Murdoch effects on WSJ filter in

The world of media bemoaned the Murdoch takeover of prestigious US paper, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

To alleviate concerns that the WSJ would be compromised to a neocon mouthpiece (as all of News Corp has become), Murdoch vowed at the time that he would not tamper with the paper's editorial spill.

However, my analysis of an excerpt of a WSJ editorial on the NATO summit in Bucharest will demonstrate that the WSJ hasn't been immune from the right-wing flu that leeches onto all of Murdoch's pets.

For the full article click on the link below:

The Battle of Bucharest

By Matthew Kaminski

April 4, 2008

European security is supposed to be last century's problem. Tell that to Ukraine and Georgia, which had their bids to join the West effectively vetoed by Russia at yesterday's unusually dramatic summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

In the halls of Ceausescu's Palace of the People, American idealism squared off against a belligerent Kremlin and its chief European proxy, Germany. The U.S. lost this battle. The clear victor in Bucharest was Russia's Vladimir Putin, who wasn't even in town.

Washington won't be able to sugarcoat the setback to the America-led project of reunifying Europe. This was President Bush's last NATO summit, and his inability to persuade Germany into welcoming Ukraine and Georgia tarnishes his one indubitably positive legacy in Europe. In the summer of 2001, before the "Bush Doctrine" was born from the embers of 9/11, the president pledged to make the spread of freedom across the Continent a priority. Soon after, he welcomed seven former Soviet satellites into NATO, including Romania. Washington then backed the democratic "color" revolutionaries in Ukraine and Georgia...

Mr. Putin hates virtually every U.S. strategic initiative in Europe from the independence of Kosovo to installing missile defenses. But Russia has no direct interests in Kosovo and knows limited missile defenses pose no threat. MAP, on the other hand, matters. Georgia is a pro-American thorn in Russia's side that the Kremlin would like to pull out, by force if need be. As the largest ex-Soviet republic bar Russia, Ukraine is a coveted prize. Russia is desperate to keep these states in its sphere of influence. Yesterday Germany played the enabler...

Germany is the new France. As the current leader in Paris, Nicolas Sarkozy, buries the old Gaullist skepticism toward NATO, Berlin plays the role of troublesome ally. Gerhard Schröder is on Gazprom's payroll these days, but Schröderism lives on. His successor, Ms. Merkel, leads an unwieldy left-right coalition government, and according to a senior official close to her, didn't dare pick a fight on foreign policy, with elections on the horizon next year.

[Antoun] The opening two paragraphs already create a spin to a rather important piece of news. Ukraine and Georgia, both ex-Soviet republics, are braving internal problems and tension with Russia to improve their ties with the West.

The Russian perspective
Russia, in an expected response, has become increasingly apprehensive towards the EU and the US as the latter seek to encroach on - what Moscow considers - its sphere of influence. Moscow is feeling threatened, and why wouldn't it? Post-Berlin Wall, NATO and the EU have expanded to the frontier of Russia; actively supported the pro-Western revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine; and plied Kosovo from another Russian ally, Serbia. Russia feels the West has continued a belligerent policy towards Moscow, hence its toughened stance.

Yet the article completely discards the Russian perspective, and instead, promotes the neocon perspective that Bush is trying to bring freedom and democracy to the world (whose lie has already been dispelled by American actions in the MidEast), and big, bad Russia intends only to create chaos. Kaminski continues his tirade by lambasting Germany as a "Russian proxy", alleging that Berlin exists solely to do Russia's bidding. Ironically, Kaminski absolved newfound Bush ally, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, from the lashing, despite Sarkozy's equal vigorous opposition to offer membership talks to Ukraine and Georgia.

The European perspective
These two European powers see no interest in sparking a tense rift with Russia over two states that won't provide NATO with any increased security. Instead, offering membership to Ukraine and Georgia would only increase security risks for NATO as Russia's patience wears exceptionally thin. Bush has continued a post-Cold War American policy of encircling Moscow by scraping away at its former republics, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.

Its Western European allies also had an interest to expand the EU's boundaries in order to create an Eastern European buffer between Western Europe and Russia. But that buffer has its limits. Creating a separating bridge between Western Europe and Russia was essential to European security.

The eastern expansion was a defensive move as an assurance that Russia will not spread its claws in Europe again. That does not solicit a change in policy from a defensive expansion to keep Russia out, to an aggressive policy to spread Western claws in Russia's enclave, a line which the Americans appear to be taking.

