Palestinian People

IT WAS the most loving fax I've ever received. I had just come back to the office from asking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a few questions at a news conference during his visit to Washington in January. I was astonished to learn that my dad, in Amman, Jordan, saw it on CNN International. "You were fantastic," he wrote me.I was thinking of dad - and the fact that he and 700,000 other Palestinians were forced from their homes in 1948 - as I asked the Israeli leader if it was time that Israel acknowledged this wrong.

The "divestment from companies working In Israel" bandwagon is rolling again in several Protestant denominations, among them my own, the Presbyterian Church (USA). In one way, that's a good thing. It does ask us to pay attention to Israel and the West Bank/Gaza, when the Israeli government wants to focus our attention on Iran, and as a side effect get us to ignore the ongoing travesty of the occupation. Nonetheless, divestment as a tactic for dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a bad idea.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Israel yesterday to refrain from sealing off the Gaza Strip, together with its 1.3 million Palestinian inhabitants, after withdrawing from the seaside territory this summer. The secretary's comments, delivered at a joint news conference with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, were among her strongest yet in support of freedom of movement for Palestinians after the Israeli pullout. Rice, who met a day earlier with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, spent much of yesterday listening to Abbas and other senior Palestinian officials express fears that Gaza would become a "big prison" after the Israelis leave, with highly restricted access to the outside world.

The political commentators, top Democrats and their leading presidential contender couldn't say enough about President Bush's reference to Nazi appeasers during his speech last week to Israel's parliament. It was a perceived slap at Sen. Barack Obama's interest in talking to Iran and Syria - the evildoers the administration loves to hate - but it struck a chord on Israel's 60th anniversary because many of its citizens view Iran as their potential annihilator. What got less attention was Mr. Bush's single reference to the Palestinians in his speech, and it resonated in a way the president's speechwriters probably never intended.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is promoting a national unity government that could ease the isolation of the Palestinian people, but he can't get his Hamas rivals to commit. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh won't soften his anti-Israel stand, which means a U.S.-led blockade of financial aid to the Palestinians will remain firm. President Bush says he's committed to an independent Palestine, but he hasn't offered any new initiatives to bring it about. The Palestinian people are paying the price for this continued inertia, as the territories grow more lawless and destitute.

WASHINGTON-President Bush softened his demand for the ouster of Yasser Arafat yesterday, saying "the issue is much bigger than a person" and suggesting that reforms could be carried out that effectively reduce the Palestinian leader's power. "The person you mentioned, Mr. Arafat, has failed to deliver. I still feel that way," Bush said at a news conference with Poland's president, Aleksander Kwasniewski. "And I know the Palestinian people will be better served by new leadership." But Bush quickly added that the "focus of my administration" is to help develop a Palestinian constitution and reform the Palestinian security and financial structures so as to allow a new state to come into being.

WASHINGTON and Moscow should relentlessly continue theirjoint peace efforts regardless of any difficulties created by Israel. Efforts to find a suitable formula to settle the Middle East crisis have entered into a stage which could be described as more than serious. These efforts have gained additional momentum by the entry of the Soviet Union into the arena of the search for a peaceful solution. . . .Washington and Moscow, who are responsible for peace and security in the world, should not slacken their peace attempts.

JERUSALEM - Here are excerpts of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's statement denouncing terrorism, as translated by the U.S. government: President Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership express their condemnation of all terrorist acts against civilians, whether they are Israelis or Palestinians and whether this terrorism is sponsored by a state, group or person. This is based on a firm principle rejecting the use of violence and terrorism against civilians or as a means to achieve political aims.

JERUSALEM - Branding him an "arch murderer," Israel will formally charge popular Palestinian militia leader Marwan Barghouti today with killing scores of Israelis. Barghouti, 43, is the West Bank head of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and one of the most visible leaders of the Palestinian uprising. His lawyers claim he is only a senior political leader, but Israel accuses him of masterminding many acts of violence by Palestinian militants during the past two years. By bringing criminal proceedings against Barghouti, Israel evidently hopes to discredit the highest levels of the Palestinian leadership.

