Cartoon by Joep Bertrams, The Netherlands

By Stephen Lendman * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

And Tunisians, and Yemenis, and Algerians, and Jordanians, and Lebanese, and, of course, Palestinians, suffering for over six decades after Israel stole their historic homeland, over 43 years under brutal, suffocating occupation. Their struggle is ours, and it's high time we reacted, showing spirit as courageous as theirs.

In her latest January 31 article, Phyllis Bennis headlined, "Tunisia's Spark and Egypt's Flame: the Middle East is Rising," asking:

"Is this how empires end, with people flooding the streets, demanding resignation of their leaders and forcing local dictators out? Maybe not entirely, (but the) legacy of US-dominated governments across the region will never be the same. The US empire's reach in the resource-rich and strategically vital Middle East has been shaken to its core....The years of Washington calling the shots (based on its) version of 'stability' are definitively over."

On February 3, Haaretz writer Ari Shavit agreed, headlining "The Arab revolution and Western decline," saying:

"After half a century during which tyrants have ruled the Arab world, their control is weakening. After 40 years of decaying stability....rot is eating (it). The Arab masses will no longer accept" old ways. It's "been roiling beneath the surface" for years....suddenly (erupting) in an intifada of freedom." The Tunisian "bastille fell, the Cairo (one) is falling and" others in the Arab world will follow. "The old order is crumbling." So is Western "international hegemony....The West has lost it. (It's no longer a global) leading and stabilizing force....In Cairo's Tahrir Square....Western hegemony is fading away."

On February 3 Immanuel Wallerstein headlined, "The Second Arab Revolt: Winners and Losers," saying:

Britain and France betrayed the 1916 revolt "led by Sharif Hussein bin Ali for Arab independence from the Ottoman Empire." After WW II, America succeeded them as regional hegemon. For years, "(t)he second Arab Revolt has been brewing," ignited by events in Tunisia. At issue is why this succeeded when others failed, and what's next?

Regime "fissures" created opportunities. At this point, events are fluid, outcomes uncertain. Months will pass before winners and losers are known. "(N)o Arab state today (has) a strong organized, secular, radical party like the Bolsheviks (in Russia), ready to take power." Most "organized movements are the Islamist ones," but they vary from moderate to extreme, as well as "in-between varieties (like) the Muslim Brotherhood." As a result, outcomes are uncertain.

Also important is outside influence, mainly Washington's, so far the "great loser," evident by its waffling when decisiveness is needed. The revolt's backdrop includes outrageous wealth distributions, growing global poverty and depravation, and America's weakened dominance, exacerbated by Middle East events.

In contrast, Iran is the biggest winner, though non-Arab, then Turkey by supporting the Arab revolt and confronting Israel. Hopefully, over time, Arabs will benefit most. So far, it's too soon to tell, especially since obstacles facing them are formidable.

A Spark Turned Into Revolt

First in Tunisia, popular dissent spread quickly, Egypt its epicenter as Washington's regional imperial lynchpin, rocked by mass outrage, so far sustained. Rarely ever have Americans matched it. Today, they're practically quiescent, despite an unaddressed worsening economic crisis devastating millions.

On February 1, a New York Times editorial headlined, "Beyond Mubarak," urging him to step aside and let an interim government run "truly free elections." Where's The Times' outrage about America's fantasy democracy, imperial lawlessness, dysfunctional governance, rigged elections more kabuki theater than real, and its corporate-run dictatorship, causing appalling levels of unaddressed human need.

Why isn't it urging public outrage demanding change, instead of worrying about "Egypt's next government (being less) friendly to Washington (than) this one," and saying if "Egypt devolves into chaos, it will feed extremism throughout the region."

In fact, populist liberating extremism is glorious, whether or not Barry Goldwater meant it, saying "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, (and) moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"

Uprisings are testing America's Middle East iron grip. Matching homeland ones are now crucial, demanding real, not fake democracy, freedom, jobs, education, health care, and overall economic justice, the kind Franklin Roosevelt suggested in his last State of the Union address, proposing a second bill of rights, saying the first one "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness."

His solution: an "economic bill of rights," guaranteeing:

• employment with a living wage;
• freedom from unfair competition and monopolies;
• housing;
• medical care;
• education;
• social security and more, overall what he inadequately provided in his first 11 years, except for measures like the 1935 Wagner Act letting workers, for the first time, bargain collectively on even terms with management, and the landmark Social Security Act, keeping millions of retirees, disabled, and qualified survivors from impoverishment's ravages.

He also stressed other measures, including:

• "A realistic tax law - which will tax all unreasonable profit," corporate and individual;
• "A cost of food law" with floor and ceiling limits on prices; and
• reenactment of the October 1942 stabilization statute, pertaining to prices, wages and salaries affecting the cost of living, saying:

"We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence."

Today, these ideas are abandoned at a time of an unprecedented wealth gap, and officials ignoring essential needs of growing millions, on their own and out of luck because both major parties spurn them.

Instead they rampage globally, bail out bankers and other corporate favorites, and enact repressive laws, heading America toward banana republic harshness, tyranny and ruin. No matter. So far, public outrage is absent. For how long is at issue.

Spreading Revolutionary Fervor

On February 1, trends watcher Gerald Celente headlined, "Revolutionary Fervor to Spread Beyond Arab States; Europe Next," saying:

"The unintended consequences of the regime changes in North Africa and the Middle East" will be as dramatic in Europe, resulting in governments ousted. World leaders and media aren't "recognizing the Egyptian uprising for what it is: a prelude to a series of civil wars that will lead to regional wars, that will lead to the first 'Great War' of the 21st century."

In spring 2010, Celente published a report titled, "The History of The Future: Trends 2012 - The Great War," saying:

Gripped by the "Greatest Depression," he suggested possible "Armageddon Day" in December 2012. "Who would have thought," he asked? "On the way....there was no hint of it in the media, mainstream or alternative," despite plenty of "obvious dots" to connect, revealing "a range of possible outcomes."

What's ahead? "Renaissance or Ruin," he asked. Prepare yourself! "The path to war is already clearly defined. The fires of hatred and revenge have been fueled by decades of persecution and injustice....In the absence of a 'Great Awakening,' there will be a 'Great War.' " Or is a "Renaissance 2012" possible, similar to when:

• America's role model was Main Street, not Wall Street;
• Bedrock middle class values mattered;
• Industrial America offered high-pay, good benefit jobs;
• new generations bettered previous ones;
• Family, not factory, farms fed people;
• Real, not Frankenfood, was commonplace;
• "Quality counted, not just the bottom line;"
• corporate power was less dominant;
• community businesses flourished;
• public schools taught, offering inner-city kids chances for higher education achievement and real futures; and
• hope persisted for better times ahead.

That America is gone, yet rebirth is possible "based on the recognition that much of what worked in the past, in principle, could be effectively and profitably applied to the 21st century." However, getting there requires "rethinking and revaluat(ing)....(d)destructive habits masquerading as 'progress,' (reversing) America's quality-of-life decline" that, so far, shows no signs of materializing.

Will future uprisings roil Europe and America? Who can know or when, but without them, real change won't come, just more double talk and false promises, heading America, and perhaps Western civilization, for tyranny and ruin before whatever emerges on the other side, if there is one.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

By Mel Frykberg | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

SHUAFAT, Occupied East Jerusalem - A peaceful morning is interrupted by the sounds of an Israeli helicopter circling overhead - often a sign of trouble on the ground. Later Sunday the news broke: a Palestinian man was shot dead in the village of Issawiya by Israeli paramilitary border police as he tried to enter Israel in search of work.

A father of five, 38-year-old Ezzidine al-Kawazba from Hebron, became the latest Palestinian casualty to die at the hands of the Israeli security forces in disputed circumstances. The policeman who shot al-Kawazba alleged that his weapon went off "accidentally" and that he "didn't mean to kill the laborer."

Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli-Arab minister of the Israeli Knesset, condemned the shooting.

Once again Israel's police officers and border police shoot and kill an Arab in cold blood. This time it was a father to many children who was trying to enter Jerusalem to find work for his livelihood.

Again the automatic false claim was made that a Palestinian tried to take a border policeman's weapon. Will the police force, once again, rally behind this murdering officer? Will he, too, gain the status of a hero that killed another Arab?

Earlier, IPS attended the funeral of Sameh Sarhan from East Jerusalem after he was shot dead by an Israeli security guard, who claimed self-defense, outside the illegal Israeli settlement of King David in occupied East Jerusalem. Video evidence taken at the scene contradicted the security guard's version of events. Sarhan's killing sparked a week of riots.

The latest killing in Issawiya came as two Israeli soldiers were convicted by an Israeli military court of using Palestinians as human shields during Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza December 2008-January 2009, which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, most of them civilian.

The soldiers were convicted of offenses including inappropriate behavior and overstepping authority for ordering an 11-year-old Palestinian boy to search bags suspected to have been booby-trapped.

The Israeli police have said they are investigating the two latest shootings. However, a lack of confidence in the integrity of police investigations when security force members are involved in the killing of unarmed Palestinians has been backed by several Israeli rights groups.

The Israel Democracy Institute is due to release a report accusing the Israeli police of "bias in analyzing evidence" in relation to three Israeli-Arabs shot dead by police during the October 2000 riots (the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising) in northern Israel. Thirteen Palestinians were shot dead and hundreds were injured.

The study investigates the circumstances which prompted then Israeli attorney general Menachem Mazuz to follow the state prosecutor's recommendation to close the inquiries into the deaths of three men on the basis of lack of evidence.

Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer and former Haifa district attorney Lina Saba, who conducted the study, examined files containing dozens of pieces of accumulated evidence.

The Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported that according to the investigators, "the study shows that closing these three cases was unjustified and the Department for Investigating Policemen, and the prosecution, did not complete the investigation. The examination also showed the prosecution took a biased approach in analyzing the evidence."

Several months ago, Israeli policeman Shahar Mizrahi, who shot dead an unarmed Palestinian motorist whom he claimed was a car thief, was sentenced to an original 15 months imprisonment. This was later doubled to 30 months on appeal when an Israeli court found the killing unnecessary as the officer's life was not in danger as he had claimed.

Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Israel's internal security minister, and Dudi Cohen, the police commissioner, said they would immediately seek a presidential pardon for Mizrahi. "I won't merely support a pardon bid, I'll lead it," added Aharonovitch.

Israeli police gave Mizrahi more than $42,500 for legal expenses in the initial criminal case, and a further $50,000 for his appeal to the Supreme Court.

Israeli rights group Yesh Din reported earlier in the year that only "six percent of investigations yielded indictments against Israeli soldiers who harmed Palestinians."

Another Israeli human rights organization, B'tselem, released a report last month, "Void of Responsibility: Israel Military Policy Not to Investigate Killings of Palestinians by Soldiers."

In the report, B'tselem stated that "at the beginning of the second Intifada, the Judge Advocate General's Office announced that it was defining the situation in the Occupied Territories as an 'armed conflict,' and that investigations would be opened only in exceptional cases, in which there was a suspicion that a criminal offense had been committed."

"This policy, which led to a significant drop in military police investigations of homicide cases, ignored the varying character of the army's actions in the Occupied Territories, and treated every act carried out by soldiers as a combat action, even in cases when these acts bear the clear hallmarks of a policing action."

Meanwhile, another Palestinian mosque near Bethlehem was torched and vandalized on Sunday night by Israeli settlers. A number of copies of the Koran were reported destroyed. Clashes then broke out between Palestinians and the settlers. Israeli soldiers subsequently arrived and forced the settlers to retreat, but none were arrested.

Several West Bank mosques have been subjected to settler vandalism and arson attacks since last year. Others have had anti-Arab and anti-Muslim graffiti scrawled on their walls. The Israeli authorities have not charged anyone.

(Inter Press Service)

Arab states should give Israel a choice -- respect international law or continue its racist policies in isolation. (Thaer Ganaim/MaanImages)

By Hasan Abu Nimah* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

As more people recognize that the "peace process" has come to an unbridgeable impasse, there is debate. Some, especially those who prospered from the path of failed negotiations, argue that there is no alternative to continuing with the US-brokered "peace process." Others intimate that a third intifada might be the solution and there have even been warnings of regional war. Others still suggest the Arab states should withdraw their eight-year old Arab Peace Initiative.

Neither war, nor an intifada -- in the sense of a violent Palestinian response to Israel's unrelenting violent aggression -- are the only alternatives. Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, recognized by foreign powers as the head of the Palestinian Authority, has constantly expressed strong opposition to any armed resistance against the occupier, and has frequently condemned and ridiculed resistance. And, after ignoring them for years, Abbas and his colleagues have lately started to endorse and even associate themselves with the nonviolent struggle of Palestinians in the West Bank, which are always met with Israeli aggression and brutality.

This however is not the only kind of nonviolence I see as a possible alternative: there is also a political option. It is important to recognize first that all efforts to settle the century-old conflict caused by the Zionist invasion of Palestine have failed because they were unjust, arbitrary, distant from legality, and did nothing to right fundamental wrongs.

A new political strategy would involve recognizing this basic shortcoming and demand a return to legality, in effect a return to the days before the 1991 Madrid Conference which launched the past two decades of futile "negotiations" and accelerated Israeli colonization.

The Arab States, including the Palestinians, could demand full implementation of Security Council Resolution 242 in the same manner as it was implemented on the Egyptian side leading to the total evacuation of all the Egyptian occupied territories including the removal of all illegally-built settlements on Egyptian soil. This significant precedent should apply to Syria's occupied lands as well.

All the dubious formulas of Oslo, the Quartet, the Roadmap, Annapolis and the many other understandings should be dropped. The two-state solution should be dropped, too. Once the occupation ends and the Palestinians recover their territory they have the right then to establish their state on it independently from any Israeli or other foreign intervention. A Palestinian state on part of their historic homeland is not an Israeli gift. It is a right Palestinians alone can decide to exercise, if they so choose.

The Arab states should insist on a comprehensive deal ending the struggle along such lines in its entirety. What applied to Sinai should exactly apply to the Syrian Golan Heights the West Bank including Jerusalem as the situation exactly was before the Israeli invasion on 5 June 1967. And as all Israeli settlements were removed from Sinai and Gaza they should be removed from the West Bank and the Golan Heights if international law is to be applied.

The Arab States should not withdraw their peace offer. They should only amend it in accordance with the exact requirements of international law. They should not declare war on Israel but they should instead unite in demanding international justice in the United Nations -- not the Quartet -- in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions. They should not negotiate with Israel except through the United Nations apparatus. They should suspend any dealings with Israel until Israel complies with international legality and until justice is realized.

The same should apply to the issue of Palestinian refugees, whom Israel bars from returning home in defiance of international law, justice and common practice because of its totally illegal and immoral position that they are not Jews. International law does not permit such blatant racist discrimination, and Arabs are within their rights to demand it end in accordance with the law.

Under the prevailing circumstances all this may sound unrealistic. Perhaps so, but it seems that achieving Palestinian rights via the path of endless, unprincipled negotiations, or working with the occupation itself, has proven even more unrealistic and counterproductive. If the total closure of the road towards peace is not going to turn into uncontrollable violence this should be seriously considered.

Continuing to negotiate with no purpose and no hope of progress with an intransigent Israel only leads to the degradation of the Palestinian and consequently Arab standing and dignity. It also provides a convenient cover for continued Israeli colonization and judaization of Palestinian and Arab lands.

It is high time to admit that the peace process is dead; that Israel has so far manipulated it to consolidate the gains of its aggression; that exploiting Palestinian weakness and official Arab incompetence can only deepen the mistrust and the radicalization of Arab masses; and that the continued neutralization of the UN system is a recipe for growing violence and terror worldwide.

Arabs should offer Israel a choice of either becoming part of the region by respecting international law and implementing UN resolutions -- which would also guarantee whatever legitimate rights and concerns Israelis have -- or continuing in isolation if it chooses rejection, racism and intransigence.

Of course such Arab positions would be labeled as "radical" and "hard line." The answer to that is simple: it is Israel's insistence on its racist character and its defiance of the law that is radical, hardline and aggressive. Palestinian and Arab insistence on the implementation of UN resolutions that reflect a world consensus and universal rights could not be more moderate or reasonable.

* Hasan Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at the United Nations. This essay first appeared in The Jordan Times and is republished with the author's permission.

Source: Electronic Intifada

By Richard Falk* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Ever since the Balfour Declaration in 1917 gave the formal approval of the British government to the establishment of 'a Jewish homeland' profound issues of legitimacy were present in the conflict recently known as the Israel/Palestine Conflict. This original colonialist endorsement of the Zionist project has produced a steady erosion of the position of the Palestinian people on historic Palestine, which dramatically worsened over the course of the past 43 years of occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. It has worsened due to an oppressive military occupation by Israel that involves fundamental denials of rights and pervasive violations of international humanitarian law, and because Israel has been allowed to establish 'facts on the ground,' which are more properly viewed as violations of Palestinian rights, especially the establishment of extensive settlements and a separation wall constructed on occupied Palestinian territories in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These developments have been flagrantly unlawful, and made the whole treatment of the Palestinian people illegitimate, as well as the occasion of continuous intense and pervasive suffering. For decades, the Palestinian political forces have exercised their right of resistance in various ways, including the extraordinary nonviolent Intifada of 1987, but also engaging in armed resistance in defense of their territory. The Palestinians definitely enjoy a right of resistance, although subject to the limits of international humanitarian law, which rules out deliberate targeting of civilians and non-military targets. Such tactics of resistance challenge Israel at its point of maximum comparative advantage due both to its total military dominance, achieved in part by large subsidies from the United States, and to its ruthless disregard for civilian innocence.

In recent years, especially beginning with the brutal experience of the Lebanon War of 2006 and even more dramatically in the aftermath of the Israeli Invasion of Gaza in 2008-09 (Dec. 27, 2008-Jan. 18, 2009), there has been a notable change of emphasis in Palestinian strategy. The new strategy has been to initiate what might be described as a second war, 'a legitimacy war,' that is essentially based on the reliance on a variety of nonviolent tactics of resistance. Armed resistance has not been renounced by the Palestinians, but it has been displaced by this emphasis on nonviolent tactics. The essence of this legitimacy war is to cast doubt on several dimensions of Israeli legitimacy: its status as a moral and law abiding actor, as an occupying power in relation to the Palestinian people, and with respect to its willingness to respect the United Nations and abide by international law. Those that wage such a legitimacy war seek to seize the high moral ground in relation to the underlying conflict, and on this basis, gain support for a variety of coercive, but nonviolent, initiatives designed to put pressure on Israel, on governments throughout the world, and on the United Nations, to deny normal participatory rights to Israel as a member of international society. These tactics also aim to mobilize global civil society to exhibit solidarity with the Palestinian struggle to achieve legitimate rights, taking the principal form of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS) that operates throughout the entire world, which serves as a symbolic battlefield. But there are other forms of action, as well, including the Free Gaza Movement and Viva Palestina that aim specifically at symbolically breaking the blockade of food, medecine, and fuel imposed in mid-2007, a form of collective punishment that has caused great suffering for the entire 1.5 million population of the Gaza Strip, damaging the physical and mental health of all those living under occupation.

