The battle for Baghdad: Heavy fighting over UN resolution
Leader, The Guardian, October 23, 2002
The Bush administration's "final" UN security council draft resolution on Iraq, now under frantic discussion, is a dangerous document. The official US objective, at least for the purpose of the UN negotiations, is disarmament of the Iraqi regime or, to be more precise, the verifiable destruction of its weapons of mass destruction and associated military delivery systems. This basic aim was reiterated by Tony Blair yesterday and is consistent with British policy going back to the Gulf war. Proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their possible acquisition by tyrannical or unstable regimes is a matter of global concern predating September 11. In the case of Iraq, Saddam Hussein continues to defy WMD-related resolutions pertaining specifically to that country. All peaceful efforts to prevent proliferation - in general and in particular - and to uphold the UN's authority are fully deserving of public support.

Dangerous diplomacy: Israel, North Korea both rattle nuclear sabers 
By Franz Schurmann, Alternative Information Center, October 21, 2002 
In the game of nations, nuclear arms are a diplomatic weapon used by all who have them. Two divided nations in the news -- Israel and North Korea -- have had nuclear weapons policies for 50 years or more, posing a danger to the world that remains after the end of the Cold War. 
Is there any connection between President Bush's recent defense of Israel's right of retaliation against attack by Iraq and North Korea's admission a day later that it has secretly been pursuing a nuclear weapons project? A clue to a possible connection can be found in the English-language edition of the Israeli daily Ha'aretz of August 15. Well-known military expert Ze'ev Schiff wrote: "If Iraq strikes at Israel with non-conventional weapons, causing massive casualties among the civilian population, Israel could respond with a nuclear retaliation that would eradicate Iraq as a country." By revealing its secret nuclear weapons project to the United States, North Korea is in effect playing the same risky game of nuclear diplomacy as Israel.

Evangelical Christians back eviction
By Barbara Ferguson, Arab News, October 23, 2002
WASHINGTON, 23 October — Throughout the world, criticism is growing against Israel’s hard-line tactics against Palestinians, but support for Zionism remains firm among America’s millions of evangelical Christians. Last week, thousands of evangelical Christians cheered as a member from Israel’s Knesset called for the "relocation of Palestinians" from the West Bank to Jordan. Benny Elon, a member of the Moledet party, called for the "transfer of Palestinians" to Arab countries, saying the Bible calls for a "resettlement" of the Palestinians. His remarks were applauded at the annual convention of the Christian Coalition, and many of the neo-conservatives waved Israeli flags. The audience also cheered House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, who told them to back pro-Israel candidates. "Most evangelicals are certain that God always takes the side of Israel" in any conflict, Randall Balmer and Lauren F. Winner say in "Protestantism in America" (Columbia University Press). National Review says evangelicals hold a "divine right" viewpoint and support Israel with an "uncritical fervor that exceed that of even some American Jews."

Of war and population transfer
By Terry Rempel, The Electronic Intifada, October 21, 2002
FOLLOWING THE onset of the second Palestinian Intifada in September 2000 and the concomitant collapse of the Oslo negotiations process, the idea of population transfer as a means of solving the "Palestinian problem" has moved increasingly from the margins towards the center of Israeli public discourse. Prime ministers, cabinet ministers, military officials, the attorney general, intellectuals, educators and activists have all weighed in on the utility of population transfer. For some, transfer holds the immediate promise of ending the "troubles" in the 1967 occupied territories. For others, it is regarded as the only way to preserve the Jewish character of the state of Israel through a permanent Jewish majority and permanent Jewish control of the most of the land. Israel "is a country in which the streets are plastered with posters calling for a population transfer," comments Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, "and no one bothers to remove them or to indict those who put them up."

The hilltops and Karkur Junction
Editorial, Ha'aretz, October 23, 2002
The murderous terror attack at the Karkur Junction on Monday, which killed 14 Israelis and wounded dozens, is only the tip of the iceberg, which we're aware of but tend to repress: the constant effort by the terrorists to commit dozens of attacks. Nearly all the attacks are foiled or obstructed on the way to fruition, by one means or another, and the human tendency, understandable but wrong, is to regard the period between attacks that claim many victims as if it is "quiet."  Under such circumstances, when the political context is mainly procrastination in anticipation of the American action in Iraq, the rise of a moderate Palestinian leadership, and the completion of the fence between the West Bank and Israel - the issue of the security forces' priorities arises once again. Israel does not have enough forces, and not enough money, for all the missions: preparing for the Iraqi war, keeping an eye on the northern border, constant combat against terror, and fighting the lawbreakers on the hills of the West Bank.

