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A SUICIDE BOMBER'S WORLD

August 18, 2001

RELECTIONS ON THE "Suicide Bombers"

"A photograph exists of Nidal's head and upper torso after the bombing. Much of what it depicts is a grisly mess. But his face is unblemished, his hair neatly combed, his eyes almost fully closed. The expression is one of peace."

MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 8/18: In a sense, a very important sense, the "Suicide Bombers" now so much in the news should have stamped on them "Made in Israel, Encouraged by USA". There were few if any "Suicide Bombers" just a few years ago. The phenomena first arose out of Israel's destructive invasion of Lebanon in and before 1982, then the occupation of about 10% of that country which only ended last year. During the first Palestinian Intifada there were few if any "Suicide Bombers". But as the military occupation has become even more brutal, and as "the peace process" has grown even more deceptive and onerous, a generation which has only known fear and torture has turned to new and more grissly tactics of their own. And if no serious and just solution is found to today's predicament this cycle is likely to continue on into the next generation when tactics and weapons of mass destruction may come into play.

A SUICIDE BOMBER'S WORLD
By Cameron W. Barr

[The Christian Science Monitor - 14 August]: Palestinian militants are intensifying their use of suicide attacks against Israel. Since March 4, 15 suicide bombers have taken the lives of at least 52 people, the vast majority of them Israelis. One of the most deadly occurred last Thursday in a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem; another bomber struck a coffee shop near the Israeli port city of Haifa Sunday evening.

In recent weeks, the Monitor has interviewed Palestinian militants involved in suicide bombings, a young man who has considered carrying out such an operation, the father of a deceased bomber, and some Israelis who were affected by one attack. The following accounts offer a closer look at this form of violence - the motivations of its perpetrators and the experiences of its victims.

CAREER OPTION: MARTYR
RAMALLAH, WEST BANK

Hassan, as he asks to be called, holds a brand-new professional degree from a Palestinian university. He faces a career choice that says much about the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On the one hand, he might like to get into human rights work. Another option is "martyrdom" - perhaps by carrying an explosive into a crowd of Israelis and detonating it.

"I have become capable of sacrificing myself for my religion and my homeland," says Hassan, who was interviewed on the condition that his real name not be used. Having spent several years in Israeli jails for militant activity, he worries that the exposure could put the Israelis back on his trail.

A slender, soft-spoken young man with wiry brown hair and a narrow face, Hassan wears jeans, a brown T-shirt, and delicate, metal-framed glasses.

He has the intense, slightly uncertain demeanor of a university intellectual - hunching his shoulders and crossing his legs, he smokes a lot and fidgets endlessly with a ring on his right hand as he speaks.

During a two-hour meeting in the leafy garden of a private home in Ramallah, Hassan is gentle-humored in his explanations of the theology and logistics of suicide bombing.

Martyrdom-seekers, as they consider themselves, reject any notion that their actions constitute suicide, which is forbidden by the Koran. Hassan says candidates are chosen for their piety and sincerity; anyone who seems troubled or suicidal is screened out.

The proper motive is to take jihad - a holy war to defend or promote Islam - to the extreme. Those preparing for an operation, Hassan says, spend much of their time in prayer in an attempt to separate themselves mentally from the world as they know it.

They see jihad as a "pillar" of Islam, an obligation. "As long as people occupy Muslim land," Hassan adds, "that obligation remains." Hassan is a member of Islamic Jihad, a militant group that advocates the eradication of Israel.

Would-be bombers are always free to step back, even during the final moments of their missions, Hassan insists.

"It is written in the Koran that the hearts of believers are in the hands of God," he says. "He can make them change their minds, so the choice is always wide open."

The bombers typically are not members of Islamic Jihad's secretive "military wing," which is known as the Jerusalem Brigades. They are part of a corps of pious volunteers who implement a bombing's final phase.

Members of the military wing handle just about everything else involved in suicide operations. Some specialize in assembling the combination of explosives and nails that most bombers employ, others in defining targets, still others in penetrating Israeli security and bringing the bomber close to a target site.

Operating in small cells with different functions, the militants are linked by intermediaries and have little or no contact with each other, to defend against infiltration by Israeli agents, Hassan says. The militants work with a bomber only when an operation is set in motion.

