Material collected from Palestine Media Watch gadfly letters, electronicIntifada

· The number of settlements doubled and settlement construction went on uninterrupted, with more land confiscation. For Palestinians, Peace Process = Land Confiscation

ISRAEL WANTS TO REMAIN JEWISH

· This is by definition a racist policy

· This is incompatible with democracy

· What will Israel do if in a decade or so, the number of Arabs equals the number of Jews? Will Arabs be expelled? Will Israel forestall this development via some kind of Arab birth control program?

· Hamas is called “terrorist” because it insists on exercising its internationally sanctioned right to resist an occupation by any means. By contrast, gun-toting, murderous terrorist settlers are at worst called “extremist”.

· We do not hear about the much uglier Jewish extremist groups who call for the killing or expulsion of Arabs

· More Palestinians have been killed by settlers than Israelis by car bombs

· The number of Palestinians killed by the IDF is an order of magnitude greater than the number of Israelis called by the PLO in its hey day

INTIFADHA WAS PLANNED BY THE PA

· The one person who is most afraid of the uprising is Yasser Arafat

· The second group of people most afraid of the uprising are the Arab dictatorships

· Arafat does not have the moral authority to stop the Intifadha because it is partly against him and the legitimacy of his rule, besides being against the Israel occupation

WHY DOES THE US SUPPORT ISRAEL?

Usual answer is: BECAUSE ISRAEL IS THE ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST. But:

· Israel is as much a democracy as France was a democracy in Algeria. It coast the lives of more than 1 million Algerians to attain independence from France

· And yet, JFK stood up as one of the staunchest supporters of Algerian nationalism. And mind you, Algeria was an INTEGRAL part of France (not a colony) for 130 years!

· US has been best friends with some of the ugliest dictatorships: Pinochet’s Chile, Apartheid’s South Africa, Zaire under Mobutu, Indonesia under Suharto, Saddam before the Gulf War, Iran under the Shah

· Is it worth the US to alienate the whole Arab and Muslim world?

PALESTINIANS ARE TEACHING HATRED TO THEIR CHILDREN

· Palestinian children are taught to call an oppressor what he is: an oppressor

· Studies have found that Israelis are guilty of teaching their children hatred for Arabs and Palestinians: http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0999/9909019.html -- "Israeli Textbooks and Children’s Literature Promote Racism and Hatred -- Toward Palestinians and Arabs" - SEE APPENDIX A

PALESTINIANS ARE PUTTING THEIR CHILDREN UP FOR SACRIFICE

· Is this supposed to be a justification for killing children?

· Israeli settlers are much more reckless putting their children at risk in hostile situations

· Amnesty International has released statements and reports that flatly denies that children are being cynically used: "[some] have said that Palestinians firing guns may be hidden by Palestinian children throwing stones. Again, none of Amnesty International's cases of children killed relates to any such incident; nor has Amnesty International received details of any such incident." SEE APPENDIX B

· Under Apartheid, the exact same reasoning was presented:

"Senior [South African] police officers have complained recently that their efforts to deal with unrest are hampered by the rioters' tactics, including the use of women and children as human shields'...” (the Los Angeles Times - June 3rd, 1985)

ISRAELIS ARE UNDER SIEGE

In fact, it is Palestinians who are under siege:

· Israeli soldiers surround each one and block it off from the surrounding towns and villages. People cannot get to their work, farmers cannot get to their fields to harvest their produce, and distributors cannot get their goods delivered to shops. In addition the Israeli army and the settlers have been extensively destroying olive groves and agricultural land.

· Israel also controls all border crossing into Palestinian territories including Gaza airport. They have prevented all goods from being exported and have only allowed essential supplies, food and fuel, to enter. 730 cargo containers bound for Palestine have been stuck in Israeli ports for weeks. And finally, Gaza is cut off from the West Bank.

· Israel is using not only excessive force and firepower to subdue the Palestinian uprising; but blockade measures to destroy the Palestinian economy driving people to starvation and submission. This makes it all the more imperative that Israel end its occupation and withdraw fully from the West Bank and Gaza.

ISRAEL IS SUFFERING PALESTINIAN VIOLENCE AGAINST THEM

Number of civilians Palestinians killed vs number of Israeli civilians killed tells the whole story about who is suffering more than the other

· The fact that Israel is one of the largest armies in the world -- and that it makes use of that army to fight back civil unrest -- is another important measure of who is bearing the brunt of suffering

STONE THROWING CIVILIANS ARE LEGITIMATE TARGETS

The Geneva Conventions prohibit treating civilians as soldiers.

CIVILIANS HAVE NO RIGHT TO ATTACK ISRAELI SOLDIERS

The IDF is an occupying force. International law sanctions repelling occupation by any means.

Did the French resistance have a right to fight nazi occupation? Of course they did - Just like many resistance movements have fought occupiers throughout history. Were the French resistance fighters regular army or where they civilians? Civilians, of course. Their cause was just and right.
The Palestinians have a universally recognized right to fight occupation as granted by United Nations Charter. They are fighting for their freedom. Palestinians civilians are fighting, and their cause is just and right and the United States, my country, must support their quest.

ARAFAT WAS INFLEXIBLE WITH BARAK

In fact, he was recklessly flexible. Here are the concessions Arafat was willing to make In Camp David:

· permanent Israeli sovereignty over existing Jewish settlements

· Israel's demand to maintain a permanent military presence in the Jordan Valley

· Israel's demand to use its army on Palestinian land if it fears a danger to the State of Israel

· carte blanche for Israel to fly over Palestinian air space

· the presence of Israeli early warning stations on Palestinian territory

· Israel's demand that Palestine not have an army of its own

ISRAEL HAS WITHDRAWN FROM 99 PERCENT OF THE GAZA STRIP AND 39.7 PERCENT OF THE WEST BANK -- 99 PERCENT OF THE PALESTINIAN POPULATION RESIDES UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY. ISRAEL WAS OFFERING A PALESTINIAN STATE IN 95 PERCENT OF THE WEST BANK

In reality, The land from which Israel was proposing to withdraw (Maps tell the whole story here):

· Represents less than 18% of historical Palestine

· Is dotted by Jewish-only settlments and Israeli army bases

· Is criss-crossed by Israeli roads physically fenced off from the surrounding Palestinian lands

· Would have consisted of four disconnected regions between which travel and movement would have been completely controlled by Israel.

