Colloque : Israël/Palestine, la Paix maintenant !

Note d'intention
La défaite électorale des partis de la gauche israélienne en janvier 2003 a affaibli le camp de la paix israélien. Toutefois, les différents mouvements israéliens favorables au compromis et à la conciliation avec les Palestiniens n'ont pas abandonné leur combat et poursuivent leur action à l'intérieur de la société israélienne. Le travail visant à promouvoir les idées de paix et d'humanisme n'a pas cessé en dépit de plus de deux ans d'Intifada armée. Le bilan de celle-ci est désastreux pour les Israéliens et les Palestiniens. La régression s'est manifestée à tous les points de vue : politique, moral, économique et social.
Cette détérioration de la situation sur le terrain a également eu des conséquences néfastes sur les conditions d'existence des Juifs de Belgique qui ont été la cible de nombreuses agressions antisémites. La guerre interminable entre Israéliens et Palestiniens a fouetté l'imaginaire des incendiaires. Le conflit du Proche-Orient a jeté un voile sombre sur les Juifs d'Europe dont, parmi lesquels beaucoup se sentent solidaires d'Israël. Dès lors, que faire ? Il est évident qu'il n'est nullement question d'abandonner le combat pour la paix et la création d'un Etat palestinien en raison de l'échec des tentatives antérieures. Ce combat est juste et répond aux intérêts et aux aspirations des deux peuples.
L'ambition de ce colloque est de mener une réflexion globale sur la nécessité et l'urgence du combat pour la paix entre Israéliens et Palestiniens. Pour ce faire, nous donnerons la parole à des responsables politiques et des intellectuels israéliens et palestiniens œuvrant en ce sens. Une attention particulière sera accordée aux différentes initiatives de paix que la communauté internationale et les différentes organisations non gouvernementales appuient. Il est nécessaire de tirer les leçons des échecs des tentatives antérieures afin de ne plus reproduire les erreurs du passé, d'examiner les options qui se présentent aujourd'hui aux acteurs israéliens et palestiniens et d'envisager les modalités de soutien les plus efficaces que nous pouvons leur apporter pour concrétiser le rêve de la paix. Enfin, ce colloque se penchera sur les dangers de l'importation du conflit israélo-palestinien sur le sol belge.

Mercredi 3 décembre à 20h30
"Pourvu qu'on se parle !" Le problème de la fanatisation du conflit israélo-palestinien en Belgique - Le point de vue d'intellectuels belges
Depuis le déclenchement de la deuxième Intifada, le conflit du Proche-Orient a pris une place disproportionnée dans le débat public en Belgique. C'est en effet la première fois dans l'histoire politique de la Belgique qu'une question d'actualité internationale détermine certains comportements des responsables politiques à l'égard de leurs concitoyens et entraîne une large frange de la population arabo-musulmanne à s'engager politiquement en faveur de la cause palestinienne. Cette conscientisation inédite s'est malheureusement souvent exprimée sans nuance et parfois par le biais de l'antisémitisme. Quel regard des intellectuels belges portent-ils sur ce double phénomène ? Comment militer pour la paix entre Israéliens et Palestiniens sans stigmatiser et diaboliser les uns ou les autres ? Est-il possible d'apporter un soutien critique la cause palestinienne sans remettre en cause l'existence d'Israël ? Juifs et Arabes de Belgique peuvent-ils encore dialoguer sans que la question du conflit israélo-palestinien envenime leurs relations ?
Avec la participation de :
Moni ELKAÏM (neuropsychiatre)
Guy HAARSCHER (philosophe - ULB)
Luc DARDENNE (cinéaste)
Mousta LARGO (artiste)
Ahmed MEDHOUNE (sociologue - ULB)
Pierre MERTENS (écrivain)
Sous la présidence de Jacques SOJCHER, philosophe (ULB)

Jeudi 4 décembre à 20h30
Israéliens et Palestiniens peuvent-ils retrouver le chemin de la paix ?
