MID-EAST REALITIES - Even U.S. State Dept says so! ************************************************************

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Things are so bad for Palestinians that even the U.S. State Department has a hard time finding suitably bland language to try to minimize the bleak realities. In its recent annual Human Rights report the State Department does everything possible to find the least negative words to describe the oppression and intimidation all Palestinians now live under. More and more the direct agent of these con- ditions is the Israeli-sponsored "Palestinian Authority"; though it should not be forgotten for a moment that the Israeli military occupation continues albeit in new form, now with all Palestinian population centers surrounded and divided from each other more than at any time in history.

According to the State Department report, both Israel and Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) continue to commit "serious" human rights violations against Palestinians. But at every step of the way the report uses language to minimize and underplay the seriousness and magnitude of the apartheid-like conditions Palestinians are now forced to endure and the variety of international crimes that are being committed against the Palestinians collectively as well as individually.

According to the report, conditions in Israeli prisons in the territories are termed "poor"; and those in Palestinian prisons "very poor." The actual reality is that conditions are abismal with savage forms of torture and even sadism well-documented and an all-pervasive climate of severe intimidation now omnipresent.

The PA occasionally uses "excessive force" in attempting to root out terrorism and there are "credible reports" of torture, according to the State Department document, which adds: "The PA also continued to harass, detain and abuse journalists and political activists who criticized the PA. Although the PA claims to tolerate expression of a range of views, human rights watchers say that Palestinian commentators and critics practice self-censorship out of fear that they would be harassed or punished by the PA if they criticized it. The PA strongly discourages dissenting views."

Futhermore, according to the State Department report, the PA's legal system is at best "chaotic."

It should be obvious that if the U.S. State Department puts this kind of thing in print after doing all it can to gloss over the depth of the terrible situation and come up with the least damning words, the realities for Palestinians living under the now double-occupation of the Arafat Regime and the Israeli military occupation is simply awful.

Even so, U.S. taxpayers continue to provide the Israelis, and now the Arafat regime, the money, equipment, and training that makes this situation possible. One word sums up the realities of life for Palestinians as the "peace process" continues: outrageous.

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