Although the UN has been a failure so far as offering protection (beyond its essential role in providing humanitarian relief in Gaza) to the Palestinians under occupations or even in relation to the implementation of Palestinian rights under international law, it is a vital site of struggle in the legitimacy war. The whole storm unleashed by the Goldstone Report involves challenging the UN to impose accountability on the Israeli political and military leadership for their alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity associated with the Gaza attacks at the end of 2008. Even if the United States shields Israelis from accountability pursuant to the procedures of the UN, including the International Criminal Court, the confirmation of allegations of criminality by the Goldstone Report is a major victory for the Palestinians in the legitimacy war, and lends credibility to calls for nonviolent initiatives throughout the world. The Goldstone Report also endorses 'Universal Jurisdiction' as a means to gain accountability, encouraging national criminal courts of any country to make use of their legal authority to hold Israeli political and military leaders criminally responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Tzipi Livni, the current Kadima opposition leader in Israel, who had been Foreign Minister during the Gaza attacks, canceled a visit to Britain after she received word that a warrant for her arrest upon arrival had been issued. Even if Israeli impunity is not overcome, the authoritativeness of the Goldstone Report lends weight to calls around the world to disrupt normal relations with Israel by boycotting cultural and academic activities, by disrupting trade relations through divestment moves or through refusals to load and unload ships and planes carrying cargo to or from Israel, and by pressuring governments to impose economic sanctions.

The historic inspiration for this legitimacy war is the anti-apartheid campaign waged with such success against the racist regime that ruled South Africa during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Undoubtedly the Palestinian political motivation to focus their energies on waging a legitimacy war came from a variety of sources: disillusionment with efforts by the UN and the United States to find a just solution for the conflict; realization that armed resistance could not produce a Palestinian victory and played into the hands of Israeli diversionary tactics by making 'terrorism' the issue; recognizing that the events in Lebanon and Gaza generated throughout the world widespread anger against Israel and sympathy for the Palestinians, which is gradually weakening earlier European and North American deference to Israel due to Jewish victimization in the Holocaust; and a growing sense that the worldwide Palestinian diaspora communities and their allies could be enlisted to join in the struggle if its essential nature was that of a legitimacy war.

Israeli official and unofficial support groups have recently recognized the threat posed to their expansionist settler colonial grand strategy by this recourse by Palestinians to a legitimacy war. Israeli think tanks have described 'the global justice movement' associated with these tactics as a greater threat to Israel than Palestinian violence, and have even castigated reliance on international law as a dangerous form of 'lawfare.' The Israeli Government and Zionist organizations around the world have joined in the battle through a massive investment in public relations activities that include propaganda efforts to discredit what is sometimes called 'the Durban approach.' As with other Israeli tactics, in their defensive approach to the legitimacy war, there is an absence of self-criticism involving an assessment of Palestinian substantive claims under international law. For Israel a legitimacy war is a public relations issue pure and simple, a matter of discrediting the adversary and proclaiming national innocence and virtue. Despite its huge advantage in resources devoted to this campaign, Israel is definitely losing the legitimacy war.

Even if the Palestinians win the legitimacy war there is no guaranty that this victory will produce the desired political results. It requires Palestinian patience, resolve, leadership, and vision, as well as sufficient pressure to force a change of heart in Israel, and probably in Washington as well. In this instance, it would seem to require an Israeli willingness to abandon the core Zionist project to establish a Jewish state, and that does not appear likely from the vantage point of the present. But always the goals of a legitimacy war appear to be beyond reach until mysteriously attained by the abrupt and totally unexpected surrender by the losing side. Until it collapses the losing side pretends to be unmovable and invincible, a claim that is usually reinforced by police and military dominance. This is what happened in the Soviet Union and South Africa, earlier to French colonial rule in Indochina and Algeria, and to the United States in Vietnam. It is up to all of us dedicated to peace and justice to do all we can to help the Palestinians prevail in the legitimacy war and bring their long ordeal to an end.

*Prof. Richard Falk - is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, writer (the author or co-author of 20 books),[1] speaker, activist on world affairs, and an appointee to two United Nations positions on the Palestinian territories.

By Yousef Munayyer* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

If international law matters to any American president, it ought to be President Obama who has taught constitutional law.

Israel's supporters are wrong to downplay the significance of illegal settlement activity as innocuous building in "Jewish neighborhoods" of Jerusalem. Contrary to Prime Minister Netanyahu's claim that "building in Jerusalem is the same as building in Tel Aviv," according to international law and longstanding U.S. policy, building in East Jerusalem is the same as building in Jenin - or any other city in the occupied West Bank.

Despite all its remonstrating, Israel stands isolated from the entire international community over occupied East Jerusalem. Israel has no legitimate sovereignty on any inch of land beyond the Green Line, regardless of what they call it. As one European foreign minister recently stated: "I think I can say very clearly that Jerusalem is not Tel Aviv." Legally speaking, this rebuke to Netanyahu's bluster is correct, and the U.S. knows it.

Those who watch this conflict closely know that Israeli settlement expansion in Jerusalem has the potential to destroy the two-state solution and precipitate a third intifada. It is no minor matter. Nor was the timing of the announcements of 1600 new Jewish homes in the settlement of Ramat Shlomo during the visit of Vice President Biden, or of 20 more units for a site owned by an American funder of Netanyahu just hours before the prime minister was to meet with Obama.

Netanyahu rejected U.S. calls to halt settlement expansion and his Interior Minister, Eli Yishai -- the same man who started the fracas when Biden visited -- also seems determined to continue flouting the Obama administration.

Undeterred, unrepentant, and still in his job, Yishai declared more than two weeks after the initial incident: "I thank God I have been given the opportunity to be the minister who approves the construction of thousands of housing units in Jerusalem."

And when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced the concern of the Obama administration, MK Danny Danon of Netanyahu's Likud party said her "meddling in internal Israeli decisions regarding the development of our capital, Jerusalem, is uninvited and unhelpful." American organizations such as AIPAC and the ADL then urged the Obama administration to hush while expressing no public dismay at Danon's tongue-lashing of the American secretary of state.

Could you imagine what would happen today if the United States annexed Mexico down to Mexico City, claimed it as part of Texas, then began building US cities there and preventing Mexicans from entering?

Obviously, the rest of the world would not accept the annexation of land through conquest for the United States or any state -- even Israel.

But Jerusalem is not only a flash point because of Israel's ongoing colonization through settlement expansion; this transcends the territorial dimension. Jerusalem is a symbolic city dear to Muslims, Christians and Jews. And as the economic and cultural center of Palestinian life for centuries, it is the only city that could be the capital of a Palestinian state. Likewise, no viable Palestinian state could emerge without East Jerusalem as its capital.

That's why other Israeli provocations in Jerusalem are equally damaging to the diplomatic process and stability in the region. The ongoing de-Arabization of Jerusalem which has accelerated in recent years, demands the immediate attention of all those interested in a just solution to this conflict. From eviction and demolition of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem, to the revocation of residencies and a complex matrix of walls and checkpoints, Israeli policies are slowly sapping Jerusalem of its Palestinian population.

In the Arab and Muslim world, this process playing out daily on the television screens of onlookers is interpreted as nothing short of a colonialist enterprise. (To see a video that explains Israels increasing grip on Jerusalem click here for a flash version and here for a YouTube version.)

While some Israeli spokespersons may claim that there is no need to fuss over building a few houses, the reality is that the Palestinians and others in the Middle East have been watching an ongoing and alarming trend in Jerusalem for decades. Major settlements like Har Homa, Gilo, Ramat Shlomo, Ma'ale Addumim and others, which were developed under the Israeli guise of building in Jerusalem "just like Tel Aviv," have created insurmountable obstacles to sharing Jerusalem between both peoples. The policies of removing or forcing out Palestinians from Jerusalem reinforce the notion that Israel has no intention of returning the land it occupies.

Without Jerusalem on the table, Palestinians not only lack incentive to negotiate, they lack any incentive to maintain the two-state framework.

Jerusalem tumult has the potential to send shockwaves through the Middle East and the broader Muslim world where the United States has far more important interests than the troublemaking state of Israel.

* Yousef Munayyer is Executive Director of the Palestine Center.

By Tariq Shadid* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Nablus - photo by ANSA

American loyalty or subservience?

On March 22, Netanyahu declared before his trip to Washington: "As far as we are concerned, building in Jerusalem is like building in Tel Aviv, and we have made this clear to the Americans." There has been much ado about the 'crisis' in US-Israeli relations, which the media tends to portray as one of the worst in decades, but it seems that most of the differences between the two have already been ironed out. There is obviously more truth in the repeated declarations of unflinching loyalty of US politicians to the Israeli agenda, such as Obama's infamous statement that Jerusalem 'will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided', which he made in his speech to AIPAC the very morning after he secured the Democratic nomination as a presidential candidate in 2008.

This statement was hastily watered down in the following days, when it was answered by the Palestinians and foreign policy commentators with sharp denunciations. International law, after all, has it that East Jerusalem is illegally occupied territory. Despite this, the fact of the matter remains that Israel has been given a free hand in the Judaization of Arab East Jerusalem through the forced eviction of Palestinian residents from their homes, the ongoing excavations underneath the neighborhood of Silwan, the continuing isolation of East Jerusalem from its surrounding Palestinian hinterland, and the announcement of plans for the extensive construction of illegal settler buildings in East Jerusalem.

As Joe Biden declared when he visited the Israelis on March 9th: "There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel in terms of Israel's security. None." He might as well have said 'policy', instead of 'security', if we base our judgment on actions rather than on words.

There is no hard evidence about the alleged master-slave relationship between the United States and Israel. There is however widespread speculation about it, ranging from allegations of an overwhelming influence of the Jewish lobby, to absolute control of the Israeli regime over United States foreign policy. What remains clear is that Israel has always had a green light for its horrendously racist treatment of the Palestinian population, and for its role in forcing other regimes of the region into submission – backed up by the public secret of its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons.

