Palestine-Mandate

Haaretz reported that Egypt expects Israel to implement Gaza truce: “Egypt is expecting Israel to accept and implement the cease-fire proposal agreed on by the Palestinian factions, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit’s bureau chief said Wednesday. Meanwhile, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is expected to arrive in Israel shortly [UPDATE - It was later announced that Suleiman's visit would be after Israel has its 60th anniversary celebrations this week] to receive Israel’s official response to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal, Palestinian sources in Cairo said. Speaking by phone to Haaretz from Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Ministry bureau chief Hossam Zaki, who is also the Egyptian ministry’s spokesman, said: ‘The Israelis are giving themselves plenty of time to think and evaluate … Israel can contribute by accepting the Egyptian effort and the tahadiya [calm]‘ … The Egyptian effort to reach an agreement with the Palestinian factions bore fruit on Tuesday. After separate talks between the Egyptians and the representatives of each faction, the factions announced they were ready to accept the Egyptian formulation for a cease-fire. Israel, however, objects to the formulation for a number of reasons. Israel is
concerned that Hamas will use the calm to increase its military strength. In addressing this concern, Zaki said ‘Egypt does not control the Gaza Strip but is only a neighbor. Egypt is in contact with those responsible for the Strip’. Zaki also said it was Egypt’s responsibility to act sincerely in order to prevent any violation of an agreement or understanding to which Egypt is a party … The official Egyptian news agency MENA reported that all 12 Palestinian factions whose representatives were in Cairo had accepted the Egyptian proposal. Egypt was not able to get the factions to themselves declare a united position on the agreement, as it had hoped. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak also spoke Wednesday about the agreement with Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Israeli sources said they were awaiting official confirmation of the agreement. ‘Meanwhile, they are playing chess with themselves’, a security source said”.
This article can be read in full in Haaretz here .

As part of the Annapolis process, a big investment conference is to be held later this month. It was clearly expected that the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were to be well advanced by this stage – but they are not. So, the conference will be taking place in a surreal landscape, where there are daily – and nightly – incursions into Bethlehem by Israeli Defense Forces and Israeli security services, almost always ending with arrests, sometimes with deaths. Bethlehem’s governor, the legendary Fatah commander Salah Ta’amri, this is like a scene from a Chekov play, yet, he says, the conference should go on.

Yet, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is now making a major push to boost attendance at this Palestine Investment Conference, and announced that she will be sending a delegation co-headed by private U.S. investors including Palestinian Americans, and a senior U.S. State Department Official.

But, a recent World Bank paper destined for donor nations meeting in London this week said that “While the PA (Palestinian Authority) has moved ahead with its economic reforms, albeit slowly, there has been little progress on relaxing movement and access constraints”. The report said that the impact of these restrictions, including hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank, “cannot be overestimated”, Reuters reported. So, the $7.7 billion pledged by donors in December may not have the intended effect, without major change.

In this interview, Ta’amri reflects on the upcoming investment conference, on the current situation, and on the past and the near future.

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Question: How are preparations going for the Palestine Investment Conference that will be held in Bethlehem from 21-23 May?

Answer: Many people have their doubts about the conference, because of the closure, because of the Israeli measures, because of the lack of mobility for the Palestinians, because of The Wall. So, many Palestinians have their doubts about the possibilities of success of such a conference.

I believe it’s good to have this conference. I think it reflects support for the Palestinian people, political support. There is, there could be an opportunity for some investors, Palestinian investors. But the least I expect from this conference is, as I said to the local committee for the conference in Bethlehem yesterday, we’ll assume that two families want their son and daughter to get married in Bethlehem, and they booked every room in every hotel in Bethlehem. That is good.

Of course, we don’t have very high expectations from such a conference, again, not because there are no fields for investment – in fact, there are many fields for investment - but because of the Israeli measures. Even you as a reporter have difficulties in movement. That makes you imagine the difficulties Palestinians go through, whenever they move from one town to another.

So, I hope the conference will convene. I hope some cooperation between non-Palestinian investors and Palestinian investors takes place. Most of the guests or the investors who are coming from abroad, most of them are Palestinians, living abroad, and some Arabs, whether from the Gulf or from the States, or Latin America, or Europe. I think that is good. I think that is good. It is badly needed at this time of duress.

Q: Do you know who is coming?

A: So far, we haven’t verified the list. Over 350 guests are coming, so far. So far.

Q: Will it just be a conference of businessmen, or will there be political officials as well?

A: No, it’s business.

Q: And, are there specific investment opportunities that will be offered to them?

A: Yes, I think there are investments [investment proposals] for about $1.8 billion, almost $2 billion dollars.

Q: Are these Tony Blair’s proposals, these investment proposals?

A: No, the proposals came from the private sector, mainly the private sector, mainly the private sector. So far, in Bethlehem itself we have two major investment areas – cloth making and stone factories, and the handcrafts for Christmas. And, of course, tourism is the main investment when we talk about Bethlehem. But, although it will be convened in Bethlehem, it’s for the whole of Palestine.

Q: Do you have a breakdown?

A: No, it all depends. It depends on how things go during the conference, who connects with whom. It all depends also on the PR work of every investor. We’ll help them comment. They will know about every investor, whether those who came from abroad, or the local investors, they will know about each other, they can connect, they can plan together. But it’s mainly the private sector.

Q: Have you had contact with the Palestinians who are coming abroad for this meeting?

