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Eamonn Fingleton gives a stunning account of how the elite press – the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, the New York Times and Washington Post - pilloried US autworkers while systematically concealing the hidden subsidies which have allowed Japan and Korea to destroy Detroit. All this with the connivance of the US government. Also in our latest newsletter: Michelle Obama comes to Merced. Bill Hatch, the Balzac of the Central Valley, gives an uproarious account of Michelle’s state visit to UC’s new campus. 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 gear make great presents.
How the U.S. Press Helped Destroy the Auto IndustryOrder CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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Today's Stories June 8, 2009 John Ross June 5 -7, 200 Alexander Cockburn George Galloway Paul Craig Roberts Jennifer Loewenstein Franklin Lamb Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Missy Comley Beattie Farzana Versey Stanley Heller John V. Whitbeck Robert Weissman Lee Sustar Dave Lindorff William Blum Ernest Callenbach / Greg Moses Ron Jacobs David Yearsley Tim Stelloh Belén Fernández David Ker Thomson Karyn Strickler Christopher Brauchli Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 4, 2009 Arno J. Mayer Mike Whitney Gareth Porter Ayesha Ijaz Khan Mouin Rabbani Jordan Flaherty Adam Turl Nikolas Kozloff Yifat Susskind Website of the Day June 3, 2009 Paul Craig Roberts Kathy Kelly Alan Farago Franklin Lamb Bill Hatch Nadia Hijab Dean Baker Binoy Kampmark Manuel Garcia, Jr. Remi Kanazi Behzad Yaghmaian Website of the Day June 2, 2009 Uri Avnery Robert Weissman Conn Hallinan Gideon Spiro Roger Burbach Dylan Quigley Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Belén Fernández Martha Rosenberg Willie L. Pelote, Sr. Website of the Day June 1, 2009 Pam Martens Yitzhak Laor Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Saul Landau Eugenia Tsao Afshin Rattansi Debra Sweet Abdul Malik Mujahid Bill Quigley John Wright Website of the Day May 29-31, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Vijay Prashad Gary Leupp Ray McGovern Rannie Amiri Bill Hatch Chellis Glendinning, Stephanie Mills and Kirkpatrick Sale Phyllis Pollack David Yearsley Jean-Christophe Servant Dave Lindorff James McEnteer Missy Beattie James C. Faris David Macaray Harvey Wasserman Adam Federman David Ker Thomson Mark Seth Lender Stephen Martin Joseph Nevins Sophia Mihic Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 28, 2009 Joan Roelofs Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Mouin Rabbani Joe Bageant James McEnteer Dedrick Muhammad Richard Morse David Macaray Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day May 27, 2009 Joanne Mariner Paul Craig Roberts Walden Bello Dave Lindorff Brian M. Downing Carlos Villarreal Nadia Hijab Adam Federman Laray Polk Isabella Kenfield David Michael Green Website of the Day May 26, 2009 Manuel Garcia, Jr. Mike Whitney Sharon Smith Marjorie Cohn Dean Baker Deepankar Basu Fred Gardner Jordan Flaherty Josh Ruebner Brian Cloughley Website of the Day May 25, 2009 Diane Christian John Ross Kenneth Hartman Uri Avnery Fred Gardner Cindy Sheehan Sen. Russell Feingold Sibel Edmonds Franklin Lamb Dave Lindorff Daniel Wolff Website of the Day May 22-24, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Michael Teitelman Mike Whitney Ray McGovern Sonia Cardenas / Clive Hamilton Conn Hallinan Fred Gardner Carlo Cristofori Dean Baker Rannie Amiri Andy Worthington David Macaray Nadia Hijab Franklin Lamb Ted Newcomen David Ker Thomson David Rosen Mark Weisbrot Robert Fantina Heather Gray Farzana Versey Chris Genovali Ron Jacobs Jay Diamond Dr. Susan Block Ben Sonnenberg David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 21, 2009 Jeffrey St. Clair / Paul Craig Roberts Chris Floyd Gerald Paoli Zach Mason Uri Avnery Andy Worthington Niranjan Ramakrishnan Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff Website of the Day May 20, 2009 Michael Hudson Gary Leupp Michael D. Yates Jonathan Cook Peter Lee Binoy Kampmark Peter Zinn William Loren Katz Gary Lapon Trudy Bond Website of the Day May 19, 2009 Kristoffer Rehder Mike Whitney Ray McGovern Vijay Prashad Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam Mustafa Barghouthi Andy Worthington Binoy Kampmark John Walsh David Macaray Website of the Day May 18, 2009 Dave Lindorff Abdul Malik Mujahid Jonathan Cook Ben Rosenfeld Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Stephen Soldz Eugenia Tsao Walter Brasch Roberto Rodriguez Charlotte Laws Website of the Day May 15-17, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair David Rosen Mike Whitney Bruce Page Jeremy Scahill Fred Gardner Tom Barry Mats Svensson Ramzy Baroud Mark Engler Mark Weisbrot Farzana Versey Ron Jacobs Hannah Wolfe Cal Winslow David Macaray Christopher Brauchli Mark Seth Lender Robert Fantina David Ker Thomson Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson Chase Madar Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 14, 2009 Michael Hudson Andy Worthington Paul Craig Roberts Jonathan Cook Ray McGovern Lance Selfa David Green Dave Lindorff Frida Berrigan Sue Udry Website of the Day May 13, 2009 Brian M. Downing Gareth Porter Robert Sandels Ricardo Alarcón Eric Walberg Dave Lindorff Deepak Tripathi William S. Lind Kevin Zeese Franklin Lamb Website of the Day May 12, 2009 Gary Leupp Richard Neville Wajahat Ali Dean Baker Franklin Lamb Norman Solomon Paul Craig Roberts Lisa M. Hamilton Bob Fitrakis / David Macaray Website of the Day May 11, 2009 Andrea Peacock Michael Hudson Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader John Kelly Saul Landau Dave Lindorff David Michael Green Anthony Papa Paul Krassner Website of the Day
