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Today's
Stories
February 20 / 22, 2004
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
February 14/15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
February 13, 2004
Alan Maass
Kevin
Cooper's Fight to Live
Karyn Strickler
McCarthyism in the Sierra Club
Annie Higgins
On
a Street in America
Adam Federman
Democratic Snipers Target Nader
Mike Whitney
George W. Faces the Nation
Brian Cloughley
Our Imperial Leader Has Spoken
Website of the Day
Lying Action Figure Doll
February 12, 2004
Ray McGovern
George
Tenet's Spin Cycle
Robert Jensen
Bush's
Nuclear Hypocrisy
Saul Landau
Elegy to the Salton Sea
February
11, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways
Steve Perry
Bush
v. Bush?
February
10, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
Inquisition in Iowa
Ron Jacobs
Politics and the Beatles: Don't
You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)
Elizabeth
Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry
Mickey
Z
Meet the Oxmans: "The Rich
Shouldn't Sleep at Night Either"
February
9, 2004
Michael
Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change
CEOs? Inside John Kerry's Closet
Chris Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush
B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits
Bill
Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?
Dr. Susan
Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment:
Boob Tube Super Bowl
February
7/8, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with
Jewish Self-Absorption
Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping
Dave
Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine
in Transit
Alexander
Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide
from Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure:
Our Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
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.
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Weekend
Edition
February 20 / 22, 2004
It's the Nature of
Zionist Ideology
Sharon
is not the Problem
By GHADA KARMI
The Sharon government is widely regarded, even
by Israel's friends, as a negative force in the current politics
of the Middle East. Its brutal repression of the Palestinians,
its intransigence over engaging in the peace process and its
defiance of world opinion on such matters as settlement expansion
and the separation wall has alarmed everyone concerned with this
issue. Seldom before has Israel provoked such criticism from
friend and foe alike, and there is a feeling that a different
Israeli leadership, drawn perhaps from the Labour party and the
Zionist left, would restore the previous status quo. Such a new
leadership could be expected to re-start the peace process and
offer the Palestinians something more satisfactory and all this
would lead to peace and stability.
This widely held view ignores the real
problem. As a Zionist, Ariel Sharon is as faithful and committed
a servant as the Jewish state could ever have hoped for. He has
merely followed the tenets of Zionism to their logical conclusion.
It is not he who should be castigated but the ideology he and
the state of Israel espouses. For those who have forgotten or
never understood what Zionism was all about, a spate of recently
published pieces will make salutary reading.
The most remarkable of these is an interview
with the Israeli historian, Benny Morris, that appeared in the
Israeli daily Haaretz on January 4th 2004, followed by
a second article by Morris in the January 14th edition of the
London Guardian newspaper. In these he explains with breathtaking
candour what the Zionist project entailed.
Few Zionist outside the ranks of the
extreme right have been prepared to be so brutally honest and
Benny Morris claims to be on the political left. More significantly,
it was he who first exposed the true circumstances of Israel's
creation. Using Israel State archive documents for his groundbreaking
book on the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem published
in 1987, he was hailed as a courageous 'revisionist historian'.
His work suggested to many that, having learned the facts of
the case, he was bound to be sympathetic to the Palestinians.
In the last few years, however, he has been expressing ever more
hardline views, as if he regretted the pioneering research that
helped expose the savage reality of Israel's establishment. This
shift seems to have culminated in his most recent utterances
about the nature of Zionism. Unpalatable as these are, we must
thank him for saying so bluntly what all Zionists, however 'liberal',
at bottom really think but do not say.
Right from Israel's inception Western
states have been prepared to swallow this ideology, since they
were not its direct target. But for Arabs, it was different.
There was a time when they understood Zionism to be the basic
cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict. From the 1920s onwards, the
 Palestinians, being the ones most targeted,
feared that Zionism would take over their country. They tried
to fight it but failed and the Zionist project took hold. As
this happened, the other Arabs joined the fight and it was commonplace
to hear Israelis being called simply, 'the Zionists' and Israel,
'the Zionist entity'. People wrote tracts, articles and books
about Zionism and it seemed a black and white issue.
