Madison Rafah Journal

A Forum for the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project

Carter enters lions' den

Categories: Apartheid, Israel Lobby, USA. Posted by: Administrator on March 31, 2007 at 10:06 pm.

Despite criticism, his book is work of a true patriot

Paul Findley, Chicago Tribune, February 7, 2007

At the age of 82, Jimmy Carter entered the lion's den. With the publication of his latest book, "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid," he did what a patriot would do: rally Americans to vigorous debate of a critical issue that affects our future. He deserves a hero's praise. Instead, he has been attacked and defamed.

I had the honor to serve as the senior Republican on the Middle East Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee throughout the Carter administration. Carter frequently invited me to huddles in the White House; discussions that would ultimately lead to a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt. I know Carter well and consider him a friend.

I also experienced firsthand what Carter now faces. Toward the end of my 22-year tenure in Congress, I spoke in favor of Palestinian rights and was critical of Israeli policies of Palestinian land confiscation and Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian lands. These actions were counter to American policy and values. They dimmed chances for peace.

As a result of my evenhanded position, the pro-Israel lobby poured money into my opponent's campaign. I overcame their challenge in 1980 but lost in 1982 by a narrow margin. Still, the message was heard loudly on Capitol Hill: Criticize Israel and pay with your congressional seat.

(Read on …)

Palestinian hope held hostage

Categories: Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions, Occupied Palestine, USA. Posted by: Administrator on March 31, 2007 at 9:51 pm.

Economic sanctions are keeping Palestinians from building a life

Salam Fayyad, Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2007

TWO WEEKS AGO, I became the minster of finance for a people whose economy has all but collapsed. It was the start of business for the new Palestinian unity government, born after months of tricky on-again, off-again negotiations and amid economic sanctions, bloodshed and misery.

The government came together after a bad year for the struggling Palestinian Authority. Our economic difficulties grew much worse during that period, in the aftermath of a free and fair election that brought Hamas to power. Because Hamas' political platform did not conform to key elements of the peace process, including Palestinian recognition of Israel's right to exist and a commitment to renounce violence, the international community imposed sanctions on the Palestinian Authority.

Although much of the discussion leading to the formation of the unity government has focused on these two commitments, their validity should not have been much in question. After all, these commitments were made by the Palestine Liberation Organization, the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, in a crystal-clear and binding agreement in 1993, and no Palestinian government has the authority to revoke them. In fact, the unity government's platform explicitly states that it will honor all PLO agreements, which, to be sure, include these two commitments.

As someone who has long worked for peace and reconciliation with Israel — a peace based on mutual recognition of each people's rights — I have always subscribed to the PLO's political program and all the commitments it embodies, including the recognition of Israel's right to exist and the renunciation of violence. I still do. My top priority is to lead the effort to end the economic sanctions and to restore the integrity of our public finance system.

(Read on …)

Palestinians reclaim Gaza farmland

Categories: Gaza, Occupied Palestine. Posted by: Administrator on March 31, 2007 at 1:29 pm.

Philip Rizk in Gaza, Al Jazeera, MARCH 29, 2007

Nearly 18 months after Israel completed its disengagement from illegal settlements in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian farmers and contractors have begun agricultural and academic projects to rehabilitate the area.

During Israel's 38-year military presence in the Gaza Strip, the settlements had been cordoned off by security zones which insulated and protected the settlers but also prevented Palestinian farmers from accessing their farmland.

However, where the northern settlements once stood, uprooted fields are now being replanted with strawberries, potatoes and carrots, and wells and irrigation systems are being repaired.

Loai Ali Khadeer, a 20-year-old farmer from Beit Lahiya who has planted strawberries on 10 donums (one donum is the equivalent of 2,500sq m) of rented land, says: "It's better than before, a lot better.

"I hope it stays like this and the situation doesn't get worse. Now there are no problems, Arabs are planting on land next to Jews."

(Read on …)

What are we waiting for?

Categories: Occupied Palestine. Posted by: Administrator on March 31, 2007 at 1:18 pm.

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Zalman Shapira, 29 Mar 2007

At the Madrid Conference in January, senior government officials from the Arab world got up one after the other and expressed their amazement: What has happened to Israel? For the first time in the history of the conflict, not only Egypt and Jordan but the entire Arab League is proposing peace, but Israel is turning its back.

