As razões de Gideon Levy para dar "razão" a Lieberman.

 

Lieberman was right

www.haaretz.com

Lieberman correctly diagnosed a government that is both an obstacle to peace and corrupt, and urged that it be replaced via elections.

Israel-Palestina: A paz jaz morta e enterrada...

As tentativas para fazer prova de vida de um processo de paz há muito morto e enterrado.

ANP condena carta de chanceler israelense enviada ao Quarteto de Madri

noticias.terra.com.br

A Autoridade Nacional Palestina (ANP) condenou nesta quarta feira a carta na qual o ministro das Relações Exteriores de Israel, Avigdor Lieberman,

"O filho de todos nós" por Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery

October 22, 2011

                                               Everybody’s Son

THE MOST sensible – I almost wrote “the only sensible” – sentence uttered this week sprang from the lips of a 5-year old boy.

After the prisoner swap, one of those smart-aleck TV reporters asked him: “Why did we release 1027 Arabs for one Israeli soldier?” He expected, of course, the usual answer: because one Israeli is worth a thousand Arabs.

The little boy replied: “Because we caught many of them and they caught only one.”

FOR MORE than a week, the whole of Israel was in a state of intoxication. Gilad Shalit indeed ruled the country (Shalit means “ruler”). His pictures were plastered all over the place like those of Comrade Kim in North Korea.

It was one of those rare moments, when Israelis could be proud of themselves. Few countries, if any, would have been prepared to exchange 1027 prisoners for one. In most places, including the USA, it would have been politically impossible for a leader to make such a decision.

In a way it is a continuation of the Jewish ghetto tradition. The “Redemption of Prisoners” is a sacred religious duty, born of the circumstances of a persecuted and scattered community. If a Jew from Marseilles was captured by Muslim corsairs to be sold on the market of Alexandria, it was the duty of Jews in Cairo to pay the ransom and “redeem” him.

As the ancient saying goes: “All Israel are guarantors for each other”.

Israelis could (and did) look in the mirror and say “aren’t we wonderful?”

IMMEDIATELY AFTER the Oslo agreement, Gush Shalom, the peace movement to which I belong, proposed releasing all Palestinian prisoners at once. They are prisoners-of-war, we said, and when the fighting ends, PoWs are sent home. This would transmit a powerful human message of peace to every Palestinian town and village. We organized a joint demonstration with the late Jerusalemite Arab leader, Feisal Husseini, in front of Jeneid prison near Nablus. More than ten thousand Palestinians and Israelis took part.

But Israel has never recognized these Palestinians as prisoners-of-war. They are considered common criminals, only worse.

This week, the released prisoners were never referred to as “Palestinian fighters”, or “militants”’ or just “Palestinians”. Every single newspaper and TV program, from the elitist Haaretz to the most primitive tabloid, referred to them exclusively as “murderers”, or, for good measure, “vile murderers”.

One of the worst tyrannies on earth is the tyranny of words. Once a word becomes entrenched, it directs thought and action. As the Bible has it: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). Releasing a thousand enemy fighters is one thing, releasing a thousand vile murderers is something else.

Some of these prisoners have assisted suicide bombers in killing a lot of people. Some have committed really atrocious acts – like the pretty young Palestinian woman who used the internet to lure a love-sick Israeli boy of 15 into a trap, where he was riddled with bullets. But others were sentenced to life for belonging to an “illegal organization” and possessing arms, or for throwing an ineffectual home made bomb at a bus hurting nobody.

Almost all of them were convicted by military courts. As has been said, military courts have the same relation to real courts as military music does to real music.

All of these prisoners, in Israeli parlance, have “blood on their hands”. But which of us Israelis has no blood on his hands? Sure, a young woman soldier remotely controlling a drone that kills a Palestinian suspect and his entire family has no sticky blood on her hands. Neither has a pilot who drops a bomb on a residential neighborhood and feels only “a slight bump on the wing”, as a former Chief of Staff put it. (A Palestinian once told me: “Give me a tank or a fighter plane, and I shall give up terrorism immediately.”)

The main argument against the swap was that, according to Security Service statistics, 15% of prisoners thus released become active “terrorists” again. Perhaps. But the majority of them become active supporters of peace. Practically all of my Palestinian friends are former prisoners, some of whom were behind bars for 12 years and more. They learned Hebrew in prison, became acquainted with Israeli life by watching television and even began to admire some aspects of Israel, such as our parliamentary democracy. Most prisoners just want to go home, settle down and found a family.

