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Today's Stories August 12 / 13, 2006 Jean Bricmont
Col. Dan Smith John Ross Michael Donnelly William S.
Lind Linda Milazzo Rep. Cynthia
McKinney Azmi Bishara Henri Picciotto CounterPunch News Wire Dave Lindorff Jonathan Cook
Uri Avnery Dave Marsh Gabriel Kolko Arthur Versluis Jennifer Loewenstein
Linda Schade Jackie Mason Jonathan Cook Gilad Atzmon
Charles Hirschkind
Tom Barry Cockburn &
St. Clair
August 8, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Paul Larudee Joan Roelofs Dimi Reider John A. Murphy Tim Llewellyn Website of the Day
August 7, 2006 Uri Avnery Karim Makdisi Nadia Hijab Sharon Smith Magan Wiles George Beres Rachard Itani Norman Solomon Stan Cox Mickey Z. Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
August 5 / 6, 2006 Virginia Tilley Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Sgt. Martin Smith Gary Leupp Neve Gordon Ralph Nader Peter Bouckaert Peter Montague David Krieger Michael Donnelly Fred Gardner Catherine Norris Imraan Siddiqi Missy Comley
Beattie Ira Kay Dave Lindorff Pratyush Chandra Ron Jacobs St. Clair / Donnelly Poets' Basement Website of the Day Video of the
Weekend
August 4, 2006 Ralph Nader Brian Cloughley Eliza Ernshire Roger Assaf George Bisharat Remi Kanazi Laura Carlsen Niranjan Ramakrishnan Derrick O'Keefe Mickey Z. Col. Dan Smith Website of the Day
Jonathan Cook Uri Avnery Saree Makdisi Robert Fisk Farrah Hassen Nicola Nasser Ron Jacobs Mitchel Cohen Seth Sandronsky Bruce K. Gagnon Alexander Cockburn
John Ross Chip Mitchell Saul Landau Naseer Aruri Winslow T.
Wheeler Matthias Gebauer Joshua Frank Bill Quigley Manuel Yang Shamai Leibowitz David Himmelstein Lara Marlowe Website of
the Day
August 1, 2006 Michael Neumann Robert Fisk Omar Barghouti Marc Levy Diana Barahona / Jeb Sprague Claud Cockburn Ross Eisenbrey Dave Lindorff John Chuckman Francis Boyle Phil Doe Stephen Soldz Website of the Day
July 31, 2006 Jonathan Cook Uri Avnery Robert Fisk Amina Mire Marjorie Cohn Sibel Edmonds / William Weaver John Ross Stanley Rogouski Gideon Levy Ron Jacobs James Ridgeway
/ Alicia Ng Brian Tokar Alexander Cockburn
July 29 / 30,
2006 Michael Neuman Vijay Prashad Ramzi Kysia Werther Robert Fisk Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Rachard Itani Eduardo Galeano Gary Leupp Eve Poretsky John Chuckman Fred Gardner Juan Santos Punyapriya Dasgupta Liaquat Ali
Khan Israel Shamir William A.
Cook Stanley Heller Dave Lindorff Moshe Adler Susie Day Pat Williams Anthony Papa John V. Whitbeck Jackie Corr Myles Palmer Tom D'Antoni Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
July 28, 2006 Jonathan Cook Uri Avnery Renee Bowyer Robert Fisk Patrick Cockburn Ramzy Baroud Don Fitz Elaine Cassel David Price Mike Whitney Mickey Z. Niranjan Ramakrishnan Charles Glass Website of
the Day
July 27, 2006 Tanya Reinhart Saul Landau Ramzi Kysia Tom Barry Joseph Grosso Sharon Smith Gale Courey
Toensing Christopher Reed Werther Yusuf Mansur Richard Harth Website of the Day
Norman
Solomon Barbara
Olshanksy David
Nally Jonathan
Cook Patrick
Cockburn William
Blum Joshua
Frank Gabriel
Kolko Daniel
Cassidy Michael
Dickinson Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Website
of the Day
July 25, 2006 Harry
Browne Marjorie
Cohn Robert
Bryce Sharat
G. Lin George
Bisharat CounterPunch
News Desk Zena
El-Khalil Larry
Lack Mike
Mejia Ashraf
Isma'il Website
of the Day
July 24, 2006 Mark
Levy Robert
Fisk Maher
Osseiran Paul
Craig Roberts Patrick
Cockburn Website
of the Day
July 22-23, 2006 Jonathan
Cook Paul
Craig Roberts Gilad
Atzmon Robert
Fisk Ralph
Nader Fred
Gardner Christopher
Reed Dr.
