[Download] "Turning Sunni and Shia Against Each Other (Commentary) (Report)" by Arena Journal # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Turning Sunni and Shia Against Each Other (Commentary) (Report)
- Author : Arena Journal
- Release Date : January 22, 2007
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 185 KB
Description
The surreal appointment as special 'peace envoy' to the Middle East of a man who shares responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East, was announced as the Israeli military launched its biggest single attack on Gaza since the electoral victory of Hamas in January 2006. Thirteen civilians were killed, but the news was overshadowed by greater events--the release of Paris Hilton from prison and, of course, the replacement of Tony Blair as Britain's Prime Minister by Gordon Brown. As special envoy for the Quartet (1)--which Alvaro de Soto (Kofi Annan's own special envoy to an invisible peace process) described in his confidential end-of-mission report as no more than a club of friends of the United States--who could be a better choice? The 'road map', launched by the United States in 2003, was 'PR' from the beginning. Conditions were laid down that Israel had no intention of meeting and the United States no intention of enforcing. Unilateral 'disengagement' from Gaza was Israel's means of putting the road map in 'formaldehyde', as a spokesman for Ariel Sharon put it, allowing his government to be portrayed as taking peace seriously while getting on with the job of expanding settlements and constructing its 'security wall' on the West Bank. In the words of Alvaro de Soto again (his report was leaked to the media in June 2007), Israel's non-compliance with the road map, which required it to freeze settlement activity and allow the opening of Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem, has been 'total'. It is not even so that Israel has disengaged from Gaza. The settlers have gone, but the strip is fenced off, surrounded by military posts, closely monitored from land, sea and air, and subject to air strikes and targetted assassinations. Israel also decides when Palestinians can leave Gaza and when they can return, when its goods can be exported and when its fishermen can go out to sea. The chokehold has been tightened since the election of the Hamas government in January 2006, creating one of the most desperate places on earth.