Bush's Lebanese "Blackwater" a Total Flop

At the same time the US was screaming that Hezbollah was an illegal militia that had to be disarmed, Bush was secretly attempting to build up a rival, pro-US militia, disguising it as a Lebanese "Blackwater," but the "troops" ran away at the first shooting.

QUOTE: "You can't just spend millions of dollars to build an army in one year," he said. "They have to be motivated and believe in something. They have to be willing to die." . . . Hariri's deputies have denied his movement was building a militia, though ranking military officials, independent analysts and employees of the security firm, called Secure Plus, say it was doing just that.

Lebanon's Sunni bloc built militia, officials say

The Future movement used a security firm to assemble a private force, officials say. But the fighters were no match for the Shiite group Hezbollah.

By Borzou Daragahi and Raed Rafei, Special to The Times

BEIRUT -- For a year, the main Lebanese political faction backed by the United States built a Sunni Muslim militia here under the guise of private security companies, Lebanese security experts and officials said.

The fighters, aligned with Saad Hariri's Future movement, were trained and armed to counter the heavily armed Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah and protect their turf in a potential military confrontation.

But in a single night late last week, the curious experiment in private-sector warfare crumbled.

Attacked by Hezbollah, the Future movement fighters quickly fled Beirut or gave up their weapons. Afterward, some of the fighters said they felt betrayed by their political patrons, who failed to give them the means to protect themselves while official security forces stood aside and let Hezbollah destroy them.

"We are prepared to fight for a few hours but not more," said one of the Sunni fighters in the waning moments of the battle. "Where do we get ammunition and weapons from? We are blocked. The roads are blocked. Even Saad Hariri has left us to face our fate alone."

The head of a conventional private security firm in Beirut, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the Sunni force was "not really ready."

"You can't just spend millions of dollars to build an army in one year," he said. "They have to be motivated and believe in something. They have to be willing to die."

Lebanon's U.S.-backed government and the Iranian-backed opposition led by Hezbollah have been mired in a political stalemate for more than a year. The country has been without a president since November.

Amid the political crisis that has sharpened differences among various religious communities, Lebanon's army and Internal Security Forces had played a peacekeeping role, preventing clashes without confronting any of the different armed groups. They feared any robust intervention would break the unity of the armed forces and plunge the country into civil war.

But the crisis has created a power vacuum. Hariri's deputies have denied his movement was building a militia, though ranking military officials, independent analysts and employees of the security firm, called Secure Plus, say it was doing just that.

Private security firms are the latest arrivals to a hodgepodge of armed groups that include Islamic militants inspired by Al Qaeda, Palestinian militias based in the country's dozen refugee camps and Hezbollah.

With speed that surprised observers, Hezbolllah last week took over West Beirut and crushed the Future movement's fighters.

Hezbollah said its move was aimed at stopping the government, which had outlawed the militant group's private communication system, from hampering its ability to confront Israel. But it appears the Shiite militia's main targets were the Future fighters, some of them operating under the guise of Secure Plus.

For months, Lebanese security officials in the army and the Internal Security Forces warily watched the growth of the Future-Secure Plus fighting force. Officials close to and inside Hezbollah said they were monitoring the growth of the potential threat.

Over the last year, Secure Plus went from a small security company to an organization with 3,000 employees and unofficial associates on the payroll, mostly poor Sunnis from the country's north. Some were armed with pistols and assault rifles.

"We have . . . thousands of young people in plainclothes working with us all over the country," a company official said before the clashes started.

Even those who feared the development hoped the Future movement's growing military capacity would create a "balance of terror" with the more heavily armed Shiite fighters, government officials and members of the group say.

"On the one side, Hezbollah has trained military groups allied with it," said a high-ranking official with the Internal Security Forces, which has received $60 million in training and equipment from the U.S.

"On the other side, the Future movement has created security firms to protect itself."

Secure Plus declined multiple requests for interviews. It was the largest of dozens of security firms that have sprung up in recent years. Run by retired Lebanese army officers, it ostensibly provides security for banks, hotels and offices. Hariri's media office denied there were any official links between Secure Plus and the Future movement.

"Future bloc has members of parliament, not fighters," said Hani Hammoud, a spokesman for Hariri. It "believes in the rule of law, and that it is up to official security and military agencies to resolve any problem that might arise."

Secure Plus employees, in beige pants and maroon shirts, were drilled for months in basic military training, including hand-to-hand combat. At least two dozen informal offices were opened in Beirut.

For a monthly salary of at least $350, they served eight hours a day guarding offices, patrolling neighborhoods on motorcycles, communicating via walkie-talkie and remaining on call to defend against threats to Sunni neighborhoods or offices of the Future bloc, employees of the company said. Though the group was officially barred from carrying weapons, many had them anyway. One said he bought guns from Hezbollah.

In the last few months, fighting regularly broke out between Sunni supporters of the Future bloc working formally or informally with Secure Plus and Shiites allied with Hezbollah and Amal, another militia. The clashes often took place in West Beirut, a patchwork of Sunni and Shiite areas.

The government became so worried about street battles that in February it convened an emergency meeting of military officials and government and opposition leaders. All agreed to stand by the army and the security forces if they intervened, even if it meant some of their own fighters would sustain casualties. But Lebanon's weak government made little attempt to interdict the arming of such groups.

"We cannot ask the Christian Lebanese or Sunni Lebanese to give up their arms when others have arms," said Ahmed Fatfat, a leader of the Future bloc and a Cabinet minister.

When the clashes began last week, the Sunni fighters proved no match for Hezbollah's firepower, discipline and intelligence capabilities.

Secure Plus and Future movement offices and strongholds were pummeled. Hezbollah first targeted Future movement positions in mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods, easily defeating them.

Meanwhile, the Shiite militiamen encircled but did not enter Sunni strongholds, terrorizing fighters into giving up without causing huge casualties on either side.

Hezbollah also shut down the Future movement's media outlets, cutting off its ability to rally public support.

The Sunni fighters may have been lulled into a false belief that Hezbollah would not enter into full-fledged confrontation. The security company executive said the Future fighters were caught off guard by the speed of the offensive.

"Maybe they thought they could hold Hezbollah off for a few days or a few weeks before help arrived," he said. "They faced an onslaught that they had never planned for."

After the Future movement fighters gave up, Hezbollah handed them over to the Lebanese army, freeing itself of caring for prisoners while preventing the captured fighters from reentering the battle for at least a few days.

At a hospital near the scene of some of the heaviest fighting, a Future movement fighter employed by Secure Plus wandered stunned in his pajamas with his two sons, who also served in the Sunni militia. His sons had suffered minor wounds after being beaten up by Hezbollah fighters.