AFTER 100 DAYS in office, Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas put it plainly yesterday to the Palestinian parliament: Give him the authority and support to rule or give him his leave. Its response should be swift and straightforward: Grant him the power and tools to govern and be done with it. It is Mr. Abbas who will either succeed or fail in efforts to reach a political settlement with Israel and end the cycle of violence and retribution that has killed more than 2,100 Palestinians and 800 Israelis over three years.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Israeli and Palestinian officials have given themselves until the end of President Bush's term to reach a comprehensive peace agreement, Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. officials said yesterday. The deadline of just over a year from now, laid out Sunday by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and confirmed yesterday by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, gives a huge boost to the efforts of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to push the sides toward a peace plan during her tenure.

CAIRO, Egypt -- The coming Israeli-Palestinian peace conference resembles a dinner party with a less-than-inspiring menu and a bunch of well-tailored yet exasperated guests who, if they show up at all, doubt that anyone will go home happy. Posturing and recrimination often characterize such negotiations, but Arab capitals, including Washington's closest allies, are criticizing the November conference in Annapolis as a miscalculated photo-op by a Bush administration desperate to repair its image across the Middle East.

JERUSALEM -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Jerusalem today for peace talks aimed at jump-starting the Bush administration's long-dormant efforts toward creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Her meeting Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is the beginning of a new, concerted effort by the administration to develop what Rice describes as "a clear political horizon for the Palestinian people." Instead of concentrating on short-term objectives with troublesome sticking points - such as ending Palestinian violence or halting settlement construction - Rice plans to focus on the end goal: what it will take to create a viable Palestinian state.

. JERUSALEM --King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called yesterday on rival Palestinian factions to hold emergency talks in the holy city of Mecca in the most recent bid to halt some of the worst-ever Palestinian internal fighting. As the two main factions, Hamas and Fatah, waged a fourth straight day of fighting in the Gaza Strip, leaders from both groups said they would take up the invitation by the Saudi monarch, though no date was set. "I call on my brothers, the Palestinian people, represented by their leaders, to put an immediate end to this tragedy and to abide by righteousness," the king said in an announcement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Seeking an end to the political deadlock that is impoverishing the Palestinian people and pushing them closer to civil war, President Mahmoud Abbas called yesterday for new presidential and legislative elections to be held as soon as possible. The announcement came as a direct challenge to Hamas, which won a landslide victory over Abbas' Fatah Party less than one year ago. Hamas officials immediately rejected the call for early elections as an illegal attempt by Abbas to mount a "coup."

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is promoting a national unity government that could ease the isolation of the Palestinian people, but he can't get his Hamas rivals to commit. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh won't soften his anti-Israel stand, which means a U.S.-led blockade of financial aid to the Palestinians will remain firm. President Bush says he's committed to an independent Palestine, but he hasn't offered any new initiatives to bring it about. The Palestinian people are paying the price for this continued inertia, as the territories grow more lawless and destitute.

Our people dont care, and dont hesitate to continue their march to Jerusalem, their capital of the independent Palestinian state. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat The best thing is a national unity government even if it will take three or four days and to establish it and get it on its way. We are facing the Palestinians and the Arab worlds and even facing friends and fewer friends in the entire world. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak The alternative to the peace process is now no longer merely hypothetical.

The political commentators, top Democrats and their leading presidential contender couldn't say enough about President Bush's reference to Nazi appeasers during his speech last week to Israel's parliament. It was a perceived slap at Sen. Barack Obama's interest in talking to Iran and Syria - the evildoers the administration loves to hate - but it struck a chord on Israel's 60th anniversary because many of its citizens view Iran as their potential annihilator. What got less attention was Mr. Bush's single reference to the Palestinians in his speech, and it resonated in a way the president's speechwriters probably never intended.

Bush tries to rewrite history on Katrina Instead of focusing on the facts about Hurricane Katrina one year later (dead bodies still in abandoned houses, much of New Orleans still without electricity, uncollected garbage and debris in the streets along with countless homeless people, among other horrors), the Bush regime has embarked on a public relations campaign intended to do what it does best - rewrite history ("Reflecting on Katrina," Aug. 30). The reality is that the federal government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina exposed the fact that four years after 9/11, the Bush team was unable to keep us safe.