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April 17, 2002
Robert Fisk
Fear and Learning in America
April 16, 2002
Todd May
US
Should End Aid to Israel
Gabriel Ash
The Oilman, the General
and the Coup that Failed
Ron Jacobs
Wake
Up Some Mornin',
Find Your Own Self Dead:
The Chavez Coup
Brian Wood
Inside Jenin: Rubble and Decomposing
Bodies
Jack McCarthy
Citizen
Coup: The Times,
The Post and the Coup Plotters
Dave Marsh
Hymns: How I Got Through
Last Week
April 15, 2002
Susi Abeles
A
Field Trip to Jenin
Breyten Breytenbach
A Letter to Ariel Sharon:
"You Won't Break Them"
Gregory
Wilpert
CounterCoup
in Venezuela
Kristen Schurr
Amid the Rubble of Nablus
Jordy
Cummings
An
Open Letter to Abe Foxman
Christopher Reilly
The Media, the CIA
and the Chavez Coup
James
T. Phillips
"Homicide"
Bombers
April 14, 2002
William Blum
The CIA and Venezuela
David
Vest
A
Good Old-Fashion "Incursion"
Ralph Nader
General Motors:
Stuck in Reverse
M. Junaid
Alam
From
the Ashes: Palestinian Struggle for Freedom
Sam Bahour
Palestinians and Americans
April 13, 2002
Beth Daoud
Life
in the Ruins of Nablus
Patrick Cockburn
Bulldozing History:
The End Nears for Stalin's
Most Monstrous Hotel
Gregory
Wilpert
The
Coup in Venezuela:
an Eye-Witness Account
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Thoughts on Our War
Against Terrorism
Anne Winkler-Morey
Why
I Didn't Organize
a Passover Seder This Year
April 12, 2002
Nancy Stohlman
Live from East Jerusalem:
International Nonviolence
Brian
J. Foley
Defeating
Evil
Olivier Audeoud
Did the US Break
the Laws of War?
Rep. Ron
Paul
The
Middle East Quagmire
Michael Colby
Republican Porn:
Oiling Up the Caribou
John Chuckman
Tom
Friedman's Fabrications
April 11, 2002
Patrick Cockburn
Battle of St. Petersburg Zoo
Jeff Halper
After
the Invasion:
Now What?
Falk / Krieger
Taming the Nuclear Monster
Steve
Perry
The
Good Life of
Nellie Stone Johnson
Nick Ring
Efficiency and Occupation:
Terrorism vs. Taylorism
Alexander
Cockburn
From
the West Bank to BBQ
to Old Sparky, And Beyond
April 10, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
Blaming the Victims:
Hating the Palestinians
George
Monbiot
World
Bank to West Bank
Fran Schor
US-Sponsored State Terror
David
Vest
Political
Color Schemes
Jack McCarthy
Florida State Radicals:
The Berkeley of the South
Rises Again
Doreen
Miller
A
Tale of Two Warring Tribes
Michael Neumann
Israelis and Indians
April 9, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
Colin
Powell's Table Talk
Matt Vidal
Thomas Friedman,
Another Wasted Pulitzer
Ron Jacobs
Buyer
Beware
Robert Jensen
I Helped Kill a Palestinian
Vijay
Prashad
Memories
of Barbarity:
Sharonism and September
Wayne Madsen
Anthrax and the Agency:
Thinking the Unthinkable

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Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
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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
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April 16, 2002
Today We Walked Through the Streets
and We Were Finding Feet
By Brian Wood
in Taybeh, Palestine
(5 kilometers west of Jenin)
Dictated by phone
IDF Attacks
Church of the Nativity
At 7:30 tonight, about 2 hours ago, the
Israeli military attempted to break into the Church of the Nativity.
I got a phone call from a friend in Beit Jala who said she had
just received a call from a friend inside the church. It seems
this attempt lasted about half an hour. This attempt was going
on as I was talking to [my friend], and we had a conversation
later, when she had found out that this had happened. When we
were talking the first time, [before we knew what had happened],
my friend was saying: "My gosh there has to be something
going on over there! There is tons of shooting. There are a lot
of explosions. Something is happening." Sure enough, the
Israeli military was indeed at that moment attempting to break
into the Church of the Nativity by climbing over a wall on the
Armenian side of the church. Now, the guys inside the church
who have guns--which is not everyone--offered heavy resistance
and forced the soldiers back out. I don't know of any casualties
or injuries. The report from inside the Church didn't comment
on that.
The Israeli military has been throwing
sound bombs [percussion grenades] into the church for days such
that the ears of the people inside are bleeding. Fortunately,
a convoy of food got into the church today, so the people inside
have some food. But the latest report is that there are 180 people
inside comprised of families, one of the armed factions, and
Palestinian Authority police. And there are approximately 30-40
priests, monks and nuns on top of that, totaling a bout 220 people.
The important point to stress here is that there is not just
a bunch of armed guys inside - there are a number of civilians
inside, including the priests, monks and nuns. We need to get
this report out, that the Israeli military for the first time
tonight has attempted to break into the church - and they have
been harassing everyone inside. Every night they shoot at the
church. They start at about 3:00 am and they go until 8:00 or
9:00 in the morning. They are shouting on the loud speaker over
and over again, day and night, all kinds of things at the people
inside, psychologically torturing them. It's fascinating to me
that Christians of the world have refused to respond with a heavy
hand to this vicious and barbaric attack on one of Christianity's
most holy sites in the world. They have allowed the Israeli military
to continue shooting at this church, blowing holes in the sides
of the wall to try to get in. They have also today burned completely
one of the priests' living quarters inside the church, with people
inside, so there wasn't a thing, not even a hair left inside
- that's what they said.
