All things about Israel and Palestine continued:

Regardless of the post, the conversation here seems to be fixated on the continuing conflict between Arab and Jew in Israel. I freely admit that I do not have the in depth knowledge of every aspect of the history of the area because I am not that interested in the area except as it disrupts the interests of the United States.

It is my belief that the majority of the wars and violence in the Middle East are a result of the disruption of the area by colonialism and a cultural clash between indigenous peoples and European transplants. It is no different than that which has transpired in the Balkans, Ireland and many parts of Africa. The claim that the land in Palestine is the natural home to people from another continent is validated because of their ancient religion is historically absurd. If you think not, apply the same standard to North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Canada and the Celtic regions of Great Britain. No honest person can take such a claim seriously. The myths and and religious culture of the area have no more basis in fact than the myths and cultures of any other human civilization on the planet. To think otherwise is the height of jingoism and cultural triumphalism.

What is true is that might makes right. A superior technology and a political will always trump sentimentality and reason until that monopoly is lost and it always gets lost.

I found this video on the history of the area. It is interesting and helps to put the present unsustainable situation in perspective. History has not been kind or sympathetic to countries that ruled by force of arms and technological superiority. It never lasts and neither will this one.

"It's our role as Jews to build the land of the Jews." :: "Defending the land is a holy task. If we let them succeed, they will take more and more."

While the diplomats haggle, deadly tensions are mounting in the nascent Palestine

The quest for Palestinian statehood at the UN has worsened a climate of fear on the ground in the West Bank

• Harriet Sherwood in Qusra
• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 24 September 2011 10.35 EDT
• Article history

Women at the Jewish settlement of Pnei Kedem practise firing pistols and high-powered rifles. Photograph: Nati Shohat/Flash90

The settlers come down the hill from the outpost, mostly on foot, but occasionally on horseback or in tractors or 4x4s. They carry Israeli flags, and sometimes bring guns, shovels and dogs. There may be as few as three or as many as 40. They taunt the local villagers and sometimes attack them. Often the Israeli army arrives and trains its weapons on the villagers.

In Qusra, deep among the terraced hills of the West Bank, fear is on the rise. "The settlers are provoking us continuously," said Hani Abu Reidi, head of the village council. "They uproot olive trees, kill our sheep, burn our mosques and curse our prophet. They want to drag us into the sphere of violence. We do not want to go there."

As the Palestinian quest for statehood looks set to be mired in diplomatic back rooms for weeks or months, tension on the ground is mounting. Both Palestinian villagers and Jewish settlers say each other is responsible for a spike in attacks over the past fortnight; mostly small-scale incidents such as throwing stones, molotov cocktails and insults. Both sides claim the other is preparing to invade their communities and attack their people. It has created an edgy climate of fear and menace, and is a forewarning of potential battles to come if the struggle for the land moves up a gear with impending Palestinian statehood.

Credit: Giulio Frigieri

The request by the Palestinians to be admitted to the United Nations as a full member state, formally submitted on Friday, will now be considered by the security council for an undefined period, during which efforts to get both sides back to the negotiating table will intensify.

If no progress is made, the Palestinians will press for a vote at the security council, a move the US has pledged to veto. The Palestinians would then have the option of asking the 193-member general assembly for enhanced status, albeit short of full statehood. As this process inches forward, anger on the ground is rising.

On Friday, violence between settlers from the outpost of Esh Kodesh and around 300 Qusra villagers ended in a haze of teargas and bullets fired at the villagers by Israeli troops, two of which struck Issam Odeh, 33, killing the father-of-eight.

Qusra set up a defence committee earlier this month after one of the village's four mosques was vandalised in a settler attack condemned by the US and the European Union. Up to 20 unarmed men patrol the mosques from 8pm to 6am every night, and Abu Reidi claims they have already foiled at least one attack. Other Palestinian villages have followed suit.

On the hilltops, preparations for clashes have also been under way for weeks. Security around settlements and outposts has been reinforced with extra barbed wire, CCTV cameras, security guards and dogs. And the settlers themselves are armed and primed in anticipation of what they believe will be incursions by Palestinians intent on making their hoped-for state a reality on the ground.

This week, photographs were published on a pro-settler news website,Arutz Sheva, showing women from Pnei Kedem, an outpost south of Bethlehem, learning to shoot. In Shimon Hatzadik, a Jewish enclave in the midst of the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in east Jerusalem, settlers are preparing to invoke a law allowing self-defence against intruders. "We are talking about shooting at their legs and if that doesn't work, and our lives are in danger, we won't be afraid to shoot straight at them. Most of the residents here are armed," spokesman Yehonatan Yosef told parliamentarians two weeks ago.

