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April 20, 2002
Kristen
Schurr
Leaving
Nablus
Bernard Weiner
Israel and the Intifada
for Dummies
Jean-Guy
Allard
A
Coup Signed by Otto Reich
Chris Floyd
The Empire Never Sleeps
A Letter from the Front
April 19, 2002
Eric Flint
Free
the Books!
David Krieger
A Peace Proposal:
Bring in the Children
Jeff Paterson
Advice
to Recruits from
a Gulf War Vet
Jeffrey St. Clair
From Sen. "Lunkhead" to
Bush Energy Czar: A Year in the Life of Spencer Abraham
April 18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Latin
America's Dilemma:
The Propaganda of Otto Reich
Sam Bahour
Bush is Playing Russian
Roulette with Palestinians
M. Shahid
Alam
A
Colonizing Project
Built on Lies
Alexander Cockburn
Austin Cultural Limits:
Willie Nelson, Film and BBQ
April 17, 2002
Norman
Finkelstein
Behind
the Carnage in Palestine
Kristen Schurr
With the Wounded
and the Homeless in Nablus
Norman
Madarasz
Undoing
Chavez:
The View from South America
Brian Wood
Combing The Ruins of Jenin
George
Monbiot
Chemical
Coup: The CIA's Attempt to Undermine the UN's Weapon Inspector
for Iraq
Robert Fisk
Fear and Learning in America
April 16, 2002
Todd May
US
Should End Aid to Israel
Gabriel Ash
The Oilman, the General
and the Coup that Failed
Ron Jacobs
Wake
Up Some Mornin',
Find Your Own Self Dead:
The Chavez Coup
Brian Wood
Inside Jenin: Rubble and Decomposing
Bodies
Jack McCarthy
Citizen
Coup: The Times,
The Post and the Coup Plotters
Dave Marsh
Hymns: How I Got Through
Last Week
April 15, 2002
Susi Abeles
A
Field Trip to Jenin
Breyten Breytenbach
A Letter to Ariel Sharon:
"You Won't Break Them"
Gregory
Wilpert
CounterCoup
in Venezuela
Kristen Schurr
Amid the Rubble of Nablus
Jordy
Cummings
An
Open Letter to Abe Foxman
Christopher Reilly
The Media, the CIA
and the Chavez Coup
James
T. Phillips
"Homicide"
Bombers
April 14, 2002
William Blum
The CIA and Venezuela
David
Vest
A
Good Old-Fashion "Incursion"
Ralph Nader
General Motors:
Stuck in Reverse
M. Junaid
Alam
From
the Ashes: Palestinian Struggle for Freedom
Sam Bahour
Palestinians and Americans
April 13, 2002
Beth Daoud
Life
in the Ruins of Nablus
Patrick Cockburn
Bulldozing History:
The End Nears for Stalin's
Most Monstrous Hotel
Gregory
Wilpert
The
Coup in Venezuela:
an Eye-Witness Account
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Thoughts on Our War
Against Terrorism
Anne Winkler-Morey
Why
I Didn't Organize
a Passover Seder This Year
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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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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Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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April 20, 2002
Gimme Some Truth
Now
A Walk Through Jenin
By Kathy Kelly
On April 17, we entered the Jenin camp for a third
time, accompanied by Thawra.
We had met Thawra the night we first
entered Jenin. She came into the crowded, makeshift clinic organized
by Palestinian Medical Relief Committee workers, cradling Ziad,
an 18 day old infant born on the first night of the attack against
Jenin. Like most of the young Palestinian workers volunteering
with the Medical Relief Committee, she wore ahijab and blue jeans.
She had slept very little in the past ten days, working constantly
to assist refugees from the camp. Her fiancee, Mustafa, was missing.
Many people whispered to us that they were sure he was killed
inside the Jenin camp, but that Thawra still hoped he was alive.
Today was Thawra's first chance to find
out what had happened to her home. She and her family lived on
the first floor of a three story building. Mustafa lived on the
third floor.
Entering the camp, we noticed spray painted
images that Israeli soldiers must have made the night before.
On the entrance gate to one building, in blue paint, was a stick
figure image of a little girl holding the Israeli flag... Next
to it was a star of David with an exclamation point inside the
star.
We passed Israeli soldiers preparing
to leave the house they had occupied. Five soldiers and an Armoured
Personnel Carrier positioned themselves to protect a soldier
as he walked out of the house carrying the garbage. "Five
soldiers and an APC to take out the trash," said Jeff. "That's
a sure sign that something is radically wrong."