Once he realized that Hezbollah's victory was inevitable, he and his sons tried to escape their rivals' clutches by staying home. But to no avail; Hezbollah knew where they lived.

"I didn't leave my home," he said. "They came for us."

May 12, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-security12-2008may12,0,6458359.story

Israeli Army Kills UN Schoolteacher in Her Home

UN asks Israel to probe killing of Gaza teacher

UNRWA awaits 'impartial Israeli investigation' into death of agency employee during IDF raid

Reuters

A United Nations agency called on Israel on Sunday to investigate the death of a Palestinian teacher employed by the agency who was killed in her home during an Israeli raid last week in the Gaza Strip.

"We're calling on the Israelis for an impartial investigation," said Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), for which Wafa al-Daghma worked as a teacher at an elementary school for refugee children.

'We want to see accountability'

A spokesman for the Israeli armed forces said they were looking into the matter. Dozens of civilians have been killed in Gaza this year in air and ground attacks that Israel says are directed against militants who fire rockets into its territory.

Immediately after the violence near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, the army said troops attacked militants. Islamic Jihad said one of its fighters was killed and six were wounded in an Israeli air strike in the area.

Palestinian medics and relatives at Abassan, a village east of Khan Younis, said Daghma, 32, was at home with three of her children when Israeli troops with tanks approached.

Gunness said inquiries by UNRWA suggested Daghma was killed when troops blasted open the door of her home in order to take the building as an observation post.

Daghma's 13-year-old daughter Samira told reporters last week that her mother had ordered her and a sister and brother aged under 5, into another room. The children then heard an explosion, she said. Soldiers then entered the house.

Only some hours later, when the soldiers left, were the children able to leave the room where they had been held and neighbors and relatives were able to retrieve Daghma's body.

Inquiry calls

Human rights groups have called on Israel to mount independent investigations into several civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip recently. Among these was the killing of a mother and four of her children on April 28 and the killing of a Reuters television cameraman and several other civilians on April 16.

After the deaths of Myassar Abu Meateq and her family as they ate breakfast in Beit Hanoun two weeks ago, the Israeli military released video footage that it said indicated their home was damaged by explosives carried by a militant who was hit and killed by Israeli fire as he passed the house.

Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has challenged the army's account of this "secondary explosion" and said witness testimony and other evidence suggested the family was killed by the gate of their home being blown off by an Israeli missile.

B'Tselem called for a full military police investigation.

Reuters is awaiting results of a promised army inquiry into the killing of its journalist, Fadel Shana, by a tank that fired a controversial shell loaded with darts while he was filming.

Published: 05.11.08, 18:29 / Israel News

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3541952,00.html

Petition Supports Jimmy Carter Talk With Hamas

QUOTE: 64% of Israelis have said they support talks with Hamas. Please support including talks with Hamas in efforts to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

5,000 support Carter-Mashaal meeting

By ELANA KIRSH

Two American peace organizations, Jewish Voice for Peace and Just Foreign Policy, presented former US President Jimmy Carter with a petition Thursday supporting his mid-April meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

The petition, which will be presented to the remaining Democratic and Republican presidential candidates next week, was signed by 5,000 members of the two groups.

A letter to the former president thanked him "for [his] recent efforts toward creating a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians and as encouragement for [him] to continue, despite criticism from many sectors."

"Peace," the letter continued, "demands courage."

The petition itself reads: "I support peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Jimmy Carter speaks for me when he says that resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires talking to Hamas. 64% of Israelis have said they support talks with Hamas. Please support including talks with Hamas in efforts to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians."

Responding to the petition, Carter said he was grateful for the efforts of Jewish Voice for Peace, Just Foreign Policy, and "others working for the cause of peace in the Middle East."

"Public dialogue and awareness are crucial to achieving the goals of peace with security for Israel and peace with justice for Palestinians," he continued.

Individuals from all 50 states of America signed the petition.

May 9, 2008 21:41 | Updated May 10, 2008 8:13

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1209627047844&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Israel's Independance War: A Participant's View

On the 60th anniversary of Israel's declaration of independence, this view of a soldier who fought then is very good reading:

Uri Avnery’s Column [from Gush Shalom, the Peace Bloc, in Israel]

1948

10/05/08

ONE DAY, I hope, a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", on the South African model, will be set up here. It should be composed of Israeli, Palestinian and international historians, whose job will be to establish what really happened in this country in 1948.

In the 60 years that have passed since then, the events of the war have been buried under layer upon layer of Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Arab propaganda. A quasi-archeological excavation is needed in order to expose the bottom layer. Even the eye-witnesses who are still alive sometimes have problems distinguishing between what they actually saw and the myths that have twisted and falsified the events almost beyond recognition.

I am one of the eye-witnesses. In the last few days, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary, dozens of radio and television interviewers from all over the world have been asking me to describe what actually happened. Here are some of these questions and my answers to them. (If I repeat things I have already written about, I apologize.)

- How was this war different from others?

First of all, it was not one war but two, which followed one another without a break.

The first war was fought between the Jews and the Arabs in the country. It started on the morrow of the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, which decreed the partition of Palestine between a Jewish and an Arab state. It lasted until the proclamation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. That day marked the start of the second war - the one between the State of Israel and the neighboring countries, which threw their armies into the battle.

This was not a war between two countries for a piece of land between them, like the wars between Germany and France over Alsace. Neither was it a fratricidal struggle, like the American Civil War, where both sides belonged to the same nation. I categorize it as an "ethnic war".

Such a war is fought out between two different peoples who live in the same country, each of which claims the whole country for itself. In such a war, the aim is not only to achieve a military victory, but also to take possession of as much of the country as possible without the population of the other side. That is what happened when Yugoslavia broke up and when, not by accident, the odious term "ethnic cleansing" was born.

- Was the war inevitable?

At the time, I hoped until the last moment that it could be avoided (about that, later.) In retrospect it is clear to me that it was already too late.

The Jewish side was determined to establish a state of its own. This was one of the fundamental aims of the Zionist movement, founded 50 years earlier, and was strengthened a hundredfold after the Holocaust, which had come to an end only two and a half years before.

The Arab side was determined to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in the country which they (rightly) considered an Arab country. That's why the Arabs started the war.

- What did you, the Jews, think when you went to war?

When I enlisted at the beginning of the war, we were totally convinced that we were faced with the danger of annihilation and that we were defending ourselves, our families and the entire Hebrew community. The phrase "There Is No Alternative" was not just a slogan, but a deeply felt conviction. (When I say "we", I mean the community in general and the soldiers in particular.) I don't think that the Arab side was imbued with quite the same conviction. That was their undoing.

This explains why the Jewish community was totally mobilized from the first moment on. We had a unified leadership (even The Irgun and the Stern Group accepted its authority) and a unified military force, which rapidly assumed the character of a regular army.

