May 15, 1998 - VOL 4 NO. 45
Al-Nakba Issue
by: Joharah Baker
It has become quite normal not to expect any major progress from Palestinian-Israeli meetings. Palestinians are neither surprised nor overly disappointed - but they are growing impatient and they are making it clear. Following the failure of the London talks and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's refusal to head to Washington for the tripartite summit which was scheduled for May 11, even Israel knows that they are pushing it. Israeli Chief of Staff Gen. Amnon Shahak expressed his country's concern in a speech he gave before the Knesset Security and Foreign Affairs Committee by saying that the failure in London would lead to escalation and confrontation in the Palestinian lands. Palestinian president Yasser Arafat also warned of possible violence in the self-rule areas if Israeli intransigence continues. And so the United States is pushing harder than ever to sell their initiative to Israel.
But Netanyahu insists on maintaining his hard-line position. During US Envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross' unscheduled visit on May 8, Netanyahu made it clear that he could not attend the Washington summit and accept the US initiative, which is based on a 13 percent Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian lands. Upon leaving the region, Ross admitted his failure to convince the Israeli prime minister to come to Washington and expressed his pessimism over the possibility of bridging the disagreements between the two sides.
Not only is Israel blocking progress, it is actually boasting about it. One top Israeli official was quoted by saying that Netanyahu has been able to halt the Oslo process and sidestep the agreements:
"Instead of transferring most of the West Bank lands to the PA within 18 months, we now control most of the territories before even beginning final status negotiations. We were able to stop concessions without being accused by anyone of violating agreements." The source added that by the end of the final status talks, the Palestinians would get a maximum of 40 percent of lands - far less than what is stipulated by the Oslo Accords.
Of course there is always the ubiquitous issue of redeployment. A myriad of percentages, maps, and land divisions keep being shuffled around between Israel, the United States and the Palestinians. However, the most recent plan is definitely the most ingenious, hatched by the United States and offered to the Israelis during Ross' visit.
The plan is divided into four parts. The first part deals with the implementation of the first and second phases of redeployment and entails transferring 13 percent from Zone C and 14.2 percent from Zone B to Zone A. This would mean that the lands in Zone A (under Palestinian control) would increase from 3 percent to 18.2 percent and the total lands in Zones A and B would constitute 44 percent of West Bank lands. The other parts of the plan discuss the third phase of redeployment, interim agreements and Palestinian-Israeli security coordination.
The Americans even added an interesting twist. Their newest idea is what they call an "escrow arrangement" where two to four percent of land beyond the 9 to 11 percent already agreed upon is held in trust by a third party, namely the United States, and is to be turned over to the Palestinians on fulfillment of certain conditions.
The problem with this arrangement is that the United States wants to specify the date of hand-over -sometime close to the second pullout- and would prefer the escrow territory to be limited. However, the Israelis still have not given their full consent to this, not committing to a specific time for hand-over, or the amount of land to be placed in escrow.
Palestinians have been verbally informed of the plan and have shown their initial consent to it. But progress solely on the Palestinian level is worthless as long as Israel will not even commit to a date to meet in Washington. Rumor has it that there may be a meeting somewhere around the 19th of the month, but nothing is certain. Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at press time and perhaps she will be able to convince him that time is running out for all the parties involved.
However, prime minister Netanyahu is adamant in his refusal to return any substantial amount of land. In a meeting with American mayors broadcasted on Israeli radio on May 11, he stated that the issue of redeployment is in no way related to human rights because, according to him, the lands under discussion are "empty of Palestinians" and are vital to Israeli interests. He went about convincing his audience that the Palestinians have gotten all they deserved. "100 percent of Gazans and 98 percent of West Bank residents are governed by the Palestinians. The land for redeployment is empty of Palestinians."
