Arabs should thank Israel for lesson in propaganda
Editorial, Daily Star, July 1, 2003
The Israeli government and its apologists are expert in the art of playing the martyr, especially when it comes to castigating any and all media outlets that fail even briefly to fawn over the Jewish state like lovesick teenagers. The latest target of the world’s most fearsome “David” is the British Broadcasting Corporation, which recently re-aired a documentary about Israel’s weapons of mass destruction programs. The Israelis cannot refute any of the BBC’s reportage, but there is no need to do so when they can accuse the company of being “anti-Semitic” in the manner of the Nazi press of 1930s Germany. For this the Israelis deserve nothing but the admiration of the entire Arab world. How can one not be impressed by the success with which a tiny nation like Israel navigates the turbulent waters of international diplomacy and media coverage? It is this magnificent skill that allows the Jewish state to escape virtually unscathed when its “righteous indignation” is followed by debacles like that of Monday, when The Associated Press revealed the existence of a secret Israeli detention facility that, by its very nature, violates the Geneva Conventions. It is not magic that shields Israel from the consequences of its behavior. Nor is it solely US influence that keeps it from being the object of scorn for engaging in activities that cause other countries to be isolated by the international community and/or invaded by the United States. Their “Westernism” is not enough to explain the protection the Israelis enjoy, nor is their faith. What makes their strategy work is that simple fact that they work diligently to implement it. They study their audiences, their allies and their enemies with equal diligence, then craft a flawless message. The typical Arab version of such endeavors is to ignore genuine grievances that might have real propaganda value for the sake of sensationalistic but unsubstantiated accusations about everything from depleted uranium to the so-called “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Until the Arab world learns to play the game, it will always come out the loser.

Palestinians Prisoners and Detainees Suffer Deplorable Conditions
MIFTAH, July 1, 2003
The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) strongly condemns Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Israel is holding about 5,000 Palestinians on security-related charges; 1,000 of these are in administrative detention, meaning they face indefinite imprisonment without trial. In the last week alone, several incidents that exemplify a pattern of cruel and unusual treatment of Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been reported. On Monday, June 23, a Palestinian detainee held in Israel’s Naqab prison reported that an Israeli surgeon removed his appendix without anesthesia. Via a cellular phone, which had been smuggled into his cell, the 24-year-old Anas Kamel Shahada described the ordeal. The Israeli doctor ordered that Shahada’s hands and feet be tied down, and then he began the operation without providing the patient any anesthesia. Says Shahada, “I got anxious and started shouting for help but to no avail…. I went into a coma upon spotting the blood gushing forth and feeling the severe pain. Yet, nothing moved the heart of the Israeli doctor, who wore his cruel heart on his sleeves." Also last week, the serious condition of prisoner Ahmad Talab Barghouthi, age 27, worsened, when he entered his 26th day of a hunger strike. Held in Ramle prison, Barghouthi was imprisoned in April 2002 yet still has not been charged with a crime. According to the prisoner’s father, Ahmad was striking to protest his five-month solitary confinement in a cell filled with cockroaches and mice. His father says that he has not seen his son since he was arrested and that Ahmad has not been allowed to see his lawyer since he began the hunger strike. "All he wants is to be treated in a humane way. He is kept in conditions unfit for animals,” says his father.

