Today's Stories

May 12, 2009

Gary Leupp
The Bomb Iran Faction

May 11, 2009

Andrea Peacock
No Justice for Libby

Michael Hudson
Gordon Brown Spills the Beans on the IMF

Patrick Cockburn
Who Killed 120 Civilians?

Ralph Nader
The Single-Payer Taboo

John Kelly
Pseudoscience and Wrongful Convictions in the War on Drugs

Saul Landau
Cuba's Biggest "Crime"

Dave Lindorff
Blaming the Dead Victims

David Michael Green
Get Obama

Anthony Papa
Gov. David Paterson Does the Right Thing

Paul Krassner
Jon Stewart and Truman, the War Criminal

Website of the Day
Generational Homelessness

May 8-10, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Dead Souls

Jeffrey St. Clair
Echoes of Amchitka: 40 Years After America's Biggest Nuclear Blast, the Damage Continues

Paul Wolf
Obama's Axis of Obedience

Steve Niva
Iraq: The Return of the Suicide Bombers

Neve Gordon
Jailed for Caring

Mike Whitney
Has Bernanke Pulled the Economy Back From the Brink?

Warren Hinckle
DiFi vs. Marilyn Chambers

Serge Halimi
In Praise of Revolutions

Gareth Porter
The Pakistan Conundrum

Sharon Smith
Something Stinks at Whole Foods

Andy Worthington
Obama's New Gitmo Policy: Back to the Bush Era?

Mark Weisbrot
Hillary and Latin America

Rosa Miriam Elizalde Cyber Command and Cyber Dissident: More of the Same?

David Macaray
Recessions and Labor Unions

Missy Beattie
The Real Housewives of War

Ron Jacobs
Mothers and War

Diane Farsetta
About Face on Pentagon Pundits?

Ramzy Baroud
War Without Context

Phelie Maguire
Living Next to Settlers

Robert Fantina
Party of Rush

Kevin Zeese
A Break From the Past in the Drug War?

Margaret Flowers, MD
The Baucus 8: Why We Risked Arrest for Single-Payer

Dave Lindorff
The Joke's on Us

Richard Rhames
Revenge of the Tundra

Ben Sonnenberg
Let the Right One In: A Vampire Visits a Welfare State

Kim Nicolini
Sin Nombre: Giving Faces to People Who Don't Have Names

Stephen Martin
The Riotous Action of the Complete Banker

Charles R. Larson
The Commencement Address You'll Never Hear

David Yearsley
Jean Ferrard, Organist Extraordinary

Lorenzo Wolff
Death Cab for Cutie: Surprisingly Familiar

Poets' Basement
G.S. Heiligschreib and David Farrelly

Website of the Weekend
Zombie Bank

May 7, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Criminalizing Criticism of Israel

Chris Floyd
A Full-Court Press for Pakistan War

Andy Worthington
Mixed Messages on Torture

Alan Farago
No Place Like Home: a Stress Test for Land Use, Not Just Banks

Ray McGovern
Deux ex Machina on Torture?

Dave Lindorff
Stain Removal: Impeaching the Torture Judge

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
Why is There Rampant Famine in the 21st Century?

Ana M. Malinow, MD
Why We Need a Single-Payer Health Care System

Jeff Armstrong
Freeing Leonard Peltier: What Would Warren Harding Do?

Norman Solomon
A Green New Deal

Website of the Day
The End of Lake Mead?

May 6, 2009

Doug Peacock
The Fate of the Yellowstone Grizzly

Patrick Cockburn
Afghans to Obama: Get Out, Take Karzai With You

Richard Neville
The Torturer's Apprentice

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Power a Nation: Nuclear Bombs or Sunshine?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Of Pork and Baloney: Obama's Defense Budget

Deepak Tripathi
Pakistan in Crisis

Stephen Soldz
A "Natural Reaction": APA Ethics Policy-Maker Endorses Torture

Reuven Kaminer
Nice is Not Enough: Obama vs. Netanyahu and Lieberman

David Macaray
The Chrysler-UAW Deal

Kevin Zeese
Why We Were Arrested at the Senate Finance Committee Hearings

Marjorie Cohn
Stanford Antiwar Alums Call for War Crimes Investigation of Condoleezza Rice

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
Investigate Psychologist and Health Provider Complicity in Torture

Website of the Day
Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?

