MERIP Media Resource List, August 18, 2005

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS on the following topic:
- Gaza disengagement: Israeli public opinion and the consequences of Israel's illegal settlement policy

NEVE GORDON
Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel and is currently a visiting scholar at the Watson Institute for International Relations at Brown University. He is completing a book on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. He said today: "Now that the withdrawal from Gaza is underway it is high time to ask whether or not it will advance Israeli-Palestinian peace. It will not. In the near future, the cycle of violence will likely intensify -- a direct consequence of Prime Minister Sharon's unilateral approach. Without negotiations, it is naïve to expect that the conflict will end any time soon."

GARY SUSSMAN
Gary Sussman is director of research and development at the Harold Hartog School of Government and Public Policy at Tel Aviv University. He commented today : "For a long time, both the Israeli right and the Palestinians were convinced that Ariel Sharon was bluffing about disengaging from Gaza. The settlers are now confronted with both Sharon's dogged determination and, perhaps more disconcertingly, the indifference of Israelis to their plight. The settler leadership threatened to flood Gush Katif with 100,000 people and bring the Israeli metropole to a standstill and Tel Aviv's coffee shops are packed. Only a few thousand people answered the call. Ariel Sharon has won perhaps his and Israel's most important battle. He is poised to demonstrate to all, Israelis in particular, that the settlements can be rolled back."

STEPHANIE KOURY
Stephanie Koury is a lawyer and research fellow at the Hotung Programme on Law, Human Rights and Peacebuilding in the Middle East at the University of London. From 2000 -2004 she served as a legal adviser for the Palestinian negotiation team, where she was responsible for the files on Israeli settlements, the wall and international humanitarian law. She commented today: " What is being overlooked in this evacuation of settlers is the role that successive Israeli governments have played since 1967 in directing and funding the building of Israeli settlements on occupied territory. Establishing settlements is a violation of international law. Israel has created a culture of lawlessness and impunity with its settlement policy.”

MOUIN RABBANI
Mouin Rabbani is senior Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group, specializing on Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict, and a contributing editor of Middle East Report . He has published widely on Palestinian issues and travels there frequently. He said today: " Although significant, dismantling settlements in the Gaza Strip is only one part of the much larger Israeli-Palestinian equation. The key issue remains what, if anything, comes next. It is the answer to this latter question that will determine whether Israeli-Palestinian relations are heading towards peaceful resolution or renewed conflict. Thus far, the signs are not encouraging."

GRAHAM USHER
Graham Usher, a contributing editor of Middle East Report , is a reporter for the Economist and author of Dispatches from Palestine: The Rise and Fall of the Oslo Peace Process (London: Pluto Press, 1999). He said today: "August 15 -- the first day of disengagement -- is the day Israel began establishing its permanent borders."

Background:

+ Neve Gordon, "The Militarist and Messianic Ideologies," Middle East Report Online , July 8, 2004
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero070804.html

+ Gary Sussman, "Ariel Sharon and the Jordan Option," Middle East Report Online, March 2005
http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/sussman_interv.html

+ Mouin Rabbani, "Gaza's Wars of Perception," Middle East Report Online , October 14, 2004
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero101404.html

+ Peretz Kidron, "Sharon's Sights on Strategic Objective," Middle East Report Online , April 14, 2004
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero041404.html

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