Sharon Calls Gaza Strike a Success; Says More Will Follow
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today praised an Israeli raid on Monday into the Gaza Strip that left 15 Palestinians dead and dozens wounded, expressing regret for civilian lives lost but brushing aside international criticism as he promised more such attacks.
"It was important, and it was successful," Mr. Sharon said of the mission. "There will be more operations in the Gaza Strip."
Israel has now seized military control of most of the West Bank, and Mr. Sharon has repeatedly suggested recently that he would like to shift his focus to Gaza, the stronghold of the Islamist group Hamas and home to about 1.2 million Palestinian and 7,000 Israeli settlers. Late last month Mr. Sharon said that stepped-up operations there were only a matter of when the army, now stretched thin, could "concentrate the appropriate troops."
Today, after meeting here with Israel's president, Moshe Katsav, Mr. Sharon said, "There is a need to be certain that terrorist organizations will not have the freedom to carry out intentional murder."
The Israeli Army is deeply enmeshed in the West Bank, controlling six of the eight major Palestinian cities and towns and maintaining curfews and strict travel restrictions. Today Palestinian gunmen shot and wounded four people traveling in a car near the West Bank city of Hebron, prompting Israeli forces to comb a nearby village for suspects and to again impose a curfew on Hebron.
In the West Bank city of Jenin, Israeli troops enforcing the curfew wounded four Palestinians, two of them teenagers, hospital officials said.
As the West Bank offensive continues, the army is experimenting with new kinds of assaults in Gaza.
Monday's operation, into the densely populated town of Khan Yunis, marked a new style of mission, senior military officials said, one intended more to press Hamas generally than to hunt down wanted men or weapons factories. Brig. Gen.
Yisrael Ziv, the commander of Israeli forces in the area, said that the mission was supposed to "interfere with their self-confidence."
"Hamas is under a lot of stress lately because of our operations," Brigadier General Ziv said. He acknowledged that none of those killed were wanted by Israel. No soldiers were injured.
Unlike the West Bank, the Gaza Strip is fenced, and Hamas has not succeeded in sending suicide bombers beyond it, Israeli intelligence agents said. But it has taken to firing crudely made rockets from there, both at Israeli settlements inside Gaza and over the fence, including toward Mr. Sharon's farm in southern Israel.
Israel has hunted down and arrested or killed many Hamas militants over the course of the two-year conflict, but it has not yet put the same kind of relentless pressure on the organization itself as it has on the Palestinian Authority.
The last time a Hamas suicide bomber struck, killing six people on a bus in Tel Aviv on Sept.
19, Israel besieged Mr. Arafat in his compound in Ramallah, following a pattern of punishing the Palestinian leader and the Palestinian Authority for attacks by Hamas and other terrorist groups.
The Israeli government declared Mr. Arafat irrelevant last December, but it has continued to maintain that he is accountable for and capable of reigning in violence. Allies of Mr. Arafat accused the Israeli government of a tacit alliance with Hamas to destroy the Palestinian leader, whom Hamas regards as a temporizing if not traitorous compromiser for having negotiated with Israel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/08/international/middleeast/08CND-MIDE.html
Tuesday, October 08, 2002
Israelis, in New Strategy, Raid Gaza Town, Killing 13
In what it called a new strategy to place the Islamist group Hamas on the defensive, the Israeli Army sent dozens of tanks backed by helicopter gunships into this densely packed Gaza town early today, killing at least 13 people.
Most of the dead were victims of a single missile fired into a crowded dirt road. The raid drew an unusual rebuke from the Bush administration, which said Israel was endangering civilians.
The missile gashed the median strip of Gamal Abdel Nasser street here and shattered windows three stories above it. Hours later, patches of the gold-colored sand were still crimson mud.
Salaam Abu Salaam, 12, rushed up to a stranger with a jagged piece of shrapnel. Asked why Israel had conducted the raid, he said, "They hate us."
In Washington, Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said: "We're deeply troubled by the reports of Israeli actions in Gaza over the weekend that resulted in deaths and wounding of many Palestinian civilians. While the precise details still remain uncertain, Israeli operations were undertaken in crowded civilian areas and involved firing on a medical facility."
The apparent Israeli decision to widen its military offensive from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip seems certain to inflame anger across the Arab world.
Unlike other recent Israeli attacks, this one did not have the specific aim of killing wanted men or destroying weapons factories. Calling Khan Yunis a Hamas stronghold, the army said the mission was part of a new strategy of putting pressure on Hamas, which has frequently launched crude rockets from the Gaza Strip.
Although Israel has tracked down and killed Hamas leaders, it has generally responded to Hamas bombings of Israeli civilians with punitive attacks on Yasir Arafat's governing Palestinian Authority.
More than 100 people were injured in the raid, with some victims in critical condition with shrapnel wounds, Palestinian hospital officials said. The dead included a 14-year-old boy and a woman in her 40's, the officials said.
Israeli troops also fired machine guns and semiautomatic weapons toward Nasser Hospital here, where most of the wounded were taken, hitting its courtyard. The army said its soldiers had fired in response to mortar shelling. At least three people were injured, and one was reported to have been killed.
Palestinian officials said all of the dead were civilians. The Israeli Army said most of them were armed men. Some Israeli officials expressed consternation over the action, saying they feared that it could embarrass President Bush on the day of his speech on Iraq.
The aim of the Israeli government was to sabotage truce talks among Palestinians, the Palestinian officials said, by provoking Hamas, which promised bloody retaliation.
The Bush administration called on Israel to investigate the deaths and said it expected "immediate steps" to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.
Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, said through a spokesman that firing into a crowd of civilians could have "no legal or moral justification." He said the attack "could lead to a further escalation while increasing the sense of vulnerability and insecurity among both the Palestinians and Israelis."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/08/international/middleeast/08MIDE.htmla>
In what it called a new strategy to place the Islamist group Hamas on the defensive, the Israeli Army sent dozens of tanks backed by helicopter gunships into this densely packed Gaza town early today, killing at least 13 people.
Most of the dead were victims of a single missile fired into a crowded dirt road. The raid drew an unusual rebuke from the Bush administration, which said Israel was endangering civilians.
The missile gashed the median strip of Gamal Abdel Nasser street here and shattered windows three stories above it. Hours later, patches of the gold-colored sand were still crimson mud.
Salaam Abu Salaam, 12, rushed up to a stranger with a jagged piece of shrapnel. Asked why Israel had conducted the raid, he said, "They hate us."
In Washington, Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said: "We're deeply troubled by the reports of Israeli actions in Gaza over the weekend that resulted in deaths and wounding of many Palestinian civilians. While the precise details still remain uncertain, Israeli operations were undertaken in crowded civilian areas and involved firing on a medical facility."
The apparent Israeli decision to widen its military offensive from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip seems certain to inflame anger across the Arab world.
Unlike other recent Israeli attacks, this one did not have the specific aim of killing wanted men or destroying weapons factories. Calling Khan Yunis a Hamas stronghold, the army said the mission was part of a new strategy of putting pressure on Hamas, which has frequently launched crude rockets from the Gaza Strip.
Although Israel has tracked down and killed Hamas leaders, it has generally responded to Hamas bombings of Israeli civilians with punitive attacks on Yasir Arafat's governing Palestinian Authority.
More than 100 people were injured in the raid, with some victims in critical condition with shrapnel wounds, Palestinian hospital officials said. The dead included a 14-year-old boy and a woman in her 40's, the officials said.
Israeli troops also fired machine guns and semiautomatic weapons toward Nasser Hospital here, where most of the wounded were taken, hitting its courtyard. The army said its soldiers had fired in response to mortar shelling. At least three people were injured, and one was reported to have been killed.
Palestinian officials said all of the dead were civilians. The Israeli Army said most of them were armed men. Some Israeli officials expressed consternation over the action, saying they feared that it could embarrass President Bush on the day of his speech on Iraq.
The aim of the Israeli government was to sabotage truce talks among Palestinians, the Palestinian officials said, by provoking Hamas, which promised bloody retaliation.
The Bush administration called on Israel to investigate the deaths and said it expected "immediate steps" to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.
Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, said through a spokesman that firing into a crowd of civilians could have "no legal or moral justification." He said the attack "could lead to a further escalation while increasing the sense of vulnerability and insecurity among both the Palestinians and Israelis."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/08/international/middleeast/08MIDE.htmla>
In Olive Groves of the West Bank, a Harvest of Fear
Fear kept the olive pickers off the terraced hillsides today in this village set among the groves and stony hills of the northern West Bank.
On an olive-clad slope facing a ridge studded with outposts stretching from the Jewish settlement of Itamar, a few Palestinian villagers hesitantly ventured out to the spot where their neighbor, Hani Bani Minyeh, 24, was shot and killed on Sunday.
Settlers who had arrived in the valley below opened fire to disperse Palestinians harvesting from their olive trees nearby, killing Mr. Bani Minyeh as he tried to scramble up a stone terrace, the villagers said. Another man was wounded.
As settlers drove up the valley in a small tractor today, villagers quickly moved back, out of sight.
October marks the start of the olive-picking season in the West Bank. But the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is casting a shadow over the harvest, which sustains many villagers. This year the yield of the olive trees, which varies annually, is high, but the conflict between the Jewish settlers and Palestinians is making it harder in many places to collect the fruit.
A few miles away from Aqraba today, in the village of Yasuf, Muhammad Obeid, 49, gazed from a distance at his olive trees dotting a hillside under a cluster of trailers, an extension of the Jewish settlement of Tapuah. On three days last week, he said, armed settlers from Tapuah picked olives from dozens of his trees as he watched helplessly from the village.
"This is theft," he said, adding that similar incidents were reported in two other villages in the area.
The fatal shooting on Sunday, villagers in Aqraba said, came after settlers from the Itamar outposts came down to the valley with two tractors and other vehicles to plow a plot of village land more than a mile from the outposts above.
Ghaleb Mayadmeh, Aqraba's mayor, said it was the first time settlers had fired on villagers picking olives in the area, apparently in an effort to put the groves off limits.
On Saturday, another group of olive pickers here was assaulted, villagers said. Atef Bani Jaber, 40, who had a black eye and a bandage on his forehead, said settlers had attacked him and other men, hitting him with a rifle and beating the others before making off with the day's harvest.
Rabbi Avi Ronsky, who is the leader of a yeshiva in Itamar, said the settlers who opened fire on Sunday reported that they had been stoned by the villagers and sensed that they were in danger.
Rabbi Ronsky said today that Palestinians, including olive pickers, had to be kept a safe distance from the settlement and its residents, given the recent history of deadly attacks on Itamar, which have killed nine people. A Palestinian gunman killed a mother, three of her children and a man in an attack on the settlement in June.
Villagers said Israeli soldiers had come to Yasuf and Aqraba, but had failed to stop the settlers. An army spokesman said today that the army wanted the olive harvest to proceed, but that in order to protect both villagers and settlers, the times and locations of the work had to be coordinated with the army. A police spokesman said the recent incidents were still under investigation.
At Yasuf, villagers said groups of settlers from Tapuah had entered their lands on three days last week to pick olives from trees near the settlement — a report confirmed by the settlers. The aim of the action was "to send a message: don't come near, because there's nothing to come for," said Daniel Shukrun, the secretary of Tapuah.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/08/international/middleeast/08WEST.html
Fear kept the olive pickers off the terraced hillsides today in this village set among the groves and stony hills of the northern West Bank.
On an olive-clad slope facing a ridge studded with outposts stretching from the Jewish settlement of Itamar, a few Palestinian villagers hesitantly ventured out to the spot where their neighbor, Hani Bani Minyeh, 24, was shot and killed on Sunday.
Settlers who had arrived in the valley below opened fire to disperse Palestinians harvesting from their olive trees nearby, killing Mr. Bani Minyeh as he tried to scramble up a stone terrace, the villagers said. Another man was wounded.
As settlers drove up the valley in a small tractor today, villagers quickly moved back, out of sight.
October marks the start of the olive-picking season in the West Bank. But the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is casting a shadow over the harvest, which sustains many villagers. This year the yield of the olive trees, which varies annually, is high, but the conflict between the Jewish settlers and Palestinians is making it harder in many places to collect the fruit.
A few miles away from Aqraba today, in the village of Yasuf, Muhammad Obeid, 49, gazed from a distance at his olive trees dotting a hillside under a cluster of trailers, an extension of the Jewish settlement of Tapuah. On three days last week, he said, armed settlers from Tapuah picked olives from dozens of his trees as he watched helplessly from the village.
"This is theft," he said, adding that similar incidents were reported in two other villages in the area.
The fatal shooting on Sunday, villagers in Aqraba said, came after settlers from the Itamar outposts came down to the valley with two tractors and other vehicles to plow a plot of village land more than a mile from the outposts above.
Ghaleb Mayadmeh, Aqraba's mayor, said it was the first time settlers had fired on villagers picking olives in the area, apparently in an effort to put the groves off limits.
On Saturday, another group of olive pickers here was assaulted, villagers said. Atef Bani Jaber, 40, who had a black eye and a bandage on his forehead, said settlers had attacked him and other men, hitting him with a rifle and beating the others before making off with the day's harvest.
Rabbi Avi Ronsky, who is the leader of a yeshiva in Itamar, said the settlers who opened fire on Sunday reported that they had been stoned by the villagers and sensed that they were in danger.
Rabbi Ronsky said today that Palestinians, including olive pickers, had to be kept a safe distance from the settlement and its residents, given the recent history of deadly attacks on Itamar, which have killed nine people. A Palestinian gunman killed a mother, three of her children and a man in an attack on the settlement in June.
Villagers said Israeli soldiers had come to Yasuf and Aqraba, but had failed to stop the settlers. An army spokesman said today that the army wanted the olive harvest to proceed, but that in order to protect both villagers and settlers, the times and locations of the work had to be coordinated with the army. A police spokesman said the recent incidents were still under investigation.
At Yasuf, villagers said groups of settlers from Tapuah had entered their lands on three days last week to pick olives from trees near the settlement — a report confirmed by the settlers. The aim of the action was "to send a message: don't come near, because there's nothing to come for," said Daniel Shukrun, the secretary of Tapuah.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/08/international/middleeast/08WEST.html
Monday, October 07, 2002
12 Palestinians Killed in Gaza Raid
Israeli tanks backed by helicopters raided a neighborhood in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis early today, killing 12 Palestinians, including 10 who died when a missile blasted into a crowd gathered in the street, Palestinian officials said.
Hospital officials said all the dead, aged from 14 to to 52, were civilians and that up to another 100 were wounded, 25 of them critically.
Another four people were injured, Palestinians said, when the Israelis fired at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, where most of the wounded had been taken. The military said the shots were in response to mortar gire.
The military said it initiated the raid after Palestinian militants fired a rocket at a Jewish settlement near Khan Yunis, causing no casualties. It said its forces had uncovered several mortar shells and arrested one Palestinian militant in the operation.
Palestinian witnesses told news agencies that a crowd of about 200 ventured out of their houses and gathered near a local mosque when it appeared that the Israelis were pulling out.
Brig. Gen. Israel Ziff, the Israeli Army commander in the area, described the crowd as armed men.
"They fired a lot and threw grenades," he said. "The helicopter aimed at this armed group and hit them."
Both Hamas and Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement vowed revenge for the attack. A Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying: "Everyone should know that as our people were not safe in Khan Yunis, so Israelis will not be safe in Tel Aviv. We will strike everywhere."
Israel's deputy defense minister, Weizman Shiri, said he was sorry if civilians were hurt. "But what can we do?" he said on Israel Army Radio. "This is war."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/international/middleeast/07CND-MIDE.html
Israeli tanks backed by helicopters raided a neighborhood in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis early today, killing 12 Palestinians, including 10 who died when a missile blasted into a crowd gathered in the street, Palestinian officials said.
Hospital officials said all the dead, aged from 14 to to 52, were civilians and that up to another 100 were wounded, 25 of them critically.
Another four people were injured, Palestinians said, when the Israelis fired at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, where most of the wounded had been taken. The military said the shots were in response to mortar gire.
The military said it initiated the raid after Palestinian militants fired a rocket at a Jewish settlement near Khan Yunis, causing no casualties. It said its forces had uncovered several mortar shells and arrested one Palestinian militant in the operation.
Palestinian witnesses told news agencies that a crowd of about 200 ventured out of their houses and gathered near a local mosque when it appeared that the Israelis were pulling out.
Brig. Gen. Israel Ziff, the Israeli Army commander in the area, described the crowd as armed men.
