US MediationIsrael and Palestine
The US would like to believe it is fair and balanced and a fair broker for the conflict. Most of the rest of the world, and especially the Arab street, see things otherwise. Why? What do do we say and do to promote that view? Do we even recognise that we do it?
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Israel ... that Washington would not accept new West Bank construction, and that it had to stop
Excite News: "U.S. to Israel: Stop Expanding Settlements | Jun 26, 12:18 PM (ET) | By AMY TEIBEL
JERUSALEM (AP) - The United States has turned up the pressure on Israel to stop expanding West Bank settlements, Israeli officials said Sunday. In the Gaza Strip, military bulldozers began flattening former resort homes to prevent pullout opponents from occupying them.
The Israeli Cabinet, meanwhile, continued sweetening the pot in an effort to defuse widespread settler resistance to the evacuation. On Sunday, it approved new concessions to settlers who are to be uprooted this summer, including deeply discounted land in a prime coastal area not far from Gaza.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Israel during her visit last week that Washington would not accept new West Bank construction, and that it had to stop.
Israeli officials present at the meeting where Rice leveled the criticism said she did not threaten any particular penalty for settlement expansion but was displeased by construction she saw when traveling from Jerusalem to the West Bank town of Ramallah for meetings with Palestinian leaders.
Rice said the United States would not accept new conditions Israel is creating in its effort to influence a final peace deal, the officials said."
Excite News: "U.S. to Israel: Stop Expanding Settlements | Jun 26, 12:18 PM (ET) | By AMY TEIBEL
JERUSALEM (AP) - The United States has turned up the pressure on Israel to stop expanding West Bank settlements, Israeli officials said Sunday. In the Gaza Strip, military bulldozers began flattening former resort homes to prevent pullout opponents from occupying them.
The Israeli Cabinet, meanwhile, continued sweetening the pot in an effort to defuse widespread settler resistance to the evacuation. On Sunday, it approved new concessions to settlers who are to be uprooted this summer, including deeply discounted land in a prime coastal area not far from Gaza.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Israel during her visit last week that Washington would not accept new West Bank construction, and that it had to stop.
Israeli officials present at the meeting where Rice leveled the criticism said she did not threaten any particular penalty for settlement expansion but was displeased by construction she saw when traveling from Jerusalem to the West Bank town of Ramallah for meetings with Palestinian leaders.
Rice said the United States would not accept new conditions Israel is creating in its effort to influence a final peace deal, the officials said."
Friday, June 17, 2005
Israeli arms sales to China have provoked a "crisis" in relations with the US
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israel-US relations 'in crisis': "Wednesday, 15 June, 2005,
Israeli arms sales to China have provoked a "crisis" in relations with the US, according a senior Israeli parliamentary official.
..
The sales have angered the US government which fears its own technology may could be used against Taiwan.
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israel-US relations 'in crisis': "Wednesday, 15 June, 2005,
Israeli arms sales to China have provoked a "crisis" in relations with the US, according a senior Israeli parliamentary official.
..
The sales have angered the US government which fears its own technology may could be used against Taiwan.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Abu Mazen is Right: Freedom, Too, Is Needed
t r u t h o u t - James Zogby | Abu Mazen is Right: Freedom, Too, Is Needed: By James Zogby | t r u t h o u t | Perspective | Monday 06 June 2005
There was a striking exchange of contrasting views that took place during the Rose Garden event with President George W. Bush and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. It was striking, in that although the exchange went to the core of the issue that separates US policy from Palestinian reality, it received virtually no treatment in US press coverage of the event.
In his remarks, President Bush waxed poetic about his near mystical notion that democracy liberates the human spirit, creates peace and prosperity and ends violence. Abu Mazen countered that democracy is but one side of a coin, the other side being freedom. Abu Mazen noted that while Palestinians were moving on the democracy and reform fronts, they are still not free. Without freedom, democracy is not sustainable and can collapse in a disaster of renewed violence.
In this exchange, it is the Palestinian president who got it right. The assumption that the absence of democracy is the root cause of violence and that, therefore, its presence is a cure, is, at best, flawed and not empirically based.
In reality, violence, in the Palestinian context, is the product of an 80-year history in which Palestinians have lost control of their lands, their rights, and their ability to define their own history. The counter view, borrowed from the likes of Netanyahu and Sharansky, is a mystical concoction brewed by those who denied Palestinians rights, to absolve themselves from the burden of responsibility, shifting the blame instead onto the shoulders of their victims.
