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June 7, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
A Crisis of Confidence
in US Leadership
June 6, 2002
Michael Colby
White House
vs. EPA:
Political Hot Air and
Global Warming
Ron Jacobs
The Indo-Pakistan Conflict:
It's Just a Shot Away
Francis Boyle
Take Sharon
to The Hague:
Prosecute Israeli War Crimes
at Jenin
CounterPunch Bulletin
60 Minutes and President Chavez's
Censored F-Word
Mark Weisbrot
Spying
and Lying:
The FBI's Shameful Past
June 5, 2002
Robert Fisk
Berlusconi the Censor
Danielle Brian
Nuclear
Plants and Terrorism
Ardeshir Cowasjee
For What Do We Fight?
George Monbiot
Kashmir
on the Brink
Michael Neumann
What is Antisemitism?
June 4, 2002
Dave Marsh
Bono the Useful Idiot
William Evan / Francis
Boyle
Kashmir:
Invoking Intl. Law to Avoid Nuclear War
Cockburn / St. Clair
The Future Wellstone Deserves
June 3, 2002
Ramdas / Makhijani
India,
Pakistan and Nukes:
A Road Map to Peace
Fran Shor
Meanwhile, Back in Afghanistan
Neve Gordon
The Caterpillar
Effect
June 2, 2002
Fidel Castro
From FDR to Mister "W.":
Cuba, the US and Democracy
Arundhati Roy
Under the
Nuclear Shadow
Bernard Weiner
Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies
June 1, 2002
Norman Madarasz
The
Strange Math of Roberto Carlos: Brazil v. Turkey
Gavin Keeney
Bush and Mies van der Rohe:
Architecture and Ideology
Jeff Halper
Sharon's
Post-Incursion Plan:
Incarceration or Transfer?
Walt Brasch
Crumpling the Constitution
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CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
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The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
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The
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June 7, 2002
The Palestinian
Intifada:
A Very American
Struggle
by Sam Bahour
AL-BIREH, West Bank. The Palestinian people have no grudge against
the American public. We never did. As a matter of fact, if one
resists the media spin and takes a closer look at what the Palestinians
have been struggling for, it will be revealed that the Palestinian
intifada is a very American struggle. After all, it is a struggle
for national independence, civil liberties, human rights, as
well as a struggle to establish an open market in an independent
economy, free to market forces and free from Israeli domination.
The Palestinians are doing what any American
citizen would do: We are fighting for our rights. At times, some
Palestinian individuals and organizations reach a point of equating
life under Israeli occupation to death and unfortunately choose
to take Israeli civilian lives along with their own. This is
a sad but bitter reality of the environment that a prolonged
foreign military occupation creates. No matter how many times
U.S. President George W. Bush or a war criminal like Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon call upon Palestinians to condemn
these acts, the reality remains that taking civilian lives is
definitely not the norm in the Palestinian struggle. The history
of the Palestinian struggle is rich; it is something that every
American can relate to. Let me explain.
First, the Palestinians are not begging
for a homeland of their own. They had a homeland in 1948 before
the establishment of the State of Israel. As a matter of fact,
before 1948 they were living mostly peacefully in a secular environment:
Jews, Muslims and Christians. It is the establishment of the
State of Israel that created the first wave of Palestinian refugees
who are still suffering a daily hell, 54 years later. These Palestinian
refugees, plus their offspring, are the same people that are
(or were) living in the Jenin refugee camp before Israel committed
its latest atrocity. In 1948, these Palestinian refugees did
not immediately take up arms against Israel when they were forcefully
evicted from their homes. Just the opposite.
From 1948 up until the mid-1960s, Palestinians
attempted to find a peaceful resolution to their being forced
from their homes by the Israeli military. Through numerous political
and organizational venues, Palestinians shuttled from the United
States to the United Nations to Britain and back again, demanding
that justice be served. Everyone recognized the historical injustice
committed against the Palestinians, but no one stood up to take
action. It was only then that the Palestinians took up arms and
began their military struggle. For this they paid a high price.
Israel saw that the world's powers-to-be were not concerned with
resolving the plight of Palestinians and proceeded with a military
occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem June
4, 1967 during the Six Day War. This created a second round of
Palestinian refugees and, consequently, another generation of
anger.
In the 1970s, the Palestinians went to
the U.N. and asked again for justice to be served, peacefully
and diplomatically. The U.N. took significant decisions in favor
of Palestinians; however, it had neither the power nor the will
to implement any of them. Palestinian living conditions continued
to worsen. The Palestinians turned again to nonviolence in the
beginning of the '80s, only to have the leaders of that nascent
movement exiled from the West Bank. Many others -- writers, student
activists, unionists, musicians and organizers -- that tried
to work nonviolently to end the occupation and restore the rights
of the refugees were thrown in Israeli prisons. Most of them
were tortured.
