I was attacked personally in some quarters as being a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite. At least one website was calling for my death and even went so far as to describe how this murder should be carried out by "hanging Ryan from a lamp post." One sick individual posted to the website he was searching through the Canadian Tire catalogue looking for the apparatus by which I should be hanged.

In addition, my office staff were bombarded with more death threats and comments so vile and threatening they could not be printed in a daily newspaper.

Resolution 50 supported an international boycott and divestment campaign against Israel because of its apartheid policies towards the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. CUPE Ontario punctured the cone of silence that had descended on the U.S. and Canadian reporting of the atrocities in Palestine -- and it clearly touched a nerve.

To this day, one of the main obstacles to peace in the Middle East remains the continuing 39-year subjugation of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.

When Israel was founded by the UN in 1948, it was granted 56% of the territory the world refers to as the Holy Land. Following wars between Israel and its Arab neighbours and the resulting treaties, Israel wound up with 77% of the land and Palestinians with 23%, divided between the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Over the past 39 years, Israel has occupied the lands of the Palestinians and allowed settlers from Israel and around the world to set up Jewish enclaves there. So far, 205 such settlements exist in the West Bank and a honeycomb of roads and highways connect these Jewish-only communities to each other. Palestinians are prohibited from using the highways, forced onto winding and dangerous roads with hundreds of military checkpoints.

Despite the brouhaha from the Israeli lobby, the boycott and anti-apartheid campaign are picking up steam at home and around the world with such noteworthy supporters as Jimmy Carter.

In his book, the Nobel Prize winner castigates Israel for its policies towards Palestinians.

In a recent interview with Democracy Now, a radio and TV station in the U.S., Carter said, "some Israelis believe they have the right to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land and try to justify the sustained subjugation of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinians."

Former U.S. president Carter is just the latest world figure to openly challenge the policies of Israel in Gaza and the West Bank. He joins Rev. Desmond Tutu, another Nobel Prize winner. Each time a trade union or church group or world leader steps forward to break the cone of silence around this issue, the more difficult it becomes for the lobby groups to spew their propaganda.

I'm sure by now that president Carter's e-mails, voice mail and phone calls are filled with sick and vile allegations of Nazi, anti-Semite and Jew-hater. The truth, however, is that the more people speak out against the atrocities in Palestine, the more ridiculous the occupiers and their supporters sound.

Clift: You've created quite a stir. I suspect it was partly intentional.

Carter: Well, it was. One of the purposes of the book was to provoke discussion, which is very rarely heard in this country, and to open up some possibility that we could rejuvenate or restart the peace talks in Israel that have been absent for six years-so that was the purpose of the book.

The word apartheid-did you agonize about that?

Not really, I didn't agonize because I knew that's an accurate description of what's going on in Palestine. I would say that the plight of the Palestinians now-the confiscation of their land, that they're being suppressed completely against voicing their disapproval of what's happening, the building of the wall that intrudes deep within their territory, the complete separation of Israelis from the Palestinians-all of those things in many ways are worse than some of the aspects of apartheid in South Africa. There is no doubt about it, and no one can go there and visit the different cities in Palestine without agreeing with what I have said.

Why do you think you're under attack for the book and the title?

You and I both know the powerful influence of AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], which is not designed to promote peace. I'm not criticizing them, they have a perfect right to lobby, but their purpose in life is to protect and defend the policies of the Israeli government and to make sure those policies are approved in the United States and in our Congress-and they're very effective at it. I have known a large number of Jewish organizations in this country [that] have expressed their approval for the book and are trying to promote peace. But their voices are divided and they're relatively reluctant to speak out publicly. And any member of Congress who's looking to be re-elected couldn't possibly say that they would take a balanced position between Israel and the Palestinians, or that they would insist on Israel withdrawing to international borders, or that they would dedicate themselves to protect human rights of Palestinians-it's very likely that they would not be re-elected.

In some of your interviews you've said that this is a debate that's out in the open in Israel, and it's only here that we feel inhibited.

Oh yes-that's correct. Not only in Israel-all over Israel, the major news media, every day-[but] obviously in the Arab world, even in Europe. In this country, any sort of debate back and forth, any sort of incisive editorial comment in the major newspapers, is almost completely absent.

You're obviously aware of your main critic, Mr. Stein, who used to be with the Carter Center.

Thirteen years ago! He hasn't been associated with the Carter Center for 13 years.

He says that he was a third party in some meetings and that his notes don't jibe with yours.

He was a third party in some of the meetings, I can't deny that. And a lot of those meetings took place when I was still president and an exact transcription was kept and it's in the official files. So the reports that I gave in the book are completely accurate.

He also accuses you of plagiarism, saying you took from other sources.

The only source that I took anything from that I know about was my own book, which I wrote earlier-it's called "The Blood of Abraham" ... Somebody told me [that Stein] was complaining about the maps in the book. Well, the maps are derived from an atlas that was published in 2004 in Jerusalem and it was basically produced under the aegis of officials in Sweden. And the Swedish former prime minister is the one who told me this was the best atlas available about the Middle East.

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

In an interview with Reuters, Stein cited a passage from the book that said it was imperative for Arabs and Palestinians to "make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for peace are accepted by Israel."

