Today's Stories

February 12, 2009

P. Sainath
Neo-Liberal Terrorism in India: The Largest Wave of Suicides in History

Jean Bricmont
French Echoes of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict

Michael Hudson
Trying to Revive the Bubble Economy: Obama's Awful Financial Recovery Plan

Peter Lee
Pakistan, Not Afghanistan, Is the Main Event

Dave Lindorff
Judges Nabbed, Jailing Kids for Kickbacks

February 11, 2009

Neve Gordon
Few Peacemakers in the New Israeli Knesset

Peter Morici
Anatomy of a Hemorrhage

Andy Worthington
Who's Running Guantánamo?

Marjorie Cohn
A Call to End All Renditions

Fred Gardner
Change We Can Smoke?

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The G & O (Geithner and Obama) Bank

Zoe Blunt
Vancouver Island Hippies: Top Security Threat for 2010?

Belén Fernández
Politics on the Panamericana

Martha Rosenberg
Don't Breathe the Meat

Website of the Day
George Dyson on Project Orion

Blues of the Day
David Vest on the CBC

February 10, 2009

Kathy Kelly
How Do People Keep Going?

Nikolas Kozloff
The Stimulus Imbroglio

Uri Avnery
Dirty Socks

Michael J. Berg
Will South Carolina be the Center of the Nuclear Revival?

Russell Mokhiber
Et Tu, Atul?

Joe Bageant
A Commodity Called Misery

Gareth Porter
Petraeus' Subterfuge

Dave Lindorff
Seek Truth, But Prosecute Liars

Rannie Amiri
The Implications of Recognizing Israel's "Right to Exist"

Harvey Wasserman
Nukes and the Stimulus

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
What We Didn't Learn at Obama's Press Conference

Website of the Day
RIAA Takes Over DoJ Under Obama

February 9, 2009

Vicente Navarro
Why Sanjay Gupta is the Wrong Man for Top US Health Job

Paul Craig Roberts
Driving Over the Cliff

Julio Sanchez /
Feliz de Bedout
The Threat of Peace in Colombia: an Interview with Hollman Morris

National Lawyers Guild
Strong Indications of Israeli War Crimes

Jonathan Cook
Israeli University Welcomes "War Crimes" Colonel

Alana Smith
The Nightmarish Case of Fahad Hashmi

Binoy Kampmark
Taking the Bong

Sam Bahour
End the Occupation First

Nicole Colson
Can You Afford College?

Ron Jacobs
Remembering the Second Intifada

Website of the Day
The Legacy of Ed Grothus and the Black Hole

February 6-8, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's First Bad Week

Ishmael Reed
Saint Thelma's Book

James Abourezk
Obama, Mitchell and the Palestinians

William Blum
Obama and the Empire

Patrick Cockburn
Maliki's Triumph

Henry A. Giroux
Educating Obama

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Darwin's Living Legacy

Mouin Rabbani
A New Low on Gaza?

David Yearsley
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Springsteen!

Saul Landau
The Wrestler: an American Tragedy

Jules Rabin
Israel's Disproportionate Responses

Raymond J. Lawrence
A Country Awash in Money But Going Broke

Janette Habel
Castro's Socialism in Crisis

Dave Lindorff
Economy on a Thread

Missy Beattie
Blackout at the Gaza Zoo Massacre

Dale Gieringer
The Opium Exclusion Act of 1909: Marking 100 Years of Failed Drug Prohibition

John Ross
Davos vs. Belem; Swine vs. Pearls

Richard Rhames
Jobs is a Four Letter Word

Bob Wing
Obama, Race and the Future of U.S. Politics

Robert Bryce
Corn Dog Update: Another Study Exposes Bio-Fuel Scam

David Macaray
AFL-CIO and Change to Win in "Re-Wed" Talks

James L. Secor
Inaugural Questions Nobody Asks: Notes from Kuala Lumpur

Jason Flom /
Anthony Papa
The Scourging of Michael Phelps

Norm Kent
Ten Reasons to Get High About Pot in 2009

Kim Nicolini
When Utopia Crumbles: Why Revolutionary Road was Shut Out of the Oscars

