|
June 27, 2002
Ralph Nader
Reclaiming
Our Commons
Neve Gordon
Jerusalem
Under Attack
Robert Jensen
Alternative
Futures
David Vest
Darryl Kile's
Great Day
Gary Leupp
The Loya
Jirga Joke
Rahual Mahajan
Arafat
Says US Needs New Leadership; Calls for Fair Elections
June 26, 2002
Robert Fisk
Sharon as
Bush Speechwriter
Mokhiber / Weissman
Brokerman
June 25, 2002
Dave Marsh
The RIAA,
Library of Congress and the Web Pirates
Uri Avnery
Reform
Now!
Bahour / Dahan
Bush:
Off with Arafat's Head
Walt Brasch
Bush:
the Compassionate Exerciser
June 24, 2002
Bernard Weiner
Talkin'
About the F-Word
David Bates
Portland
Gets Dicked:
Cheney Does Oregon
Jo Freeman
Will
the War on Terror Follow the Path of the Cold War?
Tom Gorman
The Only
Thing "Generous" is the Propaganda
Bezhad Yaghmaian
Caught
Between Borders
in a Borderless World
Ben Sonnenberg
Ted
Hughes' Spell
June 22/23, 2002
Douglas Valentine
Sex,
Drugs & the CIA
June 21, 2002
Norman Madarasz
Brazil
Over England:
The Gaucho's Wild Ride
John Borowski
Stossel
and Disney's Crimes Against Nature
Chris Floyd
Southern
Cross: The US Takes Aim at Brazil
David Martin
Of Lies
and Oil: an interview with Rahul Mahajan
James T. Phillips
Serbian
Reservations:
Kosovo 2002
June 20, 2002
Chris Kromm
The South
at War: a Tour of the US Military/Industrial Complex
Jacob Levich
The War
on Terror is
Not a Suicide Pact
Mark Weisbrot
What
are They Doing to Argentina?
Jeffrey St. Clair
and Alexander Cockburn
Fire
Walk With Me:
Terry Lynn Barton and the Flames of Colorado
June 19, 2002
Gary Leupp
Red Targets in Terror War
Lenni Brenner
The Road
Forward for the
Palestinian Movement
Bernard Weiner
Inside
Cheney's Diary:
Cakewalking Through Minefields
Alexander Cockburn
The
Incredible Shrinking President
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 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
|
Weekend
Edition
June 28/30, 2002
Bush's Double Standard on Israel
by Tarif Abboushi
In placing the blame for the current violence
squarely on the Palestinians, President Bush has come up lamentably
short.
Replace your leadership, Bush tells the
Palestinians. Meanwhile, the United States does business with
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose bloodied past led
an Israeli commission of inquiry to charge him with a level of
responsibility for a war crime, deeming him unfit to serve as
his country's defense minister. We receive Sharon out of our
unshakable commitment to democracy. It suffices that he is Israel's
elected leader. But no such courtesy is extended to the Palestinians.
Elected or not, Yasser Arafat and the current leadership must
go. Re- electing it is impermissible. Democracy be damned.
Adopt a constitution, President Bush
demands of the Palestinians.
Israel has never had a constitution.
It has a set of laws, some blatantly racist in their assignment
of privilege based on religion, but no constitution. We could
offer Israel a copy of the U.S. Constitution, except, of course,
it would require the dismantling of Israel's Zionist infrastructure.
Build a democracy based on tolerance
and liberty, the president beseeches the Palestinians.
A democracy based on tolerance is presumably
one that, like our great democracy, has at its core the separation
of church and state. And a democracy based on liberty? Can we
understand that to be one that does not deny liberty to anyone,
a concept fundamentally incompatible with the notion of militarily
occupying another people's land?
Neither parameter fits the Israeli model
of democracy.
To his credit, Bush has recognized and
stated that Israeli settlement activity must stop, and that the
Israeli occupation must end. But his position is plagued by the
same inconsistencies that have tarnished his attempts at statesmanship
in the Middle East in the past. On the one hand, he conditions
U.S. support for the creation of a Palestinian state on the Palestinian
people having "new security agreements with their neighbors,"
meaning their Israeli neighbors. Yet he also states that a "Palestinian
state is necessary to achieve the security that Israel longs
for." A Palestinian state is necessary for Israeli security,
but support for a Palestinian state will be withheld until Israel
is secure.
There is a way out of the stalemate.
It is to recognize, and base our policy, on the principle of
cause and effect. The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory
preceded -- by decades, no less -- Palestinian terror attacks
against Israel. The occupation and colonization of the West Bank
and Gaza are not a response to the terror, but the reason for
it.
President Bush must understand this simple
truth before he can successfully formulate a process to turn
his vision of two independent, viable, secure states into reality.
Failing that, Palestinians and Israelis alike will be doomed
for the remainder of Bush's presidency -- waiting for salvation
which never comes.
Tarif Abboushi
is a director of the Houston chapter of the American
Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
This
Weekend's Features
Cockburn / St. Clair
Death,
Juries and Scalia
Tarif Abboushi
Bush's
Double Standard
on Israel
N.D. Jayaprakash
Seething
with Rage:
The Palestinian Saga
Michael Yates
Taking
the Pledge:
Teachers and the Flag
Stephen Zunes
Bush's
Speech a Setback
for Peace
Walt Brasch
The Pledge
v. The Constitution
Cockburn / St. Clair
Strikers
as Terrorists?
Tom Ridge Calls Longshoremen
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|