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  Wednesday  March 5  2003    03: 21 AM

Hungry in Gaza
In Palestine, the failure of the peace process, and Israel's destruction of the economy have had the effect of a terrible natural disaster

The world has grown used to the idea that severe hunger manifests itself only in the hollow cheeks and distended stomachs of an African famine. But today in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank an insidious hunger has the Palestinian people in its grip. Hidden in the anaemic blood of children or lost in the statistics of stunted growth, a dreadful, silent malnutrition is stalking the Palestinians.
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Pick a Card
Sharon's Sleight of Hand

Now everybody can see that Sharon's promises were nothing but a smoke-screen. At the end, Sharon has created exactly the government he intended to set up right from the beginning: a government of the radical right that will do the things the words were designed to hide. At most he was ready to imprison the Labor party in this government, shackled hand and foot, to act as a fig-leaf.
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If you will it, it is a dream

If the arch-settler Avigdor Lieberman ever had even the slightest concern about the potential negative influence of Ariel Sharon's "Herzliya speech" on the new government's policy, U.S. President George Bush's speech at the American Enterprise Institute last week removed it. Without any bargaining, Bush bought Israeli-made mines that rip the Quartet's road map to shreds. Or, if you prefer, they turn the vision of establishing a Palestinian state into a dream. Bush confirmed that in the territories, as in Iraq, he is aiming for a military victory and implementation of the right's doctrine. Like Sharon with regard to the territories, Bush is paying lip service to "bringing democracy" and to proper diplomatic procedure.
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When visions collide

Every devotee of peace will undoubtedly experience a frisson of emotion at hearing the vision of U.S. President George W. Bush. The end of the war with Iraq and the ouster of Saddam Hussein will effect an immediate change in the substance of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. A democratic Palestinian state will be established, terrorism will be eradicated and the settlements will be halted. If only we had known that all that stood between us and peace with the Palestinians is Saddam Hussein, we would have removed him long ago ourselves.
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