A: Yes, of course.

Q: Why would they come now, if they haven’t been willing to invest before?

A. To tell you the truth, many of them were very enthusiastic to come over the past 12 years and invest here, especially in Bethlehem 2000. But, the deterioration in the political situation made them refrain, and many of them had to leave. Again, it’s the Israeli measures, it’s the political situation that reflects itself on the economy, the lack of progress on the political track, all those are elements that hinder and sabotage any plans for major investment in Palestine.

Q: Are there going to be any guarantees for these investments, risk guarantees?

A: Well, I have no idea. With all honesty, regarding the Palestinians yes, if you talk about the law, yes, investments are guaranteed, are protected by the law. But, again, the freedom of mobility is not in the hands of the Authority, it’s in the hands of the Israelis. The borders are in the hands of the Israelis. So, we cannot give guarantees of freedom of mobility. It’s in the hands of the Israelis. And even the progress at the political level, it’s in the hands of the Israelis.

Q: Even the special measures that are being adopted for this conference, to facilitate the passage of the guests – do you thing they’ll be sufficient to make people comfortable, are they going to be driven around in buses, escorted by Israeli military jeeps with flashing lights? Are they going to have to take everything out of their suitcases when they come across Allenby Bridge?

A: Well, it all depends on the Israelis, I told you. I have no idea. They say they will make it easy, etc., the same way they said about roadblocks. They said they removed many roadblocks. In fact, from what we see in Bethlehem, no roadblocks were removed. We still are delayed at the main roadblock on the back road (Wadi Nar) between Bethlehem and Ramallah. And we see roadblocks everywhere around Bethlehem. And The Wall is still creeping on. So, they promised to make things easy – that’s what Dr. Abu Libdeh told me. But so far we haven’t seen any changes on the ground.

Q: Did they tell you what specific measures they were going to use to make things easy?
Did they make anything clear?

A: So far, no. I don’t have contacts with the Israelis, so I depend on what my colleagues tell me.

Q: Even for this conference, you don’t have contacts with them?

A: No. I don’t have contacts with them.

Q: Is it your choice?

A: It happened that way. In the past I had contacts with them. When I was in a prison camp, I was the main negotiator; I had contacts with them when I negotiated the departure of the deportees from the Church of the Nativity. I met with many Israeli officials when I was in the Legislative Council, at their request. But as a Governor, no, I don’t have contacts with them. There is a liaison officer (on the Palestinian side) who’s in charge of contacts with them.

Q: Is it a satisfactory arrangement, do you think?

A: Well, I mean, as long as it is implemented, it will be satisfactory, I think. But, will it be implemented or not? We have to wait and see.

Q: When Tony Blair stayed overnight in Bethlehem, he was actually right by The Wall, by the main checkpoint – just in case. But, that same night, there were Israeli arrests of citizens…

A: Oh, the incursions are every night. Every day there are Israeli incursions in Bethlehem.

Q: It’s actually a little bit bizarre, because the hotel people and everybody involved in the tourism sector is ecstatic that all the rooms in Bethlehem are actually full now and have been, and yet at the same time these incursions are going on now while the tourists are – what, ignoring them? I don’t understand…

A: [Laughing]. It is the surreal theater. It’s one of Chekov’s plays. We Palestinians are used to working / walking on a tightrope.

Q: Is it something you think the tourists should just be ignoring?

A: Sometimes, we have to. Or else we’ll go bananas. At some point, you need to ignore the occupation. Just ignore them, as if they are non-existent! If we don’t do that, we will not move forward, we will not even leave our homes. We will not even leave our bedrooms, even. We breathe danger. We drink in danger. We walk in danger, surrounded by danger. We plan for our future when there is a siege or a blockade, or a curfew – we have to do so. We have to ignore them. And we do.

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Q: How do you feel about the present state of negotiations?

A: I did not negotiate, so I don’t know. But, from the statements of both sides, I don’t see any progress. They say there is no progress. So…

Q: They also say, oh, it’s secret, we’re not telling the journalists, and we’re not making it public – but there’s really progress behind closed doors.

A: Well, I’m not a journalist. I’m one of the leading figures in the Authority, and in Fateh, and the PLO, and I know there is no progress. They speak about reaching an agreement before the end of President Bush’s term, but I don’t see how, I don’t see how.

Q: What is the President [Abbas] doing, then?

A: He is doing the impossible, trying to make a breakthrough in the situation. He cannot, he doesn’t have the luxury of giving in to despair. I think he will give it some time before he stops to reassess the situation and take a stand, whether to go on or to say goodbye to negotiations or to go to the international community and ask them to come and take over. Things are not moving anywhere.

Q: Is President Abbas making the decisions himself, or is there, does he have a group of close advisers…

A: No, we have the Council of the PLO, the Central and the National Council of the PLO. He has the advisers. He has Fateh with all the hierarchies of Fatah. So, no, he doesn’t work in isolation.

Q: So, even in the negotiations, every decision he will have to take …

A: Of course, he cannot take decisions by himself. Abu Alaa’ is a member of the Central Committee of Fatah, and he was the speaker of the Legislative Council, he is the main figure in the Fatah organization and mobilization, and he is the chief negotiator. So there’s a group of very intelligent, very capable, people with the President.

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Q: Why did you not meet Jimmy Carter when he was here? Why didn’t he come to Bethlehem?

