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Today's
Stories
March 2, 2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Uncle
Bucky Makes a Killing
March 1, 2005
Scott Richard
Lyons
Million
Dollar Bigotry
David Lindorff
Stealing Workers' Pensions
Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders
Bloodbath in Iraq
Ron Jacobs
The Last Poets Recalled
Tanya Garcia
USA Next: the Industry Front Group to Privatize Social Security
Joseph Pietri
The Drug Trail Ends in Kathmandu: Golden Tar Heroin and the Black
Prince
Kona Lowell
Woody: Broken in Vietnam
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Coming End of the American Superpower
Website of
the Day
Petition: No US Intervention in Iran
Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
February 28,
2005
Gary Leupp
Year
4 in the Five Year Plan: a June Attack on Iran?
Bill Quigley
Haitian Police Open Fire on Nonviolent Marchers
Mickey Z.
The
Million Dollar Interview: Mary Johnson on Clinton Eastwood, Hunter
Thompson and the "Right to Die"
Paul de Rooij
Why
Ted Honderich is Wrong on All Counts About Israel
David Swanson
Basic Income Guarantee Versus the Corp Media
Mario Lamo
Jimenez
Maria
Full of Cultural Contradictions at the Oscars
Emma Perez
The Attacks on Ward Churchill: a Test Case in the Neocons Purge
of Academia
Diana Johnstone
Censorship
and the Empire
Website of the Day
Stop the War Campaign!
February 26
/ 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
An
American Jew Laments Decline in Jewish Influence
Noam Chomsky
Nuclear
Terror at Home
Rev. William E. Alberts
Rhetoric in the Air; Reality on the Ground
Fred Gardner
AARP Gets Pot-Baited
Gary Leupp
Bush and Camus on Freedom
Saul Landau
An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon (Part 3): the Miami
Mafia
Robin Philpot
Second Thoughts on the Hotel Rwanda
Yitkhak Laor
In Praise of the Facts
Ben Tripp
Out of Sight; Out of Mind
Justin Taylor
Zizek Seen Over the Handlebars
Jack Random
The Wounds from Wounded Knee
Rafael Renteria
Ward Churchill and White America
Jim B.
Reflections on the Eve of Fatherhood
Seth DeLong
Land Reform in Venezuela: More Like Lincoln Than Lenin
John Chuckman
A Season of Depressing Political Reruns
Alison Weir
Relativity, LA Times Style
Richard Oxman
Political Solitude: From Garcia Marquez to Maria Full of Grace
Dr. Susan Block
It Always Rains in California: All About Female Ejaculation
Poets' Basement
Landau, Lowell, Louise, Davies, Soderstrom, Norris & Albert
February 25,
2005
Roger Burbach
Murder
in the Amazon
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making
Kurt Nimmo
Conclave of the Brats
Joshua Frank
Diagnosing the Green Party
John Farley
How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians
Lawrence Reichard
The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs
David Smith-Ferri
When
the Battlefield has No Borders
Website of
the Day
The 2005 Election in 3-D
February 24,
2005
Omar Waraich
The
Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician
Brian Cloughley
Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame &
30 Pieces of Silver
Tom Wright
Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Dave Lindorff
Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu?
Fred Feldman
Lynching Ward Churchill
James Reiss
On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush
Diane Christian
Bad
Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq
Website of
the Day
The Gray Line
February 23,
2005
Werther
The
Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq
W. John Green
A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground
Rules
James Petras
A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy?
Conn Hallinan
Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby
Joe Pietri
Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and
Cops)
Louis Proyect
Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism
Alexander Cockburn
Hunter
S. Thompson and Gonzo
Website of
the Day
Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?
February 22,
2005
Naseer Aruri
The
Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East
Richard Manning
The
Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan
William A.
Cook
Righteous
Racism Running Rampant
Paul Craig Roberts
The Agents of Instability
Ken Krayeske
Dr. Thompson is Out
Dave Zirin
How the Owners Destroyed the NHL
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel García,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
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WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
March 2, 2005
The Witchhunts Continue
Columbia
University and the New Anti-Semitism
By
M. JUNAID ALAM
Political languageis
designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an
appearance of solidity to pure wind.
