Rally • Teach-In • Lobby Day
Wanted: One Anti-War Government
• We Need an Anti-War Government
Reject U.S.-Israeli Genocide! End the Occupation Now!
All Out to Support
the Resistance in Palestine
Voice of Revolution calls on everyone to go all out to support the resistance of the Palestinian people to U.S.-Israeli aggression. Get informed, take up discussions with friends and fellow workers and participate in mobilization for a rally in Washington D.C. June 10. Stand together with the world’s people in saying Stop the Genocide! No to the U.S.-Israeli Occupation! Defend Palestine!
The U.S. and Israel with complete impunity claim they can impose collective punishment, mass arrests and detentions, openly carry out assassinations and turn the Gaza strip in Palestine into a virtual prison — all in the name of “security” and “democracy.” The U.S. has given Israel the go ahead for mass arrests of elected Palestinian officials, including government ministers, legislators and mayors, simply for being part of Hamas. More than 33 officials were arrested in one day and more than 40 elected officials have now been detained.
Imagine if a foreign power raided Washington D.C. and arrested Congresspeople. Would anyone consider it democratic? Yet this is exactly what the U.S. and Israel claim, giving themselves the impunity to not only arrest elected officials in another country, but to assassinate them and bomb their homes and communities. Israeli air strikes, funded and backed by the U.S. have killed more than 40 Palestinians in just the past week.
Hamas is the organization that won a majority in Palestine’s national elections in January. It is also a main force in the resistance and drive of Palestinians to win their independence and statehood. The Israeli defense minister, justifying the arrests and bombings, made clear that they were not for crimes, but for revenge against the Palestinians. “The arrest of Hamas leaders sends a message,” he said, for Palestinians to stop their resistance.
The U.S. and Israel are openly interfering in Palestine to try to impose a government of their choosing. These gangsters have unleashed brutal vengeance against the Palestinians for daring to elect people of their own choosing. This includes attempting to block all foreign funds from entering Palestine, blocking payment of taxes owed to Palestine, and creating conditions so that the economy and government cannot function. Every effort is being made to literally starve the Palestinians. And now Israel has been given the green light for carpet bombing Gaza.
These crimes must not pass! Now is the time for everyone across the U.S. to stand with peoples worldwide in demanding an end to U.S.-Israeli crimes, beginning with an immediate end to the occupation of Palestine and recognition of its right to self-determination and statehood.
Ending the occupation is the key to peace in the region and it is the U.S. that can readily take action to bring this about. It can immediately end all funding and political and economic backing of Israel. It can introduce a resolution in the United Nations Security Council requiring Israel to submit to all existing UN resolutions, especially 194 on the Right of Return and the many on ending the occupation and holding Israel accountable for its crimes. The U.S. has repeatedly vetoed such resolutions, yet one more action making it directly responsible for the genocide. Now is the time to hold the U.S. government accountable and demand that it initiate a resolution to end the occupation now and stop all funding and political and military backing for Israel.
All Out to Support the Resistance!
Defend the Just Cause of the Palestinians for Independence and Statehood!
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The World Says NO to U.S.-Israeli Occupation!
June 2007 marks the 40-year anniversary of Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights. On June 9-10, 2007, the people of Palestine and people of the world will join together to say NO! to Israeli occupation.
For 40 years Israel has constructed -illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. For 40 years Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians, demolished 12,000 Palestinian homes, arrested 650,000 Palestinians, destroyed more than a million Palestinian olive trees.
Since 2002 the Apartheid Wall built on occupied Palestinian territory aims to encircle the Palestinian population, squeezing Palestinians into truncated Bantustans and cementing Israeli expansionism. The Wall divides farmers from their land, students from their schools, workers from their jobs, and people from their communities. Despite the International Court of Justice ruling it illegal, the Wall now encircles Palestinian towns and cities in the most massive land-grab in 40 years. In its recent war against Lebanon, Israel’s unilateralism and militarism have been exposed to the world. Israel continues to establish “facts on the ground” to maintain strategic control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and to annex land and get rid of the non-Jewish population.
For 40 years of occupation Israel has continued to deny Palestinians in the occupied territories their internationally guaranteed human rights to food, water, education, livelihood, and health care; imposes a system of checkpoints, closures, military fences, sieges and curfews that deny Palestinians freedom of movement within and between their own communities; and, again in violation of the Geneva Conventions, Israel imposes collective punishments on the entire Palestinian population. Mass arrests have included dozens of democratically elected Palestinian parliamentarians and government ministers. Since the year 2000, Israel’s “targeted” killings, often carried out by U.S.-provided F-16 bombers or Hellfire missiles have resulted in more than 337 dead Palestinians; 129 of them were not the “target” at all, and many of those killed were children.
In Jerusalem and inside Israel, Palestinians since 1948 face institutionalized discrimination and are denied equality and their full rights as citizens. And Israel continues to deny Palestinian refugees, who were forcibly exiled from their homeland in the 1947-48 war, their internationally guaranteed right of return.
Thirty years ago, the United Nations recognized, condemned and committed itself to oppose the international crime of apartheid wherever it appeared. Today, 12 years after the end of apartheid in South Africa, Israel continues to practice a system of apartheid. We call on the United Nations once again to join with us to identify, condemn and commit ourselves to opposing these heinous crimes. As we were in the past, we are again determined that the perpetrators of that crime be brought to justice.
