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.]

The Palestinians Have a Vision of Peace With Justice (Yasser Arafat, The International Herald Tribune, February 4, 2002)
“Now is the time for the Palestinians to state clearly, and for the world to hear clearly, the Palestinian vision. . . . The Palestinian vision of peace is an independent and viable Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, living as an equal neighbor alongside Israel with peace and security for both the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples. . . . The Palestinians recognized Israel's right to exist on 78 percent of historical Palestine, with the understanding that we would be allowed to live in freedom on the remaining 22 percent, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. . . . In short, we seek only what the free world now enjoys and only what Israel insists on for itself . . . There are those who claim that I am not a partner in peace. In response, I say Israel's peace partner is, and always has been, the Palestinian people. Peace is not a signed agreement between individuals - it is reconciliation between peoples. . . . How do I convince my people that Israel is serious about peace while over the past decade Israel intensified the colonization of Palestinian land from which it was ostensibly negotiating a withdrawal? Palestinians are ready to end the conflict. But we will only sit down as equals, not as supplicants; as partners, not as subjects; as seekers of a just and peaceful solution, not as a defeated nation grateful for whatever scraps are thrown our way. . . . For despite Israel's overwhelming military advantage, we possess something even greater: the power of justice.”

A Petition for International Investigation Committee on Ariel Sharon’s crimes against humanity
“WE, the undersigned, as the people of this planet, call urgently on Mrs. Mary Robinson to set up a committee to investigate the involvement of Ariel Sharon in war crimes against humanity . . . Israeli Knesset took action and sat up a parliamentary committee to investigate Ariel Sharon’s involvement in this inhumane act of atrocity. As result of that inquiry, Ariel Sharon was found responsible for the actions of Lebanese Christian Militia, and consequently forced him to resign from his post as Defence Minister. But of course, as he is an Israeli and these crimes were not committed against Israeli nationals, he was never charged and never appeared in any court of justice in Israel. . . .
Now the time has come, all evidences and documents are gathered and ready to set up an investigation committee in order to bring those responsible ones to justice beyond their social or political status.”

Please release my friend Daniel Pearl (Robert Fisk, The Independent, 04 February 2002)
“Daniel was kidnapped in the Pakistani city of Karachi while he was researching a story on Islamic groups, and went to meet two contacts in a restaurant. . . . Back in the mid- to late-1980s, journalists were culled by the hostage-takers of Beirut. Islamic Jihad, they called themselves then, and death threats were a regular occurrence. . . . But they made one serious political error. Once foreigners were kidnapped, almost every Western journalist fled Beirut. . . . Lebanon's tragedy fell out of the news. No one read or heard of the great battles being fought between Hizbollah and the occupying Israeli army in the south of the country . . . The Hizbollah, around which these kidnap groups floated like satellites, now acknowledges that hostage-taking was a major blunder . . . If Israel could not persuade the United States to put the Hizbollah on America's ‘terrorist’ list, the kidnappings would have done the trick. The argument that national resistance should not be confused with ‘terrorism’ was never heard – because the journalists who should have reported it were either locked up or running away. . . . Daniel's kidnappers are now making an identical error. . . . Now I happen to think that the treatment of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is outrageous, illegal, a scandal for a country that claims to be a democracy. I wrote here earlier that these men were being treated much as the Beirut hostages were treated, complete with the threat of death from drumhead courts. And – given the dangerous, infantile State of the Union speech which President Bush gave last week – I am not surprised that the US government saw nothing wrong with releasing those disgusting photographs of the shackled, hooded, drugged prisoners.”

Pentagon in a League of Its Own (Joseph Fitchett, International Herald Tribune, February 3, 2002)
“Assessing the impact of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, Pentagon officials said that the armed forces' success - essentially using sophisticated electronics and sensors to deliver high-precision bombs and missiles - had already spurred nearly $50 billion in new, extra spending on high-tech weapons in the new U.S. defense budget. . . . The prospect of a split alliance - with U.S. forces fighting wars aided by local allies and the Europeans confined to peacekeeping and other infantry roles - dismayed George Robertson, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He warned that trans-Atlantic solidarity was bound to shatter if ‘the Americans do the cutting edge while the Europeans are stuck at the bleeding edge, if the Americans fight from the sky and the Europeans fight in the mud.’ . . . When a German participant voiced his uneasiness about U.S. threats against Iraq, Mr. McCain snapped back: ‘I would tell our German friend to go out and buy some weapons’ before questioning U.S. intentions or power. . . . Similarly in other EU countries, spending priorities on health and education have driven down defense spending, even after the Sept. 11 attacks that triggered major fresh military outlays in the United States. The next U.S. defense budget, at $379 billion, represents 3 percent of gross domestic product.”

