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Today's
Stories
October 14,
2004
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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October 14, 2004
Turning Myths
into Truth
Fodder
for the Mindless
By
WILLIAM A. COOK
The lies used by the Bush administration
to rally support for its illegal actions in Iraq and Palestine
have moved with glacial slowness before the public. The reason,
we have learned, exists in the main stream media that controls
news fed to the public. Alison Weir, Executive Director of "If
Americans Knew," established, for example, that 150% of
Israeli children's deaths (more than one story on some) were
the subject of front page articles and photos in the San Francisco
Chronicle while only 5% of Palestinian children's deaths
made it to the front page. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
noted that NPR reported on 89% of Israeli children's deaths and
only 20% of Palestinian children's deaths. These studies mirror
the reality for most American, corporate controlled media.
Recently, an Ariel Sharon advisor,
Dov Weisglass, revealed to Ha'aretz that the "ulterior
motive behind Sharon's unilateral decision to withdraw from the
Gaza strip" was not to further the peace process but to
"freeze it" in order to prevent "the establishment
of a Palestinian state." Where did you read about this in
America's main stream media? In another news article last month,
Ha'aretz editorialized that Israel is responsible for
the terror that exists in Palestine! That confession also went
unnoticed in the US. The sin of intentional omission more often
than not creates the perceptions we hold on issues of great significance.
The elite powers that control the message control what we think
is true. Let me offer three examples of intentional deception
that fabricates a myth that becomes truth.
Ha'aretz, the Israeli newspaper not controlled by the
right-wing Zionists of
Sharon's racist administration,
editorialized a couple of weeks ago on a matter of paramount
concern to America, the cause of terrorism in Israel and the
mid-east, a matter not mentioned at either of our national conventions,
and unreported in the main stream press: "The underlying
basis of (this) terrorism lies in the territories. Nowhere else.
The main motivation for the war against us is the aspiration
to shake off the cruel yoke of the occupation. The checkpoints,
the humiliations, the suppression and the mass imprisonment are
the true infrastructure of terrorism." This editorial exposes
the truth about terrorism in Israel and elsewhere in the mid-east
and gives lie to the myth that it is the Palestinians that have
caused the terrorism that afflicts that state. It denudes the
fiction that Sharon perpetrates and uses as a collar around Bush's
neck in order to lead him to accept the state terrorism that
he imposes on the Palestinians.
This editorial decries the
blatant and unfounded accusations made by the Chief of Staff,
Moshe Ya'alon and the military that blames Syria for the terrorism
in Israel. "The attempt to cast responsibility on Damascus
is intended to avoid having to cope with the true causes of terrorism,"
Ha'aretz argues. "Colonial regimes have always accused
external sources of intervening in the liberation struggles waged
against them, in order to undermine the justice of the struggles,"
a point that America has to face in Iraq as it imposes its will
on a people that has no desire to be suppressed. The Ha'aretz
editorial blows open the whole charade that Israel and its American
apologizers use to defend its occupation and oppression, friends
like AIPAC, the now exposed conduit for American classified information
to Sharon.
"Palestinian terrorism
was not engendered in any external command post. It had its birth
among the rubble in the territories, in the hearts of the children
who saw their parents humiliated and their lives trampled underfoot.
Anyone who truly wants to put an end to terrorism must fight
the occupation. Any other war is pointless," a point that
makes a mockery of AIPAC's and Wolfowitz' and Sharon's push to
"change regimes" in Iran and Syria even as it bares
the insidious intent of their efforts. Deception destroys discernment
of truth and omission of any reference to this argument, made
by a major newspaper in Israel, can be nothing more than intentional
deception.
Consider now a second myth
that has prominence in America, one defended by Israel's most
renowned apologist, Alan Dershowitz, in his most recent book
The Case for Israel. According to Dershowitz, "Jews
were a substantial majority in those areas of Palestine partitioned
by the United Nations for a Jewish state." The official
UN estimate of the population of mandatory Palestine allocated
to the Jewish state, according to Dershowitz, although he provides
no source for his numbers, only the claim that they are authoritative,
are 538,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs. Interestingly, he does not
question the accuracy of the population numbers provided by this
writer in a CP article that appeared 4/6/03 (figures Dershowitz
questions), he simply changes the base of the argument and thus
allows himself to offer numbers that fit his argument.
