Middle East

There really is no way to avoid this subject anymore. This past weekends attacks on Arafat's compound signifies to me, that Ariel Sharon is enacting the Plan B strategy-- to force Arafat into exile, or at least leave Israel/Occupied Territories. The official U.S. position, to not really demarche Israel on its increasing violence is almost hypocritical, but hopefully strong U.S. engagement will be beneficial to the process.

What I am curious about is, how come there is no discussion about human rights abuses by Israel, not just of the Palestinian people, but against people protesting the Isreali action. Plenty of newspapers (including the Washington Post) have been posting pictures of police beating down protestors.

I cannot stop writing on this subject either without condemning the killing by Palestinian suicide bombers of innocent Israeli's in very public places. I have heard on numerous occaisions that the ratio of killed Palestinians vs. killed Israeli's has now changed from 10 to 1 to 3 to 1. I guess what I am not so eloquently stating is that, it would be very easy for the Palestinians to shame the Israeli's into action as the numbers and capabilities between the two forces are staggering. I think it would be wise for Palestinians to begin a campaign of civil disobedience, and if persons feel so dissilusioned as to want to martyr themselves, i think, enacting Gandhi's Satyagraha-type actions in public places (which would not necessarily include self immolation), without harming innocents would make a greater statement than any suicide bombing ever could.

Here are some links
Did The Press Push Bush? howie kurtz
Chiding Arafat, But Challenging Sharon as Well a good analysis by the Post
Might is Right in the Middle East interesting analysis from the independent satyacircle's dave sidhu
India: the Ideal Peacemaker an interesting article from Tehelka.com suggesting India as the ideal peacemaker (shouldn't India first have its own internal peace?)
Bush Says U.S. Is to Assume Stronger Role in Ending Violence David Sanger from the nyt

posted by sajit @ 9:50 AM