The Europeans do not see the positives in becoming the giant bear they sought to defeat. A line needs to be drawn to ensure an enduring stability between Russia and Europe, and that line - for Paris and Berlin - is Ukraine and Georgia.

The article lacks substance, analysis and wisdom. It has turned a summit involving a wide range of issues and perspectives into a single issue and perspective. Kaminski shelved European and Russian interests, and placed Bush's policies (not necessarily in the American interest) at the forefront, all in the name of the outdated slogan of "freedom and democracy". The world is aware of the reality of Bush's policies. The world is aware that "freedom and democracy" are the last desires on Bush's mind.

Yet, Kaminski continues to patronise and undermine the intellectual audience of WSJ by regurgitating old slogans, and writing a piece suitable for an audience of a British tabloid. No coincidence, Murdoch has had his claws in the British tabloids for quite some time. The fears that WSJ would mirror the single-minded Murdoch media have now become a reality.

The life of a little-known Syrian poet

I came across the following article in the Yemen Times, detailing the life of Syrian poet Mohammad Ahmed al-Maghout. We are all aware of the famous artists of our region, but the little-known contributors to art very rarely receive the recognition they deserve.

Al-Maghout had a turbulent life, raised in poverty, in and out of jail under an oppressive dictatorship. His life is an extraordinary demonstration that art transcends all obstacles and challenges life throws at us.

Mohammad Ahmed al-Maghout, a Syrian poet with a satiric pen

Issue: (1138), Volume 18 , From 17 March 2008 to 19 March 2008

Prepared by Eyad N. Al-Samman

Syrian poet, playwright, journalist and scenarist Mohammed Ahmed Al-Maghout was born in 1934 in Salamiyah, a town on the Orontes River in western Syria’s Hamah governorate.

Because his father was a farmer, Al-Maghout spent his childhood in miserable and poverty-stricken conditions. After receiving his primary education in Salamiyah, he moved to Damascus at age 14 and enrolled in a boarding school to study agronomy.

Being unable to pursue his studies there, he enrolled in another agricultural school in Al-Ghutah, a suburban area of Damascus. Still unable to continue, he joined the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, or SSNP, in his early 20s.

Arrested in 1955 during a crackdown by Syrian intelligence on SSNP members, Al-Maghout was imprisoned for nine months in Al-Mazzah Prison in Damascus. While there, he had the opportunity to write poetry for the first time, as well as meet renowned Syrian poet Adonis, who later introduced the novice poet to the public.

Fearing Syrian intelligence during the independent Arab Union Republic, Al-Maghout moved to Beirut in the late 1950s. While in Lebanon, he met poet Saniyah Saleh, who admired his poems, and later married her, continuing to reside in Beirut for a time. He began writing poetry, publishing them in Lebanon’s “Shi’ar” (Poetry) magazine, before returning to Syria and settling in Damascus.

A group of Syrian army officers organized a coup d’état against the Arab Union Republic government in September 1961 and a provisional Syrian national government subsequently was formed. As a SSNP member, Al-Maghout was arrested and again imprisoned for three months during that same year.

Following his release, he concealed himself in small, low-ceilinged rooms for several months in various quarters in Damascus, such as Ayn Al-Karsh and Bab Tuma, before settling down in Damascus for decades of writing and living with his two favorite pleasures – smoking cigarettes and listening to classic Lebanese music.

Al-Maghout’s poems, plays, television and movie scripts criticized corruption in regional governments and their restrictions upon their citizens. Many of his divans and other selected literary works were translated into several other languages. His work combines satire with descriptions of social misery and malaise, illustrating what he viewed as an ethical decline among the region’s rulers.

One of his first poems was “The Bitter Wine,” published in 1952 in Al-Adaab (The Arts) newspaper when he was 18 years old.

Al-Maghout published his first collection of poems in 1959, entitled, “Huzn fi Daw’a Al-Qamar” (Sadness in the Moonlight). His second divan was 1964’s “A Room with Millions of Walls,” followed by the 1970 divan, “The Joy is Not My Profession.”

His final published divan, “The Red Bedouin,” (2006) contained new texts treating numerous national issues.

As a journalist, Al-Maghout helped establish and develop the Syrian government’s Tishreen (October) newspaper, to which he contributed to defining that paper’s policy and nature by writing a daily corner alternately with another writer beginning in 1975. He also penned the column, “Alice in Wonderland,” in the Paris-based weekly Lebanese newspaper, Al-Mustaqbal (The Future).

