AmNote on U.N. Resolution 242: Jews Don't Want Peace in the Middle East In 1988, the PLO endorsed a resolution, adopted by the U.N. in 1973, which called for the implementation of 242, which calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from occupied Arab territories. However, Israel is still in the occupied territories! So what is the hold up? The main obstacle to peace is Israel's refusal to returned the Arab's land to them. Not only has Israel not withdrawn from the occupied Arab territories, they have annexed east Jerusalem, built housing settlements in the West Bank, and flexed their muscle at the Temple Mount. Who do the Jews think they're fooling with their empty talk of peace? The Jews want to keep the occupied territories in defiance of United Nations Resolution 242. Is there any question that Israel does not want peace, but wants land instead? After thousands of years of experience with the Jews, the Palestinians know that they can't trust them—it is a lesson that Americans should learn, too!         If U.S. military and foreign aid to Israel was linked to the Middle East peace process, then there would be some response and resolution to the conflict, since there is nothing a Jew won't do for money! As it is now, there is no incentive for the Jews to conclude the peace process as outlined in U.N. Resolution 242. Certainly, the formation of a Palestinian state in the Middle East isn't an enticement for peace to the Jews. Israel fears the consequences of Palestinian statehood, since it would bring legitimacy and the opportunities that Israel has already benefited from, such as access to U.S. military and foreign aid. Another reason for Israeli foot-dragging is the loss of some U.S. military and foreign aid if there was peace with the Palestinians. Still another reason would be the loss of sympathy donations that brings millions of dollars from rich American and foreign Jews into Israeli politicians' pockets. It would be difficult to whip up a fervor to get contributions without a threat to Israel looming on the horizon. The Jews don't want to lose their free handouts.         Basically, Israel doesn't want a Palestinian state to exist and it will do anything to stop it from happening, including slaughtering Palestinians and building new settlement housing in the West Bank. The PBS Frontline program "Shattered Dreams of Peace" revealed why Israel will not return the West Bank to the Palestinians. In order to fulfill its promise for all Jews who wish to return to Israel to do so, Israel must expand into the lands of the West Bank. Israelis could have peace, they just don't want it! Therefore, it is time for the United States to give up its own pretense that the racist Israelis are negotiating in good faith and demand that Israel accept and implement U.N. Resolution 242 or lose U.S. military and foreign aid and diplomatic support. It is in the best interest of America to create stability in the Middle East!         To add insult to the injury that the Palestinians have received at the hands of the Israelis, President Bush has dangled a carrot in found of their noses. If the Palestinians want statehood, they must get rid of Arafat as their leader. Why doesn't Bush just tell them that they can have a shiny, new dime if they kiss his ass! Why does Bush have to browbeat them with the promise of a Palestinian state? You would hope for better from the President of the United States. Why doesn't Bush tell the Israelis that unless they get rid of Sharon as their leader, he will dissolve the state of Israel by folding it into the new state of Palestine under Arafat! That's what Bush should do. The experiment called Israeli has been an utter failure—and it is time to end it for the sake of mankind! You think its a joke? Look at what the Jews did to the Blacks in South Africa for the sake of greed (see Diamond Apartheid)!   Here's A Partial Text Of U.N. Resolution 242 —The Toronto Star These are excerpts of a 1967 United Nations resolution, 242, adopted yesterday by the Palestine Liberation Organization in a marked swing toward moderation: 1. Affirms that the fulfillment of charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles: * Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; * Termination of all claims of states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force. 2. Affirms further the necessity: * For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area; * For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem; * For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every state in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones. 3. Requests the secretary-general to designate a special representative to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the states concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution. 4. Requests the secretary-general to report to the Security Council on the progress of the efforts of the special representative as soon as possible. The PLO also endorsed a resolution, adopted by the U.N. in 1973, which calls for the implementation of 242. [click here to continue]   Sadly, Israeli Society Is Racist —The Ottawa Citizen If the Citizen editorial writers fail to see that the Israeli "street" (ordinary citizens' opinions) is a racist one ("Assad story," March 29), they would be among a misguided and ill-informed minority. As Canadians, we respect the dignity of all people and care about their freedom. I am dismayed, frustrated and appalled at the apartheid-style massacres being committed by the Israelis against the Palestinian people, who are being driven to desperation by Israel's defiance of United Nations resolutions and by its rejection of calls to cease its use of excessive force against the civilian Palestinian population. The world has called on Israel to withdraw its occupation army, dismantle its illegal settlements, end occupation of its neighbours' lands and