Sharon on the Rampage
Editorial, Arab News 10/6/2003
No one doubted that there would be Israeli reprisals after Saturday’s suicide bomb attack in Haifa. But no one in their wildest dreams imagined that the target would be Syria.
Why Syria? For all its hard-line rhetoric against Israel, there has not been a shot fired across the makeshift frontier on the Golan Heights for years. If the Israelis were seriously interested in hitting Islamic Jihad, they could have done so far more effectively in the Gaza Strip or with a strike on one of its bases in Lebanon. Yet they chose a target deep in Syrian territory even though both the Syrians and Islamic Jihad deny there are any bases there.
This was no message to Islamic Jihad. It was a cold, unambiguous threat to Syria: Either jump to Israel’s diktats or else. There can be no question about it. Immediately after the strike, the Israelis then warned Syria there would be more if it did not close down so-called terrorist organizations.
An inevitable conclusion must be that the Israelis were acting on behalf of the US; it is difficult to believe that that they would have struck without the green light from Washington.
The Israeli Systematic Policy of Attacking and Desecrating the Palestinian Islamic and Christian Holy Places
Report, International Press Center 10/5/2003
Attacking and desecrating the Islamic and Christian worship places is a daily action of the Israeli occupation, violating the rights of the Palestinian Moslems and Christian citizens to practice the freedom of worship. The occupation forces shell mosques and churches. They even force the Palestinian citizens to pay fines claiming that the Moslems' "call to prayer" as being noisy. However, the Palestinians say: "if the Israelis are annoyed with our "call to prayer", why should they stay on our land?"
On the other hand, the Israeli forces have taken control over all the roads which lead to Al-Aqsa Mosque and have besieged it with a separating wall that prevents the Palestinians from reaching it. This Israeli interference snowballed till it touched the very privacy of the Palestinian society.
Shelling Mosques and Churches: At the time Omar Bin Al Khattab Mosque was being shelled in Bethlehem, the Israeli forces were also shelling the Church of Nativity with no regard to their sanctity. In the West Bank city of Hebron, the Israeli occupation forces had unfairly taken control over a part of Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in order to use it as a synagogue.
In addition, the Israeli forces prevented the Palestinian Moslems from reaching Al-Aqsa Mosque to perform their prayers and prevented the Palestinian Christians from reaching the Church of Holy Sepulcher to perform their religious rites. Moreover, the Israeli forces attacked the Muslim religious scholars and the Christian clergymen on their way to perform prayers.
Sliding towards chaos
Editorial, The Guardian 10/6/2003
The attack on civilians in Haifa on Saturday by a lone suicide bomber was an act of infamy. However keen an individual's sense of grievance, however great a people's sense of injustice, there is no justifying such pitiless slaughter. Islamic Jihad, which admitted responsibility, has once again done grave disservice to the Palestinian cause. But Israel's response to the attack is equally unjustified. Its air raid deep inside Syrian territory was a reckless act typical of Israel's leader, Ariel Sharon. It will dissipate international sympathy and further entrench Arab hostility. Mr Sharon has a genius for putting Israel in the wrong.
It is unlikely that the assault on the alleged Islamic Jihad training camp north of Damascus will curb future terrorist attacks; quite the opposite, in fact. The Maxim restaurant atrocity will meanwhile convince ever more Israelis that a peace settlement is impossible. Between the two of them, Hanadi Jaradat, the Haifa bomber, and Mr Sharon, have in effect conspired to guarantee that there will be more victims and more violence, now perhaps increasingly acted out on a regional scale. That this escalatory cycle of attack and counter-attack is bitterly familiar does not make it any more acceptable or sane.
That Mr Sharon is now openly threatening further transnational, anti-terrorist operations against Syria, Lebanon and even Iran is a matter of grave and urgent concern for all responsible nations. Syria's decision to take the matter to the UN security council last night, rather than resort to rash retaliation, provides a small glimmer of common sense in an otherwise anarchic, utterly irrational situation. Israel's action was a clear, contemptuous breach of international law; Haifa was a horrendous affront to all human decency.
Catastrophe Scenario
By Abdulwahab Badrakhan, Al-Hayat 10/6/2003
And now, Israel has started enjoying its strategic 'gains' from the American occupation of Iraq, initiating a game of expanding the confrontation in the region; yesterday, it was against Syria, and today or tomorrow it could be the turn of Lebanon or Iran. In fact, it has attempted to do this in Lebanon for years, not sparing any place where Palestinians were, but the attempts were in vain.
Israel's problem is the occupation, though it thinks that the solution is in this occupation. In order to protect and prolong it, it is now working on sparking a traditional war with Syria; but such wars no longer exist, for reasons that are well known, like for instance the balance of power. As for the tactics of targeted and limited strikes, they did not work in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip or Lebanon. As such, they are hopeless in Syria's case.
