The Palestinians Are No Longer Alone
By John Pilger, Palestine Chronicle, October 10, 2002   
"The distinguished Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, whose works are taught in universities all over the world and who describes my film as "balanced [and] faultless in its historical description", is called a "pro-Arab dog" and worse..": Edward Said once asked who, if not the writer, will "defeat the imposed silence and normalised quiet of power". Ghada Karmi is such a writer. Her book In Search of Fatima: a Palestinian story, to be published this month by Verso, is one of the finest, most eloquent and painfully honest memoirs of the Palestinian exile and displacement, which western power and its creature, Israel, have "normalised".

Bitter harvest  
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz, October 12, 2002
For years, settlers would chop down Palestinians' olive trees or prevent them from working their land. Now a new trend has emerged: the theft of olives. This week, a Palestinian was killed and two others wounded when settlers opened fire on them as they worked in their grove: Mohammed Obeid couldn't believe his eyes. Standing in his olive grove, between the dozens of trees he had planted on the sloping land, trees he had tended and watered after clearing the land of rocks and plowing the soil, was a group of people - about 10 armed men, a woman and a dog. They were picking the olives. He rubbed his eyes in astonishment. Who were these people who were on his land, taking his olives? Very soon, though, he recognized the uninvited guests. They were residents of the old settlement of Tapuah and of the new settlement of Tapuah, among the most extreme and violent of the settlers in the West Bank.

The Case against Ariel Sharon
By Laurence Dang, Palestine Chronicle, October 11, 2002
"Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that threat."
These were the words which President Bush used to convince the American public and the world at large of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to peace and stability in the Middle East. I am but a humble citizen and nothing close to a president. However, I would like to submit to the American public and the world at large the existence of a much graver threat: a threat which, if left unchecked, may come back to haunt us one day; a threat which has proven in the past and will prove in the future to plague the Middle East with a history of terror and aggression and cannot be allowed to grow unfettered and beyond the radar of the world's probing eye. This threat is Ariel Sharon. Let me explain my reasons in making this claim and allow me, in doing so, to reuse some of President Bush's words for a sightly different purpose.

MachsomWatch reports on the checkpoints and roadblocks in the Jerusalem and Bethlehem areas
MachsomWatch, Ariga, October 9, 2002
MachsomWatch started its observations in February, 2001 with three women and as of October 2002 numbers 80 volunteers in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and the Jezreel Valley area. Members include Jewish and Palestinian Israeli women aged from early twenties to over 70. Observations are conducted twice daily and a report is issued after each shift. When reading them remember that no Palestinian may enter Israel, nor indeed move freely around the West Bank (and Gaza), without a permit from the Israeli authorities. Presented here in edited form, our reports give a day-by-day account of the checkpoints. Many of them describe a routine that is devoid of drama, and bloodshed, and perhaps all the more for shocking for that. The sights we see, the experiences we undergo, together with Palestinians citizens forced to make their way across these obstacles are those of human heartbreak and the abuse of the most fundamental human rights: the right of freedom of movement, access to medical care, access to education. Full versions of these reports may be obtained from machsomwatch@hotmail.com

Always a fighter, always a terrorist 
By Amira Hass, Alternative Information Center, October 10th, 2002 
These are the rules of war as laid down over the last two years: A Palestinian is a terrorist when he attacks Israeli civilians on both sides of the Green Line - in Israel and the territories - and when he attacks Israeli soldiers at the gates of a Palestinian city. A Palestinian is a terrorist when an army unit breaks into his neighborhood with tanks and he shoots at a soldier who gets out of a tank for a moment, and he is a terrorist when he is hit by helicopter fire and is holding a rifle. Palestinians are terrorists whether they kill civilians or soldiers. The Israeli soldier is a fighter when he shoots a missile from a helicopter or a shell from a tank at a group of people who gather in Khan Yunis, after the fighter or one of his colleagues fires a shell or a missile at a house - from which the army says a Qassam rocket was fired - and kills a man and woman. He is a fighter when he encounters two armed Palestinians in the brush. The Israeli soldier kills armed people and kills civilians. He kills senior commanders of battalions of murderous terrorists and he kills kindergarten-aged children and the elderly in their homes. More accurately, they are killed by IDF fire. Most accurately, they are killed, claim Palestinian sources.

Divestment Done Wrong
By Andy Serwer, Fortune, October 14, 2002
A movement against companies that do business in Israel misses the point: I find this strategy rather misguided. Not because I am pro-Israel or anti-Palestinian--for the record, I am neither. And not because the situations in South Africa 20 years ago and Israel today are radically different, even though that's true. I'm finding fault on a very narrow point: how they sort through and identify which U.S. companies do business with Israel.

The voice of America
By Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, October 12, 2002
Only his people can stop Bush now - and many are speaking out against war in Iraq: Who can stop Bush on Iraq? Not the UN security council, it seems, where US diplomatic kneecapping and punishment beatings proceed apace. Not an intimidated US Congress where, with honourable exceptions, the call to arms trumpets irresistibly over November's hustings. And not any number of international lawyers, vainly brandishing the UN charter and pre-emptively disregarded by high counsel to the White House hyperpower. In Whitehall, worried marchers scare pigeons but not the Pentagon. As the drum beats and the rhetoric rises, respected analysts opine that nothing now can prevent the war. Bush will have his way because, whatever bishops and imams vicariously preach, no power on earth can stop him.

America and tribalism
By Ali Al-Mousa/Al-Watan, Arab News, October 12, 2002
Confirmed reports say the American Embassy in Riyadh has added the inclusion of tribe’s name as a condition for visa applications submitted by Saudi citizens who want to visit the United States. It is clear the American authorities have added this condition in response to security concerns gripping the country since 9/11. That is why the authorities treat us as one big tribe. America has also proved its inability to understand our social fabric and our demographic structure despite its huge intelligence capabilities and cultural influence.

Will Bush's carve-up of Iraq include getting hands on its oil?
By Robert Fisk, The Independent, October 12, 2002
There is no Emperor of Iraq – or is there? The problem for General Tommy Franks – if he really does turn up in Baghdad to play the role of General Douglas MacArthur – is that the one unifying, sovereign symbol that held Japan together amid the ashes of nuclear defeat in 1945 was the Emperor Hirohito, mysteriously absolved of all responsibility for Japan's atrocities in the Second World War. His military underlings went to the gallows on his behalf.