From Aqaba To Sharm - Fake Peace Festivals.

[Violet_Crumble]

by Tanya Reinhart
February 13, 2005

The Sharm-el - Sheikh summit of Sharon and Abbas is hailed in the Western media as the opening of a new era. This is the climax of a wave of optimism that has been generated since the death of Arafat. In the last four years, the Israeli leadership singled Arafat out as the main obstacle for peace. Adopting the Israeli perspective, the media world believes that his departure would enable a renewal of the peace process. This, in the media world, is coupled with the faith that Israel is finally led by a man of peace. Sharon, who might have had some problems in the past, so the story goes, has changed his skin, and now he is leading Israel to painful concessions.

The same euphoria has been of course dominant also in the Israeli media, as Aluf Benn noted in Ha'aretz in December 7,: "The media atmosphere over the last few days has been reminiscent of the Oslo-era euphoria, or the early days of Ehud Barak's government... There is once again talk of cooperation, public embraces and peace conferences. International diplomats are once again viewing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an arena for diplomatic successes instead of a guaranteed recipe for frustration and failure".

Judging from the optimistic language of the media, the new era exists not just at the level of declared plans. The praises for Sharon, the feeling of huge progress, would let one almost believe that things have actually changed on the ground - some settlements evacuated, the occupation almost over, cessation of Israeli violence. The Palestinian elections, together with the Iraqi elections that also took place in January, were hailed as a big victory for democracy, with hardly any mention of the fact that in both places, these were elections under occupation. In the CNN report of the Palestinian election day, the enthusiastic reporter spoke about the future relations between the two "countries" (Israel and Palestine), as if the Palestinian state is already founded on its liberated land.

But the bitter reality is that nothing has changed. The new "peace plans" are no more real than the previous ones, and on the ground, the Palestinians are losing more of their land and are being pushed into smaller and smaller prison enclaves, surrounded by the new wall that Sharon's government keeps constructing. On the day of the Sharm-el- Sheikh summit Israeli sources announced that even the illegal outposts that Israel has committed to evacuate long ago will not be evacuated until "after implementation of the disengagement from the Gaza Strip"

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=7239

[Gyre]

1. After having their expectations lowered drastically over

the last 20 years and violated non-stop by the IDF, their spirit is now broken. Ariel Sharon's approach is "they'll eat sh*t for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and like it! Those are my terms." That's where they're at now. The fear has been so great for so long that that's why the Palestinians prefer living in shit as renters, rather than living in perpetual fear as owners of their land!

Of course Bush's spin machine is now in overrdrive. Watch. Bush and Sharon, "the men of peace" are now spreading "freedom and democracy" across the ME." The chimp and butcher for the Nobel PP, it's a dream coming true soon.

Gyre

[Coastie for Truth]

2. The industrial wheelers and dealers

have turned OFF the spigot on any (non-oil) new investment in the region - no software development centers, no chip fabs, no printed circuit assembly, no auto parts anywhere in the region (Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine) until, at least Sharon and Abbas make the region "safe for investment" --- and the "powers that be" know that projects that do not come to Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, or Palestine will go to India or China, and the projects that go to India or China will never come back to Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, or Palestine.

The whole region - Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine - is suffering a "brain drain" and lost opportunities. And those opportunities are going to China and India.

The door may be closing -- this time for good.

(It's all over the SJ Mercury Business Section)