home / subscribe / donate / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events

Inside the New Print Edition of CounterPunch: a Special Double Issue on the US at War Encounters Outside Fort Sill: the Case of Camilo Mejia by David Smith-Ferri; A Marine's Time in Iraq: Jim Talib's Story: by Derek Seidman; The Marines or Jail: Take Your Pick Young Man by Ron Jacobs; Pie in the Sky: the Pentagon's Latest Star Wars Scam: by Jeffrey St. Clair; The Strategy of Tension in Bolivia by Forrest Hylton; How the Other Half Talks: HRC's War on Immigrants & Libertarians Debate Lincoln as War Criminal: by Alexander Cockburn. Remember these stories are available exclusively in the print edition of CounterPunch. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch Books a Holiday Gift They Won't Put Down! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

How the Press & the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career   Today's Stories December 27, 2004 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.     Subscribe Online

December 27, 2004 "Zionism Has Exhausted Itself" An Interview with Amos Elon By ARI SHAVIT Ha'aretz The young people at the news desk weren't quite sure who he was. The name sounded familiar but they weren't sure from where. A few had heard about one of his books. A few had once used another book as a textbook. But many people don't really know who Amos Elon is. The man who was once the preeminent journalist in Israel has been totally erased from the memory. The man who was the chief chronicler of the Israeli story has ceased to register in the Israeli consciousness. He is much better known to readers of the New York Review of Books than to readers of Ha'aretz. He was born in 1925, in Vienna, and immigrated to Mandatory Palestine with his family in 1933. In the 1940s, he was one of Tel Aviv's prominent young intellectuals - and was close to Uri Avnery and influenced by him. He wrote a patriotic book about the War of Independence which he'd rather forget. In the early 1950s, Amos Elon quickly became a star. For Haaretz, he wrote several outstanding series of articles on subjects such as the rift among the kibbutzim, the life of immigrants and the "second Israel" (the underprivileged sectors of Israeli society). Elon became the protege of Haaretz publisher and editor-in-chief Gershom Schocken, was sent to Europe and later spent six years as Ha'aretz's Washington correspondent. In 1970, he published his book, "The Israelis," which was an immediate international success (it was published in English in 1971 as "The Israelis: Founders and Sons"), and subsequently left the paper. In 1978, in wake of the peace process with Egypt, he returned to Ha'aretz and remained with the paper until 1986. In the small Italian village where he lives, Elon wrote his books about Herzl, the Rothschild family and the history of German Jewry. The current publication of the Hebrew version of "The Pity of it All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933" (which was published in English in 2002) is coinciding with a significant biographical moment: Last month, Elon packed up the apartment that he still kept in Jerusalem. Our conversation took place among the piles of objects slated to be given away and the piles of books due to be sent home, to Tuscany. He looks much younger than his 79 years. He once wrote that Israeli faces tend to wrinkle as if from a lot of gazing straight at the sun. His face, however, is almost smooth. If Elon has feelings, he keeps them hidden deep inside. At least outwardly, he is serious, German, stern. A devotee of human rights but not overflowing with brotherly love. Seemingly devoid of warmth and empathy, he is a man of high standards. A man of high-level journalism and high culture. His erudition is enviable. A few of Elon's friends say something about him that he himself isn't ready to admit: His decision to leave Israel essentially derives from deep despair. From a sense that Israel doesn't have a chance. But it's also the man's personality structure that has made him not want to belong. Not to participate. To be an observer from a distance. Maybe the young people at the news desk are right: Amos Elon doesn't interest anyone here anymore. He's no longer relevant. But maybe they're wrong. And not only because Elon is a supremely gifted journalist. Not only because the international intelligentsia still perceives him as a thoughtful Israeli voice. And not only because he is an inseparable part of the history of this newspaper. But because Amos Elon epitomized an attitude that characterizes a large part of the Israeli elite. In his words and his life, Amos Elon expresses the deep aversion to the new Israel. The nationalistic, religious, un-European Israel. This is apparently the reason why Amos Elon is leaving us. He is turning back the clock, going back to being a European Jew. Amos Elon, looking over the list of books you've written in the past decades - "The Israelis," "Herzl," "The Rothschilds," "The Pity of It All" on German-Jewish history - it's like the Zionist movie is being rewound; the whole trajectory is from Israel backward. Elon: "From Israel outward. And the reason is very simple. It's also related to my leaving Haaretz. Nothing has changed here in the last 40 years. The problems are exactly the same as they always were. The solutions were already known back then. But no one paid attention to them. And I found myself repeating them. I found myself saying the same thing all the time. And I started to bore myself. The dialogue wasn't fruitful. It was a useless dialogue. I was a lone voice in the wilderness." Did you leave Haaretz and move to Tuscany to write historical books because you were opposed to the occupation or because the whole Israeli experience became unbearable to you? "This place continues to be