Occupied peoples have the right to resist
By Tom Wallace and Rakhika Sainath, Electronic Intifada /Jerusalem Post 2003-07-29
28 July 2003 -- As volunteers with The International Solidarity Movement and as individuals devoted to human rights and justice, we must address recent statements maligning us, our movement and those that have given their lives standing up for the principles we espouse.We are unwavering in our commitment to nonviolence.Due to these beliefs, we oppose the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. As a result we have come under heavy fire in the Occupied Territories and in the media. Israeli officials and several right-wing Israeli and American pundits have embarked on a campaign to discredit ISM, by attempting to equate ISM's principled and active support for Palestinian rights with terrorism.In one such attack, "ISM: Support Unit for Terror," journalist David Bedein falsely asserted that ISM works "in alliance with those who choose to kill people in order to advance their goals."Our goal is to end the military occupation and bring peace and justi ce to Israelis and Palestinians. ISM is not linked with political parties or armed groups. Our partners are Palestinian, Israeli and international peace and human rights groups and Palestinian communities.

Imperial perspectives
By Edward Said, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line, July 24 - 30, 2003 0000-00-00
The distortions of imperial perspectives produce further distortions in Middle Eastern society that prolong suffering and induce extreme forms of resistance -- The great modern empires have never been held together only by military power but by what activates that power, puts it to use and then reinforces it with daily practices of domination, conviction, and authority. Britain ruled the vast territories of India with only a few thousand colonial officers and a few more thousand troops, many of them Indian. France did the same in North Africa and Indochina, the Dutch in Indonesia, the Portuguese and Belgians in Africa. The key element is imperial perspective, that way of looking at a distant foreign reality by subordinating it to one's gaze, constructing its history from one's own point of view, seeing its people as subjects whose fate is to be decided not by them but by what distant administrators think is best for them. From such willful perspectives actual ideas develop, including the theory that imperialism is a benign and necessary thing. In one of the most perceptive comments ever made about the conceptual glue that binds empires together, the remarkable Anglo-Polish novelist Joseph Conrad wrote that "the conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion and or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish believe in the idea -- something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to." For a while this worked, as many colonial leaders thought mistakenly that cooperating with the imperial authority was the only way. But since the dialectic between the imperial perspective and the local one is inevitably adversarial and impermanent, at some later point the conflict between ruler and ruled becomes uncontainable and breaks out into all-out colonial war, as happened in Algeria and India. We are still quite a long way from that moment in American rule over the Arab and Muslim world. At least since World War II American strategic interest there has been to secure (and to ever more closely control) readily accessible supplies of plentiful oil and, second, to guarantee at enormous cost the strength and regional domination of Israel over any and all of its neighbours.

Interview: A third way for Palestine
Al-Ahram Weekly on-line, July 24 - 30, 2003 0000-00-00
DFLP leader Nayef Hawatmeh, at a roundtable discussion with the Weekly, explains why a united Palestinian national leadership and a common national programme are both urgent and incontrovertible conditions for realising Palestinian national goals and lasting peace and coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis -- TAINTED ROADMAP: The basic flaw in the roadmap is that while it strongly emphasises Palestinian obligations towards its executing its terms, it fails to stress Israel's commitment to do the same. This is exactly what Sharon's government is trying to do through the 14 amendments he insisted on making to the roadmap. The US administration has actually approved 12 of these 14 amendments. Furthermore, Israel presented, and Bush approved the 13th amendment at the Aqaba Summit last month. According to the amended roadmap, the Palestinians would have to implement everything that is related to the security of Israel first before Israel would comply with its own commitments. Even worse, Bush avoided making any reference to the Palestinian right of return at the Aqaba Summit. The original text of the roadmap was drastically changed from a document based on balanced and simultaneous commitments to one based on Palestinian compliances with set conditions. The original text clearly stipulated that the roadmap should be implemented without any negotiations or amendments. The roadmap is bound to lead us to a labyrinth similar to the one that developed after Oslo. Yet, despite such drastic shortcomings in the amended roadmap, the Palestinian Authority agreed to its terms regardless of all the reservations expressed by Palestinian opposition groups.

