Last week, Israel barred a UNESCO fact-finding mission from entering the country, charging that the Palestinians had ‘politicized’ the mission before it had even arrived. The mission was tasked with looking into conditions of historical sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, something Israel apparently found to be very threatening.

Looking at the state of Jerusalem’s eastern sector today, it is understandable why Israel would not want UNESCO or anyone else walking around the Old City, especially the Palestinian-populated parts of it. Because anyone who does, will see the devastation that Israel and its settlers have wreaked on one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world.

Excavation works are being conducted in and around the Aqsa Mosque to make way for more Jewish construction at the place where Waqf authorities say Ottoman and Abbasid artifacts have long been tucked away. A Muslim graveyard is being dug up just outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, to build – ironically – a museum of tolerance. Today, two stores were forcefully taken over by Jewish settlers in Al Hakari, one of the neighborhoods in the Muslim quarter and every day, it seems that more and more homes are either being demolished by Israeli municipality authorities or being taken over by Jewish settlers.

The “Judiazation” of Jerusalem is a term many Palestinians and Arabs use for what Israel is doing in the city. In a nutshell, it is the long-term plan Israel is gradually carrying out to change the Arab Palestinian character of Jerusalem. This means demolishing old and historical structures, displacing Palestinians, handing over their homes to settlers and trying to erase the Palestinian or Arab history of the city.

The sad truth is that, on the surface, Israel has succeeded in this to a large extent. Pockets of Jewish settlers now live in the heart of Muslim quarters and aim to take over more and more. Sheikh Jarrah, one of the more affluent Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is now pierced with Jewish flags waving from homes that have been wrestled from their Palestinian owners, and Israel’s light rail train cuts right down through Palestinian neighborhoods outside of the city center. The train, of course, is not meant to service the Palestinian population but rather to connect Jewish neighborhoods and settlements in the city, but the area confiscated from Shufat and Beit Hanina for its construction simply fell into the plan.

What the UNESCO mission would not have seen even if they made it into the Old City is the overall humiliation that the Palestinian population of Jerusalem must endure on a daily basis because of Israel’s military occupation. Trips to the Israeli ministry of interior must be made just to prove that one lives in the city for fear that their residency rights may be revoked; young Palestinian men are stopped randomly by Israeli soldiers to check their ID cards or just to harass them, and settlers are always given the luxury of maximum security whenever they walk the streets. If settlers want to march through the city, the Palestinians are told to close their shops, are barred for hours from reaching their homes if they run along the path of the march and are always the ones blamed if any kind of confrontation between the two sides breaks out.

Jerusalem is being squeezed by these measures more and more each day. But there is always that glimmer of hope, that strength that shines through proving that all is not lost. On Shavuot, Israeli settlers and extremists poured into the Old City, singing loudly, banging on the shop doors and waving huge Israeli flags. The sight was disconcerting to say the least. However, the afternoon of that same day, at Damascus Gate, passersby were met with a completely different scene. Palestinian flags waved in determined Palestinian hands under the threatening eye of heavily armed Israeli police and soldiers. The youths were fearless, demanding freedom, with strong, unrelenting voices.

The sight of the Palestinian flag waving at the entrance to Damascus Gate was a breath of fresh air. All is not lost and never will be because hope is eternal and determination and strength come from a never-ending spring.

That day at Damascus Gate is what all Palestinians must keep in their minds’ eye in spite of the daily oppression of the occupation. No matter how many missions Israel bars from entering or how many houses it takes over, there will always be those brave souls who, despite the risks, will always raise Palestine’s flag.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

There is no point falling into the pit of countering the claims being made about the death of Mohammed Al Durra, the 12-year old boy from Gaza whose videotaped killing was seen around the world. The boy, crouching in fear behind is equally afraid father as bullets whizzed around them, was killed admittedly by the Israeli army. Later, the army recanted after investigating the tape, saying Durra was killed by Palestinian fire instead. Well now, Israel is changing its story altogether, saying he was not killed at all. In fact, he was probably not even wounded and the French channel that broadcast the footage and brought some pretty bad rap to Israel, had most likely filmed a charade.