What he does not provide, what
he omits to record, are numbers based on historical and archeological
data collected in a huge tome that identifies the populations
of every village within the pre-1967 borders of Israel, titled
appropriately, All That Remains, a work edited by Walid
Khalidi a distinguished historian and one time Senior Fellow
at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies. In this work,
Khalidi accounts for 418 towns and villages that were systematically
raised by the Jewish military, citing exact population statistics
for each location, statistics that appear as they did in the
Mandate Government's 1945 Village Statistics. Each of
these 418 towns and villages had been in recorded existence since
the 16th century inhabited by an overwhelming Arab population.
The statistics tell the story.
In excess of 390,000 inhabitants of these towns and villages
were forced to move in 1948, in addition to an estimated 254,000
inhabitants of cities in the same areas and 70,000 to 100,000
Beduins, a mobile population driven out by the Jewish forces.
Another 13,000 were killed in the battles that took place in
these areas. The total amounted to an estimated 54% of the population
in the areas that constituted the UN proposed land to be given
to the Jewish state. Khalidi's accounted for population of approximately
727,000 Arabs gives the lie to Dershowitz' figures even if one
accepts his argument that the population of the proposed Jewish
state only should be the basis of determining that the creation
of it was justified.
But statistics do not tell
the human side of this catastrophic movement of people. These
major urban areas--Acre, Beersheba, Baysan, Lydda, Majdal, Nazareth,
al-Rama--were emptied of their Palestinian residents. "Their
immovable assets--commercial centers, residential quarters, schools,
banks, hospitals, clinics, mosques, churches, and other public
buildings, parks and utilities, all passed en bloc into the possession
of the nascent State of Israel. Also appropriated intact by Israelis
were the personal moveable assets: furniture, silver, pictures,
carpets, libraries, and heirlooms--all the accoutrements of middle-class
life of the erstwhile Palestinian residents."
In All That Remains,
Khalidi provides two maps, divided by areas that constitute the
proposed Jewish state, with graphics that demonstrate the population
comparison between Palestinian and Jew. There are 8 areas that
make up the proposed state: Safad, Tiberiae, Baysan, Haifa, a
large section of Tulkarm, Jaffa, a sizeable section of Al Ramla,
and Beersheba; a separate area designation is provided for Jerusalem.
Only in Jaffa did the Jewish population outnumber the Arab, including
Jerusalem which had an Arab population of 62% versus 38% Jewish.
One might note that Dershowitz mentions only that western Jerusalem
had a majority of Jews; how deceptive. He also notes that Hebron,
not designated as part of the proposed state, had a Jewish population
for thousands of years, a fact somewhat at odds with the population
statistics in 1946 when there were less than 1% Jews in the area.
Hidden within the myth that Jews were the larger population in
the proposed Jewish state thus making legitimate their right
to the land, is another myth, more insidious than the first:
Palestinians left that area of their own accord or upon the demands
of the Palestinian authorities. This myth opens the door for
innocent Israelis to claim the deserted land for themselves.
But according to Henry Siegman, in a rebuttal letter in the New
York Review of Books to Benny Morris the Israeli historian
who had questioned a Siegman article, "The issue I addressed
in my article is whether the mass exodus of 700,000 Palestinian
Arabs from the areas in Palestine assigned to the Jews was the
consequence of the chaos of war or whether it was 'planned'-the
result of a deliberate decision by Jewish leaders to expel Palestinian
Arabs from these areasI noted in my article that in the revised
edition of Morris's book, he writes that he had conclusive evidence
that there was indeed a deliberate decision by Ben Gurion to
expel--the term 'cleanse' is used extensively--700,000 Palestinian
Arabs. Their flight was therefore not the unintended collateral
damage of a war started by the Arabs but the result of decisions
and actions taken by the Yishuv's top political and military
planners."
Siegman goes on to point out
that Morris does not object to the decision to "expel"
Palestinians from their land because he understands that a Jewish
state could not exist in an area where the Arab population outnumbered
the Jews: "Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a
Jewish state would not have arisen here." The title of Siegman's
article suggests the consequences of the lies that give feigned
legitimacy to illegal actions: "Israel: the Threat from
Within."