Israel thrusts Iran in line of US fire (David Hirst ,The Guardian, Saturday February 2, 2002)
“America's campaign in Afghanistan is winding down, but who will be its next big target in the ‘war on terror’ remains in the realm of conjecture. Of the three chief members of the ‘axis of evil’ that George Bush identified in his state of the union address - Iraq, Iran and North Korea - he dedicated most of his wrath and spoke most threateningly of that hardiest of Washington's villains, Saddam Hussein. . . . Yet, if Israel gets its way, the next target could be Iran. . . . The closer their weapons of mass destruction programmes come to completion, the more compelling the need for Israel - determined to preserve its nuclear monopoly in the region - to eliminate them. . . . The simplest way to thwart the growth of such a Palestinian-Iranian alliance would be to deny it its essential raison d'être by restoring a peace process that has some prospect of success. But it has become clear that peace is just what the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, does not want: Palestinian violence serves him much better. . . . It has long been a built-in, unquestioned US assumption that Israel has a right to preserve its nuclear monopoly, and to pre-empt any regional power's efforts to challenge it. This is a unique indulgence by a superpower of its favourite protege. . . . Yet Israel often hints that the US is not indulgent enough.”

EU challenges US over Israel (Ian Black, The Guardian, February 1, 2002)
“If the bloody, escalating conflict in Europe's backyard was going to be controlled, Israelis and Palestinians urgently needed to get back to the negotiating table. . . . Yasser Arafat, the EU ministers declared, was a partner who was needed to control terrorism and talk peace - neither of which he could easily do under siege by Israeli tanks in the West Bank town of Ramallah. . . . The Americans, by contrast, seemed to be backing the argument of the hawkish Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon . . . It was thus hard to conceal the widening transatlantic divergence over the world's most intractable conflict, in which the EU has worked hard and paid generously to carve out a role but so far failed to wield much influence. . . . That has made it all the more frustrating for the Europeans that the US president, George Bush, has refused to use America's far greater leverage to press the Jewish state to revive the long-stalled Oslo peace talks with the Palestinians. . . . Instead of the cooperative multilateralism the EU wants, the US was standing back from the bloodshed in Gaza and Jerusalem and again picking and choosing the policies - and enemies - that suited it. And in a way that made many Europeans squirm. . . . it was Alan Richard, the French defence minister, who spoke out first, hinting at a backlash if Washington attacked Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. . . . ‘Whatever the outcome,’ he warned, ‘the United States would have to weigh possible changes in its alignments with many other countries.’ ”

Crisis looms for Sharon: More army reservists refuse to serve (Graham Usher, The Guardian, February 2, 2002)
“The public consensus that the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has marshalled behind his policies cracked yesterday. Polls showed him receiving his lowest public approval rating in months, and 50 more combat reservist officers added their names to a petition calling on soldiers to refuse to serve in the occupied territories. . . . ‘We will not take part in the war for the peace of the settlements,’ said the petition, originally published in the press on January 25. ‘We will not fight beyond the Green Line [Israel's 1967 border with the West Bank] in order to rule, expel, destroy, blockade, assassinate, starve and humiliate an entire people.’ . . . The protest has rattled Mr Sharon and the army, which was swift to attribute ‘political’ rather than moral motives to its conscientious objectors. . . . Even the former head of the Shin Bet intelligence service, Ami Ayalon, told Israeli television that he felt ‘a lot of empathy for the reserve officers’ when they were asked to execute ‘blatantly illegal’ orders.”

Napoleon at the Gates of Ramallah (Uri Avnery, Media Monitors Network, January 28, 2002)
“The Israeli-Palestinian war, now 120 years old, is reaching one of its decisive stages. Two great masses are confronting each other: an irresistible force and an immovable object. . . . Sharon is acting in a consistent, determined and logical way to execute his master-plan. For decades now he has thought that he is ordained by history to implement real Zionism - one that aims to conquer all of Eretz-Israel, to cleanse it of the local population and to cover it with settlements. . . . In pursuing this historic mission Sharon is ruthless and merciless. Rivers of blood do not deter him, the number of casualties (theirs and ours) is just one item in his calculations. He acts cautiously, uses ruses and does not shrink from committing war crimes. . . . He knows that he does not have much time left, and that he must use the remaining time in order to destroy the Palestinian people as a political factor. To achieve this, he has to break thir leadership, defeat their armed forces, smash their will and ability to resist. . . . Yasser Arafat symbolizes this ability more than anyone else. Even those Palestinians (mainly Western educated members of the intelligentsia) who used to criticize his style of management know that there is nobody like him in an existential crisis. The man sitting in Ramallah facing the tanks is the personification of the Palestinian determination to defend their national existence in their homeland, whatever the price.”

