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May
21, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The
Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain
Chris
Floyd
How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Graham's God and Bush's Pathology
Patrick
Cockburn
In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown
are Everywhere
Brian Cloughley
The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz
Saul
Landau
Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning Poems, May 2003
Steve
Perry
Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq
May
20, 2003
Tariq
Ali
The Empire Advances
Ahmad
Faruqui
Whither American Nationalism?
Ben Tripp
Dialysis with Osama
Linda
Heard
The Cage of Occupation
Cynthia
McKinney
Toward a Just and Peaceful World
Edward
Said
The Arab Condition
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Why Ari Should Have Resigned in Protest Long Ago
Stew
Albert
Yale Men
Steve Perry
The New Face of Al-Qaeda
May
19, 2003
Veteran
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A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing
Evidence
CounterPunch
Wire
"Terror" Slut Steve Emerson
Eats Crow
John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward Lies
Matt
Vidal
Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market
Michael
S. Ladah
The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map
Robert
Fisk
Bush's Eternal War Backfires
Elaine
Cassel
Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan
Freedland
Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic
Steve Perry
Play It Again, O-Sam-a
May
17 / 18, 2003
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Avnery
The Children's Teeth
Peter
Linebaugh
An American Tribute to Christopher
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Gary
Leupp
Nepal Today
Rock and
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The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks
Walter
Sommerfeld
Plundering Baghdad's Museums
Ron Jacobs
Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades
Thomas
P. Healy
Dubya Does Indy
Tarif Abboushi
Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap
Francis
Boyle
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Mark Davis
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American Mourning
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Ortiz Hill
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Adam
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May
16, 2003
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Wells
In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix
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Fear Itself
Sharon
Smith
The Resegregation of US Schools
Ramzy Baroud
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Hamod
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Robert
McChesney
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Mark Engler
Those Who Don't Count
Steve
Perry
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Extras in Bush's Movie
Website
of the Day
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Energy Future
May
15, 2003
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Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould
How
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Writing Campaigns
Julie
Hilden
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Tanya
Reinhart
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Laura Carlsen
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Rapoza
The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts
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May
14, 2003
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de Rooij
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What? Me Worry?
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May
13, 2003
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Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves
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Steve Perry
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Jacob
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William
Lind
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Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes
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Asylum
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Guthrie
An Illogical Reign
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Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence
May
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Chris
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America's Dirty Bombs
Sam
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Uzi
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Sharon and Sons, Inc.
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Going to Israel? Sign or Else
Steve
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Bush's War Web Log 5/12
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Marty Peretz
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T-Shirts to Protest In
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Uzma
Aslam Khan
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Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
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May
22, 2003
What Rates a
Headline?
Of
Roadmaps, Bombings & Assassinations
By BEN GRANBY
It was an all too familiar scene in Afula on Monday.
Screams, sirens and blood stained ground. When Hiba Daraghmeh
detonated the explosives strapped around her just outside a shopping
mall, she took the lives of three innocent people in a most brutal
fashion. Most of the American public knows about this, as it
quickly became headline news across television screens and photographs
of the horror graced the front page of most top American newspapers.
On the same day, in what seemed like another world, relatives
of 13-year old Khaled Naser were in mourning. He had been shot
to death earlier that day by Israeli troops. His fate wasn't
worth a headline, for it was suicide bombings that the press
focused on in recent days as threats to a new Mideast peace proposal.
Within 48 hours from Saturday, May 18,
there were five suicide bomb attacks in Israel and the Palestinian
Territories. This sudden surge in attacks was pointed to by all
major US media as having the potential to derail President George
Bush's new Mideast "road map". The Chicago Tribune
headlined on May 20 with "'Road Map' In Peril." USA
Today declared it "In Tatters", and the Washington
Post announced "Peace Plan in Jeopardy." A previous
Post headline stated that "Bombings Undercut Peace Plan."
In response to a bombing in the Jerusalem suburb French Hill
(which is technically in the occupied West Bank) on Sunday, in
which seven Israelis lost their lives, Israeli Prime Minister
cancelled a planned trip to see President Bush where the two
were to discuss the road map plan. Reuter's ran a headline that
day declaring, "Suicide Bombing Threatens Peace Plan".
Sharon's cancellation was accepted by the American media as a
reasonable response to a surge in terrorist attacks and Palestinian
factions were seen as attempting to stop what otherwise was an
ongoing process. As a result, the American public is being told
that Palestinian militants, if not the Palestinian Authority,
is the only thing blocking the way to peace.
On May 1, the very day that President
Bush unveiled his road map plan, the Israeli army launched a
major invasion deep into Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Backed by heavy
armor and helicopter gunships, the Israeli forces fought their
way to a five-story apartment where a suspected militant lived
in the crowded Shijaia neighborhood. A major gunbattle ensued
with bullets crashing into adjacent homes, lasting from 1am until
5pm when the Israelis finally blew up the building. In the end,
13 Palestinians including two young children and an elderly man
laid dead. One of Sharon's spokesmen, David Baker, defended the
attack, claiming that "these activities will continue wherever
and whenever they are needed, without a connection to other outside
considerations." (Washington Post, May 1, 2003)
While Palestinian officials were quick
to point to the Gaza attack as a demonstration that Israel was
out to sabotage Bush's road map, few in the American press picked
it up. Absolutely no major American media made any allusion to
this incident when discussing the recent spate of suicide bombings.
