[Marxism] "Ceasefire on paper, fire on the ground" - Fwd from "The Other Israel"

["Lueko Willms" <lueko.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

  The public faces of "The Other Israel" are Adam Keller and Beate
Silversmidt, who lead together with Uri Avnery "Gush Shalom", or
"Israeli Peace Bloc". 


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> Subject: [TOI-Billboard] Ceasefire on paper, fire on the ground
> Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 08:10:16 -0500
> List-Help: <http://www.zinester.com>
> From: The Other Israel <otherisr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


Ceasefire on paper, fire on the ground
TOI-Billboard, August 12, 2006
--The Other Israel's weekly comment
--Overview of this week's Occupation Magazine's daily picks attached 


So, it goes on. 

For the past week and more we had lived under the illusion that when
the UN Security Council solemnly resolves to cease the fire, the fire
will indeed cease. The media certainly helped create this feeling,
reporting extensively and minutely on the the ups and downs of the
negotiations between the French and the Americans. And when on Friday
the news from New York told of an approaching breakthrough,
commentators started talking of the war as if it already were a thing
of the past. And a great variety of nationalists and demagogues
started crying and howling over "the surrender" and "the betrayal". 

They could have saved their breath. Olmert and his Defence Minister
Amir Peretz heard last night's news from New York while closeted in
the Army's Supreme Headquarters, with the generals making the final
preparations for what seems the biggest ground offensive in this war.
And after midnight the headlines on the internet websites seemed
taken directly from Orwell: "Government to approve UN Ceasefire
resolution, major ground offensive into Lebanon goes ahead on
schedule". 

Looking carefully at the text approved at that hallowed hall of
international diplomacy, things become a bit clearer. For the framers
of that new UN Security Council Resolution, 1701 (a number which we
will undoubtedly hear quoted ad nauseam in the coming weeks and
months) - have left a loophole in their "cessation of hostilities".
Or rather a gaping opening wide enough to allow the passage of
hundreds of tanks and fighter airplanes and tens of thousands of
soldiers, the full four divisions reported to be now charging
northwards. 

The fifteen members of the Security Council have solemnly and
unanimously determined that "the situation in Lebanon constitutes a
threat to international peace and security" and therefore called for
"the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military
operations". However, as anybody knows who had ever attended a lesson
in Basic Civics at a Tel-Aviv elementary school, the Israeli Defence
Forces never have and never will conduct any offensive military
operation. Each and every one of their operations, in this war as in
its predecessors, is purely defensive and is conducted solely in
order to defend a peace-loving population against unprovoked
aggression, for which reason the IDF coat of arms is the Sword and
Olive Branch, and third grade pupils are required to paste that coat
of arms in their copybooks and write under it the caption "our army
hates war and wants only peace". 

So, it continues. The number of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon has
tripled in the past twenty-four hours, according to Chief of Staff
Halutz, all of course involved in the purely defensive race to
conquer all the territory up to the Litani River, which the generals
expect to take "four days to a week" and then involve "several weeks
of mopping up" (not that the army was very effective in "mopping up"
the limited parts of Lebanon which it already invaded two and three
weeks ago). So far, at least 19 people are reported killed since the
diplomats affixed their signatures to that solemn document, and a
Lebanese contact just informed us that the villages east of Saida,
left untouched since the war broke out, had today gotten a lethal
"visit" from the Israeli Air Force. 

And so, we must continue as well. A few hours from now, there will be
hundreds of us answering the call of Yesh Gvul to climb the hill
overlooking Military Prison 6 at Atlit, shouting words of greetings
and solidarity and warm support into the plainly visible prison
courtyard - to the five soldiers who preferred imprisonment over
participation in the Lebanese folly and madness, and also for their
fellow-prisoners and guards. Climbing that hill is a tradition dating
back to the First Lebanon War, a tradition which it seems we need to
revive, like so much else. 

At least, the stifling atmosphere of "national unity" which
characterized the past weeks seems to have decisively dissipated.
"The Big Three" of Israeli literature - "Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and
David Grossman - have come out against the war, three weeks after
they had endorsed it in public. (Some 60 younger authors, who opposed
the war from the first minute, had been constantly snapping at these
three's heels). Also, the magnitude of the Lebanon invasion and its
similarity to the fiasco of 1982 (except that the guerrillas now seem
much better organized and armed...) at last nudged mainstream groups
such as Peace Now and the Meretz Party out of their complacency and
the "support from the left" which many of their leaders gave to this
vicious war on its inception. On Thursday they were in their hundreds
in front of the Ministry of Defence, with big signs reading "There is
No Military Solution!", and cracks start to appear in the Labor Party
support for the mad careering of Party Leader and Defence Minister
Amir Peretz - once a staunch dove and militant trade unionist, now
the the most hawkish of hawks. 

As things stand, it seems that all of us - radicals and moderates,
those who opposed the madness from its inception and the latecomers -
will still have to go and protest again and again. And meanwhile, the
occupation and oppression of the Palestinians are still there, to any
who tended to forget. Yesterday afternoon, the weekly anti-Wall
procession at Bil'in was viciously attacked by the army and Border
Guard troops. Limor, a young Israeli activist, was hit in the head by
one of the misnamed "rubber bullets" - which is actually made of
metal. After emergency surgery at Tel-Hashomer hospital, he is now
under medically induced coma, and only when he wakes up will it be
possible to asses the permanent damage. Due to Lebanon, the case got
very meagre media attention; updates will appear on the International
Solidarity Movement website http://www.palsolidarity.org 
 
------------- cut -----------------------------

Occupation Magazine 

http://www.kibush.co.il/ (articles and action news, look at it daily
- includes a useful archive) 


ISM website 
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/ (informing especially about joint
Palestinian-Israeli-international anti-Wall struggle in the villages)



Robert Rosenberg's summary of "peace" issues in the Israeli media 
http://www.ariga.com/ (on workdays) 

http://www.theheadlines.org/ (a variety of papers, followed dayly by
Shadi Fadda) 

http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml (Palestinian press agency,
including own research) 

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php (Palestinian on-line News agency
that publishes news and articles in English from it's own as well as
other sources, including from the Hebrew press) 

 

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TOI-Billboard current issue http://toibillboard.info/index.htm
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TOI-Billboard archive http://archives.zinester.com/93796
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TOI-Billboard is the 'ezine' of the independent THE OTHER ISRAEL
bi-monthly peace newsletter, existing since 1983, and published by
its editors Adam Keller & Beate Zilversmidt. 
 

NB: The Other Israel May issue is now online with a selection of the
articles:
http://otherisrael.home.igc.org/ 


For a one time hard-copy (free sample), send your address to:
otherisr@xxxxxxxxxxxx, 
US addresses to: aicipp@xxxxxxx 


 Visit also the archive under construction of issues since 1994 
 http://israelipalestinianpeace.org 
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Yours, 
Lüko Willms 
Frankfurt/Main 
/ Lueko.Willms@xxxxxxxxxxx 


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