Staggering to life
By Graham Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 26 June - 2 July 2003
Israel is not interested in Palestinian reforms. It wants civil war -- Two months after it was officially anointed, the roadmap "toward peace" is starting to slouch, if not toward Jerusalem, then at least out of Gaza and Bethlehem. Over the next few days the Palestinian Authority and Israel are expected to reach an agreement under which the Israeli army will withdraw from those parts of the two Palestinian-controlled territories it re- conquered during the Intifada. Palestinian government officials are also expressing cautious hope that a cease- fire will soon be announced by the Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Both moves are vital to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's attempts to convince the factions to trade the violence of the armed Intifada for the American and international re-engagement proffered by the roadmap. Both he and his new security minister, Mohamed Dahlan, have been loath to assume their security responsibilities ahead of an Israeli withdrawal and a Palestinian cease- fire. They understand that the PA has neither the power nor the popular legitimacy to take on the Palestinian militias by force. They also seek American protection in the face of an Israeli prime minister whose every move appears intended to undermine them in the court of Palestinian public opinion. On 23 June an Israeli army undercover squad entered Hebron and shot dead Abdullah Al-Qawasmeh, a Hamas military leader Israel says was responsible for planning armed attacks in Israel and the occupied territories that left over 40 Israelis dead. The army said Al-Qawasmeh was killed resisting arrest. Palestinian witnesses said it was an extra-judicial execution, the latest in a wave of Israeli assassinations that, in the last two weeks has left 30 Palestinians dead, two-thirds of them civilian. The army then launched a sweep throughout Hebron, arresting 130 Palestinians, mostly on suspicion of having links with Hamas. Thirty more Palestinians were arrested in Nablus.

Polls Apart: Americans and the Intricacies of the Middle East
By Eddie Tailor, Palestine Chronicle, June 26, 2003
Anyone living outside the United States who is unaware of just how perverse American attitudes towards the Middle East are would have found considerable illumination last week on the MSNBC show, Hardball.  One of the show's regular contributors these days is the cherub-faced pollster, Frank Luntz - whose navy blazers and preppy good humour provide a soothing respite from cable news' legion of neo-con attack hacks like Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and the self-combusting Joe Scarborough. More importantly, he is portrayed as merely the messenger of the public's will. So, unlike Alom Pinkas or Dore Gold, when Frank speaks Zionist garbage, he is just the medium not the message. And June 18th, he was brought on by Mike Barnicle - standing in for Chris Matthews - to discuss his findings on what Americans thought of the situation in the Middle East. Polls are, of course, not only dictated by the angle of the question but by the unfettered ignorance of their respondents. In the United States, therefore, this means that the only worthwhile opinion expressed by the general public is perhaps the optimum burger combo available in their local mall. Matters of delicate international foreign policy should not be left to those who drive repeatedly around muddy fields for recreation. But Luntz, fresh from a Dead Poets' Society convention, was introduced thus: "Frank, you asked Americans what they think the current objective of the PLO, the Palestinian (sic) Liberation Organization, is. To make peace with Israel or destroy Israel. And you found that 49 percent of Americans think the PLO wants to destroy Israel." Meaningful, huh? Not only was there no actual analysis of whether your average American knew what the PLO stood for, but there was no qualification of the current operational status of the PLO within the framework of the Palestinian Authority, the fact that the organization has repeatedly amended its charter to acknowledge the Jewish state, or the means by which the PLO planned to destroy the fourth most powerful army on the planet. But his follow-up questions were crammed with even more loaded assertions. "What does this mean politically, domestically, to candidates running for any office? Is it that if they sympathize with the PLO or the Palestinians they get buried in an election?"

What’s a Truce Got to Do with It?
By MIFTAH, June 27, 2003
“Truce” is the kind of word that almost everybody suffering in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is waiting to hear. It is the kind of word that portends an end to hostilities and a coming peace. But the truce currently being negotiated does not encompass these meanings. A truce is defined as “a suspension of fighting especially of considerable duration by agreement of opposing forces.” The peculiar thing about discussions this week concerning the impending truce from Palestinian militant groups is that they are not about the suspension of fighting on both sides, but just one – the Palestinians. Israel is not in the process of ceasefire negotiations to generate a formal announcement – in line with the road map – to end violence against Palestinians. They are not mimicking the efforts of the Palestinians, who in negotiations being ushered along by none other than Fatah activist Marwan Barghouti from the Israeli jail he is imprisoned in, are on the verge of declaring a three-month end to attacks on Israelis. The closest Israel has come is to say that it will end violence, except in the cases of “ticking bomb” militants. Openly announcing that it will continue its assassinations policy, which is illegal under international law in the first place and responsible for numerous civilian deaths in the second, shows little good faith on the part of the Israelis for a peace with the Palestinians.

