Today's
Stories
October 22 - 24, 2010
Rannie Amiri
Palestine's Olive Harvest Horror
October 21, 2010
Diana Johnstone
French Fury in the EU Cage
Joanne Mariner
A Glimpse into the Silicon Heart of the CIA's Drone Program
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Biggest Problem: China as Collateral Damage
Lawrence Davidson
Invisible Israel?
Bill Quigley /
Laura Raymond
Artist Resistance in Honduras
Alan Farago
The Next Idiot Might Be You
David Smith-Ferri
Building Bamiyan Peace Park
Tolu Olorunda Educational Heroes and Myths
Website of the Day
Don't Just Deplore Bullying--Fight It!
October 20, 2010
Philippe Marlière
France Erupts: Sarkozy Under Siege
Tariq Ali
Red Hot France; Tepid Britain
Anthony Pahnke / Mark N. Hoffman
Digging Deeper: the San Jose Mine Disaster in Context
David Smith-Ferri
Bamiyan (Afghanistan) Diaries: Day One
Patrick Madden
QE2 and Foreclosures: Bank of America's Wager
Ishmael Reed
Professor Joe, Oakland's Next Mayor?
Dean Baker
Mortgage Mayhem
Mike Roselle
I'm Not Going Down Without a Fight
Dave Marsh
The Great General Johnson
Pete Redington
Dork is the New Cool
Website of the Day
The Poster Boy of Foreclosures
October 19, 2010
Pam Martens
The Koch Empire and Americans for Prosperity
Uri Avnery
The State of Bla-Bla- Bla
Ralph Nader
The Media and the Far Right
Clarence Lusane
From the White House to Obama's House: Race and Political Transition
Sherwood Ross
Union-Busting in Iraq
Trudy Bond
The Despot of Oklahoma:
Mr. Coburn Goes to Haiti
Sherry Wolf
Our Not-So-Great Depression
Yves Engler
Why the UN Rejected Canada's Bid for the Security Council
Camilla Fox /
Chris Genovali
Killing Carnivores for Cash
Erin McManus
Hanoi Jane: War, Sex and Fantasies of Betrayal
Website of Day
Solar Done Right
October 18, 2010
Mike Whitney
How to Kickstart the Economy
Jonathan Cook
Settler Takeover of Israeli Police
Martha Rosenberg
The Return of Mad Cow Disease?
Stewart J. Lawrence
Does Jerry Brown's Campaign Have a Death Wish?
P. Sainath
The Narcissism of the Neurotic
James Zogby
Texas Takes a Dangerous Step Backwards
Ken Cole, Ralph Maughan / Brian Ertz
Governmental Disdain for Wolves
Patrick Brennan
Matt Taibbi's Epiphany: Dumping on the Tea Party
Jack Heyman
Justice for Oscar Grant! Jail for Killer Cops!
John Grant
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Think
Website of the Day
Eating in Public
October 15 - 17, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Daughters of the Gipper
Slavoj Žižek
What is the Left to Do?
Paul Craig Roberts
The War on Terror: What's It All About?
Adrienne Pine /
David Vivar
Saving Honduras?
