12 January 2003
Israel is asking the United States for $8bn (£5bn) in loan guarantees — and has sent to Washington Amos Yaron, one of the former army officers implicated in the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre of Palestinian civilians to persuade the Bush administration to grant the money. Robert Fisk writes in The Independent. Read more about Israeli at US loan talks is implicated in massacre
26 January 2003
On the road to Basra, ITV was filming wild dogs as they tore at the corpses of the Iraqi dead. Every few seconds a ravenous beast would rip off a decaying arm and make off with it over the desert in front of us, dead fingers trailing through the sand, the remains of the burned military sleeve flapping in the wind. “Just for the record,” the cameraman said to me. Of course. Because ITV would never show such footage. The things we see — the filth and obscenity of corpses — cannot be shown. First because it is not “appropriate” to depict such reality on breakfast-time TV. Second because, if what we saw was shown on television, no one would ever again agree to support a war. Robert Fisk writes in The Independent. Read more about The human cost - 'Does Tony have any idea what the flies are like that feed off the dead?'
27 January 2003
Above: Real DJs do Real Things cover.
Although over 20 years old, hip-hop culture does not seem to have fulfilled the potential it once showed to become a serious political force in the U.S. Is there any hope for rappers to speak up and have their voices heard in a political climate much in need of constructive and intelligent dissent, debate and resistance? Ismail Khalidi reviews DJ K-Salaam’s album, Real DJs do Real Things and discovers that DJ tackles the taboo of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — largely untouched in the music industry as well as in showbiz in general. Much like the inventive, hard-hitting beats and musical collages on his album, Salaam is similarly courageous in his liner notes as he makes a plea for justice for the Palestinian people. Read more about Review: "Real DJs do Real Things" by DJ K-Salaam
27 January 2003
By the way the media portrayed it, you would have thought that Illinois Gov. George Ryan walked into their living rooms wearing a belt full of dynamite when he pardoned four convicted murderers and commuted all sentences on Illinois’ death row to life imprisonment. Charity Crouse writes about disturbing parallels with the Israeli judicial system. Read more about No one wins the blame the victim game
27 January 2003
With regard to the Middle East, what does he mean by the question “what went wrong?” Does he mean to ask about economic underdevelopment? About lack of democracy? About a failure to contribute to scientific and technological advances? About ethnocentrism? All of these themes are mentioned in passing, but none is formulated as a research design. Michigan history proffesor Juan Cole reviews Bernard Lewis’ book. Read more about Review of Bernard Lewis' "What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response"
Birzeit, Palestine 27 January 2003
Last week, I went to visit a girlfriend who studies at Birzeit University. I reached there by taking a shared cab sneaking on settler roads, which put the fear of God into me. Ramallah was closed, so I couldn’t take the usual route to Birzeit. Diaa Haddad writes from the village. Read more about Birzeit Blues
25 January 2003
“Ironically, the neo-conservatives and Likudniks of George W. Bush’s regime who want to bring “democracy” to the Arab-Islamic world — by force if necessary — can realize their plans only by first dismantling democracy in the United States of America. They can’t pull off their neo-con artist sleight-of-hand unless they successfully shut down public debate and strangle participatory grassroots politics at home and abroad.” EI’s Laurie King-Irani examines the historical links between US and Israeli plans for regime change in the Middle East. Read more about Democracy's role in preventing the neo-con artists' dangerous sleight-of-hand
25 January 2003
‘Abla Sa’adat who was on her way to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, was arrested and placed under four months administrative detention. Two other Palestinian women, who are held at Beit El military detention center were also placed under administrative detention. Read more about Addameer's WSF representative given four months of administrative detention
25 January 2003
“The controversy started in 2001, when the survivors of the 1982 massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut by pro-Israeli Christian Lebanese militia filed a criminal complaint in Belgium against Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, who was minister of defense in the early 1980’s. Soon, the law that had won widespread praise was being attacked by lawyers, business leaders and foreign governments — in particular, the United States and Israel.” Daphne Eviatar, writing in The New York Times, gives a full and fair overview of recent developments in Belgium’s Universal Jurisdiction law and the ongoing battle against impunity for war crimes. Read more about Debating Universal Jurisdiction in Belgium
Hebron 25 January 2003
In the summer of 2001, a small group of five to ten Israeli settlers confiscated a hill belonging to Palestinian farmers at the north end of the Beqa’a Valley, near the Harsina Settlement, east of Hebron. The settlers erected a few primitive structures and began a new “illegal” (according to current Israeli law) outpost. Art Gish writes from Hebron. Read more about Can anyone do something to stop this?