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May
24, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss
and the Neo-Cons
Uri Avnery
The Hannibal Procedure
Diane
Christian
Who's the Real Enemy?
"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
William
S. Lind
Is Saddam Really Out of the Game?
William
Cook
Road to Nowhere
David Krieger
Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice
Ilan
Pappe
Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel
Wayne Madsen
American Idle
Noah
Leavitt
Slowing Sowing Justice in the Killing Fields
Walt Brasch
Americans are Liars
Lenni
Brenner
John Brown and Dutch Bill
Mickey
Z.
Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Grievous Harm Here and Abroad
Adam Engel
Towers of Babel
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
May
22, 2003
Mark
Gaffney
Christian in Name Only
Carl
Estabrook
Republic of Fear
Carl
Camacho, Jr.
Reason for Hope
Ben
Granby
What Rates a Headline from the Middle
East?
Vanessa
Jones
Terror Alerts in Australia
Mickey
Z.
Instant Understanding
Don
Monkerud
Snowballs in a Soggy Economy
Barry Lando
The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush
Steve
Perry
Total Information
Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?
May
21, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The
Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain
Chris
Floyd
How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Graham's God and Bush's Pathology
Patrick
Cockburn
In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown
are Everywhere
Brian Cloughley
The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz
Saul
Landau
Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning Poems, May 2003
Steve
Perry
Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq
May
20, 2003
Tariq
Ali
The Empire Advances
Ahmad
Faruqui
Whither American Nationalism?
Ben Tripp
Dialysis with Osama
Linda
Heard
The Cage of Occupation
Cynthia
McKinney
Toward a Just and Peaceful World
Edward
Said
The Arab Condition
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Why Ari Should Have Resigned in Protest Long Ago
Stew
Albert
Yale Men
Steve Perry
The New Face of Al-Qaeda
May
19, 2003
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing
Evidence
CounterPunch
Wire
"Terror" Slut Steve Emerson
Eats Crow
John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward Lies
Matt
Vidal
Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market
Michael
S. Ladah
The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map
Robert
Fisk
Bush's Eternal War Backfires
Elaine
Cassel
Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan
Freedland
Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic
Steve Perry
Play It Again, O-Sam-a
May
17 / 18, 2003
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Avnery
The Children's Teeth
Peter
Linebaugh
An American Tribute to Christopher
Hill
Gary
Leupp
Nepal Today
Rock and
Rap Confidential
The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks
Walter
Sommerfeld
Plundering Baghdad's Museums
Ron Jacobs
Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades
Thomas
P. Healy
Dubya Does Indy
Tarif Abboushi
Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap
Francis
Boyle
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Mark Davis
An Interview with Richard Butler
Richard
Lichtman
American Mourning
Michael
Ortiz Hill
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Adam
Engel
Uncle Sam is YOU!
Alan Maas
The Best News Show on TV
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Reiss, Guthrie, Albert
Elaine
Cassel
Good Enough for an Alien
Website
of the Weekend
The 37 Americans Who Run Iraq
Song of
the Weekend
Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues
May
16, 2003
Leah
Wells
In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix
Ben Tripp
Fear Itself
Sharon
Smith
The Resegregation of US Schools
Ramzy Baroud
Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating?
Sam
Hamod
A Nation of Fear
Phil Reeves
Baghdad Pays the Price
Robert
McChesney
The FCC's Big Grab
Mark Engler
Those Who Don't Count
Steve
Perry
We're All
Extras in Bush's Movie
Website
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Iraq and Our
Energy Future
May
15, 2003
Ayesha
Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould
How
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Writing Campaigns
Julie
Hilden
Moussaoui and the Camp X-Ray Detainees:
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Tanya
Reinhart
Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure
Laura Carlsen
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Kenneth
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The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts
New Yorker's Goldberg
Stew Albert
A Story I Will Tell
Steve
Perry
Bush's Little
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Website
of the Day
Strip-o-Rama
May
14, 2003
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Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
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Leopold
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Chuckman
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McCarthy
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Madsen
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The Longer View
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de Rooij
The New Hydra's Head:
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James
Reiss
What? Me Worry?
Steve Perry
More on Saudi Arabia Bombings
Website
of the Day
A Tribute to Ted Joans
May
13, 2003
Saul
Landau
Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves
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Neumann
Has Islam Failed? Not by Western
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Uri
Avnery
My Meeting with Arafat
Steve Perry
The Saudi Arabia Bombing
Jacob
Levich
Democracy Comes to Iraq: Kick Their Ass and Grab Their Gas
William
Lind
The Hippo and the Mongoose: a Question of Military Theory
The
Black Commentator
Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes
Stew Albert
Asylum
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Guthrie
An Illogical Reign
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Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence
May
12, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush, Bin Laden, Bechtel, and Baghdad
Dave
Lindorff
America's Dirty Bombs
Sam
Hamod and Elaine Cassel
Resisting the Bush Administration's War on Liberty
Uzi
Benziman
Sharon and Sons, Inc.
