_______ ____ ______ / |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S / /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East /_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\ http://www.MiddleEast.Org News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know! * * * * * * * IF YOU DON'T GET MER, YOU JUST DON'T GET IT! To receive MER regularly email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ISRAEL FINALLY CONTEMPLATES THE "A" WORD MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 12/11: For some time we have termed it an "Apartheid Peace" -- go to http://www.MiddleEast.org/maps.htm to have a look. Now with Intifada II all that has taken place since Madrid and Oslo is coming into much clearer focus, rotting in front of our eyes, the stink becoming evident even to those who have supported it and given it sustenance. The following editorial is from Israel's leading newspaper, Ha'aretz, and the following Op Ed appeared in the New York Daily News. The Israelis, it seems, are already adjusting to the failure of Oslo at the political as well as conceptual level, and to the likelihood of a new Likud government. The Americans usually follow the Israeli lead, even if very carefully by just publishing a column from someone who works for a Muslim organization. AYALON'S DIAGNOSIS "Is the option of a Jewish democracy with apartheid acceptable? In my opinion, no," Ha'aretz Editorial - December 7, 2000: The remarks of the former Shin Bet security service director, Ami Ayalon, at a seminar organized by the budget department, should be taken with some seriousness and concern. The seriousness is appropriate because Ayalon until recently was responsible for the most important security policy in the state - thwarting terrorism. Ayalon also has security experience from his years in the IDF, but he made it clear the security of the State of Israel cannot rely only on defense force operations. It must be based on a comprehensive political, economic and social world view that is willing to co-opt the enemy as a partner. This partnership is not one-sided, Ayalon said. He said the Palestinians chose the Oslo track because they had adopted the assumption that only through negotiations, and not by violence, would they be able to get a state. "They hoped for a viable state with a certain element of justice in it." However, this hope did not materialize. "The honorable compromise," as he put it, which the Palestinians were seeking, has run up against the tough conditions of the Israelis, who were seeking only security. This they saw as an independent entity and failed to understand the connection between it and the surrounding circumstances vital to achieve it. As a consequence, the security obsession created intolerable living conditions for the Palestinians. The human suffering of just traveling to work from the autonomous areas, and Israel's stranglehold on the border crossings has, according to Ayalon, created the despair that has been growing from the time the Oslo accords were signed until now, when it has erupted. This is the same security outlook whose failure to realize its aims led almost naturally to the idea of separation from the Palestinians. Ayalon warns that economic and physical separation may harm Israel no less than the Palestinians. If a partnership cannot exist unilaterally, neither can it be unilaterally abandoned. The result, said Ayalon, is the belief that emerged on the Palestinian side that only by "holding a gun to our heads" will they be able to achieve their national aspirations. Prisoner releases, the Hebron Agreement, returns to the negotiating table, happened again and again at various stages only because of pressure exerted on the street by the Palestinians, or because of international pressure dictated by the events. The worrisome part of Ayalon's remarks is in its recognition that the government never absorbed the need for the vital integration there must be between security and partnership in other areas. This is proved by the idea of separation. "Is the option of a Jewish democracy with apartheid acceptable? In my opinion, no," Ayalon said. Even if the suggestion of apartheid goes beyond the actual reality, it is sufficient to say that occupation and democracy cannot coexist. This is the world view that must guide policy makers if they are serious about completing the peace process and transforming it into a lasting peace. This is the type of world view that remains absent from the political dialogue. Instead, its tends to focus on technical, military or economic measures. ISRAEL'S APARTHEID MUST END By KEVIN JAMES* [New York Daily News - Op Ed - Dec 10 2000] The latest peace proposal of Ehud Barak, who resigns today as Israel's prime minister, demonstrates a tragic failure to grasp the deeper undercurrents of the present Israeli-Palestinian conflict.There can no longer be any peace process until Israel acknowledges the consequences of its flagrant disregard for international law and human rights. Palestinian activist Salmon Abu-Sitta recently told a New York City audience that Israel has to learn to live with people, not instead of people. Ami Ayalon, retired head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, stunned his fellow countrymen last week when he pointed an accusing finger at his government's 'apartheid' policies. Ironically, Barak also revealed damning sentiments in 1998 when he let slip -- and later apologized for -- "If I were Palestinian, I'd also join [a] terror group." Middle East scholar Edward Said recently wrote of a new set of declarations for peace evolving among leading Israeli, West Bank, Gaza and diaspora Palestinians. One stipulation is that the Oslo accords must be thrown out and that the original UN resolutions delineating Israel's boundaries be strictly adhered to. Another condition is the removal of Israeli settlements and military roads that effectively break up the contiguity of Palestinian lands. Former President Jimmy Carter describes how the deliberate placement of isolated Israeli communities as outposts in Palestinian lands leaves settlers open to attack without massive military protection, thus frustrating both Israelis who seek peace and any Palestinian government from realizing an integral sovereign nation. Any legitimate peace process must include Israel's atonement for the lies and deceit used to justify more than 50 years of land grabbing, racism and cruelty inflicted against Muslim and Christian Palestinians. The first step must be to compensate the Palestinian people for their losses and to allow them to return to their homes and property with full and equal rights of citizenship according to UN Security Council resolutions. More important, however, is the fundamental change that must occur within Israel's mentality. The mindset that "One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail" voiced by Rabbi Yaacov Perin in 1994 when he eulogized mass murderer Baruch Goldstein must follow the Third Reich to the grave. "Never again" must apply equally to all peoples who have ever faced ethnic cleansing or enslavement by virtue of their identity, be they Jewish, Muslim or Christian, Bosnian, African or Native American. As philosopher Martin Buber noted in 1961, "Only then will the young and old in our land realize how great was our responsibility to those miserable Arab refugees in whose towns we have settled from afar; whose homes we have inherited, whose fields we now sow and harvest; the fruit of whose gardens, orchards and vineyards we gather; and in whose cities that we robbed, we put houses of education, charity and prayer." * James is director of government relations for the Council on American Islamic Relations' New York office. MiD-EasT RealitieS - www.MiddleEast.Org Phone: 202 362-5266 Fax: 815 366-0800 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscriibe email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with subject SUBSCRIBE To unsubscribe email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with subject UNSUBSCRIBE
