Thwarting the state
By Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 27 March - 2 April 2003
Sharon is building a second separation fence, on the eastern side of the West Bank to connect with the first one. -- Less than a fortnight ago Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took his cabinet ministers on a well- publicised tour of the northern sections of the 360km separation fence, ostensibly being built around the West Bank to protect Israelis from Palestinian attack. Addressing them afterwards, Sharon adopted his standard posture: the electrified fence, he said, was purely a "security measure" and would not become a "political" border -- code among the right and settlers for the government's refusal to demarcate the borders of a future Palestinian state. That has been the constant refrain since Sharon was cornered into accepting the separation wall by his former Labour coalition partners last June. However, in contrast to his previous utterances, this time Sharon may not have meant what he said. The ministerial tour appears to have heralded a dramatic new phase in Sharon's thinking. Panicked by Washington's apparent determination after the war in Iraq to press on with the Quartet's road map to a Palestinian state by 2005, and by the White House's agreement to let other members (the European Union, United Nations and Russia) take a leading role in its implementation and monitoring, Sharon has decided to turn the fence to his advantage. He believes a revised wall can be used to create the Palestinian state demanded by the Quartet but in an enfeebled form that has always been his vision of Palestinian statehood. With Labour out of the government and his support drawn mainly from pro-settler parties, and with an Israeli public more interested in the achievement of separation than the details of its execution, Sharon now has a free hand to redraw the political map. Two major changes in the fence plan revealed since the tour on 16 March suggest the new direction in his thinking.

Read the small print: the US wants to privatise Iraq's oil
By Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, March 31, 2003
No one here believes this is a humanitarian war -- In this highly politicised city where anger over the invasion of Iraq alternates with pride in the resistance, there is one sure way to lighten the mood. Suggest that George Bush and Tony Blair launched their war because of Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction. Hoots of derision all round. Whether they are Syrians or members of the huge Iraqi exile community, everyone here believes this is a war for oil. In nearby Jordan and across the Arab world the view is the same. Some suggest a second motive - Washington's desire to strengthen Israel. Under one theory US hawks want to break Iraq into several statelets and then do the same with Saudi Arabia, to confirm the Zionist state as the region's superpower. Others cite Donald Rumsfeld's recent comments about Iran and Syria as proof that war on Iraq is designed to frighten its neighbours, who happen to be the leading radicals in the anti-Zionist camp. Oil is the war aim on which all Arabs agree. While the Palestinian intifada is resistance to old-fashioned colonialism with its seizure and settlement of other people's land, they see the Iraqi intifada as popular defence against a more modern phenomenon. Washington does not need to settle Iraqi land, but it does want military bases and control of oil. Oil is the war aim on which all Arabs agree. While the Palestinian intifada is resistance to old-fashioned colonialism with its seizure and settlement of other people's land, they see the Iraqi intifada as popular defence against a more modern phenomenon. Washington does not need to settle Iraqi land, but it does want military bases and control of oil.

Israelis: Victims No Longer?
By Ann Pettifer, CounterPunch, March 29, 2003
Iris Murdoch, the Oxford moral philosopher and novelist, thought suffering was not necessarily redemptive; it did not always improve us either morally or spiritually. Taking her cue from Plato, she argued that while suffering might well be a constituent of the moral life, it must never be an end in itself. Moreover, evil, which she often characterized as the good degenerating into egotism, could corrupt its innocent victims. From the late 1930s, Murdoch was involved in a number of friendships with Jewish refugees from Fascism; she was pupil, lover or muse to several, including the Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti. The moral abyss that was the Holocaust came to haunt her. Yet, in 1970, she took the considerable risk of writing a novel, A Fairly Honourable Defeat, in which the amoral, destructive protagonist in the story, Julius King an urbane Jewish émigré, is discovered to have the numbers of a concentration camp tattooed on his arm. In an earlier novel, The Nice and the Good, Murdoch had portrayed another, very different Holocaust survivor, Willie Kost. Although Willie is trapped by his past, he nevertheless spends his time on "small, non--grandiose exercises in love." Julius King, on the other hand, claims to have had a "cosy war." His period in Belsen is never acknowledged; the price he has paid in surviving the horror and the powerlessness is the loss of his humanity. A cold repressed anger turns him into a monster of egoism, a puppet--master whose raison d'etre is the exercise of power. Contempt for his fellow creatures is absolute. Primo Levi, the Italian Jew who survived Auschwitz and wrote so unsparingly and unsentimentally about life in the camp, never doubted that the evil revealed in the Holocaust had universal meaning: it was not only a tragedy for Jews, but for all humankind. Thus he refused the temptation to enlist this catastrophe to shield the new Jewish state from criticism.

