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MY LAI VET SAYS: HERE IT COMES AGAIN IN IRAQ Tony Swindell recalls "Butcher's Brigade" in '69; says "gooks" have now become "ragheads", every adult male is an "insurgent" ... atrocities against Iraqi civilians are soon going to explode in America's face; US Government's courtroom jihads against terror stumble. Alexander Cockburn on Lodi case where Feds paid $250,000 to man who "saw" world's three top terrorists at mosque. As neocons and Israel lobby howl for US to bomb Teheran, an Iranian outlines simple path to peace. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
Today's Stories April 21, 2006 Lawrence
R. Velvel April 20, 2006 Chris
Kutalik Gary
Leupp Joshua
Frank Diane
Christian William
S. Lind Ramzy
Baroud Justin
E.H. Smith
April 19, 2006 P.
Sainath Norman
Solomon Anthony
Papa Mike
Ferner Stanley
Heller Rifundazione Christopher
Reed Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day April 18, 2006 Paul
Craig Roberts Eric
Wingerter Juan
Santos Greg
Weiher Sam
Bahour Behzad
Yaghmaian Website
of the Day
April 17, 2006 Kevin Zeese Uri Avnery Norman Solomon John Ross Laila al-Haddad Jeffrey Blankfort Website of the Day
April 15 / 16, 2006 Jeffrey
St. Clair Ralph
Nader Thaddeus
Hoffmeister Kevin
Prosen / Dave Zirin Thomas
P. Healy Kristoffer
Larsson Fred
Gardner Edwin
Krales Brian
Cloughley John
Holt Seth
Sandronsky Rafael
Renteria Michael
Ortiz Hill William
A. Cook Gideon
Levy Andrew
Wimmer Madis
Senner Michael
Kuehl Mark
Scaramella Nate
Mezmer Jesse
Walker Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
April 14, 2006 Col.
Dan Smith Saul
Landau Stan
Cox Kevin
Zeese Brian
McKinlay Howard
Meyers Ishmael
Reed Website
of the Day
April 13, 2006 CounterPunch
News Service Norman
Solomon Stanley
Heller Jeff
Birkenstein Evelyn
J. Pringle Michael
Donnelly Kamran
Matin Website
of the Day
April 12, 2006 Vijay
Prashad Alan
Maass Dave
Lindorff Ron
Jacobs Ramzy
Baroud Randall
Dodd Missy
Comley Beattie P. Sainath Website
of the Day
April 11, 2006 Al
Krebs Lawrence
R. Velvel Sonia
Nettinin Willliam
S. Lind Robert
Ovetz Pratyush
Chandra Grant
F. Smith Laray
Polk Francis
Boyle José
Pertierra Website
of the Day
April 10, 2006 Ralph
Nader Heather
Gray Uri
Avnery Joshua
Frank Seth
Sandronsky Michael
Leonardi Evelyn
Pringle Tom
Kerr Lucinda
Marshall Website
of the Day April 7 -9, 2006 Alexander
Cockburn Jeffrey
St. Clair Patrick
Cockburn David
Vest Dave
Lindorff Gary
Leupp Elaine
Cassel Saul
Landau James
Ridgeway Ron
Jacobs John
Walsh Ramzy
Baroud Christopher
Brauchli Todd
Chretien Jonathan
Scott John
Bomar Michele
Brand Ronan
Sheehan Mickey
Z. Don
Monkerud Michael
Dickinson Website
of the Weekend
April 6, 2006 John
Ross Dave
Lindorff Don
Monkerud Robert
McDonald Boris
Kagarlitsky Remi
Kanazi Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Robert
Fisk
April 5, 2006 Dick
J. Reavis Mark
Brenner Brian
Cloughley Jozef
Hand-Boniakowski Matt
Vidal Juan
Santos Alan
Maass JoAnn
Wypijewski Website
of the Day
April 4, 2006 Jackson
Thoreau Gary
Corseri Dave
Lindorff Paul
Craig Roberts Norman
Solomon Michael
Carmichael Winslow
T. Wheeler Ingmar
Lee Michael
Neumann Website
of the Day
April 3, 2006 Saul
Landau Richard
Thieme Timothy
B. Tyson Omar
Barghouti Iwasaki
Atsuko Julian
Edney Roger
Morris
April 1 / 2, 2006 Alexander
Cockburn Ralph
Nader Dave
Zirin David
Underhill Earl
Ofari Hutchinson Dave
Lindorff P.
Sainath Fred
Gardner Clancy
Chassay Heather
Gray Greg
Moses John
Chuckman Ron
Jacobs Jeffrey
St. Clair Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
March 31, 2006 Gary
Leupp Patrick
Cockburn Saree
Makdisi Ron
Jacobs Mark
Engler Curtis
F.J. Doebbler Laith
al-Saud Website
of the Day
March 30, 2006 Uri
Avnery Sen.
