Public Agenda Special Edition: Terrorism
http://www.publicagenda.org/specials/terrorism/terror_sources.htm
Saturday, September 29, 2001
Saturday, September 22, 2001
In Europe, Some Say the Attacks Stemmed From American Failings
There was no rejoicing or support in Europe for the killing of so many Americans. Many Europeans wept and the continent fell silent for a moment last week in remembrance of the dead.
But it has also become clear that some Europeans feel that ordinary Americans have largely floated on a tide of prosperity, triumphalism and indifference to the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their view is that the United States has now been confronted with a sobering reality, and that it must try to understand. For those critics, Americans are now facing unsurprising retaliation from an important part of the Islamic world that considers America to have declared war on its faith.
The arguments are sometimes simple — America should expect war in return for bombing Iraq regularly. Some Europeans also contend that many Americans have a blinding confidence in their own goodness and so do not see that the acts of the United States are regarded in many quarters as driven by the domineering pursuit of national self-interest.
European writers and intellectuals have pointed to a catalog of actions that include the bombing — in reprisal for the terrorist bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa in 1998 — of one of Sudan's two pharmaceutical factories on the challenged grounds that it was linked to Osama bin Laden, aid to Israel to buy weapons used against Palestinians, or even the American refusal to intervene to stop the mass killings in Rwanda.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/22/international/europe/22DEBA.html
There was no rejoicing or support in Europe for the killing of so many Americans. Many Europeans wept and the continent fell silent for a moment last week in remembrance of the dead.
But it has also become clear that some Europeans feel that ordinary Americans have largely floated on a tide of prosperity, triumphalism and indifference to the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their view is that the United States has now been confronted with a sobering reality, and that it must try to understand. For those critics, Americans are now facing unsurprising retaliation from an important part of the Islamic world that considers America to have declared war on its faith.
The arguments are sometimes simple — America should expect war in return for bombing Iraq regularly. Some Europeans also contend that many Americans have a blinding confidence in their own goodness and so do not see that the acts of the United States are regarded in many quarters as driven by the domineering pursuit of national self-interest.
European writers and intellectuals have pointed to a catalog of actions that include the bombing — in reprisal for the terrorist bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa in 1998 — of one of Sudan's two pharmaceutical factories on the challenged grounds that it was linked to Osama bin Laden, aid to Israel to buy weapons used against Palestinians, or even the American refusal to intervene to stop the mass killings in Rwanda.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/22/international/europe/22DEBA.html
Saturday, September 15, 2001
The Strategy: Leaders Face Challenges Far Different From Those of Last Conflict
"I condemn it morally, and I do think it was cowardly," Mr. Kerrey said. "But physically, it was the opposite of cowardly, and if you don't understand that, then you don't understand the intensity of the cause and then you're papering over one of the most important things. There is hatred out there against the United States, and yes, we have to deal with terrorism in a zero-tolerance fashion. But there is anger, too, and they ought to have a place for a hearing on that anger, in the International Court or wherever we give them a hearing."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/national/15PREX.html
"I condemn it morally, and I do think it was cowardly," Mr. Kerrey said. "But physically, it was the opposite of cowardly, and if you don't understand that, then you don't understand the intensity of the cause and then you're papering over one of the most important things. There is hatred out there against the United States, and yes, we have to deal with terrorism in a zero-tolerance fashion. But there is anger, too, and they ought to have a place for a hearing on that anger, in the International Court or wherever we give them a hearing."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/national/15PREX.html
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Sunday, September 02, 2001
Israeli Kids at School Amid Chaos Arab communities countrywide initiated a three-day school strike, leaving 400,000 Arab students at home and 600 schools closed. Many expressed anger and frustration with the Israeli government, accusing it of neglecting the Arab minority for years.
In Gilo, built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War, parents delivering their children to their first day at school were apprehensive. The neighborhood came under heavy fire last week, prompting Israel's army to move into Beit Jalla for two days. before pulling out Thursday.
``You have to try to live normally,'' said Hezi Cohen, as he led his daughter Shelli, smartly clad in a white shirt and pleated dress, into her first class, past TV cameramen, photographers and journalists. Moments later the country's premier walked in.
``You have stood up to a hard battle, as if it was no battle at all,'' Sharon told students assembled in the school's gymnasium, under a sign that read ``a year of peace and security for Gilo students.''
``I promise you that I will take the issue of security upon myself, and I won't allow more shooting on Gilo,'' he told the elementary school students.
As the Jewish schools opened on schedule, Raji Mansour, head of a group that is monitoring Arab education, said Israel provides Arab students with only a quarter of the funding it allots to Jewish students.
``The whole country knows there is a wide social division, discrimination and scandal,'' he said. ``There has to be a change of policy -- at least equality (with Jewish schools).''
Schools in the Arab sector need an additional 1,600 classrooms, and the group is demanding a budget increase of $12.5 million, said Atef Moaddi, a member of the monitoring group, called the Follow-up Committee of Arab Education.
