Focus 580; Palestine and the Middle East

In this hour of focus we will return to a subject that we have discussed many times over the years on this program and that is the politics of the Middle East very specifically the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. We have tried to present a number of guests with different perspectives over time because we know that no single guest and no single show will please everyone who is listening so and we have tried to put on as many different kinds of people as possible. And to that end this morning in this hour we'll be talking with journalist Ali Abunimah someone who has been a frequent. That is when people request us to have people on the show. He has been a guest who has been frequently requested a very long standing listener request to have him on this program and we're pleased that he could be joining us this morning. He's a writer and commentator on the Middle East an Arab American affairs he makes his home in Chicago. His articles have appeared in a number of publications including The New York Times The L.A. Times the Tribune Chicago Tribune Financial Times The Philadelphia Inquirer and others and he is also a frequent guest on a local national international radio and

television programs. He was born in the United States he grew up in Europe. Both of his parents are originally from Palestine. He's a graduate of Princeton and also University of Chicago and travels often to the Middle East. He's a full time researcher in social policy at the University of Chicago and he is one of the founders of a website that's called the Electronic Intifada. So if you're interested in the Middle East that would be one place that you could go to look at. And it has been around since the winter of 2000 and one. And so if you do have Internet access you can certainly go and look at it and look at the contributions that he has made and others have made to the website. And of course this morning in this part of the program we welcome questions and comments from people who are listening. We ask only that callers are brief and we ask that so that we can keep the program moving and get in as many different people as possible but of course anyone who is listening is welcome to call here in Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do

also have a toll free line and that's good anywhere that you can hear us. And that is 800 to 2 to 9. 4 5 5 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign Urbana where we are but again toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 0 Hello. Hi thanks very much for talking with us. Thank you. My pleasure. I have a little bit of the sore throat in the cold but I hope that won't stop my voice coming through. Well you sound just fine now I hope it won't be too uncomfortable for you to be sitting there and talking with us for the hour. No not at all. Very good. And we do appreciate you being with us because as I say I think that some people here in our community have been suggesting that we have you as a guest for a long long time and I'm glad that we could make it happen. Me too. Well to begin with a very very basic question. Now something that people have been talking about now for some weeks ever since the passing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's. A lot of people said that it represents the opportunity for a new beginning in the goshi ations between the

Palestinians and Israel. And there has been particularly after immediately after his death there's been a lot of speculation about who would come to the leadership of the Palestinian movement and what that would mean for the relationship. Here again as I say between Palestinians and Israelis let me state that now that's a big question obviously we could talk for a long time about that but let's start there. What what is the significance of the passing of. Missed our fun. Well it's significant in that he was someone who dominated the scene for decades. But a lot of this talk of a new door of peace or a window of opportunity is is really I think a misguided wishful thinking or a spin which ignores the fundamental Mistah of was somebody who had recognized Israel had signed peace agreements with Israel who'd won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing so along with his Israeli partner. But that wasn't

enough to bring peace because the fundamental issues the fundamental factors that make conflict between Israelis and Palestinians inevitable have not yet been addressed. There is still an Israeli occupation of the West Bank Gaza Strip in East Jerusalem millions of Palestinians living under Israeli military rule their lives minute to be controlled by the Israeli army. There are still hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers squatting illegally on Palestinian land and millions of Palestinians live in exile denied the right to return to their own country so none of this is changed. And throughout the peace process Israel has continued building the settlements on Palestinian land that make peace. Peace Agreement impossible until Israel is willing to change those things. It doesn't really matter who you put in charge of the Palestinian Authority. It's not going to make a difference.

The position of the government of Israel I think or certainly of Mr. Sharon was that Yasser Arafat was a roadblock to peace and as long as he was around he wasn't going to. That is Mr. Sharon said he wasn't going to talk to Mr. Arafat. And then on the side of the Palestinians they said well this is the man we have selected to be our leader and it seemed that if you take positions like that then there's nowhere to go. Do you do you think that there was any way in which Yasser Arafat was a roadblock to the continuing talks about peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Well obviously if you refuse to talk as Israel has refused to talk for years you can you never know if there's a chance for peace. But talking by itself is not enough I mean we have this idea that you know if you have a peace process everything will be fine. But you know his simple analogy I like to use is if you and I are going to negotiate over how the slice of pizza. And we need to you know decide where to cut the pizza before it gets cold. And