The Truce And Israel's Deception
By Maher Othman, Al-Hayat 2003-07-29
Had it not been for the truce that the Palestinian factions agreed upon, Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) would not have been able to convince President Bush and the U.S. Congress of the Palestinians' seriousness in seeking peace with Israel, in accordance with the Roadmap. And had it not been for Abbas' ability to convince the factions of the need to reach a ceasefire, if only for three months, in order to give the Quartet a chance for the Roadmap and to test the intentions of Sharon's government, the Palestinian factions would have pursued the armed Intifada and the violent struggle, with all the human losses involved for both sides.As far as both sides' concessions, the Palestinians have agreed to guarantee security and calm for the Israelis not only within the Green Line, but also throughout the West Bank and Gaza, including the settlements. On the other hand, Israel has made no matching commitment, and it did not commit to carry out any measures according to a specific timetable that could motivate the Palestinians to maintain the truce.It is clear that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is meeting with President Bush today, is intent on deceiving his ally and on misleading the American public opinion more than he intends to achieve a permanent peace with the Palestinian people. Israeli sources revealed yesterday that on the eve of his visit to Washington, he ordered the postponement of celebrations for the completion of the first stage of the separation wall, which takes up large areas of the West Bank, of which 128 kms have already been completed, including 21 kms that isolate Jerusalem from the West Bank, until after his visit so as to avoid the negative repercussions of this celebration on completing the wall. The sources said that Sharon has reassured the Likud ministers that the wall will be finished and that its direction will not be changed, despite the declaration by the U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv that Washington does not object to the wall, but only to its direction. Moreover, the Knesset just approved the spending of $170 million to complete the wall, thus reflecting Israel's determination to build the wall, which was described by President Bush as a "problem."

In no need of protection
By Margot Badran and Lucia Sorbera, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line, July 24 - 30, 2003 0000-00-00
Eighty years ago, three Egyptian women embarked at Alexandria on a ship bound for Italy. They were heading for Rome, to attend the International Alliance of Women Congress. Al-Ahram Weekly examines contemporary responses of the Italian and Egyptian press to this historic event - Nationalist militants and determined feminists -- In May 1923 three Egyptian women embarked at Alexandria on a ship bound for Italy. The eldest was 44 years old, the next in age was 37 and the youngest was 26. They set out, faces fully covered, as was customary at the time. What was not customary was that they set out alone, "alone" meaning without men accompanying them. No mehrem. There was no Ministry of Interior then to prevent the women from leaving the country without the formal permission of their husbands or fathers. In any case they had none: the eldest was a widow, the other two unmarried, and the fathers of all three had long since died. The women were in no need of protection. They had defended their country in the 1919 Revolution and its aftermath as nationalist militants and determined feminists. On 16 March, on the fourth anniversary of the first women's demonstration a group of women had formed the Egyptian Feminist Union (the EFU). And now an EFU delegation was off to Rome to participate in the ninth congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IAW) convening from 11-19 May. The women included Hoda Shaarawi, EFU president and head of the delegation, Nabawiya Moussa, pioneer in girls' education, and Ceza Nabarawi who would become editor-in-chief of the EFU's monthly journal, L'Egyptienne (est. 1925).The Rome meeting was a signal event in the history of the Egyptian feminist movement. As a new member of the International Alliance of Women the EFU joined forces in Rome with the international sisterhood to promote their own Egyptian nationalist-cum-feminist goals, specifically to lay claim to suffrage, and to help shape the transnational feminist movement. From the start the EFU showed itself adept at furthering Egyptian gender and national interests in the international feminist arena. The Egyptian feminists set the terms of their own debate and drew from deep within their own history and culture, and from their experiences as women, in formulating their feminism, contrary to those who paint it as a colonial imposition. Over the years, from both within and outside the IAW, Egyptian feminists would persistently point to specific ways colonialism obstructed feminist goals.

Forced Marriage
By Jihad Al Khazen, Al-Hayat 2003-07-29
While the Palestinian government was born from a C-section three months ago, the truce it reached with the Islamic resistance factions was a forced marriage, and these kinds of marriages do not last.Truce, or appeasement, as Hamas and Islamic Jihad call it, was meant to last three months. But after one month, no results have been reached to match with the cessation of military operations. Hence, every faction is starting to reconsider its stance, while negotiating with other groups.I asked Khaled Mishaal, the head of Hamas politburo, about the situation, following the meeting that was held between President Bush and the Palestinian Prime Minister, and the eve of his meeting with Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon. He said that Abbas should not have gone to Washington considering the Israeli violations of the truce, and that he (Abbas) had set his bets on Sharon's commitment to the appeasement and the fact that the U.S. administration would take a solid stance from the Israeli government as to proceed in the peace process; however, "both bets are losing" according to Mishaal. In fact he said, President Bush did not show Mahmoud Abbas any real or new stance in this regard, and the fact that he criticized the separation wall, maintaining that it is a problem hindering the establishment of trust between both parties is nothing but talk, and is not enough to stop the building of the wall on Palestinian territories, in a way to separate towns and farmers from their fields.Mishaal continued to say that President Bush had fallen in the Iraqi swamp and the resistance to the occupation, not to mention the scandal of the intelligence services, the falsified information to justify the war and the collapse of the American economy; all this will push the U.S. President to avoid any confrontations with the Jewish lobby, and this is why he does not expect the meeting between Bush and Sharon to bring any positive results concerning the Palestinian demands.

