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Today's
Stories
October
15, 2003
Uri Avnery
Three
Days as a Living Shield
October
14, 2003
Eric Ridenour
Qibya
& Sharon: Anniversary of a Massacre
Elaine
Cassel
The
Disgrace That is Guantanamo
Robert
Jensen
What the "Fighting Sioux" Tells Us About White People
David Lindorff
Talking Turkey About Iraq
Patrick
Cockburn
US Troops Bulldoze Crops
VIPS
One Person Can Make a Difference
Toni Solo
The CAFTA Thumbscrews
Peter
Linebaugh
"Remember
Orr!"
Website
of the Day
BRIDGES
October
11 / 13, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
October 10, 2003
John Chuckman
Schwarzenegger
and the Lottery Society
Toni Solo
Trashing
Free Software
Chris
Floyd
Body
Blow: Bush Joins the Worldwide War on Women
October
9, 2003
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Bombing
Syria
Ramzi
Kysia
Seeing
the Iraqi People
Fran Shor
Groping the Body Politic
Mark Hand
President Schwarzenegger?
Alexander
Cockburn
Welcome
to Arnold, King for a Day
Website of the Day
The Awful Truth about Wesley Clark
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?
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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
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Berry
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CounterPunch
Wire
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Corrie
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The
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Francis Boyle
Impeach
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|
October
15, 2003
Countdown to an Assassination
Three
Days as a Living Shield
By
URI AVNERY
The most dramatic moment arrived in the evening
after Yom Kippur.
We were sitting in the courtyard of Arafat's
Mukat'ah (compound); a group of Israeli peace activists and Palestinian
friends, senior Palestinian Authority officials. A pleasant mild
wind was blowing after a hot day. We were chatting about the
situation (what else?) and the latest gossip about the Palestinian
leadership. From time to time a senior Palestinian joined us,
before going up to see the President, or coming back from him.
The tall figure of Jibril Rajoub emerged
from between the sand sacks that defend the entrance of the building.
He had seen Arafat and joined our group for a few minutes. "We
have heard that the Israeli cabinet is about to meet," he
announced darkly.
We all understood the meaning of that.
A meeting of the cabinet--what could that mean? What if not an
attack on the Mukata'ah?
Rajoub entered his black car and sped
off on his business. We exchanged some words about the possibility
of an attack--and then, suddenly, all the lights in the compound
went off. A dead silence ensued. From afar we heard the approaching
drone of an airplane.
Nobody said anything. In the brain a
thought was passing: "So that's it!"
And then the light went on, as suddenly
as they had gone turned off. The plane in the air passed us and
flew on in the direction of Amman. We continued to talk as if
nothing had happened.
Earlier on that day, the atmosphere had
become tense for a different reason. At noon, one of the volunteers
came back to the compound and recounted that, while he was sitting
in a coffee shop, shouts were heard: "The Israelis are coming!"
The owner of the shop urged his guests to run away, even without
paying. Soon after, two army jeeps appeared. From afar, the sirens
of ambulances could be heard. The two jeeps went on to the narrow
street in front of the Muhata'ah, where they went back and forth.
Inside, the rumor spread quickly. It looked like a reconnaissance
patrol before the attack. The jeeps went off to Ramallah's central
square. The children of the neighborhood threw stones at them.
I matter of routine. Calm returned.
The moment we heard about the shocking
atrocity in Haifa, on Saturday afternoon, we understood that
we had to hurry to the Mukata'ah. Within an hour, a small group
of ten Israeli peace-activists was organized. Somehow we succeeded
in entering Ramallah, which was surrounded and cut off by the
Israeli army. With us were also some 30 international peace activists
from many countries.
If we had more time, the group might
have been larger. But it was the Jewish holiday season, many
of potential participants were abroad, others could not join
on such short notice. But for us, time was of the essence.
