KURDISTAN, KASHMIR & PALESTINE

	Kurdistan: This is a non-existent country which would be the homeland of the Kurds. They are a fiercely independent people who occupy what is now parts of Turkey, Iraq and Iran. At this time, none of these three countries appear willing to grant the Kurds their own homeland. There is no real provision in international law by which a people can obtain autonomy or independence. If there were, then the Kurds could create a new country of Kurdistan and live in peace. There is a significant religious component to this conflict. Even though the vast majority of Kurds, Turks, Iraquis and Iranians are Muslims, they come from two traditions within Islam: Shiite and Sunni. Currently, a low-level conflict continues and will probably continue indefinitely into the future.
	Kashmir: This is an area claimed by both Pakistan and India. Several wars have been fought over this land since India was divided along religious lines (Hindu and Muslim) shortly after World War II. Three UN resolutions have called for a plebiscite to decide whether Kashmir should join India or Pakistan. Although this solution was originally agreed to by both countries, India has since reneged on the arrangement. Kashmir is currently divided by a line of control into a southern region controlled by India and a northern area under the rule of Pakistan. Any next war may well involve massive loss of life, as both countries have densely populated urban areas and each now has a few dozen nuclear bombs with crude delivery mechanisms. A new complexity has emerged recently: there is a substantial interest by the people of Kashmir for independence from both India and Pakistan. Again, no possibility of a resolution to this problem appears possible.
	Palestine: In 1948, the UN created the state of Israel. 1 Surrounding Arab countries were furious, as were the Muslim inhabitants of what is now Israel. The governments of the neighboring countries ordered their fellow Muslims to vacate the land so that they could freely attack the new country. But those states were never able to wrest power from the Israelis. Nor were the surrounding countries willing to take in the resultant refugees. Two major wars later, Israel had expanded its borders to include Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. the West Bank). This incorporates much of the ancient country of Canaan, which religious Jews believe that God gave to them. Meanwhile, most fundamentalist Muslims believe that Allah intends the entire Middle East to be Muslim. Thus began a decades-long presence in Palestinian lands by the Israeli army. The Palestinians call it an occupation; the Israelis call it a disputed territory. Although a trading of land for peace has worked successfully in other cases -- notably Egypt -- it has proven to be an elusive goal between the Palestinians and Israelis.  The Palestine National Authority -- a quasi-governmental agency in the West Bank and Gaza 2 --  planned Infitada II, a popular uprising, to start in the fall of 2000. A visit by Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was considered a provocative act by the Palestinians and used to trigger their uprising. Infitada II is often portrayed in the media as a two-sided conflict between Palestinians and Israelis; between Muslims and Jews. That may be overly simplistic. On the Palestinian side, there are many groups, each with a different agenda. They range from exterminating every Jew in Israel, to coexisting with Israel. On the Israeli side, there are at least three politically powerful groups: the settlers who are illegally living in Palestinian land, small religious political parties which have traditionally held the balance of power in the government, and secular Israelis who are in the majority. With perhaps a half dozen different groups involved in the conflict, resolution has proven impossible.

	Chairman Arafat of the Palestinian National Authority has consistently refused to detain and charge terrorists. He may not have the political power to do so without igniting a public uprising.
	Prime Minister Sharon of Israel consistently demands an interval of total peace without suicide bombings, shooting or any other violence before he will engage in any peace negotiations. This is equivalent to telling the violent elements within Palestine that as long as they create a violent incident at least at monthly intervals, that one of their goals would be achieved: no dialog among the parties involved.
	All sides seem intent on focussing on retaliation for the most recent violent attack.

2000-OCT-11: Newsroom was an information agency that circulated reports about religious conflicts around the world. They noted that many observers are considering the latest round of strife between Palestinians and Israelis to be a religious war. They issued the following report. Although the Newsroom analysis was made only a few weeks into the Infitada, it is largely valid today: 3