The road to peace needs no map
By Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, June 26, 2003
In his inaugural speech before the Dead Sea extraordinary session of the World Economic Forum (WEF), His Majesty King Abdullah, urged the Palestinians, the Israelis and the international community to stay the course of Middle East peace. This peace, according to the King, can be reached by implementing the roadmap through "real commitment that will test our leadership, resources, and our deepest morality," King Abdullah said. Actually there is no question as to the genuine commitment of the Palestinian side, who had unconditionally accepted the roadmap the moment it was presented to the newly formed Palestinian Cabinet, and of the Arab side who, over a year ago, also endorsed the Arab Initiative at their Beirut annual ordinary summit, offering Israel full peace from every Arab country in return for an Israeli withdrawal to the June 1967 lines and an Israeli recognition of the Palestinian rights as defined by the UN resolutions and international law. This far-reaching Arab Initiative, also known as the (Saudi) Prince Abdullah initiative, has been included in the roadmap as a major component of the peace plan for what it stands for: a firm Arab commitment to recognise Israel and its right to exist in a state of unchallenged peace and guaranteed security once Israel decides to reciprocate this commitment. There should be no question either about the commitment of the international community or, for that matter, the four members of the Quartet, of which the United Nations, representing the entire international community, forms only, indeed oddly, one part out of four -- a quarter. What remains crucially lacking, therefore, is Israel's commitment; and what needs truly to be tested is the leadership and the morality of those, mainly in the United States, who indisputably have the power and the means, but not yet the will or the moral aptitude, to enforce the just and the appropriate implementation of the roadmap, rather than protecting Israel's procrastination and destructive defiance of even a United States-sponsored and backed peace plan.

On the right of return
By Raja Halwani, The Electronic Intifada, June 23, 2003
Typically, when we read about the right of return of Palestinian refugees, we come across a description of it as being a legal and a political right. Rarely is mention made that it is a moral right. Yet it is important that we secure this right as a moral one. In philosophy, for example, the most important rights are moral ones or are ones that admit of moral justification. Suppose I live in a slave-owning society. As a member of that society, I would have the right to own slaves. If I did own slaves, I would also have a host of subsidiary ownership rights, such as the right to sell them and the right to set them free. But this right has no moral justification. Indeed, it is a pernicious right, one based on the immoral permission to use other human beings as one chooses. Thus, while it is in that society a legal right, it is not a moral right. Consider now the example of the right to national self-determination, a right that both Palestinians and Israelis claim. This is a political right, certainly. Yet whether it is also a moral right is a controversial issue. Because this right depends on a specifically political concept, namely, that of a nation, whether it has moral justification depends on whether the notion of a nation is a morally good one or not. And the philosophical jury is still out on this question. The point is that legal and political rights, for them to retain their importance and legitimacy, must be ultimately morally justified. This does not mean that all legal and political rights are also moral rights, though some are. But it does mean moral issues are supreme. That is why moral rights are more important than political and legal ones.

Thanks to Sharon, ‘road map’ is going nowhere slowly
By Ed Blanche, Daily Star, June, 2003
Truce or not, burning issues remain unresolved, White House has returned to habit of unconditional backing for Jewish state, reducing its ability to press for compromise -- BEIRUT: With US forces in Iraq losing a soldier a day as the ill-conceived occupation lurches into a dangerous anarchy, Afghanistan not far behind, Iran in growing ferment and alarmed at mounting US hostility, confrontation with North Korea over nuclear weapons and diplomatic feuds with the Europeans and Russians, George W. Bush cannot afford to see his high-profile initiative to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict derailed. His hopes of re-election next year could well ride on the outcome of the only strand of his administration’s antagonistic foreign policy that might bear fruit. So it was not surprising to learn on June 25, as the White House was having to lean heavily on Ariel Sharon to curb his fire-eating generals, not to mention the Israeli leader’s own preference for violent solutions, to give the Palestinians’ novice prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, a chance to halt attacks by militants, that Bush is expected to approve $3 billion in loan guarantees for Israel, the first tranche of a $9 billion program. This would be a substantial boost for an economy that has crumpled during the 33-month-old intifada. It would also help to soothe the Jewish lobby in Washington that was outraged when Bush rebuked Sharon on June 10 for endangering the so-called “road map” by continuing to assassinate leaders of Hamas while expecting Abbas to keep the Islamic militants, and their allies, in check. Bush’s comments were a rare public criticism of Israel. They underlined his deepening concern that the road map was making little progress even though he had stamped it with his personal imprimatur at peace summits in Sharm el-Sheikh on June 3 and Aqaba the following day, his first foray into the Middle East since his election in January 2001. But, as is ever the way with US presidents where Israel is concerned, Bush found that chastising Israel had a price when it comes to domestic politics and with his campaign for the 2004 elections under way he could not afford to antagonize the Jewish lobby and the power it exerts over senators and congressmen.

