A Reader's Guide to Israeli "Settlement Activity"

http://jpundit.typepad.com/jci/2009/05/a-readers-guide-to-israeli-settlement-activity.html

Why the settlements are important.  Excerpts from two characteristically incisive comments by military and intelligence analyst J. E. Dyer at Jonathan Tobin's contentions post yesterday:

The most consistent position from Israeli leaders . . . is that the West Bank is a holistic national defense issue, of which the settlements are an integral element. No aspect of the settlements is divorced from the question of defensible borders for Israel . . .

Without occupying the summits that look down on Israel's eastern border, Israel can't defend her narrow territory against attack from the East. That is the defensible borders issue with the West Bank, and was demonstrated clearly in the '67 war. The significance of holding these summits has only increased with time, and the expanded range of man-portable missile systems.  . . .

One thing is certain. Everyone in the Middle East understands the military/defensive value of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. They fully understand there that the beef the Palestinians have with the settlements is precisely that the settlements deny the Palestinians access to the summits that look down on Jerusalem, and the rest of Israel's eastern border.

If Israel did, in fact, abandon that territory in terms of occupation and military defense, there is no natural or political barrier at the perimeter of the West Bank that would prevent outside support to the Palestinians there from quickly turning the threat to Israel — within 2-3 weeks — into the same level of threat posed to Israel from Lebanon, and from the other side of the Golan Heights.

There is no reason whatsoever to imagine that Jordan would (or even could) do anything to prevent the development of such a threat. If Israel did not address it promptly by reoccupying the West Bank, it could build very quickly after that into a full-blown military threat.

Why "settlement activity" is a non-issue.  Excerpts from Elliott Abrams' April 7, 2009 article in the Washington Post:

For one thing, most settlement activity is in those major blocs that it is widely understood Israel will keep. For another, those settlements are becoming more populated, not geographically larger. . . . population growth inside settlements does not [take land that Palestinians own or use, or interfere with Palestinian mobility or agricultural activity]. For the past five years, Israel's government has largely adhered to guidelines that were discussed with the United States but never formally adopted: that there would be no new settlements, no financial incentives for Israelis to move to settlements and no new construction except in already built-up areas.

Why ceasing all Israeli "settlement activity" would unfairly affect final status issues.  Excerpt from Vel Nirtist's May 31 article at American Thinker:

Israelis are not the only ones who build on the disputed land to accommodate for 'natural growth,' thus "pre-judging" the outcome of diplomacy. Palestinians do, too -- and the Obama administration, to be fair or at least consistent in its concern that "facts on the ground" should not adversely affect final-status negotiations, should put equal pressure on the Palestinians to stop all their building in the West Bank, too -- for when the Palestinians build in the West Bank, they also create "facts on the ground," erecting their structures on the land which Israelis may want to be part of their state. . . .

 

Because the West Bank is a disputed territory . . . It is worth repeating yet again that before the West Bank was "occupied" by the Israelis in 1967 when they beat off the Arab aggression, it was under Jordanian occupation that started in 1948, and that prior to that it was occupied by the British who had the mandate to do so from the League of Nations; and that prior to that it was part of the Ottoman Empire. "Palestinian state" never existed, and cannot claim any territory as legitimately its own.

To recap:  (1) the major settlements are on the high ground overlooking pre-1967 Israel, and whoever holds that high ground holds the military assets necessary either to defend or attack Israel; (2) Israeli settlement activity for the last five years has been largely limited to growth within the geographical limits of those settlement blocs, which will be kept by Israel in any conceivable peace agreement; and (3) the entire West Bank is disputed territory, as to which Israel has historical and religious connections, legal claims arising out of the documents that established the British mandate, and the military necessity to insure it cannot become the staging area for the kind of attack that nearly destroyed Israel in 1967. 