A: [Laughing] Maybe he’s not a believer, to come to the Church of the Nativity. I don’t know. You’d better ask him. He didn’t come to Bethlehem…maybe he doesn’t go to Church. Does he? I thought he was religious. I think he’s religious. I like him. I think I met him during the first elections, when I ran for the Legislative Council…no, it was his daughter who came to Bethlehem. I like Carter. He represents the American people the way the American people think themselves to be, which they are not.

Q: What did you make of his meetings with Hamas?

A: Well, that was his own business, I mean. He’s free to meet with whoever he wants to meet with. And his intentions were good, and the man should be judged by his intentions and motives, and his intentions were good and honorable.

Q: Do you have any word of what happening in Cairo in the negotiations among the Palestinian factions and Egypt about a cease-fire?

A: To tell you the truth, I didn’t pay it much attention.

Q: Do you think it’s hopeless?

A. Not hopeless, I think it’s sometimes it’s … there are so many words but no deeds, and many of the statements do not reflect genuine thinking or genuine intentions. I mean, to say that we need, to reach a truce is very important. It will help our people in Gaza, it will ease up things for them. It’s unfair to make our people in Gaza go through what they are going through. And, if the Egyptians manage to reach an agreement of reconciliation between Hamas and the Israelis, that would be good…The situation in Gaza is tragic, and it will explode sooner or later.

Q: It may explode sooner – the situation with the fuel is terrible…

A: The fuel and everything. You know, everybody in the world is complaining about the increase in prices of bread, wheat, fuel, etc., without being under siege. So, you can imagine how things are in Gaza.

Q: Hamas, according to Reuters, is asking the Association of Petroleum station owners to release the fuel stored in Nahal Oz, but they are refusing because the quantities are not sufficient, and it gives them security problems at their gas stations that nobody protects them from. And, in Ramallah, Mojahad Salama said yesterday that Hamas took fuel from the Palestinian Authority depot…it’s completely chaotic.

A: Yeah, well, Hamas is politically-motivated in Gaza, and I don’t think it’s in their interest to allow fuel to come into Gaza. I think they are mobilizing the people in Gaza.
[Interruption for a phone call]

I’m reflecting my own views. I think this dialog between Fatah and Hamas, and between others and Hamas, I think it’s a dialog between the deaf. I believe the practical solution is elections. If Hamas wins again, that means this is the will of our people. Let them take over. Fatah can turn into the opposition. I hope in the next elections, the result would be more balanced, not like the one which Hamas won by a large majority. Hamas didn’t really … Hamas spoke about reform more than they spoke about resistance. Many Fatah people went for Hamas in the elections, as if they are taking revenge at themselves, at Fatah, at the Authority. They wanted reform. It’s not true that they adopted Hamas’s strategy of suicide bombings, and escalation in the military field. In brief, in my view, the last elections reflected the mood of the Palestinian people at a certain moment, and not the will of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people were in a certain mood, they elected Hamas, now I hope it’s different. We need a more balanced Legislative Council.

Q: Are the next elections going to be for the next president, or for the Legislative Council?

A: Both, it should be for both, at the same time. I don’t think there would be a break-through in the relations, a positive breakthrough in the relations between Fatah and Hamas before the elections.

Q: Will Mahmoud Abbas run again?

A: I don’t really know. That’s premature to tell.

Q: His term was supposed to end in 2009, at the beginning of 2009, and now there are reports that he either has already, or is considering, extending it by one year, until 2010…

A. That’s new. It could be. I am reflecting my own views. My own view, my own conviction: this is a dialog between the deaf. My own conviction: we need to drag ourselves without losing hope until we reach the time of the elections, new elections.

Q: What was interesting in Jimmy Carter’s summary of his trip was that he said he added to the agreements he got from Hamas a statement saying they would accept a peace deal that was approved by an elected government, as an alternative to ratification through a referendum. His OpEd in the New York Times this week seemed to suggest that Hamas meant even a new elected government, not going back to the now-disbanded National Unity Government.

A: Well, no government can be elected. Governments are not elected, governments are appointed. It is the Legislative Council that is elected. Anyway, I believe any agreement with Israel needs the people’s support. And, I don’t think Hamas accepts that; they don’t want that. Anyway, the situation is complex. It is in Israel’s favor. This split between Gaza and the West Bank is in Israel’s favor. Hamas will not give up their power in Gaza. It seems that it is true, they want to represent an Islamic model for the world. I hope that will not be the case. Hamas turned its back to our heritage, national heritage. That was a big mistake.

Q: What part of the national heritage did they turn their back on?

A: We are Palestinian Arabs. We are a national movement who did not become part of any regional alliance. We were not part of these conflicts, we were the mediators. And it was one of Arafat’s merits that he did not take sides, he was a mediator. He was a mediator between Algiers and Morocco, between Libya and Egypt, between at some point Syria and Iraq, and at some time between Iraq and Iran, between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. But Hamas launched us into the middle of a regional conflict, andsided with Iran. That means we lost our ability to be mediators. That means our issue was brought back to square number one. And they turned their back to all the agreement which were endorsed by the international community. It was not easy for us to be accepted by the international community. I remember the time when we were boycotted, even as students. And to become members of the United Nations, and to attend the General Assembly in the United Nations, to have more countries recognizing the PLO than Israel – that didn’t come without a price, that didn’t come without hard work on our part. Hamas can’t turn its back on this, and Hamas should build on what we have achieved.

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Q: What about the plans for the Fatah Seventh General Conference?

A: Sixth, you mean. I hope it will come soon.

Q: What’s the problem? It was supposed to have been held already…

A: Yeah, because we have to bring thousands of cadres in one place from all over the world, from Australia to Canada, from India to China to Europe to Africa, from everywhere we have to bring our central cadres.

Q: Where will it be held, then?

A: Well, that is to be decided. It’s not easy. In the past we convened in Syria…yes, and it was not easy. It needs protection. I mean, you have all the leading cadres in one place. That is not easy. That is dangerous.

Q: What do you think is the safe place to hold it?

A: We need to look for the safe formula. Then, the safe place.

Q: Is it being held up though, more for political disagreements about who will succeed whom, who will be elected, this reported disputed between the Old Guard and the Young…

A: That could be in the minds of some people. I belong to the Old Guard. But I want the conference convened. I’m keen to see younger leaders taking over. But that doesn’t mean every Old Guard has the same way of thinking. Nor every Young Guard has the same way of thinking. You will find different people with different views, with different motives. But on the whole, I think it will be convened. We had a very important conference in Bethlehem less than a month ago, when the district elected their own leading body. Something like 1,500 members convened. And it was free elections. They elected from the smallest framework to the largest, at the level of the district.

Q: Was there any change in the composition of the bodies?

A: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Q: In what direction?

A: The old leading body, none of them came to the new leading body. Nobody came. And there are more women, which is good. There is a deeper representation of the community than before.

Q: Meaning?

A: I mean, the people from the villages could win, as well as people from the refugee camps, from Christians as well as from Muslims, which was good. And it was absolutely free, no intervention.

Q: And do these newly-elected younger members all have similar views, or are they very different from each other, and will have to find a common ground …

A: They are different. They are different. They are different from each other, they are different from [us]… Every generation has its own language. It applies to you, it applies to us, it applies to humanity. Every generation has its own language. Our generation had its own language. We loved poetry. We loved music. This generation, they talk computers. They breath computers, internet, etc. So it’s different, absolutely. They are different. Their minds are colder than our minds. We are more emotional. Our generation is more emotional than the new generation. We are more on the side of romanticism than the new generation. To us, 1 + 1 = 11. To them, , 1 + 1 = 2. Sometimes I feel that is the difference.

Q: In this new group that’s been elected, is there any difference between those who stayed here, and those who were on the outside and came back with Arafat?

A: No, I don’t think so. The only difference is in the collective memory. That’s all.
It is the collective memory that is different, that’s why it should be one of our objects to unify the memory, to create bridges between the collective memories of the Palestinians in the diaspora. The collective memory of Lebanon is different from the collective memory of the West Bank. The West Bank is different from Gaza, different from Syria, from Kuwait, etc. That’s the only difference – the collective memory.

Q: How do you think bridges can be built between these collective memories? Really, people here don’t know what you when through outside, they don’t know.

A: Well, by time they will know. By time, it will become part of our heritage.

Q: Do you have any regrets?

A: [Pause] Well, not deep regrets. I regret I smoked for 35 years.

Q: Have you stopped?

A: Oh, yes, six years ago. On small things, I have my own regrets, on small things. But not on major things in my life.

Q: And in terms of the movement, the Fatah movement, the Palestinian movement?

A: No, no, no, I have no regrets. I joined it when I was a kid, and I have no regrets. But on minor things, yes, I have regrets.

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Q: Can I ask one last question? I know it’s a difficult one, and I’ve lost friends because of discussions of this very issue. But, when the matter was raised, before the Annapolis Conference, about the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, the Palestinian reaction was so negative. I don’t understand…

A: Because it’s not a Jewish state, because there are non-Jews in it. And they are not a small minority.

Q: But for the people who feel insecure…

A: We are not going to respond to the Jewish paranoia. Every time they are paranoid about something, we have to cut our noses to please them. If they are paranoid, they’d better do something about it.

Q: But it doesn’t cost anything…

A: No, it does, to us it does.

Q: It doesn’t mean that the refugees can’t return. It doesn’t mean that the Arab citizens of Israel will be expelled…

A: Well, they cannot even talk about return.

Q. But if they feel deeply insecure about this …

A. That’s not our problem! No. That doesn’t show any kind of recognition of the Palestinian people’s rights by the Israelis. I mean, first of all, we pay the price for a crime that was not ours. We did not invent Nazism. Nazism was the invention of Europe, Christian Europe. And if Nazism won, we would have been second on the list to be uprooted, and terminated. We paid the price, the international community paid the price, not only the Jews. And that was not our invention. It was a European invention. Why should we pay the price for that?

Q: Because now, you have to live with them.

A: Yes, because we have to live with them, they have to accept the fact that, no, Israel is not a Jewish state, because when you say a Jewish state, that means tomorrow, yeah, go out! Leave! You will recognize us as a Jewish state, we do not want non-Jews amongst us.

Q: Maybe it doesn’t mean that …

A: Maybe it does.

Q: Can’t you ask for guarantees? Even international guarantees?

A: Well, we are not going to get any guarantees better than the guarantees – the mother and the four kids who were killed a couple of days ago, and the many Palestinian children who were killed, and the 12,000 prisoners who are in jail. No, I think the Israelis should deal with their paranoia, I think the world should also deal with their sensitivity and cowardice when it comes to Israel. Why should Israel get away with whatever they do?

