Sharon Has a Plan, But It Doesn't Involve Peace or Palestinian Hopes
By Ghada Ageel
Sunday, March 28, 2004; Page B01
ZAHRA, Gaza Strip
The assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin last Monday is an attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to kill any move for peace in the Middle East.
For the past decade, Yassin had been making proposals which marked big shifts toward a pragmatic solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since the second intifada erupted in September 2000, Yassin had proposed several cease-fires in return for Israel withdrawing from the territories it occupied in 1967 and ending military action against Palestinians. Yassin declared that Hamas accepted a two-state solution, Palestinian and Israeli states existing side by side.
Three weeks before his death, Yassin had announced a plan for Hamas, Yasser Arafat's Fatah and other factions to unite in administering Gaza in the event of a unilateral Israeli withdrawal as proposed by Sharon. This was not in Sharon's interest at all. The late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin once said he wished to see Gaza drown in the sea; Sharon wants Gaza to drown in the blood of a civil war between Hamas and Fatah.
Yassin had offered a strong base for making peace. The Israeli government's decision to kill Yassin at this moment strengthens the belief among many Palestinians, including me, that Israel simply does not want peace. Every step forward by the Palestinian Authority or political factions such as Hamas is met with a step backward by Sharon. This latest assassination proves that the Israeli government is not ready to talk the language of peace. Under Sharon, Israel talks only the language of power and blood.
Many Palestinians were already convinced of this because of the assassination by Israel of Ismail Abu Shanab, a moderate Hamas leader, last August. Shanab openly accepted a two-state solution. If Israel had wanted to listen to the language of peace, strengthen the moderate camp in Hamas and save the blood of two peoples, it would have kept Abu Shanab alive. It did not.
The bloodshed continues because Sharon's government believes that it can bring Israelis security and peace with a policy of assassination and occupation. It cannot. It believes that these crimes will persuade the resistance groups to abandon their goal of ending the occupation. They will not. On the contrary, Sharon knows that blood demands blood and actions create reactions. He knows that the only likely outcome of Yassin's murder will be to pour fuel on the fire that is already burning and motivate Palestinians further to fight the illegal Israeli occupation of their land. This resistance will in turn produce an Israeli military response, and so the cycle of violence, including the inevitable suicide bombings, will continue without end. But it is important to keep in mind that the occupation causes the suicide bombings, not the other way around.
Sharon wants to distance himself as far as possible from any peace solution that might put pressure on him to make concessions. If he had been interested in peace, he would have followed up on the "road map" for a two-state solution to the conflict, which was accepted by the Palestinians and the international "quartet" (the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia) but has never been implemented.
Yassin was killed when Israel targeted him with three rockets that mutilated his paralyzed body and the wheelchair in which he was sitting. Later, tens of thousands of ordinary Palestinians filled the streets to express their shock and anger. Even though Israel had targeted him before, no one could quite believe that this had happened -- and in this way.
Yassin was a spiritual leader, not a military target. At 67, he was an old man, paralyzed from the neck down. He was nearly blind and deaf. He was being wheeled home from the mosque after saying the morning prayer. He was an easy target, powerless to run and escape death. How could Sharon consider this crime a victory? The location of Yassin's house was well-known to Israeli forces, and it was no secret that he went every day to the mosque to pray. There was no ingenuity in this operation except that it crossed all the boundaries of humanity and made the tunnel to peace look darker than ever.
Israel has the power in this standoff. If it wanted peace, it could implement it. It is in a position to offer a solution. The Palestinians are only in a position to negotiate in response. The Israelis are proactive. We are reactive because of the imbalance of power. I don't find it so complicated. For the first time, the two camps of Palestinian society, the Islamists (in the form of Hamas) and the nationalists (all the factions of the PLO), have agreed to a two-state solution. The next move is Sharon's. And the international community must offer support for implementing a peace agreement.
It's clear to me that, by killing Yassin, Sharon's government wanted to send a message and to show its maximum power before it withdraws from Gaza. Sharon's message is that if Israel has to withdraw from Gaza, then it leaves as the victor, not as a refugee. Israel lost enough of its reputation withdrawing from south Lebanon. Because Sharon has no strategy for peace, he can only offer this policy of blood.
Like many Palestinians in Gaza, I wonder how the Yassin assassination can be swallowed whole by the international community, particularly the Bush administration, which has refused to criticize the operation. In the eyes of the Palestinians, Arabs and many others in the world, the killing breaks every norm and law, and contravenes every human right we have ever known.
Israel could have arrested Yassin and tried him in court had it wanted to. After all, it invades Gaza almost daily and arrests or kills whomever it wants. Instead it sends Palestinians the message that nothing can stop Israel from doing anything to anyone at any time. No one is immune.