May 5, 2009

William Blum
Torture and Mr. Obama

Uri Avnery
Netanyahu's Plan

Steven Higgs
Autism and Toxic Pollution

Dean Baker
Why Economists Should Learn Arithmetic

Daniel Wolff
The Education of Rachel Carson

Sibel Edmonds
The Broken Congress

Carole King Klein
A New Chance to Save the Northern Rockies

Fidel Castro
Giving One's All

Belén Fernández
Oil and Aguardiente in the Ecuadoran Elections

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Big Lie About Fish vs. Jobs

Website of the Day
"I Married Isis on the Fifth Day of May"

May 4, 2009

James G. Abourezk
The AIPAC Spy Case

Jeff Leys
Obama's War Budget

Patrick Cockburn
Afghan Ayatollahs Press Marital Rape Law

Andy Worthington
A Start on Guantánamo, But Not Enough

Jaime Avilés
Mexico's Plague-Bringers

David Swanson
An Even Worse Bybee Memo

Paul Craig Roberts
Working with Jack Kemp

P. Sainath
Celeb Crusades and the Death of Politics

Eugenia Tsao
Canada's Obama and the Cult of the Prof

Benjamin Dangl
Protest and Rubber Bullets in Paraquay

Sami Al-Arian
Mourning William Moffitt

Website of the Day
"Soldiers Are Cutting Us Down": Kent State, May 4, 1970

May 1 - 3, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Game-Changers: Specter Jumps, Souter Quits

Gary Leupp
Dropping the AIPAC Spying Case

Peter Linebaugh
The Key to the Bastille

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank:
Half Life of a Toxic War: Iraq's Wrecked Environment

C. G. Estabrook
Minion of the Long War

Patrick Cockburn
Kabul's New Elite

Mike Whitney
Economy on the Ropes

Pierre Sprey /
Winslow Wheeler
What "Sweeping Overhaul" of the Pentagon?

Andy Worthington
Al-Marri's Plea Deal: Dictatorial Powers Unchallenged

Mairead Maguire
Stand Up to Israeli Apartheid: a Letter to Obama From a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Nadia Hijab
The Israel Boycott is Biting

Diane Farsetta
Life, Death and Water Policy

Michael Calderón-Zaks
The Déjà Vu Flu: Why Much of the Discussion About Swine Flu is Racist

Richard Rhames
When Piggies Come Home to Roost: Swine Flu and the Industrial Meat Gulags

Russell Mokhiber
Inside the Beltway Baucus

Ramzy Baroud
Clinton's Unpromising Start

Rannie Amiri
Understanding Lebanon's June Elections

Deb Reich
No Talking, Dammit!

Steven Higgs
Indiana Criminalizes Dissent: Roadblocks on the NAFTA Highway

Brian Cloughley
Malice in Blunderland

David Michael Green
The Party's Over

Farzana Versey
Sex, Swat and Susan Boyle

Jim Goodman
Think Before You Eat: Agriculture and the Environment

Carl Finamore
New Prescription for a Healthy Union Movement

Christopher Brauchli
The Sounds of Silence: the Texas Option

Susie Day
The Real Cause of Unemployment: Employees!