He is unfazed by questions about the legitimacy of actions in which civilians and even children are killed.

"According to my religion, I'm doing Jewish children a favor, because if they get killed [in an operation] they go to Heaven instead of dying as a soldier and going to Hell," he says.

The bomber, too, is promised admission to the highest level of paradise, the one reserved for prophets and saints, Hassan says. Martyrs win salvation for 70 of their relatives and enjoy the eternal pleasures of a like number of heavenly virgins.

Bombers are freed from worry about their families' futures, since Islamic Jihad undertakes to provide for those left behind. Hassan says a colleague once told him: "Don't talk to me about earthly things - I'm in another world."

MR. RED AND MR. BLACK
NABLUS, WEST BANK

In a vacant suite of offices in a busy commercial building in this West Bank city, three Islamic Jihad operatives - two militants and their "handler" from the party's political department - sit down to talk about their work with three foreign journalists.

The operatives insist on staying in the suite's airless hallway, away from windows that might admit an Israeli missile more easily than stone-and-cement walls. They keep their eyes on the door.

The militants' faces are wrapped in Palestinian headscarves, or keffiyehs, to prevent identification. One man wears a red-checked scarf. The other's keffiyeh is the same black check worn by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

They provide no names; the handler gives only a first name that he asks not be published. The militants sit mute through questions about their backgrounds, operations they have participated in, and what they are training to do. The handler vetoes these topics as too sensitive.

The journalists, wary of hoaxsters with clever imaginations, begin to get exasperated. Mr. Red begins to get annoyed. He pulls a handgun from under his plaid shirt, displaying it in a way that violates several rules of firearm safety.

"This is how I would identify myself," he says.

In the end, his comments, and those of Mr. Black, are more convincing than the weapon.

They claim two motivations for joining the military wing. "Our main objective is to satisfy God's will by undertaking jihad," says Red. The other is to regain the Palestinians' "stolen land and dignity."

The handler explains that the two men are not would-be bombers, but militants who help the bombers carry out their missions. He identifies Red as a bombmaker and Black as a "sender," someone who devises operations and brings the bomber or bombers within striking distance.

Yet the two men themselves sound ready for the ultimate sacrifice.

"We are living martyrs; we are martyrs who are not yet dead," avers Black, adding that his enthusiasm is shared by the bombers with whom he has worked.

He recalls one operation, on May 25 in the Israeli seaside resort of Hadera, in which two Islamic Jihad bombers died when they detonated an explosive-laden minivan near the city's bus station.

The mission had been conceived as a solo attack, but two candidates to carry it out were fighting over the opportunity.

So the militants changed the plan to allow for a second bomber, who was supposed to detonate an explosive in a place apart from the minivan. For reasons known only to the bombers, they died together, injuring more than a dozen people.

Red, Black, and their handler identify the main criteria of a mission's success: a high number of casualties, the penetration of the Israeli security cordon, and the derailment of whatever negotiations or cease-fire efforts are under way.

The handler explains that Islamic Jihad is under no illusions

that suicide bombings can defeat Israel's military, the most powerful in the Middle East.

The organization's goals are to "escalate the conflict" so that the "Islamic world" will join the Palestinian struggle, to "balance the terror" that the Israelis inflict on Palestinians and to demonstrate that the Israeli security forces are not invincible.

Black, the sender, stresses the importance of defeating Israeli efforts to prevent bombings. On July 16, the Israelis were expecting an attack in a town called Binyamina.

"To reach the target and explode the bomb" under such circumstances, he says, "that's success."

That is exactly what a young Palestinian farmer named Nidal Abu Shadouf did. Although Islamic Jihad has a reputation for indiscriminate killing, Black also considers Binyamina the most successful of the group's recent operations because its victims were Israeli soldiers.

The BINYAMINA BLAST
BINYAMINA, ISRAEL

At nearly half past 7 p.m. on July 16, Nidal Abu Shadouf's sender dropped him off a short walk from the train station in Binyamina, a town of red-roofed bungalows in central Israel that mainly serves as a bedroom community for Tel Aviv and other cities. Binyamina is nine miles from the "green line" that divides Israel from the West Bank.