Activists in the settlement of Qiryat Arba, on the edge of Hebron, have distributed clubs, helmets and teargas to nearby outposts. "They've been given all of the tools we could provide for them in order to protect themselves," Bentzi Gopstein, a member of Qiryat Arba's council, told the Ynet news website. "But we must remember that the best defence is offence. We can't stay close to our fences. If the Arabs can come to us, they must learn we can come to them."

The settlers believe Israeli soldiers will be hampered by restraints imposed by commanders fearful of negative publicity. "They are not receiving the right orders," said radical activist Itamar Ben-Gvir from Qiryat Arba. "There's no state in the world that would allow the enemy to cross its lines and enter its communities. If the IDF will not act properly, we will have to defend ourselves."

Women and children would take part in defensive action, he said. "We want to present an equation: women against women; children against children. The Arabs are intending to use their children and we will not sit still."

Shaul Goldstein, mayor of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of Bethlehem, expects the focus in the coming weeks to "move from hypothetical issues in New York to practical terror here in Judaea and Samaria [the biblical term for the West Bank]". Gush Etzion had a comparatively good relationship with its Palestinian neighbours, he said. "We are trying to talk to them to reduce friction and tension. But if the Palestinians march towards the settlements, there is a red line. If they try to cross, to penetrate our communities, it will be a big problem."

As well as fighting on the ground, many settlers believe they must also wage a political battle against the Israeli government. "Netanyahu is a weak leader, not standing for the values he was elected for," said Goldstein. "The [settlement] construction freeze was the first in history – and this from a rightwinger. So we have to push him, to press him, to keep him to hold the line."

The settlers are not just fighting to hold on to the land they already occupy; they intend to expand and grow – as they see it, reclaiming the land that has been willed to them by God.

"Our purpose is to build new towns and communities, new outposts in Judaea and Samaria," said veteran activist Daniella Weiss. "It's our role as Jews to build the land of the Jews."

In Qusra, Abu Reidi agreed the land is at the heart of confrontations between Jewish settlers and Palestinian villagers. "Their ultimate goal is to drive us from our land," he said. "Defending the land is a holy task. If we let them succeed, they will take more and more."

Muslim Mob in London Over BBC Refusal to Broadcast Aid Appeal for Palestinians

Hat Tip: Bobal

In bad economic times, it will only get worse. The veneer of civilization is thin. So said Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1910.

"Civilization (which is part of the circle of his imaginings) has spread a veneer over the surface of the softshelled animal known as man. It is a very thin veneer; but so wonderfully is man constituted that he squirms on his bit of achievement and believes he is garbed in armor-plate.
Yet man to-day is the same man that drank from his enemy's skull in the dark German forests, that sacked cities, and stole his women from neighboring clans like any howling aborigine. The flesh-and-blood body of man has not changed in the last several thousand years. Nor has his mind changed. There is no faculty of the mind of man to-day that did not exist in the minds of the men of long ago

It is the same old animal man, smeared over, it is true, with a veneer, thin and magical, that makes him dream drunken dreams of self-exaltation and to sneer at the flesh and the blood of him beneath the smear. The raw animal crouching within him is like the earthquake monster pent in the crust of the earth. As he persuades himself against the latter till it arouses and shakes down a city, so does he persuade himself against the former until it shakes him out of his dreaming and he stands undisguised, a brute like any other brute."

________________

Protests at BBC headquarters after refusal to screen appeal
ALISON CHIESA. The Herald
January 26 2009

Protests over the BBC's refusal to screen an emergency appeal for Gaza gathered pace over the weekend, with demonstrations held in Glasgow and London adding to criticism by politicians, celebrities and church leaders.

More than 50 MPs are due to back a parliamentary motion today urging the BBC to screen an emergency aid appeal to help those affected by the conflict with Israel after the corporation refused to back down last night, despite thousands of complaints from the public.

The BBC said it had received approximately 11,000 complaints, including 1000 phone calls, over its decision not to broadcast the advert for the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).

Last night, supporters of Scottish Stop the War Coalition and Palestinian groups held a demonstration in the foyer of the BBC's Scottish headquarters in Glasgow before dispersing around 9pm.