In meetings held late last month with the Ministry of Education, the group raised a number of issues, requesting the budget be doubled in order to allow for extra schooling hours, and an expansion of the existing academic system to match standards at Jewish schools.
If the strike does not achieve its demands, educational institutions in the Arab sector will resume their strike Nov. 1, until their demands are met, Moaddi said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Back-to-School.html
In Gilo, built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War, parents delivering their children to their first day at school were apprehensive. The neighborhood came under heavy fire last week, prompting Israel's army to move into Beit Jalla for two days. before pulling out Thursday.
``You have to try to live normally,'' said Hezi Cohen, as he led his daughter Shelli, smartly clad in a white shirt and pleated dress, into her first class, past TV cameramen, photographers and journalists. Moments later the country's premier walked in.
``You have stood up to a hard battle, as if it was no battle at all,'' Sharon told students assembled in the school's gymnasium, under a sign that read ``a year of peace and security for Gilo students.''
``I promise you that I will take the issue of security upon myself, and I won't allow more shooting on Gilo,'' he told the elementary school students.
As the Jewish schools opened on schedule, Raji Mansour, head of a group that is monitoring Arab education, said Israel provides Arab students with only a quarter of the funding it allots to Jewish students.
``The whole country knows there is a wide social division, discrimination and scandal,'' he said. ``There has to be a change of policy -- at least equality (with Jewish schools).''
Schools in the Arab sector need an additional 1,600 classrooms, and the group is demanding a budget increase of $12.5 million, said Atef Moaddi, a member of the monitoring group, called the Follow-up Committee of Arab Education.
In meetings held late last month with the Ministry of Education, the group raised a number of issues, requesting the budget be doubled in order to allow for extra schooling hours, and an expansion of the existing academic system to match standards at Jewish schools.
If the strike does not achieve its demands, educational institutions in the Arab sector will resume their strike Nov. 1, until their demands are met, Moaddi said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Back-to-School.html
How Not to Win the Battle but Lose the War Unintended consequences have long dogged Israel. Until its army stormed into Lebanon in the early 1980's to root out Mr. Arafat and the P.L.O., it had no real issue with Hezbollah, or the Party of God. Now, Hezbollah is seen by Israelis as a constant menace on their northern border.
Also in the 1980's, searching for a political counterweight to the P.L.O., Israel nurtured a new group called the Islamic Resistance Movement, known by its Arabic shorthand, Hamas. Guess which group became the bigger threat for Israelis.
Then in December 1992, in retaliation for the murder of several Israelis, the army rounded up some 400 Hamas members and dumped them in a barren stretch of southern Lebanon. There they stayed for many months. And there they learned bomb-making techniques from Hezbollah guerrillas, returning to Gaza and the West Bank bigger and badder than ever as far as Israel was concerned.
Unintended consequences have also tarnished attempts at peace, notably the Israeli-Palestinian agreements reached in Oslo in 1993. "Rock-solid assumptions made in 1993 produced radically different results," said Joseph Alpher, an independent strategic analyst in Israel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/weekinreview/02HABE.html
Also in the 1980's, searching for a political counterweight to the P.L.O., Israel nurtured a new group called the Islamic Resistance Movement, known by its Arabic shorthand, Hamas. Guess which group became the bigger threat for Israelis.
Then in December 1992, in retaliation for the murder of several Israelis, the army rounded up some 400 Hamas members and dumped them in a barren stretch of southern Lebanon. There they stayed for many months. And there they learned bomb-making techniques from Hezbollah guerrillas, returning to Gaza and the West Bank bigger and badder than ever as far as Israel was concerned.
Unintended consequences have also tarnished attempts at peace, notably the Israeli-Palestinian agreements reached in Oslo in 1993. "Rock-solid assumptions made in 1993 produced radically different results," said Joseph Alpher, an independent strategic analyst in Israel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/weekinreview/02HABE.html
And There Was Light, and It Was Good?
There hardly seems a place on earth untouched by social and political hierarchies linked to skin color, which rank the world's rainbow of skin tones according to two shades, light and dark. That distinction is the foundation of the current notion of race.
As how to define racism, much less what to do about it, roils the delegates to the United Nations' World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, it might be wise to remember that the importance of skin color is largely a modern invention.
Certainly, slavery and many other oppressive forms of hierarchy have existed throughout human history, as have differences in skin color. But the idea that the two have a cause-and-effect relationship is relatively new, with its genesis, many academics say, in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the colonialism that emerged with it.
ANOTHER way of thinking about skin color is to ask: When did Europeans start thinking of themselves as white?