Stein said: "Does that mean killing Jews is legitimate? Did I misread this? I don't think so. If he wrote it, he is endorsing violence, which is not the original purpose of the Carter Center."

But Douglas Brinkley, who published a biography of Carter focusing on his post-presidential years, said the book could enhance Carter's reputation in the Middle East and beyond among those who see him as an independent voice.

"This flap only enhances his reputation globally. It makes him seem somebody who doesn't just speak an American government line but who is an international peacemaker and a candid analyst," Brinkley told Reuters.

"The damage he has done is in the U.S. and Israel and in those countries his reputation has taken a hit," he said.

In the book, Carter, who won the Nobel peace prize in 2002 for conflict resolution, traces the history of the Middle East from the 19th century to the present through the Camp David Accords in 1978, a year into his presidency.

"Anyone that goes there can't deny that a system of apartheid is going on," Carter said in a speech in Atlanta after the book was published in November.

He said he was "completely at ease" with the book, and that its title was deliberately provocative.

WEDGE ISSUE

Carter's assertion that U.S. debate on the Middle East has been stifled by a pro-Jewish lobby is aimed at causing people within America's evangelical community to question support for Israel, according to Michael Jacobs, managing editor of the Atlanta Jewish Times.

He said the assertion would likely backfire.

"It's damaged the way he is seen in the Jewish community of Atlanta and ... a large portion of the evangelical Christian community. But people who aren't friends of Israel see this as an example of him being courageous," Jacobs told Reuters.

Carter is a native of Georgia, where he served as governor before launching his bid for the White House, and is widely seen as the state's leading citizen.

Judy Marx, executive director of the Atlanta chapter of the American Jewish Committee, said the book would undermine Carter's reputation for conflict resolution "because he is not offering balanced opinions and being an honest broker."

But she said the controversy had in the short term opened doors for dialogue with African American, Latino and other groups in Atlanta who had invited her group to address them over the book.

Dig deeper in the Baker report text to discover what such "commitment" involves. "For several reasons, we should act boldly: there is no military solution to this conflict. The vast majority of the Israeli body politic is tired of being a nation perpetually at war. No American administration - Democratic or Republican - will ever abandon Israel. Political engagement and dialogue are essential in the Arab-Israeli dispute because it is an axiom that when the political process breaks down there will be violence on the ground."

Thus the road map is rolled out again. Thus UN resolutions 242 and 338 - which mean handing back the territorial spoils of past war - are invoked as foundation documents. Thus hostile nations and organisations that deny Israel's right to exist are frozen out of any action, and a more malleable Syria gets the Golan Heights back (maybe with US troops deployed along its new border). Thus two viable states emerge and learn to live together.

It doesn't sound an easy road - and, of course, it isn't. But there is at least a vestigial pathway here, if anyone wishes to walk along it. Yet who, first out of the block, seems to hate talking the talk, let alone putting his hiking boots on? Yes: it's the ally no American administration will ever abandon. In short order, Ehud Olmert announces that this "attempt to create a linkage between the Iraqi issue and the Mid-East issue" is wrong. "We have a different view." More, he claims, George Bush has always agreed with him. Meet with Iran? Actually, he doesn't rule out military strikes against Tehran and its "criminal" president. "I rule nothing out." And as for Syria, Germany's Foreign Minister takes a pasting for even going to Damascus. "I think he made a mistake."

Maybe, with Hamas sidelined, Olmert would see about seeking a "contiguous zone" agreement with President Mahmoud Abbas. But fiercely, specifically, he won't let the rest of the region in. It's nothing to do with them. Except, of course, that that's rubbish.

The trouble with Tehran - apart from some fire-breathing presidential rhetoric - is Iran's possible bomb, 10 years away in the making. Who else in the region has such a bomb already? Israel. Whose rockets landed on Israeli territory? Iraq's. Who reputedly plays godfather to Hezbollah in Lebanon? Iran. Who competes relentlessly for influence in Beirut? Syria. The list is longer than that, of course, but the point is a short, sharp one: there is no halcyon world where dominant Israelis and compliant Palestinians can be left alone to work out a deal. Everything connects - in emotion and often in practice. And Olmert fears that, which is why he moves so swiftly to exclude Iran and Syria; for including them brings pressure to his door.

Be clear. This is, absolutely, the reverse of the Baker plan. This turndown from day one. This is the abandonment of whatever wisdom the independent study group has to offer. Who needs enemies to sabotage prospects of a wider peace when "friends" do it instinctively?

Don't they fear at least some retribution from US public opinion? Alas, no. As Jimmy Carter wrote the other day: "It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine . . . Very few of them would ever deign to visit the cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents."

Accept that American attachment to the Israeli cause is total - as Baker himself makes clear. Bring on more peacekeeping American troops. The hinge and the question, though, is how far that attachment should wreck everything else?

Israel could be propelled into regional talks. It floats on a sea of US subsidy. It is, in many ways, the real 51st state. But it does not agree with Baker that there are "no military solutions" here. Nor will it commit to the necessary level of "political engagement". Does more "violence on the ground" follow automatically, then? It's a sad, sad way to "abandon" hope.

