Gush Shalom zur Rede G.W.Bush [PE, en]
Lueko Willms
-------- Weiterleitung von "Gush Shalom" Verteiler
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GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/
Press release
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The speech: beautiful words bypassing ugly reality
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Democratic reforms, a practicing democracy based on liberty and
tolerance, an effective legislature, an independent judiciary,
separation of powers, a new constitution - so many rosy items did the
President of the United States set out for the Palestinians, in his
long-awaited speech on the Middle East.
Somehow, throughout his speech George W. Bush managed to avoid any
mention of the present situation in the same parcel of land where all
these wonderful things are to materialize. No mention of the fact that
all West Bank cities had been invaded by Israeli military forces; that
hundreds of thousands of inhabitants are imprisoned in their homes by a
strict curfew, and that civilians appearing on city streets risk having
tanks shoot shells on them (while the speech was delivered in
Washington, Israeli soldiers completed the takeover of Hebron, killing
three Palestinian policemen in the process); that even before that
conquest, the towns and villages where Bush would have a flourishing
market economy set up are cut off from each other by checkpoints and
closures and sieges, with inhaibitants replacing their cars with donkeys
able to negotiate narrow mountain paths.
How are Palestinians to implement any kind of reforms under such
circumctances? How are they to reform a Palestinian Authority which is
being systematically chocked out of existence?
How could elections be held "before the end of the year" without a
pullout of Israeli forces, and some assurance of their non-
interference?
And what would President Bush do if Palestinian voters, exercising their
democractic right to choose, re-elect Yasser Arafat as their leader?
Would that democratic choice be set aside in yet another military
invasion? And even if "new Palestinian leaders" would get elected, pass
Bush's careful scrutiny, and try to "fight terrorism" as the president
so vocally demands, would they be assured of the basic conditions for
doing so? Would their efforts not be continually thwarted by Sharon, as
are those of the existing Palestinian leadership? In the Gaza Strip,
the one parcel of land where the Palestinian Authority retains some
measure of control and where it tried in the past few days to take some
action against Hamas, Israeli forces yesterday committed the provocation
of assassinating a major Hamas leader (together with five family members
who happened to travel in a taxi with that leader, and who got killed
by the same missile which killed him).
The root cause of terrorism and suicide bombing (or "homicide bombing"
as the president insisted upon calling it) was hardly addressed at all:
the situation of young Palestinians under an increasingly tight
occupation, who see themselves oppressed and dispossessed, deprived of
all hope and expectation for the future, abandoned by the world, and
who reach the point where they decide to blow themselves up in order to
kill random Israelis. No end to terrorism can be expected without
offering some tangible hope to such people, to dry up the phenomenon of
suicide bombing at the source.
President Bush's speech - making strident demands upon the weaker party
to the conflict, and only vague polite requests upon the stronger side -
contributes little to that cause. No wonder that Sharon expressed
immense satisfaction with the speech - but the two peoples, locked in
this terrible struggle, pay the price for the arrogance, short-
sightedness and lack of resolve of the dweller in the White House.
Adam Keller - Gush Shalom spokesperson
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Lüko Willms http://www.mlwerke.de
/--------- L.WI...@jpberlin.de -- Alle Rechte vorbehalten --
"Die Arbeit in weißer Haut kann sich nicht dort emanzipieren, wo sie
in schwarzer Haut gebrandmarkt wird." - Karl Marx 12.11.1866