March 19, 2003

I AM a Bermuda-born senior citizen. I retired several years ago, looking forward to a less stressful life - a time to enjoy the natural beauty of this island. How disillusioned I was!

I have always been completely supportive of law and order. This means that I have been faithfully reporting infractions of the law to the police.

However, by reporting my concerns I am now finding out that, to the police, I am a nuisance and a bigger problem than those who blatantly break the law. When I call the police regarding my concerns, the response too often is: "What's the problem now . . .?" Therefore, I will no longer be reporting violations to them.

Since I always try to be a law-abiding citizen, I find it most stressful to see a significant faction of the population flouting every conceivable law, not on a monthly or weekly basis but on an hourly basis. What is the ultimate stress is to see the police observe these infractions and do nothing about it. How pitiful they look!

The police have absolutely no right to compromise our laws. Their responsibility is to uphold and enforce our laws and make Bermuda a pleasant and comfortable place for all people.

There are few places in Bermuda where people can enjoy recreation in a pleasant and safe environment. As a senior citizen, I no longer feel safe on this island and am gradually becoming a recluse - a prisoner in my own home.

I presently see Bermuda as a place of LAW AND DISORDER. I am deeply disappointed in the path the authorities have mapped out for us. I have lived long enough to see Bermuda lose its charm and become a country of aggression, violence and disrespect for law and order. I have lost faith and confidence in the ability of the police to provide us with a safe and pleasant environment.

I sincerely hope those in authority see the need for a police/politician retreat somewhere to assess their performances. They have become lost and confused.

SENIOR CITIZEN

PS: To the competent and pleasant police who are making a significant contribution to Bermuda, please keep it up. There are not enough of you. Perhaps you'll turn the Police Service around to the Force it used to be.

I'm sorry, Mr. Cook, but Arafat did blunder over Camp David proposal

March 18, 2003

I SHOULD warn your readers straight away that they may find this letter, in reply to Bill Cook's of last week, to be repetitive and argumentative, perhaps even conducive to boredom. I apologise for that.

I am driven to write, however, because I have been stung by Mr. Cook's suggestion that I might have been hoodwinked by super-clever Israeli spin doctors in forming my thoughts about events concerning the Middle East.

His suggestion is wide of the mark, and I wish to try to show that spin doctors, Zionist apologists and others of whom Mr. Cook is so scornful, had no effect on what I wrote in your columns some weeks ago.

Our disagreement is over whether Mr. Arafat blundered at Camp David when he failed to show any interest in the proposal put on the table by the then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. I quoted former US President Bill Clinton as having described this proposal as "very close to Palestinian demands".

I thought that the former leader of the free world, the man who was the catalyst and facilitator of these talks, would be acceptable to all as a neutral and truthful commentator on what happened. That was obviously wishful thinking.

Mr. Cook has produced a map that he says gives the lie to Mr. Clinton's claim. It shows, he says, that the Barak proposal was far from as generous as it is claimed it was, and would have created what Mr. Cook describes as a "neo-colonial dependency". He was kind enough to send me a copy in the mail.

However, the map he sent is dated June, 2002, long after the Camp David talks, and refers to territorial designations made by the Sharon government. Whatever it is, it is quite obviously not a representation of what was included in the Barak proposal.

To back up Mr. Clinton's assertion, and in the hope of forestalling any further argument about its accuracy, I offer two additional corroborative sources of information.

The first is a former Palestinian Authority cabinet minister, a Mr. Nabil Amer, who published a letter last September addressed to PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, holding him responsible for the state of chaos in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and accusing him of missing an opportunity to reach a deal at Camp David. The letter was originally published in an Arab newspaper that appears in London, but was then, rather surprisingly, republished in the PA's own newspaper, Al-Hayat al-Jadeedah, published in Ramallah.

"Didn't we dance for joy at the failure of Camp David?" the letter asked rhetorically. "Didn't we throw dirt in the face of (US) President Bill Clinton, who dared to propose a state with some amendments?