But during the endless hours of waiting for Gilad’s return, all our TV stations showed scenes of the killings in which the prisoners-to-be-released had been involved, such as the young woman who drove a bomber to his destination. It was a continuous tirade of hatred. Our warm admiration for our own virtue was mingled with the chilling feeling that we are again the victims, compelled to release vile murderers who are going to try and kill us again.

Yet all these prisoners fervently believed that they had served their people in its struggle for liberation. Like the famous song: “Shoot me as an Irish soldier / Do not hang me like a dog / For I fought for Ireland’s freedom…” Nelson Mandela, it should be remembered, was an active terrorist who languished in prison for 28 years because he refused to sign a statement condemning terrorism.

Israelis (probably like most peoples) are quite unable to put themselves into the shoes of their adversaries. This makes it practically impossible to pursue an intelligent policy, particularly on this issue.

HOW WAS Binyamin Netanyahu brought to bend?

The hero of the campaign is Noam Shalit, the father. An introverted person, withdrawn and shy of publicity, he came out and fought for his son every single day during these five years and four months. So did the mother. They literally saved his life. They succeeded in raising a mass movement without precedent in the annals of the state. 

It helped that Gilad looks like everybody’s son. He is a shy young man with an engaging smile that could be seen on each of the stills and videos from before the capture. He was youngish looking, thin and unassuming. Five years later, this week, he still looked the same, only very pale.

If our intelligence services had been able to locate him, they would have undoubtedly tried to liberate him by force. This could well have been his death sentence, as happened so often in the past. The fact that they could not find him, despite their hundreds of agents in the Gaza Strip, is a remarkable achievement for Hamas. It explains why he was kept in strict isolation and was not allowed to meet anyone.

Israelis were relieved to discover, on his release, that he seemed to be in good condition, healthy and alert. From the few sentences he voiced on his way in Egypt, he had been provided with radio and TV and knew about his parents’ efforts.

From the moment he set foot on Israeli soil, almost nothing about the way he was treated was allowed to come out. Where was he kept? How was the food? Did his captors talk with him? What did he think about them? Did he learn Arabic? Up to now, not a word about that, probably because it might throw some positive light on Hamas. He will certainly be thoroughly briefed before being allowed to speak.   

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS repeatedly asked me this week whether the deal had opened the way to a new peace process. As far as the public mood is concerned, the very opposite is true.

The same journalists asked me if Binyamin Netanyahu had not been disturbed by the fact that the swap was bound to strengthen Hamas and deal a grievous blow to Mahmoud Abbas. They were flabbergasted by my answer: that this was one of its main purposes, if not the main one.

The master stroke was a stroke against Abbas.

Abbas’ moves in the UN have profoundly disturbed our right-wing government. Even if the only practical outcome is a resolution of the General Assembly to recognize the State of Palestine as an observer state, it will be a major step towards a real Palestinian state.

This government, like all our governments since the foundation of Israel – only more so – is dead set against Palestinian statehood. It would put an end to the dream of a Greater Israel up to the Jordan River, compel us to give back a great chunk of the Land-God-Promised-Us and evacuate scores of settlements.

For Netanyahu and Co. this is the real danger. Hamas poses no danger at all. What can they do? Launch a few rockets, kill a few people – so what? In no year has “terrorism” killed as many as half the people dying on our roads. Israel can deal with that. The Hamas regime would probably not be running the Gaza Strip in the first place if Israel had not cut the Strip off from the West Bank, contrary to its solemn undertaking in Oslo to create four safe passages. None was ever opened.

That, by the way, also explains the timing. Why did Netanyahu agree now to something he has violently opposed all his life? Because Abbas, the featherless chicken, has suddenly turned into an eagle.

On the day of the swap, Abbas made a speech. It sounded rather flat. For the average Palestinian, the case was quite simple: Abbas, with all his Israeli and American friends, has got no one released for years. Hamas, using force, has released more than a thousand, including Fatah members. Ergo: “Israel understands only the language of force”.

THE VAST majority of Israelis supported the deal, though convinced that the vile murderers will try again to kill us.

Never were the lines of division as clear as this time: some 25% opposed it. These included all the extreme right-wing, all the settlers and almost all the national-religious. All the others – the huge camp of the center and left, the secular, liberal and moderate religious - supported it.

