(Hanan Ashrawi’s daughter telling her story)

I am Palestinian - born and raised - and my Palestinian roots go back centuries. No one can change that even if they tell me that Jerusalem , my birth place, is not Palestine , even if they tell me that Palestine doesn't exist, even if they take away all my papers and deny me entry to my own home, even if they humiliate me and take away my rights. I AM PALESTINIAN.

Name: Zeina Emile Sam'an Ashrawi; Date of Birth: July 30, 1981; Ethnicity: Arab. This is what was written on my Jerusalem ID card. An ID card to a Palestinian is much more than just a piece of paper; it is my only legal documented relationship to Palestine . Born in Jerusalem , I was given a Jerusalem ID card (the blue ID), an Israeli Travel Document and a Jordanian Passport stamped Palestinian (I have no legal rights in Jordan ). I do not have an Israeli Passport, a Palestinian Passport or an American Passport.

Here is my story:

I came to the United States as a 17 year old to finish high school in Pennsylvania and went on to college and graduate school and subsequently got married and we are currently living in Northern Virginia. I have gone home every year at least once to see my parents, my family and my friends and to renew my Travel Document as I was only able to extend its validity once a year from Washington DC . My father and I would stand in line at the Israeli Ministry of Interior in Jerusalem , along with many other Palestinians, from 4:30 in the morning to try our luck at making it through the revolving metal doors of the Ministry before noon – when the Ministry closed its doors - to try and renew the Travel Document. We did that year after year. As a people living under an occupation, being faced with constant humiliation by an occupier was the norm but we did what we had to do to insure our identity was not stolen from us.

In August of 2007 I went to the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC to try and extend my travel document and get the usual "Returning Resident" VISA that the Israelis issue to Palestinians holding an Israeli Travel Document. After watching a few Americans and others being told that their visas would be ready in a couple of weeks my turn came. I walked up to the bulletproof glass window shielding the lady working behind it and under a massive picture of the Dome of the Rock and the Walls of Jerusalem that hangs on the wall in the Israeli consulate, I handed her my papers through a little slot at the bottom of the window.

"Shalom" she said with a smile. "Hi" I responded, apprehensive and scared. As soon as she saw my Travel Document her demeanor immediately changed. The smile was no longer there and there was very little small talk between us, as usual. After sifting through the paperwork I gave her she said: "where is your American Passport?" I explained to her that I did not have one and that my only Travel Document is the one she has in her hands. She was quiet for a few seconds and then said: "you don't have an American Passport?" suspicious that I was hiding information from her. "No!" I said. She was quiet for a little longer and then said: "Well, I am not sure we'll be able to extend your Travel Document." I felt the blood rushing to my head as this is my only means to get home! I asked her what she meant by that and she went on to tell me that since I had been living in the US and because I had a Green Card they would not extend my Travel Document.

After taking a deep breath to try and control my temper I explained to her that a Green Card is not a Passport and I cannot use it to travel outside the US. My voice was shaky and I was getting more and more upset (and a mini shouting match ensued) so I asked her to explain to me what I needed to do. She told me to leave my paperwork and we would see what happens.

A couple of weeks later I received a phone call from the lady telling me that she was able to extended my Travel Document but I would no longer be getting the "Returning Resident" VISA. Instead, I was given a 3 month tourist VISA. Initially I was happy to hear that the Travel Document was extended but then I realized that she said "tourist VISA". Why am I getting a tourist VISA to go home? Not wanting to argue with her about the 3 month VISA at the time so as not to jeopardize the extension of my Travel Document, I simply put that bit of information on the back burner and went on to explain to her that I wasn't going home in the next 3 months. She instructed me to come back and apply for another VISA when I did intend on going. She didn't add much and just told me that it was ready for pick-up. So I went to the Embassy and got my Travel Document and the tourist VISA that was stamped in it.

My husband, my son and I were planning on going home to Palestine this summer. So a month before we were set to leave (July 8, 2008) I went to the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC, papers in hand, to ask 2 for a VISA to go home. I, again, stood in line and watched others get VISAs to go to my home. When my turn came I walked up to the window; "Shalom" she said with a smile on her face, "Hi" I replied. I slipped the paperwork in the little slot under the bulletproof glass and waited for the usual reaction. I told her that I needed a returning resident VISA to go home. She took the paperwork and I gave her a check for the amount she requested and left the Embassy without incident.

A few days ago I got a phone call from Dina at the Israeli Embassy telling me that she needed the expiration date of my Jordanian Passport and my Green Card. I had given them all the paperwork they needed time and time again and I thought it was a good way on their part to waste time so that I didn't get my VISA in time. Regardless, I called over and over again only to get their voice mail. I left a message with the information they needed but kept called every 10 minutes hoping to speak to someone to make sure that they received the information in an effort to expedite the tedious process. I finally got a hold of someone. I told her that I wanted to make sure they received the information I left on their voice mail and that I wanted to make sure that my paperwork was in order. She said, after consulting with someone in the background (I assume it was Dina), that I needed to fax copies of both my Jordanian Passport and my Green Card and that giving them the information over the phone wasn't acceptable. So I immediately made copies and faxed them to Dina. A few hours later my cell phone rang. "Zeina?" she said. "Yes" I replied, knowing exactly who it was and immediately asked her if she received the fax I sent. She said: "ehhh, I was not looking at your file when you called earlier but your Visa was denied and your ID and Travel Document are no longer valid." "Excuse me?" I said in disbelief. "Sorry, I cannot give you a visa and your ID and Travel Document are no longer valid. This decision came from Israel not from me."

I cannot describe the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach. "Why?" I asked and Dina went on to tell me that it was because I had a Green Card. I tried to reason with Dina and to explain to her that they could not do that as this is my only means of travel home and that I wanted to see my parents, but to no avail. Dina held her ground and told me that I wouldn't be given the VISA and then said: "Let the Americans give you a Travel Document".

I have always been a strong person and not one to show weakness but at that moment I lost all control and started crying while Dina was on the other end of the line holding my only legal documents linking me to my home. I began to plead with her to try and get the VISA and not revoke my documents; "put yourself in my shoes, what would you do? You want to go see your family and someone is telling you that you can't! What would you do? Forget that you're Israeli and that I'm Palestinian and think about this for a minute!" "Sorry" she said," I know but I can't do anything, the decision came from Israel ". I tried to explain to her over and over again that I could not travel without my Travel Document and that they could not do that - knowing that they could, and they had!

This has been happening to many Palestinians who have a Jerusalem ID card. The Israeli government has been practicing and perfecting the art of ethnic cleansing since 1948 right under the nose of the world and no one has the power or the guts to do anything about it. Where else in the world does one have to beg to go to one's own home? Where else in the world does one have to give up their identity for the sole reason of living somewhere else for a period of time? Imagine if an American living in Spain for a few years wanted to go home only to be told by the American government that their American Passport was revoked and that they wouldn't be able to come back!

If I were a Jew living anywhere around the world and had no ties to the area and had never set foot there, I would have the right to go any time I wanted and get an Israeli Passport. In fact, the Israelis encourage that. I however, am not Jewish but I was born and raised there, my parents, family and friends still live there and I cannot go back! I am neither a criminal nor a threat to one of the most powerful countries in the world, yet I am alienated and expelled from my own home.

As it stands right now, I will be unable to go home - I am one of many.

So today is the third day of Eid Al Fitr that all Muslims worldwide celebrate right after the culmination of the month of Ramadan. Not sure if it’s only me, but Ramadan seems to have lost its glory. Years ago when I was a child, people’s attitudes towards both Ramadan and Eid (festival) were way different than now. Maybe I have grown up to the extent that I see in them nothing but the mere fact that few arrogant relatives come for a visit for a couple of minutes, and everyone just sucks them up.

It has been a gloomy day in deed. Being self-centered often times, I thought that my own family never enjoyed the Ramadan that other people celebrate. But the night prior to the Eid, I went for a drive to Ramallah with my uncle and three sisters, we toured around Al Manara and the mall a bit, and felt the legendary atmosphere. People were happy. That hit me; I am not accustomed to seeing them vividly preoccupied with the preparation for the big “day.”