My third myth, presented as
truth universally, may best be presented by Elsa Walsh from her
article for the New Yorker (3/24/03), titled "The
Prince." The article is something of a brief biography of
Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia and his political manipulations
in our nation's Capitol. Walsh writes "But when Dennis Ross
showed Bandar the President's (Clinton) talking papers Bandar
recognized that in its newest iteration the peace plan was a
remarkable development. It gave Arafat almost everything he wanted,
including the return of about ninety-seven per cent of the land
of the occupied territories; all of Jerusalem except the Jewish
and Armenian quarters, with Jews preserving the right to worship
at the Temple Mount; and a thirty-billion-dollar compensation
fund." Arafat, as Walsh notes, agreed to accept the proposals
as offered by Clinton, but only as the basis for new talks. The
world heard that Arafat had refused the proposals and offered
no explanation or alternatives.
Did Clinton's papers offer
Arafat "everything he wanted" as Bandar claims? In
1993, Arafat sent a letter to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, September
9, stating most pertinently these points: The PLO recognizes
the right of the state of Israel to exist in peace and security;
the PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242
and 338, the 1948 and 1967 borders and right of return; the PLO
commits itself to the peace processall outstanding issueswill
be resolved through negotiations.
Did Clinton offer Arafat all
of the land captured by the Israelis in 1948? Did he offer a
return to the borders as delineated by the UN in 1967? Or did
he offer Arafat 97% of the West Bank and Gaza? Did Clinton provide
a set process for the refugees, a right to return to their homes
whether in the remaining Palestinian land or in Israel? Did Clinton's
plan provide for recognition of the right to exist of a Palestinian
state, a state recognized by Israel?
It's clear that Clinton did
not offer Arafat everything he wanted. Arafat had no option but
to refuse Clinton's proposal or accept it only as a basis for
new negotiations, and that he did. It's instructive to note that
the one-sidedness of Clinton's offer was so blatant that Yossi
Beilin, an Israeli architect of the Oslo Accords, and former
Palestinian minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, worked for two and a
half years to create the Geneva Accords to right the wrongs of
the original proposals. The GA, while not official, stipulates
the immediate recognition of a Palestinian state by the state
of Israel. It addresses forthrightly the issue of refugee right
of return and compensation for their suffering and loss of homes
in accordance with UN Resolutions 194 of 1948 and the principles
of International Law. And it notes that the relations between
Israel and Palestine shall be based upon the provisions of the
Charter of the United Nations. Furthermore, it makes the borders
that compose the state of Palestine those of June 1967 in accordance
with Resolutions 242 and 338. Most of the settlements are to
be disbanded and territorial integrity to be respected by both
parties. Palestine will be a non-militarized state protected
in part by the creation of a multinational force established
and deployed in Palestine. Finally, a joint committee will monitor
the crossing borders, an item originally in the Oslo agreement
but later cancelled by Israel. This document addresses the issues
Arafat had to contend with, without which he could not commit
his people. Curiously enough, the GA offers a resolution to the
dilemma addressed by Ha'aretz in its editorial, a just
resolution to the conflict that rages in Palestine.
There you have it, three myths
presented as truth to a world benumbed, especially in the US.
All three exist because our press and our talking heads, especially
those that snarl on FOX or obsequiously fawn disbelief on CNN
or MSNBC, intentionally omit the requisite investigation of the
truth or coddle to the power of corporate America and to the
belief, in itself a myth, that we must not question our one true
friend in the Middle East, the "Democratic" (sic) state
of Israel. But, then, myths are the staple of those who want
to know without engaging the mind or the senses. Besides, a little
blather about issues of no consequence coddles the public mind
and doesn't really disturb their contentment.
William Cook is a professor of English at the University
of La Verne in southern California. His new book, Psalms
for the 21st Century, was just published by
Mellen Press. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU
Weekend
Edition Features for September 18 / 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Forgeries,
Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery
Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Bush's Mask of Anarchy
Patrick Cockburn
Into the Abyss: the Week Iraq's Dream of Peace Fell Apart
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture)
Joe Allen
The Comrades Kerry Abandoned: the Real Story of Vietnam Vets
Against the War
George Corsetti
Poletown Revisited: Finally, Some Vindication
Scott Handleman
The Knock-Knock of a Sledgehammer: Sequestered in Nablus
Richard Ward
Two Weeks in Beit Arabiya
Conn Hallinan
Ashcroft and Indonesia
Lori Smith
Health Care in America: And Then I Got Sick...
Dave Zirin
Hold the Booyah!: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East
John L. Hess
Rather Will Take the Heat, As Bush's War Deteriorates
Brian J. Foley
W is for Wimp: So Why do Manly Men Love Him?
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman and Osama bin Laden: Odd Juxtapositions
Poets' Basement
Vest, Landau & Albert
Website of the Weekend
Eye on the NYTs
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