What wall? What occupation?

It's time to stop Morocco's prevarication over Western Sahara.

Ian Williams

It's not double standards, it's no standards at all. The world has let scoff-law Morocco ride roughshod over international law and the UN Charter. It helps to have friends!

Their territory split by a huge wall built at enormous expense, an occupied Arab population suffers under police raids and arbitrary imprisonment while the occupiers try to swamp the territories with settlers from their own population. In response, the locals are beginning an intifada, but face a much larger, better-equipped military force, the beneficiary of substantial overseas aid. Refugees living in camps are refused the right to return to their homes.

Despite clear decisions of the International Court of Justice and the UN Security Council, the occupiers hedge whenever it comes down to the question of a peace settlement that grants independence even when American emissaries try to nudge them towards serious talks.

Welcome to Western Sahara, the occupation that admittedly has lasted only three decades compared with Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but which has excited much less media interest.

This week, the issue came back to what passes for the fore in this forgotten conflict, when the Polisario, on behalf of the Sahwaris and the Kingdom of Morocco both submitted their plans for the resolution of the problem.

The Moroccan one is superficially attractive after all these decades, offering Scottish-style devolution. But their track record on keeping promises is far from stellar. Over 15 years ago, Morocco accepted a peace deal that involved the referendum on self-determination. The cash-strapped UN has spent hundreds of millions on keeping a force there to monitor the cease-fire and arrange a vote. But as soon as it became clear that Morocco would lose any vote that involved independence, the king and his father before him, gave prevarication a bad name. They tried to stack the voters' rolls, and when that failed, simply refused to allow a vote that asked the question.

Morocco's human rights record leaves much to be desired, as indeed did Polisario's in the old days. But the Moroccan reticence about allowing a vote is eloquent testimony to the government's assessment of the popular mood.

What is the secret of Morocco's success? In essence, it is choosing friends carefully.

Morocco claims Arab solidarity - and is one of the best friends of Israel in the Arab World. Immediately after the Moroccans occupied the territory despite the ICJ ruling that rubbished its territorial claims, the UN security council passed resolutions 379 and 380, which explicitly and unconditionally called on Morocco to withdraw. However, the French and Americans blocked the enforcing of these resolutions. According to then-US ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "the Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. The task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success."

While the US's anti-communist fervour has died down - with communism - France has remained an important and unprincipled supporter of the king. Despite all that Cartesian rhetoric with which it opposed the invasion of Iraq, over the Sahara it has a novel and disturbing principle: the security council cannot impose its decisions on parties if they disagree.

France has claimed there was a tradition of using consensus on Western Sahara, which was a bit like the apocryphal prisoner who had killed his parents and then asked for the court's sympathy because he was an orphan. Any such "tradition" developed in response to constant French and American attempts to railroad a pro-Moroccan position past the other security council members in defiance of all previous decisions.

Britain's attitude seems to be that it does not have a dog in the fight, so it is prepared to go along with the Americans and the French. But the standing of international law, the UN charter and principles are surely a dog worth backing in any foreign policy with - in Robin Cook's words - "an ethical dimension". In the end, the illegal Indonesia occupation of East Timor succumbed to the persistent refusal of the world to recognise it.

Polisario has made a very reasonable offer, which is in complete accordance with UN resolutions and international law. It could also offer, instead of a Scottish style solution with the Moroccan army and secret police still in occupation - a Canadian style solution. We will put King Mohammed on our coins and welcome an occasional royal visit - but nothing more.

But in any case, the UK, the EU, and the UN, should stop accommodating Morocco and France and step up the pressure on Rabat. It's the law.

Born in Liverpool, Ian Williams graduated from Liverpool University despite several years’ suspension for protests against its investments in South Africa. Consequently, his variegated career path included a drinking competition with Chou En Lai and an argument about English literature with Mme Mao at the tail end of the Cultural Revolution. He has been living in New York since 1989.

He has written for newspapers and magazines around the world, ranging from the Australian, to The Independent, from the ew York Observer and the Village Voice to the Nation and the New Statesman and Newsday, to the Financial Times and the Guardian. His byline has been in the Baptist Times, Penthouse, and Hustler.

He has also “pundited” on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBC and innumerable radio stations, for example appearing on “Hard Ball,” “the O’Reilly Factor,” etc on Fox, where he plays the liberal lion thrown to the Christian Right.

His first book was The Alms Trade, a study of the role of charities in Britain and the second was The UN For Beginners. Deserter: was published by Nation Books July 2004 and his latest is Rum: A Social & Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776. He is currently writing a book on the Americans who blame the UN for all the US's ills.

http://www.ianwilliams.info

Israel turning into cruel occupation machine

Haaretz
Last update - 03:08 13/04/2007

The nightmare on the worshippers' route

By Nehemia Shtrasler

If we had a serious defense minister, the house in Hebron would not have turned into such a complicated affair. The minister would not have fallen asleep on the job. He would have intervened on the first night, three weeks ago.