We don’t hate the Jews. We hate occupation. It’s not my mistake, it’s not my fault that the occupiers are Jewish. We hate occupation. The minute they become non-occupiers, then we are not going to hate them. So, I believe this is a very sensitive issue to the Palestinians. We have our own insecurities. And this year we are celebrating 60 years of Nakbah. It started yesterday, and I don’t think Palestinians will forget their country, will forget their villages, the 380 villages which were uprooted, and disappeared from the face of the earth, for somebody coming from Poland living there.

They have the right to be afraid, they have the right…[No]. Their security lies in their positive and peaceful coexistence with us.

The saying goes: “We are doomed to be together”. We can turn it into: We are blessed to live together. It all depends on how do we educate ourselves, how do we accept each other.

But, coexistence as occupier and under occupation, like slaves and masters, it doesn’t go, it doesn’t work. Living under occupation is a form of slavery. And we cannot be, we don’t accept to be slaves forever. It’s whether we become free or not free. There’s no half-way between slavery and non-slavery.

To us, peace means freedom.

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After all the brouhaha (continuing) of the Carter visit to the Middle East, Yossi Sarid has just written in Haaretz:
“Let’s let old Carter be, so he may let sleeping warriors lie; he will not be back. The contents of his words, however, should not be ignored. ‘Apartheid’, he said, ‘apartheid’ - a dark, scary word coined by Afrikaners and meaning segregation, racial segregation. What does he want from us, that evil man: What do we have to do with apartheid? Does a separation fence constitute separation? Do separate roads for Jewish settlers and Palestinians really separate? Are Palestinian enclaves between Jewish settlements Bantustans? There is no hint of similarity between South Africa and Israel, and only a sick mind could draw such shadowy connections between them. Roadblocks and inspections at every turn; licenses and permits for every little matter; the arbitrary seizure of land; special privileges in water use; cheap, hard labor; forming and uniting families by bureaucratic whim - none of these are apartheid, in any way. They are an incontrovertible security necessity, period.

“The white Afrikaners, too, had reasons for their segregation policy; they, too, felt threatened - a great evil was at their door, and they were frightened, out to defend themselves. Unfortunately, however, all good reasons for apartheid are bad reasons; apartheid always has a reason, and it never has a justification. And what acts like apartheid, is run like apartheid and harasses like apartheid, is not a duck - it is apartheid. Nor does it even solve the problem of fear: Today, everyone knows that all apartheid will inevitably reach its sorry end.

“One essential difference remains between South Africa and Israel: There a small minority dominated a large majority, and here we have almost a tie. But the tiebreaker is already darkening on the horizon. Then the Zionist project will come to an end if we don’t choose to leave the slave house before being visited by a fatal demographic plague.

“It is entirely clear why the word apartheid terrifies us so. What should frighten us, however, is not the description of reality, but reality itself. Even Ehud Olmert has understood at last that continuing the present situation is the end of the Jewish democratic state, as he recently said.

“The Palestinians are unfortunate because they have not produced a Nelson Mandela; the Israelis are unfortunate because they have not produced an F.W. de Klerk”. here .

Palestinian Authority Minister of Information Riyad al-Maliki, who holds also the portfolios of Justice and Foreign Affairs, told members of the Foreign Press Association in Israel on Thursday that he had bilateral talks recently with the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Dr. Salaheddin Bachir (SP?) over two days – “our first official bilateral talks since we each took office, though we’ve met in other different fora, as a result of the positive relationship that exists at all levels in the Jordanian-Palestinian relationship”.

Al-Maliki said: “We want to cooperate bilaterally at all levels – particularly concerning the situation in Jerusalem”. Al-Maliki also mentioned the Israeli excavations around the Western Wall, which are nearby and under Al-Aqsa Mosque.

On the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, al-Maliki said: “We haven’t seen any change in any Israeli attitude. Instead, the number of incursions have increased, and the number of people detained has increased. If there is any change, it is one of considerable regression…We are totally disappointed. So far, we did not conclude any issue or sub-issue. So, here we have a serious problem.

“We are under tremendous pressure by two factors:
(1) from our own people, who are asking why we still believe in the approach of peaceful negotiations. We told them there will be peace dividends, but so far there is not a single one. Our people ask why? We, as the Palestinian leadership, must retain the backing of or own people, and to retain this, we have to deliver something to them.
(2) from the external Arab world. Since 2002, an Arab peace initiative has been on the table, and it was reiterated again in the Riyadh summit last year. Now, the Arab governments are asking how long should this be left on the table. At the last meeting of Arab Foreign Ministers they put tremendous pressure on us. They said our negotiations should be connected to Israel’s beginning to implement its obligations under the Road Map. Our President, Mahmoud Abbas, himself attended the Foreign Ministers’ meeting to convince them to go to the Annapolis Conference, and they agreed on condition that the settlement activities cease. Sixteen Arab countries attended – and settlement activity has only increased. Now, the Arabs are asking to reconsider, re-open, and re-discuss the entire Arab strategy, and our commitment to the Arab strategy for peace.

“On 24 April, our President will meet President Bush and explain to him this bleak picture, and will ask him clearly for American intervention. Then, in the next meeting (in May) in Sharm ash-Sheikh, we will hear a strong demand for real American intervention to salvage what was agreed in Annapolis”.

