In pictures: Life in the shadow of Israeli settlements
 | | Life in the shadow of Israel's settlements |
Monday, February 22, 2010
BBC In pictures: Life in the shadow of Israeli settlements
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8518436.stm
In pictures: Life in the shadow of Israeli settlements
In pictures: Life in the shadow of Israeli settlements
My letter to the Boston Globe RE Untie knot of Palestinian evictions By James Carroll
RE: Untie knot of Palestinian evictions By James Carrollhttp://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/02/22/untie_knot_of_palestinian_evictions/
Dear Editor,
Regarding "Untie knot of Palestinian evictions", it is not a knot: It is a century long punitively cruel trend created by Zionist policies whereby the native non-Jewish population of the "Holy Land" are harshly and systemically discriminated against, despite Balfour's forthright plea in 1917 that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine"
UN Resolution 194 from 1948 clearly demands that Israel respect the Palestinian refugees' inalienable legal, natural right to return to original homes and lands to live in peace. I have to assume that means unmolested by racist laws, apartheid walls and home wrecking policies. Kudos to James Carroll for daring to write about this... for noticing the very real plight and suffering of the Palestinians.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Why should Israel be allowed to get away with breaking the law for so long?
By the power vested in it
Even the United Nations is now getting in on the game.
The UN’s deputy chief for political affairs, B. Lynn Pascoe, has been urging Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to restart negotiations with Israel.
Let us forget for a moment that Israel wants to negotiate what under international law as sanctioned by the UN itself should not be negotiated, only withdrawn from.
Forget, too, for a moment that the UN is incapable of enforcing this international law on Israel, a country that has been in transgression of international law, not to mention common norms of moral and decent behaviour, since its founding in 1948 and the resulting displacement and dispossession of more than 50 per cent of Palestinians at that time.
Forget finally, that without the UN and the legitimacy it bestows upon the causes of the poor, the weak and the dispossessed the world over, Palestinians, along with all those other poor, weak and dispossessed people from all corners of the world, are finally sold down the river in a Hobbesian world devoid of mercy or justice.
That the UN should put the onus on the Palestinians to restart negotiations simply beggars belief.
How is it that the UN can sanction such a position? Surely, the onus has to be on Israel to withdraw from all areas it occupied illegally and belligerently in war, with or without negotiations.
That is not to say that talking isn’t a good thing. But there is no point in talking for the sake of talking. That is what Israel has succeeded in doing since 1991. Talking for no other reason than to drag out time in order to expand its control on the ground and over more land.
Israel’s settlement expansion is also illegal under international law as expounded by the UN, but apparently that doesn’t matter when trying to curry favour with a country whose government, uniquely in this day and age, wants to define it as being only of one ethno-religious grouping in a throwback to some of the more unfortunate political philosophy of a long-ago era in Europe.
The most important issue to bear in mind right now is this: failed negotiations will backfire, again, and this time likely irreparably. The UN’s deputy chief of political affairs should understand this simple truth.
Much more useful would be for the UN to insist that its member states finally and unequivocally take a stand against Israel’s criminal settlement building in occupied territories and present the country with a clear ultimatum: cease and desist or face sanctions.
Why should Israel be allowed to get away with breaking the law for so long?
21 February 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
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Palestinians guilty again? February 19, 2010
When Palestinians act in a legitimate, non-violent way, it deprives Israel of the security excuse that Israeli governments have always used, and ruins its effective campaign of dehumanizing and demonizing Palestinians.
Hamas Would Lose Elections
February 19, 2010
49 percent of Palestinians were found to prefer Fatah's approach, 12 percent Hamas and 38 percent did not like either party's strategy or refused to answer.
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Documents detailing the state and institution building program of the 13th Palestinian Government, including the overall plan and priority interventions for 2010.
Abbas F. ("Eddy") Zuaiter: Credit Himes for stance on Gaza
Credit Himes for stance on Gaza
Abbas F. Zuaiter, IMEU, Feb 19, 2010
A thoughtful and measured letter from members of Congress to President Obama calling for easing the siege on Gaza has recently been subjected to unfair and misleading criticism. The letter, signed by Congressman Jim Himes and over 50 other members of the U.S. Congress, has been maligned as pressuring "Israel to loosen security measures implemented to counter the threat from terrorism originating from the Gaza strip."
