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April 4, 2002
M. Shahid
Alam
The
Lies of Thomas Friedman
April 3, 2002
Don Henley
Dear Loathsome Trade Hacks
Bernard
Weiner
An
American Jew Talks
About His Shame
David Vest
Sting of Stings
Tzaporah
Ryter
Under
Fire: an American Student in Ramallah
Gabriel Ash
America's Bravest
John Chuckman
Of
War, Islam and Israel
Robert Fisk
The Siege of Bethlehem
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Sins of the Church
April 2, 2002
Uri Avnery
Murdering Arafat?
Jeff Chang
Is
Protest Music Dead?
Lev Grinberg
Israel's State Terrorism
Norman
Madarasz
Bullying
Brazil
Robert Fisk
Farce and Terror
in Ramallah
Steve
Perry
Let's
Roll! ®:
The Marketing of Lisa Beamer
April 1, 2002
Stanton / Madsen
America's War Inc.
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Peace
and Nuclear Disarmament: a Call to Action
Bahour / Dahan
Bloodshed in Palestine:
A Way Out
Molly
Secours
Tennessee's
Kangaroo Court
Phyllis Pollack
The Making of Exile
on Main Street
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
This Week's
Top 10 CDs
Francis Boyle
The Big Lie:
Palestine, Palestinians
and International Law
March 31, 2002
Jordan
Flaherty
Last
Night the Israeli
Military Tried to Kill Me
Kristen Schurr
Live from Bethlehem
Maha Sbitani
The
Israeli Army Took Over My House
Robert Fisk
Lies Leaders Tell When
They Want to Go to War
March 24/30, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
The Year
of the Yellow Notepad:
Plagiarism and History
Rep. Ron Paul
Slavery and the Draft
Fidel
Castro
A
Better World is Possible
Edward Said
What Price Oslo?
José
Saramago
Justice
and Democracy Denied
Azmi Bishara
Talking to Tanks
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Clearcutting
Montana
Alexander Cockburn
50 Years of James Bond
Wilhelm
Reich
Gethsemane
Claud Cockburn
The Horror of It All
Dave Marsh
What's
Playing at My Houe
David Vest
Remembering Tammy Wynette
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Waylon
Jennings:
an Honest Outlaw
March 23, 2002
Mokhiber/Weissman
A
Corporate Lawyer
Speaks Out
Saeed Vaseghi
The US and Iran's Quest
for Democracy
Brian
J. Foley
Does
Pedophilia Scandal Spell an Opportunity for Catholics?
Sheperd Bliss
American Soul and Empire
James
Packard Winkler
Occupation
and Terror:
Politics from a Gun Barrel
M. Shahid Alam
A New International Division
of Labor
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
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
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Published March 1, 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
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This Explosive
New Book at an
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Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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April 4, 2002
Live from Aida
An American Under Siege
in a West Bank Refugee Camp
By Nancy Stohlman
[Written April 1st, dictated
over the phone.]
Each night I think to myself this is the most
terrifying night of my life and each night it gets worse.
All night I counted my life in hours.
I just have to stay alive until 6 o'clock. Until 7 o'clock.
Until 8 o'clock. Each passing moment a new gray hair on my head.
We waited all night to be invaded and
the birds twittering in the morning were like water to parched
lips.
I opted to stay in the Aida Refugee Camp
with eight other internationals and come morning the other eleven
internationals returned to Bethlehem for supplies.
Our cell phones were dangerously low
of charge and time. The sun came out for a while and I actually
began to feel calm. International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
organizers called to say that the remainder of the international
group was going to march to Beit Jala and try to visit with
the Palestinian families under threat. Three of our nine in
Aida Refugee Camp went to the Beit Jala march, the other six
of us stayed.
The kids in the refugee camp scrounged
up a guitar. We taught them yoga out back on the concrete. They
set up another game of volleyball and begged me to play while
I looked at email. In the middle of a phone conversation Sean
(from the U.S.) comes to me with fear in his eyes. Four internationals
were shot during the march! Internationals shot?! Real bullets,
not rubber bullets.
