Nazir Majally
Buoyed by USA backing, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday his nation would not hesitate to strike at its enemies wherever they were.
Gideon Samet
This round in Washington is going to end nearly like all the previous ones. A summary can be typed ahead of time. A little hint of dispute, and a lot of public understanding between the Israeli and American leaders. There’s always some punch line by a spinner, whether local or distant. This time it is: “There’s no separation fence between Bush and Sharon.” Hats off to the creative flack.
Robert Malley and Hussein Agha
As he approaches the twilight of his political career, Israel’s prime minister contemplates his one last remaining task. It is the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition, one that he several times has sought and that several times has eluded him: the achievement of Israel’s long-term moral and existential security by eradicating a unified Palestinian national movement. He feels he is closer than ever to achieving his goal. The Palestinian polity is beginning to disintegrate. A generation of Palestinian leaders have been killed or imprisoned. Step by step, Palestinians will have to begin thinking of themselves not as Palestinians but as Gazans or West Bankers, Nabulsis or Hebronites and as insiders or outsiders.
Edward Said
Despite effort to restrict coverage of its destructive invasion of the West Bank’s Palestinian towns and refugee camps, information and images have nevertheless seeped through. The Internet has provided hundreds of verbal as well as pictorial eyewitness reports, as have Arab and European TV coverage, most of it unavailable or blocked or spun out of existence from the mainstream USA media. That evidence provides stunning proof of what Israel’s campaign has actually - has always - been about: the irreversible conquest of Palestinian land and society.
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