Peter Lee
The Detention of Xie Chaoping
Jonathan Cook
My Loyalty Oath
Bitta Mostofi
Admiring Ahmadinejad and Overlooking Activists
Franklin Lamb
On the Road with Ahmadinejad in Lebanon
Rannie Amiri
A Small Shove Back
Robert Alvarez
Nuclear Testing and the Rise of Thyroid Cancers
Joe Paff
Beyond Brown v. Whitman:
the Late Great State of California
David Rosen
Sexy Sisters: the New Republican Women
David Correia
Greenwashing the Wal-Mart Way
Sam Hitchmough
Competing Americas: the Rise of the Tea Party
Ramzy Baroud
The Tide Has Changed
Dave Lindorff
Don't Act, Don't Lead: Obama Stiffs Gays in the Military Again
Graham Usher
Waiting on America
Gary Leupp
The Non-Jewish Immigration Loyalty Oath
David Macaray
In the Trenches of Union Politics
Ron Jacobs
Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun" and Obama's iPod
Peter Cervantes-Gautschi
Wall Street and the Criminalization of Immigrants
Lawrence Swaim
How Neo-Cons Became Honorary Christians
Linn Washington
Corporate Charter Schools Get the Cash
David Ker Thomson
Under Democracy
Norman Solomon
Progressive Canaries
Michael Dawson
Electric Evasions: the Green Car Con
John Stanton
Defense Contractors From Hell
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Leaving Las Vegas
Paul Buchheit
Stop the HURT
Ziad Abbas
Palestine: Without Water, There is No Life
Anthony Papa
Life for an $11 Robbery
Hardy Jones
New Threats to Dolphins: Toxins and Viruses
Missy Beattie
The Bedbug War: Nearly Helpless
Charles R. Larson
Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes
Peter Stone Brown
Music Under the Radar
David Yearsley
Apollo's Fire
Poets' Basement
Moser & Rihn
Website of the Weekend
On This Earth
October 14, 2010
Mike Whitney
Bernanke Ponders the "Nuclear" Option
Jonathan Cook
The Transfer Scenario
Dean Baker
Globalizing Health Care
Marjorie Cohn
Israeli Raid on Gaza Flotilla: US Fails to Condemn, Despite UN Finding
Stewart J. Lawrence
Sex and the Orgasm Gap: Are Men Still Dominating Women in Bed?
Carl Finamore
San Francisco's Hotel Frank(enstein): a Horror Show for Employees
Dave Lindorff
9 Million Stolen Homes:
Getting Tough on Banker Crime
Raúl Zibechi
Brazil's Elections: the Continuation of Lulismo
Willie L. Pelote
Shock Therapy for California?
Website of the Day
Can Mushrooms Rescue the Gulf?
October 13, 2010
Vijay Prashad
The Waning of Obama
Uri Avnery
His Father's Son:
the Real Bibi
Dean Baker
The Counterfeit Recovery
Winslow T. Wheeler
Where is the Payoff for Huge Pentagon Budget Hikes?
Patrick Bond
"To Exist is to Resist:" From Apartheid South Africa to Palestine
Michael Winship
Cash You Can Believe In
Myles B. Hoenig
Are We Expendable? An Education Manifesto From the Trenches
Tom Turnipseed
Money Talks (and Swears)
Website of the Day
The Return of Ben Tripp, as Zombie Novelist
October 12, 2010
Ralph Nader
Tricks and Traps in the Fine Print
Franklin C. Spinney
Techno War: Money Talks, Counter-measures Walk
Mike Whitney
The Future is Ugly
Robert Alvarez
The Tritium Deficit
Deepak Tripathi
India's High Stakes Foreign Policy
Chris Genovali / Camilla Fox
Death Cults Among Us:
the War on Wolves
Harvey Wasserman
Calvert Cliffs on the Brink
Robert Jensen
Soils and Souls: the Promise of the Land
Mark Weisbrot
How to Change the IMF
Charles R. Larson
America's Religious Veneer
Website of the Day
How You Can Help Fund Radical Grassroots Green Groups (and Double Your Money)
October 11, 2010
Michael Hudson
Why the U.S. Has Launched a New Financial World World War
Bill Quigley
A Million Haitians Slowly Dying
Linn Washington
American Justice on Trial
Paul Krassner
Eat, Pray, Be Disappointed: an Open Letter to Obama
Jonathan Cook
Israel's Other "Peace" Plan
Cal Winslow
Big Money, the Big Lie and Fear
Sherry Wolf
Why are Liberals Building the Right?
Peter Stone Brown
Brother Solomon Burke
David Michael Green
How Do You Take Your Tea?
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Disclose This
Website of the Day
"Seize the Jail! Tear It Down!!"
October 8 - 10, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
The Soros Syndrome
Paul Craig Roberts
America's Third World Economy
Alain Gresh
What Does a "One State Solution" Really Mean?
Patrick Cockburn
Is Pakistan Falling Apart?
