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Newsletter : 1fax0726.txt
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>JN July 26, 2001, Vol. 9, No. 127
Israeli, Palestinian Peace Activists Call for End to Bloodshed
By Meredith Buel (VOA-Ramallah, West Bank)
A group of Palestinian and Israeli politicians, academics and intellectuals have issued a statement urging leaders from both sides to end 10 months of bloodshed and return to peace negotiations.
The violence between Israel and the Palestinians has almost silenced liberals and moderates on both sides who say they are dedicated to finding a peaceful solution to the conflict.
For the first time since the Palestinian uprising began last September, Israeli and Palestinian members of the so-called peace camp came together in Ramallah to issue a joint declaration calling for an end to the bloodshed. The statement said that despite the deteriorating situation, both sides continue to have in each other a partner for peace, and that a negotiated solution is possible.
An architect of the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians, Yossi Beilin, said the cycle of violence must stop. "It is endless, endless. It is always justified. I mean on both sides you may say. Well we are only reacting. We are reacting all the time and we are killing ourselves. One should get up and say, hey, what about sanity? Put an end to this crazy situation. Talk with each other. Don't sacrifice your own kids."
A member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Hanan Ashrawi, signed the declaration, which says both sides need to move urgently to rebuild a partnership for peace. "We believe that we have to deal with the causes. The occupation is the cause of the violence and the instability and this dangerous escalation is making people on both sides lose faith in a long-term just peace."
The joint statement calls for a total freeze in construction of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, the implementation of agreements the parties have already signed and a resumption of peace talks.
The joint declaration will be printed in Arabic and Hebrew newspapers, and will be circulated as a petition asking Israelis and Palestinians to use their signatures to show support for peace.
Monitors for the Middle East - What to Expect?
By Ed Warner (VOA Washington)
Pressure is mounting to put international observers between Israelis and Palestinians, to try to end the violence and restore peace. Would this work? The results of such intervention in the past are mixed, but one analyst offers a new suggestion.
Outside observers in conflicts only work as well as the warring parties permit. That is the consensus about the effectiveness of monitors who try to bring peace or at least reduce the violence.
The introduction of observers has a mixed record in Israeli-Arab disputes, says Clyde Mark, a specialist in Middle East Affairs at the Congressional Research Service in Washington. Where both sides want it to work, it works. "It is a matter of investment," he said. "If a country has an investment in peace, then they are going to make these peace observers work. Best example: Egypt and Israel in the Sinai boundary, where you have a multinational force of observers. It is working. Both sides want it to work."
Mark said that observers have succeeded in keeping the peace between Israelis and Syrians on the Golan Heights. But U.N. monitors have been unable to prevent clashes between Israelis and Hizbullah in southern Lebanon. "It may be a case where the Israelis did not trust them, feared that they were not giving a full story," he said. "Palestinians and Lebanese thought they were probably favoring the Israelis too much. So they were less successful. I think it's a matter of commitment on the part of the parties."
Least successful of all is the group of international observers in Hebron, where a few hundred Israeli settlers live in a fortified compound, amid 120,000 Palestinians. Ever since an American-born zealot gunned down 29 Palestinians at prayer in their mosque in 1994, the town has been a powder keg.
Some 80 observers, mostly from Europe, patrol the tense streets, earning the derision of Israelis. One boy scoffed to The Washington Post: "They are a bunch of tourists from Denmark."
Ambulances Will Stop For Red Lights "Even On Calls"
By IsraelNationalNews.com
In response to the increasing number of accidents involving ambulances responding to emergency calls, Israel's Magen David Adom emergency medical service provider has issued a new directive that all ambulances are to stop for red traffic signals, even when responding to emergency calls.
MDA officials report that in the past year, ambulances were involved in 160 accidents, 24 of them serious. Fifty persons were injured and one volunteer on an ambulance was killed.
Emergency medical service officials admit that the new policy will delay response times to the patient and the hospital but insist there is no alternative until drivers undergo additional training and learn to negotiate intersections with increased skill.
The new directive will be in effect for two months. MDA officials believe all drivers will have been retrained by that time.
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