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Today's
Stories
February 5, 2009
Michael Mandel
Self-Defense Against Peace
February 4, 2009
Arno J. Mayer
On Corruption
Paul Craig Roberts
The War on Terror is a Hoax
Patrick Cockburn
The Iraqi Elections
Jonathan Cook
An IDF Jihad?
Fred Gardner
Obama's Mixed Messages on Marijuana
Stan Cox
Slumwrecking Millionaires:
India's Fragile New Temples
Margaret Kimberley
The Deepening Economic Crisis
Lawrence Velvel
Agony & Desperation:
Madoff's Victims
Dave Lindorff
A Generals' Revolt?
Doug Giebel
A Helping of Bitter Beltway Baloney
Serge Quadruppani
Student Protests Sweep Italy
Website of the Day
The San Francisco 8
February 3, 2009
David Price
Counterinsurgency & Anthropology: Roberto Gonzalez on Human Terrain Systems
Bill Moyers
Obama's Wars: an Interview with Pierre Sprey and Marilyn Young
Kirkpatrick Sale
Obama's Lincoln Thing
Conn Hallinan
When Mind Wounds Don't Count
Peter Morici
The Slippery Slope of Stimulus
George Ciccariello-Maher
From Oakland to Santa Rita: "Fired Up, Can't Take It No More"
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
The BBC's Nadir
Allan Nairn
What Does It Take to Get a Meal Here, an Earthquake?
Norman Solomon
Why are We Still at War?
David Macaray
The Late, Great UAW
Website of the Day
The Bloody Cove
February 2, 2009
Uri Avnery
Under the Black Flag: Israeli War Crimes
Ralph Nader
What to Do About Wall Street
Gareth Porter
Generals Move to Obstruct Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Orders
Paul Craig Roberts
The Death of American Leadership
Harvey Wasserman
The Nuclear Industry's Latest Money Grab
Rannie Amiri
Gaza and the Crimes of Mubarak
Cal Winslow
Stern's Gang Seizes UHW Union Hall
Steve Early
Checking Out of Stern's Hotel California
Alan Farago
Superbowl as Panopticon
Diane Farsetta
Banning Domestic Propaganda
January 30 / February 1, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Obama and the Oddsmakers
Michael Hudson
Obama's New Bank Giveaway
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
"Too Big to Fail:"
a Bailout Hoax
Dave Lindorff
The Ugly Truth: the American Economy is Not Coming Back
Saul Landau
Freedom Fighters, Terrorists or Schlemiels?
Andy Worthington
Blame the Chef: How Cooking for the Taliban Can Get You Life in Gitmo
Subcomandante Marcos
Gaza Will Survive
Robert Jensen
Future Farming: an Interview with Wes Jackson
Ron Jacobs
Return of the Democrats
Gareth Porter
Is Gates Undermining Another Opening to Iran?
Allan Nairn
Hope for the Dump Cities?
Laura Carlsen
NAFTA's Dangerous Security Agenda
Rev. William E. Alberts
The Feelings of a Stranger
Christopher Brauchli
From Gitmo to Supermax?
Jules Rabin
Israel and the Bomb
Col. Dan Smith
Thoughts From an Inauguration Refugee
Missy Beattie
The US Garden of Evil
Tom Barry
Obama's Immigration Challenge
J. Michael Cole
The Downfall of an Academic
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Burning the First Amendment
Dan Bacher
How Dam Removal Can Save the Klamath River
David Rosen
Last Gasp of the Culture Wars?
Don Monkerud
Religion in the American Bedroom
Binoy Kampmark
Updike: Apostle of the Middlebrows
Lorenzo Wolff
Playing Down a Bad Reputation: the Lovin' Spooful's Near Perfect Record
David Yearsley
When Orfeo and Euridice Lived Happily Ever After in Upstate New York
Poets' Basement
Valentine and Rihn
January 29, 2009
Peter Linebaugh
Tom Paine's Birthday
Paul Craig Roberts
Is It Time to Bail Out of America?
Riz Khan
The Future of Gaza:
an Interview with Jimmy Carter
M. Reza Pirbhai
Pakistan: a New Cambodia?