while we're negotiating just grabbing the pizza and stuffing it down my throat as fast as I can. You're not just going to sit on the other side of the table and keep talking as if nothing is going on. And that's been the problem from the beginning but Israel throughout the peace process has continued to build Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land Israel is eating the pizza. And this is something they've been doing with the aid and comfort and encouragement to the U.S. government which refuses to take a position that Israel must stop the settlement must stop building settlements on Palestinian land. And as of August according to the Israeli group Peace Now there were no fewer than 4000 individual housing units on the construction for Jews only in occupied Palestinian land. This is the reality on the ground. It's not being talked about and this is what stands in the way of peace and when you have this level of violence from the Israeli side because you can only

build settlements using violence. I mean come to Illinois and try it. Try taking away people's homes. And forcing them out into this cheat without using coercion and violence I don't think people just willingly step aside so there's immense violence from the Israeli occupation which is generating Palestinian accounts of violence a lot of innocent people are dying. The vast majority of them Palestinians but also some innocent Israelis. And as long as this continues peace negotiations by themselves it meaningless. We have to step in and recognize that there's an enormous imbalance of power between the two sides. And in such a situation without balancing that and coming into to put appropriate pressure on the Israelis and not give appropriate support to the Palestinians the negotiations are absolutely guaranteed to fail.

Tell me what you think about Homewood Abbas who is the man who seems to be the the likely candidate the leading candidate to take over the leadership position that had been held by Mr. Arafat's Well Mahmoud is one of the founders of the PLO along with it. He is someone who has been. Presented in the Western press particularly in the US as a quote unquote moderate and he has been sort of been this effort by the US by Israel by the EU and by the Palestinian Authority to railroad him through the success that the side effect. But this is very troubling to a lot of Palestinians. First of all although George Bush embraced this some kind of break from you know Assad a fat bastard is one of his was one of Arafat's most loyal deputies is seen by many power the city and to be corrupt to represent the same old God desired effect.

And there's no real debate no real opportunity for the sinews to decide. We've seen already although there's supposed to be an election on January 9th a great deal of intimidation which prevents that being a real contest for the Palestinian leadership. And there seems to be an international consensus to railroad the mom through and kind of impose him on Palestinians despite the fact that they might they might not want that. So it's a very very troubling and I think it's motivated by a desire to have. Palestinian leader who will be willing to sign agreements with Israel that give the Palestinians less than the minimum rights. And that's how many Palestinians are seeing it. And again I think it's not going to work there's going to be a lot of disappointed people who are going to wonder what went wrong.

One of the questions that about the elections and I have to admit I'm a little bit confused because I've read so many different things that has to do with who all is actually going to participate. And particularly whether some of the more militant factions within the Palestinian movement like Hamas will actually will actually take part whether first of all whether they'll field candidates. Secondly whether they will even participate at all is is this something that is now dividing the Palestinian movement to the point where you have to question. QUESTION The very meaning of the of the election. I think you do I mean I certainly welcome elections I want elections I've been demanding elections for years. But you know here there are you point to a number of problems and there are others first of all who gets to vote in these elections. If you have to remember that the majority of Palestinians and so at least half let's say live exiled outside Palestine and the refugee camp here in

the United States people like myself and my parents who who are not allowed to freely return to our homes even though we have family living in the West Bank we don't have the right to travel there freely. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in refugee camps around the region are not being given a vote. They ought to be given a vote. We saw in the Afghan election that the United States holds that up as an example that three quarters of a million Afghan refugees in Pakistan was entitled to vote in the Afghan election. Why are Palestinians being given the right to vote. Secondly this election on January 9th is only for the president of the Palestinian Authority promising the start he was created in the offload codes. It's not the government. It doesn't have any real authority over the Palestinians living in the West Bank. I mean we've seen already that Israel is favoring more Di bass. They're allowing him to travel freely

across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to campaign whereas other candidates like most stuff above would see. Now there are two bit of OTs in this campaign and what's confusing is my one vote Hootie who is in prison. But those must suffer but Hootie who's a very highly respected physicians. And very well known is also running in the election. And just yesterday he tried to travel to Hebrew in order to campaign. He was detained and roughed up by the Israeli army he wasn't allowed to travel. He hasn't been allowed to travel to another Palestinian candidate. The speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council has already pulled out of the election because he said Israel has made it impossible for him to travel in the campaign. And all of this points to the real absurdity of the notion of holding free democratic elections under a belligerent foreign