"Were we sincere about what we did? Were we right in what we did? No, we were not. After two years of bloodshed, we are now calling for what we rejected. Perhaps because now we realise that it is impossible to achieve."

The second source is Ambassador Dennis B. Ross, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He was the lead negotiator on the Middle East peace process in the first Bush and both Clinton administrations.

Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, he said this: "It is true that Arafat did not 'reject' the ideas the Clinton administration offered in December 2000. Instead, he pulled a classic Arafat: He did not say yes or no. He wanted it both ways. He wanted to keep talking as if the Clinton proposal was the opening gambit in a negotiation, but he knew otherwise. Arafat knew Clinton's plan represented the culmination of the American effort. He also knew these ideas were offered as the best judgment of what each side could live with and that the proposal would be withdrawn if not accepted.

"To this day, Arafat has never honestly admitted what was offered to the Palestinians - a deal that would have resulted in a Palestinian state, with territory in over 97 per cent of the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem; with Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of that state (including the holy place of the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary); with an international presence in place of the Israeli Defence Force in the Jordan Valley; and with the unlimited right of return for Palestinian refugees to their state but not to Israel.

"Nonetheless, Arafat continues to hide behind the canard that he was offered Bantustans - a reference to the geographically isolated black homelands created by the apartheid-era South African government. Yet with 97 per cent of the territory in Palestinian hands, there would have been no cantons. Palestinian areas would not have been isolated or surrounded. There would have been territorial integrity and contiguity in both the West Bank and Gaza, and there would have been independent borders with Egypt and Jordan.

" 'The offer was never written' is a refrain uttered time and again by apologists for Chairman Arafat as a way of suggesting that no real offer existed and that therefore Arafat did not miss a historic opportunity. Nothing could be more ridiculous or misleading. President Clinton himself presented both sides with his proposal word by word.

"I stayed behind to be certain both sides had recorded each word accurately. Given Arafat's negotiating style, Clinton was not about to formalise the proposal, making it easier for Arafat to use the final offer as just a jumping-off point for more ceaseless bargaining in the future.

"However, it is worth pondering how Palestinians would have reacted to a public presentation of Clinton's plan. Had Palestinians honestly known what Arafat was unwilling to accept, would they have supported violence against the Israelis, particularly given the suffering imposed on them? Would Arafat have remained the 'only Palestinian' capable of making peace?

"Perhaps such domestic pressure would have convinced Arafat, the quintessential survivor, that the political costs of intransigence would be higher than the costs of making difficult concessions to Israel."

Of course, another way to test the assertion that Mr. Arafat blundered is to ask yourself this simple question: Are the Palestinians now in a better position than they were in 2000, before the Camp David meeting?

I thank you most sincerely for your indulgence, Mr. Editor.

GAVIN SHORTO

St. George's

What is the purpose of this extravagance?

March 13, 2003

THERE is a short story in yesterday's Gazette that the St. George's Preservation Society has prevailed upon the Department of Works & Engineering to replace the windows recently installed in the refurbished Post Office with "period windows".

What, pray tell, is the purpose of this extravagance with public funds?

Photographs of the building taken circa 1900 plainly show no windows at all, merely open arches. So, what period is to be selected - the iron bars of the original jail, or the disintegrating woodwork of subsequent years?

The present windows are well proportioned, handsomely mullioned and perhaps, most significantly, present a minimal visual detraction from the arches themselves, the pre-eminent feature of the building. Why not leave them as they are and use the money saved to carry out repairs desperately needed elsewhere in the crumbling town, perhaps starting with the Town Hall?

It appears that the Preservation Society has caught a severe case of nose-out-of-joint-itis, brought on by the Department of Works' previous unauthorised job on the roof. The consequence is that no matter what the Department does, it will be wrong, and the public will be made to pay.

Successful preservation requires a modicum of common sense and flexibility, and a sensible realisation that Providence has given us the intelligence and wherewithal to use materials that will preserve the appearance of the Old Town far better, and for far longer and more economically than the red lead, lead paint and lime wash of old.

FOR COMMON SENSE

St. George's