Nothing like this happened on the Arab side. They had no unified leadership, and no unified Arab-Palestinian army, which meant they could not concentrate their forces at the crucial points. But we learned this only after the war.

- Did you think that you were the stronger side?

Not at all. At the time, the Jews constituted only a third of the population. The hundreds of Arab villages throughout the country dominated the main arteries that were crucial to our survival. We suffered heavy casualties in our efforts to open them, especially the road to Jerusalem. We honestly felt that we were "the few against the many".

Slowly, the balance of power shifted. Our army became more organized and learned from its experience, while the Arab side still depended on "faz'ah" - the one-time mobilization of local villagers equipped with their own old weapons. From April 1948 on, we started to receive large quantities of light weapons from Czechoslovakia, which were sent to us on Stalin's orders. In the middle of May, when the expected intervention of the Arab armies was approaching, we were already in possession of a contiguous territory.

- In other words, you drove the Arabs out?

This was not yet "ethnic cleansing" but a by-product of the war. Our side was preparing for the massive attack of the Arab armies and we could not possibly leave a large hostile population at our rear. This military necessity was, of course, intertwined with the more or less conscious desire to create a homogeneous Jewish territory.

In the course of the years, opponents of Israel have created a conspiracy myth about "Plan D", as if it had been the mother of ethnic cleansing. In reality that was a military plan for creating a contiguous territory under our control in preparation for the crucial confrontation with the Arab armies.

- Do you say that at this stage there was not yet a basic decision to drive all the Arabs out?

One has to remember the political situation: according to the UN resolution, the "Jewish state" was to include more than half of Palestine (as it existed in 1947 under the British Mandate). In this territory, more than 40% of the population was Arab. The Arab spokesmen argued that it was impossible to set up a Jewish state in which almost half the population was Arab and demanded the withdrawal of the partition resolution. The Jewish side, which stuck to the partition resolution, wanted to prove that it was possible. So there were some efforts (in Haifa, for example) to convince the Arabs not to leave their homes. But the reality of the war itself caused the mass exodus.

It must be understood that at no stage did the Arabs "flee the country". In general, things happened this way: in the course of the fighting, an Arab village came under heavy fire. Its inhabitants - men, women and children - fled, of course, to the next village. Then we fired on the next village, and they fled to the next one, and so forth, until the armistice came into force and suddenly there was a border (the Green Line) between them and their homes. The Deir Yassin massacre gave another powerful push to the flight.

Even the inhabitants of Jaffa did not leave the country - after all, Gaza, where they fled, is also a part of Palestine.

- In that case, when was the start of the "ethnic cleansing" you spoke about?

In the second half of the war, after the advance of the Arab armies was halted, a deliberate policy of expelling the Arabs became a war aim on its own.

For truth's sake, it must be remembered that this was not one-sided. Not many Arabs remained in the territories that were conquered by our side, but, also, no Jew remained in the territories that were conquered by the Arabs, such as the Etzion Bloc kibbutzim and the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Jewish inhabitants were killed or expelled. The difference was quantitative: while the Jewish side conquered large stretches of land, the Arab side succeeded only in conquering small areas.

The real decision was taken after the war: not to allow the 750 thousand Arab refugees to return to their homes.

- What happened when the Arab armies entered the battle?

At the beginning, our situation looked desperate. The Arab armies were regular troops, well trained (mostly by the British), and equipped with heavy arms: warplanes, tanks and artillery, while we had only light weapons - rifles, machine guns, light mortars and some ineffective anti-tank weapons. Only in June did heavy arms start to reach us.

I myself took part in the unloading of the first fighter planes that reached us from Czechoslovakia. They had been produced for the German Wehrmacht. Over our heads "German" planes on our side (Messerschmitts) were fighting "British" planes flown by Egyptians (Spitfires) .

- Why did Stalin support the Jewish side?

On the eve of the UN resolution, the Soviet representative, Andrei Gromyko, gave a passionately Zionist speech. Stalin's immediate aim was to get the British out of Palestine, where they might otherwise allow the stationing of American missiles. A sometimes forgotten fact should be mentioned here: the Soviet Union was the first state to recognize Israel de jure, immediately after the declaration of independence. The US recognized Israel at the time only de facto.

Stalin did not turn his back on Israel till some years later, when Israel openly joined the American bloc. At that time, Stalin's anti-Semitic paranoia also became apparent. The policy-makers in Moscow were then of the opinion that the rising tide of Arab nationalism was a better bet.

- What did you personally feel during the war?

On the eve of the war, I still believed in a "Semitic" partnership of all the inhabitants of the country. One month before the outbreak of war I published the booklet "War or Peace in the Semitic Region", in which I propounded this idea. In retrospect it is clear to me that this was far too late.

When the war broke out, I immediately joined a combat brigade (Givati). In the last days before I was called up I managed - together with a group of friends - to publish another booklet, entitled "From Defense to War", in which I proposed conducting the war with a view to the nature of the subsequent peace. (I was much influenced by the British military commentator Basil Liddell Hart, who advocated such a course during World War II.)

My friends at the time tried very strongly to convince me not to enlist, so I could remain free for the much more important task of voicing my opinions throughout the war. I felt that that they were quite wrong - that the place of every decent and fit young man at such a time was in the combat units. How could I stay at home when thousands of my age-group were risking their lives day and night? And besides, who would ever listen to my voice again if at the crucial moment of our national existence I did not fulfill my duty?

At the beginning of the war I was a private soldier in the infantry and fought around the road to Jerusalem, and in the second half I served in the Samson's Foxes motorized commando unit on the Egyptian front. That allowed me to see the war from dozens of different vantage points.

Throughout the war I wrote up my experiences. My reports appeared in the newspapers at the time and were later collected in a book entitled "In the Fields of the Philistines, 1948" (which will soon appear in English). The military censors did not allow me to dwell on the negative sides, so immediately after the war I wrote a second book called "The Other Side of the Coin", disguised as a literary work, so I did not have to submit it to censorship. There I reported, inter alia, that we had received orders to kill every Arab who tried to return home.

- What did the war teach you?

The atrocities I witnessed turned me into a convinced peace activist. The war taught me that there is a Palestinian people, and that we shall never achieve peace if a Palestinian state does not come into being side by side with our state. That this has not yet happened is one of the reasons why the 1948 war is still going on to this very day.

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1210454063/

Middle East "Peace Process" is a Scam

This article, with commentary from Jewish Peace News, provides a powerful statement of the idea many of us hold: that Israel has no intention of achieving an acceptable peace settlement with the Palestinians, is perfectly content with things as they are, and will continue to sabotage any agreement that seems close. The reason for this is that Israel can continue to take over Palestinian land, bit by bit, (and perhaps more importantly, to take over Palestinian water) without any demonstration of disapproval by the US or Europe.