Susan Block Najla
Said Uri
Avnery July 21, 2006 George
Galloway P.
Sainath Aseem
Shrivastava Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day July 20, 2006 William
S. Lind Robert
Jensen John
Ross Tom
Hayden Paul
Craig Roberts July 19, 2006 Patrick
Cockburn Trish
Schuh Jonathan
Cook Vicente
Navarro July 17 / 18 2006 Mike
Whitney Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land
July 14 / 15,
2006 Alexander Cockburn Tanya Reinhart Robert Fisk Daniel Cassidy Winslow Wheeler Hugh O'Shaughnessy M. Shahid Alam William S. Lind Ramzy Baroud Gilad Atzmon Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Samar Assad Ron Jacobs Lee Ballinger Walter Brasch Dave Lindorff Clifton Ross Tom Crumpacker Ricardo Alarcon William Hughes Susie Day Farrah Hassen Poets' Basement
July 13, 2006 Rev. William
Alberts Ramzi Kysia Rep. John P. Murtha Radford / Santos Stan Cox Saul Landau José
Pertierra Website of
the Day
July 12, 2006 John Ross John Stauber Robert Boston Wayne S. Smith John Graham Kevin Prosen Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
July 11, 2006 Dave Lindorff Dave Zirin Mokhiber / Weissman Amira Hass Clare Hanrahan Brian Cloughey Felice Pace Raed Jarrar Website of the Day
July 10, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Roger Burbach Ron Jacobs Joshua Frank Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn
Stephen Green Paul Craig
Roberts Greg Moses Ralph Nader Laura Carlsen Conn Hallinan John Chuckman Fred Gardner Dr. Tod Mikuriya Pierre Tristam Lucinda Marshall David Swanson Heather Gray Dave Zirin
/ John Cox Mark Engler Michael Lettieri Ron Jacobs Jamal Juma' Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
July 7, 2006 John Ross July 6, 2006 Nick Dearden John Stanton Ralph Nader Laray Polk Saul Landau Joshua Frank William S. Lind Adelman / Lindorff Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
Mike Whitney Saul Landau Ramzy Baroud Missy Comley Beattie Arthur Neslen Vincent Maruffi Paul Cantor Paul D. Johnson David Price
Col. Dan Smith Chris Floyd Marjorie Cohn James Brooks Medea Benjamin Matt Reichel Elisa Salasin Rick Wilhelm Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
July 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Dr. Bouthaina Shaban Julia Olmstead Dave Lindorff Andres Gomez Alan Singer Alexander Cockburn
Paul Craig
Roberts Stephen T.
Banko Daniel Cassidy Fawzia Afzal-Khan Jeff Taylor John Ross Greg Moses Laura Carlsen Justin E.H.
Smith Brian Cloughley Anthony Papa Mike Ferner Jerry Tucker Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta Phyllis Pollack Poets' Basement
June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Heather Williams Burbach / Cantor Nick Dearden Michael J.
Smith Brian Concannon Virginia Tilley
Bill Quigley Ron Jacobs Paul Craig
Roberts June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Greg Moses Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Dave Lindorff William S.
Lind Mike Ferner Zoltan Grossman
Marjorie Cohn Benjamin /
Jarrar William Hughes Doug Giebel Uri Avnery Alexander Cockburn
June 26, 2006 Don Santina Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz Evelyn Pringle Jonathan Cook
June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Col. Dan Smith
June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Winslow T.
