But in the age of Guantanamo-like gulags filled with bearded Muslim men, such principles are disregarded. The very ideals that have been celebrated in the United States for generations are being trampled upon, violated and abused.

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can reference American ideals and speak of democracy while justifying the peculiar elections in Afghanistan, or the bewildering sectarian "democracy" underway in Iraq. However, when President Barack Obama made the seemingly dreadful mistake on August 13 of endorsing the right of Muslims to build a community center near Ground Zero, all hell broke loose.

Representative Peter King, a Republican from New York - echoing the sentiment of numerous others in congress, media and public - immediately denounced Obama's remarks. The very next day, the president was forced to explain to CNN the underlying intent of his comments. He laboriously delineated the difference between commenting on "the wisdom" of the project and upholding the broader principle that the government should treat "everyone equal, regardless" of religion.

The controversy is odd, as well as embarrassing, because the intention of building the community center and the mosque - which includes a lecture hall and a swimming pool - was meant as a gesture of goodwill, an attempt at cultural and religious dialogue. It signals the Muslim community's desire for inclusion. It is also an act of defiance.

Those who committed their evil deed in the name of religion, and those who lead major wars also in the name of religion are groups most disaffected by a community initiative aimed at rising over the superficial religious divides that have lead to major crimes and fueled criminal wars.

However, not all of those who against the approval of the mosque project are politically manipulative, ideologically or even religiously motivated. Some have innocently bought into the ridiculous media allegations and insinuations. They have been led to believe that building such a structure would be insensitive, betraying the memory of the September 11 victims (who also include Muslims), and could function as a symbolic message that the terrorists have won.

One fails to understand how a prayer room, a swimming pool and a lecture hall a few blocks away from where the Twin Towers once stood represents a victory in the books of al-Qaeda's grand designs. But more importantly, such language suggests - if not confirms - that what is underway is nothing but a religious war. If that is the case, then Muslims, using the same logic, have the right to curtail the freedom and target minorities in Muslim countries because they profess religions that are supposedly hostile to Islam. But isn't that precisely what al-Qaeda - a group abhorred by most Muslims - among other zealot groups have been arguing, if not practicing?

It's unacceptable that after years of American wars in Muslim countries - which preceded the terrorist attacks of September 11 - and many more wars which killed, wounded and devastated millions, we are still stuck in the same terrible mentality. Many haven't yet matured to see through the tainted lenses of hate and prejudice, the logic of "us" and 'them'. The very mindset that led America to its political, economic, military and moral crises for years continues to prevail. The very same cheerleaders who supervised the demise of their country as a world leader are now carrying the torches and forks of intolerance against a mosque, a lecture hall and a swimming pool.

The Muslim community center project was meant to remain a local affair until Obama afforded his support during a Ramadan meal with members of the US Muslim community. His comments presented the perfect opportunity for a perfectly opportunistic group of politicians and media pundits. His words were twisted and manipulated to give the impression that he cared little about the victims of September 11. The US president was reduced to actually have to state that "the pain and suffering experienced by those who lost loved ones is unimaginable ..."

However, as unbelievable, sad and self-defeating such a debate seems, it is also a wake-up call and a stark reminder of the kind of hatred and intolerance that gave that spot in lower Manhattan its dreadful name. Hatred and intolerance have also created uncountable other "ground zeros" in various Muslim lands, from Baghdad, to Gaza to Kabul and elsewhere.

Perhaps the controversy is a reminder of the issues we still need to urgently confront. We cannot indulge in the rhetoric of change, hope and audacity, while we remain at the same emotional and psychological standstill. We need to realize how such a fragile collective state of mind makes many of us so easily exploited and readily manipulated. This is the discussion that truly needs to commence, as boldly and urgently as possible.

- Ramzy Baroud (ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

Here in Bourj el-Barajneh, one of a dozen Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, time seems to have stood still for years. Generation after generation, children grow up in the same desperate reality, punished for crimes they did not commit, injured by a history not of their making. They stand on dirty balconies, cracked beyond repair, watching Beirut and the world go by.

The city is abuzz with life, politics, rumors, anticipation and intrigue. It remains perpetually divided between many worlds and contradictions, in a way that seems almost impossible to reconcile or bridge.

Bourj el-Barajneh has grown into a 'municipality' since its original inception as a 'temporary' accommodation for the Palestinian refugees who were expelled from their homes and land in Palestine between 1947 and 1948. The Palestinian physical share of the camp has largely remained the same, although the numbers have significantly grown. Influxes of Shia, Sunni, and more recently Iraqis have moved in and around the vicinity of the camp. Little was put in place to accommodate the natural growth, or to regulate the latter population influxes. Some self-servingly argued that allowing Palestinian refugees to improve their conditions would disconnect them from their homeland and sense of belonging. Therefore, suffer they must, with little work opportunity, no civil rights, and no cement or building material to repair their pitiful existence.

A state of arrested development has defined this particular refugee camp and Lebanon's relationship with refugees. Those opposed to the refugee presence fear that incorporating Palestinians into Lebanese society might be the prelude to incorporating them into the country's political landscape. This might risk further complicating an already messy demography. While Christian sects in Lebanon are the most fearful, others are also anxious.

In 1982, a constant state of siege received a boost when the Israeli army, along with their allies among Christian Phalangists, laid a brutal and deadly siege around Bourj el-Barajneh. Palestinians and Lebanese resisted, but lightly armed refugees could only go so far in withstanding the might of regional superpowers armed by a world superpower. The camp eventually collapsed, as many of its buildings fell. Whatever remained standing was dotted with holes and painful memories.

Another siege followed, and lasted for almost exactly three years, between 1984 and 1987. The perpetrator this time was the Amal militia. This incident also left its own evidence of ailing walls and cracked windows. With rebuilding made illegal by law, and very little by way of funds, the dust of war was the only fresh coat of paint the camp could possible hope for.

But they are many in Lebanon who still want to see improvement - whether slight or significant to the lives of Palestinian refugees, whether in Bourj el-Barajneh or elsewhere. Hezbollah has, till now, guarded various refugee camps against many threats. Palestinians here gratefully acknowledge that without Hezbollah serving as a bulwark against the many looming dangers, the plight of the refugees would have been much worse. But Hezbollah, a Shia group, can also be hostage to Lebanon's abhorring sectarian divisions, demography and political forces. Palestinians here are counting on Hezbollah to step up its support. They need the group to challenge the rejectionist forces in the Lebanese parliament, and demand civil rights for Palestinian refugees. Much is being debated at this time, and there are many backdoor discussions over details, semantics, and more.

Meanwhile, the two Palestinian girls continue to stand on the discolored balcony. They are sisters of about eight and ten years old. They were born after the two terrible sieges and much of the war that tormented their family for generations. But they were here to witness the 2006 war. Their refugee camp is a short distance from the Dahiya, the predominantly Shia neighborhood where Hezbollah is headquartered. Tough men and women withstood the unimaginable firepower directed at that tiny stretch of land, as in many other parts of Lebanon. Now, most of Dahiya has been rebuilt, with final touches being laid to edifices of concrete that will soon - if another war doesn't erupt - become hospitals, schools, offices and subsidised residential areas for the poor.

But the same is not true for Bourj el-Barajneh. The camp continues to carry the physical and philological scars of past wars, each generation passing them on to the next. A paradigm shift here is only possible when the balance of power significantly shifts in favor of one party or another. Aside from admiring its stiff resistance against Israel, Palestinians in Lebanon place so much hope in Hezbollah, believing it will be the party that finally tips the balance of power in favor of justice for the refugees.

Bourj el-Barajneh roughly translates into 'Tower of Towers'. And in many ways it is. It has stood the test of time and bombs. Its people have surpassed the limits of human endurance and determination in a way that should be scientifically recorded. In some areas it towers over Beirut, from the Haret Hreik direction. Illegal construction and limited space for horizontal expansion forced the refugees to build in some parts in a vertical fashion, creating a Kafkian-like reality, true but surreal.

And the refugees too are teetering between the lines of an almost pseudo-reality. They find themselves held hostage in time and space, in a growing city, a hectically changing world, frozen in time and increasingly lowered expectations.

The two girls continued to stare, clearly without a specific target in mind, while people below them walked on, unhindered by their confusion. I too walked away. For a minute I hoped for a sign, anything that could assure me that there was some meaning behind all this strangeness, all this injustice. I am sure there is, but today, I could find none.

In Lebanon, a sense of urgency always seems to prevail, even when there are no urgent matters to tend to. Jamal's driving style has probably changed little through the successive Israeli wars and bombardments of Lebanon in past years (the last being the 2006 war, which destroyed much of the country's infrastructure and killed hundreds of civilians).

Although no bombs were falling now, Jamal could feel something in the air. "They are cooking something big," he said, "but what it is, no one really knows for sure."

Jamal was referring to a joint historic visit to Lebanon by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on July 30. President al-Assad joined King Abdullah in his plane, where they stayed for a few hours and lunched with Lebanese leaders. The occasion marks the first visit by a Saudi King to Lebanon since 1957, and also al-Assad's first trip to Beirut since the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005. While both these fact are important, what is most interesting is the fact that Syria and Saudi Arabia once stood at complete odds over the rivalry in Lebanon between two collations - the ruling March 14 Coalition and the one comprising the opposition under Hezbollah's leadership, the March 8 Coalition.

While Jamal was puzzled by the July 30 visit, he is hardly confused about where he stands. He remains unquestionably a fervent supporter of Hezbollah, the Shia group that led the Lebanese resistance that forced an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. Many believe it also defeated the Israeli forces that attacked Lebanon in 2006, and see the group as a symbol of Arab resistance against Israeli threats. But Jamal, like many of Hezbollah's supporters in Lebanon is not Shia. He is a Sunni.

Jamal's wife of many years died two months ago. He saw her as his life partner and his "only love in life." As he spoke about her, he breathed in the smoke from his cheap cigarette - as if carbon dioxide might somehow help to rejuvenate memory. He held in the smoke as he began searching for something on his duck-taped cell phone. As if the frenzy on the road was not dangerous enough, Jamal then paused to locate a photo of his wife, a shy and kindly-looking woman in a white headscarf. She was 55 when she died of cancer. For a poor man like Jamal, medical treatment would normally be confined to whatever public hospitals had to offer. But private hospitals subsided by Hezbollah made it possible for Jamal to ensure that his wife received the best in medical technology. Although she eventually succumbed to her illness, she was shielded from pain under the care of competent and respectful doctors and nurses.

No, there should be no 'eureka' moments here. Jamal's passionate support of Hezbollah is not simply self-serving. He is very clear on his ideological affiliations and is not hesitant to point out their shortcomings. Also, if he was seeking personal benefit, he would surely be driving a better car, wearing a nicer shirt, and smoking fancier cigarettes. "Hezbollah made it possible for a man like me to be proud again," he said. According to him, Hezbollah's heroism in the battle field, and unconditional social services provided mostly to the poor in Beirut and elsewhere restored his pride and dignity. But Jamal himself is a self-declared Arab-Nationalist, a Nasserite even.

Unlike other cities, Beirut doesn't convey one overall impression and experience. The photos of the war martyrs - with most recent victims having newer and larger posters - are mixed with many signs of globalization. While Jamal's car seemed commonplace in West Beirut, in East Beirut, the worn-out vehicle seemed to fight for an ever-shrinking space among newer models. But Jamal didn't sound intimidated or disturbed by his comparative poverty. His language is revolutionary, laden with terminology affiliated with various ideological brands: Islamist, Socialist, Pan-Arabist. There are many like him in Lebanon, emboldened by the impressive victories of the resistance, and the failures of all who attempted to co-opt it.

Still, cultural differences remain. There are many others, who, although Arab, prefer to speak in French. Indeed, the conflict in Lebanon cannot be reduced to mere groups and individuals, but is also a cultural clash. The party that will eventually prevail will ultimately define Lebanon: as an Arab country or some other imagined entity.

There is much haste here, as the clash is expected, once more, to come to head. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which was set up in the wake of Hariri's assassination is expected to reveal its findings soon. It is feared that the investigation will blame "rogue elements" of Hezbollah for the killing, as disclosed by the leader of Hezbollah himself, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah. Many here believe that STL has been largely compromised and politicized, and is a Western-Israeli platform intended to destabilize Lebanon and extract concessions from Hezbollah. The outcome of its investigation is likely to also be political. Many are worried, although some are comforted by the fact that Hezbollah is just too strong to be undermined by STL's findings.

"This bridge is the highest in the Middle East," Jamal said proudly, as we crossed the massive and very high concrete edifice. I nodded admiringly, thinking he was proud simply of an architectural achievement. He continued, "Israel destroyed it in the war, and two months ago it was re-opened. It is much more impressive than before."

"They destroy, we rebuild," he reminisced, words that accentuate the wisdom of generations. "This is what resistance is all about."

He pulled in another deep breath of smoke, and held it in for a while. Then he slowly released it, as we finally crossed the bridge.

- Ramzy Baroud (ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

Let's take a look at the context for the language of the Palestinian Authority's complaints. In a speech made in early July, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas referred to any direct talks with Israel as 'futile.' Thousands of newspapers and news sites beamed this 'headline', highlighting the word 'futile' between inverted commas - as if it constituted some kind of earth-shattering revelation. But anyone following the Middle East, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular already knows that such talks will be 'futile'. More, Israel has hardly made secret its lack of desire for a peaceful and just settlement.

Mr. Abbas, however, has managed to insert his relevance as a 'player' in the conflict, using one cleverly coined word. This word has had as much of an impact in Arabic as has in English.

Of course, none of this means that Abbas has actually adopted a serious shift in course. One need not dig up old archives to remember that the PA president felt the same way about the so-called 'proximity talks' with Israel last May. Before they began, he also expressed his opinion that the talks would be futile. He further insisted that no talks, direct or otherwise, would resume without a complete Israeli halt in settlement constructions in occupied East Jerusalem. After this grand declaration, Abbas went along with the proximity talks charade, while Palestinian families continued to be uprooted from their homes in their historic city. Only one barrier was removed before embarking on the proximity talks: Abbas and his men quit complaining.

Nearly two months later, when it is evident to all that the proximity talks were indeed 'futile' - especially as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has triumphed over US President Barack Obama in his most recent visit to Washington - Mr. Abbas finds himself in desperate need for another line of defense. Thus, the new campaign attacking predictably 'futile' direct talks with Israel.

Mr. Abbas is not the only actor in this drama. Others have also been doing their job, as efficiently and as true to form as ever. Yasser Abed Rabbo, who has worn several hats in the past and is now one of Mr. Abbas's aides, stated that the PA "will not enter new negotiations that could take more than 10 years." This promise - that the Palestinian leadership will not be fooled into talks for the sake of talking and with no timeframe - is not the first of its kind to come from Abed Rabbo, and it's unlikely to be the last. Abbas' aide will most likely continue sharing the same tired insight over and over again, because it's the scripted part that any 'moderate' - as in self-seeking - Palestinian official must reiterate to remain relevant. How else could they give the impression that the PA still serves the role of the bulwark against Israeli illegal territorial encroachment and military occupation?

Ahmed Qurei, former Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister and ex-Prime Minister, recently spoke at a Hebrew University Conference, entitled: "The Israeli-Palestinian Proximity Talks: Lessons from Past Negotiations." The conference was organized by Hebrew University's Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace. The place and occasion of this conference could not be more significant. First, much of the Hebrew University was built on 'ethnically cleansed' Palestinian land. Second, Qurei spoke at an Israeli University in an occupied city, at a time when activists and academics from all over the world, including several from Israel, are leading a cultural and academic boycott of Israeli universities to protest the terrible role these institutions have played in Israeli violence against Palestinians.

Worse, immediately before his speech, Qurei had met with former Israeli Foreign Minister and acting Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni. Livni had ordered and supervised the unprecedented killing and maiming of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009. The level of inhumanity she displayed during those days was met with outrage around the world, including from many in Israel itself. But all the blood was brushed under the carpet, as "Livni (and) Abu Ala exchange(d) 'niceties'", according to the Jerusalem Post.

Just try to imagine the fury that all Palestinians - and especially those besieged in destroyed Gaza - must have felt as Qurei and Livni shook hands and smiled for cameras. As for Qurei's academic and political contributions, the Post reported that, "at the conference, Qurei said Netanyahu had not really frozen West Bank settlement construction, and added that Israel's actions were preventing direct talks."

Considering the numerous compromises that Qurei afforded in his very attendance of the conference, and his handshaking with Livni, one fails to understand the point of such statements.

These empty declarations will have no bearing on the outcome of events, nor will they force Netanyahu and his right-wing government to think twice as they carry on demolishing homes and uprooting trees. But they are more important than ever for the PA, as voices are rising in Washington, in London and elsewhere, demanding that the US and its partners acknowledge, if not 'engage' Hamas. Such a prospect is bad news for the West Bank Palestinian leadership, which understands that its relevance to the 'peace process' hinges on the constant dismissal of Hamas. Therefore, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah will continue to adhere to its methodology: don't criticize Israel too harshly, so as not to lose favor; follow the US dictates, so as to maintain a 'moderate' status and many privileges; and always give an impression to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims that the PA is the one and only defender of Jerusalem.

One wonders how much longer the Palestinian leadership can sustain this act, which is in fact the real exercise of futility.

- Ramzy Baroud (ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

Understanding the real nature of resistance, however, is not easy. No newsbyte could be thorough enough to explain why people, as a people, resist. Even if such an arduous task was possible, the news might not want to convey it, as it would directly clash with mainstream interpretations of violence and non-violent resistance. The Afghanistan story must remain committed to the same language: al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Lebanon must be represented in terms of a menacing Iran-backed Hizbullah. Palestine's Hamas must be forever shown as a militant group sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state. Any attempt at offering an alternative reading is tantamount to sympathizing with terrorists and justifying violence.

The deliberate conflation and misuse of terminology has made it almost impossible to understand, and thus to actually resolve bloody conflicts.

Even those who purport to sympathize with resisting nations often contribute to the confusion. Activists from Western countries tend to follow an academic comprehension of what is happening in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Thus certain ideas are perpetuated: suicide bombings bad, non-violent resistance good; Hamas rockets bad, slingshots good; armed resistance bad, vigils in front of Red Cross offices good. Many activists will quote Martin Luther King Jr., but not Malcolm X. They will infuse a selective understanding of Gandhi, but never of Guevara. This supposedly 'strategic' discourse has robbed many of what could be a precious understanding of resistance - as both concept and culture.

Between the reductionst mainstream understanding of resistance as violent and terrorist and the 'alternative' defacing of an inspiring and compelling cultural experience, resistance as a culture is lost. The two overriding definitions offer no more than narrow depictions. Both render those attempting to relay the viewpoint of the resisting culture as almost always on the defensive. Thus we repeatedly hear the same statements: no, we are not terrorists; no, we are not violent, we actually have a rich culture of non-violent resistance; no, Hamas is not affiliated with al-Qaeda; no, Hizbullah is not an Iranian agent. Ironically, Israeli writers, intellectuals and academicians own up to much less than their Palestinian counterparts, although the former tend to defend aggression and the latter defend, or at least try to explain their resistance to aggression. Also ironic is the fact that instead of seeking to understand why people resist, many wish to debate about how to suppress their resistance.

By resistance as a culture, I am referencing Edward Said's elucidation of "culture (as) a way of fighting against extinction and obliteration." When cultures resist, they don't scheme and play politics. Nor do they sadistically brutalize. Their decisions as to whether to engage in armed struggle or to employ non-violent methods, whether to target civilians or not, whether to conspire with foreign elements or not are all purely strategic. They are hardly of direct relevance to the concept or resistance itself. Mixing between the two suggests is manipulative or plain ignorant.

If resistance is "the action of opposing something that you disapprove or disagree with", then a culture of resistance is what occurs when an entire culture reaches this collective decision to oppose that disagreeable element - often a foreign occupation. The decision is not a calculated one. It is engendered through a long process in which self-awareness, self-assertion, tradition, collective experiences, symbols and many more factors interact in specific ways. This might be new to the wealth of that culture's past experiences, but it is very much an internal process.

It's almost like a chemical reaction, but even more complex since it isn't always easy to separate its elements. Thus it is also not easy to fully comprehend, and, in the case of an invading army, it is not easily suppressed. This is how I tried to explain the first Palestinian uprising of 1987, which I lived in its entirely in Gaza:

"It's not easy to isolate specific dates and events that spark popular revolutions. Genuine collective rebellion cannot be rationalized though a coherent line of logic that elapses time and space; its rather a culmination of experiences that unite the individual to the collective, their conscious and subconscious, their relationships with their immediate surroundings and with that which is not so immediate, all colliding and exploding into a fury that cannot be suppressed." (My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story)

Foreign occupiers tend to fight popular resistance through several means. One includes a varied amount of violence aiming to disorient, destroy and rebuild a nation to any desired image (read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine). Another strategy is to weaken the very components that give a culture its unique identity and inner strengths - and thus defuse the culture's ability to resist. The former requires firepower, while the latter can be achieved through soft means of control. Many 'third world' nations that boast of their sovereignty and independence might in fact be very much occupied, but due to their fragmented and overpowered cultures - through globalization, for example - they are unable to comprehend the extent of their tragedy and dependency. Others, who might effectively be occupied, often possess a culture of resistance that makes it impossible for their occupiers to achieve any of their desired objectives.

In Gaza, Palestine, while the media speaks endlessly of rockets and Israeli security, and debates who is really responsible for holding Palestinians in the strip hostage, no heed is paid to the little children living in tents by the ruins of homes they lost in the latest Israeli onslaught. These kids participate in the same culture of resistance that Gaza has witnessed over the course of six decades. In their notebooks they draw fighters with guns, kids with slingshots, women with flags, as well as menacing Israeli tanks and warplanes, graves dotted with the word 'martyr', and destroyed homes. Throughout, the word 'victory' is persistently used.

When I was in Iraq, I witnessed a local version of these kids' drawings. And while I have yet to see Afghani children's scrapbooks, I can easily imagine their content too.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

The human rights agency has confirmed that 35 women and children were killed following the latest US attacks on an alleged al-Qaeda hideout in Yemen. Initially, there were attempts to bury the story, and Yemen officially denied that civilians were killed as a result of the December 17 attack on al-Majala in southern Yemen. However, it has been simply impossible to conceal what is now considered the largest loss of life in one single US attack in the country.

If the civilian casualties were indeed a miscalculation on the part of the US military, there should no longer be any doubt about the fact that cluster munitions are far too dangerous a weapon to be utilized in war. And they certainly have no place whatsoever in civilian areas. The human casualties are too large to justify.

Yemen is not alone. Gaza, Lebanon and Afghanistan are also stark examples of the untold loss and suffering caused by cluster bombs. Meanwhile, the unrepentant Israeli army will not consider dropping the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas altogether. Instead it is pondering ways to make them 'safer'. The Jerusalem Post reported on July 2 that the army "has recently carried out a series of tests with a bomblet that has a specially designed self-destruct mechanism which dramatically reduces the amount of unexploded ordnance." During the Israeli onslaught in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, Israel fired millions of bomblets, mostly into South Lebanon. Aside from the immediate devastation and causalities, unexploded ordnance continues to victimize Lebanon's civilians, most of whom are children. Dozens of lives have been lost since the end of this war.

In Gaza, the same terrible scenario was repeated between 2008 and 2009. Unlike Lebanon, however, trapped Palestinians in Gaza had nowhere to go.

Now Israel is anticipating another war with the Lebanese resistance. In preparation for this, an Israeli PR campaign is already underway. It seeks to convince public opinion that Israel is doing its utmost to avoid civilian casualties. "As a result of the collateral damage and international condemnation, and ahead of a potential new conflict with Hizbullah, the IDF has decided to evaluate the M85 bomblet manufactured by the government-owned Israeli Military Industries (IMI)," the Jerusalem Post reported.

Of course, Israel's friends, especially those who are yet to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions, will be pleased by the initial successes of the Israeli army testing. Under pressure to ratify the agreement, these countries are only too eager to offer a 'safer' version of current cluster bomb models. This would help not only to maintain the huge profits generated from this morally abhorrent business, it would also hopefully quell growing criticism by civil society and other world governments.

In December 2008, the United States, Russia and China, among others, sent a terrible message to the rest of the world. They refused to take part in the historic signing of the treaty that banned the production and use of cluster bombs. In a world that is plagued by war, military occupation and terrorism, the involvement of the great military powers in signing and ratifying the agreement would have signaled - if only symbolically - the willingness of these countries to spare civilians' unjustifiable deaths and the lasting scars of war.

Fortunately, the refusal didn't completely impede an international agreement. The incessant activism of many conscientious individuals and organizations came to fruition on December 3 and 4 in Oslo, Norway, when ninety-three countries signed a treaty banning the weapon.

Unfortunately, albeit unsurprisingly, the US, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan - a group that includes the biggest makers and users of the weapon - neither attended the Ireland negotiations of May 2008, and nor did they show any interest in signing the agreement in Oslo.

Most countries that have signed the accords are not involved in any active military conflict. They are also not in any way benefiting from the lucrative cluster munition industry.

The treaty was the outcome of intensive campaigning by the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), a group of non-governmental organizations. CMC is determined to carry on with its campaigning to bring more signatories to the fold.

But without the involvement of the major producers and active users of the weapon, the Oslo ceremony remained largely symbolic. However, there is nothing symbolic about the pain and bitter losses experienced by the many victims of cluster bombs. According to the group Handicap International, a third of cluster-bomb victims are children. Equally alarming, 98 percent of the weapon's overall victims are civilians. The group estimates that about 100,000 people have been maimed or killed by cluster bombs around the world since 1965. Unlike conventional weapons, cluster bomblets survive for many years, luring little children with their attractive appearance. Children often mistake the bomblets for candy or toys.

Recently, some encouraging news emerged from the Netherlands. Maxime Verhagen, Minister of Foreign Affairs, urged his country's House of Representative to ratify the Convention, which bans the production, possessions and use of such munitions. The ban leaves no room for any misguided interpretations and does not care for the Israeli army's experimentations.

In his speech, Verhagen claimed, "Cluster munitions are unreliable and imprecise, and their use poses a grave danger to the civilian population...Years after a conflict has ended, people - especially children - can fall victim to unexploded submunition from cluster bombs."

To date, the agreement has been signed by 106 countries and ratified by 36 - and will enter into force on August 1, despite the fact that the big players refuse to take part.

