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Today's
Stories
July 22-23, 2006
Jonathan Cook
Israel's Indiscriminate Onslaughts
Uri Avnery
"Stop that Shit"
Gilad Atzmon
Israel's New Math
Robert Fisk
Elegy for Beirut
Ralph Nader
Here's How to Halt This Horror
Fred Gardner
The Double Standard on Depression
Christopher Reed
The Right's Use of Sexpot Schoolgirls
Dr. Susan Block
Bush's Fecal World
Najla Said
Do People Know How Much We Hurt?
Paul Craig Roberts
The Shame of Being an American
July 21, 2006
George Galloway
John Cornford and the Fight for the Spanish Republic
P. Sainath
Indian Prime Minister Faces the Dead Farmer Problem
Aseem Shrivastava
The Iraq War is a Huge Success
Alexander Cockburn
Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel: Everything You Need to Know
Website of the Day
FromIsraeltoLebanon
July 20, 2006
William S. Lind
Why Hezbollah is Winning
Robert Jensen
Florida Puts History on Probation
John Ross
AMLO Presidente!
Tom Hayden
I Was Israel's Dupe
Paul Craig Roberts
The Unfolding Horror Show
July 19, 2006
Patrick Cockburn
Massacres Soar in Central Iraq: Maliki Government Discredited
Trish Schuh
Israel Targets, Flattens Beirut TV Station HQ
Jonathan Cook
Is Israel Using Arab Villages As Human Shields?
Vicente Navarro
The Spanish Civil War, 70 Years On: The Deafening Silence on Franco's Genocide
July 17 / 18 2006
Mike Whitney
Israel's Shameful Attack on Gaza
Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land
July 14 / 15,
2006
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
How
Venice is Dying
Tanya Reinhart
The IDF is Hungry for War
Robert Fisk
Beirut Waits: Is Damascus the Key?
Daniel Cassidy
How the Irish Invented Jazz
Winslow Wheeler
Pentagon Budget Gimmickry: When a Cut is Actually an Increase
Hugh O'Shaughnessy
In Amazonia: Slavery and Deforestation
M. Shahid Alam
Israel, the US and the New Orientalism
William S. Lind
Two Signposts in Iraq
Ramzy Baroud
Racism Plagues Media Coverage of Gaza Assault
Gilad Atzmon
Echoes of the Wehrmacht
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Railroading Your Rights
Samar Assad
A History of Israeli-Palestinian Prisoner Exchanges
Ron Jacobs
Japan and Pre-Emptive Strikes: Why Would They Want to Go There?
Lee Ballinger
A New Kind of Jim Crow?
Walter Brasch
A World Without Fajitas?: the Rightwing's Language Police
Dave Lindorff
The Bush Swingers?: They Broke the Law and People Died
Clifton Ross
Up from Below in Oaxaca
Tom Crumpacker
Planning for the Re-Colonization of Cuba
Ricardo Alarcon
The Mad Annexationist
William Hughes
Rev. Billy Graham: A War-Monger in the Pulpit
Susie Day
Bugging Hillary
Farrah Hassen
The Road to Gitmo: Dramatizing the Banality of Evil
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Engel and Davies
July 13, 2006
Saul Landau
Lies as Patriotism?
Youmans / Erakat
Divestment, Corporate Engagement
and Israel
Dave Lindorff
Cut and Run: a Winning Strategy
Ron Jacobs
Dogs of War Barking at the Moon
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq: Fool Me Twice
June 22, 2006
Marjorie Cohn
Friendly Fire Ambush
Winslow T. Wheeler
Lockheed, the Senator and the F-22
Tanya Reinhart
A Week of Israeli Restraint
Mike Marqusee
The Forest Gate Raid
William Blum
Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's
July 12, 2006
John Ross
Mexico
Splits in Half: the Election Hits the Streets
John Stauber
The CIA Propagandist and Former Prankster Stewart Brand: John
Rendon's Long, Strange Trip in the Terror Wars
Robert Boston
Top 10 Powerbrokers of the Religious Right
Wayne S. Smith
Bush's New Cuba Plan: Embargoes, Blacklists and Assassination
Plots
John Graham
Secrecy and the Curtain of Oz
Ed Kinane
Arrested for Failing to Obey a Lawful Order to Cease Protesting
an Unlawful War: My Statement to the US District Court
Kevin Prosen
Goodbye Mr. Zeidler, You Will Be Missed
Jonathan Cook
Israel's
Latest Bueaucratic Obscenity
Website of
the Day
Addicted
to Oil: Starring GW Bush
July 11, 2006
Dave Lindorff
Does
a State of War Give Bush the Right to Commit War Crimes?