-Orwell
Rape, massacre, theft, torture, ethnic
cleansing: these are not crimes which nations can defend with
ease - especially when unearthed by their own historians. Israel
recently faced this most troubling predicament. Combing through
declassified state archives, Israeli scholars of the past twenty
years have discovered their nation was founded upon the mass
expulsion and deliberate destruction of the native Palestinian
people. (1) Israel, it turned out, was far more Goliath than
David. Since this presented somewhat of a public relations problem
for a state still engaged in brutalizing Palestinians and stealing
their land, a new self-justifying rationale needed to be authored.
Enter the "new anti-Semitism." This doctrine turns
reality on its head, declaring criticism of Israel's racist behavior
to be itself racist "anti-Semitic." Empathy for
Palestinians being beaten, bullied, and bulldozed out of existence,
the doctrine goes, is nothing but some disguised expression of
Jew-hatred. Goose-stepping Germans and uprooted Palestinians
are portrayed as part of the same unbroken line of anti-Semitism,
even though those inhabiting concentration camps today
"the largest ever to exist," says Israeli historian
Baruch Kimmerling - are the Palestinians themselves. (2) But
no matter. Abusing the memory of Holocaust victims to shut down
criticism of Israeli crimes crimes unearthed mostly by
Jewish historians - may be obscene, but it is also effective.
Wielding this new ideological
weapon, Israel's champions aim to cut down pro-Palestinian voices
inside America with the same ruthlessness Israeli soldiers employ
to shoot up Palestinian children outside their homes. (3) The
latest targets in this well-organized hit are Arab-American professors
at Columbia University who teach Middle Eastern studies. The
targets have been judiciously selected. Since these particular
professors are Arab in an age when bombing and torturing Arabs
has virtually become a national sport, they make for easy prey;
and since they have added to their original sin of being Arab
the even graver sin of speaking the truth about Israel's
past no less in a country which subsidizes Israel's existence
- they also make for necessary prey.
In full accordance with "new
anti-Semitism" modus operandi, the attacks paint
the professors themselves as the attackers. With Orwellian brushstrokes,
they are rendered as demons bent on "intimidating"
Jewish students at the university. This much is to be expected.
Less expected, however, is the almost embarrassing shoddiness
of the trumped-up production. The wild charges made against the
professors are so poorly substantiated and the political motives
of the accusers so painfully transparent, one almost forgets
that America's well-financed pro-Israel network has extensive
experience in smearing its opponents. (4)
Curiously, the charges of "silencing"
and "intimidation" first made waves when it was learned
that the accusing students made their case on camera.
They appeared in a short film, titled "Columbia Unbecoming",
produced by a Boston-based group called the David Project. At
this point it is both necessary and prudent to ask: what is the
"David Project"?
At its website, the organization
describes itself as "a grassroots initiative that promotes
a fair and honest understanding of the Middle East conflict."
A noble enough endeavor, no doubt. But a few lines later, we
come to this: "We train people to be pro-active in their
Israel advocacy" Another page offers for a fee, of
course an intense three-hour ideological session titled
"Making the Case for Israel." Searching for a "Making
the Case for Palestine" program yields no results. Similarly,
a look at the speaker's roster reveals many pro-Israeli speakers,
but not a single pro-Palestinian. Perhaps most revealing is the
text prefacing their speaker section: "For more information
on how to bring our speakers to your synagogue, school, church,
or community center, please call" (5) Apparently churches
and synagogues are welcome, but mosques need not
apply. One wonders why.
