It is fair to say that despite not having a presidential election since 1996, Palestinians are hardly euphoric over the upcoming vote. While President Bush stated December 20, “There will never be peace until a true democratic state emerges in the Palestinian territory,” Palestinians and anyone else who cares to examine the realities happening on the ground, know that peace depends on the cessation of the Israeli military occupation Palestinians have been enduring since 1967, the reaching of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, and the ability for both Israelis and Palestinians to exercise their self-determination. Read more about Palestinian elections: A democratic exercise in futility
Writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is like writing about the “theater of the absurd”: it means penning reviews on tragicomedies that reflect the impermanence of values that question the validity of structured conventions and highlight the precariousness of human life. The shocking truth about such theater is that its dark and brooding mien serves as a thin cover for its laugh-out-loud quality. A review of the past year provides a number of skits from a particularly inspired performance. Mark Perry reflects for the Palestine Report. Read more about Touch it and die
The Herzlia Conference has become, in the last few years, Ariel Sharon’s favorite forum for addressing the nation. One year ago (December 18, 2003), the Israeli PM used it to high dramatic effect: If the Palestinians do not take steps, he said, to quash terrorism within six months, as prescribed by the Road Map, Israel would disengage unilaterally from the Gaza Strip. The speech was curt and tense, without optimistic flourishes. This year (December 18, 2004), Sharon’s Herzlia speech was euphoric. The year 2005, he announced, would be “the year of opportunities.” Roni Ben Efrat comments. Read more about On the Narrow Shoulders of Abu Mazen
Supporters of Israel have often accused Arab states of cynically exploiting the Israeli problem and the suffering it has caused the Palestinians to distract their own populations from domestic troubles. But if this has occurred, others, far beyond the region have also found the conflict a useful tool for their own selfish purposes. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is the latest leader to brazenly exploit this tragedy, write EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah and co-founder Ali Abunimah. Having caused massive harm to his country’s reputation and credibility by allying it with Bush’s illegal Iraq invasion, Blair has sought to mitigate the political cost by repeatedly playing the Palestinian card. Read more about A parade of charlatans
How little has changed. Except for the lack of Congressional resistance, the situation in the Israeli-occupied territories mirrors that of apartheid South Africa. Palestinians are being forced, either by choice or fate, to agree to “acceptable” candidates for elections to offices that will have only as much power as the Israeli government, underwritten by the Bush administration, grants. Sam Bahour and Todd May report for EI. Read more about Elections without Democracy
The Palestine Liberation Organisation has, over decades, committed many strategic blunders that continue to reverberate today, especially as its leadership seems poised to commit yet more, if granted the opportunity. The essence of the failed PLO strategy is that it put the priority of having a state under PLO leadership ahead of liberating the land from Israeli occupation. The PLO’s relentless emphasis on the establishment of a state has gradually marginalized all the central causes of the conflict. EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah and co-founder Ali Abunimah look at the failure of PLO strategy in recent decades and warn that the Palestinians may yet face the mother of all disasters. Read more about The mother of all disasters?
“Paul Virilio, the French social theorist and war historian, has a useful term for the sort of state violence that Israel is pursuing: “war on the milieu.” According to Virilio, the classical model of waging war is increasingly being replaced by a model of perpetual counterinsurgency, in which war happens not in a strategic arena, but on it. Within such a model, war is waged directly on civilians and on the natural and built environment that ensures their survival. ” Scholar and activist John Collins examines the political economy and symbolic resonance of olive trees in the Palestinian struggle against occupation. Read more about Israel’s war on the milieu
The steady flow of international dignitaries to Israel and Palestine following the confirmation of the new transitional Palestinian leadership has been rather impressive but it is far past time for the international community to stand up and take action. Enough of throwing money, food, consultants, death, despair and destruction at the Palestinians. The time is now for the community of nations to impose international law to end this global tragedy. Sam Bahour comments. Read more about WANTED: Middle East Mediator
The leaders of the global war on terror keep promising us a future of democracy, peace, justice, respect for human rights and dignity even as they make war, and chaos seems to be erupting everywhere. In their sights is a world free of the prevailing evil — where bad people, and their misguided beliefs, ignorance, fanaticism, hatred, “anti-Semitism” and, worst of all, “terrorism” are no longer allowed to impede our peaceful existence. Such a world would, no doubt, be a wonderful place. The world has never enjoyed total peace in the past, but the new kind of conflict, in which traditional nation states fight against invisible and shadowy groups, seems to hold a new kind of horror. Hasan Abu Nimah comments. Read more about Pointing forward, moving backwards
Palestinian Liberation Organisation chairman Mahmud Abbas has appealed to the UN to help facilitate the Palestinian presidential election, during talks in Jordan with the UN Middle East envoy. Abbas and interim prime minister, Ahmad Quraya, asked Terje Roed-Larsen to support the Palestinian elections. They also asked that he pressure Israel to ensure voters can cast their ballots freely, Palestinian representative in Amman, Ata Allah Khairy, said. The Palestinian Authority had already notified the quartet of the arrest of several nominees in Dahiriya, as well as the harassment and brief detention of two presidential candidates. Khalid Amayreh reports. Read more about UN help sought for Palestinian presidential elections