This is the Israeli mainstream on which the hopes for the future are resting. If Netanyahu had proposed a peace agreement with the Palestinians this week, and if he had been supported by the chiefs of the army, the Mossad and the Security Service (as he was this week), the same majority would have supported him.  

As for the prisoners – another 4000 are still held in Israeli prisons, and this number is liable to grow again. The opponents of the deal are quite right in saying that it will provide Palestinian organizations with a strong incentive to renew their efforts to capture Israeli soldiers in order to get more prisoners released.

If all of Israel is drunk with emotion because one boy has been returned to his family – what about 4000 families on the other side? Unfortunately, ordinary Israelis don’t put the question this way. They have got used to seeing the Palestinian prisoners only as bargaining chips.

How to thwart the efforts to capture more soldiers? There is only one alternative: to open a credible way to have them released by agreement.

Such as by peace, if you can excuse the expression.

The Elders: Apoiando o legítimo direito palestino a um Estado

 Apoiamos firme e fortemente o direito do povo Palestino à sua soberania  e acreditamos que as Nações Unidas é o fórum certo para abordar esta questão.

Mais de duas décadas de negociações não produziram nem um Estado para os palestinos, nem a segurança e o reconhecimento regional para Israel. A candidatura palestina para o seu reconhecimento enquanto Estado nas Nações Unidas poderia ser a "mudança no jogo", que reavive o processo de Paz no Médio Oriente.


Antes da reunião da Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas em Setembro escrevemos a todos os Ministros dos Negócios Estrangeiros de todos os 27 estados membros da União Europeia, instando-os a adoptar uma forte posição comum em favor de uma resolução da ONU que apoiasse o direito do povo palestino a um estado. 

Como maior parceiro de negócios de Israel e os maiores doadores para a Autoridade Palestiniana, acreditamos que a UE tem um papel crucial a desempenhar no incentivo, a ambas as partes, a chegarem a um acordo de paz genuíno e duradouro.

Juntamente com cinco dos meus companheiros dos "The Elders", encontrei-me com Mahmoud Abbas, presidente da Autoridade Palestina, em Nova York na véspera da entrega, ao Secretário-Geral, desta candidatura histórica. Tivemos uma discussão sincera com ele, expressando o nosso apoio para seus esforços para conseguir o reconhecimento de um Estado palestino.

NB: Tradução não certificada da declaração de Mary Robinson na newsletter de 7 de Outubro, dos "The Elders".

A jogada de Abu Mazen por Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery

September 24, 2011

                                                           Abu Mazen’s Gamble

A WONDERFUL SPEECH. A beautiful speech.

The language expressive and elegant. The arguments clear and convincing. The delivery flawless.

A work of art. The art of hypocrisy. Almost every statement in the passage concerning the Israeli-Palestinian issue was a lie. A blatant lie: the speaker knew it was a lie, and so did the audience.

It was Obama at his best, Obama at his worst.

Being a moral person, he must have felt the urge to vomit. Being a pragmatic person, he knew that he had to do it, if he wanted to be re-elected.

In essence, he sold the fundamental national interests of the United States of America for the chance of a second term.

Not very nice, but that’s politics, OK?

IT MAY be superfluous – almost insulting to the reader – to point out the mendacious details of this rhetorical edifice.

Obama treated the two sides as if they were equal in strength – Israelis and Palestinians, Palestinians and Israelis.

But of the two, it is the Israelis - only they – who suffer and have suffered. Persecution. Exile. Holocaust. An Israeli child threatened by rockets. Surrounded by the hatred of Arab children. So sad.

No Occupation. No settlements. No June 1967 borders. No Naqba. No Palestinian children killed or frightened. It’s the straight right-wing Israeli propaganda line, pure and simple – the terminology, the historical narrative, the argumentation. The music.

The Palestinians, of course, should have a state of their own. Sure, sure. But they must not be pushy. They must not embarrass the US. They must not come to the UN. They must sit with the Israelis, like reasonable people, and work it out with them. The reasonable sheep must sit down with the reasonable wolf and decide what to have for dinner. Foreigners should not interfere.

Obama gave full service. A lady who provides this kind of service generally gets paid in advance. Obama got paid immediately afterwards, within the hour. Netanyahu sat down with him in front of the cameras and gave him enough quotable professions of love and gratitude to last for several election campaigns.

