Re: At the theatre
By Annie Higgins, The Electronic Intifada, January 23, 2003
The young men have gathered in Lulu's room, piling onto the spare bed and offering me a chair with their instantaneous politeness. Munir's placid face looks out from his poster across his younger brother's bed and beyond. Lulu's nickname means "pearls," recalling the Quran's celestial simile of serving-boys like protected pearls. Lulu was protected in this world. Although the tank sniper damaged his legs severely, he is still amongst the living to keep his brother Munir in his heart. A pearl's miracle is its transformation from gritty irritation to lustrous little orb, courtesy of a boisterous oyster. The irritation of Lulu's injury becomes an occasion for improvised theatre. We spotlight a foreigner's visit to the Refugee Camp, and the residents' quest to determine whether or not they can trust him. The role of the foreigner goes to a young man who has told me he is illiterate, but in fact has very good English. He becomes the English-speaking Dr. David and I become his translator.

A matter of life, death - and oil
By Terry Macalister, Ewen MacAskill, Rory McCarthy, and Nick Paton-Walsh, The Guardian, January 23, 2003
Weapons of mass destruction are cited as the spur for action. Perhaps the real motive is something just as urgent? -- One of the most popular themes on the placards of anti-war demonstrators across the US and Europe is that the looming confrontation is primarily about oil. US and British ministers dismiss such a charge as the stuff of conspiracy theorists, and instead argue that the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, has to be dealt with for one reason: the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction. And, yet, western powers have been fighting over Iraq's "black gold" for decades. Travelling through the country, it is immediately obvious why this is such a great prize in energy terms. Around Mosul in the north, flares from oil wells can be seen at regular intervals in the otherwise empty grasslands; even in the centre of the country, in Baghdad, the skyline is lit by the al-Dohra oil refinery; and further south, in the desert scrubland round Basra, there is a huge concentration of wells. Iraq has the second biggest known oil reserves in the world, after Saudi Arabia. But its facilities have been starved of investment over the last few decades, partly because of war and partly because of sanctions. The vast al-Dohra facility is a symbol of all that is wrong. In an advanced state of decay, rusting pipes link a series of large, sand-coloured storage tanks, almost every one of which is crudely patched with sheets of steel.

Humor Under Occupation
By Ghassan Abdallah. Palestine Chronicle, January 23, 2003
"Outsiders think the Israeli Merkava tank is a formidable machine. But we hear that Israeli soldiers don’t like it. It has small openings so they cannot steal whole computers from Palestinian homes and offices. That is why there are so many reports of them opening up PCs and taking out only motherboards and hard disks." -- WEST BANK - Since the Israeli re-invasion of Palestinian cities last April-2002 has left most of the population confined to their homes, no cases of sunstroke were reported in the Occupied Territories despite the hot Middle Eastern summer. With drivers hardly ever able to reach even fourth gear thanks to checkpoints, car accidents are way down. We also save on petrol. Sharon is losing the demographic war with the Palestinians. What do you expect people locked-up in their homes to do, especially when the power is out and no TV? Outsiders think the Israeli Merkava tank is a formidable machine. But we hear that Israeli soldiers don’t like it. It has small openings so they cannot steal whole computers from Palestinian homes and offices. That is why there are so many reports of them opening up PCs and taking out only motherboards and hard disks. At the Surda checkpoint, on the road from Ramallah to Birzeit University and other villages, Israeli bulldozers are always busy digging up the asphalt and piling mounds of earth and cement blocks. Every day we find the distance to walk becomes longer. But there are positive aspects to it. The exercise it takes to go across is making us fit, we are using this chance to enjoy nature and the change of seasons, and using the opportunity to meet friends and colleagues, help the elderly and sick across, exchange the latest news and jokes, sympathizing with those arrested by Israeli soldiers and often made to sit on the ground tied up and waiting for ‘processing’, and putting our remaining energy hating the occupation even more.

