What has changed? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
The latest decision by the European Union to put conditions on assistance to the Palestinian authority is neither a surprise nor a political turnaround. Europe continues to bend in the face of US injunctions, while its policies in the Middle East remain driven by fear, over cautiousness and hypocrisy.
For the last sixty years, one manipulates, one lies and one deceives. Today, one imposes three conditions on the Palestinian Authority in the name of same United Nations resolutions or international law that successive Israeli governments have never ceased to mock, neglect and infringe upon. In the corridors of Washington or Brussels, everyone knows, everyone is silent.
Most recently, one even went to the extent of pretending to believe in the good intentions of Ariel Sharon’s government “working for peace.” They accepted the outright lies that followed the “agreements” of Sharm al-Shaykh with the “historical retreat” of Gaza and the unilateral commitment “for peace.” One pretended to believe this was all about agreements without setting the scene, all with the intention of gaining time. In the contrived jubilation, and in the floodlights of cameras, one pretended to think that Gaza had been liberated whereas Israel installed other colonies elsewhere, on twice and a half more land than it had originally restored. One pretended to believe in the peaceful intentions of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (for whom the Palestinians, then Arafat, then Abû Mâzen, then the Palestinians were not reliable partners) who, with his new “moderate party”, and now his successor, “built” a unilateral peace drawn here by an odious Bantustan, and there, by an inhuman “prison wall” on almost 19% of Palestinian territory. Beautiful peace, indeed. In the corridors of Washington and Brussels, everyone knows, everyone keeps silent.
Nothing has changed. The trap of electoral transparency has neatly closed in again on a people to whom the last sixty years of history has only clarified the extreme cynicism and deep fear of the European political class. Here are these people who have made a “bad democratic choice” – they will most certainly receive humanitarian assistance but nothing for the elected Palestinian Authority who will have to comprehend and apply United Nations resolutions and International law. Despite the fact that the Israeli wall is built by transgressing these same resolutions, despite the fact that political assassinations and summary executions perpetrated by the Tel Aviv government go against these resolutions, and despite the fact that the multiplication of settlement colonies completely break these same laws… it doesn’t matter!
The Israeli democracy is worthy of respect and subject to absolutely no conditions, even though it has been directed for so long by women and men who themselves have either been assassins or have directly assisted with massacres (as was the case with Sharon in Sabra and Shatila). On the contrary, it is Israel who imposes its conditions on the United States as well as Europe. And all of this with the arrogance of an innate, absolute and sovereign right. In the corridors of Washington or Brussels, everyone knows, everyone keeps silent.
Nothing has changed. Yesterday, Europe made a decision that reflects its policy towards the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is also perhaps the only file in which there appears to exist the pretence of “a European foreign policy”. But this case is sad, worrying and, in the end, revolting. The fear that paralyzes the European politicians vis-à-vis the State of Israel and the power of certain Zionist lobbies is truly shocking. Does the love of power and fear of losing it create such blindness to the point of blocking the human conscience to the daily horrors undergone by the Palestinians? Who would pretend to have faith in any type of political ethics? Who are those, and which kind of political courage distinguishes them, who almost apologised three years ago because the Europeans stated (in an anonymous survey) that Israël was the country which most threatened world peace. Like usual, though, in the corridors Washington or Brussels, everyone knows it, everyone keeps silent.
Will one ever see the day when politicians who are just a little honest, a little courageous… who will finally dare to say what the world knows? Perhaps this will be the duty of the people to elect them? The road is long but in the face of all the hypocrisy and ever-present cynicism, it is at least necessary to consciously decide not to keep quiet. Never. The dignity of the Palestinians is to resist, ours is to denounce. If we want less violence, we must “unilaterally” break the silence. That means denouncing fears as much as the unjust and wretched policies which continue to kill an entire people in an occupied territory, bloodless, in open-air prisons, in the sight of all and known to all.