The Netherlands' push is certainly a step in the right direction. But much more remains to be done. The onus is also on civil societies in countries that are yet to ratify the agreement or sign it in the first place. "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to do nothing." This holds as true in the issue of cluster bombs, as in any other where human rights are violated and ignored.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

For ten years, numerous committees, international and local organizations and independent researchers have tirelessly mulled over all sorts of indicators, numbers, charts and statistical data relating to extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, child mortality, and so on.

The conclusions derived from all the data weren't necessarily grim. And the sincerity of the many men and women who have indefatigably worked to ensure that the eight international development goals - agreed to by all 192 UN member states and over 20 international organizations - were fully implemented, cannot in any way be discounted. They were the ones who brought the issue to the fore, and they continue to push forward with resolve and determination.

The problem lies with the concept itself, and with the naive trust that governments and politicians - whether rich or poor, democratic or authoritarian, leading global wars or trying to steer clear from the abyss of famine - could possibly share one common, selfless and unconditional love for humanity, including the poor, the disadvantaged, hungry and the ill. The utopian scenario might be attainable one day, but it certainly won't be happening anytime soon.

So why commit to such goals, with specific deadlines and regular reports, if a genuine global consensus is not achievable?

Since its inception, the United Nations has been a source of two conflicting agendas. One is undemocratic, and championed by those who wield the veto power at the Security Council. The other is egalitarian, and it's embodied in the General Assembly. The latter reflects the global mood and international opinion much more accurately than the former, which is largely dictatorial and caters only to power.

As a result, two conflicting sets of ideas and behaviors have emerged in the last six decades. One imposes sanctions, leads wars and destroys nations, and the other offers a helping hand, builds a school, shelters a refugee. The latter offers assistance, albeit on a relatively small scale. The former spreads devastation and destruction on a grand scale.

The Millennium goals evolved from this very dilemma, which continues to afflict the United Nations and undermine its noble principles. For now, MDGs would have to settle for being a true reflection of peoples' aspirations, but with little expectation of achievable results.

That does not mean that there is no good news. On the contrary, there will always be reasons to compel us to push further towards desired change. Since September 8, 2000 - the day in which the General Assembly adopted the Millennium Declaration - many encouraging results have been reported. Although the progress, as reported during the 2005 World Summit of leaders, was still falling short from the target dates, much has been achieved.

On June 23, Charles Abugre, the Director for Africa of the United Nations MDG campaign presented the 2010 Millennium Development Goals Report in Berlin. The same report was simultaneously presented in New York and Paris. According to its findings, the 2008 food and 2009 financial crises didn't stop progress, but they certainly made the goal of reducing global poverty by half "more difficult to achieve."

Indeed, significantly less people are reportedly living on less income, though, according to Aburge, bringing "poverty down to 15 percent of the global population" is less likely. Aburge has also said that progress has been made throughout the world, with the distressing exception of Central Asia, which is "riven by war and armed conflicts."

In areas such as child mortality rate and combating epidemics, there has been little or no progress. More, "environmental degradation continues at an alarming pace," according to Abugre. "CO2 emissions have even increased by almost 50 percent over the past 17 years, and in spite of a minor slowdown in emissions due to the crisis, are set to increase further." It's important to mention here that some countries are much closer to succeeding with the MDGs than others. China, for instance, has slashed the number of its poor by a huge margin, while others have fallen deeper into poverty.

While the numbers offer a strong enough reason to maintain a global push for reducing poverty, there is little evidence to suggest that the improvement is in any way related to the global pledge of 2000. It may well be a reflection of the state of affairs of individual countries. For example, China's economic progress is hardly related to the September 2000 meet, and Afghanistan never really opted for the US-NATO invasion of 2001, which eliminated any realistic chance for the country to ever meet such seemingly lofty standards.

In its constant search for consensus, the General Assembly's goals hardly view development from a critical perspective. They do not take into account the way in which structural adjustment policies, designed by international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank forced poor countries into debt and extreme poverty in the first place. They also ignore the way in which rich and powerful countries, in their quest for military, economic and political dominance ensure the subordination of poor, politically fragile, and militarily weak countries.

Of course, delving into the real issues would undermine the futile search for consensus, threatening the 'amiable' image of the General Assembly. These are left instead to the Security Council or those members of the UNSC, whose 'opinion' is the only one that truly counts, and who regularly go on to prescribe decisive and cruel policies.

All of this is not to say that the millennium goals should be relegated. Every noble effort should be supported and lauded. But unwarranted optimism can border on folly if one intentionally ignores the dynamic of lasting change, whether at a micro or macro levels. The discussion of MDGs should not come at the expense of realism and truth, and it should certainly not just serve as yet another feel-good moment for the rich, while further humiliating for the poor.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are second and third generation refugees. Impoverished camps are the only homes they have ever known. In Palestine, their real home, their villages were destroyed, their fields were burnt down and their culture was eradicated. An ongoing attempt at erasing every aspect of the Palestinian Arab identity in today's Israel continues unabated, strengthened by the rightwing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who is recognized in many political circles as 'fascist'.

But what 62 years of dispossession, massacres and untold hardship failed to destroy - the memory and the belonging - will certainly not be eliminated now by some rightwing politicians and few parliamentary bills at the Israeli Knesset, including one that forbids Palestinians from commemorating their Nakba (Catastrophe of 1947-48).

The ongoing debate in the Lebanese parliament, however, is of a different nature. Lebanon is striving to settle many hanging political questions. Despite Israel's devastating wars, a more confident Lebanese populace is emerging. This was largely empowered by the success of the Lebanese military resistance to Israel. A country of law and order is replacing that of chaos and turmoil, and a level of political independence is making some promising appearances after decades of total political dependency and proxy civil wars.

However, there are those who want Lebanon to remain a country divided on sectarian lines, a characteristic that defined Lebanese society for generations. Only such a division could guarantee their survival at the helm of dismal clan-based, sectarian hierarchy that has long degraded the image of the country, and allowed outsiders, notwithstanding Israel, to manipulate the fragile structure for their own benefit.

The denial of rights for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is an old subject that often resurfaces as a political ploy to serve immediate interests. This time, however, things seem to be different. Lebanon needs to move forward. Denying 400,000 people living a most wretched existence in scattered refugee camps, surrounding by mass graves, military checkpoints and no political horizon whatsoever is not conducive to the process of political and social progress.

Of course, those who dread the possibility of a modern Lebanon unified by one common identity - one that is not held hostage to sectarian allegiances or tribal affiliations - want Palestinian refugees to remain perpetual victims. The good news is that the bill is supported by who are otherwise political rivals in Lebanese politics - Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister of the Future Movement, and Hezbollah and Amal, among others.

The bill, introduced by the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) on June 15 "would cancel prohibitions on property ownership and social security benefits for Palestinians, and ease restrictions on their right to work," according to Human Rights Watch. Nadim Houry, HRW director in Beirut, said, "Lebanon has marginalized Palestinian refugees for too long (and the) parliament should seize this opportunity to turn the page and end discrimination against Palestinians."

Indeed, it is an opportunity. But MPs from the Free Patriotic Movement, Phalange and Lebanese Forces are strongly opposing the measure. Phalange official Sami Gemayel, for example, has tried to delay the measure, hoping perhaps to deflate the strong movement that no longer tolerates denying Palestinian refugees their basic rights. "A matter that has created a number of crises for more than 60 years could not be tackled within three days," the Lebanese Daily Star quoted him as saying. Of course he could not help but infuse the same old tired mantra, stressing that "integrating the Palestinians in the Lebanese society would undermine their right of return and fulfill an Israeli demand."

Not one Lebanese could possibly believe that a Phalange official - whose party worked with Israeli forces in the summer of 1982 to orchestrate and carry out the killing of thousands of defenseless Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps - could truly be concerned about the Palestinian sense of belonging, identity and right of return. It is obvious that the measure could embolden refugees into demanding full integration into Lebanese society, which would completely undermine the foundation of the sectarian society that the Phalange official stalwartly champions.

But why should Palestinian refugees be humiliated for no fault of their own? Why should they live under the choice that they either suffer under draconian measures or risk losing their right of return? It's like repeatedly punishing the victim for 'allowing' his victimhood. The fact is, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, like Palestinian refugees elsewhere are utterly clear regarding their right of return and their adherence to that right. They need not to be fined or jailed for adding a bedroom to their ramshackle homes in the refugee camps. They need not be treated like tenth class citizens to be reminded of their love for Palestine, the names of their destroyed villages, and the memories of their ancestors.

It is ironic how Mr. Gemayel found it implausible to reach a solution regarding the acknowledgement of Palestinian refugees basic rights in three days, while it was astoundingly achievable to butcher thousands of innocent civilians by Phalange forces in 36-48 hours in Sabra and Shatilla on September 16, 1982.

The survivors of those camps, and the rest don't wish to impede the 'Christian' parties' bid for demographic and sectarian 'balance' in Lebanon. Their home is Palestine and they cannot wait to return. But, until that day arrives, there is no need to deny them the most basic of rights and infringe upon their very dignity. One can only hope that Lebanon's new political development overpowers those who wish to keep the country fragmented, sectarian and forever hostage to the ghosts of its colonial past.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

The statement alone indicates the momentous political shift that's currently underway in the Middle East. While the shift isn't entirely new, one dares to claim it might now be a lasting one. To borrow from Erdogan's own assessment of the political fallout that followed Israel's raid, the damage is "irreparable."

Countless analyses have emerged in the wake of the long-planned and calculated Israeli attack on the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, which claimed the lives of nine, mostly Turkish peace activists.

In "Turkey's Strategic U-Turn, Israel's Tactical Mistakes," published in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Ofra Bengio suggested Turkey's position was purely strategic. But he also chastised Israel for driving Turkey further and faster "toward the Arab and Muslim worlds."

In this week's Zaman, a Turkish publication, Bulent Kenes wrote: "As a result of the Davos (where the Turkish prime minister stormed out of a televised discussion with Israeli President Shimon Peres, after accusing him and Israel of murder), the myth that Israel is untouchable was destroyed by Erdogan, and because of that Israel nurses a hatred for Turkey."

In fact, the Davos incident is significant not because it demonstrates that Israel can be criticized, but rather because it was Turkey -- and not any other easily dismissible party -- that dared to voice such criticism.

Writing in the Financial Times under the title, "Erdogan turns to face East in a delicate balancing act," David Gardner places Turkey's political turn within a European context. He sums up that thought in a quote uttered by no other than Robert Gates, US defense secretary: "If there is anything to the notion that Turkey is moving Eastward, it is in no small part because it was pushed, and pushed by some in Europe refusing to give Turkey the kind of organic link to the West that Turkey sought." But what many analysts missed was the larger political and historical context, not only as pertaining to Israel and Turkey, but to the whole region and all its players, including the US itself. Only this context can help us understand the logic behind Israel's seemingly erratic behavior.

In 1996, Israeli leaders appeared very confident. A group of neoconservative American politicians had laid out a road map for Israel to ensure complete dominance over the Middle East. In the document entitled, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," Turkey was mentioned four times. Each reference envisaged the country as a tool to "contain, destabilize, and roll back some of .. (the) most dangerous threats" to Israel. That very "vision" in fact served as the backbone of the larger strategy used by the US, as it carried out its heedless military adventures in the Middle East.

Frustrated by the American failure to reshape the region and unquestioningly eliminate anything and everything that Israel might perceive as a threat, Israel took matters into its own hands. However, in 2006 and between 2008 and 2009, it was up for major surprises. Superior firepower doesn't guarantee military victory. More, while Israel had once more demonstrated its capacity to inflict untold damage on people and infrastructure, the Israeli weapon was no longer strategically effective. In other words, Israel's military advantage could no longer translate into political gains, and this was a game-changer.

There are many issues the Israeli leadership has had to wrangle with in recent years. The US, Israel's most faithful benefactor, is now on a crisis management mode in Iraq and Afghanistan, struggling on all fronts, whether political, military or economic. That recoil has further emboldened Israel's enemies, who are no longer intimidated by the American bogyman. Israel's desperate attempt at using its own military to achieve its grand objectives has also failed, and miserably so.

With options growing even more limited, Israel now understands that Gaza is its last card; ending the siege or ceasing the killings could be understood as another indication of political weakness, a risk that Israel is not ready to take.

Turkey, on the other hand, was fighting -- and mostly winning -- its own battles. Democracy in Turkey has never been as healthy and meaningful as it is today. Turkey has also eased its chase of the proverbial dangling carrot, of EU membership, especially considering the arrogant attitude of some EU members who perceive Turkey as too large and too Muslim to be trusted. Turkey needed new platforms, new options and a more diverse strategy.

But that is where many analysts went wrong. Turkey's popular government has not entered the Middle Eastern political foray to pick fights. On the contrary, the Turkish government has for years been trying to get involved as a peacemaker, a mediator between various parties. So, yes, Turkey's political shift was largely strategic, but it was not ill-intentioned.

The uninvited Turkish involvement, however, is highly irritating to Israel. Turkey's approach to its new role grew agitating to Israel when the role wasn't confined to being that of the host -- in indirect talks between Syria and Israel, for example. Instead, Turkey began to take increasingly solid and determined political stances. Thus the Davos episode.

By participating at such a high capacity in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, with firm intentions of breaking the siege, Turkey was escalating its involvement well beyond Israel's comfort zone. Therefore, Israel needed a decisive response that would send a message to Turkey -- and any daring other -- about crossing the line of what is and is not acceptable. It's ironic how the neoconservatives' "A Clean Break" envisaged an Israeli violation of the political and geographic boundaries of its neighbors, with the help of Turkey. Yet, 14 years later, it was Turkey, with representatives from 32 other countries, which came with a peaceful armada to breach what Israel perceived as its own political domain.

The Israeli response, as bloody as it was, can only be understood within this larger context. Erdogan's statements and the popular support his government enjoys show that Turkey has decided to take on the Israeli challenge. The US government was exposed as ineffectual and hostage to the failing Israeli agenda in the region, thanks to the lobby. Ironically it is now the neoconservatives who are leading the charge against Turkey, the very country they had hoped would become Israel's willing ally in its apocalyptic vision.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

From a young age, I would embark with my family on the short journey from our refugee camp to the beach. We went on a haggard cart, laboriously pulled by an equally gaunt donkey. The moment our feet touched the warm sand, the deafening screams would commence. Little feet would run faster than Olympic champions and for a few hours all our cares would dissipate. Here there was no occupation, no prison, no refugee status. Everything smelled and tasted of salt and watermelon. My mother would sit atop a torn, checkered blanket to secure it from the wild winds. She would giggle at my father's frantic calls to his sons, trying to stop them from going too deep into the water.

I would duck my own head underwater, and hear the haunting humming of the sea. Then I'd retreat, stand back and stare at the horizon.

When I was five or six, I believed that immediately behind the horizon there was a country called Australia. People from there were free to go and come as they pleased. There were no soldiers, guns, or snipers. The Australians - for some unknown reason - liked us very much, and would one day visit us. When I revealed my beliefs to my brothers, they were not convinced. But my fantasy grew, as did the list of all the other countries immediately behind the horizon. One of these was America, where people spoke funny. Another was France, where people ate nothing but cheese.

I would scavenge the beach looking for "evidence" of the existing world beyond the horizon. I looked for bottles with strange lettering, cans and dirty plastic washed ashore from faraway ships. My joy would be compounded when the letters were in Arabic. I would struggle to read them myself. I also learned of such countries as Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Morocco. People who lived there were Arabs like us, and Muslims who prayed five times a day. I was dumbfounded. The sea was apparently more mysterious than I'd ever imagined.

Before the first Palestinian uprising of 1987, the Gaza beach was yet to be declared off-limits and converted into a closed military zone. The fishermen were still allowed to fish, although only for a few nautical miles. We were allowed to swim and picnic, although not past 6 pm. Then one day the Israeli army jeeps came whooshing down the paved road that separated the beach from the refugee camp. They demanded immediate evacuation at gunpoint. My parents screamed in panic, herding us back to the camp in only our swimming shorts.

Breaking news on Israeli television declared that the Israeli navy had intercepted Palestinian terrorists on rubber boats making their way towards Israel. All were killed or captured, except for one that might be heading towards the Gaza sea. Confusion was ominous, especially as I saw images of captured Palestinian men on Israeli television. They were hauling the dead bodies of their Palestinian comrades while being surrounded by armed, triumphant Israeli troops.

I tried to convince my father to go and wait by the beach for the other Palestinians. He smiled pityingly and said nothing. The news later declared the boat was perhaps lost at sea, or had sunk. Still, I wouldn't lose hope. I begged my mother to prepare her specialty tea with sage, and leave out some toasted bread and cheese. I waited until dawn for the "terrorists" lost at sea to arrive at our refugee camp. If they made it, I wanted them to have something to eat. But they never arrived.

After this incident, boats began showing up on the horizon. They belonged to the Israeli navy. The seemingly hapless Gaza sea was now dangerous and rife with possibilities. Thus, my trips to the beach increased. Even as I grew older, and even during Israeli military curfews, I would climb to the roof of our house, and stare at the horizon. Some boats, somewhere, somehow were heading towards Gaza. The harder life became, the greater my faith grew.

Today, decades later, I stand by some alien sea, far away from home, from Gaza. I have been denied the right to visit Palestine for years. I stand here and I think of all those back home, waiting for the boats to arrive. This time the possibility is real. I follow the news, with the stifling awareness of a grown up, and also with the giddiness and trepidation of my six year old self. I imagine Freedom Flotilla loaded with food, medicine and toys, immediately behind the horizon, getting close to turning the old dream into reality. The dream that all the countries that my brothers thought were fictitious in fact existed, embodied in five ships and 700 peace activists. They represented humanity, they cared for us. I thought of some little kids making a feast of toasted bread, yellow cheese and sage tea, waiting for their saviors.

When breaking news declared that the boats had been attacked just before crossing the Gaza horizon, killing and wounding many activists, the six-year-old in me was crushed. I wept. I lost the power to articulate. No political analysis could suffice. No news reports could explain to all the six-years-olds in Gaza why their heroes were murdered and kidnapped, simply for trying to breach the horizon.

But despite the pain that is now too deep, the lives that were so unfairly taken, the tears that were shed across the world for the Freedom Flotilla, I know now that my fantasy was not a child's dream. That there were people from Australia, France, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, the US and many other countries, who were coming to us in boats loaded with gifts from those who, for some reason, really liked us.

I cannot wait to get to Gaza, on top of a boat, so I can tell my brothers, "I told you so."

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

There is no denial - and no shame - in the fact that most Muslims hold their Prophet in the highest regard. Despite the continued decrease in the number of faithful in increasingly secularized Western societies, Muslims are clinching even tighter to their faith. However, while the outrage over the latest transgression by some Facebook user and his "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" may appear as a straightforward news story - that of Western values vs Muslim narrow-mindedness - the true underpinnings of the outrage is suspiciously missing.

The naïve depiction by Western media makes it easy for 'freedom of expression' enthusiasts to condemn Muslims for yet again failing the democracy test.

The latest Facebook episode is a remake of the same old story. Some ill-intended 'artist', under the guise of freedom of speech, takes on a confrontational mission, knowing fully the response such an act would generate, and perhaps the lives that would be lost. Muslim masses, predictably, respond through angry protests, burning flags, denouncing America, Israel, Zionism, Facebook, Youtube and so on. Strangely, the very governments that are considered US allies tend to be on the forefront of condemning the 'blasphemous' provocations. Muslim masses are thus exploited on all fronts - by the media, by anti-Muslims, by rightwing forces in the West, and their own governments.

This, in turn, gives more ammunition to the Islamaphobes who constantly try to fan the flames in order to validate their racist perception of Muslims. The likes of Daniel Pipes, Alan Dershowitz, and other 'experts' invade our TV screens and take on the responsibility of lecturing the world on Islam. They use the same reductionist and racist language that they have utilized for years in the guise of academic jargon.

Why, though, are these 'academics' and 'intellectuals' eager to discredit Islam? And why are Muslims playing right into their hands?

It behooves us all to remember that some of those who champion freedom of expression are selective in their advocacy. Freedom of expression becomes important when the holiest symbols of Islam and its Prophet are paraded, ridiculed and stereotyped. However, these very advocates are enraged when the opinions being expressed are inconsistent with their own agenda, which is overtly militant and hegemonic, and refuses to take into consideration any honest opinion on Israel and its war crimes against Palestinians. One needs to repeat the way that the respected South African Judge Richard Goldstone, himself Jewish, was depicted for pointing out the horrendous crimes committed in Gaza during Israel's most recent war. More, these individuals seem completely oblivious when Muslims are denied the right to express their own values. When, for example, was the last time a rightwing fanatic stood up for a Muslim woman's right to cover her hair or face?

It must be stated, however, that discrediting Muslims and Islam is not a random strategy. It is very much in tandem with an overriding agenda that has occupied the thinking of many rightwing and Zionist ideologues for years, especially following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the rising of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim fervor in various Western countries. The aim is to dehumanize Muslims, to make them seem less civilized, and thus less worthy of equal human rights. In other words, Muslims cannot be treated using the same standards that apply to Westerners, because they have failed to subscribe to Western values. The angry protests in Pakistan are supposedly proof of this. This makes war easy and sanctions morally justifiable.

Why are Muslims playing right into this scenario? Actually, they are not, although it would seem otherwise. The fact is, many Muslims nations are caught between two layers of oppressions: that of outsiders - wars and occupation, interference in their countries' affairs, all forms of humiliation and exploitation - and internal pressures - corruption, oppression and denial of rights, including, yes, freedom of expression, speech, assembly and democracy itself. These rights are also denied by the very countries that are seen as 'pro-American.'

Under these external and internal pressures, Muslim societies embrace even tighter their everlasting Islamic symbols. Islam, for many Muslims, represents more than just a way of life and an answer to unworldly questions. It also provides a sense of hope, and it helps to maintain a level of solidarity and societal cohesion. The harder people's lives become, the more impoverished, oppressed and abused, the stronger their faith grows.

Considering all of this, insulting Islam, depicting the Prophet in degrading (or any other) ways, bashing Islamic symbols and values is equivalent to denying Muslim masses with their last and only chance at dignity and hope.

Those who are under the impression that Muslims are opposed to freedom of expression are only seeing a small part of the picture. Those versed in history understand that it was Muslim advancements in science, art and literature, and their most impressive translations of the great works of ancient civilizations that allowed Europe to bask in the sun of its renaissance.

Moreover, those who are sensible enough to see the big picture will understand that when a Pakistani woman chants "Death to Facebook" - as pitiful and confusing such phrase may sound - she is not actually referring to a social networking website. Far from it, especially since numerous Muslims have utilized Facebook to share their own ideas with the rest of the world. What the woman is chanting against is the manipulation of freedom of expression to further humiliate her people. She is standing in solidarity with European Muslim communities who are under a most intense attack on their civil rights and liberties. She is angry at the war in Afghanistan, the constant bombing of innocents in Pakistan, the occupation of Iraq, the rape of women and the parading of naked prisoners, the siege in Gaza. She is angry about the Western double standards regarding democracy, about her own oppression and her people's misfortunes. And so much more.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

How will the news of the future be distributed? The jury is still out, but not completely. Increasingly, we are driven to believe that the future will be paperless. Some argue that the "paper" will be taken out of the "newspaper" within a few years. Their logic might have come across as far-fetched in the late 1990s, but it can hardly be dismissed in 2010.

Two American intellectuals added their voices to the chorus of those predicting that the print media would not continue to define the news for long. In October 2009, Leonard Downie Jr., vice president at large and former executive editor of The Washington Post, and Michael Schudson, professor of Communication at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, co-authored a 98-page paper entitled, "The Reconstruction of American Journalism."

Here, they made the assertion that: "Newspapers and television news are not going to vanish in the foreseeable future ... But they will play diminished roles in an emerging and still rapidly changing world of digital journalism, in which the means of news reporting are being re-invented, the character of news is being reconstructed, and reporting is being distributed across a greater number and variety of news organizations, new and old."

The idea is not a new one. In August 24, 2006, The Economist published an article entitled, "Who killed the newspaper?," which claimed that, "Of all the 'old' media, newspapers have the most to lose from the Internet. Circulation has been falling in America, Western Europe, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand for decades ... in the past few years the Web has hastened the decline."

While we freely refer to the digital media revolution as "new media," few dare classify print newspapers as "old." The Economist did, nearly four years ago. Considering the speed at which the digital media world is moving -- with the introduction of new gadgets and the level of Internet penetration throughout the world -- print papers are now most definitely old and aging.

The magazine also made an interesting reference to Philip Meyer, whose works include, "Precision Journalism: A Reporter's Introduction to Social Science Methods and Newspaper Ethics in the New Century: A Report to the American Society of Newspaper Editors."

In his most recent book, "The Vanishing Newspaper," Meyer calculates that "the first quarter of 2043 will be the moment when newsprint dies in America as the last exhausted reader tosses aside the last crumpled edition."

More, digital media are making waves not just in the constant improvement of news and information technology, but also influencing the level of trust readers have in the new media. Indeed, it is not just about how the news is conveyed -- digitally or on paper -- but how our perception of the news is changing altogether.

American intellectual and best-selling author John Mearsheimer didn't neglect to refer to the Internet in one of the most important and honest assessments on "The Future of Palestine." In his recent speech, he stated that "The Internet is a game changer. It not only makes it easy for the opponents of apartheid to get the real story out to the world, but it also allows Americans to learn the story that the New York Times and the Washington Post have been hiding from them."

Those familiar with the book Manufacturing Consent, by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky understand well that traditional media coverage of news is largely determined by "filters" which allow competing interests to determine what we read and watch, and thus our perception of the world. The Internet, despite all its shortcomings, is much more equitable and democratic. That should not discount the fact that poorer countries still do not have the kind of Internet availability, speed and access that is common and widespread in the developed world. But the fact that an online community newspaper has a fighting chance, like any other mainstream newspaper, is certainly worth celebrating as an achievement.

There is also another reason why we will continue to go digital, and why it will only be a matter of years before the pendulum turns in favor of paperless media world.

The latest Climate Change conference in Copenhagen failed to set limits on carbon emissions or to come up with any serious or binding agreements. It was a colossal disappointment. But that failure was political more than scientific. Very few still argue that global warming is a hoax, or believe that the environment is sustainable, considering our long-unchecked way of life. More, recycling is no longer a fad. Some countries are debating laws that make recycling mandatory, and to punish violators. Considering all of this, it is difficult to imagine that years from now we will continue to use and discard newspapers so readily, as if the paper on which news is printed doesn't come from trees, and as if discarded papers don't constitute landfill.

