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CounterPunchers! We Still Mean It!
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CounterPunchers! We Still Mean It!
Please Read This, Then ActThese last days, assuming that you are among the tens of thousands of people around the world who check in at this CounterPunch site every day or two, we’ve been featuring our annual appeal for donations and saying that without the necessary $75,00 to be raised in these weeks, we’ll have to cut back drastically on what we do and what all you site readers who don’t subscribe to our newsletter, get every day for free.
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Today's Stories November 10, 2009 Ellen Cantarow November 9, 2009 Patrick Cockburn Linn Washington Carl Ginsburg Jeff Leys John A. Murphy John Halle Bouthaina Shaaban James Ridgeway Dave Lindorff David Macaray Stephen Fleischman Website of the Day November 6-8, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Mark Grueter Paul Craig Roberts Patrick Cockburn Gareth Porter Mike Whitney James Bovard Dean Baker Robert Lawless Saul Landau Jayne Lyn Stahl Stephanie Westbrook M. Shahid Alam Marc Levy Franklin Lamb Ron Jacobs David Ker Thomson John V. Whitbeck Julien Mercille Rannie Amiri John Ross David Michael Green Carl Finamore Farzana Versey Missy Comley Beattie Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement November 5, 2009 Pam Martens Vijay Prashad Brian Gallagher Norman Solomon Nadia Hijab Joseph Shansky Andy Thayer Tracy Rosenberg Website of the Day November 4, 2009 Stan Cox Andy Worthington From Gitmo to Palau: Who are the Uighurs? Robert Weissman Susan Galleymore Ralph Nader Michael Leonardi Bitta Mistofi Robert Bryce Martha Rosenberg Dave Lindorff Website of the Day November 3, 2009 Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Franklin C. Spinney Laura Carlsen Serge Halimi John Stanton Sophia Weeks Dave Lindorff November 2, 2009 Steven Higgs Ishmael Reed David Macaray Bouthaina Shaaban David Michael Green David Swanson Ellen Brown Adam Federman James McEnteer Stephen Fleischman Website of the Day October 30 - Nov. 1, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair / Carl Ginsburg Mike Whitney Joe Bageant Gareth Porter Saul Landau Anthony DiMaggio Dave Lindorff Rannie Amiri Niranjan Ramakrishnan Jayne Lyn Stahl Rev. William E. Alberts Alvaro Huerta Martha Rosenberg Binoy Kampmark Norm Kent Charles R. Larson Roth's "The Humbling:" Nothing Like a Novel From an Old Pro Ron Jacobs David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 29, 2009 Michael Neumann Mike Whitney Gary Leupp Conn Hallinan Marshall Auerback Laura Flanders Eamonn McCann David Macaray Mark Weisbrot Stephen Soldz Christopher Brauchli Website of the Day October 28, 2009 Moshe Adler Dave Lindorff Frank Joseph Smecker Alexandra Early M. Shahid Alam Vijay Prashad John Ross Franklin Lamb Gregory Travis Susan Galleymore Website of the Day October 27, 2009 Mike Whitney Patrick Cockburn Stewart J. Lawrence Alan Farago Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Bouthaina Shaaban Brian M. Downing Elections in Afghanistan, the Second Time Around Iain Boal Carl Finamore Jayne Lyn Stahl Website of the Day October 26, 2009 Bill Quigley / Paul Craig Roberts Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Michael Snedeker Shamus Cooke David Michael Green Martha Rosenberg Patrick Bond Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day October 23-25, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Christopher Ketcham Jeff Gore Gareth Porter Jayne Lyn Stahl Saul Landau Mike Whitney Nikolas Kozloff Ron Jacobs Russell Mokhiber Missy Beattie Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Stephen Lendman David Ker Thomson Rannie Amiri Ronnie Cummins Norm Kent Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Ben Sonnenberg Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 22, 2009 Dan Pearson / Jonathan Cook Paul Craig Roberts The US as Failed State Mark Engler Johann Hari Brian M. Downing Eric Toussaint Tom Mountain Israel Shamir Charles Thomson Website of the Day October 21, 2009 Pam Martens Linn Washington, Jr. Liaquat Ali Khan D. K. Wilson Franklin Lamb Norman Solomon Stephen Fleischman Patrice Higonnet Binoy Kampmark Kevin Coval / Website of the Day October 20, 2009 Sharon Smith Tariq Ali Mark Brenner Bouthaina Shaaban Michael D. Yates Dean Baker Dave Lindorff John Ross Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Kevin Zeese Gilad Atzmon Website of the Day October 19, 2009 Mike Whitney Greg Moses John Ross Michael Donnelly Jayne Lyn Stahl Eric Walberg Russell Mokhiber Barbara Rose Johnston John V. Whitbeck Christopher Ketcham Website of the Day October 16-18, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Carl Ginsburg Ralph Nader Nikolas Kozloff Carlo Galli Dave Lindorff Catherine Rottenberg
