THE E-1 PLAN: THE END OF A VIABLE PALESTINIAN STATE

By Jeff Halper
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
27 March 2005

Jeff Halper is Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)

The fatal flaw in most analyses of the Israel-Palestine conflict is the assumption that if the Palestinians can just get a state of their own, then all will be fine. A state on all the Occupied Territories (UN Resolution 242), on most of the Occupied Territories (Oslo and the Road Map to the Geneva Initiative), on even on half the Occupied Territories (Sharon's notion) - it doesn't matter. Once there's a Palestinian state the conflict is over and we can all move on to the next item on the agenda.

Wrong. A Palestinian state can just as easily be a prison as a legitimate state that addresses the national aspirations of its people. The crucial issue is viability. Israel is a small country, but it is three times larger than the Palestinian areas. The entire Occupied Areas - the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza - make up only 22% of Israel/Palestine. That means that even if all of the territories Israel conquered in 1967 were relinquished, it would still comprise a full 78% of the country. Would the Palestinian areas constitute a viable state? Barely. Just the size of the American state of Delaware (but with three times the population before refugees return), it would at least have a coherent territory, borders with Israel, Jordan, Syria and Egypt, a capital in Jerusalem, a port on the Mediterranean, an airport in Gaza, a viable economy (based on Holy Land tourism, agriculture and hi-tech) and access to the water of the Jordan River. An accepted member of the international community enjoying trade with its neighbors - and enjoying as well the support of a far-flung, highly educated and affluent diaspora - a small Palestinian state would have a shot at viability.

This is what Israel seeks to prevent. Ever since becoming the head of the Ministerial Committee on Settlements in the Begin government back in 1977, Ariel Sharon has been completely up-front about his intention of securing the entire Land of Israel for the Jewish people. "Security" has nothing to do with Israel's expansionist policies. Successive Israeli governments did not establish 200 settlements because of security. Nor did they build a massive infrastructure of Israeli-only highways that link the settlement blocs irreversibly into Israel for security reasons. Nor can the route of the Separation Barrier, nor the policy of expropriating Palestinian land and systematically demolishing Palestinian homes be explained by "security." They all derive from one central goal: to claim the entire country for Israel. Period.

Still, Israel cannot "digest" the 3.6 million Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories. Giving them citizenship would nullify Israel as a Jewish state; not giving them citizenship yet keeping them forever under occupation would constitute outright apartheid. What to do? The answer is clear: establish a tiny Palestinian state of, say, five or six cantons (Sharon's term) on 40-70% of the Occupied Territories, completely surrounded and controlled by Israel. Such a Palestinian state would cover only 10-15% of the entire country and would have no meaningful sovereignty and viability: no coherent territory, no freedom of movement, no control of borders, no capital in Jerusalem, no economic viability, no control of water, no control of airspace or communications, no military - not even the right as a sovereign state to enter into alliances without Israeli permission.

And since the Palestinians will never agree to this, Israel must "create facts on the ground" that prejudice negotiations even before they begin. Last week's announcement that Israel is constructing 3500 housing units in E-1, a corridor connecting Jerusalem to the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, seals the fate of the Palestinian state. As a key element of an Israeli "Greater Jerusalem," the E-1 plan removes any viability from a Palestinian state. It cuts the West Bank in half, allowing Israel to control Palestinian movement from one part of their country to another, while isolating East Jerusalem from the rest of Palestinian territory. Since 40% of the Palestinian economy revolves around Jerusalem and its tourist-based economy, the E-1 plan effectively cuts the economic heart out of any Palestinian state, rendering it nothing more than a set of non-viable Indian reservations.

If there is any silver lining in the E-1 plan, it is that it has highlighted American complicity in Israel's settlement expansion. The Bush Administration, while calling the E-1 plan "unhelpful," nevertheless formally recognized the Ma'aleh Adumim settlement bloc, together with E-1, in last year's agreement between Bush and Sharon - a fundamental American policy change that was ratified almost unanimously by Congress. This puts the US in the very uncomfortable position of undermining its own Road Map initiative, which stems from the "Bush vision" of an Israeli-Palestinian peace. It also neutralizes completely America's role as an honest broker, and pits it against the other three members of the Road Map Quartet - Europe, the UN and Russia - who deplore the change in American policy. Most tragically, American support for Sharon's settlement project destroys forever the possibility of a viable Palestinian state, dooming the peoples of Israel-Palestine to perpetual conflict. How this squares with American interests in a stable Middle East is anybody's guess.

Jeff Halper, Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)

http://www.icahd.org

IF IT WERE THE REVERSE

by Gideon Levy - Haaretz
July 18, 2004

What would happen if a Palestinian terrorist were to detonate a bomb at the entrance to an apartment building in Israel and cause the death of an elderly man in a wheelchair, who would later be found buried under the rubble of the building? The country would be profoundly shocked. Everyone would talk about the sickening cruelty of the act and its perpetrators. The shock would be even greater if it then turned out that the dead man's wife had tried to dissuade the terrorist from blowing up the house, telling him that there were people inside, but to no avail. The tabloids would come out with the usual screaming headline: "Buried alive in his wheelchair." The terrorists would be branded "animals."

Last Monday, Israel Defense Forces bulldozers in Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip, demolished the home of Ibrahim Halfalla, a 75-year-old disabled man and father of seven, and buried him alive. Umm-Basel, his wife, says she tried to stop the driver of the heavy machine by shouting, but he paid her no heed. The IDF termed the act "a mistake that shouldn't have happened," and the incident was noted in passing in Israel. The country's largest-circulation paper, Yedioth Ahronoth, didn't bother to run the story at all. The blood libel in France - a woman's tale of being subjected to an anti-Semitic attack, which later turned out to be fiction - proved a great deal more upsetting to people. There we thought the assault was aimed against our people. But when the IDF bulldozes a disabled Palestinian to death? Not a story. Just like the killing, under the rubble of her home, of Noha Maqadama, a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, before the eyes of her husband and children, in El Boureij refugee camp a few months earlier.

And what would happen if a Palestinian were to shoot an Israeli university lecturer and his son in front of his wife and their young son? That's what happened 10 days ago in the case of Dr. Salem Khaled, from Nablus, who called to the soldiers from the window of his house because he was a man of peace and the front door had jammed, so he couldn't get out. The soldiers shot him to death and then killed his 16-year-old son before the eyes of his mother and his 11-year-old brother. It's not hard to imagine how we would react to the story if the victims were ours.

But when we're implicated and the victims are Palestinians, we prefer to avert our eyes, not to know, not to take an interest and certainly not to be shocked. Palestinian victims - and their numbers, as everyone knows, are far greater than ours - don't even merit newspaper reports, not even when the chain of events is particularly brutal, as in the examples above. This is not an intellectual exercise but an attempt to demonstrate the concealment of information, the double morality and the hypocrisy. The indifference to these two very recent incidents proved again that in our eyes there is only one victim and all the others will never be considered victims.

If a European cabinet minister were to declare, "I don't want these long-nosed Jews to serve me in restaurants," all of Europe would be up in arms and this would be the minister's last comment as a minister. Three years ago, our former labor and social affairs minister, Shlomo Benizri, from Shas, stated: "I can't understand why slanty-eyed types should be the ones to serve me in restaurants." Nothing happened. We are allowed to be racists. And if a European government were to announce that Jews are not permitted to attend Christian schools? The Jewish world would rise up in protest. But when our Education Ministry announces that it will not permit Arabs to attend Jewish schools in Haifa, it's not considered racism. Only in Israel could this not be labeled racist. The heritage of Golda Meir - it was she who said that after what the Nazis did to us, we can do whatever we want - is now having a late and unfortunate revival.

What would happen if a certain country were to enact legislation forbidding members of a particular nation to become citizens there, no matter what the circumstances, including mixed couples who married and raised families? No country anywhere enacts laws like these nowadays. Apart from Israel. If the cabinet extends the validity of the new Citizenship Law today, Palestinians will not be able to undergo naturalization here, even if they are married to Israelis. We have the right, you see. And if the illegal Israeli immigrants in the United States were hunted down like animals in the dark of night, the way the Immigration Police do here, would we have a better understanding of the injustice we are doing to a community that wants nothing other than to work here?

