British Arab Lawyers’ Association

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WITH AN order to close Guantánamo, the Obama administration has acted quickly to move away from the Bush administration’s policies in what it called the “war on terror.” But much more needs to be done to undo the damage to America’s reputation abroad-not just in the Muslim world-and to lessen the chances of starting another chapter in the erosion of America’s civil liberties. And not all measures will be difficult. For starters, President Barack Obama should follow the lead of Britain’s Gordon Brown, who, upon becoming prime minister, stopped using the phrase “war on terror.”

The concept of a “war on terror,” was “misleading and mistaken,” the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, wrote in the Guardian recently. Calling for a “war on terror,” he went on, “implied that the correct response was primarily military. . . . We must respond to terrorism by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it. . . .”

GAZA LIES in ruins. After 22 days of ruthless Israeli aerial bombardment and ground assault, a survey of the carnage is as enraging as it is numbing: at least 1,285 Palestinians have been killed; 895 were civilians, including 280 children and 111 women. Another 167 of the dead were civil police officers, mostly killed on the first day of the bombing as they were graduating from a training course. Twenty-four hundred houses were completely destroyed, and 20,000 partially. Other infrastructure destroyed includes 28 public civilian facilities (ministries, municipalities, governorates, fishing harbors, and Palestinian Legislative Council buildings), 29 educational institutions (including Gaza’s Islamic University and American High School), 30 mosques, 10 charitable societies, 60 police stations and 121 industrial, and commercial workshops. There are reliable reports that Israel used the banned chemical weapon white phosphorus, which on contact with skin burns all the way to the bone.

Following the recent attacks on Gaza, Abayomi Azikiwe examines the sentiment of the African-American population against Israeli aggression and the support of this violence by the US. Azikiwe argues that a direct correlation exists between the Palestinian and Arab struggle for independence, the plight for African liberation during colonialism, the Atlantic slave trade, apartheid, and African-American movements in the US.