Throughout its years of occupation, Israel continues to stand in violation of dozens of international laws and scores of UN resolutions. And the international community bears much of the responsibility for those violations. Led by the United States, many governments around the world have actively collaborated in providing support for Israel’s occupation and its denial of Palestinian rights. Others have stood mute, or spoken too quietly, failing to mobilize a serious global challenge to Israel’s global violations.
We are building nonviolent global campaigns of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions, and we will work on a wide range of educational and cultural campaigns, all culminating in a Global Day of Action on June 9-10, 2007, held under the banner, “The World Says No to Israeli Occupation.”
People across the globe will come together on those days to demand an end to occupation and the realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination and the right to establish an independent, sovereign Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. We will insist that our own governments stop providing military, economic, diplomatic and corporate support for Israel’s illegal occupation, and instead create new foreign policies that will support an end to occupation, equal rights for all, and a comprehensive, just and lasting peace.
Join With Us As The World Says No to U.S.-Israeli Occupation!
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Palestinians Unite to End Occupation
and Demand Right of Return
Commemorations of the 59th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba in May, followed by the 40th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in June, and the ongoing struggle against the Apartheid Wall and Palestinian displacement from the occupied city of Jerusalem have given rise to many activities and events. In April, ReliefWeb reported that Palestinian civil society networks and political organizations and movements from the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories and Israel have agreed to combine forces for effective coordination and maximum impact.
On April 19, they established a national coordination committee, announced in the Palestinian press, which includes representatives of the National and Islamic forces, the National Committee for the Commemoration of the 59th Anniversary of the Nakba, the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, the National Coalition for the Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) and the Union of Arab Community-based Organizations (Ittijah).
In its press statement, the committee emphasized the need for a “firm stand on Palestinian national principles [...], foremost the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and properties in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which is the essence and the center of the Palestinian cause and a sacred right which must not be prejudiced.”
Commemorations of the 59th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba were planned for April 24 in Israel with the traditional Return-March of Palestinian citizens of Israel to the 1948 depopulated village of Allajun. On May 1, the Cultural Palace in Ramallah was the site of the first Al-Awda Award Festival, an annual event aimed at encouraging cultural expression on the Nakba and the right of return. 2007 Award winners in five categories — best poster, short film, oral history accounts, children’s stories and research papers — were to be honored by Palestinian ministers, artists, scholars, and the Popular Dance Troupe al-Funoun.
Statement on Palestinian Unity and Coordination
Below is a brief summary of an April 18 coordination meeting, Ramallah, Palestine with participants from: National and Islamic forces, Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, National Committee for the Commemoration of the 59th Anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, National Coalition for defending the rights of Palestinian in Jerusalem, Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), Union of Arab community Based Organizations (Ittijah)
It was decided that the groups participating will take responsibility for unifying and contextualizing national and popular activities related to:
• Commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip;
• Activation of popular resistance against Jewish colonies and the Wall;
• Defending Jerusalem against Israeli measures aimed at the “Judaization” of the holy city and its isolation from the surrounding Palestinian areas;
• Preparation and coordination of the commemorations of the 59th anniversary of the Nakba.
In this context, participants stressed:
First: The need for a firm stand on Palestinian national principles and UN resolutions, foremost the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and properties in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which is the essence and the center of the Palestinian cause and a sacred right which must not be prejudiced.
Second: That bilateral meetings between Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas achieve nothing on the ground, and the positions and policy of double-standards of the U.S. administration are completely rejected. Hence, the situation requires united pressure on the international community to convene an international conference and ensure that the Israeli government complies with international law and UN resolutions.
Third: Their call upon the international community in general, and Arab states in particular, to break the unjust sanctions imposed on the Palestinian people, work for the release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons, and develop suitable mechanisms for unconditional support of the Palestinian people. We refuse all conditions on the release of Palestinian prisoners and call upon the Palestinian leadership to ensure that any prisoners exchange includes all ill, women and children prisoners, as well as Palestinian leaders who have spent many years in Israeli detention.
Fourth: A warning of the danger involved in engaging with Israeli demands and conditions for dealing with the Arab Summit initiative. Any agreement must end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, provide for Palestinian sovereignty over the 1967 OPT, including the capital of Jerusalem, and guarantee the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homes.
Fifth: The need to provide protection for Palestinian refugees who face extreme forms of persecution, including arbitrary killings and expulsions, at the hands of corrupted militia in Iraq.
Sixth: Sincere gratitude to the British National Union of Journalists for their decision to boycott Israeli products in response to the crimes of the occupation against the Palestinian people. Participants stressed the need to activate the boycott worldwide and hold Israel to account for the war crimes committed against the Palestinian people and the peoples in the region.
Seventh: The dire need to address and resolve the state of chaos and lawlessness in the occupied Palestinian territories and ensure the rule of law, and to expedite the release of the abducted British journalist Alan Johnson.
Eighth: Solidarity and support of Azmi Bishara: the need to organize a broad popular campaign in Palestine and abroad to stand in solidarity with Bishara versus Israel’s malicious campaign aimed at strangling him, his fellow activists and our people in 1948 Palestine.
