
DECEMBER 2002
Tuesday December 31, 2002
Main Headline
Troops Use Palestinians as Human Shields
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Israeli troops killed four
Palestinians yesterday as a leading Israeli rights group said the army beat
Palestinians and use them as human shields to fire on stone-throwing crowds.
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Meanwhile, an Israeli rights group yesterday said the army beat Palestinians and
use them as human shields to fire on stone-throwing crowds, in a report on an
incident in Hebron three weeks ago. The group B’Tselem, which lobbies for
Palestinian rights in the occupied territories, said four soldiers beat five
Hebron residents, aged 19 to 24, in a barber shop in the southern West Bank city
on Dec. 3.
“Among other things, the soldiers forcibly cut the hair of two of the young men,
beat them, and maltreated them and the three other Palestinians. The soldiers
also used three of their victims as human shields, firing from over their
shoulders at stone-throwers,” it said.
While calling for an immediate army inquiry, B’Tselem said “this grave incident
is only the tip of the iceberg. Cases of ‘punishment’ and abuse of Palestinians
by (Israeli) soldiers in the occupied territories occur daily.”
PLO Central Council to Meet, Ratify Key Reforms
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - The Palestine Liberation Organization’s
(PLO) Central Council (CC) will meet next month, January 9, for the first time
in two years to ratify key steps in reforms to the Palestine National Authority
(PNA).
“The aim of the meeting will be ratifying the draft of a Palestinian
constitution, including a clause establishing the post of prime minister,” said
Nabil Shaath, PNA minister of planning and international development.
However, Shaath told Reuters the post of prime minister would not be filled
until a Palestinian state had been created.
“This procedure is part of the reform drive being conducted by the PNA,” Shaath
said.
The PNA earlier this month postponed indefinitely a presidential and
parliamentary election set for January 20, saying it was impossible to conduct a
vote while Israeli occupation troops occupy West Bank cities and enforce
curfews.
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) reoccupied most of the West in June.
Shaath said the council would meet in President Yasser Arafat’s ruined Muqata
headquarters in the reoccupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
The council’s 120 members live both in the Palestinian territories and abroad.
It was not clear how many would be able to attend the meeting given the Israeli
military’s travel restrictions on the West Bank and Gaza.
The PLO’s highest decision-making body is the Palestinian National Council
(PNC), which would be much more difficult to convene as it has about 400 members
both in the Israeli-occupied territories and as refugees in exile.
Shaath heads a committee that has been working on a Palestinian constitution for
three years as a preparatory step toward a Palestinian state.
He announced a date for the meeting a day after the PLO’s executive committee
urged the council to discuss a staged peace plan drafted by a Quartet of
mediators -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and United Nations.
-[Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/). Published at the
Palestine Chronicle.]
Israel Allows Known Terrorist to Nominate Himself for Knesset
HEBRON - (PC) An Israeli election
committee on Monday allowed a well-known Israeli terrorist to nominate himself
for a Knesset seat in the coming Israeli elections slated for 28 January.
The committee ruled that Baruch Marzel, head of the nominally-outlawed Kach
terrorist organization, could nominate himself without any objections.
Marzel openly advocates the extermination or expulsion of the Palestinian people
from their ancestral homeland, and on many occasions he was convicted of
carrying out terror attacks on Palestinian civilians in the Hebron area.
Marzel was the right-hand aide to Baruch Goldstein, the infamous terrorist who
in 1994 murdered 29 Arab worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.
Monday December 30, 2002
Main Headline
PNA Calls on
World Community to End Israeli Bloodshed
December 30, 2002
By Palestine Media Center
The Palestinian leadership has called upon the international community to “put an end to the Israeli bloodshed, led by (Israeli Prime Minister) Sharon, (Israeli “defense” minister) Mofaz, and (chief of staff) Ayalon.”
The leadership held its weekly meeting on Saturday, headed by President Yasser Arafat and attended by members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee and the ministerial cabinet.
In a statement issued following the meeting, the leadership slammed the Israeli escalation over the past week as dangerous, particularly the assassinations and killings committed by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on Thursday 26 December, when nine Palestinian citizens were killed and at least 46 others were injured in what the statement described as the “Black Thursday”.
The Israeli government is “covering up its crimes by alleging that it is fighting what it describes as the Palestinian terror, despite the fact that most of Israel’s state terror victims are civilians, [children, women, students, labors, old men, and patients],” the statement added.
Overnight an eight-year Palestinian boy and a nine-year girl were killed.
Eight-year-old Palestinian child Abdelkarim Yasser Abdelkarim Salameh has been shot dead while returning home from a school exam when IOF troops opened fire from a military jeep in the reoccupied West Bank town of Tulkarem, wounding another boy, Assef Mohamad Sharshir, aged 11, in the legs.
On Saturday, nine-year-old Palestinian girl Hanin Abu Suleiman was shot dead when she was hit in the head by a bullet shot by IOF in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip as she stood by her house.
The leadership also discussed the deterioration of the status of the Palestinian economy and the increasing unemployment rate, which has reached up to 75% of the total Palestinian labor force, due to Israeli closure and re-occupation of Palestinian cities and towns as well as the destruction of dozens of factories and workshops.
The leadership invited the international relief bodies to “send delegations to the Palestinian territory to observe the deteriorating economic conditions, caused by the brutality of the Israeli occupation.”
The leadership reviewed a comprehensive report on the work of the Palestinian Constitution Committee, headed by Minster of Planning and International Corporation, Nabil Sha’th, which held a number of meetings in Cairo and London, attended by the former Arab League Secretary General, Esmat Abdel Majid.
The current Arab League Secretary General, Amr Mousa, has earlier reactivated the Arab League committee, which will focus on helping its Palestinian counterpart in finalizing the draft constitution of the independent state of Palestine, expected to be ready before mid January 2003.
The meetings were attended by the dean of the Al-Najah University’s law department, Ahmad al-Khaldi, Ali al-Khashaf, from al-Quds University, Ahmad Abu Halbiah, from the Islamic University in Gaza, Fathi al-Weheidi, from al-Azhar University, head of the Palestinian bar association, Abdel Rahman Abu al-Nassr, and the Secretary General of the PLO’s Palestine National Council, Mohamed Subeih.
In addition, Palestine National Authority (PNA) condemned the Israeli plan, announced by Israeli ‘defense’ minster, Mofaz, to establish buffer zones surrounding every settlement in the occupied Palestinian Territory.
The PNA described the plan as a “new crime” aimed at “sabotaging the little chances that is left for the continuation of the peace process.
The leadership stressed the importance of holding Palestinian presidential and legislative elections and pledged to continue its efforts on the international front to eliminate the obstacles thereto, mainly Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian Territory.
The Palestinian leadership decided to postpone the Palestinian elections, which were planned on January 20, after examining the recommendations made by the Palestinian electoral committee to President Arafat recently, stating “it is impossible to hold [elections] in the current circumstances, due to the (Israeli) siege, re occupation and other circumstances.”
The leadership stressed that “elections would be held immediately after [Israeli] occupation forces pull back” to positions held before 28 September 2000.
It further accused the Jewish state of interrupting the “Palestinian reform process as well as all [Palestinian] efforts to revive the political (peace) process by holding general elections, through which (the Palestinian) people can freely decide their own president and lawmakers, under direct international supervision.”
Israel Confirms Expulsion of Eight Belgian Peace Activists
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - The Israeli
Interior Ministry confirmed Friday the expulsion of eight Belgian citizens who
were planning to attend a conference in the reoccupied West Bank town of
Ramallah.
Four other foreigners, among them three Brazilians, were in custody Friday at
Ben-Gurion airport awaiting deportation.
The Belgians were among a 12-member group planning to take part in a four-day
“World Social Forum” in Ramallah, Palestinian sources said.
They were detained by Israeli immigration officials when they arrived in Israel
on Thursday.
Among those expelled was Pierre Galand, chairman of a Belgian-Palestinian
association.
The group flew back to Europe aboard a German Lufthansa airliner Friday morning,
Belgian foreign ministry spokesman Didier Seeuws said.
Forum organizers said another 10 people who arrived at Ben Gurion Friday had not
been allowed out of the airport and could also be turned away.
The Palestinian social forum, based on the model of the World Social Forum held
in Porto Alegre, Brazil last February, nonetheless opened as scheduled on
Friday.
The Belgian government was not informed of the reasons for the expulsions and
has protested the decision to Israel.
"Israel does not tolerate on its soil people who come to demonstrate against the
state,” Israel’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Tova Ellinson said.
Israel has in recent weeks barred access to its territory and to the
Israeli-reoccupied Palestinian territories of foreign peace activists seeking to
express solidarity with the Palestinian people.
-[Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/).] Published at the
Palestine Chronicle.
Sharon Plans Permanent Reoccupation of All Palestinian Land: Erakat
RAMALLAH - Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon is moving towards re-establishing a permanent reoccupation of all
Palestinian land, top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP Saturday.
"We have seen recently a number of developments which indicate that Sharon wants
to destroy the Palestinian Authority, sabotage ceasefire talks in Cairo and
rebuild the civil administration in the Palestinian territories,” he told AFP
after a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah.
"The civil administration is already here. Every Palestinian who wants to move
from one village to another to do his work needs an authorization from the
Israeli army,” Erakat said.
The interim peace agreements -- signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) between 1993 and 1995 -- provided for dissolution of civil
administration and an Israeli military withdrawal from cities in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip.
"Sharon's supposed support for a Palestinian state is contradicted by everything
on the ground,” Erakat charged.
"The latest obvious examples are the decision to build 230 housing units in the
settlement of Immanuel and to extend buffer zones around settlements in the West
Bank,” he said.
Immanuel is an illegal Jewish settlement located between northern West Bank
cities of Qalqiliya and Nablus.
Erekat added, "Israel also tried to undermine the roadmap before it was even
born. It is absolutely clear that Sharon wants to revert to a full and permanent
occupation of all Palestinian land.”
The so-called ‘roadmap’ for peace in the Middle East is a document drafted by
the four main diplomatic players in the region (UN, US, EU and Russia), which
calls for the creation of Palestinian state with definitive borders by 2005 and
a freeze on all settlement activity.
The plan was due to be finalized ten days ago at a summit in Washington, but the
United States and Israel pushed for any definitive decision to be delayed until
after the Israeli elections on January 28.
In a bid to conquer the vote-winning center electorate, Sharon launched his
campaign for re-election with a promise to support the creation of a Palestinian
state, albeit with many restrictions.
-[Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/).] Published at the
Palestine Chronicle.
Jenin Victims Narrate Israeli Atrocities in Extraordinary Book
SEATTLE (PalestineChronicle.com) -
After several months of Israeli attempts to conceal the conduct of the IDF in
the Israeli invasion of the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, the most
compelling, detailed and revealing account of the historic events will finally
be available to the public.
The book entitled “Searching Jenin, Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion,
2002”, is without a doubt, a must for anyone interested in Middle East history,
politics and current events. The work, which includes final statistics of
casualties, human and material losses, is by far the most comprehensive and
exhaustive volume written on the issue.
