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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2008, page 74 Publishers' Page If Kosovo, Then Why Not Palestine?Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from the state of Serbia on Feb. 17, 2008. The next day President George W. Bush accorded the new state full diplomatic recognition. Even though the Bush administration has been calling for an independent Palestinian state since June 2002, vowing that “America and our partners throughout the world stand ready to help…” Nearly Six Years Later…There has been no progress on the ground, just more hot air. “There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967,” Bush told reporters in Jerusalem on Jan. 10. “The agreement must establish a Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people.” If Israel, Then Why Not Palestine?Israel declared its statehood at midnight on May 14, 1948, without officially agreeing to the borders assigned it by the United Nations in 1947. Ignoring advice from his Cabinet, President Harry Truman recognized the Jewish state 11 minutes later. The Palestine Liberation Organization proclaimed a Palestinian state in 1988, which is now recognized by more than 100 countries—but not by the U.S., EU or Israel. Two decades later… Costa Rica Has Recognized Palestine.The Central American country, whose president is Nobel Peace Laureate Oscar Arias, formally established full diplomatic relations on Feb. 5, 2008 in order “to send a message to both sides about the need to sit down and negotiate,” according to Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno. One of the first countries to recognize Israel, until August 2006 Costa Rica also was one of the very few to have an embassy in Jerusalem rather than Tel Aviv. (Now the only remaining one in Jerusalem is the International Christian Embassy.) If Costa Rica, Why Not the U.S.?Speaking of Israel’s Borders…According to a report from the Ma’an News Agency (<www.maannews.net/en>), which supplies Palestinian news and images to the world from cities in the West Bank and Gaza, on Feb. 23 Israeli authorities issued a military order to confiscate 766 dunams (189 acres) of Palestinian land in the West Bank town of Adh-Dhahiriyya, near Hebron. According to the Israelis the confiscation orders fall under the category of “border adjustment.” In fact, the land is to be used for expansion of the Eshkolot settlement (which, like all settlements in the West Bank, is illegal). Palestinian cartographer Abdul-Hadi Hantash concluded that the affected area actually will exceed 900 dunams (222 acres). An additional 2,400 dunams (593 acres) will fall behind the Israeli separation wall, which Hantash says is a form of indirect confiscation. Elsewhere on the West Bank…Israeli settlers torched a 700-year-old mosque in Al-Khader, near Bethlehem, on Jan 1, using 20 beehives stolen from a nearby farm to stoke the fire. The town of Al-Khader is completely surrounded by Israel’s annexation wall, which is constructed on village land, and worshippers can’t leave the village to pray at another mosque. The Ma’an News Agency reported on Feb. 27 that, a month earlier, Israeli soldiers near Hebron had brutally beaten Abu Snaina, telling him to dance naked if he wanted to be allowed to pass through the military checkpoint they were manning. When the 26-year-old refused to dance, the soldiers blindfolded and hand-cuffed him and continued to beat and humiliate him, detaining him for three hours, he told the Israeli humanitarian organization “Yesh Din.” Daily Attacks on Gaza Underreported.As we went to press, Feb. 27 headlines in the mainstream press screamed “rockets stream out of Gaza” and 30-year-old “Israeli college student is killed in Sderot.” As usual, the actual sequence of events is illuminating. The violence began with an Israeli airstrike on a van transporting Hamas fighters in Khan Younis, killing five. That afternoon, Hamas began launching rockets, killing the man in Sderot (the first death since May, bringing the Israeli death toll from crude Qassam rockets to 14 in the past seven years). Israeli strikes then killed six civilians, including three young boys. Finally three Israeli missiles fired at the building housing the Interior Ministry in Gaza killed a 6-month-old infant (see p. 9) and injured more than 25 other people living in the densely populated neighborhood around it. Within 48 hours, one Israeli and 25 Palestinians lost their lives. These, of course, are just some of the innumerable instances of… Americans’ Tax Dollars at Work.Meanwhile, Rand Beers, president and founder of the National Security Network, testified at a Feb. 28 hearing of the Joint Economic Committee entitled “War at Any Cost? The Total Economic Costs of the War Beyond the Federal Budget.” According to Beers, the “cost of the war in Iraq in terms of lives and treasure has been tremendous,” with nearly 4,000 American troops killed and 30,000 American serviceman and women wounded. “The American economy has already incurred $1.3 trillion dollars in costs—a sobering $16,500 per family of four. The strategic sinkhole in Iraq means that our priorities at home and around the world are not being met.” We’re Kicking Off Election Watch 2008…With a series of articles (pp. 26-31) on presidential candidates and their advisers, the multiplier effect of individual contributors to pro-Israel PACs and pro-Israel candidates, and how the concept of “change” is worrisome to at least one leader of the organized Jewish community. While author Philip Giraldi speculates that John McCain may name Connecticut’s unctuous and ubiquitous Sen. Joseph Lieberman as his running mate, our worst nightmare scenario would be a McCain administration featuring a… Secretary of State Lieberman.Members of Our 2008 Choir of Angels…Make their first appearance on p. 73 of this issue. We’ll need all the support we can get to bring you coverage of this year’s crucial election—our listing of pro-Israel PAC contributions to congressional and presidential candidates begins with the next issue. Make a Difference Today! |