Despite assurances to the contrary in Washington and a major policy speech in London, one need not quibble with the obvious fact that the situation is deteriorating beyond repair in Afghanistan. Although international media is more concerned with what that means politically for United States President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, little attention is given to the browbeaten and war-weary people of that country.

One should know that public support for the war has greatly diminished, when conservative commentators like The Washington Post columnist George Will write: “US forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy. America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, air strikes and small, potent Special Forces units.”

Okay, so his narrative is still ultimately violent, but the fact remains that the war mood is changing. After all, Will’s September 1 article was entitled, “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.”

Dan Senor and Peter Wehner responded with a peculiar diatribe in the New York Times, accusing Will of allowing his party allegiance to influence his views on the war. The two authors, senior fellows at major US think tanks, offered a bloody rationale wrapped in deceptive wording. They argued that historically Democrats opposed Republican wars and Republicans have done the same, and that must change. It was implied that pretty much every major war in recent decades was a war that served US national security interests; therefore, “Republicans should resist the reflex that all opposition parties have, which is to oppose the stands of a president of the other party because he is a member of the other party.” In other words, yes to war, whether by Democrats or Republicans.

The intellectual wrangling, of course, is not happening in a vacuum; it almost never does. Indeed, there is much politicking going on; intense deliberation in Washington, political debates in London; defensive French statements, and more. It seems that the war in Afghanistan is reaching a decisive point, militarily in Afghanistan itself, and politically in major Western capitals.

But why the sudden hoopla over Afghanistan? For after all, the bloody war has been grinding on for eight long years.

The Taliban and various groups opposing the Kabul government and their Western benefactors are gaining ground, not just in the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. Daring Taliban attacks are now taking place in the north as well, long seen as peaceful, thus requiring little attention. On August 26, a roadside bomb hit the car of the chief of the provincial Justice Department in the northern Kunduz province, killing him, and sending shock waves through Kabul. The bloody message was meant to echo as a political one: no one is safe, nowhere is safe. Another attack was reported in the province of Laghman, in the east, where 22 people, mostly civilians were killed. Among the dead were four Afghan officials including the deputy chief of the National Directorate of Security, Abdullah Laghmani. The irony is too obvious to state.

In Washington, London and Paris politicians wish us to believe that they are not unnerved by all of this. They exaggerated the significance of the recent Afghani elections, attempting to once again underscore that the “crucial” elections placed Afghanistan on a crossroads. Crossroads? What does that even mean, in any practical terms? George Will, although selective in his logic, was honest enough to mention that President Hamid Karzai’s “vice-presidential running mate is a drug trafficker.” Even US officials admit that the government they’ve created following the war is corrupt, to say the least.

Richard Holbrooke, among other foreign envoys “responsible for Afghanistan”, told reporters in Paris on September 2 that US officials have no preference among the candidates, nor are they particularly interested in runoff elections, but they wished to see a government that appoints “more efficient, less corrupt ministers”. It behooves those “responsible for Afghanistan” to remember that inefficiency and corruption were the outcome of the very policies they have so eagerly adopted in the country. No sympathy for Karzai here, but it’s unfair to point the finger at a feeble leader whenever a Western strategy fumbles, as it has repeatedly.

Speaking of strategies, what is the plan ahead? French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner promised that foreign troops will stay put in Afghanistan unless the country’s security was ensured, reported Xinhua. In practical terms, this means never, for how could security ever visit that region as long as the strategy is hostage to two equally destructive narratives — the Senor/Wehner troop surges vs Will’s “offshore” strategy?

Hubris aside, Washington and London are facing some difficult political and military decisions ahead. Top officials in both capitals are using grim and somber language. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, responding to a call by the top US general in Afghanistan for a fresh approach to the conflict, is considering yet another troop increase as part of Obama’s new Afghan strategy.

The sense of urgency was invited by the detailed report of the newly appointed General Stanley McChrystal, who maintains that “success” was still possible, but a change of strategy is needed. The report resulted in intense deliberation in Washington, highlighted by grim press conferences involving the Pentagon’s heavyweights, including Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over what to do about “Obama’s war.”

Speaking at the Pentagon, Gates equivocated: “I don’t believe that the war is slipping through the administration’s fingers. I absolutely do not think it is time to get out of Afghanistan (but there remains) limited time for us to show that this approach is working.”

The details of the new Obama strategy are still not very clear, but the commitment to the war is still unquestionable, as expressed in a “major” September 4th speech by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. “When the security of our country is at stake we cannot walk away,” said Brown, according to the BBC.

As Brown was solemnly speaking about British security, NATO air strikes on a pair of fuel tankers killed up to 90 people, according to Afghan authorities.

Indeed, the situation in Afghanistan requires a fresh approach, although not the one George Will had in mind.

Meanwhile, top US administration and army officials cautioned Iraqis of their own recklessness. “Biden Warns Iraq About Reverting to Sectarian Violence,” read a New York Times headline. “What will it take to make a good exit from Iraq?” inquired a Kansas City Star analysis. But missing from news headlines and commentary was any indication of direct US responsibility for the genocide that has befallen Iraq.

How can one claim that US ambitions in Iraq have altered if the ongoing legacy in Iraq is being perceived as a strategic mistake, rather than a moral one?

One thing remains the same, for sure: and that is the arrogance that has long permeated US relations with Iraq. “The president and I appreciate that Iraq has traveled a great distance over the past year, but there is a hard road ahead if Iraq is going to find lasting peace and stability,” said Vice President Biden during a visit to Baghdad on July 3rd. Biden’s remarks were saturated with the same hubris that defined the former administration’s attitude towards Iraq for years: ‘we did our share, that of liberating you, and now its your turn to take charge of your own security’, type of rhetoric. “It’s not over yet,” Biden said. Ironically, he is right, since that could only mean the complete withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, the end of foreign meddling in the country’s affairs, and the removal of corrupt politicians that have destroyed the country’s national identity in favor of sectarian camps endlessly fighting for dominance and privilege. Indeed, it’s anything but over.

It’s true that the majority of Americans now accept the once rebuked claim that the Iraq war was predicated on a lie, and readily blame former President Bush for drawing the country into a costly war that should have never happened. President Obama’s arrival has seemingly ushered in a new discourse of honesty and national introspection.

Although one wants to believe that the new administration is sincere in seeking an exit strategy from Iraq, one is hardly sure that the US is ready to divorce itself from the war-scarred country. There is little reason, aside from tactical redeployment, that should compel antiwar sentiments to weaken, or self-respecting commentators to halt their questioning of US intentions.

The terms “exit” and “exit strategy” are now dominating media discourse regarding Iraq. Some attribute this new language to the new administration. The odd fact is that the recent US army redeployment is not the brainchild of the Obama administration, but a provision of a November 2008 agreement signed between the Iraqi government of Nouri Al Maliki and the Bush administration. Talk of exiting Iraq indeed preceded the entrance of Obama. The new US administration simply honored previous commitments. As per official statements, following the June 30 redeployment, the US is expected to reduce its forces by 50,000 troops by August 2010, and then many of those remaining by the end of 2011.

So, 2012 will witness a fully independent Iraq, right? Wrong. “Many studying Iraq believe the US will end up negotiating with Baghdad to establish a couple of permanent military bases,” writes Matt Schofield. “Those could be essential to leaving behind a stable government, a military loyal to the nation and capable of defending it, and a country that has the backing of the people.” Those who wish to decipher such deceptive language should comprehend the permanent US military presence as permanent occupation. Indeed, the US doesn’t have to be present on every Iraqi street corner to officially occupy the country. The sectarian Iraqi army and police — US armed and trained — should be enough to carry out US wishes in Iraq (under the guise of fighting terrorists), while the US will “stand ready, if asked and if helpful, to help in that process,” as explained by Biden.

Iraq headlines will eventually fade away, making space for the new escalation in Afghanistan, also in the name of fighting terror, bringing democracy and all the rest.

The faces of the victims will be hidden so as not to harm our sensibilities, and causality figures will be manipulated, contested and at times blamed on the coward terrorists who hide among civilians. In other words, the US will take the spirit of its Iraq war to Afghanistan, remain in Iraq — as inconspicuous as possible — so as to hold onto its strategic military achievement, and, if necessary, blame both nations for their growing misfortunes.

However, before we take our eyes off Iraq, Americans must remember their own culpability in what transpired there. Antiwar activists and people of conscience must not forget that 130,000 US soldiers remain in the country; that the US has complete control over Iraqi airspace and territorial water; that there is not yet a reason to celebrate and move on. Even if one is trusting enough to believe the administration and army’s own account of its future in Iraq, one should recall comments made by Admiral Mike Mullen last February: “Mr. Obama plans to leave behind a ‘residual force’ of tens of thousands of troops to continue training Iraqi security forces, hunt down terrorist cells and guard American institutions.”

One may be truly eager to see a sovereign, democratic and stable Iraq, but such hopes must not occur at the expense of truth and common sense.

Iran’s presidential elections on June 12 were positioned to represent another fight between Middle Eastern ‘moderates’ vs. ‘extremists’. That depiction, which conveniently divided the Middle East — according to the prevailing US foreign policy discourse — to pro-American and anti-American camps was hardly as clear in the Iranian case as it was in Palestine and most recently in Lebanon.

Ahmadinejad’s main rival, Mir Hussein Moussavi served as Iran’s Prime Minister for 8-years (between 1981-1989) during one of Iran’s most challenging times, its war with Iraq. He was hardly seen as a ‘moderate’ then. More, Moussavi was equally adamant in his country’s right to produce atomic energy for peaceful means. As far as US interests in the region are concerned, both Ahmadinejad and Moussavi are interested in dialogue with the US, and are unlikely to alter their country’s attitudes towards the occupation of Iraq, their support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Palestine. Neither is ready, willing or, frankly, capable of removing Iran from the regional power play at work in the Middle East, considering that Iranian policies are shaped by other internal forces beside the president of the country.

This is not to suggest that both leaders are one and the same. For the average Iranian, statements made by Ahmadinejad and Moussavi during Iran’s lively election campaigns did indeed promise major changes in their lives, daily struggles and future. But yet again, the two men were caricatured to present two convenient personalities to the outside world, a raging nuclear-obsessed man, hell-bent on ‘wiping Israel off the map”, and a soft-spoken, learned ‘moderate’ ready to ‘engage’ the West and redeem the sins of his predecessor.

Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the first negative image — tainted as such by mainstream media, and years of image manipulation by forces dedicated to the interest of Israel – won. The election outcome in Iran presents the young Obama with a major challenge: if he carries on with his diplomatic approach and soft overtures towards Iran, ruled by a supposed Holocaust-denier, he will certainly be seen as a failed president, who dared to perceive Israel’s interests in the region as secondary; on the other hand, Obama cannot depart from his country’s new approach towards Iran, a key player in shaping the contending forces in the entire region.

In some way, Ahmadinejad’s victory was the best news for Israel. Now, Tel Aviv will continue to pressure Obama to ‘act’ against Iran, for the latter, under its current president is an ‘existential threat’ to Israel, a claim that few in Washington question. “It is not like we rooted for Ahmadinejad,” an Israeli official told the New York Times on the condition of anonymity a day after it was clear that Ahmadinejad won another term in office.

