Tuesday, June 16, 2009

No peace from Netanyahu


Israel's prime minister called for talks without preconditions while imposing conditions that would make peace impossible

Laila El-Haddad
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 June 2009

".....Even after the so-called disengagement from Gaza, the landmark event that supposedly reigned freedom unto Gaza and its people, Israel continued to maintain effective control over Gaza's borders, her air, sea, sky, even the population registry; and continued to impose a longstanding siege. This despite warnings from experts about the dire consequences that would ensue by not guaranteeing movement and access to people and goods. Gaza faced poverty and unemployment unprecedented in 40 years since Israel's occupation as a result.

But by Netanyahu's estimates, this is peace. Gaza is the model – the vision – for what a so-called Palestinian state would look like......

Netanyahu talked idyllically of a peace in which a tourism-driven economy would draw millions to Nazareth and Bethlehem. He forgot to mention the caveat that tourists would first have to face an apartheid barrier twice the size of the Berlin wall, navigate a Kafkaesque matrix of Israeli administrative control and, if they carry the wrong colour ID, scale sewers if they desire to visit a family member across the way in East Jerusalem."

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