Flashpoints Jan 7 2002: US/Israeli war on Iraq; talk w author of Searching Jenin

Tuesday, Jan 7, 2003 - Start Audio
-xx:xx Dennis Bernstein: (joined in progress) Israeli involvement in the war on Iraq becoming more obvious.. Dennis Bernstein interview with Ramzy Baroud, author of "Searching Jenin"
-00:00 Robert Knight and the Knight Report.. Robert: US says it will not attack North Korea.. Israel placed Palestinian negotiators under house arrest and is not letting them go to peace conference in London.. a fight between Jack Straw and Netanyahu.. 'leaders comprimised by terrorism'.. Harettz reports scandal.. 1.5 million dollars given to Sharon by South Africa.. Congo sentenced 26 people to death for the assassination of former leader.. 40 acquitted.. 50 imprisoned.. West African nation of Ivory Coast, French forces attacked.. 2004 Republican National Convention to be held in NYC.. a boon for thespians.. will be called upon to roam the convention floor disguised as poor, gays, minorities.. another federal terrorism hoax
-05:18 Dennis: Israel is more and more involved in the threatened war on Iraq.. now w Elaine Hagopian, Professor Emeritus at Simmons College.. Dennis: Israeli airforce in Turkey, surveilling Iran.. Elaine: a strong alliance with Turkey since 19?6.. Robert Fisk reports joint listening posts on the Syrian and Iranian borders.. the only other country besides Britain, is Israel.. Israel previously identified three worrisome countries, Egypt, Iraq, and Iran.. a belief by pro-Likudniks in the U.S. government.. Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams.. that Iraq is key to *handling* Syria and Iran.. Israel threatened to strike the Iranian nuclear reactor.. Dennis: Powell in the Middle East recently.. about Hezballah?.. Elaine: in southern Lebanon.. Shitite Moslems like most folk in Iran.. a resistance group against Israel.. still there, and makes statements that it will support its Palestinian brothers.. but doesn't do much.. Hezballah is a support group now for Syria.. Dennis: about Eliot Abrams.. Elaine: good article on Counterpunch.org, by Kathleen and Bill Christiansen, looks at these individuals.. very pro-Israeli people.. helping to shape a policy started by Cheney after Gulf War One.. Wolfowitz used to live in Israel, part of the Zionist goal.. Perle has been around, called the Prince Of Darkness by Clinton.. Abrams never believed in Oslo.. helped write a anti-Oslo paper for Netanyahu.. after 9/11, the Bush administration jerked everyone around over support for a Palestinian state.. Colin Powell made a major statement.. but support has cooled.. Sharon came seven times to the White House.. Bush came to believe the key to peace in the Middle East is not justice for Palestinians but the conquest of Iraq.. believes that then the Palestinians will be easy to deal with.. about Iraqi Jews now living in Israel.. 'Iraq after Saddam', a meeting at the American Enterprise Institute.. about Patrick Seale, British journalist, wrote 'a dangerous new idea taking shape in the US and Israel.. military force can by used to shape the Middle East for US and Israel.. regional hegemony by Israel, supporting global hegemony by the US'.. Dennis: Abrams willing to throw the constitution in the gutter, and approve suffering of repression in Central America.. Elaine: the administration talks about.. Fisk wrote about US officials meeting with Algerian officials to learn to do torture better.. open the Middle East to American and Israeli businessmen.. Dennis: Turkey still repressing information about the Armenian Holocaust, and Israel willing to ignore it.. Elaine: the first major genocide of the 20th century.. some scholars in Israels have reported on this.. Dennis: many Palestinians feel that a war on Iraq will be used to purge the Palestinians.. Elaine: maybe, but Sharon has destroyed Oslo.. isolated Palestinian cities from each other.. settlements, access roads, walls, checkpoints.. to travel from one.. an apartheid regime.. frozen the economic life.. 25% of the children suffering malnutrition.. and many suffer tramua.. some hear the word 'shalom' and think it means 'soldier'.. Dennis: the huge wall is larger than the Berlin Wall.. Elaine: yes and many Arab villages cut off.. scarey that the world has not realized this.
