Coming
Soon!
From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
July
23, 2003
Uri
Avnery
Caesar's Favor
July
22, 2003
Diane
Christian
Bad Guy / Good Guy: War Forces;
Peace Frees
Jeremy
Brecher
Solidarity and Student Protests in Iran
Steve
Kretzmann
and Jim Vallette
Plugging Iraq into Globalization
Sam
Smith
Greening the Golden Triangle
James
Plummer
Smile, You're on Federal Camera
Lucretia
Stewart
This Day Shall Not Define My Life:
January 18, 2003
Website
of the Day
Iraq Coalition Casualties
July
21, 2003
Edward
Said
Imperial Arrogance and the Vile Stereotyping
of Arabs
Ron
Jacobs
Shut Up and Shoot
Allan J.
Lichtman
Why is George Bush President?
Elaine
Cassel
How's the Occupation Going? Ask the People of Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
History Recapitulates: Guantanamo and the Japanese Internment
Camps
Bruce
Jackson
Third and Arizona, Santa Monica
Website
of the Day
John Dean: Taking Apart Bush's State of the Union Speech, Claim
by Claim
July
19 / 20, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable
Than the Dot.com Bubble?
Julian
Bond
We Shall be Heard
Cynthia
McKinney
Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad
Mel
Goodman
What is to be Done with the CIA?
Jason Leopold
Tenet Blames Wolfowitz
Mickey
Z.
History Forgave Churchill
Doug Giebel
Impeachment as the Message
Jon
Brown
Whipping the Post
Mano Singham
Cheney's Oil Maps
Steven
Sherman
Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC
Robin Philpot
Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters
Khaldoun
Khelil
Capturing Friedman
Jeffrey
St. Clair
You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed
Lenni
Brenner
Sitting in with Mingus
Vanessa
Jones
Three Dog Night
Adam
Engel
Video Judas Video
Poets'
Basement
Foley, Smith and Curtis
Website
of the Weekend
Illegal Art
July
18, 2003
David
Vest
Drowning in Deep Doo-Doo
Rahul
Mahajan
Deceit Runs Deep
John Chuckman
Enron-style Management in a Dangerous World
Harold
A. Gould
The Bush-Musharraf Conclave
Alvaro
Angarita
In the Eye of the Storm: Colombia's War on Journalists
David
Grenier
Sovereignty and Solidarity in Indian Country...Rhode Island
Dave Lindorff
Bush and Hitler: a Response to the Wall Street Journal
Website
of the Day
Murder of a Whistleblower? Timeline in David Kelly Affair
July
17, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Sometimes Even the President of the
United States Has to Stand Naked
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance
Martin
Schwarz
Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation
Watchdogs
Heidi
Lypps
Better Justice Through Chemistry? Forced
Drugging and the Supreme Court
Norman
Madarasz
Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance
Conference
Pankaj
Mehta
Criminalizing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the
Boy Who Cried Wolf
Hammond
Guthrie
(Dis) Intelligence Revisited
Website
of the Day
No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism
July
16, 2003
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype
Dubious Uranium Claims
William
Cook
Defining Terrorism from the Top Down
Elaine
Cassel
Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom
Must Not Be Obeyed
Jason
Leopold
How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found?
Linda Heard
Bondage or Freedom?
Raymond
Barrett
From Detroit to Basra
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Back to the Future in Guatemala:
The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt
July
15, 2003
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Why We Resigned from VIPS
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers:
the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack
Chris
Floyd
Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries
Jason
Leopold
CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries
Gaius Publius
Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please
John
Troyer
The Niger Syndrome
Becky Gillette
No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David
Orrr
Uri
Avnery
The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall
Dwell with the Lamb
Website
of the Day
Cost of Iraq War
July
14, 2003
Lisa
Taraki
Hot Days in Ramallah
Walter
Brasch
Bush: the Pretend Captain
SOA
Watch
Training Colombia's Killers in the US
Dan Bacher
Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Intelligence Unglued
Website
of the Day
Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties
July 12 / 13, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future
Standard
Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an
Interview with Michael Hudson
John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang
Ron
Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights
Tom
Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11
David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"
Jason
Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11
Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?
