Nonviolent Change Journal

Vol. XIX, No. 3, Spring, 2005

Nonviolent Change Journal helps to network the peace community: providing dialoguing, exchanges of ideas, articles, reviews, reports and announcements of the activities of peace related groups and meetings, reviews of world developments relating to nonviolent change and resource information concerning the development of human relations on the basis of mutual respect.

Editor's Comments

Nonviolent Change Now Available Via E-mail

Upcoming Events

Ongoing Activities

World Developments

Dialoguing

Gush Shalom Press release, " Without serious steps to end the occupation no 'window of opportunity"

David Dreilinger, "Israel may look more closely at economics of peace - Central Bank gets a new governor"

What We Are About

Media Notes

Reports and Announcements

Funding for this Journal (renewal and donation form)

Editorial Team
CO-CHAIRS AND CO-EDITORS:
Stephen Sachs
NEW ADDRESS:
1916 San Pedro
NE, Albuquerque
NM 87110
(505)265-9388
ssachs@earthlink.net

Marilee Niehoff
5550 S. Shore Drive #502
Chicago IL 60637-5051
Marilk834a@aol.com

Robert W. Hotes
American College of Counselors
824 South Park Ave
Springfield, IL 62704
(217)698-7668
Rhotes@aol.com

Wishing you a fine spring. The world continues to go through many shifts producing a great many developments in areas of our concern. The winter issue of NCJ focus on articles and commentary, without the compilation of news and notes of the spring and fall issues . We welcome your thoughts about all that is in progress. These pages serve as a networking and dialoguing vehicle between annual meetings. We strongly encourage you to contribute articles (up to 1500 words), news, announcements, comments, queries, responses and art work. It would be very fine if we could develop ongoing discussion from issue to issue.

We especially invite you to send us a briend note about what you are doing, your concerns and queries that relate to nonviolent change for our "What We Are About" section. Whenever possible, please make submissions on disk or via e-mail (ssachs@earthlink.net).

Please send writing and art work for Nonviolent Change Journal to Steve Sachs. Steve puts together a draft of each issue and sends it to Marliee Niehoff and Bob Hotes for editing. Steve then undertakes e-mailing, printing and snail mailing, and posts the issue on the web (unsigned writings are Steve's).

We welcome additional editors and column writers to cover geographic or topic areas on an ongoing or one time basis.

Communicating about any other Research/Action Team Business can be directed to any of the cochairs or to other members of the Coordinating Committee: Don Cole, Organization Development Institute, 11234 Walnut Ridge Rd., Chesterland, OH 44026 (440)729-7419, DonWCole@aol.com, www.odinstitute.org, coordinates networking among organizations.

The 19th Annual Meeting of the Research/Study Team on Nonviolent Large Systems Change , will be May 16-17, just before the annual O.D. Information exchange, at the Hilton Lisle/Naperville Hotel in Greater Chicago, Illinois. If you want to stay overnight, Jeannette Swist, RODP , Chair of The 35 th Annual O.D. Information Exchange has arranged a special room and meal package for us at the Hilton Lisle/Naperville. A single room with full breakfast and lunch buffet and two refreshment breaks is $143 per night in a single room and $95 per person in a double room. To reserve a room you need to send the Hilton Lisle/Naperville Hotel, 3003 Corporate West Drive, Lisle, IL 60532 or Tel: (800)552-2599 booking code ODI one night's rent. You can make your reservation on line at: www.lislenaperville.hilton.com . The Hilton will hold our block of room until April 16 th . For more information, contact Organization Development Institute, 11234 Walnut Ridge Rd., Chesterland, OH 44026 (440)729-7419, DonWCole@aol.com, www.odinstitute.org. Let Don know if you would like to present. The meeting will open with a get to know each other session on Sunday evening that will set the initial agenda. The group will adjust the agenda as the meeting proceeds, with preference given to presentations and discussions already scheduled.

The 34th Annual O.D. Information Exchange will be May 16-20 at the Hilton Lisle/Naperville Hotel in Greater Chicago, Illinois. For more information, contact Don Cole,(address and phone above) or on the web go to: O.D. Institute Homepage .

The 25rth O.D. World Conference and O.D. Networks World Wide will be at July 18-23 in Cyprus. The exact details of location are not yet available. For details contact Don Cole at O.D. Institute.

The Conference, Muslims' Experiences of Globalization is in Atlanta, GA, April 1-2, hosted by the Middle East Centre for Peace, Culture and Development at Georgia State University and the Georgia Middle East Studies Consortium (GMESC). The conference will be organized around three themes: 1)The Transformation of Muslim Societies: Issues related to (a) economic and structural changes, (b) state-building and democracy, and (c) cultural formations in the last thirty years; 2) Intellectual Production: How Muslim intellectuals conceptualize the experiences of globalization in regard to issues of (a) science and technology, (b) gender relations (Islamic feminism), and (c) theories of state, democracy, and human rights; 3) Transnational and Diaspora Muslim Communities: (a) How new Muslim immigrant communities are transforming Western societies as well as their own homelands, (b) How Muslim "cybercommunities" shape, inform, and negotiate the boundaries of public sphere. For information contact Prof. Behrooz Ghamari, Dept. of Sociology, Georgia State University, Atlanta GA 30312, bghamari@gsu.edu.

Building Democracy, Participation and Peace by Peaceful Means: Strategies and Actions for Social Transformation and Nonviolent Struggle - Learning from and Building Local and Global Movements, is a training program in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, April 18 - 22, 2005 under the sponsorship of Transcend. For details go to: www.transcend.org, or contact Jasmina Francetic, Training Coordinator: jasmina@patrir.ro.

The 781st Wilton Park Conference: Arab-West Policy Dialogue on Common Security and Confidence Building is in Sussex, Great Britain, April 25-28. The meeting is focusing on such questions as: How can dialogue between the Arab region and the West on security needs be strengthened? Can the EuroMed dialogue improve relations between the Arab world and the West on the lines of the earlier East-West CSCE/OSCE process? How can issues such as weapons of mass destruction, internal instability, minority rights, democratic values and transformation best be addressed? Can confidence building measures be a catalyst? For further information, go to http://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/web/welcome.asp.

The Third International Conference on Human Rights titled, "Identity, Difference, and Human Rights " is to be held by Mofid University's Center for Human Rights Studies in Qom, Iran, May 14-15. For more information, contact: M. Moosavi Karimi, Director of Center for Human Rights Studies, Mofid University, Sadoogi Boulevard, Mofid Square, Qom, Iran, P.O.Box:37185-3611, Tel:0098-251-2925764, CHRS@Mofidu.ac.ir or CHRSMU@hotmail.com , www.Mofidu.ac.ir/conference.

Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) conference: "Beyond Talk: Tools and Training for Advocacy and Social Action " is in Portland, OR, May 10-22. For details contact Tod Sloan: sloan@psysr.org.

Preventing War - Creating Perspectives for Peace, an International Meeting for Peace Workers and Interested People for the Experiment "Monte Cerro " in Tamera/Portugal, May 15 - June 11. For information contact Tamera - Monte do Cerro - P-7630 Colos, Portugal, Ph. +351-283 635 306, tamera@mail.telpac.pt.

The Second Association for Humanistic psychology (AHP ) - Cal State Northidge National Conference: "Opening Hearts", Seeking Peace in a Chaotic World , is June 10-12 at California State University, Northridge, Northridge, CA. For details contact Stan Charnofsky, Dept. of Educational Psychology, CSUN, Borthridge, CA 91330 (818)677-2548, stan.charnofsky@csun.edu.

American University's School of International Service, Peacebuilding and Development Summer Institute 2005 offers a variety of courses in three groups, I: June 27-July 1, II: July 5-9, III: July 11-15. For details contact Peacebuilding and development Summer Institute Summer Institute 2005m, School of International Service, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20016 (202)885-2014, pcrinst@american.edu, www.american.edu/sis/peacebuilding.

The International Institute on Peace Education 2005, Exploring the Theme of E=MC2: Education = Movement for Constructive Change (educating for peace through the arts), will be in Rhodes, Greece, July 24- 30, hosted by Femme-Art-M/editerran/e (Fam Network) at the University of the Aegean In association with the Peace Education Center, Teachers College Columbia University. IIPE 2005 will focus on education as a movement for constructive social change. Arts methodologies and production processes will be used to examine nonviolent strategies to overcome the global web of violence and warfare. Participants are invited to grapple with urgent global concerns such as ethnic conflict, social disruption and displacement, ecological damage, censorship and repression, human rights abuses and breaches of international law. These will be explored through the lens of innovative arts approaches. As in previous IIPEs, this Institute will draw on the experiences and insights of diverse peace educators from all world regions helping us learn from each other's experiences and strategies. Cultural diplomacy, peace music, political and legislative theater, ecological art, documentary film as an educational tool, peace movement uses of new media technologies, and arts therapies for post-conflict trauma are some of the arts-action strategies for social transformation that will comprise the program. For more information visit www.tc.edu/PeaceEd/iipe, or contact Peace Education Center, Box 171, Teachers College Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, peace-ed@tc.columbia.edu.

Eliyahu McLean and Ezra Weinberg will be teaching a peace-building course , geared towards Jewish people, but open to anyone, "The Netzah, Hod, and Yesod of Peacebuilding: On Becoming a Jewish Peacebuilder," August 1-6: Elat Chayyim - Jewish Spiritual Retreat Center, Accord, NY. For information, contact Eliyahu McLean eliyahu@jerusalempeacemakers.org, Rodef Shalom www.jerusalempeacemakers.org, or info@elatchayyim.org, (800)398-2630 ext. 225, www.elatchayyim.org.

The Second Annual Conference on Conflict Resolution Education, What Works! Innovations in Conflict Resolution Education: Early Childhood to Higher Education is September 28 - October 1 at Columbus, OH. For details contact the Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution, 614-752-9595, www.disputeresolution.ohio.

The 2005 Gandhian Conference on Nonviolence is October 14-15, 2005 Memphis, TN. For details, contact Dr. Peter Gathje, Chair, Department of Religion and Philosophy, Christian Brothers University, Memphis, TN 38104 pgathje@cbu.edu or visit the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence website: www.gandhiinstitute.org.

The Second International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability is in

Hanoi and Ha Long Bay, Vietnam, January, 9-12. This conference aims to develop an holistic view of sustainability, in which environmental, cultural and economic issues are inseparably interlinked. It will work in a multidisciplinary way, across diverse fields and taking varied perspectives in order to address the fundamentals of sustainability. For information go to: http://www.SustainabilityConference.com.

Proponents of " Not One Damn Dime Day ," urged Americans not to spend any money on January 20, Inauguration Day, to protest President Bush's policies in Iraq and the estimated $30 million to $40 million cost of the inauguration, but it is not known who launched the idea.

For more see: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-12-not-one-dime-protest_x.htm. On, March 19, the anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, opponents of the U.S. intervention demonstrated in many places in the U.S. and around the world . For information on some of these events, contact join Global Exchange http://www.unitedforpeace.org, "Global Exchange News and Action Updates Email List" newsandaction@globalexchange.org. On March 29, people all across the country meet online to create a written Declaration for peace and justice and against the war.

"The goal is to articulate the progressive vision we all share for America, and to launch a determined, on-going nationwide effort to end the war and realize that positive dream".

For information, go to: http://www.PeaceNotPoverty.org
The resulting declaration of values was read in a televised "Beyond Iraq" interfaith service from Riverside Church in New York on April 4th, the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1967 speech against the Vietnam War. Participating organizations included TrueMajorityACTION, Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq, Clergy and Laity Network, Faith Voices for the Common Good, Drive Democracy, Fellowship of Reconciliation, United for Peace and Justice, National Council of Churches, FaithfulAmerica, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Gold Star Families for Peace, Pax Christi USA, The Tikkun Community, Unitarian Universalist Association, The Shalom Center, World Sikh Council-America Region, Progressive Christians Uniting, Protestants for the Common Good, Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, Christians for Justice Action (United Church of Christ), Disciples Justice Action Network, Witherspoon Society, Church of the Brethren, Peace Witness Office, Rainbow PUSH Coalition Clergy and Laity Network, The WHALE Center, The Bruderhof, Call to Action, The Witness Magazine, One Life Institute, Peace and Security Project of Iowa, and Episcopal Divinity School.

United for Peace and Justice held its second annual Assembly in Saint Louis, February 18-21

Numerous Israeli and Palestinian peace and human rights organizations continue to be active in Israel and the occupied territories. Although the Israeli Supreme Court recently required the government to take into account the impact of building the security fence upon Palestinians (see report below), its construction continues to take land without compensation, while creating many hardships. Thus there have been numerous protests against construction of the wall, as well as against the expansion of settlements. For example, in October, Several hundred activists showed up for the olive harvest, at Qafr Qasem.

Organized by Gush Shalom, under the auspices of the Harvest Coalition . The action became the rallying call for those shocked and angered by the settler violence seen on TV the previous week ago. However, little could be harvested because the villagers had been excluded for a long time from taking care of their trees. Thus the harvesters went to other villages, including Zeita, near the Green Line, which was separated from most of its lands by the construction of the security Wall. On December 31 peace activists demonstrated against creation of a new settlement north of Qalqilia, West Bank on the theme, "Gaza Disengagement plan: smokescreen for accelerated settlement building on the West Bank." Together with Palestinian villagers they planted olive trees to replace those uprooted by the settlers. In late December, In spite of police threats, hundreds of Israeli and international peace activists and Palestinian villagers planted olive trees at the site of a planned new settlement: North Zufin, next to Qalqilya. "We, Israelis and Palestinians, shall campaign together against the land grab of the Separation Fence." In March various peace movements demonstrated in Jerusalem for the disarming of settlers, as protests against the building of the security fence continued, and in support of Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan. Meanwhile, Hundreds of Arab and Druze from the Balad party's youth movement took part in a March meeting in Shfaram urging them not to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. The meeting was held under the banner "No to recruitment and no to Zionist national service." In the village of Khallet Al-Dar in the Qalqas area of Hebron, West Bank, on February 1, hundreds of Palestinians with the support of Israeli and international activists obstructed the bulldozers paving the ground for yet another "settlers-only-bypass road".

The protest was an effort to plant trees in the location where over 300 trees already had been uprooted. Gush Shalom reports that two Palestinians were injured, one of whom had to be hospitalized. A Canadian activist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM ) (www.palsolidarity.org) was hit by Israeli soldiers in the head with the butt of a rifle and then punched in the face. The soldiers launched tear gas and sound bombs. Two ISM volunteers from Britain and Canada and five Israelis from the Anarchists against the Wall (snitz@cs.bgu.ac.il) were arrested and spent some time in the Hebron central police station, while a 16 year old demonstrator was charged with "assaulting a police officer". The Other Israel reported in February, (by Dror Etkes. "Construction in the Settlements - 2004") "In 21 settlements construction is in process outside the construction line. This despite of Dov Weisglass' letter to Condoleezza Rice dated April 14, 2004, In which Israel agreed to restrict settlement growth to existing construction line.

Meanwhile, the Israeli peace movement has continued working for restraint on the part of the Sharon government, with renewed dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians for a just settlement. In general there has been support for Israeli disengagement from Gaza, but with calls for Sharon to undertake it in a proper manner, while desisting from actions injurious to Palestinians on the West Bank. A recent example is the statement published by Gush Shalom published in Ha'aretz , April 1, "Great Show." "The Gush Katif settlers who are willing to leave are unable to do so. Why? Because as of now - 115 days before the date set for the withdrawal - there is yet no one to decide upon their compensations, and no one to pay them .

On the other hand, everything is done to enable the opponents of the withdrawal to gather their forces and increase their threats. It seems that Sharon is interested in creating as menacing an atmosphere as possible. Why? In order to "prove" to the Americans that it is impossible to dismantle the outposts and freeze the settlements in the West Bank, as he promised President Bush. Sharon remains Sharon." For more information on the Israeli peace movement contact Gush Shalom, P.O.Box 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033, Phone 972-3-5221732, info@gush-shalom.org , www.gush-shalom.org , or The Other Israel, pob 2542, Holon 58125, Israel, ph/fx: +972-3-5565804 - otherisr@actcom.co.il, http://otherisrael.home.igc.org/.

All for Peace Radio is a joint Israeli-Palestinian radio station broadcasting in Hebrew, Arabic, and English to reach a wide audience that communicates messages of peace, cooperation, mutual understanding, coexistence, and hope. The Palestinian organization Biladi, The Jerusalem Times and the Israeli organization, The Jewish-Arab Centre for Peace, Givat Haviva , which are partners in the youth magazine Crossing Borders, have created a joint radio stationing bringing together the vast, accumulated experience of the two organizations through the electronic media to reach an audience not previously exposed to their message of peace. The station's long term objective is to become financially independent and to train youth in the fields of radio and coexistence, who will then participate in the station's broad-casting. For further information, visit: http://www.allforpeace.org/index.aspx.

Peres Centre Film & Television Fund for Peace has new initiative to support film projects that raise mutual consciousness between former enemies and foster values that are vital to all communities: peace, mutual awareness, coexistence, cooperation, and tolerance. Last July, some one hundred Palestinians and Israelis from the film and television industry celebrated the initiation of the new fund to encourage and support joint Palestinian-Israeli co-productions. A key goal of the Fund is to firmly place the issue of peace on the agenda of film and television production, via a system of grants that cultivates cooperation among filmmakers from opposing nations. For more information visit: http://www.peres-center.org.

Eliyahu McLean reports that From January 3-6 2005, "I had the opportunity to be a part of a historic meeting, the First World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace that took place in Brussels. Hommes de Parole , an organization based in Paris and led by director Alain Michel, in cooperation with many other organizations organized the Congress. We were about 180 participants, including 100 Jewish and Muslim religious leaders from over the world. The Jewish religious leaders were rabbis who came from Europe and North America as well as about 30 rabbis from Israel, including chief rabbis of different cities and heads of prominent yeshivas. The Muslim religious leaders included imams who came from Europe, the U.S., Africa and Asian countries like Indonesia and Uzbekistan. From the Middle East there were Palestinians from Jerusalem, the Galilee and the West Bank as well as from Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and Iran. Christian clergy and others, including a delegation of teenage Muslim girls from France came as observers to every session. During the three-day Congress we joined in large roundtable plenary sessions, workshops, open discussions and gala dinners together.

At the afternoon workshop sessions we broke small groups and discussed concrete cooperative projects. Some of the workshops were: bringing a religious dimension to the Mid-East peace process, creation of a Jewish-Muslim observatory and Abraham's Vision- a textbook for Jewish and Muslim youth weaving together a shared narrative of our stories... A special moment for everyone present was when the imams and rabbis stood silently together for three minutes in honor the victims of the tsunami in Asia. To open the 3 minutes the chief rabbi of Haifa sang El Maleh Rahamim, the Jewish memorial prayer for the dead. The former mufti of Istanbul closed by reciting verses from the Quran. Rabbi Yosef Azran, chief rabbi of Rishon Letzion spontaneously chanted a psalm. It was an emotional moment; everyone felt a sense of unity coming together in our shared humanity. In the final plenary session on Wednesday we discussed how to deal with extremism within our own communities. Rabbi Yosef Hadane, Chief Rabbi of the Ethiopian Jews in Israel spoke about the need for religious leaders to explain the Torah and the Quran in a truly spiritual way that could not lead to extremism.

I said we should not demonize the extremists but include them in the circle of dialogue and reach out to them with the tools found within Judaism and Islam. The final declaration called for: political leaders to work for a peaceful solution in the Holy Land, respect for human rights, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders to devote regular sermons in their communities to the theme of reverence for all human life and the establishment of a permanent joint committee to implement these commitments." From: Eliyahu McLean: eliyahu@actcom.co.il. Full coverage of the event is on the Hommes de Parole website: www.hommesdeparole.org

Search for Common Ground (SFCG ) reports this spring that during the 2004 local elections expanded its Independent Radio Network in Sierra Leone from 4 to 9 stations to monitor the voting, using 178 of young people, many of whom were former soldiers, as reporters and monitors. SFCG re-armed them - with pads and cell phones - and sent them out to report results and to provide unprecedented transparency. In February, SFCG drew on the lessons learned in Sierra Leone in expanding its monitoring to Burundi, where national elections were being held for the first time in 12 years. SFCG formed a consortium, Media Synergy , which included five radio stations, the national press agency, and SFCG's Studio Ijambo . SCG provided training to 65 multi-ethnic reporters who covered the elections on motorcycles and in rented cars, to produce 16 half-hour news shows that were simulcast by the five stations and webcast to the Burundian diaspora around the world. (USAID provided funding for this radio election monitoring in both Burundi and Sierra Leone.)

An evaluation of the impact of a Search for Common Ground Children's drama, Nashe Maalo (Our Neighborhood) , promoting ethnic understanding, watched by 91% of Macedonian young people, found that the show has been accepted by members of all ethnic communities and has become part of children's everyday life, while being watched collectively within the family. Nashe Maalo was found to be a very important as a model for society generally, beyond the mere audience of children. The program featured a more open attitude of inclusivity (embracing diversity) was seen as positive and as a possible model for thinking about and dealing with conflicts in daily life. Nashe Maalo created a national model of ethnic tolerance that most Macedonians now recognize as the ideal, even when they do not live up to it. 20 TV stations across Macedonia are re-running it. The theme song, a former number-one music video, continues to get much play. There is a Nashe Maalo children's theater and a Nashe Maalo puppet theater. Every primary school in the country is receiving videotapes of the series and a Parent-Teacher Guide .

This January in Angola, SFCG opened its fourth studio, with UK and US funding,. It is called Studio N'jango - an N'jango being a traditional place for dialogue. The first production is a magazine series for youth to be aired on both governmental and private radio. The studio also trains local journalists and civil society workers in producing responsible, non-inflammatory programs. Independent evaluation of the activities was quite positive. In the words of one interviewee, SFCG is contributing to the "de-mining of people's minds," something critically important in the current situation in Angola. People who participate in SFCG activities not only change their perspective, they change their attitude and their behavior, due to SFCG's methodology and its high staff quality. Response from stakeholder interviews shows two great areas of success. The first is SFCG's capacity to bring to the same table participants from all sectors of civil society, government, authorities, political parties, and traditional authorities, national and non-governmental organizations, within a constructive dialogue. The second is the increasing demand for the kind of training and dissemination activities that SFCG provides.

Search for common Ground has been carrying out a wide range of media activities in the Middle East, in recent years, including: publishing the Common Ground News Service in Arabic, Hebrew, and English (with funds from the Dutch, UK, and US governments and Rational Games, Inc .). SFCG has just finished producing a multi-part TV documentary series for Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab satellite networks that shows on the human level that peace is possible (funded by the European Commission and the Canadian, Dutch, Finnish, German, and Swedish governments, along with the Sagner Family Fund, Gordon McCormick, and Ravinder Singh). With MEND , a Palestinian NGO, SFCG co-produced 52 radio soap opera episodes - and will produce 26 more - with themes of non-violence and conflict resolution (funded by the UK and US governments).

In December, Marie Claire Magazine gave a Women of the World award to Emilia Taylor of SFCG's Talking Drum radio studio in Sierra Leone for her work as a reporter for the Golden Kids News. This thrice-weekly radio show discusses war, homelessness, and other issues affecting young people. "We create a forum for African children," she says, "to discuss their hopes and fears and to show other children that they can have a future."

In the U.S., Search For Common Ground has brought together Conservative Republican Senator Rick Santorum and liberal Democrat, former senator, Harris Wofford, to lead a working group to find consensus on faith-based and community organizations roles in fighting poverty that might be institutionalized through Congressional legislation. The idea was to make recommendations on the role social service providers with religious ties should play in publicly funded poverty programs. The 27 participants included leaders from organizations as diverse as People for the American Way and Evangelicals for Social Action; and Christian, Jewish, and Muslim organizations.

Both liberal and conservative foundations funded the process. None of these very busy people missed the meetings held once a month for six months - not even on 9/11, when they were evacuated from a building near the White House and walked a mile to reconvene elsewhere. "It was our answer to those who would divide us," recalls former Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode, a working group member. Still, division did exist. For example, one liberal leader arrived at a session outraged at conservative participants, because he felt their allies in the Bush White House were using "underhanded" tactics that made attempts at compromise pointless. He nearly walked out. But a key part of our process was the use of a professional facilitator who kept participants out of attack mode by guiding conversation back toward collaborative action, while still allowing anger to be expressed. It was important to avoid recreating the debate as it was being framed in the media and Congress: a food fight over whether more funds should be given to faith-based groups and whether they violated separation of church and state. Wofford said later that he and Santorum agreed the public debate "had gotten off track."

They came to see that they could work together on the basis of shared compassion. The framing question for liberals and conservatives to cooperate became: What could they do together to help poor Americans? At first, everyone had stereotypes. Faith-based advocates generally believed the civil libertarians cared more about constitutional rights than helping people. Civil libertarians thought that the faith-based contingent was interested mainly in proselytizing. Common ground emerged when each realized that the other was equally committed to alleviating poverty - and to staying true to core beliefs.

The atmosphere encouraged participants to relinquish rote responses and to step beyond their stereotypes. As they got to know each other, they mostly stopped demonizing the other. They rolled up their sleeves and got to work. No one was required to give up strongly held positions or to compromise principles. They were asked only to seek solutions acceptable to everyone in the room.

Each participant had what amounted to veto power, so there was no need to round up votes to support positions, and participants became adept at putting themselves in one another's shoes. In the end, participants unanimously adopted 29 specific recommendations, including: Tax deductions for charitable contributions from Americans who do not itemize taxes; Prohibition of using public funds to support proselytizing; Transparency by service providers and government agencies; No discrimination against faith-based groups because of their religious beliefs. Subsequently, Santorum joined Senators Joseph Lieberman and Hillary Rodham Clinton to sponsor a compromise bill that included the bulk of the recommendations. President Bush hailed the bill as a "great accomplishment," and most of the recommendations either became law or were adopted as government policy.

