PUBLIC MARKS from sabbah

If Palestinians are going to be required to renounce violence — as they should be — shouldn’t Israel also be required to renounce violence, and to stop building settlements and walls on Palestinian territory? Rather than belittling others for allegedly failing to grasp our “democratic concepts,” we could begin by showing we grasp these concepts ourselves.

Rumsfeld yesterday called for the military and other government agencies to mount a far more aggressive, swift and nontraditional information campaign to counter the messages of extremist and terrorist groups in the world media.

Space Adventures, the only company to have sent tourists into space, has announced plans to develop a commercial spaceport in the UAE emirate of Ras Al Khaimah.

Less than a week ago extremist Jews defaced the Nabi Elias Mosque east of Qalqilia - Palestine, with graffiti insulting the Prophet Mohammad and Islam. Early Friday morning, extremists wrote nearly the same words on the mosque for the second time.

Oxford University is this week holding an "Israeli Apartheid week." Hosted by the Palestinian Society, flyers state it is to commemorate the "30th anniversary of the international convention on the suppression and punishment of the crime of apartheid."

A disabled Palestinian teenager has been shot dead by Israeli troops during clashes near the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

INA has secured Olympic gold in its quest to outrank any and all Arab and Islam Websites as when one searches for the key words: “iran holocaust cartoons” the Israel News Agency has secured a Google first place ranking. So, since I’m an Arab/Muslim, regardless of what I say and advocate for, I’m outranked. Thanks to INA, SEO and Google!!!

Israeli and U.S. diplomats and Jewish groups are lobbying organisers of next month’s Academy Awards not to present a nominated film (Paradise Now) about Palestinian bombers as coming from Palestine, an Israeli newspaper reports.

Early last century, the biggest threat to the Hejaz Railway was Britain’s T.E. Lawrence and his camel-mounted Arab rebels, who sabotaged the desert track to attack trains packed with Turkish soldiers. Today, a lack of passengers and improved highways may kill off the Hejaz Train once and for all, a quiet demise for a train that entered popular imagination thanks to Lawrence’s war exploits, later turned into the classic film “Lawrence of Arabia.”

What do you call a man, effectively the proprietor of a magazine called Global Agenda in one of his roles, who attempts to censor an article in his publication after it has already been printed and circulated to a large part (perhaps 3,000 people) of its intended audience? More than that, the author of the offending article holds an electronic file of its final form sent to him as a proof and is happy to circulate it more widely. And what if the “proprietor” attempts to impose his retrospective censorship under the gaze of the world press at one of the world’s highest-profile forums, the annual Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF)?

In response to the Prophet Mohammad cartoons, this newspaper has decided to run a picture of the queen, Margrethe II, as a belly-dancer. Apparently it’s supposed to make us laugh and Danes to get angry. I’m just laughing at their poor attempt. This is Ironic, ridiculous, idiotic, laughable, nonsensical, …