A
Palestinian throws back to Israeli soldiers a teargas canister
during clashes in the West Bank town of Ramallah Wednesday
Oct. 25, 2000. Over four weeks of violence have left more
than 300 Palestinians dead in the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip. (AP Photo/Enric Marti)
The
deeply flawed "peace process" initiated at Oslo, combined
with the daily frustrations and humiliations inflicted upon Palestinians
in the occupied territories, converged to ignite a second intifada
beginning in late September 2000. On September 28, Likud leader
Ariel Sharon visited the Noble Sanctuary (Temple Mount) in the company
of 1000 armed guards; in the context of July's tense negotiations
over Jerusalem's holy places, and Sharon's well-known call for Israeli
annexation of East Jerusalem, this move provoked large Palestinian
protests in Jerusalem. Israeli soldiers killed six unarmed protesters.
These killings inaugurated over a month of demonstrations and clashes
across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. For a brief period, these
demonstrations spread into Palestinian towns inside Israel.
In
relative terms, the second intifada is already bloodier than the
first. As in the previous intifada, Palestinians threw stones and
Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers, who responded with rubber-coated
steel bullets and live ammunition. But both sides have employed
greater force than in 1987-1991. The militant wing of Fatah, which
has coordinated many street actions, now has a substantial cache
of small arms and has fired often on Israeli troops. The Israeli
military response escalated dramatically after two soldiers, allegedly
"lost" in the PA-controlled West Bank town of Ramallah,
were killed October 12 by a Palestinian mob returning from the funeral
of an unarmed young man whom soldiers had shot dead the day before.
The IDF attacked PA installations in Ramallah, Gaza and elsewhere
with helicopter gunships and missiles. Subsequently, the IDF has
not always waited for Israelis to die before answering Palestinian
small arms fire with tank shells and artillery, including the shelling
of civilian neighborhoods in the West Bank and Gaza.
For
these actions and the use of live ammunition to control demonstrations
of unarmed Palestinians, several international human rights organizations
have condemned Israel for use of excessive force. The UN Security
Council passed a similar condemnation, from which the US abstained,
and on October 20, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution
condemning Israel. Israel, the US and four Polynesian island nations
voted no, and a third of the assembly abstained. Despite a truce
agreement at Sharm al-Sheikh, a later agreement to quell violence
between Arafat and Shimon Peres and Bill Clinton's attempts to restart
negotiations in January 2001, the second intifada did not look like
it would end soon. In December 2000, Barak called early elections
for prime minister to forestall a likely vote of no confidence in
the Knesset. He will face Ariel Sharon in the February 6 election.
To date over 350 people, about 90 percent of them Palestinian, have
been killed in the violence. While the outcome of the uprising is
very unclear, it is probably impossible to resume the Oslo peace
process without major modifications to its basic framework. The
Palestinian street has definitively rejected Oslo, and top officials
of the PA now say that UN resolutions must form the basis of future
final status talks.
The
debate over the war in Iraq follows a yellowing script: The minute
someone suggests that the US move to withdraw its troops, war supporters
cry “Havoc!”
True to form, when no less a figure than Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki stated he wants a timeline for a US pullout, John McCain
summoned the specter of dire consequences. “I’ve always
said we’ll come home with honor and with victory and not through
a set timetable,” McCain said. In his major foreign policy speech
on July 15, Barack Obama affirmed his support for a withdrawal timetable,
adding that the US must “get out as carefully as we were careless
getting in.” Obama’s position is the correct one, but he,
like many other war critics, has done too little to counter the refrain
that withdrawal is simply
“cutting and running,” a recipe for disaster. Full
Story>>
At
the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) earlier this month, presidential candidates
John McCain and Barack Obama competed over who would become the “candidate
for Israel.” The match came to a draw when both candidates
pledged undying and unconditional support for Israel. While their
support for “Israel right or wrong” was unquestionable,
at the end of all the commotion, the most pertinent question for
Americans and the world remained unasked and unanswered: Who is
the candidate for peace? Full
Story>>
Quick: Who is the strategic victor, to date, of the war in Iraq?
Nearly everyone outside the Bush administration (and perhaps some
within it) would answer: the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The
catastrophe of the U.S. occupation of Iraq has bolstered the
clerical regime in Tehran, while souring ordinary Iranians on
the prospect of U.S.-delivered “democracy.” The occupation
has done so by emplacing Iranian-backed Shiite Islamists in power
in Baghdad and cooling the jets of those in Washington hoping to “shock
and awe” Iran's mullahs. Full
Story>>
Libya's Fat Cat The Topeka Capital-Journal Januwary 11, 2008
Chris Toensing
Few
dictators in the world are sitting prettier in 2008 than Col.
Muammar Qaddafi of Libya. In a region full of potentates and presidents-for-life,
his reign is supreme. Having seized power in a 1969 coup, he has
ruled his country for longer than any other Arab head of state.
And now, as wintry January begins, the colonel has quietly completed
his journey back in from the cold. Full
Story>>