It was clear that Ariel Sharon would
try to exploit the outrage of the Jihad, in which whole families
were killed, in order to realize his dream of many years: to
kill Yasser Arafat. That was so obvious that a question arose
automatically: Was this, perhaps, the real aim of the initiators
to start with?
The suicide bomber was a young female
lawyer, who wanted to take personal revenge: both her brother
and her fiance were killed by the Israeli army. In the Palestinian
territories there are now thousands of such people, men and women,
and each of them a ticking bomb. They do not need any political
reason. An Israeli who orders the killing of Palestinians, men,
women and children, must know that this may well be the result.
But the Islamic Jihad organization has
taken responsibility for the action. Thereby the personal vendetta
became a political act. A political act has political aims. And
the aim could only be connected to the fact that--as all the
world knows - Sharon is ready to kill Arafat at any minute. The
Israeli government has already officially decided to "remove"
Arafat. (Abroad, this word has been falsified into "expel").
Only the Americans are preventing this, for the time being. But
after a major outrage the American red light might change into
green, or at least into yellow. For Sharon, the slightest yellowish
flicker is enough to execute his plan.
A Palestinian organization that sends
a suicide bomber in such circumstances knows that its action
will not only kill and wound dozens of Israelis, women, man and
children, but may also cause the death of the Palestinian leader.
It seems that the Jihad--or somebody within the Jihad--desires
this. He hopes that the killing of Arafat will cause the collapse
of the Palestinian Authority, general anarchy throughout the
country, the creation of hundreds of terrorist cells in the Palestinian
territories and the raise of Jihad's prestige sky high.
As it sometimes happens in history, the
interests of Jihad are meeting the interests of Sharon. In order
to realize his policy--the removal of the Palestinian Authority,
the enlargement of the settlements all over the country and the
domination of Israel over all the Palestinian territories--he
need an atmosphere of anarchy and an ever-widening cycle of bloodshed.
Arafat is an obstacle in his way, and therefore he wants to "remove"
him - to the next world.
Exactly for this reason, a consistent
Israeli peace movement worth its name must do everything to prevent
this act. The killing of Arafat would be a historical disaster
for the State of Israel, because it would mean the elimination
of any chance for peace for generations to come and the increase
of bloodshed to dimension unknown until now.
Therefore we decided to prevent this
disaster with the paltry resources at our disposal.
The reception at the Mukata'ah was tumultuous.
Dozens of TV teams from all over the world, and especially from
the Arab world, were crowded in the courtyard and pounced on
us. Questions were showered on us from all sides and in several
languages.
One question turned up again and again:
"Do you believe that you can stop an attack by Sharon?"
We all answered candidly that we don't
know. We cannot stop tanks, warplanes, trained soldiers or disabling
gas. But we hope that the very knowledge that in the compound
there is a group of Israelis, as well as internationals, may
constitute one more factor that will be put on the scales when
Sharon and his generals make the decision. If the arguments for
and again outweigh each other, this factor may prove decisive.
(The next day, it was mentioned in the
media that one of the participants in the "security consultation"
did indeed raise this point.)
The hour was already late and we were
shown our accommodations. In a large hall that has been restored
after the destruction, mattresses were put along the walls, each
one with a thick blanket. Next to the hall, new and reasonable
toilets were built. At one side of the hall were tables with
boxes of coffee and tea, bottles of light drinks, pitta bread,
hard cheese and conserves.
One of Arafat's assistants, Dr. Sami
Mussalam, informed us that the Ra'is was sick and had stayed
today in bed, but would receive us tomorrow morning. In the meantime,
he saw to all our needs.
After the hours of organization and traveling,
we were quite hungry and tired. We tried to get the news over
Israel radio and chose mattresses for ourselves. There were different
opinions about what was the best place in case of bombing from
the air, as opposed to storming by soldiers. The toilets? The
entrances? All of us slept in his clothes. Most did not even
take off their shoes. For all events, the lights were not put
out altogether.
It was possible to sleep only in fits.
