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June 13, 2002
Stanton / Madsen
Democracy
in Crisis:
What is to be Done?
Roldan Tomasz Suárez
Venezuela:
Five Facts
About the Coup
June 12, 2002
Fran Shor
Dirty Bombs, Blowback
and Imperial Projections
Dave Marsh
Shelley
Stewart, Radio and the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement
Chris Floyd
Murder, Inc.
June 11, 2002
Omar Barghouti
On Dance, Identity and War
Robert Fisk
The Bush
Afghan Gang:
Murderers, Gangsters, Stooges
Minerva Wright
The Donkeys of the Holy Land
David Krieger
Stopping
a Nuclear War
in South Asia
June 10, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
Executioner's Last Songs
June 8/9, 2002
Gavin Keeney
Mademoiselle
M.
Or Getting Screwed in Paris
Susan Davis
Sleepless
in the Suburbs
Curing Insomnia: a new use for The Nation?
George Sunderland
"Send
in the Weekly
Standard": The Screaming Pundits Assault Corps
June 7, 2002
Michael Colby
Bush to the Nation:
You're All Cops Now
Tanweer Akram
Howard
Zinn's "Terrorism
and War": a review
David Krieger
New Security Challenges
Sam Bahour
The Palestinian
Intifada:
A Very American Struggle
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
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
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
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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This Explosive
New Book at an
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Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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June 13,
2002
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
The Story
Behind the News
by Linda Belanger
For the last month, since the Israeli attacks
on Palestine my feelings have shifted several times daily from
swallowing back tears to anger and despair. I have attempted
to assuage these feelings by an obsessive and masochistic search
for information, information beyond the images on television,
information that could explain these images. This has only led
to more tears and anger.
I am embarrassed to admit my ignorance
of this situation that has been going on for 35 years. I did
not know that even since the early days of the occupation, the
Israeli government expropriated Palestinians from their land
and homes without compensation. I did not know that the homes
of people resisting the occupation, even by peaceful means, were
demolished. I did not know that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF)
imposed curfews and shot people who were caught outside after
hours on sight . I did not know that the Israeli government has
diverted water away from Palestinian farmland to serve the Jewish
settlements that they have established within Palestine.
This has all been done in self-defense
we are told.. But an occupation with the purpose of self-defense
does not last 35 years and, involve the establishment of settlements
in contravention of international rules of occupation.
How could I have missed this. Me, the
politics junky, the follower of world events; I have slept through
this issue for 35 years. I who so pride myself in being a human
being above all else. I am guilty of just glancing through the
headlines and perhaps the first few paragraphs of a news article.
Why pay attention, the middle east is so far away. Beside Israel
must defend itself we are told so often. Some of them sound a
bit fanatical but everything would be fine because Jews would
never do unto others what had been done onto them.
As for the Arabs, well I know there are
good and bad in all races and religions but that area of the
world is underdeveloped and uneducated. The people shout and
shake their fists in the streets and the terrorists who hijacked
the planes in the 1970s came from there and now they are responsible
for suicide bombings and their leader wears an army uniform and
is an ex-terrorist fighter. They must be largely to blame for
all of this.
How I cringe now when I read those words
now. I was tempted to delete them but decided not to. They are
true. I am a proud Canadian. A Canadian who buys into the dream
of a nation that takes pride in its different races and religions
and sees itself as a microcosm of the world, a haven for the
oppressed and an example of how people of all races and religions
can live together. I could not be a bigot.
But there has also been a problem in
the language used by the media and politicians. Perhaps this
has been done in the interest of promoting moderation or in attempting
to remain objective by reporting the facts or because of the
outcry of anti-semitism by certain Jewish groups every time a
crumb is tossed to the Palestinians. There is a point where moderation
and objectivity in reporting the news can create a lie. People
fighting for basic human rights may be driven to terrorism by
desperation but they are resistance fighters. After 35 years
of Israeli settlement in Palestine it is time to call the "occupation"
by its proper name - invasion. Although it is true that Israelis
have not built extermination camps one has to wonder what they
expect to achieve by destroying a people's livelihood, culture
and dignity. If these things had been done in a period of a few
years most people would not object to the use of the word genocide.
Is it different because it has taken place over a period of 35
years?