The Israel Railways Authority had assigned extra security guards to the station. As in other areas of the country, people girded themselves for the worst.

Abu Shadouf, the eldest of 11 children from a farming family in the northern West Bank village of Burqin, proceeded along a two-lane road that runs past the station.

The day was fading into dusk, and the light dimmed still further as he walked under a shade tree that towers over the station entrance.

Every weekday, between 7:25 p.m. and 7:35 p.m., three trains stop at the station, depositing scores of passengers onto its platforms. These people may have been the bomber's intended target.

But a guard at the front of the station caught sight of Abu Shadouf, says Chanan Graf, head of security for the Railways Authority.

What the guard saw sets off mental alarms anywhere in Israel today: a 20-something Palestinian carrying a knapsack. The eyes of the guard met the eyes of the bomber.

Abu Shadouf apparently changed course, hurrying across the street and walking up to a bus stop. Four soldiers were in the small shelter because Binyamina is close to an Israeli military training facility.

Miri Shamir and her 2-year-old son had just parked in front of the station. She had brought a big balloon to greet her husband. It said "Happy Birthday." At 7:34 Ms. Shamir, a Tel Aviv lawyer, answered a call on her cellphone. Then Abu Shadouf set off his bomb.

Less than 100 yards away, in a garden filled with sculptures, an artist named Gabriel was enjoying the cool of the early evening with a friend.

The noise of the blast deafened the ears and its shock wave jarred the stomach, says Gabriel, who wouldn't give his second name.

The two men sensed there were casualties and ran toward the scene. The smell of explosive filled the air.

Silence descended. "It was quiet like a desert," says Gabriel. All traffic had stopped. Everyone who could had fled. Those who couldn't - the dead and the wounded - lay on the ground.

Then Shamir stepped out of her station wagon, its windows shattered, its sides punctured. Blood from a wound on the back of her head was staining her white shirt.

Inexplicably she left her sandals in the car and walked barefoot on broken glass to reach her son and get him out of the car seat. He was screaming that he couldn't see.

Security guards and soldiers soon reached her and took care of the boy, who was unhurt except for a scratch above his eye.

Gabriel and his friend, a medic in Israel's military reserves, helped Shamir until emergency teams arrived. She and a half-dozen others were hospitalized with serious injuries.

Shamir is recovering from her injuries and feeling vulnerable. "In Israel, it's like Russian roulette. You never know when you are going to get it," she says. In June, the family had moved from Tel Aviv to a town near Binyamina because they feared bomb attacks in Israel's largest city.

Avi Ben-Haroush and Hanit Arami, the young soldiers who died in the blast, are memorialized in a plaque that Binyamina authorities installed next to the reconstructed bus stop.

"They were murdered at the hands of a son of injustice who lacked humanity," the inscription reads.

'WE HAVE NO TANKS'
BURQIN, WEST BANK

Ibrahim Abu Shadouf found out about his son's death on TV the night of July 16. He says he never knew that Nidal was involved with Islamic Jihad, much less contemplating a suicide bombing.

Mr. Abu Shadouf is vague about what feelings of loss he might be experiencing.

"You know how parents feel when their child gets killed," is all he will say about hearing the news. Neighbors and friends soon distracted him with congratulatory visits.

When Palestinian suicide bombers die, their families receive accolades, not condolences. Posters depicting Nidal in heroic poses were quickly printed and put up throughout his village.

The Abu Shadouf family lives in a whitewashed hillside home in Burqin, a West Bank village known as the site where Jesus healed 10 lepers. The eldest son of a partially blind father, Nidal sacrificed his birthright and deprived Abu Shadouf of daily help in the fields when he carried out his mission.

A gruff man with a head of wavy white hair and a bristly beard, the father is without complaint.

"You can't ask others to liberate you," he says. "We don't have enough people to support us for the time being - that's why we end up throwing ourselves in front of tanks."

Of suicide attacks, Abu Shadouf says: "That is what is left to us. We have no tanks, no Apache helicopters."

Many Palestinians say the current conflict is making life unbearable, the worst period in their modern history. Abu Shadouf calls it "the best period" because he sees Palestinians fighting for their rights.

"The jihad is the only way to achieve our freedom," he says. "Although it is tough and we pay with the blood of our children, still it is good.... I am willing to sacrifice my seven sons so that one day justice can be achieved."

