Liberating’ the Mideast: Why Do We Never Learn?
By Robert Fisk, Arab News, March 10, 2003
On March 8, 1917, Lt. Gen. Stanley Maude issued a “Proclamation to the People of the Wilayat of Baghdad”. Maude’s Anglo-Indian Army of the Tigres had invaded and occupied Iraq — after storming up the country from Basra — to “free” its people from their dictators. “Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators,” the British announced. “People of Baghdad, remember for 26 generations you have suffered under strange tyrants who have ever endeavoured to set one Arab house against another in order that they might profit by your dissensions. “This policy is abhorrent to Great Britain and her Allies for there can be neither peace nor prosperity where there is enmity or misgovernment.” Gen. Maude, of course, was the Gen. Tommy Franks of his day, and his proclamation — so rich in irony now that President George Bush is uttering equally mendacious sentiments — was intended to persuade Iraqis that they should accept foreign occupation while Britain secured the country’s oil. Gen. Maude’s chief political officer, Sir Percy Cox, called on Iraq’s Arab leaders, who were not identified, to participate in the government in collaboration with the British authorities and spoke of liberation, freedom, past glories, future greatness and — here the ironies come in spades — it expressed the hope that the people of Iraq would find unity.

Israeli Army Continues Killing Spree
By Kristen Ess, Dissident Voice, March 10, 2003
At 8 this morning Gaza City shook. One man just told me, "I was coming up the stairs to work. I thought the whole building was going down." Neighbors stuck their heads from windows to see what was happening. Four US donated Apache helicopters hung in the sky, two on each side above our heads, firing missiles directly into a car. The explosions were terrifying to an already targeted and terrorized people. This was a targeted assassination. One of the people they murdered was a dentist working in a clinic in Gaza City's Islamic University. He was a leader in the political wing of Hamas, Dr. Ibrahim Ahmad al-Maqadmeh. After the Israeli military finished firing its missiles, the helicopter gun-ships hung arrogantly in the sky for 15 more minutes. No one knew if they would keep shooting. A man here tells me that they wanted to make sure they killed the people inside the car. "They waited to see if anyone would get out alive." No one did. Those murdered by the Israeli military this morning are, in addition to the Dr., are: Abdul Rahman Zuheer al-Amudi, a 29 year old from the ash-Shati Refugee Camp, Khalid Jum'a, a 30 year-old man from Jabalia, and Ala' Udeh al-Shukri, also 30 years-old, from Gaza City. Two other people are injured. Several houses and another car were also damaged. The night before last, the Israeli military murdered ten more people, 8 from el-Bureij Refugee Camp and two from the Namsawi area of Khan Younis. Now its about 100 Palestinians murdered by the Israeli military in just over a week in the Gaza Strip alone. Gaza City's Shifa Hospital is over-flowing. There is controversy internationally as the Israeli military government denies using flechettes, made in the US and illegal under international law, packed inside its tank shells while perpetrating its massacre in the Jabalia Refugee Camp two days ago.

35 Years Late To Stop The War
By James Brooks, Media Monitors Network, March 10, 2003
We're told today's peace movement is the first mass effort in US history to stop a war before it starts. And it's true the opposition has mushroomed impressively, thanks especially to hard organizing work by activists throughout the country. Yet despite our instant Web sites and our listservs, our e-mail alerts and our digital petitions, we are tragically late in waking up to the reality of US war on the Middle East: It has already begun, and it has been raging for decades. Even if we can stop this latest escalation of the war, as a movement we have yet to grasp its scope, its history, even the true identities of its combatants and victims. And that is why we are fighting a desperate, rearguard action today, trying to head off the massacre of Iraq. The road to the illegal US occupation of Iraq began years ago, with our support for Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The madness we face now, the vilification of Arabs, defiance of international law, plans for indefinite occupation of another country, denial of Arab land rights; all these delusions have deep roots, twisted in the dark subsoil of America's alliance with Israel. The US has been waging a long-escalating war on Arab interests for strategic control of the Middle East. And Israel has nearly always been at the vanguard.