"They fired a lot and threw grenades," he said. "The helicopter aimed at this armed group and hit them."
Both Hamas and Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement vowed revenge for the attack. A Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying: "Everyone should know that as our people were not safe in Khan Yunis, so Israelis will not be safe in Tel Aviv. We will strike everywhere."
Israel's deputy defense minister, Weizman Shiri, said he was sorry if civilians were hurt. "But what can we do?" he said on Israel Army Radio. "This is war."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/international/middleeast/07CND-MIDE.html
Angered by U.S., Palestinians Act on Jerusalem
At a meeting suffused with anger over United States Congressional legislation declaring Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel, the Palestinian parliament today ratified a bill signed by Yasir Arafat designating the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
The parliament also gave Mr. Arafat an extra month to appoint a new cabinet, postponing a central goal of the proponents of Palestinian democratic change.
Last week, President Bush signed the legislation, a $4 billion State Department authorization bill for the new fiscal year. Mr. Bush said he was not bound by its provision regarding Jerusalem, which stipulated that no money could be spent on official United States documents that listed Israel without identifying this disputed city as its capital.
But news of the American legislation has provoked anger well beyond the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Today, Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, said the measure was "pouring oil on the fire."
Thousands of Palestinians have demonstrated against the legislation in recent days. Some do not seem to have understood the administration's position that it does not mark a change in policy. Others say Mr. Bush's signature guarantees that it will become policy sooner or later.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian parliament, said of the American measure, "It's a clear case of congressmen rushing in where angels fear to tread."
Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator for Mr. Arafat, called the American legislation particularly threatening to Palestinians in light of Israel's continuing construction of settlements around Jerusalem. "This will go down in history as the gravest mistake of this administration vis-à-vis the peace efforts here," he said.
Members of parliament said they gave Mr. Arafat more time to form a government because of Israel's recent 10-day siege of his compound. The siege ended a week ago at the urging of the Bush administration, which said it was undermining Palestinian reform and its own campaign to rally support against Iraq.
"This was a direct blow to the reform efforts and to the timetable we had set up," Dr. Ashrawi said, adding in reference to Mr. Arafat that it "bought the president more time."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/international/middleeast/07JERU.html
At a meeting suffused with anger over United States Congressional legislation declaring Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel, the Palestinian parliament today ratified a bill signed by Yasir Arafat designating the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
The parliament also gave Mr. Arafat an extra month to appoint a new cabinet, postponing a central goal of the proponents of Palestinian democratic change.
Last week, President Bush signed the legislation, a $4 billion State Department authorization bill for the new fiscal year. Mr. Bush said he was not bound by its provision regarding Jerusalem, which stipulated that no money could be spent on official United States documents that listed Israel without identifying this disputed city as its capital.
But news of the American legislation has provoked anger well beyond the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Today, Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, said the measure was "pouring oil on the fire."
Thousands of Palestinians have demonstrated against the legislation in recent days. Some do not seem to have understood the administration's position that it does not mark a change in policy. Others say Mr. Bush's signature guarantees that it will become policy sooner or later.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian parliament, said of the American measure, "It's a clear case of congressmen rushing in where angels fear to tread."
Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator for Mr. Arafat, called the American legislation particularly threatening to Palestinians in light of Israel's continuing construction of settlements around Jerusalem. "This will go down in history as the gravest mistake of this administration vis-à-vis the peace efforts here," he said.
Members of parliament said they gave Mr. Arafat more time to form a government because of Israel's recent 10-day siege of his compound. The siege ended a week ago at the urging of the Bush administration, which said it was undermining Palestinian reform and its own campaign to rally support against Iraq.
"This was a direct blow to the reform efforts and to the timetable we had set up," Dr. Ashrawi said, adding in reference to Mr. Arafat that it "bought the president more time."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/international/middleeast/07JERU.html
Report Calls for Plan of Sharing Data to Prevent Terror
Toward that end, the report, "Protecting America's Freedom in an Information Age," strongly endorses giving responsibility for analyzing such information not to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but to a new domestic intelligence center inside President Bush's planned Department of Homeland Security. Legislation to create the department is mired in Congressional wrangling over such issues as whether labor laws should apply to the agency's employees.
The study also calls upon President Bush to devise new guidelines on what information federal agencies may and may not collect about individuals in the United States and with whom, and under what circumstances, such data may be shared.
Finally, it warns that while Washington must play a critical role in gathering and analyzing data aimed at preventing terror, state and local officials will inevitably provide much of the information needed to protect the nation. Information systems that exclude them, or prevent them from receiving and contributing to such federal data, are destined to fail, the study concludes.
Unless information provided by state and local officials, as well as the private sector, is shared with Washington, "we may wind up getting all of the disadvantages of invasion of privacy with none of the national security gains," conclude the task force's co-chairmen, Zoë Baird, the president of the New York-based Markle Foundation, and James L. Barksdale, a businessman and former chief executive of Netscape.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/national/07HOME.html
Toward that end, the report, "Protecting America's Freedom in an Information Age," strongly endorses giving responsibility for analyzing such information not to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but to a new domestic intelligence center inside President Bush's planned Department of Homeland Security. Legislation to create the department is mired in Congressional wrangling over such issues as whether labor laws should apply to the agency's employees.
The study also calls upon President Bush to devise new guidelines on what information federal agencies may and may not collect about individuals in the United States and with whom, and under what circumstances, such data may be shared.
Finally, it warns that while Washington must play a critical role in gathering and analyzing data aimed at preventing terror, state and local officials will inevitably provide much of the information needed to protect the nation. Information systems that exclude them, or prevent them from receiving and contributing to such federal data, are destined to fail, the study concludes.
Unless information provided by state and local officials, as well as the private sector, is shared with Washington, "we may wind up getting all of the disadvantages of invasion of privacy with none of the national security gains," conclude the task force's co-chairmen, Zoë Baird, the president of the New York-based Markle Foundation, and James L. Barksdale, a businessman and former chief executive of Netscape.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/national/07HOME.html
Law Bars a National System for Tracing Bullets and Shells
The technology exists to create a national ballistic fingerprint system that would enable law enforcement officials to trace bullets recovered from shootings, like those fired by the Washington-area sniper, to a suspect.
Such a system would have been of great use in the Washington case, in which six people were shot to death, because so far bullet fragments are virtually the only evidence.
But because of opposition by the gun industry and the National Rifle Association, only two states have moved to set up a ballistic fingerprint system, and Congress has prohibited a national program, experts say.
"I definitely think that the technology is there, and it has been refined to the point where it is cost effective," said Joe Vince, a former chief of the crime guns analysis branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
"It would not be an imposition on the manufacturers or law enforcement or citizens, so I'm all for it," said Mr. Vince, who is now president of Crime Gun Solutions, a consulting company in Frederick, Md.
Now, the police can tell only whether bullet fragments or shell casings found at a crime scene match one another and come from the same gun. This information helps establish whether only one weapon was involved.
But without the gun itself, the police cannot go the next step and use this information to try to trace the shooter.
Even the technology that enables the firearms bureau to match bullet fragments or shell casings to one gun is new. A system was installed in 1999 after encouragement by the Clinton administration, Mr. Vince and other experts said.
This system, known as the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network, optically scans the markings on bullets or shell casings, converting them into an electronic signature. This information is stored in a database and can be retrieved by computers in 235 police departments around the nation.
Gun control advocates and some law enforcement authorities like Mr. Vince have long advocated taking the next step, requiring gun manufacturers to keep an electronic record of the markings from bullets and shell casings when new guns are test fired. This data would be kept with the serial numbers of the guns.
With this information, the agency would be able to trace bullets and shell casings found at a shooting site to the gun maker and eventually to the buyer, said Mr. Vince and another former high ranking firearms bureau official.
But the National Rifle Association has opposed this, calling it tantamount to a national gun registry. The group succeeded in getting a provision in the 1968 federal Gun Control Act outlawing any national gun registry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/national/07GUNS.html
The technology exists to create a national ballistic fingerprint system that would enable law enforcement officials to trace bullets recovered from shootings, like those fired by the Washington-area sniper, to a suspect.
Such a system would have been of great use in the Washington case, in which six people were shot to death, because so far bullet fragments are virtually the only evidence.
But because of opposition by the gun industry and the National Rifle Association, only two states have moved to set up a ballistic fingerprint system, and Congress has prohibited a national program, experts say.
"I definitely think that the technology is there, and it has been refined to the point where it is cost effective," said Joe Vince, a former chief of the crime guns analysis branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
"It would not be an imposition on the manufacturers or law enforcement or citizens, so I'm all for it," said Mr. Vince, who is now president of Crime Gun Solutions, a consulting company in Frederick, Md.
Now, the police can tell only whether bullet fragments or shell casings found at a crime scene match one another and come from the same gun. This information helps establish whether only one weapon was involved.
But without the gun itself, the police cannot go the next step and use this information to try to trace the shooter.
Even the technology that enables the firearms bureau to match bullet fragments or shell casings to one gun is new. A system was installed in 1999 after encouragement by the Clinton administration, Mr. Vince and other experts said.
This system, known as the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network, optically scans the markings on bullets or shell casings, converting them into an electronic signature. This information is stored in a database and can be retrieved by computers in 235 police departments around the nation.
Gun control advocates and some law enforcement authorities like Mr. Vince have long advocated taking the next step, requiring gun manufacturers to keep an electronic record of the markings from bullets and shell casings when new guns are test fired. This data would be kept with the serial numbers of the guns.
With this information, the agency would be able to trace bullets and shell casings found at a shooting site to the gun maker and eventually to the buyer, said Mr. Vince and another former high ranking firearms bureau official.
But the National Rifle Association has opposed this, calling it tantamount to a national gun registry. The group succeeded in getting a provision in the 1968 federal Gun Control Act outlawing any national gun registry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/national/07GUNS.html
Daily Nexus Online :: Music Industry Busts ResNet Users
The Record Industry Association has been notifying students on campuses nationwide who have been caught illegally sharing music files through programs such as Morpheus and Aimster to cease their activities. Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, copyright holders can require anyone sharing their materials to stop doing so. The most common method of distribution is through MP3s, a file format used to store music digitally.
At UCSB, over 50 notices have been sent to students caught sharing copyrighted music since the beginning of this Fall Quarter, ResNet Coordinator Curtis Cline said. The Record Industry Association sends their notices to ResNet, the Internet service provider for the campus. The ResNet staff then contacts the student with the illegally shared material on their computer and if the material is not removed within 24 hours, the student's ResNet access can be shut down.
Asst. Director of Housing and Residential Services George Gregg said ResNet does not monitor music-sharing at all, but that the music industry has no such inhibitions.
"We don't believe in monitoring the network as a matter of principle," he said. "We aren't Big Brother, but that is not the attitude the copyright holders have."
The Electron Trail
Many students do not even realize that they are sharing the files on their computer, which can then be downloaded by others on the network, Cline said.
"They're running a program on their computer that allows them to gather and find music," he said. "But what a lot of students don't realize is it catalogues the music on their computer, searches the hard drive, finds all the music and offers it to the Internet for download."
Because these programs also display the Internet protocol address from which the files are being downloaded, it is very easy for people from the music industry to search for a popular song and record the addresses of the people who have it.
"The tracing-back art is very simple," Cline said.
Although downloading files is illegal, it is possible to avoid being noticed, Gregg said. Because students can only be caught serving or providing files, they can turn off the sharing option on their computers to avoid negative sanctions and retain the ability to download.
"[The students] could still have their MP3s on their computer, but if they aren't sharing it to the world, they're invisible," Gregg said.
As a service provider, ResNet is required to comply with the copyright holders and restrictions set by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Cline said.
"If we didn't take the actions that we are required to take under the DMCA, we could be in very serious trouble," he said. "The DMCA provides protection to service providers. As long as [we] service providers conform to the rules they've laid out, it limits our responsibility and liability. That's why we have to take it very seriously."
The DMCA defines infringement as an action in which an individual or group "makes, has made, or imports, for sale or use in trade, any infringing article" or "sells or distributes for sale or for use in trade any such infringing article."
An infringing article is "any article the design of which has been copied from a design protected under this chapter [of the DMCA], without the consent of the owner of the protected design."
While students are told that they must remove specific music files once they have been contacted or be disconnected, the consequences for continued sharing are vague. Undeclared freshman Diana Pedder received notification on two separate occasions that music she had was illegal.
"They said if it happens again they might have to turn off my whole Internet," she said, "But it happened again and they still haven't. I just stopped sharing after that and haven't had any problems since."
UC Berkeley, which has also experienced problems with students' illegal downloads, follows the same ResNet procedure when the Record Industry Association gives them notification of music sharing on campus, Gregg said.
"But they haven't had a surge of notifications, or at least haven't noticed a surge like we've had," he said.
http://www.ucsbdailynexus.com/news/1969/1688.html
The Record Industry Association has been notifying students on campuses nationwide who have been caught illegally sharing music files through programs such as Morpheus and Aimster to cease their activities. Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, copyright holders can require anyone sharing their materials to stop doing so. The most common method of distribution is through MP3s, a file format used to store music digitally.
At UCSB, over 50 notices have been sent to students caught sharing copyrighted music since the beginning of this Fall Quarter, ResNet Coordinator Curtis Cline said. The Record Industry Association sends their notices to ResNet, the Internet service provider for the campus. The ResNet staff then contacts the student with the illegally shared material on their computer and if the material is not removed within 24 hours, the student's ResNet access can be shut down.
Asst. Director of Housing and Residential Services George Gregg said ResNet does not monitor music-sharing at all, but that the music industry has no such inhibitions.
"We don't believe in monitoring the network as a matter of principle," he said. "We aren't Big Brother, but that is not the attitude the copyright holders have."
The Electron Trail
Many students do not even realize that they are sharing the files on their computer, which can then be downloaded by others on the network, Cline said.
"They're running a program on their computer that allows them to gather and find music," he said. "But what a lot of students don't realize is it catalogues the music on their computer, searches the hard drive, finds all the music and offers it to the Internet for download."
Because these programs also display the Internet protocol address from which the files are being downloaded, it is very easy for people from the music industry to search for a popular song and record the addresses of the people who have it.
"The tracing-back art is very simple," Cline said.
Although downloading files is illegal, it is possible to avoid being noticed, Gregg said. Because students can only be caught serving or providing files, they can turn off the sharing option on their computers to avoid negative sanctions and retain the ability to download.
"[The students] could still have their MP3s on their computer, but if they aren't sharing it to the world, they're invisible," Gregg said.
As a service provider, ResNet is required to comply with the copyright holders and restrictions set by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Cline said.
"If we didn't take the actions that we are required to take under the DMCA, we could be in very serious trouble," he said. "The DMCA provides protection to service providers. As long as [we] service providers conform to the rules they've laid out, it limits our responsibility and liability. That's why we have to take it very seriously."
The DMCA defines infringement as an action in which an individual or group "makes, has made, or imports, for sale or use in trade, any infringing article" or "sells or distributes for sale or for use in trade any such infringing article."
An infringing article is "any article the design of which has been copied from a design protected under this chapter [of the DMCA], without the consent of the owner of the protected design."
While students are told that they must remove specific music files once they have been contacted or be disconnected, the consequences for continued sharing are vague. Undeclared freshman Diana Pedder received notification on two separate occasions that music she had was illegal.
"They said if it happens again they might have to turn off my whole Internet," she said, "But it happened again and they still haven't. I just stopped sharing after that and haven't had any problems since."
UC Berkeley, which has also experienced problems with students' illegal downloads, follows the same ResNet procedure when the Record Industry Association gives them notification of music sharing on campus, Gregg said.
"But they haven't had a surge of notifications, or at least haven't noticed a surge like we've had," he said.
http://www.ucsbdailynexus.com/news/1969/1688.html
Sunday, October 06, 2002
Amnesty International - Library - Middle East: Israel and the Occupied Territories and the Palestinian Authority: Killing the future: Children in the line of fire
KILLINGS OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
The alarming pattern of killing of Palestinian children by the IDF was established at the outset of the intifada and has continued. On the second day of the intifada, on 30 September 2000, four children were killed by IDF fire.(6) The following day another four children aged between 12 and 17 were again killed by other security services. Within a month some 30 Palestinian children had been killed by IDF fire and by the end of the year 2000 the number was over 80.(7)
The rate at which Palestinian children were being killed decreased slightly during 2001 but increased again in 2002. In the first seven months of 2002 alone, more than 100 children were killed by IDF fire and the age of the victims was significantly lower than in the previous two years: in 2002, some 48% of the children killed were 12 years old or younger, as compared with some 35% in 2001 and about 13% in 2000.
