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April 4, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Stop the Killing Now!
Nancy
Stohlman
An
American Under Siege in a West Bank Refugee Camp
Christopher Reilly
Kissinger, Chile and Justice
at Long Last?
M. Shahid
Alam
The
Lies of Thomas Friedman
April 3, 2002
Don Henley
Dear Loathsome Trade Hacks
Bernard
Weiner
An
American Jew Talks
About His Shame
David Vest
Sting of Stings
Tzaporah
Ryter
Under
Fire: an American Student in Ramallah
Gabriel Ash
America's Bravest
John Chuckman
Of
War, Islam and Israel
Robert Fisk
The Siege of Bethlehem
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Sins of the Church
April 2, 2002
Uri Avnery
Murdering Arafat?
Jeff Chang
Is
Protest Music Dead?
Lev Grinberg
Israel's State Terrorism
Norman
Madarasz
Bullying
Brazil
Robert Fisk
Farce and Terror
in Ramallah
Steve
Perry
Let's
Roll! ®:
The Marketing of Lisa Beamer
April 1, 2002
Stanton / Madsen
America's War Inc.
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Peace
and Nuclear Disarmament: a Call to Action
Bahour / Dahan
Bloodshed in Palestine:
A Way Out
Molly
Secours
Tennessee's
Kangaroo Court
Phyllis Pollack
The Making of Exile
on Main Street
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
This Week's
Top 10 CDs
Francis Boyle
The Big Lie:
Palestine, Palestinians
and International Law
March 31, 2002
Jordan
Flaherty
Last
Night the Israeli
Military Tried to Kill Me
Kristen Schurr
Live from Bethlehem
Maha Sbitani
The
Israeli Army
Took Over My House
Robert Fisk
Lies Leaders Tell When
They Want to Go to War
March 24/30, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
The Year
of the Yellow Notepad:
Plagiarism and History
Rep. Ron Paul
Slavery and the Draft
Fidel
Castro
A
Better World is Possible
Edward Said
What Price Oslo?
José
Saramago
Justice
and Democracy Denied
Azmi Bishara
Talking to Tanks
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Clearcutting
Montana
Alexander Cockburn
50 Years of James Bond
Wilhelm
Reich
Gethsemane
Claud Cockburn
The Horror of It All
Dave Marsh
What's
Playing at My Houe
David Vest
Remembering Tammy Wynette
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Waylon
Jennings:
an Honest Outlaw
March 23, 2002
Mokhiber/Weissman
A
Corporate Lawyer
Speaks Out
Saeed Vaseghi
The US and Iran's Quest
for Democracy
Brian
J. Foley
Does
Pedophilia Scandal Spell an Opportunity for Catholics?
Sheperd Bliss
American Soul and Empire
James
Packard Winkler
Occupation
and Terror:
Politics from a Gun Barrel
M. Shahid Alam
A New International Division
of Labor
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
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:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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April 4, 2002
Israel's Latest Lie About
the Church of the Nativity
By Ray Hanania
In addition to its policy of murdering anyone
it does not like, Israel's Nazi-like government is also engaged
in a policy of murdering the truth, too.
And, they are very good at it.
You can't get away with a lie unless
you have two things in place: First, you have to impose controls
on the media in the area of the conflict, which Israel has done
by banning reporters from covering areas where its soldiers are
on a blitzkrieg like rampage, shooting civilians.
Second, you need to have a news media
that doesn't care about the truth, which is the dominant attitude
of the mainstream American news media. People like MSNBC's Alan
Keyes, for example, who asserts that "there is no occupation"
in Palestine, and a list of commentators who enjoy the gratuity
of the Israeli lobby like NPR's Linda Gradstein. (Both Gradstein
and Keyes are making more "cents" than sense these
days.)
With these two factors in place, the
Government of Israel can say whatever it wishes, and it is reported
like fact. And, each lie adds to the impact of the subsequent
lie.
For example, the Israeli Government is
asserting that "Palestinian gunmen" have "occupied"
the Church of the Nativity.
The truth is that Palestinians who are
resisting Israel's assault have taken refuge in the Church of
the Nativity and nearly every other building in the region. But
the Israeli point is to touch a nerve with Christian Americans,
who are so naive about the reality of the Middle East they will
swallow anything they are fed.
These naive Americans -- who are contributing
to the violence by providing financial, political and military
support of Sharon's crimes -- imagine Muslims taking over this
great Christian icon.
Of course, most of these Americans have
amnesia and have forgotten that the Church of the Nativity has
been under siege for the past 18 months, damaged, assaulted and
attacked by the non-Christian Israeli army. (If one refers to
the Israeli soldiers as Jewish, they are automatically denounced
as anti-Semitic, another strategy in Sharon's arsenal of tricks.)
The Palestinians seeking refuge in the
Church of the Nativity are also Christians who are fleeing Israel's
attacks. These Palestinians, described by the Israelis as "armed
militants" -- a canard accepted as fact by the spoon-fed
American media -- are actually Palestinians who are doing everything
they can to defend themselves.
They have a right to defend themselves
against Israel's vicious aggression. Israel is rampaging through
the occupied territories that Alan Keyes says do not exist, murdering
anyone it feels like killing.
All Israel has to do is say these Palestinians
are "terrorists," -- exploiting the tragedy of September
11th to their self-serving benefit -- and then they shoot them.
Journalists in America who are merely
reciting and reading what they are handed by the Israelis, accept
this as fact.
In fact, every Palestinian killed by
Israel is a terrorist, while every Israeli killed by a Palestinian
is an innocent civilian who is killed by a "terrorist suicide
bomber."
The majority of Palestinians do not support
the suicide bombers, but they do support their right to defend
themselves and to resist Israel's human rights violations. Resistance
is not terrorism. American journalists who accept the lie that
resistance is terrorism are doing an injustice to their profession.
They are also contributing to Israel's
ability to hide its criminal behavior behind the lie. Israel's
government's assault on the Palestinians is as much a war against
Christianity as it is against the Muslim World.
Yes, the Church of the Nativity is under
siege, the marvelous ancient icon of the Christian World.
But it has been under siege for months,
as Israel has battered the church with bullets, killed its parishioners
-- Christian Palestinians who live around the church and who
are as deeply engaged in resisting Israel's aggression as anyone
else.
And Israel's goal is both short term
and long term. Short term, the Israel's want to kill as many
Palestinians as possible and beat down the Palestinian right
to independent statehood. But their long term goal is more sinister.
Since 1967, Israel has coveted the Christian-owned lands around
the Church of the Nativity and has confiscated and evicted Christian
inhabitants.
Nearby Shepherd's Field is prime real
estate to build a racist settlement for Jewish people, settlements
that prohibit residency to Christians.
Americans should be concerned about the
fate of the Church of the Nativity. And they should be asking
why Israel is doing what it is doing, instead of accepting Israel's
Nazi-like government's spoon-fed lies.
Ray Hanania
is the executive director of the National Arab American Journalists
Association. He can be reached by email at Rayhanania@aol.com.
His columns are archived on the web at http://www.hanania.com
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