The screw turns, again (Edward Said, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 6 February 2002)
“While the main media and the government echo each other about the Middle East, there are alternative views available through the Internet, the telephone, satellite channels, and the local Arabic and Jewish press. Nevertheless, so far as what is readily available to the average American is drowned in a storm of media pictures and stories almost completely cleansed of anything in foreign affairs but the patriotic line issued by the government, the picture is a startling one. . . . Words alone are inadequate to explain how an American secretary of state, who presumably has all the facts at his command, can without a trace of irony accuse Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for not doing enough against terror and for buying 50 tons of arms to defend his people, while Israel is supplied with everything that is most lethally sophisticated in the American arsenal at no expense to Israel. . . . Israel has Arafat locked up in his Ramallah headquarters, his people totally imprisoned, leaders assassinated, innocents starved, the sick dying, life completely paralysed -- and yet the Palestinians are accused of terrorism. The idea, much less the reality, of a 35-year military occupation has simply slid away from the media and the US government alike. . . . I do think that the adjective ‘wicked’ is the correct one here for what is being done to the truth of the Palestinian experience of suffering imposed by Sharon on the West Bank and Gaza collectively.”

To be anti-Bush is not anti-American (Natasha Walter, The Independent, 31 January 2002)
“Clearly, the administration's sense of moral certainty has not been dented one teeny little bit by anything that has happened in the last few weeks – not by the collapse of Enron, and certainly not by the criticisms of aspects of the war on terror that are being heard throughout the world. . . . Strains are also appearing between the US and its closest ally in the East. Relations between the US and Saudi Arabia are now said to be at breaking point, and an ‘anonymous Saudi official’ was recently quoted in The Washington Post calling for US troops to be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia. . . . The idea is popular in Britain as well as America that anyone who criticises the American government simply enjoys knocking America out of pure jealousy or contrariness or wickedness. It is not real criticism, it is just blanket hostility – ‘anti-Americanism’. . . . That's why it feels just a little irritating to me when I write articles that criticise American foreign policy only to receive 150 e-mails from Americans accusing me of hating them. I am no more against the American people than Robert Fisk is anti-Semitic. What I loathe is the current administration. . . . And Bush's State of the Union address reminds one very clearly what is loathable about it: above all, its impregnable sense that whatever is in America's interest must be morally superior. . . . But how oddly such rhetoric sat with the images of the men hooded and bound in Guantanamo Bay, or the reports of literally thousands of Taliban and al-Qa'ida prisoners who are still being held in Afghanistan in conditions that have just been criticised, by Physicians for Human Rights, as ‘a quiet atrocity’. . . . It does sometimes look as if the decadence of American political discourse is affecting more than just politics. We are seeing a lowering of energy in American journalism, where even erstwhile critics have gone soft on Bush. . . . And when I read about Rita Lasar, whose brother was killed in the World Trade Centre, saying how sorry she was to the family of Najiba Shakar, whose body was buried in rubble in central Kabul, I knew that the part of America that you simply can't help but love and admire is still very much alive. ‘There is no heroism in bombing innocent civilians,’ she said. I doubt that she, for one, was cheering George Bush yesterday.”

Rebellion grows among Israeli reserve officers (Phil Reeves, The Independent, 01 February 2002)
“The issue erupted when a group of reservists, led by two young lieutenants, published an indictment of Israel's 35-year occupation in the newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, saying that it was ‘corrupting the entire Israeli society’. Some of the signatories are officers and others are from frontline units – the paratroops, infantry and armoured and artillery corps. . . . The petition said soldiers had been issued commands while serving in the occupied territories that ‘had nothing to do with the security of our country’, and had ‘the sole purpose of perpetuating our control’ over the Palestinians. ‘We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people,’ it stated. . . . The reservists' protest is the most compelling example of the simmering dissent within Israel over the conflict.”

‘We just want to live normally’ (Libby Brooks, The Guardian, January 29, 2002)
“The demolition - one of an estimated 8,000 across the occupied territories since 1967, which have left some 40,000 Palestinians homeless - was a desperate affair. A crowd of Palestinians had gathered on a nearby rooftop to witness the inevitable, as another home fell to the complex system of zoning, permits and demolitions, by which Israel maintains its artificial domination over the city of Jerusalem and beyond. Mainly women, they paced, wept, cursed, turned to one another, turned away. Here was a domestic tragedy. . . . Women have reached a stage where they simply want to feel safe, says Marina Barham, who lives in the West Bank village of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, and runs a local theatre company. ‘They want their children and their husband to be safe, in their home, in the street, at their place of work. They want to live normally, not to be under stress all the time worrying whether their family will come home safely.’ . . . As Israeli incursions continue into the West Bank and Gaza, and the Palestians' sphere of movement becomes increasingly limited, the fabric of civil society is unravelling. Half the Palestinians are now living below the poverty line. . . . The new regulations make it harder still for the women who work as cleaners and hotel staff in Jerusalem to reach their jobs. With the Palestinian administration paralysed by Israeli military strikes and economic sanctions, young couples take work where they can find it - being a housewife is no longer an option. . . . Occupation has a different impact on women than on men, says Barham. ‘Women are not just individuals but mothers, sisters, wives. Whatever happens to their families affects their lives completely and they have to take responsiblity for it. It is even harder now because they are not only working inside the house but outside.’ . . . The violation and ensuing trauma of losing one's home is akin to that of rape for many women . . . If women are becoming more radical, argues Fikr Shaltoot, the coordinator of a medical charity in Gaza, it is because of the brutal Israeli action against the Palestinians. ‘It is because of what we see day and night: the destruction of homes, the closures, people killed while they are sleeping, people dying because the checkpoint won't let an ambulance past to get to the hospital. . . . ‘Many women are depressed and suicidal. If there is a chance for Palestinian women to martyr themselves, then they will.”