interesting and fascinating. It's in my blood to this day. I get up in the morning in my home in Tuscany and listen to Israel Radio and then I read Haaretz. But my feeling was that I couldn't say anything here. Everything had already been said. And there's no true dialogue. There's no suitable political development. But of course it's true that it's impossible to live here without feeling some unease. And this unease grows the worse the situation gets. And it has truly been getting worse all these years." Have you developed a feeling of alienation toward Israel? "Not alienation. Disappointment. I have no common language with the people who are at the top in politics. I think they're wrong. Their style repulses me. And maybe there is alienation because I don't know them anymore. I'm not involved with them. I used to know everyone. I used to be intimately acquainted with them. And today it's a group that I don't know. And maybe there is alienation because of the sharp rightward shift in Israel. Toward the right and toward religion." Do you find Israel to be barbaric, unenlightened, nationalistic? "In Israel there's the `Gush Dan' state and the political state. The `Gush Dan' state is a state of live-and-let-live. Of tolerance. Of the desire for peace and a good life. But the political state, well, you know what it looks like." What does it look like? "It's partly quasi-fascist and partly religious with narrow horizons." Quasi-fascist? "Quasi-fascist in the sense that abstract principles of religion are dictating our fate without any democratic process. There are religious people here who believe they've put their finger on the very essence of being. They know everything. They're in direct contact with God." You have some profound anti- religious sentiment. "I'm not being original when I say that religion that enters politics is dangerous. Such religious people would be better off behind bars and not in politics. Certainly." The critical mistake of `67 opened the door to dark forces that overwhelmed the Israel to which you belonged, to which you felt a genuine closeness? "There were two sources of the perversion: the mixture of religion with political policy and the secular right's military adventurism. Force. The worship of force. By the way, it hasn't only come from the Likud. It also came from Ahdut Ha'avoda (the United Workers Party, a precursor of the Labor Party), from people like Allon and Galili. Ahdut Ha'avoda always seemed to me to be a party of farmers fighting over each piece of land with pitchforks." And the result is that this place has corrupted itself? "The occupation certainly corrupted Israeli society. There is no dispute about that." Has Israel slid into a situation that places it in a category other than the democratic Western nations? "Without a doubt. And I'm still wracking my brain wondering what those people were thinking after the Six-Day War. How did they think they could keep it? What did Dayan think? Did he really think that if we just treat them nicely, everything will be fine? What provinciality it was. What historic ignorance. Had this ever happened anywhere else in the world? From this perspective, the Israeli occupation is perhaps the least successful attempt at colonialism that I can think of. This is the crappiest colonial regime that I can think of in the modern age." How is it worse than French or British colonialism? "In the French and British colonies, there were mixed marriages. In India, for instance. But especially with the French. They're freer than the British are in bed, that's well-known. But both the French and the British tried to co-opt the elites. As a rule, whenever a European nation took over territory in the Third World, it tried to embrace the elite. Here there was no such attempt. There were no mixed marriages, there was no significant commercial cooperation. The only human partnership was in the lowest dimension of all: crime." What you're really saying is that there was Israeli political primitiveness. That we didn't even have a colonialist civilization worthy of the name. "Correct. There was provinciality here. There was this upstart's arrogance. I'm not surprised when you look at the population. We know where it comes from. Either from the Arab countries or from Eastern Europe. But on the political level, this arrogance was manifested in a total forsaking of an embracing of the elites. They didn't know it was even possible. "I'm not saying that everything would have been solved if they'd done this co-opting and married Palestinians. The intifada would have broken out in any case. But maybe, if Israel had behaved differently, the Palestinian war of independence would have been less bloody. Maybe it wouldn't have generated this horrific death cult." Won't the disengagement solve this? Won't it remove the curse of the Six-Day War from us? "I think that Sharon and Peres are perhaps the last statesmen here, and they're both Mapainiks [Mapai was another precursor to the Labor party]. Mapainiks are practical people who recognize that politics is the art of the possible and recognize the limits of force. I think that both of them, very belatedly, are demonstrating a degree of statesmanship that they didn't have before. But Israel is leaving the Gaza Strip now not because they recognize that it belongs to someone else, but because the occupation has become too messy. Because it's impossible to maintain this way. It's not worth it. It's a cost-benefit calculation. And I'm horrified by the fact that there are now 1.3 million hopeless refugees in Gaza. Which is a powder keg that will explode. And Israel is basically trying to get out of there now because it doesn't want to be responsible for this explosion. But it will be responsible anyway." What you're saying is that it's an illusion to think that the disengagement will