home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events
|
|
|
The War So Far: a Failure Worse Than Vietnam by Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad "The need for the White House to produce a fantasy picture of Iraq is because it dare not admit that it has engineered one of the greatest disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater." Get the answers you're looking for in the subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
|
October 28, 2005 Phil Gasper Manual Garcia, Jr. Monica Benderman Jason Leopold
Saul Landau Stuart Hodkinson Ingmar Lee Lila Rajiva Ilan Pappe Niranjan Ramakrishnan Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Cockburn / St. Clair
October 26, 2005 Kathy Kelly Gary Leupp Mike Marqusee Eric Ruder Patrick Cockburn Joshua Frank J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Website of
the Day
October 25, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn Conn Hallinan Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Jackie Corr Robert Day John Sugg
October 24, 2005 Dave Lindorff Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Norman Solomon Bill and Kathleen
Christison
October 22 / 23, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Billy Sothern Saul Landau Ralph Nader Behrooz Ghamari Brian Cloughley Diana Barahona Fred Gardner Lee Sustar Patrick Cockburn Laura Carlsen James Petras Joshua Frank Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Michelle Bollinger Missy Comley
Beattie Kona Lowell Ben Tripp Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of
the Day
October 21, 2005 Dave Lindorff Winslow T. Wheeler Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Madis Senner Michael Donnelly
Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Jeremy Brecher
/ Patrick Cockburn Kevin Zeese Ross Eisenbrey Randy Shields Justine Davidson After Lucas
Cranach Joe Allen
October 19, 2005 Christopher Reed Stephen Soldz Chet Richards Patrick Cockburn Scott Richard
Lyons Ralph Nader Website of
the Day
October 18, 2005 Chet Flippo Ron Jacobs Keeanga-Yamahtta
Taylor Dave Lindorff Virginia Rodino Thomas Healy Ralph Nader Stephen Lendman Patrick Cockburn
October 17, 2005 Peter Linebaugh Norman Solomon Cockburn /
Sengupta Mike Whitney Uri Avnery Harold Pinter Website of
the Day
October 15 / 16, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Neve Gordon Moshe Adler Christopher Brauchli Diane Farsetta Sam Husseini Monica Benderman Mickey Z. Douglas C.
Smyth Lee Sustar Fred Gardner Elizabeth Schulte Joshua Frank David Vest Ben Tripp Poets Basement Website of
the Weekend
October 14, 2005 Farrah Hassen Ron Jacobs Sasha Kramer Katrina Yeaw Nicole Colson Raúl Zibechi Nikolas Kozloff Website of the Day
Jeremy Scahill Jeff Birkenstein Brendan Smith / Jeremy Brecher Stan Cox Anis Memon Gary Leupp Dave Zirin Matthew Koehler Werther Website of
the Day
Omar Waraich William Cook Phil Gasper Dave Lindorff Matt Vidal John Gautreaux Diana Johnstone Mark Weisbrot Brian J. Foley Website of
the Day
October 11, 2005 Roger Morris
/ Steve Schmidt Lila Rajiva Bill Quigley Paul Craig Roberts Dave Lindorff Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Mitchel Cohen Tariq Ali Website of
the Day
October 10, 2005 Cindy and Craig
Corrie Joshua Frank Gideon Levy Alan Wallis Mickey Z. CounterPunch News Service Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
October 8 / 9, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ralph Nader Jennifer Van Bergen Saul Landau Jeff Halper Lenni Brenner Nikolas Kozloff Brian Cloughley Alice Slater John Gautreaux Fred Gardner Niranjan Ramakrishnan M.G. Piety Tom Gorman Mike Whitney Aseem Shrivastava Ben Tripp Poets' Basement
October 7, 2005 Larry Johnson Will Youmans Dave Lindorff Judith Scherr Russell D. Hoffman Jared Bernstein Jennifer Van
Bergen Website of
the Day
P. Sainath Scott Parkin Paul Craig
Roberts Andréa Schmidt Dave Lindorff Joshua Frank M. Junaid Alam Matthew Koehler Robert Pollin
October 5, 2005 Heather Gray Robert Jensen Ramzy Baroud Col. Dan Smith Dave Zirin Paul Craig Roberts Alan Maass
October 4, 2005 Nikolas Kozloff Mike Roselle Joshua Frank John Chuckman Alan Farago Mickey Z. Christine & Ethan Rose Gary Leupp Website of the Day
October 3, 2005 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig
Roberts Joshua Frank Seth Sandronsky Jeffrey St. Clair
Subscribe Online
|
October 28, 2005 "If You Will It, It is No Dream"Embracing the Anti-Apartheid Struggle in Israel/PalestineBy VIRGINIA TILLEY Debate and reportage from Israel-Palestine continue anxiously to focus on the symptoms, rather than the deeper direction, of the conflict. Media controversy whirls about how the Palestinians can navigate the immense challenges of the Gaza withdrawal, the electoral challenge from Hamas, and whether the PA can contain wildcat militancy. It even still whirls about whether the Sharon government intends to withdraw West Bank settlements or build them up-an impressively naïve concern. But these controversies distract us from an underlying reality far more earth-shaking. We have reached a historic
cusp, predicted by Israel for decades: that once Israel consolidates
its territorial control, even the most courageous and principled
Palestinian struggles for meaningful political action become
futile. Of course, it has been phrased differently: "When
we have settled the land," Rafael Eitan famously said in
1983, "all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be
to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle."