David Yearsley
Nuts Over Beethoven

Lorenzo Wolff
Three Minutes of Perfection

Peter Stone Brown
Dancing with Dylan

Poets' Basement Dominguez, Orloski and Springate

Website of the Weekend
May Day Europe

April 30, 2009

Ellen Cantarow
Obama and "Two States": Seamless Continuity From Bush Time

Dana L. Cloud
The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built

Paul W. Lovinger /
Jeannette Hassberg
A Nation of Laws

Binoy Kampmark
Swine at the Trough: the Business of Pandemics

Brian Downing
The Perils of Modernization in Afghanistan

Frank Snepp
Tortured by the Past

David Swanson
The Wrong Torture Question

Conn Hallinan
The Coming Asian Storm

Ron Jacobs
Not Dead Yet: an Interview with Jerry Gordon on the State of the Antiwar Movement

John Goekler
The Only Path to a Middle East Picnic?

Jasmine L. Tyler /
Anthony Papa
An End to Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity?

Website of the Day
Emergency Petition: Stop Coal Industry Intimidation of Activists

April 29, 2009

Joann Wypijewski
Death at Work in America

Patrick Cockburn
The Taliban's Roads to Kabul

Andy Worthington
Cheney's Twisted World

Chris Floyd
The Specter Diversion

Dave Lindorff
No More Excuses: a Specter is Haunting the Democrats

Jeremy Scahill
The Nuremberg Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Doug Henwood
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor: an Interview with William Robinson

Michael Hudson
Will Iceland be Handed Over to a New Gang of Kleptocrats?

Russell Mokhiber
My Ron Pollack Problem--And Yours

Eric Toussaint
Ecuador at the Crossroads

Website of the Day
An Interview with Leslie and Andrew Cockburn on "American Casino"

April 28, 2009

Uri Avnery
A Little Red Light: On Israeli Fascism

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Iraq: the Picture of Dorian Gray

Dean Baker
The Perfect Gift for Wall Street: a Financial Transactions Tax

Michael D. Yates
At the Factory Gate

Conn Hallinan
Georgian Plots? Saakavili's "Order No. 2"

John Stauber
Beyond MoveOn

Tom Barry
The Failed Border Security Initiative

Harvey Wasserman
Who Pays for America's Chernobyl Roulette?

Jeff Nygaard
Pirates, Profits and Propaganda

Frederico Fuentes
Why the U.S. Still Hates Cuba

Website of the Day
The Man Behind the Hood

April 27, 2009

Pam Martens
The Far Right's Plot to Capture New Hampshire

Patrick Cockburn
Torture? It Probably Killed More Americans Than 9/11

Andrew J. Bacevich Guardian of the Status Quo: Obama's Sins of Omission

Mitu Sengupta
The Bloodbath in Sri Lanka

Franklin Lamb
Hillary Does Beirut: The 165-Minute Swoop-In

Firmin DeBrabander
Crimes of Economic Madness

Dave Lindorff
Wide Open to Pandemic?

Russell Mokhiber
How Corrupt is That?

Mike Whitney
Pinter's Message to Obama

Mark Weisbrot
Overhauling the IMF

Rev. José M. Tirado
Iceland's New Dawn: How the Right Got Trounced

Website of the Day
American Casino

April 24-26, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Putting the Bush Years on Trial

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

Andy Worthington
Who Ordered the Torture of Abu Zubaydah?

Jeremy Scahill
Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?

Chris Floyd
Top of the Heap: the Democrats' Teachable Moment on Torture

Mike Whitney
A Housing Crash Update

Anthony DiMaggio
Obama and the Housing Crisis

Chris Kromm
Democratic Lobbyists Key to Fight Against Employee Free Choice Act

Saul Landau
Seventeen Months in "the Hole:" an Interview with the Leader of the Cuban Five

Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh

Greg Moses
The Debt Looters

Joshua Frank
Calling for a Coal Moratorium: an Interview with Ted Nace

Fred Gardner
Collective Farming and the Lynch Case

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Homework, Testing and Stealth Apartheid in Education

David Michael Green
Of Tea Parties and Teleprompters

Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Spies: a New Front in Gaza's Conflict

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak's Expanding Enemies List

Laura Carlsen
Mr. President, Calderon is Not Mexico

Richard Morse
The Haitian People Need a Lobbyist

Nikolas Kozloff
Protecting the Bald Eagle: a Task Now Falling to ... Hugo Chavez?

