The Sharm El-Sheikh summit of Sharon and Abbas is hailed in the Western media as the opening of a new era. This is the climax of a wave of optimism that has been generated since the death of Arafat. In the last four years, the Israeli leadership singled Arafat out as the main obstacle for peace. Adopting the Israeli perspective, the media world believes that his departure would enable a renewal of the peace process. This, in the media world, is coupled with the faith that Israel is finally led by a man of peace. Sharon, who might have had some problems in the past, so the story goes, has changed his skin, and now he is leading Israel to painful concessions. Tanya Reinhart comments. Read more about From Aqaba to Sharm: Fake Peace Festivals
Amid international efforts to flourish the peace industry, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende is due next week to visit Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. Under the past Dutch presidency of the European Union (EU), the Dutch government has put a lot of efforts to enhance the EU involvement in the Middle East diplomatic process. However, the costs of these efforts have been enormous. Instead of providing incentives to ensure Israel respects international humanitarian law, under the leadership of the Netherlands, Israel received rewards without withdrawing one single soldier from Gaza. Read more about In bed with Israel: EU's close relationship with Israel supports abuse
Avi Shlaim
Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and the state of Israel is its political expression. Israel used to be a symbol of freedom and a source of pride for the Jews of the Diaspora. Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians, however, has turned it into a liability and a moral burden for the liberal segment of the Jewish community. Some Jews, especially on the left, would go even further by linking Israel’s behavior to the upsurge of the new anti-Semitism throughout the world. Read more about Why Zionism today is the real enemy of the Jews
“Every time a Gazan father faints as he watches his family home demolished; every time a Jew, Muslim or Christian is violently attacked by armed Israelis because they are non-violently protesting the separation wall; every time a rain of Israeli army bullets flies into the body of a young child on her way to school; every time a young Palestinian man is made to play violin by Israeli soldiers, or a pregnant woman dies at a checkpoint, Jews like us must speak out.” Commentator Cecilie Surasky is communications director for Jewish Voice for Peace and a New Voices fellow with the Academy of Educational Development. Read more about Speaking out about Israel to save the Jewish soul
The recent election of Mahmoud Abbas as the new President of the Palestinian Authority has renewed speculation that 2005 will bring genuine peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Insofar as it depends on Israel’s own intentions, however, such hope is entirely misplaced. Israel has made it clear that the first thing it expects of the new Palestinian leader is for him to bring the Palestinian population under control, something it could not achieve with its gloves off during almost two decades of direct military occupation of Palestinian land. Professor Saree Makdisi comments for EI. Read more about Israel's fantasy stands in the way of peace
Only hours after Mahmoud Abbas was sworn in as president of the Palestinian Authority, he found himself in the middle of a crisis. The Israeli government announced it would freeze all contacts with him, prompting negotiations affairs minister Saeb Erekat to accuse Israel of planning to do to Abu Mazen what it had done to the late President Yasser Arafat, who ended up besieged in his headquarters and almost completely frozen out of the diplomatic loop. Events had snowballed for the new president after a joint operation by three armed factions on the Mintar (Karni) Crossing on January 14 claimed the lives of six Israelis. Read more about In at the deep end for Abu Mazen
Two months ago I returned from a two-week family visit to Israel. Although I am an activist for Palestinian rights, I decided that this visit would be entirely private. Living for two weeks with my brother, his wife and their two little girls in their tiny apartment in a North Tel-Aviv suburb, gave me an opportunity to observe and see what daily life is like for Israelis at the moment. Israelis have always talked about peace, sung about it, made art and poetry about it as if it is something almost supernatural, some kind of a paradise that they yearn for but that has nothing to do with their everyday reality, and that they have no idea how to create. Read more about What "Peace" Really Means to Israelis
What explains the widespread readiness of various groups to lapse into hypnosis and euphoria about a non-existent “window of opportunity” for peace, ask EI co-founder Ali Abunimah and regular contributor Hasan Abu Nimah? They examine the motives of various constituencies that have welcomed the charade of the Mahmoud Abbas election from an endless stream of EU envoys to the US government, and suggest that the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority may have more in common in their approach to the peace process than initially meets the eye. Read more about Mass hypnosis in the Middle East
Yesterday’s presidential poll, like a stilted, shotgun wedding, had a strange energy — drained, anemic, and hesitant. No one seemed genuinely enthusiastic. The bride was not there, after all, and big issues and concerns were also missing. Universal human rights and international humanitarian law were not honored guests at this celebration. Inviting them might have elicited passions. Had that happened, Abu Mazen might have lost his title of “moderate candidate.” Yesterday’s elections did not choose a president so much as they formalized a rite of passage in the upper ranks of Fatah, passing the mantle of leadership of the Palestinian Authority from the late Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a., Abu Mazen. Read more about Where is the bride?
Once again, the media and the international peace process industry have declared that it is an “historic day” for the Palestinian people. The occasion this time is the election of Mahmoud Abbas as head of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied territories. EI co-founder Ali Abunimah reflects that in the ghost-written screenplay that the Palestinians are being forced to act out, the election is “good news.” This means that any information that interferes with this agreed narrative that we are at the cusp of a new era of peace, democracy and reform has to be carefully filtered out of public view. Read more about Yet another historic day