military occupation. Imagine if we tried to have a normal democratic life in this country with a foreign army in a street shooting at us demolishing our homes shutting down election offices and party offices. You know elections are about more than just showing up and voting. Before that you have to have. Civil society you have to have parties you have to have campaigning you have to build a machine. Nobody has a chance to do that in this election. The only people who have the after rate to are the ones who are already in power so to speak. So in that sense the election simply reconfirmed the status quo and gives it the veneer of legitimacy. I know that complicates things because people like things to be simple. But if we want to understand why none of this is going to lead to any breakthroughs then we need to grapple with those realities. Maybe let me ask you one for the question then I have a couple of people who are on hold I promise you I will get right to them I just want to ask you a little bit further about one of the men that you just mentioned in passing Marwan

Barghouti. The man who is the Palestinian leader who is in jail early on when people started talking about the elections for the leadership of the Palestinian Authority there was some speculation that he might offer himself as a candidate or might stand and then he said no he wouldn't and now just recently he has said again yes he would. No he he there's some question about whether he could actually run on the ticket of Fatah because Mahmoud Abbas has been selected to be the candidate but I guess Mr. Barghouti could could stand somehow as an independent candidate he could run as an individual and that could cause some serious divisions. What do you think of his candidacy. Oh I think that you know I mean Mahmoud who picked the man who would have passed I mean we don't have normal as I mentioned you don't have normal political life under a foreign military occupation where you have party primaries and what I backed and managed by some legitimate process the candidate of the

festa faction This is all a very opaque process not seen by many Palestinians as having a lot more credibility and who is in Israeli prison wanted to run and you know why shouldn't he if we're serious about democracy let Palestinians chose. You know opinion polls show that he is to the extent that these polls can be trusted because it's very against very hard to conduct polling on the Israeli occupation. But to the extent that they show anything it's that he's more popular than Mahmoud. And yet there's been this international effort to keep him out of the election. Colin Powell chimed in against it. President Mubarak of Egypt you know it seems to a lot of Palestinians like this is all a stitch up of that being decided in advance that Mahmoud I best is the man. And Palestinians are going to be asked to show up and endorse that and they're not going to be given any other real choice. So if the elections are a sham

so far there's every sign they will be it's not going to lead to any peace breakthrough and it's not going to improve the situation at all with simply fooling ourselves. Let me again reintroduce our guest and then we'll get to some callers. Ali Abunimah is writer and commentator on Middle East an Arab-American affairs he makes his home in Chicago. He was born in the United States grew up in Europe. Both of his parents are originally from Palestine. He's contributed articles to many publications including the. New York Times the Los Angeles Times The Chicago Tribune The Jordan Times Lebanon's Daily Star and Haaretz among others and he frequently is interviewed on radio and television around the country and around the world. He is one of the founders of a website that's called the Electronic Intifada that came into being in the winter of 2000 and one with a lot of information a commentary on the Middle East this again is a program that we are offering as a part of our continuing effort to try to promote some discussion of the Middle East and its politics from different perspectives. We certainly are open to suggestions

about future guests so that also is an opportunity we like to try to involve listeners in the program not just as callers but they also help us shape the program so we're certainly would like to know what you think. We have several callers in fact the lines are full. And again listeners will help us by trying to be brief and we just ask that again so that we could accommodate as many different callers as possible. We'll start with someone listening this morning in Bloomington Indiana and our line. Number four. Hello. I want I want to contrast Palestinian refugees to Jewish refugees. When Israel was declared a state in 1988 by the United Nations the Jews were expelled from Arab nations and often escaping with only the clothes on their back and not only were those Jews expelled but five Arab nations as soon as the United Nations declared Israel a state. The five Arab nations attacked Israel five against one. There was no way Israel could have won that war. But they did and the Jews who had been expelled from Arab nations they were