-25:01 Dennis: now w Ramzy Baroud, author of "Searching Jenin" (preface by Noam Chomsky) (read a review) (buy it from the author) (order from Cody's Online).. Ramzy: I was working on a book about the Sabra and Chatila massacre.. Ramzy: Jenin similar.. a smaller version.. victims not able to claim their own dead, just like Sabra and Chatila.. that's why I decided to do something about it.. Dennis: both times the man in charge is Ariel Sharon.. Ramzy: Israel portrays the conflict with Palestinians is a 'fair battle', as a well behaved army fighting a band of ruthless terrorists.. honest people who want to find the truth can get confused.. no accountability, the UN is failing in their mission.. Dennis: the book is based on eyewitness accounts.. the heart of it?.. Ramzy: I tried to let the people narrate the story.. all compelling, all touching.. but the story of Hannah, a 30 year old mother of three, the heart of it for me.. she was very worried about the safety of the children.. put the children in a small room.. part of the house is falling.. the husband steps outside to check it out.. a sniper shoots him instantly.. the wife goes out, blood falls out of his mouth.. pulls him into the house, he dies.. tells the children ages 4, 5, and 3 daddy is ok, just asleep.. she begs the soldiers to let her call an ambulance to take his body away.. they refuse.. and the body lays in the small room, decomposing for 7 days.. asleep the children thought, they would try to wake him and ask him questions.. about the Palestinian resistance fighters.. the fighters tried to protect the others, the women and children.. were a part of the camp, an extention of the people.. Ramzy: I spoke to a lady, in Jordan hospital.. severly wounded.. spoke how a bulldozer came and started to demolish her house, with 40 others.. fighters ran out and stood in front of the bulldozers and tried to stop it, while other fighters came and helped the 40 people escape out a back way.. Dennis: ambulances?.. Ramzy: an interview with an ambulance driver.. he was stripped naked and arrested.. accounts of ambulances being fired on.. no doubt that the Israelis.. for 12 days no one allowed to leave the camp to go to a hospital.. Dennis: we hear a lot about how the Palestinians 'overstated' the case.. Ramzy: in the Columbine High School massacre.. the Israeli term the deaths from suicide bombers always as a massacre.. at least 63 people in Jenin killed, hundreds wounded, 2000 homes destroyed.. certainly 147 there were war crimes in Jenin.. the first people to say hundreds of dead in Jenin were top Isareli army officials.. statements before people were even allowed to leave or enter the camp.. if Israel military say a massacre, then why wouldn't Palestinians repeat the claim?.. why the media then blame the Palestinians?.. I was not prepared for the level of hatred of the soldiers.. I have lived in Gaza.. the would defecate in the mosques.. draw pornographic images on toys, hang dolls like dead.. loudspeakers saying we are going to come kill you.. Jenin Refugee camp was established outside Jenin City in 1953.. after 800,000 Palestinians forced to flee their homes.. mostly from Haifa region.. UN ANRWA originally built mud homes.. the people could stand on the eastern edge of the camp and see their homes back in Israel.. living harsh lives.. but still seeing Palestine.. still had their old house keys.. about the impact on the children.. I was born 1972 into a refugee camp.. we remember nothing but occupation.. a home of abuse.. soldiers come around.. many of our friends have.. death, despair, poverty become your live.. the only games is playing Israelis and Palestinians.. now children killed with much more brutality.. most children having serious physcological trouble.. they can identify aircraft, weaponry, even bullets by sound.. Dennis: but like children in Dhaishah camp will surround a tank, stand on a tank.. Ramzy: I saw my dad spit on by soldiers, punched, jeered.. the second day this happened I started throwing stones.. Palestinian children want to defend the ones they love.. Dennis: about you?.. Ramzy: I went to Jordan and wasn't allowed back into Palestine.. I started to hire reporters in Jenin.. they could get information more touching, more personal than you'll find in AI and HRW reports.. people endangering their lives on a daily.. a Jerusalem photographer, Mahfouz Abu Turk, arrested and wounded four times.. a reporter wounded by the army after 9/11.. working for Reuters, hit by a tank shell.. 8 wonderful reporters from Jenin.. would give the reports to.. then smuggled to East Jerusalem.. I was worried this would not work out, but I thank God it worked out wonderfully.. more info: PalestineChronicle.com