What would we say if the parents of Israeli emigrants were separated from their children and deported, without having available any avenue of naturalization, no matter what the circumstances? And how would we classify a country that interrogates visitors about their political opinions as soon as they disembark from the plane at the airport and bars them from entering it the security authorities look askance at the opinions they express? What would happen if anti-Semites in France were to poison the drinking water of a Jewish neighborhood? Last week settlers poisoned a well at Atawana, in the southern Mount Hebron region, and the police are investigating.

And we still haven't said anything about a country that would imprison another nation, or about a regime that would prevent access to medical treatment for some of its subjects, according to its national identity, about roads that would be open only to the members of one nation or about an airport that would be closed to the other nation. All this is happening in Israel and is pulling from under us the moral ground that makes it possible for us to complain about racism and anti- Semitism abroad, even when they actually erupt.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/452564.html

ALAM INTERVIEWS CHOMSKY

by Junaid Alam and Noam Chomsky; Left Hook
March 10, 2004

Professor of Linguistics at MIT and author of many best-selling political works, most recently Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky has been renown for his incisive and hard-hitting criticism of U.S. foreign policy for decades. Recently, M. Junaid Alam, co-editor of the new leftist youth journal Left Hook, was able to interview Professor Chomsky on the nature of the Bush administration, the American left's strategy in upcoming elections, domestic and foreign consequences of continued occupation of Iraq, and the basis for US-Israeli relations.

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Alam: Professor Chomsky, thank you for agreeing to this interview.
In the aftermath of September 11, the Bush administration has pursued an aggressively militaristic foreign policy marked by religious rhetoric and ambitiously imperial declarations. Is the social and ideological base and agenda of this administration uniquely rooted in the Christian Right, neoconservatism, and the less scrupulous sections of the corporate elite, or is this simply a more crass reflection of a prevailing consensus among an American elite emboldened by the emergence of America as the world's sole hegemon?

Chomsky: We do not have internal documents, so what we say about the details of planning and its motivation is necessarily speculative. However, I am inclined to believe that the Christian Right influence is not very great. It is possible that Bush is telling the truth when he rants about his born-again experiences and how he is driving Evil from the world, but I suspect he is just playing the role for which he is being trained by his handlers, and that the religious fanaticism is mostly part of a plan to throw a little red meat to a substantial constituency. The US is one of the most extreme religious fundamentalist societies in the world. It is hard to believe that the actual planners - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, etc. - take any of this seriously. As for "neoconservatism," it is not clear what the term is supposed to mean. In practice it is the program of radical statist reactionaries, who believe that the US should rule the world, by force if necessary, in the interests of the narrow sectors of concentrated private power and wealth that they represent, and that the powerful state they forge should serve those interests, not the interests of the public, who are to be frightened into submission while the progressive legislation and achievements of popular struggle of the past century are dismantled, along with the democratic culture that sustained them. Within elite sectors, there is a great deal of concern over their brazen arrogance, remarkable incompetence, and willingness to increase serious threats to the country and to transfer a huge burden to coming generations for short-term gain. Their war in Iraq, for example, was strongly opposed by leading sectors of the foreign policy elite, and perhaps even more strikingly, the corporate world. But the same sectors will continue to support the Bush circles, strongly. It is using state power to lavish huge gifts on them, and they basically share the underlying premises even if they are concerned about the practice and the irrationality of the actors, and the dangers they pose.

Alam: Many leftists and liberals, including NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman and ZNet's Michael Albert, believe that Bush represents a radical departure from previous administrations, purportedly in its ambitions to roll back much of the progressive work forged through social struggle since the New Deal, including social security, civil liberties, and welfare. The majority sentiment on the left is that, subsequently, anyone is preferable to Bush and therefore rallying behind the Democrats is a necessity.

Some, however, disagree. Lance Selfa of the International Socialist Review recently argued that the so-called neoconservative clique has its roots in the right wing of the Democratic Party of the early 1970s and that the Democratic candidates differ only in rhetoric and not goals, citing Dean's refusal to rule out use of preemptive force on Iran or North Korea and his endorsement of the Star Wars program. Additionally, in the recent Avocado Declaration, Peter Camejo of the Green Party wrote that the Democrats are a party of "defeatism" whose message is "nothing is possible but what exists." What is your own take on these arguments and the situation surrounding upcoming elections?

Chomsky: The arguments are not inconsistent. Both are basically correct, in my opinion. The political spectrum is narrow. Elections are essentially bought, and the democratic culture is severely eroded. Furthermore, the population is aware of it, by and large, but many feel helpless. It is also a very frightened country, particularly men, polls indicate. That has been true for a long time, and those fears are exploited by unscrupulous leaders to divert the attention of the people they are kicking in the face, not to speak of what they are doing to coming generations. Nevertheless, though differences are not very large, they do exist. The current incumbents may do severe, perhaps irreparable, damage if given another hold on power - a very slim hold, but one they will use to achieve very ugly and dangerous ends. In a very powerful state, small differences may translate into very substantial effects on the victims, at home and abroad. It is no favor to those who are suffering, and may face much worse ahead, to overlook these facts. Keeping the Bush circle out means holding one's nose and voting for some Democrat, but that's not the end of the story. The basic culture and institutions of a democratic society have to be constructed, in part reconstructed, and defeat of an extremely dangerous clique in the presidential race is only one very small component of that.

Alam: Assuming a continued presence of US occupation forces in Iraq and a stubborn armed resistance among a generally hostile population, do you believe that racism, intolerance, and national chauvinism will rise in America itself- particularly against Muslims and anti-war forces?

Chomsky: Putting aside judgments about the situation in Iraq, if the (very surprising) failures of the military occupation continue, they may engender the kinds of reactions you describe, but alongside of others that are much more healthy and offer plenty of opportunities. That is generally true of wars. Anti-Japanese racism during World War II was incredible - I can well remember it, as a young teenager. And the cities were not much fun here either, as again I remember very well; in my own city, teenagers were often under a curfew because of race riots. Nevertheless, the war gave a strong impetus to a social democratic culture, in some ways going well beyond, which led to significant improvements in the domestic society. The same was true of Vietnam. Many shared Lyndon Johnson's perception that if we don't fight the "yellow dwarves" over there, they'll "sweep over us and take all we have" (approximate quote). But it also was a major stimulus to popular movements that made it a far more civilized country, and are very much alive today.

Alam: Again assuming the continued presence of US troops in Iraq and the resulting Iraqi backlash, what do you believe would be the regional repercussions? Will Iran and Syria try to wield influence in Iraqi affairs to help resistance forces, or remain chastened by the proximity of US military forces to their own countries? Will a prolonged occupation inspire greater fury against America among ordinary Arabs in the region - enough to challenge their own Washington-backed governments?

Chomsky: I would be very surprised if Iran or Syria, or for that matter any state, gives support to the Iraqi resistance forces, particularly when the large majority of the population keeps its distance from them, and probably regards them with considerable hostility and fear. As to the likely impact in the Arab world, it is very hard to say. No one knows, including the "ordinary Arabs in the region" themselves. There is plenty of anger and resentment against their own brutal governments and the US, but it could take many different forms. Just to illustrate the near impossibility of prediction, consider the first Intifada, which broke out in December 1987. Israel had the territories under very tight control and surveillance, with collaborators everywhere and a very strong presence of military and secret services. The population had been remarkably quiescent throughout the long and harsh occupation, silently suffering terror, torture, daily humiliation, robbery of their land and resources, with scarcely any resistance. They were described as "samidin" - those who resist by enduring. Suddenly everything changed. The Israeli military and civilian authorities did not have a clue about what was happening, and the PLO was caught equally by surprise. I happened to be able to see a little of it first-hand, but it was clear enough from close reading of the Israeli press and other sources. That's not at all unusual.

Alam: Often the so-called 'war on terror' is depicted by its American supporters as a civilizational war, pitting an advanced, upright nation against a sea of savage, senseless, Islamic barbarians. This depiction is interesting because it has always resonated well with a crucial U.S. ally whose role in this endeavor has been controversial and, to many, vague: Israel. You argue in Hegemony or Survival that Israel "has virtually no alternative to serving as a US base in the region and complying with U.S. demands."

