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April 12, 2002 | Issue 402

FRONT AND BACK PAGES

Stop U.S. aid to Israel
Stand up against Israel's terror
Corpses piled up in the morgues or left rotting in the streets. Ambulances barred at checkpoints, while the wounded bleed to death. Palestinians kept prisoners in their own homes by Israel's siege. This was the reality in the Israeli-occupied West Bank amid the most savage military assault on Palestinians in two decades.

Free all the detainees now!
Being Arab is not a crime
Of the approximately 2,000 immigrants detained in the aftermath of September 11, not a single one was found to have any connection to the attacks. But that didn't stop the Justice Department from victimizing many for minor visa or other violations.

ISRAEL'S WAR ON PALESTINIANS

Trapped in her own house by Israel's siege:
"We won't give up"
Suzanne Abu Tair lives in Bethlehem and works as a nurse in the nearby Dheisheh refugee camp. She talked to Socialist Worker about the desperate conditions that Palestinians face today.

Taking to the streets to protest Israel
People across the country took to the streets last week to protest Israel's war on Palestinians.

WHAT WE THINK
Taking sides in a battle between oppressor and oppressed
We stand with the Palestinians
This week marks the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, in which the lightly armed Jewish Fighting Organization heroically resisted Nazi armed forces. Today, lightly armed Palestinians are heroically resisting the onslaught of the Israel Defense Forces. But the Palestinians are reviled as "terrorists."

WHAT WE THINK
"Peacemaker" who's out for blood
Many names come to mind when you think of George W. Bush. "Peacemaker" should not be one of them. But that's how Bush tried to appear as he sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Middle East last week.

Ariel Sharon: This man is the real terrorist
The state of Israel came into existence a half-century ago--and has maintained itself ever since--through terror, warfare and the illegal seizure of Palestinian lands. And Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has had blood on his hands from the very beginning.

Roots of the new Palestinian Intifada
Most stories about Israel's war refer to the start of the Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, 18 months ago. But this is only the latest stage in a rich history of struggle for justice.

READING BETWEEN THE LINES
Media miseducation about Israel's barbarism
A 1991 survey showed that the more people watched TV news about the Gulf War against Iraq, the more pro-war they became--and the less they actually learned about the war. Multiply that effect by 10, and you have the mainstream media's coverage of Israel's war against the Palestinian people.

SOCIALIST WORKER TURNS 25

Agitator and organizer
Producing a socialist newspaper is about more than telling the truth. We want to convince readers not only about what's wrong with the world--but that they need to act to change it.

Socialist Worker turns 25
Read excerpts of articles from past issues and find out what Socialist Worker had to say about some of the most important events of the past 25 years--and about the struggles you only read about here.

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FEATURES AND COLUMNS

Washington D.C., April 19-22 — San Francisco, April 20
Why we're protesting
Activists across the country are mobilizing for protests in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. The demonstrations were called over a range of issues, but they are linked by a common thread--opposition to the U.S. government's imposition of its military and economic power around the globe. Here, SW talks to leading activists about why they're protesting.

ISSUES IN THE LABOR MOVEMENT
ULLICO spells union corruption
When the AFL-CIO posted a Web page on "Curbing Corporate Greed" three years ago, Union Labor Life Insurance Co. (ULLICO) got a nod as a pro-worker alternative. But it turns out that the top union officials on the ULLICO board of directors were indulging in some corporate greed themselves.

INSIDE THE SYSTEM
The curse of the union
Why would workers at the Mt. Sinai-St. Francis Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Miami, Fla., vote in favor of union representation? Could it be the long hours and low wages? Lack of good benefits? Not at all, according to management. It's because the union used voodoo to scare Haitian workers into voting union.

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NATIONAL NEWS

They fueled a savage war
U.S. operation in Angola exposed
Recently declassified documents have exposed the U.S. government's bloody role in the decades-long civil war in the African country of Angola.

Arrest quota is a recipe for profiling
The head of the Chicago Police Department unit that patrols the Cabrini-Green public housing project on the city's Near North Side decided that his officers weren't "productive" enough. So he demanded more arrests from his cops--and implemented monthly quotas to make sure he got them.

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ON THE PICKET LINE

Abandoned by the UAW at Accuride
It took just a 19-word letter for the United Auto Workers (UAW) to abandon more than 400 workers in a local with a 23-year history of struggle--the last four years in a brutal lockout.

UPS pleads poverty despite strong performance
"We've got a fight at UPS"
Contract negotiations between United Parcel Service and the Teamsters are heating up. UPS has had five record profit years since the last contract, but management is trying to convince union workers that UPS is under siege from the U.S. Post Office and FedEx.

Lockheed Martin
To listen to the mainstream media here, you would think the month-long Lockheed Martin strike was about to collapse. Workers say differently. "Personally I'm prepared to stay out as long as it takes," Marvis Kight, who has worked at Lockheed Martin for 39 years, told Socialist Worker.

Labor in brief
San Diego Union Tribune; Los Angeles immigrant workers; ILWU Local 6

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REPORTS FROM THE STRUGGLE

City University of New York
About 100 students from the City University of New York were joined by faculty and other supporters at a rally at City Hall on April 5 to oppose Gov. George Pataki's proposed cuts to the Tuition Assistance Program.

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SW READERS SPEAK OUT

Man beaten for the "crime" of being Pakistani
Cops that tortured Louima strike again
Attorney General John Ashcroft's racist scapegoating of immigrants has given renewed confidence to racist police from the same precinct where Haitian immigrant Abner Louima was tortured in 1997.

Sneaking off to Bermuda to save on taxes
In its effort to sell the public on a permanent state of war, the Bush administration has called upon Americans to "sacrifice" in the name of patriotism. Too bad that call doesn't extend to large corporations.

Saying no to their cutbacks
This week, 15 Fulton-Montgomery Community College students in New York and I hit the hallways to announce a meeting against tuition increases and layoffs.

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