Remapping the Middle East - Whose war is it this time?
By Dr. Naseer Aruri, Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre
Demons and Threats Throughout History: As the Bush Administration beats the war trumpets against Iraq, a remarkable similarity can be discerned between the Middle East today and eighty years ago. The important question is whether the United States is likely to succeed in reshaping the strategic landscape in this troubled region more than did the British. There is a legacy of imperial domination, trickery, un-kept promises, and double-speak, all of which have combined to undermine the notion that any progress or healthy transformation, could ever emanate from dealing with the West, be that at the military, diplomatic, or economic levels. Arab lands have been conquered military and through diplomatic means under presumed peace conditions. Military campaigns were disguised as humanitarian missions designed to bring democracy and human rights to supposedly un-enlightened and backward societies. In fact, during the past two centuries, Western empires have mapped and re-mapped the Middle East repeatedly. They appointed, promoted, demoted, and dethroned local leaders to suit their strategic interests. One thing remained consistent and was omnipresent in their successive attempts to readjust borders and consolidate hegemonies: the availability of local demons to justify the frequent strategic reshaping and remapping.

What will it take to upset the swing to the right?
By George S. Hishmeh, Jordan Times, November 21, 2002
WASHINGTON — That was the week that was, as David Frost's popular television programme had it, for President George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon, as both went about, characteristically rushing to bad judgements. Bush, who was able to sway public opinion away from the original target of confronting Osama Ben Laden's multi-tentacled Al Qaeda to a war on Iraq, has had a rude awakening this week. Osama Ben Laden is alive and probably well, and has sent a threatening message, primarily to Americans. The new American focus has served Bush's Republican Party well in scoring victories in the mid-term elections in the House and Senate and in diverting attention from the deteriorating economic situation, which was brought about, in part, by the scandals of some of his administration's cronies in the American business community.

"Stop de Bezetting"; "End the Occupation"
By Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle, November 20, 2002
In the recent past, pro-Palestinian views in the United States and Europe have often been shunned by the media and by pro-Israeli organizations, groups that often carry as much weight and authority as some governments. Groups advocating the cause of Palestine are often censored and defamed. They are accused of anti-Semitism, and even of sympathizing with terrorists. What has changed in the above scenario in past years, and even more so in the last two years since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising, is not the issue of defamation or of censorship, not even intellectual slander. What has changed is that those who used to crumble and distance themselves from their pro-Palestinian views, are now growing scarce. More and more people are living up to the challenge, and Israel’s tools of intimidation are backfiring. It’s simple, for nothing lasts forever, not even Israel’s ability to subdue its foes by crying “Anti-Semitism”. Former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, recently died after a life of struggle and tireless efforts on behalf of Israel. A famous statement of his however, died long before him. In an article for the New York Times in 1975, Eban declared, “There is no difference whatever between anti-Semitism and the denial of Israel's statehood.”

Barak's confused legacy
Mitchell Plitnick and Liat Weingart, San Francisco Chronicle, November 19, 2002
Today, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak will speak at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, and many American Jews, led by A Jewish Voice for Peace, will stand to protest his message. No, these will not be supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. These Jewish Americans see Barak as having played a central role in bringing Israelis and Palestinians into their worst era of violence since 1948. Ever since the failure of the talks at Camp David in 2000, Barak has been on a campaign to convince the world that the reason those talks failed was entirely the fault of Yasser Arafat. Barak's claim that he presented a "generous offer" to the Palestinians that was refused plays into the worst fears of American and Israeli Jews: that the Palestinians are not interested in peace, but only in destroying the Jewish people. Many American and Israeli officials who were present during the Camp David summit have worked long and hard to debunk this version of events, yet Barak's version still holds sway. Nevertheless, many are coming to perceive Barak as a politician who plays on the worst fears of his constituency to present his own failures in a more favorable light.

Slaughter of innocents
Editorial, The Guardian, November 22, 2002
The latest Palestinian suicide bombing is an act of execrable cruelty matched only by its unutterable stupidity. This was not an attack on a military target. It did not take place inside Israeli army-occupied territories or even against illegal settlements, which might have been understandable, although not excusable. It came in a Jerusalem suburb during the morning rush-hour. Its victims were not "oppressors"; they were ordinary people on their way to work, children going to school. Lunch-boxes and textbooks were left scattered near the devastated bus. Is it possible that Hamas's al-Qassam brigade views this pitiless barbarity as some kind of success? They say it was in revenge for Israel's July assassination in Gaza of their leader, Salah Shehada, in which several children also died. That attack was reckless butchery, too. Thus are the vicious and idiotic acts of both sides weighed with the corpses of innocents.

The Prague racket
John Laughland, The Guardian, November 22, 2002
Nato is now a device to exert control and extract cash. Those who resist, like Belarus, are punished:  At the Nato summit in Prague this week, one man is notable by his absence. Last Friday, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus was refused a visa on instructions from Washington, an unprecedented diplomatic snub. After a six-year propaganda campaign waged against Lukashenko by the west, he now stands isolated. The EU is about to slap a travel ban on him and his ministers, like the one imposed against the Zimbabwean government. Meanwhile, some American politicians have started to refer to Belarus as part of the axis of evil. The reasons given for the west's hostility towards Belarus are that Lukashenko is authoritarian and a "dictator". This is an odd charge, given that the losing candidates in last September's presidential elections conceded that the incumbent president had won more votes than them. It is also strange for the west to revile Lukashenko when it courts so assiduously President Putin, whose own election, like all those in Russia since 1991, was outrageously rigged.

Alone in Their Cage, Palestinians Suffer The Illness of Despair
By Samah Jabr With Betsy Mayfield (from Jerusalem), The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2002 
I'm tired, not a new state of affairs for me. I haven't slept enough since I started medical school more than seven years ago. I've eaten in a rush for as long as I can remember. Even now that I've graduated and begun my internship I'm never finished with work. All this is pretty normal for young doctors everywhere. It's more than being tired, however, that racks me with exhaustion and discouragement, now. Ever since the early December suicide bombs went off, I simply cope without enthusiasm, seemingly sapped of energy or inner strength. Were it not for having to cover at Makassed Hospital for colleagues who cannot get to work because of curfews and closures, I can't imagine what dullness would cloud my spirit. I was on call four nights last week taking care of the sick or injured arrivals. That it takes me a couple of hours to get to Makassed on the Mount of Olives, less than five miles from my home in Dahiart-Al-Barid, causes a frown to surface on my brow. Even this horrendous affront, however, does not seem to be the source of the pain that lulls me into hopelessness. Thinking about why I am more disheartened now than I have been all these years, I decide it must be my realization