From the horse's mouth

The publication by Harvard scholars Walt and Mearsheimer in 2007 titled 'The Israel Lobby', laid out the mechanisms of how Israel dominates American politics through campaign donations and media clout. Coming straight from the horse's mouth itself, however, American subservience seems to go much further than that. On October 3rd, 2001 Ariel Sharon rebuked Shimon Peres' criticism of his policies on the radio station Kol Yisrael by saying:

"Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it."

Another example: Condoleezza Rice was ordered by George W. Bush to abstain from a vote for a ceasefire in the Gaza War in the UN Security Council on January 12th, 2009. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in a speech in Ashkelon in those days, explained why:

"I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me. I told him the United States could not vote in favor. It cannot vote in favor of such a resolution. He immediately called the Secretary of State and told her not to vote in favor."

The United States has a long tradition of posing as an 'honest broker' in the conflict, despite the fact that it is very well-known that even during this decades-long posturing it has always staunchly and relentlessly served every single Israeli military, strategic and economic objective. With this in mind, one can hardly maintain that the so-called criticism of Israel that was recently uttered by Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton has any serious content or weight. Is it considered normal to have one of the two competing teams provide one of their players as a referee in a World Cup Final? In football, it clearly isn't, but for some reason having a partial referee seems to be an accepted fact in Middle East politics that everyone prefers to leave unmentioned, and accepts as if it is a law of nature.

The rule of weakness

That's why at least part of the blame for the fact that this unclean game has been allowed to continue for nearly two decades, should be sought on the Palestinian side. The acceptance of these policies has resulted in the acquisition of thousands of acres of Palestinian land by the Israelis, the building of a racist infrastructure of illegal walls, settlements and roads in the occupied territories, and the near tripling of the Jewish settler population in the West Bank and Jerusalem – all of this during the period known as the 'Oslo peace process'.

The best illustration of Palestinian co-responsibility may be that Mahmoud Abbas will most likely be remembered as the weakest Arab leader in modern history, proving again and again that whatever he seems to 'demand', he is in truth only 'asking politely'. At first, there would be 'no negotiations' unless there was a 'settlement freeze', but when the Israelis continued unabated and even upgraded their settlement construction efforts, he agreed to 'indirect talks', losing face again widely among the Palestinian and Arab masses – that is, if there was any face left to lose after his Goldstone debacle in October 2009.

If anyone would be asked to name one single achievement of the Palestinian Authority in the period after the assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, he would be very hard pressed to come up with one feat that has even the slightest air of significance or credibility. It is as if the Palestinian Authority have been sent to pose as captains on a sinking ship who are expected to keep the passengers hoping that rescue is on the way, in order to prevent panic and mutiny – while the crew have already been informed by those they are in contact with through the radio, that the damage to the hull cannot be repaired. It makes you wonder if the deal also includes a few helicopters having been made available by the coast guard for the captain and his closest crew members, to bring them to safety right before the ship disappears under the waves – with all of its passengers still on board.

Which Palestinians to support?

The result of this political bargaining, and it having been dragged on year after year, until every Palestinian card was given away by those who were delegated to sit at the poker table in the name of the people, is that it has effectively paralyzed the international community into complete inaction. Since Hamas has unjustly been branded an 'Islamist terrorist organization' by the United States and Europe, and the Palestinian Authority has not displayed any credibility of action nor of principle, the international community is finding itself at a loss on which Palestinians to support.

While non-violent resistance, in the form of the BDS movement and anti-Wall activism, has been taking place on a daily basis in Palestine, it has been largely ignored by the media and completely dismissed by the politicians of Europe and the United States. It becomes more and more difficult to deny that the only things that have been able to put Palestine on the front pages of the world's newspapers have been militant acts of resistance, which are nowadays remembered as actions from a previous era. The mention of them continues to be used against the Palestinian people until today, as if they were acts of sheer cruelty instead of desperate responses to Israeli attempts at annihilation and oppression.

Still, no reward has been given on the political world stage for the daily unarmed protests by many brave Palestinians and internationals, despite the gruesome and lethal response from the Israeli occupation forces. When the Palestinians resisted with weapons against injustice, they were criticized. When they resist non-violently, they are ignored.

It seems that barely any government in the world feels comfortable expressing support for Hamas, based on how the organization has been labeled, despite having won the 2006 elections fairly and squarely. But there is also little hope for the 'other side', although the Palestinian Authority undoubtedly should be the ideal Palestinian partner to do business with from a Western point of view. The proof for this lies in the fact that it has demonstrated an almost complete lack of resistance to the Israeli occupation, and a full willingness to cooperate with anything that sounds even vaguely like a 'solution'. Isn't that exactly what the West wants?

However, the PA apparently has displayed such a lack of spine that even the Western regimes seem to have become increasingly uninterested to pay it any significant political attention, let alone moral support. After all, this Palestinian Authority will obviously only be supported financially for "institution-building", not politically, and only if it complies with Israeli demands.

The end result: the Palestinian people are being forced to go it alone, if they wish to oppose the Israeli occupation.

Jerusalem in danger

The world's mass media gave widespread attention to the approval by the Israeli government given to plans for building 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem, since this was the cause of the embarrassment of the Americans when Joe Biden visited the region. Still, little heed is paid to the bigger picture of Israeli expansion politics. On March 11, Ha'aretz reported that in fact, these housing units were only part of a plan comprising the planned building of some 50,000 new housing units in Occupied Jerusalem.

The fact that such knowledge is not answered by vehement protests from any of the segments of the so-called Quartet, makes it likely that Obama's words spoken during his presidential election campaign were solemn promises which had to be made to secure his candidacy, rather than an unfortunate slip of the tongue. "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided", said Obama. What about international law? Jerusalem isn't recognized internationally as Israel's capital, and it is not a question of division, but of illegal conquest – which is in flagrant violation of the international consensus, and cannot be accepted under any conditions.

This is why the current situation can be seen as a test case for international Middle East politics: if Israel can get away with approving these 1,600, it will have no problem whatsoever with getting the consent of the superpowers for building the remaining thousands of settler homes in East Jerusalem, further consolidating its Judaization of the city. This is cause for high alarm in the Arab and Muslim world, especially considering the excavations below the areas surrounding the Al Aqsa Mosque, and the continuing and increasing provocations such as the establishment of a synagogue and the laying of the first stone for the 'rebuilding of the temple' by orthodox Jewish zionists, which took place recently on March the 16th. These actions were sanctioned by the Israeli government. Rumors of a planned deliberate destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque in order to build that temple seem to be confirmed by these actions – and a powerful response from the Palestinian Authority and the Arab and Muslim world is stunningly absent.

A Third Intifada?

Some people may choose to continue to blame the Palestinians: after all, not all of them advocate a 'political solution' to the problem. Is this strange, considering the options they have been given, and considering the fact that the Palestinian Authority has in all these years failed to give them even one single reason to expect any success from that? Can the people be blamed for wishing to take their fate into their own hands, when they are terrorized on a daily basis by a ruthless genocidal Israeli occupation force, while no convincing efforts against this are being made by those who are internationally accepted as representatives of the Palestinian voice? The recent murder of four Palestinian civilian youngsters within 24 hours in the Nablus region, Mohammad and Useid Qadus (both 16 years), Muhammad Faysal and Salah Muhammad Qawariq (both 19 years) by the Israeli army, which only led to some timid condemnations by representatives of the Palestinian Authority, may yet spell the beginning of a Third Intifada. If people do not see any meaningful action from their leadership, will they sit by idly and watch their sons being shot?

The captain of the ship mentioned before may be using the most gracious words of hope in order to keep his control and authority over the passengers. He may be making promises that hardly anyone could believe, even if they wanted to, except perhaps if their fear of being engulfed by the waves compels them to grasp any floating straw they can find. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether this is how the Palestinian people will respond. History has shown that they are capable of organizing tremendously powerful uprisings, based purely on people power, and on the strength of their social cohesion and dedication to their faith.

If no one else in the world will make any move to protect Al Aqsa, and put a halt to the inhumane aggression of Israeli occupation and expansion, the Palestinian people surely will not grasp at straws, but are bound to grab any stick they can find, and defend themselves against the demolition of their homes, the murder of their children, and the destruction of their holy sites and their national identity.

* Tariq Shadid is a Palestinian surgeon living in the Middle East, and has written numerous essays about the Palestinian issue over the years, and have been bundled in the book "Understanding Palestine". He also runs a website of internationally oriented music dedicated to the Palestinian cause, which can be found at http://www.docjazz.com .

By Jeff Gates* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

During the 1960 Christmas season, Americans flocked to the theaters to see Exodus, a 3-1/2 hour epic film featuring handsome freedom fighters and a riveting romance amidst the heroic triumph of Jewish Destiny over Arab Evil Doers. Set against a Yuletide backdrop of Biblical prophecy, moviegoers marveled as exiled Jews returned to their fabled promised land, a staple of popular culture to which Americans are first exposed as children in "Sunday school."

Many moviegoers failed to realize that Exodus was not fact but fiction. Even now, few Americans realize the storyline was adapted for the screen from a 1958 novel by Leon Uris. The biggest bestseller since Gone with the Wind-a novel set during the Civil War of the 1860s-the filmadaptation was directed by Hollywood icon Otto Preminger. The blockbuster's stars included a young Paul Newman with his leading lady a blond Eva Marie Saint.

The cast included character actor Lee J. Cobb and Peter Lawford, married to Pat Kennedy, a sister of John F. Kennedy who was elected president the same year. By then, Lawford was a famous member of pop culture's high profile "Rat Pack" that included singer Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joey Bishop. Italian crooner Sal Mineo, then a teen heartthrob, received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a Jewish émigré.