Wajahat Ali
Obama's Al-Arabiya Interview
Gregory Vickrey
What About the Environment?
Cap and Trade and Selling Out
Dina Jadallah-Taschler
Whither the Two State Solution?
Alison Weir
Killing Palestinians Doesn't Count: Fact-Checking Ceasefire Breaches
Alan Farago
Economy Without Escape Routes
Walter Brasch
Taxing a House of Cards
Website of the Day
Madoff Inc.
January 28, 2009
Norman Finkelstein
Behind the Bloodbath in Gaza
Noam Chomsky
Obama's Emerging Policies on Israel, Iraq and the Economic Crisis
Patrick Cockburn
Is Mitchell's Mission Already Doomed?
Rob Larson
The Clinton Foundation Donors
George Wuerthner
Who Will Speak for the Forests?
Allan Nairn
South-East Asian Groups Threaten Retaliation Over Gaza Invasion
M. Junaid
Levesque-Alam
A Muslim's Memo to Obama
Stefan Simanowitz
The Silent Trade
Charles R. Larson
The Autumn of the Patriot
Website of the Day
Veggie Love: PETA's Banned Superbowl Ad
January 27, 2009
Winslow T. Wheeler
Save the Economy by Cutting the Defense Budget
Yigal Bronner /
Neve Gordon
Fueling the Cycle of Hate
Joshua Frank
Obama's Neocon: the Curious Case of Richard Holbrooke
Jordan Flaherty
Torture at a Louisiana Prison
Ralph Nader
Access to Economic Justice
Rev. José M. Tirado
How Iceland Fell: a Hundred Days of (Muted) Rage
Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Looking Forward
Russell Mokhiber
What If Israel Were in Your Neighborhood?
Martha Rosenberg
Who Says Technology Transfer Doesn't Pay?
C. G. Estabrook
The Inaugural Address: the Digested Read
Website of the Day
Who Profits From the Occupation?
January 26, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event
Deepak Tripathi
The BBC's Day of Shame
Vijay Prashad
The India Lobby:
Drunk with the Sight of Power
Peter Lee
Geithner's Pop Gun Volley at China
Allan Nairn
The Torture Ban That Doesn't Ban Torture
Uri Avnery
On the Wrong Side of History
John Sayen
The Next Shoe to Drop
Dave Lindorff
Afghanistan is No Threat to America
Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff
David Macaray
Obama vs. Labor
Roger Burbach
Winds of Change in Cuba
Norman Solomon
The Ghost of LBJ
Website of the Day
Landscapes of Occupation
January 23 / 25, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
The Ghosts at Obama's Side
P. Sainath
The Freefalling Economy
Patrick Cockburn
In Israel, Detachment From Reality is the Norm
Saul Landau
Reasons for War?
Sasan Fayazmanesh
Our Current Economic Crisis: the Monks' Cure
Alan Farago
The Problem with the Stimulus
Christopher Brauchli
When Due Diligence is a One-Way Street
Andy Worthington
Return to Law?
Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pentagon:
Bowing to the Masters of War?
Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Four)
Henry A. Giroux
The Audacity of Educated Hope
David Yearsley
The Music That Wasn't There: Chamber Music for Obama's Masses
Raymond F. Gustavson
Here We Go Again:
General Shinseki and Veterans
Dave Lindorff
The Way Forward
Roberto Rodriguez
Fighting for Migrant Justice in the Desert
Dina Jadallah-Taschler
The Struggle of an Un-People
Fidel Castro
Meeting Cristina
J. Michael Cole
Can Obama's Shift on Terror Succeed?
Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
It's Time to Free Leonard Peltier
Ramzy Baroud
Breaking Gaza's Will
Mohammad Ali Shabani
The Aftermath of the War on Gaza
Richard Rhames
Panning for Pyrite on a Cold Day at the Mall
Stephen Martin
Voices in the Mirror
Lorenzo Wolff
Jurassic Radio
Kim Nicolini
Katrina's Endless Loop
Poets' Basement
Fleming, Henson, First, Jaramillo and Glendinning
Website of the Weekend
Cartoon Love
January 22, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
Another Real Estate Crisis is About to Hit
Kathy Kelly
Worse Than an Earthquake
Allan Nairn
US Intel Nominee Lied About Church Murders
Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Three)
Andy Worthington
Halting the Gitmo Trials
Peter Morici
How to Fix the Banks
Joseph G. Davis
The First MBA Presidency and the Business Academy: a Damage Assessment
Adriana Kojeve
The Democrats on Israel: a Brief Oral History
Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Poised for Historic Vote
Website of the Day
Support the Gaza Community Mental Health Program
January 21, 2009
Gabriel Kolko
Understanding Gaza
Harry Browne
Obama's Work Ethic
Michael Colby
Ready. Aim. Organize.
Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience
Audrey Stewart
Starting Over in Gaza
Wajahat Ali
Obama and the Muslims
Binoy Kampmark
The Marketing of Hope
David Kεr Thomson
Abolition
John Ross
In My Own Bones
Allan Nairn
Killer in Chief: Will This President Murder Civilians?
Sheldon Richman
The Peaceful Transfer of Violent Power
Website of the Day
Globistan
January 20, 2009
Chuck Spinney
Hosing Obama Israeli Style
Kathy Kelly
The Strongest Weapon of All
Raymond Deane
The EU, Gaza and the Lisbon Treaty
Ralph Nader
State Terrorism Against Gaza
Audrey Stewart
Why I am in Gaza
Jonathan Cook
Israel's Doctrine of Destruction
Harvey Wasserman
A Ten-Point Solar Agenda for Obama
Christopher Ketcham
Inauguration Ad Nauseam
Robert Jensen
A Citizen's Oath of Office
Dave Lindorff
Commie Chorus on the Mall: This Land Really is Made for You and Me
David Macaray
SAG Watches It All Slip Away
January 19, 2009
Kevin Alexander Gray
Time for an New Divestment Campaign
Uri Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Mad
Kathy Kelly
Respite in Gaza
Mike Whitney
What Obama Left Out of His Economic Recovery Plan
Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Bernie Madoff
Mats Svensson
For Fatima in Gaza
Harry Browne
Obama's Bard:
Springsteen's Working on a Dream
Norman Solomon
The Return of Triangulation
Jeffrey Sommers
The Baltic Riots: Really Existing Thatcherism
Kenneth Libby
Manipulating MLK Day
Peter Ewart
Robbie Burns, Mackenzie and Gaza
Bob Sommer
"The Fierce Urgency of Now"
Website of the Day
Death of a Whaler
January 16-18, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Hail to the Chief
Caoimhe Butterly
Terribly Bloodied, Still Breathing
Audrey Stewart /
Kathy Kelly
Suddenly Bombs Started Falling: Report from Gaza
Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Geo. W. Bush, a Concise Biography
Ellen Cantarow
I Could Not Save a Single Child
Neve Gordon
How to Sell "Ethical" Warfare
Vijay Prashad
An African-American in Gaza
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Attack Injures 1.5 Million Gazans
Rannie Amiri
The UN in Israel's Crosshairs
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Forgotten Child
Joshua Frank
Forecasting Obama
Dave Lindorff
Prosecuting Bush and Cheney
Brian Cloughley
Who Runs America?
Belén Fernández
Changing the Equation
Missy Beattie
Peace and Justice Denied
Fred Gardner
Growing Pot for Research
George Ciccariello-Maher
"Oakland is Closed!"
John V. Whitbeck
Democracy Not Partition
Stephen Fleischman
Card Check
Mischa Gaus
Medicare for All! Tackling Union Opposition to Single-Payer
Saul Landau
The End of the Affair
Norm Kent
Perils of the Grow House
Alejandro López
Give Bush the Shoe! (and Send Us the Photo)
David Yearsley
The Glory That Was Dresden
James McEnteer
Doin' the Time Warp Again
Lorenzo Wolff
An Album That Lives Up to Its Cover
Kim Nicolini
Patti Smith's Dream of Life
Poets' Basement
Three Financial Poems by Brian J. Foley
Website of the Day
Lancet: Medical Conditions in Gaza
January 15, 2009
Pam Martens
Wall Street Powerhouses Invested Alongside Madoff
Karl Grossman
Obama and the Military - Industrial - Scientific Complex
M. Shahid Alam
Gaza's Shattered Mirror
Jules Rabin
Gaza Besieged, Gaza Mauled
Alan Farago
The Nail-Gun Bailout
Ron Jacobs
The State of Black America: From Oscar Grant to Barack Obama
Timothy Seidel
Just Violence in Gaza? The Calculus of Proportionality
George Ochenski
Why No Montana Wilderness?