THE TRAGIC hero of this affair is Mahmoud Abbas. A tragic hero, but a hero nonetheless.

Many people may be surprised by this sudden emergence of Abbas as a daring player for high stakes, ready to confront the mighty US.

If Ariel Sharon were to wake up for a moment from his years-long coma, he would faint with amazement. It was he who called Mahmoud Abbas “a plucked chicken”.

Yet for the last few days, Abbas was the center of global attention. World leaders conferred about how to handle him, senior diplomats were eager to convince him of this or that course of action, commentators were guessing what he would do next. His speech before the UN General Assembly was treated as an event of consequence.

Not bad for a chicken, even for one with a full set of feathers.

His emergence as a leader on the world stage is somewhat reminiscent of Anwar Sadat.

When Gamal Abd-al-Nasser unexpectedly died at the age of 52 in 1970 and his official deputy, Sadat, assumed his mantle, all political experts shrugged.

Sadat? Who the hell is that? He was considered a nonentity, an eternal No. 2, one of the least important members of the group of “free officers” that was ruling Egypt.

In Egypt, a land of jokes and jokers, witticisms about him abounded. One concerned the prominent brown mark on his forehead. The official version was that it was the result of much praying, hitting the ground with his forehead. But the real reason, it was told, was that at meetings, after everyone else had spoken, Sadat would get up and try to say something. Nasser would good-naturedly put his finger to his forehead, push him gently down and say: “Sit, Anwar!”  

To the utter amazement of the experts – and especially the Israeli ones – this “nonentity” took a huge gamble by starting the 1973 October War, and proceeded to do something unprecedented in history: going to the capital of an enemy country still officially in a state of war and making peace.

Abbas’ status under Yasser Arafat was not unlike Sadat’s under Nasser. However, Arafat never appointed a deputy. Abbas was one of a group of four or five likely successors. The heir would surely have been Abu Jihad, had he not been killed by Israeli commandoes in front of his wife and children. Another likely candidate, Abu Iyad, was killed by Palestinian terrorists. Abu Mazen (Abbas) was in a way the choice by default.

Such politicians, emerging suddenly from under the shadow of a great leader, generally fall into one of two categories: the eternal frustrated No. 2 or the surprising new leader.

The Bible gives us examples of both kinds. The first was Rehoboam, the son and heir of the great King Solomon, who told his people: “my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions”. The other kind was represented by Joshua, the heir of Moses. He was no second Moses, but according to the story a great conqueror in his own right.

Modern history tells the sad story of Anthony Eden, the long-suffering No. 2 of Winston Churchill, who commanded little respect. (Mussolini called him, after their first meeting, “a well-tailored idiot.”). Upon assuming power, he tried desperately to equal Churchill and soon embroiled Britain in the 1956 Suez disaster. To the second category belonged Harry Truman, the nobody who succeeded the great Franklin Delano Roosevelt and surprised everybody as a resolute leader.

Abbas looked like belonging to the first kind. Now, suddenly, he is revealed as belonging to the second. The world is treating him with newfound respect. Nearing the end of his career, he made the big gamble.

BUT WAS it wise? Courageous, yes. Daring, yes. But wise?

My answer is: Yes, it was.

Abbas has placed the quest for Palestinian freedom squarely on the international table. For more than a week, Palestine has been the center of international attention. Scores of international statesmen and -women, including the leader of the world’s only superpower, have been busy with Palestine.

For a national movement, that is of the utmost importance. Cynics may ask: “So what did they gain from it?” But cynics are fools. A liberation movement gains from the very fact that the world pays attention, that the media grapple with the problem, that people of conscience all over the world are aroused. It strengthens morale at home and brings the struggle a step nearer its goal.

Oppression shuns the limelight. Occupation, settlements, ethnic cleansing thrive in the shadows. It is the oppressed who need the light of day. Abbas’ move provided it, at least for the time being.

BARACK OBAMA’s miserable performance was a nail in the coffin of America’s status as a superpower. In a way, it was a crime against the United States.

The Arab Spring may have been a last chance for the US to recover its standing in the Middle East. After some hesitation, Obama realized that. He called on Mubarak to go, helped the Libyans against their tyrant, made some noises about Bashar al-Assad. He knows that he has to regain the respect of the Arab masses if he wants to recover some stature in the region, and by extension throughout the world.

