Increasingly, Palestinians correctly acknowledge that attacks targeting civilians are a cruel and illegitimate reaction to Israel’s aggression. Yet, while it must be reaffirmed that Palestinian attacks targeting Israeli civilians must stop immediately, one has to forget all of history to believe that these operations are what stand in the way of progress towards a peaceful solution, and are not in fact simply a symptom of the violence and despair of life under endless occupation. Peace, after all, must be made during conflict.

The clash of civilisations that George Bush and his minions are trying to fabricate as a cover for a preemptive oil and hegemony war against Iraq is supposed to result in a triumph of democratic nation-building, regime change and forcible modernisation ? l’am?ricaine. Never mind the bombs and the ravages of the sanctions which are unmentioned. This will be a purifying war whose goal is to throw out Saddam and his men and replace them with a re-drawn map of the whole region.