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Israelis fear Blair's influence over Bush
(Chris McGreal, The Guardian, March 28, 2003)
Sharon furious as Britain steers White House to strong commitment on independent Palestinian state . . . Israel protested to Tony Blair yesterday at what it called his "worrying and outrageous" comments linking the war in Iraq to a settlement of the Palestinian conflict, and at Jack Straw's accusations of western double standards over the enforcement of UN resolutions on Israel. . . . reflected a growing Israeli fear that Mr Blair now exercises more influence than Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, over White House policy on the Jewish state. . . . The Israelis are particularly unnerved at the prospect of Mr Blair stiffening American demands over illegal Jewish settlements and forcing the pace on the creation of an independent Palestinian state far beyond the emasculated dependency Mr Sharon has in mind. . . . Earlier this week, Mr Blair said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a primary cause of the rift between the Islamic world and the west, and that resolving it would be a British and American priority once the Iraq war was over. . . . Mr Straw said there was "real concern that the west has been guilty of double standards - on the one hand saying the United Nations security council resolutions on Iraq must be implemented, on the other hand, sometimes appearing rather quixotic over the implementation of resolutions about Israel and Palestine". . . . Mr Sharon has had little choice but to embrace the road map publicly because he cannot afford to cross Mr Bush. But the Israeli government has done all it can to stall implementation. . . . However, some of Mr Sharon's aides are counting on powerful hawks in the US administration and the power of the pro-Israel lobby to offset Mr Blair's influence once the Iraq war is out of the way.

posted by LoZo 10:51 AM

 

Rachel's war
(The Guardian, March 18, 2003)
This weekend 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a bulldozer as she tried to prevent the Israeli army destroying homes in the Gaza Strip. In a remarkable series of emails to her family, she explained why she was risking her life

Hi friends and family, and others . . . no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see it . . . Today, as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me from the other side of the border, "Go! Go!" because a tank was coming. And then waving and "What's your name?". Something disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids. Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. . . . hear an escalation of war on Iraq is inevitable. There is a great deal of concern here about the "reoccupation of Gaza". Gaza is reoccupied every day to various extents but I think the fear is that the tanks will enter all the streets and remain here instead of entering some of the streets and then withdrawing after some hours or days to observe and shoot from the edges of the communities. If people aren't already thinking about the consequences of this war for the people of the entire region then I hope you will start. . . . I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers outside our house . . . I am really scared for the people here. Yesterday, I watched a father lead his two tiny children, holding his hands, out into the sight of tanks and a sniper tower and bulldozers and Jeeps because he thought his house was going to be exploded. . . . This is in the area where Sunday about 150 men were rounded up and contained outside the settlement with gunfire over their heads and around them, while tanks and bulldozers destroyed 25 greenhouses - the livelihoods for 300 people. . . . The vast majority of people here - even if they had the economic means to escape, even if they actually wanted to give up resisting on their land and just leave (which appears to be maybe the less nefarious of Sharon's possible goals), can't leave. Because they can't even get into Israel to apply for visas, and because their destination countries won't let them in (both our country and Arab countries). So I think when all means of survival is cut off in a pen (Gaza) which people can't get out of, I think that qualifies as genocide. Even if they could get out, I think it would still qualify as genocide. . . . When I am with Palestinian friends I tend to be somewhat less horrified than when I am trying to act in a role of human rights observer, documenter, or direct-action resister. They are a good example of how to be in it for the long haul. I know that the situation gets to them - and may ultimately get them - on all kinds of levels, but I am nevertheless amazed at their strength in being able to defend such a large degree of their humanity - laughter, generosity, family-time - against the incredible horror occurring in their lives and against the constant presence of death.

posted by LoZo 9:36 PM

 