/ Neve Gordon Marshall Auerback Nicola Nasser Windy Cooler James L. Secor Ron Jacobs Wes Jackson Jesse Lerner-Kinglake David Ker Thomson Against Leaders Missy Beattie Emily Ratner Stephen Martin Michael Snedeker Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Peter Stone Brown Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 15, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Brian M. Downing Ramzy Baroud Danny Weil M. Idrees Ahmad Margaret Kimberley Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Harvey Wasserman Nirmal Ghosh Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 14, 2009 Michael Neumann M. Reza Pirbhai Gareth Porter Paul Craig Roberts John Strausbaugh Fortress Moon Ralph Nader Dean Baker Charles Modiano Nadia Hijab Walter Brasch Website of the Day October 13, 2009 Peter Linebaugh Shamus Cooke John Ross Brendan Cooney Frida Berrigan Yves Engler David Macaray Dave Lindorff Mark Weisbrot Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day October 12, 2009 Pam Martens Mike Whitney Martha Rosenberg Jessica Arents Eamonn McCann Bill Hatch Sen. Russell Feingold Niranjan Ramakrishnan Gideon Levy Iyad Burnat Alan Cabal Dan Bacher Website of the Day October 9-11, 2009 Alexander Cockburn James Bovard Kathleen and Bill Christison Andy Worthington Marc Levy Tariq Ali Mike Whitney Paul Craig Roberts Alan Nasser Jack Z. Bratich Steve Breyman David Michael Green Dave Lindorff Paul Buchheit Jim Goodman Missy Beattie Michael Leonardi Nadia Hijab Mel Packer David Macaray James T. Phillips Charles R. Larson Michael Donnelly David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 8, 2009 Saul Landau Paul Fitzgerald / Linn Washington, Jr. Marshall Auerback Dave Lindorff David Rosen Chris Darimont / Misty MacDuffee John V. Walsh Stewart Lawrence Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 7, 2009 Brendan Cooney Paul Craig Roberts Dean Baker Jonathan Cook John Stanton Joanne Mariner Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Stephen Lendman Sen. Russell Feingold Mary Lynn Cramer Website of the Day October 6, 2009 Mike Whitney Gareth Porter Jonathan Cook Boris Kagarlitsky Iain Boal Ron Jacobs John Ross Michael Dickinson Stephen Fleischman Ira Glunts Missy Beattie Website of the Day October 5, 2009 Pam Martens Mike Whitney Paul Craig Roberts Harry Browne Sara Mann Omar Barghouti Shamus Cooke Brenda Norrell Fred Gardner Binoy Kampmark Copenhagen Blues: McChrystal and the Afghan Trap Website of the Day October 2-4, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Diana Johnstone Greg Moses William Blum Brian Cloughley Russell Mokhiber John Ross Ellen Brown David Ker Thomson David Macaray Gary Engler Robert Fantina Lisa Stolarski / Naomi Archer Anthony Papa Joe Allen Harry Browne Ron Jacobs Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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1948 Again, in Sheikh JarrahHeroism in a Vanishing LandscapeBy ELLEN CANTAROW "Disputed” is a word often used about East Jerusalem and homes in Sheikh Jarrah. Would the international community have considered the homes of American blacks attacked by the Ku Klux Kla as “disputed”? Or those of Jews ejected by Brown Shirts in the early 1930s? The rule of law exists to protect the victims of war and occupation by imposing sanctions and responsibilities on invaders. It is not to be stretched for the convenience of the US at Guantanamo, Russia in Chechnya, Israel in Gaza, or in East Jerusalem. Under the law East Jerusalem and all the Arab homes it contains are part of the occupied West Bank. Despite endless palm-greasing, casuist apologetics, semantic distortions and brute force, Israel’s responsibilities towards the territories it occupies remain articulated in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and Chapter 5 of the 1907 Hague Convention IV. Occupying states are forbidden to seize the land and property of those they occupy, and forbidden to settle their citizens on occupied soil. But Israel and its US patron have small regard for legal niceties, instead preferring Thucydides’ maxim: “The strong do what they can, and the weak do what they must.” * * * Late afternoon, October 16, 2009. Nasser Ghawe, 46, barrel-chested, with an expressive face and a ready smile, calls out to his little girl when she strays too far down the street. “Come here, darling,” he says, scooping her up in his arms and cradling her. We’re seated on plastic chairs in the gathering dusk at one side of a street in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The mother watches tiredly as Nasser talks with us. The usual courtesy cups of strong Arabic coffee aren’t offered here; the family has none. For nearly eleven weeks they have been living on the street opposite the house that was theirs for 53 years. On August 2 Israeli soldiers threw them