Kent Peterson
The Fight to Save Mexico's Mangroves

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General

Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts

Ron Jacobs
Torture is More Than Just "Harsh Tactics"

Richard Rhames
Roman Legends, Book Burning and History's Hunt

Stephen Martin
Wherefore Art Thou American Dream?

David Yearsley
Rodgers, Hammerstein, Michener and Nostalgia's Clammy Embrace

Poets' Basement
Khalil and Mankh

Website of the Weekend
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies and Edward Abbey

April 23, 2009

Eamonn Fingleton
How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years

Ray McGovern
Obama Plays Hamlet on Torture

Michael Ratner
The Torture Commission Trap

Alan Farago
The Quicksand Economy

Rob Larson
Business Gets Carded

Nadia Hijab
The Real Heroes of Durban

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Deconstructing the Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Are Members of Congress Being Blackmailed?

Helen Redmond
Selling Out Single-Payer: the "Public Option" Con

Adam Federman
The Battle Over New York's Marcellus Shale

Website of the Day
An Interactive Map of Vanishing Employment Across the Country

April 22, 2009

Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project

Joanne Mariner
Torture Evidence and Terror Blacklists

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Afghan Plan: Fracturing the Antiwar Movement

Gareth Porter
U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans

Dean Baker
The Tyranny of Bad Economics

Peter Morici
Housing Sales and Fixing the Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminating Bad Pentagon Habits

Barucha Calamity Peller
The Battle to Take Back the New School

Harvey Wasserman
Chernobyl Could Happen Here

Aisha Brown /
Dedrick Muhammad
White Privilege in the Americas

Teo Ballvé
Obama's Feel Good Meeting with Colombia's Uribe

Website of the Day
Ahmedinejad's Durban Speech: What He Actually Said

April 21, 2009

Randy Rowland
Lindy Blake's Great Escape

Dave Lindorff
Jay Bybee's Conspiracy to Torture

Fidel Castro
The Secret Summit

George McGovern
Pull Out of Iraq This Year

Greg Moses
The Unemployment Channel

Benjamin Dangl
Argentina Remembers

Sonia Nettnin
Saving Lives in Gaza

Frank Barat
The Death of Bassem: a Shooting at the Wall in Bil'n

Binoy Kampmark
Legal Purgatory and John Demjanjuk

John V. Walsh
Code Red for Single Payer

David Macaray
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

Website of the Day
Bonus Man: For Executive Assholes Everywhere

April 20, 2009

Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever

Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalisms in Missoula

Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens

Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes

Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers

Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos: Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes

Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East

Dave Lindorff
The Meeting in Trinidad

P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word

Nelson P Valdés
A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama

Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?

Belén Fernández
The FARC Can't Dance

Website of the Day
Dear Mr. Buffett...

May 12, 2009

Will the Parties Honor Their Planks?

What Palestinian Refugees Need From Lebanon's Elections

By FRANKLIN LAMB

Wavel Palestinian Refugee Camp, Bekaa Valley.

“My work here is very difficult. To be honest with you there isn’t a single day when I don’t leave work completely depressed, sometimes in tears. The amount of abuse of Palestinians in Lebanon is at a level that you cannot even imagine unless you live here. At the end of the day I go home and sit. And think. How is this possible? I think of these Palestinians and feel they are so pale and patient and ‘moderate’ compared to what I feel. I tend to keep quiet but what I feel inside is shocking and I am not comfortable describing it. This place is close to exploding.”

--European NGO social worker who assists children of NON-ID Palestinians in Ein el Helwe Refugee Camp

Beirut’s Casino de Liban north of Beirut at Maameltein, perched above the Mediterranean north of Jounieh, was offering as late as 3 a.m. Saturday morning May 9, 2009, 2 to 1 odds that US President Barak Obama will drop out of the sky a la C. Rice and H. Clinton in an 11th hour ‘hail Mary’ to score a last minute goal for Israel. Another US ‘quick drop-in’ to shape the ‘US Ruling Team’ into a ‘US Wining Team’ during President Obama’s upcoming visit to the region.