Palestinians in imminent danger of war crimes under cover of Iraq war
(Uri Avnery, Palestinian Emergency Committee and Israeli Emergency Committee, 10 March 2003)
Israel planning Palestinian ethnic cleansing under cover of Iraq war
The present Israeli political-military leadership includes groups that have been planning for a long time to exploit a war situation in order to do things which cannot be done in ordinary times. . . . All this can change in a war situation. The attention of the world will be riveted to the battle in Iraq. In the Arab countries, chaos may prevail, diverting attention from the Palestinian territories. The Israeli public, fearful of Saddam's capabilities, will be (even) less sensitive to the plight of the Palestinians. . . . The first - and almost certain - act will be a prolonged closure and curfew in all the occupied territories. . . . It is clear to the Palestinians that the war will give the occupation forces the opportunity to intensify even more the things which happen now every day: the execution of militants and others, wholesale demolition of homes, uprooting of plantations. It is difficult to know what new dimensions these can attain. . . . But there is one word that hovers over all the discussions: "transfer". . . . In simple terms, "transfer" means the mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from Palestine, as happened in 1948 and 1967. In the situation of 2003, that will be difficult. The question will be: where to? . . . there is another form of transfer: deportation from one part of the occupied territories to another. For example: deportation of the population from towns and villages adjacent to the planned "separation wall" (Kalkilya, Tulkarm) to the central areas (Nablus). . . . That has already happened before. During the June 1967 war, Moshe Dayan emptied whole neighbourhoods of Kalkilya and drove their inhabitants on foot to Nablus. . . . It is common knowledge that many people in the military leadership are waiting impatiently for the opportunity to remove Yasser Arafat. Removing means killing, as nobody believes that Arafat will surrender without resistance. If the Americans want "regime change" in Iraq and are not hiding their intention of killing Saddam, why should Sharon be prevented from doing the same? . . . The question is: will the Americans allow Sharon and his accomplices to do all this, or part of it? . . . The group that is now in control in Washington - a mixed bag of Evangelical fundamentalists and Jews connected with the extreme right in Israel - has a logic of its own. They may direct and even push Sharon to extremes. . . . Things may happen that will destroy for generations any possibility of building a bridge over the abyss, and turn the whole Arab and Muslim worlds against us forever. . . . Therefore, we should not rely on the Americans to stop Sharon. We, the Israelis, must do everything - but everything! - to prevent such acts from taking place. I believe that this is a patriotic duty of the highest order.

posted by LoZo 8:30 PM

 

Isralis Murder American Peace Worker ... then they killed a Palestinian who tried to help her
(Janine DeFao, San Francisco Chronicle, March 17, 2003)
In an e-mail to her family on Feb. 7, two weeks after her arrival in the Gaza Strip, Rachel Corrie wrote that "no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing . . . could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here." . . . She described the prevalence of gun towers and tanks, the destruction of wells and homes. She said 602 homes in Rafah had been bulldozed, and called on other Americans to join her efforts, saying there were not enough international activists there to prevent the demolitions. . . . Corrie had arrived in Gaza on Jan. 24 and planned to stay three months, participating in projects from guarding the remaining water pump in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip to standing in front of bulldozers. . . . Corrie was part of a group of eight activists, four of them Americans -- including three from Olympia -- in Rafah working with the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led group using nonviolent action to resist the Israeli occupation. . . . They had been in no-man's-land for two or three hours, occasionally sitting between bulldozers and homes targeted for demolition, said Tom Dale, a British member of the group. . . . The Israeli government called Corrie's death an accident, but fellow activists refused to believe her death was accidental. . . . "I think it's clear the driver saw her and knew she was there. She was clearly visible and trying to communicate with the driver," said Hewitt, 25, also of Olympia. "I started waving my arms and yelling, 'You're killing my friend.' But they didn't stop."

posted by LoZo 2:50 PM

 

British Ambassador warns of Increased Israeli Atrocities to Palestinians in Case of War in Ira

From: Jewish Peace News
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 6:44 AM
Subject: [JPN] British Ambassador warns of Increased Israeli Atrocities in Case of War in Iraq