In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and tried
to crush the Palestinian movement there, where thousands of Palestinian
refugees had taken refuge as they waited for the world to act.
Although it supported the massacre of up to 2,500 Palestinians
in the refugee camps at Sabra and Shatila, Israel failed to destroy
either the Palestinians' hopes or their struggle. Then, in 1987,
the Palestinians took to the streets in what is now known as
the first intifada, an action not unfamiliar to anyone who lived
in the U.S. South during the 1960s. Palestinians made their voice
heard, again mostly nonviolently, but the U.S. continued to turn
a blind eye, while at the same time arming Israel to the teeth
and pumping more foreign aid money into Israel than it provided
to all of Africa.
In 1993, Palestinians entered a peace
process that made unprecedented Palestinian political overtures
to Israel even though the Oslo accords still maintained the system
of Israeli military occupation. Palestinians recognized Israel
as a state and renounced terror. During the next eight years,
what the Palestinians got in return was a 70 percent increase
in the number of illegal Israeli settlers living on their land
and Israeli domination of their economic development. And now
we are facing another Israeli military invasion and more war
crimes. Many Palestinians believed that a world now in a state
of U.S.-led globalization would not put up with continued Israeli
intransigence. We were wrong.
I was born in Ohio and lived all of my
life there before relocating to Palestine following the signing
of the Oslo Peace Accords. I would bet that any American put
in the circumstances the Palestinian people have found themselves
in would act just as we have. The American way would counsel
being steadfast, fighting back, and even painfully witnessing
some of their own taking their lives after losing all hope for
the possibility of a secure and respectable life.
Over the years Palestine and the Palestinians
have historically been every American government's worst nightmare.
Why? Because U.S. administrations know something that every Palestinian
also knows -- U.S. foreign policy, at least on this issue, has
never reflected genuine U.S. strategic interests in the Middle
East, nor has it reflected the will and principles of the American
people. Thus, when the Palestinian struggle moves to the front
burner, as it does periodically, U.S. presidents, officials and
most congresspersons know that their most prestigious government
institutions are about to be exposed to their own constituency.
What is their fear? Well, Israel decided
not to waste its time with the American people so it created
the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and its
related political action committees to deal with Congress. In
its own words, AIPAC aims to "Reinforce our commitment to
Israel and support her security infrastructure by providing nearly
$3 billion in aid, while refocusing that assistance to meet Israel's
changing security needs." Also, AIPAC aims to, "Recognize
Israel's singular needs by granting unique early disbursal of
aid -- all assistance was received 30 days after the foreign
aid bill was passed."
What does all this mean to American citizens?
It means an expenditure of their taxes amounting to $5 billion
a year: in total, over $82 billion since Israel was established.
Additionally, it means that a good amount of these monies went
to build illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands, in
flagrant disregard to U.S. objections and in blatant violation
of international law. Moreover, it means that some of these monies
will go to professional public relations firms that keep repeating
that "all Palestinians are terrorists" until they actually
believe it. And there is more. Israel offers its citizens free
health care, free education and a standard of living that beats
that in most U.S. cities. All this and more is made possible
by U.S. taxpayers' money.
Most Americans do not recognize the similarities
between the Palestinian struggle and their own principles of
freedom and independence, because Israel (with Americans' taxes)
makes sure that they do not hear the other side. Worse yet, the
pictures of innocent Israelis killed have overwhelmed and moved
Americans -- as they should -- but most have yet to ask why no
cameras were allowed in the Jenin refugee camp to photograph
the killing of Palestinian civilians by the State of Israel.
A sad but true fact is that American society, the most developed
in the world, has forced Americans to view the Palestinian struggle,
and many others too, in the same manner that they purchase their
toothpaste -- the side that spends more advertising dollars wins.
Colonialism always fails, and Israeli
colonialism will fail, too, in the end, no matter how many U.S.
armaments, U.N. vetoes and U.S. funds are made available to it.
As we Palestinians struggle to end the Israeli occupation of
Palestine, we urge Americans to end the Israeli occupation of
the U.S. Congress. The American people deserve better leadership.
Sam Bahour is
a Palestinian-American living in the Palestinian City of Al-Bireh/Ramallah
in the West Bank. He can be reached at sbahour@palnet.com
Today's Other Features:
Tom Turnipseed
A Crisis of Confidence
in US Leadership
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