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Today's
Stories
October 25,
2004
Uri Avnery
On
the Road to Civil War
October 22
/ 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
You
Can't Blame Nader for This
Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions
Willliam A.
Cook
Killing for Christ
Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?
Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children
While Arresting Priest
Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really
Means
William S.
Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War
Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry
Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"
Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?
Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military
Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion
M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America
David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and
Kerry
David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs
Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story
Website of
the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling
October 21,
2004
Ben Tripp
The
Undecided Voter Examined
Joshua Frank
Kerry
and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green
Stan Cox
What
the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses
Bill Martinez
State
Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply
Mark Engler
The War and Globalization
Lina Britto
and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia:
a Year After the October Insurrection
Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
Jason Leopold
Sinclair
Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception
Jesse Sharkey
A
Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School
Students
Col. Dan Smith
Choking
Free Speech About the Draft
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion
David Vest
If
Bush Wins, Blame Me
Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny
Ron Jacobs
Time
to Kick It Up a Notch
James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?
Christopher
Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest
Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...
Website of
the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue
October 19,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
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
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
October 25, 2004
How the Settlers'
Movement Have Infiltrated the IDF
On
the Road to Civil War
By
URI AVNERY
Everybody in Israel is talking about
the Next War. The most popular TV channel is running a whole
series about it.
Not another war with the Arabs.
Not the nuclear threat from Iran. Not the ongoing bloody confrontation
with the Palestinians.
The talk is about the coming
civil war.
Only a few months ago, that
would have sounded preposterous. Now, suddenly, is has become
a possibility, and a very real one. Not another blown-up media
sensation. Not yet another of Sharon's political manipulations.
Not just a new blackmail attempt by the settlers. But the real
thing on the ground.
They talk about it at cabinet
meetings and in the Knesset, on TV talk-shows, in editorials
and the news pages. The Chief-of-Staff has publicly warned that
the army may fall apart. One of the ministers says that the very
existence of the State of Israel is in danger. Another minister
prophesies a bloodbath like the Spanish civil war.
Quietly and not so quietly,
the Shin Bet is taking precautions. The prison service has been
ordered to prepare facilities for mass detentions. The army leadership
is planning the call-up of 10 thousand reserve soldiers and starting
to think about the steps they must take in the case of
No, it's a very real threat.
On the face of it, it may seem
to have appeared from nowhere. But whoever has eyes to see knew
that it is going to happen, sooner or later.
The seeds of the civil war
were sown when the first settlement was put up in the occupied
territories. At the time, I told the Prime Minister in the Knesset:
"You are laying a land mine. Some day you will have to dismantle
it. As a former soldier, let me warn you that the dismantling
of land mines is a very unpleasant job."
Since then, hundreds of mines
have been laid. The minefields are being extended even now.
The process was led by religious
cranks. Their declared aim, as they said then and never tire
of repeating, is to drive all the Arabs out of the country that
God promised us. And the land God promised us, as one of them
reminded us on TV the other day, is not the "Palestine"
of the British mandate, but the Promised Land - including Jordan,
Lebanon and parts of Syria and Sinai. Quoting the Bible, another
one declared that we have come to this country not only to inherit,
but also to disinherit the others, to drive them out and take
their place.
Since the then Minister of
Defence, Shimon Peres, implanted the first settlement, Kedumim,
in the middle of the Palestinian population on the West Bank,
the settlements have spread like locusts. Every settlement has
gradually stolen the lands and water of the neighboring Palestinian
villages, uprooted their trees, blocked their roads and built
new roads, barred to Palestinians. Almost all the settlements
have spawned satellite outposts on the nearby hills.
This is continuing at this
very moment. After Sharon solemnly promised President Bush to
dismantle some of the "outposts", dozens of new one
have sprung up. All the ministries are actively helping the outposts
that were officially defined as "illegal". Not only
is the army defending them, thereby putting its soldiers in harm's
way, but it is actually telling the "hill-boys" where
to set up their outposts and secretly advising them how to go
about it.
When we warned of the danger,
we were told to relax. Only a small minority of the settlers,
we were comforted, are fanatical freaks. These are indeed crazy
and will forcibly resist any attempt to remove them. But that
will not be a big problem, because the vast majority of Israeli
citizens detest them and consider them a sect of crackpots.
Most of the settlers, we were
told, are not fanatics. They went there because the government
presented them with expensive villas, which they could not even
dream about in Israel proper. They were looking for "quality
of life". When the government tells them to move, they will
take the compensation and move on.
