This is the reality of war. We bomb. They suffer
By Robert Fisk, The Independent, March 23, 2003
Veteran war reporter Robert Fisk tours the Baghdad hospital to see the wounded after a devastating night of air strikes -- Donald Rumsfeld says the American attack on Baghdad is "as targeted an air campaign as has ever existed" but he should not try telling that to five-year-old Doha Suheil. She looked at me yesterday morning, drip feed attached to her nose, a deep frown over her small face as she tried vainly to move the left side of her body. The cruise missile that exploded close to her home in the Radwaniyeh suburb of Baghdad blasted shrapnel into her tiny legs ­ they were bound up with gauze ­ and, far more seriously, into her spine. Now she has lost all movement in her left leg. Her mother bends over the bed and straightens her right leg which the little girl thrashes around outside the blanket. Somehow, Doha's mother thinks that if her child's two legs lie straight beside each other, her daughter will recover from her paralysis. She was the first of 101 patients brought to the Al-Mustansaniya College Hospital after America's blitz on the city began on Friday night. Seven other members of her family were wounded in the same cruise missile bombardment; the youngest, a one-year-old baby, was being breastfed by her mother at the time. There is something sick, obscene about these hospital visits. We bomb. They suffer. Then we turn up and take pictures of their wounded children. The Iraqi minister of health decides to hold an insufferable press conference outside the wards to emphasise the "bestial" nature of the American attack. The Americans say that they don't intend to hurt children. And Doha Suheil looks at me and the doctors for reassurance, as if she will awake from this nightmare and move her left leg and feel no more pain.

Why are We Waiting? Severing of trade relations between the EU and Israel
By Gerard Waite, News From Within, January, 2003
Of the various varieties of boycott available, trade and financial boycotts are clearly the most coercive. They threaten to employ the sort of force that can challenge the viability of an administration (successfully in South Africa, not so in Iraq). Little wonder then that Article 2 of the trade agreement between Israel and the EU, which contains commitments to abide by human rights, has increasingly become the focus of boycott campaigners. Failure to abide by human rights, they argue, is an abrogation of the agreement. Not so, says EU Commission President Romano Prodi, "the agreement is an instrument of cooperation, and not a tool for political blackmail." -- The move to boycott: For sure, those that support an EU boycott of Israel have been given reason to hope of late. The EU's long-term financial support for the PA (which took hold as support for the Oslo process) has caused resentment enough in these parts, but relationships have sunk even lower as EU officials have continued to hustle for a presence in the peace process. Something of a watershed moment occurred in April 2002 when Sharon prevented EU heavyweights, including EU Council Secretary General Javier Solana, from meeting with President Arafat in Ramallah. Though any causal connection is denied, this rebuff was followed on 10 April 2002 by a EU Parliamentary resolution (adopted by 269 to 208 with 22 abstentions), in favour of the suspension of trade relations with Israel (and an arms embargo) in protest at "oppression of the Palestinian civilian population by the Israeli army" and "military escalation pursued by the Sharon government." A few days before the Parliamentary decision the Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique, then holding EU Council presidency, had prepared the ground by saying "sanctions against Israel are a possible scenario."

The Case for Boycott
By Ilan Pappe, News From Within, January, 2003
Issues such as boycott require some introductory remarks that are on the verge of the obvious, but nonetheless worth repeating. They can be summed up as a recognition of the uneasiness which accompanies, and should accompany, any citizen who would call upon the outside world to boycott his or her own country. Any call for such a drastic action should be thought over again and again and not taken off hand. Having said this, I would like to present a non-ambivalent position on the question of boycott, after years in which I doubted the wisdom of such a move. I have been involved in political activism since the 1970s and in all these years I believed in the ability of an inside coalition of peace to lead the country onto reconciliation, without the need to resort to outside pressure. -- Boycott as strategy: The way to recommend boycott as a strategic act has first to go through defining clearly the aim of any outside pressure on the state. The overall objective is to change a policy, {{not}} the identity of the state. Although I dream of bringing an end to the oppressive nature of the state of Israel and to make it, together with Palestine, one democratic secular state - I do not think this can, or should be, achieved through the means of boycott.

