Archived news and commentary: March 18 - 24, 2002

2002/03/25 - 2002/03/31
2002/03/18 - 2002/03/24
2002/03/11 - 2002/03/17
2002/03/04 - 2002/03/10
2002/02/25 - 2002/03/03
2002/02/18 - 2002/02/24
2002/02/11 - 2002/02/17
2002/02/04 - 2002/02/10
2002/01/28 - 2002/02/03
2002/01/21 - 2002/01/27
2002/01/14 - 2002/01/20
2002/01/07 - 2002/01/13
2002/01/01 - 2002/01/06

Sunday, March 24, 2002

News and commentary:

"Inside the world of the Palestinian suicide bomber" (Hala Jaber, The Sunday Times, 2002/03/24)
"I was about to meet two men chosen to become Al-Aqsa martyrs and to discover that they did not conform to the stereotype of poverty-stricken young militants exploited for mindless acts of terrorism. ... ...I was introduced to Yunis, a 27-year-old artgraduate who was preparing for a suicide mission that might be days or weeks away. ... "Finally, I searched for my God in the holy Koran and found it filled with verses and commands on how to end my oppression," he added, eyes blazing. ... The candidate is reminded of the good fortune that awaits him in the presence of prophets and saints, of the unimaginable beauty of the houri, or beautiful young woman, who will welcome him and of the chance he will have to intercede on behalf of 70 loved ones on doomsday. Not least, he is told of the service he will perform for his fellow countrymen with his sacrifice."

"A Secret Iran-Arafat Connection Is Seen Fueling the Mideast Fire" (Douglas Frantz & James Risen, The New York Times, 2002/03/24)
"American and Israeli intelligence officials have concluded that Yasir Arafat has forged a new alliance with Iran that involves Iranian shipments of heavy weapons and millions of dollars to Palestinian groups that are waging guerrilla war against Israel. The partnership, officials said, was arranged in a clandestine meeting in Moscow last May between two top aides to Mr. Arafat and Iranian government officials. ... In fact, Israeli and American officials believe that the 18-year struggle by Hezbollah in Lebanon, backed by tens of millions of dollars worth of arms from Iran, provided a model for what Tehran would like to recreate on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. "The strategy is to make the West Bank another Lebanon," said one senior American intelligence official."

Saturday, March 23, 2002

News and commentary:

"How to fight and lose the moral high ground" (Salman Rushdie, The Guardian, 2002/03/23)
"I woke up the other day to find myself, along with Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis, transformed by the British liberal media into a member of "the belligerati", a term coined, to describe those who have supported the US campaign in Afghanistan, by the ex-revolutionary Tariq Ali, an enthusiastic advocate of the "blowback" or "America deserved it" analysis of the 9/11 atrocities. ...
As John Lloyd wrote in the New Statesman recently, "Much of the intellectual left in Europe cleaves to a view of America as the largest danger in the modern world." But in Afghanistan the Taliban, perhaps the cruellest regime on earth, had permitted the country to be hijacked by a parasitic terror organisation dedicated to the overthrow of western civilisation. The cleansing of those stables by the United States deserves a far better press than it is getting. Sadly, cheap slogans and ad hominem sneers have long passed for reasoned argument in the British papers. This doesn't much matter, except in so far as it is part of a wider portrayal of the United States as a vengeful nation bent on war and hot for foreign blood."

"Bush vs. Nietzsche - The politics of evil" (James W. Ceaser, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/04/01 issue)
"Bush's use of the concept of evil fits into an important debate in American thought that has been going on now for well over a hundred years. Led by John Dewey, a concerted effort was undertaken early in the twentieth century by many Progressive thinkers to throw out the concept of evil. The reason, as explained by the contemporary philosopher Richard Rorty, was that it "thwarted their notion of confidence in education and social reform." The Progressives saw evil as incompatible with their notion of the infinite perfectibility of man. ... In this use - or abuse - of evil, the term would become little more than a synonym for "unenlightened." An evil policy would be one that was unprogressive. This pitiful plan to place us beyond good and evil, American style, failed. It could not do justice to the horrors people saw with their own eyes in the years following the Progressive era."

