Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup metatuning peace process as treason

Haaretz Thursday, October 23

>From the day it became known that contacts between
leftists and Labor Party MKs with senior
Palestinian personages had yielded a model for a
permanent agreement, the members of that group
became targets of unbridled criticism from the
right. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave the signal
for the attacks, charging them with working with
the enemy to undermine the government on the
evening the details were hammered out in the
document dubbed the Geneva Understandings. At a
Bat Yam municipal election rally, Sharon said
"while we are here in a difficult campaign against
the terrorism, there are those who are
coordinating activity with the Palestinians behind
the government's back."

Since the participants in the
Geneva initiative began
enlisting public support for
the understandings, the
criticism of the propriety of
the move has turned from
crude attacks to genuine
incitement. Some MKs are
promising to make it illegal
for elements outside the

government to conduct any political dialogue
with the other side of the conflict.

Politicians from the right, who acquired a
wealth of experience inciting against the Oslo
accords, whose initiators they call
"criminals," are now leading the new campaign.
Minister Benny Elon from the National Union
called former minister Yossi Beilin "an enemy
collaborator." MK Shaul Yahalom, a senior
member of the National Religious Party, made
public a letter he wrote to Attorney General
Elyakim Rubinstein in which Yahalom says that
by proposing to the Palestinians territory now
under Israeli sovereignty, the Geneva team
violated Article 97 of the penal code. He made
sure to note that the law specifies the death
sentence or life in prison for a conviction on
that article on treason.

In his response to Yahalom and other elements
who asked him about the same issue, Rubinstein
said the proper place for dealing with the
issue is in the public and political arena and
not the criminal field. His letter, which was
given to the press for publication, also noted
that it was inappropriate to mention the
article on treason and to quote the language of
the law specifying death or a life sentence.
The attorney general notes that Yahalom's
comments unnecessarily contributed to inflaming
the public debate.

Yahalom is not the first right-wing personage to
hide behind pseudo-legalisms to deny legitimacy
to people of the peace camp, to the extent that
it places their lives in danger. Already eight
years ago Adir Zik, a broadcaster on the
settlers' pirate radio station Arutz Sheva,
read out the definition of "traitor" from the
dictionary to his listeners and reminded the
audience that death or a life sentence was the
sentence for conviction. "And what do you think
of Rabin?" Zik ended that broadcast. A few
weeks later, right-winger Yigal Amir
assassinated the prime minister of Israel.

The political debate in Israel is going to turn
sharper again as it becomes evident that the
rightist government headed by Ariel Sharon is
not moving any closer to ending the conflict
and is even contributing to its worsening.

The political leaders of the right must be
restrained in their reactions and should stick
to the point in public debate. Those who now
undertake a campaign of delegitimizing a
person or group will bear responsibility for
any act of political violence or thuggery that
takes place when things get out of control. We
are, after all, experienced in these matters.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/352826.html

_________________________________________________________________

8. Background / Mideast peace as cause celebre

By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent

Thursday, October 23

Driven to distraction by the tragedies of eternal
warfare and the burdens of economic strife,
Israelis woke Wednesday to a peace initiative so
outlandish as to accomplish the impossible - defy
immediate condemnation.

Heralded by a literally
star-spangled flourish in the
popular press, an
organization called OneVoice
Israel announced that a red
carpet list of marquee actors
- Brad Pitt, Jennifer
Aniston, Jason Alexander,
Danny De Vito and Rhea
Pearlman - had signed on for

a decidedly unorthodox mission: coming to the
Holy Land in an effort to make peace.

Just last week, an alternative peace plan put
forward by former justice minister Yossi Beilin
and ex-Palestinian Authority officials came
under immediate verbal flak from a number of
the veteran dove's former allies.

So withering was the criticism that, even before
the very existence of the proposal was made
known, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon publicly
denounced Beilin's plan as lending aid and
comfort to the Palestinians.

Beilin came in for more scorn Wednesday, amid
news reports that he planned to lobby for
support for his Geneva Accord among leaders in
visits to France and Belgium - two countries
widely viewed in Israel as being hostile to the
Jewish state and its policies.

"In other words," said news show anchor Yael Dan
on Wednesday, "Yossi Beilin - Out, Brad Pitt -
In."

Security permitting, the stars are to arrive in
Israel at the end of the year or the beginning
of 2004, said OneVoice Israel Executive
Director David Leffler, a one-time aide to
Yitzhak Rabin, and more recently,
Director-General of Israel's Ministry of
Science, Culture and Sport.

Leffler said the group's goal is to promote a
referendum, in which "very large numbers" of
both Israelis and Palestinians would take part.

The measure would allow "all citizens to voice
their opinions on the principle issues of the
conflict between us and the Palestinians,"
Leffler told Army Radio Wednesday.

In an apparent reference to a current mass
petition campaign led by Palestinian moderate
Sari Nusseibeh and former Shin Bet chief Ami
Ayalon, Leffler said, "By contrast to other
initiatives that state, 'Here is the plan, sign
it,' we are coming with questions that allow
everyone to answer each separately."

The stars are members of the board of the
organization. "They agreed to lend their names
because they believe in what we are doing."

The group has also mobilized a number of big
names from the world of Holy Land politics,
with a catholic range of outlooks on the Middle
East conflict.

The group includes Deputy Public Security
Minister Michael Ratzon of Sharon's Likud
party, senior Labor lawmaker and former general
Matan Vilnai, MK Etti Livni of the
secular-centrist Shinui, and rabbi and former
cabinet minister Michael Melchior as well as
Dr. Fathi Arafat, brother of the Palestinian
Authority chairman and Yasser Abbas, the son of
former PA prime minister Mahmoud Abbas.