But after the 1967 war, a new ambiguity
appeared. Resolution 242, accepted by the Arab states, introduced
the idea that the basis of the conflict was the Israeli occupation
of post-1967 territory, without reference to what had gone before.
This set the pattern for all subsequent Arab-Israeli peace proposals
which aimed to bring about Israeli withdrawal from these territories
in exchange for Arab recognition. The first successful application
of this principle was the 1979 Camp David Agreement between Israel
and Egypt in 1979, trading Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian territory
occupied in 1967 for a peace treaty. By the time of the 1991
Madrid peace conference, the (post-1967) land-for-peace formula
was firmly established. Madrid involved the Arab front-line states
only, but in the March 2002 Saudi peace proposal, the offer had
been upgraded to one of Israeli withdrawal from all the 1967
territories in exchange for normalisation of relations with the
whole Arab world.
Meanwhile, the Arab stance towards Israel
as an illegitimate body forcibly implanted into the region whose
ideology, Zionism, inevitably meant aggression and expansion
to the detriment of the Arab world, quietly slipped out of view.
Now, it was only Israel's post-1967 occupation that was the problem
and, once rectified, Israeli integration into the region could
proceed. The Palestinians had a clearer view of Zionism. In 1969,
the PLO propounded a vision of a democratic state replacing Israel
that would give equal rights to all its citizens, Muslims, Christians
and Jews. This was a direct challenge to the idea of an exclusive
Jewish state, but more importantly a refusal to acquiesce in
the Zionist theft of 1948 Palestine.
However, the huge power imbalance between
the parties forced the PLO to modify its stance and by 1974,
a decision was taken to accept much less. The two-state solution
was born and in 1988, the PLO formally recognised Israel in its
1948 borders. By 1993, the PLO had signed up to the Oslo Agreement
that finally legitimised Zionism. The terms of the agreement
excluded any discussion of 1948 Israel and confined themselves
to the dispute over the 1967 territories. And by accepting these
terms, the PLO signalled its acceptance of the original Zionist
claim to Palestine. This process has found its apotheosis in
the recent Geneva Accords, which require the Palestinians to
recognise Israel as 'the state of the Jews'. No greater turnabout
in history could be imagined.
Accompanying this evolution of attitudes
has been a sort of Arab flirtation with Zionism. Following the
Israel-Egypt treaty, a number of Arab-Israeli projects and initiatives
came into being. These were mirrored in the West during the 1980s,
where various Arab-Jewish 'dialogue groups' sprang up and the
breaking of traditional taboos became enticing. Exchanges between
Arab and Israeli scholars and academics became popular and after
the Oslo Agreement numerous Israeli-Palestinians joint projects
were initiated.
Contacts between several Arab states
and Israel were made, either officially or in secret. Even previously
hardline anti-Israel states like Libya and Syria have started
to make overtures towards Israel, (though admittedly with mixed
motives). The majority of these initiatives have involved 'liberal'
Zionists, not the small minority of radical but marginalised
anti-Zionist Jews. It is as if the old antipathy towards Zionism
as the root cause of the Palestinian tragedy and the turmoil
in the Middle East had been forgotten. Like Marxist terminology
in the West today, the anti-Zionist rhetoric so prevalent amongst
Arabs in the past, is passé and many believe that Zionists
are people you really can do business with.
At this point, Benny Morris's revelations
are like a slap in the face. He reminds us that Israel was set
up by expulsion, rape and massacre. His recent researches, cited
in the new edition of his book, The Birth of the Palestine
refugee problem revisited, provide the authentic evidence.
The Jewish state could not have come into being without ethnic
cleansing and, he asserts, more may be necessary in future to
ensure its survival. Force was always essential to the imposition
and maintenance of Israel, he explains; native hostility to the
project was inevitable from the start and it had to be countered
by overwhelming strength. The Palestinians will always pose a
threat and they must therefore be controlled and "caged
in". He recognises that the Jewish state project is an impossible
idea and that, logically, it should never have succeeded. Nevertheless,
it was worthwhile because it was a moral project justified, despite
the damage it caused, by the overriding need for a solution to
Jewish suffering. The Arabs in any case have a tribal culture,
he says, "with no moral inhibitions" and "they
understand only force". Muslims are no better. "There's
a deep problem in Islamin which human life doesn't have the same
value as it does in the West, in which freedom, democracy openness,
and creativity are alien."