When I saw people of all ages running to join the demonstration last Monday, I realized that, like me, they were weeping for something more than the physical death of Yassin. They were mourning their own victims -- family members, friends and neighbors -- weeping at the brutality of an occupation that has systematically destroyed their livelihoods, weeping over the silence of the international community. I was crying for my cousin, who was paralyzed last October by an Israeli attack, and for the hundreds like him.
The assassination of Yassin was a way to ensure that the violence continues, which will enable Sharon's extremist government to stay in power and continue to avoid any concessions for peace.
Sharon triggered the latest intifada with his visit to the al-Aqsa mosque in 2000. Many Palestinians fear that his government's assassination of Yassin will provoke a new and terrible phase of the intifada, a phase that has no rules except those of revenge. It is usually the Palestinians who are accused of missing the opportunities for peace. This time it is Sharon, and we will all pay the price.
Author's e-mail: g_ageel@yahoo.com
Ghada Ageel, a lifelong resident of Gaza, is a doctoral candidate in Middle East politics through Exeter University in England.
Sunday, 28 March 2004
Wednesday, 14 January 2004
MEANWHILE : At a checkpoint in Gaza, courage and fear
ZAHRA, Gaza: Last month, I went to visit my cousin Muhammad Aqil Abu-Shmaleh at the European hospital. Muhammad had been wounded in October in an Israeli missile strike that killed two of its intended targets and a bystander. A piece of shrapnel had plunged into Muhammad's spinal cord and left him paralyzed. He had been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The life of my family has now been turned upside down as we fight for Muhammad's physical and psychological health. The one comfort we have is the outpouring of concern and support from our neighbors in Khan Yunis, from Israelis of good will, and from friends the world over.
On our way home from visiting Muhammad, my husband Nasser, my 3-year-old son Tariq and I were stuck at the checkpoint between Khan Yunis and Gaza City for more than six hours. This should be a 40-minute trip.
At 6:50 p.m., the Israeli soldiers finally allowed some cars to pass. After five minutes they closed the checkpoint again. The people stuck on the other side of the checkpoint became so angry that they left their taxis and started to walk, challenging the Israelis and their guns. I felt a mixture of shock that people in Gaza were confronting guns with their chests, pride that Palestinians could do such things, when it was all too possible that nonviolent resistance could result in their death, and fear of what would happen.
I had good cause for concern. Israeli soldiers started to shoot toward the people. It was very close and absolutely terrifying. I have lived with war, violence and occupation for all of my 33 years, but will never become accustomed to the horror and the fear.
Adding to my fear was the presence of our son. Close by, a young man was shot in the back of his leg. Incredibly, the people continued to walk. Friends of the youth put him in our car.
The youngster was bleeding and crying and his sobs mixed with those of my child. There is a powerful instinct, which I believe all mothers have, to protect children at any cost. But there, at that time, I felt totally powerless. Yet I was not completely immobilized. I started to shout at people to open the way for our car to move. At the same time I punched the numbers I know all too well for the hospital to send an ambulance.
After 15 minutes of shouting and maneuvering, we got the youth into an ambulance. I discovered I had lost my voice from screaming.
My family's refugee camp, Khan Yunis, was recently attacked twice in one week by Israeli forces. Dozens of homes were demolished, like the hundreds of others in Gaza and the West Bank that have been reduced to rubble over the past three years. Many families came to my parents' home to take shelter. It may be 2003, but in my mind we have traveled back to 1948 when my parents and hundreds of thousands of our people fled their homes.
What more does Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government want of us? What benefit is gained by the Israeli Army keeping civilians waiting for hours at checkpoints? How can Israel's leaders justify driving us from our homes 55 years ago and then setting their sights and bulldozers on our refugee camps?
How can it be conscionable for good people anywhere that Palestinians are forced to flee from place to place, never to return home?
Having seen my cousin lying in a hospital bed and a teenager bleeding profusely in the back of our family car with my 3-year-old looking on, I realize that there is no place to run and no place to hide in Gaza. My son was not physically harmed, but how can a 3-year-old process what my mind can scarcely comprehend? His psychological processing consists of running around the house, cocking his finger like a gun and shouting, "Tah, tah, tah" to imitate the sound of the Israeli bullets so recently fired in his direction.
When Nasser and I married we thought a just peace was a real possibility. We thought we would be able to offer our children safety and a hopeful future. I went so far as to study Hebrew in Israel. But our hopes for the future of our family and our people have not been met.
The occupation continues because Sharon's government continues to think it can have both quiet and occupation. It cannot.
When you see people walk unarmed into gunfire to reach their destination you realize that they are striving for something more than a physical destination. This is what I believe can be best expressed as the very human desire for freedom. No power and no force can enter our hearts and extinguish it.
That day of Palestinian freedom will be sped up considerably if such spontaneous, nonviolent displays of principle and courage receive more coverage in the United States and elsewhere. We need no U.S. Army to fight for us. We ask only for a commitment to evenhandedness.
