The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A Preliminary Investigation - Part 1 in a 5-part series
By James Brooks, Palestine Chronicle, December 22, 2002
Israeli forces deploy a novel weapon against citizens of the Gaza Strip: "At first, the gas had no odor. 'It's harmless - this gas is nothing!', yelled a few teenagers, taunting Israeli soldiers. 'Throw more!' The soldiers complied .."  -- WASHINGTON (PC) - Just six days after the landslide election of Ariel Sharon, February 12, 2001 was a violent day in occupied Palestine. In the war-ravaged neighborhoods of Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a barrage of collective punishment after soldiers were shot at by Palestinian gunmen. Machinegun fire and tank shells rained down on the refugee camps, a fusillade that lasted long into the night. The next morning would find an estimated 300 Palestinians newly homeless. (1) In occupied Palestine, where neighborhoods can become high-tech, made-in-America shooting galleries in the blink of an eye, it might have been just another day of occupation. But the Israeli army chose that afternoon to introduce a new and mysterious gas weapon to a defenseless population. To ensure its delivery, the soldiers fired the gas canisters into the streets, courtyards, and houses of the Khan Younis and Gharbi refugee camps.(2)

The Israeli Poison Gas attacks: A Preliminary Investigation - Part 2 in a 5-part series
By James Brooks, Palestine Chronicle, December 23, 2002
Gas attacks continue despite protests - Doctors: 'What am I treating?' -- (PC) - In November, 1999, Suha Arafat, the president's wife, caused an international sensation and embarrassed Hillary Clinton with public charges about Israeli use of "poison gas", apparently referring to the chronic overuse of teargas by Israeli soldiers. Poison gas is an understandably sensitive subject for Israeli Jews. Her comments so incensed Israeli authorities that they were called a violation of the peace process. (16,17) Yet when President Arafat publicly alleged the use of "poison gas" fifteen months later, following the initial attacks in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli response was strangely muted and terse. There were none of the indignant comments or demands for retraction that dogged Ms. Arafat's similar comment for months. Could it be that Israeli authorities wished to avoid drawing attention to the new "poison gas" charges?

The Price Of Israel
By Charlie Reese, Palestine Media Center, December 21, 2002
The Christian Science Monitor published in its Dec. 9 edition a story about Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist, who said recently that the total cost of U.S. support for Israel since 1973 is $1.6 trillion, or twice the cost of the Vietnam War. This is relevant because the Israelis have just demanded from the U.S. taxpayers another $4 billion to cover the cost of their oppression of the Palestinians as well as an $8 billion loan guarantee. Ladies and gentleman, there isn't a state in the union that is not facing a financial crisis, and if the U.S. government caves in yet again to the Israeli lobby on this matter, it will be prima facie evidence of mass insanity or of the worse corruption since the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. Stauffer made his speech in a lecture commissioned by the U.S. Army War College for a conference at the University of Maine. He has converted past aid into 2001 dollars and counts this cost as follows: Israel has been given $240 billion (remember, this is current dollars), while Egypt has been given $117 billion and Jordan $22 billion as bribes for signing a peace treaty with Israel.

Striking with Impunity
By Josh Ruebner, CounterPunch, December 10, 2002
As part of its ongoing brutal military occupation and collective punishment of the Palestinian people, Israel invaded the refugee camp al-Bureij, in the Gaza Strip, in the early morning hours of Friday, December 6. The avowed goal of the invasion, dubbed "Real Games," was to arrest or kill Aiman Shasniyeh and destroy his family's house--a brazen violation of international law and a callous act of inhumanity. Shasniyeh is accused by Israel of daring to fight for the right of his people to live in freedom. In March, he allegedly took part in an attack on an Israeli tank in which three soldiers were killed. However, even if Shasniyeh is responsible for this act, it in no way justifies Israel's disproportionate and indiscriminate response. According to eyewitnesses, between 40-50 Israeli tanks, with aerial support from U.S.-provided AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships, entered the hapless refugee camp and surrounded the Shasniyeh home.

A Modest Proposal
By Noam Chomsky Epsilon Press, December 3, 2002
The dedicated efforts of the Bush administration to take control of Iraq -- by war, military coup, or some other means -- have elicited various analyses of the guiding motives.  Offering one interpretation, Anatol Lieven of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace observes that these plans conform to "the classic modern strategy of an endangered right-wing oligarchy, which is to divert mass discontent into nationalism," inspired by fear of enemies about to destroy us.  That strategy is of critical importance if the "radical nationalists" setting policy in Washington hope to advance their announced plan for "unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority," while conducting a major assault against the interests of the large majority of the domestic population.  Lieven doubtless speaks for many when he describes the US as "a menace to itself and to mankind," on its present course.

In limbo
Editorial, Arab News, December 24, 2002
Now is not a good time to be an optimist about peace for the Palestinians. The sense that everything seems to be in suspension, in a state of limbo, while the world waits to see if President George W. Bush really is going to finish his father’s unfinished business with Saddam Hussein has just been heightened by the announcement that Palestinian presidential elections have been postponed indefinitely. The grounds are perfectly reasonable. With the exception of Jericho, every single Palestinian city of any consequence is effectively occupied and run by the Israeli military. These do not look like the circumstances in which a free and fair election could be run. The delay represents both a great opportunity and a great danger.

Incitement and suppression
The order issued by Interior Minister Eli Yishai on Sunday for the closure of Sawt Al-Haqq Wal-Hurriya (The Voice of Truth and Freedom), a newspaper published by the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, should worry all those who value freedom of expression and thought in Israel. Yishai based his decision to close the paper on a British Mandate-era law - Article 19(2)(a) of the 1933 Press Ordinance - that had been virtually a dead letter ever since the Supreme Court's verdict in the Kol Ha'am case in 1953.