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A Call to Action
In 1948 eighty-five per cent of the Palestinians living in the areas that became the state of Israel became refugees. More than 500 Palestinian villages were depopulated and later destroyed to prevent the return of the refugees. Today there are a total of 7 million Palestinian refugees, dispersed throughout the world — the largest and longest running refugee problem yet unresolved.
Israel continues to occupy and colonize Palestinian land through the construction of Jewish only settlements and the Wall in the West Bank. The Gaza Strip has been turned into one large prison. Israel violates international law and commits ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A Call to Action
The future of the Palestinian people is at a crossroads; 2007-2008 marks a historic opportunity for faith-based organizations, individuals, community groups, the solidarity movement, unions and political parties to pool resources and activities and campaign for a rights-based solution and end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Critical is the focus on the enforcement of the rights of Palestinian refugees under international law.
This may well be the last decade anniversary when Palestinian eyewitnesses from the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) are still alive. Now more than ever Palestinians are counting on local and global society to build pressure for the enforcement of international law -- the foundation for a just peace.
Let us make 2007-2008 into “the campaign of freedom and return.” Not just the return (al-awda) of the refugees, but also a return to the rule of law and respect for human rights.
A Rights-Based Solution
The three elements of a rights-based solution to the conflict were set out in the July 2005 call by nearly 200 Palestinian civil society organizations for a campaign of boycott, divestment & sanctions (BDS) until Israel complies with international law and:
• Ends the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantles the Wall;
• Recognizes the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
• Respects, protects and promotes the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, lands and properties.
Method of Action
No one organization alone is capable of organizing or funding such an important and monumental campaign. Individual organizations should work according to their own context and resources. Success will come as we share ideas and plans and pool resources where possible.
BADIL, Palestinian refugee community organizations in Palestine and in exile, the Palestine Right of Return Coalition, and our partners abroad have proposed a series of events and activities we would like to realize in the coming two-year period. By means of this Call, we would like to encourage you to share your ideas so we can make the 40+60 campaign as large and inclusive as possible.
We also propose to increase the visibility of these important dates — 40 Years of Occupation, 60 Years of Nakba — and our campaign for freedom from occupation and return, by connecting our diverse struggle and solidarity activities to this theme. In this way, our struggle against the Wall, denial of entry to Palestine, the right to health and education, etc., can become part of the 2007-2008 Campaign. Also events organized on dates of particular significance to our struggle can in this way be utilized in a strategic manner, such as: November 17, 2007 (Balfour Declaration), November 29, 2007 (UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people), May 15, 2008 (Nakba Day), June 6, 2007 (1967 Occupation), July 9, 2004 (International Court of Justice Wall ruling).
We finally propose that statements issued in the context of the 2007-2008 Campaign should not only state the respective violations (of international humanitarian law and/or human rights law) by Israel, but also to call upon states to live up to their obligations. Our statements should also include a clear call upon global civil society to take concrete action in each country through BDS, legal action, media work, and public education and publicity campaigns.
Please contact us for more information and coordination! mediaenglish@badil.org, info@rorcoalition.org; http://www.badil.org/call-en.htm
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Truce Enacted to Check Divide-and-Rule
Plan of U.S. and Zionists
Conflict between Hamas and Fatah was curbed on Sunday, May 20 when a truce came into effect. Fighters climbed down from rooftop positions on Saturday, and dozens of hostages were released early Sunday. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said he expected this truce because of Israel’s military action. “No one would accept to fight one another while the Israelis are shelling Gaza,” he said on May 19.
The Israeli Occupation Force reports it has carried out more than 21 airstrikes against Gaza since May 15, killing more than 30 Palestinians, including civilians, in retaliation for more than 120 rockets launched from Gaza into Israel. Prior to the death of one Israeli woman today, the first such casualty in six months, the rockets had only caused injuries or damaged buildings.
The Palestinian Information Center reported on May 18 “The fighting in Gaza between Hamas and rogue elements in Fatah was planned beforehand under U.S. supervision and is being executed by mercenaries of the occupation, said the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AMB), the armed wing of Fatah.”
“The Armed Struggle and Right of Return wing in the AMB said in a statement that the aim of the Israeli occupation government is ‘for us to forget our main aim and get busy with fighting one another through plans supervised by Condoleezza Rice and General Dayton through the Mossad and Shabak and their cohorts who follow blindly.’
“The group further said that resistance is the only way for unity and liberation stressing that it will fight for homeland, holy places and the right of return and reject those who serve the interests of the U.S. and Israel as people who have no place amongst the Palestinian people.
“The group also reminded the people that Israel does not distinguish between the various armed wings and that discord creates a rich environment for the fifth column to mobilize its forces.
“The statement further said that the aim of all this chaos is to narrow the horizons of the Palestinian people and force them to submit to the Zionist plans.”[TOP]
U.S. Promotes Israeli Impunity
Palestinians Call for International Pressure
to End War Crimes
In a May 21 press release, Palestinian Minister of Information, Dr. Mustafa al-Barghouthi said what Israel is perpetrating in the Gaza Strip are war crimes and cannot be tolerated. Al-Barghouthi said F-16 warplanes bombarded al-Shajaiyeh neighborhood in east Gaza on May 20 attempting to assassinate the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member Khalil al-Hayya. This shelling killed 11, including nine civilians, and wounded another 25.