Others, however, particularly in the Arab world, see Israel as using the financial clout of the pro-Israel lobby in the US to press its own demands. Some Israeli dissidents cite not financial but ideological influence: prefacing a summary of interviews with William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Thomas Friedman, Ari Shavit of the Israeli daily Haaretz, wrote that "the ardent faith [in war against Iraq] was disseminated by a small group of 25 to 30 neoconservative intellectuals, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals." Even the non-neoconservative Friedman, according to Shavit, justified the Iraq war as a replay of Jenin on a world scale. Do you consider it possible that, precisely because Israel depends so much on US support, pro-Israel intellectuals argue for US military action against the Arab world? Or is the role of neoconservatism and intellectuals like Kristol and Krauthammer overblown and only a subtext to a larger point?

Chomsky: It is impossible to give a measure to the influence of the Israeli lobby, but in my opinion it is more of a swing factor than an independently decisive one. It is important to bear in mind that it is not neoconservatives, or Jewish. Friedman, for example, is a liberal in the US system. The union leadership, often strong supporters of Israeli crimes, are protypical liberals, not neocons. The self-styled "democratic socialists" who modestly call themselves "the decent left" have compiled an unusually ugly record in support of Israeli government actions ever since Israel's massive victory in 1967, which won it many friends in left-liberal circles, for a variety of reasons. The Christian right is a huge voting bloc, plainly not Jewish, and in fact to a significant extent anti-Semitic, but welcomed by the government of Israel and its supporters because they support Israel's atrocities, violence, and aggression, for their own reasons. It is a varied and large group, which happens also to constitute a substantial part of the intellectual elite, hence the media elite, so of course there is ideological influence.

However, these groups rarely distance themselves far from what they know to be authentic power: state-corporate power. If US government policy would shift, they would shift along with it, maybe with some snapping at the heels of the powerful, but never daring too much. That has been fairly consistent in the past, and I think there is good reason to expect similar behavior in the future. Privilege and rewards do not come from confronting power, but by serving it, perhaps with some complaints at the margins while pouring out lies and slanders against anyone who strays a few millimeters too far from doctrinal orthodoxy, a primary function of respectable intellectuals throughout history. Particularly since its 1967 victory, state power has generally regarded Israel as a very important "strategic asset," by now virtually an offshore military base and militarized high-tech center closely linked to the US and major regional US allies, particularly Turkey. That opens the way for the ideological influence to exert itself - lined up with real power. The story is far more complex than anyone can describe in a few words, but my feeling is that the essentials are pretty much like that. That is true of domestic lobbies quite generally, in a state capitalist society with very close ties between state and corporate power, a very obedient intellectual class, and a narrow political spectrum primarily reflecting the interests of power and privilege.

Alam: Israel's rhetoric and actions appear to be pulling in opposite directions. Its actions clearly point to greater brutalization and destruction of the Palestinians, as evidenced by continued construction of illegal settlements, erection of a separation wall which annexes more Palestinian land, and military raids leading to the death of innocents on a weekly basis. And yet some in the official establishment, from dissenting Refusenik air force pilots and special forces to former Shinbet officials and senior Likud officials like Ehud Olmert, are openly questioning the occupation and calling for unilateral withdrawal to preserve the "Jewish-democratic character" of Israel in the face an impending demographic crisis whereby Arabs will outnumber Jews in Eretz Israel.

Given that Zionism is, as Norman Finkelstein writes in Image and Reality, "grounded in its pre-emptive right to establish a Jewish state in Palestine - a right that, allegedly, superseded the aspirations of the indigenous population," do you think the pragmatists advocating withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank can trump those who still want to pretend the indigenous Palestinians are, as Israel's first president Chaim Weizmann once said, "a matter of no consequence"?

Chomsky: I think it would be very likely to happen if "the boss-man called `partner'" - as more astute Israeli commentators refer to the US - were to change course and inform them that the time has come to obey the overwhelming international consensus that the US government has been blocking for 30 years. The "demographic crisis" is impelling hawks in the same direction. The "refuseniks" and Israeli solidarity groups are brave and honorable people, who deserve very bit of support we can give them. Their inability to have much of an impact is our fault, not theirs. No group in Israel can gain much credibility within unless it has strong support from the society of the boss-man.

NEW MIDEAST PEACE BIDS - A POCKET GUIDE

By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent
December 10, 2003

Without warning, a drought in Middle East peacemaking has yielded to a flash flood of unofficial initiatives, trial balloons and truce bids, all of them intended as alternatives or supplements to the road map, and prompting wide speculation over the shape of an eventual solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Here, in summary and comparison, are a number of the most recent plans.

GENEVA ACCORD

An unofficial model for a future permanent peace agreement, the self-styled final stage of the U.S.-EU-UN-Russian-backed road map peace plan.

STRIKING FEATURES: Palestinians would effectively if not explicitly renounce the right of return of refugees to Israeli territory, and Israel would co! ncede sovereignty over the Temple Mount, or Noble Sanctuary.

BACKGROUND: Under the plan, unveiled in October after more than two years of discussion between Palestinian officials and Israeli opposition leaders, an independent Palestine would arise on nearly the whole of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In return for full Israeli recognition, Palestine would explicitly recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and end all violence and incitement against it.

The sovereign territory of Palestine would encompass nearly all existing settlements, including Ariel, Efrat, Kiryat Arba, Ofra, Elon Moreh, Bet El, Eli and Har Homa, and all Gaza Strip enclaves.

The exceptions would include Maaleh Adumim, the Etzion bloc excluding Efrat, a number of Jewish neighborhoods in the north of Jerusalem, and a strip near Latrun, intended for defense of Ben-Gurion International Airport. An equivalent small area of the Israeli western Negev would be appended to Palestinian Gaza.

According to the plan, "Palestine shall be a non-militarized state, with a strong security force" for law enforcement. An international force would be deployed for supervision of implementation.

Jerusalem would be physically divided, with Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and the Old City to become the capital of Palestine, and western and northern Jewish neighborhoods of the city, as well as the Old City's Jewish Quarter to be the capital of Israel.

The Temple Mount or Noble Sanctuary would be under Palestinian sovereignty, the Western Wall under Israeli.

Although it refers to the controversial UN Resolution 194 and the Saudi peace initiative as part of the basis of a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, Israeli proponents and Palestinian opponents say the Geneva plan would effectively end Arab demands for a right of return of Palestinian refugees to Israel proper, by granting Israel the authority to decide how many could come back.

Based on the Clinton Plan - the series of far-reaching proposals brokered by then-president Bill Clinton after the collapse of the Camp David peace summit in July 2000 - the accord, which received key funding and sponsorship by the Swiss foreign ministry, was formally launched on November 30 at a gala ceremony in Geneva.

PRINCIPAL AUTHORS: Ex-Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo and former Israeli justice minster Yossi Beilin.

ENDORSEMENTS: British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, King Mohammed of Morocco, former U.S. president Bill Clinton, Nobel peace laureates Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Lech Walesa of Poland and ex-U.S. president Jimmy Carter, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

CRITICS: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Labor predecessor Ehud Barak; nearly the whole of the Israeli right and a sizable portion of the center-left Labor Party; the militant Palestinian Hamas movement; and ! the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed militia wing of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

CURRENT STATUS: Soon after its formal launch, the plan was given a boost when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan invited Beilin and Abed Rabbo for separate talks last Friday.

Following his meeting, Powell said that while "We welcome other ideas," the administration remained solely committed to the road map. Annan's response was similar.

American officials said the Geneva Accord would not alter the text of the road map, which is more phased than the unofficial plan, and whose interim stages require such steps as strong PA action against terrorism and substantive Israeli curbs on settlement construction.

Israel remains on record as strongly opposing the Geneva Accord, calling it subversive and dangerous. A Haaretz poll of Israelis published this month found that 31.2 percent of Israelis approved of the accord, while 37.7 percent! opposed it. A separate poll taken in October showed that only 25 percent of Israelis had backed the accord, while 54 percent were opposed. A large number of respondents in the recent poll said they had yet to make up their minds, or had learned little about the Accord.

