October 1, 2003:
Mohammed's younger brother
Issam was seriously injured
and was taken to the hospital
about a week ago. His leg
was amputated and he is
undergoing medical treatment.

October 18, 2003:
Mohammad's younger brother,
Hussam [17 yrs old], was killed
by the Israeli army today.

Hussam was sitting at home
when he was shot in the face,
chest, back, legs. He had
nothing to do with any violent
or even political movement.

Hussam's crime is that he was
a Palestinian.

— The Webmaster

Facts on the Ground Trump Talk of Peace
Egypt Hosts Sharon-Abbas Summit

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/April_2005/0504020.html

Washington Report, April 2005, pages 20-24

HOW STRANGE it is for people in the Gaza Strip to see Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hailed by the international media as a man of peace! In the two weeks leading up to his landmark Feb. 8 meeting in Egypt with President Mahmoud Abbas, Sharon’s soldiers shot and killed 10-year-old Noran Eyad Deeb as she lined up for class in the fenced schoolyard of an UNRWA school in Rafah; a few days before that Israeli soldiers killed an elderly man in a Rafah border neighborhood; a day earlier, Israeli snipers shot and paralyzed a young man in Gaza City. And while all this was happening in Gaza, Sharon shook hands with visiting diplomats, smiled, said hopeful things about the peace process, duly reported by the media—and the world beamed its approval.

Peace process! The very words are tainted with irony for the people of the Gaza Strip. How, where, and when will this elusive peace come about? Who will create it? Can we look to Ariel Sharon for peace—the same man who has been ordering his army to shoot at random into civilian neighborhoods, target children in their homes, classrooms and playgrounds, demolish houses by the hundreds, block roads, destroy fields, farms, olive and citrus groves, electric, sewer, and water systems? How exactly, people ask here, can this be considered peace? The citizens of Rafah can perhaps be forgiven if they are less than optimistic about the Sharm el-Sheikh encounter. It has too many echoes of Abbas’s brief, unhappy tenure as Palestinian prime minister, when he smiled for the cameras, met Sharon and Bush, everyone spoke of “progress”—and nothing changed.

Nonetheless, senior Palestinian and Israeli officials met Feb. 3 to lay the groundwork for the following week’s summit. The Sharm el-Sheikh meeting itself was largely ceremonial, as the agreements already had been hammered out privately before Abbas and Sharon met at the Egyptian resort. The Palestinian negotiating team was headed by Saeb Erakat, who met with Sharon’s top advisers. Prior to the actual meeting, highly placed Israeli officials insisting on anonymity announced that the two heads of state would declare an official cease-fire—that is, cessation of both Israeli military operations and Palestinian resistance.

Actually, President Abbas, in the few weeks since his election, already had persuaded Palestinian resistance factions to observe a “cooling down” period, although there has been little reciprocity from Israeli forces. Further, Abbas has deployed 4,000 members of the Palestinian Security Forces throughout Gaza to prevent militant rocket attacks on the Gaza settlements and Israeli towns in the Negev close to Gaza.

The summit was, to date,the clearest sign of tangible progress in the peace process which came to a bloody halt with the September 2000 outbreak of the Palestinian intifada, which to date has claimed more than 4,700 lives. Since his election in February 2001, Sharon refused all contact with the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, until, under heavy international pressure, Arafat appointed Abbas prime minister. Despite some pleasant photo ops and a meeting with President George W. Bush, Abbas resigned after three months, having accomplished virtually nothing.

Matters were further inflamed when Israel launched a program of “extrajudicial assassinations” of Hamas leaders, and the violence continued unabated through the death of Arafat last November. Abbas, elected president Jan. 9 with a large majority, reached out during his campaign to the militant factions, both in his public appearances and private meetings. Although he has declared that he believes continued violence to be counterproductive to long-term Palestinian interests, Abbas has refused—to the consternation of hard-line factions in the Israeli government—to launch an all-out crackdown on the armed resistance, preferring, instead, to win their cooperation through negotiation. Despite his success in achieving considerable calm, the lack of mass arrests and forced disarmament has left some Israeli officials dissatisfied. For their part, Palestinians watching their new president engage in the summit hoped he would succeed in negotiating the release of significant numbers of the 8,000 Palestinian prisoners Israel is holding. Another issue of immediate importance is the transfer of security control to Palestinian forces in the West Bank.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hosted the summit, which Jordan’s King Abdullah II also attended. Days before it convened, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met separately with Sharon and Abbas, amid rumors she, too, would be present at the Egyptian meeting. Secretary Rice said she would not attend, however, because Washington felt it was better for the regional powers to resolve matters on their own. She promised, nonetheless, that the Bush administration would be “very involved” in implementing the peace process.

The day before the summit convened, Rice appointed Lt. General William Ward, a serving general with many foreign tours to his credit, as special “security envoy” to work with the Palestinian Authority in reorganizing its police and coordinating security contacts with Israeli forces. Previous American “special envoys” have attempted a diplomatic role; this appointment seems more pragmatic, with a focus on satisfying Israel’s incessant demand to “dismantle the terrorist infrastructure.”

Despite official pronouncements, Israel’s recent shooting of a 10-year-old schoolgirl in Rafah only deepened the skepticism of Gazans. Whatever the politicians say to the press, the only thing that will impress the beleaguered people of Gaza is a real improvement in everyday conditions. “I don’t believe in what I hear from the summit,” said a 42-year-old Gaza City resident. “I don’t believe what’s written in the newspapers or shown on television. I only believe what I see on the ground.”

In the opinion of Palestinian political analyst Hani Habib, however, who teaches at Al Azhar University and writes for Gazan and Arabic newspapers, this Sharm el-Sheikh summit might differ from past meetings that accomplished little. “This one,” he explained, “has taken place against a background of very different conditions in Palestine, Israel and the U.S. America is in difficulties in Iraq; its image in the Arab world is at an all-time low. If the Bush administration can re-start peace negotiations and play a role in bringing about a Palestinian state, that will be to its advantage in the region. As for the Palestinians, they have a new president widely perceived as a moderate. Sharon’s declared intention to evacuate the Gaza settlements is a new factor. I think he has been surprised at the strength of the hard-line settlers’ opposition. Of course, this meeting in Egypt won’t bring peace to Palestine in and of itself, but it’s a start for laying out issues to be negotiated.”

Still, many are questioning whether Sharon and his advisers embraced Egypt’s invitation to a summit with Abbas to further the Israeli-Egyptian relationship more than Palestinian-Israeli relations. Mubarak has reversed past statements and is now declaring Sharon to be a “man with whom the Palestinians can make peace,” not to mention signing trade agreements with Israel.

Palestinian resistance factions seem to view the summit with caution. Damascus-based Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal said that while his group is willing to maintain temporary calm, “The ball is in the Israeli court. We are requesting that Israel commit to stopping the aggression and freeing the detainees.”

Meshal emphasized that resistance groups in general, not just Hamas, are ready to accept a period of calm or a temporary truce. “However,” he told a press conference, “given our earlier experiences, we don’t believe in Israeli promises. In 2003, Israeli aggression led to the failure of a three-month cease-fire.”

Abbas’ efforts to protect the illegal settlements in Gaza are massively expensive to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, and it remains to be seen what Israel will actually do in return. Abbas’ cease-fire, Mubarak’s invitation, Sharon’s acceptance, Abdullah’s blessing, and Bush’s moral and financial support all make for impressive photo ops and feel-good sound bites. But they have still left untouched the most difficult issues the Israeli government has been carefully avoiding for years: namely, the borders of a future Palestinian state, a just solution for the Palestinian refugees, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and the status of Jerusalem.

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