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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
Uri
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
Debating US War Crimes in Iraq
Mark Davis
An Interview with Richard Butler
Richard
Lichtman
American Mourning
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Overcoming Terrorism
Adam
Engel
Uncle Sam is YOU!
Alan Maas
The Best News Show on TV
Poets'
Basement
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
of the Day
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:
Can He Get a Fair Trial?
Tanya
Reinhart
Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure
Laura Carlsen
Here We Go Again: NAFTA Plus or Minus?
Kenneth
Rapoza
The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts
New Yorker's Goldberg
Stew Albert
A Story I Will Tell
Steve
Perry
Bush's Little
Nukes
Website
of the Day
Strip-o-Rama
May
14, 2003
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Jason
Leopold
The Pentagon and Hallburton: a Secret
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David
Lindorff
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Alaska
John
Chuckman
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Jack
McCarthy
Twin Towers of Journalism: Racism
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Wayne
Madsen
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M.
Junaid Alam
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
Michael
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
Hot Stories
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
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May
27, 2003
The Hardness of Condoleezza
Rice
Huckstress of
Israeli Myths
By KURT NIMMO
In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot
Aharonot, National Security Adviser and daughter of a Presbyterian
minister, Condoleezza Rice, recently expanded upon her Christian
Zionist ideology. "I first visited Israel in 2000. I already
then felt that I am returning home despite the fact that this
was a place I never visited. I have a deep affinity with Israel.
I have always admired the history of the State of Israel and
the hardness and determination of the people that founded it."
While Rice does not elaborate on this
"hardness and determination," or provide specifics,
we can safely assume she is talking about Israel's relationship
with the Arabs, both Palestinian and those surrounding the Zionist
state. "Israel was a state who in the beginning was not
given a chance to survive," Rice explained. "She survived
mainly because of the hardness of the Israelis and their readiness
to sacrifice their lives for the state."
Rice may know something about Russia,
her area of expertise, but when it comes to the history of Palestine
and Israel she appears to be seriously misinformed. Rice is simply
perpetuating the overworked myth of hardscrabble Zionists rising
above the hatred of duplicitous Arabs.
In fact, the British promoted the economic
destabilization of the indigenous Palestinian economy in favor
of Zionist settlers as a colonial tactic well before the creation
of Israel. "The Mandatory Government granted a privileged
status to Jewish capital, awarding it 90% of the concessions
in Palestine," writes Ralph Schoenman (The Hidden History
of Zionism). "This enabled the Zionists to gain control
of the economic infrastructure (road projects, Dead Sea minerals,
electricity, ports, etc.). By 1935, Zionists controlled 872 of
a total of 1,212 industrial firms in Palestine. Imports related
to Zionist industries were exempted from taxes. Discriminatory
work laws were passed against the Arab workforce resulting in
large scale unemployment and a substandard existence for those
who were able to find employment."
These conditions, and the awareness that
the Zionists intended to grab as much land as possible, led directly
to the Arab uprisings of 1936 and 1939. The British declared
martial law in response and sent in an estimated 20,000 troops.
"Anyone suspected of organizing or sympathizing with the
general strike or other resistance was detained," explains
Schoenman. "Houses were blown up throughout Palestine. The
British destroyed a large section of the city of Jaffa on June
18, 1936, rendering 6,000 people homeless. Homes, as well, in
the surrounding communities were demolished."
As if to add insult to injury, and to
send a message to the Arabs, the British employed Zionists as
a local police force. According to Ghassan Kanafani (The 1936-1939
Revolt in Palestine), this Zionist "quasi-police force"
consisted of 2,863 recruits. 12,000 men were organized in the
Haganah, and 3,000 in Jabotinsky's National Military Organization
(Irgun). Again, to make certain the Arabs knew what to expect,
these Zionist paramilitary "police" forces were named
the "Defense of the Jewish Colonies," and later the
"Colony Police."
"Between ourselves it must be clear
that there is no room for both peoples together in this country,"
Joseph Weitz, the head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department,
said in 1940 (A Solution to the Refugee Problem, Dal'ar, September
29, 1967). "We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are
in this small country. There is no other way than to transfer
the Arabs from here to neighboring countries -- all of them.
Not one village, not one tribe should be left." In fact,
by 1948, "there were 475 Palestinian villages and towns,"
notes Schoenman. "Of these, 385 were razed to the ground,
reduced to rubble." The so-called "Koenig Report"
("the master plan for the Judaization of the Galilee,"
according to Israeli historian Dr. Israel Shahak), states that
the Zionists "must use terror, assassination, intimidation,
land confiscation and the cutting of all social services to rid
the Galilee of its Arab population."
But it wasn't simply Palestine the Zionists
wanted. In 1937, David Ben Gurion said, "The boundaries
of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and
no external factor will be able to limit them." In 1938,
he was even more explicit, "The boundaries of Zionist aspiration,"
he told the World Council of Poale Zion in Tel Aviv, "include
southern Lebanon, southern Syria, today's Jordan, all of Cis-Jordan
[West Bank] and the Sinai" (cited by Israel Shahak, Journal
of Palestine Studies).
