Palestine will be loser in this war
By Professor Yasir Suleiman, Edinburgh Evening News, March, 20, 2003
THE timing of President Bush’s announcement to publish the "road map" to peace between Israel and the Palestinians was a clear indication of his determination to initiate military action against Iraq. The announcement came to assuage the fears of the Arab countries, who wonder why Israel can be allowed to have the biggest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, in an area in which its military occupation of Palestinian lands is the most serious threat to peace. The Egyptians have proposed nuclear disarmament for the whole area, but Israel, with tacit American support, has refused to take part. The Arabs were not surprised. They think the American support extended to Israel is another example of Western hypocrisy, which speaks in one way and acts in another. No wonder the Arabs feel threatened and angry at American double standards. One does not need rocket science to conclude that as long as the American leadership ignores the legitimacy of the Arab position, and refuses to respond to it positively, the Middle East will continue to seethe with anger. And it is this anger which is the source of the support for Saddam Hussein on the streets of the Arab capitals from the Atlantic to the Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

Of broken bodies and unbreakable laws
By Laurie King-Irani, The Electronic Intifada, March 19, 2003
Civilian deaths in the Occupied Palestinian Territories hardly rate as news anymore. Such deaths are by now daily occurrences -- a dime a dozen. Whether by gunfire, Apache helicopter attacks, prevention of access to medical care, or by bulldozer, hundreds of innocent Palestinian men, women, and children have died at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) or Israeli settlers since the start of the Second (Al-Aqsa) Intifada in September 2000. Given the lack of any concerted, effective, and timely international efforts to halt these daily killings, which constitute clear violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the civilian death toll is only likely to rise. Last weekend, though, the murder of a civilian by the IDF in the Occupied Gaza Strip dominated international news headlines, evoking sorrow and outrage throughout the world. The victim in this case was a bright, eloquent, and courageous 23-year-old American activist, Rachel Corrie, a student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington who had been serving as an International Solidarity Movement (ISM) observer in Gaza since January. Rachel, like thousands of other concerned and committed human rights activists from the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan, had left the comfort and security of home behind in order to assume the considerable risks of monitoring and lessening an increasingly lethal and lawless conflict. Rachel went to Occupied Palestine to witness and prevent daily Israeli infractions of international law. From her reports on the International Solidarity Movement's website, it is evident that she possessed true grit and a maturity beyond her years. Day after day, she and her comrades faced dangers, stood their ground, and never wavered in their commitment to protect the rights and even the lives of vulnerable Palestinian civilians.

War is Theft
By William Hughes, Media Monitors Network, March 20, 2003
Who's going to pay for this immoral, obscenely expensive, clearly unjustified, totally unnecessary, fraudulently induced and illegal war with Iraq? Answer: The American taxpayers, that's who! This is so, despite the fact the people have not consented to this war. The only way they could have given their lawful agreement is through a declaration of the U.S. Congress. Only the Congress, under the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8 (11), has the power "to declare war." The resolution the Congress passed in Oct., 2002, on the possibility of war with Iraq issue, attempted to unlawfully delegate that ultimate responsibility to the executive branch of the government. This is not permitted under the Constitution and our Republican form of government. In addition, the Bush Administration now stands in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, and Treaty obligations, too, affirmed by the U.S. Senate, with respect to the creation of that international agency, in 1945. Leave it to the "most trusted man in America," retired CBS TV Evening News anchorman, Walter Cronkite, now 86, to put this matter in proper perspective. Speaking at Drew University, in Madison, NJ, he said, "We are going to be in such a fix when this war is over. Our grandchildren's grandchildren are going to be paying for this war." He added, that he saw America's future as "being very, very dark" (Daily Record News, 03/19/03, by Rob Jennings).

The Lilliputians are no longer tiny people
By Tanya Reinhart, Media Monitors Network, March 20, 2003
A pointed description of the current situation was provided by Israeli analyst Ehud Ya'ari last week, when he recalled the story of Gulliver, the giant whom the tiny people of Lilliput tied up with thin strings until, contrary to the laws of physics, he could not make use of his unparalleled force. The world super power decided that it would suit it now to conquer Iraq, divide  it to cantons, as done in Yugoslavia, and subject it to the rule of drug gangs, as in Yugoslavia  and Afghanistan. And what can the tiny people do when this is what the giant decides? They demonstrate, first in small groups and then millions all over the world. They send human shields to Baghdad. This only makes the giant laugh. Ari Fleisher, the white house spokesman, was quick to clarify that these are Saddam's hostages and the U.S. will view their deaths as  "collateral damage". And anybody knows that the U.S. is capable of that. Suddenly the UN rose up. "UM-SHMUM", as it is referred to in Israel, "half of whose delegates are from illiterate countries", forgot apparently that its only job is to rubber-stamp U.S. moves. Ari Fleisher explained that the U.S. involves the UN as long as it is convenient to do so. When it doesn't have the patience, it uses NATO, like in Kosovo. But nothing would prevent it from going alone. This week, at the Azores, Bush issued the "last ultimatum" to the UN.

Neither the Living nor the Dead
By Benaz Somiry-Batrawi, Palestine Media Center, March 20, 2003
The tragic death of American peace activist Rachel Corrie in Rafah refugee camp, killed when an Israeli bulldozer ran over her, came one day after millions of Americans demonstrated peacefully against war in Iraq, and only one day after I received similar tragic news from my family. That day, I marched with my seven-year old daughter among the thousands of anti-war demonstrators in Columbia, Missouri, holding a model of the peace dove in a gesture of solidarity with the Iraqi people. It was a sunny spring day and my daughter’s birthday, so we walked back home at the end of the rally, singing peace songs in Arabic. When we walked into the apartment, I found a voice mail message from my brother, a physician in Germany, wishing my daughter a happy birthday and asking me to call him as soon as possible. When I got in touch with him, my brother could barely speak. “The Israeli army has bulldozed our land,” he said. “They uprooted all the olive and orange trees. Worst of all, they destroyed our father’s grave,” my brother cried. “The bulldozers just ran over everything. There is nothing left for us.”

Forget Disney World: Taking the ultimate family vacation
By Paul Harris, YellowTimes.org, March 20, 2003
(YellowTimes.org) – One of my YellowTimes.org colleagues, Raff Ellis, recently emailed me a link to an online news item that appeared on the website of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). His cover message simply said: "It doesn't get any more callous than this." At first, I had to agree that this was a pretty gross story. As I started to think about it more, though, I decided we were being too judgmental and that we should actually embrace what appears to be a wonderful opportunity to help us all build family values. The BBC article was about a new travel service being offered in the Middle East: terror tours. It appears that Jewish settlers in the West Bank are offering terror tours of the West Bank and Gaza where tourists get the opportunity to be trained with and fire weapons and to participate in mock fights with Arab militants. How could any family turn down the chance at spending such quality time with each other? These are four-day excursions and they include aerial tours of "terrorist enclaves" (which, I presume, includes the Knesset) and you even get to sit in the cockpit of a fighter jet capable of delivering nuclear bombs; the organizer of these tours brags that there is a tremendous "wow" factor to all of this. The itinerary of the tours gives the happy family weapons training, the opportunity to track "terrorists" in the desert, the aerial tour of the "terrorist enclaves," the experience of F-16 bombers and ground tanks and -- this would be the highlight for my family -- a paintball attack on an Arab village.