Bob Dylan continues to be right. "The Times They Are a-Changin." And it's time that we also appreciate that change, not resist it; work with it, not against it. There is no shame in embracing change. When the first commercially successful trans-Atlantic telegraph cable was completed in July 1866, some must have thought that humanity had reached the zenith of achievements as far as the field of communications was concerned. Now telegraphs are only found in museums and are coveted collectors' items. Instead, hundreds of millions of people routinely and conveniently send texts, sounds, images and videos through their cell phones without much fuss or excitement. Although the concept is still the same, the medium has changed dramatically.

The same can be said about news. The news industry will never die; in fact, in a globalized and interconnected world, we will seek news more than ever before. But the medium will inevitably change, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. It is telling that the most featured and best-selling item from Amazon.com is the Kindle digital reader, and that iPad has been topping news related to publishing technology all around the world.

The Times They Are a-Changin'. And we'd better change accordingly.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

While reputable author and world renowned journalist Deepak Tripathi agrees with this grim view, he doesn't think all is lost. He believes that there is still a chance, an opportunity even to redress the injustice and reverse the terrible mistakes that were made.

A compelling writer and a meticulous researcher, Tripathi's work is both gripping and comprehensive. His latest book, Overcoming The Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan serves as a glaring reminder of what military power can do when it goes unchecked, and when it is combined with religious fanaticism or misguided political ideology.

The book's first chapter starts with a quote by Abraham Lincoln, and it ends with another by Martin Luther King Jr, which serve as a clear indication of Tripathi's own moral stances. Tripathi courageously exposes the policies of the Bush administration and its neoconservative clique, which took advantage of the terrible attacks of September 11, 2001 to reassert the authority of a weakening superpower. But the push to reclaim America's standing actually preceded the terrorist attacks. In fact, Tripathi claims that "the ideological vehicle used to get George W. Bush elected to the White House in November 2000 was the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Several of its founders were close to Bush and secured key positions in his first administration."

This assertion is of immense importance. In its statement of Principles, dated June 3, 1997, PNAC warned of the "danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge," because the US seems to lack "the resolve to shape a century favorable to American principles and interests." One of the recommendations was to "increase the defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future."

But with the Cold War being settled in favor of the US, there seemed little need to invest in what the neoconservatives saw as an acceptance of "responsibility of America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security."

September 11 was the very opportunity which allowed the militancy of a small, detached and very influential group to define and eventually dictate the policies of the United States. "We stand together to win the war against terrorism," Bush said on September 11. This was not simply a declaration of war against an elusive enemy, but also a declaration of unreserved violence and political imprudence, a blank check to reconfigure the world.

Tripathi has done a superb job in addressing this topic. His successful approach is largely owed to his ability to locate the book within a most suitable historical and intellectual, as opposed to a purely political or event-driven context. This approach is a direct challenge to those who wish to examine the Bush legacy with September 11 as a starting point. Such a point might be considered rational, but it in fact represents a reductionist approach to history, and can only allow a limited understanding of its consequences. Tripathi has no such illusions.

In 'With Us or Without Us', Tripathi emphasizes that a better understanding of the war in Afghanistan requires a historical analysis of the US-Pakistan relations that takes us to the Regan administration, and even earlier. Important names, dates and events appear in that historical examination, and are quickly tied into the immediate past and present. Without such context, there can be no true understanding of what took place in Afghanistan under the Bush regime, and what continues to unfold there. Tripathi's narrative replaces the media's caricatured account of both wars, and instead provides an objective study of rational events and those who shaped them.

Indeed, it was not Bush and his neoconservative friends alone who wrought such disasters to the world. A whole array of individuals provided political cover and even, to a lesser extent, material support. In 'The Battle for Afghanistan', Tripathi shows how the likes of Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi colluded with Bush's War on Terror. The bombs began falling on Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 and are yet to cease falling, despite the fact that Bush is no longer in the White House.

This is largely what makes Tripathi's book so important. It is not about Bush as a man, but Bush's legacy. This legacy is an inheritance of other political legacies of various administrations and numerous interests. It continues to engulf, if not control US foreign policy to the present day. To detain that perpetual deterioration in world affairs, a proper deconstruction of history is a must.

But why should we reiterate what we already know? Isn't enough that most of us at least acknowledge already that to link Iraq to al-Qaeda and September 11, 2001 is absurd? That the weapons of mass destruction allegations were a baseless concoction and a complete fraud? No, it is not enough. A better understanding of the world doesn't automatically make it a better place. Whether we like it or not, Bush and the neoconservatives got away with serious crimes. And the peoples of both Afghanistan and Iraq continue to suffer.

The US must and will withdraw from both countries, largely because the stubborn resistance of their peoples will eventually prevail. However, Americans must discuss more than "an exist strategy". They should also discuss how they got there in the first place, when they supposedly had a democratic system with political transparency and accountability. Obama might someday act upon his promises to shut down the US gulag at Guantánamo Bay, but the challenge will remain in understanding how America allowed few individuals to suspend such basic principles as habeas corpus, which Tripathi so ably traced to the Magna Carta under King John of England back in June 1215.

Deepak Tripathi's Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan gives us a well structured understanding of a seemingly chaotic legacy, and answers many of the innumerable unanswered questions. It is an honest and formidable attempt at understanding one of the darkest periods in the history of America and the world. We owe him more than a thank you. He deserves an earnest attempt from us to understand his book, and to act upon his counsel.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

The well-choreographed and clearly-rehearsed visit seemed set on giving the impression that the relationship between Karzai and these men was that of an independent, confident leader seeking the support of a benevolent superpower.

But what were Karazai's real reasons for visiting Washington?

Typical media analyses have for months misrepresented the apparent chasm between Afghanistan and the US under Obama's administration. Even if this administration was genuinely discontented with Karazai's policies, at least until very recently, the resentment had little to do with the reasons offered by media 'experts'. It was not because Karazai was failing to deliver on governance, end corruption and so on. Let's face it, the US war in Afghanistan was never morally grounded, and it never could be either. Not unless the militant mindset that governs US foreign policy somehow acquires a complete overhaul.

For now, let's face up to reality. Bad days are awaiting Afghanistan. True, it is hard to imagine how Afghanistan's misfortunes could possibly get any worse. But they will, particularly for those living in Kandahar in the south. Seated next to Karazi during his Washington visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised that her country will "not destroy Kandahar in order to save Kandahar."

The statement may sound assuring, but it is in fact ominous and very troubling. Clinton was referring to the Bush administration's policy in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, she candidly admitted this by saying, "This is not Fallujah," referring to the Iraqi city which was almost completely destroyed in 2004 by a massive US Marine assault intended to 'save' the city. "Lessons have been learned since Iraq," stated Clinton.

But if lessons were truly learned, then why the fictitious language, the silly assertion that the real intention is to in fact 'save' Kandahar? And what other strategy does the US have in store for Afghanistan, aside from the irritating debate on whether to use unmanned drones or do the killing face to face?

Was Karazai in Washington to provide a cover for what is yet to come in the Taliban's southern stronghold? It's not unlikely. Considering past and repeated claims of a growing divide between Kabul and Washington, a bloody attack on Kandahar could in fact be seen as the US acting unilaterally in Afghanistan. Add to this scenario the constant and continued calls made by Karazai himself to engage Taliban. A US escalation without public consent from Karazai himself couldn't possibly be seen as a part of a joint strategy.

At a presentation at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Karazi spoke of an extended US commitment to Afghanistan that would last "beyond the military activity right now ... into the future, long after we have retired, and perhaps into our grandsons' and great-grandsons' -- and great-granddaughters' -- generations."

"This is something the Afghan people have been seeking for a long, long time," he said.

Clinton too was concerned about the plight of the 'people'. She promised to "help the people of Kandahar to recover the entire city to be able to put it to the use and the benefit of the people of Kandahar...We're not fighting the Afghan people...We're fighting a small minority of very dedicated, ruthless extremists who unfortunately are able to enlist young men... for a variety of reasons and send them out onto the battlefield."

Although Clinton wanted us to believe that the Bush era is over, with a new dawn in US foreign policy upon us, she used almost the exact same language, phrased in almost the exact same context that the Bush administration used prior to its major military assaults aimed at 'saving the people' from some 'ruthless extremists', whether in Iraq or Afghanistan.

And a major assault there will be, for the Taliban's counter-surge is threatening the US's counterinsurgency operations.

A quick scan of an article by Marie Colvin in Marjah, Afghanistan, where the Taliban is once more making its presence very clear, highlights the challenges facing the US military throughout the country. Entitled 'Swift and bloody: the Taliban's revenge,' the May 9 article starts with the claim that "rebels have returned." Throughout, the report was dotted with similar assertions. "Marjah was supposed to be safe...All that progress is threatened by the Taliban 'surge'...There were always fears that they would re-emerge .. The strength of the Taliban's presence is gradually becoming clearer...The Taliban are growing bolder..."

The term 'surge' was once associated with General David Petraeus's strategy predicated on the deployment of 30,000 new troops in Afghanistan. That it is now being attributed to the Taliban's own strategy is ironic, to say the least. Once meant to be a 'success story, now convincing the world that things are working out in Afghanistan might not be so easy after all. "Worries are growing in the Pentagon that if thousands of marines and Afghan security forces cannot entirely defeat the Taliban in Marjah, a town of only 50,000, securing the far larger prize of Kandahar may be an even greater struggle than has been foreseen," wrote Colvin.

The challenge ahead, although bolstered with all the right (albeit predictable) language is likely to be bloody, just like the rest of this sad Afghanistan episode, which actually began much earlier than 2001.

The US and Karazi (as a supposed representative of the 'Afghani people') must come across as united in the face of the extremist minority. Karazi's visit to the US was the political padding prior to the likely military storm. It was meant to assure the public that the chaos which will follow is in fact part of a counterinsurgency effort; well-planned, calculated, executed and, as always, passionately articulated.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Afghanistan remains the starkest illustration of how poor countries are used, then betrayed when their usefulness runs out. But Afghanistan is not an exception; US relations with many other countries, including Pakistan, Somalia and the Palestinian Authority remain hostage to this very model.

Yemen is now emerging as the newest casualty. Its government is desperate to hold on to the rein of power, amid corruption, extreme poverty and untold Western pressures. Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country's president of the last thirty one years, has impressively negotiated his political survival through mounting challenges. The 1994 civil war left many thousands dead, and despite the north's 'victory' the discontent of the south never waned. More, a Houthi revolt in the north is long running. Its latest manifestation lasted for sixth months and caused many deaths, most of which remained unreported. A mass migration of hundreds of thousands (270,000 by the recent estimates of the United Nations World Food Program) coincided with or followed the fighting. This is now temporarily in check, thanks to a fragile ceasefire.

According to some analysts, the ceasefire in the north could allow the central government in Sanaa to tend to the challenge growing in the south. Victoria Clark, author of the recent book Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes claimed that, "Southern disaffection has gone beyond the point of no return...Saleh's biggest mistake would be to crack down on southerners as hard as he has tried to do on the Houthi rebels."

However, under immense (and increasing) western pressure, Saleh is likely to crack down. Western governments, led by the US and Britain, run out of patience fairly quickly when the leaders of a poor, fragmented country opt for dialogue - even when such a choice might actually result in long-term political stability. When Afghan President Hamid Karzai merely mentioned of the possibility of engaging the Taliban, it generated much rebuke. A similar scenario happened in Pakistan. When Palestinian factions achieved the Mecca Agreement in February 2007 to mend their differences, the US immediately conditioned its financial backing of Mahmoud Abbas, and the agreement was successfully disintegrated. In the same vein, any Yemeni attempt at reaching out to the disaffected forces within the country, including tribes, opposition parties, and the various militant offshoots has been dismissed as an attempt to appease the terrorists.

Following a plot to blow up a US airliner over the city of Detroit on Christmas Day, the US renewed its interest in Yemen - in a predictable way. The administration of President Barack Obama issued an order early April authorizing the assassination of a US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric linked to the plot. It seems like the Bush years all over again.

US Special Operation Forces have been at work in Yemen for years, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Yemen was then declared "an important partner in the global war on terrorism," and it remains so, whenever there is a need to chase the elusive militant groups partly or wholly linked to al-Qaeda.

The violent perusal of US enemies in Yemen comes at a heavy cost. On one hand it has undermined the central government, which is being increasingly challenged from the north, the south and the center. Naturally, no self-respecting government would allow its territories to be used either as breeding grounds for militants, or as a hunting ground for foreign forces. A raid involving US cruise missiles at an alleged al-Qaeda camps in December 17, 2009 killed dozens, including 23 women and 17 children, according to Yemeni sources.

Indeed, Yemen is to a great extent a battlefield in which the central government is hardly the central player. However, the so-called 'war on terror' has presented many self-seeking forces in Yemen with a golden opportunity to extract wealth. Much has been 'invested' to beat al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP). But little has been spent elsewhere, for example, in providing sustenance to the hundreds of thousands victimized by the ongoing violence.

When problems become insurmountable and there is no effective system of accountability in place, corruption becomes rampant. It is no wonder that Yemen ranks 154 of the 180 countries examined in the Transparency International Corruption Index. Corruption is often an outcome of poverty and lack of accountability, and it also contributes to them. Yemen is unable to escape this vicious circle.

Since Yemen is not officially an occupied country, donor countries can easily disown their financial promises. Such promises are only made when Yemen is set for some military operation or another, or to prop up the central government's own proxy war on terror. However, when the Yemeni people are in genuine and dire need for help, Yemen becomes such a distant subject. It begets pity, at best, but no action.

According to the World Food Program (WFP), 7.2 million people - about a third of the country's population - are suffering from chronic hunger. Almost half of them require immediate food assistance, but fewer than half a million are receiving it. They have been directly affected by the policies of western governments, and the central government's own involvement in proxy wars on militants, tribes and other disaffected Yemenis.

How much money is the WFP is asking for in its latest appeal? A meager $103 million, out of which only $27 million has been received. A Tomahawk cruise missile - celebrated as both cheap but effective - costs around $600,000. The cost of the operation that killed dozens of innocent Yemenis last December could have, in fact, fed millions in need.

This is not a matter of mathematics; it is common sense. The ongoing miscalculations in Yemen are securing the very environment that lead to poverty, corruption, anger - and ultimately militancy and violence.

According to Emilia Casella, spokeswoman for the WFP, "people have three other options after that -- revolt, migrate or die.". Sadly, it is what millions of Yemenis are already doing.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Despite some initial apprehension - owing to the fact that Goldstone is a self-declared Zionist with links to Israel - many justice and peace advocates were comforted by the man's past record. He was a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

In April 2009, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Goldstone to lead the mission of investigating war crimes committed by Israel in the devastating war in Gaza between December 27, 2008 and January 18, 2009. Goldstone insisted that the mandate must also include alleged violations committed by Palestinians. At the end, he was asked to set his own mission's mandate, a reflection of the level of trust placed in him by the UNHRC.

The report's findings were published in September 2009, providing one of the most vivid, sober and unmistakable recommendations ever issued by a UN mission since Israel began its open-ended campaign of massacres and violations on the territorial sovereignty and human dignity of the Palestinian people and its Arab neighbors.

What has been shocking for Israel and its supporters is the nature of the report's recommendations. It urges the international community to "start criminal investigation in national courts...where alleged perpetrators (of war crimes) should be arrested and prosecuted in accordance with internationally recognized standards of justice." But more than this, the anger in Israelis and Zionists everywhere has largely been inspired by the fact that Goldstone is supposed to be 'one of them'. He cannot be easily derided either as a 'self-hating Jew,' nor can he be accused of anti-Semitism, the ready-to-serve warrant of anyone who dares criticize Israel's criminal conduct.

My own interest in Goldstone is motivated by three reasons. First, Gaza is still suffering under the very conditions that Judge Goldstone so aptly described in his report. Nothing has happened since then to ease the pain of the victims, nor to heed his call for justice.

Second, there is the ongoing 'controversy' over the man's wish to take part in his grandson's bar mitzvah in South Africa. He has now been forced to negotiate with a group of South African Jewish leaders in order to participate in this coming of age ceremony. South Africa's chief rabbi, Warren Goldstein, accused Goldstone of being a liar whose report is 'delegitimizing Israel'. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies accused Goldstone of 'selling out'.

It behooves Rabbi Goldstein to remember that it is only the barbarous killing of thousands of innocent civilians that is 'delegitimizing' Israel. As for 'selling out,' Goldstone is indeed a 'sell out' as far as any blind tribal affiliations are concerned, affiliations that seem to matter more to the Jewish Board of Deputies than the cause of justice, fairness, equality and peace that are enshrined in all major world religions and philosophies, notwithstanding Judaism.

That leads to the third reason that compelled the revisiting of this subject - Norman Finkelstein's most recent volume, 'This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion.'

Finkelstein is not an ordinary author. His readers know well that one rarely finds so many strong qualities in a single writer: compelling academic research, unbending moral clarity, lucidity in style, and a refusal to dehumanize the subject and the victim. 'This Time We Went Too Far' will serve in academic and human rights circles - as Goldstone will serve a similar purpose in the legal arena - as the categorical indictment of Israel's brutal policies in Gaza. More, it will forever shame those who have allowed titles, money, prestige and, again, blind tribal affiliation to prevent them from seeing the untold inhumanity that took place, and continues to take place in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. Sadly, as such cruelty perpetuates, so do the diatribes of Israel's apologists. Finkelstein is no stranger to vile attacks from Israel's diehard friends, and Goldstone will also eventually get used to it.

Finkelstein positions his book within proper historical contexts. He summons the events that lead to, coincided with and followed the Israeli war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006, which also killed and wounded thousands, and destroyed much of the country's civilian infrastructure. The similarities are too stark, but are made much clearer by Finkelstein's patient evaluation of both events. Moreover, he revisits the Israeli war and invasion of Lebanon of 1982, revealing much of Israel's bizarre but predictable behavior.

Finkelstein provides lengthy and immaculate research that highlights the repellent propaganda which preceded and followed the massacre in Gaza. Although he makes various references to the Goldstone mission and report earlier in the book, he dedicates most of the book's epilogue to the Goldstone report and its many consequences. His revelations and analysis are encouraging in that they suggest that things are in fact changing. Israel, a rouge state by any reasonable standards, will never reclaim its fictitious old status as a beacon of progress and democracy. No amount of lies, intimidation or blackmail could sell Israeli war crimes as self-defense, or smear Israeli critics as anti-Semites. The book makes a very convincing case to back up this assertion.

"The times they are a-changing," wrote Finkelstein. True, and that is a most impressive achievement that was made possible by the likes of Jimmy Carter, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, Richard Goldstone, Richard Falk, John Dugard, Finkelstein himself, and the innumerable authors, journalists and bloggers who tirelessly worked to document the truth.

But it is also the courage of the Palestinian people in Gaza and elsewhere that made it possible for us to take such stances. Our efforts dwarf in comparison to their courage, resilience and sacrifices.

Finkelstein's book is a testimony to all of that, and much more.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Earlier, at Tiananmen Square, I had watched throngs of people giddily roam the vast expanse, snapping endless photos in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, in the Imperial City and around every monument in the Square.

A formation of about 10 soldiers was suddenly in tatters when I asked if I could take a photo with them. Their excitement seemed to surpass mine.

None of this should by any means take away from the seriousness of the violent crackdown at the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989. That date should be remembered and lessons must be gleaned. But why the reductionism? When one thinks of Tiananmen, why does one only conjure visions of hordes of protesters and gangs of soldiers? The bloody scene is used time and again to single out China as an anti-democratic regime, juxtaposed conveniently against Western 'democratic values'.

One hardly ever reads positive news from China, or any other 'non-Western' countries - unless an agenda exists for promoting selective positive news from those countries, for example, a supposedly successful election in Afghanistan conducted under the auspices of Western armies.

In Thailand last week I saw no signs of the Red Shirts, or the Yellow Shirts either. I did, however, see some shirtless Thais. Considering the heat and humidity, this was not surprising. The point remains that aside from a standoff at a major Bangkok shopping center, the rest of the metropolis seemed to operate as normal. A Thai man struggled to communicate his political views on to me in English. I had found him watching a video on some social network website. The video featured a dog and a cat, the cat representing the Red Shirts, and a dog, the current government. They barked, meowed and hissed, but they didn't physically engage. The man laughingly commented, "This is how things are in Thailand." Then, in a more somber tone, "It's all about power and control; no one cares about Thais who cannot afford a shirt - red, yellow, or otherwise."

True, but it also seems that Western media cares little about these countries, outside of a very narrow context. The story of China is only worthy if it involves government restriction (e.g. of Google), or economics, i.e. how China's economic growth will affect Western economic recovery. Even if the story is related to art rather than politics, somehow it finds its way back to the same old theme, for example, the government censoring struggling artists.

Once the Red Shirts and the government sort out their problems, Thailand will certainly disappear off our radar. It would take an economic crisis, rigged elections, or even a tsunami to bring it back as a story worth telling. In the meantime, the country will return to its convenient role for the West - a cheap destination for adventure-seeking travellers with some money to spare, a topic in blogs advising ways to get more money for your buck, or baht, and clever ways to dodge Thai con artists.

China and Thailand are the norm, not the exception. In a recent discussion with a Reuters editor, I complained about the fact that every story on Malaysia had some kind of negative undertone. Example include: Muslim, Christian clashes over the use of the word "Allah"; the trial of Anwar Ibrahim; the ugly politicking. The news makes it easy to quickly imagine Malaysia as the most dysfunctional and unfortunate society on earth.

This was not the impression I got during my last visit to Malaysia. It is, in many respects, a thriving society. It has its internal politics, like anywhere else, but essentially Christians and Muslims seem to be getting along just fine, as they have been for many years.

Media channels - especially those dispatching their news from various Western capitals - focus not simply on sensational news, but they also intentionally sensationalize news, and purposely relay the news so as to be understood within Western contexts. Thus 'democracy', 'elections', 'government restrictions' and 'terrorism' are the usual buzzwords.

Sadly, the south is also stereotyped in the south itself. Newspapers in non-Western societies depend on coverage provided by Western news agencies for their international news. An Indonesian friend recently commended on my 'bravery' for going to South Africa. For him, South Africa is just 'Africa,' where 'primitive' people, along with lions and other wild animals prey on innocent white tourists. Thank you, Hollywood, for perfecting the art of stereotype.

Similarly, some people show utter disbelief when they discover that Iran is one of the world's busiest travel destinations - not necessarily for Americans or Israelis, but for people across the globe. Yes, Iran has much to offer in terms of culture, history, scenery and societal achievements. There is far more to the country than clashing soldiers and youth, or fiery statements pertaining to nuclear weapons, Israel and the Holocaust.

A few years ago, in Stockholm, I asked a group of officials to tell me the images that popped in their heads when they thought of Palestinians. I asked them to be honest, assuring them that nothing they said would offend me. But when I heard back from them, I was indeed very offended. The images were unfailingly gory. Even the 'positive' images amongst them were disturbing and stereotypical.

The western media will continue to reduce non-Westerners, for they have a vested interest in doing so, and it has become habitual. A first step in overcoming this would be to empower our own local and regional media, and to create rapports amongst them. We can only challenge the abhorrent narratives about us when we start to present our own truth and experience, and support others to do the same.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Yes, to the number. I was Number 15. I needed to remember this fact at all times. I also needed to be constantly aware of the identities of Number 14 and Number 16. This was to ensure the lineup was adhered to without fail wherever we were - whether lining up outside the Great Hall of the People, standing in line to shake Li Changchun's hand, or sitting in the large, well-lit room among a circle of editors. The editors sat and assiduously listened to Li, who spoke with the authority and power of a man known to be Number 5 in China. Or was it Number 3? Frankly, I cannot remember; I was nervously trying to remember my own number, and the ones before and immediately behind me.

I was in Beijing to attend the China Daily-Asia News Network Conference. This was focused on climate change and the environmental challenges facing Asian countries, especially following the failure of the Copenhagen meeting last December. Media producers grappled with their responsibility towards the increasingly pressing subject. Chinese government officials labored to showcase their country's efforts in lowering carbon emissions, carefully juxtaposing their success with the failures of Western governments, and the US government in particular.

Major polluters took on the position that their companies were incessantly trying to curb emissions, and some went as far as to discuss the need to "educate the public" regarding their responsibility towards the environment. It took me a while to wrap my head around this one: the world's largest contributors to environmental damage reaching out to the public and asking them to play a positive role in challenging global warming and climate change? Go figure.

At times, and despite clearly sincere efforts put forward by newspaper editors, the whole event seemed an exercise in futility. The government official, as all government officials everywhere, blames some other official of some other government. The polluters argue that they too are doing their part, and are in fact practically adopting progressive stances.

A leading Coca-Cola Company executive who addressed the conference, for instance, sounded more like an environmental champion, a Greenpeace activist even. In the meanwhile, media men and women stood quietly puzzled; they needed the ad revenues from the company (and other similar companies), along with governmental approval to make their work possible. At the same time, they are, in theory, the voice of the voiceless, the representatives of those who are suffering, and will continue to suffer, as a result of the dramatic, rapid and destructive environmental challenges.

It's a stand-still. The trio has every interest in keeping the discussion alive, but very little reason to move forward in any substantive way. Any discussion of lowering carbon emission becomes immediately political: fingerprinting, accusations and more. A new cold war around the theme of global warming is already underway. The "US vs China" scenario will remain until a paradigm shift takes place. Meanwhile, the Maldives will continue to sink, followed by 14% of Bangladesh.

So what are the media to do? Most of them rely on the same business model that requires the constant funding of the same companies, and often governments that have themselves disproportionately polluted our environment. These companies and governments have also stifled the debate on finding a sensible exit from the quagmire in every way imaginable.

Perhaps the media should be reconsidering the entire business model. Those who are sincere in wanting to educate, engage and influence the public sphere need to first liberate themselves as far as possible from the controlling grip of corporations. Only then will they be able help us to act upon the challenges facing our world as a result of man-made environmental disasters

Until this happens, we will continue to talk gibberish, using all the right terms, all the positive clichés, and yet we will achieve nothing but a few feel-good moments at yet another conference in yet another crowded city, itself polluted to the core.

Now back to Li, No 5 (or 3). The man was in fact much more pleasant than one would expect, considering the very rigid protocols and security checks that greeted us. He spoke comfortably and freely. He joked often. He spoke of the need for a unified Asian media voice to counter the influence of Western media. He challenged accusations that China is a closed society, and spoke of the rapidly growing number of websites, blogs, and the increasing access of foreign journalists and media to his country.