We have suffered long enough.
The writer, a doctoral student at Exeter University, Britain, lives in Gaza.
The life of my family has now been turned upside down as we fight for Muhammad's physical and psychological health. The one comfort we have is the outpouring of concern and support from our neighbors in Khan Yunis, from Israelis of good will, and from friends the world over.
On our way home from visiting Muhammad, my husband Nasser, my 3-year-old son Tariq and I were stuck at the checkpoint between Khan Yunis and Gaza City for more than six hours. This should be a 40-minute trip.
At 6:50 p.m., the Israeli soldiers finally allowed some cars to pass. After five minutes they closed the checkpoint again. The people stuck on the other side of the checkpoint became so angry that they left their taxis and started to walk, challenging the Israelis and their guns. I felt a mixture of shock that people in Gaza were confronting guns with their chests, pride that Palestinians could do such things, when it was all too possible that nonviolent resistance could result in their death, and fear of what would happen.
I had good cause for concern. Israeli soldiers started to shoot toward the people. It was very close and absolutely terrifying. I have lived with war, violence and occupation for all of my 33 years, but will never become accustomed to the horror and the fear.
Adding to my fear was the presence of our son. Close by, a young man was shot in the back of his leg. Incredibly, the people continued to walk. Friends of the youth put him in our car.
The youngster was bleeding and crying and his sobs mixed with those of my child. There is a powerful instinct, which I believe all mothers have, to protect children at any cost. But there, at that time, I felt totally powerless. Yet I was not completely immobilized. I started to shout at people to open the way for our car to move. At the same time I punched the numbers I know all too well for the hospital to send an ambulance.
After 15 minutes of shouting and maneuvering, we got the youth into an ambulance. I discovered I had lost my voice from screaming.
My family's refugee camp, Khan Yunis, was recently attacked twice in one week by Israeli forces. Dozens of homes were demolished, like the hundreds of others in Gaza and the West Bank that have been reduced to rubble over the past three years. Many families came to my parents' home to take shelter. It may be 2003, but in my mind we have traveled back to 1948 when my parents and hundreds of thousands of our people fled their homes.
What more does Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government want of us? What benefit is gained by the Israeli Army keeping civilians waiting for hours at checkpoints? How can Israel's leaders justify driving us from our homes 55 years ago and then setting their sights and bulldozers on our refugee camps?
How can it be conscionable for good people anywhere that Palestinians are forced to flee from place to place, never to return home?
Having seen my cousin lying in a hospital bed and a teenager bleeding profusely in the back of our family car with my 3-year-old looking on, I realize that there is no place to run and no place to hide in Gaza. My son was not physically harmed, but how can a 3-year-old process what my mind can scarcely comprehend? His psychological processing consists of running around the house, cocking his finger like a gun and shouting, "Tah, tah, tah" to imitate the sound of the Israeli bullets so recently fired in his direction.
When Nasser and I married we thought a just peace was a real possibility. We thought we would be able to offer our children safety and a hopeful future. I went so far as to study Hebrew in Israel. But our hopes for the future of our family and our people have not been met.
The occupation continues because Sharon's government continues to think it can have both quiet and occupation. It cannot.
When you see people walk unarmed into gunfire to reach their destination you realize that they are striving for something more than a physical destination. This is what I believe can be best expressed as the very human desire for freedom. No power and no force can enter our hearts and extinguish it.
That day of Palestinian freedom will be sped up considerably if such spontaneous, nonviolent displays of principle and courage receive more coverage in the United States and elsewhere. We need no U.S. Army to fight for us. We ask only for a commitment to evenhandedness.
We have suffered long enough.
The writer, a doctoral student at Exeter University, Britain, lives in Gaza.
Tuesday, 17 September 2002
In the Gaza Strip, Terror Can Create a Language All Its Own
Los Angles Times
ZAHRA, Gaza Strip -- There is a very thin line between life and death in Gaza. No matter who you are, where you are or how old you are, the Israeli bullets and shrapnel always seem to be waiting.
Two weeks ago, my family was returning home by car when an Israeli tank opened fire toward us. We could discern no reason for the sudden perilous outburst.
It was about 8:30 at night and dark. The car in front of us began to travel in reverse erratically and almost smashed into our vehicle. There was no choice but for us to reverse also to escape death by "accident." The bullets were loud and continuous.
Instantly, I ordered Ghaida, my 6-year-old daughter, to lie on the floor of the car. I did the same with Tariq, my 2-year-old son.When Ghaida understood what was going on, she started to shout hysterically: "The tank, the tank is firing at us, Mommy."
Simultaneously, I was beseeching her not to raise her head.And then my son broke my heart. He had had only seven words in his vocabulary, and yet there he was suddenly articulating dababa, which means tank in Arabic. He did not move despite the shooting, the darkness and the terror that gripped us.
