Also, please consider the following:
>US-Israel-Palestine
>by Noam Chomsky
>Red Pepper, May 2002
>April 11, 2002
>
>ZNet Top
>
>MIDEAST WATCH
>
>
>A year ago, Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling observed
>that "What we feared has come true." Jews and Palestinians are
>"regressing to superstitious tribalism... War appears an unavoidable
>fate," an "evil colonial" war. After Israel's invasion of the refugee
>camps this year his colleague Ze'ev Sternhell wrote that "In colonial
>Israel...human life is cheap." The leadership is "no longer ashamed to
>speak of war when what they are really engaged in is colonial policing,
>which recalls the takeover by the white police of the poor neighborhoods
>of the blacks in South Africa during the apartheid era." Both stress the
>obvious: there is no symmetry between the "ethno-national groups"
>regressing to tribalism. The conflict is centered in territories that
>have been under harsh military occupation for 35 years. The conqueror is
>a major military power, acting with massive military, economic and
>diplomatic support from the global superpower. Its subjects are alone
>and defenseless, many barely surviving in miserable camps, currently
>suffering even more brutal terror of a kind familiar in "evil colonial
>wars" and now carrying out terrible atrocities of their own in revenge.
>
>
>The Oslo "peace process" changed the modalities of the occupation, but
>not the basic concept. Shortly before joining the Ehud Barak government,
>historian Shlomo Ben-Ami wrote that "the Oslo agreements were founded on
>a neo-colonialist basis, on a life of dependence of one on the other
>forever." He soon became an architect of the US- Israel proposals at
>Camp David in Summer 2000, which kept to this condition. These were
>highly praised in US commentary. The Palestinians and their evil leader
>were blamed for their failure and the subsequent violence. But that is
>outright "fraud," as Kimmerling reported, along with all other serious
>commentators.
>
>
>True, Clinton-Barak advanced a few steps towards a Bantustan-style
>settlement. Just prior to Camp David, West Bank Palestinians were
>confined to over 200 scattered areas, and Clinton-Barak did propose an
>improvement: consolidation to three cantons, under Israeli control,
>virtually separated from one another and from the fourth enclave, a
>small area of East Jerusalem, the center of Palestinian life and of
>communications in the region. In the fifth canton, Gaza, the outcome was
>left unclear except that the population were also to remain virtually
>imprisoned. It is understandable that maps are not to be found in the US
>mainstream, or any of the details of the proposals.
>
>
>No one can seriously doubt that the US role will continue to be
>decisive. It is therefore of crucial importance to understand what that
>role has been, and how it is internally perceived. The version of the
>doves is presented by the editors of the NY Times (7 April), praising
>the President's "path-breaking speech" and the "emerging vision" he
>articulated. Its first element is "ending Palestinian terrorism,"
>immediately. Some time later comes "freezing, then rolling back, Jewish
>settlements and negotiating new borders" to end the occupation and allow
>the establishment of a Palestinian state. If Palestinian terror ends,
>Israelis will be encouraged to "take the Arab League's historic offer of
>full peace and recognition in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal more
>seriously." But first Palestinian leaders must demonstrate that they are
>"legitimate diplomatic partners."
>
>
>The real world has little resemblance to this self-serving portrayal -
>- virtually copied from the 1980s, when the US and Israel were
>desperately seeking to evade PLO offers of negotiation and political
>settlement while keeping to the demand that there will be no
>negotiations with the PLO, no "additional Palestinian state..." (Jordan
>already being a Palestinian state), and "no change in the status of
>Judea, Samaria and Gaza other than in accordance with the basic
>guidelines of the [Israeli] Government" (the May 1989 Peres- Shamir
>coalition plan, endorsed by Bush I in the Baker plan of Dec. 1989). All
>of this remained unpublished in the US mainstream, as regularly before,
>while commentary denounced the Palestinians for their single-minded
>commitment to terror, undermining the humanistic endeavors of the US and
>its allies.
