Four Reasons Why Palestinian Factions Did Not Kill the Americans in Gaza
By Brian Wood, Palestine Chronicle 10/21/2003
How is it physically possible, given the last three years of events, that a Palestinian could carry a large bomb and plant it close to an Israeli military position when normal Palestinians going about routine civic practices have been killed with regularity for approaching to closely to Israeli positions? -- In a surprise turn of events in Gaza last week, three private security personnel attached to the US State Department were killed when their armored convoy was blown up by a roadside bomb. The convoy was traveling near Beit Hanoun, a Palestinian town tightly situated under the watchful eye of the Erez Crossing, a large, institutionalized, and Israeli military checkpoint. The town and its inhabitants survive among the morsels left to them after several extended Israeli military thrashings, which have taken dozens of lives and negatively affected operational capabilities of every piece of infrastructure or institution. This includes basic icons of any society, such as schools, hospitals, and sewage systems.
....There are four reasons to disbelieve that any Palestinian faction carried out this operation, which are easily demonstrable from recognizable trends of the past three years. They are: Only the Israeli military has attacked foreigners in Gaza, including diplomats from around the globe, Palestinian factions take open and unabashed claim for their military maneuvers, the physical possibility of a Palestinian setting such an explosive device would only be done with the consent of the Israelis, and finally, only the Israeli military has historically attacked Palestinian education.
The ‘Israelization’ of the United States
Daily Star 10/22/2003
Few disputed at the time that Israel was a factor that pushed Bush to go to war on Iraq. Just how much weight it had among all the others was the only controversial question. But what is clear is that Israel has become a very important one indeed in the stumbling neo-imperial venture that is Iraq today.
This “Israelization” of US policy crossed a new threshold with the two blows dealt Syria in recent days President Bush’s endorsement of Israel’s air raid on its territory and the Syrian Accountability Act passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday. A community of US-Israeli purpose pushed to unprecedented lengths is now operational as well as ideological. For the US, the primary battlefield is Iraq, and any state which sponsors or encourages resistance to its occupation; for Israel it is occupied Palestine, its “terrorists” and their external backers. These common objectives converge on Syria.
Of course, with his raid, Sharon had his own specifically Israel agenda, growing out of frustration at his failure to crush the intifada. Breaking the “rules” that have “contained” Israeli-Syrian armed conflict these past 30 years, he signaled his readiness to visit on Israel’s Arab neighbors the same punitive techniques he uses on the Palestinians. But whereas such an escalation might have had some deterrent logic when these neighbors truly did sponsor or harbor Palestinian resistance, it doesn’t now. An essential feature of the intifada is that, spontaneous and popular, it derives almost all its impetus from within; nothing illustrated that like Hanadi Jaradat, the young woman from Jenin whose very personal grief and vengeance prompted the atrocious, self-sacrificial deed which the prompted the raid in its turn. So, other than brief emotional gratification to the Israeli public, it achieved nothing. But that will not deter Sharon...
A new threat pops up - Egypt
By Reuven Pedatzur, Ha'aretz 10/22/2003
After the Iraqi threat evaporated, others, old and new, were immediately pulled out of the hat. After all, it is unthinkable that the threats to poor little Israel should be reduced; this might lead to a doomsday scenario - a drastic cut in the defense budget. So, the good old Syrian specter and the Iranian missiles were resuscitated, and a new threat was also tossed in - Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have suddenly become a serious threat now that they have deployed fighter jets at Tabuk airport, not far from Eilat.
The fact that the Syrian military is so weak that even Syrian officers don't believe it is capable of conducting a war against the Israel Defense Forces does not dissuade anyone from brandishing it as an existential threat that, of course, requires massive budgets. The Iranians may not have nuclear warheads and probably will not have any in the near future, but this is no reason to stop fearing them. The Saudis have had F-15s for many years, and the fact that a few of them have landed a little closer to Israel does not change the threat from this country one iota.
But apparently the defense establishment is not convinced that promulgating these threats is enough to stop further cuts in the defense budget, so they are exhuming the so-called Egyptian threat. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz cautioned last week against Egypt's arms stockpiling over the past few months. The defense establishment suddenly realized that Egypt was buying high-end weapons from the U.S. The excuse for the warning by Mofaz is Washington's intention to sell Egypt satellite-guided JDAM bombs. These are indeed precise weapons, but it is ridiculous to assert that they upgrade the Egyptian military and change the strategic balance against Israel....
The swallows are on their way
By Gideon Samet, Globes 10/22/2003
One swallow does not a summer make, but something is definitely happening in Israel's political swamp. In this season of continuous discontent, there are signs that Israeli society is gradually realizing that things cannot, or at least must not, continue along the path of political barricading, futile military vengefulness, incompetent leadership; in other words, that we cannot go on circumventing every chance for change. Take next week's mayoral elections, for example. It seems this will be the first time in years that the public will be expressing its objections against the administration at the polls, albeit indirectly.
The current, unprecedented political activism is also a case in point. Then, again, that's not saying much, compared to the track record of the Labor party in the last few years; since Barak's cabinet collapsed, the opposition has slipped into a coma. But it is now awakening. What has happened to Shimon Peres this week is an illustration of the change, because Peres personifies the party. After some indecipherable comments about the Geneva understandings conceived by his former disciple at the opening session of the Knesset, he finally gave Yossi Beilin's initiative the credit it deserves. Peres realized he has nothing else in which to rub the cabinet's face. And he is the first to recognize that if a solution can ever be found, and if Labor and the left-wing parties ever come up with a serious political platform, it can only be based on a blueprint of the kind proposed by Beilin and Abed Rabbo. This is how the oppositional voice suddenly changed: no longer empty slanders, but substantive texts that deserve pointed discussion.
Coalition of churches fights for Palestinian health rights
By Paul Jeffrey, Electronic Intifada/UMCOR 10/21/2003
The right of Palestinians to access quality health care continues to be impaired by the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, so hospitals supported by Action by Churches Together International are reaching out in new ways to deliver health care to isolated and besieged communities.
The United Methodist Committee on Relief is an active member of ACT.
A major problem, according to hospital administrators, is that the Israeli military has severely limited the access of Palestinians to health care facilities since the current intifada, or popular uprising, began in 2000.
Towns and villages are placed under curfew, earth and rubble are bulldozed into piles that block roads, and checkpoints run by Israeli soldiers regularly refuse to let Palestinians pass. Hundreds of people have died because patients traveling in ambulances or on their own were prevented from reaching clinics and hospitals.
Travel restrictions under Israel's state of siege constitute "a flagrant breach of human rights" that "impairs the ability of the sick to reach hospitals for treatment and of ambulances to transport the sick and wounded," according to a report by B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group that monitors conditions in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Listening to Mahathir
By Paul Krugman, New York Times 10/21/2003
"The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy: They get others to fight and die for them." So said Mahathir Mohamad, the prime minister of Malaysia, at an Islamic summit meeting last week. The White House promptly denounced his "hate-filled remarks."
Indeed, those remarks were inexcusable. But they were also calculated — for Mr. Mahathir is a cagey politician, who is neither ignorant nor foolish. And to understand why he made those remarks is to realize how badly things are going for U.S. foreign policy.
The fact is that Mr. Mahathir, though guilty of serious abuses of power, is in many ways about as forward-looking a Muslim leader as we're likely to find. And Malaysia is the kind of success story we wish we saw more of: an impressive record of economic growth, rising education levels and general modernization in a nation with a Muslim majority.
It's worth reading the rest of last week's speech, beyond the offensive 28 words. Most of it is criticism directed at other Muslims, clerics in particular. Mr. Mahathir castigates "interpreters of Islam who taught that acquisition of knowledge by Muslims meant only the study of Islamic theology." Thanks to these interpreters, "the study of science, medicine, etc. was discouraged....
Under American pressure, Damascus whistles in a graveyard
Editorial, Daily Star 10/22/2003
The news out of Tehran on Tuesday was a refreshing departure from what has been a string of depressing event in the Middle East. The British, French and German foreign ministers extracted a promise from the Islamic Republic that it would suspend its enrichment of uranium and implement the terms of an additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty even before the agreement has been ratified. The negotiations resulted in a palpable defusing of tensions, a fact that has to be viewed positively by everyone in the region except Syria. That country is now more exposed than ever, a situation made all the more perilous by what looks like its government’s failure to recognize the danger.
George W. Bush has a series of problems on his plate. His promise to remain engaged in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process lies in ruins, his adventure in Iraq sinks deeper into the morass with each passing day, US relations with the United Nations and other countries are a shambles, his government has set a new record for deficit spending, the American economic recovery is exceedingly fragile, and he has to face the voters in a little more than a year. Should one or more of these factors continue to erode his standing in the polls, the temptation to rally Americans around a new overseas military campaign will be great. Until now, the hawks in Washington have been divided over who should be “next” after Iraq: Iran or Syria. If EU intervention has indeed ended the Iranian nuclear standoff, those who advocate “regime change” in Damascus can only be strengthened.
Reform needs merger of 2 Saudi Arabias
By Jamal A. Khashoggi , Daily Star 10/22/2003
I was returning to my city, Jeddah, some years ago, when just before landing the voice of an air hostess broke the silence. She politely requested that passengers should hand over all magazines and newspapers, and warned of impending penalties for those who did not heed the advice. It was an unfortunate scene and an unwelcome gesture to all those coming to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
This ban was not officially sanctioned by the leaders of the state. It wouldn’t be suprising if the decision had been made by a junior official, after an angry protest from someone who had spotted a picture of a half-naked woman in one of the French glossy magazines. In any case, in today’s Saudi Arabia the ban no longer exists.
Junior officials in the kingdom have taken many similar decisions in the past, with the effect of making the kingdom no better a place than the oppressive regimes of Cuba, Libya, or Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein. The tightening of controls has crept forward stealthily over the past two decades, and it is the responsibility of the country’s leaders to put an end to it. The outcome would be highly beneficial, both for the kingdom and the wider world.
Today, Saudi Arabia is witnessing a genuine and breath-taking campaign of reform. This campaign ought to succeed, since the majority of Saudis support it a majority more concerned with acquiring better jobs, houses, and quality of life, than with the “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West....
Court martial of five occupation refuseniks
By Adam Keller, Electronic Intifada 10/22/2003
TEL AVIV - A few minutes before the beginning of the solidarity vigil on the afternoon of Sunday Oct, 19, somebody came up with a new slogan: "Conscience in Prison, Stupidity in Power!" Blank placards were drawn up on the sidewalk opposite the Defense Ministry gate, and the new slogan joined old favorites such as "Down With The Occupation!" and "Occupation Is Terror - the Refuser is a Hero!" Some 150 people had come to express solidarity with the imprisoned refusniks, now entering the last stages of the year-long ordeal at the Jaffa Military Court. Old and young were there, past and present refusers, parents and friends and sympathizers. The youngsters were singing the unofficial anthem: "No thank you Mr Sharon / Go yourself to Hebron / Damn your schemes, all to hell / Off we go to prison cell!"
On the following morning, all who could afford to miss a working day crowded into the narrow hall at the court. KM Issam Mahoul was there, as well as a couple of "ecumenical accompaniers" from the World Council of Churches and several representatives of the international press. As on previous sessions, the five youngsters got prolonged applause as they filed in and took their places at the dock. The equally young military police accompanying them seemed quite friendly disposed.
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