intransigence and complicity
A winter storm greeted Colin Powell on Monday as he made his last trip to Israel and the occupied territories as US secretary of state. His was the first visit in a string of Western foreign ministers, all eager to seize "the new opportunity to advance the peace process" caused by the death of Yasser Arafat. Unlike so often in the past, Powell realised the limited goals set for him.
He won a commitment from his Israeli counterpart, Silvan Shalom, that "Israel will do everything in its power to ensure the smooth running" of the Palestinian presidential elections on 9 January, including arrangements to enable the 200,000 or so Palestinians in Israeli occupied East Jerusalem to vote.
Few Palestinians believe it. The night before Powell arrived an Israeli undercover squad killed three Palestinians in Beitunia, near Ramallah. The three -- Mohamed Liftawi, Salam Yaqoub and Nasser Jawahra -- were all members of the Palestinian security forces, Fatah and its military arm, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
According to the Israeli version all three were killed in a "shoot out" resisting arrest. According to eyewitness accounts compiled by three Palestinian human rights monitors the three were first caught in a road ambush by the squad and then killed in a hail of machine gun fire while trapped in their car. At least one of them, Liftawi, had found sanctuary for the last two years in Arafat's Muqataa compound but fled with his leader's flight to Paris. Two weeks later Liftawi was dead, and the meaning will not be lost on a single member of Fatah's militia: with Arafat there was protection; without him there isn't.
Graham Usher/Al-Ahram 25.Nov.04