Both saviour and victim (George Monbiot, The Guardian, January 29, 2002)
“Black Hawk Down looks set to become one of the bestselling movies of all time. Like all the films the British-born director Ridley Scott has made, it is gripping, intense and beautifully shot. It is also a stunning misrepresentation of what happened in Somalia. . . . The special forces, over-confident and hopelessly ill-informed, raided, in quick succession, the headquarters of the UN development programme, the charity World Concern and the offices of Médecins sans Frontieres. They managed to capture, among scores of innocent civilians and aid workers, the chief of the UN's police force. But farce was soon repeated as tragedy. When some of the most senior members of Aideed's clan gathered in a building in Mogadishu to discuss a peace agreement with the United Nations, the US forces, misinformed as ever, blew them up, killing 54 people. Thus they succeeded in making enemies of all the Somalis. The special forces were harried by gunmen from all sides. In return, US troops in the UN compound began firing missiles at residential areas. . . . Ridley Scott says that he came to the project without politics, which is what people often say when they subscribe to the dominant point of view. The story he relates (with the help of the US department of defence and the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff) is the story the American people need to tell themselves. . . . There is no recognition that the worst of the famine had passed, or that the US troops had long ceased to be part of the solution. . . . What we are witnessing in both Black Hawk Down and the current war against terrorism is the creation of a new myth of nationhood. America is casting itself simultaneously as the world's saviour and the world's victim; a sacrificial messiah, on a mission to deliver the world from evil. This myth contains incalculable dangers for everyone else on earth. . . . To discharge its sense of unique grievance, the US government has hinted at what may become an asymmetric world war. It is no coincidence that Somalia comes close to the top of the list of nations it may be prepared to attack. This war, if it materialises, will be led not by the generals in their bunkers, but by the people who construct the story the nation chooses to believe.”

Jewish Voices Against Israel's Occupation of Palestinian Territories
We believe that there can be peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a truly just resolution to their conflict. But there can be no peace or security for Israelis or Palestinians until Israel completely evacuates its settlements in Palestinian territories, ends its military occupation, and returns to its pre-1967 borders. . . . We are outraged and saddened by Israel's brutal occupation of Palestinian lands and its suppression of Palestinians' right to sovereign statehood, guaranteed under Articles 1 and 55 of the Charter of the United Nations. These lands -- the West Bank, Gaza strip, and East Jerusalem -- were taken by force of arms in 1967, and have been held ever since in violation of international law and numerous U.N. Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. . . . In taking the above positions, we support many in the Israeli peace movement, including Bat Shalom, Coalition of Women for a Just Peace, Committee Against House Demolitions, Gush Shalom, New Profile, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and Ta'ayush. . . . We urge the Israeli Government to acknowledge that it bears significant historical responsibility for the dispossession of the Palestinian people, and to join in the effort to find a just solution to the plight of Palestinian refugees.”

Aid packages ignore starving Afghans (Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, February 4, 2002)
“Villages like Siya Sang will see little or nothing of the $4.5bn (£3.2bn) that America, the EU, Japan and other countries pledged for Afghanistan in Tokyo last month. . . . Here, as in nearly all the 380-odd villages of Jawand, hunger and disease ravage the population, culling babies, women, and the elderly. The living stagger on, coughing their lungs and their lives out with tuberculosis. People are so weakened by hunger that even flu can kill. . . . The food aid arriving now may not save them. Many people weigh less than the 50kg sacks of wheat they lug home - on their backs because their donkeys died or were sold. At least four men died on the 24-hour trek to their villages with their sacks of wheat in January. . . . This was the future staring at Rahim Dad when he sold his first-born daughter. He spent the money on flour, rice and tea, and the relative luxuries of soap and sweets. He says he has enough food left for 10 days. At these margins of human existence, the survival instinct rules over sympathy for Aziz Gul.”

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