Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September
24, 2003
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
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
Recent
Stories
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?
September
19, 2003
Ilan Pappe
The
Hole in the Road Map
Bill Glahn
RIAA is Full of Bunk, So is the New York Times
Dave Lindorff
General Hysteria: the Clark Bandwagon
Robert Fisk
New Guard is Saddam's Old
Jeff Halper
Preparing
for a Struggle Against Israeli Apartheid
Brian J. Foley
Power to the Purse
Clare
Brandabur
Hitchens
Smears Edward Said
Website of the Day
Live from Palestine
September
18, 2003
Mona Baker
and Lawrence Davidson
In
Defense of the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions
Wayne
Madsen
Wesley
Clark for President? Another Neo-Con Con Job
Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Wesley Clark and Waco
Muqtedar Khan
The Pakistan Squeeze
Dominique
de Villepin
The
Reconstruction of Iraq: This Approach is Leading Nowhere
Angus Wright
Brazilian Land Reform Offers Hope
Elaine
Cassel
Payback is Hell
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Leavitt
for EPA Head? He's Much Worse Than You Thought
Website
of the Day
ALA Responds to Ashcroft's Smear
September 17, 2003
Timothy J. Freeman
The
Terrible Truth About Iraq
St. Clair / Cockburn
A
Vain, Pompous Brown-noser:
Meet the Real Wesley Clark
Terry Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Moore on Gen. Wesley Clark
Mitchel Cohen
Don't Be Fooled Again: Gen. Wesley Clark, War Criminal
Norman Madarasz
Targeting Arafat
Richard Forno
High Tech Heroin
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Website of the Day
The Ultimate Palestine Resource Site!
September 16, 2003
Rosemary and Walt Brasch
An
Ill Wind: Hurricane Isabel and the Lack of Homeland Security
Robert Fisk
Powell
in Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
Imperial Sociopaths
M. Shahid Alam
The Dialectics
of Terror
Ron Jacobs
Exile at Gunpoint
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's War on Wages
Al Krebs
Stop Calling Them "Farm Subsidies"; It's Corporate
Welfare
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Wreck
Website of the Day
From Occupied Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 15, 2003
Stan Goff
It Was
the Oil; It Is Like Vietnam
Robert Fisk
A Hail of Bullets, a Trail of Dead
Writers Bloc
We
Are Winning: a Report from Cancun
James T. Phillips
Does George Bush Cry?
Elaine Cassel
The Troublesome Bill of Rights
Cynthia McKinney
A Message to the People of New York City
Matthew Behrens
Sunday Morning Coming Down: Reflections on Johnny Cash
Uri Avnery
Assassinating
Arafat
Hammond Guthrie
Celling Out the Alarm
Website of the Day
Arnold and the Egg
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
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
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
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.
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September
24, 2003
Assassination, Occupation,
Separation
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
By NEVE GORDON
No more than a month ago I sat with a friend drinking
coffee at the Hillel Cafe in Jerusalem. Today it is a shattered
edifice, with blood stains on the floor. Indeed, this was the
first thought that crossed my mind after hearing the news about
the horrific suicide attack that left another 7 Israelis dead
and 45 wounded. "I could have been there," I said
to myself.
It is a frightening thought, one that
has crossed the mind of many an Israeli, particularly since
the eruption of the second Intifada in September 2000 -- a period
in which 244 suicide attacks have been carried out. Just as
disturbing, though, is the thought that this bloody reality
has been accepted by the Israeli public as part of their daily
routine; so much so that the same people who are terrified
to leave their homes now consider Israel's gory mode of existence
as their karma, as if the political realm were in some odd way
predetermined.
But politics, as the great Jewish thinker
Hannah Arendt repeatedly stated, is the realm of freedom, where
humans actually have the opportunity to begin something new
through speech and deed. Even "in the epochs of petrifaction
and foreordained doom," she claimed, the faculty of freedom,
"which animates and inspires all human activities and is
the hidden source of production of all great and beautiful
things" usually remains intact.
What Israelis and Palestinians have been
witnessing in the past few weeks is a concerted effort to destroy
the road that might have led the two peoples out of a foreordained
doom and into a new beginning. Notwithstanding the impression
some people might have, this myopic effort has been led by Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon, not only by Hamas. His strategy is one
of preemptive strikes.