But considering Israel’s immediate attempt to capitalize on the outcome of the elections makes one wonder if the defeat of Iran’s ‘moderate’ camp was not a best-case scenario for Israel. Iran will continue to be presented as the obstacle in future peace in the Middle East, allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avoid any accountability as far as the ‘peace process’ is concerned. In fact, with an ‘existential threat’ not too far away, few in Washington would dare challenge Israel’s settlement policies in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, or its deadly siege on Gaza, or in fact its confrontational approach to Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the latter seen as an ‘Iranian-backed militia.’

Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom was one of the first top officials in Israel to exploit the moment on June 13. The results of Iran’s elections, he said, “blow up in the faces of those who thought Iran was built for a genuine dialogue with the free world on stopping its nuclear program.” Ostensibly, Shalom’s message was directed at a small audience in Tel Aviv, but his true target audience, was in fact Obama himself.

Obama’s overtures towards Iran were not necessarily an indication of a fundamental shift in US foreign policy, but a realistic recognition of Iran’s growing influence in the region, and the US’ desperate and failing fight in Iraq. It was Obama’s pragmatism, not a moral-shift in US foreign policy that compelled such statements as that made on June 2 in a BBC interview: “What I do believe is that Iran has legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations. On the other hand, the international community has a very real interest in preventing a nuclear arms race in the region.”

For Israel, however, Obama’s rhetoric is a deviation from the past US hard-line approach towards Iran. What Israel wants to keep alive is a discussion of war as a viable option to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions and to eliminate a major military rival in the Middle East.

Senior fellow at the pro-Israeli American Enterprise Institute, John R. Bolton expressed the war-mongering mantra of the pro-Israel crowd in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled: “What if Israel Strikes Iran?”: “Many argue that Israeli military action will cause Iranians to rally in support of the mullahs’ regime and plunge the region into political chaos. To the contrary, a strike accompanied by effective public diplomacy could well turn Iran’s diverse population against an oppressive regime.”

Ahmadinejad’s victory will serve as further proof that diplomacy with Iran is not an option, from the point of view of Israel and its supporters in the US. Whether Obama will proceed with his positive rhetoric towards Iran is to be seen. Failure to do so, however, will further undermine his country’s interests in the Middle East, and will prolong the cold war atmosphere of animosity, espoused by a clique of neoconservative hard-liners throughout the Bush administration of past years.

Such were the astounding comments made by the Pope’s spokesman in Israel, Wadie Abunasser, prior to Pope Benedict XVI visiting Palestine and Israel.

As if there was no massacre in Gaza, no families entirely slaughtered, no human rights violated to match the record of the most grisly of crimes in modern history. As if Gaza were a mere irritant in the annals of human suffering. More, as if there were no Catholic flock in Gaza. To clarify, there are actually nearly 2,000 Catholics in Gaza, apparently not important enough for the ‘cut’.

Now, there are a lot of important religious sites to see around the Holy Land, lots of old churches, stones, ruins and the like…sites of much more significance, such as the Western Wall, the Holy Sepulcher and so on… far more important than visiting the site of a fresh massacre, where the stench of rotting bodies — laid to rest beneath a tomb consisting of the rubble of their own homes — has just faded. Such sites are apparently of little import to the Holy See. Rather, there are memorials to victims of greater standing, in shrines of superior grandeur, such as Yad Vashem . . . now, that’s something to see.

On a trip that was apparently dedicated to promoting “reconciliation”, it is baffling that Pope Benedict made little mention of the Israeli occupation of Palestine as a source of discord. Imagine that. But what he did say was, “Allow me to make this appeal to all the peoples of these lands: No more bloodshed! No more fighting! No more terrorism! No more war! Instead let us break the viscous circle of violence.”

As if he was imploring two nations with common grievances, with mutually strong armies and nuclear arsenals. As if he were exhorting two peoples, both of whom have access to clean water, both of which are properly nourished and educated. Or to put it another way, as if both peoples face the daily threat of their house being toppled while they are held up inside by an occupying army, as if both peoples face the daily threat of arrest, extra-judicial execution, the humiliation of curfews and checkpoints.

The Vatican needs some serious introspection. It ought to replace its highly politicized and, frankly, questionable apologies, with an earnest apology to oppressed people, who might have little political worth. The Pope should apologize to Palestinians and to Gazans in particular for failing to appreciate the seriousness of their plight, for cozying up to the very Israeli leaders who champion the suffering in Gaza, and fail to console the very victim of their onslaught.

More, as an institution that has garnered the reputation of advocating social justice throughout the world in recent years, the Catholic Church must abandon its current course, cowering before Israeli leaders, its Holy Father imparting such smug condescension on a nation that has endured a slow and gradual process of genocide for the past six decades.

Wishy-washy is the term that comes to mind. While he never wavered from condemning the “godless nation” that carried out the Holocaust, his references to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine were so indistinct, that it was difficult to make any clear separation between the aggressor and the victim. As he witnessed with his own eyes the monstrosity of the Apartheid Wall, his comments were painfully elusive, “How earnestly we pray for an end to the hostilities that have caused this wall to be built.” Oh really? Is this all the Holy Father has to say? Never mind occupation. Never mind hunger. Never mind randomly closing schools for months on end and denying an entire nation the right to education. But now we are talking about illegal weapons being used on civilian populations in Gaza. Now we are talking about a wall that has been declared “illegal” by the International Court of Justice. There is simply no time or place here for indecisiveness and moral flexibility.

And it is completely unacceptable for anyone to have the ‘audacity’ to urge Palestinian youth not to allow, as the Holy Father stated, “the loss of life and the destruction you have witnessed to arouse bitterness or resentment in your hearts”. More, when making a stop at Aida Refugee Camp, he blamed the plight of the displaced population on “the turmoil that has afflicted this land for decades.” It would have been far more favorable for him to stay home and not insult these sites of misery at all.

But in the end, the Pope finally was able to muster up some courage and took one truly audacious stand: When at the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem, the Palestinian Authority’s chief Islamic judge, Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, declared that Israelis had killed innocent women and children in Gaza, the Pope stood up and in an act of defiance, walked out. Now that’s courage.

The Palestinians, and millions of people around the world, expected more from a person who should be advocating the New Testament teaching: “let justice flow like a river and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

But the Pope has proven fallible, after all.

The meeting at the White House on 6 May was fashioned to give the impression that the new US administration is both “serious” and “committed” about resolving the crises plaguing Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are imprudently reduced to that of a Taliban resurgence in the former, and a Taliban- inspired militant encroachment in the latter. Obama declared the meeting “extraordinarily productive” as the three nations, he said, are joined by the common goal to “defeat Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan”.

The skewed reading of reality didn’t cease there. “I am pleased that these two men, elected leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, fully appreciate the seriousness of the threat that we face and have reaffirmed their commitment to confronting it,” Obama said. Both leaders listened solemnly as to reflect the level of their “seriousness”.

For a fleeting moment one did in fact hope that Obama would bring with him more than a new language; rather, an entirely new take on US foreign policy. That hope is already in tatters.

“Obama conveyed the right message last week by hosting Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. The meeting at the White House reflected the close link between Pakistan and the anti-Taliban struggle in Afghanistan. Indeed, nests of Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other extremists sheltering on the Pakistani side of the border have become a grave threat to Pakistan itself,” opined a Boston Globe editorial. But the Globe also counseled: “As recent events suggest, US military strikes against militants in both countries inevitably provoke anger and indignation among civilians.”

This is as much as most US media — and of course, the US administration — are willing to concede as far as US responsibility in lethal wars, civil strife and militancy in both countries is concerned. In fact, if one is to delineate a major difference in the Bush and Obama administrations regarding Afghanistan, it’s the fact that Obama apologizes when the number of innocent civilians killed by US air strikes is too harrowing to ignore. Another notable difference is that he has committed 17,000 additional troops to the already war-devastated country, promising more bloodshed.

“I wish to express my personal regret and certainly the sympathy of our administration on the loss of civilian life in Afghanistan,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in her public apology to the killing of over 100 civilians in two Afghan villages 4 May. The apology, however, was obliquely qualified by the US military in comments made by Tech Sergeant Chuck Marsh on 9 May: “Reports also indicate that Taliban fighters deliberately forced villagers into houses from which they then attacked ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] and Coalition forces,” he said.

So, somehow, the US is still not responsible.

Now the war is flaring up in Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistani families have fled the area, and the main town of Migora has been virtually emptied of its inhabitants. Reuters reported that, “Pakistani forces attacked Taliban fighters in the Swat Valley with artillery and helicopters after the United States called on the government to show its commitment to fighting militancy.” One has to wonder who is giving the orders in this foolish war, anyway? Moreover, does Obama genuinely think that the Pakistani “Taliban” can be defeated using the exact approach that failed against the Taliban of Afghanistan?

The escalation in Pakistan is not entirely surprising, however, as US officials and media pundits have been adamant in advising the new administration that it was not Afghanistan that posed the greater threat to US interests, but Pakistan. It was similar to the attitude of neoconservatives in the Bush administration after its failure in Iraq. It was not Iraq that the US should have attacked, but Iran, they tirelessly parroted, hoping to generate yet another war.

What we are not told, however, is that unremitting US bombings of the utterly poor and neglected northern provinces of Pakistan have garnered untold animosity towards the US and its central government allies. It provoked, in some areas, total chaos and lawlessness, which in turn gave rise to the Pakistani “Taliban”. History is repeating itself, but the US administration is taking no notice of the obvious pattern.

A Pakistan writer, Abd Al-Ghafar Aziz, wrote for Al-Jazeera’s Arabic website: “Since the US attack on Afghanistan, the province [of Balochistan] has been accused of supporting terrorism and harboring the leaders of Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Since then, US planes, especially drones, have been striking what it calls ‘precious targets’, resulting in the death of over 15,000 people.” Aziz described the people of that region “like orphans without shelter, and without protection.” Naturally, tribe leaders, militant groups and others moved to fill the gap.

If there is one outstanding similarity between the Afghanistan and Pakistan cases it is the fact the US is using the same flawed logic that responds to most delicate conflicts with bullets, whether those of its own or its allies. If the new administration is keenly interested in reversing the misfortunes of that region, it has to understand the uniqueness of every country and appreciate the untold harm inflicted on civilians by the US and other militaries. Only dialogue and truly respecting the sovereignty of Afghanistan and Pakistan can begin to stabilize the fractious situation.

There are an estimated one million Pakistanis already on the run in the northern and eastern parts of the country. They are threatened by fighting, hunger and all sorts of predators, including US drones circling overhead.

Now that Israel’s clear intentions in Gaza — discrediting Hamas and ultimately ousting them from their democratically elected position — resulted in utter failure, Israelis are hoping to exploit regional conflicts to rein in Hamas and other such organizations through alternative means.

In the past several years, Israel has suffered what may seem like insurmountable losses in their barrage of military conquests. In July and August of 2006, Israel unleashed its military fury against Lebanon for several weeks, with one major objective: to permanently “extract” Hezbollah as a fighting force from South Lebanon and undermine it as a rising political movement capable of disrupting, if not overshadowing, the “friendly” and “moderate” political regime in Beirut.

