June 7, 2002

A Poor Partner for Peace Washington Post.com had an online discussion yesterday between its readers and Michael Brown. They report his background as: Executive director of Partners for Peace and contributor to Middle East International magazine. […]Brown is the executive director of Partners for Peace, an organization that focuses on the detention without charges and torture of American citizens in Israel. The organization also runs an annual "Jerusalem Women Speak: Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared City" tour that brings a Palestinian Christian woman, Palestinian Muslim woman, and Israeli Jewish woman to the U.S. to talk about their hopes for a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis. He also writes twice per month from Washington for Middle East International magazine, a respected source for news, analysis, and commentary on the Middle East since 1971. He is also a Middle East analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus, a joint project of the Institute for Policy Studies and the Interhemispheric Resource Center. Brown has lived and worked for several assignments in the Gaza Strip since 1993. Given this background it is not surprsing that Brown’s answers were biased towards the Palestinian side, had no real value and did not serve to bring any light to the discussion of the problem facing the people of the Middle-East except to show how great they were. Some questions and answers are as follows: Alexandria, Va.: Why didn't Arafat accept President Clinton's peace plan last year? Is it because Clinton proposed implementing a Palestinian "right of return" only OUTSIDE of the state of Israel? Did Arafat demand the right to move Palestinians to areas inside of Israel's pre-1967 borders? Michael Brown: Arafat rejected the outcome at Camp David in July of 2000 because it would have relegated the Palestinians to non-contiguous bantustans. Palestinians may have controlled the rooms but would not have controlled the passages. Apartheid's bantustans weren't accepted in S. Africa and so Arafat was right to reject them here. Progress was made at Taba several months later. Significant progress and Barak improved his offer. Even the Morris and Barak interview in the NY Review of Books for June 13 says that Arafat made a proposal there at Taba. The myth has always been that Arafat was accepting offers but not making them. Well, apparently at Taba he did. And in any event, the Palestinian position is clear: Comply with international law and get out of the occupied territories. Arafat was working to get Palestinians into Israel as they have homes there that Israeli Jews are now living in. That's a reasonable position to put forward. People have a right to return to their homes. Arafat indicated flexibility on the issue so it's probably not going to be a full right of return. A statement of Israeli wrongdoing in forcing Palestinians out in 1948 is also needed. If Progress was made at Taba, why didn’t Arafat stop the terror attacks and publicly announce his support for the proposed peace plan. Had he done this it is likely that Barak would have been reelected and peace talks would have continued? But he did not, Arafat choose terror. Brown states the Palestinians should be able to move into Israel. He will later repeatedly assert this demand, which alone will prevent any chance of peace, as only 4% of Israeli Jews will accept it since it move destroy Israel as a Jewish state. Silver Spring: Well, we certainly know where you speak from. But your solution is for the Israelis to get out of exactly what? The West Bank and Gaza? What about the Golan? What about Jerusalem? what about anything west of the Jordan River? For indeed this is what the Palestinians want and will not stop until they get. You are deluded to think otherwise. Your simplistic approach smacks of Neville Chamberlin -- and like appeasement with the Nazis, appeasement with the Palestinians won't work. Michael Brown: Complying with international law is not appeasement. The Israelis should be content with 78 percent of historic Palestine. What an enormous concession for the Palestinians to make up front. Now it's time for the Israelis not to make concessions but to comply with international law. Additionally, the Israelis have simply made matters worse by doubling the number of settlers in the years since Oslo. How can any Palestinian think the Israelis are serious about peace when they see the land being taken out from underneath them. And Barak was no exception on this. Brown avoids the question. What about Jerusalem? Avon, Conn.: UN Resolution 242 states 'return of territories,' not ...'all the territories' The authors of the resolution purpoosely left out the definite article, because they knew that return of 'all the territories' was not possible or feasible . Any comment? Michael Brown: The prelude clearly states words to the effect that it is inadmissible to take territory by force of arms. Israel would be better off to establish a just outcome for the Palestinians. Claiming more and more of the West Bank and forcing Palestinians to live in disconnected ghettoes will not create a better day for Palestinians or Israelis. The UN established Israel on 57 percent of the land yet the Palestinians are negotiating to give Israel 78 percent. This should be seen as a great deal by the Israelis. They're only heightening the enmity now by claiming still more Brown ignores that Israel accepted a state on 57% of the land, Arabs did not and invaded immediatel and lost. Boston, Mass.: How can Israel be expected to withdraw from anywhere, when groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Arafat's own Fatah, have already stated that they will not accept any peace plan? Michael Brown: This is a good question. I don't blame Israelis for being fearful. But they need to ask themselves hard questions. Do they really have more security today than they did prior to Sharon's winning the election? I think the clear answer to that is no. Sharon