Thousands rally in Ramallah to back Palestinian statehood bid: Haaretz
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to present formal request to UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday.
By Avi Issacharoff, Anshel Pfeffer,
Thousands of Palestinians flocked to Yasser Arafat Square in central Ramallah on Wednesday for a rally in support of the Palestinian bid for full United Nations membership.
The square was dominated by a huge sign with the words “UN 194” on it, in reference to the Palestinian attempt to become the 194th member state of the international body. The sign was flanked by portraits of former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, and his successor Mahmoud Abbas, who will on Friday formally submit the Palestinian request to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
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Many of the crowd waved large Palestinian flags or carried banners either in support of UN membership, or condemning a likely U.S. veto should the issue come before the Security Council for a vote.
A handful of youth burned an American flag, but were sharply told off by other spectators.
A child waves Palestinian flags during a rally in Ramallah to support Mahmoud Abbas’ bid for Palestinian statehood at the UN, September 21, 2011.Reuters
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Abbas’ Fatah party had called on all its members to attend the rally, and the Palestinian Authority had attempted to boost attendance by closing schools for the day and allowing civil servants to attend during office hours.
Q&A: Haaretz Editor in Chief Aluf Benn on the Palestinian statehood bid. Click here to submit your question.
At the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem, dozens of young Palestinians threw stones at IDF forces. The IDF dispersed the stone throwers with the “Scream” device, which releases sound waves.
In Hebron, there were reports of friction between demonstrators and the IDF after Palestinian police lost control of the situation.
In accordance with prior agreements reached between Israel and the PA, demonstrators are not being permitted to approach areas under Israeli control.
The U.S. and Israel oppose the Palestinian bid, arguing that Palestinian statehood should be the result of negotiations. Ordinary Palestinians have expressed concerns about the repercussions of the move; some say they worry about retaliation, such as a tightening of travel restrictions by Israel or a cut in U.S. aid.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also departed for New York on Tuesday, and is set to deliver a speech to the General Assembly on Friday.
The U.S. has pressed Israel not to sanction the Palestinians for their efforts to achieve statehood. On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman denied that he had threatened to break up Netanyahu’s coalition if the prime minister did not punish the Palestinians for their statehood aspirations.
Erdogan plays Palestinian saviour, but what about the Kurds?: Guardian
Turkey’s prime minister is championing Abbas’s UN appeal – yet still has to resolve the Kurdish issue back home
Simon Tisdall
A Kurdish demonstration in Istanbul this month, calling for the release of the jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. Photograph: Tolga Bozoglu/EPA
Turkey’s noisy championing of Palestinian rights, a source of growing friction with the US and Israel, jars uncomfortably with Ankara’s treatment of its own disadvantaged and stateless minority – the Kurds. Bomb attacks this week in Ankara, blamed on Kurdish PKK militants, highlight the deteriorating internal security situation and stoke fears that Turkey’s troubles could spill over into Syria and Iraq, further aggravating Arab spring instability.
Apparently oblivious to possible double standards, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, has been in voluble form of late. His tour last week of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia played upon a common theme – Turkey’s support for the justified aspirations of oppressed peoples everywhere. Erdogan’s long-running feud with Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians reached new heights when he warned the Turkish navy might escort future relief flotillas to Gaza.
Alarmed at the implications for US interests, Barack Obama took time at the UN in New York on Tuesday to talk Erdogan down, stressing their shared interest in peaceful, negotiated outcomes in Palestine, Syria and elsewhere. Turkey is a leading backer of President Mahmoud Abbas’s bid for UN recognition of Palestinian statehood. Obama, flanked by Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu, desperately hopes to shove this uncomfortable issue back in the freezer.
The US also wants to head off renewed ground incursions targeting PKK bases in Iraq, as threatened last week by a senior Turkish minister, given obvious security concerns surrounding the US troop withdrawal. Rising tensions over disputed gas fields off Cyprus are adding to Washington’s worries at a time when, to put it mildly, the Greek government and its Greek Cypriot allies are not in the best shape.
Unfortunately for the majority of Turkey’s Kurds who want a peaceful settlement, one consequence of resulting American appeasement of Ankara is likely to be ever closer US co-operation with Turkey’s escalating military operations against the PKK. Like the EU, the US lists the PKK as a terrorist organisation, a categorisation passionately disputed by the main Kurdish national party, the BDP, which describes it as a “resistance” group. Washington already provides military satellite intelligence to Ankara. Now there is renewed talk of a Turkish base for US Predator drones, which the Turks want to target the PKK inside Iraq.