Ignorance is not bliss
By Walter Mosley, The Independent 2003-07-29
When the novelist Walter Mosley saw how deeply the Arab world hated America, he found an explanation in his own backyard. The race riots of the 1960s civil rights struggle were motivated by the same alienation that fuelled the September 11 attacks, he argues -- When my father sat there in our darkened living room wishing that he could go out and join the mêlée (of the 1965 Watts Riots), I saw something that it took me many years to work out. He was far beyond simple outrage. He wanted revenge for all of those years that he was mistreated and for all the millions who had been murdered and robbed, raped and silenced. He wanted to go out in the streets and yell and fire his gun into the void of his oppression. Did he hate? Most definitely. Should the people he hated have been afraid of him? Without a doubt.LeRoy Mosley was the victim of a system of racism that had ruined his people for six, eight, 10 and more generations. He was the inheritor of that bitter pill. He was the survivor who now found himself with the possibility of finally getting revenge. "Burn, baby, burn" was the catchphrase of the riotous Sixties. Those words were screaming in my father's mind. He, and millions of other black men and women, hated white America for the five days of the Watts Riots; for those five days and for generations before and after them. His smouldering wrath was justified in his experience. He never once questioned his own culpability for the racist institutions and their adherents. America was afraid of my father. More than ever, they wanted the part of his mind that held this deep grudge to disappear. And if my father, and the millions that felt like him, could not drop this hatred, they wanted them to disappear.This is only natural. No one wants someone who hates them to be anywhere in the periphery. Their mere presence poses a threat. All the years before the riots white people could ignore the history and the crimes. That was a long time ago, we were taught in school. But then Lincoln freed the slaves. But now the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of those slaves were cutting up, acting out hatred that went all the way back through centuries of abuse.

America is a religion
By George Monbiot, The Guardian 2003-07-29
US leaders now see themselves as priests of a divine mission to rid the world of its demons -- "The death of Uday and Qusay," the commander of the ground forces in Iraq told reporters on Wednesday, "is definitely going to be a turning point for the resistance." Well, it was a turning point, but unfortunately not of the kind he envisaged. On the day he made his announcement, Iraqi insurgents killed one US soldier and wounded six others. On the following day, they killed another three; over the weekend they assassinated five and injured seven. Yesterday they slaughtered one more and wounded three. This has been the worst week for US soldiers in Iraq since George Bush declared that the war there was over. Few people believe that the resistance in that country is being coordinated by Saddam Hussein and his noxious family, or that it will come to an end when those people are killed. But the few appear to include the military and civilian command of the United States armed forces. For the hundredth time since the US invaded Iraq, the predictions made by those with access to intelligence have proved less reliable than the predictions made by those without. And, for the hundredth time, the inaccuracy of the official forecasts has been blamed on "intelligence failures". The explanation is wearing a little thin. Are we really expected to believe that the members of the US security services are the only people who cannot see that many Iraqis wish to rid themselves of the US army as fervently as they wished to rid themselves of Saddam Hussein? What is lacking in the Pentagon and the White House is not intelligence (or not, at any rate, of the kind we are considering here), but receptivity. Theirs is not a failure of information, but a failure of ideology.To understand why this failure persists, we must first grasp a reality which has seldom been discussed in print. The United States is no longer just a nation. It is now a religion. Its soldiers have entered Iraq to liberate its people not only from their dictator, their oil and their sovereignty, but also from their darkness. As George Bush told his troops on the day he announced victory: "Wherever you go, you carry a message of hope - a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'To the captives, "come out," and to those in darkness, "be free".'"

Khalil Shikaki defends his refugee poll
By Khalil Shikaki, Electronic Intifada 2003-07-29
Dear Editors,The views expressed below by Ali Abunimah ("Who said Palestinians gave up the right of return?", 23 July 2003) reflect the concerns and fears of many Palestinians in the absence of a serious engagement by Palestinian leaders who refuse to be open and frank with their public.Abunimah described the Taba options as "Shikaki options" when in fact we simply wanted to measure attitudes (support/opposition) and behavior (selecting an option) toward a scenario that the Palestinian leadership says privately that it would be willing to accept and have in fact endorsed in the Taba negotiations.The text used was formulated in full coordination with Palestinian negotiators and the survey was done to help them examine how legitimate such a solution would be in the eyes of the public. Respondents had the option of rejecting all the options and propose their own. They could have said that they wanted to return to Israel without citizenship. Indeed more than 90% of those selecting to go to Israel said so.They could have said they wanted to return to Israel immediately. Most of the 10% wanting to go to Israel said so. They could have said they wanted to go to 1948 Palestine (with no Israel). And indeed 13% said so. They could have said they wanted to go to Israel AND receive compensation. None have said so.Of course we could have changed the whole Taba solution to please Mr. Abunimah but we would have deceived the refugees by proposing something that was not a negotiating option at Taba at this time. Certainly, the results would have been different but we would have simply played games and deceived the refugees.