Israel's connections, claims and necessities can be negotiated by Israel in return for a Palestinian and Arab commitment to recognize Israel within defensible borders -- but to suggest that the current major settlements are "obstacles to peace," or that stopping settlement activity within them would lead to peace, is to suggest that an Israel with defensible borders is an obstacle.  There will be no peace (even if a "peace agreement" were signed) if Israel does not have defensible borders, and the freedom to live within them.  In fact, a "peace agreement" without such borders or freedom would lead to a new war.

Which is why settlement activity will continue in the same fashion it has for the last five years.

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Think about if people began referring to Arab communities inside pre-67 Israel as "settlements". Could they eventually be frozen? Dismantled? Their population expelled? All for peace?

And to expand on #3: territorial compromise has been a constant element of proposed solutions - TransJordan was lopped off in 1923; Peel Commission suggested a further partition of territory in 1937; Woodhead the same the following year; the 1939 White Paper canceled the "Jewish national home reconstitution" essence of Balfour and substituted a "Palestine state"; in 1947, the UN recommended a "Jewish" and an "Arab" state to come into existence with a further territorial reduction for the Jews. In 1994, Israel gave over to Jordan territory. In the Oslo Process, the Pals. received "A" area. In 2005, all of Gaza was completely de-Judaized.

Nothing of this has worked or solved the true basic issues.

To achieve peace, the Arabs insist on emptying out their territory of a Jewish presence. For an 'absolute' peace, going back to my first point, should Arabs be emptied out of Israel? Is that rational and humane? And the opposite is good statesmanship?

Groups silent in face of Obama calls for settlement freeze

By Eric Fingerhut · June 2, 2009

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/06/02/1005572/groups-silent-in-face-of-obama-calls-for-settlement-freeze

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President Obama, since his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in Washington on May 18, 2009, has stepped up public pressure on Netanyahu to stop settlement activity in the West Bank. (Moshe Milner/GPO/Flash90/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Even as it publicly stakes out a hard-line position against Israeli settlement expansion, the Obama administration is avoiding serious criticism from most U.S. Jewish groups and pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers.

Key pro-Israel Jewish Democrats have backed the president on the importance of an Israeli settlement freeze while also suggesting there is room for a compromise between the Netanyahu government and the White House.

Meanwhile, the major Jewish centrist organizations -- including the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and AIPAC -- have refrained from issuing statements criticizing the Obama administration on the issue.

Some Jewish leaders said that while worries had been growing in recent days, the community wanted to wait until after President Obama's speech Thursday in Cairo to fully assess the situation.

Their concern spiked after what they saw as "stark" comments by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last week in which she said that "with respect to settlements, the president was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here: He wants to see a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions."

In subsequent interviews, Obama has reiterated the call for a settlement freeze, but also stressed that "it's still early in the conversation" and that "patience is needed." The president also has stressed the White House's continuing commitment to Israel's security, isolating Hamas and fighting to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

While the Bush administration also called for a settlement freeze, observers said the Obama administration's tone and seeming willingness to follow up marks a significant change from the previous White House. The key flashpoint surrounds the issue of "natural growth," which often is understood to encompass any kind of building and construction to accommodate growing families -- from building an extra room to a house to additional schools, community services and synagogues in growing neighborhoods.

Last month, former deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams publicly confirmed the existence of an unwritten agreement that then-President George W. Bush and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reached in 2004, stating that Israel could continue to build in large Israeli settlements in the West Bank that the Jewish state was likely to keep in any final peace deal.

The Obama administration reportedly has backed away from that understanding -- but, as some observers and unnamed U.S. officials have pointed out, only after Netanyahu refused to echo his predecessors' endorsement of a two-state solution.

"There would usually be a great deal of deference if he did his part," said the Middle East Forum's Steve Rosen, formerly the longtime foreign policy director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. But without such an affirmation for a two-state solution by Netanyahu, "it weakened his ability to play that card."

Abraham Foxman, the ADL's national director, said the organized Jewish community was still treading cautiously, not wanting to "push any buttons and exacerbate the situation" in order to see what the president says in his speech to the Muslim world this week.

"It's a crisis in formation" -- but not yet a crisis, said Foxman.

