Aimee Howarth brings you an interview with The Yorker directors on the final day of the advent articles
Aimee Howarth speaks to YUSU's sabbatical officers about their Christmas Day routine for day 17 of the advent calendar
For the final time this term, Vicky Morris updates you on this weeks film news
50 years after the publication of 'James and the Giant Peach', the works of Roald Dahl continue to celebrate success.
His message will ring true in the light of escalating violence in the occupied territories over the last week. In one of the bloodiest days of conflict since Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza in 2005, at least 54 Palestinians were confirmed dead on Saturday as a result of Israeli missile attacks. These were retaliations for rocket attacks from Gaza, one of which killed an Israeli civilian on Wednesday.
We don’t want charity, we need more political teeth.
Hassassian, as part of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, rejects armed struggle as a means of reaching a solution to the Palestine problem. Indeed, he and his family were almost the victims of a missile strike by Apache gunship helicopters in 2004. His view on violent conflict is simple:
"Rockets aren’t helping the Palestinian people. I condemn the violence of groups like Hamas.”
Those words may prove to be unwittingly prescient; with Israeli troops now massing at the borders with Gaza, rumours of an operation into the territory are rife. With the wider struggle for the future of Palestine continuing, both in armed conflict and at the negotiating table, why does Hassassian feel that UK students are important to the crisis?
“Any kind of support should eventually have an impact. Let’s not forget the experience of South Africa. The kind of support that came from this country [the UK], with the academic boycott, and then the trade boycott, had a certain kind of repercussion.”
The idea of a British academic boycott of Israeli universities was floated by various university teaching and research unions in 2006 and 2007. It sparked considerable debate within union circles and the wider public, but after seeking legal advice the unions found that any request of their members to boycott Israeli academics would be unlawful, so it was not pursued.
Before his role as Ambassador to the UK, he worked at Bethlehem University for 25 years, rising to the position of Executive Vice President, before moving here to begin his new role. The Yorker asked Hassassian whether he supported the boycott:
“As a government we took a neutral stance, but it was the Palestinian universities that began the wider embargo. It’s not that we don’t like to cooperate, but more for the fact that human rights violations are constantly taking place, with no academic freedom whatsoever for the Palestinians.”
Despite the divided opinion on the boycott, it is undoubted that the cause of a Palestinian state has wider popular support in the UK. Hassassian claims that statistics frequently show that upwards of 70% support an end to the occupation and the creation of a sovereign state. Why do our democratically elected politicians not reflect this support in the international arena? As always with diplomacy, Hassassian claims it is an issue of geopolitics:
“We see a discrepancy between the popular support, and the position of the [UK] Government. It’s when the geostrategic interests of the country prevail, as opposed to those of Palestine. Their interests with the Americans and the Israelis [come into play], that’s why you see a difference.”
Palestine and its people are about to move into a key phase in their history. With the Annapolis conference in November last year seeing both sides formally discuss a two state solution to the problem for the first time, progress is being made diplomatically. But the stakes are high, as we have seen with the renewed violence this week. What does Hassassian see as a satisfactory solution to the question, in the eyes of the Palestinians?
“A new Palestinian state should be economically and politically viable, meaning that it cannot be as it is today: dissected, with no geographic contiguity between Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. When we talk about a two-state solution, we are talking about one politically viable unit.”
Negotiations will undoubtedly continue as the outgoing President Bush searches for his legacy. In light of this week’s bloodshed however, progress will have to be swift.
Professor Hassassian addressed students at an event organised by York Union Society.
I'm not a closed minded lefty, as I stated earlier, I'm just interested in well-balanced debate and discussion. I don't particularly claim to be an expert on the middle-east, there may be facts I am unaware of. Any points I make are purely based on what I know of the situation, if there is information I'm not aware of that changes my point, then I'm happy to learn of it, and reconsider my point of view.
I'm quite happy to read and accept constructive criticism. When I've got a bit more time to spare I'll be happy to read Dan C's essay that he kindly wrote and either accept or respond to his points.
.#17 - I can't help thinking that you'd take great relish from me and my family having missiles launched in our general direction. Neither of us will ever understand what it's like to be a Palestinian or an Israeli in the West Bank, but that doesn't prevent us from commenting as external observers.
Christ Northwood, im afraid it is true and not only that but Intel's new centrino chip was developed in israel, as was microsoft's XP operating system. American industry giants such as GM, Ford, Boeing & Lockheed Martin manage their manufacturing using software from israeli tech company Tecnomatix. The first PC anti-virus system was developed in Israel. Israeli companies also invented SMS texting, voicemail and other mobile phone services. Here's a video of loads of other facts about Israeli inventions and contributions to science:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5tDDkvXSI8&feature=related
Dan: Sorry to disappoint you but I'm not the son of God...