While the Lebanese suffered blows from which it may take years to recover, the Israeli war in South Lebanon was recognized largely as an astounding military failure, defeat even for Israel, as several thousand fairly ill-equipped Hezbollah fighters forced Israel’s multi-billion dollar military machine to retreat.

While at the time, Hezbollah had strong backing by the poor and destitute population of Lebanon, including Palestinian refugees, support from official Lebanese institutions was, at best, lacking. But the war changed all of that. Today, Hezbollah is regarded by many as the guardians of Lebanon and enjoy an unprecedented level of moral and popular support.

Israel repeated its costly mistake in Gaza late last year and earlier this year. True, Palestinians in the Strip haven’t suffered the human casualties of the recent Gaza massacre since 1948. Thousands lost their lives, limbs, homes, entire families, entire neighborhoods. Concurrently, Israel and her backers were convinced that such vicious blows would certainly press a desperate population to turn on their elected government, whom Israel and the US claimed, got them into this mess in the first place.

And what a painful lesson it was. One would think that after 60 years of constant interaction with the Palestinian people, Israel would know them better. By now on might think that their durability and integrity would have been taken into strong consideration before taking such rash actions. In spite of the overwhelming death toll resulting from Israel’s butchery, Hamas garnered even stronger support and loyalty from the people of Gaza, but more, from Palestinians everywhere, the Arab and Muslim world, indeed from many places throughout the world that could no longer remain silent. Words of encouragement, admiration and backing echoed from Latin America to South Africa to even the United States itself.

But Israel and its allies are changing tactics. And they are getting a lot of help from their neighbors. This time, they are concentrating their efforts outside of these strongholds of resistance, and going after Hezbollah and Hamas members from remote positions. Out of the blue, this week the news was inundated with reports of “spies” being apprehended in various Arab countries and other tales.

On April 10, Agencies reported that Egyptian security forces had detained 15 people over accusations that they had helped in smuggling rockets into the Gaza Strip via border tunnels, security sources claimed.

On April 12, Palestinian security officials claimed that they had uncovered a bomb-making factory underneath a mosque in the West Bank. An interior minister claimed, “Many of the bombs were ready to use and many of them were of industrial grade.”

The same day, it was reported that an Egyptian man was caught and apprehended in Sinai who was smuggling $2 million to the Hamas leadership in Gaza.

On April 13, Israeli news interviewed Shimon Peres, who commended Egypt’s efforts at apprehending individuals active in the Iran-backed Hezbollah infrastructure in Egypt. Peres was quoted as saying, “Sooner or later, the world will realize that Iran wishes to take over the Middle East, and that it has colonial ambitions.”

Imagine that; such comments coming from a leader of a nation who up until this point, refuses to define its borders with designs on swallowing up all of historic Palestine. Colonial ambitions indeed.

The following day, on April 14, Egyptian officials accused Hezbollah Leader, Hassan Nasrallah of fomenting sedition and state media branded him an “Iranian agent.”

One has to wonder if these sudden discoveries are related to attempts aimed at undermining various Islamic opposition groups in the region. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood movement, for example, is already on the defensive, trying to shield itself from what is considered Iran-Hezbollah’s designs to ‘destabilize’ Egypt. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Abdul Munaim Abu al-Futuh, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood group’s guidance bureau stated, “We have no relations with any of those (arrested).” One can only expect the situation to worsen, and could only hope such regime-induced panic doesn’t destroy the small semblance of democracy that these nations still possess.

In Jordan, similar discoveries are also being made, Hamas members sentenced, others apprehended.

The timing of these crackdowns, the nature of the accusations and the war of words that ensued as a result makes one question the nature of these arrests, whether they are genuine security measures, or political dealings, a new symptom of the ongoing cold war in the region.

Following the war in Gaza, and earlier in Lebanon, the Middle East’s new conflict has been that of defining the new discourse which will ultimately dominate the region’s politics: that of resistance or ‘moderation’.

The US, Israel and their ‘moderate’ allies in the region have clearly drawn lines in the sand, a notion that when reviewing recent developments simply cannot be denied.

Americans may decry what we can finally dub as the ‘Bush legacy,’ for it brought economic ruin, but also pushed the country into avoidable, if not completely preventable wars, disgracing the collective history of a nation that for long imposed its sense of moral authority on the world.

But the new president is set to change all of that. True, Barack Obama is duly warning of hyped expectations, but, frankly, he can only blame himself for the eagerness and hope, realistic or otherwise, that has engulfed the nation, even the world over. During his presidential campaign he made many promises, the gist of which is that an Obama administration would be everything that the Bush administration was not. That was enough for ‘Obamaniacs’ to sing and dance the world over.

One cannot expect that Obama has a magic solution for everyone’s problems, everywhere. In fact one must be realistic and simply ask Obama to remedy the problems and conflicts that were introduced or provoked, financed and sustained by his own country.

Regarding the Middle East, Obama seems to have hit the ground running, or so we are told. Shortly after his inauguration, he appointed former Senator George Mitchell as special envoy to the region. Mitchell “will bring a wealth of experience and credibility to the job,” said CNN.

Once again, Obama is clearly attempting to delineate an early policy that differs from Bush’s. The latter was affiliated with the infamous Guantanamo Bay, the ‘gulag of our times’ — according to Amnesty International — thus Obama ordered it closed, a year from now that is. Bush was blamed for his late arrival to the Middle East peace process scene, thus Obama makes it clear that the peace process is a priority for his administration.

But the question is how different will Obama truly be when his administration is done carrying out a few symbolic gestures to appease the ever-eager public?

Naturally a new administration, promising a new era, requires a new language. Although inundated with lofty terminology, the outlines of Obama’s new administration seem, in some instances, a mirror image of Bush.

These are remarks made by Obama (not Bush), on January 22, and seen as the first major statement by his administration regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: “Let me be clear: America is committed to Israel’s security. And we will always support Israel’s right to defend itself against legitimate threats. . . . Hamas must meet clear conditions: recognize Israel’s right to exist; renounce violence; and abide by past agreements. Going forward, the outline for a durable cease-fire is clear: Hamas must end its rocket fire; Israel will complete the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza; the United States and our partners will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime, so that Hamas cannot rearm.”

Funny how Obama started his statement with “let me be clear.” He cannot possibly be any clearer as he spent endless hours for many months assuring Israel and its supporters, while condemning Palestinians without any reservation or remorse.

Those who counted on Obama to bring a just peace to the Middle East must’ve had their hearts broken watching the man charging against Hamas’ terror, as thousands of Gazans were killed and wounded, including 430 children in the matter of three weeks as a result of Israel’s barbarous attacks, using mostly American weapons (and full, unqualified US backing.)

And yet, Obama found it fitting to explain that his administration’s foreign policy is not only “critical in terms of projecting . . . America’s power, but also America’s values and America’s ideals.” Of course, it was Palestinian trust in those ideals that led them in droves to the polls in January 2006, and subsequently to their starvation and carnage in Gaza. It is no wonder that Palestinians are unimpressed.

Aside from Obama’s unparalleled clarity, thus far, on his utter and “unconditional” commitment to Israel, he, along with his officials, continue to borrow similar vague slogans that were used enthusiastically by the Bush administrations: national security, national interests, spreading of American ideals, values, and all the rest.

Commenting on such sloganeering, Howard Zinn, one of America’s most celebrated historians, said, ‘We have to think about these words and phrases that are thrown at us without giving us a time to think. And . . . we have to redefine these words, like “national security.” What is national security? . . . having military bases all over the world (or) . . . having healthcare, having jobs.”

Americans will have four years to determine how Obama and his administration define these tired slogans, ones that also include democracy and “terrorism” (is the latter an exclusively Arab tendency, never an Israeli, no matter how many the latter kills?)

Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza hardly have the leverage of time as tens of thousands remain homeless and destitute. More, they have little hope and expectations on Obama or even Mitchell, despite his “wealth of experience and credibility.”

“Obama won’t bring my husband back to life,” Leila Khalil, a Gazan woman, whose husband was killed during Israel’s bloody offensive, told AFP. “He was martyred and left me with six children to feed on my own.”

Obama’s also made himself “clear” regarding the fate of Leila’s husband, and thousands like him: “For years, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets at innocent Israeli citizens. No democracy can tolerate such danger to its people, nor should the international community, and neither should the Palestinian people themselves, whose interests are only set back by acts of terror.”

Luckily, Leila no longer has a TV set to listen to Obama’s remarks. It was, along with her home pulverized by Israeli missiles, courtesy of the United States. For Gazans, and most Palestinians, things cannot be any clearer.

I was looking for a specific image, one that would humanize Palestinians as living, breathing human beings, neither masked nor mutilated. But to no avail.

All the photos I received spoke of the reality that is Gaza today – homes, schools and civilian infrastructure bombed beyond description. All the faces were either of dead or dying people.

I paused as I reached a horrifying photo in the slideshow of a young boy and his sister huddled on a single hospital trolley waiting to be identified and buried. Their faces were darkened as if they were charcoal and their lifeless eyes were still widened with the horror that they experienced as they were burned slowly by a white phosphorus shell.

It was just then that Sammy walked into my room snooping around for a missing toy. “What is this, daddy?” he inquired.

I rushed to click past the horrific image, only to find myself introducing a no less shocking one. Fretfully, I turned the monitor off, then turned to my son as he stood puzzled. His eyes sparkled inquisitively as he tried to make sense of what he had just seen.

He needed to know about these kids whose little bodies had been burned beyond recognition.

“Where are their mummies and daddies? Why are they all so smoky all the time?”

I explained to him that they are Palestinians, that they were hurting “just a little” and that their “mummies and daddies will be right back.”

The reality is that these children and thousands like them in Gaza have experienced the most profound pain, a pain that we may never in our lives comprehend.

“I think that Gaza is now being used as a test laboratory for new weapons,” Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who had recently returned from Gaza told reporters in Oslo.

“This is a new generation of very powerful small explosives that detonates with extreme power and dissipates its power within a range of five to 10 meters

“We have not seen the casualties affected directly by the bomb, because they are normally torn to pieces and do not survive, but we have seen a number of very brutal amputations.”

The dreadful weapons are known as dense inert metal explosives (DIME), “an experimental kind of explosive” but only one of several new weapons that Israel has been using in Gaza, the world’s most densely populated regions.

Israel could not possibly have found a better place to experiment with DIME or the use of white phosphorus in civilian areas than Gaza.

The hapless inhabitants of the Strip have been disowned. The power of the media, political coercion, intimidation and manipulation have demonized this imprisoned nation fighting for its life in the tiny spaces left of its land.

No wonder Israel refused to allow foreign journalists into the tiny enclave and brazenly bombed the remaining international presence in Gaza.

As long as there are no witnesses to the war crimes committed in Gaza, Israel is confident that it can sell a fabricated story to the world that it is, as always, the victim, one that has been terrorized and, strangely enough, demonized as well.

The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on January 15.

“Livni said that these were hard times for Israel, but that the government was forced to act in Gaza in order to protect Israeli citizens.

“She stated that Gaza was ruled by a terrorist regime and that Israel must carry on a dialogue with moderate sources while simultaneously fighting terror.”

The same peculiar message was conveyed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as he declared his one-sided ceasefire on January 17.