Yasser Arafat, believed to have been behind many of the Accord's provisions, has given ambivalent support, but has undercut the plan's backers by emphasizing Resolution 194, which many Palestinians cite as the grounds for a right of return, a concept anathema to Israelis.

OLMERT INITIATIVE

STRIKING FEATURES: In the absence of a meaningful peace process, Israel would unilaterally pull out of most of the territories and parts of East Jerusalem, leaving the bulk of the West Bank and Gaza to an independent Palestinian state.

Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has yet to detail his plan, but according to Nahum Barnea of Yedioth Ahronoth, who interviewed Olmert last week, Israel would set its ne! w borders according to demographics, such that 80 percent of its residents would be Jews and 20 percent Muslims, a percentage similar to those of the current Israel proper.

In practice, this would likely bring the borders close to the Green Line and major settlement blocs such as Ariel, Maaleh Adumim, and Gush Etzion, would be annexed to Israel.

Israel would also cede Arab "outlying neightborhoods" of East Jerusalem.

ENDORSEMENTS: Ehud Barak, Likud cabinet minister Tzipi Livni, and a small number of Likud MKs and Central Committee members.

CRITICS: Likud cabinet ministers Tzachi Hanegbi and Uzi Landau, who have called the initiative "more dangerous than Oslo and Geneva," National Religious Party chief Effi Eitam, leaders of the far-right National Union party; the Yesha settlers council; and Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Also opposed are U.S. officials, who fear that unilateral moves will compromise or undermine the road map peace plan, and Pale! stinian officials, anxious that the steps will leave them with less territory than they would have received under a peace deal, and with less international backing than they enjoy today.

ON THE FENCE: Sharon, who may quietly advocate parts of the plan; Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who likely opposes but has kept mum; and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who is seen as a centrist pivot vote of senior cabinet decision makers. Other key voices yet to have been definitively heard are those of centrist Justice Minister Yosef Lapid and Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

SHARON PLAN

STRIKING FEATURES: Could put strong pressure on Palestinians by setting out unilateral steps to be taken in the absence of progress in peace talks.

PHASE I - In a preparatory unilateral stage, a number of existing Gaza Strip settlements "will be moved," or evacuated of settlers. In some cases, soldiers may take their places and the enclaves will be restructured as army bases, th! e Maariv daily and other Israeli media have reported. A small number of isolated West Bank settlements may also be removed at this stage.

At the same time, Israel may effectively annex such settlement areas as Maaleh Adumim and Gush Etzion, considered an integral part of any future map to which Sharon would grant approval.

PHASE II - In part as a gesture to President Bush in the home stretch of his re-election campaign, Israel would resume talks with PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia's government, based on the road map, with Sharon's objective the establishment of a Palestinian state with interim borders by mid-2004.

PHASE III [Conditional] - If Phase 2 ends in deadlock or collapse, Israel would declare that there was no possibility of reaching an accord at present, and would define its own borders.

Speculation has it that Sharon would set the borders according to the route of the separation fence, including an eastern strip that would place the Jordan Rift! valley within Israel.

This would leave approximately 43 percent of the West Bank in Israeli hands, including the bulk of the settlers and settlements. The plan would still require dozens of settlements to be dismantled, but would leave only 57 percent of the territory to the Palestinians, much less than they could expect to receive in negotiations.

CURRENT STATUS: Sharon is expected to unveil the plan at the Herzliya Conference next week. The prime minister has revealed few details thus far, but has told the cabinet that even if most of the West Bank city of Hebron is ceded to the Palestinians, Israel would retain control over the Cave of the Patriarchs, the adjacent settlement of Kiryat Arba, and a strip of Jewish settlement within Hebron linking the two.

Inching closer to parting the shroud over the plan, Sharon told the Boston Globe in an interview published Monday that "We have to make it easier to try to deploy smaller forces," creating a "need to make s! ome changes in the deployment of military forces and also the deployment of some of the Jewish communities [settlements] in the area."

THE PEOPLES' VOICE

STRIKING FEATURES: "Jerusalem will be an open city," the capital of the respective states of Israel and Palestine, with neither side holding formal sovereignty over the holy places.

BACKGROUND: Similar in many principles to the Geneva Accord, which it predates by more than a year, the Peoples' Voice is a less detailed statement, which aims to build grass roots Israeli and Palestinian support through a mass petition campaign.

AUTHORS: Ami Ayalon, former head of the Israeli navy and of the Shin Bet security service, and Palestinian intellectual and Al-Quds University President Sari Nusseibeh.

ENDORSEMENTS: In a surprise move, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz met Ayalon and Nusseibeh in October, praising their initiative.

Joining Ayalon last month in a newspaper interview hi! ghly critical of government policy toward the Palestinians, three other former Shin Bet chiefs, Yaakov Peri, Avraham Shalom, and Carmi Gillon, have signed the petition of support for the initiative.

CURRENT STATUS: Overshadowed by the gala launch of the Geneva Accord, the petition campaign has continued. Recent figures show that at least 126,000 Israelis and 65,000 Palestinians have signed the petitions of support.

ONE VOICE

STRIKING FEATURES: Aims to hold an extensive referendum of Israelis and Palestinians on a wide range of core issues, in order to determine areas of common ground between the peoples.

The organization has attracted a roster of marquee celebrity backers, many of whom whom it hopes to bring to Israel in the coming months.

It has also has mobilized a number of local figures, with a catholic range of outlooks on the Middle East conflict.

ENDORSEMENTS: Former boxing champion Muhammad Ali; actors Brad Pitt, Jennifer Anist! on, Edward Norton, Jason Alexander, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman; businessman and Jewish leader Edgar Bronfman Sr.; former senior White House aide and deputy cabinet secretary Stuart Eizenstat.

Locally, Likud Deputy Public Security Minister Michael Ratzon; senior Labor lawmaker and former general Matan Vilnai; secular-centrist Shinui MK Etti Livni; former cabinet minister Rabbi Michael Melchior; Dr. Fathi Arafat, brother of the Palestinian Authority chairman; Yasser Mahmoud Abbas, the son of former PA prime minister Mahmoud Abbas; Palestinian journalist and envoy Hanna Siniora, and Israeli Arab conflict resolution activist Mohammad Darawshe.

FEIGLIN'S PLAN (OR 'THE JEWISH ROAD MAP')

STRIKING FEATURES: Calls for full Israeli sovereignty over the whole of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, declaring that, "The regions from which the terror originates will be made suitable for Jewish settlement... As soon as the Arabs realize that the Jews are going to stay ! in the country forever - and that they will be expelled for attacks upon Jews - the terror will vanish overnight."

Regarding U.S. and international pressure, "The current U.S. Congress is far more Zionistic than the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem, and the speeches of Tom Delay [the Republican Majority Leader] put the Mafdal [National Religious Party] and Ichud Ha'Leumi (National Union) to shame."

The Palestinians in the territories "who demonstrate their loyalty to the Jewish State's hospitality and accept the Jewish People's sovereignty over the Jewish People's land will be granted legal residency and issued a legal resident's identification card.

"They will be permitted to continue to conduct their private affairs without anyone harming their human rights: they will be able to make a good living, build their homes, bring up and educate their children as they wish in their current place of residence, etc. However, they will have no political right to vote for ! the Knesset, or any national rights.

"National rights may be obtained and exercised in any one of the 22 Arab countries of their choosing."

While in initial phases, Arabs will be encouraged to voluntarily emigrate, "Transfer [expulsion] is a just solution, and it is likely that sometime in the future it will be foisted upon us, whether we like it or not."

AUTHOR: Moshe Feiglin, far-right activist and head of the Likud's small but vocal hardline Jewish Leadership faction.

RIGHT ROAD TO PEACE

STRIKING FEATURES: Calls for recognition of Jordan as the "only legitimate representative of the Palestinians," and Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Makes no direct reference to transfer, but states that, "The relocation and rehabilitation of the Palestinian refugees in Arab lands will complete the population exchange process begun in the 1940s."

AUTHOR: Tourism Minister Benny Elon, of the National Union party.