You're also horribly, horribly wrong about a great many of those claims. Only the P55C was developed by Intel in Israel, the rest of the P5 series of chips were developed in the US. Similarly, the later P6 series of chips (Pentium II, Pentium Pro, etc) were developed in Santa Clara and Oregon (source: Intel website). Secondly, the Centrino is not a "chip", but rather a marketing term for a collection of technologies including Core 2 (of which, the Merom variants as used in laptops were developed in Hafia) and Intel's wireless solutions. SMS is part of the GSM standard, which was developed by CEPT, of which Israel is not a member (source: CEPT website). As for your claim for anti-virus, I think you're getting confused, as it was one of the earliest PC viruses (Jerusalem) that was created in Israel, and it was a virus, not an anti-virus (bonus fact! The earliest PC virus was called Brain and was created in Pakistan. Source: IBM). The earliest known "anti-virus" (i.e., one that cleaned up after a virus) was probably Reaper (although that wasn't PC based as PCs weren't around at that point). The first anti-virus software that vaguely resembles anything that you would consider a modern anti-virus (i.e., can detect multiple specific viruses, and doesn't solely use behavioural analysis) was the VirusScan product released by John McAffee in 1987 (source: Me - I work for an anti-virus company, I know this stuff. There are no major anti-virus firms out of Israel.)
I have no doubt that Israel have contributed much to the world community, but at least verify your facts before you go making bogus claims that undermine the statement and the potentially valid claims within.
Just to clear up one or two factual innacuracies: I don't think the history of Jewish inventors is necessary relevant to the debate in process. If we are going to boast about the achievements of 'people', I think the Romans, Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and more recently, us, the British and more definitively the Scots, have been some of the key individuals in technology/medical breaking advances.
The point is as I see it, that Israel has a right to defend itself and it IS a special case because it is a nation permenantly at war. Syria has never signed peace with Israel and Iran and the Hamas and Fatah wish to see the eradication of the Israeli state. No other country in the world faces the threat that Israel does currently. I can assure you that if another country rained down rockets on the UK, US or any other nation in the world, then appropriate action would be taken and rightfully so. Israel WOULD NOT RESPOND or incur into Gaza if rockets were not continually and indiscriminately launched. It would sit at the peace-table and negotiate to remove settlements and pursue a two-state solution as it has done since its creation. All peace initiatives have been blocked by the Palestinians and if Mitch or anyone else can give me just ONE example of whan Israel has blocked a peace initiative, I would like to hear of it.
Finally, on the subject of UN bias against Israel, I'm sure you have all heard today that the UN Security Council could not agree on a statement regarding the massacre of 8 Israeli students as an 'act of terror' because Lybia blocked the move. Who in their right minds does not think the systematic murder of innocents is not an act of terror? This is the anti-Israel bias inherent in the UN. The fact that Israel has NEVER been a guest-member on the security-council is testament to this viewpoint. This is why the Arab states favour the UN. Because it is a global channel they can pursue their anti-semitic and anti-Israeli feeling through, back up only eagerly by European states such as France, Germany and Spain with sizeable and influential Muslim electorates.
If Hamas had the capability, (and thank God it does not) we would be in the process of witnessing another holocaust against the Jewish people. On a personal note, my great great uncle was in the British Army on liberating Belsen and what he saw in that death camp on being the first batallion to enter, made him so physically sick he vowed not even he, a pacifist forced to fight, could ever forgive a German for such brutality. Unless we act against Iran and the terrorists who persistently attack Israel, wanting to see a repeat of the most brutal industrial-scale mass murders in history, then the people of Israel can never be truly safe.
Dan Taylor
Off the top of my head: Resolution 242 (& 338), then by consulting Wikipedia (not the most reliable source, but hey, this is a comment, not an article): The Rogers Plan and The Geneva Accord (which was outright rejected by Israel).
I must admit that most of the processes were not halted by Israel. The more I read into this properly (outside of my previous reading which had almost exclusively come from left-wing authors), the more I am swung by the pro-Israel argument.
(Holy crap, someone potentially changing their position in a debate?! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it #17, whoever you are.)
Either way, many of the acts carried out by both sides over what is essentially an issue of race and land are deplorable (who truly "owns" land anyway?).
And on that note, I back out of the debate. It's gone into far too much detail for what is essentially a short article on a student news website, I'm not well-informed enough to continue properly and I need to reconsider my position.