"Young Bombers Nurtured by Despair" (Daniel Williams, The Washington Post, 2002/03/23)
"Publicly, suicide attackers are regaled among Palestinians as war heroes. Yet, simmering beneath the surface is the issue of the role of Palestinian leaders in arranging suicide bombings. Other than exceptional cases, most suicide bombers are outfitted and dispatched by organized groups: Hamas, Islamic Jihad or al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. While it is easy to hear despairing comments about the state of youthful minds, it is harder to find criticism of the agents who, confronted with disturbed persons, send them out to kill and be killed."

"U.S. Says It Found Qaeda Lab Being Built to Produce Anthrax" (Michael R. Gordon, The New York Times, 2002/03/23)
"The United States has discovered a laboratory under construction near Kandahar, Afghanistan, where American officials believe Al Qaeda planned to develop biological agents, officials said today. According to a confidential assessment by the United States Central Command, the laboratory was intended to produce anthrax. ... Earlier today, there were press reports from London that a biological weapons laboratory had been found in the mountains in the Shah-i-Kot region of Afghanistan near Gardez during the recent United States military operation there."

Friday, March 22, 2002

News and commentary:

"Suicide terrorists - Yasser Arafat's 'Martyrs'" (U.S. News, from the 2002/03/25 issue)
"The [al-Aqsa] brigades are the fighting force of the Tanzim, the youth movement of Arafat's Fatah organization. The brigades, which at first concentrated on drive-by shootings of West Bank settlers, have evolved into the leading Palestinian suicide terrorists. ... In a Gaza refugee camp, dozens of 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old boys, wearing green bandannas declaring, "Martyrs of al-Aqsa," took aim with AK-47s and M-16s. They were in a training camp run by the most dangerous gang in the intifada. 'We are all sacrificing our lives,' the kids chanted, 'for al-Aqsa.'"

"Terrorist Welfare Queens" (The Wall Street Journal/Best of the Web Today, 2002/03/22)
"'Drawing a direct link between poverty and violence,' the AP dispatch explains, 'leaders at a U.N. summit said increased aid to the world's neediest is more urgent than ever in the post-Sept. 11 world.' It hardly needs saying that this is nonsense. Inasmuch as there was an economic "cause" of Sept. 11, the problem is not poverty but the vast oil wealth controlled by various despotic regimes, especially in Osama bin Laden's home country, Saudi Arabia. What's more, it's ludicrous to blame poverty itself on a lack of handouts from the West. After all, rich countries didn't get rich by going on the international dole (who would have paid for it?). Poverty is a product of politics and culture..." (See also: "Poor Nations Warn Rich on Terror" (Yahoo! News/AP, 2002/03/22))

"Kill a Jew for Allah" (John Derbyshire, National Review, 2002/03/22)
"The problem of the Middle East is not the settlements. It is not this piece of land or that piece. It is not the Golan Heights or East Jerusalem or Temple Mount. It is not oil, or land, or water, or history, or geography, or metaphysics. The problem is in plain sight. You know what the problem is, and so do I. The problem is that the Middle East hates the Jews. ... It is not too difficult to envisage a plan by which the spoken grievances of the Arabs against Israel could be addressed, and some compromise struck. ... It isn't going to be, because there is no goodwill, and no real desire on the part of Israel's enemies for a solution. Or rather, there is a widespread desire for only one solution - the extinction of Israel and the driving out, or mass killing, of the Jews. That's what they want, the Middle East; that's all they want."

"U.S. Lists Bomber's Group As Terrorist, Freezes Assets" (Alan Sipress, The Washington Post, 2002/03/22)
"Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has labeled the Palestinian al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades a terrorist group and ordered its assets frozen, marking the first time the Bush administration has taken such action against an organization linked to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's party. ... The State Department, taking the unusual step of publicizing the move before it became official, announced the decision yesterday, hours after the brigades claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed three bystanders and injured about 60 others."

"Pearl suspects charged with murder" (BBC News, 2002/03/22)
"Four suspects, including the British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, have been charged with the kidnap and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl. The charges were laid during a short hearing held under tight security at a special anti-terrorism court in Karachi in Pakistan. ... Daniel Pearl disappeared in Karachi on 23 January while attempting to arrange an interview with Islamic militants for the Wall Street Journal. A gruesome video showing his beheading was handed to US and Pakistani officials nearly one month later. Neither Pearl's body, nor the murder weapon, have been found."