HUDNA II

An as-yet unsuccessful bid to forge a new hudna, Arabic for temporary truce. In contrast to the abortive first hudna, declared unilaterally by Palestinian groups last summer, the intra-Palestinian contacts on "Hudna II" have centered on an Egyptian-Fatah proposal, under which armed Palestinian groups would suspend terror attacks for a period of at least a year, in return for assurances by Israel that it would freeze construction of settlements and the separation fence, pull the IDF back from PA territory re-occupied during the intifada, and halt assassinations of Palestinian militants.

The proposal was aimed at bringing the sides in line with recommendations of the road map.

ENDORSEMENTS: Mubarak and Qureia.

CRITICS: The Sharon cabinet, Palestinian hard-liners.

CURRENT STATUS: Talks have broken down, after Hamas demanded that the truce only cover Israel proper, with attacks continuing against settlers and soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza.

Sharon rejected the terms, saying that Israel would never agree to such an arrangement.

YESHA COUNCIL OF SETTLEMENTS PLAN

STRIKING FEATURES: A proposal for a single Jewish state in all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinian Authority would be entirely dismantled, and the territories would be divided into gerrymandered districts or "cantons," with representation apportioned so that Jews would retain overall control regardless of the demographic distribution. Law would mandate that the prime minister of Israel be a Jew, regardless of demography.

CURRENT STATUS: Attacked from all sides. The settlers have yet to be able to agree on a single draft text. The measure has even engendered bitter opposition even within settler circles. Leading right-wing rabbis have rejected the plan, saying that they will fight any attempt to formally partition the Land of Israel, even if continued Jewish control is the proposal's stated goal.

THE SHEIKH YASSIN VISION

STRIKING FEATURES: A one-state solution under which "all Palestinians can live in their homeland, with all religions together: Muslims, Christians and Jews."

In an apparent nod - or swipe - in Olmert's direction, the Hamas leader has rejected the notion of a Jewish state, even within the pre-1967 borders. "That would not work," he said. "The Israelis claim 80 per cent of the territory and will only let us have 20 per cent. It would only be an interim solution."

In an interview with the German Der Spiegel, Yassin was asked if he saw no place for a Jewish state. "They could set up a state in Europe," Yassin said.

---

Copyright 2003 Haaretz. All rights reserved
Care, Speak, Vote

ISRAEL TRAINS US ASSASSINATION SQUADS IN IRAQ

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday December 9, 2003
The Guardian

Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, US intelligence and military sources said yesterday.

The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has sent urban warfare specialists to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the home of US special forces, and according to two sources, Israeli military "consultants" have also visited Iraq.

US forces in Iraq's Sunni triangle have already begun to use tactics that echo Israeli operations in the occupied territories, sealing off centres of resistance with razor wire and razing buildings from where attacks have been launched against US troops. But the secret war in Iraq is about to get much tougher, in the hope of suppressing the Ba'athist-led insurgency ahead of next November's presidential elections.

US special forces teams are already behind the lines inside Syria attempting to kill foreign jihadists before they cross the border, and a group focused on the "neutralisation" of guerrilla leaders is being set up, according to sources familiar with the operations.

"This is basically an assassination programme. That is what is being conceptualised here. This is a hunter-killer team," said a former senior US intelligence official, who added that he feared the new tactics and enhanced cooperation with Israel would only inflame a volatile situation in the Middle East.

"It is bonkers, insane. Here we are - we're already being compared to Sharon in the Arab world, and we've just confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and setting up assassination teams."

"They are being trained by Israelis in Fort Bragg," a well-informed intelligence source in Washington said. "Some Israelis went to Iraq as well, not to do training, but for providing consultations."

The consultants' visit to Iraq was confirmed by another US source who was in contact with American officials there.

The Pentagon did not return calls seeking comment, but a military planner, Brigadier General Michael Vane, mentioned the cooperation with Israel in a letter to Army magazine in July about the Iraq counter-insurgency campaign.

"We recently travelled to Israel to glean lessons learned from their counterterrorist operations in urban areas," wrote General Vane, deputy chief of staff at the army's training and doctrine command.

An Israeli official said the IDF regularly shared its experience in the West Bank and Gaza with the US armed forces, but said he could not comment about cooperation in Iraq.

"When we do activities, the US military attaches in Tel Aviv are interested. I assume it's the same as the British. That's the way allies work. The special forces come to our people and say, do debrief on an operation we have done," the official said.

"Does it affect Iraq? It's not in our interest or the American interest or in anyone's interest to go into that. It would just fit in with jihadist prejudices."

Colonel Ralph Peters, a former army intelligence officer and a critic of Pentagon policy in Iraq, said yesterday there was nothing wrong with learning lessons wherever possible.

"When we turn to anyone for insights, it doesn't mean we blindly accept it," Col Peters said. "But I think what you're seeing is a new realism. The American tendency is to try to win all the hearts and minds. In Iraq, there are just some hearts and minds you can't win. Within the bounds of human rights, if you do make an example of certain villages it gets the attention of the others, and attacks have gone down in the area."

The new counter-insurgency unit made up of elite troops being put together in the Pentagon is called Task Force 121, New Yorker magazine reported in yesterday's edition.

One of the planners behind the offensive is a highly controversial figure, whose role is likely to inflame Muslim opinion: Lieutenant General William "Jerry" Boykin.

In October, there were calls for his resignation after he told a church congregation in Oregon that the US was at war with Satan, who "wants to destroy us as a Christian army".

"He's been promoted a rank above his abilities," he said. "Some generals are pretty good on battlefield but are disastrous nearer the source of power."

EXTRACTS FROM THE REPORT OF MALNUTRITION IN THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES BY JEAN ZIEGLER, UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON THE RIGHT TO FOOD

Note: The Ziegler report was to be presented to the U.N. General Assembly on November 18th. Israeli authorities are blocking its publication. We are petitioning the UN to publish it.

The Special Rapporteur carried out a mission to the Occupied Palestinian Territories from 3-13 July 2003. This mission was undertaken in response to the emergence of a humanitarian catastrophe.

The West Bank and the Gaza Strip make up the ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’, which have been under Israeli military administration since 1967. They make up an area of around 5,800 km2 in which more than 3.5 million Palestinians live. The Palestinian Territories, before the present crisis, had fertile lands and mostly have had a vibrant economy, exporting thousands of tonnes of olives, fruits, vegetables to Israel, Europe and the Gulf countries. The current man-made crisis is the result of harsh measures which are preventing the movement of people and goods and which have brought the Palestinian economy and agriculture to the verge of collapse.

In the Palestinian Territories, hunger and malnutrition are being created by the measures currently imposed. Severe malnutrition reported in Gaza is now equivalent to levels found in poor sub-Saharan countries, an absurd situation as Palestine was formerly a middle-income economy. Over 22% of children under five are now suffering from malnutrition, compared to 7.6% in the year 2000. Around 15.6% of children under the age of 5 suffer from acute anemia, which for many will have permanent negative effects on their physical and mental development in the future. Food shortages, particularly of proteins, have been widely reported. More than half of Palestinian households now eat only once per day. Around 60% of Palestinians are now living in acute poverty. Some try to subsist on bread and tea.

An unprecedented level of restrictions on the movements of Palestinians inside the Occupied Territories is depriving the Palestinians not only of their freedom of movement, but also of their right to food. The extensive imposition of curfews, road closures, permit systems, security checkpoints, and back-to-back truck off-loading systems imposed by the occupying military forces are producing the humanitarian crisis. Closures prevent movement not only between Palestinian areas and Israel, but within the Palestinian territories. In some cases, crossing for food and agricultural produce at checkpoints is refused for days, without explanation. At various checkpoints in the West Bank, the Special Rapporteur saw trucks of fruit and vegetables rotting under the sun. Curfews, sometimes imposed for days at a time, keep the populations of whole towns inside their homes under virtual house arrest. These measures make life nearly unbearable and are seriously threatening the food security of all Palestinians. Even access to humanitarian aid is often restricted or denied by the occupying administration.

Water shortages are also serious. With the system of checkpoints and road closures in place, water tankers cannot always reach villages, or are arbitrarily not permitted to cross checkpoints, leaving communities without water for days at a time. Reports of water-borne diseases continue to rise as a result of the destruction of water resources and increased dependence on poor quality water resources.