Erdogan has made important efforts to resolve the Kurdish issue, notably via the so-called “democratic opening” that included talks with the jailed PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan. For their part, the PKK and Kurdish political parties have renounced their former separatist agenda. But gains have been limited, hardliners on both sides have obstructed the process, and Erdogan’s attention has shifted to the wider stage of Arab emancipation and the “re-Ottomanisation”, as some call it, of the Middle East. For him, it seems, the role of grand regional rainmaker is more alluring than that of down-home, hard-slog peacemaker.
The Kurdish parties are still trying to get his attention. The BDP’s woefully under-reported congress in Ankara earlier this month produced an eight-point protocol or “road map” for what it called a democratic resolution; and it proposed resumed talks as a matter of urgency. “All identities, cultures, languages and religions must be protected by the constitution. As a basic principle there must be a constitutional nationality that is not founded on ethnicity,” it said.
“The right to speak in the mother tongue – including in public – must be universally protected by the constitution. Education in the mother tongue language must be recognised as a fundamental right … There must be a transition to a decentralised administration. With regards to autonomy, local, provincial and regional councils must have more powers,” a BDP summary of the protocol said.
This is hardly an earth-shaking or revolutionary agenda. It is a far cry from the forfeited dream of an independent state spanning south-east Turkey, north-western Iran and parts of Syria and Iraq. And as the International Crisis Group notes in a report published this week, the acceptance of universal rights should not be regarded as a concession by the Turkish government.
The ICG report argues persuasively that the basis for a negotiated, peaceful settlement remains in place despite an upsurge in violence since June’s elections that has claimed more than 100 lives. “The PKK must immediately end its new wave of terrorist and insurgent attacks, and the Turkish authorities must control the escalation with the aim to halt all violence. A hot war and militaristic tactics did not solve the Kurdish problem in the 1990s and will not now,” the ICG says.
It continues: “The Turkish Kurd nationalist movement must firmly commit to a legal, non-violent struggle within Turkey, and its elected representatives must take up their seats in parliament, the only place to shape the country-wide reforms that can give Turkish Kurds long-denied universal rights. The Turkish authorities must implement radical judicial, social and political measures that persuade all Turkish Kurds they are fully respected citizens.”
Surely this is not so hard to do? It’s time Erdogan stopped playing Palestinian saviour and put Turkey’s problems first.
What would Palestinian statehood mean?: Guardian
Mahmoud Abbas’s appeal to the UN to recognise Palestine has dominated the agenda. What are its implications?
Harriet Sherwood
World leaders gathering in New York for the United Nations general assembly are convulsed by the call to effectively recognise an independent state of Palestine.
Why are the Palestinians doing this?
Frustrated after years of negotiations, which have gone nowhere, and alarmed by Israel’s ever-expanding settlements on land that is expected to be part of their future state, the Palestinian leadership has decided to appeal to the international community as a way of breaking the deadlock. They say being accorded state status by the world body will strengthen their hand in negotiations, expose Israel as an occupying power in another sovereign state, and allow them recourse to world bodies such as the international criminal court.
Are the Israelis cool about it?
Anything but. They say the Palestinian decision to go the UN proves they are not interested in negotiating a end to the conflict with Israel. They describe it as a unilateral act, which goes against previous agreements such as the 1993 Oslo accords and makes a return to peace talks impossible. Rising expectations of statehood among Palestinians, which cannot be fulfilled, are likely to lead to violence and instability. And they are alarmed at the prospect of being dragged before the ICC, which will also harm the prospects for peace.
How does the world line up?
Despite President Obama saying at last September’s general assembly that he hoped to see a Palestinian state within a year, the US is deeply opposed to the move and indeed has promised to veto it in the security council. They say only negotiations can bring a lasting peace and stability. Others say Obama is worried about the Jewish vote in next year’s US elections.
Europe is divided, and is at the centre of frenetic efforts to avoid this coming to a vote by persuading the parties back to talks.
The Palestinians claim to have the backing of around 130 of the UN’s 193 countries – enough for a resolution to pass in the general assembly. But Israel hopes to be able to claim a “moral minority” of powerful and influential nations. The battle for every vote is continuing.
What do the citizens of this new state say?
Most Palestinians back President Mahmoud Abbas’s move but understand that the realities of life under Israeli occupation won’t change. They are deeply sceptical about the “peace process” and resentful of the Jewish settlements expanding on their land. In Gaza, Hamas is opposed to a move that implicitly accepts an Israeli state alongside a Palestinian state, and many ordinary people simply feel forgotten and excluded.
