Today's Stories

June 16, 2008

Uri Avnery
An Apology

Corey D. B. Walker
The Racial Politics of Symbols

Howard Lisnoff
Files Upon Files

Dennis Loo
2008 Elections: Of Whales and Worms

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama and the Fall Into Tyranny

June 13 / 15, 2008

Douglas Valentine
McCain: War Hero or Go-To Collaborator?

Alexander Cockburn
Change, What Change?

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft

Peter Linebaugh
On Wat Tyler Day

Ishmael Reed
The Colossus: Sonny Rollins, Take One

Joe Bageant
Old Dogs and Hard Time

Harry Browne
Ireland Shows the Way!

Andy Worthington
The Supreme Court's Gitmo Decision: What Does It Mean?

Jeff Sharlet
The F-Word

Binoy Kampmark
They Gassed Us: Agent Orange in OZ

Alan Farago
His Little Piece of the Pie

Brian Cloughley
America the Detested: the Pakistan Airstrikes

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
How to Stretch Gasoline

Reza Fiyouzat
Oil and Racism

Patrick Bond /
Richard Kamidza
How Europe Underdevelops Africa

David Yearsley
Music in the Rubble

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Thank You, Dennis Kucinich!

Ronnie Cummins
Don't Panic; Go Organic

Dan Bacher
Bush Tries to Raid Salmon Disaster Funds

Michael Dickinson
Jesus in Megiddo Prison

Seth Sandronsky
My Father's World

Poets' Basement
Tu Fu / Rexroth

Website of the Weekend
Torture and the American Psyche

June 12, 2008

Judith Levine
As Cranes Fall and People Die

Patrick Cockburn
Amid Iraqi Fury, U.S. Offers Concessions on Military Bases

Saul Landau
The Iraq War Becomes Suicidal

Christopher Brauchli
Bush Bling-Bling: Government by Crony

Norman Solomon
Deadly Diplomacy

Helen Redmond
Why Can't We All Get KennedyCare?

Laura Carlsen
No Rest for the Working Poor

Jeremy R. Hammond
Threats Against Iran Escalate

Anne Landman
Pinkwashing: Can Shopping Cure Breast Cancer?

Website of the Day
Fire in Watts

June 11, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Oil Prices Are So High

Ralph Nader
Wall Street Gamblers

Joshua Frank
Why I Can't Support Barack Obama

Clifton Ross
Conversation in Miami: the Neoliberal Left and Socialism

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Whatever Happened to "Democracy Now?"

Stephen Lendman
Exposing Pentagon and CIA Corruption

Diane Farsetta
Talking Back to Bill O'Reilly

Ron Jacobs
The Sixties Painted Black

Deborah Rich
Hay Belly Nation: the FDA and the O-Word

Hop Wechsler
A Friend of Women? My Bill Clinton ... and Ours

Website of the Day
A New Path to the Waterfall

June 10, 2008

Alan Farago
John McCain and the Company He Keeps

James G. Abourezk
Deadly Fallout From Obama's Groveling Before Israel Lobby

Saree Makdisi
Banned in the U.S.A. (Almost)

Malini Johar Schueller
A Picture From Beirut

John Ross
Killing Foods, Killing People

Wajahat Ali
Rumi and Sufism

Peter Morici
Bernanke Aggravates Recession Risks

Jordan Flaherty
Inside Angola Prison, Louisiana's Last Slave Plantation

Gary Macfarlane
Collaboration on the Clearwater: Is It Legitimate?

Joanne Mariner
The Gitmo Trials: an Inglorious Start

Website of the Day
The End of the Clinton Machine?

June 9, 2008

Uri Avnery
No, I Can't: Obama, Israel and AIPAC

Nikolas Kozloff
McCain & the Republican Insitute: Promoting Iraqi Occupation for "a Million Years"

Allan Nairn
Drawing Your Last Breath Hungry

Dennis Loo
Threats on Iran and the "Batterer's Defense"

Harry Browne
Irish Euro Vote Comes Down to the Wire

C. Hand
U. S. Bid to Hike Iran's Gas Prices Seems Doomed

Peter Morici
An Unsustainable Trade Deficit

Kenneth Couesbouc
A Ripe Time for Inflation

Martha Rosenberg
The Inconvenient Senator Grassley

James L. Secor
Chinese Superstition or Unconscious Oracle?