Thursday, March 21, 2002

News and commentary:

"Grand Imam Tantawi said Palestinian resistance suicide persons are 'martyrs'" (ArabicNews.com, 2002/03/21)
"Al-Azhar Grand Imam Wednesday said that bombers who blow themselves up to avenge aggression are martyrs as along as they do not plan to kill the weak. "Or if they confine their operations to places where there are aggressors from Jews." He was answering a question on whether Palestinian bombers are suicides or martyrs. "Those who blow themselves up among aggressors, who demolish houses, kill men, women and innocent people and assault honour and property of Palestinians, are martyrs," he said."

"Three dead, at least 60 wounded in Jerusalem bombing" (The Jerusalem Post, 2002/03/21)
"A third victim of today's downtown Jerusalem attack died of his wounds a short time ago, several hours after a suicide bomber blew himself up on King George Avenue. At least 60 were wounded, one critically and two seriously. ... The Palestinian-Israeli security meeting originally scheduled for this evening was canceled, Israel Radio reported. The Palestinian Authority issued a statement condemning the attack and promised to arrest those who played a role. Fatah's Aksa Martyrs Brigade has taken responsibility. ... Earlier today, PA West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub said the PA would never close down the various Palestinian forces nor arrest wanted terrorists."

"Get the Jews!" (Jack Kelly, Jewish World Review, 2002/03/21)
"Israel is under attack by monsters. And World Opinion is siding with the monsters. After each new Palestinian outrage, world leaders call upon the Israeli government to exercise restraint; i.e., to consent to the murder of its citizens. Even President Bush has piled on. No negotiated political settlement will appease the suicide bombers and those who send them. They won't be satisfied until they have finished the job Hitler started. We shouldn't help them."

"A war of no choice" (Israel Harel, Haaretz, 2002/03/21)
"Basically, the signs that the Arabs will never give up the fight have been apparent ever since the start of the modern return to Zion. ... Our war of existence will not, evidently, ever end, even in the distant future. Not Zinni, not Tenet and not Mitchell; not Oslo, not 242 or 338; not the partition borders of 1947; not the boundaries of the Balfour Declaration (that included Transjordan and parts of what are now Syria and Lebanon) approved by the League of Nations; not the borders of June 6 or June 12, 1967: The objective of the Arabs' wars, from the war rejecting the partition borders in 1947 to the war rejecting the Camp David and Taba talks boundaries, is to prove that no sovereign Jewish presence, in any boundary whatsoever, was, is or will be accepted by the Muslim world, and certainly not by the Arab world. ... Suicide terrorism is not only battling against Jewish independence, but against the fact of our mere presence here."

"Peru bomb fails to deter Bush'" (BBC News, 2002/03/21)
"US President George W Bush will go ahead with plans to travel to Peru this weekend - despite a car bomb attack near the American embassy that killed nine people. ... No group has admitted carrying out the attack. ... The BBC correspondent in Lima says that, for many Peruvians, the attacks are a frightening reminder of what they call the terrorism years of the 1980s and early 1990s, when Shining Path militants frequently exploded bombs and other devices in the capital."

"A deadly silence" (Mohamed Heikal, The Guardian, 2002/03/21)
An interview with the Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy: "'The Americans control the world,' he continued. "As for the Arab world, the Americans not only control it, they rule it. And what they are saying and doing is alarming. Their bias for Israel is absolute and they no longer even take the trouble to disguise their hostility towards the Arabs, to the degree that the Arab world these days hears nothing from Washington but threats and recrimination. ... The entire Arab world is in a humiliating position."

"U.S. Adds Legal Rights In Tribunals" (John Mintz, The Washington Post, 2002/03/21)
"The Bush administration has settled on a complex set of military tribunal regulations more advantageous to al Qaeda and Taliban defendants than the guidelines President Bush originally issued in November, knowledgeable sources said yesterday. The new rules would require a unanimous vote of judges to impose the death penalty on convicted terrorists - not the two-thirds vote Bush had suggested in his Nov. 13 executive order establishing the tribunals. And while the president's original order barred appeals after conviction, the new regulations allow military officers to review a tribunal's decision on appeal."

