The empty square
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz 9/15/2003
Are there not at least 100,000 Israelis who are shocked by what Israel is doing to the Palestinians these days? Isn't there at least a tiny minority of a few tens of thousands who are losing sleep over the targeted assassinations? Or over the separation wall that is tearing Palestinians from their land? Or over the mass imprisonment that an entire nation has been living in for almost three years? Or over the abuse and humiliation an entire nation is being subjected to? Aren't there at least 10,000 Israelis who are not willing to remain silent? Does nothing that happens to our neighbors under the occupation have anything to do with us?
Judging by the conventional criteria of public mood and public readiness to act, the answer to all these questions is a resounding no.
The occupation has disappeared from the Israeli agenda and the Palestinians are not present as long as they don't perpetrate terrorism. Every day of quiet in Israel is another day of crass disregard of what is going on in our backyard. If there's no terrorism, there are no Palestinians.
The Beloved Obstacle
Editorial, Miftah 9/12/2003
The Israeli cabinet gave a green light to expel the elected President and historical leader of the Palestinian people, Yasser Arafat (Abu Amar). The extreme Israeli right-wing government headed by Ariel Sharon took the decision. With eight votes in favor and three in opposition, two of the opposing votes were from Israeli ministers preferring to have Arafat killed; the expulsion of Abu Amar has now become Israeli policy.
This irresponsible and provocative decision by Israel has proven to be the silliest and most ill-thought decision taken in recent history. The Israelis were forced to automatically defend their position by saying “this is a decision in ‘principle’ to expel Arafat.” Further embarrassment came when the Israeli Prime Minister ordered the army to draw a plan for Arafat’s expulsion, despite there being several plans drafted over the last two years.
The reality of the Israeli cabinet is terrifying, as Sharon has become the most moderate figure in the Israeli government. Sharon, who has opposed every peace agreement ever signed, including the 1979 peace treaty with the Egyptians, has been long known to the locals and internationals as the true obstacle to peace. Responsible for war-crimes, massacres and settlement building on stolen Palestinian hilltops in the West Bank and Gaza, Sharon has always opposed peace efforts calling the late Rabin, Arafat’s partner in peace, a traitor, indirectly leading to his murder. Moreover, Sharon is responsible for the construction of the separation wall, which would effectively set up de facto borders and confiscate some of the most fertile Palestinian land, symbolising another barrier to peace.
A Disaster Foretold
By Uri Avnery, Miftah 9/15/2003
So now it is official: the government of Israel has decided to assassinate Yasser Arafat.
Not any more to “exile”. Not any more to “expel or kill”. Simply to “remove”.
Of course, the intention is not to remove him to another country. Nobody seriously believes that Yasser Arafat will raise his hands and allow himself to be marched off. He and his men will be killed “during the exchange of fire”. This would not be the first time.
Even if it was possible to expel Arafat to another country, nobody in the Israeli leadership would dream of doing so. How come? Allow him to make the rounds of Putin, Schroeder and Chirac? God forbid. So the plan is to remove him to the next world.
Not immediately. The Americans forbid it. It may make Bush angry. Sharon does not want to annoy Bush.
Some people comfort themselves with the thought that this is just an empty resolution. It is supposed to be implemented at a time and in a way yet to be decided. But this is wishful thinking, a dangerous comfort. The decision legitimizing his assassination is by itself a far-reaching political act. It is intended to get the Israeli and international public used to the idea. What used to sound like a crazy plot by extreme fanatics now has the air of a legitimate political process, with only the time and mode of implementation still open.
Embracing democracy, Arab style
By Laurie King-Irani, Daily Star 9/15/2003
Must the political culture of democracy be uniform? Does democratization automatically entail Westernization? These questions are no longer academic.
The desire to democratize Iraq is a key reason justifying the messy attempt at regime change in Baghdad. According to some pundits, the violence now afflicting Iraq stems not from Western leaders’ poor judgment in launching a pre-emptive war, but from the impossibility of establishing democracy in the Arab-Islamic world. Official statements and media narratives suggest that a large percentage of the American public assumes that “democratization” means “Americanization.” Implicit in such assumptions is a theory of human nature rooted in far-reaching, and unexamined, value judgments about American and non-American ways of doing democracy.
Nowadays, “democracy” seems interchangeable with “liberty” in official US statements. These are some of President George W. Bush’s favorite terms, along with “war on terror” and “God bless America.” According to Bush, a prime motivation for the Anglo-American war on Iraq was to free the Iraqi people so they could vote, administer and worship as they pleased. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared that freedom was inherently “untidy.” By its very nature, it poses an inevitable risk that individuals might behave badly as they pursue their self-interest.
Those in glass houses ...
By Roshan Muhammed Salih, Al-Jazeera 9/10/2003
The Arab League’s condemnation of Saddam Hussein’s human rights record will be seen by many as the height of hypocrisy.
