Today's Stories

January 19, 2009

Kevin Alexander Gray
Time for an New Divestment Campaign

January 16-18, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to the Chief

Caoimhe Butterly
Terribly Bloodied, Still Breathing

Audrey Stewart /
Kathy Kelly
Suddenly Bombs Started Falling: Report from Gaza

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Geo. W. Bush, a Concise Biography

Ellen Cantarow
I Could Not Save a Single Child

Neve Gordon
How to Sell "Ethical" Warfare

Vijay Prashad
An African-American in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Attack Injures 1.5 Million Gazans

Rannie Amiri
The UN in Israel's Crosshairs

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Forgotten Child

Joshua Frank
Forecasting Obama

Dave Lindorff
Prosecuting Bush and Cheney

Brian Cloughley
Who Runs America?

Belén Fernández
Changing the Equation

Missy Beattie
Peace and Justice Denied

Fred Gardner
Growing Pot for Research

George Ciccariello-Maher
"Oakland is Closed!"

John V. Whitbeck
Democracy Not Partition

Stephen Fleischman
Card Check

Mischa Gaus
Medicare for All! Tackling Union Opposition to Single-Payer

Saul Landau
The End of the Affair

Norm Kent
Perils of the Grow House

Alejandro López
Give Bush the Shoe! (and Send Us the Photo)

David Yearsley
The Glory That Was Dresden

James McEnteer
Doin' the Time Warp Again

Lorenzo Wolff
An Album That Lives Up to Its Cover

Kim Nicolini
Patti Smith's Dream of Life

Poets' Basement
Three Financial Poems by Brian J. Foley

Website of the Day
Lancet: Medical Conditions in Gaza

January 15, 2009

Pam Martens
Wall Street Powerhouses Invested Alongside Madoff

Karl Grossman
Obama and the Military - Industrial - Scientific Complex

M. Shahid Alam
Gaza's Shattered Mirror

Jules Rabin
Gaza Besieged, Gaza Mauled

Alan Farago
The Nail-Gun Bailout

Ron Jacobs
The State of Black America: From Oscar Grant to Barack Obama

Timothy Seidel
Just Violence in Gaza? The Calculus of Proportionality

George Ochenski
Why No Montana Wilderness?

Todd Chretien
Taking a Stand for Justice in Oakland

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Marijuana Prohibition Acid Test

Website of the Day
Uranium Watch

January 14, 2009

Henry A. Giroux
Killing Children With Impunity

Kathy Kelly
Cease Fire, Cease Siege

Franklin Lamb
A Second Front? Hezbollah Militants Chafe as Gaza Burns

Mike Whitney
The Big Contraction: Why the Stimulus Alone Won't Work

Paul Craig Roberts
The Humiliation of America

Glen Ford
Sullying Dr. King's Legacy: the Congressional Black Caucus and Israel

Aditya Chakrabortty
The End of Property Porn

Dave Lindorff
Fattening the Rats: Feeding at the Bailout Trough

Jonathan Cook
Israel Bars Arab Parties From Elections

David Swanson
Conyers Explains Why He Didn't Push Impeachment

Martha Rosenberg
Fragile: Handle with Risperdal

Website of the Day
Report of a Red Cross Worker in Gaza

January 13, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Is Israel Using Experimental Weapons in Gaza?

Michael Neumann
Hamas and Gaza: Slave Revolts and Passionate Evasions

Coleen Rowley /
William John Cox
No Victors in the War on Dissent

Robert Sandels
Cuba and the Obama Administration: Subversion Through Trade?

Saul Landau
The Changeling: an Obama Nightmare

David Swanson
What to Ask Eric Holder

Wajahat Ali
Waltzing with War Crimes

Sam Bahour
No Other Option? A View From the West Bank

Stanley Heller
Why It's Useless to Lobby Congress on Gaza

Robert Jensen
Beyond Grief and Rage

Robin Mittenthal
Eating Away at the Land That Feeds Us

Website of the Day
The 50 Most Loathsome People in America

January 12, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Blood-Stained Monster Enters Gaza

Paul Craig Roberts
Our Collapsing Economy

Mike Whitney
Israel's Moral and Political Insanity

Ewa Jasiewicz
Oh, Quiet Night: Only Six Homes Were Bombed

Bill Quigley
A Day in Gaza

Dave Lindorff
From Vietnam to Gaza

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Blowback From a Tragic Error: a Message to Barack Obama

Jonathan Cook
Israel Ponders the Third Stage

Andy Worthington
Seven Years of Guantánamo

Kara N. Tina
Oakland on Fire

Brenda Norrell
Palestinians and American Indians: Russell Means Breaks the Silence on Obama

Nour Kharma
A Plea From a Teen in Gaza: "Will I Die, Too?"

Website of the Day
The Villages Group: an Antiwar Alliance in Sderot

January 9/11, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Israel's Onslaught on Gaza: Criminal, for Sure; But Also Stupid

Kathy Kelly
Tunnel Vision: Report from Arish, Egypt

Bill Quigley
Report From Rafah: Doctors Stopped at the Border

George Ciccariello-Maher
Oakland's Not for Burning?

Elaine C. Hagopian
Gaza: History Matters

Mike Roselle
Drowning in a Toxic River: What Can be Done to Save Appalachia?

Steve Hendricks
The Torturer-Elect?

Gary Leupp
Revisiting the Tale of Samson

Jonathan Cook
Outcry Over Israel's War Crimes

Karim Makdisi
The Ceasefire Plan: the UN Finally Acts, But Does It Mean Anything?

Rannie Amiri
Livni's Big Lie

Peter Morici
In the Jaws of a Depression

Peter Montague
Can Chemicals be Regulated?

Ralph Nader
Move Fast to Restore the Rule of Law

Andy Worthington
The Dying Days of the Guantánamo Trials

Nadia Hijab
A Music School Silenced in Gaza

Dan Bacher
Unholy Alliance: Nature Conservancy Backs Schwarzenegger's Big Ditch

Catherine Fenton
The American Peace Movement and Israel

David Macaray
Wal-Mart Caught Stealing

Valia Kaimaki
Why Greek Youths Took to the Streets

Richard Morse
Haiti's Gas Gang

David Yearsley
To Gotham City with Dexter Gordon

Charles R. Larson
The Horror, the Horror

Richard Rhames
Gaza and the Goon Squad Meet the Wizard

Stephen Martin
Meltdown Memo to Come?

Lorenzo Wolff
What They Sing About When They Sing About Love

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Beatty and Valentine

Website of the Weekend
Gaza Protest

January 8, 2009

Jean Bricmont /
Diana Johnstone
Gaza Seen From Paris

Franklin Lamb
How Dershowitz Misstates, Misrepresents and Misapplies the Law

Paul Craig Roberts
The Difficulty of Being an Informed American

Kevin Alexander Gray
Give Burris His Seat

Chris Floyd
The Enduring Priorities in Obama's Time of Change

Ewa Jasiewicz
Riding on Fire in Gaza

Steve Conn
Sanjay Gupta and Obama

Harvey Wasserman
Kill the Nuclear Stimulus!

Wayne S. Smith
An Opening to Cuba?

Linda Mamoun
Re-settling Gaza: the Real Goal of the Israeli Invasion?

Adam Turl
Unions and Young Workers

Chris Papaleonardos
Mourning Maria Dimitriadi

Website of the Day
On the Wing

January 7, 2009

Saree Makdisi
What Kind of Security Will This Barbarism Bring Israel?

Franklin Lamb
Bend Over Professor Dershowitz, It's Time for Your Check Up

William Blum
America's Other Glorious War

Belén Fernández
The Trauma Vortex: Israel's Monopoly on Psychological Suffering

Lawrence Davidson
What is New About Gaza?

Allan Nairn
Adm. Dennis Blair and the Church Killings in East Timor

Jonathan Cook
What is Israel's Objective?

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Watching the War on BBC

Deepak Tripathi
Bush, as He Leaves

Cal Winslow
Now is the Hour to Defend Democracy in the Labor Movement!

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Students Planning Careers: Be Mindful

Dr. Hannah Safran
No More Recycled Military Solutions

Website of the Day
CNN: Israel Broke the Ceasefire First

January 6, 2009

Pam Martens
It's All One Big Lie

Victoria Buch
Real Estate War in Gaza: the History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing

Neve Gordon
Israel's New War Ethic

Tami Sarfatti /
Yonatan Mendel
What Silence Says: Gaza is Still Waiting on Obama

Mike Whitney
The Gaza Bloodbath

Alan Farago
After the Fall

Gary Leupp
A Hamas Coup d'Etat in 2007?

Larry Everest
Silent Partner: the US-Backed War on Gaza

Ron Jacobs
The New Iraqi Sovereignty

David Macaray
Union-Busting is Alive and Well

Stephanie Basile
Where's Anna's Money?

Stacey Warde
An Uncle's Unrest

Website of the Day
Israeli Refusenik on Gaza

January 5, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Will There be a Recovery?

Sousan Hammad
Phoning Home to Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Flying While Brown

Mats Svensson
Longing in Gaza

Jen Marlowe
Abeer's Baby

Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Gaza Phone Tag

Brian Cloughley
Israel is Immune From Criticism

Faheem Hussain
Gaza and India: a View From Pakistan

William Cook
Consider the Realities of Gaza

Dr. Trudy Bond
The Madness Among Us

Christopher Ketcham
The Revenge of the Blogger at the National Press Club: a Rotten Washington Interlude

Steve Early
Who Rules SEIU?

Dave Lindorff
When It Comes to Terrorism and POW Cases, Equal Justice Under Law is a Joke

Website of the Day
The Endangered Fish of the Colorado River Basin

January 2 - 4, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Diary of 2008: an Incredible, Hope-Filled Year

Uri Avnery
Molten Lead in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of the Gaza Assault

Paul Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Western Morality?

Brian Eno
Stealing Gaza: an Experiment in Provocation

Ralph Nader
America Must Stop Shirking Its Responsibility on Gaza

Omar Barghouti
UN Complicity in Israel's Massacre in Gaza

Graham Usher
Where Pakistan's Generals and the ISI Draw Their Lines

P. Sainath
The Economy is Worse Than It Appears

Belén Fernández
Pardon Our Dust: Israel's PR Campaign for Gaza

Deb Reich
Shiv'a in Gaza, December 2008

Gary Leupp
Defacing Mr. Jefferson's Wall: Preachers and the Inauguration

Michael Yates
Top Chef or Top Wage Thief? Tom Colicchio and the Economics of Restaurants

Joanne Mariner
How to Close Guantánamo

Seth Sandronsky
Funding the Israeli Military: the US Pipeline

Cynthia McKinney
We Lived to Tell the Story

Sonja Karkar
Israel's Dogs of War

Deepak Tripathi
Gaza in Perspective

Robert Fantina
Obama, Afghanistan and Israel

John Ross
The Year No One Can Remember

Norm Kent
The Heat on Duval Street: Why Head Shop Raids are Unfair and Unjust

Larry Portis
Syria and the Arab Barbie Doll--Before the Deluge

Richard Rhames
Is Conscience Dead?

Dee C. Lubell
We Come From the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright

David Yearsley
A Gay German at the Courts of the Medici and Hanover, and of Course the BBC

Lorenzo Wolff
Joe Ely, the Fighting Rooster of Rock

Marc Catone
Looting Lennon's Legacy

Poets' Basement
Five Poems by Grzegorz Wróblewski

Website of the Weekend
Earth in High Rez

January 1, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
If Hamas Did Not Exist

Oren Ben-Dor
The Self-Defense of Suicide

Wajahat Ali
The U.S. Response to the Gaza Crisis: Unfair and Unbalanced

Saul Landau
In Cuba No One Man Could Steal $50 Billion From Other People

David Michael Green
What to Expect While We're Expecting

Website of the Day
Morbid Anatomy

December 31, 2008

Pam Martens
Wall Street's Collapse and the Ownership Society

Neve Gordon /
Jeff Halper
Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?

Ted Honderich
The First Casualty of Israel's War

Brian Cloughley
Five Little Girls on a Sofa: Gaza's One-Sided Images

Ron Jacobs
What is Hamas, Really?

Vijay Prashad
Hot Rod and His Sikh Warrior: Blago's Indian Connections

Franklin Lamb
Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down That Wall!

Mike Whitney
My Brilliant Career

David Macaray
What Really Killed the Auto Bailout

Richard Thieme
The Betrayal of the Commons

Mary Lynn Cramer
Who Wins What in Gaza?

Stephen Lendman
The Troubling Case of the Fort Dix Five

Worthy Group of the Day
Western Shoshone Defense Project

December 30, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
May We No Longer Be Silent

Tariq Ali
The Gaza Ghetto and Western Cant

Robert Bryce
The $775,000-a-Year GI

Jonathan Cook
Electioneering with Bombs

Gary Leupp
The Fishbarrel War

Dave Lindorff
Tough Guys Don't Walk: Will Cheney Seek a Pardon?

Brian McKenna
Ted Downing and Troublemaker Anthropology

John Walsh
The End of the Green Party

Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the World

Bob Sommer
The Education of David Frost

Worthy Activist of the Day
Support Marie Mason

December 29, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's Attempted Endgame in Gaza

Neve Gordon
What, Exactly, is Israel's Mission?

Joshua Frank
Obama and the "Special Relationship"

George Salzman /
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The War Against Palestine: Exception From Humanity

Norman Solomon
A Hundred Eyes for an Eye

Ewa Jasiewicz
Gaza Today: "This is Just the Beginning"

Rob Larson
The Banks Laugh All the Way to the Bank

Kenneth Libby
Arne Duncan's Dark Years in Chicago

Robert Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008

Elsa Johnson
High Noon at Black Mesa: Bush's Farewell Gift to Peabody Coal

Nicola Nasser
Resolution 1850: Bush's Parting Gift

Belén Fernández
Hanukkah Games

Worthy Group of the Day
Nuclear Information and Resource Service

December 26-28, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Medusa's Head

Dr Eyad Al Serraj
The Boming of Gaza: "An Earthquake on Top of Your Head"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Cancerous Air

Bradley Simpson
Obama's New Intel Chief, Dennis Blair, Ran Interference for Indonesia's Butchers

Ralph Nader
Government Without Laws

Gary Leupp
Obama and the Graveyard of Empires

Ellen Cantarow
Richard Falk, Israel and the NYT

Matt Landon
The Great Coal Ash Flood: a Report From Swan Pond Road

David Macaray
SAG's Terrible Dilemma

Patrick Bond
End of Neoliberalism? Sorry, Not Yet

Norm Kent
Invoking Bigotry: Obama and Rick Warren

Brian T. Ketcham
Fuel Efficiency is Easy--Just Don't Let Detroit Tell You How to Do It

Rannie Amiri
War Clouds Over Gaza

Larry Portis
Changing the Ethnic Vocabulary

Richard Rhames
Welcome to Soup Kitchen America

Stephen Lendman
29 Red Flags: Early Suspicions About Bernard Madoff

James L. Secor
Unheralded Coup

Ramzy Baroud
Iraq, the Plot Thickens

Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture

Cpt. Paul Watson
Tracking the Cetacean Death Star

Howard Lisnoff
Nixon's Cambodian Shock Treatment

Michael Dee
The Bill of Rights, Killed in Action by the War on Drugs

Steve Conn
Eight Predictions for 2009

Poets' Basement
Valentine, Kaung, Moser and Graham

Worthy Group of the Weekend
United Mountain Defense

December 25, 2008

Judy Gumbo Albert
What Were Those 1960s Terrorists Thinking, Anyway?

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Sole of Christmas

Hannah Mermelstein
Caution: Settlers Ahead

Worthy Group of the Day
Citizens' Coal Council

December 24, 2008

Bill Quigley
Five Bailout Lessons From Katrina

Saul Landau
Then and Now: Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

Sam Smith
Evangelism and Politics

Brian Cloughley
Torture, Slaughter and Lies

John Ross
Where's al-Zaidi's Pulitzer?

Eric Walberg
Cold War Shivers

Norm Kent
What Will Obama Do About Marijuana?

Stephen Martin
Reasons for Cheerfulness

Worthy Group of the Day
Collateral Repair Project

December 23, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Ponzi Paradigm

Michael Yates
The Tombstone Economy

Chuck Spinney
The New York Times Flames Out in Defense Dogfight

Vijay Prashad
India's Reckless Road to Washington, Through Tel Aviv

Brian Horejsi
Interior Decorating: Obama, Salazar and the Future of America's Public Lands

David Macaray
Obama's Best Pick?

Neil Watkins /
Sarah Anderson
Ecuador's Conscientious Default

David Michael Green
Hey, Reagan Democrats! Now Do You Get It?

Worthy Group of the Day
Focus on the Corporation

MLK Day Edition
January 19, 2009

From South Africa to Israel

Time for a New Divestment Campaign

By KEVIN ALEXANDER GRAY

Barack Obama’s inauguration coming as we celebrate of Martin Luther King Day predictably draws linkages between the two. Many use Obama’s election to claim a realization of the “dream.” Others mumble something about a post-racial America. I suspect that King, if alive, would reject such nonsense. Although when asked “who he thought King would support” in the 2008 primary campaign Obama made a good case for answering “Nobody,” it is possible that King may have supported Obama.

King was a politician of sorts, although not so much at the time of his assassination. We love King now, but at the end of his life he wasn’t so popular. Younger activists criticized him and called him names such as “Da Lord” - mocking his once high place in civil rights politics. President Lyndon B. Johnson and a host of government officials, local and national, condemned him when he spoke out against the Vietnam War. King was not universally cheered when he marched, to his death, with the garbage workers in Memphis striking for fair wages and respect. Truth be told, he was jeered, even by some blacks.

Sure, we love King now, but there was a time when people turned their back on him and his message.

It has always been troubling to witness King’s mission and message reduced to “I have a dream” in the popular culture. It’s taught to kids in kindergarten, and they carry it with them all their lives. But all dreams are not equal. They can be interpreted in a number of ways. And some dreams are nightmares, or turn into nightmares for other people.

Before it became a "quagmire" the war in Vietnam was a dream of the American political establishment. Exactly one year before his assassination, King, setting aside the grave danger it brought to him, challenged his government and broke with American imperial policy. At New York City's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, King linked the domestic exploitation of African Americans with "the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long."

In his speech, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”, King said, "A time comes when silence is betrayal..," And, "I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government."

King’s charge is just as true today as it was 40-plus years ago.

America is still the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. Silence is still betrayal. But let’s take it a step beyond silence. Non-action is the other betrayal. Change isn’t just about an election in November and a celebration in January. It’s about doing something measurable to usher in a more peaceful world. Sure it’s good to change one’s perspective and way of looking at things. But the trick is to make your actions match what’s on your mind.

There is an arc. People and events are linked on the arc.

So, this year we should honor King in an active sense. We should commit ourselves to organize against the American policy of violence and empire. The anti-war movement should apply pressure on Obama to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. And, just as important, particularly amid the horror that has been visited on the people of Gaza; a broader peace movement must also build real economic and political pressure against Israel’s immoral and criminal acts against the Palestinians. This King Day should mark the beginning of an organized push for American divestment from Israel.

When you think about it, US foreign policy toward Palestine has been a segregationist or apartheid policy. In his 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, former President Jimmy Carter likened Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and its repression of Palestinian people, both within Israel and in the occupied territories, to the state of apartheid, which existed in South Africa prior to the early 1990s. Apartheid means ‘separateness.’ And there is little debate that Zionism, the official ideology of Israel, is predicated on religious and ethnic separation or segregation. A self-described Jewish state -- that is, a state that operates of, by and on behalf of a single group of people -- cannot also be a secular, democratic state where persons of all religious and ethnic backgrounds are treated equally. A Jewish state that has never declared its borders, that has annexed and occupied territories, flouting international law and subjecting the indigenous population to poverty, indignity, theft, torture and death, is not only a colonialist outlaw state; it is also racist. As one Palestinian gentleman remarked to me, “While blacks in America were once considered subhuman, Palestinians are not considered humans at all."

And Israel could not have pursued any of these policies without the steadfast financial and political support of the United States. It is no secret that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world. It receives more than $15 million every day from the United States, or $30 billion a year by most estimates. The F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters that have dropped hundreds of tons of bombs and missiles on Gaza are made in the United States and provided to the Israeli government. Every American taxpayer underwrites Israeli-style apartheid.