Never mind that the “terrorist regime” was democratically elected and had honored a ceasefire agreement with Israel for six months, receiving nothing in return but a lethal siege interrupted by an occasional round of death and destruction.

Livni is not as perceptive and shrewd as the US media fantasizes. Blunt-speaking Ehud Barak and stiff-faced Mark Regev are not convincing men of wisdom. Their logic is bizarre and wouldn’t stand the test of reason.

But they have unfettered access to the media, where they are hardly challenged by journalists who know well that protecting one’s citizens doesn’t require the violation of international and humanitarian laws, targeting medical workers, sniper fire at children and demolishing homes with entire families holed up inside. Securing your borders doesn’t require imprisoning and starving your neighbors and turning their homes to smoking heaps of rubble.

Olmert wants to “break the will” of Hamas, i.e. the Palestinians, since the Hamas government was elected and backed by the majority of the Palestinian people

Isn’t 60 years of suffering and survival enough to convince Olmert that the will of the Palestinians cannot be broken? How many heaps of wreckage and mutilated bodies will be enough to convince the prime minister that those who fight for their freedom will either be free or will die trying?

Far-right politician Avigdor Lieberman, a rising star in Israel, is not yet convinced. He thinks that more can be done to “secure” his country, which was established in 1948 on the ruins of destroyed Palestinian towns and villages. He has a plan.

“We must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II,” said the head of ultra-nationalist opposition party Yisrael Beitenu.

A selective reader of history, Lieberman could only think of the 1945 atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But something else happened during those years that Lieberman carefully omitted. It’s called the Holocaust, a term that many are increasingly using to describe the Israeli massacres in the Gaza Strip.

It is strange that conventional Israeli wisdom still dictates that “the Arabs understand only the language of force.” If that were true, then they would have conceded their rights after the first massacre in 1948. But, following more than 60 years filled with massacres new and old, they continue to resist.

“Freedom or death,” is the popular Palestinian mantra. These are not simply words, but a rule by which Palestinians live and die. Gaza is the proof and Israeli leaders are yet to understand.

My son persisted. “Why are Palestinians so smoky all the time, Daddy?”

“When you grow up, you’ll understand.”

Nonetheless, the incessant activism of many conscientious individuals and organizations came to fruition on December 3-4 when ninety-three countries signed a treaty in Oslo, Norway that bans the weapon, which has killed and maimed many thousands of civilians.

The accord was negotiated in May, and should go into effect in six months, once it is ratified by 30 countries. There is little doubt that the treaty will be ratified; in fact, many are eager to be a member of the elite group of 30. Unfortunately, albeit unsurprisingly, the US, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan — a group that includes the biggest makers and users of the weapon — neither attended the Ireland negotiations, nor did they show any interest in signing the agreement.

The US argues that cluster bombs are a legitimate weapon, essential to repel the advancing columns of enemy troops. If such a claim carried an iota of legitimacy, then the weapon’s use should have ended with the end of conventional wars in the mid twentieth century. However, cluster bombs are still heavily utilized in wars fought in or around civilian areas.

Most countries that have signed the accords are not involved in any active military conflict and are not in any way benefiting from the lucrative cluster munition industry. The hope, however is that once a majority of countries, including the Holy See, sign the agreement, the use of the lethal weapon will be greatly stigmatized.

The treaty was the outcome of intensive campaigning by the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), a group of non-governmental organizations. CMC is determined to carry on with its campaigning to bring more signatories to the fold.

But without the involvement of the major producers and active users of the weapon, the Oslo ceremony will remain largely symbolic. However, there is nothing symbolic about the pain and bitter losses experienced by the cluster bombs’ many victims. According to the group Handicap International, one-third of cluster-bomb victims are children. Equally alarming, 98 percent of the weapon’s overall victims are civilians. The group estimates that about 100,000 people have been maimed or killed by cluster bombs around the world since 1965.

It certainly is unconscionable that countries who have the chutzpa to impose themselves as the guardians of human rights are the same who rebuff such initiatives and insist on their right to utilize such a killing tool. Unlike conventional weapons, cluster bomblets survive for many years, luring little children with their attractive looks. Children have often mistaken them for candy or toys.

Steve Goose, the arms director of Human Rights Watch described the countries that refused to sign as standing “on the wrong side of history. Some of them are clinging to what is now a widely discredited weapon.”

But there is more to that refusal than clinging onto an outdated military philosophy. The cluster munition industry is thriving. The weapon was used in massive quantities by the US army in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel in Lebanon and both parties in the S. Ossetia conflict. The British also used it in Iraq, making handsome deals with the weapons’ Israeli manufacturer.

13 year-old Ayat Suliman now lives in Sweden. In an AFP report, she complained, referring to her peers: “Nobody understands me. They all think I’m ugly.” It was on May 5, 2003 that Ayat’s brother came running with what he thought was a dazzling toy. “I remember that it was very colorful and very nice,” said Ayat. The explosion that rocked the little girl’s house in Iraq claimed the lives of her four brothers and cousin, aged 3 to 15. Most of Ayat’s body was burned as a result, and she is still unable to walk independently.

Ahmad Mokaled of the Lebanese town of Nabatieh at the border with Israel was about to celebrate his fifth birthday when he too found a shiny object. Ahmad’s last words, according to his father, who was busily setting up his son’s birthday picnic in a park, were: ‘Dad, Help me.’ He died, but after “four long hours of suffering.”

The tragic stories of Ahmad and Ayat are repeated throughout the world, almost everyday, with some countries paying a much more disproportionate price than others, notably, again, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

But neither terrible statistics nor the heart- wrenching personal stories of the many victims seem enough to compel manufactures and active users of the weapon to quit. Countries with sizable military power tend to avoid any entanglement in international law or treaties that limit their flexing or application of their military muscle. The US and Israeli attitudes towards international law carry similar traits, both act as entities above the law, tirelessly infusing ‘national security’ as an excuse for their rebuffing of such international initiatives. It’s also no surprise that the US, Israel, but also Russia refuse to ratify the 1997 Ottawa Treaty, signed by 158 countries — as of 2007 — which prohibits the production, transfer or use of landmines.

Of course, neither the Ottawa nor the Oslo treaties are the exception to the rule as far as Washington’s attitude towards positive international initiatives are concerned. The US under the Bush administration developed a mind-set of animosity towards the rest of the international community, reaching the point of dubbing the UN irrelevant.

Needless to say, CMC, world governments and citizens throughout the world are hoping that the new American administration of Barack Obama will truly bring an end and reverse Bush’s ruinous legacy. Realists say it will take years for an effective change of policy to take place. In the meantime, the millions of unexploded cluster bomblets and landmines scattered the world over, wait for no one. They will continue to claim lives and maim thousands, just like Ahmad of Lebanon, and Ayat of Iraq.

The decision of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prosecutor-general, Luis Moreno- Ocampo, to file an arrest warrant for Sudan’s current President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, and the international responses to his decision, demonstrate both the politicizing of the crisis and the selectiveness of international law.

Consider this bizarre twist. The US Congress passed a resolution, on 22 June 2004, declaring that the violence in Darfur was state-sponsored genocide. The resolution — named the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act — was signed into law by President Bush in October 2006.

Between the vote and Bush’s signature the United Nations conducted a sweeping investigation — unlike Congress’s rash decision which was based almost entirely on lobby and interest group pressure — declaring, in early 2005, that both the government and militias were systematically abusing civilians in Sudan’s western province. It insisted, however, that no genocide had taken place.

The US is not a signatory of the ICC — understandably so, given that many legal experts deem the war crimes of invading and occupying Iraq as the worst since World War II. Although the ICC is, in theory, an independent body, it often investigates or provides legal opinions on cases passed on by the United Nations Security Council which is dominated by the United States, its vetoes and foreign policy interests.

It is anomalous that Moreno-Ocampo’s request adhered to Congress’s political labeling of the conflict in western Sudan and not that of the United Nations’ own comprehensive and less politicized report.

Equally interesting is the response of the US and other governments, as well as regional and international bodies to the decision.

The US, which like Sudan doesn’t recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, was pleased by the court prosecutor-general’s move. “In our view, recognition of the humanitarian disaster and the atrocities that have gone on there is a positive thing,” said US State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack.

China and Russia — both of which have immense and growing economic interests in Africa — found the decision unhelpful and called for restraint. It’s not only the Sudanese government that they wish to woo but other African states, alarmed by the court’s move which is likely to worsen the tribal war and jeopardise the safety of the people of Darfur and the numerous humanitarian missions and workers in the region. (The UN has already declared its intent to pull back staff from a joint UN-African Union mission, one welcomed by the Al-Bashir government and which is credited for contributing to the slight improvement in the situation there).

The African Union, often discounted, if not entirely undermined, by Western political institutions, has called on the ICC to suspend its decision until the crisis in Darfur is resolved. In fact, intense efforts have succeeded in bringing warring parties to the negotiation table and extracting important concessions that, with international support, could bring the crisis to an end. But the call made by AU chairman, Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe, is unlikely to be heeded as economic and political interests in Darfur are too significant for Western countries to allow Africa’s own leaders to meddle.

While some human rights organisations and many media pundits, largely based in Western capitals, welcomed Moreno-Ocampo’s request — conveniently ignoring the hypocrisy of the decision and the mayhem and instability it will create in the already fractious region — others in Africa and the Middle East are not impressed. African and Middle Eastern media decried the selectiveness and rigidity of international law when the conflict concerns poor countries, and its blindness and flexibility when the perpetrators of crimes are countries that wield military and economic might, and often the power of veto.

The ICC was established in 2002, immediately before the US aggression against Iraq. Interestingly, the ICC’s jurisdiction — for obvious reasons — doesn’t include the crime of aggression. Equally telling is that the court has so far investigated just four conflicts — in Northern Uganda, Congo, Darfur and the Central African Republic. One cannot help but wonder if only Africans are capable of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

It’s this selectiveness that makes Moreno-Ocampo’s request a textbook example of the inner-workings of international law. It exposes governments like the US and Britain which condemn war crimes and authoritarian regimes in Sudan, Zimbabwe and elsewhere while perpetrating war crimes of their own, aiding and abetting authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere, as hopelessly addicted to double standards.

For Moreno-Ocampo’s decision — and the entire international legal apparatus in the West — to be taken seriously, impartiality and fairness are essential. They are qualities, however, that remain conspicuously absent, vetoed, or otherwise shunted, into the sidings of history.

Regardless of whether the ICC judges will honor Moreno-Ocampo’s request to issue an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president the Darfur conflict cannot be settled by selective justice, self- serving politics or contract-seeking oil corporations. Justice in Sudan, or anywhere else for that matter, cannot be obtained through such practices which are at best “unhelpful” and at worse could be used by the international order’s self-appointed policemen to further legitimatize their destructive policies of “intervention” — economic sanctions, war, and the rest.

In general terms, a journalist should hold her or himself accountable to some basic guiding principals, the attainment of which are at times extremely difficult: to relay the story the way the journalist sees it, not the way she or he is expected to see it; to avoid sensationalism, and to adhere to as much objectivity as possible.