>
>
>In the real world, the primary barrier to the "emerging vision" has
>been, and remains, unilateral US rejectionism. There is little new in
>the "Arab League's historic offer." It repeats the basic terms of a
>Security Council Resolution of January 1976 backed by virtually the
>entire world, including the leading Arab states, the PLO, Europe, the
>Soviet bloc -- in fact, everyone who mattered. It was opposed by Israel
>and vetoed by the US, thereby vetoing it from history. The Resolution
>called for a political settlement on the internationally- recognized
>borders "with appropriate arrangements...to guarantee...the sovereignty,
>territorial integrity, and political independence of all states in the
>area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized
>borders" -- in effect, a modification of UN 242 (as officially
>interpreted by the US as well), amplified to include a Palestinian
>state. Similar initiatives from the Arab states, the PLO, and Europe
>have since been blocked by the US and mostly suppressed or denied in
>public commentary.
>
>
>US rejectionism goes back 5 years earlier, to February 1971, when
>President Sadat of Egypt offered Israel a full peace treaty in return
>for Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian territory, with no mention of
>Palestinian national rights or the fate of the other occupied
>territories. Israel's Labor government recognized this to be a genuine
>peace offer, but rejected it, intending to extend its settlements to
>northeastern Sinai; that it soon did, with extreme brutality, the
>immediate cause for the 1973 war. Israel and the US understood that
>peace was possible in accord with official US policy. But as Labor Party
>leader Ezer Weizmann (later President) explained, that outcome would not
>allow Israel to "exist according to the scale, spirit, and quality she
>now embodies." Israeli commentator Amos Elon wrote that Sadat caused
>"panic" among the Israeli political leadership when he announced his
>willingness "to enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and to respect
>its independence and sovereignty in `secure and recognized borders'."
>
>
>Kissinger succeeded in blocking peace, instituting his preference for
>what he called "stalemate": no negotiations, only force. Jordanian peace
>offers were also dismissed. Since that time, official US policy has kept
>to the international consensus on withdrawal -- until Clinton, who
>effectively rescinded UN resolutions and considerations of international
>law. But in practice, policy has followed the Kissinger guidelines,
>accepting negotiations only when compelled to do so, as Kissinger was
>after the near-debacle of the 1973 war for which he shares major
>responsibility, and under the conditions that Ben-Ami articulated.
>
>
>Plans for Palestinians followed the guidelines formulated by Moshe
>Dayan, one of the Labor leaders more sympathetic to the Palestinian
>plight. He advised the Cabinet that Israel should make it clear to
>refugees that "we have no solution, you shall continue to live like
>dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process
>leads." When challenged, he responded by citing Ben-Gurion, who "said
>that whoever approaches the Zionist problem from a moral aspect is not a
>Zionist." He could have also cited Chaim Weizmann, who held that the
>fate of the "several hundred thousand negroes" in the Jewish homeland
>"is a matter of no consequence."
>
>
>Not surprisingly, the guiding principle of the occupation has been
>incessant and degrading humiliation, along with torture, terror,
>destruction of property, displacement and settlement, and takeover of
>basic resources, crucially water. That has, of course, required decisive
>US support, extending through the Clinton-Barak years. "The Barak
>government is leaving Sharon's government a surprising legacy," the
>Israeli press reported as the transition took place: "the highest number
>of housing starts in the territories since the time when Ariel Sharon
>was Minister of Construction and Settlement in 1992 before the Oslo
>agreements" -- funding provided by the American taxpayer, deceived by
>fanciful tales of the "visions" and "magnanimity" of US leaders, foiled
>by terrorists like Arafat who have forfeited "our trust," perhaps also
>by some Israeli extremists who are overreacting to their crimes.
>
>
>How Arafat must act to regain our trust is explained succinctly by
>Edward Walker, the State Department official responsible for the region
>under Clinton. The devious Arafat must announce without ambiguity that
>"We put our future and fate in the hands of the US," which has led the
>campaign to undermine Palestinian rights for 30 years.
>
>
>More serious commentary recognized that the "historic offer" largely
>reiterated the Saudi Fahd Plan of 1981 -- undermined, it was regularly
>claimed, by Arab refusal to accept the existence of Israel. The facts
>are again quite different. The 1981 plan was undermined by an Israeli
>reaction that even its mainstream press condemned as "hysterical."
>Shimon Peres warned that the Fahd plan "threatened Israel's very
>existence." President Haim Herzog charged that the "real author" of the
>Fahd plan was the PLO, and that it was even more extreme than the
>January 1976 Security Council resolution that was "prepared by" the PLO
>when he was Israel's UN Ambassador. These claims can hardly be true
>(though the PLO publicly backed both plans), but they are an indication
>of the desperate fear of a political settlement on the part of Israeli
>doves, with the unremitting and decisive support of the US.