Lorenzo Wolff
Ridiculous Flow: How Cee Lo Green Sells Soul

Poets' Basement
Emily Dickinson (with Commentary by Daniel Wolff)

Website of the Weekend
S.J. Gould: Darwin's Untimely Burial

February 5, 2009

Michael Mandel
Self-Defense Against Peace

Saul Landau /
Philip Brenner
Killing the Monroe Doctrine

Ralph Nader
Tax the Speculators!

Robert Bryce
The Unraveling of the Ethanol Scam

Russell Mokhiber
Occupied Territory

Sameh Habeeb /
Janet Zimmerman
Innocents Lost

Dave Lindorff
Small Change

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
Beyond Green Capitalism

George Ochenski
A Blow to Big Coal in Montana

Website of the Day
Putting CEO Pay in Context

February 4, 2009

Arno J. Mayer
On Corruption

Paul Craig Roberts
The War on Terror is a Hoax

Patrick Cockburn
The Iraqi Elections

Jonathan Cook
An IDF Jihad?

Fred Gardner
Obama's Mixed Messages on Marijuana

Stan Cox
Slumwrecking Millionaires: India's Fragile New Temples

Margaret Kimberley
The Deepening Economic Crisis

Lawrence Velvel
Agony & Desperation: Madoff's Victims

Dave Lindorff
A Generals' Revolt?

Doug Giebel
A Helping of Bitter Beltway Baloney

Serge Quadruppani
Student Protests Sweep Italy

Website of the Day
The San Francisco 8

February 3, 2009

David Price
Counterinsurgency & Anthropology: Roberto Gonzalez on Human Terrain Systems

Bill Moyers
Obama's Wars: an Interview with Pierre Sprey and Marilyn Young

Kirkpatrick Sale
Obama's Lincoln Thing

Conn Hallinan
When Mind Wounds Don't Count

Peter Morici
The Slippery Slope of Stimulus

George Ciccariello-Maher
From Oakland to Santa Rita: "Fired Up, Can't Take It No More"

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
The BBC's Nadir

Allan Nairn
What Does It Take to Get a Meal Here, an Earthquake?

Norman Solomon
Why are We Still at War?

David Macaray
The Late, Great UAW

Website of the Day
The Bloody Cove

February 2, 2009

Uri Avnery
Under the Black Flag: Israeli War Crimes

Ralph Nader
What to Do About Wall Street

Gareth Porter
Generals Move to Obstruct Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Orders

Paul Craig Roberts
The Death of American Leadership

Harvey Wasserman
The Nuclear Industry's Latest Money Grab

Rannie Amiri
Gaza and the Crimes of Mubarak

Cal Winslow
Stern's Gang Seizes UHW Union Hall

Steve Early
Checking Out of Stern's Hotel California

Alan Farago
Superbowl as Panopticon

Diane Farsetta
Banning Domestic Propaganda

January 30 / February 1, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama and the Oddsmakers

Michael Hudson
Obama's New Bank Giveaway

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
"Too Big to Fail:" a Bailout Hoax

Dave Lindorff
The Ugly Truth: the American Economy is Not Coming Back

Saul Landau
Freedom Fighters, Terrorists or Schlemiels?

Andy Worthington
Blame the Chef: How Cooking for the Taliban Can Get You Life in Gitmo

Subcomandante Marcos
Gaza Will Survive

Robert Jensen
Future Farming: an Interview with Wes Jackson

Ron Jacobs
Return of the Democrats

Gareth Porter
Is Gates Undermining Another Opening to Iran?

Allan Nairn
Hope for the Dump Cities?

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA's Dangerous Security Agenda

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Feelings of a Stranger

Christopher Brauchli
From Gitmo to Supermax?