Settlements and Israel’s Quagmire
By Sherri Muzher, Palestine Chronicle, July 1, 2003
No matter how you look at it, Israeli settlements are leading the Israelis to a monstrous nightmare. If they get rid of the settlements, there is likely to be a civil war with Jewish settlers. If they don’t get rid of the settlements, bi-nationalism becomes a reality and the Jewish character of Israel dissipates. Despite this, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon apparently told the Israeli Cabinet two weekends ago that Israel can continue settlement building in the Palestinian territories so long as the construction is not celebrated. “. . . just build,” is how Sharon was quoted in Israel’s Ha’aretz. Sharon’s defiance came at a delicate time in the Road Map to peace and followed a proposal by National Infrastructures Minister Yosef Paritzky to move Jewish settlers from the West Bank to lightly-populated areas of Israel. Sharon has to consider the feelings of Jewish settlers who are key supporters. And for many Jewish settlers, being in the West Bank is a religious duty. Consider the 400 heavily-armed settlers who live among 130,000 Palestinians in Hebron. The settlers believe that they are entitled to Hebron because Abraham, the ancient patriarch of Arabs and Jews, bought a cave in modern day Hebron as a burial place for his Jewish wife, Sarah, about 4,000 years ago. Some even insist that the settlements are needed for security reasons even though the colonies arguably have cultivated more hatred. But it was Sharon himself who declared the true aim of the settlements when he once urged “Everyone has to move, run, and grab as many hilltops as you can to enlarge the settlements, because everything we take now will stay ours . . .” Indeed, Sharon and other supporters of Israeli settlements are correct that a viable Palestinian Arab state cannot be established west of the river Jordan. The settlements and the exclusively Jewish bypass roads leading up to the settlements have left Palestinian areas looking like Swiss cheese. However, it is doubtful that settlement supporters are thinking about the erasure of the Green Line and the resulting one state solution where Palestinians and Israelis live together in one state. As Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen of the Israel Policy Forum acknowledged in fall, 2002, “You now have a Jewish state on both sides of the Green Line, one where there is a Jewish majority and one where there is a Jewish minority ruling an Arab majority.”

Nukes, Israel and Iran: The Weapon of Choice
By Sasan Fayazmanesh, CounterPunch, July 1, 2003
The accusation of possessing "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD) has become the US government's weapon of choice in its attempts to overthrow independent governments in the Middle East. The occupation of Iraq was barely complete when we were told that the Iraqi WMD, which could not be found anywhere in Iraq, had been moved to Syria. Given the absurdity of the accusation, the claim was quietly and quickly dropped in favor of a more vulnerable pray, Iran. The attempt to remove the Iranian government from power is, of course, not new. At least since the early 1990s, the neocons and their Israeli associates had tried to overthrow the Iranian government for its support of the Palestinian resistance movements and the Lebanese Hezbollah by accusing Iran, among other things, of pursuing WMD. For example, when the former Secretary of State Madeline Albright was pressured by the US corporations to seek "a road map leading to normal relations" with Iran, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) asked its members to flood US Congressional leaders with tailor made letters or email messages that read: Representative and Senators: I am writing to express my opposition to making further unilateral gestures toward Iran before it ends its support for international terrorism, opposition to the peace process and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. (AIPAC, 2000) The campaign of trying to overthrow the Iranian government by accusing it of pursuing WMD, however, did not go far until certain pieces fell into their proper places: the neocons came to power, two hijacked planes on September 11, 2001, created that "catastrophic and catalyzing event"-which the neocons had alluded to in their "Rebuilding America's Defenses" manifesto-and Iraq was invaded and occupied. Now the campaign against Iran could get fully underway. On May 7, 2003, the New York Time quoted an unnamed US Administration official as saying: "It's not just that Iran is speeding up its nuclear plans. It's also that we've only recently learned some things about their program that have been going on for two years. There's also a lot of hammering from the Israelis for us to take this problem seriously." Indeed, according to Israel's top military intelligence official, General Aharon Zeevi, the "main danger to the existence of the state of Israel is the nuclear program Iran persists in developing, because the country also has surface-to-surface missiles" (Agence France Presse, April 26, 2003).

How the Neo-Conservatives Operate
By James J. Zogby, Arab News, July 1, 2003 
A number of articles have appeared in recent weeks shedding new light on the thinking of the neo-conservatives who have, until now, appeared to have the upper hand in shaping the foreign policy of the Bush administration. It is only in the past few years that attention has been paid to this small but important group of ideologues. But now, several publications have featured stories and analyses of the group, their intellectual roots and their modus operandi. It may well be that the neo-conservatives singular success — the march to war with Iraq — is what finally brought them out of the shadows into the public eye. Attention is being given to their earlier successes in dominating several conservative think-tanks and magazines and key positions in the Bush administration’s foreign policy apparatus and their small but influential network of columnists and commentators that have allowed them to shape the policy debate both inside and outside of government. By now the names of the key players in this movement and their inter-relationships have become well known. Whether connected by marriage or because they went to school together or shared common employers, friends, and teachers or simply live in the same neighborhoods, the group and their relationship with one another has become the target of journalists from the right and the left. What has also come to light are the political roots of these neo-conservatives. They were, in the main, once liberal Democrats who sprang, as it were, out of the womb of Commentary Magazine (a publication subsidized by the American Jewish Committee) and the offices of the late Henry “Scoop” Jackson (a Democratic senator known for his hawkish views on foreign policy). It was this still fledgling neo-conservative movement that broke with President Carter’s human rights-based foreign policy and working with, a then little-known Israeli politician, Benjamin Netanyahu, helped to spur the Reagan administration’s shift to a foreign policy based on opposition to ‘Soviet-sponsored terrorism.’ They embraced Ronald Reagan and were, in turn, embraced by his administration.