Abu Shadouf says his son was distraught over the death of a cousin, a Palestinian security-force member who was killed by Israeli fire in December. Nidal may have wanted to avenge his cousin's death.

On the day he died, says Abu Shadouf, Nidal stopped working at about 4 p.m., showered, and prayed. He put on some clothes he had recently bought - a black T-shirt and trousers - and left as if he were going to hang out with friends. There were no meaningful goodbyes, not even to his mother.

A photograph exists of Nidal's head and upper torso after the bombing. Much of what it depicts is a grisly mess. But his face is unblemished, his hair neatly combed, his eyes almost fully closed. The expression is one of peace.


August 2001


Magazine






IDEOLOGICAL CEASE-FIRE OR SELL-OUT AT DURBAN?
(August 31, 2001)
It's not likely this is the end of it, but indications are that the Arafat crowd -- as of the moment still in the pay of the U.S., Israel, and the despicable Arab "client regimes" -- has found a way to back away from the badly needed ideological confrontation, with the help of non other than that slimmy man for all seasons who never misses an opportunity to interject himself Jesse Jackson.

ASHRAWI SPEECH IN DURBAN
(August 31, 2001)
Hanan Ashrawi is no real hero, and she's made some terrible hard-to-forgive political mistakes in the "peace process" years in her search for the limelight and VIP status.

DURBAN AND ROBINSON AND ANNAN
(August 31, 2001)
A pamphlet distributed at the United Nations anti-racism conference in South Africa equating the Star of David with a swastika has prompted the UN human rights commissioner, Mary Robinson, to declare at an official dinner: "I am a Jew".

"GO BACK IMMEDIATLEY OR WE ARE GOING TO SHOOT" - MARY ROBINSON COMES OUT JEWISH
(August 30, 2001)
Talk about humiliation. When the U.N.'s top human rights official was in occupied Palestine last year her car was shot at by Israeli settlers -- the Israeli army doing nothing to stop them. Now we learn that the very same Mary Robinson is herself Jewish and has been using her position to head off the urgently needed world censorship of Israel for its racist and apartheid-like policies.

HABASH AND CARLOS HAVE THEIR SAY
(August 30, 2001)
Aging guerrilla leader Carlos the Jackal called from his French jail cell Wednesday for worldwide attacks on Israel and the United States in support of the Palestinian uprising.

A LAND WITHOUT HOPE
(August 29, 2001)
Gaza is the largest prison in the world. Most of its one million plus inhabitants, in a sense inmates, have never been let out. Whether the term be "ghetto" or "concentration camp" or just "prison", the historical parallels are all too damning.

THE U.S. MAKES IT ALL POSSIBLE
(August 29, 2001)
What we should all be thinking when the U.S. State Department spokesman gets in front of the cameras is -- "You've Got To Be Kidding!" Instead, the American government with its super sophisticated PR apparatus dishes it out. The gullible, or should we say complicitous, corporate media then broadcasts it -- not just CNN, also the rest of the networks along with PBS followed up by the big daily newspapers and newsweeklies --all lemming-like.

TIME TO SUSPEND ISRAEL FROM U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY
(August 28, 2001)
The American President and Vice-President both are giving public expressions of support to the Israelis; while the American CIA, military and Congress make Israeli policies possible with a continual flow of money, guns, and information.

"INVITING HELL TO BREAK LO0SE" - PFLP LEADER ASSASSINATED TODAY
(August 27, 2001)
The Israelis are clearly planning to totally crush the Palestinians -- Minister Uzi Landau is publicly saying as much -- probably thinking they can buy themselves still more years to consolidate their grip on the occupied territories and probably scheming for the opportunity to push as many Palestinians as they can across the Jordan and into a Hashemite Kingdom that will eventually, sooner or later, implode into a Palestinian State.

A MOST COURAGEOUS AND DEDICATED ISRAELI JOURNALIST
(August 26, 2001)
If we had an award for Middle East Journalist of the year, the Israeli writer Amira Hass would be very high on that list. A few years ago, long before it became politically correct to term Israeli policies "apartheid like", especially in Jewish and American circles, Amira Hass was doing just that in her writing and speaking.