....It has become clear why Israel suddenly pushed the buttons to fabricate the whole "Guantanamo spies" comedy and the alleged relation to Syria. Many of those present in the detention camp might well have gotten there thanks to the Syrian security cooperation with the U.S. in terms of fighting terror. But it is all right to forget about all that, as long as the Zionists in the institutions and the media want to serve Israel and pave the way for the next stage of its war. Besides these "spies," there is, of course, what is being said daily about "Arab volunteers" inside Iraq, which could mean that the American-Israeli war has already begun and does no longer consist of simple threats or warnings. It could also mean that "Accountability" has become a reality, with or without a Congressional law.
Israel's attack is a lethal step towards war in Middle East
By Robert Fisk, Fairuse 10/6/2003
Israel received the Green Light. It came from what is called the Syria Accountability Act, moving through the United States Congress with the help of Israel's supporters, that will impose sanctions on Damascus for its supposed enthusiasm for "terrorism" and occupation of Lebanon.
Speaker after speaker in the past week has been warning that Syria is the new - or old, or non-existent - threat previously represented by Iraq: that it has weapons of mass destruction, that it has biological warheads, that it received Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction just before we began our illegal invasion of Iraq in March.
The Israeli lie about "thousands" of Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon has been uncloaked yet again. In reality, there hasn't been an Iranian militant in Lebanon for 20 years. But who cares? The dictatorial Syrian regime - and dictatorial it most decidedly is - has to be struck after a Jenin woman lawyer, who has probably never visited Damascus in her life, blows herself and 19 innocent Israelis up in Haifa.
And why not? If America can strike Afghanistan for the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001, when 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, and if America can invade Iraq, which had absolutely nothing to do with 11 September, why shouldn't Israel strike Syria?
The block of recognition
By Zafrir Rinat, Ha'aretz 10/5/2003
The Arab village of Ein Hud has existed for decades on the western slopes of Mount Carmel; the village, a wholly palpable entity to its residents, is not recognized by the state and, as such, is not entitled to basic services. The state simply didn't decide what to do with the villagers, who, in 1948, were forced to leave their previous home, which is now the nearby artists' village of Ein Hod.
Nearly 10 years ago, the government decided that in the case of Ein Hud, justice and logic require the problem to be resolved by granting the village official recognition. The decision was left intact by subsequent governments. Extensive discussions were held on the subject by planning institutions at various levels, and a decision was made to allocate land for the community.
...two MKs, who were the only ones present two weeks ago at a committee meeting in which the plan was discussed, decided in the meantime not to approve it. This was another disappointment for the residents of Ein Hud who, in the absence of an approved plan for their village, cannot go ahead with an orderly, legal planning process that will also include the construction of housing.
The result is that the residents of Ein Hud find themselves in a new trap. Until 10 years ago, everything they built was defined as illegal. After they received official government recognition, they had to continue building to meet housing needs, even though the recognition they were granted was not accompanied by a master plan for construction. Now, Knesset members are liable to claim that the construction in the village is illegal and place new obstacles on the road to the village's final recognition.
The painful truths that now confront Syria's reformists
By David Hirst, The Guardian 10/6/2003
Fadil Shururu, chief political officer of Ahmad Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, has come a long way since I first met him 35 years ago in Jordan's Ghor valley, seedbed of the guerrilla movement that aimed to liberate the Palestinian land lost in 1948. Syria's Ba'athist regime was then its militant Arab backer. But now he could not even receive me in his office, coming instead to my hotel. For the PFLP-GC is one of four Palestinian "terrorist" organisations whose Damascus branch the US has called on Syria to shut down.
In the case of the inactive PFLP-GC, Syrian acquiescence seems to have been cosmetic, though more substantive in the case of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whose alleged training camp - actually, it seems, a disused PFLP-GC camp near the village of Ain al-Saheb, where some Palestinians may live - Israel claimed to have struck yesterday.
Unlike Jibril, Syria quietly asked Ramadan Shallah, the Islamic Jihad leader, to leave the country. "But mark my words," said Shururu, "the time is coming when George Bush will need Bashar Assad more than Bashar needs him."
What is not in doubt is that the Arab government that, because of its support for Saddam during the Iraq war, most feared that it, too, was about to be attacked believes that the US is now sinking into an Iraqi "quagmire". And the relief in Damascus is palpable. "Who is more comfortable now," asked the deputy foreign minister, Walid Muallim, "Syria or the US?"