Al-Maghout began writing one-act plays in 1965, shortly thereafter collaborating with Dureid Lahham, Syria’s most renowned actor, to produce some of the region’s most popular and acclaimed theatrical works.

His 1973 drama, “Tishreen’s Village,” was performed on stage but never published. It was a political comedy treating various issues, such as Syria’s modern history, the inefficiency of Arab leaders, the Palestinian cause and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The 1975 drama, “Expatriation,” dealt with the phenomena of the massive immigration of Arabs to the West in the 1970s.

Al-Maghout’s famed 1987 drama, “K’asak, Ya Watan,” (Cheers, My Homeland) portrayed current Arab perplexing and tragic economic, social and political situations, while his 1989 drama, “The Anemones,” focused on aspects of corruption, dictatorship and poverty in the Arab world.

Among his other dramatic works were “The Clown” (1974), “The Hunched Bird” (1976) and “Outside the Flock” (1999).

Lahham starred in some of Al-Maghout’s most famous screenplays, including the 1984 motion picture, “Al-Hudood,” (The Borders) about a man who loses his passport and becomes trapped between countries in a satire of Arab disunity.

Another screenplay was 1987’s “Al-Taqreer” (The Report), while Al-Maghout’s television scripts included “The Valley of Musk” and “The Night’s Tales.”

In 2001, Al-Maghout collected essays that he had penned and published in Al-Wasat magazine between 1998 and 2001 in the book, “Flowers’ Slayer.” He’s also known for his 1987 book, “I Will Betray My Homeland,” which is a collection of satiric political essays.

He penned only one autobiographical novel, 1974’s “The Swing.”

His divan, “Tall Trees’ Woodcutters,” was selected and published in UNESCO’s “Book in a Newspaper” project and subsequently bestowed Syria’s 2002 Cultural Medal. Al-Maghout also won the United Arab Emirates’ 2005 Al-Awais Cultural Award.

Al-Maghout died on April 3, 2006 at age 72 in Damascus. A true original and a national character, he was a Syrian intellectual who refused all unsatisfactory compromises and an independent voice for liberty and justice in the Arab world. One of his most famous satirical sayings was, “There’s only one perfect crime – to be born an Arab.”

Boycotting China an arrogant suggestion

China has attracted undesired attention in recent weeks as a result of deadly riots that have plagued Tibet and surrounding separatist regions.

The deaths are regrettable and the crackdown severe, reflecting a poor human rights record in China, which isn't anything out of the usual. Indeed, it is worth condemnation as all human rights violations are.

However, using the Olympic Games as a political toy is a bit of a farcical response. Not only does it once again give the impression of a hypocritical and arrogant West lecturing all others, but it erroneously ties the Olympic Games to a political agenda.

Addressing the former issue, the West is in no position to lecture any country on human rights abuses. The United States still retains the abhorrent capital punishment, and during the past century of a virtual Western monopoly on the Olympic Games, we witnessed two World Wars (primarily based in Europe) and a string of brutal conflicts spanning all over the globe that had either direct or indirect Western fingerprints.

American atrocities in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Iraq, including its blind support of Israeli apartheid never stopped the US from hosting the Olympics on multiple occasions. That's not taking into consideration America's internal policies, which involved widespread discrimination against its black minority for the better part of the century.

Why single out the US? My own country, Australia, admittedly undertook systematic ethnic cleansing for much of the 20th century through a process of stealing Aboriginal children from their families and placing them under white control. But Australia still hosted the Olympics in 1956. I could continue and open up Britain and France's black book, but I fear the post would never end.

Ideally, the Olympic Games aims to reinforce human values and obligations, but there isn't a single country on the planet that doesn't retain a haunted closet. The Games ought to focus on human rights, but let's not be demanding prerequisites from states who desire to host the privileged sporting season. Instead, the Games should be a method of plying a country towards a system of governance that respects human rights. The Olympic Games provides a rare openness between nations, an openness that may very well spread to the host people.

The Olympic Games has evolved beyond politics to become a culturally symbolic occasion. The Olympics are as much about cultural representation in our globalised world as it is about human rights. The Greek-invented sporting event promotes the notion of every nation belonging to a 'human world', 'our world'.