Political Zionism
Political Zionism - Acrobat format
By John F. Mahoney, The Link, April-May  2003
Roots of Zionism: In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, a French-Jewish army officer, was sentenced to perpetual deportation and military degradation for selling military secrets to the Germans. Two years later, the chief of French army intelligence, Col. George Picquart, himself an anti-Semite, concluded that another officer, not Dreyfus, was the traitor. The army ignored the evidence. Then, in 1898, the novelist Ιmile Zola published his “J‘accuse!,” the story of the army’s cover-up. After an arduous series of legal challenges that inflamed French public opinion and deeply divided the Republic, Dreyfus was pardoned in 1899, exonerated in 1906 and returned to the army, where he eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was named Officer in the Legion of Honor. During this period, Alfred Dreyfus came to symbolize for many French the supposed disloyalty of French Jews. On the 100th anniversary of Zola’s article, France’s Catholic daily, La Croix, apologized for its anti-Semitic editorials during the Dreyfus affair. The case, however, had a ripple effect that went well beyond the French. This was because of Theodor Herzl, a Paris-based correspondent for an Austrian newspaper. Up until the Dreyfus trial, Herzl, who was born in Budapest in 1860, felt, as did most European Jewish intellectuals, that the best course for Jews lay in assimilation, based on the liberal nationalism of the French Revolution, where the individual citizen is central, where the state is constituted by its citizens, and where all citizens stand equal before the law. The anti-Jewish attacks Herzl observed during the Dreyfus Affair were among the experiences that brought home to him the power of anti-Semitism even in such an enlightened democracy as France.

Lies, Lies and More Lies
Editorial, Arab News, March 24, 2003
Yesterday the US-led army invading Iraq — without UN approval, without international backing — woke up to the reality of ground combat. They learned first-hand that the Iraqi people do not want to be “liberated” by them, and that the Iraqi Army is likely to fight to the very last. Resistance continues in Umm Qasr, a small port city just inside Iraq which the US claimed to have taken days ago; and independent reports say that in Nassiriyah up to 20 American armored personnel carriers and tanks were taken out by the Iraqis. What is not in doubt is that dozens of American soldiers may have been killed yesterday. More than a dozen were taken prisoner. The bodies of the dead were shown on Iraqi television. So were the frightened faces of Iraq’s first prisoners of war. Those who have been getting their news exclusively from US networks probably have not seen these images. Priority was given to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose denials slowly turned as the day progressed into grudging admissions. Rumsfeld finally commanded the airwaves alone, after having bullied several major American networks — CNN, Fox and MSNBC — into not showing the images of the US prisoners of war and the dead. He did this by referring to the Geneva Convention. Footage of the captured soldiers constituted “propaganda”, Rumsfeld asserted. At the same time, he managed to cast doubt on the fact that the captured were indeed American. Rumsfeld’s newfound affection for the Geneva Convention is remarkable, given that there were images broadcast continuously the day before on US news networks of long lines of Iraqi prisoners surrendering, in US President George W. Bush’s words, “gleefully, enthusiastically”. The US does not believe that the prisoners now being held at Guantanamo Bay are prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. Pictures of the men there, shackled and living in cages, were distributed by the Bush administration to the world’s media.

Iraq will become a quagmire for the Americans
By Robert Fisk, The Independent, March 23, 2003
Iraq stunned the Americans and British last night by broadcasting video tape of captured and dead American troops – the nightmare of both George Bush and Tony Blair. The body of one American soldier was seen with a great red gash on his neck, while five US prisoners appeared on screen. One, a black female soldier, had been wounded, while a male serviceman said he had been "only following orders". The film will increase internal support for Saddam Hussein, because it will be regarded as proof that the American-British force will be beaten. All day, Baghdad felt like Kuwait in 1991 after the Iraqis had set fire to the oil wells. The oil-filled trenches torched by the Iraqi army around Baghdad on Saturday are ablaze. And regardless of whether they really hinder the incoming American cruise missiles, they have placed this city under a sinister, dark canopy. The skyline is black, the sky grey. Only by looking directly upwards can you catch sight of the sun. The Tigris moves sluggishly under a dun-coloured mist. If the people of Baghdad could pretend, a few days ago, that the war did not exist, yesterday they were living in its shadow. All day, you could hear the explosions. An echoing blast from the suburbs, the sound of jets and then another explosion and then – because war is like this – the gentle roar of traffic and the sight of a red double-decker bus making its routine journey across the river bridge to Qadamiya.