How, I always ask, can you expect the West to understand and accept the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 men, women and children from Palestine in 1948 when you will not try to comprehend the enormity done the Jews of Europe? And, here, of course, is the wretched irony of the whole affair. For what the Muslims of the Middle East should be doing is pointing out to the world that they were not responsible for the Jewish Holocaust, that, horrific and evil though it was, it is a shameful, outrageous injustice that they, the Palestinians, should suffer for something they had no part in and - even more disgusting - that they should be treated as if they have. But, no, Ahmadinajad has neither the brains nor the honesty to grasp this simple, vital equation.

True, the Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem shook hands with Hitler. I met his only surviving wartime Palestinian comrade before he died and it is perfectly true that the intemperate, devious Had al-Husseini made some vile anti-Jewish wartime speeches in German, in one of which he advised the Nazis to close Jewish refugee exit routes to Palestine and deport Jews eastwards (why east, I wonder?) and helped to raise a Muslim SS unit in Bosnia. I have copies of his speeches and his photograph hangs in the Yad Vashem Museum. But the downtrodden, crushed, occupied, slaughtered Palestinians of our time - of Sabra and Chatila, of Jenin and Beit Yanoun - were not even alive in the Second World War.

Yet it is to the eternal shame of Israel and its leaders that they should pretend as if the Palestinians were participants in the Second World War. When the Israeli army was advancing on Beirut in 1982, the then Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, wrote a crazed letter to US president, Ronald Reagan, explaining that he felt he was marching on "Berlin" to liquidate "Hitler" (ie Yasser Arafat, who was busy comparing his own guerrillas to the defenders of Stalingrad).

That courageous Israeli writer Uri Avneri wrote an open letter to Begin. "Mr Prime Minister," he began, "Hitler is dead." But this did not stop Ariel Sharon from trying the same trick in 1989. By talking to the US State Department, Arafat was "like Hitler, who also wanted so much to negotiate with the Allies in the second half of the Second World War", Sharon told the Wall Street Journal. "... Arafat is the same kind of enemy."

Needless to say, any comparison between the behaviour of German troops in the Second World War and Israeli soldiers today (with their constantly betrayed claim to "purity of arms") is denounced as anti-Semitic. Generally, I believe that is the correct reaction. Israelis are not committing mass rape, murder or installing gas chambers for the Palestinians.

But the acts of Israeli troops are not always so easy to divorce from such insane parallels. During the Sabra and Chatila massacres - when Israel sent its enraged Lebanese Christian Phalangist militias into the camps after telling them that Palestinians had killed their beloved leader - up to 1,700 Palestinians were slaughtered. Israeli troops watched - and did nothing.

The Israeli novelist A B Yehoshua observed that, even if his country's soldiers had not known what was happening, "then this would be the same lack of knowledge of the Germans who stood outside Buchenwald and Treblinka and did not know what was happening".

After the killings of Jenin, an Israeli officer suggested to his men, according to the Israeli press, that, with close quarter fighting, they might study the tactics of Nazi troops in Warsaw in 1944.

And I have to say - indeed, it needs to be said - that, after the countless Lebanese civilian refugees ruthlessly cut down on the roads of Lebanon by the Israeli air force in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and again this summer, how can one avoid being reminded of the Luftwaffe attacks on the equally helpless French refugees of 1940? Many thousands of Lebanese have been killed in this way over the past 25 years.

And please spare me the nonsense about "human shields". What about the marked ambulance of women and children rocketed by a low-flying Israeli helicopter in 1996? Or the refugee convoy whose women and children were torn to pieces by an equally low-flying Israeli air force helicopter as they fled along the roads after being ordered to leave their homes by the Israelis?

No, Israelis are not Nazis. But it's time we talked of war crimes unless they stop these attacks on refugees. The Arabs are entitled to talk the same way. They should. But they must stop lying about Jewish history - and take a lesson, perhaps, from the Israeli historians who tell the truth about the savagery which attended Israel's birth.

As for the West's reaction to Ahmadinajad's antics, Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara was "shocked" into disbelief while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert responded with more eloquent contempt. Strangely, no one recalled that, the holocaust deniers of recent years - deniers of the Turkish genocide of 1.5 million Armenian Christians in 1915, that is - include Lord Blair, who originally tried to prevent Armenians from participating in Britain's Holocaust Day and the then Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, who told Turks that their massacre of the victims of the 20th century's first Holocaust did not constitute a genocide.

I've no doubt Ahmadinajad - equally conscious of Iran's precious relationship with Turkey - would gutlessly fail to honour the Armenian Holocaust in Tehran. Who would have thought that the governments of Britain, Israel and Iran had so much in common?

But even Barak's verbal acrobatics, his impressive formulations and his lofty words cannot conceal the bitter truth: It would have been better had these rulings not been handed down. Going forward, it is perhaps preferable that proponents of human rights no longer petition the High Court of Justice. The fact that the new president of the court and his deputy are not signed on some of these rulings ensures that nothing will change in the future of our Supreme Court.

