WEEKLY FROM MID-EAST REALITIES: "QUOTE, UNQUOTE"

The fact that the shooter was an army conscript in uniform making use of his army-issued M16 rifle gave rise to the question: "Who will guard the guardians?"

The Israelis added insult to injury when they imposed a curfew on the Palestinian inhabitants of the town, who see themselves as the victims of both Israeli violence and Israeli measures to prevent violence while Israeli settlers circulate freely in the streets.

Michael Jansen The Irish Times, January 1 & 2, 1997

It shows to what a pass things have come that the wounding of seven people should be greeted with a sigh of relief. But the near disaster on Martyrs Street in Hebron shows how terribly dangerous is the game that the Israeli Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, is playing with the Palestinians and with the fate of his own country. . . . Many have alleged that Netanyahu hopes, and perhaps prays, that the Palestinians will save him, by some act of violence or foolishness, from having to honor the commitments he is having to make. . . . The Palestinians know he has no understanding of their interests and needs. And many now say that Bibi Netanyahu is not only far less clever than he was reputed to be but is, even, a stupid man.

Martin Woollacott The Guardian (London) - January 2, 1997

Netanyahu has transformed the old Jewish Arab war into a new conflict between Jewish colonialists and colonized Palestinians. Nowhere in the world has such a battle been won in the 20th century.

Richard Cohen Manchester Guardian Weekly (Washington Post) -January 5, 1997

Britain has become a nation of Muslim haters. Where the targets were once Jews or blacks or Asians, the Muslim with his associations with fundamentalist terrorism and summary justice has become the new hate figures for the Nineties.

And Islamophobia is in danger of becoming institutionalized unless the law is changed to outlaw religious as well as racial discrimination.

‘In 20 years it has become more explicit, more extreme, more pernicious and more dangerous . . . [it] is part of the fabric of everyday life in modern Britain, in much the same way that anti-Semitic discourse was taken for granted earlier in this century.'

These claims might appear extreme, but they are not propaganda from Islamist activists or the rantings of a Muslim cleric. They come from a report of the Runymede Trust, a race-relations think-tank, compiled by a committee including the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres; Rabbi Julia Neuberger; and Professor Akbar Ahmed, a Cambridge don and Britain's leading Muslim academic.

Barry Hugill and Martin Bright - The Observer (London) - December 29, 1996

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