Merry Annapolis and a Surreptitious New Year

When one hears the word settlement, does one think of 30,000 people? Or when one hears the words negotiating table, do you have an image of people trying their utmost to appear respectful between uneasy stares across a long conference table? Such mixed notions of trust and mistrust in a world desperately crying out for an end to suffering and a nurturing of peace is unfortunately still part of the global landscape and the general rule rather than the exception. When all manner of cunning is thrown to the four winds, and plain offensiveness is placed in its stead, one wonders what all the photo shoots are really about if not to try and stem the growing paucity of images of mistrust already in the psyche of the global public.

More money will soon be approved for spending on housing in an illegal occupation of a disputed area in Jerusalem. All the while, a peace fire continues to evade residents in the disputed areas.

This is according to a report in the New York Times published this Christmas Eve and written by Isabel Kershner entitled Israeli Housing Plan Casts Pall Over Peace Talks. It is easy to dismiss the legitimacy of Palestinians as long as they are continually already branded with labels like fundamentalist or terrorist, but to those of us seeing the overall picture in an historical context, the picture is plain. What is offensive is of course the innocent blood being shed in the name of peace on both sides of the so called divide. What leads to continuation of this affront on humanity is that the legitimacy of a Jewish state is assumed in the minds of Americans because of the way these issues are presented to them. Any group that even half insinuates that Israeli terror should be halted is branded as being on the lunatic fringe. At the same time, the birthright of the millions of displaced refugees of Palestine is held as a reward in the sky, because of the self-defensive actions or the resistance to the offensive and terroristic actions of the decision makers in Tel Aviv. These defensive actions are presented as terrorism, while the real terror is presented as a defense. In so doing, the intensity of the violent nature of the state of Israel is not appreciated by the viewers who are presented with false images, thousands of miles across the Atlantic. The dehumanisation of the checkpoints and the wall that defines the limits of the concentration camp that is the occupation remains invisible and concealed. As concealed as the rest of the lies in this so called war on terror. The excesses of the state of terror are explained as a justified excess to the terror driven by mad men bent on removing all democratic freedom on the face of the globe. The orange clothed victims of torture, as stark an image as that is to us on the outside, remains hidden because of the fear instilled in the American psyche. The obvious lie of the sky scrapers being demolished in plain view, are the same lies that drove two wars, and so on, and so on.

Let us not forget that the American public continues to fund Israeli rule. Israel, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, enjoys more financial aid (mainly from the USA) than any other state in the world. According to one estimate, Israel has the same number of citizens as San Francisco, but receives more aid than all of Sub-Saharan Africa. Why? Because they are victims of a holocaust and they face a threat from terrorism. Why do they face this threat? Read on.

Israeli officials said a Housing and Construction Ministry budget proposal for 2008 included plans to build 500 apartments in Har Homa, a Jewish development in a hotly disputed part of East Jerusalem, and a further 240 apartments in Maale Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank with a population of more than 30,000.

Ismail Haniya, the leader of the Hamas government in Gaza, had expressed a willingness, in a telephone call to an Israeli television reporter last week, to enter into talks with Israel for a mutual cease-fire. But Mr. Olmert said that Israel has “no interest in negotiating with elements” who do not fulfill the internationally approved conditions of recognizing Israel and renouncing violence.

Mr. Olmert also appeared to oppose any lull in the fighting based on an informal understanding, describing the hostilities in Gaza as “a true war” between the Israeli military and “terrorist elements.”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak also ruled out talks with Hamas, but suggested that if Hamas successfully stopped the rocket fire, Israel might reciprocate. Mr. Barak was quoted by the Israeli news media as telling the cabinet, “If they stop firing, we won’t be opposed to quiet.”

Similarly, the Israeli vice prime minister, Haim Ramon, told Israel Radio: “Usually when there was no terror activity against us we did not act against the terrorists.”

But a Hamas spokesman, Ismail Radwan, said, “The Palestinian people have a right to continue resistance.”

Khaled al-Batch, a high-ranking official of Islamic Jihad, a militant group that has been firing most of the rockets lately, said his group would only be willing to talk about a period of calm after Israel had “paid for its war crimes” in blood.

Last week, the Israeli military killed at least eight Islamic Jihad militants, including a top commander of the armed wing. The Israeli security cabinet on Sunday allocated just over $200 million for the development of an antimissile system capable of knocking out short range rockets like those fired from Gaza, and eventually, longer-range rockets like Katyushas. Thousands of Katyushas were fired at Israel from Lebanon during the 2006 summer war.

With regard to the budget proposal for additional housing units in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, both Israel and the Palestinians have committed to fulfill the first phase of the road map, a long-dormant 2003 peace plan that calls on the Palestinians to act to halt all violence and the Israelis to cease all settlement construction.

Mr. Olmert has pledged not to build new settlements or to expropriate additional land. But Israel has always reserved the right to build in major settlement blocs like Maale Adumim, which it intends to keep as part of any permanent deal with the Palestinians, and Israel contends that Jerusalem has a separate status.

Har Homa, known to the Palestinians as Jebel Abu Ghneim, was established in the late 1990s in an area of Jerusalem annexed by Israel after the 1967 Mideast war. It has been a point of particular contention between the two sides.

Days before the first meeting of the negotiating teams in December, the Israeli government issued a tender for the construction of 307 apartments in Har Homa. In an unusually forthright condemnation, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the construction would “not help build confidence” for peace talks. [Source: ISABEL KERSHNER, NYT].