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July 20, 2002
Thomas Croft
Augusta,
GA
Growing Up in the Deep South
Alexander Cockburn
The
Market Hogwallow:
Popgun Populism Isn't Enough
July 19, 2002
Abe Bonowitz / SueZann
Bosler
A Discussion
with Jeb Bush on the Death Penalty
Jonathan Power
No Need
for War Against Iraq
Rick Giombetti
Qwest
Death Watch
Kurt Nimmo
Of Mice,
Bullets & Bombs
M. Shahid Alam
Through
Racist Eyes:
Is Eurocentrism Unique?
July 18, 2002
Mokhiber / Weissman
Business
As Usual
Jerre Skog
I Spy: Now
Let's be Fair,
the USA Ain't East Germany
Ralph Nader
The CEO
Crimewave:
Corporate Socialism
Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
The Rising Tensions
Between Spain and Morocco
Alexander Cockburn
Drivel
and Squawk:
Can the Times' Jeff Gerth
Save the White House?
July 17, 2002
Philip Farruggio
The
New Role Model:
Remember Jesus, George?
Zara Gelsey
Who's
Reading Over
Your Shoulder?
Behzad Yaghmaian
9/11 and
Fotress Europe:
the Drama of the New
Moslem Diaspora
Mike Ferner
War, Incorporated
Gary Leupp
Bush, Burqas
and the Oppression of Afghan Women
July 16, 2002
Pierre Tristam
Faith-based
Capitalism in
the Ruins of the Market
Kurt Nimmo
How My
35mm Camera Almost Became a Tool of Treason
Robert Fisk
The Kashmir
Distraction
Salam al-Marayati
When
is Terrorism
Not Defined as Terrorism?
Kathleen Christison
The
Image Problem:
Anti-Palestinian Bias
from Wilson to Bush
July 15, 2002
Gavin Keeney
In One
of Safire's Ears,
Out the Other
CounterPunch Wire
Nader in
Cuba
Ralph Nader
The Secret
World of Banking
Dave Marsh
Vincible:
Michael Jackson, Racism and the Music Cartel
Rahul Mahajan
Justice
for Bhopal
Jeffrey St. Clair
Seduced
by a Legend
The Return of Jimmy T99 Nelson
July 14, 2002
Bill Christison
The
DOA (Poem)
David Vest
I'll Never
Get Out of This Band Alive
July 13, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
A Process
of Dehumanization
Gavin Keeney
Go Tell
Karl Rove!
Matt Vidal
Corporate
"Ethics" Red Herrings
Ed Whitfield
Lessons
from Independence Day
July 12, 2002
Sean Donahue
The Other
Harken Energy Scandal: Oil, Death Squads
and Colombia
Walt Brasch
Sin Tax
Scam
"Psst. Cigarettes. A Buck Each."
Steve Perry
A Tale
of Two Twits
Wall Street Burns, Bush Fiddles, But Where's Wellstone?
July 11, 2002
Lloyd Marbet
Arrested
by the Chamber
of Commerce
David Krieger
Law vs.
Force
David Vest
Fountain
of Foo:
Strike Three Called
Irit Katriel
A Deep
Ideological Crisis
Richard Glen Boire
Dangerous
Lessons:
Public School Drug Testing
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
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Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
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Photos by Allan Sekula
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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 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:
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Weekend
Edition
July 20, 2002
"I
Was Schooled in Hate"
Confessions
of a
Summer Camp Terror Tot
by Jacob Levich
The Israel Defense Forces this week cynically
capitalized on an earlier public relations coup, releasing yet
another snapshot of a Palestinian toddler posed with weapons.
The photograph, purportedly seized during a military operation
in Hebron, is reminiscent of last month's notorious "Terror
in Diapers" photo, which showed a Gaza child decked out
as a suicide bomber.
The latest picture is of course a boon
to pro-Israel flacks, who had been so desperate to keep the kiddie
terrorist story alive that they resorted to recycling year-old
snaps of a militaristic kindergarten pageant in Gaza, falsely
implying that the stale images were fresh. (See, for example,
"Palestinian Kindergartners Being Schooled in Hate,"
an Anti-Defamation League press release dated June 27, 2002,
or "Gaza Toddlers Taught Hatred, Martyrdom and Jihad,"
a June 28, 2002 story in <Israelinsider.com>, where weasel
words are used to sell the old news as a hot item about a "recent"
ceremony. A little digging revealed the same information and
identical photos, clearly dated May 27, 2001, on the Israeli
Prime Minister's web site.)
