Immediate imperatives
By Edward Said, Al-Ahram Weekly, 19 - 25 December 2002
Real change can come, in Palestine as elsewhere, only when people actively will that change. -- The daily hemorrhage of Palestinian lives and property accelerates without respite. Both the Arab and Western media report horrifically sensational suicide bombings, complete with pictures and names of the victims as well as gut-wrenching details. I do not hesitate now to say again that these efforts are morally repugnant and politically disastrous on all sorts of grounds. But what I find just as awful is the fact that Israel kills a far larger number of mostly unarmed Palestinian civilians -- a 90- year-old man here, a whole family there, a mentally disabled youth today, a nurse yesterday, and so on -- and refuses to stop or in any way place restrictions on its troops who have visited mayhem on the Palestinians unremittingly for far too many recent months. Most of the time, however, these dreadful slaughters are reported on the back pages of newspapers and never mentioned on TV. As for the continued practice of extra- legal assassinations, Israel is allowed to get away with phrases from journalists who use words like "alleged" or "officials say" to cover their own irresponsibility as reporters. The New York Times in particular is now so clotted with such phrases in reporting on the Middle East (Iraq included) that it might as well be re-named "Officials Said".

Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism? The Historical Record
By Ivan Eland, Cato Institute
According to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, terrorism is the most important threat the United States and the world face as the 21st century begins. High-level U.S. officials have acknowledged that terrorists are now more likely to be able to obtain and use nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons than ever before. Yet most attention has been focused on combating terrorism by deterring and disrupting it beforehand and retaliating against it after the fact. Less attention has been paid to what motivates terrorists to launch attacks. According to the Pentagon's Defense Science Board, a strong correlation exists between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States. President Clinton has also acknowledged that link. The board, however, has provided no empirical data to support its conclusion. This paper fills that gap by citing many examples of terrorist attacks on the United States in retaliation for U.S. intervention overseas. The numerous incidents cataloged suggest that the United States could reduce the chances of such devastating--and potentially catastrophic--terrorist attacks by adopting a policy of military restraint overseas.

No room for justice
By Ronnie Kasrils and Victoria Brittain, The Guardian, December 21, 2002
Bethlehem, like Sharpeville, has become a symbol of oppression  -- Bethlehem is a familiar talisman of peace in Christmas festivities, but this year the innocent image is gone, perhaps for ever. Today Bethlehem's residents are entombed in their houses 24 hours each day. When the Church of the Nativity was besieged for weeks by the Israeli army in April - the International Red Cross refused entry; misinformation about priests held hostage put out by the Israeli government; wounded Palestinians incarcerated by Israeli forces; others killed and dozens deported to Europe or bussed to Gaza - Bethlehem became, like Sharpeville, a name for injustice. The parallels between the Palestinians' 50 years of struggle for their own land and the anti-apartheid movement's decades of military and civil campaigns for majority rule are seen as obvious in Southern Africa, where liberation wars successfully ended colonialism and racial oppression. That took much too long; but the international community is even further behind in expressing outrage and taking action against Israel than it was against the apartheid government.

This futile struggle
By Emanuele Ottolenghi, The Guardian, December 20, 2002
Yasser Arafat gambled and lost - the intifada has brought nothing but suffering to the Palestinians  -- The Palestinian uprising has failed. More than two years after its outbreak, the Palestinians cannot point to one significant achievement. No Arab country came to their rescue. Neither Egypt nor Jordan cut ties with Israel, despite Israel's iron-fisted policy toward the Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority has all but collapsed, its leadership discredited. Efforts to internationalise the conflict have so far failed, as have attempts to decisively isolate Israel. Though the intifada brought the region to the brink of war, if war happens, no armies of deliverance will come to the rescue of the beleaguered Palestinians. The Palestinians inflicted a severe blow to Israel, but at what price? The Palestinian economy is near collapse. People live mostly under curfew. The spectre of anarchy and civil war looms.

Will the US Betray Iraqis Again?
By Sayed Moustafa Al-Qazwini, CounterPunch, December 20, 2002
Since the seizure of Iraq by the Baath Party in 1968, Iraqis have suffered deplorably, facing constant coercion and degradation. In their own country, they have been stripped of the fundamental rights to which all human beings are entitled: self-determination and freedom from hunger. Yet their rallying cries have gone unheeded -- not only by neighboring countries but the entire international community. Even pronouncements by the United Nations and major human rights organizations have been unsupported by any real conviction. Prior to Saddam Hussein's attempt to annex Kuwait and declare it the 19th province of Iraq in August 1990, his relationship with the United States was strong. This was true even though the American government knew very well that Saddam was using biological and chemical weapons against his own people and had ordered countless tortures, imprisonments and killings targeting any person or organization that defied his rule. I know of this personally; 19 members of my family were subjected to such trials. Even now, we are unaware of my grandfather's whereabouts since his abduction 13 years ago at the age of 86. Nonetheless, before the Kuwait invasion, America chose to remain silent on events within Iraq, and, even worse, continued to support Saddam politically, financially and militarily because of U.S. strategic interests.

UN inspections a side-show
By Milan Rai, BBC, December 19, 2002
"This is a deeply cynical exercise, as well as being illegal and immoral" -- UN weapons inspections are a side-show to the real task of bringing down the Iraqi leader. The presence of weapons inspectors in Iraq could delay and perhaps derail the US drive to war, therefore they are part of the problem, not part of the solution, so far as the US is concerned. A top US Senate foreign policy aide observed in May 2002 that: "The White House's biggest fear is that UN weapons inspectors will be allowed to go in." When he addressed the UN General Assembly on 12 September, President George W Bush demanded the elimination of "all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles, and all related material" in Iraq, "if the Iraqi regime wishes peace." He also demanded an end to Iraqi "support for terrorism", an end to Iraq's "persecution of its civilian population", and an end to the oil smuggling which is the lifeblood of the regime. Nowhere did the president demand or even mention the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq. The message seemed to be that even if weapons inspectors were re-admitted, the US could find another justification for a war against Iraq.

Brutish and loud
Editorial, Arab News, December 22, 2002
The United States seems to speak with only one diplomatic voice these days, and it is brutish and loud. -- The UN Security Council sought via a vote proposed by Syria, to condemn Israel for shooting dead three UN employees and blowing up a Gaza warehouse containing 500 tons of UN food aid. All the other four permanent members of the council — Russia, China, France and the UK—- voted for the Syrian proposal which had been debated and amended over three days. But not the United States. They used their veto to kill the resolution. Why? What would Washington’s reaction have been if the three unarmed UN staff had been gunned down in Iraq? Would it have argued, as it did over the Syrian resolution condemning Israel, that it was “too particular” and did not take account of the violence being perpetrated on the other side of the Palestinian conflict?

Bush: Time to put up or shut up
By Charley Reese, Arab News, December 22, 2002
President George Bush has to put up or shut up. If his administration has hard evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, he has to put that evidence on the table for everyone to see. Otherwise his credibility and the credibility of the United States will be zilch. It’s beginning to appear that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein isn’t as stupid as the Bush administration believed him to be. He has readmitted the inspectors, he’s cooperating with them, and he’s made his declaration: We have no weapons of mass destruction; if the United States and Great Britain have evidence to the contrary, give it to the international inspectors.