The destruction of farms and agricultural fields, of olive and citrus trees and irrigation wells, has contributed to the collapse of agriculture. Land is also being confiscated for the extension of settlements, the building of settler-only roads and the building of security buffers around the settlements.

Under international law, the Government of Israel, in its occupation of the Palestinian Territories, has the responsibility to ensure the basic needs of the civilian Palestinian population, including the right to food. International law forbids the establishment of settlements in Occupied Territories, and forbids collective punishment of the civilian population.

RAPPORT REMIS PAR M. JEAN ZIEGLER, RAPPORTEUR SPECIAL DE L'ONU SUR LE DROIT A L'ALIMENTATION

Traduction non officielle – Extraits et résumés

[L'original du rapport se trouve sur les sites web du Reseau Voltaire, signalés plus haut]

INTRODUCTION

Le Rapporteur Spécial a effectué une mission dans les Territoires Palestiniens Occupés du 3 au 13 juillet 2003. Il s’agissait de la première fois où le Gouvernement d’Israël ait officiellement reçu une mission d’un Rapporteur Spécial de l’ONU, qu’il a accueilli dans une lettre datée du 23 mai 2003. …

Le Rapporteur Spécial exprime ses profonde sympathie et compassion à tous les tués et blessés, Israéliens et Palestiniens. La population civile tant palestinienne qu’israélienne est en train de vivre une tragédie épouvantable. Les Israéliens vivent sous la menace d’attentats suicides de kamikazes palestiniens. Les Palestiniens, eux aussi, vivent dans la peur, des femmes et des enfants sont) souvent tués chez eux ou dans des rues populeuses par des opérations armées israéliennes visant des dirigeants palestiniens… Cette mission a été entreprise en réponse à l’émergence d’une catastrophe humanitaire dans les Territoires Palestiniens Occupés. En conséquence des mesures sécuritaires imposées aux Territoires Occupés par la puissance militaire occupante, nous assistons aujourd’hui à une crise alimentaire allant s’aggravant et à l’augmentation du taux de malnutrition chez les Palestiniens…

[Suit la liste des contacts pris avec les autorités et organisations internationales, israéliennes et palestiniennes en Israël et dans les territoires palestiniens occupés, TPO, pour la rédaction du rapport]

I – LA MALNUTRITION ET L’INSECURITE ALIMENTAIRE DANS LES T.P.O.

A – Une catastrophe humanitaire annoncée

Les TPO sont au bord d’une catastrophe humanitaire, conséquence de mesures militaires extrêmement sévères imposées par les forces militaires israéliennes d’occupation depuis l’éclatement de la seconde Intifada, en septembre 2000.

Les niveaux de malnutrition chez les Palestiniens se sont rapidement aggravés depuis l’imposition des mesures militaires susmentionnées. Une étude financée par USAID indique que « les territoires palestiniens, et en particulier la bande de Gaza, sont confrontés à une claire urgence humanitaire, en termes de malnutrition aiguë et grave ». La malnutrition grave dont il est fait état à Gaza équivaut aujourd’hui aux niveaux relevés dans les pays pauvres subsahariens, ce qui constitue une situation aberrante, étant donné que la Palestine était naguère une économie caractérisée par des revenus moyens. Plus de 22 % des enfants de moins de cinq ans souffrent aujourd’hui de malnutrition (9,3 % souffrent de malnutrition aiguë et 13,2 % de malnutrition chronique), à comparer à 7,6 % en 2000 (1,4 % souffraient alors de malnutrition aiguë, et 6,2 % de malnutrition chronique), d’après des relevés du PCBS. Près de 15,6 % des enfants de moins de cinq ans souffrent d’anémie aiguë, qui aura pour beaucoup d’entre eux des effets dommageables permanents sur leur développement futur, physique et mental. La consommation de nourriture a chuté de plus de 30 % per capita. Les pénuries alimentaires, en particulier en matière d’aliments protéiniques, ont été largement attestées. Plus de la moitié des foyers palestiniens ne peuvent plus avoir qu’un seul repas par jour. De nombreux Palestiniens avec lesquels le Rapporteur Spécial a pu converser ont indiqué ne survivre qu’en consommant du pain et du thé…

Plus de la moitié des Palestiniens sont désormais totalement dépendants de l’aide internationale pour se nourrir et néanmoins, comme l’ont indiqué beaucoup des organisations charitables et humanitaires que la mission a rencontrées, l’entrée et le transport de denrées alimentaires dans les Territoires Occupés sont souvent refusés et les camions qui les transportent doivent rebrousser chemin.

B – Les causes de la crise alimentaire

[Dans cette section le Rapporteur Spécial identifie et analyse quatre éléments rendant compte de la crise alimentaire :

Les bouclages et les entraves aux déplacements

La destruction, l’expropriation et la confiscation des terres palestiniennes

Une stratégie de « bantoustanisation»

L’obstruction à l’aide humanitaire

Il conclut : "La crise actuelle, fabriquée par la main de l’homme, résulte des mesures impitoyables qui entravent les déplacements des personnes et le transport des biens, et qui ont amené l’économie palestinienne au bord de l’effondrement. La crise humanitaire pourrait, par tant, être rapidement soulagée si les entraves aux personnes et aux biens étaient immédiatement desserrées."]

II – CADRE JURIDIQUE DU DROIT ALIMENTAIRE DANS LES T. P. O.

[Cette section analyse les traités et les conventions internationales s'appliquant aux territoires palestiniens occupés et elle rappelle qu'Israël en tant que puissance occupante a "certains droits et obligations précis, en vertu du droit humanitaire, dont l’interdiction des punitions collectives et de construire des implantations…", que "le gouvernement d’Israël doit prendre les mesures nécessaires afin de faciliter l’accès à la nourriture et à l’eau de la population palestinienne (en leur permettant de se nourrir par eux-mêmes … et ce n’est qu’en dernier recours qu’il doit distribuer de la nourriture et de l’eau aux gens qui n’ont pas accès à la nourriture et à l’eau… Enfin, le gouvernement d’Israël a, en vertu des droits de l’Homme et du droit humanitaire, l’obligation de fournir une nourriture et une eau appropriées aux prisonniers palestiniens…" Cette section poursuit en réfutant les allégations d'une responsabilité de l'Autorité Palestinienne dans la crise alimentaire et termine en constatant que "La crise humanitaire constatée aujourd’hui dans les Territoires Occupés résulte de violations évidentes du droit à l’alimentation…"]

III - PRINCIPALES CONSTATATIONS EN MATIERE DE LA MISE EN APPLICATION DU DROIT A L’ALIMENTATION

A – La crise alimentaire

[Dans cette section, le Rapporteur Spécial dresse un bilan terrible de la détérioration rapide des niveaux de malnutrition et de pauvreté ainsi que par la dégradation de l’accès des Palestiniens à la nourriture et à l’eau potable. Sans remettre en cause les besoins d’Israël en matière de sécurité, il exprime le point de vue que "les mesures prises actuellement sont totalement hors de proportion, car elles provoquent la faim et la malnutrition de civils palestiniens d’une manière qui équivaut à l’imposition d’une punition collective à la société palestinienne." Il fait sien le constat de la Banque Mondial selon laquelle, « la cause immédiate de la crise économique palestinienne est le bouclage (des territoires) » et que, par conséquent, ce n’est qu’en levant ce régime de blocus que la catastrophe humaine pourra être évitée."]

B – Les violations du droit à l’alimentation

[Dans cette section, le Rapporteur Spécial est préoccupé par les nombreuses violations caractérisées du droit à l’alimentation. Il cite en particulier l’organisation israélienne de défense des droits de l’Homme B’tselem, selon laquelle trente six communes (72 200 Palestiniens y vivent) vont être séparées de leurs fermes et de leurs puits situés à l’ouest de la barrière; quatre-vingt dix communes (soit 128 500 personnes) seront presque totalement emprisonnées par le tracé ondulant du Mur, dont 40 000 personnes qui seront prises au piège à Qalqiliya, enserrées de tous côtés par un mur de 8 mètres de hauteur, avec une seule route de sortie contrôlée par un checkpoint israélien; trente communes (11 700 habitants) seront prises au piège dans des terres requalifiées en zone militaire interdite, entre le Mur et la Ligne Verte – terres prises sur le territoire palestinien – mais les habitants se verront néanmoins interdire le droit de pénétrer en territoire israélien.]