China has its faults, as does the West. China needs to address the Tibetan issue, and the US/UK need to withdraw out of Iraq. But China does represent over one billion people, and is Asia's largest country and most potent power. Within it lies thousands of years of mystifying history and customs foreign to the West that still surprise many of us in the most exciting ways. The Olympic Games is also about recognising and valuing our differing cultures, our differing histories, our differing journeys, and presenting them on a world stage.

Denying this major part of our world the right to represent thousands of years worth of its rich culture on the most global stage would be considered as a grave insult to the Chinese people. Any boycott wouldn't simply hit the heads of government, but the very people who will enjoy a rare chance to showcase themselves in a positive light.

The Olympics are no longer a European spectacle, nor a Western spectacle, but a global phenomenon. The West must come to the realisation that every nation on earth enjoys part ownership in this event, and that every nation has an equal right to be represented despite their current flaws. For we all have them.

American troops caught on camera in Iraq

My thoughts on the video:

Well it's definitely not the first, nor the most gruesome footage beaming from Iraq.

I do believe the textual narration is a bit exaggerated by linking this behaviour to Nazi behaviour. As a single case, the video seems to portray a few bad cowboys breaking the rules and being idiots.

From a broader perspective, what it demonstrates is a more serious issue, which is a clear lack of discipline in the American army.

It is no Abu Ghreib nor Haditha, but is this a sign of a more widespread culture within the American military? Is there simply no discipline? Whether it's demeaning prisoners, massacring a village, or playing wild karts with incredibly expensive military vehicles while taunting residents (as we just saw), it all appears symptomatic of the same lack of discipline, respect and knowledge in their roles as supervisors and protectors of those they are occupying.

Of course hearts and minds are not going to be won with such behaviour, but who is accountable for this obvious lack in training? What this video clearly reveals, be it a mild transgression, is that neither Abu Ghreib nor Haditha were isolated incidents, but instead part of an endemic culture within the American military in Iraq.

The US will lose Iraq if these are the type of men that have been given the powers of reign in the country. Iraqi forces may be better equipped and more confident than several years ago, but it is still not capable of holding the country together on its own. The US is the essential key to the Iraqi government's survival, and the minute it disappears, the country will be swollen up in either further internal chaos, or relative stability brought by its intervening neighbours.

So if Washington hopes to have a say in Iraq in the future, it really needs to invest on bringing its current troops into line, as opposed to sending additional cowboys.

The missing human conscience

I’ve spent the past few weeks pondering and reflecting on Lebanon, the human conscience, and where the directions of this blog should lead. Upon my reflections, I discovered that this blog was not fulfilling its desire as a source of a conscience on the struggles facing all of us in the world.

This blog fell into the trap of becoming a repetitive political gossip site on events that seem unchanging. Do I really want to become a political gossipiest debating the daily, trivial recurrences of mindless taunts and actions? No. What motivated me to launch this blog - and my desire to embark on a career in journalism – was to relay human thought on feelings that affect our trivial behaviours. Our conflicts, our struggles, our intentions are all rooted in the endless desire to attain the basic of human rights.

‘Human rights’ is a title usually slapped onto utopian idealists (and in the face of the current gloom, whoever said that being a utopian fool was such a bad thing?). But ‘human rights’ is a much broader concept that enlists a variety of tentacles that we take for granted.

They can range from tangible necessities such as the right to access sanitary water and sufficient food supplies, to enjoying the various freedoms within a system of governance, such as the freedom of speech, belief, expression and movement. It just seemed rather convenient that my country of origin, Lebanon, is one of those many countries where such struggles to enjoy those basic rights exist.

I was raised learning the stories and feeling the misery of those who were able to escape the war (1975-1990) that destroyed all respect in humanity. But like most Lebanese, I too had origins in a political, sectarian mindset. My view of Lebanon as a child was seen through the eyes of those who revealed it to me. My traditional parents, the elders of my family, fell prey to the Lebanese syndrome of adhering to a single view of how the country should function. It became a committed struggle from my part to be able to break the chains that attached me to that single thought, and learn to explore and appreciate other Lebanese ideas and sentiments. We may all share the same cuisine, language, and perhaps physical features, but Lebanese have been driven worlds apart through their self-inflicted misconceptions. The mountains that so many in the world relish are behave as divisive boundaries that separate villages, towns and, indeed, a people.

