How
the Press &
the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Today's
Stories
January 3,
2004
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2004
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 31,
2004
Farrah Hassen
The
Palestinian Right of Return: a View from Syria
Dave Lindorff
US Air's Bold New Idea: Work for Your Boss for Free!
George Capaccio
Tsunami Hits Iraq
Mike Whitney
Iraq v. Tsunami: Media Duplicity
Peter Phillips
The Tsunami and the Corporate Media: Waves of Hypocrisy
Christopher
Deliso
War
and the Tsunami: Putting It in Perspective
December 30,
2004
Lila Rajiva
Unnatural
Disaster? Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Nuclear Testing
Robert Fisk
The
Ghosts of Vietnam
Roger Burbach
Argentina
v. the IMF
Stan Cox
9/11 and 12/26: How to React
Walter Brasch
Bush and Tsunamis: Heartless in Crawford
Christopher Brauchli
Empire of the Misers
Alexandra Spieldoch
NAFTA Through a Gender Lens: "Free Trade" Pacts and
Women
Paul Kincaid Jameison
Grief, Relief and the Stingy West
Dan Bacher
The Water Kings of California
Paul Craig
Roberts
Unbecoming
Conduct
December 29,
2004
Dave Lindorff
Us,
Stingy?: It's All Relative
M. Shahid Alam
America
and Islam: Seeking Parallels
Ronald D. Hoffman
Tsunamis
and Nuclear Power Plants
Sam Bahour
/ Todd May
Elections
Without Democracy
Fred Gardner
Ricky Does 60 Minutes
Ali Khan
Who's Feeding the Bin Laden Legend?
John Hansen
Family Farms Are Being Fed to Corporate Sharks
Sam Lewin
How the Justice Department Continues to Screw the Sioux
Richard Oxman
As Time Goes By With Andy Goldsworthy
Mickey Z.
A Wave of Questions: Putting a Disaster in Context
Website of the Day
Banking While Muslim
December 28,
2004
Brian Cloughley
The
Chief Weirdo at the Pentagon: Rumsfeld Must Go
Joshua Frank
Privacy Piracy? What Howard Dean May Bring to the DNC
Jessica Leight
The
Chilean Miracle: Less Than Meets the Eye
Dave Lindorff
A
Shameful Response to Disaster
John Walsh
Disappearing the Anti-War Movement at the NYTs
Dave Zirin
The Death of Reggie White: an Off the Field Obituary
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Be Careful Not to Get Too Much Education: It's Happened to a
Lot of Good Christians
Ron Jacobs
Iran
2004: The Resistance and the Western Anti-War Movement
December 27,
2004
M. Junaid Alam
"Civilization
v. Barbarism": an Interview with Noam Chomsky
Michael Donnelly
Greens and Greenbacks: How Nonprofit Careerism Derailed the "Revolution"
Greg Moses
Texas Election Scandal: Forty Faxes and a Whisper
Toni Solo
Colombia's Appalling Vista: Justice With Eyes Wide Open
Brian Kwoba
Blaming the Victims of the 2004 Elections
Genna Goodman-Campbell
Honduras Validates Its Banana Republic Status, Again
Mike Whitney
Disappearing Act: Fallujah and the Media
Ari Shavit
"Zionism Has Exhausted Itself": an Interview with Amos
Elon
Richard Oxman
Reflections on a Handful of Activists
Saul Landau
James
Cason's Cuban Delusions
December 25
/ 26, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Yup,
It's Moral Outrage Time
Diane Christian
The Christmas Christ
Dr. Susan Block
Faith-Based Sex
Gary Leupp
Rumsfeld, His Critics and the Draft
Ron Jacobs
Music in Wartime
Elaine Cassel
Articles I Didn't Write
Jim Minick
Beyond Organic
Poets Basement
Louise, Landau, Orloski, Albert
and Collins
December 24,
2004
Diane Christian
Winning:
Rummy and John Milton
Chad Nagle
Ukraine's
Real Underdog
Saul Landau
My Friend Richard Barnet
Greg Moses
Ramsey Muniz Speaks
Joe DeRaymond
The Endless War in Colombia: a View From Within
Borzou Daragahi
Iraq's Christians: Tolerated by Saddam; Targets Under Occupation
Mike Whitney
Rummy's Quagmire of Lies
Francis A. Boyle
O Little Town of Bethlehem: Another Christmas Under Occupation
William Loren
Katz
Florida 1837: Christmas Eve Resistance to the First US Occupation
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
December 20,
2004
Gary Leupp
Japan
in Iraq
Robert Fisk
An
Army Without Compassion
Uri Avnery
The Mountain and the Mouse
Francisco Letelier
My Case Against Pinochet
Patrick Cockburn
The Polls of Fear
Bill Conroy
Charles Bowden on the Legacy of Gary Webb: "He Drew Blood"
Yoshie Furuhashi
Chokeholds of a Giant: Attacking Wal-Mart's Supply Chain
David Swanson
Media Blackout of Bush's War on Labor
Chad Nagle
Did Yushchenko Poison Himself?
