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Recent
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July
15, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall
Dwell with the Lamb
July
14, 2003
Lisa
Taraki
Hot Days in Ramallah
Walter
Brasch
Bush: the Pretend Captain
SOA
Watch
Training Colombia's Killers in the US
Dan Bacher
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Veteran
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Intelligence Unglued
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of the Day
Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties
July 12 / 13, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
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Standard
Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an
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John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang
Ron
Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights
Tom
Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11
David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"
Jason
Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11
Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?
Mickey
Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa
Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group
Ramzy
Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller
Adam
Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist
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Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream
Poets'
Basement
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11, 2003
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Hallinan
The Coin of Empire
Tim
Wise
God Responds to Bush
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The Two Faces of Bush in Africa
Edward
S. Herman
Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor
David Orr
Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation?
David
Lindorff
An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary
Website
of the Day
Dead Malls
July
10, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody
Profits of General Dynamics
Sean
Donahue
Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia
Yemi
Toure
Who Outted Bush in Afrika?
Robert
Jensen
Politics and Sustainability: an Interview
with Wes Jackson
Ali
Abunimah
US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated
Joanne
Mariner
Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions
Website
of the Day
Electronic Iraq
July
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Is the Media Finally Turning on
Bush?
David
Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons
Mickey
Z.
Why Speak Out?
Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud
John
Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie
Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq
Website
of the Day
Hail to the Thief:
Songs for the Bush Years
July
8, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological
Dissents of Scalia
Alan
Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor
Chris
Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag
Linda
S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice
Brian
Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders
Charles
Sullivan
Bush the Christian?
Saul
Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age
Website
of the Day
Occupation Watch
July
7, 2003
William
Blum
The Anti-Empire Report
Harvey
Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head
Ramzy
Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons
Simon
Jones
What Progressives Should Think About
Iran
Lesley
McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh
Uri
Avnery
The Draw
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July
4 / 6, 2003
Patrick
Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Standard
Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004
Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian
July
3, 2003
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Meaning of Gettysburg
Thomas
W. Croft
There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy
David
Lindorff
Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong
and the US
John
Chuckman
Lessons from the American Revolution
Jackson
Thoreau
New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices
Stan
Goff
"Bring 'Em On?": a Former
Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis
to Attack US Troops
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July 2, 2003
Diane
Christian
Good Killing and Bad Killing
Richard
Falk
After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future?
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress
Justin
Podur
Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia
Reuven
Kaviner
Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2
July
1, 2003
Sasan
Fayamanesh
Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and
Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia
and the Sodomy Cops
Susan
Block
A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong
to Ourselves
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: No, No Bono
David Lindorff
Weapons in Search of a Name
Gary
Leupp
Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1
June
30, 2003
Karyn
Strickler
The Do-Nothings: an Exposé
of Progressive Politics in America
Col. Dan
Smith
The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire
Tim
Wise
Race and Destruction in Black and White
Neve Gordon
The Roadmap and the Wall
Chris
Floyd
The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam"
Elaine
Cassel
Kentucky Woman
Uri
Avnery
Hope in Dark Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30
Website
of the Day
Bush El Hombre
June
28 / 29, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside
Man
Laura
Carlsen
Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace?
Alan Maass
You Call These Democrats an Alternative?
C.Y.
Gopinath
Bush and Kindergarten
Noah Leavitt
Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law
Joanne
Mariner
Rehnquist Family Values
Ignacio
Chapela
Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley
Bob
Scowcroft
Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers
Jon Brown
Tom Delay: "I am the Government"
Kam
Zarrabi
Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please!
Ron Jacobs
Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues
Julie
Hilden
Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment
Adrien
Rain Burke
The Anarchists' Wedding Guide
Adam
Engel
US Troops Outta Times Square
Poets'
Basement
Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod
June
27, 2003
Jason
Leopold
CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq
Posed No Threat to US
David
Vest
Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker
David
Lindorff
The Catch and Release of "Comical
Ali"
Ray McGovern
Cheney, Forgery and the CIA
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26
Website
of the Day
John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy
June
26, 2003
Sen.
