[GushShalom] Barghouti verdict - Gush Shalom delegation thrown out of court
Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)
info at gush-shalom.org
Sun Jun 6 17:41:15 IDT 2004
GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - www.gush-shalom.org/
[] Barghouti verdict - Gush Shalom activists thrown out of court
[] Avnery on government crisis: much ado about nothing
~~~
[] Barghouti verdict - Gush Shalom activists thrown out of court
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5 life times + 40 years for Barghouti
Gush Shalom activists, thrown out of court, call it:
"A predictable result of an unworthy procedure"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
âéøñà áòáøéú úùìç ìôé á÷ùä // photo's at the gush website soon
June 6, 2004 - day of reading the Barghouti sentence.
As before in the ridiculous procedures of the Marwan Barghouti trial Gush
Shalom activists were not allowed into the courtroom. Among them, former
Knesset Member Uri Avnery, historian Teddy Katz and a dozen more, people
of all ages, who could make it during working hours.
Prepared because of previous experiences, we immediately took from our
pockets the well-known signs "Barghouti - Talk Peace With Him; Don't
Imprison Him" and made a kind of a demonstration at the entrance to the
courtroom. Adam Keller started explaining to the crowding journalists and
cameras how ridiculous it is to treat a leader of the occupied
Palestinian people like this, instead of sitting with him around the
negotiations table, and that the predictable verdict concludes a
procedure unworthy of the state of Israel, which will turn Marwan
Barghouti into the Palestinian Nelson Mandela.
Then court security personnel broke into the "spontaneous press
conference", tearing the paper signs and with much violence forcing all
of us out of the building. One Gush Shalom activist, Yuval Halperin was
treated with special brutality: a security guard named Golan Ariel pushed
him down on the flour, twisting his arm behind his back and chokinh him
to the point of losing consciousness. Thereupon he was detained and taken
away behind a closed door. The rest of us sat down on the floor, refusing
to leave without him joining us. After some loud negotiating, Halperin
was led out of the closed room.
Gush Shalom lodged a complaint about the violence used against its
members with the police.
For what happened inside the courtroom where Barghouti was condemned to 5
life times + 40 years (sic!) see the Israeli press. NB: the first two
links include also a reference to the Gush Shalom action, mentioning
Avnery.
Jerusalem Post
<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&
cid=1086490414686>
Y-net(Hebrew / òáøéú)
>http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-2927563,00.html<
Ha'aretz English
<http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/435748.html>
Ha'aretz Hebrew / òáøéú
<http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/435744.html>
Ma'ariv English
<http://www.maarivintl.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=8213>
Ma'ariv Hebrew:
<http://www.maariv.co.il/channels/1/ART/731/542.html>
[] Avnery on government crisis: much ado about nothing
Uri Avnery
5.6.04
Hebrew at request & soon at the site
òáøéú òì ôé á÷ùä àå á÷øåá áàúø
To Drink from the Sea of Gaza
Perhaps Abe Lincoln was right that you can't fool all the people all
the time, but a lot of people can surely be fooled for a long, long time.
Just look at Ariel Sharon.
From the start, the "Disengagement Plan" was an exercise in deceit.
But the world is eager to be deceived. The world's statesmen take it
seriously, it causes violent storms in Israel, the media have a ball. All
this for a plan that has neither hands nor feet.
So what is the purpose of all this mayhem? Cynics might say: the
mayhem itself. It puts Sharon in center stage where he can continue to
play the master of events. Now the commotion has reached a climax.
The main aim of the exercise is to satisfy George Bush. The
president demanded a plan which will show him doing something for peace.
The more he gets sucked into the Iraqi quagmire, the more he needs to
prove that he is achieving something in our country. Especially since his
last baby - the "Road Map" - has died in its cradle.
Bush demanded that Sharon come up with a plan. No problem. Hocus
pocus, here is a plan, with a fine promising name: "Disengagement".
