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CIAO DATE: 09/03
Summer 2003 (Volume XXXII, Number 4, Issue 128)
Articles
From State-Led Growth to Globalization: The Evolution of Israeli Capitalism by Adam Hanieh
This article examines the development of the Israeli capitalist class and the role played by the state apparatus in that development. In contrast to analyses claiming that Israel was a "socialist-type" economy prior to the mid-1980s, it argues that the Labor Zionist movement fostered the emergence of an indigenous capitalist class by encouraging the growth of private capital through key conglomerates initially tied to the state. Following the 1985 Economic Stabilization Plan, these conglomerates were placed in private hands linked with large foreign capital. Israel's recent incorporation into the global economy has undermined the traditional sustaining elements of the Zionist project, producing a crisis of legitimacy in the state. It also has important ramifications for the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations.
Artists Remember Palestine in Beirut by Kamal Boullata
The following article examines the work of seven visual artists of the first generation of Palestinian refugees whose careers unfolded in Beirut, at the time the cultural center of the Arab world and "the metropolis of Arab modernity." The two groups of refugee artists--those from the camps and those who became part of Beirut's elite artistic scene—produced works very different in approach and spirit, but which all bore the stamp of their experience of Palestine. While examining the works of these artists in the context of their lives, the paper also highlights the sometimes explicit, sometimes hidden presence of Palestine.
Essay
The Palestinian Question: Themes of Justice and Power, Part I: The Palestinians of the Occupied Territories by Raef Zreik
Ever since 1948, Palestinian politics have been stymied by two conflicting drives: on the one hand the reality of an overwhelming imbalance of power, which mandates major concessions, and on the other a deep conviction of the unassailable justice of the cause, which refuses to accept the dictates of power. Oscillating between these two poles, Palestinians have been unable to develop a clear and consistent strategy. The first part of this essay, below, explores the ramifications of this dichotomy in the occupied territories, specifically with regard to the development of the Oslo process and the second intifada. A second part will explore how it plays out in the case of the Palestinians of Israel.
Report
ISM at the Crossroads: The Evolution of the International Solidarity Movement by Charmaine Seitz
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) has emerged as the most visible face of international activism in Palestine. This overview charts ISM's development from the intersection of various independent initiatives—Palestinian, foreign, and Israeli--in the early months of the Aqsa intifada into a loose but self-generating movement sufficiently effective to be the object of stepped up Israeli pressures. The report concludes with a discussion of various options open to the movement in the face of new challenges.
In Perspective
The Death of American Peace Activist Rachel Corrie
On 16 March 2003, Rachel Corrie, a twenty-three-year-old peace activist from Olympia, Washington, was crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Rafah, southern Gaza, where she had been living for the past seven weeks as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Wearing a bright orange jacket of the sort donned by ISM volunteers during "human shield" work, Corrie, along with other ISM activists, was trying to block demolitions of Palestinian homes.
In its initial statement dated 17 March, the IDF noted that the incident occurred while IDF forces were "taking down shrubbery along the border between Israel and Egypt" and that "as the windows of the bulletproof bulldozer are very small, the visibility is very limited and the bulldozer operator did not see the woman." But while the initial Israeli statement indicated that "an IDF bulldozer apparently ran over a protester accidentally," the "full" investigation, led by the chief of general staff of the IDF and completed during the second week of April 2003, concluded that Corrie had not been run over by an "engineering vehicle" after all, "but rather was struck by a hard object, most probably a slab of concrete which was moved or slid down while the mound of earth which she was standing behind was moved." The report exonerated Israeli forces of any responsibility.
According to eyewitness reports by ISM volunteers on the scene, however, the army's description of events bore little resemblance to what they saw. In the words of Joe Smith, an ISM activist present at the time, "Rachel was kneeling 20 meters in front of the bulldozer on flat ground. There was no way she could not have been seen. We only maintain positions that are clearly visible. She had been doing this all day, but this time the driver did not stop. Once she had fallen under the bulldozer, the driver stopped when she was under its middle section and reversed." Photographs of the incident confirm the ISM accounts.
On 11 April, just as the IDF was issuing its findings, a twenty-one-year-old ISM activist from Britain, Tom Hurndall, was shot in the head by an IDF soldier elsewhere in Rafah while wearing the type of bright orange vest that Corrie had been wearing when she was killed. Two months after the shooting, Hurndall remains in a coma. (For more on the ISM and Israel's campaign against international peace activists, including details of the machine gun shooting of two ISM activists by the IDF on 6 April, see the report by Charmaine Seitz and the Chronology and Quarterly Update sections in this issue.)
