Behind the Hudna Scenes
by Ran HaCohen

The Hudna is not a new idea: the Palestinians and Egypt have suggested it several times before. Whenever the Palestinians came close to signing it, the Israeli army initiated a major escalation – usually an assassination with extensive "collateral damage". Last year, when Israel's President Moshe Katzav asked to go to Jordan to discuss a Hudna initiative, PM Sharon vetoed his trip.

This time, even the Israeli assassination attempt of Hamas leader Rantisi failed to do the trick: the Hudna is a fact, and, given the masses on the streets, a paper signed between the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Islamic Jihad seems to give Israelis much more security than one of the strongest armies on earth has been able to. Following years in which Israel did its best to pulverize the Palestinians physically, politically and institutionally, one is astonished by the almost absolute obedience to the Hudna on the Palestinian side.

The truth should be said: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far from ending. The parties' visions and expectations are incommensurable. In the long term, the Palestinians expect the evacuation of Israeli settlements; Sharon – take my word for it – will never dismantle a single settlement, and won't even freeze settlement activity; he says it over and over again. But even in the short term, the Palestinians expect the release of all Palestinian detainees, whom they consider prisoners of war; Israel, though it often also claims "there is a war going on" in the territories, might release some 300 detainees: just 5% of the 6.000 Palestinians arrested in Israel, and probably less than the number of those arrested in the past few weeks alone. And even this symbolic release has been postponed over and over again. Add to it new Israeli provocations, like opening the Temple Mount for Jewish zealots to visit, and you don't have to be a prophet to see that peace is not where we are going to.
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Jenin, Jenin

I just saw the documentary, Jenin, Jenin, about the Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002.

From the website of the film:

Award-winning documentary film "Jenin Jenin" exposes Israel’s war crimes and consistent policy of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people.

Harsh words? Overstated? All I can say is watch the film. Jenin was a small city. People had built homes there, some had been there for decades. It was a CIVILIAN refugee camp. The Israeli military did their absolute best to level it. Missiles, bombs, tanks, they killed anything that moved including children, dragged men out of their homes and shot them, forced women to strip naked, ran over corpses with tanks to destroy the evidence.

One man said, we can take most anything, but when a child who has been shot in the chest dies in your arms because no ambulance will come and you can't take them to a hospital because they will shoot you if you go outside, and the U.N. and the Arab Nations do nothing - it is too terrible to bear. But bear it they do, and they survive. And then fight back. Wouldn't you?
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