With more than 90 deaths and the destruction of synagogues and mosques, observers increasingly are describing the recent strife between Palestinians and Israelis as a religious war. Though politicians on both sides see the conflict as a battle over territory, religion is a spark that both sides have fanned with attacks on each other’s holy sites. Israeli and Palestinian clerics agree that the sectarian strife has cut deep wounds and will make it increasingly difficult for the two sides to find a way to coexist, even though leaders have distanced themselves from the vandalism. Chief Israeli Rabbi Meir Lau called desecration of a former mosque in Tiberias "a disgrace to Judaism." Rabbi Yehuda Kaplan, once an Army officer and currently an educator in Jerusalem, told Newsroom that although the current situation again looks like a "war of survival" for the Jews, he prays that "after all of this settles, we will figure out a way to live together." "It's a hard task, but God never gave an easy one to the Jews," Kaplan said. "There will be no other neighbors for us. They should respect our holy places, and we should respect their mosques." Sufi Sheikh Abu Saleh said that "the answer to the strife is Abraham: his two sons, Israel and Ishmael, have to reconcile. Allah wants it." Full-scale violence began September 30, the day after Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Jerusalem Temple Mount. The compound -- site of bloody clashes in 1990 and 1996 -- is the most sensitive spot in Israeli-Palestinian relations. The Palestinians insist on full control of the shrine, the third holiest site in Islam. The site is home to two major mosques marking the spot where Islamic tradition says the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. Israel has said it would consider less than full control but would not accept Palestinian rule over the compound, former home of the biblical Jewish temple, the most sacred shrine of Judaism. According to Jewish tradition, the site also is where Abraham was instructed to sacrifice his son Isaac. Many fundamentalist Christians who are sympathetic to Zionist causes venerate the site as the place where Jesus preached and where the Third Temple is to be built for his dwelling after the Second Coming that they expect in the near future. Mid-east peace talks broke off over the status of Jerusalem's Old City and the Temple Mount in July and never recovered. Israel blames Palestinians for starting the recent violence two days prior to Sharon's visit. Sharon's arrival, Israelis assert, became a pretext for escalating the clashes. Israel blames Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat for using bloodshed in an attempt to win back international sympathy and pressure Israel for more concessions. Palestinians see Sharon's visit as a provocation that triggered violence across Palestinian territories and Israel. In Nablus (biblical Shechem), a week of intense gunfights centered around Joseph’s Tomb, which was defended by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian gunmen. Jews believe the biblical patriarch Joseph is buried at the site, which houses a yeshiva, a Jewish seminary. 4,5 After a week of fighting at the tomb, resulting in the deaths of six Palestinians and an Israeli soldier, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak ordered evacuation of the enclave. It was the first time Israel relinquished territory as a direct result of Palestinian violence. Hours after the Israeli army withdrew, rioters forced their way into the compound past Palestinian guards, who had promised to protect the tomb. The mob ripped apart and burned Jewish prayer books, set fire to parts of the compound, and broke through the stone dome of the tomb. Regional Cooperation Minister Shimon Peres claimed the events at Joseph’s Tomb show that Arafat has a problem protecting holy sites. When Israel controlled the sites, there was free and safe access for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, he said. "If the Palestinians cannot keep their promises regarding the holy sites, how can they be given control of other things?" Sharon asked on Israeli television. Nablus Mayor Ghassan Shakaa, whose son was wounded during the clashes and evacuated by Israeli medics, said Palestinian security forces were overrun by the demonstrators. Shakaa said they would rebuild the site. Israel Radio reported, however, that Palestinians have begun constructing a mosque at Joseph’s Tomb. After images of the vandalized Joseph's Tomb were televised, Jewish protesters launched a revenge attack. As word spread that a Tiberias man was among three soldiers captured by Lebanese guerrillas, hundreds of residents of the Jewish town converged on a 200-year-old mosque abandoned during the 1948 Middle East war. In recent months, however, Muslim activists from nearby Arab communities had been holding Friday prayers there in an attempt to regain control. Demonstrators burned a tire inside, blackening the walls and floor, and one man pushed stones from the roof of the mosque onto the street. In a continued cycle of vandalism, Jaffa Arabs desecrated a local synagogue and rioting residents of Palestinian Shfaram vandalized the town’s ancient synagogue. Shfaram's mayor apologized for the damage and began work to restore the building. Around the world, a number of synagogues were desecrated as a show of solidarity with Palestinians. Several Torah scrolls were burned Tuesday after vandals set fire to a synagogue in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. Unknown assailants attacked two synagogues in Paris with firebombs, Israel Radio reported. Meanwhile, in Israel, two rabbis and three yeshiva students were reported to have become victims of the violence. In the first days of the conflict, a head of the West Bank yeshiva, Rabbi Brandover, was dragged out of his car and severely beaten by Palestinian police when he mistakenly entered Palestinian territory. The rabbi was taken to a hospital in serious condition. Later, in a similar incident, three yeshiva students were bitten and stabbed by an Arab mob in Jerusalem. Last Sunday, Israeli security forces discovered the bullet-ridden body of Rabbi Hillel Lieberman, 37, a U.S. citizen who taught at Joseph Tomb's seminary. Saturday morning Lieberman, the father of seven, left his West Bank synagogue on foot for Joseph’s Tomb in nearby Nablus after hearing that Palestinians had destroyed the shrine. Lieberman, unarmed and wearing a prayer shall, intended to save some of the prayer books left in the seminary. According the Israeli Army and Palestinian Radio, the rabbi was stopped by armed Palestinians, brutally beaten and killed. Lieberman’s father, Rabbi Sidney Zvulun Lieberman of Brooklyn, New York, claims to be a distant cousin of Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democratic Party candidate for vice president. The senator says, however, that he is unaware of the connection. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations called on President Bill Clinton to hold Arafat personally responsible for rabbi's murder.