"There was no whiteness prior to the 17th century," said Manning Marable, director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. "Whiteness is the negation of something else. The something else are Africans who are described by Europeans not by their religion or nationality but by the color of their skin. And nowhere in Africa did Africans call themselves `black.' "
The word race was used for the first time in a modern sense, it is widely believed, in a 17th-century French travelogue, Dr. Brace said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/weekinreview/02SAUL.html
There hardly seems a place on earth untouched by social and political hierarchies linked to skin color, which rank the world's rainbow of skin tones according to two shades, light and dark. That distinction is the foundation of the current notion of race.
As how to define racism, much less what to do about it, roils the delegates to the United Nations' World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, it might be wise to remember that the importance of skin color is largely a modern invention.
Certainly, slavery and many other oppressive forms of hierarchy have existed throughout human history, as have differences in skin color. But the idea that the two have a cause-and-effect relationship is relatively new, with its genesis, many academics say, in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the colonialism that emerged with it.
ANOTHER way of thinking about skin color is to ask: When did Europeans start thinking of themselves as white?
"There was no whiteness prior to the 17th century," said Manning Marable, director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. "Whiteness is the negation of something else. The something else are Africans who are described by Europeans not by their religion or nationality but by the color of their skin. And nowhere in Africa did Africans call themselves `black.' "
The word race was used for the first time in a modern sense, it is widely believed, in a 17th-century French travelogue, Dr. Brace said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/weekinreview/02SAUL.html
Saturday, September 01, 2001
Report Shows Americans Have More 'Labor Days'
American workers have increased their substantial lead over Japan and all other industrial nations in the number of hours worked each year.
The report, issued by the International Labor Organization, found that Americans added nearly a full week to their work year during the 1990's, climbing to 1,979 hours on average last year, up 36 hours from 1990. That means Americans who are employed are putting in nearly 49 1/2 weeks a year on the job.
Americans work 137 hours, or about three and one-half weeks, more a year than Japanese workers, 260 hours (about six and one-half weeks) more a year than British workers and 499 hours (about 12 1/2 weeks) more a year than German workers, the report said. The Japanese had long been at the top for the number of hours worked, but in the mid-1990's the United States surpassed Japan, and since then it has pulled farther ahead.
"It's unique to Americans that they continue to increase their working hours, while hours are declining in other industrialized nations," said Lawrence Jeff Johnson, the economist who oversaw the labor organization's report. "It has a lot to do with the American psyche, with American culture. American workers are eager to make the best impression, to put in the most hours."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/01/national/01HOUR.html?pagewanted=all
American workers have increased their substantial lead over Japan and all other industrial nations in the number of hours worked each year.
The report, issued by the International Labor Organization, found that Americans added nearly a full week to their work year during the 1990's, climbing to 1,979 hours on average last year, up 36 hours from 1990. That means Americans who are employed are putting in nearly 49 1/2 weeks a year on the job.
Americans work 137 hours, or about three and one-half weeks, more a year than Japanese workers, 260 hours (about six and one-half weeks) more a year than British workers and 499 hours (about 12 1/2 weeks) more a year than German workers, the report said. The Japanese had long been at the top for the number of hours worked, but in the mid-1990's the United States surpassed Japan, and since then it has pulled farther ahead.
"It's unique to Americans that they continue to increase their working hours, while hours are declining in other industrialized nations," said Lawrence Jeff Johnson, the economist who oversaw the labor organization's report. "It has a lot to do with the American psyche, with American culture. American workers are eager to make the best impression, to put in the most hours."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/01/national/01HOUR.html?pagewanted=all
Friday, August 31, 2001
South Africa's Mbeki Has Bleak Message on Race
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his opening speech to the conference, said Israel could not use ``the ultimate abomination'' of the Holocaust as an excuse to never examine its own behavior.
``We cannot expect Palestinians to accept this (the Holocaust) as a reason why the wrongs done to them -- displacement, occupation, blockade, and now extra-judicial killings -- should be ignored, whatever label one uses to describe them,'' he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-race.html
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his opening speech to the conference, said Israel could not use ``the ultimate abomination'' of the Holocaust as an excuse to never examine its own behavior.
``We cannot expect Palestinians to accept this (the Holocaust) as a reason why the wrongs done to them -- displacement, occupation, blockade, and now extra-judicial killings -- should be ignored, whatever label one uses to describe them,'' he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-race.html
Rancor and Powell's Absence Cloud Racism Parley
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who arrived this morning, warned that the debate over the Middle East threatened to eclipse the conference, which is intended to highlight discrimination in all forms — from concerns about racism in the criminal justice system in the United States, to the plight of women in Afghanistan, to modern-day slavery in Sudan.
Mr. Jackson and other civil rights leaders here including Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, and Wade J. Henderson, director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said it was a mistake not to send Secretary Powell. The delegation will be led instead by E. Michael Southwick, the deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations.
But Mr. Jackson said he and others agreed that the language of the proposed declaration against racism seemed to target Israel unnecessarily, particularly given the dismal human rights records of many countries participating in the conference.