welcomed into the victorious Israel name Israel Israel and they they entered Israeli society and became productive citizens in a democratic nation. Now in contrast the Palestinian refugees from that 1948 war were put into refugee camps refused entrance into other Arab nations. Remember now that Jews welcomed the Jewish refugees into Israel but the Arab Arab countries did not they be excluded Palestinian refugees from their Arab countries and put them in refugee camps and they are still there. Those refugee camps are still there half a century later. Western countries have given billions of dollars to the Palestinians to Arafat in particular to to pave roads to make interest infrastructure to create commerce to create a normal life for the Palestinians and never. But that but the money is never spent. Due to the refugee camps are still maintained as refugee camps in squalid conditions much opinions of dollars are

stolen. The coalition has made the point well and I'd like to respond to him if I may. Yeah just going you know it is a good example of why it's so difficult to have this discussion because there's so much missed ology in the falsehood and self-delusion and factual error. First of all Israel was not declared by the United Nations and wasn't created by the United Nations. Sure was. Well let me let me on the U.N. you know any of the callers can go can go and check the facts I give you our November 29 1947 the United Nations passed the resolution partitioning Palestine without the consent of its inhabitants into two states. Not automatically but it gave UN trusteeship to the country and the UN was supposed to prepare the country over several years to be divided into two states one for Arabs the right one for Jews. That process never happened. And what the UN partition

plan did was it awarded more than half of Palestine to the Jewish minority even though Jews were a third of the population and owned only 4 percent of the lad. The UN in its wisdom at that time it was controlled by colonial powers who all had colonies of their own and didn't take the rights of indigenous people seriously. It gave 55 percent of Palestine to a side of the population. Now Arab countries didn't invade Israel off to the UN resolution a war broke out all below no research I mean please call are we. Yes it just really I want to say to the caller please and other people who are calling you know we don't interrupt callers when they ask their question we let people go on for a very long time much much more than any other talk show I've ever heard so we really hope that you would extend the same courtesy to the guest and not interrupt him as he said. Right answer the question and let me try to be very brief about it because it is a long topic but in the war which happened from 9 to November 29

1947 the film met May 15 1948. No Arab countries were involved whatsoever. No Arab armies are involved. But that was the period in which most Palestinians were forced out of their homes and villages and became refugees and Israel was established on 78 percent of Palestine and three quarters of the indigenous population were expelled or forced to flee. That's when the Palestinians became refugees and the Arab states didn't enter the war until May 15th 1948 at which point de intervention made no difference to the outcome. People need to know these facts but it doesn't really matter if you leave your home because of a flood. If the Mississippi floods then you're forced to leave your home. You have a right to come back to your home. Nobody can move in and say well you left and the condition of Palestinian refugees is separate from their right. It's appalling that in many countries including in the United States and

Canada I was just. As well as in many Arab countries Palestinian refugees have been treated very poorly. But that doesn't take away their right to go back to their country. It's not simply a question of rehabilitation and the question of Jewish refugees I believe and let me be absolutely clear. Any Jewish person any Jewish Arab who is expelled from an Arab country who lost their property has the right to go back to that country has the right to go back to their Arab homeland and to recover all their property. And that's something I stand by the Palestinians and said you issue refugees without any difference between the two. Can I ask you just to respond to another of the comments that the caller made and it's a criticism that has been frequently made of the palace to. Leadership and that is that at worst at best they're incompetent and worse that they are corrupt and that they have done a very poor job of trying to provide for the needs of the Palestinian people and there is this issue about what has happened with what kind of aid

there was provided there were questions for example when Mr. Arafat's died about certain monies and where they went. What is your what's your thought about that particular criticism that has been I have been writing and criticizing corruption in the Palestinian Authority for years and years when no one else in the international community was interested in it because they thought the Palestinian Authority was doing good Israeli bidding so everyone stayed silent about the corruption. Israel participated in corrupting the Palestinian Authority. Israel finds a monopoly deals with certain figures in the Palestinian Authority which which harmed ordinary Palestinians by forcing them to buy basic commodities fuel. Consumer goods cements from Israeli controlled monopolies with who made corrupt deals with Palestinian authority figures. Do you have the issue of corruption which cuts across the region. You have massive corruption in

