AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to talk about the latest negotiations that are going on right now. The latest news we have, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, acknowledging that Palestinian statehood is inevitable, said that — he has made his most explicit pledge yet to relinquish some Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza; in exchange, wants the Palestinians to give up their long-standing demand for the right of return. That’s for Palestinians to return. We are also joined on the line by Diana Buttu, who is a negotiating adviser to the PLO on the peace process. She is based in Ramallah. Your response to that?

DIANA BUTTU: Well, basically what Israel is saying is it’s willing to stop doing its wrong if the Palestinians give up their right. And this is something that the Palestinians will never agree to. Let’s remember that the only reason that the Palestinians cannot return to their home is because they’re the wrong religion. They’re Christians, and they’re Muslims. They’re not Jewish. If they were Jewish, they would be allowed to return to their homes. But because they’re Christians and Muslims, they are told that they cannot return to their homes, despite the fact that international law says that they can.

At the same time, Israel is using the tactic of saying, “Well, we’re going to stop our illegal occupation. We’re going to dismantle the settlements,” in effect, saying that “we’re going to stop our criminal activity, if you give up your right.” And it’s akin to, you know, a criminal saying, “I’ll do my part to stop the criminal activity, if you at some point in the future give up your rights,” rights that are enshrined under international law. And this is the basic premise that Israel has always been operating under. And it’s the same premise that the international community has continued to focus on, that the Palestinians are the ones who have to make compromises, not Israel.

And they do so because the way that they view the Palestinians is simply a demographic threat or a security threat. And when you go down the path of viewing people as a demographic threat or as a security threat, you don’t view them as equals and will do everything possible to take away their rights, including killing 2,000 civilians, including demolishing their homes, including encaging them into prisons.

AMY GOODMAN: Mark Regev, spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy, your response?

MARK REGEV: Well, we all know that peace will be based on a two-state solution, a state of Israel for us and a state of Palestine for the Palestinians. And that has to be the aim of anyone who really wants peace. And then it’s strange for Israelis, Israelis who deeply want peace, how the Palestinians can say, “Well, we want a state for us, and then we want the unlimited right of return to your state.” In other words, “We want our state, and we want half of yours.” It’s very strange.

I’d also remind all the listeners that senior Palestinians, moderates, pragmatists, who have come out publicly — Bassam Abu Sharif, Sari Nusseibeh — saying that the right of return is a problem. So, for Diana to stand up and say this is something that never is going to be compromised, I hope she’s in a minority of Palestinian opinion, because if we do want peace, this is one of the issues the Palestinians are going to negotiate on. And I think everyone — in the Arab world, in the European community, in North America — understands that the right of return is just not going to happen. For Israel, it’s also against the two-state solution. How can you say you want a state for yourself, and then we have rights on your state. Surely, once the negotiations have decided a peace treaty, we should have two states living together, hopefully, in cooperation and in peace.

AMY GOODMAN: Diana Buttu?

DIANA BUTTU: Well, again, it’s the same premise of not viewing the Palestinians as equals, not viewing them as having rights. Again, Israel has the territory in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It controls the territory and governs this area under an apartheid regime. Jews living in the Occupied Territories have rights. Palestinians in that same territory do not have rights. And the only reason, again, is because they’re the wrong religion. Rather than viewing us as equals, Israel again tries to impose upon us an agreement that is based on a master-and-servant relationship. And that will not bear any fruit in the future. In fact, that will bear the seeds of future conflict rather than future reconciliation, which is what I aim to achieve in any peace agreement. I don’t want to simply hold up a piece of paper and say, “This is a peace agreement. It doesn’t incorporate all of your beliefs. It doesn’t incorporate your rights. It’s simply a piece of paper between the two governments.” I want a peace agreement that is based on peace between peoples, not governments. And the only way that you’ll have a peace between peoples and not governments is if you actually take into consideration the rights and implement the rights of these people.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, on that note —

DIANA BUTTU: [inaudible] million refugees.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you all very much for being with us. It has been a very interesting hour, a discussion we will continue. Diana Buttu, negotiating adviser to the PLO; Mark Regev, spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy; also Craig and Cindy Corrie, parents of Rachel Corrie, I want to thank you for being with us, and Alice of the International Solidarity Movement. We hope to have Anthony Hurndall, the father of Tom Hurndall, on the line with us tomorrow. Thanks very much all for being with us.

If you’d like to get a copy of today’s show, you can call 1-800-881-2359, 1-800-881-2359. Our website, democracynow.org. Democracy Now! produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press. Also thank you to Sharif Abdel Kouddous and to Noah Reibel. Mike Di Filippo is our engineer. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for listening.