"The issue of racism is too big to reduce it to the controversy about the Middle East," Mr. Jackson said in an interview. "One can be against the settlements, against the assassination of leaders and not have to label Israel as a racist state. If one goes into labeling, there are a lot of labels to go around."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/31/international/31RACE.html?pagewanted=all
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who arrived this morning, warned that the debate over the Middle East threatened to eclipse the conference, which is intended to highlight discrimination in all forms — from concerns about racism in the criminal justice system in the United States, to the plight of women in Afghanistan, to modern-day slavery in Sudan.
Mr. Jackson and other civil rights leaders here including Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, and Wade J. Henderson, director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said it was a mistake not to send Secretary Powell. The delegation will be led instead by E. Michael Southwick, the deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations.
But Mr. Jackson said he and others agreed that the language of the proposed declaration against racism seemed to target Israel unnecessarily, particularly given the dismal human rights records of many countries participating in the conference.
"The issue of racism is too big to reduce it to the controversy about the Middle East," Mr. Jackson said in an interview. "One can be against the settlements, against the assassination of leaders and not have to label Israel as a racist state. If one goes into labeling, there are a lot of labels to go around."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/31/international/31RACE.html?pagewanted=all
More Women Are Losing Insurance Than Men
In the past, because of women's higher rate of poverty and historically greater eligibility for Medicaid, women have been less likely than men to go without health insurance. In 1994, for example, there were 15.7 million uninsured men and 13.1 million uninsured women. But the gap has been closing rapidly. In 1998, there were 16.7 million uninsured men and 15.3 million uninsured women, according to the fund.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/31/national/31INSU.html?pagewanted=all
In the past, because of women's higher rate of poverty and historically greater eligibility for Medicaid, women have been less likely than men to go without health insurance. In 1994, for example, there were 15.7 million uninsured men and 13.1 million uninsured women. But the gap has been closing rapidly. In 1998, there were 16.7 million uninsured men and 15.3 million uninsured women, according to the fund.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/31/national/31INSU.html?pagewanted=all
Thursday, August 30, 2001
Under the Nuremberg Code of 1947 and the World Medical Associations Declaration of Helsinki, those seeking to conduct medical tests on human subjects must explain the purpose, risks and methods of the study and obtain each subject's voluntary consent to participate.
Families Sue Pfizer on Test of Antibiotic
During a meningitis epidemic in 1996, Pfizer treated 100 Nigerian children with the antibiotic Trovan as part of its effort to determine whether the drug, which had never been tested in children, would be an effective treatment for the disease. Pfizer treated 100 other children with ceftriaxone, the gold standard for meningitis treatment, but, the suit says, at a lower-than- recommended dose. Eleven children in the trial died, and others suffered brain damage, were partly paralyzed or became deaf.
Vanessa McGowan, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, said yesterday that the company had not yet seen the suit, which was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, and could not comment on the allegations. In the past, Pfizer has said that the number of deaths in the Nigerian Trovan trial was lower than the overall fatality rate for the meningitis epidemic and that the trial had been a philanthropic effort that benefited most of the sick children, not a self-serving effort to obtain quick clinical data, as the suit contends.
In early 1996, within weeks of learning about the meningitis epidemic from an Internet site, Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, sent a six-member research team to the Infectious Disease Hospital in Kano, Nigeria, a strife- torn city suffering concurrent epidemics of bacterial meningitis, measles and cholera. The Pfizer team selected children for its test from the long lines of ailing people seeking care at the hospital.
"Pfizer took the opportunity presented by the chaos caused by the civil and medical crises in Kano to accomplish what the company could not do elsewhere — to quickly conduct on young children a test of the potentially dangerous antibiotic Trovan," said the suit, which was filed yesterday by Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, a New York law firm that specializes in representing groups of plaintiffs against large corporations.
Pfizer conducted the trial at the same hospital where Doctors Without Borders, the Nobel Prize-winning relief organization, was already providing free treatment with chloramphenicol, the cheaper antibiotic that is internationally recommended for treating bacterial meningitis.
"Rather than provide the children with a safe, effective and proven therapy for bacterial meningitis," the suit said, "Pfizer chose to select children to participate in a medical experiment of a new, untested and unproven drug without first obtaining their informed consent, or explaining to the children or their parents that the proposed treatment was experimental and that they were free to refuse it and instead choose the safe, effective treatment for bacterial meningitis offered at the same site, free of charge, by a charitable medical group."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/30/business/30DRUG.html?pagewanted=all
Wednesday, August 29, 2001
Wahmpreneur News Magazine: Website Security Heads Up For Small Business
August 20, 2001 -- Small businesses had better wake up and smell the coffee when it comes to their website security solutions, if a recently published article in Interactive Week is anything to judge by. Credit card fraud and identity theft have consumers concerned not only about perpetrators but also about the privacy practices of the merchants transacting business online.
