|
April 20, 2002
Chris Floyd
The Empire Never Sleeps
A Letter from the Front
April 19, 2002
Eric Flint
Free
the Books!
David Krieger
A Peace Proposal:
Bring in the Children
Jeff Paterson
Advice
to Recruits from
a Gulf War Vet
Jeffrey St. Clair
From Sen. "Lunkhead" to
Bush Energy Czar: A Year in the Life of Spencer Abraham
April 18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Latin
America's Dilemma:
The Propaganda of Otto Reich
Sam Bahour
Bush is Playing Russian
Roulette with Palestinians
M. Shahid
Alam
A
Colonizing Project
Built on Lies
Alexander Cockburn
Austin Cultural Limits:
Willie Nelson, Film and BBQ
April 17, 2002
Norman
Finkelstein
Behind
the Carnage in Palestine
Kristen Schurr
With the Wounded
and the Homeless in Nablus
Norman
Madarasz
Undoing
Chavez:
The View from South America
Brian Wood
Combing The Ruins of Jenin
George
Monbiot
Chemical
Coup: The CIA's Attempt to Undermine the UN's Weapon Inspector
for Iraq
Robert Fisk
Fear and Learning in America
April 16, 2002
Todd May
US
Should End Aid to Israel
Gabriel Ash
The Oilman, the General
and the Coup that Failed
Ron Jacobs
Wake
Up Some Mornin',
Find Your Own Self Dead:
The Chavez Coup
Brian Wood
Inside Jenin: Rubble and Decomposing
Bodies
Jack McCarthy
Citizen
Coup: The Times,
The Post and the Coup Plotters
Dave Marsh
Hymns: How I Got Through
Last Week
April 15, 2002
Susi Abeles
A
Field Trip to Jenin
Breyten Breytenbach
A Letter to Ariel Sharon:
"You Won't Break Them"
Gregory
Wilpert
CounterCoup
in Venezuela
Kristen Schurr
Amid the Rubble of Nablus
Jordy
Cummings
An
Open Letter to Abe Foxman
Christopher Reilly
The Media, the CIA
and the Chavez Coup
James
T. Phillips
"Homicide"
Bombers
April 14, 2002
William Blum
The CIA and Venezuela
David
Vest
A
Good Old-Fashion "Incursion"
Ralph Nader
General Motors:
Stuck in Reverse
M. Junaid
Alam
From
the Ashes: Palestinian Struggle for Freedom
Sam Bahour
Palestinians and Americans
April 13, 2002
Beth Daoud
Life
in the Ruins of Nablus
Patrick Cockburn
Bulldozing History:
The End Nears for Stalin's
Most Monstrous Hotel
Gregory
Wilpert
The
Coup in Venezuela:
an Eye-Witness Account
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Thoughts on Our War
Against Terrorism
Anne Winkler-Morey
Why
I Didn't Organize
a Passover Seder This Year
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published March 15, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
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 New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
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
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
April 20, 2002
Leaving Nablus
By Kristen Schurr
Yesterday afternoon we walked through the deserted
and dusty streets of Nablus- the only water I saw was the mud
made by the sewage running through one street that we had to
stand in while Israeli soldiers hassled us, checking our passports
and questioning us. As we walked further, we watched the ground
for any of our belongings that were lost when soldiers attacked
us the day before. We found Philip's lucky hat in the middle
of the road, torn and run over by a tank. It will go nicely with
his ripped t-shirt. Bashar's phone seems gone for good. I was
talking on it with the lawyer when it was knocked away from
me by the soldiers. My other phone was recovered, somehow,
by Jordan in the midst of the fray.
Many of the houses we passed were destroyed.
From those that were half standing, people hung their heads
out the top floors calling out to us hellos and offers for tea.
A little girl ran out with roses. Otherwise the streets were
completely empty. The Israeli imposed curfew has not been lifted
on the east side of town. The shops were all closed. Any cars
we saw were crushed, save for a pickup truck that had been moved
in a pile of grass and rubble by a tank, now far above the street.