Russell Feingold Winslow
T. Wheeler Dave
Lindorff Juan
Santos Frida
Berrigan Joshua
Frank Vonnie
Edwards Neve
Gordon Website
of the Day
March 29, 2006 CounterPunch
News Service Patrick
Cockburn John
Ross Omar
Barghouti William
S. Lind Missy
Comley Beattie Earl
Ofari Hutchinson Website
of the Day
March 28, 2006 Sharon
Smith Paul
Craig Roberts Tariq
Ali Manuel
Garcia, Jr. Ramzy
Baroud Evelyn
Pringle Seth
Sandronsky Patrick
Cockburn
March 27, 2006 Patrick
Cockburn Joshua
Frank Ron
Jacobs Jeff
Lays Davey
D. Robert
Billyard Jim
Rigby Lisa
Viscidi Nick
Dearden Gideon
Levy Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn Patrick
Cockburn Ralph
Nader Christopher
Reed Jeff
Ballinger Joseph
Massad Brian
Cloughley Chris
Floyd Elaine
Cassel Dave
Zirin John
Chuckman Sharon
Smith Christopher
Fons Chris
Kromm John
Bomar Ron
Jacobs Maymanah
Farhat St.
Clair / Walker / Vest Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
March 24, 2006 Cockburn
/ Sengupta / Duff P.
Sainath Todd
Chretien Marty
Omoto Michael
Carmichael Peter
Phillips Gabriel
Kolko Website
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March 23, 2006 Charles
V. Peña Joe
DeRaymond Robert
Fisk Jonathan
Cook Tom
Engelhardt Joshua
Frank Norman
Solomon Robert
Fitch / Joe Allen Patrick
Cockburn CounterPunch
News Service Website
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March 22, 2006 David
MacMichael Juan
Santos Paul
Craig Roberts Patrick
Cockburn Ramzy
Baroud Jason
Leopold Dennis
Perrin William
Blum Jeffrey
St. Clair Website
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March 21, 2006 Paul
Craig Roberts Winslow
Wheeler Tom
Engelhardt Arnold
Oliver Earl
Ofari Hutchinson Mike
Whitney William
A. Cook Sophia
A. McLennen
March 20, 2006 Paul
Craig Roberts Dave
Lindorff Ralph
Nader Diane
Christian Jeff
Halper Harry
Browne Norman
Solomon Patrick
Cockburn Website
of the Day
March 18 / 19, 2006 Cockburn
/ St. Clair Werther Chris
Kromm Patrick
Cockburn Elaine
Cassel S.
Brian Willson Fred
Gardner Brian
Cloughley Laura
Carlsen Eamon
Martin Julie
Hilden Alison
Weir Jeffrey
St. Clair Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
March 17, 2006 Eduardo
Galeano Greg
Moses Richard
Falk / David Krieger Cindy
and Craig Corrie Amira
Hass Mike
Marqusee James
Petas and Robin Eastman-Abaya Website
of the Day
March 16, 2006 Norman
Solomon Tom
Philpott Heather
Gray Amira
Hass Missy
Comley Beattie Sen.
Russell Feingold Lucinda
Marshall Andrew
Bosworth Clancy
Sigal Website
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April 21, 2006 The Sinister Meaning Olmert's "Hitkansut" Deporting Hamas Members of Parliament By JONATHAN COOK The policy of "hitnatkut", or unilateral disengagement, developed by Ariel Sharon needed a swift facelift following the withdrawal of settlers from Gaza last year. And Israel's prime minister-designate, Ehud Olmert, has found it in the related concept of "hitkansut", variously translated as "convergence", "consolidation" and "ingathering". After all, Olmert could hardly campaign convincingly for a West Bank disengagement when it was clear Jewish settlers and soldiers would continue occupying a significant proportion of Palestinian land at the withdrawal's end. So convergence is usefully, and misleadingly, supplanting disengagement. Many critics of Israel assume convergence is simply jargon disguising the government's intention illegally to annex swaths of West Bank territory. The grand land theft will be sold to the world as a painful withdrawal of Jewish settlers, even if the great majority (probably 80 per cent) are left in place and only the most remote settlements are dismantled. But events this week suggest that the principle of hitkansut will have a far wider application than just to the West Bank settlement blocs, with results even more sinister than many had anticipated. Olmert's consolidation, it is becoming clear, will embrace Palestinians too. The shape of things to come was hinted at this week in the wake of Monday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv by the small militant group Islamic Jihad. Rather than approving the usual indiscriminate military strikes against Palestinian population centres that characterised the Sharon era, Olmert pursued a low-key, but no less disturbing, response. He revoked the rights of three Hamas MPs and a Palestinian cabinet minister, Mahmoud Abu Tir, to reside in Jerusalem. The intention is to deport them to the West Bank, behind the separation wall Israel is hastily completing, where they will lose all the rights they currently enjoy to live and work inside Jerusalem and Israel. Apparently Israel is considering extending this punishment to other members of Hamas in Jerusalem and possibly anyone working for the Palestinian Authority. Once upon a time, back in the 1970s and 1980s, Israel would regularly dump hundreds of Palestinian political activists at a time across the border in Lebanon. Now the border will be, more conveniently, much closer to hand: just a stone's throw from the centre of Jerusalem. What are the grounds for the deportations? The official reason is the failure of Hamas to denounce the suicide bombing. Olmert told an emergency meeting of the cabinet: "Any member of a government involved in terrorism should not be granted any immunity in the form of his Israeli residency identification." Let's ignore Olmert's gratuitous extension of the meaning of the word "terrorism", and concentrate instead on the extent of his chutzpah. Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the Six-Day war of 1967 and later annexed the Palestinian half of the city and its inhabitants to Israel in violation of international law. Now Olmert, the former mayor of Jerusalem and a man well-versed in underhand manoeuvres in the holy city, is expelling Palestinians from East Jerusalem on the grounds that he doesn't like their politics. Foreign minister Tzipi Livni observed that Israel had the right to revoke the residency of whomever it deemed disloyal to Israel. In other words, Olmert and his cronies are behaving as though Palestinian residency in Jerusalem is a right conferred by Israel as though Palestinians are immigrants rather than the city's indigenous inhabitants living under an illegal and increasingly vicious occupation. Of course, Israel's approach towards East Jerusalem and its residents is not new, though the degree of brazen cheek in Israel's singling out of Palestinian public figures for this treatment, and Olmert's happy courting of publicity over the abuse of their rights, is. Despite the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem by Israel, Palestinians living there do not have Israeli citizenship. Instead, they are classified as "permanent residents", without voting rights or Israeli passports. Theoretically, their residency offers them rights of free movement inside Jerusalem and Israel, unlike West Bankers who since Oslo have been confined by curfews, checkpoints and now the wall. But in practice, as the deportations prove, "permanent residency" is not necessarily so permanent. Israel has for some time been narrowing the terms of who qualifies for residency in Jerusalem: Palestinians who study or work abroad often find they are not entitled to return to the city; the recent revoking of family unification means many spouses and children of East Jerusalem residents are facing deportation; and the arbitrary route of the wall across East Jerusalem is putting some residents on the wrong side, making it all but impossible for them to reach jobs, shops, schools and hospitals in the city centre. The reason for these measures and others by Israel such as planning rules that make it almost impossible for East Jerusalemites to build homes to cope with their natural population growth; and the abuse of their rights to vote in Palestinian elections is clear. The hope is that under such relentless pressure most Palestinians will leave Jeruslem and seek residence in the West Bank, where they will have even less rights to withstand Israeli abuses and where they will pose far less of a demographic threat to an expanded Israeli state's "Jewishness". But this week's deportation of Palestinian MPs who refuse to toe the Israeli line reveals yet another layer of Israel's plan. What Olmert hopes to achieve with "hitkansut" is not only consolidating the inclusion of Jewish settlers inside the expanded borders of the new Jewish state but also consolidating the exclusion of Palestinians who currently enjoy residency in territory coveted by Israel: namely East Jerusalem. While Olmert will be busy "ingathering" the settlers, he will also be busy "outgathering" Palestinians from Jerusalem. However, unlike Olmert's plans for the consolidation of Jews, who will be gathered into a single, expanded Jewish state, Israel clearly has different vision of consolidation for the Palestinians despite Sharon's weasly words to the United Nations last year about wanting to create a Palestinian state on the land left after the limited withdrawal from the West Bank. Given the nature of the Jewish settlement blocs left after "hitkansut" their fingers penetrating deep into the West Bank at strategic points Palestinian land will be separated into a series of ghettoes, isolated and cut off one from the next. In Olmert's consolidation plan, Jerusalem will be turned into a ghetto comprising only those Palestinians prepared to have no contact with or offer no support to the rest of their people, including their own elected representatives. The West Bank, meanwhile, will be consolidated into a series of small ghettoes, based on the main cities, filled with Palestinians whose rights can be trampled on by Israel at will. And finally Gaza will be consolidated into yet another ghetto, disconnected from Jerusalem and the West Bank. Palestinian politics, whether of the Fatah or Hamas variety, will be meaningless in such an environment. It is not hard to predict the response: the year-long Hamas ceasefire will be strained beyond breaking point. Terrorism human bombs or home-made Qassam rockets will be the only answer for Palestinians who want to resist the arm's-length occupation. That may suit Israel, offering it yet more excuses in reply to the "terror" to further "consolidate" the Palestinian population into smaller, more tightly controlled ghettoes. At the same Israeli cabinet meeting at which the deportations of the Hamas MPs were agreed, ministers discussed changing the classification of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinians' government, from a "hostile entity" to the harsher status of an "enemy entity". The move was rejected for the time being. One senior official told the Israeli media why: "There are international legal implications in such a declaration, including closing off the border crossings, that we don't want to do yet." Not yet. But soon, when the infrastructure of imprisonment is complete. Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in
Nazareth, Israel. He is the author of the forthcoming "Blood
and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State"
published by Pluto Press, and available in the United States
from the University of Michigan Press. His website is www.jkcook.net
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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. |