Speeches, meetings, a visit to the White House, exchanges of documents,
state visits, emissaries, Mubarrak, Abdallah, disputes, compromises, and
finally even a full-blown cabinet crisis. All this for a balloon full of
hot air.
The plan claims to have three aims: to get the settlers out of Gaza,
to turn the Strip over to Palestinian rule and to destroy the "terrorist
infrastructure" there.
This week, Sharon himself defined the first aim in an unequivocal
manner: "By the end of 2005, not a single Jew will remain in the Gaza
Strip!"
A resolute, bold and strong-willed statement, as befits a great
leader.
(In fact, this statement has a faintly anti-Semitic ring. If the
Palestinian government wants to invite peaceful Jews to live there, why
shouldn't they? Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to say: "No
settler will remain in the Gaza strip"? Never mind.)
But the crucial words in the statement were "by the end of 2005."
They are reminiscent of the classic Jewish joke about the Polish nobleman
who threatens his Jew with death if he does not teach his beloved horse
to r
ead and write. The Jew asks for three years to accomplish such an arduous task. When his wife hears
of it she exclaims: "But you know you cannot teach that to a horse!" The Jew calms her: "Three yea
rs is a long time. By t
hen, either the horse or the nobleman will have died."
In our country, eighteen months are half an eternity. The situation changes by the week. Befor
e the end of 2005, many things may happen: Bush may lose the election, catastrophe may overcome Ira
q, in our country blood
y events may reach such proportions as to obliterate any memory of the "plan".
Events this week made clear the central role that time plays in the "plan". Tzipi Livni, the M
inister for Immigration Absorption, worked hard to engineer a compromise between Sharon and his opp
onents. She reinvented
the egg of Columbus: the government will officially adopt the plan, but not the implementation of t
he plan. For some nine months, only "preparations" will be made. Not a single settlement will be ev
acuated. After that, th
e government will decide whether to evacuate any settlements at all, and, if so, which ones. (The o
pponents then demanded that the government continue to pour money into the settlements which are su
pposed to be evacuated.
)
The fact that everybody treated this proposal seriously speaks for itself. A plan that is supp
osed to be implemented next year might as well be postponed to the next century.
But let us examine the plan on its merits, as if Sharon really intended to put it into practic
e. He evacuates the settlements and demolishes them, the army leaves the Gaza Strip, some kind of P
alestinian administrati
on takes over.
Will this bring peace? Will this stop the attacks?
There is no chance that this would indeed happen.
The basic principle held by all Palestinian factions is that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip c
onstitute one integral territorial entity. This was stated explicitly in the Oslo Declaration and a
ll the following agreem
ents. Following this principle, Yasser Arafat has rejected all proposals of "Gaza First", unless th
ey include at least a significant part of the West Bank (Jericho, for example.)
Sharon knows this, and therefore he added to his plan an appendage: a small area on the northe
rn fringe of the West Bank will also be evacuated. Four small settlements are located there, and th
eir inhabitants are ver
y eager to leave (with generous compensation, of course). No Palestinian will take such an evacuati
on seriously.
There is not the slightest chance that the fighters of any of the Palestinian factions in the
"liberated" Gaza Strip will look quietly on, while Sharon realizes his designs in the West Bank: th
e annexation of 55% of
the West Bank to Israel ("settlement blocs", "essential security zones", "areas of special interest
to Israel", as the army planners put it), with the Palestinians corralled into small enclaves. Thi
s work is already going
on rapidly with the building of the monstrous "separation wall".
The "liberated" Gaza Strip will inevitably become a base of the
battle for the liberation of the West Bank. The Israeli army will react,
as usual, with all its might, invading, killing, destroying and
uprooting. If this does not do the job (as it did not up to now), Sharon
may cut off the supply of electricity, water and food. Since the Strip
will be isolated from the world, this is possible. But it will not
succeed, because the world will be watching, and the Americans cannot
afford this.
The military planners know this well, and have been inspired by a
new patent ides: to get the Egyptians involved.
Brilliant, or so it seems. The Egyptian regime lives on generous
American handouts - rewards for signing a peace agreement with Israel.