Jason
Leopold
The Decline and Fall of Thomas White
Rich Procter
George Jumps the Shark
Federico
Moscogiuri
Going to Israel? Sign or Else
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/12
Book
of the Day
Fooling
Marty Peretz
Website
of the Day
T-Shirts to Protest In
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Corrie
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Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
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Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
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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
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May
27, 2003
Same Old Shellgame
What
Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets
By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
The Israeli cabinet's highly qualified acceptance
on Sunday of the "roadmap" to peace between Israel
and the Palestinians is likely to mean the final derailment of
this latest in a line of misbegotten peace plans. Just a random
sampling of the Sunday morning talk shows demonstrates why this
perverse reality is so.
Reacting to the Israeli cabinet's twelve-seven
vote (with four abstentions) in favor of the roadmap, but taking
no note of the crippling preconditions imposed on Israel's adherence
to the peace plan, Fox News Sunday host Tony Snow asked Senator
Joseph Lieberman if he did not agree that the Bush administration
should now ignore the other members of the Quartet altogether
(the others being the European Union, the UN, and Russia) and
go ahead with the roadmap in whatever way the administration
saw fit; the U.S. should simply assert its prerogative as principal
peace broker. "Well, yes," Lieberman responded, in
a tone implying that the answer was so obvious the question need
not have been asked. The Israelis mistrust the rest of the Quartet,
Lieberman observed, and if we expect Israel to make peace we
have to accommodate its concerns.
Period. Whatever Sharon wants Sharon
gets.
Later, on Wolf Blitzer's Late Edition
on CNN, Blitzer asked Representative Tom Lantos about the impact
of the Israeli cabinet's rejection, as a condition for accepting
the roadmap, of any consideration of a Palestinian right of return.
With a figurative wave of his hand, Lantos dismissed the right
of  return as a spurious demand.
The bulk of Palestinian refugees never lived in what is now
Israel in the first place, he said; most of the refugees are
descendants of the original refugees. And in any case, the right
of return has never been considered a serious part of the negotiating
process.
At least not by Tom Lantos or the Israelis.
Whatever Sharon wants Sharon gets.
Simultaneously with these Israel-is-good,
Palestinians-are-bad pronouncements by the congress members and
the media outlets who essentially control what Americans know
about the peace process, the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom,
led by Uri Avnery, issued a newsletter discussing what is really
going on in Israel and Palestine, significantly entitled "Behind
the Diplomatic Moves: Intensified Assault on Peace Activists."
Noting that Sharon's acceptance of the roadmap is so heavily
cratered with caveats as to be devoid of any meaning, Gush Shalom
writes about what Israel is actually doing on the peace front:
ongoing raids, killings, and curfews throughout the occupied
territories; a stepped-up offensive against all peace and human
rights activists, whether Israeli, Palestinian, or international;
continuing arrests and expulsions; the barring of humanitarian
aid and development workers from reaching projects in Palestinian
territories.
While the United States congratulates
Sharon for his statesmanship, the Israel campaign to fence in
those small areas of the West Bank that might be given over to
some measure of Palestinian control continues with the construction,
on devastated Palestinian agricultural land, of a massive apartheid
wall that will mark out the huge settlement blocs and vast expanses
of Palestinian land that Israel intends to retain. While the
U.S. praises Sharon's vision, the Israeli campaign to destroy
Palestinian national existence and Palestinian identity continues.
While the U.S. bends over backward to accommodate Israel's demands,
the Israeli campaign to silence the witnesses to its depredations
against Palestinians, which began with the killing of Rachel
Corrie on March 16, continues in numerous ways.
Oblivious to these concrete indications
of Sharon's attitude toward making peace with the Palestinians,
the U.S. media and most commentators have been concentrating
on Israeli rhetoric, hailing the cabinet decision on the roadmap
as a "dramatic breakthrough," highly significant because
it is the first-ever official Israeli acceptance of the notion
of Palestinian statehood. Although the media generally note
the Israeli reservations, these are downplayed in the rush to
highlight the supposed breakthrough. Few note that Ariel Sharon
has long spoken of accepting a so-called Palestinian "state,"
but a state so truncated (encompassing only about 40 percent
of the West Bank in multiple small disconnected segments, including
none of Jerusalem, and completely surrounded by Israeli territory)
that it would be a travesty of commonly accepted notions of independence
and sovereignty. There is nothing in the Israeli cabinet decision
or in Sharon's personal "commitment" to the roadmap
to indicate that his destructive view of Palestinian nationhood
and the right to statehood has changed.