Todd Chretien
Taking a Stand for Justice in Oakland
Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Marijuana Prohibition Acid Test
Website of the Day
Uranium Watch
January 14, 2009
Henry A. Giroux
Killing Children With Impunity
Kathy Kelly
Cease Fire, Cease Siege
Franklin Lamb
A Second Front? Hezbollah Militants Chafe as Gaza Burns
Mike Whitney
The Big Contraction: Why the Stimulus Alone Won't Work
Paul Craig Roberts
The Humiliation of America
Glen Ford
Sullying Dr. King's Legacy: the Congressional Black Caucus and Israel
Aditya Chakrabortty
The End of Property Porn
Dave Lindorff
Fattening the Rats: Feeding at the Bailout Trough
Jonathan Cook
Israel Bars Arab Parties From Elections
David Swanson
Conyers Explains Why He Didn't Push Impeachment
Martha Rosenberg
Fragile: Handle with Risperdal
Website of the Day
Report of a Red Cross Worker in Gaza
January 13, 2009
Norman Finkelstein
The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza
Jonathan Cook
Is Israel Using Experimental Weapons in Gaza?
Michael Neumann
Hamas and Gaza: Slave Revolts and Passionate Evasions
Coleen Rowley /
William John Cox
No Victors in the War on Dissent
Robert Sandels
Cuba and the Obama Administration: Subversion Through Trade?
Saul Landau
The Changeling:
an Obama Nightmare
David Swanson
What to Ask Eric Holder
Wajahat Ali
Waltzing with War Crimes
Sam Bahour
No Other Option? A View From the West Bank
Stanley Heller
Why It's Useless to Lobby Congress on Gaza
Robert Jensen
Beyond Grief and Rage
Robin Mittenthal
Eating Away at the Land That Feeds Us
Website of the Day
The 50 Most Loathsome People in America
January 12, 2009
Uri Avnery
The Blood-Stained Monster Enters Gaza
Paul Craig Roberts
Our Collapsing Economy
Mike Whitney
Israel's Moral and Political Insanity
Ewa Jasiewicz
Oh, Quiet Night: Only Six Homes Were Bombed
Bill Quigley
A Day in Gaza
Dave Lindorff
From Vietnam to Gaza
Bill and Kathleen Christison
Blowback From a Tragic Error: a Message to Barack Obama
Jonathan Cook
Israel Ponders the Third Stage
Andy Worthington
Seven Years of Guantánamo
Kara N. Tina
Oakland on Fire
Brenda Norrell
Palestinians and American Indians:
Russell Means Breaks the Silence on Obama
Nour Kharma
A Plea From a Teen in Gaza: "Will I Die, Too?"
Website of the Day
The Villages Group: an Antiwar Alliance in Sderot
January 9/11, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Israel's Onslaught on Gaza: Criminal, for Sure; But Also Stupid
Kathy Kelly
Tunnel Vision: Report from Arish, Egypt
Bill Quigley
Report From Rafah:
Doctors Stopped at the Border
George Ciccariello-Maher
Oakland's Not for Burning?
Elaine C. Hagopian
Gaza: History Matters
Mike Roselle
Drowning in a Toxic River: What Can be Done to Save Appalachia?
Steve Hendricks
The Torturer-Elect?
Gary Leupp
Revisiting the Tale of Samson
Jonathan Cook
Outcry Over Israel's War Crimes
Karim Makdisi
The Ceasefire Plan: the UN Finally Acts, But Does It Mean Anything?
Rannie Amiri
Livni's Big Lie
Peter Morici
In the Jaws of a Depression
Peter Montague
Can Chemicals be Regulated?
