Today's Stories

September 11-13, 2009

Leonard Peltier
I am Barack Obama's Political Prisoner Now

Benjamin Dangl
Throwing Bullets at Failed Policies

Mike Whitney
How to Fight Deflation

Russell Mokhiber
Disgraceful Democrats

Jordan Flaherty
The Battle Over Discriminatory Housing Laws in New Orleans

Ron Jacobs
It's Time to be Impolite About Afghanistan

David Macaray
The Utility of Boycotts

Paul Krassner
Aha! A Few Words About the 9/11 Truth Movement

September 10, 2009

Joshua Frank
Inside Hanford's B Reactor: a Tour of the World's Most Toxic Nuclear Site

Dean Baker
Bernanke's Bad Money

Brian M. Downing
The State of U.S. National Security

Franklin C. Spinney
Portrait of an Afghan Firefight: Up Close and Personal

Andy Worthington
No Escape From Guantánamo

Chase Madar
Samantha Power and the Weaponization of Human Rights

Farzana Versey
A Tale of Two Slums

Ronnie Cummins
Whole Foods, Fair Trade and Organics

Binoy Kampmark
Health Care, Obama and the System

Timothy Lebrón
The Conservative Case for Health Care Reform

Charles R. Larson
A Solution to the Health Care Dilemma

Website of the Day
The Debtor's Revolt Begins!

September 9, 2009

Richard Neville
Trigger-Happy in Afghanistan

Melissa Checker
Double Jeopardy: Carbon Offsets and Human Rights Abuses

Nadia Hijab
Settling for ... Settlements?

Robert Weissman
The Stakes at the Supreme Court

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Arabs Call for General Strike

Russell Mokhiber
Pollan, Mackey, Whole Foods and Single Payer

James Ridgeway
The Dotty Factor: Will Demented Geezers Wreck the Economy?

Richard W. Behan
Obama's Imperative in Afghanistan

James McEnteer
The Photo and the Secretary: How to Appall Robert Gates

Martha Rosenberg
Hatchery Horrors

Website of the Day
Belmondo Verité

September 8, 2009

Henry A. Giroux
The Corporate Stranglehold on Education

Stephen Soldz
Psychologist Accused of War Crimes Opposes Investigations

John Ross
Rituals of the Absurd

Jeff Leys
Health Care vs. Warfare: the Future of the Afghan War

Mike Whitney Ashcroft: Repugnant to the Constitution

Shamus Cooke
Obama's Empty Labor Day Speech

Ellen Brown
Did Lehman Brothers Fall or Was It Pushed?

Norman Solomon Men With Guns: In Kabul and Washington

Deepak Tripathi
The Axis of Evil and the Great Satan

Laray Polk
Personality Cults, Indoctrination and Inculcation

Charles R. Larson
Just Who Does He Think He Is?

Website of the Day
The President is Not a Guidance Counselor

September 7, 2009

Vicente Navarro
Obama's Mistakes in Health Care Reform

Bouthaina Shaaban
In Praise of Admiral Mullen

David Macaray
Obama's Labor Day Report Card

Paul Craig Roberts
Indefensible Nation

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Ads Warn Against Marrying Non-Jews

Conn Hallinan
Brazil Flexes Its Muscles

Walter Brasch
The Origins of Labor Day, the Unknown Holiday

Mark Weisbrot
IMF Gives Honduran Government $175 Million

Carl Finamore
China's Birthday Stimulation

C. G. Estabrook
Advance Text of Obama's Big Speech

Website of the Day
One Down, 20,000 to Go

September 4-6, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Deeper Into the Tunnel

Carl Ginsburg
Saving New Orleans' Charity Hospital

Jonathan Cook
The Missing Link in Israeli Organ Theft?

George Wuerthner
The Unintended Consequences of Wolf Hunting

Marc Levy
The Bling They Curse and Carry

Ray McGovern
Holbrooke's Afghan Benchmark

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
It Happened in Miami

Joe Paff
Organizing the Mission

Gareth Porter
Taliban's Tank-Killing Bombs Came From CIA, Not Iran

Devin Beaulieu
Scaremongering About Bolivia and Islam

Anthony Papa
Why Leslie Crocker Snyder Should Not Become New York City's New DA

David Ker Thomson
Love and Dekes in Utopia

Don Fitz
The Case of the Biodevastation 7: What the Police Won't Apologize For

Lee Sustar /
S. Sepehri
The Fallout From Iran's Elections

Jim Goodman
Why Honor Organized Labor?