That same night he would have brought in large military forces and acted quickly, before the settlers could bed down at the site and bring in 80 people, before they had transferred even one mattress there. The army would have received one clear order: immediate eviction. Without hesitation. Without delay. Without papers. Without petitions. Without Meni Mazuz. After all, the defense minister is sovereign in the area. He has exclusive authority.

But instead of a serious defense minister there is Amir Peretz. A coward. A hesitator. A manipulator.

And thus the matter is becoming increasingly complicated. The legal experts are sharpening the explanations, the politicians are celebrating, and the attorney general is clouding the situation even further. Mazuz is allowing Peretz to evict, but not immediately. He has time. So do the settlers, and time is on their side.

And then comes the height of absurdity: The same army that should have evicted them on the first night is now allocating large forces to protect them. Without the army they won't last for even one day. The army is in effect their implementations contractor.

And the competition among the ministers in the coalition is beginning: Who will provide more support to the settlers? Rafi Eitan (Pensioners' Party) says the house must be left in Jewish hands. Eli Yishai (Shas) says this is an entirely legal Jewish purchase, and Roni Bar-On (Kadima) says they have a clear right of purchase. It is quite funny to hear the legal chicanery regarding the settlers' legal right of purchase, in the context of acts of occupation that are all illegal. After all, Israel is the occupier. It has the power, and it is the law. Would anyone dream of allowing a Palestinian family to purchase a house "with a clear right of purchase" in Ariel?

The Hebron settlers have a clear plan: to expand the settlement in the heart of Hebron by creating territorial contiguity between Beit Hadassah and Kiryat Arba, and the house is situated right on the main road, the so-called worshippers' route. We are talking about several dozen extremists who have taken control of the heart of the city, thrown out the legal owners, humiliated the neighbors and made them miserable, causing the closing of 1,500 businesses and the desertion of 15,000 people. That is their Judaism, a lunatic and messianist Judaism, which sanctifies the land and causes misery to human beings.

Their plan also has a Stage 2: When the humiliation and the hatred reach the point of explosion, the major war will break out, the war of Armageddon, which will "cleanse" all the territories of Arabs, and thus the entire Palestinian problem will be solved.

Although Peretz has given orders to evict the settlers, it is now already impossible because he didn't act in time. First we must wait 15 days so they will "evacuate voluntarily," and then they have to be given another 15 days. Why? So that during those 30 days they will bring equipment, additional families, volunteers, sympathizers and yeshiva students from all over the country, as well as ministers and MKs who will visit and express support. And thus, in another 30 days, hundreds of people will be living there, the High Court of Justice will be inundated with requests, and it will be impossible to move anything.

All this should not surprise anyone, because this is the same Peretz who promised to evacuate dozens of illegal outposts, but has not evacuated anything. The same will happen to the house in Hebron. There will be talk, arguments and legal advisers; there will be compromise proposals until May 28, the date of the Labor Party primaries. After that all will be forgotten, and the disputed house in Hebron will become another Beit Hadassah.

And the public, which sees how Israel is turning into a cruel occupation machine, has become totally apathetic. It closes its eyes and hopes that this entire nightmare will pass and disappear.

Israel's apologists distort the truth

Last updated March 27, 2007 5:39 p.m. PT

STEVE NIVA
GUEST COLUMNIST

The fairy-tale view of Israel as eternally besieged and completely faultless in its conflict with the Palestinians, as presented by David Brumer in the March 18 Focus ("Play shines light on conflict"), has certainly taken a hit this past year.

A growing number of Americans who deeply sympathize with Israel, including former President Jimmy Carter, have spoken eloquently of the need to recognize that Israel has committed severe human rights violations against the Palestinian people through its nearly 40-year military occupation and theft of Palestinian land for Israeli settlements. While extremely critical of Palestinian terrorism, they conclude that peace with security is not possible until Israel ends the injustices.

Perhaps that is why Israel's more fervent apologists are resorting to distortion and defamation as their preferred method to discredit anyone who dares acknowledge Palestinian grievances or Israel's grave and well-documented human rights abuses. Carter is facing an onslaught of malicious charges that range from intentionally lying to anti-Semitism. They want to silence an emerging debate over the United States' one-sided embrace of Israel.

This method of attacking the messenger is clearly on display in Brumer's article as well as in the flurry of protest against the play "My Name is Rachel Corrie" at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. The play tells the story of the 23-year-old woman from Olympia crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer demolishing Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip.

Instead of joining with Carter, Rachel Corrie and countless others, many Israeli and Jewish, who recognize Israel's occupation and settlements are unjustified and prevent peace, Brumer peddles defamation and falsehoods about Corrie masquerading as reasonable criticism.

Claiming that Corrie was even "unwittingly" supporting terrorists is contradicted by the fact that the Israeli army has never claimed or provided any evidence that the homes in the neighborhood of Gaza that Corrie was defending when she was killed were concealing tunnels or were involved in attacks on Israelis.

Claiming Corrie was in any way providing cover for suicide bombers is easily proved false by the fact that no Palestinian suicide bombers had come from Gaza three years before or during the time Corrie was there.

Claiming that Corrie was working with an "extremist" organization is contradicted by the fact that the International Solidarity Movement to End the Occupation is composed of leading Palestinian voices of non-violence and supported by numerous Israeli peace groups.

