(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
To avoid the customary stamp of "anti-Semite" here, we have let six Israeli Jews like Uri Avnery, Gideon Levy, How many cardboard, Ehud Barak, Einat Weizman and Avichai Chairs come up in the magazine. All of them, except former Prime Minister Barak (Camp David), are critical of Israel's occupation policy. But also Barak, as he told me in my interview with him in Tel Aviv, that Palestine should have had its own independent economy – something he had already presented to Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin before the Oslo agreement as military officer.
Among a selection of important previous articles in MODERN TIMES – marked with years in the paper edition – you will find Avnery who writes about Jewish AIPAC in the US, Levy's critique of the wall Pappe's critique of Israel's 10 myths, and soldier Stollar's mention of military service in the West Bank as harassment rather than security.
Weak health services
You can ask what makes this magazine relevant right now. One thing is corona pandemic affecting Palestinians who are already struggling, with poor health services. Well, a plane from the Arab Emirates had to get rid of medication, and some testing and protection equipment has reached the Palestinians. But the occupation and the siege of Gaza are harsh.
The second is that the situation of the Palestinians has deteriorated with the new political alliance between Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz of Israel. In May, these declared a further annexation of West Bank from July 1, including the Jordan Valley and parts of the Yehudah and Shomron areas. President Mahmoud Abbas have therefore again expressed their despair that they will not now consider themselves bound by the Oslo agreement or agreements made with the United States and Israel.
Abbas also said this in the UN in 2015. By then, 57 percent of Palestinians were for a new armed intifada. But today 2/3 of the population wants Abbas out. I even remember Ramallah how my friends threw a shoe at the TV screen when they saw him speak. Abbas is old (84 years old) and does not have the unifying qualities that probably killed Yasser Arafat. So let me mention former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the economist who got the most Palestine on its feet. Fayyad is recognized by many, as you see here in the magazine. We also got him to Oslo, where I led a conversation between him and the Oslo Agreement's Jan Egeland and Terje Røed-Larsen for the full hall in 2013 (see photo).
Dissolves itself?
The hopelessness is palpable – as at The Great March in Gaza recently. Hanan Ashrawi in the PLO leadership, however – like Abbas – want them to dissolve their Palestinian Authority (PA). Thus, they hand over all responsibility to Israel – and compare it with Germany's occupations during World War II. As she said to me: "We must endure everything getting worse before it can get better." She was also clear that they should never have signed the Oslo agreement – that they should know better.
Do we want to see PLO and PA dissolve themselves this summer? Possibly when Israel begins to annex a great deal – with US new support "The Great Deal". Then tens of thousands will be left without income – which today is paid with donor money from Norway and others. If the "quisling government" dissolves, Israel would rather get the one-state solution right in the lap – with obvious apartheid as a result.
Well, as said journalist Levy has stated in the Class Fight, dissolution or annexation, maybe both lead to changes in the trapped situation.
The magazine's six interviews – in their own right column – printed short excerpts from my filmed talks in the area with former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad , PLO woman Hanan Ashrawi, soldier Avichai Stollar from Breaking the Silence, and former Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide. But not least, Ittaf, a failed Palestinian suicide bomber – whose highest goal is freedom, which was obviously worth more to her than life.
But not least we address the problem again watera. If you travel around the West Bank, you see settlements with "straws" down into the groundwater's water sources. And now it is the "green" Jordan Valley Israel will occupy. But will new technology be able to desalinate salt water into fresh water for the West Bank and Gaza? This may change the political situation in the long run.
They are just as important PalestinianThe situation of women, also shown through today's interview by our regular correspondent in Gaza – see also the magazine's cover image. For women, unfortunately, ends up in the background, as former Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström points out in the interview in the newspaper MODERN TIMES.
What about Norway's role?
The magazine also has Khalid Jordanian on print. He wrote, at my request, about the establishment of the Palestinian Academy of Art, illustrated with pictures from our walk in the academy at that time. This was before the academy today became positively associated with Birzeit University. Norwegian Henrik Cloth was the enthusiast who contributed to the cooperation with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the support of the art college. Sometimes art speaks and works better than politics.
Theater is also effective, says director Marius Kolbein Tvedt writes about Israeli Weizman's theater performance in Oslo. He writes about her work and how the political Palestinian prisoners feel. We also have met the poet Dareen Tatour in Tel Aviv that Weizman worked with.
On the other hand, we show what a significant role a Norwegian had for Israel, such Karsten Tveit # describes the UN's first Secretary General Trygve Lie – as a lobbyist for Zionism.
But not least Norway's role with the Oslo Agreement in 1993 and the two-state solution. The conference as we in Norwegian Le Monde diplomatique arranged 20 years later in Oslo, was to be part of my documentary about the consequences of the Oslo Agreement. Maybe we have to wait another decade, until 2023 before Oslo Agreement Palestinian authorities dissolved? 30 years later, such a documentary could possibly come out with a happy ending. Yes, who knows?
Also read: Unrestrained apartheid
See nytid.no/tag/palestine and our 20 minute "movie clip".
