Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 8, 2003
Uri Avnery
Betrayal
at Camp David
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
Recent Stories
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
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
August 28, 2003
Gilad Atzmon
The
Most Common Mistakes of Israelis
David Vest
Moore's
Monument: Cement Shoes for the Constitution
David Lindorff
Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed
Chris Floyd
Cheap Thrills: Bush Lies to Push His War
Wayne Madsen
Restoring the Good, Old Term "Bum"
Elaine Cassel
Not Clueless in Chicago
Stan Goff
Nukes in the Dark
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Behold, My Package
Website of the Day
Palestinian
Artists
August 27, 2003
Bruce Jackson
Little
Deaths: Hiding the Body Count in Iraq
John Feffer
Nuances and North Korea: Six Countries in Search of a Solution
Dave Riley
an Interview with Tariq Ali on the Iraq War
Lacey Phillabaum
Bush's Holy War in the Forests
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Website of the Day
The Dean Deception
August 26, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing the Dead
David Lindorff
The
Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up that Tax Rebate
Sarmad S. Ali
Baghdad is Deadlier Than Ever: the View of an Iraqi Coroner
Christopher Brauchli
Bush Administration Equates Medical Pot Smokers with Segregationists
Juliana Fredman
Collective Punishment on the West Bank: Dialysis, Checkpoints
and a Palestinian Madonna
Larry Siems
Ghosts of Regime Changes Past in Guatemala
Elaine Cassel
Onward, Ashcroft Soldiers!
Saul Landau
Bush:
a Modern Ahab or a Toy Action Figure?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 25, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Outlaws in America
David Bacon
In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime
Thomas P. Healy
The Govs Come to Indy: Corps Welcome; Citizens Locked Out
Norman Madarasz
In an Elephant's Whirl: the US/Canada Relationship After the
Iraq Invasion
Salvador Peralta
The Politics of Focus Groups
Jack McCarthy
Who Killed Jancita Eagle Deer?
Uri Avnery
A Drug
for the Addict
August 23/24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
August 22, 2003
Carole Harper
Post-Sandinista
Nicaragua
John Chuckman
George Will: the Marquis of Mendacity
Richard Thieme
Operation Paperclip Revisited
Chris Floyd
Dubya Indemnity: Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law?
Issam Nashashibi
Palestinians
and the Right of Return: a Rigged Survey
Mary Walworth
Other People's Kids
Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Website of the Day
Current Energy
August 21, 2003
Robert Fisk
The US
Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing
Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?
Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq
Ben Terrall
War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps
on the Wrists
Elaine Cassel
Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Gouged by Banks
Marjorie Cohn
Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq?
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
Website of the Day
The Intelligence Squad
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
8, 2003
All
This Could Have Been Prevented
Betrayal
at Camp David
By URI AVNERY
It was the first day of the Israeli-Egyptian peace
negotiations, after Anwar Sadat's visit to Jerusalem. They took
place at Mina House, a hotel rich in history near the Pyramids.
In front of the building, the Egyptians
had hoisted the flags of all the Arab countries they had invited
(none showed up, of course). On one of the poles the Palestinian
flag was fluttering merrily.
I was going up the stairs, when I saw
the Chief of the Israeli Security Service coming down in a great
hurry. He was a bitter enemy of mine, and therefore I was rather
surprised when he addressed me: "Uri, you must help me!
What does the PLO flag look like?"
"It's not the PLO flag," I
corrected him, "It's the Palestinian national flag."
On a piece of paper, I drew its likeness.
"O my God!" he cried, "The
Egyptians have hoisted this flag!"
He hurried back to the conference hall,
and a few minutes later the Egyptians suddenly took down all
the flags, including the Palestinian.
This little incident was symbolic of
all that happened in the run-up to the Israeli-Egyptian peace
agreement, and especially at the central event--the (first) Camp
David summit meeting of September 5, 1978.
On the 25th anniversary of that conference,
which takes place this week, secret documents of that period
have been published. The most interesting is the list of recommendations
prepared by the State Department for President Jimmy Carter on
the eve of his departure for Camp David.