The reason why I will not waste my time countering this claim is that even with the great lengths the Israeli government went to to prove that the boy was never killed, it could not provide any irrefutable proof that Mohammed Al Durra – who would be 25 now – is still alive. No pictures, no testimonies, no hospital or morgue officials giving statements to refute his death, have been provided. Only sketchy information about ‘poor quality footage’ and the fact that it seems as though the boy moved his arm after he had slumped over his father following the explosion.

My point is this: indeed, Mohammed Durra’s death was at least one of the catalysts that fueled the second Intifada, and thus, was an important event in the history of the Palestinians. However, more importantly – most importantly to me –is the fact that this is about a boy who died in sheer terror, with his distraught father futilely trying to shelter him from the barrage of bullets coming their way.

Mohammed Al Durra was a boy, with a life, a family and friends. He died a horrible death and now he is being made to die a second one. I did not know Mohammed or his family, but I can only imagine how awful it must be for them to read these claims now and feel the pain of losing their child all over again. If nothing else, this is disrespect for human life of the worst kind.

Some may postulate that the rehashing of the Durra case is a personal jab at the French cameraman who shot the footage, Charles Enderlin. Perhaps. But as a Palestinian who has seen the pain endured by numerous families who receive the horrible news that their sons or daughters have been killed by the Israeli army, my concern is for his family and for his memory. He should be left to rest in peace. If Israel has axes to grind with French journalists or with the international community for holding it accountable for its actions, then so be it. Israel is not lacking in the public relations department.

That being said, there is just one decent thing left to do. Leave Mohammed Al Durra and his memory alone.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

This week Palestinians will commemorate Al Nakba, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people when Israel was founded. Every year, Palestinians hang placards pointing to the right of return, they carry keys symbolizing the homes they were forced to leave and could not return to and remember the Palestine that was lost to them 65 years ago.

This year will be no different. Every May 15, Palestinian recall their catastrophe and demand justice. They demand that they are granted the right of return for those who were made refugees virtually overnight and were then relegate to a life they did not choose. But more than anything, they demand recognition of the tragedy that befell them rather than a denial that it ever happened, or worse, that it was of their own making.

It has been 65 years since Israel was established in 1948, which means those who were cast into exile are either very old or have long passed. Those who experienced the Nakba are now few and far between, clinging to those few precious memories of a small garden in front of their house in Jaffa or of the salty smell of the sea in their neighborhood in Haifa. The rest of us are either descendants of these refugees or ordinary Palestinians who feel their cause is our cause because we are one people.

But the Palestinians have made one thing clear. The refugee issue will not die with the last refugee. It is felt nationwide, the loss, the injustice and the fact that those who were forced from their homes have mostly passed, longing for their beloved homes.

We cannot turn back time. What was lost has been altered, destroyed, changed or taken over by Israel’s newcomers. What we can do is hold on to the right to be recognized, for the injustice to be rectified in word and deed and for Palestine to never be lost in our minds or hearts.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

Rumors of a prisoner exchange, involving Shalit and anywhere from 800 to 1000 Palestinian political prisoners, have circulated Israeli, Palestinian, and international news sources for the last two weeks. At one point, an Arab newspaper reported that an agreement had been reached and that Shalit had already been moved to Egypt as an initial step in the implementation of the exchange. These reports were quickly dismissed and just days later, news sources reported a complete breakdown in the negotiations for Shalit’s release. The most recent development involves a letter, written by Shalit, and transferred by a Hamas delegation from Damascus to Egyptian officials, who in turn delivered the letter to Shin Bet. On 20 September, after several lab tests, the authenticity of the letter was confirmed. According to Foreign Minister Livni, Abbas is a “partner” in ensuring the release of Shalit, and other Israel officials have confirmed that Egypt is mediating talks for a prisoner exchange that will include Shalit and a number of Palestinians.