In fact, the discussions at the forum by various Chinese officials and by Li himself were filled with juxtapositions and comparisons between China and the West, "us vs them", "they say, we say ..." The editors from Number 1 through Number 18 (myself included) listened and politely nodded.

If the world can indeed afford a new cold war on political, economic and trade grounds, the environment can hardly afford such quarrels. The icecaps are melting; the Borneo rainforests are shrinking by the day; the list of endangered species is growing; drought, floods and other such tragedies are affecting millions, destroying lives and scarring generations.

The fact remains that human suffering simply cannot be politicized. And it must no longer be held hostage to numbers, clichés and slogans.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Then something happened to abruptly bring the noble mission to an end. The success story suddenly became a terrible nightmare for hundreds of IslamOnline's principled employees. The website (IslamOnline.net) remained online, but it was barely updated. Instead, videos were circulated on youtube, showing tired-looking IslamOnline staff chanting in the lobby of their building in Cairo. They were demanding the return of their editorial freedom and rights. They were calling for justice. These bright journalists, some of the finest in the region, should have been sitting behind their computers screens writing, editing and managing 'live dialogues' between inquisitive readers and learned scholars. Instead they were seated on the floor with signs and banners, shouting in coarse voices.

Something had gone horribly wrong.

Hadeel al-Shalchi tried to explain in a recent Associated Press report: "The Qatari government has forced out the moderate leadership of a popular Islamic Web site and plans to reshape it into a more religiously conservative outlet, former employees of the site said."

According to the AP report, "The site was thrown into turmoil...when the owners attempted to change its approach, prompting 350 of its workers in Cairo to go on strike. Management in Doha then cut off their access to the site and have been updating it with news articles but not the diverse content IslamOnline is known for, said the former employees."

IslamOnline is funded by al-Balagh, a Doha-based company. Al-Balagh was headed by well-respected Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi, a most sensible and judicious religious authority. He is known, and much liked, for his progressive views on Islam. Al-Qaradawi is also very popular among Muslims around the world, not least because of his daring political views, his strong anti-war, pro-resistance stances and moral clarity on many issues. In short, al-Qaradawi is the antithesis of religious clerics who would do as they are told.

A striking IslamOnline editor described to me how the crisis developed. It sounded something similar to a coup: the Sheik was removed from al-Balagh, the site's directors were relegated, a new management was installed (in fact imposed), and even the website passwords were changed so that employees could no longer access it. Devastated and enraged by the unwarranted moves, about 350 employees went on strike - only to find themselves subject to legal investigation by some company lawyers for exercising what is universally accepted as a fundamental right. The editor tells me that they were harshly criticized in particular for their uncompromisingly courageous coverage on Palestine and Gaza. Indeed, IslamOnline had worked tirelessly to bring greater awareness of the struggle in Palestine, to Muslim and non-Muslim readers alike.

Following the tragic events of September 11, few websites have played the vital role that IslamOnline has. Its editors did not serve the cause of fanatics, with their dreadful interpretation of the world and themselves, and nor did they adopt the mouthpiece position in favor of Arab governments. Equally important, they did not try to falsify a 'moderate' position to please any government - Arab or any other. Instead, they truly reflected and genuinely expressed the views of mainstream Muslims from all walks of life, and from all over the world. It was truly an impressive feat to see such an independent editorial line emerging from one Arab capital and largely funded by another.

But it seemed too good to be true - thus the terrible, chaotic and devastating changes that brought this vital to a standstill. The very means of presenting an eloquent Muslim voice to the world has been threatened.

The story of IslamOnline is being presented as that between rival Arabs: governments, groups and individuals. Reductionist terminologies- such as conservatives vs. moderates - are once again permeating the often predictable Middle East discourse. Many questions still remain unanswered.

In fact, the story of IslamOnline pertains more to media freedom and editorial independence in Arab countries than much of the above. The struggle is between the self-serving politicking few, and hundreds of media professionals - brilliant and inspiring young women and men who made up the staff at IslamOnline. For them, IslamOnline was not just another job. It was a mission, a calling even, and millions of readers around the world appreciated their work, every word of it.

One can only hope that IslamOnline will find its way back, with its current employees and current editorial line intact. The success story must not be allowed to end. Individual ambitions cannot stand in the way of this rare generational mission that is now simply indispensable.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Netanyahu was addressing the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The 'powerful' lobby group encompasses a large conglomerate of rightwing Zionist politicians and lobbyists and is seen by many as the most instrumental platform that influences - and, to a large degree, controls - US foreign policy regarding Palestine, Israel and the entire Middle East.

AIPAC is dangerous for many reasons. For one, it's not a lobby group in the conventional sense - meaning a group of well-paid lobbyists harassing US Congressmen with telephone calls with the hope of advancing the agenda of their benefactors (in this case, the state of Israel). The pro-Israel lobby has actually grown and morphed into a political body that is embedded within all branches of the US government, as well as the media, academia and elsewhere. It is no secret that the neo-conservative cliques of politicians who engineered, steered and to an extent continue to influence US war policy are in fact a mere component of the same 'lobby'.

While Jewish communities in the US may not be united in their support of the largely rightwing and hawkish Zionist lobby groups, both major political parties in the US and all branches of the government stand in complete support of Israel. The AIPAC annual conference is almost mandatory for them. Sadly, Netanyahu's speech before AIPAC is of equal, if not of greater import to some of them than the State of the Union address. Following Obama's address in 2010, many US politicians openly voiced criticism of his take on many issues. But few dare challenge Netanyahu on much of the malice he spewed on March 22.

Americans need to realize that this is no longer about Palestine and Israel. It is now about their own country, their own sovereignty and the future of their own democracy. They must ask hard questions and refuse to settle for sentimental answers. How could America be so divided on so many issues, yet so united on the 'cause of Israel'? Where does a feeble politician like Netanyahu find the courage to defy the president of the very country that supplied his own with many billions of taxpayer dollars? Of course, we know that much of the fund was used to occupy, torment and wage war on Palestinians for many years. This is the atrocious fact that Americans need to understand fully: Israeli war crimes were made possible because of American funds, weapons and political cover. America is not an outside party to the conflict. It has done more than its fair share in the ongoing Palestinian tragedy.

Even if one is somehow convinced by the most recent and unusually strong stance taken by the Obama administration regarding Israel's settlement policy in East Jerusalem, there still remains the question of what comes next. When the President of the United States articulates a seemingly unmovable US position that rejects the building of more illegal settlements that would preclude any possible peace talks, and yet he fails to weaken Israel's resolve even by an iota, some questions must be asked. Will the US use its leverage to twist Israel's arm to respect international law? Will it at least hold on to some of the billions of dollars of funds that it continues to pour into Israel - especially as the US undergoes an unprecedented financial crisis, resulting in growing poverty and homelessness?

The answer might be in the UPI report on March 26, citing Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz:

"Despite the sharpest rift in decades between Israel and the United States, the Pentagon is reported to have given the green light to the $250 million sale of C-130J transport aircraft to Israel...The deal...involves three 'Super Hercules' aircraft manufactured especially to the Israeli air force's requirements. (The report) indicates that despite the belief among the United States' top military commanders that Israel's failure to reach a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians is undermining U.S. influence and standing in the Muslim world and thus endangering its forces, the Pentagon is prepared to maintain Israel's military superiority in the Middle East."

The timing and the nature of the 'sale' signify the following: first, if the US government was ready to actively back up its supposed disagreement with Israel, it would have stopped this unwarranted sale. Second, considering that the deal was made through the Pentagon, the very platform used to express concern and call for at least a reconsideration of US policy in the region, the sale is both a slap on the face of the US military, and a veiled apology to Israel. Third, if the failure to reexamine this absence relationship continues, then there is absolutely no doubt left that US foreign policy in the Middle East is indeed held hostage to Israeli, not American priorities, misguided at times as they maybe.

Those individuals in the US government, military and media that have the courage and the platform to confront Israel must take the opportunity. They should not succumb to intimidation or fear, nor should they be swayed by Netanyahu's lies. The fact is, Netanyahu will continue to lie; it's what he does best. The onus is on those US politicians who readily and barefacedly continue to give the professional liar a standing ovation following every statement he utters. And it is only really they who give any power to the 'powerful' lobby.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

At the ages of six and four, my girls Zarefah and Iman were already the most kindhearted kids. They were actually going through complete and unmitigated panic, as they had just noticed the starfish which had been cast off by the waves and which were now dotting the shoreline as far as the eye could see. The children became determined to place every single one of them back in the water before they died.

But most all of them were already dead.

My kids didn't know this. And I didn't have the courage to break the dreadful news. I stood in silence, proud to the core, as the girls' shaky voices urged everyone around them to help. Then I too was summoned. "Dad, what are you waiting for? Please help us before they all die." I tried to absolve myself from what seemed to me a waste of time. But when I saw the tears in Zarefah's eyes, and heard the fright in her voice, I joined in - as enthusiastically as the many other beachgoers-turned-environmentalists.

Four years later, in 2008, both Zarefah and Iman voted for independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader. They were ten and eight, so their votes didn't count. It was a mockup election at their elementary school in the little town of Bothell in Washington State. One of their teachers told me that she was "very surprised to see how much support Nader has in our school." It was well beyond the national average. In the same way the girls had urged everyone to save the starfish of the South China Sea, they now relentlessly campaigned for Ralph Nader among their peers. Their main argument was: Ralph Nader has done so much work to save American lives, and both Obama and McCain would enact policies that would take away many innocent lives - of Americans and non-Americans alike. Unaware of the power of corporations and the pro-Israel lobby, the classmates voted for Nader in droves. In the end, the true American hero - at least as far as our family is concerned - tied with McCain, but lost to Obama. Even children can be swept by the "audacity of hope" fever. Now, like many of their parents, they have probably realized what a folly that decision was. My kids still say to their friends, "If only you voted Nader..."

Zarefah and Iman have always worked tirelessly for what they believed in. They once made an arrangement with a local food bank, which involved devoting part of their weekend to collecting canned food in front of the local grocery store. "Hi Daddy," they would scream in exhilaration as I drove in to pick them up. "Look how much food we got!" Then they would point at two huge shopping carts overflowing with tuna cans and baby food.

A few months ago, Iman somberly and sorrowfully walked away from her Girl Scout troops. They had been asked to raise money to send cookies to US soldiers in Iraq for Christmas. "When they leave Iraqis alone, I will buy them all the cookies they want," Iman insisted. Despite her principled decision, she cried intermittently for days. As an alternative, the girls decided to help their mother organize several fundraisers to raise funds for KinderUSA and Palestine Children's Relief Fund. Gaza children urgently need food and medical treatment, and Zarefah and Iman have risen to the occasion.

Now they are busily pondering this whole Earth Hour craze. I am sure that the lights of our house will be turned off for an hour on the last Saturday of March. The girls are unlikely to be satisfied by this, however. I can imagine Zarefah's argument, which is likely to be seconded by Iman, or the other way around. She is likely to claim that World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) intended the hour to symbolize what ordinary people can do to save the environment; that it's not enough for one iconic building in a city to shut off its lights while others stay lit. I am likely to agree, and they are likely to campaign among their peers - especially those who regretfully failed to vote Nader - to urge their families to also turn off the lights for an hour on March 27.

For the time being, Zarefah is busily fundraising for a cancer research facility in Washington. A friend of hers, a beautiful boy of the same age, is succumbing to an aggressive form of cancer. After years battling the disease, the boy chose not to be subjugated to any more painful, and at this point, futile treatment. His friends are devastated. Zarefah told me through tears that she was throwing a party aimed at showing their love and solidarity with the kid, and also raising funds for cancer research. She spent a whole day on the phone calling for action. I pledged two hundred dollars; others even more.

No, Zarefah and Iman don't take on lost causes. And they don't take on easy causes either. They understand that to make a difference one has to start somewhere, and this entails action at the level of the individual - no matter how seemingly limited her or his capacity. As we drove away from the South China Sea, close to midnight over five years ago, both girls fell asleep almost immediately. They were exhausted, and smelled of fish and salt. That day they had "saved" hundreds of starfish. And yet, thousands more were left behind. I had only managed to tear them away from their urgent task by promising to return with them the very next day, first thing in the morning, to save the rest. And we did.

But I am yet to break the news to them that Ralph Nader is unlikely to run for another presidential election.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

This might be my own limited interpretation of what activism means. I was born and raised in a Gaza refugee camp where the daily struggles of the community included challenging military occupation while attempting to survive under the harshest of circumstances. Activism then involved civil disobedience, general strikes, confronting armed Israeli soldiers with stones and slingshots. But it also involved much more than that.

Activists in my refugee camp, whether they're identified as Islamist, secularist, socialist or any other name, ensured the community remained unified in the face of adversity. They did not always succeed, but efforts were abound. Activists provided sustainable community support to families with sons and daughters that were killed in clashes or incarcerated in Israeli prisons. They rebuilt people's homes after they were demolished by Israeli dynamites or bulldozers. Some activists even offered free haircuts to those who couldn't afford them.

Activism, as I understood it, was largely a unifying, pro-active force that kept the struggle and resistance alive. It was the ingredient that allowed the Palestinian people to maintain their relevance to the conflict, despite the brutality of their enemy and the self-serving nature of their elites.

The elitism in Palestinian society led to a breakdown in unity, culminating in the bloody consequences of the Fatah-Hamas clash. Still, despite all the attempts to undermine it, Gaza remains standing. This cannot be attributed to any factional decision or political diktat, but only to the spirit of its people, a spirit predicated on internal cohesion and a clearly defined purpose.

When I left the refugee camp, my true culture shock was in witnessing the lack of a real sense of community in the places where I lived. These were mostly in Western societies, bustling cities full of nameless people trying to advance their own lot in life, or, in the case of working-class people, to survive. Due to the nature of my work, I also travelled to numerous countries in Middle East, Southeast Asia and parts of Africa. I found it interesting and uplifting to see how societies ravaged by poverty, military occupations, civil war, sanctions, and natural disasters tended to somehow also be the most communal, forward-thinking and effective at problem-solving.

In poorer societies, entire communities can in fact be classified as "activists". They don't necessarily have websites or hold regular meetings. Some draw their strength from holy books, ancient philosophies or traditions. Their dialectics are often straightforward rather than academic. A child from Gaza who lost her family in its most recent war on the Strip said through gushing tears that her loss would not weaken her resolve to free her country. Today she is being raised by neighbors and hopes to be a journalist.

While organizing in support of the Palestinian struggle is not an easy task in most Western societies, it is still an essential one. Israel is armed and financed by US and other Western governments. It is they who hold the political key to reining in the Israeli military menace that has tormented Palestinians for generations. The activists in the West who organize in support of the Palestinians also unwittingly contribute to their suffering. Their taxes are used to arm Israel, their votes in elections validate the very parties who shield and defend Israel's crimes, and their media consumption feeds the very corporations that taint the victim as aggressor. Activism, at least in the Palestine-Israel context, is not a matter of choice in Western societies; it is a moral responsibility.

Over the course of the last 15 years, I have come across some of the world's most passionate, compassionate and sincere individuals. I can only express good things about that. But I have also become disheartened and disappointed. "Leftist" groups insist on placing Palestine into its anti-imperialist campaign merely as a rally cry, as opposed to a substantively unique issue that needs a substantively unique strategy. Disenchanted "leftists" endlessly quarrel. Some cannot even stand the sight of one another. There are the anti-Zionist Jewish groups, and the anti anti-Zionists Jewish groups. There are those who believe that the pro-Israel Zionist lobby almost exclusively dictates Washington's policies on the Middle East, and those who believe that the lobby is getting its way simply because their agenda is consistent with Washington's existing agenda. Different groups have their own meetings, petitions, rallies and merchandise, often competing with or rejecting each other. Take any issue pertinent to pro-Palestinian activism and you will find vastly differing factions that won't converge or meet.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with diversity of opinion. But when diversity becomes polarizing to this extent, the entire project loses its original value. The public disagreements may stimulate academic discussion, but they can be demoralizing and alienating when it comes to actually bringing change.

I myself strongly believe that the pro-Israel lobby has the upper hand in Washington foreign policy regarding the Middle East, and that only a one state solution can resolve the ongoing crisis and provide a semblance of justice for Palestinians. I also believe an affective boycott and divestment campaign is a must for reining in the belligerent Israeli government. While these are my own views, I still believe it is important to listen to those who disagree with them, partly or fundamentally. After all, our strong beliefs of today are only the outcome of intense discussions and dialogues in the past.

Activism should not be bound by mere personal affiliation, and nor should it unreservedly embrace or accept ideological dogmas. An activist is an ambassador to his cause; yes, he or she must be morally focused, but there should also be a willingness to serve as a unifying force, and to strategize and organize accordingly.

The day our publications, newsletters, websites, conferences and rallies include all sorts of opposing views, without slander and intimidation, will be the day that we can be sure a cohesive community of activists is in the making, a community able to achieve good things. Without this, no campaign will be effective enough to make major policy shifts, in Washington or anywhere else.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Yes, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was a Palestinian activist. We have no reason to believe otherwise. He spent years of his life in Israeli prison - and one year in an Egyptian jail - for his political activism. This, however, gives no credibility to Israel's accusation that al-Mabhouh was a killer of Israelis. This assertion becomes even more problematic when considering that al-Mabhouh's assassination was, according to British media, ordered by accused Israeli war criminals and rightwing politicians.

According to the Sunday Times, Meir Dagan, the current director of Mossad briefed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the assassination plan during a meeting in early January. "The people of Israel trust you. Good luck," Netanyahu reportedly said at the end of this meeting.

It is disgraceful enough that the assassins used 'fraudulent' European passports, as well as credit cards linked to an American bank to carry out their plans. But more upsetting is the fact that this cruel and calculated action has inspired little more than expressions of 'outrage'. Have we become this resigned to Israeli impunity?

What about the sanctity of life, the sovereignty of nations and the respect for international law? Are these immediately disposable when the victim is Palestinian and the location of the crime an Arab country?

Al-Mabhouh has also been callously deprived of his own relevance to the story. We don't really know much about the man aside from what Israeli wants us to know - a senior Hamas operative who was responsible for the abduction and killings of two Israeli soldiers; one of the founders of the militant arm of Hamas, Izz al-Din al-Qassam; the middleman between Hamas in Gaza and al-Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard in Iran.

Who has weaved this fascinatingly reductionist account of al-Mabhouh's life in such a short span of time? His family? Hamas? The Palestinian media? No, none of these. The creator of this biography is Israel, the very country that assassinated him. Now that is truly outrageous: the murderer writes and convinces the world of the story of the murder victim. And the media gladly runs with it.

Expectedly, a Palestinian would tell al-Mabhouh's story in entirely different terms. He was born in Jabalia, one of Gaza's poorest and most crowded refugee camps. These key words alone - Gaza, poor, crowded, refugee - helps to unravel the real story of al-Mabhouh. It is the story shared by so many people who still live a life of utter anguish, poverty and resistance in the Gaza Strip - and elsewhere - which is under inhumane siege and successive wars by the world's fourth strongest army. The story is not about abducted occupation soldiers, but about millions of refugees, not about Iran, but about Gaza and Palestine, not about luxury hotels, but about horrifyingly desolate refugee camps.

But Palestinians - like many oppressed peoples around the world - have no right to their own narrative. Their story is negligible, if not wholly irrelevant. Israel commits the murder, Israel offers the explanation, and eventually Israel gets away with both the crime and the lie. Al-Mabhouh's murder might eventually inspire several documentaries that highlight the murderous nature of Palestinian militants, and the unequalled brilliance of Israeli retaliation. Another Steven Spielberg's Munich might already be in the making. The first scene of this would not be al-Mabhouh's family forced to flee their village in Palestinian after untold butchery by Zionist militants in 1948. Instead it might show a dark-skinned, menacing Palestinian slaughtering two helpless Israeli soldiers pleading for their lives.

We are, more or less, told to forget about al-Mabhouh. After all, his name is used along with Hamas and Iran in the same sentence. That should be enough to tell us that his life is dispensable - just like the lives of over 1,400 Palestinians who were killed by the Israeli army in Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009. Israel may well be preparing for yet another attack on the impoverished Strip. The tunnels that represent the lifeline for the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza are being routinely blown up by Israeli warplanes, detonated by dynamites and blocked by an Egyptian steel wall. Gazans cannot be allowed any weapons to defend themselves either. The 'international community' has held many meetings to ensure that no weapons find their way to Gaza. The US in particular is utterly firm regarding this issue - although not at all firm about ensuring that food or medicine reach the Strip. Al-Mabhouh may have been killed due to Israel's belief he was arming the resistance. This partly explains why the 'international community' is not at all moved by the murder. Al-Mabhouh might have been involved in breaking the Western consensus on denying Gaza both food and arms.

The EU is only worried about its link to the story, and not the murder itself. An EU statement issued in Brussels on February 22 condemned the "fact that those involved in this action used fraudulent EU member-states passports." They didn't name Israel though. As the Financial Times resolved, "criticism of Israel was as strongly worded as the EU could manage, given that Germany, Italy and several other countries place great emphasis on close relations with Israel."

One can only imagine what would happen if Hamas decides to strike back, expanding the battleground from Gaza to the rest of the world. Would the EU express disapproval of Hamas' use of fraudulent passport, but then refrain from actually naming the group - due to a fear, say, of upsetting Muslim countries?

No. But when the victim is a Palestinian and the murderers are Israelis - 27 of them so far - it's an entirely different story, and an entirely different concept of justice.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

The intellectual cowardice of some should not blind the majority to the fact that the war in Afghanistan is morally indefensible and militarily unwinnable.

The decision of the US to continue with its brutal military adventurism in Afghanistan can only be understood in terms of its limited and highly selfish political logic.

Let us start by ruling out some of the ridiculous assumptions that have permeated this war since it began in 2001. First, we were told that the war was aimed at eliminating al-Qaida. However, a retied CIA Station Chief who has served in the Middle East and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff, has claimed that, "al-Qaida is finished in Afghanistan." He further argued that, "the Obama administration, like its predecessor, claims we are fighting terrorism there. That is simply not true. It is a pure counterinsurgency issue."

Indeed, even the most ardent war hawks are exerting little effort to delineate the link between Taliban and al-Qaida. If the link is infused, it is readily unleashed to demonstrate al-Qaida's links to Pakistan's tribal areas, thus urging 'action' in that part of the country, and not in Afghanistan.

Thanks to the random military 'strategy' of the US and its allies, al-Qaida has spread in all sorts of directions and branched off to many al-Qaida offshoots in various parts of the world. Without a centralized leadership in the military sense, al-Qaida inspired groups and individuals now are now working for localized sets of objectives and respond to different stimuli.

So if it's not al-Qaida that is inspiring the awesome, although largely futile firepower and military surges in Afghanistan, then what is? This is where the idealists come in. They talk of nation-building, Western-style democracy, regional security and so on. Some of them genuinely mean what they say, and some don't believe the present military surges and Gen. Stanley McChrystal's rural area fight to the death will yield its intended results. Still, they contribute to the illusion that good intentions - starting with the initial hype about saving Afghani women, then 'liberation' from foreign terrorists, then democracy and nation-building, and so on - had anything to do with this bloody war. With their insistence on using such positive terminology, they continue to provide Washington's political elites - and Kabul's as well - with the benefit of the doubt that while we may disagree with their methods, we still trust their overall intentions.

It behooves those democracy-inspired, nation-building enthusiasts to remember that Washington has done much to stifle genuine democracy movements around the world since its occupation of Afghanistan in 2001. Palestine and Lebanon remain the most obvious examples. As for nation-building, compare the astronomical amounts invested in financing the destructive war in Afghanistan and to prop up the corrupt puppet regime in Kabul, to the miniscule sums devoted to enhancing the country's stone-aged economic infrastructure. The US military budget for this year is set to exceed $693 billion, not counting the $42 billion set aside for Homeland Security. According to CostofWar.com, the financial cost of war in Afghanistan alone has exceeded the $256 billion; both wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are approaching the $1 trillion threshold.

The war in Afghanistan cannot possibly be defended on any moral grounds. The official death count of Afghani civilians in 2009 is estimated at 2,412. The actual death toll is probably far, far higher, as polls do not account for the many more who perished in distance villages across the south and east, areas that are not accessible to outsiders. The death of these innocent people alone should silence the few who still speak of ethics and morality in relation to the disastrous war.

But not everyone is so overtly misguided in their assessment of the war. Some fully understand that the war in Afghanistan is a self-seeking, political and strategic venture. Still, they giddily welcome it, including one Con Coughlin whose recent article in The Telegraph was tellingly entitled, 'India and Pakistan must bury the hatchet for the Taliban to be crushed.'

The India-Pakistan rapprochement is seen as beneficial only insofar as its potential to 'crush' someone else. And considering that that someone else is not a band of aimless terrorists, but a well-grounded, grass-roots, popular insurgency, the price of that "crushing" is likely to be tens of thousands of innocent people. Coughlin uses the same haughty and generalized language of "militant Islamist groups" to be crushed, failing to understand or appreciate the distinctiveness of each and every situation, whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan or anywhere else. Instead, Coughlin nonchalantly expresses concern about the danger these militants pose to "the survival of the ruling classes" in Islamabad. What a compelling reason to get Richard Holbrooke, Washington's special envoy to the region all fired up over the need to preserve the survival of the ruling classes, not just in Islamabad, but in Kabul and Delhi as well.

The war in Afghanistan has turned into find-an-objective-as-you-go military march to nowhere. It is proving futile and indefensible on every ground, be it political or military or moral. Moreover, as Haviland Smith concluded in his grim assessment, "it doesn't really matter that we think of ourselves as benevolent liberators, it only matters that Afghans think of us as foreigners occupiers." When will we all face up to this reality?

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Professor Zinn dared to challenge the way history was told and written. In fact he went as far as to defy the conventional construction of historical discourses through the pen of victor or of elites who earned the right of narration though their might, power and affluence.

This kind of history might be considered accurate insofar as it reflects a self-seeking and self-righteous interpretation of the world by a very small number of people. But it is also highly inaccurate when taking into account the vast majority of peoples everywhere.

The oppressor is the one who often articulates his relationship to the oppressed, the colonialist to the colonized, and the slave-master to the slave. The readings of such relationships are fairly predictable.