lift its blockade of the 217 Palestinian population centres (overcrowded ghettos and small villages) in order to defuse the 52-year crisis. Israel has not acted. This time, if the Palestinian people's heroic resistance does not reward them with an independent and free state of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, then the Middle East would not come remotely close to achieving a total, just and comprehensive peace, which is the objective of Syria. More and more people are coming to realize that Israel is nothingbut a brutal occupation force and a country with expansionist goals. The "democratic" government of Israel has consistently failed to meet the minimum standards of a civilized democracy by denying the right of return to the 4.5 million refugees and by confiscating and otherwise illegally appropriating their properties and homes. How else to describe Israeli society other than racist when that same society kills its "dovish leaders" and elects Ariel Sharon? Until Israeli society undergoes a profound change and develops into a more civilized one, and until it acknowledges and respects the rights of neighbouring peoples, it is accurate to read the Israeli "street" as anti-democratic, and by extension, depict it as "more racist than the Nazis." Sadly, this is reality. [click here to continue]   Assad Story —The Ottawa Citizen Looking at the Middle East, people often wrongly adopt what Peter Berger calls "a demented evenhandedness," condemning Israel and its Arab neighbours equally. But Syrian President Bashar Assad just told the Arab summit in Amman, Jordan that Israel is "a racist society, a society more racist than the Nazis." If an Israeli politician said that about ordinary Arabs (and Mr. Assad expressly spoke not of the leaders but of "the street" in Israel), there'd be a huge outcry. Why not in this case? If it's because the government of Israel occasionally fails to meet the exacting standards of civilized democracy, while its neighbouring states generally do not even aspire to do so, surely that tells us where the trouble is really coming from. [click here to continue]   Assad Story; Syrian Leader Gets Blame For Stalled Talks —The Columbus Dispatch You can't blame President Clinton for trying. Syrian President Hafez Assad's health is growing weaker. Clinton's tenure as American chief executive is growing shorter. The need for peace in the Middle East is as great as the weariness of fighting. You also can't blame Clinton for failing. Assad gets all the credit this time for blocking talks with Israel. Clinton met with Assad in Geneva after gamely trying to talk Pakistan and India into not blowing up each other. Peace is a tough sell these days. Assad was unreceptive to showing even a smidgen of the flexibility that is necessary for compromise. The conclusion is obvious: Assad doesn't want to compromise. He doesn't want to address Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's need for assurances that, if it largely returned to the pre-1967 war borders, the strategic high ground of the Golan Heights wouldn't become a base of attack against Israel. Israel would like to retain some parts along the Sea of Galilee shoreline and water sources that originate in the Golan and flow into the sea. It would compensate by giving up territory elsewhere. Israel's interest in those areas shows the political potency of water in the Middle East: The Sea ofGalilee supplies 40 percent of Israel's water. [click here to continue]   Israeli Campaign To Block Recognition Of Palestinian State —The Daily Telegraph Israel mounted a diplomatic offensive to block wide international recognition of the newly proclaimed Palestinian state yesterday. A foreign ministry official said the campaign would centre on the Palestine Liberation Organisation's failure to renounce terrorism, accept United Nations Resolution 242 unconditionally and explicitly recognise Israel. He said Israeli diplomats abroad would use these arguments in contacts with their host governments. Foreign diplomats based in Israel were invited to the Foreign Ministry today to be briefed about the Israeli position. Israel focused its immediate attention on Egypt, which hosts Mr Yasser Arafat, PLO chairman, over the weekend. Cairo has expressed support for a Palestinian state, but has not yet issued a formal recognition. Mr Yosef Ben-Aharon, a top aide to Mr Yitzhak Shamir, Israel's Prime Minister, warned Egypt against recognising the Palestinian state. "Recognition of such a state would violate the spirit . . . of the Camp David Accord . . . We hope that Egypt will be careful," he said. Mr Shimon Peres, foreign minister, said recognition of the would-be Palestinian state would harm any peace process. Israeli authorities yesterday lifted a five-day curfew on large parts of the Gaza Strip, but left in place the mass of military deployment there and on the West Bank. [click here to continue]   Israel Goes For Sharon In Landslide; Win Over Barak Lifts Hard-Liner With Long And Checkered Past —The Arizona Republic Ariel Sharon rode a wave of national anxiety to an overwhelming electoral victory Tuesday as Israel's prime minister. He defeated Prime Minister Ehud Barak, 62 to 38 percent, with 90 percent of the polling stations counted. The margin was unprecedented in Israeli electoral history, as was the record low voter turnout because of widespread disaffection with the candidates and the political system. In Tel Aviv, Sharon gave a highly conciliatory victory speech about healing Israel's rifts and proposed a national unity government. Barak conceded the election shortly before midnight Tuesday, looking tired but still campaigning, this time for his own place in history. He surprised both Sharon and his own advisers by announcing that he would step down as Labor Party leader and resign his seat in the Knesset, or parliament. Presumed to be unelectable because of his age, his views and his