n.d.    The Right of Return, maaber, Uri Avnery
19 Nov 45   Herbert Hoover Suggests Palestinian Settlements in Iraq, New York World Telegram
1948    Lest We Forget
1949    Arab Refugees: A Survey of Resettlement Possibilities, RIIA, S.G. Thicknesse
4 Dec 92  Mosul Vilayet Red Cross (MVRC) appeal to George Bush on Emergency Winter Help
22 Dec 92   MVRC - France Liberté on cooperation for effective relief operations
25 Dec 92   MVRC - ICRC Tel Aviv: relief offer for 400 deported Palestinians (Hamas)
29 Dec 92   Turf battle: ICRC protests "illegal" Red Cross efforts, threatens penal measures - Editor's Note
3 Jan 93   Report to Swiss lawmakers on sabotaged humanitarian efforts
6 Jan 93   Report to Military Command Center on Relief Flight Preparations
10 Jan 93   413 Deported Palestinians, relief offer confirmation to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
1995    Palestine-in-Saudi Arabia? The Islamic conception of migration: past, present and future, Sami Aldeeb
18 Jun 96   Private alert to UN Secretary General on UN disfunctions & growing avoidable headaches
8 Oct 96   US Vice-President invited to think out-of-the-box & break out of worn-out tracks on Palestine
28 Oct 96   Assyrian Universal Alliance presents alternative approaches for Northern Iraq to Al Gore
16 Dec 96   Senator John Nimrod alerts Al Gore on UN's looting of Assyrian properties
1 Jan 97   ON THE RESPECT OF HUMAN RIGHTS AT THE UN IN GENEVA
3 Dec 01   Inspired by Babylon 1: a transitional Palestinian homeland at the Old Empire's Northern perimeter?
21 Apr 08   Sharon said to want half of West Bank land, Washington Times
26 Apr 02   Israel's Historic Miscalculation, NYT, editorial
28 Apr 02   And if the Palestinians really cried uncle?, letter to IHT
30 Apr 02   It Aint Necessarily So!, letter to NYT
6 Nov 04   A Redefining Babylonian Exile for Uprooted "Palestinians", israpost, Bruce Brill
21 Mar 06   Invitation for Ray Hanania to commemorative festivities for Sheik Mahmoud Al Hafeed
10.Mai 07   Palästinensische Vertriebene aus dem Irak ohne Zuflucht, NZZ
1.Okt 07   Schweizer Menschenrechtspraxis, parlamentarische Anfrage zum Fall M.S.Mahmoud (version française)
21 Mar 08   Could Palestinians untangle Mideastern gridlocks?
10 Apr 08   Former President Carter to Meet With Hamas Chief, WP, Glenn Kessler
18 May 08   For Israelis, an Anniversary. For Palestinians, a Nakba, NYT,Elias Khoury, Op-Ed Contributor
 

3.   With the current Israeli Government elected and apparently thriving on a security platform providing for the maintenance and continued ordinary development of most settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, and with the Quartet’s official road map and the private Geneva initiative at least not yet, or in the foreseeable future meeting the reality test for a practical way out of the generations-old political gridlock of overlapping land claims, the Palestinian leadership might be offered to negotiate a mutually beneficial temporary exile in Iraq – with President Arafat perhaps more influential when acting from abroad, e.g. with a temporary sabbatical or medical leave in Geneva. The conceivable deal:

1. the Iraqi Government extends an invitation to all Palestinians – including Hamas, etc. – to assist in the reconstruction of Iraq and to settle in Iraq, with the right to preferential acquisition of real estate in the Diyala District;
2. the Palestinian Authority is granted a renewable 49-year Hong Kong-type lease for part of the Diyala District, with the right to establish there an internationally recognizable Palestinian Government-in-exile;
3. the Palestinians have an internationally guaranteed right to their real estate in all of Palestine; they can either buy, sell, lease or belabor their own land holdings which, if situated in the occupied territories, shall remain under Israeli administration for the duration of the Diyala lease; landowners can visit their holdings anytime;
4. the Israeli Government guarantees the protection and proper maintenance of Palestinian assets under its jurisdiction; both visiting and resident Palestinians are to receive national treatment, political and military rights reserved to Israeli citizens notwithstanding;
5. the Palestinian Authority, at the invitation of the Israeli Government, appoints the mayors of those towns and villages in the occupied territories where Palestinians are in the majority; the Israeli Government consults and seeks the cooperation of the Palestinian Authority notably on infrastructure and all other matters of mutual concern; the parties agree to bi-annually renegotiated preferential conditions for bilateral trades.

5.   Swiss Parliamentarians, in the event, are prepared to facilitate the realization of the above efforts. With regard to the proposal to invite qualified Iraqi athletes for Olympic training in Switzerland, the Swiss Government has already agreed to support the Swiss Olympic Association’s related efforts (.../mvcolympia.html). A Palestinian athlete currently prepares himself under difficult circumstances for a spot in the swimming category. His integration in the Swiss solidarity Olympic program may be mutually acceptable and beneficial.

J.A.Keller, Representative
box 2580 - CH 1211 Geneva 2
fax: 4122-7400362

December 4, 1992

Mr. George BUSH, President
The White House
Washington D.C. fax: 1202-3955221

Dear Mister President,

I am mandated to transmit this urgent Red Cross appeal to you - and to the responsible authorities by way of your good offices. Several million people in the embargoed but non-government-controlled part of Northern Iraq are presently at risk to freeze to death this winter, according to the interim report which Max van der Stoel, Special Rapporteur on Iraq, submitted to the Security Council (see enclosed extract). Failure to develop and implement appropriate alternatives to the present dependence on Baghdad to fulfil its latest paper obligations would not be seen to be in line with Western humanitarian traditions.

Accordingly, the leaders of the tribes, the health services and the teachers of that area have set up, and registered in Arbil a Baghdad-independent Red Cross Society. I have been asked to organize the external realization of the following key programmes:

1.     Extention of the soup kitchen programme to all 1200 schools, and
2.     Acquisition and air-lifting of winter cloth, covers and pocket warmers (fueled with solid carbon sticks sufficient for at least two months), with the equitable and free distribution of these goods to be assured by the teachers who, at the initiative of the tribal leader-based Mosul Vilayet Council, carried out a full census of all households in July/August in the northern governorates (census points: members, economic, health, education and public services situation, special observations).

J.A.Keller

enclosures: mandate; A/47/367/Add.1

J.A.Keller, Representative
box 2580 - CH 1211 Geneva 2
22 December 1992

FRANCE LIBERTE
Mme Amanda Harding
Paris 331-47558181 f:88

re: Baghdad- and UN-independent effective relief operations
    in non-government-controlled Northern Iraq

Dear Madame,

     You were right about the NGO meeting held in Geneva under an attractive title: it did not produce more than an intellectually stimulating exchange of views.

     With the situation in Northern Iraq what it is, and your plans for providing some effective punctual relief apparently also delayed, I suggest you to consider joining us for an informal open-end meeting on New Year's eve in St.Moritz, at the Suvretta Hotel. There, around the theme of "guests of St.Moritz take charge", a group of art-loving, humanitarian citizens of this world are scheduled to discuss alternative and traditional methods and means for providing effective prompt relief to, notably, the Assyrians, the Kurds and the Turkomans of the liberated part of the Mosul Vilayet. The focal point of their attraction - and relief contributions - will be Andy Warhol's last masterpiece "The Last Supper", which 2x11m re-interpretation of Leoardo da Vinci's last supper is intended to be bought and given as a gift to the United Nations on the occasion of the UN Year of Indigenous Peoples (to be exhibited permanently at the UN in Geneva in the Assembly lobby, E building).

     Trusting this to be of interest to you, too, I am looking forward to meeting you then and there - and to get serious about organizing the airlift of survival goods to Arbil and Suleymania with the help of imaginative humanitarian aid officials, airforce members, government officials and other public and private enterpreneurial human beings who happen to be there or who will have made the extra effort to participate in our emergency operation designed to keep untold numbers of victims of the Iraqi government - and of the persistent UN fumblings - from freezing to death this winter.

    Sincerely yours, and all the best for Christmas and the New Year,

J.A.Keller

cc:  Senator Nimrod; Senator John Glenn; Alain Michel; Senator Nunn;
     Lord Ennals; The Hon. Emma Nicholsen; Lord Kennet;
     Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan; B.Bischofberger, etc.

J.A.Keller, Representative
box 2580 - CH 1211 Geneva 2

 25 December 1992

Dear Sirs,

This is to present my compliments and, at the suggestion of the ICRC in Geneva, to avail myself of your good offices for transmitting the following good offices offer to the Israeli, Lebanese and Palestinian Red Cross/Crescent organizations and, in the event, to other interested parties.

The Red Cross of the Mosul Vilayet (Northern Iraq), through its Plenipotentiary in Geneva, is prepared to immediately arrange for the temporary accomodation for the presently stranded Palestinians in Southern Lebanon in the liberated part of the Mosul Vilayet for humanitarian reasons and, in the event, to cooperate with the Allied, UN, Red Cross and humanitarian organizations concerned in order to effectively provide for the prompt and secure airlift, reception and stay of these expelled and widely rejected human beings in line with the universally valid principles enshrined in the applicable conventions, treaties and declarations.