An Oscar should have been awarded to Israel and its supporters for portraying this extremist enclave as a legitimate nation-state when, in reality, its founding traces to an alluring storyline. Forty-five years after the release of Exodus, American naiveté was again targeted by Jewish storytellers to induce the U.S. to war in the Middle East-only this time for real.

Then as now, Americans are easily swayed by sympathetic portrayals of an enclave granted nation-state recognition by President Harry Truman, a Christian-Zionist. The Missouri Democrat had famously read the Bible cover-to-cover five times by age 15. Truman was a True Believer in the same way that fundamentalist Christians believe-truly believe-that their Messiah will not return until the "Israelites" recover their ancestral home.

Preying on similar beliefs, Republican George W. Bush, another Christian-Zionist president, was induced with phony intelligence to wage war in Iraq. The false intelligence was traceable to Israelis, pro-Israelis or assets developed for that purpose. That invasion had long been a priority goal of those who believe-truly believe-in their right to an expansionist Greater Israel.

Yet as Shlomo Sand chronicles in The Invention of the Jewish People (2009), the historical evidence is scant either for an exile or an "exodus." As with the movie, the return of a "Jewish People" to a Jewish homeland is "a conscious ideological composition" meant "to claim a higher cultural lineage" than what can be supported by the facts.

In lieu of the novel-writing skills of Leon Uris, the Zionist narrative featured Biblical archeologists such as William F. Albright who, in the 1920s, traveled to the Holy Land to excavate artifacts that would, as Sand puts it: "reaffirm the Old Testament and thereby the New."

By interpreting his finds in Christian-Zionist terms, Albright and his colleagues not only unearthed Biblical "facts" that shaped the Sunday school curriculum, they also helped pre-stage the perceived legitimacy of a Jewish people returning from exile to a Jewish homeland. As Sand points out, if there was no exodus, how can there be a return? If there is no "Jewish People," how can there be a homeland?

Yet these widely held beliefs remain the premise underlying Israel's expansionist agenda and its rationale for heaping six decades of abuse on Palestinians who have lived there for centuries.

Political Expedience or Biblical Prophecy?

White House counsel Clark Clifford cautioned Truman that his reelection was unlikely absent the funding that Jewish-Americans-with Israel's recognition-were eager to provide. In early May 1948, General George C. Marshall, Truman's Secretary of State, argued vigorously against recognition. Strong objections were also heard from the diplomatic corps, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Marshall, the top-ranked U.S. military officer in WWII, was outraged that Clifford put domestic political expedience ahead of U.S. foreign policy interests. Marshall told Truman that he would vote against him if he extended sovereign status to an enclave of Zionist terrorists, religious fanatics and what Albert Einstein and Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt called "Jewish fascists." Marshall insisted that State Department personnel never again speak to Clifford.

In March 1948, a Joint Chiefs paper titled "Force Requirements for Palestine" predicted the "Zionist strategy will seek to involve [the U.S.] in a continuously widening and deepening series of operations intended to secure maximum Jewish objectives." Those objectives included an expansionist agenda for Greater Israel that envisioned the taking of Arab land, ensuring armed clashes in which the U.S. was destined to become embroiled.

The Joint Chiefs listed Zionist objectives as:

- Initial Jewish sovereignty over a portion of Palestine,
- Acceptance by the great powers of the right to unlimited immigration,
- The extension of Jewish sovereignty over all of Palestine,
- The expansion of "Eretz (Greater) Israel" into Transjordan and portions of Lebanon and Syria, and
- The establishment of Jewish military and economic hegemony over the entire Middle East.

Akin to the fictional portrayal in Exodus, those Zionists lobbying Truman assured him they would remain within the initial boundaries. We now know that was a lie. They also promised that the Zionist state would not become what it quickly became: a theocratic and racist enclave-albeit widely marketed by pro-Israeli media as the "only democracy in the Middle East."

To remove all doubt as to the extremist goals of the Zionist project, the Joint Chiefs assessment added ominously:

"All stages of this program are equally sacred to the fanatical concepts of the Jewish leaders. The program is openly admitted by some leaders, and has been privately admitted to United States officials by responsible leaders of the presently dominant Jewish group--the Jewish Agency."

Deceit from the Outset

A beguiling combination of Hollywood fiction, manipulated beliefs and outright lies remain at the core of this entangled alliance and the U.S.-Israeli "special relationship." The deceit deployed to advance the hegemonic goals of the Zionist project remains obscured by an undisclosed media bias reinforced by a widespread pro-Israeli influence in popular culture. As with the 1960 film, the ongoing manipulation of thought and emotion lies at the core of this duplicity a half-century later.

In The Persuasion Explosion (1985), author Art Stevens reports that Exodus was a public relations ploy launched by Edward Gottlieb who sought a novelist to improve Israel's image in the U.S. The name Uris originates with Yerushalmi, meaning "man of Jerusalem." The film rights to Exodus were sold in advance of the book's publication. Translated into dozens of languages, this masterpiece of mental and emotional manipulation quickly became a global phenomenon as its created favorable impressions of Israel.

The rewards are real for those who offer aid and comfort to this trans-generational deceit. When Truman's campaign train traversed the nation as part of a 1948 whistle-stop tour, grateful Jewish nationalists refueled his campaign coffers with a reported $400,000 in cash ($3.6 million in 2010 dollars). Those funds helped transform his anticipated loss into a victory with support from pro-Israeli editorial boards that-after recognition-boosted Truman's sagging popularity.

The Creation of Reliable Assets

Clark Clifford was rewarded with his career goal when he emerged as a top-paid Washington lawyer. After proving himself a pliable personality, he remained a reliable asset. During the G.H.W. Bush presidency, his combination of political prominence and perceived credibility provided cover for a massive bank fraud involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International aided by Roger Altman, his Ashkenazi law partner.

In 2009, Hollywood released an action thriller (The International) starring Clive Owen and a similar storyline involving the International Bank of Business and Credit. Neither Clifford nor Altman had experience in banking when their law firm enabled what prosecutors charged was a global criminal operation.

Media reports described the BCCI scheme as the largest bank fraud in history. This $20 billion transnational operation even featured the requisite Hollywood component: Clifford's protégé was married to Lynda Carter, the star of Wonder Woman, a 1970s fantasy-adventure television series.

The real fantasy in this long-running geopolitical fraud lies in why U.S. lawmakers continue to befriend and defend a "nation" that has for so long-and so consistently-deceived and betrayed its most loyal ally. As a badly miscast Eva Marie Saint asked in her most memorable line in Exodus: "When will it ever end?"

The greatest wonder will be if, based on facts confirming the depth and duration of this duplicity, those lawmakers urging continued support for Israel are not charged with treason. [See: "How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy" http://criminalstate.com/2009/07/how-the-israel-lobby-took-control-of-us-foreign-policy/]

To restore its national security, the U.S. must shake off its entangled alliance with this extremist enclave. "Shaking off" is the literal translation of "intifada." Those who know the true facts behind this trans-generational deception are quickly reaching the conclusion that the recognition of this enclave as a legitimate state was key to this ongoing fraud. Others may be waiting for the movie, American Intifada.

* Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, merchant banker, educator and consultant to governments worldwide; served for seven years as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. He is the author of Guilt by Association, Democracy At Risk and The Ownership Solution. See his website Criminal State

Source: Opinion Maker

By Matt Beynon Rees | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The most important man in Palestinian politics is neither president nor prime minister. He doesn't shuttle between meetings at the US ambassador's residence and the Israeli foreign ministry. In fact, he doesn't go anywhere. He's in an Israeli jail.

Marwan Barghouti, 50, is serving five life sentences handed down by an Israeli court for the murders of a number of Israelis and a foreigner between 2000 and 2002. Though Barghouti was a leader of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the rival group Hamas is demanding his release in return for the freedom of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped and held in the Gaza Strip. The release of Barghouti, who's sometimes called "the Palestinian Nelson Mandela," is a key sticking point in negotiations between Israel and Hamas over Shalit. Israeli officials are prepared to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including many who killed Israelis in terror attacks. But Barghouti is among a coterie of senior Palestinian politicians Israel doesn't want to give up.

Why is that so important? Because many Palestinians see Barghouti as a leader who can reunite them, at a time when they're deeply divided — Fatah against Hamas, Gaza against the West Bank, pro-Iranian against pro-US. A fluent Hebrew-speaker, he has a record as favouring the old Oslo peace accords with Israel, while refusing to eschew violence, which he regards as the right of an occupied people. That makes many Palestinians feel he'd lead them toward peace with a firmer hand than their current leadership, which they often see as weak in the face of American pressure and apparent Israeli intransigence.

Could Barghouti do it? Well, this tiny, bustling, barrel-chested charmer had the power to break the Palestinians apart with the second intifada. Perhaps he retains the street cred to do the job in reverse.

Most journalists explain the onset of the intifada's violence in 2000 with tales of faltering peace talks or "provocative" visits to the Aqsa Mosque compound by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon. I'd sum it up differently. With two words: Marwan Barghouti.

When Yasser Arafat returned to govern the Palestinians in 1994, he divided his leadership. The "Outside" leaders, who returned from decades in Lebanon and Europe, sewed up all the best jobs in the ministries and the security establishment. With disdain, Palestinians called them "the Tunisians," after their last place of exile.

The "Inside" leadership, in turn, felt cheated. They had lived through the occupation and been jailed during the tough years of the first intifada, which they, after all, had headed and which had been the point of pressure that led to Israel's willingness to make a peace deal at all. Barghouti headed the Inside leaders. Born in Kobar, this small, welcoming village in a glen near Ramallah, he co-founded the Fatah youth movement in his teens, was first arrested by Israel at 18, and was key to the first intifada, which began in 1987. (He was deported to Jordan by the Israelis and coordinated the intifada from there.)