La publication de la feuille de route, la nomination d'un Premier Ministre palestinien, les déclarations du Premier Ministre israélien sur l'occupation et la détermination du Président américain George W. Bush de favoriser la création d'un Etat palestinien viable ont créer une nouvelle configuration du processus politique entre Israéliens et Palestiniens. Ces deux protagonistes pourront-ils enfin sortir du cycle infernal des attentats et de la répression pour entamer un nouveau chapitre politique qui les mènera à un accord de paix ?
En présence de Monsieur Louis Michel, Vice-Premier Ministre et Ministre des Affaires étrangères
Avec la participation de :
Hassan F. BALAWI, Journaliste à la Télévision nationale palestinienne (PBC)
Avi PRIMOR, Ancien Ambassadeur d'Israël et Vice-Président de l'Université de Tel-Aviv
Père Emile SHOUFANI, Curé de Nazareth, directeur de l'Ecole Saint-Joseph et à l'initiative de la rencontre historique à Auschwitz (Mai 2003) de plus de 500 Juifs et Arabes venus d'Israël, de Belgique et de France
Sous la présidence de David SUSSKIND, Président d'honneur du CCLJ

Vendredi 5 décembre à 21h00
Quel avenir pour la gauche israélienne ?
Avec les accords d'Oslo, l'identification de la gauche israélienne au camp de la paix s'est forgée dans les consciences. Elle a payé cher l'échec des négociations de paix de Camp David et de Taba. La situation s'est aggravée en 2003 lors des élections législatives qui se sont soldées par une défaite cinglante du Parti travailliste et du Meretz, les deux composantes de la gauche en Israël. Ce désaveu politique intervient dans un contexte particulier. Les sondages hebdomadaires réalisés par des instituts universitaires spécialisés indiquent que l'opinion publique israélienne partagent l'ensemble des idées mises en avant par ces deux partis en ce qui concerne le conflit israélo-palestinien : la fin de l'occupation, le démantèlement des colonies et la création d'un Etat palestinien. Comment expliquer cette situation paradoxale et que peut faire la gauche pour que les Israéliens traduisent politiquement leur adhésion au projet qu'elle défend ? Peut-elle présenter une alternative politique crédible au Likoud d'Ariel Sharon ? Pour présenter cette alternative, la gauche israélienne doit-elle reconstruire de nouvelles structures et se recomposer autour d'une seule formation politique ? Son sort politique est-il lié à l'existence d'un camp de la paix du côté palestinien ? Quel avenir pour le pacte de Genève dont la déclaration d'intentions a été signée le 12 octobre dernier ?
Avec la participation de :
Amram MITZNA, député à la Knesset
Sous la présidence de Roger LALLEMAND, Ministre d'Etat et Président honoraire du Sénat
Avec le soutien de Présence et Action Culturelles (PAC)
Conférence en anglais

Samedi 6 décembre à 20h30
L'antisémitisme et le conflit du Proche-Orient
Depuis l'échec des négociations de Camp David et de Taba et le déclenchement de la deuxième Intifada, les Juifs de Belgique ont été à plusieurs reprises la cible d'agressions antisémites alors que la stigmatisation et la délégitimation d'Israël connaît un souffle nouveau dans certains milieux politiques et associatifs. Quelles sont les particularités de ces manifestations contemporaines d'antisémitisme ? Faut-il y voir un phénomène essentiellement lié à la dégradation de la situation au Proche-Orient ou s'agit-il d'un mal aux causes plus profondes ? Quelles sont les différentes réactions juives face à ce problème ?
Avec la participation de :
Simon EPSTEIN, Directeur de recherche au Centre International Vidal Sassoon pour l'Etude de l'Antisémitisme (Université hébraïque de Jérusalem)
Sous la présidence de Joël KOTEK, Historien et Maître de Conférence à l'ULB

Dimanche 7 décembre à 14h30
Shalom Archav : le combat continue !