Enough playing games
Editorial, Haaretz, July 2, 2003
The dismantling of outposts episode is turning into a parody. For every "unauthorized outpost" ostensibly dismantled by the IDF, two others are constructed by settlers. Just like the former were mainly uninhabited, so are the latter. The game is one of appearances in an attempt to make a favorable impression on public opinion. The director-general of the Yesha Council of Jewish settlements, Adi Mintz, told Haaretz yesterday that the struggle he and his colleagues are waging "is an attempt to sear into the [public] consciousness what it means to evacuate Jews from their homes." To judge from public opinion polls, this attempt has failed miserably so far. As part of their effort, the settlers are keeping the justice system busy - both the civil administration courts and the High Court of Justice - with a flood of requests and petitions clearly aimed at  embarrassing the army and playing for time. There is nothing inherently wrong in resorting to these legal channels, which are widely available to any citizen. But in this particular case, it seems as if the army and government are cooperating with those who seek to embarrass them. Is there a kind of wink here from the political echelon to the military, which is supposed to implement the decision to dismantle outposts? Because if this is not the case, it would be difficult to explain the IDF's helplessness in preventing the establishment of additional outposts every day.

Netanyahu’s hard sell
By Raoul Teitelbaum, Globes, July 2, 2003
He’s selling the Israeli economy to the Americans, and we can’t believe our eyes. -- When her husband, Minister of Finance Benjamin Netanyahu, was still prime minister, Sarah Netanyahu once responded to those criticizing him by saying, “Israel’s too small for him.” She was right, of course. Not only Israel, but the entire Middle East, is too small for him. He was the most senior Israeli economic minister to be absent from the World Economic Forum held in Jordan on the Dead Sea coast. There, the economy was connected with the Road Map, and our Minister of Finance opposes the Road Map. As far as he’s concerned, it has no connection with our economic situation. Had the forum been held in Davos, you can bet he’d have been there. The whole world, especially the US, is his proper setting. Netanyahu likes dealing with a virtual economy. He deals in the economic psychology of public relations. If he can’t do it here, maybe he can sell the Israeli economy in New York the same way you sell toothpaste or kitchen furnishings. He demonstrated his expertise on his most recent visit to the US. He met businessmen and the editors of “Business Week”, and sold them the Israeli economy, wrapped in his economic plan. He charmed them, and left them open-mouthed with wonder. The prestigious US weekly published then an enthusiastic report on the Israeli economy. I only wish we could do the same. "The smart money,” Netanyahu declared, “understands what we’re doing. Does that mean it’s flowing here in rivers? The Central Bureau of Statistics and the Bank of Israel research division couldn’t believe what they were hearing, and looked at the figures on foreign investors coming to Israel. They found a little speculative investment in our capital market. The successful Israel Bonds issue in the US market also has very little to do with Netanyahu’s deregulation, and a great deal to do with the US loan guarantees and the interest on the bonds, which is 50% higher than the interest on US bonds. Our Minister of Finance, however, is full of confidence, and is selling the Americans the following thesis the rise in the Israeli capital market is due 90% to the new economic program, and only 10% to the improved security situation. Now, really, minister. Even the current fragile ceasefire is arousing economic hopes, after the 1,000-day recession. Bush’s Road Map, and the Palestinian hudna truce are infinitely more important to the economy than Netanyahu’s economic plans. “Netanyahu economics” is spreading despair among those receiving allowances, jobseekers, and exporters. Only capital market speculators are celebrating, and trying to re-inflate the bubble. Netanyahu, however, is unmoved.