"Everybody is holding their breath until after Thursday," he said.

The chairman of the Conference of Presidents, Alan Solow, also said it was "too early to come to any conclusion" on how the settlement discussions will play out.

"I'm watching very carefully to see that the American leadershp and the Israeli leadership have a candid exchange of views," said Solow, an early Obama supporter during the campaign.

While Jewish lawmakers and centrist Jewish organizations have steered clear from directly critcizing the Obama administration, more than 75 percent of the members of the House of Representatives have signed on to an AIPAC-backed letter to the president stating, among other things, that the United States should seek to settle its disputes with Israel in private.

Some Jewish leaders have expressed puzzlement at the administration's willingness to bring the argument out in the open so quickly.

"It's not clear what's to be gained by this public exchange on settlements, especially because there's not much likelihood of a deal at this point" and "a private channel exists," said an official at one Jewish organization who did not want to be identified.

Even Republican Jews, who attacked Obama throughout the presidential campaign for his positions on Israel, have been relatively quiet in recent days.

Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said his organization was waiting until after the Cairo speech to make a formal statement in order to have a "full sense of what's going on," although he said the group was "deeply concerned about the path this administration is taking."

Left-wing pro-Israel groups, which have been encouraging Obama to press for a settlement freeze since his inauguration, were pleased that the White House appears to be sticking to its demands.

Americans for Peace Now spokesman Ori Nir said the shift is "sweeping, if in fact the administration will stand behind its words and enforce these positions."

The Zionist Organization of America criticized the settlement freeze proposal immediately after last month's Obama-Netanyahu meeting, saying "it simply penalizes Jews, because they are Jews, from living in the ancestral heartland of the Jewish people."

Late Tuesday, the Orthodox Union weighed in with a letter to Obama, saying it was "deeply troubled" by his approach to settlements because his typical "nuanced approach" was "glaringly absent."

"To the contrary, this policy has, to date, reflected a blunderbuss, one-size-fits-all attitude toward everything from building a new house on an empty lot in the midst of the city of Ma'ale Adumim, to erecting new houses on an empty hilltop in Samaria," wrote leaders of the Orthodox Union, which has increasingly aligned itself publicly with the settler movement in recent years.

According to multiple reports, Netanyahu and his aides were shocked to discover in a meeting last month with Jewish members of Congress the degree to which they sided with Obama. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) said it was the first time during such a meeting that he recalled an Israeli prime minister being pressed on the settlement issue in his 13 years in the House.

"Those people who have been some of Israel's staunchest and most vocal supporters in the past and would be in the future are advocating this policy and supporting the president because it is a policy in best interests of the United States and Israel," said Wexler, an early supporter and outspoken Jewish surrogate for Obama during the presidential campaign. "I'm convinced Netanyahu feels the same way. He just has to figure out the dynamic that will support it and we have to give him the time and room to do that."

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) said he still wanted the Obama administration to more clearly define what exactly it meant by "natural growth," but generally backed the idea of stopping settlements.

"We're not talking about dismantling settlements, we're talking about a settlement freeze," said Ackerman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. "Settlements have proven to be one of the things that have been problematic."

Ackerman said he still wanted to hear specifically whether the administration's definition of natural growth was all about buildings, or also included people.

"I don't know how you can tell families they can't have children," he said, but expanding the "footprint" of a settlement through building or other construction was problematic.

"I think there is room for compromise," he said.

Wexler offered his own idea for a compromise, suggesting that the Jewish state offer to freeze all natural growth of settlements on the Palestinian side of the security fence as a "credible first step." He said Israel needed to make some sort of movement on the settlement issue as a way to test whether the Arab world is serious about peace with Israel.

"American Jews or Israel should not be concerned" by the recent tension over settlements, he said.

"All of this is within the context of empowering the president of the United States to extract from the Arab world normalization measures that the Arab world has never contemplated before," Wexler said.

Two of the more hard-line Jewish Democrats in Congress, Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Shelly Berkley (D-Nev.), did voice some concerns this week.