At the end of this productive judicial week, the Israeli occupation won significant power. This additional power came in the form of the broad legitimization granted its injustices by the most prestigious institution in Israeli society, also lauded abroad. The targeted assassinations will continue in full force, the victims of the occupation will hardly be awarded any compensation and the separation wall will be completed as planned. The cruel reality of the occupation will not change in the wake of these rulings, but now these actions will have the court's seal of approval.

The Israel Defense Forces assassinating unhindered is one reality, and an IDF that assassinates with the High Court's blessing is an even worse reality. The right's moaning about these rulings is therefore just a manipulation: It should be very pleased.

This last ruling is also the worst of them. Barak's crescendo will echo for many years: The court has laundered the executions. All the restrictions the High Court of Justice placed on targeted assassinations are no more than a collection of hollow words. A failed method of warfare, intended for thwarting 'ticking bombs,' has become unbridled and a matter of routine. In fact, 339 Palestinians have already been killed this way since the start of the current intifada; only 210 were intended targets and it is doubtful that all of them deserved to be executed. The rest were innocent bystanders.

Hit lists and death squads, death sentences without trials, and what does the High Court of Justice say? It is necessary that there be "well-founded, strong and persuasive information as to the identity (of the person assassinated) and his activity."

And who will determine what is "well-founded, strong and persuasive information?" The Shin Bet security services. And who will supervise the assassinations? The executioners. Instead of making clear and bold statements, that, for instance, assassination is permissible only in the case of terrorists en route to a terror attack, the court is being disastrously - and typically - ambiguous and, is essentially passing the responsibility to the IDF and the Shin Bet.

We spent five whole years waiting for this? The High Court of Justice could have determined this long ago.

The court also has lofty words for conflicts where rules of international law apply, though it has never expressed its opinion about the endless violations of such law. Jewish settlements in the territories, the transfer of prisoners in Israel, Israel's refusal to care for those living under occupation - all of this is one big, brazen violation of international law. How is it that the High Court of Justice has never ruled on the legality of the settlements, for example?

The court has proved once again that when given the chance to impact reality and bring about significant change, it instead withdraws in panic. Even when it revoked the Intifada Law, it knew that nothing would change on the ground.

Despite the public uproar, a Palestinian's chance of winning compensation from the state for crimes against him remains close to zero. Maria Aman, whose mother, brother and grandmother were killed in a failed assassination attempt in Gaza, can only dream of compensation. She and her family were after all harmed in the context of "an act of warfare," which the High Court of Justice has now sanctioned. It is permissible to launch missiles at cars in the heart of crowded cities, but it is not necessary to compensate the innocent, inevitable victims.

"The military commander must defend human rights," wrote Barak in another of his rulings - the one that okayed the wall severing the a-Ram neighborhood - summing up in a single sentence his efforts to safeguard the human rights being trampled in the territories. The military commander will "preserve human rights?" Given the reality in the territories, there could be no greater contradiction.

From now on, the Supreme Court will act without Aharon Barak. It will, however, presumably continue to act within his legacy, which has authorized nearly all injustices in the territories. Barak, meanwhile, will continue to be depicted in Israel and the world as a pursuer of justice. But the question will come up one day, and people will want to know where the High Court of Justice was when all this was happening. And where was Aharon Barak? No, not only did he not try to stop it; he was also a willing partner.

At 6-foot 1-inch, the heavy-set Shaul cuts an imposing but engaging figure with his beard, ponytail and the kippa. He smiles easily.

He had a lot to say during a vegetarian kosher lunch we shared in my office with his Toronto host, Judith Wiseman.

He came here after a tour of six American cities. In Toronto, he spoke at the Winchevsky Centre of the United Jewish People's Order and at the Quaker House. Then he was off to London, Ottawa and Montreal.

He recounted the moment when, three months before being released from the army, he was alone and wondering what he would do upon returning to civilian life.

It struck him, he said, that he had become "a monster," doing things that were not right. "It was a frightening moment."

He spoke to fellow soldiers. "They were feeling the same: 'Something's rotten here.' Israelis don't know what goes on here, and we must tell them.'"

Within three months of being discharged in March 2004, Shaul and friends mounted an exhibit, Bringing Hebron to Tel Aviv. It had powerful photos and video testimony by 64 soldiers showing and describing the treatment meted out to Palestinians by the troops as well as some of the settlers.

There were pictures of Palestinians bound and blindfolded. There was a photo of a settler carrying an assault rifle with a decal on the magazine clip: "Kill 'em all, Let God sort 'em out." Another was of graffiti on a wall: "Arabs to the gas chamber."

The exhibit drew 7,000 visitors and much media coverage.

Other soldiers who had served in the West Bank and Gaza came forward. More photos were gathered, as well as about 400 audio and video testimonies.

In them, soldiers talk about the total power of the occupiers over the occupied - throwing Palestinians out of their homes; making them stand for hours for disobeying the curfew or trying to bypass a checkpoint or even smiling or arguing at the wrong time, Shaul said.

"We can play with them. This is the mindset from which everything flows."

In Hebron, Shaul manned a machine gun. "It can shoot dozens of grenades a minute up to a distance of about 2,000 metres. We'd shoot 40 or 50 a day ...

"We had three high posts, two where we had kicked the Palestinian families out of and the third was a Palestinian school which we had closed down.