BARAK OFFERED MAJOR CONCESSIONS ON JERUSALEM

· What Ehud Barak meant by "sharing Jerusalem" was nothing more than granting Palestinians shared adminstrative control over some neighborhoods. Barak has time and again said:

"I shall not sign any document which would grant Palestinians sovereignty over al-Haram al-Sharif." (Reuters - Jan 21, 2001)

THIS IS A JEW AGAINST ARAB CONFLICT

List of Jewish organizations that have come out strongly on the side of Palestinian rights and have condemned Israeli brutality

· Jewish Peace Fellowship http://www.jewishpeacefellowship.org/

· Neturei Karta Homepage http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bunker/5750/home.html

· Jews NOT Zionists http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/

· Yesh Gvul, The movement for IDF men refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories. http://www.diak.org/Haayesh-gvul.htm

· Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions http://www.salam.org/activism/home_demolitions.html

· Bat Shalom, Israeli Women for Peace http://www.batshalom.org/

· B'Tselem http://www.btselem.org/

· "Occupied Territory" -- http://www.occupied.org/

· Rabbis for Human Rights -- http://www.rhr.israel.net/indexa.html

· Not in Our Name Coalition -- http://www.diak.org/not_in_our_name.htm

· Oz v'Shalom - Netivot Shalom (religious Zionist anti-Occupation) http://www.ariga.com/ozveshalom/index.asp

· Jewish Alliance Against the Occupation -- http://www.opentent.org/jews.html

· Association for Civil Rights in Israel -- http://www.nif.org/acri/

· Gush Shalom -- http://www.gush-shalom.org/

· Jewish People Liberation Army -- http://msanews.mynet.net/Scholars/Weizfeld/

· Amira Hass, Gideon Levy and others writing articles in Haaretz http://www.haaretzdaily.com/

· Alliance of Middle East Scientists and Physicians http://www.keck.ucsf.edu/~yoram/amesp.html

· Visions for peace with justice in Israel/Palestine -- http://www.vopj.org/

· Search for justice and equality -- http://www.searchforjustice.org

· Tikkun Magazine -- http://www.tikkun.org

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY AND THE PALESTINIANS ARE ONE BLOB

The Palestinian people have suffered a great deal in the hands of Arafat and his PA, under the supervision and encouragement of both Israel and the United States -- who rewarded Arafat for cracking down, not only on Hamas but on any opposition. Israel was only too happy to ensure that a viable civil-based political alternative to Arafat not be allowed to come to life

PALESTINIAN DEMANDS TO OPEN AN INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION IN ISRAELI BRUTALITY ARE OUTLANDISH AND OPPORTUNIST

· Fact: The UN High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva voted 48-1 to open inquiry into Israel's actions

THE PALESTINIANS WERE WRONG TO REJECT THE UN PARTITION PLAN[1]

MYTH: Britain, unable and unwilling to continue its governance of Palestine, requested the United Nations to take steps to resolve the communal conflict between Palestinians and Zionists. In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly resolved, by a two-thirds majority, to endorse the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state (Resolution No. 181). Israel and its supporters say that the Palestinian rejection of the Partition Plan in 1947 was tantamount to their forfeiture of any future claim to Palestine.

FACTS:

· First, the United Nations was not competent under international law to partition or otherwise dispose of the territory of Palestine against the wishes of the clear majority of its inhabitants. Although Palestine, in 1947, was still subject to a mandate that had legally terminated as a result of the dissolution of the League of Nations, it did not affect its statehood or the sovereignty of its people, so the question of its future government was a matter that fell exclusively within its own domestic jurisdiction and could not become subject to adjudication by the United Nations. The United Nations did not possess any sovereignty nor did it exercise any other right over Palestine. It therefore had no power to partition Palestine or to assign any part of its territory to a religious minority comprised mostly of recent European immigrants in order that they might establish a state of their own.

· Second, the Partition Plan has no legal validity. The Partition Plan was adopted by the General Assembly, not the Security Council. Resolutions of the General Assembly have the force of recommendations to member states of the United Nations but do not have any mandatory force. Therefore, the General Assembly vote to accept the recommendations of UNSCOP to partition Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state did not mean that one or another state was being created over the objections of one of the parties.

· The partition plan also violated a very basic principle in international affairs: that of self-determination of peoples, recognised by Article 1 of the United Nations Charter. The carving-out of 55 percent of Palestine for the creation of a Jewish state and the subjection of part of the original inhabitants (who were not Jewish) to its dominion represents a blatant violation of this principle.

· Third, the Partition Plan was neither just nor fair. The Partition Plan granted 55 percent of Palestine to the Jews, who at that time comprised only 30 percent of the population, and who owned a mere 6 percent of the land. Within this Jewish state were to have been 407,000 Palestinian Arabs. The Arab state was to comprise only the remaining 34 percent of the land. The major reason the Palestinians rejected the partition resolution was on the grounds of its lack of fairness: it proposed to give the minority population an exclusive and hegemonic right to the majority of the land.

· In 1946, the total population of Palestine was 1,972,0000 inhabitants, comprising 1,247,000 Palestinians and 608,000 Jews, as well as 16,000 others (see UN Doc. A/AC 14/32, 11 November 1947, p. 304). The Jewish population was composed primarily of foreign-born immigrants, originating mostly from Poland, Russia and Central Europe. Only one third of these immigrants had acquired Palestinian citizenship (Government of Palestine, Statistical Abstract, 1944-1945, p. 42).

· With respect to land ownership, it appears from the government of Palestine's Village Statistics that the Jews then owned 1,491 square kilometers (exclusive of urban property) out of a total of 26,323 square kilometers in Palestine (Appendix IV, to the Report of Sub-Committee 2, UN Doc. A/AC 14/32, 11 November 1947, p. 270.). Thus, Jewish land ownership amounted to 5.6 percent of the total area of the country. In contrast, the Palestinians owned the rest of Palestine, including all the areas that were categorised as public domain. Moreover, the territory allocated to the Jewish state included the coastal plain extending from Akka to Ashdod and other fertile lands, while the Palestinians, an agricultural people, were left mainly with mountainous and arid regions.

· Israel's claim that since the Palestinians rejected the partition resolution it therefore has is a claim devoid of any legal foundations. The Palestinian refusal to accept the partition in no way confers upon Israel the right to aggravate a wrong. In other words, the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 could not take away the rights of the Palestinians nor enlarge the rights of the Jews. The United Nations itself affirmed this view when Israel was admitted to the UN by reaffirming its resolutions, which provided for the rights of the Palestinians, including UNGA 181 and UNGA 194.

