Your Voice in a World where Zionism, Steel, and Fire, have Turned Justice Mute

 

 

The *FREE ARAB VOICE*
September 3, 1997

In this issue of the Free Arab Voice:
1) Bebe Netanyahu and the Wailers: A Brief Commentary
2) Oslo and the Imprisonment of Palestine: From within and from the
heart, between captivity and resistance, this article is a profound
insight into the situation as it actually exists on the ground in
Palestine today, and as it is lived by the people on a daily basis by
Ansar Falasteen Al-Hurra.
3) Quotations from the Original and Unamended Palestinian National 
Charter, the Constitution of the PLO.
4) Action Alert: Support the International Campaign of LAW, the
Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the
Environment, to Release Administrative Detainees, and Protest
against Demolishing Palestinian Houses.
	################################################
1) Bebe Netanyahu and the Wailers:
A couple of weeks ago, Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized publicly once more
that his concept of 'peace' with Arabs emanates from the principle of
"Israeli" strength and superiority over them. It is to be the peace of
the 'mighty' with the 'meek' he said, adding that 'peace' with Syria
will be no exception to the rule..
Cries from different official quarters thereof deplored the efforts of
Netanyahu's government to circumvent the so-called 'peace process' in
general, and the prospective visit by Secretary of State Madelline
Albright to the region in particular. Many in the West have condemned
what they called Netanyahu's intransigence.
But to literally give the devil his due, that's not really fair
criticism, because Netanyahu hasn't done anything that his Zionist
predecessors haven't done.
His straight-forwardness, however, leaves no room for collaborators
And the meek Arab regimes to save face. And that is exactly why they
have singled out Netanyahu alone for the criticism that should be
directed instead at "Israel" and Zionism.
The problem is not Netanyahu, but the Zionist occupation of Palestine.
The problem is a biased American foreign policy in the Arab-Zionist
conflict of which Madelline Albright is now the main protagonist. But
most of all the problem is in us, in our meek and capitulating Arab
regimes, of which the Palestinian National Authority and the Jordanian
regime are prime examples.
	#################################################
2)OSLO AND THE IMPRISONMENT OF PALESTINE
To be in captivity is to be in a position where one's enemy possesses
the ability to administer punishments for defiant behavior and to issue
rewards for co-operative behavior while he himself remains out of reach.
Captivity is a condition in which resistance no longer seems to matter,
as the scope of its effects and the results of its aftermath have been
contained entirely within the dimensions of one's own prison cell.
Captivity is a condition in which oppression is self-enforcing, to the
degree where it is no longer recognizable as oppression, and where the
oppressor has succeeded in rendering himself invisible.
Captivity is a condition in which the prisoner must get permission to
move from Cell Block A to Cell Block B and from Cell Block B to Cell
Block C, and where he must return back to Cell Block A before a certain
hour knowing all the while that any of the doors could slam shut behind
him at any time.
Captivity exists when the laws and regulations themselves are designed
not to protect, but rather as a foundation on which to construct a web
of oppression so compulsive that it borders on the psychotic, endowed
with an impenetrable structure and a growing multitude of layers,
like the stories of a prison compound...An elaborate vertical maze of
ever-growing height and complexity.
Captivity exists when the normal routines of everyday life are turned
into a daily struggle of all-consuming proportions, to the point that it
almost becomes too exhausting for all but the very strong to conduct the
daily life, and where nobody so much as dares to dream the larger dreams
of self-fulfillment and personal aspiration.
Captivity is the containment of human life, both personal and national,
within small enclosures behind an external, ever-threatening perimeter
wall.
Captivity is the armed robbery of one's vision, the forcible removal of
one's ability to see beyond his own immediate space, where the grandness
of the universe has been sealed off from one's normal line of sight,
such that the real horizon and the sun that rises over it disappear from
view.
Captivity is the condition of being a goldfish in someone else's
goldfish bowl, in which one's enemy controls the water level or a
computer program running in a small box on someone else's desk in
which one's enemy controls the off-on switch.
Captivity is the condition of being totally predictable where the
limits of one's own existence have been externally rather than
internally determined because someone else is controlling the
effective parameters of one's own behavior.
Captivity is the real-world manifestation of the vision belonging
to Rafael Eitan the proverbial 'cockroaches in a bottle, or rather,
in several smaller bottles.
Captivity is the condition in which one finds to his dismay that he is
grateful for a few small crumbs of bread from the prison guard, grateful
that the crumb was not in fact a poison, but rather a infinitesimally
small piece of real bread.
Captivity is where one becomes accustomed to stoically accepting the
punishments meted out to him, and for which he is privately grateful,
again to his dismay, that he was not subjected to an even harsher
punishment.
Captivity is when one succeeds in getting an audience with the judge
to ask his legal oppressor for mercy and in which he considers the
fact of the interchange itself as grounds for optimism and even as a
sign of potential goodwill.
Captivity is a circumstance in which one is fatalistically optimistic
about the future because it must be better than the present but where
one remains passive because there seems to be nothing left to hope for
but hope itself.