Nasser, my husband, who less than two years ago joined the baseball team of the American organization for which he worked, directed that if he was hit I should continue driving in order to save the children's lives. After an eternity of fearful moments we reached safety at El Sheikh Ejleen mosque.
The following night was no less horrible. Around 11:30 we heard shelling, heavy gunfire and very big explosions. Then the electricity went off, and again there were more explosions. It was now totally dark.We and our neighbors were jailed inside our apartments--cages in the middle of a medium-size prison called Zahra, a town within the larger prison of the Gaza Strip.
When the shootings stopped, we went to sleep without realizing that a brutal killing had taken place. Artillery shells spitting nail-like "flechettes"--courtesy of the United States, according to Jane's Defence Weekly--killed four members of the Al Hajeen family. A woman, her two sons and a cousin sleeping in front of their house in the middle of their fields were slain when an Israeli tank launched its death shell at them. Two hours passed before the ambulance reached them.
This was not the first time such a slaughter has happened in this place and to people who seemingly matter little in the eyes of the world. I fear they will not be the last.
Last year, three Bedouin women from the Al Malalha family were killed in the same place and by the same American-made flechettes. The victims were a mother, her recently married 17-year-old daughter and another relative.
Another neighbor, nurse Abd al Hameed al Khurti, was shot in the same place last year. He was killed immediately after being dropped off by an ambulance.
Time and again, the Israeli government admits a mistake and launches an "investigation." Most recently, an Israeli investigation of three incidents in which 12 civilians were killed whitewashed the reality of the onslaught in my neighborhood and two in the West Bank.
The investigations will not bring back the dead from the Al Khurti, Al Malalha and Al Hajeen families, but a sincere inquest might help to protect innocent civilians in the future. And yet investigations do not get to the heart of the matter. Israel is a colonizing power. It continues to occupy what should be an independent Palestinian state, and it refuses to make any allowance for the rightful return of my family to the home and land we were thrown out of 54 years ago.
Instead, Israel has us pinned in an ever-smaller prison, one in which we shout instructions to our children to keep their heads down so as not to become another "accident" for the Knesset to report to its funders in the U.S. Congress.
I ask you, to whom can I turn? The United Nations' resolutions regarding Israeli actions are on the books but carry no weight. George Bush is too busy applying U.N. resolutions to Iraq to pay our plight much mind.
I ask you, then, on behalf of my son, so that his ninth word might be "peace." But I do not speak of the "peace" of a conquering and occupying Israeli army. I seek a peace rooted in fairness and justice for all the peoples of the region.
ZAHRA, Gaza Strip -- There is a very thin line between life and death in Gaza. No matter who you are, where you are or how old you are, the Israeli bullets and shrapnel always seem to be waiting.
Two weeks ago, my family was returning home by car when an Israeli tank opened fire toward us. We could discern no reason for the sudden perilous outburst.
It was about 8:30 at night and dark. The car in front of us began to travel in reverse erratically and almost smashed into our vehicle. There was no choice but for us to reverse also to escape death by "accident." The bullets were loud and continuous.
Instantly, I ordered Ghaida, my 6-year-old daughter, to lie on the floor of the car. I did the same with Tariq, my 2-year-old son.When Ghaida understood what was going on, she started to shout hysterically: "The tank, the tank is firing at us, Mommy."
Simultaneously, I was beseeching her not to raise her head.And then my son broke my heart. He had had only seven words in his vocabulary, and yet there he was suddenly articulating dababa, which means tank in Arabic. He did not move despite the shooting, the darkness and the terror that gripped us.
Nasser, my husband, who less than two years ago joined the baseball team of the American organization for which he worked, directed that if he was hit I should continue driving in order to save the children's lives. After an eternity of fearful moments we reached safety at El Sheikh Ejleen mosque.
The following night was no less horrible. Around 11:30 we heard shelling, heavy gunfire and very big explosions. Then the electricity went off, and again there were more explosions. It was now totally dark.We and our neighbors were jailed inside our apartments--cages in the middle of a medium-size prison called Zahra, a town within the larger prison of the Gaza Strip.
When the shootings stopped, we went to sleep without realizing that a brutal killing had taken place. Artillery shells spitting nail-like "flechettes"--courtesy of the United States, according to Jane's Defence Weekly--killed four members of the Al Hajeen family. A woman, her two sons and a cousin sleeping in front of their house in the middle of their fields were slain when an Israeli tank launched its death shell at them. Two hours passed before the ambulance reached them.
This was not the first time such a slaughter has happened in this place and to people who seemingly matter little in the eyes of the world. I fear they will not be the last.
Last year, three Bedouin women from the Al Malalha family were killed in the same place and by the same American-made flechettes. The victims were a mother, her recently married 17-year-old daughter and another relative.
Another neighbor, nurse Abd al Hameed al Khurti, was shot in the same place last year. He was killed immediately after being dropped off by an ambulance.