Among those lending support to the protesters was Solidarity leader Tommy Sheridan. He said: "Solidarity members are involved in this protest, I salute their action and call on the BBC to be impartial on this issue. The Israeli PM Olmert has made it clear he considers war crimes against Palestinians by the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) to be justified. The BBC are joining him in presenting humanitarian aid to Gazans as action against Israel."

Samantha Morton last night pledged never to work for the BBC again, if it fails to show the appeal. The 31-year-old Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee said she was embarrassed to earn money from a corporation that would take such a "horrific" and "disgusting" decision.

Stop the War said it had about 100 people at yesterday's Glasgow protest. Strathclyde Police put the number at around 50, and said the demonstration was orderly and there had been no arrests.

BBC Director-General Mark Thompson has already rejected a plea from International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander to screen the appeal, warning that a broadcast could compromise the impartiality of BBC reporting from the Palestinian territory.

The motion, to be tabled today by Labour's Richard Burden, has received the support of 51 MPs from across the Commons.

On Saturday, thousands of people demonstrated against the decision outside the BBC's Broadcasting House in London.

The corporation's rival terrestrial broadcasters - ITV, Channel 4 and Five - said they would show the advert, and Sky is considering its position.

The DEC - which includes several major aid charities - wants the appeal to be broadcast on television and radio from today.

Mr Burden, a member of the Commons International Development Committee, said he had written to Mr Thompson to press for an explanation for the BBC's decision. "This is not about taking sides in the conflict. It is about providing urgent help to people in desperate need," he said.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond also agreed it was the "wrong decision" by the BBC.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg yesterday told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show it was an "insult" to viewers to suggest they could not distinguish between the humanitarian needs of children and families and the "political sensitivities of the Middle East".

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu, also joined critics and urged the BBC to "wake up and get on with it".

But Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said it was right that broadcasters made their own decisions. He told Sky News: "I think these are difficult judgments for all broadcasters, but particularly so for the BBC because of the way in which it is funded."

Mr Thompson wrote in a BBC blog on Saturday: "The danger for the BBC is that this could be interpreted as taking a political stance on an ongoing story."

Arab Solidarity

This is Dubai

This is a Palestinian Camp in Lebanon

Think the Arabs could solve their own problems?

Israel, Palestine and Iraq. Is the Bush Administration in a Listening Mood?

The US Administration is in a listening mood, Egypt's ambassador to Washington tells Dina Ezzat Al-Ahram

Nabil Fahmi
As Egypt's Ambassador to the US Nabil Fahmi knows better than most, the consequences of a break in the dialogue between the US and Egypt are negative. And while his mandate has always included promoting an exchange of views between Cairo and Washington, Fahmi believes American-Egyptian dialogue is especially crucial now, during a time when US policy on the Middle East is facing scrutiny in the US and elsewhere and as a consequence is entering a phase of revision.

In a telephone interview from his office in the US capital Fahmi told Al-Ahram Weekly that the current US administration's absorption with its problems in Iraq does not mean that it is unwilling to listen to the opinions of others on issues crucial to their mutual interests in the Middle East. The Palestinian-Israeli track of the Arab-Israeli peace process, he says, is one such area of concern.

Last week's visit to Washington by Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit and Chief of Intelligence Omar Suleiman, says Fahmi, was crucial in communicating Egypt's position to the US administration which is, he says, "currently in a listening moment".

"Of course it would be naive to expect the Americans to immediately engage with the advice Egypt offered. It is too early to say whether the Americans will take our advice on board fully, partially or at all," says Fahmi. "But the point," he adds almost immediately, "had to be made."

Abul-Gheit's and Suleiman's agenda in Washington was, says Fahmi, varied and wide-ranging. They met with administration officials, members of Congress, think tanks and media representatives, and discussions covered many aspects of Egypt's bilateral relationship with the US as well as regional developments. "Yet it would be true to say some 90 per cent of discussions were spent on regional developments, especially the Palestinian-Israeli issue."

The Egyptian delegation's message was, Fahmi argues, simple and "to the point".

"Israelis and Palestinians need to talk about their outstanding disagreements and start negotiating final status issues and not interim matters as some have been suggesting."

Final status issues include the establishment of a Palestinian state, determining its borders in relation to Israel, the fate of East Jerusalem and that of hundreds of thousands of refugees.

It is a message, Fahmi acknowledges, that has been communicated to the Americans before -- most recently during last month's visit to Cairo by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Understanding, though not commitment, was the response of the Americans to Egypt's proposals; tellingly, Egypt's Ambassador to the US thinks it pertinent to repeat the messages conveyed less than a month before.