The situation in the occupied Palestinian lands, today, can only be described as horrific. Poverty is widespread, and unemployment is endemic, with some estimates placing youth unemployment in Gaza at 80%. Add to this the daily treatment meted out by the occupier: the harassment and humiliation at checkpoints, the sense of powerlessness as Palestinians see their land confiscated, closed off and built upon, and the feeling of being cut off from not only the rest of the world, but even the next town or village. It is this loss of control, and not the absence of democracy, that has spawned the violence.
...
Palestinians deserve reform and democracy and those, who in their quest for political power are exploiting the despair, must be stopped. But for the reform process to be sustained and for the purveyors of violence to be isolated and stopped, it is freedom and opportunity that must be expanded, through a radical transformation of conditions on the ground. Palestinians need to feel hope that their lives can change; that their society has the power to take control by expanding economic possibilities, regaining access to their land and defining their own history. It is this sense of empowerment that will end the humiliation and despair. Abu Mazen is right and he should be supported. If President Bush's vision of two democratic states living side-by-side is to be realized, it will take more than offers of limited economic assistance to the Palestinians and timid reminders to the Israelis of their "Road Map" obligations. If the US were to become a partner in the Palestinian quest for empowerment and freedom, as it is a partner in the Israeli quest for security and recognition, it could help to transform Israeli behavior, inspire Palestinian hope and bring about the change needed to foster democracy and contribute to an end to violence. At the same time, and, as a byproduct, such a visionary expansion of US policy would contribute to transforming the image of America throughout the broader Middle East.
t r u t h o u t - James Zogby | Abu Mazen is Right: Freedom, Too, Is Needed: By James Zogby | t r u t h o u t | Perspective | Monday 06 June 2005
There was a striking exchange of contrasting views that took place during the Rose Garden event with President George W. Bush and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. It was striking, in that although the exchange went to the core of the issue that separates US policy from Palestinian reality, it received virtually no treatment in US press coverage of the event.
In his remarks, President Bush waxed poetic about his near mystical notion that democracy liberates the human spirit, creates peace and prosperity and ends violence. Abu Mazen countered that democracy is but one side of a coin, the other side being freedom. Abu Mazen noted that while Palestinians were moving on the democracy and reform fronts, they are still not free. Without freedom, democracy is not sustainable and can collapse in a disaster of renewed violence.
In this exchange, it is the Palestinian president who got it right. The assumption that the absence of democracy is the root cause of violence and that, therefore, its presence is a cure, is, at best, flawed and not empirically based.
In reality, violence, in the Palestinian context, is the product of an 80-year history in which Palestinians have lost control of their lands, their rights, and their ability to define their own history. The counter view, borrowed from the likes of Netanyahu and Sharansky, is a mystical concoction brewed by those who denied Palestinians rights, to absolve themselves from the burden of responsibility, shifting the blame instead onto the shoulders of their victims.
The situation in the occupied Palestinian lands, today, can only be described as horrific. Poverty is widespread, and unemployment is endemic, with some estimates placing youth unemployment in Gaza at 80%. Add to this the daily treatment meted out by the occupier: the harassment and humiliation at checkpoints, the sense of powerlessness as Palestinians see their land confiscated, closed off and built upon, and the feeling of being cut off from not only the rest of the world, but even the next town or village. It is this loss of control, and not the absence of democracy, that has spawned the violence.
...
Palestinians deserve reform and democracy and those, who in their quest for political power are exploiting the despair, must be stopped. But for the reform process to be sustained and for the purveyors of violence to be isolated and stopped, it is freedom and opportunity that must be expanded, through a radical transformation of conditions on the ground. Palestinians need to feel hope that their lives can change; that their society has the power to take control by expanding economic possibilities, regaining access to their land and defining their own history. It is this sense of empowerment that will end the humiliation and despair. Abu Mazen is right and he should be supported. If President Bush's vision of two democratic states living side-by-side is to be realized, it will take more than offers of limited economic assistance to the Palestinians and timid reminders to the Israelis of their "Road Map" obligations. If the US were to become a partner in the Palestinian quest for empowerment and freedom, as it is a partner in the Israeli quest for security and recognition, it could help to transform Israeli behavior, inspire Palestinian hope and bring about the change needed to foster democracy and contribute to an end to violence. At the same time, and, as a byproduct, such a visionary expansion of US policy would contribute to transforming the image of America throughout the broader Middle East.