Congress, eager to please the Sharon government, recently threatened to
delay the payment of 200 million dollars to Egypt. It is therefore vital
for Husni Mubarrak to show the Americans that he is Sharon's ally.
But Mubarrak knows that he is walking a tightrope. Egypt's
connection with the Gaza Strip dates back more than 4000 years and has
had many ups and downs. The Egyptians ruled the Strip after the 1948 war
and do not like to be reminded of it. More than once, they tried to
control the Palestinian cause, and each time it ended with their
humiliation. President Gamal Abd-el-Nasser created the PLO in order to
thwart Yasser Arafat, but within a few years Arafat had taken it over.
President Anwar al-Sadat tried to become the guardian of the
Palestinians, only to be put to shame by Menahem Begin.
If the Egyptians now try to take over Gaza and obstruct the
Palestinians' fight for the liberation of the West Bank, they will be
considered collaborators and be exposed to attacks that may well spill
over into Egypt itself. Hamas has powerful allies there who won't step
back from violence.
Mubarrak will be very cautious about accepting responsibility in
Gaza, especially if Arafat is not involved. He knows well the curse
beloved by Arafat: "Go and drink from the sea of Gaza!"
Therefore, this whole plan is standing on its head. It has no basis
in reality. All in all, it is a recipe for the continuation of the war in
another form.
But no need to worry. Sharon is not really serious about it. He is
sure that before the time comes for the evacuation of even a single
settlement, either the horse will die or the Polish nobleman will forget
all about
# For pictures of the ongoing destruction in Rafah:
http://www.rafahtoday.org
# Truth against Truth - opposite views on the history of the conflict
in 101 steps
Hebrew / òáøéú
http://www.gush-shalom.org/Docs/Truth_Heb.pdf
English
http://www.gush-shalom.org/Docs/Truth_Eng.pdf
# Boycott List of Settlement Products (newly updated)
Hebrew / òáøéú
http://gush-shalom.org/Boycott/boycheb.htm
English
http://gush-shalom.org/Boycott/boyceng.htm
# Refusniks
Constantly-updated refusniks lists:
English - http://www.yesh-gvul.org/english/prison/
Hebrew / òáøéú - http://www.yesh-gvul.org/prison/
English - http://www.newprofile.org/default.asp?language=en
Hebrew / òáøéú - http://www.newprofile.org/
Help us free our children from the military prison! (parents of The Five)
For ENGLISH details please click http://www.refuz.org.il/help.html
For HEBREW please click http://www.refuz.org.il/hebrew/help.html
Homepage with lots of information:
http://www.refuz.org.il/
# Eye-witness reports from the Occupied Territories:
http://www.machsomwatch.org
(Israeli women monitoring the checkpoints)
http://www.palsolidarity.org/pressreleases/pressreleases.php
(internationals throughout OT)
--
http://www.gush-shalom.org/ (òáøéú/Hebrew)
http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html (English)
http://www.gush-shalom.org/arabic/index.html (selected articles in Arabic)
with
\\photos of recent actions
\\the weekly Gush Shalom ad
\\the columns of Uri Avnery
\\Gush Shalom's history & action chronicle
\\position papers & analysis (in "documents")
\\and a lot more
N.B.:
On the Gush Shalom website links for
Articles and documents in German, French and Spanish
In order to receive Gush Shalom's Hebrew-language
press releases mail to:
gush-shalom-heb-request at mailman.gush-shalom.org
+ NB: write the word "subscribe" in the subject line.
Archive of email reports:
https://mailman.gush-shalom.org/pipermail/gush-
shalom/2004/thread.html#start
If you want to support Gush Shalom's activities you can
send a cheque or cash, wrapped well in an extra piece
of paper to:
Gush Shalom
pob 3322
Tel-Aviv 61033
Israel
or ask us for charities in your country which receive
donations on behalf of Gush Shalom
Please, add your email address where to send our
confirmation of receipt. More official receipts at
request only.
More information about the gush-shalom-intl
mailing list