What about their neighbours, the Israelis?
Many Israelis are anxious about the consequences of the UN recognising a Palestinian state and fear a return to violence. But most want to see two states living side by side eventually, although many are unwilling to make painful compromises to achieve that.
The West Bank settlers, though, are deeply opposed to the very idea of a Palestinian state on land they believe was given to them by God. Hardline elements want to drive the Palestinians out by force and many on both sides fear that settler attacks could trigger confrontations in the coming weeks.
So will there be a Palestinian state by the end of the week?
Unlikely. The frantic efforts to find a way out of the diplomatic car crash seem to be making progress but it’s hard to know whether the Palestinians will be given enough assurances on the framework of new talks to persuade them either to withhold their request or formally submit it but agree to a delay, or have one forced on them. The situation is tense and fluid, both in New York and on the ground in Israel-Palestine, and no one really knows what the outcome of this week will be.
Palestinian statehood: plan emerges to avoid UN showdown: Guardian
Compromise would see Mahmoud Abbas submit letter to security council, which would then defer vote until further talks
Chris McGreal in New York
International efforts to forestall a showdown in the UN security council over the declaration of a Palestinian state are solidifying around a plan for the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to submit a request for recognition but for a vote on the issue to be put on hold while a new round of peace talks is launched.
The deal is being pushed by the Middle East “Quartet” of the UN, EU, US and Russia, which is attempting to persuade Abbas to back away from a diplomatic confrontation with Washington, which says it will veto the Palestinian bid.
The US president Barack Obama is expected to meet the Palestinian leader at the UN on Wednesday as Abbas comes under intense pressure from the US and Europe to compromise.
Diplomats said the proposed compromise would see Abbas submit his letter to the security council, which would then defer action. In parallel, the Quartet would issue the framework for renewed negotiations that would include a timeline for the birth of a Palestinian state.
The deal is intended to permit Abbas to follow through on his commitment to Palestinians to seek recognition for an independent state at the security council, a pledge he could not abandon entirely without considerable damage to his already battered leadership.
If the proposals under discussion come to fruition, Abbas could claim a victory for the Palestinians by saying he has achieved his principal goal in going to the UN of breaking the deadlock that has seen no serious movement towards a Palestinian state in years.
However, diplomats warned that a number of issues remain unresolved, including a Palestinian demand that the statement include a requirement that Israel halt construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
Israel’s position is unclear. Its prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, arrives in New York on Wednesday and has appealed for immediate talks with Abbas but without preconditions.
Diplomats said negotiations were likely to come down to the wire as Abbas plans to submit the request on Friday.
“The Palestinians are open to a way out of this,” said a diplomat with knowledge of the negotiations. “But they can’t abandon the security council vote without something to show. The question is how to turn this to their advantage. If the result is that there is a serious push to make peace talks work, then that’s a win for the Palestinians. I think everyone involved in this – the Americans, the Europeans – would like to see that happen.”
Husam Zomlot, a Palestinian spokesman, said Abbas remains committed to submitting the Palestinian request to the security council but he noted that the intention behind the move was to break the deadlock in the peace process, which may now be happening.
“There is absolutely no contradiction whatsoever between our quest for United Nations full membership and any possible negotiations. In fact, we see them as very very complementary. We are seeking this to provide any future bilateral process with sufficient multilateral cover where we don’t waste another 20 years,” he said.
The proposals under discussion would have the Quartet statement say, at the Palestinians’ behest, that the goal is a Palestinian state based on the borders at the time of the 1967 war that led to the occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. It will also meet an Israeli demand by saying that talks will result in two countries with Israel as a Jewish state.
A Palestinian official acknowledged the plan was a focus of discussion with the Quartet although he cautioned that the leadership is concerned to ensure there is real momentum and that Israel is not permitted to drag out negotiations.
Abbas has come under intense pressure from the US and European nations to avoid forcing Washington to wield its veto. The British foreign secretary, William Hague, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, met the Palestinian leader on Tuesday to press him to reopen talks.
Nabil Shaath, a senior member of Abbas’s delegation to the UN, said the US has attempted to dissuade the Palestinians from going to the security council with the threat of punitive measures. He did not say what they might be although there are demands in Congress for the $500m in US aid to the Palestinian Authority to be cut.
The Palestinians are also under pressure because it is far from certain they will win the necessary nine votes in the security council to win recognition. The US has been using its influence to get some security council members to abstain in the hope the Palestinians will lose the vote and that the US veto will not be required.