December 18
/ 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
They Hated Gary Webb
Saul Landau
Gen.
Pinochet Should Also Face Charges in DC
Patrick Cockburn
Losing
Mosul: Once They Called It a Model for the Occupation
Douglas Valentine
Wolves
and Revolution in Venezuela: a Caracas Romance
Ray McGovern
Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear: the New China / Russia Alliance
Fred Gardner
DEA Upholds Grower's Marijuana Monopoly
Jean-Guy Allard
Locked Up Naked in a Hole Within a Hole: Have the Cuban 5 Been
Tortured in US Prisons?
Ron Jacobs
Drifters Escape, Again: Encounters with Berkeley's Police
Raymond G.
Helmick, S.J.
The Law and Peace in the Middle East
Sean Sellers
Values Voters, Desperate Housewives and Sweatshop Tacos
Lee Sustar
Christmas
on the Picket Line at CNH: "They Want to Break Our Unions"
Richard Thieme
Webb's Wife: "Gary Was Never the Same After They Attacked
Him"
Sam Bahour
WANTED:
Middle East Negotiator
Joshua Frank
The
Spin Doctor: an Interview with Mickey Z.
Dave Lindorff
A Man Who Confers with God Should Have Good Hearing
Stan Cox
What Kids Cost: Dallas v. Delhi
Chris Frasier
Farming By Numbers: More Poets, Fewer MBAs
Poets' Basement
Katz, Melek, Harley, Albert and Ford
December
17, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
CounterAttack:
How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Dave Lindorff
Racism:
Philly Style
Dan Bacher
Bush Abandons Salmon Restoration
Marisa Jacott
NAFTA and the Environment: Trade Still Runs Roughshod
Francis Thicke
How Now, Industrial Cow?
Rupert Cornwell
The Inuit Strike Back
Website of the Day
Franz Boas Unrolls Over in His Grave
December
16, 2004
Michael
Neumann
How We Became Barbarians
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Ralph Nader
Gabriel
Espinoza Gonzales
The Dubious Career of John Bolton
Christopher
Brauchli
Louis Freeh's New Gig: Usurer
Patrick
Cockburn
Allawi's Pre-Election Ploy: Putting "Chemical Ali"
on Trial
Mike
Whitney
Gearing Up for a Draft?
Walter
Brasch
Hillbilly Humvees and Rumsfeld's New Physics
Bill
Conroy
How Gary Webb Saved My Ass from the FBI
Website
of the Day
Saturday Memorial for Gary Webb
December
15, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Who Killed Baha Mousa?
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Monster Under the Bed
Heather
Gray
Will the Real Christians Please Stand?: a Personal Testimony
Dave
Lindorff
The DNC, Albright and the Iraq Elections
Luis
Hernandez Navarro
To Die a Little: Migration and Coffee
in Mexico and Central America
Joshua
Frank
The Ohio Recount: an Exercise in "Dumbocracy"
Greg
Moses
Eighty-Sixing Civil Rights in Ohio?