In the meantime, Palestinian president Yasser Arafat is losing his patience and according to him, so are his people. He also does not seem fazed by Netanyahu's threats of canceling the Oslo Accords if Arafat declares a Palestinian state next year. Arafat insists that it is a legitimate Palestinian right to declare their state after the end of the interim period which is May 1999. Who knows, however, on just how much land that declared state will exist.
It should have been a lively post-game atmosphere like anywhere else in the world: when last Thursday, Silwad lost the soccer match to the team from al-'Amari Refugee Camp, Silwad supporters shouted in a colorful way their opinions " not repeatable " about the referee's fairness, and tensions skyrocketed.
But after this specific game, violence escalated dangerously " not only because of the fans' behavior but also because of the response of the police. The final score was two persons hospitalized, eight others injured (including three police officers), several arrests, and a furious and scared crowd who watched, astonished and wordless, the stormy police operation being carried out in downtown Ramallah.
The story has it that at the final whistles which decreed Silwad's defeat, its supporters expressed all their anger by screaming at the referee. But words were not enough " they made their way to the referee and hit him. The police response was, in the opinion of many, exaggerated. The tension grew and in a few minutes police officers and supporters of both teams were involved in a riot.
The exchange of words, flying objects and blows with sticks was not contained to the soccer field. From there, the supporters moved toward the main police station in Ramallah, where, in the meantime, the rescued referee had been transferred. Along the way the protesters found a police patrol vehicle, they jumped over it, beat it with sticks, and then continued on to the police station.
Once there, they vented their rage and protest, using stones and broken bottles, on the building. Within a few minutes, the Special Police Corps, sporting bulletproof vests, riot helmets and sticks, and including undercover agents as well, started yelling to the numerous people crowding Ramallah's downtown streets for an afternoon's shopping, to keep out of the way.
Policemen were screaming to people things like: "Move away or instead of shooting in the air I'll shoot at your legs." In the confusion, people didn't know which way to go and batons were used not only to hit shop doors. Those football fans captured by the police were beaten harshly, and films and videocassettes of news photographers and TV cameramen on the scene were confiscated and smashed.
One cameraman from al-Watan Television whose videotape was smashed, was visibly startled, did not want to reveal his name or make any comments on the police behavior toward journalists simply doing their job.
All around, a chorus of rude comments arose from the crowd: "ThePalestinian police are beating us. We don't need this kind of police. And if this is the Palestinian Authority's police, we don't need the PA either." Someone spit on the ground, expressing his disgust without wasting any words explaining his feelings.
Small groups of people gathered in corners commenting on the events: "People are too disappointed with this Authority and the game was just an excuse to let their frustration come out," or "We are all Palestinians and this violence between ourselves is not understandable except for the fact that people have gotten fed up with the situation."
It took three and a half hours before quiet returned to Ramallah's streets. The following day local newspapers reported on the events, focusing on the police operation, and leaving out people's enraged and upset comments and the trampled freedom of the press.
by: Joharah Baker
Last week it became even more apparent that matters within the Palestinian Authority are not proceeding as smoothly as planned. Long-time attorney Fayez Abu Rahmeh had submitted his resignation as Attorney"General in March of this year " hoping to force a resolution to problems within the Justice Ministry. Instead, his resignation was accepted on May 1.
Abu Rahmeh's stepping down is the second major blow to the Authority since its establishment, the first being Legislative Council member Haidar 'Abdel Shafi's resignation in September 1997. It is not the resignations themselves which are the primary source of unease to observers, but the reasons behind them.
Currently, popular opinion has it that Fayez Abu Rahmeh quit the top lawmaker job because of disagreements with the justice minister, Freih Abu Middein " specifically, the former attorney-general says that Abu Middein excluded him from major decisions and overrode his authority. Unsurprisingly, Abu Middein offers a different view, contending that Abu Rahmeh resigned because of failing health, an explanation which seems pretty far-fetched to most people.
