US election
Editorial, Arab News, November 2, 2002
With only two days left for polling in the midterm election, the US political scene seems to be heating up. Until now the campaign has been lackluster and voter apathy unmistakable in spite of the high stakes involved. President George W. Bush is now on a 16-state sweep to boost Republican candidates in a bid to break the deadlock in the US Congress. Vice President Dick Cheney and first lady Laura Bush are also on the campaign trail. They are all campaigning with the full awareness that their party, Republicans, holds only a razor-thin majority in the Congress, with 223 members to 208 Democrats, one independent and three vacancies. The Senate balance is even closer, with Republicans and Democrats each holding 49 seats, one independent and the vacancy caused by last week’s death of Sen. Paul Wellstone in a plane crash. With the Republicans controlling the House of Representatives by just six seats, and the Democrats controlling the Senate by one, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats want to leave anything to chance.

Roadblocks
By Ghassan Khatib, BitterLemons, October 28, 2002
This new-old American roadmap begins with a roadblock of the kind that Palestinians are now very familiar with. Not even two lines into the document, there is the attempt to subordinate a meaningful political process to alterations in the structure of the Palestinian leadership. Stage one of phase one of the roadmap does its best to dictate internal Palestinian politics, dabbling in constitutional change, the appointment of a prime minister and other aspects of political “reform.” The document also calls for Legislative Council elections without a presidential vote--an imposed limit on our democratic rights and a violation of the current Palestinian constitution or what we call the Basic Law.

Futile--but important
By Yossi Alpher, BitterLemons, October 28, 2002
The road map presented by the Bush administration and the Quartet to Israel and the Palestinians is at one and the same time futile, yet important. It is futile because it is sponsored by an American president who is not interested right now in advancing an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It was presented to the emissaries of a Palestinian leader who has no realistic strategy for peace (or war), who is relegated by the document to a ceremonial role, but who is not likely to step aside. And it was delivered to an Israeli prime minister who also has no realistic strategy for peace or war and who, like his Palestinian counterpart, has no intention of following this or any other internationally sanctioned road map.

Where wild weeds flourish
By Thomas O'Dwyer, Ha'aretz, November 2, 2002
Tomorrow night, the voice of President Hosni Mubarak will address the Yitzhak Rabin memorial rally in central Tel Aviv. Whatever the respected Egyptian leader has to say will fall mainly on deaf ears, just as everything to do with the murder of the old soldier of war and peace has done. The seventh anniversary of the assassination on Monday may not be a significant one in cultures that usually highlight fives and 10s, but in one familiar with the concept of seven fat years and seven lean years, these have been seven significantly bad years. The talent of Rabin, a man capable of identifying the correct national target and heading straight for it like an arrow, was significant in two areas: accepting a Palestinian state as necessary for the survival of Israel, and improving the lot of Israeli Arabs, as necessary for the survival of a democratic, civilized Israel.

Road Map
By Hanan Ashrawi, Palestine Chronicle, November 1, 2002
RAMALLAH (PC) - The American-*censored*-Quartet draft road map for a permanent two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has already come up against its major Israeli roadblocks. Beyond Sharon's initial dismissive attitude, Israeli responses have ranged from a total rejection of the June 4, 1967 borders, to the negation of the establishment of the Palestinian state, to the refusal to cease settlement activities and dismantle any settlements, to the rejection of any binding timetables, to the elimination of any aspect of monitoring or third party involvement, to further demands and preconditions specifically designed to abort the initiative (including collection of Palestinian weapons, arrest of "suspects," the total cessation of "violence," the political "elimination" of President Arafat, comprehensive Palestinian "reform," among other dictates).

On Being a US Citizen
By Chris Meyer, Palestine Chronicle, November 1, 2002 
ILLINOIS (PC) - "Among all the things I'm going to tell you today about being a journalist, all you have to remember is two words: governments lie."  - I. F. Stone: The same can be said for being a citizen... An important corollary to this, which I shall call 'Meyer's Law', states: The more powerful the government, the more it lies. This poses serious implications for the citizens of powerful countries: Citizens must be watchful and active participants of their governments. The leaders of powerful governments must always be held to a high standard. Whenever a government urges the people to suspend thought as in times of war, suspicions should be redoubled.

Credible Or Incredible
By Alden C. Mayfield, Palestine Chronicle, November 1, 2002  
In Bush’s UN speech, he argues that the world "has been more than patient" with the Iraqi regime. It appears that his patience with the Israeli regime’s brutal occupation is infinite, but his patience with the Iraq regime is an ultimatum of three weeks or else the consequences of war: The issue of a regime change in Iraq has preoccupied the Bush administration as it seeks to prevent Iraq from amassing and using weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Such has been the feverish and irrational drumbeat of war in the Bush administration that Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice have naively argued that Iraq is within months of creating a nuclear bomb and should be attacked even if United Nations weapon inspectors are invited back into Iraq. However, many nations around the world (except for Britain and Israel) argue that Iraq is not a threat to other nations and that its weapons programme is considerably less dangerous than the Bush administration would have the world believe. It should be noted that the U.S. government has known for many years that Iraq has had chemical weapons, which the U.S. generously supplied during the Iran-Iraq war.