The site then goes on to describe
what it considers to be a "fair and honest position":
"The essence of the Middle East conflict is about Jewish
existence and self-determination in the face of a hostile Arab
world and radical Islamists." (6) Israel's own recent historians
take a rather different view. Commenting on the founding of Israel,
Senior Lecturer of Military History in the IDF Aryeh Yitzhaki
says, "a generation has passed, and it is now possible to
face the ocean of lies in which we were brought up. In almost
every conquered village in the War of Independence, acts were
committed, which are defined as war crimes, such as indiscriminate
killings, massacres and rapes." (7) Describing Zionism
the founding ideology of Israel another Israeli historian,
Tom Segev, writes: "'Disappearing' the Arabs lay at the
heart of the Zionist dream, and was also a necessary condition
of its existence. With few exceptions, none of the Zionists disputed
the desirability of forced transfer - or its morality."
(8)
Committing war crimes and disappearing
people from their homes doesn't quite square well with pious
rhetoric about "self-determination." But the folks
at the David Project are free to cling to their pro-Israel political
line. That they do so while pretending to be some kind of impartial
educational group, however, speaks volumes. So much for "fairness"
- and, even more so, "honesty."
Given the clear ideological
orientation of the David Project, one is forced to ask the obvious:
why would students claiming to be "intimidated" and
"silenced" by their professors bypass all university
channels, and rush headlong into the arms of a political front
group? Looking at the film itself provides us some answers.
In this half-hour production
featuring 14 students, only six present firsthand complaints;
standing accused are professors Joseph Massad, George Saliba,
and Hamid Dabashi. Complaints range from random flyering incidents
having nothing to do with professors, to general ideological
disagreements with what professors have written, to statements
they allegedly made in person. No evidence is presented for any
of the charges.
Columbia student Adam Sacarny
wrote in the school's newspaper upon seeing the film: "Much
like the electoral campaigns, it uses talking points in place
of pesky verifiable facts," adding, "The film's case
is so shoddy that I fail to see how any critical viewer could
leave the theater convinced that [the department] has violated
academic integrity standards." (9) Even the generally sympathetic
Israeli daily Haaretz admits, "The movie fuses few
solid examples of intimidation only some of which involved
professors and the students they were teaching with generalized
complaints of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic statements and behavior
on campus." (10) And despite these students' claims of being
"silenced," "intimidated," and "denied"(their
own words), not one of them say their grades were affected.
(11)
Quite "coincidentally," the main target of the film
is the untenured professor,
Joseph Massad. He is accused
of making outlandish comments and exhibiting an extreme intolerance
toward pro-Israeli views in class. Yet only one of the
students in the film has even taken a course with the professor.
Moreover, precisely none of them even majored in the "offending"
department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures. (12)
But rest assured. The complaining students have other "qualifications."
One student shuttles back and
forth from America to Israel to explain how to adjust the prefatory
sales pitch for the film depending on the audience. (13) Another
served in the Israeli military, which, according to events personally
witnessed by former New York Times Middle East Bureau
chief Chris Hedges, "entice[s] children like mice into a
trap and murder[s] them for sport," and which also, according
to a CIA study, acquires "data for use in silencing anti-Israel
factions in the West" and engages in "sabotage, paramilitary
and psychological warfare projects, such as character assassination
and black propaganda." (14) Another complaining student
who was a lead organizer for the film, Ariel Beery, boasts an
impressive resume: he served as a spokesman for the Israeli military,
is the head of the on-campus Zionist group, and is also an agent
and informer for Daniel Pipes' notorious CampusWatch.org
website, where students are encouraged to "report"
their professors' political views if they are deemed insufficiently
servile to the conservative party line. (15)
But this is not all. None of
the targeted professors were even allowed a chance to rebut the
charges on the film. The reason for this, according to David
Project head Ralph Avi Goldwasser, in comments given to the Israeli
daily The Jerusalem Post, is that "the film wasn't
meant to be a documentary; it was merely an effort to collect
students' testimony about classroom incidents." Unsurprisingly,
the David Project is simply being dishonest (again), since it
turns out that they deliberately ignored the voices of Jewish
and non-Jewish students who found such "incidents"
to be fabricated and had no problems with the targeted professors.