"The idea was that anytime they shoot, we shoot back.

"But the machine gun is not an accurate weapon. You just shoot in the direction of the target ... We have no idea how many we killed. I hope no one."

Shaul said some acts "flow from being afraid or being bored. You are there eight hours a night at the post. You just aim and shoot the water tank."

Or, "when you drive your tank or your APC (armoured personnel carrier), you bump into a streetlight. As you turn a corner, you bump into a wall. It's fun ... It's all about you. Nothing else matters ... Palestinians are no longer human."

Initially, Break the Silence members did not speak to foreigners, to avoid "airing our dirty laundry." But they have since changed their policy.

Two members toured the United States last year. Two exhibitions have been held in Geneva and Amsterdam.

The group (http://www.shovrimshtika.org and http://www.breakthesilence.org.il) exists to break two kinds of silences: "First, the soldiers keep quiet and, then Israeli society keeps quiet.

"We provide the tools for people to understand the deeply woven moral corruption and numbness of what we do (in the Occupied Territories). It's like a slide; once you start going down, you keep going down.

"There's no such thing as a benign or an enlightened occupation. You can't be an occupier and not be an occupier."

Shaul's overall message:

"The issue is not the right of Israel to exist but rather, does it have the right to occupy Palestinian lands and control civilians as it has for 40 years?"

Shaul said he has been well-received in North America, even though some did criticize him.

But, "you can't really criticize me because I am an Israeli who has served in the army."

He's much more: a courageous citizen of Israeli democracy.

Haroon Siddiqui, the Star's editorial page editor emeritus, appears Thursday and Sunday. hsiddiq@thestar.ca.

The boycott is an active protest against two forms of exclusion which have persisted, despite many other forms of protestations, for over 60 years - for almost three generations. During this period the state of Israel has consistently excluded itself from any international obligation to heed UN resolutions or the judgement of any international court. To date, it has defied 246 Security Council Resolutions.

As a direct consequence seven million Palestinians have been excluded from the right to live as they wish on land internationally acknowledged to be theirs; and now increasingly, with every week that passes, they are being excluded from their right to any future at all as a nation. As Nelson Mandela has pointed out, boycott is not a principle, it is a tactic depending upon circumstances. A tactic which allows people, as distinct from their elected but often craven governments, to apply a certain pressure on those wielding power in what they, the boycotters, consider to be an unjust or immoral way. (In white South Africa yesterday and in Israel today, the immorality was, or is being, coded into a form of racist apartheid.)

Boycott is not a principle. When it becomes one, it itself risks becoming exclusive and racist. No boycott, in our sense of the term, should be directed against an individual, a people, or a nation as such. A boycott is directed against a policy and the institutions which support that policy either actively or tacitly. Its aim is not to reject, but to bring about change.

How to apply a cultural boycott? A boycott of goods is a simpler proposition, but in this case it would probably be less effective, and speed is of the essence, because the situation is deteriorating every month (which is precisely why some of the most powerful world political leaders, hoping for the worst, keep silent).

How to apply a boycott? For academics it's perhaps a little clearer - a question of declining invitations from state institutions and explaining why. For invited actors, musicians, jugglers or poets it can be more complicated. I'm convinced, in any case, that its application should not be systematised; it has to come from a personal choice based on a personal assessment.

For instance: an important mainstream Israeli publisher today is asking to publish three of my books. I intend to apply the boycott with an explanation. There exist, however, a few small, marginal Israeli publishers who expressly work to encourage exchanges and bridges between Arabs and Israelis, and if one of them should ask to publish something of mine, I would unhesitatingly agree and furthermore waive aside any question of author's royalties. I don't ask other writers supporting the boycott to come necessarily to exactly the same conclusion. I simply offer an example.

What is important is that we make our chosen protests together, and that we speak out, thus breaking the silence of connivance maintained by those who claim to represent us, and thus ourselves representing, briefly by our common action, the incalculable number of people who have been appalled by recent events but lack the opportunity of making their sense of outrage effective.

Full details of the campaign and add your name at www.bricup,.org.uk or email info@bricup.org.uk

Last week, I awoke to the persistent stammering of my 2-year-old son Yousuf: "I think today the crossing will open mama!" After we had waited at the border for over two weeks, Yousuf's prediction came true. Israel finally opened the border for a few hours.

Amidst chaotic crowds of thousands of stranded travelers, my son and I managed to squeeze through Gaza's Rafah crossing from Egypt to reach our home in the Gaza Strip.

However, the hardships persist for thousands of Palestinians on both the Egyptian and Gaza sides of the passage who were unable to cross during those fleeting hours. They now must wait until the Israeli government temporarily opens the border again.

The Rafah Crossing, the gateway to the world for 1.4 million Gazans, was shut by Israel in late June after Palestinians captured an Israeli soldier. It has been open only for a few days since.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the region last week. Her visit coincided with the one-year anniversary of the Gaza Agreement on Movement and Access she brokered. The agreement aimed to facilitate the movement of Palestinian people and goods and to lead to Palestinian control over Rafah Crossing after one year.

At the time, she proudly promised that it would "give the Palestinian people freedom to move, to trade, to live ordinary lives."