THE PALESTINIANS CHOSE TO LEAVE THEIR LAND IN 1948[2]

MYTH: Israel and its supporters claim that Palestinians left their homes in Palestine of their own accord during the 1948 war

· FACTS

o In the 1948 war the Palestinians were largely defenseless, and sought to avoid getting caught in the fighting which broke out. A significant proportion of the Palestinian population was terrorized into leaving.

o At first this was the result of threats, intimidation and acts of terror, in cities like Jaffa and Jerusalem, carried out by two Jewish terror organizations, IZL (Irgun Zvai Leumi) and LEHI (Lohamei Herut Israel). Of such acts the most notorious occurred on 9 April 1948 at the village of Deir Yassin on the western side of Jerusalem, when 120 villagers were killed. Deir Yassin had a devastating impact on Palestinian civilian morale, in the words of Israeli military intelligence,

"a decisive accelerating factor [to flight]"
(quoted in Benny Morris, 'The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Service Analysis of June 1948', Middle Eastern Studies, vol.xxii, no. 1, January 1986, p.9).
Deir Yassin has always been considered as an Irgun outrage, but the destruction of the village was approved by the Haganah.

o There were also deliberate efforts to force the Palestinians to leave their homes. During the summer months of 1948 a decision was taken to prevent Palestinian villagers, both in the forward battle area and behind Jewish lines, from harvesting their summer and winter crops in 1948. Others were directly expelled. In July 1948 Jewish forces resolved to seize the two Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramla. From the start, the operations against the two towns were designed to induce civilian panic and flight, and at least one of the four Jewish brigades was told:

"Flight from the town of Ramle of women, the old and children is to be facilitated. The males are to be detained"
(Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (Cambridge, 1987), p.28).
In Lydda fear led to panic, and many were shot down in what amounted to a large-scale massacre of probably 250-300 men, women and children after the town had surrendered.

o When General Allon asked: "What shall we do with the Arabs ?" Ben-Gurion made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said: "Expel them" (Morris, p. 207).

Approximately 70,000 inhabitants of the two towns were then driven out, almost 10 percent of the refugee total.

o Expulsions, sometimes accompanied by atrocities, became increasingly frequent in the mopping-up operations from late summer 1948 onwards, and increased the fearfulness of the Palestinian population. In the course of his research the Israeli historian Benny Morris found an Israeli Intelligence report that estimated that 70 percent of those who fled in the decisive period up to 1 June 1948 did so as a result of direct or nearby Jewish military or paramilitary action. In other words, they fled either because they were expelled or because they thought their lives were in immediate danger, not because they voluntarily 'abandoned' their homes. Furthermore, it was widely understood what was intended, and it took place under 'a coalition government whose policy, albeit undeclared and indirect, was to reduce as much as possible the Palestinian population which would be left in the country and to make sure that as few refugees as possible would return.

o By 1948, the number of Palestinian refugees was estimated 780,000. Zionists claim that this figure is 520,000. Israel's Six Day War proved almost as great a disaster for the Palestinians as the 1948 war had been. Large numbers of Palestinians fled or were expelled from villages or refugeecamps, particularly those on the floor of the Jordan Valley where they could flee across the river. Altogether 355,000 Palestinians crossed to the East Bank, of whom 210,000 had not previously been refugees and were now described as 'displaced'. Of those displaced either during the 1967 war or immediately after it, only 15,000 were allowed to return, less than 5 percent of the total. By 1994, the 'displaced' of 1967 numbered an estimated 800,000. Once again, as in the period after the 1948 war, Israeli troops routinely shot civilians trying to return home.

o Even after the armistice agreements of 1949, Israel continued to expel or coerce thousands of Palestinians into leaving, notably from the "Little Triangle", a strip of West Bank land ceded by Transjordan during negotiations, and in the south from Majdal ("Ahkelon") on the coast, to Faluja and Bir Saba. the environs of Hebron, and from the demilitarized zone east and north of the Sea of Galilee. In 1953 it expelled another 7,000 bedouin.

o Only 17 percent of the Palestinian population, approximately 160,000 remained in what became Israel. What had just taken place was the second major case of ethnic cleansing in the post-war world.

The Arabs started all the wars[3]

1948

Myth

Since the establishment of Israel there have been five major wars between Arabs and the Israelis. These wars occured in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982. Israel claims that the Arabs started all the wars. Although there has been low-intensity conflict in the intervening years and major conflagrations during the "War of Attrition" in 1969-1970 and the 1978 invasion of Lebanon, massive civil disobedience during the Uprising of 1988, and in 2000-2001 during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, it is these five wars Israel refers to when it makes its claims, creating the impression that Israel has only acted "in self-defence".

The roots of the 1948 war go as far back as the first recognition on the part of the Palestinians that the Zionists wished to establish a Jewish state on their land. In late 1947 the United Nations proposed that Palestine be divided into a Palestinian Arab state and a Jewish state. The UN Partition Plan recommended that 55 percent of Palestine, and the most fertile region, be given to the Jewish settlers who compromised 30 percent of the population. The remaining 45 percent of Palestine was to comprise a home for the other 70 percent of the population who were Palestinians. The Palestinians rejected the plan because it was unfair.

Israel and its supporters claim that the Arabs first attacked in Janurary 1948 and then invaded Israel in May 1948.

Facts

The truth is that by May 1948 Zionist forces had already invaded and occupied large parts of the land which had been allocated to the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan. In January 1948 Israel did not yet exist.

The evidence that Israel started the 1948 war comes from Zionist sources. The History of the Palmach which was released in portions in the 1950s (and in full in 1972) details the efforts made to attack the Palestinian Arabs and secure more territory than alloted to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan (Kibbutz Menchad Archive, Palmach Archive, Efal, Israel).

Already, Zionist forces were implementing their "Plan Dalet" to

"control the area given to us [the Zionists] by the U.N. in addition to areas occupied by Arabs which were outside these borders and the setting up of forces to counter the possible invasion of Arab armies after May 15" (Qurvot 1948, p. 16, which covers the operations of Haganah and Palmach, see also Ha Sepher Ha Palmach, The Book of Palmach).

1. Operation Nachson, 1 April 1948

2. Operation Harel, 15 April 1948

3. Operation Misparayim, 21 April 1948

4. Operation Chametz, 27 April 1948

5. Operation Jevuss, 27 April 1948

6. Operation Yiftach, 28 April 1948

7. Operation Matateh, 3 May 1948

8. Operation Maccabi, 7 May 1948

9. Operation Gideon, 11 May 1948

10. Operation Barak, 12 May 1948

11. Operation Ben Ami, 14 May 1948

12. Operation Pitchfork, 14 May 1948

13. Operation Schfifon, 14 May 1948

The operations 1-8 indicate operations carried out before the entry of the Arab forces inside the areas allotted by the UN to the Arab state. It has to be noted that of thirteen specific full-scale operations under Plan Dalet eight were carried out outside the area "given" by the UN to the Zionists.