In the first months of the intifada, the majority of child victims were killed as a result of the unlawful and excessive use of lethal force in response to demonstrations and stone-throwing incidents, when the lives of IDF soldiers were not at risk. In 2002 the majority were those children killed when the IDF randomly opened fire, or shelled or bombarded residential neighbourhoods in Palestinian towns and villages. Most of these children were killed when there was no exchange of fire and in circumstances in which the lives of the soldiers were not at risk.
During the first months of the intifada children were mostly killed during stone-throwing demonstrations, though in many cases they appear to have been bystanders during these demonstrations.
Children killed by flechettes and booby-traps
Several children have been killed by flechette shells or explosive devices used by the IDF in densely populated areas. Flechette shells are 120mm shells filled with up to 5,000 potentially lethal five-centimetre long steel darts or flechettes. Although not illegal per se under international law, such weapons should never be used in populated areas. In a visit to Khan Yunis in September 2001, Amnesty International delegates saw flechettes embedded in the wall of a house where 14 people lived, most of them children.
On 22 November 2001 five boys from the Istal family were killed by a booby trap device as they walked to school in Khan Yunis: six-year-old Akram Abd al-Karim al-Istal; Muhammad Na'im Abd al-Karim al-Istal, age 14; Umar Idris al-Istal, age 13; Anis Idris al-Istal, 11; and Muhammad Salman al-Istal, also 11. Amnesty International delegates visited the site on 1 February 2002. The IDF at first denied responsibility for the explosion but subsequently admitted having placed the device there in the hope that it might detonate against armed Palestinians who sometimes shot during the night from the area. Such a device should never have been placed in such a public location, or at least should have been immediately defused before morning, as this is an area where many people passed, especially children on their way to school.
Children killed as a result of the demolition of houses
In Jenin, Nablus and other places the IDF bulldozed a number of houses while residents, including children, were still inside. On other occasions the IDF used explosives to blow up houses without evacuating the surrounding houses, which were also destroyed or damaged in the process. In some cases civilians, including children, were killed or buried alive under rubble of the demolished house. In the cases researched by Amnesty International, no warnings were apparently given for the safe evacuation of civilians before houses were demolished.
Death of children as a result of denial of access to medical care
Palestinian women in labour have been held up at checkpoints, and delayed or even prevented from passing through to reach hospital; in several cases such delays have resulted in loss of life for the babies and their mothers.
Children killed by Israeli settlers
Attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have continued during the intifada. In most cases the IDF does not intervene sufficiently promptly or vigorously - if at all - to protect Palestinians from settler violence.
PRINCIPLES PROHIBITING THE TARGETING OF CHILDREN AND OTHER CIVILIANS
A fundamental principle of international humanitarian law is that parties involved in a conflict must at all times distinguish between civilians (and therefore children) and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives. It is not permitted to target civilians, that is people who are not members of the armed forces of either side. This principle, known as the principle of distinction, is a fundamental rule of customary international humanitarian law, binding on all parties to armed conflicts, whether international or non-international.(19)
Amnesty International condemns unreservedly all attacks on children, as on all civilians, whatever the cause for which the perpetrators are fighting, whatever justification they may give for their actions. Targeting civilians of whatever age and being reckless as to their fate is contrary to fundamental principles of humanity which should apply in all circumstances at all times.
Israels obligations as an occupying power
The rules of an occupying power are laid down in the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949, to which Israel is a High Contracting Party. Palestinian children, like all residents of the Occupied Territories, benefit from the protection of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are ''protected persons''.(20)
Even though Israel has in the past rejected the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the Occupied Territories (the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip), according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the UN, and the international community in general, the Fourth Geneva Convention fully applies to the Occupied Territories and the Palestinians are a protected population under the terms of the Convention.
Israel has equal obligations to protect human rights, including the right to life, under the terms of major UN human rights treaties which it has ratified and which it is obliged to uphold. These include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Other human rights standards binding on members of the UN that are particularly relevant for the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinian children in this context are the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (Code of Conduct) and the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (Basic Principles).
Many killings of Palestinian children have been the result of excessive and totally disproportionate use of force by the IDF. Article 2 of the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials states that:
"In the performance of their duty, law enforcement officials shall respect and protect human dignity and maintain and uphold the human rights of all persons. Law enforcement officials may use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty."
Article 3 of the Code of Conduct clarifies that the use of firearms is considered as an extreme measure and states specifically that every effort should be made to exclude the use of firearms, especially against children.
Israeli regulations on the use of firearms before the current intifada began in 2000 allowed the use of non-lethal firearms to disperse demonstrations or to arrest suspects. Prior to the intifada Israeli soldiers responded to Palestinian children who demonstrated and often threw stones by frequently shooting at them with rubber-coated metal bullets. These bullets are lethal, especially at short range; they consist of a heavy metal core coated with a thin layer of hard rubber or plastic and have considerable penetrative power.
According to the IDF's own regulations, they are not intended to be used at close range, should only be fired at the lower extremities, and it is explicitly prohibited to use them against children. However, the IDF has regularly used such bullets against child demonstrators at distances considerably closer than the minimum permitted range of 40 metres and the pattern of injury indicates that IDF practice has not been to aim at the legs of demonstrators, as the majority of injuries suffered by children from rubber-coated bullets are to the upper body and head .
It is not clear what the current regulations on the use of firearms are, as the Israeli authorities have refused to disclose them since shortly after the beginning of the intifada.(21) The pattern of injury sustained by Palestinian children and others shows that immediately from the first days of the intifada the IDF used live ammunition as well as rubber-coated metal bullets, and that they sharply increased the use of live ammunition very quickly. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) also charted a steady rise in injuries from live fire since 1 October 2000, three days after the start of the Palestinian uprising, and a parallel decline in the use of rubber-coated bullets.
It is not clear what instructions, if any, have been given to IDF soldiers about the targeting of children. However, the large number of children killed and injured by the IDF throughout the Occupied Territories in the past two years and the fact that most children killed or injured were hit in the head or upper body shows that in their use of firearms against Palestinian children, the IDF have consistently breached international standards regulating the use of force and firearms. (22)
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/MDE020052002?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES\ISRAEL/OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
KILLINGS OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
The alarming pattern of killing of Palestinian children by the IDF was established at the outset of the intifada and has continued. On the second day of the intifada, on 30 September 2000, four children were killed by IDF fire.(6) The following day another four children aged between 12 and 17 were again killed by other security services. Within a month some 30 Palestinian children had been killed by IDF fire and by the end of the year 2000 the number was over 80.(7)
The rate at which Palestinian children were being killed decreased slightly during 2001 but increased again in 2002. In the first seven months of 2002 alone, more than 100 children were killed by IDF fire and the age of the victims was significantly lower than in the previous two years: in 2002, some 48% of the children killed were 12 years old or younger, as compared with some 35% in 2001 and about 13% in 2000.
In the first months of the intifada, the majority of child victims were killed as a result of the unlawful and excessive use of lethal force in response to demonstrations and stone-throwing incidents, when the lives of IDF soldiers were not at risk. In 2002 the majority were those children killed when the IDF randomly opened fire, or shelled or bombarded residential neighbourhoods in Palestinian towns and villages. Most of these children were killed when there was no exchange of fire and in circumstances in which the lives of the soldiers were not at risk.
During the first months of the intifada children were mostly killed during stone-throwing demonstrations, though in many cases they appear to have been bystanders during these demonstrations.
Children killed by flechettes and booby-traps
Several children have been killed by flechette shells or explosive devices used by the IDF in densely populated areas. Flechette shells are 120mm shells filled with up to 5,000 potentially lethal five-centimetre long steel darts or flechettes. Although not illegal per se under international law, such weapons should never be used in populated areas. In a visit to Khan Yunis in September 2001, Amnesty International delegates saw flechettes embedded in the wall of a house where 14 people lived, most of them children.
On 22 November 2001 five boys from the Istal family were killed by a booby trap device as they walked to school in Khan Yunis: six-year-old Akram Abd al-Karim al-Istal; Muhammad Na'im Abd al-Karim al-Istal, age 14; Umar Idris al-Istal, age 13; Anis Idris al-Istal, 11; and Muhammad Salman al-Istal, also 11. Amnesty International delegates visited the site on 1 February 2002. The IDF at first denied responsibility for the explosion but subsequently admitted having placed the device there in the hope that it might detonate against armed Palestinians who sometimes shot during the night from the area. Such a device should never have been placed in such a public location, or at least should have been immediately defused before morning, as this is an area where many people passed, especially children on their way to school.
Children killed as a result of the demolition of houses
In Jenin, Nablus and other places the IDF bulldozed a number of houses while residents, including children, were still inside. On other occasions the IDF used explosives to blow up houses without evacuating the surrounding houses, which were also destroyed or damaged in the process. In some cases civilians, including children, were killed or buried alive under rubble of the demolished house. In the cases researched by Amnesty International, no warnings were apparently given for the safe evacuation of civilians before houses were demolished.
Death of children as a result of denial of access to medical care
Palestinian women in labour have been held up at checkpoints, and delayed or even prevented from passing through to reach hospital; in several cases such delays have resulted in loss of life for the babies and their mothers.
Children killed by Israeli settlers
Attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have continued during the intifada. In most cases the IDF does not intervene sufficiently promptly or vigorously - if at all - to protect Palestinians from settler violence.
PRINCIPLES PROHIBITING THE TARGETING OF CHILDREN AND OTHER CIVILIANS
A fundamental principle of international humanitarian law is that parties involved in a conflict must at all times distinguish between civilians (and therefore children) and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives. It is not permitted to target civilians, that is people who are not members of the armed forces of either side. This principle, known as the principle of distinction, is a fundamental rule of customary international humanitarian law, binding on all parties to armed conflicts, whether international or non-international.(19)
Amnesty International condemns unreservedly all attacks on children, as on all civilians, whatever the cause for which the perpetrators are fighting, whatever justification they may give for their actions. Targeting civilians of whatever age and being reckless as to their fate is contrary to fundamental principles of humanity which should apply in all circumstances at all times.
Israels obligations as an occupying power
The rules of an occupying power are laid down in the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949, to which Israel is a High Contracting Party. Palestinian children, like all residents of the Occupied Territories, benefit from the protection of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are ''protected persons''.(20)
Even though Israel has in the past rejected the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the Occupied Territories (the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip), according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the UN, and the international community in general, the Fourth Geneva Convention fully applies to the Occupied Territories and the Palestinians are a protected population under the terms of the Convention.
Israel has equal obligations to protect human rights, including the right to life, under the terms of major UN human rights treaties which it has ratified and which it is obliged to uphold. These include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Other human rights standards binding on members of the UN that are particularly relevant for the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinian children in this context are the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (Code of Conduct) and the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (Basic Principles).
Many killings of Palestinian children have been the result of excessive and totally disproportionate use of force by the IDF. Article 2 of the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials states that:
"In the performance of their duty, law enforcement officials shall respect and protect human dignity and maintain and uphold the human rights of all persons. Law enforcement officials may use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty."
Article 3 of the Code of Conduct clarifies that the use of firearms is considered as an extreme measure and states specifically that every effort should be made to exclude the use of firearms, especially against children.
Israeli regulations on the use of firearms before the current intifada began in 2000 allowed the use of non-lethal firearms to disperse demonstrations or to arrest suspects. Prior to the intifada Israeli soldiers responded to Palestinian children who demonstrated and often threw stones by frequently shooting at them with rubber-coated metal bullets. These bullets are lethal, especially at short range; they consist of a heavy metal core coated with a thin layer of hard rubber or plastic and have considerable penetrative power.
According to the IDF's own regulations, they are not intended to be used at close range, should only be fired at the lower extremities, and it is explicitly prohibited to use them against children. However, the IDF has regularly used such bullets against child demonstrators at distances considerably closer than the minimum permitted range of 40 metres and the pattern of injury indicates that IDF practice has not been to aim at the legs of demonstrators, as the majority of injuries suffered by children from rubber-coated bullets are to the upper body and head .
It is not clear what the current regulations on the use of firearms are, as the Israeli authorities have refused to disclose them since shortly after the beginning of the intifada.(21) The pattern of injury sustained by Palestinian children and others shows that immediately from the first days of the intifada the IDF used live ammunition as well as rubber-coated metal bullets, and that they sharply increased the use of live ammunition very quickly. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) also charted a steady rise in injuries from live fire since 1 October 2000, three days after the start of the Palestinian uprising, and a parallel decline in the use of rubber-coated bullets.
It is not clear what instructions, if any, have been given to IDF soldiers about the targeting of children. However, the large number of children killed and injured by the IDF throughout the Occupied Territories in the past two years and the fact that most children killed or injured were hit in the head or upper body shows that in their use of firearms against Palestinian children, the IDF have consistently breached international standards regulating the use of force and firearms. (22)
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/MDE020052002?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES\ISRAEL/OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
E-Mail Slips to the Bottom of City Hall's In Box
MOST mayors and city council members routinely receive e-mail from constituents. While they say the messages help them to understand public opinion better, they still give more weight to opinions expressed in meetings, letters and telephone calls, according to a study released yesterday by the National League of Cities and the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Of 520 municipal officials surveyed nationwide, 90 percent said they used the Internet on the job, and nearly 80 percent said they had received e-mail from constituents or local groups about civic issues. About 25 percent reported that they heard from constituents by e-mail every day.
However, about half of the Internet-using officials surveyed said that opinions expressed through meetings and phone calls carried the most weight. More than a quarter said that letters carried the most weight. By contrast, only 14 percent said they gave serious weight to opinions expressed by e-mail.
"The communications that take more time and energy are the ones that are going to carry the most weight," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew project.
Mr. Genser, the councilman in Santa Monica, said: "I think the most effective thing is to come to the council meeting and speak. It shows more commitment."
E-mail, he said, rates more as a signature on a petition, especially if messages arrive as part of a lobbying campaign. The key for constituents, he said, is to produce a thoughtful message regardless of the delivery system.
Another study has also cast doubt on the effectiveness of e-mail for getting a message through to government. Results of a survey by researchers at Brown University, released two weeks ago, showed a poor response rate to e-mail by state government officials.
Researchers for the university's Taubman Center for Public Policy sent messages to human services departments in all 50 states. Only 55 percent of the e-mail messages were answered.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/03/technology/circuits/03STUD.html
MOST mayors and city council members routinely receive e-mail from constituents. While they say the messages help them to understand public opinion better, they still give more weight to opinions expressed in meetings, letters and telephone calls, according to a study released yesterday by the National League of Cities and the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Of 520 municipal officials surveyed nationwide, 90 percent said they used the Internet on the job, and nearly 80 percent said they had received e-mail from constituents or local groups about civic issues. About 25 percent reported that they heard from constituents by e-mail every day.
However, about half of the Internet-using officials surveyed said that opinions expressed through meetings and phone calls carried the most weight. More than a quarter said that letters carried the most weight. By contrast, only 14 percent said they gave serious weight to opinions expressed by e-mail.
"The communications that take more time and energy are the ones that are going to carry the most weight," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew project.
Mr. Genser, the councilman in Santa Monica, said: "I think the most effective thing is to come to the council meeting and speak. It shows more commitment."
E-mail, he said, rates more as a signature on a petition, especially if messages arrive as part of a lobbying campaign. The key for constituents, he said, is to produce a thoughtful message regardless of the delivery system.
Another study has also cast doubt on the effectiveness of e-mail for getting a message through to government. Results of a survey by researchers at Brown University, released two weeks ago, showed a poor response rate to e-mail by state government officials.
Researchers for the university's Taubman Center for Public Policy sent messages to human services departments in all 50 states. Only 55 percent of the e-mail messages were answered.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/03/technology/circuits/03STUD.html
Music Industry Targets Net Swappers
Music companies tried to persuade a judge Friday to let them obtain the names of people suspected of trading music files online without going to court first, a move that could dictate how copyright holders deal with Internet piracy in the future.
Internet service provider Verizon is resisting the music industry's subpoena, saying that it could turn Internet providers into a turnstile for piracy suits and put innocent customers at risk.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, who heard the case, lamented ambiguities in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was enacted to uphold copyright laws on the Internet while shielding technology companies from direct liability.
Congress ``could have made this statute clearer,'' Bates said. ``This statute is not organized as being consistent with the argument for either side.''
Bates said he would try to rule quickly, but lawyers for both sides had no guess of when a decision might arrive.