Shalom Archav est un mouvement politique extraparlementaire israélien créé en 1978 par des officiers de réserve. Au fur et à mesure, ce mouvement s'est imposé comme la plus importante des organisations israéliennes militant pour la fin de l'occupation de la Cisjordanie et Gaza, le démantèlement des colonies et la création d'un Etat palestinien viable aux côtés d'Israël. Depuis l'échec des négociations de Camp David et Taba, Shalom Archav est conscient que l'enjeu actuel est de promouvoir sa conception de la paix auprès de la société israélienne et, par ce biais de faire pression sur le gouvernement israélien, quel qu'il soit. Comment ce mouvement sensibilise-t-il l'opinion publique israélienne à la réalité désastreuse de l'occupation et de la colonisation ? Que fait l'observatoire des colonies créé par Shalom Archav pour informer l'opinion publique israélienne de la vie dans les colonies ? Que propose Shalom Archav pour organiser le rapatriement des colons en Israël ? Quelles relations entretient ce mouvement de paix israélien avec les différentes personnalités et organisations palestiniennes militant pour la paix ? Quelle est sa position par rapport à la Feuille de route ainsi que d'autres initiatives de paix ?
Avec la participation de :
Dan BITAN, Responsable de Shalom Archav Israël
Saman KHOURY, Directeur général du Peoples Peace Campaign et du Palestine Media Centre - membre de la coalition israélo-palestinienne pour la paix
Sous la Présidence de Nicolas ZOMERSZTAJN, Directeur de publication de la revue Regards

Avec le soutien de Filigranes

Auditorium Jacob Salik de l'Espace Yitzhak Rabin - 52 rue de l'Hôtel des Monnaies à 1060 Bruxelles
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From: "Middle East Report Online"
>To:
>Subject: The Israeli Text and Context of the Geneva Accord
>Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 17:58:11 -0500
>
>The Israeli Text and Context of the Geneva Accord
>
>Shiko Behar and Michael Warschawski
>
>November 24, 2003
>
>(Shiko Behar is director of the Alternative Information Center, a joint
>Palestinian-Israeli organization based in Jerusalem and Beit Sahour. Michael
>Warschawski is co-chairman of the board of the Alternative Information
>Center.)
>
>The Geneva Accord, the latest unofficial framework for Israeli-Palestinian
>peace made public in mid-October 2003, has not become the basis for official
>negotiations. But the initiative has already been successful in one respect:
>it has uncorked as many vocal hopes as it has protests among Israelis and
>Palestinians, even though the Israeli government has rejected it and the
>Palestinian Authority (PA) has not formally endorsed it. Essentially a
>repackaging of President Bill Clinton's peace plan of late 2000, the Geneva
>Accord stipulates several basic tenets upon which to finalize a permanent
>peace agreement.
>
>The Geneva initiative calls for serious critical scrutiny from those who are
>interested in a lasting peace -- one that is as just as possible -- between
>Israelis and Palestinians. Its negotiation involved an impressive number of
>prominent figures, headed by Yossi Beilin, a former minister in Israeli
>Labor governments, and Yasser Abed Rabbo, until recently the PA's minister
>of cabinet affairs and a major player in past official talks. As of the
>present time, the Geneva Accord is the most far-reaching draft document
>agreed upon by mainstream Palestinian and Israeli politicians. However, in a
>manner reminiscent of the Clinton-era initiatives, this seemingly bold
>document is inherently flawed. It is also being portrayed in misleading --
>and ultimately self-defeating -- ways by its Israeli drafters.