The issue seems clear enough, as does the bilateral solution (a prisoner exchange), but implementation, like most aspects of Palestinian/Israeli negotiations, progresses very slowly.

Israel has conducted prisoner exchanges on several occasions since 1948. These have included a series of exchanges with the PLO in the 1980s, three exchanges with Hezbollah brokered over an eight year period from 1996 to 2004. In 1997, Israel was also forced to release Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, in exchange for two Mossad agents captured by Jordan after a botched assassination attempt of Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal in Jordan.

Despite the long history of captures and exchanges, Israel and the newly formed Olmert government were caught with their pants down on June 25. The breach of Israeli security mechanisms, by a simple tunnel of all means, did not sit well with the Israeli public. How could the Israeli army, one of the most technologically advanced and well trained in the world, succumb to a relatively unsophisticated attack by a handful of rag-tag militants? Olmert also faced one of his first real political tests as Prime Minister, as he set about trying to diffuse the situation without appearing ‘soft’ to the Israeli public. This would be a precedent setting moment for Olmert, whose lack of military leadership experience had led many Israelis to question his ability to lead the country in the right direction, especially in times of crisis.

More than a decade had passed since the last Israeli soldier had been captured. In October 1994, Hamas activists captured an Israeli soldier who was hitchhiking and unknowingly got in their car. Like Olmert, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin refused to negotiate with Hamas, and instead decided on the military option. On the morning of 14 October 1994, Rabin, along with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat, announced that they had received the Nobel Peace Prize. When a reporter asked Rabin about the 8:00 PM deadline given by Hamas for the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Wachsman, Rabin remarked that the peace process includes "calculated risks." That night, an Israel commando raided the house where Wachsman was being held. The operation, located at a house in Bir Nabala outside of Jerusalem, was poorly planned and poorly executed, resulting in the death of three Hamas captors, an Israeli commando, and Wachsman himself.

The capture of Shalit brought the Wachsman affair back into the public dialogue for many reasons: Wachsman was the last soldier to be kidnapped prior to Shalit, Hamas had claimed responsibility in both situations, and the botched raid had stuck strongly in the minds of both Israelis and Palestinians. For Palestinians, it was a reminder of continued Israeli aggression and inability to negotiate peacefully, and for Israelis it symbolized poor government-military decision making an even poorer implementation. Even though the military raid failed, the impetus for a military solution is quite obvious. If the raid had been successful, Israelis would have lauded their Prime Minister for his hard-line stance on not negotiating with "terrorists" and his military savvy for launching a successful raid. In Israel, a militarized society that places tremendous importance on military might, the idea of "military strength" is in-fact a double edged sword; on the one hand, Israelis do not just hope for military success, they expect it and on a psychological level, they depend on it. Because of this militaristic chauvinism, military defeats or botched operations can have a devastating effect on the Israeli mindset. This of course became very clear after Israel's military blunders in Lebanon during summer 2006, but was also apparent after the Wachsman affair in 1994; when the military fails, it has tremendous political implications for the acting government.

Today, Olmert and his government are already under intense scrutiny for the decisions they made in the recent war on Lebanon. The successful resolution of the Shalit situation is of paramount importance for Olmert, if he wishes to salvage what is left of his Prime Ministership. Immediately following Shalit's kidnapping, Israel began its largest scale military operation in the Gaza Strip since its unilateral disengagement in summer 2005. While the operation was presented as a "rescue mission," the Israeli army saw it as a valuable opportunity to destabilize the region even further. Since the cross border raid on June 25 that resulted in Shalit's capture, more than 215 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip. The densely-populated strip has fallen into the worst humanitarian crisis in years, with power shortages, lack of mobility, and ongoing military assaults. Olmert's ulterior motives are more than obvious---"shock and awe" is not a particularly effective method for rescue missions, which require small-scale, covert military operations, not 500 pound bombs and tanks rolling through residential neighborhoods.