Al-Hayya, a prominent member of the Palestinian parliament, was not at home at the time of the attack. At the al-Shifa hospital, where the wounded were taken, al-Hayya said: “We will go ahead despite the challenges, despite the martyrs, despite the pain that I am suffering and my people are suffering.” Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said the attack was a sign that Israel is targeting “everyone — civilians and leaders.”
Al-Barghouthi stressed that this Israeli crime was not only an attack on the PLC member, who played an important role in stopping internal fighting and building national unity, but that Israel has given itself the right to kill, destroy and target everything that is Palestinian, whether it be children, women or the elderly.
The Israeli Zionists have undertaken a weeklong campaign of illegal airstrikes ostensibly in response to intensified rocket fire from the Palestinian resistance into Israel. These airstrikes have killed at least 36. The rocket attacks have injured several and killed one woman, the first fatality from a rocket in six months.
Also on May 21, Ambassador Dr. Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, called on the international community including the UN Security Council to bring an end to Israeli attacks against the Palestinian civilian population.
In a letter to Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, President of the Security Council of the United Nations, Mansour urged that necessary measures be taken to compel Israel to cease its unlawful actions and abide by all of its obligations under international law.
“Such action has become ever-more urgent at this critical time to stop the bloodshed and destruction and preserve the hopes for peace that have recently arisen but that are quickly diminishing with the refueling of the cycle of violence between the two sides. Serious action is needed to help steer this crisis situation away from disaster and instead towards the stability necessary to allow all concerned parties to seize the moment to work together for the achievement of a peaceful and final settlement to this prolonged conflict,” said Mansour.
“The overall dire situation that prevails is the cumulative result of all of the illegal policies and practices being carried out by Israel, the Occupying Power, against the Palestinian civilian population,” he added. “The constant and daily violation of their human rights and the suffocation and devastation of their economic and social life has caused grave humanitarian conditions and the steep decline of the situation throughout the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory. Moreover, all of this has undoubtedly helped to fuel the inter-factional turmoil that has tragically been plaguing the Palestinian people in Gaza at this time.”
Serious efforts are underway on the Palestinian side to resolve internal matters and put an immediate end to the fighting between factions via a comprehensive truce, Mansour said. However, what is sorely missing at this crucial time are efforts by the international community to address the illegal Israeli attacks against the Palestinian people, he said.
“At least 36 Palestinians, including children, have been killed by the occupying forces, most of them killed by targeted missile strikes from Israeli warplanes,” he added. “These attacks, which are being carried out following the decision of the Israeli Government to intensify its military operations, have been launched against Gaza City, Beit Hanoun and the Rafah areas among others, causing extensive human and physical destruction and further terrorizing the Palestinian people.”
Mansour said, “Such attacks by the Occupying Power constitute grave breaches of the tenets of international law prohibiting military attacks against civilians and the wanton destruction of property. Along with the occupying Power’s military raids on towns and villages, its daily arrests and detentions, its continuing collective punishment of the Palestinian people, including by means of continuing severe restrictions on movement and closures, and its intensifying colonization campaign throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, these attacks are fuelling the already-high tensions, constituting further incitement and provocation, and threaten to completely destabilize the extremely fragile situation on the ground.”
In a May 21 televised speech on Palestine TV, Prime Minister Haniyeh called on the Arab League, UN Security Council and other concerned parties to assume their responsibilities to stop the escalating Israeli aggression. He called on the Palestinian people to stand united and remain patient and courageous in the face of the Israeli aggression and plots, saying that the aggression would not sway them from their firm belief in victory and “the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of refugees and the release of tens of thousands of our detainees in the Occupation’s prisons.”
In related news, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Haniyeh met on May 22 for the first time since factional fighting broke out two weeks ago. A truce begun over the weekend remains in effect although a key dispute over control of the security forces remains unresolved.
Haniyeh aide Ahmed Yousef said a renewed cease-fire with Israel would have to be comprehensive, and include the West Bank in addition to Gaza. The previous truce, brokered in November, applied only to the Gaza-Israel border, and Israel rejected repeated Palestinian demands that it also halt arrest raids in the West Bank.
“ If it is going to be for Gaza only, then no one will be able to convince the Palestinian resistance factions to commit to that,” Yousef said.
The meeting ended with the two sides agreeing to meet again.
“We are working to recommit to the truce,” said Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh.
Haniyeh aide Ghazi Hamad said in a statement that the two leaders called on the international community “to protect the Palestinians and pressure Israel to stop the attacks.”
The Israeli cabinet decided on May 20 against launching a ground assault in Gaza, but stated that it would intensify its attacks. However, using the excuse of two rockets launched into Israel on May 22 which wounded a civilian, members of the Israeli cabinet have declared that they reserve an alleged right to carry out further crimes with impunity including a ground assault on Gaza unless international pressure is brought on Hamas to stop the rocket attacks. (It should be noted however, that Israel was forced to withdraw from Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation.) In keeping with U.S. and Zionist aims to interfere in the democratically elected government of the Palestinians, these crimes also explicitly include assassinations of the Palestinians’ political leadership.