Rannie Amiri
An Evaporating Palestine
Conn Hallinan
Ecuador: Coup or Riot?
Ramzy Baroud
Dying to Win
Saul Landau
Harboring Terrorists
Sam Smith
What's Missing in the Talk About Education Reform
Yvonne Ridley
On the Road to Damascus, Thinking of Monty Python
Ellen Brown
Foreclosuregate:
a Massive Fraud
Santwana Dasgupta
A View From the Top of the World
David Macaray Labor Secretaries: Frances and Elaine
Gerald E. Scorse
Tax System Favors Wealth Over Work
Tony Newman
The Perils of Prohibition
David Ker Thomson
Soundtrack for a Beating
Christopher Brauchli
Authentic Dishonesty: Newt and Dinesh Save America!
Jon Mitchell
Oliver North, Ospreys and Agent Orange
Kevin Zeese
The Longest War
Steven Best
Rethinking Revolution
Missy Beattie
Invasion of the Blood-Sucking Bedbugs
Binoy Kampmark
England's Football Inc.
Charles R. Larson
Egypt's Camus?
Kim Nicolini
"Social Network:"
Narcissism and Claustrophobia Among the Techno-Elites
Dave Marsh
"American Idiot:" Finally, a Musical That Rocks
David Yearsley
The Dark Side of Musical Enlightenment
Poets' Basement
Three by Peter Branson
Website of the Weekend
Help the Great Michael Fracasso Revolutionize the Music Industry
October 7, 2010
Franklin Lamb
Bracing for Israel's Next Attack on Lebanon
Dean Baker
Currency Wars and Accounting Identities
John Ross
The Torture Bandwagon
Ron Jacobs
A History of Repression
Harvey Wasserman
A Solar Victory and a Military Defeat
Stanley Heller
Timidity on the Mall
Gamal Nkrumah
The Greening of Al Qaeda?
John Blair
Big Coal's Revolving Door in Indiana
Charles R. Larson
What Do Conservatives Read? Questions for the Supreme Court
Website of the Day
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help!
October 6, 2010
Bill Quigley /
Rachel Meeropol
Pennsylvania Has Been Monitoring You!
Jonathan Cook
The Dangers of Recognition
Jeffrey Sommers
Latvia's "Mandate" for Neoliberal Austerity
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Passing the Peace Pipe Instead
Tanya Golash-Boza
Immigration Policy Enforcement and the War on Terror
Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
When They Call You "Illegal:" Words, Names and Meg Whitman
Guy Bouthillier
Trudeau's Darkest Hour: Forty Years After Canada's War Measures Act
Alvaro Huerta
The People Who Make Your Garden Grow
Don Monkerud
Republicans at War with America
Website of the Day
Only Lazy Ranchers Blame Wolves
October 5, 2010
Stewart J. Lawrence
Obama Reneges on Key Agreement with Immigration Advocates
Ghania Mouffok Rape City? The Women of Hassi Messaoud
Neve Gordon
Untenurable:
the Firing of Ariella Azoulay
Ralph Nader
Rowing for the Planet:
Roz Savage Goes Solo
Mark Schuller
Unstable Foundations: Human Rights and Haiti's 1.5 Million Displaced People
David Macaray
Big Leg Up for Labor in Delta Battle
Julie Hilden
The French Criminal Defamation Conviction of Google and Its CEO
Richard Anderson-Connolly
A Voter's Manifesto
Ahmad Barqawi
Confiscating Childhood in the Occupied Territories
John Halle
Heads Up for the Greens
Website of the Day
Busted for Growing Too Many Veggies!
October 4, 2010
Pam Martens
Inside the Flash Crash Report
Stephen Soldz
Guatemalan Research Horrors and US Hypocrisy
Jonathan Cook
Obama's Cave-In to Israel
Mark Weisbrot
Target: Ecuador
Conn Hallinan
Bedding Down With the Devil in Indonesia
Fred Gardner
Non-Psychoactive Pot?
Cpt. Paul Watson
Dying to Amuse Us: Where Do Captive Dolphins Go?