Robert Byrd
The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate
Hans Blix
Paul
de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine
Chris Floyd
Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq
Elaine
Cassel
Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner
CounterPunch
Wire
Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops
Sheldon
Hull
Squatting in Mansions
Ben Tripp
A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone
Uri
Avnery
The Best Show in Town
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
Ordinary Vistas:
The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo
June
25, 2003
Bruce
Jackson
Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers
Mickey
Z.
The New Dark Ages
David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists
Dan
Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops
Adam Federman
"Success is Not the Issue Here"
Elaine
Cassel
"Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing
Guidelines
Bill Kauffman
My America vs. the Empire
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
You Are Being Watched:
Elevator Moods
June
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Indemnity
Holocaust Denial at the High Court
Roya
Monajem
A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth
It to Risk One's Life?
John
Chuckman
The Real Clash of Civilizations
David Lindorff
WMD Damage Control at the Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24
June
23, 2003
Marc
Pritzke
Washington Lied: an Interview with
Ray McGovern
Conn
Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon
Wayne Madsen
Commercials, Disney & Amistad
Edward
Said
The Meaning of Rachel Corrie
Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23
June
21 / 22, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
Standard
Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor
Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets
Harry
Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares
Lawrence
Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery
David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Avia
Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories
CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
Our Favorite Novels
Todd Chretien
Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension
Maria
Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids
Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy
Poets'
Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod
June 20, 2003
Walter
Brasch
Down on Our Knees
Robert
Meeropol
The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America
Russell
Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Grannies and Baby Bells
Norman
Madarasz
Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a
Quebec Radical
Gary
Leupp
Bush on "Revisionist Historians"
Steve
Perry
Bush's Lies
Marathon: the Finale
Hot Stories
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
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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July
15, 2003
The Bi-national State:
The
Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb
By URI AVNERY
"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb"
prophesied Isaiah (11:6). This is possible in our times, too--provided
you bring a new lamb every day.
In desperate times, messianic ideas flourish.
They permit an escape from the dark present to a better, brighter
world; from a feeling of helplessness to a sense of creation.
No wonder that in these dark times, the
bi-national idea is raising its head again in some Israeli left-wing
circles. It's a beautiful and noble idea, imbued with faith in
humanity. But, like Isaiah's prophecy, it is an idea for the
days of the messiah. If it has any realistic chance at all, this
may come in another two or three generations. In the meantime,
it is indeed an escape from reality. A dangerous escape, as we
shall see.
According to the bi-national idea, the
territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River--Palestine
/ Eretz Israel--will again constitute one state, as in the days
of the British Mandate before 1948. Israelis and Palestinians,
Jews  and Arabs, will live there together as
equal citizens. The exact form of the regime--bi-national or
non-national --is secondary.
All citizens will vote for the same
parliament and the same government, serving in the same army
and police force, paying the same taxes, sending their children
to the same schools, using the same textbooks. An attractive
idea, indeed.
It may seem strange that this idealistic vision is reappearing
just now, after it has failed the world over. The multi-national
Soviet Union has disappeared, and now even the multi-national
Russian federation is in danger of falling apart (see Chechnya).
Not only Yugoslavia has disintegrated, but so have its fragments.
Bosnia, too, has fallen apart and been glued together artificially,
with foreign soldiers trying to keep the peace somehow. Serbia
has been compelled to give up Kosovo in all but name, and the
integrity of Macedonia is in doubt. For a long time now, the
unity of Canada has been threatened by movements within the French-speaking
population. United Cyprus, with its model bi-national constitution,
is barely a memory. And the list is long: Indonesia, the Philippines
and many other countries, not to mention our neighbor, Lebanon.
But there is no need to look far away.