Corrie's death received only very limited attention in the U.S. media, almost totally preoccupied by the war on Iraq, but there was nonetheless some reaction. On 25 March, eleven U.S. representatives--all Democrats from Washington State and California--led by Brian Baird of Washington introduced a nonbinding resolution (H. Con. Res. 111) expressing sympathy to Corrie's family, calling on the United States to undertake a full investigation, and encouraging the U.S. and Israeli governments to determine the circumstances of the death and make sure such incidents do not recur. Following the conclusion of the Israeli army's investigation in April, the State Department said that the United States was still demanding a full investigation. The IDF reviewed and affirmed its findings, and formally closed the file at the end of June.
The following are excerpts from Rachel Corrie's emails to her parents, who made them available through the ISM. They were printed in the Guardian of 18 March 2003.
Review Essay
The New American Imperialism vs. the Old Europe by Leon T. Hadar
This essay critically reviews a trio of recent books by three leading voices of the neo-conservative movement: Max Boot, Robert Kagan, and Charles Kupchan. Each author, argues Hadar, advocates and promotes Washington's latest foreign policy fad, the imposition of a pax Americana, not just in the Middle East but also globally.
Special Documents
The Road Map
In the summer of 2002, as the preparations for the war against Iraq were gearing up, the Bush administration, in cooperation with its partners in the Quartet (the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations), turned its attention to reviving the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Washington's involvement of the Europeans and the UN (for the first time) in formulating and overseeing a peace initiative was widely seen as a bid for international support in the run-up to war in Iraq, and as assuring a more "evenhanded approach." The EU was initially given the lead in drafting a "realistic road map" toward peace and Palestinian statehood based on U.S. President George W. Bush's 24 June 2002 policy speech on the Middle East (see Doc. C1 in JPS 125).
Though the EU presented a draft (never released) in September 2002, it was the U.S. alternative draft, formally named "Elements of a Performance-Based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," shown to Israeli PM Ariel Sharon on 16 October and first presented to the Quartet members and the Palestinians on 17 October, that served as the basis for further fine-tuning.
Originally slated for finalization at the Quartet meeting scheduled for 20 December 2002, the road map was delayed by the United States as a result of "heated Israeli objections" (see Doc. C3 in JPS 127 for the State Department's summary of progress on the road map). Further delays were requested by the United States until after the Israeli elections for prime minister, the formation of the new Israeli government, the end of the war against Iraq, the nomination of a Palestinian prime minister, and the installation of a new PA government. The road map was finally presented to the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority on 30 April 2003.
The road map refers to several earlier documents: the Mitchell Report (Doc. A2 in JPS 120), the Tenet work plan (Doc. D2 in JPS 121), the Saudi-Arab League initiative (Doc. B1 in JPS 124), and the Bertini report, which resulted from an August 2002 mission to the occupied territories led by Catherine Bertini, personal humanitarian envoy to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and was ultimately expanded and adopted as the United Nations "Humanitarian Plan of Action 2003" (Doc. A1 in JPS 126).
From The Hebrew Press
Recent Books
Kaplony: The Haram of Jerusalem reviewed by Mick Dumper
Makiya: The Rock: A Tale of Seventh-Century Jerusalem reviewed by Tarif Khalidi
Krämer: Geschichte Palästinas [History of Palestine] reviewed by Juliane Hammer
Morris: The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews reviewed by Mary C. Wilson
Abdo and Lentin: Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation reviewed by Amal Amireh
Peled: Debating Islam in the Jewish State reviewed by Aziz Haidar
Enderlin: Shattered Dreams: The Failure of the Peace Process in the Middle East reviewed by William B. Quandt
Carey and Shainin: The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent reviewed by Peretz Kidron
Oren: Six Days of War reviewed by Donald Neff
Bennis: Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis, and Dershowitz: Why Terrorism Works reviewed by Stephen Zunes
Shorter Notices
Arab Views
Quarterly Update On Conflict And Diplomacy
Settlement Monitor
Documents and Source Material
International
A1. Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, "Analysis and Evaluation of the New Palestinian Curriculum," Jerusalem, March 2003 (excerpts)
A2. World Bank, "Two Years of Intifada: Closures and the Palestinian Economic Crisis: An Assessment," Washington, 5 March 2003
A3. UNRWA Commissioner General Peter Hansen, "Hungry in Gaza," Gaza City, 5 March 2003
A4. International Crisis Group, "Islamic Social Welfare Activism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: A Legitimate Target?" Amman and Brussels, 2 April 2003 (excerpts)
Arab
B1. PA Executive Authority, List of Members and Brief Biographies, Ramallah, 29 April 2003
B2. Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas, Inaugural Speech to the Palestinian Council, Ramallah, 29 April 2003 (excerpts)
Israel
C. Israeli Government, Basic Guidelines, Jerusalem, February 2003 (excerpts)
United States
D1. Shibley Telhami (University of Maryland), in Cooperation with Zogby International, Opinion Survey on Arab Attitudes toward U.S. Policies Abroad, Summary of Findings, March 2003
D2. U.S. Senators, Letter to President Bush on the Road Map, Washington, 30 April 2003
Chronology
Bibliography of Periodical Literature