Sarah Knopp
The Suicide of Rigoberto Ruelas
Website of the Day
The Death of Aseel Ashleh
October 1 - 3, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Dud Svengali
Ray McGovern
Obama's Men
George Ciccariello-Maher
Ecuador Between Three Wagers
Michael Hudson
"A Financial Coup d'Etat"
Franklin C. Spinney
The Pentagon Game
Wajahat Ali
A Foreclosure Story
Saul Landau
The Nuclear Gang Rides On
Ramzy Baroud
Farewell to Arms
Rannie Amiri
Hariri's House of Cards
Bruce McEwen
When Life Isn't a Video Game
Dave Lindorff
Now the Government is X-Raying You While You Drive
William Blum
In Struggle With the American Mind
David Swanson
The Book the Pentagon Burned
Sherry Wolf
Who Killed Tyler Clementi?
Lawrence Davidson
Overcoming AIPAC is Not Enough
Tanya Golash-Boza
Legalize Them All!
John Severino
The Struggle for Lieu Lieu
Missy Beattie
Politicians and the Prosperity Gospel
Belén Fernandez
How Israel Battles "Barbs of Criticism"
Binoy Kampmark
Miliband and Labor's Conundrum
Mohamed Abdel-Baky
The Coffee Incident: Nasser's Strange Death, 40 Years Later
Elvis Mendéz /
Jeff Napolitano
Marching Off a Cliff on October 2?
David Ker Thomson
We're in For It Now
Charles R. Larson
America's Self-Inflicted Wounds
David Yearsley
Marsalis and His Men
Poets' Basement
Crittenden, Boyce and Gaffney
Website of the Weekend
The Religious Knowledge Quiz
September 30, 2010
Franklin C. Spinney
Peace Process to Nowhere
David Macaray
Teamsters Organize Legal Marijuana Growers
Susan Galleymore
Dumping the Navy Way
Michael D. Yates
Fear and Loathing at Saint Vincent College
Russell Mokhiber
The Grunt Work of Democracy
Eric Walberg
The New Turkey / Russia Axis
Mark Weisbrot
Venezuela's Elections: Why They're Not a Game-Changer
Charles R. Larson
From Il to Un
Website of the Day
Return of the Art Student Spies?
September 29, 2010
Dean Baker
Foreclosure Funny Business
Michael Hudson
America's China Bashing
Martha Rosenberg
Frankensalmon and the FDA
Brian Ehrenpreis
Holbrooke's Hypocrisy on Drones
Michael Winship
Ireland Hits the Skids
George Lakey
"Why Did You Go to Jail?"
Patrick Bond
South Africa is Dead in the Water
Sheldon Richman
The Anti-Anti-Authoritarians
Website of the Day
Socialist Contingent on Oct. 2
September 28, 2010
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh & Karla Hansen
Why Doesn't the US Talk to Iran?
Jonathan Cook
Reasoning Against Peace
Julie Hilden
Is Powell's Bookstore a Criminal Pornographer?
Russell Mokhiber
Massey My Masta
David Macaray
HBO Limited
Stewart J. Lawrence Voice for Immigrants Wins Historic Seat
Brian McKenna
Muckrake Your Town
Laura Flanders
Is the Drug War a Class War?
Linh Dinh
Welcome to the Recovery
Bouthaina Shaaban
You Only Get the Truth From Former Officials
Website of the Day
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
September 27, 2010
Pam Martens
Scientists, Secrets and Wall Street's Lost $4 Trillion
Ron Jacobs
The FBI Raids in Context
Patrick Irelan
The Redistribution of Wealth: Steal From the Poor, Give to the Rich
Greg Moses
How ICE Illegally Deprived Saad Nabeel of His Freshman Year
Dave Lindorff
Spreading Democracy in Afghanistan: One Journalist Arrest at a Time
Jayne Lyn Stahl Ahmadinejad Steals the Show, But Citigroup is the Real Culprit
Uri Avnery
Gandhi's Wisdom: Reflections of a Professional Grumbler
George Wuerthner Wolf Restoration: a Challenge to the Old Guard
James McEnteer
Chile: Miner Problems, Major Paralysis
David Michael Green The Dismantling of Civil Society
Website of the Day
Scrambled Eggs: "Organic" Factory Farms?