Mickey
Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa
Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group
Ramzy
Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller
Adam
Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist
Robert
Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie
July
11, 2003
Conn
Hallinan
The Coin of Empire
Tim
Wise
God Responds to Bush
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The Two Faces of Bush in Africa
Edward
S. Herman
Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor
David Orr
Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation?
David
Lindorff
An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary
Website
of the Day
Dead Malls
July
10, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody
Profits of General Dynamics
Sean
Donahue
Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia
Yemi
Toure
Who Outted Bush in Afrika?
Robert
Jensen
Politics and Sustainability: an Interview
with Wes Jackson
Ali
Abunimah
US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated
Joanne
Mariner
Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions
Website
of the Day
Electronic Iraq
July
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Is the Media Finally Turning on
Bush?
David
Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons
Mickey
Z.
Why Speak Out?
Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud
John
Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie
Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq
Website
of the Day
Hail to the Thief:
Songs for the Bush Years
July
8, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological
Dissents of Scalia
Alan
Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor
Chris
Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag
Linda
S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice
Brian
Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders
Charles
Sullivan
Bush the Christian?
Saul
Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age
Website
of the Day
Occupation Watch
July
7, 2003
William
Blum
The Anti-Empire Report
Harvey
Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head
Ramzy
Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons
Simon
Jones
What Progressives Should Think About
Iran
Lesley
McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh
Uri
Avnery
The Draw
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July
4 / 6, 2003
Patrick
Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Standard
Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004
Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian
Hot Stories
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
July
23, 2003
Bush, Sharon and Abu
Mazen
Caesar's Favor
By URI AVNERY
George Caesar, the Imperator of the new Rome,
likes Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). He has invited him to the White
House and showers him with compliments.
As in ancient Rome, the likes and dislikes
of the Emperor shape the policy of the Empire. All the ministers,
eunuchs, officials, proconsuls and local rulers act accordingly,
while mouthing words of flattery and praising the wisdom of Caesar,
irrespective of whether he is really wise, like Julius Caesar,
stupid like Tiberius or downright mad, like Caligula. Caesar
is Caesar.
George Bush is a simple man. His mental
world, like a Western, contains Good Guys and Bad Guys. His impressions
are personal and come "from the gut". They have nothing
to do with logic or political analysis. Arafat made Bush angry,
he is a Bad Guy. Abu Mazen is a Good Guy, mainly because he is
not Arafat.
Like King Herod, who lived in Jerusalem
but whose ears picked up the slightest murmur in Rome, Ariel
Sharon listens to every whisper in Washington. In order to influence
Bush, he always has to know exactly which way the wind is blowing.
If Bush  likes Abu Mazen, so Sharon, too, likes
Abu Mazen.
More than that, he lays out a blue-and-white
carpet for him to walk on. He invites him to his Jerusalem office,
exchanges smiles and handshakes over the emblem of the State
of Israel, publicly orders his people to strengthen Abu Mazen
in every possible way, watching over him like a good father over
a promising son.
But with friends like this, one has no
need of enemies. I would advise Abu Mazen not to turn his back
when Sharon is around. Definitely not.
Because Sharon's hidden agenda is far
removed from his public one. As we have said many times before:
don't listen to what Sharon says but pay attention to what he
does.
From the day Abu Mazen was appointed
Palestinian Prime Minister, Sharon's sole aim has been to topple
him from his rickety chair as quickly and as forcefully as possible.
It started with statements from Sharon
and his henchmen that made Abu Mazen look like an Israeli stooge,
a sub-contractor for Israeli security. It is continuing by denying
him any political achievement at all, making him look like a
"featherless chicken", as Sharon has called him.
Sharon's many statements about releasing
prisoners as a gesture of generosity have been loaded with so
many "no"s as to become meaningless. No prisoners with
"blood on their hands". No Hamas and Jihad members.
No, no, no, until only 300 remained, including common criminals
and prisoners about to be released anyhow.
At the same time, Sharon has fulfilled
almost none of his obligations under the Road Map. The removal
of some 60 settlers' "outposts" has become a joke.