Wednesday, March 20, 2002

News and commentary:

"Israeli-Palestinian security meeting still set - Suicide bomber kills 7 on bus in northern Israel" (CNN.com, 2002/03/20)
"A joint security meeting between Israeli and Palestinian security officials was still on Wednesday after a terrorist bombing claimed the lives of seven people, according to a Ministry of Defense spokesman. The meeting that will include U.S. Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni comes after a suicide bomber attacked a bus in northern Israel. Four of those killed were soldiers, Israel Defense Forces said. Thirty people were injured and the bomber died, a police spokesman said."

"Does Blair know what he's getting into?" (Christopher Hitchens, The Guardian, 2002/03/20)
"I can imagine certain very drastic and urgent circumstances where that might be justifiable, but the fact is the US is currently readying an invasion and occupation force, and running the risk of dire consequences, without revealing any of its political or strategic aims to Congress, or to its formal military allies, or to the Iraqi opposition, or to the Kurds, or to the neighbouring states. It is doing so, moreover, without much evident regard for the unfolding calamity, for which it bears some direct responsibility, in Palestine and Israel. I speak as one who supports the Iraqi Kurds and the Iraqi opposition, and feels that we owe a debt to the population for encouraging an uprising in 1991 and then abandoning it. The danger now is that the Bush administration will go ahead anyway because of some concept of "credibility": in other words because it dare not risk looking weak. The British historical experience in Mesopotamia contains enough experience of that kind to encourage circumspection. If Labour wants to share in the distinction of liberating Iraq, it had better assure itself that it knows what it is getting."

"Our Enemy Is One" (David Horowitz, FrontPageMagazine, 2002/03/20)
"Islamic radicals from Pakistan to Palestine, including government agencies in Iraq, Iran, and Palestine have summoned their people to a holy war against the modern, tolerant, democratic, Judeo-Christian and secular West. ... Israel is a frontline nation in this battle, whose very survival is now at stake. Israel has been the target of a fifty-year holy war by the Arab states, which surround it and vastly outnumber it. ... September 11 signals the determination of radical Islam to extend a war it began in 1948 to the United States itself. In fact the war against America was begun with the attack on U.S. troops in Mogadishu in February 1993 and with the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center in October of that year. Americans must arm themselves for the defense of their country. To be effective, this defense requires America and the democratic West to recognize that the defense of Israel is a defense of their own frontier."

"Where Bush Rewards Terror" (William J. Bennett, The Washington Post, 2002/03/20)
"The administration's policy in the Middle East just took a dramatic turn in the wrong direction. This turn at once marks a concession to terrorism and a violation of principle. Just as Israel was defending itself from unremitting, unbearable terror, President Bush stated that what Israel was doing - targeting terrorists and militarily occupying the land they were coming from - was "not helpful." ... The message is this: Jewish blood is cheap. Kill civilians, expand suicide bombings, and you will be rewarded: Terrorism works. The message may not be deliberate, but it is tragically clear. ... Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is not the problem for the Arabs. Democracy is the problem. Israel's existence anywhere is the problem. Jews are the problem. This was not supposed to happen again. The world, we thought, would long note what the long march of Jewish blood libels, mixed with the ceding of land to dictators, caused. ... The Arabs' conclusion? Speak platitudes in English, foment terrorism in Arabic, and the United States will apply pressure to fellow democracies over and against those who rule by bullets rather than ballots. These lessons in double standards bode tragic for democracy, not just here at home or in Israel, but across the globe."

"The Terrorism Loophole" (Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard, 2002/03/20)
"But for years now, Arafat has been directing or facilitating terrorism against women and children in a democratic country, Israel. He's allied himself with groups whose goal is the extermination of Israel. He's responded to generous terms for a peace settlement with Israel with still more terrorism. He's rewarded and honored suicide bombers who've killed Israeli non-combatants. He's reneged on agreements and broken promises and lied. Yet the world treats him like a legitimate national leader who, while sometimes misbehaving, is not a loathsome outcast. ... Where has he wound up? Better off. He's not about to lose his job as head of the Palestinian Authority. He's gotten his way in precipitating American intervention and in prompting U.S. officials to talk about Israel and the Palestinians in roughly equivalent moral terms. He's been visited by Gen. Anthony Zinni, the special representative of Secretary of State Colin Powell, and will be again and again. Vice President Dick Cheney has promised to come see him if the newly reached truce holds. And he'll surely be heroically received at the Arab summit on March 29. ... The lesson for Arafat? In the end, terrorism works."

