‘Our Dreams Are Dead’
There are many sympathetic Israeli groups that document the treatment of the Palestinian people. Yesh Din, for example, monitors the trials of West Bank Palestinians in military courts and recently released a scathing report: 99 percent of defendants in 2006 were found guilty, many after hearings that lasted less than two minutes. Another group, Machsom Watch, which is made up of accomplished Israeli women, videotapes the treatment of Palestinians at the checkpoints. Their latest complaint, filed while I was there, involved 46 Palestinians looking for work being held for 16 hours at a checkpoint. The Palestinians were allowed no food or toilet facilities and were forced to stand for hours on end. "When they sit down they make trouble," the report quoted a member of the IDF saying. At some point during their detention, the tires of their vans were punctured and some of their cars were vandalized.
Prime Minister Fayyad wears heavily the burdens on his people. He looks tired when we meet in his modest office in Ramallah, but he perks up when he tells me about his children. His oldest son is at his American alma mater, the University of Texas in Austin, where Fayyad earned his doctorate in economics. His daughter has just received early admission to MIT; his youngest is still in grade school in Jerusalem. Like my friend Karim, Salam Fayyad accepted his post, first as finance minister and then as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, out of a sense of duty. "It was natural and instinctive," he says. "I thought it was important to be in a position to contribute."
Fayyad lays out clearly the Palestinian position. "The objective of this enterprise is to end the occupation and have an independent, viable, contiguous Palestinian state emerge on the land that was occupied in 1967," he says. "For us Palestinians to get a chance to live as free people in a state of our own, in peace and harmony with all of our neighbors, including Israel." That, of course, is what everyone wants. But how to get there?
Though he doesn't criticize the Israeli government, Fayyad methodically lists the impediments to the peace process. Foremost is the continued expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in direct contravention of every peace initiative since 1967, including the current "road map" to peace laid out by the Quartet—the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia—in 2002. "Not one more brick!" Fayyad says emphatically. "It's a road map obligation. It means not one more block, no exceptions, no nothing. And that's not what is happening." In the five-week period following the re-ignition of the peace process in Annapolis in the fall of 2007, he points out, the Israelis added 747 new units to the settlements, which in fact are cities, commanding the tops of hills the length of the West Bank. "If this keeps on happening, clearly the viability of the solution keeps on eroding," he says. "This is logical."
Israel's "security behavior" in the occupied territories is also a deterrent. Fayyad is proud that the Palestinian Authority police force has been effective in bringing about "conditions of law and order after years of complete lawlessness and chaos. It is one of the things we have focused on." But the ongoing raids by the Israeli Army into urban areas "where we have our own troops," he says, undermines the PA's authority and credibility. "It's happening in Ramallah, in Bethlehem, everywhere," he says. "This has to change." So, he says, do the travel restrictions on Palestinians. "We cannot go on like this," he says. "You cannot have economic development under conditions of lack of mobility. The only way you can keep an economy like this afloat is by continuing to inject official assistance into the system, and that's not our vision for Palestine. We do not want to be a beggar nation."
On the Palestinian side, a major setback to statehood, Fayyad readily admits, are the militias. "To tell you the truth," he says, "were it not for the chaos of weapons for the militias roaming around, with everyone doing what they want wherever they want to do it, the political differences would not have translated into the bloodshed we experience." Weapons should be the "sure purview" of the state, he says, and the "key goal" of his government is to try to "import this concept."
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Member Comments
Posted By: LIKEITIS @ 05/06/2008 1:46:52 PM
Comment: ???Our Dreams Are Dead??? AKA: I CAN'T STOP HITTING MYSELF IN THE HEAD WITH THIS HAMMER, SO IT MUST BE SOMEONE ELSE'S FAULT!
FACTS
# 1) THE PRESENTLY WORLD ACCEPTED AUTHORITY IS THE U.N.
#2) THE U.N. ACCEPTS THE EXISTENCE OF ISRAEL
#3) THE WALL WAS PUT UP AS A METHOD OF GENTLY STOPPING TERRORISM
#4) THE WALL HAS WORKED IN STOPPING THE MAJORITY OF "IN ISRAEL" BOMBINGS
#5) THERE IS NO PLACE ACCEPTED BY THE U.N. AS PALESTINE
#6) THE PEOPLE LIVING IN GAZA AND THE WEST BANK VOTED FOR HAMAS AND THEREFORE ARE ALIGNED WITH A WORLD ACCEPTED TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.