Through the results of the referendum, "We want
each side to see that the other side has a
moderate majority," Leffler said.

Along with their names, and their words in
support of the initiative, some of the stars
have donated funds and even the use of their
homes to the effort, he added.

"I truly appreciate the fact that people like
Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, who are not
Jews and are not connected to these issues in
their daily lives, saw fit to look into this,"
Leffler said.

Vilnai, a no-nonsense former deputy army chief
who at first blush appears the antithesis of
the Hollywood scene, said Wednesday that the
OneVoice intitiative seeks to accomplish its
goals in a diametrically different manner than
the Geneva Accord.

"This is very difficult at first, but we will
succeed in the end, to propel a process by
which the people in the Palestinian street and
the Israeli street will say what they think,
directions for a solution in the bloody
conflict between us and them," Vilnai said.

Noting that the intiative linked figures from
many parties, the Likud among them, Vilnai told
Israel Radio, "This is the first time that it
is not the 'permanent' fixtures of the left
that are talking, rather elements of the center
and the right of the political map, trying to
advance a process between us and the
Palestinians."

Vilnai said the fact of the process in itself
bore an important message, helping grant an
answer to those who insisted that there was "no
one to talk to on the other side, and nothing
to talk about even if there were."

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=352725&displayTyp

eCd=1&sideCd=1&contrassID=2

***

CommonDreams.org
October 24, 2003

A Dull and Largely Uncritical
Recitation of Official Sources

By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

The New York Times reported yesterday that a Columbia
University history professor hired by the paper to make
an independent assessment of the coverage of one of its
correspondents in the Soviet Union during the 1930s said
that the Pulitzer Prize the reporter received should be
rescinded because of his "lack of balance" in covering
Stalin's government.

The Times had asked the professor, Mark von Hagen, to
examine the coverage of the correspondent, Walter
Duranty, specifically for his "failure to report on a
famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932 and
1933."

According to the Times, Professor von Hagen described
the coverage for which Mr. Duranty won the Pulitzer --
his writing in 1931, a year before the onset of the
famine -- as a "dull and largely uncritical recitation
of Soviet sources."

Well, if the standard is "dull and largely uncritical
recitation of" official sources, then maybe the Times
should just close up shop.

Let's take one example: the 1967 Israeli military attack
on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American crew members.
Both the government of Israel and the government of the
United States continue to claim that the Israeli
bombardment of the U.S. ship was a "tragic mistake."

There was a press conference on Capitol Hill yesterday
where former high-ranking U.S. government officials
released a report that found that Israel "committed acts
of murder against American servicemen and an act of war
against the United States" when it deliberately attacked
the USS Liberty.

Why would Israel want to deliberately sink a U.S. ship?
One reason put forth by the Commission: Sink the ship,
and blame Egypt -- with the hope of drawing the United
States into the 1967 war.

In addition, the chief attorney to the original 1967
Navy Court of Inquiry said in a sworn affidavit that
then-President Johnson and then-Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara ordered the Court of Inquiry to cover up
the attack by presenting it as a mistake.

Admiral Thomas Moorer, the former Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, headed the independent commission of
inquiry that released the report yesterday.

"The men of the USS Liberty were representing the U.S.
They were attacked for over two hours by Israeli Air
Force and Navy units with 70 percent American casualties
and the eventual loss of our best intelligence ship,"
Moorer said. "These sailors and marines were entitled to
our best defense. We gave them no defense. The findings
of this commission are irrefutable. Every other attack
on a ship in our history has been investigated by our
Congress except this one."

"Nor has Congress ever investigated the recall by the
White House of U.S. Navy aircraft sent to rescue the
Liberty while the ship was still under attack."

Moorer called the Johnson White House's cancellation of
the Navy's attempt to rescue the Liberty "the most
disgraceful thing I have witnessed in my entire military
career."

The major newspapers, including the New York Times, did
not mention Moorer or his report. Typical of the Times'
reporting on this issue is its most recent entry July
10, 2003, when it ran an AP story reporting that "newly
declassified transcripts back up Israel's claim that its
attack on an American spy ship during the 1967 Middle
East war was an accident." The AP dispatch quotes a
Florida Judge, A. Jay Cristol.

It was Mr. Cristol's work that led the Navy attorney of
the official inquiry to go public after almost four
decades of silence.

In his sworn affidavit, Captain Ward Boston, Counsel to
the original 1967 U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry's
investigation into the Israeli attack on the USS
Liberty, says the attack was deliberate but that the
Court was ordered to cover it up by the Johnson White
House.

"For more than 30 years I have remained silent on the
topic of the USS Liberty. I am a military man and when
orders come in from the Secretary of Defense and
President of the United States, I follow them," Boston
said.

Boston said that Cristol's book forced him out of the
closet. The book, The Liberty Incident, "twists the
facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who
investigated the attack. . Contrary to the
misinformation presented by Cristol and others, it is
important for the American people to know that it is
clear that Israel is responsible for deliberately
attacking an American ship and murdering American
sailors."

On the issue of the USS Liberty, it can be said that the
New York Times' reporting has been a "dull and largely
uncritical recitation of" official sources.

They'll win no Pulitzer on this one -- so they won't
have to give it back.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Corporate Crime Reporter,
http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com. Robert Weissman
is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational
Monitor, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are
co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for
MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine:
Common Courage Press;
http://www.corporatepredators.org).
-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST

peace process as treason

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