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May 20, 2002
Christian Salmon
The Bulldozer
War
Edward Said
The Crisis for American Jews
May 19, 2002
Norman Madarasz
Canada,
NAFTA and Kyoto
May 18, 2002
M.G. Piety
Economic Fiction:
From Here to Annuity?
Michael Colby
Bush Fiddled
While
New York Burned
May 17, 2002
Wayne Madsen
Fox News Flashback:
Defending McKinney
James T. Phillips
Ceasefires
and Terrorists
Phillipe Dambournet
The Truth at Last:
Bush as the Energizer Bunny
Lori Berenson
In Defense
of Political Prisoners
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Terrorist Warnings
Hussein Ibish
Clarifying
the Obstacles
to Peace in Palestine
Alexander Cockburn
Israel and "Anti-Semitism"
May 16, 2002
Marylin Robinson
A Garden
in Tent City, But Where Do You Bathe?
Paul de Rooij
Worse than CNN?
The BBC and Israel
David Krieger
The Bush/Putin
Agreement:
Nuclear Dangers Remain
Steve Perry
Unsafe at Any Speed:
Youth, Sex and the Heresies
of Judith Levine
May 15, 2002
Ahmad Faruqui
Revisiting
Camp David
Rick Giombetti
Spiderman v. Pentagon:
Working Class Hero Battles Corrupt Defense Contractors
Stanton / Madsen
When the
War Hits Home:
Planning for Martial Law, Telegovernance and Suspension of Elections
May 14, 2002
Jacob Levich
Leaving the Truth Out?
Alternative Online Publication
Tells the Big Lie about Palestine
Michael Colby
Bush's
Cuba Blunder
Dave Marsh
Scapegoats: the Music Industry's War
on Cassettes
Jensen / Mahajan
US Power
Mideast Power Plays
May 13, 2002
Robert Fisk
Why Does John Malkovich
Want to Kill Me?
Mokhiber / Weissman
IMF
and World Bank:
Out of Control
Dean Baker
Will Darth Vader do Time?
The Enron Saga Continues
Nelson Valdés
American
Democracy:
A Lesson for Cubans
May 12, 2002
Bernard Weiner
Why Is America Acting Like This? A
Letter to European Friends
John Patrick Leary
Aiding Colombia
Kathleen Christison
Israel
and Ethics
May 11, 2002
Joady Guthrie
The Holy Lands:
A Peace Vision
Patrick Cockburn
Bombing
Iraq:
the Pentagon Prepares a Prolonged Campaign
George Sunderland
CounterPunch Special
Our
Vichy Congress: Israel's Stranglehold on Capitol Hill
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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 New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
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:
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May
20, 2002
Israel, Jews
and the Left
by
Jordy Cummings
Can it be that it was all so simple? In 1948,
upon Israel's founding, the International Left was supportive
of Israel, including Arab communist and socialist parties, particularly
in Egypt.
Even after the "Nakhba," Marxists,
even within the Arab world, were prepared to accept Israel's
right to exist within secure borders. The reasoning, beyond the
obvious, was simple: a socialist, labor-based country would rub
off on the repressive "Islamo-fascism" that permeated
the region.
Indeed, it was the British-funded Muslim
Brotherhood that provided the basis for Arab Anti-Semitism, as
well as a means to push Nasser to the right. Moreover, it was
the Americans (particularly Zbignew Brzezinski) in their brilliance,
who decided to create an International Islamic Fundamentalist
Brigade to defeat communism in Afghanistan, later to morph into
Al Qaida. Aside from some American corporations, international
big business, "capitalism" if you will, has always
relied more strongly on Iron-fisted Wahabbis than Eretz Y'israel.
Then why is it that the International
Left seems to be so "Pro-Palestinian?" leading many
hitherto left-leaning Jews to abandon their progressive affiliations?
Why is it that an innocuous Naderite group like McGill Qpirg
has been lumped in with "extremists?"
Much of it has to do with a misunderstanding
of our position on this issue. Even the most ardent critics of
Sharon's actions do not deny Israel's right to exist in secure
borders. It is just that we cannot square Sharon's appointing
of transfer-mongers and his stated desire to destroy the Oslo
Peace Process with our support for Israel.
Therefore, like Americans who saw it
as their patriotic duty to speak the truth while their nation
was involved in the horrendous Vietnam war, we see it as our
responsibility, as Jews and as Internationalists, to speak out
against Ariel Sharon, not to mention his party which fills itself
with open advocates of ethnic cleansing.
The charge that the Left is anti-Semitic
is ludicrous, especially given that the vanguard of the many,
if not most progressive social movements are disproportionately
Jewish. Indeed, the group of non-violent activists who occupied
Irwin Cotler's office included more than one Israeli, as well
as quite a few Palestinians.
As more Palestinians and Arabs become
involved in leftist and internationalist politics, it will bring
a far-preferable mode of political thinking to the region than
that of the Wahhabis and B'aathists.
On the other hand, as many Jews close
ranks to support Sharon, there has been a tremendous growth of
openly expressed Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, advocates
of transfer and generally McCarthyite if not Meir Kahane-derived
attitudes towards not only Palestinians but "self-hating
Jews" as well, including Rabbi Michael Lerner, Amos Oz,
Yossi Beillin and! others.
Israel and Palestine are but a small
part of the International Left's current agenda, which can be
simplified in the great catch-phrase "Another World is Possible."
Unlike the media-created label of "anti-globalization,"
the Left aims to globalize social justice, environmental, human
rights and labor movements to eventually be able to counter the
international power of corporations.
The nation-state has declined in power
over the last half-century, while big business acts globally.
Anyone confused about the current global corporate agenda can
look at victims of Enron, not only in Houston, but all through
India where it was a regular Enron practice to bribe state-officials
to build huge Stalakhnovite dams that are environmentally destructive,
while nearly one hundred million Indians are without properly
irrigated water.
As the world faces an unprecedented growth
in anti-Semitism, both in the fascist-LePenite and Islamic variety,
it is important that the Jewish community understands one another,
a sort of macro-level Shalom Babayit. It is of course also important
for us to understand that LePen and other Euro-fascists are as
anti-Arab as they are anti-Semitic. We Semites--Muslim, Jewish
and Christian, must find ways of working together globally. My
aim in writing this editorial was not to propagandize or preach,
it was rather to explain to my community why so many of us are
involved in Internationalism.
I expect that the knee-jerk responses
to me will be visceral, just as they were to Spinoza, yet a compass
is far more important when it is inconvenient, and I believe
that history will vindicate my position, while the same cannot
be said for those who blindly support Sharon.
Jordy Cummings
lives in Montreal. He can be reached at: yorgos33ca@yahoo.ca
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