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Recent
Stories
April
7, 2003
David
N. Gibbs
Spying, Secrecy and the University:
The CIA is Back on Campus
Harry Browne
War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce
Gideon
Levy
America is Not a Role Model
Diane
Christian
A Scene from an Obscene War
Jules
Rabin
Remembering Deir Yassin
James Davis
Oddsmaking in Dublin: Will Bush
Shake Gerry's Hand?
Robert
Fisk
The Twisted Language of War
Patrick
Cockburn
Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah
John
Mackay
War and Art
Seth Sandronsky
Wars and the Color Line
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/7
April
5, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
in Shambles
Anne
Gwynne
A Drowning in Salem
Uri
Avnery
Roadmap to Nowhere
Chris
Floyd
Hell for Leather: Bombs, Bullets, Bibles and Bush
William
Cook
Would You Have Sent Your Son (or Daughter) Off to War If...
Gila
Svirsky
A Busy Day for Bulldozers
Mike Ferner
Back from Baghdad: What Next for the Peace Movement?
Joanne
Mariner
Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies
John Stanton
Bush Takes His Killing Orders
from the Lord
Romi
Mahajan
Learning to Count the Dead
Aluf Benn
After Iraq, US Vows to Deal with
Other Mideast Regimes
Mary
Ellen Peterson
Gay Marine Refuses to Fight
William
MacDougall
Country Music and the Crimes of Patriotism
Ron
Jacobs
War and Occupation
Bernie
Pattison
Aborigines and the Different God
Mark
Engler
Iraq War as Arms Expo
Adam Engel
Li'l Box of Love: a Novelini
Poets'
Basement
Tripp, Albert, Katz
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flesh and Its Discontents: the Paintings of Lucian Freud
Norman
Madarasz
Canada and the War
April
4, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
or Treason?
Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
Tom
Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
Pierre
Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
Show
Hammond
Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
to Fight
Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
Hot Stories
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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April 8,
2003
Gary Baurer
and Likud
An Unholy Allliance with the Christian Right
By AKIVA ELDAR
The annual conference of the powerful pro-Israel
AIPAC lobby last week disproved the conspiracy theory that claimed
the Jews persuaded President Bush to conquer Iraq. According
to the same theory, the lobby is now pressing him not to present
the road map to put an end to the Israeli occupation of the territories.
On the first day of the AIPAC convention,
a man named Gary Bauer took the podium. He reminded the cheering
thousands that God gave the Land of Israel to the Jewish people
and, therefore, there is an absolute ban on giving it to another
people. Bauer is not a member of the National Religious Party,
nor of the Likud central committee. He's not even Jewish. He
is a leading preacher from the Christian right in America, one
of those who believe the Jews are The Chosen People and one day
will even choose the right messiah. Bauer is a leading spokesman
for arch-conservative policies, including a total ban on all
abortions and favoring government funding for religious schools.
These are the people generating the spiritual
energy fueling George Bush's war on global terrorism. Evangelist
Christians from South Carolina paid for the huge billboard on
the Ayalon Highway declaring "There's no land for peace."
TV evangelist Pat Robertson last week reprimanded Foreign Minister
Silvan Shalom, saying "Who do you think you are, handing
Jerusalem over to Arafat?"
With Christian friends like these close
to the president's ear, the right-wing government in Israel does
not need Jewish friends to rebuff political initiatives like
the road map. But the Jewish activists are not giving up. The
religious sources of the values that drive the Christian right
are not preventing some Jewish organizations from turning them
into a natural ally. Among those organizations are some that
only a decade ago were thriving by exposing the anti-Semitic
sloganeering in the sermons of some of their newfound friends.
This coming Passover, those Jews will
devotedly recite "Next year in Jerusalem rebuilt,"
and a few might even do so from one of the hotels in the capital,
which have been empty for the last two years. Those same activists
joining the crusade against renewal of the political negotiations
and against a settlement freeze know what a bloody price Israel
is paying for the conflict in the territories. They are familiar
with the ominous economic data threatening the social stability
of their beloved country. They all understand that by the end
of this decade, the Jews will become a minority between the Jordan
and Mediterranean.
So what drives these Jewish professionals?
A new poll for one of the Jewish organizations shows that their
policy does not represent the Jewish street in America. According
to this poll, 63 percent of American Jewry supports active involvement
by the U.S. administration in the peace process. This could confirm
the assessment of one senior Israeli diplomat, who noted that
the name Jay Fielder, a young Jewish football player, is much
better known to American Jews than that of Malcolm Hoenlein,
the eternal executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents
of Major American Jewish Organizations.
It is not because, as in Israel, the
majority supports left-wing concessions but allows the political
leadership to lead right-wing policies. The big difference between
the two communities remains that Israeli Jews get blown up in
buses, their sons have to guard settlers and their grandchildren
can expect to grow up in a binational state or an apartheid regime.
If it is difficult for those American Jewish busybodies to push
the president and Congress into the cold water of the peace process,
presumably one could expect they not try to force the administration
to go in the opposite direction. They even have the right to
draw fire to the Jews over the Iraq war, but they do not have
the right to block even the slightest chance for peace here.
Akiva Eldar
writes for Ha'aretz.
Yesterday's
Features
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
or Treason?
Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
Tom
Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
Pierre
Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
Show
Hammond
Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/04
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