That is, of course, a dangerous
delusion. As Karl Marx observed, people's consciousness is determined
by their situation. The good Laborites who were implanted by
the Labor government on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip now
talk and behave like the worst followers of the late fascist
rabbi Meir Kahane.
Moreover, we were told, even
the weirdos recognize Israeli democracy. Nobody will raise his
hands against soldiers of the Israeli army. When the government
and the Knesset decide to evacuate settlements, they will obey.
They may raise a ruckus and put up a show of resistance, as they
did during the evacuation of the North Sinai settlements in 1982,
but at the end of the day they will give in. After all, even
in North Sinai not one single settler refused, in the end, to
accept their compensation.
But this disdain for the settlers
is no less dangerous than the disdain for the Arabs. What had
been hidden all the time is now becoming clear: the settlers
don't give a damn for democracy and the institutions of the state.
Their hard core spells it out: when the resolutions of the Knesset
contradict the Halakha (Jewish religious law), the Halakha has
priority. After all, the Knesset is just a gang of corrupt politicians.
And what value have the secular laws, copied from the Goyim (Gentiles),
compared to the word of God, blessed be his name?
Many settlers do not yet say
so openly and pretend to be insulted when such attitudes are
attributed to them, but in fact they are dragged along by the
hard core that has already thrown off all the masks. They challenge
not only the policy of the government, but Israeli democracy
as such. They declare openly that their aim is to overthrow the
State of Law and put in its place the State of the Halakha.
A State of Law is subject to
the will of the majority, which enacts the laws and amends them
as necessary. The State of the Halakha is subject to the Torah,
revealed once and for all on Mount Sinai and unchangeable. Only
a very small number of eminent rabbis have the authority to interpret
the Halakha. That is, of course, the opposite of democracy. In
any other country, these people would be called fascists. The
religious coloration makes no difference.
The religious-rightist rebels
are powerfully motivated. Many of them believe in the Kabbala
not Madonna's fashionable Kabbala, but the real one, which
says that today's secular Jews are really Amalekites who succeeded
in infiltrating the People of Israel at the time of the exodus
from Egypt. God Himself has commanded, as everyone knows, the
eradication of Amalek from the face of the earth. Can there be
a more perfect ideological basis for civil war?
Why has this become a threat
at this point in time? It is not yet clear whether Sharon really
intends to dismantle the few settlements in the Gaza Strip. But
as the settlers see it, even the idea of removing one single
settlement is a casus belli. It attacks everything that
is holy to them. Sharon tried to convince them that it is only
a ploy to sacrifice a few small settlements in order to
save all the others. In vain.
In preparation for the Great
Rebellion, the settlers have unveiled their potential. The most
eminent rabbis of the "Religious Zionist movement"
have declared that the evacuation of a settlement is a sin against
God and have called upon the soldiers to refuse orders. Hundreds
of rabbis, including the rabbis of the settlements and the rabbis
of the religious units in the army have joined the call.
The voice of the few opponents
is being drowned out. They quote the Talmudic saying "the
law of the kingdom is law", meaning that every government
has to be obeyed, much as Christians are required to render unto
Caesar what is Caesar's, etc. But who listens to these "moderate
rabbis" now?
The conquest of the army from
the inside began long ago. The "arrangement" with the
yeshivot (religious schools), that serve in the army as separate
units, has allowed the entry of a huge Trojan horse. In any confrontation
between their rabbis and their army commanders, the soldiers
of the "arrangement yeshivot" will obey the rabbis.
Worse: for years now, the settlers have systematically penetrated
the ranks of the officers' corps, where they now constitute an
even more dangerous Trojan horse.
The right-wing refusal to obey
orders is unlike the left-wing conscientious objection. The leftist
refusal is a personal stand, the rightist refusal a collective
mutiny. On the left, a few hundred refused to serve the occupation,
on the right, many thousands, even tens of thousands, will obey
their rabbis' orders to refuse. As the Chief-of-Staff has warned,
the army may disintegrate.
Altogether, the settlers, together
with their close allies in Israel including the yeshivot students,
may amount to something like half a million people a mighty
phalanx for rebellion.
As of now, the settlers are
only using this threat as an instrument for blackmail and deterrence,
in order to choke off any thought of evacuating settlements and
territories. But if the blackmail does not do the job, the Great
Rebellion is just a matter of time.
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. He is also
a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for October 16 / 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
/
|