Is This Really Happening? Mass Arrests of Muslim and Jewish Immigrants in America
By Mahbubul Karin (Sohel), CounterPunch, December 20, 2002
Is this really happening? Or is it only a nightmare? The INS in Los Angeles, California and in other states, detained hundreds of Middle-Eastern Muslim and Jewish men and boys yesterday. These are the people who came forward to the INS' call to register. And their hands were handcuffed with a thank you note. Is it the anticipated Christmas gift from the Santa? An unconfirmed report says that more than 2500 people were arrested in the last few days. INS has flatly denied revealing the number of people in custody. INS spokesman Mr. Arcauate said that those men detained yesterday had violated the immigration laws. He sited example of overstaying visa, wanted for crimes, etc. If these are the reasons, why does the INS not arrest millions of illegal Mexicans or other foreign nationals who constitute the majority of illegal immigration problem in America? When Bush strongly denies that America is not against the peaceful minority immigrants or their faith, does the selective apprehension of Muslims and Jews conform to the President's wishes?

Saving the Two-State Solution
By Saeb Erekat, New York Times, December 20, 2002
JERUSALEM — Palestinians are committed to two equal states for two equal peoples. Israel's insatiable appetite for constructing settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, however, is making a two-state solution impossible, in the process frustrating all efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully. One such effort is today's meeting in Washington among officials of the European Union, Russia, the United States and the United Nations — the so-called quartet — to discuss a "road map" to peace. This map will lead nowhere unless it stops Israel's ongoing land grabs. Over the last two years, as the world has focused on the violence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the underlying causes of the violence have been largely ignored, even as they have intensified. Rather than reverse the effects of the occupation, Israel has used the years since the Oslo peace accord was signed in 1993 to double the number of Israeli settlers living in the occupied territories, now numbering nearly 400,000, half of whom live in occupied East Jerusalem.

Israel and Mythology
By Steven Salaita, Palestine Chronicle, December 20, 2002
"Like the colonial France of Fanon’s scholarship, Israel will one day see defeat. Perhaps it won’t be because the Palestinians acquire enough power to resist Israel’s occupation effectively .." -- Israel is a little like Icarus. Icarus crafted wings made of wax and, fascinated with the powers of flight offered by his creation, flew higher each day despite the warnings of wiser folk who noted that power must come with equal parts of prudence. Icarus, delusional with strength and inundated with thoughts of glory, ignored their advice. He finally flew too close to the sun. His wings melted. Icarus paid a heavy price for his foolishness. Like the venerable figure from Greek mythology, Israel continues to crystallize the pathos of its fantasia.

However flawed the Iraqi document, it offers no new reasons to use force
Editorial, The Independent, December 20, 2002
The preliminary findings of the UN's chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, which were presented to the UN Security Council yesterday, came as an anti-climax on two fronts. Awaited with eagerness around the world, they gave little succour to those looking for an unambiguous pretext for war, while providing scant comfort to those intent on preserving peace. They were a recipe for maintaining the present, uneasy truce – which is perhaps the best outcome for now. The Security Council was told, first, that for all its 12,000 pages, the dossier produced by Iraq contained little that was new; little, in fact, that offered any advance on past declarations by Baghdad. But members were also told that the only way of establishing the veracity, or otherwise, of Iraq's claims was to continue to expand the current inspections regime. In other words, the prescription was more of the same: rigorous testing backed by what Britain and the United States have called the "credible threat" of force.

Jakarta dispatch
By John Aglionby, The Guardian, December 19, 2002 
The US government's recent drive to demonstrate American respect for Islam does not go far enough -- "The war on terror is not a war on Islam"; "The most recent occasions the United States has gone to war has been on behalf of Muslim interests"; "We believe Islam is a peace-loving faith that condemns violence". American government officials have said these and similar statements so often since September 11 2001 that in many Muslim countries - such as Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation - they have become diluted and lost much of their resonance. So recently Washington has tried a fresh approach; namely to demonstrate America's tolerance, respect and even love for Islam by showing what wonderful lives Muslims lead in the US. The first instalment of this approach was a series of two-minute TV films and accompanying print advertisements focusing on five Muslims who live in America. Part two, launched this week in Jakarta, is a 60-page magazine "Muslim life in America". This glossy 20-section publication contains sections on family life, Muslim communities, education, varieties of worship, in the world of work, and into the mainstream.