-54:40 Mary Bishop: wrapup
-55:22 End today's show. today's review by john lionheart

Monday, Jan 6, 2003 - Start Audio

now w Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf in studio.. you two are now a couple.. how did you meet?.. Huwaida: in April 2000 I went to work in Jerusalem for a Seeds of Peace conflict resolution project.. Adam was the director.. we worked together.. I resigned, because I would see great injustices, and I would want to put my body in front of the bulldozers, but couldn't with my job.. Dennis: Israel used the 9/11 attacks to label all Palestinians as terrorists.. Adam: we keep on finding milestones for how much worse things are getting for Palestinians.. now a potential war with Iraq, Israel will use as a pretext to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians out of the West Bank or squeeze them into ever smaller prisons.. official conversation about the merits of ethnic cleansing goes on every single day here in Israel.. Huwaida: just last week 25 refugee homes in Gaza were destroyed.. I didn't see one mention of it in the mainstream media.. it is hard enough to get journalists to come into the occupied territories.. even then the soldiers may prohibit them.. the Palestinians are preparing for the worst.. but hard to imagine it could get any worse.. Dennis: it must be frustrating to hear the dual standard.. Iraq may someday get a nuke vs Israel already have hundreds of nukes.. Huwaida: encouraging that civilians are coming to the occupied territories.. the UN and the Red Cross are not doing their jobs.. and the US not standing up to its human rights committments.. the action of average civilians is really heartening though.. Dennis: the Israelis come to DC today asking for another 14 billion dollars, no strings attached.. Adam: U.S. the rich sugar uncle for Israel.. a big secret from the US taxpayer, the US gives far more money to each Israeli than it spends on its own US citizens.. Israel is not an ally, but a liability.. Dennis: reminds my of that Pete Seeper song: inch by inch, row by row, we're going to make.. Israel row by row knocking down the homes of Gaza..

about the Patriot Act and the war against Iraq.. now w Daniel Ellsberg, approaching cities to reject the Patriot Act.. Dennis: is war inevitable?.. Daniel: Saddam could decide to get out.. otherwise US hellbent for a war of aggression.. to get control of oil.. for classical imperialist motives.. Dennis: Israel has 300 nukes and forces in Turkey.. Daniel: it would be suicidal for Saddam to launch against Israel.. if he has the capability to launch gas or chemical against US or Israel.. would probably get a nuclear response.. and lead to [hell].. Dennis: you are in Fairfax tommorrow.. Daniel: I was asked to speak out in Fairfax tomorrow before the town council about the Patriot Act.. from a personal point of view, I had the experience of having a group of white house thugs.. break into my therapists office and.. intimidate me.. call me names.. Nixon had to buy their silence.. Howard Hunt and others, that in the end brought him down.. many of Nixon's crimes would not be crimes now.. Congress very hastily wiped out many of our basic rights.. to break into a doctor's office, to intimidate criticism.. now maybe *legal*.. Bush could now put me on 'terrorist' list.. and the internet subject to much more surveillance.. we are in the process of becoming a police state.. the Patriot Act needs to be repealed.. we are losing our rights, and its worth it to struggle to get them back.. Rumsfeld wants an official secrets act.. we are getting a lot of leaks now.. the administration wants to close that off.. we'll see dirty tricks again.. I think there will be a phoney incident to provoke a provocation to launch this war.. we are flying all over Iraq, daring the Iraqis.. I think the administration would be glad to see a couple planes shot down.. like the Gulf of Tonkin incident 40 years ago.. I will be joining many many other citizens.. the Patriot Act has to be repealed.. Dennis: if Fairfax decides tomorrow to become the 22nd city to reject the Patriot Act, then what?.. Daniel: they would be doing exactly what 19 newspapers did in 1971.. defied president's order to supress the publication of the Pentagon Papers.. Dennis: your new book, Secrets... more info: Ellsberg.net..