It's About the Rule of Law: Impeaching George W. Bush
By Francis A. Boyle, Dissident Voice 2003-07-29
With another Bush Family war of aggression against Iraq staring the American People, Congress and Republic in their face, on Tuesday 11 March 2003, Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, which would have jurisdiction over any Bill of Impeachment, convened an emergency meeting of forty or more of his top advisors, most of whom were lawyers, to discuss and debate immediately putting into the House of Representatives Bills of Impeachment against President Bush Jr., Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Ashcroft in order to head off the impending war. [1] Congressman Conyers kindly requested me and Ramsey Clark to come in to the meeting and argue the case for impeachment. Ramsey had launched his own campaign to impeach Bush Jr. et al. in mid-January 2003 at a peace rally held in Washington D.C. This impeachment debate lasted for two hours. It was presided over by Congressman Conyers, who quite correctly did not tip his hand one way or the other on the merits of impeachment. He simply moderated the debate between Clark and me, on the one side, favoring immediately filing Bills of Impeachment against Bush Jr. et al. to stop the threatened war, and almost everyone else there who were against impeachment. Obviously no point would be served here by attempting to digest a two-hour-long vigorous debate among a group of well-trained lawyers on such a controversial matter at this critical moment in American history. But at the time I was struck by the fact that this momentous debate was conducted at a private office right down the street from the White House.

Israel's Apartheid Wall: Environmental Disaster in Palestine
By John Reese, Miftah 2003-07-29
In 1961, the world was transfixed as the Soviet Union enclosed West Berlin, Germany, in the 96-mile, 12-foot-high Berlin Wall. The social implications of the wall had a profound impact on world politics for nearly 30 years. In 2003, the world remains largely ignorant of the fact that Israel is building a 200-mile, 25-foot-high “Apartheid Wall” around the West Bank of Palestine. Palestinians have named it after the reviled South African term meaning “apartness.” In the northern West Bank, the first phase of the Apartheid Wall is to be approximately 70 miles long and is to include electric fences, a “dead zone,” trenches, cameras, sensors and security patrols, all at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. The wall will not mark the 1967 border, also known as the “Green Line.” The first phase will place 45,000 West Bank acres on the Israeli side, approximately three percent of Palestinian’s land mass. The footprint of the wall itself will be enormous, with as much as 8,750 acres completely lost. Construction of the wall will mean the removal of tens of thousands of trees and will effect the hydrology of the watersheds. This will cause changes in water quantity and quality, stream channel morphology and groundwater levels. Surface water flow will be altered, and there will be an increase in erosion and sedimentation. The impacts on the region’s water supplies around the wall are also of serious concern. The climate of Palestine is semi-arid, and water sources are precious. In villages around Qalqilya and Tulkarm, more than 30 wells will be lost in the first phase of the wall. These wells, located in the western groundwater basin, were drilled prior to the 1967 occupation of Palestine by Israel. As a result, Palestinians will lose nearly 18 percent of their share of the basin’s water.

The 'Bedouin takeover' myth
By Clinton Bailey, Ha'aretz 2003-07-29
In recent years, a myth has permeated official thinking and it is called "the Bedouin are taking over the Negev." The basis of this baseless legend are multifold - to justify withholding sufficient funds for developing the Bedouin community; to prevent the setting up of additional Bedouin settlements; to prepare public opinion for an offensive, perhaps violent, against the Bedouin. There is no little cynicism lurking in the vilification campaign that underpins the myth. After forcibly displacing the Bedouin from their traditional lands for the past fifty years, we are now accusing them of grabbing them back. What some official bodies call a "takeover" - which usually means illegal squatting on government lands - is really a continuation of a long-standing Bedouin condition. Half of them have remained in the desert rather than move into the seven "planned settlements" of Rahat, Tel Sheva, Lagiyya, Hura, Ksayfa, Arara, and Segev Shalom. The reason is mainly the state's reluctance to provide these towns, and others that were authorized but never built, with the funds needed to turn them into places in which anyone would want to live. The "takeover" myth began in Spring 1994, when a young man, Dakhalallah Abu Gardud, of the Azazma tribe, picked up one day and moved back to his ancestral lands near Kibbutz Revivim. The fact that the Abu Gardud clan, including Dakhalallah, counts 27 members serving in the army and reserves, did not save them from being expelled from their lands, in 1985. The landswere declared a closed army area. Once the Bedouin left, the government established the civilian Moshav Ashalim there, renting the rest to companies for plantingolive trees and raising fish in water tanks. One result of Dakhalallah's service in the army, including front line stints in Lebanon,was his determination never again to let the authorities treat him like a second class citizen.