Wajahat Ali
Domestic Crusaders: Making Muslim American Theater

Ron Jacobs
Agitator Journalism: Remembering Ramparts

Helen Redmond
The Lion Sleeps Tonight: the Crimes and Misdemeanors of Teddy Kennedy

John V. Walsh
Obama to Cindy Sheehan: Get Lost

Charles R. Larson
Mandanipour's Masterpiece: Censoring an Iranian Love Story

Mark Scaramella
Ho-Bleeping-Hum: a Few Well-Chosen Words About Valerie Plame's Book

David Yearsley
Cameron Carpenter's Amazing Organ Transplants

Ben Sonnenberg
Hooking, Breaking Friendships, Cross-Dressing and, Above All, Delphine Seyrig

Poets' Basement
Davies, Orloski and Bready

Website of the Weekend
Architectural Semiotics with Glenn Beck

September 3, 2009

Marcus Rediker
Inside Auburn Prison

Ron Jacobs
Embedded With the Taliban

Mike Whitney
How Bad Will It Get?

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Untold Story of the Cuban Five: Indictment À La Carte

Saul Landau
Moby Dick and Asian Typhoons

Anat Matar
Israeli Academics Must Pay a Price to End Occupation

Tanya Golash-Boza
How Immigration Enforcement is Weakening National Security

Dave Lindorff
Which Side Are You On?

Andy Worthington
The Story of Gitmo's Two Syrians

Website of the Day
Plundering Appalachia

September 2, 2009

John Ross
Mexico's Plagues

Vijay Prashad
Hey Ram, the Things the Financial Times Group Does!

Rev. Jim Rigby
Why is Universal Health Care "Un-American"?

Joanne Mariner
What the Inspector General Found

Missy Beattie
Hejira: At Martha's Vineyard with Cindy Sheehan

Soren Ambrose
Multilateral Money

Diane Farsetta
Water: the Newest Wave of Corporate "Social Responsibility"

Nadia Hijab
Mulling Mullen's Message

Shamus Cooke
How to Lower the Deficit Without Killing Social Security

Charles R. Larson
Is Dick Cheney Running Scared?

Website of the Day
Inside the Egg Hatchery

September 1, 2009

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Wolf at Trout Creek

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Not Sanctions for Israel?

Mark T. Harris
The Whole Foods Boycott: It's About More Than CEO Hypocrisy

Dean Baker
Bank Profits Are Up: Did You Hear Anyone Say, "Thank You"?

Jeffrey Buchanan
Ending the Human Rights Crisis in KatrinaRitaVille

Robin Mittenthal
A Sea of Monocrops: Old MacDonald Never Had a Farm Like This

Ellen Brown
Mercury Mischief

Martha Rosenberg
Vytorin Marketing is Back

Website of the Day
Crazy Town Hall Protester Interviews

August 31, 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the SEC's Revolving Door

Anthony DiMaggio
What Obama Isn't Telling You About Afghanistan

Bouthaina Shaaban
Israeli Bodysnatchers

Ray McGovern
The Press and Torture: Covering for Cheney?

Joseph Shansky
Scenes of Resistance in Honduras

Greg Moses
The Dying Dillos of Austin

Brian McKenna
Pig Sacrifice and Swine Flu Panic

David Macaray
The Tender Trap

Brenda Norrell
Uranium Mining in the Grand Canyon

Paul Craig Roberts
The Environment Loses a Champion

Beth Sherouse
Why I'm Going to the Big Gay March in Washington

Website of the Day
The Failure of the Left Antiwar Movement

August 28-30, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion

Joshua Frank /
Jeffrey St. Clair
From the Ledge to the Edge: How Tre Arrow Became America's Most Wanted Environmental "Terrorist"

Steve Early
Kennedy's Sins Against Labor

Michael Hudson
Learning About Financialization the Hard Way

Carl Ginsburg
Bernanke in Obamatime

Saul Landau
The Nuclear Gang Rides Again

Dave Marsh
Trapped Again: Michael Jackson's Crossover Dream

Mike Whitney
Band-Aids for the Recession

Dave Lindorff
Obama's War

José Pertierra
A Decision in the Posada Case

Joe Bageant
Obama's Fake Fight for Reform

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Spies Without Espionage

Lee Sustar
On Strike for Health Care Justice

David Ker Thomson
Life in the 'Shed

David Rosen
The Silent Slaughter: Sex Wars and Nation-Building in Iraq

Alison Weir
Israeli Organ Harvesting

Ron Jacobs
Will There be Free Speech in Pittsburgh?

David Swanson
Bush Tortured

Udi Aloni
An Appeal to Israeli Filmmakers

Charles R. Larson
Children During Wartime

Kim Nicolini
District 9: Science Fiction of the Now

David Yearsley
The Wagner Cult in Seattle

Lorenzo Wolff
Riding the Rails with King Curtis

Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Marc Beaudin

Website of the Weekend
The Hidden History of Katrina

August 27, 2009

Andrea Peacock
Bearly Making It: How Many Biologists Does It Take to Count a Dead Grizzly?

