Don't Envy Abu-Mazen
By Uri Avnery, Media Monitors Network, April 28, 2003
My first impression of Abu-Mazen was of a serious, methodical, somewhat aloof introvert. He reminded me of a high-school principal, very different from Arafat, the impulsive extrovert, prone to personal gestures, exuding warmth to all around him. I met Abu-Mazen for the first time some 28 years ago. We were secretly in Tunis to meet Yasser Arafat. There were three of us: Matti Peled, a general in the reserves, Ya’acov Arnon, a former Director General of the Treasury and I. We met Abu-Mazen first to prepare practical proposals for joint actions, to be put before the "Old Man", as Arafat - then 54 – was called. I had first heard mention of the name Abu-Mazen nine years earlier, with my first secret contacts with senior PLO officials. They told me that the Fatah leadership had appointed a committee of three for contacts with Israelis. They were the "three Abus" (as I called them): Abu-Amar (Yasser Arafat), Abu-Iyad (Salah Halaf) and Abu-Mazen (Mahmud Abbas). Abu-Mazen was directly responsible for the contacts that started in 1974. At the first stage, they were conducted with me personally, but, from the autumn of 1976 on, the Israeli partner was the "Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace". The Palestinians who met us were Sa’id Hamami and Issam Sartawi – who were both murdered by the Iraqi-supported Palestinian arch-terrorist, Abu-Nidal, a mortal enemy of Arafat. When Arafat and Abu-Mazen were both present at meetings with us, I got a clear picture of their mutual standing. The detailed discussions were conducted by Abu-Mazen, who had a good knowledge of things Israeli, but it was Arafat who, in the end, made the decisions. More than once I had the impression that the senior PLO leaders were quite content to leave to Arafat the responsibility for the courageous, dangerous and unpopular decisions that led up to the agreement with Israel.

Not a game
By Azmi Bishara, Media Monitors Network, April 28, 2003
America has switched targets with startling swiftness. Confident with its results in Iraq thus far, it moved on to threaten Syria with ease comparable to flipping radio stations. Had it been up to Rumsfeld, Washington would have waged war on Syria by now, and advised Israel to take the opportunity to annex the Arab territories occupied in 1967. Rumsfeld does not even use the term "occupied territories", but refers to "so-called occupied territories". But there are limits, even to US arrogance. The Americans seem to view the world as though it were a game of dominoes, with the pieces arranged vertically and so close that they would fall in quick succession once the first one is toppled. Perhaps some US administration pundits would prefer the world were a bowling alley, where it's possible to hit all the pins with one well-aimed strike and then return to your beer. Fortunately, things do not work this way, not even in the Arab world. Some see the world as a game of chess. I don't know if this view is silly or funny, for it is definitely not applicable to the contemporary scene. There are no ground rules anymore, no guidebook for political behaviour. Beyond the boundaries of US imperial schemes, the only things that you can depend on are your own nerve, resources, and political savvy. A military strike against Syria and Lebanon is out of the question for the time being, except by Israel. However, the possibility that the US will transgress Syrian borders -- as it did in Yemen in specific instances -- cannot be ruled out now that the United States is in Syria's vicinity. Yet, a full-fledged attack on Syria is just as unlikely as it is unacceptable. It's true, however, that Washington, in the course of its so- called war against terror, has made a habit of ignoring national boundaries. Terror, the US tells us, recognises no sovereign boundaries.

Undercutting Arafat
Editorial, Arab News, April 28, 2003
It is now all but certain that the road map to Middle East peace will be unveiled sometime this week. The new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and his Cabinet are widely expected to be confirmed in a special session tomorrow in Ramallah. Such an appointment was a prerequisite for the United States to trigger publication of the road map which, despite its many flaws, is widely seen as being the best hope for ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But even before the road map is officially unveiled, there is the extremely disturbing position that the United States has taken toward Palestine President Yasser Arafat. The Bush administration is pressing nations to cut back diplomatic contacts with Arafat in an unprecedented attempt to undercut his authority. Not only is US Secretary of State Colin Powell expected to snub Arafat when he starts his Middle East tour next week, for example, but an effort is well under way to persuade other nations to cut off contact as well. A test of this policy may come over the weekend, with the visit of the Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi to Israel. Kawaguchi is being told that if she meets with Arafat she may not be able to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Other Bush administration officials are sounding the rallying cry to boycott Arafat. The US assistant secretary of state for European affairs, Elizabeth Jones, has said European leaders should stop visiting Arafat if they want to help the Middle East peace process. “The more European prime ministers go visit Arafat, the more Arafat will feel tempted to interfere in a negative way (in the establishment of a new Palestinian government),” was Jones’ argument. This needs some explaining. In the meantime, she suggested the following: Arafat must understand that he is no longer in charge and that Abbas is.

Their Libraries, Our Supermarkets
By Amr Mohammed Al-Faisal, Arab News, April 28, 2003
The scenes of theft, looting and burning at the museums and libraries of Baghdad and Basra at the hands of “thieves” were truly appalling. The American and British forces were just watching the events as spectators, doing nothing at all to prevent the crimes — which will be added to the crimes these two countries have committed against Arabs and Muslims. I do not want to give the impression that the scenes of the killing of innocent Iraqi people were less important or less painful. But having said that, the looting and burning of the monuments of Iraqi culture and civilization will have more dangerous consequences for the Iraqi people in the long run. The wounds of the injured will heal with the passing of time, and those who remain alive will glorify the dead. Destroyed buildings can be reconstructed. But what is lost in the burning and destruction of museums and libraries can never be restored, because that collection of civilization came into being over a period of several centuries and represents the collective memory of Iraqi society and its roots in the past. What happened in Baghdad was tantamount to erasing the Iraqi memory in a continuous effort to obliterate the identity of the Iraqi people. I am sure that it will be followed by moves to forge a new history, which will be injected into the minds of the Iraqis in the form “advanced” curriculum prepared either in the United States or Israel. This process can be explained as a move to reprogram the Iraqi people to make them a tool against other Arabs and Muslims, and the intention may be to apply the same principle to the other countries in the region. In my opinion, this move will fail, as have most colonialist experiments.

Jerusalem is still the real issue  
By Danny Rubinstein, haaretz, April 28, 2003
Amid all the hubbub over the new Palestinian government, the upcoming publication of the road map and the rest of the daily tribulations in the West Bank and Gaza, the PLO's executive committee found time last week to hold a discussion and make the expected decision demanding Jerusalem's Arabs boycott the upcoming elections for mayor of the city. The executive committee, chaired by Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, discussed Jerusalem among other reasons because this past weekend, the Eastern Orthodox church celebrated its Easter Holy Fire rite. This key holiday for the church is marked by ceremonies at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and on the Via Dolorosa. As in the past, Arafat sent his representatives to the Christian ceremonies in Jerusalem. Jerusalem's Arabs have been boycotting the municipal elections since 1967. The estimated 230,000 Arabs of the city are not citizens of Israel, but as permanent residents of the city they have Israeli ID cards that give them the right to vote in city elections. The boycott is the result of Palestinian refusal to recognize the 1967 annexation of the eastern part of the city to the State of Israel. All Arab and Palestinian publications refer to the Old City and the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem as "occupied Jerusalem." Often, they refuse to even use the term Jerusalem Municipality, and instead call it by the mayor's name, like "the Kollek municipality" or in recent years, "the Olmert municipality."

Tough Road Ahead
MIFTAH, April 28, 2003
While the region cautiously awaits the inevitable reestablishment of political dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, there are clearly several pressing issues that need to be immediately and comprehensively addressed. The horrendous atrocities committed by Israel against the Palestinians since September 2000 have left the entire Palestinian population in a desperate state of social and economic collapse; it is only through an end to this disaster that political progress can be realised. The effective reversal, and ultimate end, of the humanitarian crisis in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip must be fully incorporated in any immediate arrangements, in order to ease more than 30 months of continuous social, political, and economic strangulation in the lives of the Palestinian people. Israel must end its siege of the occupied Palestinian territories, allowing the Palestinians to revitalise their economic and social well-being, and facilitating their day-to-day progress towards stability. During the past 30 months, Israel has directly targeted the most essential elements of the Palestinian infrastructure, including education, health, social support, and many Palestinian institutions whose efforts were focused on promoting the Palestinian nation-building process. This must be addressed swiftly and constructively. The international community must realise that without the reconstruction of the main institutions of Palestinian civil society, the political process is doomed to failure. Efforts must be refocused towards rebuilding, while a new phase of negotiations is re-ignited.

Of Pariahs and Pre-emptive Strikes
By William A. Cook, MIFTAH, April 28, 2003
Sharon Recruits US Mercenaries Against Syria -- Even before the "victory" in Iraq had been declared, Administration officials began leveling accusations at Syria that sounded strangely familiar, something like a regurgitation of the lies that had propelled our forces into the "war that wasn't." Predictably, that series of accusations was followed by Sharon's demands of its mercenary forces, the US military, that they undertake five goals desired by Israel. These demands represent the next step in Israel's fulfillment of the Wolfowitz/ Perle design to achieve "The New Strategy for Securing the Realm," the report they prepared for the Israeli right wing Likud party in 1996. Ha'aretz listed Sharon's demands in its April 16th edition, demands uttered only two days earlier by Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz: 1. "The removal and dismantling of Palestinian terrorist organizations operating out of Damascus ­ Hamas and Islamic Jihad; 2. The ouster of Iranian Revolutionary Guards from Lebanon's Bekaa Valley; 3. An end to Syrian cooperation with Iran, including attempts to transfer arms to the Palestinian Authority and incite Israeli Arabs; 4. The deployment of the Lebanese Army along Lebanon's border with Israel and the ouster of Hezbollah from the area; and 5. The dismantling of the surface-to-surface missile network that Israel charges Hezbollah has built in Southern Lebanon." Sharon added that President Pashar Assad "is dangerous. His judgment is impaired." Like Saddam, Israel and America are confronted once again with a dangerous threat in the form of a dictator. Obviously, Sharon has no qualms about making such demands; he has already made it known to his Cabinet and to the Israeli public via radio that Jews run the US and we here in America know it. He does not fear the Israeli academics or peace groups in the homeland or the American Jews who recoil at his policies towards the Palestinians, groups like Jews for Peace in Palestine and the many who have affiliated with TIKKUN magazine in its efforts to bring a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

Israel Celebrates, While Palestinians Endure
By William Hughes, Media Monitos Network, April 28, 2003
Israel will be 55-years old, and it's going to have a huge birthday bash to celebrate it! It will be held on Monday evening, May 19, 2003, starting at 8 PM, at the MCI Center, in downtown Washington, DC. The guest of honor will be that old softie himself, Ariel "The Butcher" Sharon. President George W. Bush is also slated to attend the festivities. The gala is sponsored by the Israel Forever Foundation, in cooperation with the Embassy of Israel and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The latter's head honcho is the Israeli Firster and media mogul, Mortimer B. Zuckerman. The organizers are seeking to spotlight Israel's so-called, "remarkable" achievements in democracy. Now, this could be tricky, especially since there are 3,000,000 Palestinians presently existing under an "Israeli siege" (The Link, "A Most Ungenerous Offer," Jeff Halper, Oct. 2002). If the past is prologue, I'm sure the promoters will find a clever way to massage the issue, as Theodore Herzl (the "Father of Zionism") did in 1896. When calling for a Homeland for the Jews, he simply ignored the fact, that as the 20th Century began, the Jews "were still only a tiny minority in Palestine".[1] Predictably, the hyping for the party includes some dubious claims. Israel's President Moshe Katsav said, "Israelis are stronger than ever in our belief in universal and human values." This nonsense flies in the face of the harsh reality in the occupied territories. "Universal and human values," don't permit a regime to run death squads; steal other peoples' land; torture prisoners; detain individuals, including children, without trial or charges; build an apartheid-like wall across the country; bulldoze and kill American activist, Rachel Corrie; and impose collective punishment on innocent civilians, of which the Jenin rampage by the IDF was only the latest barbaric example.[2]

Revealed: How the Road to War was Paved with Lies
By Raymond Whitaker, CommonDreams/The lndependent, April 27, 2003  
Intelligence agencies accuse Bush and Blair of distorting and fabricating evidence in rush to war -- The case for invading Iraq to remove its weapons of mass destruction was based on selective use of intelligence, exaggeration, use of sources known to be discredited and outright fabrication, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. A high-level UK source said last night that intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were furious that briefings they gave political leaders were distorted in the rush to war with Iraq. "They ignored intelligence assessments which said Iraq was not a threat," the source said. Quoting an editorial in a Middle East newspaper which said, "Washington has to prove its case. If it does not, the world will for ever believe that it paved the road to war with lies", he added: "You can draw your own conclusions." UN inspectors who left Iraq just before the war started were searching for four categories of weapons: nuclear, chemical, biological and missiles capable of flying beyond a range of 93 miles. They found ample evidence that Iraq was not co-operating, but none to support British and American assertions that Saddam Hussein's regime posed an imminent threat to the world. On nuclear weapons, the British Government claimed that the former regime sought uranium feed material from the government of Niger in west Africa. This was based on letters later described by the International Atomic Energy Agency as crude forgeries. On chemical weapons, a CIA report on the likelihood that Saddam would use weapons of mass destruction was partially declassified. The parts released were those which made it appear that the danger was high; only after pressure from Senator Bob Graham, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was the whole report declassified, including the conclusion that the chances of Iraq using chemical weapons were "very low" for the "foreseeable future". On biological weapons, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, told the UN Security Council in February that the former regime had up to 18 mobile laboratories. He attributed the information to "defectors" from Iraq, without saying that their claims – including one of a "secret biological laboratory beneath the Saddam Hussein hospital in central Baghdad" – had repeatedly been disproved by UN weapons inspectors.