No end to the growing settlements insult
By Amira Hass, Haaretz, July 2, 2003
The news reader on the Voice of Palestine called the movement of IDF forces in the Gaza Strip a "withdrawal," even though Omar Asour, commander of the National Security Forces, had told him it was merely the opening of the road to Palestinian traffic at four points along the highway that had been sealed off for two years. Israelis were reminded of the spring of 1994, when uniformed Palestinians first took up positions in the area as Israeli forces moved out of the cities and camps to the margins of the Gaza Strip. Back then, IDF forces remained in about 20 percent of Gaza Strip territory, in fortified positions. This is the same territory that is designated for the expansion of the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip - 20 percent of the territory for 0.5 percent of the Strip's residents. This was the justice of the "withdrawal" of 1994 that was called "the peace process." Before 2000 there was talk that it "wasn't logical" to leave the settlements, especially the isolated ones, in the most densely populated area of the world. All the talk was hot air, and settlers continued to dictate how the Palestinians would live - where a water pipe would not be, where a refugee camp would not expand, where cars would not drive and where a sewage treatment plant would not be built. Now the talk is mainly about quiet and respite.Israelis yearn for a long respite from suicide terrorism inside the Green Line and the firing of Qassam rockets, a lull in the anxiety about sons and daughters serving in the territories. Let's assume that the limited freedom of movement as it existed in 2000 is restored, and the Palestinian Authority succeeds in preventing the military groups from violating the cease-fire. Then what? Does anyone in Israel expect the Palestinians to be so grateful for having been permitted to leave their confined quarters that they won't see what is happening before their very eyes? What is happening before their very eyes is the non-stop expansion of the settlements. Settlements are the unlawful transfer of an occupying population to occupied territory; they are the cynical theft of land reserves vital for the Palestinian cities and villages; they are the denial of territorial contiguity and the potential to develop; they are the wresting of control of irreplaceable water resources; they are control of roads. They are all that, and more.

'Preparing for the third Intifada'
By Hasan Abu Nimah, Jordan Times, July 2, 2003
LAST FRIDAY, a prominent Hamas spokesman announced that his organisation was contacted by several parties and states in the region, urging positive response to the persistent calls that Hamas and the other resistance groups accept a ceasefire so that the spiralling cycle of violence would be broken and the implementation of the roadmap would be started.
He further elaborated that his organisation had studied the truce proposals very carefully and, as a result, it formulated a paper for presentation to the relevant parties, including, of course, the new Palestinian Cabinet; the paper was approved by Marwan Barghouthi, on behalf of Fateh, and by Jihad Al Islami as well. This is supposed to be promising news in a region in which, and about which, a strong conviction has been developing that the said truce is the last obstacle on the way to peace. Not quite. The truce may indeed be declared, as it may be strictly respected and observed by all the Palestinian factions, but that will not change anything. Israel will step in with a new set of demands. As a matter of fact, Israel has never indicated that the truce would be an adequate step from the Palestinians, even as an initial contribution towards the roadmap implementation. Israeli officials have been repeatedly warning that the truce would only provide the “terrorist” organisations, meaning the Palestinian resistance groups, with the needed opportunity to regroup and rearm. They have also been insisting that they would accept from the Palestinian National Authority nothing less than the full and complete dismantling of the “terrorist's” infrastructure, the collection of their arms, and the banning of their activities and their existence. In recent days, and probably weeks, Hamas, in particular, was subjected to immense pressure, even threats, to abandon terror and unblock the road to peace which, otherwise, the Palestinian government of Mahmoud Abbas would be gladly willing to follow. Both President George Bush and his secretary of state described Hamas as an enemy of peace or as a great obstacle in its way. The European Union offered Hamas a choice of quickly accepting a truce or securing for itself a place on the European list of terrorist organisations. The mounting, and indeed savage, assassination campaign against Hamas activists and leaders was neither checked nor condemned by the United States or its other roadmap partners for being also a grave contribution to the raging violence. That enhanced the feeling that, in line with the officially declared Israeli position on this matter, the “desired” destruction of Hamas would not have to be discouraged, and if the PNA does not possess the ability or the will to carry out the task of dismantling Palestinian terror why should the Israelis not be allowed to do that themselves.