Al-Maliki said that he expects that U.S. Lt. General William Fraser’s recently completed report (on the actions of each side to comply with Phase I obligations of the Road Map) will soon be submitted by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to the members of the Quartet (U.S., E.U., Russia, and the UN), at a meeting in London on 2 May.

The Palestinian Authority Minister added: “If there was any direct positive outcome of Annapolis, it was the agreement on a trilateral security arrangement, which took the job of evaluating progress away from the Israelis, and gave it to the Americans. The Israeli attitude is totally biased toward us in terms of security.”

Now, Al-Maliki said, the Palestinians would like to see a similar third-party monitoring mechanism for the post-Annapolis negotiations: “We want to see a real (American) commitment in terms of time, effort, and high-level intervention, so that Israel will move forward with the negotiations and change its attitude. We need a monitoring mechanism to assess progress in the negotiations by a third party, who will judge whether there is progress or lack of it”.

As Palestinian President Abbas visited Moscow, al-Maliki said in Jerusalem that “the main aim of the (proposed) Moscow conference (in mid-June) is to evaluate what has happened since Annapolis”.

But, Israel is not inclined to support the Moscow conference, and it still insists – as Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said recently in Doha – that “The talks are bilateral only”.

Al-Maliki insisted that all Israel-Gaza crossings should be opened under the management of the Palestinian Authority (and not of Hamas). Regarding the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, al-Maliki said that “We have entrusted Egypt to use its good offices to open Rafah according to the formula that has existed since November 2005.” This is the agreement on movement and access negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice who stayed up all night — and on her birthday — to achieve, after the then-President of the World Bank, James Wolfenson, failed.

Al-Maliki gave the impression that the main reason the PA was insisting on retaining an unchanged version of this November 2005 agreement on movement and access was that it stipulated that Palestinian Presidential Guards (again, read: not Hamas) would be in charge on the Gazan side of the crossing.

However, the November 2005 agreement on movement and access also has other benefits: it also calls for a transportation link between Gaza and the West Bank; it says that construction of a seaport at Gaza “can commence”; and it notes that the parties agree on “the importance of the airport” in Gaza – which is at the south-eastern corner of the Gaza Strip, very near the Kerem Shalom crossing that Israel has wanted to favor.

At least at Erez crossing there is already a somewhat mysterious Palestinian coordination outpost, in a sort of a trailer with a porch, whose staff say they report to the Palestinian Authority Civil Affairs Ministry in Ramallah, and who clearly enjoy reasonable cooperation with the IDF coordination at the Erez Terminal.  Hamas police were noticed observing a fixed distance, as marked by large bolders painted with the word “Police”, and they did not proceed past that point.

Hamas’ reputedly hardline leader in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Zahar, has written an OpEd piece that was published today in the Washington Post. Here are some excerpts — Mahmoud Zahar, in his own words:

“President Jimmy Carter’s sensible plan to visit the Hamas leadership this week brings honesty and pragmatism to the Middle East while underscoring the fact that American policy has reached its dead end.
…

“Palestinians are fighting a total war waged on us by a nation that mobilizes against our people with every means at its disposal — from its high-tech military to its economic stranglehold, from its falsified history to its judiciary that ‘legalizes’ the infrastructure of apartheid. Resistance remains our only option. Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world’s largest open-air prison, can do no less.

“The U.S.-Israeli alliance has sought to negate the results of the January 2006 elections, when the Palestinian people handed our party a mandate to rule. Hundreds of independent monitors, Carter among them, declared this the fairest election ever held in the Arab Middle East.
…

“Now, finally, we have the welcome tonic of Carter saying what any independent, uncorrupted thinker should conclude: that no ‘peace plan’, ‘road map’ or ‘legacy’ can succeed unless we are sitting at the negotiating table and without any preconditions.

“Israel’s escalation of violence since the staged Annapolis ‘peace conference’ in November has been consistent with its policy of illegal, often deadly collective punishment — in violation of international conventions.
…

“Only three months ago I buried my son Hussam, who studied finance at college and wanted to be an accountant; he was killed by an Israeli airstrike. In 2003, I buried Khaled — my first-born — after an Israeli F-16 targeting me wounded my daughter and my wife and flattened the apartment building where we lived, injuring and killing many of our neighbors. Last year, my son-in-law was killed.

…
“Our movement fights on because we cannot allow the foundational crime at the core of the Jewish state — the violent expulsion from our lands and villages that made us refugees — to slip out of world consciousness, forgotten or negotiated away.  Judaism — which gave so much to human culture in the contributions of its ancient lawgivers and modern proponents of tikkun olam — has corrupted itself in the detour into Zionism, nationalism and apartheid.

“A ‘peace process’ with Palestinians cannot take even its first tiny step until Israel first withdraws to the borders of 1967; dismantles all settlements; removes all soldiers from Gaza and the West Bank; repudiates its illegal annexation of Jerusalem; releases all prisoners; and ends its blockade of our international borders, our coastline and our airspace permanently. This would provide the starting point for just negotiations and would lay the groundwork for the return of millions of refugees. Given what we have lost, it is the only basis by which we can start to be whole again”.

The whole OpEd article can be read here .