As for Abu Rahmeh, he has held nothing back. In an interview published in al-Risala on May 7, he gave detailed accounts of incidents where he felt his authority was undermined. Although he maintains that his personal relationship with the justice minister is free of any acrimony " they worked in the same office in the 1970s " their professional relationship was another story. "He [Abu Middein] disconnected my telephone line, took away my secretary and tried to prohibit my car registration." One possible explanation which Abu Rahmeh gives for what he calls the justice minister's contempt for him is that he was appointed without Abu Middein's consent. However, he says, that is no excuse. "The Justice Minster should not have any authority over the attorney-general." Actually, according to Abu Rahmeh, his main tensions were with the security apparatus, who he says take actions unilaterally. Although the attorney-general should be the backbone of the legal authority, arrests were made without his knowledge or consent. "This is a very dangerous matter because there is a disregard for the rule of law." Abu Rahmeh illustrated the point by recalling an incident when a human rights organization obtained a permit personally approved by the attorney-general, to visit detained Hamas leaders Dr. 'Abdel 'Aziz Rantisi and Dr. Ibrahim Maqadmeh in prison. The head of the Palestinian police rejected the permit and prohibited the human rights workers from seeing the two detainees.
Abu Rahmeh tried to take his complaints to PA president Arafat, thinking that Arafat would at least review the matter. However, Abu Rahmeh did not get the response he was hoping for. A letter he wrote to Arafat in which he explained his disagreements with the justice minister was never answered. Arafat has refused to meet with Abu Rahmeh, despite numerous requests. At last, he was scheduled to meet with Arafat, but instead, on May 1, he received official notice that his resignation had been accepted and that, beginning the following day, he should no longer present himself at the attorney-general's office.
Abu Rahmeh is disappointed that he was not able to achieve what he first set out to do. "I became the attorney-general for the sake of reform[ing the system], but I admit that I failed." When asked if he would return to his former post if change is promised, he maintains that it is too difficult a question to answer. He hints, though, that reform is possible, but only if certain people are removed from their posts and others, who truly care about justice and the interests of the country, are appointed in their place.
On May 12, Dheisheh became the first refugee camp in the world to launch its own web site. In mid-April, Muna Hamzeh-Muhaisen, one of the site designers, recalls, messages were circulating on an internet mailing list about a prominent Palestinian suspected of being a CIA agent, a certain article which some people felt had insulted Islam, and a Lion King "cast list" where Palestinian and Israeli politicians' names had been substituted for the characters.
"Those were the topics of the day," says Muhaisen. "I had been reading all of these message exchanges for about a week, and then one morning I heard over the Dheisheh Boys' School loudspeaker the teacher telling the students that Israel was planning huge, expensive celebrations of its 50th anniversary and asking them to write essays about their villages of 1948. And I thought it was sad that while Israel was busy making all these big preparations, these essays were the only thing that the schoolchildren could do and most probably nobody other than themselves would read them. So when I turned on my computer that morning and I saw the debates still going back and forth on the mailing list " I got angry. And so I sent a message to everyone on the list telling them that if people in Dheisheh refugee camp knew about their exchanges they would say: "intu wen/ihna wen" (you're in one valley and we're in another).
She continues, "I told them that while these exchanges were taking place, Israeli solders were shooting at demonstrators in Jerusalem during a protest for Palestinian prisoners, and that in Dheisheh camp we had organized a marathon for Prisoners' Day, and while these things were going on, the people who live abroad and have greater [technological] capability " with the Nakba anniversary coming up " should be doing something more serious."
Muhaisen's frank lambasting got results. She not only received widespread approval of her opinion from fellow list-members, but Mary Gossage, of New Mexico, offered to place the Dheisheh children's essays on a web site to which she had access. Out of this initial offer of assistance grew the idea for the camp's own web site, offering information about the camp and what life is like for the refugees there. As far as Muhaisen and Gossage know, there are no other refugee camps with a web page.
Dheisheh's web site " at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/9836/nakba.html " is a historic first, shedding light on the realities of life inside one of the 59 Palestinian refugee camps, in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan through children's writings, and other, more concrete information about the camp's population, history, villages of origin, etc.
