Weekly Briefing No. 15 (August 12, 2007) IN THIS BRIEFING: Home Demolitions (2 articles) Abbas/Olmert Meeting: Another "Generous Offer"? (1 article) A Warning to Tony Blair by Uri Avnery Controversy over Gaza Gas reserves deal (1 article) Overview of Palestinian Crisis: (2 Articles) Leila Haddad at The Rafah Crossing: 1 article HOME DEMOLITIONS (1) British woman watches in shock as Israeli bulldozers raze her home west of Occupied Jerusalem Agence France Presse OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Six months pregnant and exhausted, British mother Jessica Barhoum is still shocked that Israeli authorities ordered her, her husband and their baby out of bed at daybreak and pulverized their home. "I can't believe that it's lawful, that this law exists. I'm from England. Do you know what I mean?" asked Jessica, 32, who grew up in the southern city of Salisbury but moved to Israel after marrying Moussa, her Arab Israeli husband. "You can't believe a country like this would make a law against its own citizens," she added. Full article: http://www.countercurrents.org/matthew050807.htm (2) Rights group urges Israel to stop Demolitions, Evictions (August 1, 2007, Daily Star, Lebanon) A US-based human rights group called on Israel Tuesday to stop house demolitions and forced evictions of Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley region of the occupied West Bank. Amnesty International said the Israeli Army has increased efforts to forcefully evict over 100 villagers, most of them children from the small towns of Humsa and Hadidiyya, north- east of the West Bank. Full Article: http://icahdusa.org/2007/154 ***************************** Abbas/Olmert Meeting: NOT ONLY TERRITORY, BUT VIABILITY by Jeff Halper, Israeli committee Against Home Demolitions (Sunday, July 08, 2007) On paper, the headlines sounded promising, even stirring. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, it was reported, told Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas at their meeting in Jericho that he would push for the establishment of a Palestinian state as "fast as possible" on "the equivalent to 100 percent of the territories conquered in 1967."... It looked like another "generous offer," one the Palestinians could not possibly refuse. The problem is, it was much too generous for the Israelis to accept. A few hours after the report appeared, the Prime Minister's Office denied even the existence of the proposal. ... So much for that. But the proposal itself is useful to examine if only because it presents a "best case" scenario. It appears to relinquish almost all the occupied territory to the Palestinians; it appears to be the maximum that Israel could possibly offer the Palestinians. If it can be shown as nothing more than a sophisticated attempt to expand Israeli control to the Jordan River, with no chance of ending the conflict with the Palestinians, it will provide the best illustration of the futility of basing any peace process on the mere transfer of territory rather than viability. The devil, as we all know, is in the details. Let's see what this 100% plan hides, even if it is not really a plan. Full Article with maps: http://www.icahd.org/eng/news.asp?menu=5&submenu=1&item=480 ********************************** A Warning to Tony Blair By Uri Avnery (Tel Aviv, 7-30-07) Last week, James Wolfensohn gave a long interview to Haaretz. He poured out his heart and summed up, with amazing openness, his months as special envoy of the US, Russia, the EU and the UN (the "Quartet") in this country - the same job entrusted now to Tony Blair. The interview could have been entitled "A Warning to Tony". Among other revelations, he disclosed that he was practically fired by the clique of Neo-cons, whose ideological leader is Paul Wolfowitz. What Wolfensohn and Wolfowitz have in common is that both are Jews and have the same name: Son of Wolf, one in the German version and the other in the Russian one. Also, both are past chiefs of the World Bank. But that's where the similarity ends. These two sons of the wolf are opposites in almost all respects. Wolfensohn is an attractive person, who radiates personal charm. Wolfowitz arouses almost automatic opposition. This was made clear when they served, successively, at the World Bank: Wolfensohn was very popular, Wolfowitz was hated. The term of the first was renewed, a rare accolade, the second was dumped at the earliest opportunity, ostensibly because of a corruption affair: he had arranged an astronomical salary for his girl friend. Full article: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18096.htm ******************************************************* Turning Palestine's Most Valuable Natural Resource into a Political Tool Gaza was a Gas for Blair By ARTHUR NESLEN It's always nice to start a new job with a trick up your sleeve, and the Middle East's new envoy Tony Blair could be forgiven