The political reality is that negotiations for the release of Shalit began as soon as he was captured. This is, after all, why he was captured in the first place—to be used as a bargaining chip for the release of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. It is also likely that Israeli officials have known the whereabouts of Shalit since his capture. Even though Olmert would certainly prefer—and may still be hoping for---a rescue mission, the political and military risks are far too great, especially considering the legacy of the Wachsman affair. A successful military rescue could salvage Olmert's tarnished political career, but a botched raid and a dead Shalit would spell Olmert's end. So the political tug-of-war between Olmert, Haniyeh, and Abbas has taken center stage while Shalit and thousands of Palestinian prisoners hang in the balance.

Olmert is not the only one who faces political pressure to ensure the safe release of Shalit. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also has vested interest in seeing Shalit released, because it would indicate to his Israeli counterparts that he is not a powerless figurehead, incapable of playing an effective role in any future negotiations. In 1994, Arafat faced similar pressure to control movements like Hamas, and the kidnapping of Wachsman by Hamas activists did not bode well for his relationship with Israel. As the shaky unity government emerges, Shalit's release could provide the necessary spark to jumpstart any new peace process between Palestinian and Israeli leaders. If Palestinian prisoners are released in stages, as Egyptian officials have proposed, the release of prisoners following talks between Abbas and Olmert could also be counted as a political victory for the Palestinian president. Of course, Hamas spokesmen have made it clear that the immediate release of prisoners is important to any agreement, because they too have a lot to lose—and a lot to gain—from the tenuous Shalit situation. In the face of economic entanglement, Hamas has faced dwindling support at home, and the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners would be a huge political victory for the Hamas government.

Countless Israeli officials have reiterated the standard government line that Israel does not negotiate with "terrorists." This is of course untrue, because negotiations are underway at this very moment. Time is key, as all parties involved maneuver to exploit the situation to their advantage. Ultimately, Shalit isn’t going anywhere and the demands for a prisoner release are clear, so it is up to Israel to decide how much they are willing to give in order to ensure Shalit's release. At this point, it is not a question of if, but a question of how much and when. Somehow, drawing out the negotiations process makes it less obvious that Israel is in fact negotiating at all. Also, the longer Shalit is held before he is inevitably released, the greater and more miraculous his release will seem, and Olmert and his gang will be sure to milk this emotional, hard-fought victory for all it's worth. Shalit is going to be released, this much is certain, but only once the critical point is reached, where all parties involved think they can maximize the political gain and minimize the political losses of compromise.

Nathan Karp is a student at Brown University concentrating in Middle East Studies. He is currently an intern for MIFTAH's Media and Information Programme. He can be contacted at mip@miftah.org

The circular logic that pervades pro-Israeli rhetoric today is in fact undermining the security of the Jewish State, and feeding the fire of anti-Jewish sentiment worldwide. This logic can be traced to some of the earliest Zionist thinkers, including Leo Pinsker and Theodore Herzl, who theorized that humanism would not prevail against hatred and that it was time for Jews to form a nation-state of their own. For Herzl, the Jewish people already constituted a nation—living in Diaspora—so the formation of a Jewish State was the logical next step. Nationalism was of course the fashion of the day, and Zionism emerged as a secular-political nationalist platform intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism in Europe by carving out a national home for Jews somewhere else. The religious components emerged later, after Palestine became the focus of the Zionist project, and political Zionists adopted the religious narrative of Zionism (exodus and return) in order to facilitate their settler-colonial project in Palestine.

Israel is nearly sixty years old, and political Zionism has been extant almost twice as long. With each passing year, the failure of political Zionism—and its implementation, in the form of the Israeli State— becomes clearer and clearer. Of course, it would be easy to see Zionism as a resounding success. Israel does, after all, exist as a Jewish State; it participates in the globalized economy, it has very close ties to the world's only superpower, and, perhaps most noticeably, it has the fourth-largest military apparatus in the world, with which it conducts wars on a fairly regular basis. By most standards, and indeed by Israeli standards, these accomplishments are the modern day manifestation of Zionism's success. Is this, however, the type of Jewish State envisioned by early Zionist thinkers like Pinsker and Herzl? Of course not-- Zionist thinking was heavily influenced by socialist values and utopian visions of a peaceful Jewish state. As the Zionist project progressed, however, nationalist fervor seems to have clouded the minds of monumental Zionist leaders like Ben-Gurion, who failed to understand the hypocrisy, and foolishness, of trying to establish an exclusively Jewish state in a land already populated by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike.