>
>DOUBLE URGENCY
>
>Under the accord, Israel is allowed to legalize and retain settlements in
>the occupied West Bank that house roughly 300,000 settlers, including all
>the post-1967 Jewish settlements in Arab East Jerusalem; in exchange, the
>Palestinians receive equivalent territorial compensation from Israel. The
>Palestinians are granted sovereignty in the territory gained by the land
>swap and in the remaining parts of the West Bank and Gaza, including the
>Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. This sovereign Palestinian entity
>remains non-militarized. Security for the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, the
>holy places in Jerusalem, is overseen by a permanent international force
>while the site's non-security aspects fall under Palestinian control; full
>Jewish access to the site is granted. While Palestinians made refugees in
>1948 are to receive some compensation, it is up to the sole discretion of
>Israel to decide how many refugees -- out of a total of over 4.1 million
>registered with the UN -- will be allowed to return to their homes in
>Israel.
>
>This clause constitutes a massive compromise by the Palestinian side with
>regard to the right of refugee return -- though not its total abandonment.
>In this respect, opposition among Palestinians to the document is legitimate
>not only from the political and moral standpoints but also from the vantage
>point of humanitarian and international law. To justify this concession, the
>Palestinian participants in the Geneva process point to a double urgency
>that presently dominates other issues in the Israeli-Palestinian political
>arena.
>
>The first is that time is running out for an agreed-upon solution: in the
>near future, there might well be nothing substantial left to negotiate,
>given Israel's continued settlement of the Occupied Territories, and
>Israel's construction of a wall inside the West Bank that is, in effect,
>enforcing a system of apartheid. The second urgency results from the
>increasing conviction among the Palestinian and Israeli publics that no
>partner exists on the other side. Hence, the Palestinian negotiators argue,
>it might soon become impossible to persuade Palestinians and Israelis that
>some sort of negotiated solution to the conflict can be reached. The Israeli
>participants of the Geneva process share this feeling of double urgency.
>This is why they justify the importance of their initiative by highlighting
>its potential to reverse the spiral of (Israeli) despair, or at least to
>stop it.
>
>LESSONS OF OSLO
>
>Though the Geneva Accord's prospects are uncertain, another Palestinian
>minister, Ghassan al-Khatib, echoed many commentators when he said that it
>is "creating useful noise" in Israel. Coming after three years of no
>official negotiating initiatives from the Sharon government, and amid
>outspoken criticism of Sharon's crackdown in the Occupied Territories from
>Moshe Yaalon, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, and three former
>Israeli intelligence directors, the Geneva initiative has the potential to
>interrupt the rightward drift of Jewish Israeli public opinion. But analysis
>of the accord's impact must take into consideration the experience of the
>1993 Oslo agreement, which also seemed to promise peace, and the
>disintegration of that initiative in the second half of the 1990s.
>
>Many who thought that the Oslo accord would produce a peace that was as just
>as possible limited their analysis to the text, leading to their premise
>that the agreement met the minimum aspirations of the Palestinian people.
>Although the Oslo agreement did not come close to meeting these aspirations,
>it still could have been a modest starting point for an Israeli-Palestinian
>peace that satisfied the very basic needs of Israelis and the Palestinians
>(only in Gaza and the West Bank) -- provided that Palestinians and Israelis
>had understood the text in a similar manner and provided that they handled
>the negotiations in good faith. Regrettably, this was very far from being
>the case.
>
>Whereas the Palestinian negotiators seemed genuinely intent upon reaching
>what they termed "historical compromise" based on UN Security Council
>Resolution 242 -- which meant renouncing nothing short of 78 percent of
>their initial national demands for all of mandatory Palestine -- Israeli
>politicians used the Oslo document to further consolidate their colonial
>grip over Palestinian lives and land. Throughout the "peace process,"
>existing settlements expanded, additional ones were built and the number of
>settlers more than doubled. These facts lead to a single conclusion: Prime
>Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres intended from the outset to exploit
>the asymmetrical balance of forces between the occupying Israeli state and
>the occupied Palestinian society to impose on the PA a conception of peace
>which rested on continuous domination.
