The Spirit of the Internet Weekly

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[Note: The following news and opinions primarily came from email sent by our friends. Thank you Sirius and all the others who have forwarded these messages to us. Due to the large volume of email we are receiving, we can only post a sampling here, but we thank everyone for sending stories like this. We read them all and post what we can as time permits.]

Internet Censorship: AOL/Time Warner Blocks Email from ZNET
If you have an America Online or Compuserve email address, you are presently blocked from receiving ZNet Email. ZNET cannot communicate with anyone on AOL. All mail from them is intercepted. There is no explanation why. They leave ZNET no recourse -- saying only that they are trying to deal with the problem -- that is, deal with their censorship -- but giving no date by which ZNET’s mail will go through. Whether you are an AOL user or not, write AOL at postmaster@aol.com to demand that it stop banning ZNet email. Again, please do this whether you are an AOL user or not!

Arafat: still a leader, but of what? (Peter Beaumont, The Guardian, January 27, 2002)
“Omar and Ibrahim tell us they will stop the tanks and the Israeli soldiers coming for Arafat within his compound, where in effect he has been imprisoned for two months. They tell us they will stop the Israelis with their slingshots. They tell us they are ‘soldiers’, although they admit their mothers do not know they are here. As we walk away my translator become visibly agitated by the scene. ‘Is this how it is going to end? A president protected by small boys!’ . . . If the children of Palestine are still being injured for his lifelong dream of a Palestinian state, then inside his office, behind his walls, the Old Man is suffering a different kind of pain. If Omar and Ibrahim symbolise anything, then it is the humiliation of a man who, for all his faults, is the living symbol of the Palestinian cause. What hurts the Chairman, hurts them all. ‘He really is imprisoned,’ says a friend who recently visited Arafat within the compound. ‘What he controls now has shrunk to a few hundred metres. Two years ago he was in effect a president and treated like one. Now he has been stripped of all his power.’ . . . Now, whether he likes it or not, the question is whether he can pull off one last leap from the fire, or whether this really is the endgame. . . . Which all raises the inevitable question - after Arafat, then what? The problem, as Palestinians acknowledge, is that there are no obvious successors from within the Palestinian Authority upon whom all could agree, enjoying the same symbolism and legitimacy as Arafat.”

Sharon's OK Corral (Robin Lustig, The Guardian, January 28, 2002)
“To Mr Sharon, the Oslo peace process, under which Yasser Arafat was allowed to leave Tunis, set up his headquarters in the West Bank and Gaza and take control of towns like Ramallah, was a terrible mistake. But suppose Ariel Sharon's dream is no more than that. Israel has a Plan B, and even a Plan C. Plan B is what the Israelis call ‘separation’ - at its crudest, this means building a fence to separate Israel from the West Bank and Gaza. The problem is that Israeli settlements, dotted all over the Palestinian territories, will need to be fenced off as well, as will their access routes. That means thousands of miles of fences, and thousands of armed guards to patrol them. Plan C looks even less attractive: reoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Tear up the Oslo accords and go back to pre-1993, with Israeli conscripts patrolling every Palestinian town and city. Some Israeli security chiefs are reported to believe they could quickly arrest all known Palestinian activists, lock them up and put an end to the shootings and suicide bombings. Israeli voters are unlikely to be keen, however, as the reason they backed Oslo was that it got their sons and daughters out of Gaza, and they will not want to see Israel re-emerge as a full-scale occupying power. So Plan A remains the favourite, with Yasser Arafat heading off into the sunset, drummed out of town by the biggest, baddest cowboy. The Americans, say the Israelis, are looking the other way, their attention is elsewhere. They seem to have little or no interest in dealing with Yasser Arafat again.”

Tension mounts as US turns its back on Arafat (Phil Reeves, The Independent, 27 January 2002)
“Palestinian moderates warn that the hardening of the US position – which is at odds with the Europeans – is counter-productive as it will strengthen militant armed groups, making it harder to prevent bloody attacks on Israel. Only a few months ago President Bush was talking about a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and US Secretary of State Colin Powell referred to the need for an end to the Israeli occupation. . . . Palestinians have long seen Washington as pro-Israel, but now many believe that Mr Bush is standing back while Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, plans to strengthen his grip on the West Bank, destroying the Palestinian Authority and burying all chances of a two-state solution. . . . Arab criticism of the US focuses on the fact that it is pressing Mr Arafat to jail armed groups killing Israelis, and yet has less and less to say about Israel's conduct, particularly the use of F-16 war planes and its repeated assassinations. . . . ‘There is a serious short-sightedness on the part of those making policy,’ said Dr Mustafa Barghouthi, a leading moderate. ‘They are underestimating the impact that it could have on the whole of the Middle East.’ ”