A journalist is a conveyor of information, whether that is regarding a car accident on a highway or the news of a village that was wiped off the map in Afghanistan. Regardless of what story is being told, a journalist must consult his or her conscience in the way the story is conveyed, without fear and without regard for anyone’s vested interests. On a practical level, there comes a time when a journalist has to take sides; when one’s moral responsibility compels one to take the side of the victim, the weak, the dispossessed and the disadvantaged.

Through many years I have found, to my dismay, that often the authentic story is the least of anyone’s concern. A poignant example of this is the Western media’s representation of the Mid-East- based Al-Jazeera network. At their inception, various Western powers and their respective media initially welcomed Al-Jazeera, as it, at that time, seemed primarily focussed on exposing the dirty laundry of Arab regimes. It was encouraged, celebrated and often used to highlight the intolerance of Arab states to freedom of expression rights.

It was only after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the deadly war on Afghanistan, and later Iraq, that Al-Jazeera was transformed from being an “island” of democracy and freedom to a derided mouthpiece of terror. The fact is nothing has really changed in the way Al-Jazeera conducts its reports, a process that entails including all involved parties to make a case for themselves and “grilling” all those involved, largely with the same journalistic standards. It was truly unfair that Al-Jazeera was reduced from a complex media body to an “Osama bin Laden network”.

This type of reductionism is beneficial, however, to some, for it diverts debate from issues of great import to that of pointing fingers and making what is immaterial the essence of discussion. That said; there are many in the West who enjoy Al-Jazeera’s presence and have borrowed heavily from the network to make a case for their opposition to war.

But it must also be said that within Al-Jazeera itself similar agendas and interests cloud the presentation of many issues. Al-Jazeera is a very complex structure, with many internal pushes and pulls, many within who have their own self-serving agendas, just like anywhere else. It’s not a cohesive political structure and is indeed subject to its governmental and personal interests. But again, it was wrongly viewed with reductionism, exaggeration and hype.

While many would find that alternative forms of media are the answer to such growing problems as these, current media trends testify to the fact that more is not always better and that advanced technologies, while they may advance certain aspects of communications and allow disadvantaged groups greater access, also create useless competition and misinformation. But for the most part, today’s media — those outlets particularly manifested through large media conglomerates — are establishments with clear political agendas, explicit or subtle, but unmistakable.

In a recent article I wrote, “Managing consent: the art of war, democracy and public relations”, I tried to trace the history of that relationship between the state, the corporation and the media. In a more recent article, “Media language and war: manufacturing convenient realities”, I attempted to further refashion the discussion to more contemporary periods, using Iraq as the centrepiece. Generally, I think that the media is willingly used — or allows itself to be used — for political agendas and for state propaganda, a role that can only be described as fraudulent. Nonetheless, the huge gap left open by subservient corporate media called and allowed for the development of alternative means of communication, some with their own agenda but widespread enough to balance out.

At the end of the day, members of the press must answer to themselves, fellow citizens and those whom they represent in their reports. Making waves and making enemies in this line of work does not necessarily mean you are doing anything wrong. On the contrary, you may indeed be on the right track. It is when you speak out on issues that cause discomfort or offence that you truly find your integrity as a writer. You learn quickly that you cannot necessarily have friends in high places and at the same time maintain the trust and respect of those on the ground.

In my own experience, there are moments — if rare — when I feel gratified; when I know that I have raised enough awareness regarding a certain topic, moving it from the rank of the negligible to that worthy of attention. I felt exhilarated when one of my articles resulted in a fiery statement from an embassy, demanding that my articles be blocked from that country’s newspapers. I very much like it when a newspaper in Nigeria, or a Burmese opposition newspaper, for example, runs my articles regarding matters in their respective countries. Such endorsements may perhaps raise some eyebrows, but they are also indication that you are on the right track.

Despite recent setbacks on the military front, the Israeli government is yet to awaken to the reality that Israel is simply not invincible. The wheel of history, which has seen the rise and fall of many great powers, won’t grind to a halt. Experiences have also repeatedly shown that neither Israel’s nuclear arms nor Washington’s billions of dollars in annual funds could create ’security’ for the former.

While Israel can celebrate whatever skewed version of history it wishes to, it still cannot defeat a people, ordinary people armed with their will to survive and reclaim what was rightfully theirs. The same problem confronted the US in Vietnam, France in Algeria and Italy in Libya. The Palestinian people will not evaporate. Attempts to undermine Palestinian unity, instigate civil violence, and groom and present shady characters as ‘representatives’ of Palestinians have failed in the past and will continue to fail.

Representing, and thus dealing with the conflict as one invented and sustained by Arab greed and Palestinian terrorism helped Israel garner sympathy, while simultaneously convoluting what should have been an urgent example of injustice, predicated on colonialism and ethnic cleansing.

More, depicting the mere existence of Palestinians as a ‘threat’, a ‘problem’ and a ‘demographic bomb’ is inhumane and actually a full-fledged form of racism. Throughout its 60 years of existence, successive Israeli governments have treated Palestinians — the native inhabitants of historic Palestine — as undesired and thus negligible inhabitants of a land that was promised only to Jews by some divine power thousands of years ago.

This archaic concept has managed to define mainstream politics in Israel, and increasingly the US, allowing religious doctrines to discriminate and brutally repress Palestinians, both citizens of Israel and residents of the occupied Territories.

Needless to say, neither a figurative Iron wall, like that proposed by Vladimir Jabotinsky in 1923, nor an actual massive and menacing structure as the one being erected in the West Bank can really separate Israel from its ‘problem’, the Palestinians. An area roughly the size of the US state of Vermont cannot sustain such a complex model — a country that is open unconditionally for all Jews who wish to immigrate, and an oppressed population that is caged in between walls, fences, and hundreds of checkpoints — without inviting perpetual conflict.

What Israel has created in Palestine belies its own claim that its ultimate wish is peace with security. While occupied East Jerusalem is entirely annexed by an Israeli government diktat, 40 per cent of the total size of the West Bank is used exclusively for the purposes of the illegal Jewish settlers and the Israeli military. How can Israel’s claim of wanting to live in peace be taken seriously if it continues to invade the lives, confiscate the land and usurp the water of Palestinians?

When Israel invaded East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the Jewish citizens of Israel celebrated the ‘return’ of biblical Judea and Samaria and the reunification of Jerusalem. Nearly 300,000 more Palestinians were ethnically cleansed, adding to the many more who were evicted from historic Palestine in 1948.

Yet, most Palestinians have remained hostage to the Israeli-invented limbo that suggests they were neither citizens of Israel, nor of their own state, nor deserving of the rights of an occupied civilian population under the Geneva Convention.

Despite this, Israel’s insistence on employing military ’solutions’ in its dealing with Palestinians have constantly backfired. Palestinians naturally rebelled and were repeatedly suppressed, which only worsened the feud and heightened the level of violence.

The PLO’s acceptance of Israel’s existence, and UN Resolution 242 as a first step towards a two state solution was both ridiculed and rejected by the Israeli government, which continued to arrange for its own ineffective and ultimately destructive solutions.

Throughout the years, Israel translated its military strength to erect more settlements and move its population to occupied Palestinian territories. Even after the Oslo Accords of September 1993, the construction of settlements didn’t slow down, but rather accelerated. After the most recent peace talks in Annapolis in November 2007, Israel continues to grant more permits to build more homes in illegal settlements under the guise of ‘natural expansion.’

But it may have gone too far, leaving itself and Palestinians with few options now.

In a November 29, 2007 interview with Israeli daily Ha’aretz, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that without a two-state agreement, Israel would face “a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights” in which case “Israel (would be) finished.” It’s ironic that Israeli leaders are now advocating the same solution that they vehemently rejected in the past. However, the Israeli version of the two-state agreement hardly meets the minimum expectations of Palestinians.

Without Jerusalem, without their refugees’ right of return as enshrined in UN resolution 194 and with a West Bank dotted with over 216 settlements and scarred by a mammoth wall, asking Palestinians to accept an Israeli version of the two-state solution is asking them to agree to their eternal imprisonment, subjugation and defeat — which they have rejected generation after generation.

If Israel is indeed interested in a peaceful resolution to this bloody conflict, one that is based on equal human and legal rights, justice, security and lasting peace, then it must add a new word to its lexicon: coexistence. Jews and Arabs coexisted peacefully prior to the rise of Zionism, and they are capable of doing so in the future. Any other solution would simply institutionalize racism and apartheid, undermine democracy and human rights and thus further perpetuate violence.

It’s time for a secular, democratic state to cease being part of a removed academic discussion, and instead be integrated into mainstream debate, if not dialogue in Palestine and Israel. This is the right, moral and indeed urgent course of action required now.

We waited breathless. Breathing heavily was hazardous under these somewhat exceptional circumstances. The army, my father often advised, was sensitive to the slightest movements or sounds, including a whisper, a cough, or God forbid, a sneeze. Thus we sat completely still. Muneer, my younger brother was entrusted with the mission of peering through the rusty holes in the front door. It bothered me that I was not the one elected for the seemingly perilous mission. My father explained that Muneer was smaller and quicker, he could negotiate his way back and forth, seamlessly, between the observation ground and the room where everyone was hiding. The house’s main door was riddled with holes; the upper half spoke of past battles between the neighbourhood’s stone throwers and Israeli soldiers. The holes on the lower half, however were not those of bullets, but rust and corrosion. These holes often served us well. Muneer would lie on his belly and peek through them; he followed the movement of the soldiers as their military vehicles often used the space in front of our house. They pondered their moves from there, and often used our house’ front step as a spot for lunch or tea. Worse, they often released their frustrations on the house’s helpless residents, that being my family.

But this time the air is truly gloomy. Soldiers had never gathered in such numbers and remained for that long. Muneer, crawling back and forth, between the door and the kitchen -where we often hid – the only room with a concrete ceiling, thus much safer than the rest of the house – reported increasingly disturbing news. “There are men in white.” He divulged the latest development with total bewilderment. “They are wearing masks. And there is a robot.” For once, we felt in doubt of Muneer’s version of events, which were most often sharp and truthful. Only my father seemed to understand. “Bomb squads,” he whispered. His words left us in a state of dread and speechlessness. The sheer terror that we felt at that moment was of a new kind; a bomb only a few feet away from our house, and we couldn’t escape for snipers were positioned all across the street, on the water-tower, behind the graves, everywhere. My mother hurried to her safe corner of reciting Quranic verses. She long argued that selected verses from the Quran were sure to create a protective shield between one and his enemies. My father was in no mood to scoff at her or anyone else. He looked as if he were in a trance. I cannot even begin to imagine what must’ve went through his head that day. He pulled a cigarette from a long, white pack of Kents and seemed past the point of ordinary nervousness. Even if the bomb was diffused, the soldiers would most certainly round up all the youth in the neighbourhood, as they had done repeatedly, starting with us, and herd everyone into the military camp’s temporary holding facilities. Torture and beating to glean urgently needed information were surely to follow. My mom was still in her corner, with audible words here and there breaking the frightening silence, things about God, and “my kids are the only thing I have in this life”, and other supplications. My father called on Muneer to join the rest of us, and decided to take on the mission of watching outside’s happenings as they unfolded, himself.