>
>Many observers of the Geneva process overlook the fact that the 1990s in
>Israel were primarily a period of left-Zionist rule, rather than a period
>ruled by the Likud and the ultra-nationalist right. Between Rabin's election
>in June 1992, and Sharon's overpowering of ex-Prime Minister Ehud Barak in
>February 2001, there were nearly six full years of government by the Labor
>Party and the left-leaning Meretz Party. Contrary to the prevailing
>perceptions, then, it is the Zionist left -- rather than the right -- that
>bears the principal responsibility for the failure of the "peace process" in
>the 1990s. Since the Geneva accord emerged from the same Israeli school that
>produced the Oslo process, Beilin and his associates could have increased
>the political viability of their new Geneva process had they publicly
>admitted their failures throughout the 1990s. They did not, once again
>neglecting to offer the Israeli public an alternative explanation for the
>intifada to the standard line that the Palestinians "chose violence."
>
>In 1993, rather than trying to convince Israelis that a new era based on
>peaceful coexistence and equality was about to start, the leaders of the
>Labor-Meretz coalition based their marketing strategy solely on security,
>separation from the Palestinians and the continuity of Israel's colonial
>supremacy. The Labor-Meretz leadership was unwilling to assume any Israeli
>or pre-state Zionist responsibility for over 100 years of conflict. Instead,
>this leadership consciously linked the conflict, both politically and
>rhetorically, to Palestinian "terrorism" and permanent historical
>rejectionism.
>
>By listening attentively to the prominent Israelis linked to the Geneva
>process -- particularly when they speak Hebrew -- it is readily apparent
>that they have not forgotten, or learned from, their self-made Oslo failure.
>In fact, identical behavior and marketing strategies vis-à-vis Israeli
>public opinion are sewn into the fabric of the Geneva initiative.
>
>"REALISM" AND "GENEROSITY"
>
>The text of the Geneva accord has little meaning outside the political and
>journalistic context within which it is being marketed to the Israeli
>public. In essence, the true substance of the process is embedded in the
>verbal and written exegesis that surrounds the text of the agreement. These
>explanatory contexts already allude to the political fiasco that appears to
>await the text in the near future.
>
>An article published in the Guardian by one of the senior Israeli
>participants in the Geneva process, the internationally acclaimed novelist
>and commentator Amos Oz, illustrates this claim. Oz's article, headlined "We
>Have Done the Gruntwork of Peace," was based upon a Hebrew article he
>published in Israel. Oz explains that the Geneva talks differ from previous
>Israeli-Palestinian interactions. For example, there is no longer a
>discussion of "the right of refugee return," but instead of "a solution to
>the refugee issue." There is no longer a discussion of "return to the 1967
>borders," but of "a logical map that also takes the present into account,
>and not just history." Innocent readers may conclude that logic is the
>mental property of left Zionists alone and that the Israelis, unlike the
>Palestinians, never based any of their national claims on history. Oz's
>governing message is this: in the Geneva accord, the Palestinians have
>finally chosen to be "realistic," and to renounce not only the right of
>return, but also the demand for a full withdrawal to the 1967 borders.
>
>A leading guru of the Israeli Peace Now movement, Oz makes an extra effort
>to reiterate that Palestinian stubbornness led to the failures of Oslo and
>the July 2000 Camp David summit. Oz suggests that the Israeli peace camp
>finally succeeded in convincing the irrational Palestinians that they must
>accept the red lines of the Israeli left. These red lines, according to one
>of Oz's colleagues, represent a huge sacrifice on his part since he is
>"ready to relinquish no less than a part of my religious faith, inasmuch as
>I am prepared to agree, with a broken heart, to Palestinian sovereignty on
>the Temple Mount." Further on, Oz resorts to similar propagandistic
>symbolism, declaring that "we surrender sovereignty in parts of the Land of
>Israel where our hearts lie." What, then, are the chief problems of Oz, and
>the Israeli Geneva school that he so aptly represents, so far as Israeli
>public opinion is concerned?