Muhammad's Killer (Neta Golan, palsolidarity listserv, January 7, 2001)
“I realized the soldier in front of me was the murderer of my friend Muhammad Daud. . . . I told him every thing I could think of about Mohammed and about his family. He didn't want to hear it. ‘I know where he was standing’, I said. ‘I saw his blood on the ground. There is know way he could have thrown a stone at you from so far away, let alone a boulder.’ . . . Young Soldiers, many of them like Muhammad's killer, control every aspect of the lives of millions of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Ignorant youth like these have the power of life and death over Palestinian elders and children alike. . . . This cannot continue. To stop this injustice we need help. Help us.”

HISTORY WILL NOT END HERE: Chomsky’s 9-11 (David Edwards, Zmag.org, January 23, 2002)
“It was ‘an instant, foolproof, bloodless recipe, like Delia Smith for bombers’, crows the Observer’s Mary Riddell, demonstrating [no] respect for the untold numbers of civilian victims incinerated by U.S. bombs and starving to death in the frozen hills of Afghanistan. But, once again, history will not end here. And, as Noam Chomsky makes clear in this tiny, essential book of interviews, history is sure to swallow the vapid cries of ‘Victory!’ in its vast and bloody maw. . . . An easy ‘victory’ in disbanding the Taliban in Afghanistan may yet prove to be a terrible defeat for peace and security in the world. . . . Chomsky identifies a hidden and deeply disturbing truth about mainstream commentators: ‘It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that at some deep level, however they may deny it to themselves, they regard our crimes against the weak to be as normal as the air we breathe.’ This being one of the profound effects of ‘several hundred years of imperial violence on the intellectual and moral culture of the West’. . . . It matters not that bin Laden and others are clear that they are fighting a Holy War against the corrupt, repressive, ‘un-Islamist’ regimes of the region; that they are fighting against the devastation of Iraqi civil society by Western sanctions, and against the ruthless Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. Because we are morally blind to the horrors for which we are responsible, we cannot understand the depth of the hatred our policies have generated, and so we call inflicting yet more violence on that already suppurating wound, ‘victory’. . . . Another defeat in ‘victory’ could prove to be the emboldening and entrenchment of dangerous reactionary forces in society. George Bush’s administration is deeply rooted in militarism and big business, particularly the oil industry. Perceived success in ‘the war on terrorism’ could lend even more, and perhaps terminal, strength to centres of power that are successfully opposing action on climate change.”

Bush family’s dirty little secret: President’s oil companies funded by Bin Laden family and wealthy Saudis who financed Osama bin Laden (Rick Wiles, American Freedom News, September 2001)
“ ‘If you do business with terrorists, if you support or succor them, you will not do business with the United States,’ said President Bush. He didn’t say anything about doing business with a terrorist’s brother – or his wealthy financier. . . . Doing business with the enemy is nothing new to the Bush family. Much of the Bush family wealth came from supplying needed raw materials and credit to Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. . . . The BCCI scandal implicated some of the biggest political names in Washington – both Democrats and Republicans – during the first Bush White House. The bank was accused of laundering money for drug cartels, smuggling weapons to terrorists, and using Middle Eastern oil money to influence American politicians. . . . The chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division under former President Bush was Robert Mueller. Because the major players came out of the scandal with slaps on the wrists, many critics accused Mueller of botching the investigation. Mr. Mueller was recently appointed by President George W. Bush as the new Director of the FBI . . . President Bush certainly is aware of that his former Saudi sugar daddy is still financing Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network. USA Today newspaper reported in 1999 that a year after bin Laden’s attacks on US embassies in Africa, Khaled bin Mahfouz and other wealthy Saudis were funneling tens of millions of dollars each year into bin Laden’s bank accounts. . . . Since Osama bin Laden’s bloody attack on America on September 11, the federal government has moved quickly to freeze bank accounts connected to Osama bin Laden, Khalid bin Mahfouz, and a host of Islamic charities. Perhaps federal agents should freeze the financial assets of the Bush family too. It would not be the first time Bush-family assets were seized by the US government for trading with the enemy.”

