Dialogue n°19 (october 2007)- Introduction
The American administration, whose close relations with the Israeli State are well known, has decided to convene a new international conference next November in Annapolis in the United States. The first question to come to mind is: what can be expected from a new conference ? Is it a question of taking even the smallest step towards resolving the crucial problems which face the Palestinian people ? For the weekly newspaper Al Ahram, a high placed American official has attempted to lower expectations by saying that the conference would not be
. How many other conferences of this type will there have to be ?negotiations on the final status
but only a step towards negotiations on the final status
The review Dialogue is an open forum of labour activists, trade unionists, democrats who have decided to discuss freely the problems raised in the Middle East and in particular in Palestine. This discussion aims at defining a solution which would put an end to an intolerable situation, that of the Palestinian people, of those millions of women, men and children deprived of all rights and living like pariahs. A situation that no democrat can accept. As the subtitle of our review indicates, we are, we always have been in favour of one State founded on the recognition of equal rights for the two component parts, Arab and Jewish.
Let us reflect an instant on the final status
notion. How can one claim that the setting up of a pseudo State on less than 12% of the territory of historic Palestine and the denial of the right to return for all refugees can possibly constitute a final status
? On the contrary isn't it just prolonging the tragic situation of the Palestinian people, under threat of extermination and famine in the Gaza strip, of ethnic purification in the West Bank, of being abandoned in refugee camps, under threat of repression and expulsion within the State of Israel ?
Would this policy benefit the Jewish population ?
For Ran Eretz, President of the teachers Union of Israel, interviewed by Israel Valley (6th October), there is to-day among young people, an increase in violence, alcoholism, drugs and attempts at getting out of military service etc, Why? What's happening ? this is what is happening. For the last six years the Education Budget has had cut backs of 4 billion shekels. A 20% reduction. Which means for secondary education, 8.5 less lessons a week. In real terms this means that the government has cut off a years
.
We do not as Ran Eretz does, consider in the same way drugs and teaching in Israeli pupils
schoolinggetting out of military service
.
Isn't it a question of refusing a brutal society that offers no future? The daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot dated last 20th July reporting on an opinion poll, indicated that half of Israeli adolescents want to live abroad. (...) 68% say that the situation in Israel is
. The recent Social Security report shows that Israel, which counts 800 000 children classed as poor, was at the 27th place in 2006 on the international scale of developed countries for public expenditure in the social field, after having been at the 21st place in 2003. Don't these facts demonstrate that Israeli State policy, aimed above all at preparing new wars and crushing the Palestinian people - for the greater profit of the military-security industry - has a destabilising, demoralising effect on the Jewish populations, contributing to the break down of society ? not good
60 years of the carving up of Palestine, 60 years of Nakba and war. Shouldn't a balance sheet be clearly drawn up ? It is in this framework that the following appeal for an international conference figures, with on its agenda, the question of the right to return for all refugees and their families being respected, and the question of one state for all, with the same rights on he historic territory of Palestine. Dialogue will publish shortly a letter giving information on the preparation of the conference, where we shall propose the opening of large discussion together with wide spread endorsement of the appeal and effective organisation of this initiative.