Most of the homes at the edge of the
camp are somewhat intact, although doors, windows and walls are
badly damaged by tank shells and Apache bullets. Each home that
we entered was ransacked. Drawers, desks and closets were emptied.
Refrigerators were turned over, light fixtures pulled out of
the walls, clothing torn.
I thought of the stories women told me,
earlier that morning, about Israeli soldiers entering their homes
with large dogs that sniffed at the children as neighbors fled
from explosions, snipers, fires and the nightmare chases of bulldozers.
Recovery will take a very long time.
As we climbed higher, entering the demolished
center of the camp where close to 100 housing units have been
flattened by Israeli Defense Forces, we heard snipers shooting
at a small group of men who had come to pull bodies from the
rubble. Covered with dust and sweat, and seemingly oblivious
to the gunshots, the men, all residents from the camp, pursued
the grim task. With pickaxes and shovels, they dug a mass grave.
They pulled four bodies out of the rubble, including that of
a small child. Little boys stood still, silently watching. One
of the many soldiers who stopped us as we walked into Jenin City,
several days earlier, told us there were no children in the camp
during the attack. That was a lie. But now I wonder if it may
have become a strange truth. The concerned frowns on the little
boy's faces belonged to hardened men.
An older boy, perhaps 10 or 11 years
old, helped carry his father's corpse to the mass grave.
Jeff sat down on a rock and shook his
head. "After September 11, I drove toward New York City,
and all along the highway carloads of volunteer firemen sped
past me, coming from all over the country, to help at Ground
Zero. Here, bullets paid for by US taxpayers are being fired
on people simply trying to bury their dead."
A family trudged single file, silently,
uphill through the debris, carrying their belongings on their
heads. Their faces were wracked with grief. One woman carried
an infant in her arms. No one spoke as they approached the hilltop.
At the top of the hill, in front of a house that was still somewhat
intact, a large family was seated as though posed for a family
photograph, surrounded by devastation.
Thawra led us to what was once her home.
The house is still standing, but every other house in the area
is completely demolished. She quickly collected some clothes,
then went to the third floor and returned holding Mustafa's blue
jeans in her arms. Her eyes welled with tears. We began to wonder
if she had lost all hope of finding Mustafa.
Outside her home, we met 8 year old Ahmad.
He had found six shiny, small bullets which he showed to his
neighbor, Mohammed Abdul Khalil. Mohammed is a 42 year old mason,
also trained as an accountant. Having worked in Brazil and Jordan,
he now speaks four languages. In Spanish, he told me that he
built many kitchens in this area. Mohammed nodded kindly at Ahmad.
A few feet away, Hitan, age 20, and Noor,
age 16, dug through the debris with their bare hands to retrieve
some few belongings. Hitan found a favorite jacket, torn and
covered with dust. She fingered the pockets, then set it aside.
Noor laughed as she unearthed a matching pair of shoes. Then
Hitan saw the edge of a textbook and the sisters began vigorously
digging and tugging until they pulled out five battered and unusable
books. Noor held up her public health textbook. Hitan clutched
The History of Islamic Civilization.
"You see these girls, they are laughing
and seem playful," said, Mohammed, again speaking in Spanish.
"It is, you know, a coping mechanism. How else can they
manage what they feel?" Hitan stood and pointed emphatically
at the small hole she and Noor had dug. "You know,"
she exclaims, "underneath here, there are four televisions
and two computers! All gone. Finished."
Thawra stared sadly, then persisted with
her search for information about Mustafa.
I asked Mohammed if he knew a man sorting
through a huge mound of rubble next to where we stood. 'He is
my cousin. That was our home. He wants to find his passport or
his children's documents." Mohammed's cousin then sat down
on top of the heap that was once his home, holding his head in
his hands.
An army surveillance plane flew overhead.
"We are clear," said Mohammed.
"We are not animals. We are people with hearts and blood,
just like you. I love my son. I want the life for my family.
What force do we have here? Is this a force?" He pointed
to the wreckage all around us. "Do we have the atomic bomb?"
"Do we have anthrax?"
As we walked away, Jeff pointed at another
bone sticking out of the debris. We stepped gingerly around it.
Thawra dipped down to pick up a veil lying on the ground, then
paused a moment and placed it over the bone.
Kathy Kelly
and Jeff Guntzel help coordinate Voices in the Wilderness,
a campaign to end the economic sanctions against Iraq. They traveled
to Israel /Palestine in response to calls from the International
Solidarity Movement and other organizations working to reduce
violence in the region and nonviolently resist Israeli Occupation
of Palestine. They can be reached at: info@vitw.org
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