Will he and will it work?

Hard to say, but the likes of David Hale, Michele Sison, Jeff Feltman, Madeleine Albright, Susan Rice, Alenjandro Wolf (from the sidelines) David Welch, John Burns and David Shapiro—various USAID and other officials do not appear to have built up their squad sufficiently and the election is in less than one month away. Signs of desperation are wafting down from Mount Lebanon and Awkar, site of the US Embassy.

Soon George Mitchell and his expanding entourage will give it a go and maybe, according to this morning’s rumors, President Obama himself, dues ex machina, since the State Department knows he is way more popular among Arabs and Muslims than is current US policy.

As Lebanon wonders if the much admired ‘gifted one’ will appear, the US coaching staff insists that it has been trying not to interfere in the internal affairs of this independent, democratic and sovereign country and explains during carefully culled media interviews, that before the election, none of them will engage or even dialogue with Lebanon’s Hezbollah led Resistance or with Hamas. Some here believe that after the election they may be obliged to seek meetings with both.

The job of recent visiting American officials has been to convince Lebanese voters that PM Fuad Sinioria’s Campaign slogan: “Our policy is to negotiate; theirs is to deter,” (emphasis mine) as he runs for Parliament from the voter and cash rich Hariri home base in Sidon, will deliver votes. The problem is that many Lebanese feel Lebanon is far better off with deterrence against Israeli aggression than what Human Rights Ambassador Ali Khalil calls “fake negotiations carefully designed in Washington and Tel Aviv to achieve nothing”.

Arriving Americans campaign advisors are also expressing alarm over the number of alleged Israeli spies that are being caught—on average of one a week since last January. The US concern appears not to be that there are an awfully lot of Israeli spies in Lebanon, but rather the fact that since the July 2006 War Hezbollah and the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) seem to be working well together and have revamped the ISF unit into Lebanon’s first effective spy snatching outfit.

The implications of this Opposition-Majority cooperation are sobering for the White House. If Hezbollah can so effectively integrate and even merge its intelligence capabilities with those of the Lebanese government to catch Israeli spies, what if there were to be a linkage of Hezbollah’s military capability as some sort of an adjunct to the Lebanese Ministry of Defense? Would this integration force the end of the “Hezbollah has a militia!” chorus that the US team and Israel repeat ad nausea?

“There goes the US ‘Hezbollah Militia’ Card” explained Adham, an energetic Palestinian AUB student who operates a part-time mobile DVD business (lest the cops catch him and it costs him a bribe) selling just released pirated Hollywood movies (only 2000LL or $ 1.34 each!) on Hamra Street, explains: “I am sure Israel would love to do to Lebanon what it did to Gaza. If they did the US and the international community would say destroying Lebanon yet again was “unhelpful to the peace process. (Expletive deleted) Our ‘peace process’ is now deterrence. If Hezbollah and Lebanon’s military linked and perhaps even merged, we can provide for our deterrence and security after the election.”

Watching from the sidelines

As the Lebanese get ready to vote, more than 10% of its population, three generations of whom were born in Lebanon, wait, watch and listen.

Still possessing almost no civil rights including voting, home ownership, employment, secondary state education, health care, identification documents, marriage registration, places to bury their deceased loved ones or equal protection of Lebanese laws, Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees nonetheless have a huge stake in next month’s election results. The 420,000 UNRWA registered Palestinians, more than half living in squalor and jammed packed into 12 camps and half a dozen ‘Gatherings’ barely subsist, the wretched refuge of Zionist ethnic cleansings in 1947-48, and 1967. They are the survivors of various illegal population transfers as well as massacres at Sabra-Shatila ( 1982), Qana I (1996), Qana II ( 2006), Hula (Burg Shemali Camp 1982) Tel al-Zaayter Camp (1975) to mention a few.