Nonetheless, Abbas can claim a diplomatic success in forcing the most serious effort to kickstart peace negotiations in years. The US insistence that it will veto the Palestinian bid for membership in the security council has strengthened the hand of European governments, which have generally be sidelined by Washington in the Middle East peace process.
Britain and France in particular, as permanent members of the security council, have attempted to use their votes as a bargaining chip in dealings with Abbas by suggesting that they could support a move to give the Palestinians greater recognition in the UN general assembly if a vote is not forced in the security council.
However, diplomats cautioned that the plan is far from complete and that obstacles remain.
The Erdogan effect: Al Ahram Weekly
The prime minister of Turkey was the focus of attention in Cairo this week, Dina Ezzat reports
Egyptians greet Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan while holding a banner reading “Welcome dear leader of the free” before a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers at the League’s headquarters in Cairo on Tuesday. Erdogan threw Turkey’s weight behind a Palestinian bid for statehood and criticised Israel in an address to Arab states meeting in Cairo
“He’s very impressive. I mean the way he carries himself and the way he talks. Why don’t we have Arab leaders like this anymore? I mean he is not like [Gamal] Abdel-Nasser, but he is a true leader in the modern sense of the word,” said Hisham, a pharmacist.
Speaking while following news of the visit of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, that started Monday evening and was scheduled to end yesterday, Hisham found three qualities in Erdogan that he hoped Egypt’s next president would have: composure, a modern outlook, and the capability of making good and balanced political decisions. “He gives Israel a hard time, but he does not go all the way into a full confrontation. He serves his country’s dignity, but he does not cross red lines.”
Not only Hisham was impressed. Erdogan euphoria was widespread as thousands gathered at the entrance of Cairo International Airport to welcome the same man whose country is a fully paid up member of NATO. But the crowds were there to greet him as a hero of the Palestinian cause, praising Ankara’s stance against Israel since Israeli naval forces attacked a humanitarian aid boat in the summer of 2010 while trying to reach Gaza. Others are impressed with Turkey’s successful melding of democracy, development and Islam, credited to Erdogan’s ruling party.
Some Erdogan fans even called on him to revive the Islamic Caliphate of the erstwhile Ottoman empire.
The visit of Erdogan to Egypt comes at the beginning of a tour that would also take him to other two North African countries liberated from authoritarian regimes: Tunisia and Libya. It also comes only a month after the Turkish prime minister was in Somalia to call for world support, including Muslim support, for the famine-devastated countries on the Horn of Africa. Some diplomats even spoke of a visit to Israeli besieged Gaza.
Cooperation is a key theme of the tour, especially the visit to Egypt. Over 10 cooperation agreements were signed on Tuesday between ministers accompanying the Turkish prime minister and their Egyptian counterparts under the auspices of Erdogan and Prime Minister Essam Sharaf. Joint Egyptian-Turkish projects in tourism, culture and industry are expected to be pursued shortly.
Business cooperation is also on the cards between entrepreneurs on both sides. Sources accompanying the visiting Turkish prime minister say that the close to 200 businessmen who are accompanying Erdogan are meeting with counterparts in Egypt to explore avenues for cooperation in information technology and natural resources related industries. The Turkish businessmen are call for the suspension of obligatory entry visas between Turkey and Egypt to help fast track business cooperation.
The volume of trade between the countries is expected to jump, along with investment. But future cooperation between Egypt and Turkey is not just about trade, culture and tourism, but also about politics and military and strategic issues. During his meeting with Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Erdogan saw the go ahead given to the Higher Council for Strategic Cooperation between Egypt and Turkey.
During a speech at the Opera House on Tuesday afternoon Erdogan spoke at length on the benefits of cooperation with Egypt. For the audience, the main area of cooperation they hope to see between Cairo and Ankara is in ending Israeli aggression.
In statements at the Cairo Opera House and others before an Arab League ministerial meeting, Erdogan promised to go the extra mile to face up to Israeli intransigence. “Israel is crushing international law and human dignity,” he said, undermining all chances for stability in the region. Further, its aggression is not just limited to the Palestinians, but also other nations, including Turkey and Egypt, which stand in solidarity having suffered the loss of their respective citizens in Israeli acts of aggression.
Erdogan voiced support for the Palestinian diplomatic move of seeking UN recognition for Palestine later this month. He discussed Arab-Turkish diplomatic cooperation with Arab League Secretary-General Nabil El-Arabi.
