Abu Marzook Says He’s Open to a New Israel Relationship
A few days prior I’d gotten an e-mail about a bike tour of the Jordan Valley, and I registered immediately. I thought it would be a great way to get some exercise, meet new people, and lend my support to Palestinian sumud (steadfastness) in the Jordan Valley. I volunteer in a village a little further north, so I’m familiar with the issues Palestinians face there: demolitions, land confiscations, resource theft, and the looming annexation threatened by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamain Netanyahu in 2010.
At 7:30 in the morning (a time I rarely see), I managed to be in Al-Manara circle in Ramallah, and after standing awkwardly on the sidewalk for a few minutes, I identified a group of fair-haired foreigners that looked sporty and out of place enough. I went up and introduced myself, and found that most of them were European, many of them Danish, in fact. I shared that my father’s family was Danish, but I couldn’t remember from where. It wasn’t a very good story. The organizer then led our walk to the bus. For five minutes the fair-haired foreigners ruled Rukab Street, before we climbed into our big maroon bus and waited to move out. We were joined by a handful of Palestinian girls who looked much more bright-eyed and bushy tailed than me. I spent the next hour and a half drifting in and out of sleep, while trying to catch the conversations around me and take in the view of the desert hills we were descending from. We were taking the windy Palestinian route, not the highway that connected the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley with Israel ’48. That straight shot gives Israelis and tourists easy access to a part of the Territories that doesn’t look very disputed, with Hebrew signs and rest stops and military monuments. And here we were, a bus full of ajaneb (foreigners), descending on the valley first and foremost to go for a bike ride, but fully aware of the situation and the statement we were making by riding bikes with Palestinians.
I was excited to see that a Palestinian group was organizing this outdoor adventure. I’d heard of hiking trips and Christian walks, but I’d never participated in them because the touristy stuff always cost money and I just wanted to do something spontaneous and cheap. Naturally, any Palestinian tourist venture has a political slant to it, especially if it ties the Palestinian people to their land, and especially if that land is in Area C. This area, which covers 62% of the West Bank and includes the Jordan Valley, is under full Israeli control, and as evidenced by the settlements and military camps scattered throughout, it would not be easily relinquished. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared two years ago that Israel would never give up the Jordan Valley, even though the international community considers it part of illegally occupied Palestinian territory and essential to the contiguity and economic survival of a Palestinian State.
Read full article here : http://mondoweiss.net/2012/04/if-you-give-a-palestinian-the-right-to-bike-in-the-jordan-valley.html
This post first appeared on Morgan’s blog.
(Scenes from the day including Jiftlik’s Cultural Festival can be viewed in the this video , recommended)
Demonstrators waved opposition flags in Al Qasseer, Syria, on Friday. The response of security forces was aggressive in some places, passive in others.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrians by the thousands marched through the streets of cities and towns across the country on Friday, testing a tenuous, day-old cease-fire that the United Nations struggled to shore up when the rapid deployment of international observers snagged on Russian objections.
There were scattered reports of deaths and arrests linked to the demonstrations, which had been dubbed “A Revolution for All Syrians” by local organizers nationwide.
Participants admitted to feeling somewhat tentative, sticking to back streets to avoid the security forces, snipers and tanks that were used to suppress the peaceful protest movement and that remained deployed around many central squares and major crossroads.
But the marches were just big and exuberant enough to remind demonstrators of the mass rallies that started in March 2011 to demand the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.
“We remembered the old days when we would protest in large numbers, when the whole city would protest,” said Fares, an activist in Zabadani, near Damascus, reached via Skype.
In Zabadani, as in many places, residents described a heavy police presence around mosques — the weekly Friday Prayer sermons have provided the kickoff for mass demonstrations since the beginning. “We didn’t gather in one point, we kept moving,” Fares said, with a lookout posted near security headquarters to raise the alarm when patrol vehicles roared onto the streets. “We wanted to show the world that we are adhering to our demands.” He asked to be identified by only his first name to avoid government reprisals.
