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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
December 21, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
War
Good for Bush
John Chuckman
The
First Victim in the
War on Terror
December 20, 2001
Lawrence
McGuire
Killing
Other People's Children
Miriam Rozen
Foundation
Without Representation?
Kenneth
Roth
A
Letter to Rumsfeld on
Military Tribunals
William Blum
Casualties:
Theirs and Ours
December 19, 2001
Marjorie
Cohn
Don't
Pre-Judge John Walker
Sam Bahour
Palestine
and You
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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Five
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Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
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Photos by Allan Sekula
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Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
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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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
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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December 27,
2001
Palestinian Children Bear the Brunt
of Violence and Occupation
By Patrick McNamara
The United states once again has vetoed a UN resolution
calling for an end to Israeli violence against Palestinians and
the introduction of international monitors. The veto damages
both Israel and the Palestinians. Friends of Israel and Palestine
need to act now to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza Strip.
Just as the Hamas-inspired suicide bombings
undermine Palestinian moral claims to a national dignity and
degrade the moral sensibilities of the few Palestinians that
celebrate such atrocities, so too does the violence of the Israeli
occupation eat away at the moral fabric of the Israeli national
community.
The ongoing effects of the occupation
are most severe for Palestinian children. According to the Palestinian
Red Crescent Society and to Defense for Children International,
an international children's advocacy organization, Israeli Defense
Forces have killed at least 214 Palestinian children, injured
approximately 6,000 and arrested 600 since September of last
year when the intifada began.
B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization,
reports that at least 170 Palestinian children under age 16 are
being held in Israeli jails with many of these undergoing systematic
use of beatings, sleep deprivation, and isolation.
Last July, a hunger strike was staged
by children incarcerated at Tel Monde prison near Tel Aviv. The
hunger strike was brutally suppressed with tear gas, beatings,
and imposition of solitary confinement. While many Israeli citizens
express revulsion at these outrages as emblematic of what the
occupation is doing to their own country, American officials
responsible for formulating policy options toward the region
and for monitoring US aid to Israel/Palestine seem unaware of
the invidious effects of the occupation, the daily travails of
the Palestinian people, and the dangers posed by occupation-related
conflict to democracy in Israel.
Given the overwhelming military superiority
of the Israeli Defense Forces relative to the Palestinians and
its role as the occupying power, Israel must accept responsibility
for the violent logic of this occupation and its consequences
for children. Of the 826 Palestinians killed by the Israeli Defense
Forces in the current intifada approximately 26 percent were
children under age 18.
Almost two-thirds of these children died
after being shot with live ammunition; 34 percent died from injuries
sustained to the head, while 31 percent were shot in the chest.
In 2001 alone, Defense for Children International documented
150 attacks by the Israeli Defense Forces and Israeli settlers
on children's schools; 76 schools were attacked with live ammunition
and/or tear gas; 41 schools were shelled by the Israeli military;
and four schools were permanently closed and transformed into
Israeli military installations.
In addition, the Israeli practice of
demolishing the homes of Palestinian protesters suspected of
terrorism escalated in 2001 resulting in at least 639 homeless
children. The prolonged internal and external closures in the
territories have led to severe economic hardship for Palestinian
families with many living on only $3 a day. For want of medical
supplies and staff, children often die mere kilometers away from
fully equipped hospitals in Israel.
The violent logic of occupation requires
that as the rebellion grows so does the violent response to it.
But every increment in violent suppression leads to a corresponding
increase in violent rebellion in a macabre dance of mutually
assured destruction.
Yet short of a full-scale Israeli Defense
Forces withdrawal and the emplacement of international monitors
between the warring parties, we can expect the violence to continue
unabated for the foreseeable future. The consequences for both
parties will become increasingly tragic with Palestinian children
bearing the brunt of a violence no one can any longer control.
Patrick McNamara
is a member of the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights.
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