Following is a list drawn from the New York Times of the major military operations the Zionists mounted before the British evacuated Palestine and before the Arab forces entered Palestine:

· Qazaza (21 Dec. 1947)

· Sa'sa (16 Feb. 1948)

· Haifa (21 Feb. 1948)

· Salameh (1 March 1948)

· Biyar Adas (6 March 1948)

· Qana (13 March 1948)

· Qastal (4 April 1948)

· Deir Yassin (9 April 1948)

· Lajjun (15 April 1948)

· Saris (17 April 1948)

· Tiberias (20 April 1948)

· Haifa (22 April 1948)

· Jerusalem (25 April 1948)

· Jaffa (26 April 1948)

· Acre (27 April 1948)

· Jerusalem (1 May 1948)

· Safad (7 May 1948)

· Beisan (9 May 1948).

David Ben-Gurion confirms this in an address delivered to American Zionists in Jerusalem on 3 September 1950:

"Until the British left, no Jewish settlement, however remote, was entered or seized by the Arabs, while the Haganah, under severe and frequent attack, captured many Arab positions and liberated Tiberias and Haifa, Jaffa and Safad" (Ben-Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 530).

Although late PM Ben-Gurion speaks of "liberating" Jaffa it was alloted to the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan.

Late PM Menachem Begin adds:

"In the months preceding the Arab invasion, and while the five Arab states were conducting preparations, we continued to make sallies into Arab territory. The conquest of Jaffa stands out as an event of first-rate importance in the struggle for Hebrew independence early in May, on the eve [that is, before the alleged Arab invasion] of the invasion by the five Arab states" (Menachem Begin, The Revolt, Nash, 1972, p. 348)

On 12 December 1948 David Ben Gurion confirmed the fact that the Zionists started the war in 1948:

"As April began, our War of Independence swung decisively from defense to attack. Operation 'Nachson'...was launched with the capture of Arab Hulda near where we stand today and of Deir Muheisin and culminated in the storming of Qastel, the great hill fortress near Jerusalem" (Ben Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 106).

Israeli historians have themselves refuted the claim that the Arabs started the 1948 war. Benny Morris uncovered a report from the Israeli Defense Force Intelligence Branch (30 June 1948) that shows a deliberate Israeli policy to attack the Arabs should they resist and expel the Palestinians (Benny Morris, "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948", Middle Eastern Studies, XXII, January 1986, pp. 5-19).

Conclusion

In sum, it is not true that the Arabs "invaded Israel" in 1948.

First, Israel did not exist at the time of the alleged invasion as an established state with recognised bounderies. When the Zionist leaders established Israel on 15 May 1948 they purposely declined to declare the bounderies of the new state in order to allow for future expansion.

Secondly, the only territory to which the new state of Israel had even a remote claim was that alloted to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan. But the Zionists had already attacked areas that were alloted to the Palestinian Arab state.

Thirdly, those areas which the Arab states purportedly "invaded" were, in fact, exclusively areas alloted to the Palestinian Arab state proposed by the UN Partition Plan. The so-called Arab invasion was a defensive attempt to hold on to the areas alloted by the Partition Plan for the Palestinian state.

Finally, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion, was under orders not to enter the areas alloted to the Jewish state (Sir John Bagot Glubb, "The Battle for Jerusalem", Middle East International, May 1973).

1956

MYTH: Israel blames the 1956 Sinai war on Egypt's aggressive behavior, including the closing of the Suez Canal.

FACTS

The facts concerning the Sinai war come from Israeli sources. A decisive and authoritative contribution exploding the myth of Israel's accusations are the relevations from former Prime Minister Moshe Sharett's Personal Diary (Moshe Sharett, Yoman Ishi, Ma'ariv, 1979, in Hebrew with portions trans. in Livia Rokach, Israel's Sacred Terrorism: A Study Based on Moshe Sharett's Personal Diary and Other Documents, AAUG, 1980).

The main reason often given for the origin of the 1956 war was Egypt's closing of the Suez Canal. Moshe Sharett reveals that the Israeli leadership was planning the territorial conquest of the Sinai and Gaza as early as the fall of 1953. The Israeli attack on Gaza in February 1955 was undertaken as a conscious preliminary act of war. David Ben-Gurion became Prime Minister and Israel soon became very aggressive.

On 28 February 1955 Israeli troops invaded Gaza killing 37 Egyptians and wounding 31. The attack came out of the blue. Egyptian President Gamal Nasser said it "was revenge for nothing. Everything was quiet there" (Kennett Love, Suez: the Twice Fought War, McGraw-Hill, 1969, p. 83). The Chief of Staff of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation, Swedish General Carl von Horn, confirmed Nasser's claim, asserting that there had been

"comparative tranquility along the armistice demarcation lines during the greater part of the period November 1954 to February 1955" (Report to the Security Council, UN Doc. S3373, 17 March 1955).

In the 1950s few people believed that Nasser had aggressive intentions towards Israel. Richard Grossman, a British Zionist, wrote in 1955 that:

"not only Egypt, but the whole Middle East must pray that Nasser survives the assassin's bullet. I am certain that he is a man who means what he says, and that so long as he is in power directing his middle-class revolution, Egypt will remain a factor for peace and social development" (Richard Grossman, New Statesman and Nation, 22 January 1955).

The Gaza raid changed everything. Arab public opinion was outraged and demanded action, as it was intended to. Nasser needed arms to equip his army which was hopelessly outgunned by Israel. Western Intelligence was convinced that Egypt had no intention of attacking Israel. The Americans rebuffed Nasser in any case and Egypt turned to the Russians who orchestrated the famous Czech arms deal which was used by Israel for feigned outrage. The Russians had also used the Czechs to supply arms to Israel in 1948.

Nasser did not realise that he was being set up for the Israeli invasion, although he did recognise that the situation was heating up. In October 1955, a year before the war, Israeli PM David Ben-Gurion ordered his Chief of Staff, General Moshe Dayan, to prepare invasion plans. Ben Gurion was determined, according to Dayan,

"not to miss any politically favorable opportunity to strike at Egypt" (Moshe Dayan, Diary of the Sinai Campaign, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966, p. 37).

Dayan expressed the hopes of the Israeli leadership when he said in December 1955:

"One of these days a situation will be created which makes military action possible" (Kennet Love, Suez: The Twice Fought War, McGraw-Hill, 1969, p. 106).

The opportunity to make war against Egypt came in July 1956 when Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, an act within the legal right of the Egyptian state. The Suez Canal was controlled by foreigners in 1956 and represented an important vestige of colonialism affronting the Arab people. Nasser's action was popular although, in hindsight, politically cataclysmic. France and Britain, in one of the last spasms of European colonialism, colluded in a secret alliance with Israel to invade the Sinai and destroy Nasser.