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Incapacitating the Cuban Five

Ray McGovern
Closing in on the Torturers

Gideon Levy
The Last Refuge: Neve Gordon and the Boycott of Israel

Shamus Cook
World Bankers Agree: the Recession is Over ... Maybe

Norman Solomon
The Afghanistan Gap

Marshall Auerbach
We Already Have a Public Option

Benjamin Dangl
Reclaiming a Continent

Kathryn Gray
The Water Privateers

David Macaray
Please Buy Our Beer (And Join Our Union)

Website of the Day
Stop the Privatization of Ocean Fisheries

August 26, 2009

Gareth Porter
The Leaking Game: Planted News Stories About Iran and Nuclear Weapons

Dave Lindorff
Getting Away With Torture: Holder's Limited, Modified Hangout

Dean Baker
The Reappointment of Bernanke

Laura Carlsen
The Coup and Honduran Women

Paul Craig Roberts
When the Government Comes First

Laura Raymond /
Bill Quigley
Haiti One Year After the Hurricane

Jordan Flaherty
Still Homeless, Still Struggling in New Orleans

Jonathan Cook
The Long Struggle to Reclaim Beersheva's Great Mosque

Robert Bryce
Bamboozled About Energy

Danny Weil
The Future of Charter Schools

Cindy Sheehan
Farewell, Senator Kennedy

John V. Walsh
Cindy Sheehan's Lonely Vigil in Obamaland

Website of the Day
The President's Laugh Line

August 25, 2009

Gabriel Kolko
Israel: A Stalemated Action of History

Danny Weil
The Charter School Hype and How It's Managed

Martine Bulard
China's Wild West

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
The Cuban Five: The Face of Impunity

Bélen Fernández
Why Didn't the Leopard Eat Tom Friedman?

August 24, 2009

Danny Weil
Obama and Duncan's Education Policy: Like Bush's, Only Worse

Neve Gordon
Stopping the Apartheid State
Boycott Israel

John Ross
Mexico's Supreme Court Tosses a Bombshell into Chiapas

Open Letter to Kenneth Roth
Why Has Human Rights Watch Fallen Silent on Honduras?

Dan Bacher
A Burston-Marsteller Greenwash:
Westlands Hoards Surplus Water While Farmers Suffer

August 21-23, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Right Wing's Prince of Gonzo

Patrick Cockburn
The Truth About Afghan Election

Ray McGovern
Unwritten CIA Death Contract Awarded to Blackwater

Carl Ginsburg
Paycheck President

Dave Lindorff
American Justice is Not Blind, But it is Truly Sick

M. Shahid Alam
An "Abnormal" Nationalism

Ron Jacobs
The Continuing Story of Camp Ashraf

Eric Walberg
Russia/Georgia/U.S. One Year Later
Who Came Out Ahead

No War on the Moon!
In Defense of the Dark Side of the Moon

Gilad Atzmon
The Hostage Dream: Loving Oneself at the Expense of Another

Crawdad Nelson
What It's Like to Die

David Yearsley
Why I Chose to Play Scarlatti on Bainbridge Island

Justin Frew
Grim Times for Irish Travelers

Website of the Day
Picket Whole Foods Friday!

August 20, 2009

Eugenia Tsao
Inside the DSM:
The Drug Barons' Campaign to Make Us All Crazy

Dave Lindorff
The Worst and the Best Thing to Happen to the Democratic Party in Years

Yonatan Preminger
The Strategy Behind Israel's Migrant Labor Policies

Wajahat Ali
The Detention of Shah Rukh Kahn

Website of the Day
How to cope with flu pandemics

August 19, 2009

David Michael Green
Guess What? He's a Terrible President

Paul Craig Roberts
Americans: Serfs Ruled by Oligarchs

Marshall Auerback
Debt Revolt? Tax Strike? There are a Lot of Angry People Out There

Franklin Lamb
AIPAC Sends in the Clowns

John Ross
Three Amigos Summit

Marjorie Cohn
Legendary Lawyer Doris Brin Walker Dies; Represented Angela Davis, Smith Act Defendants

August 18, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Specter of Debt Revolt Is Haunting Europe?

Mary Lynn Cramer
Obama-Fraud: Don't Confuse Medicare with Single-Payer

Jonathan Cook
U.S. Turns Blind Eye to Israel's New Separation Policy

Uri Avnery
Whose Acre?

Ralph Nader
Block Obama's Abject Surrender to Insurance and Drug Companies

Bill Quigley & Davida Finger
Katrina Pain Index - 2009

August 17, 2009

Ray McGovern
Can the Washington Post Save Dick Cheney?

Andy Worthington
Bagram Isn't the New Guantánamo, It's the Old Guantánamo

Patrick Cockburn
Life and Death in Baghdad as Americans Leave

Don Fitz
The True Story of Fox's Hero, Kenneth Gladney

P. Sainath
Drought of Justice, Flood of Funds

Helena Cobban
Zionist Pioneer Renounces Zionism

August 14-16, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Health Plans and Death Plans

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Fall of the House of Stanford

Peter Linebaugh
The Commons, the Castle, the Witch and the Lynx

Esam Al-Amin
What Actually Happened in Fatah's Elections?