"Pull Up a Chair" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2002/03/20)
"This is our dilemma there: Israel cannot stay in the occupied territories and remain a Jewish democracy. But the Palestinians cannot yet be trusted to control these areas on their own if Israel withdraws. Would you trust Yasir Arafat to police your neighborhood? So the only solution is that Israel gradually withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to be replaced by a joint American-Palestinian security force. Palestinians would be responsible for internal security, and the joint U.S.-Palestinian security force would control all borders and entryways to ensure that no heavy weapons can be imported and that any Palestinian state could never become a base of operations against Israel. The most sensitive area of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, would be protected by U.S. troops, with Palestinians having sovereignty and operational control over the mosques and the Jews over their holy sites."

"For the Sins of the Taliban" (Peter Bouckaert and Saman Zia-Zarifi. The Eashington Post, 2002/03/20)
"For ethnic Pashtuns in northern Afghanistan, it is payback time. They are paying for the sins of the Taliban, simply because most of the Taliban leadership were also ethnic Pashtuns. In the past month, Human Rights Watch has visited dozens of Pashtun communities in northern Afghanistan, personally documenting the devastation. We visited village after village that had been stripped bare by ethnic militias who had sometimes even taken the window frames. We found case after case of beatings, looting, murders, extortion and sexual violence against Pashtun communities. ... America helped put these abusive warlords back in power: They provided the Afghan troops the United States needed to get rid of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Now America and its allies need to act fast to ensure that these same warlords do not destroy what has been accomplished so far."

 

Tuesday, March 19, 2002

News and commentary:

"Recipe for disaster" (Moshe Arens, Haaretz, 2002/03/19)
"The Hezbollah murder of Israeli civilians in the North inevitably returns us to the arguments that raged over Ehud Barak's decision to unilaterally withdraw the Israel Defense Forces from the South Lebanon security zone while abandoning our allies, the South Lebanon Army. ... Is it any wonder that the same people who called for a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon were also behind the Oslo accords with the PLO. ... Now some of these same people are engaged in demonstrations calling for unilateral Israeli withdrawal and supporting conscientious objectors. ... The decision to withdraw the IDF in the hope that a cease-fire can be arranged is another case of good intentions mixed with wishful thinking. It is bound to fail."

"The Only Way to Peace" (Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday/FrontPageMagazine, 2002/03/19)
"Since 1978, Israel has been urged to give up a little more land in return for the promise of peace which always seems to evaporate. The land however is gone for good. The whole logic is odd and hypocritical. America a vast territorial empire with harmless neighbors to north and south, and vast oceans to east and west urges Israel, one third the size of Florida and with foes on every hand, to give up "land for peace"'. ... The phrase "land for peace" is interesting in itself. It is actually another way of describing the appeasement forced on Czechoslovakia by her supposed friends in 1938. This was also supposed to promise peace, but made the country impossible to defend and opened the gates for invasion a few months later. Those responsible for this cowardly stupidity are still reviled 60 years on. Those who urge it on Israel in the present day are praised."

"A Revealing Trove in Afghanistan" (The New York Times, 2002/03/19)
"Reporters from The New York Times have discovered thousands of pages of documents in the remains of the Afghan camps and buildings of the Taliban and Al Qaeda that provide a surprising portrait of an army and how it was trained. ... What is revealed is a fighting force of unexpected scale and sophistication. The documents also show the degree to which the army mustered by the Taliban and Al Qaeda was driven by religious fervor. Even the basic elements of discipline - as well as the urge to sacrifice life itself - were ultimately reinforced by the Koran's vision of a martyr's death."

