Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Brumar89 who wrote (2331)	9/24/2002 1:31:41 PM
From: Elmer Flugum	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 6945

A tent is less obtrusive on the earth and lends itself to living close to the land and retaining one's sensitivities to the cycles of life, yours and others... Listen to Hanan Ashrawi By Stanley Heller Most Americans know Hanan Ashrawi as the eloquent speaker on Nightline back in the '80s who did so much to present the Palestinians perspective. She comes to address Southern Connecticut State University on Tuesday as a guest of the Women's Studies Department. So much has changed since the '80's. In some ways her people are at their lowest ebb. The economic and social infrastructure built in the '90's has been smashed. One in five Palestinian children now suffers from malnutrition. Ashrawi was a supporter of the American brokered "peace process" and was an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. In 1999 she founded "Miftah" an organization dedicated to "nation building" and the "principles of democracy". [ miftah.org ] This year she was one of the signers of a statement calling for a halt in the suicide bombings in Israel. When last she spoke in New Haven at the Yale Law School a state Palestine seemed to be on the road to creation. Now the very roads of Palestine are torn up or blocked. The land Israel conquered in 1967 is back to square one. The Palestine Authority is an authority over nothing. Israel moves in and out of the Palestinian cities at will, establishing shoot on sight curfews that lock people in their homes for weeks at a time. Nablus has been under curfew for over 80 days. "Curfew" means you stay in your home constantly with irregular 2 or 3 hour breaks every few days to scramble for food. Few Americans can imagine being locked up with their kids for a weekend let alone weeks at a time. Actually things are at square minus one. Until it granted some self-rule to the Palestinians in the '90's the Israeli governments admitted it was responsible for the well being of the Palestinians in the territories. Yet after the "reoccupation" of the territories Ariel Sharon's government admits to nothing at all. Witness the reaction of Major General Amos Gilad, Israel's coordinator of government affairs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to the findings on malnutrition. "Hunger is when people have swollen bellies and fall over dead. There is no hunger yet." The figure on hunger comes from a report issued by the US Agency for International Development. The one-in-five statistic is talking about tiny children, those five years old and under. The malnutrition percentage in the territories is actually worse than in Somalia and Bangladesh. The World Bank recently determined that as many as 62 percent of Palestinian families are now living on less than two dollars a day. No doubt some will say that the Palestinians have brought this on themselves. What government wouldn't strike out with an iron fist in the face of the hideous suicide bombings? Yet Palestinian impoverishment started long before the now two year old uprising. During the years of the "peace process" Palestinian living standards dropped a lot. Palestinians watched as the number of settlers doubled, as foreign labor was imported to take their jobs and as a system of Jewish-only roads was built in their land. A month ago The New Haven Register featured an article about a New Haven man whose cousin and brother died of heart attacks because their ambulances were needlessly delayed at Israeli checkpoints. I talked with one of the ambulance drivers through a translator. He told me that soldiers and settlers shot at his ambulance all the time. In two weeks in March, five Palestinian medical workers were killed by Israelis. Palestinians fear worse is coming. Talk of "transfer" is rife in Israel. Transfer is the euphemism for violent and massive expulsion of Palestinians. Meron Benvenisti the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem warned in an August 16 article in the Israeli paper Ha'aretz that if the U.S. goes to war with Iraq Prime Minister Sharon may exercise his "old 'Jordanian option' - expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across the Jordan River." Southern was brave to invite Hanan Ashrawi. Any Palestinian speaker nowadays is attacked by supporters of Greater Israel with enormous vehemence. Hopefully her message of national-building and democracy will be given a fair hearing. Stanley Heller is editior of "The Struggle" a journal on the Middle East published in New Haven since 1984. He can be reached at mail@TheStruggle.org mail AT TheStruggle.org thestruggle.org