Arab Media Watch advisor Christopher Leadbeater got a letter published in USA Today on the Mideast peace process on May 31, and a letter in the Wall Street Journal on June 1.

Also on June 1, AMW director Victor Kattan got a letter published in the Daily Mail on Palestinian refugees.

This press release also contains letters written by Kattan and AMW chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi on May 26 to the Guardian and Daily Mirror that were not published.

Push for Mideast progress before doling out more funds

I have read many articles in U.S. media about the future of the Middle East. None of them seems to understand that the region's problems cannot be solved by money - only by the pursuit of justice through the law.

Sen. Bill Frist starts his commentary with the ludicrous claim that Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is "courageous." Since when does it require "courage" to finally comply with the law after nearly 40 years of abuse and defiance?

Palestinians' problems are not even touched by the largely insignificant withdrawal from Gaza. There are only about 8,000 would-be colonists in Gaza, whereas in the occupied Palestinian territories altogether there are more than 400,000 - a number that is growing daily as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon continues his theft of Palestinian land and the United States remains in impotent silence.

It is a distortion of reality to claim that "the international community has provided the Palestinians with a great deal of money over the years, only to see it frittered away through fraud and waste." It hasn't been frittered away. In my view, it has been destroyed by Israeli military action. 

The article follows slavishly the claim that "ending terrorism is the prerequisite for peace in the region." The ignorance that such a claim reveals is frightening. The terrorism is a final reaction to 50 years of Israel's racist defiance of international law over refugees, settlements and  occupation. Only the inept and the inadequate seek to cure symptoms.

It is justice and the law that are the real prerequisites.

Christopher Leadbeater

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050531/letfeat31.art.htm

Leadbeater's letter in the Wall Street Journal:

Americans seem to suffer from the "only one in step" syndrome, usually by remaining ignorant of the realities of the many shameful crimes committed in their name.

AI, ICRC, HRW etc are all highly regarded. The U.S. is sadly regarded as having fallen on moral turpitude. Do Americans never ask themselves why they are so widely feared and hated? Not just by mythical Islamic extremists but by most of the world?

A choice between AI and WSJ isn't a choice. WSJ is not widely regarded as serious responsible journalism. There was a time when the U.S. was loved and admired. That time is long gone.

Chris Leadbeater

Kattan's letter in the Daily Mail:

Are Palestinian refugees pawns?

Michael Gill's potted history of Palestine refugees (letters) is in danger of misinforming the British public. He disingenuously suggests Palestine and Jordan were one country. In fact, the League of Nations granted the British an A-class mandate over Palestine as a separate entity.

The UN voted to give the Zionists 55 per cent of Palestine, not 12 per cent - that's why the Arabs complained. Zionist militias had begun expelling Palestine's indigenous Arab population months before the declaration of Israeli independence, by which time Israel had seized far more land than it had been granted by the UN partition plan. That's why the Arab states intervened on May 14, 1948.

The charge that the PLO Charter still calls for the destruction of Israel is patently false. On April 26, 1996, the Palestinian National Council convened in Gaza for a special session to amend those clauses in the Charter which Zionists interpret to mean the 'destruction of Israel'. The decision was adopted by a majority vote of 504 in favour to 54 against. In December 1998, the PLO executive committee and the PLO central council reaffirmed this decision.

Victor Kattan, Arab Media Watch, London SW7

Kattan's letter to the Guardian:

Aggie Hoffman (letters, 26 May) clearly has no idea what she is writing about. Even if Israel did capture those territories in self-defence, which is highly questionable, it cannot keep them. The annexation of territory by forcible means is prohibited by international law, irrespective of whether the territory in question is captured in an aggressive war or in a war of self-defence. Moreover, settlements are illegal. There is no question about it. They violate article 49 (6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This was reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice, principal judicial organ of the UN, last July.

Hoffman alleges that the Palestinians want to live in an exclusive Arab State. This is utter nonsense. It is Israel that builds settlements and by-pass roads for Jews only. It is Israel that passes racist legislation like the Nationality and Entrance into Israel Law that draws a distinction between Arab and Jew for the acquisition of citizenship. It is Israel that ethnically cleansed Arab lands of their indigenous inhabitants in 1948 and in 1967. And it is Israel that denationalized Palestinians in 1952, after it had systematically expropriated their property - which it attempted to repeat in East Jerusalem last summer.   

Yours sincerely,

Victor Kattan

Director, Arab Media Watch