>
>
>The basic problem then, as now, traces back to Washington, which has
>persistently backed Israel's rejection of a political settlement in
>terms of the broad international consensus, reiterated in essentials in
>"the Arab League's historic offer."
>
>
>Current modifications of US rejectionism are tactical and so far minor.
>With plans for an attack on Iraq endangered, the US permitted a UN
>resolution calling for Israeli withdrawal from the newly-invaded
>territories "without delay" -- meaning "as soon as possible," Secretary
>of State Colin Powell explained at once. Palestinian terror is to end
>"immediately," but far more extreme Israeli terror, going back 35 years,
>can take its time. Israel at once escalated its attack, leading Powell
>to say "I'm pleased to hear that the prime minister says he is
>expediting his operations." There is much suspicion that Powell's
>arrival in Israel is being delayed so that they can be "expedited"
>further. That US stance may well change, again for tactical reasons.
>
>
>The US also allowed a UN Resolution calling for a "vision" of a
>Palestinian state. This forthcoming gesture, which received much
>acclaim, does not rise to the level of South Africa 40 years ago when
>the Apartheid regime actually implemented its "vision" of Black-run
>states that were at least as viable and legitimate as the neo- colonial
>dependency that the US and Israel have been planning for the occupied
>territories.
>
>
>Meanwhile the US continues to "enhance terror," to borrow the
>President's words, by providing Israel with the means for terror and
>destruction, including a new shipment of the most advanced helicopters
>in the US arsenal (Robert Fisk, Independent, 7 April). These are
>standard reactions to atrocities by a client regime. To cite one
>instructive example, in the first days of the current Intifada, Israel
>used US helicopters to attack civilian targets, killing 10 Palestinians
>and wounding 35, hardly in "self-defense." Clinton responded with an
>agreement for "the largest purchase of military helicopters by the
>Israeli Air Force in a decade" (Ha'aretz, 3 October, '01), along with
>spare parts for Apache attack helicopters. The press helped out by
>refusing to report the facts. A few weeks later, Israel began to use US
>helicopters for assassinations as well. One of the first acts of the
>Bush administration was to send Apache Longbow helicopters, the most
>murderous available. That received some marginal notice under business
>news.
>
>
>Washington's commitment to "enhancing terror" was illustrated again in
>December, when it vetoed a Security Council Resolution calling for
>implementation of the Mitchell Plan and dispatch of international
>monitors to oversee reduction of violence, the most effective means as
>generally recognized, opposed by Israel and regularly blocked by
>Washington. The veto took place during a 21-day period of calm --
>meaning that only one Israeli soldier was killed, along with 21
>Palestinians including 11 children, and 16 Israeli incursions into areas
>under Palestinian control (Graham Usher, Middle East International, 25
>January '02). Ten days before the veto, the US boycotted -- thus
>undermined -- an international conference in Geneva that once again
>concluded that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the occupied
>terrorities, so that virtually everything the US and Israel do there is
>a "grave breach"; a "war crime" in simple terms. The conference
>specifically declared the US-funded Israeli settlements to be illegal,
>and condemned the practice of "wilful killing, torture, unlawful
>deportation, wilful depriving of the rights of fair and regular trial,
>extensive destruction and appropriation of property...carried out
>unlawfully and wantonly." As a High Contracting Party, the US is
>obligated by solemn treaty to prosecute those responsible for such
>crimes, including its own leadership. Accordingly, all of this passes in
>silence.
>
>
>The US has not officially withdrawn its recognition of the applicability
>of the Geneva Conventions to the occupied territories, or its censure of
>Israeli violations as the "occupying power" (affirmed, for example, by
>George Bush I when he was UN Ambassador). In October 2000 the Security
>Council reaffirmed the consensus on this matter, "call[ing] on Israel,
>the occupying power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations
>under the Fourth Geneva Convention." The vote was 14-0. Clinton
>abstained, presumably not wanting to veto one of the core principles of
>international humanitarian law, particularly in light of the
>circumstances in which it was enacted: to criminalize formally the
>atrocities of the Nazis. All of this too was consigned quickly to the
>memory hole, another contribution to "enhancing terror."
>
>
>Until such matters are permitted to enter discussion, and their
>implications understood, it is meaningless to call for "US engagement in
>the peace process," and prospects for constructive action will remain
>grim.
