In this issue:

Exclusive: The Geneva Accord Presented in Berlin - - by Jonathan Tennenbaum

British Police To Investigate Killing of British Peace Activist

Call To Oust Sharon by Labor Party Legislator

Sharon and Cheney Out To Sabotage Syrian Peace Talks

Israeli Official Says Israel Will Kill Sheik Yassin

From Volume 3, Issue Number 3 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Jan. 20, 2004
Mideast News Digest

Exclusive: The Geneva Accord Presented in Berlin - - by Jonathan Tennenbaum

On Jan. 15, in Berlin, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung [Friedrich Ebert Foundation], which is affiliated with Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD), hosted former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and PLO Executive Committee Member Yasser Abbed Rabbo, the top organizers of the Geneva Accord, for an extraordinarily moving presentation and discussion of their efforts. The overflow audience of over 300 included some 20 members of German Parliament, plus diplomats, representatives of German thinktanks and foreign policy institutions, and press.

Also on the panel were former Israeli Ambassador to Germany Avi Primor, Prof. Yael Tamir, and Dany Levi from Israel; and Palestinians Suhair Manassre, Kadura Fares, and Marwan Jilani.

It is hard, especially in a brief report like this, to capture the remarkable agapic spirit—a spirit of deliberately rising above all pettiness and rage—which was radiated to the audience by both the Israeli and Palestinian organizers. This occasioned the present author, LaRouche representative Jonathan Tennenbaum, in a well-received intervention from the floor, to evoke the memory of Berlin's Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn.

Overcoming 'Moments of Despair'

Abbed Rabbo described the resolve of Beilin and himself, starting 2001, "to reverse the growing disaster" in the region by continuing on their own, the aborted negotiation process they had been engaged in as official representatives of their governments.

"During two years of continuous work, there were many moments when we felt despair. Are we doing the right thing, with the insanity going on around us? By producing a document based on realistic options, maybe we could help turn the tide of events."

Beilin emphasized that the Geneva initiative negotiations deliberately dealt with the whole range of detailed issues, which nearly everyone on both sides had avoided out of fear of opening up a "Pandora's box syndrome"; proving instead that these issues could in fact be resolved in their entirety in a mutually acceptable fashion. The key now, is to win over the minds and hearts of as much of the population on both sides as possible. "Already 40% on both sides essentially support the initiative, and that is already almost a miracle."

Through their present international tour, the Geneva Accord organizers hope to gain support from major governments and institutions, and to use this as leverage to change the political balance in their own region. They reported on the "great success" of their talks with the German government, which they said has thrown "total support" behind the Geneva Accord.

Both the Israeli and Palestinian sides voiced harsh criticism of the Bush Administration. Avi Primor stressed that the U.S., and only the U.S., possesses "every means needed to quickly bring about peace in the region. But this is evidently not the intention. There is only lip service to the cause of peace." As the U.S. refused to put the necessary pressure on the governments, so the Geneva organizers decided to go directly to the people. Beilin added that "American involvement is not a sine qua non." After all, the Oslo negotiations had been carried out entirely between the Israeli and Palestinian sides, without any U.S. participation. "Warren Christopher [former U.S. Secretary of State under President Clinton] did not change a single comma," but the American government did put its weight behind the agreement, once it had been made. On the other hand, prominent mention was made by several speakers of Colin Powell's letter to the Accord organizers, considered a promising gesture.

There was much back-and-forth with the questioners in the audience, with Beilin remarking that "most of the people who have been attacking the document in the press, including eminent professors, had actually never read it." In fact, the distribution of the text to all Israeli households was itself a kind of revolution, since most of the population had never seen the previous agreements.

Toward the end, the discussion heated up, with Israeli and Palestinian "radicals" in the audience shouting objections back and forth between each other and the podium. Beilin smiled and said, "Now we seem to be at home. Now we got into the real debate, which is not an artificial one."

Moses Mendelssohn and the Oasis Plan

When Jonathan Tennenbaum was called on for a question, he identified himself as an adviser to U.S. Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. This occasioned some tumult among the audience, but the hall quickly became silent and concentrated, as Tennenbaum evoked the memory of "Berlin's Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn," declaring to the Geneva Accord organizers on the podium: "You have spoken with the voice of Reason. This is a sign of hope for humanity. Your presentations are out of the pages of 'Nathan der Weise.' I will do everything I can to support these efforts."

Tennenbaum went on to pose the necessity of realizing the common interests of Israelis and Palestinians, through a long-term economic development perspective for the region as a whole. He identified the thrust of Lyndon LaRouche's longstanding efforts in this direction, including the "Oasis Plan," which he first proposed in the 1970s. Tennenbaum also briefly referred to the political struggle in the United States, and the efforts of LaRouche and his movement to turn around U.S. policy.