Background on and Motives for the Arrest of Abdurahman Alamoudi
By Ahmed Yousef and Betty Molchany, Media Monitors Network 10/4/2003
"This Administration's war on terrorism is actually a war on the Muslim community and the civil liberties of all Americans. Our leadership, organizations, charities, and places of worship are being targeted by the Department of Justice which scapegoats Muslims by exploiting our political vulnerability." - Mahdi Bray, MAS Freedom Foundation, Sept. 30, 2003 -- Background: On September 29, 2003, Abdurahman Alamoudi, Executive Director of the American Muslim Foundation (AMF), was arrested at Dulles Airport in Sterling, Virginia (just outside the Metropolitan Washington, D.C., area), after having returned from a tour of Arab countries where he participated in a variety of Islamic programs. He had combined this schedule with the leisure of having his family with him.
Charges filed against Mr. Alamoudi by the Federal government allege that he illegally visited Libya and received financial assistance from [the Libyan] World Islamic Call Society and also from the Libyan Mission to the United Nations and, further, that he planned to distribute these funds to "terrorist" organizations in Syria. Alamoudi denies all these allegations as well as statements that were allegedly said by him to British authorities.
As it is with NGO's, such as charities, think tanks, and political organizations, they obviously operate based on financial contributions. Monies Alamoudi receives are for the AMF which he heads, a well-known social service establishment that provides assistance and relief to those who are in need within the Islamic immigrant community in the United States. The foundation runs a medical clinic as well as an outreach library to explain Islam to the public.
The Racism Barrier: Answering William Safire
By M. Junaid Alam, Dissident Voice 10/4/2003
In the United States, the Palestinian narrative receives the same brutally dismissive treatment meted out to the dispossessed natives whose moving plight it strongly conveys. Concrete evidence is blocked and barred entrance at the gates of serious social discourse much as Palestine’s pregnant women are stalled and forced to give birth dangerously at checkpoints; important historical facts and statistics are swept aside like the lives of stone-throwing youths shot dead by ruthless occupation soldiers; undeniable facts on the ground are met with shameful silence by the mainstream media, their mastery over the art of indifference evidenced by a lack of outrage against the crushing realities imposed upon an increasingly desperate Palestinian mass pressed under the Israeli boot.
No doubt complicity in colonialism requires such cowardice as a national necessity: can a nation hand over its billions, its tanks, its fighter aircraft - its foreign policy -- to a settler-state without also relinquishing every basic and fundamental principle of human justice? The last of these exports, of course, must be cloaked in the most deliberate distortions and obfuscations, hidden and buried under layers of disinformation and lies, so as to soothe the conscience of initial doubters and stifle criticism evinced by those unimpressed with the farce playing out before them.
New Definition of Anti-Semitism
By Jihad Al Khazen, Al-Hayat 10/6/2003
Over the past few weeks, I noticed that an increasing number of Jewish Likudists around the world have been reading the Arab press, especially the press that is translated to English and published on the Internet. They either make comments or respond, and most of the time they accuse the reporter of this broad accusation of "anti-Semitism."
In the past, anti-Semitism used to mean a person who hates Jews. Today, in the era of Sharon's Likudnik immorality, it means any person hated by the Jews. I used to object to letters I received complaining about what I said about the Israeli government and its practices. The people sending me the letters considered what I said as being against the Jews in general, although I am always cautious and rarely attack Israel without mentioning that the majority of Jews in Israel still wish for a peaceful solution and that the majority of Jews in the world are moderate liberals with whom it is easy to make peace.
This was and still is my opinion, and I have always objected to my articles being read in a selective manner; nevertheless, I found some consolation when Edgard Bronfman, a committed Zionist presiding the World Jewish Forum, was victim of a defamation campaign, waged by radicals who have blood on their hands, such as Ariel Sharon. He had dared send President Bush a letter objecting to Israel's construction of the security wall on Palestinian territory.
Palestine and Israel: Unkind History, Uncertain Future
By Ziad Asali, MD, Palestine Monitor 9/22/2003
For a conflict that has been described as intractable, insoluble and "centuries old", the most dramatic feature about the Palestine/ Israel conflict is the near unanimous agreement about the contours of its final resolution.
The majority of the Palestinians, Israelis, Arabs, Jews, Americans, Europeans, and people all over the world as well as global institutions and bodies are in support of an outline that goes as follows:
1. A two-state solution, Palestine alongside Israel, with borders established on international legality defined by UN Resolution 242, with minor mutually agreed-upon adjustments.
2. A shared, open Jerusalem, with the Arab part serving as a capital for Palestine and the Jewish part serving as the capital of Israel.
3. End of occupation and settlements.
4. A fair and equitable solution of the refugee problem, based on international legality, with resettlements, compensation and redress of moral and psychological grievances.
5. End of conflict and a complete cessation of violence between Israel and all Arab States, including Palestine, with open borders and normalized relations for all.
6. A Marshall Plan to rebuild Palestine and provide an underpinning for a lasting peace.
The Alternatives: The alternatives to this solution, one secular state, a bi-national state, continued occupation and apartheid, or mass transfer of millions of Palestinians, are not worthy of serious discussion at this point in our history, although they are bandied about.
|
