United States initiates Palestinian talks - another sign of impending war with I
bh | 08.08.2002 14:15
For this reason the sudden friendliness of the Americans towards the Palestinians, which has come right of the blue, can be understood as a direct response to the successful Iranian diplomatic offensive in the Middle East, and thus is another sure sign that war with Iraq is on the horizon. However, most people in the Middle East will recall the promises of Bush senior to create a Palestinian state, a promise that lasted long enough to get that Gulf War over with, and then went into the trash can, and so this obvious diplomatic move by the United States, preceding another Gulf War with Iraq is not likely to be very successful. This diplomatic initiative on the part of the Americans is unlikely to be successful, given how impossible it is to keep an ultra hawk like Sharon on a short leash for the rest of the year (credible reports put the war against Iraq on an October timetable, which means that Sharon would have to respect the law, maybe go to court instead of committing assasinations, and so on, and just behave less like an oppressive and brutal tyrant for a whole six months at least, which would be hard, if not impossible).
According to the report on this counter diplomacy on the part of the United States, targetting their Archilles heel, the Palestinian issue, being used against them by Iran, CNN reported that "When senior Palestinian officials sit down with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday, it will mark the first high-level talks between both sides since President Bush called for new Palestinian leadership.
State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said the United States views the talks as "an exchange of ideas" in which security cooperation, Palestinian civil reforms and steps to improve the political dialogue will be on the agenda.
"We very much want to see a restoration of calm to renew hope for Palestinians and Israelis alike. So we'll look forward to those meetings," Reeker told reporters Wednesday."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/08/08/us.palestinians/index.html
The diplomatic plays and counter plays are going on, swirling around the planned invasion and occupation of Iraq by the Americans, and given that Ariel Sharon is hardly God's gift to the Americans, and given the way the Palestinian issue was falsely used to get Middle Eastern support for the Gulf War part one, it is hard to imagine how the Americans plan to out manouverthe Iranians on this one, given the dead weight of history that every American diplomatic initiative must carry like a millstone around a neck...
bh
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Sharon - more ultra hawk policies
08.08.2002 14:57
Interior minister Eli Yishai proposed on Tuesday implementing for the first time a long-standing law that empowers him to annul citizenship and residency rights.
The law's activation, which has been approved by Israel's top legal official, attorney general Elyakim Rubinstein, was the latest in a series of government steps which Israeli Arabs say undermines their status as citizens of the Jewish state.
They include restricting the movement of Israeli Arab legislators, a bill that would prevent several of them from running again
"Israeli Arabs already felt like second-class citizens," said Sammy Smooha, a professor of Sociology at Haifa University. "Now the message is that not only is their citizenship not equal, it is vulnerable, revokable."
"If we destroy their houses and revoke their citizenship they will think twice before doing anything," Yishai told Israel Radio on Tuesday. But Mordechai Kremnitzer, a law professor and member of the Israel Democracy Institute think tank, said: "this initiative is very grave, very damaging. The sanction of revoking citizenship is unacceptable in democratic regimes."
Kremnitzer said the law was particularly problematic because it allowed for citizenship to be revoked on the grounds of a vague "breach of trust" clause.
He also criticised the law for allowing a political official, instead of a court, to determine if there was cause to annul citizenship.
Smooha said the decision to use the law initially against Arabs, "gives justification to the allegation of racism".
bh
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