[Mb-civic] Reality in Palestine, Morality in Israel

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

these important stories forwarded from Ed Pearl...


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-
hass21feb21,0,4199208
.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

Palestinians are being robbed by Israel
By Amira Hass, AMIRA HASS is the Ramallah correspondent for the Israeli
newspaper Haaretz.


IT IS EVIDENTLY difficult to scrub off the sticker that is glued onto the
front window. That's why when a new car from Germany or South Korea or 
the
United States rolls onto the packed streets of Gaza or Ramallah, it
generally has the big label with thick, red Hebrew letters forming the
word "Checked" stuck on its windshield for several months.

The label is a mark of the special customs and security checks conducted
at the Israeli seaports of Ashdod or Haifa, which serve as the main
entrances for most of the foreign goods bound for the West Bank and Gaza.
Palestinians import all sorts of products: water pumps from Sweden,
bulldozers and boxes of corn flakes from the United States, plastic toys
from China, washing machines from France and cheese from Denmark - and
virtually all of them reach their destinations only after they've been
through Israeli port authorities and Israeli security checks.

At the ports, Palestinian importers are required to pay the Israeli
authorities the value-added tax of 17%, as well as whatever custom taxes
are due on goods that come in on their way to the West Bank or Gaza. These
transactions (along with direct Palestinian transactions with Israeli
firms and merchants) last year yielded revenues of $711 million.

But whose revenues are they?

To judge by the actions of the Israeli Cabinet on Sunday, the money
belongs to Israel. The Cabinet announced that it was going to withhold
Palestinian tax and customs revenues, at least for the moment, as a
response to Hamas' electoral victory. Until the money is released - if it
is released - the Israeli treasury will earn the interest.

But it's not supposed to work this way. According to the Oslo accords (and
by any standards of common sense and basic justice), the revenues should
serve the people who ultimately buy the goods. These tax receipts are not
donations of goodwill from Israel; they are not charity. This is not like,
say, Dutch foreign aid money, which is given freely by the Dutch people
and can be withheld if the Dutch choose to stop giving it. These are tax
revenues that are due to the people in the territories where the goods are
headed, and the Israelis have no right to hold them up.

Since 1994, these revenues, transferred each month from the Israeli
Ministry of Finance, have made up a critical portion of the Palestinian
Authority budget. When Israel briefly stopped transferring the revenues in
2001, pressure from the EU and other countries - including the U.S. -
forced Israel to reverse its decision. Unfortunately, after the Hamas
victory, such pressure seems unlikely.

Last year, the $711 million constituted almost two-thirds of the
Palestinian Authority's revenues. (Only $383 million was collected in
income and sales taxes within the West Bank and Gaza.) Even with all those
revenues, there was still an $800-million shortfall in the Authority's
$1.9-billion budget. Why are domestic tax receipts so low? Because the
economy is in constant recession and "operates well below its potential,"
according to the World Bank.

What debilitates and cripples the Palestinian economy is Israel's heavy,
systematic restrictions on movement within the occupied territories -
hundreds of roadblocks and military checkpoints that delay, prolong and
sabotage normal economic activity and, hence, potential tax revenues.

The Palestinian Authority cannot compensate for the "lost" - or perhaps it
would be more accurate to say "stolen" - tax revenues.

Its Ministry of Health, for example, has been unable to pay its
contractors for hospital food, equipment or medicine for three months, and
is $22 million in debt. Now, with Israel hijacking an additional $50
million or so each month, the ministry will not be able to pay the
salaries of its 13,000 employees. The same is true with the approximately
40,000 employees of the Ministry of Education.

In the Palestinian territories, 35% of residents between the ages of 20
and 24 were unemployed during the third quarter of 2005. About 43% live
below the World Bank's poverty line, and 15% live in deep poverty - which
means, according to the World Bank, that they are unable to meet
subsistence needs.

By taking their meager - but undoubtedly their own - revenues, Israel does
not punish Hamas or persuade it to change its positions. It simply gives
the Palestinians another reason to regard Israel as an aggressive and
repressive occupying power.

***

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/684258.html

Ha'aretz     19/02/2006

As the Hamas team laughs

By Gideon Levy

The Hamas team had not laughed so much in a long time. The team, headed 
by
the prime minister's advisor Dov Weissglas and including the Israel
Defense Forces chief of staff, the director of the Shin Bet and senior
generals and officials, convened for a discussion with Foreign Minister
Tzipi Livni on ways to respond to the Hamas election victory. Everyone
agreed on the need to impose an economic siege on the Palestinian
Authority, and Weissglas, as usual, provided the punch line: "It's like an
appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but
won't die," the advisor joked, and the participants reportedly rolled with
laughter. And, indeed, why not break into laughter and relax when hearing
such a successful joke? If Weissglas tells the joke to his friend
Condoleezza Rice, she would surely laugh too.