#7) WHEN A PERSON IS SHOT OR KILLED IN THESE AREAS, THIER WEAPON IS DROPPED AND THEN PICKED UP FOR IT'S VALUE, THEN THE DEAD ONE (CLAD IN CIVILIAN CLOTHING, AGAINST GENIEVA CONVENTION) LOOKS IDENTICAL TO A NONCOMBATANT.
#8) ANY HUMAN BEING FEEDING AND HEALING OR PROVIDING THE COMFORTS OF HOME ARE ALSO PROVIDING ASSISTANCE AND ARE THERFORE ALSO ENEMY COMBATANTS.
#9) WHEN A COUNTRY, VOTES AS A MAJORITY TO ELECT A TERRORIST GROUP AS THIER GOVERMENT, THEY ARE A TERRORIST COUNTRY OR ENTITY AND MUST BE EXPECTED TO REAP THAT PARTIULAR WIRLWIND.
#10) ANYONE BUYING THE PREMISS THATA COUNTRY THAT IS ALMOST ENTIREY NON PRODUCING AND LIVING ON THE GENEROSITY OF THE REST OF THE WORLD IS IN ANY WAY DEPRIVED IS EITHER INSANE OR ONE OF THOSE WANTING MORE CHARITY
#11) ULTIMATELY, THERE IS NO CHANCE THAT THE ISRAELIS WILL EVER BE REMOVED FROM THIER LEGALLY HELD LAND, IF IRAN OR ANY MUSLIM THEOCRACY DID EVER GET ENOUGH POWER TO DO THIS, THE HOLY LANDS(AND I SAY THAT WITH ALL DUE DISRESPECT) WOULD QUICKLY BECOME IRRADIATED AND UNINHABITABLE FOR CENTURIES AND JUSTLY SO!
Posted By: getzel @ 05/03/2008 9:06:13 AM
Comment: A picture of Mohammad and they riot like mad dogs.
Continuous suicide murder in the name of Islime, and not a peep.
They are all terrorist murder supporters.
Intelligence analyst: Getzel
Posted By: getzel @ 05/03/2008 9:03:26 AM
Comment: There are no Jews in Gaza or in West Bank Arab towns.
Linda Bird Francke, the articles writer,
is a terrorist murderer. In the Sharia terrorist enclaves: the West Bank and Gaza;
Israel only targets ticking bombs people and their handlers.
Linda Bird Francke
knows there are that many ticking bombs people being intercepted.
Linda Bird Francke knows that the wall is only there to stop ticking bombs people from shattering dreams of the ticking bombers/murders targets.
Write your problems down in detail Mr Palisteinan;
no freedom of speech in Israel? No, that is not it you have that ???
No freedom of worship in Israel; no, you have that.
No Moslem representatives freely elected in the Knesset in Israel; no, you have that.
no private property rights in Israel; no you have that.
No business ownership in Israel; no you have that.
No Sharia law: where Moslems have the just mentioned rights, non-Moslems have none of those rights and live as dhimmy: BINGO.
Sharia people are at war with The West because Sharia people believe Islam can not survive against: a free market economy with free speech to criticize Islam, representative Republic.
no such thing as "moderate Islam".... As Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said
The governments of the world led by the USA and international law, have defined a set of war rule parameters that guarantee no war can be won by good guys and that guarantee nice long lasting wars with lots of weapons sales.
Arab, if only Israel: is only an excuse, propaganda, for Islamic terror; as we see that wherever the Mohammedans bump against another culture the Mohammedans say the same thing they say about Israel. In India: same thing, in Kosovo: same thing, In Israel: same thing. In Darfur: same thing. In Thailand: same thing, the Philippines: same thing. Wherever the Moslems are contiguous with another people: The Moslems say the same thing they say about Israel:
If only: Sharia and no freedom of speech to criticize Islam
Which part of their statements: we only want an Islamic terror state dedicated to the destruction of the West do you not understand?
Linda Bird Francke, this articles writer, is an Al Qaeda operative.
Linda Bird Francke favors suicide murder as a battle tactic against the West.
Linda Bird Francke is Tokyo Rose.
Mosque = No tolerance for non Moslems
Mosque = Non Moslems must be killed or converted.
Mosque = No freedom of speech to criticize islam.
Mosque = terrorist recruitment center: ground zero
Mosque = suicide murderers.