The Geneva Accords were drawn up by Israeli politician Yosi Beilin if I am not much mistaken, but were rejected by both the Israeli government because of issues surrounding refugees and giving Palestinians 'right to settle' in Israel and not the newly created state of Palestine, thus rendering the idea of a Jewish-state, meaningless. They were also rejected by a majority of the Palestinian people (no official figures available) because they believed the potential settlement was not harsh enough on Israel thus obliging them to take more refugees. Additionally, they did not like the fact that Jerusalem would be divided into 'East' and 'West'- a settlement Israel has proposed at all previous peace summits when in some cases, Palestinian leaders have gone along with this principle. In other words, the Geneva Accords were not unilaterally rejected by the Israeli government.
UN Resolution 242 was the founding basis of the 'land for peace' agreement. Israel has kept up it side of the bargain here. In 1979, Israel and Egypt signed peace, the latter recognising Israel's existence and the former relinquishing all claim to the Sinai Peninsula. Jordan withdrew their own claims for the Gaza strip just after the start of the 1st intifada (1989 I believe) and then peace was signed with Israel in 1994. In 2005, Sharon dismantled Israeli settlements in Gaza and removed all forces there. In response, Plaestinians were granted land. Did peace follow? No most certainly not. Rockets continued to rain down on Israel inspite of a full, unilateral witdrawal from the territory. Regarding Syria, peace talks continued throughout the 1990's when Israel withdrew a proportion of it forces from the Golan Heights, but Syria continued to be obstructive, claiming 12 miles of terrotiry given to Israel by the UN settlement of 1948 that was rightfully Israel's under international law. Israel have almost unanimously complied with UN resolution 242.
UN Resolution 338 called for an immediate halt to hostilities in the Yom Kippur War. A war that itself symbolised the entire rejection of teh Israeli state by her Arab neighbours. Israel was systematically attacked by her neighbours on the most holy day of the Jewish calendar. In my personal eyes, a state has a right to self-defence when invaded and if breaking (by a matter of hours) a UN security council resolution in order to achieve this, then so be it.
The Rogers Plan was a poor piece of US worded diplomacy- I would argued biased and represnets the inherant anti-Israeli feelings in the UN. Both Egypt and Israel were required not to change the current military situation in the region (1970) yet Egypt immediately movied anti-aircraft batteries into the zone, increasing in number and resulting in the arms-build up that thus resulted in the 1973 war. Israel thus refused to see any credibility in the UN resolution that was clearly breached by Egypt and Rogers was seen not to do anything about their military build up in the region. For Israel, it appeared that the poorly worded US resolution was no steeping-stone for lasting peace between Egypt and its Arab neighbours.
Mitch, land belongs to no-one but the people of a nation-state. Israel has a right to their strip of land, as much as Palestinians do their own or any other nation-state in the world. However, Israel and their forces do not go blowing up churches, massacre students, launch INDISCRIMINATE rocket attacks against Palestine or call for the elimination of any state of people on earth. I am not saying their tactics are perfect or successful. In any war, civilians are killed. Israel holds those to account who perputrate such crimes. Hamas on the other hand, parade them through streets, call them heroic and challenge their sons and daughters to "follow in their footsteps to martyrdom". I'm glad you are reading outside the left-wing bracket. It must be extremely liberating!
Dan Taylor
Chris you'll be happy to know that the current Intel Centrino chip used by millions of pc users worldwide today was developed in Israel, and so has quite alot to do with "modern intel processors"!
Dan: As I said earlier, Centrino isn't a chip, it's a collection of technologies, of which Merom represents one of the technologies used in some of the Centrino variants. I suggest you actually read my post (@#23) before responding.
comment deleted by the author
comment deleted by the author Regardless of whether it was fully developed in Israel or if it was partly developed there is pretty irrelevant; what is relevant is that Israel is clearly a leader in science having developed or pioneered all the other inventions i spoke of earlier, none of which you refuted. To be honest though, none of what you say takes away from the validity of anything I said with regard to the actual argument at hand and I feel as though we are straying a little from the debate we were having. The issue at hand is the politics and complexities of the conflict being explored. Computers may be your topic, politics is mine.
Dan: Exactly. Glad we agree. In future I assume you'll back up your claims with facts rather than wild untruths (including the one that implies that Israel is part of the EU, lol)
Seems as though Chris knows a little more about computers than Dan knows about politics - at least that's what Dan's colleagues tell me.
With all respect, we all know that the British have been responsible for the most technological developments in recent history, certainly post-industrial revolution.
Dan T
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