SFCG has now launched similar consensus-building processes on domestic healthcare issues and on prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS around the world. A task force - led by Mark Racicot, a former governor of Montana and President Bush's reelection campaign manager, and Dan Glickman, a former Democratic congressman from Kansas and former Secretary of Agriculture for President Clinton - has been lobbying Congress to create the US Consensus Council. Modeled on successful organizations in several states, the USCC would institutionalize consensus processes and assist Congress and the president in finding agreement on selected national issues. The USCC would be a private, nonprofit body, authorized by Congress and funded by publicly and privately.

For more information on SFCG contact Search for Common Ground, 1601 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20009 (202)265-4300,: search@scfg.org, www.sfcg.org, or Search for Common Ground, Rue Belliard 205 bte 13. B-1040 Brussels, Belgium (32-2) 736-7262, brussels@sfcg.be. To receive SFCG e-mail postings email: sfcg_newsletter@sfcg.org., with subscribe in the subject line.

HasNa, a non-profit organization established in 1998, implements and promotes programs that combine conflict resolution with work-related education in communities challenged by cultural, social and economic tensions. In consultation with community leaders and local businesses, HasNa identifies participants for intensive two to four week residential programs in the United States that provide instruction in conflict resolution and technical/professional skills. To date, HasNa has supported programs in Turkey and Cyprus and seeks to expand its work in these countries, as well as in other parts of the world. For information, contact HasNa Inc., Peace through understanding between cultures , 2401 Pennsylvania Ave NW Suite 410, Washington DC 20037,(202)478-1034, www.hasna.org.

Soliya , integrating "sol" (sun in Latin) and "iya" (beams of light in Arabic), is a new Boston based non-profit organization working to build intercultural understanding between the United states and the Arab & Muslim World and to galvanize young people to act as agents of change. The organization promotes constructive global engagement through its Connect Program , a cross-cultural education undertaking that enables college students in the United States and predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East to collaboratively explore the relationship between the U.S. and the Arab & Muslim World with the aim of improving intercultural awareness and understanding. Participating students from across the globe see and hear one another through the latest in videoconferencing and online collaboration technology. Recognizing the profound role of media in shaping young adults' perceptions of other cultures, Soliya trains participating students to create and exchange video segments illustrating their perspectives on current world events.

The Connect Program aims to: Engage students in global affairs; Expand students' understanding of and ability to think critically about the relationship between the US and the Arab-Muslim World; Sensitize students to the power of media in shaping opinions and perspectives and provide them with the analytical skills they need to assess the media more critically; Develop multi-media communication skills; Humanize the "other" through intimate communication and collaboration and catalyze genuine relationships across borders; Empower students to work for change on a global level, and provide them with the skills they need to make a positive impact. Students participating in the Connect Program congregate in groups consisting of four U.S. and four Middle Eastern university students. meeting electronically with two trained facilitators for two hours once a week throughout the course of the semester. Each group has its own webpage with a forum where students can post messages and exchange thoughts outside of the live sessions. Last fall, nearly one hundred students from ten different universities in the U.S. and the Middle East participated in the Connect Program. Soliya's President and Executive Director were recently named two of "the World's Best Emerging Social Entrepreneurs" by the Echoing Green Foundation. In partnership with Search for Common Ground, Soliya will be able to expand upon its outreach activities and broaden its audience. For more information go to http://www.soliya.net.

Arab News (at http://www.arabnews.com/), December 27 reports that Abdul Majeed Al-Dowsari , a 30-year-old, unemployed, native of Nawadi Al-Dawasir, has embarked on an international walkathon to sow the seeds of peace and tolerance around the world and to encourage solidarity with Saudis . He had then visited the Gulf countries, and was about to journey to other countries of the Arabian Peninsula. He hopes his journey serves as a reminder that Islam is a religion of peace - both for people of other lands and for young Saudis who are being lured to the dark side by the lies of evil men. "I'm urging some others to bring a halt to their ideas about destructive acts, which not only tarnish the name of Saudi Arabia but the name of Islam as a whole." He received a warm welcome in Oman and the United Arab Emirates, and is being welcomed with goodwill by King Abdallah and Queen Rania of Jordan for his upcoming visit there. Al-Dowsari invited others to join in his walk, which he hopes to extend to Europe. Al-Dowsari believes he may be the only Arab undetking a walking peace pilgrimage, at least in modern history.

Common Bond Institute (CBI) , in addition to collaborating in putting on the 13th Annual International Conference on Conflict Resolution (ICR) and the 2nd Annual Ecology of War and Peace youth conference , in St. Petersburg Russia, in May, is continuing its intensive Catastrophic Trauma Recovery trainings, immediately following the ICR Conference. In addition, CBI is developing plans to provide a two week intensive training to Iraqi counselors - who will then be able to open a badly needed trauma treatment center in Baghdad. As of late January, the program and training staff were in place, while funds were being sought to cover the travel and living expenses for the 2 weeks. The interim government in Iraq had already pledged a physical site if CBI could provide the trained staff and a 1 year operational plan. In the fall, CBI will hold another youth conference (Youth Peacemakers) in Cleveland, OH, while moving ahead with the creation of a new annual international conference on "Engaging The Other ," possibly beginning this fall, or in mid 2006, at the latest. The 1st conference will likely be launched in the U.S., with subsequent events held in a developing country to allow the most access by a representative cross section of cultures from around the world. A second conference might be held at one of the universities in Gaza or the West Bank, if things are more stable at that time.

CBI is undertaking the " Capacity for Peace and Democracy - Palestine" project , for which it seeks collaboration and support. The project was initiated a couple of years ago in collaboration with Al-Aqsa University (Gaza) and The Arab American University in Jenin (West Bank) to assist them in: 1) Establishing a Center for Conflict Resolution and Human Rights (with a 4 year terminal degree), and 2) Providing a pool of visiting professors and curriculum in Civil Society (democratic studies, conflict resolution/mediation, government, political science, economics/business), and in Human Services (psychology/social work/counseling, education, medical health services, sociology) to also lead to a 4 year degree. Along with this, a 2nd parallel project is providing trauma training and professional resources to therapists from Gaza Community Mental Health Program in Gaza & the Palestinian Counseling Center in the West Bank. CBI's Steve Olweean sees this as, "a wonderful opportunity to contribute to and positively influence both the education and training base and service base of Palestinian society. What I'm requesting of various organizations and individuals within our network to do is contribute professional materials to a professional resource library we are building for these 2 universities. If wished, these gifts can be made through our non-profit status for tax deductions. Items we need are: 1) Professional journals (current subscriptions - and as many back issues as possible); 2) Books; 3) Audio tapes, video tapes, CDs, & DVD's of training programs, seminars, workshops, lectures, etc.; 4) Course curriculum; 5) Psychological and sociological assessment materials; 6) Although the above materials are the higher priority, there is also need for certain educational equipment, such as: LCD projectors, laptop computers, CD and DVD player/recorders, portable overhead projectors, etc. (equipment would need to be in working order and, due to shipping limitations, compact in size)". For more information, contact Steve Olweean, Director, Common Bond Institute, 12170 S. Pine Ayr Drive, Climax, Michigan 49034, Ph/Fax: 269-665-9393, solweean@aol.com, http://ahpweb.org/cbi.

The Coalition for Work With Psychotrauma and Peace ( CWWPP ), in Vukovar, Croatia is celebrating its tenth year working on issues of post-war trauma, non-violent conflict transformation and peacebuilding and civil society in eastern Croatia, northern Bosnia and western Serbia. CWWPP continues, despite difficulties obtaining adequate funding that seriously restrict the entire field of nonviolent conflict transformation and peacebuilding. The organization reported in January that, "even nearly ten years after the Dayton and Erdut agreements, there is still a great deal of work to be done. Rates of suicide and domestic violence are increasing and there is still high unemployment and little work on reconciliation." CWWPP is planning to expand its work, with the establishment of the Inter-University Field Institute for Post-Conflict Studies one of its priorities. "We wish to expand our work with ex-soldiers, youth, victims of domestic violence, the relatives of schizophrenics and other vulnerable groups. This year, for the first time, we will have an intensive course on the trauma of post-war areas (in March) and a Summer Program in Post-Conflict Studies. We find ourselves slowly but surely the only international group in the region working on the combination of issues on which we concentrate. There are also few local groups doing this work".

"The situation in the region of eastern Croatia, northern Bosnia and western Serbia (Vojvodina) is not improving and seems to be worsening. The suicide rate continues to rise According to a recent report on Croatian Television (HRT), there were 18 suicides in Croatia in the first eight days of 2005, this in a country with a population of 4.5 million. The problems were highlighted by the suicide of the Head of the Croatian Veterans Suffering from PTSD in November. The rate of domestic violence seems to be increasing as well, although there are no concrete figures. Further, little is happening with the economy, and unemployment rates remain well above 60%. There is very little going on in the region with regard to reconciliation. This situation is all the more disturbing in the light of Croatia's candidate status for the European Union. Further, because of natural disasters and other conflicts in the world, funding is fleeing from the region and the non-governmental organizations working on these issues are struggling to survive. The situation in the region is discussed in greater detail in the Narrative Annual Report of the CWWPP, available on our website".

CWWPP's Work with groups and individual clients continues, concentration on efforts with Marimo , the group for the families of schizophrenics in Osijek and on the work with physical invalids. "The relatives who are members of Marimo have a number of problems. To start with, they have been traumatized by the war. Further, they have to live with their relatives. In this region, there are virtually no facilities for relief of the relatives or the sufferers, such as day hospitals, sheltered workshops or sheltered living situations. The relatives are often totally exhausted and at the end of their ropes. Furthermore, the quality of psychiatric care in this region is frequently less than adequate. There is no emphasis on informing relatives about the sufferers' problems and how to deal with them. Still another problem is the taboo here that is attached to people with mental illness and their relatives. In many circles, they are outcasts. The relatives are worried as to what will happen to the sufferers when something happens to them and they can no longer care for the sufferers. Furthermore, there is virtually no coordination between the services dealing with the sufferers. Acute incidents can rapidly turn into disasters, as was shown by the recent torturing and killing of a mother by her psychotic son. We have been assisting Marimo in a number of ways. First, we have been co-leading a weekly ventilation group for relatives. This group has moved forward considerably during the past year. Second, we are assisting the group in learning about civil society, that is, how to carry out publicity, how to apply for grants, how to speak with authorities, etc. We are also encouraging and assisting with the formation of a working group on assisting the sufferers, particularly during acute incidents". In November, 2004, the CWWPP received sufficient funds for a four month program of giving physical invalids small improvements for their and a small amount of psychological assistance . The project, was quite successful, with workers and clients highly satisfied. "Unfortunately, we have discovered high levels of poverty in the region. We are also seeing a great need for mobile psychological assistance that will reach out to villages and to individuals who are homebound and could otherwise not obtain it. If we can obtain funding for such a program, our emphasis would again be on training people in villages to give assistance to one another". In the field of education , the CWWPP is offering a five day intensive course on psychological trauma in post-conflict regions at its headquarters in Vukovar, and an intensive eight week program, in June and in August, in post-conflict studies, including a two week introduction to post-conflict areas, a six week internship and an optional language course.

CWWPP's website has been revised, including a detailed 2004 Annual Report, a new Study Section. separate from the Employment Section, and links continually being updated to provide as much information as possible on the subjects of interest to the CWWPP. Any non-commercial links are welcome, but must be approved before posting. CWWPP has continued to have interns , welcoming them at any time of the year. For more information, contact Coalition for Work With Psychotrauma and Peace, Gunduliceva 18, 32000 Vukovar, Croatia, tel and fax +385-32-441975, cwwppvuk@zamir.net, www.cwwpp.org.

The International Relations Center (IRC), "People-Centered Policy Alternatives since 1979," is continuing its 25th Anniversary events in New York and Washington DC this spring, with details on its web site, which also carries discussions of U.S. foreign policy related issues at: www.irc-online.org. The IRC Americas Program carries discussions of issues at: http://www.americaspolicy.org.

Louise Diamond at the Peace Company says, "We at The Peace Company are dedicated to moving our whole society off the war path and onto the peace path. This will require a massive shift at the political, the institutional, and the social levels, and is a big and worthy vision. It is also, we believe, an imperative that calls each of us to step into the role of peacebuilder and become pro-active and dedicated agents for generating a culture of peace. This work starts within ourselves, and is necessary also with our families, our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces, our community, our faith congregations, our nation, and our world. The assumptions, the attitudes, the behaviors, the norms, and the infrastructure that supports violence as a way of life and a! way of being in the world must, and can, be shifted to making peace the way we live, with peace and nonviolence, justice and compassion becoming the true organizing principles of our society. To facilitate this shift in our own small way, The Peace Company is now offering a 6-week online course in the Fundamentals of Peacebuilding , beginning on April 11". For details go to: http://www.thepeacecompany.com/store/prod_pli_FundamentalsOfPeacebuilding.php.

Amnesty International (AI ) reports that, "In the lawless post-war landscape of the Democratic Republic of Congo, local men toil barehanded to feed an insatiable global demand for cobalt. Their radioactive harvest poisons the air and water even as it feeds their families." The air and water in the Congolese mining center of almost 400,000 population, Likasi, are seriously poisoned by the Shinkolobwe mine. For more information from AI, contact Amnesty International, 322 8 Ave., New York, NY 10001 (800)862-0411, mow@aiusa.org www.amnestyusa.org.

Grassroots International works to assist indigenous people around the world in regaining control of resources, power and control of their livelihoods. "From indigenous communities agriculture on Oxaca's abandoned coffee farms to Brazil's Landless Workers Movement settling thousands of landless families on fallow land, every community has its unique tools to survive and develop. Every community has its own local 'piggy bank'. Grassroots International is proud to help people put these tools to use to build fair economies and protect human rights. A brutal global economy and U.S. policies that often hurt rather than help, make this a daunting task." For details contact Grassroots International, 179 Boylston St., 4th Floor, Boston, MA 02130 (617)524-1400, info@grassrootsonline.org, www.grassrootsonline.org.

The Center for Defense Information (CDI ) is warning that unless the current U.S. and international Threat Reduction Initiative to better secure nuclear and radiological materials is made more comprehensive, it will fail in its goal of protecting people from nuclear terrorism. CDI also believes that the 9/11 Commission and Senate Select committee on Intelligence reports missed the most fundamental problem with U.S. intelligence: the Team B concept, begun in 1976, by George H.W. Bush to make intelligence assessments. Team B contains a number of well know hawks, including Paul Wolfowitz, whose analyses was enthusiastically received by many conservatives, although it contained little factual basis for its conclusions, which have proved inaccurate. Intelligence needs to be the realm of unbiased and balanced professionals, whose judgments are not greatly bent by ideological perspectives. CDI also is concerned that U.S. policy does not focus sufficiently upon problems of the arms trade, small and light weapons issues, and child soldiers, all of which are dealt with in the policy analysis of CDI's Challenging Conventional Treats Project . For more information, contact the Center for Defense Information, 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036 (202)332-0600, www.cdi.org. The Institute for Space and Security reports that the Bush administrations deployment of the Ground Based Midcourse Defense antiballistic missile defense system is unwise because it spends many millions of dollars deploying an untested system that professional analysis and known factual information indicate cannot work, and even if it did work, would not defend against the largest nuclear threats to the U.S. Its only purpose seems to be to violate the ABM Treaty with Russia, to provide a pretext for U.S. withdrawal from that agreement. For more information, contact Institute for Space and Security and Security Studies, 5017 Belflower Ct., Melbourn, FL 32940 (321)752-5955, isss@rmbowman.com, www.rmbowman.com.

On Friday, April 1 , communities across the US, Canada and the UK came together to demand an end to oil addiction as part of the Second Annual Fossil Fools Day .
To learn more, contact Jason at Global Exchange, (415)558-9490, cleancars@globalexchange.org, http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/oil/fossilfoolsday.

PEARL World Youth News (Partners with Educators to Advance Reporting and Leadership) is a world wide secondary school student news service inspired by Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. The project aims to take students beyond becoming media literate into becoming international correspondents for student publications. Adhering to the highest journalistic standards, participating students select the issues to be reported, and write, edit and publish their articles on a web-based news service called PEARL World Youth News. International Education and Resource Network schools (LEARN) - a non-profit organization made up of over 20,000 schools in more than 109 countries, empowering teachers and young people to work together online using the Internet and other new communications technologies - will be able to print articles from the online news service to add a global component to their local publications. With an emphasis on unbiased reporting and respect for a diversity of views, PEARL World Youth News hopes to not only develop journalistic skills among students but also broaden cross-cultural understanding and provide an important global youth perspective. For more information, go to http://www.iearn.org/pearlproject/index.html

The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD ) brings together people and groups who actively practice, promote and study inclusive, high quality conversations, seeking to nurture justice, respect, and democracy throughout society, using dialogue, deliberation and other forms of collaborative, transformational communication. NCDD has initiated some new projects. The Programs and Networking for New Practitioners , has created an email listserv for new practitioners to share experiences and resources, and is developing a mentorship program which will pair new practitioners with more experienced folks, and an practicum program which will help match new practitioners to established organizations and practitioners who can use their help. The list serve can be joined by contacting Evan Thomas Paul, evanthomaspaul@gmail. The 2005 September Project is a follow up of the 2004 September Project under which hundreds of public libraries held events on democracy, citizenship and patriotism on and around September 11. For information, contact Sandy at sandy@thataway.org, or go to www.theseptemberproject.org. The National Dialogue Bureau proposes to improve news coverage by bringing the informed views of ordinary Americans into the reporting process by supplying journalists with a one stop destination for the collection of views held by citizens engaged in dialogue and deliberation about current affairs. The Dialogue Bureau will be a network of leaders of D&D groups willing to speak with the media about the key findings and concerns of their group. For details contact Lars at lhtorres@americaspeaks. Extreme Tao of Democracy is being launched by Tom Atlee and Kaliya Hamlin as a grassroots infrastructure for dialogue and deliberation that combines face-to-face conversations with online capabilities and other high-tech collaboration tools. They hope to catalyze efforts to "create the capacity to generate wise community consensus, as needed" about everything from neighborhood issues to global issues. For more go to: http://www.wiki-thataway.org/index.php?page=3D=ExtremeTaoOfDemocracyCall. A Learning Exchange is being developed to expand NCDD's more than 80 pages of resources on its website, to be able to provide the D&D community with a library of substantive resources such as case studies, articles, program reports and dissertations. For details, visit: www.thataway.org. This year NCDD will hold a Canadian Conference in addition to its annual conference in the U.S. For details including upcoming and recent dialoging events contact Sandy Heierbacher and Andy Fluke, Co-Founders, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) (802)254-7341. sandy@thataway.org and design@thataway.org, www.thataway.org.

Transcend Peace University - TPU On-Line - offers peace and development studies courses on the web for policy makers, practitioners, scholars, students, UN staff and others working in peacebuilding, conflict transformation, post-war reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation, development, human rights, and other related fields. For more information visit www.transcend.org or contact Jasmina Francetic, Training Programme Coordinator, Tel +40-724-380511, jasmina@patrir.ro.

Gardens of Heaven: A Center for Transformation was created in 2003 in Costa Rica as a center for the transformation of consciousness on the planet from a Human based to an Earth based value system. For information contact Tom Heye, P,O. Box 927, Richland, WA, H: (509)943-1670, W: (509)943-2676

The Global Exchange Fair Trade Online Store has introduced new website, and along with it, many new products and features, including 'Shop by Region' at: http://store.gxonlinestore.org.

Spring is bringing some positive new energy, as well as continuing difficulties and little progress on the critical issue of halting nuclear proliferation, particularly with North Korea and Iran. In the United States, revelations of some dangerous trends are raising the question of whether they can be reversed (even as the Patriot Act is being considered by Congress for renewal).

Seymour M. Hersh, wrote in the January issue of the New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/050124fa_fact>http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/050124fa_fact) in: "Annals of National Security, the Coming Wars: What the Pentagon can now do in secret," George W. Bush's reelection was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities' strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state . Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism during his second term .

The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as 'facilitators' of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way. Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East: the establishment of democracy throughout the region. Bush's reelection is regarded within the administration as evidence of America's support for his decision to go to war. It has reaffirmed the position of the neoconservatives in the Pentagon's civilian leadership who advocated the invasion, including Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Feith, the Under-secretary for Policy.

According to a former high-level intelligence official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them, in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American people did not accept their message. Rumsfeld added that America was committed to staying in Iraq and that there would be no second-guessing...." Hersh, reports that clandestine teams of American soldiers have been preparing missions into a handful of Arab countries, particularly Iran, where they are using sophisticated equipment to hunt for nuclear sites. He says there is growing pressure among the neocons to carry out airstrikes against Iran if Tehran does not give up on its nuclear ambitions. The new procedures is for action to be initiated by a "Presidential Finding" signed by George Bush, giving Defense Secretary Rumsfeld authority to act without oversight from Congress

Similarly, Michael Hirsh and John Barry reported in the January 8 issue of Newsweek that the Pentagon has been considering training death squads, on the El Salvador model, to eliminate troublesome Sunni opponents in Iraq . "Now, Newsweek has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration's battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.

Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success-despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras.)...". Mark Benjamin stated, in Salon , April 12, that well over 1 million U.S. troops have fought in Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon data, approximately one-third the number of troops who were stationed in or around Vietnam during that 15 year conflict.

He reports that an increasing number of military experts believe the Army and Marines in Iraq are months away from being overtaxed to the point of serious dysfunction, if the situation does not become stabilized. If it does not, and the Bush administration continues to reject the ideas of a draft and of permanently increasing the size of the Army and Marines, U.S. ground forces might very well come down to a point not seen since just after Vietnam .

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reported in March that 23 countries now have missiles with a range of roughly 600 miles or less. Six countries: India (which tested a short range rocket in November), Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Israel and Saudi Arabia, have missiles that can reach considerably farther and are a cause for concern . Meanwhile, the Bush administration is putting the nuclear weapons of Israel, India and Pakistan on a par, calling on the three to act like Ukraine and South Africa in giving up their nuclear weapons . Negotiations with North Korea on nuclear disarmament continue with little progress , as North Korea fluctuates between belligerence (including official stating it has atomic weapons) and showing a willingness to negotiate. U.S. intelligence now has evidence that North Korea sold processed uranium to Libya, before that nation abandoned its nuclear arms program.

Similarly, Iran shifts back and forth between stating that it has a right to produce nuclear weapons, and that it will not produce them (at least for the time being) and will cooperate with the UN Atomic Energy Agency. The one major change is that the U.S. has now come into agreement (at least for the moment) with Europeans on the need to settle the Iranian nuclear proliferation problem diplomatically . The United States is now engaged in program of redesigning a new generation of nuclear weapons to replace its aging arsenal, before atomic decay renders them impotent .

In November, Congress approved $9 million to begin warhead designing in a program aimed at making U.S. nuclear weapons more reliable, sturdier and longer lived. Critics say that the Reliable Replacement Warhead program could reignite the nuclear arms race, including encouraging proliferation, or at least making it harder for the U.S. to argue for and achieve agreement not to proliferate. Daryl G. Kimball, executive Director of the Arms Control Association says that, "The existing stockpiles are safe and reliable by all standards, so to design a new warhead that is even more robust is a redundant activity that could be a pretext for designing a weapon that has a new military mission." Indeed, the current administration has advocated developing nuclear bombs with new missions, particularly deep earth penetrating weapons or 'bunker busters.'

Economist Peter Drucker stated in The National Interest , spring 2005, notes that the U.S. will eventually be forced to operate in a pluralistic world: "Eventually there may be six or seven blocs, of which the U.S.-dominated NAFTA is likely to be only one, coexisting and competing with the European Union (EU), MERCOSUR in Latin America, ASEAN in the Far East, and nation-states that are blocs by themselves, China and India . These blocs are neither 'free trade' nor 'protectionist', but both at the same time."

Ehsan Ahrari, writing in Asia Times , January 19, states that Pakistan and Afghanistan may be drawn into the potential conflict with Iran , if Seymour Hersh's information is correct. Both countries are allegedly providing access for American forces to target Iranian nuclear sites. Ahrari considers, however, that the report of this possibility may be a less than subtle way of increasing pressure on Iran to end its nuclear weapons program.

In Iraq , U.S. casualties have surpassed 1,500 dead and 11,000 wounded, with a larger number reported wounded and dead from non-combat causes. (Mark Benjamin noted on WNYC's On the Media , on April 1, that the Pentagon has used a number of ruses to hide the true U.S. casualty figure, which is closer to 25,000.) That does not count the psychological damage and post-traumatic stress that many will experience after returning home, or the difficulties many may encounter reintegrating into normal life. U.S. casualties have been declining in past months, while deaths and injuries among Iraqis have greatly increased as insurgents shifted their focus beginning with the approach of elections (Though there are indications, in early April, that direct attacks on U.S. installations may become a new insurgent focus). Many deadly attacks have been launched against Shiites, apparently intended to provoke counter attacks against Sunnis; but so far the Shi'a have remained restrained, seeing their best prospects in the political realm. Outside of Sunni areas, where participation was extremely low, the Iraqi elections proceeded very well, with an almost 60% overall turnout) despite violent attempts at disruption (only around 44 people killed in a rash of nine car bombs) in January, giving, first, Shiites and, second, Kurds many seats in the assembly. For months, however, the parties were unable to agree on a government and parliamentary leadership, creating a partial political vacuum that aided the insurgents.

Finally, at the beginning of April, the Iraqi parliament reached agreement on its leadership , including a Sunni as Speaker, and can begin functioning. A Kurd was chosen as President, and the major ministers of the government have finally been appointed. There does seem to be an attempt by those in government to reach out to Sunnis, which is expected to include input into the constitution writing process, with the hope of building peaceful relations and undermining the insurgency. Meanwhile, the number of Iraqi police and troops, and the number gaining the training and the will to stand up to insurgents, is increasing, in the face of threats and attacks against government security personnel. The development of a sufficiently large effective Iraqi security force, in a relatively short time, is critical to ending the violence, or at least reducing it to a quite low level. Security, in turn, is the prerequisite for economic development, without which lasting peace cannot be obtained.