>US-Israel-Palestine
>by Noam Chomsky
>Red Pepper, May 2002
>April 11, 2002
>
>ZNet Top
>
>MIDEAST WATCH
>
>
>A year ago, Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling observed
>that "What we feared has come true." Jews and Palestinians are
>"regressing to superstitious tribalism... War appears an unavoidable
>fate," an "evil colonial" war. After Israel's invasion of the refugee
>camps this year his colleague Ze'ev Sternhell wrote that "In colonial
>Israel...human life is cheap." The leadership is "no longer ashamed to
>speak of war when what they are really engaged in is colonial policing,
>which recalls the takeover by the white police of the poor neighborhoods
>of the blacks in South Africa during the apartheid era." Both stress the
>obvious: there is no symmetry between the "ethno-national groups"
>regressing to tribalism. The conflict is centered in territories that
>have been under harsh military occupation for 35 years. The conqueror is
>a major military power, acting with massive military, economic and
>diplomatic support from the global superpower. Its subjects are alone
>and defenseless, many barely surviving in miserable camps, currently
>suffering even more brutal terror of a kind familiar in "evil colonial
>wars" and now carrying out terrible atrocities of their own in revenge.
>
>
>The Oslo "peace process" changed the modalities of the occupation, but
>not the basic concept. Shortly before joining the Ehud Barak government,
>historian Shlomo Ben-Ami wrote that "the Oslo agreements were founded on
>a neo-colonialist basis, on a life of dependence of one on the other
>forever." He soon became an architect of the US- Israel proposals at
>Camp David in Summer 2000, which kept to this condition. These were
>highly praised in US commentary. The Palestinians and their evil leader
>were blamed for their failure and the subsequent violence. But that is
>outright "fraud," as Kimmerling reported, along with all other serious
>commentators.
>
>
>True, Clinton-Barak advanced a few steps towards a Bantustan-style
>settlement. Just prior to Camp David, West Bank Palestinians were
>confined to over 200 scattered areas, and Clinton-Barak did propose an
>improvement: consolidation to three cantons, under Israeli control,
>virtually separated from one another and from the fourth enclave, a
>small area of East Jerusalem, the center of Palestinian life and of
>communications in the region. In the fifth canton, Gaza, the outcome was
>left unclear except that the population were also to remain virtually
>imprisoned. It is understandable that maps are not to be found in the US
>mainstream, or any of the details of the proposals.
>
>
>No one can seriously doubt that the US role will continue to be
>decisive. It is therefore of crucial importance to understand what that
>role has been, and how it is internally perceived. The version of the
>doves is presented by the editors of the NY Times (7 April), praising
>the President's "path-breaking speech" and the "emerging vision" he
>articulated. Its first element is "ending Palestinian terrorism,"
>immediately. Some time later comes "freezing, then rolling back, Jewish
>settlements and negotiating new borders" to end the occupation and allow
>the establishment of a Palestinian state. If Palestinian terror ends,
>Israelis will be encouraged to "take the Arab League's historic offer of
>full peace and recognition in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal more
>seriously." But first Palestinian leaders must demonstrate that they are
>"legitimate diplomatic partners."
>
>
>The real world has little resemblance to this self-serving portrayal -
>- virtually copied from the 1980s, when the US and Israel were
>desperately seeking to evade PLO offers of negotiation and political
>settlement while keeping to the demand that there will be no
>negotiations with the PLO, no "additional Palestinian state..." (Jordan
>already being a Palestinian state), and "no change in the status of
>Judea, Samaria and Gaza other than in accordance with the basic
>guidelines of the [Israeli] Government" (the May 1989 Peres- Shamir
>coalition plan, endorsed by Bush I in the Baker plan of Dec. 1989). All
>of this remained unpublished in the US mainstream, as regularly before,
>while commentary denounced the Palestinians for their single-minded
>commitment to terror, undermining the humanistic endeavors of the US and
>its allies.
