The real fist in the face of the Palestinians
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz 2003-07-28
By all appearances, it's possible to drive from the village of Burkin to Jenin on the main road. It's a five-minute trip. But at the end of the road is an earth barrier that no car can get by. So you have to take the roundabout route, between the olive groves. The trip is prolonged to a half hour of dust, jolts and anxiety. Almost always a tank or some other armored vehicle of the Israel Defense Forces emerges from between the trees. In some cases, the soldiers tell the driver to turn around go back the way he came. Sometimes they let him continue. It's perfectly arbitrary. Sometimes the soldiers slash the four tires to render the car immobile, or they may impound the car keys for a few hours. There are cases in which the soldiers open fire in the direction of the passengers to frighten them, and, in rare instances, they kill them, as occurred a few weeks ago in the nearby villageof Silat a-Hartiya. This is the routine of life (and death) between the villages of the West Bank and its cities. This is also how the IDF has defeated the laws of geometry: in the territories, there are no longer two points between which you can draw a straight line. This state of affairs has absolutely nothing to do with the security of Israelis. The fact is that traffic carries on somehow. You can get from Burkin to Jenin, and you can even transport terrorists and bombs, but to do it you have to use back roads that are more like trails. The purpose here is different. It's to make the lives of the local residents as miserable as possible and to remind them, day in and day out, who is sovereign here and thus also to make the settlers happy.

The Message Sharon Refuses to Heed
By Adnan Abu Odeh, Alternative Information Center 2003-07-28
When John Wolf, head of the American team charged with monitoring the application of the “road map,” informed the Israeli authorities that a simple mathematical equation would show that their government dismantled only one “unauthorized” settlement and not 10 as they claim, he did more than just unmask Ariel Sharon’s deception tactics. He also uncovered the fact that the latter does not share US President George W. Bush’s vision of a two-state solution, Israeli and Palestinian, on the land of Mandate Palestine.Israel’s relentless expansion of its settlements in the occupied West Bank simply shows that it means to continue eating up parts of Palestine until such a day, not that far off now, when any talk of an independent and viable Palestinian state, on the land of Palestine, becomes redundant, since not enough land will be left. News sources have it that it is the Israeli Peace Now movement that monitors and reports on Israel’s settlement activities, which means that it is that movement and not the Sharon government that shares Bush’s vision of a two-state solution.However, since it is the Sharon government and not the Peace Now Movement that decides Israel’s policies, the question that begs itself now is: What is the solution in Sharon’s view? This is a legitimate ideological question to which the answer could be the transfer option – the gradual ejection of the Palestinians from their land. But this solution is not feasible due to several reasons, and chief among them is the fact that the Palestinians are holding tight onto their land and want no other.

Palestine shows the way on judicial reform
Editorial, Daily Star 2003-07-28
The announcement by Palestinian Justice Minister Abdelkarim Abu Saleh Sunday that the Palestinian Authority had abolished its state security courts is a welcomed and long overdue piece of good news. Such special military tribunals are common throughout the Arab world, but in most cases their legitimate national security function has long been dwarfed by their tendency to be abused by ruling authorities for partisan political goals. This is a wise move by the Palestinians. We hope it challenges the rest of the Arab world to go down this same path of rational and real reform – not the rhetorical variety of reform whereby governments claim to shed their control mechanisms, but in reality they only create new institutions that provide more creative and indirect methods of control. Palestinian lawyers staged a strike in 2000 to protest the increased use of state security courts, usually at the expense of civil courts. Human rights organizations in Palestine and throughout the region and the world have frequently criticized state security courts for providing flawed and impartial justice, including, in some cases, death sentences that cannot be appealed. There is a legitimate role in every country for courts to deal with issues of overriding national security concerns, in times of war or peace. But in the Arab world and other developing regions such institutions that should be reserved for true emergency situations have been co-opted into serving the political aims of ruling power elites. We can point to many examples of cases tried before state security courts that should have gone before normal civilian courts.

Come what may, Arafat sees himself as the gatekeeper
By Robert Malley and Huseein Agha, Daily Star 2003-07-28
Veteran Palestinian leader has seen it all, and physical isolation has in no way diminished his power -- He is holed up in a largely destroyed building, under perpetual Israeli surveillance, marginalized, shunned and liable at any moment to be expelled, or worse, but for Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, the landscape is familiar; at once both comforting and comfortable.He has seen it all before, and it is this, not a red-carpet welcome at the White House, that defines his world. Many times in the past his enemies have confronted him, yet he is still there. Palestinians have complained about him. In the end, they have come back to the fold. He was never one for physical comfort, and that too has not changed. Ariel Sharon is confronting him. But when has he not?They say this time it is different; rarely have so many tried so hard to dislodge him. How little they know, he thinks. You cannot take away his power because power will go where he does, because power is where he is. Go to the Muqataa, his headquarters, the place where he now spends every hour of his day. Run-down and decrepit as it is, who can deny that it retains the unmistakable aura of power? Nothing large or small, he knows, takes place without his ultimate approval. The prime minister was named as a result of international pressure, but all the pressure was directed at him, for who else mattered?Security officials await his nod; the demands for a cease-fire with Hamas need his approval and negotiations with Israel his sign-off. A word from him defines who is a traitor in Palestinian eyes, and another leads to redemption.