for thinking he has just that. In the near future, a $4bn deal to exploit Gaza's offshore gas reserves will be signed by the Israeli government, Britain's BG Group (BG), the Palestinian Authority (PA)'s investment arm, the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF) and Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC). Environmental considerations notwithstanding, an injection of this kind of capital into the occupied territories could transform the political landscape. By fortune or design, Tony Blair has been crucial to the deal's genesis. But the pressure he has put on other parties to agree a deal that economically ties the PA to Israel has exacerbated Fatah-Hamas tensions, put the PIF on the political defensive, and may even have helped stoke the recent fighting in Gaza. Full article: http://counterpunch.com/neslen07272007.html ******************************************* OVERVIEW OF THE PALESTINIAN CRISIS: (1) Regis Debray: Deliberate Blindness in Palestine (reprinted from LeMonde Diplomatique) --------------------------------- Last year President Jacques Chirac asked Régis Debray to study the situation in the Middle East. On 15 January 2007 Debray sent the French authorities the following document on Palestine. It is an important key to understanding a long policy drift whose results are now obvious. Excerpt: [T]here is a huge gap between what is said because we want to hear it (local withdrawals, easing of travel restrictions, removal of one checkpoint out of 20, a change of tone) and what is being done on the ground, which we don't want to see (interlinking of settlements, construction of bridges and tunnels, encirclement of Palestinian towns, expropriation of land, destruction of houses).... The gradual encroachment happens out of sight of the cameras, without causing a stir and without an explicit colonial diktat. Nobody makes a formal complaint, even supposing they can find out what's going on - difficult if you haven't grown up locally. Israeli maps and school textbooks refer to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria and, following the Knesset's recent rejection of a proposal from a Labour education minister, obliteration of the 1967 green line is now a legal fait accompli. Full Article: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-08100783659.htm function golink(link) { location.href=link; } (2) The Middle East Peace Process Scam by Henry Siegman (London Review of Books, August 16, 2007) When Ehud Olmert and George W. Bush met at the White House in June, they concluded that Hama's violent ousting of Fatah from Gaza -- which brought down the Palestinian national unity government brokered by the Saudis in Mecca in March -- had presented the world with a new "window of opportunity". (Never has a failed peace process enjoyed so many windows of opportunity.) Hamas's isolation in Gaza, Olmert and Bush agreed, would allow them to grant generous concessions to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, giving him the credibility he needed with the Palestinian people in order to prevail over Hamas. Both Bush and Olmert have spoken endlessly of their commitment to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but it is their determination to bring down Hamas rather than to build up a Palestinian state that animates their new-found enthusiasm for making Abbas look good. That is why their expectation that Hamas will be defeated is illusory. Palestinian moderates will never prevail over those considered extremists, since what defines moderation for Olmert is Palestinian acquiescence in Israel's dismemberment of Palestinian territory. In the end, what Olmert and his government are prepared to offer Palestinians will be rejected by Abbas no less than by Hamas, and will only confirm to Palestinians the futility of Abbas's moderation and justify its rejection by Hamas. Full Article: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/sieg01_.html ******************************************************************** THE CLOSED GATES TO GAZA By Laila El Haddad, Live from Palestine, 31 July 2007 Ed. Note: Laila El Haddad spoke in Madison last spring as part of the "Bitter Harvest" series, and her pictures were printed in the Madison Times Newspaper. We had planned to leave Gaza around the beginning of June, with tickets booked out of Cairo 7 June. My parents were to come along with us for a visit. As is often the case in Gaza, things don't always go according to plan. Rafah was open erratically during the month of May, and closed entirely the week prior to our departure. Wonderful, we thought -- at least we could make our flight, if only barely. Laila El Haddad recounts barely squeezing out of Gaza early June only to have the gates to the Strip lock behind her and the thousands of other Palestinians currently stranded in Egypt. (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7136.shtml)