ISRAEL WINNING PROPAGANDA WAR - MASSIVELY
(August 26, 2001)
The terribly weak, confused, and co-opted Arab regimes, Arafat's included, are miserably losing the "propaganda war". Sure, the Israelis have suffered in some quarters in some ways; but nothing compared to the Palestinians.

THE LATEST FROM GAZA GHETTO
(August 25, 2001)
About 400 fanatical "settlers" have forced their way into homes in the middle of Hebron, a city of 120,000 Arabs. About 6000 fanatical "settlers" contnue to occupy about 35% of the Gaza Strip, amidst more than 1 million Palestinians.

ISRAEL'S IDEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION
(August 25, 2001)
If you want to understand what the Israelis are doing, and why, you have to understand the ideological underpinnings of what is called "Revisionist Zionism". This article was published many years ago in The Washington Post by Mark Bruzonsky, today the Publisher of MER.

JUST IMAGINE, A MILLION + INJURED IN A YEAR
(August 24, 2001)
If adjusted for differing population sizes, these would be the dead and casualties figures if a foreign military power occupied the United States and did to Americans what Israel, with U.S. money and arms, is doing to the Palestinians. And that's just in the past year or so.

WITH ARAFAT AND COMPANY IN COMMAND, THERE IS NO HOPE.
(August 24, 2001)
As usual there is no serious introspection and self-criticism here. Arab and Palestinian Americans have failed miserably over a very long period of time to even establish viable organizations and publications. Moreover they have no lobbying and professional presence even worth discussion in the crucial capital of Washington, DC, even today.

SUICIDE BOMBERS - MADE BY ISRAEL AND THE USA
(August 23, 2001)
It didn't begin this way. A few generations ago Arabs and Jews lived together in the same neighborhoods of the once Holy Land. In the 40's the famous Arab mayor of Haifa Hassan Shukri's only son married a Jewish woman.

ISRAELIS "DEBATE" BOTH "SEPARATION" AND "DEPARTURE"
(August 23, 2001)
Two rather insightful articles follow about how confused and insecure many Israelis have become, even though this often comes across to others as heightened arrogance and self-centeredness. In the first from Ha'aretz some Israelis are hedging their bets and wondering just what the future holds. There is a deep down awareness, not quite conscious for many, that what they are doing to the Palestinians could possibly in the future backfire in an orgy of hatred and recriminations far beyond today's situation.

KILLING AND DESTROYING - THE ISRAELI WAY
(August 21, 2001)
Even as the U.N. Security Council gathered to demonstrate once again how badly it has been neutered and cast aside when it comes to the Middle East, the Israelis are further unleashing their basic policy of killing, destroying, repressing. General Barak, the previous PM, is busy taking credit for having "exposed" the Palestinians and "fathered" the concept of "unilateral separation" (i.e., apartheid forever).

UN NOW AND THEN
(August 20, 2001)
Today's United Nations is pretty much an "appendage of the (U.S.) State Department". And that's not our phrase, it's one used by a senior U.N. official not that long ago in one of those quiet unpublicized off-the-record Washington discussions.

THE "PEACE PROCESS" FRAUD AND CONSPIRACY
(August 20, 2001)
Professors Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Tanya Reinhart -- Jewish American, Palestinian American, and Israeli -- all have explained this month why the "Peace Process" was a fraud, a deception, a conspiracy, from the start.

PLEADING FOR PEACE; ANALYSIS IS WAR
(August 18, 2001)
Everything stops for tea in Britain, or so they say. So when Angie Zelter and her fellow foreign protesters found their way from Palestinian-ruled Bethlehem to Jerusalem blocked by Israeli soldiers and police on Saturday, Zelter ever so politely ventured a few words of advice.

A SUICIDE BOMBER'S WORLD
(August 18, 2001)
In a sense, a very important sense, the "Suicide Bombers" now so much in the news should have stamped on them "Made in Israel, Encouraged by USA". There were few if any "Suicide Bombers" just a few years ago. The phenomena first arose out of Israel's destructive invasion of Lebanon in and before 1982, then the occupation of about 10% of that country which only ended last year.