“Searching Jenin,” a collective effort of nearly 60 scholars, reporters, and
activists, Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals, is edited by Ramzy Baroud,
editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com, and includes a Forward by the
highly-renowned scholar, Noam Chomsky. The book is being published by Cune Press
in Seattle, and is a part of their Bridge Between Cultures project.
“I owe my greatest thanks to our commissioned reporters in Palestine,” said
Ramzy Baroud, the editor of ‘Searching Jenin”, Many of them put their safety,
and in some cases, their lives on the line to collect account after tragic
account for this book. Because of their integrity and professionalism, they were
able to interview many high profile figures that refused to take an interview
with any other news agency.”
Not only does the book include scores of telling accounts of residents who
witnessed and survived the invasion, but it includes interviews with people such
as the wife and the mother of Mahmud Tawalbe, the leader of the resistance in
Jenin. Tawalbe was shot and killed by Israeli forces. The book also includes a
detailed interview with the only eyewitness to the extra-judicial execution of
Abu Jandal, the second in command of the Palestinian resistance in Jenin.
The courageous reporters who combed the streets of Jenin, interviewed medical
personnel, resistance fighters, and even children, including an 8 year old girl
named Rund, who complained that the army broke her only doll. Rund’s father was
later shot and killed by the army. They also interviewed an elderly widow who
explained how she implored Israeli forces as they demolished her small home,
burying her disabled son alive under the rubble. Her son’s body was never
recovered.
“We had so many obstacles to overcome, primarily the Israeli army’s refusal to
allow me entry into Palestine,” stated Baroud. “For the past several months, the
Israeli government has done everything in their power to cover-up their actions,
including the barring of a UN investigation team to the area. Until now, the
Palestinians are still unable to carry out their own official investigation due
to the fact that the camp is still under a strict curfew. But in spite of all
these hurdles, and thanks to the hard work and contributions of so many, the
truth is going to come out into the light.”
Baroud and Cune Press are ready for the anticipated controversy such a book will
stir, which follows the recent release of the film documentary titled, “Jenin,
Jenin”, a film that was abruptly banned by the Israeli government. However, they
both state that “Searching Jenin” will not simply add fuel to the controversy
about the events in Jenin, but that it will prove to be the most revealing
document to date regarding the atrocities last April that came to be a symbol of
Palestinian resistance world-wide.
Ali Samoudi, the project facilitator in Jenin stressed, “The promotion of this
important book is the collective responsibility of all who care about justice
and truth. This book is dear to the hearts off all refugees in Jenin, because
for the first time, we are narrating our own story.”
For further information or to order your copy of “Searching Jenin” contact
editor, Suzanne Russ:
Russ@PalestineChronicle.com
Friday December 27, 2002
Main Headline
Blair Hails Palestinian Reform Conference on January 13-14
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Talks hosted
by Britain on progress in reforming the Palestine National Authority (PNA) will
be held on January 13-14, Palestinian international cooperation minister Nabil
Shaath said yesterday.
Shaath said last Monday the Palestinians wanted the conference to have a broader
political scope and not focus solely on reform efforts, as suggested by British
Prime Minister Tony Blair when he issued the invitation in mid-December.
Shaath added Palestinians were working to change the meeting’s agenda in order
to suit their demands.
Blair has invited Palestinian leaders as well as EU, Russian, US, and UN
representatives to attend the talks.
Other Arab countries, but not Israel, are also expected to be invited.
The January 13-14 conference has the aim of "ensuring that Palestinian reform is
effective,” Blair wrote in the Egyptian daily al-Ahram.
"Reform is about nation-building,” he added in explaining the invitation to
Palestinian leaders that has been widely maligned in Israel.
Blair said that advancing reforms would promote the “roadmap” for peace drafted
by the diplomatic “Quartet” of the European Union, Russia, United Nations and
United States, which envisions the creation of a Palestinian state by the end of
2005.
"I believe that the international community should use the intervening period to
boost the chances of the roadmap being implemented successfully once a new
Israeli government is in place,” Blair said.
The British prime minister was alluding to Israel’s refusal to consider the
roadmap finalized at a December 20 Quartet meeting in Washington until following
the Jewish state’s January 28 national elections.
Blair explained he had asked Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to appoint the
PNA’s delegates to the conference.
Blair said he has also extended invitations to "senior figures from within
Palestinian civil society” and members of the Quartet, in addition to Egyptian,
Saudi and Jordanian representatives.
"Of course strengthening Palestinian democracy and rebuilding civil and security
structures is only one element of a comprehensive Middle East settlement. But it
is nonetheless an important element, because it is a prerequisite for success,”
said Blair who announced the talks on December 16.
-[Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/).] Published at the
Palestine Chronicle.
Occupation Soldiers Force Child to Act Like Suicide Bomber for the Camera
By Romal al-Sweiti
NABLUS, West Bank - Occupation soldiers in Nablus
City yesterday committed a racist crime against a child, who carries US
nationality, forcing him to sit on the floor and to tie a head band that carries
the sign of 'Al-Aqsa Brigades' (Fateh militant faction) and then taking pictures
of him.
The mother of the child Ahmad Abdel Haq (14 years old) from the Al-Jabal Al-Shamali
area in Nablus said that occupation soldiers raided their home after blowing up
the front door when her son was alone at home.
She said that the occupiers started destroying the house and all their
belongings before discovering the child Ahmad. They then started beating him up
brutally, despite his pleas and attempts to explain to them that he has an
American passport with the number '701372809' and that he was born in
California, USA.
She said that one of the occupation captains forced her son to sit down and
placed behind him a Palestinian flag and 2 M-16 machineguns as well as a number
of hand grenades and a gun on the table in front of him and then gave him a
piece of paper and another M-16 machinegun and forced him to read a suicide
bomber's will. After this was finished, he was forced to act as if he was
praying on the floor.
The mother said that the soldiers placed their machineguns to her son's head
threatening to kill him if he told any media channels what happened to him, and
then they threw him on the stairs, which resulted in head injuries. The mother
added that all this was photographed with a still camera.
She said that she informed the American consulate of the incident which she
described as "racist", and expressed fear that these photographs may be used
against her son or against the Palestinian people in general.
The mother confirmed that following the attack, her son suffers from a state of
hysteria and fear and that she is going to have to take him to psychiatrist as a
result of the horror story which he lived at the hands of the soldiers.
Published by Al-Hayat Al-Jadida daily newspaper) - Dec 27, 2002 (Translated
by Hear Palestine News Service)
Joy to the World and Hell in Bethlehem
By Louis Farshee
BETHLEHEM - From the same wonderful people who
bring hell to Palestine every day, it’s Christmas 2002. With predictable fanfare
accompanied by a chorus of uninvestigated news reports the occupation forces of
the State of Israel have allegedly pulled out of Bethlehem in the spirit of
Christmas. Not so!
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Bethlehem remains under siege and celebrations there consist of home demolitions
and confiscation of Palestinian property by the State of Israel. And because all
Palestinians and their supporters are “enemies of the State”, house arrests
dubbed “curfews” continue. These illegal and brutal practices are not, however,
limited to the Christian and Muslim residents of Bethlehem.
Take the case of Bob Rossi and Margaret Phillips from Salem, Oregon. Both are US
citizens and peace activists. They traveled to Bethlehem to distribute holiday
gifts and money collected by the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund, which Bob
co-founded. On December 23, Bob and Margaret, accompanied by Bethlehem resident,
Sami Awad, were going around the besieged town distributing gifts to needy
families.
A neighbor telephoned Sami to tell him his apartment building had been stormed
by elements of the Israeli occupation army. Sami, Bob and Margaret immediately
returned to his apartment building to be confronted by machine gun wielding
order-shouting Israeli soldiers who forbade entry into the building. Sami’s wife
and child were in the market shopping and were not in their apartment at the
time.
After an hour, Sami, his wife and baby, returned to their apartment building and
were detained in the cold weather while Israeli soldiers went through the
routine of checking papers and searching the family’s belongings. When they were
finally allowed to go into their apartment the soldiers instructed Sami to leave
his key outside the apartment so the soldiers could lock them in it.
Bob Rossi and Margaret Phillips were told by the Israelis they would be
indefinitely detained. This is occurring after the Israeli government announced
that its occupation troops would be withdrawn from Bethlehem.
The occupation of Palestine in general and the Bethlehem outrage in particular
could not exist without the tacit approval of the US government and American
taxpayer dollars. Representatives of the Israeli government will be in
Washington, DC in coming weeks pleading their case for $8 billion in loan
guarantees and $4 billion in defense and other grants spread over 10 years. The
money they want, property of the American taxpayer, will be used to perpetuate
the occupation and theft of Palestinian lands and a murderous occupation that is
35 years old, three times longer than the duration of the Third Reich.
Every state in the union is short of funds necessary to finance schools and
other public services. In addition to depriving American taxpayers of the
services they need and expect, dollars given to the State of Israel pay for the
indefinite detention of Bob Rossi and Margaret Phillips.
Thursday December 26, 2002
Main Headline
Enveloped with Tanks, Bethlehem Celebrates Melancholy Christmas
BETHLEHEM - Palestinians in the
biblical birth city of Jesus Christ are celebrating Christmas under Israeli
occupation with no tree or decorations in the Manger Square to commemorate the
once-a-joyous occasion.
Israel’s bid to score PR points amidst mounting criticism over its occupation of
Bethlehem at the time when this city should be celebrating the birth of the
prophet of peace, failed to reach its target.
Journalists reporting from the city say there remains a visible Israeli army
presence in the city. The only signs of any celebrations are religious prayers.
They also said that once the two-day Christmas celebrations are over, Bethlehem
will be re-occupied again and a curfew slammed on its residents.
Redeploying its troops from the Manger Square to posts several meters away did
not bring any joy to the Christians and Muslims of Bethlehem, who were broke and
hopeless with tourism in the West Bank City almost at a standstill and
unemployment rising.
Bethlehem has been under curfew since November, after a suicide attack on a bus
in Jerusalem.
26 months of a bloody whirlpool of violence have kept pilgrims and tourists
away, causing many local businesses, which rely on this once-busy season for
their livelihood, to plummet in bankruptcy.
Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser, a Christian, called it a “sad Christmas”.
“Our message to the world is to restore peace to the town of Bethlehem and all
the Palestinian territories and to give the Palestinians a chance to live as
real humans,” Nasser said. “We hope next year we'll have a better Christmas --
and a real one.”
In past Christmases, a huge tree would stand in Manger Square shining with
bright colored. Marching Boy Scout bands and bagpipes would play as the Latin
Patriarch was escorted to the Church of the Nativity.
This year at the Square, there were no Christmas decorations, no singing and
very few tourists, who dared to defy Israel’s military might. The municipality
refused to put up a Christmas tree to protest Israel’s occupation of the City.
The Roman Catholic Patriarch in the Holy Land, Michel Sabah, led a procession
with many gathered at the Manger Square late Tuesday night, before conducting
midnight mass at the Church of the Nativity.