Eric Posner, who describes himself as "a Jew, an Israeli,
a Jerusalemite, and an American," reports that "I was
approached last year by Ariel Beery who wanted to hear my opinion
about MEALAC and Massad, whose class I was enrolled in at the
time. When I expressed my profound appreciation for Massad's
critical approach and the multiplicity of perspectives that he
offers in his classroom, Beery told me that he wouldn't be calling
me back for a taped interview." (16)
Posner also took it upon himself
to gather some highly illuminating statements from other students
who took Professor Massad's classes. Below are four:
"Several individuals who
audited this class regularly attempted to disturb the progress
of the class. During these disturbances, the auditors often attempted
to dominate the class discussion with personal statements unrelated
or extremely loosely related to the course material. They were
regularly unprepared for the classroom discussion, not having
completed the required reading, and for the most part were largely
ignorant of the class' subject matter. It was fairly obvious
that these individuals had registered for the course for the
sole purpose of disrupting the progress of the class. To my amazement,
[Massad] allowed each and every student in the class an opportunity
to speak, regardless of their familiarity with the class subject
matter and required course material."
-John Taplett
"I am Jewish. I am not
a Zionist. Joseph Massad is a man who understands the distinction
and does not attempt to conflate the two around a vague connection
with Israel. Knowing that he is being accused of anti-Semitism
is not only a slap in HIS face, it is a slap in the face of every
Jew who understands a legacy of oppression and chooses not to
become an oppressor."
-Maura Finkelstein
"On the question of religion,
he was openly critical of all religions including Islam
his anti-Israeli opinions could not reasonably have been construed
as anti-Semitic. Similarly, while being critical of Israeli policy,
he did not hesitate to offer critical opinions of Yasser Arafat.
In general, he maintained a tone of critical scholarly inquiry."
-Hitesh Manglani
"As for academic discrimination,
I am a Jew who wrote a term paper criticizing Palestinian nationalism
for its foundation in support for violence, and despite Massad's
supposed bias, he gave me an A."
- Benjamin Wheeler (17)
By now the general picture
is quite clear. An ideologically motivated clique of Zionist
students, possessing no actual evidence of "intimidation"
but infuriated upon hearing their fairy-tale version of Israeli
history dismantled, teamed up with a pro-Israel political front
group masquerading as educators to smear a few Arab professors
as "anti-Semites" - conveniently excluding the opinion
of those "Semites" who fully support their teachers
and actually took classes with them.
More damning than the poverty
and hollowness of the film, however, is the fact that it was
even produced. After all, what kind of "victimized"
students are able to summon to their command the financial and
technical resources of something like the David Project? Moreover,
how do such "victims" procure for themselves a $3 million
dollar building on campus, a privilege no other Columbia group
enjoys? (18) Claims to victimization a central feature
in the reverse-reality trick known as "the new anti-Semitism"
- are also completely discredited by the fact that viciously
right-wing tabloids in New York, the Sun and the Daily
News, have joined in on the attack against the professors,
castigating them as "firebrands" and demanding they
be fired. Prominent New York City politicians have also demanded
that the professors be "investigated" if not fired
outright. (19) Truly remarkable is the "victim" so
well-endowed in assets and allies.
I do not mean to suggest, however,
that these Zionist students have no understanding of intimidation
or persecution - far from it. Indeed, they well know of a place
where people are intimidated in extreme ways, often "ordered
to urinate and execrate on one other," "beaten and
ordered to crawl around;" a place where children are forced
to clean their masters' latrines and are then taken into rooms
to be beaten senseless, until "they cannot stand up";
where passengers are pulled from cars and then "beaten with
rifle butts and helmets"; where pregnant women are prevented
from reaching hospitals; where the masters refer to the slaves
as a "cancer" requiring "chemotherapy" or
"amputation" where in essence, people are treated
far worse than anything these students claim to have undergone.
(20)
The "where" is occupied
Palestine, the people being brutalized are Palestinians, and
those doing the brutalizing are Zionists. Here is where millions
of natives suffer under military occupation imposed by Israeli
soldiers - at least 20% of whom "join the army with the
preconception that Arab lives are worth less than Jewish lives,
" according to Israeli Major General Elazar Stern. (21)
Here is where unarmed 13 year-old girls can be shot twice "from
close range at [the] head" and then "sprayed with automatic
gunfire" afterwards without penalty. (22) Here is where
real, actual, tangible "intimidation" and "silencing"
takes place. And here is where our whining Zionists at Columbia
could go and learn an object lesson in what intimidation
is all about if only they were not preoccupied with endorsing
it.