Haaretz has reported that the Israeli Knesset passed a law on Monday imposing “A penalty of three years’ imprisonment … on Israeli vehicle-owners who take their vehicles to mechanics in the West Bank … The new law, presented by Likud MK Moshe Kahlon, prohibits Israeli-registered vehicles from being repaired by mechanics in territories under Palestinian Authority control, including those that are towed there by another vehicle. The law will empower police officers to confiscate any vehicle in violation of it, as well as the vehicle license from its owner, and the vehicle that towed it to the Palestinian territories. Police statistics show that around 50 Israeli vehicles are dismantled by mechanics in Palestinian territories each day after accidents, and their parts are then transferred to Israeli mechanics or used-car dealerships. The police will advise vehicle-owners of the new law through an advertising campaign as well as by placing signs at checkpoints at the entry points to the territories [this is something new -- will the signs be in Hebrew only?] The law will initially be implemented for two years and Defense Minister Ehud Barak is currently discussing its extension for another two with the Transport Ministry and the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee”. This story can be read in full on Haaretz’s website here .

YNet explained a bit more on its website: “MK Gilad Erdan (Likud), chairman of the Economics Committee, who presented the proposal at the Knesset plenum, said that ‘the bill is aimed at preventing the transfer of vehicles from Israel into the Palestinian territories. Data presented to the Economics Committee by police representatives revealed that spare parts of vehicles used for repair in the PA’s garages usually come from cars stolen in Israel. Moreover, the data also reveal that a significant part of the vehicles repaired in the PA territories were found to be severely flawed and had to be taken off the roads. In other words, the “repaired” cars in fact constituted an immediate safety risk for their users’. According to Erdan, the new law would hurt the incentive to steal cars in Israel and would also break off any possible linkage between the chop shops and terror elements. MK Kahlon said following the vote, ‘This law will significantly reduce the car thefts in Israel. A large part of the vehicles stolen in Israel are dismantled in the territories, and their parts are installed in vehicles repaired in the PA’s garages’.” This YNet article can be read in full here .

It has already been an offense for several years for someone in Israel to transport someone with a West Bank ID. The penalty is “severe”, as they say in Israel (”harsh” and “severe” are two very serious words here…) The car will be confiscated, the driver will have to pay at least a 5,000 NIS (New Israel Shekel) fine, and could also be sentenced to jail. It has affected cab drivers, including cab drivers with an East Jerusalem ID who unwittingly were driving with their wives, who had West Bank IDs. This law means that you cannot drive anyone in your car, a friend or anyone, without checking and clarifying exactly what kind of ID he or she has.

Amnon Rubenstein, an eminent Israeli professor, has denounced the Israeli settlement enterprise as undemocratic, discriminatory, and against international law, in an article published in today’s Jerusalem Post.

Professor Rubenstein wrote: “Settling Jews outside of Israel proper is - it is submitted - illegal in international law and is defective morally. The fourth Geneva Convention, which Israel has signed and ratified, prohibits such settlements. True, the Knesset has not translated these provisions into Israeli legislation, but in the opinion of this writer such an act of domestic reception is unnecessary as the convention by its very definition relates to occupied territories which lie outside the limits of Israeli law and jurisdiction. At any rate, Israel accepts the humanitarian provisions of this convention, and the Supreme Court has acted upon these provisions. The government has declared, in sworn affidavits, that settlements in occupied territories are there for a limited duration and are justified by military considerations.

These declarations are, to put it mildly, not accurate.

THESE SETTLEMENTS, established at great cost to provide housing for tens of thousands of Jews, are seen as permanent communities; the uprooting of settlements from the Gaza Strip was a heartrending experience even for those who advocated this decision at the time.
For successive Israeli governments to state the opposite and for the courts to accept this blatant untruth, has been an exercise in unmitigated insincerity.

But the issue is not merely one of international law. By establishing purely Jewish communities in the West Bank and by applying an Israeli legal system to their residents, Israel has created a dual system within the same territory - one applicable to Jews, and one to Arabs. This duality has had a negative impact on Israeli public life, has rightly antagonized many of our friends and is responsible for the radicalization of the Israeli Left.

It also nullifies the equation often made between these settlements and the ones established by the yishuv under the British mandate. The socialist settlers of the past saw themselves as precursors of a Jewish state in which Jews and Arabs shared the same equality by law and never dreamt of any separation between Arabs and Jews. Add to this the flouting of Israel’s undertaking to stop establishing and expanding these settlements, and you will begin to understand the folly of the Givat Ze’ev decision.

In short, Israel, according to its basic laws, aspires to be both Jewish and democratic. Its outposts in the West Bank are Jewish, but not democratic“.   This piece is published in the JPost here .

Gideon Levy, who writes brilliantly on the occupation for Haaretz, wrote this today: “Who hasn’t come to visit lately? From the German chancellor to the leading frontrunner for the American presidency. And the secretary-general of the United Nations is on his way. A visit to Israel has become de rigueur for foreign pols. If you haven’t been here, you’re nowhere. 

“The visitors are taken, of course, to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, the Western Wall and now to Sderot as well - the new national pilgrimage site.

“A few also pay a perfunctory visit to Ramallah; no one goes to the Gaza Strip, and they all have nothing but praise for Israel. Not a word of criticism on the occupation, on Israel’s violent operations in the territories, on the siege and the starving - with the exception of a few vague remarks on the need for a solution. Israel squeezes the Sderot ‘informational’ lemon for all it’s worth.