George
Caffentzis
The Petroleum Commons
December
14, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
DNC Meddling in the Ukraine Elections
Larry
Birns / Seth DeLong
Haiti is Unraveling and No One is Saying
Anything
Richard
Thieme
My Last Talk with Gary Webb: "I Knew It Was the Truth and
That's What Kept Me Going"
Patrick
Cockburn
A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq
is Getting Worse
Chris
Floyd
Client State: Moral Values and Voluntary Servitude in Bush's
America
Akiva
Eldar
A One-time Hanukkah Miracle
Burbach
/ Cantor
The Legacy of Pinochet: Kissinger
and the Teflon Tyrant
December
13, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Gary Webb: a Great Reporter, Trashed
by the CIA's Claque
David
Phinney
"Contract Meal Disaster" for Iraqi Prisoners: Rancid
Food Sparked Abu Ghraib Riots
Paul
Craig Roberts
A Dose of Non-Delusional Reality
for Douglas Feith
M.
Junaid Alam
The War is the War Crime
Robert
Jensen
The US Has Lost the Iraq War...and That's a Good Thing
Richard
Oxman
Kafkaesque Lessons for the Left
Greg
Moses
Send No Messengers of Defeat
Douglas
Lummis
The Pentagon's Neurosis: Fallujah
Gulag
December
11 / 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Running an Empire on the Cheap
Ron
Jacobs
The Drugs of War: Getting High in the Green Zone?
Saul
Landau
Listening and Talking to God About
Invading Other Countries
Gary
Leupp
Bush's Capital
Sharon
Smith
The Horrible Toll on US Troops
Dave
Lindorff
Deja Vu All Over Again: 5,000 Desertions and Counting
Uri
Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Crazy
Jude
Wanniski
The Neo-Con Smear on Kofi Annan: What Food-for-Oil Scandal?
Heather
Gray
How the South Became Republican: an Interview with John Egerton
Patrick
Cockburn / Ken Sengupta
Fallujah: the Homecoming and the Homeless
John
Pilger
Return to Kosovo: Calling the Humanitarian Bombers to Account
Joshua
Frank
All the Rage: Mr. Solomon, Say You're Sorry
Ben
Tripp
O Canada!: the Truth About the Election of 2004
John
Stanton
God Speaks!
Laura
Nathan
Porn Stars are People, Too: a Talk with Christi Lake
Poets'
Basement
Capaccio, Davies, Louise, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Day
Fallujah Photos: Killed in Their Beds
December
10, 2004
Ralph
Nader
President Bush, Stop Destroying the
Mosques of Iraq
Greg
Moses
Whitewashing Voter Fraud
Nicole
Colson
Rebellion in the Ranks: Grunts Are Resisting Stop-Loss Orders
Frederick
B. Hudson
"They Still Got Those Dogs": A New Book Probes Old
Civil Rights Lessons
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Insurgents Oppose the Occupation, Not the Elections
Kathy
Kelly
From Haiti to Iraq: Burying Water
December
9, 2004
Greg
Moses
Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah
Joshua
Frank
Cobb and the Ohio Recount: Vote Fraud as Fundraiser!
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush: It's Time to
Disclose the Real Casualty Figures
Lee
Sustar
Bhopal: the Making of a Disaster
Tom
Barry
Restrictionist Resurgence
Mickey
Z.
Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth Movement
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush in the Bubble
Mark
Donham
Why are House Democrats Trying to
Deny Cynthia McKinney Seniority?
Gary
Corseri
On the Anniversary of John Lennon's Death, 2012
Paul
de Rooij
The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers
December
8, 2004
Ralph
Nader
Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge?
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
Paul
Craig Roberts
War Crime
Dave
Lindorff
They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for
Spying
Patrick
Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe
CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
Col.
Dan Smith
Rules of Engagement in Iraq
Emily
Alves / Michael Johnson
Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica
Richard
Oxman
The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas
Ron
Jacobs
In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
January 3, 2005
Patronizing the Palestinians
The
Trouble with Optimism
By
KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
We need to be very clear on one vital
point about Palestinian-Israeli relations, particularly in this
time of promised movement toward peace: there will be no real
Palestinian state anytime in the foreseeable future, and this
will not be the Palestinians' fault. Despite all the Cheshire-cat
optimism in the media and among politicians around the world
since Yasir Arafat's death, despite the sanctimonious hopes that
Palestinian "terrorism" will end now that Arafat is
gone, despite the patronizing visions of Palestinian "reform,"
despite the demise of the Palestinian bogeyman who supposedly
stood as the only obstacle to peace, we must not lose sight of
the fact that there will be no Palestinian independence, and
therefore no peace and no justice, anytime soon, for the simple
reason that Israel does not want it.