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June 8, 2009 Obama's Quid Pro QuoNatural Growth: Israel's Demographic HogwashBy FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY President Barack Obama has put Israel and its wholly-owned subsidiaries in the American press in uproar by demanding that Israel halt its policy of settlement growth in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including the now infamous "natural growth." He has posited this as a condition for a peace process that results in what is called the two-state solution. Obama says Israel agreed to this in 2003, when Israel signed onto Mad King George's so-called Roadmap To Peace. Readers might recall that the Roadmap was supposed to produce a comprehensive settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by 2005. Israel, to be sure, signed it with "reservations," but her leaders have now countered Obama's gambit by saying that it had an unwritten verbal agreement with the Bush Administration that allowed Israel to proceed with a partial form of "natural growth" in the existing settlements. Presumably this partial natural growth is driven by demographic facts shaping the settler population. This is a curious argument, but it does show how vapid the Middle East debate has become. To illustrate the depths of the mindlessness now shaping debate, let us set aside the obvious: "Natural growth" is a red herring because (1) all settlements are illegal under international law and (2) a two-state solution can not possibly succeed unless the Palestinian state on the West Bank is a coherent geographical entity, with at least one border open to a country other than Israel. Both of these conditions imply Israel must tear down its illegal separation wall, close down the hundreds of illegal checkpoints that strangle free movement of Palestinians in the West Bank, shut down all the illegal Israeli-only access roads that carve the West Bank into isolated Bantustans, and roll back its existing settlements to a point where Palestinian territory in the West Bank approximates that of the status quo ante on June 4, 1967. Yet now the debate has been joined over the question of natural growth? Just what is natural growth? Last March 10, I wrote an essay in Counterpunch entitled "The Settler Question: What Arab-Israeli Peace Process?" It included a graphic that showed how the rate of build-up of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem was completely unaffected by the Oslo, Camp David, and Roadmap peace processes. Since the Israelis now claim they had a secret unwritten agreement with Bush II to proceed with some aspects of "natural growth" during the Roadmap period (2003-2008), by their own words, it seems fair to say that the build up shown in this figure portrays the Israeli conception of those partial aspects of "natural growth." The data was assembled by the Israeli human rights organization B'TSelem. It shows that Israel's conception of natural growth resulted in a settler population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that grew from 397,988 settlers in 2003 to 479,523 in 2008. This represents a compound annual population growth of 3.85 per cent per year. According to data compiled in the CIA World Factbook, the most recent estimate (2007) for the population growth rate of Israel (which includes the settlers) was 1.15 per cent. So Israel's leaders believe natural growth in the Occupied Territories must be at least 3.34 times faster than that for the entire population of Israel. But there is more. Most Israelis believe that they are facing a demographic time bomb where the faster Arab population growth in the Occupied Territories will soon result in Israelis being outnumbered by Arabs in all the lands controlled by Israel. This view is correct, because the population growth of the West Bank Palestinians was 2.98 per cent, or about 2.6 times faster than the growth rate for the population of Israel, but it is still smaller than what Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Co. say is natural for illegal West Bank settlers. I searched the database in the CIA World Factbook (data for 2007) and could find only one country that had a higher population growth rate than the partial natural growth rate exhibited by the Israeli settlers since 2003: Liberia in Africa, whose population grew by 4.836 per cent in 2007. The next highest rate of growth was Burundi, also in Africa, with 3.593%, which readers will note is less than than the natural growth of Israel's settler population. By the way, the natural growth rate for the world in 2007 was only 1.167 per cent. In other words, what Israel says is "natural" for Israeli settlers ain't natural elsewhere ... except perhaps in Liberia. So ... if the Israeli settlers were an independent country, and we bought into Israel's definition of natural growth, their demographics would give their country the second fastest growing population in the world. To be sure, a couple of hundred thousand settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are a far cry demographically from three million Liberians or eight million Barundians, but the bottom line is clear: partial natural growth as defined by Israelis is demographic hogwash. And something else is also clear: Any peace negotiator who thinks that getting Israelis to cease natural growth (instead of reversing the larger land grab) is a reasonable quid pro quo for Israel's acquiescence to a peace process is hoisting himself on his own petard. Franklin “Chuck” Spinney is a former military analyst for the Pentagon. He currently lives on a sailboat in the Mediterranean and can be reached at chuck_spinney@mac.com |
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