[Begin commentary by Jewish Peace News editors]

Henry Siegman served as executive director of the American Jewish Congress and the Synagogue Council of America, as well as senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He does not pull any punches in his analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which he calls "one of the longest and cruelest deceptions in the annals of international diplomacy." The peace process, in Siegman’s analysis, is a smoke screen that enables Israel to maintain the pretence that it is interested in peace while it proceeds to confiscate as much Palestinian territory as it can.

Siegman is not frugal in distributing blame: he deplores Palestinian incompetence, corruption and terrorism, as well as the vicious rejectionism and mendacity of Israel’s expansionist polities. But he reserves the largest share of the blame for the international community for collaborating in the "peace process scam" by accepting Israel’s self-serving narrative of its own victimhood and the myth Palestinian intransigence. Unfortunately (in this article, at least), Siegman attributes this stance to "impotence" and "gutlessness" and does not really question whether the US and EU are in fact taking positions that respond to their own (perceived) interests. While it is plausible to argue that German policy on Israel is motivated by reticence emerging from (a very justifiable sense of) war guilt, the same thing certainly cannot be said of the US.

Siegman is an interesting character. When he was young, he and his family had quite an ordeal fleeing from the Nazis before finally making their way to America. He claims that this experience allows him to empathize with Palestinians under occupation, and that his interest in social justice comes from his Jewish identity. The New York Times did a brief biographical sketch of him which can be found at:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06E4DA173CF930A25755C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

In addition to the article below, Siegman gives a lengthier review of the history of the peace process in an [article] "The Great Middle East Peace Process Scam" at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/sieg01_.html . It is well worth reading.

[Above commentary by editors of Jewish Peace News]

----------------

The Nation

posted April 17, 2008 (May 5, 2008 issue)

Tough Love for Israel

Henry Siegman

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080505/siegman

We now have word that Tony Blair, envoy of the Middle East Quartet (the UN, the EU, Russia and the United States), and German Chancellor Angela Merkel intend to organize yet another peace conference, this time in Berlin in June. It is hard to believe that after the long string of failed peace initiatives, stretching back at least to the Madrid conference of 1991, diplomats are recycling these failures without seemingly having a clue as to why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is even more hopeless today than before these peace exercises first got under way.

The scandal of the international community's impotence in resolving one of history's longest bloodlettings is that it knows what the problem is but does not have the courage to speak the truth, much less deal with it. The peace conference in Germany will suffer from the same gutlessness that has marked all previous efforts. It will deal with everything except the problem primarily responsible for the impasse. That problem is that for all the sins attributable to the Palestinians--and they are legion, including inept and corrupt leadership, failed institution-building and the murderous violence of rejectionist groups--there is no prospect for a viable, sovereign Palestinian state, primarily because Israel's various governments, from 1967 until today, have never had the intention of allowing such a state to come into being.

It would be one thing if Israeli governments had insisted on delaying a Palestinian state until certain security concerns had been dealt with. But no government serious about a two-state solution to the conflict would have pursued, without letup, the theft and fragmentation of Palestinian lands, which even a child understands makes Palestinian statehood impossible.

Given the overwhelming disproportion of power between the occupier and the occupied, it is hardly surprising that Israeli governments and their military and security establishments found it difficult to resist the acquisition of Palestinian land. What is astounding is that the international community, pretending to believe Israel's claim that it is the victim and its occupied subjects the aggressors, has allowed this devastating dispossession to continue and the law of the jungle to prevail.

As long as Israel knows that by delaying the peace process it buys time to create facts on the ground, and that the international community will continue to indulge Israel's pretense that its desire for a two-state solution is being frustrated by the Palestinians, no new peace initiative can succeed, and the dispossession of the Palestinian people will indeed become irreversible.

There can be no greater delusion on the part of Western countries weighed down by guilt about the Holocaust than the belief that accommodating such an outcome would be an act of friendship to the Jewish people. The abandonment of the Palestinians now is surely not an atonement for the abandonment of European Jews seventy years ago, nor will it serve the security of the State of Israel and its people.

John Vinocur of the New York Times recently suggested that the virtually unqualified declarations of support for Israel by Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are "at a minimum an attempt to seek Israeli moderation by means of public assurances with this tacit subtext: these days, the European Union is not, or is no longer, its reflexive antagonist." But the expectation that uncritical Western support of Israel would lead to greater Israeli moderation and greater willingness to take risks for peace is blatantly contradicted by the conflict's history.

Time and again, this history has shown that the less opposition Israel encounters from its friends in the West for its dispossession of the Palestinians, the more uncompromising its behavior. Indeed, soon after Sarkozy's and Merkel's expressions of eternal solidarity, Israel's Ehud Olmert approved massive new construction in East Jerusalem--authorizing housing projects that had been frozen for years by previous governments because of their destructive impact on the possibility of a peace agreement--as well as continued expansion of Israel's settlements. And Olmert's defense minister, Ehud Barak, declared shortly after Merkel's departure that he will remove only a token number of the more than 500 checkpoints and roadblocks that Israel has repeatedly promised, and just as repeatedly failed, to dismantle. That announcement shattered whatever hope Palestinians may have had for recovery of their economy, as a consequence of $7 billion in new aid promised by international donors in

December. In these circumstances, the international donor community will not pour good money after bad, as they so often have in the past.

What is required of statesmen is not more peace conferences or clever adjustments to previous peace formulations but the moral and political courage to end their collaboration with the massive hoax the peace process has been turned into. Of course, Palestinian violence must be condemned and stopped, particularly when it targets civilians. But is it not utterly disingenuous to pretend that Israel's occupation--maintained by IDF-manned checkpoints and barricades, helicopter gunships, jet fighters, targeted assassinations and military incursions, not to speak of the massive theft of Palestinian lands--is not an exercise in continuous and unrelenting violence against more than 3 million Palestinian civilians? If Israel were to renounce violence, could the occupation last even one day?

Israel's designs on the West Bank are not much different from the designs of the Arab forces that attacked the Jewish state in 1948--the nullification of the international community's partition resolution of 1947. Short of addressing the problem by its right name--something that is of an entirely different order than hollow statements that "settlements do not advance peace"--and taking effective collective action to end a colonial enterprise that disgraces what began as a noble Jewish national liberation struggle, further peace conferences, no matter how well intentioned, make their participants accessories to one of the longest and cruelest deceptions in the annals of international diplomacy.

Lebanon: Another Bush Puppet Gets Strings Tangled

Bush aid to arm the Lebanese Army has really gone to a puppet militia.

