Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 15, 2003
Uri Avnery
Assassinating
Arafat
September 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
Recent
Stories
September 12, 2003
Writers Block
Todos
Somos Lee: Protest and Death in Cancun
Laura Carlsen
A Knife to the Heart: WTO Kills Farmers
Dave Lindorff
The Meaning of Sept. 11
Elaine Cassel
Bush at Quantico
Linda S. Heard
British
Entrance Exams
John Chuckman
The First Two Years of Insanity
Doug Giebel
Ending America as We Know It
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Blank Check Military
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Website of the Day
A Woman in Baghdad
September 11, 2003
Robert Fisk
A Grandiose
Folly
Roger Burbach
State Terrorism and 9/11: 1973 and 2001
Jonathan Franklin
The Pinochet Files
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Postcards to the President
Norman Solomon
The Political Capital of 9/11
Saul Landau
The Chilean Coup: the Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
Stew Albert
What Goes Around
Website of the Day
The Sights and Sounds of a Coup
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 10, 2003
John Ross
Cancun
Reality Show: Will It Turn Into a Tropical Seattle?
Zoltan Grossman
The General Who Would be President: Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared
for the Postwar Bloodbath?
Tim Llewellyn
At the Gates of Hell
Christopher Brauchli
Turn the Paige: the Bush Education Deception
Lee Sustar
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
Elaine Cassel
McCain-Feingold in Trouble: Scalia Hogs the Debate
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Hammond Guthrie
When All Was Said and Done
Website of the Day
Fact Checking Colin Powell
September 9, 2003
William A. Cook
Eating
Humble Pie
Robert Jensen / Rahul
Mahajan
Bush
Speech: a Shell Game on the American Electorate
Bill Glahn
A Kinder, Gentler RIAA?
Janet Kauffman
A Dirty River Runs Beneath It
Chris Floyd
Strange Attractors: White House Bawds Breed New Terror
Bridget Gibson
A Helping of Crow with Those Fries?
Robert Fisk
Thugs
in Business Suit: Meet the New Iraqi Strongman
Website of the Day
Pot TV International
September 8, 2003
David Lindorff
The
Bush Speech: Spinning a Fiasco
Robert Jensen
Through the Eyes of Foreigners: the US Political Crisis
Gila Svirsky
Of
Dialogue and Assassination: Off Their Heads
Bob Fitrakis
Demostration Democracy
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Echo Chamber: Globalizing the Whirlwind
Sean Carter
Thou Shalt Not Campaign from the Bench
Uri Avnery
Betrayal
at Camp David
Website of the Day
Rabbis v. the Patriot Act
September 6 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
September 5, 2003
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
as Black Hole
Phyllis Bennis
A Return
to the UN?
Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft
Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats
Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
Hot Stories
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
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
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
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
September
15, 2003
Assassinating Arafat
A Disaster Foretold
By URI AVNERY
So now it is official: the government of Israel
has decided to assassinate Yasser Arafat.
Not any more to "exile". Not
any more to "expel or kill". Simply to "remove".
Of course, the intention is not to remove
him to another country. Nobody seriously believes that Yasser
Arafat will raise his hands and allow himself to be marched off.
He and his men will be killed "during the exchange of fire".
This would not be the first time.
Even if it was possible to expel Arafat
to another country, nobody in the Israeli leadership would dream
of doing so. How come? Allow him to make the rounds of Putin,
Schroeder and Chirac? God forbid. So the plan is to remove him
to the next world.
Not immediately. The Americans forbid
it. It may make Bush angry. Sharon does not want to annoy Bush.
Some people comfort themselves with the
thought that this is just an empty resolution. It is supposed
to be implemented at a time and in a way yet to be decided. But
this is wishful thinking, a dangerous comfort. The decision legitimizing
his assassination is by itself a far-reaching political act.
It is intended to get the Israeli and international
public used to the idea. What used to sound like a crazy plot
by extreme fanatics now has the air of a legitimate political
process, with only the time and mode of implementation still
open.
Anyone familiar with Ariel Sharon can
see how things will develop from now on. He will wait for his
opportunity. It may come any minute, or after a week, a month,
a year. He is patient. When he decides to do something, he is
ready to wait, but he won't deviate from his goal.