Israel. Every day brings new scandals. Ariel Sharon and his sons have been personally implicated in enormous corruption. You have Israel which has been named to by many international bodies as the world's sense and money laundering. And the Russian mafia and trafficking of women. Israel is the country that supplies the largest number of tablets of the illegal drug ecstasy to teenagers in the United States. And I hear very little discussion of the massive corruption in Israel but I'm very much in favor of fighting corruption whether it's corruption among Palestinians or Israelis. And I've been very very critical of Palestinian Authority corruption and will continue to be. Let's go. Another color this is champagne County and it's line number one. Well hi. If you didn't hear in the previous caller's remarks the 1948 it wasn't so Israel wasn't supposed to win but it didn't and that's because he's a Christian fundamentalists and he believes that

the Christian Zionists basically he believes that it was divine intervention I suppose. But what I want to ask about was go back to Marwan Barghouti lest he be called a flip flopper for saying he wasn't wasn't in and then he was in it seems to me that and I haven't heard any commentator suggest that what happened in the interim was Hamas said it wouldn't participate and that it then it becomes more of an internal inside of Fatah kind of thing if so I think that's what probably persuaded him to change his mind on that. I don't know I mean he's been under intense pressure from world leaders for him. I mean you know all the best sort of one man who was in an Israeli prison cell it has got to be really and it is being called you know. Disloyal by his own people who ought to be standing with him. You know I can't imagine the sort of pressure he's on after the ordeal he's been through in the past few years. So you know I think any anyone would be in that situation I think he's still under intense pressure

and I know I wouldn't be surprised if he pulled out again. But here's the thing. Anyone who is serious about democracy who really thinks that Palestinians ought to have a choice or to support him being a candidate. Let people decide. Yeah but I want to talk about Hamas a little bit in that. One thing that also is not very well commented on is the fact that Israel aided Hamas when it was trying to play off the secular PLO at the time so that you know it's like U.S. collaboration with al Qaeda in some peculiar way has sort of a groupie and that. Well that's it's kind of blowback in some ways I don't know if you have a right to mass you know how how mass is a major political movement which has different trends in it. There's a very hardline trend that believes in fighting Israel using almost any tactic hitting back at Israel even by hitting Israeli civilians as we've seen over the

past few years. And there's been also a very pragmatic faction within Hamas that has over the years. Begun to move against attacks on Israeli civilians that has talked about you know accepting any kind of settlement that is you know end the occupation and at the same time fits in with the sort of a Palestinian national consensus. And here's the interesting thing is that Israel assassinated the those people and the more moderate wing they assassinated the Mau moderate leaders in Hamas many years before they hit the more extreme hardliners. And many Palestinians felt that this is because really Israel needs time and they need to have this for oil in order to say look there's no one to talk to that Hamas isn't taking part in the elections because they feel that this is what they say that they

don't recognize the situation created by the US lower courts in which the Palestinian Authority that has no real authority or solvency and they don't want to give it legitimacy by participating in the elections. That's been the line from the beginning and they haven't changed it yet. So I might have one more comment. In Chicago I'm absolutely annoyed that I hadn't heard anything about this trial where the and it ties into Hamas because I think one of the things that the Holy Land Association and these two other groups are accused of is sending material aid and some of it went to Hamas. And I would like for you to comment on I see on your website you don't have anything up on that as yet at least I didn't find it as yet. Well to tell you the truth I have I personally haven't been following the trial closely because to me it's nothing new I mean to me it's you know people ought to be able to go to the courts and get justice. But I think of the number of

Palestinian Americans who have been killed by the Israeli army who've had homes demolished who have had their children killed who've had their right to education denied. But all of this is with the material support of the U.S. government which provide which pays for the occupation. Israel's occupation of collapse without the financial economic military and diplomatic support. And there's no way for those Palestinian American families to go to get justice. Some are very skeptical of this kind of decontextualized trial. I don't support killing civilians I'm against it. I'm absolutely opposed to such violence and to be clear about that regardless of the perpetrators regardless of the victims. But I think of if you read in the Israeli paper Ha'aretz. There's a story today I think we have it up on our site too about a Palestinian child who was shot.