So I came back home and wrote to all my contacts wishing them a Happy Eid and expressed my astonishment and satisfaction to see promising smiles in the crowded streets of Ramallah. But the sad part was that I knew it was merely fleeting moments and that those smiles would be wiped off soon. Not only have my fears become true, but I was blind. Yes, blind. Or may be I just chose not to see it. May be I wanted to believe that we are actually happy.

Would I miss Ramadan? NO. Not really. It has been made hell this year.

While Ramadan is believed to be the holy month during which people get closer to Allah by fasting from food and drink all day long and focus on their faith instead, I am not pretty sure this was the case with us Palestinians. It was only a drug. Ramadan numbed our pain. We could handle both the Israeli and Palestinian political, economic, and security pressure knowing that the day of salvation was approaching; the Eid. But after the three days elapsed, then what?

Now thousands of Palestinians are waiting for the next phase. It has been seven months now. Seven months, and thousands of the PA employees have not received their salaries. And two months elapsed with millions of students deprived form their right of education. I have three sisters and two brothers who do nothing but stay at home. They have not attended school from the very beginning of this term. It is both sad and frustrating that they have to “do the time” and pay a high price.

Reading the news headlines on the first days of Eid is not healthy at all. It lessens the effect of the drug, and one starts to get sober. Sounds funny in deed, but that was the case.

Few minutes ago, I surfed some of the blogs and came across few Iraqi bloggers writing on both Ramadan and Eid. If the titles did not mention “in Iraq,” I swear I could never tell the difference between Iraq and Palestine. The hunger, misery, constant killing, and lack of security are all Palestinian symptoms.

I am speechless now; I can hardly verbalize the so many conflicting thoughts. Heaven knows how things would be like next Ramadan, but I would not speculate it already. It is not time to worry about it now, other issues are on stake; food, money, and education. Until then, there are a lot of things to sort out.

Yesterday, I realized that I believe in love at first sight. Not the romantic kind, rather the sense of connecting with another human being without ever having to say a word. Indeed, the person I was so enthralled with last night was a five-month-old girl, who smiled at me and then hid her face in shyness. Those few moments of interacting with this baby lifted my spirits, but it also made me reflect in sadness about the fact that many children in this current conflict are robbed of their joy and their childhood.

I often contemplate how mature Palestinian children seem. Sure, they play the childhood games that we all played in our day, but there is wisdom in their words that is eerily sobering. Their age defines them as children, but if you have a conversation with a Palestinian child, you will realize how much awareness she has of the world around her, of suffering in the next village, in Gaza, in Lebanon. She is a child that has empathy and understands that life, by nature, is wrought with all sorts of difficulties.

A Palestinian child knows better; life is not as it is depicted in cartoons, where those who die are miraculously resurrected not once, but several times, where injuries are healed instantaneously, where death is a joke and life is a series of slapstick moments. A Palestinian child escapes into imagination, but she is never far removed from the reality of children and adults alike being indiscriminately shot outside her window, in her classroom, at the local bakery.

Who would have thought that normal things, simply walking down the street to grab a falafel sandwich, could result in your untimely death? Perhaps the Israeli army mistook the falafel stand for a bomb-making factory, or an ammunition shop? Make no mistake about it; the Israeli military have made too many “mistakes” that there is obviously a pattern there, wouldn’t you think?

A child that is robbed of the sense of security, therefore, is a child that is mature beyond her years. She knows that the bullets and the tank shells do not discriminate. Her father can shield her from the neighbor’s vicious dog, from the crazy drivers, he will hold her hand to cross the street, but he will not be able to capture a bullet in his hand like the mythological superheroes in blockbuster movies out this summer in theatres near you. He might be able to take the bullet for her though. But once gone, who will be her protective shield against the harsh reality of life that goes on in what seems the periphery of the conflict? And who will be there to share some of her joyous milestones; graduation, marriage, the birth of a child? Hers is a joy that is always overshadowed by a greater sorrow.

Is it fair that 31 Palestinian children have died in a 31-day period? A child-a-day; is that the new Israeli army mantra? Khaled was just a one-year-old, Aya was seven, Sabreen was only three. What lost potential, what lost promise – who knows what Khaled would have grown up to be? An astronaut? A veterinarian? A philosopher? What about Aya; she could have become a fashion designer, a teacher, a mother. By what right has this promise been so violently plucked and trampled upon cruelly and without a moment’s hesitation on the part of the Israeli soldier, who heartlessly unleashed a fiery rain of bullets and shells on a neighborhood as if he is in a simulated video game and those who die are fictitious and unreal? Perhaps that is what he is made to believe, otherwise, who in clear consciousness is so willing to pull the trigger and with one spray of bullets destroy life, potential and rob joy?

If you can see the smiling face of your own child, then how do you go out and unquestioningly take the life of others? If you value life, then how do you live with the burden of knowing that you have taken it so unjustifiably? Perhaps that is your perpetual punishment; the judgment of a child scorned is the harshest of them all.

The Israeli expansionist establishment is making efforts to improve the security of Israel by building the Wall, by keeping the Palestinians under tight control, jailing some of them, killing others, establishing checkpoints etc..

The security of Israel has indeed improved, and the Israeli leaders may hope that it will increase still more. But in reality, those leaders live in a dangerous illusion. They confuse short-term security with long-term security. There can be no long term security for a country surrounded by unfriendly neighbors. The Israeli leaders should remember that the temple of Jerusalem has been destroyed more than once. There is no guarantee that the state of Israel could not be destroyed too. No one can guarantee that the balance of power will always favor the US. The US itself is not immune to economic crisis which, when they reach a high level may endanger the stability of the country. It is not excluded that the European Union will become a super-power comparable or even more powerful than the US. It is even not excluded that the US may stop to blindly support Israel.

There is no guarantee that no Arab state will ever become a military power comparable to Israel. The only long term security is that resulting from long term peace with the neighbors. And peace cannot be a long term one if it does not include enough elements of justice so that it will not be questioned by next generations.

Similarly the two countries are the best external market for each other. And a country that is not prosperous cannot be a good market for its neighbors. Besides, prosperity depends on peace and security which, as is obvious, cannot be reached for one of the two people alone.

Let us now consider the Palestinian side. On the short term, it is clear that Palestinians have little security, no peace and no prosperity. The only way the Palestinians could have them alone, would be if, by a miracle, the land got rid of all the Israeli population. Such a miracle, even if at all possible, cannot be contemplated within a foreseeable time. And what if it never occurs? No one has come with a serious strategy which would result in the elimination of the Israeli population from Palestine. The Palestinians should come to realize that the Israeli population is here to stay. Most of the Palestinians are willing to live in peace with the actual Israeli population

What then prevents the two peoples from joining their efforts, and together realize their aims of security, peace and prosperity? Part of the answer is obvious.

The Israeli expansionist leadership is not interested in peace. This is such a major obstacle. that, without toppling this leadership, there can be no hope for peace, security and prosperity on the long term. This must lead us to the pragmatic realization that, in the foreseeable future, only the Israeli people can topple the Israeli government. And the Israeli people is the one that votes for such leaderships that are against peace. Why?

Because the Israeli leadership and many Palestinian leaderships have acted in the past in a way which increases the distance, the suspicions and the fears between the two people. In previous papers I endeavored to show that the Israeli people are as decent as any other people. But though I know this to be true, I do not need to take it as a pillar of my argument. The Israeli people will topple their government once they will lose their fears, and will realize that a just peace is in their own best interest.

Here are some historic facts which are at the root of the fear of the Israelis:

1) The suicide bombings convey the message that Palestinians hate Jews and not only the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip.

2) For a long time various Palestinian organizations expressed in their programs their will to expel all Jews who immigrated in Israel after 1948. Though the PLO did abrogate that aim from its covenant, the Israeli leadership continue to ignore it and to tell the Israeli people that such is not the case.

3) I heard myself in 1976, an Egyptian broadcast in Hebrew telling the Israelis that the time of reckoning had come and that the Egyptian army will invade Israel, rape all their wives and daughters and throw the rest of the population to the sea. This broadcast was at total variance with the policy of Gamal abd el Nasser. He latter dissolves "Sout Al Arab", the radio station who did the broadcast . However, one should not ignore the effect of such a broadcast on the population that raised the present generation of Israelis

4) No where in the world is there a single democratic Arab state

Those factors are constantly worked upon by the expansionist Israeli leadership, to make sure to constantly increase the distance between the two people.

