Contents Introduction page2 An interview with Sabah Abu Hudeid, head of Baqa’a Women’s Cooperative in the Palestinian Refugee Camp of al-Baqa’a, near Amman, Jordan page 3 Security - "The War is With the Arabs" By Hannah Mermelstein page 6 Dividing War Spoils: Israel's Robbery of Palestinian Property. By Dr. Salman Abu Sitta page 8 The end of Israel? By Hannah Mermelstein page 12 The Real Roots of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict By Julian Kunnie page 15 Arno J. Mayer, Plowshares into Swords By Sam Ayache page 19 www.dialogue-review.com Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 1 Introduction This latest issue of Dialogue comes out a to poverty. After recognizing the Israelis as few days before the opening of the annual “neighbours”, the Palestinian Authority is session of the UN and just after the accelerating the transformation of the publishing of the Goldstone Report on the territories that it is in charge of into “special extortion committed by the Israeli army economic zones”, deregulated and during last winter’s “Operation Cast Lead”. controlled by an internal army of prison Isn’t there a connection between these guards and flouting the Right of Return. This two events? The US president Barack is what the future of the claimed Obama is to deliver a speech and offer “Palestinian State” looks like. new proposals in order to re-launch the sacrosanct “peace process”. The US, Can there be no other perspective for the which is out of its depth in Iraq, losing Palestinian people ? After 60 years of ground in Afghanistan and becoming refusing a division, expressed by the hated by an increasing majority of the inalienable claim to a Right of Return, will it Pakistani people, considers that a settling of have to be accepted? what it has been agreed to call the Palestinian question is urgent. Can there be no democratic perspective ? Amongst the Zionist leaders and their allies, But what can be expected of this new there are many who consider that the peace plan? Can peace be spoken of creating of two states has become urgent without the recognition of the equal rights in order to save the essential of what exists. of all the populations who live between the In a recent interview, Shimon Peres Mediterranean and Jordan? Is peace, as expressed his alarm over the fact that if the has been queried in several contributions to state of Israel “doesn’t advance quickly in this revue, compatible with predatory this direction, a time will come where the Zionism? Can we speak of peace without perspective of a two-state solution will the implementing of the Right of Return for topple into a single state for Israelis and all refugees, no matter where they come Palestinians in which Jews will no longer from, and the reconstruction of the villages dominate, (a perspective) which will destroyed in 1948? effectively mean the end of the state of Israel” (AP, September 4). In an article For 20 years, from new peace plan to new published by the Washington Post, Jimmy peace plan, the « process » has never Carter has stated as worrisome the fact come to anything but a worsening of the that “many Palestinian leaders are seriously situation. Worsening of the situation of the considering accepting the solution of a populations, acceleration of the stealing of single-state between Jordan and the land, of massacres, of the suffering of the Mediterranean Sea”. Palestinian people and worsening in the degradation of the institutions of the But isn’t there another perspective, a Palestinian Authority, as of the state of democratic one? Don’t the articles that Israel, deep in corruption, in rising militarism, are published here, meant by their writers pushing a majority of the Jewish as a contribution to the discussion, indicate populations – especially the eastern ones – that the debate needs to be pursued? The editors Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 2 An interview with Sabah Abu Hudeid, head of Baqa’a Women’s Cooperative in the Palestinian Refugee Camp of al-Baqa’a, near Amman, Jordan. Baqa’a camp, which is 22 kilometres from members of Palestinian political Amman, is the largest in Jordan. It was organisations. These elements must have founded in 1968 during the second wave of stirred the fear of the Hashemite expulsions of Palestinians from the West governments who saw them as a threat to Bank, the first having been in 1948. After their power. Still, it can be said that the war of 1967, many of those who had Palestinians were making the Jordanian been expelled in 1948 had to flee a second economy work. time, this time to Jordan. In 1950, After Black September and the massacres Palestinians from Transjordan had acquired of refugees organised by King Hussein, the Jordanian citizenship, the object of that Palestinian leaders left for Lebanon. decision being to bottle the Palestinian Restrictions were imposed on Palestinians; question and to quell the conflict. It was police checks became more serious. The also a way of providing cheap labour in University of Jordan was still essentially order to help construct the Hashemite made up of Palestinian students, but Kingdom. political and union activities were forbidden. During this period the policy of Most jobs and administrative positions were replacing Palestinians by native Jordanians occupied by Palestinians. The prime was launched and Palestinian quotas were minister of Jordan, Ibrahim Hashem, was a set up. “Jordanization” was established at Palestinian from Nablus. There were any price, even with slackers and Palestinians everywhere at that time: civil incompetents. This is the policy that is still servants, workers, teachers; many of them applied today, whereby Palestinians, on were leftist activists. top of these restrictions, are hard hit by unemployment. Very early on, there were Palestinians all over Jordan. They enabled the It is in this context that the place of women development of the kingdom, while the holds all its importance. When the expelled Hashemite tribe were essentially stock Palestinians first arrived, the women were breeders, as was their tradition. This, particularly oriented towards jobs in consequently, caused a separation of roles education and teaching. Schools were early on, Palestinians being in free, everyone attended them. From the administration and Hashemites in the beginning, it was the only occupation, but military. also the only way to evolve, to establish cohesion amongst ourselves. In 1950, the Before the Sykes-Picot agreement and up goal of the power in place was that all the until 1967, there was only one single region resources of the country take part in the in which people felt close. It was not economic expansion and thus women difficult for Palestinians to get and to keep were to benefit from it. With their high positions of responsibility. Real fraternity school bachelor degree diploma, women existed between the original native tribes could work in hospitals, find jobs in some of and the Palestinians. Jordanians were the Gulf countries and especially in Saudi Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 3 Arabia as teachers. In my case, I got my women volunteers who in the beginning “bac” in 1967 with high marks and so I, too, concentrated on social activities, but little could have gone to Saudi Arabia but by little became more political, and to instead I preferred to stay with my father, a further the emancipation of women, political activist, who was under house- through the setting up of “workshops on arrest. In 1967, I was one of the first history”, equally open to youth and to men, Palestinian women to enrol in university in order to help the refugees learn again (studies often ended for women after the and retrieve their own history. bachelor degree). This activity began in closed places but its In the camps, networking was significant expansion was quickly stopped by the and taking shape, but nothing specific yet Jordanian authorities. existed for women because of Jordanian refusal. The first organisation devoted to The Palestinians who lived in the camp women’s rights was made up of volunteers managed to keep up a very strong link with from the camps. their past. They are still highly conscious of their situation as refugees and very At the time of the mobilisations, especially attached to their Right of Return. before Black September, the situation of women was exemplary. Most of the Before Black September, all the women activists came out of this period. organisations were mobilised towards The situation worsened from 1970-1971 preparing the Return. The Right of Return, onwards. originally a real and compelling right, has turned into a question of principle, as the Among the activities that developed, it Palestinian organisations have had to take became necessary to fight in order to have clandestine refuge. But once the raids and the right to play sports and to use the same the incursions began, there were always infrastructures as men, and to provide a demonstrations in the camps. Today, the library for girls so that they, too, had access Palestinian awareness of the Right of Return to culture. And after just one week, the is very much alive. Resistance can only be authorities refused to maintain the library. built on education, on dawning awareness, even though all Palestinians are ready and The women of the time came back from willing to fight for it if necessary. My father, Saudi Arabia with money but in general who was part of the Popular Front for the brought nothing to the Palestinians in the Liberation of Palestine, took part in a camps. military operation in the West Bank in 1983.