[GushShalom] All around a-Ram // Avnery on Ya'alon

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

GUSH SHALOM  pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 www.gush-shalom.org

[] All around a-Ram - Gush ad
[] Hawk turned pseudo-dove - Uri Avnery on Ya'alon

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[] All around a-Ram - Gush ad
  
  òáøéú áàúø 
www.gush-shalom.org

SEPARATION - BETWEEN WHOM?

In the beginning, when people talked about a "separation fence", they 
meant a security fence. As Ehud Barak announced at the time: "We 
shall be here and they shall be there."

This has turned into a blatant lie.

The fence that is being built now is not intended to separate between 
Israelis and Palestinians, but between Palestinians and Palestinians. 
To cut the Palestinian territory into ribbons. To confine the Palestinians 
in isolated pockets.

A glaring example is the double wall now being built around the town of 
a-Ram, north of Jerusalem. It has 60 thousand inhabitants, of which 40 
thousand have Jerusalem IDs and Israeli license plates on their cars. 
But the double wall will cut the town off, both from Jerusalem and the 
West Bank.

Only one single way out of this pocket will remain: the infamous 
Kalandia checkpoint. Normal life will become impossible, commercial 
life will be destroyed, pupils will have to get up at 5 am in order to 
reach their schools in adjoining neighborhoods on the other side of the 
wall. Sick people and pregnant women will be on the road for hours 
before they reach their hospitals in jerusalem or Ramallah - if they get 
there at all.

A determined Israeli-Palestinian campaign will be waged against this 
monster. Building has not yet started. The disaster can still be avoided! 
Join the effort!



Gush Shalom,
Help us with donations to
P.O.Box 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033,
Phone 972-3-5221732.
www.gush-shalom.org
Requests for information about current actions:
info at gush-shalom.org

Gush Shalom ad published in Ha'aretz, November 14, 2003 
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[] Hawk turned pseudo-dove - Uri Avnery on Ya'alon

Uri Avnery
15.11.03

òáøéú á÷øåá áàúø 
www.gush-shalom.org

			Ya'alon's 70 Virgins

     What has happened to the Chief-of-Staff, Lieutenant-General Moshe 
("Bogie") Ya'alon?
     Until recently, he was the most aggressive hawk in the army, 
perhaps in the whole country. Suddenly he is almost turning into a 
dove.
      Has he had a divine revelation like Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, who went 
to Damascus to persecute the Christians and arrived there as an 
apostle of Jesus?
     Up to now, Ya'alon's gospel was far from the teachings of the gentle 
Jewish preacher from Nazareth. His doctrine was: Hit the Arabs on the 
head and they will give in. If that isn't enough, hit them harder. Make 
the life of every single Palestinian unbearable, prevent him from leaving 
his village or town, destroy the livelihood of his family, take his land 
away.
     This was an almost mathematical formula: when one blow follows 
the other, the lives of the Palestinians will reach breaking point. They 
will not be able to resist. They will raise their hands, lower their heads 
and accept everything the government of Israel is good enough to offer 
them. They will turn over their fighters ("terrorists" in the parlance of the 
occupation, "national heroes" in the parlance of the occupied.) They 
will live in the enclaves Israel allows them, or look for a better life in 
another country. 
     Now, suddenly, the C-o-S distances himself from this strategy. He 
tells the public that the government's policy - whose staunchest 
supporter he has been - is "destructive". Instead of liquidating 
terrorism, he says, it produces terrorism. The lives of the Palestinians 
must be eased, they must be given hope.
    So what has happened?
     The first part of the plan has worked beyond expectation. The life of 
the Palestinians has indeed become hell. Most of them live below the 
poverty line, many on the threshold of hunger, some in an actual state 
of hunger. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children suffer from 
malnutrition. Every village has become a prison camp, completely 
surrounded by roadblocks. Traffic is well-nigh impossible. Many 
Palestinians cannot reach their place of work, hospital, university or 
school or bring their produce to market. Israeli troops prowl in the 
towns and villages, demolishing homes, arresting or killing activists 
and, at the same time, women and children, too. The distant sound of 
an airplane engine is enough for the whole population to hold their 
breath.
     In this sense, all of Ya'alon's aims have been achieved. It would be 
difficult to imagine a more terrible situation, barring actual massacres. 
According to plan, the Palestinians should have broken a long time ago.
     But, wonder of wonders, this has not happened. The Palestinians 
have not given in. They have managed to exist even in these appalling 
circumstances. The mutual assistance of all the members of the 
extended Arab family has helped. Moreover, the great majority of the 
Palestinians continue to support the violent attacks ("terrorism" in the 
parlance of the occupation, "armed resistance" in the parlance of the 
occupied.) The suicide bombers are viewed with pride and admiration. 
For every "martyr" who blows himself up, a hundred are pressing to 
follow in his footsteps.
     The only discussion among the Palestinians is whether they should 
go on with suicide attacks inside Israel or limit themselves to attacking 
settlers and soldiers in the occupied territories.
     It seems that Ya'alon and his generals have reached the conclusion 
that their campaign has failed. Any further pressure on the Palestinians 
will be counter-productive: producing more hatred, more hostility. So 
there will be more attacks, compelling the army to mobilize more 
troops and invest more resources, without achieving anything.
     Ya'alon the Hawk turns into Ya'alon the Pseudo-Dove. But his new 
remedy, too, is based on false assumptions: Instead of "hit them on 
the head" it is now "ease their situation". How? Allow some thousands 
to work in Israel? Let some hundreds of merchants into Israel to buy 
Israeli goods? (The Israeli economy could certainly use that.) Remove 
some roadblocks here and there? Use the stick less and the carrot 
more?   
     That, too, is a recipe for a predictable failure. Because, like the old 
recipe and all the false forecasts along the way (Remember Yom 
Kippur!) it is based on a bottomless contempt for the Arabs in general 
and the Palestinians in particular. But, as the extreme right-wing 
Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky already understood some 80 years 
ago: you can't buy the Arabs off. Changing total hell into a less than 
total hell will not induce them to give up their national goals.
     Even if the occupied territories turn into a paradise on earth and the 
military government provides every male inhabitant with 70 virgins (as 
promised for the Islamic paradise), the Palestinians would still want an 
end to the occupation. They want a state of their own in the whole of 
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
     But the "easing" promised by Ya'alon will be far from creating 
paradise. It will be like a drop of water on a hot stone. And in the 
meantime, the monstrous "security wall" is daily destroying the 
livelihood of thousands more people, robbing them of their land and 
cutting them off from the world.
     Ya'alon is not suffering from a sudden attack of humanity. He 
senses that the Israeli public is gradually turning away from his 
strategy. Even laymen are starting to realize that he has failed. Ya'alon 
is changing course because the public is starting to change course.
     A man of principle would go to the Prime Minister, put his general's 
insignia on the table and declare: "Sir, I have failed. I resign. And, by 
the way, Sir, I would advise you to do the same."

--
http://www.gush-shalom.org/ (òáøéú)
http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html (English)

with
\\photos - of actions 
\\the weekly Gush Shalom ad - in Hebrew and English 
\\the columns of Uri Avnery - in Hebrew, Arab and English
\\position papers & analysis (in "documents")
\\and a lot more

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Petitions against the Wall:

http://www.gader.org/Main/engPetition.asp (for Israelis)
http://www.petitiononline.com/stw/petition.html (international petition)
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