DATELINE WASHINGTON: ONE ARAB DISASTER AFTER ANOTHER
(August 17, 2001)
Months ago now the relatively new group of Muslim "client organizations" headquartered in Washington repeatedly promised at one press conference after another a wave of civil disobedience throughout the U.S. in view of what Israel and the U.S. are doing to the Palestinians.

ANTI-US/ISRAEL DEMOS IN SOUTH AFRICA
(August 17, 2001)
The pathetically weak and terribly mislead Arab and Muslim groups in the US aren't doing any protesting worth mentioning about this or anything else; but thousands of South Africans are doing the work for everyone...and "internationals" are on the way.

WHY WE HAVE ALL BECOME SUICIDE BOMBERS, DR EYAD SARRAJ-MER FLASHBACK
(August 16, 2001)
A few weeks ago I said that the struggle of Palestinians today is how not to become a bomb and that the amazing thing is not the occurrence of the suicide bombing, rather the rarity of them.

HAVE WE A PREDICTION HERE? YASS?
(August 16, 2001)
Beneath that thick Israeli arrogance, many Israelis are really far more confused, and far more fearful, than they are going to admit. Theirs' is a complicated psychology especially as the scars of the Holocaust remain deeply buried and only occasionally visible.

DEATH IN BETHLEHELM, MADE IN AMERICA
(August 15, 2001)
While the Israeli Army surrounds Bethlehem and many of the "autonomous Palestinian population centers" created through the Apartheid-style "peace process", it is American weapons and money that make the brutal military occupation possible.

ISREALI STORM TROOPERS BEAT, SHOOT, TORTURE, KILL
(August 14, 2001)
How ironic that the Jewish Israelis are acting like modern-day storm troopers, perpetrating ongoing Crystal Nachts, their victims akin to dark images from the Warsaw Ghetto of yesteryear...and so many "Good Israelis", so sadly reminiscent of the "Good Germans" of their own terrible past when they themselves were powerless victims, are cheering with mindless hatred

USED "PEACE PLAN" FOR SALE CHEAP - CAVEATE EMPTOR!
(August 14, 2001)
Gee..isn't this interesting. With the legitimacy of the Jewish State of Israel -- i.e. Zionism -- about to be challenged by much of the world in Durban; and with the "peace process" itself about to be finally condemned as a "new form of apartheid" -- just as so many of the independent experts have been saying for years now -- the Israelis are embarking on a major international public relations campaign whose top dogs are none other than soft barkers Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin, chief architects and salesmen of the very same.

SALAMI ESCALATION
(August 14, 2001)
The Israelis are preparing everyone psychologically for more. Rather than everything at once, Sharon's tactics are a war version of "triangulation" which has become so famous in American political infighting. In this way he gets to be called "restrained" by many, creates the climate of confusion and anticipation that he wishes, uses Peres and Eliezer to confuse world opinion and even some of the more gullible Arab "leaders", and craftily prepares for that day when the tanks will roll in and roll over...and not just leave after a few hours of death and destruction.

NOW RUSSIANS PREDICT MID-EAST WAR SOON
(August 13, 2001)
The Israelis have been trying for years now to "reconfigure" the Middle East to their further advantage. That's really what the war for Lebanon that erupted most fiercely in 1982 was all about; and its what the various responses to the Intifada have always been about as well -- most especially the disengenous "peace process" which has now worse than collapsed.

A PEOPLE CRUSHED, DISPOSSESSED, TORTURED...
(August 13, 2001)
"His was not an act of 'mindless terror', the words Israeli spokesmen use. He was the logical product of a people who have been crushed, dispossessed, tortured and killed in terrible numbers." Fisk on the 'Suicide Bomber'

ON TO DURBAN...WITHOUT THEM - PART II
(August 12, 2001)
Well we weren't expecting United Nations officials to heed our advice about Durban and get on with things, with or without the constantly threatening and vetoing Americans (see Part 1 published yesterday). In recent years some of their colleagues at the very highest levels of today's U.N. have in fact resigned in moral disgust -- and even said so in public.

EGYPT MIGHT MOVE ARMY INTO SINAI?
(August 12, 2001)
It's not likely to happen -- Egypt's Third Army moving into Sinai for the first time since 1973 -- but it could. And in the Middle East there are historical precedents that this is sometimes the way big wars start with an initial bombardment of threats, bluffs, feints, and then the confusion takes on a life of its own.