So there became my personal struggle, finding the ability and strength to cross the great divide my people have crafted. I wanted to stretch my hand out to the “alien” Lebanese across the mountain, to understand their ways, to learn how we can forge a path together. In order to do this, I felt the need to strip down all between us to the most basic level that binds us together … our sheer humanity. What were our needs and desires as human beings? What did we ask from life? My discovery revealed to me a common denominator amongst all Lebanese, which was the simple desire to lead a simple life, to enjoy the basic rights all humans’ merit.

It is on this basic human level that my eyes suddenly opened. It was the discovery that our problems are entwined with every human struggle on this planet. But it is the means in which we struggle for these rights where we generally tend to go astray. It is during our journey to win human liberty that we concoct labels, draft ideologies, create differences and enter a vicious cycle where the end is as miserable as our beginning.

We killed each other for 15 years, and spent the following 15 years festering the pain from the war. They swore that the future generations would not live to see the miseries of our civil war repeated, but did our miseries ever leave?

I can sit here, as many bloggers, activists, journalists, analysts, experts do, and analyse every detail and piece of information that passes each day. Indeed, I fell into the trap of doing so. But we must address ourselves eventually, and ask, has our contribution changed anything? There are infamous journalists that have spent their entire lives covering the Middle Eastern story, and to what end? They awake today and see the same misery they saw when they first arrived to this troubled region.

My desire to become a journalist doesn’t lie with my fondness to write, but on using it as a conduit to achieve my real goals … helping the ordinary people in their struggle to attain their basic human rights. We all need a core, a principle to begin from. What is our purpose? What are we doing here? What do we hope to achieve? I don’t want to make a career out of the misery of others, but instead want to establish a career out of turning that misery into prosperity.

I need to draw this blog back down to its original level as a reflection on the daily human struggles, such as is in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and as far as Tibet. We need to surpass the superficial labels and political slogans we throw around. I, for one, am not going to sit and report on who threatened who with what on which day. My life will not be spent wasting on observing the same nauseating, repetitive, trivial political slurs that simply deflect attention from the true problems that we face. Instead, my focus will turn to the consequences of this trivial political wrangling on the people.

Do we ever ask ourselves what it must be like for an ordinary man or woman to live under constant war, oppression and fear? What it must feel like for a child to know he or she has no hope of being anything greater than a refugee? What it must be like for a person to be stripped of any ambitions or goals? I, sometimes, feel selfish when I see that I have the ability to sit here, writing on my blog, pondering what choices I wish to take in my life. Many on this planet have no choice at all, and it’s their voice that needs to be heard.

I stated during the Lebanon War of 2006 that the humanitarian aspect was the least considered aspect of any area of conflict in the world. It is this angle that I intend to bring awareness to, moving the limelight away from political slogans and grand speeches, to the ordinary person who goes about his/her daily life.

How have we come to our divisions? Are our people so easily deceived, that they simply swing from one political alignment to another based upon what their local chieftain commands? What does it really mean to be LF, PSP, Hizballah or SSNP? Why is it so critical for the ordinary Lebanese to invest such great energy into political slogans they don’t comprehend? What would make the corrupted blindly follow the corruptor?

These are but a number of questions that only the experienced visitors and students of the region have dared ask. Yet these are the questions our own people tend to avoid, out of fear that the answers may render their convictions unfounded and illogical.

Indeed, the sad aspect, especially in the case of Lebanon, is that many ordinary lives are so deeply entrenched in politics that it seems an impossible feat to extract their daily motions from the country’s political fabric.

Despite all, I continue with my struggle to bridge my own divides with Lebanese across the mountain. It still seems hard for me to sit down and respect one from a political faction I was raised to despise, but it has to be achieved. I need to know that it can be achieved. I need to know that there is still hope. I must find a way to remove all the obstacles that stand between my opposite and I. It is time to begin focusing on not what divides us, but what brings us together. This starts at a human level, and it is on this new level that I will lead this blog.

Patrick Seale's take on the Gaza situation

Saudi Gazette

Thursday, 06 March 2008

By Patrick Seale

ISRAEL killed 116 Palestinians in Gaza last week in an orgy of air strikes and ground incursions, turning the besieged and starved Strip into an unbearable inferno. Hundreds more Palestinians were wounded. At least half the dead and wounded were civilians, including many young children.

So great was the catastrophe that Egypt, under pressure from an enraged public opinion, opened the Rafah crossing into Sinai and sent 27 ambulances to shuttle scores of badly wounded Palestinians to hospital in Al Arish.

