Glimmers of hope and decency during a bad week for Arabs in America
By Robert Fisk, The Independent, September 14, 2002
Robert Fisk: Glimmers of hope and decency during a bad week for Arabs in America
This week was a bad week to be an Arab in America. It wasn't, frankly, a great week to be an English journalist either, with a message to a university audience on the eve of 11 September about the failings and injustice of US policy in the Middle East – especially when the 2,000 people who came to listen included relatives of those so savagely slaughtered a year ago.

A Witness from the Past
By Uri Avnery, Media Monitors Network, September 13, 2002
A person who died 1900 years ago was summoned this week by Ariel Sharon to appear before his verbal kangaroo court. That, in itself, is not surprising. In Jewish consciousness, there is no clear borderline between past and present, as there is none between history and myth. This may be the result of living outside history for thousands of years. Anyhow, in all debates about the future, Jews are used to involving figures from the remote past.

Be warned, this President means what he says
By Rupert Cornwell, The Independent, September 14, 2002
George Bush has now cleverly turned the argument against the UN: it can't enforce its own resolutions: First, a confession. I have changed my mind. I did believe that, when push came to shove, war against Iraq would not happen. International opinion would deter Washington, and, after a summer of sabre-rattling, normal service would be resumed. No longer. What finally persuaded me, of course, was President Bush's speech to the United Nations this week. But that speech was no more than the logical conclusion to what Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have long been saying – and, it should be noted, never publicly contradicted by that supposed leader of His American Majesty's loyal Republican opposition, Colin Powell.

Journal from Nablus - Shattered Houses, Shattered Hopes
By Dena Rahma,  Media Monitors Network, September 14, 2002
The city of Nablus has been under curfew for two months now, but that has not stopped me and the other volunteers from going to Azkar refugee camp to work with the kids at the community centre there. They count on us to be at the camp at least five times a week, so we try to find a brave driver to take us, otherwise we walk. We have now started a support group for boys 12-15 years old, and a similar one for girls 13-15. The world of these teenagers is filled with sadness and despair, and they look to us in building their hopes for a more promising future. Yet many of them believe they don't have a future. When we meet with the support groups, however, we have such a great time -- the world outside seems to disappear for those two hours we spend in dancing, laughing, and talking.

Bush at the U.N.: "Diplomacy" in the age of the American empire
By Robert Jensen and Rahul Mahajan, Media Monitors Network, September 14, 2002
In the age of American empire, this is what diplomacy looks like: After months of open expressions of contempt for international law and disregard for the opinions of other nations (allies and enemies alike), the U.S. president deigned to appear before the United Nations on September 12. In the hectoring tones of an annoyed parent scolding a fussy child, George Bush explained that he would be happy to go to war with the endorsement of the Security Council but that he does not consider such endorsement necessary. The United Nations can have a role, the president conceded, but if it makes the wrong decision it will be "irrelevant."

For American Jews, mixed allegiances
By Alice Rothchild, Boston Globe, September 14, 2002
AS AMERICAN Jews continue the self-reflection that heralds the beginning of the New Year, we find ourselves caught in the anguish of our mixed allegiances, our fears for the survival of Israel and our horror at the year's accumulation of trauma and hatred. How has our community fared during this violent year? How has our experience of oppression and our tradition of defending social justice and human rights informed our community's behavior?

Remembering the Killing Fields of Sabra and Shatila
By Wahida Valiante, Media Monitors Network, September 14, 2002
Saturday, September 16th, 2002 marks 20 years since the worst atrocity of Israel's invasion of Lebanon. On that date, Lebanese Christian Phalangists began a three-day killing spree in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. They had been let in after Israeli soldiers sealed off the two camps when they occupied the western sector of Beirut, the Lebanese capital. This horrific operation cost the lives of 17,500 Lebanese and Palestinians, almost all of them civilians -- defenseless old men, women, children, and infants. Three months later, on December 16, 1982, the terrorism at Sabra and Shatila was condemned by the United Nations General Assembly, which declared it an act of genocide.