As I write these lines, a bomb falls down every five minutes on Gaza and kills and terrorizes thousands of children and an entire people. Perhaps these bombs are a teaching tool used to instruct the Palestinians the palpable consequences of the “right democratic choices” of Israel that the United States and the Europeans support in the name of a selective international law. Beautiful lesson, beautiful future of peace. Beautiful lies, beautiful joke. Colonized by fear and an accessory to its collective resignation, the European political community does not cease in bending under the US diktats, the power of Israel and its subsequent lobbies. In the corridors of Brussels, everyone knows it, everyone is silent.
The Palestinians will continue to suffer. And there is no question about ceasing to criticize each and every unjust political decision which hope to blind to the horrors and does not lead to a just peace. In the end, it is the European majority who have it right in the face of an increasingly loose political class. Israel is very much today the country that is putting the peace of this world in the most danger. And in the corridors of Washington and Brussels and all the way to Tel Aviv, everyone knows it.
Why do the Palestinians continue to need massive infusions of charity?
Why do the Palestinians continue to need massive infusions of charity?
“ Why do all those perfectly healthy men always have time to pour into the street, firing their Kalashnikovs into the air? The answer is [that] an assured
continued flow of aid infantilizes and debilitates its recipients, and prevents the local economy from becoming self-sustaining. It diverts local politicians
from the hard work of creating the institutions that make private-sector development possible…
In the short run, aid helps to finance the intifada. After all, it is far safer to launch a war if someone else is going to pick up the bill… The annual PA
budget is about $1.9 billion, of which $1.2 billion goes on salaries. Aid from donors runs at about $1.3 billion. If this aid were used to fund viable private-
sector development projects, the Palestinians would be heading toward self-sufficiency. But it is not, and they are not…
Hamas will not give up its pledge to destroy Israel, and the West will in the end be unable to withhold aid despite that continued belligerence. But the
donors can regulate the flow of aid, cutting it off or reducing it if Hamas sponsors attacks on Israel, thereby rewarding good behaviour and penalizing
acts of terror. Not a perfect solution, but a workable one.”–Irwin Stelzer, director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute. (The Spectator-UK, Mar. 25)
As a response to your comments, I would suggest you read the following, taken from: http://www.washington-report.org
“U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the ‘Strategic Relationship”‘
by Stephen Zunes
“The U.S. aid relationship with Israel is unlike any other in the world,” said Stephen Zunes during a January 26 CPAP presentation. “In sheer volume, the amount is the most generous foreign aid program ever between any two countries,” added Zunes, associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco.
He explored the strategic reasoning behind the aid, asserting that it parallels the “needs of American arms exporters” and the role “Israel could play in advancing U.S. strategic interests in the region.”
Although Israel is an “advanced, industrialized, technologically sophisticated country,” it “receives more U.S. aid per capita annually than the total annual [Gross Domestic Product] per capita of several Arab states.” Approximately a third of the entire U.S. foreign aid budget goes to Israel, “even though Israel comprises just…one-thousandth of the world’s total population, and already has one of the world’s higher per capita incomes.”
U.S. government officials argue that this money is necessary for “moral” reasons-some even say that Israel is a “democracy battling for its very survival.” If that were the real reason, however, aid should have been highest during Israel’s early years, and would have declined as Israel grew stronger. Yet “the pattern…has been just the opposite.” According to Zunes, “99 percent of all U.S. aid to Israel took place after the June 1967 war, when Israel found itself more powerful than any combination of Arab armies….”
The U.S. supports Israel’s dominance so it can serve as “a surrogate for American interests in this vital strategic region.” “Israel has helped defeat radical nationalist movements” and has been a “testing ground for U.S. made weaponry.” Moreover, the intelligence agencies of both countries have “collaborated,” and “Israel has funneled U.S. arms to third countries that the U.S. [could] not send arms to directly,…Iike South Africa, like the Contras, Guatemala under the military junta, [and] Iran.” Zunes cited an Israeli analyst who said: “‘It’s like Israel has just become another federal agency when it’s convenient to use and you want something done quietly.”‘ Although the strategic relationship between the United States and the Gulf Arab states in the region has been strengthening in recent years, these states “do not have the political stability, the technological sophistication, [or] the number of higher-trained armed forces personnel” as does Israel.