It is a resounding indictment of the intellectual and moral poverty
of our times that those who support murder, torture, brutality,
and racism - while lounging around in plush multi-million dollar
offices on an Ivy League campus and starring in pseudo-documentaries,
no less - are considered the victims, those speaking on
behalf of the suffering are considered criminals, and
those actually suffering from the real atrocities taking place
are not considered at all.
For those concerned with justice, the course of action could
not be clearer. Now is a time not for interminable hesitance,
but immediate resistance. The extraordinary level of arrogance,
cruelty, and hate embodied by the forces promoting this and numerous
other right-wing witch-hunts cannot be allowed to prowl about
unchecked. For this is merely an extension of the war of bombs
and bullets being waged upon the Arabs abroad; it is an attempt
to Guantanomize our minds, Abu Ghraib our hearts, and Fallujah
our souls - to remove from us every last trace of what is the
best in each of us: the instinct to side with the weak and aid
the oppressed.
To resist this colonization
of our compassion, to re-cultivate our resistance against those
who believe in the "compassion" of colonization
these are the pressing demands of the hour. How vigorously we
respond to these demands will determine whether those bruised,
beaten children of Palestine will ultimately receive some respite
from their inhumane condition, or instead find themselves further
abused by the silent whip of indifference. In their eyes we will
read either the redemption or indictment of the moral standing
of our own country.
M. Junaid Alam, 22, is co-editor of the radical youth
journal Left Hook (http://www.lefthook.org),
and a student at Northeastern University. He can be reached at
alam@lefthook.org.
Notes
1. The Israeli historians who
have gone through some of the state's massive archives of the
pre-war and war period of 1947-9 sometimes refer to themselves
as 'new historians.' They include Simha Flapan, Benny Morris,
Avi Shlaim, Tanya Reinhart, Ilan Pappe, and many others. I would
recommended as an introduction The War for Palestine:
Rewriting the History of 1948, edited by Eugene L. Rogan
and Avi Shlaim, which contains a number of 'new historian' essays.
2. Kimmerling is cited by American Jewish historian Norman G.
Finkelstein in the Postscript to the German edition of his book,
The Rise and Fall of Palestine. (http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=8)
In the preface to Kimmerling's own 2003 book, Politicide,
which argues that Israel is trying to exterminate the Palestinians
as a political entity, he says his country is experiencing a
"recent drift towards fascism." (p. 7)
3. For an account of Israel's
pattern of shooting Palestinian children, see the article "Killing
children is no longer a big deal," by Gideon Levy, in the
Israeli newspaper Haaretz, October 17, 2004.
4. For an account of the treatment
meted out to those who defy the Israeli line in the U.S. by America's
pro-Israeli lobby, see They Dare to Speak Out: People and
Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby, by Paul Findley, who
served as congressman of Illinois for over two decades.
5. The David Project website
is located at http://www.davidproject.org. See the "Training"
and "Speakers" pages.
6. See note 5, the website's
front-page box titled "Understanding the conflict."
7. Yitzhaki is cited in the
Israeli paper, Ha'ir, by Guy Erlich in his May 6, 1992
article, "Not Only Deir Yassin." Deir Yassin was an
Arab village whose inhabitants were massacred by Zionist militia
in 1948.
8. Tom Segev, One Palestine,
Complete, pp.404-5; cf. pp. 403, 406-7, 508 as cited
in the matchless synopsis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
by Norman G. Finkelstein, titled "An Introduction to the
Israel-Palestine Conflict." (http://normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=10)
9. "Shedding light on
MEALAC," by Adam Sacarny, November 12, 2004, Columbia
Spectator.
10. "The 'Silent Jews'
speak out," by Shoshana Kordova, Haaretz, February
9, 2005.