Has something changed in the Arab world? Have the Arabs really changed? Nobody has a precise answer. In effect, we can reasonably assume that to the Arabs we are still a foreign implant in the region. It is not the Arabs who have changed, but the circumstances.

A new enemy is confronting the Arab elite, even more frightening and dangerous than Israel. Radical Islam threatens not only the public survival of the elite, but its physical survival as well. Ostensibly the military-civil establishment is still in control, with the support of the intellectual elite, but the masses are already captivated by radical Islam.

All the external signs warn that the Middle East is facing a tremendous geopolitical change. The seed of the disaster of radical Islam has already been planted in its womb. The fetus is gradually developing. Nobody knows the date of birth, since the laws of nature do not apply to the Middle East, but when it takes place, it will bring about a fundamental change.

(Read on …)

The Fantasy of American Diplomacy in the Middle East

Categories: Occupied Palestine, USA. Posted by: Administrator on March 31, 2007 at 1:10 pm.

Tony Karon and Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, March 30, 2007

Ever since September 2001, the president's central operative image has been "war" – specifically, his "global war on terror" (promptly transformed into the grim acronym GWOT). With it went the fantasy that we had been plunged into the modern equivalent of World War II with – as George loved to put it – "theaters" of operation and "fronts" on a global scale. Remember how, as we occupied Baghdad in April 2003, administration pronouncements almost made it seem as though we were occupying Tokyo or Berlin, 1945? And when things went badly in Iraq, that country quickly became "the central front in the war on terror" in the president's speeches. Well, now it may indeed be just that.

In the framework – essentially a fundamentalist religion – of global force and "preventive" war adopted by the Bush administration, the only place for diplomats was assumedly on the sidelines, holding the pens, as the enemy surrendered to the military. (Too bad, when we hit Baghdad, there was no one around to surrender, no way to put a John Hancock on our "victory.") Otherwise, as classically happened in Iraq, where the State Department, despite copious planning for the postwar moment, was cut out of the process and left in the Kuwaiti or Washingtonian dust by Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, all issues of diplomacy were essentially relegated to Wimp World. After all, as the infamous neocon slogan once went, "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran." And it was well known that diplomats were not "real men."

Nowhere on the planet was a diplomat worth a sou. Not surprisingly, then, the two central figures in George W. Bush's second-term diplomatic non-endeavors became his two key female enablers, Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state, and Karen Hughes, now undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs. Not surprisingly, Rice has managed to do nothing of significance on our planet – even the great diplomatic "success" of this administration, its shaky deal with North Korea, was basically crafted by the Chinese on terms worse than could have been obtained years earlier – and Hughes, as diplomacy's spinmeister, has managed to put less than no polish on our globally disastrous image.

By now, of course, we've arrived at a moment in the Middle East so grim, so fraught with dangers, so at the edge of who knows what, with so many disparate crises merging, that it's even occurred to Rice something must be done. As Tony Karon, savvy guy, senior editor at Time.com, and the creator of the ever-thoughtful and provocative blog Rootless Cosmopolitan points out, Rice has so far gotten a free ride here. Her approval ratings, until recently, hovered well above 50%, while the president's were sinking close to 30%. Let Karon now explain to you where we really are in the Middle East, diplomatically speaking. Tom

(Read on …)

Arab leaders urge Israel to take peace offer

Categories: Occupied Palestine. Posted by: Administrator on March 31, 2007 at 12:52 pm.

Wafa Amr and Andrew Hammond, 30 Mar 2007

RIYADH, March 29 (Reuters) – Arab leaders on Thursday endorsed a 5-year-old peace plan to end conflict with Israel, and the Israeli prime minister said he saw a "revolutionary change" in the Arab world.

The endorsement at a two-day Arab summit came amid a U.S. push to restart the Middle East peace process, and Washington described it as "very positive".

The Palestinian president warned of more violence if the "hand of peace" was rejected and the prime minister of Israel, which turned down the plan in 2002, described the summit as "a serious affair".

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Saudi Arabia, which hosted the summit, was the Arab country that would "eventually determine the Arabs' ability to reach a compromise with Israel", Israeli media quoted him as saying.

"This process has brought the influential countries in the Arab world to begin to realise that Israel is not the biggest of all their troubles. This is a revolutionary change in their perception."

(Read on …)

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