[GushShalom] All around a-Ram // Avnery on Ya'alon
Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)
info at gush-shalom.org
Fri Nov 14 20:44:42 IST 2003
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."
--
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with
\\photos - of actions
\\the weekly Gush Shalom ad - in Hebrew and English
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\\position papers & analysis (in "documents")
\\and a lot more
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Petitions against the Wall:
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http://www.petitiononline.com/stw/petition.html (international petition)
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