"My concern is that we are applying pressure to the wrong party in this dispute," Berkley said in an interview with Politico. "I think it would serve America's interest better if we were pressuring the Iranians to eliminate the potential of a nuclear threat from Iran, and less time pressuring our allies and the only democracy in the Middle East to stop the natural growth of their settlements.

"When Congress gets back into session," she added, "the administration is going to hear from many more members than just me."

The battle for Jerusalem 2009 is joined

Building in Jerusalem is the key problem in the U.S. demand for a settlement freeze, and it is the one that will generate the greatest Israeli solidarity against implementing US demands.

 

Last update - 02:48 02/06/2009       
U.S. demands halt to hotel at E. J'lem wholesale market
By Akiva Eldar

 

Washington is furious over the Interior Ministry's anticipated approval of a plan to build a new hotel in East Jerusalem, just 100 meters from the Old City's walls. The plan, which would see the demolition of a wholesale market and kindergarten, is slated to be approved today.

 

In conversations with Israeli officials, senior American officials have made it clear that they want Israel to freeze all plans for expanding the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem, and especially in the Holy Basin - the area adjacent to the Old City.

 

The regional planning and building committee for Jerusalem will discuss the plan today. It was submitted by the Jerusalem municipality, which owns the land on which the hotel is slated to be built, and the state-owned Jerusalem Economic Corporation, which will actually construct it.
 
The site in question is in the wholesale market, just east of the Rockefeller Museum.

 

The Interior Ministry's district planning office told Haaretz that it will recommend the plan's approval.

 

The plan calls for a 200-room hotel that will be nine stories tall on its eastern face (where the ground is lower). It will also include a commercial building, which will be five stories tall on its eastern face, plus another three stories underground.

 

The plan will require the existing wholesale market to be demolished, along with a Palestinian kindergarten.

 

The hotel plan is only one of several proposals for expanding the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem. Another, which would involve evicting hundreds of Palestinians from King's Valley, on the outskirts of Silwan, was approved yesterday by the Jerusalem municipality's planning committee despite the opposition of the city's legal advisor, Yossi Havilio.

Great satan invites mullah regime officials to celebrate US independence

Somehow, this is like inviting Eichman to a bar mitzvah. Do they get to chant, "Death to America!" as they do in Iran? Let's hope they don't take any hostages.

US invites Iran envoys to July 4 parties

Jun. 2, 2009
Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST

In a new overture to Iran, the Obama administration has authorized US embassies around the world to invite Iranian officials to Independence Day parties they host on or around July 4th.

A State Department cable sent to all US embassies and consulates late last week said that US diplomats could ask their Iranian counterparts to attend the festivities, which generally feature speeches about American values, fireworks, hot dogs and hamburgers.

The notice, sent on Friday, said that the posts "may invite representatives from the government of Iran" to the events, a State Department official said Tuesday, quoting from the document. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an internal communication.

It was not immediately clear how many embassies and consulates would actually invite Iranian diplomats to the July 4 parties or whether any Iranians would accept the invitations.

The cable was first reported by The New York Times.

The move comes amid the administration's ongoing efforts to engage Iran in variety of venues, including formal diplomatic meetings over its nuclear program, violence in Iraq and the situation in Afghanistan.

But Iran has given mixed responses to the overtures, which began early in the administration when President Barack Obama recorded a videotaped greeting to the Iranian people and its leaders for their new year.

Since then, the administration announced that it would be a full participant with Iranian officials in six-nation talks aimed at getting Iran to address concerns about its suspect nuclear program. The US and others accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran maintains it is only interested in a civilian atomic energy program and has refused to accept a package of incentives offered by the US and its partners to get it to stop enriching uranium, a process that can produce the fuel for a nuclear weapon.

The US also ensured that Iran was invited and attended an international conference on Afghanistan at which US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke and an Iranian official had a brief exchange with a senior American diplomat.