Thanking you in advance for your prompt cooperation, I take this opportunity to assure you of my highest considerations and extend my best New Year's wishes to you.

Sincerely yours,

J.A.Keller

FAX FROM :
International Committee of the Red Cross
19, avenue de la Paix
CH 1202 GENEVA
Tél. 022 734 60 01 Telex 414226 Fax 022 733 20 57

DATE : 29.12.92
No   : DDM/JUR 92/2037/MSA/jr           7 PAGES including this page

_____________________________________________________________________

TO : Telecopy No 3117970

  Mr. J.A. Keller  Geneva

MESSAGE   :

Dear Sir,

This is to confirm our telephone conversation of today. Considering the different humanitarian initiatives you take in the name of the "Mossul Vilayet Red Cross", in particular in recent days concerning the fate of the Palestinian deportees deported into an area between Israeli controlled and Lebanese controlled Lebanese territory, we would like to ask you formally not to use the name of the "red cross" (or "red crescent"). Such a misuse of the name of the red cross creates confusion, endangers our negotiations with the parties concerned and therefore risks to prolong the suffering of the victims concerned. Furthermore, legally, the emblem or the name of the red cross (or the red crescent) may only be employed by the States Party to the Geneva Conventions to indicate medical units and establishments, by National Red Cross Societies duly recognised by the ICRC, ... and by the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (cf. art. 44 of the First Geneva Convention, annex 1). As a representative of the "Mossul Vilayet Red Cross" you may therefore not use the name of the Red Cross. The Geneva Conventions furthermore oblige all States Parties to pass legislation necessary to prevent and repress such misuses of the red cross (cf. art. 53 and 54 of the First Convention, annex 2). Switzerland, from where you act, has passed such legislation by the "loi fédérale concernant la protection de l'emblème et du nom de la Croix-Rouge" of 25 March 1954 (annex 3). Art. 8 of that law punishes those who misuse the name of the red cross in the way you do with imprisonment or fine.

While we express our full respect for humanitarian activities of your organisation, we hope that these explanations spare us and you further legal steps.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Marco Sassoli Legal Adviser for the Middle East

Granted, there is good reason for the texts Dr. Sassoli was asked to play up. Granted every private initiative risks to succede before established apparatus rev up. Which can explain the intense unhappiness of some officials who may see themselves as gardians if not of the Holy Grail then of some monopoly in humanitarian affairs. That is what happened in the Falklands/Malvinas conflict, the hostage affairs in Teheran, Kuwait/Baghdad and, most recently again, in Afghanistan and Peru (for a review of these and other cases, see also: "Edouard Brunner, MPD (Master of Parallel Diplomacy)", www.solami.com/diplomacy.htm). What is less understandable, what is saddening and less than acceptable - and what the public and their elected representatives grow less and less tolerant about with correspondingly reduced willingness to support solidarity projects - is that the real objectives of all humanitarian efforts thus become overshadowed, if not jeopardized, by petty turf objectives, with the victims additionally victimized at the hands of their purported saviors. That's what happened with our initiative for helping some Palestinian deportees, with our St.Moritz meeting and with related efforts. They were all brought to nought, not least with penal threats against the organizers who were taken by surprise by the long arms of some purported monopoly holders and their allies in many quarters. In a noted silent protest, a one-to-one reproduction of Andy Warhol's "Last Supper" was thus exhibited prominently over the frozen Lake of St.Moritz during January 1993 - as a silent message for the well-fed to be remined of their less fortunate fellow human beings.

an:     Herren Nationalräte P.Couchepin, F.Steinegger, H.Weder

von:  J.Anton Keller, Beauftragter des Mosul Vilayet Red Cross,
           Postfach 2580, 1211 Genf 2 (zZ: 01-2120563)

re:      Transport von Winterhilfsgütern der Armee nach Nordirak

Entgegen den klaren Zusagen des Vertreters des Katastrophen-Hilfskorps fand die Sitzung zur gemeinsamen Ueberprüfung der einschlägigen Transportfragen (von den 6 Zeughäusern zum Abholflughafen Basel, und von dort nach Arbil) bisher nicht statt; die einschlägigen EDA-Stellen und das Schweiz. Rote Kreuz scheinen sich sogar aktiv querzulegen. All dies nicht aus Gründen welche der unbestreitbaren Notlage entsprechen, sondern wegen formeller Bedenken und zufolge eines schwerverständlichen Monopolanspruchs.

Demgegenüber hat Herr Bundesrat Villiger's Sachbearbeiter, Herr Loretan (031-675077), zuvorkommende Bereitschaft bekundet, beim innerschweizerischen Materialzusammenzug und Transport behilflich zu sein, und gegebenenfalls auch bezüglich der Kosten von Fr.12000 für die ca.30t Ueberschussmaterial von den bestehenden EMD-Kompetenzen Gebrauch zu machen (zB. wenn sich interessierte Parlamentarier dafür einsetzen würden). Für den für Mitte Januar vorgesehenen Charterflug habe ich zwei sehr günstige Offerten erhalten: Zimex Aviation (Zollikon) Fr.58'500; Berline (Berlin) DM 59'800. Für diese Posten und weitere Programmpunkte (zB. Handwärmer der Genfer Firma Ernest Mayor SA: Fr.505'500; 100'000 Wolldecken der Firma Eskimo Textil AG in Turbenthal: Fr.950'000) fehlen aber noch weiterhin die festen Finanzierungszusagen. Die Wolldeckenlieferung allein würde voraussichtlich sechs weitere Flüge auslasten. Der Kapitalbedarf für dieses Soforthilfeprogramm, inkl, administrative Aufwendungen, beläuft sich demnach auf rund zwei Millionen Franken, und ich ersuche Sie höflich um entsprechende dringende Fürsprache insbesondere bei den Herren Bundesräten Villiger, Felber und Stich. Ich werde mir erlauben, Sie in den nächsten Tagen dazu telephonisch anzusprechen.

Inzwischen habe ich mich auch an einer einschlägigen Solidaritäts-Aktion in St.Moritz beteiligt, welche zugunsten der vertriebenen Völker und der Opfer des Krieges im ehemaligen Yugoslawien im Rahmen des UNO-Jahres der Eingeborenen Völker und in Verbindung mit dem eindrücklichen Leonardo da Vinci/Andy Warhol Meisterwerk "The Last Supper" zu Jahresbeginn erfolgte. Bei einer Rückfrage durch eine SDA-Sachbearbeiterin (Frau Santschi, 031-243333) wurde ich auch nach dem Hintergrund des Winterhilfprogramms für die Bewohner des Mosul Vilayet (Nordirak) befragt. Ich erlaubte mir dabei auf die bereits im Nationalrat dazu erfolgte Einfache Anfrage Weder, sowie auf die Unterstützung einschlägiger Bemühungen durch weitere Parlamentarier hinzuweisen, wobei ich als Beispiele die Herren Nationalräte Couchepin und Steinegger namentlich erwähnte. Ich hoffe gerne, Ihnen damit dienlich gewesen zu sein, und dass dieser Hinweis gegebenenfalls bei Rückfragen Ihre Bestätigung finden und jedenfalls in Ihrem Sinne in der Oeffentlichkeit zum Ausdruck kommen wird.

Inzwischen verbleibe ich, mit besten Wünschen zum Neuen Jahr, Ihr

Anton Keller

Beilagen: BAZ 21.12; EDA 21.12.92;
MVRC-ICRC 25.12.92; Press release 1.1.93.

J.A.Keller, Secretary
POB 2580 - 1211 Geneva 2
fax: 4122-3117970, 411-2120563

Zurich, 6 January 1993

Military Command Center, Zako
attn: Col. Robert Young
Lt.Col. Christ Sanderson
t+f: 873-1505372

I appreciate your cordial reception and de-briefing on my way back on November 11, and wonder about the present and foreseeable relief situation, particularly the transport conditions and the readiness of the Arbil, Harire and Suleymania air fields for accomodating emergency relief flights.

Having studied in particular the food and fuel supply situation during my six-weeks stay in Arbil, I have obtained from the Swiss Army and private suppliers offers of various materiel intended to protect against cold and freezing (115'000 head covers, 26'500 gloves, 175'000 woolen scarfs, 100'000 woolen covers, sleeping bags and 17'000 pocket warmers fueled with carbon sticks for two months). Beyond these immediately available supplies, I am confident to be able to arrange for other needed items in quantity, but am not sure whether any of these supplies are really still needed in light of the apparent arrival of the long-delayed UN relief convoys and other deliveries by other governmental and NGO organizations.

