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MER 216 Table of Contents

Back to Halper's "The 94 Percent Solution"

The Matrix: How to Create Facts on the Ground

  1. Expropriate land and exert constant pressures (including threats, extortion and bribes) on Palestinians to sell their lands.
  2. Locate settlements strategically so as to maintain control over the Territories even while "giving up" territory.
  3. Carve the Occupied Territories into areas that do not permit freedom of movement. Areas A, B, C and D in the West Bank, areas H-1 and H-2 in Hebron, Yellow, Green, Blue and White Areas in Gaza, and "open green spaces" of restricted housing in Palestinian East Jerusalem are good examples.
  4. Construct a massive system of highways and bypass roads to link settlements and create barriers between Palestinian areas.
  5. Control movement through the imposition of closed military areas, establishing a thick web of internal checkpoints and maintaining control of all border crossings.
  6. Locate army bases in strategic sites, occupying land while keeping weaponry ready for reasserting control.
  7. Construct industrial parks that give new life to isolated settlements, exploit cheap Palestinian labor while denying it access to Israel, rob Palestinian cities of their economic vitality, control key locations and ensure Israel's ability to continue dumping its industrial wastes onto the West Bank.
  8. Maintain control over aquifers and other natural resources.
  9. Exploit holy places as pretexts for maintaining a "security presence."

The Matrix: How to Weave a Web of Bureaucracy

  1. "Close" the West Bank and Gaza permanently, thereby violating freedom of movement and goods, impoverishing the Palestinian population and destroying the Palestinian economy.
  2. Issue permits restricting freedom of movement both within the country and abroad.
  3. Zone land so as to freeze the natural development of Palestinian towns and villages. Building permits, enforced by house demolitions, arrests, fines and daily harassment, work well.
  4. Draw expansive "master plans" around settlements, and then claim that settlement building has been "frozen."
  5. Restrict planting of crops. Destroy others, like the hundreds of thousands of olive and fruit trees uprooted since 1967.
  6. Employ licensing and inspection of Palestinian businesses as a means of political control.

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MERIP OP-EDS

A Country at a Crossroads
 The Austin-American Statesman (Austin, Texas)
November 9, 2007
Kamran Asdar Ali

"A very frank discussion"— so President Bush described his Nov. 7 telephone conversation with Pervez Musharraf, four days after the Pakistani general imposed a state of emergency and dissolved the high court expected to rule his continued presidency unconstitutional. And frank the discussion probably was: In the face of spirited protest in Pakistan, and a querulous press in Washington, back-channel pressure succeeded in persuading Musharraf to promise parliamentary elections. Yet the generous U.S. aid earmarked for Pakistan — on top of nearly $10 billion since 2001 — is quite evidently not at risk.

What may be at risk is Musharraf's tenure as head of the military government. Full story>>

Waging Peace, Step by Step
 Garden City Telegram
October 2007
Chris Toensing

The war debate in Washington is bogged down. Partisan rancor is one reason why, and bipartisan desire for US hegemony in the oil-rich Persian Gulf is another. But many Americans are vexed by a nobler concern: that a “precipitous” US departure from Iraq would leave intensified civil war, ethnic-sectarian cleansing and massive refugee flows in its wake. This concern is legitimate. Unfortunately, the sad fact is that Iraq’s civil war and humanitarian emergency have grown steadily worse as the US military deployment there wears on. Full Story>>

Israel's Military Court System Is the Model to Avoid
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
October 28, 2007
Lisa Hajjar

Should the United States, seeking to recalibrate the balance between security and liberty in the "war on terror," emulate Israel in its treatment of Palestinian detainees? That is the position that Guantanamo detainee lawyers Avi Stadler and John Chandler of Atlanta, and some others, have advocated. That people in U.S. custody could be held incommunicado for years without charges, and could be prosecuted or indefinitely detained on the basis of confessions extracted with torture is worse than a national disgrace. It is an assault on the foundations of the rule of law. Full Story>>

Israel's Occupation Remains Poisonous
 The Mountain Mail
 July 26, 2007
Lori Allen

There is an oft-told Palestinian allegory about a family who complained their house was small and cramped. In response, the father brought the farm animals inside -- the goat, the sheep and the chickens all crowded into the house. Then, one by one, he moved the animals back outside. By the time the last chicken left, the family felt such relief they never complained of the lack of elbow room again. Full Story>>

 
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