The letter does no such thing. In fact, Rep. Himes and his colleagues take scrupulous care to acknowledge Israeli security concerns. "We recognize that the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other militant groups."
What the members of Congress find troubling, however, is that over-stringent Israeli measures are harming innocent Palestinian civilians. "This concern (for Israeli security) must be addressed without resulting in the de facto collective punishment of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip."
Tipping unfairly in Israel's favor while it continues to repress Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza -- the future Palestinian state -- serves only to undermine our nation's moral authority. A sensible U.S. policy toward Israel and a future state of Palestine can provide for Israeli security without reducing the Palestinians to economic desperation, rampant unemployment and educational and physical degradation.
With 80 percent of Gaza's population dependent on food aid, it is little surprise that last year the Lancet, one of the world's leading medical journals, reported childhood stunting in pockets of northern Gaza at 30 percent with an overall rate of 10 percent throughout Gaza. Such chronic malnutrition (half of Gaza's population is comprised of children) damages cognitive and physical development. A society of stunted bodies and minds results in stunted aspirations.
Israel is no "light unto nations" when it supervises the infliction of such pain on children. Hunger and parental despair serve only to fuel desperation and resentment of Israel and the United States - and increasingly Egypt with its move toward limiting trade and travel from Gaza. This humanitarian crisis is created by Israeli policy, not by tragedy.
Any forward-thinking American policy must address the struggles of Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, where 70 percent of residents are refugees whose families were forced from homes and land in Israel in 1948 and prohibited from returning. Instead, they are confined to a spit of land 25 miles long by six miles wide. To ease Palestinian hardship, the letter specifically calls for "immediate improvements" in access to clean water, plentiful and varied food, medicine, sanitation supplies, construction materials, fuel, and spare parts. The letter also supports "Movement of people, especially students, the ill, aid workers, journalists, and those with family concerns, into and out of Gaza."
The case of Zohair M. Abu Shaban is a microcosm of the harm being caused to the educational aspirations of Palestinians by the siege. Accepted on a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Connecticut, but turned away at the last instant because of secret information provided by the Israeli government that he could not contest, Mr. Abu Shaban wrote in the Hartford Courant at the time: "I wonder what hopelessness all children in Gaza suffer when they learn that Gaza's best students are confined by Israel to the cramped Gaza Strip? And how are they to succeed when this week their parents discover local stores are empty of study essentials such as pencils, pens and notebooks because of the economic blockade of our small parcel of land?"
I do not believe that we benefit Connecticut or our country when talented individuals are prevented from achieving their educational dreams. I wonder often how my life and attitude towards America - and the views of many foreign students who come to our shores for education each year - would have developed had I been denied the opportunity to pursue an education in the United States.
Palestinian children in Gaza today can scarcely even imagine an American education. Palestinians, unable to import construction materials, have been bombed back into using mud for home-building. Electricity is intermittent and imposes real limits on evening study time. Palestinian families that long prided themselves on insisting on educational excellence from their children are now scrimping to survive. More than 300 Palestinian children killed by Israel in last winter's invasion will never even get the chance to pursue higher education. Israel's apartheid policy painfully divides a Palestinian child's aspirations from those of an Israeli child.
Rather than wrongly castigate Rep. Himes for ignoring Israel's security needs, he should be applauded for recognizing that "fulfilling the needs of civilians in Israel and Gaza are mutually reinforcing goals."
Abbas F. ("Eddy") Zuaiter is the Chief Operating Officer of a global macro hedge fund. He is also a member of the Boards of Directors of the Institute for Middle East Understanding and the Middle East Institute. He lives in Greenwich.
Abbas F. Zuaiter, IMEU, Feb 19, 2010
 A Palestinian in the West Bank city of Nablus practices during a break-dancing class. (Maan Images) |
A thoughtful and measured letter from members of Congress to President Obama calling for easing the siege on Gaza has recently been subjected to unfair and misleading criticism. The letter, signed by Congressman Jim Himes and over 50 other members of the U.S. Congress, has been maligned as pressuring "Israel to loosen security measures implemented to counter the threat from terrorism originating from the Gaza strip."
