hamas stopped short of condemning the violence is irrelevant and should not weigh into Israel’s response. So far, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has decided not to retaliate against the Hamas-controlled Palestinian National Authority. It’s a wise move and leaves the door open to resolving the conflict rather than continuing to fan the conflict’s flames. In the past, Israeli policy has been one of “collective punishment.” The Israelis punish all Palestinians, regardless of whether they were directly or indirectly responsible for acts of violence. Israelis punish the relatives, neighbors and friends of suicide bombing, only serving to push Palestinian public opinion more and more in favor of continued acts of revenge violence against Israel. The Israelis did the same thing during the peace process of the 1990s. When Hamas would attack Israel, Israel would punish Arafat and his government, undermining any chance Arafat had of convincing his people that negotiating a peace that is fair and just with Israel could be possible. Israel has the upper hand in this conflict. The Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, not the other way around. Israel can add more fuel to the fire, or Israel can use its power wisely, seeking to push Palestinians to a negotiated settlement while offering a just and fair settlement offer. That’s hard to do in the environment of conflict that exists today, especially as Israelis seem to be hardening against land-for-peace concessions to the Palestinians. Give Hamas a chance. Give the Palestinian people a chance. Rather than augmenting the violence by responding to violence with violence, Israel must show restraint and invest in the costly price that peace demands. What we don’t need is more violence. What we need is another Israeli leader like Rabin who has the courage to make peace with his enemy, the Palestinians.
Date: 03/05/2005
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Palestinian President Abbas lacks clear media strategy
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has taken significant steps to distinguish himself from his predecessor, the late President Yasser Arafat who was reviled by Israel’s rightwing government and by President Bush as an obstacle to peace. Just over 100 days in office, Abbas has responded mainly to the concerns of the Bush administration, gaining some praise and empowering the United States to take tougher stands against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government on issues of land confiscation and settlements. But the steps Abbas has taken are not enough and lack the one thing that more than anything undermined the movement for peace that began in 1998 when Arafat initiated contact with Israel and declared the Palestinian willingness to recognize Israel’s right to exist within the pre-1967 borders. Arafat lacked a strategic public relations campaign that exposed him to the whims of the Israelis whose public relations efforts are notorious for their ability to oftentimes spin public opinion against facts. When the peace process collapsed, the Israeli PR machine went into full gear, convincing the public that the peace process collapsed because of Arafat’s inability to make peace rather than Israel’s unwillingness to dismantle settlements or return occupied lands captured in 1967. Without a clear media strategy, Abbas will find himself susceptible to the same Israeli whims despite reforming the Palestinian government, replacing intransigent cabinet foes of peace with Israel and reigning in Hamas. Yet an effective media strategy can produce more results in winning support among Americans than all of the likely concessions Abbas will make to Israel. Israel has and continues to employ an army of media strategists and public relations firms, investing millions to in a highly effective campaign that has one clear objective: reinforce American public perception that the Palestinians, not Israelis, are the obstacles to peace, are engaged in violence and seek unrealistic demands that Israel cannot make. Yet with a modest investment and a clearly defined public relations strategy, Abbas could not only reverse much of the American public’s attitudes toward the Palestinians but even cast Israel as the aggressor. The fact that President Bush has praised Abbas publicly gives him the ability to bring his message personally to the American people, who continue to view Palestinians as news stories and statistics rather than as a people. Abbas could implement an immediate plan to visit major cities in the American heartland and avoiding the cities where Israel’s media machinery remains concentrated. Cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Orlando and Boston where large Arab and Palestinian audiences can offer friendly forums. The tours would have to also be coordinated outside of the controls of Arab American organizations based in Washington D.C. that lack national grassroot constituencies and have a tendency to promote themselves, or their leadership personalities, over and above the broader needs of the Palestinian agenda. An American tour coordinated with local rather than national Arab American organizations could also result in the placement of friendlier news coverage in regional newspapers based in those cities. Abbas would easily attract coverage from the international news media and the international desks of the American media. But what he really needs is to sidestep the international beat reporters and editors and instead connect with regional editors not entrenched in pro-Israel political narratives. Media specialists would help Abbas craft his messages so they address issues pertinent to American audience concerns. It is a tactical procedure employed by Israel. Once you understand the nuances of American attitudes, you can undermine inaccurate stereotypes and promote a message that will be accepted. Abbas also has the benefit of the “political honeymoon.” In office under 120 days, the American public will be more receptive to Abbas and listen to his messages. It’s the American way. His visit could be followed up by the implementation of satellite representative advocates – rather than formal PNA offices – in each of the cities his visits to help reinforce his messages when he returns to Palestine and the negotiating table. When peace process again collapses when Israel refuses to dismantle the settlements in the West Bank and around Jerusalem, or dismantle the Apartheid Wall, Abbas will be in a stronger position to respond to the expected Israeli media spin. Contact us
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