Sniffer-dogs protest. One state solution -- again
By Imra.org.il

October 22, 2003

" 'We don't just want the dogs to leave. We want the dogs who are holding the dogs to leave' "
FULL TEXT: BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A sniffer dog search sparked an anti-US protest in Baghdad on Tuesday amid accusations of American insensitivity to Islamic culture. "Down, down USA," shouted thousands of government employees angered by the detention of a woman who refused to be searched by US soldiers using a sniffer dog at the oil ministry in Baghdad.

Soldiers fired a few shots in the air to disperse the workers from the oil ministry and nearby ministries.

"I have been coming here for 27 years and now they (Americans) are searching us with dogs. We are Muslims," Saadiya Ahmad, an oil ministry engineer said.

Dogs are considered unclean in Islamic culture.

"We don't just want the dogs to leave. We want the dogs who are holding the dogs to leave, every last one of them," said one employee, Nazir Mohammed.

A man who gave his name as Sabeeh said troops had handcuffed a woman employee and made her stand in the sun for an hour because she had refused the search.

Sniffer dogs are routinely used to search for explosives at government ministries to guard against bomb attacks.

JORDAN TIMES 22 Oct.'03: " 'Who would opt for a state of perpetual war?' "By Hasan Abu-Nimah* *Former Jordanian ambassador to the U.N. QUOTES FROM TEXT: "in most of the unfulfilled agreeements and the unofficial understandings reached between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the latter agreed to allow most of the Jewish settlements to remain in place and accepted weird territorial arrangements."

"Israel had anticipated that the less than three quarters of a million Palestinians who stayed behind in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza would disappear."

"Israel would oppose the one-state option at any cost, because it would mean the end of the Jewish character of the state"
EXCERPTS: IN A recent visit to Luxembourg, Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher voiced his grave concern over the fading promise of a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, based on two-state solution.

[IMRA: Hope, not "grave concern".]

What he said sounds more like a recognition of a harsh reality than what may otherwise be viewed as a warning to avoid the worst. . . .

...validity of the two-state option depends largely on the fulfilment of an essential prerequisite: Israel should nd its withdraw its forces and settlers right to the lines of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem included. This certainly is not an option, not only due to the Israeli usual intransigence, but also, and painfully, because in most of the unfulfilled agreements and the unofficial understandings reached between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the latter agreed to allow most of the Jewish settlements to remain in place and accepted weird territorial arrangements,

[IMRA: Explains why the Palestinians don't want the peace process to work.]

including in Jerusalem. This is doubly harmful. ... it encourages Israeli greed by providing Israel with precious justification for its illegal settlement policy ... it directly undermines a contiguous Palestinian state.

Maintaining the occupation is not a viable option either. That will cost Israel its "democracy" and transform it into an apartheid regime instead, ... no peace and no security. It would be very strange if Israel settled for that.

From an Israeli point of view, ethnic cleansing would probably be the ideal solution to its multiple dilemma. Israel started this process since its early days, with the expulsion from their land, by horrifying means, of over half of the entire population of Palestine (1,380,000) in 1947/1948. A determined and pre-planned policy of cleansing the land of its indigenous population has been constantly maintained in various forms along successive decades of occupation, including the systematic destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure and houses, confiscation of land and resources, bulldozing of trees and farms, and crippling limitation of opportunities to live, work and get education.

[IMRA: As a result of the current violent intifada.]

Sharon would not be restrained by any moral, humanitarian or legal considerations from committing the worst atrocities, should that lead to the mass exodus of the Palestinians in any direction.

This is not an option either. It is true that Israel, not only Sharon, has all the malicious intentions, but not the practical means to force mass deportation of Palestinians. Israel had anticipated that the less than the three quarters of a million Palestinians who stayed behind in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza in 1948 would disappear.

[IMRA: Never.]

They have quadrupled in numbers, instead. Their attachment to their land, their determined resolve to remain, will not be broken by any such Israeli attempt to uproot them. Individual cases of occasional departures, which continue to take place, will not have any significant effect.

It is fairly right to assume that Israel would oppose the one-state option at any cost, because it would mean the end of the Jewish character of the state; the PNA would oppose it because it would end its monopoly on power;

[IMRA: It wouldn't.]

and the US would oppose it because Israel does. Why, then, should it be an option?

The imperatives of history, along with the dynamics of a finally accepted formula of one land for two people, will offer the two peoples the choice of perpetual war or democratic and peaceful coexistence. Who would opt for a state of perpetual war?

[IMRA: The Palestinian charter restated.]

Dr. Joseph Lerner, Co-Director IMRA