Omar Barghouti: "No State Has the Right to Exist as a Racist State" | By Silvia Cattori
12/08/07 "Voltaire" -- - -Omar Barghouti belongs to a new generation of Palestinians who never adhered to the solution of " Two States, Two peoples". They are advocating, instead, the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) of Israel as well as a «secular, democratic state» solution, where Palestinians and Israelis would share equal rights, after historic injustices are redressed and the refugees are allowed to return.
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Omar Barghouti: There is a growing movement in Italy that understands the need for effective pressure on Israel. It is no longer sufficient to take part in traditional solidarity acts, such as demonstrations and writing letters. Clearly, such conventional actions cannot alone move Israel, because they do not raise the political price that Israel has to pay for occupying and oppressing the Palestinians. Europeans can demonstrate all they want; Israel no longer cares. I think more Italians are realizing this.
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To give an example, when Belgium tried to put Ariel Sharon on trial for his role in the 1982 Sabra and Chatilla massacre in Beirut, Condoleezza Rice threatened the foreign minister of Belgium that the US would pull NATO out of Belgium, among other drastic measures. Within days, the law was reversed and the Court never summoned Sharon. The US did the same with Germany and France during their dispute over the Anglo-American war on Iraq in 2003.
Israel realises that its vast influence over Congress automatically translates into substantial, albeit indirect, influence over Europe. Israelis, therefore, do not particularly care about European public opinion.
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Silvia Cattori: The Wall Street Journal recently wrote, “The dream that was Palestine is finally dead.” [3]. How do you react to this kind of statement?
Omar Barghouti: That is wishful thinking. Neoconservatives, who control the Wall Street Journal, are on their way to the dustbin of history after all their failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. They would like to think that Palestinians are finished. I think they are finished. It will take some time, for sure, but I honestly believe their crusade has been proven criminal and futile and their arguments refuted.
Their grand ideological design - that was supposed to start with Iraq and then roll like a domino throughout the oil-rich Arab region, all the way to controlling the world - is being shattered. Their vision has been exposed as fundamentally racist, dogmatic, and profoundly flawed. Thanks to the resistance in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, this neocon vision of empire is on its way to ultimate defeat. ...
Omar Barghouti: ... Some Palestinian political leaders are complicit in maintaining Israel’s colonial and racist rule. Instead of openly acquiescing to the occupation, however, their role is to give the world the false impression that it’s merely a dispute; that we can sit and negotiate nicely in Switzerland or elsewhere. Thus they conceal the reality that it’s a colonial conflict that needs massive grassroots struggle plus sustained and principled international pressure in order to end it.
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In the fifties and sixties of the last century, Europeans used to love Israel, the romanticized home of the kibbutz, as a beacon of “liberal democracy” in a region swarming with autocracy and “backwardness.” Europeans, after all, helped build Israel, in more ways than one; and they looked at it, ever since, as their «baby» in the middle of a «barbaric sea of Arabs». Israel was perceived as the enlightened, white, civilized entity in the middle of this jungle of unruly, brown natives of the South.
And while many Europeans have yet to be liberated from this racist, colonial attitude towards Arabs, Israel today has very little sympathy in Europe or anywhere else in the world. It has protégés that are handsomely paid, and extremely effective political lobbies that are very well oiled. With such tools, Israel has managed to dictate the discourse, the political line, in the European mainstream media, parliaments and power milieus.
Like their American counterparts, European officials are now often faced with the tough choice of duly following the official Israeli line or losing their careers – and, frequently, their reputations as well. European complicity in maintaining Israeli occupation and oppression is accordingly secured through threats, intimidation, bullying, not persuasion. This is the most significant loss historically, for Zionism. It has squandered the sympathy it once enjoyed and entirely lost its ability to touch the hearts and minds of people, even in the West. Zionism now gets what it wants only by the stick. ...
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Omar Barghouti: Yes, but the Zionist movement has played a key role in frantically promoting this “clash of civilizations” theory, based on the false premise that September 11th was a fight between Muslims and the rest of the world, between Islam and the so-called “Judaeo-Christian” civilization. This neocon, Zionist-espoused concept has gained a lot of pre-eminence in the West, sadly, and has influenced many Europeans. ...
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Silvia Cattori: But, is this not terribly efficient for pushing public opinion to fear these Arabs and Muslims? After all, Israel and the United States are making an endless war against them, shaping the conflict so that people are not moved when they are massacred.
Will peace cost me my home? | Any Mideast pact must give Palestinians the right to return home. | By Ghada Ageel | December 1, 2007
Sixty years ago, my grandparents lived in the beautiful village of Beit Daras, a few kilometers north of Gaza. They were farmers and owned hundreds of acres of land.
But in 1948, in the first Arab-Israeli war, many people lost their lives defending our village from the Zionist militias. In the end, with their crops and homes burning, the villagers fled. My family eventually made its way to what became the refugee camp of Khan Yunis in Gaza. We were hit hard by poverty, humiliation and disease. We became refugees, queuing for tents, food and assistance, while the state of Israel was established on the ruins of my family's property and on the ruins of hundreds of other Palestinian villages.
Some people may tire of hearing such stories from the past. "Don't cry over spilled milk" is one of the first sayings I learned in English. But for me, the line between past and present is not so easily broken. I raise this story today because it remains profoundly relevant to the Middle East peace process -- and to help convey the deep-seated fears of Palestinian refugees that we will be asked to exonerate Israel for its actions and to relinquish our right to return home.
That cannot be allowed to happen. All refugees have the right to return. This is an individual right, long recognized in international law, that cannot be negotiated away. Palestinian refugees -- and there are more than 4 million of us registered with the United Nations today -- hold this right no less than Kosovar or Rwandan or any other refugees.
Of course, I understand that the clock cannot be turned back. Most of the Palestinian villages inside what is now Israel no longer exist. And experience shows that when the rights of refugees are recognized and backed by international communities, only a small portion opt to return.
But the option should be open to us. If a refugee decides to return, he or she should not be hindered. Anything less would be unacceptable to Palestinians, two-thirds of whom are refugees. ...
02/12/2007 | Report: Abbas reiterates refusal to recognize Israel as 'Jewish state' | By The Associated Press
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated his refusal on Saturday to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Israel Radio reported.
"Historically, there are two states - Israel and Palestinian. Israel has Jews and other people, and this we are ready to recognize, but nothing else," the radio quoted Abbas as saying shortly after he landed in Saudi Arabia after brief stops in Egypt and Jordan.
The Palestinians recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, which Jerusalem demands, is meant to bolster Israel's position that rejects the return of Palestinian refugees to areas inside the Green Line - the border before the 1967 Six-Day War. ...
Syria describes Annapolis conference as defeat for Palestinians | The Associated Press | Published: December 1, 2007
DAMASCUS, Syria: A Syrian state-run newspaper on Saturday described this week's U.S.-sponsored Mideast peace conference as a "defeat" for the Palestinians and for peace in the region.
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"The U.S. administration has the right to consider the Annapolis meeting a brilliant victory, but not for the Palestinian people ... only for Israel," said the front page editorial in the Tishrin daily.
"While the Bush administration and Israel may consider what happened and what could happen to destroy the Palestinian cause a victory, we consider it a defeat for a just and comprehensive peace," Tishrin said. That peace, it added, can only be achieved by ending Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.
The newspaper, which reflects government thinking, criticized U.S. President George W. Bush's statement at the opening session of the Annapolis meeting in which he referred to Israel as a "Jewish state," calling it a "consecration of Israeli racism." ...