Christians of the world have chosen not
to act thus that far in a very powerful and unanimous way, and
now, because of that, the Israeli soldiers have made their first
attempt to break in. It's going to get worse. They have tried
it once, it will get bigger and stronger the next time they try,
if this situation is not resolved by forcing the Israeli military
out of Bethlehem.
The situation
in the Jenin Refugee Camp
Today, also, I talked to one friend Chivis,
who is originally from Ohio. She has been in the Jenin Refugee
Camp for the last few days doing whatever she can to help the
people there. She is one of only a handful of internationals
who are trying to actually help the people inside, unlike the
Red Cross and other international organizations that continue
to stand by while these atrocities are committed. She told me:
"Today we walked through the streets and we were finding
feet." We also spoke with other friends that are staying
in Jenin city, which is also under curfew and heavily bombarded
still on a regular basis.
We tried to get into the camp today because
yesterday, when we got in, we had the opportunity to hand carry
in food and water from UN trucks from outside the camp inside
the camp. The reason why we had to carry the food and water outside
the camp was because the Israeli military forced these two loaded
trucks to just sit for 8 hours outside of the camp. They would
not allow them to enter to take food and water inside. So, only
three of us were able to grab what we could and to bring it inside.
Today we wanted to bring more internationals. We could create
quite a significant impact by bringing a lot of water and food
by hand. But the soldiers today forbade entry of any food, any
water or any medicine that our international friends were trying
to enter by hand.
The Israeli military continues to forbid
people to bury their dead. There are dozens of bodies under the
rubble. The Israeli military bulldozes homes on the top of the
people who were still in their homes. I'm sure this is creating
a massive health crisis for the people remaining in the camp
and anyone in the surrounding area because flies and all kind
of insects are eating these bodies and then they move on to the
next place. The possibility for massive health problems in the
camp and the surrounding areas, including the Israeli cities,
is growing day by day. Even today our friends were trying to
help one of the injured women from inside her home to get to
the hospital, and the soldiers were shooting at them. There is
no other way to describe it but continued genocide. Village of
2000 has taken in 700 refugees
The Red Cross claims their communications
with Israeli authorities have broken down and they are not able
to do their work. But I have been here in Taybeh, outside of
Jenin, where there has been no Israeli military and other villages
around here where the re are thousands of Palestinian refugees
from the Jenin Refugee camp. The [Red Cross] could have come
here to visit those villages, bringing humanitarian aid, supporting
the local councils who are housing, feeding, clothing and providing
health care to these people. Not one single Red Cross member,
to my know ledge, has shown up yet, and it has been well over
a week now. Neither has the UN shown up. As far as I know, the
only international organization that has shown up in these villages--which
I might add are in the middle of any clashes-- have been a few
representatives from Amnesty International who brought lawyers
with them, took statements from some of the refugees, and filed
cases against the Israeli government. Howev! er, it is important
to provide humanitarian aid to these people. Fortunately (the
inhabitants of the surrounding villages) have done a marvelous
job this far.
The current
situation in Taybeh
As expected we had a kind of invasion
today. At 4:50 a.m., four Israeli military jeeps came through
the village by the main road. They had their sirens blaring and
flood lights flying everywhere, shining at people's homes, and
they came through the village shouting over loud speakers: "People
of Taybeh, you are not allowed to come out of your homes. If
you come out of your homes, we will punish you." And "punish"
means one of two things: either they will be arrested and taken
away to some unknown location, for an unknown period of time,
where no one has access to them, or they will be shot.
This was at 4:50 this morning. We were
all sound asleep. The soldiers were totally obnoxious as they
came to the village. It was the most harrowing awakening that
any of us have had in a long time. It was hysterical inside our
house for several minutes while the Israeli military was going
through. First we had no idea was going on. It was a very frightening
experience for everyone even though we expected the Israeli military
to come at some into our village. We have been under curfew all
day today. We haven't heard from the Israeli military since they
came in at that point.
At Least 20
Internationals Detained
They have detained and arrested or deported--we
are not sure--at least 20 internationals who were under their
way to Jenin today from Taybeh. There are reports from two hours
ago saying that the soldiers are on their way back to Taybeh.
There have been some very strange things going on, a lot of explosions
out in the distance, flashes in the sky that disrupted the phone
service.
The Israeli military are after the press
and foreigners right now in these areas. So we have actually
to be careful. The group that was detained today was taken to
Jerusalem, and we don't know if they have been taken to Tel Aviv
and been deported, or not. They are not hesitating to take foreigners
and get rid of them.
Among the people who were taken today,
one was a friend of ours, and she was staying in this house for
the last couple of nights. She is Italian, a photographer, and
a journalist. She was taken with them. People who have been taken
are not, so far, part of the International Solidarity Movement.
Brian Wood
is one of two members of the Colorado Campaign for Middle East
Peace joining internationals in nonviolent direct action to protest
and end Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine.
More on their trip at: http://www.ccmep.org/palestine.html
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