Afghanistan faces an environmental crisis (Fred Pearce, NewScientist.com, 02 January 02)
“A new catastrophe faces Afghanistan - the US bombing campaign is conspiring with years of civil conflict and drought to create an environmental crisis. Humanitarian and political concerns are dominating the headlines. But they are also masking the disappearance of the country's once rich habitat and wildlife, which are quietly being crushed by war. . . . Much of south-east Afghanistan was once lush forest watered by monsoon rains. Forests now cover less than two per cent of the country. . . . And the intense bombing intended to flush out the last of the Taliban troops is destroying or burning much of what remains. . . . The refugee crisis is also wrecking the environment, and much damage may be irreversible. Forests and vegetation are being cleared for much-needed farming, but the gains are likely to be only short-term. . . . ‘Eventually the land will be unfit for even the most basic form of agriculture,’ warns Hammad Naqi of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Pakistan. Refugees - around four million at the last count - are also cutting into forests for firewood. . . . For instance, some refugees are hunting rare snow leopards to buy safe passage across the border. A single fur can fetch $2000 on the black market, says Zahler. Only 5000 or so snow leopards are thought to survive in central Asia . . . Bombing will also leave its mark beyond the obvious craters. Defence analysts say that while depleted uranium has been used less in Afghanistan than in the Kosovo conflict, conventional explosives will litter the country with pollutants. They contain toxic compounds such as cyclonite, a carcinogen, and rocket propellants contain perchlorates, which damage thyroid glands.”

Emerging Alternatives in Palestine (Edward Said, Al-Ahram, January 15, 2002)
“American official condemnations of Yasser Arafat's Authority after 11 September as harbouring and even sponsoring terrorism have coldly reinforced the Sharon government's preposterous claim that Israel is the victim, the Palestinians the aggressors in the four-decade war that the Israeli army has waged against civilians, property and institutions without mercy or discrimination. The result today is that the Palestinians are locked up in 220 ghettos controlled by the army; American-supplied Apache helicopters, Merkava tanks, and F-16s mow down people, houses, olive groves and fields on a daily basis; schools and universities as well as businesses and civil institutions are totally disrupted; hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed and tens of thousands injured; Israel's assassinations of Palestinian leaders continue; unemployment and poverty stand at about 50 per cent -- and all this while General Anthony Zinni drones on about Palestinian ‘violence’ to the wretched Arafat, who can't even leave his office in Ramallah because he is imprisoned there by Israeli tanks, while his several tattered security forces scamper about trying to survive the destruction of their offices and barracks. . . . [A] silent majority of Palestinians is neither for the Authority's misplaced trust in Oslo (or for its lawless regime of corruption and repression) nor for Hamas's violence. . . . In mid-December, a collective statement was issued that was well-covered in the Arab and European media (it went unmentioned in the US) calling for Palestinian unity and resistance and the unconditional end of Israeli military occupation, while keeping deliberately silent about returning to Oslo. . . . In addition, just as the Authority jumped to obey Sharon and Bush by rounding up the usual Islamist suspects, a non-violent International Solidarity Movement was launched by Dr Barghouthi that comprised about 550 European observers (several of them European parliament members) who flew in at their own expense. With them was a well-disciplined band of young Palestinians who, while disrupting Israeli troop and settler movement along with the Europeans, prevented rock-throwing or firing from the Palestinian side. This effectively froze out the Authority and the Islamists, and set the agenda for making Israel's occupation itself the focus of attention. All this occurred while the US was vetoing a Security Council resolution mandating an international group of unarmed observers to interpose themselves between the Israeli army and defenceless Palestinian civilians. . . . So where is the Israeli and American left that is quick to condemn ‘violence’ while saying not a word about the disgraceful and criminal occupation itself? I would seriously suggest that they should join brave activists like Jeff Halper and Louisa Morgantini at the barricades (literal and figurative), stand side by side with this major new secular Palestinian initiative, and start protesting the Israeli military methods that are directly subsidised by tax-payers and their dearly bought silence.”