Pipes nomination down the drain?
By James Zogby, Middle East Online 2003-07-28
The nomination never should have been made. It was a mistake and it should be withdrawn. -- Arab Americans and American Muslims won a small but important moral victory in the battle against bigotry last week. A U.S. Senate committee declined to vote on the confirmation of a controversial anti-Muslim polemicist who has been appointed by the Bush Administration to serve on the Board of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP).The USIP is a Washington based think tank created by an act of Congress in 1984 to "promote the prevention, management, and peaceful resolution of international conflicts."Members of the USIP board and its visiting scholars share the Institute's goals and promote its objectives. Over the years the Institute has hosted a number of distinguished Americans and international scholars who have produced forums and studies dedicated to seeking the peaceful resolution of conflicts and promoting reconciliation among embattled peoples.The current board nominee in question, Daniel Pipes, has on the other hand, pursued a career devoted largely to defaming Arabs and Muslims, inciting against them and promoting conflict between the West and the Muslim world.

NPR: Linda Gradstein and The Thing
By Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada 2003-07-28
To: National Public Radio (wesun@npr.org, ombudsman@npr.org) -- Dear NPR News, I have often complained that as far as your "reporter" Linda Gradstein is concerned, the Middle East is a fact-free zone. By this, I mean that she represents many key issues as simply matters of interpretation and perspective ('Palestinians say the sky is blue, but Israeli spokesmen insist it is Leprechaun green with lavender polka dots.')But this morning's performance by Gradstein was almost as ridiculous as my little joke above. When speaking on Weekend Edition Sunday about the thing that Israel is building through the West Bank to physically divide the land and annex vast swathes of the occupied territories to Israel, Gradstein said that Israel calls it a "fence" while Palestinians call it "the wall, with echoes of the Berlin wall."Can it really be impossible for Linda to actually find out if it is a fence or a wall and tell us precisely and unequivocally?

Sharon's Wall and newsworthiness
By Michael S. Ladah, Jordan Times 2003-07-28
MANY OF the atrocities that are being committed by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza against the Palestinian population have had little coverage by news media around the world. Similar to the cover up that the Israeli government and its military attempted in the aftermath of the Jenin atrocities, the Israeli ministry of defence and the Israeli army are doing their best to cover up, and divert attention from, major crimes in the making. One of these crimes has been in progress for a while with little attention from the world. The Israeli government, with the expressed approval of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has prepared a plan to build a wall to encircle the western perimeter of the West Bank and separate it completely from Israel, in the same style as the infamous Berlin Wall. The government has not published the details of the plan and considers it a “secret,” including the specifications of the wall and its location with respect to the Green Line, the 1967 line of demarcation. While the plan seems to be more advanced in the northern part of the West Bank (the first phase), land confiscation has been in progress along the entire length of the planned wall. The confiscation of Baron Der, a church property north of Bethlehem, has been the most visible example of property confiscation in preparation for the construction of the wall. Baron Der is an Armenian Church property located on the northern outskirts of Bethlehem. The 50-acre property was bought in 1641 by Grigor Baron Der (1560-1645), the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem. Over the past five centuries, Baron Der has served as an Armenian Apostolic administrative centre, a location for religious retreats, a religious training centre, an income-producing orchard and an archaeological site. The property contains a monastic building that has served as a residence for Armenian monks who officiate in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Armenian monks from Jerusalem also use Baron Der for their annual retreat and for spiritual training. The land holds great meaning for the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Armenian Apostolic Catholicate in Etchmiadzin, His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of all Armenians, His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, Armenian Palestinians and Armenians throughout the world. The confiscation of Baron Der has very special significance to all Palestinians, Christians and Muslims, and symbolises the repression that the Israeli government has been practising on all Palestinians, including all minorities among them.

Positive Vibes from Washington
Editorial, MIFTAH 2003-07-27
Friday’s eagerly-awaited meeting between Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and US President George W. Bush has arguably underlined a new era of US-Palestinian relations; the age of realism and pragmatism. "The Middle East needs leaders of vision and courage and determination to serve the interests of their people…Mr. Abbas is the first Palestinian prime minister, and he is proving to be such a leader." These words by Bush have echoed throughout the world in the past 48 hours, carrying with them a strong sense of optimism, hope, and an unmistakable message of support for Abu Mazen and his administration. Yet, the so called ‘red carpet’ treatment for Abu Mazen at the White House has apparently reached far beyond rhetorical public diplomacy declarations and ceremonial niceties; the underlying message is clear: the Bush administration is determined to facilitate its agenda in the region. The creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 (not necessarily based on UN Resolution 242), and the complete elimination of any form of Palestinian resistance, will dictate Washington’s policies towards the Palestinians in the years to come. Israel’s “security” remains at the top of the agenda, and of course, the “war on terrorism” analogy is the ultimate measure of all things.

Israeli Separation Wall… Judiazing and Annexing Lands under Pretext of Security
International Press Center 2003-07-27
The latest statement by the US President George W. Bush about the Israeli “Segregation Wall” reflected the world's awareness of the threat this wall poses to the peace process. In spite of that, some Israeli officials try to undermine the danger of building such a wall, aiming to mislead the international public opinion, and hide the perilous facts under a thick veil of security needs, and at the same time unleashing its bulldozers and occupation forces to carry out the military orders of forcefully seizing Palestinian lands to be annexed later to Israel. The claims spouted out by the Israeli officials about the need to build such segregation wall in the West Bank to "guarantee" the Israelis’ security, similar to the alleged “separation fence”” in Gaza Strip, are falsehoods, following facts refuted such groundless claims; First: The so-called "separation fence" around Gaza Strip is completely different from the”segregation wall” Israel having built in the West Bank in the hereby aspects....