He was working in the fields with his family and he was shot by Israeli soldiers basically for fun while they were training those a 13 year old girl imagine Himes who was executed by an Israeli soldier in October. And that's become a big issue in Israel. But these are very rare cases that see the light of day over the past four years. Debbie nearly 600 Palestinian children killed by the Israeli army and almost none of them are investigated and when they are investigated the Israeli Army investigates itself and clears itself. And unfortunately our courts aren't open to any of these people to get justice to it to get awards or civil damages. So I'm very very skeptical of this kind of one sided justice. Let me again thank the caller we have about 20 minutes left in this part of focus we have others I should introduce once again our guest is writer and commentator on the Middle East an Arab-American affairs makes his home in Chicago one of the founders of the website. Electronic

Intifada has also contributed articles to many different publications New York Times L.A. Times Chicago Tribune as well as the Jordan Times the Lebanon Daily Star and Haaretz. He's a frequent guest on local national international radio and television and he is joining us this morning by telephone from Chicago. Questions comments are certainly welcome to try to get as many people as we can and again this is part of a continuing effort of trying to promote some discussion of this issue from different perspectives and we are certainly open to suggestions from listeners about other guests that we might have on the show. Let us go next to the next caller in line over in Belgium near Danville number two. Good morning. Unfortunately the first caller shows a basic problem with this whole area of very strong feelings on both sides. But that's not really what I wanted to ask about or make comments about. A few weeks ago Mr. and I had two gentlemen on here who are from the Israeli

side and to my way of thinking they seemed they were fairly Zionistic but I'm not going to I can't say that for sure. But I asked him a question and this question on ask you also is probably the most horrendous thing about this conflict that I've seen in the recent past or period as far as I'm concerned is the fact that there was a young lady who had children who decided to strap on some plastic explosives and go blow up her enemy who was in Israel and kill Israelis too along with herself. Now the question I asked them and they obviously put the entire blame on the Palestinian side of it saying it was an honor killing which I didn't quite take as fact. But the question I said is what drives people to do this. What kind of horrid conditions must push a person to do that. A young mother to do that. The children leave family and go to perpetrate such a horrid act. Can you give me your son. Well you know it. If you talk to a lot of people

today who support the Israeli government and they say well the problem is Palestinian violence suicide bombings all of these things. And I agree that's a major problem. The first such suicide bombing occurred in 1994. In other words 100 years into the conflict it took 100 years before any Palestinian sort of blowing himself up or herself up and taking some Israelis along too. But I think the level of violence and brutality that Palestinians have faced at the hands of Israel is little understood in the context you live in. Let me give you an example the media going around referring to a period of relative calm that there's been a relative lull in violence and so on in the month of October that's the latest month so whichever compiled the complete numbers. One hundred sixty five seniors were killed by the Israeli army.

More than half of them were unarmed civilians. Thirty six of them were children. That's more than one child every day. And if you were to scale that up to the palace to you know the U.S. population that would be the equivalent of 100 children a day being killed by the Israeli army. And people don't really have a sense of the scale of the violence that that in some cities like and often in the Gaza Strip. Nobody expects to die and then astral death or death by violence at the hands of the Israeli army is so common. And people have no future suffocated. That doesn't justify suicide bombing. And you know this is the trap we get into if we ever tried to explain this as anything more than evil incarnate. Then we're accused of trying to justify it as a Palestinian I can't

imagine doing such a horrifying thing. But you know I do ask why it took a hundred years of conflict before somebody did that and how the Israelis have got to the point where they can so routinely kill Palestinians kill Palestinian children and feel that it's justified to feel that it's self-defense to go and demolish an entire neighborhood and leave old women children babies sitting on top of piles of rubble. People who have been made refugees once twice three times four times already that the Israelis feel this is justified. That baffles me as much as how any Palestinian could feel blowing up innocent Israelis is justified. Thank you very much sir. I think you will go on to another caller here. That would be someone listening in Urbana line 3. Yeah corruption was mentioned earlier and I was

thinking it made me think of very insidious corruption of history that's taken place in the in the West in particular particularly in the US. And what brought it up to me was that I was reading a little bit of the history which was written before hundreds B.C. And and in my Penguin edition when you look in the index there are no entries for Israel at all. But there are six in trees for Palestine. And yet when when I was watching this program on the History Channel on cable on Alexander the Great and he he was his exploits took place 100 years later after the histories in the three hundred specie. On this program when they showed up. They were trying to show his exploits in the area. They referred to that area as Israel

you know. And to my understanding. Israel didn't exist I think and that's why I'm addressing this question to you because you you would probably know and I certainly don't but I think Israel didn't really exist between the period of like 700 B.C. in 1948 and so I thought I'd ask you a Palestinian what period of time had the area in question been known in Palestine and not Israel. And I'll hang up. Thanks. Well that's a good question but I take a different approach to this. You know I think it's clearly absurd to believe that Israel existed in ancient history as a modern nation state. You know the way we think of states today. You know what what we can. The only thing we can say with certainty about Israel Palestine the Holy Land whatever you want to call it is that the distant area with an incredibly rich and diverse history. Palestinians themselves a very diverse you have