[The following was received yesterday from Susi Mordechai, a longtime peace and human rights activist from Israel. For some time now, groups of Palestinian activists and groups in the Israeli anti-occupation community, as well as a few journalists, have been warning of the possibility that Israel's government and army will take the opportunity of a US attack against Iraq to severely increase the already extreme violence being perpetrated against Palestinans in the occupied territories, and even further destroy the structure of Palestinian society by moving large numbers of people from place to place, possibly expelling some from the territories altogether, and making daily living even more impossible than it is at present. There are indications that such actions may extend to Palestinians within Israel as well. This list receives regular reports on Israel's violent destruction of the fabric of dignified daily life in the occupied territories; the "accidental" killings of non-combatants, children, the home demolitions, the summary executions of suspects, the enforced shortage of water, food, education and work. What may be less well known is the fact that over the past months and weeks, a series of systematic government measures inside Israel -- demolitions of "illegally constructed" homes in the towns of Arara, Lod, Kufur Qassem and others, as well as the destruction of newly sprouted fields of wheat grown by Bedouins in the Negev -- seem to be aimed at inciting desperation, anger and protest. The last mass protest of Palestinian citizens of Israel, at the outbreak of the second Intifada, in October 2000, led to Israeli police shootings of 13 Palestinian citizens of Israel, and to a much deepened perception of Palestinian citizens as an enemy among the Jewish public, legitimizing a dramatic rise in overt racist discourse. RM]

= = = = = = = = = =
Friends,
In an interview with the British Ambassador to Germany on InfoRadio Berlin, Sunday 9/3/03, one of the hosting journalists tells what he had learned the previous day:

"The Mossad has contacted the German security services in order to secure that Germany does not protest when, as the war on Iraq begins, Israel starts to drive Palestinians out from Palestinian areas."

The program is Pressetreff (Meet the Press), hosted by Volker Mayr with discussants Hans-Hermann Klare, head of Stern Magazine foreign desk and J?rgen Hogrefe of the Der Spiegel. The British Ambassador to Germany is Sir Paul Lever.

Please circulate this as widely as possible especially to media outlets.

Susy Mordechay
Giv'ataim, Israel

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jewish Peace News (JPN) is an edited news-clipping and commentary service provided by A Jewish Voice for Peace. JPN's editors are Adam Gutride, Amichai Kronfeld, Rela Mazali, Sarah Anne Minkin, Judith Norman, Mitchell Plitnick, Lincoln Shlensky, and Alistair Welchman. The opinions expressed by the editors and presented in the articles sent to this list are solely those of their authors, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of A Jewish Voice for Peace.

A Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is a San Francisco Bay Area grassroots organization dedicated to the human, civil and economic rights of Jews, Palestinians, and all peoples in the Middle East.

For more information about JVP, please visit our web site at www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org

posted by LoZo 1:51 PM

 

Gush Shalom alert
We try to shout before it happens - here is the text of our emergency ad in Ha'aretz

Soldier / Civilian / IDF Civil Employee � WARNING

Powerful factors in Israel may intend to take advantage of the American attack on Iraq in order to transfer parts of the Palestinian population.
According to article 4 of the Geneva Convention, the following acts constitute war crimes:

--Expelling the population from occupied territories to other countries. (For example: deportation to Jordan or Lebanon.)

--Transferring the population from one part of the occupied territories to another. (For example: Deportation from Kalkilya and Tulkarm to Nablus.)

--Demolition of homes without an immediate military necessity.

If you have received, in the course of your duties or any other way, information that may be connected to such acts, including:

--An exceptionally large order for means of mass transportation.

--An order for or preparation of tents, blankets, food packages etc..

--Infrastructure works for large camps in unexpected localities.

--Preparations for calling up large numbers of reserve logistic units.

--Plans or preparations for cutting off communications or electricity in the occupied territories.

--Other plans or preparations that might suggest a connection with possible plans of expulsion.

You are requested to report this information to the Army Chief Advocate, military post 9605, fax 03-5694370, or the Legal Advisor to the Government, fax 02-6274481.

Any person who participates in the planning or execution of war crimes is in peril of being indicted sooner or later, in Israel or abroad. The statute of limitations does not apply to war crimes, nor is it a valid defense that one "only followed orders".

posted by LoZo 10:51 AM