MAY 2002

PALESTINE

: three alternatives within knowledge.

1.VIOLENCE, A STUDY, by Henry H. Lindner,MD

Zionists' claim to moral superiority.  Suicide bombs have become the focal point of the issue of the day.  Every single commentator justifies what Israel is doing in the West Bank because they "have to stop the suicide bombers".  I have recently come to a very clear philosophical conclusion regarding the situation in Palestine and the steps necessary to resolve it immediately.  I have reached a conclusion on the morality of the suicide bombings of Israeli civilians that may shock you, but you will see that it is unavoidable.  The world, including the Israelis, Jews, and all supporters of Israel need to know the laws of human interaction, for they are as unavoidable as the laws of physics.

As you know, the primary principle of peace and of human cooperative interaction is non-violence.  No one must initiate or maintain violence against another person, and this extends to the covert violence of taking anything of value from another person without his consent.  The violation of this law creates a state of violence among persons.  Most people recognize this simple principle, at least in the abstract.  The problem is that there are subtle forms of violence that are not apparent to those who do not understand the moral foundations of human society.   Most persons, indeed, are raised to be blind to the more subtle uses of violence because their own government uses violence and the threat of violence to control the citizen's actions.  The use of violence or threat of same to get another person to do your will is coercion.  Now violence can be completely covert when the citizen obeys his governments decrees, or when the slave obeys his master, or when the prisoners obey their guards, or when a people under occupation obey their overlords.  Such situations can appear relatively benign, even to the victims if they were raised in those situations and have no one to inform them that they are being abused.  The only way that these covertly violent relationships are exposed is when the victim refuses to obey.  The perpetrator then results to overt violence to produce obedience, the victim fights back, etc.  A vicious cycle of increasing violence occurs until one or the other party is completely victorious.

For society to function in peace and cooperation, all humans must condemn every form of violence, including covert violence.  There is no moral solution except to demand an immediate end to the perverse relationship--be it slavery, imprisonment, or occupation.  Only the perpetrator, the person or group in power, has the ability to end the violence.  It is immoral, inhumane, and socially pathological to ask the victim to stop his violent opposition to the perverse relationship and negotiate better terms with the perpetrator. Occupations as a form of violence can be better or worse.  The occupation of the West Bank, Palestine, is among the worst--in that the occupier is racist, claims ownership of the land, controls all resources, and settles its own race among the victim population.  The occupier, as we all know, ignores the relevant Geneva Conventions.

The people of the West, who otherwise abhor racism and discrimination, have been blinded by their own Crusading fervor to control the Holy Land, and by Zionist propaganda from the media. They have learned to consider the occupation of the West Bank as something benign.  They have not recognized its underlying violence and immorality.  They therefore have concluded that all Palestinian violence against the occupation and the occupiers is unwarranted, unjustified.  They consider Israel the victim when it is in fact the aggressor.  This is an error  The cat is, however, out of the bag.  Thirty-five years of being treated like second class humans while Israel built settlements on the only land they have left has led the Palestinians into a state of complete desparation where they are willing to risk, indeed to sacrifice their lives to obtain justice and freedom.  There is no going back for Israel, America, or the Palestinians.  The world is now forced to confront the immorality of the Israeli occupation and do something about it.

However, the Zionist Americans and Israelis want to keep their false moral superiority. Their tactic is to ignore the much greater violence of occupation and focus attention instead on the violence of the suicide bombers.   Israel, while it continues the occupation, is controlling and distorting the life of every Palestinian every day.  Being a democracy, the Israeli army is controlled by the elected government.  The government is chosen and supported by the civilian population.  The civilian population therefore cannot claim innocence or any right to safety.  They are perpetrators.  No adult Israeli has any right to peace or safety until the occupation is ended.

.There is only one moral response to the occupation, that is to demand that it end at once.  Israel should be asked and then forced to withdraw unconditionally and completely from East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza as ordered in UN resolution 242.  Then and only then should negotiations begin between Israeli and Palestinian representatives.    Any other approach, since it does not conform to moral reality, will not work and will prolong the crisis and lead to more death and destruction.

2. IT IS A CRUSADE, IT IS A CRUSADE,
by Ali Khan
It is a Crusade. An on-going, de facto Crusade. The continuing saga which started several centuries ago with the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Only the medium has changed, from "conventional" wars to extensive "propaganda wars" on our home TV screens by a small clan of Zionists whose leaders crave to get 'their' Biblical land of Israel from Egypt to Iraq.[i] Frankly, we would all be better off without the flawed "wisdom" of George W. Bush, "fun-da-mental-ism" of Osama Bin Laden, lunacy and hypocrisy of lobbyists like Thomas L. Friedman, corruption of Yasser Arafat, brutality of Ar-iel Shar-on or even the failed "peace" plan of the Arab League's King Abdullah. The truth is written out there on the Walls and stones of Jerusalem's mosques and churches. It is in all the three religious books, Torah, Bible and the Quran, for you to see, read, think and conclude. The fact of the matter is that the Holy Land is equally holy for Jews, Christians and Muslims.