The letter does no such thing. In fact, Rep. Himes and his colleagues take scrupulous care to acknowledge Israeli security concerns. "We recognize that the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other militant groups."
What the members of Congress find troubling, however, is that over-stringent Israeli measures are harming innocent Palestinian civilians. "This concern (for Israeli security) must be addressed without resulting in the de facto collective punishment of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip."
Tipping unfairly in Israel's favor while it continues to repress Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza -- the future Palestinian state -- serves only to undermine our nation's moral authority. A sensible U.S. policy toward Israel and a future state of Palestine can provide for Israeli security without reducing the Palestinians to economic desperation, rampant unemployment and educational and physical degradation.
With 80 percent of Gaza's population dependent on food aid, it is little surprise that last year the Lancet, one of the world's leading medical journals, reported childhood stunting in pockets of northern Gaza at 30 percent with an overall rate of 10 percent throughout Gaza. Such chronic malnutrition (half of Gaza's population is comprised of children) damages cognitive and physical development. A society of stunted bodies and minds results in stunted aspirations.
Israel is no "light unto nations" when it supervises the infliction of such pain on children. Hunger and parental despair serve only to fuel desperation and resentment of Israel and the United States - and increasingly Egypt with its move toward limiting trade and travel from Gaza. This humanitarian crisis is created by Israeli policy, not by tragedy.
Any forward-thinking American policy must address the struggles of Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, where 70 percent of residents are refugees whose families were forced from homes and land in Israel in 1948 and prohibited from returning. Instead, they are confined to a spit of land 25 miles long by six miles wide. To ease Palestinian hardship, the letter specifically calls for "immediate improvements" in access to clean water, plentiful and varied food, medicine, sanitation supplies, construction materials, fuel, and spare parts. The letter also supports "Movement of people, especially students, the ill, aid workers, journalists, and those with family concerns, into and out of Gaza."
The case of Zohair M. Abu Shaban is a microcosm of the harm being caused to the educational aspirations of Palestinians by the siege. Accepted on a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Connecticut, but turned away at the last instant because of secret information provided by the Israeli government that he could not contest, Mr. Abu Shaban wrote in the Hartford Courant at the time: "I wonder what hopelessness all children in Gaza suffer when they learn that Gaza's best students are confined by Israel to the cramped Gaza Strip? And how are they to succeed when this week their parents discover local stores are empty of study essentials such as pencils, pens and notebooks because of the economic blockade of our small parcel of land?"
I do not believe that we benefit Connecticut or our country when talented individuals are prevented from achieving their educational dreams. I wonder often how my life and attitude towards America - and the views of many foreign students who come to our shores for education each year - would have developed had I been denied the opportunity to pursue an education in the United States.
Palestinian children in Gaza today can scarcely even imagine an American education. Palestinians, unable to import construction materials, have been bombed back into using mud for home-building. Electricity is intermittent and imposes real limits on evening study time. Palestinian families that long prided themselves on insisting on educational excellence from their children are now scrimping to survive. More than 300 Palestinian children killed by Israel in last winter's invasion will never even get the chance to pursue higher education. Israel's apartheid policy painfully divides a Palestinian child's aspirations from those of an Israeli child.
Rather than wrongly castigate Rep. Himes for ignoring Israel's security needs, he should be applauded for recognizing that "fulfilling the needs of civilians in Israel and Gaza are mutually reinforcing goals."
Abbas F. ("Eddy") Zuaiter is the Chief Operating Officer of a global macro hedge fund. He is also a member of the Boards of Directors of the Institute for Middle East Understanding and the Middle East Institute. He lives in Greenwich.
No peace without solution for Palestinian refugees - UNRWA
http://jordantimes.com/index.php?news=24156
No peace without solution for Palestinian refugees - UNRWA
 | |||||
| Friday, February 19th, 2010, 2:28 pm Amman Time | | |||||
No peace without solution for Palestinian refugees - UNRWA
BEIRUT (AFP) - Finding a solution to the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East is key to peace in the region, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said in an interview on Thursday.
"UNRWA has no political role, but it does have the moral role of reminding all parties involved and all governments with a say in the peace process that there will be no peace without a fair solution for refugees in line with UN resolutions," the agency's Commissionner General Filippo Grandi told AFP.