Not surprisingly, media outside the United
States seem to be taking a more sober and realistic approach
to the Israeli decision. The Canadian television network NWI
reported the decision on Sunday as being so heavily freighted
with reservations as to raise serious doubts about the fate of
the roadmap. No such skepticism mars the U.S. media's rapturous
reporting. Even the Israeli media is more realistic. The Israeli
daily Ha'aretz bases all of its reporting and commentary
on the underlying assumption that Sharon and Israel are not serious
about implementing the roadmap and are simply maneuvering to
delay implementation and avoid any confrontation with a U.S.
administration momentarily animated by the idea of pursuing a
peace process.
Because the Bush administration, the
media, and Congress are all so eager to believe the best about
any Israeli government, Sharon, brilliant strategist that he
is, has maneuvered them into thinking that he has taken a major
step toward accepting real Palestinian statehood and that all
now depends on Palestinian good will. Sharon has put himself
forth as the moderate in the Israeli establishment fending off
his virulently anti-Palestinian, transfer-minded extremist colleagues
but unable to get too far out in front of them for fear of arousing
their extreme rightwing settler constituencies. In fact, he
is only more pragmatic, not more moderate, than the hardliners
in his cabinet. His goals are the same: perpetual Israeli domination
of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem; never agreeing to
relinquish any territory except possibly for temporary tactical
reasons; and squeezing the Palestinians so hard that they will
eventually leave or, perhaps in an unguarded moment when the
world is not looking, can be forcibly expelled. His stated goal
for decades has been moving the locus for any Palestinian state,
if there must be one, across the Jordan River to Jordan.
Through his pragmatic approach, Sharon
has succeeded for now in diverting pressure on himself to dismantle
outpost settlements and freeze other settlement activity, as
called for by the roadmap, and has placed the ball back in the
Palestinian court. In fact, the Palestinians have already lost
this game. Mahmoud Abbas will not be able to control terrorism,
and Israel will interpret any further terrorism as license to
ignore its own obligations under the roadmap. Even if Abbas
does negotiate some sort of cease-fire with Hamas and other militant
organizations, Israel will undoubtedly be ready and willing to
conduct some assassination operation or raid that will provoke
more terrorism. This has occurred repeatedly during Sharon's
two-plus years in office, and the Israeli provocations since
the roadmap was released less than a month ago are numerous enough
to be counted on the fingers of two hands.
Even were the roadmap not badly flawed,
and unburdened by Israel's now-official reservations, the Israeli
demand that the Palestinians drop their insistence on recognition
of a right of return would be a deal breaker. For the Palestinians,
the right of return is a matter of principle as much as or more
than it is a literal demand. The Palestinian leadership does
not demand an unrestricted right for millions of refugees to
return to Israel and has frequently spelled out a range of acceptable
alternatives. But some acknowledgement by Israel that it played
a role in the creation of the refugee problem is essential from
the Palestinian standpoint. In concrete terms, they want assurance
that all refugees will be accommodated in some way, by being
offered a choice either to return in limited numbers to Israel
or to be resettled somewhere, either in a new Palestinian state
or in some third country, and compensated for lost homes and
property. The Palestinian leadership recognizes Israel's demographic
concerns and is prepared to accommodate Israel's fear of being
swamped by large numbers of non-Jews. Palestinian officials,
including Yasir Arafat himself, who wrote a New York Times
op-ed last year expressing understanding for Israel's demographic
fears, have frequently stated explicitly that the problem must
be resolved in a way that does not affect the Jewish character
of Israel.
But the problem must also be addressed
in a way that does not simply ignore the refugees' needs. The
refugees' situation is so fundamental to the roots of the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict, and is such a festering issue for the Palestinians
themselves, that any final peace agreement that did not accommodate
their needs in some satisfactory way would be no final agreement
at all but merely a new source of conflict. If the Palestinian
leadership today accepts the Israeli objections and simply continues
negotiations without explicitly reiterating its demand that this
issue be addressed, it will destroy its own legitimacy in the
eyes of the Palestinian people and will ultimately be undermining
its own negotiating position. For "going along" silently
now and tacitly accepting the Israeli rejection will mean that,
if negotiations ever come to deal with final-status issues, the
Palestinians cannot again raise the right of return; the world
will have come to accept that the leadership forfeited this right
when talks on the roadmap began.
Essentially, Sharon has maneuvered a
compliant United States into a situation in which he has carte
blanche to do whatever he wants with the roadmap. The U.S. has
all it needs from him in the form of a pro forma acceptance of
its peace plan, and it will now accommodate him completely, because
in the end the primary US interest, among Bush administration
policymakers, in Congress, among most of the media, and among
the uncaring public, lies less in forging a genuine (that is,
a just and therefore a stable) peace between Israel and the Palestinians
than simply in enabling and guaranteeing whatever the government
of Israel wants.
Kathleen Christison also worked in the CIA, retiring in 1979. Since
then she has been mainly preoccupied by the issue of Palestine.
She is the author of Perceptions
of Palestine and The
Wound of Dispossession.
She can be reached at: christison@counterpunch.org
Yesterday's
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