This day, ten years ago, I was sitting on the White House lawn watching the truly bizarre sight of all the leaders of the US Jewish community and the US Congress–people who until three days earlier had excoriated Yasser Arafat’s name with every fiber of their being–as they lined up to have their own special photo ops with the head of the PLO.
That was the signing of the Oslo peace accords. The next day, Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Holst came to our house and described some of the ins and outs of what had happened along the way.
Holst died of a stroke not long after. Rabin was killed by a Jewish extremist in 1995. Only Arafat, of those three “principals”, is still alive. And look where he is today…
Twenty-five years ago this day, I was in Beirut, Ms. eager young hotshot reporter, reporting the breaking news on the reactions of Arafat and other PLO leaders to the Israeli-Egyptian negotiations then ongoing at Camp David.
Just a few days later, Begin, Sadat, and Carter emerged from the woods to announce that the Israelis and Egyptians had concluded two parallel Accords. One laid down a process whereby Israel and Egypt would rapidly negotiate a final peace treaty. The other, a process whereby the Israelis and Palestinians would enter a transitional phase on the way to their eventual peace treaty.
The Egyptians and Israelis got theirs. The Palestinians (need it be noted?) did not.
Since then, the number of Jewish settlers in the occupied territories–including East Jerusalem, which many Israeli tallies of this figure don’t even bother to include these days– has soared to more than 400,000. Four million-plus Palestinian refugees still languish in their forced exile. Three million Palestinians live in the walled-off Bantustanettes that the occupation authority has devised for them… Six million Israelis live in fear of the next suicide bombing.
And 25 years in the future– what?
Author: Helena
Palestinian people power
Saw some great photos on the BBC website today, of the big gatherings outside the Muqataa in Ramallah last night after Sharon’s cabinet voted to try to expel Arafat.
YA seemed to be in his element, greeting and blessing them. Now, wouldn’t it be great if he realized that the ONLY source of any power and legitimacy he has is the organized Palestinian people, and really threw his weight behind their continued civilian, nonviolent mass organizing?
It was the organized, unarmed Palestinian people whose steadfast and nearly completely nonviolent intifada sustained from 1987 thru 1993 brought him back into the homeland in 1994… It was the organized unarmed Palestinian people who elected him President in January 1996…
Too bad he used so much of his early power to crush their civilian mass-organization networks. Is it too late for him to learn his lesson on this?
Then again, is it too late for Sharon to learn there ain’t no forceful way to bring peace and security to his people, either??
The Israeli press has had a number of articles recently that strongly indicate that Sharon is kind of losing his marbles or his sanity. Here’s one by Hannah Kim from today’s Ha’Aretz.
Both sides, it seems to me, are going through serious crises of leadership. Actually, it may be that Israel’s is more severe than the Palestinians’.
Juan Cole– more user-friendly than ever!
Juan Cole’s Informed Comment blog, which is the world’s best English-language read on Iraq, is more user-friendly than ever. Now, he’s posting his items separately, and they have headlines. So you or I can seasily scan thru the voluminous amount of info he puts up each day to find the topic that really catches our eye, and then link to the exact item we want to send our readers to.
Like this one, today, on the time it’ll take to organize elections in Iraq just to write the drafters of the new Constitution… not to mention the time it’ll take ’em to write it, then organize an adoption process.
Trouble is, nearly everything Juan posts is really worth reading.
Still, thanks so much Juan, for the new user-friendliness!
(Talking of my linkees, anyone know what’s happened to Salam of Dear Raed fame? I guess I read somewhere that his house was “searched” by the ever-friendly US military. I hope he’s not sitting in some hell-hole of a stinky jail with a vomit-stained bag over his head… Come to think of it, I hope no Iraqis are in that situation, but I suspect that some hundreds of them probably are.)
Kelly/Hutton redux
Why do I find the Hutton Inquiry so addictive? Is it because I wish so much we had something similar here in the US?
My engagement with it is a bit episodic. Like, late at night when I’m too tired to get on with the work I should be doing. But anyway, it strikes me that some really interesting things have been happening this week, though the Inquiry has not been sitting in public session. Lord H decided to take a week’s hiatus from that, in order to plan his endgame, the details of which will be announced tomorrow (Friday) morning.
