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Palestinians Tired of Empty Promises, Wary of Powell Speech
GAZA CITY, Palestine, Nov. 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian leaders warmly welcomed U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech on Middle East policy, but on the streets of Gaza, many said they are tired of Washington's promises and just want the Israelis to leave the Occupied Territories, news agencies said Tuesday.
"Every day there are new positions, but usually it's only talk," said 48-year-old Adnan Ibrahim, one of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who has lost his job during the 14-month-long al-Aqsa Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation.
"There is no tax on words," he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Powell on Monday delivered what was billed as the most important policy address of the Bush administration on Washington's plan to help end the clashes which have left close to 1,000 people dead, mostly Palestinians.
The highly respected former U.S. general told an audience at the University of Louisville in Kentucky that Israel should withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat spoke for most when he "welcomed" the speech - which also notably backed Palestinian aspirations for an independent state - but said he was waiting for changes on the ground.
Many in Gaza City said they were especially encouraged by Powell's call for the peace process to move forward based on two U.N. resolutions which demand Israel vacate the land it seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
"We need to see the U.N. resolutions implemented, Israel acts like it's above international law. It seems like international law is only applied to the Arabs and the weak countries," said Azmi Shebat, a 20-year-old university student.
"Israel needs to be pressured forcefully by the Americans," he added. "We need the United States to do something so that in the future we will say that when America says something it will do it."
Like others, he noted that shortly after Powell's speech, Israeli tanks fired shells and heavy machinegun fire at a refugee camp in an operation near the border with Egypt. Six Palestinians were wounded and 20 houses were damaged or destroyed.
Israeli forces overnight entered a Palestinian-ruled sector of the Gaza Strip, encroaching 100 yards inside the Rafah refugee camp, near the Egyptian border, a Palestinian security source and witnesses said early Tuesday.
And as the international community praised Washington's bid to revive peace moves, Israeli soldiers shot dead a 22-year-old Palestinian and wounded another near Nablus, in the northern West Bank, according to witnesses. The incident happened near a Jewish settlement.
The overnight Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip underlined problems involved in bringing about an end to the hostilities.
Three houses were destroyed in the process and five Palestinians were injured in the same area, Palestinian sources said.
"Powell should have at least asked the Israelis to withdraw from all the places they have occupied since the start of the Intifada, but it was still a good move by the Americas," said another university student, Adnun Nasreem, 23, quoted by AFP.
People also said they were unsure whether Washington could be truly impartial in the dispute since it was allied so closely with Israel and decided to become re-engaged in the region only after needing Arab support for its war on Afghanistan.
"This is American politics, I don't think it's going to change any policies really since they are allies with Israel and they cannot change that," said Assad Ashur, a 48-year-old engineer.
Another student, Amir Odwan, praised Powell's insistence that Israel freeze its Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, but added that, "The speech was closer to Israel than to the Palestinians because it described the resistance and the Intifada as terrorism."
"There was more criticism of the Palestinians than Israel, it was like a speech by Peres," he said, speaking of Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
Some Palestinians said they had not even bothered to listen to the highly anticipated speech after having seen other U.S. peace initiatives fall by the wayside.
One man in Gaza City's Palestine Square who was asked about Powell's new vision for the troubled region, simply yelled out, "I don't trust Powell. I don't trust anybody, it's just empty words."
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