>
>
>In the real world, the primary barrier to the "emerging vision" has
>been, and remains, unilateral US rejectionism. There is little new in
>the "Arab League's historic offer." It repeats the basic terms of a
>Security Council Resolution of January 1976 backed by virtually the
>entire world, including the leading Arab states, the PLO, Europe, the
>Soviet bloc -- in fact, everyone who mattered. It was opposed by Israel
>and vetoed by the US, thereby vetoing it from history. The Resolution
>called for a political settlement on the internationally- recognized
>borders "with appropriate arrangements...to guarantee...the sovereignty,
>territorial integrity, and political independence of all states in the
>area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized
>borders" -- in effect, a modification of UN 242 (as officially
>interpreted by the US as well), amplified to include a Palestinian
>state. Similar initiatives from the Arab states, the PLO, and Europe
>have since been blocked by the US and mostly suppressed or denied in
>public commentary.
>
>
>US rejectionism goes back 5 years earlier, to February 1971, when
>President Sadat of Egypt offered Israel a full peace treaty in return
>for Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian territory, with no mention of
>Palestinian national rights or the fate of the other occupied
>territories. Israel's Labor government recognized this to be a genuine
>peace offer, but rejected it, intending to extend its settlements to
>northeastern Sinai; that it soon did, with extreme brutality, the
>immediate cause for the 1973 war. Israel and the US understood that
>peace was possible in accord with official US policy. But as Labor Party
>leader Ezer Weizmann (later President) explained, that outcome would not
>allow Israel to "exist according to the scale, spirit, and quality she
>now embodies." Israeli commentator Amos Elon wrote that Sadat caused
>"panic" among the Israeli political leadership when he announced his
>willingness "to enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and to respect
>its independence and sovereignty in `secure and recognized borders'."
>
>
>Kissinger succeeded in blocking peace, instituting his preference for
>what he called "stalemate": no negotiations, only force. Jordanian peace
>offers were also dismissed. Since that time, official US policy has kept
>to the international consensus on withdrawal -- until Clinton, who
>effectively rescinded UN resolutions and considerations of international
>law. But in practice, policy has followed the Kissinger guidelines,
>accepting negotiations only when compelled to do so, as Kissinger was
>after the near-debacle of the 1973 war for which he shares major
>responsibility, and under the conditions that Ben-Ami articulated.
>
>
>Plans for Palestinians followed the guidelines formulated by Moshe
>Dayan, one of the Labor leaders more sympathetic to the Palestinian
>plight. He advised the Cabinet that Israel should make it clear to
>refugees that "we have no solution, you shall continue to live like
>dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process
>leads." When challenged, he responded by citing Ben-Gurion, who "said
>that whoever approaches the Zionist problem from a moral aspect is not a
>Zionist." He could have also cited Chaim Weizmann, who held that the
>fate of the "several hundred thousand negroes" in the Jewish homeland
>"is a matter of no consequence."
>
>
>Not surprisingly, the guiding principle of the occupation has been
>incessant and degrading humiliation, along with torture, terror,
>destruction of property, displacement and settlement, and takeover of
>basic resources, crucially water. That has, of course, required decisive
>US support, extending through the Clinton-Barak years. "The Barak
>government is leaving Sharon's government a surprising legacy," the
>Israeli press reported as the transition took place: "the highest number
>of housing starts in the territories since the time when Ariel Sharon
>was Minister of Construction and Settlement in 1992 before the Oslo
>agreements" -- funding provided by the American taxpayer, deceived by
>fanciful tales of the "visions" and "magnanimity" of US leaders, foiled
>by terrorists like Arafat who have forfeited "our trust," perhaps also
>by some Israeli extremists who are overreacting to their crimes.
>
>
>How Arafat must act to regain our trust is explained succinctly by
>Edward Walker, the State Department official responsible for the region
>under Clinton. The devious Arafat must announce without ambiguity that
>"We put our future and fate in the hands of the US," which has led the
>campaign to undermine Palestinian rights for 30 years.
>
>
>More serious commentary recognized that the "historic offer" largely
>reiterated the Saudi Fahd Plan of 1981 -- undermined, it was regularly
>claimed, by Arab refusal to accept the existence of Israel. The facts
>are again quite different. The 1981 plan was undermined by an Israeli
>reaction that even its mainstream press condemned as "hysterical."
>Shimon Peres warned that the Fahd plan "threatened Israel's very
>existence." President Haim Herzog charged that the "real author" of the
>Fahd plan was the PLO, and that it was even more extreme than the
>January 1976 Security Council resolution that was "prepared by" the PLO
>when he was Israel's UN Ambassador. These claims can hardly be true
>(though the PLO publicly backed both plans), but they are an indication
>of the desperate fear of a political settlement on the part of Israeli
>doves, with the unremitting and decisive support of the US.