Palestinian Christians Muslims Palestinians of African origin of Central Asian origin Palestine was a refuge for many hundreds of years. Chechens who were expelled from Russia who were persecuted by the sorest regime came to power and there are many Palestinians today who have. Chechen blood and who is very proud of that. So I mean eons to escape persecution came to power the plane came to Lebanon found refuge in these countries. So these places have long traditions of diversity. Jews to prior to the Zionist movement. There was NO NO ONE saw a contradiction between being Palestinian and being Jewish. So Palestinians who are Christians Jews and Muslims. So when I think of my heritage of a Palestinian as a Palestinian I include all of that in my heritage. I believe that you know my ancestors very likely would Jewish. I mean how how how would I know you know my

family is Muslim. But before Islam probably they were Jewish so. I can visit the Jewish History of the. To be a part of my history. And I reject anybody who comes along to make exclusivist claims as particularly people who come from Europe and who say to people who are born and raised that we belong and you don't. That's absolutely unthinkable to me. I embrace all of the history of Palestine. And it really doesn't matter. And where you what happened thousands of years ago you have Zionists making these absurd claims that Zionists can come back and you know they're often coming for the side but quote unquote come back over after 2000 years whereas Palestinians were born. I don't have a right to go back to the police who were born. I believe that we're dealing with a situation where you have at least two peoples in power.

They all have the same right to live in peace and security and in equality and that's something that's really missing from all of the discussion of peace process and negotiations. Basic human equality and dignity. Let's go to another caller this is Gibson city and that's line number one. Yes hello. I am just so happy to hear you talk and telling a different side of the story which we don't hear in your media thank you. And I've been there three times and I did it a month in Hebron. They worked with a peacemaker team there and I am not an intellect. I am a ordinary citizen but I guess it's my faith walk I am a Mennonite I am a pacifist I do not believe in violence and I think that that's how it's going to have to be no violence on both sides. The one thing I want to say is people don't realize you said there are settlers there illegally now only there are they there illegally but they carry around and 16th and that which I think with my own eyes. When your brother see it horrifies you would be like somebody walking around the United

States it would carry M-16 and then deciding who they're going to kill and then also I want to say that being there I've also read the book Blood Brothers by Father like it cooler and I got a chance to meet him but he is a mellow priest and he believes in peace and he's up on your believes and I would suggest that would be a book somebody would want to read somebody that that is not a very intellectual that doesn't want to read something really intellectually it's a very good story about how his family he called his father a peacemaker because he lived along the river and lived with Jews and they got along just fine until after one thousand forty eight. Also. There's a book out about the children who will save the children and it's up to I don't know if I had time to mention it but the group that that puts it out is that the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the occupied territories and

the Palestinian society for the protection of human rights and environment. And this book shows the inequality I mean I abhor any death of any children but the death compared to Jewish children and Palestinian children is is very shocking. And the human rights violations that are going on there people I don't think have a clue. Most people don't and I just want to thank you again. And the only other comment I want to say to everybody talk about Arafat and you know Arafat Well you know Arafat is gone. Well there's other players in the game too including Sharon who will set off the second intifada by going to the Temple Mount. So I guess my slant on it is there's a lot of good Israeli peace activist and Palestinian peace activists that I've met and good Palestinian and Israeli people that are working for peace and I also say that there is. I get that. I guess