Beyond committing to cooperation with Arab countries and confronting Israeli intransigence, Erdogan spoke in favour of the Arab peoples’ “legitimate demands” for democracy and freedom. He expressed support for the Syrian people whose demand for political reform is being crushed by the Syrian president and his army.
While in Egypt, Erdogan discussed with Egyptian and other Arab officials possible ways to convince the Syrian president to end the violence against innocent Syrian demonstrators. The shape of the region post-Bashar Al-Assad was also on the agenda of talks with Erdogan.
U.S. should recognize Palestinian state: Haaretz
Just like 23 years ago, today too, Washington is standing like a fortified wall blocking the entry of Palestine to the United Nations.
By Zvi Bar’el
Memory is short and forgetfulness is often deliberate, but 23 years ago the UN General Assembly decided to move its session from New York to Switzerland so that Palestine Liberation Organization head Yasser Arafat could deliver a speech. The reason: U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz refused to issue Yasser Arafat an entry visa to the United States.
Today too, with the opening of the session of the General Assembly, Washington is standing like a fortified wall blocking the entry of Palestine to the UN building. Although Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has no problem getting a visa, when he comes to ask for a state for the Palestinians he is put on a roller coaster. The list of threats and future punishments to be imposed on him and his country, if it is established, guarantees that this will be a state that is battered from birth.
Here is colonialism in all its glory. After all, the United States agrees that there should be a Palestinian state, it even twisted the arm of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a little bit, cautiously so it wouldn’t hurt, so that he would blurt out the necessary formula “two states for two peoples.” U.S. President Barack Obama even spoke about the optimal borders of the Palestinian state and Abbas was not yet required to recognize Israel.
After all, Arafat already recognized it. Palestine fulfilled all the threshold conditions. And still, this state has only one chance of being born the American way. Through negotiations that will lead to a consensual agreement and a handshake. And if Israel’s hand is missing, never mind, the Palestinians will wait until it grows.
But Abbas has learned a thing or two from Israel. The main lesson he has learned is that his real negotiations are not with Israel but with Washington. The second lesson: The negotiations must not take place on a playing field that is convenient for Obama, but rather at the United Nations. There Obama is not facing a beggarly Palestinian Authority that can be frightened with a shout, but 193 countries, each of which must be negotiated with.
New York is not Ramallah. Abbas saw how Israel chose its own playing field in the U.S. Congress, and carefully responded in kind. Instead of going out on a limb, he planted the tree by himself, nurtured it, diligently recruited most of the countries in the world, was helped substantially by Israel’s mistakes, took good advantage of Jerusalem’s isolation, examined the pros and cons and decided that even in loss there would be great gain.
If the United States casts a veto in the UN Security Council, it will cause more damage to Washington than to Abbas; if he makes do with recognition in the General Assembly, it will be in exchange for an American commitment to support a Palestinian state if negotiations fail, as they will.
Abbas caused Washington to be embroiled in a dispute with its European colleagues, and presented Israel as a cripple. He is forcing the United Nations to do what it usually fails to do: to find a peaceful solution to conflicts. As a bonus he caused Netanyahu to say that he is going to deliver a “speech of truth” at the United Nations, thereby admitting in effect that until now he has been lying.
The panic in Washington is genuine. It was evident when David Hale, Obama’s special envoy, was unable to control his temper and simply shouted at Abbas when he understood that he had no intention of retreating from his initiative.
Anger and helplessness could also be detected in the voice of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, when she announced that the United States would cast a veto in the Security Council. Suddenly she realized that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only “the business of the parties involved” but threatens Washington’s regional and international status.
If the United States fails to recognize the Palestinian state, it will have difficulty sidelining its rivals in the new Middle East, where the public has more power than the rulers; if it recognizes the Palestinian state, it will have to ensure its sustainability, in other words, to direct the sanctions against Israel. Truly a bad situation for a great power that aspires to draw the map of the new Middle East.
Had it only made an effort to achieve genuine negotiations when that was still possible, had it invested its efforts into reaching an agreement that it is now investing in preventing the declaration of independence, had it shared the threats equally between the PA and Israel, it may not have found itself in this difficult situation.
It should at least recognize the state now. It should recall what has happened since it refused to grant Arafat his visa.
Robert Fisk: Why the Middle East will never be the same again: Independent
The Palestinians won’t achieve statehood, but they will consign the ‘peace process’ to history.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
The Palestinians won’t get a state this week. But they will prove – if they get enough votes in the General Assembly and if Mahmoud Abbas does not succumb to his characteristic grovelling in the face of US-Israeli power – that they are worthy of statehood. And they will establish for the Arabs what Israel likes to call – when it is enlarging its colonies on stolen land – “facts on the ground”: never again can the United States and Israel snap their fingers and expect the Arabs to click their heels. The US has lost its purchase on the Middle East. It’s over: the “peace process”, the “road map”, the “Oslo agreement”; the whole fandango is history.