During that meeting in The Hague, U.S. delegates passed an informal note to Iranian officials seeking information about three Americans then missing or detained in Iran.

Last month, Iran released one of the Americans, Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was tried and convicted of spying for the United States.

Obama and other US officials have said they do not expect to see much movement from Iran until after the country holds presidential elections in the middle of the month, but have sketched a rough deadline of the fall by which they hope to see positive responses to their overtures.

This article can also be read at

Pakistan’s Mingora City Brought Under Army Control (Update1)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a0xnISIyZL70&refer=home

By Farhan Sharif

May 30 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistani security forces today regained control of Mingora, the Swat Valley's main city, from Taliban insurgents after more than a month of fighting to wrest control of the region.

The army is sweeping for mines and clearing traps in the area, Major General Athar Abbas, a military spokesman, said at a news conference in Islamabad. As many as 25 militants and one soldier were killed and four people injured during the past 24 hours, he said.

"It is fortunate that the army has secured Mingora's control," Abbas said.

Pakistani forces have been battling an estimated 4,000 insurgents who reneged on a February accord and advanced closer to Islamabad, even after the government agreed to impose Islamic law in the region. More than 1,100 militants and 91 soldiers have been killed since the offensive began April 26, according to the army.

Bombs tore through three Pakistani cities this past week killing a total of at least 47 people and injuring hundreds after the Taliban threatened to avenge the army offensive.

Three bombs exploded on May 29 in the northwestern city of Peshawar, hitting a marketplace and police checkpoint. On May 27, a suicide bomb attack on a police building in the eastern city of Lahore left 35 people dead.

Pakistan's government has linked the attacks to its offensive against militants and says Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud had warned of revenge bombings.

After more than a month of fighting, the military has said it is wresting control of the region from insurgents. The fighting has forced 2.8 million people to flee their homes, according to the provincial government.

The exodus of refugees is the biggest since Pakistan gained independence in 1947.

The military first deployed in Swat, once a popular tourist destination 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Islamabad, in 2007 in an effort to crush militants who set up Islamic courts. The fighters beheaded local officials, burned schools and banned education for girls.

To contact the reporters on this story: Farhan Sharif in Karachi, Pakistan at Fsharif2@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: May 30, 2009 11:26 EDT

Everyone's dirty war against the Kurds

The Kurds are the invisible and forgotten people of the Middle East and indeed of the world. UN resolutions, human rights, self determination are all for other peoples. Kurds do not get a one state solution or a two state solution. They don't get any solution or any protection. The EU ignores persecution of Kurds in Turkey. Nobody cares about persecution of Kurds in Iran or Syria. Amnesty International and HRW are virtually silent. There are no groups to boycott Turkey or Iran or Syria for killing Kurds, denying them rights to their own culture or occupying what should be their homeland. There is no UN Secretariat department devoted to Kurdish rights. Quite simply, nobody cares. It is open season on  Kurds.

 

 

05/27/2009 07:16 PM
TURKEY'S DIRTY WAR AGAINST THE KURDS
'We Used to Murder People at Night When the Soldiers Weren't Around'

 

By Daniel Steinvorth in Istanbul

 

When members of the special Turkish police unit Jitem arrived at night, Kurdish inhabitants of southeast Turkey knew there would be another disappearance. Investigators are now looking into the activities of this allegedly disbanded secretive organization from the 1990s -- and the 'death wells' where its victims were hidden.

 

Things had been going well for Nimet Karaaslan and his new business. But when the Kurd opened up his little restaurant in the spring of 1993 in Cizre, a city right near Turkey's border with Syria, men wearing dark sunglasses and carrying submachine guns paid him a visit. "Give us your restaurant," they ordered him.

 

The men were part of Jitem, a special unit of the Turkish gendarmerie charged with "intelligence gathering and counterterrorism," and they made themselves at home in Karaaslan's restaurant. They practiced with their weapons, and they set up a center for interrogating and torturing people. The restaurant was in a good location. From the front, you could look out over the snow-covered peaks of the Cudi mountains on the Turkish-Iraqi border, where units of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish separist group, are still entrenched today. From the back, you could look out over the Tigris River, which separates Turkey from Syria.