Matti Peled, former Israeli major general and Knesset member, told Zunes that he and most Israeli generals believe this aid is “little more than an American subsidy to U.S. arms manufacturers,” considering that the majority of military aid to Israel is used to buy weapons from the U.S. Moreover, arms to Israel create more demand for weaponry in Arab states. According to Zunes, “the Israelis announced back in 1991 that they supported the idea of a freeze in Middle East arms transfers, yet it was the United States that rejected it.”
In the fall of 1993-when many had high hopes for peace-78 senators wrote to former President Bill Clinton insisting that aid to Israel remain “at current levels.” Their “only reason” was the “massive procurement of sophisticated arms by Arab states.” The letter neglected to mention that 80 percent of those arms to Arab countries came from the U.S. “I’m not denying for a moment the power of AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], the pro-Israel lobby,” and other similar groups, Zunes said. Yet the “Aerospace Industry Association which promotes these massive arms shipments…is even more influential.” This association has given two times more money to campaigns than all of the pro-Israel groups combined. Its “force on Capitol Hill, in terms of lobbying, surpasses that of even AIPAC.” Zunes asserted that the “general thrust of U.S. policy would be pretty much the same even if AIPAC didn’t exist. We didn’t need a pro-Indonesia lobby to support Indonesia in its savage repression of East Timor all these years.” This is a complex issue, and Zunes said that he did not want to be “conspiratorial,” but he asked the audience to imagine what “Palestinian industriousness, Israeli technology, and Arabian oil money…would do to transform the Middle East…. [W]hat would that mean to American arms manufacturers? Oil companies? Pentagon planners?”
“An increasing number of Israelis are pointing out” that these funds are not in Israel’s best interest. Quoting Peled, Zunes said, “this aid pushes Israel ‘toward a posture of callous intransigence’ in terms of the peace process.” Moreover, for every dollar the U.S. sends in arms aid, Israel must spend two to three dollars to train people to use the weaponry, to buy parts, and in other ways make use of the aid. Even “main-stream Israeli economists are saying [it] is very harmful to the country’s future.”
The Israeli paper Yediot Aharonot described Israel as “‘the godfather’s messenger’ since [Israel] undertake[s] the ‘dirty work’ of a godfather who ‘always tries to appear to be the owner of some large, respectable business.”‘ Israeli satirist B. Michael refers to U.S. aid this way: “‘My master gives me food to eat and I bite those whom he tells me to bite. It’s called strategic cooperation.” ‘To challenge this strategic relationship, one cannot focus solely on the Israeli lobby but must also examine these “broader forces as well.” “Until we tackle this issue head-on,” it will be “very difficult to win” in other areas relating to Palestine.
“The results” of the short-term thinking behind U.S. policy “are tragic,” not just for the “immediate victims” but “eventually [for] Israel itself” and “American interests in the region.” The U.S. is sending enormous amounts of aid to the Middle East, and yet “we are less secure than ever”-both in terms of U.S. interests abroad and for individual Americans. Zunes referred to a “growing and increasing hostility [of] the average Arab toward the United States.” In the long term, said Zunes, “peace and stability and cooperation with the vast Arab world is far more important for U.S. interests than this alliance with Israel.”
This is not only an issue for those who are working for Palestinian rights, but it also “jeopardizes the entire agenda of those of us concerned about human rights, concerned about arms control, concerned about international law.” Zunes sees significant potential in “building a broad-based movement around it.”
The above text is based on remarks, delivered on. 26 January, 2001 by Stephen Zunes – Associate Professor of Politics and Chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at San Francisco University.
Some leftist Professor, so called, liberal allied with the Islamo- Fascistes is of no interest.
“The above text is based on remarks, delivered on. 26 January, 2001 by Stephen Zunes – Associate Professor of Politics and Chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at San Francisco University.”
Many changes since “26 January, 2001” Many …
Deux nouveaux mots arabes s’ajutent au lexique Arabe du Moyen Orient. Après le hudna et le tahdia s’ajoutent maintenant fawda et fitna. Ce qui veut dire, qu’il y a un sens à fawda, le chaos qui règne et augmente sans cesse. Ils voient des signes de conflit entre les mouvements armées du Fatah et les Islamistes comme le Hamas qui éclatera dans une fitna, ou la guerre civile.