Time and again, the Israeli government admits a mistake and launches an "investigation." Most recently, an Israeli investigation of three incidents in which 12 civilians were killed whitewashed the reality of the onslaught in my neighborhood and two in the West Bank.
The investigations will not bring back the dead from the Al Khurti, Al Malalha and Al Hajeen families, but a sincere inquest might help to protect innocent civilians in the future. And yet investigations do not get to the heart of the matter. Israel is a colonizing power. It continues to occupy what should be an independent Palestinian state, and it refuses to make any allowance for the rightful return of my family to the home and land we were thrown out of 54 years ago.
Instead, Israel has us pinned in an ever-smaller prison, one in which we shout instructions to our children to keep their heads down so as not to become another "accident" for the Knesset to report to its funders in the U.S. Congress.
I ask you, to whom can I turn? The United Nations' resolutions regarding Israeli actions are on the books but carry no weight. George Bush is too busy applying U.N. resolutions to Iraq to pay our plight much mind.
I ask you, then, on behalf of my son, so that his ninth word might be "peace." But I do not speak of the "peace" of a conquering and occupying Israeli army. I seek a peace rooted in fairness and justice for all the peoples of the region.
Friday, 24 May 2002
A Reply to Mr. Lantos Letter
The Honourable Kofi AnanSecretary
General United NationsNY,
10017USA
Dear Mr, Secretary General,
I am writing to you concerning the letter that the Washington congressman member, Tom Lantos, sent to you regarding UNRWA.I am a Palestinian refugee who lives in one of the eight camps in the Gaza Strip where UNRWA operates. The letter written to you by Mr. Lantos shocked me. And as a third generation of the Palestinians refugees still live in UNRWA camps, I would like to draw the attention of Mr. Lantos and others to these basic facts.
UNRWA does not administer the 27 refugee camps in the Occupied Territories. The camps?administration was the responsibility of the Israeli authorities from 1967 till 1994. In 1994 and as a result of the Oslo accord, this responsibility was transferred to the Palestinian National Authority. UNRWA’s role in these refugee camps is to provide a humanitarian aid and assistance to Palestinians refugees living inside or outside these camps.
As we all know, it is not UNRWA’s camps, as Mr. Lantos claims, which have "fostered a culture of anger" among the refugees. It is not UNRWA which "undermines both regional peace and well-being of camps?inhabitants". The culture of anger was fostered as a result of frustration and long waiting of the promised peace. It comes from denying the ambulances reaching the wounded people and leaving them bleeding slowly to death. It comes when your son, brother neighbour are being murdered before your eyes at their homes only for committing the "crime" of being Palestinians. It comes from the humiliation of people daily at checkpoints. It comes when the illegal settler’s car, which carries vegetables, has the priority to cross before an ambulance with an emergency case. My 11 months son was left on the checkpoint between Khan Younis and Gaza for 10 hours without water or milk at mid summer. Can you imagine this happens by the "only democracy of the Middle East"?The one who "undermines the regional peace" is the one that prevents a UN inquiry to investigate what had happened in the camps. An international inquiry will reveal many facts that were hidden by cancelling it and will answer many of Mr lantons questions. To support the regional peace, UNRWA has launched many initiatives. Needles to say the Peace Implementation Programme.
The raising of the Palestinian struggle against the ongoing occupation was a result of the continuity of this occupation and the barbaric Israeli means used towards the Palestinians. Not only in the camps in which UNRWA operates, that struggle-took place, but also in all cities, villages at the rest of the OT even in those inside the state of Israel. Will Mr. Lantos accuse UNRWA for this also? Or will he say that the Israeli government has a direct involvement with terror.
To struggle against a foreign occupation that not only has stolen your land, destroyed your home, past and present but your future as well, is a legitimate right enshrined in all international laws. The issue of the Palestinian refugee and the UNRWA camps where most of the refugees live is deeper more what Mr Lantos tried to put it.
It might be that "57 Israelis were killed" as Mr. Lantos claimed as a result of suicide attacks comes from Jenin camp during the last 20 months camp but does he know how many Palestinian were killed in Jenin during the Israeli offensive. Or how many Palestinian civilians including children were killed by the IDF so far. If Mr. Lantos or any one cares about those who died or those who still alive in the UNRWA’s camps or in Israel he would have worked for solving their problem that still stand since long time.
The deep concern of Mr. Lantons that UNRWA "is perpetuating rather than ameliorating the Palestinian refugees" is a totally false premise. As everyone knows, the organisation was created in 1949 in a short-term mandate, subsequently renewed on a regular basis given the inability of the UN to implement the 194 resolution of Dec 1948 calling for the return & compensation for the Palestinian refugees. If Mr. Lantos is worried about the work of the UNRWA he should raise the issue of using the UNRWA instalments in the camps like schools for instance, for Palestinian people detentions. When the 194 resolution will be implemented then the General Assembly will be deciding its future. And we wish that Mr Lantos could help us to solve our problem being a US congress member.