What is to be done? The international community has expressed its usual alarm and outrage at Israel's appalling behavior - with protests coming from the UN Secretary General and the Pope among many others, while Saudi Arabia has compared Israel's actions to Nazi war crimes. But Prime Minister Ehud Olmert remains defiant. No one, he declared, can teach Israel morality.

Israel's dilemma is acute. Its generals and civilian hawks huff and puff, threatening to destroy both Gaza and Hamas once and for all, yet they know full well that reoccupying the Strip would entrap the IDF in a costly and probably unwinnable guerrilla war - as in the 2006 war against Hizballah in Lebanon -- and might not even manage to put an end to the home-made Qassams.

The obvious alternative would be for Israel to sit down and talk. Hamas's oft-repeated offer of a long-term mutual ceasefire remains on the table. But Israel utterly rejects any such course. Olmert and his generals have evidently not yet learned the Churchillian adage that 'jaw jaw is better than war war.

'Israel's way out of its dilemma has been to carry out limited ground incursions , accompanied by heavy air strikes -- to surge into Gaza with tanks and planes, terrorize the population, smash major locations, kill as many people as possible, seize suspects and then withdraw. This was the pattern of last week's operation.

This latest attack was exceptional only in its unusual scope and ferocity. Air strikes against Gaza by F16 and Apache helicopters are a daily occurrence. Israeli drones are constantly in the air over the Strip.

Palestinians continue to be killed regularly, adding more victims to the nearly 900 Palestinians Israel has massacred since Hamas won the democratic elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006.I

n contrast, only a dozen Israelis have died in the past six years - including one student last month -- as a result of Palestinian attacks from Gaza. The Qassam rockets have undoubtedly made life extremely disagreeable in Sderot, Ashkelon and other Israeli towns within range of Gaza's rockets, and many inhabitants have been treated for shock.But their suffering, regrettable as it is, bears no relation to the mass killings and huge destruction Israel has inflicted on Gaza -- and continues to inflict.

Even the United States has gone so far as to 'encourage Israel to exercise caution,' although it has, as usual, blocked a draft Security Council resolution condemning Israel for killing civilians,Britain's former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, now the chief representative of the Quartet (UN, US, EU and Russia), has always been careful not to ruffle feathers in either Israel or the United States. But last week's bloody events persuaded him to issue statement, which one might describe as almost balanced.

The death of the Israeli in Sderot, he said, was 'utterly to be condemned', but he also deplored as ' absolutely tragic' the death of Palestinian civilians, adding that everything possible should be done 'to avoid the loss of innocent Palestinian life.'In other words, Israel was free to continue its attacks 'in self defence', but should be careful about inflicting excessive collateral damage.

Understandably enough, Blair's attention is clearly more focused on his job as an advisor to J P Morgan, the US investment bank - which is reported to be paying him up to $5m a year -- and on his lectures at $150,000 a time, than on the festering problems of Gaza. As the Quartet's chief envoy, he has so far been less than useless.

But Blair may now have a chance to redeem himself. Reliable sources report that, encouraged by his statement, Hamas sent Blair a message last week urging him to press Israel to accept a mutual ceasefire. These sources report that this important message was cleared with Khaled Mishal, the Hamas political supremo in Damascus, before being conveyed to Blair's office by a high-level intermediary.

A novel feature of the offer is that this time Hamas is proposing a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza alone, with no mention of the West Bank.Previous Hamas offers always stated that attacks on Israel would cease if Israel, in turn, stopped all its raids, armed incursions, 'targeted assassinations' and so forth in both Gaza and the West Bank.Why is Israel so adamantly opposed to talking to Hamas?

The answers are numerous. First of all, talking to Hamas would confer recognition on the Islamic resistance movement, whereas Israel has moved heaven and earth to get the US and even the divided and timorous EU to declare Hamas a 'terrorist organization'.

Secondly, if Israel were to accept a ceasefire, this would amount to creating a situation of mutual deterrence with Hamas, which Israel adamantly refuses. It wants its enemies to surrender, while it retains the freedom to kill at will. 'We will be the ones who create the equations, and not Hamas,' Olmert declares.Thirdly, Israel knows that, looking beyond the ceasefire, Hamas would insist on far stiffer peace terms than those of the very weak Palestinian Authority and its hapless president, Mahmud Abbas. Abbas has renounced all forms of resistance. He has embraced George W Bush's hollow Annapolis 'peace process' and has put himself entirely in Israel's hands.