It is shameful for Britain to support the degradation of these Prisoners (The Independent, 22 January 2002)
“Remarks by American officials about the hygiene of the prisoners have more than a hint of racism about them, while both politicians and officials readily refer to the captives as ‘terrorists’, implying that there is barely any need for a trial since their guilt is so certain. . . . The abuse of human rights, which borders on torture, is not what we in Britain stood shoulder to shoulder with America for. But it is not simply a moral issue. Even on the cynical grounds of practical politics and diplomacy, the course America is taking is potentially disastrous. The savage and inhumane treatment meted out to the prisoners is losing much of the international political capital built up so skillfully by the Bush administration after 11 September. To take one example, the shaving of heads and beards of some prisoners is not just degrading; it also hands America's enemies a priceless propaganda gift. It is almost as if America seems bent on confirming the claims of the fanatics that the war on terror was, in fact, a war on Islam. There is a growing fear, however, that American politicians are playing to a vengeful domestic gallery and care little about the international response . . . America is acting like a schoolyard bully. Instead of a high-profile demonstration of the superior moral values of the coalition against terror we are presented with the depressing spectacle of behaviour that demeans America – and her allies. It is an immoral as well as a dangerous situation, and Mr Blair must say so.”

Congratulations, America. You have made bin Laden a happy man (Robert Fisk, The Independent, 22 January 2002)
“Shackled, hooded, sedated. Taken to a remote corner of the world where they may be executed, where the laws of human rights are suspended. Sounds to me like the Middle East. . . . And now, a trip down memory lane. In the 1980s, when I was covering the war in Afghanistan between the brave mujahedin guerrillas and the Soviet occupiers, Arab fighters – armed by the Americans, paid by the Saudis and the West – would occasionally be captured by the Russians or by their Afghan communist satrap allies. For the most part, the Arabs were Egyptians. They would be paraded on Kabul television and then executed as ‘terrorists''. We called them ‘freedom fighters’. President Reagan claimed that their masters were not unlike the Founding Fathers. . . . From time to time, these revolutionary forces would sally forth across the Amu Darya river to attack the Soviet Union itself. The ‘Arab’ Afghans would attack a foreign country from Afghanistan. They would do so in their war against occupation. We supported them. For, yes, they were ‘freedom fighters’. Now, having opposed America, having dared to oppose US forces inside Afghanistan, in order to destroy US forces ‘occupying'' part of the Arab world – in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait – they have become ‘unlawful combatants'', ‘battlefield detainees''. That, in essence, is what the Russians called them in the 1980s. It justified their detention in the hideous Pol e-Chowkri prison outside Kabul, their incarceration like animals – partly exposed to the elements – before their appearance in front of unfair, drumhead courts. . . . Minus the torture, the United States is now doing what most Arab regimes have been doing for decades: arresting their brutal ‘Islamist’ enemies, holding them incommunicado, chained and hooded, while preparing unfair trials. . . . Shackled, hooded, sedated. Prepared for a trial without full disclose of evidence. With a possible death sentence at the end, we are now the very model of the enemies Mr bin Laden wants to fight. He must be a happy man.”

US Weapons, Israeli Death Squads: Coloradan Experiences Life In Occupied Palestine (Mark Schneider, January 20, 2002)
“I recently joined hundreds of internationals in three weeks of nonviolent witness and action to confront Israel's military aggression in Palestine and to question my country's support of Israel with billions of dollars of annual aid, most of it military. . . . In Gaza, one of the most oppressed and densely populated places on earth, I viewed photos of the bodies of three Palestinian teenagers murdered by the Israeli military and mutilated (all their organs crudely removed) by an Israeli coroner. Four days prior to my arrival the unarmed teens were shelled by an Israeli tank and shot. Israeli authorities claimed the teens were ominously approaching an Israeli military post. . . . I observed Israeli soldiers call Palestinian men ‘dogs,’ and take their IDs for hours. When I asked why, a soldier said, ‘They must learn to come when I call.’ ”

U.S. Should Reconsider Aid to Israel (Bill Maxwell, St. Petersburg Times, December 16, 2001)
“Israel has severed ties with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. As an American citizen and a taxpayer, I want to go on record stating that the United States should reconsider its ties with Israel. . . . For sure, we should cut off all funds -- as much as $3-billion annually -- to the Jewish state. Much of that money (American taxes) is used in ways, including the procurement of military weaponry, that dehumanize the Palestinian people. We, as Americans, should be ashamed of ourselves for being partners in a state policy that forces an entire population to exist as a diaspora -- a stateless people scattered about as if they are nothing. . . . But even Barak knows the score: You cannot dispossess a people and then attempt to govern them by occupying their land, by forcing them to subsist in refugee camps, by blocking roadways to their jobs, by refusing to let them get medical attention, by cutting them off from their universities, by discounting their humanity. . . . Only fools would attempt such folly. . . . Does anyone in Israel or the United States believe that the Palestinian people will simply lick their wounds and disappear into their refugee camps if Arafat is killed? Does anyone believe that Palestinians will abide Israel's hand-picked successor to Arafat? Does anyone believe that the growing legion of suicide bombers will reform and start herding sheep and growing olives?”