Former Israeli Ambassador to Germany Avi Primor answered enthusiastically and at length. "We have to think: What is peace, really?" he said. "A peace agreement, by itself, only makes peace possible. But a real peace requires the realization of common interests. At the time of the Oslo accords, we deliberately emphasized trans-regional development plans as key to a comprehensive peace. With such an approach, also Syria could quickly be brought to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, this perspective went down with the collapse of the Oslo process. Now, the precondition is the establishment of a Palestinian state.... But there is no reason not to work now on elaborating development plans for the future." As a crucial example he took the water problem. "There is simply not enough water in the region. The only solution is to produce water, by desalination. But this is much too expensive when done on a small scale. We are far too small and too poor to tackle this all by ourselves. That is why we need international support."

Primor also commented on the "paradoxical" situation in the United States, where on the one side it had been claimed that '100% of the population was behind the Iraq war,' whereas a friend of his, living there, "personally did not meet a single American who actually did support the war!"

British Police To Investigate Killing of British Peace Activist

According to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz Jan. 16, the British police will investigate the killing of Tom Hurndall, the British peace activist with the International Solidarity Movement who was shot by an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip on April 11, 2003, as Hurndall, 22, acting as a human shield, helped Palestinian children cross a street near Israel Defense Forces operations. Hurndall, who had been in a coma for nine months since the shooting, died on Jan. 13. Westminister Coroner Paul Knapman will conduct an inquest which will begin later this month. If a British citizen dies outside Britain, the British authorities are required by law to investigate the circumstances of the death.

No U.S. government agency has ever investigated the killing of American ISM member Rachel Corrie, a young woman volunteering as a human shield who was crushed to death on March 16, 2003, when she stood in the path of an Israeli army bulldozer which was demolishing a Palestinian home in Rafah.

A U.S. intelligence source in Washington noted that the Israelis, especially Prime Minister Sharon, are very distressed that the British are conducting this probe, fearing that it could lead to possible "war crimes" charges.

Call To Oust Sharon by Labor Party Legislator

Labor Party member of the Israeli Knesset Eitan Cabel called on his party colleagues to launch a campaign for the ouster of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon because of the ever-mounting scandals about alleged corruption, reported the Israeli daily Ha'aretz on Jan. 16. But, so far, Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres refuses such a proposal.

The same day, Ha'aretz commentator Yoel Marcus revealed a push to obtain a pardon for Sharon. Marcus wrote, "Some people in our neck of the woods have proposed that the law-enforcement authorities, in cooperation with the President, grant Sharon a pardon in advance, on condition that he step down" as Prime Minister. Marcus does not see this as a possibility, however.

Another Ha'aretz correspondent, Hannah Kim, writes that as early as next week a new indictment will be handed down against real estate contractor David Appel. This charge relates to the so called "Greek Island" affair, where Appel is accused of bribing Sharon via payments to his son Gilad. Appel is also accused of bribing Ehud Olmert, Sharon's Deputy Prime Minister.

According to Kim, "This is one of the most heavily documented cases in the history of the Israeli police: a file bursting with evidence, documents, and recordings—almost all of it straight from the horses' mouths—Appel with Sharon, Appel talking to Olmert, without any middlemen...."

Sharon and Cheney Out To Sabotage Syrian Peace Talks

Syrian President Bashar Assad is considering calling Israeli President Moshe Katsav's bluff and pursuing Katsav's offer to hold a summit meeting in a third country. This is being urged on Assad by the Egyptians, according to an Egyptian diplomat quoted in the Al Siasa daily, reported Ha'aretz on Jan. 16.

But, according to senior Ha'aretz commentator Ze'ev Schiff, Sharon is using press leaks to sabotage all secret talks, including between Israel and Syria, the Palestinians, and even Qatar.

More worrisome to Sharon and the Washington neo-cons led by Dick Cheney, are confidential back-channel discussions between the U.S. and Syria, set up through James Baker III, a well-informed Egyptian source told EIR Jan. 15. The source noted that Edward Djerejian, who is another Middle East hand from the Bush "41" Administration and is close to Baker, had gone to Damascus for discussions about normalizing relations with Syria, in a delegation that included retired State Department diplomats, and officials of the CIA.

The Cheney networks have already set certain war moves in action. According to a Knight Ridder report in the Miami Herald of Jan. 12, a memo from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was delivered to the National Security Council, laying out plans to attack sites in Syria.

Israeli Official Says Israel Will Kill Sheik Yassin

Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Zeez Boim said that Israel is planning to assassinate Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin in retaliation for a suicide bombing that took place in the Gaza Strip Jan. 14, reported the Associated Press Jan. 16.

"Sheik Yassin is marked for death, and he should hide himself deep underground where he won't know the difference between day and night. And we will find him in the tunnels, and we will eliminate him," Boin raged. Any attempt to assassinate Yassin would be approved directly by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Israeli security officials are planning to resume high-profile targetted assassinations of top Hamas leaders, although such assassinations have never really stopped. However, the European Union issued a warning through its spokesman, Diego Ojeda, that the EU opposes "the so-called extra-judicial killings of suspected terrorists."

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