Website of the Day
Pay Bo Diddley!

June 7 / 8, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Obama Goes Over the Top

Ishmael Reed
How Miles Davis Changed My Life

Jeffrey St. Clair
What a Miner's Life is Worth

Nikolas Kozloff
Meet the King the Beers: John McCain and Latin America

Dave Lindorff
The High Cost of a Single War-Like Remark: Oil Prices, Israel, Iran and the U.S.

Robert Fantina
When Truth is the Casualty

Conn Hallinan
Iran and Rumors of War

Neve Gordon
The Occupation and the Politics of Death

Tom Barry
The Deterrence Strategy of Homeland Security

Patrick Irelan
Raiding the Packing House

Tim Wise
Your Whiteness is Showing

David Ker Thomson
The Hard Question

Joshua Frank
"Socialist" Wins Republican Nomination in Montana

David Yearsley
Disaster Music

James T. Phillips
1968: Year of the Rat

Joe Allen
The Real Bobby Kennedy

P. Sainath
Making Life Brighter in Kondapur

David Macaray
Should Unions be More Democratic?

B.R. Gowani
Experience and the Two-for-One

Fred Gardner
What Happened (at the DA's Office)

Peter Harley
Technology to the Rescue? Kurzweil and the Human Machines

Michael Dickinson
Surrender the Bones of Geronimo!

Jen Roesch
Where are the Real Women in Sex and the City?

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Landau, and Buknatski

Website of the Day
Partying with the Waltons

June 6, 2008

Frank Barat
An Interview with Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky on the Future of Israel / Palestine

Patrick Cockburn
U.S. Extorts Iraq to Approve Military Deal

Gary Leupp
Cheney Enrages Iraqis Over Security Deal

James Abourezk
Name That Terrorist

Peter Morici
Recession Grips the Jobs Market

Faheem Hussain
What is NATO Doing in Afghanistan?

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Britons Go on Hunger Strike

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
How Will Musharraf Go? Impeachment or Safe Exit?

Dave Lindorff
Congress Needs to Defend Itself

Website of the Day
Backstage with Bo Diddley

June 5, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Bush's Secret Deal Would Ensure Permanent U.S. Occupation of Iraq

Sharon Smith
Hillary's Wreckage

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's Electoral Dilemma: Latinos or Reagan Democrats?

Linn Washington, Jr.
Police Brutality and Cover-Up in Philly

Omar Barghouti
60 Years of Nakba, 41 Years of Occupation ...

Scott Pellegrino
Jim Crow Radio: Bob Grant's Lifetime Achievement Award

John Walsh
Obama Woos AIPAC

Dan Bacher
The Parching of California

DC Larson
Nazi Rockers ... F-Off

Robert Jensen
Masculine, Feminine or Human?

Website of the Day
Ohio Cops Attack Long Walkers

June 4, 2008

Eric Walberg
Princess Patricia and the Taliban

Gary Leupp
Iran and EFPs: Chronology of a Lie

Ralph Nader
Disenfranchised Youth

Dave Lindorff
Of Whiners and Poor Losers

George Wuerthner
Farm Economics

Victor M. Rodriguez
The Puzzle of Race and Politics

Remi Kanazi
Why a Cultural Boycott of Israel is Needed

Stephane Luçon
Renault's Romanian Fairyland Suspended

Farzana Versey
The Tablighi Jamaat Movement

Laray Polk
The Militarization of Space

Website of the Day
Red State Rebels

June 3, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts /
Lawrence M. Stratton
Legislating Tyranny

Mike Whitney
The Withering Economy

Steve Early
San Juan Showdown

Manuel Otero
Why Hillary Won Puerto Rico: the View from the Colony

George Bisharat
The Hope of a Victimized People

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's VP Quandry

Dan Bacher
Death on the Salmon Highway

Website of the Day
Censoring Bill Knott?

June 2, 2008

Uri Avnery
The Olmert Scandal

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's Latino Problem Getting Worse

Allan J. Lichtman
Revisionist History: Bush, Borah and Hitler

Malini Johar Schueller
The Color of Randomness: Returning to the US From Beirut Via Syria

Robert Weissman
What's Driving Skyrocketing Oil Prices?

Peter Morici
Bailing Out Wall Street

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Don't Get Burned: How to Protect Yourself From Raytheon's Pain Gun

John Ross
Celebrating Catholic Fanaticism in Mexico

Ahmad Al-Akhras
Encounters with the Watch List

Website of the Day
Man on Earth

May 31 / June 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Worst is Yet to Come

Jeffrey St. Clair
Arkansas Bloodsuckers

Gary Leupp
How McClellan Prettifies Bush

Stan Cox
Broken Agriculture

Rannie Amiri
Lebanon: the Domino That Wouldn't Fall

P. Sainath
A Guaranteed Day's Work--in the Fields, at 110 Degrees, for $2 a Day

Binoy Kampmark
Going Bankrupt in Vallejo

Robert Fantina
Bush, Rice and McClellan

Seth Sandronsky
Will There be Water Riots, as Sacramento Goes Dry?

Corporate Crime Reporter
Death Penalty for Bush?

Anthony DiMaggio
Gaming the Ghetto: Grand Theft Auto IV, Racist Media and the Concrete Jungle

Karl Grossman
A Half-Trillion for Nukes

Matt Reichel
From Vegas to the Heartland and Back Again

Paul Myron Hillier
Of Gas and God

Andy Worthington
Suicide at Guantánamo

David Yearsley
And the Winner is ... Wayne Shorter

Daniel Cassidy
Free Lunch

Charles Thomson
If Hitler Had Been a Hippy ...

Gary Corseri
A Dream Deferred: Activism and the Arts

Wajahat Ali
Sex and the City Through a Man's Eyes

Ron Jacobs
Robins Weep

Poets' Basement
McNeill and Davies

Website of the Day
Last Charge of the Light Horse

May 30, 2008

Bassam Aramin
Here's the Truth You've Been Running From

Andrew Cockburn
Petraeus' Iran Obsession

Saul Landau
How We Got Into This Mess

Nikolas Kozloff
Meet South America's New Secessionists

Robert Sandels
Turning Back the Clock on Cuba

Dave Lindorff
Talk is Cheap

Martha Rosenberg
Raiding Big Meat; Arresting the Wrong People

Harvey Wasserman
Lieberman & McCain: Linking Internet Censorship and Atomic Reactor Terror

Doug Giebel
A Plague on Both Your Houses (of Congress)

Shaun Harkin
The Trial of the Raytheon 9

Website of the Day
The Once and Future Environmental Movement

May 29, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Bill Clinton and the Rich Women

Nikolas Kozloff
Puerto Rico, Obama and the Politics of Race

Col. Dan Smith
Deceiving the Dead

Karl Grossman
The Most Lucrative Incentive for Nuclear Power in the History of the United States

William S. Lind
Inside the Washington Game

Robert Weissman
What to do About the Price of Oil

Dave Lindorff
Why Puerto Rico Won't Matter

David Macaray
A Union Fable

Chris Genovali
Fear and Loathing in the Northern Rockies

Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Battle Over Oil

Website of the Day
Support Antiwar.com

May 28, 2008

Wajahat Ali
The Libertarian Dark Horse: An Exclusive Interview with Ron Paul

Ralph Nader
What's Really Driving the High Price of Oil?

Brian McKenna
Why I Want to Teach Anthropology at the Army War College

Corporate Crime Reporter
Why Vincent Bugliosi Wants to Prosecute George W. Bush for Murder

Brian Cloughley
The Attack on Damadola

Eric Walberg
Opium for the Masses from Afghanistan

Michael Dickinson
Raytheon's Pain Ray: Coming to a Protest Near You

Ijaz Khan
Opening Windows in Pakistan

Website of the Day
Older Than America

May 27, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
In Her Mind She's Killed Before: the Plot to Assassinate Ralph Nader

Greg Kafoury
Is Obama Turning (Further) Right?

Jean Bricmont
Western Delusions

Tim Wise
Farrakhan is not the Problem

Ricardo Alarcón
Puerto Rico's Turn

Stephen Soldz
APA Supports Psychologist Engagement in Bush Regime Interrogations

Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo 16

Alan Singer
Vapid, Stupid and Insulting: Chuck Schumer Speaks to the Graduates

Richard Neville
Storm in an A-Cup

Susie Day
Gone with the W

May 26, 2008

Uri Avnery
The Syrian Option

Bill Quigley
War Immemorial Day

Col. Dan Smith
Retreating from Hell: a Different Memorial Day

Cindy Sheehan
Why Memorial Day is a Double-Whammy for Me

Marjorie Cohn
Hillary's Assassination Politics: Her Last Shot?

Fred Gardner
Does the VA Care?

Raymond J. Lawrence
Pain Pays: Getting Rich at NY Presbyterian Hospital

Harvey Wasserman
Mugging the Election System

Moncia Benderman
Truth Matters

David Rovics
In Praise of Utah Phillips

Website of the Day
Fox News Jokes About "Knocking Off" Osama and Obama

May 24 / 25, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Death-Wish Hillary Primes Manchurian Candidate

Jeffrey St. Clair
Yellowstone: How Sununu Shrank the Ecosystem

Barbara Rose Johnston
Dam Legacies, Damned Futures

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Fourth Fleet in Venezuelan Waters

Adriana Kojeve
The Environment and the 2008 Elections

Robert Fantina
Justice Department's Revelations on Torture

Dave Lindorff
Bush's War on Children in Iraq

David Yearsley
The War on Kitsch

Nelson P. Valdés
The Buying of "Democracy" Agents in Cuba

Kathleen M. Barry
Celebrating Ethnic Cleansing

John Ross
Mexico's Narco Opera Reaches for High Point

Allison Kilkenny
Apathy Doesn't Live in Bronx

Fred Gardner
Orangeburg, 1968

Elizabeth Schulte
Can the Whole World be Fed?

Daniel Gross
Remembering the Wendy's Massacre: the Dangerous Side of Retail Work

Christopher Brauchli
The Search for a Token Right-winger

Richard Rhames
A Nation of Sheep

Daniel Cassidy
My Mother

Poets' Basement
Davies, Klipschutz and Willson

Website of the Weekend
Happy Birthday, Bob

May 23, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
War Abroad, Poverty at Home

Alan Farago
The Radical Extremists of the Building Industry

Conn Hallinan
Ballots and Bullets: From Beirut to Bolivia

Mark Engler
The World After Bush

George Wuerthner
Cars and Cows: Living Large in America

Kamran Matin
The Kurds and American Neo-Imperialism

Sandy Boyer /
Shaun Harkin
The Long Incarceration of Pol Brennan

Robert Weitzel
A "Holey" Instrument of Peace in Iraq

Cindy Sheehan
An Uphill Battle

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Futile Constitutional Amendment

Website of the Day
A Message from the Moral Compass of the McCain Campaign

May 22, 2008

Vijay Prashad
Racist Grammar

Joanne Mariner
A Military Commissions Cheat Sheet

Sharon Smith
60 Years of Apartheid

Jeff Birkenstein
Disaster Redux: Some Early Thoughts on the Earthquake in China

Brendan McQuade
From Obama to the PRTs in Iraq

Peter Morici
The Sorry State of the Banking Industry

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Restoration Boulevard

Dave Zirin
What I Want to Ask Mary Tillman

Ron Jacobs
CPR for the Antiwar Movement

Stephen Lendman
Immoral Hazard

Website of the Day
Hagee: God Sent Hitler to Drive the Jews to Israel

May 21, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Gothic Politics of Hillary Clinton

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Military Bases in South America

Alan Farago
Miami, Cuba and the Presidential Campaign

Dave Lindorff
Big John and the Scary, Scary Iran Threat

David Model
Genocide in Iraq?

Eric Walberg
Afghanistan: Who is the Enemy?

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Gets a President

Kenneth Couesbouc
Tax Against Tyranny

Website of the Day
Child Labor and War-Affected Children: a Photo Essay

May 20, 2008

Ralph Nader
A Trip Inside Google

Uri Avnery
With Friends Like These

Patrick Irelan
The Empire and the Fleet

Ray McGovern
Come Out, Admiral Fallon, Wherever You Are

David Macaray
The UAW Strike Against American Axle

Chris Genovali
Big Oil on the Water: Skating Around the Tanker Issue

Ibrahim Fawal
Birmingham, Israel and the Nakba

Christopher Ketcham
Let Us Now Praise Famous Suicides

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo Trial Delayed

Martha Rosenberg
Merck is a Repeat Offender

Website of the Day
Defend the Students Who Pied Tom Friedman

May 19, 2008

Saul Landau
Cuba Will Live

Paul Craig Roberts
The Metamorphosis of the Conservative Movement

Brian McKenna
Brotherly Love in Philly's Badlands

Patrick Cockburn
City of the Dead: Mosul on Lockdown

B. R. Gowani
The Central Problem Pakistan Needs to Tackle

Dr. Trudy Bond
Psychologists and Torture: If Not Now, When?

Cindy Sheehan
Whose War is It?

John Mohawk
The Warriors Who Turned to Peace

Remi Kanazi
When Free Speech Doesn't Come for Free

Robert Day
I Get a Horse

Website of the Day
Evolve or Die

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The First Step Toward Lasting Peace?

An Apology

By URI AVNERY

THIS WEEK, the Prime Minister of Canada made a dramatic statement in Parliament: he apologized to the indigenous peoples of his country for the injustices done to them for generations by successive Canadian governments.

This way, White Canada tries to make peace with the native nations, whose country their forefathers conquered and whose culture their rulers have tried to wipe out.

APOLOGIZING FOR past wrongs has become a part of modern political culture.

That is never an easy thing to do. Cynics might say: nothing to it. Just words. And words, after all, are a cheap commodity. But in fact, such acts have a profound significance. A human being - and even more so, a whole nation - always finds it hard to admit to iniquities performed and to atrocities committed. It means a rewriting of the historical narrative that forms the basis of their national cohesion. It necessitates a drastic change in the schoolbooks and in the national outlook. In general, governments are averse to this, because of the nationalistic demagogues and hate-mongers who infest every country.

The President of France has apologized on behalf of his people for the misdeeds of the Vichy regime, which turned Jews over to the Nazi exterminators. The Czech government has apologized to the Germans for the mass expulsion of the German population at the end of World War II. Germany, of course, has apologized to the Jews for the unspeakable crimes of the Holocaust. Quite recently, the government of Australia has apologized to the Aborigines. And even in Israel, a feeble effort was made to heal a grievous domestic wound, when Ehud Barak apologized to the  Oriental Jews for the discrimination they have suffered for many years.

But we face a much more difficult and complex problem. It concerns the roots of our national existence in Israel.

I BELIEVE that peace between us and the Palestinian people - a real peace, based on real conciliation - starts with an apology.

In my mind's eye I see the President of the State or the Prime Minister addressing a special extraordinary session of the Knesset and making a historic speech on the following lines:

MADAM SPEAKER, Honorable Knesset,

On behalf of the State of Israel and all its citizens, I address today the sons and daughters of the Palestinian people, wherever they are.

We recognize the fact that we have committed against you a historic injustice, and we humbly ask your forgiveness.

When the Zionist movement decided to establish a national home in this country, which we call Eretz Yisrael and you call Filastin, it had no intention of building our state on the ruins of another people. Indeed, almost no one in the Zionist movement had ever been in the country before the first Zionist Congress in 1897, or even  had any idea about the actual situation here.

The burning desire of the founding fathers of this movement was to save the Jews of Europe, where the dark clouds of hatred for the Jews were gathering. In Eastern Europe, pogroms were raging, and all over Europe there were signs of the process that would eventually lead to the terrible Holocaust, in which six million Jews perished.

This basic aim attached itself to the profound devotion of the Jews, throughout the generations, to the country in which the Bible, the defining text of our people, was written, and to the city of Jerusalem, towards which the Jews have turned for thousands of years in their prayers.

The Zionist founders who came to this country were pioneers who carried in their hearts the most lofty ideals. They believed in national liberation, freedom, justice and equality. We are proud of them. They certainly did not dream of committing an injustice of historic dimensions.

ALL THIS does not justify what happened afterwards. The creation of the Jewish national home in this country has involved a profound injustice to you, the people who lived here for generations.

We cannot ignore anymore the fact that in the war of 1948 - which is the War of Independence for us, and the Naqba for you - some 750 thousand Palestinians were compelled to leave their homes and lands. As for the precise circumstances of this tragedy I propose the establishment of a "Committee for Truth and Reconciliation"' composed of experts from your and from our side, whose conclusions will from then on be incorporated in the schoolbooks, yours and ours.

We cannot ignore anymore the fact that for 60 years of conflict and war, you have been prevented from realizing your natural right to independence in your own free national state, a right confirmed by the United Nations General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, which also formed the legal basis for the establishment of the State of Israel.

For all this, we owe you an apology, and I express it hereby with all my heart.