Even valiant histories that most of us embrace and welcome, such as those celebrating the legacy of human rights, equality and freedom left behind by Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela still tend to be selective at times. Martin Luther King's vision might have prevailed, but some tend to limit their admiration to his 'I have a dream' speech. The civil rights hero was an ardent anti-war champion as well, but that is often relegated as non-essential history. Malcolm X is often dismissed altogether, despite the fact that his self-assertive words have reached the hearts and minds of millions of black people throughout the United States, and many more millions around the world. His speech was in fact so radical that it could not be 'sanitized' or reinterpreted in any controllable way. Mandela, the freedom fighter, is celebrated with endless accolades by the very foes that branded him a terrorist. Of course, his insistence on his people's rights to armed struggle is not to be discussed. It is too flammable a subject to even mention at a time when anyone who dares wield a gun against the self-designated champions of 'democracy' gets automatically classified a terrorist.

Therefore, Zinn's peoples' histories of the United States and of the world have represented a milestone in historical narration.

As a Palestinian writer who is fond with such luminaries, I too felt the need to provide an alternative reading of history, in this case, Palestinian history. I envisioned, with much hesitation, a book that serves as a people's history of Palestine. I felt that I have earned the right to present such a possible version of history, being the son of Palestinian refugees, who lost everything and were exiled to live dismal lives in a Gaza refugee camp. I am the descendant of 'peasants' - Fellahin - whose odyssey of pain, struggle, but also heroic resistance is constantly misrepresented, distorted, and at times overlooked altogether.

It was the death of my father (while under siege in Gaza) that finally compelled me to translate my yearning into a book. My Father was a Freedom Fighter, Gaza's Untold Story offered a version of Palestinian history was not told by an Israeli narrator - sympathetic or otherwise - and neither was it an elitist account, as often presented by Palestinian writers. The idea was to give a human face to all the statistics, maps and figures.

History cannot be classified by good vs. bad, heroes vs. villains, moderates vs. extremists. No matter how wicked, bloody or despicable, history also tends to follow rational patterns, predictable courses. By understanding the rationale behind historical dialectics, one can achieve more than a simple understanding of what took place in the past; it also becomes possible to chart fairly reasonable understanding of what lies ahead.

Perhaps one of the worse aspects of today's detached and alienating media is its production of history - and thus characterization of the present - as based on simple terminology. This gives the illusion of being informative, but actually manages to contribute very little to our understanding of the world at large.

Such oversimplifications are dangerous because they produce an erroneous understanding of the world, which in turn compels misguided actions.

For these reasons, it is incumbent upon us to try to discover alternative meanings and readings of history. To start, we could try offering historical perspectives which try to see the world from the viewpoint of the oppressed - the refugees, the fellahin who have been denied, amongst many rights, the right to tell their own story.

This view is not a sentimental one. Far from it. An elitist historical narrative is maybe the dominant one, but it is not always the elites who influence the course of history. History is also shaped by collective movements, actions and popular struggles. By denying this fact, one denies the ability of the collective to affect change. In the case of Palestinians, they are often presented as hapless multitudes, passive victims without a will of their own. This is of course a mistaken perception; the Palestinians' conflict with Israel has lasted this long only because of their unwillingness to accept injustice, and their refusal to submit to oppression. Israel's lethal weapons might have changed the landscape of Gaza and Palestine, but the will of Gazans and Palestinians are what have shaped the landscape of Palestine's history.

Touring with My Father was a Freedom Fighter in South Africa, in a recent visit, was a most intense experience. It was in this country that freedom fighters once rose to fight oppression, challenging and eventually defeating Apartheid. My father, the refugee of Gaza has suddenly been accepted unconditionally by a people of a land thousands of miles away. The notion of 'people's history' can be powerful because it extends beyond boundaries, and expands beyond ideologies and prejudices. In that narrative, Palestinians, South Africans, Native Americans and many others find themselves the sons and daughters of one collective history, one oppressive legacy, but also part of an active community of numerous freedom fighters, who dared to challenge and sometimes even change the face of history.

South Africa has; Palestine will.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Following are just some of the tokens of Pakistanis' veneration for their hero.

He is sometimes called "the first Pakistani". Port Qasim, Pakistan's second major port is named in his honor. PNS Qasim is the name of a Pakistani Naval ship. Pakistan Army Aviation's home base is called Qasim Base. Qasim is a fairly common first name for Pakistani male children. The day of Yom-e-Babul Islam is observed each year in Pakistan in memory of Muhammad bin Qasim.

Now let us see what we are told about this hero and what we are not.

We are told that Muhammad bin Qasim was an Umayyad general who conquered the Sindh and Punjab regions, now a part of Pakistan, along the Indus River. That at the tender age of just seventeen, he was sent by Caliph Al-Walid-I to lead an army towards South Asia to release Muslim women and children who were kidnapped by the Hindu Raja of the time. That it was due to his conquest of Sindh and Punjab that the era of Islamic rule in South Asia was first launched in real earnest. This much we are told. This much Pakistani children are supposed to memorize and be examined in.

What we are not told is that the kidnapping event of women and children, though a historical happening by itself, may have been only a part of the legend. That the Umayyad interest in the region may have stemmed more from their desire to control the trade route down the Indus River valley to the seaports of Sindh, an important link in the ancient Silk Road. That on certain earlier occasions too, they had unsuccessfully sought to gain control of the route, via the Khyber Pass, from the Turki-Shahis of Gandhara. That by taking Sindh, Gandhara's southern neighbor, they were ultimately able to open a second front against the Gandhara.

We are also not told some of the other possible reasons for this campaign. That the locals of the region had targeted Sassanid shipping in the past, from the mouth of the Tigris to the Sri Lankan coast, from their bases at Kutch, Debal and Kathiawar. That the real reason of the campaign may have been purely economic in which the kidnapping of women and children was but one fateful act of these semi-nomadic tribes whose activities disturbed much of the Empire's shipping trade in the Western Indian Ocean. That the kidnapping incident only provided a 'just' reason to the rising power of the Umayyad Caliphate to gain a foothold in the Makran, Baluchistan and Sindh regions-an area that the Empire builders had been eyeing for a rather long time by then. That one other possible reason for the campaign could be the policy of the local tribes of providing refuge to Sassanid and Arab rebels who fled the Arab advance and the accompanied Umayyad persecution in a quest to consolidate their rule. This we are not told.

We are told that he treated most kindly his new subjects when he became their governor. What we are not told is that where resistance was strong, long-drawn-out and rigorous, Muhammad bin Qasim's response was rather ruthless. By credible accounts, he inflicted 6,000 deaths at Rawar, between 6,000 and 26,000 at Brahmanabad, 4,000 at Iskalandah and 6,000 at Multan. And that he built many mosques upon the sites of razed Hindu temples.

We are told that his nemesis Raja Dahir was a cruel and unjust ruler and was involved in piracy. That he was the one that kidnapped and tortured the women and children and refused to recant. That he was an immoral man who married his own sister.

What we are not told is that Raja Dahir is also admired by many present day Sindhi Sunni and Shia Muslims. That he had given shelter in Sindh to a well-known follower of Imam Hussian, Muhammad Bin Allafi-a man much sought by the Umayyad in their hunt for the Ahl-e-Bait (Prophet Muhammad's immediate family). That, according to some sources, Dahir had even offered asylum to Hussain ibn Ali, the grandson of Prophet Mohammed, who was being persecuted at home. That as a result of this offer, Hussain was on his way to Sindh when he was seized at Karbala in Iraq and killed most viciously. That according to G.M. Syed, the grand old man of Sindh, "the Sindhis weep for Hussain ibn Ali and they weep for Raja Dahir Sen." This we are not told.

But above all what we are not told is the manner of this hero's death and the events leading up to the occasion.

Chachnama is an authentic document that recounts the history of Sindh in great details. It tells of an intriguing yet widely believed tale of Muhammad bin Qasim's death.

According to this account, when Raja Dahir was killed in the battlefield, his daughters were captured as war booty in the Islamic tradition. The Governor, Muhammad bin Qasim, then sent them as 'presents' to the Caliph of the time Khalifa Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik, to become a part of his vast harem. According to the narration, the women tricked the Khalifa into believing that Muhammad bin Qasim had violated them before sending them on. The Khalifa got so incensed for having been sent 'tainted' gifts that he ordered Muhammad bin Qasim to be wrapped in oxen hides and returned to Syria, his exploits not withstanding. The journey resulted in his death from suffocation. This version attributes the women's motive for the ploy to exacting vengeance for their father's death. It also states that upon discovering the trick after the death of Muhammad bin Qasim, the Khalifa deeply repented his action and ordered the sisters buried alive in a wall as a punishment.

The Persian historian Baladhuri, however, states that the Khalifa Abd al-Malik was a political enemy of Umayyad governor Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, Muhammad bin Qasim's paternal uncle. He persecuted all those who were considered close to Hajjaj after his death. Muhammad bin Qasim was therefore recalled in the midst of a campaign of capturing more territory up north. An honorable man, he reported to his Caliph despite his loyal friends dissuading him from it. Upon arrival, he was promptly imprisoned in Mosul, Iraq. Intensely cruel torture on him started immediately afterwards. So severe was this torture that Muhammad bin Qasim breathed his last during its most extreme session one hot July afternoon.

Whichever account is true, we are told none of these.

Two facts, however, remain undisputed. He was 22 years old when he was killed by his own Caliph. None have read the tombstone marking his grave for none know where he lies.

In fact, trial balloons have already been sent out bearing supposedly unrehearsed comments by former Israeli Army general and current Minister Yossi Peled, suggesting that another war is on its way. More recently, Israel's ultra-right and unabashedly racist Foreign Minister Avigador Lieberman threatened to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad in case of a war.

And so it begins.

Historically, Israel has, with one understandable exception, determined the time and place of all of its wars with the Arabs. The only time Israeli forces were attacked in 1973 involved an Arab attempt to regain territories that were captured by Israel in 1967.

When Lieberman uttered his "message that should go out to the ruler of Syria from Israel" to an audience at Bar Ilan University, he was effectively saying that Israel will topple the Syrian government when it decides the time was ripe for war. And considering Peled's earlier statement that war was imminent, the only possible conclusion would be that a "regime change" in Syria is high on the Israeli agenda. It also perhaps represents the last chance of fulfilling the US neoconservative vision - that of "A New Strategy for Securing the Realm".

This inference should have been evident and thus sent shockwaves throughout the world, and especially through the US media which now know fully the price of the Israeli-neocon folly.

So why do Western mainstream media, especially in the US, continue to guard Israel's image so protectively, at times even devotedly, when the country's belligerence is so blatant? And if some in the media are indeed well intentioned in their coverage, why do they continually miss the many clear signs pointing to Israeli criminality and aggression?

A growing reference that is once again floating among political and media analysts is that Israel has greater mastery than the Arabs over fighting media wars. Often cited, for example, is the National Information Directorate, an Israeli propaganda center that was established a few months prior to the devastating war on Gaza last year. Ironically, the center was established after recommendations made by an Israeli inquiry into the equally bloody Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006 - ironically because independent war inquiries often chastise the army for violation of human rights, as opposed to recommending the establishment of a "hasbara" - more like propaganda - body to justify the crimes committed against civilians.

Still, even such "hasbara" should have had little impact on the Western media's depiction of Israeli crimes and hostilities toward its neighbors.

One could possibly consider the claim that Israel's media success story is the brainchild of Israel's own media expertise under very specific circumstances: That Israeli spokespersons are icons of articulation and charm; that Palestinian retaliations to Israeli crimes in Gaza were vile and gruesome; that the Israeli media blackout was so successful that Western journalists had no other way of finding any credible, decipherable facts; that there are no Arab spokespersons who are well-informed and articulate enough to present even a semblance of a coherent narrative to challenge the one offered by Israel.

But none of these scenarios are convincing. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is as faltering in English as he is in his mother tongue. The Palestinian resistance merely killed 13 Israelis, 10 of whom were soldiers - and recently "regretted" the killing of the three civilians - while Israel killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and remains unmoved. The Israeli media blackout of Gaza during the war - which continues even now - hardly prevented footage and reports from beaming to all corners of the earth, thanks to the valiant efforts of Arab media and independent reporters, photographers and cameramen from all over the world, supplemented by the United Nations and other independent groups' findings. All of this made the scope of the tragedy known to all. And finally, the most eloquent and involved Palestinian and Arab academics, diplomats and activists can be found in every major Western city and reputable university or research institute.

Yet somehow it was Israel that "claim(ed) success in PR war", according to Anshel Pfeffer in the Jewish Chronicle, days after the initial Israel attack on Gaza. Pfeffer quoted Avi Pazner, Israel's former ambassador to Italy and France, and "one of the officials drafted in to present Israel's case to the world media," as claiming that "whenever Israel is bombing, it is hard to explain our position to the world ... but at least this time everything was ready and in place."

Utter nonsense. As someone who has been grilled and challenged in the media for making such outrageous statements as "Israel must learn to respect international human rights," I cannot take seriously the media's claims to "objectivity". If this were the norm, no Israeli hasbara campaign would have even dented public perceptions of the criminal war. No unfeeling Israeli Army spokesperson could possibly explain the logic of the wanton destruction of Gaza, as hungry civilians were chased in an open-air prison with nowhere to escape and no one to come to their rescue.

Israeli officials continue to congratulate themselves on a job well done, and must be preparing yet another marvelous hasbara campaign to justify the killings that are yet to follow. However, there are some things that are becoming increasingly obvious, at least to the rest of us. First, the secret of Israeli "success", if any, was not its own doing, but rather stemmed from the media's decision, made years ago, to protect Israel's image. Second, despite the fanfare and self-congratulating commentary, Israel has now largely lost the media war, and the tide since the Gaza war has been turning, thanks to the underfunded, but solid and increasingly determined efforts of independent media groups, intellectuals, citizen journalists, civil society activists, artists, poets, bloggers, ordinary people and those in the media who possess the courage to challenge Israeli hasbara and its devotees.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

I am not exactly sure why we like round numbers. Is it because they make valuations easy, even when the particular number is irrelevant? Some philosophers, Plato included, believed that order and symmetry are innate values in the human psyche. Perhaps. Or, perhaps, in the case of the media, numbers give us the sense, deceptively, that we have a grasp over certain truths. We determine the order in which legacies such as Obama's should be dissected. After a decided date, the subject can be ignored until the next round number arrives, bringing with it more useless chatter.

Of course, this is a delusion. Like much of the media's behaviour, it has no connection to reality. It's all a mind game. A lie, even. For victims of US policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and elsewhere, the attention given to round numbers is wholly illogical. The drones flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan, loaded with killing technology, care little for numbers, including the number of lives they destroy daily.

Did Gazans starve less when we 'examined' Obama's (pro-Israel) legacy after 100 days of his presidency? Where they better off one year from his election victory or one year from his inauguration?

How about 273 days from his ascendancy to the White House? Was that a particularly chaotic day in Baghdad's streets? Do soldiers take a break from killing on even days, and resume the slaughter on odd ones?

But why should this discussion matter at all? It matters because we often buy into this folly, allowing the media to determine what is important and when a discussion is pertinent. Those involved in this charade express their views, agreeing politely and disagreeing loudly. The next day, the media returns to a state of complacency, as if the detrimental policies of Obama's government ceased to exist; as if war was eradicated, and there was nothing left to talk about.

But truly, do Palestinians in Gaza care much for round numbers? I doubt it. Nor do Iraqis, Afghanis, and, now, Yemenis. Misery is misery, any day, every day; war is an inferno. The smell of death, the scenes of blood in Kabul and Baghdad and Gaza, will remain the same on a Friday, or a Tuesday, 100 day into Obama's presidency or 514 days later.

Every minute in a victim's or potential victim's life counts. Those who have lived in war zones can comprehend this truth. That's why Gaza wants to see the end of its misery now, instead of waiting for CNN's next roundtable discussion assessing the next round number in Obama's presidency. Iraqis and Afghanis similarly listen to words and judge deeds, caring little for numbers.

Remember when Obama spoke to the "Muslim world" from Cairo on June 4th? That's the date that Muslims - many still victimized, directly or otherwise, by the Obama administration's policies - remember and recount. On that day, Obama made promises, speaking with 'audacity', and much hubris. Muslims listened. Some clapped and even cheered; others hesitated or expressed cynicism, but still hoped for change. Alas, none of those hopes have been fulfilled, as instead of change, there is only a continuation of the policies of his predecessor.

"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect," said Obama in Cairo. His deeds since then have reaped the opposite results: mistrust and disrespect.

"Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan," he said. Since then, he has ordered the surge of 30,000 additional soldiers to that already distraught country. The US, its allies and their drones have killed and maimed hundreds of innocent civilians since that statement was made.

"Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future - and to leave Iraq to Iraqis," he said. One fails to see evidence of a better future based on his administration's conduct in Iraq in the last year or so. Little progress has been made in leaving Iraq to the Iraqis.

Even in Cairo, he had the audacity to lecture Palestinians, the very victims of Israel's brutal occupation, which is armed and funded by US money. "Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build." We must note that the US government continues to make these demands of Palestinians, ignoring the fact that Israel's reign of terror has never ceased, including Israeli violence against Palestinian non-violent resistance in the West Bank.

Still, Obama did state that "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society."

Alas, the Obama administration faltered on its demand of a complete Israeli freeze, and is now harassing the ineffective leadership of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank to return to the negotiation table without conditions.

In addition, the hope of ensuring that "Palestinians can live, and work and develop their society," is nothing but a pipedream, considering that Palestinians in Gaza teeter between chronic malnutrition and starvation. We cannot forget the fact that the siege on Gaza would not have been possible without US support.

So before we giddily gather to discuss Obama's legacy the next time another round number is celebrated on our television screens, let's remember that for an Iraqi father, frantically searching for his son's remains in a Baghdad street, numbers matter little, whether even, odd, round or in any combination. A massacre is a massacre, and a war of choice is a crime, any day, any time.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Deciphering the available clues regarding the nature of Israel's immediate military objectives is not always easy, but it is possible. One indicator that could serve as a foundation for any serious prediction of Israel's actions is Israel's historical tendency to seek a perpetual state of war. Peace, real peace, has never been a long-term policy.

"Unlike many others, I consider that peace is not a goal in itself but only a means to guarantee our existence," claimed Yossi Peled, a former army general and current Cabinet Minister in Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government.

Israeli official policy - military or otherwise - is governed by the same Zionist diktats that long preceded the establishment of the state of Israel. If anything has changed since early Zionists outlined their vision, it was the interpretation of those directives. The substance has remained intact.

For example, Zionist visionary, Vladimir Jabotinsky stated in 1923 that Zionist "colonization can...continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population - an iron wall which the native population cannot break through." He was not then referring to an actual wall. While his vision took on various manifestations throughout the years, in 2002 it was translated into a real wall aimed at prejudicing any just solution with the Palestinians. Now, most unfortunately, Egypt has also started building its own steel wall along its border with the war-devastated and impoverished Gaza Strip.

One thing we all know by now is that Israel is a highly militarized country. Its definition of 'existence' can only be ensured by its uncontested military dominance at all fronts, thus the devastating link between Palestine and Lebanon. This link makes any analysis of Israel's military intents in Gaza, that excludes Lebanon - and in fact, Syria - seriously lacking.

Consider, for example, the unprecedented Israeli crackdown on the Second Palestinian Uprising which started in September 2000. How is that linked to Lebanon? Israel had been freshly defeated by the Lebanese resistance, led by Hizbullah, and was forced to end its occupation of most of South Lebanon in May 2000. Israel wanted to send an unmistakable message to Palestinians that this defeat was in fact not a defeat at all, and that any attempt at duplicating the Lebanese resistance model in Palestine would be ruthlessly suppressed. Israel's exaggeration in the use of its highly sophisticated military to stifle a largely popular revolution was extremely costly to Palestinians in terms of human toll.

Israel's 34-day war on Lebanon in July 2006 was an Israeli attempt at destroying Arab resistance, and restoring its metaphorical iron wall. It backfired, resulting in a real - not figurative - Israeli defeat. Israel, then, did what it does best. It used its superior air force, destroyed much of Lebanon's civilian infrastructure and killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The resistance, with humble means, killed more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers during combat.

Not only had Hizbullah penetrated the Israeli iron wall, it had also filled it with holes. It challenged, like never before, the Israeli army's notion of invincibility and illusion of security. Something went horribly wrong in Lebanon.

Since then, the Israeli army, intelligence, propagandists and politicians have been in constant preparation for another showdown. But before such pending battle, the nation needed to renew its faith in its army and government intelligence; thus the war in Gaza late December 2008.

As appalling as it was for Israeli families to gather en masse near the Israeli Gaza border, and watch giddily as Gaza and Gazans were blown to smithereens, the act was most rational. The victims of the war may have been Palestinians in Gaza, but the target audience was Israelis. The brutal and largely one-sided war united Israelis, including their self-proclaimed leftist parties in one rare moment of solidarity. Here was proof that the IDF still had enough strength to report military achievements.

Of course, Israel's military strategists knew well that their war crimes in Gaza were a clumsy attempt at regaining national confidence. The tightly lipped politicians and army generals wanted to give the impression that all was working according to plan. But the total media blackout, and the orchestrated footage of Israeli soldiers flashing military signs and waving flags on their way back to Israel were clear indications of an attempt to improve a problematic image.

Thus Yossi Peled's calculated comments on January 23: "In my estimation, understanding and knowledge it is almost clear to me that it is a matter of time before there is a military clash in the north." Further, he claimed that "We are heading toward a new confrontation, but I don't know when it will happen, just as we did not know when the second Lebanon war would erupt."

Peled is of course right. There will be a new confrontation. New strategies will be employed. Israel will raise the stakes, and will try to draw Syria in, and push for a regional war. A Lebanon that defines itself based on the terms of resistance - following the failure to politically co-opt Hizbullah - is utterly unacceptable from the Israeli viewpoint. That said, Peled might be creating a measured distraction from efforts aimed at igniting yet another war - against the besieged resistance in Gaza, or something entirely different. (Hamas' recent announcement that its senior military leader Mahmoud al- Mabhouh was killed late January in Dubai at the hands of Israeli intelligence is also an indication of the involved efforts of Israel that goes much further than specific boundaries.)

Will it be Gaza or Lebanon first? Israel is sending mixed messages, and deliberately so. Hamas, Hizbullah and their supporters understand well the Israeli tactic and must be preparing for the various possibilities. They know Israel cannot live without its iron walls, and are determined to prevent any more from being built at their expense.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

In a recent article entitled "Israel Must Get Used to the New Turkey," Suat Kiniklioğlu, Deputy Chairman of External Affairs for Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) wrote, "Israel appears to be yearning for the golden 1990s, which were the product of a very specific situation in the region. Those days are over and are unlikely to come back even if the Justice and Development Party (AKP) ends up no longer being in government."

This assessment seems more consistent with reality.

One would agree with Avnery's optimistic reading of events if the recent row was caused by just a couple of isolated incidents, for example, the gutsy public exchange over Gaza between Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Israel's President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in late January 2009, or the recent premeditated humiliation of Oguz Celikkol, Turkish Ambassador to Israel, by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

However, these incidents are anything but isolated. They reflect a clear and probably irreversible shift in Turkish foreign policy towards Israel, the US and the Middle East as a whole.

For decades Turkey was torn between its historical ties to Muslim and Arab countries on the one hand, and the unstoppable drive towards Westernization on the other. The latter seemed much more influential in forming the new Turkish identity in its individual, collective, and thus foreign policy manifestation and outlook.

But even during the push and pull, Turkey grew in import as a political and economic player. It also grew into a nation with a decisive sense of sovereignty, a growing sense of pride and a daring capacity for asserting itself as a regional power.

In the 1970s, when 'political Islam' was on the rise throughout the region, Turkey was experiencing its own rethink, and various politicians and groups began grappling with the idea of taking political Islam to a whole new level.

In fact, it was Dr. Necmettin Erbakan, the Prime Minister of Turkey between 1996 and 1997 who began pushing against the conventional notion of Turkey as a second-class NATO member desperate to identify with everything Western.

In the late 1980s Erbakan's Rafah Party (the Welfare Party) took Turkey by storm. The party was hardly apologetic about its Islamic roots and attitude. Its rise to power as a result of the 1995 general elections raised alarm, as the securely 'pro-Western' Turkey was deviating from the very the rigid script that wrote off the country's regional role as that of a "lackey of NATO." According to Salama A Salama, who coined the phrase in a recent article in Al-Ahram Weekly, Turkey is no longer this 'lackey'. And according to Kiniklioğlu, that's something "Israel must get used to".

The days of Erbakan might be long gone. But the man's legacy registered something that never departed Turkish national consciousness. He pushed the boundary, dared to champion pro-Palestinian policies, defied Western dictates and even pressed for economic repositioning of his country with the creation of the Developing Eight (D-8), uniting the most politically significant Arab and Muslim countries. When Erbakan was forced to step down in a 'postmodernist' military coup, it was understood as the end of short-lived political experiment which ended up proving that even a benign form of political Islam was not to be tolerated in Turkey. The army emerged, once again, all powerful.

But things have changed drastically since then. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) was elected to power in 2002. The AK Party leadership was composed of savvy, yet principled politicians who aimed for change and even a geopolitical shift in their country's regional political outlook.

The AK Party began to lead a self-assertive Turkey which was neither pleading for European acceptance nor American validation. By rejecting the use of Turkish territories as a launchpad of a US strike against Iraq in 2003, Turkey was acquiring a voice, and a strong one at that - with wide democratic representation and growing popular support.

The trend continued, and in recent years Turkey dared translate its political power and prowess into action, without immediately severing the political and military balances that took years to build. So, for example, while it continued to honor past military deals with Israel, it also made many successful overtures to Syria and Iran. And, in being willing to be seen as a unifier in the age of Muslim and Arab disunity, it refused to take part in the conveniently set up camps of 'moderates' and 'extremists'. Instead it maintained good ties with all its neighbors, and its Arab allies.

Starting in 2007, the US began seeing the emergence of the "New Turkey". US President Barack Obama's visit to the country soon after his inauguration was one of many signs that the West was taking notice of Turkey's 'special' status. Turkey is not to be bullied, threatened, or intimidated. Even Israel, which has for long defied the norms of diplomacy, is now becoming more aware of its limits, thanks to Turkish President Abdullah Gül. Following Israel's belligerent insult of the Turkish Ambassador, he said, "Unless there is a formal apology from Israel, we're going to put Celikkol on the first plane back to Ankara." Israel, of course, apologized, and humbly so.