QUOTE: Prime Minister Fouad Siniora loses more of his waning influence and status. One of his main problems is that he is increasingly seen as a Bush administration puppet. . . "The money the Bush administration has spent has been to create a Sunni 'Internal Security Force' not for the Lebanese but for the 'ruling team' (the name the oppositions and its allies call the current government of Lebanon) which is no more than a militia run by pro-American officers. Hezbollah could defeat and disband this Bush militia in three hours of less", according to one long time UNIFIL program administrator.

Street Notes from the Hamra District

Hezbollah Eases Up and Beirut Opens Its Shutters

By FRANKLIN LAMB

Saturday Afternoon May 10 2008 witnessed a pronounced easing of tension.

Based on a US Congressional source, the Siniora government is reportedly able, with US approval, to offer the following face-saving proposal to Hezbollah to end the current crisis:

1. Hezbollah can keep its landline optic telecommunication cables for use in its Resistance struggle against Israel. But they should be put under "State Control".

Translation: Hezbollah controls them exclusively same as now and no one else will touch them. But 'officially' they will be under 'State' control, i.e. not State control.

2. Concerning the other major issue regarding the head of Beirut Airport Security, General Wafiq Shouqair gets reassigned but Hezbollah gets to name his replacement.

Translation: Wafiq stays in office, keeps his authority and puts his deputy's name card slipped over his on the office nameplate.

The public version of the proposal above reads a bit differently as offered this afternoon by Siniora. It does not mention to the public "due to sectarian sensitivities" points one and two above. It also includes the formation of a national unity government in which the minority cannot block decisions and the majority cannot impose them.

Siniora has also proposed a five-point introduction to a settlement, including placing the two government decisions in the hands of the army but will withdraw these quietly.

The Lebanese army announced at 5:30 p.m. Beirut time that it recommended that the two government measures against that had triggered the group to take control of Beirut, and the military urged gunmen to withdraw from the streets.

The army said in a statement it was keeping the head of the security at Beirut airport Wafiq Shouqair in his post and that it would handle Hezbollah's communications network in a way "that would not harm public interest and the security of the resistance."

Lebanon's U.S.-backed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said earlier on Saturday that he was putting the two issues, which have sparked the worst fighting in Lebanon since the 1975-90 civil war, into the hands of the Lebanese army.

Hezbollah has issued no comment on this report as of press time.

The current situation in Hamra

Many Hezbollah fighters left the streets of Hamra and turned them over to the Lebanese Army which had been largely absent on Friday.

Some of Hezbollah's withdrawing 'regulars' were replaced by 'reserves'.

"Its good for their training", one fellow who was obviously in charge outside of Starbucks on Hamra Street, explained through an interpreter. Some Hezbollah and Amal forces seemed quite willing to speak with the media about their mission.

Some pro-opposition commentators wandered around Hamra trying to assure returning residents.

"This was not a coup! Think of it as a protest and message to Bush and Olmert. If we wanted a coup we could surround the Serail. Mr. Siniora would perhaps hand us the keys. We don't want them. Let's all prepare for elections and let the people decide who sits in Parliament and makes up Cabinet."

Hezbollah reportedly has excellent relations with the Lebanese Army and wants to maintain them. Evidence of this is apparent today as Hezbollah's forces made a point of politely and almost paternally yielding some of their street corner locations to the Army with handshakes and sometimes kisses.

Outside Costa Coffee down from the Bristol Hotel, one seasoned Hezbollah fighter spoke to some obviously younger and 'greener' Party members and instructed them on their duties as they relieved him and he headed south for rest. He explained that things went fairly smoothly yesterday and that they would likely see residents start returning to Hamra. "Be helpful to those who need help. Assure them their neighborhood is secure and safe. We will start no violence and if someone else wants to we can assure those in who live in Hamra that we will quickly deal with troublemakers".

A few isolated acts of vandalism were reported yesterday and an internal joint Hezbollah-Amal investigation is underway to find out about what happened and insure that there is no recurrence. "No bad behavior by our fighters or any of our allies will be tolerated and bad behavior (from our side) will be severely punished and if vandalism occurred, Hezbollah will pay for it! Lebanon knows our standards. Remember during the July 2006 War. When our fighters had to use food and water that belonged to absent owners we left IOUs on the table. Everyone was later paid."

Some Amal guys were looking for an open sandwich shop but doubted that "people here in Hamra make sandwiches as great as we have in Ouzai. Our area has the best kebabs in all of Lebanon!!" (this observer did not have the heart to ask the young man if this was his first time outside of his "area").

"We will be magnanimous toward our adversaries in the small victory we achieved the past couple of days", explained 'Ali' an acquaintance of this observer who also lives in Haret Hreik.

"If the "ruling team" wants to claim victory that is fine with us. They can attack us verbally all they want. We are used to this. This situation was forced on us and we defended ourselves. Now we should seek a just and quick solution and heal any wounds", one young woman, obviously a Hezbollah supporter explained as she chatted with some fighters and journalists. She added, "We want dialogue and a fair peaceful solution. We are a Resistance movement and will not participate in a civil war".

As of this afternoon the losers and winners appear as follows:

The main losers obviously are the Bush administration, Israel and their Welch Club allies. Personal losers are Amin Gemayel, barely still the "leader" of the Phalange Party, as he talks tough and tries to rally his 'forces'...from Paris. Samir Geagea has pretty much nudged him aside and is reportedly casting his dark gaze toward Saad Hariri who may be planning to retire from politics and help with the very big family business. After the parties meet with President Bush next week, a 'shaking out' process may begin.

Walid Jumblatt is another loser since his provocations, taunts, and Welch Club cheerleader role to take on Hezbollah left him at its mercy both in the Mountains and in his Beirut home. Whatever credibility he had has evaporated. Among the Druze there is discord and inter-party fisticuffs as there was last night in Choufeit when Jumblatt asked the army to occupy and secure his Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) HQ but some of the younger members threatened violence, as the villagers watched beneath a huge a poster of party founder Kamal Jumblatt and the army and Jumblatt jr. backed off. PSP problems will require Walid's sustained attention for some while party members explained last evening to this observer.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora loses more of his waning influence and status. One of his main problems is that he is increasingly seen as a Bush administration puppet. Not least of his worries this morning, as he prepares to avoid being dumped by Bush next week, is the ringing endorsement he received yesterday from Secretary of State Rice, without bringing herself to mention Siniora by name:

"Our support for the legitimate Lebanese government, its democratic institutions, and its security services is unwavering. This support is a reflection of our unshakable commitment to the Lebanese people and their hope for democratic change, economic prosperity, and confessional harmony. We will stand by the Lebanese government and peaceful citizens of Lebanon through this crisis and provide the support they need to weather this storm."

She would not even mention his name as she employed the standard State Department verbiage just before a US puppet is dumped. It was dusted off from Vietnam days when JFK (Diem) and LBJ (Thieu) used almost identical language before switching horses.