On 29 October 1956 Israel attacked Egypt and occupied the entire Sinai. French war equipment poured into Israel and French and British warships bombarded the Egyptian coast. French and British troops landed and helped the Israeli armed forces. Eisenhower, who had been in the dark about the invasion plans and the secret alliance, demanded that Israeli forces withdraw from Egyptian territory. Israel refused, leading Eisenhower to exclaim:

"Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of U.N. disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its own withdrawal? If we agree that armed attack can properly achieve the purpose of the assailant, then I fear we will have turned back the clock of international order..." (Address to the nation, 20 February 1957).

1967

Myth

Israel claims that its attack against Egypt in June 1967 was a defensive measure to prevent Gamal Abdel Nasser from attacking.

Facts

Israel began planning the re-conquest of the Sinai soon after its forced withdrawal in 1956. In 1967, as in 1956, Israel waited for favorable circumstances to put its plan into action.

In 1967, however, Israel had a greater appreciation of the necessity and utility of a sophisticated publicity campaign, waged through the international media, to convince Western opinion that any Israeli military actions could only be construed as acts of self-defense. This publicity campaign was two-pronged: stressing that the Arabs attacked Israel and that Israel was in danger of annihilation. Both presuppositions were patently false.

In the early hours of 5 June 1967, Israel announced to a credulous Western world that the Egyptian Air Force had initiated hostile actions. In fact, it was the Israelis who had attacked the Egyptians and destroyed virtually the entire Egyptian Air Force while its fleet was still on the ground.

General Matityahu Peled, one of the architects of the Israeli conquest, committed what the Israeli public considered blasphemy when he admitted the true thinking of the Israeli leadership:

"The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war" (Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972).

Israeli Air Force General Ezer Weizmann declared bluntly that "there was never any danger of extermination" (Ma'ariv, 19 April 1972). Mordechai Bentov, a former Israeli cabinet minister, also dismissed the myth of Israel's imminent annihilation: "All this story about the danger of extermination has been a complete invention and has been blown up a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territories" (Al Hamishmar, 14 April 1972).

After the 1967 war Israel, claimed it invaded because of imminent Arab attack. It claimed that Nasser's closing of the Straits of Tiran constituted an act of war. It also cited Syrian shelling on the demilitarized zone of the Syrian-Israeli border. The claim that the Arabs were going to invade appears particularly ludicrous when one recalls that a third of Egypt's army was in Yemen and therefore quite unprepared to launch a war. On the Syrian front, Israel was engaging in threats and provocations that evidenced many similarities to its behavior in the lead up to the Gaza raid of 1955.

The demilitarized zone on the Syrian-Israeli border was established by agreement on 20 July 1949. Israeli provocations were incessant and enabled Israel to increase and extend its sovereignty by encroachment over the entire Arab area. According to one UN Chief of Staff, Arab villagers were evicted and their homes destroyed (E.L.M. Burns, Between Arab and Israeli, Ivan Obolensky, 1962, pp. 113-114). Another Chief of Staff described how the Israelis ploughed up Arab land and "advanced the 'frontier' to their own advantage" (Carl von Horn, Soldiering for Peace, Cassell, 1966, p. 79).

Israel attempted to evict the Arabs living on the Golan and annex the demilitarized zone. When the Syrians inevitably responded, Israel claimed that "peaceful" Israeli farmers were being shelled by the Syrians. Unmentioned was the fact that the "farmers" were armed and using tractors and farm equipment to encroach on the demilitarized zone (David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: the Roots of Violence in the Middle East, Faber and Faber, 1984, pp. 213-15). This was part of a "premeditated Israeli policy [..] to get all the Arabs out of the way by fair means or foul."

Shortly after the Syrian response on 7 April 1967, the Israeli Air Force attacked Syria, shooting down six planes, hitting thirty fortified positions and killing about 100 people (Hirst, op. cit., p. 214). It was unlikely that any Syrian guns would have been fired if not for Israel's provocation.

Israel's need for water also played a role in the 1967 attack. The invasion completed Israel's encirclement of the headwaters of the Upper Jordan River, its capture of the West Bank and the two aquifers arising there, which currently supply all the groundwater for northern and central Israel.

The Israelis followed-up their massive retaliation with stern warnings. On 11 May 1967, General Yitzhak Rabin said on Israeli radio: "The moment is coming when we will march on Damascus to overthrow the Syrian Government" (Godfrey Jansen, "New Light on the 1967 War", Daily Star, London, 15, 22, 26 November 1973). Syria sought Egypt's assistance under their Mutual Defense Pact of November 1966. Nasser could not afford to stand idly by. He ordered the removal of the small UN force stationed in Sinai and closed the Straits of Tiran. This action provided the casus belli that Israel soon invoked.

Nasser's move was a gesture of solidarity with Syria and no threat to Israel's economy or its security. The closure of the Straits did not force Israel into war. Claims of economic strangulation were absurd since only 5 percent of Israel's trade depended on free movement through the Straits of Tiran. No Israeli merchant vessel had passed through the Straits during the previous two years (Michael Howard and Robert Hunter, Israel and the Arab World: the Crisis of 1967, Adelphi Papers 41, Institute for Strategic Studies, 1967, p. 24).

In sum, the threat to Israel's survival in 1967 was non-existent. According to the British newspaper The Observer, Nasser's purpose was clearly "to deter Israel rather than provoke it to a fight" (The Observer, London, 4 June 1967). New York Times columnist James Reston reported that "Egypt does not war [...] certainly is not ready for war" (New York Times, 4 and 5 June 1967).

The Israelis themselves were perfectly aware of this, given their sophisticated military intelligence capabilities. Later, in the first few days of the war, they were so concerned that their plans for attacking Syria would be discovered that they deliberately attacked the USS Liberty, killing 33 American sailors, in an attempt to prevent it from monitoring war preparations.

A few months after the war, Yitzhak Rabin remarked: "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai on 14 May would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it" (Le Monde, 29 February 1968).

Israeli General Peled was even more frank: "To pretend that the Egyptian forces massed on our frontiers were in a position to threaten the existence of Israel constitutes an insult not only to the intelligence of anyone capable of analyzing this sort of situation, but above all an insult to the Zahal [Israeli army]" (Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972).

Finally, in 1982, the Israelis admitted that they had started the war (although official Zionist propaganda in the United States still does not acknowledge this fact). Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a speech delivered at the Israeli National Defense College, clearly stated that: "The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him" (Jerusalem Post, 20 August 1982).