Marshall Auerback
Why a Debtor's Revolt Would Work

Mike Whitney
Bulletins From Clunkerville

Paul Krassner
Woodstock at Forty

Saul Landau
Health Care and the Seeds of Disunity

Nikolas Kozloff
Colombian Elites Fear Bolivaran Revolution

Henry A. Giroux
Politics After Hope

John Ross
Sleepwalking Through the Minefield

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Land Sale

Isabella Kenfield
Monsanto's Man in the Obama Administration

David Rosen
Sexual Torture, Yet Again

Ron Jacobs
Unconditional Negotiations, Now!

Wajahat Ali
Obama's Immigration Reforms: Neither Humane Nor Thoughtful

David Macaray
Prison Games

Greg Moses
Down in South Texas: the Geometries of Bob Dylan

Charles R. Larson
Egyptian Economics 101

David Yearsley
Stalked by Bill Evans' Ghost: Kind of Blue at Fifty

Lorenzo Wolff
There Ain't Much to Country Livin': the Drive-By Truckers and the Fine Print

Kim Nicolini
Class, Race and Clint

Poets' Basement
Reiss, Ford and Moser

Website of the Weekend
Timidity and Transparency

August 13, 2009

Eduardo Galeano
I Hate to Bother You

Joanne Mariner
Letting Cheney Off the Hook

Michael Donnelly
Burning Forests for Electricity

Norman Solomon
When the Dead Have No Say

Russell Mokhiber
Boycott Whole Foods

Tim Wise
Sick Heil! The Hitlerizing of Obama

Brian M. Downing
Succession and the Pakistani Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Single-Payer and Medicare

David Manning / Miriam Cotton:
Iran Versus Honduras: a Subtle Difference

Martha Rosenberg
John Hughes, Gone With Only 59 Candles

Website of the Day
Congress Can't Find Their As-teroids

August 12, 2009

Michael J. Watts
Nigeria on the Brink

Bouthaina Shaaban
Where are the Arabs to Stand Up for the Hanoun and Ghawi Families?

Ricardo Alarcón
The Cuban Five: Justice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
Terror Australis

Paul Craig Roberts
Concocting the Appearance of Recovery

Alan Farago
Going Down Absurd: the Future of Florida Bay

James Ridgeway
Ghostwriting Your Meds

Dave Lindorff
10 Questions to Ask If You Find Yourself at an ObamaCare Town Hall Meeting

David Macaray
Labor and the Conventional Wisdom

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Assimilation of Niranjan Ramakrishnan

Website of the Day
A Petition in Support of Janice Harper

August 11, 2009

Ricardo Alarcón
Forbidden Heroes

Marshall Auerback
America's Biggest Economic Problem?

Reza Yavari
Inside Iran's Most Infamous Prison

Winslow T. Wheeler
How Congress Pays For Its Pork

Tim Wise
Red-Baiting and Racism

Uri Avnery
A Moral Person

Deepak Tripathi
Getting Away With Torture

Greg Moses
Time to Plan for the Worst

Benjamin Dangl
Boycotting Big Beer

Dave Lindorff
Hecklers Unite! Why Aren't Progressives Disrupting ObamaCare Town Halls?

Website of the Day
What Bush Told Chirac About the Iraq War

August 10, 2009

David Price
Trial by FBI Investigation

Mike Whitney
There is No Recession; It's a Planned Demolition

Alan Farago
Seeds of Destruction: How the National Economy was Wrecked by the Politics of Deregulation in Florida

Conn Hallinan
The Honduran Coup: a U.S. Connection

Russell Mokhiber
Health Care: In Defense of Disruption

Paul Krassner
The Mystery Behind the Manson Murders

Sousan Hammad
Orgy of the Dead: the 2009 Fatah Conference

Jonathan Cook
Israeli School Apartheid

Ira Glunts
Netanyahu's Sister-in-Law Detained by Israeli Police; Calls Evictions an Unjustified Folly

George Wuerthner
Dead Tree Hysteria

Website of the Day
Conyers: ObamaCare is Crap

August 7 - 9, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
It Pays to Have a Nuke

Mike Whitney
Economy on a Scaffold

Elaine C. Hagopian
Obama's Israel Albatross

Carl Ginsburg
RX For Healthcare

Miguel Tinker Salas
Honduras is Only Part of the Story: the Conservative Counter-Attack in Latin America

Saul Landau
The Kidney Broker and the Money Laundering Rabbis

John Ross
The Mexican Genome: Big Science in the Service of Indian Genocide?

Anthony DiMaggio Obama and the Israel Lobby: Origins of Power

John Stanton
Expanding Human Terrain Systems?