It took Turkey many years to reach this level of confidence and the country is hardly eager to be anyone's 'lackey' now. More, Turkey's united and constant stance in support of Gaza, and its outspokenness against the threats against Lebanon, Iran and Syria show clearly that the old days of "warmth" are well behind us.

Turkey, of course, will find a very receptive audience among Arabs and Muslims all over the world who are desperate for a powerful and sensible leadership to defend and champion their causes. Needless to say, for the besieged Palestinians in Gaza, Erdogan is becoming a household name, a folk hero, a new Nasser in fact. The same sentiment is shared throughout the region.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

The US continues to see the world as its own business. It gives itself and its allies, most notably Israel, the right to geopolitical maneuverability. Iran, on the other hand, is censured, derided and punished for even its own internal policies, within its own borders. Thus, an Iranian move into Latin America is naturally viewed as unwarranted, uncalled for and most definitely dangerous as far as the US is concerned.

But Iran is not invading America geopolitical space per se. It is neither financing a terrorist group, nor involved in the ongoing narcotic war. More, there is no historical connection between an interventionist Iran and the bloody past of Latin America, including its former dictators and brutal juntas. In fact, Iran's 'cozying up' to Latin American merely began in 2005. Since then, Iran has opened embassies in several Latin American countries and launched important joint projects that provided funds and work opportunities for thousands of ordinary people. There is no Iranian equivalent to the School of the Americas.

So why the alarm?

Paul McLeary of Aviation Week gives us a clue. Iran's move "has set off a proxy conflict between Iran and Israel in South America, with the presidents of both countries logging frequent-flier miles to win friends in the region. One cause for concern among many analysts is the weekly flight between Caracas and Tehran (with a stop in Damascus) that Iran Air has flown for two years."

He quotes Frida Ghitis: "Flight manifests are kept secret, so neither cargo nor passenger information is well known ...one Israeli report suggested that Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying uranium to Iran."

Two questions emerge. One, is it required of Caracas and Tehran to provide a detailed report of the cargo and passengers to the US and Israel, and perhaps also cc-ed to a list of their friends and allies?

The second pertains to Israel itself. Why is the media most concerned by Iran's 'suspicious' behavior in Latin America, despite the fact that its presence is welcomed by various countries in the hemisphere, while Israel - whose bloody involvement has wrought much chaos to South America - is simply unquestioned, and even cited as a credible source? There is no evidence to link Iran to death squads, or any Iranian firm with "an archive and computer file on journalists, students, leaders, leftists, politicians and so on" to be hunted down, killed or simply made to 'disappear' under brutal regimes. Israel's own history in Latin America seems to inspire little commentary by the ever-vigilant 'many analysts'. McLeary, Ghitis and others need to do their homework before leveling accusations against others. The book Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship may be a good place to start.

Back to the lurking Ayatollahs in America's backyard, Susan Kaufman Purcell is also raising questions, this time about Brazil. In Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed his Iranian counterpart, president Ahmadinejad late November 2009. In the January 7 Wall Street Journal, Purcell claimed: "Until recently, the Obama administration assumed that Brazil and the United States were natural allies who shared many foreign policy interests, particularly in Latin America. Brazil, after all, is a friendly democracy with a growing market economy and Western cultural values." Purcell suggests that Brazil's various achievements - largely beneficial to the US - qualified the country to become "more like us".

The article infers, however, that Brazil is actually "not like us". The fact that it dares to be different - by pursuing a Brazilian-centered foreign policy - shows the audacity of the deceivingly loveable Lula. The Brazilian president is apparently going rouge simply by deviating from Washington's regional and international priorities. Amongst his many crimes: "Instead of expressing concern over Iran's activities in Latin America, Brazil is drawing closer to Tehran and hopes to expand its $2 billion bilateral trade to $10 billion in the near future."

Another: "He reiterated his support for Iran's right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful uses, while insisting that there is no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons." And of course, Purcell doesn't fail to remind us of "the weekly flights between Caracas and Tehran that bring passengers and cargo into Venezuela."

Western media is indeed rife with all sorts of unfounded accusations, baseless speculations and superfluous insinuations. They evoke in the reader and viewer a dread and fear, based in this case on the doomsday scenario whereby fanatical Latin Americans and radical Muslims gang up on America, and ultimately Israel.

Now consider these appalling insinuations by the Economist. First it claims that the Brazilian President "offered support for Iran's work on nuclear technology for (supposedly) peaceful use." Note the word "supposedly".

Then: One of the "instruments" of destabilizing Latin America is Iran's production of "news programmes and documentaries for Bolivian television, no doubt to give a fair and balanced view of the Great Satan." Note the writer's insertion of the little irrelevant term "Great Satan" to convert the act of TV production that challenges Western mainstream media's narrative into a menacing endeavor.

More: Brazil president talked "about Israel's right to stay just where it is on the map." Of course, Lula didn't phrase it that way. This is the writer's attempt to remind us of the claim that Iran has threatened to wipe Israel off the map.

Still, more: "...protesters waved banners reminding Mr Ahmadinejad that the Holocaust had indeed taken place". This provides the big climax - the claim that Iran's president has denied the Holocaust.

But why the charged, exaggerated commentary?

A seemingly random Economist 'advertisement' box embedded with the article, and another long side column at the magazine's website reminds readers of "The Economist Debate Series - January 11-18." The topic of the week, presented with an image of a warplane radar zooming in on the Iranian map, asks the question: "Is It Time to Strike Iran?"

After reading such unsubstantiated, yet disquieting analyses, how would most readers respond?

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

The army in question would change from time to time, but the focus inevitably returned to Egypt. The rumour of an Egyptian military intervention persevered through the years, and it registered deeply in Palestinian psyche, especially among those living in Gaza.

My father, as many in his generation, fought in the Egyptian army and the Palestinian Liberation Army. Following defeat in the war of 1967, he was hauled along wounded and dead Egyptian soldiers across Sinai, as well as on a floating army bridge over the Suez Canal under intense Israeli aerial bombardment. As a child, I once accompanied him on a journey to an impoverished neighborhood in Cairo to look for an Egyptian war buddy of his. When we found out that he was long dead, my father wept. Confused and scared among the ailing buildings, I too cried. Indeed, the bond between Egyptians and Palestinians is historical, everlasting, cemented in blood, sweat and tears.

Yes, everlasting, despite the responses of the Egyptian government to the more recent suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

When the Palestinian people democratically elected Hamas to lead the Palestinian legislature in 2006, they were aware of the possible repercussions. They have become accustomed to the 'collective punishment' employed every time actions fail to meet Israeli expectations. They also understand well the influence of the pro-Israel lobby on American foreign policy, and know of Cairo's commitment to political 'moderation' and unabashed tiptoeing to the US. But never, in their wildest imagination did Palestinians foresee the measures that Egypt would take to stifle their democratic decision, suppress their resistance and cut off the very lifelines that keep Gaza breathing.

Israel has employed every possible trick in its book to weaken Gaza's resolve; yet time after time, it has failed miserably. Even after turning the already starving Gaza Strip into a large and inescapable killing field on December 27, 2008, Gaza is yet to surrender. Three weeks of ceaseless bombardment killed over 1,400 Palestinians and wounded over 5,500 more, but it was no match to Gaza's resolve.

Indeed, Gazans have always devised ways to survive against the odds. With difficulty, they dug tunnels to Egypt, and through these tunnels, basic necessities, such as food, medicine, toys, and some livestock were able to trickle into Gaza. On February 4, 2009, shortly after Israel declared an end to its one-sided military operations, military experts from various, mostly Western countries gathered in a two-day conference hosted by Denmark.

The goal was to halt arms smuggling into Gaza, and not, as should have been the case, to investigate Israel's illegal use of lethal weapons against an unarmed population. Nor was it to call on various countries to halt their weapon exports to Israel.

The response was a moral travesty, to say the least. However, the news regarding this subject ceased for a while, interrupted by an occasional Israeli strike at alleged tunnels, or an Egyptian measure to ensure the closure of all tunnels at its side of the border. Meanwhile, the siege continued unabated, and Egypt held tight to its 'commitment' to ensure its success.

More recently, news of an enormous metal wall that Egypt erected at its border with Gaza has come to the fore. The Egyptian decision is both politically and financially loaded. Considering that the US - spurred on by Israel - has strived to develop ways to completely choke Gaza, one can safely conclude that the decision has not come solely from Egypt, though as a sovereign country the latter must still be held fully accountable. According to Press TV, Karen Abu Zaid, United Nations Relief and Works Agency Commissioner-General described the wall as more dangerous than the Bar Lev Line, which was built by Israel along the eastern coast of the Suez Canal following the capturing of the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt in 1967. The Egyptian wall is arguably more dangerous because it will increase the suffering of an already tormented civilian population.

But more than dangerous, it is also disheartening. Palestinians, including some in the Hamas government never cease to refer to Egypt and Egyptians as "Sister Egypt" and "Egyptian brethren". Why then are Sister Egypt and the Egyptian brethren taking part in this injustice and allowing Israeli violence to perpetuate? Money? Political validation? Attempts at regional relevance and fear of dismissal if they dare defy Washington's will?

None of these reasons are convincing. The ties between Egypt and Palestine are too rooted in history; the rapport is too personal, too familial to allow for material or temporary political interests to stand in the way between two ancient peoples with awe-inspiring histories. Now I fully appreciate why my father wept at the death of his Egyptian friend. And I believe that no steel wall is large or thick enough to undermine that moment; no government policies or self-seeking officials are wicked enough to dent the bond that link the peoples of Palestine and Egypt. I also believe that there should be no amount of money large enough to justify the imprisonment of a whole nation, especially one's own "brethren."

I wonder what is the latest rumour circulated these days by Gaza's taxi drivers. A million Egyptians storm the border with Gaza, carrying food, medicine and toys? Strangely enough, I would still believe it. Those pesky drivers of Gaza!

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

Living under Israeli occupation, in refugee camps or in exile, we Palestinians have endured having everything callously taken from us - our homes, our heritage, our history, our families, livelihoods, freedom, farms, olive groves, water, security, and freedom. In the 1990s, we supported the Oslo Accords two-state solution even though it would have returned to us only 22% of our historic homeland. But Israel repeatedly squandered our generosity, confiscating more Palestinian land to increase illegal Jewish-only colonies and Jewish-only roads. What remains to us now is less than 14% of Historic Palestine, all of it as isolated Bantustans, shrinking ghettos, walls, fences, checkpoints with surly soldiers,and the perpetual encroachment of expanding illegal Israeli colonies.

While the Palestine Authority has led us into a shrinking land mass, less water, more restrictions, ominous walls and merciless slaughter, notable individuals and popular movements have mobilized for Palestine as once happened for South Africa. Moral authorities like former President Jimmy Carter, Nobel Laureates Desmond Tutu and Mairead Maguire, and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson have condemned Israeli Apartheid. Organizations supporting the Divestment and Boycott Campaign against Israel include religious institutions such as the Presbyterian Church, The World Council of Churches, United Church of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Anglican Church, the Federation of European Jews for a Just Peace, among many others. It includes civil and professional organizations such as the National Lawyers Guild, the Irish Municipal, Public and Civil Trade Union in Ireland, as well as labor unions in Canada, Britain, and other nations. An academic boycott of Israel has spread throughout the UK and other parts of Europe and taken root in US universities across the country. The International Solidarity Movement has seen thousands of individuals come to the Occupied Territories to protect Palestinians from the violence of settlers during the olive harvest; to protect children on their daring daily journeys to school; and to bear witness to the inhumanity of military occupation. The Free Gaza movement has transported by boat hundreds of people willing to risk their lives to bring greatly needed supplies to the besieged people of Gaza. This Christmas, internationals will march to the Egypt/Gaza border to break this siege. These are but a few examples of growing popular support for the Palestinian struggle.

When compared with the accomplishments of these grassroots movements, the futility of "negotiations" becomes painfully apparent. It is clear that we cannot look to our leaders (elected or imposed) to achieve justice. Just as only the masses could bring South Africa's Apartheid to its knees, it will be the masses who will also bring Israel's Apartheid crashing. The continued expansion of international action demanding the implementation of Palestinian basic human rights is inevitable.

The notion of religious-ethnocentric entitlement and exclusivity for one people at the expense of another has been rejected the world over. Palestinians reject it and we assert that we are human beings worthy of the same human rights accorded to the rest of humanity; that we are worthy of our homes and farms, our heritage, our churches and mosques, and our history; and that we should not be expected to negotiate with our oppressors for such basic dignities. The two-state solution was and remains an instrument to circumvent the basic human rights of Palestinians in order to accommodate Israel's desire to be Jewish. Polls show that Palestinians refuse to be the enemies of our Jewish brothers and sisters anywhere, just as we refuse to be oppressed by them.

It is time for our shared land to be the inclusive and diverse country it had been. It is time for leaders to follow the people's determined movement toward a single democratic state, with liberty and justice for all, regardless of religion.

Susan Abulhawa is the author of Mornings in Jenin (Bloomsbury, 2010); and Ramzy Baroud is the author of My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, 2009).

Unfortunately, France is not alone; it merely highlights the most obvious manifestation of growing anti-Muslim sentiments throughout Europe. Unearthing the reasons behind the disturbing phenomena is hardly an easy task, for it arguably requires a greater examination of the political, economic and social woes of European states than it does of the 'shortcomings' of Islam.

Islam is a great religion in many respects; it has endured for over 1400 years. Its membership is never confined by skin color, culture, political ideology or geographic boundaries. Its views of antiquity, on equality, women rights and peace are considered progressive even by today's standards.

The detractors of Islam fail to see all this. If Islam is dissected politically or 'academically', the investigation is done for the sake of destroying its repute, and discrediting or humiliating its followers.

The Swiss People's Party (SVP) may claim that their commitment is to keep Switzerland secular, devoid of symbols of oppression (as in a mosque's minaret), but this only sounds like incoherent blabber and reflects nothing but a growing tendency towards racism, intolerance and ethnocentrism. These trends are glaring violations of the liberal philosophies associated with European countries, which guarantee individual and collective rights, including those of self-expression and freedom of speech.

In France, the phenomenon is protracted and more dangerous. Considering that France is the home of five million French Muslims, rightwing tendencies threaten future discord in the country.

The Washington Post reported on December 19 that Bilal Mosque, in the tranquil French town of Castres was desecrated by unknown assailants. "Two pig's ears and a poster of the French flag stapled to the door; a pig's snout dangled from the doorknob. 'White power' and 'Sieg heil' were spray-painted on one side...and 'France for the French' on the other."

Here, one must recall the alarming words of Britain's first Muslim minister, Shahid Malik. Himself a victim of hate crimes, Malik lamented a year and a half ago that many Muslims feel targeted like the "Jews of Europe", and that many British Muslims feel like "aliens in their own country".

While Many Muslims share the same feeling of nationalism and patriotism in their homelands in Europe, rightwing racists - who are unfortunately becoming a dominant force in shaping public views in various European states - insist on a very narrow definition of what makes a French, a British, a German or a Swiss.

There is indeed an identity crisis that is real and frightening. And it's one that is not engulfing Europe alone, but also affects and in some instances has devastated many cultures all over the world. While it is a byproduct of misguided and unchecked globalization, in the case of Europe itself the issue is very national and very personal. The European Union, which started as a purely economic body has morphed into a political and pan-nationalist organization that is attempting, by accident or design, to define a united Europe and a prototypical European. This has raised fears of the loss of national identities or whatever remains of it. Expectedly, it is the politically underrepresented, socially marginalized and economically disadvantaged groups that often pay the price of this sort of national resurgence.

Targeting Muslims is a common denominator that now unifies a great proportion of European political elites and media. The reasons are numerous and obvious. Some European countries are at war (which they have chosen) in various Muslim countries; desperate and failed politicians are in need for constant distractions from their own failures and mishaps; associating Islam with terrorism is more than an acceptable intellectual diatribe, a topic of discussion that has occupied more radio and television airtime than any other; also, pushing Muslims around seems to have few political repercussions - unlike the subjugation of targeting of other groups with political or economic clout.

But is their more to this? A 2007-08 Gallup poll asked the following question: does religion occupy an important place in your life? The vast majority in Western European countries answered with a resounding "no". Only 9 percent of Turkish citizens - a country with a Muslim majority - shared the popular view. Most European Muslims strongly identify with their religion, which has preserved their sense of community, and helped maintain a degree of cultural cohesion and a semblance of collective identity at a time when many in Europe are losing theirs. Muslims must not be blamed for this loss, and nor should they be punished, derided or targeted for daring to hold onto their beliefs.

Returning again to France, what is most alarming about the anti-Muslim measures is that they are largely led by the government itself, rather than a fanatical group of disenchanted ideologues. Eric Besson, the country's Immigration Minister, stated on December 16 that Muslim veils will be grounds of denying citizenships and long-term residence. Besson was only echoing the disquieting policies of conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy who has started a 'national identity campaign' for ensuring an exclusive identity of France - one that is occupied with the targeting of immigrants, particularly Muslims.

Sarkozy, Besson, and Europe's rightwing and far right politicians must understand the possible ramifications if they continue to press with their reckless and alienating policies.

Radicalization is an unavoidable offshoot of group alienation, which is sadly being used to further fuel the anti-immigrant fervor throughout the continent. It is a vicious cycle, the blame for which lies squarely with the savvy politicians and their obvious agendas. As for those who insist on blaming Islam for Europe's woes, they should really find another pastime; the self-indulgent game is too hazardous and must stop.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story.

A just and peaceful resolution is difficult to define, considering that the conception of justice varies both in definition and interpretation. In the case of this conflict, the long-held assumption is that a just resolution is one that would be consistent with international and humanitarian laws, and which would enjoy the largest possible consensus worldwide.

A consensus is indeed at hand and has been for decades; it is one that recognizes the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories as illegal and immoral, that unconditionally acknowledges the illegality of all Jewish settlements in occupied Palestine and the illegal transfer of Israeli settlers to inhabit unlawfully acquired Palestinian land. Strangely enough, despite its very cautious phraseology, the US, especially under the current administration of President Barack Obama recognizes these very facts. But then why is the man who leads the world's only superpower proving not only incapable of achieving what should be a practicable feat, but also going so far as to hinder the efforts of other parties to simply recognize Palestinian rights or pinpoint Israeli injustices?

This is precisely what has just taken place, a repeat of the same infuriating episode for the thousandth time.

A recent proposal presented by Sweden -- the current holder of the rotating European Union presidency -- called on EU members to recognize an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. The proposal was watered down to a mere communiqué, issued by EU foreign ministers on December 8, which calls for the division of Jerusalem to serve as "the future capital of the two states." Naturally, Israel, as the occupying power rejected the statement. But so did the United States. "We are aware of the EU statement, but our position on Jerusalem is clear. We believe that is a final-status issue," declared Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P.J. Crowley. He further declared that "this is best addressed inside a formal negotiation among the parties directly."

Crowley, like all of his bosses, Obama included, knows well that Israel is neither keen on 'direct' nor indirect negotiations, and is deliberately prejudicing any possible just solution with its continuing colonization of occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank. Israel's rightwing extremist government is not bashful about its true intentions, and the smart and savvy Obama is not ignorant of the prospects of a 'direct' negotiation between those with the bulldozers, the tanks and big guns (based in Tel Aviv) and those with dismal press releases (based in Ramallah). But it's not just the rare initiatives of the EU that are being summarily dismissed by the US.

All initiatives, whether by individual states or regional groups, for example by the Arab League, or through international forums such as the United Nations are rejected, derided and at times suspected of anti-Semitism.

This is a continuation of a terrible legacy that goes back decades. The reason such a redundant policy is being highlighted now -- as it should be -- is because Obama promised change and pledged to lead a new decisive course, led by a gentler, kinder and more sensible America. In the Middle East, this is hardly being realized.

Why? Shouldn't the US, in desperately trying to maintain its role as a world leader, and to preserve its economic and strategic interests in the Middle East, embark on the frequently promised new course -- not for the sake of Palestine and the Arabs, but its own?

Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz suggests an answer, one that many of us have already recognized long prior to Obama's presidency, or even his involvement in politics altogether. "In the case of Obama's government in particular, every criticism against Israel made by a potential government appointee has become a catalyst for debate about whether appointing 'another leftist' offers proof that Obama does not truly support Israel," wrote Natasha Mozgovaya on December 4.

Ha'aretz highlighted several cases in point, amongst them the intense war lead by the pro-Israel lobby in Washington against Chas Freeman, a widely respected US official nominated by the Obama administration months ago to chair the National Intelligence Council. He dared voice guarded critique of US foreign policy in the Middle East and became a victim of the worst possible vilification campaign, forcing him to concede the nomination.

Other examples include Robert Malley, a daring American political adviser who wished to believe that his country's national interests took priority over Israel's. He was let go even before the Obama presidency commenced.

More, a 'controversy' is currently 'raging' -- as in, the Israeli lobby is not happy -- over the appointment of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as an intelligence aide. According to Haaretz, "Republican Jews have...protested Hagel's appointment, citing an incident in 2004 when Hagel refused to sign a letter calling on then-president George Bush to speak about Iran's nuclear program at the G8 summit that year."

Stephen M. Walt, a Harvard University professor and co-author of the widely-read The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, recently wrote that "groups in the lobby target public servants like Freeman, Hagel...because they want to make sure that no one with even a mildly independent view on Middle East affairs gets appointed. By making an example of them, they seek to discourage independent-minded people from expressing their views openly, lest doing so derail their own career prospects later on."

Luckily, neither Walt nor numerous other independent-minded Americans like him are afraid to speak their mind, to safeguard the independence and integrity of their country. This should always be the case.

For the time being, don't be surprised when you hear that the US continues to block the path for peace in the Middle East. At least now you know why.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

In between these two peculiar events, the targeting of Muslims in Western countries and the subjugation of entire Muslim nations all over the world has never ceased. Not for a day.

Moreover, the collective targeting of small or large Muslim communities in Western countries, and the deliberate abuse and degradation of Muslim individuals and Islamic symbols (from the Holy Koran to the Prophet Mohammed) has also never ceased.

Bizarrely, most of these actions have been done through "democratic" channels and justified in the name of democracy, on the basis of upholding the principles of secularism and Western values.

Many thoughts come to mind here; all unreservedly angry.

I remember when the word "democracy" used to resonate so loudly among Arabs and Muslims around the world. The more they were denied it, the more they yearned for it. University campuses in Cairo, Gaza and Karachi took their student union elections so very seriously. Innocent blood was spilled in clashes around campuses as students desperately tried to express their right to vote, to speak out and to assemble.

Those were the days, when al-demoqratia, Arabic for democracy, was the buzzword in the Middle East and beyond. Even Palestinian political prisoners held their elections, ever so faithfully, surrounded by highly fortified towers and under the deriding gaze of armed men in the unforgiving heat of the Naqab desert.

Arab and Muslim masses were keen on democracy to the extent that there was a near consensus that democracy, although a Western conception, could be distinguished from the many ills invited by Western interventions, imperialism and wars that scarred and continued to impair the collective Muslim psyche.

An entire school of Muslim thought was in fact established around the concept that democracy and Islam are very much compatible. Such a notion goes back to Egypt's Azharite scholar Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, who argued in the first half of the 19th century that the principles of European modernity were compatible with Islam.

"Al-Tahtawi's work influenced the philosopher Muhammad Abduh [1849-1905], another Azharite who is often described as the founder of Islamic modernism, which is captured in his statement that in Europe he found Islam without Muslims, while in Egypt he found Muslims without Islam," wrote German anthropologist, Frank Fanselow.

If one sets his prejudices aside to ponder this for a moment, one would realize the intellectual valor it takes to consider and even embrace commonalities with the very powers that have instilled so much harm and fear.

Even in their darkest, least proud moments, Muslim intellectuals and nations displayed impressive open-mindedness. They are hardly ever credited for that.

More recently, in Egypt, people tried hard to vote, in the face of beatings, public humiliation and imprisonment. In Palestine in 2006 the price was even higher - starvation. Gaza continues to endure under a medieval Israeli siege, ultimately because of an election.

Muslim communities in the West have long been considered the luckiest; after all, they live in the abodes of democracy. They drink from the fountain of rights and freedoms that never runs dry.

However, these idealized assumptions missed the fact that Western democracy was conditional. And unconditional democracy can only be a farce.

Much has been said to explain the West's faltering on its own commitment to democracy. No, the tragedy of September 11, 2001, is hardly the defining moment that created the growing chasm that made the West fearful of Islam. Despite all that has taken place since then - the constant spewing out of right-wing hatred, evangelical fanatic preaching and all the rest - America is still more tolerant than Europe. Nor was the growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe a response in solidarity to America's woes.

Honestly, the French are not fond of Americans, nor are the Germans necessarily that passionate about the Swiss. But this didn't stop a German Christian Democratic state interior minister, Volker Bouffier, from making a "recommendation" to Muslim communities in his own country: "Naturally the Muslims in Germany have a right to build mosques. But they should make sure not to overwhelm the German population with them."

How do you overwhelm people with minarets? Is this a post-post-post-modernistic logic that we are yet to be informed of?

There are only four minarets in the entire country of Switzerland, a country with a population of approximately 7.6 million people. How overwhelming can that be? And aren't religious freedom and the freedom of collective and individual expression basic rights guaranteed by democratic values?

But this is hardly about a 4.8-meter tall minaret in the northern Swiss town of Langenthal. It's about the fact that the one who suggested the structure is a Muslim furniture salesman by the name of Mutalip Karaademi. He didn't know, of course, that his modest idea of adding a minaret to the community's mosque would generate a nationwide referendum, and an international "controversy".

Karaademi was not trying to "Islamificate" the Swiss. He just wanted his community to have a place for worship (as opposed to the unused paint factory it currently uses for prayer), to be able to express its collective identity without fear. Ironically enough, the Muslim community in Langenthal is mostly Albanians, refugees who fled Kosovo seeking escape and deliverance.

What a strange paradox: Muslims escaping to the West, physically and figuratively, only to find double standards, self-negation and, at times, pure hypocrisy.

For now, however, a new consensus is forming: democracy can be invoked and used against Muslims only, and not for Muslims. It can be manipulated to deny them their identity in Europe and their freedom in Palestine, to ensure their subjugation in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and to meddle in their internal affairs everywhere else.

Al-demoqratia, indeed.