Were one to credit, as Hadith or Gospel, recently published Lebanese political Party Platforms, one might imagine hearing “Happy Days are Here Again!” being hummed in Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugee Camps and whistled by the decreasing number of ‘camp kids’ who bother trudging to school.

Judging from the sanguine responses offered by would-be Parliamentary delegates who responded to a Sabra-Shatila Foundation Candidate Questionnaire last month, Lebanon’s Palestinians could be forgiven for lapsing into fantasy and mentally packing their belongings. Perhaps even convening family gatherings, and day dreaming about arranging transport south to return to their homes across the ‘blue line’ in Palestine.

Damping this euphoria, in addition to decades of broken Lebanese government promises of “ providing dignity and help for our Palestinian brethren”, would be the words of the five times Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri. His ubiquitous election billboard photos reminds one these days that before his February 14, 2005 murder, Hariri sometimes told voters, followed with a wide grin: “In Lebanon, believe nothing of what you are told and only half of what you see”.

It is probable that Martyr Hariri would have included current Political Party Pledges to Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugees.

Our word is our bond!

All Lebanese political parties state unequivocally that following next month’s elections they want to grant the Palestinians full basic rights. All the Parties reject the US-Israel project of Tawtin (naturalization). All the Parties and Candidates solemnly pledge that they will work to implement the Palestinians internationally acknowledged (UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (12/11/1948) legal Right to Return ( Haqq al-Awada) to Palestine:

(Article 11):

Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.

Simultaneously, all the parties blame their opponents for obstruction and preventing the implementation of their own Party’s trustworthy altruism.

The pro-US March 14 Future Movement (Tayyar Al Mustaqbal) ) majority Palestine Plank states: “We pledge to return to the traditional role of Lebanon among Arab countries contributing to the cause of Arab solidarity that is the first condition for the Arabs to have their rights, and the total commitment to support the Palestinian people’s struggle and unity under the leadership of the PLO to attain an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as capital, following the “two states” solution and the Arab peace initiative”. That sounds pretty good.

It continues: “We are committed to rejecting the resettlement (Tawtin) of the Palestinian brothers in Lebanon, and favor a constitutional amendment proposed by March 14 MPs regarding this subject 6 months earlier and that requires the unanimity of the parliament in order to amend the constitutional article of the resettlement” (of Palestinians in Lebanon). Also not bad.

The Free Patriotic Movement, under the leadership of General Michel Aoun, electorally allied with Hezbollah since 2006, also rejects Tawtin and favors the blood stream issue of Right of Return, but FPM is not quite so public about other Palestinian planks.

FPM’s public stance (party operatives speak more encouragingly in private) is impacted by the fact that Lebanon’s Christians are split roughly in half between supporters of the pro-US-Hariri Future Movement and the Hezbollah led Opposition. Consequently, Michel Aoun’s FPM needs to convince more right wing Christians to support him. Committing the Party to full Palestinian rights will not achieve that goal. To some of these voters the very word Palestinian brings back bleak memories of bitter years and personal loses.

Aoun is also in a tough election fight with the likes of fellow Maronites Samir Geagea’s Lebanese Forces (who, under Israeli, supply, command, control and attempted cover-up, perpetrated the 1982 Sabra-Shatila Massacre, some of whom with other gangs participated in the slaughter at Tel al-Zaatar, and even encouraged some Christian Lebanese Army Brigades to go AWOL and join the Syrian organized Camp Wars (1985-88) against Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugee Camps. That very black chapter of Lebanon’s history was led by long time Parliament Speaker, Nabih Berri and his Amal Militia, currently allied with Aoun.