If you feel additional supplies of said nature to be still - and urgently at that - needed, I would much appreciate and expect you to send me, by return fax, the best available data on:

a)  Arbil, Harire and Suleymania air fields (sketches; visual approach landing charts; MDB, ILS and other facilities available; runway conditions and lengths; etc.).

b)  Availability of air transport capacities from allied powers for transporting some 200t and 1000m3 winter protection materiel eventually provided from Swiss Army and private Swiss sources from Basel to Arbil/Suleymania.

c)  Contact tel and fax and codes for entry clearance and, if possible, AWACS guidance to be duly arranged with Swiss charter airline.

d)  Need to set up medical and humanitarian air links to and between notably said air fields, as planned by the Mosul Vilayet Red Cross, on the basis of helicopters and PC Porters eventually lent for those purposes by Swiss firms. ...

Trusting this to receive your urgent attention, I am looking forward to your up-to-date info, while extending my warmest New Years greetings and wishes to you. Sincerely yours,

J.A.Keller

ccc: Senator John Nimrod
     Lord Ennals

Permanet Representative to the United Nations
box 2580 - CH 1211 Geneva 2
fax: 4122-3117970
t+f: 01-2120563
Zurich, 10 January 1993
 

Your Excellency,

This is to present my compliments and to reiterate the offer of Good Offices in the above matter which I previously had the honor to transmit notably to the Israeli Red Cross by way of the ICRC in my capacity as Representative of the Mosul Vilayet Red Cross but which, so far, only drew a critical note from the ICRC which objected to my "different humanitarian initiatives ... concerning the fate of the Palestinian deportees deported into an area between Israeli controlled and Lebanese controlled Lebanese territory" to constitute an "abuse of the name of the red cross" which "creates confusion, endangers our negotiations with the parties concerned and therefore risks to prolong the suffering of the victims concerned." Obviously, the latter have not been the intended effects. Therefore, I may be permitted to offer the following clarifications.

1.   The Mosul Vilayet Red Cross has been formally set up and put to work by representatives of the inhabitants of the liberated part of the Mosul Vilayet (Northern Iraq) on 9 November 1992 in Arbil. It was registered on that day at the General Registry of the Mosul Vilayet, is being organized by university, health, tribal and other leaders and enjoys the support of the local authorities. It subscribes to the Geneva Red Cross Conventions, notably, and, with the full backing of the Mosul Vilayet Council as that area's supreme authority, is seen to be covered by art.26 of the First Convention. As such it may cooperate with other Red Cross Societies.

2.   My letter of accreditation and other related documents has been presented to the ICRC upon my return from Arbil in November; giving me full powers, it is signed by its key officials of which Sheik Salar Hasan Al-Hafeed, Mohammad Mahmood Harony (Jaf Tribe), Najim Omar Khedher Al-Sourchi and Mohammad Sidik Mahmoud (Secretary) are also leading personalities of the governing Mosul Vilayet Council. The offer of 25 December may thus be considered promptly.

3.   Assuming the proposed offer for a humanitarian interim accomodation of the Palestinians concerned to be of interest to the Israeli authorities, I suggest the above experience with the ICRC to be taken into account, i.e. to communicate directly either on the level of the involved Red Cross societies or on that of the involved governmental organizations.

I take this opportunity to assure Your Excellency of my highest considerations, and send my best New Year's wishes. Truly yours,

J.A.KELLER
box 2580 - 1211 Geneva 2
t+f (private in France): 33-450322842

18 June 1996,  second mail copy: 9/18/96

Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali
New York, N.Y., 10017

     For your information, please find enclosed today's Memorandum 9 of the Good Offices Group of European Lawmakers. As your Geneva office no longer avails its internal fax facilities - not even for official communications between an NGO in consultative status with ECOSOC and your office in New York, I am sending it by surface mail (including some earlier letters which have not yet drawn the courtesy of a reply).

     While you were in Geneva, I tried several times to contact you or your wife on a variety of problems which may seem small on your daily plate, but then again appear to go to the heart of some major problems bedevelling the UN, your streneous endeavors and my own small efforts to continue the work Dr.Leila Takla, other lawmakers and I begun in 1990 on festering and increasingly volatile Mideastern problems. I sent you a handwritten note by fax to the Reserve and - as recommended by your wife - at 8 am, in order to discuss an urgent problem which is soon going to be picked up by U.S. lawmakers (growingly arbitrary treatment of NGOs and their representatives and violations of due process and other human rights by the UN Administration). The communication channels being clogged, the free flow of things is likely to produce avoidable and thus the more regrettable results.

     Anyway, I wish you and your family all the best for your future and am looking forward to the pleasure of more relaxed exchanges on perhaps more meritious topics in Geneva or wherever our paths may again cross in the future.

Salve!

Anton

PS     With no resolution in sight for the in-house human rights violations committed by UNGO when they arbitrarily shut me out of the Palais des Nations - thus preventing me from going after my business there, be it as a duly accredited NGO representative, as the Special Representative of the Mosul Vilayet to the United Nations, or as a long-time researcher at the League of Nations archives - I wonder whether you have been out for lunch or actively kept from becoming aware of what has been going on at UNGO, with corresponding adverse effects on a variety of fronts. In order to bring you up-to-date, I enclose communications on current problems which won't go away by being ignored. They all urgently call for your discrete leadership, in the sense of my public statement of support (letter to the Wall Street Journal Europe, August 20, 1996):

    "I am still confident that the present U.N. secretary-general has not only the vision, but is also among the few with the courage and capacity to promptly straighten out the gangrenous mess within the U.N. as a significant contribution to effect necessary changes in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere."

enclosures:   MVC 9/15/96; Memo 9, 7/18/96; ICESC-UNSG 5/29/95; Questions on UNGO

I.C.E.S.C.              INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE
FOR EUROPEAN SECURITY AND COOPERATION

Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva
box 2580 - 1211 Geneva 2 - f: 01162 -3985006 (private t+f: 01133-450322842)

8 October 1996 (corr.2), 5 December 1996 (smc), 26 February 1997 (tmc)

Mr.Nick Scasc, Office of the U.S. Vice-President
The White House, Washington D.C. fax: 1202-4569500 t:17

     This is to follow up on our proposal of September 29 for the Israeli Prime Minister to accept "the 'American' compromise formula, providing for the contested archeological tunnel to be kept open under Israeli sovereignty but, subject to the approval of the representatives of the three One God religions, guarded and maintained by the Palestinian Authority in cooperation with the archeological community." This proposal to empower and responsibilize the Palestinians in a security-wise irrelevant but psychologically crucial field now avails itself for being explored with King Hussein of Jordan for possibly combining it with his proposals on the tunnel issue and, in the event, for being formally tabled, at the earliest opportunity, as a U.S.-Jordanian proposal. We would appreciate your informing us on whether our proposal got anywhere at last week's Washington summit, and your keeping us abreast of its eventual evolution.

     Meanwhile - in the sense of the timely alarm signals by Daniel Doron in his ed page piece "Peace Needs More Than Goodwill" (Wall Street Journal Europe, 10/4-5/96) - we would like to draw your attention to a concrete suggestion for putting real meat behind the peace process, thus making the Palestinians also less dependent on ever-scarcer and conditioned foreign aid (it was first mentioned in §15 of the enclosed letter which the undersigned had addressed to Vice-President Al Gore last July 4, in his capacity as Adviser to the Mosul Vilayet Council). It centers on the Mosul Vilayet, i.e. the birthplace of key religions, commercial crossroad, homeland of Assyrians and Kurds, tributary of Pharaohs, and strategic oil reserve of Europe which the League of Nations, in 1925, conditionally attached to the Kingdom of Iraq rather than to Turkey. As part of a more comprehensive solution to some problems which have bedevilled the Middle East at least since the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, the Mosul Vilayet, for humanitarian reasons, is to be provisionally taken out of the game and placed under a non-prejudicial interim trusteeship, i.e. its oil-bearing Diala district could be leased to the Palestinians while the rest would be entrusted to its autochthone Assyrian, Kurdish and Turkoman inhabitants which, in 1932, were placed under international protection. Until 31 August when the perennial infighting between the externally built-up but internally discredited Kurdish warlords provided an opportunity for Baghdad to extend its long arms again into the Allied-protected 'liberated' part of Northern Iraq, this regionally stabilizing interim solution was sought by way of corresponding steps which, perhaps under U.S. leadership, were to be taken by the UN General Assembly (GA Resolution 24 (I) 24 February 1946). It is our understanding that essentially the same result may - still - be obtained, provided Baghdad is driven to take corresponding steps, e.g. a 10-25 years lease of the Mosul Vilayet to either the Kingdom of Jordan or to Syria. In order to obtain such or another negotiated solution, the available leverages must be used to the maximum by the international community. This can be helped by the international obligations which Iraq incurred in 1932 with regard to minorities and the Mosul Vilayet and which still take precedence over any Iraqi "law, regulation or official action." Particularly the obligation to respect all property rights as they existed prior to Iraq's independence is a powerful instrument - also for changes in Baghdad's power structure. As pointed out in the enclosed letter to the Vice-President, themis-labelled humanitarian oil-for-food UN resolution SCR 986 should thus be kept inoperative, be modified or be replaced... lest the UN and the U.S. (as SCR 986's key sponsor) open themselves to the accusation of being accomplices in the stealing from the internationally protected oil properties of the Mosul Vilayet's Assyrians, Jews, Kurds and Turkomans.

