Opinion/Editorial

When the PLO moved its leadership and cadres from exile to the Occupied Territories, they did not come as liberators, but merely to join their people as fellow prisoners of the Israelis. From the first days of the Oslo accords, even Palestinian leaders were subjected to the most humiliating controls by the occupier, except when “VIP” passes were granted as a favor and privilege to be withdrawn at any time. Today, “VIP” stands only for “Very Important Prisoner.”

To forget a massacre is to murder the victims a second time; to forget the dead is to condone the crime and to excuse the killers. And the dead of Sabra and Shatila have been killed many, many times. EI’s Laurie King-Irani writes about the massacre.

One year later, people in the Arab world are still struggling with the enormity and meaning of the September 11 attacks. Hasan Abu-Nimah provides his perspective from Amman.

From Durban and the World Conference Against Racism, a covenant to address the inequities and grievances that nurture terrorism, oppression, and conflict. Jeff Halper, coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions writes from Jerusalem.

An Israeli newspaper has revealed the contents of an agreement between PLO Jerusalem spokesman Sari Nusseibeh, and former chief of the Israeli secret police, Ami Ayalon, for a final Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. EI’s Ali Abunimah says that this document is full of deceptive language concealing disasterous concessions which liquidate basic Palestinian human rights.

The use of flechette rounds in war is not proscribed by the Geneva Convention but their use in internal security operations is more problematic.

On July 3, after an Israeli from the settlement of Susiya in the southern West Bank was found murdered, and without any suspects being identified or arrested, the Israeli army unleashed an unprecedented campaign of revenge and ethnic cleansing against the entire civilian Palestinian population of the area.

It ought to be possible to find a way to resolve political conflicts peacefully so that no more Palestinian or Israeli parents are left to grieve. But the callous indifference and irresponsibility of the world’s great powers, the intransigence of Israel’s leaders and the weakness and divisions in the Arab world ensure that the Palestinian struggle — the last great anti-colonial struggle of the twentieth century — will continue well into the twenty-first.

The following e-mail was sent out on 6 July 2001 to several Red Hot Chili Peppers mailing lists, and posted on several bulletin boards relating to the band. The best way to raise an issue outside of the usual audience remains… raising the issue outside the usual audience.

In contrast to the spirit of blood and revenge which is now dominating the Israeli public discourse, there has been for years a wide consensus in the Israeli society that peace with the Palestinians requires withdrawal from the occupied territories and evacuation of settlements.