Articles archives 08-01-02

Yitchak Frankenthal: The ethics of revenge
Yahoo! JewishPeaceNews Group, July 31, 2002
A speech given by Yitchak Frankenthal, Chair of the Bereaved Families Forum, outside of the Prime Minister's residence on July 27, 2002. Frankenthal lost his son, a soldier, to terror, and from his grief initiated an organization that brings together Israelis and Palestinians who have lost their children to the conflict. Their united message: No parent should have to go through what we've gone through.

Military attacks are not the way
Ha'aretz, August 1, 2002
By Aluf Benn
The manner in which the new Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon handled the affair of recently assassinated Hamas leader Salah Shehadeh, testifies to his talent and to his ability to draw conclusions quickly. Only a few hours after the bombing in Gaza, the lavish praise from government officials gave way to excuses and to placing the blame on the army and on military intelligence. Ya'alon got the message, and quickly passed down the responsibility. In his briefing to the weekend newspapers, the chief of staff disclosed those who were really to blame for the failure - the air force operations researchers, who suggested dropping the heavy bomb.

Israel's Nuclear Objectives: Deterrence, Compellence & Hegemony
By Kareem Mahmoud Kamel
Islam Online, August 1, 2002
While Israel’s military machine is considered the most powerful in the Middle East, its people are more vulnerable than they have been since the 1950s.2 The current Intifada has exposed the myth of Israeli invincibility and has restructured the meaning of power in conflict – Israel has no deterrent for an enemy that now lies within. However, there is a more dangerous, subtle and often-forgotten element that played and continues to play a key role in Middle Eastern politics – Israel’s nuclear weapons. Given that conflict in the Middle East is volatile, and tends to quickly engage critical interests among enemies in close proximity, nuclear weapons, for those who posses them, are a major source of power, but also of instability for the entire region.

Unbearable Sightlessness
By Tarek A. Ghanem
Islam Online, July 30, 2002
When the President of United States of America delivers a speech projecting a “vision” of a solution for peace in the Middle East, the entire world must listen in. But what was this “vision”? What is the perception of such a “vision”? The speech that attracted the attention of the international community (dated Monday, June 24th, 2002) was no more than a lousy and morbid rewrite of another speech delivered earlier in April. On occupation, the root glitch, the first speech read (italics added):

A Palestinian state is the only road to peace
By Ash Pulcifer, Yellow Times, August 1, 2002
(YellowTimes.org) – Nine days after Israel's devastating attack on Palestinian civilians and a known Hamas militant in Gaza, the Palestinian extremist group Hamas quickly claimed credit for a bomb unleashed in Hebrew University's school cafeteria on July 31. At least seven people were killed and more than eighty wounded.

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