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Featuring Essays by:
Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Michael Neumann, Shahid Alam, Alexander
Cockburn, Uri Avnery, Bill and Kathy Christison and More
Recent
Stories
August
8, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Snoops Night Out
August
7, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
It the US a "Terrorist Magnet?"
Toni
Solo
Neo-liberal Nicaragua: a New Banana
Republic
Adam Lebowitz
Hiroshima Commemorated: the View from Japan
Hanan
Ashrawi
When the Bully Whines
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Conscience Takes a Holiday
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Lets Slip: Iraq Not Behind 9/11; No Ties to Al-Qaeda
Mike Kimaid
What's the Score?
Elaine
Cassel
The Smell of VICTORY: Ashcroft's Latest Stinkbomb
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
August 6, 2003
Steve
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause: It's Not
Easy Confronting King Coal
David
Krieger
Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Robert
Fisk
The Ghosts of Uday and Qusay
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's War on the National Forests
Elaine
Cassel
No Fly Lists
Stan
Goff
Military Equipment and Pneumonia
Hugh Sansom
An Open Letter to Nicholas Kristof on the Nuking of Japan
August
5, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Prisoner of Ramallah: Arafat at
74
Forrest
Hylton
Terrorism and Political Trials: the
View from Bolivia
Ray
McGovern
"We Cook Estimates to Go"
David
Morse
Poindexter's Gambit
Edward
Said
Orientallism: 25 Years Later
George
W. Bush
My Darn Good Resumé
Hammond
Guthrie
It's Incremental, Watson!
Website
of the Day
National Prayer Day
August 4, 2003
Bruce
K. Gagnon
Another Peace Activist Detained by
Airport Cops: My Story
David
Lindorff
Fear-Mongering About Social Security
Mark
Zepezauer
George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody
James
Plummer
Tracking You Through the Mail
Mickey
Z.
Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush
Bruce
Jackson
News that Isn't News: How the NYT's
Pimps for the White House
August
2 / 3, 2003
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
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Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
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What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
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Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
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One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
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Poets'
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August
1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Stopping Prison Rape
Alex Coolman
Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing
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Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Stan Goff
Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq
Wayne
Madsen
Europe Unplugs from the Matrix
Robert
Fisk
Wolfowitz the Censor
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico
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of the Day
Stop Prisoner Rape
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)
Elaine
Cassel
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Rampton
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True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
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Guthrie
Speculation Blues
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Army of One?
July
30, 2003
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Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
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Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
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Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
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Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
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Website
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Bring Them Home Now!
Congratulations
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July
29, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
"Journalist Spotted! Journalist
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Thomas
J. Nagy
The Belligerent Dr. Pipes
Kurt Nimmo
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Chris
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Dead Reckoning: Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes
Robert
Fisk
Another Botched Raid; Another Massacre
Jason Leopold
Did Chalabi Help Write Bush's State of the Union Address?
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Dan
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Sacramento's War on Free Speech
Ray
McGovern
Cheney Chicanery
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Julie Hilden Caught on Tape
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True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
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Watch
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Uzma
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Francis Boyle
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August
9, 2003
A
16-Year-Old in Palestine
Life is an ID Card
By DAOUD KUTTAB
For most teenagers, the world over, the age of
sixteen is supposed to be a happy one. However, reaching 16 for
Palestinians, especially those living in East Jerusalem, is not
much fun. This is the age that they are supposed to start carrying
the dreaded identification card and in turn the soldiers (not
much older than them) can take pot shots at them without much
concern or worry. Any young Palestinian looking close to 16 better
have an ID or a birth certificate showing that he/she is under
this age.
My daughter Tamara who spent her 16th
birthday as a senior in an Ohio High School as an exchange student,
came home for the summer to obtain her ID. Her cousin, Manuel
Abu Ali, who just turned sixteen, has been moving around Jerusalem
with difficulty, using his mother's ID (which has his name listed)
along with his school picture ID. For Palestinians of Jerusalem,
getting a personal ID, which ought to be a simple affair, has
become the new via de la Rosa. Unlike Israelis who get a five
or ten year passport, Palestinians in Jerusalem can travel only
on a laisser passier which can be issued for only a year, thus
adding to an exasperating problem where 250,000 Palestinians
are served by a single office of the Ministry of Interior and
are denied the right to use any other office to get official
document they need.