Ten years later, Ben Gurion revealed
his plan for the Arabs of the Middle East: "We should prepare
to go over to the offensive," he told his General Staff.
"Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The
weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and
easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state
there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan;
Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port
Said, Alexandria, and Sinai" (Michael Bar Zohar, Ben Gurion:
A Biography).
While Ben Gurion's ambitious aims were
not entirely realized, the Zionists and the newly created state
of Israel did manage to force a huge number of Palestinians off
the land where they had lived for centuries. "Between November
29, 1947, when the United Nations partitioned Palestine, and
May 15, 1948, when the State was formally proclaimed, the Zionist
army and militia had seized 75% of Palestine, forcing 780,000
Palestinians out of the country," writes Ralph Schoenman.
Massacres of Palestinians at places such as Deir Yasin and Dueima
by the IZL (Irgun) and Lehi (Stern Gang) and later the Israel
Defense Forces resulted in "a maddened, uncontrollable stampede,"
according to Menachem Begin, the military commander of Irgun
and eventually prime minister of Israel. "Of the 800,000
Arabs who lived on the present territory of the state of Israel,
only some 165,000 are still there. The political and economic
significance of this development can hardly be overestimated."
After the state of Israel came into existence,
however, the calculated mass murder of defenseless Palestinians
did not subside. In the early 1950s, the Zionists continued to
murder Palestinians in the refugee camps and villages of Gaza.
In 1953, Ariel Sharon personally commanded the cold-blooded murder
of men, women, and children in the village of Kibya. "Public
opinion, the army and the police have concluded that Arab blood
can be freely shed," wrote Prime Minister Moshe Sharett
in 1955. "It must make the state appear in the eyes of the
world as a savage state" (cited in Livia Rokach, Israel's
Sacred Terrorism). Members of Ariel Sharon's Commando Unit 101
were also responsible for the massacre at Kafr Qasim. The IDF
awarded the perpetrators with medals and promotions.
Considering the above historical facts,
Rice's comments that "Israel was a state who in the beginning
was not given a chance to survive," and Israel "survived
mainly because of the hardness of the Israelis and their readiness
to sacrifice their lives for the state" are absurd, if not
disingenuous. Of course, she may be right about the "hardness
of the Israelis," that is to say the cold-hearted brutality
and racism afflicting many Israelis, especially the settlers
who faithfully back Sharon. As David B. Burrell writes, there
are two "contradictions" latent in Israeli society,
"that the homecoming of one people entailed the home-wrecking
of another -- something obscured by official Israeli mythical
history." Obviously, the American Christian Zionists have
embraced this contradiction as well, as evidenced by Condoleezza
Rice's remarks.
Moreover, according to Rosemary Ruether,
the Christian Zionists hold a "dualistic, Manichean view
of global politics. America and Israel together against an evil
world." Kathleen Christison, a former CIA political analyst,
believes Christian fundamentalism is a strong current in the
Bush White House. "There is a group of people in the Defense
Department and in the vice president's office who are very, very
pro-Israeli and very pro the Likud Party in Israel," notes
Christison. "I think in general it's safe to say Christian
fundamentalism has an influence on the administration and specifically
with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Ralph
Reed, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and other conservative Christian
leaders lobby on behalf of Israel and support the reactionary,
anti-Palestinian positions of the Likudites. Christian Zionists
believe Israel's existence is nothing short of proof that biblical
prophecies are coming true. "The most dramatic evidence
for His imminent return," Jerry Falwell claims, is "the
rebirth of the nation of Israel."
Rice and the Bushites, however, may have
a more pragmatic side to their unswerving support for Israel.
"Karl Rove, Bush's political eyes and ears, has made it
his role to be sure that Bush junior doesn't suffer the same
fate as his father," observes Jo-Ann Mort. "In order
to cement a two-term presidency, Rove is shoring up a conservative
domestic agenda for the president. Now he has the aid of liberal
American Jews." As the Guardian pointed out last year, it
was Rove who "lobbied to maintain the administration's close
backing for Israel, on the grounds that it was vital to secure
the party's core support among southern conservatives and win
over Jewish votes in Florida and California."
In the meantime, the Palestinians continue
to suffer at the hands of rabid Likudites determined to realize
a Greater Israel. Once again, the accused war criminal Ariel
Sharon appears to hold out an olive branch, proclaiming on Israeli
radio that to "keep 3.5 million people under occupation
is bad for us and them... This can't continue endlessly. Do you
want to remain forever in Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus?"
As Sharon made these seemingly reasonable
comments, the ugly head of Israeli occupation reared once again:
Samer Arar, an 11 year old boy from the West Bank village of
Krawat Bani Zeid was executed for the crime of throwing stones.
Is it possible the killing of children
is the sort of "hardness and determination" Condoleezza
Rice had in mind when she mentioned her emotional attachment
to the state of Israel?
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. Visit his excellent online
gallery. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
We highly recommend regular visits to
Nimmo's website, Another
Day in the Empire
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