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Last update - 10:08 27/12/2007
The right to explode in anger
By Amira Hass
Tags: Negotiations, Israel 

The negotiations over the future of our land, from the sea to the river, and the two peoples living in it, are proceeding along two parallel channels. It has been that way since the Madrid and Oslo talks for 17 years now. One channel is between the Palestinians and Israelis - such as Tuesday's meeting in Jerusalem between chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. The other is being conducted between the Israelis and themselves. Will the only genuine point of contact between these two channels be another explosion of blood, as occurred in 1996 and 2000?

The Palestinians have declared that they are not retreating from the international resolutions regarding a solution (for example the June 4, 1967 borders), and are demanding an immediate end to construction in the settlements. The Israelis are demanding that the Palestinians fight terror. The talk is the same as it was nine and 12 years ago, which makes the current negotiations virtual only.

The real progress is in the intra-Israeli channel. In these negotiations, the future of more than 10 percent of the West Bank has already been decided: the area west of the separation fence/wall. In the past few weeks various evacuation-compensation initiatives for the settlers living east of the barrier have been raised. There is great opposition to them, and the likelihood of their being implemented is questionable. But Meretz members' participation in the initiatives provides an additional public endorsement of the settlements west of the fence and of the annexation of the lands that Israel stole there.
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It is often said how difficult the unauthorized outposts are to evacuate. The security establishment predicts that right-wing activists will employ unprecedented levels of violence if the outposts are removed. Media consumers conclude: What do we need a civil war for, who are the outposts bothering? After all, even the justice minister is searching for ways to make them legal. Vice Premier Haim Ramon, casting about for his own evacuation-compensation initiative, has already proposed to Likud that in exchange the outposts would not be evacuated. An aide to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert leaked Jerusalem's fears that the U.S. would increase pressure on Israel to evacuate the outposts and freeze building in the settlements. With such a juicy headline, no one will notice that what will happen is what has gone on in the past 17 years. That is, nothing.

In the internal negotiations, Israelis are willing to oppose the outposts a little bit because they were built mainly on "private lands." In other words, all the settlements that were built on non-private lands are kosher. And Area C, after all [the part of the West Bank under exclusive Israeli security control and administrative control according to the Oslo Accords], is filled with such non-private lands; why not build for Jews there? It seems that in the intra-Israeli negotiations the size of the enclaves of the prospective Palestinian state overlap more and more with the land registered as privately owned with the Civil Administration.

In the intra-Israeli negotiations, the boundaries of the concessions over Jerusalem have also been drawn: After Israel took most of the available, unoccupied land of the Palestinian villages and neighborhoods to prevent them from expanding and to create its own settlements - called neighborhoods - Israel agreed to relinquish the residents. The land to us, the people to the Palestinian Authority. And the world will glorify Israel for its willingness to compromise and tear from its heart holy parts such as Anata and Kafr A'qab.

Despite domestic opposition, the eternal representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization and PA - Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmed Qureia and Saeb Erekat - continue to take part in these virtual negotiations. On Tuesday, following a meeting with Abbas, the Fatah Central Committee warned that continued settlement construction is likely to wreck the negotiations. The warning may have been for internal consumption only, but similar alarms were sounded in 1996 and 2000. Israelis dismissed them in the belief that the participation by senior Palestinian officials in the virtual negotiations is what counted. To the Palestinian public, the warnings did not sound hollow.