I don’t understand…
There are two infamous countries where the governments of European origin decided that the best way to govern the indigenous people was to classify them as different and unequal in rights to those of European origin. Bantustans were created, areas to which the natives were confined. These bantustans were created expelling thousands of people from their homes which were then destroyed to make way for houses for those of European origin. The natives could only leave the bantustans to go to work in the areas where those of European origin lived. One day, the natives decided that they were no longer prepared to accept the humiliation of being treated as second class citizens and started the armed struggle against their oppressors. During the struggle for equal rights, many people were killed, tortured or jailed, but some went into exile and started a campaign against this system. The representatives of one of these countries managed to convince the international community of the system’s injustice and international sanctions were adopted to force the government to eliminate its discriminatory system. This international pressure, along with other elements, assured the elimination of the system of apartheid in South Africa.
The European Union and the United States have, however, turned a blind eye to the system of discrimination and persecution practised by the other country, whose date of creation, interestingly enough, coincides with that of apartheid South Africa (1948). Not only that, they are now demanding that the colonized, the Palestinian “government” (if one can call an entity without financial independence, without airports, ports , control over their water supply and where the borders have been imposed by the occupiers, a government) renounce violence (a requirement not extended to Israel), and recognize the borders created by the occupiers. My question is: why does this country not receive the same treatment by the international community as South Africa did. Instead of pressurizing the Israeli government with sanctions, the country which has violated more UN resolutions than any other country, the European Union and the United States are pressurizing the Palestinian “government” and its people – in other words, the “weaker” side, where the majority of the population live with less than 2 dollars a day, where there is no liberty of movement, where the exiled population cannot return, but where a Jew from any country is free to emigrate to Israel.
I believe in a peaceful, negotiated solution in Palestine and Israel, but I fail to understand the lack of consistency in the international community’s treatment of Israel. Writing is the only way to express my indignation and rejection of the United States and the European Union’s present position.
Quote:
“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.
“For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.” (PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, March 31, 1977, interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw.)
Answer the following questions, if you please:
Who started the war in 1948 (after a U.N. Resolution re the partition of the western side of Palestine)?
Who turned the Palestinians who lived in the West Bank and Gaza into refugees between 1948 and 1967? May we remind you that these areas were under Jordanian and Egyptian control in this time period.
Why did the Six Day War start in 1967, the war which led to the beginning of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza?
Have you ever heard of the “Three No’s” of Khartoum in 1967? (No peace, no negotiation, no recognition of Israel)
Have you ever heard of U.N. Resolution 242, who voted for it and who voted against it?
Who founded an organization whose raison d’etre was to DESTROY the other side in 1964 (3 years BEFORE any occupation began)?
Which side is cold-blooded and intentionally mass-murdering families in restaurants, buses, shopping malls etc.?
Which side rejected the Clinton peace offer at Camp David in 2000 (and even if the offer wasn’t satisfactory, didn’t even propose a counter-offer, instead starting to kill innocent civilians?)
Why did the Israeli army enter the Palestinian cities 7 (SEVEN) years after it left them, when they were under the PA rule?
When the Palestinians entered into the Oslo accords in 1993, they made a commitment to eschew violence , This was the basis of Israel’s agreement to negotiate with the PLO.
The current violence was begun by the Palestinians and Israel’s actions since then have all been in the nature of self-defence. The present conflagration in the Middle East stems from the unwillingness of the Arabs to accept the existence of Israel.
The Arab world is not really interested in a Palestinian state but in the end of the Jewish one.
The more Israel has agreed to give, the more enraged and uncompromising the Palestinian reaction has been. The promise that violence had ended earned at the time Arafat his invitation to the White House, his handshake from Yitzhak Rabin and his Nobel Peace Prize.
If that promise was a lie, the entire peace process was an Arab lie. Real Takiya.
My dear brother in Islam
asalaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
Of course everything you write is correct. I personally feel helpless, angry and frustrated at the current political situation regarding our Ummah. It seems to me that all we can do is pray for our brothers and sisters who are being oppressed around the world, since even our Imams, Aalims and Muftis will not stand up and explain our Islam to an ignorant world. They should be ashamed of their lack of action and consider their level of Emaan. Astagfirullah, they should have no fear to stand up and be heard and support the Ummah when they know Allah SWT is on their side.
May Allah subhanahuwata’ala reward you for your efforts to educate us and support us intellectually, inshaAllah, Ameen. You are indeed a great man, mashaAllah. I was at the JIMAS Leicester conference last year. I agreed with everything you said about the opression of our women in the Middle East etc etc. May Allah SWT give us all guidance inshaAllah Ameen.
Your sister in Islam, Jannah Khan, Swindon, UK.
What a joke !!!
From AP:
‘Banks should show patriotism’
( banks are in the business of making money- not politics)
Haniyeh appealed to Arab leaders to face up to the Americans “to stop the siege imposed on the Palestinian people and to stop the political blackmail against the government.”
He also called on Palestinian bankers to “show the necessary patriotism.” Banks have been hesitant to handle funds for the Palestinian Authority for fear of US sanctions.
The government is the largest employer in the Palestinian areas, and the tardy salaries have caused widespread hardship. Salaries for March were not paid, and April payments are also overdue.
In the past, the West has donated much of the USD 1 billion in annual foreign aid that makes up much of the Palestinian budget. Now the West has said it will fund only humanitarian projects without going through the Palestinian government.
Also, Israel has halted transfer of about USD 55 million a month in taxes it collects for the Palestinian government.
Western governments have been looking for ways to turn control over their money to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who has been trying to curtail the power of the Hamas-led cabinet. Haniyeh said it did not matter how the money reached the Palestinian government, as long as it would be administered by the Hamas-controlled Finance Ministry. .
Eight school children were among the wounded in the latest Fatah-Hamas shoot-out:The clashes erupted after Hamas gunmen arrived at the home of a top Fatah official and opened fire at Fatah activists inside, witnesses said. The Fatah gunmen returned fire and 10 were injured in the exchange, including eight schoolchildren, hospital officials said.
Imagine the media reaction if eight Palestinian schoolchildren were wounded during a similar shootout between Palestinian gunmen and the IDF.
After reading this article, it becomes clear why you were not allowed to enter the United States to “teach” at Notre Dame. Propagandize is more like it. Right. Israel and the United States are the reason for all of the problems of the world and especially the problems of the palestinians and muslims all over the world. You talk of the evil of Israel and mention nothing of the murders, rocket attacks, and suicide bombings which slaughter Israeli men, women, and children indiscriminately. Nor do you mention that Arafat didn’t just want some land from Israel but would settle for nothing less than the total destruction of Israel. What you are apparently unaware of is that we in the United States, certainly Israel, and to a much lesser degree Europe (although they are cowards), realize that islam has declared war on us and will accept nothing less than the total destruction of the west. What you must realize is this; we know this and all of our actions toward any muslim country or people are filled with this knowledge. We defeated nazi germany, fascist italy, and totalitarian japan in WWII. By comparison, they make the islamo-fascist of today look like a bunch of schoolgirls. Ask any Marine who fought the Japanese at Guadalcanal in the Pacific or the soldier in Europe who wrested the land from Hitler’s storm-troopers, read about it yourself if you want to understand our determination. At first we were losing but only because we didn’t understand or accept what it was going to take to defeat them. We are a peaceful people by nature. But once we realizied what we would have to do, the end was inevitable. Radical islam is behind the israel-palestinian problems and all of the problems in the middle-east. We are fighting radical islam now with two hands tied behind our backs. We haven’t yet but we soon will come to the realization, as we did in WWII, of what we need to do to defeat radical islam. All of your articles, all of your rhetoric, and all of the violence of your people will not deter us. The end is inevitable. This battle goes back to the 700’s when muslims invaded Europe long before the first Crusade… long before. Did they just interpret the Koran wrong? Why did they do this? Because they wanted to dominate the world just as they do now. Because mohammed told them to convert by the sword and kill those who wouldn’t convert. The people of the west will fully come to realize this in time. Don’t listen to all of the gobbly-gook of today’s politicians because it’s really quite as simple as this.