Jules Rabin
Israel and the Bomb

Col. Dan Smith
Thoughts From an Inauguration Refugee

Missy Beattie
The US Garden of Evil

Tom Barry
Obama's Immigration Challenge

J. Michael Cole
The Downfall of an Academic

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Burning the First Amendment

Dan Bacher
How Dam Removal Can Save the Klamath River

David Rosen
Last Gasp of the Culture Wars?

Don Monkerud
Religion in the American Bedroom

Binoy Kampmark
Updike: Apostle of the Middlebrows

Lorenzo Wolff
Playing Down a Bad Reputation: the Lovin' Spooful's Near Perfect Record

David Yearsley
When Orfeo and Euridice Lived Happily Ever After in Upstate New York

Poets' Basement
Valentine and Rihn

January 29, 2009

Peter Linebaugh
Tom Paine's Birthday

Paul Craig Roberts
Is It Time to Bail Out of America?

Riz Khan
The Future of Gaza: an Interview with Jimmy Carter

M. Reza Pirbhai
Pakistan: a New Cambodia?

Wajahat Ali
Obama's Al-Arabiya Interview

Gregory Vickrey
What About the Environment? Cap and Trade and Selling Out

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
Whither the Two State Solution?

Alison Weir
Killing Palestinians Doesn't Count: Fact-Checking Ceasefire Breaches

Alan Farago
Economy Without Escape Routes

Walter Brasch
Taxing a House of Cards

Website of the Day
Madoff Inc.

January 28, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
Behind the Bloodbath in Gaza

Noam Chomsky
Obama's Emerging Policies on Israel, Iraq and the Economic Crisis

Patrick Cockburn
Is Mitchell's Mission Already Doomed?

Rob Larson
The Clinton Foundation Donors

George Wuerthner
Who Will Speak for the Forests?

Allan Nairn
South-East Asian Groups Threaten Retaliation Over Gaza Invasion

M. Junaid
Levesque-Alam
A Muslim's Memo to Obama

Stefan Simanowitz
The Silent Trade

Charles R. Larson
The Autumn of the Patriot

Website of the Day
Veggie Love: PETA's Banned Superbowl Ad

January 27, 2009

Winslow T. Wheeler
Save the Economy by Cutting the Defense Budget

Yigal Bronner /
Neve Gordon
Fueling the Cycle of Hate

Joshua Frank
Obama's Neocon: the Curious Case of Richard Holbrooke

Jordan Flaherty
Torture at a Louisiana Prison

Ralph Nader
Access to Economic Justice

Rev. José M. Tirado
How Iceland Fell: a Hundred Days of (Muted) Rage

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Looking Forward

Russell Mokhiber
What If Israel Were in Your Neighborhood?

Martha Rosenberg
Who Says Technology Transfer Doesn't Pay?

C. G. Estabrook
The Inaugural Address: the Digested Read

Website of the Day
Who Profits From the Occupation?

January 26, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event

Deepak Tripathi
The BBC's Day of Shame

Vijay Prashad
The India Lobby: Drunk with the Sight of Power

Peter Lee
Geithner's Pop Gun Volley at China

Allan Nairn
The Torture Ban That Doesn't Ban Torture

Uri Avnery
On the Wrong Side of History

John Sayen
The Next Shoe to Drop

Dave Lindorff
Afghanistan is No Threat to America

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff

David Macaray
Obama vs. Labor

Roger Burbach
Winds of Change in Cuba

Norman Solomon
The Ghost of LBJ

Website of the Day
Landscapes of Occupation

January 23 / 25, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Ghosts at Obama's Side

P. Sainath
The Freefalling Economy

Patrick Cockburn
In Israel, Detachment From Reality is the Norm

Saul Landau
Reasons for War?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Our Current Economic Crisis: the Monks' Cure

Alan Farago
The Problem with the Stimulus

Christopher Brauchli
When Due Diligence is a One-Way Street

Andy Worthington
Return to Law?