Divestment may be at odds with the position of many elected black leaders (the Congressional Black Caucus included), but it’s not at odds with what King spoke of and died for. It is not at odds with those he championed. He championed the locked out and oppressed.

Throughout my life, black politics has lined up with oppressed people in other nations. Malcolm X stood with Fidel Castro and the Cuban people following the 1958 ouster of US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, and with him the organized crime and American corporatist mobsters who exploited the Cuban people. Harlemites greeted Castro with affection as they gathered to welcome him during his stay at the Hotel Theresa in 1960 because he wanted to be “among the workers.”

Muhammad Ali is a “national treasure” now. But he wasn’t when he dropped the name Cassius Clay and said “Ain’t no Vietnamese ever called me nigger.”

Americans love Nelson Mandela, now. But he was a “terrorist” while he was heading "Spear of the Nation” – the armed wing of the African National Congress. That’s why he was locked up at Robben Island. Mandela’s name was only recently – during the 2nd part of the Bush Administration - removed from the State Department’s “terrorists list.” In the days of Ronald Reagan it was America and Israel that supported South Africa when the rest of the world said “enough.”

But black Americans remembered the hundreds of kids who died in Sharpesville Massacre in the 60s. We were in solidarity with those who took part in the Soweto uprising of 1976. We cried and protested when the South African police killed Steve Biko in 1977.

What’s happening in Palestine is not fundamentally different from what occurred in apartheid South Africa. Kids are being killed. People have been herded into the (more deadly) equivalent of bantustans. Political leaders are targeted for assassination. Most recently Hamas Interior Minister Said Siam was killed along with nine others, when Israeli warplanes bombed a home in the Jabalya refugee camp.

Israel’s behavior demands the same response from the world human rights community as was mustered against South Africa.

The facts are clear. The citizens of Gaza live in a virtual prison. They are surrounded by water, walls, fences and watch/gun towers.

In the latest assault, at least 1,133 Palestinians have been killed, including 346 children and 105 women; at least 5,200 have been injured. People talk about "suffering on both sides," but there is no proportion in weaponry or force, which is why 100 Palestinians have died for every one Israeli.

The Palestinian people live under Israel’s apartheid blockade where even humanitarian aid is not allowed through – where citizens can get food, medicine and even goats, in addition to guns and weapons, only through tunnels.

Not just in Gaza but throughout all the occupied territories, Palestinian water rights along with their land and human rights have been stolen. Fundamentalist Jewish immigrants from Brooklyn have automatic citizenship and automatic civil and property rights, while the indigenous Palestinians lose and lose some more. Most often, it is Palestinian land that the migrants have settled on, with the blessings of Israel and the financial support of the United States via the Israeli government – in the face of international and United Nations' resolutions against such settlements. It is Palestinian land, stolen for Israeli settlements, that the Palestinians have been firing mortars onto; Palestinian land that is bisected by Israeli-only roads and a wall that exceeds the Berlin Wall in size and cruelty. (No German had his farm or homestead cut in two by the wall.) They are Palestinian orchards that have been bulldozed; Palestinian homes that have been demolished; and American-made bulldozers that have done the job. A Caterpillar bulldozer crushed 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie to death when she stood in front of a doctor's house in Gaza trying to prevent its demolition on March 16, 2003. And the same bulldozers have taken everything from Palestinian families year after year for decades.

Throughout the latest assault on Gaza, those blindly supportive of Israel raise a straw man argument asking, “Who struck the blow?” Or, “Fired the first shot?” Or, “Launched the first mortar.” Their answer to the question is almost always certain to be, "Hamas." Before the days Hamas came to power, the same straw man was raised and knocked down as the answer back then was sure to be, “Fatah” - led by PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

Supporters of Israel never mention the blockade on Gaza or political assassinations or the wall or the poverty and despair. Instead, they label Hamas or anyone opposing occupation as “terrorists” and lamely apologize for the civilians killed calling them “collateral damage,” or they claim that the women and children killed in the school or hospital or UN facilities were “being used as human shield.” No one calls the Jewish settlers human shields, though their incursions into occupied territory has been both a provocation and an excuse since 1967.

