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Today's
Stories
January 9, 2004
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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for More Stories.
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January
8, 2004
Palestinians and Israelis
This
War is Unwinnable
By DEB REICH
Israelis cannot prevail over Palestinians any
more than Palestinians can prevail over Israelis. Isn't this
obvious by now? There is not going to be a winner here until
everyone is dead, and that would be a hollow victory indeed.
But take heart: There is a real alternative and, since we Semites
(Arabs and Jews) are clever people, we should have thought of
it long since.
We can go ahead and declare the Palestinian-Israeli
contest a tie: Game over! Score: Tied, one all. One moral victory
for each side; one "I've proved my point" for each
side; one "I belong to this land and will never give it
up" for each side. One "My way of battling is more
noble than yours" for each side. One "We will never
kneel" for each side. And so forth.
A tie (as in, the game is tied) in Hebrew
is "teko." That's not hard; go ahead and say it aloud:
TEKO (rhymes with "METro"). The valiant struggle to
subjugate Palestinians to the will of another people claiming
ancestral rights to this land, and engaged in a relentless process
of acquiring more and more of it by force of arms, is now over,
because the Palestinian people will never be subjugated and they
are determined to be free. We declare the outcome TEKO.
In Arabic, the word for a tie is "ta3adol"
(pronounced "ta'adol," more or less; the numeral 3
stands for the Arabic letter "ayin"). That's not hard
either; go ahead and say it aloud: TA3ADOL (rhymes with "pa-
pa-ROLL"). The valiant struggle to roll back the tide of
the modern Jewish national renaissance - a renaissance pursued
with increasing desperation in the wake of the Nazi catastrophe,
but at the cost of incalculable suffering and displacement of
the other people living on this land - is now over, because the
Jewish national renaissance cannot be rolled back. We declare
the outcome TA3ADOL.
And while we're at it: Within the Palestinian
reality, the warring factions can also declare ta3adol; and within
the Israeli reality, which incidentally includes a million Palestinian-Israeli
citizens, the warring players can also declare teko. It's enough!
Call it a tie! Get some decent mediators in here and let's get
a life.
Ah, yes: The old-time coaches on both
sides hate to admit that an outright win may not be within their
grasp. As coaches do, they want to forge on, regardless. Victory,
they promise, is just around the corner, or in another generation,
or two, or three. The diehard fans - all over the world - certainly
want the game to go on. Victory is a uniquely seductive dream,
and the fans themselves are not paying the price in blood that
is being exacted from the players on the field. Even some of
the players - those too old to worry, too young to fear, too
embittered and hopeless to care - want the game to go on. The
arms merchants and various foreign powers, whose strategic plans
incorporate an ongoing conflict in Palestine-Israel, are happy
to have the game go on, and on, and on, and on. And on.
Here on the actual playing field, however,
in real time, we (the players) have been stripped of our last
illusions, most of us. Ask anyone. Privately, most will say:
"Enough, already! It's enough!" Both teams now know
that outright victory, if indeed attainable, comes with too high
a price tag; that the continued quest for an outright win is
creating a devastating shared legacy of cruelty, shame and sorrow.
Give our teams an honorable way out and most of the players will
take it willingly, gladly. We want to get a life. We want our
children to have a life.
As the scripture says: I set before you
life, and death. Be smart, folks. Choose life.
It's not a soccer game we're talking
about, dear reader. People are needlessly dying here (mostly
Palestinians), every day, while the mad coaches rant and rave
and the clueless fans scream themselves hoarse in the stands
or just go on about their business, deep in denial. But things
could be otherwise; it's up to us.
Speaking in the voice of umpire (not
empire), I hereby declare that the game is over! Sisters, brothers,
cousins - the contest is done. It's a tie! Ta3adol! Teko!
In the new era, we will send all our
young people to more productive endeavors than mutual bloodshed.
We will send them to the Olympics to test their mettle, or to
the moon, or into deprived neighborhoods to work with needy kids,
or to remote regions to measure their stamina in the wilderness,
or even to UN Peacekeeping Forces, if conflict and combat are
what they thirst for. But the conflict will be somewhere else,
far from here. Here, we've had our fill of that.
To all the courageous players out there,
Israelis and Palestinians: Listen up, everyone: We may now retire
honorably from the field and build a new life, side by side.
For our children's sake, we must get ourselves some new coaches
without delay, people with good credentials in co-creating a
free and just and prosperous society for all. We should make
a detailed list (before we hire them) of the skills they should
have. Let's get busy. A brand new day is waiting to be born.
Deb Reich,
author, editor, and translator for Ha'aretz-International Herald
Tribune and for NPOs in civil rights and related fields, was
born in Manhattan, educated at Barnard College, and has lived
in Israel for 25 years. Contact her at debmail@alum.barnard.edu.
Copyright Deb Reich 2002.
Weekend
Edition Features for January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
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