Dave Zirin
Why
I Wear My Zidane Jersey
Mokhiber / Weissman
Boeing's Criminal Agreement: Odd and Unusual
Amira Hass
A War on Families
Clare Hanrahan
The Last Free Fourth of July?
Brian Cloughey
Stop Blaming Pakistan
Felice Pace
The US Media and the World Cup
Raed Jarrar
Iraq:
Raped
Website of the Day
Bad Boy of Gitmo
July 10, 2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
Courting
Doom with North Korea
Uri Avnery
A
One-Sided War
Roger Burbach
Democracy
Betrayed: Electoral Fraud and Rebellion in Mexico
Ron Jacobs
The New SDS: Toward a Radical Youth Movement
Joshua Frank
Sectarian Flames in Iraq
Missy Comley Beattie
Bush's Stunning Admission to Larry King
Alexander Cockburn
The
War in Iraq: a Dreadful Mistake
July 8 / 9, 2006
Weekend Edition
Stephen Green
When
War Criminals Retire
Paul Craig
Roberts
Republic or Empire?: Lessons from Stanford
Greg Moses
Boots Down on the Rio Grande
Ralph Nader
The
Wail of the Oceans
Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Election Lacks Credibility
Conn Hallinan
Dumping Musharraf: Is Pakistan Expendable?
John Chuckman
Afghanistan is No One's War
Fred Gardner
Big Pharma's Strange Holy Grail: Cannabis Without Euphoria?
Dr. Tod Mikuriya
Cannabis as a Frontline Treatment for Childhood Mental Disorders
Pierre Tristam
Missile Envy: Is N. Korea Bush's Most Reliable Ally?
Lucinda Marshall
Deep Sexing the News: the Rape of Iraq
David Swanson
Command Rape: the Ordeal of Suzanne Swift
Heather Gray
The Spiral of Violence: What the Dead Might Tell Us
Dave Zirin
/ John Cox
French Soccer and the Future of Europe: Le Pen's Racists vs.
Zindane and Henry
Mark Engler
Mexico's Fear of Democracy: Elites, Fraud and the Status Quo
Michael Lettieri
Mexico: Don't Discount a Recount
Ron Jacobs
2008 Might Be Too Late: the Case for Impeachment Now
Jamal Juma'
Globalizing the Occupation
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Engel and Kirbach
July 7, 2006
John Ross
Anatomy
of a Fraud Foretold: Mexico's Surreal Elections
July 6, 2006
Nick Dearden
Profiting from the Occupation: the Corporate Interests Behind
the War on Palestine
John Stanton
Nationalize
the Defense Industry
Ralph Nader
The Politics of the Minimum Wage
Laray Polk
Cambodia Then; Gaza Now
Saul Landau
Who Mourned the Victims of the US Covert War on Chile?
Joshua Frank
Sweet Angst, Power Chords and Politics: Farewell Sleater-Kinney
William S. Lind
To Be or Not to Be a State? Hamas and 4th Generation War
Adelman / Lindorff
Impeachment Comes to Main Street, USA
Jonathan Cook
An
Experiment in Human Despair
Website of
the Day
Adulterers in Chief?
July 5, 2006
Mike Whitney
Is
Cheney Betting on Economic Collapse?: the Veep's Curious Investment
Portfolio
Saul Landau
False
Axioms: Star Democrats and Iraq Massacres
Ramzy Baroud
And
Israel Shall Be Safe Again
Missy Comley Beattie
An Axis of Nuts: Ready, Aim, Fear
Arthur Neslen
A Way Out of the Gaza Crisis?
Vincent Maruffi
Party Politics in Connecticut: Lieberman, Lamont and the Greens
Paul Cantor
Aberrations:
Hell, High Water and the Moral High Ground
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: Let's Be Honest About Food's Origin
David Price
Shouting
Down Nazis in Olympia
July 4, 2006
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
and Independence Day: Lessons from the War of 1812
Chris Floyd
American
Power in Mahmudiyah
Marjorie Cohn
Israel's
Collective Punishment of Gaza
James Brooks
Israel 9,000 Palestine 1: Destroying the Gaza Strip
Medea Benjamin
"Dictatress
of the World:" Has America Become JQ Adams' Worst Nightmare?
