Can I, a Jew, hear the echoes of God's voice in that of a Hindu, or a Sikh, or a Muslim?
By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Guardian, August 27, 2002
An exclusive extract from chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks's provocative new book The Dignity of Difference: In January 2002 I stood at Ground Zero. Beside me were representatives of the world's faiths, brought together by their participation in the World Economic Forum, which had moved from Davos to New York as a gesture of solidarity with a city which had suffered so much. The Archbishop of  Canterbury said a prayer. So did a Muslim imam. A Hindu guru from India recited a meditation and sprinkled rose petals on the site. The chief rabbi of Israel read a reflection he had written for the occasion. It was a rare moment of togetherness in the face of mankind's awesome powers of destruction. I wondered at the contrast between the religious fervour of the hijackers and the no less intense longing for peace among the religious leaders who were there.

Taking the waters
By Hani Shukrallah, Al-Ahram Weekly, August 22 - 28 , 2002
If it was a bad choice in the 1950s it is wholly absurd today. Yet doggedly we repeat the same mistake, plunging forever headlong into the same pond, unmindful of it having long ago become a particularly putrescent cesspool. In the 1950s the Arab masses, led by various "organic intellectuals", forfeited the right to determine their own fate (ie to democratic liberty) for the sake of the "greater battle" against the national enemy. Admittedly, it was not an easy choice back then. For one thing we did not have the benefit of the experience of half a century of "nationalist" authoritarian rule, let alone of the pathetic implosion of the Soviet Union and its "socialist bloc".

One into four
By Mohamed Khaled El-Azar, Al-Ahram Weekly, August 22 - 28 , 2002 
The Quartet, so far, has served as a smoke screen for Washington. What hopes, then, for any effective internationalisation of the peace process, asks Mohamed Khaled El-Azar: In laying the foundations for the 1991 peace conference in Madrid US Secretary of State James Baker was anxious to secure Washington's role as primary sponsor of the Arab- Israeli peace process. He supervised all the arrangement for the conference, from the venue and guest lists to the agenda and gave various, if contradictory, assurances to the parties he wanted to invite. Above all, he wanted to ensure that the conference was international only in name. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Madrid was to be the forum in which Washington asserted itself as the only power capable of shaping the future of the Middle East.

What does Sharon want?
By Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly, August 22 - 28 , 2002 
Israeli forces spent one night completing their withdrawal from Bethlehem before hundreds of armoured personnel carriers and thousands of troops, backed by helicopter gunships, started their attack on the Tulkarm refugee camp, in the northern section of the West Bank, on Tuesday morning, terrorising inhabitants and killing two Palestinians.

The latest trick
Arab News Editorial, August 26, 2002
It comes as no surprise that the plan, Gaza-Bethlehem First, never got past first gear. The Palestinians did not care for the idea and the Israeli Army never looked like implementing it. Marketed by Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer the plan had the most minimal of aims. In return for PA police forces making efforts to reduce "terror and violence", Israel will relax its military and economic grip on the two Palestinian areas. To those uninitiated in Israel’s ways, initial signs were encouraging. The army lifted the curfews in Bethlehem for the first time in two months and withdrew armored patrols from the town center. But there was no such measure taken in Gaza where, in fact, a series of incidents took place leaving no one in doubt about the ultimate game plan.

Two jeeps, three unilateral principles, and a long list of critiques
By Akiva Eldar, Ha'aretz, August 27, 2002
CIA Director George Tenet refuses to come here. Secretary of State Colin Powell has evaporated along with President George W. Bush, who only two months ago had the world waiting with baited breath for his speech. Even Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns, who is directly responsible for implementation of the Bush speech's vision, is staying away. The radio reporters insist on calling his deputy, David Sutterfield, "deputy secretary of state," and in one radio broadcast even gave the devoted diplomat the high rank of "under secretary of state.

A facade of going forward
By Aluf Benn, Ha'aretz, August 27, 2002 
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been put on hold as discussions get underway over the American attack against Iraq. Both sides are exhausted and are trying to jockey for position in the hope of having a better vantage point in the next round. The international mediators have put up a facade of preparations for renewing the political process, with lots of pretty words about "reforms" in the Palestinian Authority and preparations for elections there, from which the interim Palestinian state is supposed to take form.

Israel and the third Gulf war
By Hassan A. Barari, Jordan Times, August 27, 2002
This time, Israel is more certain than ever that the impending US assault on Iraq will have the potential of transforming the Middle East, thereby creating a new configuration of power that will further deepen the asymmetrical balance of power in Israel's favour. No wonder the Israeli press is loaded with articles and a plethora of official statements inciting the Bush administration not to back away from launching an all out war aimed at deposing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime.