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June 2, 2002
Bernard Weiner
Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies
June 1, 2002
Norman Madarasz
The
Strange Math of Roberto Carlos: Brazil v. Turkey
Gavin Keeney
Bush and Mies van der Rohe:
Architecture and Ideology
Jeff Halper
Sharon's
Post-Incursion Plan:
Incarceration or Transfer?
Walt Brasch
Crumpling the Constitution
May 31, 2002
Rev. Sandra Olewine
Land Grabs and Occupation:
Silent Destruction of Palestine
James Dunlop
Russian
Colonel:
"Insane But Fit for Duty"
Chomsky / Bennett
Debating "Terrorism"
May 30, 2002
Steve Perry
Jim Carrey:
"Love Me!"
Tom Turnipseed
Sex Among the Sacred
George Monbiot
Corporate
Phantoms
Web of Deciet over GM Foods
Robert Jensen
Are You a Journalist
or a Patriot?
Gary Leupp
Georgia
and the War on Terror
May 29, 2002
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Age of Inequality
Philip Farruggio
The
Cleaning Lady
Bill Christison
Disastrous US Foreign Policy:
Part 2, Globalization
May 28, 2002
Michael Leon
Lincoln
Brigades Memorial
Scott Lucas
Christopher Hitchens:
No Longer an Authentic
Voice of Dissent
Nelson P. Valdes
Castro,
Bioterrorism and
the State Department
Harvey Wasserman
What Does the White House Know
About Atomic Terror?
Norman Madarasz
France,
Brazil, the Politics
of the World Cup
May 27, 2002
Dave Marsh
Why I Voted for Nader:
Ticketmaster's Stranglehold
on Music and Politics
Robert Fisk
The Coming
Firestorm:
Bush's Crazed Remarks
May 26, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
Diary of a Northwest Trip:
Why Reds Live Longer
May 25, 2002
Chris Floyd
General
Principles:
Unmasking Colin Powell
Gavin Keeney
All Politics is Local? The Unbearable
Lightness of NGO's
Jeffrey St. Clair
A Hero
of Our Time:
Stephen Jay Gould
May 24, 2002
Edward Hammond
Documents Prove Pentagon Violated
Bioweapons Act
Mark Weisbrot
Bush
Administration Scandals:
Beginning of the End?
Feingold / Corzine
Halt Executions Nationwide
Bill Christison
Former
CIA Analyst:
Big Changes Needed in
US Intelligence Agencies
May 23, 2002
Dean Baker
Attack of the Clowns:
The Real Bush is Back
Susan Abulhawa
Israel
and South Africa:
Apartheid's Accidental Prophecy
Uri Avnery
Sharon the Great Reformer?
Behzad Yaghmaian
Travails
of a Middle Eastern Migrant: Accosted at the Border
May 22, 2002
Brian J. Foley
Dick Cheney's Obscenity
Gavin Keeney
Bete Noire
Enron & the Great Game
Fran Shor
Follow the Money
Bush, bin Laden & Carlyle
May 21, 2002
George Monbiot
Riddle
of the Spores:
The FBI and Anthrax
Yulie Khromchenko
Displaced Reality:
Impressions from Jenin
Bernard Weiner
Kenny
Boy to Bush:
"Welcome to the Club"
Ron Jacobs
Confusing the Face
of the Enemy
Gary Leupp
"War
on Terrorism" in Yemen
May 20, 2002
Rep. Ron Paul
Say No to Military Draft
Dave Marsh
Music Monopolies
Jordy Cummings
Israel, Jews and the Left
Francis Boyle
In Defense
of a Divestment
Campaign Against Israel
Christian Salmon
The Bulldozer War
Edward Said
Crisis for
American Jews
May 19, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Where's Twain's Protector Government
Now?