The subpoena hearing, which is normally a tame affair, was contentious because the music industry sees it as a test case. If it succeeds, it plans to send reams of cease-and-desist letters to scare file-swappers into taking their collections offline.
Until now, copyright holders have relied on requests sent to Internet providers to take action on their own against suspected pirates. Almost all Internet providers forbid sharing copyrighted material without permission.
Verizon said that since the hundreds of songs up for trade by the anonymous Verizon customer at the center of the case sit on the person's computer rather than Verizon's network, it is not required to automatically give up the subscriber's name.
``Verizon was a passive conduit at most,'' said Eric Holder, a former Justice Department prosecutor who represented Verizon. Holder said the music industry's strategy could create a contentious relationship between Verizon and its customers and put the Internet provider in the position of handing over names to the music companies without a judicial determination of piracy.
``We also don't want to be the policeman in this process,'' Holder said.
Lawyers for the recording industry rejected Verizon's arguments that it had little obligations in the process. Industry lawyer Donald Verrilli said no type of service provider is exempt from having to identify a potential music pirate, no matter where the songs sit.
Verrilli also dismissed Verizon's position that the Internet provider's customers have a right to privacy.
``You don't have a first amendment right to steal copyright works,'' Verrilli said.
The judge disagreed with Verrilli's assumption that the works were stolen.
``Here, there's only an allegation of infringement,'' Bates said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Internet-Swapping.html
Music companies tried to persuade a judge Friday to let them obtain the names of people suspected of trading music files online without going to court first, a move that could dictate how copyright holders deal with Internet piracy in the future.
Internet service provider Verizon is resisting the music industry's subpoena, saying that it could turn Internet providers into a turnstile for piracy suits and put innocent customers at risk.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, who heard the case, lamented ambiguities in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was enacted to uphold copyright laws on the Internet while shielding technology companies from direct liability.
Congress ``could have made this statute clearer,'' Bates said. ``This statute is not organized as being consistent with the argument for either side.''
Bates said he would try to rule quickly, but lawyers for both sides had no guess of when a decision might arrive.
The subpoena hearing, which is normally a tame affair, was contentious because the music industry sees it as a test case. If it succeeds, it plans to send reams of cease-and-desist letters to scare file-swappers into taking their collections offline.
Until now, copyright holders have relied on requests sent to Internet providers to take action on their own against suspected pirates. Almost all Internet providers forbid sharing copyrighted material without permission.
Verizon said that since the hundreds of songs up for trade by the anonymous Verizon customer at the center of the case sit on the person's computer rather than Verizon's network, it is not required to automatically give up the subscriber's name.
``Verizon was a passive conduit at most,'' said Eric Holder, a former Justice Department prosecutor who represented Verizon. Holder said the music industry's strategy could create a contentious relationship between Verizon and its customers and put the Internet provider in the position of handing over names to the music companies without a judicial determination of piracy.
``We also don't want to be the policeman in this process,'' Holder said.
Lawyers for the recording industry rejected Verizon's arguments that it had little obligations in the process. Industry lawyer Donald Verrilli said no type of service provider is exempt from having to identify a potential music pirate, no matter where the songs sit.
Verrilli also dismissed Verizon's position that the Internet provider's customers have a right to privacy.
``You don't have a first amendment right to steal copyright works,'' Verrilli said.
The judge disagreed with Verrilli's assumption that the works were stolen.
``Here, there's only an allegation of infringement,'' Bates said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Internet-Swapping.html
What Bush Can Learn From Truman
Truman was a Woodrow Wilson internationalist — one who believed strongly in the efficacy of international law and organization. His instinct was to look for allies and international legitimacy in responding to security threats while mobilizing American resolve and resources. He built and strengthened multilateral institutions, forged broad alliances to confront the Soviet Union, and turned immediately to the United Nations when North Korea launched its attack in 1950.
Truman's policy of deterrence and containment was conservative at its core. It rejected the risks of a larger, potentially devastating war associated with "rolling back" Soviet gains in Eastern Europe. He was prepared to rein in an offensive-minded military to keep intact his strategic defensive policy by firing the very popular General Douglas MacArthur.
Facing strong Republican opposition in Congress, one that resisted much of his domestic agenda, Truman saw the wisdom of working hard to fashion bipartisanship on foreign policy. He championed a strong presidency but he respected the constitutional authority of Congress. His consultations with Congress on national security matters were early, continuous and substantive. In fact, he indicated to Congress that he would welcome Congressional authorization of military action in Korea but Congressional leaders demurred.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/opinion/06MANN.html
Truman was a Woodrow Wilson internationalist — one who believed strongly in the efficacy of international law and organization. His instinct was to look for allies and international legitimacy in responding to security threats while mobilizing American resolve and resources. He built and strengthened multilateral institutions, forged broad alliances to confront the Soviet Union, and turned immediately to the United Nations when North Korea launched its attack in 1950.
Truman's policy of deterrence and containment was conservative at its core. It rejected the risks of a larger, potentially devastating war associated with "rolling back" Soviet gains in Eastern Europe. He was prepared to rein in an offensive-minded military to keep intact his strategic defensive policy by firing the very popular General Douglas MacArthur.
Facing strong Republican opposition in Congress, one that resisted much of his domestic agenda, Truman saw the wisdom of working hard to fashion bipartisanship on foreign policy. He championed a strong presidency but he respected the constitutional authority of Congress. His consultations with Congress on national security matters were early, continuous and substantive. In fact, he indicated to Congress that he would welcome Congressional authorization of military action in Korea but Congressional leaders demurred.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/opinion/06MANN.html
The Difficult Balance Between Liberty and Security
Even more than last year, the Supreme Court's new term begins in the shadow of Sept. 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks led Congress to pass laws that increase the ability of federal officials to investigate not just terrorists but all Americans. While the Supreme Court may begin to hear challenges to those laws later in its term, which begins tomorrow, it already has on its docket several cases that could reveal how it draws the line between liberty and security.
In hearing these cases, the justices will inevitably face one of the most basic and profound questions for any system of justice: how to ensure that the most serious restrictions on liberty are reserved for those who pose the most serious threats to security. Few Americans would disagree with the principle that the punishment should fit the crime. But whether the Constitution requires some degree of proportionality is unclear. Unfortunately, based on the justices' past rulings, it may be a mistake to rely on the Supreme Court to restore some sense of balance.
Of the cases the court has already agreed to hear, three involve laws passed after highly publicized crimes in the 1990's: the Oklahoma City bombing and the murders of Polly Klass and Megan Kanka. Like the Sept. 11 attacks, these crimes created widespread fear and unrealistic public demands for security at the expense of liberty. Although the justices have been eager to expand their own power in relation to that of Congress and the president, they have been reluctant to strike down or modify excessively broad laws adopted in haste after especially dramatic or horrific events.
In Demore v. Kim, the issue is whether Congress, in responding to terrorism after the Oklahoma City bombing, acted unconstitutionally when it passed a law in 1996 requiring the attorney general to take into custody all noncitizens who commit certain crimes and hold them without bail before deporting them. The law is being challenged by a South Korean citizen who served three years in prison for petty theft and was seized by the Immigration and Naturalization Service the day after his release. In striking down the mandatory detention, a federal appeals court said the plaintiff's treatment was disproportionate to his crime.
How the Supreme Court decides this case may give some indication of its view of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which Congress passed a year ago and which gives the attorney general even broader powers to detain criminal aliens. Two years ago, the Supreme Court narrowly held that the indefinite detention of certain aliens might violate the Constitution, although it made an exception for cases involving terrorism (which it did not define). Yet the court has traditionally given Congress broad discretion over immigration and historically has not insisted upon proportionality between the length of the detention and the seriousness of the crime in cases involving noncitizens.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/opinion/06ROSE.html
Even more than last year, the Supreme Court's new term begins in the shadow of Sept. 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks led Congress to pass laws that increase the ability of federal officials to investigate not just terrorists but all Americans. While the Supreme Court may begin to hear challenges to those laws later in its term, which begins tomorrow, it already has on its docket several cases that could reveal how it draws the line between liberty and security.
In hearing these cases, the justices will inevitably face one of the most basic and profound questions for any system of justice: how to ensure that the most serious restrictions on liberty are reserved for those who pose the most serious threats to security. Few Americans would disagree with the principle that the punishment should fit the crime. But whether the Constitution requires some degree of proportionality is unclear. Unfortunately, based on the justices' past rulings, it may be a mistake to rely on the Supreme Court to restore some sense of balance.
Of the cases the court has already agreed to hear, three involve laws passed after highly publicized crimes in the 1990's: the Oklahoma City bombing and the murders of Polly Klass and Megan Kanka. Like the Sept. 11 attacks, these crimes created widespread fear and unrealistic public demands for security at the expense of liberty. Although the justices have been eager to expand their own power in relation to that of Congress and the president, they have been reluctant to strike down or modify excessively broad laws adopted in haste after especially dramatic or horrific events.
In Demore v. Kim, the issue is whether Congress, in responding to terrorism after the Oklahoma City bombing, acted unconstitutionally when it passed a law in 1996 requiring the attorney general to take into custody all noncitizens who commit certain crimes and hold them without bail before deporting them. The law is being challenged by a South Korean citizen who served three years in prison for petty theft and was seized by the Immigration and Naturalization Service the day after his release. In striking down the mandatory detention, a federal appeals court said the plaintiff's treatment was disproportionate to his crime.
How the Supreme Court decides this case may give some indication of its view of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which Congress passed a year ago and which gives the attorney general even broader powers to detain criminal aliens. Two years ago, the Supreme Court narrowly held that the indefinite detention of certain aliens might violate the Constitution, although it made an exception for cases involving terrorism (which it did not define). Yet the court has traditionally given Congress broad discretion over immigration and historically has not insisted upon proportionality between the length of the detention and the seriousness of the crime in cases involving noncitizens.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/opinion/06ROSE.html
EU's Solana Meets Israeli, Palestinian Officials
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana had talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials Sunday, kicking off a fresh round of international diplomacy aimed at stanching two years of bloodshed.
His meetings came against the backdrop of fresh violence in which two Palestinians were killed in the West Bank.
Palestinian witnesses said Jewish settlers shot and killed a Palestinian worker as he was harvesting olives with several other people in a grove south of Nablus. An Israeli police spokesman said the incident was under investigation.
Israeli forces shot and killed a second Palestinian during a battle with gunmen in the Jenin refugee camp, witnesses and medical officials said. A military source said soldiers shot at gunmen who fired on one of their units.
Solana said before arriving in the region Saturday that he would emphasize the need for Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace talks stalled since 2000 and push forward a new plan from the ``quartet'' of U.N., U.S., Russian and EU mediators.
In September, the quartet outlined a peace plan demanding that Palestinians reform their governing authority and Israel withdraw troops from West Bank cities, aiming at a final peace settlement in three years.
U.S. Middle East envoy William Burns was also due to visit within days amid fresh tension with Palestinians over a new U.S. law requiring the administration to stipulate on documents that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
Solana met Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres Sunday and was due to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat Monday.
Ben-Eliezer told Solana he wanted the EU to pressure Palestinians to prevent militants from attacking Israelis in their two-year-old uprising against occupation, army radio said.
Arafat's security adviser Mohammad Dahlan told reporters after talks with Solana in Gaza that the EU official and Arafat would ``review the steps Israel has taken to destroy peace efforts and the ongoing attacks on the Palestinian people.''
Arafat signed a law Saturday declaring Jerusalem to be the capital of a future independent Palestinian state, facing off against the new U.S. bill signed into law by President Bush last week.
The White House has since stressed the law does not change its policy that the future of Jerusalem, claimed by both sides as a capital, should be determined in peace negotiations.
The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Sunday discussed the U.S. law, which Palestinians and other Arabs denounce as backing Israel's claims to the city holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians.
``This step shows that the U.S. administration is turning its back on the peace process that it sponsors and on the bilateral agreements between Israel and the Palestinians,'' PLC speaker Ahmed Korei said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana had talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials Sunday, kicking off a fresh round of international diplomacy aimed at stanching two years of bloodshed.
His meetings came against the backdrop of fresh violence in which two Palestinians were killed in the West Bank.
Palestinian witnesses said Jewish settlers shot and killed a Palestinian worker as he was harvesting olives with several other people in a grove south of Nablus. An Israeli police spokesman said the incident was under investigation.
Israeli forces shot and killed a second Palestinian during a battle with gunmen in the Jenin refugee camp, witnesses and medical officials said. A military source said soldiers shot at gunmen who fired on one of their units.
Solana said before arriving in the region Saturday that he would emphasize the need for Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace talks stalled since 2000 and push forward a new plan from the ``quartet'' of U.N., U.S., Russian and EU mediators.
In September, the quartet outlined a peace plan demanding that Palestinians reform their governing authority and Israel withdraw troops from West Bank cities, aiming at a final peace settlement in three years.
U.S. Middle East envoy William Burns was also due to visit within days amid fresh tension with Palestinians over a new U.S. law requiring the administration to stipulate on documents that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
Solana met Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres Sunday and was due to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat Monday.
Ben-Eliezer told Solana he wanted the EU to pressure Palestinians to prevent militants from attacking Israelis in their two-year-old uprising against occupation, army radio said.
Arafat's security adviser Mohammad Dahlan told reporters after talks with Solana in Gaza that the EU official and Arafat would ``review the steps Israel has taken to destroy peace efforts and the ongoing attacks on the Palestinian people.''
Arafat signed a law Saturday declaring Jerusalem to be the capital of a future independent Palestinian state, facing off against the new U.S. bill signed into law by President Bush last week.
The White House has since stressed the law does not change its policy that the future of Jerusalem, claimed by both sides as a capital, should be determined in peace negotiations.
The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Sunday discussed the U.S. law, which Palestinians and other Arabs denounce as backing Israel's claims to the city holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians.
``This step shows that the U.S. administration is turning its back on the peace process that it sponsors and on the bilateral agreements between Israel and the Palestinians,'' PLC speaker Ahmed Korei said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
Riddle in Seattle: Is Man Held by U.S. a Terrorist or Just a Hustler?
By the time James Ujaama returned here three months ago, he knew that federal agents had been following him for months and that his past would soon be interpreted in a way that would shock people here in his hometown, his friends said.
In many ways, Mr. Ujaama was a changed man after five years in London. A convert to Islam, he spoke passionately of wanting to work against laws loosening restrictions on wiretapping terrorism suspects.
But in other ways, he was the same person, known in Seattle's Central District for trying to sell everything from motivational books to a screenplay about his life.
"At the end of our meeting, he sold me a shirt," said Larry Gossett, a member of the King County Council. "That's the James Ujaama I know. He was always a good hustler."
In court this week, federal prosecutors painted another picture. Mr. Ujaama, they said, had attended training camps of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan; had tried to help set up a terrorist camp in the United States; and had taken a loyalty oath to a London cleric, Sheik Abu Hamza al-Masri, described by prosecutors as "perhaps one of the best-known terrorists in the world."
After weighing testimonials about Mr. Ujaama's good character against the image of him as someone in league with terrorists, a federal magistrate judge, John Weinberg, appeared as perplexed as anyone about Mr. Ujaama.
"His background is exemplary," Judge Weinberg said on Tuesday. "But people change. And the record suggests some drastic and tragic changes for Mr. Ujaama." He ordered Mr. Ujaama held without bail.
The riddle of James Ujaama, who is well known among this city's African-Americans, may not be solved for some time. Although he was indicted in late August on a charge of conspiring to help Al Qaeda establish a terrorist training camp on a ranch in southern Oregon, his trial could be more than a year away, his lawyers say.
Some prominent blacks in Seattle support Mr. Ujaama, saying he appears to be the victim of the persecution that black leaders endured in the past.
"I can't see anything in his past that would indicate he would ever be involved with violent terrorists," said Eddie Rye Jr., regional vice president of the Black Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Rye has known Mr. Ujaama for more than 20 years. Like other longtime acquaintances, Mr. Rye suggests the activities that the government says are part of a plot can by explained by Mr. Ujaama's lifetime of making deals.
"James Ujaama first and foremost is an entrepreneur," Mr. Rye said. "He had prepared himself since an early age for success."
As a child, Mr. Ujaama worked at food banks and social service centers in Seattle, helping his mother, Peggy Thompson. As a young man, he established a computer business, sold pamphlets encouraging young blacks to stay off drugs and succeed through the American dream, and was a motivational speaker.
A state legislator, Jesse Wineberry, once issued a citation declaring a statewide day of recognition for Mr. Ujaama.