Wheeler Tanya Reinhart Mike Marqusee William Blum
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August 12 / 13, 2006 Lessons for Palestine from LebanonTime to Reopen the Palestine File at the UN? Not Yet!By OMAR BARGHOUTI Several Arab officials intimated after the unanimous UN Security Council vote for resolution 1701, intended to stop Israel's unjust war on Lebanon, that it was time to build on this rare Arab "diplomatic triumph" by reopening the file of the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the question of Palestine. This logic is faulty and imprudent, despite all its luring appearance. Not every old man with a white beard is wise, after all. Most Arabs, Palestinians included, have vied for years to snatch the Palestine question away from U.S.-Israeli clenching claws and return it to where it formally started: the United Nations. From their perspective, so long as the U.S. is allowed to control "99% of the cards," as the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat notoriously believed, there is no chance for a just and enduring peace. That much has become obvious to most. However, the UN of yesteryear is not the same organization we have today. The new realities of a unipolar world have abrasively reflected themselves in the US-imposed positions and interventions of the international organization, more than in any other "theater of operations." Increasingly, Arabs along with many in the global South view the UN, especially its all-powerful Security Council, as little more than a tool of American hegemony. This bitter dismissal of the UN, though exaggerated, is amply justified by its record since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Not that the UN in the bipolar phase was ever a sincere representative of the common interests of the world's nations, but at least the cold war between the two dominant blocs allowed weaker nations some room for maneuver, for fighting for their rights and occasionally attaining them. With hindsight, those were the good old days, as gloomy as they seemed at the time. Ironically, a world under the continuous threat of nuclear annihilation from two opposing, more or less equivalent powers, experience tells us, is a far more secure and peaceful place than a world subjugated to the whims of a single, fat, ruthless and criminal empire intent on trampling international law and monopolizing the use of force worldwide to further its dominion and control of world resources. With the U.S. in effect controlling the UN, and in the lamentable absence of any viable, alternative international forum capable of arbitrating and settling conflicts as well as maintaining a reasonable level of world peace and stability, nations of the South are compelled to create new, evolving and effective means of resistance and solidarity that take into consideration contemporary conditions in striving to wrest control of the world's fate from the bloody hands and the demented minds of the new Rome and its no less hubristic partners. The frantic processes that led to the latest UN resolution on Lebanon may give some insight into one, some say unique, way of doing just that. The first draft of the US-French UNSC resolution looked very much like a "declaration of surrender" of the Arab side, as a discerning Hizbullah official commented. "If this is what they're suggesting after Israel lost the military confrontation, what would they have proposed if Israel had won?" asked the witty speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, echoing a widely held view among Arab and international observers alike. Only a few days after that draft was first made public the text underwent dramatic changes to the extent that its final version was seen by many, with some embellishment, as a declaration of Hizbullah's victory over Israel. What on earth could have compelled America's most undiplomatic, arrogant and viceroy-ish ambassador to the UN to make such an uncharacteristic U-turn? While Arab officials on the delegation that negotiated the outcome are likely to take credit for their claimed deftness and newly discovered diplomatic skill, the truth is that this relative triumph was created on the ground in South Lebanon, from Bint Jbail to Aita ash-Shaab and Khiyam, where the able Lebanese resistance inflicted upon the Israeli invading forces in less than a week massive losses including tens of destroyed or impaired fortified tanks and other armored vehicles, a badly damaged state-of-the-art military vessel and dozens of dead soldiers, quite a few among them from the army's elite units. The radical shift of the balance on the ground in Hizbullah's favor, the political steadfastness in Beirut and the resulting loss of direction and embarrassing wobbling among Israel's political and military leaders together painted a picture of what can be accurately perceived as the very first Arab military victory over Israel's much feared, "unbeatable" army. The collapse of Israel's famed "power of deterrence" on the ground in Lebanon and on the air in Al-Jazeera's scrupulous and unparalleled broadcasts reaching tens of millions of Arabs directly translated into a decline in US resolve at the UN to maintain its defiance of world public opinion -- including a noteworthy minority among Americans -- or to keep up the fight for a foolishly prejudiced resolution that came across as preposterously detached from reality, having been premised on an imaginary Israeli military accomplishment that never materialized. Through its breathtaking streak of military successes in preventing Israel from attaining any of the declared objectives of its massive assault and by overwhelmingly winning the hearts and minds of the Arab, Muslim and other publics, Hizbullah managed to turn the tables at the political and diplomatic levels. The previously complicit French leadership immediately had to distance itself from the resolution it had "co-authored" with its senior American partner. The main US "allies" in the Arab world were