[End of Hour 1]

AMY GOODMAN: From Pacifica Radio, this is Democracy Now!

Over 170,000 ancient artifacts have been destroyed or stolen from the National Museum of Iraq and Baghdad. We’ll go to Baghdad and Oxford to talk about what has been lost. And we go to India to speak with acclaimed writer Arundhati Roy about the invasion of Iraq.

All that and more, coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

U.S. troops have seized control of the center of Saddam Hussein’s town of Tikrit this morning. Arab television network Al Jazeera broadcast pictures of U.S. tanks in the central square. Al Jazeera is reporting U.S. troops have encountered fierce resistance. Twenty-two tribal leaders have sued for peace in a last-ditch effort to stave off an assault on the town, but U.S. troops apparently ignored the appeal and attacked.

British war correspondent Robert Fisk is reporting gunfights have broken out between property owners and looters in Baghdad. Shia and Sunni Muslims are fighting each other because Saddam Hussein’s government privileged the Sunnis, impoverished the Shia. Fisk writes, by failing to end the violence, U.S. troops are stoking ethnic hatred and provoking civil war in Baghdad. Hundreds of streets are barricaded with burned-out cars and tree trunks. They’re watched over by armed men who are ready to kill strangers who threaten their homes or shops. Fisk notes that is how the civil war began in Beirut in 1975. Reports of vigilante and revenge killings are also emerging.

The London Observer reports Baghdad is bursting with anti-American feeling as residents see their city being stripped by its own citizens. U.S. forces rarely intervene, and in some cases even wave treasure-laden men through checkpoints. Meanwhile, the Agence France-Presse reports U.S. soldiers shot and killed a Baghdad shopkeeper who was defending his shop with a Kalashnikov assault rifle against looters, this according to his neighbors.

U.S. forces over the weekend began recruiting volunteers and former government workers to help administer the city. About a thousand people, including health workers, electricity and water ministry employees, attended a meeting in the center of the capital to volunteer for work. But the BBC reports some volunteers are upset that members of the old regime are dominating the recruits. Twenty-three-year-old Ahmad Kadhim said, quote, “I came here to volunteer to protect state buildings, but I found the same Baath Party members who tortured us only a few days ago. It’s the same people all over again.” He lifted his T-shirt to show scars on his back.

The London Observer is reporting that the U.S. corporation DynCorp has won a multimillion-dollar contract to police Iraq. DynCorp began recruiting for a private police force last week. But the corporation faces accusations of human rights violations around the world. A British tribunal recently forced DynCorp to pay compensation to an employee who blew the whistle on colleagues involved in a sex ring in Bosnia, where the company was policing. Ecuadorians have filed a class-action lawsuit against DynCorp for spraying herbicides that killed legitimate crops, caused illness and killed children.

In northern Iraq, thousands of Arabs are being expelled from their homes by armed Kurds. There are reports of abandoned Arab villages and hamlets all along the road that runs northwest from Kirkuk and Makhmur. Wheat fields have transformed overnight into temporary refugee camps. An official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told The New York Times that Washington has given Kurdish forces tacit approval to pursue the policy of expulsion.

Meanwhile, the London Independent reports at least eight people were killed in gun battles between Iraqi Kurds and Arab tribes south of Kirkuk yesterday. The fighting was around the town of Hawija on the road between the Iraqi oil center of Kirkuk and the city of Tikrit. Under Saddam Hussein, some 300,000 Kurds were driven out of the oil-rich Mosul and Kirkuk provinces and forced to live within the Kurdish enclave. All their villages were destroyed, and Arab settlers farmed their lands.

It emerged over the weekend that 170,000 ancient artifacts housed in the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad had been destroyed or taken by looters. The New York Times reports the destruction of the museum is likely to be reckoned as one of the greatest cultural disasters in recent Middle Eastern history. The National Museum recorded a history of civilizations that began to flourish in the fertile plains of Mesopotamia over 7,000 years ago. Museum officials are outraged at U.S. troops for failing to protect the museum. For weeks before the war, archaeologists and scholars around the world had warned the Pentagon about post-war looting. We’ll have that story in just a few minutes. Meanwhile, Reuters reports U.S. troops are seizing trophies from Iraq to take home with them or even sell on eBay.

And U.S. Central Command announced today a U.S. Navy fighter jet shot down near Karbala in early April was hit by a U.S. Patriot missile. The pilot, 30-year-old Lieutenant Nathan White, was killed in the attack.