Matt Reichel
An Independence Day Lesson for the American Left from France
Elisa Salasin
Why I am Fasting Today
Rick Wilhelm
Will Lieberman Apologize to Ralph Nader?
Paul Craig
Roberts
Rape,
Lies and Murder
Website of the Day
A Mighty Handsome Family
July 3, 2006
Robert Bryce
Gaza
in the Dark: Poor, Frustrated and Powerless
Dr. Bouthaina Shaban
"I Hope You're Not Here to Talk About the Palestinians"
Julia Olmstead
The Biofuel Illusion: Running on Top Soil
Dave Lindorff
The Real Meaning of the Hamdan Ruling: Bush Adm. Has Committed
War Crimes
Andres Gomez
A Mockery of Justice
Alan Singer
Another Encounter with Chuck Schumer: Just as Hawkish as Hillary,
But Nastier
Alexander Cockburn
Temple
of Mammon, Planet of Doom
July 1/2, 2006
Weekend Edition
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Assaults on Freedom: What's to Stop Him?
Stephen T.
Banko
Echoes
from Vietnam; Nightmares in Iraq
Daniel Cassidy
How the Irish Invented Slang: the Bunkum of Bunkum (for Dizzy
Gillespie)
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Class Behind the Muslim
Jeff Taylor
The Sandy Foundation of the White House: a Bible-Believing Christian's
View of Bush
John Ross
Mexico: There's a Riot Going On
Greg Moses
Psycho-Management Hits Mexico's Maquiladoras
Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Elections: a Choice for Change
Justin E.H.
Smith
Lethal Injection and Other Fashion Trends
Brian Cloughley
Different Worlds: When Liberation is Worse Than Oppression
Anthony Papa
Punishing Addiction: No Walk in the Park for Dwight Gooden
Mike Ferner
Getting Busted for Wearing a Peace T-Shirt
Jerry Tucker
Liberalism's Long Goodbye: McGovern Hoists the White Flag
Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta
Remembering the Marshall Islands
Phyllis Pollack
Roll Over Beethoven: Chuck Berry is Back in Town
Poets' Basement
Salasin, Swindell, Ferri-Smith and Engel
June 30, 2006
Marjorie Cohn
Supreme
Rebuke: Bush Loses Gitmo Case
Heather Williams
Will
Mexicans Ignore What Bolivians Learned?
Burbach / Cantor
Yellowback
Democrats: the Party of Cut-and-Run (from Principle)
Nick Dearden
Crime in the Valley: Life on the Other Side of Palestine
Michael J.
Smith
Under the Broadcast Flag: Intellectual Property as Intellectual
Theft
Brian Concannon
The Return to Haiti: a Homecoming for Aristide?
Virginia Tilley
Israel's Appalling Act: Starving in the Dark
June 29, 2006
Bill Quigley
Gutting
New Orleans
Ron Jacobs
Killing a Nation to Rescue a Soldier
Paul Craig
Roberts
The High Price of American Gullibility
June 28, 2006
Jorge Mariscal
Mexican-American
Soldiers, Iraq and the Politics of Immigrant Bashing
Greg Moses
Down
in Pinal County: Where the Pun's on Us
Mark Weisbrot
Mexico: Their Brand is Crisis
Ramzy Baroud
Re-Interpreting
Iraq: the Latest Propaganda Campaign
Dave Lindorff
Redacting the Constitution: Why Signing Statements Matter
William S.
