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Politics : Middle East Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: maceng2 who wrote (137)	12/12/2001 6:48:26 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6945

Analysis: Peace process at dead end news.bbc.co.uk By the BBC's Paul Adams in Jerusalem There is a growing sense that it may be many years - perhaps a generation - before Israelis and Palestinians settle their differences. The Middle East peace process barely existed before 11 September. A few feeble signs of life have now been extinguished altogether. For a while, after 11 September, Western leaders pondered how best to show the world that the war on terrorism was not also a war on Islam. They also recognised that it would be rash to ignore the Middle East peace process entirely, especially when Arab support for the coalition was regarded as important. The parallels with the Gulf War, 10 years earlier, were clear. Proclaiming a new world order in the wake of the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, George Bush senior sent his secretary of state, James Baker, to search for ways to bring Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table. I can remember standing outside the American consulate in West Jerusalem, listening to the sound of cracking heads as the famously direct Baker pushed and cajoled. His dogged efforts paid off, resulting in a peace conference at Madrid where the foundations were laid for a process that came to be identified with the Norwegian capital, Oslo. For a while, British Prime Minister Tony Blair seemed keen to urge George W Bush to launch a new peace initiative. During the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's visit to London in mid-October, Mr Blair spoke of the need for a "viable" Palestinian state. London and Washington put pressure on the Israeli army to exercise restraint in dealing with violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But Mr Arafat's inability to halt a wave of suicide bombs has utterly destroyed what little faith most Israelis retained in the Palestinian leadership. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is focusing exclusively on ways of combating terrorism and has succeeded in convincing George Bush junior that their two battles are part of the same war - that Mr Arafat, if not another Bin Laden, is at least as culpable as the Taleban. Israelis feel vulnerable and angry. They support their prime minister's tough action but know that it has yet to make them feel more secure. The Palestinians, for their part, lost confidence in the peace process a long time ago, convinced that a succession of Israeli leaders had exhibited bad faith. The second Palestinian uprising, which began almost a year earlier, had already exacted a terrible price in lives lost and property destroyed. Palestinians say they are living through their worst days since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. On Monday, former Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met at a new Israeli army checkpoint on the main road between Jerusalem and Ramallah. While Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo spoke of their mutual commitment to peace, Israeli rockets killed two young Palestinian children in the crowded streets of Hebron. Israel admitted the "targeted killing" of a wanted militant from Islamic Jihad had gone wrong, but expressions of regret will have fallen on deaf ears. To make matters worse, Mr Arafat and Mr Sharon are mortal enemies. One or other of them - perhaps both - will have to go before the peace process stands a chance.

To: maceng2 who wrote (137)	12/12/2001 7:33:03 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6945

So we're back to settlements as the cause of everything, are we? This is the same line of BS that the Palestinians peddled to the BBC last spring, when they were trying to inject some political coherence into their idiotic intifada. Now, settlements are increasingly becoming the main flashpoints in the latest conflict. Excuse me, where have the biggest bombings taken place lately? Are Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem "settlements"? What nonsense. Bought uncritically by the BBC, as usual.

To: maceng2 who wrote (137)	12/15/2001 1:08:07 AM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6945

Keep this in mind as you are assaulted by Nadine's screeching about media bias against Israel. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Chomsky: When the Intifada broke out in 2000, I had a meeting with senior editors of The Boston Globe, people I have known in one way or another for years. Ramachandran: Did you ask for the meeting? Chomsky: There was a small delegation that asked me to come along. The Globe was in a way happy: it is under constant attack from the Jewish community for being too pro-Arab, so they want criticism from the other side in order to be able to say that they are in the middle. I went anyway, and at the meeting, I tried very hard to get them to cover some very simple facts. For example, the following: when the Intifada started on September 13, there was no Palestinian fire for the first few days. During those days, Israel immediately reacted with extreme violence, including helicopter attacks on civilians. Helicopter gunships attacked apartment complexes, ambulances and so on, and killed a lot of people. On October 3, the Clinton Administration made a deal with Israel for the biggest shipment of attack helicopters in a decade. One of the issues I raised with the Globe was just, "Why won't you report this fact?" We had a polite discussion, but I knew they were never going to report it. Ramachandran: Did they, finally? Chomsky: No, they never did. A couple of months later, a new shipment of the most advanced helicopters in the United States arsenal was sent. That one happened to be mentioned in the business pages. hinduonnet.com