This gave him greater support among ordinary Palestinians, who knew and respected him, as opposed to the unknown or, at best, distant figures of the Outside leadership. Yet, under the Oslo Accords, leaders like Barghouti were stymied. Arafat put Outsiders in control of all the cash, jobs, and favours.

Outside the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah in November 1997, I chatted with Barghouti alone. He made some remarks that I simply scribbled in my notebook and attributed to a combination of bluster, bluff and sour grapes.

"The Inside leadership still feels they don't have what's coming to them," Barghouti told me in his rapid speech. "Former intifada leaders, who were very important, are nothing now. Not one of them is in the leadership of the Authority. The people who lived through the intifada will insist on freedom. As a result, maybe the intifada will be renewed, but maybe this time with more violence."

In the end, Barghouti became so disenchanted with Arafat's regime that, when violence broke out in September 2000, he took hold of the uprising and used it to bring the entire Oslo edifice crashing down on Arafat's regime. His thinking: If Oslo were destroyed, the Outside leaders would lose their power and Arafat would have to 
turn to Barghouti.

His comments outside the Palestinian parliament came back to me, and in the early days of the intifada I understood why the Israelis and Palestinians had been engulfed in violence that eventually cost thousands of lives: Arafat didn't handle Barghouti right.

The Israeli prime minister at the start of the intifada, Ehud Barak, understood that. In talks with Arafat just before he was defeated by Sharon in February 2001, Barak demanded that the Palestinian chief rein in Barghouti, who was leading bloody, daily demonstrations at Israeli checkpoints. Barak later said that Arafat turned to his aides, shrugging: "Who does he mean? Who's he talking about?" said Arafat, who simply didn't want to discuss his upstart rival, according to Barak.

Barak later described Arafat's reaction as "bullshit." It was. Arafat knew Barghouti's importance better than anyone. The reason Israeli leaders balk at Hamas's demand for Barghouti's release is because they know it, too.

Marwan Barghouti with former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat

Analysis by Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Occupied Jerusalem, Nov 30 - The fate of one prisoner locked in an Israeli jail could release the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process from its own jail - provided the timing is right.

The political timing is definitely ripe.

This week a major residual source of tension between Israelis and Palestinians may just be about to be resolved - if German mediation finally overcomes last-minute hitches to the long-awaited exchange - a thousand Palestinian prisoners for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

It's not yet certain that the prisoner exchange will go through. Nor is it clear who among the 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails will be part of the deal.

And, it's certainly not definite that that Marwan Barghouti, the leader of the Fatah military forces who was sentenced to life imprisonment by an Israeli court five years ago at the height of the Palestinian Intifadah, will be among them.

If the swap goes through without Barghouti, it's unlikely to have much impact on furthering peace between the two peoples; the political impact would be restricted to domestic Palestinian affairs, the bolstering of Hamas at the expense of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas.

In contrast, the releasing of Barghouti could be a defining moment in Palestinian-Israeli relations, a real test of the real intention behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement last week of a limited and temporary settlement freeze in the West Bank.

So far the Palestinian leadership has scoffed off the partial settlement moratorium as a Netanyahu ruse designed to ease U.S. pressure on Israel. With due cause: the announced freeze is not total, it excludes East Jerusalem, and previously approved settlement construction will go on. And, there's doubt, even within Israel, whether the Netanyahu government has the technical means to enforce the freeze at all.

Back in July 2000, just weeks before the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifadah, Barghouti, speaking in his modest Ramallah office, laid out his alternative strategy for ending the Occupation: "We will take our people onto the '67 lines and proclaim from there that we're simply defending our borders against the Israeli occupation - no arms, no stones even, just our bodies," he told us.

Barghouti is seen by many Palestinians as the optimal leader to take them towards their future state should Mahmoud Abbas indeed decide to step down, as he has threatened to do.

Barghouti, 50, is considered the true heir of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, precisely perhaps because he too courts ambiguity.

His assertive approach has regularly elevated him to the top of polls of whom Palestinians would like to lead them against Israel - both in negotiations to end the occupation and in resisting the continuing occupation.

From his prison cell, Barghouti recently answered questions from an Arabic newspaper in which he laid out his old new strategy: "Relying on negotiations alone was never our choice. I've always called for a constructive mix of negotiations, resistance and political, diplomatic and popular action."

That precisely may be the source of Israeli misgivings that he would be a more amenable pattern for peace.

But now, with the prospect that Abbas may take himself out the picture, Israel has another concern to confront - a power vacuum within the PA. The future of the flagging PA would be all the more precarious since Hamas would gain enormous credibility from the prisoner exchange.

There is some opposition, but the remarkable fact is that it's muted and, overwhelmingly, Israelis are ready to accept the prisoner deal, even to the extent of 'giving up' Palestinians who took part in some of the bloodiest attacks against civilians.

Alon Liel, a political science lecturer at Hebrew University and a former top Israeli diplomat, takes that mood further: "The astonishing public and political willingness to pay an unprecedented price could become the leverage necessary to give the deal a historic dimension," he asserts, adding, "You don't have to be a brilliant politician to realise that the line connecting a technical prisoner exchange with a move toward a peace process runs through Marwan Barghouti."

'When', is thus the key question - not if, but when, to release Barghouti - provided, of course, Netanyahu has a real peace agenda in mind.

If he is serious about engaging peace, Netanyahu could use the present public momentum among the Israeli people for the prisoner exchange to create a new diplomatic momentum.

That, however, would require him to disassociate the deal from freeing Barghouti.

Had Netanyahu decided to release Barghouti in advance of a broad prisoner deal, Hamas would probably have torpedoed it since it would have risked having the political reward stolen from them - to their detriment in the ongoing power struggle with the PA.

Also, Netanyahu's right flank might well have been able to scuttle Barghouti's release.

Now, however, many in Israel are calling for Barghouti's release. Netanyahu has now the opportunity to steal the thunder from Hamas - to the mutual benefit of both Israel and the PA.

Such a trumping of Hamas could only work once the exchange deal with Hamas has already been secured and implemented.

Barghouti's release after the deal-in-the-making with Hamas, and separate from it, would bring Netanyahu and the PA multiple benefits: for Israel, applause from Washington for a bold confidence-building measure; for the PA, a way out of a potentially perilous political vacuum.

Moreover, for the sceptical Palestinian leadership, the release of Barghouti would provide the acid test to the genuineness of Netanyahu's professed peace feelers.

And, for the U.S., a free Barghouti bolstering Abbas would provide the best start for future peace-making that Washington could hope for, especially given the past nine months of failed peace-making. (END/2009)

Source: IPS

By Steve Amsel *

Image by Arzeh

Those nations that voted against the Goldstone Commission Report last week literally gave Israel the 'Carte Blanche' to carry out the 'final solution' against Palestine which has been on their agenda for the past 61 years. Israel has seized this opportunity by attempting to provoke a 'third intifada', thereby being able to show the world that the Goldstone Report was total rubbish and offer proof that the Palestinians are the ones that are once again attempting to destroy everything that is sacred to Israel.

Sound outrageous? Let's look at the situation.... with excerpts from various press reports....

Describing the situation to Al Jazeera, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem, said: "Israeli forces entered the compound from the Maghareba and Silsila gates."The forces cordoned off the compound, preventing all Muslims from entering the mosque.

"The situation is extremely serious, and I expect it to escalate.

"The Israelis have beaten the mosque's guards and staff, as well as worshippers, including women.

"I was personally prevented from entering the mosque. They are preventing us by force from reaching the mosque, where Sheikh Abdul Azeem Salhab, head of the endowments council, several endowments department staff and a number of worshippers are at present under siege. (Source)

Muhammad Al-Hawash of the Palestine Red Crescent Society told Ma'an that the ambulance service received a call around 8am informing medics that six Palestinians had been injured when Israeli forces stormed the mosque area and required emergency treatment. When medics arrived outside the compound, Al-Hawash said, Israeli forces refused them access to the injured until about 11:30am, when 22 wounded Palestinians were finally evacuated. (Source)

Some background information is offered here.

Al-Aqsa Mosque Worshipers Assaulted by Israeli Military Forces

Clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian youths erupted a new at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday, after a while more police and special Israeli forces deployed to the compound.

Witnesses said Israeli forces fired stun grenades, tear-gas canisters and rubber-coated bullets in the vicinity of the compound, while Palestinian youths were seen throwing stones and setting tires ablaze with electrical wires near the Old City's Al-Majlis Gate.

Hatim Abdul-Qadir, the former Palestinian Authority minister of Jerusalem affairs, said several worshippers were hurt as police officers raided the area, and that others suffered inhalation injuries from the tear gas.

According to Abdul-Qadir, 10 Palestinians were injured and more than 15 were detained. Israeli police reported that three officers were injured. One was evacuated to a hospital, an official said.

Israeli police helicopters were seen flying over the Old City and other East Jerusalem neighborhoods.

Confrontations also erupted outside the compound, where Israeli police clashed with students from Dar Al-Aytam school in the Old City after they marched through the streets chanting "Allah Akbar." One was detained.

Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Knesset, accused Israel of trying to take control of the compound. He called on Arab and Islamic countries to unite to counter "[Benjamin] Netanyahu's aggressive policies."

Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, warned that the situation could escalate. He told Al-Jazeera that Israeli forces assaulted worshipers indiscriminately, including women and mosque guards. Police were attempting to break into the mosque building and the Dome of the Rock, Hussein added.

But Israeli police denied that their forces had entered the mosque, itself, although several were seen outside carrying ladders and crowbars. Police cut power to the mosque's loudspeakers after they were used to urge Palestinians in Jerusalem to gather near the compound in solidarity with its besieged worshipers.