Before mass, Palestinian Boy Scouts carrying flags and pictures of Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat greeted Sabbah.
The Palestinian President was barred from attending mass in Bethlehem for the
second year in row after attending it annually since he returned to the occupied
Palestinian territory in 1994.
Arafat slammed Israel’s decision as provocative, and added that his Christmas
message was a call for “love, peace and forgiveness.”
“Our message on Christmas Eve is a message of love, peace and forgiveness, of
Israeli and Palestinian coexistence and respect for all humanity,” Arafat told a
crowd of some 500 Palestinians, including prominent Christian and Muslim leaders
at his battered Ramallah compound on Monday.
At the Church of the Nativity, Arafat’s chair was empty par a “Koufieh” or a
head cover, which has become the symbol of the Palestinian leader.
Roman Patriarch Urges Israel to End Occupation
At Midnight Mass, Sabah called for freedom for Palestinians and said peace can
only be achieved if and when Israel withdraws its occupation troops from the
Palestinian territory.
Speaking at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Patriarch called on
Israel to “alter its vision”.
“We ask you [Israelis] that you understand the reason for the violence, and this
is [the] occupation. You need new leaders with a new vision, or you must help
your leaders to adopt a new vision that will give all peoples here peace and
security.”
“Blood has been flowing in your cities and streets but the key to solving this
conflict is in your hands. By your actions so far, you have crushed the
Palestinian people but you still have not achieved peace.” He said, addressing
Israel.
Sabah also addressed President Arafat, who was banned from attending, wishing he
were there with the crowds and praying that God would grant him “the wisdom and
the power under this siege to continue your mission toward peace and justice”.
“We will continue to demand our freedom and dignity... the Palestinian people
want to say to the Israeli people that we wish you peace, security and
well-being. With such peace, Palestinians want freedom and an end to
occupation,” he said.
Only some twenty kilometers away from Bethlehem, Arafat told reporters, “Now
they [Israelis] have prevented me for the second time to participate with my
brothers in the Nativity Church.”
“In spite of that, I am sending from my heart my greetings, ‘Merry Christmas,
Merry Christmas’, and we hope that we will meet together in Jerusalem and also
in Bethlehem.”
-[Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/).] Published at the
Palestine Chronicle.
Israeli Leaders Accuse Sharon of Lying, Creating Hysteria Over Alleged Iraqi Threat
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Several
Israeli leaders have lambasted Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for
“disseminating lies” and “creating hysteria within the public” over possible but
unlikely Iraqi attack on Israel in case of an American war on the Arab country.
Labor Party leader and prime ministerial candidate Amram Mitzna dismissed
Sharon’s allegations that Iraq had transferred chemical and biological weapons
to Syria and Libya as “unbelievable.”
He accused the Israeli premier of disseminating “hysteria within the public in
for the purpose of advancing the political agenda of his party.”
The veteran Israeli politician Shimon Peres has also criticized Sharon’s
statements regarding the alleged transfer of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
to Syria.
The Israeli state-run radio quoted Peres on Wednesday as saying that he didn’t
believe that Sharon’s statements were true.
A third voice discrediting Sharon’s allegations was Tsvi Farkash, the head of
Israeli military intelligence.
Farkash was quoted on Monday as saying that “there is no evidence of any
transfer of chemical or biological weapons from Iraq to Syria.”
Both Syria and Libya vehemently denied the Israeli allegations.
Syria called Sharon’s remarks “silly and ridiculous and completely false,” while
Libya called the accusations “baseless.”
-[IAP News (iap.org).] Published at the
Palestine Chronicle.
Tuesday December 24, 2002
Main Headline
Bethlehem Embraces for the Saddest Christmas Ever
By Khalid Amayreh
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Palestinian Christians are
embracing for what may well be the bleakest Christmas of their lives.
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“There is nothing to celebrate; Israeli tanks have crushed the spirit of
Christmas,” says Jeryes al Bandak, a community leader in Bethlehem.
Al-Bandak and other Christian leaders earlier this week called on all Christians
in the holy land to remain indoor to protest Israeli repression which claimed up
to 2000 Palestinian lives in addition to thousands of homes destroyed in the
past two years alone.
“We would be lying to ourselves and to the world if we put up a happy show,
Bethlehem is undergoing the bleakest of all times. Israeli tanks, armored
vehicles and apache helicopters have killed the Christmas spirit,” al-Bandak
told reporters in Bethlehem Tuesday.
The tragic conditions facing Jesus’ traditional birthplace are felt by every
citizen, Christian and Muslim alike.
“This will be the bleakest Christmas ever because we’ve been robbed of our
freedom, says Johnny Babun, whose garage and car wash facility was razed by
Israeli bulldozers over a year ago.
“We will find some solace in the midnight mass, beyond that, there won’t be any
Christmas celebrations.”
Nativity Church warden Father Ibrahim Faltas makes the same point.
“This will be the saddest Christmas ever celebrated in Bethlehem. We shall pray
for peace but we won’t celebrate beyond the traditional Christmas procession and
mass.”
Some secular Christian leaders go as far as calling the present situation in
Bethlehem and other Palestinian towns “a holocaust.”
“It is a virtual holocaust here, the Israeli army is murdering innocent
civilians everyday, it is demolishing people’s homes every day, it is forcing
people to remain locked inside their homes round-the-clock. Yes there are no gas
chambers, but death and suffering are being effected by other means,” said Hanna
Kukali.
The Israeli occupation army said it would redeploy tanks and armored personnel
carriers from the Manger Square and the vicinity of the Church of the Nativity
for the duration of the Christmas celebrations.
However, the people of Bethlehem seems utterly unimpressed by the Israeli
announcement.
“Israel will lift the curfew and makes its forces invisible on Christmas day,
but it is not for us Christians, it is because the world’s cameras will be
focused on Bethlehem and Israel wants to project a good image of itself,” said
Jamal Salman, an administrator at Bethlehem’s municipal council.
“Is the world satisfied with this situation?”
Palestinian Christians make up close to 15% of the Palestinian people worldwide.
Bethlehem’s Occupation Aimed at Building Segregation Wall: City Mayor
BETHLEHEM - The mayor of Bethlehem
accused Israel on Tuesday of planning to annex hundreds of acres (hectares) of
land from the edge of the West Bank town during its reoccupation, in order to
build a segregation wall, separating the city from Jerusalem.
“The Israeli occupation of Bethlehem is not to hunt down militants but to build
a wall and confiscate 2,700 dunums (675 acres, 270 hectares) of land from the
city near the Jewish settlement of Gilo,” mayor Hanna Nasser told journalists
here.
He said the land grab would isolate 56 Palestinian homes, which would not be
officially annexed to Israel but which would be under Israeli security control,
making access to the city extremely difficult for residents.
He added that work on the wall began 10 days ago and that, when completed, it
would stretch 2.8 kilometers (1.7 miles) and be up to eight meters (26 feet)
high.
The Israeli security cabinet in September approved a plan to build a ‘security
perimeter’ between Jerusalem the northern edge of Bethlehem and close to the
illegal Israeli settlement of “Gilo”
IOF troops re-occupied Bethlehem last month, ending a three-month security
understanding known as “Bethlehem First” reached between Palestinian security
officials and the former Israeli ‘defense’ minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer.
Israel announced it had re-deployed its troops in the city prior to the
Christmas season, by mainly withdrawing IOF from the Church of Nativity’s
square, but said its troops were keep their presence in other areas in the
southern West Ban city.
Nevertheless, Palestinian sources and witnesses said IOF soldiers were deployed
in at least two nearby buildings overseeing the Square, which was set to be the
center of Christmas celebrations prior to the occupation of the city more than a
month ago.
-Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/).
Monday December 23, 2002
Main Headline
Jane Fonda Embarks on Solidarity Tour to Palestine
RAMALLAH - Hollywood star Jane
Fonda spent Saturday visiting the West Bank City of Ramallah, where she toured a
rehabilitation center and met with a bereaved Palestinian family at a refugee
camp, before returning to her home in the US.
Her three-day visit to the region, aimed at promoting peace, came to an end in
Ramallah, which she visited after having first to cross the infamous Qalandia
roadblock set up by soldiers between Jerusalem and the West Bank city.
Making her way through mud and clutching a bouquet of red roses given to her by
the Jerusalem Center for Women, the Palestinian women’s group accompanying her.
Escorted by a Palestinian expert on settlements, the two-time Oscar winner
toured Jewish colonies nearby and moved from there to a Palestinian refugee camp
near Ramallah.
Fonda, who had visited the West Bank in 1980, said she was surprised by the
number and proximity of Jewish settlements to the Palestinian population.
The aerobics queen known also for her anti-war campaigns during the US war on
Vietnam arrived in the region last Tuesday.
At the Qalandia refugee camp, she met with Fatima al-Kasba whose two young sons,
Samer and Yasser aged 12 and 15, were killed by Israeli occupation forces (IOF).
The two women hugged in tears as the mother spoke of her torment and pain at
losing two of her children.
Fonda later visited the Abu Raya Rehabilitation Center, where victims who had
sustained injuries by IOF during the Intifada were being treated and provided
with physiotherapy.
The 65-year-old ended her visit with a social encounter with artists and
scholars at Ishtar Theater for Training and Production.
“It is a good time for us to come. We as American women can join with you to
help resolve the conflict.” Fonda told a group of some 30 scholars, dancers and
artists.
Olga Vives, vice-president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), who was
also accompanying Fonda, said, “I am overwhelmed by your pain. I leave with a
moral obligation to try to find way for just peace to this conflict.”
Palestine Media Center- (PMC)
Conflict Will Only End with a Two-state Solution: Lieberman
RAMALLAH - US Presidential hopeful
Senator Joseph Lieberman said the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will only end
with a two-state solution, with a strong peaceful Israel living side-by-side
with a peaceful Palestine.
After a meeting with the Palestine National Authority (PNA) Minister of Culture
and Information Yasser Abed Rabbo on Monday in Ramallah, Senator Lieberman said
he took note of the ‘desperate humanitarian problems” in the Israeli-occupied
Palestinian territory, adding that there was a very strong support within the
United States Congress for (national) Palestinian aspirations.
Senator Lieberman was on a visit to occupied Palestinian territory and Israel
and met with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday. He is scheduled
to head to the Gulf to "review US troops" training for a potential strike
against Iraq and come back to Israel on Friday, a US diplomat in occupied
Jerusalem said on Sunday.
"Mr Lieberman is on a partially public and partially private visit,” the
diplomat said.
Senator Lieberman is considered a potential challenger to US President George W.
Bush in 2004 elections.
He was the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2000, becoming the first
Jewish-American to be nominated for that office.
He immediately jumped to the top of the list of contenders for the 2004
Democratic presidential nomination when the 2000 nominee, former vice president
Al Gore, announced last week he would sit the elections out.
Lieberman is known for his strong ties with the Jewish state.
-Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/)
Amnesty Condemns Israel’s Mistreatment of Refuseniks
LONDON - The leading International
human rights group Amnesty protested at the treatment of Israeli conscientious
objectors, mainly army reserve soldiers and officers who refuse to serve in the
occupied Palestinian territory, who it said were being jailed while serving
soldiers committed human rights violations with impunity.
In a press release sent to AFP last week, the London-based group said it had
written to Israeli ‘Defense’ Minister Shaul Mofaz to express concern at the
imprisonment of conscripts and reservists who refuse to do military service or
serve in the occupied territories.
It said that some 180 such objectors and “refuseniks” had been jailed in the
past six months, singling out such individuals as Foreign Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s nephew Jonathan Ben-Artzi, who is serving a sixth consecutive prison
term.
“Members of the Israeli “Defense” Forces who commit grave human rights
violations and war crimes, such as killing children and other unarmed civilians,
recklessly shooting and shelling densely populated residential areas or blowing
up houses on top of people and leaving them to die under the rubble are not
brought to justice and held accountable for their acts,” Amnesty said.
“At the same time conscripts and reservists who refuse to serve, precisely to
avoid participating in such acts, are sent to jail for months,” it added,
asking, “What kind of message is such a policy sending to Israel society?”
“The impunity enjoyed by “IDF” members responsible for human rights violations
and the imprisonment of conscientious objectors are grave concerns, each in
their own right; the combination of both constitutes an extremely worrying
trend,” it said.
Amnesty noted that while conscripts unwilling to serve on grounds of conscious
or because they believe the army is violating human rights are jailed, other
conscripts were routinely granted exemption from call-up on religious grounds.
“Amnesty International believes that all conscientious objectors should be given
an opportunity to present the grounds of their objection to a decision-making
body which is established by law and is impartial and independent,” it pointed
out.
“The draft resisters and refuseniks who are and have been imprisoned as a result
of their conscientious objection are prisoners of conscience. Those currently
detained should be released immediately and unconditionally,” Amnesty concluded.
-Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/)
Sunday December 22, 2002
Main Headline
Palestinian Leadership Forced to Postpone Elections
RAMALLAH - Citing the Israeli
occupation and curfews, the Palestinian leadership Sunday, December 22,
postponed January's presidential and legislative elections until after the
Israeli army withdraws from reoccupied self-rule areas.
"The Palestinian leadership decided to hold the elections after the Israelis
withdraw from the (reoccupied) Palestinian territories and according to the
electoral law," the leadership statement said after a meeting in Ramallah.
"There is no way the elections can be held on January 20," Palestinian chief
negotiator Saeb Erakat told Agence France-Presse (AFP), adding that under the
electoral law, 100 days were needed from the announcement of polls for the
preparation of the ballot.
Erakat said the Israeli curfews, occupation and blockades of Palestinian cities,
towns and villages in almost the entire West Bank made the holding of elections
unfeasible.
The polls had been scheduled for January 20 but the electoral committee
recommended delaying them, saying Israel's reoccupation of the West Bank and the
closures imposed made them impossible.
"We met with the president and recommended to him that it is highly important to
delay the elections because it is impossible to hold them in the current
circumstances, owing to the siege, the occupation and other circumstances," Ali
Jerbawi said Friday, December 20.
Israeli forces streamed into the West Bank on June 19, imposing strict curfews
and cutting off communities from each other as they persistently hunted down
suspect resistance activists, hundreds of whom have been detained or questioned.
The lockdowns have made it almost impossible for the population to move around,
crippling the economy, sending already chronic unemployment soaring and
undermining hopes that voters could make it to the ballot boxes, as the army
shows no sign of withdrawing.
Israel is demanding the Palestinian Authority undertake sweeping democratic and
security reforms. However, it wanted the presidential elections delayed for fear
Arafat, whom it wants dumped and who enjoys the support of most Palestinians,
could win a new term as leader.
Washington also wants to see Arafat dropped, claiming that he is an obstacle to
the peace process.
Israelis Protest Settlement Expansion, Army Destroys More Houses
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Around 200
Israeli activists from the Peace Now movement demonstrated Sunday in the
southern West Bank city of Al-Khalil ( Hebron ) against plans to extend Jewish
settlements in the overwhelmingly Palestinian city.
The demonstrators, accompanied by two Knesset members, gathered at the site of a
settlement outpost which was dismantled by the Israeli army on Thursday,
December 19, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
They carried banners calling the settlement of Hebron a "disaster" and slamming
Israel for destroying Palestinian houses in the city.
The houses, abandoned by their residents amid ongoing unrest in the flashpoint
city, overlooked a road which Jewish settlers want to see turned into a
well-guarded promenade linking Jewish enclaves in the city with the large
settlement of Kiryat Arba on its eastern edge.
The road would give the 6,500 residents of the settlement easier access to the
Tomb of the Patriarchs, a shrine sacred to both Jews and Muslims in the heart of
the ancient city.
Members of Kiryat Arba set up an illegal outpost on private Palestinian land on
November 20, but the army pulled down the makeshift structures last week.
Around 600 Jews live in the enclave around the Tomb, surrounded by Israeli
soldiers separating them from the 120,000 Palestinian population of the city.
The Israeli army had initially banned the Peace Now demonstration but later
issued a permit after the anti-settlement group received backing from the
Israeli Supreme Court.
The army also destroyed the newly built house of a Palestinian man near Kiryat
Arba which had allegedly been built without planning permission from the Israeli
authorities, Palestinian witnesses said.
United States Veto UN Resolution Condemning Israel
NEW YORK (PC) - On Friday, the
United States pronounced their veto over a United Nations Security Counsel
resolution, that condemned Israel for killing three UN workers. The resolution
was presented by Syria.
It has been a year since the United States last vetoed a resolution concerning
the Middle East. Before the vote, Syria had declined to accept a US alternative
draft that expressed regret over the UN workers’ deaths, but stopped short of a
condemnation.
On November 22nd , Israeli soldiers killed British UN worker Iain Hook in the
Jenin refugee camp on the illegally occupied West Bank, where he was shot in the
back. A week later, two UN workers were killed by the Israeli army in Gaza. All
victims were working for the UNWRA, the UN organization that provides relief for
Palestinian refugees.
Saturday December 21, 2002
Main Headline
Jane Fonda visits refugee camp, hospitals in Ramallah
By Ha'aretz Staff and Agencies
American actress and activist Jane Fonda
visited a refugee camp and a hospital in the West Bank on Saturday, capping a
three-day visit to the region aimed at promoting peace.
Fonda, who was celebrating her 65th birthday, passed through a West Bank
crossing point at Qalqilyah, trudging through mud and clutching a bouquet of red
roses given to her by a Palestinian women's group.
She toured West Bank villages and nearby Israeli settlements and was led through
a Palestinian refugee camp near Ramallah in a daylong tour by the Jerusalem
Center for Women. Fonda also paid a visit to Palestinian Authority Chairman
Yasser Arafat at his Muqata headquarters in the city.
It was the final visit of a trip organized by a global movement to stop violence
against women. The movement, called V-Day, was inspired by the off-Broadway hit
"The Vagina Monologues" and its playwright, Eve Ensler. Ensler accompanied Fonda
and led discussions with Palestinian women.
"This is the focal point of so many conflicts," Fonda said. "Both sides aren't
hearing each other's narratives, and maybe that's our role as artists."
Fonda and Ensler met with Fatima al-Kasba, 37, who lost two sons in fighting.
Kasba said her sons, Yasser, 12, and Samer, 15, were killed a little over a
month apart by IDF troops.
Later, Fonda and Ensler toured the Abu Raya Rehabilitation Center, where victims
of violence and spinal cord injuries are treated and provided with
physiotherapy.
Fonda, a two-time Oscar winner and fitness guru, said she had been to Israel and
the West Bank in 1980, but what she saw today was dramatically different. She
said she was most surprised by the number and proximity of settlements to the
Palestinian population.
On Thursday, the American actress met with MKs Yael Dayan and Naomi Chazan in
Jerusalem. She also visited Israelis wounded in suicide bombings who are
recovering at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem.
Friday December 20, 2002
Main Headline
Mideast Mediators Meet, Divided on Peace Plan
WASHINGTON - The Quartet of Middle East mediators — the United
States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations — met yesterday to decide
whether the time was ripe to tell Israelis and Palestinians of their peace
plans.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, host of the high-level talks, was alone in
favoring a postponement until after Israeli elections scheduled for Jan. 28. But
the informal group works by consensus and the United States was expected to have
its way because of its unique influence over Israel, which requested the
postponement.
The mediators — Powell, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and three European Union leaders — have been
working for months on a peace plan known as the “road map,” which lays out the
steps Israelis and Palestinians must take to put peace talks back on track.
The plan ends in the creation of an independent Palestinian state, possibly in
2005, but the two sides have never agreed on who must take the first steps to
break the current stalemate.
Arab and European governments and the Palestinians have argued that Israelis
should have a chance to vote in January on a known peace plan, even at the risk
they will reject it.
“It’s very important that the voters of Israel know what the world thinks about
the situation. I think that being an enlightened voter means that you also have
the information on which you build your vote,” one of the European Union
leaders, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, said this week.
But a US official said yesterday that injecting a peace plan into the Israeli
election campaign was a bad idea.
“If you are entering a phase where there are likely to be difficulties by one
side or the other, then it would add a degree of difficulty that the process
doesn’t need,” said the official, who asked not to be named.
“With the climate in both communities the way it is, we’re facing a collapse of
confidence at this time. There’s a chance it might be rejected and where does
that get you?” he added.
The United States has also linked progress with an end to Palestinian attacks on
Israelis and a change in the Palestinian leadership — diplomatic code for the
removal or demotion of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
The Europeans say that the Israelis can also help break the deadlock, for
example by stopping Jewish settlement activity in Palestinian areas.
“The way the settlements are now growing means that you will end up with a
Palestinian state looking like a Swiss cheese — a lot of holes. So if you are
going to have this vision with two viable states, then you also have to make the
Palestinian state viable,” Moeller said.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, writing in The New York Times on Friday,
said the Jewish settlements were making a two-state solution impossible.
“This map (the Quartet’s road map) will lead nowhere unless it stops Israel’s
ongoing land grabs,” he said.
After talks at the State Department, the mediators will go to the White House to
see US President George W. Bush.
The other European Union leaders are foreign policy chief Javier Solana and
External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten. (R)
-Arab News (arabnews.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency
(PINA).
Quartet Reports Progress on Roadmap for Resolving Middle East Crisis
NEW YORK - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today
said the diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East - comprising the UN, European
Union, Russian Federation and United States - was "very close" to finalizing a
roadmap for resolving the region's crisis, which it will soon present to the
Israelis and Palestinians.
Speaking to reporters before the Quartet's meeting in Washington, D.C., with US
President George W. Bush, the Secretary-General said that the group believes the
roadmap "can help bring about the vision of two States, Israel and Palestine,
living side-by-side."
A joint statement issued after the meeting said President Bush expressed his
"strong support" for the group's efforts as well as his firm commitment to its
roadmap, "which would realize his vision of two States - Israel and Palestine -
living side-by-side in peace and security."