The rest of Rice's analysis seemed to many in Lebanon, whose population is among the most politically sophisticated in many ways, as simply obtuse: "No one has a right to deprive Lebanese citizens of their political and economic freedom, their right to move freely within their country, or their sense of safety and security".

State Department officials said this morning that the international coalition supporting the Lebanese state against Hezbollah has never been stronger. Washington believes Hezbollah has "bitten off a bit too much" and now risks alienating the rest of Lebanon's population, including Hezbollah's important Christian allies, an official said.

The Bush administration reminded the World that it has spent $1.3 billion over the past two years to prop up Siniora's government, with about $400 million dedicated to boosting Lebanon's security forces. This statement constitutes a hoax according to some informed observers in Lebanon:

"The money the Bush administration has spent has been to create a Sunni 'Internal Security Force' not for the Lebanese but for the 'ruling team' (the name the oppositions and its allies call the current government of Lebanon) which is no more than a militia run by pro-American officers. Hezbollah could defeat and disband this Bush militia in three hours of less", according to one long time UNIFIL program administrator.

One frustrated US Senate Intelligence Committee staffer emailed this morning with a tinge of irony and cynicism:

Referring to President Bush: "Now this loser has really done it. Having effectively delivered Iraq and Afghanistan to Iran, he has now handed them Lebanon. Mark my words, Saudi Arabia is next and the Saudis know it and will make a deal with Iran."

The major winners are obvious: Lebanon's Christian population allied with General Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Hezbollah, Amal and their Sunni, Druze and international supporters.

Hassan Nasrallah's position is probably the strongest it has ever been, not just in Lebanon but throughout the region. If he wanted to be a dictator of all of Lebanon, which he eschews, he could have the position today.

Rami Khoury, writing in Beirut's Daily Star this morning got it right in this observer's view when he wrote:

Nasrallah's task now is to create an inclusive environment conducive to the answering of these and other challenges. He and his party cannot be expected to come up with all of the solutions, and nor should they want to: If they cannot draw other players - and not just their closest allies - into the process, Nasrallah runs the risk of being cast as a dictator by default.

Hizbullah and its partners have frequently argued that their counterparts in the March 14 Forces coalition were not interested in true partnership, only in dictating terms. Now Nasrallah has to prove that his side is ready, willing and able to live up to its own expectations, and speed is of the essence: After 15 years of civil war, 15 of diluted sovereignty, and three of limbo, the Lebanese deserve at last to have a level of politics commensurate with their talents and energies. If Nasrallah is the man who makes this happen, history will judge his actions to have been a revolution, not a coup, and a long-overdue one at that.

Late news is that the airport may open by Monday but this is not certain.

Franklin Lamb can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com

http://counterpunch.com/lamb05102008.html

Lebanese Army "Confirms" Hezbollah Victory Over US-backed Government

QUOTE: "The Shia have won," said one young man - - quote from a Guardian story of 5/9/2008

COMMENT: The Lebanese Army made the Shia victory "official" when it overturned government measures against the Hezbollah communications network and surveillance cameras. (The cowardly Siniora government, which is almost a US puppet, tossed its responsibility to the Army rather than rescind it's anti-Hezbollah measures itself.) The lengthy story below gives a good summary of events in Lebanon that you're not likely to find in the American media.

SPECIAL NOTE: pay careful attention to the comment below about fear that the Lebanese Army could break apart into confessional factions. Much the same fear applies in Iraq.

Last update - 19:21 10/05/2008 [Israel time]

Hezbollah fighters start withdrawing from Beirut

By Yoav Stern and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents and Agencies

Hezbollah TV announced Saturday evening that Hezbollah-led opposition forces would withdraw all their gunmen from Beirut in compliance with the Lebanese army's request.

An opposition statement says the move comes after the army issued a statement calling on gunmen to get off the street and reopen the roads.

But the statement said a civil disobedience campaign will continue until the group's demands are met.

The announcement came after the Lebanese army overturned government measures against the group, which sparked clashes in and around Beirut that left dozens dead after four days of fighting.

Hezbollah moved Thursday to seize the Sunni neighborhoods of Beirut after its leader Hassan Nasrallah accused the U.S.-backed government of declaring war on his group when it declared the organization's communications network illegal and ordered the removal of the airport security chief for alleged ties to the militants.

On Saturday, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said the decision on the communications issue would be dealt with by the army, which promptly overturned the two anti-Hezbollah measures.

While Siniora in effect backed away from the government decisions to curb the militant group's power, he also toughened his rhetoric against Hezbollah, which he accused of staging a coup.

Death toll reaches 37 in four days of Lebanon clashes

In the latest incident of violence in Lebanon, at least 12 gunmen were killed and 20 wounded in a gunbattle between pro- and anti-government groups in a remote region of northern Lebanon.

Saturday's gunbattle occurred in the town of Halba in Akkar, a remote Sunni region in northernmost Lebanon when fighters loyal to Sunni leader Sa'ad Hariri and the government clashed with members of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, a secular pro-Syrian group allied with the Shiite Hezbollah.

The pro-government fighters stormed the office of the SSNP and set it ablaze after the gunbattle.

The number raises to 37 the death toll since Shi'ite-Sunni sectarian erupted in Beirut on Wednesday and spread to other regions.

Earlier Saturday, a Shi'ite shopowner opened fire on a funeral procession Saturday in a Sunni neighborhood of Beirut, killing two and wounding six, a day after Shi'ite gunmen swept through the Lebanese capital's Muslim sector, police and witnesses said.

The shooting in the neighborhood of Tarik Jadideh underlined the state of lawlessness and the sharpened sectarian tensions that have engulfed the Lebanese capital's Muslim sector since Sunni-Shi'ite fighting erupted on Wednesday resulting in Hezbollah's takeover of neighborhoods from Sunnis loyal to the U.S.-backed government.

By Saturday afternoon, the army had replaced Hezbollah in most of the Muslim neighborhoods seized by the militant group.

Tarik Jadideh was a stronghold of Sunni supporters of majority coalition leader Sa'ad Hariri. Shi'ite gunmen did not enter that neighborhood, where Lebanese troops deployed to prevent an onslaught by Hezbollah.

Elsewhere in the capital Saturday, Beirutis cautiously ventured out in small numbers to streets held by both Lebanese troops and lingering bands of Shi'ite gunmen.

Beirut had a quiet night Friday after the worst sectarian violence since the end of the 1975-90 civil war, in which 150,000 were killed and parts of the city wrecked as it was carved into warring sectarian enclaves. But the violence moved outside the capital, leaving 20 more people dead in addition to the 17 killed in Beirut.

People ventured out to check on their shops, cars and to stock up on food after days of being trapped inside by the fighting.

The Christian sector of Beirut was peaceful and was not involved in the violence.