The peace train
By James Higdon, Online Journal, January 23, 2003
January 23, 2003—"I want to read you something that I always read whenever I feel frustrated, and when things aren't going right," she told me. She sat down across from me and opened her crumpled piece of paper, a paper that had been folded and unfolded at least several hundred times before. She began to read from a brief essay called, "The Station" by R. J. Hastings. It is an essay that has been vastly distributed. It is one of those "meaning of life" essays that contain simple, brief, neatly said truths that become trite practically before they are distributed. And as she reached the end, a tear released from the corner of her eye and left a wet track down her brown cheek. Her voice cracked, and she sobbed that sob that she does whenever she breaks my heart as she neared the end. "'It isn't the burdens of the day that drive people mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow."' She looked up at me with her brown eyes, not bothering to wipe away the moist memories of her own regrets and fears. "Think about that," she told me. "Think about that when you write about peace."

World opinion moves against Bush
By Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, January 23, 2003
Growing worldwide opposition to a war on Iraq is putting the pressure on the US administration -- Those who are opposed to the George Bush administration's policy towards Iraq, and specifically its threat to launch an unprovoked invasion of the country, must surely be immensely heartened by the discernible shift in worldwide public opinion on the issue. Last weekend's well-supported demonstrations in cities as diverse and far apart as Tokyo, Islamabad, Damascus, Moscow, Washington and San Francisco are indicative of the gathering power and reach of the anti-war movement. For every person who took to the streets, there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, who share their concerns. As the crisis appears to move towards some sort of denouement, the size and potency of this international resistance can be expected to grow. It has been clear for some time that most people in the Arab world and Muslim countries worldwide would fiercely object to any US-led intervention in Iraq. Among the many reasons cited is the fear that war will increase regional instability and inflame the Arab-Israeli conflict. The rising tide of anti-war sentiment has produced some remarkable recent poll findings in western Europe. Three out of four Germans, for example, say that they consider President Bush to be a greater danger than Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

On violence and the Intifada
By Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, January 22, 2003
It has now become standard to say that the Palestinians will make no progress unless suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians end. Increasingly, Palestinians correctly acknowledge that attacks targeting civilians are a cruel and illegitimate reaction to Israel's aggression. In addition to the toll in innocent lives, there is growing recognition that suicide bombings have harmed the image of the Palestinian people and their just struggle for freedom. It has also become fashionable to say that suicide attacks have become the "weapon of choice" for the Palestinians. The fact is that Palestinians have no access to weapons that would allow them to adequately defend themselves -- as is their absolute legal and moral right -- against the Israeli army. So alongside stones and ineffectual small arms fire directed at soldiers in tanks, suicide bombs in Israeli cities are a weapon of last resort, often used against the softest targets -- an illegitimate and immoral response to an illegitimate and immoral occupation. Yet, while it must be reaffirmed that Palestinian attacks targeting Israeli civilians must stop immediately, one has to forget all of history to believe that these operations are what stand in the way of progress towards a peaceful solution, and are not in fact simply a symptom of the violence and despair of life under endless occupation. Peace, after all, must be made during conflict.

America: Deluded, Armed and Dangerous in the Middle East
By James Brooks, January 23, 2003
If Americans understood our last war on Iraq, would we more strongly oppose another one? Do we know what our military does in the real world, where the Pentagon won't even take our lapdog of a press corps out for a walk? The Gulf War's 'video game accuracy' was a lie told by the Pentagon and re-told by the media. We dropped 88,000 tons of bombs on Iraq, nearly  seven times the force of Hiroshima. 93% were old-fashioned dumb bombs, mostly dropped from high altitudes. 60,000 of these were anti-personnel cluster bombs. The civil infrastructure of central and southern Iraq  was devastated, resulting in years of polluted water supplies, no electricity, and criminal levels of child mortality. We use depleted uranium (DU) to pierce armor "like butter." We left 300 tons of DU in Iraq, mostly as easily-inhaled radioactive dust. Now Iraq has skyrocketing rates of monstrous birth defects and aggressive cancers and leukemias. Though a few members of Congress tried to highlight this scandal, it remains resolutely ignored by American media. Consequently, our commitment to DU has deepened, despite its nuclear pollution of Iraq and (via NATO) the Balkans. We now proliferate these radioactive weapons around the world. When Hussein pledged to withdraw from Kuwait, President Bush I called it a "cruel hoax." When the withdrawal began as promised, we waited until midnight, then launched a frantic, all-out air blitz to exterminate the departing Iraqi soldiers. That night we incinerated tens of thousands of Iraqis for the crime of trying to go home.