Asked if Palestinian Prime Minister Haniyeh was on Israel’s hit-list, Ephraim Sneh, Israel’s deputy defense minister, said: “I’ll put it like this — there is no one who is in the circle of commanders and leaders in Hamas who is immune from a strike.”
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel’s national infrastructure minister, told Israel Radio: “I don’t distinguish between those who carry out the [rocket] attacks and those who give the orders. I say we have to put them all in the crosshairs.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livny said: “It is our obligation to harm the rocket launchers and our obligation is to continue to harm Hamas.”
Israel’s internal security minister, Avi Dichter, said Khaled Meshaal, the exiled Hamas leader whom Israel tried to assassinate in Jordan in 1997, would not be “immune” to attack. “Khaled Meshaal isn’t immune, not in Damascus and not anywhere else. I’m convinced that at the first opportunity, we will bid him farewell,” he told Army Radio.
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“There is No Substitute for the
Return to Our Homes”
As a result of the Zionist aggression against Palestine, the plight of the Palestinian people is accumulative and ongoing. Now, in the 59th year of our forced displacement, we are threatened with new forced displacement due to the construction of the Apartheid Wall and policies of siege and starvation intended to break the Palestinian people, and to end our demands and struggle for our rights under international law and, in particular, under UN Resolution 194.
Almost six decades of daily plight of the Palestinian refugees are an expression of the crimes and acts of humiliation perpetrated by the dominant powers by backing Israel’s aggression and crimes; they reflect a lack of human compassion and disrespect of the standards of human rights and the United Nations applicable to the Palestinian people who are exposed to occupation and population transfer. United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) policy is guided by the objective to reduce its obligations to the Palestinian refugees and to escape from the responsibilities it was originally charged to perform.
Israel’s policy of aggression and permanent pressure against the Palestinian refugees in their camps, which are living witnesses of the historical injustice and the deprivation of fundamental human rights, is intended to push our Palestinian people into political projects which do not meet the basic standards of international law and resolutions, and into accepting a “preliminary state without borders,” without sovereignty and without Jerusalem, while illegal Jewish colonies are debated as a possible trade off for the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
As we commemorate the ethnic cleansing of our people from its land, we are aware of the scope of the dangers that confront our most important cause, the cause of the Palestinian refugees in the homeland and in the exile. We therefore affirm:
1. Our absolute rejection of, and our determination to combat, all “initiatives,” whether Palestinian, Arab or international, which do not clearly guarantee the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and their right to restitution of their property in accordance with UN Resolution 194;
2. The need to break the humiliating sanctions imposed on the Palestinian people, first of all by re-instating the commitment of Arab states to their obligations towards the Palestinian people and to abstain from engagement in initiatives and deals promoted by the United States;
3. Our absolute rejection of the suggestions advanced by the U.S. Foreign Secretary, because they negate the national rights of the Palestinian people under international law, in particular the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
4. Our demand to UNRWA to reaffirm the commitment to its obligation to provide services that guarantee an adequate standard of living for Palestinian refugees;
5. The need to reactivate the PLO Department for Refugee Affairs, and to develop its capacity to play an effective role in the protection of our people in the homeland and the exile;
6. The need for urgent intervention by the League of Arab States and the United Nations for the protection of Palestinians in Iraq, in order to prevent further massacres committed with the collusion of the Iraqi government and the silence of neighboring countries under the auspices of the United States.
Those who deny the right of return home are not from among us!
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U.S. Plan to Sink Hamas
On April 30, the Jordanian weekly newspaper Al-Majd published a story about a 16-page secret document, an “Action Plan for the Palestinian Presidency” that called for undermining and replacing the Palestinian national-unity government.
The document outlined steps that would strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, build up Palestinian security forces under his command, lead to the dissolution of the Palestinian Parliament, and strengthen U.S. allies in Fatah in a lead-up to parliamentary elections that Abbas would call for early this autumn…Should Abbas give his agreement to the plan — which is not yet certain —he would be complicit in a program to undermine his own government. […]
Al-Majd’s publication of the “Action Plan for the Palestinian Presidency” might have faded into obscurity were it not for a May 4 article by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz detailing a U.S.-sponsored “Benchmarks for Agreement on Movement and Access.” The “Acceleration Benchmarks” document detailed a series of deadlines for Israel to begin dismantling a large number of its security obstacles and checkpoints in the West Bank — allowing increased access in the occupied territories.
The appearance of the “Benchmarks” document within days of the disclosure of the Majd document suggests a connection, though despite appearances, the former may not in fact be a component of the latter. On the contrary, the disclosure of the two plans in quick succession may reflect competing agendas coming from the U.S. State Department and the White House.
Not surprisingly, the U.S. press has failed to pick up on either the Majd or Haaretz story and has ignored the existence of the White House program aimed at undermining the Hamas government. […] The United States (or at least one faction of policymakers inside the administration) intends to implement a program to carry out a “soft coup” against the Palestinian unity government.
