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April 5, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Sharon's
Wars: How the
News Gets Through
April 4, 2002
Ray Hanania
Sharon's Latest Lie About the Church
of the Nativity
Mike Leon
Rightwing
Assault on Madison Progressives Misfires
Tom Turnipseed
Stop the Killing Now!
Nancy
Stohlman
An
American Under Siege in a West Bank Refugee Camp
Christopher Reilly
Kissinger, Chile and Justice
at Long Last?
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
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
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TO
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
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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April 5, 2002
The Invasion of Bethlehem
and Our Tax Dollars at Work
By Nancy Stohlman
in Bethlehem
[Written April 3rd, dictated over the phone April 4, 2002]
There are many myths about what is happening in
the Middle East- urban legends, stereotyping and dangerously
slanted information. This information has been spoon-fed to
the American people. We lap it up unquestioningly. But these
half truths, slants and outright lies do as much to perpetuate
this blood bath as if we were sending guns and ammunition. Oh
wait we are.
MYTH #1 is that this conflict is '"too
far away" or '" none of our business". Before
I continue I want to make sure that every American is clear
that the US sends six billion dollars in aid to the Israeli
government. So for people who think this conflict is not their
problem I would like to give an update on what their tax dollars
are being used for- Tanks. Lots and lots and lots and lots of
tanks. Automatic weapons and olive green uniform. Right now:
OUR TAX DOLLARS are blocking all the
entrances to Bethlehem, not allowing anyone in or out.
OUR TAX DOLLARS have also surrounded
manger square. Where little baby Jesus once laid in a manger,
Palestinians are now lying wounded and dying or contracting
gangrene.
OUR TAX DOLLARS keep ambulances from
reaching them.
OUR TAX DOLLARS have also trapped 200
Palestinians inside the church of the Nativity, including the
Governor of the Bethlehem District, where the wounded are without
medical attention and the rest are without food.
The day of the invasion OUR TAX DOLLARS
killed a priest and wounded nuns.
And when the Latin Patriarchy marched
from Jerusalem in support of their endangered brothers and
sisters, OUR TAX DOLLARS would not allow them through the Bethlehem
checkpoint, turning them back to Jerusalem in the cold drizzle.
Near Manger Square OUR TAX DOLLARS killed
a mother and her teenage son. Bodies are still lying in the
house as we speak while the younger children scream. When some
international press went to try and rescue the children they
were shot at by OUR TAX DOLLARS, in the same way OUR TAX DOLLARS
shot through the door of that same house without even a warning.
OUR TAX DOLLARS "sanitize"
the Palestinian refugee camps. Two nights ago in Dehaisha refugee
camp our dollars were demanding all the men aged 14-45 and all
the women 15-25 come out of their houses and give themselves
over. Pictures of the dead plaster all the walls of the camps
like wallpaper.
Which brings me to MYTH #2--that all
Palestinians are terrorists, raised to kill since childhood.
Arafat, the fearless leader of the terrorist state. This biased,
slanted information makes me ill and ill to think of all the
people who have digested it. Remember when native Americans
were '"savages"? Remember all the Anti-Semitic propaganda
of WWII? It is of urgent importance that we brush up on history
quickly because if we do not learn these lessons right now
we are dooming ourselves to repeat them. Saying that every Palestinian
is a terrorist is like saying that every New Yorker walks around
with a knife waiting to mug people in dark alleyways. The information
that is given to Americans is biased profiling.
I sat in a Palestinian living room watching
TV with the family when we all heard the news of the suicide
bomber in Tel Aviv. Their reactions were the same as mine, Oh
no, how many were killed? Oh no, this is terrible. The Palestinians
realize that they will all pay for the acts of one, the proof
being the invasion of Bethlehem. The bomber in Jerusalem was
from the Dehaisha Refugee Camp and not surprisingly the people
living there, 11,000 of them plus internationals, prepared themselves
for direct and merciless retaliation. It would be like attacking
the home town of Timothy McVeigh and killing the innocent people
living there.
These Palestinian people have been living
under Marshall law for over 30 years in constant fear for their
lives. They are not raising their children to become terrorists.
They are trying to raise their children as best they can in
desperate situations. Walking through Aida Refugee Camp I see
the paintings of the children and the children"s cultural
center that is the pride of the 3700 people living there. The
doctor and poet who heads the center says, '"the world
cannot say that we raise our children to fight". He gestures
to the wall '"the kids do not paint tanks or artilleries
they are painting on the walls their dreams lakes, rivers, doves".
There is not green in the refugee camps these kids have never
seen these things, they paint from their dreams.
Aida camp has been working with the children
of the camp teaching them music, dancing, poetry, music, dancing
sports, all the things that children should do. The adults feel
that these skills are better weapons. They explain, and I agree,
that the children '"need this kind of hope" and healthier
ways to express the myriad feelings swimming inside their little
minds.
Kareem tells me a story. Once when the
children were learning music inside a relatively exposed building
inside the camp the Israeli soldiers began shooting. The children
became afraid so to help calm them he suggested they sing.
The songs of the children were drowning out the sounds of the
shooting and giving the children courage. And then a girl was
injured.
There are many more myths from the Middle
East but we should also feel responsible for the international
silence regarding the dire situation of the Palestinian people.
Addressing the 22 internationals staying in the Aida Camp the
same doctor says '"we were beginning to lose hope that
anyone cared, we appreciate what you do. It gives us a little
light in the darkness that surrounds us".
Nancy Stohlman
is a member of the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace,
and one of four Coloradans currently in the West Bank in solidarity
with Palestinians under siege by the Israeli military. You can
read more about their experiences at: http://www.ccmep.org/palestine.html
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