In addition to Annan, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Foreign Minister Per
Stig Moeller of Denmark, which currently holds the EU's presidency, High
Representative for European Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana,
and European Commissioner for External Affairs Chris Patten attended the meeting
with President Bush and US Secretary of State Powell.
According to the statement, the Quartet agreed to further intensive work to
develop a credible and effective monitoring mechanism. "In the meantime, the
Quartet calls on the parties to carry out as rapidly as possible their
responsibilities to restore calm, pursue reforms, and improve the humanitarian
situation - steps that will lead to a political process culminating in
Palestinian statehood," it said.
Specifically, the Quartet called for an immediate, comprehensive, ceasefire.
"All Palestinian individuals and groups must end all acts of terror against
Israelis, in any location," the statement said, noting that such a ceasefire
should be accompanied by supportive measures undertaken by the Government of
Israel. "As calm is established, Israeli forces should withdraw from Palestinian
areas and the pre-Intifada status quo on the ground should be restored."
The Quartet also expressed concern at the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza
and the West Bank and called for increased effort by the Government of Israel to
ease the humanitarian situation in those places. "The Quartet reiterates the
importance of immediate Israeli measures, consistent with legitimate security
concerns, to improve the lives of Palestinians, including allowing the
resumption of normal economic activity, facilitating the movement of goods,
people, and essential services and lifting curfew and closures," the statement
said. "The Quartet calls on Israel to avoid actions that undermine trust and
create further hardship for innocent Palestinian civilians, including demolition
of houses and civil infrastructure."
During a press encounter after the White House meeting, Annan said the Quartet
is determined to finalize its plan as quickly as possible, and release it to the
parties. "We all agree that that is the only solution," he stressed. "Our
challenge now is to work with them to get there in the next couple of years. And
we are very pleased to also hear the President's strong support for the work of
the Quartet and the achievement of his vision."
-United Nations News Center (http://www.un.org/news/)
Thursday December 19, 2002
Main Headline
Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch Appeals for End of Israeli Occupation
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah
in his Christmas message appealed for an end to the Israeli siege and occupation
of Palestinian Territory and foe a stop of the bloodshed.
“Our Christmas message... is an appeal to put an end to the siege and then to
the occupation and an appeal to stop bloodshed on both sides, in the Palestinian
towns and villages and in the Israeli towns and streets,” he said in a sermon
delivered ahead of Christmas.
He urged the world "to wake up and to come and help both people of this land to
make peace" and appealed to Israel "to take away once and for all, the
checkpoints around the Palestinian towns and villages."
"If they (the checkpoints) have to remain, we say to our faithful: transform
them into places of worship."
Patriarch Michel Sabbah added that "those being oppressed are the Palestinians.
Israelis have to ask themselves why Palestinian are behaving this way instead of
just saying it's terrorism."
"If you take away the occupation, you stop all the violence," he said.
He described Israel’s decision to ban President Yasser Arafat from attending the
December 24 Christmas midnight mass in Bethlehem, Jesus Christ’s birthplace, as
"a useless measure."
"If the Israeli authorities were on the real path towards peace, they would have
refrained from issuing such an inappropriate measure," he said.
But he also told journalists "Arafat's presence in Bethlehem is not the central
issue, let's not mix political and military decisions with religious matters."
"Of course, he's always welcome," Sabbah said.
Israel is barring Arafat from attending Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem for
the second year in a row because it deems the Palestinian President has not done
enough to stop so-called ‘terrorism’.
He did not deny in his sermon that Israelis were suffering as well during the
Palestinian two-year old Intifada.
Bethlehem, like all West Bank towns but Jericho, is under the control of Israeli
Occupation Forces (IOF) and subject to curfews and military closures.
-Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
Bush to Mubarak: Peace Plan Is Not Ready
WASHINGTON - US President Bush has told Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak that a U.S. Middle East peace plan is not ready to be finalized this
week, but that he is committed to moving it forward "at the soonest possible
moment."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Thursday that the two leaders discussed
the "roadmap" by telephone.
Fleischer said the United States has many ideas that it wants to share at
Friday's Washington meeting of senior officials from Russia, the European Union,
United Nations and the United States. The session is to focus on ways to keep
the Middle East peace process moving forward.
European and Arab leaders have been urging Washington to release a final draft
of the plan, which calls for a permanent Palestinian state by 2005 and a
complete halt to construction in the Jewish settlements at Friday's meeting.
But, U.S. officials say the plan will not be released until after Israel's
January elections. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat charged that the
decision shows Washington is trying to help Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
in the elections.
Meanwhile, in continuing violence in the occupied territories, Palestinian
security sources say an 11-year-old Palestinian girl was shot and killed by
Israeli soldiers Thursday. Palestinians say the girl was looking out a window of
her home in the town of Rafah, when the soldiers at the nearby border post
opened fire.
-voanews (voanews.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
Wednesday December 18, 2002
Main Headline
IOF Soldiers Kill 16-year-old
GAZA CITY - A 16 year-old Palestinian boy was killed and two
other persons were injured, when a shell fired by an Israeli tank, slammed into
a house in the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, Palestinian security and medical
sources reported Tuesday.
The victim, Jawad Zidane, was inside his home when IOF tanks started shelling
residential neighborhoods, witnesses told reporters. A 65-year-old man was also
reportedly injured, while he was inside his house.
Also in Khan Younis, IOF soldiers sealed the Salah Eddine Street with cement
blocks, while occupation soldiers searched cars and checked identity cards.
At least ten people were detained, including a mother and her two children, at
al-Matahin military roadblock in Al-Qarara town, north Khan Younis.
A 10-year-old Palestinian girl was also wounded Tuesday when the Israeli army
demolished three houses in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, Palestinian
medical sources and witnesses said.
The girl was shot in the leg while Israeli occupation troops, backed up by
bulldozers, demolished three houses near Rafah refugee camp, the sources added.
In the meantime, over 1000 people took part the funeral of Eid Abu Hilal, who
was shot dead by IOF soldiers last night near the border strip separating
Palestine and Egypt in Rafah.
Israeli occupation soldiers based near Salah Eddine Gate, south of Rafah, opened
heavy fire at the unarmed civilian and left him to bleed for over two hours,
while it prevented ambulances from rescuing him.
President Arafat: Israel is Violating Freedom of Worship
RAMALLAH - President Yasser Arafat stressed, following a meeting
Tuesday with a Christian delegation at his headquarters in Ramallah that the
Israeli government continues to violate freedom of worship, calling upon
international community to pressure the Jewish state into allowing the
Palestinian people to celebrate Christmas.
“They [The Israelis] had declared once again today that they will not pull back
from Bethlehem, and that they will only allow a few people to enter the church
of Nativity. This is an outrageous violation of the freedom of worship and of
holy Islamic and Christian shrines”, the President said following the meeting.
President Arafat briefed the delegation on the dire humanitarian and economic
situation plaguing the Palestinian people in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and
occupied east Jerusalem.
He also pinpointed to the dangerous implications of the Israeli occupation of
Bethlehem and its surroundings, which is preventing thousands of pilgrims from
reaching the Church of the Nativity.
The meeting was attended by the Guardian of the Holy Land, Father Giovanni,
escorted by Father Ibrahim Felts, pastor of the Church of the Nativity in
Bethlehem, as well as Dr. Emile Jerjoui, a Christian member of the PLO executive
committee.
President Arafat further expressed his astonishment over the continuation of
Bethlehem’s occupation, in spite of promises Israeli President Moshe Katsav made
to Pope John Paul II that the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) will withdraw from
the Palestinian city before Christmas.
“It’s a pity that in spite of all the promises they made to his eminence the
Pope to withdraw from Bethlehem before Christmas, all this is happening, and we
can't celebrate with the citizens there side by side as we used to on this great
occasion.”
The Vatican had earlier urged Israel to allow “free access” to the holy sites
during the holiday season in Bethlehem, the home to some of Christianity’s
holiest sites, among them the Nativity Church; the site said to be where Jesus
was born, and the adjoining Church of Saint Catherine where midnight mass is
traditionally celebrated on December 24.
Israel has decided to ban President Arafat from attending this year’s Christmas
mass in Bethlehem, warning that IOF would go back and raid the presidential
compound in Ramallah City if the President decided to leave the compound to go
to the Church of Nativity.
Tuesday December 17, 2002
Main Headline
Arafat Accepts British PM’s Invitation
RAMALLAH - The Palestine National Authority (PNA) has welcomed
an invitation from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to attend talks in London
next month aimed at boosting the Middle East peace process and Palestinian
reforms.
President Yasser Arafat, who received a letter from Blair delivered by the UK
Consul General in occupied Jerusalem, Jeoffry Adams, has been asked to nominate
senior figures to attend the talks in London in the new year.
Blair told the House of Commons on Monday that representatives of the European
Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, together with countries
from the Middle East region, would also be invited to attend the talks.
“I can announce today that I am inviting leading Palestinians to come to Britain
in January to a conference along with members of the quartet and other countries
from the region closely involved in supporting the reform efforts,'' Blair told
parliament.
"It will discuss progress on reform and look at how the international community
can help," said Blair, who was reporting back to members of parliament on the
outcome of the EU summit in Copenhagen Thursday and Friday.
"It is in the interests of both the Palestinians and Israelis that these reform
efforts succeed, so that we can make a reality of President (George W.) Bush's
vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and
security," he said.
President Arafat accepted the offer to send a delegation, a senior Palestinian
official said.
“The British consular authorities in Jerusalem delivered a letter from Mr Blair
to President Arafat indicating he wishes to hold talks with a Palestinian
delegation on the means to re-launch the peace process,” said chief negotiator
Sa’eb Erekat.
Erekat said that President Arafat had “appreciated [PM Blair’s] letter and
accepted the invitation,” adding he “has to draw up the list of members of this
delegation,” he said.
The cabinet minister added that the British prime minister, in the letter, also
stressed his concerns over the situation in the Middle East “and the necessity
for reforms within the PNA.”
The talks, a date for which has yet to be set, will be chaired by Foreign
Secretary Jack Staw and will be attended by Blair, a Downing Street spokesman
said.
While countries from the Middle East region are to be invited to attend, Israel
has not been invited to the talks.
“In the short term, progress on the Israeli side will be limited by the general
election campaign,” Blair said.
Last month, British officials said Blair was hoping to convene a conference with
both Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
“We are already in direct contact with the Israeli government and keep them
briefed of our plans, and we will talk with them afterwards, but for a number of
reasons, including the ongoing electoral process, we are not inviting them to
this,” said the Downing Street spokesman.
Israelis go to the polls on January 28.
The meeting is to focus on reform of the Palestinian Authority rather than on
the peace process.
Blair called the meeting "to talk about Palestinian reform and in particular the
reform agenda that the Palestinian Authority has signed up to and which the
quartet is keen to get the Palestinian Authority to implement," said a UK
Foreign Office spokesman.
However, PNA international cooperation minister Nabil Sha’ath warned that, while
Palestinians would be happy to attend the talks, they do not want the agenda to
solely deal with the issue of reform.