Where the streets had a name
By Hanan Elmasu, The Electronic Intifada, January 24, 2003
Walking the streets of Ramallah these days has become an act of reflection, uncertainty and force of will. Having just returned from a break from Cairo, where I was reminded what it was like to walk the streets of an Arab country without apprehension, with its bustle and life, its smells, shouts, laughter and systematized chaos, I could not help but mourn the loss of those walks in Ramallah. Driving in the taxi back from the airport (the third taxi on my ground journey back, one from the airport to Jerusalem, another one from Jerusalem to Kalandia border crossing, as it can no more be called a checkpoint, and a third from the other side of the crossing to my apartment in Ramallah – a total of three hours, compared to my 1 hour flight to Cairo) I was reminded again of the beauty of this city called Ramallah. It is a unique beauty, marred by tragedy and fear, but a beauty nonetheless. As one is drawn to the eyes of a child whose life has been scarred by unhappiness, so one is drawn to the beauty of this place. The beauty of it is very different from what I had expected when I first returned, from the stories that I remember when growing up in Canada, of the olive, almond and apricot trees, of the lazy summers spent in the cool breezes in the midst of sweltering heat, of the warmth and kindness of the people. There is a light and life to this city that I have not witnessed in any other city during my extensive travels. Unlike Cairo, where one is constantly reminded of the life that springs from those streets, the feeling of a city that has a soul and mind of its own, the streets of this city exude a life that is ancient in its suffering, but which has persevered despite the continuous attacks on it. It’s a life you feel when you touch someone’s skin and feel their pulse beneath that thin protection…a slow and steady stream of life that is hard to destroy.

Letter from Bethlehem
By Samia W. Ata, Palestine Chronicle, January 24, 2003
And what is it like to be under curfew? For those who have not experienced it, or for those who take freedom of movement for granted, it is not a normal situation. It is not a vacation or a rest. To be locked in for days at a time is to lose physical contact with other people. To be grounded and deprived from going out is to hibernate, or – as one author puts it -- “to rust, to have one’s dignity humiliated, to be isolated, to be damned.” It is mass punishment that creates a cycle of problems which require resolution. -- BETHLEHEM (PalestineChronicle.com) - At the turning point of the New Year 2003, I am writing this letter to reflect on the current state of life in my city. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, is my hometown. Here I was born, grew up, became a teacher and continue to live. As I look back through the most recent events in the area, I struggle to restore my thoughts and energy after the many and varied shocks that we have been exposed to. I compare this year to past years when it would have been highly unlikely for me to spend the Christmas and New Year seasons as a ‘recluse.’ It would have been unusual to plan for a tomorrow that would unexpectedly be cancelled. What is the difference this year from other years? Israeli military enforced curfews on the Bethlehem region, causing Christmas and New Year’s Day to pass gloomily, without decorations or celebrations.

Twelve Rusted Pipes
By John Chuckman,  Palestine Chronicle, January 23, 2003
My head turned when I heard on the radio that a number of chemical warheads had been discovered in Iraq, the words "chemical warheads" evoking powerful suggestions and images. Shortly after first reports, one of Mr. Bush's spokespeople termed it "significant." Within a day, restraint was thrown to the wind, and Mr. Bush claimed the find was solid "proof" of Iraq's refusal to cooperate with arms inspectors. I found a picture on the Internet of the U.N. inspectors in chemical-protective suits with their discovery spread on the ground in front of them. The "chemical warheads" resembled twelve rusted, 8-inch pipes, exactly the kind of junk you could find strewn in yards piled with corroded '49 Ford transmissions, World War II relics, winches, and bedsprings on countless rural roads across America. The "warheads" are the remains of 122mm Katyusha-style rockets (the same type of inaccurate and relatively ineffective small rockets used sporadically against northern Israel during the bloody occupation of Lebanon) that had been designed to deliver chemical weapons. Of course, if you've been conditioned by Monty Python performances like former Secretary of Defense Cohen holding up a 5-pound bag of sugar on national television and asserting its volume represented all that was necessary to wipe out a country, you might still be concerned. His presentation came around the time when the seemingly custom-minted expression "weapons of mass destruction" was introduced to blur the immense differences between chemical/biological weapons and nuclear ones.