September 24 - 26, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Masturbating on the Edge of the Apocalypse
Paul Craig Roberts
The Collapse of Western Morality
Ishmael Reed
Being Black and "Difficult" in Hollywood: an Interview with Lou Gossett, Jr.
Patrick Cockburn
After the Flood:
Six Million Pakistanis Have Lost Everything
Ralph Nader
A Ten Percent Shift? Craven Republicans and Spineless Democrats
Anthony DiMaggio
Are Government Workers Overpaid?
Julien Brygo
Glasgow's Two Nations
Rune Engelbreth Larsen
The Danish Cartoon Affair: How and Why It All Began
Gary Leupp
The Handwriting is on the Wall
Norman Solomon
Higher Consciousness Won't Save Us
Shir Hever
Why Does Israel Still Occupy Palestinians?
Ramzy Baroud
Why Mitchell Said "No" to Hamas
M. Shahid Alam
Zionist Dialectics
David Rosen /
Bruce Kushnick
Cheap Date: the Comcast / NBC Merger
Rannie Amiri
A Blurred Line in Bahrain
Russell Mokhiber
True Majority and Pepsi: Dancing with the Liquid Candy Queen
David Macaray
High Noon for California Nurses
Missy Beattie
Anything Can Happen
Rich Wiles
Ramadan in Aida Camp
David Model
Pragmatic Idealism: Rationalizing Foreign Policy
Harvey Wasserman
Another Feeble-Headed Nuke Drops Dead
Jeff Deasy
The FDA and Frankenfoods
Laura Flanders
Running for the Exits
Jesse Strauss
Lessons From Arizona
Tom Stephens
The Structural Readjustment of Detroit
Binoy Kampmark Going Mad in Delhi
Stephen Martin
Money, Inc.
Charles R. Larson
Red Capitalism in Vietnam
David Yearsley
Jewels of Silent Film Music
Poets' Basement
Davies and Chaet
Website of the Weekend
How to Lose a Million Jobs
September 23, 2010
Doug Peacock
Global Warming, Killer Bears?
Dana Frank
Repression's Reward in Honduras?
Mark Weisbrot
The Rightwing Upsurge in the U.S.: Less Than Meets the Eye?
John LaForge
The End of Combat My Eye
Martha Rosenberg Animal Experimentation Funny? Yes, Says This Researcher
Jay Arena
Return to Iberville: Birthplace of Jazz, Graveyard of Public Housing?
Alvaro Huerta
The Curious Case of Latino Republicans
James Rothenberg Managed Misconceptions
Website of the Day
FBI Tailed Iowa Groups
September 22, 2010
Conn Hallinan
The Real Merchants of Death
Joanne Mariner
When Machines Kill
Jonathan Cook
Locking Up Activists
Ron Jacobs
New Orleans After the Press Went Home
Jonathan M. Feldman
Why the Swedish Left Lost
Shamus Cooke
The Bi-Partisan Attack on Public Workers
Michael Winship
Where's Ed Newman When You Need Him?
Anthony Papa
Rejecting Paris
Website of the Day
Hollywood Through Yul Brynner's Camera
September 21, 2010
John Ross
The Next Mexican Revolution
Dean Baker
The Terrible Tale of TARP
Steve Breyman
The Myth That Kills
Robert Bryce
The Real Problems With Wind Energy
Yvonne Ridley
Condemned by Their Silence
Jesse Strauss
Fallout From the Mesherle Verdict
Bouthaina Shaaban
Democracy in Arab Eyes
Binoy Kampmark
Switzerland and the Criminal Mind
Website of the Day
Revisiting the Black Panthers
September 20, 2010
Michael Hudson
Where is the World Economy Headed?