 

The Ipek Yolu Highway, the Turkish name for the Silk Road, runs right past the front of the building heading toward Iraq. And behind it there is a sea of chest-high, green corn broken by the occasional well. The wells turned out to be great places for getting rid of the bodies of those who were executed.

 

For years, people in the surrounding villages kept quiet. And then, in 2002, the army lifted the region's state of emergency, and the men from Jitem disappeared. For a long time, people thought that speaking about Karaaslan's restaurant increased their own chances of disappearing.

 

But, since March, the area has been home to backhoes and salvaging equipment. What was once unheard of is now happening in southeastern Turkey -- in Cizre, in Silopi, in Kustepe and wherever else local lawyers have filled a petition to have the "death wells" opened. Turkish officials have now started to dig for the remains of Kurds who have disappeared. But the digging also means working through one of the darkest chapters in this country's history, when Turkish security forces waged a dirty war against supporters of the PKK and its suspected supporters.

 

Shot 'Like an Animal'

 

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, thousands of civil rights activists, politicians and businesspeople suspected of having ties with the PKK were kidnapped and murdered. No one knows their exact number, and it was only in rare cases that the victims were even identified. Many corpses were dumped into wells; others were doused in acid and thrown into fields. The horror of the sight was meant to serve as a deterrent. But the majority disappeared without a trace and are still listed as missing.

 

One of the missing is the Kurdish construction worker Ramazan Solmaz. His wife Piroze last saw him on January 15, 1993. "He was on his way to work when they caught him," she says. "That's all I know. There are no traces, no clues. I'd just like to know where his body is. I just want to bury him." Piroze and a friend have put their faith in Cizre's bar association. "My husband, Selahattin, was shot in broad daylight in 1998 right on the street," say her friend, who is wearing a pitch-black version of the traditional Kurdish gown. "Just like that. Like an animal."

 

At the time, the women didn't even think about filing a criminal complaint. In Cizre, confronting those in power had its consequences. The powerful included not only the soldiers and the people from Jitem, but also members of the radical-Islamic Turkish Hezbollah, a militant Kurdish organization unrelated to the Lebanese Hezbollah. The war between the Turkish army and the PKK raged in the mountains surrounding Cizre. But in the city itself, it was this group that held power over life and death. A brutal leader of this clan named Kamil Atak once let himself be nominated to become mayor. As local politicians will tell you, the former shepherd used to take pleasure in "feeding" his captives to his Hezbollah fighters.

 

Spreading Fear and Anxiety

 

Even after the state of emergency was lifted in 2002, Atak remained under the protection of state security forces. Just over two months ago, on March 23, police arrested Atak as part of a nationwide operation after he garnered the attention of investigators working on the "Ergenekon" case. Soon after Atak's arrest, authorities also arrested Cemal Temizöz, a colonel in the military police, who also sowed fear and anxiety among the inhabitants of Cizre.

 

"Ergenekon" is the name of a place in popular Turkish mythology, but it is also the name given to a conspiracy of networked ultra-nationalists. Roughly 150 of its members are now standing trial in Turkey. The former soldiers, police officers, journalists, professors and everyday Mafiosi stand accused of having planned a coup against the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The trial has been going on for more than six months. It is the most explosive trial in recent Turkish history.

 

Among the accused is Veli Kücük, the retired general who allegedly founded Jitem. Kücük's arrest in January 2008 was the most sensational event of the year. As things have turned out, though, the kind-faced grandfather appears to be untouchable. It is still hard to tell whether the military used Kücük as a sacrificial pawn or whether the generals in Ankara believed he had become too powerful.

 

Jitem's Bestial Interrogation Methods

 

For the top brass in Turkey's military forces, the issue of Jitem remains taboo. The government continues to deny its existence. According to the semiofficial version, at least, the organization served as something like a "counterguerrilla" force against the PKK that completed its mission long ago and has since been disbanded. The last fact seems to have been confirmed by former Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz, when he claimed in a television interview that Jitem "no longer" existed.