Ralph Nader
Move Fast to Restore the Rule of Law
Andy Worthington
The Dying Days of the Guantánamo Trials
Nadia Hijab
A Music School Silenced in Gaza
Dan Bacher
Unholy Alliance:
Nature Conservancy Backs Schwarzenegger's Big Ditch
Catherine Fenton
The American Peace Movement and Israel
David Macaray
Wal-Mart Caught Stealing
Valia Kaimaki
Why Greek Youths Took to the Streets
Richard Morse
Haiti's Gas Gang
David Yearsley
To Gotham City with Dexter Gordon
Charles R. Larson
The Horror, the Horror
Richard Rhames
Gaza and the Goon Squad Meet the Wizard
Stephen Martin
Meltdown Memo to Come?
Lorenzo Wolff
What They Sing About When They Sing About Love
Poets' Basement
Anderson, Beatty and Valentine
Website of the Weekend
Gaza Protest
January 8, 2009
Jean Bricmont /
Diana Johnstone
Gaza Seen From Paris
Franklin Lamb
How Dershowitz Misstates, Misrepresents and Misapplies the Law
Paul Craig Roberts
The Difficulty of Being an Informed American
Kevin Alexander Gray
Give Burris His Seat
Chris Floyd
The Enduring Priorities in Obama's Time of Change
Ewa Jasiewicz
Riding on Fire in Gaza
Steve Conn
Sanjay Gupta and Obama
Harvey Wasserman
Kill the Nuclear Stimulus!
Wayne S. Smith
An Opening to Cuba?
Linda Mamoun
Re-settling Gaza: the Real Goal of the Israeli Invasion?
Adam Turl
Unions and Young Workers
Chris Papaleonardos
Mourning Maria Dimitriadi
Website of the Day
On the Wing
January 7, 2009
Saree Makdisi
What Kind of Security Will This Barbarism Bring Israel?
Franklin Lamb
Bend Over Professor Dershowitz, It's Time for Your Check Up
William Blum
America's Other Glorious War
Belén Fernández
The Trauma Vortex: Israel's Monopoly on Psychological Suffering
Lawrence Davidson
What is New About Gaza?
Allan Nairn
Adm. Dennis Blair and the Church Killings in East Timor
Jonathan Cook
What is Israel's Objective?
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Watching the War on BBC
Deepak Tripathi
Bush, as He Leaves
Cal Winslow
Now is the Hour to Defend Democracy in the Labor Movement!
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Students Planning Careers: Be Mindful
Dr. Hannah Safran
No More Recycled Military Solutions
Website of the Day
CNN: Israel Broke the Ceasefire First
January 6, 2009
Pam Martens
It's All One Big Lie
Victoria Buch
Real Estate War in Gaza: the History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing
Neve Gordon
Israel's New War Ethic
Tami Sarfatti /
Yonatan Mendel
What Silence Says:
Gaza is Still Waiting on Obama
Mike Whitney
The Gaza Bloodbath
Alan Farago
After the Fall
Gary Leupp
A Hamas Coup d'Etat in 2007?
Larry Everest
Silent Partner: the US-Backed War on Gaza
Ron Jacobs
The New Iraqi Sovereignty
David Macaray
Union-Busting is Alive and Well
Stephanie Basile
Where's Anna's Money?
Stacey Warde
An Uncle's Unrest
Website of the Day
Israeli Refusenik on Gaza
January 5, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
Will There be a Recovery?
Sousan Hammad
Phoning Home to Gaza
Wajahat Ali
Flying While Brown
Mats Svensson
Longing in Gaza
Jen Marlowe
Abeer's Baby
Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Gaza Phone Tag
Brian Cloughley
Israel is Immune From Criticism
Faheem Hussain
Gaza and India: a View From Pakistan
William Cook
Consider the Realities of Gaza
Dr. Trudy Bond
The Madness Among Us
Christopher Ketcham
The Revenge of the Blogger at the National Press Club: a Rotten Washington Interlude
Steve Early
Who Rules SEIU?
Dave Lindorff
When It Comes to Terrorism and POW Cases, Equal Justice Under Law is a Joke
Website of the Day
The Endangered Fish of the Colorado River Basin
January 2 - 4, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Diary of 2008: an Incredible, Hope-Filled Year
Uri Avnery
Molten Lead in Gaza
Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of the Gaza Assault
Paul Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Western Morality?