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pentagon: Bowing to the Masters of War?

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Four)

Henry A. Giroux
The Audacity of Educated Hope

David Yearsley
The Music That Wasn't There: Chamber Music for Obama's Masses

Raymond F. Gustavson
Here We Go Again: General Shinseki and Veterans

Dave Lindorff
The Way Forward

Roberto Rodriguez
Fighting for Migrant Justice in the Desert

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
The Struggle of an Un-People

Fidel Castro
Meeting Cristina

J. Michael Cole
Can Obama's Shift on Terror Succeed?

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
It's Time to Free Leonard Peltier

Ramzy Baroud
Breaking Gaza's Will

Mohammad Ali Shabani
The Aftermath of the War on Gaza

Richard Rhames
Panning for Pyrite on a Cold Day at the Mall

Stephen Martin
Voices in the Mirror

Lorenzo Wolff
Jurassic Radio

Kim Nicolini
Katrina's Endless Loop

Poets' Basement
Fleming, Henson, First, Jaramillo and Glendinning

Website of the Weekend
Cartoon Love

January 22, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Another Real Estate Crisis is About to Hit

Kathy Kelly
Worse Than an Earthquake

Allan Nairn
US Intel Nominee Lied About Church Murders

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Three)

Andy Worthington
Halting the Gitmo Trials

Peter Morici
How to Fix the Banks

Joseph G. Davis
The First MBA Presidency and the Business Academy: a Damage Assessment

Adriana Kojeve
The Democrats on Israel: a Brief Oral History

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Poised for Historic Vote

Website of the Day
Support the Gaza Community Mental Health Program

January 21, 2009

Gabriel Kolko
Understanding Gaza

Harry Browne
Obama's Work Ethic

Michael Colby
Ready. Aim. Organize.

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience

Audrey Stewart
Starting Over in Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Obama and the Muslims

Binoy Kampmark
The Marketing of Hope

David Kεr Thomson
Abolition

John Ross
In My Own Bones

Allan Nairn
Killer in Chief: Will This President Murder Civilians?

Sheldon Richman
The Peaceful Transfer of Violent Power

Website of the Day
Globistan

January 20, 2009

Chuck Spinney
Hosing Obama Israeli Style

Kathy Kelly
The Strongest Weapon of All

Raymond Deane
The EU, Gaza and the Lisbon Treaty

Ralph Nader
State Terrorism Against Gaza

Audrey Stewart
Why I am in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Doctrine of Destruction

Harvey Wasserman
A Ten-Point Solar Agenda for Obama

Christopher Ketcham
Inauguration Ad Nauseam

Robert Jensen
A Citizen's Oath of Office

Dave Lindorff
Commie Chorus on the Mall: This Land Really is Made for You and Me

David Macaray
SAG Watches It All Slip Away

February 12, 2009

French Echoes of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict

By JEAN BRICMONT

At each new war waged by the West, certain leftist or pacifist movements fall back on a “neither-nor” position.  “Neither Milosevic nor NATO”, “Neither Bush nor Saddam”, and, now, rejecting both Israel and Hamas in the same breath.
In all these cases, there is a triple problem.

• We ignore the difference in the relationship of forces.
• The aggressor and the aggressed are treated in the same way.
• And, worst of all, we act as though we were outsiders, above it all, whereas our governments are obviously not.

In the case of the Gaza conflict, the main version of neither-nor is to condemn in the same breath the Hamas rockets and Israel’s response, sometimes described as disproportionate.  The very word “disproportionate” is in this case absurdly disproportionate compared to the disparity of forces involved. On the one hand, there is an ultra-sophisticated national army, navy and air force. When that force attacks, it does so to destroy infrastructures and terrorize an entire region by demonstrating its military superiority.  On the other side, there are a few home-made missiles lobbed toward Israel, not in the hope of winning a battle, but rather to give a desperate sign that a dispossessed, enclosed and forgotten people are still alive.  The rocket launchings being nothing but a means of rattling the bars of a prison, the aggressor is basically the power that has unjustly imprisoned an entire people, depriving them for decades of other means to make their existence known. The people who fire rockets at Israel are sometimes the descendants of people who were driven from their homeland in 1948.  The rockets are an echo of that sixty-year-old dispossession.  So long as this fact is not fully recognized, and it almost never is in the West, it is impossible to have a realistic vision of the depth of the problem.

