Clips of truth on the editing floor!
By Tariq A. Al-Maeena, Arab News, November 16, 2002
It is hardly surprising to anyone in this region watching or reading reports from the US media that they have taken on a discerning policy of portraying us wholly as a bunch of extremists, hell bent on the destruction of the United States and its interests. And it is generally presented in TV programs or columns as a true reflection on the “truth”. And if I were one of their denizens and subjected to this kind of “truth”, I would unquestionably raise my guard against anything that smacks of the lot of us. But that makes me wonder? Are we really that bad? Or have an insignificant number of extremists grabbed on to the controls and are leading us all astray against the “Great Satan”?

Revenge of a Child
By Uri Avnery, Palestine Chronicle, November 15, 2002
Since last Sunday, a question has been running around in my head and troubling my sleep: What induced the young Palestinian, who broke into Kibbutz Metzer, to aim his weapon at a mother and her two little children and kill them? In war one does not kill children. That is a fundamental human instinct, common to all peoples and all cultures. Even a Palestinian who wants to take revenge for the hundreds of children killed by the Israeli army should not take revenge on children. No moral commandment says “a child for a child”. The persons who do these things are not known as crazy killers, blood-thirsty from birth. In almost all interviews with relatives and neighbors they are described as quite ordinary, non-violent individuals. Many of them are not religious fanatics. Indeed, Sirkhan Sirkhan, the man who committed the deed in Metzer, belonged to Fatah, a secular movement.

Transfer's real nightmare
By Gadi Algazi and Azmi Bdeir, Ha'aretz, November 16, 2002
Transfer isn't necessarily a dramatic moment, a moment when people are expelled and flee their towns or villages. It is not necessarily a planned and well-organized move with buses and trucks loaded with people, such as happened in Qalqilyah in 1967. Transfer is a deeper process, a creeping process that is hidden from view: - As these words are being written, Khirbet Yanun still exists. Or maybe not: 15 of the 25 families that lived in the village are still there. This is not an insignificant number: If the reader recalls, on October 18 only two old men remained there, having refused to leave even after the last families departed, holding on by their fingertips to the village despite the abuse of settlers. The others had decided to take their possessions and move to the nearby town of Akrabeh.

Fighting the W. Bank harvest of hatred
By Orly Halpern, Ha'aretz, November 16, 2002 
A large number of American Zionist immigrants, some of whom are religious, joined two separate olive pickings in West Bank Palestinian orchards last weekend. These harvests were organized by Israeli Jews to help protect the Palestinian farmers and their harvest from other Israeli Jews. The results of the two harvests were remarkably different although only a night divided them. This was possibly because Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon, was just forming his soon-to-be heavily publicized campaign to end the `olive war' by offering the Palestinians rare IDF protection.

Terrorism's threat to globalization
PINR / YellowTimes, November 12, 2002
(YellowTimes.org) – Following the attacks of September 11, the United States recognized the threat terrorism posed to the global economy. Whether or not it was their specific intent, the architects of the attacks caused immense damage to the global economic structure. By striking at the economic and military core of this system, the inevitable spread of free trade capitalism throughout the world was temporarily postponed. Since September 11, the United States has been pursuing a policy of coercion in order to destroy any threats to the current global economic order. The attacks of that day have been used as a justification to eliminate globalization opposition groups; this justification has also been used to mask increased U.S. expansion in parts of the world that were previously beyond Washington's sphere of influence. Such newly acquired regional control can be seen in the Caucasus and Central Asia. This has given the United States greater influence in the Middle East by encroaching upon Iran's eastern and northwestern border. Military bases have been built in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. has also been furthering economic ties with Georgia in the middle of fresh invasion threats from Moscow.