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Today's
Stories
February 19, 2004
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
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
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February
19, 2004
Anti-Semitism at the
World Social Forum?
A
Personal Report
By CECILIE SURASKY
It is my first morning at the World Social Forum
in Mumbai, India and I am at a workshop on Palestinian women
and the occupation. In the audience is a woman who I first think
might be Israeli--she could easily be one of my friends and I
feel an immediate kinship with her. She tells me she is 34 and
has lived her whole life in Gaza except for college. I ask her
if I can interview her.
She cautiously eyes my card, on which
I have purposely written in thick, visible letters: Jewish Voice
for Peace. "I don't know, she says. "Do you support
the occupation?" It seems such a surreal question. How could
anyone support an occupation?
The very word evokes domination, a kind
of cruelty. No, I say, we want to end the occupation. We want
a peace that is just.
I ask about the checkpoints. She describes
sitting in her car waiting to be allowed to drive through. The
young Israeli soldiers are in sniper posts. You can't see them,
but they can see you, she explains. They signal it's time to
go by shooting their guns. She waits a long time until the soldiers
say, "OK, now the dogs can go."
"You think, 'Do I want to be called
a dog, or do I just want to go?' " she tells me. "I
don't care, so I start my car and they yell 'No! Not you, I said
dogs!' So she turns her car off, and sometime later they say,
"OK, now humans can go!" She starts her car and they
look at her and the others and say "No! I said humans."
And she turns her car off and waits until finally this "other"
category of Palestinian--neither human nor animal--is allowed
to pass. "This," she says, "is my only contact
with Israelis." And this, I think, and is my first contact
with someone from Gaza.
The WSF and the new
anti-Semitism
The World Social Forum (WSF) is the populist
answer to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Instead
of a gathering of the world's mostly wealthy, white, and male
heads of state and captains of industry in Davos, the WSF is
a cacophony of anti-globalization/human rights activists from
all over the globe. The roughly 100,000 participants represent
every imaginable cause--from Indian "untouchables"
and Bhutanese refugees to child trafficking and sexual minorities.
They are seen in the hundreds of marches that seem to appear
out of nowhere down the main thoroughfare, at the 500 information
booths, in more than 1,000 workshops, and on the political posters
filling every inch of available wall space.
I have come because my New Voices human
rights fellowship has decided to send the fellows to the WSF.
But I have an additional reason for being here. The Simon Wiesenthal
Center (SWC) has cited the WSF as one of the centers of what
it and others refer to as the "new anti-Semitism",
and these charges have been picked up by various journalists
as evidence of a dangerous new trend on the left. Upon closer
reading, most of these accounts make little if any distinction
at all between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel, or between
anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.
The SWC description of the "anti-Jewish"
atmosphere at last year's WSF in Brazil is one of these accounts.
And yet, their description of the WSF
is so disturbing, even frightening, that I am prepared to encounter
at minimum silent hostility, and possibly even physical attacks
from my fellow attendees. I have come to the WSF to be loudly
and visibly Jewish, to make a presentation that deconstructs
the theory that Jews dictate U.S. policy in the Middle East,
and to see for myself this purported new tidal wave of hatred
of Jews from the rest of the global left.
The conference is
not what I expected
It is surprising to find that the Israel-Palestine
conflict and the occupation are not more prominently featured
at the conference. Out of hundreds of ongoing marches, I witness
only one small pro-Palestine march, which includes a prominent
Israeli leftist marching in the front row.
Out of about 500 information stalls,
only two represent Palestinian human rights groups: PENGON, which
is working to tear down the wall Israel is building through Palestinian
land, and Al-Haq, which is launching a campaign identifying collective
punishment as a war crime. Of the thousands of political posters,
I see only one series--Al-Haq's powerful posters on collective
punishment--related to the issue.
I attend most of the workshops I can
find on the Israel-Palestine issue. What I do not hear (or see)
is anything I would consider anti-Semitic. In a global conference
of 100,000 people, one expects to hear an enormous range of political
perspectives, including the occasional extreme or intolerant
remark. Given that I am prepared for the worst, I am shocked
that the overwhelming majority of what is said in workshops critical
of US and Israeli policies in the territories is milder than
the articles and essays one can read in Israeli newspapers on
any given day.
Two realities, one
anti-Semitism industry
After I return home, the Wiesenthal Center
publishes an alarming piece entitled "Networking to Destroy
Israel" in the Jerusalem Post. The article claims that this
year's WSF was "hijacked by anti-American and anti-Israeli
forces" and leads me to wonder whether we attended the same
conference. In this piece, and for the second year in a row,
they strangely declare themselves the only Jewish NGO to attend
the WSF.(I personally saw participants from Brit Tzedek and Yesh
Gvul, to name just a few--and Jewish Voice for Peace is listed
in the official program.)
