Madison-Rafah Journal

ZAHI KHOURI
Wall Street Journal
September 30, 2006; Page A8

In 1995, I moved from a comfortable life in America to Ramallah, Palestine, to invest in the most American of businesses there. I was instrumental in bringing Coca-Cola to the Middle East in the early 1980s; after the Oslo Peace Accords were signed I decided to launch the Coke franchise in the West Bank and Gaza.

Over the last decade, the business has grown. Today, Coca-Cola employs hundreds of Palestinians and sells 10 million cases of Coke a year.

As a Palestinian American, this was more than a moneymaking venture. Each gleaming bottle, with that red Coca-Cola swirl in both Arabic and English, would be a miniature ambassador from America . And each potential investor who saw that Coke was successful might decide to invest as well. It seemed the perfect strategy: to promote American interests while helping to build an economy that could serve as the foundation of a viable, independent Palestinian state.

Following the peace accords, scores of other Palestinian Americans moved to the West Bank and Gaza. Professors came to teach at universities. Doctors came to help modernize the healthcare system and treat patients. Artists came to exhibit and perform. Other business professionals came to invest, modernize the economy and create jobs. Each, in their way, wanted to help build an independent Palestine. Each served as the real ambassadors of America, so different from the American-made Apache helicopters and F-16 fighter jets Israel uses to rain destruction on the Palestinian economy, cities and villages.

(Read on …)

JERUSALEM, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Israel's bombing of a power plant in the Gaza Strip this year was disproportionate and constituted a war crime under international law, an Israeli human rights group said on Wednesday.

Israeli war planes bombed and largely destroyed the power plant outside Gaza City on June 28, three days after Palestinian militants abducted an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid from Gaza. The soldier is still being held.

The bombing cut off electricity to many of Gaza's 1.4 million residents, affecting hospitals and food supplies, and had a knock-on impact on the water and sewage systems.

Israel said it bombed the plant to cut power supplies and make it more difficult for militants to operate and move the captured soldier and denied that the attack was a war crime.

"It's acceptable under international law to target infrastructure when that infrastructure is exploited and used by the enemy to conduct his aggressive war against you," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

(Read on …)

Reuters

Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison for Palestinians where life is "intolerable, appalling, tragic" and appears to have thrown away the key, a United Nations human rights envoy said on Tuesday.

Special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territory John Dugard said that the suffering of the Palestinians was a test of the readiness of the international community to protect human rights.

In response, Itzhak Levanon, Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, rejected Dugard's allegations as "one-sided" and not reflecting reality.

"If … the international community cannot … take some action, [it] must not be surprised if the people of the planet disbelieve that they are seriously committed to the promotion of human rights," Dugard said in a statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The South African lawyer, who has been a special UN investigator since 2001, repeated earlier accusations that Israel is breaking international humanitarian law with security measures which amount to "collective punishment."

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By Patrick Seale, Special to Gulf News

Is the ice cracking in the long-frozen Middle East peace process? Is a thaw on the way? At a meeting with Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN last week, US President George W. Bush reaffirmed his "vision" of an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will soon be heading for the Middle East, presumably to explore how to get things moving.

The Bush administration seems to be awakening from its six-year stupor regarding the Arab-Israeli peace process. It may even have begun to recognise the limits of military power and to be considering the possible merits of dialogue, not only between Israelis and Palestinians but even between the United States itself and Iran.

But that is as far as it goes: talks about talks. There is still no hint that America is prepared to use real muscle to bring about a settlement.

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Our group, trapped in Cairo, has watched the destruction from afar with a sense of dread. Ahmad calls home every day to talk to his three-year-old daughter.

By Dr. Eyad El Sarraj
PalestineChronicle.com

Over the last three months in Cairo I found myself part of a small group of Palestinians, all waiting to go home to Gaza. Jad Tayeh was the youngest and most energetic. He had a rare sense of humor, a keen political analysis and he was a warm company. We would meet over lunch and would spend the evenings discussing politics.

Jad was restless and anxious. He went on a few short trips to different capitals. Then last week he was told that he could go back to Gaza across the Jordan River bridge, and then through the Eretz check point. As the second man in the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence service, Jad got the kind of treatment reserved for high Palestinian officials.

So he left Cairo for Amman and then on to Gaza. Three days later he was killed. He was in his car in with three friends and his driver when suddenly bullets were shot at them from a car speeding towards them, and then from a second car. Jad fell in a pool of blood. The assassins approached and shot him in the head. Then they killed his four companions.

I heard the news on Aljazeera and could not believe it. Our group soon gathered, all but Jad. We were all in tears. There was a shared feeling of disbelief. We thought Jad would somehow show up. It is so painful to realize that he will not.

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Aharon Shabtai

In time of war
I side with the villages
with the mosques
in this war
I side with the Shiite family
with Sour (Tyre)
with the mother
with the grandfather
with the eight kids in the mini van
with the white silken headscarf.

In the name of the beautiful books I read
in the name of the kisses I kissed
May the army be defeated.

[More]

Palestinians brace for bleakest Ramadan
yet, as Gaza sinks deeper into poverty

The Associated Press
September 23, 2006

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Gaza's children used to light colorful lanterns to celebrate Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. But this year, many parents can't afford even the small $1 toys, as Gaza sinks deeper into poverty and readies for the bleakest Ramadan yet.

"These days, I just want to cry," said Umm Emad, a mother of six. The only lantern in her house is a paraffin lamp she keeps for Gaza's frequent power cuts.

Ramadan, which began Saturday in the West Bank and Gaza and other parts of the Muslim world, is a time of fasting from dawn to dusk, piety and giving to the poor. It's also a festive month, with large family meals after sundown, social get-togethers and new clothes for everyone.

But Gaza is poorer than ever, and many will not be able to observe all Ramadan traditions. The U.N. feeds some 1 million of Gaza's 1.4 million people. One of the U.N. agencies, the World Food Program, added some 60,000 needy people for a total of 220,000 to its roster in September alone.

(Read on …)