With Baghdad still in flames and gun battles continuing, the Bush administration is setting its sights on Syria. President Bush yesterday warned Syria not to harbor Iraqi leaders, and he accused Syria of possessing chemical weapons. His comments came after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the majority of foreign fighters in Iraq were from Syria, brought in by the busloads. And Secretary of State General Colin Powell told the BBC that Syria had acted as a conduit for supplies to Saddam Hussein’s regime, and said the U.S. has for years designated Syria as a state that sponsors terrorism. The BBC is reporting a top Iraqi Republican Guard general who switched sides during the war is backing Washington’s claims. General Ali al-Jajawi said top figures of Saddam Hussein’s government fled to Syria last week. Meanwhile, the Pentagon claims U.S. forces stopped a bus near the Syrian border over the weekend. The bus was carrying some 60 men with over half a million dollars in cash and a letter offering a reward for killing U.S. soldiers, according to the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, Bush administration sources have told the London Observer the U.S. has pledged to tackle the Syrian-backed Hezbollah group in the next phase of its so-called war on terror. Hezbollah is a Shia Muslim organization based in Lebanon whose fighters have attacked northern Israeli settlements and harassed occupying Israeli troops, forcing Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon three years ago. The Observer reports Washington has promised Israel it will cut off Syria’s support for Hezbollah in an attempt to persuade Israel to support a new settlement with the Palestinians. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is regarded as the real architect of the invasion on Iraq. He said last week, quote, “There will have to be change in Syria, plainly.” Two of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s senior aides are traveling to Washington. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports the aides will suggest the U.S., quote, “take care” of Iran and Syria. They will point out that both countries support Hezbollah.

And The Boston Globe reports the emerging strategy called preemptive deterrence got a boost Friday when members of Congress aligned with Bush administration neoconservatives proposed legislation authorizing the White House impose stiff penalties, including diplomatic sanctions, on Syria if it does not take immediate action to end its support of Hezbollah and its development of weapons of mass destruction. The White House blocked similar legislation last year out of concern it would divert attention from Iraq. But last week, as Baghdad fell, administration officials gave lawmakers the green light to move forward.

Saddam Hussein’s former chief weapons scientist has surrendered to U.S. forces. General Amir Hamudi al-Sadi gave himself up in Baghdad less than 24 hours after being named as one of 55 former Iraqi officials wanted dead or alive by the United States. Al-Sadi oversaw the country’s chemical weapons. He said Iraq does not possess chemical or biological weapons and that there’s no justification for an attack on his country. He has been taken for questioning to an undisclosed location.

Seven American prisoners of war were discovered alive in a town north of Baghdad yesterday. The Marines said they were led to the POWs by Iraqi soldiers who had been abandoned by their own officers. It appears the POWs were not mistreated. Meanwhile, two members of Médecins Sans Frontières have returned to Baghdad after being arrested and held for eight days in an Iraqi prison. They were accused of being spies. While they were not physically mistreated, they said they did hear other prisoners being beaten.

Britain will offer tens of thousands of Iraqi asylum seekers some $5,000 to return to Iraq once the country is stable, this according to a report in today’s Guardian. Anyone who refuses will eventually face deportation and enforced repatriation. Nineteen thousand Iraqis sought political asylum in Britain last year, the highest number from any country. Last year the government adopted a similar policy towards Afghans in the country. They were offered 2,500 pounds per family or 600 pounds per individual to return after the military campaign against the Taliban was over. The first 50 Afghan asylum seekers will be forcibly returned later this month. Burhan Fatah of the Federation of Iraqi Refugees told The Observer, “It is all people are talking about. People shout things like, ‘Go home. Your country is safe now. Get out of ours.’”

Hundreds of thousands of people protested against the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq this weekend. Half a million people took to the streets in Rome. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated throughout Spain. Italian pacifists demonstrated at gas stations protesting the U.S. ExxonMobil oil company getting a $48 million contract to supply the U.S. military in Iraq with fuel. Tens of thousands rallied in London, and more than 10,000 people rallied in Paris behind a sign that read “Iraq to the Iraqis.” More than 10,000 people demonstrated in Washington.

A 24-year-old British peace activist was shot in the head on Friday by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip. He is brain dead. Thomas Hurndall was standing in between IDF troops and a group of Palestinian children when the soldiers opened fire, according to a witness from the International Solidarity Movement. We encourage people to listen to our other hour of Democracy Now! today, where we spent the hour with the parents of Rachel Corrie, a Palestinian and Israeli representative and a member of the International Solidarity movement who witnessed both the shooting of Tom Hurndall and the crushing of the International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie, a native of Washington state. Stay with us.