Brian Eno
Stealing Gaza: an Experiment in Provocation
Ralph Nader
America Must Stop Shirking Its Responsibility on Gaza
Omar Barghouti
UN Complicity in Israel's Massacre in Gaza
Graham Usher
Where Pakistan's Generals and the ISI Draw Their Lines
P. Sainath
The Economy is Worse Than It Appears
Belén Fernández
Pardon Our Dust: Israel's PR Campaign for Gaza
Deb Reich
Shiv'a in Gaza, December 2008
Gary Leupp
Defacing Mr. Jefferson's Wall: Preachers and the Inauguration
Michael Yates
Top Chef or Top Wage Thief? Tom Colicchio and the Economics of Restaurants
Joanne Mariner
How to Close Guantánamo
Seth Sandronsky
Funding the Israeli Military: the US Pipeline
Cynthia McKinney
We Lived to Tell the Story
Sonja Karkar
Israel's Dogs of War
Deepak Tripathi
Gaza in Perspective
Robert Fantina
Obama, Afghanistan and Israel
John Ross
The Year No One Can Remember
Norm Kent
The Heat on Duval Street: Why Head Shop Raids are Unfair and Unjust
Larry Portis
Syria and the Arab Barbie Doll--Before the Deluge
Richard Rhames
Is Conscience Dead?
Dee C. Lubell
We Come From the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright
David Yearsley
A Gay German at the Courts of the Medici and Hanover, and of Course the BBC
Lorenzo Wolff
Joe Ely, the Fighting Rooster of Rock
Marc Catone
Looting Lennon's Legacy
Poets' Basement
Five Poems by
Grzegorz Wróblewski
Website of the Weekend
Earth in High Rez
January 1, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
If Hamas Did Not Exist
Oren Ben-Dor
The Self-Defense of Suicide
Wajahat Ali
The U.S. Response to the Gaza Crisis: Unfair and Unbalanced
Saul Landau
In Cuba No One Man Could Steal $50 Billion From Other People
David Michael Green
What to Expect While We're Expecting
Website of the Day
Morbid Anatomy
December 31, 2008
Pam Martens
Wall Street's Collapse and the Ownership Society
Neve Gordon /
Jeff Halper
Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?
Ted Honderich
The First Casualty of Israel's War
Brian Cloughley
Five Little Girls on a Sofa: Gaza's One-Sided Images
Ron Jacobs
What is Hamas, Really?
Vijay Prashad
Hot Rod and His Sikh Warrior:
Blago's Indian Connections
Franklin Lamb
Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down That Wall!
Mike Whitney
My Brilliant Career
David Macaray
What Really Killed the Auto Bailout
Richard Thieme
The Betrayal of the Commons
Mary Lynn Cramer
Who Wins What in Gaza?
Stephen Lendman
The Troubling Case of the Fort Dix Five
Worthy Group of the Day
Western Shoshone Defense Project
December 30, 2008
Paul Craig Roberts
May We No Longer Be Silent
Tariq Ali
The Gaza Ghetto and Western Cant
Robert Bryce
The $775,000-a-Year GI
Jonathan Cook
Electioneering with Bombs
Gary Leupp
The Fishbarrel War
Dave Lindorff
Tough Guys Don't Walk: Will Cheney Seek a Pardon?
Brian McKenna
Ted Downing and Troublemaker Anthropology
John Walsh
The End of the Green Party
Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the World
Bob Sommer
The Education of David Frost
Worthy Activist of the Day
Support Marie Mason
December 29, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's Attempted Endgame in Gaza
Neve Gordon
What, Exactly, is Israel's Mission?
