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April 29,
Michael
Colby
The
Times Does Brockovich
Ralph Nader with Cleavage?
CounterPunch Wire
Bank Robs Publisher,
Vows to Repeat
Gavin
Keeney
So
Long, Frank O. Gehry?
April 28, 2002
Michael Neumann
The Jewish Left and Palestine
April 27, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
Adelphia
Going Down:
Cover Ups, Censorship
and Naughty Accounting
Jordy Cummings
Stuck Inside the Journalism School
Pyramid
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Set
This Flag on Fire!
April 26, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Act
Now to Stop the Killing
of an Innocent Man
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Anti-Bribery
Law Takes a Hit
Tariq Ali
Letter to a Young Muslim
April 25, 2002
Francis
A. Boyle
Home
Brew? Biowarfare,
Terror Weapons and the US
Adam Federman
"And the Earth Wept"
Bush at Saranac Lake
Stanton
and Madsen
US
Media Interests:
Champions of Profit, Propaganda and Puffery
Aaron Hawley
Cop a Buzz Day in Vermont:
Education v. Incarceration
David
Vest
Code
Red: Politics and Wordplay at the Vatican
Bernard Weiner
Time Out! A Pause for Longer-Range
Thinking
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Standing
with the Peace Movement
April 24, 2002
David Vest
State of Politics in France:
Code Bleu
Jean Fallow
A20
in Seattle:
Cops Get Rough, Again
Kevin Alexander Gray
Help Save the Life of an Innocent Man:
Ask for Clemency for Ricky Johnson
Tanya
Reinhart
Jenin,
the Propaganda Battle
Todd May
Drowning Children, Palestinians and American
Responsibility
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Loneliest Road
Nir Rosen
The Broken Home:
Revisiting Israel
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
A
Big Blow to Big Tobacco
April 23, 2002
Brian Wood
Where Is the Aid for the Victims in
Jenin?
John Chuckman
I,
George:
Gomer as Claudius
Norman Madarasz
French Presidential Elections
Absenteeism and Le Pen
Dr. Susan
Block
Bernard
Parks, Goodbye:
A Farewell to My Chief
Joan Smith
Who Will Rid Us of
These Pedophile Priests?
April 22, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
EPA
Ombudsman Resigns
in Protest
Dave Marsh
DeskScan: What's Playing
at My House This Week
Ron Jacobs
A20
in DC: Taking the
Message to the Beast's Belly
Kathy Kelly
An Open Letter to
Israeli Soldiers
Irit Katriel
Word
Games and Body Bags
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
We Come for Peace
Daniel
Bar-Tal
Is
There a Way Out?
Occupation, Terror
and Understanding
David Wilson
A Week of Coups, But Now
The Freedom Train Hits Town
Shaik
Ubaid
Today
I Was a Palestinian
April 21, 2002
Michelle Campos
Suckered Again in Israel
Mike Leon
200,000
in DC Protest Say:
"We Are All Palestinians Today"
C.G. Estabrook
Sex and Power in Catholicism
Kathy
Kelly
Gimme
Some Truth Now
A Walk Through Jenin
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
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Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
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Photos by Allan Sekula
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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
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
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Reviews of Gore:
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April 29, 2002
At the Church of the Nativity
by Larry Hales
in
Bethlehem
We walked right in to Manger Square--"right
through the front door." The writer in me wants to create
some suspense, but I am ecstatic--my heart continues to beat
at the rate it was when we were walking through.
We were planning the night before and
were planning around another demonstration led by clergy. Our
plan was to walk to the checkpoint before Bethlehem and protest.
This morning we decided to participate in this action but to
also continue on if the participants of it were stopped.
Well, we were stopped and the clergy
weren't so much interested in pushing through as they were in
just challenging the checkpoint.
After this action, which lasted only
about 30 minutes we decided to take a route through a monastery.
No one expected us to get through this way either because the
soldiers were very close, and if they were looking, would be
able to see us. But, they didn't and we continued on into Bethlehem.
The city was a ghost town, it was on
curfew and it was almost completely quiet--at first. As we walked
on, people began appearing at their windows and cheering us
on. It was very powerful to see these people looking out and
throwing up peace signs, children and elderly people. Our presence
gave them hope and as we continued we began to see more and
more people, mostly children coming out of their homes. They
wouldn't come out on the streets but they were coming out.
We stopped after having walked for quite
awhile, and we began to plan for the march on the Church of
the Nativity. No one thought that we would have gotten as far
as we did. We planned and planned and waited and planned; finally,
some of us decided to talk to some families that had gathered
just in front of their homes, a few of them were fluent in
English.
They were entirely full of gratitude--they
let us into their homes and served us coffee--these people are
resilient. Their lives are being put on hold by an occupying
force; they can't go to work; their children can't go to school,
yet, they were so willing to share with us. Some even invited
me to stay with them.
Time began to get short; so, we had to
go with the plan we had, which was for five of us to cross the
barricade with water and food but we didn't think that we would
get through; and so, we were considering that the action would
be symbolic at best. We waited some more and finally set on
our way with a box of water and a bag of rice--meant to be
symbolic of course because in the church there is barely any
water, let alone a way of cooking the rice.
People began coming out more. I guess
the word had gotten out. There was a group of Palestinians just
before the barricade and some walked to it with us, holding
down the barbed wire so that we could walk over it.
When we saw Manger Square we thought
the siege had ended. It was empty except for an M1 Abrams tank.
We walked on and at the halfway point, Israelis began yelling
for us to stop. These soldiers doing the yelling didn't have
on their Kevlar helmets or their rifles--they were caught off
guard.
We continued on through the yelling and
made it to the door of the Church. When there we were instructed
to sit by Huwaida. We did and the soldiers threw smoke canisters
to block the press from seeing us. We knocked at the door and
yelled that we had food; the soldiers looked on, the smoke
rising. The tank moved so as to scare us. The media began moving
so the smoke wouldn't block their view. We held our hands up
while yelling at the people inside to open the door, then, the
soldiers moved towards us started pulling us up and throwing
the food away from the door.
They were attempting to hold us but we
were leading them more than them us. They tried to confiscate
cameras, but we refused and they capitulated. However, they
did drag some people. The soldier holding me was telling me
how he didn't agree with what was going on but that it was his
job. He seemed to be a good man.
We were put in one area and Ted Koppel
came over and interviewed Huwaida. He got the entire incident,
all the cameras did despite the smoke. When he finished we came
to the conclusion to walk out. The soldiers weren't prepared
for this. They tried to stop us but we defied them and kept
on walking 'til we were clear of them.
The action was one of the most spectacular
things I have ever seen, and the people I was with are some
of the most brave people I have ever known. Tomorrow we will
begin to try and get some people in Hebron and the Gaza Strip.
I will be going to Hebron. More to come.
Larry Hales
is one of two members of the Colorado Campaign for Middle East
Peace who have joined many internationals in Palestine to nonviolent
resist Israel's illegal military occupation of Palestine.
More on their trip at: http://www.ccmep.org/palestine.html
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