I refute Mr. Lantos speech about the camps and the "wellbeing of the camps?inhabitants". He is not one of the camp inhabitants; therefore, he should not speak on behalf of us. I wonder if he has been once to one of these camps. Only those who live in the camps and still can tell what is the life in the camp looks like. They also can tell about the great help provided by UNRWA for them and for the so-called "regional peace".
I really wonder how Mr. Lantos reached his conclusion that UNRWA "directly or indirectly is complicit in terrorism"? On which sources did he rely to build his assumption and conclusion? If it depends on one-side sources I can say alas for a congressman like him to do so. And simply before giving any judgement one should prove it. This is what I learned all my life.
His letter to you reminded me of the Jerusalem Post editorial (April 15) headed "Abolish UNRWA" in which it claimed that the UNRWA has became a "de facto accomplice to terrorism" and that was proven by the IDF incursion into Balata camp last March. It alleges that UNRWA foods?storage in the camp" have been allowed to become munitions?depots and weapons?factories. Later it was found that UNRWA has no food storage areas in Balata camp at all.
This attack on UNRWA makes one wonder whether UNRWA’s name will be added to new edition of the axis of Evil or the black listed organisations involved in what US call "terror".
Mr. Lantos stated that the credibility of the UN is at stake. And I can add that not only the UN credibility but of the humanity as a whole is at the stake. But it is not for the reasons that he mentioned. But rather for the tremendous violations and the war crimes that took place and still in the OT horrible beyond belief.
In conclusion, I would like to thank you on behalf of the four generations of Palestinian refugees living in UNRWA areas for the tremendous efforts you have done and still doing to help my people. We do still expect more to be done to find and implement a durable solution for our problem, the Palestine refugee problem. I am still waiting to return to my home at my village Beit Daras, which was, destroyed, and occupied, by Israel in 1948.
Thank you,Ghada Ageel
PhD student
University of Exeter
Politics department
EX2 5ED
Exeter - UK
General United NationsNY,
10017USA
Dear Mr, Secretary General,
I am writing to you concerning the letter that the Washington congressman member, Tom Lantos, sent to you regarding UNRWA.I am a Palestinian refugee who lives in one of the eight camps in the Gaza Strip where UNRWA operates. The letter written to you by Mr. Lantos shocked me. And as a third generation of the Palestinians refugees still live in UNRWA camps, I would like to draw the attention of Mr. Lantos and others to these basic facts.
UNRWA does not administer the 27 refugee camps in the Occupied Territories. The camps?administration was the responsibility of the Israeli authorities from 1967 till 1994. In 1994 and as a result of the Oslo accord, this responsibility was transferred to the Palestinian National Authority. UNRWA’s role in these refugee camps is to provide a humanitarian aid and assistance to Palestinians refugees living inside or outside these camps.
As we all know, it is not UNRWA’s camps, as Mr. Lantos claims, which have "fostered a culture of anger" among the refugees. It is not UNRWA which "undermines both regional peace and well-being of camps?inhabitants". The culture of anger was fostered as a result of frustration and long waiting of the promised peace. It comes from denying the ambulances reaching the wounded people and leaving them bleeding slowly to death. It comes when your son, brother neighbour are being murdered before your eyes at their homes only for committing the "crime" of being Palestinians. It comes from the humiliation of people daily at checkpoints. It comes when the illegal settler’s car, which carries vegetables, has the priority to cross before an ambulance with an emergency case. My 11 months son was left on the checkpoint between Khan Younis and Gaza for 10 hours without water or milk at mid summer. Can you imagine this happens by the "only democracy of the Middle East"?The one who "undermines the regional peace" is the one that prevents a UN inquiry to investigate what had happened in the camps. An international inquiry will reveal many facts that were hidden by cancelling it and will answer many of Mr lantons questions. To support the regional peace, UNRWA has launched many initiatives. Needles to say the Peace Implementation Programme.
The raising of the Palestinian struggle against the ongoing occupation was a result of the continuity of this occupation and the barbaric Israeli means used towards the Palestinians. Not only in the camps in which UNRWA operates, that struggle-took place, but also in all cities, villages at the rest of the OT even in those inside the state of Israel. Will Mr. Lantos accuse UNRWA for this also? Or will he say that the Israeli government has a direct involvement with terror.
To struggle against a foreign occupation that not only has stolen your land, destroyed your home, past and present but your future as well, is a legitimate right enshrined in all international laws. The issue of the Palestinian refugee and the UNRWA camps where most of the refugees live is deeper more what Mr Lantos tried to put it.