Back to Pre-Oslo Days
Editorial, Arab News, March 10, 2003
Most of the world is waiting for the war. However, Palestinians in Gaza are reeling from a war already on their soil, courtesy of a massive Israeli Army offensive whose aim appears to be to crush the intifada once and for all. Two military raids in Gaza have left 11 Palestinians dead in less than two days. According to Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, 72 Palestinians died in the fighting during February, including three children under the age of 10 and 25 civilians unaffiliated to any Palestinian faction. Over the same period, six Israeli solders were killed. In addition to the killings, Israeli forces have also seized a triangle of territory in the northern Gaza Strip, creating what they call a “security zone.” At least 60 Israeli tanks and other armored vehicles have taken control of 10 square kilometers near the towns of Beit Lahia and Beit Hanun, close to the refugee camp at Jabaliya. The operation, Israel says, is open-ended, another way of saying that it will remain in northern Gaza indefinitely, or “for as long as is necessary. If we decide to hold on to this territory for a long time, we will,” said Col. Yoel Stick, commander of Israeli’s northern Gaza brigade. Palestinians fear a darker purpose than mere counterinsurgency. They see Israel’s ever-deepening invasions into Palestinian-controlled areas as a prelude to their eventual reconquest. They say that this was the first sizeable takeover of a residential area in Gaza in 29 months of fighting, marking a shift in tactics. Previously, Israeli incursions, while deadly and destructive, have at least been brief.

Who's afraid of Abu Mazen?
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, March 10, 2003
To make the renewal of a peace process conditional on the appointment of a Palestinian prime minister recalls the maneuvers that preceded the October 1991 international peace conference in Madrid. Then-premier Yitzhak Shamir made negotiations with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation contingent on the participation of all Arab neighbors, particularly Syria and Lebanon, in the conference. Shamir relied on intelligence assessments that predicted Hafez Assad would stay away from a process that did not guarantee it would end with the Golan being returned to Syria. Assad confirmed the right-wing's cliche that you can't trust the Arabs, and agreed to come. Shamir's associates said the day Syria confirmed it would take part in the conference was one of the darkest in the prime minister's life. Then housing minister Ariel Sharon established the rejectionist front against the Madrid Conference - known as the constrainers - with Yitzhak Moda'i and David Levy. In private conversations Sharon claimed that the gamble on Assad is what altered Israeli politics, and led to Labor winning the 1992 election. From there, it was a short hop, skip and jump to the painful blow delivered to the Greater Land of Israel doctrine - the Oslo accords.

Murder of a Population Under Cover of Righteousness
By Shulamit Aloni, Palestine Chronicle, March 9, 2003
We do not have gas chambers and crematoria, but there is no one fixed method for genocide. Dr. Ya'akov Lazovik writes("Academic Genocide", "Ha'Aretz", 4 March) that in the State of Israel it is impossible that the regime and the nation will plan and commit a genocide. It is difficult to determine if this is naivety or self-righteousness. As we know, there is no single fixed method for murder and not even for genocide. The author Y. L. Peretz wrote about "the righteous cat" who does not spill blood, but only suffocates. The government of Israel, using the military and its instruments of destruction, is not only spilling blood, but it is also suffocating. What other name can be given to the dropping of a one-ton bomb over a dense urban area, when the justification uttered is that we wanted to murder a dangerous terrorist and his wife? The rest of the citizens who were killed and injured, among whom are children and women, do not count, of course. How is it possible to explain the expulsion of citizens from their homes at three o'clock in the morning on a rainy night, then depositing bombs in the house and then departing without warning? When those expelled returned to their home, the bombs were exploded and a brutal murder and destruction of property was thus committed. And what is the justification for what happened in Jenin? We did not destroy the whole neighbourhood, just 85 houses; it was not slaughter, we killed only 50-some citizens. How many does one need to murder and destroy for it to be a crime? - A crime against humanity, as determined by the Laws of the State of Israel, not only the laws of Belgium.

