[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [GuShalom] Barghouti-led doc: end violence from Gaza for full Gaza sovereignty

Tue Apr 20 14:31:38 CDT 2004

>From: "Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)" <info at gush-shalom.org>
>Subject: [GuShalom] Barghouti-led doc: end 
>violence from Gaza for full Gaza sovereignty
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>Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 21:49:03 +0200
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>GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - www.gush-shalom.org/
>
>Two Palestinian reactions which you shouldn't miss:
>[] Barghouti-led doc: end violence from Gaza for full Gaza sovereignty  
>[] Afif Safieh on Sharon's banana republics (yes: plural)
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>N.B. last minute action news:
>  Tomorrow 8.30 Yafo Military Court CO Yoni Ben-Artzi's final sentence
>  (will need every solidarity he can get - same time as Vanunu release).
>  Army insists on long further imprisonment even after declaring Ben-
>Artzi  "unfit for military service".
>  Bayit Hayarok, Shivtey Yisrael 91-93 corner Yefet
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>[] Barghouti-led doc: end violence from Gaza for full Gaza sovereignty  
>
>  Arnon Regular
>  Tue., April 20, 2004
>  <http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/417205.html>
>
>  Hebrew:
>  <http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?itemNo=41742>
>
>Barghouti-led document calls for cessation of attacks from Gaza  
>
>A memorandum of understanding issued by the leadership of
>Palestinian prisoners in Israel under the patronage of jailed Tanzim
>leader Marwan Barghouti calls for a total end to the armed struggle
>emanating from Gaza if a series of conditions are met. The conditions
>detailed in the document, or "proposal," sent to Fatah, Hamas and
>Islamic Jihad, includes "complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza,
>including the `Philadelphi Route' on the Israeli-Egyptian border; full
>Palestinian sovereignty over the Strip, including the sea and air ports;
>and the release from Israeli prisons of all Gaza residents. In exchange
>for fulfilling the conditions, "the armed forces in Gaza will be obligated
>not to conduct any armed
>actions from Gaza," according to the document.
>
>The document is described as an attempt to complement the dialogue under
>way among all Palestinian factions in Gaza, and serve "as an appropriate
>response, which will satisfy factions in Gaza, to the assassination of
>Abdel Aziz Rantisi." The document proposes defining the Israeli
>withdrawal from Gaza "as the most important achievement of the
>Palestinians in the intifada after 10 years of Oslo did not move a single
>mobile home and during those years, the settlements doubled."
>
>The document is the first clear expression of Barghouti's readiness to
>commit to a cessation of violence from Gaza following an Israeli
>withdrawal, and reflects the dialogue between Palestinian factions within
>Israeli prisons and camps. Outside the prisons, the organizations tend to
>take a harder line, and it is unclear whether they will accept the
>prisoners' lead.
>
>A senior Fatah official in Gaza yesterday said the dialogue among the
>three main factions - Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad - that began after
>the assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin last
>month, but was ceased after Rantisi's killing, will resume in the
>upcoming days. The official, one of the most powerful in the Strip, said
>the prisoners' document will serve as the basis for discussions meant to
>set a date for local elections in the area and to try to reach clear
>understandings among the organizations over how Gaza will be run once
>Israel departs.
>
>The official did not provide details, but said that "if there is no
>agreement on general partnership between the organizations, then there
>will be a narrower agreement on the management of the Strip."
>
>He did not rule out enlisting Hamas and Islamic militants into the PA's
>security services "on condition that they cut ties to those
>organizations. It would be in a new framework of the security services in
>Gaza and a new definition of their goals and purposes."
>
>Head of Preventive Security in Gaza, Rashid Abu Shbak, also is not ruling
>out integrating Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the security forces as long as
>there are clear rules for their participation.
>
>Earlier this month, Haaretz published a draft agreement between Fatah and
>Hamas that was hammered out between Rantisi, senior Fatah officer Ahmed
>Halas, and Islamic Jihad representatives. In addition to Hamas
>recognition of Fatah's dominance and its demands for getting involved in
>decision making in Gaza, the organizations agreed to discuss a cease-fire
>from Gaza. 
>
>[] Afif Safieh on Sharon's banana republics (yes: plural)
>
>Sharon's banana republics
>Afif Safieh
>Monday April 19, 2004
>The Guardian
>
>Bush and Blair have allowed Israel to dictate their Middle
>East policy and carry out a Palestinian politicide
>
>The study of American-Israeli relations has preoccupied two generations
>of scholars. Two competing schools of thought addressed the "who wags
>whom" debate. The first school spoke of "an American Israel", with the
>United States dictating to the local ally its regional policy in
>accordance with the American global vision. Noam Chomsky wrote two
>decades ago that Washington was the contemporary Rome and Israel its
>regional belligerent, Sparta. The second school projects the image of "an
>Israeli America", a complex relationship where the global superpower
>adopts the regional policy of its client state and integrates it in its
>global strategy. This is seen as a result of a powerful pro-Israel lobby
>that succeeded in turning "Capitol Hill into another Israeli-occupied
>territory".
>
>I have always believed that both schools of thought were correct but at
>different moments in history, depending on the strength of the American
>president, how comfortable he is in the country and in Congress, and how
>comfortable the US is in the world.
>
>After the horror of 9/11, when the predictable retaliation was being
>discussed, the pro-Israel lobby emerged as the "maximalist school", which
>wanted to expand the theatre of operations beyond Afghanistan to engulf
>Iraq, Syria and Libya. That lobby has grown accustomed to using one muscle
>too many and one pressure too far. The collusion between the US and
>Israeli agendas has put America on a collision course with the Arab
>World, which now perceives the US as Israel's belligerent Sparta and the
>aim of American foreign policy to be docility, not democracy.