Fahmi is not blind to the fact that despite determined Egyptian efforts to communicate the need for movement on the Palestinian-Israeli track Washington might choose to pursue another route.

"What is important to realise," says Fahmi, "is that this administration still has almost two years in office. They will have to take decisions on many issues. They cannot remain undecided for ever."

"It is a different question, however, whether or not they take the decisions that we hope they will."

Fahmi worked hard before the ministerial visit, and continues to do so, to ensure the US administration, Congress, lobbies and press understand that it is in the interest of Arabs, Israelis and Americans alike to take serious steps towards resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict "even while the US is so busy with Iraq".

But what guarantees are there that should the Americans decide to move on the Palestinian-Israeli front they will do so more in pursuit of substantial results than simply scoring PR points?

"I think it is inaccurate to suggest that the Americans are only interested in theatrics," argues Fahmi. They want more than empty meetings, whether in or out of the Middle East, when it comes the Palestinian-Israeli issue. What is accurate, he adds, is that "the Americans are still thinking about their options."

While Egypt is pressing for final status talks "others have different opinions because they have different interests" which, he explains, contradict with the goal of establishing an independent and viable Palestinian state that can live side by side with Israel in peace.

While acknowledging that the "environment in Washington is very tense at the moment with everybody focused on Iraq" one of the obvious messages communicated to Washington during last week's ministerial visit was, says Fahmi, that the administration could show that it is still strong on foreign policy issues through contrasting its problems in Iraq with a success story on the Palestinian-Israeli front.

"It is important that Secretary Rice is returning to the region," says Fahmi. And while he is unwilling to make any predictions about the results of Rice's expected three-way meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, he hopes "that the parties will encourage Rice to support moves towards discussing final status talks and that Rice in her turn will encourage the parties to do so".

He believes the talks conducted by Abul-Gheit and Suleiman with Rice in Washington last week were helpful in this respect and Egypt is "doing what it can do".

One of Egypt's aims, he says, is to engage the American administration on other issues of regional concern since this might help pave the way towards US action on the Palestinian issue. Egypt is working with the US to find "a fruitful policy" on Iraq, though it is fully aware this is a difficult short-term objective.

"Egypt, too, wants an end to the problems that Iraqis are facing. We want to maintain Iraq's unity," says Fahmi. And it is "part of Egypt's regional role" to consult with other concerned regional players, particularly Iraq's neighbours, in an attempt to help Iraqis move beyond their current difficulties and be able to jointly live in a unified and strong Iraq.

For Fahmi, the exchange of views that was conducted during the Abul-Gheit/ Suleiman visit to Washington on these and other regional issues -- including the need to engage Syria on the peace process and avoid lumping it together with Iran in terms of their respective roles in Iraq -- was significant. It "highlighted" the important nature of Egypt's regional role, both to an administration keen to work with reliable regional players and to the newly elected Congress.

Fahmi concedes that questions will inevitably continue to be raised about Egypt's commitment to reform and its human rights record. But, he says, "we are living in a transparent world... we accept questions and we answer them by way of informing our friends about our efforts."

"Americans see reform going on in Egypt, even if in a way that is not compatible with their visions, and they have decided that the best way to support it is to follow it rather than to interfere."

Overall, says Fahmi, last week's ministerial visit to Washington affirmed the solid foundations for the dialogue Egyptians and Americans conduct across issues of common interest and "issues of disagreement as well".

All visits have short- and long-term objectives. While last week's visit had the revival of the peace process as its short-term objective, says Fahmi, the longer-term goal was to remind all concerned of the vitality of the Egyptian-American relationship. Both objectives, he believes, were well-served.

This week Mouchira Khattab, secretary- general of the National Council for Motherhood and Childhood, will visit the US. Next month governmental and non- governmental trade delegations, that will include Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid and Minister of Investment Mahmoud Moheiddin, are due for a tour of the US. Meanwhile, US Congress members are planning visits to Egypt in the weeks ahead. But what about President Hosni Mubarak, who has not visited Washington for three years now? Has last week's visit by Abul-Gheit and Suleiman paved the way for what used to be an annual presidential trip?

"President Mubarak and President [George W] Bush are in a constant exchange of views through telephone conversations; President Bush was in Egypt less than two years ago; President Mubarak has been very busy with presidential elections and is now very busy with constitutional reforms," says Fahmi.

But given that the US is in a listening mood, does that not suggest the time is ripe for Mubarak to visit Washington?

"All visits," responds Fahmi diplomatically, "are possible, depending on the interests of both sides."