>
>Lacking the capacity for self-criticism, Oz reinforces Israel's
>self-righteousness and confiscates from the Palestinians the position of the
>victim by representing himself and Israel as the true victims. He makes no
>attempt to comprehend the gigantic sacrifices made by his Palestinian
>counterparts. His prose mirrors the assumptions that underlay Barak's
>"generous" offer to PA leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David in July 2000.
>
>In order to convince Israeli public opinion, the Israelis of the Geneva
>process have to show -- or so they believe -- that the Israelis have "won"
>and that the Palestinians have "given up." The greatest defect of the Geneva
>accord is that the basic notion of the inalienable human and political
>rights of the Palestinian people is entirely ignored by Oz and his
>associates, as was the case in the Oslo process. Following Barak, Oz
>replaces the notion of rights with the notion of charity -- "if we would
>have offered them in 1967 what we offer them today...." When no place for
>rights exists, and the balance of forces so blatantly favors the illegal
>occupier, the standard Israeli narrative reads like this: the Palestinians
>gave up their destructive objective (since for Oz and the Geneva school
>"'return' is a code word for the destruction of Israel"), so we, the Israeli
>peace camp, decided to be extremely generous.
>
>SYSTEMATIC COUNTERPRODUCTIVITY
>
>Apart from its moral valences, the contextual "marketing" argumentation of
>the Israeli participants in Geneva is politically counterproductive for the
>goal of engendering a change in Israeli public opinion. If political and
>human rights do not exist and if the conflict results from an irrational
>Palestinian determination to eradicate Jews, what Israeli is going to
>believe that Palestinians may change? Furthermore, if Palestinians change
>only because the Israeli peace camp were tough enough in dealing with them,
>than why not be even tougher and force them to accept Israeli domination
>with no concession whatsoever?
>
>Even political alchemists of the Geneva school's caliber cannot build trust
>based on a lie: in order to harness Israeli public opinion, some of the
>Geneva participants argue that, this time, the Palestinians have given up
>their right of return. A simple reading of Article 7 of the accord reveals
>that the Palestinian participants in the Geneva process are indeed ready to
>make remarkably far-reaching compromises on the rights of Palestinian
>refugees. However, they certainly have not gone so far as to relinquish the
>"right of return," as established by UN Resolution 194 passed in 1948, as
>such a move would ruin completely and instantaneously their legitimacy in
>the eyes of the Palestinian public.
>
>Those who are interested in a lasting peace -- one that is as just as
>possible -- between Israelis and Palestinians must therefore pose one
>question: why does the Geneva school try to buy Israel public opinion by
>marketing the complete opposite of what their Palestinian counterparts say
>to their own public opinion precisely in order to harness its support for
>the joint initiative? The end result of the Geneva process is guaranteed to
>split the difference between the Israeli and Palestinian readings, setting
>the stage yet again for the Israeli accusation, most likely echoed by doyens
>of the Geneva school themselves, that the Palestinians are liars.
>
>Some of the more cynical Israeli participants in the Geneva process know
>perfectly well that there is a volatile contradiction between the
>Palestinian reading of the agreement and the way that they market it to the
>Israeli public. These Israelis seem to believe that a misrepresentation of
>the Palestinian position can assist them in inducing Israelis to bring the
>Labor Party back to power, where it will find ways to enforce the
>"agreement."
>
>But Labor will not succeed in regaining power, because its politics are a
>pale replica of the right-wing parties' beliefs. The resignation of Labor's
>last candidate for prime minister, Amram Mitzna, as party chairman, coupled
>with the resignations of left Laborites such as Beilin and Yael Dayan to
>form a new social-democratic party, testify to the impossibility of serious
>reform of the party. In the socio-economic domain, the Labor party holds
>neo-liberal positions similar to those of Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu. On the
>Israeli-Arab conflict, Labor parliamentarians like Generals Binyamin Ben
>Eliezer, Efraim Sneh and Dany Yatom are probably worse than some of the
>Likud MKs. The question for the average Israeli voter remains unchanged: why
>vote for a (Labor) copy when you can vote for the (Likud) original?
