Articles - Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel

"In solidarity for a free Palestine"
By Steven Salaita, YellowTimes, August 21, 2002
(YellowTimes.org) – For the first time in my life, I was disgusted to receive messages in support of the Palestinian people. It wasn't, of course, the support itself that irritated me; it is always uplifting and inspiring to hear from folks who covet justice and advocate the implementation of international law. Rather, it was the context in which the purported support was expressed. Let me offer an example. One reader signed off with the line, "In solidarity for a free Palestine." A nice sentiment, right? Absolutely not. The previous sentence announced that "[i]f they don't soon clean up their act - in Palestine and everywhere else - these Zionists will suffer a fate that will make the supposed 'death of the six million' (unfortunately, that number seems far too small) look like a tea party!"

Dialogue needed, before we turn into a leper state
By Sharon Sadeh, Ha'aretz, August 21, 2002
BRUSSELS - Apart from a few visits to a limited number of capitals and preciously few calls to brief continental leaders, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has not paid much attention to Europe. Nor do ministers in his government walk the extra mile to get close to Israel's largest trade partner. "Such neglect will cost us dearly in the future," warns Harry Kney-Tal, Israel's ambassador to the European Community.

Splenetic Thoughts for Dog Days: From Cynthia McKinney to Katha Pollitt, to the ILWU to Paul Krugman
by Alexander Cockburn, Counterpunch, August 21, 2002
One less radical black voice in Congress. One less champion of labor. One less brave soul unafraid to jump the traces of political orthodoxy. Cynthia McKinney, five-term US rep from Georgia's Fourth District, was beaten in Tuesday's Democratic primary by Denise Majette, also black, a former judge, put in with the help of lots of money from American-Jewish groups and by a hefty Republican cross-over in Georgia's open primary.

Protect Me from My Friends: Pro-Palestinian Activists and the Palestinians
by Michael Neumann, Counterpunch, August 20, 2002
If the situation of the Palestinians seems hopeless, it is not simply because of what Israel does. It is also because most pro-Palestinian activists, while complaining unceasingly about the American-Israeli alliance, spare no effort to maintain it. They do so because they are wedded to conventional left-wing assumptions.

Israel Fights Islam to the Last American
By Mohamed Khodr, Islam Online, April 10, 2002
Prejudice and demonization has been the “white man’s burden” and justification for colonialism and enslavement of “colored” man throughout history. It began with the Greeks and Romans, followed by the hostility toward Jews, then Islam, until the miraculous irony of the post-Holocaust era where the newly found partnership of the “Judeo-Christian” world became the defenders of freedom against the “evil empire” of Communism and the establishment of the Western Zionist colony of Israel. That was followed by the newly created “evil du jour - Islam” in 1990 after Communism's fall in order to serve and maintain the military-industrial-media complex of America's elite.

'Justice First', Not Gaza
By Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle, August 21, 2002
“Gaza First” is not a break through, and no break throughs in this conflict shall ever actualize until this unbalanced equation of the conflict is corrected: Once more, Israel is playing politics with the Palestinians, and the Palestinian Authority is unfortunately playing along. “Gaza First” is the last item in the Israeli bag of tricks. But unlike what the media says about how the plan will ‘renew trust’, ‘ease tension’ and perhaps lead to full return to negotiations, the plan is designed to provoke internal Palestinian disputes.

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