11. About grades not being
affected, see: "Non-academic debate," by Uriel Heilman,
The Jerusalem Post, December 23, 2004 (updated December
29, 2004).
12. Only one student actually
had Massad for class see "CAN Fights Zionist Smear
Campaign at Columbia Univ.," by Suzie Schwartz, a Columbia
student, Left Hook, December 17, 2004. (http://lefthook.org/Ground/Schwartz121704.html);
and none majored in the department see Eric Posner, as
quoted in Independent Press Association (IPA-NY), "The
Arab answer to the Columbia University question," by Amal
Hageb. (http://www.indypressny.org/article.php3?ArticleID=1834)
13. See note 10.
14. Chris Hedge's A Gaza
Diary, published in Harper's, October 2001; CIA study
is titled "Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services,"
reprinted in Counterspy, May-June 1982 as cited
in Noam Chomsky's A Fateful Triangle Updated Edition,
1999, cited on page 11, sourced on page 33, as note 9; one of
the accusers in the film was Tomy Schoenfeld - "a student
who had served in the Israeli army" according to "Mideast
Tensions are Getting Personal on Campus at Columbia," by
N. R. Kleinfield, The New York Times, January 18, 2005.
15. Ariel Beery proudly advertises
himself at his personal website, http://www.arielbeery.com, where
it is written, "He finished his service in the IDF Spokesperson's
Unit where he wrote and translated information packets"
on this specific page: http://www.arielbeery.com/Ariel.html;
a host of his "documents" submitted to Campus Watch
are kindly made available at the website: http://www.campus-watch.org/docs/author/Ariel+Beery
16. As quoted in IPA piece
cited in note 12.
17. All quoted in IPA piece
cited in note 12.
18. This is a reference to
the Kraft Center - "Understanding the Attacks on Pro-Palestinian
Professors at Columbia," by Jonah Birch, a Columbia Student,
Left Hook, January 28, 2005. (http://lefthook.org/Ground/Birch012805.html)
19. Congressman Anthony D.
Weiner has called for Massad's firing. The New York City Council
and members of the New York City Council have called for an outside
investigation against him, egged on of course by the Sun
and the Daily News.
20. On urination and execration,
beating, and being ordered to crawl around, see "Do not
say: 'We did not know, we did not hear'," by Aharon Bachar,
in Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, December 3, 1982
as cited in Noam Chomsky's A Fateful Triangle,
cited on page 131, sourced on page 176-7. On being forced to
clean latrines and then being beaten in rooms, see "Peace
Now officers recount atrocities," in Israeli newspaper Al
Hamishmar, May 11, 1982 - as cited in Noam Chomsky's
A Fateful Triangle, cited on page 132, sourced on page
177; on being beaten with rifle butts and helmets, see "Reports
of Torture by Israelis Emerge," by Lee Hockstader, Washington
Post, August 18, 2001; for pregnant women being stalled at
Israeli checkpoints, see Israeli human rights group B'TSelem's
website, www.btselem.org, and see note 3; it was Israeli
Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon who said in an August 30, 2002 interview
with Haaretz Friday Magazine that there was a "Palestinian
threat" the "characteristics of [which] are invisible,
like cancer"; he then goes on to elaborate, "There
are all kinds of solutions to cancerous manifestations. Some
will say it is necessary to amputate organs. But at the moment,
I am applying chemotherapy, yes."
21. "General: 1 in 5 troops
behave badly at roadblocks," by Gideon Alon, Haaretz,
December 6, 2004.
22. "Gaza girl death officer
cleared," BBC News, October 15, 2004. The article
notes, "Without revealing their identities, soldiers from
the Givati brigade platoon told Israeli television how their
officer sprayed Iman al-Hams with automatic gunfire on 5 October"
after having "approached her and fired two bullets from
close range at her head." The army chose not to believe
the platoon, and accepted the awe-inspiring explanation of the
commander that "he fired into the ground near the girl after
coming under fire in a dangerous area." The BBC adds
wryly, "It has not explained why the officer shot into the
ground rather than at the source of the fire."
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