Personally, I think “Palestine” is a fantasy state, impossible to create now that the Israelis have stolen so much of the Arabs’ land for their colonial projects. Go take a look at the West Bank, if you don’t believe me. Israel’s massive Jewish colonies, its pernicious building restrictions on Palestinian homes of more than one storey and its closure even of sewage systems as punishment, the “cordons sanitaires” beside the Jordanian frontier, the Israeli-only settlers’ roads have turned the map of the West Bank into the smashed windscreen of a crashed car. Sometimes, I suspect that the only thing that prevents the existence of “Greater Israel” is the obstinacy of those pesky Palestinians.
But we are now talking of much greater matters. This vote at the UN – General Assembly or Security Council, in one sense it hardly matters – is going to divide the West – Americans from Europeans and scores of other nations – and it is going to divide the Arabs from the Americans. It is going to crack open the divisions in the European Union; between eastern and western Europeans, between Germany and France (the former supporting Israel for all the usual historical reasons, the latter sickened by the suffering of the Palestinians) and, of course, between Israel and the EU.
A great anger has been created in the world by decades of Israeli power and military brutality and colonisation; millions of Europeans, while conscious of their own historical responsibility for the Jewish Holocaust and well aware of the violence of Muslim nations, are no longer cowed in their criticism for fear of being abused as anti-Semites. There is racism in the West – and always will be, I fear – against Muslims and Africans, as well as Jews. But what are the Israeli settlements on the West Bank, in which no Arab Muslim Palestinian can live, but an expression of racism?
Israel shares in this tragedy, of course. Its insane government has led its people on this road to perdition, adequately summed up by its sullen fear of democracy in Tunisia and Egypt – how typical that its principle ally in this nonsense should be the awful Saudi Arabia – and its cruel refusal to apologise for the killing of nine Turks in the Gaza flotilla last year and its equal refusal to apologise to Egypt for the killing of five of its policemen during a Palestinian incursion into Israel.
So goodbye to its only regional allies, Turkey and Egypt, in the space of scarcely 12 months. Israel’s cabinet is composed both of intelligent, potentially balanced people such as Ehud Barak, and fools such as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the Ahmadinejad of Israeli politics. Sarcasm aside, Israelis deserve better than this.
The State of Israel may have been created unjustly – the Palestinian Diaspora is proof of this – but it was created legally. And its founders were perfectly capable of doing a deal with King Abdullah of Jordan after the 1948-49 war to divide Palestine between Jews and Arabs. But it had been the UN, which met to decide the fate of Palestine on 29 November 1947, which gave Israel its legitimacy, the Americans being the first to vote for its creation. Now – by a supreme irony of history – it is Israel which wishes to prevent the UN from giving Palestinian Arabs their legitimacy – and it is America which will be the first to veto such a legitimacy.
Does Israel have a right to exist? The question is a tired trap, regularly and stupidly trotted out by Israel’s so-called supporters; to me, too, on regular though increasingly fewer occasions. States – not humans – give other states the right to exist. For individuals to do so, they have to see a map. For where exactly, geographically, is Israel? It is the only nation on earth which does not know and will not declare where its eastern frontier is. Is it the old UN armistice line, the 1967 border so beloved of Abbas and so hated by Netanyahu, or the Palestinian West Bank minus settlements, or the whole of the West Bank?
Show me a map of the United Kingdom which includes England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it has the right to exist. But show me a map of the UK which claims to include the 26 counties of independent Ireland in the UK and shows Dublin to be a British rather than an Irish city, and I will say no, this nation does not have the right to exist within these expanded frontiers. Which is why, in the case of Israel, almost every Western embassy, including the US and British embassies, are in Tel Aviv, not in Jerusalem.
In the new Middle East, amid the Arab Awakening and the revolt of free peoples for dignity and freedom, this UN vote – passed in the General Assembly, vetoed by America if it goes to the Security Council – constitutes a kind of hinge; not just a page turning, but the failure of empire. So locked into Israel has US foreign policy become, so fearful of Israel have almost all its Congressmen and Congresswomen become – to the extent of loving Israel more than America – that America will this week stand out not as the nation that produced Woodrow Wilson and his 14 principles of self-determination, not as the country which fought Nazism and Fascism and Japanese militarism, not as the beacon of freedom which, we are told, its Founding Fathers represented – but as a curmudgeonly, selfish, frightened state whose President, after promising a new affection for the Muslim world, is forced to support an occupying power against a people who only ask for statehood.
