The pressure on apartheid South Africa began with a decision of the same International Court of Justice that the ‘security fence’ in Israel has now been brought before. From there, it’s a short step to imposing economic sanctions and other boycotts, until the regime collapses and justice is established in the battered country. Had it not been for the economic sanctions and political isolation, apartheid in South Africa might have lasted forever, but South Africa was saved from itself because of international pressure exerted on its government. This could be the narrative of events in Israel’s case too. Anyone who fears for Israel’s moral image should not be afraid of this.

Monday, January 12th, 2004 - 03:53pm GMT

In the pensive hours of the night, I am struck by the varying values that mankind chooses to allot to life - as was my son Tom. Earlier this month, I read with mixed feelings the news that local Palestinian militia had dynamited an Israeli defence force watchtower in the town of Rafah, in the Gaza Strip. It was from this watchtower, which has been responsible for untold misery to many innocent families in Rafah, that Tom was shot in the head last April. At the time he was trying to help Palestinian children to safety. He now lies in a vegetative state in a hospital in London with no hope of recovery.

Note: Tom Hurndall died on Tuesday January 13th 2004.

Sunday, January 11th, 2004 - 09:17pm GMT

Ten years ago, deep in the Lacondon jungle in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas a movement arose like an early morning fog lifting up from the moist, rich ground.  The Zapatista Revolution began, January 1, 1994, the same day NAFTA was implemented in Canada, the USA and Mexico.  Today, the movement has enveloped almost all Latin American nations, especially those of South America.  The Zapatista ripple is being turned into an Ibero-American tidal wave as hundreds of millions of citizens, mostly poor, indigenous, and living on somewhere near two dollars a day, are beginning to elect leaders with left leaning ideologies.

Sunday, January 11th, 2004 - 08:09pm GMT

The stories of people killed, wounded, or disenfranchised in Iraq are endless. Almost every day that I have been here at least one person or family that has found out I am a journalist writing about how the occupation and illegal invasion are effecting Iraqis has approached me, desperate for someone to hear their story. While they hope I can help them, the little act I can do is to simply journal the injustice, and hope that readers will hold their government accountable for the travesty which is occurring in Iraq on a daily basis?and only growing worse with time.

Sunday, January 11th, 2004 - 02:19pm GMT

Saudi Arabia is not America. The idea that religion should be separated from the affairs of the state is viewed as a heresy. In Islam secularism equates with apostasy ? a fact that clearly shows the fallacy and dangerousness of George W. Bush’s messianic vision of democratizing the region. The fundamental issue for Saudis is not whether their government is a democracy or a monarchy; the fundamental issue is to what extent their government is implementing Islamic law in both its domestic and foreign affairs. A replacement of their Islamic government with a secular government isn’t what they hope for, it’s what they fear.

Saturday, January 10th, 2004 - 10:26pm GMT

Yesterday, the USA ambassador on ‘war crimes’, disclosed what has been suspected for some time; that the Bush administration has already agreed in principle to allow the nine British citizens held in Guantanamo Bay go back to the UK. Clearly, it is now the British, and not the USA government, that stands in the way of the release of the detainees. In its duplicitous actions over the whole affair, the UK government has betrayed the most fundamental responsibility that any government assumes - the duty to protect the rule of law. It is nothing less than a collusion in an international experiment in inhumanity, which is being repeated and expanded around the world.

Saturday, January 10th, 2004 - 03:50pm GMT

At first, the employee at the Iraq National Museum was reluctant to let me in, saying that the building was closed due to constant bombings by American warplanes. Eventually, however, I was allowed to gaze for a few moments at segments of history so unequaled with lessons beyond astute. I witnessed the making and remaking of history set in stone. Every giant block seemed to testify to one unmistakable end: Invaders never prevail. The likeness of history as narrated by images was startling: Invaders, giant and powerful, local inhabitants, tormented and enslaved, a rebellion, rivers of blood, decapitations, screams of agony, joy and victory. Then, a new cycle of history begins, hidden under another white sheet, dusty and battered.

Friday, January 9th, 2004 - 08:40pm GMT

Mikoyet Zighaya is an Israeli with a grievance. Dressed in army fatigues, his black beret tucked onto his shoulder, he joined a protest this week of more than a thousand Ethiopian Israelis. They demanded that their relatives be brought to Israel in keeping with a government decision last year to expedite the immigration of about 20,000 Ethiopians waiting to join previous waves and trickles of Ethiopian immigrants. But the problem is that some leading Zionist politicians don’t think that they’re ‘Jewish’ enough. What’s the real problem here?

Friday, January 9th, 2004 - 05:36pm GMT

Rhetoric about demography so dominates Israel’s political discourse that one might be tempted to assume that Israel has abandoned its preferred designation as the Jewish democratic state in favour of the Jewish demographic state. The mania is rooted in the Zionist’s need to maintain a Jewish majority capable of implementing a democracy that will absorb the Diaspora, accommodate pioneer settlement and the assumption of a common history, one that allows for the fetishisation of military service. Without any of the above Israel would have to practice government by the minority, which inevitably leads to apartheid or racial segregation, to government by a national minority that sees the state as the embodiment of its legitimacy.

Friday, January 9th, 2004 - 03:02pm GMT