Some in today’s FPM don’t like to recall the fact that the siege of Tel a Zaatar Palestinian Camp, which became a massacre, was the result of a plan drawn up by the then leader of the Lebanese party, Free Patriotic Movement, and by none other than today’s leader of FPM, Michel Aoun who was the army commander of the area in 1975-76.
The public opinion at that time among many Lebanese was expressed in Phalange Party slogans and statements such as those contained in the September 1975 Phalange Party Communiquees which viciously attacked the Palestinian presence in Lebanon, and even advocated that Lebanon should dissociate itself from Arabism. The Phalange party spread its messages around Beirut using hate speech Graffiti.
One popular slogan from the late 1970’s was: It is a duty for each Lebanese to kill a Palestinian", reminiscent of today’s “Kill the Arabs” graffiti by some Zionist groups.

The FPM is not about to rile these voters by rubbing the salt of Palestinian Rights into their wounds. Moreover, Aoun’s FMP is also battling for Christian votes with Amin Gemayal’s right wing Phalange party and his clan’s 61 years of antipathy towards Palestinians, especially at Tel a Zaatar.

The FPM Platform demands that the Palestinians give up their weapons (i.e. certain armed Palestinian groups such as Fatah Intifada and Ahmad Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (arch foe of the increasingly well armed Kataeb-Phalange-Lebanese Forces and Druze Militias) and presumably armed groups inside Bedawi and Ein el Helwe camps). Finally, the FPM half heartedly promises the Palestinians the right to work, but “to be given on the basis of what Lebanon economic needs require.”

Some analysts in Lebanon feel that civil war era memories and wounds have yet to heal here and that while the public generally supports the Palestinians, strong anti-Palestinian sentiments still fester just under the skin of some powerful Lebanese politicians and their widely extended families. This may be part of the reason they have failed for many years to act to relieve Palestinian suffering. One cannot visit the Camps and associate with the current younger Camp generation without feeling that, mired in near hopelessness, they are tragically paying dearly for their elder’s unsettled accounts.

Is Hezbollah the Palestinians last best hope or must the Refugees continue to go it alone?

Hezbollah’s political stance towards Palestine is well known and its support among Lebanon’s Palestinians is strong within all 9 PLO factions still existing here. Even though they cannot offer any votes in the June election, secular Palestinians want the Party of God to do much more it for them if forms the next government.

Hezbollah intends to liberate Palestine and escort Lebanon’s Palestinians home. That’s the only reason it’s still on the US political terrorism list. If it abandons the Palestinian cause it immediately comes off the list according to increasingly numbers of western diplomats seeking dialog with the Party of God.

Hezbollah’s Party platform focuses on improving and developing Social Services for Lebanese citizens and Palestinian Refugees.

Mohammed Ra'ad, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, presented Hezbollah’s election platform on April 3, 2009:

“The resistance is determined to complete the liberation of the remaining occupied lands, and particularly the Shebaa Farms and the hills of Kfar Shuba. We believe that any strategy of defense must integrate the current capabilities of the resistance and the capabilities of the Lebanese army, enabling it to stand up to Israeli aspirations regarding our lands and our water sources. We affirm our enmity to Israel, our support and assistance to our Palestinian brothers to liberate their land and the holy places…”

“In light of our conviction that the state cannot shirk its caring role nor behave in an indifferent manner or be apathetic towards the needs of the citizens, it is the duty of the state to improve services in the field of health, education, housing, and social care.”

Hezbollah intends that Palestinian Refugees receive these social services and pledges “generalizing the principle of healthcare and preventive medicine”, which is an urgent need in the Palestinian Camps despite UNWRA’s ever diminishing, underfunded but noble efforts.

Hezbollah’s electoral Platform also pledges “Backing efforts to develop and reform the National Fund for Social Security and expanding the circle of its beneficiaries.” Palestinian social workers and researchers at Beirut’s Mar Elias Palestinian Camp, including renowned Palestinian scholar Dr. Samer Suheil, emphasize that including the Camp populations in Lebanon’s social security system is essential to help sustain them until they return to Palestine.

Hezbollah agrees, and is pledging to fulfill its Party Platform.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon.  He can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org

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