According to the report, there is apparently growing sentiment among consumer advocacy groups and among politicians about the lack of consequences to online merchants whose shoddy security practices make it easy for hackers to steal sensitive information. The sentiment is understandable, to a degree. It is much easier to sue a business for its privacy practices than it is to catch the Romanian hacker that actually committed the theft of personal information.
And the issue gets hotter every time some high-profile company or institution gets their servers hacked into. Just this month, there was the highly publicized case of RegWeb.com. A hole in their security systems revealed more than 300 customer credit card numbers.
http://www.wahmpreneur.com/articles/Aug2001/security.html
August 20, 2001 -- Small businesses had better wake up and smell the coffee when it comes to their website security solutions, if a recently published article in Interactive Week is anything to judge by. Credit card fraud and identity theft have consumers concerned not only about perpetrators but also about the privacy practices of the merchants transacting business online.
According to the report, there is apparently growing sentiment among consumer advocacy groups and among politicians about the lack of consequences to online merchants whose shoddy security practices make it easy for hackers to steal sensitive information. The sentiment is understandable, to a degree. It is much easier to sue a business for its privacy practices than it is to catch the Romanian hacker that actually committed the theft of personal information.
And the issue gets hotter every time some high-profile company or institution gets their servers hacked into. Just this month, there was the highly publicized case of RegWeb.com. A hole in their security systems revealed more than 300 customer credit card numbers.
http://www.wahmpreneur.com/articles/Aug2001/security.html
Monday, August 27, 2001
Growing Audience Is Turning to Established News Media Online "National sites will get more and more of a share of the news audience and the smaller sites will get less and less," predicted Vin Crosbie, president of the consulting firm Digital Deliverance.
The Web is still an ancillary news source for most people, after broadcasting and newspapers, Mr. Crosbie said. But he and other analysts also say that new-media news consumers, who tend to be younger than the audiences for traditional media, are increasingly going in search of old media online.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/27/business/media/27WEB.html?pagewanted=all
The Web is still an ancillary news source for most people, after broadcasting and newspapers, Mr. Crosbie said. But he and other analysts also say that new-media news consumers, who tend to be younger than the audiences for traditional media, are increasingly going in search of old media online.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/27/business/media/27WEB.html?pagewanted=all
Sunday, August 26, 2001
Did Machete-Wielding Hutus Commit Genocide or Just 'Acts of Genocide'?
One of the issues administration officials debated behind the scenes was whether it was best to avoid using the word genocide to describe what was happening, as that might increase legal and political pressure to act. Documents disclosed last week by the National Security Archive show some of that debate. On May 21, 1994, Secretary of State Warren Christopher agreed to allow department officials to say that "acts of genocide have occurred," and on June 10, he finally flatly called it genocide. Between April 6, when the killing began, and July 4, when the Tutsi rebels took over the capital city of Kigali, an estimated 800,000 people were slaughtered.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/weekinreview/26WORD.html
One of the issues administration officials debated behind the scenes was whether it was best to avoid using the word genocide to describe what was happening, as that might increase legal and political pressure to act. Documents disclosed last week by the National Security Archive show some of that debate. On May 21, 1994, Secretary of State Warren Christopher agreed to allow department officials to say that "acts of genocide have occurred," and on June 10, he finally flatly called it genocide. Between April 6, when the killing began, and July 4, when the Tutsi rebels took over the capital city of Kigali, an estimated 800,000 people were slaughtered.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/weekinreview/26WORD.html
Israel Hits Palestinian Posts in Response to Deadly Raids
Israel usually targets Palestinian security installations in its retaliatory strikes because it holds Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ultimately responsible for attacks on Israelis. Israel says Arafat's security forces do little to rein in the militants, and sometimes participate in attacks on Israelis.
The Palestinians blame Israel for the violence, charging that its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the cause, exacerbated by roadblocks and travel restrictions there. The Palestinians say their police and security are defending themselves against Israeli aggression.
Now the Palestinians charge that the United States is blatantly taking Israel's side in the conflict.
On Sunday, Palestinian police officers inspected the ruins of the four-story building in Gaza City that housed their headquarters, showing reporters a green metal fragment with yellow lettering that said ``for use on M-84'' -- referring to a one-ton bomb that, according to the Pentagon's Web site, can be fitted with a laser guiding device and carried by the U.S.-made warplanes used in the raids.
The Israeli military said only that the bomb was not a new type and has been used before. The U.S. air force dropped thousands of M-84 bombs on Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.
U.S.-made Israeli attack helicopters hovered near Arafat's headquarters during the air strike, but they did not open fire. Returning to Gaza on Sunday after a trip to Asia, Arafat briefly toured a police structure that was shelled by Israeli tanks in Rafah, near the Egyptian border.
