Cairo Donor Conference Nets $5 bn for Gaza Reconstruction;
Israelis Block Gaza Reconstruction
Shorter AFP: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will try to tell Binyamin Netanyahu, the far rightwing prospective prime minister of Israel, that he should allow the rebuilding of Gaza and start up a peace process that leads to a Palestinian State. Netanyahu ask her to let him bomb Iran and go on colonizing the West Bank and making sure there is a never a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu probably won't get his way on Iran, but he likely will keep the Palestinians stateless, i.e., in subhuman conditions.
Clinton arrives in Israel from a donors conference in Cairo that raised $5 bn. Unfortunately, Israel won't let most of it in, since it is trying to half-starve the Palestinians into submission. And the only realistic conduit for that amount of money is the Palestinian Authority bureaucracy in Gaza, which was taken over by Hamas when it won the January, 2006 elections. But the US and Israel refuse to deal with Hamas and won't let the money go through bureaucracies it controls (all the relevant ones). Washington and Tel Aviv will probably try to use the money to bolster Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction within the Palestinian authority. What they can't understand is that Palestinians have excellent bs meters, and don't support people they view as corrupt collaborators. The frantic search for the 'good Palestinian' only creates unpopular failures over time, in the nature of the case.
Anyway, rebuilding is pretty hard when Israel won't let in concrete for . . . rebuilding.
Aljazeera English reports on the challenges of rebuilding Gaza and the Israeli blockade that is keeping basic materials out. 90% of Gaza's water is unsafe to drink, and the damage the Israelis did the sewage treatment plant has sent raw sewage into the drinking water.
Veteran journalist and Palestine expert Helena Cobban is in the area and has been filing some eye-opening reports at her blog on the condition of the Palestinians.
Although the Israeli Right is basking in its electoral victory and confident it can pound Gaza into submission, in fact, the current situation is just not viable over time. Here is a glimpse of what the future looks like if there is no progress on peace (translated by the USG Open Source Center):
Nabulus Governor: 'Armed Struggle' Fatah's 'Only' Option If Peace Talks Fail
"Muhaysin at al-Bay'ah Festival: Armed Struggle Fatah's Alternative If Negotiations Fail" -- Ma'an
Ma'an News Agency
Monday, March 2, 2009
Document Type: OSC Translated Excerpt . . .
Nablus, 25 February (Ma'an) -- Nabulus Governor Jamal Muhaysin warned of the repercussions of the failure of the negotiations with Israel and stressed that Fatah's only alternative would be the armed struggle in case the negotiations failed.
In a speech he delivered at the PLO's al-Bay'ah festival attended by over 100,000 demonstrators in Nabulus, Muhaysin said: "He who thinks that Fatah's only alternative is the negotiations is wrong. Rather, all alternatives, including the armed struggle, would be open if our extended hand for peace were not met with reciprocity," adding that "Jerusalem is the gate of both peace and war, and Israel's practices on the ground, such as the settlement construction as well as other practices, are actions of war."
He also said: "Thousands have gathered on 25 February to express their support for the PLO as the legitimate and sole representative of the Palestinian people. By doing so, these demonstrators are heeding the call of the martyrs, injured and prisoners who have sacrificed their lives to ensure that the PLO retains its status as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinians."
Muhaysin stressed that the PLO had opened 120 Palestinian embassies all over the world throughout its 40 years of struggle and sacrifices. In addition, he delivered a fierce attack on Khalid Mish'al, chairman of HAMAS political bureau, accusing him "of sparking the rift in Palestine."
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/03/2009 12:58:00 AM
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8 Comments:
I'm sorry, but we need a little less realism and a little more determination. We The People need to make it very very clear to Obama that we want him to tell Netanyahu where to get off. Period. It's time to end the bs that has Israel acting like it tells us what time it is. NO. We tell Israel what time it is. Israel couldn't stomp around the Middle East like a Giant Monster Robot if WE didn't provide the arms and money.
I don't want Clinton to cajole Netanyahu. I want her to tell him to stop threatening Iran and start making peace. I hope most Americans agree with me. I think most do, at least when they are given a little knowledge that goes past the propaganda.
And there's the rub. As long as the American political establishment, including Obama and especially Clinton, continue to threaten Iran with war if it doesn't knuckle under, continues to make issues out of nonissues (we have more interests in common with Iran at this point than we have in opposition to Iran), continues to refuse to recognize that Hamas HAS been entering the political process and leaving violence behind, whilst Israel has been doing the exact opposite - as long as the American Political Establishment seeks to Bully and control the rest of humanity - we won't be in a position to even suggest (with any credibility) to Israel that they JUST might want to chill a little.
Bibi sure is full of it...
I'm not holding my breath waiting for the far-from-courageous Israelis to bomb Iran. It would be quite a departure from Standard Operating Procedure for the IAF, or the IDF for that matter, to launch an attack on a country with the ability to fight back. Bibi will quickly discover that bombing undefended women, children and UN assets in Gaza and Lebanon hasn't prepared his subjects or his warriors for the full consequences of a real war.
Since the Gaza massacre several Israeli spin doctors have cast it as "teaching Iran a lesson". That tells us all we need to know about Israel's forthcoming attack on Iran itself - just after the 12th of Never.
90% of Gaza's water is unsafe to drink, and the damage the Israelis did the sewage treatment plant has sent raw sewage into the drinking water.
Isn't this the same strategy used by the US against Iraq at the end of the first Gulf War? Didn't we make a point of bombing Iraqi public health infrastructure-- water treatment plants, waste treatment plants, electrical generators, hospitals, food supplies, etc-- then conduct an embargo to prevent replacement and repairs? Isn't this the common practice of war against civilians as waged by the US? Why blame the Zionists? They are only following the humane example of George Bush I and Secretary Clinton's husband. It shouldn't be too surprising that Secretary Clinton approves.
Re: Shorter AFP . Bravo Juan , you summed it up so nicely. Bravo you said everything there is to say in that article . Spot on .
Having lived in Israel for the good part of a year in the 70's, I found the Israelis to be proud of having created a homeland in a mostly vacant land. Many told me that there was no such thing as a Palestinian because those people were really just a nomadic people who had greater ties to the surrounding countries. They had rights (only those few rights existed in those other arab countries.)
I was told to look at the productivity of the land that had been created by jewish settlers and, then, see the few arab farmers using plow and camel. Didn't this prove that this created the truth that the Israelis deserved that land. And the fact that they took the land legally by buying title from mostly Turkish landlords who held title from the time of the Ottoman Empire or by appropriating the most arrable land as farm/army posts (called nachal (pioneer) kibbutzes. Millions of dollars were flowing in from the Jewish Federation to buy the land and do the development.
It is part of the Israeli mindset to believe that Palestinians don't exist. Their existance would confuse their claim to the right to create a Jewish state. Just as appartheid South Africans didn't consider the black population to exist except as refugees from the north who came to South Africa to escape the poverty of their own lands. (I was always troubled by the close relationship that existed at that time with SA.)
Both the US under Bush and Israel depend upon creating as much distrust of Arabs in order to justify maintaining a war status in the area that props up their rights of control in the region.
wershop
Brilliant comment . I loved it . I do hope more Americans will urge Obama to put real pressure on Israel so Peace can be achieved . if we count on Israel , it wont happen .
I hope that Obama will find his voice on Iran and Palestinian policies and will become our De Gaulle, and produce real peaceful ending; otherwise I fear the worst - the economic crisis here will do it for him and he will not become a great historic person.
It appears that both Israelis and Arabs have been radicalized by recent events.
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