So when will the planned assassination
be carried out? When some big suicide attack will take place
in Israel, one so big that an extreme reaction will be understood
by the Americans, too. Or when something happens somewhere to
divert world attention from our country. Or when some dramatic
event, something comparable to the destruction of the Twin Towers,
makes Bush furious.
What will happen afterwards?
Arab leaders say that there will be "incalculable
results". But, in truth, the results can be calculated fairly
well in advance.
The murder of Arafat will bring about
an historic change in the relationship between Israel and the
Palestinian people. Since the 1973 war, both peoples have been
accepting the idea of a compromise between the two great national
movements. In the Oslo agreement, after a process initiated by
Yasser Arafat practically alone, the Palestinians gave up 78%
of the country that was called Palestine before 1948. They agreed
to set up their state in the remaining 22%. Only Arafat had the
moral and political standing necessary to carry the people with
him, much as Ben-Gurion was able to convince our people to accept
the partition plan.
Even in the sharpest crises since then,
both peoples have remained steadfast in their belief that in
the end there will be a compromise.
The assassination of Arafat will put
an end to this, perhaps forever. We shall return to the stage
of "all or nothing": Greater Israel or Greater Palestine,
throwing the Jews into the sea or pushing the Palestinians out
into the desert.
The Palestinian Authority will disappear.
Israel will take over all the Palestinian territories, with all
the economic and human stress involved. The "de luxe occupation",
which allowed Israel a free hand in the territories, with the
world paying the bills, will be over.
Violence will reign supreme. It will
be the sole language of both peoples. In Jerusalem and Ramallah,
Haifa and Hebron, Tulkarm and Tel-Aviv, fear will stalk the streets.
Every mother who sends her children to school will be consumed
by worry until they come back. Terror on this side and on that
side, an ever widening spiral of violence, automatic and incessant
escalation.
The earthquake will not be limited to
the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. The whole
Arab world will erupt. Arafat the shahid, the martyr, the hero,
the symbol, will become an all-Arab, all-Muslim mythological
figure. His name will become a battle-cry for all revolutionaries
from Indonesia to Morocco, a slogan for all religious and nationalist
underground organizations.
The earth will tremble under the feet
of all the Arab regimes. Compared to Arafat, the ultimate hero,
all the kings, Emirs and presidents will look unmanly, traitors
and mercenaries. If one of them falls, the Domino Effect will
go into action.
Bloodshed will be universal. Every Israeli
target--every airplane, every group of tourists, every Israeli
institution, will be in constant danger.
The Americans have their reasons for
vetoing the assassination. They know that the killing of Arafat
will shake their position in the Arab and Muslim world to the
core. The guerilla war that is becoming ever wider in Iraq will
spread throughout the Arab and other Muslim countries and the
world at large. Every Arab and Muslim will believe that Sharon
acted with American consent and encouragement, whatever feeble
verbal opposition there may have been. The fury will be directed
against them. A host of new Bin Ladens will plot revenge.
Doesn't Sharon understand all this? Of
course he does. The political nobodies who constitute the government
may be unable to see beyond the end of their noses, just like
blinkered generals, whose only solution is to kill and destroy.
But Sharon knows what the consequences are likely to be--and
he relishes them.
Sharon wants to conclude the historic
clash between Zionism and the Palestinian people with a clear-cut
decision: solid Israeli control over the entire country and
a situation that will compel the Palestinians to get out. Yasser
Arafat is indeed the "total obstacle", as defined in
the government resolution, to the implementation of this design.
And a period of anarchy and bloodshed would be good for its implementation.
And the people of Israel? The poor, brainwashed,
despairing and apathetic people does not intervene. The silent,
bleeding majority behaves as if all this does not concern them
and their children. They are following Sharon as the children
followed the pied piper, right into the river.
This thundering silence is disastrous.
In order to prevent the disaster, it is our duty to break it.
Uri Avnery
is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He
is one of the writers featured in The
Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. One of his
essays is also included in Cockburn and St. Clair's forthcoming
book: The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
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