Only one single inhabited outpost was removed in a dramatic struggle
before the cameras, and two new ones were put up in its place.
The freezing of all the settlements has been "forgotten".
The building of the "separation
wall", whose main aim is the drawing of a new border deep
in Palestinian territory and grabbing as much land as possible,
is going rapidly ahead, contrary to Sharon's obligation not to
do anything that may change the situation on the ground. He is
about to spend almost two billion (billion, not million) dollars
on this monstrous enterprise, while the education and health
systems in Israel are collapsing for lack of funds and single
mothers are sitting in protest tents next to his office.
The withdrawal from the Palestinian territories
is a sham. The Israeli army has left some areas in the Gaza Strip
which it wanted to leave anyway. The central road has indeed
been opened, but not completely, and it can be shut down again
at a moment's notice. The army has also left parts of Bethlehem,
but continues to build walls in other parts of the town. Withdrawals
from all the other Palestinian towns "are not under consideration
for the time being".
All over the West Bank, the checkpoints
continue to make the lives of the population hell. Every night
more people are arrested.
The Chief-of-Staff boasts that the hudna
(cease-fire) constitutes an Israeli victory, thereby inciting
Palestinians to break it. The commander of the Central Sector
accuses the Palestinian security services of not having cooperated
in securing the release of a kidnapped Israeli cabdriver, after
refusing to give them the least scrap of the necessary information
And most importantly, all Sharon's spokesmen
announce day and night that Abu Mazen has failed in his job.
Israel, they say, will not make any gesture towards him until
he begins to disarm Hamas and Jihad--that is to say, initiates
a civil war that will cause Hamas and Jihad to end the hudna
and start a new conflagration. This would allow Sharon to wriggle
out of his obligation to dismantle settlements.
Abu Mazen is also told that he must replace
Arafat, who is vastly more popular than him. The ongoing imprisonment
of Arafat in his wrecked Ramallah compound is, of course, weakening
Abu Mazen and strengthening Arafat.
Putting together this pattern of behavior,
there is only one possible conclusion: while praising Abu Mazen
, Sharon is doing everything possible to bury him. He is not
fighting against Arafat alone, he is also--and primarily--fighting
against Abu Mazen.
Unlikely? Strange? Not at all. Like Herod
in his time, Sharon knows the vital importance of keeping in
Caeasar's favor, so as to be able to manipulate him and take
advantage of him. Arafat does not disturb Sharon in this pursuit.
Bush hates him. But Abu Mazen has turned out to be a dangerous
competitor for Bush's favor. He must be eliminated. And quickly.
But this is a sensitive job. Care must
be taken to avoid suspicion in Washington. Annoying Bush must
be avoided at all costs. Therefore, when Sharon hears dissatisfied
murmurs from the White House, he is quick to make concessions.
Not 300 prisoners will be released, but 400, including some Hamas
and Jihad members. They want the removal of another "outpost"?
OK, bring on the TV cameras to witness another dramatic struggle.
In any case, one can rely on the settlement rowdies to come back
in the night. The main thing is to satisfy Caesar and his eunuchs.
Hail Caesar, those who are about to kill
Abu Mazen salute you.
Uri Avnery
is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He
is one of the writers featured in The
Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. One of his
essays is also included in Cockburn and St. Clair's forthcoming
book: The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org.
Weekend Edition Features for July 19 / 20, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable
Than the Dot.com Bubble?
Julian
Bond
We Shall be Heard
Cynthia
McKinney
Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad
Mel
Goodman
What is to be Done with the CIA?
Jason Leopold
Tenet Blames Wolfowitz
Mickey
Z.
History Forgave Churchill
Doug Giebel
Impeachment as the Message
Jon
Brown
Whipping the Post
Mano Singham
Cheney's Oil Maps
Steven
Sherman
Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC
Robin Philpot
Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters
Khaldoun
Khelil
Capturing Friedman
Jeffrey
St. Clair
You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed
Lenni
Brenner
Sitting in with Mingus
Vanessa
Jones
Three Dog Night
Adam
Engel
Video Judas Video
Poets'
Basement
Foley, Smith and Curtis
Website
of the Weekend
Illegal Art
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|