Uranium Warheads May Leave Both Sides a Legacy of Death for Decades
By Susanna Hecht, Los Angeles Times,  March 31, 2003 
Although the potential human cost of the war with Iraq is obvious, not many people are aware of a hidden risk that may haunt us for years. Of the 504,047 eligible veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, about 29% are now considered disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the highest rate of disability for any modern war. And most are not disabled because of wounds. These guys were rough, tough, buff 20-year-olds a decade ago. The vast majority are ill because of a complex of debilities known as the Gulf War syndrome. These vets were exposed to toxic material from both sides, including numerous chemicals, fumes and weird experimental vaccines. But the largest number of the more than half a million troops eligible for VA benefits -- 436,000 -- lived for months in areas of the Middle Eastern desert that had been contaminated with depleted uranium. Depleted uranium, or DU, is a highly toxic heavy metal that continues to emit low levels of alpha radiation. It is a byproduct of nuclear power plants and various military activities. The United States has hundreds of thousands of tons of DU lying around, and for the Gulf War it developed a new use for the stuff: load it into warheads. Though not technically "nuclear," because the material is not really fissionable, uranium is a heavy metal ideal for lethally effective "warhead penetrators" that can pierce through armored tanks and fortified positions. When the munitions explode, the area is bathed in a fine dust of DU that can be easily inhaled. These aerosols also taint soil and water and pollute ground water. If the penetrators do not explode, their casings gradually oxidize, releasing DU into the environment. DU warheads are essentially dirty bombs -- not very radioactive, but poisonous, and this is why there is an increasing global outcry against using DU in combat as tips for armor-piercing rounds as well as in artillery shells and Tomahawk missiles, among others.

Sharing One Fate
Editorial, Arab News, March 31, 2003
Palestinians can identify with the war in Iraq. By dint of history and their present situation, they put themselves in Iraqi shoes. Both are being subjected to the wrath of invading forces. Palestinians empathize with the relentless bombardment of Baghdad, Basra and other Iraqi cities. Iraqis are victims, like them, of territorial siege, collective sanctions, a ferocious military assault by a greater power that has come to occupy and conquer. The two have one more thing in common: They do not believe for one moment a word of the marauders’ promises. The war is not about the disarmament of Iraq. That was always a hollow pretext. No one with any real knowledge of the situation believed that Iraq, on its knees from two disastrous wars and from 12 years of punitive sanctions, presented any sort of “imminent threat” to anyone. The US has embarked on an imperial adventure in the Middle East. This is the true meaning of the war. The occupation of Iraq, a major Arab country at the strategic heart of the region, will allow the United States to control the resources of the Middle East and reshape its geopolitics to its advantage. It is a criminal enterprise — unjustified, unprovoked, illegitimate, catastrophic for the Iraqi victims of the conflict and destructive of the rules of international law.

Confrontation With the ‘Islamic Danger’
By Hassan Tahsin, Arab News, March 31, 2003
I disagree with those who deny that the aim of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq is the “liberation” of that country. The Americans and their British followers truly want to “liberate” Iraq in order to set it up as an example for the entire region. Therefore, the primary aim of the invasion, bristling with the strength of American arms and dominated by American technology, is not simply Iraq but all Islamic and Arab nations. It is a war of aggression aimed at terrorizing the countries of the region on the one hand and imposing an American model on the other. The Americans and the British are not seeking to destroy the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and don’t care about bringing down Saddam and his corrupt dictatorial regime. Their concern is finding a foothold in the region, forestalling certain events and halting the growth of a new Arab regime. They realize that a new system is beginning to crystallize that will take the place of the current outdated and out-of-touch Arab system. The primary motivator for that pre-emptive invasion of Iraq is the fear of the diffusion of Islam once again and its transformation into a power competing with the West or at the very least becoming a pesky problem. We must not be taken in by appearances or forget that what is happening now is the fruit of strategic thinking that was developed more than a decade ago by a group of think tanks and decision-making centers in a number of intelligence, military and political circles in the US.