My father laid facedown for a long time. A military helicopter hovered in place for a little while and then disappeared, perhaps following a moving target, I thought. Helicopters were the best way to chase down fidayeen – freedom fighters – as they sought escape in the refugee camp’s orchards. Did they find the one who planted the bomb? But what about the bomb itself? News was still scarce and my father was still laying on the chipped tiles behind the door. Suddenly engines of military vehicles outside began charging one after the other. Some began moving away. The noise increasingly subsided. Foot soldiers seemed to be the only ones left behind. One could tell through the continuous murmurs and chatter. The bewilderment intensified, although this time with some hopeful prospects. Are we really meant to survive the unfolding ordeal? My father began making his way back, crawling back to the kitchen. He often crawled that way to show off some of his training in the army many years back. We looked at him with inquiring eyes. My mother abandoned her figurative corner for a few moments, and joined us. “Its our bag of trash,” my father said in a tone that was meant to dispel the mystery. “They thought our trash was a bomb.”

My father opted to throw our trash in the street just hours earlier. Garbage accumulated for weeks in our house as the military curfew kept us indoors without a chance to step foot outside. So a few hours earlier, he did what we had urged him to do for days, since we couldn’t cope with the suffocating odor. He opened the double doors for a few seconds and threw one black garbage bag as far as he could to the middle of the open space in front of the house. Little did he know that his desperado act would send the Israeli army on high alert; would invite bomb squads, helicopters and perhaps every available tank and military vehicle to our unsuspecting neighboured.

Within minutes, the serenity and silence of the military curfew was back. Except that watermelon rinds and my father’s used Kent packs and other items, were scattered about the street. “Whose God damn idea was it to throw the trash in the street?” my father mumbled. No one answered. My father puffed on his cigarette and quickly delved into a contemplating mode. “I have never seen such military build- up since the war of ‘67,” he said. His surreal look was interrupted by one hardly audible chuckle, and that was enough to ignite a storm of laughter among my brothers and even my mother which lasted for a long long time.

I took my turn peeking through the rust holes to get a piece of the excitement and follow the progress of the trash as it was scattered by the wind and hungry cats in every possible direction. “Hey guys, the chains of the tanks softened the area outside. It should be really good for soccer when the curfew is lifted,” I declared jubilantly.

And the curfew was indeed lifted, some forty days later.

We waited breathless. Breathing heavily was hazardous under these somewhat exceptional circumstances. The army, my father often advised, was sensitive to the slightest movements or sounds, including a whisper, a cough, or God forbid, a sneeze. Thus we sat completely still. Muneer, my younger brother was entrusted with the mission of peering through the rusty holes in the front door. It bothered me that I was not the one elected for the seemingly perilous mission. My father explained that Muneer was smaller and quicker, he could negotiate his way back and forth, seamlessly, between the observation ground and the room where everyone was hiding. The house’s main door was riddled with holes; the upper half spoke of past battles between the neighborhood’s stone throwers and Israeli soldiers. The holes on the lower half, however were not those of bullets, but rust and corrosion. These holes often served us well. Muneer would lie on his belly and peek through them; he followed the movement of the soldiers as their military vehicles often used the space in front of our house. They pondered their moves from there, and often used our house’ front step as a spot for lunch or tea. Worse, they often released their frustrations on the house’s helpless residents, that being my family.

But this time the air is truly gloomy. Soldiers had never gathered in such numbers and remained for that long. Muneer, crawling back and forth, between the door and the kitchen — where we often hid, the only room with a concrete ceiling, thus much safer than the rest of the house — reported increasingly disturbing news. “There are men in white.” He divulged the latest development with total bewilderment. “They are wearing masks. And there is a robot.” For once, we felt in doubt of Muneer’s
version of events, which were most often sharp and truthful. Only my father seemed to understand. “Bomb squads,” he whispered. His words left us in a state of dread and speechlessness. The sheer terror that we felt at that moment was of a new kind; a bomb only a few feet away from our house, and we couldn’t escape for snipers were positioned all across the street, on the water-tower, behind the graves, everywhere. My mother hurried to h camp’s er safe corner of reciting Quranic verses. She long argued that selected verses from the Quran were sure to create a protective shield between one and his enemies. My father was in no mood to scoff at her or anyone else. He looked as if he were in a trance. I cannot even begin to imagine what must’ve went through his head that day. He pulled a cigarette from a long, white pack of Kents and seemed past the point of ordinary nervousness. Even if the bomb was diffused, the soldiers would most certainly round up all the youth in the neighborhood, as they had done repeatedly, starting with us, and herd everyone into the military temporary holding facilities. Torture and beating to glean urgently needed information were surely to follow. My mom was still in her corner, with audible words here and there breaking the frightening silence, things about God, and “my kids are the only thing I have in this life”, and other supplications. My father called on Muneer to join the rest of us, and decided to take on the mission of watching outside’s happenings as they unfolded, himself.

My father laid facedown for a long time. A military helicopter hovered in place for a little while and then disappeared, perhaps following a moving target, I thought. Helicopters were the best way to chase down fidayeen — freedom fighters — as they sought escape in the refugee camp’s orchards. Did they find the one who planted the bomb? But what about the bomb itself? News was still scarce and my father was still laying on the chipped tiles behind the door. Suddenly engines of military
vehicles outside began charging one after the other. Some began moving away. The noise increasingly subsided. Foot soldiers seemed to be the only ones left behind. One could tell through the continuous murmurs and chatter. The bewilderment intensified, although this time with some hopeful prospects. Are we really meant to survive the unfolding ordeal? My father began making his way back, crawling back to the kitchen. He often crawled that way to show off some of his training in the army many years back. We looked at him with inquiring eyes. My mother abandoned her figurative corner for a few moments, and joined us. “Its our bag of trash,” my father said in a tone that was meant to dispel the mystery. “They thought our trash was a bomb.”

My father opted to throw our trash in the street just hours earlier. Garbage accumulated for weeks in our house as the military curfew kept us indoors without a chance to step foot outside. So a few hours earlier, he did what we had urged him to do for days, since we couldn’t cope with the suffocating odor. He opened the double doors for a few seconds and threw one black garbage bag as far as he could to the middle of the open space in front of the house. Little did he know that his desperado act would send the Israeli army on high alert; would invite bomb squads, helicopters and perhaps every available tank and military vehicle to our unsuspecting neighboured.

Within minutes, the serenity and silence of the military curfew was back. Except that watermelon rinds and my father’s used Kent packs and other items, were scattered about the street. “Whose God damn idea was it to throw the trash in the street?” my father mumbled. No one answered. My father puffed on his cigarette and quickly delved into a contemplating mode. “I have never seen such military build- up since the war of ‘67,” he said. His surreal look was interrupted by one hardly audible chuckle, and that was enough to ignite a storm of laughter among my brothers and even my mother which lasted for a long long time.

I took my turn peeking through the rust holes to get a piece of the excitement and follow the progress of the trash as it was scattered by the wind and hungry cats in every possible direction. “Hey guys, the chains of the tanks softened the area outside. It should be really good for soccer when the curfew is lifted,” I declared jubilantly.

And the curfew was indeed lifted, some forty days later.

I think of my father now as he was that day. His tears and his frantic last words: “Do you have your money? Your passport? A jacket? Call me the moment you get there. Are you sure you have your passport? Just check, one last time…”

My father was a man who always defied the notion that one can only be the outcome of his circumstance. Expelled from his village at the age of 10, running barefoot behind his parents, he was instantly transferred from the son of a landowning farmer to a penniless refugee in a blue tent provided by the United Nations in Gaza. Thus, his life of hunger, pain, homelessness, freedom-fighting, love, marriage and loss commenced.

The fact that he was the one chosen to quit school to help his father provide for his now tent-dwelling family was a huge source of stress for him. In a strange, unfamiliar land, his new role was going into neighbouring villages and refugee camps to sell gum, aspirin and other small items. His legs were a testament to the many dog bites he obtained during these daily journeys. Later scars were from the shrapnel he acquired through war.

As a young man and soldier in the Palestinian unit of the Egyptian army, he spent years of his life marching through the Sinai desert. When the Israeli army took over Gaza following the Arab defeat in 1967, the Israeli commander met with those who served as police officers under Egyptian rule and offered them the chance to continue their services under Israeli rule. Proudly and willingly, my young father chose abject poverty over working under the occupier’s flag. And for that, predictably, he paid a heavy price. His two-year-old son died soon after.

My oldest brother is buried in the same graveyard that bordered my father’s house in the camp. My father, who couldn’t cope with the thought that his only son died because he couldn’t afford to buy medicine or food, would be found asleep near the tiny grave all night, or placing coins and candy in and around it.

My father’s reputation as an intellectual, his obsession with Russian literature, and his endless support of fellow refugees brought him untold trouble with the Israeli authorities, who retaliated by denying him the right to leave Gaza.

His severe asthma, which he developed as a teenager was compounded by lack of adequate medical facilities. Yet, despite daily coughing streaks and constantly gasping for breath, he relentlessly negotiated his way through life for the sake of his family. On one hand, he refused to work as a cheap labourer in Israel. “Life itself is not worth a shred of one’s dignity,” he insisted. On the other, with all borders sealed except that with Israel, he still needed a way to bring in an income. He would buy cheap clothes, shoes, used TVs, and other miscellaneous goods, and find a way to transport and sell them in the camp. He invested everything he made to ensure that his sons and daughter could receive a good education, an arduous mission in a place like Gaza.

But when the Palestinian uprising of 1987 exploded, and our camp became a battleground between stone-throwers and the Israeli army, mere survival became Dad’s new obsession. Our house was the closest to the Red Square, arbitrarily named for the blood spilled there, and also bordered the ‘Martyrs’ Graveyard’. How can a father adequately protect his family in such surroundings? Israeli soldiers stormed our house hundreds of times; it was always him who somehow held them back, begging for his children’s safety, as we huddled in a dark room awaiting our fate. “You will understand when you have your own children,” he told my older brothers as they protested his allowing the soldiers to slap his face. Our ‘freedom-fighting’ dad struggled to explain how love for his children could surpass his own pride. He grew in my eyes that day.

It’s been fourteen years since I last saw my father. As none of his children had access to isolated Gaza, he was left alone to fend for himself. We tried to help as much as we could, but what use is money without access to medicine? In our last talk he said he feared he would die before seeing my children, but I promised that I would find a way. I failed.

Since the siege on Gaza, my father’s life became impossible. His ailments were not ‘serious’ enough for hospitals crowded with limbless youth. During the most recent Israeli onslaught, most hospital spaces were converted to surgery wards, and there was no place for an old man like my dad. All attempts to transfer him to the better equipped West Bank hospitals failed as Israeli authorities repeatedly denied him the required permit.

“I am sick, son, I am sick,” my father cried when I spoke to him two days before his death. He died alone on March 18, waiting to be reunited with my brothers in the West Bank. He died a refugee, but a proud man nonetheless.

My father’s struggle began 60 years ago, and it ended a few days ago. Thousands of people descended to his funeral from throughout Gaza, oppressed people that shared his plight, hopes and struggles, accompanying him to the graveyard where he was laid to rest. Even a resilient fighter deserves a moment of peace.

Through all the special coverage and exclusive reports, very little is said about Iraqi casualties, who are either completely overlooked or hastily mentioned and whose numbers can only be guesstimated. Also conveniently ignored are the millions injured, internally and externally displaced, the victims of rape and kidnappings who will carry physical and psychological scars for the rest of their lives.