1973

Facts

After coming to power in late 1970, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat indicated to the United States that he was willing to negotiate with Israel to resolve the conflict in exchange for Egyptian territory lost in 1967. In February 1971 he offered a full peace treaty to Israel, which it rejected, although international consensus supported the Sadat offer which conformed to the US position (John Kimche, There Could Have Been Peace, Dial, 1973, p. 286). When these overtures were ignored by Washington and Tel Aviv, Egypt and Syria launched an coordinated action in October 1973 against Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai and Syrian Golan Heights.

The devastating defeat of 1967 left Israel in control of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai. Israel rapidly moved to incorporate these occupied territories into its domain. Israel illegally annexed Jerusalem and began establishing colonial settlements in all the occupied territories.

It was clear that the Arab World could not go on indefinitely watching Israel expel Egyptians, Syrians and Palestinians while installing Jewish settlers in their thousands. By 1973 nearly 100 settlements had been established and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been displaced, expelled, imprisoned or deported.

On 6 October 1973 the Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai and on the Golan Heights in an attempt to liberate their territory occupied by Israel. The Secretary-General of the Arab League explained the Arab action:

"In a final analysis, Arab action is justifiable, moral and valid under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. There is no aggression, no attempt to acquire new territories. But to restore and liberate all the occupied territories is a duty for all able self-respecting peoples" (Sunday Times, 14 October 1973).

1982

Myth

In 1982, Israel claimed that its military objective was to attack, not Lebanon, but the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon in order to 'safeguard the Galilee region from enemy artillery and infiltration'.

Facts

The facts are that Israel invaded Lebanon on 6 June 1982 in order to totally destroy the PLO, not only its insignificant military capability, but also all of its civilian functions. The other basic war aim was described by Israeli Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon:

"The bigger the blow and the more we damage the PLO infrastructure, the more the Arabs in Judea and Samaria, [the Biblical name for the West Bank used for obvious political reasons by Israel] and Gaza will be ready to negotiate with us"
-- The Times, 5 August 1982 --

Israel had hoped that, with the destruction of the PLO, Lebanon could be ripped from its Arab moorings in order to create an Israeli puppet regime of pro-Israeli Maronite Christian Lebanese, a minority of the population. As early as 1954, David Ben-Gurion had urged that one of the "central duties" of Israel's foreign policy should be to push the Maronite Christians to "proclaim a Christian state". Moshe Dayan had said that:

"[the] Israeli army will enter Lebanon, will occupy the neessary territory, and will create a Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel"
-- Livia Rokach, Israel's Sacred Terrorism, op.cit., pp. 24-30.
Also see, Laura Zittrain Eisenberg: My Enemy's Enemy: Zionist Intentions in Lebanon.

The Israeli claim that it had invaded Lebanon "in self-defense" is false. Between August 1981 and May 1982 the PLO maintained a truce, sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia, on Lebanon's southern border. Israel, on the other hand, violated the truce 2,777 times (United Nations records cited by Robin Wright in the Christian Science Monitor, 18 March 1982; Alexander Cockburn and James Ridgeway, Village Voice, 22 June 1982). [For the most thorough, as well as the most compelling treatment of Israel's invasion of Lebanon, see Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation]

Once again Israel only needed an excuse to make war. This time the casus belli was the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador to London, an act determined by Scotland Yard to have been conducted by the PLO-dissent Abu Nidal group. In any case, Israel's excuse was so flimsy that, for the first time in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israeli propaganda was not taken on board without question by the international community.

At first the Israelis operated under the pretense that they were only securing their borders and stated that they did not intend to go beyond a 25 mile limit. But the truth was very different as described by the former chief of Israeli military intelligence, Aharon Yariv:

"I know in fact that going to Beirut was included in the original military plan"
-- Jerusalem Post, 24 September 1982.

Israel's invasion of Lebanon has no validity in international law. Israel thus had no grounds to rely on the provision of the Charter of the United Nations concerning self-defense, while the means used to effect the invasion clearly lacked proportionality. The cease-fire of July 1981 had been observed scrupulously. The objective of the 1982 invasion and war, therefore, was to achieve certain political and strategic aims at a high cost, which included breaches of some of the most fundamental rules of international law.

As for the Israeli justification for the conduct of hostilities, the principle of military necessity cannot excuse the massive number of civilian casualties which resulted from Israeli attacks on refugee camps, hospitals, schools, cultural, religious and charitable institutions, commercial and industrial premises, Lebanese government and PLO offices, diplomatic premises and urban areas generally.

Particularly heinous was the August 8th bombardment of Beirut by the Israeli Air Force, which some correspondents compared to the WWII bombing of Dresden in its ferocity. Hundreds of innocent Beiruti civilians died as a result of this war crime. [See Thomas Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem; Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation; Jean Said Makdisi, Beirut Fragments; Chris Giannou, Besieged: A Doctor in Lebanon.]

UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 242 DOES NOT CALL FOR ISRAELI WITHDRAWL FROM ALL OCCUPIED TERRITORIES[4]

Myth

Israel has consistently argued that the key phrase in UNSC 242, which calls upon Israel to withdraw "from territories occupied" in 1967, does not mean that it must withdraw from all the territories it seized during military hostilities.

The resolution calls for "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict", i.e., the June 1967 War. Israel points to the omission of the definite article "the" in the phrase "from territories occupied", to support its claim that it is not required to withdraw from all the occupied territories, but only those necessitated by the establishment of "secure and recognised boundaries" (to which reference is made subsequently in the resolution). Hence, Israel argues that it is entitled, within the terms of the resolution, to retain East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Facts

Israel's interpretation of 242 is invalidated by its disregard of the fact that the references in the resolution to "withdrawal" and to "secure and recognized boundaries" are subject to the general principle, encoded in international law, of the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" which is stated in the preamble of the resolution and which governs all that follows.

UNSC 242 specifies in preamble paragraph 3 "...all member states in their acceptance of the charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter," which establishes the principles upon which members are required to act in furtherance of the purposes of the organization, specified in Article 1. Among the principles of Article 2 is "members must fulfill their Charter obligations in good faith." Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights is a manifest case of Israeli belligerent occupation of a territory of a foreign state, namely Syria, the sovereignty of which is not in dispute. UNSC 242 calls for the "withdrawal of Israel's armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict."

It thus follows that Israel, as a matter of legal obligation and in compliance with its charter obligations, must withdraw its occupation forces from the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Gaza, and the Golan Heights. Meanwhile, Israel is obligated to observe the laws of occupation encoded in the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which it is a signatory.