out; minutes later, settlers from the violent organization Kach (“Thus”, founded by the late Meir Kahane), moved in and have been there ever since. And so the Ghawes are once again refugees, re-living a nightmare they had thought was buried in the Nakba. They watch from the street as settlers carry on life in their former home. When we visited, a guard hired by the settlers picked limes and gave them to one of the Ghawe women: “I am not against Arabs,” he said, “This is just my job.” In 1948 Ghawe’s grandparents fled from Ein Sfarand near Lydda. Ein Sfarand was bulldozed into the ground along with over 450 other Arab villages. Pretty national parks and kibbutzim erased any trace of the traditional Arab architecture, agriculture and the rest of life which once characterized Palestine. Hebrew names – Lod, for example, for Lydda - replaced the Arabic ones. The Ghawes fled to East Jerusalem where UNWRA (The United Nations Works Relief Agency) housed them as refugees. In 1956 they returned their refugee cards and rented a house from a local Palestinian builder. There they stayed in peace for nearly twenty years. In the early 70s settler organizations began trying to seize the homes of the Ghawes and those of over two dozen other Sheikh Jarrah families including the Hannouns who lived down the street and around the corner. For 37 years the families staved the settlers off in court. In 2006 the Ghawes were evicted but settlers didn’t move in; the Israeli police simply put locks on the doors. The Ghawe family shattered the locks and moved back in. The Hannouns put up a website and appealed to the international community for protection. According to one of the older Hannoun children, 20-year-old Sharihan, some 1000 internationals came through to sleep in their home, in much the same way as internationals now come to help Palestinians with their harvests. (The website - http://www.standupforjerusalem.org – gives essential historical background.) When we visited, the Ghawe family was living on a plywood platform under an improvised roof – white sheets stitched together and strung up on poles. In the dim interior we could see mattresses and a simple bed. Children’s drawings were tacked to an improvised wall. There were also stuffed animals, a TV set on a card table, a generator, and other necessities of life – small testimonies to the family’s efforts to impose some normality in the midst of lunacy. That afternoon Sheikh Jarrah looked like Williamsburg, Brooklyn – settler men strolling about in long black caftans, leggings, fur hats; settler women in long-sleeved shapeless dresses, wigs and hats. A special large enclosure had been erected for the settlers’ holiday festivities, its lights beaming across the area as dusk descended. Many baby-strollers announced a race to the finish with the arabushim. (The settlers address Israel’s “demographic problem” viscerally. Thirty years ago settlers from Gush Emunim – Bloc of the Faithful, the radical right-wing spearhead of Israel’s drive to settle the West Bank -- told me with pride that their own large families would win against the Arabs). In 1979 I reported from Kiryat Arba, a major Gush Emunim stronghold. A settler interviewee whispered with pride that Meir Kahane had an apartment there. For the Gush settlers, Arabs were at very least inferior. One woman said she believed in a “chain of being”: on top, Jews. Then, lesser human specimens. Then animals, vegetables, minerals. Somewhere in the lower reaches of lesser humanity were Arabs. “Let them bow their heads. If they won’t, they should leave,” was a frequent Gush statement about the untermenschen. At that time the Gush had just established a “squat” in the former Hadassah Hospital in Hebron. Miriam Levinger, the wife of the Gush leader, Rabbi Moshe Levinger, said the squatters were there to stay. Israel let them. Israel’s US patron did nothing but continue its usual $3 billion annual largesse. Today’s visitors to central Hebron can observe the results: the central Palestinian market lies emptied and closed after years of settler pogroms. One of many hate-filled graffiti reads: ARABS TO THE GAS CHAMBERS. (For essential information about these settlers see the late Robert I. Friedman’s Zealots for Zion, Rutgers University Press, 1992, and Lords of the Land by Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, Nation Books, 2005, 2007). Thirty years ago Kach was considered a pariah organization. (In 1988 Israel barred Kach from elections because of Kach’s stated desire to expel all Arabs from Israel. In 1994 the US declared it a terrorist group). Gush Emunim was also considered “lunatic fringe”. But Labor and Likud alike bowed to Gush demands, enabling settlements like Gush Etzion, Kiryat Arba and Elon Moreh – the rest of Israel’s West Bank “settlements” (whole cities and red-roofed California-style suburban sprawl) followed. “The lunatic fringe” is now the mainstream, dominating Israel’s armed forces and its political life. * * * Down the street and around the corner from the Ghawes we found the Hannoun family’s house. A line of Israeli flags fluttered triumphantly along the arch of its roof. A dark-green synthetic material hung behind a crude fencing of wire mesh, obscuring the entire front of the house. Through tatters in the green fiber we saw the settlers’ Shabbat candles glimmering. 