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
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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
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The
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June 2, 2002
The Catepillar Effect
by Neve Gordon
"This
is the first time that bulldozers have determined the outcome
of a war," L., one of the Palestinian
fighters from the Jenin refugee camp was recently quoted in the
Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronot. The officer in charge of the military
penetration into the camp affirmed L.'s claim, declaring in the
same article that the D9 drivers had won the day. And indeed,
every television station around the world showed graphic pictures
of Jenin houses turned debris.
Human Rights Watch's fact-finding team
found that in contrast to other parts of the camp where armored
D9 Caterpillars were used mainly to widen streets, in Hawashin
district they razed the entire neighborhood. The Israeli military
caused disproportionate destruction to the refugee camp's civilian
infrastructure, a senior Human Rights Watch researcher averred,
adding: "The abuses we documented in Jenin are extremely
serious, and in some cases appear to be war crimes."
At least 140 buildings were completely
leveled -- many of them multi-family dwellings --while over 200
others were severely damaged, leaving an estimated 4,000 people,
more than a quarter of the camp's population, homeless.
Thirty-seven-year-old Jamal Fayid, paralyzed
from his waist down, was one of the D9 casualties. According
to the rights organization, he was crushed in the wreckage because
Israeli soldiers did not allow family members to take him out
of his home. The Caterpillar killed him.
D9 bulldozers were put to use in other
places as well. In a report published by the Israeli rights group,
B'tselem, one reads how Caterpillars were employed to destroy
houses in Nablus's old city in order to make way for Israeli
tanks. When the military left the neighborhood six days later,
Palestinians discovered that ten residents had been inside one
of the houses when the demolition took place. 65-year-old Abdallah
a-Sha'abi was rescued together with his 53-year-old wife; the
rest were not so lucky.
Israel's draconian demolition policy
was not, however, invented in operation "Defensive Shield."
For many years now, D9s have been employed as a military weapon.
Less than four months before the Jenin attack, some 58 houses
were destroyed in Rafah, rendering at least 500 people homeless
in the midst of a cold winter -- 300 of whom are children.
The razing of houses in the past months,
while unusual in its scale, is part of a long-term low-intensity
warfare tactic that often escapes public attention. According
to Jeff Halper, from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions,
"more than 7,000 houses have been demolished by Israel since
1967, leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians traumatized and
homeless."
The Israeli government and military is,
to be sure, responsible for the demolitions, which are -- according
to today's international legal framework -- in many cases considered
war crimes. However, without the big D9 bulldozers supplied by
Caterpillar, it would have been very difficult to destroy the
houses.
When Caterpillar began doing business
with Israel, it could not have known that its products -- which
are manufactured for civilian use -- would be employed to commit
war crimes. Now, however, the corporation does know and insofar
as it maintains a business as usual stance, it too is implicated
in the violations.
It is interesting to note that the Israeli
Supreme Court might very well agree with this assessment. In
their sentencing of the Nazi-criminal, Adolf Eichmann, the Supreme
Court Judges stated that "the extent to which any one of
the many criminals was close to or remote from the actual killer
of the victim means nothing, as far as the measure of responsibility
is concerned. On the contrary, in general the degree of responsibility
increases as we draw further away from the man who uses the fatal
instrument with his own hands."
This truism gains new meaning in the
age of globalization. Decisions made in one part of the world
frequently affect another, and the process of identifying those
responsible has become more complicated. The identity of violators
does not only include state actors, like Eichmann, but also corporations,
international financial institutions, and individuals. Finally,
responsibility is not limited to those determining the policy,
giving the orders, or carrying out the act, but extends to those
who supply the perpetrators with the instruments of destruction.
Caterpillar should not necessarily stop
all transactions with Israel, but it must introduce a new clause
in its contracts to ensure that products are not employed to
perpetrate human rights violations. Globalization offers new
opportunities for corporations like Caterpillar, but these opportunities
must have a price as well -- the expansion of responsibility.
A legal framework that calls attention to this type of responsibility
is currently being developed, and while it remains difficult
to enforce, the day will come when CEOs will stand trial for
their support of and collaboration in war crimes.
Neve Gordon
teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, and can be
reached at ngorodon@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
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