In reality, the basic problem stems from the principles on which Israel was founded, that is, that it is legitimate for certain persons, by virtue of a property acquired at birth (to be “Jewish”) to occupy the land of other persons on whom the accident of birth failed to confer that property.  Invoking the Bible or the holocaust as justification for that occupation changes nothing as to its intrinsically racist character, that is, the fact that it is based on a crucial distinction between individuals solely related to their birth.

This racist aspect is clear to the victims and to all those who identify with them, especially the populations of the Arab-Muslim world and parts of the Third World, to whom the Zionist project recalls previous painful experiences of European colonialism.  But it is almost never acknowledged in the debate in the West. It must be stressed that this is not a matter of “ordinary” racism, of the attitudes that are unfortunately held by many individuals – a subjective and largely passive racism, regrettable but with limited consequences. Here it is a matter of an institutionalized racism, enforced by the structures of the State. Now, it is usually such State racism that is considered in our Western democracies to be an attribute of the  “extreme right”, and that is denounced as “incompatible with our values”, “contrary to modernity and the Enlightenment”, and so on. This is the racism that led to a general condemnation of Apartheid in the Republic of South Africa and its ruling ideology. The only exception is Zionism, even though it is an ideology that legitimatizes an institutionalized racism. Oddly enough, it is often the Western left that, while being most ready to condemn state racism in general, is most apt to make an exception for the “Jewish state”.

The whole Western discussion of the conflict is indirectly contaminated by this underlying racist vision.

• All parties and all “respectable” intellectuals or commentators, in order to gain access to the debate, must start by affirming “Israel’s right to exist”.  But “Palestine’s right to exist” is scarcely ever mentioned.  A Palestinian state, if ever it exists, will result not from a “right”, but from a negotiation, and only from a negotiation for which the Palestinians can provide the Israelis with “a responsible partner”, that is, one that recognizes as a precondition its adversary’s right to exist, without reciprocity.
• Any individual of Jewish origin has the right to settle in Israel, receiving immediately full citizen’s right and financial support, but the non-Jews who were chased away in 1948 or afterwards, or their descendants, cannot return.  Even within Palestine, their movements from one place to another are severely limited.
• Hamas and Hezbollah must be prevented from rearming, while Israel can receive from the United States, even as a gift, all the arms it wants.
• Israel is constantly celebrated as “the only democracy in the Middle East”, but the free elections of the Palestinians are considered invalid.
• The Palestinians must “renounce violence”. Not Israel.
• Iran must not possess nuclear weapons.  Israel’s nuclear arsenal is not challenged.

All these double standards rest finally on the idea that the initial colonization enterprise was legitimate, or else that it happened long ago and is not worth talking about.  But both those attitudes deny the full humanity of the victims, which brings us back to the issue of racism.  Just imagine the European reaction if the State of Israel had been establish in part of the Netherlands or the French Riviera, while driving out the people already living there.

The dominant discourse employs double standards at every level, for instance when all the French political leaders repeat that we must not “import the Middle East conflict” into France.  And yet, what is it when virtually the entire French political class is willing to listen humbly to lectures as to what to think about Israel at the annual dinner of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF)?  Isn’t the president of CRIF, who claims that “95 percent of French Jews” support the Israeli assault on Gaza, unilaterally importing the Middle East conflict to France?

There is a double standard in the way the far right is stigmatized.  Usually, the target is the traditional French far right, or, more recently, Islamist fundamentalists.  But never Zionism.  Indeed, a large part of the political and intellectual left adopts an implicitly racist position regarding Palestine which would be considered “far right” if it concerned South Africa under Apartheid.