There is also a problem created by the
language used by a different culture. We are horrified when we
hear the Arab world praise suicide bombers as martyrs to the
cause. How can they sacrifice their children that way people
say? Why then, are we not horrified when Israel sends its children
to control the Palestinians, who have been denied control over
the water in their territory, to defend settlers sitting by their
swimming pools. Yes the killing of innocent Israelis is wrong
but destroying the homes of thousands of refugees to capture
50 or so alleged terrorists is collective punishment not heroic
self- defense. Aside from the obvious moral distinction in the
above examples, the only difference is that, for us in the western
world, the words, sacrifice and martyrdom are not 'cool'. We
are so superior and advanced: we use words like heroic and self-defense.
I've also frequently heard condemnation
of Yassir Arafat for walking away from the Camp David peace proposal
without making a counter offer. I was incensed when I found the
terms of that proposal. Arafat rejected it because it was an
insult.
The Palestinians have been open to compromise
to some extent in regard to the borders of the new state but
have understandably demanded territorial continuity. According
to the Camp David proposal, Palestinians were expected to relinguish
nearly half their territory creating a convoluted state where
one might have to drive 50 miles to get to a town which was only
actually 10 miles away in order to avoid entering Israel's territory.
The remaining areas although appearing to be territorially continuous
would be broken up by Israeli bypass roads, check points and
roadblock. The Palestinians were also expected to accept Israeli
supervision of borders crossings and to relinquish their rights
over water and airspace among other things. (<www.gush-shalom.org>)
The Palestians have a right to a state,
just as the Isrealis have the right to the state of Isreal as
it was given to them by the British in 1948 and not one inch
more. Israel occupied Palestine in 1967 on the pretext of self
defense and has remained there for 35 years. Now, the Isreali
govenment would have us believe that because they established
settlements there (against the international laws) the Palestinians
should concede territory to accomodate them.
But amidst the suicide bombings and the
Israelis who justify the crimes of the occupation as self defence
there are those on both sides who feel for the pain of the other
side, who are putting themselves in their shoes. In a recent
inteview with Larry King on CNN, Queen Rania of Jordan said:
"... I saw a few days ago on one
of the channels, a mother of a suicide bomber who was saying
that had she known what her son was going to do, she would have
prevented him from doing it. And she said that she felt with
every Israeli mother who has lost a child. I also heard on the
Israeli side, a bystander after one of the attacks on one of
the buses, who was saying that if he was a Palestinian he'd understand
how they could become suicide bombers living under such terrible
conditions. "
But how and when will this all end? How
much longer can the Palestinians endure the punishment inflicted
on their entire society . Ariel Sharon does not want peace. Of
that I am absolutely convinced. The Israeli government is sacrificing
its own people to the suicide bombers to justify continued military
oppression in the hopes of eventually gaining total control of
Palestine. The Palestinians have no army, no tanks, not helicopter
gunships. They cannot expel the IDF, yet to stop fighting would
be to deny their basic humanity. The suicide bombings are only
an indication of their desperation.
Nonetheless, there is some light in this
dark scenario. The Israeli peace camp is vocal and well organized.
Israeli soldiers are refusing to do military service in the Palestinian
territory. Israelis civilians are placing themselves in Palestinians
homes to act as human shields against the IDF. I am convinced
that when the Palestinians have their state and Israel is liberated
from the rules of Ariel Sharon and his kind, that the people
of Israel will be there using the bulldozers that were used to
demolish Palestinian homes to dismantle the roadblocks that have
destroyed their economy.
In the end it is the voice of the international
community putting pressure on the United States to stop funding
the Israeli government and to demand that the Israeli government
abide by United Nations resolution 242 passed in 1967 and reaffirmed
many times since. This resolution calls for:
(i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces
from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
(ii) Termination of all claims or states
of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty,
territorial integrity and political independence of every State
in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and
recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.
Public opinion turned the tide against
apartheid . We can all play a part whether it is by writing to
our elected representatives to urge them to support the UN resolutions,
or to a newspaper or simply by talking to friends. The Palestinians
must not be subjected to the humiliation of being asked to come
to the negotiation table to discuss which parts of their territory
they will be allowed to keep but rather a suitable manner and
schedule by which the above resolutions are to be applied.
Yes I know, writing letters takes time;
your kids have soccer practice tonight, you haven't done your
workout in a week, you are getting together with a friend, you
are tired after a long days work. I understand. But silence kills.
Linda Belanger can be reached at Belalin54@hotmail.com
Today's
Features
Stanton / Madsen
Democracy
in Crisis:
What is to be Done?
Roldan Tomasz Suárez
Venezuela:
Five Facts
About the Coup
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