20-year-old Sharihan Hannoun sat on a lawn chair on the sidewalk with other family members. She wore a black, long-sleeved sweater, jeans and sneakers. A blue hijab framed a pleasant young face with dark, arching eyebrows. Sharihan said the army arrived at five in the morning August 2nd. One of the police shoved a gun through a window. He shouted, “Open the door!” “They break the door,” said Sharihan, “broken everything they see, threw all the tables, the chairs, and then come to me and hit me with a gun. Even my little brother, they put a gun in his back. My father say, ‘Don’t touch my son, he’s only eight years old.’ But they threw my father and my little brother outside and then go to my mom room. She say, ‘Let me wear my clothes, I cannot be in the street in pajama… [But] they refused. And they let her to walk on the broken glass ‘cause they broken everything they see . . . I sat and I put my arms around the door. [I said], ‘This is my house, I will never leave.’ But [the soldier’s] body is strong. He beat me.” In the street, their cell phones and cameras confiscated, the family watched as the soldiers displayed their “purity of arms”: they tossed out all the furniture. Then they began playing football, something that particularly astonished Sharihan. “They didn’t care. They kick us outside, they eating my little brother chocolate and playing football. My brother say, ‘I want to sleep in my house.” And I can’t do anything for him.” The day we visited, the family had been living for two months and ten days on the streets, with periodic help from relatives (bathing, toilet, etc.) The Palestinian Authority put the family up in a hotel during Ramadan, then refused to pay anymore. On our visit, Sharihan had just returned from her classes. How could she study in these circumstances? A shrug: “I study in the street. I don’t have another place. I have to study and, like, have a normal life. I can’t give up. If they took my house it is not the end for me.” I returned four days later to record Sharihan’s story. The next day she was to leave for the US with other Palestinian representatives of Sheikh Jarrah: all had been granted visas. Sharihan was to be interviewed by press in the US, and also to testify before the UN. Friends kept arriving to say goodbye and wish her luck. Did she want to stay in the US? “I want to return to my country. I want to open hospital, for old people. I think everyone forget what the old people do when they younger.” And how did the exams go? She beamed: “I am second in my class.” * * * Days after our visit, the settlers danced in triumph in front of their victims while the latter banged pots and pans to make them leave. http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=234466) The Jerusalem municipality has approved plans by Florida billionaire Irving Moskowitz, to build twenty apartments in Sheikh Jarrah. [http://middleeastprogress.org/2009/07/debating-jerusalem/ ] The settler organization, Nahalat Shimon International, also filed plans this past August with the Jerusalem Local Planning Commission to demolish Palestinian homes and build a 200-unit settlement. On Nablus Road, not far from Sheikh Jarrah, I saw that one Arab street name had been whited out. All that was left was a Hebrew name at the top of the sign, and the English one at the bottom. Ellen Cantarow, a Boston-based journalist, has written from Israel and the West Bank since 1979. This article is part of a series, “Heroism in a Vanishing Landscape,” about non-violent Palestinian resistance to Israel’s occupation. She can be reached at ecantarow@comcast.net Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Obama and Black America Ten months into Obama-time, the plight of black Americans is terrible. Yet overwhelmingly they rally behind the president. In a powerful report from the Deep South Kevin Alexander Gray asks the question: what should the black political agenda be? Mark Rudd counterposes “organizing” with “activism” and describes what it will take to build a movement. H. Bruce Franklin gives a chronology of the march into Afghanistan. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents.Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Yellowstone Drift:
"Powerful and shocking ..
Waiting for
Lightning
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