Shlomo Ben Ami: 'Peace will be achieved only by talking to Hamas'

February, 26, 2009, The Times, London.We need to rethink the strategy for achieving peace in the Middle East

Sir, If every crisis is also an opportunity, it is now time to rethink the strategy for achieving peace in the Middle East. The latest and bloodiest conflict between Israel and Hamas has demonstrated that the policy of isolating Hamas cannot bring about stability. As former peace negotiators, we believe it is of vital importance to abandon the failed policy of isolation and to involve Hamas in the political process.

An Israeli–Palestinian peace settlement without Hamas will not be possible. As the Israeli general and statesman Moshe Dayan said: “If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.” There can be no meaningful peace process that involves negotiating with the representative of one part of the Palestinians while simultaneously trying to destroy the other.

Whether we like it or not, Hamas will not go away. Since its victory in democratic elections in 2006, Hamas has sustained its support in Palestinian society despite attempts to destroy it through economic blockades, political boycotts and military incursions. This approach is not working; a new strategy must be found. Yes, Hamas must recognise Israel as part of a permanent solution, but it is a diplomatic process and not ostracisation that will lead them there. The Quartet conditions imposed on Hamas set an unworkable threshold from which to commence negotiations. The most important first step is for Hamas to halt all violence as a precondition for their inclusion in the process. Ending their isolation will in turn help in reconciling the Palestinian national movement, a vital condition for meaningful negotiations with Israel.

We have learnt first-hand that there is no substitute for direct and sustained negotiations with all parties to a conflict, and rarely if ever a durable peace without them. Isolation only bolsters hardliners and their policies of intransigence. Engagement can strengthen pragmatic elements and their ability to strike the hard compromises needed for peace...

'Erase my grandfather's name from Yad Vashem'

'Erase my grandfather's name from Yad Vashem'

In his online edition of Januray 28th 2009, the French evening newspaper le Monde featured, for a very short time, this opinion by writer Jean-Moïse Braitberg.
The letter can be found in its original form on flickr. It has also received various translations to English in the blogosphere.

Israeli military shoot Palestinian deaf farmer in Gaza

It was 18 February approximately 10:15 am and farmers were leaving the land they’d harvested, roughly 500 m from the Green Line. The lightly-dressed, unarmed farmers were clearly visible to and seen by the several Israeli army jeeps and the Hummer which had patrolled the border fence, stopping for long intervals to watch the farmers work, then moving on.
The farmers’ proximity to the border fence was more than off-set by the very visible nature of their work and of all present, including the 5 international human rights workers wearing bright vests and using a megaphone. The farmers’ tools are a kitchen knife slightly sharper than one used for eating, binding cord, and donkey carts or pickup trucks to haul away the harvest.
Before the shooting occurred, the Hummer sat directly across from the working farmers for over 30 minutes, observing. There was no threat from the farmers who glanced worriedly at the vehicle from time to time but otherwise kept swiftly working. Israeli soldiers inside the vehicle would have had no problem seeing the actions of the farmers cutting and binding spinach and parsley, and loading it into the back of a small pickup truck. The farmers finished for the morning, packed the truck, and attempted to leave. Still unarmed.
The Israeli soldiers shot at the sides and backs of unarmed farmers pushing their pickup truck which had stalled. Even after al-Buraim had been hit, the shooting continued although the snipers would have been able to see that someone had been shot.
The firing continued as the farmers, surrounded by international human rights observers, walked away from the field and took shelter behind a nearby house, reaching it at around 10:30 am. Israeli soldiers continued to shoot at the farmers and internationals taking cover, for a period increasing their shots to every 5 seconds, with that unmistakably close “pftzzzz” of the bullets whizzing past.

Israel's Lebanese Spy

Many intelligence agents are said to operate in the civil chaos of Lebanon, but Mr. Jarrah’s arrest has shed a rare light onto a world of spying and subversion that usually persists in secret...
One of Mr. Jarrah’s cousins, Ziad al-Jarrah, was among the 19 hijackers who carried out the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001

Wherever one looks, Israel spying apparatus's imprints are on September eleven. Don't call me conspiratorial !

A girl's story and the rape of Palestine

Israel's early history. Not much different from the present.

The appeal court reduced their sentences, saying: "At the time there was a general feeling of contempt for the life of Arabs ... and sometimes wanton events occurred in this sphere. All this helped create an atmosphere of 'anything goes'.

...More

'Lieberman is the bastard child of the Israeli peace movement'

A powerful analysis of the results of the Israeli elections by The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland.

Above all, it is Israeli society that has to take a hard look at itself. For so long, it has lived inside a bubble in which it can only see its side of the story: they hit us, so we hit back; we are under siege from hostile forces, we are the victim. In this mental landscape, even a Moldovan-born immigrant stripping people born in their own land of their citizenship can come to seem acceptable. What's needed is not just a change in the electoral system that would allow "strong government" of the kind Lieberman yearns to implement. What's needed is for Israelis to step outside the bubble, to begin to see the causes of their current predicament, instead of dealing again and again, ever more ineffectively, with the symptoms. Tuesday's election prompts no confidence that that is about to happen.

Gideon Levy: Does Zionism legitimize every act of violence ?

The Gaza Holocaust: latest operation in numbers

The latest criminal Israeli offensive on Gaza that lasted 22 days:

1330 people died;
14000 homes destroyed;
68 public buildings and 38 NGO installations have been partly or totally destroyed;
600000 tons of rubble containing toxic material and unexploded bombs;
25 million dollars to clean the rubble;
200000 working days for Gazans to clean the rubble;

And all this won't even win Kadima the elections because it wasn't enough toughness for Israelis who are going to vote soon, and zionists at large...

To be continued until the last Palestinian...