To Baghdad, via Jerusalem

Trying to build an international coalition in support of action against Iraq, the United States has found the Middle East preoccupied instead with the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Against its will, the American administration is being sucked into a mediating role
[read more]

----------

You can't tell the players without a program. The Arab League summit in Beirut is coming up soon where Saudia Arabia is going to present their peace plan. Everyone is trying to solidify their position.

Cheney reaction

-----------

Arab League summit likely to endorse Saudi peace plan
Mubarak confirms participation to Lebanon's PM

Newspapers in Lebanon yesterday published a draft of a resolution that is likely to be adopted by leaders from Arab states at the end of the upcoming Arab summit. The summit is scheduled to open this Wednesday in Beirut, and end the following the day.

Three main topics are expected to be discussed at the Arab summit: the Saudi peace initiative, Iraq, and ways of assisting the Palestinian Authority.
[read more]

----------

PM asks to go to Arab meet; Arafat wants guarantee he can return

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking Friday in an interview to The Washington Post published Saturday, said he told the Americans that he is interested in attending the Arab League Summit in Beirut later this week and has asked the United States to intervene in his favor.
[read more]

----------

Unforgettable, unforgivable
After days of carnage and destruction in Tul Karm, armed men once again walked undisturbed through the refugee camp, and residents vowed revenge.

Kazam Jadban, 56, is the proprietor of a small grocery store on a corner of Shweike Square in Tul Karm. He stood at the entrance to his shop and gazed in disbelief at the Israeli tanks crossing the square and moving slowly up the street until they disappeared from view. It was Thursday, March 7, the second day of the Israel Defense Forces incursion into Tul Karm. A group of children, 5 to 10 years old, was running through the streets, shaking hands with two journalists wearing helmets and flak vests, clustering around them, making the "V" for victory sign with their fingers and pushing themselves into the range of the camera lens shouting "Take my picture, take my picture." This is a scene that every news photographer in the territories knows well.

Mohammed Abu Ali Botter, 9, was among them. Five minutes earlier he had bought ice cream from Jadban and he was still licking it with enjoyment. Jadban saw him scampering up the street in the wake of the journalists, and then he heard a shot. One bullet. A while later - perhaps a few seconds, it seemed as though time had stood still - the boy was seen running shakily toward his home, but immediately he fell. "His ice cream was full of blood," said Jadban.
[read more]

----------

There is now a Palsetinian Indy Media Center

IMC-Palestine

And the Israeli Indy Media Center

indymedia israel