The army, which had stayed on the sidelines until moving into Beirut neighborhoods on Saturday, brought in more armor and troops to seal off neighborhoods where top pro-government leaders - Hariri of the Sunnis and Walid Jumblatt of the Druze - were holed up in their residences.

Violence also erupted in the mountain town of Aley east of Beirut. Eight people were killed there on Friday night. Another civilian died in the clashes in the southern city of Sidon.

Hezbollah's power was demonstrated dramatically Friday morning when it forced off the air the TV station affiliated with Hariri's party. Gunmen also set the offices of the party's newspaper, Al-Mustaqbal, on fire in the coastal neighborhood of Ramlet el-Bayda. Shi'ite gunmen from Hezbollah and Amal, and allied group, roamed unopposed through the deserted streets of neighborhoods once dominated by supporters of Hariri and the government.

Lebanon's army only intervened after the building was set ablaze. Troops provided cover for firefighters, who eventually extinguished the flames.

The army also evacuated employees from the TV station, but only after gunmen massed near it and threatened to destroy it, said Nadim Mounla, the station's chief.

With Hariri and Jumblatt besieged in their residences in Muslim western Beirut, officials of the pro-government majority called an emergency meeting of legislators in a mountain town in the Christian heartland northeast of Beirut, said LBC TV, a pro-government Christian station.

Lebanese political commentators have branded the violence an attempted military coup.

The army has largely avoided getting involved in the street battles, preferring to remain above the political fray for fear of being dragged into the conflict. The institution could break up on sectarian lines if it takes on Hezbollah's powerful militia or any major party.

Dozens of fighters from the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, a Hezbollah ally, also appeared in the streets off Hamra, some masked and carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Shops in the normally bustling commercial district closed save for a few pharmacies and grocery stores.

The unrest virtually shut down Lebanon's international airport for a third day and barricades closed major highways. Hezbollah first blocked roads in Beirut on Wednesday to enforce a strike called by labor unions, but confrontations quickly spread across the city.

Later, Hariri made a televised appeal to Nasrallah seeking to calm the conflict.

"My appeal to you and to myself as well, the appeal of all Lebanon, is to stop the slide toward civil war, to stop the language of arms and lawlessness," said Hariri, son of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005.

The clashes are the latest turn in a test of wills between the Hezbollah-led opposition and the government of Siniora. The U.S.-backed government has only a slim majority in parliament, and the two sides have been locked in a 17-month power struggle that has kept government at a standstill.

The fight could have implications for the entire Middle East at a time when Sunni-Shi'ite tensions are high. The tensions are fueled in part by the rivalry between predominantly Shiite Iran, which sponsors Hezbollah, and Sunni Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/981696.html

Why Hamas and Hezbollah Will Win

The quote is from Lebanon, but it applies equally well to Palestine: the "opposition" are motivated by strongly held beliefs, not just money. (A quote from an Israeli politician advocated working with Fatah in Palestine because "we can bribe them" -- and that's what has happened, though Abu Quisling Abbas's corrupt Fatah regime is now on its last legs. Like Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon gets its strength from the honesty and idealism of its members.)

QUOTE: "The Shia have won," said one young man, in Tareeq Jedida area on the Sunni side of Corniche al-Mazra'a "They [the Sunnis] pay me $100 to fight, the Shia are fighting for their beliefs, and man, they have been fighting for 25 years, we can't match them."

Sunni v Shia

'We are just trying to clear the thorns from our side ... by God we will finish them soon'

Ghaith Abdul Ahad, foreign correspondent of the year, reports on Lebanon's street battle

Less than 10 minutes after Hassan Nasrallah finished his speech, the message came to the fighters on the ground.

Standing in the Corniche al Mazra'a, a shopping avenue which separates Sunni from Shia areas in West Beirut, a Hizbullah commander with a wary face said: "The war has begun."

Hours earlier he had been directing dozens of street thugs from the Amal movement - with spiky hair and tight jeans - armed with knives and stones, as they burned tyres and rubbish containers in demonstrations against the pro-western government.

Like a traffic conductor, he organised the stone throwing at Sunnis across the street, raising his arm for a volley to start and then pushing back the teenagers to stop. But Nasrallah's speech put an end to that. The teenagers disappeared and in their place, about 20 Shia gunmen, Hizbullah gunmen, took up their positions on the street corners. The game had changed.

"Wait," the commander called, "don't start shooting before the army withdraws." As soon as the last of the soldiers separating the groups ran into armoured vehicles the fighting began.

The Amal Shia fighters in their designer sunglasses, jeans and US military boots started firing their Kalashnikov and M16 rifles.

"Wait," shouted the commander, a mobile phone on one ear, radio on the other, "the army is still withdrawing."

"Why are they still here?" asked a fighter as he emptied his magazine from behind the corner of building. A picture of the prime minister could be seen across the road where Sunni fighters from the Future movement fired back. At least five Shia policemen, from a unit allied with leader of Amal, joined the fight. Still in government uniforms they took positions and fired at the Sunnis.

"Haj, they are hiding behind that van," said one of them, addressing the commander. "Where is the B7 [Lebanese speak for the Russian rocket-propelled grenade]?" shouted a fighter.

A young man in a balaclava brought the rocket launcher forward, on his back a sack filled with rockets. A policeman took it on his shoulder as three fighters ran into the street firing continuously, providing him with cover. An explosion followed and the rocket seared across the road. The van went up in flames.

Sniper bullets fired from the Sunni side hit the streets in front of the fighters, whipping the air with ricochets.

As night fell the radio crackled with good news for the Hizbullah commander: other Shia units had taken Sunni positions in the south and were pushing to the west. "We are trying to clear the area from the thorns in our side, we are just attacking the Future headquarters, we are not attacking the civilians. We started yesterday and by God we will finish them soon."

On the street the battle raged with each side falling into a pattern of attack and counter-attack. The early morning brought light rain and the realisation that Beirut had so quickly reclaimed the title of capital of street fighting. Bullet cases littered the road. By now Shia fighters were in full control.

In Hamra, the main boulevard and the heart of Sunni Beirut, Hizbullah fighters in camouflage carried rocket launchers and M16s alongside the shops. The notoriously secretive fighters, who were previously only seen on the Hizbullah propaganda war footage or on rare occasions on the frontlines with Israel during the war, were now patrolling alongside Costa coffee outlets and designer clothes stores.

An air of defeat hung over the Sunni areas. "The Shia have won," said one young man, in Tareeq Jedida area on the Sunni side of Corniche al-Mazra'a "They [the Sunnis] pay me $100 to fight, the Shia are fighting for their beliefs, and man, they have been fighting for 25 years, we can't match them."

