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Today's
Stories
October
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Schwarzenegger
and the Failure of the Centrist Dems
Ramzy
Baroud
Israel's
WMDs and the West's Double Standard
John Ross
Mexico
Tilts South
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Repub Guru Compares Taxes to the Holocaust
James
Bovard
The
Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster
Michael
Neumann
One
State or Two?
A False Dilemma
October
7, 2003
Uri Avnery
Slow-Motion
Ethnic Cleansing
Stan Goff
Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta
Ron Jacobs
Yom Kippurs, Past and Present
David
Lindorff
Coronado in Iraq
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required
Cynthia
McKinney
Who Are "We"?
Elaine Cassel
Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case
Walter
Lippman
Thoughts on the Cali Recall
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
Website
of the Day
Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot
October
6, 2003
Robert
Fisk
US
Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria
Forrest
Hylton
Upheaval
in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity
Benjamin Dangl
Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War
Bridget
Gibson
Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman
The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus
Nicole
Gamble
Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
Website
of the Day
Guerrilla Funk
October
3 / 5, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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October
8, 2003
One State or Two?
A
False Dilemma
By MICHAEL NEUMANN
Do you favor a one-state solution or a two-state
solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict? Personally, I favor
both.
The one-state solution calls for a single
state made up of Israel plus the occupied territories. Since
the state is conceived as democratic, it would very likely involve
a Palestinian majority. Sometimes there is talk of giving Jews
in this state certain protections; always there is talk of acknowledging
a Palestinian right of return. The proposal is said to be the
only just solution, and the only one which can eventually produce
a happy, prosperous, beautiful Palestine.
The two-state solution has several variants,
some of them justly infamous. Mine is very simple: Israel gets
out of every square inch of the occupied territories, and the
Palestinians acquire complete, unqualified sovereignty over every
square inch of the West Bank and Gaza. In return, the Israelis
get the one thing they need--defensible borders. Anything else
can be negotiated later.
No doubt Israel would also want Palestinian
guarantees to end terrorism, but why? Guarantees are mere words.
If Israel wants real security, it must end the oppression of
the Palestinians and permit the formation of a genuinely independent
Palestinian state--a state its rulers and virtually its entire
population would want to preserve. Since cross-border attacks
would certainly provoke an Israeli  invasion, a truly sovereign
Palestine and its supporters would not allow such attacks. Palestinians
would not want their newly independent country to be destroyed.
When it comes to comparing the proposals,
as always, the devil is in the details. The most important division
among proposed solutions is not between one-state and two-state
arrangements, but between those arrangements which do and which
do not take the settlements as accomplished fact. Sleazy one-state
and two-state proposals accept the settlements with a patently
insincere throwing up of hands: "gosh, there are so many
settlers, so well established--why can't we just all get along?"
-- Because the settlers are taking all the good land, dummy,
not to mention the water! Anyone who thinks the Jewish presence
in the occupied territories is an accomplished fact should look
back to the expulsion of the French 'colons'--settlers--from
Algeria. Even for many Israelis, the abolition of the settlements
is neither unwelcome nor impossible. Presumably, if Israel cares
for its settlers, it would force them to depart with its armies,
who after all are very practiced in expelling people from their
homes.
The solutions debate is further confused
by a failure to distinguish two considerations: (i) what is morally
right given that everyone, including Israel, behaves morally;
(ii) what is morally right given how the Israelis can reasonably
be predicted to behave. The first consideration gives priority
to a single-state solution; the second to a two-state solution.
I agree that the single-state solution is ideally preferable,
but I get annoyed when it is used to play a game of moralizing
one-upmanship whose object is to see who can give the greatest
lip-service to Palestinian rights.
No doubt these rights are extensive,
and derive from the illegitimacy of the project that displaced
the Palestinians. The Zionists did not come simply as refugees
or immigrants or settlers. They didn't simply seek, as immigrants
often do, some land. They wanted more than a 'homeland' in the
sense that, say, Bavaria is the homeland of the Bavarians. They
intended to create a Jewish state, a state in which Jews retained
sovereignty. This implies that Jews alone have the final say
on everything, including who lives and dies, within a certain
geographical area. That the Zionist state was conceived to be
'democratic' ignores its essential requirement--a perpetual Jewish
majority to preserve, in the facts on the ground if not in law,
Jewish political supremacy throughout its territory. This means
that the other inhabitants of the area must either submit or
leave. Since no one contends that the Palestinians had done any
harm to the Jews before the Zionist influx, it can only be regarded
as an exercise in usurpation.
