The Resurrection of the Fourth Estate and The Way to Heal the Holy Land

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http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2007/06/24/the_r...

In November 2006, I was one of over 330 international ecumenical Christians who had gathered in Jerusalem to learn more about the Christian Exodus from the Holy Land and the facts on the ground for all citizens living under occupation throughout the West Bank. The Anglican Reverend Naim Ateek, a '48 refugee and author of "Justice and Only Justice", sent chills through me when he stated, "Israel will not survive unless it does justice! The situation is deteriorating and we must frustrate Israel's plans and actions because they are not built on justice. All we are asking for is that they honor International Law! Israel is afraid of International law and this proves something is very wrong with Israel. We want Israel to live in peace and with security. The only way is honoring International law. That is the bottom line and what we work and pray for."

Prayer alone is never enough, for God is not an errand boy waiting to fulfill our desires. Prayer without work is hypocrisy and only the truth "can set you free." [John 8:32]

The pendulum is always swinging, and the pathetic lap dogs who took down this Administrations talking points after 9/11 and colluded in taking us to war, are being challenged by truth seeking reporters who are resurrecting the Fourth Estate.

On June 20, 2007, Mark Whitney reported for Information Clearing House:

When Hamas gunmen stormed the Fatah security compounds in Gaza last week they found huge supplies of American-made weaponry including 7,400 M-16 assault rifles, dozens of mounted machine guns, rocket launchers, 7 armored military jeeps, 800,000 rounds of bullets and 18 US-made armored personnel carriers. They also discovered something far more valuable--- CIA files which purportedly contain "information about the collaboration between Fatah and the Israeli and American security organizations; CIA methods on how to prevent attacks, chase and follow after cells of Hamas and the Committees; plans about Fatah assassinations of members of Hamas and other organizations; and American studies on the security situation in Gaza." (Aaron Klein, http://www.WorldNetDaily.com)

If the documents prove to be authentic, they will confirm what many critics of Fatah believed from the beginning; that US-Israeli intelligence agencies have been collaborating with high-ranking members of the PA to help crush the Palestinian national liberation movement. The information could be disastrous for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his newly-appointed "emergency government". It could destroy their credibility before they even take office.

The extent of Fatah's cooperation with the CIA is still unknown, but an article in The New York Sun, ("Hamas Takes over Gaza Security Services" 6-15-07) suggests that the two groups may have been working together closely. Former Middle East CIA operations officer Robert Baer, who was interviewed in the article, said that the discovery of the documents was "a major blow to Fatah" and will show "a record of training, spying on Hamas…Fatah equals CIA is not a good selling point. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17906.htm

On June 22, 2007, Jonathan Steele of The Guardian wrote:

Washington's fingerprints are all over the chaos that has hit Palestinians… Was Hamas's seizure of Fatah security offices in Gaza unprovoked, or a pre-emptive strike to forestall a coup by Fatah? After last week's turmoil, it becomes increasingly important to uncover its origins… The fundamental cause is, of course, well known. Israel, aided by the US, was not prepared to accept Hamas's victory in last year's Palestinian elections. Backed by a supine EU, the two governments decided to boycott their new Palestinian counterparts politically and punish Palestinian voters by blocking economic aid. Their policies had a dramatic effect, turning Gaza even more starkly into an open prison and creating human misery on a massive scale. The aim was to turn voters against Hamas - a strategy of stupidity as well as cynicism, since outside pressure usually produces resistance rather than surrender…

...Reports have been circulating for months of a more sinister side to the [American] boycott. According to them, the US decided last year on a plan to arm and train Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard in a deliberate effort to confront and defeat Hamas militarily. Israel has already locked up several dozen Hamas legislators and mayors from the West Bank. The next stage was to do the same in Gaza but have Palestinians, rather than Israelis, run the crackdown. Arming insurgents against elected governments has a long US pedigree…

...[In a] document dated March 2, less than a month after Saudi Arabia brokered the Mecca agreement under which Abbas finally agreed with Hamas on a unity government…The document suggests the US wanted to sabotage it. Certainly, according to Hamas officials whom a depressed Abbas later briefed, Abbas was told to scrap Mecca at every subsequent meeting he has had with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Abrams.