Christopher Brauchli Legal Absurdities: Outing Three Strikes

Wajahat Ali
A Muslim American Hero: an Interview with Dave Eggers on "Zeitoun"

Ron Jacobs
As Long as the Wars Continue, We Must Resist Them

Franklin Lamb
Sunday Morning on the Dunes: Cleaning "Free Gaza Beach"

Bruce E. Levine
Protect Us From Our Friends

Michael Winship
Neighborhood Watch for Planet Earth

David Macaray
Glimmers of Hope for Labor?

Stephen Fleischman
Suicide Squad

Robert Bryce
Unplugging the Next Big Thing: the Hype Over Electric Cars

Robert Dodge, MD: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered

Mark Seth Lender
The Message of the Glossy Ibis

David Yearsley
Vaucanson's Faun and the Duck in the Attic

Ben Sonnenberg
Chris Fuller's Brilliant Debut

Lorenzo Wolff
When Music's the Character

Poets' Basement
Dominguez and Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Warren Buffett's Betrayal

August 6, 2009

Ishmael Reed
Let's All Have a Beer

Paul Craig Roberts
The Expiring Economy

William Blum Assassinations and Coups: Keeping Track of the Empire's Crimes

Michael Donnelly
Rod Coronado: the Hardest Working Man in Animal Rights "Terrorism"

Jonathan Cook
Rabbis Ban Marriage for Israeli "Untouchables"

Dave Lindorff
The Health Care Reform Sell-Out

Ellen Brown
The Public Option in Banking

Website of the Day
Ellsberg on Hiroshima

August 5, 2009

Dedrick Muhammad /
Barbara Ehrenreich
The Destruction of the Black Middle Class

Norman Solomon
The Incredible, Shrinking Health Care Plan

William Blum
The Myths of Afghanistan: Past and Present

Gareth Porter
The ISI and the Taliban: US Officials Are Protecting Pakistani Aid to Taliban

Mary Lynn Cramer
The Myth of Medicare for All

Jim Goodman
Obama Needs to Take a Stand on Trade

Nadia Hijab
Playing From Strength in the Middle East

Gretchen Kroth
Guatemala's Garbage Dump Education System

Steve Macek /
Scott Sanders
Privatizing the Airwaves

Sarah Lazare
Inside G.I. Resistance

Website of the Day
The Locavore Myth

August 4, 2009

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Shell Game

Dave Lindorff
The Recession Isn't Over, By a Long Shot

Patrick Cockburn
Did British Bomb Attacks in Iran Provoke Hostage Crisis?

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Campaign to Silence Human Rights Groups

Jeff Sher
Making a Mess of Health Care Reform

Dean Baker
Why Don't We Globalize Health Care?

Andy Worthington
Gitmo as Hotel California

Uri Avnery
A Jeremiad

Mark Weisbrot
U.S.-Brokered Mediation in Honduras Has Failed

Alvaro Huerta
Hold That Dustbin! So Much for the "End of Racism"

Website of the Day
Pentagon to Ban Facebook and Twitter?

September 11-13, 2009

Bum Wraps

Ted Kennedy's Changing Take on Israel

By FRANKLIN LAMB

Being wrapped in an Israeli flag this past week has caused Madonna, our Lady of Miracles, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and AIPAC some flak.
First, the simple case. Strutting underdressed across the concert stage in Tel Aviv wrapped in an Israel flag on 9/2/09, as her partner, the Brazilian model ‘Jesus’ shouted ‘Viva! Viva!’ off stage was probably just the Material Girl doing her material thing. And anyhow, the late Michael Jackson could have been mistaken when he made his snide remark a while back, “She can’t sing.  She can’t dance.  I don’t understand her success!”

On her quick trip north to the Palestinian village of Safad near the Lebanese border to view a Kabbalah shrine, Esther/Madonna may not have been advised that most of Safad’s population was ethnically cleansed in 1948 and with their offspring most now live in 12 Refugee Camps in Lebanon and 10 in Syria.  Reading deep politics into her flag-wearing event may be unwarranted since Esther/Madonna has now apparently offered to don the Palestinian flag or even Hamas’ or Hezbollah’s just to make amends and dampen the flap from her flag wrap. 

Abe Foxman, President of ADL and AIPAC  on the other hand, knew exactly what they were doing four days earlier as both offered to send an Israeli flag to  Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston's Mission Hill section. The plan was to wrap Ted Kennedy’s casket, side by side with the American flag, each flag to cover roughly half of Ted’s casket during Kennedy’s internationally broadcast funeral, which was even watched live in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburbs. Only since the lobby’s continuing exploitation of the Holocaust and ADL’s use of the image of Yasser Arafat to demonize him and raise millions to fund illegal settlement expansion, did Foxman see such a terrific chance to hype brand Zionism, this time by linking it in perpetuity to the Kennedy mystique and the Arlington Cemetery eternal flame.