Lind
Neither Shall the Sword: War in a Fouth Generation World
Mike Ferner
50 Years Down the Wrong Direction: Taken for a Ride on the Interstate
Highway System
Zoltan Grossman
Military Resistance: a Brief History
June 27, 2006
Marjorie Cohn
Playing
Politics with Timetables
Benjamin /
Jarrar
Leading
Dems Froth Over Amnesty Plan
William Hughes
Roadmap to Starvation
Doug Giebel
Showdown in Montana: Burns vs. Testor
Uri Avnery
The World Cup and Middle East Peace
Alexander Cockburn
Hitchens Hails the "Glorious War"
June 26, 2006
Don Santina
American
Rituals: Massacres, Baseball and Apple Pies
Ralph Nader
Beyond Binary Politics
Dave Lindorff
CounterPunch v. CounterPunch: Taking Impeachment on the Road
Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz
An Interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal on Hispanics and Latin America
Evelyn Pringle
Big
Pharma's Big Graveyard: Drug Profits, Fraud and Death
Jonathan Cook
Israeli
"Retaliation" and Double Standards
June 23, 2006
Youmans / Erakat
Divestment, Corporate Engagement
and Israel
Dave Lindorff
Cut
and Run: a Winning Strategy
Ron Jacobs
Dogs of War Barking at the Moon
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq:
Fool Me Twice
June 22, 2006
Marjorie Cohn
Friendly Fire Ambush
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Lockheed,
the Senator and the F-22
Tanya Reinhart
A Week of Israeli Restraint
Mike Marqusee
The
Forest Gate Raid
William Blum
Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's
June 21, 2006
Ramzy Baroud
Zarqawi's Death: Myth vs. Reality
Patrick Cockburn
Embassy Work as Death Sentence
Gary Leupp
Making the Case for Impeachment
Greg Moses
Elite Logic at the Border
June 20, 2006
Fred Gardner
The Long War on Aspirin
Omar Waraich
Ode to Joy: Watching Blair Sink
Christopher Reed
Japan Nixes Payments to Its Wartime
Slaves
CP Newswire
Coca Cola Takes a Hit
Jonathan Cook
Israel Engineers Another Cover-Up
June 19, 2006
Bill Quigley
HUD's Bulldozers and the Poor of
New Orleans
John Walsh
Tears of a Clown: Al Franken's War
Mike Whitney
The Zoom Lens War: Bush's Baghdad
Photo Op
Alexander Cockburn
The Left and the Blathersphere
June 16 / 18, 2006
Weekend Edition
Kathy / Bill Christision
The
Power of the Israel Lobby
Joseph Nevins
On the Migrant Trail: No More Walls, No More Deaths
Farrah Hassen
An Interview with Syria's Ambassador to the US, Dr. Imad Moustapha
Greg Moses
The Real Mission of the Uniformed Ghost at the Border
Nicole Colson
"There's No Hope at Gitmo"
John Scagliotti
How MoveOn Wastes Its Donors' Money
Mokhiber / Weissmann
Corporate Democrats
June 15, 2006
Kathy Kelly
Look
Them in the Eye: Honest Abe and the Residents of Ramadi
Norman Solomon
Premature Triangulation: Hillary's Big Problem
Ron Jacobs
Publicity
Stunts as Public Policy
Sam Bahour
Cover Up on Gaza Beach
Ramzy Baroud
Palestine on the Brink
CounterPunch Wire
Death Squads at Colombia's Universities
Gabriel Kolko
Why
a Global Economic Deluge Looms
Website of the Day
Antje Duvekot: Music You've Been Waiting Years to Hear
June 14, 2006
Nicole Colson
"They
Want the Fear Level at a High Pitch": An Interview with Lawyer
Lynne Stewart
Jonathan Cook
Israeli
Law and Order
Joseph Schechla
Bulldozing Palestine: an Open Letter to Caterpillar, Inc.
Michael Carmichael
Bolton at Oxford: Jeered and Taunted
Evelyn Pringle
Karl and George, the Teflon Partnership
Ward Churchill
My Trial By Media: Turning Quibbles Over Footnotes into Felonies
Rev. William E. Alberts
Decoding the Coders of Christ: Jesus the Political Insurgent?
Website of the Day
Marines Iraq Snuff Film
June 13, 2006
Medea Benjamin
Take
Back America Suppresses Anti-War Dissenters at HRC Speech
Anthony Alessandrini
The
Evil of Banality: the General, the New York Times and the Gitmo
Suicides
Paul D'Amato
The
Meaning of Haditha
Dave Lindorff
The Strange Death of Zarqawi: Was He Killed So He Wouldn't Talk?
John Ross
Elections and the World Cup: If Team Mexico Advances, Will Anyone
Show Up to Vote for Lopez Obrador?
Gabriel Garcia
Venezuela and Drug Trafficking: Bush Bashes Chavez Despite Positive
Results
Hilton Obenzinger
DIvestment is a Stand for Equality in Israel
Yitzhak Laor
The Secret of Authority
Juan Antonio Ocasio
Rivera
Puerto Rico at the UN
Jennifer Van Bergen
The
Story Behind Zarqawi's Death: What's the Legality of the Assassination?
Website of the Day
Paul Wright: a Real American Freedom Fighter
June 12, 2006
Paul Craig Roberts
Bush's
Armageddon Wish: a Final End to History?