Mr. Lee is an impressive man. He has a commanding presence and is very articulate, despite his soft poise and humble demeanor. He speaks with the confidence of a leader of a great nation, not an island city-state, the smallest nation in Southeast Asia. In fact, Lee's confidence is well earned, and greatly deserved, and, by any reasonable standards Singapore is indeed a great nation. His country, once a site of a small fishing village, which saw a most tumultuous history of hardship, occupation and war, is now a prosperous nation, economically notwithstanding; its GDP per capital makes it the fifth wealthiest country in the world. Singapore's official reserve is estimated at more than US $170 billion. For a country of 4-5 million people, it isn't too bad.

In some way, Singapore is the world's most efficiently managed company. Every facet of society contributes to the prowess of the corporate machinery that never takes a break. Its people are the employees in a hierarchy that has little room or patience for favoritism or corruption. But, despite the callous and, at times dehumanization nature of business, the nation is immensely proud, its people are most helpful, self-assertive, resourceful, expressive and confident.

That explains Mr. Lee's coolness as well. From his opening remarks at the Apec Summit to his last comments, he showed a particularly different breed of leadership. His was neither the reactionary nor the submissive language that is associated with leaderships in countries that are regarded as "small", thus not so consequential.

Hosting an event of such magnitude as one that brings together presidents, prime ministers, foreign, finance and trade ministers of 21 countries - representing more than 40 percent of total world population, nearly 55 percent of its total GDP and about 44 percent of world trade - should be a bit intimidating, daunting even. But not for Singapore, as everything fell into place, in such an impeccable and seemingly effortless manner. The Apec Summit, including its ministerial meetings, adjoining CEO summit, and the Apec leaders' meetings, in addition to a consignment of other significant events on the side, all progressed with very few problems. Life in Singapore, outside the immediate grounds of the summit venues, carried on as usual.

I had prepared several questions to ask Mr. Lee. My first pertained to the APEC leaders' faltering on their commitment to the environment, ahead of the Copenhagen summit on climate change.

In their initial draft, according to the Dow Jones Newswires, the leaders had committed to a specific agenda. That, however, abruptly changed. "Global emissions will need...to be reduced to 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050," the draft read. The final statement however, reneged on that promise, delving instead to good sounding, yet hollow avowals: "Global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will need to be accompanied by measures, including financial assistance and technology transfer to developing economies for their adaptation to the adverse impact of climate change."

It was strange how such summits tend to resort to specifics when such issues as tariffs, protectionism, investment, trade, currencies, and so on are referenced. But when human development, the environment and other subjects that have no formidable champions to back them up are mentioned, then its all about clichés and truisms.

Luckily, or unfortunately for me, other journalists had similar concerns. Here goes my first question.

Then I wished to ask about free trade: how can the less powerful members of Apec survive a free trade agreement with giant economies, which demand everyone but themselves, to drop tariffs and abandon protectionism?

Currently Apec member economies, as they wish to be called, don't have a binding free trade agreement, but a de-facto one, since most Apec members are bound by various regional and bi-lateral agreements. But US President Barack Obama is now leading a campaign to cap the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum with one single agreement. It's, more or less, an attempt at recapturing the lost markets of Asia, where China has in recent years emerged as a powerful, albeit affable partner.

President Obama spent eight days on his first trip to Asia touring Japan, then Singapore - where he attended the Apec Summit - then China and finally South Korea. His visit was a watershed moment in this history between the US and Asia, the former being more modest, the latter more assertive. "Equality", as in "more equal" relationship, whether in trade or politics, was the buzzword that accompanied Obama throughout his trip, especially in Japan and China. In Singapore, Obama was a star, not exactly because of the country he represents, but because of him as an individual who promised earthshaking changes. The fact that he is yet to deliver on any of his promises seemed unimportant.

But even a bigger star, was Chinese President Hu Jintao, not because of him as an individual, but because of the great country he represents.

What a strange turn of fortunes.

Thousands in Singapore, a country with a Chinese majority, many of whom are the descendants of poor immigrants from South China, came out to meet President Hu. Many tears were shed as he spoke, with force, command but also benevolence.

Singapore's Apec 2009 was the forum where the new balances of power were at full display: China was making its move to the front of the line and the US, hesitantly but willingly was making room, accepting the unavoidable ordains of power. What could follow is either a natural economic, thus political transition and repositioning, or a new cold war, in which other Asia-Pacific countries - and others - are likely to be embroiled; for how can countries, such as Chile, Mexico, Brunei Darussalam, Peru and even Singapore itself, for example, benefit from such gatherings without being trampled in the long run by the march forward or hasty retreat of the economic giants? That was the last question I wished to ask Mr. Lee. The questions and answers period however, was cut short despite the palpable agitation of many journalists.

The Apec Summit, although answering a few questions, certainly delineated the new paradigm shift. It was a chance for Asia to assert itself, and for others to listen. But it also presented a new set of priorities, an agenda even, one in which the environment didn't seem to top the list. A most unfortunate conclusion, indeed.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Respecting the message on his T-Shirt, I try to keep to myself, but find it increasingly difficult. The wife is completely covered, all but her face. The contradictions are ample, overwhelming even.

The attire of the family, the attitude of the ladies and even the man with the provocative T-Shirt are all signs of the cultural schizophrenia that permeates many societies in the so-called Third World. It's a side effect of globalization that few wish to talk about.

It's almost always about trade, foreign investment, capital flow and all the rest. But what about culture, identity, traditions and ways of life; do these things amount to anything?

True, Globalization has various manifestations. If viewed strictly from economic terms, then the debate delves into trade barriers, protectionism and tariffs. Powerful countries demand smaller countries to break down all trade barriers, while maintaining a level of protectionism over their own. Smaller countries, knowing that they cannot do much to hide from the hegemonic nature of globalization, form their own economic clubs, hoping to negotiate fairer deals. And the economic tug-of-war continues, between diplomacy and threats, dialogue and arm twisting. This is the side of globalization with which most of us are familiar.

But there is another side of globalization, one that is similarly detrimental to some countries, and profitable to others: cultural globalization - not necessarily the domination of a specific culture, in this case Western culture, over all the rest - but rather the unbridgeable disadvantage of poorer countries, who lack the means to withstand the unmitigated takeover of their traditional ways of life by the dazzling, well-packaged and branded 'culture' imparted upon them around the clock.

What audiences watch, read and listen to in most countries outside the Western hemisphere is not truly Western culture in the strict definition of the term, of course. It's a selective brand of a culture, a reductionst presentation of art, entertainment, news, and so on, as platforms to promote ideas that would ultimately sell products. For the dwarfed representation of Western culture, it's all about things, tangible material values that can be obtained by that simple and final act of pulling out one's credit card. To sell a product, however, media also sell ideas, often one sided, and create unjustifiable fascinations with ways of life that hardly represent natural progression for many vanishing cultures and communities around the world.

Recently in some Gulf country, a few Turkish teenagers turned an Internet café into a shouting match as they engaged one another in some violent computer game. I desperately tried to mind my own business, but their shrieks of victory and defeat were deafening. "Kill the Terrorist", one of them yelled in English, with a thick Turkish accent. The "Rs" in "terrorists" rolled over his tongue so unnaturally. For a moment, he was an "American", killing "terrorists", who, bizarrely looked more Turkish than American. As I walked out, I glanced at the screen. Among the rubble, there was a mosque, or what was left of it. The young Turkish Muslim was congratulated by his friends for his handy work.

There is nothing wrong with exchanges of ideas, of course. Cultural interactions are historically responsible for much of the great advancements and evolution in art, science, language, even food and much more. But, prior to globalization, cultural influences were introduced at much slower speed. It allowed societies, big and small, to reflect, consider, and adjust to these unique notions over time. But the globalization of the media is unfair. It gives no chance for mulling anything over, for determining the benefits or the harms, for any sort of value analysis. News, music and even pornography are beamed directly to all sorts of screens and gadgets. When Beyonce sings she is a 'single lady', the whole world must know, instantly. This may sound like a harmless act, but the cultural contradictions eventually morph into conflicts and clashes, in figurative and real senses.

More, it makes little sense, for example, that Asian audiences are consumers of Fox News and Sky News, while both are regarded as rightwing media platforms in their original markets. And what can Nepali television, for example, do to control media moguls and morphing media empires all around? Young people grow, defining themselves according to someone else's standards, thus the Turkish teenager, temporarily adopting the role of the "American", blows up his own mosque.

Globalization is not a fair game, of course. Those with giant economies get the lion's share of the 'collective' decision-making. Those with more money and global outlook tend to have influential media, also with global outlook. In both scenarios, small countries are lost between desperately trying to negotiate a better economic standing for themselves, while hopelessly trying to maintain their cultural identity, which defined their people, generation after generation throughout history.

The Muslim family eventually left the coffee shop. The husband watched MTV throughout his stay; the young wife, clicked endlessly on her iPhone, and the older woman glanced at the TV from time to time, then quickly looked the other way. One is certain that a few years ago, that family would have enjoyed an entirely different experience. Alas, a few years from today, they might not even sit at the same table.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

But why did the author, like so many others, choose to turn what should have been a constructive argument, into a diatribe? Was it necessary to charge Western discourses, resorting to the ever predictable classification of "us and them", instead of trying to find a common cause?

The same point can be made regarding other discussions, whether pertaining to human rights (women's rights in particular), the environment, labor rights, and many others.

In her defense, Amirah Sulaiman was simply following an existing pattern, commonly used to delineate one's cultural or religious progression, at the expense of another.

But it's more than that, it's also a defense mechanism, a haunting reminder that the alleged civilizational clash, although more imagined and politicized, than real, pervades many aspects of our perception of ourselves and of others.

Among Muslim intellectuals, as in societies, this paradigm is omnipresent.

Cultural animosity, collective defensiveness, racism (and Orientalism), among other overriding cultural trends existed long before distained US foreign policy in the Middle East became the defining norm, before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. But these events emboldened existing arguments on both sides, with Muslims solidifying as a collective victim, and the US, from a Muslim point of view, seen as a vulgar, but true representation of the West.

Of course, Muslims and Islam had their own ominous representations in the US, thus 'Western' media, culture and psyche - the dagger wielding bearded man, who abuses women, whenever he takes time away from blowing up infidels. As comical as I intended this to sound, as disturbingly true such a depiction is in the minds of many.

It would be utterly unfair and largely inaccurate to equate the 'Western' misrepresentation of Islam and Muslims, with the latter's misrepresentation of the West. The former approaches its caricatured depiction from a chest thumping, Fox News mentality of militarily powerful and economically stable countries. Its view of the other is largely hegemonic and its standard solution to bringing wars to an end is with military surges and the increasing of military assistance (with Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan being the current cases in point.)

Collective Muslim identity however is largely fragmented, between governments that only represent themselves, and peoples facing many forms of oppression: political tyranny at home, external repression (war, foreign interventions, etc), economic uncertainty (fuelled by inequality and compounded by unfiltered globalization), and extremism.

The so-called war on terror, for obvious reasons, cemented that fragmentation. On one hand, it reinforced many Muslims' growing sense of victimization; a notion that itself resulted in both submissiveness and extremism. On the other it inspired a re-think, positive at times, self-negating at others: it kindled a affirmative sense of identity and pride among a generation desperate to identify itself according to its own priorities and on its own turf, while, on the other hand, it led to a (minor) movement of intellectual migration, which sought in the 'West' an escape from the oppressive reality, of which, of course the 'West' is equally responsible.

But it was not war alone (and in itself) that shaped Muslim perceptions of the 'West'; it was rather the US' and (to lesser extent Britain's) insistence that their war championed an essentially Western discourse on democracy and human rights. Such arguments took place in an already hostile atmosphere: incessant media and academic mutterings about Islam's shortcomings, and a growing right wing, racist tendencies in various Western countries targeting immigrants and minorities, many of whom are Muslims.

When such political, military and intellectual encroachment is backed by such statements as that made by US Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Lieutenant General William G. Boykin (now retired), then the plot thickens, and the collective polarization of both societies grows. Boykin, author of "Never Surrender: A Soldier's Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom," became famous for his infamous quote, several years ago, in reference to a Muslim militant in Mogadishu: "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

This was a lone quotation, of course, in a sea of bigoted references that defined many officials and media pundits during the Bush Administration. Such voices are now, somewhat mute, although, its hard to believe that the advent of President Barack Obama has altered a culture in its entirety.

It takes generations for genuine trust to take hold, and the countdown cannot possibly start as long as one US solider is stationed in a Muslim country for the purpose of conducting war and occupation.

Yet again, there is more to all of this. Reversing intellectual dogmas and collective realizations is too convoluted a process; it requires time, action and good will.

In the meantime, Muslims, who insist on living in the shadow of the 'West' as unreserved aficionados or obsessed detractors must redefine their own discourses. As for the latter, they must not allow war alone, MTV consumer media culture, hegemonic globalization and racist remarks by a politician or a born again evangelical to taint their entire view of what are essentially unique, diverse and in many ways impressive civilizations that have done much good. Indeed, there is the like of Boykin, but there are millions of others who are peace-loving, ordinary people, some of whom are ardent advocates of human rights, anti-war campaigners, including the thousands who have repeatedly broken the siege on Gaza, and previous to that Iraq. Muslims too must quit caricaturing them, reducing them to enemies, juxtaposing Muslims' essential righteousness with 'Western' essential depravity. Not only are such reductions inaccurate and self-defeating, they also break down possible alliances between the forces of good in this world, in a time when they are of essence.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon.

Mahmoud Habbash, the PA Minister of Social Affairs is but one of those individuals. His appearances on Aljazeera, during those fateful days were many. On one half of the screen would be screaming, disfigured children, mutilated women, and search parties digging in the dark for dead bodies, at times entire families. On the other, was Habbash, spewing political insults at his Hamas rivals in Gaza, repeating the same message so tirelessly parroted by his Israeli colleagues. Every time his face appeared on the screen, I cringed. Every unruly shriek of his, reinforced my sense of shame. Shame, perhaps, but never confusion. Those who understand how the Oslo agreement of September 1993 morphed into a culture that destroyed the very fabric of Palestinian society can fully appreciate the behavior of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank during the Gaza war, before it and today.

But especially today.

Those who hoped that the Israeli atrocities in Gaza would rekindled a sense of remorse among the egotistical elites in Ramallah, were surely disappointed when the PA withdrew its draft resolution supporting recommendations made by South African Judge Richard Goldstone. The Goldstone report is the most comprehensive, and transparent investigation as of yet into what happened in Gaza during the 23-day war. It decried Israeli terror, and chastised Palestinians as well. But the focus on Israel undoubtedly and deservingly occupied much of the nearly 600-page report. The next step was for the Human Rights Council to send the report for consideration to the United Nations Security Council, which was to study the findings for a possible referral of the case to the International Criminal Court e in the Hague. Such a move would have been historic. Knowing the full implications of such a possibility, Hamas accepted the report's recommendations in full. Israel, backed by its traditional US ally, rejected it, leveling all sorts of accusations and insults on the world-renowned Jewish judge.

The draft resolution - condemning Israel and calling for the transfer of the report to the UNSC - was due for a vote at the Council on October 2. Alas, it was withdrawn at the behest of the Palestinian Authority and its president Mahmoud Abbas himself. Palestinian friends and allies at UNHRC were shocked, but obliged. They were equally disappointed when they watched PA envoys discussing the matter, not with the Asian, African or other traditional allies at the Council, but with US and European diplomats, who seemed to have a greater sway over Palestinian political action than those who have for decades supported Palestinian rights at every turn.

Something went horribly wrong. How could a leader of an occupied and suffering nation commit such a 'mistake', deferring an urgent vote and discussion on a report pertaining to the death of over 1,400 people, the maiming and wounding of thousands more, to a later date, six months from today?

Theories flared. Israeli and other media argued that US pressure on PA president Mahmoud Abbas was the main reason behind the supposedly unanticipated move. A positive vote on the resolution would jeopardize the 'peace process', therefore any action must be stifled for the sake of giving the 'peace process' a chance, was the rationale.

Amira Hass of Haaretz opined, "The chronic submissiveness is always explained by a desire to 'make progress.' But for the PLO and Fatah, progress is the very continued existence of the Palestinian Authority, which is now functioning more than ever before as a subcontractor for the IDF, the Shin Bet security service and the Civil Administration."

Jonathan Cook, however, offered another view: "Israel warned it would renege on a commitment to allot radio frequencies to allow Wataniya, a mobile phone provider, to begin operations this month in the West Bank. The telecommunications industry is the bedrock of the Palestinian economy, with the current monopoly company, PalTel, accounting for half the worth of the Palestinian stock exchange."

"No blood for mobile phones," should perhaps be the new chant in Palestine. But it's that sad fact that held the Palestinian will hostage for too many years. However, it's not just mobile companies whose interests triumph over Gaza's agony. Indeed, the post-Oslo culture has espoused a class of contractors. These are businessmen who are either high-ranking officials in the PA and the Fatah party, or both, or closely affiliated with them. Much of the billions of dollars of international aid that poured into Palestine following the signing of Oslo found its way into private bank accounts. Wealth generated more wealth and "export and import" companies sprung up like poison ivy amidst the poor dwelling of refugees throughout the occupied territories. The class of businessmen, still posing as revolutionaries, encroached over every aspect of Palestinian society, used it, controlled it, and eventually suffocated it. It espoused untold corruption, and, naturally, found an ally in Israel, whose reign in the occupied territories never ceased.

The PA became submissive not out of fear of Israeli wrath per se, but out of fear that such wrath would disrupt business, the flow of aid thus contracts. And since corruption is not confined by geographical borders, PA officials abroad took Palestinian shame to international levels. Millions marched in the US, in Europe, in Asia, South America and the rest of the world, chanting for Gaza and its victims, while some PA ambassadors failed to even turn out to participate. When some of these diplomats made it to public forums, it was for the very purpose of brazenly attacking fellow Palestinians in Hamas, not to garner international solidarity with their own people.

Readily blaming 'American pressure' to explain Abbas' decision at the UNHRC no longer suffices. Even the call on the 74-year-old Palestinian leader to quit is equally hollow. Abbas represents a culture, and that culture is self-seeking, self-serving and utterly corrupt. If Abbas exits, and considering his age, he soon will, Mohammed Dahlan could be the next leader, or even Mahmoud Habbash, who called on Gaza to rebel against Hamas as Israel was blowing up Palestinian homes and schools left and right.

Palestinians who are now calling for change following the UN episode, must consider the Oslo culture in its entirety, its 'revolutionary' millionaires, its elites and contractors. A practical alternative to those corrupt must be quickly devised. The Israeli wall is encroaching on Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, and a new war might be awaiting besieged Gaza. Time is running out, and our collective shame is nearly complete.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

The possible outcomes of the Honduran crisis are likely to define the coming era for Latin America and the US future role in that hemisphere, and, in fact, beyond it. Indeed, the story is much more elaborate than a daring president holed up in a foreign embassy in his own country.

In her second visit to Asia as US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton declared on July 21 in Bangkok, "The US is back." The declaration was disconcerting to many Asian countries, despite Clinton's indistinct qualifications afterwards. Asian countries, exploring regional unity and economic cooperation are well aware of the subtle meaning of the term. However, it's unlikely that politically stable and economically prospering Asia countries would allow for unwarranted outside interferences, especially with the growing Chinese regional influence and the election of Yukio Hatoyama the prime minister of Japan.

But how would Latin America feel about the US interference? The outcome of the Honduran coup should sufficiently answer this question.

Since the introduction of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the politics and economic structures of Latin American countries subsisted as a component of US foreign policies, regardless of who presided in the White House. The region's economies seemed, at times, a laboratory for economic theories hatched at various US academic institutions. Many Latin American countries existed, and a meager existence at that, between US interventions, self-seeking local oligarchy and wilderness and chaos wrought by military dictatorships. In many instances, these three components were intrinsically linked.

But US influence in that region, as in the rest of the world, began to fade. The neoconservative wars in the Middle East and South Asia were but desperate, now failed attempts at salvaging some of the dwindling influence.

The former Bush Administration left Latin America to its own devises as US military adventures elsewhere took a toll on the country, militarily, economically and politically, at home and abroad. But as Clinton promised a return to Asia, the Obama administration attempted a return to Latin America as well, a region that is significantly different from yesteryear, as a new form of popular socialism was taking hold (in Venezuela, Bolivia, and elsewhere) without wholly disturbing the economic patterns that long governed these countries. While many didn't welcome President Hugo Chavez's outspokenness, few in Latin America, except for a few remaining US allies, considered him a threat. To the contrary, the new age has promised greater cooperation among all economic sectors between Latin American countries than any other period in the past. A new Latin America was making its debut, more equitable than before, politically stable, and economically promising, if not, in some cases, prosperous.

Indeed, the US returned to a different reality, a return that, at first was welcomed, even by Chavez himself. Obama spoke a language that soothed much fears and fostered a sense of promise.

"At times we sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations; there is simply engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values," declared Obama on April 19, at the Summit of the Americas, to the pleasure and relief of his audience.

Did that mean no more coups, military interventions, economic sanctions, political intimidation and all forms of coercion that defined much of the two hemispheres' relationship of many years? Certainly, Latin American leaders, or most of them, hoped so.

But then, the democratically elected President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya was overthrown on June 28. It was a classic Latin American junta move. The popular leader was escorted in his pajamas and deported to another country. The coup leader, Roberto Micheletti lead a series of draconian measures, starting with the installation of a new government of allies and cronies - with the blessing of the local oligarchy - and ending with the declaration of emergency decree limiting civil liberties. After several attempts and many dramatic episodes, Zelaya returned to his country and was holed up in the Brazilian embassy, in Tegucigalpa, surrounded by a military that merely represent the very poor country's very rich rulers: the oligarchs and the generals.

In some way, the coup in Honduras helped highlight the new order in the continent, as displayed in the unity of many Latin American countries, the steadfastness of its regional organizations, and the growing influence of the democratically elected governments. But it also highlighted the precarious position of the US administration: condemning the coup on one hand (as did President Obama, and clearly so) and condemning Zelaya's courageous action (as did Hillary Clinton, and clearly so.) Clinton described Zelaya's action as "reckless." She was not alone, of course as the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, Lewis Amselem said Zelaya's return was "irresponsible and foolish." Zelaya should stop "acting as though he were starring in an old movie," he counseled. Worse, US Republicans, who see the coup leaders as trusty allies reminiscent of their allies of the past, are flocking to the Honduran capital in dangerous attempts at validating the coup leaders as legitimate statesmen.

Between Obama's anti-coup stance, and his own Department of State's anti-Zelaya rhetoric (and Republican giddiness over the prospects of their country's 'return' to Latin America), the US position lacks clarity, a dangerous notion at a time when Latin America expected a clear US divorce from the past, and "engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values." President Obama may be sincere, but he must ensure that he acts upon his promises, not for Latin America's sake, but for his own country's future relationship with that part of the world. As for Latin America itself, the repercussions of the Brazilian embassy's siege, and the future of democracy in Honduras will either set a terrible precedent in an age of hope, or serve as further proof that the ghosts of the past will no longer haunt Latin America, no matter how much the reviled generals toil.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

The Iran nuclear threat - although theater is a more suitable term - was highlighted repeatedly, first by US President Barack Obama during a UN speech on September 23, then again by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the next day. The latter came armed with maps and relentlessly provoked Holocaust memories, following the ever so predictable, albeit insensitive and deceptive pattern.

This charade was meant to distract from the nearly 600 page UN report, prepared by South Africa judge Richard Goldstone and others, dedicated mostly to Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

Confirming that Israel wantonly used weapons, including illegal weapons, against a defenseless civilian population in Gaza and going so far to say that Israel did not only commit war crimes, but indeed may have also committed crimes against humanity, the findings of the report were all set by the wayside. The report was utterly rebuked by Netanyahu and his ilk, arrogantly disregarded and shelved.

Concurrently, Israel's official statement regarding the IAEA's pressure on Israel to sign on to the Non-Proliferation Treaty was that Israel "deplored" such a notion. The Israeli conceit may be redundant, but is as ever infuriating.

Many of Israel's devoted supporters accused the Goldstone mission of fabricating conclusions before the investigations even came to a close.

And so yet again, Israel unhesitatingly established that they it's above the law, promptly and successfully turning the world's attention to the greater menace: Iran.

It seems that President Obama is also learning some painful lessons regarding the balance of power between the US and Israel, going into negotiations in Washington this past week - along with Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas - with a strong stance for the complete freeze of all settlement activity, and ending with clear and potent calls for the Palestinians to continue down the road of diplomacy inspite of Israel's refusal to consider the option of adhering to international law. In the words of Israeli writer, Uri Avnery, "No point denying it: in the first round of the match between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, Obama was beaten."

Learning from past history, one can hardly be optimistic to expect a US victory in the second round, or anytime soon for that matter.

And thereafter, the Israeli cue was emulated, and Obama followed it to the letter. Israel's recent use of illegal weapons on civilians, its arsenal of hundreds of nuclear weapons and its refusal to consider disarmament paled in comparison to the potential threat that could arise should Iran seek a nuclear weapon some time in the future.

Obama's words to Ahmedinejad and the people of Iran at the UN were decisive: "They are going to have to make a choice: Are they willing to go down the path to greater prosperity and security for Iran, giving up the acquisition of nuclear weapons ... or will they continue down a path that is going to lead to confrontation."

This is sure to ignite a war of words, to the pleasure of Netanyahu and his extremist government.

But the outcome of this duel will certainly exceed the realm of words.

It seems that Obama's rebuke and Netanyahu's declarations could actually lead to the detriment of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and indeed to us all, by encouraging nations who until this point do not possess nuclear weapons to expedite the creation of their own arsenal. After all, what we have learned from this episode is that nations who do not yet possess weapons of mass destruction had better get on the band-wagon and make some, for it seems that without them, they are nothing more than sitting ducks.

How ironic it is, and what a sweet-talker Netanyahu is, to successfully divert the worlds eye, ears and conscience away from what he has indeed done, to the dangerous notion of what another man with up until this point can only be branded for fiery speeches, could do some time in the future.

As for Ahmedinejad's crusade for Iran, it could be very possible that in the end, the ones who will pay for his bold declarations will be as usual, the Palestinians, who after the scourge of Israel's Operation Cast Lead nearly one year ago, still await the bare necessities to rebuild, still thirst for clean water and basic sustenance. Netanyahu has been tireless at drawing parallels between Iran and Gaza, presenting them both to the world as dire threats to the existence of the Jewish State. When addressing the UN in New York on September 24, he branded Iran once again, exhorting that. "The struggle against Iran pits civilization against barbarism. This Iranian regime is fueled by extreme fundamentalism. What starts as attacks on Jews always ends up engulfing others. This regime embodies the extremes of Islamic fundamentalism."