I'll get up to a pad about it that there's not nothing our news media to tell us about the good things that are going on and I get I get when I thank you. And like I said there's there's a lot I could say a lot more but thank you. All right well hang up. Well I appreciate the comments and you want to make you want to follow up on anything that the caller said just appreciate the comments very much to share those feelings. You know we try to fill in some of the holes in the mainstream media on our Web site Electronic Intifada. So that's a good resource for many of the kinds of information that the caller mentioned that you don't get from the you know from the daily paper necessarily. So I hope people use that resource to one of the things that that very frequently I think has come up when we have had these conversations in the past is callers saying and clearly these were callers that were that were identified that identified with this real saying that. They were they were

concerned. They felt that the Palestinian side never really in a convincing way renounced violence and said that they accepted the existence of Israel. Do you feel that at least on that second point that that the majority of Palestinians do indeed feel that way. Well you know I mean it's it's hard to know what to say to people who say that in 1993 the PLO had to divide but find the off the local roads and signed an agreement in which the Palestinians accepted recognized Israel accepted all U.N. resolutions which gives Israel the right to live within secure boundaries. This is something that was witnessed by President Clinton and by the whole world and Israel reciprocally never a restraint has never recognized in any formal way that Palestinians have a right to freedom to

independence to self-determination. On the contrary Israel has rejected that notion. In a word and indeed by continuing to settle Palestinian land to build these Jewish only settlements on it that's the clearest statement from Israel of its contempt for Palestinian rights. And. Palestinians renounced violence. But nobody can renounce their right to defend themselves. Israel also renounced violence but it continued to use violence to build the settlements. As I said the occupation is a system of pervasive violence. You cannot have foreign belligerents foreign military occupation without violence because its role its foreign military rule without consent of the people and it can only be enforced with extreme systematic violence. If someone comes to my home and says God gave me a right to throw you out of your house I'm not going to take that. And I don't think there are many Americans who would take that.

So it's it's it's it's very dishonest to talk about violence without talking about the violence of the occupation and to say Israel committed to peaceful negotiations. But Israel decided to predetermine the outcome of negotiations with bulldozers and tanks and guns. And in that situation you cannot possibly expect that to be a count of violence from Palestinians. Having said that I think it's also important for people to know that the vast majority of Palestinian resistance to the occupation is. Nonviolent resistance. What do I mean by that. When Israel builds roadblocks to stop people getting to school. And yet children get to school. They go around the hills over the hills to get to school walking miles. That nonviolent resistance when Israel digs up a road to stop a Fama gets into his field and taken the all of the harvest. But people get together and they get in the harvest. That's resistance when the army

demolishes a house and someone's neighbor takes them in and helps them to rebuild their home. That is nonviolent resistance. And just because we don't see it on the nightly news doesn't mean it isn't happening millions of times every day. So if we want to support nonviolence we have to give recognition to how people are struggling and coping in these impossible conditions I mean you know under the snowstorm in Chicago we prime it can everything shut down. I don't think we can imagine the level of daily obstacles and humiliation that living under a foreign military option. Q fisheries we just don't have a frame of reference for it that going to the supermarket going down the street is a life and death situation. Getting your children to school with tanks in the street is a life and death situation. I don't think we have a way to imagine it. We're just about out of time. Maybe in about a minute or less. Do you think that there

is something that the United States can do to help. Obviously some people feel that the that all along here the the one country with the opportunity actually to do something constructive here is the United States. We yes there's a lot we can do. We have to demand that government be fat even handed that it do justice. We cannot be an honest broker and at the same time be bankrolling the occupation bankrolling the settlements and providing diplomatic cover to what the rest of the world recognizes as Walker and we have to condemn violence fairly and equally condemn violence when Palestinians perpetrated against Israeli civilians. But we also have to demand recognition of the far greater and more devastating violence that is happening every day from the Israelis to Palestinian civilians. We have to be fair and even handed. Nobody should be pro-Palestinian. Nobody should be pro israeli we have to be pro

Palestinian and pro israeli which means being fair and doing justice. I believe that's the American way. And I think if Americans knew what was going on they would understand why we have to be just because the blowback of our one sided support for Israel is reflecting on all Americans the damaging the image and reputation of the United States all over the world. And right now we can't afford that. Well there we will have to end again for people who are interested in reading more on this issue one place you can go is the website we've talked about here Electronic Intifada. Our guest Ali Abunimah one of the founders on there on the web at Electronic Intifada dot net. Ali Abunimah is a writer commentator on Middle East an Arab-American affairs he makes his home in Chicago. Thank you very much for talking with us today. We appreciate it. It's been my pleasure thank you.