Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Former head of Shin Bet Ami Ayalon

Israeli seeks Hamas participation, BBC, October 25, 2007

An Israeli minister has called on his government to invite “moderate” members from the Palestinian movement Hamas to an upcoming Middle East conference.

Minister without portfolio Ami Ayalon said any invitation would be conditional on Hamas members fully recognising Israel right to exist.

Mr Ayalon said that Israel should be talking to moderates regardless of their political stripes.

The conference is planned for late November in Annapolis in the US.

Mr Ayalon said that potential Hamas attendees would have to agree to abide by any agreement signed between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads Hamas’ bitter rival Fatah.

“All the definitions of Hamas and Fatah are becoming irrelevant,” Mr Ayalon told the BBC.

“There are both Hamas and Fatah factions that are terrorists. We must speak to the moderates. “

Sri Lanka Admits More Damage by Rebel Raid - New York Times, October 25, 2007

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Oct. 24 — A rebel attack on a Sri Lankan air base this week caused far more damage than previously acknowledged, destroying eight aircraft, including a vital surveillance plane, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake said Wednesday.

The admission, in a statement to Parliament, came amid growing accusations from the opposition that officials had lied about the destruction from Monday’s predawn attack on the Anuradhapura air base.

…the prime minister announced that three helicopters, four training planes and a Beechcraft surveillance plane had been destroyed in the attack, essentially confirming the Tamil reports of the damage. He did not explain the discrepancy.

Mahmoud Abu Tala, a cancer patient denied medical care in Israel (B’Tselem)

Hass, Shin Bet prevented medical care to Palestinian cancer patient - Haaretz, October 24, 2007

The Shin Bet is refusing to allow a 21-year-old Rafiah man who is sick with cancer and in need of immediate medical care to come to Israel, even though he obtained permission from the Israeli Defense Forces’ Coordination and Liaison Administration.

The Shin Bet also arrested the patient’s father, who accompanied him to the hospital.

Mahmoud Abu Taha was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine in August 2007. Treatment in Gaza was unsuccessful, and he lost a third of his body weight. In addition, he is not taking all of the vitamins he needs because of the shortage of medications in Gazan hospitals.

Because of his serious condition, the doctors decided to postpone chemotherapy and send him to Tel HaShomer hospital in Ramat Gan. According to Mahmoud’s brother, Hanni Abu Taleh, on October 18, they received permission shortly after they filed a request with the IDF. The father and his sick son drove in an ambulance to Erez Crossing, and after a half-hour wait, the father’s name was called on the loudspeaker.

According to the brother, the patient continued to wait in the ambulance, lying on a stretcher and attached to an oxygen tank and an infusion. After two hours, it was announced on the loudspeaker that he was denied entrance into Israel.

To Be a Journalist in Iraq - New York Times, October 24, 2007

“Every interview we conduct may be our last…. since the war started, four and half years ago, an average of about one reporter and media assistant killed every week is something we have to live with….

“I smile as I give my children hugs and send them off to school; it’s only after they turn their backs to me that my eyes fill to overflowing with the knowledge that they are just as much at risk as I am.

“So why continue? Why not put down my proverbial pen and sit back? It’s because I’m tired of being branded a terrorist: tired that a human life lost in my county is no loss at all. This is not the future I envision for my children. They are not terrorists, and their lives are not valueless. I have pledged my life — and much, much more, in an effort to open a window through which the good people in the international community may look in and see us for what we are, ordinary human beings with ordinary aspirations, and not what we have been portrayed to be.

“Allow me, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to reach out. Help us to build bridges of understanding and acceptance. Even though the war has cast a dark shadow upon your nation and mine — it is never too late.”

Livni behind closed doors: Iranian nuclear arms pose little threat to Israel - Haaretz, October 25, 2007

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of closed discussions that in her opinion that Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel, Haaretz magazine reveals in an article on Livni to be published tomorrow.

Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears. Last week, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy said similar things about Iran.

Judis, Bush’s Neo-Imperialist War | The American Prospect, October 22, 2007

If there is any lesson from the 130-year history of imperialism, it is that the natives eventually grow restless. Since World War II, the peoples of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa have been throwing off rather than welcoming foreign control.

The Middle East, where Muslims still blanch at the Crusades and later British and French attempts to divide and rule, is particularly sensitive to outside attempts at domination. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda didn’t spring from Mecca but from the battlefield in Afghanistan, from resentment of American support for Israel and of American bases on Arab soil. Bush’s policy in the region has reflected a profound ignorance of this history. Wrote former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in January 2007, “America is acting like a colonial power in Iraq. But the age of colonialism is over. Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating.”

Iraq’s Basra police chief escapes assassination bid | Reuters, October 24, 2007

BAGHDAD, Oct 24 (Reuters) - The police chief of Iraq’s southern city of Basra said he escaped an assassination attempt on Wednesday by gunmen who opened fire at him from rooftops while he was getting into his car.

Major-General Abdul-Jelil Khalaf told Reuters by telephone that one of his bodyguards was wounded in the attack at a bustling outdoor market in the centre of Basra, Iraq’s second largest city.

The shooting came a day after clashes between the Mehdi Army militia of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and local security forces in the city. The militiamen freed an imprisoned comrade from the main police headquarters.