It contains some amusing items that testify
to the thoroughness of the authors. For example: it says that
Begin goes to sleep at 11 pm and rises at 5.50 am. He is used
to focussing on minute details, while the Egyptian president
deals only with great ideas. Begin uses the details in order
to shirk his obligations, while Sadat regards the wide vision
so as to be able to ignore any troublesome details. Begin is
obstinate, and therefore it may be useful to use Moshe Dayan
(then Foreign Minister) and Ezer Weitzman (then Minister of Defense)
in order to "manipulate" him. Also, the American president
was told, both leaders are very susceptible to flattery.
Before the meeting even started, the
Americans had, without consulting the parties, prepared the full
text of an agreement. This text is very similar to the agreement
that eventually emerged.
The main victim of Camp David was, of
course, the Palestinian people. The Americans had decided beforehand
that there was no place for a sovereign Palestinian state, but
only for some kind of "autonomy" that would allow the
Israeli occupation to continue. Meaning that they could take
responsibility for their own sewage, and perhaps also education
and public health.
The only concession Begin made in the
agreement was the recognition of the "just requirements"
of "the Palestinian people". But even this was immediately
taken back: he annexed to the agreement a statement that wherever
the text mentions "the Palestinian people" it really
meant "the Arabs of Eretz Israel".
The Palestinian people were not, of course,
represented at the conference that was to decide their fate.
They were not consulted at all. Carter, Begin and Sadat determined
their fate as if they were too primitive to have an opinion.
The question remains: did Sadat decide
in advance to sacrifice the Palestinian people for the interests
of Egypt, or was he manipulated into doing so against his will?
Since I liked the man, I always tended towards the second version.
But the Americans assumed in advance that Sadat cared only for
Egyptian, and not for general Arab interests. This means that
he was ready to sell the Palestinians down the river in order
to sign a separate peace with Israel and gain the favor (and
money) of the United States.
However, from the beginning Sadat suspected
that the Americans might sabotage his initiative. That's why
he did not inform the Americans in advance of his plan to fly
to Jerusalem. The American ambassador in Cairo at the time told
me that he learned about it from the newspapers, like everybody
else.
The Palestinian side of the story looks
like this: at the time Yasser Arafat was engaged in the mediation
of a conflict between Egypt and Libya. Suddenly he received an
urgent message from Sadat , who was about to make an important
speech in Parliament and requested his presence. In this speech
Sadat dropped his bombshell, announcing his intention to address
the Knesset. Arafat was photographed applauding politely, like
all present. Suddenly he realized that he had fallen into a trap.
He had been taken totally by surprise.
Perhaps Arafat initially considered the
option of cooperating with Sadat, in the hope that the Egyptian
president would contribute to the struggle for a Palestinian
state. But when he arrived in Beirut, the main base of the PLO
at the time, he found the Palestinian public seething with fury
at Sadat. For the only time in the whole of his long political
career, Arafat's position was threatened. Nobody believed that
Sadat had not informed him in advance about his intentions. So
people suspected that Arafat was in league with him. The abyss
of suspicion between Egypt and the Palestinians remains to this
day.
The American documents expose the Carter
administration's view that the problem could be solved without
setting up an independent Palestinian state. Yet two years before
that, we had set up the "Israeli Council for Israel-Palestinian
Peace" and established close contacts with the PLO leadership.
We were completely convinced that no peace solution was possible
without the creation of a State of Palestine next to the State
of Israel.
Could it be that we--a small group of
Israelis--were smarter than the huge United States administration,
with its thousands of experts, officials and agents, right up
to the President himself?
In any case, 25 more years were wasted
before the American leadership accepted (at least in theory)
the principle of "two states for two peoples". Twenty
five years of bloodshed, wars and intifadas, with thousands killed
on either side and no end in sight.
All this could have been prevented if
the most powerful superpower on earth had been headed by people
a little bit more wise, and if the leaders of Israel and Egypt
had not evaded their historic responsibility--either through
"focusing on details", like Begin, or "concentrating
on big ideas", like Sadat.
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. 1 / 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
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