The hidden threat of the outposts
By Gideon Samet, Ha'aretz, October 23, 2002
The entire settlement enterprise began 35 years ago with an incident similar to this week's - an illegal settlement, which the government then retroactively legalized at the urging of several misguided intellectuals. The battle over Havat Gilad is reminiscent of that beginning, which has since, together with Palestinian terror, pushed the state into a political and spiritual blind alley. Ten years after 1967, there were still only 31 settlements with 4,400 inhabitants. Now there are more than 120 "legal" settlements with almost 50 times as many settlers. There are also some 90 illegal outposts containing 700 to 1,000 zealots obsessed with rocks. The battle against the removal of these outposts has become one of the most dangerous of all the settlement tactics. The threat they constitute is far greater than one weekend's rioting.

Palestinian farmers say security wall will deprive them of their only living source
By Maher Abukhater, Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre, October 23, 2002
Dressed in white fluffy traditional Arab dress, white head cover and growing a short white beard while supporting himself with a cane 70-year-old Mahmoud Abdul Rahman Quzmar stood lamenting his agricultural land that was destroyed only a couple of days earlier by Israeli military bulldozers. While his 50-year-old nephew and head of Izbat Salman village council Hussein Quzmar was trying to explain to reporters what happened to their family land, the aged man looked with tears in his eyes at the destroyed cucumber crop and greenhouses. Izbat Salman is a small village of several hundred people located near Qalqilya in the northern West Bank and is very close to the green line dividing Israel from the West Bank. Because of its small size, village residents live of cultivating their rich land with all kinds of crops. They have built green houses in a way not seen elsewhere in the West Bank. However, the Quzmars believe their rich land and abundance of underground water wells has made their village a target for Israeli annexation.

From the Arab street to the basement bomb factory
By Rami G. Khour, Jordan Times, October 23, 2002
DOHA — Analysts assessing the repercussions of an American attack on Iraq may be focusing on the wrong issues, the wrong people and the wrong places. There is much debate about whether Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, and whether it would use them if attacked. Many analysts and some Arab leaders also often mention the potential impact of “the Arab street” — those masses of angry Arabs who would demonstrate their opposition to an American attack on Iraq and to the anticipated official Arab non-interference or acquiescence in such an attack. Such issues were discussed here at a conference organised by the Saban Centre of the Washington-based Brookings Institution, where 60 specialists from the US and Islamic countries dialogued on Iraq, terror, Palestine/Israel, Arab governance, globalisation and other subjects. The discussion inevitably stressed the causes and consequences of the Arab street's widespread opposition to American and Israeli policies.

Bush and the need for UN reform
By Don Kraus, Middle East Times, October 18, 2002
On September 12, President Bush asked: "Will the UN serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?" In the wake of World War II, we created the United Nations primarily to ensure that weapons of mass destruction would never be used. We established this organization after having learned a hard lesson in two successive world wars – that national ambitions must be contained and responded to by a collective will, or men, women and children everywhere will suffer the consequences. Although the UN is a flawed organization – confined by its charter, subject to the whims of its member states and chronically under-funded - it has so far fulfilled its most basic mandate of preventing World War III. Its members have preferred mutual survival to mutual destruction. Today, however, two evils threaten to destroy this thin shield of self-interest.

Christian Coalition Abandonment of Palestinian Christians is Hypocritical
By Sherri Muzher, Palestine Chronicle, October 23, 2002
MICHIGAN (PINA) - Recently, the Christian Coalition held a rally in Washington DC to re-capture the "glory days" when it held considerable power in the 1990s Republican political arena. It proudly reiterated its staunch support of Israel and its opposition to any Palestinian state. But as a Palestinian-American Republican of the Christian faith, I found this display to be nothing short of shameful and hypocritical. Fundamentalist Christian ministers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson would have their congregations believe that if one does not stand by Israel, God would not forgive them. It is also believed that for Jesus Christ to return to Earth, support for Israel must be whole and unconditional. What Falwell, Robertson, and like-minded ministers don't tell their parishioners is that they are forsaking their Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters who are suffering under Israeli occupation.

Expulsion, Not Just a Test
By Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle, October 23, 2002
SEATTLE (PINA) - Around 150 people were forced to leave their homes in the West Bank village of Khirbat Yanoun. They packed some of their belongings and hastily rushed away in six rusty trucks, which hauled them away from the northern West Bank town. If you are confused regarding the timing of this scenario, don’t be. Although a typical scene if compared to the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homeland in Palestine in 1948, the above story has took place on 19, Oct 2002. The tragedy is that the incident at Khirbat Yanoun might be the first step in the renewal of the infamous expulsion policy.