Joshua Frank
Obama and the "Special Relationship"
George Salzman /
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The War Against Palestine: Exception From Humanity
Norman Solomon
A Hundred Eyes for an Eye
Ewa Jasiewicz
Gaza Today: "This is Just the Beginning"
Rob Larson
The Banks Laugh All the Way to the Bank
Kenneth Libby
Arne Duncan's Dark Years in Chicago
Robert Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008
Elsa Johnson
High Noon at Black Mesa: Bush's Farewell Gift to Peabody Coal
Nicola Nasser
Resolution 1850: Bush's Parting Gift
Belén Fernández
Hanukkah Games
Worthy Group of the Day
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
December 26-28, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The Medusa's Head
Dr Eyad Al Serraj
The Boming of Gaza: "An Earthquake on Top of Your Head"
Jeffrey St. Clair
Cancerous Air
Bradley Simpson
Obama's New Intel Chief, Dennis Blair, Ran Interference for Indonesia's Butchers
Ralph Nader
Government Without Laws
Gary Leupp
Obama and the Graveyard of Empires
Ellen Cantarow
Richard Falk, Israel and the NYT
Matt Landon
The Great Coal Ash Flood: a Report From Swan Pond Road
David Macaray
SAG's Terrible Dilemma
Patrick Bond
End of Neoliberalism? Sorry, Not Yet
Norm Kent
Invoking Bigotry: Obama and Rick Warren
Brian T. Ketcham
Fuel Efficiency is Easy--Just Don't Let Detroit Tell You How to Do It
Rannie Amiri
War Clouds Over Gaza
Larry Portis
Changing the Ethnic Vocabulary
Richard Rhames
Welcome to Soup Kitchen America
Stephen Lendman
29 Red Flags: Early Suspicions About Bernard Madoff
James L. Secor
Unheralded Coup
Ramzy Baroud
Iraq, the Plot Thickens
Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture
Cpt. Paul Watson
Tracking the Cetacean Death Star
Howard Lisnoff
Nixon's Cambodian Shock Treatment
Michael Dee
The Bill of Rights, Killed in Action by the War on Drugs
Steve Conn
Eight Predictions for 2009
Poets' Basement
Valentine, Kaung, Moser and Graham
Worthy Group of the Weekend
United Mountain Defense
December 25, 2008
Judy Gumbo Albert
What Were Those 1960s Terrorists Thinking, Anyway?
Rev. William E. Alberts
The Sole of Christmas
Hannah Mermelstein
Caution: Settlers Ahead
Worthy Group of the Day
Citizens' Coal Council
December 24, 2008
Bill Quigley
Five Bailout Lessons From Katrina
Saul Landau
Then and Now: Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008
Sam Smith
Evangelism and Politics
Brian Cloughley
Torture, Slaughter and Lies
John Ross
Where's al-Zaidi's Pulitzer?
Eric Walberg
Cold War Shivers
Norm Kent
What Will Obama Do About Marijuana?
Stephen Martin
Reasons for Cheerfulness
Worthy Group of the Day
Collateral Repair Project
December 23, 2008
Michael Hudson
The Ponzi Paradigm
Michael Yates
The Tombstone Economy
Chuck Spinney
The New York Times Flames Out in Defense Dogfight
Vijay Prashad
India's Reckless Road to Washington, Through Tel Aviv
Brian Horejsi
Interior Decorating: Obama, Salazar and the Future of America's Public Lands
David Macaray
Obama's Best Pick?
Neil Watkins /
Sarah Anderson
Ecuador's Conscientious Default
David Michael Green
Hey, Reagan Democrats! Now Do You Get It?
Worthy Group of the Day
Focus on the Corporation
|
February 5, 2009
Israel's Unjust War on Gaza
Self-Defense Against Peace
By MICHAEL MANDEL
Did self-defence justify Israel’s war on Gaza?
Objections have been raised to this claim on grounds of a lack of both proportionality and necessity. To kill over 1000 Palestinians in 3 weeks, hundreds of them children, and wound thousands more, in order to deter a threat from rockets that did not kill or injure anybody in Israel for the six months the truce was declared by both sides, or even before Israel launched its attack on December 27, is so disproportionate as to be intolerable in any ethical system that holds Palestinian lives equal in value to Israeli lives. It is also so disproportionate as to defy belief that defence against these rockets was the real motive of the war. To ignore the many diplomatic avenues available to avoid even this threat, such as lifting the suffocating 18-month siege, suggests the same thing.
A more fundamental objection, however, is the self-evident legal and moral principle that an aggressor cannot rely upon self-defence to justify violence against resistance to its own aggression. You can find this principle in domestic law and in the judgments of the Nuremberg tribunals.
