Israeli Elections Come and Go, But Israel Remains an Outlaw State
A Palestinian family reacts after Israeli bulldozers demolished their home in the Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, Feb. 5, 2013. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
Two Views: Israel’s Parliamentary Elections
Newly elected Israeli Knesset member Yair Lapid (l), leader of the Yesh Atid party, speaks to Naftali Bennett, head of the hard-line national religious party the Jewish Home, during a Feb. 5 reception in Jerusalem marking the opening of the 19th Knesset. (URIEL SINAI/GETTY IMAGES)
Richard H. Curtiss (1927-2013) Devoted His Life to Telling People Stories
Richard Curtiss at work in his Washington Report office. (STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY)
Israeli License to Cheney-Linked Energy Firm on Golan Heights Raises Eyebrows
Then-Vice President Dick Cheney (l) and Likud chairman Benyamin Netanyahu, out of office at the time and serving as the official Israeli opposition leader, at a March 23, 2008 breakfast meeting at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. (PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
Peace at Last in the Southern Philippines?
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III (r) shares candies with Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chief Murad Ebrahim during a Feb. 11 visit to the rebels’ stronghold in Sultan Kudarat on the island of Mindanao. (KARLOS MANLUPIG/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
Two Palestinian, Israeli Documentaries Depict Evils of Military Occupation
Emad Burnat views his five broken cameras in his documentary of the same name. (PHOTO COURTESY KINO LORBER)
Washington Report, July 2006, page 82
Publishers' Page
How Low Can We Go?
The U.S. image in the Middle East took a nosedive on May 23, when the U.S. House of Representatives put the demands of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) ahead of the wishes of its president and, by a vote of 361 to 37, passed House Resolution 4681. The draconian Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 prohibits official Palestinian diplomacy or representation in the United States, restricts humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, and even denies them the ability to receive assistance through international banking institutions.
It’s Simply Outrageous...
To punish, isolate and, yes, starve a people for holding democratic elections and voting for the “wrong” leaders. (One could even argue that the passage of H.R. 4681 is evidence that, in all but 46 congressional districts—including those of the 9 House members who voted “present”—Americans have done exactly the same thing!) Instead the vast majority of U.S. representatives voted to stain, perhaps irrevocably, this country’s longstanding record of humanitarianism and commitment to democracy.
To Add to Our Shame...
In his meeting with Ehud Olmert to discuss the Israeli prime minister’s plans to unilaterally evacuate unwanted far-flung Jewish settlements, fortify other settlement blocs and grab East Jerusalem and major West Bank enclaves, President George W. Bush described the proposals as “bold ideas.” That they may be—but they also happen to be...
Brutal and Illegal.
In his May 25 Washington Post column, Robert Novak described a searing report prepared by the staff of House International Relations Committee chairman Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) based on visits to Israel and Palestine over the past two years. Prior to the president’s meeting with Olmert, Hyde sent the report to the White House, along with a letter warning that Israel’s illegal annexation wall and Jewish-only settlements “are irreversibly damaging the dwindling Christian community” in the Holy Land.
Bush Must Not Have Read Either.
Instead, the president seemed to have forgotten that under the U.S.-sponsored road map, neither the Israelis nor Palestinians are to take unilateral steps that prejudge final decisions about disputed territory. Bush did avoid publicly promising Olmert the...
Additional $10 Billion Israel Wants...
To redraw the 1967 borders. We suspect the Israeli leader was not deterred, however. After all, there’s always Congress—and AIPAC (guess which one will be forking over Americans’ tax dollars?). So why should Olmert take no for an answer? He also promised to renew peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. We’d advise President Bush, however, not to take Olmert’s “yes” for an answer.
Meanwhile Palestinians Are Dying...
Because Israel is holding on to $950 million in tax and customs revenues that belong to the Palestinian Authority. Not to be left out, the European Union suspended $600 million in aid and the U.S. another $234 million. Thanks to U.S. anti-terrorism laws, Arab countries wanting to pick up the slack can’t transfer funds through international banks. As a result the Palestinian government is bankrupt and has been unable to pay March, April or May salaries to its 167,000 civil servants, whose pay supports about one-quarter of the 4 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza.
“Politics Is Killing Them”...
Read the headline of a May 21, 2006 Haaretz article about critical medical shortages in the occupied territories. “The new weapons in the war between the Israelis and the Palestinians are no longer called Apache or Merkava or Qassam,” wrote Meron Rapoport. “They are called Plavix or Poside or Atropine.”
At 56, Asmaa al Saidi Is Dying...
Of breast cancer at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital because the hospital has run out of chemotherapy supplies. “What crime has my mother done to be punished by Israel and the U.S.?” asked her son, Ismail Siyam, 38. “I blame anyone with a sense of humanity who does not help us.” Elsewhere on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank...
Israel Is Hammering Palestinians.
On May 20 it fired a missile into Gaza City center and assassinated Mohammed Dahduh, a member of the Al Quds Brigade. It also killed three innocent bystanders—Hanan Aman, 25, her 5-year-old son, Muhind, and the boy’s grandmother, Naima, 45. Mariyah Aman, 3, and four other Palestinians were wounded. As Prime Minister Olmert gave what journalist Jim Lobe described as “an exceptionally well-attended and enthusiastically received speech to a joint session of Congress” on May 24, Israeli undercover soldiers brazen ly entered downtown Ramallah to “arrest” a Palestinian leader. When the mission turned bad, the Israelis fired live ammunition to disperse the gathering crowd, killing 4 Palestinians and wounding 30 others. Throughout the occupied territories Israeli aircraft, massive artillery bombardments, sound bombs, and elite undercover assassination squads continue their unabated campaign of terror.
The U.N. Committee Against Torture...
Called on the U.S. to take “immediate measures” to eradicate torture and ill-treatment of detainees by its military personnel “in any territory under its jurisdiction.” Since Sept. 11, 2001 this country has held hundreds of terror suspects at facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that many of the interrogation techniques the U.N. committee condemned as torture—such as the use of dogs to scare detainees, and sexual humiliation—are techniques “perfected” over the years by Israel.
Last Issue’s “Leap of Faith.”
We sent copies of the May/June Washington Report and the in-depth exposé of the “Israel Lobby” by Profs. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt to subscribers, newsstands and nearly 12,000 Presbyterians and 4,200 journalists. Even though we know it was the right thing to do, now we feel that we may have mistaken that leap for a jump into the abyss.
We Will Empty Our Bank Account...
To publish the issue you’re reading today. Next month you’ll receive our first donation letter of the year—but please don’t wait to save our day! We’ve already had an emergency fund-raising reception (details in the next issue) and hope to have more events throughout our 25th anniversary year. We want to be around for another quarter-century, but without your help we won’t make it through another year. Please, please dig deeper than ever before, before it’s too late. Help Palestinians, as well as this magazine, survive and....