In "stumbling blocks" I showed in great details how the Palestinians can develop and implement a strategy which will result in shaking the Israeli people out of its blinders. This strategy was based on the demonstrated possibility of driving a wedge between the Israeli expansionist leadership and the Israeli people. This strategy is of a nature that speaks to the Israeli people by deeds whose effect would be traumatic to the Israeli people, in the good sense of the word. As a first result, the Israeli people will have their fear reduced to the level at which they will demand the evacuation of the West Bank, of the Gaza strip, and the dismantling of the Jewish settlements. Still the fears will not have receded to the point the Israeli people would agree to the return of the Palestinian refugees. This will become possible when two states, a Palestinian and an Israeli would have lived side by side in friendly relations, and a exemplary democratic Palestinian state would demonstrate that, in matter of tolerance, practice of democracy, the Palestinians have no lesson to receive from anyone.

It is important to notice that according to the strategy, the two states situation will occur after the toppling of the Israeli expansionist leadership. Otherwise, it would make no sense to speak of friendly relations between the two people. The time will then come when, after the Israeli crimes of ethnic cleansing will have been made public in Israel by honest historians (the work has began), after the relation between the two people would have become friendly and even brotherly, the question of the return of the Palestinian refugees will be dealt in an atmosphere in which fear plays no role, and justice not distorted by fear can take place.

To make all that possible the support to the strategy must grow. Your help is requested. Clement

The probability is small that Sharon will die during his tenure as prime minister of Israel. He may then be honored with a state funeral. It is certain that he will not receive the expression of respect from the whole world in a measure close to the almost universal respect given internationally to the memory of Arafat. It is very doubtful that a silence of one minute will be observed at the United Nation, as it has been for Arafat

This deserves attention. Arafat was not a recognized head of state. There was no international obligation to honor the dead man to the extent he has been. He was neither a head of state de jure nor a head of state de facto. He was not the head of a government in exile. At most, he was the Chairman of an authority, the Palestinian authority. In reality, he was not even that. He was a prisoner in a part of a building.

The respect and the honor he received internationally, and which was no less than that given to a head of state, must have been given to him in a different quality. It is clear that he had other merits. The man honored so much at his death was perceived as personifying his people. And in order to be able to personify his people, he must have had exceptional qualities. In honoring him the whole world was honoring the individual, and the people he personified.

Olaf Palm died assassinated while being the prime minister of Sweden. He was honored in his death as the exceptional individual he was, as the prime minister he was, and as the victim of assassination. Still, he was not perceived as personifying his people.

In a given sense, Arafat can be compared to Charles de Gaule who personified the French people while France was occupied by Germany. Arafat can also be compared to Jeanne d'Arc, who mobilized the energies of the French people resisting the English invasion. Arafat was respected not only for personifying the Palestinian people, but for having been able to personify his people.

And this man, now universally honored and respected, had been treated with such injustice, disrespect and inhumanity by the Israeli authorities. It is clear therefore that all that respect and honor given posthumously to Arafat, represent that much condemnation of Israel, that much disrespect and dishonor for Israel.

It is therefore clear that, by refusing to Arafat the burial in Jerusalem, Israel puts itself on the ban of the world public opinion. This applies to Bush who supported Israel in its treatment of Arafat.

We must first recognize that the Geneva Accord is a serious document. The authors have obviously invested a lot of time in research and thought to ponder on the multiple considerations it involves.

I have not yet seen the maps. Let us suppose that they are consistent with the Security Council resolution 242 which forbids the acquisition of territory as the result of war.

The West Bank territories, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem would become a separate Palestinian state. That is great! Some violations of Palestinian sovereignty on the territory are mentioned, such as Israel's right to use Palestinian airspace for their air force practice. Other violations have a temporary character.

The main objection is that the agreement does not implement the right of return of Palestinian refugees. It offers a number of choices to the refugees except the choice to go back to Israeli territory, even if one is native of the land on which Israel will have sovereignty. Still, the refugees will get compensations, will receive citizenship in Palestine, or in hosting countries, will be able to have a passport and to travel. Palestinians having an Israeli citizenship would no longer be discriminated against.

The accord seems to have been formulated in such a way that it could be accepted by a fearful Israeli population, fearful of the intentions of the Palestinians. It lacks symmetry. While Palestine would remain a demilitarized country, no such request is imposed on Israel.

Is it a just solution? Obviously not! Can the Palestinians get a better deal by other ways? And how long would it take?

Here are my guesses. Say the Palestinians reject the Geneva accord; they will appear unreasonable in the eyes of international public opinion. This will give more latitude to the ‘Sharonites’ to have recourse to their extremist solutions. The Palestinians will find themselves totally isolated. As time will pass, less and less of what the Palestinians would like to claim would find itself on the negotiating table. Yes, the Palestinians would have remained committed to the right of return of the refugees. However, the prospects of seeing those rights implemented in the near future would remain dim at best.

Now, say that the Palestinian National Authority does accept the Geneva Accord; my guess is that any expansionist Israeli leadership would reject it. Israel would be internationally blamed for that. However, that rejection may have a strong effect on the internal situation in Israel, especially if the Palestinians do learn how to speak to the Israeli people over the head of their leaders; the Israeli extremists might become less popular. There could be, in time, an evolution in Israel, bringing to power a government sincerely willing to live in peace with the Palestinians.

Then, what about the refugees? Are their rights doomed to limited choices that exclude the one they would have made, if given a chance? Not necessarily.

Consider the real possibility of an evolution in the relations between the two states such that they would be willing to accept any of the possible ways of voluntary union. This option will remain, even with the Geneva agreement. Palestinians will have to unwaveringly implement a strategy that talks to the people of Israel and will result in their public opinion moving steadily to the left, till the union would become a possibility. At that time those refugees who would have chosen to move to Palestine, will get the freedom to move anywhere in Israel too, after the two countries would have united voluntarily.

I am still musing over the Accord, and waiting for more details. I must confess that I am hesitant to reject a solution which would bring security, freedom and the end of humiliation to the Palestinians in the West Bank, would improve the lot of the refugees (but would not realize their ultimate dream), and yet I worry that it might prolong the agony of the Palestinians in the occupied territories and that of the refugees, wherever they be. It is an exceedingly tough decision to make. How much easier would it be to let Sharon reject it!

For more articles by the author please visit the following sites:

http://cleibovi.shawbiz.ca
http://cleibovi.shawbiz.ca/appeasement
http://cleibovi.shawbiz.ca/justpeace

A wedge is not a peace agreement. It could be a speech, a statement, a slogan, a constitution strategically worded etc.. We will later examine the possibilities.

Let us look at the following diagram:

The Israeli population is symbolically distributed along the line from A to G. In G are the Sharonites and their likes. In A is Jeff Halper and Ilan Pappe and their likes. A, B, C, D, E, F and G represent political positions from close to the Halperites to close to the Sharonites.

In G no one is brainwashed. They are criminally minded people who would stop at nothing to expand the territory inhabited by Jews at the expense of the Palestinian population. In G are a majority of settlers,together with Barak and Shimon Perez, and all past Israeli leaders.

In A are Israelis who are completely de-brainwashed. Jeff Helper and Ilan Pappe, and many more, reside there.

Now going from right to left, are Jewish Israelis who are less and less brainwashed. In F, the brainwashing is total. In B it is minimal. In E may be the Israelis who support the unilateral evacuation of the post-1967 occupied territories, who support the formation of a Palestinian state ruling over the evacuated territories, but who do not approve the right of return of the refugees etc... Some of the refuseniks are there, while others are quite more to the left. We cannot be successful without considering the "map" of population distribution according to their different political stands.

The very lazy way is to consider two kinds of Israeli people, those who are against the one state, the return of all the Palestinian refugees, (and for some the expulsion of the post-1948 Jewish immigrants and descendants), and those who do not accept the totality of the program. Of course we are left without strategy except for violence, and remain totally isolated from the Israeli people and from the international public opinion. This is a classical skeletic strategy, a recipe for failure ansd disaster. I will call those who take such a position "the dogmatics" and will write a posting dedicated to them, a posting aiming at removing the wedge berween the dogmatics, who are indeed so well intentioned, and whose potential to help is so enormous, and those who like me know that victory needs less simplification of the political mesh.

Just now, the majority of the Israeli population seem situated between F and G.