The year has passed, and all our crossings, our air, our water, and our lives remain under Israeli control.

In fact, according to a November 30th UN OCHA report, the Israeli government has broken every single provision of the Agreement.

Israel began violating its commitments immediately, well before Hamas' election victory, refusing to allow supervised bus convoys between Gaza and the West Bank, or to speed the flow of vital goods into and out of Gaza.

Israel had also agreed not to close Rafah and other crossings due to security incidents unrelated to the crossing itself. For example, according to the Agreement, Palestinian rocket fire into Israel -- now largely ceased â€" does not constitute a valid reason for closing Rafah.

So why close Rafah? Countering Israeli accusations, senior European diplomats told both Israel's Jerusalem Post and Ynet News that there have been no major Palestinian violations of the agreement, and that weapons are not smuggled through the crossing. The European Union has monitors stationed at the crossing pursuant to the border agreement.

An Israeli military document leaked to the Israeli daily Ha'aretz in August suggested that the closure was intended "apply pressure" on Gaza's residents to return the captured Israeli soldier. This action, says the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, constitutes collective punishment of Gaza's civilian population, a grave violation of international humanitarian law.

But instead of holding Israel accountable, last week Secretary Rice praised Israeli Prime Minister Olmert for taking steps likely to "advance the peace processes in the region."

One week ago, upon hearing rumors of the crossing's imminent opening, we rushed there along with thousands of other stranded Palestinians. We waited for seven hours two days in a row, languishing in limbo, only to learn that the Israelis had closed the crossing again after a single hour.

We stood in the sun packed together like cattle, penned in between steel barriers on one end, and Egyptian riot police on the other.

"We've been waiting for 15 days. Only God knows when it will open -- today, tomorrow, the day after?" 58-year-old Abu Yousuf Barghut told me.

His wife wept silently by his side. "We went to seek treatment for him. My four children are waiting for me in Gaza. We just want to return home now, that's all." Nearby, a group of people tried to comfort a young girl with muscular dystrophy, who was screaming uncontrollably in her wheelchair.

Israel denies Gazans access to all other borders passages except Rafah. With Rafah closed, patients cannot get medical treatment, students cannot reach universities or work abroad, and family members are separated from one another.

Providing Palestinians with their most basic rights -- the right to move freely in and out of their own land -- is critical to furthering peace, and ensuring a viable Palestinian state.

Neither Israel, the U.S. government, nor the rest of the world, can imprison 1.4 million Palestinians, and expect that somehow, someway, their "problem" will disappear.

We certainly aren't going anywhere.

Dressed in riot gear, the Fatah-dominated forces used clubs and rifle-butts to beat back the Hamas demonstrators before shooting broke out.

The mosque was damaged.

Meanwhile, Khalil al-Hayya, the head of Hamas's faction in parliament, told 100,000 of the movement's supporters in Gaza City: "What a war Mahmoud Abbas you are launching, first against God, and then against Hamas."

Ismail Haniya, the prime minister and leader of Hamas, was more conciliatory at the rally, appealing for "national unity", but stopping short of explicitly calling for calm as he had during previous spikes in internal fighting.

Unity government

Tensions were at their highest in a decade and followed months of failed talks to form a unity government between the ruling Hamas Islamist faction and Abbas's once dominant Fatah.

Hayya said Hamas would not agree to holding an early election or a referendum on the issue, a move that Abbas could announce in a speech planned for Saturday in an attempt to break the political deadlock.

The Palestinian president is expected to give a major speech around midday (1000 GMT) in Ramallah.

Al Jazeera has learnt that Abbas may seek expert opinion on the legality of calling early election.

Hayya did not say what Hamas would do if Abbas made such a dramatic announcement.

Erekat's statement

"He is leaning towards calling for early elections," Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Abbas, told Reuters.

"The president's choice is between bullets and ballots. He will choose ballots. Ballots are the only way to avoid the prospect of a civil war."

Some analysts question whether Abbas will make such a bold announcement with emotions running at fever pitch.

Ismail Rudwan, a Hamas spokesman, accused Mohammed Dahlan, a Fatah regional commander and legislator, of being behind the attack on Haniya's convoy in Rafah on Thursday.

Hamas cover-up?

Dahlan rejected the allegation. He said it was part of a Hamas "cover-up" after unidentified fighters this week shot dead three young sons of an intelligence official loyal to Abbas outside their school.

Haniya has condemned the killings and the government said on Friday it would investigate the incident.

Erekat, at a news conference, strongly condemned the accusation against Dahlan, saying it amounted to an official sanction for the Fatah politician's assassination.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has accused Abbas of inflaming the political crisis by calling for early elections and said his Hamas group would boycott the poll. Abbas, a moderate from Fatah, called for new elections to resolve the political deadlock that has paralyzed the Palestinian government since the hardline Hamas militants won January parliamentary elections.

Hamas' electoral victory split the Palestinian government, with Abbas seeking peace with Israel and Hamas refusing to even recognize the Jewish state's existence. The political tensions have repeatedly turned violent and the chaos has spiraled out of control since unknown gunmen killed the three young sons of a Fatah-allied security chief last week.

Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar's motorcade came under fire Sunday as it drove near the Foreign Ministry in Gaza City. Zahar was unharmed, but the attack unleashed a ferocious gunbattle that raged for more than an hour, the worst fighting since unity government talks broke down late last month. Medical officials said a 19-year-old woman was killed in the crossfire.

Zahar said top Fatah leaders were "fully responsible" for the attack on him "and what will happen."

In a separate attack blamed on Hamas, dozens of gunmen raided a training camp of Abbas' Presidential Guard near the president's residence, killing a member of the elite force.

Hamas gunmen also opened fire at a demonstration of tens of thousands of Fatah supporters in northern Gaza, wounding at least one person, and unknown militants fired at least two mortars at Abbas' office in Gaza City. Hours later, they launched another mortar shell.

Five pro-Fatah security men and a 45-year-old woman were wounded, officials said. Abbas was in the West Bank at the time.

Elsewhere, the bullet-riddled body of a top security officer affiliated with Fatah, Col. Adnan Rahmi, was discovered in northern Gaza several hours after he disappeared, Palestinian medical officials and his family said. No group took responsibility, but Rahmi's family blamed Hamas for the killing.

The violence persisted throughout the night, with Hamas and Fatah gunmen waging battles in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya, near the home of a Fatah strongman in Gaza, and outside the Gaza parliament building. Hamas militants also clashed with Abbas' bodyguard unit outside his Gaza home.

A French reporter, 46-year-old Didier Francois of the newspaper Liberation, was shot in the leg during the day's violence, according to his newspaper.

Egyptian mediators and small Palestinian factions worked all day to broker an agreement between the two sides, and a truce was announced at a press conference in Gaza City after midnight.

But representatives of Fatah and Hamas did not appear at the press conference, leaving the announcement to Rabbah Muhanna, a senior official in the small Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. "Both sides are serious about the agreement," Muhanna assured reporters.

Tawfik Abu Khoussa, a Fatah official, said earlier that his group had agreed to the deal and was working to rein in its forces. Fatah issued a statement calling on its fighters not to fire unless there is a serious threat on their lives. However, the statement also accused Hamas of trying to overthrow Abbas.

"We have intentions about (stopping) the fighting. It is now up to the other side to also stop firing," Khoussa said.

A Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said late Sunday the two sides had reached an agreement in principle to halt the violence, but had not finalized the deal. New fighting erupted only hours later.

Despite the violence, the Palestinian president signaled he was determined to push ahead with the plan he announced Saturday to hold new elections. He met with members of the Central Election Commission at his headquarters Sunday to discuss a possible date. The head of the panel said it would take at least three months to prepare new presidential and parliament elections.

"The message of the meeting is that he is serious, that he is saying, 'Don't doubt my words,'" said a top aide, Saeb Erekat. Erekat said he expected elections would be held around June.

Abbas also briefed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the situation Sunday and his efforts to resolve it, said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an Abbas spokesman.

But Haniyeh rejected the call for new elections.

"We confirm that the Palestinian government refuses the invitation to early elections because it is unconstitutional and could cause tension among Palestinians," Haniyeh said.

Abbas' gamble, after months of indecision, could easily backfire, driving the Palestinians toward all-out civil war or giving Hamas the opportunity to win control of the presidency as well as the parliament and Cabinet that it now controls. But the political deadlock in the Palestinian Authority, and the increasing poverty and violence it has caused, may have left Abbas with little choice.

A poll released Sunday placed Abbas and Haniyeh in a statistical tie in a presidential race. Abbas would win 46 percent, compared with 45 percent for Haniyeh. In parliamentary elections, Fatah would defeat Hamas by a 42-36 margin. The survey was conducted by the independent Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research among 1,270 Palestinians and had an error margin of 3 percentage points.

Abbas has suggested he is still leaving the door open to a national unity government with Hamas, which he hoped would end the Palestinian Authority's international isolation, but the growing factional violence made this increasingly unlikely.

In his speech Saturday, Abbas said a unity government was still the best option, but that he had despaired of persuading Hamas to enter into a coalition with Fatah.

The Hamas government has drawn crushing international sanctions over its militantly anti-Israel stand, but has steadfastly refused to recognize Israel as demanded by the West.

The Islamist faction staged a formidable display of popular strength at a rally in its Gaza City heartland, while in the West Bank city of Ramallah, hospital officials said at least 32 of its supporters were injured, some critically, when Fatah-dominated security forces fired on demonstrators. There were also exchanges of fire between the two factions in Gaza City, close to the home of Mohammed Dahlan, a prominent Fatah figure accused by a Hamas spokesman yesterday of being behind the gun attack on the convoy of the Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, on Thursday. The attack killed a bodyguard and injured his eldest son, Abed Haniyeh.

Mr Dahlan said the accusations against him were a "lie" and an attempt to cover up Hamas's own failure to pursue the gunmen it knew to be responsible for Monday's murder of a senior intelligence officer's three children.

Mr Haniyeh, whose black Mercedes was driven into the rally under heavy security, told the 30,000-strong crowd that the moral and financial support he secured on his foreign tour ­ which included Iran and Syria ­ had "broken the blockade" imposed by the international and Israeli boycott and given the faction a new "confidence".