Our own reality is enough. The immediate roots of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict are more than a hundred years. A fifth generation has
been born into it and its whole mental world has been shaped
by it. Basically it is a clash between the Zionist movement and
the Arab-Palestinian national movement. After a hundred years,
the force of Zionism is far from exhausted. Its main thrust --expansion,
occupation and settlement--is in full, offensive swing. On the
Palestinian side, nationalism (including the Islamic version)
is deepening and growing from martyr to martyr. It takes real
faith to believe that these two nationalistic peoples will give
up the essence of their hopes and turn from total enmity to total
peace, giving up their national narratives and being ready to
live together as supra-national citizens.
The 20th century has seen several "utopias"
that have caused terrible disasters. The communist vision, for
example, was based on the assumption that there is a perfect
human being or that human beings can be perfected. It clashed
with a reality of imperfect human beings. As the German post-communist
leader, Gregor Gysi, once told me: "We tried to impose the
perfect system on imperfect human beings. So we tried to impose
it by force." Thus a system of terror came into being and
millions were slaughtered, from the Ukraine to Cambodia.
One must pose three essential questions:
1. Will both sides accept this solution?
2. Can a bi-national state function?
3. Will it put an end to the conflict?
My answer to all three questions is an unqualified 'no'.
There is no chance at all that the present,
post-holocaust, Israeli generation, or its successor, will accept
this solution, which conflicts absolutely with the myth and the
ethos of Israel. The aim of the founders of the State of Israel
was that the Jews--or a part of them--could at last take their
destiny into their own hands. A bi-national state means the abandonment
of this aim, and, in practice, the dismantling of Israel itself.
The Jews would return to the traumatic experience of a people
without a state throughout the world, with all that that implies.
And not as a result of a crushing military defeat, but as a free
choice. Not very likely.
And what about the Palestinian side?
Some Palestinians do indeed talk longingly of a bi-national state,
but I believe that for some of them, at least, this is just a
code word for the elimination of the State of Israel, and for
some others an escape from bitter reality to the dream of returning
to their homes and villages of the past . But the great majority
of the Palestinian people want to live, at last, in a national
state of their own, a state that expresses their national identity,
under their flag and their government, like other peoples.
The chance that the two nations will
accept the bi-national idea in the foreseeable future is remote
indeed.
Would such a state--if it came into being--be
able to function?
There is hardly any multi-national state
in the world that really functions properly. (Have I mentioned
Switzerland?) Because in order to function properly, one of two
conditions must be fulfilled: either all sides cede their national
identity or they must have equal economic and political power.
The very opposite is true in this country.
There is a gaping inequality between Israelis and Palestinians
in almost every respect. The disparity is immense. In a joint
state, if it were to be set up, the Jews would dominate the economy
and most other aspects of the state, and try very hard to preserve
that situation. At this point in time, a bi-national state would
be an occupation regime in a new form that would thinly disguise
a reality of exploitation and economic, cultural and probably
political repression. The situation of the Arab citizens in Israel,
after 55 years, is not very encouraging.
Therefore, I do not believe that such
a solution, if it were possible at all, would put an end to the
conflict. It would only set it on a different track, perhaps
more severe and more violent.
All this is known, of course, to the
adherents of the bi-national idea. In order to escape the contradiction
between their vision and reality, they have developed a theory
that goes like this:
In the beginning, the joint state will
indeed be some kind of an apartheid state. But the situation
will change gradually. In time, the Arabs will become the majority
in this state. Even now, some 5.4 million Jews and 4.6 million
Arab Palestinians live between the Mediterranean and the Jordan.
The Arab birthrate will change the ratio soon. The Palestinian
majority will fight for equality. The world will support it,
as it supported the South-African struggle against apartheid.
Thus we will achieve a real state of equality.