L’obligation de protéger le droit à l’alimentation

[Dans cette section, le Rapporteur Spécial parle de violences exercés par les colons contre les palestinien sans que le gouvernement et l'armée israélienne envisagent d'intervenir. Par exemple selon l’organisation non-gouvernementale israélienne Alternative Information Center e 12 avril 2001, « des colons israéliens armés ont empêché des paysans du village de Huwwara de travailler dans leurs champs, et ils les ont contraints à retourner se réfugier chez eux ». En 2002, 4 paysans palestiniens ont été tués, et de nombreux autres blessés, dans leurs oliveraies, par des colons. Suivent de nombreux exemples d'exactions vis-à-vis de la population]

L’obligation de satisfaire le droit à l’alimentation

[Dans cette section sont traités les obstacles incessants qui empêchent à la population palestinienne d'avoir accès à l'alimentation et en particulier à celle acheminée par les organisations humanitaires internationales :

"L’obligation de faciliter l’accès humanitaire est elle aussi fréquemment violée par les forces militaires d’occupation… Ainsi, l’UNRWA a fait état, en juin 2003, de restrictions imposées par l’armée d’occupation à la liberté de se déplacer librement à l’intérieur de la Cisjordanie atteignant leur plus haut degré de sévérité depuis le début de l’Intifada. Il y a eu 231 cas de délais excessifs ou carrément de refus de passer à des checkpoints (186 incidents de délais excessifs, 41 incidents avec refus total de passer et 4 incidents ayant entraîné l’arrestation de membres du personnel) [lxxii]. Ceci signifie que beaucoup des camions de l’UNRWA ont dû rebrousser chemin sans avoir pu livrer les vivres de secours, parce que l’occupant leur a refusé le passage. D'autres exemples suivent]

CONCLUSIONS ET RECOMMANDATIONS

La cours tragique de la catastrophe en train d’émerger dans les Territoires Palestiniens Occupés doit être renversé. Il ne saurait être admis que des mesures militaires conçues pour protéger la population israélienne soient imposées d’une manière telle qu’elle mette en danger la sécurité alimentaire de l’ensemble de la population palestinienne. Il ne saurait y avoir une quelconque justification des bouclages internes impitoyables qui empêchent les gens d’avoir accès à la nourriture et à l’eau potable, l’imposition de telles mesures militaires étant constitutive, en tant que telle, de ce qui a pu être qualifié de « politique visant à affamer la population » Si le Rapporteur Spécial reconnaît que le Gouvernement d’Israël doit garantir la sécurité de ses propres citoyens résidant en Israël, il n’en affirme pas moins que les conséquences découlant de la manière dont les mesures de sécurités sont actuellement appliquées dans les Territoires Palestiniens Occupés est totalement hors de proportion, dans le sens où elle met en danger la sécurité alimentaire et hydrique de la grande majorité des Palestiniens et devient, de ce fait, constitutive d’une punition collective…

Le lent et insidieux processus de dépossession du peuple palestinien, tel qu’il se manifeste à travers les confiscations de terre, l’extension et la création de colonies et la construction de routes réservées aux seuls colons, ainsi que l’édification de la barrière de sécurité, en privant des milliers de Palestiniens de leurs terres, de leurs maisons et de leurs récoltes, est constitutif d’une violation du droit à l’alimentation…

[Suivent les recommandation du Rapporteur Spécial au gouvernement d'Israël :

mettre fin immédiatement à l’obstruction opposée aux services d’aide humanitaire

renverser le cours de l’actuelle crise humanitaire, en mettant fin au régime des bouclages et des couvre-feu dès lors qu’ils ont pour résultat d’entraîner l’aggravation de la malnutrition et de la pauvreté dont souffre la population civile palestinienne

lever immédiatement les barrages internes à l’intérieur des Territoires

alléger les mesures de sécurité, et en particulier les checkpoints et les systèmes de permis de circuler quand elles entravent l’accès physique et économique des Palestiniens à la nourriture

de mettre fin à la destruction exorbitante de terres palestiniennes, de sources d’eau et d’autres ressources, ainsi que de l’infrastructure des services sociaux de l’Autorité palestinienne

de mettre immédiatement fin à la construction de la barrière de sécurité;

garantir une nourriture et une eau de boisson correctes à tous les prisonniers et détenus en Israël ainsi que dans les établissements pénitenciers palestiniens.]

Le rapport se termine avec la citation d'Ilan Pappe, Directeur de l’Institut des Recherches pour la Paix et maître de conférence à l’Université de Haïfa :

« La vérité pénible et mille fois rebattue reste que la fin des violences de toutes sortes (y compris la violence perpétrée sans discrimination envers des innocents) n’adviendra qu’après que l’Occupation (qui en est la cause) aura elle-même pris fin ».

THE REAL OBSTACLE TO PEACE IS SHARON, NOT ARAFAT

By Avi Shlaim
IHT
September 24, 2003

OXFORD, England The Israeli cabinet's decision to exile Yasser Arafat, and the threats to assassinate him, have provoked a storm of international protest. A Security Council resolution demanding that Israel desist from deporting Arafat or threatening his safety was only defeated by a United States veto.

Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Israel Radio that killing Arafat "is definitely one of the options" under consideration by the government. So the debate in the government is not whether Arafat should be deported or not, but whether he should be deported or killed.

There is thus a real risk that the American veto at the Security Council may be interpreted by the Israeli ministers as a tacit approval of their plan to move against the embattled Palestinian leader.

To the historian of the Arab-Israeli conflict, outrageous behavior by Israel's leaders, and American complicity in such behavior, are nothing new. British resentment toward the United States still smolders in the files of the Public Record Office. In a memorandum to Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin dated June 2, 1948, Sir John Troutbeck held the Americans responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders."

Today, a similar sense of moral outrage is felt toward the rightist government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by people throughout the world, though evidently not by the Bush administration.

President George W. Bush himself has famously described Ariel Sharon as "a man of peace" and has made no real effort to restrain him in the savage war that Sharon has been waging against the Palestinian people since coming to power two and a half years ago.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush appears to have accepted Sharon's claim that Israel's fight against the Palestinian Authority is part of America's global war against terrorism. Consequently Bush has become not just an accomplice but an active partner in Sharon's campaign to marginalize, isolate and undermine Arafat, the democratically elected Palestinian leader.

The main charge against Arafat is that he is an obstacle to peace. Sharon called the Palestinian president a "murderer" and even compared him to Osama bin Laden. A cabinet statement described Arafat as "a complete obstacle to any process of reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians" and promised that "Israel will work to remove this obstacle in a manner, and at a time, of its choosing."

Arafat is not a paragon of virtue. He has made serious mistakes and, like Sharon, he has the blood of countless innocent civilians on his hands.

Yet Arafat has a fairly consistent record of political moderation going back to 1988, when he persuaded the Palestinian National Council to recognize Israel's legitimacy, to accept all relevant United Nations resolutions and to opt for a two-state solution.

In 1993, a decade ago, Arafat signed the Oslo accords and clinched the agreement with the historic handshake with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the lawn of the White House.

The former guerrilla leader proved himself to be a reliable and effective partner to Israel on the road to peace.

Security cooperation between the two sides paved the way to progress on the political front.

The unraveling of the Oslo accords began with the assassination of Rabin and the rise to power in May 1996 of a Likud Party government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. Likud regarded the Oslo accords as incompatible with Israel's security and with "the historic right of the Jewish people" to the whole of the land of Israel. Netanyahu spent his three years in power in a largely successful attempt to derail the Oslo process and to demonize its principal Palestinian architect.

Israel has a remarkable record of accepting peace plans in theory and subverting them in practice.

The latest victim of this dual strategy is the "road map" to peace initiated by the quartet - the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia - on May 1.

The Palestinian Authority embraced the road map and started implementing it even before it was issued.

Sharon obtained from Bush three delays in issuing the road map and then submitted 14 amendments designed to wreck it.