Now he has blown it, perhaps forever. No self-respecting Arab will forgive him for plunging his knife into the back of the helpless Palestinians. All the credit the US has tried to gain in the last months in the Arab and the wider Muslim world has been blown away with one puff.

All for reelection.

IT WAS also a crime against Israel.

Israel needs peace. Israel needs to live side by side with the Palestinian people, within the Arab world. Israel cannot rely forever on the unconditional support of the declining United States.

Obama knows this full well. He knows what is good for Israel, even if Netanyahu doesn’t. Yet he has handed the keys of the car to the drunken driver.

The State of Palestine will come into being. This week it was already clear that this is unavoidable. Obama will be forgotten, as will Netanyahu, Lieberman and the whole bunch.

Mahmoud Abbas – Abu Mazen, as the Palestinians call him – will be remembered. The “plucked chicken” is soaring into the sky.

Hoje (23/09) na UN. Jewish Voice for Peace

Today, the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, presented a bid for the state of Palestine, based on the 1967 borders, to be considered by the Security Council for full membership in the United Nations. Shortly afterward, he addressed the General Assembly, where he reviewed, from the 1948 Nakba until today, the multitude of ways in which Israel has suppressed Palestinians' rights. While the question remains if the UN statehood bid adequately addresses the larger issue of Palestinian rights, Abbas' address importantly gave voice to the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. While there is no uniform support for this UN bid, today was undoubtedly a historic and moving day. After over 63 years struggling for global recognition, it was moving to see the countries of the world represented in the UN general assembly give President Abbas a rousing standing ovation. Not so for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who spoke shortly after Abbas. Netanyahu responded to the Palestinian leader with diversion and doublespeak instead of honest engagement, and peace slogans couched in hostility, aggression, and denial of Palestinian claims—a continuation of the standard Israeli tactic. We know from history that this empty rhetoric has been used by Israeli government for decades and will only mean further pain and oppression for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and all over the world. As a Jewish-American organization, we believe it is important to remain focused on our primary responsibility:  having an impact on U.S. policy. As such, we will continue to speak out strongly against the U.S. using its veto power in the Security Council to reject this bid for statehood. We know now that President Obama will not do the right thing. Speaking at the UN on Wednesday, Obama lauded the Arab Spring—but rejected the Palestinian Autumn. The president retreated from his earlier positions that demanded Israeli accountability for its military occupation, and he did not acknowledge the ongoing role of the U.S. in maintaining that imbalance through its extraordinary economic, military, and diplomatic support for Israel, even when its actions violate international law, human rights, and U.S. policy.  And he didn't acknowledge that twenty years of the "peace process" has brought only a more entrenched occupation. Instead, Obama merely said that both sides should "sit down together, to listen to each other, and to understand each other's hopes and fears." (1) While this week has not been an easy one, we at JVP actually feel a redoubled assurance in the promise of our strategy to change the dynamics on display at the United Nations.  We know now, more than ever, that the President or Congress will not change on their own.  The array of power and money is simply too strong—for now.  We know, as with the examples of the civil rights movement and the anti-apartheid movement, to name just two, that it is movements like ours that force our governments to change their policies.  It was the steadfastness, the creativity, the demonstrations, the local organizing, and the BDS tactics that helped these movements and so many others for social justice eventually succeed.  So we'll let the politicians play their games, and meanwhile, our work will continue. Onward, Jewish Voice for Peace (1) http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/obama-s-speech-to-the-un-general-assembly-as-prepared-20110921

Subscribe to our blog Muzzlewatch. Check out our new blog, The Only Democracy

US right woos Jews over Palestine bid (FT)

Sent: terça-feira, 20 de Setembro de 2011 20:02
Subject: US right woos Jews over Palestine bid

News Alert 20 September 2011 Keyword(s): Tibet or Burma or Palestine Frequency: Daily at 20:00 London Time   September 20, 5:59pm US right woos Jews over Palestine bid Barack Obama has not only been managing a global diplomatic tangle between Israel and Palestine at the UN in New York this week. The move has also left the beleaguered president juggling an acutely sensitive domestic issue with ramifications for his re-election. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/852cc502-e398-11e0-8990-00144feabdc0.html September 20, 1:22am Abbas confirms plan to seek UN membership Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has told the United Nations secretary-general that he intends to submit an application for membership on Friday and vowed not to be deterred by the storm of international pressure gathering around him. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3bc2e1c6-e2df-11e0-903d-00144feabdc0.html © THE FINANCIAL TIMES LTD 2011

Juppé oferece a Abbas uma mão-cheia-de-nada!