>
>Tony Blair has always had a more sophisticated approach than George Bush.
>Blair knew that military challenges and security threats needed political
>responses. That to win the battle of hearts and minds, the west had to be
>seen as engaged in resolving the Palestinian problem. The test and the
>extent of his influence in Washington depended on who Bush needed more:
>Blair internationally or Ariel Sharon domestically.
>
>Last week was a sad moment for international diplomacy. The world's two
>most powerful leaders, Bush and Blair, caved in to the most unscrupulous
>politician in the Middle East, who was found to be "unfit for public
>office" by an Israeli inquiry committee after the massacres of Sabra and
>Shatila in 1982.
>
>Sharon is not hiding his game. In a recent interview with the leading
>Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea, he said Israelis should see his plan of
>unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip not as a reward but as a
>punishment of the Palestinians. He announced that the Palestinians could
>operate neither a port nor an airport in Gaza, and that Israel intended
>to keep control of territorial water and airspace. Nor would they have
>control of the borders. He added that this would delay the discussion of
>a Palestinian state for many years. He forgot to mention was that Gaza,
>with its 1.3 million inhabitants, is only about 1% of historic Palestine.
>
>Why Bush considered Sharon's intentions "courageous" and "a golden
>opportunity" can be explained by the electoral considerations of an
>embattled president. But I remain puzzled by Blair's enthusiasm for
>Sharon's machinations and his conviction that they are in harmony with
>the road map. He has more experience in power than Bush, is better
>advised, and electoral considerations in Britain run in the opposite
>direction. Opinion polls show a 2-1 ratio in favour of Palestinian
>aspirations as compared with the Israeli position. Debates in parliament,
>across the political divide, should encourage him to be more assertive.
>All indicationsshow that, on Palestine/Israel, Blair does not reflect the
>depth of feeling in Britain.
>
>
>Sharon has been dealing with the US and Britain as though they were his
>own banana republics. To his intransigence they constantly respond with
>abdication of responsibility and self inflicted impotence. The way ahead
>under the road map would have been to secure a reciprocal cessation of
>violence that all Palestinian factions accept; pressure Sharon to couple
>a complete withdrawal from Gaza with a pull-out of the urban centres in
>the West Bank to allow the creation of a Palestinian state "with
>temporary frontiers"; and to make Palestinian elections possible -
>presidential, parliamentary and municipal - and pave the way for
>final-status negotiations.
>
>None of that has been undertaken. Bush and Blair are allowing Israel to
>dictate what is possible. Sharon will pursue his policy of politicide,
>vandalising Palestinian society and the economy, and crushing any national
>representation and government. Despite Hamas's self-restraint since the
>assassination of Sheikh Yassin and its dialogue with other factions to
>minimise civilian deaths on both sides, he has pressed ahead with
>decapitating the Palestinian leadership by killing Abdul-Aziz Rantissi.
>
>For years it has been my belief that the ideal US president for Middle
>East peace would be one who had the ethics of a Carter, the popularity of
>a Reagan and the strategic audacity of a Nixon. Alas, we have a president
>who has the ethics of a Nixon, the popularity of a Carter and the
>intellectual agility of a Reagan.
>
>[Afif Safieh is Palestinian General Delegate to the UK and the Holy See]
>
>
>--
>Ongoing struggle
>
>     #Vanunu  to be released April 21 (more details to follow separately)
>     #Against the Wall (contact addresses) #Refusniks (prisoner addresses &
>     links to constantly updated sites)
>
>
>#Vanunu to be released April 21
>
>Instead of sending flowers
>Wordlwide campaign WELCOME VANUNU by donating a few dollars
>(N.B.: online but ALSO otherwise) as a welcome gesture:
><http://www.vanunu.org/>
>
>List of international vigils on day of Vanunu release (April 21):
>http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/
>http://www.vanunu.freeserve.co.uk/
>
>Online petition for the unconditional release of Vanunu
>http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/freemordechaivanunu/
>
>For details about Free Vanunu vigils and activities in Israel,
>Call: 02-6254530 or 051-368236
>or email: legalese at netvision.net.il
>
>
>
>#Against the Wall
>•ÂÎÁÂ™ ÈÂÓÈÂÓÈ™ ·ÎÙ¯ÈÌ ÓýÈÓÈÌ Ú"È ”ÁÂÓ” Ï™ýÌ ÚÌ
>ýÈÈ·È 064-604172 isichel at netvision.net.il
>ý¯È— 050-607034  info at rhr.israel.net
>
>Day to day presence at villages threatened by route of wall.
>Contact:  Ivy Sichel 064-604172 isichel at netvision.net.il who set's up a
>list for people who can come at short notice, or: Arik Asherman 050-
>607034  info at rhr.israel.net
>
>
>#Refusniks
>
>Constantly-updated refusniks lists:
>
>English - http://www.yesh-gvul.org/english/prison/
>Hebrew / Ú·¯È™ - http://www.yesh-gvul.org/prison/
>
>English - http://www.newprofile.org/default.asp?language=en
>Hebrew / Ú·¯È™ - http://www.newprofile.org/
>
>For the latest news about the five:  
>
>http://www.refuz.org.il/News.html
>
>  NB:
>  Letters of support to
>  Noam Bahat / Haggai Mattar / Matan Kaminer
>  AGAF BET
>  Maíasiyaho Prison
>  P.O.B 13
>  Ramla
>  Israel
>
>  Adam Maor / Shimri Tzameret:
>  Hermon Prison
>  P.O.B 4011
>  KFAR MíRAR
>  Israel
>
>
>--
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