But Mr. Ujaama also has a criminal record, which his supporters have played down. It includes a felony conviction for check fraud and four convictions for misdemeanors, including theft and domestic violence, the federal authorities say.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/national/06CAMP.html
By the time James Ujaama returned here three months ago, he knew that federal agents had been following him for months and that his past would soon be interpreted in a way that would shock people here in his hometown, his friends said.
In many ways, Mr. Ujaama was a changed man after five years in London. A convert to Islam, he spoke passionately of wanting to work against laws loosening restrictions on wiretapping terrorism suspects.
But in other ways, he was the same person, known in Seattle's Central District for trying to sell everything from motivational books to a screenplay about his life.
"At the end of our meeting, he sold me a shirt," said Larry Gossett, a member of the King County Council. "That's the James Ujaama I know. He was always a good hustler."
In court this week, federal prosecutors painted another picture. Mr. Ujaama, they said, had attended training camps of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan; had tried to help set up a terrorist camp in the United States; and had taken a loyalty oath to a London cleric, Sheik Abu Hamza al-Masri, described by prosecutors as "perhaps one of the best-known terrorists in the world."
After weighing testimonials about Mr. Ujaama's good character against the image of him as someone in league with terrorists, a federal magistrate judge, John Weinberg, appeared as perplexed as anyone about Mr. Ujaama.
"His background is exemplary," Judge Weinberg said on Tuesday. "But people change. And the record suggests some drastic and tragic changes for Mr. Ujaama." He ordered Mr. Ujaama held without bail.
The riddle of James Ujaama, who is well known among this city's African-Americans, may not be solved for some time. Although he was indicted in late August on a charge of conspiring to help Al Qaeda establish a terrorist training camp on a ranch in southern Oregon, his trial could be more than a year away, his lawyers say.
Some prominent blacks in Seattle support Mr. Ujaama, saying he appears to be the victim of the persecution that black leaders endured in the past.
"I can't see anything in his past that would indicate he would ever be involved with violent terrorists," said Eddie Rye Jr., regional vice president of the Black Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Rye has known Mr. Ujaama for more than 20 years. Like other longtime acquaintances, Mr. Rye suggests the activities that the government says are part of a plot can by explained by Mr. Ujaama's lifetime of making deals.
"James Ujaama first and foremost is an entrepreneur," Mr. Rye said. "He had prepared himself since an early age for success."
As a child, Mr. Ujaama worked at food banks and social service centers in Seattle, helping his mother, Peggy Thompson. As a young man, he established a computer business, sold pamphlets encouraging young blacks to stay off drugs and succeed through the American dream, and was a motivational speaker.
A state legislator, Jesse Wineberry, once issued a citation declaring a statewide day of recognition for Mr. Ujaama.
But Mr. Ujaama also has a criminal record, which his supporters have played down. It includes a felony conviction for check fraud and four convictions for misdemeanors, including theft and domestic violence, the federal authorities say.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/national/06CAMP.html
Saturday, October 05, 2002
More Young Victims Falling on Front Lines in the Mideast
As the current Palestinian uprising enters its third year with Israeli forces reoccupying most West Bank cities, children are often on the front line as soldiers use live ammunition to enforce curfews and break up violent street protests, sometimes with deadly results.
There were more young casualties today. At Nazlat Zeid, a village near Jenin, soldiers imposing a curfew opened fire during a stone-throwing clash, killing Muhammad Zeid, 15, reportedly as he stood near his house. The army said the soldiers had violated firing regulations.
Near the Askar refugee camp in Nablus, Ibrahim Madani, 12, was critically wounded in the head when Israeli troops fired at a nearby taxi violating the curfew, residents said. A soldier at the camp was later shot and wounded when he got out of a tank to repair a tread, the army said.
The latest violence came as the London-based rights group Amnesty International issued a report this week asserting that both the Israeli Army and Palestinian armed groups were killing children with impunity.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child called on Israelis and Palestinians today to "refrain from using and/or targeting children in the armed conflict," which it said had been marked by "acts of terror on both sides."
Amnesty International said more than 250 Palestinian children had been killed from the outbreak of the violence in September 2000 to the end of August this year. Seventy-two Israeli children have been killed, 70 percent of them in suicide bombings, it said. About 7,000 Palestinian children and hundreds of Israeli children have been wounded.
The overwhelming majority of Palestinian child victims were killed when "members of the Israeli Defense Forces responded to demonstrations and stone-throwing incidents with excessive and disproportionate use of force, and as a result of the I.D.F.'s reckless shooting, shelling and aerial bombardments of residential areas," the report said.
It asserted that most of the children were killed when the lives of soldiers were not at risk.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/05/international/middleeast/05MIDE.html
As the current Palestinian uprising enters its third year with Israeli forces reoccupying most West Bank cities, children are often on the front line as soldiers use live ammunition to enforce curfews and break up violent street protests, sometimes with deadly results.
There were more young casualties today. At Nazlat Zeid, a village near Jenin, soldiers imposing a curfew opened fire during a stone-throwing clash, killing Muhammad Zeid, 15, reportedly as he stood near his house. The army said the soldiers had violated firing regulations.
Near the Askar refugee camp in Nablus, Ibrahim Madani, 12, was critically wounded in the head when Israeli troops fired at a nearby taxi violating the curfew, residents said. A soldier at the camp was later shot and wounded when he got out of a tank to repair a tread, the army said.
The latest violence came as the London-based rights group Amnesty International issued a report this week asserting that both the Israeli Army and Palestinian armed groups were killing children with impunity.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child called on Israelis and Palestinians today to "refrain from using and/or targeting children in the armed conflict," which it said had been marked by "acts of terror on both sides."
Amnesty International said more than 250 Palestinian children had been killed from the outbreak of the violence in September 2000 to the end of August this year. Seventy-two Israeli children have been killed, 70 percent of them in suicide bombings, it said. About 7,000 Palestinian children and hundreds of Israeli children have been wounded.
The overwhelming majority of Palestinian child victims were killed when "members of the Israeli Defense Forces responded to demonstrations and stone-throwing incidents with excessive and disproportionate use of force, and as a result of the I.D.F.'s reckless shooting, shelling and aerial bombardments of residential areas," the report said.
It asserted that most of the children were killed when the lives of soldiers were not at risk.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/05/international/middleeast/05MIDE.html
Israeli Troops Kill Palestinian in Clash - Witnesses
Israeli soldiers shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian during clashes with stone-throwing protesters on Saturday, Palestinian witnesses and medics said, on the eve of an international round of peace diplomacy.
The incident in the West Bank city of Nablus, which has been under curfew for more than 100 days, inflamed tensions ahead of the arrival of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Saturday night for shuttle talks with Israel and the Palestinians.
The youth killed in the West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday, Ammar Rajab, was the second Palestinian teenager to be killed in the West Bank in as many days. On Friday a 16-year-old was killed in the city of Jenin when troops fired in the direction of what the army described as rioters.
SCHOOLCHILDREN ORDERED HOME
Nablus residents said soldiers, who had often allowed children to attend unofficial classes at nearby schools despite the curfew, on Saturday ordered them back home, prompting protesters to begin throwing stones.
Palestinian medics said Rajab had been shot in the head as soldiers fired on the stone-throwers. Witnesses said two other youths, aged 13 and 16, had been wounded.
The army said it was checking the report.
Israel has re-occupied West Bank cities since a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings and has imposed military curfews, saying they help prevent further attacks. Palestinians and human rights organizations say the measures are collective punishment.
In Nablus, the largest stronghold of Palestinian militants in the West Bank, residents have been kept indoors almost continuously for more than 100 days.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
Israeli soldiers shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian during clashes with stone-throwing protesters on Saturday, Palestinian witnesses and medics said, on the eve of an international round of peace diplomacy.
The incident in the West Bank city of Nablus, which has been under curfew for more than 100 days, inflamed tensions ahead of the arrival of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Saturday night for shuttle talks with Israel and the Palestinians.
The youth killed in the West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday, Ammar Rajab, was the second Palestinian teenager to be killed in the West Bank in as many days. On Friday a 16-year-old was killed in the city of Jenin when troops fired in the direction of what the army described as rioters.
SCHOOLCHILDREN ORDERED HOME
Nablus residents said soldiers, who had often allowed children to attend unofficial classes at nearby schools despite the curfew, on Saturday ordered them back home, prompting protesters to begin throwing stones.
Palestinian medics said Rajab had been shot in the head as soldiers fired on the stone-throwers. Witnesses said two other youths, aged 13 and 16, had been wounded.
The army said it was checking the report.
Israel has re-occupied West Bank cities since a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings and has imposed military curfews, saying they help prevent further attacks. Palestinians and human rights organizations say the measures are collective punishment.
In Nablus, the largest stronghold of Palestinian militants in the West Bank, residents have been kept indoors almost continuously for more than 100 days.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
Education Index
Education Index®, an annotated guide to the best education-related sites on the Web. They're sorted by subject and lifestage, so you can find what you're looking for quickly and easily.
http://www.educationindex.com/
Education Index®, an annotated guide to the best education-related sites on the Web. They're sorted by subject and lifestage, so you can find what you're looking for quickly and easily.
http://www.educationindex.com/
EPAA Vol. 10 No. 37 Laczko-Kerr & Berliner: The Effectiveness of "Teach for America"
The academic achievements of students taught by under-certified primary school teachers were compared to the academic achievements of students taught by regularly certified primary school teachers. This sample of under-certified teachers included three types of under-qualified personnel: emergency, temporary and provisionally certified teachers. One subset of these under-certified teachers was from the national program "Teach For America (TFA)." Recent college graduates are placed by TFA where other under-qualified under-certified teachers are often called upon to work, namely, low-income urban and rural school districts. Certified teachers in this study were from accredited universities and all met state requirements for receiving the regular initial certificate to teach. Recently hired under-certified and certified teachers (N=293) from five low-income school districts were matched on a number of variables, resulting in 109 pairs of teachers whose students all took the mandated state achievement test. Results indicate 1) that students of TFA teachers did not perform significantly different from students of other under-certified teachers, and 2) that students of certified teachers out-performed students of teachers who were under-certified. This was true on all three subtests of the SAT 9—reading, mathematics and language arts. Effect sizes favoring the students of certified teachers were substantial.…
http://olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa/v10n37/
The academic achievements of students taught by under-certified primary school teachers were compared to the academic achievements of students taught by regularly certified primary school teachers. This sample of under-certified teachers included three types of under-qualified personnel: emergency, temporary and provisionally certified teachers. One subset of these under-certified teachers was from the national program "Teach For America (TFA)." Recent college graduates are placed by TFA where other under-qualified under-certified teachers are often called upon to work, namely, low-income urban and rural school districts. Certified teachers in this study were from accredited universities and all met state requirements for receiving the regular initial certificate to teach. Recently hired under-certified and certified teachers (N=293) from five low-income school districts were matched on a number of variables, resulting in 109 pairs of teachers whose students all took the mandated state achievement test. Results indicate 1) that students of TFA teachers did not perform significantly different from students of other under-certified teachers, and 2) that students of certified teachers out-performed students of teachers who were under-certified. This was true on all three subtests of the SAT 9—reading, mathematics and language arts. Effect sizes favoring the students of certified teachers were substantial.…
http://olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa/v10n37/
ZDNet: Tech Update
Hackers. Thieves. Cyberterrorists. Angry ex-employees. They're out there--ready to corrupt, disrupt, steal, or sabotage. Who can protect your data, your systems, your business from them? Only you can--as a computer user, an IT manager, or a company executive. But are you ready? How prepared are you to prevent, not just react. Find out. Take the test.
Take the test: Home users, employees, small biz owners
Readiness Report Card I Cybersecurity begins at home. It rests with anyone and everyone who touches a keyboard. Are you doing the right things to protect your personal data? To make sure you don't catch--or spread--a virus? Find out whether you make the grade. Take our interactive test.
September 25, 2002
Take the test: Business execs, managers, IT professionals
Readiness Report Card II Your company's fortunes--maybe even its fate--rest on its data, systems, and networks. Protecting them isn't just a job for the IT department. It begins at the top and extends to every part of the business. When it comes to cybersecurity, does your company pass? Or fail? Find out. Take our interactive test.
September 25, 2002
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/filters/specialreport/0,14622,6023353,00.html
Hackers. Thieves. Cyberterrorists. Angry ex-employees. They're out there--ready to corrupt, disrupt, steal, or sabotage. Who can protect your data, your systems, your business from them? Only you can--as a computer user, an IT manager, or a company executive. But are you ready? How prepared are you to prevent, not just react. Find out. Take the test.
Take the test: Home users, employees, small biz owners
Readiness Report Card I Cybersecurity begins at home. It rests with anyone and everyone who touches a keyboard. Are you doing the right things to protect your personal data? To make sure you don't catch--or spread--a virus? Find out whether you make the grade. Take our interactive test.
September 25, 2002
Take the test: Business execs, managers, IT professionals
Readiness Report Card II Your company's fortunes--maybe even its fate--rest on its data, systems, and networks. Protecting them isn't just a job for the IT department. It begins at the top and extends to every part of the business. When it comes to cybersecurity, does your company pass? Or fail? Find out. Take our interactive test.
September 25, 2002
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/filters/specialreport/0,14622,6023353,00.html
Readiness Report Card DIGITAL DEFENSE TEST
Who should take this test: Home users, employees, small business owners.
Why: The fight for cybersecurity is joined whenever a single system connects to a network. Cybersecurity starts at home and follows you to work. It's the responsibility of anyone and everyone who touches a keyboard.
http://techupdate.cnet.com/enterprise/0-20424045-724-20428906.html
Who should take this test: Home users, employees, small business owners.
Why: The fight for cybersecurity is joined whenever a single system connects to a network. Cybersecurity starts at home and follows you to work. It's the responsibility of anyone and everyone who touches a keyboard.
http://techupdate.cnet.com/enterprise/0-20424045-724-20428906.html
Friday, October 04, 2002
Palestinian Urges Defiance; Plan to Grab Arafat Reported
Marwan Barghouti, a rising Palestinian leader on trial in Israel on charges of terrorism, today called on Palestinians throughout the West Bank to defy Israeli curfews, and an Israeli newspaper reported that the army has rehearsed an operation to snatch and deport Yasir Arafat.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has repeatedly sought to exile Mr. Arafat, whom he considers Israel's enemy, but most of Israel's top security officials have opposed the move and the coalition government has blocked it.
Mr. Barghouti, the top West Bank official of Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction, appeared today for a third hearing in advance of his trial on charges of planning attacks that left 26 Israelis dead and scores wounded. Mr. Barghouti has denied the charges and rejected Israel's authority to try him.
The trial is shaping up as a showdown between Israeli officials out to demonstrate links between mainstream Palestinian leaders and terrorism, and one of the most articulate of those leaders, who is trying to put the Israeli occupation itself in the dock. Mr. Barghouti's lawyers distributed his own 54-count indictment of Israel today.
Today's hearing, to evaluate a prosecution request to extend Mr. Barghouti's confinement, was once again marked by tumult inside and outside the Tel Aviv courtroom. Families of some Israeli victims scuffled outside with the police.
As Mr. Barghouti was brought in shackles into the courtroom, he called out, "I say one thing: The intifada will be victorious over the occupation." He clasped his chained hands over his head and shook them, smiling at supporters.
He was drowned out by bereaved Israelis screaming, "They shouldn't give you the right to speak!" and "They should castrate you!"
One of Mr. Barghouti's lawyers, Shamai Leibowitz, an Israeli, compared him to Moses. Speaking of Moses, he said, "According to some lawyers, he should be called a terrorist, but according to Exodus, he is a freedom fighter." Mr. Leibowitz argued that Moses killed an Egyptian not because he hated Egyptians but because the man was beating a fellow Jew.
Mr. Barghouti smiled, but Yaakov Shemesh, who lost his brother and pregnant sister-in-law in a bombing in Jerusalem earlier this year, shouted at the lawyer, "How dare you call yourself a Jew?"
At one point in today's proceedings, Mr. Barghouti said, "This isn't a court — this is a carnival." Access by the news media to the courtroom was restricted to a pool of reporters.
Mr. Barghouti calls himself a political leader, not a military one. He has said he supports attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, but not against civilians inside pre-1967 Israeli borders.