Asked Sunday about the legality of Israel's use of U.S. weapons against the Palestinians, a State Department
official expressed opposition to use of heavy weapons in urban areas, where the risk of casualties is high. Speaking on condition of anonymity, she said the State Department monitors the use of U.S. weapons to ensure they are used according to the terms of transfer under American law.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
Israel usually targets Palestinian security installations in its retaliatory strikes because it holds Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ultimately responsible for attacks on Israelis. Israel says Arafat's security forces do little to rein in the militants, and sometimes participate in attacks on Israelis.
The Palestinians blame Israel for the violence, charging that its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the cause, exacerbated by roadblocks and travel restrictions there. The Palestinians say their police and security are defending themselves against Israeli aggression.
Now the Palestinians charge that the United States is blatantly taking Israel's side in the conflict.
On Sunday, Palestinian police officers inspected the ruins of the four-story building in Gaza City that housed their headquarters, showing reporters a green metal fragment with yellow lettering that said ``for use on M-84'' -- referring to a one-ton bomb that, according to the Pentagon's Web site, can be fitted with a laser guiding device and carried by the U.S.-made warplanes used in the raids.
The Israeli military said only that the bomb was not a new type and has been used before. The U.S. air force dropped thousands of M-84 bombs on Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.
U.S.-made Israeli attack helicopters hovered near Arafat's headquarters during the air strike, but they did not open fire. Returning to Gaza on Sunday after a trip to Asia, Arafat briefly toured a police structure that was shelled by Israeli tanks in Rafah, near the Egyptian border.
Asked Sunday about the legality of Israel's use of U.S. weapons against the Palestinians, a State Department
official expressed opposition to use of heavy weapons in urban areas, where the risk of casualties is high. Speaking on condition of anonymity, she said the State Department monitors the use of U.S. weapons to ensure they are used according to the terms of transfer under American law.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
Palestinian Raids Kill 6 Israelis, Including 3 Soldiers at Gaza Base
The raid took place near Bedolah, part of a major bloc of Jewish settlements in southern Gaza known as Gush Qatif. Although the teeming Gaza Strip has been a Palestinian autonomous zone since 1994, significant stretches remain in Israeli hands, with the army in control of key intersections to protect an estimated 6,000 Israelis living in Gush Qatif and more isolated settlements. Like many army posts in Gaza, the one hit on Saturday was near an Israeli enclave.
Clashes between soldiers and Gazans have become routine over the last 11 months. But assaults like the one on Saturday are uncommon. It clearly rattled Israel's military.
"The specific incident reflects a new form of audacity that we hadn't yet witnessed," said Maj. Gen. Doron Almog, the army commander in southern Israel and Gaza.
Undetected, the raiders made their way across ditches and through the barbed-wire perimeter of the base, where they opened fire and threw hand grenades from close range at the soldiers, some of whom were asleep. A major, Gil Oz, 30, and a staff sergeant, Yaakov Nir, 21, were killed. An unidentified medic was fatally shot when he tried to give first aid to Major Oz. At one point, General Almog said, his soldiers and the Palestinians were locked in hand- to-hand combat.
In a firefight said to have lasted about 10 minutes, one Palestinian attacker was killed. The other got away, but was found several hours later, hiding in the greenhouses of a nearby settlement, Atzmona, where he was shot and killed.The two Palestinians were identified as Amin Abu Hatab, 26, and Hisham Abu Jamus, 24.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/international/middleeast/26MIDE.html?pagewanted=all
The raid took place near Bedolah, part of a major bloc of Jewish settlements in southern Gaza known as Gush Qatif. Although the teeming Gaza Strip has been a Palestinian autonomous zone since 1994, significant stretches remain in Israeli hands, with the army in control of key intersections to protect an estimated 6,000 Israelis living in Gush Qatif and more isolated settlements. Like many army posts in Gaza, the one hit on Saturday was near an Israeli enclave.
Clashes between soldiers and Gazans have become routine over the last 11 months. But assaults like the one on Saturday are uncommon. It clearly rattled Israel's military.
"The specific incident reflects a new form of audacity that we hadn't yet witnessed," said Maj. Gen. Doron Almog, the army commander in southern Israel and Gaza.
Undetected, the raiders made their way across ditches and through the barbed-wire perimeter of the base, where they opened fire and threw hand grenades from close range at the soldiers, some of whom were asleep. A major, Gil Oz, 30, and a staff sergeant, Yaakov Nir, 21, were killed. An unidentified medic was fatally shot when he tried to give first aid to Major Oz. At one point, General Almog said, his soldiers and the Palestinians were locked in hand- to-hand combat.