They go on to cite a litany of statements,
including mine, as proof that the WSF is a place where people
who want to destroy Israel meet to plot and recruit. Employing
a form of twisted logic that would make Donald Rumsfeld proud,
they essentially claim that the absence of any blatant anti-Semitism
is not proof that there was none, but merely an indication of
a more "sophisticated" kind of anti-Zionism (and therefore
anti-Semitism) in which sympathetic Jews such as Jewish Voice
for Peace (JVP) play a starring roll.
The account is so riddled with errors--I
am misquoted, JVP is described as "campus-based", all
of my colleagues are given the wrong attributions, and quoted
either inaccurately or out of context--that it is pointless to
list them all. It contains bits of truth but strings together
isolated statements to make them sound like a tidal wave of hatred
and part of what they call an "orchestrated" and "insidious"
campaign to destroy Israel.
All this begs the question of why a group
such as the SWC would want to fuel hysteria about anti-Semitism
in general, especially in regard to the left. The SWC has an
important history of hunting down former Nazis, exposing the
activities of neo-fascists and other right-wing hate groups,
and fighting genuine anti-Semitism.
But the SWC is like many other mainstream
Jewish organizations in the United States that have expanded
their mission from fighting the oppression of Jews by others
to attempting to silence critics--including other Jews--of Israel's
human rights record. These organizations' new role as arbiters
of acceptable opinion is a far cry from their proud past. And
it is ironic, given the spirited debate about Israel's occupation
that takes place in Israel, but apparently is unacceptable in
the rest of the world.
For many of these organizations, as evidenced
in the SWC op-ed, the mere mention of the heartbreaking reality
of Israel's occupation of the Palestinians is proof of an insidious
plan supported by other Jews to wipe Israel off the face of the
earth. Further, it is evidence of bias simply to point out causality-that
groups like JVP or Al-Haq exist not because we are anti-Jewish
or anti-Israel-but to end the injustices of Israel 's occupation
and treatment of Arabs, and to stop the spiral of revenge that
has become a horrible tragedy for everyone.
To even the most casual observer, this
is shocking for a community with a long tradition of protecting
free speech, and an even longer tradition of embracing debate.
It is also self-defeating given the now increasingly mainstream
view both in Israel and the US that the occupation and militarization
of Israeli culture is bad not just for Palestinians, but also
for Israelis.
What is perhaps most troublesome is that
by fueling the fires of fear through hyperbolic statements, (an
easy thing to do to a people with our history of suffering and
persecution) these groups_who say they represent all Jews_ play
a critical role in giving the current Israeli government permission
to violate virtually every moral and ethical standard central
to the Jewish tradition in its effort to keep down the Palestinians.
They make peace ever more distant by
perpetuating the myth that Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians,
have nothing to say to each other and are incapable of recognizing
each other as full human beings with similar wants and needs.
They get under our skin and seek to make Jews believe that indeed,
the world is out to get us and we can trust no one.
Acts of Lovingkindness
at the WSF, the untold story
In my own experience as a very "out"
Jew at the conference, I felt no hate. Instead, I met a number
of Palestinians and Arabs who, on some fundamental level, expressed
the pain of separation. "I am Muslim, and we were raised
to respect the Jewish tradition," a Palestinian woman living
in Jordan told me. "We used to live next door to Jews, and
we were friends."
After I spoke at a session about suspending
military aid to Israel until it ends its occupation, and identified
myself as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a Palestinian woman
thanked me and a distinguished Lebanese man from Jordan came
up and gave me a huge hug and a kiss.
Two of the Arabs that the SWC op-ed quoted
most prominently in their description of what they called a campaign
to destroy Israel were environmental scientist Rania Masri and
activist journalist Ahmed Shawki.
Thirty minutes after meeting me for the
first time at the Forum, Ahmed Shawki offered to loan me the
new digital camera given to him by his wife. He knew I was eager
to take pictures and the airline had misplaced my luggage. Knowing
nothing of my politics, only that I was from a Jewish peace group,
he gave me his digital camera.
The next day, the bag containing my passport,
credit cards, and his camera was stolen. Our mutual friend and
colleague from Lebanon, Rania Masri, handed me a hundred dollars
from her wallet and absolutely insisted I take her ATM card and
PIN number so I would have money for the rest of the trip. And
Ahmed? To this day, Ahmed refuses to accept payment for the camera
that was stolen.
This is the real story of Jews, Arabs,
and the World Social Forum that needs to be told; that is, the
ways in which we so quickly and easily recognize each other's
fundamental humanity. As one young Arab-Israeli woman--who will
never be quoted in an article about the rising tide of anti-Semitism--said
so eloquently and passionately the last night of the conference,
"Yes, I experience discrimination in Israel. But my friendship
with Jewish Israelis is proof that it is a lie when both sides
tell us we can't live together. We can live together. You must
not believe the lie."
Cecilie Surasky
is the Communications Director for Jewish
Voice for Peace and a New Voices fellow with the Academy
of Educational Development. She can be reached at: cecilie@jewishvoiceforpeace.org
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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