In a statement, Mr. Barghouti said, "What is on trial today is the conscience of all freedom-loving people around the world." He said that his crime was not terrorism but "that I insist on my freedom, freedom for my children, freedom for the entire Palestinian people. And if indeed that is a crime, I'd probably plead guilty."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/international/middleeast/04MIDE.html
Marwan Barghouti, a rising Palestinian leader on trial in Israel on charges of terrorism, today called on Palestinians throughout the West Bank to defy Israeli curfews, and an Israeli newspaper reported that the army has rehearsed an operation to snatch and deport Yasir Arafat.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has repeatedly sought to exile Mr. Arafat, whom he considers Israel's enemy, but most of Israel's top security officials have opposed the move and the coalition government has blocked it.
Mr. Barghouti, the top West Bank official of Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction, appeared today for a third hearing in advance of his trial on charges of planning attacks that left 26 Israelis dead and scores wounded. Mr. Barghouti has denied the charges and rejected Israel's authority to try him.
The trial is shaping up as a showdown between Israeli officials out to demonstrate links between mainstream Palestinian leaders and terrorism, and one of the most articulate of those leaders, who is trying to put the Israeli occupation itself in the dock. Mr. Barghouti's lawyers distributed his own 54-count indictment of Israel today.
Today's hearing, to evaluate a prosecution request to extend Mr. Barghouti's confinement, was once again marked by tumult inside and outside the Tel Aviv courtroom. Families of some Israeli victims scuffled outside with the police.
As Mr. Barghouti was brought in shackles into the courtroom, he called out, "I say one thing: The intifada will be victorious over the occupation." He clasped his chained hands over his head and shook them, smiling at supporters.
He was drowned out by bereaved Israelis screaming, "They shouldn't give you the right to speak!" and "They should castrate you!"
One of Mr. Barghouti's lawyers, Shamai Leibowitz, an Israeli, compared him to Moses. Speaking of Moses, he said, "According to some lawyers, he should be called a terrorist, but according to Exodus, he is a freedom fighter." Mr. Leibowitz argued that Moses killed an Egyptian not because he hated Egyptians but because the man was beating a fellow Jew.
Mr. Barghouti smiled, but Yaakov Shemesh, who lost his brother and pregnant sister-in-law in a bombing in Jerusalem earlier this year, shouted at the lawyer, "How dare you call yourself a Jew?"
At one point in today's proceedings, Mr. Barghouti said, "This isn't a court — this is a carnival." Access by the news media to the courtroom was restricted to a pool of reporters.
Mr. Barghouti calls himself a political leader, not a military one. He has said he supports attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, but not against civilians inside pre-1967 Israeli borders.
In a statement, Mr. Barghouti said, "What is on trial today is the conscience of all freedom-loving people around the world." He said that his crime was not terrorism but "that I insist on my freedom, freedom for my children, freedom for the entire Palestinian people. And if indeed that is a crime, I'd probably plead guilty."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/international/middleeast/04MIDE.html
Thursday, October 03, 2002
Palestinian Indicts Israel at Trial
Marwan Barghouti, a prominent leader of the Palestinian uprising, distributed his own 54-count ``indictment'' of Israel during his murder trial in an Israeli court Thursday, as scuffles erupted between Palestinian spectators and families of Israeli victims.
``We will be victorious over the occupation,'' Barghouti shouted before being led away, his hands shackled. Guards took him out of the courtroom several times because he kept interrupting proceedings.
Barghouti's lawyers told the three-judge panel that the court had no jurisdiction because their client is an elected member of the Palestinian parliament. Chief Judge Zvi Garfinkel said the trial would continue Nov. 21, after hearing the prosecutions arguments on the jurisdiction issue…
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Barghouti-Trial.html
Marwan Barghouti, a prominent leader of the Palestinian uprising, distributed his own 54-count ``indictment'' of Israel during his murder trial in an Israeli court Thursday, as scuffles erupted between Palestinian spectators and families of Israeli victims.
``We will be victorious over the occupation,'' Barghouti shouted before being led away, his hands shackled. Guards took him out of the courtroom several times because he kept interrupting proceedings.
Barghouti's lawyers told the three-judge panel that the court had no jurisdiction because their client is an elected member of the Palestinian parliament. Chief Judge Zvi Garfinkel said the trial would continue Nov. 21, after hearing the prosecutions arguments on the jurisdiction issue…
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Barghouti-Trial.html
Israeli Troops Rehearse Arafat Expulsion
Israeli troops have rehearsed a military operation to expel Palestinian President Yasser Arafat by air to a distant country, an Israeli newspaper said Thursday.
Israeli security sources confirmed to Reuters that a mock operation took place several weeks ago, but did not give details.
Palestinian officials said the report showed Israel's true intentions for exiling the Palestinian leader who was once a partner to peace negotiations and is now largely confined to his battered headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
``This is an evil idea and just reflects the true intentions of the Israeli government...to destroy the peace process,'' chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.
He urged the international community ``to intervene immediately to reveal exactly what the Israeli government is planning to do.''
The possible expulsion of Arafat was last discussed by the Israeli Cabinet on Sept. 19 at a special session following a suicide attack on a Tel Aviv bus which killed seven people.
Israel holds Arafat responsible for attacks on Israelis in the two-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence. Palestinians deny that their leadership takes an active role in the violence.
Israeli army marksmen continue to surround his compound, largely destroyed in the latest 10-day siege which ended last week.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast-arafat-exile.html
Israeli troops have rehearsed a military operation to expel Palestinian President Yasser Arafat by air to a distant country, an Israeli newspaper said Thursday.
Israeli security sources confirmed to Reuters that a mock operation took place several weeks ago, but did not give details.
Palestinian officials said the report showed Israel's true intentions for exiling the Palestinian leader who was once a partner to peace negotiations and is now largely confined to his battered headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
``This is an evil idea and just reflects the true intentions of the Israeli government...to destroy the peace process,'' chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.
He urged the international community ``to intervene immediately to reveal exactly what the Israeli government is planning to do.''
The possible expulsion of Arafat was last discussed by the Israeli Cabinet on Sept. 19 at a special session following a suicide attack on a Tel Aviv bus which killed seven people.
Israel holds Arafat responsible for attacks on Israelis in the two-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence. Palestinians deny that their leadership takes an active role in the violence.
Israeli army marksmen continue to surround his compound, largely destroyed in the latest 10-day siege which ended last week.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast-arafat-exile.html
An Israeli's Sorrowful
It has been just over 100 days since Israel, after a suicide bomber killed 19 people on a Jerusalem bus, seized control of Nablus, along with most of the rest of the West Bank not already under its command. It acted under a new policy of taking back Palestinian-controlled territory "as long as terror continues."
Israeli officials say that suicide bombers and bad Palestinian leadership have left them no choice. "When they will say `enough,' they can live in peace and quiet," the colonel said. Palestinians say that Israel is provoking violence and seeking to destroy their governing institutions, economy, and dream of nationhood.
Nowhere has the new military control been more stringent than here, the Palestinian financial capital, which Israeli officials now call the center of Palestinian terrorism. A dismal status quo has settled over Nablus. "Life here is miserable," the colonel said. "This is the price. They went back more than 20 years."
For now, the army has cut Nablus off from the surrounding villages, and it has sliced the city itself in half, throwing up head-high berms and placing patrols of soldiers and armored vehicles across the main roads. Most days, the city is under curfew. The army enforces the curfew intermittently, unexpectedly, abruptly sending tanks storming downtown. Commerce has resumed, at an irregular trickle; schooling was conducted furtively, in home, until the army permitted most schools to reopen a few days ago.
Palestinians call the situation worse than before the Oslo peace accords, which prompted Israel over the last decade to cede control of some areas, like Nablus, to Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Before Oslo, the Israelis also bore responsibility for education and other aspects of civil administration, tasks it now leaves to a patchwork of nonprofit organizations and staggering Palestinian institutions.
In the Balata refugee camp in Nablus early this evening, hours after the Israeli army tour ended, dozens of men and boys rushed up to scan a list stretching across 11 pages, taped to a storefront. Posted by a United Nations relief agency, it showed who was eligible for how much relief for damage done to their homes or livelihoods by the latest Israeli incursions into the camp. The amounts were generally $50 to $60, sometimes as high as $200 — never enough, one man grumbled.
Ghassan W. Shakah, the city's mayor, is praised by Israeli officials as a "positive" force. He said he opposed suicide bombing. But he scoffed at the idea that making life miserable would put a stop to it.
"We have to think about the logic," he said. "The people like me, who are 50 to 60 years old, when you put pressure on them, they use their minds. But when you put pressure on 17-, 18-year-old boys, you create bitterness and anger."
"I don't believe this is pressure to calm down," he said. "This is pressure to build a bomb and commit suicide." That view was echoed by young people interviewed here today.
To the mayor, the source of Palestinian violence was Israeli occupation, embodied in the new military presence and in the settlements spreading over the nearby hills.
Mayor Shakah, who dreamed just three years ago that his ancient home, built by Romans by the remains of a Canaanite city, would rank with Paris, London or Washington, says he now spends his time negotiating with the army to permit utility workers to move about to fix power lines or to permit trucks to pick up the tons of garbage generated here each day.
He said he was cutting taxes and utility fees by 30 percent across the board in hope that more people would pay them. "It's a disaster," he said of the Israeli operation. "Our society is destroyed."
Along garbage-strewn streets, their surfaces scored or crushed by tank treads, relentless life is finding its way back, through the chinks, to the surface. With the tanks and soldiers out of sight, shopkeepers roll up their shutters and trade resumes. Muhammad Saed, 69, a barber, said he had managed 3 haircuts today at about $3 apiece, compared with 12 to 20 before, when villagers could still reach Nablus. Several of his mirrors had been shattered or holed by gunfire.
Some taxis ply the streets, dropping passengers to walk around the berms and catch another ride on the far side. Some trucks are permitted past the checkpoint into the city, then are repeatedly stopped and checked again once inside.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/03/international/middleeast/03MIDE.html
It has been just over 100 days since Israel, after a suicide bomber killed 19 people on a Jerusalem bus, seized control of Nablus, along with most of the rest of the West Bank not already under its command. It acted under a new policy of taking back Palestinian-controlled territory "as long as terror continues."
Israeli officials say that suicide bombers and bad Palestinian leadership have left them no choice. "When they will say `enough,' they can live in peace and quiet," the colonel said. Palestinians say that Israel is provoking violence and seeking to destroy their governing institutions, economy, and dream of nationhood.
Nowhere has the new military control been more stringent than here, the Palestinian financial capital, which Israeli officials now call the center of Palestinian terrorism. A dismal status quo has settled over Nablus. "Life here is miserable," the colonel said. "This is the price. They went back more than 20 years."
For now, the army has cut Nablus off from the surrounding villages, and it has sliced the city itself in half, throwing up head-high berms and placing patrols of soldiers and armored vehicles across the main roads. Most days, the city is under curfew. The army enforces the curfew intermittently, unexpectedly, abruptly sending tanks storming downtown. Commerce has resumed, at an irregular trickle; schooling was conducted furtively, in home, until the army permitted most schools to reopen a few days ago.
Palestinians call the situation worse than before the Oslo peace accords, which prompted Israel over the last decade to cede control of some areas, like Nablus, to Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Before Oslo, the Israelis also bore responsibility for education and other aspects of civil administration, tasks it now leaves to a patchwork of nonprofit organizations and staggering Palestinian institutions.
In the Balata refugee camp in Nablus early this evening, hours after the Israeli army tour ended, dozens of men and boys rushed up to scan a list stretching across 11 pages, taped to a storefront. Posted by a United Nations relief agency, it showed who was eligible for how much relief for damage done to their homes or livelihoods by the latest Israeli incursions into the camp. The amounts were generally $50 to $60, sometimes as high as $200 — never enough, one man grumbled.
Ghassan W. Shakah, the city's mayor, is praised by Israeli officials as a "positive" force. He said he opposed suicide bombing. But he scoffed at the idea that making life miserable would put a stop to it.
"We have to think about the logic," he said. "The people like me, who are 50 to 60 years old, when you put pressure on them, they use their minds. But when you put pressure on 17-, 18-year-old boys, you create bitterness and anger."
"I don't believe this is pressure to calm down," he said. "This is pressure to build a bomb and commit suicide." That view was echoed by young people interviewed here today.
To the mayor, the source of Palestinian violence was Israeli occupation, embodied in the new military presence and in the settlements spreading over the nearby hills.
Mayor Shakah, who dreamed just three years ago that his ancient home, built by Romans by the remains of a Canaanite city, would rank with Paris, London or Washington, says he now spends his time negotiating with the army to permit utility workers to move about to fix power lines or to permit trucks to pick up the tons of garbage generated here each day.
He said he was cutting taxes and utility fees by 30 percent across the board in hope that more people would pay them. "It's a disaster," he said of the Israeli operation. "Our society is destroyed."
Along garbage-strewn streets, their surfaces scored or crushed by tank treads, relentless life is finding its way back, through the chinks, to the surface. With the tanks and soldiers out of sight, shopkeepers roll up their shutters and trade resumes. Muhammad Saed, 69, a barber, said he had managed 3 haircuts today at about $3 apiece, compared with 12 to 20 before, when villagers could still reach Nablus. Several of his mirrors had been shattered or holed by gunfire.
Some taxis ply the streets, dropping passengers to walk around the berms and catch another ride on the far side. Some trucks are permitted past the checkpoint into the city, then are repeatedly stopped and checked again once inside.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/03/international/middleeast/03MIDE.html
News: E-tailers seek to block "parasiteware"
Online merchants want new standards to help fight "parasiteware," an increasingly visible breed of software that seeks to pocket commissions doled out through the Web's ubiquitous affiliate marketing programs.
Shawn Schwegman, the director of affiliate marketing at Web store Overstock.com has proposed a meeting among representatives of online merchants, affiliates and affiliate networks to develop the standard. The goal is to be able to quickly identify and act against software that credits the wrong party when online stores tally commissions for Web referrals.
Additionally, a network of affiliates called Be Free has issued a proposal for how such networks should handle commission diversion software.
"People are exploiting technology to make a buck, typically at the cost of someone else's commission," Schwegman said. "The root of the problem is that there's no industry standard that defines how to conduct business in the affiliates world."
Online merchants such as Amazon.com and Overstock have networks of thousands of affiliated Web sites. Affiliates receive commissions for directing customers to the retailers' sites, an arrangement that has proven to be an inexpensive way for online merchants to attract customers and for Web site operators to make some money.
However, during the past year, a number of companies associated with some popular file-swapping programs have tried to tap into this revenue stream as part of a broader and increasingly aggressive marketing effort.
At the center of the controversy is marketing software produced by Wurld Media and TopMoxie, which come bundled with downloads for file-swapping programs Morpheus and LimeWire, respectively. Critics have charged that the adware produced by the companies purposefully redirects commissions from other affiliates. Additionally, critics have charged that once the adware redirects a commission on a particular sale, it will continue to redirect commissions on all subsequent sales.
In typical affiliate transactions, consumers click on a link from a Web site such as Lance Armstrong Online that points to a product on a merchant site such as Amazon. If a customer buys the product, Amazon pays its affiliated Web site operator a commission for the sale, typically 5 percent to 15 percent of the purchase price.
Stealth sales
But that scenario changes if the consumer is running the initial versions of Wurld Media or TopMoxie's programs--or similar products. If the consumer is running one of the programs and clicks on the link from Lance Armstrong Online, the programs would rewrite the code to make it look as if the sale had come from their sites. As a result, Amazon would pay a commission to Wurld Media or TopMoxie's partners rather than to the independent Web site operator.
"It's not fair that (the small Web site operators) get taken advantage of. It's not fair that some company comes in and creates a skewing of the entire affiliates industry," said Haiko de Poel Jr.…
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-960214.html
Online merchants want new standards to help fight "parasiteware," an increasingly visible breed of software that seeks to pocket commissions doled out through the Web's ubiquitous affiliate marketing programs.
Shawn Schwegman, the director of affiliate marketing at Web store Overstock.com has proposed a meeting among representatives of online merchants, affiliates and affiliate networks to develop the standard. The goal is to be able to quickly identify and act against software that credits the wrong party when online stores tally commissions for Web referrals.
Additionally, a network of affiliates called Be Free has issued a proposal for how such networks should handle commission diversion software.
"People are exploiting technology to make a buck, typically at the cost of someone else's commission," Schwegman said. "The root of the problem is that there's no industry standard that defines how to conduct business in the affiliates world."
Online merchants such as Amazon.com and Overstock have networks of thousands of affiliated Web sites. Affiliates receive commissions for directing customers to the retailers' sites, an arrangement that has proven to be an inexpensive way for online merchants to attract customers and for Web site operators to make some money.