America’s “Action Plan”
In the wake of the February Mecca Agreement, which called for the formation of a Palestinian unity government, White House officials scrambled to recast their anti-Hamas program. The resulting “action plan” relies heavily on the disbursement of U.S. funds to build President Abbas’ security forces at the same time that it escalates the delivery of money to specific development projects affiliated with his office.
The plan as delivered to Abbas, according to a Fatah official, is quite detailed — salaries would be provided to those parts of the Palestinian government closely affiliated with Fatah and supported by Abbas. The plan envisages delivering “a strong blow to Hamas by supplying the Palestinian people with their immediate economic needs through the presidency and Fatah.” At the same time, the international boycott of Hamas would stay in place and Hamas-affiliated programs would be starved of funds. […] The document reflects the long-held views of White House Middle East adviser Elliott Abrams — known as the major impetus behind the rearming of Abbas’ security force.
U.S. worries over the increasingly weak position of Abbas are made clear in the action plan’s language: “In the absence of strong efforts by Abbas to protect the position of the presidency as the center of gravity of the Palestinian leadership, it can be expected that international support for him will diminish and there won’t be enthusiastic cooperation with him,” the plan says.
“And a growing number of countries, including the European Union (EU) and the G8 [Group of Eight], will start to look for Palestinian partners that are more acceptable and more credible, and more able to make advances in security and governance. And this would strengthen the position of Hamas within Palestinian society, and would further weaken Fatah and the Palestinian presidency. And it would also diminish the chances for early elections.”
The plan re-emphasizes the U.S. commitment to building Abbas’ security service, a program now funded by some $59 million in direct congressionally approved security assistance. The money “will deter Hamas or any other faction from any attempt at escalation, as long as the security control of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah is on a firm basis.” The plan also counts on the support of the EU and World Bank.
“Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should propose, in consultation with the World Bank and the European Union, a plan that defines specific sectors and projects that are in need of financing, and that will show useful and tangible results on the ground in the space of six to nine months, centering on the alleviation of poverty and unemployment,” the plan notes. “And since some projects will take more than nine months, there should be a guarantee of adequate results within the nine months. This is so as to guarantee the usefulness of these projects before the elections.”
Anticipating that Abbas’ popularity would now be soaring — and money to his supporters flowing through his office — the plan proposes that Israel act to enhance Abbas’ credibility further by removing roadblocks and barricades in the West Bank and easing Palestinian access to Gaza. “Abbas will need to be supplied with the means, both material and legal, to govern and to strengthen his credibility and legitimacy, so that he can comfortably call for parliamentary elections by the beginning of autumn 2007.”
Perhaps the most interesting part of the action plan is in its authors’ apparent need to cover up the fact that it is being proposed by the U.S. and its Arab — Jordanian and Egyptian — allies. The plan states that it is designed to be presented to the Palestinians as something for them to support and to obtain the agreement of the United States and the Arab quartet, as a first step.
This would give Israel and the -Europeans assurance that Abbas is taking the lead. The deception would be complete and U.S. hands would be clean: the “action plan” would not be a U.S. plan to undermine the Palestinian unity government — it would be Abbas’ own plan.
Israel’s Role
On May 4, Haaretz published the U.S. security plan for the West Bank and Gaza, which the newspaper had received from Israeli government officials on April 25. The document — authored by U.S. General Keith Dayton, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dick Jones, and Consul-General in Jerusalem Jacob Walles — took more than a month to write, according to an American diplomat, and was begun in mid-March soon after the announcement of the formation of a Palestinian unity government.
The timing of the writing of the Haaretz document roughly coincides then with the “action plan” as written for the approval of Abbas, and indeed the two appear connected, either as interrelated plans or, perhaps more likely, reflecting an ongoing struggle inside Washington over who controls Middle East policymaking.
The goal of the U.S.-sponsored “Benchmarks” document is to set a schedule for the removal of Israeli roadblocks and the opening of travel and trade passages in the occupied territories. But the document also contains a strong secondary component, which requires that Israel “approve requests for weapons, munitions and equipment required by defense forces” loyal to Abbas.
The plan’s components envisage that Israelis and Palestinians will engage in a coordinated series of actions that will expand PA security control to all sectors of Gaza and the West Bank. Mohammad Dahlan, the newly named head of Abbas’ National Security Council, will be charged with drawing up and implementing a security plan that will ensure this. Israel will then slowly ease travel restrictions in specific areas of the West Bank according to a detailed schedule.
But there are two key components of the program — first, that Israel will approve and support the transfer of “armaments, ammunition and equipment” to Dahlan’s forces at Dayton’s direction and at his specific request and that, in exchange, the PA security forces will implement a program that will suppress Qassam rocket fire into Israel.
According to the “Benchmarks” document, Dahlan would be required to develop a plan against Qassam rockets with the support of President Abbas by no later than June 21, and the forces under Dahlan must be deployed to problem areas no later than that date. The Palestinian forces would also be required to prevent arms smuggling in the Rafah area in coordination with Israel — a long-standing sore point with senior Israel Defense Forces officials since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Within 24 hours of the “Benchmarks” document’s publication, Abbas endorsed it. But the plan was swiftly dismissed by Hamas. The organization’s Damascus-based leader, Khalid Meshaal, declared that the proposal was “a farce,” as it implied that Israeli checkpoints would only be removed as the Palestinians slowly ratcheted down their resistance to the occupation.