"Marines to hunt Mullah Omar" (Michael Evans, Defence Editor & Damian Whitworth, The Times, 2002/03/19)
"Britain is sending a 1,700-strong Royal Marines battlegroup to hunt for Mullah Muhammad Omar, the former Taleban leader. Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, told the Commons yesterday that it would be the largest military deployment for combat operations since the Gulf War. In a dramatic escalation of Britain’s commitment, the force will also help to eliminate al-Qaeda terrorists who have survived five months of American assaults."

Monday, March 18, 2002

News and commentary:

"In Saddam's Shadow" (The New Yorker, 2002/03/18)
An interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, author of "The Great Terror", a report from Iraqi Kurdistan: "Your account of Saddam Hussein's chemical attacks on Kurdish towns and villages in 1988 is horrifying, both because of what happened and because, fourteen years later, the full story is not well known. Why has the genocide of the Kurds not made a greater impression on the West?
I think the answer is simple: the man who committed the genocide is still in power, fourteen years after the fact, and the world is still dealing with him. It is estimated that as many as two hundred thousand Kurds were killed, including five thousand in a single gas attack on the city of Halabja. Dozens of other towns and villages were also struck by chemical weapons. If the world were to fully acknowledge the crime that took place, wouldn't it be a moral necessity to remove Saddam Hussein from power? Imagine if Hitler remained in power into the early nineteen-sixties." (See also: "The Great Terror" (Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker, from the 2002/03/25 issue))

"Report: Iraq, Al Qaeda Run Extremist Group In Kurdish Territory" (John Mintz, The Washington Post, 2002/03/18)
"A new report in the New Yorker magazine suggests that Iraqi intelligence has been in close touch with top officials in Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group for years, and that the two organizations jointly run a terrorist organization that operates in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq. ... The article focuses in part on a Muslim extremist guerrilla group in the Kurdish zone of Iraq. The group, Ansar al-Islam, is made up of Iraqi Kurds and Arabs trained in bin Laden's camps, according to the article."

"The Jihad Files: Afghan Camps Turn Out Holy War Guerrillas and Terrorists" (C.J. Chivers & David Rohde, The New York Times, 2002/03/18)
"It also demonstrated the degree to which Osama bin Laden and other jihad leaders had turned Afghanistan's network of training bases and guest houses, typically described as terror schools, into a sort of two-tiered university for waging Islamic war. ... ...one tier, by far the busiest, prepared most of the men who enlisted in the jihad to be irregular ground combatants, like those who repulsed the 10th Mountain Division's helicopter-borne assault. The other provided a small fraction of the volunteers with advanced regimens that prepared them for terrorist assignments abroad."

"Analysis: On Israel's Sharon" (Martin Sieff, UPI, 2002/03/18)
"Is Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a brutal, inflexible old thug, tired, burned out and bereft of ideas who can only respond to escalating Palestinian violence with retaliations that only make things worse? Or is he still his country's best hope - a leader of Churchillian strength, vision and coolness, hanging tough in an inevitable and unavoidable war thrust upon him and holding the line until the tide turns? The world believes the former, but Sharon's supporters maintain the latter. ... Sharon has brought neither peace nor security nor victory in war. Diplomatically, he is globally isolated with his one strong ally, the president of the United States, publicly turning on him last week and forcing the end of his main retaliatory operation against the Palestinians so far. ... Nor was Churchill any more immune to criticism than Sharon is now. One angry critic in a 1942 parliamentary debate called his government the worst wartime administration Britain had known in 170 years. But after the tide tuned, all these criticisms were forgotten. Currently, the strategic situation looks as bleak for the septuagenarian Sharon as it did for the 66-year-old Churchill in 1941. ... Sharon these days sounds a lot less inspirational to his own people than Churchill did to the people of Britain in 1940. But he may still be the best hope they have got."

"Violence and Time on Arafat's Side" (James Bennet, The New York Times, 2002/03/18)
"After more than 17 months of conflict, the Palestinians feel they are winning. It seems like a paradox. But in the last two weeks, as the Israeli Army conducted its most aggressive, lethal campaign in decades into Palestinian areas, Mr. Arafat scored a series of diplomatic achievements: from concessions by Mr. Sharon, to intervention by a suddenly solicitous Bush administration, and on to a United Nations resolution envisioning a state of Palestine alongside Israel."

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From the archives

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"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

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