According to Israeli media, the area was locked down after young men poured oil to make police officers slip in the event they raided the compound. Those reports mentioned the use of stun grenades and pressurized water hoses, but not tear gas.

The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported that youths hurled stones at Israeli forces, who subsequently stormed the compound. The newspaper also said one Molotov was tossed, causing no injuries. The same report added that about a dozen Palestinians were holed up in the compound's mosque, and that they were the only ones remaining after the area was closed to Muslims.

Israeli forces did not, however, close the area to Jews. According to the Hebrew-language daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, "Jewish prayer at the holy site is continuing as usual."

On Saturday evening, Muslim officials and institutions called on worshipers to prevent the entry of right-wing Israeli groups and individuals who had announced their intention to enter the area under armed guard.

The Jerusalem Post, an English-language Israeli newspaper, reported that a religious group calling itself "Eretz Israel Shelanu" had urged its followers "to properly arise to the Temple Mount." The visit was thought to be in commemoration of a visit by the Maimonides 843 years ago, the newspaper added, noting that a number of Israeli lawmakers and rabbis were among those expected to participate.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque sits atop what Israelis and many Jews refer to as the Temple Mount, where the Jewish First and Second Temples were thought to have stood. The location is especially sensitive because some religious extremists seek the mosque's demolition in order to construct a "Third Temple."

Believed by Muslims to be the location where Muhammad ascended to heaven, Al-Aqsa is the third holiest site in Islam. The compound, with its golden Dome of the Rock, is also a focal point of Palestinian national pride.

The mosque has periodically come under attack by extremists from all religious backgrounds, but most notably in 1969 when an Australian set it ablaze in an attempt to herald the second coming of Christ.

Still sound outrageous? Let's look at some recent events, not in Gaza, but right here in Occupied East Jerusalem...
Scores of Palestinian families have been illegally evicted (sanctioned by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court) to make room for Jewish settlers.

During the Holy month of Ramadan, access to the AlAqsa Mosque was denied to Muslim worshipers.

These few incidents resulted in protests from the Palestinian community as well as Israeli Jews opposed to the occupation. These protests are a blemish on the face of 'the only Democracy in the Middle East'... how dare they protest! How dare they try to bring international awareness to the situation??

How does Israel deal with this? By virtually cordoning off areas and denying access to both the Israeli and International Press. Negative reports about Israeli atrocities can only damage the image they wish the world to see.

But, the reality remains...

Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Palestinian Human Rights activist, wrote today:

The intensified Israeli assault on the AlAqsa compound and the whole of the Holy City of AlQuds/Jerusalem in a final push to Judaicize the city and erase Arab Christian and Muslim heritage. Home demolitions, denial of basic rights of residence, denial of rights of worship and movement, and outright military assaults on the "city of peace" belie a culture of impunity and disregard for International law that has been allowed to grow. Leaders of Western, Arab, and Islamic world meanwhile oscillate between outright facilitation of the atrocities to collaboration to indifference (and I am not sure those are distinct or meaningful categories). Many of us began to think that should Israel destroy the holy sites and build a Jewish temple in its place, we would see merely a few more declarations and statements.

The ramification of the Goldtone report and growing calls not only to hold Israeli leaders accountable for specific acts that amount to war cries and crimes against humanity (e.g. in Gaza) but to clearly identify Israel as the racist, colonial state at its core (from which emanates all these atrocities that include ethnic cleansing).

So, bottom line is to present to the world an image of a violent, terrorist oriented nation (Palestine) whose sole agenda is to destroy the State of Israel.... when in reality, it is the exact opposite that is the truth.

* Steve Amsel is a Jewish active peace and civil rights worker living in Israel. He can be reached at manopeace@gmail.com

Source: Desert Peace

The Golan Heights under Israeli Occupation, 1967

Pressure increasing on Syria's government to retake the Heights by force

By Franklin Lamb *

Nationals from nearly one-third of the 192 member states of the United Nations met in Damascus last week to discuss the Return/Liberation of the Golan Heights. An estimated 5000 researchers, Lawyers, politicians, activists, victims of Israel's 42 years of occupation, students and members of the public, attended the opening event in Qunaitra, the Golan capital city, which in a frenzy of frustration at being forced to return the city it had occupied since 1967 (Comment: think Gaza 2005), the Israeli ordered bulldozed, shelled, and booby trapped by its retreating forces as Qunaitra was surrendered to Syria.
The Conference heard the likes of former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark argue that the International community and rules of International law could not be clearer in requiring the full return of the 1,860 sq. meters of the Syrian territory, despite Israeli claims over the years of 'border irregularities'.
As the International Court of Justice declared in the Burkin Faso and Malie cases, two former French colonies, the frontier existing at the moment of independence, which Syria achieved in April 1946, is frozen like a snapshot taken at the exact moment of Independence.

Some attendees at the large Damascus conclave, often huddling on the sidelines, discussed, analyzed and even advocated a Golan Intifada. They argued that the whole international community, except Israel, and the full corpus of international law, supported the immediate and complete return of the Syrian Golan Height's to the nearly 350,000 displaced Golan inhabitants, being those who make up 90% of the Golan's pre-1967 population from the 130 villages and 112 agricultural areas Israel destroyed as it occupied the Golan. These delegates explained to observers that Resistance in all its forms may be the most realistic path for the return of the Golan. They point to the success of the Hezbollah led National Lebanese Resistance in regaining most of Lebanon's Zionist occupied territory.

One Golani who studies in Damascus told this observer, "We don't expect help from Hezbollah. They have made clear to us they do not "do branches" in other countries despite requests for help around the region, but we have learned much from their experience and we will apply their logic and tactics."
"Syria is rising" another joined in, "we are strong psychologically, militarily and as a result of more democracy the past several years our people are united and we are motivated to seek the immediate return of our land, whatever it takes."

They argued that what Hezbollah did in Lebanon, and what Hamas is doing in Gaza, Syrian patriots can do in the Golan. They believe they would be joined by thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese that might well lead to an unprecedented violent eruption of the Middle East.

One Conference student volunteer interpreter from Damascus University wearing a Hijab, quoted Lebanon's Senior Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who heads social services agencies here in Syria and he does in Lebanon. Ayatollah Fadlallah frequently argues from the grand Mosque in Dahiyeh that all Arab Muslim and non-Muslims must join to fight against Israel, "because when the enemy launched a war against Palestine and the Arab world, including the Golan Heights, it was legal and obligatory to declare war in response to regain stolen land."

There appears to be building pressure on the Bashar Assad government to act or allow a popular Intifada, despite analysts here arguing that it is unlikely that his government would agree near term. Many here are encouraged by Bishop Desmond Tutu's fact finding report of September 2008 to the Human Rights Council on the Israeli shelling of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip in 2006, which led to the death of nineteen civilians as well as the growing international reaction to last month's Goldstone Report on Gaza.

The Strategic Value of the Golan Heights

International law and the Golan Heights

The law on the subject and the demolition of Israel's arguments for retaining the Golan could barely be more complete. In addition to many UN resolutions condemning Israel's Golan takeover as violations of customary international law and Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter which outlaws the acquisition of territory by force and requiring the immediate withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the Golan Heights virtually all legal analysts agree on the imperative of full return.
One of the Israel lobby's iconic and repeatedly amplified myths has been that Syria indiscriminate rained artillery shells on peaceful Jewish settlements on the plain of Galilee without provocation thus allowing Israeli to invade as part of its right of self-defense.

Among the scores who have exposed this canard are Israeli authors such as Professor Avi Shlaim, in his volume "The Myth of the Golan Heights" in which he writes: "They (the Israelis) began by staking an illegal claim to the sovereignty over the (demilitarized) zone and then proceeded, as opportunity offered, to encroach on all the specific provisions against introducing armed forces and fortification. They repeatedly obstructed the operations of the UN observers (comment: think Lebanon) , on one occasion even threatening to kill them...They expelled, or otherwise forced out, Arab inhabitants and razed their villages to the ground."

Moreover, Moshe Dayan, Israel's Minister of Defense at the time, explained to an Israeli journalist in 1976:

"I know how at least 80 percent of the clashes there (on the Golan front) started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's talk about 80 percent. It went this way: we would send a tractor to plough someplace where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was..." (The Golan: Ending Occupation, Establishing Peace, London, 2007).

Dayan later added, "There was really no pressing reason to go to war with Syria...the kibbutz residents who pressed the government to take the Golan Heights did it less for security than for the farmland."
Syrians cite the human rights situation in the Golan as no longer tolerable, as noted in various UN reports as "persistent" and "significant deterioration". A 2002 UN Special Committee report described the repression of the Syrian inhabitants under Israel occupation as "extensive, affecting, all aspect of life and families, villages and communities", adding that "there are also widespread economic consequences of the occupation."

All Syrians interviewed during and following the October 11-12th Conference appear bitter over the separation of families who live on either side of the valley constituting the demarcation line. Syrian students return to their families in the occupied Golan face, several hours of questioning and even the presents they bring are confiscated. Others are held in arbitrary detention for many days, facing torture and humiliation.

A 1998 Human Rights Watch report of the Golan Heights concludes that "Israel seriously misrepresents the degree of its fulfillment of its treaty obligations" under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights it signed in January 1992.

For the international community, including the United Nations and American and European policy makers the coming choice appears to be implement International law or witness another explosion in this volatile region.

* Franklin Lamb is Director of the Washington-DC, Beirut Lebanon Sabra-Shatila Foundation and can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org.

