Well, I have no idea why people would be condemning one side of the Arab Israeli conflict of being "one sided"!

If there are two sides (sic) to every story, why is one side being condemned for telling their side?

Doesn't make much sense does it? Although I heard CNN do the exact same thing on air yesterday, when talking to a member of the Indy Media Organization to get a "story" from inside Bethlehem, because their own correspondents are too chicken shit to go there.

The CNN commentator utterly dismissed all the information the Indy Media Organization gave as a first hand eye witness account as "one sided". She then thought better of her wildly injudicious remark (CNN wouldn't want to risk alienating a journalist CNN might be able to exploit for a "scoop" on NBC). She followed up with a spluttering "Of course, it is an important to tell that side of the story." Apparently, they didn't like hearing that the British had actually evacuated the internationals in harm's way in Bethlehem, and not the Americans. In fact, no American flags on the cars were to be seen. The only flags on cars I saw were Irish, actually.

CarolC, the journal and organization you cite is the same one I cited earlier. It is an Arab American organization with tremendous prestige in the international diplomatic community. The important point to remember is that the Bush administration is using Sharon and the IDF to neutralize the Palestinians with a new occupation of the West Bank, so that the US will be free to go after Sadam Hussein. In his speech this morning announcing he will send Powell "next week", Bush did not demand an IMMEDIATE cessation to the Israeli invasion and re-occupation of the West Bank (which has already been pointed out by an Israeli government spokes person).

Bush did not put any timeline whatsoever on the Israeli withdrawal at all, in fact. Which means there is no change in the policy as he defined it last weekend, when the US supported the UN resolution 1402 on the one hand, but then publicly stated that Israel was justified in it's military response on the West Bank because they were "defending their homeland" and "fighting terrorism".

Bush said he was calling for a halt to the Israeli settlements, but he said nothing about Israeli settlers being withdrawn from the West Bank--which has been one of the major blockades to peace put forward by the Israelis, who keep insisting there can be no repatriation of Palestinian refugees, or a halt or withdrawal of Israeli settlers on Palestinian lands.

Also, the entire world knows that the demands for Arafat to do anything at this point is useless. The current war on the Palestinians has now destroyed all the infrastructure built on the West Bank in the past decade as part of the Oslo peace process--exactly what Sharon and the right wing Zionists in Israel always intended to do. They are now referring to the Palestinian Authority (the legally armed Palestinian police force) as "gunmen" and "terrorists", and have arrested over 1500 people. They are now preparing to go into the refugee camps outside Jenin, Nablus, etc where there will be a bloodbath--a massacre.

The Israeli Defense Force, from all accounts I am hearing on the American media, are stepping up their operations, not scaling back one bit. Sharon has refused to let Zinni, the Europeans, and the UN in to Ramallah to meet with Arafat.

And that is just what Bush wants. Powell's mission, his "framework" hasn't been defined, because there isn't one. It is a ruse by the Bush administration to buy time for the IDF to invade, reoccupy, and clamp down on the West Bank, and take military control over West Bank and Gaza, up to the borders with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. It could also be setting the stage for another invasion of Lebanon and/or Syria (depending on how you read Bush's saber rattling).

Bush's claim that Arafat's current circumstance is of his own making will only inflame Arabs, and make the situation much, much worse. I don't know that the announcement that Powell will go to the Middle East, more or less when he gets around to it (the State Dept is now saying he will add on a stop or two to the region AFTER his European trip, is another slap in the face to the Arabs), will do to help the situation on the ground at all. And there is an excellent chance that it could exacerbate the situation even more.

Just after the Bush speech, the UN and European negotiators announced they were leaving the region, because the Israelis won't allow anyone to meet with ANY Palestinian negotiators, not just Arafat.

I predict the Israelis will now claim annexation of the West Bank as their own "military buffer zone" and refuse to leave, even after a ceasefire is declared. Their justification will be that there is no police infrastructure to rule on the West Bank (because they will have successfully destroyed it), and that they will not allow international peacekeepers into the area (just as they always have). The US will support them, and continue to extort the necessary Arab "allies" in the region to go along with it, just like they always do.

George W. Bush is as committed to a Palestinian state as Ariel Sharon. What we are witnessing right now, before our very eyes, is a total and complete military subjugation of the Palestinian people, a shattering of their aspirations and work for over a decade on the Oslo peace agreement, with the full support of the United States government. Nothing less.