Whatever their provenance, all of these
alarming images were widely circulated in print and electronic
media, where they were offered as evidence that Palestinians
are heartless monsters who would snatch their own kids from the
cradle and train them in terror.
But as I watched Zionist spinmeisters
drawing ugly conclusions on CNN, I couldn't help flashing back
to fond memories of dear old Camp Milldale, where -- to borrow
a phrase from the ADL -- I myself was "schooled in hate"
during the summer of 1967.
Milldale is a suburban day camp located
some miles outside of Baltimore, Md., birthplace of its sponsoring
organization, the Jewish Community Center Association (JCC).
Originally an educational and civic institution for poor Jewish
immigrants, the JCC redirected its energies toward middle-class
"schuls with pools" following WWII, and began aggressively
promoting Zionism in the aftermath of the Six-Day War.
Which is why, as a seven-year-old camper,
I found myself manufacturing cardboard daggers and machine guns
during arts-and-crafts period. These were to be used as props
for Camp Milldale's end-of-summer pageant, which featured a highly
stylized re-enactment of episodes from Israeli history, interspersed
with songs from Fiddler on the Roof. Emmis.
We first-graders were entrusted with
recreating 1948. Some of us got to play Jewish militia; others
-- probably not the counselors' favorites -- had to be Arabs.
We took to the stage bristling with toy weapons. Pint-sized Irgunists
raised the Israeli flag, declared independence, and were immediately
attacked by shrieking hordes of simulated Palestinians. After
a brief melee, the Arabs all clutched their chests and fell down.
Then everyone stood and sang "Hatikvah." Curtain; wild
applause.
You could look at this perversely funny
little performance as a harmless assertion of solidarity with
Israel. Or you might see it as a callous exploitation of innocent
minds. Either way, my fellow campers and I were certainly not
being trained as terrorists. Nor, I suppose, were we literally
being "schooled in hate," except in the abstract sense
in which all such nationalist rituals are aimed at turning children
into unthinking chauvinists.
Yet somewhere in Baltimore there's undoubtedly
an album filled with lurid snapshots of Milldale's 1967 summer
pageant, and it would be simple enough to deploy them on a web
page or press release with the headline: "At Jewish Summer
Camp, Kids are Taught to Re-Enact Deir Yassin Massacre."
The resulting story would be close to literal truth, but its
implications would be essentially false.
My point? Context is everything. Those
photos of Palestinian "terror tots" might look very
different if they were juxtaposed with shots of Jewish settlers
training their children to handle Uzis. (You can find some of
these on the web if you look hard enough; needless to say, they
never appear on CNN.) The baby bomber pics might even teach us
something important about the brutalizing effects of an endless
colonial war -- but only if they were presented in the context
of daily life in occupied Palestine, where violence, humiliation,
and poverty are an inescapable part of growing up.
Plucked out of context, however, these
photos teach nothing but hatred. They are intended to elicit
rage and horror while stifling thought and compassion. The obvious
message is that Palestinians are incorrigibly criminal, and therefore
deserve nothing better than lifelong confinement in the gigantic
prison camps that Israel has made of Gaza and the West Bank.
The deeper implication is that all Palestinian children are actual
or potential terrorists, making them legitimate targets of Israeli
military operations.
Just as I wouldn't excuse a parent who
dresses up an innocent kid as a suicide bomber, I can't forgive
a propagandist so reckless as to encourage violence against children.
Preying on the weak is a sin. Ironically, that's one of the things
I was taught at Camp Milldale.
Jacob Levich
is a writer and editor living in Queens, N.Y. He can be reached
at: jlevich@earthlink.net
Today's Features
Thomas Croft
Augusta,
GA
Coming of Age in the Deep South
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stockmarket Hogwallow
Popgun Populism Isn't Enough
Abe Bonowitz / SueZann
Bosler
A Discussion
with Jeb Bush on the Death Penalty
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