"It is tragic that the international community has not yet found a solution to this problem," Grandi, who was appointed to the post in January, said on a visit to Beirut.
The fate of refugees is one of the thorniest issues in the stalled Middle East peace process, as Israel rejects Palestinian demands to allow their return to lands they fled in 1948 when the state of Israel was created.
The cash-strapped UNRWA provides assistance to about 4.7 million Palestinian refugees, many of whom have settled in camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
"The situation has been the same for 60 years now, and today we speak of fourth-generation refugees," said Grandi. "Without a solution, this will only continue." UNRWA remains 100 million dollars short of its budget for 2010, Grandi said earlier this month.
Part of the agency's budget in Lebanon goes to the reconstruction of Nahr Al Bared, a camp near the northern port city of Tripoli levelled in deadly fighting between the army and Al Qaeda-inspired group Fatah Al Islam in 2007.
The fighting killed 400 people, including 168 Lebanese soldiers, and displaced about 30,000 residents from the Palestinian refugee camp, where Fatah Al Islam was based.
UNRWA has made an appeal for $450 million to rebuild the camp and the surrounding areas but has so far received only $120 million.
"The money we have right now covers the reconstruction of only three of eight camp sections destroyed," Grandi said.
"We also need relief funds for the basic needs of the camp residents urgently. What we have now will run dry by May or June." On the political and economic fronts, the Lebanese constitution bans Palestinian refugees from obtaining Lebanese citizenship, owning property or entering some professions.
Grandi said he has urged Prime Minister Saad Hariri to find "a concrete solution for the legal employment of refugees in Lebanon". According to UNRWA figures, Lebanon is home to nearly 400,000 refugees, most of whom live in 12 destitute camps across the country.
Other figures put the number at between 250,000 and 270,000 as the UN does not strike off its list those who emigrate from Lebanon, which has a population of four million.
Lebanon, which supports the refugees' right to return to their homes, absorbs 12 to 15 per cent of the cash-strapped agency's total annual budget, which tops $600 million (442 million euros).
Lebanese across the board reject the permanent settlement or full integration of the mainly Sunni Muslim Palestinians, as their naturalisation would upset the country's delicate confessional balance.
19 February 2010
Let's....
Ibtisam Barakat ابتسام بركات Let's -- In an acting improv meeting, we played the game Let's! Someone says "tigers" and we all say Let's! We all become tigers. We acted monkeys, flowers, other things. I said let's be Palestinians! Everyone said Let's and started to write on their hands or on the air. I realized I am the Palestinian they know! A wri...ter. So whatever I do is Palestinian. I almost cried with responsibility. -- Ibtisam Barakat 2010.
author of
Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by Ibtisam Barakat (Hardcover - Feb. 20, 2007)
Stargazing in Gaza
Published today (updated) 20/02/2010 12:40
Gaza – Ma’an – Israel's siege can't stop Gaza's children from gazing at the sky, thick with warplanes and missiles as it sometimes appears.
Dozens of children will soon engage in stargazing under the supervision of Gaza-born astrophysicist Suleiman Baraka, a former employee of the US space agency NASA. Baraka's group will have the help of a telescope imported to Gaza with the help of the French Consulate General in Jerusalem and the French Cultural Center.
He said he wants to get children interested in astronomy in order to help them overcome what he calls a "stereotype" of the sky as a source of death, with its Israeli unmanned drones, helicopter gunships and fighter jets.
Baraka told Ma’an, “When we ask a child here, ‘what do you see in the Gaza sky?’ He would say he sees Apache [helicopters] and F-16s and all of the causes of death and destruction.”
Despite these fears, he says, “The Gaza sky is beautiful with all of its stars and galaxies.”
Baraka studied at French universities and later worked with NASA at Virginia Tech in the US. He was at work in Virginia when Israel launched its three-week war in Gaza in late 2008.
On the third day of the war, his 11-year-old son Ibrahim was killed on in an Israeli airstrike that destroyed his home in Khan Younis. Seventeen members of his family were left homeless by the same bombing.