To end this crusade, we must look beyond America, a pre-dominantly Christian country, Israel, a Zionist terrorist regime and the Arab leaders who represent only a small fraction of Muslims world. Let us look at the facts. There are three major participants in this crusade: Jews, Christians and Muslims. According to Britannica Book of the Year 1997: Jews are 13.9 million and 0.2% of the total world population. Christians are 1,955 million and 33.7% of the total world population. Muslims are 1,126 million and 19.4% of the total world population. And now let us see who is representing who The Jews are represented by Israel, a Zionist terrorist regime with a population of 6.46 million, which also includes 15.2% Muslims. [ii] Christians are represented by the United States, a predominantly Christian "Secular" country with a population of 286.8 million (which includes about 6 million Muslims and 5 million Jews), less than one in seven of the world's Christians. Muslims are represented by the Arab League, led by a clique of unrepresentative monarchs and unelected dictators who rule over a combined 288.2 million Arabs, or only one quarter % of the world's Muslims. Now the question is - Are these the only folks who should have a final say in the fate of the native people of the Holy Land? With a monopoly on military power, why would Israel be serious about resolving the Holy Land conflict when nine American presidents have subsidized its illegal annexation of native soil for the creation of exclusive Jewish settlements?

The United States can never be an honest mediator of a just Middle Eastern Peace since it has its own financial, strategic interests in the region plus it has more than 60 million fundamentalist evangelist Christians who support Israel's exclusive rights over the holy land. And the Arab League can never be serious because all the non-elected Kings and leaders want is to save their own "thrones". If the above parties continue to represent their exclusive agendas as the only legitimate representation of their people, the Holy Land issue is going to blow up into a full-scale 'clash of civilization' crusade. That is just fine by the Netenyahu Likudniks and war criminals like Ariel Sharon. But what about the rest of us? So, let me be the first to suggest an international interfaith convention in Geneva to discuss the Holy Land issue openly and mutually with the condition that the non-participant of the convention will face the consequences decided in the convention by the participants of the convention. In that convention, all the Jews, Christians and Muslim countries should be represented regardless of their status, location, and economy. Neither the Jews, the Christians or the Muslims must not be allowed to have exclusive rights over the Holy Land just because they are more powerful or they have the support of the United States and Europe or somebody else. Each Jew, Christian and Muslim should have equal right to reside and worship in the Holy Land. That is the real teachings of all these religions. So, be it. It is time to end this tri-party crusade and give peace and justice an even chance. Otherwise, I repeat, this whole issue is going to eventually blow up with dire consequences for the whole world. Because, remember. It is a Crusade. An on-going, de facto Crusade.

Notes: [i] Israel's Grand Design: Leaders Crave Area from Egypt to Iraq - by John Mitchell Henshaw - Media Monitors Network (MMN) - http://www.mediamonitors.net/johnhenshaw1.html [ii] It is important to note here when the Palestine problem was created by Britain in 1917, more than 90 percent of the population of Palestine were Arabs and no more than 56,000 Jews in Palestine. More than half of the Jews living in Palestine at that time were recent immigrants, who had come to Palestine in the preceding decades in order to escape persecution in Europe. Less than 5 percent of the population of Palestine were native Palestinian Jews. The Arabs of Palestine at that time owned 97.5 percent of the land, while Jews (native Palestinians and recent immigrants together) owned only 2.5 percent of the land. During the 30 years of British occupation and rule, the Zionists were able to purchase only 3.5 percent of the land of Palestine, in spite of the encouragement of the British Government. Much of this land was transferred to Zionist bodies by the British Government directly, and was not sold by Arab owners. Therefore, when British passed the Palestine problem to the United Nations in 1947, Zionists owned no more than 6 percent of the total land area of Palestine. Notwithstanding these facts, the General Assembly of the United Nations recommended that a "Jewish State" be established in Palestine and the Assembly granted that proposed "State" about 54 percent of the total area of the country. Israel immediately occupied (and still occupies) 80.48 percent of the total land area of Palestine. This territorial expansion took place, for the most part, before May 15, 1948 i.e., before the formal end of the British forces from Palestine, before the entry of Arab armies to protect Palestinian Arabs, and before the Arab- Israeli war.

