Democrats Playing Catch-up in Media War
By Norman Solomon, Palestine Chronicle, October 17, 2002
Many news stories and commentaries have marveled at the failure of Democrats to seize the high political ground this fall. With the United States’ economic stride continuing to falter under a Republican president, the main opposition party should be cruising for a triumph in the midterm elections. Instead, the Democratic Party may be lucky to hold its own in the House and Senate. The key problem, we’re told, is that Democrats come off second-best as defenders of national security and wielders of military might. Republicans have positioned themselves well to exploit their advantage on such issues when Americans vote on Nov. 5. But Americans ought to be asking deeper questions about why this situation exists.

Leila Khaled — Hijacked by Destiny
By Timur Moon, Palestine Chronicle, October 17, 2002
Palestinian fighter Leila Khaled sits discreetly in the backroom of an old Palestinian chemist on London’s Edgware Road. In her heyday she hijacked airplanes. Portraits of the 1970s revolutionary swathed in Arabic keffiyeh, clutching a Kalashnikov were as iconic as images of Che Guevara. In 1969, aged 25 and armed with grenades and handguns, she became the first woman ever to hijack an airliner, diverting a TWA flight to Damascus, where she escaped after securing the release of hostages in exchange for political prisoners, and destroying the plane on the ground.

A Fool and his Foreign Policy are Soon Parted
By William Rivers Pitt
truthout, October 18, 2002
For the second time in as many months, the leader of the free world has been out-generaled by a tinhorn dictator from some far-flung corner of the globe. The first humiliation came when Saddam Hussein upended George W. Bush's combat applecart by offering to open his country to United Nations weapons inspectors. The timing was perfect - Bush, who had been whooping and snorting for unilateral and pre-emptive war in Iraq since late August, was forced to crab his way before Congress and the Security Council because Hussein's offer blew his battle-minded program right off the tracks. The second humiliation was splashed across the front pages of every newspaper today, and is far more subtle a game. North Korea, a charter member of the Axis of Evil, was revealed today to have a robust nuclear weapons program. Moreover, North Korean officials have confirmed that they "have more powerful things as well," according to a report in the New York Times. This revelation blatantly defies and shatters a non-proliferation agreement created in 1994. Was the reaction of the Bush administration to call for immediate war and invasion? After all, we have no definitive proof that Iraq possesses nuclear capabilities, or chemical weapons capabilities, or biological weapons capabilities, or missile systems capable of delivering those weapons to America, and yet Bush has spent weeks storming and stomping for war. "We shall not live in fear," he said not long ago, even though we have no proof that there is anything to be afraid of. War was the answer, the only answer, period.

North Korea, Iraq
Editorial, Arab News, October 19, 2002
It appears that North Korea has admitted to US officials that, despite its commitments enshrined in a 1994 agreement, it has undertaken a program to enrich nuclear fuel as part of a covert drive to acquire nuclear weapons. North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran, comprise the states branded by Washington as an “axis of evil”. President Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was also known to be busy trying to acquire a nuclear capability, but it is widely believed that UN weapons inspectors detected and then destroyed most of the equipment needed to create a nuclear bomb. The new UN inspection regime probably stands a good chance of discovering and destroying any new Iraqi nuclear program. North Korea, also like Iraq, has invaded a neighbor and obliged the UN, led by American forces, to intervene massively. North Korea’s past and present leaders, Kim il-Sung and his son Kim Jong-il are like Iraq’s dictator, the subject of official personality cults. So, are the 40,000 US troops based in South Korea being quietly put on a war footing and is Washington squaring up for a second attack on an axis of evil, one which, presumably, it believes subscribes to and supports international terrorism? Apparently not.

Reform by Imprisonment
Sam Bahour, The Electronic Intifada, October 14, 2002
While the most brutal of measures are being taken against the Palestinian population, the world is being deceived into believing that political reforms can happen in the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. As the Bush Administration continues to call for regime change in the Palestinian Authority, Israel is silently pursuing a violent strategy of establishing internment camps that imprison Palestinians from all walks of life. With over 12,000 acts of detainment and over 5,000 Palestinian detainees now languishing in Israeli jails, the façade of reform unfolds in a political vacuum.

Preempting Transfer: Israel May "Transfer" Palestinians During the War on Iraq
By Will Youmans, Dissident Voice, October 12, 2002
In 1989 Benjamin Netanyahu told students at Bar-Ilan University: "Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories." Many commentators and the Palestinian public in general are worried that the Israeli government will not miss the opportunity with impending war on Iraq. Around one hundred Israeli academics wrote a letter warning that talk of transfer, a sanitized term for ethnic cleansing, is increasing within mainstream political discourse in Israel. The letter warned that the "Israeli ruling coalition includes parties that promote 'transfer' of the Palestinian population as a solution to what they call 'the demographic problem'". It cited a recent interview in Ha'aretz, by chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon. He discussed the possible need for a special "treatment" in the occupied territories. Prime minister Sharon supported his "assessment of reality." The letter also mentioned that, "escalating racist demagoguery" in Israel "may indicate the scope of the crimes that are possibly being contemplated." In August, 2002, Ali Abunimah published an expose on Gamla, "a group founded by former Israeli military officers and settlers." Its website featured a technical paper entitled "The Logistics of Transfer," which calls for Israel to ethnically cleanse all of the Palestinian territories as "the only possible solution." Besides offering instructional suggestions, it provides a theological justification for those not convinced by the political rationale. More mainstream voices have considered it in disturbingly acquiescent tones.

Israel's Pro War Virus Attacks Capitol Hill
By William Hughes, Palestine Chronicle, October 18, 2002
"Netanyahu also suggested that U.S. made television programs, whose contents depict sexually explicit material and crass materialism, be broadcast via satellite, to Iran ..":  Whenever Benjamin Netanyahu lands in Washington, D.C., he heads straight for Capitol Hill. Since 9/11, the former Israel’s Prime Minister has been repeatedly called as a “friendly” witness before House legislative committees, and senatorial forums, which all tend to display a pro-Israeli tilt. The House’s Government Reform Committee is his favorite. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), who also co-chairs the House’s Human Rights Caucus, is one of the ranking Democrats on it. On Sept. 12, 2002, Netanyahu gave that committee its marching orders, when he ranted, “I speak for the overwhelming majority of Israelis in supporting a preemptive strike against Saddam’s regime.” His theme, before the Congress, is always the same: “Israel and the U.S. must jointly stand” against terrorism. Keep in mind, that this was weeks before President George Bush submitted, and the Congress approved, the notorious pro-Iraq War Resolution.