He told his story to the US television and radio show Democracy Now: “I was in my office. I received a call that there was a bombing in my area, and then, after a while, the bombing was my house, and then I lost communication with the family for ten hours. It was really very hard, at the emotional, psychological level, because I had known that there something happened, and I cannot follow up.
“Ten hours later, I knew that my son Ibrahim was critically injured and my mom was moderately injured when they bombed my house with a one-ton bomb and destroyed the house, injuring my son and my mom.” Ibrahim was moved to a hospital in Egypt where he died on 5 January 2009.
“My house is not a military base. Ibrahim is eleven years old. He doesn’t need F-16 jet fighters to kill him. My house roof was there for me and my children to use my telescope, not anti-aircraft missiles or rockets,” he told his interviewers on Democracy Now.
Baraka says he returned to Gaza after the war in part out of the sense that his country needs him. “What would happen if I stayed at NASA with an excellent salary and carrying out research? If you are qualified then it’s better for you to stay in your homeland,” he told Ma’an.
Now back in Gaza, he is brimming with ideas for projects, saying he intends to establish an observatory and establish astronomy programs in Gazan universities. He is also interested in setting up a facility to study the earth’s magnetic fields. He says his friends in the world astronomical community will help him bring telescopes into Gaza despite the Israeli-led border closure.
Baraka’s idea is that by gazing at the sky, Palestinian children will not feel as confined in tiny Gaza.
“The universe is wide and the globe is bigger than having Beit Hanoun and Rafah as your only surroundings. Seeing the Gaza sky is an attempt to break the siege in all of its educational and political aspects, in belief that the Palestinians capable of greatness in science.”
Dozens of children will soon engage in stargazing under the supervision of Gaza-born astrophysicist Suleiman Baraka, a former employee of the US space agency NASA. Baraka's group will have the help of a telescope imported to Gaza with the help of the French Consulate General in Jerusalem and the French Cultural Center.
He said he wants to get children interested in astronomy in order to help them overcome what he calls a "stereotype" of the sky as a source of death, with its Israeli unmanned drones, helicopter gunships and fighter jets.
Baraka told Ma’an, “When we ask a child here, ‘what do you see in the Gaza sky?’ He would say he sees Apache [helicopters] and F-16s and all of the causes of death and destruction.”
Despite these fears, he says, “The Gaza sky is beautiful with all of its stars and galaxies.”
Baraka studied at French universities and later worked with NASA at Virginia Tech in the US. He was at work in Virginia when Israel launched its three-week war in Gaza in late 2008.
On the third day of the war, his 11-year-old son Ibrahim was killed on in an Israeli airstrike that destroyed his home in Khan Younis. Seventeen members of his family were left homeless by the same bombing.
He told his story to the US television and radio show Democracy Now: “I was in my office. I received a call that there was a bombing in my area, and then, after a while, the bombing was my house, and then I lost communication with the family for ten hours. It was really very hard, at the emotional, psychological level, because I had known that there something happened, and I cannot follow up.
“Ten hours later, I knew that my son Ibrahim was critically injured and my mom was moderately injured when they bombed my house with a one-ton bomb and destroyed the house, injuring my son and my mom.” Ibrahim was moved to a hospital in Egypt where he died on 5 January 2009.
“My house is not a military base. Ibrahim is eleven years old. He doesn’t need F-16 jet fighters to kill him. My house roof was there for me and my children to use my telescope, not anti-aircraft missiles or rockets,” he told his interviewers on Democracy Now.
Baraka says he returned to Gaza after the war in part out of the sense that his country needs him. “What would happen if I stayed at NASA with an excellent salary and carrying out research? If you are qualified then it’s better for you to stay in your homeland,” he told Ma’an.
Now back in Gaza, he is brimming with ideas for projects, saying he intends to establish an observatory and establish astronomy programs in Gazan universities. He is also interested in setting up a facility to study the earth’s magnetic fields. He says his friends in the world astronomical community will help him bring telescopes into Gaza despite the Israeli-led border closure.
Baraka’s idea is that by gazing at the sky, Palestinian children will not feel as confined in tiny Gaza.
“The universe is wide and the globe is bigger than having Beit Hanoun and Rafah as your only surroundings. Seeing the Gaza sky is an attempt to break the siege in all of its educational and political aspects, in belief that the Palestinians capable of greatness in science.”