But Weissglas' wisecrack was in particularly poor taste. Like the thunder
of laughter it elicited, it again revealed the extent to which Israel's
intoxication with power drives it crazy and completely distorts its
morality. With a single joke, the successful attorney and hedonist from
Lilenblum Street, Tel Aviv demonstrated the chilling heartlessness that
has spread throughout the top echelon of Israel's society and politics.
While masses of Palestinians are living in inhumane conditions, with
horrifying levels of unemployment and poverty that are unknown in Israel,
humiliated and incarcerated under our responsibility and culpability, the
top military and political brass share a hearty laugh a moment before
deciding to impose an economic siege that will be even more brutal than
the one until now.

The proposal to put hungry people on a diet is accepted here without
shock, without public criticism; even if only said in jest, it is
incomparably worse than the Danish caricature. It reflects a widespread
mood that will usher in cruel, practical measures. If until now one could
argue that Israel primarily demonstrated insensitivity to the suffering of
the other and closed its eyes (especially the stronger classes, busy with
their lives of plenty) while a complete nation was groaning only a few
kilometers away, now Israel is also making jokes at the expense of the
other's suffering.

This was not the first joke or contribution by Weissglas to the racist and
lord-like public discourse vis-a-vis the Palestinians. His true face was
already revealed about a year and a half ago in the famous interview with
Ari Shavit in Haaretz, when he stated,"And we educated the world to
understand that there is no one to talk to. And we received a
no-one-to-talk-to certificate ... The certificate will be revoked only
when this-and-this happens - when Palestine becomes Finland." This was the
peak of cynicism: The man who was involved up to his neck in the Annex
Research affair - the shell company for channeling huge contributions to
the prime minister - is conditioning negotiations with the Palestinians on
transforming them into the country ranked as least corrupt in a survey in
which Israel was ranked in the unenviable 26th place.

The recommendation for a "diet," along with the edicts Israel is poised to
impose on the Palestinian people, should have aroused a hue and cry among
Israeli society. Even if we put aside the awful political inanity of
pushing Hamas into a corner instead of giving it a chance to change its
ways, and even if we ignore the fact that Israel plans to confiscate tax
revenues that do not belong to it, the policy of the Kadima government
raises questions about its humanity. Where do we get the right to abuse an
entire people this way? Is it only because of our great power and the fact
that the U.S. allows us to run wild and do whatever we want?

We stopped talking about morality a long time ago - after all, we are not
living in Finland. Still, it would be good to ask: What country would dare
to exacerbate the living conditions (which are so miserable in any case)
of the residents of a territory under its occupation? What was the sin of
the 4,000 lucky people from Gaza whom Israel still allowed to work within
its borders, and to whom it is now closing the gates? Did the
decision-makers call to mind the sight of these downtrodden people,
crowded and humiliated at the Erez crossing on their way home from an
exhausting day of work? More than half of all Palestinians are already
living in poverty according to the last United Nations report, published
in December. Last year, 37 percent had difficulties obtaining food and 54
percent of the residents of the "liberated" Gaza Strip cut back the amount
of food they consume. Child mortality rose by 15 percent and the average
unemployment rate reached 28 percent. To travel in the West Bank, the
Palestinians have to traverse no fewer than 397 checkpoints and, in
addition to this, Israel now wants to wield an even heavier hand.

If there is still a staying obstacle, it is only the constraint of image:
Israel fears the spread of hunger only because of the world's reaction and
not because of the bestiality it entails. Nonetheless, politicians here
are competing with a range of extreme proposals, including cutting off
electricity and water and abandoning millions of innocent residents. Is
this also election spin? Is this what the Israeli voter wants?

What you see from there is truly not what you see from here: From the posh
restaurants where Weissglas and his colleagues from the Hamas team dine,
from the sophisticated road system on which they race along in their
official vehicles, from the splendid concert halls and frequent trips
abroad - you cannot see the suffering. From there, it is easy to impose
more edicts with the flick of a tongue, without considering their
frightful implications in the miserable alleyways of Jenin and ruined huts
of Rafah. From there you can even joke about it.

***

Peretz, Mubarak discuss bypassing Hamas

By Nir Hasson

Haaretz           Thu., February 23, 2006

Labor Party Chairman MK Amir Peretz met with Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak in Cairo yesterday to discuss how to transfer money to the
Palestinian Authority without involving Hamas.

Peretz and Mubarak discussed sending funds to Palestinian Authority
Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who would commit to transferring the money to 
its
intended destination, as well as sending money directly to
non-governmental organizations in the Palestinian Authority.

"We must not push the Palestinians into the arms of the extremists,"
Peretz said. "The situation is dangerous, and the government is adopting a
policy of silence. That isn't the solution."

Peretz said Israel must establish a "moderate axis" of countries intent on
strengthening the moderate forces in the Palestinian Authority.

The visit also included legislators Isaac Herzog, Ophir Pines-Paz and
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.

The Labor leader and the three Labor Knesset members met with Egyptian
intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed 
Aboul
Gheit.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/686208.html





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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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