consumed by panic, "concerned about the grave consequences" of continuing this "futile" Israeli war on Lebanon. The Arab League which was hastily summoned at the ministerial level to take some belated action, met in Beirut and unanimously endorsed the cleverly drafted Lebanese 7-point plan to end the aggression -- adopted after full coordination with Hizbullah's leadership. The Russians suddenly expressed their frustration with the dubiously slow pace of the Franco-American "negotiations," accused by some as giving war a chance, and offered their own plan for a humanitarian truce, largely seen as exerting significant pressure on the Americans and the French. The British government suddenly fell in love with a ceasefire after spending 4 deadly weeks passionately arguing with the US and Israel against one. Even the pathetically compliant UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, found deep in him some leftover courage to mourn the lost credibility of the UN as a result of the Security Council's inability to stop the bloodshed in Lebanon. Hence John Bolton had to blink, for a change. And Israel's abrasive UN ambassador, Dan Gillerman, was left with no choice but to grudgingly accept the deal after his bosses in Tel Aviv swung from initially rejecting it out of hand to "welcoming" it, in a not-so-subtle reversal by Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert designed to save face. For Palestinians struggling against Israeli occupation, colonization, denial of refugee rights and system of racial discrimination the above scenario may be inspiring in many ways but not quite relevant as a model to be replicated or literally emulated. Palestine is not and has never been Lebanon. Far from demonstrating common strategies of resisting Israel's aggression, the parallel wars on Gaza and Lebanon exposed just how different the two situations are. Intentions, desires and rare successes aside, armed resistance in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) for almost four decades has been largely ineffective in raising the cost of the illegal Israeli occupation and colonization enough to push them back or even to deter Israel from pursuing its ultimate goal of ethnically cleansing the OPT through a rolling, piecemeal massacre against innocent Palestinian civilians; massive campaigns of home demolition; a monstrous, land-grabbing wall; abduction and incarceration of thousands of political prisoners and other activists; and wanton destruction of social, educational and health institutions. Palestinians under occupation have to wrestle with a hermetic Israeli siege that severs them completely from their natural Arab environment, leaving control over their trade, communications and travel in the hands of the Israeli occupation authorities. Under these circumstances, it is nearly impossible for any resistance movement to launch a sustainable guerilla war with any likelihood of success. In addition, as the ongoing barbaric Israeli attack on Gaza has shown, Israel's response to the slightest armed "provocation" in the West Bank and Gaza strictly follows the established and time-honored Israeli doctrine of brutally savaging the targeted Palestinian civilians in order to "sear into their consciousness" the utter futility of fighting the occupation forces. This, given the US-provided political, economic and military shield enabling Israel's colonial oppression and protecting it from effective world pressures or even condemnation, has helped make Israel's occupation army virtually invincible in the OPT. With no supply routes from the outside world, almost no place to hide, and no possibility of turning the cost-benefit equation to their interest, Palestinian armed resistance factions are doomed to playing at best a marginal role in bringing about an end to the occupation, not to mention the more strategic Palestinian objective of realizing the return of the Nakba refugees, ethnically cleansed by Zionists in the process of establishing the state of Israel in 1948. Even at an organizational level, despite evident differences between the two, neither Fatah nor Hamas has come close to the sophistication, incorruptibility, talent or resourcefulness of the Lebanese resistance, least of all in leadership qualities. Given all the deficiencies mentioned above, no degree of diplomatic or political suaveness or wizardry can turn such a bleak reality into a political victory. Taking the Palestine question back to the UN at this stage will only be a pointless exercise in political posturing or an abortive attempt to build on the Lebanese accomplishments, which do not readily lend themselves to the Palestinian experience. The fundamental lesson Palestinians learned from Lebanon -- twice -- is that Israel's almost mythical might is anchored in its occupation of our minds far more than its control of our land and resources. Overcoming self-inhibitions to resisting Israel's oppression is key to waging an effective, cumulative and well-planned struggle against that oppression. Lebanon has shown us that Goliath can indeed be knocked over, but not how. If the Lebanese resistance can inspire us to beat the "cop in our heads," as the phenomenal Brazilian playwright Augusto Boal would say, perhaps the South African civil struggle against apartheid can more relevantly and practically teach us how to get there from here. Pragmatic considerations aside, Palestinian non-violent resistance offers a morally sound strategy that can potentially mobilize most of civil society, giving society at large more say in shaping the future resolution of the colonial conflict with Israel. Only then will it make sense
to revisit the UN, emboldened, self-confident, with massive world
support and, therefore, with true prospects of achieving our
inalienable right to self-determination, emancipation, justice
and unmitigated equality. Omar Barghouti is an Independent Palestinian political
analyst.
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                    |
