Sharon in Palestine state u-turn
PM drops road map to peace in favour of settlers

Ariel Sharon yesterday virtually ruled out the creation of a Palestinian state under his hawkish new government just a day after President Bush pledged to broker a peace deal once he has dealt with Iraq.
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Hazy Mideast Peace Vision

President Bush ended his protracted silence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this week by painting a vision of an independent state of Palestine living in peace next to Israel, a vision he has described before. But his picture of the path to permanent peace was too vague to be useful, especially given his recent neglect of the conflict.
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Welsh pensioner turns freedom fighter
Ex-bank manager defends Palestinian suicide bombers

Anne Gwynne is conducting her own war on terrorism. A retired bank manager from Wales, she originally planned to join the thousands of other foreign volunteers who spend a few weeks each year picking olives, monitoring Israeli roadblocks and acting as human shields in solidarity with the Palestinians.

But after nine weeks in the West Bank city of Nablus, with bullet shrapnel in her leg and horrors she never imagined etched on her mind, she says she has come to understand - perhaps support - the more extreme and tragic tactics of a brutal conflict. She has found friends in the men with guns and the proud relatives of suicide bombers, the "martyrs" whose pictures paper the streets.

"I had never seen a tank before. I'd never seen a soldier. I've seen dead people, but I've never seen someone killed by these huge 25mm bullets. The injuries are horrific. The cannon from the tank takes the whole chest off," she said. "This is terrorism gone completely and utterly crazy. There is no other word for this because it's not one incident, it thousands of incidents across the whole city.
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