In a recent scathing commentary,
Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery bluntly characterized the current
talk of a "window of opportunity" in the conflict as
"repulsive" and "ridiculous" because, simply
put, "there is no window and no opportunity, not as long
as Sharon is in power." This critical reality has been
lost in the outpouring of obscene glee over Arafat's death and
the likely election of a supposed "moderate" to succeed
him. Ding dong, the wicked wizard is dead, the world's politicians
and eager commentators are singing. But, sadly, the future promises
no magical kingdom where peace and happiness reign -- not, at
any rate, for Palestinians.
Every so often the media and
the world political community lose all sense of proportion, and
the optimism -- better to call it mindless wishful thinking --
lately coming out of the visits of various luminaries to Palestine
and out of media reporting and commentary is enough to make any
honest optimist cringe in embarrassment. Commentators and politicians
and so-called experts have been experiencing mild paroxysms of
anticipation about the prospects for peace since Arafat's death.
Tony Blair went to Palestine and Israel in December to try his
hand at restarting the peace process, and the  British
press was awash in hopeful analyses portraying Blair's visit
as a kind of Second Coming (though not of the Christian fundamentalist
variety). The Guardian's European correspondent Ian Black
ran an article just preceding the visit claiming with absurd
elation that seldom since Britain ended its mandate and left
Palestine almost 60 years ago have "hopes been so high that
the former mandatory power can do something useful to help to
bring Arabs and Jews closer to peace."
BBC News carried an interesting
item on Blair's trip that shines a little of the cold light of
reality on the enthusiasm of Black and his political and media
colleagues: reporting on the visit, then impending, a reporter
in the northern West Bank town of Jenin asked Zachariya Zubeidi,
who heads the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades in Jenin and essentially
runs this besieged, isolated town, if he thought anything would
come of the Blair trip. "Who is Tony Blair?" was Zubeidi's
response.
Quickly covering what must
have been a certain consternation -- or perhaps a desire to guffaw
-- at this devastating evidence of Blair's unimportance in the
scheme of things, the British reporter explained who Blair was,
to which Zubeidi responded that high-level visits such as this
have little effect on the situation on the ground. "On
the ground" is where real life is, where Palestinians daily
cope with Israeli oppression, where people like Tony Blair and
George Bush never venture. It is only ignorant politicians like
this and those in the media who stay in the U.S. and in Europe,
none of whom ever see "on the ground," who can find
any reason for optimism.
Not surprisingly, Blair never
saw "on the ground" when he passed briefly through
Palestine on his way to meet with Arafat's successor and the
leading Palestinian presidential candidate, Mahmoud Abbas, and
nod his head curtly at Arafat's memorial; he never saw the separation
wall, never visited with Palestinians whose existence has been
altered irrevocably by its meandering path through their lives.
Zachariya Zubeidi did not go into detail when he said visits
like Blair's do no good, but he might have mentioned that, despite
all the hopeful talk by people pontificating from outside the
occupied territories, the killing of Palestinians continues,
the checkpoints remain, the wall continues to be built, Palestinian
homes are still being demolished while new Jewish homes in Israeli
settlements are still being constructed, the Palestinians are
still being smothered, and Zubeidi himself continues to live
underground, dodging Israeli assassins. Blair and his ilk have
managed to miss this.
Defining "Moderation"
The nearly universal Western
obsession with terrorism, with Arafat's supposed perfidy, with
Palestinian corruption and other failures, has shifted the world's
focus away from where it should lie, on Israel's occupation as
the root cause and the original grievance of the current conflict.
This myopia has rendered intelligent people incapable of deep
or logical thought. So few anymore can understand where or why
the conflict originated, so few can fathom how it might be resolved,
so few "get it." Take the overweening desire for a
"moderate" at the helm of the Palestinians. But a
moderate, by almost unanimous definition, is simply anyone who
will condemn all opposition to the occupation, in any form.
No nuances. No allowance for a legitimate struggle to gain freedom
or fight oppression through armed action, no recognition that
Israel's domination is anything but benign and sacrosanct.
Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl displayed
this rigid, unnuanced point of view when, recently showing some
rare skepticism about the future possibilities, he worried that
Abbas's "moderation" may not truly reflect general
Palestinian attitudes. The very popular jailed Palestinian fighter,
Marwan Barghouti, Diehl said, had delivered a "poison pill"
in backing out of the presidential contest by conditioning his
withdrawal on a list of 18 demands on Abbas and the Palestinian
leadership. These demands included such stipulations as that
Israel should withdraw from the occupied territories before peace
negotiations begin, that there be no partial or interim agreements,
and that the principle of armed resistance be maintained. Diehl,
exhibiting no recognition that the occupation remains the basis
of the conflict or any understanding of the conflict's history,
called this Barghouti list a "militant agenda." One
is led inevitably to some comparisons. Was it not the essence
of the American Revolution to demand that British occupiers withdraw
from the colonies, to reject partial and provisional agreements
and insist that only a final peace agreement would do, and to
hold high the right to fight against the occupying British army?
Does Diehl consider this "agenda" unacceptably militant?
Diehl worried that Barghouti
was expressing the secret desires of most Palestinians and that,
if Abbas begins negotiations with Israel, this deep-seated "militancy"
will sprout and upset the talks. But what Diehl clearly does
not understand is that, although Abbas has gone quite some distance
to show his "moderate" credentials by calling for an
end to armed resistance at the moment and prohibiting
anti-Israeli incitement on Palestinian airwaves, he has not and
cannot, if he wishes to maintain his credibility as a potential
leader, reject any of Barghouti's demands.
During the election campaign,
he must maintain the demand that Israel withdraw from the occupied
territories; this is the heart of the issue, whatever border
adjustments might be negotiated at a later stage. He must also
refuse to allow the Palestinians to be diddled, as they have
been for the last decade-plus, with a further succession of inconclusive
partial and provisional agreements (the heart of Oslo was a series
of interim agreements that permitted endless Israeli delay, and
the heart of the Roadmap is establishment of a so-called provisional
Palestinian state that by definition would be meaningless and
that any leader would be a fool to accept). Finally, no self-respecting
leader could possibly renounce his nation's right ever to resume
armed struggle in the face of continued oppression by a foreign
army. Unfortunately, the fact that Diehl does not understand
these rudiments of national self-determination and national dignity
is not at all surprising in the current atmosphere.
Today's optimism is merely
a diversion for those who refuse to think and observe. Palestinians
are still dying, still being made homeless, still losing land
and livelihoods to Israel's inexorable expansionism. Forcing
reforms in the Palestinian political system, however necessary
some reform may be, will not bring peace, will not end the Israeli
violence. Palestinian farmers in the small West Bank town of
Jayyous, which lost three-quarters of its agricultural land and
all of its fresh water wells to Israel when the separation wall
was built through the village a year ago, recently told a correspondent
that peace would be wonderful but reform and elections are meaningless
to them when they no longer have a livelihood and cannot even
provide their families with water.
The obstacle to peace has always
been Israel's occupation, not Arafat or any other Palestinian
leader; the source of violence is not Palestinian "terrorism,"
but Israel's occupation and everything that goes with it: the
land confiscations, the settler depredations, the house demolitions,
the wall, the destruction of property, the checkpoints, the Israeli-only
roads, the ethnic cleansing. It is Israel that is not a partner
for peace, Israel's violence that impedes peace.
Today's optimism is a diversion
from these continuing realities. Optimism allows us, allows
politicians and commentators, to ignore the real situation on
the ground; it allows us all to ignore Israel's explicitly stated
intention never to relinquish its domination of the West Bank
(most recently elucidated by Sharon's senior political adviser
Dov Weisglass, who crowed openly about having put the Palestinian
issue in "formaldehyde" and, with full U.S. knowledge
and support, frozen the peace process so that "you prevent
the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion
about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalemindefinitely");
it allows us all to ignore the gross land hunger and racism inherent
in Israel's occupation policies.