However, during the past year, a number of companies associated with some popular file-swapping programs have tried to tap into this revenue stream as part of a broader and increasingly aggressive marketing effort.
At the center of the controversy is marketing software produced by Wurld Media and TopMoxie, which come bundled with downloads for file-swapping programs Morpheus and LimeWire, respectively. Critics have charged that the adware produced by the companies purposefully redirects commissions from other affiliates. Additionally, critics have charged that once the adware redirects a commission on a particular sale, it will continue to redirect commissions on all subsequent sales.
In typical affiliate transactions, consumers click on a link from a Web site such as Lance Armstrong Online that points to a product on a merchant site such as Amazon. If a customer buys the product, Amazon pays its affiliated Web site operator a commission for the sale, typically 5 percent to 15 percent of the purchase price.
Stealth sales
But that scenario changes if the consumer is running the initial versions of Wurld Media or TopMoxie's programs--or similar products. If the consumer is running one of the programs and clicks on the link from Lance Armstrong Online, the programs would rewrite the code to make it look as if the sale had come from their sites. As a result, Amazon would pay a commission to Wurld Media or TopMoxie's partners rather than to the independent Web site operator.
"It's not fair that (the small Web site operators) get taken advantage of. It's not fair that some company comes in and creates a skewing of the entire affiliates industry," said Haiko de Poel Jr.…
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-960214.html
Wednesday, October 02, 2002
Death Of A Meta Tag
The Rise & Fall Of The Meta Keywords Tag
For those unaware, the meta keyword tag is a way to insert text into an HTML page that is not visible when the page is viewed through a browser. Some search engines have read the content of the tag and associated the words within it along with the page's regular body copy.
The first major crawler-based search engines to use the meta keywords tag were Infoseek and AltaVista. It's unclear which one provided support first, but both were offering it in early 1996. When Inktomi launched in mid-1996 through the HotBot search engine, it also provided support for the tag. Lycos did the same in mid-1997, taking support up to four out of the seven major crawlers at the time (Excite, WebCrawler and Northern Light did not provide support).
The ascendancy of the tag did not last after 1997. Experience with the tag has showed it to be a spam magnet. Some web site owners would insert misleading words about their pages or use excessive repetition of words in hopes of tricking the crawlers about relevancy. For this reason, Excite (which also owned WebCrawler) resisted added support. Lycos quietly dropped its support of the tag in 1998, and newer search engines such as Google and FAST never added support at all.
After Infoseek (Go.com) closed in 2000, the meta keywords tag was left with only two major supporters: AltaVista and Inktomi. Now Inktomi remains the only one, with AltaVista having dropped its support in July, the company says.
"In the past we have indexed the meta keywords tag but have found that the high incidence of keyword repetition and spam made it an unreliable indication of site content and quality. We do continue to look at this issue, and may re-include them if the perceived quality improves over time," said Jon Glick, AltaVista's director of internet search.
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/10-meta.html
The Rise & Fall Of The Meta Keywords Tag
For those unaware, the meta keyword tag is a way to insert text into an HTML page that is not visible when the page is viewed through a browser. Some search engines have read the content of the tag and associated the words within it along with the page's regular body copy.
The first major crawler-based search engines to use the meta keywords tag were Infoseek and AltaVista. It's unclear which one provided support first, but both were offering it in early 1996. When Inktomi launched in mid-1996 through the HotBot search engine, it also provided support for the tag. Lycos did the same in mid-1997, taking support up to four out of the seven major crawlers at the time (Excite, WebCrawler and Northern Light did not provide support).
The ascendancy of the tag did not last after 1997. Experience with the tag has showed it to be a spam magnet. Some web site owners would insert misleading words about their pages or use excessive repetition of words in hopes of tricking the crawlers about relevancy. For this reason, Excite (which also owned WebCrawler) resisted added support. Lycos quietly dropped its support of the tag in 1998, and newer search engines such as Google and FAST never added support at all.
After Infoseek (Go.com) closed in 2000, the meta keywords tag was left with only two major supporters: AltaVista and Inktomi. Now Inktomi remains the only one, with AltaVista having dropped its support in July, the company says.
"In the past we have indexed the meta keywords tag but have found that the high incidence of keyword repetition and spam made it an unreliable indication of site content and quality. We do continue to look at this issue, and may re-include them if the perceived quality improves over time," said Jon Glick, AltaVista's director of internet search.
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/10-meta.html
The Search Engine Report, Oct 1, 2002, Number 71 In This Issue
Early Bird Discount for SES Munich Ends Tomorrow!
Death Of A Meta Tag
RealNames Clones Causing Confusion
AltaVista Sales Pitch Suggested Paid Inclusion Boost
FAST Adds Flash Support, Provides Results To HotBot Europe
China's Great Wall Against Google And AltaVista
Search Engine Resources
SearchDay Articles
Search Engine Articles
href="http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/current.html">http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/current.html
Early Bird Discount for SES Munich Ends Tomorrow!
Death Of A Meta Tag
RealNames Clones Causing Confusion
AltaVista Sales Pitch Suggested Paid Inclusion Boost
FAST Adds Flash Support, Provides Results To HotBot Europe
China's Great Wall Against Google And AltaVista
Search Engine Resources
SearchDay Articles
Search Engine Articles
href="http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/current.html">http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/current.html
eWeek Labs: Open Source Quicker at Fixing Flaws
The real question for it organizations isn't whether open-source software is more secure than proprietary software but which type of software is fixed fastest.
Humans code both open-source and proprietary software, which means that mistakes will be made, and the resulting holes need to be reported and closed. Right now, open source has it all over proprietary software when it comes to owning up to and resolving problems.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,562226,00.asp
The real question for it organizations isn't whether open-source software is more secure than proprietary software but which type of software is fixed fastest.
Humans code both open-source and proprietary software, which means that mistakes will be made, and the resulting holes need to be reported and closed. Right now, open source has it all over proprietary software when it comes to owning up to and resolving problems.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,562226,00.asp
Open Source: A False Sense of Security? …when the Code Red and Nimda worms chewed their way through hundreds of thousands of unpatched Microsoft Internet Information Services servers last year, Apache users sat back and smiled, believing nothing like that could happen to them.
Then it did.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,562220,00.asp
Then it did.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,562220,00.asp
Arafat Lashes Out at U.S. over Jerusalem Law
``This decision is a catastrophe that Muslims and Christians should not let pass in silence,'' Arafat said about the law that took effect on Monday and requires the U.S. government to list Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in official documents.
``I am asking the American administration and the American president to stop this,'' Arafat said in his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, scene of a 10-day Israeli siege that ended on Sunday under pressure from the United States.
The new legislation drew sharp condemnation from the Arab League and key U.S. ally Saudi Arabia at a time when Washington faces an uphill struggle to convince Arab states to back possible U.S. military action against Iraq.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as capital of a future state in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim not recognized internationally.
Arafat on Tuesday won the backing of his influential Fatah faction for a three-week delay in appointing an interim cabinet and support for his opposition to the idea of naming a prime minister to assume some of his powers.
Arafat, whose 21-member cabinet quit in September to avoid a showdown with lawmakers when it appeared he would lose a vote of confidence in the reform-minded Palestinian Legislative Council, was to have appointed new ministers by the end of last month.
Arafat, who has denied Israeli accusations he has helped orchestrate anti-Israeli violence in the two-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence, has scheduled presidential and parliamentary elections for January 20.
Fatah officials said the faction, which traditionally backs Arafat, was against an immediate appointment of a prime minister because it would play into Israeli attempts to weaken him.
``This idea has been canceled from our dictionary. This is not the right time,'' Fatah member Sakher Habash told Reuters.
Palestinian fury over the U.S. law identifying Jerusalem as Israel's capital was mirrored across the Arab world, which accuses Washington of pro-Israel bias and of giving Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a free hand to hit Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
``This leads to destroying the efforts made to return the Arab-Israeli conflict to the proper political track and maintains the occupation, the resistance, the tension and the violence,'' Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said.
Saudi Arabia voiced concern it would embolden Israel to toughen its policies against Palestinians.
While the Arab world seethed, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israel must not hamper a U.S. drive against Iraq. ``We must give priority to the United States to carry out its policy,'' he told Israel Radio.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
``This decision is a catastrophe that Muslims and Christians should not let pass in silence,'' Arafat said about the law that took effect on Monday and requires the U.S. government to list Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in official documents.
``I am asking the American administration and the American president to stop this,'' Arafat said in his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, scene of a 10-day Israeli siege that ended on Sunday under pressure from the United States.
The new legislation drew sharp condemnation from the Arab League and key U.S. ally Saudi Arabia at a time when Washington faces an uphill struggle to convince Arab states to back possible U.S. military action against Iraq.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as capital of a future state in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim not recognized internationally.
Arafat on Tuesday won the backing of his influential Fatah faction for a three-week delay in appointing an interim cabinet and support for his opposition to the idea of naming a prime minister to assume some of his powers.
Arafat, whose 21-member cabinet quit in September to avoid a showdown with lawmakers when it appeared he would lose a vote of confidence in the reform-minded Palestinian Legislative Council, was to have appointed new ministers by the end of last month.
Arafat, who has denied Israeli accusations he has helped orchestrate anti-Israeli violence in the two-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence, has scheduled presidential and parliamentary elections for January 20.
Fatah officials said the faction, which traditionally backs Arafat, was against an immediate appointment of a prime minister because it would play into Israeli attempts to weaken him.
``This idea has been canceled from our dictionary. This is not the right time,'' Fatah member Sakher Habash told Reuters.
Palestinian fury over the U.S. law identifying Jerusalem as Israel's capital was mirrored across the Arab world, which accuses Washington of pro-Israel bias and of giving Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a free hand to hit Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
``This leads to destroying the efforts made to return the Arab-Israeli conflict to the proper political track and maintains the occupation, the resistance, the tension and the violence,'' Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said.
Saudi Arabia voiced concern it would embolden Israel to toughen its policies against Palestinians.
While the Arab world seethed, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israel must not hamper a U.S. drive against Iraq. ``We must give priority to the United States to carry out its policy,'' he told Israel Radio.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
Israeli Troops Close to Arafat Headquarters
Israeli forces took up positions in buildings near Yasir Arafat's compound in Ramallah today, two days after they complied with American demands and lifted a 10-day siege there.
Palestinian officials said the Israelis had not ended the siege, which began after a suicide bomber killed six Israelis in Tel Aviv on Sept. 19.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, an adviser to Mr. Arafat, said it remained dangerous for the Palestinian leader and others to leave or enter the compound. "They are deceiving the Americans," he said of the Israelis.
The Bush administration criticized the siege in Ramallah, in the West Bank, as undermining an internal Palestinian drive for democratic change and interfering with American efforts to build support for a possible war on Iraq. The United Nations Security Council also demanded an end to the siege.
Mr. Arafat met today with his cabinet, which in theory is serving on borrowed time. Under pressure from the Palestinian Legislative Council as part of a reform drive, the cabinet ministers resigned in September. Palestinian officials said that Mr. Arafat would request more time to replace the ministers, but that efforts at reform would nevertheless move forward.
Perhaps to allay the Bush administration's concerns and domestic criticism of the siege, Israeli officials appeared today to be eager to suggest that matters were settling down.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/02/international/02MIDE.html
Israeli forces took up positions in buildings near Yasir Arafat's compound in Ramallah today, two days after they complied with American demands and lifted a 10-day siege there.
Palestinian officials said the Israelis had not ended the siege, which began after a suicide bomber killed six Israelis in Tel Aviv on Sept. 19.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, an adviser to Mr. Arafat, said it remained dangerous for the Palestinian leader and others to leave or enter the compound. "They are deceiving the Americans," he said of the Israelis.
The Bush administration criticized the siege in Ramallah, in the West Bank, as undermining an internal Palestinian drive for democratic change and interfering with American efforts to build support for a possible war on Iraq. The United Nations Security Council also demanded an end to the siege.
Mr. Arafat met today with his cabinet, which in theory is serving on borrowed time. Under pressure from the Palestinian Legislative Council as part of a reform drive, the cabinet ministers resigned in September. Palestinian officials said that Mr. Arafat would request more time to replace the ministers, but that efforts at reform would nevertheless move forward.
Perhaps to allay the Bush administration's concerns and domestic criticism of the siege, Israeli officials appeared today to be eager to suggest that matters were settling down.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/02/international/02MIDE.html
Minority Children's Injuries Prompt More Suspicion, Study Finds
Black and Hispanic children hospitalized with broken bones suffered in accidents are far more likely than white youngsters to be checked for child abuse, a study has found.
The findings, released today, suggest that some doctors may be unfairly suspicious of minorities and are overlooking actual abuse among whites, the researchers said.
"This study is a reminder to be as thorough and objective as possible in evaluating children with injuries," said Dr. Cindy Christian, who led the study at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
The researchers said the findings bolster suspicions that abuse among white children is underdiagnosed. They said the findings also point out another area of medicine where racial disparities and possible bias may affect health care.
They did not determine the races of the doctors involved in the cases, but they said they suspected that many were white and that the doctors' biases probably played a role in their decisions.
"All of us have personal biases," Dr. Christian said. "It's human nature not to be able to see something negative in a person or group of people who are like you."
The findings were published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/02/national/02ABUS.html
Black and Hispanic children hospitalized with broken bones suffered in accidents are far more likely than white youngsters to be checked for child abuse, a study has found.
The findings, released today, suggest that some doctors may be unfairly suspicious of minorities and are overlooking actual abuse among whites, the researchers said.
"This study is a reminder to be as thorough and objective as possible in evaluating children with injuries," said Dr. Cindy Christian, who led the study at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
The researchers said the findings bolster suspicions that abuse among white children is underdiagnosed. They said the findings also point out another area of medicine where racial disparities and possible bias may affect health care.
They did not determine the races of the doctors involved in the cases, but they said they suspected that many were white and that the doctors' biases probably played a role in their decisions.
"All of us have personal biases," Dr. Christian said. "It's human nature not to be able to see something negative in a person or group of people who are like you."
The findings were published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/02/national/02ABUS.html
Tuesday, October 01, 2002
Fictions Embraced by an Israel at War
It's as if the 33 years of repression, occupation and humiliation that Israel imposed on the West Bank and Gaza between June 1967 and September 2000 vanished with the wave of a magic wand. The majority of Israelis take comfort today in believing that the horrifying deeds committed by Palestinian terrorists in the last two years somehow "balance the books" for those long years of subjugation and that all the guilt for the current state of affairs rests on Palestinian shoulders. Furthermore, they believe, the suicide bombings, and the broad support they have received from the Palestinian population, have revealed things about the Palestinians that ex post facto justify the injustices of the occupation. In a contorted way, many Israelis believe that the new wave of Palestinian terrorism has granted their country absolution for its problematic past.
Of course, the Israeli occupation is not the entire story. During those 33 years the Palestinians contributed their share to the march of blood and folly by being intractable in their positions and murderous in their actions. And we must not forget that the Six-Day War was not a war that Israel wanted. Yet, despite this, the historical story that Israel chooses to tell itself is astoundingly obtuse and superficial.
The story that now reigns nearly unchallenged in the media and political discourse obliterates more than 33 years of roadblocks, thousands of prisoners, deportations, and killings of innocent people. It's as if there were never long months of closures in cities and villages, as if there had been no humiliations, no incessant harassment, no searches of houses, no bulldozing of hundreds of homes, no uprooting of vineyards and olive groves, no filling up of wells and, especially, no construction of tens of thousands of housing units in settlements and large-scale confiscation of land, in violation of international law.
The new narrative leaps back through the manipulative fog created by the prime minister and his cabinet, his supporters and his various spokesmen straight to the Six-Day War, our pinnacle of justice. And looking forward from that point in 1967 there is a kind of desert devoid of history, devoid of responsibility, devoid of blame, until we suddenly emerge from the miasma right at the Oslo accords, the proposals that Ehud Barak made to Yasir Arafat at Camp David and, after Camp David, like thunder on a bright and sunny day, the second intifada.
According to this story, the Palestinians suddenly exploded in September 2000 in an uncaused natural eruption, spewing out lava and ash and igniting the entire region. They had no logical reason for exploding and there was no prior Israeli provocation. Ehud Barak made them a generous offer, and they betrayed him with an outburst of violence — because they, by their nature, are motivated solely by destructive, irrational forces that make impossible any future compromise with them.