The New York Times gets an 'F' for geography
Michael Brown, The Electronic Intifada, 18 December 2002
Every six months or so a report comes out detailing the woeful state of geographical knowledge held by many Americans. Usually people chuckle and wonder how it is that so many Americans think California is on the East Coast. After all, every rightly educated American knows it's on the Left Coast. But the consequences can be serious. This is particularly the case when it is The New York Times (NYT) butchering basic facts about where Israel begins and ends. Of course, as Israel has never defined exactly where those borders are, it is alarming when the NYT appears to be handing over vast swathes of new territory to Israel. The most commonly misplaced territory in the region is Shebaa Farms, a small patch of land that Israel continues to occupy on the border between Lebanon and the occupied Golan Heights. The news media regularly imply it is Israeli. The one thing we know is that the area is either Syrian or Lebanese, but most certainly not Israeli. Israeli-occupied yes, but not Israeli.

What are the US's Intentions Toward Palestine?
By Francis Boyle, CounterPunch, December 20, 2002
Having served as Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations from 1991 to 1993, and in a similar capacity to the Syrian Delegation to the Middle East Negotiations during their First Round held in Washington, D.C. during 1991, I can state unequivocally that if there had been good faith on the part of the governments of Israel and the United States back in 1991, a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement between Israel on the one hand and Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, respectively, on the other, could have been negotiated by no later than the end of 1993. As became obvious at the time and is even more evident at present, the governments of Israel and the United States were never seriously interested in obtaining a comprehensive and just Middle East peace settlement in the first place, right from the very commencement of preparatory work for the Middle East peace negotiations by the Bush Sr. administration in the aftermath of its criminal war against Iraq for oil.

Them and us
By Yasmin Hai, The Guardian, December 20, 2002
Yasmin Hai grew up in a multicultural suburb of London, where Muslims and Jews, with so much in common, appeared to live happily side by side. So what went wrong? Why have some of her old friends' attitudes changed so much? And were things really so perfect then? Twenty years on, she returns to her old haunts in search of answers -- After years of exile, my father's most cherished possession was his typewriter. It was a grey Smith Corona manual from the 1950s. The keys had been rubbed clean by the many hours spent on it. He would disappear into his study and close the door firmly behind him. I would stand outside and listen to the furious sound of him tapping his latest letter to the Times - "the great Times of London", as he always referred to it. At the time I didn't know what he was writing in those letters, but I knew they were important to him. The next morning, he would comb through the letters page, always optimistic. But whatever he was looking for was never there.

INS action
Editorial, Arab News, December 21, 2002
It is hard not to sympathize with the hundreds of Muslims living in California who were arrested after they went to register, as newly required by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). These individuals — estimated by immigration lawyers to be between 1,000 and 2,500 — obeyed the summons and were carted off to prison as a result.
The American Civil Liberties Union has likened the INS behavior to the wartime incarceration of all ethnic Japanese. There have been understandable complaints that these measures are part of a wider targeting of Muslims living in the US, even those who have long been naturalized and are loyal US citizens. California Democratic Congresswoman Jan Harmon has called the action “legal entrapment”. The southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and eight other groups including the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Progressive Jewish Alliance have demanded that the scheme be scrapped, or deadlines extended.

Jerusalem Life: How will Palestinians celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem?
By Daoud Kuttab, Jordan Times, December 21, 2002
HOW SHOULD Christians celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem this year? Since Nov. 22, the city and its surroundings have been under a crippling 24-hour curfew that has only been relaxed for a couple of days during the entire period. Opinions vary from those calling for a total boycott of all festivities, including the traditional Latin patriarch's parade on Christmas Eve to those who insist that life and celebrations must go on in spite of the Israeli actions. The dwindling Palestinian Christian community wants to protest as loud as possible the injustice heaped on it and the entire Palestinian nation, while wanting at the same time not to interrupt the traditional celebrations. The big fear is that Israel will try and create tensions between Palestinian Christians and Muslims by opening the city up just for Christmas, knowing very well that such moves would give the impression that Israel is biased in favour of the Christians.