This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday May 10 2008 on p26 of the International section. It was last updated at 00:12 on May 10 2008.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/10/lebanon.syria

Ethnic Cleansing (Unofficial) in Israel

Reminiscent of the harassment American Blacks have often had to endure.

8 Jerusalem youths arrested for allegedly stabbing 2 Israeli Arabs

By Haaretz Service

Eight youths from Jerusalem were arrested Tuesday on suspicion they assaulted and stabbed two Israeli Arabs, residents of the Shuafat refugee camp, Army Radio reported.

The assault occurred on the eve of Memorial Day for Israel's Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism near the entrance to the Pisgat Ze'ev shopping mall.

One of the victims sustained moderate wounds and his friend did not require any medical care.

According to Army Radio, the eight suspects said during police questioning that the assault was part of efforts to rid the Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood of Arabs. The suspects said the neighborhood had been overrun by Arabs who were harassing Jewish girls and causing a ruckus.

Last update - 17:53 06/05/2008

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/981343.html

Report: Israeli government lied about lifting restrictions on movement

Israel lied? So what's new? Condoleezza Rice if finding out about Israeli "truth" and "promises" on her May, 2008, trip to the area. It's a pity that the Presidents and staff only wake up to Israel so near the end of their terms (when they don't have to face re-election, they can stand up to the Israel lobby).

Report at: http://www.btselem.org/english/Freedom_of_Movement/20080428_so_called_lifting_of_restritcions.asp

http://www.imemc.org/article/54640

Report: Israeli government lied about lifting restrictions on movement

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Saed Bannoura

IMEMC News

The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'Tselem, has issued a report finding that the Israeli government has continued to maintain severe and comprehensive restrictions on movement in the West Bank, despite claims to the contrary.

Removal of some of the 700 Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks is one of several things that the Israeli government agreed to do as part of an agreement with the Palestinian Authority. But the Israeli government has not removed roadblocks as promised. The Israeli government also promised to halt settlement expansion in the West Bank, but has instead increased settlement expansion.

According to B'Tselem, the Israeli government recently announced that at the end of March 2008, the army began removing 61 physical obstructions ­ dirt piles, boulders, and blocks ­ it had placed inside the West Bank. The obstructions were purportedly removed following Israel’s commitment, made in March to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to reduce restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank. However, B'Tselem’s investigation and investigations by other human rights organizations indicate that the government’s declaration was no more than sleight of hand.

B'Tselem requested from the public-relations unit of the Ministry of Defense and from the Coordinator of Government Operations in the Territories a list of the physical obstructions that had allegedly been removed. To date, neither of the two governmental bodies has provided such a list. Relying on reports given to journalists, diplomats, and international organizations, B'Tselem independently compiled the list. When it investigated further, B'Tselem found that Israel’s claims were false.

Most of the physical obstructions on the list had, in fact, been breached by local Palestinians or had been removed by the army before Israel made its commitment to Secretary Rice. An appreciable number of the obstructions and been placed in the northern West Bank, primarily in the area of Tulkarm, Qalqiliya, and Jenin, immediately after the terror attack in Dimona, on 4 February 2008, and were removed in the following weeks. Other physical obstructions on the list, many of which had been placed at the entrance to dirt roads leading to private farmland, had little effect on the fabric of life of the general population. However, obstructions placed on vital roads, affecting the entire Palestinian population in the West Bank, were not on the list.

Furthermore, at a number of places in the northern West Bank, obstructions that had previously been removed by the residents were moved back into place by army bulldozers. The army then took pictures of these obstructions before removing them the same day or the following day.

B'Tselem gave the following examples of these 'staged' removals:

In early February, the army placed three obstructions composed of boulders and dirt piles at the southern entrance to Bal’a, a town northeast of Tulkarm. On 5-7 March, in coordination with the army, the Bal’a municipality removed the obstructions and reopened the entrance. According to local residents, at the end of March, an Israeli bulldozer, guarded by soldiers, again placed an obstruction blocking the entrance. Residents wanting to ride along the road were delayed by the army, which filmed the vehicles waiting on either side of the physical obstruction. Immediately afterward, the bulldozer removed the obstruction, which the army also filmed. This obstruction is on the list of physical obstructions that the army contends were removed as part of its efforts to "ease" Palestinian movement.

On 31 March, the army placed three obstructions made of boulders and dirt piles on the road running between Deir al-Ghussun and al-Jarushiya, which lie about one kilometer apart, north of Tulkarm. According to local residents, the next day, an Israeli bulldozer removed the three obstructions, while an army film crew documented the obstructions before and during their removal. These obstructions, too, appear on the list.

At the end of November 2007, the army placed three dirt obstructions on the road linking the villages of al-Funduq and Hajja, east of Qalqiliya, and another obstruction at the exit from the village of Jinsafut, in the direction of Route 55. These obstructions were removed by residents in early January 2008. Another obstruction, placed at the exit from the village of al-Masqufa, was removed by residents on 7 March. These five obstructions are also on the list.

Another prominent example involves Bizzariya, a village situated east of Tulkarm. In February, following the terrorist attack in Dimona, the army blocked the main roads linking the village and Tulkarm. Later that same month, the army removed the temporary checkpoints and residents removed the dirt piles. Residents state that, on 31 March, the army closed the exits from the village by means of boulders and dirt piles, and immediately afterwards an army bulldozer came and removed them. The army filmed the placement and removal of the obstructions, which are on the list of obstructions that were removed to ease Palestinian movement.

In addition to the government’s declaration that some physical obstructions had been removed, the media reported that two permanent checkpoints had purportedly been removed: the Rimonim (a-Tayba) checkpoint, east of a-Tayba, and the Almog checkpoint on Route 1, the road running between Jericho and the northern Dead Sea. B'Tselem’s investigation shows that while the Rimonim checkpoint was indeed removed, the Almog checkpoint remains operational, and Palestinians are not allowed to cross it to get to the northern Dead Sea.

Its repeated promises to "ease" restrictions on movement imply that Israel views the Palestinians’ fundamental right to freedom of movement as a privilege that it can grant or deny as it wishes. In practice, Israel continues to restrict Palestinian movement inside the West Bank with a variety of means, including hundreds of physical obstructions and dozens of permanent checkpoints. The objective of many of these obstructions and checkpoints is not to prevent entry into Israel but to make it difficult for residents to travel between towns and villages inside the West Bank, and for terrorists to reach the last checkpoints before entering Israel. These restrictions gravely affect the residents’ right to freedom of movement and other fundamental rights, such as the right to proper medical treatment, to education, and to work. This harm has great long-term effects on Palestinians, including their ability to rebuild the Palestinian economy and Palestinian society.

B'Tselem called on Israel to immediately remove all restrictions on movement inside the West Bank and to concentrate its efforts to protect Israelis on checkpoints between the West Bank and Israel.