Wrapping Kennedy in the Israeli flag for history would no doubt give a boost to Israel’s preferred historical narrative and the Israeli flag which has increasingly come to represent virulent Zionism and its crimes.

AIPAC claims the well-intentioned project to wrap Kennedy in the Star of David was no more than another gesture for the memory of a friend of the Jewish people. Perhaps Abe saw his initiative as a return tribute for Ted’s thoughtfulness during the November 6, 1995 funeral for Yitzak Rabin on Mount Herzl (renamed for the founder of modern Zionism, Hungarian Binyamin Ze'ev (Theodore)  Herzl, who had never set foot in Palestine, from its ancient  expunged Arabic name “Jabal Assalam” meaning ‘Peace Mountain”) On that day Senator Kennedy sprinkled a cup of soil from his two brothers, John and Robert’s, gravesites at Arlington Cemetery on Rabin’s, as a gesture of respect.

Despite some intense lobbying, the Kennedy family graciously declined the Foxman-AIPAC offer and Ted’s coffin carried only the American flag.

Quite appropriately, the late senator did draw well earned encomia from a broad range of Jewish organizations, spanning the spectrum from the Orthodox Union to the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Israeli officials praised Kennedy, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling the senator "a great friend of Israel," and Israeli President Shimon Peres declaring Kennedy's death was "a very big loss for Israel and thinking people the world over. Kennedy was a clear friend of Israel the whole way, and in every place that he could help us he did help. During his more than four decades in the US Senate, Sen. Kennedy consistently supported American assistance to Israel.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, praised Kennedy as “a great friend to me and to Israel and to the Jewish people. He was one of ours.”  The anti-Palestinian American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris added that “Kennedy was in his hearts of heart an Israeli who could always be relied upon. His support for the well-being of the State of Israel faced with Arab threats, was always firm, as was his solidarity with vulnerable Jewish communities”, Harris noted.  Kennedy was kind of like “Joe Biden the Zionist” Harris would have us believe.

AIPAC wanted more

Before Kennedy’s body had cooled, AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr issued a declaration to its Campus Allies Mission that Kennedy belonged to Israel and vice versa and implied that to suggest otherwise was, well probably yet another  anti-Semitic ‘blood libel’ of some sort. He insinuated that Kennedy’s function in death should be to help keep U.S. critics of Israeli actions at bay lest they exposed themselves as un-American. 

Like many American students interested in politics, this observer followed Ted Kennedy’s career, the good and the bad.  On my second day at Boston University, I walked across Boston Common to his Tremont Street campaign office and saw a large sign above the entrance. I recall  that it read: “Ever since those immortal words of Thomas Jefferson, ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’ the Democratic party has stood for the right of men and women to dignity, freedom, and to move ahead.” I found the sign inspiring and joined his Campaign for the U.S. Senate.  Odd how one remembers a sign from some many years ago when often one is not sure what day of the week it is.

I always felt a sort of vague connection with Ted Kennedy.  We were both the youngest of a large loving family.  He had five sisters and three brothers and I have five brothers (one died in infancy) and three sisters. I knew what it was like to try to keep up with older idolized active, sometimes wild, siblings and get regularly shunted aside.  We were both raised by devout Catholic Mothers, he Roman, me Anglican. Admittedly Milwaukie, Oregon was not Hyannis Port  on Cape Cod, Massachusetts,  but  it was just as good, and I am sure we had as much fun growing up with family sports, camping in the woods, picking strawberries for pocket money and swimming nearly every day in Oregon’s creeks, rivers, streams, or lakes.

I did not know Ted Kennedy well personally, but from two stints on his staff, in Boston and on his campaign Issues Staff including during his ill-fated 1980 Presidential bid  at the 22nd and Q St, NW National HQ  in Washington, DC, we had some conversations and once,  he actually saved me from the wrath of the Israeli lobby who wanted me fired when as a Member of the Democratic National Committee from Oregon, I addressed the 1980 Democratic Convention Platform Committee and advocated that the Party support a Palestinian State. I made clear my advocacy was my own view and not those of the Kennedy Campaign.   Kennedy would not let Paul Kirk, our campaign chairman fire me as Kirk yelled, “For Christ’s sake Lamb, the Carter campaign in New York will beat us over the head with this!”  Kennedy told me and Kirk with a hearty laugh “They (the Lobby) will get over it.”