Palestinians in Jerusalem wishing to
obtain any of these official government certificates (birth,
marriage license, travel document or even death certificates)
face the impossible task of simply entering the Interior Ministry
offices.
A few months ago, my brother had to move
the Israeli supreme court to enter these premises without having
to wait all day in line - even that doesn't guarantee you get
a turn that day. Entering the Ministry's office has become next
to impossible for years because of a policy of lack of regard
for the population, leaving frustrated Palestinians to fight
tooth and nail just to preserve a place in line, while scores
of Israeli police and private security staff watch in amusement.
Following the appointment of Avraham
Poraz as the new Israeli Minister of Interior, many Palestinians
expected he would live up to the name of his Shinui party and
actually change the way Palestinians from Jerusalem have been
treated at his ministry's office. Poraz's initial decision granting
residency to non-Jews was seen as a positive sign.
I was one of those people who were hopeful,
believing naively that things will change. When my daughter wanted
to brave the lines, I supported her, discounting all those who
raised concerns that the queues outside the ministry have become
nothing short of what a typical crime-festered inner city is
like. People were telling me that we would be better off simply
paying a lawyer (1,500 shekels and up) or one of the Jerusalem
thugs to muscle their way in front of the line and sell their
place in queue for a couple of hundred shekels.
I was determined to go at it alone; she
and her cousin will have to wait a few hours in line, I said
to my concerned brother-in-law who warned me that young thugs
with switch blades, razors and other weapons run the show outside
the ministry.
A day before our target date, I visited
the location and pleasantly discovered that the problem was being
taken care of. A bearded man was sitting across the street from
the Interior Ministry offices with paper and pen, taking names
in order.
When I enquired, he told me that he and
a few other Muslim faithfulls had taken it upon themselves to
help organise the queue. Once you are registered you are expected
to come at 10.00pm for a roll call, if you are not present your
name is crossed off. You can return the next day at 5.00am for
another final call. Great, I thought, and duly registered. Our
number was 16. I needed to return when names are announced at
10.00pm and the following day at 5.00am and we are home free.
At 10.00pm the bearded man was gone.
A well-muscled young man was rewriting the list. It had been
torn in a fight. Not to worry, I was told. We registered again,
this in 46th spot. Not good, but if things went well we could
go in with the second round. At 5.00am the following day, even
this young muscular man was gone, and line was already backed
up. The list was no longer valid.
Everyone for himself we were told. We
took our place at the end of the line and waited till the Ministry
opened at 8.00am. Shortly before they opened two police cars
arrived and arrested one of the young thugs in line. I later
discovered he had slashed the arm of a person pushing him. I
took a deep breath and kept calm. No sooner had the gate opened
than a spate of fights started.
By 11.00am more than eight separate fights
for places in line had taken place, both on the men's as well
as the women's sides. A few women were ahead of my daughter by
this time. However, for some reason, the line seemed to stop.
For hours, Tamara would plead with the
guards to find out when she could get in and they would motion
to her to wait. But it was a bluff. No one else would be allowed
in after the last group that entered at 10:30am. Some said it
was because of the fights. Others pointed out that the Israelis
were working on a shortened day because the following day was
a Jewish holiday in remembrance of the destruction of the Jewish
Temple.
Some said the Israeli ministry was short
staffed that day and they could only handle so may. By 3.00pm,
dejected and angry, Tamara returned home with her cousin who
also failed to make it into the fortress of a building titled
the Ministry of Interior.
For Tamara and her cousin, sixteen is
not sweet at all. Because of her college orientation in a few
days, she will be travelling without having taken her ID card,
with the hope that maybe next summer she can make into the building
and get her personal ID card.
Our children were tired and angry. The
main question they repeated was simply: isn't there anyone that
cares? A more sinister person might say that this is part of
the "transfer" policy which right-winger Israelissupport
- making life so difficult that Palestinians leave voluntarily.
Daoud Kuttab
is a leading activist in Jerusalem and a respected commentator
on Palestinian matters. This column originally appeared on Gulf News.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 2/3, 2003
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
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