“The mix of Sderot and the Holocaust, international Islamophobia and Hamas rule in Gaza do the trick. Israel hasn’t scored this kind of foreign-policy success since the days of the Oslo Accords. To judge by the declarations of our foreign guests and our hosts abroad, no other state in the world is more loved than we. A state that imposes a siege that is almost unprecedented in the world today in terms of its cruelty, that adopts an official policy of assassination, is embraced by the family of nations, if we are to judge by the words of the many statesmen who cross our doorstep” …

Levy says that this is an illusion, and that public opinion in the countries of these politicians and statesman is running in decidedly the opposite direction.  And, he continues:  “The world sees images from Gaza on television - in comparison, Sderot looks like a resort - and it draws its own conclusions. The natural sense of justice that dictates support for the freedom struggles of oppressed people such as the Tibetan dictates natural support for the Palestinian struggle for liberation. The fact that it is a struggle between a Palestinian David and an Israeli Goliath only adds to the story. With the exception of the U.S., the world is indeed against us, apart from its statesmen. Therefore, we must not give in to the illusion: The current bout of official support for us is not genuine.  Also not genuine is the idea that blind, unconditional friendship is friendship. The support for Israel as a just enterprise that is extended by most of the West does not mean accepting all of its caprices.  A true friend of Israel, one that is sincerely concerned for its fate, is only that friend who dares to express sharp criticism of its policy of occupation, which poses the most serious risk to its future, and who also takes practical to steps to end it.  Most of the ‘friendly’ statesmen do not understand this“.  [emphasis added]

Levy writes that he believes Europe is even worse than the U.S. in these respects: “Saccharine visits and sweet speeches in fact express a deep disrespect for Israel - and for European public opinion.  This blind friendship enables Israel to do whatever it wants. The days have passed in which every mobile home erected in the territories and every targeted assassination were carefully considered out of fear of international criticism. That time no longer exists. Israel has a carte blanche to kill, destroy and settle. The U.S. long ago gave up the role of honest broker, and Europe is now following in its footsteps. How depressing: With friends like these, Israel almost doesn’t need enemies”.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/967055.html

One of Israel’s “new historians” Ilan Pappe has written a piece entitled The mega prison of Palestine that has been published in The Electronic Intifada on 5 March 2008, in which he writes: “It transpires that not even the most cooperative members of the PA are willing to accept the mega prison reality as ‘peace’ or even as a ‘two state settlement’.”

Pappe, who has written in favor of a one-state solution, left Haifa last year and is now teaching at Exeter University in the U.K.

His analysis continues: “So the model of the most dangerous ward developed: the leading strategists in the army and the government embrace themselves for a very long-term ‘management’ of the system they have built, while pledging commitment to a vacuous ‘peace process,’ with very little global interest in it, and a continued struggle from within, against it. The Gaza Strip is now seen as the most dangerous ward in this complex and thus the one against which the most brutal punitive means have to be employed. Killing the ‘inmates’ by aerial or artillery bombing, or by economic strangulation, are not just inevitable results of the punitive action chosen, but also desirable ones …  Downsizing the number of ‘inmates’ in both mega prisons [the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip] would be still a very high priority in this strategy by means of ethnic cleansing, systematic killings and economic strangulation. But there are wedges that prevent the destructive machine from rolling. It seems that a growing number of Jews in Israel (a majority according to a recent CNN poll) wish their government to begin negotiations with Hamas. A mega prison is fine, but if the wardens’ residential areas are likely to come under fire in the future then the system fails. Alas, I doubt whether the CNN poll represents accurately the present Israeli mood; but it does indicate a hopeful trend that vindicates the Hamas insistence that Israel only understands the language of force. But it may not be enough and the perfection of the mega prison system in the meantime continues unabated and the punitive measures of its authority are claiming the lives of many more children, women and men in the Gaza Strip. As always it is important to be reminded that the west can put an end to this unprecedented inhumanity and criminality, tomorrow. But so far this is not happening”.  Ilan Pappe’s piece can be read in full here.

Akiva Eldar has an article in Haaretz today reporting the views of Uri Saguy, IDF Major General (res.) Uri Saguy, who headed Military Intelligence from 1991 to 1995, and who also served as GOC Southern Command and as commander of the ground forces, and who, Eldar says, has the ear of the present IDF Commander Gabi Ashkenazi.

Eldar reports that, in answer to a question about whether Israel should talk to Hamas, Saguy said: “Hamas is more dangerous than a [mere] terror organization, because it is also a religious and political organization. It is possible to overcome a terror organization by means of military might, but not a movement that has ideological roots. Even though this may sound like a paradox, our interest is similar to that of Hamas. We both want quiet. They are interested in completing the total conquest of the Gaza Strip, and so it is important to them that we not take control of it. For us it is important to protect the lives of the civilians of Sderot and Ashkelon. Hamas is an interlocutor on current issues, such as a truce and the return of prisoners. Who is even asking Hamas whether we have a right to live here? We have this right without Hamas doing us a favor and recognizing us. We aren’t going to resolve our ideological dispute with the organization, but we are wronging ourselves in that we aren’t speaking with it about the tactical issues. The Palestine Liberation Organization used to be a no less bitter enemy and its covenant denied Israel’s right to exist. Both with [Yasser] Arafat and in Lebanon, we reached truces. Just as we did that with them - with Hamas, too, a cease-fire does not have to be official and contractually binding. The conflicts with the Arab world are like a boxing match that is determined by points, not by a knock out, and from time to time the round ends.” This article can be read in its entirety here .