The prime-time smearing of Sami Al-Arian (Eric Boehlert, Salon.com, January 19, 2002)
“It may not provide him much comfort, but tenured University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, recently fired after his appearance on a conservative talk show revived discredited, years-old allegations of ties to anti-Israel terrorists, may be the first computer science professor ever mugged by four of the nation's most influential news organizations. . . . USF administrators fired the Kuwaiti-born professor after he appeared on national television for five minutes of punditry last fall. His crime? Not telling viewers that his views did not necessarily reflect those of the school. . . . As Salon recently reported the Al-Arian episode raises disturbing questions about free speech, academic freedom and the future of tenured status. But what's also important to understand is the crucial role the press played in the unfolding saga. . . . equally culpable are Fox News Channel, NBC, Media General (specifically its Tampa newspaper) and the giant radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications. In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, all four media giants, eagerly tapping into the country's mood of vengeance and fear, latched onto the Al-Arian story, fudging the facts and ignoring the most rudimentary tenets of journalism in their haste to better tell a sinister story about lurking Middle Eastern dangers here at home. . . . Not even his harshest critics suggest Al-Arian has done anything in the last five years that could be even remotely construed as aiding terrorist organizations. The entire controversy sprang from the fact that viewers became enraged after old allegations were re-aired, albeit often in mangled form, by O'Reilly. . . . But the Gulf Coast hysteria was entirely created by the media. Without the Tampa Tribune, which undertook a dubious seven-year crusade against al-Arian, there would have been no story to begin with. Without ‘The O'Reilly Factor’ -- a showcase for noisy right-wing ranting whose producers apparently didn't even know that Al-Arian had been cleared of charges before they handed him over to their equally ignorant hanging-judge host -- the controversy would never have been revived. Without incendiary, know-nothing Clear Channel radio jocks, led by a gentleman named Bubba the Love Sponge, there would almost certainly have been far fewer USF death threats. And without NBC's sloppy work on ‘Dateline’ there would probably have been no firing.”

EU publicly backs Arafat in fresh challenge to Bush (Stephen Castle in Brussels, The Independent, 29 January 2002)
“In stark contrast to recent US criticism of Mr Arafat, the EU said ‘ ... Israel needs the Palestinian Authority and its elected president, Yasser Arafat, as a partner to negotiate with’. Some EU foreign ministers were more blunt, Sweden's Anna Lindh, being the most outspoken. . . . As she arrived for yesterday's meeting of EU foreign ministers, she said: ‘I think it is very dangerous if the United States is supportive of the Israeli government and of the confrontation [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon has tried to use instead of supporting peace talks.’ . . . The EU's declaration said it is ‘seriously concerned at the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure and other facilities which help Palestinians in their economic, social and humanitarian development and which are financed by the EU and other donors.’ ”

‘Vietnam Syndrome’ is Alive and Thriving (Mark Weisbrot, Alternet.org, January 25, 2002)
“The murder of thousands of civilians in the worst terrorist action ever on American soil seems not to have changed this part of the ‘Vietnam syndrome’ at all. The US military has fought this war, like the others, from the air. Our planes now bomb from altitudes so high that they cannot even be seen by the fighters and civilians below. . . . When it came time to search the caves of Tora Bora for Osama and his friends, US officials started talking about ‘the right mix of incentives’ (money, weapons) to get Afghans to do the job. . . . From the safety and calm of their armchairs and op-ed pages, pundits have argued vehemently that American troops should take on these tasks. But this isn't likely to happen any time soon. . . . What our politicians fear, but nobody wants to talk about, are the political consequences of American casualties. . . . But since Vietnam, there has been a widespread mistrust of American foreign policy. During the war, we were told that we were helping the Vietnamese -- saving them and the world from communism. This turned out to be a huge lie, with terrible consequences. Millions discovered that the United States was really fighting a dirty colonial war that the French had abandoned. . . . For these reasons, public support for the ‘War on Terrorism’ is miles wide but only an inch deep. Our political leaders want to use this crusade the way they used the ‘War Against Communism,’ and more recently, the ‘War on Drugs’ in Colombia: as an excuse for the violence and brutality that are necessary to police a worldwide empire.”

Israeli Murderers

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