Ben-Gurion's famous Zionist slogan, "A land without people for a people without land" fully exemplifies the nationalist roots of political Zionism as it emerged at the end of the 19th century and began to blossom in the early years of the 20th.The reality is that Palestine was already densely populated and heavily cultivated before the arrival of any Zionists, with British Census records indicating a Palestinian population of 600,000 in 1920. More than just a clever slogan, Ben Gurion's statement is instead an indicator of Zionism's nationalist-inspired interpretation of citizenship and nationhood. In 1937, Ben Gurion argued that "We must expel the Arabs and take their places," acknowledging the presence of Arabs on the land, but also denying the presence of Palestinians.

His statement regarding a "land without people" is justified, therefore, on the grounds that Palestinians are not in fact Palestinian, but Arab. As Arabs, they have no particular claim or connection to the land which they occupy—after all, how can there be a Palestine without Palestinians? According to this logic, those who lack a nation-state of their own and so do not qualify as citizens of any particular country, are in fact not "people" at all, so their human rights, such as the right to exist, can be freely trampled upon by phrases like "A land without people for a people without land"

The bankrupt values of nationalism, which privilege nation-states and their citizens above all else, including other peoples and even other nations, have been used to justify colonial endeavors (especially in the Middle East) and countless wars and violence. In this regard, Zionism cannot bear all the blame for the failures of nationalism—it is just one of many doomed nationalist projects, not just for its moral and ethical misgivings, but because of its misdirected implementation in the form of the Jewish state of Israel.

In 1969, then Prime Minister Golda Meir reiterated Ben Gurion's racist-nationalist philosophy in a famous statement to The Sunday Times in 1969, saying "There is no such things as a Palestinian people…It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist." And in the same year, revisionist Zionist leader Menachem Begin explained to Kibbutz members the importance of denying presence to Palestinians and Palestine by refuting their very existence:

My friend, take care. When you recognize the concept of “Palestine,” you demolish your right to live in [Kibbutz] Ein Hahoresh. If this is Palestine and not the land of Israel, then you are conquerors and not tillers of the land. You are invaders. If this is Palestine, then it belongs to a people who lived here before you came.

Thus, Zionism was transformed from a utopian ideal to a colonial movement that sought to rid Palestine of its Palestinian inhabitants in order to facilitate close settlement of the land by Jews, for Jews. Since its formal creation in 1948, the fundamental principle of the Jewish State has been exclusion, not acceptance. Even Palestinians who are Israeli citizens (about 20% of Israel's population) do not enjoy the same privileges and benefits bestowed upon their Jewish neighbors—they are in effect second class citizens.

Many countries in the world have a history of exclusionary and discriminatory policies—Israel is not alone on this front. One of the most problematic aspects of Israel's policies, and those hardliners who support them, is the issue of religion. The Jewish character of Israel has falsely been used as an excuse for The Jewish State to act in the name of Judaism, as a faith, and therefore in the name of Jews worldwide¬¬---even thought the population of world Jewry outside Israel is nearly twice the Jewish population of the Jewish state. The question then becomes, how, exactly, do pro-Israeli pundits use Israel's Jewish character as a means of defending Israeli government policies, therefore damaging the reputation of Jews worldwide?

Perhaps the clearest example of this practice is the way in which any anti-Zionist discourse is immediately labeled anti-Semitic by the Zionist/pro-Israel community. This presents two problems. First of all, it indicates a degree of stupidity, given that anti-Semitism indicates any prejudicial or hateful thoughts or actions toward any Semitic person, Jew or Arab. Simply because anti-Semitism is equated with anti-Jewish sentiments, it does not mean the two terms are interchangeable. Of course, the charge of anti-Semitism is a powerful one, and carries an especially potent moral and ethical charge considering the clear association with the holocaust.