But he has failed to persuade Olmert to dismantle a single illegal outpost, or a single West Bank checkpoint, let alone halt the steadily expanding settlements in Arab East Jerusalem and in the large Israeli blocks, intended to sever the city from its Arab hinterland.

Fourthly, the Sephardic movement Shas has already put Olmert on notice that it will quit the coalition and bring down his government if he so much as discusses with the Palestinians core issues such as Jerusalem, borders and refugees. In Israel's present climate of hysteria, Olmert would probably not survive any sort of deal with Hamas.Finally, even though bashing Gaza alarms the world and risks triggering suicide bombings and other revenge attacks -- and even the possibility of a third intifada - aborting the peace process suits Israel well enough.

Far from considering any withdrawal to the 1967 borders - which is the main Arab condition for peace - Israel seems determined on the contrary to consolidate its control over the whole of historic Palestine, by means of increased settlement activity, military closed zones and the sheer coercion of a captive population.

The question is whether such a cruel policy is sustainable in the long term. How much better would it be for Israel to have a peaceful and prosperous Palestine on its borders, serving as its key to peace with the entire Arab world?In the meantime, Hamas is still waiting for an answer to its message from Tony Blair.

Cause and consequence: 8 Jews gunned down in Jerusalem, an analysis

A Palestinian gunman walked into a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem today and killed eight and wounded a dozen.

The waves of condemnation came flooding from world capitals, leading of course from Washington, to Paris, Brussels, London, and the UN HQ in Geneva.

News of the attack swept to world headlines, the global media rushing to the scene.

I never condone violence, and the deaths of innocent life, be it Jew or Arab, is an abomination.
Too bad the world's leaders and media don't feel the same way. For when Jews perish (which isn't as common as the deaths of Palestinians), the world swiftly responds to its obligations to sympathise Israel, but when 120 Palestinians are slaughtered within a single weekend, or 1200 Lebanese in a month, the world falls silent, bar a few comments that rarely catch the limelight from the UN head or the EU.

As Israel often uses the excuse of "retaliation" to wipe out innocent life, today's attack in Jerusalem can be and should be linked to the brutal events that passed over the weekend.

The gunman's attack was in response to the Israeli assault on Gaza, denoting the notion of cause and consequence. Israel is kidding itself if it believes it can slaughter people without a response, as minimal as 8 compared to 120 is.

The cycle of violence begins with the actions of Tel Aviv, and carries on non-stop. The Arab leaders, pro-US states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt and anti-US states such as Syria alike, have been pushing for Israel to engage in peace negotiations, all of which have been bluffed by the Israelis.

The Jewish state has opted instead for the violent option, engaging first in a deadly conflict with Hizballah and now with Hamas in Gaza. Israel's actions have only fuelled support for both entities throughout the populous of the Arab world, which have in turn applied greater pressure on their pro-American leaders to distance themselves from the Jewish state. Israel is increasingly isolating itself amongst the Arab world, and damaging its chances at real peace as Arab capitals harden their attitude.

Observing Israel's violent path, the Arabs are becoming more and more cynical of Israel's desire for peace. It appears the Jewish state isn't interested in peace, but rather continue to show signs of a Zionist, Apartheid style regime that is bent on Arab destruction and Middle Eastern hegemony.

The responsibility for the Jerusalem school attack was apparently claimed by a group calling itself "The Free Galil Brigades and Group of Imad Mughniyeh and Martyrs of Gaza'', suspecting involvement from Hizballah.

Israel has only fuelled the anger and determination of both Hizballah - following the assassination of its prime commander Imad Mughniyeh - and Hamas, with both groups vowing to respond.

What should be of greater concern to Israel is that Syria and Iran have backed both groups in their quest for revenge. There's no reason why Hamas and Hizballah would not co-operate or co-ordinate attacks within Israel proper, with the intelligence backing of Iran and Syria.

In addition, the pro-US Arab states are threatening to freeze its peace initiative, which might be read as a green light for groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad to relaunch more deadly attacks on Israel.

If Israel was hoping for a peaceful solution with its recent killings, it's in for a real surprise. Violence brews more violence. Hamas has refrained from suicide attacks on Israel for several years.

However, I would expect severe attacks within Israel will resume after last weekend's Gaza massacre. Today's attack on the Jerusalem religious school is a sign that there's more bloodshed to come.