Sharon’s Qaeda
Editorial, Arab News, December 9, 2002
Reports that Al-Qaeda operatives had set up shop in Gaza show how far Israel and the United States have gone in milking the Sept. 11 attacks to maximum benefit. Ariel Sharon stated on Thursday that members of Al-Qaeda network were at work in the Gaza Strip; the next day Israeli troops swept into the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, killing 10 people in a Eid Al-Fitr massacre which included two UN workers. The facts surrounding the story remain murky. Some reports say that Palestinian security forces had arrested a group of Palestinians for collaborating with Israel and posing as Al-Qaeda operatives. Obviously, Sharon dreamed up the idea in order to justify attacks in Palestinian areas. And the United States was right behind as the abettor. As Israel was raiding Bureij, the American media reported that Al-Qaeda has set up a branch to help Palestinian militant groups fight Israel.

Who is the dummy who didn't know?
By Aluf Benn, Ha'aretz, December 9, 2002
Ben Caspit's fascinating revelations in Ma'ariv about Yossi Ginossar's business dealings with the Palestinians makes valuable election propaganda for the Likud, worth more than a thousand election broadcasts. It makes Labor Party leaders look not only like suckers, who offered generous concessions to the evil Yasser Arafat, but also dummies, who didn't know that their envoy to the Palestinian court was also serving indirectly as an envoy for Arafat and Mohammed Rashid in Geneva's banks. Ginossar was a key contact person in the relations with the Palestinians, and reached the peak of his power in the days of Ehud Barak's administration. The official version was that he used "to deliver messages" as a kind of mailman or errand boy carrying sealed epistles, and never got involved in the details of the negotiations. At best that's naive, at worst, it's an irresponsible way to present facts.

Respecting the other
By Thomas Ford, Al-Ahram-Weekly On-Line, 5 - 11 December 2002
How race, ethnicity and the push for quick justice in the US has affected domestic law enforcement and immigration -- Racial profiling is not new. It has been used in law enforcement for the last two decades and its social roots date back to the post-reconstruction era in American history. The topic of profiling people based on ethnic criteria was hotly debated in the media and in congress in 2000 and 2001. Most domestic issues in the US took a back seat to war and security after 11 September, but racial profiling has remained very much at the forefront. Racial profiling is stopping, searching or questioning a person or infringing on that person's civil rights based on his or her ethnicity, race or gender. This process is most commonly associated with young black males between 18 and 35. "Driving While Black" refers to the disproportionate number of traffic stops among black motorists on major highways and interstates. In the mid-1980s, the Drug Enforcement Administration intensified efforts to stop the transport of illicit drugs within the United States. According to the Institute on Race and Justice at Northeastern University, "police were trained to apply a profile that included evidence of concealment in the vehicle, indications of fast, point-to-point driving, as well as the age and race characteristics of the probable drivers. In some cases, the profiling technique was distorted, so that officers began targeting Black and Hispanic male drivers..."

Laudatio for Said
By Ashwani Saith, Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line, 5 - 11 December 2002
Text of the speech delivered by Ashwani Saith on the occasion of the award of the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa to Edward Said at the Lustrum Ceremony on the 50th Anniversary of the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands, October 9, 2002 -- It is with great pleasure that I undertake this task. But also with some trepidation, for well might this house wonder: how is a practitioner of that dismal science, economics, addressing such an eminent scholar of English Language and Comparative Literature? After listening to the previous orations of my colleagues, addressing our other eminent honorary fellows by their first, even diminutive, names, I stand here as an impostor, for I must confess that I have never set eyes on Professor Edward Said, let alone having met him. Here, there can be no Edward, Eddie, Ed, ... or "Edwaad" as in his affectionate memory of his mother summoning him from play in his early years. Yet, I have an inexplicable feeling that I know him well. Nor can I claim to have set foot on the land of his birth -- that denied country of Palestine. And yet, here I have an even deeper conviction that I have indeed visited it, and frequently -- since "Palestine" is that space in my mind, in all our minds, in everybody's backyard -- a space called "Injustice". We have all been there all too often -- and not least on account of Professor Edward Said's life contributions. So bear with me when I explain my reasons for nominating him as one of our Honorary Fellows. If, in following my own Indian form of rendition of this laudatio for Professor Edward Said, I strike a false note or chord, I seek your, and his, indulgence.

Bush has little intention of playing by the book
The Guardian, December 9, 2002
Saddam's gameplan may yet succeed in dividing his opponents -- By presenting the UN with a mammoth report declaring Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein has won the opening round in his final attempt to stave off military action by the US. He is playing a long game, to break the current consensus in the UN security council, and to tie the west in knots in expectation - hope even - that new al-Qaida attacks will divert attention away from Iraq towards the global "war" on terror. And whatever the frustration of the hawks, however deep the scepticism of the doves, American and UN experts have no choice but to plough through Iraq's 12,000-page declaration of innocence. Some weapons-related products have been destroyed, it is likely to say; others have dual use. But a huge range of products have dual uses - bleach, pesticides, drugs, chemicals, electronic equipment and machinery, plus items used in the production of food or oil. It seems the Iraqis have taken a leaf out of Britain's book. Did not former Foreign Office minister William Waldegrave, when warned in 1989 - a year before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait - that Iraq intended to use British machine tools for "armaments and munitions factories", reply sardonically: "Screwdrivers are also required to make H-bombs"?

Poisoning the air
By Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, December 9, 2002
US reports of Iraqi stockpiles of nerve gas antidote should be treated with a healthy dose of scepticism. -- One of the oldest tricks in the run-up to a war is to spread terrifying stories of things that the enemy may be about to do. Government officials plant these tales, journalists water them and the public, for the most part, swallow them. On November 12, the New York Times reported that Iraq had ordered a million doses of a well known antidote to nerve gas. This information came from "senior Bush administration officials" whom the paper did not name, and was soon regurgitated by other news media across the US and beyond. Although the New York Times made clear that the drug concerned, atropine, has some perfectly normal medical uses, the story pointed - as the officials who leaked it undoubtedly intended - to a far more sinister conclusion. It implied that Iraq not only possesses nerve gas but intends to use it in a conflict with the US - hence the need to protect its own forces from accidental injury.

Israel needs a regional war
By Hassan Tahsin, Arab News, December 9, 2002
Since coming to power as Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon has been relying solely on military might to solve his nation’s problems. He has rejected any return to the peace process. Backed by extremist Jewish terrorist organizations, he is headed for war, with no opposition from the moderates because their policy is based on the same expansionist racist ideology. He has succeeded, with the help the Bush White House, in destroying the Palestinian Authority, claiming that it was incapable of shouldering its responsibilities or of imposing control in the areas of self-rule. His strategy was to make it a condition that the Palestinians cease their acts of resistance before any negotiations could take place. At the same time, to ensure that negotiations do not to take place, he sent his army to reoccupy Palestinian towns that were under self-rule, committing massacres, destroying buildings and bulldozing agricultural land.