Hamas used its 19th anniversary rally in the Yarmouk football stadium to undermine possible plans by the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, to dissolve the Hamas-led government, call fresh elections or launch a referendum on the compromise document at the heart of the failed coalition talks between the factions. There has been speculation that Mr Abbas will float the ideas in a speech today.

The senior Hamas parliamentarian Khalil Al-Hayya told the rally: "We will not accept a referendum or elections because that is against the determination of the people."

He added that people had come to the rally to "swear they would not recognise Israel"­ one of the international conditions for lifting the boycott.

In a reference to the deployment of armed Fatah forces, including those of Mr Abbas's presidential guard, who fired at Hamas militants at the Rafah terminal on Thursday, Mr Hayya said: "What a war, Mahmoud Abbas, you are launching, first against God, and then against Hamas." But he insisted: "We will not be pushed into a civil war planned by collaborators."

The rally was a highly organised spectacle choreographed with notable professionalism for the benefit of a largely enthusiastic audience. It displayed Hamas's unique fusion of Islam, militarism and political populism with a heavy presence of armed, black-clad members of the Hamas " executive force" and masked men, some carrying rocket-propelled grenades as well as AK47s, in the stadium, on nearby rooftops, and on street corners through much of the city.

One of the highlights of a programme which repeatedly glorified militant operations against Israel came when two members of Hamas's military wing abseiled down a four-storey apartment building overlooking the stadium unfurling a 20-foot-deep portrait of Fatima al Najar, 70, the suicide bomber who blew herself up close to Israeli troops in Beit Hanoun last month. Her voice on her last video was simultaneously relayed through loudspeakers, declaring eternal allegiance to Hamas.

A second banner carried giant portraits of Mr Haniyeh, Khaled Mashaal, the exiled Hamas leader, and a group of prominent Hamas figures assassinated by Israel, led by Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas founder killed in an air strike in 2004.

Between speeches punctuated with Koranic readings and tape-recorded machinegun fire, two male close harmony groups relayed Hamas messages in the idiom of popular Arab music. "Hamas waters our olive trees," one identically beige-suited quintet sang through the amplifiers.

In the most adventurous set, the central Fatah/ Hamas dialogue on strategy was sung ­ with surprising even handedness ­ in counterpoint in a kind of Arabic rock operetta, in which one singer rehearsed a series of frequently aired complaints against Hamas, as represented by another, keffiyeh-clad, singer, before both predictably joined in unison in a hymn to national unity.

But behind the entertainment, Hamas's message that it intends to stay in power for its full four-year term, coupled with what some observers see as the most dangerous conflict within Palestinian politics for a decade, afford a sombre background for the attempts Tony Blair will be making to revitalise the peace process on Monday.

While yesterday's rally was an overt attempt to show that Hamas remains a serious political force, even some opponents recognise that its support ­ while almost certainly reduced ­ has not yet imploded as a result of the international boycott.

Hundreds of heavily armed men patrolled the streets and turned cars back. They were joined by masked members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group loyal to Abbas's
Fatah movement. Some carried rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

The security clampdown followed a dawn raid by masked gunmen on a training camp used by the presidential guard in which one guard officer was killed and at least five others were wounded, security sources said.

The raid involved dozens of gunmen in uniforms similar to those worn by Hamas militants, a senior member of the presidential guard said, but Hamas denied any involvement.

Hamas, which controls the government, has accused Abbas of launching a coup after he announced plans on Saturday for early presidential and parliamentary elections in a bid to break months of deadlock and get international sanctions lifted.

After nine months of factional violence that has raised fears of civil war, Abbas said elections should be held as soon as possible but that efforts to form a unity government between Hamas and Fatah should continue.

On Sunday, he met members of the Palestinian electoral commission to work on planning for the polls, which officials said were not expected to take place until mid-2007.

Hamas said the president had no authority to call early elections. Hamas legislators said they would try to call a parliamentary vote declaring the move illegal, but it was not clear if they would get the vote on the agenda on Sunday.

ELECTION GAMBLE

Hamas, which is sworn to
Israel's destruction, took office in March after beating the long-dominant Fatah in parliamentary elections, leading the United States and the
European Union to cut direct financial aid to the Palestinian government.

Talks between Hamas and Fatah on forming a unity government have broken down repeatedly in recent months, mainly due to Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist.

Washington welcomed Saturday's speech by Abbas. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is expected to meet Abbas in the coming days during a Middle East trip, said the international community should support the president.

Hamas has insisted it will never recognize the Jewish state, making it unclear how any unity government could get off the ground and satisfy the West, which has demanded that Hamas recognize Israel, renounce violence and sign up to peace deals.

The Palestinian basic law, which acts as a constitution, has no provision for early elections. Fatah says Abbas can do so by issuing a presidential decree. Hamas says that would be illegal.

One senior Abbas aide said the polls might not be held until mid-2007 because of legal and technical factors. Abbas has previously said he would not stand for another term.

In many respects, Abbas's move is a gamble as there is no guarantee Fatah would win any elections that are held. Polls suggest Hamas's popularity remains strong despite the crisis. A new poll is to be released on Sunday.