Gareth Porter
Bait-and-Switch in Afghanistan
Dave Lindorff /
Linn Washington
New Tests Show Key Witnesses Lied at Mumia Abu Jamal Trial
Pam Martens
A Whistleblowing Mom and Goldman Sachs Plaintiffs Confront the Same the Reality
Ralph Nader
Safer at Most Speeds
Stephen Crawford /
Shawn Fremstad
A Better Way to Measure Poverty
Marjorie Cohn
The Persecution of Pfc. Bradley Manning
Lawrence Davidson
Martin Peretz in Love
Steve Early
Scoundrel Time at Kaiser
Jayne Lyn Stahl
The Scandal That Wasn't
Website of the Day
The Lesser Evil
September 17 - 19, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Autumn of the Driveler
James B. Rule Elizabeth Warren's Challenge: the Banks and Their Protectors
Saul Landau /
Nelson Valdés
The Confessions of Roger Noriega
Ishmael Reed
Why Some White Progressives Make Me Sick: Black Men and the White Left
Mike Whitney
Housing:
The Swelling Backlog
Diana Johnstone
Serbia Surrenders Kosovo to the EU
Rannie Amiri
The Saudi Arms Deal: Stirring Persian Gulf Waters
David Rosen
Tea Party Panic: the Fear of Sex, Race and Inter-racial "Pollution"
Ramzy Baroud
Regarding US Muslims: a Misguided Debate
Richard Phelps
Burning and Building
Sheldon Richman
They Died for Iran
Alan J. Singer
Beware the Jabberwockies
Margaret Kimberley
The Charter School Con
David Tresilian
On the Trail of "Blood Diamonds"
Missy Beattie
American Graffiti
Mark Weisbrot
The Future of the Internet
Marco Antonio Martínez García
Pollution Knows No Borders
Stewart J. Lawrence
Rolling the Dice on Immigration Reform
Linh Dinh
Kill Them: Michael Enright's America
Jim Goodman
The Food Crisis is Not About a Food Shortage
Abdel-Moneim Said An Aesthetic Desert: Egypt's Stolen Van Gogh
John Grant
The Farce That Keeps on Giving in Afghanistan
Robert Jereski
Banning Methane Mining
Billy Wharton
Street Politics on 9/11
Shahid Mahmood
The Cartoonist and the Pastor
Charles R. Larson
You Are What You Think
David Yearsley
Unexpected Encounters With Greatness
Poets' Basement
Taylor, Cirino and Crissman
Website of the Weekend
Gogol Bordello: Immigraniada
September 16, 2010
Laura Carlsen
Plan Colombia for Mexico
Alexander Cockburn
Remembering Ben Sonnenberg
Clancy Sigal
The Poor Man's Artillery:
What IEDs Can Do
Gareth Porter
Blowback in Kandahar
Patrick Cockburn
Pakistan Flood Survivors Now Face Threat of Malaria
Philippe Marlière
France's Great Pension Swindle
Lawrence Davidson The Great Muslim Scare: Here Come the True Believers
John Severino
In Chile, Two Kinds of Terrorism
Website of the Day
The Gitmo 176
September 15, 2010
Mike Whitney
Doomsday for Lehman
Alan Nasser
Driving Another Nail Into the Coffin of the New Deal
Nelson P. Valdés
The Cuban Model and
Castro's "Confession"
David Correia
If Only Glenn Beck Were a Cyborg: Inside the Singularity Movement
Ron Jacobs
The Dutchman and Pastor Jones
Saif Shahin
Iran: War Talk, Peace Talk
Shamus Cooke
When Corporations Own Congress
Michael Winship
Escaping Tolerance
Mohamed Abdel-Baky
Egypt Going Nuclear
Betsy Ross
No Bull
Charles R. Larson
The Politics of Onanism:
the Anti-Masturbation Candidate
Website of the Day
Tools for Radicals
September 14, 2010
Kathy Kelly
Banning Slaughter
Israel Shamir /
Paul Bennett
Assange Besieged
Esam Al-Amin
Three Sides of the Qu'ran Burning Triangle
Dean Baker
Economist Failure:
the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
Stewart J. Lawrence
Have Immigration Activists Won the Battle But Lost the War?