Legitimate questions can be raised about Corrie's risky decision to enter into a very dangerous conflict zone. But that zone was dangerous precisely because Israel has imposed a merciless military occupation over a largely defenseless population and was wantonly demolishing homes to steal land for Israeli settlements.

One can certainly and rightly blame, as Brumer does, Palestinian extremists for damaging the moral justness of the Palestinian cause through murderous and strategically worthless suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of innocent Israelis.

But none of that justifies Israel continuing to steal Palestinian land and building a wall deep within Palestinian lands to annex those settlements. Nor does it prevent Israel from taking unilateral steps to vacate completely the land that it has illegally occupied since 1967.

Brumer's complete silence regarding Israel's occupation and settlements implies that it does.

Brumer's implicit justification for Israel's occupation and settlements is the continually recycled myth that Israel has always extended its hand of peace while Palestinians have always rejected it. This myth conveniently ignores the fact Israel's "generous offer" at Camp David in 2000 was based on Israel annexing the bulk of its settlements, cutting any Palestinian state into five tiny enclaves surrounded by Israel. Brumer touts Israel's recent withdrawal from Gaza, but ignores Israel's withering siege upon its imprisoned population.

Brumer also justifies the status quo by emphasizing the immutable extremism of Hamas. But the fact is that Hamas has not conducted a single suicide bombing in nearly two years and has endorsed a reciprocal truce with Israel if it were to withdraw completely to its 1967 borders. But Israel completely rejects those terms, missing a historic opportunity to undercut Hamas extremism.

Those who truly support a balanced and just peace in the Middle East should honestly debate Corrie's life and legacy. Her very act of acknowledging legitimate Palestinians grievances and her promotion of alternatives to violence was a message of hope and peace sorely lacking today.

By attacking the messenger, Corrie's detractors are sending a clear message opposed to hope and peace.

Steve Niva teaches international politics and Middle East studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia.

‘East Jerusalem is occupied territory’

The first issue of Palestine Times to be sold in Israel ran a front page story called, ‘East Jerusalem is occupied territory’.

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I made the front page!

This article originally appeared as the lead headline on the front page of Palestine Times, March 22.

Tony Blair: ‘East Jerusalem is occupied territory’

by Asa Winstanley

RAMALLAH – In a private letter to Morocco’s King Muhammad VI, British Prime Minister Tony Blair says his government “considers East Jerusalem to be occupied territory,” the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) said yesterday.

Working as chair of the Organization of the Islamic Conference’s committee on Jerusalem, King Muhammad had sent letters to various heads of state asking them to clarify their position on the status of Jerusalem. In his March 12 reply, Blair stated explicitly that Britain does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over any part of the city.

Leaked to CAABU, and passed on to Palestine Times, the letter represents the Prime Minister’s clearest ever statement on the occupied status of Jerusalem.

Chris Doyle, the Director of CAABU told Palestine Times over the phone, that it has been “a challenge to get any senior government minister to make such an official explicit statement” and that “to get Mr. Blair to say it has been impossible.”

Tony Blair typically avoids strong statements on Palestine-Israel issues, so the letter represents a radical departure for the Prime Minister. “Jerusalem’s status has yet to be determined, and should be resolved as part of a final status agreement,” says Blair in the letter. “Pending agreement, we consider East Jerusalem to be occupied territory. We recognize no one claim to sovereignty over the city. We do not support any action that predetermines final status negotiations on the future of Jerusalem.”

Although the British government has long officially held this position, it is the first time in a publicly available statement that a senior minister has made such an explicit statement in over a decade, and the first time ever for Tony Blair.

Doyle said that the last time a senior British minister had made a statement so clearly in opposition to the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem was Malcolm Rifkind back in 1995. His speech was made to the annual Medical Aid for Palestinians dinner when he was foreign secretary under John Major’s Conservative government.

Doyle said that Tel Aviv would not like the idea of Blair referring to the city as occupied, especially against the background of Israeli excavations near al-Aqsa compound.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, and has claimed sovereignty over the entire city since then, though no other government recognizes the claim – including the United States. In 1980, Israel declared the city to be their “eternal, undivided” capital. The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 478 in response, declaring it to be a violation of international law.

Palestinians born and living in East Jerusalem have no citizenship in Israel, their status under Israeli law being similar to that of so-called “guest workers” from overseas. They are granted special Jerusalem ID cards but are not citizens of Israel with voting rights.

The Palestinian people consider East Jerusalem their capital, and the recently formed unity government, as other previous Palestinian governments, has spoken of the desire to establish an independent Palestinian state on all of the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, occupied by Israel since 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Arab Peace Initiative also endorsed this platform.

CAABU said in a letter to Palestine Times that it “was extremely concerned at ongoing Israeli activities to create facts on the ground in an attempt to predetermine the final status of the city.”

The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, John Dugard, commented recently that “The Wall being built in East Jerusalem is an instrument of social engineering designed to achieve the Judaization of Jerusalem by reducing the number of Palestinians in the city.”