My issues ‘specialty’ was supposedly US-Soviet Relations (we did not have a middle east issues desk only one called ‘Israel’) but most of my days and nights (sometimes, past midnight,  the  increasingly cash strapped campaign would spring for a feast  at Blackie’s House of Beef up the block)  were spent in a windowless room frantically calling around the country compiling ‘day books’ filled with the latest statistics on such compelling subjects as the current price Maine farmers were getting for potatoes, or the ‘hot issues’ in Keene, New Hampshire or how” Carter’s Interest Rates” (sometimes around 18 per cent) were ruining every community in Iowa  the EMK ’80 Campaign Bus rolled into.  We tried to impress journalists like Alexander Cockburn, then working for the Village Voice and also covering the Kennedy campaign for Rolling Stone, with our erudition. Alas, as CounterPunchers learned recently. Alexander was apparently not much impressed by our statistical work or the whole EMK ’80 campaign for that matter.

Our campaigns problem was that we failed to convince Democratic Party voters that there were real differences between Kennedy and Carter.  Historian Theodore H. White noted that Ted’s main problem with Carter was competence with the legislative process.  White quoted Ted in 1982: “Even on issues we agree on, he doesn’t know how to do it,” White, likened Ted’s attitude toward Carter as “the contempt of a master machinist for a plumber’s assistant” but the voters did not get it and we took body blows week after week as the primaries, unmercifully,  seemed never to end.
I puzzled, as many did, over what I considered Kennedy’s PEP problem (Progressive Except Palestine).  How could a fellow turn a blind eye to Israel’s crimes in Palestine when he exhibited such a passion to fight for what he called the most "humble members of society." I acknowledge his actions that weakened America’s labor movement and his votes on GATT and NAFTA and his much criticized role in setting up the World Trade Organization, but even his detractors acknowledge  his considerable legislative skills to help enact Medicare and the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title IX, a woman’s right to choose,  AmericaCorps, No Child Left Behind and the Ryan White AIDS Act, mental health parity, the State-Children's Health Insurance Program, raising the minimum wage, the government program that extends health insurance for the unemployed,  the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act and who did more than perhaps any senator in modern memory to advance the cause of civil rights -- he was one of the few senators to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act, and called health care the "greatest cause" of his life.

How could Ted Kennedy, in many ways, such a compassionate person, and a staunch critic of the war against Iraq suspend his independence of judgment, his moral compass, avert his eyes and cast so many votes funding Israel’s brutal occupation.  This has troubled me and many on his regular office staff over the years.  I suspect it also came back to trouble him as he appeared to back pedal from some of his earlier pro-Israel rhetoric.

Kennedy was never as gross in his proclaimed fealty to Israel as many members of Congress and occasionally he raised eyebrows when he declined some of the ‘raw meat’ language ever offered by AIPAC ‘advisors’ for inclusion in his speeches. But he regularly used the Israel card when it served him politically.

I was present at one campaign event when Kennedy spoke before the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations on January 28, 1980, in the run-up to the New York Primary.  He attacked Jimmy Carter in every borough of New York City, accusing him of an "on again, off again flirtation" with the PLO and of holding "pro-Palestinian positions."  He told the audience,  “I know that in advocating Israel’s cause, I am inevitably advancing the cause of America," and he asked, rhetorically, "what sort of a settlement can Israel expect from this president electorally unfettered in his second term? How often have threats and pressures, veiled and explicit, been used by this Administration in attempting to coerce Israel?”

The presidential primary polls indicated that Carter would beat Kennedy in the New York Democratic primary by a margin of 54 to 28 percent. But on March 1, Carter’s UN Ambassador, Donald F. McHenry, voted for a resolution in the UN Security Council condemning Israeli settlement activity in Jerusalem an issue still with us. Three weeks later, Kennedy beat Carter in New York by 59 percent to 41 percent.  Ted knew that the Israel lobby had come through for him. Paul Kirk smiled at me.

The brilliant Boston University Government Professor Murry B. Levin’s lectures, between 1955 and 1989 when he retired, often drew 1000 students into BU’s crammed Hayden Hall.  Levin was author of the Alienated Voter, the Compleat Politician and several books on Kennedy.  He would tell his spell-bound students, including this one, that Ted followed House Speaker Tip O’Neil’s creed that all politics are local and for years Kennedy showed little interest in foreign affairs and focused on domestic issues and local constituencies.  This helped the Israel lobby secure Kennedy’s seemingly blind support according to Levin.

Few on the issues staff at EMK ‘80 HQ thought that Ted’s comments on Israel/Palestine were extreme. Out of more than  a dozen in our cramped “issues office” 10 were fairly hard core Zionists with Ted’s niece Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and her husband David, who worked on education issues,  and this observer  the exceptions and only non-Jews.  Rabbi Alexander Schindler, a friend, told us that the Kennedy pledge to Israel was the most unequivocal he had ever heard from any Presidential candidate.That was nearly 30 years ago.  By today’s debased standards, Kennedy’s words now appear less strident. Kennedy supported Obama’s current efforts in Palestine and was, according to some on his foreign policy staff, getting ready to go toe to toe with the Israeli lobby if necessary “to settle this mess”.  Who doubts that Obama needed Kennedy to weigh in with the Israeli lobby to salvage Middle East initiatives?  But would he have done so?