"My eyes hurt from all the hours I spent sitting at my computer [translating], but it's worthwhile," says Muhaisen. "With everyone doing so much about al-Nakba, maybe all of this should be a hint to the Palestinians " to really utilize the internet for disseminating information. I think this year is the first time ever in our history where a lot of information about al-Nakba is being made available. It would be fantastic if somebody, in the Authority, I guess, would find a way to create an information database or something. The Palestinians must do this, we shouldn't wait for someone outside."
Muhaisen says that while most of the camp residents she told about the web site were really excited, very few really grasped the implications of it. "That is why I think we really need to start training young women " are getting married at 14 for lack of better things to do " to use this technology primarily because under the current conditions, e-mail and the internet are our only ticket out of the Palestinian areas without needing an Israeli permit."
by: Lori Chandler
"There has to be a grassroots activist group that is monitoring the progress of the negotiations for a lasting peace" says Daniel Yossef, director of Peace for Generations. His Israeli organization, founded in 1994, tries to fill that need.
In the past weeks, Peace for Generations with its branches in Jerusalem, New York, and Gush Etzion, has been the source of two press releases " one concerning "inflammatory" statements made on the Palestinian Broadcasting Company show "The Children's Club,"and the other publicizing excerpts from textbooks used in Palestinians schools (see Pal.Report, vol.4, no. 44).
Yossef, who describes Peace for Generations as " right of the center," says that the idea of "peace is to tolerate and respect each other." He says Israel has fulfilled its Oslo commitments" the majority of Palestinians are under Palestinian jurisdiction, security and taxes are controlled by the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian flag is flying. Therefore, he says that the Palestinian media should not be "a platform for violence." "There is no attempt to give legitimacy to Israel in any of the broadcasts."
A screening of the PBC clips show children performing nationalist, war-oriented songs and poetry. However, the English subtitles Peace for Generations has added to the clips are more volatile than the actual Arabic. In addition, the excerpts from textbooks are from Jordanian curricula used throughout the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and will be replaced in the year 2000, say PA officials.
When asked why Peace for Generations does not mention this fact, Yossef is defensive. He argues that the Israeli Civil Administration used Jordanian and Egyptian texts to avoid making Palestinians angry. "We were trying to let them run their schools as they saw fit," he says.
Yossef believes that the Palestinians are projecting a "veneer of a peace process and then maintaining a drumbeat of war." His organization intends to expose Palestinian attempts to prolong what he says should be a settled conflict.
Palestinian ambivalence about Israel's independence celebrations are, for Yossef, only one more sign that peace has not yet arrived. "When there is talk of 'your independence was our destruction,' then it is black or white, and there is no reconciliation."
Zeina Ghandour - London
My Very Private Map
1998, refugee camp productions, produced and directed by Sobhi Zobaidi, 22 min.
Director Sobhi Zobaidi's first personal film commemorates the 50th year since al-Nakba, the catastrophe which befell the unborn children of today's Palestinian refugee camps.
Delineating the map of the title are fragments and snippets strung together by precious, fragile links: an old ceramic teapot carried from home, a faded letter from a brother not seen in 38 years. Historical black and white footage is slowed down and set to haunting native American spirit songs. Poetry performed by a childhood friend soothes the harsh memories like a cool breeze. The fiery dignity that sustained the intifada for so long is captured in interviews, as the narrator gets a good talking to by his contemporaries. Or, we glimpse him attentive and sobered by the stoicism of old men and the experiences they relate.
Every so often the film cracks with the contained horror and underlying desperation that compelled it into production. Foremost a lyrical gift of love to Palestine, this is not a film that will bring tears to your eyes, but it will remind you of your capacity for crying.
My Very Private Map will be broadcast on ART on May 14 and ANN on May 15. Check your local listings for times. It will also be screened at al-Matal in Ramallah on May 15, and at Darat al-Fanoun in Amman on May 16.