Should we say “poor old Obama”, as I have done in the past? I don’t think so. Big on rhetoric, vain, handing out false love in Istanbul and Cairo within months of his election, he will this week prove that his re-election is more important than the future of the Middle East, that his personal ambition to stay in power must take first place over the sufferings of an occupied people. In this context alone, it is bizarre that a man of such supposed high principle should show himself so cowardly. In the new Middle East, in which Arabs are claiming the very same rights and freedoms that Israel and America say they champion, this is a profound tragedy.
US failures to stand up to Israel and to insist on a fair peace in “Palestine”, abetted by the hero of the Iraq war, Blair, are responsible. Arabs too, for allowing their dictators to last so long and thus to clog the sand with false frontiers and old dogmas and oil (and let’s not believe that a “new” “Palestine” would be a paradise for its own people). Israel, too, when it should be welcoming the Palestinian demand for statehood at the UN with all its obligations of security and peace and recognition of other UN members. But no. The game is lost. America’s political power in the Middle East will this week be neutered on behalf of Israel. Quite a sacrifice in the name of liberty…
Palestinian are the creators, not ‘missers’, of opportunity: Haaretz
Palestine was, and still is, a bleeding wound in the body of the Arab nation; now is the time for an historic breakthrough.
By Oudeh Basharat
During these days of the Hebrew month of Elul, on the eve of the declaration of a Palestinian state, and with optimism enveloped by threats hovering in the air, I recalled an old newspaper clipping in my yellowing archive. On July 13, 2000, Haaretz published a letter from reader Naftali Raz in which the sound of silent pain echoes louder than a thousand screams.
In the letter, Raz recalls his own family history, which is interwoven with the history of the conflict here. With deafening silence, he tells the story of relatives and loved ones who have been killed since 1948, and of the milestones in the lives of several leaders. At the end of his sober report, he turns – in the name of the fallen – to then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who was on his way to Camp David, and he calls on him to take action to achieve peace.
On November 19, 1974, Yasser Arafat first ascended the speakers’ dais at the UN General Assembly. The headline on the front page of the newspaper Al-Ittihad read, “Palestine returns to life.” In Nazareth, they distributed knafeh, and I, a 10th-grader then, invited my friends to my house to celebrate. Palestine was, and still is, a bleeding wound in the body of the Arab nation. “Our shame is in Palestine,” Arab intellectuals declared, unable to offer help to the majority of the nation expelled from its homeland. Iraqi poet Mudhaffar al-Nawab warned, “We have turned into the Jews of history.”
Palestinian suffering became a symbol. “Between the fainting and the awakening appeared the face of Palestine, the proud bereaved one, which appears wherever a stranger is tortured,” sighed al-Nawab, who was cruelly tortured during the period of Baath rule in Iraq. Many intellectuals supported the saying, “The road to Jerusalem passes through the Arab capitals.”
The desire for a Palestinian national homeland infected the finest Arab poets and writers. Nizar Qabbani wrote, “As late as they may come – they will yet come, with a grain of wheat and a lemon fruit – from beautiful sadness they are born, olive branches and bouquets of flowers.” And when, on January 1, 1965, the Fatah movement was founded, symbolizing the national rebirth of the Palestinian nation, Fairuz sang her famous song “Bridge of Return” to the movement born “on a night of white darkness, like the first night of the month.”
Self-flagellation also was rife among the Arabs, and they picked up a reputation for “not missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Paradoxically, these “missers of opportunities” became creators of opportunities: the Palestinian declaration of independence, the Saudi initiative, the decisions of the Arab summit and more.
In July 2000, Barak promised to solve the 100-year-old conflict in 100 days, but when he arrived in Washington, instead of leaving no stone unturned, as he had promised, he underwent a change of profession and began to do the job of removing masks. In doing so, he prompted the theory that can be summed up by the slogan: “There’s no partner.” Today, the mask is being removed from the face of the political leadership, which at every opportunity “mourned” the Arabs’ rejection of partition and a state of their own in 1948. But when the Palestinians agree today to a state based on UN decisions, a war-like atmosphere is created here. Today there is an opportunity for a breakthrough.