To quote one Nuremberg judge:
On of the most amazing phenomena of this case which does not lack in startling features is the manner in which the aggressive war conducted by Germany against Russia has been treated by the defense as if it were the other way around. …If it is assumed that some of the resistance units in Russia or members of the population did commit acts which were in themselves unlawful under the rules of war, it would still have to be shown that these acts were not in legitimate defense against wrongs perpetrated upon them by the invader. Under International Law, as in Domestic Law, there can be no reprisal against reprisal. The assassin who is being repulsed by his intended victim may not slay him and then, in turn, plead self defense. (Trial of Otto Ohlendorf and others, Military Tribunal II-A, April 8, 1948)
So who was the aggressor here?
There would have been no question as to who was the aggressor had this attack taken place before Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza strip in 2005. At that point Israel had been committing a continuous aggression against Gaza for 38 years, in its illegal and violent occupation of it, along with the rest of the Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, after its conquest in 1967.
By 2005, the occupation had been condemned as illegal by the highest organs with jurisdiction over international law, most notably the  International Court of Justice in its 2004 opinion on the separation barrier. A central illegality of the occupation for the International Court lay in Israel’s settlements, which violate the law against colonization, and which are central to the occupation. The fifteen judges of the International Court were unanimously of the opinion that the settlements were illegal and the wall itself was held by a majority of 13-2 to be illegal, partly because it was there to defend the settlements, and not Israel itself, and thus could not qualify as self-defence.
The rocket attacks from Gaza started in 2001 and took their first Israeli victim in 2004. Since then, there had been 14 Israeli victims prior to the current war. Tragic, indeed, but obviously paling in comparison to the 1700 Palestinians killed in Gaza during the same period. One death is indeed a tragedy, but many deaths are not just “a statistic”, as Stalin had it; they are the tragedy multiplied many times over. Given Israel’s illegal, aggressive and violent occupation, prior to the withdrawal, Gaza rockets could only be regarded as necessary and proportionate self-defence, or as reprisals against Israel’s aggression.
Did Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 change the situation?
It has been forcefully argued that the 18-month siege of Gaza, a major reason for Hamas’ refusal to extend the truce, was itself an act of aggression, giving rise to a right of self-defence.
But even more important, though usually ignored, is Israel’s continued illegal and aggressive occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem after the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Indeed, the withdrawal from Gaza was intended to strengthen the hold on the other territories and was accompanied by a greater increase in the number of settlers there than those removed from Gaza.
The occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem figured equally with Gaza in the condemnations of the World Court and the Security Council. Furthermore, in the Oslo Accords, Israel and the Palestinians agreed that “The two sides view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, the integrity and status of which will be preserved during the interim period.” Indeed, when Hamas won the elections in 2006, elections declared impeccably fair and civil by all international observers, it won them for the whole of the Palestinian Authority, including the West Bank (it was not allowed by Israel to campaign in East Jerusalem). Many Hamas West Bank legislators remain in Israeli jails.
And the basic fact is that the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza are one people, however separated they are by walls and fences and check-points. Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from one part of that people’s land cannot turn that people into aggressors when they resist the illegal occupation of the rest.
So self-defense cannot justify this attack, or the siege that preceded it. What can? That Hamas is a “terrorist organization”? But terrorism is about deliberately killing civilians for illegal political ends, and in that enterprise, Israel has topped Hamas by many multiples. That Hamas does not recognize Israel’s “right to exist”? But Hamas has offered many times to make a long-term truce with Israel on the basis of the legal international borders, something it is clearly entitled to insist upon. Israel says that’s not good enough, that Hamas first has to recognize Israel’s legitimacy, in other words, it has to concede the legitimacy of the Jewish state and all it has meant to the Palestinians. In other words, as one Israeli journalist ironized, Israel is insisting that Hamas embrace Zionism as a condition of even talking peace with it.
These are not justifications for violence on this or any scale. Indeed, they point to the most plausible reason Israel is fighting Hamas (and the PLO before it): self-defence, if you will, not against rockets and mortars, but against having to make peace with the Palestinians on the basis of the pre-1967 borders as required by international law.
Michael Mandel is Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University in Toronto, where he teaches the Law of War. He is the author of How America Gets Away with Murder. |