 

By far the most comprehensive reports of Jitem's activities can be found in the memoirs of the organization's former agents. One of them is Abdülkadir Aygan, who now lives in Sweden. Aygan tells a shocking tale of having first been a member of the PKK before being recruited to work for Jitem. "We used to murder people at night during the long hours when the soldiers weren't around," Aygan says, describing Jitem's activities. "Many of the people we captured had been indicted by a court or the gendarmes," he adds. "But many of them had also been denounced by their completely normal fellow citizens. No one survived an interrogation by Jitem people."

 

The Fate of Hasan Ergül

 

Other former henchmen of the state, such as Tuncay Güney and Yildirim Begler, are now talking about the war against the PKK. From the safety of exile in Canada, Sweden and Norway, men like these recount the names of the victims and the places where their mass graves can be found. They describe the bestial interrogation methods and the orders to kill that always came "from the very top." They talk about how the gendarmes would bathe the dead in acid baths and make them disappear in wells. And they never fail to mention the type of cars the Jitem usually used: white models of the Renault 12-based "Toros" manufactured in Turkey between the 1970s and 1990s. When the angels of death appeared in their white cars, inhabitants knew that one of their friends or neighbors would be disappearing soon.

 

The case of the disappeared Kurd Hasan Ergül exemplifies the vividness of these Jitem veterans' revelations. On May 23, 1993, the farmer from the village of Cukurca got on his tractor with his three-year-old son to drive to the hospital in a nearby city. But they didn't get far. After stopping at a nearby gas station, Ergül was surrounded by three vehicles that blocked his path. The men who got out of the car weren't wearing uniforms. They dragged Ergül off his tractor and forced him into the back seat of one of the cars. They drove off, leaving the crying boy behind.

 

It would be years before Ergül's relatives finally became aware of his ultimate fate. They learned it when they heard the confession of former Jitem member Abdülkadir Aygan, who spoke about how Ergül was strangled to death, put in a sack and dumped into a remote lake.

 

Seeking Certainty and Closure

 

In the end, all the searching and inquiries of Ergül's brothers had been in vain. But after Aygan's confession, they did succeed in figuring out where Ergül had been dumped, where fishermen later hid his body and where his unidentified corpse had been buried in an anonymous grave not far from the lake. "Now we're waiting for the results of a DNA test," says Ergül's brother Ata. "Then we will finally have some certainty."

 

This is a sign of progress -- but there are also contradictory signals coming out of Turkey. For the first time, the country seems prepared to come to terms with its recent past. But even though light is now being thrown on the dirty war waged during that period, the war between the Turkish military and the PKK continues to rage. In military terms, the separatist movement has been significantly weakened, and its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, has been in prison for years. But it is still capable of launching deadly bomb attacks, such as the one in late April, when a remotely denoted bomb threw a military vehicle into the air, killing nine Turkish soldiers.

 

The government avoids talks with the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which has channels of communication with the PKK. Instead, in recent weeks, the government has preferred to impose order high-handedly by arresting more than 200 DT politicians.

 

 

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

 

Yaalon: Israel Must Free Itself from Failed '2-State' Paradigm

www.israelnationalnews.com

 

by Maayana Miskin 

Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon believes that the time has come for Israel to "free itself from the failed paradigm" of the "two-state solution." Yaalon spoke Tuesday at a meeting of MKs dedicated to finding an alternative to the creation of a Palestinian Authority-led Arab state.

While the creation of a PA-led state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is perceived as a necessity both in Israel and worldwide, such a state would not solve the Israel-PA conflict, said Yaalon. In fact, he said, it is doubtful that the possibility of creating such a state exists, due to Arab and Muslim reluctance to take any step that would imply recognition of Israel or compromise on Arab claims to the entire Land of Israel.

