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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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