“The equation has now become dismantling the checkpoints in exchange for ending the Palestinian resistance,” Meshaal said. The Israeli government also hesitated, saying that it would study the proposal. Israeli defense officials took a much harder line, saying that the adoption of the plan would harm Israeli security.
Washington moved quickly to reassure its ally. The plan merely promoted “suggestions and ideas that we have circulated,” a State Department spokesman said. “It’s not any kind of formal agreement nor is it something that is being enforced on anybody.” Four days later, a U.S. Embassy official in Tel Aviv said it was not a “take it or leave it” document, but “an informal draft” of “suggestions” that could “help facilitate discussion, engagement and action.”
In the wake of the Majd incident and the publication of the “Benchmarks” document in Haaretz, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice abruptly canceled her trip to Israel, citing “political turmoil” in the Israeli government. In truth, the real turmoil is in Washington, where successive attempts to jump-start a peace process have in effect been short-circuited by Rice’s diplomatic fecklessness (“We just do not think she has the president’s mandate,” an Israeli official notes), or by the White House’s willful disregard of Rice’s efforts to show America’s allies that the U.S. will move to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Condi is just not in charge of your Middle East policy,” one Israeli official commented. “Every time she turns around, Elliott Abrams is slapping her down. It is embarrassing.” The embarrassment has now become public.
In a breakfast meeting at the White House last Thursday, Abrams told a group of Jewish Republicans that they should not put too much stock in efforts to pressure Israel to reach an agreement with the Palestinians. “He said that pressure on Israel was all for show,” a congressional staffer familiar with the meeting said, “and that it was being done just to satisfy the Europeans and Arabs.
“He said, ‘You know, we have to show that we are doing something. You really should not worry about it.’” […]
It is difficult to come to the conclusion that Rice’s program — enforcing Israeli compliance with dropping barriers in the West Bank and easing access to Gaza — will be implemented while on the other hand the U.S. program to undermine Hamas seems destined to continue. And in the end, Washington observers note, it is likely that in the current Abrams-Rice tussle, Abrams will win — and the Palestinians will lose.
Mark Perry is the co-director of Conflicts Forum, a Beirut-based organization dedicated to providing an opening to political Islam. He is a political consultant in Washington, DC. Paul Woodward is the managing editor of the Conflicts Forum website and also creator and editor of the foreign affairs blog War in Context.[TOP]
59th Anniversary of Al Nakba:
Denounce U.S. Backing of Zionist Terrorism
Defend the Just Struggle of the Palestinian People for Independence and Statehood
May 14 midnight going into May 15, 2007 marked the 59th anniversary of the declaration of the State of Israel by David Ben-Gurion in the name of the world Zionist movement and his group within it, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. To the Palestinians this crime of the imperialists and their Zionist collaborators is known as the Nakba, or the catastrophe.
Hailed as some kind of grand turning point for the long-suffering Jews of Europe, this act was actually a vicious stab in the back administered by the combined forces of British and American imperialism against the just demands of the Palestinian people for national independence. Ben-Gurion famously claimed that this State was declared in “the western part of Eretz Israel” (Hebrew for ‘the Land of Israel’). He meant this new State accepted no borders being imposed by the United Nation’s Partition Resolution 181. It intended to add whatever territory it could grab between the Nile River and the Euphrates River in Iraq.
The Truman Administration in Washington formally recognized the new State 11 minutes after midnight (Eastern Time) in the first moments of 15 May 1948. Informally, since March 1948, the Truman Administration had already recognized the imposition of a Jewish state that would preclude sharing Palestinian territory under the British Mandate with any Palestinian Arab state. This was the explosive truth concealed for decades among all the subsequent commentary and so-called scholarship produced by pro-Zionist professors in Israel, Britain, the U.S. and Canada.
Truman supported the terror campaign by Ben-Gurion’s Haganah, which compelled Palestinians to flee their towns and villages. Truman also overrode backed the seizure by Ben-Gurion of the Negev desert with its strategic port of Eilat on the Red Sea. Truman also opposed the plan that Jerusalem be placed under UN trusteeship. This proviso had also been part of the Partition Resolution plan, and while the Arab states’ dissatisfaction with this arrangement was widely known, the Zionists had used this Arab opposition as their shield for a plan aimed at seizing Jerusalem wholesale for their partition and displacing the Arab population with European Jewish immigrants.
In coordination with these moves by the U.S., the British “Labor” government on March 10 formally announced the date of the end of their Palestine Mandate: May 15. This date had been moved up more than three months from the August 1948 date envisioned originally in the Partition Resolution. In sum: the Truman Administration supported the establishment of the State of Israel in a manner that ripped up the Partition Resolution and prevented any so-called two-state solution. It was a state that was created also completely outside international law and thereby rendered entirely dependent on the backing of the only foreign power in a position to sponsor such a rogue state, namely, the United States.
Under the conditions of U.S. abandonment of support for Jerusalem trusteeship in the spring of 1948, the Zionists’ plans to eliminate the Arab majority in the demographic composition of Jerusalem were now greatly advanced.