In a firefight said to have lasted about 10 minutes, one Palestinian attacker was killed. The other got away, but was found several hours later, hiding in the greenhouses of a nearby settlement, Atzmona, where he was shot and killed.The two Palestinians were identified as Amin Abu Hatab, 26, and Hisham Abu Jamus, 24.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/international/middleeast/26MIDE.html?pagewanted=all
Saturday, August 25, 2001
Against Impossible Odds, Sojourners Magazine/September-October 2001
If you were an activist in apartheid-era South Africa, you could be pulled out of bed in the middle of the night and killed. But ordinary South Africans, though poor and oppressed, could still visit their mothers or join their buddies to play soccer, and generally they were able to move freely around the country. Palestinians, however, can't just wake up in the morning and decide to go visit a friend, or end the day by going to see the sunset at the water's edge. The theft of spontaneity. Jean Zaru told me she hadn't worked with her assistant face to face for three months, because they couldn't get in the same room at the same time. It was easier for international visitors to come to the Sabeel conference in Jerusalem than for local Palestinians to get there from their own villages and cities.
There is indeed Palestinian violence against Israeli settlements. Shootings and even mortar shells have been aimed into them. Some people have been killed, and the fear is very high. There have been casualties even among Israeli children. Two 14-year-old boys were found dead in a cave near their settlement, their bodies battered and mutilated with rocks, killed by Palestinians. And we've seen the results of suicide bombers, including at a Tel Aviv disco. In my opinion, attacks against civilian populations are terrorism. Such terror can never be justified. Never.
But the Israelis use such incidents to justify shelling Palestinians in massive, disproportionate retaliation. They've even resorted to bombing Palestinian targets with F-16 fighter planes. The casualties are enormous, including Palestinian children and infants caught in the middle of attacks against civilians that must also be called terrorist.
The Israeli army is shelling the most exposed houses in Palestinian villages directly from the settlements, knowing they're attacking unarmed civilians with families and children. I went into Palestinian homes that had been shelled, met the families. In one I saw the huge shell hole in the wall of the children's bedroom. The kids were scared that night, cowering in their parents' room down the hall, or they surely would have been killed.
By the end of June, 558 people had been killed in the current wave of violence—78 percent of them Palestinians (92 percent of those injured are Palestinians). More than 100 children under the age of 17 had died—86 Palestinian children, and 18 Israeli children. In a very moving moment at the start of the Sabeel conference, we named each victim of the violence, from all sides. Every individual life counts in God's eyes.
Movements are responsible for the images they project. When the Israeli military shot and killed 12-year-old Mohammed Dura in his father's arms as they cowered in fear against a wall in Gaza, the powerful images went around the world. But three days later, two Israeli soldiers were captured and lynched by angry Palestinians in the city of Ramallah in the West Bank. The image flashed around the world was that of bloody hands raised by an angry Palestinian mob over the lynched soldiers' mutilated bodies. If the images from Birmingham and Selma had been dead cops, we wouldn't have won the civil rights struggle in America.
There is no "symmetry" in the violence of the Middle East today. Israeli violence is enormously disproportionate to Palestinian violence. That includes the violence of the settlements and closure policies themselves and the Israeli military practices, especially in their retaliation against Palestinian attacks. Despite this lack of proportionality, there is no moral or strategic justification for the Palestinian violence in response to Israeli domination, especially when it targets civilians. No argument, even lack of symmetry, will suffice.
http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/sojourners/issue/soj0109/article/010910.html
If you were an activist in apartheid-era South Africa, you could be pulled out of bed in the middle of the night and killed. But ordinary South Africans, though poor and oppressed, could still visit their mothers or join their buddies to play soccer, and generally they were able to move freely around the country. Palestinians, however, can't just wake up in the morning and decide to go visit a friend, or end the day by going to see the sunset at the water's edge. The theft of spontaneity. Jean Zaru told me she hadn't worked with her assistant face to face for three months, because they couldn't get in the same room at the same time. It was easier for international visitors to come to the Sabeel conference in Jerusalem than for local Palestinians to get there from their own villages and cities.
There is indeed Palestinian violence against Israeli settlements. Shootings and even mortar shells have been aimed into them. Some people have been killed, and the fear is very high. There have been casualties even among Israeli children. Two 14-year-old boys were found dead in a cave near their settlement, their bodies battered and mutilated with rocks, killed by Palestinians. And we've seen the results of suicide bombers, including at a Tel Aviv disco. In my opinion, attacks against civilian populations are terrorism. Such terror can never be justified. Never.
But the Israelis use such incidents to justify shelling Palestinians in massive, disproportionate retaliation. They've even resorted to bombing Palestinian targets with F-16 fighter planes. The casualties are enormous, including Palestinian children and infants caught in the middle of attacks against civilians that must also be called terrorist.
The Israeli army is shelling the most exposed houses in Palestinian villages directly from the settlements, knowing they're attacking unarmed civilians with families and children. I went into Palestinian homes that had been shelled, met the families. In one I saw the huge shell hole in the wall of the children's bedroom. The kids were scared that night, cowering in their parents' room down the hall, or they surely would have been killed.
By the end of June, 558 people had been killed in the current wave of violence—78 percent of them Palestinians (92 percent of those injured are Palestinians). More than 100 children under the age of 17 had died—86 Palestinian children, and 18 Israeli children. In a very moving moment at the start of the Sabeel conference, we named each victim of the violence, from all sides. Every individual life counts in God's eyes.