Captivity is the highest inspiration for martyrdom to the martyr, death
is real, even his own but the suffering has become so extensive that
reality itself has become an abstraction.
Captivity is a condition in which the only thing that is predictable
is the arbitrary nature of life that manifests itself under the passing
whim of the indifferent and absent tyrant.
Captivity is being trapped in a rat's maze in which the walls are
constantly shifting their position such that the goal itself is lost
in the confusion and in which one's own sphere of movement becomes
smaller and smaller over time.
Captivity is a condition of being sealed off from the center of one's
life and of separation from one's family, one's home, one's history,
and one's rights.
Captivity is the opposite of normality..It is the antithesis of
freedom..It is the ultimate final solution for an oppressor who
believes in enforcing the peace by wrapping the fingers of his Iron
Fist around the captives' collective throats.
Captivity is the condition of having been placed inside a trash
compactor where the engine switch has been turned on and where one
struggles just to stay alive by standing completely still in order
to remain in one piece.
Captivity is a condition in which every person constitutes an
illegal entity, where his nationality is an illegal organization,
and where his citizenship is that of an illegal alien.
Captivity is a condition in which the enemy controls the details of
one's motion and the scope of his action.
Captivity is the feeling of powerlessness, the threat, the fear
that the enemy from the east and the enemy from the west will soon
combine to lock the people up within their fatal joint embrace.
Captivity is a form of existence in which the universe appears to
be small and finite rather than expansive and open-ended, where one
is surrounded by concrete barriers instead of peace and open space,
where even the flag has not enough space in which to fly freely and
where one is afraid to wander away from home for any length of time
for fear that it will no longer be his when he tries to come back.
Captivity is a condition in which one is required to obtain the
continuous permission of his enemy day in and exhausting day out
for the right to pursue the most basic aspects of his existence,
where those permissions are routinely denied, and where even the
lowest prerequisites of human existence are granted on an entirely
provisional basis.
Captivity of a nation is a condition in which there is no discernible
difference between the life of a prisoner and the life of a free human
being where the concept of imprisonment in a real prison cell has been
reduced to the status of a mere formality.
Captivity is, however, never a permanent status nor must it always be
destructive to morale to the contrary it must spawn a new form of
resistance not against one's fellow cellmates, and not against the
prison guards inside the walls who know, in their hearts, that because
of what they are made to do that they are themselves among the most
oppressed of all the prisoners.
RESISTANCE is the second dawn of the voice of Palestine emerging from
the deep underground, from the violated soil of the occupied homeland.
RESISTANCE is the new generation rising up in new and creative and
strategic ways together with the prison guards who must protect them,
who must lead them against those who are controlling the keys to the
enclosures, against those who have constructed the perimeter walls
that imprison them all.
	by Ansar
	#################################################
3) QUOTATIONS from the Original and Unamended Palestinian National
Charter, the Constitution of the PLO:
"Article 17: The liberation of Palestine, from a human point of view,
will restore to the Palestinian individual his dignity, pride, and
freedom. Accordingly the Palestinian Arab people look forward to the
support of all those who believe in the dignity of man and his freedom
in the world."
"Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. Thus
it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian
Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to
continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular
revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it.
They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise
their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it."
	Courtesy of Hanzalah- the Conscience of the Palestinian People
	 #################################################
4) Action Alert: Support the international campaign of LAW, the
Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the 
Environment, to  a) release all administrative detainees jailed
                    Without trial or charge
                 b) protest against the escalating demolition of
                    Palestinian homes 
    
a) With the momentum internationally and inside Israel moving towards
releasing the administrative detainees, now is the time for the
international community to step up its demand on the Israeli
government to immediately charge or release the administrative
detainees.
b)Contact the following officials to demand an immediate halt to all
house demolition, and for the international community, especially the
United States, to take appropriate actions to sanction Israel for this
brutal policy:
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (972) (2) 566 4838,
Israeli Mayor of Jerusalem Ehud Olmert (972) (2) 629 7997,
Minister of Foreign Affairs David Levy (972) (2) 530 3506,
Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai (972) (3) 691 6940.
 
Electronic mail to: Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu: pm@pmo.gov.il,
the Office of the Prime Minister: feedback@pmo.gov.il,
the Israeli Government Press Office: gpo@pmo.gov.il,
and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: ask@israel-info.gov.il.
###################################################################
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Co-editors: Nabila Harb Harb@freearabvoice.org
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