>
>
>The basic problem then, as now, traces back to Washington, which has
>persistently backed Israel's rejection of a political settlement in
>terms of the broad international consensus, reiterated in essentials in
>"the Arab League's historic offer."
>
>
>Current modifications of US rejectionism are tactical and so far minor.
>With plans for an attack on Iraq endangered, the US permitted a UN
>resolution calling for Israeli withdrawal from the newly-invaded
>territories "without delay" -- meaning "as soon as possible," Secretary
>of State Colin Powell explained at once. Palestinian terror is to end
>"immediately," but far more extreme Israeli terror, going back 35 years,
>can take its time. Israel at once escalated its attack, leading Powell
>to say "I'm pleased to hear that the prime minister says he is
>expediting his operations." There is much suspicion that Powell's
>arrival in Israel is being delayed so that they can be "expedited"
>further. That US stance may well change, again for tactical reasons.
>
>
>The US also allowed a UN Resolution calling for a "vision" of a
>Palestinian state. This forthcoming gesture, which received much
>acclaim, does not rise to the level of South Africa 40 years ago when
>the Apartheid regime actually implemented its "vision" of Black-run
>states that were at least as viable and legitimate as the neo- colonial
>dependency that the US and Israel have been planning for the occupied
>territories.
>
>
>Meanwhile the US continues to "enhance terror," to borrow the
>President's words, by providing Israel with the means for terror and
>destruction, including a new shipment of the most advanced helicopters
>in the US arsenal (Robert Fisk, Independent, 7 April). These are
>standard reactions to atrocities by a client regime. To cite one
>instructive example, in the first days of the current Intifada, Israel
>used US helicopters to attack civilian targets, killing 10 Palestinians
>and wounding 35, hardly in "self-defense." Clinton responded with an
>agreement for "the largest purchase of military helicopters by the
>Israeli Air Force in a decade" (Ha'aretz, 3 October, '01), along with
>spare parts for Apache attack helicopters. The press helped out by
>refusing to report the facts. A few weeks later, Israel began to use US
>helicopters for assassinations as well. One of the first acts of the
>Bush administration was to send Apache Longbow helicopters, the most
>murderous available. That received some marginal notice under business
>news.
>
>
>Washington's commitment to "enhancing terror" was illustrated again in
>December, when it vetoed a Security Council Resolution calling for
>implementation of the Mitchell Plan and dispatch of international
>monitors to oversee reduction of violence, the most effective means as
>generally recognized, opposed by Israel and regularly blocked by
>Washington. The veto took place during a 21-day period of calm --
>meaning that only one Israeli soldier was killed, along with 21
>Palestinians including 11 children, and 16 Israeli incursions into areas
>under Palestinian control (Graham Usher, Middle East International, 25
>January '02). Ten days before the veto, the US boycotted -- thus
>undermined -- an international conference in Geneva that once again
>concluded that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the occupied
>terrorities, so that virtually everything the US and Israel do there is
>a "grave breach"; a "war crime" in simple terms. The conference
>specifically declared the US-funded Israeli settlements to be illegal,
>and condemned the practice of "wilful killing, torture, unlawful
>deportation, wilful depriving of the rights of fair and regular trial,
>extensive destruction and appropriation of property...carried out
>unlawfully and wantonly." As a High Contracting Party, the US is
>obligated by solemn treaty to prosecute those responsible for such
>crimes, including its own leadership. Accordingly, all of this passes in
>silence.
>
>
>The US has not officially withdrawn its recognition of the applicability
>of the Geneva Conventions to the occupied territories, or its censure of
>Israeli violations as the "occupying power" (affirmed, for example, by
>George Bush I when he was UN Ambassador). In October 2000 the Security
>Council reaffirmed the consensus on this matter, "call[ing] on Israel,
>the occupying power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations
>under the Fourth Geneva Convention." The vote was 14-0. Clinton
>abstained, presumably not wanting to veto one of the core principles of
>international humanitarian law, particularly in light of the
>circumstances in which it was enacted: to criminalize formally the
>atrocities of the Nazis. All of this too was consigned quickly to the
>memory hole, another contribution to "enhancing terror."
>
>
>Until such matters are permitted to enter discussion, and their
>implications understood, it is meaningless to call for "US engagement in
>the peace process," and prospects for constructive action will remain
>grim.