IOF soldiers reveal how to brutally repress Palestinian civilians

"Whilst I was there, I lost all my faith in the Israeli army. They put it right in your face: 'Go be the oppressors for your people. Force yourselves upon them'. They told us...'take these bats wrapped up in plastic and...calm things down'...We had skulls on our helmets, dude. We walked around with machetes, all kinds of crazy stuff. Sheriff badges. We'd improvise some very unique solutions"

This is Ehud, speaking 12 years after having served in the occupied Palestinian territories. Like the thousands before him, he was a paratrooper in the Israeli army during the first Palestinian intifada (1987-1993). Some of the improvised solutions he came up with while serving in the occupied territories included attaching the plus and minus cables from a two-way radio battery to the ears of a Palestinian to give him an electric shock.

"We had lots of 'sophisticated methods,'" Ehud relates.

Aftershock is a film about four soldiers -- Ehud, Haim, Omri and Haliva -- who served in the occupied territories during the first Palestinian intifada and were interviewed by Yariv Horowitz, who at the time had been given a mission by the IDF to make a film for the Educational Corps. The army hoped the film would boost morale in Nablus, but after they saw it they decided to censor it, for as soon as Horowitz turned on the camera, "Things were said that would get everyone into trouble."

Over a decade later Horowitz decided he couldn't wait any longer. He had already been waiting for 12 years. So he decided to pick up his old videotape and camera and revisit his former comrades to make a film about them. This is it.

With all the religiophobia going around, specially when it comes to Palestinian issue, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, following article by Uri Avnery is a must read.

A War of Religions? God Forbid!
Uri Avnery, 19.2.06

ONE OF our former Chiefs-of-Staff, the late Rafael ("Raful") Eytan, who was not the brightest, once asked a foreign guest: "Are you Jewish or Christian?"

"I am an atheist!" the man replied.

"Okay, Okay," Raful demanded impatiently, "but a Jewish atheist or a Christian atheist?"

Well, I myself am a 100% atheist. And I am increasingly worried that the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, which dominates our entire life, is assuming a more and more religious character.

THE HISTORICAL CONFLICT began as a clash between two national movements, which used religious motifs only as a decoration.

The Zionist movement was non-religious from the start, if not anti-religious. Almost all the Founding Fathers were self-declared atheists. In his book "Der Judenstaat", the original charter of Zionism, Theodor Herzl said that "we shall know how to keep (our clergymen) in their temples." Chaim Weitzman was an agnostic scientist. Vladimir Jabotinsky wanted his body to be cremated - a sin in Judaism. David Ben-Gurion refused to cover his head even at funerals.

All the great rabbis of the day, both Hassidim and their opponents, the Missnagdim, condemned Herzl and cursed him ferociously. They rejected the basic thesis of Zionism, that the Jews are a "nation" in the European sense, instead regarding the Jews as a holy people held together by observance of the divine commandments.

Moreover, in the eyes of the rabbis, the Zionist idea itself was a cardinal sin. The Almighty decreed the exile of the Jews as punishment for their sins. Therefore, only the Almighty Himself may revoke the punishment and send the Messiah, who will lead the Jews back to the holy land. Until then, it is strictly prohibited to "return en masse". By organizing mass immigration to the country, the Zionists rebel against God and, worst of all, hold up the coming of the Messiah. Some Hassidim, like the Satmar sect in America, and a small but principled group in Israel, the Neturei Karta (Guardians of the City) in Jerusalem, still adhere to this belief.

True, the Zionists expropriated the symbols of Judaism (the Star of David, the candlestick of the Temple, the prayer shawl that was turned into a flag, even the name "Zion") but that was only utilitarian manipulation. The small religious faction that joined Zionism (the "Religious Zionists") was a marginal group.

Before the Holocaust, we learned in the Zionist schools in Palestine to treat with pitiless scorn everything that was "exile Jewish" - the Jewish religion, the Jewish Stetl, the Jewish social structure (the "inverted pyramid"). Only the Holocaust changed the attitude towards the Jewish past in the diaspora, referred to in Hebrew as "Exile".)

Ben-Gurion made some concessions to the religious factions, including the anti-Zionist Orthodox. He released some hundreds of Yeshiva-students from military service and set up a separate "state-religious" school system. His aim was to acquire convenient coalition partners. But these steps were based on the assumption (common to all of us at the time) that the Jewish religion would evaporate anyhow under the burning Israeli sun and disappear altogether in one or two generations.

All this changed in the wake of the Six-day War. The Jewish religion staged an astounding comeback.

ON THE Palestinian side, something similar happened, but against a quite different background.

The Arab national movement, too, was born under the influence of the European national idea. Its spiritual fathers called for the liberation of the Arab nation from the shackles of Ottoman rule, and later from the yoke of European colonialism. Many of its founders were Arab Christians.

When a distinct Palestinian national movement came into being, following the Balfour Declaration and the setting up of the British Government of Palestine, it had no religious character. In order to fight it, the British appointed a religious personality to the leadership of the Palestinian community in Palestine: Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who quickly assumed the leadership of the Palestinian struggle against the Zionist immigration. He endeavored to give a religious face to the Palestinian-Arab rebellion. Accusing the Zionist of designs on the Temple Mount with its holy Islamic shrines, he tried to mobilize the Muslim peoples in support of the Palestinians.

The Mufti failed miserably, and his failure played a part in the catastrophe of his people. The Palestinians have all but obliterated him from their history. In the 1950s, they idolized Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, the standard-bearer of secular, pan-Arab nationalism. Later, when Yasser Arafat founded the modern Palestinian national movement, he did not distinguish between Muslims and Christians. Right up to his death, he insisted on calling for the liberation of the "mosques and churches" of Jerusalem.

At one stage of its development, the PLO called for the creation of a "Democratic secular state, where Muslims, Jews and Christians will live together". (Arafat did not like the term "secular", preferring "la-maliah", meaning "non-sectarian".)

George Habash, the leader of the "Arab Nationalists" and later of the "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine", is a Christian.

This situation changed with the outbreak of the first intifada, at the end of 1987. Only then did the Islamist movements, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, start to take over the national struggle.

THE ASTOUNDING victory of the Israeli army in the Six-day war, which looked like a miracle, effected a profound political and cultural change in Israel. When the shofar sounded at the Western Wall, the religious youth, which had until then been vegetating on the fringe, occupied the center of the stage.

Suddenly it was discovered that the religious education system, which had been set up by Ben-Gurion as a political bribe and contrary to his own convictions, had been quietly turning out a fanatical religious product. The religious youth movement, which had suffered all these years from feelings of humiliation and inferiority, was filled with zeal and started the settlement drive, leading the main national effort: the annexation of the occupied territories.

The Jewish religion itself underwent a mutation. This mutant shed all universal values and became a narrow, militant, xenophobic tribal creed, aiming at conquest and ethnic cleansing. The religious-Zionists of the new sort are convinced that they are fulfilling the will of God and preparing the ground for the coming of the Messiah. The "national-religious" cabinet ministers, that had always belonged to the moderate wing of the government, gave way to a new, extremist leadership with tendencies towards religious fascism.

Israel has not become a religious state. It still has a large secular majority. According to the authoritative Israeli Government Bureau of Statistics, only 8% of Israeli Jews define themselves as "Orthodox" (Haredim), 9% as "religious" (meaning Religious Zionists), 45% as "secular, non-religious" and 27% as "secular, traditional".

However, because of their role in the settlement enterprise, the "religious" have acquired a huge influence over the political process. They have practically prevented any move towards peace with the Palestinians. They have also provoked a religious reaction on the other side.

THE PALESTINIAN resistance to the occupation, which reached a peak with the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987, has given a big push to the religious forces. Until then, these had been growing quietly (not without the encouragement of the occupation authorities, which saw in them a counterweight to the secular PLO.)

The first intifada led to the Oslo agreement and brought Yasser Arafat back to Palestine. But the new Palestinian authority failed in its aim of putting an end to the occupation and establishing a secular Palestinian state. With settlements continually expanding all over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian public increasingly tended to support armed resistance. In this struggle, and with the limited means available, the religious factions excelled. A religious person is more ready to sacrifice his life in a suicide attack than his secular cousin.

The anger of the Palestinian public over the corruption that has infected sections of the secular Fatah leadership (but not the ascetic Yasser Arafat, whose reputation remained clean) has increased even more the popularity of the religious, whose honesty is unquestioned.

FOR YEARS I have been haunted by a nightmare: that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would change from a national to a religious confrontation.

A national conflict, terrible as it may be, is soluble. The last two centuries have seen many national wars, and almost all of them ended in a territorial compromise. Such conflicts are basically logical, and can be terminated in a rational way.

Not so religious conflicts. When all sides are bound by divine commandments, the attainment of a compromise becomes far more difficult.

Religious Jews believe that God promised them all of the holy land. Thus, giving away any of it to "foreigners" is an unforgivable sin. In the eyes of Muslim believers, the whole country is a Waqf (religious trust), and it is therefore absolutely forbidden to surrender any part of it to unbelievers. (When the Caliph Omar conquered Palestine some 1400 years ago, he declared it a Waqf. His motive was quite practical: to prevent his generals from dividing the land between themselves, as was their wont.)

By the way, the evangelical fundamentalists who dominate Washington at this time also see the Holy Land as a religious property, to which the Jews must return in order to make possible the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Is a compromise between these forces possible? Certainly yes, but it is much more difficult. A devout Muslim is allowed to declare a Hudna (armistice) for a hundred years and more, without condemning his soul to hell. Ariel Sharon, who began the evacuation of settlers, spoke about "long-range temporary arrangements". In politics, "temporary" measures have a tendency to become permanent.

But wisdom, sophistication and a lot of patience are needed to reach a resolution of the conflict in these circumstances.

On the day Arafat died, many Israelis were angry with me for saying (in a Haaretz interview) that we shall yet long for this secular leader, who was both willing and able to make peace with us. I said that his elimination removes the last obstacle to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Palestine and the entire Arab world.

One did not need to be a prophet to see that.

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