Approximately two months ago, the different
Palestinians factions decided to implement a houdna (ceasefire
in Arabic) and to stop attacking Israeli targets. Despite the
fact that numerous militant groups operate without a central
command in the Occupied Territories, for almost a month and
a half the houdna managed to hold up. While one assault was
perpetrated in the West Bank by a small splinter group, the
violence had subsided and it appeared as if serious negotiations
would resume.
Then, suddenly, as if out of the blue,
the Israeli military invaded Askar refugee camp, killing four
Palestinians, including two members of Izzeddin Al-Qassam, Hamas'
military wing. The operation was a preemptive strike, the Israeli
spokesman explained.
The Palestinians decided not to retaliate.
Less than a week later, on August 14,
Israeli troops entered Hebron and killed a member of the Islamic
Jihad. Another preemptive attack. Only this time the Palestinians
did respond, and on August 19 a suicide bomber exploded inside
a public bus. Israel, in turn, used its forces to carry out
a series of extra-judicial executions, and now a month after
the preemptive assault on Askar camp, the streets between the
Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea are once again covered
with blood.
The logic of preemptive strikes, however,
does not merely inform Sharon's policy of extra-judicial executions;
it is the logic that has informed his actions throughout his
military and political careers.
Three examples will have to suffice:
the Jewish settlements, the Lebanon War, and the separation
wall.
Sharon is considered by many to be the
father of Israel's unruly settlement project. He earned this
title while serving as Minister of Agriculture during Menachem
Begin's first government. Sharon had hoped to become Defense
Minister and was disappointed when Ezer Weizmann received the
appointment, but minor details of this kind have never stopped
him from pursuing his goals.
Weizmann opposed the settlement project
and opined that Israel should withdraw from the territories
within the framework of a peace accord. Sharon, on the other
hand, believes in the Greater Israel, and, in order to preempt
the possibility of any future agreement based on land for peace,
he initiated, as the chair of the government's Settlement Committee,
a massive settlement enterprise. Whereas Israel built 20 settlements
between 1967 and 1976, within less than four years Sharon managed
to build close to 50 new settlements, totally changing the landscape
of the West Bank.
In August 1981, Sharon became Defense
Minister. Four years earlier, he had told an Israeli reporter
that "the Arab states are swiftly preparing for war, and
we are sitting on a barrel of explosives wasting our time on
nonsense. The Arabs," he continued, "will launch a
war in the summer or the fall." The war did not come, at
least not until Sharon assumed office.
The story of how Sharon led Israel into
Lebanon, hoping to establish a puppet government in order to
preempt attacks from the north, is by now well known. When Israel
finally withdrew its forces 20 years later, thousands of civilians
and soldiers lay buried in the ground, hundreds of thousands
of people had been displaced, and much of Lebanon was in shatters,
but Sharon held on to the logic of the preemptive strike.
Not unlike the settlement project, Lebanon
War, and extra-judicial executions, the separation wall should
also be conceived as a preemptive attack. While Sharon declares
that the wall is being built solely for security reasons, he
neglects to say that it is not being erected on the 1967 borders,
and is actually being used as an extremely effective mechanism
to expropriate Palestinian land and create facts on the ground
so as to preempt any future agreement between Israel and the
Palestinians. Its effect is not less violent than the assassinations
and suicide bombings. Already in this early stage, the wall
has infringed on the rights of more than 210,000 Palestinians,
some of whom now live in ghettos between the wall and Israel.
The crux of the matter is that Sharon's
preemptive logic undercuts all form of dialogue and negotiations.
Its rule of thumb is violence, and then more violence, whether
it manifests itself as a military attack or as an aggressive
act of dispossession. So while it may seem that the bloody
routine is in some way preordained, it is actually Sharon's
preemptive zeal alongside Hamas' and Islamic Jihad's fundamentalism
that has clouded the horizon and concealed, as Arendt might
have said, the possibility for a better future.
Neve Gordon
teaches politics and human rights at Ben-Gurion University, Israel,
and has written about the outsourcing technique within the Israeli
context for the Journal of Human Rights. He can be reached at
ngordon@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 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?
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