I am still awaiting the promised substantive response from the Vice-President's office, and so are the peoples concerned who urgently await clear and reliable signals and guidelines. Trusting this to be helpful, I'd like to reiterate our interest for an early meeting with the Vice-President's representative preferably in Geneva. Meanwhile, I remain, sincerely yours,

J.A.Keller, I.C.E.S.C. Representative to the United Nations in Geneva

7055 North Clark Street
Chicago, Ill 60626
tel: (773) 2749262, fax: (773) 2745866

Senator John J.Nimrod
Secretary General

October 28, 1996

Mr. Al Gore, Vice-President
The White House
Washington f: 4569500

Dear Mister Vice-President,

The 3 mio strong Assyrian diaspora, particularly its 320000 strong U.S. branch, is concerned about the fate of its some 2 mio brethren living in Iraq, where some 200000 hold on in the Northern governorates, the Mosul Vilayet, which is a small part of what, some 4000 years ago, constituted the Assyrian Empire. Accordingly, and in light of the United Nations' persistent failures to properly address either the humanitarian needs or the special rights of Iraq's Assyrian population, we are now looking for more enlightened and helpful United States leadership towards lasting solutions in the Middle East in general and in the Mosul Vilayet in particular. Respect for Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity should be linked and be commensurate to Iraq's respect for its human rights and international minority protection obligations, including the landownership rights. To this effect and on a more regular basis, we expect to be involved in the formulation and implementation of U.S. policies affecting the Assyrian Christians in Iraq.

In the wake of the latest developments in Northern Iraq - and with due regard to the legitimate interests of Iraq, other Iraqi communities as well as of Iraq's neighbors - we are grateful to the U.S. Government for its opposition to have the problematic oil-for-food resolution SCR 986 implemented before it will have been improved under new UN management. This opens the way for a more practical solution. Indeed, SCR 986, as it stands now, has been shown in the enclosed paper "'Oil-for-Food' vs. Assyrian Property Rights in Iraq" to constitute:

-     "a new source of economic and political power, and thus ... a direct cause for further infighting between those who have essentially lost the confidence of the people yet continue to be supported by outside forces for 'governing' Iraq's non-government-controlled Northern Governorates;"

-     "a bailout of the cash-short United Nations" on the back of Assyrian and other landowners, and

-     a "formal UN-sponsored transfer of title to the Mosul Vilayet's oil resources from the present, internationally protected Assyrian [and other] landowners to the Iraqi State without consultation, compensation or due process", thus inviting risks of lengthy and damaging actions in U.S. courts.

In this sense, we would not be surprised to see the current French Mideastern diplomatic offensive to evolve - and eventually take over the spoils of ill-advised and failed policies which persistently relied on discredited warlords. Thus we look forward to assist the U.S. Government in providing instead corresponding successful leadership, and to effectively advise our members in time of the U.S. position. Sincerely yours,

Senator John J. Nimrod, Secretary General
 ASSYRIAN UNIVERSAL ALLIANCE

7055 North Clark Street
Chicago, Ill 60626
tel: (773) 2749262, fax: (773) 2745866

Senator John J.Nimrod
Secretary General

December 16, 1996

Mr. Al Gore, Vice-President
The White House
Washington f: 4569500

     This is to express our congratulation to your re-election and to that of President Clinton. It is to follow up on our correspondence of October 28/November 19, 1996, regarding notably Assyrian rights in Iraq and available pathways for arriving at a regionally stabilizing interim solution meeting security requirements, human rights concerns and international standards. And it is to express both our appreciation and concern regarding current U.S. policy on Iraq, as reflected in your letter and subsequent events, whereby we seek clarification of the U.S. position - in the event with a view to taking appropriate protective measures, including U.S. court actions and congressional hearings in order to effectively prevent the UN - apparently with U.S. Government support - from spoliating any further Assyrians holding Iraqi land titles.

     We have noted with interest President Clinton's September announcement of a fundamental review of U.S. policy on Iraq, and we would like to procede from the assumption that we will be able to effectively assist "in the formulation and implementation of U.S. policies affecting the Assyrian Christians in Iraq" (our letter to you of October 28, 1996). To this effect, we have sought to draw your particular attention to our concern regarding the international minority protection guarantees Iraq incurred as a sine qua non condition of its ascension to independence and statehood on October 3, 1932 (see our policy paper "'Oil-for-Food' vs. Assyrian Property Rights in Iraq"). And, on behalf of all some 5 mio Asyrians living either in Iraq or in the diaspora (including some 320000 U.S. residents), we continue to expect clear and unswerving U.S. Government support for the effective recognition and enforcement of our thus internationally protected minority and property rights in Iraq both at the UN and vis-à-vis Baghdad.

     We were thus encouraged by your statement: "Until the United States can be sure these humanitarian supplies will actually get to those who need them, the U.N. plan willl not go forward." Yet, there has been no mention of the facts we pointed out in due time, namely that the petroleum involved in this notorious "oil-for-food" deal is understood to be the legal, yes even internationally protected property of yet-to-be-consulted and not-yet-consenting Assyrian and other landowners. And when, on December 10, the UN Secretary General finally gave the green light for SCR 986 to become operational, we have had no part in that decision. Also, we started wondering whether the U.S. Government really intended to forfeit this property rights tool which could have served - and still could serve - as an effective leverage for bringing about much desired changes in Iraq. Regardless of whether or not that is the case, we now find ourselves in a position similar to the families of Jewish Nazi victims whose fortunes were looted not only by their Nazi tormentors. And drawing inspiration from how that historic wrong now falls back on other involved governments and unscrupullous bankers, we are thus considering said appropriate protective measures.

     To be sure, so far, our contacts with Iraq desk officers at the State Department have been less than reassuring with regard to their knowledge of and readiness to invoke and even enforce said Iraqi obligations. In fact, for reasons which may reflect long-standing party lines of White Hall, all public and privately-voiced U.S. - and UN - references to Iraqi obligations have persistently been limited to the post-WWII period, thus ignoring the comprehensive humanitarian and property rights obligations contained in the constitutive Iraqi Declaration of 30 May 1932 which continue to be of crucial importance to both the Assyrians and other Iraqi minorities (reproduced in UN document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1992/NGO/27). This, of course, is understandable, given America's legacy with, its ill-admitted-fatherhood-turned-into-contempt of the League of Nations. Yet, like fear, such feelings are unhelpful and indeed failure-prone policy pillars for any states(wo)man worth his(her) salt. And the all-too-often heard argument: "how can we reasonably expect Iraq to honor a commitment dating from before WWII when we cannot even get it to respect more recent obligations?" is a formula for disaster and not a thought worthy of responsible persons wishing to be taken seriously.

     Indeed, by failing to even mention if not enforce Iraq's constitutive, fundamental obligations - whose validity, incidently, has not been officially questioned, so far, not even by Saddam Hussein - Iraq's leaders are encouraged to disregard its later obligations and stick out the waning penalties. This is the more so as the attention span of U.S. politicians in particular is notoriously short-lived. It is not helped either by the failure of the peoples concerned to keep alive the collective memory on their internationally protected rights, by the resultant general ignorance on these matters, and by the international community's failure to monitor the faithful observance of these obligations.

     But all this throws a longer shadow. It reaches beyond Iraq and the Middle East to all of the world's current and future trouble spots where minority issues have not been resolved lastingly. And it is in this area where the biggest political opportunity costs arise for any country whose leaders aspire to remain factual, credible and effective leaders on the world stage. Indeed, such festering trouble spots in Iraq, Palestine and ex-Yugoslavia (notably in Eastern Slavonia, Krajina, Sanjak, Kosovo and Macedonia) not only see the United States deeply entangled, but in a position to become part of either the problem or its solution. The latter requires real, effective leadership, i.e. willingness and capacity to bring to bear imagination, clear-sightedness and credible power. Re-inventing the wheel is certainly not called for - nor is the myopic ignoring of past agreements in favor of new ones created by primarily self-promoting diplomats eager for sound bites on CNN. Essential is: solid enrootment in and enforcement of universal principles, like pacta sunt servanda. Surprisingly, the legacy of the League of Nations, with its focus on minorities, contains many documents which can not only serve as helpful sources of inspiration and for adaption but have retained their validity in international law. The above-mentioned and other current trouble spots are all covered by valid treaties providing for extensive international minority protection rights which wait to be reactivated by way of UN General Assembly resolution 24 (I) of 12 February 1946. And though they were concluded in relation with the failed, yet underestimated League of Nations, the United States is in a unique position to take the lead for their mutually helpful reanimation. Iraqi's obligations of 1932 thus readily avail themselves as vehicles for venturing beyond worn-out tracks, opening new horizons with a successful and widely-appreciated U.S. diplomatic initiative.

     Indeed, in its Advisory Opinion on South West Africa of 11 July 1950, the International Court of Justice upheld the related "international obligations" on the basis of considerations which are seen to have a direct bearing on obligations incurred with Iraq's Declaration of 30 May 1932 (in the event, this Court might be asked to clarify related issues with another Advisory Opinion). The Court thus held (as quoted in the UN Secretariat study E/CN.4/367/Add.1, p.4):

     "These obligations represent the very essence of the sacred trust of civilization. Their raison d'être and original object remain. Since their fulfilment do not depend on the existence of the League of Nations, they could not be brought to an end merely because this supervisory organ [i.e. the Council of the League of Nations] ceased to exist. Nor could the right of the population to have the Territory administred in accordance with these rules depend thereon." (I.C.J. Reports 1950 p.133) "With respect to the latter kind of obligation ['related to the machinery for implementation' being 'closely linked to the supervision and control of the League'] the Court was of the opinion that effective performance of the 'sacred trust of civilization' required that the administration should be subject to international supervision and that this necessity for supervision 'continues to exist despite the disappearance of the supervisory organ under the mandate system. It cannot be admitted that the obligation to submit to supervision has disappeared merely because the supervisory organ has ceased to exist ...' [ibid. p.136]" (UN, op.cit.)

     On this basis, and with our full participation, we trust the on-going discussions with representatives of other ethnic Iraqi minorities to avail themselves to overcome the impass reflected in the revealing enclosed documents we received from KDP sources on an alleged PUK conspiracy. In order to promptly and effectively explore and put onto the rails mutually beneficial solutions, we reiterate our offer to contribute our fair share in line with our basic agreement on property and other rights concluded in 1992 with duly elected representatives of the Mosul Vilayet Council. Also, we would greatly appreciate your benevolent guidance on these matters, and look forward to an early clear statement on where the U.S. Government stands on these crucial issues. Meanwhile, we take this opportunity to re-assure you, dear Mister Vice-President, of our highest consideration, and remain, with Season's greetings,

sincerely yours,

Senator John J. Nimrod, Secretary General
ASSYRIAN UNIVERSAL ALLIANCE

My name is Mohammad Siddiq Mahmoud (www.aemam.net). I am a Kurdish lawyer from Sulaymanyia in the Mosul Vilayet who served the Iraqi people as Agricultural Minister, Governor and Presidential Adviser. However, when the Assyriens, Kurds and Turkomans rose against Baghdad in the wake of Iraq's defeat in 1991, l also believed in President Bush's encouraging words and joined that uprising. And since l've thus become an opposition leader which, in the eyes of some, is unforgiveable, nobody could ignore that a visit to Baghdad would now be a death ticket for me.

With my background, l could indeed add to the already heavy body of testimony against the Iraqi regime. But that would not make a dent in Baghdad. It would not help any segment of the already all-too-long and excessively suffering Iraqi people. And it would not relieve me of whatever responsibility l may share for past official actions. Nor would it help to open up people's mind for new vistas and practicable ways out of the present mess. On the other hand - and this is where the Commission could also benefit from my particular case - if it used this and other experiences imaginatively, some current human rights disasters in Mesopotamia and other parts of the world might be resolved without further burdening foreign taxpayers.

In this sense, the representatives of the 5 mio strong Arab, Assyrian, Kurdish and Turkoman communities and tribes of the oil- and water-rich Mosul Vilayet (Northern Iraq) invited me in 1992 to serve as a co-founder and chief organizer of the supreme Mosul Vilayet Council (www.solami.com/mvcindex.htm ¦ .../rebirth.htm). In 1926 this former Ottoman Empire province was conditionally attached to the Kingdom of Iraq. Due to the never-abrogated constitutive Iraqi Declaration of 30 May 1932 (reproduced in: E/CN.4/.Sub.2/1992/NGO/27: .../a3b.htm), the Mosul Vilayet inhabitants in particular, on paper at least, enjoy internationally recognized and formally guaranteed minority protection and property rights which are understood as still valid. Indeed, in 1950, the International Court of Justice, in an analoguous case, firmly ruled that

"These obligations represent the very essence of the sacred trust of civilization. Their raison d'etre and original object remain. Since their fulfilment did not depend on the existence of the League of Nations, they could not be brought to an end merely because this supervisory organ [i.e. the Council of the League of Nations] ceased to exist. Nor could the right of the population to have the Territory administered in accordance with these rules depend thereon. " (I.C.J. Reports 1950, p.133, as quoted in: E/CN.4/367/Add.1: .../a3a.htm#LEGAL).

Accordingly, the Mosul Vilayet Council (MVC: .../a31.htm) has labored from the outset to free its inhabitants from all international economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, to place it, for 10-25 years, under a non-prejudicial and regionally stabilizing UN-sponsored interim administration (e.g. by the Kingdom of Jordan, as outlined in: E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/NGO/48: .../a3b.htm#48), and to provide for its eventual re-attachment to Iraq or Turkey, attachment to Iran or Syria or independence. To this effect, it has obtained the formal approval of most leaders of its ethnic, religious, civil, educational, cultural and business communities and of 17 political parties. Nevertheless, it has yet to draw commensurate support from the international community, whose denial of rights enshrined in the UN Charter and other binding international texts is seen to have prevented the process of self-healing and peace in the region. Until this is recognized and will have produced the necessary policy changes, this man-made and regionally destabilizing humanitarian nightmare may not be overcome by any "oil-for-food" deal. Particularly not by programs based on looting "internationally protected" landowners. In fact, these mostly self-serving schemes are likely to rekindle religious tensions, exacerbate ethnic conflicts and fuel tribal wars which may further threaten regional peace and stability.

While the MVC's duly elected Permanent Representative to the United Nations thus kept running into a solid wall of vested interests, the venerable International Committee for European Security and Cooperation kindly offered me to speak out directly at the UN Commission on Human Rights. On 10 October 1995, this NGO with consultative status appointed me as ICESC Deputy Permanent Representative, in Charge of Good Offices in Near Eastern affairs. Communications between Iraq and the rest of the world being what they are, l arrived in Istanbul only three weeks later where l immediately applied at the Swiss consulate for a corresponding visa for human rights work at the UN. Although l paid the requested 50000 Turkish lira for accelerated fax transmissions, the ICESC Main Representative in Geneva was contacted by the Swiss authorities only at the end of November - i.e. two weeks after my Turkish transit visa had expired and l was obliged to start wandering about in the Middle East. In mid-February 1996, l was finally issued in Cairo both a Swiss and a French visum providing for 30 days of NGO work at the UN. But when l arrived at Geneva airport on 23 February, the Swiss police immediately cancelled my visum and detained me, without giving any reason. And when l objected to a check of my Iraqi passport by members of the Iraqi mission, I was told that l am going to be "deported to Baghdad". It was only due to the determined efforts by my Swiss friends and ICESC representatives that, after a chilling five hours detention, l was allowed to exit the airport to France - vive la France!

The fact that l can't testify before you in person and that ICESC is now not represented in Geneva raises disturbing questions on the ability of the Commission, its members and its NGO community to carry out its crucial task in an evironment of law, due process and human rights. Who keeps track of the cases where the UN Administration and/or the host government prevented access to the Commission on Human Rights, thus interfering in its proper functioning? We know that during the Second World War Swiss officials routinely turned back at its borders members of undesirable minorities who were thus driven towards death in gas chambers. And we know that the Swiss National Bank was then heavily involved in trade with looted gold. But l, for one, presumed that today Swiss officials strictly heed Switzerland's international and human rights obligations and need not be told of the 15 November 1996 "Chahal" ruling where the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg prohibited the deportation of a person to a country where his/her life is seriously endangered (70/195/576/662). And neither l nor the ICESC representative expected to draw so heavy fire in Geneva against our efforts to prevent the unprecedented looting of Assyrians, Jews, Kurds and Turkomans as the internationally protected owners of oil-rich lands. In protest, my colleague declined to register our NGO until this matter will be satisfactorily resolved so as to reliably preclude similar incidents, and he retained the option of publicly denouncing this case.

All this, it seems, did not sit well with some of the involved Swiss officials. For my valiant Swiss human rights defender suddenly saw himself shut out from the Palais des Nations - allegedly for "behavior which is not compatible with that of a representative", terms which are usually reserved for diplomats accused of spying or terrorism. This happened within the walls of the UN's Geneva human rights sanctuary without the shadow of due process, i.e. without a hearing, without specifying any wrong-doing, and without possibility of appeal. The NGOs involved were advised of this with a letter by the UN Geneva Office dated 19 April 1996, specifying that the representative in question may no longer represent them at the UN in Geneva. To date all efforts failed to identify either the source behind this harrassment or the legal basis of this "administrative decision". The only reason given so far was that this internationally renowned minority rights expert and ICESC representative was "too persistent." A survey among the Missions in Geneva revealed both other disturbing incidents involving Swiss officials as well as a little known, hardly ever vented frustration in the diplomatic community. At the Palais des Nations only Swiss officials are said to have the kind of influence thus brought to bear in this and similar cases. Not surprisingly then, the Swiss authorities repeatedly refused to formally exclude their involvement in this affair, or to intervene at the UN on behalf of their own Citizen, e.g. by invoking their prerogatives written into the UN Seat Agreement.