Israel's Mistakes

Israel's mistake lies in accepting a-symmetrical talks with the PA, Yaalon said. From the beginning of talks, he explained, Israel has accepted the idea of a Palestinian national movement with the PA as its representative, while the PA has resolutely refused to accept the Jewish national movement of Zionism or the idea of a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel.

Furthermore, while the PA demands that Arabs and Muslims be allowed to live in Israel, Israel accepts that a PA state would not have Jewish citizens, he said. And while Israel gives in on crucial issues such as the status of Jerusalem or the borders of a PA state, the PA refuses to bend in the slightest.

Israel has also been mistaken in assuming that the Israeli presence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is the cause of Israel-Arab tension, he said. Arab attacks on Israel began well before the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel gained control of those areas, he said, and the Arab world's real goal is not a state in those areas, but rather, on the ruins of the State of Israel.

For this reason, he said, the PA is actually uninterested in a "two-state solution." Former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat waged war on Israel in order to avoid the creation of a PA state, he argued.

"There are those who will argue that the  PA wanted to establish a state in the 1967 borders but was unable to do so," he said. "I say the problem was not one of ability, but of desire."

If the PA does not desire an independent state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and will not accept such a state as the fulfillment of its national goals, the "two-state solution" has no chance to bring peace, he concluded.

The Solution

Israel must give up on seeking to fully solve its conflict with the PA and the Arab world as a whole, Yaalon said. "I believe we should not approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the phrase 'solution' in the foreseeable future," he told his audience. "Instead, we should seek 'crisis management' or long-term coping strategies."

Israel should still seek a solution in the long term, he added. However, the process of seeking a solution should be "bottom-up," and not "top-down." Instead of hoping that a diplomatic agreement with the PA will lead to peace and security, the PA should prove that it is capable of self-rule prior to the signing of a diplomatic agreement, he argued.

Yaalon presented five crucial elements of the "bottom-up" process:

Educational Reform:

 The PA currently teaches Arab children that the entirety of Israel is an illegal colonialist entity, Yaalon said, and denies any historic Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. In addition, the PA teaches Jihad (holy war) against Israel and honors suicide bombers.

Changing the PA school system to teach the value of life, not of death, and to accurately portray Jewish history is crucial, he said.

Economic Reform:

 In order to create a viable economy, the PA must strengthen small businesses and create a stable middle class, Yaalon said.

 

Attempts to create a PA economy through international aid have failed due to a corrupt PA leadership that misappropriates funds, and terrorist groups that attempt to keep PA Arabs living in poverty, he said. To avoid the problems posed by corrupt leadership, the world should focus on PA businessmen and support their initiatives.

Political Reform:

Beyond creating a political entity, the PA must allow for freedom of expression, freedom of the press and protect human rights.

Yaalon referred to "the American mistake" of supporting strong dictators over true democratic activists. Activists who seek true democracy and freedom should win encouragement from the West, he said.

Legal Reform:

 The goal should be "One authority, one law, one weapon," Yaalon said, referring to the disarming of rogue terrorist groups and the enforcement of law throughout the PA territories.

Security Reform:

 The PA must begin to truly fight terrorism, Yaalon said. Among other things, the PA must rid itself of the "revolving door" by which terrorists serve only light sentences, and the sentencing of terrorists who murdered Israelis for "harming the public interest" instead of "murder." These things encourage terrorism, he said.

The PA must be able to fight terrorism properly on multiple levels, he said, from gathering intelligence information to putting terrorists on trial.

No Guarantees

There is no guarantee that the "bottom-up" proposal can be put into effect, Yaalon said, because it relies on the Palestinian Authority to take the necessary action.

In order to increase the chances that the PA will do what is necessary, Israel must make it clear that the PA has no chance of defeating Israel, he said, or of forcing further Israeli concessions and withdrawals without making concessions of its own.

"The Palestinians' extreme violence does not stem from despair over their situation, as the West tends to assume, but rather from hope – hope that the State of Israel will disappear," he said. "Destroying the hope of defeating Israel will encourage new ideas."
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