Given the illegitimacy of the Zionist
project, there is certainly a case for a full right of return
for all displaced Palestinians and all their descendants, which
might in turn require the displacement of Jews now occupying
Palestinian land. One might go beyond this to advocate the payment
of extensive compensation, not only to those Palestinians dispossessed,
and also to those not themselves dispossessed, but injured by
the dispossession of others. If these measures mean a fundamental
change in the nature of the Israeli state--if they mean an end
to guaranteed Jewish sovereignty--so much the better. So the
Palestinians may well have a right to a single state, perhaps
even to a state in which they are de facto sovereign. But there's
a catch. Lots of people have lots of rights to lots of things.
But these rights do not translate easily into strategies. They
must be balanced against other rights as well as other moral
and practical considerations.
The problem here does not issue from
the rights of innocent Israelis. Their rights are protected no
matter what proposal is adopted: the two-state solution greatly
improves their security, and no one-state solution is politically
feasible unless it satisfies the concerns of at least Israeli
moderates. What matters instead is that the Palestinians' own
right to survival takes precedence over any right to Israeli
land. At this point, the threat to their survival is imminent.
The sooner a Palestinian state is created, the more Palestinian
lives will be saved. This affects, not which sort of state to
work for, but which state to work for first.
When the survival of the Palestinians
is given priority over their territorial claims, certain facts
loom large in the one-state-two-states controversy. A one-state
solution does not just mean 'abandoning apartheid', as some claim.
It means abandoning the core of Zionism, abolishing the sovereignty
of Jews over Israel. Israel, the country, might still exist,
but the Zionist project would vanish off the face of the earth.
Given that Israeli governments won't agree even to stop settlement
activity--an attempt to extend the boundaries of Jewish sovereignty--how
and when, exactly, are they expected to abandon that sovereignty
altogether? How and when, exactly, is someone going to force
them to do so?
The idea of a single, secular, inclusive
state may be attractive, but so is the idea of a world in which
everyone is good, all the time. The one-state ideal is politically
and even morally irrelevant because it isn't feasible at this
point. The fact that it isn't feasible because the Israelis won't
honor their moral obligations is no more alterable, and has no
more bearing on practical politics, than the fact that the Palestinians
don't have a warp drive. One is reminded of David Hume's remark
that "A prisoner who has neither money nor interest, discovers
the impossibility of his escape, as well when he considers the
obstinacy of the gaoler, as the walls and bars with which he
is surrounded; and, in all attempts for his freedom, chooses
rather to work upon the stone and iron of the one, than upon
the inflexible nature of the other." So it is for the Palestinian
prisoner with his Israeli jailers, whose inflexible nature rules
out a single state.
Does this mean the single-state solution
should be dismissed out of hand? No; it simply means that solution
is a very long-term project, depending on basic shifts in the
Middle East balance of power as well as, one hopes, an eventual
softening of Israeli attitudes. Meanwhile, the Palestinians face
destruction. Even if the project of a single state were imminently
practicable, it would properly take second place to securing
their survival which is, after all, one of its prerequisites.
But in fact there is no long-term conflict
between the survival of the Palestinians and the project of a
single state: both require, without a doubt, a prior two-state
solution. (Norman Finkelstein prefers to speak of a two-state
'settlement', which nicely distinguishes between a imperfect,
perhaps temporary arrangement and a final just outcome.) If the
Palestinians are to live, if they are to have a platform from
which to demand a single state, if they are to acquire the power
to make their demands heard, it can only be from the relative
sanctuary of their own country. They haven't the slightest chance
of obtaining this sanctuary except in the West Bank and Gaza.
So the one-state solution absolutely requires a two-state solution.
If ever there was a false dilemma, it is any claim that the two
alternatives are mutually exclusive.
Michael Neumann
is a professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario,
Canada. Professor Neumann's views are not to be taken as those
of his university. His book What's
Left: Radical Politics and the Radical Psyche has just
been republished by Broadview Press. He can be reached at: mneumann@trentu.ca.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
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