In Baghdad, Blood and Bandages for the Innocent 
By Robert Fisk, Common Dreams/The lndependent, March 30, 2003
The piece of metal is only a foot high, but the numbers on it hold the clue to the latest atrocity in Baghdad. At least 62 civilians had died by yesterday afternoon, and the coding on that hunk of metal contains the identity of the culprit. The Americans and British were doing their best yesterday to suggest that an Iraqi anti-aircraft missile destroyed those dozens of lives, adding that they were "still investigating" the carnage. But the coding is in Western style, not in Arabic. And many of the survivors heard the plane. In the Al-Noor hospital yesterday morning, there were appalling scenes of pain and suffering. A two-year-old girl, Saida Jaffar, swaddled in bandages, a tube into her nose, another into her stomach. All I could see of her was her forehead, two small eyes and a chin. Beside her, blood and flies covered a heap of old bandages and swabs. Not far away, lying on a dirty bed, was three-year-old Mohamed Amaid, his face, stomach, hands and feet all tied tightly in bandages. A great black mass of congealed blood lay at the bottom of his bed. This is a hospital without computers, with only the most primitive of X-ray machines. But the missile was guided by computers and that vital shard of fuselage was computer-coded. It can be easily verified and checked by the Americans – if they choose to do so. It reads: 30003-704ASB 7492. The letter "B" is scratched and could be an "H". This is believed to be the serial number. It is followed by a further code which arms manufacturers usually refer to as the weapon's "Lot" number. It reads: MFR 96214 09. The piece of metal bearing the codings was retrieved only minutes after the missile exploded on Friday evening, by an old man whose home is only 100 yards from the 6ft crater. Even the Iraqi authorities do not know that it exists. The missile sprayed hunks of metal through the crowds – mainly women and children – and through the cheap brick walls of local homes, amputating limbs and heads. 

Meanwhile, in Palestine...
By Omar Karmi, The Electronic Intifada, March 30, 2003
According to President Bush, the Iraqi people have lived far too long under a "violent, criminal gang," and are now daily "closer to freedom." Unfortunately, he is making no such case for the Palestinians. Nine Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza in the days since war in Iraq started, including a 10-year-old girl in Bethlehem, and two boys in Jenin; one 12 and the other 15. Last Friday, in the village of Doha, near Bethlehem, Israeli forces destroyed the family home of Mohammad Dar-Yasin, who tried to carry out a suicide bombing in a nearby Jewish settlement in February last year but was shot and killed. The Israeli government, meanwhile, is continuing its work on the fence designed to keep Palestinians from Israelis. Last Sunday, the Israeli defense ministry recommended altering the original plans and building the fence deeper in the West Bank. Israel began constructing the fence last year to run along the 'Green Line,' which demarcated the frontier before Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 war. Moving the fence would mean including about 40,000 more Jewish settlers and 3,000 more Palestinians on the western, "Israeli" side.

Palestinians worry about their own cause during Iraq war
By Danny Rubinstein, Haaretz, March 31, 2003
There's no little excitement among Palestinians about what they regard as stubborn Iraqi resistance making it difficult for the American and British armies to proceed. "This is a struggle by the righteous against the powerful," is how Sheikh Ismail Suwahada, one of the preachers at Al Aqsa Mosque, put it. He, like many others, believes no power in the world can stand up to the strength of spirit of the righteous when they unify their forces. Many among the Palestinian who seek a common denominator between the campaign in Iraq and their campaign here accept these kinds of formulations. Yasser Arafat made the same comparison when he dedicated the Friday prayers this weekend at the Ramallah Muqata to the Iraqi and Palestinian martyrs. However, there are also many Palestinians who are not happy about the difficulties the Americans are facing. The campaign is still in its early stages, and it is difficult to draw conclusions from recent days. But, already, there are Palestinians who see the war in Iraq as harmful to their cause. The initial damage was as a result of the fact that Washington began the war even though it failed to enlist broad international support. At meetings of the Palestinian leadership in recent days there was talk of the Palestinian cause being based on "international legitimacy," meaning on the need to fulfill political agreements and UN decisions. And, if the value of international legitimacy has been undermined, so has the Palestinian cause.