To introduce succesfully the wedge at a given position, we must have formulated it so that it would allow the transfer of the greatest possible number of Israelis from right of the wedge to left of it.

Where do we introduce the wedge? Right of the wedge would be those who would not be detached from the criminal Israeli leadership. To the left of the wedge would be the people detachable from the Sharonites.

The more the wedge is close to G the greater the number who can be detached from the Israeli leadership. The more the wedge is close to A, the lesser number of people who can be detached from the Israeli leadership.

Now the choice of the best point where the wedge is to be drawn is ruled by three considerations:

1) we want to detach as many Israelis from supporting the Sharonites,
2) we do not want to compromise our principles for the sake of putting the wedge as close as possible to G,
3) and that is crucial, the wedge can be introduced many times, each time at a different location, and more to the left than previously.

To apply 1) the wedge must be introduced close enough to G. Which means that some but not all the aspirations of the Palestinians are now claimed.

To apply 2) means for a Palestinian leadership, not to commit itself, in whatsoever way, to a renunciation of the remaining aspirations.

To apply 3) means that the wedge can be introduced in a place X close to G and then, after the largest part of the population from X to G will have moved away from Sharon, the wedge can be introduced in a place Y a bit closer to A than before. For instance, by aiming to and concentrating on just an end of the occupation, without renouncing our ultimate objectives, we obviously can detach more people than by aiming at once at realising all our objectives.

Then, when in the process, the wedge is introduced in F, almost the whole population will have come in the section between F and G, ready to topple the Sharonites and replace them with the Halperites. It will then be possible to have two very friendly states, but still, the return of the refugees will not have the support of the majority of the Israeli population. Which may be as well since the return should be made in an atmosphere where the returned refugees will feel secure and not killed by Israelis opposed to their return. It needs some more time to a radically new kind of Israeli leadership to accomplish a SAFE return of the refugees.

However, less than a decade of the rule under Halperites would create a "miracle" in the attitude of the two people. The Halperites will implement a non discriminating democracy, will empty the jails from their Palestinian prisoners, will cooperate with the new Palestinian state in view of a fair distribution of the water ressources, will support international efforts at reconstructing the Palestinian economy, and will participate in that reconstruction. All such aims would be impossible to achieve without the toppling of the govenment with the help of an Israeli majority who accepts our temporary partial aims. It would take too much space to describe all that an Halperite could do till the wedge is displaced to a more to the left position, allowing the Halperite to do much more.

As soon as the first Halperite government would be established in Israel, a suspenion of the law of return concerning the Jews all over the world must take place. The suspension would be a necessary step prior to issuing new laws for entrance in Israel and for obtaining its citizenship. Those laws will not give any privilege to Jews with respect to other ethnic groups or with respect to other religions.

The Halperite government will have to act fast, but with extreme caution. It has to avoid a civil war inside Israel. This need should not be used to justify a freezing of the status quo. The Israeli state has to advance firmly in the direction of secularisation of the state.

At the same time, if the strategy suggested is implemented by the Palestinian side, the new state will adopt a secular constitution which friendly "speaks" to all Palestinian neighbours, Israel included, as will be explained later. Between Palestinian supporters of the strategy, and Israeli Halperites, the cooperation would increase smoothly, while the constituency of the leaders of suicide bombings, will decrease rapidly in the measure in which the hopes of the Palestinians for a decent and prosperous life will increase.

It remains to see how to formulate a strategy that specifies the different places where the wedge would be introduced at different times.

As you can see, the Palestinian leaders must consider themselves as sitting in the room of the "general staff" receiving the news from the battlefield on the progressive de-brainwashing of the Israeli people, and considering when the moment is appropriate to move the wedge more to the left, and what measures will do that with the desired amount of displacement.

Such leaders will not be politicians interested in their political survival. They have to be knowledgeable, wise, creative in suggesting proper moves. Only such a leadership following a correct strategy can bring results.

Just proclaiming a preference for one state rather than two, just an attempt to aim directl;y to the ultimate objectives at once, will not do. We have to deal with a clever enemy who wants, and has succeeded, to isolate us from the Israeli population. Doing the reverse, separating the Jewish population from the Israeli leadership, demands more than just nice speeches condemning the Israelis (which of course must be done) and not just supporting only those who agree with our ultimate aims.

Victory demands statemanship. It is easy, very very easy to condemn everyone else who differ from us, however slightly. It is very easy to condemn the average Israeli without putting one's self in his shoes, of course not that he is right, but to find out the best way to de-brainwash him.

Generals, at he head of the army, have to study military strategy. Politicians at the head of the Palestinian people, or who would like to lead the Palestinian people to victory, must also learn scientific political strategy.

The next section will be concerned with putting ourselves in Israeli shoes. Then, and only then, will we be able to know exactly what is the average Israeli.

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In the Shoes of the Average Israeli

The average Israeli is the product of a great number of factors. Accurate knowledge about his make-up, is essential to determine the measure in which he can be detached from the expansionists Israeli leaderships he has supported since the creation of Israel, and whether he is amenable to become a supporter of a radically new kind of Israeli leadership genuinely interested in a just peace between the Palestinian and the Israeli people.

In view of my experience, in view of what I witnessed, I can give a clear answer to the question. However, in view of the complexity of the matter, my presentation has to be long. It may be at odds with many preconceived opinions.

Please consider the crucial importance of the matter, and do bear with me and consider the evidence which leads me to conclusions which can play a decisive role in the drawing of a correct strategy of success.

I will walk in the shoes of the average Israeli, not to judge him with or without compassion, but to understand why he votes for Sharon, to find out what can be done, so that he votes for a decent leadership, and there had not been a single decent Israeli leadership since the creation of the Israeli state.

One can reach deductive conclusions from the fact that the use of Internet has spread all over the world, so that anyone can now have access to the truth. Nobody therefore can say "I did not know".

Such a deductive conclusion is at most interesting. Say the internet is available to everyone. But the internet is as full of truths as it is of lies. The normal tendency is to pick up from the internet the information that reinforces your own opinions, your own prejudices, and there is plenty of it.

Here, my testimony as a better-than-average Israeli, has a documentary value. Better because of my life-long anti-zionism stand, and my greater immunization against the zionism propaganda, immunization that proved to be very inadequate.

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I was born in Egypt. Since my teen age, particularly after the end of the war in 1945, Zionists approached me to recruit me. Most of them were full of idealism, determined to establish in Israel a just society for the Jews. The arabs could establish a just society for themselves. There was no racist anti-arab feelings among most of them. But their concern was uniquely for the Jews.

They believed that only when the Jews would be grouped together in a single country, would they be protected from "universal" anti-Semitism

Later, after ww2, the slogan "Never again" was implanted in their minds as demanding a large and powerful Jewish population in Israel. Only thus would the jews be immune to virulent anti-Semitism. This argument that convinced so many of my friends, did not convince me.

Their idealism was part of a pre-zionist culture. Traditionally, jews had adopted liberal causes and supported social justice. The zionist who wanted to recruit me where not different. They dreamed to establish a system of kibbutzim, all ruled by socialist ideals, and would transform Palestine into a socialist society for the good of the immigrating Jews and the local Palestinian population. But I knew that the Kibbutzim were to be purely Jewish. The arabs could create their own kibbutzim. Those young zionists were naive.

My father and grandfather were born in Palestine under the turks. This makes me a Jewish Palestinian. I lived in Israel from 1959 to 1969 as an anti-zionist activist, defender of the right cause of the Palestinians. I was going from door to door discussing with Israelis and trying to improve their vision.

My efforts were impaired by my own lack of vision.

Here is what formed the basis of my anti-zionism:

1) There was a local population in Palestine which, were it not for foreign intervention, would have evolved their own regime. The poor Palestinian peasants, working on land belonging to absentee landlords, would have had the possibility to revolt and proceed to a land reform. The selling of land by the absentees was the selling of the peasants' rights to redistribute the land among them.

2) Zionism is racially divisive. It divides the world into Jews and non-Jews. I did not like it.

3) I suspected, but was by no way certain, that the local Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, where subject to what I believed to be minor indignities.

4) I did not like the idea of implanting a people on the land belonging to another, even if it is done peacefully, with all appearances of legality.