"We care about Britain playing a positive role...but we will want to discuss the
agenda," Sha’ath said.
"We want to see how far this will put us forward in trying to regain the peace
process and to end the suffering of our people," adding he was sure discussion
would be "fruitful" and ultimately worthwhile for the Palestinians.
Arafat Asks ‘Quartet’ Members to Push for Peace
Blair’s invitation comes three days ahead of a meeting hosted by the United
States for a meeting of the so-called ‘Quartet’, who are Middle East peace
mediators representing the UN, US, EU and Russia.
The level of representation of the ‘Quartet’ has yet to be decided.
President Arafat has asked the members of the ‘Quartet’ to quickly get the
process back on track, Erekat said Monday.
“Arafat wrote letters to members of the quartet, asking them to do everything
possible to immediately re-launch the peace process,” Erekat said.
‘Quartet’ members are to meet in Washington Friday to study a ‘roadmap’ for
peace that includes the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.
“They should act as soon as possible to end Israeli attacks, destruction of
homes, murders and occupation so presidential and general elections may be
held,” in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Erekat added.
Those elections are scheduled for January 20, but an electoral commission is to
consider Thursday an eventual postponement owing to the reoccupation of most of
the West Bank by Israeli forces.
Last Friday, the United States refused to endorse a EU call for the adoption of
a long-awaited ‘roadmap’ for Middle East peace at Washington meeting.
The EU leaders declared at a summit in Copenhagen last week that the plan, which
calls for a Palestinian state by 2005, should be finalized at ministerial-level
talks of the diplomatic ‘Quartet’ next Friday.
But the United States refused to commit itself to such a step, and Israel has
warned that the ‘roadmap’ should not be adopted until after its elections on
January 28.
Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, whose nation is wrapping up its turn
at the EU presidency, said Friday he was confident that Washington would support
the EU line on the ‘roadmap’.
“I’m sure that the United States and the European Union will look upon the
roadmap with the same eyes,” he told reporters.
Moeller also opposed Israel’s position that the document should not be finalized
before the election.
"I think that the Israeli electorate has the right to know about the two states
solution we are proposing and then they can decide whether to support it or
not," he said.
Arabs Push for Condemning Israel for Murder of Three UN Workers
NEW YORK - Amid increasing UN concern over the safety of their
staff in the occupied Palestinian territory, Arab states are pushing for a
condemnation of Israel for the slaying of three UN workers by its soldiers.
As the United Nations called upon the Jewish state to stop using
disproportional, excessive military force in civilian population centers, Syria
drafted a resolution expressing “grave concern” at the murder of UN staff as
well as Palestinian civilians by Israeli occupation forces (IOF).
This comes after the senior United Nations Middle East envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen
slammed Israel on Monday, calling for its IOF soldiers to “behave with greater
restraint and discipline.”
Speaking at an open Security Council meeting, Roed-Larsen spoke of the murder of
three UN workers by IOF late last month and early December.
The British relief official Iain Hook was killed by IOF soldiers in Jenin
refugee camp last month and his murder sparked an outcry by the international
community and the world body for whom he was working for.
Hook was shot dead by a soldier whom Israel claims mistook a mobile phone the
relief worker was carrying for a gun.
The UN was quick to condemn his slaying and called for an official, scrutinized
investigation. Another two staffers-- a caretaker and a teacher working for a
local UN-funded school-- were also killed. All three victims worked for UNRWA,
the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
The Mideast envoy also criticized Israel for its “troubling indifference to the
sanctity of U.N. facilities,” and said the Jewish state should ensure that its
soldiers do not place civilians in harm’s way and act in conformity with
international humanitarian law.
Recently, the world body came down on Israel after its IOF soldiers destroyed a
building housing a World Food Program warehouse containing thousands of tons of
foodstuff, which were to be distributed to impoverished Palestinian refugees.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed his dismay at the killings of Hook,
Usama Tahrawi and Ahlan Kandil at a early Monday meeting with Israel’s ‘Defense’
Minster, Shaul Mofaz, which was also attended by Larsen.
Israel had previously claimed that gunmen had entered the UN compound, which
housed Hook’s trailer. The UN relief agency refuted that claim.
The secretary-general reiterated his call for “a rigorous investigation” and a
written report on Hook’s death, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
Annan also urged Mofaz to improve access for UN and other humanitarian personnel
to aid them in their work, he said.
The United Nations has seen “little improvement” in the pledges Israel gave to
help alleviate the dire humanitarian situation in the occupied territory, Larsen
said at the council meeting.
These include shorter waiting times for ambulances, assistance to Palestinians
seeking urgent medical attention at roadblocks, speeded-up passage for water
tankers, and free movement for representatives of international organizations,
AP said.
Larsen also told the council issue that Israeli soldiers must “refrain from the
excessive and disproportionate use of deadly force in civilian areas.”
Larsen added that humanitarian aid alone could not alleviate the humanitarian
crisis now prevailing in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
He stressed that “lasting security for Israel will only be found through a just,
lasting and comprehensive settlement in the Middle East; meanwhile, the
humanitarian crisis cannot and should not be solved by donor support alone.”
The envoy also said “the steadily growing gap between the deteriorating
situation on the ground and the growing consensus about where to go has to be
resolved.”
The roadmap for peace outlined by the diplomatic Quartet of the European Union,
Russia, the United Nations and the United States provides the best tool to
achieve this goal, he added.
Arafat Asks for Arab League Help to Draft Constitution
RAMALLAH - President Yasser Arafat officially called Monday for
Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa to reactivate a committee tasked with
helping to draft a Palestinian constitution.
Palestinian International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath told reporters after
talks with Mussa at the League’s headquarters in Cairo that Arafat made the
request in a telephone call during their meeting.
Mussa accepted immediately, he said, adding that the League chief's predecessor
Esmat Abdel Meguid would be in charge of the committee, which will be enlarged
to include legal experts from different Arab countries, AFP reported on Monday.
Members of a special League committee already created in 1999 met earlier to
discuss the draft constitution. Apart from Abdel Meguid and Shaath, Egyptian and
Palestinian legal experts also took part.
Shaath said in Gaza on Saturday that the committee's work was being resumed
after a two-year interruption due to the ongoing Palestinian uprising against
Israeli occupation.
A “basic law,” a provisional constitution governing the institutions of the
Palestine National Authority (PNA), took effect on July 7.
Shaath said the expanded League drafting committee is to hold its first meeting
in three weeks and aim to draw up a constitution, which lays down a democratic
republic with a multi-party system and Jerusalem as capital.
After approval by Palestinian MPs, the constitution will be put to a vote in a
referendum, the minister said.
Israel Forbids Palestinian President to Attend Christmas Worship Service in Bethlehem
RAMALLAH (PC) - For the second year in a row, Palestinian Authority President, Yasser Arafat is barred from attending Christmas services at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. For more than eight years the Palestinian leader has attended services at the historic birthplace of Jesus.
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While emphasizing their commitment to religious freedom, the Israeli government
claimed that banning Arafat was solely based on “security measures”.
Meanwhile, signs of the holiday season are rare in the city that is usually
filled with tourists and festivities this time of year. Shops are closed and
shelves are empty. Residents say that they are concerned about feeding their
children, and that there will be few gifts to open on Christmas day.
Palestinian leaders denounced Israel’s decision, saying it was “stupid and a
provocation to the Palestinian people, as well as being a challenge to
international law.”
Israeli officials said that while Arafat is banned from the city, and while
Israeli troops will continue to occupy the city during the holiday season, local
Christians will be permitted to attend worship services on Christmas eve as well
as Christmas day.
But since the city is surrounded by checkpoints, Christians from neighboring
areas will not be allowed to attend those services.
Monday December 16, 2002
Main Headline
Blair Invites Palestinian Leaders to London
LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday, December
16, he was inviting Palestinian leaders to London for talks, as visiting Syrian
President Bashar Al-Assad said he was “optimistic” that a U.S.-led war on Iraq
could be avoided.
Blair - who met earlier Monday with Al-Assad - told the House of Commons that he
would in the new year invite Palestinian leaders to discuss progress on reform
and to look at how the international community could help.
He added that representatives of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations
and the United States, together with countries from the Middle East region,
would also be invited to attend the talks.
“It will discuss progress on reform and look at how the international community
can help,” said Blair, who was reporting back to members of parliament on the
outcome of the E.U. summit in Copenhagen last Thursday and Friday.
“It is in the interests of both the Palestinians and Israelis that these reform
efforts succeed, so that we can make a reality of President (George W.) Bush’s
vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and
security,” he said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
It was not immediately clear which Palestinian leaders were being invited to
London, or whether President Yasser Arafat would be among them.
Israeli Army Invades Nablus University
NABLUS, West Bank (PC) - On Saturday, December 14th, Israeli
forces invaded al-Najah University in Nablus. At 8:30 in the morning, two
Israeli tanks stopped in front of the main gate as thousands of students were
arriving to the campus.
For the first time in fifteen years, Israeli troops invaded the campus, ordering
security, staff and faculty to evacuate the building, giving them thirty minutes
to leave, and threatening them with force if they refused to leave.
The University was forced to suspend classes for the day.
In a press release issued by the University, the Administration stated that it
“insists on its nonnegotiable right of practicing its academic mission without
any interference from the Israeli army.”
The Administration also denounced the action, claiming that its was an act of
aggression on the freedom of education, which is secured under international
law.
They called on human rights organizations and the international community to
hold the army accountable for violating the academic life of the institution and
advocated their right to carry out their academic role and mission in
Palestinian society.
Jerusalem Chorus to Perform Christmas Concert at Israeli Checkpoint
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PC) - The Jerusalem Chorus, a group of Palestinian and international singers, will perform the annual Christmas concert at the Qalandya checkpoint today, in protest of the Israeli occupation, which forbids many of the Chorus members to travel to Bethlehem, where the concert traditionally takes place.
The group will gather and begin their concert at 11:00 am, and will sing in
defiance of the Israeli edict that denies the group, as well as other
worshippers to celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem, the historic birthplace of
Jesus.
In a press release, the group expressed that they would perform in defiance of
the occupation, and in the name of Palestinian children who cannot reach their
schools due to curfews and checkpoints.
They also stressed that they would protest on behalf of farmers who cannot reach
their fields, patients who are denied access to medical facilities and families
who are separated, due to the checkpoints, which are imposed in many Palestinian
towns and villages.
The group stated, “We urge people of conscience around to the world to break the
silence and act for he sake of humanity in this holy season.”
The Jerusalem Chorus was established in 1955. The group has performed in
Palestine as well as internationally.
Thursday December 12, 2002
Main Headline
Carter Offers to Mediate Mideast Talks
By Nazir Majally
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Former US President Jimmy Carter yesterday offered to
mediate talks between Israel and Palestinians as fresh violence claimed the
lives of nine people, five of them unarmed Palestinians, in the occupied
territories.
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Speaking to students at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, the winner of this
year’s Nobel Peace Prize said he “would go immediately and with great alacrity,”
to the Middle East, but only if the parties concerned and the US government
asked him to.
