Israel-Palestine: Fatah and Hamas sign unity government

[Elvis]

Hamas and Fatah sign Palestinian unity deal - AJE


Copy-Paste from Mondoweiss (their editorial is light, but I agree w/ it nonetheless):

CNN:

The deal was signed in Doha, Qatar, by Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who said last month he plans to step down from his post.

"The Palestinian reconciliation is no longer a Palestinian interest but also an Arab interest," Abbas said.

"Both parties are serious in moving forward to fold the page of strife between both parties and to strengthen the Palestinian national unity government," according to Meshaal.

We knew this was coming. Abbas waited till after the Jan 26 Quartet deadline, and then said he was consulting with Arab leaders Feb 4. Palestinians are likely moving forward with their UN bid. Netanyahu is using this as an excuse to say that the unity deal will halt Israeli/Palestinian options, but there were never any options coming from Israel.

We knew this was coming. Abbas waited till after the Jan 26 Quartet deadline, and then said he was consulting with Arab leaders Feb 4. Palestinians are likely moving forward with their UN bid. Netanyahu is using this as an excuse to say that the unity deal will halt Israeli/Palestinian options, but there were never any options coming from Israel.

Ira Glunts points readers to the caption on the New York Times photograph of eight Palestinian men playing cards in Ramallah as news of the deal showed on a television overhead:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...ticleLarge.jpg

News of a Palestinian unity deal played for otherwise occupied viewers in Ramallah, West Bank.

You do not see the words “occupation” or “occupied” in the New York Times a whole lot, especially accompanying an article by its pro-Israel Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner ( 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.). Maybe some clever AP caption writer succeeded in sneaking this double entendre by the Times editors. My guess is that it was written unwittingly and overlooked by those responsible for putting the paper together. (The word occupied does not appear anywhere else in the article. Nor does occupation.)

SIDE-NOTE on Prof. Sarah Shulman (Jewish/Lesbian/Board member of Jewish Voice for Peace), her article on MW on how she got the Times to publish her article on 'pink-washing' in Israel:

Excerpt:

Schulman knew what was coming. She turned in a "900 word piece with 150 pages of documentation.... [and] for the next three months we fought over the piece.... [at times] we literally screamed at each other."

The Times op-ed staff came up with question after question to challenge Schulman's assumptions. No one there knew that she had a "secret research team of queer women," translating documents from Arabic, Dutch, German and Hebrew!

One of the foolish queries on the piece was: "You have to prove that Israeli gay people are anti-Arab." And there were "all these ridiculous delays."

The documentation grew to 300 pages, and the Times just "couldn't come up with something that would justify killing it."

The piece ran on November 22. And I don't see much evidence of "pulling and hauling," as one of our earlier writer-savants puts struggling with the world. A fine piece, it ends: "The long-sought realization of some rights for some gays should not blind us to the struggles against racism in Europe and the United States, or to the Palestinians’ insistence on a land to call home."

The piece was sensational. It is surely Schulman's most famous writing. She took great pleasure when Benjamin Netanyahu cited it as a reason that he would not contribute to the New York Times.

And then a postscript. Schulman said that on January 24, the NYT ran this AP report saying that Tel Aviv is a great gay destination-- "a plant" for the Israeli government, a "piece that had never been factchecked... rife with factual inaccuracies."

Schulman concluded that the piece was "obviously some deal brokered between the Times and the Israeli government." She wrote to her young editor to ask if the piece had undergone anything like the scrutiny that hers had received during its 3-month gestation. She did not hear from him.

[Odon]

Why do the majority of your posts look like a fucking rainbow?

[archibaldcrane]

Because of SWINE FLU

[quannum]

i think one I-P thread for me to ignore is enough.

[Elvis]

Because of SWINE FLU

Yes.

[Elvis]

i think one I-P thread for me to ignore is enough.

Who are you?