5) I thought that a Jew born in any country, had to feel some allegiance, sympathy and love for the country of birth, particularly if he is not persecuted in that country. I strongly opposed the idea that Jews from Europe, and from Arab countries, should transfer their loyalty to the Zionist movement, and then to Israel

6) I was outraged that Israel seized more territory than was assigned to her by the UN partition.

7) later, by the end of my stay, in 1967, I did know the truth on the war of conquest in 1967.

8) I believed that arab broadcasts told the Palestinians to leave the country till the arab armies would throw the Jews to the sea. Still, I thought that it does not justify preventing the Palestinians to return to their properties. I believed in the right of return of the refugees.

My strong opposition to zionism was not based on more than that.

What I did not know was:

1) that Israel had recourse to a deliberate ethnic cleansing.

2) deliberately, Israeli created the myth that broadcasts from arab countries told the Palestinian population in Israel to leave their country and take refuge in arab countries till the arab armies would throw the Jews to the sea. I know today that it is a shameful lie.

3) that the Arab citizen in Israel were strongly discriminated against.

4) that the Israeli governments were totally opposed to make peace with Gamal-Abd-Al-Nasser. The later was the most respected arab leader in the middle east. He extended a peaceful hand to Israel. How Israel rejected this hand is a revealing story I might tell in another message.

5) I had no knowledge of massacres committed by Israelis. I did not know that Israelis had killed Egyptian prisoners, or practically condemning them to death by forcing them on a way of return through the desert. No prisoner could make it.

I soon realized that there were two kind of Zionism, the one applied in practice and was criminal, barbaric and racist, and an idealist form of Zionism which had no reality and was destined to be implanted in the minds of the Jewish people as a means of brainwashing.

Let us quote here a refusenik:

"AS AN OFFICER IN THE PARATROOPS AND AS A JEW I KNOW: OPPRESSION OF ANOTHER PEOPLE - IS NOT ZIONISM"
-- First Lieutenant (reserves) David Zonshein

It takes courage to become a refusenik. All refuseniks have to expect to be repeatedly condemned to 3 months of prisons. As long as the Israelis remain in the dark concerning the criminal nature of their leaders' policies, the refuseniks are outcasts. They are also blacklisted when it comes to obtain jobs. They may face difficulties with their families.

A refusenik is a soldier or an officer who would not participate in the repression of a people. Such is David Zonshein.

Obviously, would he have known that the essence of zionism is the oppression of a people, had he known that zionism was responsible for operations of ethnic cleansing, which resulted in the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians from their country, their properties and their lands, David Zonshein would not remain a Zionist. He has proven his decency by putting his future on the line rather than be an accomplice to the crimes of occupation. He did it because he believes in zionism, because, as incredible it appears to us, he believes in the morality of zionism. When his idealist unreal zionism clashes with zionism as practiced in reality, he solves the contradiction by proclaiming the ideal zionism to be true, and the one implemented in reality, to be false, a betrayal of zionism. His ideal zionism is humane and compassionate. He loved zionism for that, for what he believed to be its humanist perspective. It is for him such a beautiful ideal that he cannot abandon it. He therefore condemns the implementation of zionism, not realizing that this implementation was aimed at by the Zionist leaders, from the very beginning. He just was deliberately fooled when taught the ideal aspect of Zionism.

The whole establishment encouraged the humanistic belief of the young Zionists. "He would not walk" if not fooled into believing in that idealistic aspect. The whole educational system reinforced that belief.

The media, Israeli and international, reinforced the idealistic beliefs. When at the beginning of the second intefadah, two Israeli were captured in Ramallah by an angry mob and then killed in a barbaric way, the event was broadcasted on all TV stations. When the Israeli state commits worse crimes, they do not appear on TV. The one that did appear, in which a father was calling for the stop of shooting, while protecting the body of his son,. was indeed seen in the world. However, a controversy was launched by the Israelis, pretending having proofs that the bullets which killed the son and the father, were Palestinian bullets.

Of course, a majority of Israelis chose to believe that version because "Jews do not do that".

And if an over-average decent Israeli like David could be so ignorant of the crimes of Zionism, we can expect the average Israelis to be still more ignorant. We may remember that most of today's Israeli population either were too young in 1948, or immigrated in Israel much after that

The Zionist establishment, who devised the criminal deprivation of the Palestinian from their land, could not do it without the support of a large Jewish population, preferably very young jews. Therefore, their first task was to attract as many young Jews as possible, to what would become Israel.

This policy of early encouragement to immigration would have been a total failure unless a policy of brainwashing was cleverly developed, brainwashing of the Jewish young mind.

The criminal lie stating "Palestine is a land without people, waiting to harbor a people without land" was totally contradicted by reality. When was it destined to fool? The world public opinion?

Certainly not. It was a time of colonialism. At the time, colonizing was considered the duty of white people who would thus bring knowledge, progress and civilization to backwards people. There was at the time no need to concoct such a lie for the world public opinion.

However, Hertzl had conscientiously planned the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. This would be totally unacceptable for the young Jews all over the world, most of whom were idealist. These were the people needed to be fooled. They were made to believe that Hertzl' ethnic cleansing was not in the program of their zionist organization. And they believe it. Their local leaders, in the countries from which they would emigrate, were often naive and believed indeed that Palestine would be transformed into an island of justice for all, including of course whatever small local population existed.

I personally talked to those local leaders in Egypt. Their enthusiasm and idealism was contagious. I was not astonished that so many of the young Jews were convinced and recruited. They were all admirable people.

I was an exception among the young Jews. I totally believed in their sincerity and their idealism. But I was against a policy which practically divided the world into jews and non-jews. Imbued with French culture, I found the slogan of the French revolution "liberty, equality and fraternity" to be more universal than zionism. Not all Jewish youth were so imbued with French culture.

The Israeli establishment knew that they had constantly to fool the young immigrants. It is thus that, later, they invented the concept of purity of arms. According to it, the Israeli army is to operate defensively only. And, if it has to use force, it should be the minimum necessary to ensure security. But at the same time, the soldiers were taught the importance of discipline and obedience to orders. The high command of the IDF, knew exactly how to implement military policies compatible with the purity of arms. The soldiers themselves did not havethe whole picture and could not understand sometimes why an act which apparently was aggressive and excessive, was indeed, in the larger picture, defensive and measured. We know how false is that description of the IDF officers who draw its policies.

Let us now wear the shoes of an average Israeli. We will call him Abner.

Abner believes that, because of the persecution the Jews had been subjected to for so many centuries, the Jews, more than any other human group, have developed a profound sense of empathy and of social justice. His parents are secular in thinking . Abner believes that Jews do not do immoral things, and a zionist government does not act immorally.

He mentions that the Palestinians had refused the partition as decided by the UN. Had they accepted, they would have had more than what they are now dreaming to have.

I had many discussions with such "good zionists" who refused to hear mild accusations I made to the zionist establishment. I had to be mad, they thought, to believe in what I was saying. Simply put "Jews do not do that".

It is later, much later, after I left Israel, that I discovered the whole truth. The partial truth I knew, made me a life-time anti-zionist, The much more complete picture, induced in me the will to dedicate my life ( what can remain of it to a 79 years old man) to advance the cause of the Palestinian people, my people too.

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In the shoes of an average Israeli (2)

In 1967, I lived in Israel. I witnessed how the crisis developed which ultimately erupted in a surprise attack by the Israeli forces against Egypt. For those who have been fed false information by the media, I will just say that Gamal-Abd-Al-Nassar did not want that war, and did not start it. Israel who started the military action says now that the first shot was the Egyptian decision to close the straight of Tiran to the Israeli vessels.

If first non-military shots are to be considered, history shows that the first shots were the Israeli arrogant declarations, by such authorities as the President of Israel, the Prime Minister of Israel and the minister of defence of Israel, declaring that they did not like the new government of Syria and were decided to enter in Syria and change that government.

The fact is that "war was in the air" in 1967, and the Israeli population was afraid, very afraid.

Ten years earlier, Egypt had been militarily beaten by the triple alliance of Britain, France and Israel. The victory had not been decisive. On the one hand, Gamal Abd el Nasser had ordered his army to retreat up to western side of the Canal. So, the egyptian army was safe, and not yet beaten.

Then two ultimatums were issued one after the other. The first ultimatum was Issued by Britian to Israel and Egypt, to evacuate their troups and keep a minimal given distance from both sides of the canal.