Road map to the unity government
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, March 31, 2003 
It took less than six months in civvies for Shaul Mofaz to learn that "let the IDF win" is a bankrupt doctrine. His support now for a political option is only one sign the defense minister understands that the occupation threatens more than the security of Netanya's residents. As a senior member of the government, Mofaz must take a peek at the shrinking budgets in education and health. The Bank of Israel's research department estimates the intifada's cost at NIS 14.6-17.9 billion. That's a result of dramatic drops in gross local investment, private consumption, and exports, while defense expenditures rise. It explains the connection between rising unemployment in Jenin and rising unemployment in Ofakim, the curfew in Nablus and the strike in Nazareth. Another year or two of conflict in the territories won't leave the government anywhere to cut from. The economic situation is beginning to do to the "soft" right what the political, security, and moral price didn't do during the years of "enlightened" occupation. Ariel Sharon keeps saying, in private conversations and public statements, that there's no way out of the mess without a political arrangement. He knows the cheers greeting the signals from Washington regarding delays in releasing the official road map are going to be short lived. And assessments that Bush would prefer to betray his friend from the British Labor party, Tony Blair, rather than upset his friends on the Christian and Jewish right, also haven't let Sharon heave a sigh of relief. When the pot's boiling at home, there's no need for pressure from the outside to put out the fire. The problem with Sharon and his cohorts on the right has always been that their political horizon doesn't even come close to the political horizons of moderate Palestinians like Dr. Sari Nusseibeh. At most, the current composition of the Sharon government allows it to negotiate corrections to the road map. Even if the government allowed three cantons to be crowned with the title "independent state," that's as far from Palestinian expectations as the distance from Gaza to South Africa.

The new Nero
By Francois de Bernard, Haaretz, March 31, 2003  
A new pathology is ravaging the city. It has taken control of the neurons of the empire. First it infected the emperor himself and then it was transmitted to his oligarchs. First it took control of the center and now it is shaking the peripheries, from north to south and from east to west. Now, at the height of its fury, the incredulity has given way to stupor. This is the feeling that is giving rise to an unbearable and diffuse malaise among "experts" as well as among "ordinary citizens." This is an indisputable intuition, which has been persistently rejected because it is unacceptable. How can we admit that we have returned to the worst hours of the Roman Empire, those that bear the tragic seal of Caligula and Nero? How is it possible now, in our day, when supposedly there is the most comprehensive application of "democracy" in the history of humanity, to accept the idea that the most "developed," wealthy and powerful nation in the world has a leadership that has come down with a devastating psychosis? Indeed, everything is impelling us to minimize the gravity of this matter, insofar as possible. But the time has come for us to open our eyes. The time has come to forget the old idea - forged during the course of two centuries - of the United States as the bridgehead of the "free world" and "democracy." The reality that we are trying to keep at a distance is that the United States has become a theocracy and a pathocracy. It has become a theocracy because nearly all the important decisions of President George W. Bush's administration are taken "in the name of God" - an angry and vengeful God, not a God of love and compassion - and because this system is not encountering any serious opposition on the part of the legislative and legal institutions, not to mention the media. We are Democracy, by the will of our angry God, and our role is to promote it in His name and for His sake. The fact that this democracy has only a marginal and metaphorical connection to 2,5000 years of political tradition is of no importance. The self-definition and the self-justification are the two breasts of the empire. Just as the United Nations is a negligible factor that can be ignored when it opposes our plans, we were established in order to impose on the rest of the world the idea of democracy that corresponds only to our convictions.

The six day war
By Geov Parrish, Workin For Change, March 31, 2003
Why America has already lost its war against Iraq -- Historians won't call this The Six Days' War; that name belongs to another Middle Eastern military rout with far-reaching consequences. But by last Wednesday, the outcome of George Bush's invasion of Iraq was decided. The only remaining unknowns are how many months or years it will take America and Britain to figure out that they have already lost, and how many people will die in the interim. From the beginning, Bush Administration rationales for this invasion have been based on the premise that Americans (and their faithful canine companions, the Brits) would be welcomed with open arms by both Iraqi civilians and soldiers. Once the prospect of life without Saddam appeared truly at hand, the Iraqi tyrant's brutal house of cards would collapse. Whole divisions, whole cities, would surrender without a shot. The war would last not much longer than it would take to drive to Baghdad (albeit on lousy roads), and the victory parade in Baghdad would make Paris at V-Day look tame. Some Bushites took the notion even farther; as with post-war Europe, all the Middle East would come to adore America, ushering in an era of peace and prosperity for all. As Gilda Radner might once have said:  Never mind. It was evident by the middle of last week, and has become increasingly evident each day since -- even through the muddle of U.S. media coverage and frantic pinning in Washington and London -- that Iraqis do not want the Americans in their country. Period. We are not welcome. Even if it means keeping Saddam. Even if it means guerilla war against a military using overwhelming force. Iraqis will not simply give up; nor will they spontaneously rise and do America's work for it by toppling Saddam Hussein. It seems to have never occurred to Bush and his advisors that people who hate Saddam wouldn't automatically welcome America -- that not everyone casts their loyalties in black and white, "with us or against us," enemy-of-my- enemy-is-my-friend thinking.