Particularly on the peacebuilding side, Dan Baum, writing in the January 10 New Yorker , noted that again, in Iraq, U.S. troops were trained for the wrong war. He notes, however, that junior officers have been using the internet to get around the rigid structure of Pentagon hierarchy to share needed on-the-ground insights.

Baum relates how Lieutenant Colonel Chris Hughes handled a potentially explosive situation:
"The Iraqis were shrieking frantic with rage. From the way the lens was lurching, the cameraman seemed as frightened as the soldiers. This is it, I thought. A shot will come from somewhere, the Americans will open fire, and the world will witness the My Lai massacre of the Iraq war. At that moment, an American officer stepped through the crowd holding his rifle high over his head with the barrel pointed to the ground. Against the backdrop of the seething crowd, it was a striking gesture--almost Biblical. "Take a knee," the officer said, impassive behind surfer sunglasses. The soldiers looked at him as if he were crazy. Then, one after another, swaying in their bulky body armor and gear, they knelt before the boiling crowd and pointed their guns at the ground. The Iraqis fell silent, and their anger subsided. The officer ordered his men to withdraw..."

As Baum notes, Army strategists have begun to pay attention. This writer hopes that they will come to see the need for troops countering insurgency, and/or engaged in peacebuilding, to engage in community policing, as ser forth in these pages in previous issues.

Speaking at the World Economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, a senior Rand Corporation analyst , and member of a panel reviewing the state of global terrorism , stated that the war in Iraq has become an effective recruiting tool for Islamic militancy, emboldening terrorist attacks elsewhere, and weakening the stability of the region . The head of Human Rights Watch, and a fellow terrorism review panelist, agreed , warning that high profile abuse scandals such as Abu Gharib have become "recruiting posters" for terrorists around the world, and that human rights violations in Iraq are likely to stimulate increased terrorism worldwide . "I believe that a cult of the insurgent has emerged from Iraq." "Our failure there was not to anticipate the repercussions...and the fact that Iraq would become a clarion call for the Islamist cause."

The International Crises Group asserted in its March 21 report that. "Iran has the potential to do great mischief in the post-Saddam Iraq, but despite wide-spread allegations, actual evidence of attempts to destabilize the country is rare and evidence of achievement rarer still. Instead, Iran's priority has been to prevent Iraq from re-emerging as a threat to it, which means preventing both outright failure in Baghdad or clear success."

The United Nations Development Program warned that development is key to Afghanistan's survival . Afghanistan ranks 173 of 178 nations in terms of security, welfare and ability for citizens to control their own lives, ahead of only five sub-Saharan African counties. Afghanistan's reemergence is painted as a mixed picture in the report. On the positive side, the economy has been expanding by at least 25% a year, and is expected to grow by 10% annually over the next decade. 4 million children, a record number, are now in school. More than 3 million refugees have returned home, mostly from Pakistan and Iran. On the negative side, the nation still is ranked as having the world's worst education system, 75% of adults are illiterate, and few girls go to school. Of particular importance, most of the country's income is being gained by warlords with strong military and political connections, creating a dangerous economic gap between rich and poor, cities and the countryside, with half of all Afghans being poor. Recently there has been an increase in Taliban attacks against government and NATO forces.

UPI Intelligence Correspondent, Richard Sale, reported on January 11 that: "Bush administration hard-liners have been considering launching selected military strikes at insurgent training camps in Syria and border-crossing points used by Islamist guerrillas to enter Iraq in an effort to bolster security for the upcoming elections..." Secretary of Defense denied that the U.S. planned to send "hit squads". A week earlier the U.S. warned Syria against interfering in Lebanon's upcoming elections.

Stephen Ulf, writing for the Jamestown Foundation, on January 10, noted that al Quaeda seems to be waning in Saudi Arabia : "The latest attempted bombing of the Interior Ministry building and the Special Emergency Forces headquarters training unit at Riyadh on December 29, appears to spell out more evidence of al-Qaeda's decline in the Peninsula. The bombings and related clashes with Islamist militants accounted for a total of 90 injuries and the death of one bystander. The cost to the mujahideen were five killed during the bombings (three of whom from suicide detonations) and a further 10 hunted down in gunfights which preceded and followed them. Three of the assailants were on the list of the 26 'most wanted' Saudi insurgents... A statement from al-Qaeda posted on the al-Ma'sada jihadist website (www.alm2sda.net) named the target of the attacks as the Kingdom's Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdel-Aziz, who was away at the time. The statement also laid emphasis on the killing of 'a number of Crusader trainers killed in the Emergency Forces' headquarters and the wounding of several of those forces,' which contradicts the figures given out by the authorities. The statement ended with what may be a revealing phrase: 'We are determined to re-organize ourselves and prepare for new exemplary operations'." During early April, a number of shootouts occurred between Saudi security forces and suspected al Queada militants, with several people on the government's most wanted terrorist list killed or apprehended. At this juncture, it appears that Saudi Arabia's anti terrorist efforts have gained effectiveness. For the first time, Saudi Arabia held local elections , earlier this year, with only men voting. Meanwhile, al Quaeda related terrorists have begun operating in Kuwait . On January 30 Kuwaiti security forces stormed a building in the Salmiyya residential district of the capital. From the total of arrests and fatalities to date, the cell operating in Kuwait numbered about 30 and, according to official sources, was made up of people of several nationalities. On February 1, an Islamist forum on the web featured a statement addressed to the Kuwaiti government warning of a 'Great War' coming if the U.S. forces did not leave the country

There continue to be hopeful developments in the Palestinian-Israeli situation, mixed with some ongoing troubling policies by the Sharon government . Prime Minister Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) had a cordial and productive meeting, in February. At the Sharm-al-Sheikh conference, however, the resolution of the conflict was not mentioned at all, in discussing returning to the peace process. Abu Mazen succeeded in slipping in some words, but Sharon did not react. This omission is very significant. It must be emphasized: Sharon did not utter a single word that does not conform with his plan of annexing 58% of the West Bank and enclosing the Palestinians in small enclaves in the rest of the territories. Abu Mazen undertook negotiations with Hamas and other groups, gaining an agreement that attacks against Israel would cease. Abu Mazen has been strong in asserting that violent Palestinain attacks are counter productive, but that he will not attempt to suppress militant groups by force. Rather he will work to integrate them into nonviolent political action. Hamas has a strong political base in Gaza, winning at least two-thirds of the local council seats in local elections there, in January. The Palestinian President posted security forces along the Gaza side of the Israeli boarder, with Sharon's approval, to stop mortar attacks into Israel. When the ceasefire was broken by Palestinians, Abu Mazen ordered security forces to find the perpetrators and stop further attacks. While Sharon demanded more effective action of Abu Abas, he did not order Israeli counter attacks. The killing of several Palestinian young people by Israeli forces. later brought retaliatory Palestinian mortar attacks, and then counter Israeli action; but, at this writing, nothing further. Thus, while imperfect, the ceasefire remains mostly in effect, while Israel has withdrawn some forces and turned over administration of some areas to the Palestinian Authority. The Bush Administration has stated its approval of the ceasefire arrangements and of Abu Mazen's actions, sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in February, to encourage movement on the 'road map' to peaceful settlement. Bush has said that Israeli settlement expansion must stop. The question is, will he take any action to pressure Sharon on the matter. Currently, a struggle is in progress over control of property in the Jerusalem area. In February, the government abandoned a secret plan to appropriate nearly half the Palestinian property in East Jerusalem on the grounds that the Wall turned the owners in the West Bank into absentee landlords. Now, the focus is on property in the city. On April 7, while the first Qassam rocket in several months landed in the Israeli border town of Sderot, fortunately not causing damage, Israeli and Palestinian mayors, prominent among them the mayor of Sderot, began to dialogue. Otherwise, The Other Israel (http://otherisrael.home.igc.org/) reports this recent week to have been one of contradictions. "After the definite Knesset vote in favor of the Gaza pullout, the now imminent disengagement is "counterbalanced" by a whirlwind of typical Sharon-style anti-peace actions. The reluctantly started IDF (Israeli Defense Force) withdrawal from Palestinian population centers came to a sudden halt, and weird scenes started to appear on our TV screens - of Israeli soldiers attacking unarmed Palestinian police in Hebron. And of course: more land confiscation & further home demolitions to make place for settlement expansion, wall extension or whatever. In the midst of all this one contradicting scene, also in Hebron: a Palestinian family whose house had been demolished by settlers, was brought back following a Supreme Court decision in their favor, and the IDF built a wall (yes!) to protect them against the settlers, many of whose kids were seen fighting with the soldiers and taken into custody.) For more go to: http://imemc2.thinkhost.net/). Also this week Sharon was reported as having his aides, among them Shimon Peres, tell the Americans that the 3500 houses at the Ma'aleh Adumim settlement are NOT really going to be built. It was only for internal political reasons that it had been said they would, says Sharon in the week before he has to see George W. at the Texas farm. It only leaves one wondering what Sharon is telling the settlers, with whom he started a new rapprochement. Something like" /.Don't listen to what I have to say to the Americans; you know me better!"?\".

Over the past months, there has been great resistance from most settlers to the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza , though a few settlers early on agreed to compensation for resettlement. A breakthrough was achieved, in early April, when Prime Minister Sharon met with Gaza setter leaders to work out a compromise under which thousands of Gaza settlers would be moved to an area on the Israeli Mediterranean coast, prior to the scheduled withdrawal this summer . Palestinians have been charging for many months that right wing settlers are targeting Arab children on their way to school while western reporters look the other way. There were reports in March of many Palestinian sheep having been poisoned, allegedly by Israeli settlers. Gush Shalom reported in February, that a t the same meeting in which it decided to implement the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, the government took an even more important decision: to complete the wall in the West Bank . In February, preparations were moving rapidly ahead for the building of three new towns between the Green Line and the wall: "Gevaot" in the Etzion Bloc, "Zufim North" near Kalkilia and a contiguous built-up area connecting Jerusalem with Ma'aleh Adumim. More big housing projects were planned east of Har Homa and east of A-Ram. "This means violating the promise given to President Bush, violating international law, sabotaging Abu Mazen's efforts to achieve a settlement and inviting a third intifada. The dismantling of the Gush Katif settlements is costing billions. The dismantling of the West Bank settlements will cost hundreds of billions. All of us will pay". The Israeli Supreme Court continues to put some limitations on the building of Israel's security fence . On Jan. 13, the High Court issued a temporary injunction ordering the state "to refrain from all uprooting of trees or orchards and digging, paving, leveling, construction or other preparations for the erecting of the separation fence in the area around the villages of Biddu, Beit Sourik, Beit Iksa, Beit Aanan, Likiya, Katana, Khirbet Abu Lehem, Al-Kubeiba and Nebi Samuel." However, the government is now building new walls, supposedly to protect settler roads that crisscross the West Bank. These will divide Palestinian areas into isolated ghettos . In January, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan took the first step in creating a register for damage claims stemming from the construction of the West Bank separation fence . A UN General Assembly resolution in July demanding that Israel demolish the fence, as the International Court of Justice ordered, also asking Annan to establish a register of damage caused by its construction for possible future claims and legal action. In February, the Israeli military said that it would cease demolishing the houses of the families of suicide bombers and gunmen as punishment, because an internal report indicated that such action was not a deterrent. During the past 3 years, the Israeli Land Authority destroyed crops belonging to Bedouins in the Negev by aerial spraying of herbicides. Following the petition of several organizations to the Supreme Court of Justice, the Land Authority has been ordered to stop using this method. The Land Authority and the 'Green Patrol' shifted, in January, to destroying Bedouin crops in the Negev by plowing them under. Negev Bedouins have now sued the state for massive crop destruction , saying. "The Bedouin are not squatters - government act was totally illegal." They are peaceful farmers, citizens of the state of Israel since it was first established and who had worked their land for many generations before that, who are in possession of all the necessary documents, and who had asserted their ownership of the land in a document submitted to the Ministry of Justice as long as 40 years ago. In late January, in a meeting with U.S. mediation expert Prof. Larry Susskind, Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz gave his approval for a course of mediation between the state and the Bedouin residents of the Negev to solve the land disputes in the Negev and the problem of unrecognized villages . The process is the first of its kind in Israel, The agreement came following the police, the Shin Bet security service and the National Security Council pressuring the government to apply mediation out of concern that violence would erupt among the Bedouin in the Negev if the existing situation continues. Prof. Susskind heads the Consensus Building Institute at Harvard University, which specializes in resolving disputes between minorities and states. The mediation initiative is being funded by several foundations affiliated with the U.S. Jewish community.

Current developments are occurring against a background of shifting public opinion among both Palestinians and Israelis. An end of December poll published in Haaretz, January 18, finds that some 54 percent of the Palestinians support a two-state solution on the basis of the 1967 lines , with border corrections and no massive return of refugees, confirming that there has been a change in Palestinian public opinion since the death of Yasser Arafat. A similar poll done in December 2003, showed only 39 percent of the Palestinians supported an agreement with Israel . A parallel poll, conducted in Israel among a representative sample of Jewish and Arab voters, January 9-10, showed that 64% are now in favor of a permanent peace agreement, compared to only 47 percent who supported such a deal in a similar poll last year .

The pollsters presented the people with a series of articles that were reminiscent of the Clinton Framework of 2000 and the Geneva Accord deal of 2003, without naming the source of the particulars. Most of the findings of the joint poll point to a significant rise in the support for reconciliation between the peoples and a peace agreement, since Arafat's replacement by Mahmoud Abbas. Some 63% of the Palestinians support the proposal that after the establishment of the state of Palestine and a solution to all the outstanding issues - including the refugees and Jerusalem - a declaration will be issued recognizing the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people and the Palestinian state as the state of the Palestinian people.

Some 35% of the Palestinians oppose such a declaration. In June 2003, 52% supported such a proposal, and 46 percent were opposed. Among Israelis, 70% supported the proposal for mutual recognition, and 16% were opposed. In 2003, 65% supported the proposal and 33% were opposed. 63% of the Palestinians said they definitely agreed or agreed with the statement: "The Palestinian state will be established on all of the West Bank and Gaza, except for the large settlement blocs that will be annexed to Israel, though not more than 3%. Israel will evacuate the rest of the settlements, and the Palestinians will get in exchange a piece of territory of the same size contiguous to Gaza." Some 35% said they oppose or definitely oppose such a formula. A similar question posed in December 2003 received 57% support, with 41% opposed. In Israel, that proposal won 55% support, with 43% opposed, compared to 47% in favor it in 2003 and 50% opposed. On the issue of Jerusalem, there has been a toughening of the stand on both sides. Among Palestinians, 44% were in favor and 54% were opposed to an agreement in which "Jerusalem will be the capital of two states.

East Jerusalem will be the capital of Palestine and West Jerusalem the capital of Israel. The Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, including the neighborhoods in the Old City and the Temple Mount / Haram el Sharif, will be under Palestinian sovereignty. The Jewish neighborhoods, including the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, will be under Israeli sovereignty." A similar question posed in 2003 won 46% support and was opposed by 52%. On the Israeli side, 39%were in favor and 60% opposed. In 2003, 41% were in favor and 57%opposed. The poll reveals a major change in the Palestinian position regarding the refugees. According to the principles of the Clinton Framework and the Geneva Accord, the solution to the problem will be based on UN decisions 194 and 242, and include five possibilities from which the refugees can choose: to remain in their current countries; a return to the Palestinian state; a return to the Palestinian state as part of the territorial exchange; emigration to Europe or other countries like Australia and Canada; or a return to Israel, which would be limited and decided on by Israel, with Israel basing its decision on the average number of refugees who emigrate to countries like Australia, Canada and Europe. In addition, all refugees will be eligible for financial compensation from an international fund.

The poll in 2003 showed that only 25% of the Palestinians supported such an arrangement for the refugees, while in the latest poll the proposal now had support from 46 % of the Palestinians, with 50% opposed. Among Israelis, 44% support such an arrangement, compared to 35% last year. 69% of Palestinians support an agreement that includes a declaration of the end of the conflict with Israel, with no further demands to be made by either side of either side. Last year, only 42% of Palestinians supported such a declaration, with 55% opposed.

On the Israeli side, 76% support such a declaration and 23% are opposed, compared to 66% and 33% respectively in 2003. 61% of Palestinians opposed, and 27% support, the following statement: "The state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza will not have an army, but will have a strong security force and there will be an multinational force to guarantee the security of both sides. There will be commitments by Israel and Palestine to end terror and violence on both sides."

In December 2003, when it was asked - without the element of the multinational force - 36% were in favor and 63% opposed. 53% of Palestinians supported the following statement: "Israel will be allowed to use the Palestinian air space for practice, but the state of Palestine will be sovereign over its airspace, its land and its sources of water. In addition, two Israeli early warning stations will be established in the West Bank for 15 years, and a multinational force will remain in the Palestinian state and at the borders for an indeterminate period of time. The purpose of the multinational force is to monitor the implementation of the agreement and defend the territorial integrity of the Palestinian state and the border passages, because it will be demilitarized." 45%of Palestinians opposed that. Last year 23% supported this, compared with 67% who were opposed. On the Israeli side, 61% supported this approach while 37% opposed the article's inclusion in any final peace agreement. For further details on the Palestinian survey contact PSR director, Dr. Khalil Shikaki or Ayoub Mustafa, at tel 02-296 4933 or email pcpsr@pcpsr.org. On the Israeli survey, contact Dr. Yaacov Shamir at tel. 202-429-3870 or email jshamir@usip.org. Please visit http://www.pcpsr.org/index.html

A second poll illuminates Palestinian and Israeli Disagreement on how to Proceed with the Peace Process , with 48% of Israelis agreeing on negotiations with the Hamas, if it is necessary and 80% of the Palestinians and Israelis supporting a return to negotiations on a comprehensive settlement. The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) and the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace carried out a Joint Israeli-Palestinian Public Opinion Poll between March 8 and 13. The poll was designed to examine the preferences of Palestinians and Israelis on how to proceed with the peace process, their attitudes towards the disengagement plan, and their attitudes towards reconciliation after Arafat's death. In summary, the poll results were as follows.

Despite these preferences, 53% of the Israelis and 51% of the Palestinians say they will support their leadership decision to proceed in the peace process with the approach they prefer less, while 37% of the Israelis and 41% of the Palestinians will not support their leadership decision in such a case. - In the same context, 59% of the Palestinians and 60% of the Israelis support the Quartet's Roadmap plan compared to 35% among Palestinians and 36% among Israelis who oppose it. - 70% of the Israelis and 59% of the Palestinians believe that it is possible to reach a compromise settlement with the other side's current leadership. 27% among Israelis and 41% among Palestinians don't think it is possible. 61% among Israelis and 62% among Palestinians believe their own leadership is strong enough to convince its constituency to accept such an agreement. 65% of the Palestinians but only 38% of the Israelis believe that the other side's leadership is strong enough to convince its public to accept such a compromise. - 48% of the Israelis believe that Israel should negotiate also with the Hamas if it is necessary in order to reach a compromise agreement; 47% oppose it. Among Palestinians, 79% support the participation of the Hamas in the negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel compared to 19% who oppose it.

(2) Assessments of previous peace initiatives. Israelis and Palestinians were further asked to assess the reasons for the Oslo process and the Camp David summit failures. Both sides put the blame on the other side. 63% of the Israelis believe that the main reason for why the Oslo process failed was because the Palestinians were not forthcoming enough and maintained the use of violence, but only 5% of the Palestinian think so. Palestinians (54%) put the blame mainly on Israel not being forthcoming enough and continuing to build settlements. Only 20% of the Israeli public thinks this is the major reason. 10% of Israelis and 33% of Palestinians blame the step-by- step procedure for the failure. - As to the Camp David summit, 70% of the Israelis but only 5% of the Palestinians believe that it failed because Arafat did not seriously intend to reach a final and comprehensive settlement with Israel. On the other hand, 50% of the Palestinians but only 11% of the Israelis believe it failed because Barak yielded much less than he claimed he did. 13% of Israelis and 36% of Palestinians think the problems were too numerous and the differences too big to be solved all at once.

( 3) Sharon's Disengagement Plan and Settlements. 52% of the Israelis support and 44% oppose a referendum on Sharon's disengagement plan. If a referendum on Sharon's disengagement plan were held today, 65% of the Israeli public would support it compared to 29% who would oppose it. 49% among Israelis support the participation of Israeli Arabs in such a referendum, compared to 48% who oppose it. 67% of the Israelis support and 30% oppose the dismantling of most of the settlements in the territories as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians. 75% of the Palestinians see Sharon's plan to evacuate the Israeli settlements from Gaza as a victory for the Palestinian armed struggle against Israel, while 23% do not see it as such. Among Israelis, 44% see Sharon's plan to evacuate the Israeli settlements from Gaza as a victory for the Palestinian armed struggle against Israel, while 50% don't think it is a Palestinian victory.

30% of the Palestinians and only 9% of the Israelis believe that the Palestinian Authority has high capacity to control matters in the Gaza Strip after Israel's disengagement, 43% of the Palestinians and 34% of the Israelis think it has reasonable capacity and 23% among Palestinians and 51% among Israelis think it has low or no capacity. 36% of the Israelis believe that if Israel disengages fully in the Gaza Strip Palestinian armed attacks against Israeli targets outside the Gaza Strip will decrease, 27% think they will not change and 31% think they will increase. 29% of the Palestinians in turn support and 68% oppose the continuation of armed attacks against Israeli targets from the Gaza Strip after full Israeli disengagement.

(5) Reconciliation. With Arafat's departure from the scene and with the renewed political activity, expectations and support for reconciliation following a comprehensive solution increased in a meaningful 41% of the Israelis expect now full reconciliation to be achieved in the next decade or in the next few years compared to only 32% who thought so in June 2004. 24% of the Palestinians expect full reconciliation to be achieved in the next decade or in the next few years compared to 15% last June. General support for reconciliation among Israelis has also increased and stands now at 84% compared to 80% in June 2004. 81% of the Palestinians support reconciliation today compared to 67% last June. More important however is the consistent across the board increase in support for a list of specific reconciliation steps, varying in the level of commitment they pose to both publics. 55% of the Israelis and 89% of the Palestinians will support open borders to free movement of people and goods after a comprehensive settlement is reached, compared to 44% of the Israelis and 82% of the Palestinians who said so last June. 70% of the Israelis and 73% of the Palestinians support joint economic institutions and ventures compared to 66% and 66% respectively last June. 43% of the Israelis and 40% of the Palestinians will support joint political institutions designed eventually to lead to a confederate system given a comprehensive settlement compared to 35% of the Israelis and 26% of the Palestinians who said so last June. 66% of the Israelis and 42% of the Palestinians support taking legal measures against incitement directed towards the other side compared to 61% of the Israelis and 35% of the Palestinians who said so in June 2004. 51% of the Israelis and 13% of the Palestinians will support adoption of a school curriculum that recognizes the sovereignty of the other state and educates against irredentist aspirations. In June 2004 41% of the Israelis and 4% of the Palestinians thought so. For further details on the Palestinian survey, contact Dr. Khalil Shikaki at tel. 02-2964933, kshikaki@pcpsr.org, or visit the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) at: www.pcpsr.org. On the Israeli survey, contact Dr. Yaacov Shamir at tel. 202-429-3870, jshamir@usip.org or visit the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at: http://truman.huji.ac.il. The poll results were distributed by the Common Ground News Service.

Ten Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli health professionals spent the week of March 6 together in Amman, Jordan learning how to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, as participants in a salmonella identification workshop held by the Middle East Consortium on Infectious Disease Surveillance (MECIDS). In addition to the training, the scientists agreed on a common method for monitoring salmonella, so that the data they collect about the number and severity of cases can be compared and unusual outbreaks recognized quickly The goals of MECIDS are to improve the ability of nations in the Middle East to respond to disease outbreaks and to build trust. MECIDS is a project of Search for Common Ground, funded by the NTI foundation. All the course participants have roles in the system that MECIDS is building to share data about food-borne disease outbreaks in the region. Since its formation two years ago, MECIDS has had the backing of the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian health ministries,

With Egypt playing a diplomatic role in Israeli Palestinian negotiations, Egyptian-Israeli relations have improved , as seen by a December prisoner exchange, with Egypt freeing an Israeli convicted of spying and Israel releasing six Egyptian students who had entered Israeli occupied territory and were suspected of plotting attacks.

A team from the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom attended a conference, "Peace in Palestine" of some 500 delegates from 34 countries in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia sponsored by the government , at the end of March. "The government of Malaysia considers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the continuation of the occupation a phenomenon endangering not only the Middle-East, but the entire world, as it tends to deepen the hostility and suspicion between the United States and the Muslim World. Therefore, Malaysia is going to take a high profile involvement in an effort to end the occupation and the conflict" said Abdullah Badawi, the prime minister of Malaysia, in a conversation with members of the Israeli delegation.

The assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (who played a major role in the rebuilding of the country after its civil war), seemingly with Syrian involvement, launched a massive popular Lebanese outcry against Syrian troops being stationed in the country, and the crumbling of the pro-Syrian, and Syrian supported, Lebanese government. Under strong international and considerable Lebanese pressure, Syria announced in early April that it would remove all troops and intelligence personnel from Lebanon by he end of the month . That step is important for Lebanese independent development, but with many factions that were engaged in a long civil war prior to the arrival of the Syrian military, peace and stability are not a certainty, and much work will have to be undertaken to insure them. Indeed, there have been a number of bombings in Lebanon since Hariri's murder. The future of Hezbollah, a strong Syrian linked political and military force in the nation, is now uncertain in Lebanon. Many Lebanese hope that it will end its military activity to further its social service and political roles. There is also the question of the impact of withdrawal from Lebanon within Syria. Brian Maher wrote in the Power and Interest News Report , March 28, 2005, that a full withdrawal from Lebanon in the face of Western pressure would represent a serious humiliation for the ossified Ba'athist regime, which might not be able to survive such a display of perceived weakness. Jordan's King Abdullah , apparently concerned that that Israel might retaliate against the wrong party, in late March, warned that Syria and Hizbollah are likely to attack Israel in order to divert attention from the demands that Syria pull out of Lebanon.