Movements are responsible for the images they project. When the Israeli military shot and killed 12-year-old Mohammed Dura in his father's arms as they cowered in fear against a wall in Gaza, the powerful images went around the world. But three days later, two Israeli soldiers were captured and lynched by angry Palestinians in the city of Ramallah in the West Bank. The image flashed around the world was that of bloody hands raised by an angry Palestinian mob over the lynched soldiers' mutilated bodies. If the images from Birmingham and Selma had been dead cops, we wouldn't have won the civil rights struggle in America.
There is no "symmetry" in the violence of the Middle East today. Israeli violence is enormously disproportionate to Palestinian violence. That includes the violence of the settlements and closure policies themselves and the Israeli military practices, especially in their retaliation against Palestinian attacks. Despite this lack of proportionality, there is no moral or strategic justification for the Palestinian violence in response to Israeli domination, especially when it targets civilians. No argument, even lack of symmetry, will suffice.
http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/sojourners/issue/soj0109/article/010910.html
Thursday, August 23, 2001
3-Strikes Law Is Overrated in California, Study Finds
"The real impact of the law is a tremendous distortion of crime-control resources," Mr. Mauer said. "As the 25-year-to-life inmates stack up, California will be housing a disproportionate share of elderly inmates. We know that 50-year-olds commit far less crime than 25-year-olds, and every dollar going into housing a 50- year-old inmate is a dollar not going into dealing with a 16-year-old beginning to get into trouble."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/23/national/23SENT.html
"The real impact of the law is a tremendous distortion of crime-control resources," Mr. Mauer said. "As the 25-year-to-life inmates stack up, California will be housing a disproportionate share of elderly inmates. We know that 50-year-olds commit far less crime than 25-year-olds, and every dollar going into housing a 50- year-old inmate is a dollar not going into dealing with a 16-year-old beginning to get into trouble."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/23/national/23SENT.html
Tuesday, August 21, 2001
Web Bugs Might Bite Back at Marketers
Some marketers may be violating their privacy policies or collecting consumer data without permission by using Web bugs on their Web sites, according to a study released this week.
Titled "Web Bugs -- A Study of the Presence and Growth Rate of Web Bugs on the Internet," the study was conducted by Internet site tracking firm Cyveillance Inc. Cyveillance gathered data from more than 1 million Web pages and compared a random sample of pages from 1998 and 2001.
Web bugs, also known as clear GIFs or 1-by-1 pixels, are graphics embedded in Web pages or in e-mail messages that can track site visitors or readers of e-mail.
While Web bugs can be used for such benign purposes as tracking the number of visitors to a Web page, its potential for collecting more detailed information worries privacy advocates.
The Privacy Foundation, a nonprofit consumer education group and privacy watchdog, has said the use of Web bugs is tantamount to illegal wiretapping.
Data that can be collected by Web bugs include IP addresses, the URL of the Web page location of the Web bug on it, the time and date it was served, the type of browser used to retrieve the Web bug and previously set cookie values.
It is through cookie values that marketers using Web bugs could collect data such as personally identifiable information and transactional information.
"The results of this study emphasize what we're seeing everyday -- companies want to earn and retain the trust of their customers, and an association with Web bugs has the potential to seriously undermine those efforts," Panos Anastassiadis, president/CEO of Cyveillance Inc., Arlington, VA, said in a statement.
http://www.imarketingnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=16686
Some marketers may be violating their privacy policies or collecting consumer data without permission by using Web bugs on their Web sites, according to a study released this week.
Titled "Web Bugs -- A Study of the Presence and Growth Rate of Web Bugs on the Internet," the study was conducted by Internet site tracking firm Cyveillance Inc. Cyveillance gathered data from more than 1 million Web pages and compared a random sample of pages from 1998 and 2001.
Web bugs, also known as clear GIFs or 1-by-1 pixels, are graphics embedded in Web pages or in e-mail messages that can track site visitors or readers of e-mail.
While Web bugs can be used for such benign purposes as tracking the number of visitors to a Web page, its potential for collecting more detailed information worries privacy advocates.
The Privacy Foundation, a nonprofit consumer education group and privacy watchdog, has said the use of Web bugs is tantamount to illegal wiretapping.
Data that can be collected by Web bugs include IP addresses, the URL of the Web page location of the Web bug on it, the time and date it was served, the type of browser used to retrieve the Web bug and previously set cookie values.
It is through cookie values that marketers using Web bugs could collect data such as personally identifiable information and transactional information.
"The results of this study emphasize what we're seeing everyday -- companies want to earn and retain the trust of their customers, and an association with Web bugs has the potential to seriously undermine those efforts," Panos Anastassiadis, president/CEO of Cyveillance Inc., Arlington, VA, said in a statement.
http://www.imarketingnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=16686
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