Carter gave no indications he had been asked to do so, however. He helped broker
the 1978 Camp David accords that led to peace between Israel and Egypt. The
agreement resulted in the Peace Prize for Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin
and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
Carter said escalating tension between Israelis and Palestinians has not been
stemmed and asserted that US President George W. Bush was not impartial about
the issue.
“Until President Bush, every president, Democratic or Republican, has in my
opinion played a balancing role as a trusted mediator,” he said. “Now though it
seems obvious that the present administration in Washington is completely
compatible with the Israeli government and they have completely ignored...the
Palestinian Authority.”
Seven Palestinians and two Israelis were killed in separate incidents yesterday
in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Hebron.
Israeli forces near the Karni border crossing in the Gaza Strip killed five
unarmed Palestinians they believed were planning to climb a security fence to
get into Israel, an Israeli military source said. Palestinian security sources
said the men were laborers trying to sneak into Israel to find work.
Beilin, Dayan Quit Israel’s Labor Party, Join Meretz
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - (PC) Two leading doves quit Israel’s Labor
Party Wednesday and joined Meretz Party, deepening a crisis in the battered
Israeli peace camp as it faces next month’s elections, amid an increasingly
hawkish mood toward the Palestinian people.
Yossi Beilin, an architect of Israeli-Palestinian interim peace accords, and
Ya’el Dayan, an outspoken advocate of peacemaking, decided to join the more
left-wing Meretz Party list after being sidelined in this week’s Labor primary.
“Our place ideologically is in the peace camp,” said Dayan, daughter of the late
general-turned-politician Moshe Dayan. “In view of the political wilderness we
had been consigned to in Labor, our place is ... not there,” Reuters quoted her
as saying.
Beilin said, “Our task is to attack the blind policy of (Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel) Sharon.”
The veteran peace campaigners quit Israel’s main opposition party after a
primary ballot assigned them and other doves to virtually unelectable places on
the list of candidates.
Labor withdrew from Sharon’s unity coalition in November, ending an uneasy
20-month partnership and precipitating a crisis that forced the prime minister
to call an early election.
In elections set for January 28, Labor is expected to win only about 21 seats, 4
fewer than it holds currently. Other Labor candidates gained enough votes in
this week's elections to claim all those seats.
In Israeli parliamentary elections, citizens vote only for parties, which then
apportion their seats among the top finishers in internal ballots like those
held this week.
Meretz, which advocates moves toward an immediate peace with Palestinian
representatives, agreed to rank Beilin and Dayan higher on their candidates’
list in exchange for their departure from Labor.
Beilin’s decision to leave Labor stands as a measure of the party’s shift to the
right since the Palestinian uprising began 26 months ago. He was one of the
primary movers behind the interim peace accord that Israel and the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) signed in Oslo in 1993.
Labor party hawks muscled their way up the party's list of candidates for the
Israeli general election Tuesday.
The final results of Israel's center-left's party's rank-and-file voting to
choose candidates for the January 28 polls showed those who favored a tougher
line against the Palestinians fared slightly better.
Labor had already reserved the top spots for its party leader Amran Mitzna, his
predecessor and rival Binyamin Ben Eliezer and former foreign minister Shimon
Peres, while dovish former sports minister Matan Vilnai won the much-contested
fourth spot.
However, in a sign of the hawks’ pre-eminence, Labor bumped Beilin, one of the
party’s leading doves, far down the list, leaving him slim hopes of being
elected to parliament.
“This list shows that the Labor party does not only want peace but also security
... We are not a ‘Meretz number two’,” Ben Eliezer said after the results.
Israel Kills Five Unarmed Palestinians
GAZA CITY - (PC) Israeli occupation soldiers shot and killed
five unarmed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip Thursday in what Palestinian sources
described as a cold-blooded murder.
An Israeli army spokesman admitted the five were unarmed, but claimed they
intended to climb an Israeli fence between the Gaza Strip and Palestinian
territories occupied by Israel in 1948.
The Israeli spokesman said occupation soldiers opened fire on "suspicious
figures" near the border early in the morning Wednesday.
A few hours later the bodies of five unarmed Palestinians were found. The
Israeli media quoted army sources as saying that ladders were found near the
bodies.
Palestinian officials have long accused the Israeli army of adopting a policy of
producing a daily death quota of three to five Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly asked the international community to
provide protection for the Palestinian people.
Wednesday December 11, 2002
Main Headline
Palestinian Elections 'Impossible' Unless Israeli Army Withdraws: Parliament Speaker
RAMALLAH - (PC) Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qorei said Tuesday it will be practically impossible for the Palestinian people to go ahead with the scheduled January 20 presidential and legislative elections.
"We can't do it in the shadow of Israeli tanks, so I think it
will be difficult to organize the polls," he told reporters following talks with
French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin.
"Practically speaking, I don't see how it's possible," he said.
The Palestinian leadership announced last June that presidential and legislative
elections would be held on January 20, 2003, and local elections in March.
Israel has reoccupied most of the West Bank since June and carries out regular
incursions into the Gaza Strip.
Qorei also said he had discussed with De Villepin "how to get out of the trap of
the blockade that Israel is imposing on the Palestinian people and the way in
which those who defend peace can help a return to (Israeli-Palestinian)
political negotiation."
He said, "We have found with our French friends a wish to help and support a
return to a political path to peace."
Qorei was to meet Wednesday with President Jacques Chirac and National Assembly
speaker Jean-Louis Debre. On Thursday, he is slated to meet Senate speaker
Christian Poncelet, the French Foreign Ministry announced on Monday.
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary General, Mahmud Abbas (Abu
Mazen) said on Tuesday that the withdrawal of Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)
from Palestine National Authority (PNA) territories they reoccupied in June was
a prerequisite to holding Palestinian elections.
Abu Mazen told the Lebanese satellite TV channel LBC that the PNA needs a few
months after the withdrawal of IOF to pre-September 28, 2000 lines to prepare
for the elections.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Sunday told the Arab satellite TV channel
MBC that a general election set for January will have to be delayed unless
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) withdraw from reoccupied PNA towns.
In an interview with Reuters news agency, Arafat said at least one month and
perhaps three months free of Israeli military occupation was necessary to allow
for election campaigning, before the vote could go ahead.
On Monday Palestinian chief negotiator Sa’eb Erekat told Al-Jazeera satellite TV
channel that one hundred days were necessary to arrange for elections, after the
withdrawal of IOF.
The Palestinian central elections committee will decide next week whether
presidential and legislative elections slated for January should be scrapped due
to Israel’s reoccupation of the West Bank, its secretary general said Monday.
“As long as the situation on the ground is the same and the occupation remains,
it is not possible to hold elections,” Ali Jarbawi told AFP.
“We are approaching a critical moment and the central committee will meet next
week to decide on the issue,” he said. “We will assess the situation, and it
there is no change, there will be no elections” on the scheduled date.
“Technically, we are paralyzed,” Jarbawi explained. “There are half a million
new voters who still need to be registered and even the central committee has
only been able to meet twice, through video-conference,” he said.
Tuesday December 10, 2002
Main Headline
Will There Be Peace in Bethlehem This Christmas?
O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in the dark streets shineth
The everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight
MASON, Michigan (PC) - These are the first verses of the Christmas song, "O
Little Town of Bethlehem." More than 2,000 years ago, a baby was born in the
town of Bethlehem. His name was Jesus and He came to earth to bring hope.
According to Christian teachings, Jesus believed in spreading goodwill toward
all men. But the current residents of Bethlehem know anything but. In fact, the
town's residents who consist of Palestinian Muslims and Palestinian Christians
-- often referred to as the "living stones" of Christianity -- are mainly
familiar with fear.
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Christmas has taken on special meaning during these trying times. In fact,
Bethlehem's residents are waiting specifically for this holiday season in the
hopes that increased world attention to this area would result in a marked
improvement of their lives. Bethlehem, a once bustling city of noise, movement
and color is a ghost town, with damaged buildings. Silence is broken only by the
rumbling of Israeli tanks and the sporadic gunfire of soldiers. It is a city
imprisoned behind a wall. Currently, Israelis have enforced a curfew on the
residents which allows people to leave their homes for a few hours; travelling
outside the city is prohibited; beatings of residents by Israeli soldiers are a
regular occurrence; the youth cannot go to school and adults have no jobs to go
to.
Recently, my friend, whose parents reside in the war-torn Bethlehem suburb of
Beit Jala, described a desperate, young father. He approached my friend's
father.
"Sir, can you give me a job for 30 shekels [the equivalent of 10 US dollars]?"
asked the young father. "My children have no food to eat, and I have no money."
"I'm sorry. I wish I could, my son, but I need a job myself," was the response.
This sad scenario is a familiar one that plays out whenever the curfew is
lifted, but United Nations figures show that most Palestinians are now living on
less than $2 per day. So even loosening a curfew means little to the purchasing
power of parents in Bethlehem and other Palestinian cities/towns.
Even the famous Bethlehem holy site hasn't escaped the wrath of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Who can forget the siege of the Church of the
Nativity in Bethlehem earlier this year? The tense drama pitted a well-equipped
Israeli army against trapped Palestinian fighters. Caught in the middle, as the
bullets flew and psychological warfare raged on were members of the clergy and
dozens of innocent Palestinian civilians. Prior to the siege, a Palestinian
choirboy was shot dead by IDF soldiers outside Manger Square.
Whether the Christmas season will renew hopes for a better tomorrow is difficult
to say. For the second year in a row, the Israeli government has declared
Bethlehem as being off-limits to Christian tourists during Christmas. Israelis
say that the violence has forced them into cancelling Christmas. They say their
presence is needed in Bethlehem and other cities in the Occupied Territories.
But the Israeli Occupation is in its 35th year. Twenty-seven of the 35 years
were marked with no violent uprisings for freedom, but rather general strikes
and leafleting. So why didn't the Israelis leave during the 27 years of "quiet?"
Even Ehud Barak's "generous" Camp David plan allowed for illegal settlers to
remain in 80% of the current settlements.
A new poll, conducted among Arab-Americans and Jewish-Americans, may provide a
glimmer of hope for two-state solution advocates, however. According to a joint
Arab American Institute/Americans for Peace Now survey, there is strong backing
in both communities for secure and independent states for Israelis and
Palestinians alike.
Perhaps someday, there will even be overwhelming support for a democratic
bi-national state where Palestinians and Israelis live as equals in one state.
Psalm 133 begins, "How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together
in unity!" The psalm ends, "For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life
forevermore."
But peace and freedom are foremost on the minds of Palestinians in Bethlehem and
beyond. The words of Christ, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be
called the children of God," particularly resonate with Bethlehem's residents
these days.
Peace, Christmas, and Bethlehem. Now that has a nice ring to it.
