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January
10, 2002
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
January
6, 2002
Ralph
Nader
Students
Put the Heat on Foreign Sweatshops
Tariq
Ali
Battleground
Kashmir
January
5, 2002
Mark Schneider
Kifah:
The Movie Star
Israel Killed
Edward
Said
Is
Israel More Secure Now?
January
4, 2002
CG Estabrook
Anti-War
= Anti-Globalization
Jordan
Green
What's
Changed in New York
January
3, 2002
Walt Brasch
Exit
Cheney, Enter Ridge
Mokhiber
and Weissman
The
10 Worst Corporations
of 2001
Robert
Hunter Wade
America's
Empire Rules an Unbalanced World
Shahid
Alam
Is
There an Islamic Problem?
January
2, 2002
Ross Regnart
Patriot
Act Redefines the Mob as "Terrorist Associates"
John Chuckman
The
Republicans' Secret Plan X
David
Vest
Turn,
Turn, Turn
January
1, 2002
Kathy
Kelly
Iraq's
New Year
December
31, 2001
John Absood
An
Alternative to War in Iraq
Ramzi
Kysia
Iraq
Goes Radioactive
December
28, 2001
John Chuckman
Observing
George Bush
Suren
Pillay
Civilian
Bodies
Aaron
Lehmer
Inviting
Future Terrorism
December
27, 2001
Patrick
McNamara
Palestinian
Children Bear Brunt of Mideast Violence
Nelson
Valdés
A
Possible Scenario on the Location of bin Laden
Jensen
and Mahajan
Remember
the Afghan Dead
Philip
Farruggio
A
New Year's Resolution
Ramzi
Kysia
The
People of the Valley
December 26, 2001
John Chuckman
In
Praise of the Unspeakable
Sam Bahour
2002:
Year of the Twos
December 25, 2001
Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's
Human Rights Record
December 24, 2001
Sam Bahour
It
Happened One Morning
Yair Khilou
Why I Resisted
Being Drafted into the Israeli Army
Michael
Chisari
War
as Diversionary Tactic
Cockburn/St. Clair
Enron
and the Green Seal
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
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About 9/11
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Days That
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Seattle and Beyond
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Cockburn
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
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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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January
10, 2002
Israeli Rights Group Assails Army
By Jim Lobe
oneworld.net
An Israeli human rights group is charging in a
new report that its country's army is behaving with "blatant
disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians" and a
"complete lack of military accountability" as tensions
in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appear to be heightening.
The report, by the Israeli Information
Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, or B'Tselem,
covers the fatal shootings of 15 Palestinians, at least nine
of whom were unarmed, by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) after
the army's incursion into the Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem
region last October 19-25.
B'Tselem's investigation found that "in
all the cases described in the report, no shots were fired toward
IDF soldiers from the immediate vicinity of the civilians who
were killed."
That record demonstrated that the IDF's
pledge to make every effort to avoid harm to innocent civilians
amounted to an "empty promise," according to the report.
"Even if there was no intention to harm civilians, no real
effort was made to avoid it," the report said, adding,
"These are not isolated incidents."
The report was issued amid a renewed
U.S. effort to mediate a permanent ceasefire between Israel
and the Palestinians as a prelude to a resumption of long-stalled
peace talks. The effort is being led by Washington's special
envoy, retired General Anthony Zinni, who has returned to Washington
after a four-day shuttle mission between the two sides during
which they both agreed to try to maintain a tenuous truce.
But the truce was apparently broken this
morning when two Palestinian gunmen killed four Israeli soldiers
and wounded six others at an army post just outside the Gaza
Strip before themselves being shot and killed. The Palestinian
Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attack, which was denounced as "extremely
grave" by the IDF, ended three weeks of relative quiet
and is considered almost certain to be followed by military
retaliation by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, quite possibly including new incursions into Palestinian
Authority-controlled areas. The incursion into Bethlehem and
other Palestinian territories on the West Bank and Gaza last
October followed the assassination of Israel's Tourism minister
October 18.
More than 1,000 people have been killed--some
three-quarters of victims Palestinians in the occupied territories--during
the 16-month-long intifada which started after Sharon, then
leader of the opposition, made a controversial visit to the
site of one of Islam's holiest shrines, the al-Aqsa mosque
in Jerusalem.
The IDF's response to B'Tselem's latest
report was that it was "unfamiliar" with most of the
cases described, despite the fact that they have been previously
reported by journalists and human rights groups.
The IDF has insisted that its soldiers
in the field are instructed to return fire "only after
identifying the source of the fire" precisely to minimize
casualties among non-combatant civilians.
But B'Tselem says such orders are "difficult
to reconcile...with the fact that, in the cases described, the
IDF only kill civilians who were not involved in the hostilities."
Among the cases covered are the killings
of four unarmed Palestinians in their homes in the 'Aida refugee
camp by IDF gunfire from the Intercontinental Hotel. Another
Palestinian was killed in his home in nearby Beit Jala.
It also cites damage inflicted by IDF
shelling of Bethlehem's two major hospitals, the killings of
two Palestinians by "indiscriminate gunfire" from
IDF armored personnel carriers as the army entered Bethlehem,
and the killing of a 16-year-old boy in the square of the Church
of the Nativity in Bethlehem, "far away" from the
Latin Cemetery from where Palestinian gunmen were firing at
IDF positions.
"The fact that the IDF has yet to
investigate the cases presented in the report once again demonstrates
the IDF's blatant disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians,"
B'Tselem said, adding that the army, "since the beginning
of the current intifada, has shirked its obligation to conduct
serious investigations" into such incidents.
B'Tselem is not alone in criticizing
the IDF on this score. A Los Angeles Times review published
last week found "a pattern of questionable Israeli military
action and minimal inquiry into what went wrong, as well as
little if any disciplinary action."
Some left-wing Israeli lawmakers and
former army officers have also argued that the lack of serious
investigations and accountability were undermining morale and
discipline in the IDF.
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