Which brings us back to our initial question. Which is: Can the UN Geneva Office still be trusted to unreservedly apply within its walls the human rights standards the UN stands for? This and other grave cases point to undue external influences and out-of-control UN officials. And this mutually harmful situation calls for serious review and determined corrective measures, lest NGOs be reduced to folkloric functions and the UN's Human Rights arms become ineffective and redundant due to their failure to safeguard the cooperation with and the contributions of courageous, competent & principled representatives of civil society and vigilant NGOs.

PS: Commendably, the then-president of the Swiss National Council's Foreign Affairs Commission, François Lachat, and other Swiss lawmakers, spent much political capital for seeking to clarify and redress the above-described situation which is understood to be linked to Saddam Hussein's long arms abroad. So far to no avail - despite the changes in Iraq. Which is reminiscent of an unrelated but equally significant and telling, yet unresolved polito-legal black hole (.../stammabs.htm).(24.9.07 - url: www.solami.com/ordeal.htm ¦ .../icescge.htm)

from:     Anton Keller, Secretary, Good Offices Group of European Lawmakers
              cp 2580  -  1211 Geneva 2  -  Switzerland  -  3 December 2001
              t+f:  +4122-7400362  -  e:  swissbit@solami.com

On the Palestinian issue, the interim idea never really caught on with the powers that be.  Even though, since 1992, it has drawn sustained critical mass support among the members of the Mosul Vilayet Council (MVC; www.solami.com/mvc.htm).  It is based on the principle which was successfully applied by Andropov and his successors of the former Soviet Union: deprive your enemy of his enemy and your enemy will disappear!   It would provide for the Palestinians and their Authority to consider with imagination, and to draw liberating and fruitful inspiration from the history of their Jewish brethren (.../babylon2.htm). And to adopt and execute a policy calling for and practising, as a rule, non-opposition to any and all of Israel's plans for the occupied territories (.../gridlock.htm), while focussing instead all their energies on developing what the MVC repeatedly offered to the Palestinian leadership, i.e. a "loaned homeland", a Hong Kong-type 99 year lease of the oil-bearing Diala district to the North of Baghdad, where the PLO could actually create an economically viable and internationally recognizable state.  Without giving up any land title in, or other claim to any part of Palestine, those Palestinians wishing to temporarily leave Gaza, the West Bank and the refugee camps could settle in the Diyala, assisting in the UN-mandated administration of the Mosul Vilayet (.../a33h.htm | .../HELMS.htm | .../opinion.htm), helping to recover Iraq's lost generations (.../PLATO.htm), promoting a balanced diet for the Iraqi population (.../CERES.htm) and assisting in the rebuilding of Iraq's society (.../oilforfood.htm | .../babylon2.htm | .../arbil.htm).

Maybe this not only sounds but is outlandish; yet, what alternative is there for temporarily, yet truely and healingly settling over-lapping religious (.../a31.htm#VIVANT | .../slm.htm) and land claims which, ever since the Ottoman Empire break-up, have festered in the Middle East?
 

PS    for Iraq, Iran and other Middle East-related studies, see:
Official documents and comments on Iraq's limited sovereignty
(www.solami.com/mvcindex ¦ .../3103.htm ¦ .../ray.htm)

Sharon said to want half of West Bank land

     From combined dispatches
     JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants to annex up to half of the West Bank under an unpublished plan for the Palestinian territories that he is drawing up with close advisers, a senior minister in his government has said.
     "As far as I know, the strategy is to annex 50 percent of the West Bank [for Israel], and this is incompatible with a two-state solution. It is not realistic," Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh told the London Sunday Telegraph.
     Mr. Sneh, a Labor member in Mr. Sharon's coalition government, spoke at the end of a week in which Israel began winding up its largest military operation in the West Bank in more than 30 years.
      Israeli tanks and armored vehicles yesterday began pulling out of Nablus, the largest West Bank city, and parts of Ramallah. But in a resurgence of violence, a Palestinian gunman and an Israeli policeman died in a clash at a Gaza border crossing and another Palestinian blew himself up near a border checkpoint.
     The London newspaper reported that Mr. Sneh's remarks were a strong indication that the Israeli prime minister prefers to see a divided, weakened Palestinian entity with far less land than envisioned under previous peace plans.
     Asked about the comments, Danny Ayalon, a senior Sharon aide, said the prime minister would wait for a regional peace conference — which he has called for — to discuss his proposals for Palestinian territory.
     Israel also promised yesterday to cooperate with a United Nations mission to probe its crushing assault on the Jenin refugee camp, saying it had nothing to hide in the face of Palestinian accusations of a massacre. Palestinians said they hoped the U.N. Security Council's unanimous decision Friday to send a "fact-finding" team to the camp could lead to an international criminal trial of Mr. Sharon and others.
     "We have nothing to hide, and we will gladly cooperate with this U.N. inquiry," Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said after the United States proposed the compromise U.N. resolution.
     Mr. Sharon has played his cards close to his chest over his broader political strategy, saying only that he is prepared to make "painful concessions" to the Palestinians in the interests of long-term peace.
      However, Mr. Sneh's comments will fuel speculation that the prime minister and the Israeli right are hoping to retain most of 150 Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
     Over the years, Mr. Sharon has pushed for annexation of up to 60 percent of the West Bank. When the deadline in the 1993 Oslo accords for creation of a Palestine state expired in May 1999, Mr. Sharon, then foreign minister in the Benjamin Netanyahu government, threatened to annex settlements if the Palestinians declared a state unilaterally.
     Mr. Sneh, a rising figure in Labor ranks, plans to present alternative peace proposals to his party's conference in June, based on land swaps and Palestinian sovereignty over most of the West Bank.
     Labor and the right-wing parties — of which Mr. Sharon's Likud is the largest — have maintained a united front in the anti-terror crackdown. However, Mr. Sneh indicated that rifts over a political settlement could cause the coalition to collapse.
     Last week, Mr. Sharon called for an international peace conference, but demanded the exclusion of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Mr. Ayalon, one of the prime minister's closest advisers, said he would not be drawn into revealing details of any plans to offer the Palestinians a peace deal.
     President Bush yesterday said Israel must press ahead with its withdrawal from Palestinian cities but did not repeat earlier demands for an immediate end to the offensive.
     "All parties must realize that the only long-term solution is for two states — Israel and Palestine — to live side by side in security and peace. This will require hard choices and real leadership by Israelis and Palestinians, and their Arab neighbors," Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address.
     Asked about Mr. Sharon's reported annexation plan, a senior State Department official, requesting anonymity, told The Washington Times that "there may be all kinds of Israeli ideas," but no one should "get wedded to any one specific plan."
     The official said the emphasis is on convincing Israel to "implement a complete withdrawal" from Palestinian towns and on convincing Palestinians to "take responsibility for getting the violence down and the political process going."
     In Cairo, visiting Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji pressed Israel to withdraw immediately from Palestinian towns and called for a complete cease-fire.
     Tanks and armored personnel carriers were seen heading out of Nablus and some Ramallah neighborhoods yesterday, but Mr. Gissin said troops would stay near Mr. Arafat's Ramallah headquarters. "Any place that we've finished we pull out," he said.
     Israel has said it will maintain its siege at the shell-shattered compound where the Palestinian leader is confined until he turns over suspects in the October killing of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. Israel yesterday rejected Mr. Arafat's offer to try them in a Palestinian court.
      Israeli forces were expected to stay in the heart of Bethlehem until the end of a standoff between soldiers and armed Palestinians holed up inside the Church of the Nativity since April 2. A Franciscan priest inside said yesterday that food supplies had run out.
     In the Jenin refugee camp, fierce fighting ended more than a week ago, but 11 persons have been wounded over two days by stepping on unexploded ordnance or opening booby-trapped doors intended for Israeli troops, hospital officials said.
     U.S. Middle East envoy William Burns, calling for humanitarian aid, described the camp yesterday as the scene of a "terrible human tragedy" and "enormous suffering of innocent Palestinian civilians."
     The scale of death and destruction remains in bitter dispute. Israel says about 70 Palestinians were killed, most militants. Palestinian officials estimate the death toll in the hundreds. Twenty-three Israeli troops were killed. So far, 43 Palestinian bodies have been found, six of them women, children or elderly men, Palestinian sources said.

Israel's Historic Miscalculation

It is hard to imagine a more dispiriting statement for those hoping for a negotiated land-for-peace end to hostilities in the Middle East. If Mr. Sharon sticks to this view he will leave little hope for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. We recognize that this is an exceptionally painful moment in a region where the focus has been on death and human suffering rather than on land. But ultimately this dispute is over land.  Just as terror is the greatest Palestinian threat to Middle East peace, so are settlements on territory captured in the 1967 war the greatest Israeli obstacle to peace. They deprive the Palestinians of prime land and water, break up Palestinian geographic continuity, are hard to defend against Palestinian attack and complicate the establishment of a clear, secure Israeli border.