It is impossible to predict how the Palestinian people will interpret the warnings this time around, and whether they will see them as a signal that they have the right to explode in anger once again over their continuing dispossession from their lands and future.
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  1.   Ms Hass,you`ve already told us what the Pals want 10:36  |  Sam 27/12/07
  2.   Sderot has the right to explote in anger 10:36  |  Robert 27/12/07
  3.   Intifadas are not the threat they once were 10:38  |  Natallie Durson 27/12/07
  4.   more hassle from amira :arab palestine is jordan 10:38  |  victor hardman 27/12/07
  5.   right to explode 10:41  |  Ralph 27/12/07
  6.   Intifada = Naqba 11:06  |  Yishai Kohen 27/12/07
  7.   Will Amira succeed is stoking the fire into flames again? 11:09  |  Margie in Tel Aviv 27/12/07
  8.   Only... 11:12  |  Guy 27/12/07
  9.   What was taken by force, can only be liberated by force 11:15  |  Jamal AbdulNasser 27/12/07
  10.   Land Theft, Lies and Deceit 11:32  |  Yaakov Sullivan 27/12/07
  11.   Hey Jamal, the Arabs can also lose more and more territory 11:47  |  Sam 27/12/07
  12.   NASSERold chap how nice to hear from you.Shame you were a failure 12:09  |  PETER SM 27/12/07
  13.   Lynn.... 12:50  |  Teresa-Maria (Tess) 27/12/07
  14.   a truth... 13:00  |  Teresa-Maria (Tess) 27/12/07
  15.   The Misinformation of Amira Hass 13:17  |  Doc Holliday 27/12/07
  16.   Why are you still in Ramallah, Amira? Your place is in Gaza! 13:49  |  A Jew 27/12/07
  17.   Doc Holliday annd His Prognosis 13:53  |  Yaakov Sullivan 27/12/07
  18.   jamal release all muslim occupied land to force 14:04  |  victor hardman 27/12/07
  19.   Sullivan: "the palestinians this time round want peace" 14:04  |  A Jew 27/12/07
  20.   Negotiations with PA are devoid of reality 14:09  |  Rafi 27/12/07
  21.   Margie #7 14:10  |  truth hurts 27/12/07
  22.   A Jew on Peace With the Palestinians 14:14  |  Yaakov Sullivan 27/12/07
  23.   #21 is hurt by my truth 14:32  |  Margie in Tel Aviv 27/12/07
  24.   Israel needs to fool the Palestinians some of the time (one year) 14:38  |  Tosefta 27/12/07
  25.   #23 Margie 14:50  |  truth hurts 27/12/07
  26.   #25 14:55  |  Margie in Tel Aviv 27/12/07
  27.   #26 15:05  |  truth hurts 27/12/07
  28.   Intifada III 15:18  |  Jeff Northridge 27/12/07
  29.   I think it`s time to `rise up` against Israeli occupation 15:25  |  POP 27/12/07
  30.   Tess.. Sorry you are under the weather 15:33  |  Lynn 27/12/07
  31.   Why isn`t Ms. Haas arrested for encouraging murder?? 15:54  |  Zev 27/12/07
  32.   Lynn #30 15:59  |  Teresa-Maria (Tess) 27/12/07
  33.   Hass is the cheerleader of the Palestinian Hamas people 16:12  |  Shalom Freedman 27/12/07
  34.   Yaakov Sullivan is right. The Palestinians want peace. 16:14  |  Johnny Weintraub 27/12/07
  35.   Next Intifada will be international Rise up against Israel! 16:46  |  Dutch 27/12/07
  36.   Last Time Jamal attemtped to liberate "Arab Lands Israel grew 16:52  |  Trembling Palestine 27/12/07
  37.   Reductio Ad Destructum 16:55  |  David Hoffmn 27/12/07
  38.   anti-Israel forces think they are in charge of their own actions 17:04  |  Knees a knockin 27/12/07
  39.   Go to the Partition Plan and seek Confederation with Israel 17:11  |  El-Birawi 27/12/07
  40.   an observation... 17:12  |  Tess 27/12/07
  41.   To Dutch 17:25  |  David Hoffman 27/12/07
  42.   Anti-Fada,Anti-Fada against Arabs,this is what it will spark Amir 17:27  |  Genuine Tosefta 27/12/07
  43.   Say "Good Bye" to $7.4 billion donor aid with new Anti-Fada! 17:29  |  Genuine Tosefta 27/12/07
  44.   Jamal (the Camel) AbdulNasser, are you still a socialist? 17:33  |  Genuine Tosefta 27/12/07
  45.   robert # 2 thats the most sensible soultion ive heard all year to 17:38  |  terrornator 27/12/07
  46.   To El Birawi 17:41  |  David Hoffman 27/12/07
  47.   Shalom Freedman, Denying Israeli accountability again 17:54  |  Dutch 27/12/07
  48.   Amira,all this is just postponing the real solution which is for 18:00  |  lakshmi 27/12/07
  49.   El Birawi 18:03  |  Arab 27/12/07
  50.   Dutch Dirk, Re Time to close down Israel ... 18:08  |  Dutch 27/12/07
  51.   ... Peace before any settlement was built..? 18:27  |  Elie 27/12/07
  52.   Real democracies based on negotiated compromises 18:43  |  David Hoffman 27/12/07
  53.   El Birawi & David Israel,there is a saying in my part of the 18:51  |  lakshmi 27/12/07
  54.   Amira..saw you on Al-Jazeera 19:05  |  rich 27/12/07
  55.   Both Intifadas were staged and orchestrated by Arafat and cronies 19:12  |  Marwan مروان خوري 27/12/07
  56.   typical self-hating double standards 19:27  |  Harold 27/12/07
  57.   Lakshmi-out of touch with reality 19:33  |  Sam 27/12/07
  58.   Advice to Lakshmi #53 (re Sam #55) 20:12  |  Tosefta 27/12/07
  59.   International resolutions and terror 20:13  |  KUTW 27/12/07
  60.   Evacuation initiatives 20:16  |  KUTW 27/12/07
  61.   to margie 20:17  |  rm 27/12/07
  62.   Tess....Hope the Pakistani Army is up to the job. 20:24  |  Lynn 27/12/07
  63.   Statehood isn`t the only thing they want 20:36  |  Steve 27/12/07
  64.   What new intafada?!?!?! 21:41  |  Adrian de Klerk 27/12/07
  65.   Help Info needed 21:53  |  Derek 27/12/07
  66.   # 48 lakshmi 21:59  |  Marc 27/12/07
  67.   #61 rm re Margie the so called peacemaker 22:19  |  Labhras 27/12/07
  68.   To Dutch 22:21  |  Marc 27/12/07
  69.   The right to defend Israel as a sovereign country 22:29  |  Hoshhosh ex Haifa 27/12/07
  70.   The Palestinian people cannot remain quiet--that`s for sure 22:34  |  Dutch 27/12/07
  71.