Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel-Palestine, edited by Sandy Sufian and Mark LeVine. Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007. x + 311 pages. Index to p. 319. $80.00 cloth; $29.95 paper.
The West Bank and Gaza Strip: A Geography of Occupation and Disengagement, by Elisha Efrat. Oxon, U.K.: Routledge, 2006. xi + 206 pages. Glossary to p. 208. Bibliography to p. 212. Index to p. 216. $34.95 paper.
This section aims to give readers a glimpse of how the Arab world views current events that affect Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli conflict by presenting a selection of cartoons from al-Hayat, the most widely distributed mainstream daily in the Arab world. JPS is grateful to al-Hayat for permission to reprint its material.
This section includes articles by Israeli journalists and commentators that have been selected for their frank reporting, insightful analyses, or interesting perspectives on events, developments, or trends in Israel and the occupied territories.
This section covers items-reprinted articles, statistics, and maps-pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.
Political Geography:
Washington, Middle East, Israel, Jerusalem, and Gaza
As minister of state in the Northern Ireland Office in 1994, Michael Ancram was the first British minister to meet with Sinn Fin and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 25 years, overseeing talks between Sinn Fein and the British government that began the peace process that ultimately resulted in the decommissioning of the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 2005 and the formal implementation of power-sharing in 2007. This essay, entitled "The Middle East Peace Process: The Case for Jaw-Jaw not War-War," first appeared in Accord (Issue 19), Conciliation Resources, March 2008 and was circulated by Conflicts Forum. The full text is available online at www.conflictsforum.org.
The following excerpts from Minister Livni's welcoming speech to delegates from forty states participating in the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism conference held in Jerusalem on 24-25 February indicate that the Israeli government considers the fight against anti-Semitism to be central to Israeli foreign policy and urges more states to confront anti-Semitism in an urgent and systematic manner. (For comparison, see the U.S. Department of State's "Report on Global Anti-Semitism" in Doc. D3 below.)
In response to criticisms that its military attacks on Gaza following Hamas Qassam rocket strikes in Sederot were causing unnecessary civilian casualties, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) released a background paper in March, excerpted below, to clarify and justify the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) understanding of the principle of proportionality. This principle, along with the principle of intentionality, forms the jurisprudence of International Humanitarian Law. Citing a number of international legal scholars and Article 52(2) of the Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions (1977), to which Israel is a signatory, the background paper attempts to redefine proportionality in order to legitimate attacks on targets that are not strictly military, placing the blame for any civilian deaths on Hamas for using civilians as "human shields." Although the IDF and the MFA have advanced this argument in response to international criticism about IDF strikes causing civilian deaths in Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories, this background paper represents an attempt to subordinate the need to cause as little harm to civilians as possible to Israel's stated need to preempt future attacks. The report is available online at www.mfa.gov.il.
On 13 April, the Israeli human rights organization Public Committee against Torture in Israel (PCATI) released an extensive report, excerpted below, detailing the Israeli Security Agency's (Shin Bet) use of abuse and threats against detainees' family members in order to extract confessions. PCATI's report also reveals that despite the Israeli High Court ruling against the use of torture in 1999, both physical and psychological torture, assisted by physicians, continues. The report concludes with recommendations concerning both legislation and the supervision of the General Security Services (GSS) that will contribute to preventing the use of this deplorable method. One of six cases presented in the report is excerpted below. The full report is available online at www.stoptorture.org.il.
From 13-22 April, former U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter held high-profile meetings with political and civil society leaders in Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The trip occasioned heated debates in the U.S. and Israeli media, largely because Carter planned to meet with Hamas leaders, particularly Khalid Mishal, who agreed in the course of their Damascus talks to put Hamas's position on final status talks with Israel in writing, which Carter formally unveiled at the end of his trip (see excerpts). Initially, Carter intended to make the trip part of a larger delegation led by Nelson Mandela to raise awareness of the urgent need for Israeli-Arab peace and the interlocking nature of the region's conflicts. After Israel denied the group's request to meet with senior officials during the tour to protest the planned meeting with Mishal, the delegation canceled its trip, and Carter opted to go on his own on behalf of the Carter Center. Israel agreed to receive him but denied permission for him to travel to Gaza to meet with Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh. Carter instead met with Hamas officials in Ramallah, Cairo, and Damascus. Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, Vice PM and FM Tzipi Livni, and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Palestinian pres. Mahmud Abbas, turned down requests to meet. Carter was received 4/13 on behalf of Israel by Pres. Shimon Peres, who reprimanded him for having "caused many problems in recent years with your comments and meetings," and 4/14 on behalf of the PA by PM Salam Fayyad. During the trip, he alsomet with the PA's negotiation advisers, various Israeli MKs, Israeli and Palestinian student groups, U.S. security envoy Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, Syrian pres. Bashar al-Asad, Jordan's King Abdallah, and Saudi Arabia's King Abdallah. The State Dept. urged (4/10) Carter against meeting with Mishal, arguing that it went against U.S. policy of isolating Hamas. Carter responded that peace could not be achieved without including Hamas and stressed that he was traveling in a personal capacity. The following excerpts from Carter's "Trip Report" cover his meetings with Hamas leaders and President Asad, and his overall impressions regarding the status of the peace process. The full text is available online at www.cartercenter.org.
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Cairo, and Damascus