solve the problem. "Of course it's an illusion. Gaza will explode. I think there will be a terrible explosion there. That's why I still say today that the victory in the Six-Day War was worse than a defeat." You were the preeminent Israeli journalist. Respected, admired, well-connected. In 1986, you left it all behind. When you look back, do you feel any regret? Does it pain you that young Israelis don't even know your name? "I miss the contact. It was good to be in contact. But on the other hand, I haven't made a bad career. I'm a research fellow in New York. I appear all over the world. And I live most of the year in Italy in my wife's house, which is paradise. So even if someone were to offer me the job of Haaretz editor now, I'd turn it down. I also wouldn't come back here to write." So Israel and journalism are both beneath you now? "I've gotten away from it. An American friend of mine says that journalism is only for the young. My wife Beth, who didn't want me to leave Israel, said it's true that journalism is for the young, but it also keeps you young. No, I wouldn't go back to it now. I adore my rest, and the tranquility I live in now. My nerves may be here, but I'm tired. And not so healthy. It's hard to believe, but next year I'll be 80. I've had two heart surgeries and my memory isn't what it used to be. Nor are my powers of concentration. So I prefer to be a pensioner sitting on a mountain and gazing at the gorgeous view." Basically, you've chosen to live in exile. "To a certain extent, it's exile. For sure. I'm not Italian. Italian politics doesn't interest me. I also miss my friends in Israel very much. I have some very dear friends here. There, I don't have any friends like the ones I have here. And I don't have an intensive intellectual contact there. But I'm an old pensioner who's nearing 80. Now I want my peace and quiet." Is Amos Elon a Zionist, a post-Zionist or an anti-Zionist? "I definitely agree with the idea that there was a need to establish a state-of-the-Jews in Israel for those Jews who want to live here. I also recognize the right of Jews who don't want to live here not to do so. They're doing okay. And in their daily life, they're refuting the Zionists' claim that they were doomed to extinction. "I think that Zionism has exhausted itself. Precisely because it accomplished its aims. If the Zionism of today isn't a success story, it's the fault of the Zionists. It's because of the religio-zation and Likudization of Zionism and because what was supposed to be a state-of-the-Jews has become a Jewish state." Or maybe you just can't identify with a state that isn't secular-European. I want to remind you that in your classic book, "The Israelis," there are no Sephardim or religious people or traditional people. The Israel you loved was the secular-European Israel. Its others didn't really interest you. "That argument is correct. But when I wrote `The Israelis,' it wasn't my ambition to write a history of Israel. It wasn't my ambition to describe all of Israeli society. I wrote about those that interested me." That's exactly the point. The non-Europeans and non-secular don't interest you. You wrote a book about the Israelis that excludes half the Israelis. "You could make the same argument against the new book, `The Pity of It All.' There are no poor Jews and hardly any religious Jews in it, either. The people I write about are the secular, intelligent, successful, wealthy, brilliant ones, the Nobel Prize winners. They're the ones who interest me. Other people have written books about the rest." Why don't you admit it: You're a European Jew who shows an interest only in European Jews just like yourself. Your heart goes out solely to them. "I don't have any self-consciousness as a European Jew. This description is barely apt. I hardly think of myself as a Jew. As I see it, I'm an Israeli. An Israeli of Jewish origin." That's the definition? An Israeli of Jewish origin? "I think so. But I have many other loyalties. I'm at home in American culture. I write in Hebrew and English. I've also written a book in German. I have a real kinship with German culture, absolutely." Your book on German Jewry is written with caution and restraint and historical matter-of-factness. But between the lines, you can sense a certain yearning. "I like these people. I see myself as one of them. Therefore, I identify with these people and with their struggle. I also identify with their terrible tragedy, with the pain of how it all ended, how it ended in such a horrible way." But you insist that this end wasn't necessary. That, as you see it, the Holocaust was not an inevitable event. "I don't believe in deterministic processes. Aside from the Zionists, no one believes in that anymore. Only the Zionists believe that the hatred of the Jewish people throughout the ages will also continue in the future. But I'm saying that it's not inevitable. That it could be different. There was nothing fundamental in the relationship between German culture and German Jewry that absolutely dictated this appalling end." If that's so, then basically you believe that this thing could have continued to survive. The option of the Jewish diaspora in Germany was the most promising cultural option for Europe, in your opinion. "Certainly. German Jewry was the secular elite of Europe. They were the essence of modernism - leaders who made their livelihood from brainpower and not from brawn, mediators and not workers of the land. Journalists, writers, scientists. If it all hadn't ended so horribly, today we'd be singing the praises of Weimar culture. We'd be comparing it to the Italian Renaissance. What happened there in the fields of literature, psychology, painting and architecture didn't happen anywhere else. There hadn't been anything like it since the Renaissance." You refuse to see the fact that