Summary of the Second Story after comes first

Digest #18 of the Palestinian Rights Committee, Albany, New
York, USA.
Oct. 31st, 2004

Editor: David Aube, Asst. Editor: Erin O'Brien
Contact us: David: davidaub (at) msn.com, Erin: eobrien (at) riseup.net

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THE SHALOM REPORT
A prophetic voice in Jewish, multireligious, & American life
November 11, Heshvan 27, Ramadan 27. Issue 104

JACOB, ESAU, ARAFAT, & GOD

Arafat was neither saint nor demon. He struggled all his life to make the Palestinians, one of the weakest of all peoples in terms of conventional power, a force to reckon with on the world stage. In that effort he and the Palestinian people succeeded. From the standpoint of justice, he was right. Yet he countenanced violent methods of struggle that imbued the Israelis, who had far more power and used it to kill many more people, and their powerful allies, especially in the United States, with rage and hatred rather than empathy toward the Palestinian struggle.


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Editor: David Aube, Asst. Editor: Erin O'Brien
Contact us: David: davidaub (at) msn.com, Erin: eobrien (at) riseup.net

* Obituary from Electronic Intifada
* US Campaign for End Israeli Occupation Statement
* Palestine Greater than Arafat
* Photo story from Ramallah
* Kofi Annan statement
* Arafat Chronology
* Links to Various American Media stories


YASSER ARAFAT, 1929-2004
Obituary, The Electronic Intifada

Although his political obituary was written again and again,
Yasser Arafat displayed a legendary tenacity and
an amazing ability to pull through at the eleventh hour, usually
thanks to his remarkable skill in cobbling
together coalitions and allies from very disparate backgrounds.
Trapped by Ariel Sharon in the rubble of his
Ramallah headquarters, though, Arafat was marginalized
politically and virtually powerless militarily since the
murderous Israeli attack on Palestinian cities in March-April
2002 that killed over 500 people and
destroyed most of the infrastructure of the Palestinian
Authority. He departs the Palestinian and Middle Eastern
political stage as a wraith of his former self, with no
political heir apparent.

electronicIntifada.net/v2/article3288.shtml

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US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

Arafat's Legacy: Understanding What We Are Fighting For

November 10th, 2004

The Steering Committee of the US Campaign to End the Israeli
Occupation extends its sympathy to the Palestinian people on the
death of President Yasser Arafat. The international focus on
his last days reminded the world that he has his place in Middle
East history and politics, in spite of attempts by Israel and
the United States to marginalize him by confining him to his
destroyed office compound and to demonize him as an obstacle to
peace.

While the spotlight focuses on Arafat, the daily lives of
Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem
remains defined by Israel's illegal military occupation. Over
the course of a two-week period in September and October, Israel
killed more than 130 Palestinians in the Jebalya refugee camp
and partially or completely destroyed hundreds of houses there.

Arafat will be remembered as the leader who forged a unified
Palestinian people from the despair of dispossession and put the
question of Palestine back on the map after the creation of
Israel in 1948.

He will also be remembered as the leader who signed peace
agreements with Israel but was powerless to challenge Israel's
expanded pace of settlement-building and refusal to recognize or
realize Palestinian rights. In the end, he served as a
convenient scapegoat for a peace process bankrupted by Israeli
policies of colonization.

Our movement can draw lessons from Arafat's legacy in the
endeavor to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and to
achieve justice for the Palestinian people and peace, security
and human rights for all.

We are right to remain focused on the occupation and to build a
national and international movement to end it. The balance of
power remains heavily weighted on Israel's side. Since the Oslo
Accords of 1993, Israel, under both the Labor and Likud
governments, has set the pace, timing, and nature of its
withdrawals from occupied territory - culminating in the Sharon
plan for unilateral disengagement from Gaza, which will maintain
an Israeli siege around the territory and consolidate Israel's
hold on the West Bank. Without a national and international
movement against the occupation we cannot shift the balance of
power.

We are right to remain focused on challenging those U.S.
policies that sustain the occupation. Israel could not keep up
the occupation without U.S. aid worth over $3 billion a year,
loan guarantees of $9 billion, and the latest military weaponry
and equipment. Israeli violations of international law are
protected by the U.S. veto at the United Nations that prevents
the implementation of international laws applicable to this
conflict and the dispatch of an international protection force
to protect the Palestinians. We must educate people and
mobilize to change these facts so they can hold their elected
officials accountable.