This is a wishful dream. The white racists
in South Africa were hated by the whole world. Unlike the Jewish
Israelis, they had no powerful base of support. American Jewry
has immense political, economic and media might, and they will
not lose it for many years to come. Israel continues to rely
on--and will do so for a long time--the guilt feelings of the
Christian world inspired by the holocaust. At the same time,
the Arabs are becoming more and more the bogyman of the Western
world. It will be far more difficult for international pressure
to influence the Jewish community that will dominate the bi-national
state. It will take generations, and in the meantime the expansion
of the settlements will go on relentlessly. In a bi-national
state every Jew can, of course, settle wherever he or she wants.
The Palestinians will continually lose out economically, and
the gap between the two peoples will grow.
It can be assumed that the power struggle
in the bi-national state will cause severe violence, as it did
in South Africa.
The conclusion is: two states are needed
for two peoples. This will direct the national feelings of the
two peoples into reasonable, constructive channels, that will
make co-existence, cooperation and, finally, a genuine reconciliation
possible.
The independent political structure of
the State of Palestine will put at its disposal international
and national barriers against the danger that its far more powerful
neighbor would exploit use its economic might to exploit the
Palestinian people or even expel them. The Palestinian people
will at long last feel that it has a solid base, as did the Jews
after the establishment of the State of Israel.
The recent past has shown that even this
is extremely difficult to achieve. We still have to overcome
much mutual fear, hate, myths and prejudices to make it possible.
But those who despair at these obstacles and so adopt the bi-national
gospel resemble an athlete who can't manage a 100 yard sprint
and therefore enrolls for the marathon.
There is great danger even in propagating
this idea. It is said that "the perfect is the enemy of
the good." The very mention of the bi-national vision will
scare the great majority of Israelis, who are now slowly approaching
acceptance of the two-state solution, will arouse their most
deep-seated existential anxieties and push them into the arms
of the extreme right-wing. It will give the Right a powerful
weapon: "What did we tell you? The real aim of the adherents
of the two-state solution is to abolish the State of Israel by
stages!"
Some of the new advocates of the bi-national
solution use a very odd argument. They say: "Sharon declares
that he is for the two-state solution, but he means some enclaves
comprising 50% of the occupied territories. Therefore we must
not support the establishment of a Palestinian state." The
simple answer is: should we abandon a good and positive idea
just because the enemies of peace pervert it and try to use it
for their ends? Logic would dictate the opposite: to expose the
perversion of the idea by Sharon and fight for a Palestinian
state in the pre-1967 borders.
In the early 50s, when we raised the two-state idea again after
the 1948 war, we did not speak of "separation". Today,
too, we reject this term absolutely. We speak of two states with
an open border between them, with free movement of people and
goods (subject, of course, to mutual agreements). I am convinced
that, in the light of the geographical and political facts, a
natural process will lead to an organic connection, perhaps a
federation, and later, by common consent, to a regional community
like the European Union.
In the end, we shall reach the objective:
to live together in peace, side by side. Perhaps a later generation
will one day decide to live in one joint state. But today the
propaganda for this utopia diverts attention from the practical,
immediate objective, at a time when the whole world has accepted
the idea of "two states for two peoples". This remote
utopia blocks the way to a solution that is achievable in the
near future and sorely necessary, because in the meantime "facts
on the ground" are being created.
I am convinced that the 21st century
will bring vast changes in the structure of the world and the
way of life of human society. The importance of the nation-state
will gradually diminish. A world order, world law and world-wide
structures will play a central role. I believe that Israel will
whole-heartedly take part in the march of humanity. We shall
not be tardy. But there is no point in expecting the Israeli
public to be 50 years ahead of the times.
Uri Avnery
is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He
is one of the writers featured in The
Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. One of his
essays is also included in Cockburn and St. Clair's forthcoming
book: The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org.
Weekend Edition Features for July 12/13, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future
Standard
Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an
Interview with Michael Hudson
John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang
Ron
Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights
Tom
Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11
David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"
Jason
Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11
Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?
Mickey
Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa
Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group
Ramzy
Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller
Adam
Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist
Robert
Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie
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