I consider MER the most useful source of information on the middle east. I will not take your time to tell you how important your work is or how well you do it - you already know this or you wouldn't be doing it. Instead I will make some minor remarks with the hope of making MER even better....

Alphonsos Pangas

One addition to Bruzonsky's comments on Arafat. The concrete reason why Arafat was brought to Washington just now, was to guarantee the new settlement 'har homa' can be built with no [effective] Palestinian protest. The previous round of uprisal was brought about by a much more minor issue. Now it is a serious issue of stealing a substantial peace of Palestinian land. (Part of the land was stolen privately before (=bought from a third party in the absence of the owners), shortly after the 67 war, by the Jewish business group 'makor', headed by David Mir, and the Israeli government paid the modest amount of 60 million dollars to the original thieves, to get the rights to the land. This transaction is labeled mysteriously, "confiscation", which helps create the impression that part of this land was originally owned by Jews.) True, Arafat has managed to prove the previous round that he can do his job of the Israeli policeman and break the uprisal. But he was too slow and too inefficient on that. This 'neglect' resulted in serious troubles for Israel, and a huge wave of international support for Palestinian struggle. Now, before Israel starts building in Har-Homa, it is necessary to make sure Arafat is prepared in advance for preventing any uprise. He promised of course that there would be 'no violence' as Israel and USA put it. Furthermore, the only concrete agreement signed in Washington concerns USA aid to the PA for 'fighting terror', including sophisticated means to deal with various forms of potential uprisals. Clinton's demands included closing the Palestinian's institutes in East Jerusalem. (All this was reported in 'haaretz', March 4.) Mr. Chairman accepts everything, of course. Just a day after his visit, the order to close 4 such offices went out. Trusting that no one ever reads the papers beyond the headlines, Clinton has issued the traditional token 'expression of worry' about this closure, which a day before he demanded that Arafat accepts. ('haaretz', March 6).

Professor Tonya Reinhart - Tel Aviv University

Thanks for your great service.

In my opinion for what it is worth the vilain of the piece is not Arafat but the week-knee'd US Government. It has sufficient clout to bring about peace quickly if it wants to. For example if Clinton stated: for every new home constructed on Har Homa I will deduct 10 million dollars from next year's hand out to Israel, I am sure that there would not be too much building. Similarly if he had said during the Intifada : Each dead Palestinian child = 10 million dollars less for you guys to play around with, there would nothave been all those hundreds and hundreds of dead Palestinian kids. Unfortunately Clinton won't do what he has to do; for some reason he is scared of the Jewish lobby. God knows why.

Shimon

[MER - Comments like those from Mr. Pangas are indeed appreciated, and along with support and assistance, very much needed if people want to see MER continue and become better and more effective. Tonya Reinhart is on the mark. Mid East experts have seen these kinds of protests come and go from the Palestinians -- indeed the history books are full of them. In essense, one would expect the natives to occassionally protest and shout abit -- but they never do so effectively and they are always outgunned, out-classed, and out- manuevered by the Israelis who are always backed up by the Americans. In the end, the Arab regimes and "leaders" are always bought off cheaply and inconsequentialy. After all, if Har Homa is illegal, what about Gilo, Maale Adunim, Ariel, and all the other illegal settlements and expansions for the past 30 years. Furthermore, of course, Arafat himself and the small group of syncophants around him have a very long history of making terrible mistakes and awful agreements. Indeed, as Reinhart suggests, the Israelis and the Americans use Yasser Arafat incessitantly and repeatedly. His primary job is now to control Hamas and confirm U.S. centrality in the region rather than that of the Europeans or the U.N. or the Arabs for that matter! He is now used to legitimize settlements and by-pass roads throghout the occupied territories while giving root to the concept of "joint" police-forces and the overall concept of "autonomy" rather than independence. He is to prevent "violent" protest and to give fig-leaf to the notion of 'peace process' which in reality is a "domination process". And all the while this issue and that issue occupy public attention, the Israelis in reality pursue and enforce "autnomomy" for Palestinians -- a concept which was originally put forward by Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon -- just go back and read the Begin and Sharon plans of the 70s and 80s. And Shimon is right as well. IF the U.S. really wanted to do something to insure true Palestinian rights, and real Palestinian State- hood, it certainly has the leverage and power to do so. Where Shimon misses the mark abit is that it is not that Bill Clinton is "scared of the Jewish lobby". For all practical purposes Bill Clinton IS the Jewish lobby...having joined it and sold himself to it quite some time ago more than all other American presidents combined!]