The patronizing attitude being
shown by nearly everyone is breathtaking. Blair went to Israel
pushing a broad peace conference to be convened in London in
March and, when Israel said "Sounds great but we aren't
going to attend," he changed his tune and claimed that,
well, Israel's presence would have "politicized" a
conference that is really intended to get the Palestinians to
end violence and embrace institutional reform, in order to "ensure
there are proper partners for peace on either side. Viability
[that is, of a Palestinian state] cannot just be about territory.
It also has to be about proper democratic institutions, about
proper security [that is, for Israel] and proper use of the economy."
It's About the Occupation
One is tempted again to ask
the obvious of these obtuse Brits (and of the equally obtuse
Americans): what's wrong with politicizing a peace conference
-- or, it must also be asked, with demanding that both the warring
parties attend? And one wants to ask Blair what happens when
the Palestinians do end violence, but the Israelis continue to
perpetrate violence in multiple forms day after day? And what
happens when the Palestinians get a democratically elected president
running a "proper" democratic government, but Israel
continues to perpetrate violence in multiple forms day after
day? And what happens when the Palestinians show themselves
to be true partners for peace, but Israel continues to reject
peace day after day -- when Israel continues to deny the Palestinians
territorial contiguity and economic viability and security and
adequate space and water and dignity, when those democratic Palestinian
institutions have nothing to rule over but an impoverished, imprisoned
people squeezed into native reservations surrounded by Israeli
walls, Israeli settlements, Israeli roads?
What happens when the Palestinians
do everything demanded of them, but the occupation, no matter
whether it might be called a "two-state solution,"
continues?
Tony Blair might, just might,
be excused for not knowing, for not even thinking about, the
answers to those questions, but one expects much better of the
supposed Middle East experts who are spouting the same line.
Ambassador Edward Walker, once a U.S. ambassador to Israel and
to Egypt and an assistant secretary of state and now president
of the Middle East Institute in Washington, took the same patronizing
approach to the Palestinians in a commentary written both for
an Institute newsletter and for, of all the inappropriate places,
an Arab newspaper. Expressing the hope that Bush will find that
he must deal with the Palestinian issue in order to achieve success
elsewhere in the Middle East, Walker treated the Palestinians
as though they are a joint pet project of Bush and Sharon: if
the U.S. and Israel play it smart, he said, "we" will
be able to "lend credibility" to a new Palestinian
leadership so that it can institute reform and begin "measured
movement" on the Roadmap. Mahmoud Abbas lacks credibility
with the Palestinians now, but he will gain stature if he can
be seen to deliver a deal with Israel on the Gaza disengagement.
He could then, Walker pronounced with amazing condescension,
"become the partner that Arafat never was and never could
be."
Quite apart from the distasteful
notion that the U.S. and Israel just naturally must work together,
hands on hearts, to coach the Palestinians into modernity, Walker
forgets that Arafat, whatever his several shortcomings, would
have been an eager partner for peace if Sharon and his predecessors
had wanted it at any point. He conveniently ignores the reality
that it is Israel that has made no "measured movement"
toward advancing the Roadmap, and that the Gaza disengagement,
assuming it comes off at all, is specifically designed to obviate
the need for any Israeli concessions in the West Bank. Whatever
credibility Abbas might gain from a deal with Israel is entirely
Israel's to deliver, but Abbas will grow old waiting for any
kind of deal from Sharon that would give the Palestinians justice
and genuine statehood. Walker of all people should know better.
Those who demand so much of
the Palestinians fail or refuse to recognize the Palestinian
situation on the ground. Almost three years ago, during the
April 2002 siege of the West Bank, Israeli forces rampaged through
the territory, destroying the entire infrastructure of Palestinian
civil society: Israeli soldiers laid waste Palestinian civil
ministries for education and health and agriculture; smeared
feces throughout the Ministry of Culture; destroyed computers
and hard disks and, with them, the entire written record of Palestinian
society; ransacked Palestinian businesses and banks; bulldozed
whole housing blocks; destroyed land registry maps and census
records, as if to erase all trace of Palestinian existence.
Yet Western commentators and Western politicians like Bush and
Blair wonder why the Palestinians may not be running their government
at the peak of efficiency.
Gaza is largely in ruins, a
Middle Eastern Dresden, thanks to repeated Israeli air and bulldozer
assaults. Nearly two thousand homes have been demolished in
Gaza since the intifada began, leaving many more thousands of
innocent civilians homeless, and Israeli helicopter gunship attacks
and assassination operations have wrought still more destruction.
