`Dear IDF, Please meet us, allow an open dialogue'
By Joseph Algazy, Haaretz, May 4, 2003
The family of an international peace activist, felled by an IDF bullet, hope they can help promote an end to the conflict  -- Tom Hurndall, a young Briton active in the International Solidarity movement, is lying unconscious at Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva. Not long ago he was shot in the head by Israel Defense Forces soldiers in Rafah as he tried to get a 5-year-old girl out of the line of fire. The members of his family - his mother, Jocelyn, his father, Anthony, his sister Sophie and his brothers Billy and Freddy - are tending him at the hospital and hoping for a miracle. They are hurt and angry, but free of any hatred. More than once they have returned to the place where he was injured. They visited the family of the Palestinian children whom Tom rescued from danger and took testimony from his friends and people who witnessed the incident. They are surprised to discover that the world media are evincing a great deal of interest in the affair, whereas in Israel it has hardly been mentioned. The IDF statement that was published after the incident is defined by the family as mendacious and they are demanding that an independent commission of inquiry uncover the truth of what happened. Thus far, the IDF authorities avoided speaking to them. In Israel - this is their first visit to the region - the Hurndalls have been living in an apartment in Be'er Sheva put at their disposal by Israelis; in England they live in north London. The mother works in special needs education, the father is a solicitor. Tom, 21, is a student of photography at Metropolitan University. About a year and a half ago he visited Egypt and took a diving course. In February of this year he went to Baghdad. According to his father, Tom was interested in what is happening in the Middle East and wanted to document his experiences photographically while expressing opposition to the war in Iraq.

Strong-arm tactics leave the world a weaker place
By Martin Woollacott, The Guardian, May 2, 2003
The United States today is discovering what other great powers have found before it, which is that military victories can have results quite opposite to those intended. The world has not been made more pliant and respectful by a demonstration of American might, but is, on the contrary, more recalcitrant, sulky, and difficult than it was before the war. That recalcitrance is visible in many ways and at many levels, from the violence on the streets of Falluja or Tel Aviv to the stubborn Israeli reinterpretations of American policy issuing forth in Jerusalem, from the sharp criticism of American pretensions heard in Moscow to the more muted defiance of France and Germany in Brussels, and from the fire fights on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to the verbal fisticuffs at the talks between the United States and North Korea in Beijing. President Bush, declaring the war against Iraq to be over, cannot help but suggest that large dividends for all are to be expected. Such dividends may in time emerge, by design or by accident. But what is not now evident is any extra readiness to take notice of what America says or wants. Or, rather, there may be more notice taken, but it is matched by an additional degree of determination to oppose or subvert American purposes. Syria may regret its wartime statements and move to expel members of the Iraqi regime who took refuge there, but that does not mean it will give in on matters more closely affecting its interests.

Dealing With Former Baathist Officials
By Amir Taheri, Arab News, May 2, 2003
As senior former Iraqi officials surrender or are captured one after another, the United States and its allies must decide what to do with them. The question is not academic. It could have long-range consequences not only in Iraq but also in other countries with regimes similar to that of Saddam Hussein, though none as murderous. According to reports, the US has decided to offer some of the captured officials freedom from prosecution, and even material rewards, in exchange for information related to “more important matters.” Such bargains are routinely used in the US in fighting crime syndicates. The smaller fry are offered lower sentences or immunity in exchange for helping send the bigger fry behind bars. If our information is correct, the US is offering such a deal to three captured Baathists: former Vice Premier Mikhail Yuhanna (better known as Tareq Aziz), former spymaster Farouq Hejazi, and one of Saddam’s half-brothers Barzan Al-Tikriti. It would be foolish for the US to embark on such a course. People like Aziz, Hejazi and Al-Tikriti may or may not be the arch criminals that some Iraqis take them to be. In fact, they must be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a proper trial. But to save them from prosecution in the context of secret deals would make a mockery of any system of justice that may be created in a new Iraq. Another option for dealing with the Baathists is to organize trials modeled on the Nuremberg ones in post-Hitler Germany. Post-Saddam Iraq, however, is different. Hitler won power in democratic elections and, at least initially, enjoyed the support of a substantial segment of the German intellectual, cultural and business elite. Throughout the Nazi era, a majority of Germans actively, often enthusiastically, worked, killed and died for Hitler. At the end of the war, the German nation as a whole bore collective responsibility for what Hitler had done. Iraq’s experience under Saddam was quite different. The Baath Party never won free elections in Iraq. It came to power with a military coup in 1968. But even then it did not enjoy broad support within the Iraqi army. Over the years, a majority of Iraqis were terrorized into submission to the regime. But they never worked or fought for it with any conviction, let alone enthusiasm. German society in the immediate post-Hitler era lacked the legitimacy to judge the Nazis. This is not the case with the post-Saddam Iraqi society. As the primary victim of Saddam’s regime, the people of Iraq have all the legitimacy they need to try their oppressors.

Deep Roots of Islamophobia
By James Brooks, Media Monitors Network, May 2, 2003
America's long festering animus toward Arabs and Islam has finally arrived. From black tie affairs to your local barbecue, you can see it in the U.S.A. You can hear it, too, whispering in the White House and booming from Capitol Hill. Language that would get people fired if applied to blacks or Jews now passes without comment when used against Arabs and Muslims. It can be found somewhere, every day, in almost every newspaper and TV news show in the land. We tend to view this disturbing trend as the result of two, or twenty, or fifty years of politics and events. But we are children of a history we do not know. The roots of our "new" bigotry stretch through our racist American past to a thousand-year old blind spot, one big enough to drive half the world through. It's time to learn where we came from. It's true that our reaction to September 11, twisted and amplified through the gov-media input stream, opened a dark door in the American heart. Softened up by decades of neoconservative, fundamentalist, pro-Israeli and Hollywood propaganda, we were easy marks for politicians brewing a spirit of national retribution. But we had already shown our stripes, long before the bigotry got organized enough to establish its own think tanks. From our demonization of Nasser and the PLO to the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, when Iranian-American citizens instantly became "sand niggers" and victims of mobs and hate crimes from coast to coast, we had revealed a wide seam of hatred for Arabs and Islam in the bedrock of our national character. Today, after years of diligent polishing by powerful friends, this obdurate stone of intolerance is passed off as a sparkling gem, a dynamic, no-nonsense political point of view enjoying the highest official approbation. Bush foreign policy and the continuing round up and incarceration of Arab citizens and immigrants make the identity of the enemy crystal clear.

'Apartheid wall'  
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, May 3, 2003
For the Israelis it is a "separation fence," for the Palestinians - an "apartheid wall." For the Israelis it is an ideal, for the Palestinians an existential threat. For most Israelis it is a magic solution to the dread of terrorism. For the Palestinians it is a profound fear. Once again, they don't understand one another, two nations who don't grasp the meaning of each other's anxieties. A separation fence, a protective wall, security, war against terror - but the Israelis have no idea of the cost to the Palestinians. After the settlements, the outposts, the bypass roads, the confiscations, the closure, the encirclement, the unemployment and the curfew, now this problem has fallen upon the heads of thousands of residents who live in the area of the fence, who once again find themselves victims through no fault of their own. Farmers whose fields have been expropriated, vintners whose vineyards have been trampled, shepherds whose pastures have been lost, farmers whose plots and wells have remained on the other side of the fence, unemployed men whose last source of livelihood has also been destroyed now, and villages that have been cut off from their sources of life. A fence that is designed to protect the lives of Israelis is located arbitrarily on their shrinking lands - not, heaven forfend, on the lands of the Israelis. Why is this so, actually? Why not on Israeli lands? Nobody asked them, nobody coordinated anything with them, there's no point in even discussing the possibility of asking them for permission. After all, who are they anyway? The sound of the hammers can be heard from a distance: Everywhere in the northern West Bank, the noise of iron cutting into rock can be heard, a frightening banging from the valleys and the hills. A fleet of trucks and bulldozers, uprooting mountains, moving hither and yon. The sight is amazing: Between Tul Karm, Jenin and Qalqilyah the ground is cracked and scarred, like a broad wound slashing through the entire length of the northern West Bank, as after a major operation. A patrol road and a security path and a concrete infrastructure - a huge scar.

A different game
By Danny Rabinowitz, Haaretz, May 3, 2003
The Palestinians and the Iraqis are in a similar political situation. Both are trying to recover from a shake-up of the existing order, to rebuild a ruined economy and to achieve normalization and dignity. And in both there is a paradox: The new regime, which is supposed to bring about independence and prosperity, is coming to power by virtue of the mediation, or at least the consent, of a despised foreign occupier. In both Iraq and the territories, the nascent new political era is being presented, in Western terminology, as "serving the will of the people." The Palestinians are being promised reforms instead of corruption, and the Iraqis are being promised democracy in place of tyranny. The question of whether democracy sponsored by a hegemonic foreign power is at all possible takes on special meaning in the Arab states, where there has been an ongoing debate about democracy and governmental legitimacy since the early 20th century. The Western public and its leaders have been unaware of the existence of this debate. The Bush administration views the Middle East as Lego, which can be taken apart and put together at will, and is contemptuous of and uninterested in its history and culture. At the Pentagon, Whitehall and Kiryat Hamemshala in Jerusalem, they're not very interested in the basic tenets that spawned Arab civilization's philosophies about what constitutes a people, a state, government and power. Instead, there is a blind faith that whatever works in the West should be reproduced everywhere. After all, the World Bank and the Monetary Fund have been carrying out "reforms" and "rebuilding" throughout the Third World for 40 years now. The ignorance demonstrated by the Bush administration is obscuring a critical, fundamental fact. The method of government practiced in the West is the product of a certain belief about the essence of the human being and the meaning of society. This is a belief that was born during the Enlightenment and consolidated by European modernism, which views man first and foremost as an autonomous individual who conducts himself according to independent and private choice, in keeping with the values and information that he absorbs from his environment.

The Occupation Of Palestine Remains An Issue For The Entire Muslim Ummah
1924.org, Jihad Unspun, May 3, 2003
Allah (swt) said: “It is only Shaytan that suggests to you the fear of his Awliya (supporters). Do not fear them and fear Me if you are true believers.” [TMQ Ale-Imran: 175] The deaths of twelve Muslims, including three children, killed in an Israeli raid on Thursday in Gaza warranted only a mere footnote from the Western media who have tirelessly analysed the latest attack in Israel that killed three Israelis and injured nearly sixty people outside a café in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. The Western media has been full of condemnation for the killing of non-Muslim civilians, with newspapers devoting several pages to cover the events. What has been most prominent in the media coverage has not been the nature or scale of the operation, but the origins of the two attackers. The attackers did not originate from the Palestinian territories, were not residents of the squalid shanty towns known as refugee camps and did not have to live a daily life of humiliation and desperation. What has shocked the Western world was that these attackers were British citizens. The faces of the two attackers, together with pictures of their passports, were sprawled across several broadsheet newspapers, as if to highlight to the British population - especially the Muslim community - that something is seriously wrong here. Almost across the board, Muslims were expected to quickly apologise and distance themselves from these actions. Regrettably, some Muslim organisations – well known for their pro-British Government credentials and their description of British forces killing Iraqi Muslims as “our boys” – rushed to do so, regardless of the Islamic evidences to the contrary. This outrageous behaviour continued when Western politicians and commentators took it upon themselves to second guess the sentiments of the Muslim community, when they postulated that they were sure that the Muslim community deplored such actions.

Searching Jenin: "This May Be the Most Authoritative Report We Will Ever Get"
By Ilan Pappe, Palestine Chronicle, May 3, 2003
[Palestine Chronicle comments: Despite a year of a ceaseless attempts by the Israeli government and media to discount the war crimes committed in the refugee camp of Jenin in April, 2002, the truth of what many believe to have been a massacre, has forced itself on the conscience of humanity in a forceful and compelling way. Many believe that “Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion”, edited by Ramzy Baroud, with a preface by Noam Chomsky, played a key role in reversing the tide, by presenting a worthy challenge to the Israeli depiction of what happened there. Only a few months after its publishing “Searching Jenin” stirred a controversy that extended to radio talk shows and universities in United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and throughout the entire world. The book was recently reviewed by one of the most notable and respected Israeli academics, Professor Ilan Pappe. Pappe, the Director of the International Relations Division at Haifa University in Israel, was the first Israeli scholar to publicly take a stance on the material contained in the book. The Palestine Chronicle, the editors and publishers of this book are indebted to Professor Pappe, for his courage and truthfulness. They also wish to thank all of those who were involved in making this effort so successful. We are deeply grateful for all of you.] -- Over a year has passed now, since the Israeli army invaded the refugee camp in Jenin, destroyed its houses, killed many of its inhabitants and committed one of the worst war crimes in this present Intifada, Intifada al-Aqsa. With a successful campaign of distortion and manipulation of evidence, the Israeli foreign ministry, with the help of the United States, succeeded in hiding from the world the horrors of Jenin, and even worse, in intimidating anyone daring to tell the truth about what had happened there. This is the great significance and enormous importance of this book. “Searching Jenin” is the first systematic account, through eyewitness reports, on the events in April 2002. Two other books appeared in Arabic, but this is the first one in English It puts the events in context and it highlights the true nature of the crime, while not falling into the pitfall laid by the Israelis who succeeded in drawing the UN inquiry commission into supposedly academic discussion of how to describe a massacre. As comes out vividly from this book, Jenin was not just a massacre, it was an inhuman act of unimaginable barbarism.

Twenty Years of Nerve Gas and Oil
By Stan Cox, Palestine Chronicle, May 1, 2003 
When Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the U.S. government’s case for war before the U.N. Security Council in February, he managed to convince many Americans that Iraq had a large store of unconventional weapons and was ready to use them against other nations. Powell’s evidence wasn’t good enough to convince the Security Council. Yet two decades ago, when a U.S. Secretary of State had undisputable proof that Iraq was using chemical weapons, he did not go to the U.N. At the time, the U.S. government was fervently pursuing an oil pipeline deal with Iraq, and use of gas warfare by Saddam Hussein’s forces was, as then-State Department head George Schultz wrote in a private memo, ‘embarrassing.’ Quoting from government and corporate memos, letters, and telegrams, a March 2003 report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, in Washington, D.C., USA) shows in stark detail how Reagan Administration officials put higher priority on a petroleum deal than on human lives or international law. One of those officials was Donald Rumsfeld, acting as a special envoy to Iraq. Now 20 years later, as Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld has succeeded in achieving his team’s goal -- a solid business partnership with the nation sitting on top of the world’s second largest oil reserves. On December 20, 1983, in the midst of a horrific war between Iraq and Iran, President Reagan and Secretary Schultz sent Rumsfeld to meet Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Envoy Rumsfeld was to propose that America build a pipeline to carry oil from Iraq through Jordan to the Red Sea. The main contractor would be the Bechtel Corporation, a company Schultz had headed just before becoming Secretary of State. Throughout the year, the world press had been reporting on Iraq’s use of gas warfare against Iranian troops. The most recent attack, according to the BBC, had occurred on November 7. In his talks with Saddam and with Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, Rumsfeld pushed hard on the pipeline proposal but did not mention chemical weapons.