The second ultimatum was issued by The Soviet Union to Britain, France and Israel telling that if, by two days and at a given hour, the hostilities were not stopped, The Soviet Union would take the measures to stop it. In the same ultimatum the Soviet Union mentioned balistic capabilities allowing her to drop bombs on the two western capitals.

At that time, the US made public its opposition to the anglo-British-Israeli aggression, and asked the hostilities to cease. Britain and France ceased their hostilities pretending to bow to the US pressure. However, they did so in time to avert the punishing measures hinted to by the Soviet Union.

The importance of those events was that Egypt seemed to be more powerful than in 1948. It also had a powerful ally. In the meantime, 10 years had passed. The Soviet Union, it was well-known, had modernised the Egyptian army. The military superiority of Israel was not obvious to the Israeli population.

The fear was encouraged by the Israeli government who did not stop underlining the lie that Israel was threatened with annihilation.

It was known at the time that the PLO was refusing to recognise the existence of Israel. Gamal Abd el Nasser was misrepresented as an Aggressive Arab leader bent on destroying Israel.

The wish of the Israeli population was that war was to be avoided. The Israeli leaders, they thought, should not gamble with the existence of the state of Israel.

And then, in a matter of a day, the mood changed completely. It was due to broadcasts in Hebrew by the Egyptian radio station "Sout Al Arab".

In these broadcasts, the station was telling in Hebrew to the Israelis, that the time for the Palestinian revenge had come. The whole Israeli population would be thrown to the sea, their daughters and wifes would be raped and their children killed. Dayan who had already lost an eye, would this time lose his second eye.

The Israeli population was so outraged by these broadcasts, that they all wanted "to teach a lesson to those egyptians".

In 1969, from Canada, I used a trustful channel to inform Gamal that he had been betrayed. The head of the Hebrew section in Sout Al Arab was either stupid and ignorant, or he was a spy working for Israel. I received a message of thanks From Gamal who disolved the station, just after having received my report.

Once more, I was in Israel at the time and heard those broadcasts. I witnessed their effect in uniting all the people around its government.

The average Israeli of today has not listened to these broadcasts. He either was not yet born or was then too young. However, a child inherits from his parents a mood, an atmosphere, the fears and the hates. They then believe that the "Arabs" are uncivilised and are not trustfull. And many of them remember the time when the PLO was against the recognition of the state of Israel

Finally, the policy of suicide-bombings inside Israel proper, goes in the psyche of the average Israeli to add its weight to what he has inherited from his parents.

This average Israeli is ignorant and brainwashed. But when the news of Sabra and Shatila reached Israel, they were half a million of those average Israeli who went to protest against Sharon. Today they vote for him. We know why No intelligent and creative Palestinian policy has been designed to de-brainwash him.

We saw, how much an official attitude by an arab country can influence the vulnerability of the Isareli people to be brainwashed by false news, by disinformation well designed by the Israeli establishment. But it also indicates that, as they are vulnerable to Zionist braimwashing, they could be vulnerable to a Palestinian strategy designed to debrainwash them.

To give up on the average Israeli, is to give up on the only force that can replace the criminal kind of Israeli government, by one which really longs for a just and peaceful solution of the conflict.

Some Israeli just do not know what to do faced with a Palestinian population they wrongly believed to be bent on refusing anyhtibng less then throwing the Israelis to the sea, and also faced with the fact that can no longer be ignored, that the Israelis have no consideration for the purity of the arms, and are committing atrocities in the occupied territories. Some want to hope that these atrocities, while undeniable, are rather the exception than the rule.

All the forces interested in peace and justice, should each do their part. However, since debrainwashing the average Israeli is so important, we can recognise that gestures from the Palestinians are the more effective. What should be these gestures will be given in 4a and 4b. Those two have been posted long ago, but have their natural place in this series.

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A message I wish Arafat would direct to the Jewish Israelis

Message to the Jewish Israelis from Yassir Arafat

To my Israeli Jewish neighbours,

Most of the Israeli population are too young to remember the time when Jews and Arabs were living in "Palestine" in friendly and even brotherly neighbourhood. Many of the older Israelis and Palestinians do remember it quite well.

This does not surprise anyone versed in the History of the relations between Jews and Arabs in the Arab countries. There has not been pogroms against the Jews in Arab countries. The Jews could feel safe, build their Synagogues, live according to their Jewish character, whatever it had then been. Their possessions were safe, their families were safe, the freedom to have their own schools was respected. The Jewish communities, all around the Arab countries, prospered and developed a culture of their own illustrated by names such a Maimonide, for instance, whose writings in Egypt were done some in Hebrew and some in Arabic.

While Jews endured various degrees of persecution in Europe, and even in the US, they did find a friendly refuge in Arab countries. It is the Muslim conquest that brought peace to the Spanish Jews and allowed them to occupy prominent positions as statesmen, physicians and scholars.

The hospitality the Jews enjoyed in the arab countries lasted for centuries. If today there are less Jews in the Arab countries than fifty years ago, it is not because the Jews were persecuted in the Arab countries. They were not coerced by Arab authorities into leaving the Arab countries.

So, why did a relation, a friendly relation between our two people, that was so outstanding compared to the antisemitism Jews endured elsewhere in the world, why did such a relation suddenly became sour. Why is it that now Isaeli soldiers occupy Palestinian territories where they are unwelcomed? Why is it that Israeli soldiers shoot at our people, destroy their houses and uproot their olive trees, divide their territories into a number of islands which are perceived as prisons by the Palestinian population? Why is it that misguided Palestinian go on suicidal missions to kill Israelis on Israeli territory?

I can understand that an average Israeli, facing the reality of suicide bombers-attack on Israeli territory, is outraged. He may come to hate Palestinians. He may come to be blind to the righteousness of the Palestinians aspirations. Such an Israeli may say that his leaders must take whatever measures necessary to eliminate those Palestinian terrorists, even if they have to be chased into the Palestinian territory, even if it requires "collateral damage" to the Paslestinian population in terms of the humiliation related to the checkpoints, and in terms of destruction of Palestinian houses.

I do not approve the suicide-bombing attacks. But it is obvious that they are not the root of the problem. Occupation, destruction of Palestinian houses, increasing the number of Jewish settlements, and so many other forms of persecution of the Palestinian people, were going on before the wave of suicide-bombing attacks. THey were perceived as acts of state terrorism committed by the state of Israel.

I too would like to stop those suicide-bombings. This cannot be done just by arresting some members of organisations like HAMAS. HAMAS is a popular organisation which has a large constituency. However many we arrest of them, the constituency will provide an almost infinite source of new volunteers to become suicide bombers.

Suicide bombings can be stopped only if HAMAS either loses its constituency, or is forced by its constituency to direct its efforts and energy in other of its fields of action. other than suicide-bombings.

As long as the Palestinian people will not be allowed to see the light at the end of the tunnel, as long as the Palestinian people will be deprived of the hope for freedom, security and prosperity, HAMAS will always have a strong Palestinian constituency supporting its policies of suicide-bombings in the Israeli territories proper.

Yes, an essential step towards a rapprochment between the two populations is the cessation of the suicide bomb-attacks, of any other form of attack against innocent Israeli civilians. But this cannot be accomplished unless credible reasons for hope are given to the Palestiniasn people.

Was it not for the occupation, the suicide-bombers would have grown into becoming valuable citizen of a free Palestine country.

In this respect, I mourn all the victims of the Israeli occupation, I mourn the Palestinians killed by the Israeli army, I mourn the Israeli victims of the suicide-bombers, and I mourn the death of the suicide-bombers, themselves victim of the Israeli occupation. There was no suicide-bombings before 1967.

Give hope to the Palestinian people and I can promise that the following will occur. The Palestinian constituency supporting HAMAS suicide-bombings will evaporate.

Now, if hope and dignity are restored to the Palestinian people, and if against the will of the Palestinian people, and in the absence of a strong constituency, some HAMAS members want to go on with their suicide-bonmbings attacks against the Israeli civil population on the Israeli territory, I would then implement the most stringent measures against those involved in such attacks. However, your government, headed by Sharon, by removing all credible hope from the Palestinians, is tying up my hands, and makes it impossible for me to implement such measures. Would I try, and I would rightly be considered as a puppet in the hand of a pityless conqueror bent on more and more depriving the Palestinians of what remains to them of land property, liberty and dignity.