So today– or yesterday?– the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) suddenly, and belatedly, decides to make available to Lord H the transcript of a closed session it held July 16 with David Kelly testifying.
The day before DK killed himself…
I gather that somehow the text of the transcript had gotten leaked someplace, so then shamefacedly (or who knows, maybe brazenly?) the ultra-hush-hush ISC folks told Lord H, oh hey, you might just want to take a look at this transcript we have??
Weird-oh. I mean, Lord H has shown his determination to get to the bottom of Kelly’s death. he’s subpoenaed all kinds of internal spooks’ email, etc etc., not to mention calling Tony Blair and Defense Sec Geoff Hoon to appear in person…
But the ISC sat on this stuff for all these weeks??
Hutton to his immense credit– I jjust love these senior judicial types once they git the bit between their teeth– immediately posted the transcript on the Inquiry’s website. It’s in PDF, so I can’t easily reproduce a lot of it here. Below here is one key portion that I quickly keyboarded: in it, DK is admitting that, yes, he did express doubts to Beeb reporter Andrew Gilligan about the veracity of the infamous “45 minute” claim regarding Saddam’s alleged CBW readiness.
In another portion, DK admits that he told numerous people–including Gilligan– that he thought that while he was 100% sure that Saddam’s people had CW programs, he was only 30% sure that they had the actual chemicall weapons.
Actually, the transcript is worth reading for lots more details as well as the general atmospherics that it reveals.
The ISC, by the way, is a committee of folks appointed by the PM and reporting to him, rather than to Parliament (which the Foreign Affairs Cttee reports to). So the political dynamic at the ISC is, ahem, not necessarily one of open accountability to the people’s elected representatives, to say the least.
Anyway, here’s the small portion of the transcript that I just keyboarded:
Appeal for a conscientious objector
Chuck Fager, the head of Quaker House in Fayetteville NC, has sent a message saying that Marine Corps Conscientious Objector (CO) Stephen Funk needs some cards and letters of support. Funk has just recently been transferred to the brig in Camp Lejeune, NC to serve a 6-month sentence.
This is the same brig where dozens of Marine COs were detained and harassed during the first Persian Gulf War.
As a public conscientious objector to war and an openly gay man, Funk is at particular risk. The more his jailers know that the outside world is watching, the better (we hope) they’ll treat him. (This is called the Amnesty International Theory.) Funk would therefore appreciate letters from supporters at the following address:
Stephen Funk
Building 1041
PSC 20140
Camp Lejeune, NC 28542
More details from his defense committee:
“What Bush left out…”
Here is the link to my CSM column, out in Thursday’s edition of the paper. Buried inside there you’ll see a proposal for a big personnel change.
Eagle-eyed readers of JWN will see the extent to which I use the blog to explore ideas for the column.
Thoughts from/on Richmond, Virginia
Monday night, I was speaking to a fairly large audience at the University of Richmond. About the war. I focused quite a lot on ‘How did the country get into this quagmire in Iraq?’ and presented an answer that focused heavily on the fact that, imho, a small coterie of ideologues based in Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney’s offices had in essence “captured” the US nation’s foreign policy and taken or dragged the nation into the war.
Which is all good and true as far as it goes. I was glad, though, that a male student in the audience put up his hand and said he personally had not felt “dragged” or “taken” into the war but that he had supported it, based on the new kind of fear and vulnerability that he had experienced since 9/11.
Soon as he said that, I was glad he had added that important dimension to the picture. Because the fact remains true that a large majority of US citizens did support the decision to go to the war, at the time, even if many of those former supporters are now wondering what the heck it was they got us all into.
We in the antiwar movement need to speak centrally to those erstwhile war supporters.
That was why I was so glad that that student had stuck up his hand and contributed to the discussion. (Plus, imho, it probably takes a degree of guts and self-confidence for a young male to admit in a large public setting that he experiences or has experienced fear.)
I started to try to engage with him. I probably didn’t do the greatest of all possible jobs. I tried to make the point that fear, while quite understandable in the circs, is not of itself a great guide to action: we still need to call on our capacities for logic and reason. (The violence between Israelis and Palestinians comes to mind here.)
I also started to make the point that a situation of sort of near-existential fear is one that most of “the other 96 percent” of the world’s population are already much more familiar with, and have lived with for a while; and that in many cases it has informed the much more war-averse attitudes that you find in places other than the US…
Anyway, thanks again to that questioner for forcing me to start to deal with this issue more seriously. The “small coterie” has certainly been an important part of the story. But we do also need to deal with the huge reserve of popular support for the war that they were able to draw on…
Before the talk, I had a very friendly dinner with a small group of UR faculty and students. Being as how we were in Richmond, former capital of the Confederacy, I felt almost obliged to state at one point that “We Quakers were right about slavery and you will all soon see, I hope, that we are right about violence and war.” Except of course Quakers aren’t supposed to be prideful, so this is not a point that it’s particularly appropriate to word in just that way…
A columnist’s job is never done
I just finished writing my CSM column for this Thursday’s paper (9/11). As soon as I get to the published version, as usual I’ll put up a link to it. They usually put it up on the Wednesday evening, on the Commentary section of their website.
I shan’t reveal here the main policy recommendation I make in it. (A pathetic attempt to build suspense, I know… But also, out of respect to the CSM.) But I do also point out in the piece that the main issue is not who’s the general commanding any US, UN, or multilateral forces, but which political authority it is that the general reports to.
Should it continue to be Bombs-Away Don Rumsfeld, the present boss of both Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the military commander on the ground, and Paul Bremer, the head of the political side of the operation there– or should it be Kofi Annan or someone designated by him?
So I was interested to read this on Juan Cole’s site today:
- A French diplomat told al-Sharq al-Awsat in Paris that the French could accept American military command in Iraq as long as it was authorized by the UN and as long as the right political arrangements within Iraq were made. He even allowed for the posibility of a NATO role. In part, the French attitude will depend on the outcome of talks between French President Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush on Sept. 13.
Who do YOU vote for, JWN readers? Bombs-Away Don or Mr. UN?
Bush (speech) notes
Reactions to Sunday night’s speech:
(1) Back to the scared-deer look. Makes you sorry for the guy.
(2) Notably peevish and ungracious toward the UN. UN has “an opportunity, and the responsibility” to help out. So says Nanny Bush. But where was even one moment of reaching out to the United Nations by, for example, expressing his sympathy over the loss of Sergio de Mello and the other UN people there? Bush had actually met Sergio, after all… A couple of sentences of memories of the man’s human qualities would have spoken volumes to key audiences both inside the US and overseas.
(3) Still trying the tired old trick of labeling all actions he doesn’t like as “terrorism”. Has the guy read read no history??? (Silly question, Helena!) But just for the record, I can say throughout my entire lifetime, from watching the British dismantle their empire until now, it’s notable how often imperial powers fall into this particular discourse of (anti-)terrorism. Why, for the pillars of the apartheid regime, Nelson Mandela was for decades the “arch-terrorist”! This discourse not only doesn’t solve problems, it actually aggravates them, because the imperial power ends up using highly counter-productive means to react to understandable and quite predictable political setbacks.
Oh well, I’m off to Richmond, VA today to give a talk. Also have to write a CSM column for Thursday (9/11). Better stop now.
Abu Mazen/David Kelly
I just quickly want to say this about Abu Mazen, whom I know a little, and whose career I have followed for some 30 years now. He is a very decent person who sincerely wants his best for his people and the world.
Why, when I follow his news these days, do I keep getting so eerily reminded of David Kelly, the British WMD specialist whose frustrations with his job led to the tragedy of his suicide (and to the ongoing drama of the Hutton Inquiry into his death)?
I think it’s the strong sense I have of each of these two decent, slightly shy men being ground between historical forces that are much larger and much more ruthless than they are, and whose ruthlessness these gentle people can only guess at.
Kelly was hung out to dry, essentially, by the ruthlessness of the Blair government, including both the coterie around Blair and the folks at the MoD (but also by the British media and the strutting egos on the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee).
Abu Mazen, for his part, is being royally hung out to dry by Sharon (who now seems to be openly gloating that he’s “off the hook” regarding the Roadmap), by Prez Bush, whose promises of supportive intervention have led to nothing (but also, secondarily, by his old comrade-in arms, Yasser Arafat).
Someone, someone, please throw Abu Mazen a life-line before he feels compelled to follow Kelly’s path.