Was Kennedy breaking with Israel’s Apartheid?

Following September 11, Senator Kennedy felt strongly that it was important to establish positive ties with more people of the Muslim world. To support that goal, he and colleagues established a program to provide scholarships for secondary school students from countries with significant Muslim populations to spend up to one academic year in the United States. These students live with American host families, attend high school, and engage in activities to learn about American society and values, acquire leadership skills, and help educate Americans about their countries and cultures. Since the program began in the fall of 2002, approximately 3,000 students from more than 30 countries have participated.  Meanwhile, Kennedy   started regularly calling a number of Muslim and Arab opinion leaders to assure them that 9/11 would not be allowed to bring division among Americans. 

Kennedy also recently defended Judge Richard Goldstone's UN-mandated investigation of both sides of the Gaza conflict. He met with human rights groups that have been the target of a disinformation campaign launched by the Israeli government. Kennedy recognized the problem of the Israeli military killing mainly civilians. He argued to his staff that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza should not be lamely excused or covered up but should be seen for what is was and must not happen again.

Kennedy staffers attest to the fact that he read Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other reports that showed, through detailed, on-the-ground investigations for example, that Israeli forces fired white phosphorous munitions indiscriminately over civilian areas, shot and killed Palestinian civilians waving white flags, attacked children playing on rooftops with precision missiles fired from aerial drones and needlessly destroyed civilian property.

Kennedy’s Senate staff provided him with the proof of Israeli air attacks on Gaza – the buildings blown to rubble, the children killed on their way to school, the long rows of mutilated corpses, the wailing mothers and wives, the crowds of terrified Palestinians not knowing where to flee, the hospitals so overburdened and out of supplies they cannot treat the wounded, and our studied, callous indifference to this widespread human suffering.

Staffers noted that their boss winced when he read reports or received briefing like the recent one study from the UN about 10,000 Gazans having no access to a water network - while about 60 per cent of the nearly 1.5 million population receive water only intermittently while water consumption in the Gaza Strip is less than a third of that of Israelis living just a few miles away.

Kennedy,  a long term backer of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel recently changed his views and  came to favor a shared Holy City for all faiths along the lines  long advocated by the Papacy, and  in principal he did not oppose having Jerusalem  the Capitol of both Palestine and Israel. He was also said to be studying and reconsidering the requirements of UNSCR 194 and the Right of Return.  How he ultimately would have reconciled its requirements, and those of the more than two dozen UN Security Council Resolutions which Israel continues to ignore, shielded by US political cover, with his own civil and human rights legacy while continuing to vote funds for an expansionist Israel is unclear.

One hopes that had Ted Kennedy lived he would  have accelerated his reconsideration  of blind  support for Israel’s  brutal occupation and, come to oppose, as he did in South Africa, a renegade Apartheid regime. Some Kennedy staffers claim to have seen a change in Ted’s views on the Question of Palestine following his 1992 marriage to Victoria Araiji Boustany Reggie, whose family on her Mother’s side is Lebanese.  One current Kennedy staffer explained:  “Vicki never forgets her Arab origins and in her own way works for justice. Probably Ted learned a lot about Israel’s attacks on Lebanon from her. A number of Boustanys in Lebanon actually support Hezbollah and the Resistance, but I doubt Vicki does”.

Some who know him well believe that Kennedy was in the process of evolving from toeing the Zionist line designed to buy peace for his domestic agenda through a Faustian bargain with the Israeli lobby. Unlike perhaps a majority in Congress who consider Israel a rogue expansionist state, but who want to keep their jobs.

“It may have been that Ted was trying to reconcile his background, his pedigree, his principals and all he believed in and he may have even concluded that Israel was a mistake and had become a militarist pariah that was the antipathy of all that the Kennedy mystique stood for.   Or maybe Ted was not there yet and maybe never would have dropped Israel completely but his views were changing”, explained a current staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Senior Senator from Massachusetts was appropriately laid to rest under the Stars and Stripes forever.  Not the Star of David.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon.  He is Interim Director of the Sabra-Shatila Foundation and can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org

Now Available from CounterPunch Books!

Yellowstone Drift:
Floating the Past
in Real Time
by John Holt
Introduction by Doug Peacock

Click here to Buy!

Spell Albuquerque:
Memoir of a
"Difficult Student"
By Tennessee Reed

Waiting for Lightning
to Strike:
The Fundamentals
of Black Politics
Kevin Alexander Gray

Click Here to Buy!

Click Here to Buy!

The Inside Story of the Shannon Five's Smashing Victory Over the
Bush War Machine
By Harry Browne

Born Under a Bad Sky:
Notes from the Dark Side
of the Earth
By Jeffrey St. Clair

Buy End Times Now!

Click Here to Buy!

Click Here to Order!

Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont