Dive into the archives.
- Change, Anyone?
Clinton: Israel has right to respond to Gaza rocket attacks (more…)
- Terrorizing the Population
After today’s attack, Palestinians living close to the area said that heavy shooting could be heard and reported seeing Israeli attack helicopters in the air. Shortly afterwards, an Israeli warplane flew over the strip causing a sonic boom, apparently in a warning to the population. (more…)
- Impartiality?
“For us to broadcast such a thing would in my view be out of keeping with our strict duty to be impartial,” he told one of the BBC’s radio channels. (more…) The BBC has a difficult choice before them indeed—should they appeal to help save lives and in doing so demonstrate a partiality for humanitarian [...]
- The Music of War Crimes
It’s quixotic, being a peace activist in Sderot, an Israeli town that has borne the brunt of rocket attacks from Gaza. When Israeli air strikes on Gaza began last month, hundreds of people from Sderot swarmed to a vantage point known as Horseman’s Hill to watch the fiery spectacle and cheer. Nomika Zion was not [...]
- Feel the Change Yet?
George Mitchell, President Barack Obama’s special Middle East troubleshooter, was chairman of a law firm that was paid about $8 million representing Dubai’s ruler in connection with a child-trafficking lawsuit. (more…)
- Obama Wants More
Thousands of tribesmen on Saturday attended the funeral prayers of the victims of Friday’s drone attacks in the North and South Waziristan Agencies. They condemned the killings and asked US President Barack Obama to spend the money on the welfare of the tribal people instead of killing them with sophisticated weapons. . . They claimed [...]
- Israeli War Crimes
They taught us to dread zarchan [from the Hebrew root to shine or glow]. They taught us, as medics, that if we treated a phosphorous wound, prepare for the worst. It doesn’t merely burn, they taught us, it burns first through the skin, then through the soft tissue, until it reaches bone. They taught us [...]
- Israeli Newspeak
Over the last four weeks the powerful Israeli propaganda machine has been churning out lie after lie about Hamas in order to excuse its own inexcusable onslaught. Israel stopped journalists going into Gaza, preventing any independent reporting on the war crimes its forces were committing. Truth is usually the first casualty in war. Gaza was [...]
- Norman Finkelstein on the Massacre in Gaza
The record is fairly clear. You can find it on the Israeli website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Israel broke the ceasefire by going into the Gaza and killing six or seven Palestinian militants. At that point—and now I’m quoting the official Israeli website—Hamas retaliated or, in retaliation for the Israeli attack, then launched [...]
- This is the Israeli Left
We must not be led astray in this election campaign and consider both Livni and Barak as moderates, in contrast to the “extremist” Netanyahu. This is a deception. Kadima and Labor, the center and left-wing parties, have led Israel to two awful wars within two years. Netanyahu has yet to go to war once. True, [...]
- Carrying Bush’s Legacy
Many of Obama’s initiatives in his first few days in office — preparing to depart Iraq, ending torture and closing Guantánamo — were aimed at signaling a sharp turn away from Bush administration policies. In contrast, the headline about the strike in Waziristan could as easily have appeared in December with “President Bush” substituted for [...]
- The Indian Example
In Gaza, Palestinians have once again been blamed for their own deaths. The British made a similar argument 151 years ago when they killed thousands of Indian civilians — 1,200 in a single village — in response to the largest anti-colonial uprising of the 19th century. If Israel truly desires peace with the Palestinians and [...]
- Ceasefire Broken From Day One
At 7.30 am Jan. 22, five days after Israeli authorities declared a ‘ceasefire’ following their 22-day air, land and sea bombardment of the Gaza Strip, Israeli gunboats renewed shelling off the Gaza city coast, injuring at least six, including four children. (more…)
- Victims of Zionism
“We all put our hands up and yelled, ‘We’re women and children. We’re not the resistance,’ ” recalled Sherine Helw, Fuad’s daughter-in-law. The soldiers opened fire on Fuad, said Sherine, and he died in front of his family. (more…)
- Israeli War Crimes
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who visited the Gaza Strip last week, called for a “full investigation,” Amnesty International is accusing Israel of “war crimes,” and Louis Michel, the EU’s commissioner for aid to developing countries, says: “It is evident that Israel does not respect international humanitarian law.” (more…)
- This is Obama’s Envoy to the Middle East
Back to the daily From Lebanon segment on LBC-TV, which features “rich and famous” Lebanese, even if they are not Lebanese. Today, it featured former Sen. George J. Mitchell from Maine. Here is a story about Sen. Mitchell (whose mother had immigrated from Lebanon). A former student of mine in Washington, DC was working part-time [...]
- Is Peace Out of Reach?
This short documentary by CBS is by far, one of the most honest and brave television broadcasts to come out of the United States about the conflict.
- Scars to Last a Lifetime
“A missile targeted my relatives,” said Adhem Abdulal, a tall boy with a bright grin. “My cousin got shrapnel in his leg. Another cousin got shrapnel in his head.” “The F-16 bombed my uncle’s house. His stomach got ripped out, and he died,” said Mohammed Abu Hassan, fidgeting with the zipper on his red leather [...]
- Gaza Faces Failed Harvests After the Bombardment
Another aid worker put it more bluntly: “Gaza needs to be fed through its mouth, not to be fed anally.” (more…)
- This is Zionism
“[There is] a biblical ban on surrendering a single millimeter of it [the Land of Israel] to gentiles, though all sorts of impure distortions and foolishness of autonomy, enclaves and other national weaknesses. We will not abandon it to the hands of another nation, not a finger, not a nail of it.” (more…)
- The Occupation Continues
Flights by Israel Air Force F-16s over Gaza earlier Sunday sparked fears in the coastal territory that a new Israeli military offensive was underway. (more…)
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How the Press, the Pentagon, and Even Human Rights Groups Sold Us an Army Field Manual that (Still) Sanctions Torture (more…)
- Don’t Worry—Obama’s Not Serious
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves if we imagine this is already a U.S. challenge,” says Israel’s foremost political analyst, Chemi Shalev. “The Mitchell mission should not be viewed as a big deal by anyone worried this heralds a major U.S. peace drive. (more…)
- Attacking Gaza’s Economy
Israeli forces used aerial bombing, tank shelling and armoured bulldozers to eliminate the productive capacity of some of Gaza’s most important manufacturing plants during their 22 days of military action in the Gaza Strip. The attacks – like those which destroyed at least 4,000 homes, left some residential areas resembling an earthquake zone and more [...]
- Morality of the IDF
“I do not know of any military that is more moral, fair and sensitive to civilians’ lives than the IDF,” he said. (more…) They had just gone a little distance when there was an explosion. We were hit. We fell down, and I couldn’t see or hear anything. Then I started hearing again. I heard [...]
- Sure Thing
No one has to pressure Israel into making peace – because no one wants peace more than Israel. (more…)
- Glimpse of What is to Come
“I have no intention of building new settlements in the West Bank,” Netanyahu told Blair in a meeting Sunday. “But like all the governments there have been until now, I will have to meet the needs of natural growth in the population. I will not be able to choke the settlements.” (more…)
- Spoiled Crybabies
Branding foreign journalists “spoiled crybabies” unwilling to make “a little effort” to get into Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, Government Press Office head Danny Seaman denied Sunday there had been any ban on their entry into the Strip during the battle. (more…) Just like an Israeli propaganda chief to call the international media “crybabies” while [...]
- Israel, Racist?
The poll also found that 35% of Israeli pupils think Israel is a racist society, with more youth in the periphery of the country – 41% – holding such a view, and fewer – 29% – in the center of the country. (more…)
- Greater Damage Than Benefit
In February 2005, Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz and Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon adopted the recommendation of a team appointed to analyze the matter, headed by Major General Udi Shani, that the policy should be terminated. The team found that house demolition does not serve to deter and causes greater damage than benefit. The [...]
- Anything To Prove That Chavez is the Anti-Christ
A new book published in the United States alleges that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is an active and open supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Lebanese Shi’ite militia with training for its fighters. (more…)
- Israel’s Lies
Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. [...]
- Worse Than Killing People
I went to the burns department in Shifa hospital. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. These phosphorus burns. Their bodies were black. One person has stitches everywhere. It’s worse than killing people. They look like the living dead. I also went to the north, to Beit Lahiya. This was one of the [...]
- Scenes From Gaza
Palestinian boy Mohammed Kutkut, 14, right, covers his face as he sits next to the name sign of his killed friend Ahed Qaddas in the Fakhoura boys school in Jebaliya, northern Gaza strip, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009. Three friends of his class where killed when the Israeli army shelled Jebaliya in the past weeks. Tens [...]
- The American Media Monopoly
Since Al-Jazeera English went on the air in November 2006, it has struggled to gain a spot on traditional American airwaves. The station says only three small cable operators offer the network in Ohio, Vermont and Washington, D.C. None of the biggest U.S. cable systems carries Al-Jazeera English, claiming viewer interest is not sufficient. (more…)
- This is What Passes as Political Analysis in the U.S.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. “Guy walks into a bar …” No, not that one — this one: “This is the most critical year ever for Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy. It is five minutes to midnight. If we don’t get diplomacy back on track soon, it will be the end of the two-state solution.” [...]
- Carrying Bush’s Legacy
The airstrikes were authorised under a covert programme approved by Obama, according to a senior US official. It was a dramatic signal in the president’s first week of office that there will be no respite in the hunt for Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. (more…)
- Long Live the Tunnels
Despite constant bombardment, particularly during the early stages of the conflict, some of the smugglers’ tunnels remained open, Rafah residents and tunnel operators said. Many others have reopened since Israel and Hamas separately announced cease-fires a week ago. (more…)
- The Puppet Government
“It is unbelievable that, all over the world, people were supporting Gaza,” Yazid Khader, a spokesman for the movement, said last week. “Yet here on the West Bank people were unable to do so. We ask: will the blood spilled in Gaza be enough for the Palestinian Authority to move towards reconciliation with us?” (more…)
- From 43 to 44
Forwarding mail should go to The Bush Ranch, Crawford, Texas. If it looks like a bar tab, just send it to Cheney (about time the old skinflint paid for something), and if it’s from either of the Blairs just toss it. If I never get another one of her begging letters as long as I [...]
- Life in Gaza
At first the 44 children that live in the Zani family home in Beit Hanoun were wary of the unexploded F-16 rocket whose tail has protruded menacingly from their garden since it landed in the first week of the Israeli assault on Gaza. Now, they have grown used it – playing excitedly near it and [...]
- The Clown of Libya’s Grasp of History
It is a fact that Palestinians inhabited the land and owned farms and homes there until recently, fleeing in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 — violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus. It is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly [...]
- Only Israel Is Allowed To Conduct Mass Slaughter
Israel is a small country living in a permanent state of siege, highly security-conscious and surrounded by forces hostile to it; India is a giant country whose borders are notoriously permeable, an open society known for its lax and easygoing ways. (more…)
- Childhoods Blighted By War
How do you talk to an eight-year-old about a rocket attack that killed her mother, her sister and her four brothers? (more…)
- Bombing Pakistan
The first taste of the Obama’s administration’s prosecution of the “War on Terror”. Unilateral bombardment of Pakistan. Now that’s keeping your “eye on the ball”.
- Carrying Bush’s Legacy
Thus far, Obama appears to have hewed closely to the line held by the Bush administration, among the most pro-Israel presidencies in U.S. history. (more…)
- Bill Moyers Expresses His Ignorance on the Middle East
I do believe that the violence in the Middle East has roots deep in history, and in the competition of the three monotheistic faiths, each of which claims divine title to much of the same land. (more…) Oh really Mr. Moyers? The conflict is religious is it? It has nothing to do with decades of [...]
- Long Live the Tunnels
“Everybody’s busy rebuilding now,” said a manager of one digging team. “In a month, it will be back to normal.” (more…)
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Over half of the Israeli population, some 55 percent, supports holding negotiations with Palestinians with the aim of reaching a permanent agreement, according to a ‘New Wave’ poll commissioned by the Geneva Institute. (more…)
- Victims of Zionism
Amira Qirm lay on a hospital bed today with her right leg in plaster, and held together by a line of steel pins dug deep into her skin. For several days after her operation Amira, 15, was unable to speak, and even now talks only in a low whisper. In her past are bitter memories: [...]
- An Extension of Israel
Look at New York City. Look at the major newspapers. They have a Zionist agenda. They do. I’m not Jewish. I’m not anything. I don’t care about the Israelis. And I’m not anti-Semitic. It’s just a fact. I suggested to my publisher writing a book on Israel, and he said forget it. You can’t talk [...]
- Beholden to Israel
In American politics, you can’t do anything in the Middle East without the approval of Tel Aviv, at least on some level. It’s impossible. I mean, I cannot think of a country that is so beholden to a small country like this, even a superpower, in all of history. I can’t even think of it. [...]
- Back to School in Gaza
Schools in the Gaza Strip operated by the United Nations have reopened for the first time since the Israeli offensive against Hamas militants. (more…)
- Change? Not So Much.
The Obama administration is reluctant to turn over too many rocks in the Bush administration’s conduct in the War on Terror. Obama has pledged to reach a post-partisan nirvana, and Republicans could condemn any investigation of Bush administration abuse of the republic as a partisan witch-hunt. Also, the Obama administration has a conflict of interest [...]
- Gaza in Ruins
Through the hole in the wall of his house, Sadala sees a landscape in gray and brown. This is where a neighbourhood had stood, his neighbourhood. Now there is a snake of sand around the bomb crater. It is impossible to tell where the streets once stood. Family houses have turned into piles of debris. [...]
- C’était Comme Un Jeu Pour Les Soldats
Zahwa, la veuve d’Atiyeh, raconte en détail, les larmes aux yeux, le drame qu’elle a vécu. “C’était comme un jeu pour les soldats. Ils riaient”, affirme-t-elle. Zeinab, 12 ans, qui a perdu son père, sa mère, deux frères et des cousins. Shiffa, 19 ans a également enterré son père, sa mère, sa tante et son [...]
- No Kidding
After weeks of denying that it used white phosphorus in the heavily populated Gaza Strip, Israel finally admitted yesterday that the weapon was deployed in its offensive. (more…)
- Yes We Can—Stay the Same
“It took two longs days before Obama dispelled any notions of a change in U.S. Middle East policy,” said As’ad Abu Khalil, Lebanese-born and pro-Palestinian professor of political science at California State Univerity. “Obama’s speech was quite something. It was like sprinkling sulphuric acid on the wounds of the children in Gaza,” he added. (more…)
- Victims of Zionism
But the devastation of war is everywhere, the terrifying memory of it still raw. Sitting in the ruins of Zeitun, a district almost completely destroyed, Arafat Samouni painfully recounts the events that ended in the death of 30 members of his extended family in one of the war’s most publicised tragedies. Still in shock, he [...]
- Signs of Devastation
In the aftermath of the war, there are scenes of devastation at nearly every turn in Gaza. Whole blocks are pockmarked by bullet holes. The earth craters where tall buildings once stood. Mourning tents line the roadways. (more…)
- Well If Indyk Says So…
“[George Mitchell] is neither pro-Israeli nor pro-Palestinian,” said Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel. “He is, in a sense, neutral.” (more…) This former research director for AIPAC must have a very clear understanding of neutrality. In fact, I am now convinced that Mitchell’s appointment is a bad decision purely because of Indyk’s endorsement.
- Gaza Evokes Memories of Warsaw Ghetto
“To lock people into a war zone is something that evokes the worst kind of international memories of the Warsaw Ghetto, and sieges that occur unintentionally during a period of wartime,” Falk, who is Jewish, said, referring to the starvation and murder of Warsaw’s Jews by Nazi Germany in World War Two. (more…)
- Civilian Slaughter
Whatever the damage done to Hamas, what happened in Gaza was, simply put, a civilian slaughter. (more…)
- They Should Never Have Been Built
To that end, Mr Obama needs to make it clear, preferably before Israel’s election next month, that America will no longer countenance Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank. The Jewish settlements there should never have been built, and Israel has promised to freeze them. This has become a test. If Mr Obama cannot hold Israel [...]
- Information on White Phosphorus
White phosphorus results in painful chemical burn injuries. The resultant burn typically appears as a necrotic area with a yellowish color and characteristic garliclike odor. White phosphorus is highly lipid soluble and as such, is believed to have rapid dermal penetration once particles are embedded under the skin. Because of its enhanced lipid solubility, many [...]
- Angry Arab on Obama
Well, it took two longs days before Obama dispelled any notions of a change in US Middle East policy. For some reasons, many Arabs and many American leftists I know (you know yourselves) have wanted to believe so bad that Obama will deviate from the Zionist path of US foreign policy. I knew that it [...]
- American Responsibility
So let’s hope Obama launches the new era by accepting a fair measure of responsibility on America’s part for the slaughter of some 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza, a large number of them women and children, killed by US weapons furnished to Israel along with moral and political support for its criminal actions. Let him deplore [...]
- Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
“Hamas must end its rocket fire, Israel will complete the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza. The United States and our partners will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime so that Hamas cannot rearm,” the new president said in his first major speech on the region as president. (more…)
- Israeli Propaganda
The report concludes that, when it comes to covering wars, editors and reporters behave in a patriotic manner that is “almost instinctual” and that, instead of scrutinizing press releases, they eat out of the hands of official spokespersons. As Be’er puts it: “In crisis situations, the media constantly endeavor to justify military actions, and they [...]
- Victims of Zionism
One nine-year-old boy said his father had been shot dead in front of him despite surrendering to Israeli soldiers with his hands in the air. Another youngster described witnessing the deaths of his mother, three brothers and uncle after the house they were in was shelled. He said his mother and one of his siblings [...]
- Eric Hobsbawm on the Massacre in Gaza
For three weeks barbarism has been on show before a universal public, which has watched, judged and with few exceptions rejected Israel’s use of armed terror against the one and a half million inhabitants blockaded since 2006 in the Gaza Strip. Never have the official justifications for invasion been more patently refuted by the combination [...]
- This Should Only Be the Beginning
Barack Obama, the US president, today signed an executive order to shut down the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, the most potent symbol of excess in George Bush’s “war on terror”. (more…)
- Victims of Zionism
In Gaza, Ms. Abu Halima said that when her family was hit, “fire came from the bodies of my husband and my children.” “The children were screaming, ‘Fire! Fire!’ and there was smoke everywhere and a horrible, suffocating smell,” she said. “My 14-year-old cried out, ‘I’m going to die. I want to pray.’ I saw [...]
- Gaza’s Aftermath
The three week long shooting-fish-in-a-barrel exercise killed, on the Palestinian side, 280 children and minors, 111 women, and 503 male noncombatants. Gaza police accounted for 167 of the dead; can you just read off Gaza police as “Hamas militants”? Or were they traffic cops & etc.? The Palestinian Center for Human rights estimated that the [...]
- Long Live Gaza’s Tunnels
TV images on Wednesday showed a truck being filled with petrol, apparently smuggled in through a tunnel. And on Thursday, one tunnel owner told Reuters: “Soon it will be operational, I will not bring drugs or weapons, I plan to use it to bring in what people need most – food and fuel, and that [...]
- Arrogant to the End
After ruling, Cheney becomes sole authority on determining which of his records will be released. (more…)
- Bill Fletcher on the Massacre in Gaza
The media continued to make excuses around the Israeli operations in Gaza. What was striking was the attacks on the United Nations facilities, which under other circumstances would have brought outrage in the major media in the United States; certainly if Hamas had accidentally hit a United Nations facility, there would have been charges of [...]
- We’re Waiting, Mr. Obama
But Mr. Obama must be mindful not to delay too much. Through no fault of his own, he has inherited a system in which many detainees have been held for years without a meaningful review of their cases. They have been denied the opportunity to scrutinize the evidence against them or to gather and present [...]
- Very Revealing
Victor Navasky of the Nation magazine apparently considers Obama to be a paragon of the left—and not of the center. As he puts it, “he seems to me a liberal wolf in centrist sheep’s clothing”. This verdict explains a lot about that particular magazine’s reporting: the state of the American left. Pathetic.
