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April 21, 2002
Michelle Campos
Suckered Again in Israel
Mike Leon
200,000
in DC Protest Say:
"We Are All Palestinians Today"
C.G. Estabrook
Sex and Power in Catholicism
Kathy
Kelly
Gimme
Some Truth Now
A Walk Through Jenin
April 20, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Drowning in a Sea of Apathy
Kristen
Schurr
Leaving
Nablus
Bernard Weiner
Israel and the Intifada
for Dummies
Jean-Guy
Allard
A
Coup Signed by Otto Reich
Chris Floyd
The "Grandeur" That Was Rome:
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
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Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
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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
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The
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by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
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April 21, 2002
Today I Was a Palestinian
By Shaik Ubaid
Today
I was a Palestinian. One of more than 100,000 that marched down
the Pennsylvania Avenue, from the White House to the Capitol.
I even, briefly, marched under the shade of a huge canopy made
out of the Palestinian flag. When I reached out and tentatively
touched this symbol of human dignity of an oppressed people,
I felt a reverence that is hard to explain. Many a night I had
found myself crying silently in the night thinking of the innocent
Palestinian children buried alive under the rubble in Jenin and
of babies, crying with hunger and fear, cowering behind their
mothers in other Palestinian towns. I was crying as much because
of empathy as with guilt, after all it were my tax dollars that
supported the tanks, apache helicopters and bulldozers that were
raining death and destruction on the Palestinians. Today I shed
a few more tears, but they were shed openly, in daylight and
were tears of relief and gratitude. Watching tens of thousands
of fellow Americans and fellow humans marching in solidarity
with the oppressed Palestinians had revived my faith in the American
people. These hundred thousand "honorary Palestinians"
including "Jews for Palestine", were marching with
determination, holding their banners high.
Today was the day not just to demand
freedom for Palestinians; it was also to celebrate freedom. After
living under fear for eight months, the Muslim-American community
finally felt bold enough to march in such great numbers. Their
sense of outrage and grief over the terrible massacres in Palestine
and India had forced them to overcome their fear. "Yeah,
too bad"! I said to the ugly triumvirate of neo-conservatives,
evangelical fundamentalists and militant Zionists that rules
my country's foreign policy today. Too bad that, your desperate
and last ditch effort to make America turn against its Muslim
citizens and to cow the Muslims into a cowardly silence on Palestine
had finally failed. Now, in this war of public opinion, the tide
will finally change. Churchill had said about the battle of El-Alamein
that before it the allies won no battle and after it they lost
none. This could be our El-Alamein, our Midway, I thought. In
a democracy once the people start to campaign against an injustice
there can be no stopping to them.
Today, American Muslims were not only
out in great numbers, they were also not alone. Tens of thousands
of our fellow Americans who were earlier in the day demonstrating
for their pet causes from anti-globalization to exploitation
in Latin America came together to express solidarity with the
Palestinians and the besieged Muslim-Americans. The International
A.N.S.W.E.R (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) had given a
call for this rally. We had been trying to mobilize the Muslims
for many weeks but were running into fear and apathy. Then on
the 54th anniversary of Deir Yassin massacre, the Jenin massacre
took place at the hands of the much reviled, Sharon. Kibya (probably
Dubya had never heard of it) in 1953, Gaza in the 60s, Sabra
and Shatilla in the 82were all committed by this monster mass-murderer
and their memories were already open wounds in the psyche of
Muslims. Suddenly the Mosques and Islamic Centers all throughout
the Northeast and even as far as Dallas, Detroit, Chicago and
North Carolina were arranging buses for the rally. The national
organizations had already endorsed it.
Earlier that morning a moderate size
earthquake, the biggest in recent years had shaken the Northeast
United States. We heard it on the radio en route from NewYork
to Washington. I thought to myself that it was a good omen, even
though I do not believe in omens. All along the way from New
York we saw buses, minivans, trucks and cars with banners and
Palestinian flags. The ugly triumvirate should be trembling too,
I thought, as its foundations build on the Goebblian strategy,
and propaganda has only one object - to conquer the masses.
Every means that furthers this aim is good; every means that
hinders it is bad, must be shaking byt his show of America's
awakening. What must be disconcerting to these false prophets
of oppression was the fact that most non-Muslim supporters of
Palestine were young. America's future was with us today and
it was so eloquently disowning and condemning the injustices
perpetrated by America's recent past.
There were so many huge Palestinian flags
that it was not clear if it were the clouds or the flags that
were not letting the sunlight through. Then there were a zillion
banners, many unique, many hand painted by little children while
others a witness to the expertise of the youth in creative graphic
designing. Many years ago, at a hastily arranged rally in Chicago,
to gain the media attention, I had suggested that we paint Hitler's
toothbrush mustache under the nose of Milosevic. Today there
were tens of banners that had painted the war criminal Sharon
in similar telling fashion. Then there was a "new"
Israeli flag, with a blue Nazi swastika in place of the Star
of David in the center and many that were equating Israel with
apartheid and Zionism with racism.
The slogans were varied too. And yet,
just like the banners, they were eloquently and clearly united
in their message. "Free Free Palestine", "Hey
hey Ho ho The occupation got to go", "Long live
the Intifada", "The people United - will notbe defeated".
When someone put the megaphone in front of my face I chanted
"Sharon, Sharon you shall see - Palestine will soon be free".
"Serbia Serbia you shall see Bosnia will soon be free"
was a popular chant from the 93 rally for Bosnia, the biggest
ever rally of Muslim-Americans when 75,000 Muslims marched on
the same route. Many did not believe then that this prediction
would come true. But it did. It will again. It is the nature
of the human spirit that it cannot be enslaved for long. The
free countries of Asia and Africa bear testimony to this fact.
It is a just a matter of time before this colonization will also
end and this apartheid will also be dumped into the dustbin of
history. And marches like today's will expedite the demise of
this horrible and brutal occupation. So we shall march again
and again till we shall have overcome.
Shaik Ubaid
is a physician and a former media adviser to various national
Muslim organizations. He was one of the rally organizers for
the Muslim community in New York area. He can be reached at:
Su204@aol.com
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