has no interest in a negotiated solution. He has said that and his whole history points to it. He has opposed at one level or another every peace deal Israel ever made. Sidestepping the question. If these groups will not accept a peace plan, then why blame Sharon? Washington, D.C.: Is there a difference in the governance of the West Bank and Gaza? Are they both presided over by Arafat? Is Israel's role different in them? What is the effect of the Gaza fence? Michael Brown: The effect of the Gaza fence is that Palestinians feel as though they live in a huge open-air prison. For the Israelis they believe it brings them greater security. This is probably why most attacks from Gaza focus on the settlers and not Israel. Gaza is a clear-cut case for me having lived there for significant periods of time. Some 5,000 Israeli settlers control slightly more than one third of the land. Some 1.1 million Palestinians are squeezed into the rest. If that's not apartheid I don't know what is. With the fence there has not been any known suicide attacks from Gaza into Israel, that is greater security. Secondly, if the Palestinians had a state, Israel would have all the right to fence off Gaza; it’s called a border. Bethesda, MD: I'd like to comment about your response to the individual from Silver Spring regarding the Palestinians' desire to have all of land from the Jordan River to the Mediteranean Sea. I certainly agree with you that additional settlements in the West Bank should be stopped and most current ones should be dismantled, but you totally skirt the question. Despite the issue of the settlements, the question at hand is how can you deal with a people whose sole desire is to wipe out the land of Israel. This has been echoed in offical Palestinian documents throughout the years. I ask you to consider this and the previous question and offer a response to the actual question at hand. Thank you. Michael Brown: The Palestinian people want peace. When the fighting cranks up and their children are being killed then groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad are strengthened. But when there is a serious negotiation underway then Palestinians have shown a willingness to live in peace with their neighbors. We see the same movement in Israel. Close to 40 percent of Israelis recently said they back the ethnic transfer of Palestinians. When Sharon says that talk of a Palestinian state is "premature" let's consider the language. Where have we heard this before? In the statements of whites in the American south that the time is not right for equal rights for African Americans. For me, Sharon's words echo those of Gov. Wallace: Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. Our government simply must insist that Sharon negotiate. We're giving Israel billions of dollars a year and because these funds are fungible it means that we are helping to fund the settlements -- not to mention that American-made weaponry is being used on Palestinians in refugee camps. I've seen these weapons used against Palestinians in Gaza. We're not doing ourselves any favors by letting this happen. It's done in your name and mine when a Palestinian kid is blown up with American weaponry. The Leahy amendment out to be looked into when our weapons are being used by human rights abusers. And every credible human rights group out there is saying that Israel is purposefully hitting civilians. Look it up at Human Rights Watch or Amnesty or even at Israel's B'Tselem. Why are their more terror attacks each time the US sends an envoy to the Middle East? If anyone is purposely attacking civilians it is the suicide bombers. More Israel women and children have been killed in the fighting then Palestinian. Fairfax, Va.: Mr. Brown. Given your initial comments, your associations and your initial response to questions, it is clear to me your sympathies lie with the Palestinians. In fairness, let me first say, I am an American Jew and my sympathies lie with the Israelis. Not everything America or its government does is right, moral or just, but in any foreign conflict I must fully support the foreign policy of this nation. I feel the same about Israel. Having said that, my question to you as a Palestinian sympathizer is: Just what do the Palestinians want? [..] There will never be peace if the Palestinians do not want peace. So, what do the Palestinians want? Michael Brown: [..] What do Palestinians want? They want 22 percent of the land from the UN partition. They aren't going for a 50-50 split or even for the 43 percent promised. Just 22. They want the settlers colonizing the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem out. The Palestinians expelled from what is now Israel want the right to return. Why should they be ethnically cleansed. Would you not demand that right in their position? But it also seems to be the case that the Palestinians are willing to negotiate aspects of the right. Frankly, I find it racist to say that Palestinian friends of mine returning to homes in Israel would destroy the state of Israel. Even so, the Palestinian leadership is willing to negotiate this. This sums it up, Brown wants a "Right of Return" is critical of those who would negotiate to solve the issue without millions of Palestinians moving into Israel. He wants to destroy Israel to fit his vision of how the Middle-East should be.   9:38:08 PM

It's possible that there was a reason for the lame plot involving Cordelia in this year’s Angel season finale. 9:11:13 PM

SciFi Wire has comments from Robert Sawyer about his latest book, Hominids. The book is mostly discussion between the human characters and a Neanderthal from an alternate Earth mixed with a murder trial of the Neanderthal’s male companion on the world he was accidentally taken from. While somewhat interesting, the novel is not award winning quality. Sawyer’s decision to delay the release of the novel until 2002 so it can be eligible for the 2003 Hugo Awards, which take place Canada won’t help it win awards. 9:10:23 PM