That is, whatever political cohesion Palestinian politics can
sustain would be funneled into the debility of a Bantustan. Today,
this Bantustan is being called a "state," but the model
hasn't changed, and many Palestinians indeed recognize, with
mixed dismay and alarm, that they are operating in a bottle that
is quickly being sealed. Having aimed for exactly this debacle,
Sharon and his circles are not contemplating withdrawing settlement
cities. They are already sitting back and rubbing their hands
in anticipation, waiting for Palestinian politics to implode
as predicted. But this warning is itself dangerous. First, in conditions where delay only enables the Sharon government's freedom of action, why urge more delay? And what can the next three to six months tell that the past decade has not? Can we anticipate, in the next few months, that Sharon will suddenly announce withdrawal of the West Bank settlements? Or that the administration of George W. Bush will announce that it will cut Israel's aid package to leverage their withdrawal? Or that some new European "peace initiative" will be launched that can make any difference? Absent such possibilities, waiting by a desperately concerned human rights community only risks fostering its indefinite paralysis-happy news for Israel's ongoing program of aggressive land acquisition, for which the two-state agenda has always been only the fading cover. Second, what exactly should these renewed collective efforts hope to achieve? The objectives of the peace camp can be flagged by their slogans: "stop the wall," "end the occupation," "free Palestine." Yet a certain anachronistic quality now surrounds these venerable pillars, and consensus on their details is indeed far from solid. In a recent cogent article on the growing boycott movement, Muhammad Jaradat observed that "Visitors and partners of Palestinian NGOs who visit the region say that they often leave with the impression that Palestinian civil society has a multiplicity of agenda. Different and contradictory messages are sent not only by the Palestinian Authority and civil society, but even by civil society organizations themselves." Jaradat attempts to clarify those messages by reporting on a recent meeting among Palestinian NGOs which debated them. Yet aside from some points agreed as basic (such as the centrality of the 1948 nakba to the Palestinian predicament), the stated goals remained vaguely out of kilter with present conditions: "1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; 2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and 3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194." But what do these goals mean? The first is patently obsolete if it means withdrawing the West Bank settlements. Those hulking cities, towns, industrial zones, and related infrastructure are not going anywhere. But "end the occupation" is not a dead hope. If apartheid is upon us, then we indeed face an anti-apartheid struggle. But, far from being a horrifying thought, this should be cause for major optimism and the reinvigoration of all energies. At this writing, "end the occupation" is being retranslated to a different and more vigorous meaning: end military rule over the native population under Israel's control; give everyone under Israeli authority the full rights and freedoms of Israeli civil law. Similarly, if we accept that ending "colonization" no longer realistically means returning all occupied land to the indigenous people, we can allow it to obtain another and, again, more formidable meaning: ending settler-colonial-style exclusion of the native people from full citizenship in what Israel proudly claims to be-a democratic state. Gaining full democracy, and a real voice in policymaking, is indeed the only leverage by which Palestinians can arrest the growth of settlements, the Wall, and their ruinous effects on Palestinian communities. Once these basic premises change, all others do as well. For example, "the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality" can be asserted and defended effectively only by drawing on universal human rights norms which support equal rights. But in drawing on these universal principles, no legal or moral separation can then be made between the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel and the rights of Palestinian non-citizen residents of Israel. The same principles must apply to all people living in territory under Israel's control. Similarly, respecting the right of Palestinian return requires clarifying to which territory they can return. Some two-state advocates have agreed that they might return (initially) only to territory in the Palestinian state, if it includes East Jerusalem (which it will not). Yet if there is no Palestinian state, then return to any part of Israel-Palestine becomes juridically indistinguishable from returning to Israel proper (the 1948 boundaries). Insisting on the right of Palestinian return must then be placed in a new context: within negotiations about the immigration laws of a non-ethnic state, that will necessarily continue to reflect historical Jewish concerns but must also reflect stable principles of equity, nondiscrimination, and historical justice reflecting the Palestinian experience as well as third-party citizens. The implications of this shift affect everyone. For example, as an anti-apartheid slogan, "free Palestine" must be rethought entirely and may not make sense. But other bastion calls like "stop the wall," "end the occupation" and "equal rights" all take vastly more moral strength from an anti-apartheid framework. International human rights law has little