checkered past, the 72-year-old Sharon refused to quit the public stage. Tuesday, it was such bulldog determination that attracted voters, who said they were drawn to Sharon's iron fist. His victory crowns a stunning climb back from his disgrace a generation ago, when an official government commission judged him indirectly responsible for the 1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees by Israeli-backed Lebanese militiamen in Beirut, and unfit to continue as defense minister. It also sends a chill through the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the broader Arab world, where Sharon is widely viewed as a war criminal. Tuesday in the West Bank, thousands of Palestinians protested Israel's 34-year-old occupation in what they called a welcoming message to the new Israeli prime minister. About 65 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli troops. [click here to continue]   Arab Uprising Spreads to Israel; Israeli Defends Visit To Contested —The Washington Post Ariel Sharon, the portly old warrior accused by Palestinians of provoking this weekend's deadly violence in the Holy Land, is characteristically defiant. "This has nothing to do with me," the retired general said in a long telephone interview from his farm in Israel's Negev Desert, where he spent the weekend watching television coverage of Palestinian rioters battling Israeli forces. "It's the result of a pre-planned campaign by Arafat"--a reference to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. But to thousands of Palestinian youths throughout the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, it was Sharon who drove them into the streets by leading a delegation of hard-line Israeli lawmakers on a one-hour tour of Jerusalem's Temple Mount, Judaism's most sacred place. The elevated platform, known to Arabs as Haram ash-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, is also revered by Muslims as the third-holiest site in Islam. For Jews, the Mount is the site of the Biblical First and Second Temples and the touchstone of their faith. But in practice, few Israeli Jews ever set foot on the sprawling 36-acre plot, which today is dominated by two great ancient mosques, al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. For Palestinians, there could be no greater desecration of the sanctuary than to see it entered and inspected by Sharon, 72, the leader of Israel's opposition Likud Party, accompanied by about 1,000 edgy Israeli riot police. Younger Palestinians remember Sharon's role as defense minister in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and hold him responsible for the massacre of hundreds of unarmed Palestinians at the hands of Israeli-backed Christian Lebanese militiamen. An Israeli government commission found that he bore "indirect responsibility" for the massacre, which took place in refugee camps under Israeli army control in Beirut. Older Palestinians recall that in 1953, an Israeli commando squad led by Sharon blew up 45 houses in Qibya, an Arab village then in Jordanian hands, killing dozens of people cowering in their cellars and attics, many of them women and children. For nearly 50 years, Palestinians have regarded Sharon as a murderer, a criminal and worse. "He's a butcher going all the way back to Qibya," said Yezid Sayigh, a Palestinian historian at England's Cambridge University. "He's one person I'd never shake hands with." [click here to continue]   Israeli Settlements Still The Roadblock To Peace —The Houston Chronicle An underlying reason that years of U.S. diplomacy have failed and violence in the Middle East persists is that some Israeli leaders continue to "create facts" by building settlements in occupied territory. Their deliberate placement as islands or fortresses within Palestinian areas makes the settlers vulnerable to attack without massive military protection, frustrates Israelis who seek peace and at the same time prevents any Palestinian government from enjoying effective territorial integrity. At Camp David in September 1978, President Anwar Sadat, Prime Minister Menachem Begin and I spent most of our time debating this issue before we finally agreed on terms for peace between Egypt and Israel and for the resolution of issues concerning the Palestinian people. The bilateral provisions led to a comprehensive and lasting treaty between Egypt and Israel, made possible at the last minute by Israel's agreement to remove its settlers from the Sinai. But similar constraints concerning the status of the West Bank and Gaza have not been honored, and have led to continuing confrontation and violence. The foundation for all my proposals to the two leaders was the official position of the government of the United States, based on international law that was mutually accepted by the United States, Egypt, Israel and other nations, and encapsulated in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242. Our government's legal commitment to support this well-balanced resolution has not changed. [click here to continue]   Israel Plans To Increase Housing In West Bank Settlements —The Irish Times The Israeli government announced yesterday that it planned to build some 700 housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The move threatens to complicate renewed efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian security co-operation and get the warring parties back to the negotiating table. The Housing Minister, Mr Natan Sharansky, said the tenders published by his Ministry - for 500 units at the settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim near Jerusalem and 200 at Alfei Menashe near the West Bank city of Qalqilyah - were intended to "strengthen the (Jewish) settlers" in the wake of Palestinian attacks on settlements in recent days. Mr Sharansky said the tenders were "in accordance with the decisions of the government of Israel". The guidelines of the Likud-Labour