The Road Map to Nowhere - Israel/Palestine since 2003

[Tom Joad]

The Road Map to Nowhere - Israel/Palestine since 2003
Tanya Rienhart tells what her new book is about and her goals for writing it. Good read, right here
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=11117

In the present political atmosphere in the US and Europe, anybody who expresses criticism of Israel’s policies is immediately silenced as an anti-Semite. Part of the reason why the pro-Israel lobbies have been so successful in their use of this accusation is the massive lack of knowledge about what is really happening in Israel-Palestine. Without the facts, the dominant narrative remains that Israel is struggling to defend its very existence. Attention focuses mainly on the horrible, despicable Palestinian terror; hence critics of Israel are often accused of justifying terror. My aim in this book is to provide the facts, as they unfold – openly - in the Israeli media.

During the period covered in the book, Israel did everything possible to stall any chance of an agreement with the Palestinians. As has become commonplace in the recent history of the occupation, this period opened with a new peace initiative – the road map. The Palestinians accepted the plan and declared a cease fire, while the Western world was celebrating the new era of peace, the Israeli army under Sharon intensified its policy of assassinations, maintained the daily harassment of the occupied Palestinians, and eventually declared all-out war on Hamas, killing all its first-rank military and political leaders. Later, as the Western world was once again holding its breath in an eighteen-month wait for the planned Gaza pullout, Sharon did his best to fail the newly elected Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and turned down his offers of renewed negotiations. Later, when this policy led to the collapse of Abbas' government and the victory of Hamas in the elections, Israel declared war on the Palestinian leadership and society.

In Israel/Palestine, I described the period between 2000 and 2002 as the darkest period in the history of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. But in the period since, under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, it became even worse. Sharon started a massive project of ethnic cleansing in the areas of the West Bank bordering Israel. His wall project robs the land from the Palestinian villages in these areas, imprisons whole towns, and leaves their residents with no means of sustenance. If the project continues, many of the 400,000 Palestinians affected by it will have to leave and seek their livelihood in the outskirts of cities in the center of the West Bank, as has already happened in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya. The Israeli settlements were evacuated from the Gaza Strip, yet the Strip remains an open-air prison, completely sealed off from the outside world, nearing starvation and terrorized from land, see and air by the Israeli army.

[Douglas Carpenter]

1. one of the most chilling, depressing and important books on the subject

an absolute must read

Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Map-Nowhere-Israel-Palestine/dp/1844670767/ref=sr_11_1/002-4750258-7334423?ie=UTF8