These utterances capture the essence
of Zionism: that a Jewish state could never have been established
without force, coercion and ethnic cleansing; that its survival
depended on superior power to crush all opposition; that it was
fired by a conviction of its moral rightness which accorded Jews
a special place over others; and because of this, viewed everything
as instrumental to its goal. Morris regrets the Palestinians
suffering entailed in Israel's creation, but sees it as a necessary
evil in pursuit of the greater good. "The right of refugees
to return to their homes seems natural and just", he says.
"But this 'right of return' needs to be weighed against
the right to life and well-being of the five million Jews who
currently live in Israel."
Thus he eloquently shows why Zionism
is a dangerous idea: at its root is a conviction of moral righteousness
that justifies almost any act deemed necessary to preserve the
Jewish state. If that means nuclear weapons, massive military
force, alliances with unsavoury regimes, theft and manipulation
of other people's resources, aggression and occupation, the crushing
of Palestinian and all other forms of resistance to its survival,
however inhuman - then so be it. The truth is of course that
the problem for Zionism was always how to keep Palestine without
the Palestinians. And hence today's Israeli anxieties about the
so-called Palestinian 'demographic threat'. As the impasse of
ending the intifada, despite draconian suppression, persists,
there is a near panic over 'demographic spill over' diluting
Israel's 'Jewish character'. Limor Livnat, Israel's education
minister, put this eloquently in a radio interview. "We're
involved here," she said, "in a struggle for the existence
of the State of Israel as the state of the JewsIsraelis not a
state of all its citizens" The Palestinian prime Minster's
recent (tactical) proposal of a binational state has only increased
the panic. Opinion polls show that 57 per cent of Israelis support
transferring the Arabs (Haaretz, 31.12.03) and government
ministers like Avigdor Liebrman advocate this idea quite openly.
It is against this background that the
monstrous barrier wall being erected in the West Bank can be
understood. Hence also Ariel Sharon's offer last December of
a 'unilateral' withdrawal from 40 percent of the West Bank, reversing
the classical Likud position on keeping all of the land. A January
opinion poll showed that 60 per cent of Israelis supported this.
In similar vein, his hardline deputy Ehud Olmert, has proposed
a partition of the land, including Jerusalem, into two states
"because of demography" But that problem exists inside
Israel too which is currently 20 per cent Arab and increasing.
It is estimated that by 2010, there will be an Arab majority
in the area of Israel/Palestine. How will the Zionists stem the
tide and keep the state Jewish?
If Zionism is to remain, there are few
choices. As Morris says, only by building an 'iron wall', by
eternal vigilance and superior force to overcome 'the barbarians
who want to take our lives'. The two-state solution is only a
stopgap because he thinks the Palestinians will not be satisfied
and sooner or later, they will destroy the Jewish state. Ariel
Sharon has done no more than follow these ideals to the letter.
His style may be more blatant, but at its basis it is no different
to all the other Zionists that have ruled the Jewish state.
The Zionist idea has lost none of its
force today; it is deeply implanted in the hearts of most Jews,
whether Israelis or not. No one should be under any illusion
that it is a spent force, no matter what the currently fashionable
discourse about 'post-Zionism' or 'cultural Zionism' may be.
No region on earth should have been required to give this ideology
houseroom, let alone the backward and ill-equipped Arab world.
Nevertheless, we owe a debt of gratitude to Benny Morris for
disabusing us of such notions. But a project that is morally
one-sided and can only survive through force and xenophobia has
no long-term future. The fact that it has got this far is remarkable
but that holds out no guarantee of survival. As he himself says,
"Destruction could be the end of this process."
Ghada Karmi
is a Palestinian writer and academic living in London. Her latest
book is a memoir, "In
Search of Fatima" (Verso). She is Research Fellow at
the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies.
Weekend
Edition Features for February 14 / 15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
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