Before the Oslo peace process began in 1993, settlements were a major American concern. The first President Bush threatened to withhold $10 billion in loan guarantees from Israel if it did not freeze its settlement building. The hostility between him and Yitzhak Shamir, then prime minister, over this issue contributed to Mr. Shamir's defeat at the hands of Yitzhak Rabin in 1992.  But for nearly a decade, settlements have earned little American attention. Since Israel and the Palestinians were engaged in peace negotiations, it was assumed that eventually many if not most of the settlements would go, and it was easier not to cause a political crisis by pressuring the Israeli right before a full peace agreement had been reached. The Oslo peace talks broke down, of course, and while primary responsibility for the collapse rests with Yasir Arafat, the settler population in the West Bank and Gaza has nearly doubled, to more than 200,000. This is an immense problem.

Two decades ago most Israelis considered the settlers to be oddballs spurred by messianism and nostalgia for the derring-do of Zionist pioneers. A few thousand and then a few tens of thousands set up cheap mobile homes on windswept hillsides and vowed to double their number. But by the early 1990's, when Mr. Sharon served as housing minister, the situation had changed radically. Aided by government subsidies and other inducements, there were more than 100,000 settlers. For Israelis, settlers were no longer zealots but ordinary fellow citizens. Suddenly their plumber or doctor or neighbor's sister was living in a big semi-detached house in a community on land captured in 1967. Many Israeli maps stopped demarcating the former border.

Today the biggest settlements are real towns, with tens of thousands of inhabitants, major access roads, neighborhoods, shopping malls, industrial parks, even a university. This is in addition to some 200,000 other Israeli Jews who live in neighborhoods of East Jerusalem also captured in 1967. Palestinians consider these to be settlements as well.  In the year that Mr. Sharon has been prime minister, some 35 new settlement outposts have been established, in contravention of his coalition agreement with the Labor Party. Opinion polls show strong Israeli public support for removal of some settlements in exchange for peace, a position embraced by previous Israeli governments. Yet Mr. Sharon refuses to consider such a move.

Mr. Sharon has said he is willing to make "painful compromises" for peace, and has called for a regional peace conference. He has welcomed the Saudi peace framework, which posits the return of all land captured in 1967 in exchange for full diplomatic ties with the Arab world. But to take out of negotiation even the most isolated settlements — this week Mr. Sharon said Netzarim, a Gaza settlement, was the same to him as Tel Aviv — is to undermine the possibility that following his military action, a meaningful political dialogue can begin. The Israeli public and the American government must not turn away from this painful reality. The Palestinian and Arab leadership must also realize that the longer the Palestinians rely on terrorism and fail to return to negotiation, the harder it will be to remove these "facts on the ground."

If indeed it is a "big mistake“ not to budge on the settlements issue (4/27-28/02), it also entails unintended and unexpected effects.  For the Palestinians may thus be driven to recognize and draw the consequences of the current gridlook over overlapping land and religious claims.  They may take time out and deliberately create a void.  And to come back only when the changes thus brought about will include the fundamentals in Palestine.

Inspired by the regeneration their exiled Jewish brethren experienced some 2600 years ago in Babylon, the Palestinians might accept the offer to temporarily emigrate to Saddam-free territory between the two rivers (www.solami.com/mvc.htm).  And to build up their own state and economy.  Not from handouts.  But from developing a leased patch of fertile oil-bearing land.  From helping to rebuild the sanctions-damaged infrastructure.  And from assisting in the recovery of the lost generations of equally short-shrifted, down-trodden and forgotten peoples (.../PLATO.htm).

It Aint Necessarily So!

Prime Minister Sharon's hardball is not following the fashionable land-for-peace script.  Reportedly, he refuses to consider abandoning any Israeli settlement in the West Bank and Gaza.  As your editorial suggests (April 27-28, 02), this may indeed turn out to be "Israel's big mistake" - albeit for other reasons, and with consequences differing from those projected.

Not that a chance for real and lasting peace is thus being missed.  And not that the explosiveness of the gridlocked situation, that the no-future syndrom and that the Palestinians' prevailing misery in the contested lands, would finally move their brethren into meaningful action.  But that the Palestinians should not be underestimated in their capacity to take matters effectively into their own hand - not on the military, but on the political front where they have a real chance.  By stopping to rely on others (who necessarily follow their own agenda).  By looking more closely at their own roots and preparing for their future on a thus strengthened basis of their own (www.solami.com/SLM.htm).  And by drawing inspiration from history (e.g. "Deprive your enemy of his enemy and your enemy will disappear!").

Indeed - and assuming this to be desirable at all - could Israel really survive as a religion-based state, if the Palestinians took the initiative and (without giving up any rights or claims) let their Jewish brethren invest their energies into building in Palestine whatever and wherever they please?  All the while those Palestinians so desiring would accept the already-extended invitation of the Mosul Vilayet Council (representing Northern Iraq's Arabs, Assyrians, Kurds and Turkomans; .../mvc.htm) to temporarily emigrate to the latter's Saddam-free territory (.../pal.htm).  To set up their internationally recognizable - and recognized - homeland temporarily between the two rivers, on an oil-bearing and fertile patch of land, leased for a generation or two.  And to build up their own state and economy not from handouts.  But from oil exports.  From helping to rebuild the sanctions-damaged infrastructure.  And from assisting in the education and recovery of the lost generations of equally short-shrifted, down-trodden and forgotten peoples.

Atoni Mustafa, Permanent Representative of the Mosul Vilayet
to International Organizations, Geneva
www.solami.com/mvc.htm - swissbit@solami.com
t+f:  +4122-7400362

The Palestinians' situation is terrible. Three fourths of their population live in poverty. The number of poor has tripled since September 2000 and over half the workforce is unemployed. Palestinians are more dependent on food aid than ever before. Reports for 2003 from social welfare organizations note "pervasive and deepening poverty," "worsening conditions and an economy in a state of ruin," "conflict creating a major humanitarian crisis," and "widespread psychological trauma." Palestinian Prime Minister Qurei has understated: "Our people are suffering."

President George Bush and other world leaders have lamented the sad plight of the Palestinians. Something beyond talk is needed to alleviate Palestinian suffering. "Tell Bush: Good Speech! Now Take Action," suggested the Jewish Voice for Peace, urging Bush "to back his words with action." Refugees International has called on President Bush to "take steps to give jobs, education, medical services, and food." In describing the talking-versus-doing syndrome, Herbert Hoover, President of the United States from 1929-33, said in 1920: "Words without actions are the assassins of idealism."

Hoover could never be accused of assassinating idealism: he was responsible for the rescue, feeding, clothing and resettlement of more victims of natural disaster and war than just about anyone in history. During World War I, he headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which fed 10 million people and carried out Belgian postwar reconstruction. In 1917, Hoover served as US food administrator. After the war, President Woodrow Wilson sent Hoover to Europe to direct the American Relief Administration. In 1927, as Secretary of Commerce, he successfully resettled 325,000 Americans rendered homeless by the Mississippi River's flooding.

After World War II, he brought relief to millions as Coordinator of the European Food Program. A Quaker, Hoover passionately believed in peace, was appalled by the human costs of war, and devoted his life to public service. Even with his most grandiose projects, he kept the worth of the individual paramount. His title, "The Great Humanitarian," was well deserved. When war again broke out in Europe, Hoover, now in his 70s, established the Polish Relief Commission, which fed 300,000 children in occupied countries. He became chairman of the Famine Emergency Commission and in 1945, President Harry S Truman asked him to organize food relief for war-torn countries.Nor did the plight of the Palestinian Arabs escape The Great Humanitarian's attention. In December 1945, he submitted his plan to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine. Hoover said it was "a process by which both Jews and Arabs would benefit materially," and could be instrumental in "settling the Palestine question and providing ample Jewish refuge."

He insisted that it offered a "constructive humanitarian solution" and the committee agreed that the proposal merited careful study. What Hoover proposed was "that Iraq be made the scene of resettlement of the Arabs from Palestine" for their immediate relief and long-term benefit. Unlike current proposals for mass, forced transfer, there was an implicit assumption that this one would be totally voluntary. By 1949, with the creation of half-a-million Palestinian refugees, Hoover's plan took on special urgency. He wrote the White House that "they are in a deplorable condition," and they can be absorbed in Iraq. "It would give permanent [?] solution to the problem of these unfortunate people," Hoover said. He also said his plan "would strengthen the economy of Iraq.

Could Hoover's vision work today? The population of Iraq this past generation has been decimated. The prolonged Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, the internecine fighting within Iraq, the 1991 Gulf War, the subsequent UN sanctions, and the most recent US-led invasion and occupation have taken a toll of millions of Iraqis. Resettling the downtrodden Palestinian Arabs in Iraq would alleviate their suffering and be a concomitant blessing to Iraq. Palestinian Arabs excel in agriculture and construction, the areas of war-torn Iraq's greatest need. Jimmy Carter warned recently that "the lack of real effort to resolve the Palestinian issue is a primary source of anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East and a major incentive for terrorist activity." Hoover noted his program "would contribute to a friendly gesture from the West to all Arab countries."The idea of Jordan as a Palestinian state is widely supported on the Israeli right, even though it is vigorously resisted by the Jordanian monarchy and people.