The Bible tells us: "Whoso confesseth (his crimes) and forsakes them shall have mercy" (Proverbs 28:13). Clearly, confession does not suffice. We have also to forsake the wrongs we have done in the past.

It is impossible to turn the wheel of history back and restore the situation that existed in the country in 1947, much as Canada - or the United States, for that matter - cannot go back 200 years. We must build our common future on the joint desire to move forwards, to heal what can be healed and repair what can be repaired without inflicting new wounds, committing new injustices and causing more human tragedies.

I urge you to accept our apology in the spirit in which it is offered. Let us work together for a just, viable and practical solution of our century-old conflict - a solution that may not fulfill all justified aspirations nor right all wrongs, but which will allow both our peoples to live their lives in freedom, peace and prosperity.

This solution is clear for all to see. We all know what it is. It has emerged from our painful experiences, hammered out by the lessons of our sufferings, crystallized by the exertions of the best of our minds - yours as well as ours.

This solution means, simply: You have the same rights as we. We have the same rights as you: to live in a state of our own, under our own flag, governed by laws of our own making, ruled by a government freely elected by ourselves - hopefully a good one.

One of the fundamental commandments of our religion - as of yours and every other - was pronounced 2000 years ago by Rabbi Hillel: Do not unto others, what you do not want others to do to you.

This means in practice: your right to establish at once the free and sovereign State of Palestine in all the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, which will be accepted as a full member of the United Nations.

The borders of June 4, 1967, will be restored. I hope that we can agree, in free negotiations, to minimal exchanges of territory beneficial to both sides.

Jerusalem, which is so dear to all of us, must be the capital of both our states - West Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, the capital of Israel, East Jerusalem, including al-Haram al-Sharif, which we call the Temple Mount, the capital of Palestine. What is Arab shall be yours, what is Jewish shall be ours. Let us work together to keep the city, as a living reality, open and united.

We shall evacuate the Israeli settlements, which have caused so much suffering and iniquities to you, and bring the settlers home, except from those small areas which will be joined to Israel in the framework of freely agreed swaps of territory. We shall also dismantle all the paraphernalia of the occupation, both physical and institutional.

We must approach with open hearts, compassion and common sense, the task of finding a just and viable solution for the terrible tragedy of the refugees and their decendants. Each refugee family must be granted a free choice between the various solutions: repatriation and resettlement in the State of Palestine, with generous assistance; staying where they are or emigration to any country of their choice, also with generous assistance; and yes - coming back to the territory of Israel in acceptable numbers, agreed by us. The refugees themselves must be a full partner in all our efforts.

I trust that our two states - Israel and Palestine, living side by side in this beloved but small country, will quickly come together on the human, social, economic, technological and cultural levels, creating a relationship that will not only guarantee our security, but also rapid development and prosperity for all.

Together we will work for peace and prosperity throughout our region, based on close relations with all the countries of the area.

Committed to peace and vowing to create a better future for our children and grandchildren, let us rise to our feet and bow our heads in memory of the countless victims of our conflict, Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians - a conflict that has lasted far too long.

SUCH A SPEECH is, to my mind, absolutely essential for opening a new chapter in the history of this country.

In decades of meeting with Palestinians of all walks of life, I have come to the conclusion that the emotional aspects of the conflict are no less - and perhaps even more - important than the political ones. A profound sense of injustice permeates the minds and actions of all Palestinians. Unconscious or half-conscious guilt feelings are troubling the souls of the Israelis, creating a deep conviction that Arabs will never make peace with us.

I do not know when such a speech will be possible. Many imponderable factors will have an impact on that. But I do know that without it, mere peace agreements, reached between haggling diplomats, will not suffice. As the Oslo agreements have shown, building an artificial island in a sea of stormy emotions just will not do.

THE PUBLIC apology by the Canadian Prime Minister is not the only thing we can learn from that North American country.    

43 years ago, the Canadian government took an extraordinary step in order to make peace between the English-speaking majority and the French-speaking minority among their citizens. That relationship had remained an open wound from the time the British conquered French Canada  some 250 years ago. It was decided to replace the Canadian national flag, which was based on the British "Union Jack", with a completely new national flag, featuring the maple leaf.

On this occasion, the Speaker of the Senate said: "The flag is the symbol of the nation's unity, for it, beyond any doubt, represents all the citizens of Canada without distinction of race, language, belief or opinion."

We can learn something from that, too.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

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