A video uploaded onto You Tube said to have been filmed in downtown Hama showed an extensive mob clapping their hands overhead in unison while chanting “Oh God, let our victory be fast!” Another from Homs was more pointed with the crowd yelling “We want your head, Bashar!” among other slogans. Women and children appeared in some videos — they had all but disappeared under the onslaught that has left at least 9,000 people dead by the United Nations’ count.
Syria’s official news media reported mass demonstrations across the country in support of Mr. Assad.
The security forces were aggressive in some places, passive in others, a patchwork difficult to gauge from afar, as were the demonstrations themselves. Multiple checkpoints around Damascus were used to prevent public transportation from entering the downtown area, and security vehicles with Kalashnikov barrels protruding from windows slowly circulated in many areas.
A group of security officers in one such vehicle shouted at a group of worshipers emerging from a mosque to hurry home. In the suburb of Maadamiah, as the funeral of a protester shot dead on Thursday began to turn into a mass protest, security forces blocked the route to the cemetery and shot toward protesters to disperse them, said Usama, an activist reached by telephone, who also used one name for safety reasons.
Activists around the country reported that some demonstrators had been tear-gassed and others had been beaten, and there were a few reports of renewed shelling. But the violence was far less than in recent months, when scores were reported killed daily under the pounding of heavy weaponry.
Both the lack of international news media representatives circulating across the country and the presence of security forces on the streets contradicted the six-point peace plan negotiated by Kofi Annan, the special envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported eight people killed after the demonstrations started. In addition, a lieutenant was killed and 24 other officers and a few civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb destroyed a bus in Aleppo, according to state-run news media. It also accused “armed terrorist groups”— its shorthand for all opposition — with the assassination of a local Baath Party official near the southern town of Dara’a and the shooting death of a brigadier general overnight near Damascus.
Given that all 15 members of the United Nations Security Council had endorsed Mr. Annan’s six-point plan, including the deployment of United Nations monitors, the resolution authorizing the mission had been expected to pass easily.
But Russia, the Assad government’s most important defender, objected to an operative paragraph that would give the monitors a free hand in conducting their work, granting them abilities like unhindered access to any place in the country and the right to interview anyone without government interference, according to Security Council diplomats.
Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador, said he still expected a rapid vote on the resolution, but it was unclear how quickly the differences could be resolved. Negotiations going paragraph by paragraph started Friday afternoon and no vote was expected until at least Saturday, diplomats said.
An advance team of up to 30 observers, drawn from various United Nations peacekeeping or observer missions in the region, was due to be sent as soon as the Security Council approved it, said Ahmad Fawzi, Mr. Annan’s spokesman. The full mission would reach 250 observers he said, and as is common on such missions, Syria would have ultimate approval over the nationalities involved.
Mr. Fawzi described the cease-fire as “relatively respected.”
Valerie Amos, the top United Nations official on humanitarian aid, said at least one million people were in need of such help in Syria — the rapid provision of that is also part of the peace plan.
But foreign leaders continued to express profound doubts about how long it might hold. In Paris, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France told a television interviewer, “I do not believe in Bashar al-Assad’s sincerity, nor, unfortunately, in the cease-fire.”
Mr. Sarkozy, who is fighting for a second term in elections starting later this month, said the deployment of United Nations observers was important “so that at the very least we know what is happening,” and he urged the creation of humanitarian corridors to enable “those unfortunates who are being massacred by a dictator” to flee.
Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Beirut, Alan Cowell from London, and an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria.
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A newly released document acquired by Wired Magazine exposes the United States Defense Department’s torture techniques. In the 37 page report, former CIA official John Kiriakou warns the George W. Bush administration about the techniques that were being used on detainees and explains how they are against US law. His warnings went unheard of, until Kiriakou was indicted for leaking the information to the media. David Swanson, campaigner for Roots Action, joins us with more.
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