It might be that "57 Israelis were killed" as Mr. Lantos claimed as a result of suicide attacks comes from Jenin camp during the last 20 months camp but does he know how many Palestinian were killed in Jenin during the Israeli offensive. Or how many Palestinian civilians including children were killed by the IDF so far. If Mr. Lantos or any one cares about those who died or those who still alive in the UNRWA’s camps or in Israel he would have worked for solving their problem that still stand since long time.
The deep concern of Mr. Lantons that UNRWA "is perpetuating rather than ameliorating the Palestinian refugees" is a totally false premise. As everyone knows, the organisation was created in 1949 in a short-term mandate, subsequently renewed on a regular basis given the inability of the UN to implement the 194 resolution of Dec 1948 calling for the return & compensation for the Palestinian refugees. If Mr. Lantos is worried about the work of the UNRWA he should raise the issue of using the UNRWA instalments in the camps like schools for instance, for Palestinian people detentions. When the 194 resolution will be implemented then the General Assembly will be deciding its future. And we wish that Mr Lantos could help us to solve our problem being a US congress member.
I refute Mr. Lantos speech about the camps and the "wellbeing of the camps?inhabitants". He is not one of the camp inhabitants; therefore, he should not speak on behalf of us. I wonder if he has been once to one of these camps. Only those who live in the camps and still can tell what is the life in the camp looks like. They also can tell about the great help provided by UNRWA for them and for the so-called "regional peace".
I really wonder how Mr. Lantos reached his conclusion that UNRWA "directly or indirectly is complicit in terrorism"? On which sources did he rely to build his assumption and conclusion? If it depends on one-side sources I can say alas for a congressman like him to do so. And simply before giving any judgement one should prove it. This is what I learned all my life.
His letter to you reminded me of the Jerusalem Post editorial (April 15) headed "Abolish UNRWA" in which it claimed that the UNRWA has became a "de facto accomplice to terrorism" and that was proven by the IDF incursion into Balata camp last March. It alleges that UNRWA foods?storage in the camp" have been allowed to become munitions?depots and weapons?factories. Later it was found that UNRWA has no food storage areas in Balata camp at all.
This attack on UNRWA makes one wonder whether UNRWA’s name will be added to new edition of the axis of Evil or the black listed organisations involved in what US call "terror".
Mr. Lantos stated that the credibility of the UN is at stake. And I can add that not only the UN credibility but of the humanity as a whole is at the stake. But it is not for the reasons that he mentioned. But rather for the tremendous violations and the war crimes that took place and still in the OT horrible beyond belief.
In conclusion, I would like to thank you on behalf of the four generations of Palestinian refugees living in UNRWA areas for the tremendous efforts you have done and still doing to help my people. We do still expect more to be done to find and implement a durable solution for our problem, the Palestine refugee problem. I am still waiting to return to my home at my village Beit Daras, which was, destroyed, and occupied, by Israel in 1948.
Thank you,Ghada Ageel
PhD student
University of Exeter
Politics department
EX2 5ED
Exeter - UK
Monday, 3 December 2001
Viewpoint: Palestinians blame Sharon
Palestinians blame Sharon for escalating the violence
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1690116.stm
The weekend's attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa did not come as a great surprise to most Palestinians. Many of us expected this to happen.
A few days before the American envoy General Anthony Zinni visited the region, the Israeli Government escalated the situation by killing 13 people in less than 24 hours.
The suicide attacks came after five schoolboys diedAmong those victims were six innocent children on their way to school and also the head of the militant wing of Hamas, Mahmoud Abu Hanoud.
The Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon knew that the Palestinians would respond. He knows that blood draws blood and actions require reactions.
Being a mother, I know very well how awful it is to lose a son or see an innocent person die.
And it is not only me - all the Palestinians sympathise with the innocent victims. We have all been victims of the Israeli occupation for over 50 years.
'Double standards'
The Palestinians think that Mr Sharon is the one responsible for what happened in Jerusalem.
People here think that Mr Sharon is the one trying to derail Mr Zinni's mission, not the Palestinians or Hamas - Mr Sharon was the one who escalated the violence by killing over 20 Palestinians a few days before the US visit.
The Palestinians, who have waited a long time to see gains from US diplomatic efforts, believe strongly that the Americans only care about their own interests in the Middle East and about Israel. People wonder why Mr Arafat has not been invited to visit the White House as well as Mr Sharon.
Palestinians expected retaliation for Hanoud's assassinationPalestinians who have lost faith in the peace process are fed up with the American administration's double standards and their attitude regarding all the Israeli violations.
They are frustrated by the Americans' attempts to compare the Palestinian struggle against the occupation with terrorism.
People here were also shocked that New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani described Mr Arafat as a terrorist.
If Mr Arafat has been involved in a struggle against the Israeli occupation of his land - which is a legal right given to all nations, and which the Americans called "terrorism" - what should be said about Mr Sharon's black history?