Palestine: Viewed From A Distance
By Nick Pretzlik, This Is What Matters, February 25, 2003 
All the news from Palestine is bad; it makes me want to be there. * Last week the Israelis announced closure for the whole of the West Bank – the movement of people beyond the immediate vicinity of their homes was banned.  * At the weekend UNRWA issued a statement that they can no longer supply food to the 1.2 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA has run out of money. * Two days ago four Israeli soldiers died when their tank rolled over a mine. * Yesterday fourteen Palestinians were killed in a number of incidents. * Last night eleven Palestinians were killed in Gaza. * Today the Israeli High Court – in contrast to the arrangements for Israeli citizens – refused a petition to issue gas masks to Palestinians in the event of war with Iraq.  -- Closure of the West Bank is hard for the Palestinians, but that UNRWA has no money, is that really such a disaster? Surely the Israelis will take over responsibility for food supply. As the occupying force, they are obliged to do so, aren’t they? Well, yes; but the Israelis don’t agree! The fact that they have sealed off Gaza from the world, that unemployment exceeds eighty per cent and people lack funds to feed themselves cuts no ice. Although Israel exercises sole control over the entrance and exit from Gaza, it refuses to accept responsibility for ensuring the population does not starve. With malnutrition at Central African levels, Israelis resort to Kafkaesque contortions of logic. Rickets, anaemia, and diabetes – not their problem. According to the Israeli government, the Palestinians have brought the hunger on themselves. All the Palestinians have to do is throw in the towel, give up their land, and slip away into someone else’s country, and, hey presto, the problem is solved.

Israel, the US and "Targeted Killings"
By Chris Toensing and Ian Urbina, Middle East Research and Information Project, February 17, 2003
Six Hamas militants killed in a car explosion on February 16 were assassinated by Israel, Hamas claims. While Israel denies involvement in the deaths, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported on February 17 that Israel will assassinate other members of the military wing of Hamas as part of its planned lengthy incursion into Palestinian-controlled areas of the Gaza Strip to avenge four soldiers killed when Hamas blew up a tank near the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. Israel's assassination policy is openly declared. Since November 2000, according to the Israeli human rights organization B'tselem, Israel has conducted 85 extrajudicial executions -- or "targeted killings" in Israeli parlance -- of Palestinian militia leaders and security personnel suspected of involvement in attacks on Israelis. Several of these "targeted killings," often carried out with helicopter-borne missiles, have claimed the lives of bystanders, often including children. Israel has long defended this practice from domestic and international critics, who traditionally included the State Department, by painting it as a necessary tactic in time of war. In the absence of comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace, Israel's legal argument goes, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is a regularly interrupted "ceasefire" in a war that began in 1967. Since the September 11 attacks and the US war in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his neo-conservative allies in George W. Bush's White House have further argued that Israel's campaign to crush Palestinian resistance to occupation, in which "targeted killings" are one tool, is part and parcel of the US "war on terrorism." In US policymaking circles, the argument appears to be succeeding.

Time to Intensify Our Efforts: Two Views
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2003
1) Building a Counter-AIPAC
By Josh Reubner
Henry David Thoreau, arguably the greatest American philosopher and practitioner of nonviolent resistance to injustice, recognized that the U.S. political system is particularly prone to the pernicious influence of foreign interests. In his classic essay, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, Thoreau wrote: “I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, cooperate with, and do the bidding of those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless.” Indeed, could there be a more apt definition of the role played by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the rest of the American Jewish community’s misrepresentative leadership in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy toward the Israel-Palestine conflict? (Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was fond of declaring that there is a “collective obligation of all national Zionist Organizations to aid the Jewish state under all circumstances and conditions even if such an attitude clashes with their respective national authorities.”)...The emergence of an energetic, conscientious American Jewish grassroots peace movement already is evident. What is now necessary is to transform this dynamic movement’s moral weight into political muscle capable of convincing members of Congress that AIPAC represents no one but its own narrow membership base, and that American Jews who remain faithful to the moral precepts of their religion, and who are concerned with promoting a U.S. foreign policy supportive of human rights, have no choice but to advocate for the freedom, dignity and security of both Palestinians and Israelis..
2) CAIR-Southern California: A Case Study in Achieving the Organizational Holy Grail
By Issam M. Nashashibi
Approximately 1,500 people attended the annual banquet. Some attendees traveled from as far away as Arizona and Nevada—a considerable endorsement for the five-year-old Southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). That evening, attendees contributed over $530,000 to the chapter. Not only was that more than enough for its annual budget, but it represents yet another record in an economic environment where charitable donations are expected to fall by more than the 2.3 percent decline experienced last year, according to the Dec. 2, 2002 issue of Newsweek. By any measure, these achievements are clear proof of an organizing success about which many established groups can only dream. This triumph can only mean that the chapter must be doing things, not only right but also well. Like a successful business that meets its customers’ needs, the CAIR chapter must be fulfilling its community’s expectations and touching people’s lives to be able to motivate its constituency and receive these unmistakably powerful endorsements.