Photo credit Palestine Solidarity Campaign @ Flickr... Read more
The results weren't nearly as dire as many predicted. The Israeli elections last month didn't bring about a complete victory for the far right (and Israel's far-right is very far indeed!). Right-wing prime minister Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu's Likud Party, in alliance with the right-wing extremist Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) party, lost at least 10 seats.... Read more
Okay, so it takes a certain panache to invoke an old-fashioned anti-Semitic trope that insults Jews AND an anti-Arab racist slur against Palestinians – simultaneously. But there you have it – in one brief "your culture" remark to Jewish donors, Romney managed to piss off pretty much everyone in the Middle East.It's all about Jewish culture, apparently – you know, Jews are so good with money?... Read more
This is an extraordinary time. The astonishing Occupy Wall Street movement emerged as the heart of our 99%, claimed the little scrap of earth in Zuccotti Park on behalf of all of us, and created a live-in soapbox from which to challenge inequality — how the 1% controls our economy, buys off our government, imposes their wars, and avoids paying their taxes. It both reflects and marks an end to... Read more
Take away the crass political motives, and what is left in the U.S. plan to veto Palestinian membership in the UN can be summed up in one word: chutzpah. The U.S. is threatening to veto a resolution aimed at achieving something Washington claims it supports — a Palestinian state [truncated, still-occupied, demilitarized and divided but nominally independent] side by side with Israel — because... Read more
In the April 18, 2011 issue of The Hindu, newspaper Mr. C. R. Gharekhan outlined parameters that India among other countries should propose as the basis for settling the Israel-Palestine dispute. Since Mr. Gharekhan is a former official envoy of the Indian government to West Asia he can be taken as expressing the views of certain circles which do have significant influence in shaping the... Read more
Escuchar la entrevista con Mariano Aguirre... Read more
En esta sociedad, el conflicto con los palestinos es importante, pero no el único. Mayor preocupación causa una posible amenaza nuclear iraní, un ataque de Hezbolah desde Líbano o una guerra con Siria. Sin embargo, como consecuencia del conflicto con los palestinos, el país sufre una fuerte crisis de legitimidad debido a las críticas y las campañas de boicots internacionales. Israel es un... Read more
The breathless will-they-won't-they coverage wasn't quite as extreme this time, but there's still been way more attention paid to the latest U.S. "settlement freeze" offer to Netanyahu than it deserves. What's supposed to be the main point of it all -- new negotiations leading to something remotely resembling a just, lasting and comprehensive peace -- is simply not on the agenda of either... Read more
Rumors are floating around about why Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was in Washington – again – last week when Israel’s official top diplomat, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, is nowhere to be seen. This was Barak’s seventh visit to DC; Lieberman has been here exactly once.... Read more
