4.08.2003
Moshe Dayan: "We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is a Jewish state here. In considerable areas of the country [the total area was about 6%] we bought the lands from the Arabs. Jewish Villages were built in place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalal [Dayan's own village] arose in the place of Mahalal, Gevat-- in the place of Jibta, [Kibbutz] Sarid-- in the place of Haneifs and Kefar Yehoshua-- in the place of Tell Shaman. There is not one place in the country that did not have a former Arab population." [Ha`aretz, April 4 1969]
Quoted from"The Question of Palestine" by Edward Said
Another American citizen has been shot in Israel. 24 year old New Mexico native Brian Avery was shot in the face . It seems that he and another peace activist, wearing reflective vests and under a streetlight had thier hands in the air at the time the IDF soldier fired the machinegun on the Armored Personel Carrier. Read a bit more on current "land confiscation" as it applies to Palestinian folks; there is also some more Avery information toward the bottom. Mr Avery has a birthday coming up, wish him well.
brianjenin AT yahoo DOTcom
Your tax dollars at work.
The Sharon government seems set on adding some speedbumps to the "Roadmap for Peace", maybe better put as "Checkpoints"; while it looks like our Legislators from both sides of the aisle will see it stall.
Ariel Sharon has brushed aside an appeal by the White House to stop an unprecedented move by Jewish settlers into a Palestinian district of Jersualem which his critics say will further hinder a political settlement.
After more than two years of legal and political wrangling, Mr Sharon's office approved the plan last week and the first Jewish families have moved into new flats in the Ma'aleh Ha'zeitim settlement, beside the densely populated Arab district of Ras al-Amoud.
It is the first time a Jewish settlement has been built in a Palestinian area of Jerusalem since Israel seized control of the entire city in 1967.
The first settlers at the apartment complex, just a few hundred metres from the Wailing Wall, include a millionaire, Irving Moskowitz, and his son-in-law Ariel King, a far-right political activist.
More than 100 more families are expected to move in during the coming months.
I'll offer you a bit of context to help make sense of the above article.
"When Caliph Umar took possession of the holy city of Jerusalem, he ensured that the Christians remain in secure possession of their holy places and enjoy full religious liberty. Umar also invited the Jews, who had always been forbidden to reside permanently in Jerusalem while it was under Christian rule, to return to the holy city. Seventy families from Tiberias came to settle in Jerusalem, establishing a quarter for themselves beside the Muslim community at the foot of their old Temple Mount. Umar also
purified the site of the ancient Jewish Temple, which had remained in ruins for nearly six centuries. Umar built a simple wooden mosque at the southern end of the cleared platform, where al-Aqsa Mosque now stands. For this piety, some Jews hailed the Muslims during the seventh century as the precursors of the Messiah." (Karen Armstrong, Journal of Palestine Studies, The Holiness of Jerusalem, Volume XXVII, Number 3, Spring 1998, p. 15)
You'll note that the "Right of Return" is invoked; a right not given to the displaced inhabitants that have had roots there for the last eighteen and a half hundred years. Here is a historical reference.
Now AIPAC is in the news a lot lately.
Here is Mr Powells speech to AIPAC if you'd like to give it a look.
The April 1 news story "For Israel Lobby Group, War Is Topic A, Quietly," about the recent convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, reported that half of the Senate and a third of the House were present. It also said that AIPAC seeks to avoid public scrutiny and that the White House insisted that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice's address to 2,000 members of the organization be off the record.
Thanks to this article we know that Ms Rice was booed at one point, while talking about illegal settlements (really good links and maps)in the West Bank and Gaza.
Please read this report from MERIP and get a handle on the complex mix of right wing think tanks and neocon ideologues that find violence more expediant than diplomacy for the aims of corporate Empire.
...conservative and hawkish think tanks like the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), established in 1997 and chaired by William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. Before they entered the administration, JINSA's board of advisors included Cheney, Undersecretary of State John Bolton and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. Richard Perle, recently compelled to resign from the chairmanship of the quasi-governmental Defense Policy Board under a cloud of scandal, still serves on the board of JINSA. PNAC affiliates include Cheney and his chief of staff Lewis Libby, Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, Bolton, special envoy to "Free Iraqis" Zalmay Khalilzad, Secretary of State Colin Powell's deputy Richard Armitage and Elliott Abrams, a rehabilitated Iran-contra criminal who now serves as National Security Council adviser for the Middle East. JINSA and PNAC, along with a similar think tank called the Center for Security Policy, combine WINEP's vocal advocacy for the US-Israeli alliance with calls for greatly increased US defense spending and unapologetic US intervention abroad.
Where WINEP and AIPAC tend to hew to the line of whichever Israeli government is in power, JINSA associates align themselves with the territorial ambitions of the Israeli right. As early as July 8, 1996, Perle, Feith and a special assistant to John Bolton named David Wurmser sought to make common cause with the Likud Party for a war against Iraq. Perle presented a position paper prepared in consultation with Feith, Bolton, Wurmser and others to newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The paper, written under the auspices of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies based in Washington and Jerusalem and entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," advocated that Israel repudiate the Oslo accords and seek permanent annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Even more provocatively, it urged Israel to support Jordan in advocating restoration of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq and the elimination of the regime of Saddam Hussein -- "an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right."
The "Clean Break" paper appealed to the Likud's general strategic vision. A preemptive war against Iraq would legitimate the principle of using force to solve diplomatic and political problems...
PNAC Info to learn about and keep an eye on the Program for a New American Century.
American Samizdat has been pretty hot lately; inspiring me today while suffering the slings and errors of Blogspot and my home pc.
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The frustration of working to save Democracy with questionable technology...
Permalinks seem fixed... Now about that error thing all of a sudden plagueing the 'puter...
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I'm working on fixing my permalinks; PLEASE send any suggestions along...
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