The significance of the missing "the" is that the resolution was drafted so as not to exclude minor modifications of the pre-1967 borders which might be mutually agreeable to Israel and its neighbors, provided that such modifications did not materially violate the general principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. The classic statement of this interpretation of the resolution was furnished by former US Secretary of State William Rogers in 1969:

"We believe that while recognized political boundaries must be established, and agreed upon by the parties, any changes in the existing lines should not reflect the weight of conquest and should be confined to insubstantial alterations required for mutual security. We do not support expansionism. We believe troops must be withdrawn as the resolution provides."
-- New York Times, 11 December 1969 --

This statement is on record as the official position of the US government. Israel rejects this interpretation.

The undeniable fact is that the French (and Russian) texts of UNSC 242, which are equally authentic as UN records, do not omit the definite article "the" from the phrase "from occupied territories". As argued above, the English text does not specifically exclude the possibility of total withdrawal; it merely leaves the door open to something less. it does not speak of withdrawal from "some" or "parts" of the occupied territories. It specifies "withdrawal from territories occupied."

Israel's consistent "creation of facts" on the ground, in the form of colonial settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, constitutes clear evidence, along with statements by various Israeli leaders, that Israel, alone among the members of the United Nations, refuses to accept the legitimacy and binding legal obligations of UNSC 242.

SOME IMPORTANT FACTS

· Israel allots 85% of the water resources in the occupied territories for Jews and the remaining 15% is divided among all Palestinians in the territories? For example in Hebron, 85% of the water is given to about 400 settlers, while 15% must be divided among Hebron's 120,000 Palestinians.

· The United States awards Israel $5 billion in aid each year, more than to any other country in the world: US aid to Israel exceeds the aid the US grants to the whole sub-Sahara Africa

· GDP, per capita, and consumption per capita in the Occupied Territories have dropped about 15 percent in the West Bank and Gaza since 1993 - that's even with large foreign assistance pouring in, from Europe, mostly.

· Up until 1993, the U.S. and Israel permitted humanitarian aid to come into the territories. UN humanitarian aid was permitted into the West Bank and Gaza. In 1993, that was restricted

· Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?

· Israel is the only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections from its sites

· Israel currently occupies territories of two sovereign nations (Lebanon and Syria) in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions

· High-ranking military officers in the Israeli Defense Forces have admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed by the IDF

· Israel refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war

· Israel routinely confiscates bank accounts, businesses, and land from Palestinians and refuses to pay compensation to those who suffer the confiscation

· Israel stands in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council Resolutions

· Israel's current prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was found by an Israeli court to be "personally responsible" for the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Lebanon in which thousands of unarmed Palestinian refugees were slaughtered in 1982

· Today's Israel sits on the former sites of more than 400 destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the Israelis renamed almost every physical site in the country to cover up the traces

· Sharon's coalition government includes a party -- Molodet -- which advocates expelling all [of the over two million] Palestinians from [their homes in] the occupied territories

· Israel's illegal settlement-building in the Occupied Palestinian territories more than doubled doubled in the eight years since the Oslo agreements

· Illegal settlement building under Prime Minister Barak doubled compared to settlement building under Prime Minister Netanyahu

· More illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories were built under Prime Minister Barak than at any other time in the history of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land

· Despite a ban on torture by Israel's High Court of Justice, torture has continued by Shin Bet interrogators on Palestinian prisoners

· Palestinian refugees make up the largest refugee population in the world

· Israeli military checkpoints surround every Palestinian population center in violation of the Oslo Accords

· The right of self-determination is guaranteed to every human being under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December, 1948), yet Palestinians were/are expected to negotiate for this right under the Oslo Accords

· Palestinians have the highest ratio of PhDs per capita in the world

THE RIGHT OF RETURN

From: http://al-awda.org/factsheet.htm

1. During and after the establishment of the state of Israel, over 1 million Palestinian refugees were created by a process that today would be called ethnic cleansing.

2. The Palestinian refugee problem is the oldest and largest refugee problem in the world today, that there are over 3.2 million registered by the United Nations and countless others not registered. The refugees are living in countries and regions sometimes within a very short distance of their original homes and lands.

3. Article 13 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights reaffirms the right of every individual to leave and return to his country.

4. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 12, states: "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country"

5. United Nations Resolution 194 affirms the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands. This resolution was adopted on December 11, 1948 and has been reaffirmed almost every year for the past fifty two years.

6. The Principle of Self Determination adopted by the UN in 1947 guarantees the right of ownership and domicile in one's own country. This principle was explicitly applied in 1969 and thereafter to the Palestinian People, including "the legality of the Peoples' struggle for self-determination and liberation."

7. International law demands that neither occupation nor sovereignty diminish the rights of private ownership. Hence, the land and property of "the refugees" remains their own and they are legally entitled to return to it.

8. Israel's ethnic cleansing policies are still ongoing. Amnesty International reported that as of last December, 2650 Palestinian houses have been destroyed since 1987 by Israel in the West Bank and Jerusalem alone. Further thousands of acres owned by Palestinians have been confiscated to build settlements in contravention of the 4th Geneva convention Article 49 stating that the "Occupying Power shall not transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."

9. It is unrealistic to expect that peace will be durable without solving the refugee situation. The inalienable rights of refugees cannot be left to "negotiations" between Israel and the Palestinian authority as International law considers agreements between an occupier and any body in occupied areas to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution. Furthermore, UN resolution 194 clearly identifies the right of return as an individual choice that cannot be made by others on behalf of the individual.

10. The US is bound by its constitution to support human rights and freedom. There is no more elemental right than one's right to his/her home and to live in his/her land. The US could use the massive financial support we give to the State of Israel to press for this right.

11. Research shows that return is not only legal but possible. 78% of Israelis are living in 14 percent of the land and the remaining 86% is mostly land that belongs to the refugees and on which 22% of the Israelis live.

12 CONVENTIONAL LIES ABOUT THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT -- BY URI AVNERY

(1) "Barak has turned every stone to achieve peace."

Truth is, he has turned every stone to build settlements. Since his first day in office, he has accelerated the pace of setting up new settlements (in the guise of "enlarging" existing ones), confiscating lands, demolishing Palestinian homes and building "by-pass roads" (whose main purpose is to add Palestinian lands to the 'settlement blocs" which he wants to annex to Israel.) In all these activities, Barak has done more than Netanyahu. In the political field, too, Barak has upstaged Netanyahu: Bibi returned at least the greater part of the town Hebron to the Palestinians. Barak has not returned one single inch of occupied territory.

(2) "At Camp David, Barak went further than any previous Prime Minister."