All through the night the mobile telephones did not stop ringing.
People from America, Europe, South Africa and Asia kept asking
for interviews. We had, so it seemed, become objects of international
curiosity.
At six o'clock in the morning I was woken
up by the ringing of the mobile phone. I ran outside, so as not
to disturb the dozens of sleeping people. A young lady from one
of the morning talk shows wanted to know if I was ready to give
an interview at seven o'clock.
Generally I would not have been overjoyed
by this, but this time I was in a good mood. A whole night had
passed without anything terrible happening.
I remained outside. The courtyard was
empty, except for a few soldiers on duty. I took a chair and
sat in a corner.
Above me, in the gentle breeze, hundreds
of small Palestinian flags were waving on strings, in addition
to the larger flags in the roof. (Once they were called "PLO
flags", and anyone who had one in his possession was liable
to go to prison for three years.) On the walls that surround
the courtyard on three sides (two buildings left standing and
the famous bridge between them) were colorful posters left over
from the mass solidarity demonstration after the "removal"
decision of the Sharon government.
"Our soul, all our soul, to the
commander and symbol, brother Abu Amar" said one of them.
Abu Amar is Arafat's nom de guerre. Another, by the Ministry
for Refugee Affairs, said: "For brother Arafat, the symbol
of our struggle, the support of the tents of the Palestinian
people". On one of the posters where the pictures of the
Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Sepulcher. On all of the
posters, Arafat with his famous keffiye (checkered headdress).
The golden Dome of the Rock and the picture of Arafat are the
two symbols of the Palestinian struggle, apart from the flag.
The word "symbol" (Rams, in Arabic) appeared on all
the posters without exception.
On one of the walls was hanging a two-floors
high cloth with hundreds of little handprints in the Palestinian
colors--red, green and black on a white background, a present
from the children of a refugee camp school.
That morning, all of this looked almost
gay. The Mukata'ah was silent, the few guards seemed bored. Every
soldier passing me said politely "Sabah al-Kheir" (good
morning, in Arabic), and some even said "Boker Tov"
(same in Hebrew). Perfect tranquility--but a deceptive one. The
knowledge that all this could be shattered in a moment, with
the gay scene turning into a scene of blood and death, was lingering
in the back of the mind.
At about 11 o'clock, we were told that
the Ra'is had got up from his sickbed and was ready to receive
the Israeli human shield members in the long meeting room.
Since then I have been asked dozens of
times: How does he look? Well, he looked like somebody weakened
after an attack of the flu: paler and thinner. It seemed to me
that it would have been better for him to stay in bed for another
day or two. But he had obviously compelled himself to get up.
He received us, the Israeli peace activists,
with much feeling, smiling broadly, with much shaking of hands
and hugging. The fact that in such an emergency men and women
from Israel had come to constitute a "human shield"
had made a deep impression. He spoke about this repeatedly.
About a dozen TV teams were allowed into
the room and started to record the meeting. Abu-Ala (Ahmad Kurei)
also came. Arafat put him between me and himself and delivered
a very strong condemnation of Saturday's suicide bombing. The
Emergency Government of Brother Abu-Ala, he said, would take
the strongest possible steps to put an end to such outrages.
I noticed the Israeli flag on his breast.
A month ago, during another visit, I saw that he was wearing
on the flap of the breast-pocket of his uniform jacket several
emblems of crossed flags: Palestine-Canada, Palestine-Italy and
so on. I removed from my shirt the Gush Shalom emblem--the crossed
flags of Israel and Palestine--and put it in front of him. He
picked it up at once and put it on, above the others.
I was surprised that he had left it on
and wore it on that day, too. (Two days later, at the swearing-in
of the Abu-Ala government, he wore this Israeli flag on his chest.)