The U.N. Development Program's Arab Human Development Report (which the U.S. attempted to block, and delayed for six months), compiled by a group of Arab professionals, released in April, calls for rapid progress toward democracy and freedom in the Arab world. The document contends that the United States and Israel have impeded such progress, which it says is caused, in part, by the structure of modern Arab states that offer somewhat greater personal freedom than previously, but little political freedom. "The Arab development crisis has widened, deepened and grown more complex to a degree that demands the full engagement of all Arab citizens in comprehensive reform." "The freedoms of opinion, expression and organization, in particular suffer from repression in most Arab countries ," preventing the emergence of effective opposition groups and parties. In Egypt . in a pro-democracy rally, the Muslim Brotherhood, some of its supporters holding the Qur'an, demonstrated, for the first time addressing domestic issues in downtown Cairo, at the end of March to protest the current political stalemate. "The security arrangements turned parts of the capital into an almost citizen-free fortress..."(Omayama Abdel-Latif, Al Ahram Weekly , March 31, 2005).

Direct bus service between the Pakistani and Indian sections of Kashmir is scheduled to begin in April, but is threatened by militants in Indian Kashmir. The two nations are encouraging joint economic development and trade between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir , including the formation of joint Kashmiri business and trade committees.

The first direct flights between Mainland China and Taiwan , since the Communist regime came to power in Beijing, in 1949, began in late January. At the same time, new legislation signed by China's People's Congress in March gives the government authorization to attack Taiwan if it attempts to unilaterally declare independence. That led the European Union to review plans to lift its arms sales embargo on China within the next few months (opposed by both Japan and the U.S.). While Beijing's claims over Taiwan are the most visible, it is to be noted that China has unresolved territorial maritime and land issues with thirteen of its neighbors . With Chinese economic and military capability growing, the potential for military conflict over the disputed regions is increasing. The Jamestown Foundation, China Brief, March 31, 2005, found that Social and economic changes at home are forcing China to modify its approach to international relations. In the 21st century, Beijing may be forced to depart from the Bandung spirit and the strategies put forward by Deng Xiaoping to "never take the lead" (bu chu tou) and "bide our time, build our capabilities" (taoguang yanghui).

It is becoming clear that China's leaders feel that they must capitalize on strategic opportunities to ensure that national interests are protected...Depending upon one's viewpoint, this is either alarming evidence of China's pending economic "threat" or a natural process stemming from China's economic development and "peaceful rise." The recent acquisition of a part of America's iconic IBM by a Chinese company, Lenovo, has been seen by many as a turning point and a symbol of China's rise and America's decline. The Chinese acquisition of IBM's faltering PC division represents a fundamental in shift the global IT industry, a new division of labor in which the successful players - the United States, China, and India - adopt a more complementary than confrontational approach.

The rise of Lenovo in the international scene also helps to underline Japan and Europe's diminished role, according to Jean-Pierre Lehmann, April1, 2005. In March, the Export-Import Bank of the United States provided US$ 5 billion to finance the building of Chinese nuclear power plants by US firms in the energy-starved economic giant. Some experts fear that the move could increase nuclear proliferation if China passes on atomic materials to other nations. Internally, China suffers from ethnic tensions that it attempts to suppress . Unrest is rooted in an increasing alienation among people who feel left out of the Chinese government's primary thrust toward economic growth, resulting in increased inequality, autocracy and corruption.

In 2004, at least 60,000 protests took place by ethnic minorities in China, more than 5 times the number that occurred annually a decade ago. In the village of Nanren, in Henan province, 500 Hui Muslims and 1500 Han Chinese engaged in a violent clash on October 28. (For more see Jehangir S. Pocha, "Ethnic Tensions Smolder in China," In These Times , January, 2005) The U.S. decision to sell F-16 fighters to Pakistan , in March, may effect the region. The sale strengthens the position of "pro-U.S". over "pro-China" lobbies within the Pakistani military. India is unhappy, but the U.S. has indicated that it is willing to sell the aircraft to India.

Survival International reported in March that The Indonesian army and police have killed three people, burned down houses, killed pigs and destroyed crops, in the latest in a series of attacks against tribal villages in the Papuan highlands . Indonesia's new President, former General Bambang Yudhoyono, the nation's first directly elected president, has vowed to end poverty and separatist conflicts. It remains to be seen what this means in practice and what his relations will be with the army, which has been independent and continues to inflict many human rights abuses. The Bush Administration wishes to reinstate military training and arms supplying to Indonesia, under the auspices of the war on terrorism. Human rights groups oppose this, and so far Congress has not removed the ban on military relations with Indonesia.

The government of Iran renewed its persecution of Baha'i, last year , as a cultural cleansing , destroying cultural landmarks and depriving Baha'i young people of education, a shift likely undertaken in the hope that the repression will be less noticed internationally ( One Country , July-September, 2004).

In October, the military rulers of Myanmar (Burma) removed Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, who sought to restore democracy , reportedly placing him under house arrest.

Pramit Mitra, writing in YaleGlobal , March 14, 2005 speculates that India's quest for securing energy could re-shape South Asia's geopolitical landscape and affect India's diplomatic relations , particularly with the U.S.

For the first time, Turkey has permitted the many thousand of its Assyrian citizens to celebrate their New Year publicly . It appears that the Istanbul government hopes that this will make it a more acceptable candidate for entry into the E.U.

The Russian killing of Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov is seen by Liz Fuller, in, EurasiaNet , March 8, 2005, as effectively demolishing the hope for a peaceful resolution of the Chechnya conflict . Command of the semiautonomous resistance forces, the various detachments of which are capable of operating independently for months at a time, now devolves to radical field commander Shamil Basaev, the next in seniority and experience after Maskhadov. While Maskhadov sought repeatedly to obtain Russia's consent to negotiate a peace settlement that would guarantee the security of the Chechen people within the Russian Federation, Basaev has made it clear that he has no interest in peaceful coexistence with Russia. But it is likely that others, as yet unknown or little known, will emerge in the months to come to challenge Basaev for that role, or to operate independently of him.

The popular peaceful coup d'etats of Georgia and the Ukraine have now been followed by one in Kyrgyzstan . There the uprising is being led by a far less disciplined force, with no widely recognized leader and no clearly defined program. Thus the situation in Kyrgyzstan. is unstable and uncertain . For some days there were two parliaments, of the old and the new politics. After the Parliamentary division was settled, the old President resigned, but the first attempt for the new parliament to act had to be postponed, for lack of a quorum. It may take months or years for political equilibrium to be recreated, and popular anger at the outgoing regime may be difficult to contain. Some analysts believe a recent pardon by Azerbajani President Ilham Aliyev. of opposition activists who were imprisoned in connection with post-election rioting in 2003, in an apparent attempt to show the international community that the Azerbaijani government is interested in reform, may increase the likelihood of a "democratic revolution" in Azerbaijan ," that is already being called for by some in the opposition.

C. J. Chivers, writing in The New York Times , January 17, 2005, states that bloodshed was avoided in the Ukraine's contested elections largely because government intelligence commanders , in an informal network of Ukrainian army officers known as the siloviki, told the police and army to stand down . Leonid Polyakov of the U.S. Army War College's Straegic Studies Institute said in December that, "Ukraine's destiny is critical to the security of the entire post-Soviet zone. It long has been the stated goal of Ukrainian defense policy to integrate with Euro-Atlantic structures like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and this goal has been one of the chief objectives of the United States, as well. Ukraine's State Security Service launched an investigation, in February, into the sale of six nuclear capable Kh-55 missles to China, and six to Iran , although export documents recorded the final recipient of some 20 of the missiles as "Russia's Defense Ministry".

Igor Torbakov, writing on Eurasianet , January 18, found the Kremlin's foreign policy course to be at a fork in the road. On the one hand, Russia aspires to join the "Western world." On the other, it retrains the dream of restoring its status as a great power dominating its geopolitical neighborhood. If Moscow does not make a choice, its foreign policy could continue to be filled with contradictions. Most Russian experts agree that the country faces a critical strategy dilemma, yet views strongly diverge on how best to tackle the problem. Liberal commentators hold that in the past year Russia experienced major setbacks on both paths, with the deterioration of its relations with western democracies, while a in its influence within the former Soviet Union declined.

The International Crisis Group warned in its January 24 report that that Kosovar Albanians are getting restless over the slow pace of the movement to finally resolve their future status. The Albanians want independence, and if they don't get some indication of involvement from the international community, they may take action alone , which could trigger a counter action from Serbia, which would be likely to reignite the war .

In Northern Ireland, progress toward moving ahead in the peace process by reforming a government, including Sinn Fein, has been further delayed by credible allegations that IRA members were involved in the fatal shooting of Robert McCartney (a Catholic) in January. The murder, following upon revelations of the IRA undertaking a $50 million bank robbery on December 20, and a March IRA offer to execute four murder suspects, has brought increasing calls for the IRA to disarm and disband, with many in the Catholic community supporting the disbanding.

A campaign by McCartney's sisters, extending to the U.S., for justice for their brother has contributed to pressure on the IRA and to a rise in the number of people in Northern Ireland and abroad who see the IRA as criminals rather than defenders of the rights of Northern Ireland's Catholics.

On April 6, Sinn Fein leader, Jerry Adams, urged IRA fighters to pursue their goals through politics as an alternative to 'armed struggle'. Some observers saw Adam's speech as an attempt to return the IRA to negotiations, which it left in February, and the situation to December, when the IRA offer to disarm, and Protestant demands for photographic evidence of decommissioning, were under negotiation.

British and Irish government reaction to Adams statement were moderately positive, but stressed waiting to see how the IRA would act, rather than focusing on Adams words. In the meantime, in March, the Office of the First Minister published ' A Shared Future' The Framework For Good Relations In Northern Ireland , setting out the governments program for establishing, over time, a shared society, defined by a culture of tolerance . The First Minister stated, "Our aim is for a normal civic society, where individuals are considered equals, diversity is respected and where violence is an illegitimate means to resolve differences, but where differences are resolved through dialogue in the public sphere.

'A Shared Future' outlines the scale of the challenge and indicates that good relations will be built on significant progress of the equality agenda. "The objectives outlined in 'A Shared Future' include: the elimination of sectarianism, racism and all forms of prejudice to enable people to live without fear of intimidation or harassment; the reduction of tension at interface areas; the facilitation of the development of a shared community where people wish to live, work, play and learn together; the promotion of civic mindedness via citizenship education through school and life long learning; the protection of members of minorities (whether, for example, by religion, race or any other grounds); and the shaping of policies, practices and institutions to enable trust and good relations to grow".

The policy is to develop on three levels: a triennial action plan covering actions across public authorities to be prepared by the Autumn; the enhancing of the roles and functions of the Community Relations Council; and a new district council Good Relations Challenge Programme, that will be established by 2007 to replace the existing program. ("'A Shared Future' outlines the fundamental principles and aims which underpin how all of us, government, local authorities, civic society, can work together to bring about a shared future between and within communities". A copy of the document and full text of the Written Ministerial Statement can be accessed at : www.asharedfutureni.gov.uk).

The Community Security Trust, which represents Britain's 290,000 person Jewish community on security matters, reported, in February, that attacks on the British Jewish community increased by 42% last year , with 532 "anti-Semitic incidents" - defined as malicious acts toward Jews - in 2004, including a record 83 assaults.)

The Basque separatist movement, ETA , after remaining quiet for several months following the Madrid train bombings by Muslim insurgents, set off small bombs in several Spanish cities, in December, injuring 18 people, on the anniversary of Spain's constitution, which established a system of regional autonomy that ETA rejects as insufficient. Spain undertook its first trial of a person for a crime against humanity committed in another country , in January, proceeding against a former Argentine naval officer who once admitted throwing political opponents to their death from an airplane.

In January, the European Parliament endorsed the European Union's first constitution , which will go into effect in 2007, if unanimously ratified by the EU's 25 member nations.

Since December, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has been pointing out that the UN's approach to the Darfur region of Sudan has not been working, with the Sudanese government continuing to participate in deadly ethnic cleansing attacks against Sudanese of African origin continuing to worsen a developing genocide, and a deteriorating humanitarian crisis . More recently, a the UN passed a resolution calling for a peace keeping force of several thousand, predominantly from the African Union Peace and Security Council, both to end the ethnic cleansing and bring security to Darfur, and to enforce the peace treaty, signed in Kenya, in January, between the government in Khartoum (in the North) and the People's Liberation Army (in the south ), ending a 20 year civil war. However, little has happened to actually build a peace force any where near the size authorized.

The International Crisis Group reported, on March 31 that Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania, are increasingly referred to by the U.S. military as "the new front in the war on terrorism ". The group assessed that there are enough indications, from a security perspective, to justify caution and greater Western involvement in the area. However, the Sahel is not a hotbed of terrorist activity. A misconceived and heavy handed approach could tip the scale the wrong way; serious, balanced, and long-term engagement with the four countries should keep the region peaceful. An effective counter-terrorism policy there needs to address the threat in the broadest terms, with more development than military aid and greater U.S.-European collaboration. A commission on Africa led by British Prime Minister Tony Blair is calling for wealthy nations to double their aid to the continent and on African nations to root out pervasive corruption . Blair stated that the impoverishment of Africa and the needless deaths of millions of children there each year present "the fundamental moral challenge of our time."

In November, a French air strike destroyed the Ivory Coast air force, following the death of 9 French soldiers who were part of a peacekeeping force . Ivory Coast's president Laurent Bagbo, who long suspected the French of aiding opposition rebels, then pleaded with the French to remove their tanks from Abidjan. In the follow up, the French moved cautiously to avoid being drawn into a colonial like conflict, and the situation eventually quieted. In early April, a peace agreement was signed to end the fighting which has taken place sporadically since 2002 between the government of the Ivory cost, controlling the wealthier mostly Christian south of the nation, and rebels in the largely Muslim North. Militias on both sides are to disarm and elections are called for October.

Western observers have stated that Zimbabwe's March parliamentary elections, that gave President Mugabe's party better than a two-thirds majority, suffered from massive electoral fraud. (Some African commentators have spoken more favorably of the voting). One indication of the fraud is that in several districts final vote tallies significantly exceed the number of ballots cast.

Former President Jimmy Carter , in a late January speech to the Organization of American States, stressed that the broad poverty in Latin America could lead to serious unrest. Latin America and the Caribbean have the world's largest income disparity, with 225 million people living below the poverty line. He stated that governments and the privileged must demonstrate the will to provide society's benefits to all citizens if radical uprisings are to be avoided . Argentina , having moved away from economically devastating neoliberal policies under the Presidency of left of center Kirchner, achieved 8% economic growth last year and the government is running a budget surplus . The International Monetary Fund (IMF) insists that Argentina use the surplus to pay off some of its international debt. But Kirchner is resisting doing so, emphasizing the need to use the funding to help Argentineans emerge from the continuing economic crisis.

The International Crises Group stated in its January 27 report that drugs finance the left-wing insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the far-right United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to a large degree, and thus are an integral part of Colombia 's conflict. But while the state must confront drug trafficking forcefully, President Alvaro Uribe's claim, that the conflict pits a democracy against merely "narco-terrorists" who must be met by all-out war, does not do justice to the complexity of the decades-old struggle.

Fighting drugs and drug trafficking is a necessary but not sufficient condition for moving Colombia toward peace , according to the ICG. The view that anti-drug and anti-insurgency policies are indistinguishable reduces the chances either will succeed and hinders the search for a sustainable peace. Ana Carraigan, in "War and hope in Columbia," In These Times , January 3, 2005, passes on that despite the U.S. spending $4 billion on eradicating drugs, and, since 2002, jointly on counter terrorism, the price of cocaine has actually gone down 31% on U.S, streets, since the operation's inception (according to the Rand corporation) showing no positive results from Plan Columbia, while the negative impact on people, crops and the water supply in areas sprayed with pesticide has been considerable. The Columbian governments counter attack against FARC has forced the guerillas out of many towns, but not a single insurgent leader has been captured, nor is there any indication of a drop in insurgent moral or increased willingness to negotiate a settlement.

Meanwhile, the poor living in the embattled areas are caught in the crossfire, suspected by both sides of collaborating with the enemy, and becoming poorer in the harsh conditions. Opponents of the war, human rights defenders, union leaders and indigenous leaders have "disappeared", been killed or accused by one of the governments one million paid informants, and then swept up in mass arrests that the Inspector General says detained 125,000 people in the first six months of last year. It was reported in February that the demobilization, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) process of soldiers fighting for Colombia's paramilitary forces succeeded in persuading 2,624 militia members to agree to turn in their weapons , subject themselves to judicial scrutiny, and enter job-training programs designed to reintegrate them into normal civilian life, in 2004.

Survival International reports that Indians in Brazil are holding sit-in protests this month , which on April 19 includes Brazil's 'Day of the Indian', outside the country's 'Ministries Esplanade' over the Lula government's 'appalling record on indigenous rights' .

On April is, but the 430,000 Indians in Brazil feel they have little to celebrate. Lula's 2002 election promises, included a 'special, emergency program to officially recognize the territory of many of the nation's 430 indigenous people. This policy was widely welcomed by native peoples. However, with almost no action to move on this matter, little over fifty percent of indigenous land has been fully ratified.

The Guarani Kaiowá Indians have been fighting for decades to win their land back from powerful landowners. Many Guarani Kaoiwá children suffer from malnutrition. Latest press reports say twenty-two children have died from starvation in 2005, but people working with the Guarani say this figure is likely to be even higher. Over one percent of Guarani Kaiowá Indians, most of them young, have committed suicide. This is one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Lula's government promised to end the impunity of those committing crimes against indigenous peoples. However in the last three decades at least 12 Makuxi Indians have been murdered by hitmen employed by ranchers, and nobody is serving a sentence for these crimes. For more information, visit http://www.survival-international.org.

Former Acapulco Mayor Zeferino Torreblanca, a leftist, won the race for Governor in Mexico's Guero state, in February, ending 76 years of PRI rule in the province . The Mayor of Mexico City, the leading candidate for President in recent polls, has been charged with a minor crime. If he is arrested, it would prevent him from running . Many commentators see the charges as an entirely political move to keep the progressive candidate from running. His policies, including calling for a renegotiation of NAFTA to make it beneficial to the average Mexican, are strongly opposed by many of Mexico's wealthy business leaders

Michael Weinstein wrote in, Power and Interest Report , April 4 (as stated by Global Beat ), that with power passing to the State Department, Washington has awakened to threats to its perceived interests around the world that had been festering since the Iraq intervention diverted attention from them. Despite the fact that Iraq continues to be an obstacle to fresh initiatives, Washington has decided to move to restore its global influence, including in South America, where left and center-left governments have taken control in the southern cone and a cycle of political instability has taken hold in the Andes. Washington sees Chavez to be its greatest problem in South America , because he is the most radically leftist regional leader and the only one offering a clearly alternative and opposed model to Washington's scenario of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (F.T.A.A.) composed of market democracies led by the United States.

At the same time that Washington has become more assertive, Chavez has sensed an opportunity to implement his vision of a united South America that acts in accordance with its own interests, independent of Washington, and a "new socialist society" based on cooperatives that would eliminate poverty and subordinate private business to broader social aims. Elements of Cavezplan are land reform and channeling oil profits to poor people. Although the "Bolivarian" vision is utopian -- and Chavez knows it -- it provides a framework for more practicable policies that put him on a collision course with Washington.

The tensions between Washington and Caracas reflect Chavez's judgment that the hemispheric balance of power has shifted against the United States and that Washington is not in a position to stop him from acting against its wishes. Since it is not clear that Chavez is correct, the conflict between Caracas and Washington has become a test of their relative influence in South America. Chavez was the leading speaker in protest of neoliberal globalization policies at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in January. In mid April, CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, came up for consideration by the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee . Because of "fast track," if either committee decides to send the trade pact to the floor, there could be a yes or no vote within 15 days.

Doctors Without Borders released their annual list, in January, of the ten most underreported humanitarian crises . In Northern Uganda, attacks on civilians by antigovernment forces have resulted in the abduction of thousands of children , many forced into combat or sexual slavery. In the Democratic Republic of Congo , more than 3 million people have died in a decade of fighting . In rural Columbia , civilians are caught in a more than three decade old civil war between the government and insurgents.

About eight million people a year develop active tuberculosis , which has become the most common opportunistic disease for people with HIV/AIDS . 14 years of civil war, disasters and the disintegration of health care plague Somalia . Forced relocation of people to unsafe areas in and around Chechnya in the course of the civil war. A costly healthcare system in Burndi excludes those who cannot pay .

North Korea's hunger crises has reached the point that most people cannot afford basic food items . Ethiopia suffers from chronic food shortages from droughts and lack of farm land. In Liberia many people have been displaced by a 15 year civil war .

UNICEF said, in December, that "too many governments are making informed, deliberate choices that hurt children" , and governments are failing to adequately protect children, with more than 1 billion living in severe hunger .

The G-7 nations , in February, decided to forgive poor countries debt by up to 100%, on a case by case basis, but would require countries wishing forgiveness to show how the money would be used to reduce poverty. A proposal by Britain to increase international aid by $50 billion annually did not receive approval.

In January, the Paris club of wealthy nations announced that they would allow Tsunami devastated nations to delay repayment of debt for up to a year , to speed recovery. In many places significant recovery has been taking place. The UN reported, in late January, that disaster aid camps have been rapidly shrinking as post-tsunami development proceeds. One long term ill effect of the Tsunami on Somalia's coast is that there has been a serious outbreak of illness from toxic and radio active waste broken loose from its containers, dumped in the ocean . Observers say that warlords were paid to allow the dangerous dumping .

At the end of March, Goldman Sachs released a report predicting that oil prices may stay above $50 per barrel for several years , following which oil prices increased sharply. On April 4th, light crude hit $58 for the first time ever. OPEC has responded by stating that it was prepared to increase production by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) if prices stay high. But according to experts, the market is so tight that this may have little impact, as evidenced by the very slight pause in oil price rise following OPEC's last 500,000 bpd production increase, on March 16th.

Crude oil prices moderated slightly in early April, but with Chinese and Indian energy demand rising faster than new oil production can come online, and with limits as to how much new oil can be found, swiftly increasing energy conservation while developing alternative energy, appear critical if the world is to avoid an economic crisis . Jehanigir Pocha, in "The Axis of Oil," In These Times , February 28, 2005, states, "

China and India are locked into an increasingly aggressive wrangle with the United States over the world's most critical economic commodity: oil . More than any other issue, this tassel will shape the economic, environmental and geopolitical future of these countries and the world. Ensuring a cheap flow of oil has always been one of the central goals of U.S. foreign and economic policy, and Washington's preeminent position in the world is based in large measure on its ability to do this. But China and India are increasingly competing with the U.S. to secure oil exploration rights in Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Latin America ."

Global Warming is occurring more quickly than previously believed , by most scientists. Though 2003 was the hottest summer in British history, with a sweltering heat wave, that killed 15,000 people, a study by a British climate research group, released in December, suggests that, in a few decades, the summer of 2003 might be cool compared to the temperatures that are likely to occur. The report notes: "

While climate is expected to change gradually over the course of the century, there are some components of the climate system which could change abruptly. There are also concerns that some processes may have a trigger point which, once exceeded, will make the changes inevitable, no matter how much we reduce the emissions subsequently."

These conclusions are echoed by other environmental scientists who have studied evidence of previous climate changes, which have often been rapid once certain thresholds were passed . Indeed, a study from Britain, released in January, suggests that Global warming may become twice as catastrophic as previously thought .

Flooding settlements on the British coast and turning the interior into an unrecognizable tropical landscape, are just some of the likely after effects, the world's biggest study of climate change shows.

The four year Arctic Climate Impact Assessment , released in November, finds that climatic changes resulting from human action are occurring particularly intensely in the Arctic region, including thinning sea ice by 8% in the last 30 years, wide spread melting of glaciers and rising temperatures in permafrost areas, with considerable melting of permafrost .

Projections are that oceans will rise an additional four inches to three feet in the next century . NASA reported that the 30 year rise in the Earths temperature, largely from human caused increase of green house gasses, is continuing, with 2004 the fourth warmest year on record . Current El Nino conditions in the Pacific are projected to make 2005 at least the second warmest year.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration continues to downplay the importance global warming. On December 18, without the participation of the U.S., the UN supported Conference on Climate Change took place in Argentina, adopting a package of measures to assist nations in preparing for climate change. The Kyoto Treaty on Global warming went into effect in February without the participation of the U.S.

MEA , March 30, stated that, " Approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth - such as fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests - are being degraded or used unsustainably . Scientists warn that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years.

Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem services on which humanity relies continue to be degraded ." While several thousand delegates are attended the annual 2-week U.N. conference on climate change in Buenos Aires, in December, the Bush administration did not participate, continuing to argue that global warming is not a serious danger, at least not quite yet, despite very broad international scientific consensus to the contrary. A federal study of the impact of air pollution, released in February, showed that air pollution from traffic and power plants appears to cause genetic changes in fetuses and increase the risk of cancer . A CDC study made public in February showed that fine particles in the same pollution are linked to lower birth weight in babies .

Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity stated on February 3rd, " In the world's oldest democracy, pressure on investigative journalists is usually exerted in sophisticated, non-lethal ways, under the public radar. Every day in Washington, D.C., thousands of government and corporate public relations flaks and lobbyists purvey their 'talking points' with a friendly smile, no matter how odious the client, no matter how intellectually dishonest or morally dubious their message. Journalists must trudge through the shameless 'spin'-that vanilla word admiringly used these days instead of 'lying,' which has a harshly judgmental, jarringly rude ring in Washington power circles. Sometimes the persuasion becomes less subtle. For example, when the Center for Public Integrity obtained, and prepared to publish online, the secret, proposed draft sequel to the USA Patriot Act, known as 'Patriot II,' we got calls from the U.S. Justice Department beseeching us not to publish..." The current problem of reduced transparency in the U.S. is not only that of subtle pressure on investigative journalists. The scientific community has stated its alarm at this administration's repressing of scientific data and direct misstatement of information, as well as official assertions contrary to known facts .

The FBI announced in December that violent crime in the U.S. in the first six months of 2004 was down 2% over the same period of 2003, and homicide was down 6%. Property crime also declined by 2%. In 2003 violent law breaking declined 3%, but homicides were up for the fourth year in a row, by 1.7% over the previous year.

The winter 2004 Issue of the SPLC Intelligence Report states that as Georgia has had an increase in its Latino population of over a half million in the last decade, hate crimes against Hispanics have increased , particularly in the northern half of the state where there are concentrations of white supremacist, neo-Nazi and Southern Heritage groups. The wealth gap in the U.S between white and black and Hispanic families grew from 1996 to 2002 . White family median worth rose 17.4% while Latino family wealth rose 14%, and that of blacks declined 16.1%.

On 1 February 2005, Nepal's King Gyanendra dismissed the government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba claiming that the government was incompetent in the fight against the 'Maoist' insurgency which began in 1996. The King assumed direct power and declared a state of emergency, suspending constitutional provisions on freedom of the press, speech and expression, peaceful assembly and the right against preventive detention. Three leading human rights organizations - Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists - warned that "Nepal's last state of emergency in 2001-2002 had led to an explosion of serious human rights violations, including increased extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, and a breakdown in the rule of law."

The King has now appointed a 10-man cabinet under his chairmanship with no prime minister. The short-term consequences means probable repression, especially in the Katmandu area, of the press, non-governmental organizations, and political leaders.

The longer-range significance of this most recent state of emergency is that it is the start of the third and final act of a drama which is likely to see the end of the monarchy as an institution, increased suffering among the already poor population and the danger of a 'power vacuum' between India and China.

Nepal, landlocked between India and China, has a terrain which ranges from the flat river plain of the Ganges in the south, through its large central hill region to the Himalayas in the North. Each ecological area has been populated by different peoples, some coming from India and others from Tibet. It was only late in the 18th century that the country took its current shape with the elimination of local chiefs in favor of a monarchy with its seat in Katmandu. The monarchy has tried to impose one Nepalese language and the Hindu religion as a cement on this diversity of ethnic groups, languages, and religions.

The often antagonistic relationship between India and China is a sub-theme of the drama. Nepal is strategically situated between Tibet and the northern border of India. Both powers view Nepal as a buffer zone over which each has jockeyed for influence. India considers Nepal as part of its 'zone of influence'. China is concerned that Nepal not be used as a base for Tibetan independence activities as it had been in the 1960-1972 period with Tibetan insurgency with its headquarters in the Mustang area of Nepal. China wishes to prevent India from being the sole influence in Nepal and is concerned that India might invade Nepal to prevent a change of regime. India, for its part, is concerned that China could take advantage of any upheaval in Nepal to strengthen its hand against India in the whole region.

Thus, one has to see the action in Nepal against a background of major regional politics and not simply as an insurgency in a far away area of interest only to mountain climbers and Buddhists going to the birthplace of the Buddha.

There is a long prologue to the first act of the drama during which a more-or-less constitutional monarchy is put into place and a parliament with political parties created in 1990. Unfortunately neither the Monarchy nor the Parliament has done much to restructure the economic and social life of the country. The poorer Nepalis, although they constitute the bulk of the population, have remained on the margins of public life. Nepal's economic policies have been shaped by the development ideologies and strategic interests of the donor countries. This has led to shortsighted, dependent forms of development based on playing aid donors one against the other. Development has been in the interest of the elite and of a growing urban middle class which has benefited without making sacrifices or building up domestic savings. There has been little land reform or modifications in the land-holding patterns. With an increase in population but without adequate growth in education and jobs, the young are discontented and open to political violence as well as crime.

The first act of the drama starts with bangs in February 1996 when the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) initiated an armed struggle against the Nepalese government with simultaneous attacks in different areas of the country. The leadership of the armed movement is 'Maoist' - having read books of Mao on the importance of rural guerrillas holding the countryside while letting the cities rot and fall. It is not influenced by the current Chinese government. The real nature of the revolt is more 'Naxalite', named after the village of Naxalbari in north Bengal where tea plantation workers revolted in 1967. Such rural revolts against persistent injustices are often linked to utopian ideologies of equality but do not have a coherent alternative program for government. The 'Maoists' are not a single movement with a well-defined chain of command but many separate revolts with local leaders. This makes negotiations or mediation difficult.

The 'Maoist' insurgency spread to most parts of the country feeding on poverty, class and caste discrimination, ethnic divisions and a lack of government development activities. The 'Maoists', however, do not administer the areas - they are only able to prevent the government from administering the areas. Thus, the bulk of the rural population must cope for themselves.

The first act ends with another bang on 1 June 2001 when King Birendra, his wife and seven other members of the royal family are murdered by his son, the Crown Prince, who then kills himself. See Jonathan Gregson Massacre at the Palace: The Doomed Royal Dynasty of Nepal (Miramax Books, 2002).

Act II begins with the brother of the murdered king becoming King Gyanendra. The King decided that he will play an important political role directly, having little taste for parliamentary life. His first major decision is to call for a ceasefire and negotiations with the 'Maoists'. Thus between July and September 2001, there are three series of talks between representatives of the 'Maoists' and the royal government. The 'Maoists' called for an end to the monarchy, the drafting of a new republican constitution, and an interim government in which they would have a major influence.

No common ground was found between the two sides. Thus in November 2001, the 'Maoist' guerrillas began a new offensive, and the King responded by getting more and newer weapons. The rest of the act is taken up with more fighting, more repression, a few inconclusive talks off stage, but with a larger audience starting to look at the play as government officials in the USA and the UK join Indians and Chinese in looking at what is going on. A few non-governmental organizations in Asia, the US, and Europe have become interested in the conflict and seek to play a positive, mediation role, but with little impact as yet. The divide between the government and the 'Maoists' is very wide. Some independent non-governmental groups in Nepal have proposed some peace measures such as the Birat Declaration for Action: Challenges for Peace and Development in Nepal (November 2003).

February 2005 is the start of the third and probably final act. The clouds darken, increased fighting within Nepal is probable. A greater flow of arms to the area is likely - government to government - from the US and the UK to the Royal Nepal government - from arms dealers via non-governmental groups in India to the 'Maoists'. The danger is real that India and China can be 'sucked into' the power vacuum or more likely willingly stepping in.

I had written in September 2002 for the New Delhi-based Tibetan Review an article "Nepal Watch: A priority" indicating that "The situation requires careful study to see if there are ways to help the forces of democratic change." It is still not clear to me what we outside Nepal can do usefully. There seems to be no 'middle ground' between the King and the 'Maoists'. Each wants the other to disappear. The political parties which functioned when there was a parliament are weak and had little base among the people. Non-governmental organizations outside the control of political parties are weak, but there might be ways to strengthen them.

For the moment, I believe that our priority should be to alert a wider group of people to the dangers of the situation, stressing that non-military means of conflict resolution should be found, and that we should be prepared to help quickly when we find proper and useful channels.

Excerpts from a Letter
on the YOX Movement in Aberbaijan
by Razi Nurullayev
razi_nurullayev@yahoo.co.uk
February 16, 2005

I have resigned from Azerbaijan Popular front Party, where I was serving as deputy-chairman on foreign affairs and joined ÇYOXÈ (which means "NO") MOVEMENT - Azerbaijan, which was also initiated by me after having learned the nonviolent actions throughout the world to which I have given full two years of mine, also reading and appreciating your works on this field. Now this movement grows bigger. We need to get an international support, in order to bring to positive and happy end our newly initiated a social democratic movement. Nevertheless, we have started it from nowhere, with no funding, we hope that we can get some support from democracy organizations worldwide.

I have visited Ukraine in December 2004 during the elections and also attended the closing ceremony of PORA on January 2005 and stayed for a week to converse with PORA. Now we are in close contact and hope that it'll give a push to our movement. We have prepared a large e-mail list to distribute across the Europe to raise awareness. There are a lot of negotiations going on to organize trainings for the new members. Government has become very strict and prohibited all kinds of meetings.

Now PORA helps us to design the symbol of the movement and also ICNC from USA has put us in contact with the USA digital company, who is also preparing the symbol. "YOX" itself is going to be the symbol .

As I said earlier ÇYOXÈ means "NO". This is a nonviolent movement in Azerbaijan, that wishes to say ÇYOXÈ to the regime, which is now in power. We think, to say to this government and president and all its institutions ÇYOXÈ until they resign, otherwise hold democratic elections. This autumn we have the parliamentary elections and we prepare for it. This movement will be coordinated by people who will be responsible for particular fields, in case myself, I'll be unofficial leader of the movement and this is just for taking sometimes necessary decisions. There is no leader at all. We think, the word ÇYOXÈ itself should be a logo, but well designed and any letter in it may contain something indicating to nonviolent movement, or that can psychologically affect people to get up or throw away fear etc. It should be very simple without a lot of decorations, so that people should understand it. It also may be designed in the way that we'll develop it gradually as the movement grows bigger, otherwise wins small victories. It may be a bit "forceful", but also may contain other words. The letter "O" in ÇYOXÈ will have a green frond inside, meaning that from the ruins of non-democracy a branch gives forth to a new life. Green is our color.

There are obvious difficulties we face. I think, the people who wage nonviolent struggle should frequently travel and learn the experiences, which adds up the courage and new experiments. We are deprived of this. Also we should be able to hold trainings for our members.

"YOX" MOVEMENT-AZERBAIJAN is a group without a single leadership and is composed of independently thinking people and mainly of youth. "YOX" MOVEMENT - is a movement of everyone and every joined person becomes its leader. All people have a chance to become a leader at the "YOX" movement. But, our struggle says "YOX" to a single leadership, instead, tries to help to free Azerbaijan from an anti-democratic thinking, to see it fully independent and democratic. And the single leader of the country will be elcted by democratic elections.

Our aim is to "YOX" to an undemocratic though and thinking within the framework of democratic methods and law, contribute to the establishment of democracy in Aberbajan, to give full freedom to the nation, and assist with the integration to the west in quick steps in order to maintain our gained victory.

"YOX" Movement - Azerbaijan Campaign will say "YOX" to any anti-democratic steps at the Parliament, Presidential, and Municipal elections. We shall say "YOX" to any anti-democratic attempts and say "H?" (it means "YES" in English) to fairness and justice at the forthcoming October 2005 Parliamentary elections. Our vision for tomorrow: Anti-democratic Regime - " YOX", Repression - "YOX" , Democratic State - "H?", Democracy "H?", Corruption, Bribery - "YOX" , Good Education - "YES", "?ntegration to West and Democratic Institutions " - "H?", New Job Places - "H?", Favourable Business Environment "H?", Respect for La w - "H?", Rich State - "H?", Rich People - "H?", Real Intellectuals - " H? ", Youth - " H? ", Political Emmigrants return home - "H?", Garabag under occupation - "YOX", False Elections - "YOX" , False Parliament - "YOX", Bureaucracy Willfulness - "YOX", Violence - "YOX". Our principles: volunteering, impartiality/objectiveness. nonviolent means, nonpartisanship, discipline.

3/03/05 update: Now Azerbaijan lives a shock. ''YOX" Movement - Azerbaijan is very much concerned and threatened today. It has become very dangerous to live and work in Azerbaijan. Today on 2 March 2005 a well-known journalist Elmar Huseynov, editor-in chief of Monitor journal was killed in front of his apartment. He was shot dead in the heart. He was a man who was writing against the government and criticizing their antidemocratic actions. This is very bad sign. We are shocked. Now we do not know how to act and what to write. Just, please, know this.

Numerous commentators, in Israel and abroad, speak of "a window of opportunity" and a unique chance to restart the peace process. But for that to be true, quite a few steps are needed - in the first place, on the part of the occupier who has the overwhelming power on the ground:

* Complete cessation of the settlement construction and extension, going on throughout the West Bank, and dismantling of all the "unauthorized settlement outposts" which the government promised more than a year ago;

* Achieving an agreement on an immediate, bilateral ceasefire, including an end to all violent acts by the IDF on the one hand and all Palestinian organizations and armed groups on the other;

* Total cessation of the manhunt against the "wanted Palestinians", their assassinations and detentions and the nightly invasions of the Palestinian towns and villages;

* Removal of all the roadblocks which deny free movement to the Palestinians and strangle the Palestinian economy;

* Release of the Palestinian political leaders imprisoned in Israel, such as Marwan Barghouti and Husam Hader, members of the Palestinian Legislature;

* Widespread release of Palestinian prisoners, including those sentenced to long terms and those defined as "having blood on their hands" (most decision-makers on both sides, Israelis as well as Palestinians, are people bearing direct responsibility to killings, including the killing of civilians).

* The return of Israeli forces to the positions held on September 2000, at the outbreak of the present Intifada, and restoration of the status of the "A" areas as sovereign Palestinian territory, to which Israeli armed forces have no access;

* A stop to the construction of "The Separation Wall" and immediate dismantling of the wall sections which penetrate into the West Bank territory and deprive Palestinians of land and livelihood - in accordance with the verdict of the International Court at the Hague.

* Resuming the negotiations between the state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority/Palestinian Liberation Organization, on all issues including and especially the definite agreement between these two parties.

- The withdrawal of the Israeli armed forces and settlers from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank must be conducted under a detailed agreement between the two sides, rather than as a unilateral Israeli act;

- Occupation in the Gaza Strip must be ended completely, with all parts of its territory evacuated including the area of the Egyptian border ("Philadelphi Route"), giving the inhabitants free access to the outside world by land, sea and air.

- Third parties, such as Egypt and/or an international force, can be involved in the Israeli evacuation of the Gaza Strip and stabilizing the situation during and after the evacuation, with the dispositions and authority of such forces defined in an Israeli-Palestinian agreement.

- Houses and public utilities in the evacuated Israeli settlements would not be demolished but handed over intact to the Palestinian side, with their value enumerated by an agreed international agency, to be reckoned in future negotiations;

- It should be explicitly agreed that Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the norhern West Bank would not be a final step, but a prelude to a process aimed at a definite peace agreement between the State of Israel and the State of Palestine to be, resuming implementation of the "Road Map" defined by the international community;

- As stipulated in "The Road Map", the international facilitator and arbiter in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations should be the international "Quartet" in its entirety, rather than the United States alone - which is manifestly unable and unwilling to act impartially;

- The border between Israel and Palestine would be based on the borders of June 5, 1967, with the possiblity of mutual border rectifications being agreed upon;

- United Jerusalem shall be the capital of both states, West Jerusalem the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine;

- There shall be a fair and agreed solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees.

Obviously Ariel Sharon, Prime Minster of Israel, is completely unwilling to accept even a small part of these principles, as it is not at all his aim to end Israeli occupation on most of the West Bank. In the short range, Sharon may pay lip service to "the new chance for peace" but in practice he does all in his power to cause the failure of the newly-elected Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen) - as he did in 2003, when Abbas was Prime Minister.

Knowing the above full well, Nobel Prize Laureate Shimon Peres led his Labor Party to enter the Sharon Cabinet, take up portfolios and assume full legal and moral responsibily for its acts. Yossi Beilin, architect of the Oslo and Geneva Accords, saved the Sharon Government from falling and made his Meretz/Yahad Party into one of the main pillars ensuring its continued existence. Also Knesset Members Dahamshe and A-Sana of the United Arab Party followed suit to a certain degree - by abstaining in the Knesset vote.

These parties and leaders, who got the confidence of hundreds of thousands of voters on the basis of opposing the occupation and declaring their adherence to peace, have assumed a grave responsibility. However sincere their motives might be, they risk going down in history as having helped to perpetuate the occupation and bloody conflict. The very least which can be expected of them, in this precarious situation, is not to confine themselves solely to ensuring implementation of the Gaza Disengagement but rather use in every possible way the leverage they now posses over Sharon, to push towards a total end of the occupation.

For further details contact: Adam Keller, Gush Shalom Spokesperson + 972-3-5565804, + 972-50-6709603, or Gush Shalom, pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 www.gush-shalom.org/:

Now it's official: "the First Democracy in the Arab World" or "the Second Democracy in the Middle East" has been born.

The Palestinian elections have impressed the world. Until now, if elections were held in any Arab country at all, there was only one candidate, and he received 99.62% of the vote. Yet here there were seven candidates, there was a lively election campaign and the winning candidate got only 62%.

The truth is, of course, that Palestinian democracy existed already. In 1996, the Palestinians held elections for the presidency and the parliament, monitored by international observers. Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian struggle for liberation, was not the only one standing; another candidate, Samikha Khalil, a respected woman, did garner almost 10% of the vote. But because of Arafat's dominant personality, the insufficient separation between the branches of government and the relentless Israeli defamation campaign against him, many people around the world did not recognize the Palestinian democracy.

Now the situation is different. Nobody can deny the near-miracle that has happened: the clean transition from the Arafat era to the era of his successors, and the fair elections held under strict international supervision. And, most importantly, democracy was not imposed from the outside, at the whim of a foreign president, but grew from below. And not under normal conditions, but under a brutal occupation.

The whole world acknowledges the Palestinian democracy. That, by itself, creates a new political situation.

Much now depends on the personality of Abu-Mazen. He is setting out under the shadow of his great predecessor. Those who succeed a Founding Father always have a problem at the beginning, like the heirs of Bismarck or Ben-Gurion.

Just think of the man who succeeded Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, the founder of modern Egypt and the idol of the entire Arab world. When Nasser died, I asked my friend, Henry Curiel, what kind of person his almost unknown successor was.

Curiel, who founded the first (mainly Jewish) Egyptian Communist party, had a razor-sharp mind. In Paris he had set up a kind of international center of assistance for liberation movements the world over, while maintaining close ties to his homeland. His answer was short and sharp: "Sadat is a simpleton."

He was not alone in this view. Egyptians used to tell a joke about the dark spot on Sadat's brow: "At every meeting of the Free Officers Committee (that was then ruling the country), Nasser would ask his colleagues to express their opinion. One after the other they stood up and spoke. At the end, Sadat too would get up to speak. Nasser would put his finger on his brow and gently push him back into his chair, saying: Oh, sit down, Anwar!"

Yet upon assuming the presidency, Sadat astounded the world. He sent his army across the Suez Canal, achieving the first significant military victory ever over the Israeli army. His visit to Jerusalem was a brilliant act without precedent in history. Never before had a leader visited the capital of the enemy while still in a state of war.

Abu-Mazen has lived all his life in the shadow of Arafat. He was not a military leader, unlike the adored Abu-Jihad, who was murdered by Israel. He was not in command of the security apparatus, unlike Abu-Iyad, who was murdered by Abu-Nidal. Since 1974, he was closely associated with Arafat's historic efforts to achieve a political settlement with Israel, and in charge of the contacts with the Israeli peace forces. I myself met him for the first time in Tunis, in 1983.

I shall not be surprised if Abu Mazen, as the president of the Palestinian State-in-the-Making, exhibits talents and attributes that did not find their proper expression during the Arafat era. He may yet become the Palestinian Sadat.

Of course, Abu-Mazen is very different from Sadat. The Egyptian leader had a dramatic flair (like Menachem Begin), he loved big gestures (like Arafat). Abu-Mazen's style is the very opposite.

And another huge difference: Sadat was in absolute control of a big country. He could afford to ignore different views. Abu-Mazen does not enjoy this luxury.

He brings with him to his job a valuable dowry: his relationship with the President of the United States.

George Bush is a simple fellow. He likes some people and hates others, and this decides the policy of the greatest power on earth. He likes Ariel Sharon and fawns on him. Since he has never been in battle, he admires the combat-rich Israeli general. Sharon personifies for him the American myth - the annihilation of the Indians and the conquest of the territories. Arafat, on the other hand, reminded him of an Indian chief, whose language is unintelligible and whose ploys are satanic.

When Bush saw Abu-Mazen in Aqaba, a respectable person in a business suit, without beard or keffiyeh, he liked him on sight. That's why he congratulated him this week and invited him to the White House. The question is whether Abu-Mazen can translate this attitude quickly into political achievements.

The situation presents Sharon with a difficult dilemma. His natural inclination is to do unto Abu-Mazen what he did so successfully to Arafat: demonize him and cut his ties with America. Already he is muttering darkly about Abu-Mazen's unwillingness to destroy the "terrorist organizations".

But Sharon knows that he must behave with the utmost care, so as not to make Bush angry. As long as Bush thinks that Abu-Mazen is O.K., Sharon must not be seen to undermine him. This, too, gives Abu-Mazen a chance.

His first task is to come to terms with the refusal-organizations. No leader can conduct national policy with armed factions firing in the opposite direction.

Ben-Gurion was in a similar situation before the foundation of Israel, when faced with the Irgun and the Stern Group who acted independently. Once he tried to integrate them into a unified "Hebrew Revolt Movement", at another time he handed their fighters over to the British police. But it is essential to remember: Ben-Gurion started the decisive confrontation - by shelling the Irgun ship Altalena - only after the State of Israel had already come into being. Then the two organizations were incorporated into the new Israeli army.

Anyone who says that Abu-Mazen is ready or able to start a civil war against Hamas does not know what he is talking about. Palestinian public opinion would not stand for it. Most Palestinians believe that without the armed struggle, Sharon would not be talking of withdrawing from Gaza. They are ready for a cease-fire in order to give Abu-Mazen a chance. But they do not want the liquidation of the fighting organizations, because it may be necessary to renew the armed struggle if Abu-Mazen can't convince the Americans and the Israelis to enable the Palestinians to realize their national aims.

In his dealings with Hamas, Abu-Mazen, like Arafat, will prefer a combination of negotiations, political pressure and mobilizing public opinion. He will have to convince the armed factions to accept the national strategy that is adopted by the leadership. In return, he will have to welcome Hamas into the political system, the PLO and the parliament.

The attack at the Karni crossing this week was a demonstration of power by the armed factions. It was a classic guerilla action, much as the recent destruction of an army post on the "Philadelphi Axis". The organizations want to prove that they have not been vanquished, but rather that they have achieved a draw with the Israeli army. If a cease-fire is arranged, it will not be a sign of weakness on their part. In the same way, the Yom Kippur attack preceded the Egyptian-Israeli peace, and the Hizbullah guerilla war preceded the withdrawal from Lebanon.

If Abu-Mazen achieves such a cease-fire, he will be able to address his main task: to win over Israeli and international public opinion and to change the policy of the United States.

Sadat succeeded in both. But Sadat was dealing with Menachem Begin, who was willing to relinquish Egyptian territory in order to continue his struggle against the Palestinians and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Sharon, too, opposes the creation of a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with its capital in East Jerusalem. But Abu-Mazen, like Arafat, cannot and will not be satisfied with anything less than what is now a sanctified aim.

That is another huge difference between Sadat and Abu-Mazen: Sadat came to Jerusalem only after he was secretly assured that Begin was ready to give back all of Sinai. Sharon, on the other hand, is promising Abu-Mazen nothing at all.

Perhaps the second intifada has come to an end. Perhaps the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip will develop into a general, mutual cease-fire.

For me, the words "cease fire" have an extra resonance. When I was a soldier in the 1948 war, I twice experienced what it means to wait for a cease-fire. Each time we were totally exhausted after heavy fighting in which many of our comrades had been killed or wounded. We hoped with all our hearts that a cease-fire would really come into effect, but did not allow ourselves to believe in it. In both cases, a few minutes before the appointed hour, along the whole front line a crazy cacophony of firing erupted, everybody shooting and shelling with everything he had. To attain some last-minute advantages, as it appeared afterwards.

And then, suddenly, the shooting stopped. An eerie quiet settled in. We looked at each other and left unspoken what we all felt: We are saved! We have been left alive!

I understand, therefore, the feelings of the fighters on both sides, who are now hoping that the mutual cease-fire will come into effect and hold. After four and a quarter years of fighting, everybody is exhausted.

Naturally, each side will claim victory. The Palestinian organizations will assert that it was only the Qassam rockets and the mortar shells which compelled Israel to agree to a cease-fire. The Israelis will claim that the Israeli army has crushed terrorism and compelled the Palestinians to give up.

The Israeli army has not won, since it did not succeed in putting an end to the attacks, much less in "destroying the terror infrastructure". On the eve of the cease-fire, the Qassam rockets and mortar shells have turned life in the town of Sderot into hell. The inhabitants don't hide that they are nearing the breaking point.

Moreover, the organizations reached a new level by undertaking more complicated attacks, real guerilla actions. The destruction of the army outpost on the "Philadelphi axis" involved blowing up a tunnel beneath it and storming the post on the ground. Similarly, the attack on the Karni checkpoint combined the explosive demolition of a wall with an attack by fighters. These actions were reminiscent of those of the Irgun and Stern Group in the last years of the British mandate.

Our army had no answer to the Qassams and the guerilla actions. Haven't they tried everything? Brutal incursions. Shelling by tanks, killing fighters and bystanders. Demolition of thousands of homes. Targeted assassinations.

Nothing helped. There remained only the method advocated on TV by Israel Katz, a cabinet minister: to bomb and shell the Gaza Strip towns, open the border to Egypt in one direction and drive hundreds of thousands of inhabitants out into the Sinai desert. (That is what Moshe Dayan did to the Suez canal towns during the War of Attrition, in the late 1960s.) It has been reported that Ariel Sharon himself proposed, after the Karni incident, the bombing of towns and villages in the Gaza Strip. But nowadays this is not possible: neither the Israeli public, nor world public opinion would stand for it.

The simple truth is that the generals are bankrupt. But they have no reason to feel ashamed: no other army has won such a contest in the last hundred years. The French in Algeria arrived at the same point, in spite of torturing thousands of men and women. The same happened to the Americans in Vietnam, in spite of burning down dozens of villages and massacring their inhabitants. Even the Nazis did not succeed in putting down the French resistance, however many hostages they executed.

Our generals, like all the generals before them, made the understandable mistake of thinking in terms of war. But this was no conventional war. A war is a confrontation between armies, and it is fought with methods that have evolved throughout the ages. The confrontation between an army of occupation and resistance forces is quite different. The factors governing that are not taught in officers' courses.

True, the Israeli army tried to improvise, with some success. But it could not win. Because victory means breaking the will of the opponent to resist. And that did not happen.

Interestingly enough, this questions is not posed openly, not even by the Palestinians themselves. First of all, because the idea has been accepted throughout the world that the Palestinian resistance is "terrorism", and who would dare to assert that terrorism had won? The more so since the Palestinians - like the Israelis - committed fearful atrocities.

Also, the propaganda war between Israelis and Palestinians is a kind of world championship of victimhood. Each side presents itself as the ultimate victim. Each side publicizes pictures of dead children, weeping mothers, demolished homes.

Because of this, the Palestinian spokespersons do not boast of the fighting of their compatriots. They avoid pointing to the thousands of their fighters who sacrificed their lives, the children who confronted the tanks, the hundreds of commanders who were "liquidated" and for each of whom a substitute was found, for whom in turn a substitute was found, and so forth. About this, books will be written, songs will be sung, tales will be told in future generations.

Another fact: Palestinian society has not been broken. Israeli tanks roam their streets, hundreds of roadblocks prevent movement from village to village, the economy is shattered, most men are unemployed, hundreds of thousands of children suffer from malnutrition. And in spite of this, miraculously, Palestinian society continues functioning somehow, life goes on, fatigue and exhaustion have not forced it to surrender.

Does this mean that the Palestinian side has won? The organizations can claim that Sharon would not have talked about withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and evacuation of the settlements there if the attacks had not taken place. That is certainly true. But Sharon has not yet begun to consider leaving the West Bank. On the contrary, the settlement activity there is reaching new heights and the land grab is in full swing in the shadow of the "separation fence". One cannot call that a Palestinian victory.

All this points to a deadlock. The Israeli army knows that it cannot vanquish the Palestinians by military means. The Palestinians know that they cannot throw off the occupation by military means.

For the Palestinians, a draw is a huge achievement. The inequality between the two sides is immense. If one takes into account only the strength of arms and the size of forces, without considering the moral factors, the Israeli advantage is astronomical. In such a situation, a draw is a victory for the weak.

We should admit this without hesitation. It is not wise to present the Palestinian side as if it were beaten and broken. Not only because this is untrue, but also because it is dangerous. The boasts of the army propagandists, as if Abu Mazen has folded up under Israeli pressure, are at best stupid, and at worst they are intended to demean and provoke the Palestinians to new violence (or to acts of madness). The Egyptian victory at the beginning of the 1973 war set the scene for Anwar Sadat to make peace with Israel. The Palestinian pride in their steadfastness can make it more acceptable for them to keep the cease-fire.

Now, both sides are exhausted. Palestinian suffering is manifest. Israeli suffering is less obvious, but, nonetheless, real. The costs of the occupation amount to tens of billions, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have sunk beneath the poverty line, the social services are collapsing, foreign investment has not recovered, the level of tourism is pitiful. And, more importantly: during the intifada, 4010 Palestinians and 1050 Israelis have lost their lives.

But a cease-fire is only an interlude, not peace itself. If wisdom prevails in Israel (since it is the stronger side) negotiations for a final settlement will start at once, with the general aim agreed in advance: a Palestinian state in all the territory of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

If wisdom does not prevail (and in politics, the victory of wisdom would be something new), this cease-fire will end up like many before: just an interval between two rounds of fighting.

We are faced with a road sign pointing in two opposite directions: one end directed towards peace, the other towards the next violent confrontation

Source: Amin.org, http://www.amin.org, January 14, 2005.
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service with permission to republish.

I participated in the Palestinian presidential elections very early on Jan. 9. I drove to the village of Anata just outside the municipal borders of Jerusalem, showed them my ID card, got my right hand thumb inked and was given a ballot which I used to cast my vote.

The ink, which some claimed could be easily removed, has stayed on my thumb for a week. Not that it bothered me. Instead, I used it as a badge of honor, showing it off to relatives and friends in Amman and even in Beirut.

I believe that Jan. 9 will be as important for the Palestinians as Sept. 11 was for Americans. It will be remembered as the date which has legally and popularly ushered in a new political era for Palestinians.

The results Mahmoud Abbas accomplished (both in votes received and turnout) confirm his important political role in the post-Arafat era.

Many praised the tenacity and persistence of the many Palestinians insisting on voting despite the occupation and the checkpoints (in spite of the false claims by Israel that it would ease restrictions). While visiting Lebanon this week, I met with Talal Salman, the editor of the left-wing daily As-Safir. I found him, like many other Arabs, to be very impressed with how Palestinians handled themselves during the elections.

Abu Mazen's era will clearly be a challenging one. I was impressed by his statement during the victory speech, in which he said that the small jihad is over and now the greater jihad is upon us. I was waiting to see if Fox TV or William Safire will pounce on Abu Mazen without even knowing what is meant by this statement. In Islam, the smaller jihad is the military jihad against the enemies of God, while the greater jihad (or struggle) is the internal jihad. By running and winning the elections on a platform of non violence and against military acts, Abu Mazen has, in his own eyes, overcome the smaller jihad and has promoted himself to the much more difficult, greater, jihad. It is the difficult soul searching in which you have to struggle with yourself.

I am sure that the greater jihad for Abu Mazen will mean having to decide in favor of the greater interest of the Palestinian people. That decision could come sooner than many people think. Abbas' next steps will be to secure a firm ceasefire agreement, which for the Palestinians will mean a stoppage of attacks against Israelis.

There are at least two things in favor of Abu Mazen's efforts to produce an effective quiet from the Islamists. His strong victory on a high turnout has made it clear that the vast majority of Palestinians support his political platform. It is very important to note that during the election campaign Abbas refused to back down on his demands for an end to the militarization of the Intifada, and refused to apologize for his criticism of the rocket attacks. Noticing the high turnout and the strong mandate that he got, some of the Islamic leaders began publicly casting doubt on the validity of the elections. But a senior Hamas leader, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, rejected these calls by saying on television that Hamas respects the results of the elections and the will of the Palestinian people.

Another item in favor of Abu Mazen is the carrot of the legislative elections. The elections for the next Palestinian parliament, now scheduled for July, is very attractive to the Islamic groups, especially Hamas. They have already encouraged all their supporters to register and did reasonably well in the first leg of the local elections. The result of these elections has whetted their political appetite and they seem poised to participate in full force in the elections this summer.

Many things can happen between now and July, and they are not all within the abilities of the Palestinian leadership. Provocations in the form of further Israeli assassinations or incursions can easily turn a period of quiet on the part of the Palestinians into violence. Splinter groups might also want to mess up any understanding reached between Abu Mazen and the Islamic groups. While these groups might go along with Abbas in talking about a ceasefire, it might take a long time before they officially commit themselves.

A deadline for clear answers will most probably be demanded by Abu Mazen and his aides negotiating with the Islamic groups. The tolerance level will certainly be close to zero after such a date elapses.

If Abu Mazen's efforts at producing a reasonable period of quiet begins to fail, this will be the time that his inner soul will be challenged.

Will he be able to stay neutral if the Islamic and radical militants violate understandings or will he find enough inner strength (the greater jihad) to do what is in the supreme interest of the Palestinian people, even if it means having to be tough with the militants?

Daoud Kuttab is director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in Ramallah.

Source: The Washington Post, January 14, 2005, http://www. washingtonpost.com. Distributed by the Common Ground News Service with permission to republish.

The election of Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) in Palestinian voting Sunday came as no surprise. The organized election process, the lively campaign and the openness to the media have all proved once again that if a Palestinian state is established it will be the first Arab democracy. But the state has not yet been established, and the system now headed by Abbas is not much more than a stage set.

The real question is not whether Abbas is genuinely ready for peace and will start combating terrorism tomorrow but whether the United States, Europe and Israel are prepared to seize this rare opportunity: the election as Palestinian leader of a pragmatic person who has taken part in all the peace processes with Israel and who courageously came out against the use of violence in the most recent intifada.

Today Abbas does not need to prove himself. At 69, he is one of the more "transparent" politicians in the region. His books, speeches, interviews and actions are well known. Even during the most difficult moments of the recent election campaign, he went out of his way to condemn the rockets fired against Israel by Hamas, for which he and his policies came under heavy criticism from Islamic elements.

In 1995, after two years of negotiations, we agreed upon what came to be known as the Beilin-Abu Mazen Agreement. This unsigned document was to serve as the basis for the Clinton plan five years later, and to form the basis for negotiations leading up to the Geneva accord, inaugurated a year ago.

On a personal level, Abbas is a pragmatic person, but not necessarily a moderate. He has no sympathy for the Zionist enterprise, but he understood, before many of his colleagues, that the distress of the Palestinian people could be resolved through an independent state next to Israel, rather than in place of it. In principle, his permanent-status agreement is no different from Yasser Arafat's, and at the moment of truth, he may flaunt it, positioning himself as continuing Arafat's legacy. But the real question is not the principles; it is the details. In my opinion, it will be possible to reach a detailed peace agreement with Abbas.

Abbas has won the genuine and extensive support of his people for his new role. Born in Safed and himself a refugee (which means it will be easier for him to persuade refugees to accept the payment due them), he has gained the confidence of President Bush, of the Arab world, of Europe and of many Israeli citizens on both the right and left wings. He opposes violence of any type and has been struggling for a long time to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian permanent-status agreement. His election to head the Palestinian Authority represents a rare opportunity indeed.

But if from this point onward we do nothing more than wait for Abbas to move, it is an opportunity we are likely to miss. Abbas stands at the head of a system that has been destroyed over the past four years. There is no law and order in the Palestinian territories; people are afraid to leave their homes at night. Only part of the security forces obey the head of the Palestinian Authority. Half of Palestinians live under the poverty line, and unemployment is rampant. Abbas may well set up a "government," appear at assemblies, give interviews, try to reach understandings with Hamas and even make visits to other countries. But if he wants to bring about genuine change in conditions, he needs us -- not sitting on the sidelines but out there on the stage, with him.

If President Bush makes do with implementing the "road map" without updating it and setting realistic deadlines, without sending an envoy to the region to supervise and monitor events, without someone on his behalf working day and night to implement the plan that Israel and the Palestinians agreed on (each side according to its own interpretations), then Abbas will fail. Without major political vision, he will not be able to preserve his political existence.

If the Europeans do not provide assistance in financing economic plans, in rehabilitating the infrastructure and in helping the Palestinian security system to train and to function as an effective police force, Mahmoud Abbas will become history even before one of the warlords takes control of the Palestinian Authority. He must prove that he is capable of changing the day-to-day situation and that tranquility is beneficial to the Palestinians.

If Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proceeds with the withdrawal plan from Gaza as if his partner in peace is Yasser Arafat, if the targeted assassinations continue, if the number of checkpoints is not reduced, if the parties do not return to the negotiating table to discuss the permanent-status agreement after four years during which they have not exchanged a single official word -- then it will be a waste of time to prepare profile reports on Abbas. Then we will have missed this opportunity, too. And we are so very good at missing opportunities.

The writer, a former justice minister of Israel, was initiator of the Oslo peace process. He is the leader of the Yahad Party-SDI (Social Democratic Israel).

Source: The Daily Star, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/, February 3, 2004. Distributed by the Common Ground News Service with permission for republication.

Brussels - Are Israelis and Palestinians really ready to strike a peace agreement? Events have certainly moved at a brisk pace in recent months, with one obstacle after another to a lasting deal seeming to fall. Yasser Arafat's death was followed by the choice of his successor in a direct election with universal suffrage, which was accompanied by Israel's decision - one unique in the world - to help, not hinder, the democratic process in territories it occupies. As a result, no one doubts Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' legitimacy.

Moreover, with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's announcement of his intention to withdraw Israel's army unilaterally from Gaza, the occupation itself is once again an open question, offering opportunities for further progress. Indeed, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's support for the Gaza withdrawal has helped open the door to real negotiations.

Such an impressive sequence of events has not been seen for a long time in the Middle East. As a result, many - in and outside the region - are optimistic again. Even Sharon ventures a few favorable comments, and American diplomats express visible sighs of relief that progress toward peace can at last be made.

I can attest to the gathering momentum toward peace, having just returned from Palestine, where I led a nearly five-week mission of European Union observers, the largest ever put in place by the EU. The mission was 260-strong on the day of the election and the counting of the vote, while 40 of us were there for the entire five-week period.

My testimony about the election is categorical: the circumstances were difficult, but the voting was unconstrained and cheating was absent. Given the conditions, the 60 percent voter turnout was astonishing. There can be no doubt that Abbas was democratically elected. Nor is there any doubt that the Palestinian people made a choice for democracy, which entails a choice for a negotiated peace with Israel.

But this leaves out the terrorists, who have not made that choice. They are not numerous, but they are very dangerous. Only genuine progress toward a just peace settlement will neutralize them as a political force.

There is no question that current conditions present a unique window of opportunity. But we must keep in mind the major difficulties that can limit our ability to seize this opportunity, and the international community must make these difficulties very clear to both parties.

The first difficulty is that, although Sharon evidently intends to go through with his military withdrawal from Gaza, he is vague about what he wants to achieve in future negotiations. Indeed, he has never made the slightest allusion to the idea of including the West Bank and Jerusalem in such negotiations. But, for the Palestinians, there can be no negotiations that do not include both issues.

The second difficulty concerns the fact that Sharon has always appeared to believe that it is within the means of the Palestinian Authority to eradicate all terrorism arising from inside the Palestinian territories and aimed at Israel. However, external observers know that this is not the case, even if Abbas can succeed in reducing the level and number of attacks.

In order for the Palestinian people as a whole to cease to glorify, support and shelter terrorists, they need to discover real hope for a new life for themselves. That, in turn, depends on an economic recovery in the Occupied Territories and a belief that concrete steps toward a negotiated political solution are being taken.

The creation of such hope now depends exclusively on Israel, which must act immediately to give a boost to the many Palestinians who yearn for peace rather than continue focusing on a total disappearance of terrorism. Delay on this front will only delay the disappearance of the terrorists.

The third difficulty concerns the fact that, on both sides, most religious authorities, rabbis and imams alike, have maintained a hard-line stance. They continue to preach that the respective "taboos" of their communities, the very issues that block all efforts to make peace - in particular the status of Jerusalem and the "right of return" to Israel for Palestinian refugees - are non-negotiable. To make these religious authorities acknowledge their responsibility is a duty that all of international civil society, including religious leaders, must embrace.

None of these efforts are undoable. All will be demanding. But a chance to achieve real, lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians has clearly arrived. We must seize this moment.

Michel Rocard, a former French prime minister, is a member of the European parliament. This commentary was published in collaboration with Project Syndicate.

Source: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com, February 12, 2005.
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service with permission to republish.

Gaza - A couple of days after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared a halt to hostilities, I met with a few of the many journalists and commentators who roam our streets.

They did not think peace had much of a chance. Hamas had already fired rockets into an Israeli settlement in defiance, and Sharon has long shown he is willing to respond to any provocation with more than equal force. Like all of us here, these journalists had seen many cease-fires and declarations come to nothing. A few of them knew colleagues who had been killed.

The mood was so sour that I -- a children's psychiatrist by profession -- was suddenly struck by the feeling that I was in a counseling session, trying to instill hope in the hearts of traumatized youngsters.

"Do you really trust Hamas to stop terror?" one of the journalists asked me. "Even when they announce that they are not bound by the agreement?"

I have spent many years observing Hamas at close range as it has grown from a small Islamic religious movement into a major army. I have been debating politics with its leaders and members for a long, long time. That experience leads me to believe that Hamas will very soon transform into a political party and will seriously contemplate taking over the government by democratic means.

There are sound reasons for my optimism. The first is that Hamas finally has an incentive to halt terrorist activity. For years, its raison d'etre has been military action. But Hamas has just achieved an astounding victory in municipal elections in the Gaza Strip, winning 70 percent of the seats in local councils. Fatah, the ruling party that had long dominated the political scene, was roundly defeated. Hamas has a guaranteed political future when it chooses to abandon the armed struggle.

Furthermore, close observers have noted important signs of change within Hamas over time. From remarks made by its spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, before his assassination last year, we understand that Hamas is now prepared to accept a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And as the recent elections showed, Hamas now participates fully in the democratic process -- something that it once called a Western conspiracy, and even a sin.

Hamas is becoming more organized, more sophisticated and more confident in itself. For example, in the first intifada, Hamas was quick to charge people with collaboration with Israel and to kill them. That was a sign of insecurity. The Hamas of today pledges not to kill fellow Palestinians, but instead urges the Palestinian Authority to enforce its laws.

This confidence has grown as popular support for Hamas has increased, thanks to its wide network of social programs, its incorruptible image, its adherence to Islamic morals and, most importantly, its record of fighting Israel. It is important to understand that while suicide bombings have made Hamas synonymous with terror to many, Palestinians see these tactics as a way to balance the terror Israel shoves down our throats. Many Palestinians express horror at the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas in the streets of Jerusalem, but go on to say, "The Israelis deserve what they get until they stop killing our children."

In short, Hamas has earned its popular support and it does not want to lose that support, nor its role in the future of Palestine. And that is why I believe it will cooperate with Abu Mazen, as Palestinians respectfully refer to President Abbas. It is precisely because Hamas has such a strong grass-roots base that it recognizes that most Palestinians have learned that violence only inspires retaliation.

The leaders of Hamas have repeatedly declared their respect for Abbas and for the democratic process that elected him. And though there have been violent incidents in the past few days by defiant elements, the organization's leaders quickly backed down when the president denounced the attacks.

Abu Mazen's quick response to the breaching of the cease-fire ^ besides speaking out against Hamas, he sacked top generals and declared a state of emergency -- reflects a man willing to go beyond the vocabulary of peace. He is showing conviction, courage and determination. In contrast to the late Yasser Arafat, he does not see peace as just one tactic, along with violent struggle, for getting Israel to accept a Palestinian state. While Abbas shares the goal of statehood, he believes that only peace can bring it about.

He is also popular in Israel, polls show -- and I see reasons for optimism on that side of the conflict as well. To illustrate, I concluded my remarks to the journalists with a small story:

Not long ago, I was stopped at a Gaza border crossing along with some colleagues. Inside the fortified post was an Israeli soldier, his face appearing every few minutes through a small opening in the concrete. To my surprise he called me over to ask, "Your friend says you are a psychiatrist. Can I ask you something?" "Yes," I replied warily. The soldier said, "I have a problem, doctor. I live in a settlement in Hebron, and I want to leave."

I hid my surprise and played the psychiatrist, listening calmly as this young man with his baby face and thin beard continued: "My parents want me to stay, but I know it will only lead to more killing. I don't like it there, but I don't want to anger my father and mother who have given their lives for me."

After a moment, I said, "I think it is best if you talk about your feelings with your mother and your father. It will be best if you convince them of your decision. But I want to tell you something else, my friend." The soldier smiled in anticipation as I continued: "By choosing to talk to me about yourself, you made me feel proud of humanity and sure of its future." He stretched his arm through the hole to shake my hand, saying, "I trust you."

We trust each other, I told the journalists -- we must, if there is to be any progress. I believe strongly that in the near future, we will be able to include Hamas in that careful, hopeful trust.

Source: Amin.org, http://www.amin.org, February 11, 2005.
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service with permission to publish.

Amman - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Bush administration have correctly pointed that the opportunities for Israeli-Palestinian peace have markedly improved in the past few months. The success that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has had in curbing Palestinian militants seems to have caught both Americans and Israelis by surprise. But what is most important now is how to make sure that this opportunity, like many previous ones, is not missed.

While a comprehensive solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict should be the goal for all parties, a more practical approach would be to try and accomplish smaller, more manageable success stories. Success will not happen until the daily lives of Palestinians and Israelis is given top priority.

Israeli citizens must be able to conduct their daily lives in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem with normality and without fear for their lives. While the Israeli population felt a collective sense of terror, Palestinians faced collective punishment in the form of travel restrictions, home demolitions and economic devastation due to various restrictive security arrangements barring the movement of people and goods.

Simultaneous with the improvements in the daily lives of the Palestinians there is need to begin slow but effective negotiations. Every attempt must be made to make sure that the negotiators keep alive hope, the most important ingredient that gives the public something to look forward to. Naturally, this doesn't mean that there should be negotiations for negotiations' sake, but there must be regular and continuous efforts to give Palestinians a feeling that there is positive future ahead of them. Only when they feel that they have more to lose than gain by violence will we be able to cut off the oxygen that has kept the violence alive.

Palestinian-Israeli peace talks at present don't seem to have the ingredients for a quick solution. The differences are so big and the anger is so great that a realistic look at the future of negotiations shows that it will take much longer for results to show than most people would like. If they are going to take a long time, an important part of negotiations will be to agree early on that neither side should carry out actions that will hurt long-term solutions. This means that very early on in the negotiations, both parties must have the courage to be able to agree on the basic shape of the permanent solution. Agreeing on basics early on will become the guiding lamp post for all talks. So, if the two sides agree on the two-state solution - which they seem to have accepted ^ they must agree to do everything possible to ensure that this final status will not be violated by either of them.

Creating facts on the ground and trying to influence the long-term permanent solution can break up the entire process. While this can apply to many aspects, the most obvious issue that threatens the peace talks are the Jewish settlements and Jewish settlement activity.

Most Palestinians insist that one of the main reasons that the Oslo process failed was because it failed to include an iron-clad guarantee that Jewish settlement activities in the Palestinian areas will be suspended. Once Israeli settlements kept growing, the entire peace process faltered because of the lack of trust the Palestinian public had in the talks.

If settlement activity can be stopped, Abbas and the Palestinian negotiators will have plenty of time to work slowly and carefully through the negotiations. For the Palestinians, this particular area is seen as a continuous hemorrhage of the viability of a Palestinian state.

In addition to the settlement issue, much work will be needed on the economic front. The fruits of peace, in the form of an improved economic situation in the future Palestinian state, will also need plenty of attention. This means that on both legal and administrative fronts, as well as the general movement of goods and people, will also need the attention of negotiators.

Palestinians and Israelis have come a long way and the current opportunity should not be lost. Leaders and the public need to work on building on the goodwill that has begun in Sharm El Sheikh. The day-to-day lives of Palestinians and Israelis need to improve and the long-term negotiations must give hope for a safe and secure future for Israel and a free, independent and democratic Palestine.

Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian media activist. He is the founder of Amman Net Internet radio and is the director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al-Quds University in Ramallah.

Source: bitterlemons.org, http://www.bitterlemons.org/, February 7, 2005. Distributed by the Common Ground News Service with permission to publish.

Tel Aviv - The near euphoric sensation of the past weeks embodies both dangers and opportunities. Euphoria is liable to generate too high a threshold of expectations that will not pass the reality test. On the other hand, this new sensation could restore the hope that has been so absent in the last four years and create a positive psycho-political atmosphere among the relevant publics. And that atmosphere, in turn, will ensure greater survivability for the process and a readiness on the part of the leaders to take more chances than in the past.

Both sides' commitment to embark on a new political path can generate rapid changes and processes on the ground that will accelerate the peace process and assist in returning it to the path it followed prior to the intifada. That is the wish of most of the publics on both sides of the green line. The withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, an end to terrorism and violence, the reform and democratization process in the Palestinian Authority, and confidence-building measures by Israel, are all good instruments for advancing the peace process. But the question is, what will happen to the process the day after this preliminary arsenal is spent.

The danger confronting us is that the peace process will proceed up to the completion of the withdrawal planned in the context of disengagement, and there it will stop. The surprising disengagement plan was born with the objective of serving a conservative goal: to prevent or at least delay the political process designed to lead to a permanent settlement.

In an optimal situation, logic would dictate that immediately after stabilizing the security situation and following the withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria, we enter intensive negotiations over permanent status on the basis of the Geneva Accord. In theory there is no need to beat around the bush. Following the historic precedent of returning to the 1967 borders in the Gaza Strip and removing all the settlements in those areas the IDF leaves, it is only natural to continue the process in the West Bank. The Israeli and Palestinian publics know almost precisely what final status will look like; hence, logically, we should implement it.

But political realities are not necessarily logical. The man heading Israel's government today is not a leader capable of making the leap to a real and fair permanent settlement, but rather one who has not yet internalized the fact that there is no other option. Yet the historical imperative appears to be stronger than the leader and his party.

Accordingly, in order to generate and strengthen the right dynamic that will move the process and oblige the Israeli side to enter serious negotiations on permanent status as early as possible, we have to reexamine the existing tools in our long-term arsenal. Regrettable as this may sound, the only relevant tool to be found is the Quartet's roadmap. Hence we must return to implementation of this plan, with the goal of exploiting it as a means of moving us in an agreed and organized manner out of the twilight and into a period of renewed peace negotiations.

Paradoxically, we are talking here of a limited plan, a fairly sloppy patchwork document that was outdated the moment it was published, and even then would not have stood the test of reality. But it is the only document that is agreed, at least at the level of principle, by both sides. Further, this is the program to which the American president is committed, and it is he who must become involved in pushing the Israeli side to join the "permanent status tango".

The day after withdrawal from Gaza, progress is the name of the game. The Palestinians cannot allow themselves to march in place, just as they cannot enter negotiations over an interim agreement without knowing precisely how final status will look. An updated version of the roadmap in which, for example, phase II--which is liable to be a deathtrap for a real process~is replaced by deep withdrawals in the West Bank along the lines of the Oslo "further redeployments" and the parameters of phase III are spelled out in greater detail, could constitute a possible solution in the absence of an alternative mechanism.

The roadmap is today the only game in town. In the current effort to restart the process even a mediocre and incomplete plan is a legitimate tool for relaunching the long road to peace.

Dr. Ron Pundak is the director general of the Peres Center for Peace. Since 1992, he has been intensively involved in track II activities, including those that produced the Oslo track.

Jerusalem - Too much of what has happened in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship since the election of Mahmoud Abbas is reminiscent of the failed Oslo process. The same euphoria has appeared ^ just look at the Tel Aviv and the Palestinian stock markets. The same voices of self-assurance and self-reliance that "we can do it by ourselves" are heard.

There are many lessons to be learned from the Oslo process that have not been learned. One of the clearest is that we cannot do it by ourselves. There is absolutely no basis to trust each other. All of the confidence-building measures in the world will not overcome four years of mutual blood-letting.