SYMBOL OF PALESTINE CAPTURED AND RAPED
(August 11, 2001)
"Israeli riot police on horseback yesterday charged into protesters sitting outside Orient House, the barricaded mansion that serves as an unofficial Palestinian capital, reopening the battle for Jerusalem. The occupation of Orient House, headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in Jerusalem, by the Israeli army is one of the biggest acts of aggrandisement since the intifada began 11 months ago."

ON TO DURBAN...WITHOUT THEM
(August 10, 2001)
Conclusion first: Let the Americans and the Israelis stay home. So be it. There's been enough blackmail and bribery and vetoing for such a very long time now. The Americans and the Israelis have been two against the whole world so many times when it comes to the international community of nations. It was just a few years ago that the U.S. single-handedly black-balled Boutros Ghali and sent him packing.

SHARON OF ISRAEL - DANGEROUSLY CUNNING
(August 10, 2001)
Ariel Sharon has a terrible history of brutality and murder, and indeed by the usual definitions these days he is at the very least indictable as a war criminal. Even so, especially now in his new role as Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon is an extraordinarily crafty and sophisticated strategist as well as tactician.

ISRAEL FLAG FLIES OVER ORIENT HOUSE
(August 10, 2001)
They never ever let Yasser Arafat come to Jerusalem. And Arafat missed his moment on the day of Feisal Husseini's burial earlier this summer when he could have, and should have, called their bluff. Now the Israelis, commanded by General Sharon, have done what they have been planning to do for some time, using the excuse of yesterday's terror bombing on Jaffa Road -- they have closed Orient House, the very symbol of things Palestinian in East Jerusalem, as well as many other organizations associated with the PA.

ORIENT HOUSE CLOSED - STRATEGIC BLOW AGAINST PALESTINIANS LIKELY
(August 9, 2001)
NEWSFLASH -- 8/09/2001, 9:30pm -- For first time Israel has closed down Orient House in Jerusalem along with nine other offices associated with the Palestinian Authority

USS LIBERTY - ABANDONED AT SEA AND AT HOME BECAUSE?
(August 9, 2001)
Tonight at 8pm (ET) on the History Channel part of the story about the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty on 8 June 1967 is going to be told. But from preliminary indications, just part, and not necessarily the most important historical parts which really involve top secret intrigue at the highest levels of the CIA, NSA, and White House complete with super secrets of state the Americans continue to want to keep out of sight out of mind.

THE REAL USS LIBERTY STORY
(August 9, 2001)
The real questions -- and answers -- have been avoided for a very long time by the American Government, and in this case also by the "free and independent" American media. And from the preliminary indications, tonight's History Channel documentary about the USS Liberty doesn't actually answer the key questions (as it could) nor even deal with the key subject of the crucial role of the CIA (as it should).

THE CRUCIAL ISRAELI-TURKISH-US MILITARY ALLIANCE,THE ARABS ARE SURROUNDED
(September 9, 2001)
It was just a few years ago that in all likelihood the Mossad and CIA helped the Turk's capture Kurdish Leader Abdullah Ocalan after first pushing him out of exile in Syria, the Moscow, then Greece, and then grabbing him in Nairobi. It was three years ago last month that MER first published an article about the great importance of the new military alliance that has developed between Israel and Turkey -- "New U.S./Turkey/Israel Alliance Circumvents and Bottles Up The Arabs." And it was two years ago that the prolific and courageous British journalist, Robert Fisk, first gave us some of the details behind the new strategic military relation Turkey actually courted with Israel.

WITH THE HELP OF U.S. ARMS MANUFACTURERS, THE CIA, CONGRESS, AND THE PENTAGON
(August 8, 2001)
The Israelis are controlling, repressing, dispossessing, and assassinating the Palestinians not on their own. They are doing so with the constant and considerable help of American arms manufacturers, the CIA, and of course the U.S. Congress (which of course is supposed to represent the will of the American people) which constantly appropriates billions yearly for Israel and sanctions (or the threat thereof) against Israel's foes

HIZBULLAH ON A ROLL
(August 7, 2001)
Israeli security forces have completely shut down access in and out of five large Palestinian towns following the killing of a pregnant Jewish settler, Israeli public radio said Monday, quoting security officials. The army sealed off the West Banks towns of Nablus, Tulkarem, Jericho, Ramallah and Qalqilya, the radio said, adding that it had partially closed the towns of Hebron, Bethlehem and Jenin.