The notion of Egypt as a partial homeland is strongly advocated by the leader of the National Religious Party and others, even though it is firmly rejected by the Egyptian authorities. However unrealistic reviving Hoover's idea may appear at first glance, it seems far more realistic than those relatively widely endorsed approaches. The main obstacle to implementing Hoover's plan has been the presence of antagonistic regimes in Baghdad. Today, American control of Iraq presents a unique opportunity. Let's remember: "words without actions are the assassins of idealism".

Dear Ray,

I just discovered your traces in the sand (Ray Hanania, "Changing Palestinian-Israeli paradigm", Yediot Ahronot, March 15 2006), waded through your biography, and thought it "proper and effective in the circumstances" to relay to you the invitation by H.E. Sami Shoresh, the Minister of Culture of the Kurdistan Regional Government KRG for the commemorative festivities for Sheik Mahmoud Al Hafeed, to be held in Arbil (Irak) on March 11 to 13, 2006 (www.solami.com/arbilapril.htm).

If you're interested to attend this event, please advise H.E. by return email (sameshoresh@yahoo.com), with copies to Sheik Salar al Hafeed (shieksalar@yahoo.com) and to myself at your earliest convenience. His Excellency advised me that I may invite, on his behalf, several suitable colleagues from among my network, that all costs will be carried by the KRG, that for their current lack of experience and know-how, those accepting this official invitation should make on their own their traval arrangements to and from Arbil, and that they will be fully reimbursed in Arbil.

I have tentatively made reservations (irak-reisen@arcor.de, +49307-9748491) for five persons on the Kurdistan Airline flight of April 10 which leaves Frankfurt on 22.55 and arrives at Arbil 05.30 - just in time for the opening of the festivities on the morning of April 11.

With best regards

Anton Keller, Secretary
Good Offices Group of European Lawmakers
t+f: +4122-7400362
swissbit@solami.com

PS:  Referring to our past humanitarian efforts, notably with regard to the 1992 invitation I arranged for the 400 Palestinans which in December 1992 were expelled to Southern Lebanon (.../mvcindex.htm#Hamas), I'm also looking for related prompt contacts with some interested Hamas representatives. For, in a wider and longer-term perspective, some wounds in the Middle East are festering not only since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, but appear to have much deeper roots which - in the evolving context and given visionary, principled and courageous minds capable of thinking out of the box and recognizing the world not to be flat - may now have a chance of being effectively addressed in a comprehensive way (.../214.htm).

Während sie unter der Herrschaft Saddam Husseins einige Privilegien genossen, werden die Palästinenser im Irak seit der amerikanischen Invasion verfolgt. Mehr als die Hälfte von ihnen ist deshalb aus dem Zweistromland geflohen. Einige hundert sitzen an der Grenze zu Syrien und Jordanien fest. Aufnehmen will sie niemand.

Die Revanche der Schiiten
    Wie Raed Musa sind in den letzten Jahren Tausende von Palästinensern aus dem Irak geflohen. Für einige von ihnen ist es auch nicht das erste Mal, dass sie in die Flucht getrieben wurden. Palästinenser fanden im Irak erstmals nach ihrer Vertreibung beim arabisch-israelischen Krieg von 1948 Aufnahme. Weitere folgten nach dem Sechstagekrieg im Jahr l967. Im Jahr 1992 wurden die Palästinenser aus Kuwait vertrieben, weil der palästinensische Führer Arafat die irakische Invasion unterstützt hatte. Viele fanden im Irak Aufnahme. Saddam Hussein verstand sich als ihr Beschützer; sie erhielten Wohnungen zu einem symbolischen Mietzins und weitere Privilegien. Seither gelten die Palästinenser als Günstlinge des Diktators, so dass sie nach dessen Sturz zunehmenden Schikanen durch die Behörden und Verfolgungen durch schiitische Milizen ausgesetzt waren. Zwischen April 2004 und Januar 2007 wurden laut dem Uno-Hochkommissariat für Flüchtlinge (UNHCR) mindestens 186 Palästinenser im Irak getötet. Von den 35 000 Palästinensern, die vor der amerikanischen Invasion im Irak lebten, sind heute noch 15 000 im Land.
    Als Raed Musa mit seiner Familie und Dutzenden von Leidensgenossen im März 2006 die Grenze Jordaniens erreichte, war diese geschlossen. Jordanien hatte bereits über tausend palästinensische Flüchtlinge aufgenommen, die zum Teil seit Beginn der Invasion im Zeltlager Ruwayshid in der jordanischen Wüste ausharrten. «Es gab kein Land mehr, das uns aufgenommen hätte. Uns blieb nichts anderes übrig, als zu warten», erinnert sich Raed. Nach zwei Monaten akzeptierte die syrische Regierung die Gruppe der 287 gestrandeten Palästinenser und brachte sie nach al-Hol, an der irakischen Grenze im äussersten Nordosten Syriens gelegen.

Zwangsverordnetes Nichtstun
    Von al-Hol sieht man weit über eine karge Ebene bis zu Hügeln, die bereits auf irakischem Territorium sind. Stacheldraht umzäunt die niedrigen Betonhäuschen, die Anfang der neunziger Jahre für irakische Flüchtlinge gebaut worden waren und nun den Palästinensern als Behausung dienen. Das Eingangstor wird von syrischen Polizisten bewacht. «Die Flüchtlinge dürfen nicht arbeiten. Wir versorgen sie mit allem, was sie brauchen», sagt Raymond Yusuf, der als Beauftragter des UNHCR und der Regierung das Lager verwaltet. Die 90 palästinensischen Schulkinder dürfen im nächsten Dorf in die Schule, wer aber zu einem Verwandten- oder Spitalbesuch nach Damaskus will, braucht eine Spezialbewilligung.
    «Wie ein Gefängnis», zischt Scheich Abu Ahmed, der Vorsteher des Lagers, und deutet mit vielsagendem Blick auf die Männer des Geheimdienstes, die den Besuchern keinen Schritt von der Seite weichen. Der Scheich, in einen Trainingsanzug gekleidet, erzählt, dass er früher viel Sport gemacht habe, zudem habe er ein grosses Haus besessen und zwei Autos. Von alldem sei nichts geblieben, und nun werde er faul und träge vom zwangsverordneten Nichtstun. Im Lager führt er einen kleinen Krämerladen mit Chips und Plüschbären, und im Zwei-Zimmer-Häuschen hat er einen Fernseher aufgestellt, mit dem er gegen die Langeweile ankämpft.
    In einem kleinen Nähatelier besticken Frauen Tücher und Taschen. Arbeiten wolle sie, sagt Wafa Sammer, die früher in einer Ingenieurfirma in Bagdad gearbeitet hat. Sie wurde in Jordanien geboren, ist in Kuwait aufgewachsen und floh von dort nach Bagdad. Sie beklagt sich nicht, dass sie nicht gut versorgt würden, aber darüber, dass sie einmal mehr im Exil ist. «Endlich eine Heimat haben», wünscht sich auch der Veterinärmediziner Mohammed Adi, «egal wo.» Sein Vater sei in Gaza zur Welt gekommen, er in Kuwait. Ein Leben lang sei er Flüchtling gewesen. «In Bagdad wurden sechs meiner Nachbarn getötet. Zweimal wurde ich auf dem Weg in die Tierklinik beschossen», erzählt Adi und sagt, dass die Flüchtlinge von al-Hol das UNHCR gebeten hätten, sie in irgendein Land zu bringen. Hauptsache, sie würden nicht wieder vertrieben. «Das Problem ist nicht nur, dass es hier 300 Flüchtlinge hat», sagt Raymond Yusuf. «Das Problem ist, dass sie Palästinenser sind. Das ist eine rein politische Angelegenheit.»

Von Flüchtlingen überrannt
    In Syrien lebten schon vor dem Kriegsausbruch im Irak 400 000 Palästinenser, Flüchtlinge von 1948 oder 1967 und deren Nachkommen. In den letzten Jahren hat das Land über l Million irakische Flüchtlinge aufgenommen. Die Flüchtlinge, die an der irakischen Grenze zu Syrien oder Jordanien gestrandet sind, will heute niemand. Israel will sie nicht aufnehmen und ihnen auch nicht die Einreise in die besetzten palästinensischen Gebiete erlauben. Die USA, die mit ihrer Intervention den Flüchtlingsstrom aus dem Irak ausgelöst haben, wollen auch keine Palästinenser aufnehmen. Einzig die Palästinenser, die Geld hatten, konnten sich in Bagdad einen irakischen Pass für 700 Dollar kaufe.n, mit dem sie als Iraker in arabische Länder wie Syrien ausreisen konnten. Wie der Mitarbeiter eines Hilfswerks in Damaskus erklärt, wollen die Hamas und die Palästinensische Befreiungsorganisation zudem verhindern, dass die Flüchtlinge nach Übersee ausreisen und dort ein neues Leben beginnen. Dahinter stehe die Politik, so viele Palästinenser wie möglich im Flüchtlingsstatus zu belassen, um die Forderung nach ihrer Rückkehr nach Palästina zu stützen.
    Al-Hol im Norden ist nicht die einzige Endstation für Palästinenser, die aus