A hipocrisia e o desespero não têm limites no tocante à Palestina

Segundo o al-Hayat de hoje, o MNE francês Alain Juppé vai oferecer a  Abbas um plano de compromisso que PERMITA à Autoridade Palestiniana GANHAR o estatuto de observador na ONU em troca de uma promessa de que o Quarteto (EUA-EU-Rússia-ONU), representado pelo Sr. Blair,  aumentará os esforços para reavivar as negociações de paz estagnadas.

Ou seja uma mão cheia de nada.

A obrigação do Quarteto já era forçar as negociações de paz. Que tem feito? Nada! O Sr. Blair viaja e pavoneia-se pelo Médio Oriente à custa do dinheiro dos povos.

A questão é que a ONU tem conciliado com todas as ilegalidades, crimes de guerra e crimes contra a humanidade que Israel tem perpetrado. E Israel  é membro de pleno direito da ONU desde 11 de Maio de 1949.

É com esse estatuto que, ao longo da sua breve história, ocupa, coloniza e anexa territórios da Palestina e é com esse estatuto que oprime, reprime, prende, tortura e assassina os habitantes desses territórios, quer a nível individual, quer a nível de todo um Povo, cometendo crimes de guerra e contra a humanidade que a ONU condena, mas que nada faz para pôr fim, para além de algumas verberações inócuas.

A ONU faz vista grossa e qual catavento roda para onde a empurra o hálito corrompido dos EUA.

Enquanto Ashton negoceia pela UE, Alemanha torpedeia...

De acordo com informações vinculadas pelo jornal israelita Haaretz enquanto a responsável das Relações Exteriores da UE, Catherine Ashton procurava chegar a um acordo com a Autoridade Palestina para que esta viesse a baixar a sua reinvindicação de ver reconhecida, na próxima AG da ONU, a Palestina como um Estado de pleno direito, para a de ser acolhida como um membro não-permanente, em troca do apoio em bloco dos 27 a esta proposta, o Ministro dos Negócios Estrangeiros da Alemanha, Guido Westerwelle, terá afirmado a Mhamoud Abbas que não apoiaria a proposta de admissão da Palestina na ONU.

 

Por outro lado diz-nos ainda o Haaretz que Ashton estaria a negociar um acordo com os EUA, em que este se absteria de votar e manteria o apoio financeiro aos palestinos  em troca da promessa do presidente palestino Mahmoud Abbas de não levar Israel ao Tribunal Penal Internacional.  

 

(Estranho acordo que só vem confirmar que existiram crimes de guerra e contra a humanidade cometidos pelos governantes de Israel e pelas suas Forças Armadas e Agências, que agora se pretendem branquear. Sem esquecer a responsabilidade primeira dos EUA nesta triste história, ao longo dos últimos 63 anos.)

Acordo entre Hamas e Fatah para pôr fim a quatro anos de ruptura

Notícia do Público assinada por Ana Fonseca Pereira.

Os comentários em itálico são de minha responsabilidade.

Salienta-se a perspectiva de acordo entre o Hamas e a Fatah; o papel do Egipto nesta reconciliação; a posição desesperada de Israel; a continuação do "frete" da Administração Obama à posição indefensável de Israel, tendo por base a retórica estafada de o Hamas ser "uma organização terrorista que visa civis"

Entendimento mediado pelo Egipto prevê governo interino e eleições. Netanyahu avisa que paz com Hamas afasta paz com Israel.

Quase quatro anos depois da guerra que colocou palestinianos contra palestinianos nas ruas de Gaza, Hamas e Fatah chegaram ontem, sem que ninguém o esperasse, a um acordo de reconciliação. Sob mediação do novo regime egípcio, os dois movimentos decidiram formar um governo interino que terá como missão organizar eleições gerais ainda neste ano.