Most ominously, the document of US objectives outlined a $1.27bn programme that would add seven special battalions, totaling 4,700 men, to the 15,000 Abbas already has in his presidential guard and other security forces, which were also to be given extra training and arms. "The desired outcome will be the transformation of Palestinian security forces and provide for the president of the Palestinian Authority to able to safeguard decisions such as dismissing the cabinet and forming an emergency cabinet," the document says. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2108820,00.html

On June 20, 2007, the Washington Post published an article by Ahmed Yousef, a senior political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, who is currently contesting his dismissal as prime minister by Mahmoud Abbas.

Yousef wrote from Gaza City:

The Palestinian National Authority apparently joins the list of elected governments targeted or toppled over the past century by interventionism: nations that had the courage to take American rhetoric at face value and elect whomever they would. No doubt some in Washington persist in the fiction that the United States is following a "road map" to democracy for Palestinians, just as others believe the Iraq war has been a sincere exercise in nation-building. Neoconservative strategists have miscalculated, however, and Hamas is stronger than ever.

For the first time in months, Gaza is secure. This may be a momentary peace as Israel prepares an attempt to retake parts of Gaza. Yet neither blunt force nor U.S. subterfuge will extinguish Palestinian aspirations for self-governance, free from outside interference...

...Palestinians want, on their terms, the same thing Western societies want: self-determination, modernity, access to markets and their own economic power, and freedom for civil society to evolve. Those who warn of "failed states" and "Hamastan" as a breeding ground for terrorism forget where blame for failure belongs -- at the feet of the American administration, which has chosen to isolate, rather than deal with, the elected government...

...Yet it remains that Hamas has a world in common with Fatah and other parties, and they all share the same goals -- the end of occupation; the release of political prisoners; the right of return for all Palestinians; and freedom to be a nation equal among nations, secure in its own borders and at peace. For more than 60 years, Palestinians have resisted walls and checkpoints intended to divide them. Now they must resist the poisonous inducements to fight one another and resume a unified front against the occupation. http://www.washingtonpost.com

During President George W. Bush's, Second Inaugural Address he promised:

"In the long run, there is no justice without FREEDOM. There can be no human rights without LIBERTY. All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for liberty, we stand with you."

We the people of America, by virtue of paying taxes, are culpable in the way our money is spent, and military occupation takes the biggest bite. Candidate Bush claimed his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ, but President Bush ignores Jesus' philosophy which is based on love for all people, NOT power, control, domination, hegemony, torture and occupation.

"Love is not the starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of open cities. Love is not killing......Our manifesto is the Sermon on the Mount, which means that we will try to be peacemakers." -Dorothy Day

When ever any are denied justice which demands equal and inalienable human rights and self-determination, there is no true freedom, liberty, or possibility for peace or security for any at all.

Many in America continue to claim we are a Christian nation. That notion is an abomination to every thoughtful committed Christian who comprehends that the only way to break the cycle of violence and terror is the way Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King professed; NONVIOLENCE, forgiveness, respect for all life and love is the only way to begin the world again.

If ever there was a time for a Kitchen Table Conference, one where ALL sides come together as equal human beings who all seek freedom from tyranny and hopelessness, liberty from oppression and terror and are allowed to express their side of the issues; and then as equal human beings, begin the hard work of compromise and the end of military occupations; that time is now!

Silence is complicity and dissent is what keeps democracies healthy.

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June 24, 2007 © Copyright Eileen Fleming, Reporter and Editor http://www.wearewideawake.org/ Author Keep Hope Alive and Memoirs of a Nice Irish American Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory, Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu " Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media if this credit is attached and the title remains unchanged.