Interesting words from a man whose former administration and current administration could very well face the International Criminal Court for the endorsing the carrying out of crimes against humanity.

Such utterances make one wonder, just who in the world are we to trust, and who in the world are we to fear?

For the time being however, one can only hope that the international community reject all attempts to be blinded by Netanyahu's fear mongering, and insist on a stern and decisive investigation into the alleged war crimes in Gaza, as presented in the Goldstone report so that the real culprits, not the imagined ones in Tehran, pay for their heinous crimes against the defenseless people of the Strip.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

But Hijab was not the only one who expressed optimism. Others did, encouraged perhaps, by the report's use of terminology unfamiliar in a conflict where empirical experience has shown that Israeli actions, no matter how outrageously violent, will have no meaningful legal repercussions whatsoever.

Goldstone's report, released on September 15, made some important recommendations, following a most thorough investigation that was carefully compiled by the mission - which was organized by the UN Human Rights Council last April.

One is that the UN Security Council should set up a team of experts to monitor Israel's investigations of the war crimes committed in Gaza. If Israel fails to do so, then the situation should be referred to the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

This raises many questions, lead amongst them is: did Israel commit war crimes in Gaza, and, second, is Israel capable of conducting an honest investigation into those crimes, considering the state's bloody legacy and lack of any serious legal accountability.

Goldstone answers both questions.

"The mission concluded that actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly in some respects crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force," Goldstone told reporters on September 16. He also said that the Israeli government has carried out no credible investigation.

Despite his recommendations that UN experts follow the progress of the internal investigation by Israel, and the Palestinians (since they too were accused of violating international law by lobbing home-made rockets into Israel, without taking into account the possible harm to civilians) it's puzzling why Goldstone would think that any genuine investigation is possible in the first place.

Goldstone knows, as many of us already do, that the events in Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of 1,387 (other estimates put the number at 1,417, mostly civilians, including over 300 children), the wounding of thousands more, the targeting of an already dilapidating infrastructure (hospitals, police stations, factories, schools, and even chicken farms) of a deprived and besieged society was very much a political decision made at the highest levels by the likes of Olmert, Livni, Barak and other serial criminals who have tormented Palestinians for too long.

Palestinians were also chastised for rockets fired from besieged Gaza. Of course, Goldstone was not expected to justify or applaud the homemade rockets, or even underline their lack of effectiveness, as four Israelis were killed by rocket fire, during the period of the war. Out of the nine Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting, four were killed in friendly fire.

While both Hamas and the PA fully cooperated with Goldstone and his colleagues, Israel fully rejected the mission, refusing entry into Israel or Gaza, forcing the use of alternative routes into the besieged strip, through Egypt.

Israeli officials claim that the report was pre-written, rendering it biased from the start. They used the same predictable pattern of smears, redundant diatribes and predictable language.

Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman said the report created unjust "equivalence of a democratic state with a terror organization," in reference to Hamas.

Following the good old democracy reference, racism kicks in. "We have nothing to be ashamed of, and don't need lessons in morality from a committee established by Syria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Somalia," Levy said. Apparently dark-skinned people of the South are both incapable of being democratic or moral. Only Israel and her allies are capable of those qualities.

"The Goldstone report has set a new standard for equating the behavior of democratic nations and terrorists," wrote Richard Sideman, President of the New York-based American Jewish Committee in a letter published in the New York Times on September 18.

The same disingenuous sentiment utilized by Levy and Sideman (how curious that both seemed to be using the same script) echoed by many Israeli officials and their lobbyists abroad, who went into crisis management mode following the release of the report.

But why should they care?

Could it be because Goldstone called on the 192-member General Assembly to establish an escrow fund so that Israel can compensate Palestinians in Gaza? Israel would never spend its hard-earned US tax payers money on such frivolous matters.

Could it be because the Human Rights Council is convening on September 29 in Geneva to discuss the report, and could call for its transfer to the Security Council, and even the ICC?

Could it be because the report's findings might empower an already growing boycott movement world-wide?

Could it be because it's much harder to doubt the credibility of Goldstone, to smear him as anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew?

Could it be because all these factors are escalating Israeli fears that the "era of impunity" is indeed over?

"Perhaps next time we set out to wage another vain and miserable war, we will take into account not only the number of fatalities we are likely to sustain, but also the heavy political damage such wars cause," wrote Israeli columnist Gideon Levy.

One would have to wait for the next miserable war, the next massacre to find out whether Israel has learned its lesson. Until then, thousands of starved, desperate yet resilient Palestinians in Gaza continue to live in their makeshift tents, atop the rubble, which was once called home, awaiting food, cement and international justice.

The 9/11 event should have never taken place. Regardless of the situation, targeting civilians is unconditionally reviled. No matter where we stand on war, and how do we wish to rationalize and define extremism, and even terror, we must pause to remember those who died on that day, and the many, many more who died in the months and years that followed.

Sadly, we must even pause today for those who will die tomorrow, to avenge the victims of the twin towers. 9/11 was a tragedy that should have been studied within the parameters of US foreign policies vis-à-vis Muslim countries, in the Middle East region in particular. If we wish not to venture that far, then an honest look at the period that followed the first Gulf War of 1990-91, and the tragic sanctions that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, is certainly warranted.

Anger, when becomes protracted and multifaceted, is at risk of inspiring extremism and rationalizing terror. But there are other facets to be examined when political violence is to be scrutinized. 9/11 cannot be divorced from surrounding events, preceding tragedies or subsequent ones. By not doing so, one undermines the seriousness of the tragedy.

And while one simply cannot pardon blind hate or terror, how can one honestly argue that the millions who perished in Iraq, prior or following 9/11 ought not to be remembered on that day as well.

Does their fate have any correlation to the tragedy? And what about the many thousands who died in Afghanistan, including the latest 90 people who were burned alive when the NATO forces bombed two fuel tankers in the northern part of the country a few days ago? Do they not deserve commemoration as well? Are not their destinies somehow intimately intertwined? This cannot be denied.

Yet, such a view is overshadowed by another, which in some way reflects man's most basic primal instincts and the lust for sheer revenge. Examining the Bush legacy -- which, if anything, gave life and credence to the idea that violence is a justified political means to achieve set goals and even economic interests -- one comes face to face with the ultimate antitheses of such a notion.

But with the help and expertise of media czars, especially the likes of Fox News, such primeval ways of thinking were embraced with ease. "Shock and Awe" was much more sophisticated than 9/11; it was accompanied by a voice over, and eloquent commentators who kindly explained exactly what we saw on the screen, but the idea was still the same. Innocents died so horribly that political scores would be settled and gains could be exacted. But Barack Obama is not George W. Bush, we are told. The new president has promised to fix what his predecessor had destroyed, and Muslims -- and in fact the world -- are still waiting to see.

When the US president spoke in Cairo, on June 4, he said: "So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations -- to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope 
of all humanity."

Obama spoke and Muslims listened. They clapped and cheered when he greeted the Cairo crowd with "Assalamu alaikum". As sadly as it were, they were desperate for validation, for hope, that perhaps in the recognition of these common aspirations of which he spoke of, that perhaps there would be some softening of the US iron fist that is slowly strangling Muslims in so many parts of our stricken world.

And although Obama went to great lengths to express a common humanity, his forces continue to ravage Muslims without pause: news from Afghanistan is ever grim. Iraq's calamities are also compared. His statements on Palestine are lukewarm and faithfully precluded with a solemn pledge of America's undying allegiance to the Jewish State.

Keeping these things in mind, it is at times difficult to have full trust in the sincerity of the president's proclamations. Muslims, like the rest of humanity, remember 9/11 with a somber pause. They remember the day's victims, all of them and they wonder if the death count will cease any time soon.

The tragedy of 9/11 and the previous and subsequent tragedies are too serious, too terrible to give up hope so quickly that common sense will prevail, that horrible scenes would be replaced by positive ones, that dialogue would replace hostility, and that Obama will meet even if the minimum expectations of his fans in the Muslim world.

9/11 should not be a political episode to underscore the reason of why the fight in various Muslim countries should continue; nor should it be an opportunity to rejoice at the death of 
the "infidels".

We should collectively abhor the rationalization of violence on the basis of vengeance, and consider what it might take to relieve those afflicted with a sense of hostility: Could it perhaps be that our common aspirations for peace and freedom are somehow out of reach? Could it be possible that we just might be culpable for the denial of those simple aspirations of peace and freedom?

We must embrace again the anguish of what happened on 9/11, ever aware that the body count grows even today. And although the wreckage of that horrible day was cleared away years ago, the lessons of that day are still buried beneath our anger, frustration, and prejudice.

To unearth these lessons, we must widen our horizons, from New York to Baghdad, from Kabul to Gaza, cities, which are in some way worlds apart, but in other ways much closer than we may innocently suspect.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

One should know that public support for the war has greatly diminished, when conservative commentators like The Washington Post columnist George Will write: "US forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy. America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, air strikes and small, potent Special Forces units."

Okay, so his narrative is still ultimately violent, but the fact remains that the war mood is changing. After all, Will's 1 September article was entitled, "Time to Get Out of Afghanistan."

Dan Senor and Peter Wehner responded with a peculiar diatribe in the New York Times, accusing Will of allowing his party allegiance to influence his views on the war. The two authors, senior fellows at major US think tanks, offered a bloody rationale wrapped in deceptive wording. They argued that historically Democrats opposed Republican wars and Republicans have done the same, and that must change. It was implied that pretty much every major war in recent decades was a war that served US national security interests; therefore, "Republicans should resist the reflex that all opposition parties have, which is to oppose the stands of a president of the other party because he is a member of the other party." In other words, yes to war, whether by Democrats or Republicans.

The intellectual wrangling, of course, is not happening in a vacuum; it almost never does. Indeed, there is much politicking going on; intense deliberation in Washington, political debates in London; defensive French statements, and more. It seems that the war in Afghanistan is reaching a decisive point, militarily in Afghanistan itself, and politically in major Western capitals.

But why the sudden hoopla over Afghanistan? For after all, the bloody war has been grinding on for eight long years.

The Taliban and various groups opposing the Kabul government and their Western benefactors are gaining ground, not just in the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. Daring Taliban attacks are now taking place in the north as well, long seen as peaceful, thus requiring little attention. On 26 August a roadside bomb hit the car of the chief of the provincial Justice Department in the northern Kunduz province, killing him, and sending shock waves through Kabul. The bloody message was meant to echo as a political one: no one is safe, nowhere is safe. Another attack was reported in the province of Laghman, in the east, where 22 people, mostly civilians were killed. Among the dead were four Afghan officials including the deputy chief of the National Directorate of Security, Abdullah Laghmani. The irony is too obvious to state.

In Washington, London and Paris politicians wish us to believe that they are not unnerved by all of this. They exaggerated the significance of the recent Afghani elections, attempting to once again underscore that the "crucial" elections placed Afghanistan on a crossroads. Crossroads? What does that even mean, in any practical terms? George Will, although selective in his logic, was honest enough to mention that President Hamid Karzai's "vice-presidential running mate is a drug trafficker." Even US officials admit that the government they've created following the war is corrupt, to say the least.

Richard Holbrooke, among other foreign envoys "responsible for Afghanistan", told reporters in Paris on 2 September that US officials have no preference among the candidates, nor are they particularly interested in runoff elections, but they wished to see a government that appoints "more efficient, less corrupt ministers". It behooves those "responsible for Afghanistan" to remember that inefficiency and corruption were the outcome of the very policies they have so eagerly adopted in the country. No sympathy for Karzai here, but it's unfair to point the finger at a feeble leader whenever a Western strategy fumbles, as it has repeatedly.

Speaking of strategies, what is the plan ahead? French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner promised that foreign troops will stay put in Afghanistan unless the country's security was ensured, reported Xinhua. In practical terms, this means never, for how could security ever visit that region as long as the strategy is hostage to two equally destructive narratives -- the Senor/Wehner troop surges vs Will's "offshore" strategy?

Hubris aside, Washington and London are facing some difficult political and military decisions ahead. Top officials in both capitals are using grim and somber language. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, responding to a call by the top US general in Afghanistan for a fresh approach to the conflict, is considering yet another troop increase as part of Obama's new Afghan strategy.

The sense of urgency was invited by the detailed report of the newly appointed General Stanley McChrystal, who maintains that "success" was still possible, but a change of strategy is needed. The report resulted in intense deliberation in Washington, highlighted by grim press conferences involving the Pentagon's heavyweights, including Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over what to do about "Obama's war".

Speaking at the Pentagon, Gates equivocated: "I don't believe that the war is slipping through the administration's fingers. I absolutely do not think it is time to get out of Afghanistan (but there remains) limited time for us to show that this approach is working."

The details of the new Obama strategy are still not very clear, but the commitment to the war is still unquestionable, as expressed in a "major" 4 September speech by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "When the security of our country is at stake we cannot walk away," said Brown, according to the BBC.

As Brown was solemnly speaking about British security, NATO air strikes on a pair of fuel tankers killed up to 90 people, according to Afghan authorities.

Indeed, the situation in Afghanistan requires a fresh approach, although not the one George Will had in mind.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

A senior official spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity on August 27. "It was more important that the scope of a settlement freeze was acceptable to the Israelis and the Palestinians than to the United States," Reuters reported, citing the senior official. This means that peace negotiations can resume while Israeli bulldozers are carving up Palestinian land, demolishing homes and cutting down trees.

It also means that the Israeli rejection of the only US demand, which has thus far defined President Barack Obama's relations to the Middle East conflict, has prevailed over the supposed American persistence. In other words, the US has officially succumbed to Israeli and pro-Israeli pressures, in Tel Aviv and Washington.

Those not familiar with the connotation of certain terminology in this conflict may not appreciate what it truly means that the US will no longer demand an Israeli halt of the 'natural growth' of its settlements, especially in the occupied Jerusalem area where tens of thousands of Palestinians are vulnerable to Israeli ethnic cleansing. Families like the Hanoun and Ghawi family have been evicted from their homes and thrown out on the street before sunrise. "The police came for them at dawn on a Sunday, heavily armed, wearing helmets and riot shields as they broke down the metal doors of the houses and dragged the two Palestinian families out onto the streets," reported the Guardian on August 24.

The heart-wrenching episodes of innocent people being thrown into the street for no fault of their own, only for the need to make room for more Jewish inhabitants took place before TV cameras and barely required more than a few words of bashful disapproval. That was in fact a political message, sent by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the US administration and anyone else who dares to question US settlement policy. It took place when Obama's call for settlement freeze was at its pinnacle. Now, just imagine how Israel will behave, now that the US's lonely demand is officially retracted. The rightwing Israeli government will likely expedite its settlement program to preclude any future demands for freeze. Many more Hanouns and Ghawis, and their children, will find themselves on the pavement for simply not being Jews, even if they are the rightful owners of the land.

The Israeli logic, however, is uncompromisingly clear. Two weeks before the evictions took place, Netanyahu addressed his cabinet, saying that Jerusalem (including occupied East Jerusalem) is "the capital of the Jewish people and of the state of Israel" and that "our sovereignty over it cannot be challenged." He continued, "We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase in all parts of Jerusalem."

Aside from her unusually 'harsh' statement that the evictions were "deeply regrettable", US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had no answer to the Jerusalemite families pleading for their stolen homes. And now this, more American flexibility.

While Palestinians, and those who support and sympathize with their rightful struggle, are accustomed to Israel's belligerent violations of international and humanitarian law, and direct and indirect US support of Israeli behavior, many had the 'audacity' to hope that things might change under the new US presidency. Obama's speech in Cairo, despite its many flaws, was seen as a promising sign that the US will play a more conducive role in finding a just solution to the conflict and the ongoing tragedy of the Palestinians. It was thought that Obama was planning to start simple, by merely demanding a freeze of the settlement expansion. It's anything but demanding full rights for Palestinians, or even allowing cement, food and medicine to starving Gaza, but it's a start, nonetheless.

And as Palestinians, Israelis, the entire region and world media awaited the outcome of the Obama-Netanyahu battle of wills, Israel carried out all sorts of harms, that also went unnoticed.

Externally, Israel capitalized on the supposed US pressure, to place counter pressure on the US to impose dilapidating sanctions on Iran, provide a timeline for the end of diplomacy aimed at diffusing the hyped tension over Iran's nuclear program, and more. That too was the message that Netanyahu carried with him to the meeting with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell in London, last week.

Still, Israel expected more, demanding - with the blessing of the US - Arab normalization with Israel, in reciprocation for the never actualized willingness to temporarily halt the expansion of settlements. Mitchell was too of the opinion that "Arab states (should) offer some gestures toward normalization of ties with Israel," according to Reuters.

Internally, things took a dramatic turn for the worse. It started with a bill in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) that would jail Arabs who would commemorate the Palestinian Nakba or Catastrophe of 1948, which saw the expulsion of nearly 800,000 Palestinians from their land. Then, there was the new law that enforces the replacement of Arabic lettering on road signs referring to various locations with their Hebrew equivalent, even if these locations have been known by their Arabic names for millennia. These are neither the first nor the last of such fascist roles aimed at denying any trace of a Palestinian (Muslim or Christian) identity to co-exist along with the exclusively 'Jewish character' of Israel.

But that, and much more, was taking place as Palestinians and hopeful others held their breath, waiting for Obama to deliver, until the most recent expression of American flexibility. Now, Palestinians are left with one of two options: to continue to subscribe to the illusion that the US is capable, or even willing to rein in Israel's transgression and exact justice and human rights on their behalf, or to cleanse their midst of self-seeking and corrupt leaders, unify their ranks and continue their struggle for an uncompromisingly free and independent Palestine.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

But nothing could be further from the truth. Since the conclusion of Israel's war last year, the Palestinian Ministry of Health declared that 344 Gaza patients have reportedly been added to the swelling number of casualties.

Khaled Abed Rabbu, once a young father of four is a precise living example, such an eloquent paradigm of what no human being ought to endure in this world laden with international human rights organizations, mediators, advocates and diplomats.

His house was completely destroyed, as were two of his little girls. He buried 7 year old Soad and Amal, just two, soon after burying any hope that Samar his 4 year old daughter's future would be any less bleak.

According to an IslamOnline report, Khaled's wife, Kawthar lined up the children in front of their house in the Jabaliya refugee camp, holding a white flag. But their internationally recognized gesture was disregarded by Israeli forces and the shelling of their home and family commenced. These miserable events unfolded at Christmastime last year, when the Rabbu family was reduced by nearly half.

But since then, they, and a disgracefully large number of other such families, have somehow slipped our minds. Completely surrounded still, and prevented from ever advancing back to point zero, the Israeli siege on Gaza is what one must certainly brand the quintessence of barbarism.

Like in December of 2008, the Israeli blockade means that almost nothing enters or exits Gaza; injured in need of treatment are not allowed exit nor entrance, as is the case with medical supplies, medicine, food and almost anything in-between.

With entire neighborhoods pulverized in the attack, concrete is desperately needed to rebuild the many homes, mosques, hospitals and other structures that were destroyed. That too, is forbidden. And so Khaled, like so many others, has little hope that his home, which has now lain in shambles for the better part of a year, will be restored any time soon.

From September 14 to October 2, 2009, the Human Rights Council will conduct a session where the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights will present its report based on the fact finding mission, headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, conducted after the Israeli attacks.

Nearly eight months after the bloodletting of Operation Cast Lead, a 34 page report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was released on August 13, pressing for a lifting of the Gaza blockade. The new report, which will be presented along with Goldstone's report in September, lays out the many incomprehensible details of how the Israelis battered the Strip, one of the most impoverished and the most densely populated piece of Planet Earth. The details were laid out, chastising Israel for snubbing the most basic norms of human decency:

"Under the Universal Declaration of Human rights, everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country...and everyone has the right to seek asylum. Such calls were ignored, and the borders of the Gaza Strip remained closed throughout the conflict."

"The right to health of children, set out in article 24 of CRC, is of particular concern in Gaza. United Nations agencies, Ministry of Health officials and health NGOs report that rising poverty, unemployment and food insecurity, compounded by the conflict, have increased the threat of child malnutrition. In January, UNICEF said that 10.3 per cent of Gazan children under five were stunted."

The report continued on, expressing concern that the only export allowed out of Gaza in nearly two years was 13 large truckloads of cut flowers, fully recognizing that the siege was in direct response to the Gazan people exercising their right to elect the Hamas government.

From the denial of food to medical supplies to housing to clean water to education to any basic sense of what is called the "highest attainable standard of physical and mental health" according to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Israel managed, as the report concluded, to deny pretty much every last one.

One has to wonder, and even after so many years of witnessing such amazing ingenuity when it comes to tormenting the Palestinians, does the Israeli government, and further, does the Israeli public feel any sense of shame, remorse or even the slightest embarrassment when the most basic norms of human behavior must be laid out in so elementary a fashion, reminding, and then re-reminding them that it is a fundamental human right to have access to something as basic as food and clean water?

This is a thought that Khaled must ponder from time to time. It is sure that life has been no cake-walk for Khaled, but perhaps this last year has been the most trying of all. Two little ones lost, homeless, and his third of four children struggling to walk in a Belgium hospital.

Sana, his four year old, was supposedly one of the lucky ones on that day, for she survived, and was one of very few that escaped to safety through Egypt's sealed border. But she has two bullets lodged in her tiny spine, so deeply embedded that Belgian surgeons cannot remove them. So now she is paralyzed, her body propped up and supported by a vibrant pink and purple back brace, like a fairy's suit of armor. Chances of ever walking again are grim. Just two or three short years after graduating from a crawl, and now she will most likely be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, even though her doctors and her mother say that she is desperate to walk again.

And so it seems to be the sad case that this exhaustive 34 page report failed to mention, or perhaps it may be until this point that a clause has never been drafted, declaring the universal right for every little girl and boy to walk.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

The US initiated a sort of "shock and awe" operation in Afghanistan in late 2001, what appeared to many as a knee-jerk reaction to September 11th, in the midst of a half-heartedly supportive but largely bewildered American public. The Bush administration gave many reasons and justifications for that grizzly war, to hunt down Osama Bin Laden, to defeat the newly exposed world-wide network of Al-Qaeda, with its countless numbers of active and "sleeper" cells spread throughout the world. But the so-called Operation Enduring Freedom would not have actualized without an intense propaganda campaign, that once again attempted to paint the US war as an act of liberation. To present the deadly bombs and unforgiving missiles as such, mainstream media decried the mistreatment and abuse of women, learning new and foreboding terms such as "purdah", "burkah" and the like. US public stared hunger and poverty in the eyes on the nightly news, and the US prepared its grief-stricken and enraged nation for decisive and direct action.

And so, the Bush administration and its many spin doctors taught us that there was only one way to reform this nation, eliminating illiteracy, advocating women's rights, improving access to food, proper educational institutions, development, access to healthcare, essentially the hope for a brighter future for a young generation of Afghani children. And their redeeming plan was war.

It is simply arcane to read the bantering of mainstream US commentators these days, as they reflect on the upcoming August 20th elections and ponder what else the US must do to "win hearts and minds of the Afghani people". For one, might I suggest the arrest of the use of drones in targeted assassinations of US enemies. In May 2009, CIA director Leon Panetta delivered a speech where he claimed that, "(Drone) operations have been very effective because they have been very precise in terms of the targeting and it involved a minimum of collateral damage".

But the use of unmanned drones as weapons of war has been decried as so "cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance", according to Lord Bingham, one of Britain's most senior judges, in a recent interview cited in the Independent. "It may be - I'm not expressing a view - that unmanned drones that fall on a house full of civilians is a weapon the international community should decide should not be used."

Lord Bingham's views, as those of others, are supported by ample evidence, of weddings that turned into funerals, and funerals that themselves turned into mass burial grounds.

US enthusiasm regarding the success of the drones has in fact crossed borders into Pakistan, also claiming the lives of hundreds.

Former senior counterinsurgency advisor to the US Army, David Kilcullen told Congress in June 2009 that "Since 2006, we've killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes. In the same period, we've killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area.

Yet, the charade trudges on. Pro-US Afghan President Hamid Karzai continues to stage his government's make-believe democracy, although his loyalists are in continuous decline. Major media continue to cite improvements in people's lives, regardless of contradicting reports by the UN. US officials tirelessly, although unconvincingly prattle of winning hearts and minds, as bomb blasts, drone attacks and death hover over the devastated place. Such a degrading view of human life, say nothing of our intelligence.

But the facts are truly grim. According to a recent UNICEF report, an estimated 22 million Afghans, or 70% of the population, live in poverty and substandard conditions. 40% of children less than three years old are underweight and 54% of children under five are stunted. Over 100,000 people - most of them children and women - remain displaced by conflict and drought.

Contrary to widespread claims of progress, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, says the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has worsened. If fact, in February of this year, and for the first time in 7 years, the UN launched a comprehensive humanitarian action plan to try and alleviate even a small portion of the suffering there. A study conducted by the American Medical Association a few years ago found that two-thirds of Afghans over the age of 15 are depressed. Post traumatic stress disorder was also reported as prevalent, with 41 percent of non-disabled persons showing symptoms. Of the individuals surveyed, 80 percent expressed feelings of hatred. It goes without question that these statistics have ballooned with the rising death tolls that plague the country.

So, there hasn't been the kind of progress once hoped for; not so many schools built, there haven't been so many hospitals established. Hunger and illiteracy, for the most part have remained the same if not on the incline. The refugee population continues to swell, while delivering aid to desperately needy towns and villages becomes increasingly difficult.

But one thing cannot be disputed regarding US contributions to the people of Afghanistan: a lot of people have been ripped to pieces by botched drone operations, a lot of young minds have been molded, through the tragedies that they endure and witness each day, to distrust this notion of "democracy". This dilemma is of great concern to the US Army. In fact, in responding to this very problem, National Security Advisor James L. Jones stated regarding the use of drones in targeted assassinations, "In one mishap you can create thousands of more terrorists than you had before the mishap".

Well, if this is our sole concern, and if the pointless loss of life in itself is not deplored, if the suffering of the Afghanis is only a point of unease when it could potentially breed more "terrorists", then "winning their hearts and minds" is quite simply outside the realm of possibilities.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of