national unity government, headed by the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, stipulate that no new settlements can be built, but they do permit the expansion of existing settlements to meet natural growth. The chief Palestinian negotiator, Mr Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Maazen) made it clear on Wednesday, after the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, met the Palestinian Ministers, Mr Nabil Sha'ath and Mr Saeb Erekat in Athens in an effort to extinguish the violence, that settlements were an obstacle to ending hostilities and resuming negotiations. For the Palestinians, the settlements present the major impediment to the creation of a viable Palestinian state, threatening to reduce it to a series of dislocated "bantustans". [click here to continue]   Plan For Palestine; Bush Suggests Some Behavior Modification —The Columbus Dispatch After months of playing catch-up in the Middle East, President Bush this week laid out a plan for peace that -- take your choice: (a) is dead on arrival, or (b) just might have a chance of working. The plan is unrealistic in that it puts most of the burden on the Palestinian side and postpones any real benefit. To embark on the path to statehood, apparently Palestinians will have to dump their leader, Yasser Arafat, and elect new leaders who are not compromised by terrorism. So far, so good. A modern state cannot be founded on terror, and even many Palestinians would be glad to see the end of Arafat. But Palestinians are also told that to have a state they must build democracy, end government corruption and build security institutions and a market-based economic structure. They are to have some international help, but the Palestinians are to do this during a military occupation, while the Israeli settlements remain as they are. These standards are higher than the United States asks of just about any other country it deals with. Although U.S. and international help is offered to make this transformation, who would be the judge of when Palestinians meet the test is unclear. But the plan just might have a chance of success, because ultimately Bush envisions something close to the best deal Palestinians can hope to get: a peaceful sovereign state within something like the 1967 borders. Much depends on whether Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other countries can put aside their own objections to the plan and stress its similarities to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's plan, which they've endorsed. As for Bush's implication that Arafat must go, this is a risky move. Bush can't control events, and it's anyone guess as to how Palestinians would vote if given a democratic choice. [click here to continue]   Shattered Dreams Of Peace —Frontline ANNOUNCER: During the last week, the Mideast crisis boiled over again- more suicide bombings, Israeli reoccupation of Palestinian towns. Then the American president set forth his vision for peace. Pres. GEORGE W. BUSH: My vision is two states living side by side in peace and security. ANNOUNCER: But Palestinians and Israelis have tried before. SHLOMO BEN AMI, Israeli Foreign Minister, 2000-2001: We are talking here about the toughest and most sensitive issues that humankind had ever dealt with. ANNOUNCER: Can the issues ever be resolved? Will the violence ever stop? SAEB EREKAT, Palestinian Chief Negotiator: At the end of the day, I know Palestinians and Israelis can make peace. My heart aches because I know we were so close. ANNOUNCER: Tonight FRONTLINE examines why the dreams of peace have remained so elusive. NARRATOR: Spring, 2002. The cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians is spiraling out of control. Hundreds are killed on both sides. For several weeks, it is war. But only nine years earlier, everything looked different. In 1993, the Oslo peace accords were signed on the White House lawn. ITZHAK RABIN, Israeli Prime Minister, 1992-1995: Ladies and gentlemen, the time for peace has come. NARRATOR: Palestinians and Israelis agree "It is time to put an end to decades of confrontation and conflict" and "strive to live in peaceful co-existence and mutual dignity and security and achieve a lasting peace." Soon Israel begins its withdrawal, as promised. Jericho and Gaza are transferred to the Palestinians. Yasser Arafat - Israel's implacable enemy for 30 years - returns from exile to establish the Palestinian Authority. The parties had agreed that the core issues - permanent borders, settlements, Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem - would be addressed later. In an atmosphere infused with hope, Prime Minister Rabin, his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, and Chairman Arafat are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. YASSER ARAFAT, Chairman, Palestinian Authority: [October 14, 1994] Once again, I congratulate my partners in peace, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, for winning the Nobel Prize for Peace. NARRATOR: But not everyone embraces the peace process. Some Palestinians want to destroy Israel, not live side by side with it. And some Israelis mistrust Arafat and believe that all of ancient Judea and Samaria - the West Bank - should be theirs. To them, Rabin's policy of exchanging land for peace is anathema. Prime Minister YITZHAK RABIN, et al: Sing a song of peace. Do not whisper a prayer- NARRATOR: Then, on November 4, 1995, following a peace rally in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Rabin is assassinated by a Jewish extremist. Two days after the assassination, heads of state arrive from around the globe to mourn Yitzhak Rabin. They come to pay tribute to the man who, as a general, had once conquered Jerusalem and the West Bank, and later, as a statesman, had chosen the path of peace. For most Arab leaders, this is the first time they have ever set foot in Israel. [click here to continue]