If you want me to successfully fight the suicide bombings and stop it, you must give me the tools which are the restoration of the dignity and hope to the Palestinian people.

How would you feel if your territory was occupied by a foreign army, if it was divided into Islands which can communicate only through checkpoints conmtroled by the occupier? How would you feel if your villages had been destroyed, if your land had been confiscated in the name of security, and then given to foreigners to settle on it? How would you feel if your right to resist ocuupation was confronted by a severe repression inflicting ten times more victims on Israelis than on the occupier of your Israeli land? How would you feel if the occupier had ordered the bones of your children to be broken if they throw stones at the occupier?

This is only a very little bit of what the Palestinians are feeling. Other feelings they have are based on historic facts you are denying, but the validity of which can easily be proven. The historic record can prove that the problem of the refugee was the result of a deliberate Israeli policy of ethnic cleansing. I will not insist on it. The reality of life under occupatiopn is grim enough to explain the pains, hurt and even hate which can fill the hearts of Palestinians.

It is useless to demand from the whole Palestinian people to suffer without resisting, to suffer without retaliation. No Palestinian leader can be heard and followed if he asks his people to endure occupation in silence.

All I can do is to say to my people that the fight for liberation is not directed against the Israeli people. It is directed against the occupation of our territory as delimited by the pre-1967 boundaries. Give back hope and dignity to the Palestinian people, and I will order all Palestinians to absolutely refrain from any violent action on Israeli territories. Resisting the occupier should be directed against the occupier on occupied territory.

Any Palestinian who would then resort to violence on the Israeli territory would be acting against the Palestinian cause. The Palestinian authority would deal with him as with a criminal. I also think that in a situation in which hope and dignity is restored to the Palestinians, HAMAS too will oppose the policy of suicide-bombings and would condemn those who resort to it, against the will of the Palestinian population.

Once more, I reiterate the sacred right of the oppressed to resist oppression, of the occupied to resist occupation. This can and is to be done only on the Palestine occupied territory, the territory being that of the pre-1967 boundaries. Extending act of resistence to the Israeli territory as defined by the pre-1967 boundaries, is considered by my authority as a ctiminal act, but which can be prevented only by restoring hope and decency to the Palestinian people.

Still, in order to encourage a start of either an unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, or a negotiated one, we hereby proclaim a unilateral cessation of hostilities for three months. To make it more clear, hostilities on the Israeli territories are hereby declared as being directed against the Palestinian people and therefore forbidden for ever. The hostilities on the occupied territories, against the occupier are suspended for threee months, a peiord that can either be extended, or even be followed by a permanent cesasation of hostilities, depending on the reaction of the Israeli govenment and its willingness to prove that it is considering the evacuation of the territories.

I would like to make it clear that once the territories are evacuated, and the Palestinian state is proclaimed with East Jerusalem as its Capital, it will be our aim to realise the dream of the two states living side by side as good neighbours and even friendly neighbours. This is only possible if each of the two states treats the other as an equal. We will never accept that the boundaries of our state be under Israeli control, that our sky and out harbours be under Israeli control. We cannot accept what the Israeli would not have accepted for themselves. What we can solemnly prove is that our policies will be so designed as to make the Israeli people feel more and more secure, more and more friendly towards us.

This is necessary if we want to realise our second step.

This step consist in a voluntary union between our two states. The stress is on VOLUNTARY. Absolutely no coercion should at any time be exerted in this respect.

Such a step can be made in the following circumstances:

1) The Palestinian state adopts a constitution which should be the most democratic, the most tolerant, the most humane in the world. It should be like a shining beacon announcing a new era of inter-ethnical relations, of respect of human rights, of transparency in the works of the government

2) The Palestians adopt a secular constitution. No ethnicity should feel favoured by the state. In particular, the Christians who form a sizeable minority should not feel like second class citizens. As to the Jews, they could become citizen of the Palestinian state, like any other foreigner who is already on the Palestinian territory or whose request for immigtation has been granted. A jew, whether a Palestinian citizen or a visitor on business or tourism, should feel himself welcomed, secure and, so to say, at home. The traditional Palestinian hospitality should be extended to him, as long as he is on our territory with friendly intentions.

3) The question of the Palestinian refugees should be tackled as soon as posisble. No Palestinian should be asked to relinquish his right of return. However, the whole world, by doing nothing to enforce the UN decisions concerning the Palestinian refugiees, having thus been the accomplices of Israel in allowing this blatant injustice to last for so long, have the duty to offer a program of generous compensations for those refugies willing to settle outside Israel.

The remaining refugees will have their problem solved when, through our policies, it will become clear to the Isareli Jewish population that, within the Union between Palestine and Israel, the Jewish population, even more than in the US, will be able to practice their religion and their traditions, be they secular or religious. In short the Israeli Jewish population, prior to unification, must know that they will feel at home in the unified state

4) The Palestinians must adopt a system of education that underlines the historic closeness between Arabs and Jews. It must mention the tremendous contributions made by the two people to civilisation, art, and science. It must embed the notion that in view of that closeness, and in view of their common interests, the most friendly relations should exist between the two states, and between the two people. The Israeli could reciprocate.

Unfortunately, just now, it is the guns that are speaking. It is time to stop it. It is time to give back to the Palestinian authority the means of extirpating terrorism for good This requires to

a) stop attacks on the PA police forces, stop the policy of repression

b) either unilaterally evacuate the territories, or negotiate it seriously.

c) start to think of our relations as being between equals.

In return, the mere fact of the evacuation will reduce to a large degree the amount of violence against Israeli. I do not deny that some residual violence could remain, implemented by irresponsible elements which we will treat as criminals. But a PA strengthemed by the evacuation, will be able to mobilise the whole Palestinian population against all the violent elements. It is only when the Palestinian population will abbandon its support for the violent individyuals, that the PA will be able to succeed in its fight against terrorism.

In short the program I am proposing to the People of Israel is as follows:

1) Israeli evacuate the territories

2) The Palestinians succed in their fight against terrorism and develop amost democratic, secular and humane society with a bent towards friendship between the two people

3) starting from now, and particularly after the success of step 2, the problem of the refugees will be totally solved, in an atmosphere devoid of fear, based on the developed friendship between the two people.

4) Once the friendship of the two people will be a fact of life, the voluntary unification of the two states can be envisaged.

I consider myself accountable to history in solemnly declaring that these four points represent the totality of our agenda.

In particular, transforming the pre-1948 Jewish immigrants into wandering refugees, as Hamas is suggesting, is totally outside and against our agenda.

As to organisations such as Hamas, we will give them two choices:

a) they submit to the will of the Palestinian people and stop all acts of violence. This presupposes that Israel would already have evacuated the territories. They can pursue a religious task of charities. They can be active in demanding that the secular constitution should embed the moral values of Islam. It will be our aim that the constitution would embed the moral values of all religions, since they are so close to each other in this respect.

b) if they do not, they will be exterminated as an organisation, pursued and arrested as individuals, and judged as criminalss. Without popular support they will not last long.

Israeli neighbours! We will do our part in letting you realise that we could be friends, that we bear no hostile feelings against the Israeli people. Our hostility is against the occupation. Cease the occupation, and your security is increased by leaps and bounds. In fact the security on your northern borders has greatly increased after the evacuation of Lebanon.

A last point, that of the settlers on our territories. The settlements are contraveining the Geneva conventions and the UN decisions. There is no possibility of a status of equality between a Palestinian State and Israel, if Israel arrogates to itself the right of protecting them. The ideal solution would be to dismantle the settlements. I am afraid it is the only practical solution.

Suppose for instance we would have accepted that the settlers stay in Palestine as Palestiinian citizen. They would have to conform to the Palestinian laws that would certainly demand the disarming of all the population, the settlers included. What if the settlers refused to be disarmed? What if it leads to incidents. WOuld not this be a cause of friction between the two states? Will it not hinder the develpment of friendly relations between the two people? What if some settler builds a new house besides his, without getting a permit? Will we not be entitled to take the measures provided by the law and which could include the destruction of the illegal house?

We know too well from our own experience how much such actions can poison our relations. Therefore, for the sake of a future friendship between our two people, for the sake of a long term security for each of the two people, it is necessary that the settlements be dismantled.