Let’s go back to the beginning. So what is the connection between Raz’s letter and my survey? Perhaps a matter of associations, and perhaps these are the circles which, after being opened, refuse to be closed. The Palestinian fellahin used to say, “The longer (the harvest ), the more crops are gathered.” But in our case, the wider the circle, the more victims are gathered. Not only in the names of the fallen, but also in the names of the living, we must therefore close this circle.
Is Israel getting the message?: Al Ahram Weekly
While Israeli leaders speak about keeping a low profile, to repair relations with erstwhile allies, many doubt Tel Aviv is prepared to embrace a path to peace, writes Khaled Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem
Israeli soldiers push back Palestinians holding national flags and banners during a protest against Israel’s apartheid wall in the village of Maasarah, West Bank
With Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recognising, though fairly belatedly, that the Middle East is undergoing a real political earthquake of historic proportions, Israel is showing signs of confusion in face of what the Israeli media is calling “the new strategic situation in the region”.
Israel had hoped the “Arab Spring” would be a passing cloud that would leave the basic regional geopolitical order more or less unscathed. However, with the latest crises between Tel Aviv on one side and both Cairo and Ankara on the other, the former is beginning, though slowly and reluctantly, to realise that the arrogance of power is largely inexpedient, unduly provocative and detrimental to Israel’s standing and interests.
The storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo at the weekend and outbreak of a serious “mini-crisis” of relations with the largest Arab country was an ominous development that Israel didn’t want to foresee due to a prevailing psyche that discounts even looming dangers and treats adversaries with contempt, including their grievances.
Reacting to the embassy incident in Cairo, however, Netanyahu described the incident as “serious and dangerous”. Bemoaning the “severe injury to the fabric of peace” between the two countries, Netanyahu said Israel would undertake the utmost efforts to maintain peace with Egypt.
Nonetheless, the Israeli premier failed to make any connection between the criminal treatment Israel has been meting out to Palestinians and rising anti-Israeli sentiment across the Arab and Muslim world. “We must maintain security and advance our interests,” he said.
Israeli leaders, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, have perhaps recognised that Israel, at least for the time being, has to keep a low profile in the hope that this “murky phase would pass with minimum losses for Israel”. It is a change, at least in discourse, from last week when Lieberman threatened Turkey with doom and gloom, including arming and training PKK rebels. The sabre rattling drew strong reactions from Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu.
Some Israeli opposition figures as well as media pundits dismissed the restrained tone of Netanyahu and his political and ideological allies as disingenuous, and “burying one’s head in the sand”. Aluf Ben, Haaretz editor-in-chief, lambasted Netanyahu for adopting a misleading policy based on ignoring the reality around Israel and pretending that everything will be fine in the end.
Describing the “crises” with Turkey and Egypt as a “political Tsunami” for Israel, Benn argued that Israel was left isolated facing Iran, Turkey and Egypt, the latter two of which in the past were considered close allies.
Another Israeli commentator, Sefi Rachlevsky, described Netanyahu as an extremist leader to an unfathomable degree who has got to go as he is leading a generations-old dream to an apocalypse. “Promises, deceit and words are tools. But in Netanyahu’s case, the masquerade is over, even for those who are addicted to false hopes.”
Acting on recommendations issued recently by Israel’s intelligence and security agencies, including Mossad and Shin Bet, which urged the Israeli government to restore normal relations with both Egypt and Turkey as soon as possible, Israeli leaders have vowed to maintain relations, including the 1979 Camp David Peace Treaty with Egypt.
Opposition leaders also urged the Netanyahu government to preserve and strengthen the peace agreement with Cairo, with Shaul Mofaz, a notorious figure now chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, describing the storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo as “the new painful and evil definition” of Israeli-Egyptian relations.
Apart from showing “goodwill” towards Egypt and Turkey, Israel so far seems unwilling to take tangible steps to defuse anti-Israeli sentiments across the Arab world, which have accumulated across many years of Israeli aggression and murderous and callous disregard for Arab rights and grievances.
Indeed, many observers in the region readily assert that any Arab leadership amid the new Arab situation would find it difficult to control and contain anti-Israeli sentiment if Israel keeps behaving characteristically, which is to say arrogantly and belligerently.
Recommendations by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Shin Bet, Mossad and Military Intelligence advise speedy progress vis-³-vis the Palestinian issue in order to tone down anti-Israeli feelings in the Arab world and improve Israel’s standing.
However, such a tactical course and manoeuvre would only have short-lived benefit for Israel and might trigger even greater hostility across the Arab and Muslim world where the masses are well versed in, and fed up with, Israeli deceptions and prevarications.