Jerusalem and its environs became the focus, at this point, of Zionist aggression and Palestinian resistance. Following the Battle of al-Qastel, Zionist tactics shifted to displacing the Palestinian population to the maximum, with the aim of denying Palestinian control over any territory that the Zionist armies or militias entered, and racing to declare their state within their partition before the end of the British Mandate. Everyone knew or expected the regular armed forces of the Arab Legion would intervene after British forces formally withdrew. Behind the scenes, the British worked overtime to compromise and circumscribe the activity of these Arab forces.
It is not up to anyone but the Palestinians to settle the appropriate forms in which to carry their nation-building project forward. The point of this historical recap is to show how and why, due to the very manner in which the declaration of this state was arranged, the U.S and British imperialists made a two-state solution impossible the very moment that the State of Israel was declared.
The fact remains that solutions are only possible so long as fundamental historical wrongs are addressed. As we now enter the 60th year of the denial of the Palestinians’ right of self-determination up to and including their own state, this is important to keep in mind.
In June this year, the world, including millions of Palestinians, will mark the 40th anniversary of the illegal Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights and the Lebanese Sheba’a Farms following the June 1967 War, marking the Third Nakba, in which hundreds of thousands more Palestinians were displaced in their own lands.
At the conclusion of the June ‘67 war, “peace” was marked by UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. These formally allotted borders to the Zionist state that effectively incorporated 22 per cent of Palestinian territory illegally annexed since 1948. This territory was over and above the territory allotted in the Partition Resolution. This action effectively cancelled the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 — without mentioning the fact. Behind these newly acknowledged “borders,” these resolutions said: Israelis must be free to live in peace and security. What 242 and 338 never addressed was: behind what borders could the Palestinians hope to live in peace and security?
The Zionist state declared 59 years ago today remains both the principal obstacle to the Palestinians’ nation-building project as well as a tool of U.S. imperialism to interfere indefinitely in the lives of all the neighboring Arab countries in the region. The U.S. has responsibility for the crimes of the Zionists that it has always backed and protected so as to have its instrument of aggression in the region. It has responsibility to act immediately to end the occupation, remove all financial, military, and political backing of Israel, and defend the rights of all the peoples in the region to decide their own affairs and resolve problems without U.S. interference.
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Nakba and the Right of Return
The Nakba is the story of the Palestinian tragedy: the destruction of communities, civilization, culture and identity, the expulsion and the killing that took place in 1948. It is a story that constitutes the past and present of the Palestinian people and shapes a large part of Palestinian identity. Yet in many respects the Nakba is also the story of Jews who live in Israel. A story that is not easy to cope with, a story that raises difficult questions about the possibilities of life together in the space that is today the state of Israel.
It is almost impossible to speak about the Nakba without speaking about taking responsibility and repairing the historical injustice that was committed against the Palestinian people. Such repair must begin first and foremost with the recognition of the right of Palestinians to return.
What is the right of return? The right of return is the personal right of every refugee who was expelled from the country, and their descendants, to return to their place of origin, based on international law and UN Resolution 194 passed on December 11, 1948. It is also the collective right of whole communities to return and live as a community, as a group, to carry out a social framework in shared spaces such as cultural centers, religious places, schools, recreational areas. The right of return is an individual and collective right.
Who is considered a refugee? A question that frequently arises is: how many generations of descendants will be considered candidates for return? The most moral and logical answer is that the refugees will cease to be refugees when they are given the opportunity to choose whether or not to return. The right of return does not mean only physical return, but the option to make an unhindered choice — the ability to choose that makes a person free.
What about Jews in Israel? Acknowledgment and implementation of the right of return will not only begin the task of correcting the historical injustice committed against the Palestinian people, but may also usher in a new beginning for Jews in the country. The right of return can open up an opportunity for Jews to encounter the country in a new way, no longer as occupiers, but as equals. An injustice cannot be corrected by another injustice, and the right of return, like any other right, must be implemented with care to ensure that other rights are protected.
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Zochrot (“Remembering”) is a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948.
The Zionist collective memory exists in both our cultural and physical landscape, yet the heavy price paid by the Palestinians — in lives, in the destruction of hundreds of villages, and in the continuing plight of the Palestinian refugees — receives little public recognition.
Zochrot works to make the history of the Nakba accessible to the Israeli public so as to engage Jews and Palestinians in an open recounting of our painful common history. We hope that by bringing the Nakba into Hebrew, the language spoken by the Jewish majority in Israel, we can make a qualitative change in the political discourse of this region. Acknowledging the past is the first step in taking responsibility for its consequences. This must include equal rights for all the peoples of this land, including the right of Palestinians to return to their homes.
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We Need an Anti-War Government
The situation at home and abroad cries out for an anti-war government. Brutal aggression and killing of civilians is being stepped up in Iraq and Palestine. More and more resources are being consumed in war and repression. More than half the federal budget, our public treasury, is devoted to use of force against the peoples here and abroad.
Genocide, assassination of leaders, starvation, mass incarceration, are the trademark of U.S. imperialism, from day one. The brutality imposed on the Palestinians is like that against Native Americans, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and now Iraqis and Afghanistanis — all the peoples that the U.S. attempts to oppress and enslave.
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