Opinion, August 2003, www.aljazeerah.info
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
American censure demonstrates bias,
Gulf News
24-08-2003
The American administration has decided to freeze the assets of six top figures in the Palestinian organisation, Hamas. This has been done in retribution for the suicide bombing in Jerusalem on Tuesday, which Hamas admitted being responsible for. If American President George W. Bush sees this as a way in which censure can be applied, then so be it. However, the American administration also seeks to be seen as an even-handed intermediary in the peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel. That is why America is a member of the "Quartet" - the others being the UN, the EU and Russia - which is the proponent of the so-called roadmap.
Consequently, in the interest of justice and fair play, surely would it not be only right that the U.S. administration should impose some form of censure upon Israel or the members of its government? The Israelis have repeatedly gone their own way in dispensing what they see as retaliation for Palestinian attacks.
It seems it matters little to the Israel government what form the reprisals take, be they encircling the Palestinians in a massive wall, or attacking senior leaders in the centre of a busy city with rocket-fire. Sufficient justification, surely, for America to freeze some Israeli assets and attempt to bring them into line. Yet nothing is done to harm relations between America and Israel.
American Secretary of State Colin Powell has warned both protagonists that "At the end of the roadmap there is a cliff that both sides will fall off." Very poetic, and in response both sides have called upon America to exert all efforts upon the other to re-establish a ceasefire and rein-in the militancy. But flogging the roadmap is flogging a dead horse: without enforceable clauses, it was still-born from the outset.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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