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August 4, 2002
Susan Davis
Fat Americans
August 3, 2002
David Krieger
Nuclear
Apartheid
Gilad Atzmon
The End
of Innocence
Gavin Keeney
Everybody's
a Critic
Alexander Cockburn
Can the Times' Jeff Gerth
Save Dick Cheney?
August 2, 2002
Ralph Nader
The Labor
Party
Chris Floyd
Moral Maze:
Bankruptcy Made Easy
Jeremy Scahill
Saddam,
Chemical Weapons and Donald Rumsfeld
Jeffrey St. Clair
Dark Deeds in the Black Hills:
Daschle Dooms the
Sacred Land of the Sioux
August 1, 2002
Steven Higgs
Activists
Under Siege
Anthony Gancarski
Draft
Picks:
Staffing the Latest War
Zeynep Toufe
Invisible
Children: AIDS,
Africa and Selective Vision
Alexander Cockburn
Drivel and Squawk:
Angelina Jolie, the NYT
and the Attack on McKinney
July 31, 2002
Amelia Peltz
Inside
Ramallah:
How Can the World Witness Such Suffering and Do Nothing?
M. Shahid Alam
The Academic
Boycott of Israel
Bernard Weiner
20 Things
We've Learned Since 9/11
Philip Cryan
Discourse
and War in Colombia
Neve Gordon
A Feast
of Bombs:
Sharon's Endgame for Palestine
July 30, 2002
Pierre Tristam
Branding September 11
PS Burton
Financial
Journalism:
A Very Small Cog
Tom Stephens
Hypocrites in the House:
Fast Track After Midnight
Dave Marsh
Censorship
Goes Global
July 29, 2002
Linda Belanger
Why Do They Do It?
Alfredo Castro
Colombia's
Disappeared
Anne Brodsky
Inside Pakistan and
Afghanistan with RAWA
Andrew George
The Fires
of Summer:
Don't Blame the Greens
David Vest
A Blind Mule and
a Box of Medals
July 28, 2002
Bob Geary
Our Dinner
with Fidel Castro
July 27, 2002
Ian Daoust
The New
Mahler, Seattle Style
Gavin Keeney
Zizek
and Lenin
Ralph Nader
Citigroup
Heal Thyself
M. Shahid Alam
American
Presidents (Poem)
Mokhiber / Weissman
Push Back: Women Take
on the Corporate Beasts
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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
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August
5, 2002
The
Last Frontier of Israel and Palestine
by Jordy Cummings
Imagine if, in the midst of these horrendous suicide
bombings, prominent Arab-Americans sat on television and celebrated
the bombings, sometimes in language even more intense than the
nihilist leadership of Hamas? 'Tis hard to imagine, because
it probably would not happen. Indeed, if it were to happen,
the heads of Arab-American associations and publications would
probably roundly condemn the statements. Suicide bombings, after
all, do nothing to alleviate the sufferings of the Palestinians
(or, as many more people realize, the Israelis who live under
Sharon's junta.)
Yet, in what seems to be one of the most
shameful moments in Jewish history, prominent "intellectuals"
and journalists in our community are only all to glad to lend
their support, not to the Israeli people who are victimized
by suicide attacks that Sharon intentionally provokes, but to
the Sharon junta--which incidently recently introduced that old
favorite, neo-liberalism. Palestinian towns are refered to as
"nests" of terrorism. The ubiquitous "the"
is always placed before "Palestinians" in conversation,
quantifying and qualifying a whole people as deserving of collective
punishment. And sometimes the most animus is reserved for us
Jews who aren't "with the program."
I have never considered myself instinctively
anti-Israel any more than I am anti-American or anti-Papua New
Guinean, for that matter. I don't believe that nation-states
are the arbiters of behaviour, therefore I believe it is a ruse
to start using such language. As Noam Chomsky pointed out years
back, it would be laughable to start referring to "anti-Italianism"
in Italy. In fact, with the Berlusconi government in power,
it is actually quite pro-Italian to oppose the Itaian state.
Likewise, it is very Pro-Israel, in a tangible way, to advocate
an end to the occupation, a just solution to the refugees, a
two-state solution that is federated so that within a few decades
and dissipation of religous extremism, the border will dissipate,
and justice for the extremists in both Hamas and Likud.
But I am digressing here. As I was saying
, I've never considered myself instinctively anti-Israel. I
do consider myself somewhat religous- Jewish and this is what
informs my opposition to Israel at this point. Because I have
correlated opposition to Israeli policies with both the secular
and theological morality Judaism, I have been singled out for
extra threats, intimidation and otherwise McCarthyite treatment
from the self-apponted guardians of Zion. An innocuous column
in a Montreal newspaper at the dawn of the Sept. 2000 intifada
brought open death threats and other perversions from self-asppointed
sayanim. My point at the time was that on Yom Kippur, Jews
should atone for not speaking out against "the series of
actions that have led up to the intifada." On Yom Kippur
itself--the holiest day of the Jewish year--I was accosted walking
out of Synagogue with the old canard of "self-hating Jew."