In a resolution adopted in Cairo on Tuesday, Arab foreign ministers lambasted Hussein’s “assassinations, genocides, mass graves and killing of prisoners”.
And while the ex-Iraqi dictator’s reputation is well deserved, some will think it a bit rich for Arab leaders to pontificate about human rights.
Critics argue the Arab world is characterised by severe limitations on personal freedoms, a strict control of the media, and strong repression of dissidence.
In their defence, Arab states claim some of the harsh measures they have taken are justified in a struggle against “domestic terrorism”.
Condemnation: But despite the claims, respected human rights organsation Amnesty International is unequivocal in its condemnation of Arab states.
In its human rights report for 2003, Amnesty took three prominent Arab countries – Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria – severely to task.
According to Amnesty, in Egypt there are thousands of suspected supporters of banned Islamist groups in detention without charge or trial.
Others are serving sentences imposed after grossly unfair trials before military courts.
And torture and ill-treatment of detainees continues to be systematic.
Heart of darkness
By Luke Harding, The Guardian 9/15/2003
As a young backpacker Luke Harding found India charming and eccentric. Fifteen years later he returned as the Guardian's correspondent. Now, after finishing his time there, he recalls how one terrible incident of sectarian violence in Gujarat brought his love affair with the country to an end -- I can identify the moment I fell out of love with India quite precisely. It happened at the end of last February. Riots had just broken out in the western state of Gujarat, after a group of Muslims attacked a train full of Hindu pilgrims, killing 59 of them. In Gujarat's main city, Ahmedabad, trouble was brewing. Hindu mobs had begun taking revenge on their Muslim neighbours - there were stories of murder, looting and arson. Arriving in Ahmedabad from Delhi, I found it impossible to hire a car or driver: nobody wanted to drive into the riots.
But the trouble was not difficult to find: smoke billowed from above Ahmedabad's old city; and I set off towards it on foot. There were rumours that a mob had hacked to death Ahsan Jafri - a distinguished Indian former MP, and a Muslim - whose Muslim housing estate was surrounded by a sea of Hindu houses. A team from Reuters gave me a lift. Driving through streets full of burned-out shops and broken glass we arrived half an hour later outside his compound, surrounded by thousands of people. Jafri had been dead for several hours, it emerged. A Hindu mob had tipped kerosene through his front door; a few hours later they had dragged him out into the street, chopped off his fingers, and set him on fire. They also set light to several other members of his family, including two small boys. There wasn't much left of Jafri's Gulbarg Housing Society by the time we got there: at the bottom of his stairs I discovered a pyre of human remains - hair and the tiny blackened arm of a child, its fist clenched.
A War Crime or an Act of War?
By Stephen C. Pelletiere, Common Dreams/New York Times 1/31/2003
MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — It was no surprise that President Bush, lacking smoking-gun evidence of Iraq's weapons programs, used his State of the Union address to re-emphasize the moral case for an invasion: "The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured."
The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its citizens is a familiar part of the debate. The piece of hard evidence most frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi Kurds at the town of Halabja in March 1988, near the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people," specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein.
But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story.
I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.
Sequestered "Quartet"
By Abdulwahab Badrakhan, Al-Hayat 9/15/2003
The five major states, members of the Security Council, are trying to give the impression that they have a role to play in ongoing developments, especially in Iraq and Israel. But the word and deed - and sometimes the non-deed - are really up to the U.S. The Iraqi situation, from A to Z, depends on Washington's decisions. As for the Palestinian file, it appears that Israel has confiscated it, in conspiracy with the U.S. administration. This is why other countries are not making any moves, as they are nothing more than part of the international decor.
True, there are discussions aimed at sharing responsibilities and expenses in Iraq, but the only goal is to alleviate the burden on the U.S., no more no less, even if the five countries reach preliminary agreements to facilitate their cooperation. However, the occupation has created a reality on the ground that far exceeds these agreements. Besides, the American authority over the Iraqi parties is too strong to be broken, and it is difficult for these parties, which are supposed to take over, to move without American consent. Hence, the Iraqi situation is already arranged and shut to changes, except for the few issues the Americans have failed to deal with, such as the need for additional troops and for financial aid for rebuilding the country.
....What positive results did the Quartet meeting in Geneva have? 'Reviving' the Roadmap? A 'message' that Sharon's government is supposed to understand, knowing that it made a decision to kill the Palestinian leader? The American President has already shown his reliance on his Israeli ally to prove, in the speech he made to declare having 'cancelled' Arafat from the people America would deal with, as to prove that he is aware of his responsibilities. However, the ally acted like a gang of criminals yearning for blood, and they have no plans but to kill and destroy, meaning to remove the others - Arafat and others - as long as they have the American license to kill without any restraints.
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