A stone's throw from here
By Amira Hass, Haaretz, April 16, 2003 
Despite everything, they continue to show up: children with rocks in their hands. A lonely police jeep enters the edges of Ramallah. The adults go about their routine, and a few kids pop up from somewhere, waiting in ambush around the corner for the sounds that signal the return of that hated symbol. Sometimes a jeep or two stop exactly opposite the boys' school in the center of Betunya, west of Ramallah, seemingly intentionally in the morning, when the children are streaming in, and seemingly intentionally in the afternoon, when the children are streaming out. There are always some children who will try their hand at throwing rocks, while inside the jeeps the young troops, not much older than the schoolchildren (which might be why they chose that place in particular) will try their hand with their own weapons - stun grenades and tear gas. Sometimes it's not one jeep but two, backed up by an armored personnel carrier and a military ambulance - a frightening convoy that makes its way through the center of the city along the crowded market road, apparently on the way to make arrests. Children and some non-children charge. The soldiers sometimes only respond with speeding up the vehicles, but sometimes they insist on firing a few rounds a few inches over the heads of the people, whether they are stone-throwers or not. At those short distances it doesn't matter if the bullets are live or rubber-coated steel. Both are equally lethal.

History Up in Smoke
By Maureen Dowd, New York Times, April 16, 2003
We obviously have some things to learn from the British. When they carted off the treasures of the nations they conquered to the British Museum, they at least preserved them for future generations to fight over who should own them. The coalition forces were guarding the Iraqi Oil Ministry building while hundreds of Iraqis ransacked and ran off with precious heirlooms and artifacts from a 7,000-year-old civilization. Rummy blew off the repeated requests of scholars and archaeologists that the soldiers must protect Iraqi history in the museum as zealously as they protected Iraqi wealth in the oil wells. -- Last week, the C.I.A. was leaning toward believing that Saddam Hussein was alive and Osama bin Laden was dead. This week, the C.I.A. is leaning toward believing that Osama bin Laden is alive and Saddam Hussein is dead. Unless, of course, Saddam is not dead. Even though Tommy Franks claims to have Saddam's DNA, American forensics experts have not been pawing through the rubble of the Baghdad safe house and restaurant where Saddam and his sons were targeted on April 7. (A pretty good clue that they don't expect to find any Saddam traces there.) And last night, rumors were flitting through the intelligence community that Saddam may be on the run, after plastic surgery. The man is known to be an aficionado of cosmetic enhancement. He requested liposuction, teeth-whitening and hair-transplant equipment through U.N. officials in 1998 as humanitarian "essential medical supplies." Maybe the reason we haven't found any weapons of mass destruction is because all that botulinum toxin he stored wasn't to make biological weapons, as Colin Powell said, but Botox?

A roadmap for Israel, with a detour via Damascus
By Jim Lobe, Asia Times, April 12, 2003
WASHINGTON - Will it be the roadmap to Israeli-Palestinian peace or the road to Damascus that will next grab the attention of US President George W Bush's administration in the wake of its convincing conquest of Iraq? While senior officials, including Bush himself as recently as Monday after meeting in Belfast with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have insisted that getting an Israeli-Palestinian peace process back on track will be the top regional priority after the Iraq war, speculation that administration hawks have their eyes set on Syria suggests a possible detour. It is clear that Washington's European and Arab allies, as well as Secretary of State Colin Powell, are concerned that Bush follow through on his pledges to launch the implementation of the roadmap that was worked out late last year by the so-called "quartet" - the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States. Blair and Powell see such a move not only as a way of mending ties between the US and Europe that were badly strained by Bush's refusal to seek UN authorization for the invasion, but also as an essential step to bolstering pro-Western Arab governments which quietly supported the war despite the overwhelming opposition of their publics. "Arabs don't expect the US to muster another armada to militarily force Israel to end its occupation, but they do expect Washington to use its political, economic and diplomatic muscle to implement the roadmap to Palestinian-Israeli peace, which aims for adjacent Palestinian and Israeli states enjoying equal security and national rights," wrote Jordanian journalist Rami Khouri in Thursday's Los Angeles Times.