MY THANKS TO 'TOGETHERNETWORKS' FOR THE FOLLOWING REPORT FROM THE LEBANESE NEWSPAPER 'THE DAILY STAR'

3. UN , MEMBERSHIP FOR PALESTINE NOW,
by John V.Whitbeck.

Counterintuitive though it may seem, now may be the ideal time for Palestine to apply for ­ and obtain ­ full United Nations membership. The state of Palestine was proclaimed, within all the Palestinian territories occupied during the 1967 war, on Nov. 15, 1988, at the historic Palestine National Council meeting in Algiers which formally endorsed the two-state solution and recognized Israel within the 78 percent of historic Palestine which Israel had controlled prior to the 1967 war.

Within two months, the state of Palestine was recognized diplomatically by over 100 other sovereign states. Today, it is recognized by roughly two-thirds of UN member states. Notwithstanding the subsequent Oslo Accords, the state has never been renounced or legally ceased to exist. Indeed, in July 1998, by a 124-4 vote in the General Assembly, the "permanent observer" status of "Palestine" at the UN was upgraded to a unique and unprecedented level, with rights and privileges of participation that had previously been exclusive to member states.

The Palestinian Authority, a creature of the Oslo Accords, legally ceased to exist on May 4, 1999, the date on which the "interim period" pursuant to these accords ended. As no one had an interest in insisting upon this legal point, no one did. However, after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spring onslaught, the "authority" has effectively ceased to exist as a practical force on the ground as
well as in legal theory. The state of Palestine, which does not require a second proclaiming, is available to fill the vacuum. After his return to Palestine in 1994, Yasser Arafat listed three titles under his signature on his Arabic correspondence ­ president of the state of Palestine, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and president of the "Palestinian
National Authority." However, the state was de-emphasized and, publicly, spoken of more as an aspiration than as the legal and diplomatic fact which it actually was.

There were two good strategic reasons for this. First, the Palestinian leadership believed that discretion and peaceful negotiations were more likely to produce a warm and open peace based on the two-state solution than thrusting the Palestinian state aggressively in the face of of an Israeli state which, after all, still militarily occupied all of Palestine. Second, the Palestinian leadership believed that, at each point when bringing the state out of the closet was a serious prospect (indeed, on several occasions when President Arafat had solemnly promised to do so), a US veto of UN membership was highly likely and might make the Palestinian position worse than before.

Neither of these concerns is valid today. A warm and open peace is no longer conceivable. It is now almost universally accepted that separation based on the two-state solution and on the pre-June 1967 borders is essential for the peace and security of both peoples. When, in late March, the Arab League dramatically reaffirmed this fundamental formula in its Beirut declaration, inspired by the Saudi Arabian initiative, almost all governments publicly embraced it and not even Israel or the United States dared to publicly dismiss it.

In light of the events of recent days, who would dare to oppose Palestine's admission to full UN membership if it were to apply now? The US has, very belatedly, become aware of the white-hot anti-American rage boiling throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. Demonstrators have attacked the US Embassy in Bahrain, and other American embassies in the region have been spared attack only by vigorous police action.

At this point, particularly after President George W. Bush has spoken repeatedly of his "vision" of a Palestinian state, would the US dare to veto Palestine's UN membership? Perhaps for the first time ever, but during a window of opportunity which may not be open for long, an American veto is almost inconceivable.

If Palestine, within its internationally accepted pre-June 1967 borders, were a UN member state, not simply "the Occupied Territories" and no longer even arguably "disputed," for how much longer could Israel maintain its occupation, which even UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan now publicly brands "illegal"? The writing would clearly be on the wall for all to see. The end of the occupation,
even if not imminent, would instantly become only a question of "when,"; no longer of "whether."

No change currently imaginable is more likely than a mutual realization of this inevitability to reverse the accelerating cycle of violence.

It is now widely believed among Palestinians that the only conceivable way to end the occupation is to convince a majority of Israelis that it is in their personal self-interest to do so and that the only conceivable way to accomplish this is to kill Israelis in Israel ­ for as long as it takes. Western insistence that the Palestinians renounce violent resistance in return for the opportunity to negotiate with Ariel Sharon is viewed as a cruel joke. A credible alternative to this brutal logic, capable of inspiring hope that the future may offer something better than a life worse than death, is desperately needed. UN membership and worldwide recognition of the state of Palestine ­ particularly if it were
conferred in these darkest days of the occupation ­ could provide that alternative and that hope. It is an opportunity which can and must be seized.

John V. Whitbeck is an international lawyer who writes on the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. He wrote this commentary for The Daily Star