[nasional_list] [ppiindia] Jimmy Carter: Punishing the innocent is a crime
- From: "Ambon" <sea@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Mon, 8 May 2006 00:35:41 +0200
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**http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/07/opinion/edcarter.php
Jimmy Carter: Punishing the innocent is a crime
Jimmy Carter International Herald Tribune
SUNDAY, MAY 7, 2006
ATLANTA Hamas and the Palestinians
Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the
presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for
candidates who are members of Hamas, the United States government has become
the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the
general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of
life.
Overwhelmingly, these are school teachers, nurses, social workers, police
officers, farm families, shopkeepers, and their employees and families who are
just hoping for a better life. Public opinion polls conducted after the January
parliamentary election show that 80 percent of Palestinians still want a peace
agreement with Israel based on the international road map premises. Although
Fatah party members refused to join Hamas in a coalition government, nearly 70
percent of Palestinians continue to support Fatah's leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as
their president.
It is almost a miracle that the Palestinians have been able to
orchestrate three elections during the past 10 years, all of which have been
honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the results
accepted by winners and losers. Among the 62 elections that have been monitored
by us at the Carter Center, these are among the best in portraying the will of
the people.
One clear reason for the surprising Hamas victory for legislative seats
was that the voters were in despair about prospects for peace. With American
acquiescence, the Israelis had avoided any substantive peace talks for more
than five years, regardless of who had been chosen to represent the Palestinian
side as interlocutor.
The day after his party lost the election, Abbas told me that his own
struggling government could not sustain itself financially with their daily
lives and economy so severely disrupted, and access from Palestine to Israel
and the outside world almost totally restricted. They were already $900 million
in debt and had no way to meet the payroll for the following month. The
additional restraints imposed on the new government are a planned and
deliberate catastrophe for the citizens of the occupied territories, in hopes
that Hamas will yield to the economic pressure.
With all their faults, Hamas leaders have continued to honor a temporary
cease-fire, or hudna, during the past 18 months, and their spokesman told me
that this "can be extended for two, 10 or even 50 years if the Israelis will
reciprocate." Although Hamas leaders have refused to recognize the state of
Israel while their territory is being occupied, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh
has expressed approval for peace talks between Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert of Israel. He added that if these negotiations result in an agreement
that can be accepted by Palestinians, then the Hamas position regarding Israel
would be changed.
Regardless of these intricate and long-term political interrelationships,
it is unconscionable for Israel, the United States and others under their
influence to continue punishing the innocent and already persecuted people of
Palestine. The Israelis are withholding approximately $55 million a month in
taxes and customs duties that, without dispute, belong to the Palestinians.
Although some Arab nations have allocated funds for humanitarian purposes to
alleviate human suffering, the U.S. government is threatening the financial
existence of any Jordanian or other bank that dares to transfer this assistance
into Palestine.
There is no way to predict what will happen in Palestine, but it would be
a tragedy for the international community to abandon the hope that a peaceful
coexistence of two states in the Holy Land is possible. Like Egypt and all
other Arab nations before the Camp David Accords of 1978, and the Palestine
Liberation Organization before the Oslo peace agreement of 1993, Hamas has so
far refused to recognize the sovereign state of Israel as legitimate, with a
right to live in peace. This is a matter of great concern to all of us, and the
international community needs to probe for an acceptable way out of this
quagmire. There is no doubt that Israelis and Palestinians both want a durable
two-state solution, but depriving the people of Palestine of their basic human
rights just to punish their elected leaders is not a path to peace.
(Former President Jimmy Carter is founder of the Carter Center, a
nonprofit organization working for peace and health worldwide. )
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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