The six of us gather and the first thing
that comes out of my mouth is, "I want to go back to the
hotel." A "me too" pipes up on either side of
me. The others raised the question, "What about the people
here?" All I can think of is that our nonviolent weapons,
and purpose in the refugee camp, was to protect the Palestinians
with our international status.
We all clearly all now see that the Israeli
military is unconcerned with our international status and our
lives in the refugee in the camp feel like more logs on the
fire. I want to get out. Four of us decide to go, two to stay.
Put on layers and bright colors, I advised. The Palestinian
mothers, the doctor -- they tried to be understanding, but
under their wan smiles is a layer of disappointment, under that
layer is fear. I start crying and hugging them feeling like
a rat fleeing from a sinking ship.
I call the ISM to coordinate. I'm told
there are seven shot, not four. They insist that we walk and
not drive. The two that are staying are crying. I am crying
and ashamed. But I desperately need to get back to the hotel
in Bethlehem, that's all I can think about.
I yell "tomorrow" to the group
of boys halted in their tracks holding a volleyball. The thin
wire stretched across the alley looks like a deserted IV tube.
Six or seven of the refugees escort us to the end of the camp
and point the way.
My son is ever present in my mind. We
hear gun shots, the roads are deserted, not even a scrap of
paper floats by. More shots. We curse under our breath. "Oh
Fuck!" It seems like we're walking right towards the shots
but it seems like the only way back to the hotel. All around
us I imagine Israeli snipers taking aim. Different kinds of
shots are going off, some booming, some single rifle shots,
some rat-a-tat-tat.
Under my breath I'm whispering, "almost
there, almost there." Sky is the color of oatmeal. Mysterious
flakes of white are falling like snow in the cool humidity.
I can only think about putting one foot in front of the other,
constantly scouting for a place to hide with every step.
We round the corner on the main street
of Bethlehem and the road is completely littered with bombs
the size of small TVs, wired one to the next. I can't be sure
when they're going to go off, but we have to cross that street.
Ahead I see a group of boys frantically motioning to us. I want
to run as fast as I can. Then I hear another international,
Rory, reminding us not to run, imagining snipers looking for
panicked targets.
We cross the booby-trapped street. The
next hurdle is the tower (tall narrow building), it looms above
the town of Bethlehem and we're sure that snipers will be there.
And for one complete stretch of road we're completely unprotected
from it.
I keep saying "almost there, almost
there" like a mantra. Roosters are crowing from all directions.
"I wonder why the roosters are crowing," one of us
asks. "The rooster crows three time because we've betrayed
our friends," comes a solemn answer behind me. My heart
sinks.
We turn off the sniper street and step
behind the wall of Bethlehem University, where the giant white
stone walls only give a small sense of security if you forgive
the tank shell marks - big holes the size of a grapefruit, with
charred black rings, but I know we're only a 100 feet from the
hotel, round a few more corners, and we spill into the lobby.
The lobby of the Bethlehem Star Hotel
is chaos with press and medics and bandages adorning the bodies
of my international friends. I try to relay what just happened
to us but everyone is preoccupied with his or her own trauma
and the horrifying truth is that no one has suffered any less
than anyone else.
I run up to my hotel room and lie down
on the floor. The explosions sound like a 4th of July fireworks
show gone terribly wrong. I call Ben from CCMEP on the phone
and proceed to freak out. He's able to calm me down and I'm
able to get off the phone.
One of the other people who just walked
through hell finds me in my room. At this point everyone who
isn't sobbing has eyes caught in a perpetual flash bulb. I feel
like I finally calm down and I go downstairs to where I see
Issa's injured leg, a piece of shrapnel is still embedded and
they've only bandaged her - she was one of the internationals
shot by the IDF at the Beij Jala march
I'm envisioning a long night of fending
off her infection. Then I notice that I'm shivering and my mind
feels sluggish. In retrospect I'm pretty sure it was post-traumatic
shock. The Israeli invasion lasted until the wee hours of the
morning. I slept on the floor with my cell phone in one hand
and my passport in my other.
Nancy Stohlman
is one of three Coloradans in Palestine in solidarity with Palestinians
under siege by the Israeli military. More information about
their trip can be found at: http://www.ccmep.org
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