WILL THE REAL YOSSI BEILIN PLEASE STAND UP
(August 4, 2001)
Like in the movie LION OF THE DESERT, those who profess sympathy and understanding can often cause the most harm. The well-meaning Lieutenant Colonel who befriends Omar Muhktar, lures him into deceptive "peace negotiations" in the desert, and then salutes him as his own involvement leads to Muhktar's being hanged from the gallows, is an illustrative symbol from the past.

SHARONS PUBLIC RELATIONS WAR
(August 7, 2001)
One thing about countries that have democratic features and most especially a professional and independent press -- sometimes insightful even amazing little tidbits result either from leaks or investigations. Like today's story about how Ariel Sharon himself is also the Commanding General in Israel's public relations war, shaking up and countermanding his troops in this arena as well.

ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE PROJECTS WAR IN 2002
(August 6, 2001)
Israeli sources said military intelligence has drafted a report that warns of the increasing likelihood of regional war in 2002. The report said the war could be sparked by either an Israeli offensive against the Palestinian Authority or an escalation in tension along Israel's border with Lebanon

TARGET EVERYONE EVERYWHERE
(August 5, 2001)
It has not happened yet, but it is now the direction things are heading. Soon the Palestinians may start responding to Israel's increasingly brutal military occupation, unprecedented anywhere else in the world of our day, by targeting Israeli political leaders and maybe Zionist leaders outside of Israel.

EGYPT IN THE ERA OF THIEVES
(August 5, 2001)
The Egypt of Hosni Mubarak and associates has terribly betrayed itself. It is a regime of sadistic torture and omnipresent corruption. It is a country of gross repression and escalating fear. And to a certain extent all this is at least in part the legacy of the Camp David agreement Egypt was tricked and bribed into signing two decades ago, and for which Anwar Sadat was assassinated by his own soldiers on military parade.

IRAEL ENFLAMES PALESTINIANS- HATRED WILL LAST LONG INTO THE FUTURE
(August 5, 2001)
In the past week the Israelis have substantially escalated the conflict with the Palestinians and risked enflaming not only the Palestinians but Arabs and Muslims around the world. Now senior Palestinian political leaders are being targeted.

ASSASSINATION POLICY EXPANDED- EXPECT A NEW LEVEL OF CLANDESTINE WARFARE
(August 4, 2001)
In a sense it would be like the going after the associates of Jerry Adams and his Sein Fein colleagues in Northern Ireland. It was a policy followed to a lesser extent by the White South African government when it tortured and murdered persons associated with the ANC, almost in fact secretly poisoning Nelson Mandela in his prison cell

"SECRET PLAN" TO SEND OBSERVERS TO ISRAEL
(August 3, 2001)
The very idea that the Americans and the Brits, after their long history of treachery and deception in the Middle East, are now going to do something other than continue on in that tradition is rather ludicrous. All the current talk at the moment -- especially from the Europeans and the usually gullible "peace" and "human rights" NGOs -- about helping the Palestinians by sending them "observers" is indeed a fitting CIA response to the predicament the American government finds itself in at the moment.

ISRAEL THREAT TO INVADE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES IS REAL
(August 3, 2001)
The Palestinians and their allies and supporters are extremely ill-prepared for what is happening. Israeli military might remains overwhelming, and political support remains amazingly strong, especially in view of today's situation with Ariel Sharon Prime Minister, the "peace process" undergoing slow and tortuous cremation, and Israel attacking Palestinians in the occupied territories with tanks and gunships heretofore reserved for real warfare between armies.

11 YEARS, 1.5+ MILLION DEAD, SEETHING HATRED EVERYWHERE
(August 2, 2001)
Eleven long bloody years. In the years just before the Gulf War there was the destruction of Lebanon, the terrible bloodletting of the U.S.-instigated Iran-Iraq orgy, the Kissinger-legacy of the Kurdish sell-out.




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