Settlements in the road map put Palestine into deep freeze 
By Nancy Hawker, Alternative Information Center, April 16, 2003 
In the aftermath of the war on Iraq, noises are being made concerning the push for a deal in the long-defunct Palestinian-Israeli “peace process”. This time the deal has taken the form of the Road Map based on a speech by George W. Bush last June and worked out by the US, UN, EU and Russian Federation. Significant about this proposal is that whilst the PA accepted it unconditionally, Sharon accepted it with some 107 amendments and reservations, and his hawkish coalition partners refused any hint at the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The PA rejects any changes to the Road Map, which calls, among other things, for the establishment of a Palestinian state within temporary borders in 2003 and a finalisation in 2005. Some Palestinians hope that after the war in Iraq the United States is in a strong position to put Israel under pressure to implement the Road Map. This goes against other prognoses that warn that the fact that Sharon even signed up to the deal proves that the US has nothing more to offer than a castrated Palestinian protectorate.

Glossary of Occupation
By Paul de Rooij, CounterPunch, September 12, 2002
Language is a powerful yet deceptive thing. It can be used to convey someone's plight and it can also be used to hide unpalatable sordid deeds. Nowhere are words adulterated more for political ends than in Israel and Palestine today. It is no secret that Israel employs a legion of well-funded propagandists, and it also relies on self-appointed members of the press--the pro bono apologists, who serve the same purpose. Just like the lopsided imbalance of military power, the means to command and change language rests primarily with pro-Israeli propagandists. Their language obfuscates and exculpates Israel's actions against a basically defenseless population; it perpetuates the injustices and contributes to a continuation of Israel's occupation and theft of more land. To make sense of the situation and to peer through the fog, a fraction of the post-Oslo commonly abused terms are translated in this glossary. Abused Terms:  Administrative detention -- Imprisonment without charges, trial, sometimes without legal representation, for undefined terms. Imprisonment usually takes place in prisons and even in a concentration camp in the Negev desert.   Bilateral negotiations -- Confiscation of land. Israel confiscates/steals land, and to legalize its claims it engages in "bilateral negotiations." There have been no bilateral negotiations about Palestinian claims pertaining to land inside the Green line.

The case of Fareg Ibrahim: symptomatic of a slow process of ethnic cleansing
Shamai Leibowitz, The Electronic Intifada, April 14, 2003
Almost a year ago, in May 2002, the Israeli Minister of Interior decided to deport Fareg Ibrahim, an Arab-Egyptian married to an Arab-Israeli woman, and father to a two-month-old baby, Camela. Since June 2002, Mr. Ibrahim has been held in custody, without being accused of any crime. The Tel Aviv District Court denied his requests to be released on bail. Usually, foreign residents, especially ones who are married to Israelis, are interrogated and released on bail. However, apparently because Mr. Ibrahim is an Arab, Israeli judges decided to keep him in detention. Mr. Ibrahim has been living in Israel for 7 years. He entered Israel on a visa, and after he married an Arab-Israeli woman, filed a request to become an Israeli resident. He was a hard-working man, committed to his family. He was not involved in any criminal activity whatsoever. He is not connected, directly or indirectly, to any terrorist organization. Nevertheless, the Ministry of Interior decided to tear him away from his wife and child and deport him to Egypt, implementing a policy denying family reunification to Arabs. This act is considered a crime according to international conventions and UN treaties.

Between Zambish and Bush
By Ze'ev Schiff, Haaretz, April 16, 2003
The expansion of settlements means only one thing: the continuation of the occupation and the rule over another people, if not over all of it then over most of it. All the word games will not whitewash this fact. -- This past Sunday, the day on which Haaretz published an interview with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the premier met privately with one of the men mentioned in the article. The meeting was not held at the Prime Minister's Office, where everyone who enters and exits is registered, but rather at Sharon's Jerusalem home in the evening with no secretaries or aides present. The guest was Ze'ev Hever, also known as Zambish, one of the heads of the Yesha (Judea, Samaria and Gaza) Council, and the man in charge of the settlements, the outposts (legal and illegal), the appropriation of lands, the paving of roads, secret budgets, etc. In the Haaretz interview, Ari Shavit asked Sharon whom he would choose at the moment of truth, U.S. President George W. Bush or Zambish. Sharon's answer was, "Each of the two people you mentioned is a special and impressive person. Each of them is very impressive in his own field." These are the two opposing fronts between which Sharon is maneuvering. While his bureau chief, Dov Weisglass, is making his way to a meeting with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and with U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Sharon is meeting quietly with Zambish.