For a long time, the French and German people hated each other. Today they have friendly relations, there are no troops guarding their borders and citizen of both countries can cross the border without going through customs and without showing their passports.

I do not want to minimise the difficulties, but in reality, they are as great or as small as we make them to be.

I know that the Israeli people, like the Palestinian people, yearns for peace, security and prosperity. In fact, and though Israel is quite secure on the short term, no country, not even Israel, can enjoy long-term security while surrounded by hostile countries. Obviously Israel's long term security lies in peaceful and friendly relation with its neighbours and, most importantaly, with the Palestinian people.

Now, those Israeli aspirations are similar to the Palestinian aspirations. The Palestinians too want to live in peace, security and prosperity. Like the Israeli, they want to have their independent state, like the Israeli they refuse to accept that their country be occupied by a foreign army.

It is therefore natural that the Palestinians do not want to be less free in their land than the Israeli are in theirs.

We believe that there is no gene in the Israeli people that predispose them to persecute the Palestinian people. We do remember that from the Jewish people sprang inspirational and humanist personalities that had, and still have a momentous influence on our civilisation or on our artistic life such as Karl Marx, Henri Bergson. Martin Buber, Sigmund Freud, Amadeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, Albert Einstein, Mendelsohn, and Shalom Aleikhem, whose contributions are now the heritage of all humanity, Arabs included. All those creative people had nothing to do with a spirit of oppression.

The actual oppression of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state, is therefore not willed as such by the Israeli people. It is just wrongly perceived as a necessity dictated by the security of Israel.

Still, in the measure in which they influence the opinion and the stands of people, perceptions that do not correspond to reality, are still part of reality We cannot therefore ignore them. It is enough that they do exist, and therefore have to be taken into account.

It is also true that wrong perceptions about the Israelis do exist among the Palestine people. However wrong, these perceptions are part of the reality. A "rapproachment" between our two peoples therefore requires that efforts be made on two fronts.

Can't we be as wise as the French and the German people? It takes men of vision to realise such a dream, that of a rapprochement. I have here considered practical steps that could result in such a rapprochement.

With this speech, I am not only offering peace and security to the Israeli people, I am also offering friendship between our two people. I know it is not just a question of words, it is a question of demonstrating an honest determination.

And let us remember that long term security cannot be based on an imposed peace which could be challenged by next generations. It must be a peace which imbeds enough elements of Justice to never be challenged again.

My dream is peace, security and friendship between our two people. At first between our two neighbouring states, and then, by mutual acceptance, within a single state.

I know that pointing to that single state can led Israeli extremists to raise the fear of a coercive union between the two states. Nothing of the kind will ever be considered. A coercive union would be a criminal act which is bound to have catastrophic results. It is not the way for peace and security. It does not lead to friendship.

With my best wishes for a fraternal relation between the state of Israel and the state of Palestine

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The Barbarians are at the Gates

Yes the barbarians are at the gates. The US ia about to invade Iraq. Their intentions are clear. Only the US people could stop them.

The more the international opinion is against the war, the more the american people will doubt the wisdom of invading Iraq. All possible efforts must be made to help the american people becoming more and more conscious of the necessity to stop their leadership form launching the war. Letters to the newspapers, local meetings in all cities, demonstration whenever possible, are some of the means.

We could remind the US people of the numerous criminal policies followed in the past by their government. Is it wrong to spread knowledge? But it might not be the proper moment. Some US citizen may be prepared to listen to the miseries caused to the Iraqis by the sanctions and by the first Gulf war. We may gain them to oppose the war towards which Bush is pushing. The same citizens may not be prepared to listen to the list of past crimes committed by their leadership. So, should we abandon spreading the truth?

No! But the barbarians are at the gates, and there is one truth that is today more important than all the other, the necessity to gain as many people as possible to join the struggle for peace. We must atune the amount of truth and the part of which that can most efficiently mobilise the US people against the war.

As an instance, and though it is true that the white immigrants did commit genocide against the native indian population, the time today is not for that. The time is for stopping the possible war against Iraq. The barbarians are at the gates.

The SHaronite barbarians are also at the gates. The Sharonites are preparing to exploit the occasion, together with prefabricated incidents, to implement a newer and deadlier version of the 1948-Nekba. Only the Israeli people can stop them. We must find a way to speak to the Israeli people.

Now is not the time for a onestate-twostates discussiion. Now is not the time for one person, one vote, one country. Now is the time to stop the barbarian at the gates, the sharonites and associates. Unless we find a way to speak to the Israeli people, the only force that can topple the Sharonites, nothing will be able to stop them.

The way to speak to the Israeli people, the way to which the Israeli people is today ready to listen, is not by raising his level of guilt feeling, but raising his awareness of how much the Sharonites are indeed noxious, toxic and harmful to the isterests of the Israeli people. And this can be done by actions that speak volumes and demystify the lies of the Israeli establsihment. In short the strategy, must be one that shakes the Israeli public opinion in their belief that their security depends on militarily combatiing the Palestinian "terrorism", convincing them that it is possible for Isralis and Palestinians to live in peace.

From this point of view, it must be understood that EVERYTHING has a strategic value that could be positive or negative. Therefore EVERTHING must be judged by that criterium: does it serve the progress of the strategy?

Let us take for instance a project of Palestinian constitution. To mention in it that it is the constitution of all historic Palestine with one vote for one person, is enough to terrorise the Israelis. In advancing such a constitution, you may utter nice principles but you leave the gates opwen to the barbarians. And they are at the gates.

The day will certainly come for "one person one vote one country". It will come after the toppling of the Israeli establishment by a demystified Israeli population, that no longer believes in his past false fears. We should therefore give priority to what establishes to the Istraeli people the baselessness of his fears. if he knows that "one person one vote one country" is scheduled for a seccond stage, that of a voluntary fusion of the two states, he will not be afraid and will be ready to topple the sharonites. This, of course, is not that simple. You can have more details in the whole series of the stumbling blocks.

A constitution that asserts that Islam is the official religion of the country, does not increase the security feeling of the Israelis, and is therefore strategically wrong, besides being wrong for other reasons.

Of course I can hear people saying that it is the security of the Palestinians which is in danger. That this is the problem we should address.

That would be true, were it not that it is the Israelis, and only them, who can topple the sharonites, and stop the barbarians at the gates, and they will do it we can prove to them that their fears are false, induced by a most efficient propaganda machine which must be counteracted by a wise startegy.

We could tell the Israeli people about Nekba-1948. Of course this has to be said, even now, but now it is not what can shake up the Israeli people. That is not what will make them revolt and topple the Israeli criminal establsihment. So while spreading that truth we must concentrate on the need for the Israelis to get rid of the Sharonites.

A Palestinian constitution for the West Bank and Gaza, that would mention the need for tolerance and equality between all ethnicities, in the part that Palestinians will rule during the phase of two-states, is one of the ways to start addressing the fears of the Israelis, and detach them from the sharonites. Though the one-state is the ideal, the final objective, the two-state is right now the only solution acceptable to the Israeli people. And unless the Israeli people accept it, no one-state can be obtained short-circuiting the two-states.

Any speech, any political stand by Palestinian leaders and personalities, should be designed to shake the Israelis away from their false beliefs. The imaginary speech that I wrote in a preceding "stumbling block", is an example of how to act strategically, and therefore influence the Israeli people and detach them from the Sharonites. Of course, the time will come to speak of the voluntary fusion of the two states.

The time will come to ask for the return of the Palestinian refugees. Their return will be the faster, the faster we detach the Israeli people from the sharonites.The time is not for expressing the disgust with tikunists. If they are willing to stop the barbarians, we should welcome them at this stage.

The barbarians are at the gates!

The barbarians are at the gates!

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While Bysance was about to fall in the hands of the barbarians who were atits gates, some of the wise men were discussing what could be the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin.

Many of the today's discussions, though quite important and serious, but when the barbarian are at the gates, are as relevant to the terrible situatrion, as the discussions that were going on in Bysance.

In Bysance they discussed without acknowledging the overwhelming fact that the barbarians were at the gates,. Should we do the same?

Let us concentrate on what can shake away the Israeli people from the Sharonites. It can be done by adopting the strategy developed in STumbling blocks. That strategy is still imperfect and incomplete. Work is being done on it.