I had not even taken off my tallit.
Fast forward 18 months, many periods
of calm, followed by Israeli assassinations which are inevitably
followed by suicide-bombings. I had come to be very angry--even
angrier than usual--at the Sharon government. As one friend
of mine in Israel had said, he was an Israeli Pinochet. In other
words, not only had he increased oppression and provocation of
Palestinians, but he had imposed "austerity" and neo-liberal
economic policies that are cutting away at the perhaps one good
legacy that Israel has at this point, its robust social democracy.
After Sharon re-invaded the Palestinian territories after the
horrendous--and predictable Passover bombing, I started to take
more action.
My plan was--and is- the last frontier
of Israel-Palestine--the Jewish Community. As a proud Jew
and a writer, I feel an obligation to explain to my community
that we are all implicated in Sharon's perversions, which go
directly against Jewish values. I nearly convinced Montreal
Hillel to publicly criticize Sharon. I know for a fact that
the spokespeople who wanted to do so were told to keep their
mouths shut. It reminded me of the February 2002 issue of the
Jerusalem Report, in which Israel's PR chief talks of how Israel
would use "student organizations" in North America
to control the debate. It is highly sad when organizations like
Hillel that have been a part of the Jewish struggle for equality
and self-determination whore themselves.
As well as writing a few pieces meant
to galvanize Jewish opposition, here at Counterpunch, I wrote
one piece (also featured at Counterpunch) that was quite moderate
and concilliatory--for the Canadian Jewish News, a high circulation
weekly community newspaper. This was, to me, an important coup,
since the CJN has been dominated by the most right-wing, horribly
racist libels against Palestinians as well as Jews who, again,
are not part of the program. Among the features in the last
few months were ressurections of the discredited Joan Peters
"time immemorial" theory, the old "Palestinians
don't exist" bullshit, and always, always, always excuses
for Israel's actions that seem straight out of Pravda. As well,
it was used to discredit the Canadian labor union CUPE directly
before its strike in Toronto (Cupe had made a statement criticizing
Sharon as well as Arafat.) Many CUPE members feel that the attempt
to drive a wedge between the labor movement and th!e historically
pro-unoin Jewish community, was guided not by Jewish, but by
management interests.
After publishing a piece that refuted
the notion that "the left is Anti-Semitic," I became
even more of a target. I wil say that I don't take these bullies
and terrorists seriously (humorously, the CJN published my piece
directly opposite one of the wildest conspiracy theories I have
ever read, about the "dangerous allure of.......NGOs!"!)
Yet when I have ten e-mails and even snail-mail letters a day,
theatening vengeance, telling me that God will punish me and
other such bullshit, it becomes a little disconcerting. Not
surprisingly, these libels ended up on the letters column of
the Canadian Jewish News. All of them are still online, and
many of them are quite unbelievable and Talibanic in their irrational
zeal. Replying with reason has allowed me to introduce ideas
normally off-limits to the Jewish community. To most people,
calling for an end to war and occupation is more reasonable than
calling for the "transfer of those who suck evil from their
mo!ther's breast milk."
So my egotistical response to the letters
was to reply to them, and argue their merits, which to the CJN's
credit, they have allowed me to do. However, what really disturbs
me is the amount of incitement, which often can be traced straight
to current Israeli Hasbarah policy. I am not speaking of those
at publications like the New Republic, the intellectual collaborators
with Sharon's policies. I am speaking of those who are manipulated
by the Peretzes and others of this world, the working-class Jewish
community, some of whom are survivors. Old men and women are
being manipulated to believe that they are in danger, and that
Arabs are out to get them. Young men and women are told to use
"any means neccessary" including threats and intimidation
(spying on Palestinian human rights advocates, threatening to
expose others' petty criminal records) to "support Israel."
Thus it has become de rigeur in public
and private, in my beloved community, to go against Jewish values
in thoughts, words and actions. The Reform Temple that I was
raised in (before Reform became overtly Zionist) has hosted prominent
Anti-Arab scholars, but refused to support the Refuseniks, despite
overwhelming Jewish grassroots support. The Rabbi who I once
thought was a holy man has publicly and explicitly endorsed collective
punishment. Jews rightfully get up in arms, as noted, when the
odd Islamic cleric endorses Jew-hatred. What is to be said then,
when the Jewish clerics themselves--with some notable exceptions--endorse
Arab-hatred?
Jordy Cummings
can be reached at: yorgos33ca@yahoo.ca
Today's Features
David Krieger
Nuclear
Apartheid
Gilad Atzmon
The End
of Innocence
Gavin Keeney
Everybody's
a Critic
Alexander Cockburn
Can the Times' Jeff Gerth
Save Dick Cheney?
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