In the name of security, but not for its sake

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Written by Amira Hass Amira Hass

Published: 20 September 2006 20 September 2006

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Evidence that Israeli Security services are trying to stop Palestinian state

The latest book by historian Hillel Cohen, Aravim Tovim ("Good Arabs"), offers several historical proofs of the validity of Palestinian "paranoia" about the political motives behind security control.

It is not local decisions by regional military commanders that are fragmenting the West Bank into isolated "territorial cells." It is not security considerations alone that prevent Gazan students from studying in the West Bank and American academicians from teaching in Palestinian educational institutions. In the name of security - but not for its sake - Israel is exacerbating ignorance and economic deterioration in the occupied territories.

According to this analysis, for which there is no shortage of evidence, the Israeli security services are careful to act within the framework of a clear political paradigm: maximum weakening, in every possible way, of the Palestinian national collective, so that it will not be able to realize its goal and establish a state worthy of the name, in accordance with international resolutions.

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The Big Lie About 'Islamic Fascism'

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Written by Eric Margolis Eric Margolis

Published: 20 September 2006 20 September 2006

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he latest big lie unveiled by
Washington’s neoconservatives are the poisonous terms,
"Islamo-Fascists" and "Islamic Fascists." They are the new, hot
buzzwords among America’s far right and Christian fundamentalists.

President George W. Bush made a point last week of using
"Islamofacists" when recently speaking of Hezbullah and Hamas – both, by the way, democratically elected parties. A Canadian government minister from the Conservative Party compared Lebanon’s Hezbullah to Nazi Germany.

The term "Islamofascist" is utterly without meaning, but packed with emotional explosives. It is a propaganda creation worthy of Dr. Goebbels, and the latest expression of the Big Lie technique being used by neocons in Washington’s propaganda war against its enemies in the
Muslim World.

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Israeli Visa Policy Traps Thousands of Palestinians in a Legal Quandary

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Written by GREG MYRE, New York Times GREG MYRE, New York Times

Published: 20 September 2006 20 September 2006

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Mr. Bahour is one of thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands, of people ensnared by an Israeli policy that has effectively frozen immigration to the Palestinian areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since the current Palestinian uprising began in 2000. This spring, after the radical Islamic group Hamas came to power, Israel severed most contacts with the Palestinian Authority and moved to close the last loophole in its immigration policy — the renewable tourist visa.

Over the past six years, more than 70,000 people, a vast majority of them of Palestinian descent, have applied without success to immigrate to the West Bank or Gaza to join relatives, according to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group that tracks the issue. Many who followed Mr. Bahour’s route and worked around the ban with tourist visas now have no legal way to remain.

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Forced Migration Review 26: Palestinian displacement: a case apart?

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Written by FMR FMR

Published: 19 September 2006 19 September 2006

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The September 2006 issue includes a major feature on Palestinian displacement. Twenty-eight articles by UN, Palestinian and international human rights organisations, Palestinian scholars in the diaspora and Jewish and Israeli activist groups examine the root causes of the displacement of Palestinians, the consequences of the failure to apply international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Palestinian entitlement to protection and compensation.

The articles in this issue discuss how failure to address the Palestinian refugee crisis represents perhaps the gravest shortcoming of the UN since its foundation. The international community has not exerted sufficient political will to advance durable solutions consistent with international law and Security Council resolutions requiring Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territory it occupied in 1967. Durable solutions for displaced Palestinians have been discussed without reference to the legal norms applied in other refugee cases. Refugee rights, entitlements to compensation or restitution and the rights to protection of those Palestinians living under continued military occupation were not central to the now-moribund Oslo peace process – nor are they part of the subsequent US-sponsored ‘Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution’. Creeping annexation continues unchecked. Upon completion of Israel’s Wall, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be restricted to a series of non-contiguous enclaves which constitute an eighth of the area of historic Palestine. Despite pro-democracy rhetoric, Western response to the internationally-validated Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 has sparked a politically-induced crisis and crippled the Palestinian economy. Ordinary Palestinians are suffering as donors freeze funding required to maintain humanitarian assistance and development programmes.

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