We find ourselves stuck in a hopeless paradigm, where it feels necessary to empathize with the sensibilities of the aggressor so as not to sound “unpatriotic”, while remaining blind to the untold anguish of the victims. Some actually feel the need to go so far as to blame the Iraqis for their own misfortune. Both Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have expressed their wish for Iraqis to take responsibility for the situation in their country, with the former saying, “we cannot win their civil war. There is no military solution.”

It would have been helpful if Clinton had reached her astute conclusion before she voted for the Senate’s 2002 resolution authorising President Bush to attack Iraq. For the sake of argument, let’s overlook both Clinton’s and Obama’s repeated assertions that all options, including military ones, are on the table regarding how to “deal” with Iran’s alleged ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. But to go so far as blaming the ongoing war on the Iraqis’ lack of accountability is a new low for these “antiwar” candidates.

Is it still a secret, five years on, that the war on Iraq was fought for strategic reasons, to maintain a floundering superpower’s control over much of the world’s energy supplies and to sustain the regional supremacy of Israel, the US’s most costly ally anywhere?

Of course, there are those who prefer to imagine a world in which a well-intentioned superpower would fight with all of its might to enable another smaller, distant nation to enjoy the fruits of liberty, democracy and freedom. But it is nothing short of ridiculous to pretend that Iraqis are capable of controlling the parameters of the ranging conflict, that a puppet government whose election and operation is entirely under the command of the US military is capable of taking charge and assuming responsibilities.

Equally absurd is the insinuation that the civil war in Iraq is an exclusively Iraqi doing, and that the US military has not deliberately planted the seeds of divisions, hoping to reinterpret its role in Iraq from that of the occupier to that of the arbitrator, making sure the “good” guys prevail over the “bad”.

The idea of the US making an immediate exit from Iraq or taking full financial and legal responsibility for the devastation and genocide — yes, genocide — that occurred in the last five years is simply unthinkable from the viewpoint of the corporate US media, which still relates to the war only in terms of American (and never Iraqi) losses.

There are very few commentators who are actually arguing that the reasons for war were entirely self-serving, without an iota of morality behind them. Would Bush employ the same logic he used to justify Saddam Hussein’s execution — suggesting this was warranted by the Iraqi president’s violence against his own people — when dealing with those responsible for the deaths of over a million Iraqis as a result of this war?

And indeed Iraqis are dying in numbers that never subside regardless of the media and official hype about the “surge”. Just Foreign Policy says the number of dead Iraqis has surpassed one million, while a survey by the British polling agency ORB estimates the number at over 1.2 million. But the plight of Iraqis hardly ends at a death count, since those left behind endure untold suffering: soaring poverty, unemployment rates between 40-70 per cent (governmental estimates), total lack of security in major cities and, according to Oxfam International, four million in need of emergency aid.

“Baghdad has become the most dangerous city in the world, largely as a result of a US policy of pitting various Iraqi ethnic and sectarian groups against one another. Today, Baghdad is a city of walled-off Sunni and Shia ghettoes, divided by concrete walls erected by the US military,” reports Dahr Jamail, one of the few courageous voices that honestly relayed the horrendous outcomes of the war.

Indeed, there seem to be no promising statistics coming out of Iraq. Even under the previous regime and the debilitating sanctions imposed by the US and the UN, Iraqis were much better off prior to the war. Now, Iraqis are relevant only as pawns of endless US government propaganda. From the viewpoint of Bush, McCain and Cheney, they are the victims of Al-Qaeda, which must be fought at all costs. From the viewpoint of Clinton and Obama, they need to fight their own wars and take responsibility for them, as if Iraqi “irresponsibility” is the main problem.

In yet another “surprise visit” to Iraq by a US official, Vice-President Dick Cheney declared that Iraq was a “successful endeavor.” Considering the exorbitant contracts granted to selected corporations, the war has indeed succeeded in making a few already rich companies and individuals a lot richer.

Meanwhile, Shlomo Brom, a senior fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies and former head of the Israeli army’s Strategic Planning Division, sees things from a slightly different angle. “Any Iraq will be better than Iraq under Saddam, because the Iraq of Saddam had the ability to threaten Israel,” he was quoted as saying in the Christian Science Monitor.

In considering such skewed logic, one can only hope that Cheney’s successful experiment will end soon, and that Israel’s desire for security is now sated. The people of Iraq cannot tolerate any more “success”.

Yechiah’s death was actually the first of its kind in nine months, and understandably so. The crude Palestinian rockets were often criticized even by Palestinians as useless in the tit-for-tat style of war underway, while easily used by Israeli officials as a casus belli, or at least as an excuse for keeping Gaza ‘contained’, besieged and on the brink of starvation.

For Israel the rockets are important as a pretext to maintain a state of siege against Hamas, and a low-intensity warfare that creates permanent distraction from the confiscation of Palestinian land and the expansion of illegal settlements — and also as justification for the slow moving ‘peace process.’

However, while pro-Israeli pundits in the US and elsewhere are prepared to defend Israel’s actions, many Israelis are no longer buying into their government’s pretexts.

According to a recent Tel Aviv University Poll, cited by the Israeli daily Haaretz on February 27, “sixty-four percent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza towards a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit.”

The mayor of the Israeli town of Sderot — which borders Gaza and is the main target of rockets — had also told the British Guardian on February 23, “I would say to Hamas, let’s have a ceasefire. Let’s stop the rockets for the next 10 years and we will see what happens.”

Hamas was actually first to issue calls of ceasefire. In fact, for years it has held true to a self-declared abstention from carrying out any suicide bombings inside Israel.

Meanwhile, the uneven numbers of casualties speak volumes.

While Yechiah’s death is tragic, he was the “first person killed by rocket attacks from Gaza since May 2007, and the fourteenth overall since the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian armed clashes in September 2000,” according to a Human Rights Watch Press release on February 29, citing Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem.

B’Tselem reported that “1,259 of the 2,679 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in the Gaza Strip (since September 2000) were not participating in hostilities when they were killed, and 567 were minors.”

According to news agencies’ report published in Al-Arabiya website, as of February 22, 190 Palestinians were killed since the resumption of the peace process in Annapolis last November. That number received a major boost when the Israeli army escalated its attacks against the Gaza Strip, killing 34 Palestinians in 48 hours between February 27 and 28, and over 60 on March 1 alone, not counting several other Palestinians killed in the West Bank during the same period.

Despite the facts, Israel’s actions are repeatedly accepted by most media as a legitimate ‘response’ to Palestinian violence.

In an article published days before Yechiva’s death, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on the death of three Palestinians who were killed by Israeli tank missile. The men were picnicking at the time, according to eyewitness accounts. However, the article seemed to report an entirely different story, featuring a photo of a Palestinian rocket that hit an empty field. “Deadly rain,” read the caption, conveniently forgetting that the rockets had not caused any deaths. The article also undermined the fact that the killed Palestinians had been picnicking, citing this as yet another Palestinian ‘claim’.

Donald Macintyre of the British Independent, who is usually much more objective than his counterparts elsewhere, reported on the killing of four Palestinian children: “Four boys playing football have been killed in Gaza by Israeli air strikes . . . as Israel responded to the death of a man from a barrage of rocket attacks with a bloody escalation of violence.”

The perpetuation of the idea of Israel always ‘responding’ to events and never initiating them is indeed unfair.

When the utter desperation of Gazans forced them to storm massive walls separating them from Egypt in search of food and medicines, their cry fell largely on deaf ears. Palestinians were herded back into Gaza, and the border was sealed once more, followed by an escalation of troop levels alongside it (reportedly beyond those set in a 30-year-old peace accord).

Besieged, browbeaten and starved — in a way that all major human rights groups have decried as illegal and inhumane — Palestinians are told to expect more of the same. Only this time the terminology used is much more frightening. Israel’s Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai threatened Palestinians in the Gaza strip with a ‘holocaust’, stating that, “the more Qassam [rocket] fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah (Hebrew term for Holocaust) because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.”

Since the Nazi Holocaust, the Hebrew term has been used almost exclusively to describe the tragic event. While many media commentators jumped to limit the damage caused by Vilnai’s revelation, the acknowledgment of the Israel-imposed crisis on Palestinian — and the term ‘bigger’ in particular — is but another fleeting reminder of the horrors under which Gaza lives, and Gaza alone is blamed for.

As Palestinians hurriedly buried their dead, US and Israeli celebrities — including Sylvester Stallone, John Voight and Paula Abdul — rallied at an LA benefit concert for Sderot.

Speaking via Satellite, Clinton, McCain and Obama also expressed their unquestionable allegiance to Israel, as if only Israel’s dead counted, only Israel’s security mattered. Clinton — as the other presidential contenders — received another golden opportunity to express her ‘unwavering commitment’ to Israel.

When will US officials begin to acknowledge that both Palestinians and Israelis have equal rights and equal responsibilities?

When will the media begin to provide the needed context and stop manipulating terms and numbers in such a way that the Palestinians are always at fault? When will we all accept that military occupation and state-sponsored terror beget violence and breed more terror, and how this will always be the case in Palestine — as anywhere else — as long as the circumstances remain unchanged?

The debate over this notorious prison has ever since been marred by easy reductionism. The fact is that Guantanamo is neither a warranted compound holding “bad people” — as explained by the ever straightforward President Bush — nor is it a dark spot in the otherwise luminous US record for respecting human rights, rules of war and international treaties. If anything, Guantanamo is a mere extension of a long list of untold violations practiced by the Bush administration, which condenses the camp to being a symbol of widespread policy predicated on nonchalantly undermining international law.

The prison is arguably one of the worst mockeries of international law, which was itself drafted partly by American legal experts. Past US administrations may not have been devoted followers of the Geneva Conventions, but neither have they ever discarded international treaties as openly and as arrogantly as the current one. Former attorney-general Alberto Gonzales, a personal friend of President Bush, mastered this art in a way that allowed his bosses to adorn their gratuitous actions with the air of legitimacy. Guantanamo was his ultimate masterpiece.

Hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners have subsequently been released, some to the custody
of their respective governments. Roughly 275 remain in the camp. Out of a total of about 1,000 only 10 have been charged.

The prisoners at Guantanamo are “among the most dangerous, best trained vicious killers on the face of the earth,” according to former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld. If that was the case, why wasn’t Rumsfeld prepared to try them in a court of law? After all his self-assured judgment shows that he possessed more evidence than needed by any court to convict and throw them into jail. But, of course, the subject of evidence or lack thereof was irrelevant.

Neither habeas corpus, due process, nor any set of laws, national or international, mattered much to an administration that prided itself on its ability to transcend all of that. Of course, such disregard was justified on the basis of national interests and a whole set of tired pretences. Time, however, showed that Guantanamo, and the overriding militancy it symbolized, has probably done more damage to US national interest than any other event in US history.

In the early years, prisoners at Guantanamo were held in open air cages, with nothing but a mat and a bucket for a toilet. Anthony D Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote in Salon.com, “We now know that only a small percentage of the many hundreds of men and boys who have been held at Guantanamo were captured on a battlefield fighting against Americans; far more were sold into captivity by tribal warlords for substantial bounties.” Romero cites comments made by a former Guantanamo commander for several years, Brigadier General Jay Hood. The commander told the Wall Street Journal, “Sometimes, we just didn’t get the right folks.”