Benjamin Dangl
Chile's Ghosts
David Macaray
When the Work Breaks You Down
Sheldon Richman
Obama the Neoconservative
P. Sainath
How Right You Are, Prime Minister!
Harvey Wasserman
Is the Nuclear Renaissance Dead Yet?
Website of the Day
Unseal Nixon's Grand Jury Testimony
September 13, 2010
Michael Hudson Obama's Thatcherite Gift to the Banks
Mike Whitney
The Hyper-Inflation Mirage
Mark Weisbrot
The Venezuelan Economy: the Media Gets It Wrong Again
Michael Barker
Foundations and the Environmental Movement: an Interview with Daniel Faber
Ralph Nader
Doomsday for Democrats?
Michael Dalton
Return to the Cove of Blood: a Report From Taiji
Marjorie Cohn
Business as Usual in Iraq
Richard Trumka
How the Corporados Wrecked Retirement
Dave Lindorff
Growth Has Little to Do With Jobs or Reducing Poverty
David Michael Green
I Have a Dream
Website of the Day
The Blues Collective
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Weekend Edition
October 22 - 24, 2010
Land Desecration
Palestine's Olive Harvest Horror
By RANNIE AMIRI
“Lit from a blessed tree, an olive, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it … ”
Quran 24:35
“And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.”
Judges 15:5
Olives and olives oil. Nothing symbolizes Palestinian land, identity and culture as they do. They are the hallmarks of national pride and the veritable heart of Palestine’s agricultural economy.
Although the subjugation and daily humiliation of occupation takes various forms in East Jerusalem and the West Bank—demeaning checkpoint searches; arrest and interrogation of minors; preventing ambulances from expeditiously transporting the sick to hospitals; the eviction of families and demolition of homes—few situations evoke more outrage and deep sadness as do the torching of olive orchards by vigilante settlers.
Last Friday was the official start of the olive harvest season in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as gunfire and real fire once again heralded its opening. Hundreds of trees were burned by settlers as Israeli soldiers looked on. Fire trucks were prevented from helping put out the blaze in what has become an annual ritual of despoiling land by those who have illegally settled on it.
To coincide with the beginning of the harvest, the international relief agency Oxfam released its report, “The Road to Olive Farming: Challenges to Developing the Economy of Olive Oil in the West Bank” in Jerusalem.
Oxfam indicates that Palestinian olive oil production contributes $100 million annually to some of the poorest, most disadvantaged families and communities in the West Bank. It is a primary source of revenue for the economy and nearly half of all agricultural land use is devoted to it. As one of the territory’s major exports, the extent to which olives and olive oil contributes to employment opportunities and income for 100,000 Palestinian farming families cannot be overstated.
Yet, the Israeli government deliberately prevents access to land where olive farms are located.
“Physical barriers such as checkpoints and road blocks have restricted the free movement of people and goods within the West Bank and obstructed access for Palestinian agricultural produce, including olives and olive oil, to internal, Israeli and international markets,” the report said.
It also concluded the Israeli government sanctions settler violence against the groves, which include stealing its fruits, torching or uprooting tens of thousands of trees and attacking farmers to intimidate them from harvesting their crops.
“Settler attacks and harassment against Palestinian olive farmers are common.”
And Friday was no exception. As the AFP reported, settlers swooped down on the groves with automatic weapons, setting olive trees alight and chanting “Out, Out.”
Although this year’s violence has been characterized as one of the worst in recent history, yet nearly all assailants will likely go unprosecuted.
In a five-year study tracking 97 cases of Palestinian land vandalism, the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din (Volunteers for Human Rights) found that police investigations did not yield a single indictment. “The law enforcement authorities are not responding to the ongoing harm done to the livelihood of Palestinian families,” said lead researcher Yior Lavne.
Savaging the cultural heritage and economic viability of a people is an odious practice. Under any other circumstance, the deliberate, purposeful desecration of land and sabotage of livelihoods would be considered a war crime. It is time the international community call what happened in the West Bank last week just that.
Support Palestinian farmers through fair-trade purchase of their olive oil.
Rannie Amiri is an independent Middle East commentator.
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