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Mideast Training Program Backfires: Palestinian Security Officers Schooled by U.S. Used Tactics Against Israel - Matthew Kalman (San Francisco Chronicle)
    In June 1998, officers in the Palestinian General Intelligence Service, charged with hunting down terrorists and preventing attacks on Israel, completed a training course near CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., paid for by the U.S. government, in which they learned firearms and counterterrorist tactics.
    But some of the men later swapped sides and began using the skills they learned in Virginia against the Israelis.
    Such training courses will be an integral part of Washington's aid package for the new government of Mahmoud Abbas.
    One member of the group was Raafat Bajali, a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, killed in Bethlehem in December 2001 when a bomb he was making blew up in his face.
    Another was Khaled Abu Nijmeh from Bethlehem, one of 13 gunmen from the Church of the Nativity siege, exiled to Europe.
    "I am a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and a first sergeant in Palestinian General Intelligence," Abu Nijmeh says. "I personally received a course in antiterrorism and VIP protection."
    "Both the CIA and British efforts to train Palestinians during the Oslo process helped strengthen terrorist capabilities," said Israeli political analyst Gerald Steinberg of Bar-Ilan University.

BBC Erases Latest Fabrication (Backspin-Honest Reporting)
    BBC Radio has removed its February 10 edition of "Daily Thoughts," in which presenter John Bell talked about an Israeli Arab allegedly "conscripted" by the IDF and later "imprisoned for refusing to shoot unarmed schoolchildren."

Don't Dare Say Hello to Your "Infidel" Neighbor - Nathan Guttman (Ha'aretz)
    A document signed by the cultural attache at the Saudi embassy in Washington instructs Muslims arriving in the U.S. not to initiate a greeting when meeting Christians or Jews, and never to convey good wishes marking a Christian or Jewish holiday.
    The attache recommends that the Muslim believer avoid friendships with the infidels, be careful not to imitate their customs (e.g., not to wear a cap and gown at a graduation ceremony), and try not to remain in the country any longer than required.

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The Saudi Illusion of Democracy - Editorial (Chicago Tribune)

• There was the illusion of a democratic election in Saudi Arabia last week. It had all the trappings, including a city plastered with campaign billboards. But what happened in the Islamic kingdom should in no way be confused with a real election. Women were barred from running or voting. Half the seats were to be appointed by the royal family.
• Perhaps there was a time when even such a sham election would be hailed in the Middle East. But now that genuine elections have inspired millions of voters to choose their leaders in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories, the Saudi vote looks like little more than a whisper of progress.
• The hunger for real elections - and real elected leaders - is out there and growing, even in countries like Saudi Arabia, where political gatherings are generally illegal and outright criticism of the royal family can bring a prison sentence.
• As tyrants across the world have learned, once the power of democracy is unleashed, it cannot be easily stifled. Saudi citizens, tossed a tiny scrap from the banquet of democracy, will crave more.