O acordo - essencial para qualquer iniciativa destinada à criação de um Estado palestiniano - surge num momento em que ambos os movimentos estão sob pressão: a suspensão das negociações com Israel deixou a Fatah, do presidente Mahmoud Abbas, mais isolada; a revolta contra o regime sírio ameaça fragilizar o Hamas, forçando o movimento islamista a procurar outras alianças. Mas é sobretudo a revolução no Egipto que é vista como o principal catalisador do acordo, já que "a nova administração decidiu adoptar uma posição mais equilibrada", rompendo com a maior proximidade de Hosni Mubarak à Fatah, [e acrescentaria, com o ditakt israelo-americano] disse à Reuters o analista Hany al-Masri, comentador político sediado em Ramallah.

As negociações "resultaram num entendimento completo sobre todos os pontos em discussão, incluindo a formação de um governo interino com tarefas específicas e a marcação de eleições" presidenciais e legislativas, adiantou um comunicado dos serviços secretos egípcios, que mediaram as negociações, realizadas em segredo.

O chefe da delegação enviada por Abbas ao Cairo, Azzam al-Ahmad, disse à AFP que o novo executivo "será composto por figuras independentes" e que os palestinianos serão chamados às urnas "dentro de oito meses". À televisão Al-Jazira um representante do Hamas explicou que o acordo prevê ainda a libertação de presos de ambos os movimentos e a "conjugação" das respectivas forças de segurança.

O entendimento deve ser carimbado na próxima semana numa cerimónia oficial, para a qual foram convidadas todas as facções e que, adiantou a Reuters, deve contar com Abbas e Khaled Meshal, o líder político do Hamas, exilado em Damasco.

A concretizar-se, o acordo põe fim a quatro anos de cisma entre a Cisjordânia, controlada pela Fatah, e Gaza, tutelada pelo Hamas, desde que, em Julho de 2007, o governo que unia as duas facções caiu  [De facto o Hamas ganhou a maioria nas eleições parlamentares de 25 de Janeiro de 2006, de forma democrática, - como estabeleceram, na altura, os observadores internacionais; Ismail Haniyeh foi nomeado primeiro-ministro em 16 de Fevereiro 2006 e demitido em 14 de Junho de 2007 por Mahmoud Abbas, com o respaldo dos EUA e da UE que, desde o primeiro momento, optaram por uma política de boicote e sanções económicas, a este governo. Acresce  dizer que, se o presidente da Autoridade Nacional Palestina, tem o poder constitucional de demitir um qualquer primeiro-ministro, não pode nomear um outro sem a aprovação do Conselho Legislativo Palestino, o que não aconteceu quando nomeou o seu correligionário Salam Fayyad, pervertendo assim a legalidade constitucional e democrática.] e as milícias islamistas [leia-se o Hamas] tomaram pela força o poder naquela estreita faixa de território. [Há que ter em conta que esta "tomada de poder" foi a resposta a uma tentativa da Fatah, com o apoio dos EUA e de Israel, de esmagar o Hamas em Gaza (ver artigo do Público intitulado "EUA patrocinaram tentativas da Fatah para derrubar Governo do Hamas" de 2008.03.04).]

As tentativas de reconciliação feitas desde então esbarraram nas exigências de um e de outro movimento, mas o cenário alterou-se depois de, em Setembro, Abbas ter rompido os contactos com Israel face à recusa do Governo de Benjamin Netanyahu em suspender a colonização. Desde então, Abbas tenta conseguir o reconhecimento internacional, com ou sem acordo de paz, do Estado palestiniano segundo as fronteiras de 1967, uma iniciativa que desembocará numa votação, em Setembro, na Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas. Um esforço que, admitiam os próprios palestinianos, estaria condenado ao fracasso sem um acordo de reconciliação.

Mas mesmo depois do entendimento, os analistas mostram-se cautelosos, alertando para os obstáculos que se colocam à sua concretização, a começar pela tarefa quase impossível de unificar sob um mesmo comando as forças do Hamas e da Fatah.

E apesar de ser pouco provável a participação de dirigentes do Hamas no novo governo (a fim de evitar o bloqueio externo após a vitória dos islamistas nas legislativas de 2006), é incerta a reacção internacional a este executivo - ontem a Casa Branca disse estar ainda a estudar o acordo, mas recordou que o Hamas "é uma organização terrorista que visa civis". Quem não tem dúvidas sobre este acordo é Netanyahu, que ontem deixou um claro aviso a Abbas: "A Autoridade Palestiniana tem de escolher entre a paz com Israel e a paz com o Hamas. A paz com os dois é impossível."