Israeli attacks continued however, including an assassination
of a top Hamas commander on May 8 and large scale incursions
into Khan Younis and Beit Hanoun where dozens of homes were demolished
with many injured and scores left homeless.
The Israeli method of "shoot-first"
claimed several lives unnecessarily in the same period. On May
8, Israeli snipers outside Khan Younis without warning shot and
killed a mentally disabled man. On the same day, Zaher Hamad
al-Shouli, a daily sight at the Israeli checkpoint outside Nablus
was shot dead while carting goods across. Also in Khan Younis
on May 12, two farmers were shot while working in their field,
killing one. Two days later, Israeli soldiers at the Netzarim
checkpoint shot three Palestinian policemen to death while they
were on duty at their usual post. According to the Palestine
Red Crescent Society, between Bush's announcement of the road
map on May 1 and Monday's suicide bombing, 58 Palestinians were
killed, including ten children. In almost every one of these
instances, Palestinian claimed Israel was attempting to disrupt
the peace process. The American media paid little attention.
In fact, in the time leading up to the
road map announcement and afterwards, Sharon's government made
several announcements pertaining to reservations with the plan,
and no official acceptance ever came across. Several key provisions
in the road map have for long not been up for negotiation for
Sharon's government, such as compensation for Palestinian refugees
and the restriction of settlement activity in the occupied territories.
Even when Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Sharon last
week to discuss settlements, the Israeli Prime Minister stated
in the New York Times (May 14, 2003), "In my mind this is
not an issue on the horizon right now." The week before,
on May 8, London's Independent dedicated a full article to note
that Sharon would refuse to negotiate anything until the Palestinian
Authority renounced the demand for a "right of return"
for Palestinian refugees. While Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas
publicly dropped all reservations to the US-backed plan, Ariel
Sharon's government has raised no less than fifteen concerns
that they say bar its immediate implementation. Quietly in the
background, Sharon dispatched Israeli Tourism Minister Benny
Elon to visit the US in the beginning of May to actively campaign
against Bush's road map and any notion of an independent Palestinian
state. Just before his trip, the messianic Minister Elon declared
in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz that Islam "is on the way
to disappearing."
While the American media noted Sharon's
balking on Bush's plan, including a New York Times editorial
on May 7 sighting it as a "delaying tactic", it has
not been headline news. Few American papers have given much space
to the obstructions Sec. Powell faced on his meeting with Sharon,
or that Sharon was supposed to meet with President Bush to protest
parts of the road map that he disliked. In the meantime, Abbas'
concessions have gone ignored. Once Powell left Israel last week,
the Israeli government sealed the borders of the Gaza Strip from
all internationals, preventing UN and aid workers from entering.
This too got scant attention in the press and no mention on the
nightly news.
Now in the wake of the much-publicized
terror attacks, the American press with front page news and breaking
television alerts has potentially led the public to believe that
it only the Palestinians who are not only blocking peace efforts,
but are the sole perpetuators of violence. Not one major paper
tied the spate of Hamas bombings to Israel's continued assassination
of Hamas leaders, including the recent killing of Iyad Bek two
weeks ago. This would not be the first time it looked as if Sharon
was trying to provoke Palesitnian militants. On July 23, 2002,
the very day Hamas and Islamic Jihad were due to announce a first-ever
unilateral cease-fire, an Israeli jet dropped a 500-lb bomb on
the home of a top Hamas commander, Saleh Shehade, killing him
and 16 others, including nine children. No major US media made
the suggestion that perhaps the recent bombings were just what
Sharon hoped for, to give him an excuse to further forestall
any peace effort. Only the Chicago Tribune's report of Monday's
bombing included the fact that Israel refused to accept Bush's
plan in its opening paragraph.
As the US has proved so pivotal in determining
the course of the vicious Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the American
public deserves press coverage that gives equal weight to all
events in the region. When only suicide bombings garner headline
coverage, average Americans are easily led to believe that most
if not all Palestinians are against peace and wish to continue
attacking civilians. There is also a responsibility to inform
readers and viewers of all aspects when making inferences. The
American media was quick to assume that the recent bombings could
hurt the peace process, but they gave little note to the numerous
obstructions that Ariel Sharon's government has placed, or the
Israeli army's continued unprovoked attacks on Palestinian cities.
Without a better balance and deeper coverage of this topic by
the press, Bush's road map will probably fail and Americans wont
understand what the real causes were.
Yesterday's
Features
Dave
Lindorff
Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The
Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain
Chris
Floyd
How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Graham's God and Bush's Pathology
Patrick
Cockburn
In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown
are Everywhere
Brian Cloughley
The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz
Saul
Landau
Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning Poems, May 2003
Steve
Perry
Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq
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