Sherri Muzher, JD in International Law, is a Writer and Media Analyst based
in Mason, Michigan. She is a regular contributor to the Palestine Chronicle
A Salute to Jimmy Carter: The Bridge Over Troubled Waters
By Leila Diab
WASHINGTON (PC) - Nobility comes with pomp and a circumstance befitting a king
or a ruler of a great nation in this day and age, as it was mirrored in the
past. However, nobility is also a measure of man's worthiness of character,
dedication, practicing faith, acknowledgeable deeds and self-sacrifices for the
good of humankind.
This year's 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner, the former president
of the United States, Jimmy Carter encompasses the mere image of nobility, a man
of noble means, actions with a persona that has won the minds, hearts,
admiration and respect of people from all four corners of the world.
Jimmy Carter's humanitarian mission in life was to be the symbol of hope in
times of despair for the world's population in Africa, the Middle East, Central
America and regions that have not, ideally, coveted their basic universal human
rights, freedoms. equality and an enduring peace.
Carter and his wife, Rosalie, however, chose to be the light and shield of
progress, humanity and reasoning in times of adversity and misfortune in
American and throughout the world. Jimmy Carter, "such a worthy, honest, and
most deserving Nobel Peace Prize winner" were the most notable words of praise
that could be heard throughout the world. Many people in the world have called
him a man of peace and a man with a humanitarian mission.
Carter's long list of humanitarian accomplishments should continue to be
emulated.
In many past interviews that I have seen on TV or read in various print media,
Carter, in his unassuming nature always spoke honestly of his deep seeded faith
in humankind and his desire to change situations that eluded him while he was
still president. His sense of human rights, justice for all, fairness, and
universal freedoms and peace, laid the foundation for many peoples dreams to
come true. while fanning the flames of human despair.
Habitat for Humanity, an organization which he established in the late 80's,
made it possible for poor people to own their own houses. He rolled up his
sleeves and wiped his sweat, along with hundreds of volunteers who joined him to
build homes for the needy, and made the American Dream of owning a home come
true. And in the United States, Jimmy Carter's work in Habitat for Humanity
placed a renewed emphasis on community service work for the young and the old
nationwide.
Since leaving the U.S. Presidential Office in defeat in 1980 to the then elected
President Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, 78, was determined to view the world as
his open window and center stage to exert his influence with previous
governmental experiences, for the good of humankind, at home and around the
world. And since out of public office, for more than two decades ago, Carter's
honesty, self sacrifices and genuine human convictions have helped to promote,
nurture and sow the seeds of human understanding, as well as earn him respect
and universal appeal.
To make a difference in the world today, there are those of us who are motivated
by our choices, the usage of standard language, and how we choose to communicate
our words and actions, especially in times of crises, world conflicts and human
despair. These essential elements of communication will ultimately impact and
help to shape the nature and outcome of our projected goals and reactions. That
is the recipe for world peace and an end to human suffering. Jimmy Carter is a
valuable mixture of those essential ingredients that have made the world a
better place.
As the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jimmy Carter is the quintessential
communicator of humanity and dignity that has shaped the nature and true meaning
of human responsibility, trust, hope, promotion of universal human rights and
peace worldwide. Jimmy Carter, we salute you, as the bearer of peace, the bright
ray of light and hope and the bridge over troubled waters.
Above all, the Palestinian people cry out to you too...to end their
insurmountable human suffering.
Netanyahu's Nephew Jailed over Refusal to Join 'Israeli Occupation Army'
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - The Israeli army sentenced Jonathan Ben
Artzi to a 35-day prison term Sunday, December 8, for refusing to serve in the
army, his sixth sentence since he was first jailed on August 8. He has since
spent 126 days in prison, in what his father says is a record in Israel for a
conscientious objector.
Artzi hates war and would rather spend time in jail than serve in the army. But,
he is not just any conscientious objector, he's the nephew of Israel's
ultra-nationalist foreign minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
For the same reasons, the army handed a 28-day prison term to Uri Yaacobi, who
has already spent 106 days behind bars.
Israelis are called to arms when they turn 18. Men serve for three years and
women for 21 months, while ultra-Orthodox Jews are exempted on religious
grounds.
"Yoni", 20, is the youngest son of the Ben Artzi family, who divide their time
between occupied Jerusalem, France and the United States.
Before leaving Israel to work in New York, both his brother and his sister
completed their compulsory military service in Israel.
"But they weren't very enthusiastic either," said the father, Matania Ben Artzi,
who served 13 years in the army, first in an elite unit and then as a
mathematician for military scientific research.
His wife Ofra was also in the army when they met, but she was the one who turned
him into a pacifist. Jonathan has always been revolted by violence and
everything related to the army, AFP said.
"His first real shock came when he was 12," his father recounted.
"We were visiting the Verdun battle field in France and the sight of those
endless crosses and the ossuary with the remains of 150,000 unknown soldiers
killed in World War I had a traumatic effect on him."
During his time in high school in occupied Jerusalem, he actively promoted
issues linked to pacifism.
He enjoyed sports but refused to learn karate, and one day even gave up on a
school outing because the bus had to drive through the Palestinian territories,
where the army had imposed a curfew.
"Already back then, it was his way of protesting against the Israeli army's
occupation of the Palestinian territories," his mother said.
It came as no surprise when at the age of 17, Jonathan refused to join up after
receiving his first conscription call.
"He didn't even try to be exempted for medical reasons or anything else," his
father said. "He demanded, in vain, the right to be a civilian conscript and
even insisted on his pacifism to publicize his struggle."
Jonathan is slowly making a name for himself in Israel, where conscientious
objectors are few and far between. The young man even went as far as dragging
the army in front of the supreme court, although nothing came of it.
"In a country where the army is divine and sacred, he's more than a traitor,"
the father said, charging that "Israeli democracy is nothing more than a
facade."
During a recent family diner, Netanyahu, who is married to the sister of
Jonathan's father and leads the ultra-nationalist camp in the right-wing Likud
party, briefly broached the sensitive issue: "Maybe you'll change your mind".
In his army years, the charismatic nationalist politician served in the elite
Sayeret Matkal unit. His brother commanded the same unit when he was killed in a
1976 rescue mission on a hijacked plane in Entebbe, Uganda.
But his notorious uncle's gentle prodding did not shake Jonathan's
determination. Quite the opposite.
A mathematics student in occupied Jerusalem, he has taken up law on the side. On
Sunday he told his parents he intended to lodge an appeal over his jail sentence
with the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Peace Group Slams Israeli Plans to Demolish Hebron Houses
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - (PC) The Israeli peace group Gush Shalom
demanded that their government halt plans to demolish dozens of Palestinian
houses in the West Bank city of Hebron, warning that it would constitute a “war
crime”.
The Israeli left-wing group sent a letter on Saturday to Israeli attorney
general Elyakim Rubinstein saying there were no true “military needs” behind the
demolition orders.
“It seems that [Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)] have turned into a tool which
carries out the demands of the most extreme settlers,” wrote Gush Shalom founder
Uri Avineri.
Avineri called on Rubenstein to advise Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, his
defense minister Shaul Mofaz and the head of the IOF central command Moshe
Kaplinsky that the move was “illegal”.
Avineri warned the demolitions would likely be considered a “war crime” and
added, “through (this act), the army is taking the risk that those carrying out
the decision will be one day brought to justice before an international court.”
The Gush Shalom letter comes after Israel ordered Monday the demolition of 15
Palestinian houses to secure “territorial continuity” between the illegal
Israeli settlement of “Kiryat Arba” and the Jewish settler enclave piercing the
heart of Hebron’s Old City.
The Palestinian leadership slammed the Israeli decision, warning that Sharon is
planning to “Judaize” Hebron.
“These buildings, dating back to the Mameluke and Ottoman eras, are considered
an integral part of the cultural heritage of Hebron City, which international
conventions and agreements have called for safeguarding,” Palestinian Minister
of Culture and Information, Yasser Abed Rabbo, said Monday in a letter of
protest to Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, the Director-General of the UNESCO.
Gush Shalom have in the past slammed the Israeli government as well as IOF’s
policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The group threatened in August to press war crimes charges against reserve army
officers before the newly-founded International Criminal Court (ICC), triggering
Sharon’s anger, who ordered an investigation into the activities of Gush Shalom.
However, the 600-member group responded that collecting information on human
rights violations was not a crime.
Gretta Duisenberg Receives Human Rights Award in Belgium
BRUSSELS (PC) - On December 10, the day on which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was issued in 1948, the League for Human Rights, from Belgium, awards a prize every year to someone, who has been actively involved in speaking out against human rights violations.
This year, the award was granted to Gretta Duisenberg, wife of
the President of the European Central Bank, for her activities in forming the
Dutch action committee “End the Occupation”, which aims to restore the human
rights of the Palestinians.
Mrs. Duisenberg drew international attention in April and May this year, when
she kept a Palestinian flag hanging from her balcony for six weeks, in spite of
numerous threats, lawsuits and other means of pressure from pro-Zionist
organizations and individuals.
According to the League, “campaigning against the colonial occupation of
Palestine, is standing up for the honoring of UN resolutions concerning
self-determination, for a lasting peace settlement in the Middle East and for
the principle of an anti-racial, and therefore multicultural society here and
elsewhere.”
On Thursday, December 10, Gretta Duisenberg received her prize in an art center
in Gent, Belgium.
Gretta Duisenberg is scheduled to travel to Palestine in January with a small
delegation of sympathizers, after a UCP (United Civilians for Peace)-led
delegation’s visit in November, in which she was to participate, was cancelled
due to pressure from right-wing political parties in the Dutch government.
Monday December 9, 2002
Main Headline
6,000 U.S. Dollars for Every Israeli Since 1973
WASHINGTON - According to a report released Monday, December 9, Israel has, since 1973, cost the United States about $1.6 trillion, that is more than $5,700 per person if divided by today's population.
Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington, tallied
the total cost to the U.S. for its backing of Israel, and discovered that the
bill doubled the cost of Vietnam War, reported the Christian Science Monitor.
"And now Israel wants more. In a meeting at the White House late last month,
Israeli officials made a pitch for $4 billion in additional military aid to
defray the rising costs of dealing with the Intifada [against Israeli
occupation] and suicide bombings. They also asked for more than $8 billion in
loan guarantees to help the country's recession-bound economy," reported the
Monitor.
Considering Israel's deep economic troubles, Stauffer doubts the Israel bonds
covered by the loan guarantees will ever be repaid, said the paper, adding that
the bonds are likely to be structured so they don't pay interest until they
reach maturity.
"If Stauffer is right, the U.S. would end up paying both principal and interest,
perhaps 10 years out," said the paper.
The Monitor said that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid. "It
is already due to get $2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in
economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years,"
said the paper, adding that the U.S. has given Egypt $117 billion and Jordan $22
billion in foreign aid in return for signing peace treaties with Israel.
According to Stauffer, there is a higher cost of oil and other economic damage
to the U.S. after Israel-Arab wars.
Other additional U.S. help to Israel include the fact that the U.S. Jewish
charities and organizations have remitted grants or bought Israel bonds worth
$50 billion to $60 billion, said the Monitor.
In addition, the U.S. has already guaranteed $10 billion in commercial loans to
Israel, and $600 billion in "housing loans," it added. The U.S. has