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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (7966)	11/3/2001 6:23:13 PM
From: hdl	Respond to of 23908

u r right as over 30 years is over a year

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (7966)	11/3/2001 6:28:28 PM
From: Thomas M.	Respond to of 23908

Israel has been doing the closures for 30 years, long before any Intifada. Tom

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (7966)	11/3/2001 7:06:39 PM
From: alan w	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

Exactly Nadine. They act like Arafat is some sort of saint and the Palestines are the tabernacle choir. alan w

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (7966)	11/3/2001 8:04:31 PM
From: Gabriel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

Al-Ahram Weekly \| Opinion \| These are the realities Although every human rights declaration in the world today (including the UN Charter) gives a people the right to resist by any means when it is under military occupation, and the right for refugees to return to their homes, it is also the case that suicide bombings in Tel Aviv serve no purpose, political or ethical. They too are unacceptable. There's a huge difference between organised disobedience, or mass protest, on the one hand, and simply blowing up yourself and a few innocents, on the other. This difference has to be stated clearly and emphatically, and engraved in any serious Palestinian programme once and for all. ---------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps this constituency may grow in the United States, but speaking as a Palestinian, I must also hope that a similar constituency should be emerging in the Arab and Muslim world. We must start thinking about ourselves as responsible for the poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, and repression that have come to dominate our societies, evils that we have allowed to grow despite our complaints about Zionism and imperialism. How many of us, for example, have openly and honestly stood up for secular politics and have condemned the use of religion in the Islamic world as roundly and as earnestly as we have denounced the manipulation of Judaism and Christianity in Israel and the West? How many of us have denounced all suicidal missions as immoral and wrong, even though we have suffered the ravages of colonial settlers and inhuman collective punishment? We can no longer hide behind the injustices done to us, anymore than we can passively bewail the American support for our unpopular leaders. A new secular Arab politics must now make itself known, without for a moment condoning or supporting the militancy (it is madness) of people willing to kill indiscriminately. There can be no more ambiguity on that score. Al-Ahram Weekly \| Opinion \| Backlash and backtrack ------------------------------------------------------------- With Arafat and Company in command, there is no hope. What is the man doing, grotesquely fetching up in the Vatican and Lagos and other miscellaneous places, pleading without dignity or even intelligence for imaginary observers, Arab aid, international support, instead of staying with his people, trying to aid them with medical supplies, morale- boosting measures and real leadership? What we need is a unified leadership of people who are on the ground, who are actually doing the resisting, who are really with and of their people, not the fat, cigar-chomping bureaucrats who want their business deals preserved and their VIP passes renewed, and who have lost all trace of decency or credibility. A united leadership that takes positions and plans mass actions designed not to return to Oslo (can you believe the folly of that idea?) but to press on with resistance and liberation, instead of confusing people with talk of negotiations and the stupid Mitchell Plan. Arafat is finished: why don't we admit that he can neither lead, nor plan, nor do anything that makes any difference except to him and his Oslo cronies who have benefited materially from their people's misery? All the polls show that his presence blocks whatever forward movement might be possible. We need a united leadership to make decisions, not simply to grovel before the Pope and the moronic George W Bush, even as the Israelis are killing his heroic people with impunity. A leader must lead the resistance, reflect the realities on the ground, respond to his people's needs, plan, think, and expose himself to the same dangers and difficulties that everyone experiences. The struggle for liberation from Israeli occupation is where every Palestinian worth anything now stands: Oslo cannot be restored or re-packaged as Arafat and Company might desire. It's over for them and the sooner they pack and get out, the better for everyone. ahram.org.eg