After the meeting, Arafat invited us
and the international volunteers to lunch in the hall above our
sleeping quarters. On the long tables were the traditional dishes:
mutton on rice, Sinia (hacked meat in Tehina), baked chicken
parts. At the end, real Kenafeh from Nablus, considered the best
in the world, was served. (Kenafeh is an Arab sweet with cheese).
Rachel and I were placed on the two sides
of Arafat. Generally he eats very little and offers with his
hands choice morsels of meat or vegetables to honored guests.
This time he sipped only chicken soup specially prepared for
him. He told Rachel, my wife, that he sticks to a strict diet
of chicken soup, which is the best after the attack of viral
flu that had affected the stomach.
Among the guest at the Mukata'ah that
day was also an Italian choir. Before and after lunch they rendered
the songs of the Italian partisans who had fought against the
Fascist regime and the Germans. Emotions in the room ran high
when everybody, including Arafat, held raised hands and joined
in the singing. When they had finished, one of the internationals,
a young Japanese, rose and sang a beautiful Japanese peace song.
It appeared that Naoto, whose exact age I could not guess, has
studied sociology but decided to become a singer. He is a perfect
mime, and his good spirits and innocent good-heartedness made
him the darling of all the group.
In the end, a group photo was taken,
and all Israelis and internationals grouped themselves around
Arafat. It was hard to believe that this was no birthday party,
but a meeting of people who were risking their lives for peace.
Yom Kippur passed quietly. We saw the
parade of Palestinian personalities that came and went, while
the task of forming the government was progressing slowly. It
was obvious that Arafat's and Abu-Ala's decision to form a narrow
Emergency Government, consisting of only eight members (apart
from the Prime Minister) had disappointed many central functionaries
who remained outside. All the personalities approached and greeted
us warmly.
Arafat's close assistant, Nabil Abu-Rudeina,
was asked by journalists how Palestinians could rely on the United
States, the Arab countries, Europe or the United Nations. His
answer: "We rely first of all on our Israeli friends."
During all of the day, journalists called
me from abroad (and from Israel, too, but I am not going to tell
on those who called me on the holy Yom Kippur) and asked about
the state of Arafat's health. It seemed that a lot of rumors,
some of them quite crazy, were spread outside. Was it true that
Arafat had been poisoned by Israel? I answered that Arafat himself
had not mentioned this during lunch.
At a corner of the courtyard an ambulance
is parked permanently (the same was the practice in Israel during
the days of Begin.) In the evening, another ambulance came in.
A lone men got down and approached the building in unhurried
steps. I was told later that this was a friend of the resident
doctor who lives in the Mukata'ah and had come to visit him.
After some time he came out, went to his ambulance, put on the
flashing red light and drove off.
Within an hour I got frantic calls from
Tel-Aviv. Was it true that Arafat had suffered a heart attack?
Was it true that he had been sped to hospital? I could answer
with certainty that this was untrue. Afterwards the rumor spread
that he had suffered a light heart attack a few days before.
I am not a doctor, but if to judge by impressions, this rumor
seems to me untrue.
On the morrow of Yom Kippur, the Abu-Ala
government was sworn in. We, the members of the Israeli group,
stood in the first line, in the part of the hall reserved for
the media who were represented massively. We wore the large sticker
of the Gush, also consisting of the flags of Israel and Palestine.
The ceremony started late because of
last minute problems (Palestinians, like Israelis, cannot do
anything without last minute problems). Immediately after the
ceremony was over, Arafat saw us, went directed up to us and
hugged the Israeli activists before the massed cameras of the
world.
That was a personal gesture, but a political
one, too. The Palestinian leader wanted to show the world that
a settlement with Israel is the first item on the agenda of the
new government.
For us it was clear that with the setting
up of the government, the imminent danger to the life of Arafat
had--for the time being--passed, together with the terrible results
his assassination would entail. After three days and nights we
went home, ready to go there again if the need will arise, in
order to do everything possible to prevent an act that would
be a disaster for Israel. For us, that is the most important
patriotic thing we can do.
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 The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
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