The Crushing of Palestinian Daily Lives

The Crushing of Palestinian Daily Lives_ the Road to 'Peace' or the Road to Hell?

We are yet to see if Bush's complete ignorance and naivety of history and the Palestinian

Question is of help to the new “peace” process. According to the Guardian UK, 'during a

private meeting recounted yesterday by the Washington Post, Mr. Sharon told the president he

was a "man of peace and security", to which Mr. Bush replied: "I know you are a man of

security ... I want you to work harder on the peace part."'

The two war criminals are being bashful in debating who is more of a "man of security" and

who is more of a "man of peace." Yet both state terrorists are choosing to forget that as a

reaction to the previous peace process in Oslo, Camp David, and Taba and due to the

excruciating state terror, 2,250 Palestinians and 760 Israelis have been killed since the

second Intifada_ the Palestinian uprising started in October of 2000_ and that the reality

of the Palestinian people under occupation is a lived daily reality.

As the Palestinians try to go about living their normal 'abnormal' daily lives while

scampering over dirt piles, surrounded by barbed wire and road blocks, a group of pirates_

Arab leaders [Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas

(Abu Mazen)], headed by their new hero Bush II go about meeting in a beautiful Red Sea

resort in Egypt’s SHARM EL-SHEIK, shaking hands and smiling over the new plot for the Middle

East: the road map. Under the road map 'peace' agreement, the United States, the Arab

leaders in the region, Sharon and his administration order the Palestinians to cease all

resistance under the umbrella of 'fighting terrorism' to ensure Israel's security. In

exchange, Israel would start dismantling some illegal settlements. The end goal is to

establish a Palestinian state by May 2005 existing side by side next to a secure “terror

free” Israel.

With a complete blindness to the reality of Palestinian daily lives from daily curfews and

closures to the lack of daily subsistence (including lack of food, water, and work) and the

ongoing state terror, Bush and Sharon, with the support of their Arabic puppets, assume that

the Palestinian resistance to the occupation must be crushed completely as a pre-condition

to the road to 'peace.' With Bush's support, according to Sharon, all Palestinian resistance

must be annihilated even before the dismantling of any illegal Jewish settlements in the

Occupied Territories. Nevertheless, in the pretext of the road map, the process of

annihilating Palestinian resistance and the dismantling of illegal settlements must be done

simultaneously. Yet, the history of the peace process left me most pessimistic, therefore we

are yet to see the reality of the process. We are yet to see how words on paper (see the

Declaration of Principles) remain of utmost contradiction to the realities of Palestinian

people!

One would think the United States and other Quartet members would have learned their lesson,

through painful experience, that human rights standards (as declared by United Nation

Resolutions 194, 242, and 338) must be placed as a priority on the agenda of the ‘”peace”

process. However, the two words_ human rights_ have not even been mentioned in these most

recent “peace” negotiations.

For the most part, effective international monitoring can strengthen a transition process

towards justice and eventually real peace. Hanny Megally, Executive director of the Middle

East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch said, “Instead, they’ve [the USA, UN,

EU, Russia, and most recently a number of Arab leaders] left them [UN Resolutions and human

rights laws] out almost entirely. Unless this gap is remedied, the whole plan is much more

likely to fail.” And unless Bush W. and Sharon, the two "peace" and "security" leaders,

start addressing issues of justice and human rights, the ugly reality of the 55 years of

'violence in the Middle East' will remain prominent for both Palestinians and Israelis
The Crushing of Palestinian Daily Lives_ the Road to 'Peace' or the Road to Hell?

We are yet to see if Bush's complete ignorance and naivety of history and the Palestinian Question is of help to the new