there was a basic failure in this enterprise of secular European Jewry. You refuse to see that it couldn't last. "I sincerely dispute that. I don't think there was something deep or fundamental or unavoidable here. It was chance. If the First World War hadn't destroyed Germany's liberal middle class, a very progressive nation would have developed there. Even after the war, Hitler wasn't the only alternative." You're really insistent on that. It's important to you to cling to the lost option of the yekkes. The book you wrote is essentially a nostalgic ode to the refined lost paradise of that Jewish Germany. In a certain sense, it is your true homeland. "No. I grew up here, not there. I grew up in Tel Aviv in a middle-class family that lost its assets as a result of its emigration to Israel. My parents arrived from Vienna in 1933. My father wanted to go to France but my mother said it had to be Eretz Israel. And so we ended up in Eretz Israel. That's why I am not an ideological Israeli. I did not grow up here out of choice. But I did grow up here. Here is where I kissed a girl for the first time. And what is a homeland if not the place where you kiss a girl for the first time? "Yes, my parents' friends were all immigrants from Germany and Austria. The big library at home was all German. And being a yekke [a Jew of German origin] was difficult then. It was a derogatory word. So it was important to me to write about the yekkes. Because in the past they didn't get such good press here. But they were really the first free Jews. And the first Europeans. And they built a civil society and believed obsessively in Bildung, which is self-improvement through the fostering of social concerns. They were constantly working on self- improvement. On self-refinement." And on assimilation. Your book is a paean to the assimilationists. "Yes, certainly." Assimilation is a legitimate personal option. Perhaps it's even a fruitful one, as your book describes, for a generation or two. But it's not a sustainable option. In the third or fourth generation, the possibility of being an assimilated Jew dissipates. The Jewish element of the identity disappears. "So it dissipates. That doesn't concern me." It doesn't concern you whether there will be some kind of future for the Jewish people? "The whole matter of Judaism as a nation is quite problematic. Apart from the Zionists, no one argues that the Jews are a nation." In your view, the Jews are not a nation? "I don't think that they are one nation. I don't think so. It's a religion." If so, then the problem is even worse. A Jew who isn't religious is basically lacking an identity. "Why must a person constantly define himself? Only doctrinaires demand that you present your identity card all the time. I don't want Judaism to be a tattoo on my forehead. And I can't say that I'm a Jew because I am a totally secular person." Let's leave the matter of identity aside. The possibility that in the future there may not be a Jewish people or a Jewish civilization doesn't bother you? "If people want to assimilate to the point that they disappear within the general society without a trace - that's their right. I don't think it's a tragedy. It's not the end of the world." I want to go back to the journalist in you. Israel is a pretty major story. You were the chief chronicler of this story. And now you've given it up. "Yes, but I'm leaving behind an opus that's worth something. And I'm fortunate enough to live in Tuscany on a hill that looks out on what may be the most beautiful landscape in the world. Nothing has changed there in thousands of years. And it's so beautiful that it melts your heart. So in the few years I have left, I want to look at this view most of the days of the year. On other days, I'll come to Israel and get mad." You don't get mad in Italy? "No. In Italy, I laugh." You were a practitioner of serious, high-minded journalism. Do you think this type of journalism is in danger of extinction today? "Definitely. There's no doubt. What I did wasn't part of the entertainment industry. Just the opposite. I spoiled people's moods. Nowadays, journalism all over the world is becoming part of the entertainment industry. It's becoming a circus. And in doing so it is forfeiting the constitutional role it had in a free society. This role was to educate, not to entertain." Does this process worry you? "I lament it. Years ago, The Times of London was one of the most civilized newspapers you could think of. You opened it in the morning and you felt like some nice, intelligent uncle had sat down next to your bed to explain the world to you. Today it's a tabloid. Sex, crime, gossip. And it's the same with The Guardian and The Telegraph. Even The New York Times has become part of the entertainment industry. Apart from the quality financial newspapers, the Neue Zuercher Zeitung and the Frankfurter Allegemeine are practically the only newspapers that haven't been overwhelmed by this process." And in Israel? "The evening papers are just headlines and pictures. They're tabloids. To me, they're not newspapers. But Haaretz is a much better newspaper than it was in my time. Much better. I think that Hanoch Marmari did wonders for the paper. He managed to do at Haaretz exactly the opposite of what's happening at other prestigious newspapers in the world. He made it bigger, more interesting, cosmopolitan. Today it's one of the best papers in the world, in my opinion. One of the few good papers to have survived. But I'm afraid that this miracle won't last. If they really get in trouble, they'll also be pushed toward entertainment. I'm very worried about it. Very worried. Aren't you?" Ari Shavit writes for Ha'aretz, where this interview originally appeared.   Weekend Edition Features for 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 WWW http://www.counterpunch.org