As Normal Finklestein articulates very well in his book Beyond Chutzpah, Israeli apologists are quick to sound the alarm of "anti-Semitism" whenever Israel's actions illicit opposition, condemnation, or accusations. When scholars Mersheimer and Walt dared to state the obvious in their 2006 paper regarding the power of the Israel lobby in America, they were condemned as "bigots," "Nazis", and of course, "anti-Semites". The smear campaign launched against these respected professors indicates the dismal state of Israel and the Israel-firsters who die heartedly support its every action without even paying attention to the facts. After investigating Israel's recent whole-sale assault on Lebanon, America's largest human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, criticized Israel for its indiscriminate killing of civilians, and various other war crimes. HRW executive director Kevin Roth, who is Jewish and who's father fled Nazi Germany, was quickly labeled by a variety of pro-Israel pundits as a terrorist sympathizer, and an anti-Semite. The conservative pro-Zionist New York Sun accused Roth of having an "anti-Israel bias" and also said that he was involved in the "de-legitimization of Judaism, the basis of much anti-Semitism". This odd marriage, between neoconservatives and Zionists, and their joint effort to hijack Judaism, and in turn, the threat of anti-Semitism, as a way of defending Israel's criminal actions in the world community, is going to damage Israel's ability to survive in the long run.

The truth is that American Jews, and most Americans, passively accept Israel's actions because the strength of the Jewish Lobby in America prevents any other voices from being heard. Now, more than ever, Jews worldwide, especially those in America, must realize the atrocities that Israel is committing and defending not only in the name of Judaism but in the name Jews worldwide. The injustice is clear for anyone who is able to visit and see the facts on the ground, but this too is becoming increasingly difficult as the Israeli government seeks to limit the international presence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories as it continues its process of separation, exclusion and expulsions---in other words, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

The political Zionism that inspired early thinkers like Herzl has of course taken on much stronger religious tones over the years, transforming Zionism from an exclusionary movement in part of Palestine into an aggressively hateful movement in all of historic Palestine. This is of course embodied by Israel's ongoing occupation and increased settlement buildup in the occupied Palestinian territories. Regardless of the countless violations of international law, many pro-Israel zealots have turned to religious law and intangible notions like "God's promise" as a way to justify old-fashioned colonialism. In 1971, then-Prime Minister Golda Meir told Le Monde that "This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy". If Zionism already stood on shaky ground with a nationalist foundation, then the religious narrative does not exactly place it on higher moral ground.

The ultimate failure of Israel, however, lies in its failure to secure peace. Israel, in fact, does not want peace. Even a large portion of the peace camp in Israel only seems to want peace when it is convenient and on their terms. For example, during the assault on Lebanon, more than 80% of Israel supported the war, and even the most dovish of Israelis still maintained that Hezbollah had provoked the Israeli army. In fact, Hezbollah and Israel had been involved in low intensity skirmishes since Israeli withdrawal in 2000, and there is substantial evidence that Israel had carefully planned a detailed assault plan/invasion of Lebanon prior to the July 12 raid in which two IDF soldiers were kidnapped. Recent reports also show that Military Intelligence had clear knowledge of impending plots to capture IDF soldiers and failed to act on them. Of course, the cross-border raid and subsequent rocket attacks gave Israel much needed excuse (and international legitimacy) to conduct their large-scale assault; a preemptive strike of such scale would hardly have been acceptable. With the world's permission, Israel unleashed a military assault of such obvious disproportion that even many of Israel's allies had to question its actions. What had happened? Israeli generals had seen an opportunity to flex militarily, something they had been aching to after several years of low-intensity conflict in the occupied territories involving little more than small scale raids and the occasional missile or bomb. The result, massive civilian losses in Lebanon, an already war-torn country reduced to rubble, and yet the kidnapped Israel soldiers remain in captivity and Hezbollah (already having claimed victory) is more powerful than ever, not just in Lebanon and Syria and among Palestinians, but in Jordan and Egypt as well.