Moreover, both former secretary of state Colin Powell and current Secretary Condoleezza Rice called for the shutting down of Guantanamo, along with various international bodies and numerous rights groups in the US and abroad. But the Bush administration still persists in maintaining Guantanamo. The chances are if the Guantanamo prisoners were of any value in Operation Enduring Freedom and in the so-called global war on terror, whatever information some of them might have possessed has already been extracted, violently or otherwise. Moreover, if overwhelming evidence against them was indeed at hand, the Bush administration would have tried them long ago. Neither scenario is convincing.

Leigh Sales, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald made the dubious assessment that the “the problem is what to do with the prisoners [if the detention camp is shutdown]. If they are moved to American jails, they will have to be charged and tried under US law. Evidence gathered through coercive interrogations will not be admissible in regular courts and so Bush would risk watching the likes of Mohamed and Hambali walk free.” Such commentary, emulated by others, suggests that the underlying reason behind the preservation of Guantanamo is, more or less, national interests.

However, Guantanamo is staying in business, for the exact same reason that the Iraq war rages on, and for similar reasons to why the Bush administration’s failing global policy persists. Shutting down Guantanamo would be an admission of defeat, a declaration of failure, which is something that the patrons of the empire cannot afford, at least not now.

September 11 was an opportune moment to turn a new doctrine into reality, as outlined by the Project for the New American Century, a desperate attempt to sustain an empire that is facing challenges. The tactics, utilized almost immediately after the terrorist attacks, pointed at a foreign and military policy style designed to free itself from accountability to anyone, including the American people, the United Nations and international law. Guantanamo is a grotesque representation of that tactic — and the failure of that tactic.

Indeed, Guantanamo is a dark spot in US history and shall go down in world history as a symbol of injustice and oppression. And it will continue to be a jarring reminder of the inhumanity, the torture, and the extreme violence associated with the Bush administration’s so- called war on terror.

The speech has been long anticipated, not so much for its relevance to the pressing debate on the defining role of religion in American politics, and how this undermines the very meaning of secular democracy. It was awaited simply because Romney belongs to the wrong faith. Recent polls indicate that one out of every three Republicans will not vote for Romney because he is a Mormon.

The whole affair has done much to reveal the hypocrisy of institutional democracy in the United States. While every presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat, has unreservedly uttered lip service to democratic ideals, very few have dared push the boundaries by actually explaining their personal views on what separation of church and state means.

Given the Republicans’ reservations on Romney and the fact that the religious vote has long been shown to be a formidable factor in determining who claims the throne of the Oval Office, one can easily deduce that religion is hardly a personal matter in the American political milieu. Imagine, for instance, the sort of chances a presidential candidate would have as a dedicated atheist, or worse, as a devout Muslim.

It might be a long time — if ever — before the possibility of a Muslim candidate representing a major party is put to the test. But one need not wait that long to appreciate the narrow-mindedness of the media and politicians, and how this influences public opinion.

While the urgency of ‘responding’ to Islamic fundamentalism has been consistently highlighted in the ongoing presidential campaign, very little has been said about Christian, Jewish or other religious fundamentalisms. Rarely has a candidate — with the exception of Democrat Dennis Kucinich — dared to examine the relationship between Christian fundamentalism and the Iraq war, or Jewish fundamentalism and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Religious fanaticism and fundamentalism are rarely discussed as perilous phenomena in their own right; if it’s not ‘Islamic’ it simply doesn’t count.

Such short-sightedness has wide-ranging and deeply harmful implications. All that a volunteer for Senator Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign needed to do to temporarily disrupt the recent gains of Barack Obama’s campaign was to distribute an email suggesting that Obama was a Muslim intent on ‘destroying’ the United Sates. As laughable as this may sound, one cannot underestimate the impact that such rumours have on voters filled with fear and disdain for everything Muslim. Of course, Christian fundamentalist President George W. Bush’s wholesale destruction of a Muslim country, Iraq, is not a mere rumour. That this is not considered noteworthy is most telling. Chances are Obama will do his utmost to distance himself from the rumor — as he has done in the past — which could reinvigorate the old accusation that he spent time studying at a Muslim school. Obama previously responded by vowing to respond severely to Muslim terrorism, going so far as to say he would bomb Pakistan if necessary. Whether he will upgrade further his hostile language to show his worthiness to lead America is yet to be seen.

Although Islam and Muslims were hardly relevant to Romney’s speech, Naomi Schaefer Riley of the conservative Wall Street Journal couldn’t prevent herself from shoving Islam into the picture, predictably in an unfavorable light. In her article, ‘What Iowans Should Know About Mormons’ (December 7), Riley cites a recent Pew poll which shows that “only 53% of Americans have a favourable opinion of Mormons.” She then observes: “That’s roughly the same percentage who feel that way toward Muslims. By contrast, more than three-quarters of Americans have a favorable opinion of Jews and Catholics.”

Riley then gets to her main and vindictive point: “Whatever the validity of such judgments, one has to wonder: Why does a faith professed by the 9/11 hijackers rank alongside that of a peaceful, productive, highly educated religious group founded within our own borders?”

Not only did Riley isolate 9/11 from the pre and post 9/11 contexts (again conveniently neglecting the fact that nearly a million Iraqis were killed by those who mostly profess the Christian faith), she also implicitly indicated that Mormonism is everything that Islam is not. The latter religion is thus hostile, unproductive, backward and alien.

Riley was hardly satisfied with selectively linking a religion professed by over a billion people of all colors and ethnicities worldwide — including millions of Americans — to a few hijackers. She used the rest of her inadequate ‘analysis’ to inappropriately bring Islam to a discussion from which it should have been entirely spared.

One can understand the urge of the faithful of any religion to make preferences for presidential candidates on the basis of their faith. One can thus also understand why politicians cater to the religious sensibilities of their constituents, even if this means resorting to untruths. But one cannot in any way sympathize with the mainstream media — perceived largely as ‘liberal’ — for failing to realign the debate by bringing it back to its proper boundaries: that of equitable democracy vs religious prejudices, looking at Romney as a man who can do good, or bad for America rather than a man who professes a ‘wacky’ or ‘cult-like’ faith.

It’s odd that in the first decade of the 21st century, the media still validates the same religious thoughtlessness that had prevailed in America when Catholic John F. Kennedy made his famous statement in 1960 asserting that the Pope would not sway his presidency. Indeed, the media should have chastised the entire debate which ranks potential presidents based on whose God is best, or whether comparative religion should be discussed at all. Needless to say mediocre journalism like that of Riley should have never made it to print in the first place.

Nearly 50 civilians have reportedly been killed and 100 wounded in the two-day fighting spree between fighters loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts and government forces and their Ethiopian allies. A report, issued by Human Rights Watch, chastised both Ethiopian troops and ‘insurgents’ for the bloodletting. Peter Takirambudde, the watchdog’s Africa director, was quoted as saying, “The international community should condemn these attacks and hold combatants accountable for violations of humanitarian law — including mutilating captured combatants and executing detainees.” Of course, one cannot realistically expect the international community to take on a constructive involvement in the conflict. Various members of this ‘community’ have already played a most destructive role in Somalia’s 16-year-old civil war, which fragmented a nation that had long struggled to achieve a sense of sovereignty and national cohesion.

To dismiss the war in Somalia as yet another protracted conflict between warlords and insurgents would indeed be unjust because the country’s history has consistently been marred by colonial greed and unwarranted foreign interventions. These gave rise to various proxy governments, militias and local middlemen, working in the interests of those obsessed with the geopolitical importance of the Horn of Africa.

Colonial powers came to appreciate the strategic location of Somalia after the Berlin Conference, which initiated the ‘Scramble for Africa.’ The arrival of Britain, France and Italy into Somali lands began in the late 19th century and quickly the area disintegrated into British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland. Both countries sought expand their control, enlisting locals to fight the very wars aimed at their own subjugation.

World War II brought immense devastation to the Somali people, who, out of desperation, coercion or promises of post-war independence, fought on behalf of the warring European powers. Somalia was mandated by the UN as an Italian protectorate in 1949 and achieved independence a decade later in 1960. However, the colonial powers never fully conceded their interests in the country and the Cold War actually invited new players to the scene, including the United States, the Soviet Union and Cuba.
One residue of the colonial legacy involved the Ogaden province of Somalia, which the British Empire had granted to the Ethiopian government. The region became the stage of two major wars between Ethiopia and Somalia between 1964 and 1977. Many Somalis still regard Ethiopia as an occupying power and view the policies of Addis Ababa as a continuation of the country’s history of foreign intervention.

The civil war of 1991, largely a result of foreign intervention, clan and tribal loyalties, and lack of internal cohesion, further disfigured Somalia. As stranded civilians became deprived of aid, Somalia was hit by a devastating famine that yielded a humanitarian disaster. The famine served as a pretext for foreign intervention, this time as part of international ‘humanitarian’ missions, starting in December 1992, which also included US troops. The endeavor came to a tragic end in October 1993, when more than 1,000 Somalis and 18 US troops were killed in Mogadishu. Following a hurried US withdrawal, the mainstream media rationalized that the West could not help those who refuse to help themselves; another disfiguration of the fact that the interest of the Somali people was hardly ever a concern for these colonial philanthropists. Since then, the importance of Somalia was relegated in international news media into just another mindless conflict, with no rational context and no end in sight. The truth, however, is that colonial interest in the Horn of Africa has never waned.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 provided an impetus for US involvement in the strategic region; only one month after the attacks, Paul Wolfowitz met with various power players in Ethiopia and Somalia, alleging that al-Qaeda terrorists might be using Ras Kamboni and other Somali territories as escape routes. A year later, the US established the Combined Joint Task Force — Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) to ‘monitor’ developments and to train local militaries in ‘counterterrorism’.

The US contingent was hardly neutral in the ongoing conflict. Reportedly, US troops were involved in aiding Ethiopian forces that entered Somalia in December 2006, citing efforts to track down al-Qaeda suspects. The Ethiopian occupation was justified as a response to a call by Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), whose legitimacy is questioned. TGF, seen largely as a pro-Ethiopian entity, had been rapidly losing its control over parts of Somalia to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) which came to prominence in January 2006, taking over the capital and eventually bringing long-sought stability to much of the country. Their attempts engage the US and other Western powers in dialogue failed, however, as a US-backed Ethiopia moved into Somalia in December 2006. On January 7, 2007, the US directly entered the conflict, launching airstrikes using AC-130 gunship. Civilian causalities were reported, but the US refused to accept responsibility for them.

The last intervention devastated the country’s chances of unity. It now stands divided between the transitional government, Ethiopia (both backed by the UN, the US and the African Union) and the Islamic courts (allegedly backed by Eritrea and some Arab Gulf governments). Recently, the UN ruled out any chances for an international peacekeeping force, and the few African countries who promised troops are yet to deliver (with the exception of Uganda).

This situation leaves Somalia once more under the mercy of foreign powers and self-serving internal forces, foreshadowing yet more bloodshed. Our informed support is essential now because the Somali people have suffered enough. Their plight is urgent and it deserves a much deeper understanding, alongside immediate attention.