>
>WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?
>
>If they are truly interested in a viable and sustainable peace for their
>people, Israeli politicians will ultimately need to present a peace accord
>that can earn the backing of non-elite Palestinians. To this end, Israeli
>public opinion will have to develop a much more sober understanding of the
>socio-political dynamics underlying the Arab-Israeli conflict. Rather than
>focusing on this or that textual clause of the Geneva Accord, Israelis
>interested in reaching a just and lasting peace must immediately focus on
>the candid verbal and written explanations that are necessary in order to
>contextualize these understandings productively.
>
>First, critical Israelis must tell the Israeli public is that the conflict
>is not the result of Palestinian terrorism or fanaticism, but rather the
>result of Israeli dispossession and occupation; Israel's responsibility in
>the conflict must be unmasked by Israelis. Basic Palestinian human and
>political rights that are denied by Israeli policies of occupation and
>colonization must be addressed in any agreement intended to reach a just
>peace. It must be made clear to the Israeli public that the only "generous
>offer" within the Israeli-Palestinian arena is the readiness by some
>Palestinians to renounce 78 percent of their claims to their historical
>homeland.
>
>The right of return is a basic human right. The readiness of some
>Palestinians to consider it the object of negotiation, while taking into
>consideration the demographic worries of Israel, must be understood as
>another generous Palestinian offer. Critical Israelis must ask their fellow
>Israelis -- the Geneva school included -- how can they demand from the
>Palestinians to renounce their right of return before Israel has recognized
>its mere existence?
>
>What is needed further from critical Israelis -- and ultimately from Israeli
>politicians -- is to consistently promote a positive notion of peace based
>on coexistence and human equality. The notion of peace that must be
>adamantly rejected, not only because of its moral bankruptcy, but because it
>stands no chance of working, is the notion of Oz and his Geneva associates,
>who understand "peace" as a means of keeping the Palestinians out of sight
>on the other side of a wall, and consider Palestinians to be an existential
>danger.
>
>As was the case with the 1993 Oslo agreement, in the Geneva Accords the
>context is far more important than the text, all the more so when Israeli
>public opinion is concerned.
>
>-----
>
>The Alternative Information Center's home page is http://www.alternativenews.org
>
>The text of the Geneva Accord is accessible online at the website of the
>Israeli Haaretz daily: http://www.haaretzdaily.com
>
>Amos Oz's article in the Guardian is accessible online at:
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1064754,00.html
>
>For a sample of Palestinian and Israeli responses to the Geneva Accord, see
>http://www.badil.org/Press/2003/press322-03.html and
>http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/357239.html
>
>On the approach governing the Israeli Geneva school vis-à-vis the right of
>return see Shiko Behar, "There Is a Right of Return," al-Ahram Weekly,
>September 25-October 1, 2003. The article is accessible online at:
>http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/657/re2.htm
>
>For the role of Labor and Meretz in the Oslo process, see Shiko Behar, "The
>Peace Process and Israeli Domestic Politics in the 1990s," Socialism and
>Democracy, 16/2 (Summer 2002). The article is accessible online at:
>http://www.sdonline.org/32/israeli_domestic.htm
>
>On Israel's "peace camp," see Yitzhak Laor, "The Tears of Zion," New Left
>Review 10 (July-August 2001). The article is accessible online at:
>http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR24403.shtml
>
>For additional analysis of the Geneva Accord and its relation to domestic
>Israeli politics, see Azmi Bishara, "A Glimmer of Nothing," al-Ahram Weekly,
>October 23-29, 2003. The article is accessible online at:
>http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/661/op10.htm
>
>

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)