The road that Sharon is pursuing is not the one charted in the road map. He is driving down another road on which the main signposts are expanded settlements, a security wall that bites deep into Palestinian territory on the West Bank, and targeted assassinations of Palestinian leaders. It is these actions, and in particular the attacks on Hamas leaders, that fuel the cycle of violence and make it impossible to pursue the road map to peace.

The real obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is Ariel Sharon, not Yasser Arafat. Killing Arafat would not bring peace but ring the death knell of Palestinian moderation.

It would also be a serious blot on the reputation of "a country that prides itself on being the only democracy in the Middle East."

In 1948 Yitzhak Shamir, who later became leader of Likud and prime minister, conspired with his colleagues in the Stern Gang to assassinate Count Folke Bernadotte, the UN mediator, in Jerusalem.

Likud thus has the dubious distinction of counting among its leaders a man who assassinated a UN peace envoy.

It can now build on this reputation by assassinating the only democratically elected leader in the Arab world.

The writer is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford and author of "The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World."

ISRAEL A DANGER

http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20030924/index.php

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What country in the Middle East occupies the lands of other people? What country in the Middle East is in violation of more than 60 United Nations resolutions? What country in the Middle East openly practices a policy of assassinating its political opponents? What country in the Middle East routinely violates international law? What country in the Middle East possesses nuclear weapons, refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and refuses to allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities?

The answer to all of the above is Israel.

And here's one more question: What country in the world poses the greatest danger to the future of the United States?

Same answer: Israel.

OK, I know that sounds shocking. How could a little country the size of New Jersey pose any threat to the United States? Well, how could a little country drain more than $100 billion from the U.S. Treasury? How could a little country attack and try to sink a U.S. Navy ship in international waters and avoid any kind of congressional investigation? How can a little country openly brag to third parties that it controls the U.S. Congress? And partner, Israel does.

In Queen Noor's recent book, she says that her husband was dismayed when Congress told Jordanians that they would definitely not be given the things promised to them in exchange for a peace treaty with Israel. Queen Noor said her husband called Israeli Prime Minster Yitzhak Rabin and told him of the problem. "Don't worry about it," Rabin replied. "I'll take care of it." And he did.

Now, let's be clear about this. Here you have the prime minister of one foreign country telling the king of another foreign country that he can get the U.S. Congress to reverse its position. And he did it. Too bad American governors don't have that kind of influence. And, as a quick aside, why do American taxpayers have to pay for Israel's peace treaties?

There are many examples to cite, but let me refer you to a book, "They Dare to Speak Out," by former U.S. Rep. Paul Findley. The publisher is Lawrence Hill books.

The problem and danger to the United States is that Israel effectively dictates U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Israel supporters were the architects of the war against Iraq, and if they can, they will get us into wars with Syria and Iran, thus eliminating Israel's enemies. They would like nothing better than for the United States to be at war with the entire Muslim world.

As I write this, the United States has once again vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding that Israel not assassinate the elected leader of the Palestinians. Great God, how do you think that plays in the Arab world when we cannot bring ourselves to condemn what would be a war crime? It's no wonder the World Trade Center towers came down. It's no wonder American soldiers are ducks in an Iraqi shooting gallery. Israel is the source of terrorism in the Middle East, both that directed at it and that directed at us.

And, by the way, it is Yasser Arafat who is the man of peace, not Ariel Sharon. It was Arafat who persuaded Palestinians to recognize Israel's right to exist, who persuaded them to accept a two-state solution, which means they will settle for 22 percent of their own country. And it is Sharon who refuses to give them even that. It is Sharon who rejected the "road map." It is Sharon who kicks sand in the face of little George Bush any time he feels like it.

And don't kid yourself. Regardless of what the Israelis say, they intend to kill Arafat. They know he will not surrender, so they will just say he died "in an exchange of gunfire." Then prospects for peace are dead forever, and the state of Israel will start its slide toward oblivion.

The question for Americans is this: How long do you want to bleed lives and treasure because your corrupt politicians have sold their souls to the lobby of a foreign country now led by a fanatic right-wing extremist?

ECONOMIST TALLIES SWELLING COST OF ISRAEL TO US

By David R. Francis | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today's population, that is more than $5,700 per person.

This is an estimate by Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For decades, his analyses of the Middle East scene have made him a frequent thorn in the side of the Israel lobby.

For the first time in many years, Mr. Stauffer has tallied the total cost to the US of its backing of Israel in its drawn-out, violent dispute with the Palestinians. So far, he figures, the bill adds up to more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War.

And now Israel wants more. In a meeting at the White House late last month, Israeli officials made a pitch for $4 billion in additional military aid to defray the rising costs of dealing with the intifada and suicide bombings. They also asked for more than $8 billion in loan guarantees to help the country's recession-bound economy.

Considering Israel's deep economic troubles, Stauffer doubts the Israel bonds covered by the loan guarantees will ever be repaid. The bonds are likely to be structured so they don't pay interest until they reach maturity. If Stauffer is right, the US would end up paying both principal and interest, perhaps 10 years out.

Israel's request could be part of a supplemental spending bill that's likely to be passed early next year, perhaps wrapped in with the cost of a war with Iraq.

Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. It is already due to get $2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years.

Adjusting the official aid to 2001 dollars in purchasing power, Israel has been given $240 billion since 1973, Stauffer reckons. In addition, the US has given Egypt $117 billion and Jordan $22 billion in foreign aid in return for signing peace treaties with Israel.

"Consequently, politically, if not administratively, those outlays are part of the total package of support for Israel," argues Stauffer in a lecture on the total costs of US Middle East policy, commissioned by the US Army War College, for a recent conference at the University of Maine.

These foreign-aid costs are well known. Many Americans would probably say it is money well spent to support a beleagured democracy of some strategic interest. But Stauffer wonders if Americans are aware of the full bill for supporting Israel since some costs, if not hidden, are little known.

One huge cost is not secret. It is the higher cost of oil and other economic damage to the US after Israel-Arab wars.

In 1973, for instance, Arab nations attacked Israel in an attempt to win back territories Israel had conquered in the 1967 war. President Nixon resupplied Israel with US arms, triggering the Arab oil embargo against the US.

That shortfall in oil deliveries kicked off a deep recession. The US lost $420 billion (in 2001 dollars) of output as a result, Stauffer calculates. And a boost in oil prices cost another $450 billion.

Afraid that Arab nations might use their oil clout again, the US set up a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That has since cost, conservatively, $134 billion, Stauffer reckons.

Other US help includes:

• US Jewish charities and organizations have remitted grants or bought Israel bonds worth $50 billion to $60 billion. Though private in origin, the money is "a net drain" on the United States economy, says Stauffer.

• The US has already guaranteed $10 billion in commercial loans to Israel, and $600 million in "housing loans." (See editor's note below.) Stauffer expects the US Treasury to cover these.

• The US has given $2.5 billion to support Israel's Lavi fighter and Arrow missile projects.

• Israel buys discounted, serviceable "excess" US military equipment. Stauffer says these discounts amount to "several billion dollars" over recent years.

• Israel uses roughly 40 percent of its $1.8 billion per year in military aid, ostensibly earmarked for purchase of US weapons, to buy Israeli-made hardware. It also has won the right to require the Defense Department or US defense contractors to buy Israeli-made equipment or subsystems, paying 50 to 60 cents on every defense dollar the US gives to Israel.

US help, financial and technical, has enabled Israel to become a major weapons supplier. Weapons make up almost half of Israel's manufactured exports. US defense contractors often resent the buy-Israel requirements and the extra competition subsidized by US taxpayers.

• US policy and trade sanctions reduce US exports to the Middle East about $5 billion a year, costing 70,000 or so American jobs, Stauffer estimates. Not requiring Israel to use its US aid to buy American goods, as is usual in foreign aid, costs another 125,000 jobs.

• Israel has blocked some major US arms sales, such as F-15 fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s. That cost $40 billion over 10 years, says Stauffer.

Stauffer's list will be controversial. He's been assisted in this research by a number of mostly retired military or diplomatic officials who do not go public for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic if they criticize America's policies toward Israel.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html