to say today about ethnic nationalism (except regarding rights of indigenous peoples, a group from which Palestinians have historically disassociated themselves). By contrast, it has a great deal to say about equal rights and democracy, including social, economic and cultural rights of people and cultural groups within a single government. The famous South African experience will also provide vision, methods, and a ream of hard-won experience in launching a campaign to unify profoundly divided and embittered populations into a coherent nation. In sum, an anti-apartheid struggle, the Palestinians would suddenly inherit an immense wealth of human rights law, coded principles, and world experience. Not for nothing did Ehud Olmert warn that an anti-apartheid struggle by Palestinians would be "a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle--and ultimately a much more powerful one." Already, a ripple of new energy is moving through the networks of debate and activism. One-state articles are beginning to proliferate-and all carry undertones of excitement and new inspiration. This shift in paradigm still stumbles over some early worries, however. Mahmoud Musa (President of the Association for One Democratic State in Palestine-Israel) recently circulated a short email survey probing some common pitfalls. One common objection is that an anti-apartheid campaign is badly timed. The PA, for example, now opposes any open discussion of a one-state program because it would immediately undermine its fragile standing with Israel and the US. The PA itself was, of course, the product of the two-state strategy and its very existence is implicated by any assertion that the option has crashed. Moreover, it still manifests, however ambivalently, as the only democratic mechanism available to craft Palestinian political unity. Some who admit that the two-state option is effectively dead therefore argue that Palestinians should accept a Bantustan state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in order first to end the state of hostilities and assemble an effective united Palestinian voice. In the more relaxed conditions of peace, a coherent democratic leadership could better conduct the necessary negotiations and confidence-building measures toward unification and democracy. Certainly the Palestinians urgently need political unity. But otherwise, this argument is a dangerous illusion. Entrenching the Bantustan Palestinian state will only generate obstacles far harder to overcome, in several ways:
Indeed, the only real argument
for this "staged" approach is that Israel can be expected
to help it happen, precisely for the above reasons, and so might
provide the tiny wedge of space necessary to Palestinian democratic
processes. But since Israel wants only a debilitated Palestinian
state, which will force its citizens to turn to Jordan and Egypt
for political rights, debility and fragmentation is what Israel's
"help" will generate. It is never wise to take the
dominant society's plan for ghettoization as some kind of staged
approach to later equality and integration. We can look to the
ANC in South Africa on this one: they refused to accept the Bantustan
plan as a step toward democracy, because they knew it was a trick
and a trap -- which it was. Greater vision is needed on
all sides, therefore, to steer the Palestinian movement in a
multi-ethnic and multi-confessional direction that can secure
equal rights and freedoms for Jews, Muslims, Christians, secular
citizens, and mixed citizens-i.e., everyone in the country. But
this debate is not to be avoided out of fear; it is to be launched
at once, with all energies at hand, while conditions still permit
its success. Every country and organization in the world can
help to launch these debates (the major church councils and inter-faith
forums are obvious actors). And, as in the anti-apartheid campaign,
waiting for US government action or approval to do so is futile
and far from necessary. Mahmoud Musa's first survey question to democratization advocates, however, was not only punchy but the most pertinent: "Are you dreaming?" The first answer, to paraphrase Conan Doyle, is that if one option has become impossible (two states), then the merely improbable (one state) must be pursued. But the better answer is, what great political venture didn't start with dreaming? Zionism itself was, famously, a dream. Palestinian nationalism has always been a dream. But the one-state "dream" has logistical viability and true moral authority -- the authority of democracy, equal rights, and the rights of indigenous people to a secure life in their homeland. So let us take a lesson from one of the great dreamers of this conflict, Theodor Herzl, and apply it to the one-state mission: "If you will it, it is no dream." With that vision in mind, everyone must look at each other with new appreciation for our common humanity. The assumption of an anti-apartheid struggle is that everyone stands as representatives for the generation of their grandchildren, who will be national brethren. How does one approach and treat the grandparents of those brethren? The need to open debate on that question, at all levels, is the real challenge in the next few months Virginia Tilley is associate professor of Political Science and International Relations, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and author of The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock. She is currently at the Centre for Policy Studies, Johannesburg, South Africa and available at tilley@hws.edu.
|
from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair                      |
