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June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Rumseld's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
Susan
Davis
Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite
Chris
Floyd
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
Adam Engel
Gravity's End Zone
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert
May
30, 2003
Ben
Tripp
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda
Neve
Gordon
The Bad Fence
Todd
Steiner
Endangered Ocean
Robert
Freeman
Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity
Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
Daniel
Bacher
How Bush's War Violated International Laws
Tariq
Ali
Re-Colonizing Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush Wars
Web Log
May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
Wire
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Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
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Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
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Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
May
28, 2003
David
Vest
DubyaCo.: It's Not So Funny Any More
Dave
Lindorff
My Grandfather's Medal
John
Stanton
America's Dying: Arts and Philosophy Hold the Key
Bernard
Weiner
A PNAC Primer
Robert
Jensen
Texas Dems Set a Standard for the Rest of the Party
Ahmad Faruqui
The Oil Business of Regime Change:
the CIA and Iran
Hammond
Guthrie
Disarming Conundrums
Steve Perry
What If There's No Such Thing as Al-Qaeda?
May
27, 2003
Kurt
Nimmo
Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress for Israeli
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Anthony
Gancarski
Hillary: a Dem the NeoCons Could Love?
Patrick
Cockburn
Terror, Bush and Joseph Conrad
John Chuckman
an Interpretation of Bush's Character
Kathleen
Christison
What Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets
Jeffrey
Blankfort
AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap
Steve
Perry
Trouble in the Hinterlands
May
26, 2003
Franklin
C. Spinney
Test Anxiety: Star Wars, Punctuated
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Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Sacrifice
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Hamod
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Stew Albert
The Final Conflict
May
24 / 25, 2003
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Leupp
The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss
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The Hannibal Procedure
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Christian
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"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
William
S. Lind
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William
Cook
Road to Nowhere
David Krieger
Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice
Ilan
Pappe
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Wayne Madsen
American Idle
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Leavitt
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Americans are Liars
Lenni
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Michael
Ortiz Hill
Grievous Harm Here and Abroad
Adam Engel
Towers of Babel
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May
23, 2003
Standard
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Michael
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Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
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Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
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Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
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Guerrin
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Aslam Khan
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Impeach
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June
6, 2003
Empty Words, Bloodstained
Hands
Sharon
and the Myth of the Peacemakers
By RAMZY BAROUD
History is already remembering a handful of Israeli
Prime Ministers as well intending peacemakers.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem
Begin, although affiliated with terrorism in his early years,
then bloody wars in later years, was made a peacemaker when he
struck a deal with former Egyptian President Anwar Sadddat, virtually
ending hostilities between both countries, while sidelining the
Palestinian question altogether.
History has also shown its soft side
depicting the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, another
Israeli Noble Peace Prize recipient, for his role in the signing
of the Oslo agreement of 1993, in Norway. Interestingly, both
Israelis and Palestinians see the document as an infamous one.
Rabin's own violent history was almost completely scrapped the
moment he signed his name, endorsing the agreement on the White
House lawn.
Ehud Barak, also relatively young and
still vibrant, was spared by history from any blame. After all,
the retired General and former Prime Minister's name shall also
be synonymous to the term "generous offer", allegedly
offered to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat at Camp David
in July 2000. Although Barak's offer largely failed to address
the important topics regarded by Palestinians as fundemental,
he remains nonetheless, a "peacemaker".
For Palestinians, the signing of a document
resolves nothing, their own reading of history taught them such
a lesson.
On one hand, Begin's association with
the ethnic cleansing of over a million Palestinians, and a list
of bloody massacres, from Palestine to Lebanon, were greater
witnesses to Begin's true merit than the signing at Camp David.
The late 1970's agreement, like Oslo and Camp David 2, satisfied
little of their long held aspirations for freedom, the right
of return and a sovereign homeland.
Rabin is also remembered by thousands
of Palestinian men and by their families. The former Israeli
Defense Minister was the one who initiated the "broken bones"
policy during the first Palestinian uprising, which started in
1987. Such a legacy was overlooked after his signing of the Oslo
accords, and following his assassination by an Israeli terrorist.
But the cheers that followed the historic signing of Oslo on
the White House lawn could never be loud enough to cover the
screams of thousands of men and children whose hands and legs
were broken, because the Israeli economy couldn't handle their
uprising and quest for freedom.
There is history, and there is Palestinian
history. The first refers to how Israel or pro Israeli pundits
wish to see history written, joined by the collective efforts
of the media. The second refers to how Palestinians choose to
remember their own plight and those who contributed to their
misery.
Palestinians are not selective in their
memory as it may seem, and are indeed forgiving. After all, the
day Oslo was signed Palestinians marched in every town, village
and refugee camp. In Gaza, they carried olive branches and handed
them to Israeli soldiers, while the soldiers were in the process
of subjecting the Palestinians to a brutal occupation.
History can be of a great value if it
is depicted accurately. Such remembrance is due now more than
any time in the past, for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
has uttered a word, which some have already described as "historic".
Sharon referred to the Israeli occupation of the occupied Palestinian
territories as "occupation" during the debate that
preceded the approval of the Road Map peace initiative late May.
For a right wing extremist, we are told, such a word was taboo,
and might signal a fundamental shift in the Israeli government's
policies toward the Palestinians.
I am still not clear how Sharon's admission
will change the political discourse governing the Middle East's
most durable conflict. What seems clear to me, however, is the
fact that Israeli leaders, whether "peacemakers" or
"right wing extremists" have excelled in manipulating
certain terminology to fit their own political agenda, but without
associating any tangible meaning they become irrelevant. Various
Israeli leaders spoke openly about a Palestinian state, while
actively slicing up the potential state into Bantustans, separated
by fortified settlements and barbed wire. Israeli officials are
actively using the term "peace", but considering the
number of Palestinians and Israelis killed demonstrates the lack
of substance to such an assertion.
Sharon's first day in office was a day
where he spoke of a Palestinian state, but if we recall such
statements, such a state fails to include more than 42 percent
of the size of West Bank and Gaza, a state crowded with illegal
Jewish settlements, bypass roads, Israeli military zones, without
its refugees, without Jerusalem, and without real territorial
integrity.
The chances are that Sharon's words were
simply a political maneuver, rather than a genuine change of
heart. By uttering the word, "occupation", Sharon might
have enlisted himself into the category of "peacemakers".
On the "historic" day when
Sharon used the word "occupation", Israeli tanks attacked
the West Bank town of Tulkarm and killed a Palestinian boy. Two
children were also wounded in the Israeli attack, one was seven
and the other nine. Sharon's word made no difference to the families
of the children killed and wounded, and most likely to millions
of Palestinians, who still regard Sharon as a violent leader
who holds no respect for their long denied rights. Looking back
at their experiences with Begin, Rabin, Barak and Sharon himself,
Palestinians already know: expressions of peace that are soaked
in blood just don't count.
Ramzy Baroud
is the editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com and the editor
of the anthology "Searching
Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion 2002."
50 percent of the editor's royalties will go directly to assist
in the relief efforts in Jenin. He can be reached at:
ramzy5@aol.com
Today's
Features
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
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