	2001-AUG-2:  By this date, 549 Palestinians and 133 Israelis have been killed since the start of Infitada II in the fall of 2000. Thousands have been injured. Haroon Siddiqui, editorial page editor emeritus of the Toronto Star described the situation in Israel, and the reactions of the world community: Three million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have been in a state of economic and military siege for months. Israel acknowledges that it is now actively assassinating suspected militants. B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group claims that Palestinian suspects, including children, have been imprisoned and abused. Israel is now largely isolated by the world community, with the exception of the United States. The UN High Commission for Human Rights has expressed "grave concern a the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the occupied territories'...at the large number of persons, including children, detained; [and at] the continued detention of some detainees without any charges." The International Red Cross and Amnesty International have also condemned Israeli actions. The European Union called on Israel to end illegal settlements in the occupied areas, to stop "extra-judicial killings," to stop withholding funds from the Palestinian Authority, and to reopen the West Bank and Gaza Strip. British Foreign Secretary Ben Bradshaw said: "Britain cannot accept the targeted assassination by Israel of Palestinian militants. We and our European Union colleagues have repeated made clear that such assassinations are wrong and illegal under international law. Justice cannot be meted out by force." Siddiqui concludes his article with: "...[Ariel] Sharon's misguided mission of starving, beating, and killing Palestinians in to capitulation will not work any more than any other occupier's delusion of squelching the will of the occupied to be free. The only route to peace and security that Israel wants and deserves lies through the negotiations begun by the late Yitzhak Rabin." 6
	2002-MAR: A massive increase in violence by both sides occurred during the first half of 2002-MAR. During the first two weeks of March, over 150 Palestinians and 50 Israelis died. Ariel Sharon's popularity among Israeli voters has suffered accordingly. Secretary-General Kofi Annan deliver an unusually frank speech to the U.N. Security Council, urging Palestinians to halt "morally repugnant" acts of terror and suicide bombings. He also urged the Israelis to end their "illegal occupation" of Palestinian territory and stop using excessive force. The Israeli government claims that the land in dispute is not occupied, but is rather "disputed." Thus they believe that the Fourth Geneva Convention, which establishes minimum standards for the protection of civilians during army occupations, does not apply there. The U.N. Security Council approved a U.S. resolution on 2002-MAR-12 which calls for the creation of a Palestinian state and affirms "a vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side-by-side within secure and recognized borders." The vote was 14 to 0, with Syria abstaining. 7
	2002-JUN: Thomas Friedman, writing an editorial for the New York Times in concerned about the future. He commented: "...there are three trends converging in the Middle East today. The first is this vicious Israeli-Palestinian war. The second is a population explosion in the Arab world, where virtually every Arab country has a population bubble of under-15-year-olds, who are marching toward a future where they will find a shortage of good jobs and a surplus of frustration. The third is an explosion of Arab satellite TV stations, the Internet and other private media. Basically what's happening is that this Arab media explosion is taking images of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and beaming them to this population explosion, nurturing a rage against Israel, America and Jews in a whole new Arab generation." 8
	2002-SEP-11: There have been some interesting developments reported in the media. All may point to significant change in this troubled region: The number of attacks on the Israeli public by Palestinian suicide bombers has decreased markedly over the previous month. The Palestine Authority's parliament, reflecting popular anger and frustration, has forced Chairman Arafat's entire cabinet to resign. A survey has indicated that most Israeli settlers in the occupied territories are willing to leave if they receive sufficient financial incentive.

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