Hamas has strong support on the streets of the Palestinian occupied territories at the moment. There is also much anger about Mr Arafat's attempts to jail members of Hamas and other militant groups.
Prison targets
Many people think that the decision is a mistake on the part of the Palestinian Authority.
Support for Hamas is currently highDuring this intifada, Israel has used F16 planes to attack one of the Palestinian prisons in Nablus in the West Bank, killing many prisoners and 11 policemen.
Jailing these fighters means potentially condemning them to death because they will become a target for Israeli planes.
In Palestinian opinion, the only solution to end all this is to end the occupation.
Both the Palestinian leadership and the people have declared their commitment to a just peace settlement. But the promised peace has not arrived. People here are waiting for an end to the occupation, which is the real cause of all this conflict and bloodshed.
A nation of 'terrorists'?
As Mahmoud, a 65-year-old man from the Khan Younis refugee camp where I grew up, put it to me:
"If the Israelis describe Arafat and his authority as terrorists, and the Americans accuse Hamas - and the rest of the Palestinian parties who fight against the Israeli occupation that kicked us from our land and even followed us to the refugee camps - as terrorists, this means that the whole nation of Palestine are terrorists. Can you believe that a whole nation can be terrorists?"
The suicide attacks, which take place from time to time inside Israel, send clear messages.
But perhaps the most important message is that Middle East peace and security are achieved only in one way - the way of finding a just solution to the Palestinian issue, a settlement that puts an end to the Israeli occupation, the only colonisation in the 21st Century and the source of this bloodshed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1690116.stm
The weekend's attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa did not come as a great surprise to most Palestinians. Many of us expected this to happen.
A few days before the American envoy General Anthony Zinni visited the region, the Israeli Government escalated the situation by killing 13 people in less than 24 hours.
The suicide attacks came after five schoolboys diedAmong those victims were six innocent children on their way to school and also the head of the militant wing of Hamas, Mahmoud Abu Hanoud.
The Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon knew that the Palestinians would respond. He knows that blood draws blood and actions require reactions.
Being a mother, I know very well how awful it is to lose a son or see an innocent person die.
And it is not only me - all the Palestinians sympathise with the innocent victims. We have all been victims of the Israeli occupation for over 50 years.
'Double standards'
The Palestinians think that Mr Sharon is the one responsible for what happened in Jerusalem.
People here think that Mr Sharon is the one trying to derail Mr Zinni's mission, not the Palestinians or Hamas - Mr Sharon was the one who escalated the violence by killing over 20 Palestinians a few days before the US visit.
The Palestinians, who have waited a long time to see gains from US diplomatic efforts, believe strongly that the Americans only care about their own interests in the Middle East and about Israel. People wonder why Mr Arafat has not been invited to visit the White House as well as Mr Sharon.
Palestinians expected retaliation for Hanoud's assassinationPalestinians who have lost faith in the peace process are fed up with the American administration's double standards and their attitude regarding all the Israeli violations.
They are frustrated by the Americans' attempts to compare the Palestinian struggle against the occupation with terrorism.
People here were also shocked that New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani described Mr Arafat as a terrorist.
If Mr Arafat has been involved in a struggle against the Israeli occupation of his land - which is a legal right given to all nations, and which the Americans called "terrorism" - what should be said about Mr Sharon's black history?
Hamas has strong support on the streets of the Palestinian occupied territories at the moment. There is also much anger about Mr Arafat's attempts to jail members of Hamas and other militant groups.
Prison targets
Many people think that the decision is a mistake on the part of the Palestinian Authority.
Support for Hamas is currently highDuring this intifada, Israel has used F16 planes to attack one of the Palestinian prisons in Nablus in the West Bank, killing many prisoners and 11 policemen.
Jailing these fighters means potentially condemning them to death because they will become a target for Israeli planes.
In Palestinian opinion, the only solution to end all this is to end the occupation.
Both the Palestinian leadership and the people have declared their commitment to a just peace settlement. But the promised peace has not arrived. People here are waiting for an end to the occupation, which is the real cause of all this conflict and bloodshed.
A nation of 'terrorists'?
As Mahmoud, a 65-year-old man from the Khan Younis refugee camp where I grew up, put it to me:
"If the Israelis describe Arafat and his authority as terrorists, and the Americans accuse Hamas - and the rest of the Palestinian parties who fight against the Israeli occupation that kicked us from our land and even followed us to the refugee camps - as terrorists, this means that the whole nation of Palestine are terrorists. Can you believe that a whole nation can be terrorists?"
The suicide attacks, which take place from time to time inside Israel, send clear messages.
But perhaps the most important message is that Middle East peace and security are achieved only in one way - the way of finding a just solution to the Palestinian issue, a settlement that puts an end to the Israeli occupation, the only colonisation in the 21st Century and the source of this bloodshed.
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Palestinian refugees sit at Khan Younis refugee camp