And somehow, ongoing conflict with Israel's neighbors is going to help secure the future of a Jewish State? Israel and her neocon friends in Washington have grown very accustomed to using apparent "threats to the Jewish State" as justification for aggression and violence in the name of "defending" Israel. This policy of course has reached unprecedented levels in the post-9/11 world, as Israel declared itself an ally of the US in the "War on Terror". For example, Israel and her supporters, most importantly the US, have drawn such a misleading picture of the Iranian nuclear issue, one might think that Israel's destruction by a nuclear missile…or perhaps even Iranian soldiers, marching on Jerusalem…is imminent. Not even imminent, perhaps it is happening as we speak! The level of awareness among the American public is so low that they will swallow-whole any 'information' that is provided to them, no matter how incorrect or biased..

Israel has made strong connections with the Untied States, particularly with the neoconservative movement, and has made little to no connections with its Arab neighbors. This is particularly problematic, given that the United States will not enjoy its hegemony of the region forever. Given the present imbroglios in Iraq and Afghanistan, America's 'moment' appears to be on the verge of expiring. Ultimately, Israel has done almost everything wrong to secure its own future. Furthermore, if Jews who have no connection to Israel realize what crimes are being committed in their name, they too will distance themselves from the so-called "Jewish State". Zionism may have been a noble idea in its earliest stages—to protect European Jews from the threat of European anti-Semitism—but the creation of an illegitimate state in Palestine completely failed in this regard. Today, Zionist hardliners (especially in the form of settlers) espouse the same brand of hatred against their Arab neighbors today that originally prompted the development of the Zionist movement. Anyone who visits Hebron today can see graffiti messages, written by (American) Israeli settlers, declaring the need to "GAS ALL THE ARABS"—a horrific statement, the irony of which is enough to make anyone sick and scared. Israel has misused accusations of anti-Semitism, and the legacy of the holocaust, to justify its criminal acts. Somehow, Israel has managed to place itself above the law, untouchable by international conventions, UN resolutions, or basic ethical and moral standards. Perhaps then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon articulated the hypocrisy of the Jewish State best in 2001, when he expressed that "Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial".

Nathan Karp is a student at Brown University concentrating in Middle East Studies. He is currently an intern for MIFTAH's Media and Information Programme. He can be contacted at mip@miftah.org

Prime Minister (PM) Olmert and his posse—Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, have proven themselves incapable of leading an Israeli offensive, and unable to secure the release of captured Israel soldiers. Now, in an apparent last ditch effort to save his government, PM Olmert will try, much like then-PM Barak did at Camp David in 2000, to utilize negotiations and the prospect of peace to salvage an already-wounded political career.

Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres announced that negotiations with President Abbas could only resume if Gil'ad Shalit is released. Following Blair's visit this weekend, the Israeli leadership adopted a change of strategy and began calling for resumed negotiations with PA President Abbas, no strings attached, to be arranged as soon as possible. PM Olmert studied unilateralism under the tutelage of Ariel Sharon, who employed this strategy to the Gaza disengagement in 2005. Now Olmert is applying unilateralism to another aspect of the "peace process": Negotiations.

This strategic move has dual benefits for the PM and his government. Most importantly, resumed negotiations and the façade of "progress" will help Olmert and his leadership to recover from their blunders in Lebanon. Somehow, the prospect of "peace talks" trumps all in the Israeli and Western media and Israeli atrocities in Lebanon somehow, suddenly, become a distant memory. Olmert will now come across in the media as a statesman, a diplomat, calling for resumed peace talks even though Israeli soldiers remain captive, and even though Hamas is still in control of the government. This political move will also take the pressure to deal with the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, which has been looming over Olmert since he came to office, and hand it over to the Palestinians: the ball is in your court, you are responsible for any failure, but we will share in any success.