An American Empire Built on Deception
By Ellen Goodman, CommonDreams/Boston Globe, June 26, 2003
The real lie is that the administration didn't (dare?) make its essential case for war. And the real shame is not that we were conned but that, so far, we don't mind. -- LAST MONTH, when President Bush donned his coronation clothes and landed on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln, I felt like the skunk at the victory party. I went around asking the partygoers: Where were the weapons of mass destruction? What bothered me wasn't just whether we'd find the weapons we were warned about with such terrifying, repetitive certainty. The question was whether it would matter. Would the American people care if they'd been conned into conflict? I was haunted by a congressional aide who said the absence of the smoking guns of WMDs wouldn't ''sway public opinion much,'' because ''everyone loves to be on the winning side.'' The column on the con job filled my e-mail box with hundreds of incoming missives that ranged from an accountant who protested my ''whiny screed'' - ''Get over it. You lost. We won.'' - to a Californian who rued the ''outrage fatigue'' dulling the public's mind. Since then the Search for the WMDs has become the subject of O.J. Simpson jokes and milk carton images as well as some solid reporting. The president has switched seamlessly from proclaiming certainty about the weapons to certainty about the weapons programs. There's now a congressional inquiry asking whether the intelligence community offered faulty ingredients or the executive chef cooked up a recipe for war. But public opinion has yet to sway in this breeze. For openers, the most recent Washington Post/ABC poll reports that 24 percent of Americans thought the Iraqis did use chemical and biological weapons in the war and another 14 percent weren't sure. That's better than an earlier poll that showed half of all Americans falsely believing the Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers, but it's still fairly startling. More to the point, two-thirds of those in the current poll still believed the war was justified even if we didn't find weapons of mass destruction. Maybe they love to be on the winning side, maybe they're happy to see one dictator bite the dust. But they think it was, in short, justified even if the justification wasn't just.

A Fate Sealed Under Secrecy
By Jimmy Breslin, Newsday, June 21, 2003
On Friday, I rode across the Brooklyn Bridge, whose gray netting went with the sky, and as long as there was tension about the bridge, I was remembering Richard Seaberg, a big cop who climbed to the top of the bridge so many times and pulled somebody down before he jumped. Seaberg protected the Brooklyn Bridge. Now there is a charge by the government that terrorists intended to blow up the bridge, or pull it down. Simultaneously, while protecting the bridge, the government was doing frightening damage to the life of the country. Because of it, I am thinking that it could be time for me to begin thinking about leaving this news business. It is not mine anymore. Let me tell you why. Friday, the newspapers and television reported the following matter with no anger or effort to do anything other than serve as stenographers for the government: On March 1, give or take a day, in Columbus, Ohio, the FBI arrested an American citizen it says is Iyman Faris. There wasn't a word uttered. He vanished. No lawyer was notified. He made no phone calls and wrote no letters. He was a U.S. citizen who disappeared without a trace into a secret metal world. This citizen's proper name was Mohammed Rauf. He took ''Faris'' from a street name in his neighborhood in Columbus. I don't know why he did this for sure. A friend of mine in Columbus, Mike Weber, told me Friday that he thought the federal agents wanted him to use Faris because the real name, Rauf, purportedly would alert others that he had been caught. Who knows? You believe the FBI, you belong back in public school. They held him secretly in an iron world for the next six weeks. This is plenty of time to hand out giant beatings. Oh yes, don't gasp. If cops are performing a fascist act, then always suspect them of acting like fascists. They have fun beating people up. In mid-April, again in deep secrecy, the government says Faris was allowed to plead guilty to plotting to pull down or blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. He was in a sealed Virginia federal courtroom. If he had a lawyer, that was some lawyer. After that, he was sentenced. We don't know what the sentence was because it is sealed. I don't know what Faris looks like or sounds like or what he thinks and what he was doing. He could be the worst. I don't know. Prove he wanted to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and let him paste a picture of Osama bin Laden on the cell wall for inspiration over the next half a century. But first bring him into open court and try him. Pretend you live in America. Even pick a jury. I don't know. What a thing it would be if he comes up not guilty. What we do know is that this is your country now.