Israel controls Gaza's southern border with Egypt and its Mediterranean
coastline and fences off the other two sides of the Gaza Strip
with razor wire and electronic cages, a system of domination
that will continue even if Israel "disengages" from
Gaza and removes the 8,000 Israeli settlers who now control one-third
of the tiny territory. Gaza is where, within the space of two
months in 2003, Israel killed American peace activist Rachel
Corrie, British peace activist Tom Hurndall, and British journalist
James Miller -- killing off the witnesses, so that George Bush
and Tony Blair and commentators like Jackson Diehl do not have
to know what goes on in this prison. And because they choose
to know nothing, they can glibly demand that the Palestinians
install "proper" institutions and make "proper"
reforms and run a "proper" economy.
Israel's separation wall has
destroyed prime Palestinian agricultural land, bulldozed hundreds
of thousands of Palestinian olive trees, destroyed or more often
appropriated for Israeli use most Palestinian water wells, destroyed
Palestinian markets and halted commerce, destroyed Palestinian
homes. Israeli closure policies have prevented most Palestinians
from working inside Israel since the beginning of the peace process
a dozen years ago. Israeli checkpoints throughout the West Bank
impede movement and halt commerce. Movement of people and goods
into and out of both the West Bank and Gaza is totally at the
mercy of Israel. Yet the West wonders why the Palestinian economy
is not thriving.
Israel has reduced every Palestinian
security headquarters throughout the West Bank and in Gaza to
rubble. These structures, which served not only as security
headquarters but as the center of municipal governance, with
mayor's offices, jails, and health clinics, were large compounds
serving multiple purposes, the locus of what Tony Blair would
call "proper" infrastructure -- now mere heaps of concrete.
Arafat's own headquarters in Ramallah, the Muqata, was a multi-structure
compound covering one or two city blocks, in which Israel imprisoned
Arafat for three years and where during the assault of 2002 Israel's
military left only one building undamaged. Yet Blair and the
rest of the West wonder why the Palestinians do not have proper
control over their security apparatus -- and why many have no
particular incentive to prevent violence in any case, nonviolence
being a rather unilateral Palestinian enterprise at this point.
Can the Blairs and Bushes and
Walkers and the media commentators who preach to the Palestinians
possibly not be aware of what is going on on the ground in Palestine?
It bears repeating that under
Bush's and Sharon's present plans there is no Palestinian state
on the horizon; we need to be very clear on that. There are
only Bantustans or a few areas that might look suspiciously like
reservations, someday perhaps even containing a casino or two
for the occupier's use. We need to be clear that there will
be no real state because Israel will not end the occupation.
(It is worth noting that the left in Israel is no more willing
than the right wing to permit the establishment of a genuinely
sovereign, contiguous, viable Palestinian state. The Labor Party
ruled Israel for the first ten years of occupation and settlement
growth; Labor ruled Israel through most of the Oslo "peace
process," overseeing a doubling of Israeli settlers and
a massive Israeli encroachment in the very territories supposed
to be turned over to the Palestinians; and the party is about
to join forces, yet again, with the Likud in a rightwing government
whose stated purpose is to marinate Palestinian statehood in
political formaldehyde. With friends like Labor, the Palestinians
don't need the Likud as enemies.)
No matter what George Bush
may say about wanting two states living peaceably side by side,
there will be no such arrangement; he does not want it. No matter
what Ariel Sharon promises (wink, wink) about working for two
states, there will not be two real states; he in particular does
not want it. No matter how much Tony Blair desperately attempts
to get some of the peace action, there will be no Palestinian
state; he can do nothing. No matter how much well-meaning peace
activists may talk about hoping for two states, they will not
achieve this; they are not willing to push hard enough. Despite
all this talk -- all this optimism -- there will be no action
toward genuine Palestinian independence because, purely and simply,
Israel does not want it, the United States does not want what
Israel does not want, and Britain is a powerless bystander.
Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst
and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the
author of Perceptions
of Palestine and The
Wound of Dispossession.
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
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Saul
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Empire's Lawless Opportunities
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The Case of Captain R.
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Tabloid Justice
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Poets'
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