The left is ever ready to mount on its high horse against a French far right which is, no doubt, unlikeable, but weak and marginal (which makes attacking it easy).   But it remains, at best, passive in the face of another far right (Zionism) which enjoys the military and diplomatic support of the world’s most powerful democracy.

One way of trying to silence protests against Israeli policy is to denounce expressions of anti-Semitism in demonstrations, as well as the comparison of Israel with Nazism.  Of course that comparison is excessive, but almost everyone commits that sort of excess, all the time.  In May ’68, the students called the CRS police “SS”, although no one was killed by them. What about comparisons of Milosevic or Nasser in his day with Hitler? Why can Israel’s supporters constantly identify Hamas or Iran with Hitler, but it is not allowed to turn the tables? One may answer that this is because of what the Jews suffered from the Nazis.  But such considerations of sensibility have never prevented the “Nazi” comparison from being hurled at the Soviets or the Serbs, who also suffered from the Nazis during World War II.   Less than the Jews no doubt, but at which level of suffering do such excesses become unacceptable?  More fundamentally, once the Nazification of the adversary has become the main ideological weapon wielded by the West and Israel, it is inevitable that it will be turned against them when the occasion arises.

As for anti-Semitism, it must not be forgotten that Israeli policy is carried out by a State that calls itself Jewish, and is strongly supported by organizations that claim to represent Jews (correctly or incorrectly).  It is unavoidable, in such a context, that some people who have nothing to do with historic anti-Semitism will identify Jews with Israel and express hostility to Jews.  This is regrettable but no more surprising than the fact that partisans of Israel speak in derogatory terms of “Arabs”. During World War II, most people in occupied countries were anti-German, and not merely anti-Nazi.  Probably only the most politically conscious made the distinction. During the Vietnam war, protesters often were anti-American and not merely opposed to US government policy (and it is the same today regarding US policy in the Middle East). Hatred is a product of war, and affects people who in peacetime can condemn racism and respect human rights. Since the Middle East conflict has already long since been imported in the media and in politics, in France an ideological war is underway. This creates foreseeable effects, which are deplored as though they were somehow unrelated.

It is not reasonable to expect those who are against Israel to constantly make a scrupulous distinction between Jews and Zionists when the dominant discourse maintains the identification (especially when it makes it possible to present Israel as the eternal “victim”).

Besides, what does one expect of a population which is constantly demonized, ridiculed, insulted, because, being Muslim, it supposedly understands nothing about democracy, human right, women’s right, and is guilty of “communitarianism” when it displays its religious convictions?  Is it not natural that it reacts with virulence (verbally at least) in the face of the Gaza massacres?
What precedes is not a “justification of anti-Semitism” but a banal observation about an unpleasant but universal aspect of human psychology. One may add that all the denunciations and condemnations of anti-Semitism which do not take into account the context in which it develops are useless or counter-productive, like most moralizing speeches.

The situation here in France and Belgium is almost as inextricable as in Palestine itself. It is unfortunately true that anti-Semitism is growing, as is the ethnic community identification on all sides.  We are unable to solve the situation in the Middle East, but we could at least start by recognizing the real nature of the problem (institutional racism) and change radically the way we talk about it.  There should also be an end to intimidations and trials (for thought crimes) so that everyone can say what they really think about Israel and its supporters, and put both sides on an equal footing in debates concerning Zionism.  It is also high time that French and European policy be decided independently of the influence of pressure groups.  Only then can one hope to carry on the debate free of ethnic community passions and reduce anti-Semitism.

Text translated from the French by Diana Johnstone. A French version of this text is available on http://www.legrandsoir.info/spip.php?article8017. Jean Bricmont teaches physics in Belgium and is a member of the Brussels Tribunal. His new book, Humanitarian Imperialism, is published by Monthly Review Press. He can be reached at bricmont@fyma.ucl.ac.be.

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