This theory is also the basis of another right-wing claim that now seems to be accepted by the majority of Israelis. It is that the Oslo accords, and their supporters, were what in fact caused the second intifada. In other words, it wasn't the intolerable conditions in which the Palestinians lived for more than three decades. It wasn't the tacit support that most Israelis lent to the ongoing occupation, all the while persuading themselves that it was such an enlightened occupation that it was barely an occupation at all. It wasn't the refusal of every Israeli government before the second administration of Yitzhak Rabin to try to reach a true, if painful, accommodation with the Palestinians. It wasn't the doubling of the number of Israeli settlers in the territories in the years after Oslo. Nor was it the way in which Ehud Barak conducted the Camp David talks, presenting to Yasir Arafat as ultimatums proposals that, while they were generous compared with Israeli positions in the past, were entirely insufficient in Palestinian eyes.
None of these factors are now viewed as sufficient reason for a popular uprising by a subjugated and despairing people. No, it's the Oslo accords that are to blame, as if in the absence of Oslo the Palestinians would have come to terms with the Israeli occupation, accepting it tranquilly, even lovingly, to this very day; as if the Oslo agreements were a match, not a fire extinguisher.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/01/opinion/01GROS.html
It's as if the 33 years of repression, occupation and humiliation that Israel imposed on the West Bank and Gaza between June 1967 and September 2000 vanished with the wave of a magic wand. The majority of Israelis take comfort today in believing that the horrifying deeds committed by Palestinian terrorists in the last two years somehow "balance the books" for those long years of subjugation and that all the guilt for the current state of affairs rests on Palestinian shoulders. Furthermore, they believe, the suicide bombings, and the broad support they have received from the Palestinian population, have revealed things about the Palestinians that ex post facto justify the injustices of the occupation. In a contorted way, many Israelis believe that the new wave of Palestinian terrorism has granted their country absolution for its problematic past.
Of course, the Israeli occupation is not the entire story. During those 33 years the Palestinians contributed their share to the march of blood and folly by being intractable in their positions and murderous in their actions. And we must not forget that the Six-Day War was not a war that Israel wanted. Yet, despite this, the historical story that Israel chooses to tell itself is astoundingly obtuse and superficial.
The story that now reigns nearly unchallenged in the media and political discourse obliterates more than 33 years of roadblocks, thousands of prisoners, deportations, and killings of innocent people. It's as if there were never long months of closures in cities and villages, as if there had been no humiliations, no incessant harassment, no searches of houses, no bulldozing of hundreds of homes, no uprooting of vineyards and olive groves, no filling up of wells and, especially, no construction of tens of thousands of housing units in settlements and large-scale confiscation of land, in violation of international law.
The new narrative leaps back through the manipulative fog created by the prime minister and his cabinet, his supporters and his various spokesmen straight to the Six-Day War, our pinnacle of justice. And looking forward from that point in 1967 there is a kind of desert devoid of history, devoid of responsibility, devoid of blame, until we suddenly emerge from the miasma right at the Oslo accords, the proposals that Ehud Barak made to Yasir Arafat at Camp David and, after Camp David, like thunder on a bright and sunny day, the second intifada.
According to this story, the Palestinians suddenly exploded in September 2000 in an uncaused natural eruption, spewing out lava and ash and igniting the entire region. They had no logical reason for exploding and there was no prior Israeli provocation. Ehud Barak made them a generous offer, and they betrayed him with an outburst of violence — because they, by their nature, are motivated solely by destructive, irrational forces that make impossible any future compromise with them.
This theory is also the basis of another right-wing claim that now seems to be accepted by the majority of Israelis. It is that the Oslo accords, and their supporters, were what in fact caused the second intifada. In other words, it wasn't the intolerable conditions in which the Palestinians lived for more than three decades. It wasn't the tacit support that most Israelis lent to the ongoing occupation, all the while persuading themselves that it was such an enlightened occupation that it was barely an occupation at all. It wasn't the refusal of every Israeli government before the second administration of Yitzhak Rabin to try to reach a true, if painful, accommodation with the Palestinians. It wasn't the doubling of the number of Israeli settlers in the territories in the years after Oslo. Nor was it the way in which Ehud Barak conducted the Camp David talks, presenting to Yasir Arafat as ultimatums proposals that, while they were generous compared with Israeli positions in the past, were entirely insufficient in Palestinian eyes.
None of these factors are now viewed as sufficient reason for a popular uprising by a subjugated and despairing people. No, it's the Oslo accords that are to blame, as if in the absence of Oslo the Palestinians would have come to terms with the Israeli occupation, accepting it tranquilly, even lovingly, to this very day; as if the Oslo agreements were a match, not a fire extinguisher.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/01/opinion/01GROS.html
Israeli Army Marksmen Overlook Arafat Compound
Israel put Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's compound back under the gun Tuesday, sending army marksmen to take up positions nearby amid reports militants slipped out after troops aborted a siege under U.S. pressure.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, smarting from the humiliation of having to scrap the siege without arresting wanted men inside, predicted Israel would halt Palestinian ``terror'' within a few months and pave the way for political talks.
Sharon gave no details, but he has said military action in Gaza aimed at destroying the operational capabilities of Hamas, a militant Islamic group behind dozens of suicide bombings, should be Israel's next step in what he calls a war against terror.
In a diplomatic setback for the United States in the Arab world, Washington drew Muslim anger after President Bush signed into law legislation requiring his administration to identify Jerusalem as Israel's capital in official documents.
Near Arafat's battered Muqata compound in Ramallah, marksmen took over several buildings with clear views of the complex in an apparent bid to stop militants getting away, Palestinian security officials said. The army had no comment.
Tanks and troops stormed the compound Sept. 19 after two Palestinian suicide bombings killed seven people in Israel.
Israel withdrew troops, tanks and bulldozers from the complex Sunday after a 10-day siege in which they destroyed every building except the Palestinian president's main offices.
In vacating the Muqata, Sharon bowed to U.S. pressure so as not to upset Washington's diplomatic efforts to secure support for any campaign against Iraq.
Israeli media said Monday some of the 50 Palestinians who Israel wanted to seize for alleged links to suicide bombings had sneaked out of the complex after the army pullout.
Some sharpshooters were on the roof of the eight-story Palestinian Culture Ministry, empty because of a curfew, and atop another eight-story building under construction.
Arabs bitterly denounced the U.S. legislation on Jerusalem, which they saw as fresh evidence of Washington's bias toward Israel.
``This is an act against peace, an act of incitement,'' Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian planning and international cooperation minister, told Reuters.
Qatar, current head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, condemned the law as a ``flagrant violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions on Jerusalem.''
Palestinians want to make East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, the capital of the future state they aspire to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital.
Britain, Washington's main ally in any future action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, also put the United States on notice that policy toward Israel must be even-handed.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, slammed by left-wingers in his Labor Party for threatening war in Iraq instead of trying to end Israeli-Palestinian violence, said U.N. resolutions must be implemented across the Middle East, not just in Baghdad.
``Yes, what is happening in the Middle East now is ugly and wrong -- the Palestinians living in increasingly abject conditions, humiliated and hopeless (and) Israeli civilians brutally murdered,'' he told Labor's annual conference.
Blair called on Israel and the Palestinians to resume full peace negotiations by the end of the year.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
Israel put Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's compound back under the gun Tuesday, sending army marksmen to take up positions nearby amid reports militants slipped out after troops aborted a siege under U.S. pressure.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, smarting from the humiliation of having to scrap the siege without arresting wanted men inside, predicted Israel would halt Palestinian ``terror'' within a few months and pave the way for political talks.
Sharon gave no details, but he has said military action in Gaza aimed at destroying the operational capabilities of Hamas, a militant Islamic group behind dozens of suicide bombings, should be Israel's next step in what he calls a war against terror.
In a diplomatic setback for the United States in the Arab world, Washington drew Muslim anger after President Bush signed into law legislation requiring his administration to identify Jerusalem as Israel's capital in official documents.
Near Arafat's battered Muqata compound in Ramallah, marksmen took over several buildings with clear views of the complex in an apparent bid to stop militants getting away, Palestinian security officials said. The army had no comment.
Tanks and troops stormed the compound Sept. 19 after two Palestinian suicide bombings killed seven people in Israel.
Israel withdrew troops, tanks and bulldozers from the complex Sunday after a 10-day siege in which they destroyed every building except the Palestinian president's main offices.
In vacating the Muqata, Sharon bowed to U.S. pressure so as not to upset Washington's diplomatic efforts to secure support for any campaign against Iraq.
Israeli media said Monday some of the 50 Palestinians who Israel wanted to seize for alleged links to suicide bombings had sneaked out of the complex after the army pullout.
Some sharpshooters were on the roof of the eight-story Palestinian Culture Ministry, empty because of a curfew, and atop another eight-story building under construction.
Arabs bitterly denounced the U.S. legislation on Jerusalem, which they saw as fresh evidence of Washington's bias toward Israel.
``This is an act against peace, an act of incitement,'' Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian planning and international cooperation minister, told Reuters.
Qatar, current head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, condemned the law as a ``flagrant violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions on Jerusalem.''
Palestinians want to make East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, the capital of the future state they aspire to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital.
Britain, Washington's main ally in any future action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, also put the United States on notice that policy toward Israel must be even-handed.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, slammed by left-wingers in his Labor Party for threatening war in Iraq instead of trying to end Israeli-Palestinian violence, said U.N. resolutions must be implemented across the Middle East, not just in Baghdad.
``Yes, what is happening in the Middle East now is ugly and wrong -- the Palestinians living in increasingly abject conditions, humiliated and hopeless (and) Israeli civilians brutally murdered,'' he told Labor's annual conference.
Blair called on Israel and the Palestinians to resume full peace negotiations by the end of the year.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
With Arafat Siege Lifted, Sharon Faces a New Storm
Mr. Arafat went back to business at his ruined headquarters today, receiving diplomats and demanding that Israel withdraw from Palestinian cities, in keeping with a United Nations Security Council resolution adopted last week. He said that Palestinian elections would proceed as planned in January, and his spokesman said that a new Palestinian cabinet would soon be named to replace the one that resigned this month.
There was fresh violence in the West Bank today, despite a call by Mr. Arafat on Sunday for a mutual cease-fire, an appeal dismissed as hollow by Israeli officials.
In clashes between soldiers and Palestinians defying a three-month-old curfew in Nablus, Israeli troops fatally shot two Palestinian boys and gunmen killed a soldier.
Palestinians said Rami Barbari, 10, was fatally shot in the head by machine-gun fire from a tank near the Balata refugee camp when he was in a group of boys throwing stones. The army said warning shots were fired when a crowd hurled stones and firebombs at the tank.
Another boy, 10-year-old Mahmoud Zagloul, was pronounced clinically dead after being hit by Israeli gunfire during clashes near the Old City in Nablus, medical officials said. The army said soldiers had opened fire on two Palestinians who tried throw an explosive charge and a firebomb at the soldiers.
In a separate incident, Palestinian gunmen shot at Israeli soldiers in a downtown building, killing Sgt. Ari Weiss and seriously wounding another soldier, the army said. The shooting set off a heavy exchange of gunfire in which three shops were burned, Palestinians said.
Amnesty International released a report today that accused the Israeli Army and Palestinian armed groups of "utter disregard for the lives of children and other civilians" in the last two years of violence.
The report said that 250 Palestinian children and 72 Israeli children had been been killed by the end of August and that both Israel and the Palestinians had failed to bring those responsible to justice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/01/international/middleeast/01MIDE.html
Mr. Arafat went back to business at his ruined headquarters today, receiving diplomats and demanding that Israel withdraw from Palestinian cities, in keeping with a United Nations Security Council resolution adopted last week. He said that Palestinian elections would proceed as planned in January, and his spokesman said that a new Palestinian cabinet would soon be named to replace the one that resigned this month.
There was fresh violence in the West Bank today, despite a call by Mr. Arafat on Sunday for a mutual cease-fire, an appeal dismissed as hollow by Israeli officials.
In clashes between soldiers and Palestinians defying a three-month-old curfew in Nablus, Israeli troops fatally shot two Palestinian boys and gunmen killed a soldier.
Palestinians said Rami Barbari, 10, was fatally shot in the head by machine-gun fire from a tank near the Balata refugee camp when he was in a group of boys throwing stones. The army said warning shots were fired when a crowd hurled stones and firebombs at the tank.
Another boy, 10-year-old Mahmoud Zagloul, was pronounced clinically dead after being hit by Israeli gunfire during clashes near the Old City in Nablus, medical officials said. The army said soldiers had opened fire on two Palestinians who tried throw an explosive charge and a firebomb at the soldiers.
In a separate incident, Palestinian gunmen shot at Israeli soldiers in a downtown building, killing Sgt. Ari Weiss and seriously wounding another soldier, the army said. The shooting set off a heavy exchange of gunfire in which three shops were burned, Palestinians said.
Amnesty International released a report today that accused the Israeli Army and Palestinian armed groups of "utter disregard for the lives of children and other civilians" in the last two years of violence.
The report said that 250 Palestinian children and 72 Israeli children had been been killed by the end of August and that both Israel and the Palestinians had failed to bring those responsible to justice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/01/international/middleeast/01MIDE.html
Israeli Forces Take Positions Near Arafat's Compound
Palestinian officials said that the Israelis had not truly abandoned the siege, put in place after a suicide bomber killed six Israelis in Tel Aviv on Sept. 19. Nabil Aburdeineh, an adviser to Mr. Arafat, said that it remained dangerous for the Palestinian leader and others to leave or enter the compound. "They are deceiving the Americans," he said of the Israelis.
But workers were able to move through the rubble of the compound today, as were Palestinian officials not sought by Israel. Some telephone lines were restored.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was widely described in the Israeli news media as furious with the defense minister over reports that some of the men accused by Israel of planning attacks on Israelis had slipped out of the compound when the Israeli forces pulled back on Sunday. Before bowing to the American demands, Mr. Sharon had described these men as "the biggest terrorists that exist," though Israel never released a list of their names.
The Bush administration had criticized the siege as undermining an internal Palestinian drive for democratic change and interfering with American efforts to build support for a possible war on Iraq. The United Nations Security Council also demanded an end to the siege.
In an interview last week with The Jerusalem Post, Mr. Sharon listed five other conditions, including that the governing Palestinian Authority "needs to arrest all the terrorists from all the organizations, investigate them, and try them." He said that it must also dismantle militant organizations, collect illegal weapons, prevent further violence against Israelis, and put "an absolute end to incitement" against Israel.
But Mr. Aburdeineh said that there would be no end to the conflict, which turned two years old this weekend, without Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the lands it occupied in the 1967 war. "Without ending the occupation nothing will end," he said. "They should come back to the negotiating table without conditions."
Israeli forces retain military control of most of the West Bank, including the parts that by agreement are Palestinian-controlled territory. In operations overnight Monday, the army reported arresting 32 Palestinians on suspicion of ties to attacks on Israelis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/01/international/01CND-MIDE.html
Palestinian officials said that the Israelis had not truly abandoned the siege, put in place after a suicide bomber killed six Israelis in Tel Aviv on Sept. 19. Nabil Aburdeineh, an adviser to Mr. Arafat, said that it remained dangerous for the Palestinian leader and others to leave or enter the compound. "They are deceiving the Americans," he said of the Israelis.
But workers were able to move through the rubble of the compound today, as were Palestinian officials not sought by Israel. Some telephone lines were restored.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was widely described in the Israeli news media as furious with the defense minister over reports that some of the men accused by Israel of planning attacks on Israelis had slipped out of the compound when the Israeli forces pulled back on Sunday. Before bowing to the American demands, Mr. Sharon had described these men as "the biggest terrorists that exist," though Israel never released a list of their names.
The Bush administration had criticized the siege as undermining an internal Palestinian drive for democratic change and interfering with American efforts to build support for a possible war on Iraq. The United Nations Security Council also demanded an end to the siege.
In an interview last week with The Jerusalem Post, Mr. Sharon listed five other conditions, including that the governing Palestinian Authority "needs to arrest all the terrorists from all the organizations, investigate them, and try them." He said that it must also dismantle militant organizations, collect illegal weapons, prevent further violence against Israelis, and put "an absolute end to incitement" against Israel.
But Mr. Aburdeineh said that there would be no end to the conflict, which turned two years old this weekend, without Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the lands it occupied in the 1967 war. "Without ending the occupation nothing will end," he said. "They should come back to the negotiating table without conditions."
Israeli forces retain military control of most of the West Bank, including the parts that by agreement are Palestinian-controlled territory. In operations overnight Monday, the army reported arresting 32 Palestinians on suspicion of ties to attacks on Israelis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/01/international/01CND-MIDE.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