We are right to frame our work using human rights and
international law. The principles of international law have just
been eloquently restated by the International Court of Justice
in its ruling on the illegality of the Wall in July 2004. The
ICJ has also reminded the international community that
international law must underpin the efforts to resolve this
conflict, and we are acutely aware of its absence from the Oslo
Accords, the Camp David talks, and the Road Map.

Israel, as a member of the state system, is protected by the
same set of laws that we are working to uphold for Palestine.
However, Israel cannot demand the protection of international
law while undermining it.

The powerful principles of international law not only show us
what we are fighting against - the occupation - but also what we
are fighting for: freedom and self-determination. As the ICJ
itself declared, there is a Palestinian people and it has a
right to self-determination, and we must support that right.

Through exercising their right to self-determination,
Palestinians can decide - as the occupation is ended - whether
they want to live in one state alongside Israel or in a
binational state, or in some other arrangement.

We work too for the right of Palestinian refugees to make their
individual choice to return or compensation as guaranteed by
international law and U.N. Resolution 194.

The Palestinian people face serious challenges ahead:
maintaining national unity; avoiding the trap of endless
negotiations about occupation while Israel colonizes the last
pieces of Palestine; and articulating a strategy to guide their
struggle to a just and lasting peace.

We in the international movement can already draw our guidance
from the clear principles of international law as we mobilize to
hold our representatives accountable for the law in U.S.
policies towards this conflict and in the U.S. position at the
U.N.

More than ever, the Palestinian people need our solidarity in
their quest for freedom, democracy, statehood, and
self-determination. November 29th is the international day of
solidarity with the Palestinian people, an annual commemoration
marking the U.N. plan to partition historical Palestine into two
states. The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has
joined an international call for action on November 29th, and we
urge you to take part in this day of solidarity. (For details
see www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php)

Together, we will help achieve Palestinian human rights - we
will hasten the day when Palestinians will no longer die so far
away from home and know not where they may be laid to rest.

In solidarity

The Steering Committee of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli
Occupation
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PALESTINE GREATER THAN ARAFAT
Sam Bahour, Live from Palestine, 11 November 2004

The Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence is larger
than the late President Yasir Arafat. The
decades-long symbolism that Arafat embodied should not be
underestimated. It is this symbolism that Palestinians are
mourning. Despite the confusion of the hour, one fact remains
clear. The Palestinian people, collectively,
whether in the Occupied Territories, scattered in squalid
refugee camps around the Middle East, or living in exile,
will never wake up one day and accept the historic injustice
that has been done to them.

electronicIntifada.net/v2/article3311.shtml

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Diaries
PHOTOSTORY: RAMALLAH REACTS TO NEWS OF ARAFAT'S DEATH
Maureen Clare Murphy, Live From Palestine, 11 November 2004

Today Ramallah awoke to the news of Palestinian President Yasser
Arafat's death, and while the world had been
anticipating this day during the nearly two weeks Arafat was
hospitalized in France, confirmation of the
Palestinian symbol's passing was no less jarring in Palestine's
cultural capital. Palestinians poured into
Ramallah's Manara Square city center, and spontaneous
demonstrations have been and will be taking place. While
not many in the streets are crying (emotions will probably run
higher tomorrow when Arafat's burial takes place),
people are coming together during this time of mourning and
uncertainty.

electronicIntifada.net/v2/article3312.shtml

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Development
ARAFAT TO BE RECALLED FOR LEADING PALESTINIANS TO ACCEPT
PRINCIPLE OF COEXISTENCE WITH ISRAEL -- ANNAN Report, UN News,
11 November 2004

Reacting to the death of President Yasser Arafat, United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan today said President Arafat will
always be remembered for having led the Palestinians, back in
1988, to accept the principle of peaceful coexistence between
Israel and a future Palestinian state. "By signing the Oslo
accords in 1993 he
took a giant step towards the realization of this vision," a
spokesman for Mr. Annan said in a statement issued in
New York. "It is tragic that he did not live to see it
fulfilled."

electronicIntifada.net/v2/article3313.shtml

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Arafat: The Man, the Myth a Legend Chronology, Pictures and
Quotes

In 1929- Mohammad AbdelRauf Arafat AlQidwa AlHussieni was born
in Gaza to a well-off merchant family. Biographies say he was
born in Cairo, Arafat claims he was born in Jerusalem on August
4th.

www.miftah.org/Doc/Spotlight/2004/ARAFAT12PDF.pdf

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Selection of Articles Published in the American Media:

- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat dead - at MSNBC (Nov 11,
2004)
- Arafat pushed Palestinian cause into the global spotlight -
USATODAY.com News (Nov 11, 2004)
- Blair seeks Bush's help on Mideast - Chicago Tribune News
(Nov 11, 2004)
- World leaders see Arafat as symbol, but divided over legacy
- AFP News (Nov 11, 2004)
- U.S. Sees Chance of Peace Hinging on Arafat Successor -
Reuters News (Nov 11, 2004)
- Arafat, Icon of Palestinian Cause, Dead at 75 - Reuters
News (Nov 11, 2004)
- Passing of Arafat Draws Mixed Reactions - AP News (Nov 11,
2004)
- Palestinians Mourn Death of Arafat - AP News (Nov 11,
2004)
- Mahmoud Abbas Elected Chairman of PLO - AP News (Nov 11,
2004)
- Top Legislator Named Interim Palestinian President -
Reuters News (Nov 11, 2004)
- Powell Urges Middle East Calm After Arafat Death - Reuters
News (Nov 11, 2004)
- Palestinians Prepare Arafat's Burial Site - AP News (Nov
10, 2004)
- Palestinian Speaker Fattouh to Be Sworn In - AP News (Nov
10, 2004)
- Palestinians Mourn Death of Yasser Arafat - AP News (Nov
10, 2004)
- Veteran leader Yasser Arafat dies - at BBC (Nov 10, 2004)



FLOWER IN THE GUN ARCHIVES:
National
lists.riseup.net/www/arc/flower_in_the_gun
Northeast
lists.riseup.net/www/arc/waw_northeast

WAW
P.O. Box 505
Delmar, NY 12054

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THE SHALOM REPORT
A prophetic voice in Jewish, multireligious, & American life
November 11, Heshvan 27, Ramadan 27. Issue 104

JACOB, ESAU, ARAFAT, & GOD

II. After Arafat, What?

There is no way to "predict" an answer to this question - for the answer depends upon us. The "us" of Palestinians and the broader Arab community, the "us" of Israelis and the broader Jewish community, the "us" of American society and the US government.

For within each of our peoples, as within Rebekah's belly, there is an internal struggle. Within Arafat as well.

And the question is whether we are able to turn from wrestling with each other - Palestinian against Israeli, Jew against Arab, America against Islam -- and turn toward wrestling with God. Wrestling with the God, the "Reality," that has pitted us against each other and seems to be forcing us to cheat, steal, lie, kill, to win the birthright we deeply know that we deserve.

Arafat was neither saint nor demon. He struggled all his life to make the Palestinians, one of the weakest of all peoples in terms of conventional power, a force to reckon with on the world stage. In that effort he and the Palestinian people succeeded. From the standpoint of justice, he was right.

Yet he countenanced violent methods of struggle that imbued the Israelis, who had far more power and used it to kill many more people, and their powerful allies, especially in the United States, with rage and hatred rather than empathy toward the Palestinian struggle.

When Arafat leaned in the direction of peacemaking, he turned Yitzhak Rabin into a reluctant peacemaker. When he leaned toward violence, he called into power Arik Sharon, able to deploy even greater violence.

For more than four years, I have kept in my inner eye a Page One photograph in the New York Times - a photo that never appeared because the event never happened.

The "photo" is of Arafat leading with his own body a nonviolent resistance movement at the moment that in our actual history became the moment when the worst intifadah and the worst of Israeli repressions began - a moment of death.

I remember when Arik Sharon, with the shameful complicity of then Prime Minister Ehud Barak, paraded up the Temple Mount/ Haram al Sharif - surrounded by 1200 armed men - to proclaim it forever under Israeli sovereignty.

I imagine Arafat calling upon the whole Palestinian people to begin a nonviolent general strike. Sitting down by tens of thousands on the bypass roads that carve the West Bank into isolated islands. Sitting down by the tens of thousands on the streets of East Jerusalem. Inviting peace-committed Israelis to join them.

Refusing to budge, despite beatings, imprisonings, shootings. Arafat and his kaffiya in the lead.

I am convinced that history could have turned a different corner.

But neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis, neither the Jewish people in America nor Arabs and Muslims across the world, were willing or able to turn that corner. Arafat failed at that moment - but he was absolutely not alone in his failure.

All that is regret for the past. What about the future? For an assessment of what could come next - and especially what Americans could do to build toward peace - please read an interview with Henry Siegman, on our Website. At the Home Page you will see it listed, along with an earlier interview in which Siegman talks about what has happened to and in the American Jewish community.

Henry Siegman is a senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and director of the U.S./Middle East Project. He served for almost two decades as executive director of the American Jewish Congress, and before that as a Rabbi.

When you have absorbed what he says, we welcome your own thoughts on "What Now?'

With blessings of shalom,

Arthur