The Guardian is reporting today that they have in their possession some 1600 internal PA documents, NOT FROM WIKI LEAKS, that reveal loads of not so nice things about the so called Israel-Palestine “peace process.”
The paper reports that the juicier documents discuss:
• How Israeli leaders privately asked for some Arab citizens to be transferred to a new Palestinian state.
• The intimate level of covert co-operation between Israeli security forces and the Palestinian Authority.
• The central role of British intelligence in drawing up a secret plan to crush Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
• How Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders were privately tipped off about Israel’s 2008-9 war in Gaza.
I would not be surprised to see Tunisian style blow back in the streets of the West Bank and Gaza in the coming days as a result of this news…which can only lead one to wonder, who leaked the documents to begin with?
Rock legend and hipster icon, Elvis Costello has canceled his planned concert in Israel giving hope to the Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) movement within the pro-Palestinian camp in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sometimes a silence in music is better than adding to the static and so an end to it.
I cannot imagine receiving another invitation to perform in Israel, which is a matter of regret but I can imagine a better time when I would not be writing this.
A couple of Palestinian activist readers have sent me an article from Newsweek detailing efforts within the “Israel lobby” to use polling in order to discover language pleasing to the American ear when talking about settlements. I must wonder, is this so suprirsing and worthy of the ire of the activist community?
Official government newspeak from the Israeli side pops up all the time in their dialogue and narrative with the West. Take for example how in recent news Netanyahu’s refers post-1967 Jerusalem as a “unified” Jerusalem as opposed to an annexed Jerusalem.
Still, Palestinians, particularly those living here in the United States and Europe should learn from the Israeli machine. Why on Earth are Palestinian activists not doing the same thing? One of the keys to justice in that part of the world (which I personally believe will only result in a one-state solution…but I leave that to the Israelis and Palestinians) is when the American public begins to demand from its government a more even hand in it’s approach to the conflict.
If I were a member of AAI I would be calling up some pollsters tomorrow morning to see what works and what doesn’t work when discussing the struggle for justice in Palestine.
(i am sure some of you get this reference…updated with the Ipod and all)
It is our hope that Qbash becomes your go-to blog for all things related to the Middle East and other Muslim societies. With any luck qbash will bring out the 16th century militant Sufi mystic in you (in a peaceful way)!