Baghdad Has Fallen, Thanks to the Arab Regimes
By Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle, April 15, 2003
"What does it take to awaken these regimes? Do we have to wait for the Marines to tear down their statues and smother their faces with American flags? And, will the Arab people ever move beyond angry chants and realize that they can be, if they wish, the most important component of this struggle? .." -- It’s not always easy to find a moment of calm in chaotic situations, and, while sipping a cup of tea, declare confidently: “what have we learned from all of this?” Iraq has fallen. For many, Iraq was just another country; just another example of American imperialism; just another business conquest for the ‘big corporations’, ideological conquest for the ‘neo-conservatives’, and a religious conquest for the fundamentalists (now flooding Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan to offer ‘their services’ to the battered nation of Iraq.) But you have to be an Arab or someone conscious enough to look beyond the deceptive glasses of the American and British media and officials, to realize the magnitude of the catastrophe. Iraq, in Arab history has been viewed as the liberator; it’s the “castle of Arab civilization”, the home of intellectuals, and the heart of the Arab world. For a growing population of Arabs who are pushing for a better a future, a more dignified one; seeking a ray of hope, a glimpse of change, the falling of Baghdad can never be described as anything but a catastrophe. Just weeks ago, Arabs were fighting to liberate one country, Palestine. Now, they have to liberate two, maybe more.

US Neglect Casts Dark Shadow Over a City Without Light or Much Love for the Invaders
By James Meek, The Guardian, April 16, 2003
In the darkness of unelectrified Baghdad at night, one of the brightest spots is the Palestine Hotel, where, from generator-powered floodlit marquees on the roof, the American TV networks report around the clock on their military forces' operations in the Iraqi capital. Conveniently, the US officers trying to restore essential services in the city are based in the same hotel. It is a short walk upstairs for US military spokesmen to explain live to American audiences how they are getting the Iraqi police back on the streets, working to repair the power stations, and fixing the water pipes. Yet a week after the US occupation of Baghdad began, if you count from the contrived symbolism of the destruction of one of the many statues of Saddam Hussein in the city - the one which happens to be closest to the Palestine Hotel - there is a bitterness and tension between citizens and occupiers. It is not just that Baghdad has been ravaged by looting, which local people feel US forces did little or nothing to prevent. There is a growing feeling that the occupiers are obsessed with protecting themselves, to the exclusion of taking risks in protecting civilians.

Tell me, kid, did you throw stones?
By Amira Hass, Haaretz, April 15, 2003
At midnight on February 20, the soldiers "came down to the village from the mountains," surrounded Ja'far's house, banged hard on the door, woke everyone up and demanded that Ja'far come along for interrogation. In the months prior to his arrest, several of his friends were similarly detained - all residents of the village of Kharbatha al Musbah, which nestles among the hills, ravines, olive groves, army roadblocks and dirt tracks southwest of Ramallah. Last year, at least some of these arrests were effected using the "neighbor routine": Two brothers, Nader and Mamduh, were arrested that way in July 2002. Someone knocked on the door sometime after 2 A.M. "The army is here," the neighbor told them, whereupon the army took them away for immediate interrogation in the middle of the night. And at Nahhalin, west of Bethlehem, on March 24 at night, a boy named Bilal was hustled away to be interrogated. Presumably these four arrests were included in due course in routine Israel Defense Forces updates made to journalists via their beepers, to reappear afterward in the morning news bulletins: "The IDF last night arrested 13 suspects and others wanted for interrogation throughout the West Bank." But Ja'far and Nader were 15-and-a-half when detained, Mamduh was 17 and Bilal had just turned 14 the day before he was arrested (all the names are fictitious). The urgent interrogation requiring that they be hauled off in the middle of the night usually involved the suspicion that they'd been throwing stones at Israeli vehicles. The most serious allegations concerned Bilal, the 14-year-old: Suspected of burning electricity poles, as well as rock-throwing. Over the last two years, hundreds of minors under 18 and even under 16 have been detained in this fashion. Israeli jails, prisons and detention facilities now hold some 300 Palestinian minors: Some are awaiting trial, some have already been tried for various security-related offenses - from rock-throwing (the majority) to an intent to perpetrate, or help perpetrate, a suicide attack.