Just take a look at a map of the territory lost by the Palestinian people since 1948 and at an inexorable pace since 1967. Then answer the question, “Who stuck the first blow?”

Throughout the latest attack on the Palestinian people I have heard a few people openly make the bloodthirsty suggestion that “they (the Israelis) should kill them all.” But the most common thing one hears is something similar to what Obama said on a visit to Israel in the summer 2008 that "If somebody shot rockets at my house where my two daughters were sleeping at night, I'd do everything in my power to stop them.” The new president’s comment was one of the first things that came out the mouths of various spokespersons for the Israeli government as the Christmastime onslaught on Gaza began. But what of the Israeli rockets and bombs and bullets and bulldozers that for years have hit the homes where Palestinian children were sleeping?

Now Israel has called a cease fire in Gaza, if only for a moment. Still, we must organize and protest in an effective way beyond the moment. We have our work cut out for us. The Palestinians have few friends in high places. By a vote of 390 to 5 the House recently signaled its support for Israel’s apartheid regime and literally condemned the Palestinians right of self-defense. The only member of Congress to willing to speak out for the Palestinians was and is Ohio’s Dennis Kucinich.

On the campaign trail at a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama declared himself a “Zionist,” and upon being elected chose Rahm Emanuel, a dual citizen of the US and Israel, as his chief of staff. The Israeli paper Ha'aretz (6 Nov. 2008) said it all: Obama's first pick: Israeli Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff. Some say that Emanuel “has a track record on Israel well to the right of George Bush.” This includes signing a 2003 letter justifying Israel’s policy of political assassinations and criticizing George Bush for not supporting Israel enough. Emanuel backed a resolution supporting Israel's bombing of Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and he called on the US government to cancel a planned speech to Congress by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki because he had condemned Israel’s actions in Lebanon.

As president, where will Obama stand? More important, what is the moral stand, and what must we do to press the government to take it?

First, we must see Israel with the same eyes as we saw South Africa in the apartheid years – as a racist nation deserving of international isolation and sanctions. Second, we must demand that the United States end its $30 billion a year military support to the country. Third, we should organize, confront and demand that public bodies such as universities, local and state governments divest their portfolios from companies that do business in or with Israel. Fourth, we should identify and boycott those companies that do business with and in Israel. Fifth, we should call for a cultural boycott of Israel, and boycott those artists who perform in the country.

As for the new president we should continue to pressure him (1) to establish a fair involvement with the disputing parties, recognizing their equal humanity, not take the one-sided, Israel-first position of his predecessors; (2) to pressure the Israeli government to allow unimpeded access of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip; (3) to call for an investigation into Israel's misuse of U.S. weapons, to include the use of white phosphorous and urge the UN weapons inspectors to determine if Israel is using depleted uranium-tipped missiles on the Palestinians. This would be a first step toward ending arms transfers to Israel.

All people have a right to exist – Jews and Palestinians. The way to peace is for each side to respect the other's right to live.

But America must be a fair player in what is now a continual catastrophe with our country on the wrong side of history. We must remember that “where you spend your money is a political act.” Putting pressure on business and government is a means to force change. By “getting in their pockets” we can say no to the violence. We can say, “Not in our names.” That’s what I think Dr. King would say and do at a time like this.

Almost 40 years ago, Martin Luther King warned that "the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated." Those "triple evils" of racism, economic injustice and militarism are what we must fight – the dream of King’s was the defeat of the “triple evils.”

As we celebrate his day, let’s do it in solidarity with the dispossessed. As Vice-President Joe Biden was saying his farewell to the Senate he quoted King saying, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” I believe Biden is right as King was right. But there’s a strong magnetic pull that has the needle still pointed on injustice. The injustice of being the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” We can help move the needle toward just by insisting that our country sees a Palestinian life having as much value as an Israeli life.

Kevin Alexander Gray is a civil rights organizer in South Carolina. His book, Waiting for Lightning to Strike, has just been  published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: kagamba@bellsouth.net

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Kevin Alexander Gray

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