verbena-19

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Outlines Basis for Peace

Peace can only be the fruit of justice (Ismail Haniyeh)

Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority Ismail Haniyeh outlines the basis for comprehensive peace.

http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2006/04/18/436/

The Israeli Raid in Jericho: The Background

The origins of the March 14 Israeli raid of a Palestinian prison in Jericho are rooted in another Israeli raid on a Palestinian city in 2001. On August 27 of that year, Israeli occupation forces assaulted the offices of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) with a U.S.-supplied helicopter gunship and missiles. Their target was PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa, who was killed instantly. The PFLP vowed to retaliate. Seven weeks after the Israeli assassination of their leader, a PFLP militant assassinated Rehavam Zeevi, head of the far-right Moledet Party, who had been serving as Israeli Tourism Minister in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition government. He was imprisoned along with three alleged accomplices and two others, one of which was the new head of the PFLP. These six men were the justification for Israel's operation.

The widespread Palestinian anger in response to the Israeli attack and kidnappings went well beyond those who support the PFLP's ideology or its retaliatory assassination of Zeevi. This latest violation of Palestine's limited sovereignty, with the apparent collusion of the United States--the supposed guarantor of the Oslo peace process and the detention agreement--and Great Britain deepens the sense of humiliation from the nearly 29 years of U.S.-backed Israeli occupation of the West Bank. It has weakened moderate Palestinian leaders like President Mahmoud Abbas, who has argued that the U.S.-brokered peace process offers hope for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel, while strengthening Hamas and other extremists who reject the peace process and Israel's very right to exist.

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3159

posted by Annamarie at 1:37 AM