Advocating Crimes Against Humanity
By Tarif Abboushi, Palestine Chronicle, November 8, 2002 
“While the HRW report on the suicide bombings singles out four Palestinian groups , it notably exonerates the Palestinian Authority and its president, Yasser Arafat, of the same charge ..”:  HOUSTON (PC) - The most recent definition of crimes against humanity under customary international law is contained in Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It includes the following acts, among others, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the perpetrators or supporters of the attack: murder, deportation or forcible transfer of population, and apartheid.

A dark week for democracy
Will Hutton, The Observer, November 10, 2002
The stranglehold the far Right has now taken on America will make it a more divided, reactionary and illiberal country:  The election in Georgia said it all. The Democrat governor, Roy Barnes, had dared to remove the Confederate symbol from the state flag last year. His Republican challenger wanted to bring it back, to honour, he said, 300,000 Confederate 'veterans'. A Republican has not occupied Georgia's governor's mansion since 1872. After last Tuesday, one does, courtesy of wanting to celebrate a civil war fought to defend slavery. Europeans do not understand the curious civilisation that the current America is becoming, and the grip that a visceral and idiosyncratic conservatism has on its national discourse. They especially do not understand the undercurrents of an increasingly self-confident and subtle racism that is its own variant of the forces that in Europe gave us Le Pen and Pim Fortuyn. George Bush Jnr is a chip off the old multilateralist, transatlantic establishment, runs the European argument. He may seem hawkishly conservative but, in the end, he seeks UN resolutions like other American Presidents. Even at home, his bark is worse than his bite. Wrong, wrong and wrong again. Anyone who thinks the Tory party is 'nasty' has not encountered contemporary American republicanism.

Why rescue a regime that will not save itself?
By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, Arab News, November 10, 2002
Should we waste our time in saving a sick regime or should we instead ignore it? Undoubtedly, the Iraqi regime is passing through one of the most dangerous times in its history. Other countries must think about their own futures before going to help it. This is obviously a painful stand but we need to keep in mind that our good nature must not be allowed to imperil our country’s best interests. We are now facing threats of real war as well as changes in the Iraqi regime which has not been able to cope with the situation. This was evident in the way Saddam Hussein replied when asked how he would face the crisis: he said he would play for time and that he counted on the disintegration of the US-British coalition.

The perverse logic of slogans
By Abdel-Moneim Said, Al-Ahram Weekly, 7 - 13 November 2002
What has become of the Arabs' central cause, and why?  Since 11 September a mirror has been placed against the Arab mentality revealing a mindset ever ready to jump to wild conspiracy theories while evading any examination of the roots of that violence -- the relationship between religion and the state conducive to breeding fundamentalist movements, starting with the Muslim Brotherhood and ending with Al-Qa'eda and the Taliban. And this mentality has had serious repercussions on the central cause of the Arabs: within 12 months after 11 September the PA had lost most of its institutions, the land over which it had exercised authority (Zone A) and all authority within Zone B. The Palestinian cause, now, has reverted to a pre-1993 Oslo accord status, all agreements having been successfully bulldozed by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Perhaps the greatest blow to the cause is that it has slipped into obscurity, the world's attention caught up in other issues. Foremost among them is Iraq which even before any US strike has emerged as the leading item on the international agenda. At the same time everyone has been rehashing the events of 11 September, what happened in Afghanistan and each and every facet of the "global effort to combat terrorism". Concern, too, has been focused on an economic recession that has extended its grip, in one way or another, to reach every national economy. International attention, then, has been focussed on everything but the Palestinian cause, the Israeli reoccupation of Palestinian territories and the Palestinian Intifada.