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November 7, 2001
Cockburn/St. Clair
Greens, Airports
and
National ID Cards
Dr. Susan
Block
Ayatollah
Asscroft
Brian J. Foley
Bombing Campaign
Not "Self-Defense" Under International Law
November 6, 2001
Mark Scaramella
Where's
That Red Cross Money Going
C.G. Estabrook
Our Torturers
Sheperd
Bliss
Scott
Nearing on War
Rep. Ron Paul
Underwriting
the Taliban
Tariq
Ali
The
General Who
Came to Dinner
Evan Ravitz
Stop the War
Through
Direct Democracy
Steve
Perry
Hunger
in Afghanistan
November 5, 2001
Patrick Cockburn
Living
in the Minefields
David Price
Terror
and Indigenous People
November 3, 2001
Declan McCullagh
Nancy Oden Interview
Daniel
Wolff
The
Memphis Blues Again
Mark Weisbrot
War on Civilians
Dave Marsh
How
the RIAA (and the FBI) Cheat Musicians
Robert Jensen
Speaking
Out Against
War on Campus
November 2, 2001
CounterPunch
Wire
Green
Party Leader Detained at Maine Airport; Prevented from Boarding
Any Plane
Alexander Cockburn
FBI Eyes
Torture
November 1, 2001
Dean Baker
Dying
for Patents
Sami Amarah
US Attempts
to Recruit
Russian Vets of Afghan War
Molly Secours
Where
Are the Voices of Reason? Let the Women
Be Heard
William Blum
Unleashing the
CIA
October 31, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
Terrorize
the Poor,
Subsidize the Rich
Chris Clarke
Thank God
for Berkeley
Steve
Perry
The
Silent Genocide
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War Diary
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bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
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Peter Linebaugh on
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CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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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by Douglas Valentine
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November 7,
2001
Placebo Peace Initiative
By Sam Bahour and Michael
Dahan
The new Israeli "peace initiative"
drafted by Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and the Israeli
Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, is no more than a placebo for
internal Israeli consumption and consumption by the US and Europe
in response to their pressuring Israel for positive movement
toward ending the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and
East Jerusalem.
Doctors often prescribe placebos
to patients that they feel are suffering from ailments that
are not necessarily physiological, hoping that the patient will
think that the medicine contains some active ingredient that
will cure their ailments. Such medication may have been believed
successful during the Oslo Peace Accords, but the latest 12-month
round of bloodletting has done additional physical damage to
Palestinian rights, and thus, any treatment must be real and
immediate.
The few details of the new
"initiative" that have been made public are so bizarre
that it is a wonder that it is being presented at all. Sharon
makes no mention of dismantling the illegal settlements, large
or small, and the plan will leave in place 3 Palestinian West
Bank cantons or bantustans (aside from the Gaza Strip) surrounded
by Israeli troops, with full Israeli control of the roads and
highways.
In fact there is nothing new
about the initiative (if it can even be called that) and is
essentially the revival, with some slight changes, of the "Gaza
First" concept, yet no mention is made of dismantling the
illegal settlements in and around the Gaza Strip. The issue
of Jerusalem is left for later stages, and any discussion of
the right of return of Palestinian refugees is rejected. It is
a step backward to the pre Madrid/Oslo period, and both Peres
and Sharon are acting as if nothing has happened in the past
10 years.
The principles of a possible
agreement between Israelis and Palestinians have already been
sketched out in numerous UN resolutions (242 and 338, among
others) and maintain full support of the world at large, including
the US and UK. Such an internationally legitimate approach
should remain the basis, with some mutually agreed to minor
changes, for any initiative in the area, or rather any initiative
with a chance for success. The Israeli retreat to the 1967 borders,
the dismantling of illegal settlements, honest and creative
discussion of the right of return, and the relinquishing control
over East Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority or the defacto
State of Palestine.
What is needed is a shot of
adrenaline, and not a warmed over initiative with no substance
and no chance of success. Placebos, Mr. Sharon and Mr. Peres,
only work when the patient is only imagining they have been under
military occupation for 34 years. In this case, you would have
to be deaf, dumb and blind to not recognize this, so called
initiative, for what is: a blatant attempt to pull the wool
over the eyes of the international community. CP
Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American living in
the besieged Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank and
can be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.
Michael Dahan is an Israeli-American political scientist
living in Jerusalem and can be reached at mdahan@attglobal.net.
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