As we walked, scurrying really, in order
to clear the next checkpoint and make it past the Israeli's
before it got dark, my sole of boot broke away all together,
so I wore one flip-flop and one boot, calling myself shoebooty
after Archie Bunker's sad-sack childhood story. I was also hiding
the minidisks I have of people telling their stories and the
film from my camera- things the Israeli military does not want
us to get out with.
We were held at the checkpoint for two
hours. The soldiers said we might be suicide bombers. One Israeli
solider who looked 18 -all young Israeli women are required
to serve in the military for about 2 years, while Israeli boys
are required to serve from ages 18 to 21, and then for three
weeks a year until age 45- said, "You never know. They're
sending 17 year old girls to do it." Another soldier, about
18 and sporting an Israeli army machine gun, apologized for
the inconvenience, saying "It's because of those dogs that
we have to do this." This is what Palestinians have to
put up with all the time, anytime, under the "normal"
occupation, that they want to travel from one Palestinian town
to the next. Although some are permananet, many of these checkpoints
are created by soldiers in different spots each day, making
any sort of clandestine passage, or even the simple planning
of one's time to include delays, impossible for Palestinians.
No matter what the mood of the soldiers, the process is humiliating.
Palestinians have no freedom of movement. They are expected
to smile at the soliders while they are detained, searched,
jabbed and poked, wondering if they'll be forced to undress
in front of everyone or whether they'll be shot, while their
passports are run through military processing and they're questioned
relentlessly for simply passing through their own towns. If
Palestinians are allowed to work, they often lose their jobs
because of constantly being late from lengthy checkpoint delays.
And this, of course, leaves out how many die because ambulances
are held, as are cars with the sick and wounded, or women in
labor, and food and medicine deliveries that are not allowed
to pass.
As we stood in the dirt, detained at
a checkpoint while trying to leave Nablus, tanks rolled past,
kicking up dirt and churning black smoke. Another group of soliders
drove up and we were requestioned and our passports run through
their system again. This time they let us pass. By then it was
dark. We walked on the dirt road, still with tanks and military
cars speeding past. The only light was a crescent moon and a
few stars. We had missed our ride that a doctor in Nablus had
set up for us. It is too dangerous for Palestinians to drive
in the West Bank after dark. We knocked on a door of a house
on the side of the road that we thought belonged to a friend
of the doctor. It didn't, but the family welcomed us in anyway
and brought coffee. They began calling around to find us a ride,
and offered us a place to sleep for the night. They laughed
and took pity on my feet in the flip-flop and boot and insisted
I take a pair of their shoes. They gave us tea and helped us
practice Arabic. It was the first time I felt safe in hours.
Our fear is of the Israeli soliders that continue to terrorize
the West Bank, and the snipers that shoot from the settlements.
The family hugged and kissed us goodbye
as we headed off to meet the ride they'd just arranged, which
would be waiting on the other side of the next checkpoint. We
were almost skipping under the crescent moon as walked on, so
happy to have been able to knock on a stranger's door asking
for help and being treated with such kindness and love. An Israeli
military jeep came speeding toward us, driving at us on the
side of the road, stopping and questioning us, asking for our
passports and demanding that we get in the
back of the jeep. We were evasive enough,
answering questions without revealing that we'd just been visiting
a Palestinian family, which would endanger them. We began walking
off, but the jeep backed up, following us, yelling further.
We were detained again. When we got out of that and began to
walk, the jeep turned around and began following us again, yelling
that we had to walk on the other side of the road, the side
the jeep was now driving on in order to harrass us on the right
side of the road. It drove like that, yelling at us over its
loud-speaker, harrassing us for a half hour or more. It flagged
down a settler's car, a man and woman with a gun. They told
us it was dangerous to be there. They did not tell us that it
was the settlers and soldiers we needed to fear, those who have
shot at us, detained and harrassed us every day, those who shoot
into the dark all night long, making sure no Palestinian can
freely move on their own land and through their own lives.
Kristen Schurr lives
in New York City.
|