Zuckerman, an Obstacle on Road Map to Mideast Peace
By Richard H. Curtiss, Arab News, June 27, 2003 
WASHINGTON, 27 June 2003 — According to Alison Beard of Britain’s Financial Times, “multi-millionaire Mortimer Zuckerman always seems to have at least two conversations running in his head at all times. He answers a reporter’s questions in one breath, then asks an assistant about materials he needs for another meeting in the next. One dialogue is in the present with you, the other is about the future with himself.” The more one tries to figure out Mortimer Zuckerman — financier, media-mogul and man-about-several-towns (New York, Washington, DC and Boston) — the more confused one gets. Aside from his complete self-absorption, Zuckerman generally knows when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em, and does it extremely well. As an international financier, he lost a lot from the “dot.com” mess, but not nearly as much as most of his contemporaries. While many of the high-finance fliers never recovered, Zuckerman now is right where he was before. He also does things quite differently from anyone else. Zuckerman moved beyond real estate with his 1980 purchase of The Atlantic Monthly magazine, to which he quickly added a regular bylined column. Although he enjoyed his new plaything, he soon began to lose his employees when, according to other media colleagues, he “kept meddling with the product.” This didn’t bother Zuckerman, however, who in rapid succession acquired US News and World Report, and New York City’s last non-Jewish-owned newspaper, the Daily News. Interestingly, an earlier contender for ownership of that newspaper was Robert Maxwell, who was born in Eastern Europe, and was deeply involved in international intrigue during and after World War II. Maxwell, who also was interested in the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, earlier had attempted to buy the Daily News. Maxwell’s demise left Zuckerman working hard to become the new publisher of the New York Daily News. This time no slippery deck intervened, and Zuckerman went ahead with the purchase — which, however, has not been without problems. Zuckerman continued his unhappy relationship with his editors in most of his media purchases. The numbers who have resigned or were forced out over the years is an unfinished story. Steven Waldman, national affairs editor at The US News and World Report says: “The better the magazine got, the angrier Mort got. That’s the psychology here I can’t pretend to understand.”

Christian Commitment to Peacemaking is Distorted by Christian Zionists
By Corinne Whitlatch, Churches for Middle East Peace, June 2003
There are many sources for news and views about what’s going on in the Middle East and what’s ahead. Some followers of Pat Robertson’s 700 Club are looking at weather patterns. The Christian Broadcasting Network reported that May’s damaging tornados were a repercussion of U.S. pressure on Israel that put the “covenant lands of Israel at risk.”  According to CBN, a researcher has proven that “when Israeli settlements are touched, there are also occurrences of hurricanes, tornados, and major problems in the American economy.” This forecast may seem foolish to most Americans and irrelevant to the serious business of crafting foreign policy.  However, the Christian-evangelical community along with its Christian Zionist wing is a significant constituency for the Bush Administration and Republican-majority Congress.  Joining with some hard-line Jewish groups, Christian Zionists have launched “The Committee for a One-State Solution” with an eight-state billboard campaign to stop the Road Map and its goal of a two- state resolution of the conflict. The locations for the billboards were selected (according to the chair of Americans for a Safe Israel) in states where the Republican presidential win was slim, in order to make President Bush aware “that a disaffected Christian Community can adversely affect” the coming presidential campaign. It is crucial for all advocates of a political and diplomatic solution -- based on applying the rational elements of international law and negotiation -- to counter the message of the Christian Right.  For those of us, including Churches for Middle East Peace, whose political activism is also grounded in a faith-based commitment to justice and peacemaking as Christians, there is an additional responsibility to say publicly that there is an alternate Christian perspective to that of Christian Zionists.