If, for any reason, resumed peace talks do not progress, the blame will easily be cast on the Palestinian leadership, just as it was following the collapse of the Camp David summit in 2000. Ehud Barak called Arafat obstinate and intransigent, even though Arafat had made it clear before the Summit that he wouldn’t—couldn't in fact, because he lacked the authority—give any concessions on the issue of Jerusalem. The summit itself was rushed, because Barak had already faced a no-confidence vote in the Knesset, and Clinton's term was about to end. Of course the warnings of the Palestinian negotiating team (that more time was needed to prepare, that more progress was needed before negotiations would be useful) fell upon deaf ears, because for Barak and Clinton, it was now or never. Unfortunately for Barak, even pinning the failure of the Summit on Arafat was not enough to save him from a landslide loss to Ariel Sharon in the proceeding special elections.

This old political tactic being put to use by the present government, is likely to succeed in the short term, because Abbas, like Olmert, needs evidence of "progress" in order to overcome political obstacles at home, and to shore up support for the fledgling, work-in-progress unity government. After Hamas won a landslide victory in January 2006, people discounted Abbas a weak, ineffective figurehead who could no longer play a meaningful role in negotiations, simply because Fateh no longer exercised complete dominance in Palestinian politics, and Hamas had legitimacy lent to it by the authority of free and democratic elections. After several months of crippling international boycotts against the Hamas-led government, the situation seemed untenable. At the beginning of September, Abbas gave his official permission—support, even—for a broad based strike against the government for non payment of wages. This strike, combined with the now-imminent prospect of a unity government in which Hamas would indirectly recognize Israel, Abbas has returned to the fore as not just a key player, but the player, for negotiations with Israel.

Given the ulterior motives of both leaders involved, the entire premise of resumed negotiations is defunct. Genuine negotiations can only emerge out of dialogue, not a unilaterally imposed peace process. In fact, resumed talks with "no preconditions" is a misnomer, because Olmert has repeatedly stated that Shalit's release is necessary before any progress can be made in peace talks. Olmert, along with Tony Blair, has articulated support for talks to be resumed on the basis of the US-sponsored road map for peace plan from 2003. Since its inception, the road map has been a dismal failure, and the details of the road map hardly apply today, given the unilateral approach to "peace" adopted by Israel in the last few years. The hypocrisy—or outright stupidity—of Olmert's position is unfathomable: How can the road map serve as an appropriate foundation for negotiations when one of the central tenets of the plan—withdrawal and a freeze on settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories—are being violated by Israel on a daily basis? Only last week, Israeli authorities issued tenders for 700 new homes in two West Bank settlements. Another central part of the road map, incorporated in Phase I, is Palestinian elections. The outcome of the January 2006 elections led to a breakdown in the negotiation process, a severe economic crisis in the Palestinian territories, and increased arrests and targeted assassinations of Palestinian politicians and activists. So exactly which parts of the road map is Olmert hoping to incorporate into these resumed discussions?

The glaring truth of the matter is that negotiations will never be successful when one party is forced to negotiate from a position of extreme weakness, and when there is no hope for fair unbiased treatment from the international community. Before one can even consider the prospect of negotiations, there needs to be accountability on both sides. But what kind of accountability can the Palestinian leadership offer to Israel when one quarter of the legislature is under arrest? Closures, harassment, arrests, assassinations, violence—these are all realities of the ongoing occupation, which continues to wreak havoc on the Palestinian economy, society, and psyche; there is no incentive for Palestinians, under these circumstances, to make any compromises with Israel. Sadly, it seems that "peace talks" and "negotiations" today work toward maintaining the status quo instead of advancing forward. Olmert and Abbas will continue this process of "posturing for peace," maneuvering back and forth but accomplishing little, because they are only engaging with one another to protect themselves and their political positions. Peace, unfortunately, is secondary.

Nathan Karp is a student at Brown University concentrating in Middle East Studies. He is currently an intern for MIFTAH's Media and Information Programme. He can be contacted at mip@miftah.org