Both sides breached the Oslo Agreements, almost from the very beginning, and there was no mechanism to resolve emerging disputes. The Oslo Agreements contained dispute-resolution clauses, but they were rarely, if ever, implemented.

These called for negotiating disputes; if unresolved the parties were to go to mediation, but they never defined "mediation," or selected a mediator. After trying mediation they should have gone to arbitration ^ but they never defined the rules for arbitration, or agreed upon an arbitrator.

So disputes remained on the table. Breaches of Oslo became more significant than what was implemented. With so much ambiguity and no one to judge or to facilitate negotiations, mediation or arbitration, what became of the agreements was what we have experienced over the past four and a quarter years.

The most vital element of a renewed political process is security. Everything is linked to security. The release of prisoners, freedom of movement for people and goods, economic development, the legitimacy of both Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and PA President Mahmoud Abbas ^ all are inextricably linked to the question of security.

The success of any new security regime is perhaps foremost dependent on the political will of the Palestinian leadership rather than on their ability. But almost equally important is the security coordination that will develop on the ground between the Palestinian Authority and Israeli security apparatuses.

Renewed security coordination began on Palestinian election day. Israeli and Palestinian officers returned to the same room in Beit El where they had sat together on a daily basis until September 2000. The reports of successful coordination only reinforced the sense that they could pick up the pieces from where they fell more than four years ago.

But, predictably, with the very first crisis after a 10-year-old Palestinian girl was killed by Israeli or Palestinian fire ^ it is still not clear ^ and after Palestinian police deployed in Gaza, and rockets continued to fly, mutual accusations and acrimonious tones flew with greater velocity than the rockets.

Israeli-Palestinian bilateral security coordination is a recipe for failure. Even during the best days of Oslo the bilateral security coordination would receive barely a passing grade. The coordination and cooperation in the field of intelligence was more successful, primarily because of the relatively high level of trust that existed between the Shin Bet and the Palestinian intelligence forces.

But today, there is no way direct Israeli-Palestinian intelligence coordination and cooperation can work.

Israel will not pass intelligence information directly to the Palestinians for fear of "burning" sources. Palestinian security forces will never meet Israeli expectations.

We hear that Israel does not expect 100% results, but it does expect 100% effort. What are the criteria and who will be the judge? What should occur if and when terrorists succeed in killing Israelis? What mechanism can prevent an escalation of violence?

There are no magic answers, but there are some preemptive steps that could help: There is an urgent need for a third-party coordination mechanism on the ground to assist, facilitate, manage and, if need be, enforce a regime of security coordination.

A coalition of third parties led by the US, including Egypt, Britain and Jordan, should establish joint operation rooms in Gaza and the West Bank with sufficient capacities to assess, on a daily basis, field-level incidents. The joint operation rooms, with Israeli and Palestinian liaison officers on site, would assist in coordinating security relations, mediating disputes and ensuring that any security event is assessed and treated directly and effectively, preventing any chance of escalation.

This would not be a peacekeeping force of hundreds or thousands but a small and efficient team of security experts, led by the U.S. They would be committed and mandated to ensure that security understandings are met and that the spoilers do not have the power to prevent what the large majority of Israelis and Palestinians want ^ movement back on the road map to peace.

Gershon Baskin is the Israeli co-director of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. www.ipcri.org.

Source: Forward, at http://www.forward.com/, December 24, 2004.
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service with permission to republish

It used to be that Israel was the one seeking peace and Syria the one turning it down. Of late, however, it has been Damascus extending the olive branch - and making a whole lot of people scratch their heads. Is Syria serious about wanting to resume peace talks? Should Israel shun Damascus's invitation, or should it explore, if not exploit, this opportunity?

Israeli leaders are arguing that Syria is using the resumption of talks as a ploy to dilute Washington's mounting pressure on Damascus. Syrian officials, meanwhile, say they are reaching out to Israel in large part because the United States seems to have forfeited its role of honest broker in the region in general, and toward Syria in particular. Washington's pressure on Prime Minister Sharon to reject Syrian overtures - out of State Department fears that Syrian-Israeli talks will sidetrack Israel's planned withdrawal from Gaza and Defense Department insistence that Syria be held accountable for its role in Iraq - is one case in point.

Whatever Syria's motivation in wanting to resume unconditional bilateral talks with Israel, the bottom line is that Damascus's offer represents a unique opportunity to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East.

That Syria seeks a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict should not be seen as the product of any love Syrians have for Israel - they have none. Rather, Damascus wants peace with Israel for the simple reason that peace is in Syria's national interest. Syria's goal has been and continues to be the containment of Israel within its 1967 boundaries. Given Israel's superior military - and few people in Syria harbor any doubts that Israel is militarily superior to any combination of Arab power - Syria has come to acknowledge that its goal cannot be achieved by force. This no-nonsense assessment has been the cornerstone of Syria's Israel policy since the collapse of its superpower patron, the Soviet Union, and it is on this premise that the late president Hafez Assad engaged Israel in bilateral peace talks until his passing in 2000.

But even though this sober assessment might provide Israel with more of a security guarantee than Israel's doctrine of military superiority, Sharon continues to oppose the resumption of peace talks with Syria, and this despite the advice of his top brass. From a strict balance of power standpoint, Sharon is right: Israel is now so powerful that it need not resume talks, let alone withdraw from the Golan Heights. Furthermore, Syria has scrupulously adhered to the status quo for the past 30 years, and nothing suggests that it will do things differently now. Syria is now weak, and therefore not a threat to Israel. Under these circumstances, why should Israel give Syria anything?

The balance of power should rightly be the major consideration in the strategic calculi of Israeli decision-makers. It should not, however, be the only one.

With Syria calling for peace, it makes sense for Israel to seize the opportunity not out of Israeli affection for Syria - there is none ^ but rather to accomplish what Israel has sought throughout its embattled history: to be accepted in the region and to live within secure and recognized boundaries, free from the threat of war. Indeed, peace with Syria removes a major part of that threat. It is worth remembering that during the Syrian-Israeli peace talks in January 2000, Damascus accepted the principle of normalization of relations, including the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two states and the free flow of people and goods and services across the border; a mutual security regime; and the establishment of a joint water-sharing mechanism, which has critical geopolitical implications. Over and above that, peace with Syria opens the door to the normalization of relations between Israel and all other Arab countries.

Moreover, despite its current weakness, Syria still holds many important cards. Peace with Syria weakens Hezbollah and Hamas. Peace with Syria neutralizes Iran. Peace with Syria also means that Damascus could, for a price, be helpful in solving the thorny issue of Palestinian refugees. If Israel plays its cards right and accepts the land-for-peace equation, Syria might be willing to absorb the roughly half-million Palestinian refugees residing in Syria.

Syria might also be able to aid Israel in reaching a more favourable agreement on the absorption of the roughly quarter-million Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. While it would be difficult for Damascus to persuade Beirut to resettle all its Palestinian refugees, Syria wields substantial clout in Lebanon. Such influence, however, might not last for long, to judge by the growing pressure from Washington on Syria to withdraw its troops.

If Syrian and Israeli leaders seize the opportunity, there is now a chance for both peoples to live and let live. The current convergence of interests could well mean that the two long-time belligerents need not be locked in a warring relationship forever.

Murhaf Jouejati, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and a visiting professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, was an adviser to the Syrian delegation during peace talks with Israel between 1991 and 1996.

Source: The Daily Star, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/, January 17, 2005.
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service with permission to republish.

For the first time in months, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his chief political rival, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have found something they can agree on: the selection of a new governor of the Bank of Israel.

Stanley Fischer, formerly the vice chairman of Citigroup, agreed to move to Israel and begin a five-year term as governor. Fischer, an American citizen, is a well-known economist with extensive experience in both the public and private sectors.

In the course of his career he headed the Economics department at MIT, served as the chief economist at the World Bank, and after seven years as the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, accepted the position at Citigroup. Fischer has a strong history of involvement in Israel's economic development. In the mid-1980s, as Israel battled crippling inflation, Fischer (operating under U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz) worked effectively with then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres to reform important sectors of Israel's economy and bring inflation under control. In the early 1990s, he facilitated a dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian economists to create strategies for regional economic development parallel to the political process started by the Oslo Accords.

In an interview with Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronoth in 2003, Fischer unambiguously argued that "Israel's economy will not recover from its [intifada-induced] slump without a resumption of the peace process with the Palestinians." In other words, with the prospect of continuing violence and the absence of hope for the future, Israel's economy will continue to suffer. This conclusion is hard to refute. One can see it in an assessment of economic indicators since the year 2000, when observers were hopeful about the peace process. Since the violence began, Israel, in Fischer's opinion, has fallen out of favor with the financial world, including Europe, Israel's chief trading partner.

Foreign investment, including investment in the hi-tech sector, a major component of Israel's economic boom of the 1990s, has slowed considerably since the intifada started in September of 2000, and Israel, facing a recession, was forced to cut its interest rates. The NIS has lost significant ground against the euro, the drop in the rate of growth - in 2000 Israel's economic growth rate was 8 percent and the economy shrank by almost 1 percent in 2002, and the rate of growth was only 1.3 percent in 2003 - has been precipitous, personal savings rates are down by almost 50 percent, and Israel's large budget deficit drives the government even deeper into debt. Israel's billion-dollar tourist industry has only begun to recover from the blow it received from the eruption of violence in 2001, and in 2004 Israel's hotels were still half empty.

Because the economy has not grown as fast as it might have under peaceful conditions, nearly 20 percent of the population, including hundreds of thousands of children, live below the official poverty line. This is exacerbated by cuts to social welfare programs as Israel trims its budget and moves toward a market economy. The unemployment rate stands at over 10 percent. Certainly the decline of the hi-tech industry in 2000 and the global downturn in economic activity following the Sept. 11, 2001 , attacks on the U.S. contributed to Israel's economic malaise. But the persistence of the recession, in comparison with the dynamic economy of the 1990s, is a product of the hopelessness brought about by the collapse of the peace process in 2000 and the ensuing violence.

Fischer hopes to stabilize the economy through neo-liberal policy, market reforms, and a lower interest rate, but realizes that he cannot pull off an economic miracle without a political breakthrough with the Palestinians. Although a negotiated final settlement with the Palestinians would do much to improve Israel's economy, that day is a long way off, even under the best of circumstances. But hope in the political process, a precondition for investment and growth, can be instilled in the short term now that there is a new, more moderate Palestinian leadership. The election of Mahmoud Abbas, together with the upcoming Israeli evacuation of settlements and troops from the Gaza Strip and a small part of the West Bank, could present an opportunity for Palestinians and Israelis to work together productively to the benefit of their respective economies.

The economic benefit of this potential cooperation may already be surfacing. Israel has seen some improvements in 2004, but these modest advances were directly linked to political initiatives and opportunities, like the announcement of the disengagement plan and Arafat's death. It is somewhat ironic that Sharon and Netanyahu would look to an American supporter of the peace process to reinvigorate Israel's economy. Most analysts speculate that they selected Fischer because of his stature, governmental and business connections, and his sympathetic view of Netanyahu's reforms, but the decision could end up affecting more than just the country's finances. Fischer's appointment has already stimulated debate in Israel on the character of Israeli-diaspora relations and the controversial neoliberal direction in which Netanyahu has steered Israel's economy. But his appointment also highlights the link between political progress with the Palestinians and economic prosperity for Israel, and it is here that Fischer's influence may well have the greatest impact on Israel's future.

Please share with us what you are doing relating to nonviolent change. If you send us a short report of your doings, learnings, ideas, concerns, reactions, queries,... we will print them here. Responses can be published in the next issue.

Steve Sachs : My best to everyone at the Chicago area Nonviolent Change Meeting. I wish I could be with you. I am enjoying completing the move to Albuquerque and working more closely with Americans for Indian Opportunity, there. I am quite happy to see the spreading of democratic, essentially nonviolent, movements from the Ukraine cross the Caucuses. At the same time, I realize that removing an unrepresentative autocracy is only the first step toward building well working societies, especially in countries with major divisions. Many difficulties need to be overcome, but at least the work is beginning in what seems an appropriate place. Meanwhile, I am very concerned that the last opportunities to prevent extremely dangerous expanded nuclear proliferation are slipping away. I believe that only a very broad international cooperation based on real respect can succeed in solving the nuclear problem, as well as reasonably controlling terrorism. I can only hope that the United States can learn quickly enough from its huge mistakes in Iraq that it needs to exert collaborative leadership within the world community, rather than plunging ahead on its own, dragging along whomever it can carry with it in its wake.

We live in groups, "not islands unto ourselves." We learn from each other. And most, importantly, we pay heed to those who have come before us; especially, if we come from a group-oriented culture, where ancestors and elders are respected and revered.

In times of war and turmoil, safety is a concerned of parents and elders for their children and their communities.
Psychosomatic shocks experiences develop coping skills to keep both the individuals and their communities or groups from being annihilated. Never again! The cry goes out to remember and to remember it well. The fear of becoming historical footnotes, forgotten, with larger lessons of safety and betrayal forgotten or minimized.

What are the best ways and best advice to pass down to our children to keep them safe and to keep the community from being hurt, from dying? What words and behaviors of wisdom can one generation say to another to help them go forward into the present?

Mix in the historical fears, biases, traumatic minds, and fear of the future and we may not get the best advice that would allow flexibility and a peaceful and loving vision for the future. Rather, perhaps a garrison mentality with coping skills for "fight or flight or freeze" may occur. Vengeance and an allegiance to the dead may be the theme of the collective memory. Asking the human beings of the present to sacrifice their bodies and shed new blood to carry on that memory may be another way to pass on that collective memory. Perhaps 'fear stories' of old are refreshed and packaged for today's generation to be newly consumed. Traumatic memories are stirred to life as fresh tea or freshly made coffee for the day's energetic lift.

One sees 'successful themes' being replayed and spin-off in television. The same theme played out in different ways. And if a particular theme was successful in grabbing the attention of the viewer, spin-offs are inevitable in the world of imagination and commercialism. In the United States, one reality show was so popular that now it seems that half of the shows on television are 'reality' shows. In actually, they are not real; they are manufactured and tailored for a particular audience to consume.

Such is the case of the 'collective memory' of a nation or a community. A particular painful time in history or a particular event can be revived and renewed as a new rallying cry. The spin-offs are alas freshly new episodes created in today's present and new participants to sacrifice their own lives in the name of the theme. New spin-offs, with the promise of more for the future.

The manipulation to take away the critical thinking of those who are inadvertently put into freshly mint "fight, flight, or freeze" body-mentality can be all too successful. The use of the 'flashbulb' memory of vividly associating circumstances which surrounds a particular emotionally-charged event can be combined with the selection of what particular 'collective memory' to use to drum a theme home. Add the fear that "there is no time to think", therefore, allowing those who are 'knowledgeable' to do our thinking on our behalf, then we start to see a recipe of oppression revisited. Those who have the means to create, to mass produce, and to mass distribute their perspective as 'the Reality' show holds the advantage over the audience, whose minds and physiology are being manipulated by the stories presented and how they are being presented.

Who is the audience? Mainly targeted to the impressionable growing minds and physiology of the youth as well as to those who are being further put into a state of stress - human beings who by in large are struggling to survive economically, physically, and emotionally, and those who view Time as a Master or Enemy in their lives.

In lands where peace is a concept, where wars and skirmishes have kept their 'audience' at the edge of their seats, with the anticipation of more adrenalin-pumping, cortisol driven events yet to come their way, the promise for peace is a land untouched. For generations after generations who have never felt peace underneath their feet or inside their bodies, peace is a non-experiential concept. Trauma and wars which are the daily bread and visions of the sore eyes run through the veins and minds as their breath and Reality show that never changes. Coping skills, behaviors, customs, myths, and stories develop revolving around this Reality show as though there is nothing else that can be experienced.

When leaders and those who influence are marked in their hearts by traumatic tales, those who are captivated in playing this Reality show, where audiences are encouraged to call in and state which are the winners and losers, and where points are won as in a game play, it may be seen by them not in their best interest to stop playing the game. They do not want lose their power given to them by their adoring fans and the ratings so critical to those who provide the support to these leaders and influence-makers. They who came to the rescue of the oppressed find themselves in the cycle of oppression. Consequently, the audience or the people lose.

Paolo Friere once said that if the cycle of oppression was to be broken, we needed to strive to be fully human. Both the oppressor and the oppressed need to take the step to be fully human. It is not enough for the oppressed to leave the cycle; so must the oppressor. If new roles are to be created that live not in hierarchy but in consensus, safety must be revisited for both parties as well as the physiological effects of playing the adrenalin-cortisol pumping game call the Reality show, generated by the past.

• One approach is to dismantle the 'collective memory' of pain and select those memories that inspire hope and courage of the heart, not through wars and fears but one that expands critical thinking of the populace and healing of the hearts of the leaders of all parties concerned.

"The historian's challenge is to explore, first, how major events, under particular conditions, have widely induced such a syndrome in people of the time; second, what situations or cultural traits have aided or inhibited recovery from trauma in past milieux; and third, what the long-range effects of such traumatizations have been for the societies, cultures, and polities concerned." (Struve, L., 2004)

Stories are powerful forces. In group oriented cultures and those whose customs include storytelling know how powerful images can hold our imagination and it can literally affect our physiology and our ability to think and reflect.

Ultimately, all stories are about safety and adventure with the persons involved overcoming some obstacles. The ends of such adventures promise the heroes and heroines, praise and thanks from those whom they have helped. The heroes and heroines grow from being the innocent, brave hearts to wizen warriors who die or leave this lands or they transform to mentors and healers for the new generations.

Today we are experiencing the Jungian Shadow and Trickster archetypes common to all cultures. The Shadow beckons us to bring our Good to the forefront; to do battle, not by becoming a cousin or sibling of the Shadow but by being its opposite. By looking inside ourselves at our own Shadows, acknowledging their existences in us all, do we then take the first step that all of us have the seeds of being the oppressed and oppressors inside of us. It is our choice to fight 'fire with our fire.' Or take the plunge into fighting the Shadow's fire with water. It is also our choice to see the Trickster for it is and to use our critical thinking and wiles to set our internal world and our world at large on a journey of peace to becoming more fully human.

By claiming our humanity and seeking it experientially to the fullest, we alter our own stories which will eventually create new "collective memories" for our children and their descendants, as well as for ourselves. We free ourselves and those who come after us to create stories and adventures of our own making to create and experience our own adventures of love, passion, and peace.

Friere, Paulo (2004) The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30 th Edition, New York: Continuum
Huffman, Karen (2005) Psychology in Action , New York: Wiley and Sons Publishing,
Struve, Lynne (2005) A Brief Historical Introduction from History and Memory Volume 16, No. 2,
Summer, 2004 From world wide web: March 19, 2005 http://iupjournals.org/history/ham16-2.html
Villena-Mata, Darling (2001) Walking Between Winds: A Passage Through Societal Passage and Its Healing

The world economic order is changing rapidly due to advancement of science & technology. The world has been transformed into a global village. Due to the process of globalization there are many opportunities as well as threats to the human society. The selfish and ego-centric life of people is destroying the environment, generating poverty , widening the gap between rich & poor and fomenting nuclear wars threatening human life as well. Human values are eroding very fast resulting in declining the quality of life at much faster rate. At the dawn of new millennium, what is required most is 'Peace and Humanism' .

We are living in world of crisis - crisis of poverty, economic crisis , crisis of environmental degradation, cultural crisis and crisis of human values i.e. crisis of peace & human rights violation. In total sum - we are facing 'Crisis of Peace' . Humanity today finds it self in a crisis at the new crossroad. This is an extraordinary world we live in, but if we are not careful, we are going to destroy it. At the very least we will terribly disrupt, if not completely end, life as we know it. Humanity is facing a terrible challenge of its own existence. The whole human life is in a state of turmoil. We are living in a violent consciousness because modern civilization is based on violence. There are constant repetitions of wars; the ceaseless conflict between classes, between peoples; the awful economic & social inequality, the gulf between the rich & poor, and between the developed & developing countries. The present day cycle is known as cycle of violence where violence, war and poverty are cumulatively growing.

The crisis humanity is facing is not a political crisis, it is not an economic crisis, and it is not a military crisis--yet we continue to try to solve it with political, economic, and military means. The crisis humanity faces today is a spiritual crisis, and it can only be resolved by spiritual means. ... We will find our way to peace on earth, goodwill to humans everywhere--and we will find our way because we will make our way. For what the world needs now is 'Peace consciousness' i.e. Peacekeeping force of people who have transformed themselves into peace consciousness. A profound transformation is required in our thought system, value system & consciousness system.

Consciousness is as central to life as the ecosystem is to the earth. We can't live without it, nor can it be escaped. It is home. Neglect consciousness -- denigrate it, violate it -- and like the earth, the individual suffers, and often causes suffering too. On the other hand, nurture consciousness -- understand its nature, inhabit it wisely -- and we flourish, and elevate society too.

Albert Einstein said it this way: "A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. They experience themselves, their thoughts, and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of their consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of love and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

The consciousness of mind, which is heavily conditioned, is not the individual creation, rather it is a creation of society. We have created a barbarous and violent society, so in principle, we have dehumanized life. As the human behavior patterns of the whole community are identical, so to recondition or to purify human psyche is a global problem.

The consciousness of human mind can be divided into three main categories according to its levels:

1. ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS (or Violent Consciousness) this constitutes aggression, anger, greed, hateredness, jealousy and violence.

2. HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS - consists of selfless service to the people, consideration for others and welfare for all.

3. SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS OR PEACE CONSCIOUSNESS - constitutes Love, Truth and Compassion for all. This is the highest state of consciousness which means oneness to nature and oneness of humanity.

Our culture, our society have fragmented man "within", and this is reflected in our "without". The internal fragmentation manifests as conflicts and chaos, so human characteristics- such as striving, becoming, aggression , violence, ambition, greed, Hate, envy, jealousy, pain are -constructs of the mind. The internal fragmentation is due to our ignorance of the structure and dynamics of human mind. The profound imbalance in our culture is due to our fragmentary living , and giving up holistic attitude to life. Man has become conscious that he is living a disorderly world, and this disorder is going deeper in every aspect of life, individual and collective. The disorders of man are his own creations of mind. This is known as 'Dehumanization of Life. '

The present crisis is a signal for humanity that warns us of the need for transformation of consciousness. A profound transformation is required in our thought system, value system & consciousness system. We must gradually free ourselves from our materialistic attitude of life to holistic attitude of life. This will lead to a new stage in human development.

The new paradigm 'Peace Paradigm' is required for developing a nonviolent Global Harmonic Society based on common values for humanity's future.

The 21 st century will not be a century of violence and conflict but of a century of peace and religion which will set the standards of life how we live with nature, what kind of society we develop, and how to make united world. People will be the nerve centers with cosmic (peace) consciousness. They will set the cultural norms for oneness of humanity. They will create the advances in civilization that determine how we respond to the human conditions over the next century and beyond.

Seven words uttered by President Bush in Brussels have not been paid the attention they deserve.

He called for the establishment of "a democratic Palestinian state with territorial contiguity" in the West Bank, and then added: "A state on scattered territories will not work." It is worthwhile to ponder these words. Who did he point the finger at? Why did he say this in Brussels, of all places? Nobody warns of a danger without a reason. If Bush said what he said, it means that he believes that someone is causing this danger. Just who might that be?

For years now I have been warning that this is the intention of Ariel Sharon, the basis of the whole settlement enterprise planned and set up by him. The lay-out of the settlements on the West Bank map is designed to cut the territory up from North to South and from West to East, in order to forestall any possibility of establishing a really viable and contiguous Palestinian state, a state like any other.

If the settlement blocs that have been created are annexed to Israel, the Palestinian territory will be sliced up into a number of enclaves - perhaps four, perhaps six. The Gaza Strip, an isolated ghetto by itself, will be another enclave. Each enclave will be surrounded by settlements and military installations, and all of them will be cut off from the world outside.

The American intelligence agencies are familiar with this picture, of course. They can see it with their satellites. But that did not deter President Bush from promising Sharon last year that Israeli "population centers" in the West Bank will be annexed to Israel. These "population centers" are the very same settlement blocs that were defined by the US in the past as "illegal" and "an obstacle to peace". During the presidency of the first President Bush, the American administration even decided to deduct the costs of new settlement projects from the financial benefits accorded to Israel.

So why did the second Bush suddenly make a declaration whose practical meaning is that some of these settlement blocs must be dismantled? And why did he make it in Brussels? It is clear that he wanted to gain favor with his European hosts. The European Union opposes the annexation of West Bank territory to Israel. Bush said what he said in order to reduce his differences with Europe.

So he said it. And what is happening on the ground in the meantime? Last Sunday the Israeli government decided for the second time to implement the disengagement plan, a decision that was hailed by the media as "historic". With all the hullabaloo, hardly any attention was paid to a second resolution adopted at the same meeting: to continue building the wall in the West Bank.

At first sight, that is a routine decision. After all, the government argues that this is nothing but a "security fence". It does indeed have a certain security function, and Israeli public opinion accepts it as such. But by now, informed people must know that this wall is intended as the future border of Israel. Therefore, this week all government spokespersons took pains to stress that the new path of the wall cuts off only 7-8% of the West Bank.

The word "only" deserves attention. President Bill Clinton's last peace plan spoke about the annexation of 3-4% of the West Bank to Israel, in return for the transfer of 1% of Israeli territory to the Palestinian state. Seven percent of the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany is much more than the whole state of Saxony. Seven percent of the territory of the United States of America is more than the whole giant state of Texas. (Imagine: Mexico conquers Texas, builds a wall between it and the rest of the US and fills it with Mexican settlements.)

But the percentage game is misleading. It is not only the size of the territory that is important, but also its location. In this respect, the controversy between Israel and the US remains. It concerns mainly two places, where the path of the wall causes the dismemberment of the West Bank. If the wall is to include the settlement town of Ariel, it will send a finger deep into the West Bank. This finger will connect with a second one, coming from the opposite direction - the two fingers together will cut through the whole width of the West Bank south of Nablus. Another finger will extend from Jerusalem to the enlarged Ma'aleh Adumim settlement bloc, also cutting practically the full width of the West Bank.