Friday, February 19, 2010
Palestinian Refugees Key to Peace: UNRWA
Palestinian Refugees Key to Peace: UNRWA
Friday, 19 February 2010Beirut, February 19: Finding a solution to the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees is the key to peace in the Middle East, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, believes.
"UNRWA has no political role, but it does have the moral role of reminding all parties involved and all governments with a say in the peace process that there will be no peace without a fair solution for refugees in line with UN resolutions," the agency's Commissioner General Filippo Grandi told.
Millions of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes when Israel was created on the rubble of Palestine in 1948.
UNRWA also defines as refugees the descendants of those who became refugees in 1948.
The number of registered refugees has subsequently grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than 4.4 million in 2005, and continues to rise due to natural population growth.
Third of them live in 58 recognized refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"It is tragic that the international community has not yet found a solution to this problem," lamented Grandi.
"The situation has been the same for 60 years now, and today we speak of fourth-generation refugees.
"Without a solution, this will only continue."
UN resolutions guarantee the right of return of Palestinian refugees, many still holding the keys and titles of their homes in what is now Israel.
But like its predecessors, the government of hawkish Premier Benyamin Netanyaho wants Palestinians to give up the right of returning to their homes in what is now Israel.
UNRWA says it urgently needs money to provide the basic needs of Nahr Al-Bared refugees.
Cash-strapped
Grandi complained that his cash-strapped agency can not offer the most basic needs to the Palestinian refugees.
"UNRWA remains 100 million dollars short of its budget for 2010."
The UN agency has made an appeal for 450 million dollars to rebuild Nahr Al-Bared camp near the northern port city of Tripoli, which was almost leveled to the ground in clashes between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam militants in 2007.
Some 400 people, including 168 Lebanese soldiers, were killed in the fighting and about 30,000 residents were displaced.
UNRWA has only received 120 of the 450 million dollars needed to rebuild the camp and the surrounding areas.
"The money we have right now covers the reconstruction of only three of eight camp sections destroyed," Grandi asserted.
"We also need relief funds for the basic needs of the camp residents urgently.
Grandi has urged Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to find a solution for the legal employment of Palestinian refugees.
The Lebanese constitution bans Palestinian refugees from obtaining citizenship, owning property or entering some professions, adding insult to their injuries.
According to UNRWA figures, Lebanon is home to nearly 400,000 refugees, most of them live in 12 destitute camps across the country.
They get 12-15 percent of UNRWA's total annual budget, which tops 600 million dollars.
-Agencies
Protesters wave Palestinian flags at an Israeli border police post during a protest in the West Bank village of Bilin, near Ramallah, February 19, 2010. Israeli border police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse some 1,000 Palestinian protesters and foreign activists during a protest marking the 5th anniversary of their campaign against the controversial Israeli barrier. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside (WEST BANK - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST IMAGES OF THE DAY)
A Palestinian boy walks under a huge Palestinian flag during a protest in the West Bank village of Bilin near Ramallah February 19, 2010. Israeli border police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse some 1000 Palestinian protesters and foreign activists during a protest marking the 5th anniversary of their campaign against the controversial Israeli barrier in the village. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside (WEST BANK - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST)
My letter to Time Magazine RE Unraveling the Middle East Muddle By Joe Klein
RE: Unraveling the Middle East Muddle By Joe Klein
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1964775,00.html
Dear Editor,
Klein in 'Unraveling the Middle East Muddle" really should have remembered and reiterated the three clear & compelling points made in the Arab Peace Initiative ... The necessity of:
1. Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967.
2. A just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.
3. The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
A secular two state end to the Israel/Palestine conflict really is the best bet for every one's sake- with a firm shift away from forcing tax payers (here and there) to fund and empower religious bigotry, militancy and terror.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
Growing Gardens for Palestine
Palestinian children hold candles and signs during a protest calling for an end to the blockade on Gaza, organized by the Islamic bloc at the schools, at the Unknown soldier square in Gaza City, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010. Israel and Egypt blockaded the strip after Hamas militants overran it in 2007. Arabic sign on right reads 'Help Gaza, where is the world when Palestinian children are being killed.' (AP Photo /Adel Hana)
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