Even if this were true, it would mean very little. If one Marathon runner (Netanyahu) falls down after one mile, and another (Barak) falls down after three, the difference between them is not really important. What is important is that neither of them got even near the finishing line (26 miles). Barak's proposals at Camp David were far from the minimum necessary to make peace with the Palestinian people and the whole Arab world: Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem, and especially the compound of the holy mosques (Haram al-Sharif). Barak indicated at Camp David that he might "consider" some cosmetic changes (and thereby he indeed broke some of the Israeli taboos concerning Jerusalem) " but as a matter of fact he denied the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims sovereignty over the compound of the holy mosques and the major Arab neighborhoods in the city. That's why the summit failed and the escalation started, leading up to the "al-Aksa intifada".

(3) "Arafat blew up the Camp David summit."

On the eve of his departure for the summit, Barak announced five "Red Lines", which he would not cross under any circumstances. Among them: Israeli sovereignty over the entire city of Jerusalem, No return to the 1967 border, Keeping 80% of the settlers were they are, No return of a single refugee to Israel!!! Afterwards he softened some of these stands, but not enough to come anywhere near an agreement.

(4) "All the time, we give, give, give. Arafat doesn"t give anything."

When the Palestinians agreed to a peace settlement based on the pre-1967 border (the Green Line), they were already giving up in advance 78% of the land between the sea and the Jordan river. They are ready to set up their state in the remaining 22%. Our government wants a "compromise" over this area. Meaning: "What's mine is mine, about what's yours, we shall compromise". (Factual background: the November 29, 1947, UN partition resolution gave the Jewish state 55% and the Arab state 45% of Palestine. In the ensuing war [started by the Arabs], we conquered half of the territory allotted to the Arab state. Thus the "Green Line" came about, leaving 78% of the country in our hands.) The problem is not expressed in percentage points only. Barak appears to be asking for only 10% of the occupied territories. In reality, it's closer to 30%, taking into account the territories he wants to annex in the Jerusalem area and place under his 'security control" in the Jordan valley. But even worse, in the map submitted to the Palestinians, these percentage points cut the country up from East to West and from North to South, so that the Palestinian state will consist of a group of islands, each surrounded by Israeli settlers and soldiers.

(5) "How can one make peace with the Palestinians when they break every agreement?"

Well, Palestinian violations pale in comparison with ours. Before the end of the 5-years interim period (May 1998), the IDF had to withdraw from all the West Bank and the Gaza Strip except 'specified military locations", settlements and Jerusalem. Barak refuses to do this even at this late date. Also, four 'safe passages" between the West Bank and Gaza should have been in operation long ago. In practice, only one was opened, and this one can only be used by Palestinians after much harassment.

(6) "Barak is the heir to Rabin."

Far from it. Within a few months he has succeeded in destroying not only all the achievements of Rabin, but those of Begin, too. He has buried the Oslo agreement (to which he objected from the beginning) and destroyed the relations built up with much effort between Israel and a number of Arab countries. He has created ferment among the Arab citizens in Israel itself. In many respects, he has thrown us back to 1948, even 1936.

(7) "The lynching in Ramallah shows that the Arabs are animals."

In a confrontation like this one, each side points to the atrocities committed by the other, "forgetting" the atrocities committed by his own side. Israel points to the horrible lynching, the Palestinians point to the killing of 12- years old Muhammad al-Dira in the arms of his father and the brain-killing bullets used by Israel army snipers against stone-throwing children. Our acts of violence come in response to the actions of the Palestinians, theirs come in response to ours. It's a vicious circle.

(8) "The Palestinian media are instruments of incitement."

That is true, but unfortunately there is no great difference between theirs and ours in this respect. Ours and theirs speak the same language, following guidelines from above. When Palestinian TV shows over and over again the picture of the boy dying in the arms of his father, that's incitement. When our TV shows dozens of times a day, day after day, the atrocious lynching in Ramallah, that's incitement.

(9) "They shoot at us and the Israeli army is exercising self-restraint."

It is strange that in two weeks of 'self-restraint"" about 110 Palestinian and 3 Israeli soldiers have been killed. No Israeli officer has explained (or was asked to explain) this curious ratio. (The explanation is, of course, that the Israeli army has long in advance trained snipers to choose a person from among the demonstrators, take exact aim through a telescopic sight and hit him with a special deadly, high-velocity bullet. Instead of "pacifying" the area, as intended, this method has inflamed it even more. Every funeral has led to another confrontation.)

(10) "The Arabs send their children against our army positions, so that they can be killed, in order to provide pictures for the world media."

This is a horrendous accusation, betraying an obnoxious racism. It contains the belief that Arab parents do not care about their children dying. In the struggle waged by our underground organizations before 1948 and during our War of Independence, boys and girls played an important part. The arms training of Palestinian boys is no different from the training of our own Gadna youth battalions. The boy who, in 1948, destroyed a Syrian tank at kibbutz Deganya has become a national hero. When a people fights for its very existence and freedom, its youth cannot but take part. (I joined the Irgun, defined by the British as a terrorist organization, at the age of 14 and a half. By the age of 15 I carried guns.) It is an illusion to think that Palestinian parents can restrain their children from going out into the street and throwing stones, when they live under a cruel occupation and their brothers and sisters provide examples of heroism and self-sacrifice. It is quite natural for the Palestinian people to be proud of them. Joan of Arc, by the way, was 16 years old when she led the French army into battle. The settlers routinely exploit their children and babies, not hesitating to put them in harm's way.

(11) "Again it is proved that the whole world is against us. They are all anti- Semites."

World public opinion is always on the side of the underdog. In this fight, we are Goliath and they are David. In the eyes of the world, the Palestinians are fighting a war of liberation against a foreign occupation. We are in their territory, not they in ours. We settle on their land, not they on ours. We are the occupiers, they are the victims. This is the objective situation, and no minister of propaganda (like Mr. Nachman Shai) can change that.

(12) "We have no partner for peace."

True, we have no partner for a peace that Palestinians see as a capitulation to Israeli ultimatums. We do have a partner for a peace based on equality and mutual respect. The solution is quite clear: the State of Palestine must be set up within the pre-1967 border, with Jerusalem serving as the capital of the two states - East Jerusalem with the Haram al-Sharif must belong to Palestine, West Jerusalem with the Western Wall and the Jewish quarter must belong to Israel.. When this solution is accepted in principle, negotiations can start about the other problems: mutual security, exchange of territories, a moral and practical solution for the refugee problem, water allocation etc. This peace will come about, because the only alternative is hell for both sides.

[1] Written by Arjan El Fassed. Edited by Laurie King-Irani

[2] Written by Arjan El Fassed. Edited by Laurie King-Irani.

[3] Written by Arjan El Fassed. Edited by Laurie King-Irani

[4] Written by Arjan El Fassed. Edited by Laurie King-Irani