The Americans do not yet agree. So Sharon is using one of his typical methods: in those two places he leaves a gap in the wall. He will build there in due course, after using a future opportunity to wrap President Bush - so to say - around his little finger.

But the percentage account is also wrong in another respect. Nowadays one speaks only about the wall that will separate the West Bank from Israel proper. Nobody is talking now of the "Eastern" wall. It is no secret that Sharon plans to build this wall in order to complete the encirclement of the West Bank and cut it off from the Jordan valley and the Dead Sea shore. That is a big slice of territory, about 20% of the West Bank, and would cut the West Bank off from any contact with the world. Sharon knows that he cannot build this wall at the moment, because of the opposition of the US and the whole world. Also, there is no budget for it. Therefore, he is leaving it for the future.

The government decision does formally include the southern border of the West Bank, where the planned path of the wall runs almost completely along the Green Line. That looks really nice. But this, too, contains a trick: Sharon does not intend to build this part of the wall in the near future. He is postponing it for another time - and then he will propose a different path altogether, including a finger thrust deeply into Palestinian territory, so as to annex the South Hebron settlement bloc, up to Kiryat Arba. By way of deception shalt thou build settlements.

In the meantime, Sharon is keeping himself occupied with building on the 7% of the territory that has been approved by the government decision. All this area between the wall and the Green Line - the territory already annexed in practice - is being filled with new settlements. Among others:

* A new town called Gevaoth that is to be built west of Bethlehem, in what is called the "Etzion Bloc". That is a mendacious name: the original Etzion Bloc consisted of a small group of settlements near the Green Line. It was occupied by the Arabs in the 1948 war and re-conquered by Israel in 1967, when the former settlements were also re-built. But then a whole new town (Efrata) was added to the East, and beyond that a number of new settlements, until the original few settlements had expanded into a massive settlement bloc almost surrounding Bethlehem. Now Sharon is going to fill it with even more settlers.

* A big new settlement called "North Tsufim" that is to be built north of Qalqilia. This, too, will reach the proportions of a town.

* Giant housing projects, that will be set up in order to connect the Ma'aleh Adumim bloc to Jerusalem, and just about reach the Jordan river.

Also in the Jerusalem Area, the new (Labor) Minister for Housing, Yitzhak Herzog, promises to build big housing projects from Har Homa to Ma'aleh Adumim, while another one is going to be built east of a-Ram. The aim is to cut Jerusalem off completely from the West Bank.

All this is happening while Israel and the world are waxing lyrical about the "disengagement" plan - which, in essence, is nothing but a plan to consolidate the Gaza strip as one of the enclaves in "a state of scattered territories". (The Gaza Strip constitutes only 6% of the occupied territories.) The Labor party is a full partner in this scheme. As far as Sharon is concerned, the disengagement plan plays with the dismantling of some small settlements in a remote corner of the occupied territories for the fulfillment of his grand design to take over most of the West Bank.

Now President Bush has declared that he does not accept this design. His European hosts smiled politely. Perhaps they believed him, and then, maybe they did not.

Many years ago, I read a book called The Quiet American by Graham Greene. Its central character is a high-minded, naive young American operative in Vietnam. He has no idea about the complexities of that country but is determined to right its wrongs and create order. The results are disastrous.

I have the feeling that this is happening now in Lebanon. The Americans are not so high-minded and no so naive. Far from it. But they are quite prepared to go into a foreign country, disregard its complexities, and use force to impose on it order, democracy and freedom.

Lebanon is a country with a peculiar topography: a small country of high mountain ranges and isolated valleys. As a result, it has attracted throughout the centuries communities of persecuted minorities, who found refuge there. Today there are, side by side and one against the other, four ethno-religious communities: Christians, Sunnis, Shiites and Druse. Within the Christian community, there are several sub-communities, such as Maronites and other ancient sects, mostly hostile to each other. The history of Lebanon abounds in mutual massacres.

Such a situation invites, of course, interference by neighbors and foreign powers, each wanting to stir the pot for its own advantage. Syria, Israel, the United States and France, the former colonial master, are all involved.

Exactly 50 years ago a secret, heated debate took place among the leaders of Israel. David Ben-Gurion (then Minister of Defense) and Moshe Dayan (the army Chief-of-Staff) had a brilliant idea: to invade Lebanon, impose on it a "Christian major" as dictator and turn it into an Israeli protectorate. Moshe Sharett, the then Prime Minister, attacked this idea fervently. In a lengthy, closely argued letter, which has been preserved for history, he ridiculed the total ignorance of the proponents of this idea in face of the incredibly fragile complexity of the Lebanese social structure. Any adventure, he warned, would end in disaster.

At the time, Sharett won. But 27 years later, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon did exactly what Ben-Gurion and Dayan had proposed. The result was exactly as foreseen by Sharett.

Anyone who follows the American and Israeli (there is no difference) media, gets the impression that the present situation in Lebanon is simple: there are two camps, "the supporters of Syria" on the one side, the "opposition" on the other. There is a "Beirut Spring". The opposition is a twin sister of yesterday's Ukrainian opposition, and loyally imitates all its methods: demonstrations opposite the government building, a sea of waving flags, colorful shawls, and, most importantly, beautiful girls in the front row.

But between the Ukraine and Lebanon there exists not the slightest similarity. The Ukraine is a "simple" country: the east tends towards Russia, the west towards Europe. With American help, the west won.

In Lebanon, all the diverse communities are in action. Each for its own interest, each plotting to outfox the others, perhaps to attack them at a given opportunity. Some of the leaders are connected with Syria, some with Israel, all are trying to use the Americans for their ends. The jolly pictures of young demonstrators, so prominent in the media, have no meaning if one does not know the community which stands behind them.

Only thirty years ago these communities started a terrible civil war and all of them massacred each other. The Christian Maronites wanted to take over the country with the help of Israel, but were defeated by a coalition of the Sunnis and Druze (the Shiites played no significant role at that time). The Palestinian refugees, led by the PLO, who formed a kind of fifth "community", joined the battle. When the Christians were in danger of being overrun, they called on the Syrians for help. Six years later, Israel invaded, with the aim of evicting both the Syrians and the Palestinians and imposing a Christian strongman (Basheer Jumail).

It took us 18 years to get out of that morass. Our only achievement was to turn the Shiites into a dominant force. When we entered Lebanon, the Shiites received us with showers of rice and candies, hoping that we would throw out the Palestinians, who had been lording it over them. A few months later, when they realized that we did not intend to leave, they started to shoot at us. Sharon is the midwife of Hizbullah.

It is difficult to foresee what will happen if the Syrians accede to the American ultimatum and leave Lebanon. There is no indication that the Americans are concerned with the creation of a new fabric of life for the Lebanese communities. They are satisfied with babbling about "freedom" and "democracy", as if a majority vote could create a regime acceptable to all. They do not understand that "Lebanon" is an abstract notion, since for almost all Lebanese, belonging to their own community is vastly more important than loyalty to the state. In such a situation, even an international force will be of no help.

If a civil war breaks out in Lebanon, it will not be the only one in the region. In Iraq, such a war - if almost secret - is already in full swing.

The only effective military forces in Iraq, apart from the occupation army, are the Kurdish "Peshmerga" ("Those who face death"). The Americans use them whenever they are fighting the Sunnis. They played an important role in the battle of Faluja, a big town that was totally destroyed, its inhabitants killed or driven out.

Now the Kurdish forces are waging a war against the Sunnis and Turkmens in the north of the country, in order to take hold of the oil-rich areas and the town of Kirkuk, and also to drive out the Sunni settlers who were implanted there by Saddam Hussein.

How can such a war be practically ignored by the media? Simple: everything is swept under the carpet of the "war against terrorism".

But this small war is nothing compared to what may happen in Iraq, once the time comes for deciding the future of the country. The Kurds want complete autonomy, or independence by another name. The Sunni would not dream of accepting the rule of the Shiite majority, which they despise, even if came about in the name of "democracy". The outbreak of a full-fledged civil war may only be a question of time.

If the Americans succeed, with our discreet help, in breaking the ruling Syrian dictatorship, there is no assurance at all that it will be replaced by "freedom" and "democracy".

Syria is almost as splintered as Lebanon. There is a strong Druze community in the south, a rebellious Kurdish community in the north, an Alawite community (to which the Assad family belongs) in the west. The Sunni majority is traditionally divided between Damascus in the south and Aleppo in the north. The people have resigned themselves to the Assad dictatorship out of fear of what may happen if the regime collapses.

It is not likely that a full-scale civil war will break out there. But a prolonged situation of total chaos is quite likely. Sharon would be happy, though I am not sure that it would be good for Israel.

The main American objective is, of course, the overthrow of the Ayatollahs in Iran. (It is a little bit ironic that at the same time the Americans are helping to install the Shiites in power in neighboring Iraq, where they insist on introducing Islamic law.)

Iran is a much harder nut to crack. Unlike to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, this is a homogenous society. Israel is now openly threatening to bomb the Iranian nuclear installations. Every few days we see on our TV screens the digitally blurred faces of pilots boasting of their readiness to do this at a moment's notice

The religious fervor of the Ayatollahs has been flagging lately, as happens with every victorious revolution after some time. But a military attack by the "Big Satan" (the US) or the "Little Satan" (us) may set fire to the whole Shiite crescent: Iran, South Iraq and South Lebanon.

Israel, too, has recently witnessed a tiny civil war. In the Galilean village Marrar, where a Druze and an Arab Christian community have been living side by side for generations, a bloody incident suddenly erupted. It was a full-fledged pogrom: the Druze fell upon the Christians, attacking, burning and destroying. By a miracle, nobody was killed. The Christians say that the Israeli police (many of whose members are Druze) stood aside. The immediate reason for the outbreak: some doctored nude pictures on the Internet.)

It is easy to ignite a civil war, whether out of fanaticism or out of intolerable naivete. George Bush, the (not-so-)Quiet American, runs around the world hawking his patent medicines, "freedom" and "democracy", in total ignorance of hundreds of years of history. Hard to believe, but he draws his inspiration from a book by our own Nathan Sharansky, a very small genius, to say the least.

Every human being and every people has a right to freedom. Many of us have shed their blood for this aim. Democracy is an ideal that every people has to realize for itself. But when the banners of "freedom" and "democracy" are hoisted over a crusade by an avaricious and irresponsible super-power, the results can be catastrophic.

Source: CGNews, http://www.commongroundnews.org February 25, 2005. Distributed by CGNews with permission to publish.

Jerusalem - Taking up the metaphor of "a window of opportunity," one might point out that someone bent over in pain will be hard-pressed to see any light from the window, or even believe it exists. This applies to a large segment of the Israeli and Palestinian populations, which, even if not suffering directly from the violence of the last four and a half years, has been substantially traumatized by it.

Personally, however, I have no doubt that we are at a remarkable turning point. No less significant than the impressive democratic Palestinian support for Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) is the remarkable political turnabout of Ariel Sharon. One has to grasp the almost metaphysical meaning of "settlement" in Zionist mythology in order to appreciate that the advocacy of dismantlement of even one of the settlements - and led by the man who symbolized their establishment - is a development of enormous positive significance toward a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is of course possible that the vagaries of Israeli politics may postpone implementation. However, there is no doubt in my mind that even if lamentably delayed, this Rubicon will be crossed and an inevitable and inexorable dynamic will ensue. Already, security cooperation has advanced with rapidity, and the likelihood is that Israel's unilateral disengagement will increasingly be bilateral and cooperative. As events on the ground begin to change, the populations' skepticism will change as well.

The greatest danger, of course, comes from extremists on both sides. To my great distress as a religious person, such extremist violence usually occurs under the pretext of religious duty. Indeed, the Oslo Peace Process was torpedoed substantially on both sides by the use of religion as justification for violent actions. We have to do our best to neutralize such extremists, and while this requires effective security and legal action, this is not enough.

For better and worse, religion is inextricably bound to the identities of the parties involved in the conflict, and it is exploited even by those who are far from the spiritual and ethical values of its heritages. For this reason, there has been a tendency on the part of politicians and others, while pursuing a peace agenda, to avoid religious institutions and their representatives, viewing them as an obstacle. In the shadow of all the terrible things that have been done in the name of religion, this is understandable. However, I believe it to be a tragically counterproductive approach.

If we don't want religion to be part of the problem, we must make it part of the solution. During the last four and a half years of violence, the territorial conflict has increasingly been presented as a religious one. Not only was the last Intifada portrayed in religious terms (in the name of Al-Aqsa), but propaganda has increasingly used religious terminology to de-legitimize and even demonize the other. This "religionization" of the conflict is extremely dangerous. As long as the conflict is perceived as a territorial one it can be resolved through territorial compromise. If, however, it is seen as a struggle between the Godly and the godless, then we are doomed to an eternal cycle of bloodshed.

Galvanizing the religious leadership to support peaceful reconciliation, to oppose incitement and prejudicial misrepresentation on all sides, is thus an urgent imperative - and it is possible, especially if political leadership supports it. In addition, to really combat extremists, and not just contain them, we need to give the moderates (whom I am convinced are the majority) more visibility. Because their voices are not sensational or bloodthirsty, they are hardly heard at all in the media, leading to a distorted public perception and a destructive cyclical process.

There is already positive movement in this regard. Three years ago, when violence between Palestinians and Israelis was at its height, fifteen religious leaders and representatives of the three main Faiths in the Holy Land - including the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, the President of the Palestinian Sharia Courts, the Latin Patriarch, and deputies of the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Patriarchs - were all hosted in Alexandria by Sheikh Mohamad Sayyed Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar. The initiator of this gathering was the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord George Carey. This historic gathering (the first ever summit of leaders and representatives of the three main religions of the Holy Land) issued an important declaration condemning violence in the name of religion as desecration of religion, and calling for peace and reconciliation, as well as education towards those goals. The effect of this declaration was substantially lost by the ongoing violence on the ground. However, the signatories did go ahead with the establishment of a committee to help implement educational initiatives for the promotion of peace and mutual religious respect. Centers in Israeli and Palestinian societies have now been established under the auspices of this committee to promote these goals.

In addition, recent interfaith meetings involving notable Israeli and Palestinian religious figures, as well as those from the wider Middle East and beyond, reflect the increasing desire of religious leaders to be part of a process of peace and reconciliation. Arguably the most remarkable of these was the successful gathering of some one hundred and fifty leading rabbis and sheikhs that took place in Brussels last month under the auspices of King Mohamad VI of Morocco and King Albert II of Belgium. The meeting, which received widespread coverage, especially in the European media, sought to emphasize both the past historic legacy of interfaith cooperation, as well as the central shared values of the religious traditions. Sheikh Talal Sidr of Hebron (who is also one of the key protagonists of the Alexandria committee) declared in his remarks on the opening evening that only when the three religious traditions live in mutual respect will there be real peace in the Middle East.

Recognizing the limitations of institutional religion, especially in our part of the world, it would be more than naïve to expect it to spearhead any political breakthrough. However, when there is a political window of opportunity, as there is now, it is essential that religious voices and leadership are actively involved in its support. While religion may not be able to initiate a political resolution of the conflict, it is an essential component for a successful political process, providing the psycho-spiritual glue for long-lasting and effective peace.

Rabbi David Rosen, former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, is the International Director of Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Committee. He is active in many interfaith, civic, and peace organizations promoting Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, and is a founder of Rabbis for Human Rights.

Conciliation Resources' Accord programme has just published the 15th issue in its Accord series, From Military Peace to Social Justice? The Angolan Peace Process . The full text is available on line at no cost at http://www.c-r.org/accord/ang/accord15 or can be ordered in print from Conciliation Resources, 173 Upper street, London N1 1RG, UK, Tel +44 (0)20 7 359 7728, accord@c-r.org, http://www.c-r.org/accord/order/index.shtml,

Rabbi Michael Lerner , Healing Israel/Palestine: A Path to Peace and Reconciliation is available from Tikkun Books. Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace is published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Gadi Wolfsfeld, Media and the Path to Peace can be obtained from Cambridge University Press.

Amy Benson Brown and Karen M. Poremski , Roads to Reconciliation: Conflict and Dialogue in the Twenty-First Century is 300 pp. for $39.95 cloth from M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 80 Business Park Dr., Suite 202, Armonk, NY 10504 (800)541-6563. Kelly Guinan, Peace Quest is a practical, comprehensive and motivational guide to living as a peacemaker, available for $15.50 from Kind Regards, LLC, P.O. Box 33, Blair, NE 68008 (402)533-2615, www.celebratinfpeace.com.

Volumes from MIT Press include: William J. Long and Peter Brecke, War and Reconciliation: Reason and Emotion in Conflict Resolution (224 pp. for $24 paper); Michael Brown, Owen Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller, Eds., New Global Dangers: changing Dimensions of International Security (560pp. for $28 paper); Alexander T. J. Lennon, Ed., Contemporary Nuclear Debates: Missile Defenses, Arms Control and Arms Races in the Twenty-first Century (270 pp. for $27 paper); Kenneth D. Bergeron, Tritium on Ice: The Dangerous New alliance of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power (224 pp. for $15.95 paper); Philip B. Heymann, Terrorism, freedom and Security: Winning without War (227 pp. for $14.95 paper); Alexander T.J. Lennon, Ed., The Battle for Hearts and Minds: Using Soft Power to Undermine Terrorist Networks (352 pp. for $25 paper); Alexander T.J. Lennon and Camille Eiss, Eds., Reshaping Rogue states: Prompting Regime Change, and U.S. Policy Toward Iran, Iraq and North Korea (384 pp. for $27 paper); Alexander T. J. Lennon, Ed., What Does the World Want from America: International Perspectives on U.S. Foreign Policy (200 pp. for $24 paper)

Michael E. Brown, Owen Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller, Eds., Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict , revised edition (475 pp. for $32 paper); Hussein Agha, Shai Feldman, Ahmad Khalidi and Zeev Schiff, Track-II Diplomacy: Lessons from the Middle East (224 pp. for $22 paper); Amira Hass, Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land (144 pp. for $14.95 paper); Brenda Shaffer, Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenges of Azerbaijani Identity (300 pp. for $25 paper); Michael E. Brown and Sumit Gangully, Fighting Words: Language Policy and Ethnic Relations in As ia (400 pp. for $24.95 paper) Robert Legvold, Thinking Strategically: The Major Powers, Kazakhstan and the Central Asian Nexus (256 pp. for $27 paper); Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer, Bare Branches: the Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population (342 pp. for $35); Nives Dolsak and Arthur P.J Moy, Globalization and Environmental Reform: The Ecological Modernization of the Global Economy (288 pp. for $24.95 paper); Elinor Ostrom, Eds., The Commons in the New Millennium: Challenges and Adoptions (392 pp. for $30 paper); and Vaclav Smil, Enmergy at the Crossroads: Global Perspectives and Uncertainties (448 pp. for $34.95), all, plus $4 for the first item,$1 for each additional, shipping, from MIT Press, C/O Triliteral LLC, 100 Maple Ridge Dr., Cumberland, RI 02864 (800)405-1619, http://mitpress.mit.edu

David Solnit, Ed., Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World is 448 pp. for $17.95 from City Light books.

Richard Heindberg, The Party's Over: Oil Ware and the Fate of Industrial Societies is 288 pp. from New Society Publishers.

James L. Gibson, Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation is 488 pp. for $47 cloth, plus $5 for the first item, $1 for each additional, shipping, from the Russell Sage Foundation, 112 E 64 St., New York, NY 10021 (800)524-6401, www.russellsage.org.

Offerings from the Unites States Institute of Peace at no charge for single copies include Special reports, among them: " India and Pakistan Engagement: Prospects for Breakthrough or Breakdown? " Banning Garrett and Jonathan Adams, " U.S.-China Cooperation on the Problem of Failing States and Transnational Threats ," and Mona Yacoubian, " Promoting Middle East democracy: European Initiatives ," from USIP, 1200 17 St., NW, Washington, DC 20036 (202)457-1700. www.usip.org.

The Stanley Foundation offerings, some for no charge, include: Capturing the 21st Century Security Agenda: Prospects for Collective Responses (140 pp., paper); and ththe quarterly Courier: Promoting Thought and Encouraging Dialogue About the World, from the Stanley Foundation, 209 Iowa Ave., Muscatine, IA 52761 (563)264-1500, www.stanleyfoundation.org.

South End Press offerings include: Arundhati Roy, An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire , a discussion of what the Bush administration really means by the "war on terror" and "compassionate conservatism" (168 pp. for $12 paper, $40 cloth); Oscar Olivera in collaboration with Tom Lewis, Cochabmba! Water War in Bolivia (224 pp. for $16 paper, $40 cloth); and Peter Kelly, Fighting for Hope , a call for a world free from violence between North and South, Men and Women, ourselves and the environment (124 pp. for $14 paper), all, plus $3.5o for first item, $.75 for each additional, shipping, from South End Press, 7 Brookline St., #1, Cambridge, MA 02139 (617)547-4002, southend@southendpress.org, www.southendpress.org.

Duke University Press has available: Swanee Hunt, This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace (344 pp. for $29.95 cloth) and James Ridgeway, Its All for Sale: The Control of Global Resources (272 pp. for $18 paper) from Duke University Press, 905 W. Main St., Suite 18B, Durham, NC 27701 (919)687-3600, dukeupress.edu.

The Bulletin of Regional Cooperation in the Middle East , published by Search for Common Ground in the Middle East lists and briefly reviews the following writings in its Winter 2005 Issue (to subscribe via E-mail send E-mail to: Subscribe-cgnews@lists.sfcg.org (English),
Subscribe-cgnewsarabic@lists.sfcg.org (Arabic),
Subscribe-cgnewshebrew@lists.sfcg.org (Hebrew): Greg Philo and Mike Berry, Bad News from Israel , highlights the important role of the media in conflict situations and their intimate link with the situation on the ground. In exploring the process that shapes the news, Berry and Philo suggest to journalists that they be aware of the positive or negative influence they may have on viewers and thus on the situation.

The book proposes to explore and clarify the position of all parties to the conflict, their goals and issues of concern, their interests and actions and to enquire deeper into the reasons for something to happen. It also advocates exploration of untruths and distortions of reality on both sides, highlighting that media are important players in conflicts for the best and for the worst. The 260 p. volume is available from Pluto Press in London. Clayton E. Swisher, The Truth About Camp David: The Untold Story about the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process is 440 pp. from Nation Books, New York. Yossi Beilin, The Path to Geneva: The Quest for a Permanent Agreement, 1996-2004 is 297 pp. from RDV Books/Akashic Books. The Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture (PIJ ) is the only independent, non-profit quarterly publication co-published and produced by Israelis and Palestinians, as an explicitly joint venture promoting dialogue, in the search for peaceful relations.

The Journal aims to shed light on, and analyze freely and critically, complex issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians. It also devotes space to regional and international affairs. Its purpose is to promote rapprochement and better understanding between peoples, and it strives to discuss all issues without prejudice and without taboos. For information go to: http://www.pij.org. Peace, Conflict & Development is an Interdisciplinary open-access journal publishing innovative and accessible writing on a wide range of topics in human rights, democracy and democratization, conflict resolution, environment, security, war, culture, identity and community, and other related areas of interest. For information, go to: http://www.peacestudiesjournal.org.uk/index.asp. Conflict Resolution Quarterly is published by the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR), For subscription information go to http://www.acrnet.org/publications/crq.htm

Neven Andjelic, Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy can be obtained from Frank Cass Publishers. Verghese Koithara. Crafting Peace in Kashmir: Through a Realist Lens , can be obtained from Sage Publications. Rose Kadende-Kaiser and Paul J. Kaiser, Eds. Phases of Conflict in Africa is available from de Sitter Publications. Yoichi Funabashi, Ed., Reconciliation in the Asis-Pacific is published by United States Institute of Press, Gerd Junne and Willemijn Verkoren, Eds., Searching for Peace in Asia Pacific: An Overview of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities is available from Lynne Rienner Publishers. Munib Younan, Witnessing for Peace: In Jerusalem and the World is available from Munib Younan, Fortress Press. by Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall, Taming Intractable Conflicts: Mediation in the Hardest Cases is published by United States Institute of Peace. Annelies Heijmans, Nicola Simmonds, and Hans van de Veen, Eds., Postconflict Development: Meeting New Challenges is published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. Marie-Claire Foblets and Trutz von Trotha, Eds., Healing the Wounds: Essays on the Reconstruction of Societies after War is available from Hart Publishing. Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr.. Commonsense on Weapons of Mass Destruction is published by University of Washington Press. Inge Kaul, Pedro Conceicao, Katell Le Goulven, and Ronald U. Mendoza, Editors, Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization edited. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Peace Review is a quarterly, multidisciplinary, transnational journal of research and analysis, focusing on the current issues and controversies that underlie the promotion of a more peaceful world. Social progress requires, among other things, sustained intellectual work, which should be pragmatic as well as analytical. The task of the journal is to present the results of this research and thinking in short, accessible and substantive essays. For details, go to: http://www.usfca.edu/peacereview/index.htm.

The Carolyn Freeze Baynes Institute for Social Justice, an international forum for addressing ideas and innovations in pursuit of ethical social relations within and among societies, will begin publishing Social Justice in Context , in Mid-2005, to stimulate thought, study, and practice that advance its cause. For information contact W. David Harrison, Editor, Social Justice in Context, Carolyn Freeze Baynes Institute for Social Justice, East Carolina University, College of Human Ecology, Greenville NC 27858 (252)328-1445, harrisonw@mail.ecu.edu.

Global Beat , has been an excellent source of information and further sources for Nonviolent Change , at: http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat. Global Beat also has an E-mail list serve.

Europa World Plus + : Europa World/Regional Surveys of the World On Line is at: www.europaworld.com.

To receive periodic updates of the Index of Violence and Harm for the U.S., E-mail njwollman@manchester.edu, with "Nivah Updates" in the subject line. The index is at www.manchester.edu/links/violenceindex.