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?
Thursday, June 15, 2006
In Palestine, a War on Children
In Palestine, a War on Children - by John Pilger: "by John Pilger
Arthur Miller wrote, 'Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.'
Miller's truth was a glimpsed reality on television on June 9 when Israeli warships fired on families picnicking on a Gaza beach, killing seven people, including three children and three generations. What that represents is a final solution, agreed by the United States and Israel, to the problem of the Palestinians. While the Israelis fire missiles at Palestinian picnickers and homes in Gaza and the West Bank, the two governments are to starve them. The victims will be mostly children.
This was approved on May 23 by the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 361-37 to cut off aid to non-government organizations that run a lifeline to occupied Palestine. Israel is withholding Palestinian revenues and tax receipts amounting to $60 million a month. Such collective punishment, identified as a crime against humanity in the Geneva Conventions, evokes the Nazis' strangulation of the Warsaw ghetto and the American economic siege of Iraq in the 1990s. If the perpetrators have lost their minds, as Miller suggested, they appear to understand their barbarism and display their cynicism. 'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet,' joked Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert.
This is the price Palestinians must pay for their democratic elections in January. The majority voted for the 'wrong' party, Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel, with their inimitable penchant for pot-calling-the-kettle-black, describe as terrorist. However, terrorism is not the reason for starving the Palestinians, whose prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, had reaffirmed Hamas's commitment to recognize the Jewish state, proposing only that Israel obey international law and respect the borders of 1967. Israel has refused because, with its apartheid wall under construction, its intention is clear: to take over more and more of Palestine, encircling whole villages and eventually Jerusalem." ...
In Palestine, a War on Children - by John Pilger: "by John Pilger
Arthur Miller wrote, 'Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.'
Miller's truth was a glimpsed reality on television on June 9 when Israeli warships fired on families picnicking on a Gaza beach, killing seven people, including three children and three generations. What that represents is a final solution, agreed by the United States and Israel, to the problem of the Palestinians. While the Israelis fire missiles at Palestinian picnickers and homes in Gaza and the West Bank, the two governments are to starve them. The victims will be mostly children.
This was approved on May 23 by the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 361-37 to cut off aid to non-government organizations that run a lifeline to occupied Palestine. Israel is withholding Palestinian revenues and tax receipts amounting to $60 million a month. Such collective punishment, identified as a crime against humanity in the Geneva Conventions, evokes the Nazis' strangulation of the Warsaw ghetto and the American economic siege of Iraq in the 1990s. If the perpetrators have lost their minds, as Miller suggested, they appear to understand their barbarism and display their cynicism. 'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet,' joked Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert.
This is the price Palestinians must pay for their democratic elections in January. The majority voted for the 'wrong' party, Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel, with their inimitable penchant for pot-calling-the-kettle-black, describe as terrorist. However, terrorism is not the reason for starving the Palestinians, whose prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, had reaffirmed Hamas's commitment to recognize the Jewish state, proposing only that Israel obey international law and respect the borders of 1967. Israel has refused because, with its apartheid wall under construction, its intention is clear: to take over more and more of Palestine, encircling whole villages and eventually Jerusalem." ...
Friday, June 09, 2006
'The Americans are into regime change. They want the Palestinian Authority to fail.'" ...
Independent Online Edition > Middle East: "9 June 2006 18:50 | Fears of 'regime change' policy after US cancels Palestinian pay talks | By Anne Penketh in Jerusalem | Published: 09 June 2006
The US has cancelled talks in which ministers had been expected to approve urgent measures leading to the payment of Palestinian salaries, including those of the security forces, which were frozen after a Hamas government came to power.
A European diplomat said the move reinforced fears that the US was intent on 'regime change' in the Palestinian-ruled territories. Tensions between Hamas and Fatah forces in Gaza and the West Bank have been exacerbated by the aid freeze by countries who continue to brand Hamas a terrorist group.
'At best it's a delaying tactic, at worst it's an attempt to scupper the entire mechanism,' said the diplomat. 'The Americans are into regime change. They want the Palestinian Authority to fail.'
Western diplomats said a teleconference of the ministers of the Quartet (US, Russian Federation, EU and UN) had been scheduled for Wednesday, after the main powers considered proposals discussed in Brussels last week on the funding mechanism for the PA that would bypass Hamas.
The US envoy to the Middle East, David Welch, said there was 'no basis' for talks if they included payment for the security forces.
Salaries have not been paid to Palestinian civil servants since January, and the EU has been urgently trying to work out a payment system that would ease the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories.
The US has stopped aid being channelled through Arab banks by warning them of possible penalties. Some diplomats fear that US policy aims to undermine the Hamas government to such an extent that the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, would call new elections in the hope that Hamas loses.
The US has cancelled talks in which ministers had been expected to approve urgent measures leading to the payment of Palestinian salaries, including those of the security forces, which were frozen after a Hamas government came to power.
A European diplomat said the move reinforced fears that the US was intent on 'regime change' in the Palestinian-ruled territories. Tensions between Hamas and Fatah forces in Gaza and the West Bank have been exacerbated by the aid freeze by countries who continue to brand Hamas a terrorist group.
'At best it's a delaying tactic, at worst it's an attempt to scupper the entire mechanism,' said the diplomat. 'The Americans are into regime change. They want the Palestinian Authority to fail.'" ...
Independent Online Edition > Middle East: "9 June 2006 18:50 | Fears of 'regime change' policy after US cancels Palestinian pay talks | By Anne Penketh in Jerusalem | Published: 09 June 2006
The US has cancelled talks in which ministers had been expected to approve urgent measures leading to the payment of Palestinian salaries, including those of the security forces, which were frozen after a Hamas government came to power.
A European diplomat said the move reinforced fears that the US was intent on 'regime change' in the Palestinian-ruled territories. Tensions between Hamas and Fatah forces in Gaza and the West Bank have been exacerbated by the aid freeze by countries who continue to brand Hamas a terrorist group.
'At best it's a delaying tactic, at worst it's an attempt to scupper the entire mechanism,' said the diplomat. 'The Americans are into regime change. They want the Palestinian Authority to fail.'
Western diplomats said a teleconference of the ministers of the Quartet (US, Russian Federation, EU and UN) had been scheduled for Wednesday, after the main powers considered proposals discussed in Brussels last week on the funding mechanism for the PA that would bypass Hamas.
The US envoy to the Middle East, David Welch, said there was 'no basis' for talks if they included payment for the security forces.
Salaries have not been paid to Palestinian civil servants since January, and the EU has been urgently trying to work out a payment system that would ease the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories.
The US has stopped aid being channelled through Arab banks by warning them of possible penalties. Some diplomats fear that US policy aims to undermine the Hamas government to such an extent that the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, would call new elections in the hope that Hamas loses.
The US has cancelled talks in which ministers had been expected to approve urgent measures leading to the payment of Palestinian salaries, including those of the security forces, which were frozen after a Hamas government came to power.
A European diplomat said the move reinforced fears that the US was intent on 'regime change' in the Palestinian-ruled territories. Tensions between Hamas and Fatah forces in Gaza and the West Bank have been exacerbated by the aid freeze by countries who continue to brand Hamas a terrorist group.
'At best it's a delaying tactic, at worst it's an attempt to scupper the entire mechanism,' said the diplomat. 'The Americans are into regime change. They want the Palestinian Authority to fail.'" ...
