Hilltop struggle has implications for the fate of Israeli settlements
By Leslie Susser, JTA, October 21, 2002
JERUSALEM, Oct. 21 (JTA) — On the face of it, the struggle between Israeli troops and a group of unruly young settlers for control of a windswept West Bank hilltop does not seem all that important. The illegal outpost known as Gilad Farm is minuscule; evacuating it was not part of any breakthrough deal with the Palestinians; and leaving it up or taking it down doesn’t make any substantial difference to the map of Jewish settlement in the West Bank. But the battle for the Gilad Farm goes to the heart of Israel’s most divisive political dilemma: Should the Jewish state evacuate settlements for peace — and, even if it decides to, will it be able to do so?

The settlers think again
By Yair Sheleg, Ha'aretz, October 24, 2002
With hindsight, some of the settlers now think their behavior during the evacuation of Havat Gilad outpost has caused them nothing but harm. Rabbi Avi Gisser, rabbi of the West Bank settlement of Ofra that has a nearby outpost about to be evacuated, says that whatever happens, the settlers must not use force to resist. (The outpost was set up in memory of Ofra resident Asaf Hershkowitz, who was killed by Palestinian terrorists). Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, the spokesman for the Yesha Council [of settlements in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip], speaks in ever stronger terms: "We shot ourselves in the head, not in the foot."

Zionism's Bad Conscience
By Joel Kovel, Tikkun, September/October, 2002
Let me begin with some blunt questions, the harshness of which matches the situation in Israel/ Palestine. How have the Jews, immemorially associated with suffering and high moral purpose, become identified with a nation-state loathed around the world for its oppressiveness toward a subjugated indigenous people? Why have a substantial majority of Jews chosen to flaunt world opinion in order to rally about a state that essentially has turned its occupied lands into a huge concentration camp and driven its occupied peoples to such gruesome expedients as suicide bombing? Why does the Zionist community, in raging against terrorism, forget that three of its prime ministers within the last twenty years—Begin, Shamir and Sharon—are openly recognized to have been world-class terrorists and mass murderers? And why will these words just written—and the words of other Jews critical of Israel—be greeted with hatred and bitter denunciation by Zionists and called "self-hating" and "anti-Semitic"? Why do Zionists not see, or to be more exact, why do they see yet deny, the brutal reality that this state has wrought?

Many things to worry about
By Ghassan Khatib, BitterLemons,  October 21, 2002
The possibility of dramatic developments in Iraq and their consequences for the Palestinian people and cause are one of the foremost reasons for Palestinian anxiety these days. The concern is felt on three levels. The first is the immediate impact of such a diversion on the international community, likely minimizing any efforts towards solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the needs of the Palestinian people. Also, Palestinians fear that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon--already known for his criminal record--will exploit this situation in order to increase his ongoing killings of Palestinians (and a dramatic number of civilians), as well as other collective punishment. Some Palestinians fear that Sharon may go as far as implementing any one of the Israeli population transfer plans, starting with those dreamed up at the infamous Herzliya conference.

The roads to perdition: From the Nokdim-Har Homa road to the Bush `road map' 
By Uzi Benziman, Ha'aretz, October 25, 2002 
1. By the well in Za'atara: Early this month, bulldozers arrived in the area around the village of Za'atara, near the Herodion archaeological site south of Jerusalem. Six or seven bulldozers are now working relentlessly, day after day, on an eight-kilometer stretch of land, leveling hills and filling ditches in the course of building a new bypass road that will run from the settlement of Nokdim to the new south Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa.

How To Lie About Iraq, Part II
By Firas Al-Atraqchi, Palestine Chronicle, October 24, 2002
WASHINGTON (PINA) - The following article continues listing important aspects of the deliberate misinformation campaign to justify an invasion of Iraq)

Israel's Singles Night Out
By Will Youmans, Palestine Chronicle, October 24, 2002
BERKELEY, CA (PINA) - Critics Charge That Divestment “Singles Out” Israel. They Are Right. A little more than a week ago several hundred college students from all over the United States met in Michigan to further the growing campaign to divest American universities of companies with holdings in Israel. The students gathered because they share recognition of the importance of severing the US-Israeli umbilical cord that feeds Israel’s destructive military occupation of the Palestinian people. They argue that Israel’s discriminatory legal and political structure vis-à-vis the non-citizen Palestinians of the Occupied Territories is at the very least a variant of Apartheid – the rights and security of Jews are prioritized while Israel refers to the Palestinians as a collective “problem” – thus, devoid of rights or the need for security.