Another great one from Helena

Here is an important and easy to understand posting from Helena Cobban's blog titled Just World News (which I love and highly recommend to those interested in world affairs and more specifically the Israel and Palestinian conflict). She in turn posted this editorial which was written by Amos Gvirtz, an Israeli citizen who works intentionaly to inform his compatriots of how the Israeli government's occupation is affecting Palestinians. As Helena explains, "He was the founding chairperson of the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, and every week since summer 2006 he has published a short essay under the title “Don’t Say We Did Not Know.”

Here is a link to his website (which is worth checking out) and his editorial that was featured today on JWN.

Prioritizing Peace over Settlements

By Amos Gvirtz

A short while after his victory in the 1977 elections and his appointment as prime minister, Menahem Begin announced: "There will be many more Elon Morehs [an early ideological West Bank settlement]." And he went on to say, "So that a left-wing government will not be able to return the territories."

In order to give weight to this announcement, the Begin government declared the settlements to be areas of national priority. This meant that the government viewed the construction and development of settlements in the occupied territories as a supreme Israeli interest. And in fact, since then and until today the settlers receive extensive benefits, far beyond what is allocated to any other population in Israel. This is also true for industrialists and business people who build their factories and businesses in the occupied territories.

Since the Begin government, no Israeli government has changed this priority, including the Rabin government, which while it froze settlement construction, paved bypass roads for the settlers, with all their ramifications.

Thus even during the seven years of the Oslo process, no Israeli government changed the policy which viewed the establishment and development of settlements as a supreme Israeli interest! We witnessed a political process, which seemed to most of us to be a peace process, at a time when the occupation actually continued to deepen! And in fact, during the time of the Oslo process, the number of settlers increased from 110,000 to 204,000; Israel demolished more than 1,000 Palestinian homes in the occupied territories; implemented two expulsions; and confiscated some 40,000 acres of Palestinian land. From the Palestinian point of view, these are unilateral acts of war by an occupying power against a defenseless civilian population.

After the 1999 elections, Prime Minister Ehud Barak added fuel to the fire when he appointed Yitzhak Levy of the National Religious Party as Minister of Housing in his government. The results were not long in coming: construction in the settlements reached new heights. The Meretz Party, which also sat in Barak's government, fought against the corruption of the Sephardic religious party Shas (thereby deepening the rift with the Sephardic population in Israel), but failed in its role as guardian of the peace process. This failure marked one of the biggest mistakes of the Israeli Left, which occupied itself with political issues, while the Right created facts on the ground, with the goal of making the settlement process irreversible.

Israeli governments have developed a fixed pattern of behavior: they "agree" to American and European demands on the peace process, and at the same time deepen the occupation. We saw how the Olmert government did this during the Anapolis process.

Given all this, I have reached the conclusion that today the central demand of the Israeli Left must be, first and foremost, the cancellation of the priority status of the settlements in the occupied territories; the total cessation of funding for the settlements and the illegal outposts; upholding the law against settlers who expel Palestinian farmers from their lands and then take them over; the cessation of all land theft; a total cessation of house demolitions; a total cessation of the expulsion of Palestinians from the areas of the Southern Hebron Hills, the Jordan Valley, Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim; the encouragement of settlers to return to Israel; and of course an end to the theft of West Bank and Golan Hight water. Only when these conditions are fulfilled, can it be said that the government of Israel has changed its policy from prioritizing the occupation to prioritizing peace, and only then will there be a chance for a political peace process to succeed."

Palestinian Resistance Art

Here is a post that comes from the blog KABOBfest. It's a very cool site that should be checked out on it's own account. This map was published by Strange Maps and made by a French man named Julien Bousac. The main point is "an illustration of the West Bank’s ongoing fragmentation based on the (originally temporary) A/B/C zoning which came out of the Oslo process, still valid until now. To make things clear, areas ‘under water’ strictly reflect C zones, plus the East Jerusalem area, i.e. areas that have officially remained under full Israeli control and occupation following the Agreements. These include all Israeli settlements and outposts as well as Palestinian populated areas.”

There is an interesting and short explination of some of the reactions to the map on Strange Maps
Feel free to ignore the on-going comments at the end - they are useless and unforutnately take away from the power of the artwork and the artist's original intent.

Mr. Lakhdar comes to Paris

Here is a short article from Le Monde mentioning that it has now been confirmed by the White House that the French government will be accepting Lakhdar Boumedienne, the man for whome the case Boumediene v. Bush was named. As you know from my pervious posts Boumediene and five other native algerians (who were living in Bosnia before their illegal abduction by US personelle)who figured in the prominent and important case that was handed down by the US supereme court this last June. Their case was the biggest turning poing and what you could call the iciing on the cake of a series of previous cases when the US Supreme Court determined that the legal framework set up by the Bush administration at GB was in fact illegal. Boumediene v. Bush famously restored the right to Habeas Corpus for detainees being held off US soil by US Military or CIA.

So now, after being held for almost seven years at Guantanamo Bay Mr. Boumediene is being moved to France. The logic is that since he is Algerian and speaks French that France will be a reasonable place for him to settle.

However, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has stated that they would accept preivous detainees of GB but that they would subsequently be put into French jails.

This is crazy as this man has never been charged of any crimes by the US or the French government and has wrongfully been held for SEVEN YEARS after being kidnapped from hims home country. He is likely in need of a good therapist, human dignity and to see his family - but he should not be put into another prison.

I will keep you updated.