Palestinian Americans Are Failing in Their Duty to Help Palestine
By Ray Hanania, Palestine Chronicle, November 10, 2002 
CHICAGO (PC) - With the United States wielding so much influence over the future of Palestine, you might think the PNA would develop a more focused strategy on improving its support among Americans. Unfortunately, the occupation-sieged PNA is struggling to maintain basic governmental services, and relies on the good judgment of its supporters among the NGO's and American-based Palestinian and Arab organizations. But the truth is that the Arab American organizations in the United States are doing a poor job of representing Palestine's interest to Americans. Most Palestinian organizations are caught up in inter-political infighting reflecting the aged-old divisions separating supporters of Hamas, al-Fatah and Jabha loyalists. Palestinian Americans find it easy to send checks to Palestine, but seem incapable of impacting American public opinion. The community, which is estimated at about one million strong, is concentrated in several cities including New York, Detroit, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles.

Equality is the PA-Hamas endgame
By Danny Rubinstein, Ha'aretz, November 11, 2002 
For several weeks, the Palestinian leadership has been busy planning a dialog with the Hamas movement, which began at the end of last week at a series of meetings between the two high-ranking delegations in Cairo. At first, Muhammad Abbas (Abu Mazen) was supposed to head the Palestinian Authority delegation, opposite Khaled Meshal, head of the political bureau of Hamas (who now lives in Qatar, having been expelled from Jordan). In recent days it has transpired that Abu Mazen is not interested in taking part in the talks. In his place, he appointed Zakaria Al-Agha of Gaza, a Fatah representative to the PLO's executive council. He was joined by Palestinian cabinet member Abd al-Rahman, Hamad and other activists. The dialog was in part initiated by representatives of the European Union who met a few weeks ago with Meshal in Beirut. The Egyptian government agreed to host the two delegations in Cairo. Facilitation of the dialog was hampered by technical difficulties. There was the strike in the Israeli interior ministry, preventing the issue of a temporary passport to Ahmed Ghunaym of East Jerusalem, and there was a ban by Israel Samir Masharawi leaving Gaza.

Tom and Jerry and Jerry: Cartoons and the Messianic Age
By Tarif Abboushi, Counterpunch, November 11, 2002
In the venerable cartoon, the protagonists' conflicting agendas define the epitome of cat-and-mouse rivalry: simple survival for the mouse while the cat relentlessly tries to gobble him up. On rare occasions, as when both find themselves evicted from the house, they set aside their differences and pool their cunning for as long as it takes to reclaim the common right of residence, whereupon the old enmity is inevitably resumed. Today's alliance between the American theological-political landscape's most curious of bedfellows--" evangelical Christians and Zionist Jews"-- is a case of life imitating the cartoon. During a speech to Baptist pastors in Texas earlier this year, U.S. House of Representatives majority whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) averred that only Christianity offers a "a viable, reasonable definitive answer" to life's key questions. He predictably expressed no such sentiment last April when he addressed a Washington conference of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The half-dozen standing ovations he received on that occasion were for his various expressions of unconditional support for Zionism, such as his quip about touring "udea and Samaria" and seeing no occupation, "only Israel."

A glimmer of European defiance
France and Russia have ensured Bush has no UN mandate for war
Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, November 12, 2002
The Washington and Whitehall spin machines have made much of the US-British teamwork which crafted the new UN resolution on Iraq. But another little-noted alliance was just as decisive in achieving the final compromise. Who would have thought two years ago that France and Russia would join forces to oppose the full might of United States diplomacy? For the two countries' presidents to confer on the phone in resistance to Washington, and have their diplomats draft amendments together, would have been inconceivable in the past. But, as the Bush administration increasingly looks to war as its weapon of first resort in international relations, this joint venture by two of Europe's most important states may not be the last. They have ensured Washington has no UN mandate for using force in Iraq, and that it is the weapons inspectors who will report to the security council on whether Iraq has violated its obligations. Washington may call foul from the spectators' stands as loudly as it likes, but the inspectors are the referees, and they have the best, and only authoritative, view.

The UN's Iraq Resolution: What does it mean?
By Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, November 12, 2002
Following two months of heated debate, and often tough diplomatic confrontation at the Security Council, a resolution to disarm Iraq, hopefully peacefully, has finally been unanimously approved. For the US, many see that as a stunning political triumph, for which Secretary of State Colin Powell can claim much credit, and in fact it is. In spite of much talk about changing American drafts, accommodating other Council members' demands, and even backtracking, the approved text, which is an American text, seems to have earned them a triple victory. First the Americans got every thing they initially demanded, including a UN cover to go to war against Iraq now, without having to wait for a new Iraqi breach, and there is adequate ground for such action. Resolution 1441 has already decided "that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant (Security Council) resolutions," including resolution 687 (1991). And by recalling that its resolution 678 (1990) "authorized member states to use all necessary means to uphold and implement its resolutions..." the US can safely act on that basis. If, however that may not be enough, consider the paragraph in the present resolution that denies the validity of the cease-fire declared by Security Council resolution 687 twelve years ago, on the ground that Iraqi non- compliance with the provisions of that resolution annuls the cease-fire, and, therefore the US could if they decide to do so simply resume the previous, unfinished war.

Tragic alliance of settlers and poor
By Hannah Kim, Ha'aretz, November 12, 2002
The Labor Party has lately discovered (again) - the settlements. An old slogan, "Money for the neighborhoods, not the settlements" has been dusted off and revived, with both Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Amram Mitzna parading it one way or another. If the purpose of the slogan is to speak to Israel's poor - the word "neighborhoods," "periphery," "development towns," and so on are all euphemisms for poverty - it won't work. This is because for more than two decades there has been an ironclad alliance between two opposites - the settlers and the lower classes; national-religious Zionism and the poor. It's an alliance the Zionist left has been unable to break, and it is one that has managed to obstruct every effort to advance the peace process.

Israeli Settlements Are Unwittingly Leading to Bi-nationalism
By Sheri Muzher, Palestine Chronicle, November 11, 2002
MASON, Michigan (PC) - Bi-nationalism – the idea of two national groups living in one state -- is becoming a realistic solution in the face of illegal Israeli settlements. The settlements, which are strategically spread throughout Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, have made physical separation impossible. And while many bi-nationalists thought that a two-state solution would be the prerequisite to this inevitable reality, expanding illegal settlements may be pushing the two sides into living together more intimately and sooner than could have been imagined.

Road Map
By Hanan Ashrawi, Media  Monitors Network, October 31, 2002
The American-cum-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).

Blowing the U.N. a goodbye kiss
By Paul Harris, YellowTimes, November 11, 2002
(YellowTimes.org) – The United Nations has finally died. We all knew it has been sickly since its birth, but talk of its imminent demise has always been exaggerated. For close to six decades, it has struggled with sporadic effort and mixed results against the injustices of the world, against the inequities, and the military brutality that have been the hallmarks of its stewardship. In the end, it finally gave up the battle and took its own life. Last week, a vote was held at the insistence of the United States regarding sanctions against and military intervention in Iraq. Despite overwhelming evidence that the rest of the U.N. members know the American position is simply a ploy to obtain Iraqi oil, the members unanimously caved in out of fear of the United States. The U.N., by that vote, has now officially declared itself to be of no value.