Democracy: Be Careful What You Wish For
By Youssef M. Ibrahim, Washington Post, March 23, 2003
There were two striking results in an opinion survey conducted earlier this month by Zogby International in six Arab countries -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon. One was that a huge majority of people in those countries said that, if given the choice, they would like their Islamic clergy to play roles bigger than the subservient ones currently prescribed by most Arab governments. Equally impressive, less than 6 percent of those polled believed that the United States was waging its campaign in Iraq to create a more democratic Arab or Muslim world. Close to 95 percent were convinced that the United States was after control of Arab oil and the subjugation of the Palestinians to Israel's will. The survey, commissioned by University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami, also showed that overwhelming margins said that terrorism was going to increase, rather than decrease, as a result of the U.S.-led invasion. President Bush has said that the invasion of Iraq, and the establishment of a new government there, would be a "catalyst" for change in the region. But what kind of change? Rather than leading to liberal, pro-Western democracy, as Bush suggests, the war in Iraq is likely to bring only more radical Islamic fundamentalism. After all, the Islamic fundamentalist parties, grouped under the big tent of the Muslim Brotherhood, are the only forces with the organization, capability and ambition to take power if democracy were to become an option in the Arab world. Arab leaders are plainly worried by this prospect. A few weeks ago in Cairo, during a fact-finding trip for the Council on Foreign Relations, I had a three-hour private conversation with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak about the politics of the region, the coming war in Iraq and U.S. policy. Though closely allied with the United States, Egypt has been pressed by the Bush administration to undertake democratic reforms.

Premature cheering on the Israeli right
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, March 24, 2003
Dead or alive, Saddam Hussein will go down in modern history as one of the people most responsible for creating the deepest scar in the world order since the Cold War. By chance or not, the scar practically overlaps the division that scars our own "Quartet" - the U.S. on one side, and the European Union, UN and Russia on the other. Israel, as usual, chose the American side in the Gulf crisis. Its ministers unanimously support the war and the town squares are empty of antiwar demonstrations. There's nothing left to do but wait quietly for a little bit of the juice from the fruits of good guy's victory over the bad guys. Seemingly, at least, everything is very simple and nice. First, Israel displayed perfect loyalty to the U.S., which presumably will pay it back in economic and political coin. Second, Israel haters, led by France, have lined up with America's rivals, and Washington, presumably, will pay them back. The cold wind blowing from Iraq toward the four-sided forum will yank the road map out of the Quartet's hands and momentously return it to Washington. Third, President Bush has sent the UN into rehab, which is something that the disciples of Israel's "UN is irrelevant" camp always like to gloat over. But the nervousness peeking out from the "briefings" at the Prime Minister's Office about the road map show that even in Sharon's closest circles, they understand that when all your eggs are in one basket, you'd best not shake it.

Smart bombs, obtuse commentators
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, March 23, 2003 
It's been a long time since we've seen such enthusiasm. The television studios are filled to overflowing with major generals and brigadier generals who are terribly impressed with the war in Iraq and attempt to infect the viewers with their delight. Veteran warmongers, some of whom are responsible for past wars of choice and for appalling fiascos, hallucinatory operations and unnecessary bloodshed, are now the voice of national reason. Avigdor Ben Gal, for instance, a senior commander in the Lebanon War, without batting an eye called on the IDF to find an immediate "pretext" under cover of the Iraq war for returning to Lebanon. Others who dragged us into unnecessary adventurism, and their colleagues who turned the IDF into a brutal occupation army in the territories, are now our only national commentators. It was apparent already during the waiting period that the lengthy anticipation was hard on them: They considered every postponement a terrible mistake and every debate about the justification for the war was heresy. Now that the forces are finally on their way, their enthusiasm bursts forth, not merely about the very outbreak of the war, but about the sophisticated equipment being used. The smart bombs and the guided missiles, the satellite navigation and the turbofan engines, the Stealth bombers and the mega-bombs are firing their imagination. A smile akin to that of a child describing his new toys spreads on their face as they describe the magical allure of the American power of destruction. Former air force commanders, who apparently find it difficult to give up their posts, describe horrific bombing runs or flying extermination machines as if they were works of art.