Back to the future
By Marwan Bishara, Al-Ahram Weekly, 14 - 20 November 2002
There are only two options for solving the Palestinian/Israeli conundrum:  Imagine the following scenario: the new Israeli government of generals Sharon/Mofaz (axe of good!), determined to break the Palestinians once and for all, finally "wins the war". Palestinians stop their uprising and send Arafat away on a long vacation. They raise white flags over the rooftops, burn their ID cards and weapons in the public squares with fanfare. They transform their ministries and police stations into schools, they take flowers to the Jewish settlements and shower the army check points with rice. Ariel Sharon's victory could prove Israel's loss. Because, the-morning-after, Palestinians will put themselves at the mercy of the "Jewish state" that has ruled over them for decades and ask for their legal right to citizenship. After all, sharing the land is better than dividing the homeland -- Zionism's nightmare. But that's far too long term for many Palestinians and perhaps too utopian. Now imagine the following scenario: The Palestinians get smart.

American voices of dissent
By Soheir Morsy, Al-Ahram Weekly, 14 - 20 November 2002
Greater attention should be paid to the increasing opposition within the US to the policies of the Bush administration: Inspired by the anti-globalisation slogan -- Another World is Possible -- activists of different political persuasions around the world have demonstrated their resolve to dismantle what South African President Thabo Mbeki described as the "global system of apartheid". Over the past year international solidarity with Palestinian resistance to US-subsidised Zionist settler colonialism and apartheid, as well as opposition to Washington's protracted war on Iraq, have become integral to the growing movement against corporate-led globalisation. The internationalisation of the Palestinian cause has developed to the point that a recent comment in Ha'aretz raised the question: "Who would have believed that... [Israel]... would be denounced by the world, that its products would be boycotted, its generals accused of crimes against humanity and its citizens advised not to speak Hebrew when traveling abroad?"

Dear Amram Mitzna
By Uri Avnery, Gush Shalom, November 9, 2002
Dear Amram Mitzna: I don't know you personally. We have never talked to each other. But I have been following your activities from afar - ever since, during the Lebanon war, you did something that impressed me deeply: you resigned your army post as a protest against Ariel Sharon's mad adventure. Senior officers, who sacrifice their careers on a point of conscience, are rare in any army, and in the IDF even more so. That needs moral courage, which, to my mind, is more important than physical courage on the battlefield. After Menahem Begin (a man who respected integrity and decency) brought you back to high command, I was frequently angry with you when you tried, as Officer Commanding Central Command, to appease the settlers. In spite of that, I hoped against hope that you would become Chief-of-Staff, knowing that in the new army formed during the years of occupation and oppression, there is no chance for a man of principle to be appointed to the highest army post. That is reserved for the Mofazes and Ya'alons. Now you are a candidate for another high office: chairman of the Labor Party and chief of its election campaign. I hope you will win. If you do, I shall not envy you.

Truth and the American Press
By Chris Meyer, Palestine Chronicle, November 15, 2002
WASHINGTON (PC) - By 1998, the dedicated work of UN weapons inspectors was paying off handsomely. It was becoming harder and harder to find significant grounds to maintain the sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1991 by UNSCR 687. With mounting international concern over the devastating effects of the sanctions, the UN was faced with two options: declare Iraq in compliance with UNSCR 687, terminate the sanctions and return Iraq to normal international status or find some excuse for maintaining sanctions. The UN Security Council, under intense pressure from the US, chose the second option. Under trumped up charges that Iraq was interfering with inspections, UN weapons inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq, and the well planned bombing of Iraq, Operation Desert Fox, was carried out based on information illegally gathered by the inspection teams and passed to the US military.

Palestinian Declaration of Independence: Full Text
Palestine Chronicle, November 15, 2002
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PC) - Today, Nov. 15 2002 marks the anniversary of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. The following is the full text of the declaration, 15 Nov. 1988, as released by Ministry of Information.

More reports from Block O in Rafah
By Kristen Ess, Electronic Intifada, November 13, 2002
The father found their three year-old son with a heavy machine gun bullet shot by a tank in his chest. A friend who has two young children and another on the way phones me and says, "This is a small body, a three year-old's body. This bullet is big, it's for walls, or to fight tank to tank, not for children." I ask what can anyone do to defend themselves, to resist. He tells me, "We have the choice to die. This is the reality. We can't escape from this." -  (12 November, 2002) Today in Rafah the elderly woman sits in a chair in a narrow dirt alleyway, the same spot she sat in yesterday when she still had a house, uninhabitable though it was from the stench of flooding sewage. In one day her eyes have gone from bright to dull. She is wearing the same clothes. Besides being stateless, she is now homeless.

Bush is Riding a Tiger with Hawks Around Him
By Norman Solomon, Palestine Chronicle, November 13, 2002
With Republicans gaining control of the Senate, few analysts doubt that 9-11 set the stage for George W. Bush to lead his party to victory. Fourteen months ago, in the US national media vortex, a president widely perceived as simple-minded and problematic suddenly became inspirational. The massive violence boosting Bush’s authoritative aura came in two basic configurations. For US media, the threat of horrific violence aimed at America quickly became the overarching problem of the new epoch. In another category, the Pentagon’s awesome capabilities to inflict horrific violence rapidly emerged as a central part of the touted solution. In such a media atmosphere, a president eager to unleash the nation’s military prowess could hardly fail to gain in stature. Bush ascended to the political stratosphere. Much less often mentioned were the media dynamics that rocketed him there.

Opinion: Mitzna must show courage
By Uri Avnery, Ha'aretz, November 14, 2002
I don't know Amram Mitzna personally, but I have followed his activities ever since he did something during the Lebanon War that impressed me deeply: he resigned from his army post in protest against Ariel Sharon's mad adventure. Senior officers who sacrifice their careers for a moral principle are a rare breed in any army, and especially in the IDF. To do this requires moral courage, which, to my mind, is more important than physical courage on the battlefield.