Patrick Cockburn
The
US Already Misses Zarqawi
Mike Marqusee
Rebranding
a Team: English Nationalism and the World Cup
Lee Sustar
"I
Never Had the American Dream:" Left with No Future by GM and
Delphi
Robert Fisk
Has
Racism Invaded Canada?
Michael J. Smith
Enter Sandman; Exit Kosland
Felice Pace
NPR's Warped Covereage of the MIddle East
Jennifer Loewenstein
Setting
the Record Straight on Hamas
Website of the Day
Our Way Home
June 10 / 11, 2006
Weekend Edition
Robert Fisk
Zarqawi's
End is not a Famous Victory
Diane Christian
Zarqawi's Face
Joe Allen
The American Way of Atrocities: Marine Corps' Killer Virtues
Ralph Nader
Let Us All Praise the Dixie Chicks
Fred Gardner
Tylenol Toxicity Terror
Dave Lindorff
Nothing New About Haditha
Dave Zirin / John
Cox
Will Racism Spoil the World Cup?
Dennis Perrin
Death is Patriotic: Necro-Porn, Live on CNN
Greg Moses
Militarizing the Border: Why Operation Jump Start Worries Me
John Chuckman
Terror in Toronto or Tempest in a Teapot?
Michael J. Smith
Babes in Kosland: Dem Blogfest, Day Two
Roger Burbach
Bachelet in DC: Chilean President Refuses to Back Down to Bush
Ira Moskowitz
Israeli Court Finds Mad-Dog US Prof Libeled CounterPuncher Neve
Gordon
Sam Bahour
The Gaza Air Strikes: Begging for a Response
Seth Sandronsky
Grocery Chains and Bush's Ownership Society: Profits Fall, Stores
Close
Michael Berg
A Father's Day Message: Both Parties Have Betrayed America
Kirsten Roberts
Desmond Dekker and the Music of the Shantytowns
Ron Jacobs
Who's Fooling Who?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Jones, Davies, Engel and Louise
Website of the Weekend
Miles and Trane, So What?
| July 22-23, 2006
Israel’s New Math
2 = 500,000
By GILAD ATZMON
This is obviously the outcome of the newly emerged Hebraic arithmetic laws. For 2 kidnapped Israeli soldiers who are still kept alive, 500,000 innocent Lebanese civilians are displaced. For 2 abducted Israeli soldiers, Lebanon, a sovereign state, is brought back down on its knees. Its civil infrastructure is ‘gone’. Some of its capital’s residential quarters and southern villages are already wiped out. Indeed, ‘two equals half a million’ is the new arithmetic the Israelis insist upon imposing on the region. Is it that surprising? Not at all, as predicted by Gershon Sholem already in the 1930’s: once the Jews start to speak Hebrew, it won’t take long before they consider themselves to be God.
In the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were "brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven" (Genesis 13:13; 18:20; 19:24, 29; Hosea 11:8). The two towns where erased by God for the sins of its inhabitants. In the Biblical narrative (Genesis 18), God informs Abraham that he intends upon demolishing the city of Sodom because of its gross immorality. Abraham pleads with God not to do it. God is willing to agree as long as there were 50 righteous people in town, then 45, then 30, 20, or even just 10 decent people.
While the Biblical tale is saturated with God’s fury and vengeance, it is Abraham, a morally orientated human being who insists upon saving the inhabitants of Sodom. Yet, not many contemporary Abrahams have been raising their voices within Israeli society. In a demonstration against the emerging brutal attack against Lebanon, less than one thousand Israeli showed up. But far more worryingly, not many Abrahams are noticeable amongst our world leaders. While Bush was clearly caught up welcoming the brutal wiping out of yet another Arab country, his twin ideological brother, PM Blair, supports Israel’s “right to defend itself”.
One should ask the British PM the obvious question: if indeed Israel is solely engaged in merely “defending itself” how come there is no Navy rescue mission of Britons from Tel Aviv or Haifa? Somehow, Mr. Blair, it is rather apparent that Israel’s aim of ‘defending itself’ is so extensive in its brutality that it is actually Beirut and southern Lebanon that are wiped out.
Following Sholem’s prophecy, it is rather clear that the almighty Israelis indeed endorsed the role of a cruel God. Flying American F-16’s, the Israelis ‘brimstone and fire’ Lebanese cities and villages out of existence. Last night, the IAF angels dropped 23 tons of explosives on a one single bunker in Beirut. They really want to kill so it seems.
However, within the Biblical tale, even God is willing to bargain, “just present me with 50, 40, 30, 20 righteous people,” he tells Abraham. Seemingly, Israel, the almighty regional God, is far less willing to bargain. Till this point in time, it has rejected any ceasefire initiatives. The Israelis want to ‘finish the job’ so they say.
One may wonder what exactly is that job which they want to finish. Indeed they spread collateral damage all over Lebanon but seemingly they do not touch the Hezbollah. Instead, rather murderously, they punish the entire Lebanese people. They flatten Beirut’s southern neighbourhoods, they destroy the Lebanese civil infrastructures, they destroy the state’s economy, half a million Lebanese are now displaced, hundreds are dead. And guess what, they don’t win. Ostensibly, the Hezbollah is gaining power. In fact, from this point onwards, the Hezbollah can only win. In other words, the Hezbollah has won the battle already.
More than anything, it is the Hezbollah that made Israel reveal its very devastating notion of blood arithmetic i.e. 2 = 500,000. For those who fail to understand, people who believe in ‘two equals half a million’ can easily nuke whoever they consider to be their enemies with out the slight hesitation. 2 = 500,000 is there to suggest that Israel isn’t just a regional danger, it is the biggest threat to world peace. This is something I’ve known for a while but now thanks to the Hezbollah this will become common knowledge.
While in the history of the conflict, no Arab army has yet to defeat the Israeli military might, the Hezbollah, a tiny paramilitary group of patriotic warriors has managed to transform northern Israeli cities into ghost towns. They did it without a navy, without an air force, without tanks. For those who don’t know, Israel is all about ‘good life’. It is all about trading in the stock exchange. Having a BBQ party on the beach. Big imported pop acts in open-air concerts. Rather than Peace Israelis are after ‘Shalom’ which really means: one-sided security for the Jews only. The Hezbollah (as well as the Hamas) made it clear to the Israelis, you will never live in Shalom unless you dig into the notion of Peace.
It is important to mention that Israel could never win this war, it could only lose and in fact it lost already. Israel’s power of deterrence is minced to pieces by a lightly armed paramilitary organisation. Considering the emerging humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, the world public attention from now on will be dedicated to the growing devastation the ‘God-like’ Israelis have left behind. Israel on its side is going to be left with a war of attrition. It took the Hezbollah 20 years to get the IDF out of Lebanon. The Israelis know very well that if the IDF failed miserably in defeating the Hezbollah, no army in the world can do the job any better. Hezbollah is there to stay. Israel is now left with a very hostile neighbour and a very strong Hezbollah on its very vulnerable northern border.
The Old Testament’s almighty God is indeed merciless at times, he acts with fury and vengeance but he isn’t vulnerable. In Genesis 18 the people of Sodom do not fight back, they just pass away. The one who looks back with awe is transformed into a salty statue. But the ‘God-like’ Israelites are rather vulnerable. One billion Arabs are waiting for them behind the corner. One billion Arabs who are humiliated daily by an Anglo-American Zionised west that backs ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’. One billion Arabs that are looking at stolen Palestine, smashed Gaza and torn apart Lebanon. Those Arabs have a good reason to be cheered by the Hezbollah. It is the Hezbollah that gives them a very good reason to look forward with pride.
But the Hezbollah is not the only winner. Clearly, the Israeli attack leads towards a huge humanitarian crisis. While the Americans and British are concerned mainly with rescuing their citizens in Beirut (many of them indeed Lebanese by origin), Syria is there to offer safe shelter to a growing flood of thousands of Lebanese refugees. While Blair and Bush engage in giving the green light to Israeli brutality, it is Syria that gives a hand to the real victims. It is about time we shake off our views and admit that from a purely ethical point of view. It is Syria and Iran who support the oppressed people in this battered region. i.e.. the Palestinians and now the Lebanese. For me this is more than enough to suggest that at least ethically, Iran and Syria are the most progressive powers around.
And just one final word about the God-like Israelites; indeed, it is very clear that they do not love their neighbours. But how to say it, people who inflict so much pain on others probably do not like themselves either. Even murderers don’t like themselves being murderers.
Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He is the author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed and the recently released My One and Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. His recent CD, Exile, was named the year's best jazz CD by the BBC. He now lives in London and can be reached at: atz@onetel.net.uk
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