Israel, it seems, has found a new weapon against Palestinian attacks – the humble cucumber seed.
Soldiers have been handing out seeds at checkpoints with advice to Palestinians – a nation of farmers until their lands were swallowed up by Jewish settlements – to stop their recent knife attacks on Israelis and invest in a peaceful future.
Palestinians were not fooled. The seeds, the packets revealed, were produced by the very settlements that corralled them into their urban enclaves.
Israel’s image-laundering is directed at western nations that have propped up the occupation – economically and diplomatically – for decades. As ever, Israel hopes to …
Coercive Engineered Migration: Zionism's War on Europe (Part 5 of an 11 Part Series)
by Gearóid Ó Colmáin / January 27th, 2016
Prometheism was a political project initiated by Polish dictator Josef Pilsudski in the early 20th century. The project aimed to promote separatist and nationalist movements in the non-Russian peoples of the Russian Empire. The breakup of the Russian Federation is a key strategic ambition of NATO. In this sense, the encirclement and destabilization of Russia could be described as neo-prometheism.
In a talk for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in February 4th, 2015 entitled ‘Europe: Destined for Conflict?’, George Friedman of Stratfor argued that US geopolitics in Europe is based on the objective of keeping Russia divided from the European …
CBS’s 60 Minutes often provides important information about vulnerable and suffering Americans. Last Sunday, the program centered on billionaires sharing their wealth with the needy and forgotten people in some states deprived of health care, though the 60 Minutes segment doesn’t use the word deprived.
Where 60 Minutes fails in the health care segment involves not informing the audience about the real circumstances leading to the exclusion of health care services we all have a right to enjoy.
The 60 Minutes segment focuses on two registered nurses who drive the Health Wagon through six counties in the Appalachian area, providing free health …
Japan aspires to a prominent position on the world stage in accordance with it eminent economic power. But is economic clout by itself sufficient to gain its desired standing?
Japan, composed of the four main islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, is the world’s third largest economy. Japan’s territory, however, is far more encompassing. From the tail end of Kyushu …
The world is undergoing a populist revival. From the revolt against austerity led by the Syriza Party in Greece and the Podemos Party in Spain, to Jeremy Corbyn’s surprise victory as Labour leader in the UK, to Donald Trump’s ascendancy in the Republican polls, to Bernie Sanders’ surprisingly strong challenge to Hillary Clinton – contenders with their fingers on the popular pulse are surging ahead of their establishment rivals.
Today’s populist revolt mimics an earlier one that reached its peak in the US in the 1890s. Then it was all about challenging Wall Street, reclaiming the government’s power to create money, …
At its Annual General Meeting last weekend the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) threw out a proposal to seek Israel’s expulsion from the United Nations.
Chairman Hugh Lanning is reported to have kicked off proceedings on a positive note saying: “Let us recommit to Palestine to make sure that we make a difference in the coming year.”
But the mask slipped when a motion was put for the PSC’s Executive Committee to “request the Government of the United Kingdom, enforced by a petition and lobbying, to submit a motion to the Security Council recommending that the General Assembly expel Israel from the UN …
It was reported in the past week that Palestinian Authority (PA) paramilitary police have acted in coordination with Israeli authorities to arrest around 100 Palestinians since October. This won’t come as a surprise to seasoned Palestinian commentators, many of whom have long criticised “coordination” as a means of securing Israel’s occupation at the expense of Palestinian human rights.
The PA is the West Bank’s largest employer, and around one third of its annual budget is allocated to ‘security and public order’ – more than health and education combined. All new recruits are …
Whenever Mariam Aljamal’s children hear the sound of thunder at night, they wet their beds. Their reaction is almost instinctive, and is shared by a large number of children throughout the Gaza Strip.
Mariam’s three children – Jamal, Lina and Sarah – were all born a few years after the Gaza siege was first imposed in 2006, and all of them have experienced at least one Israeli war.
“My kids feel scared when the electricity goes off, which is most of the time,” says the 33-year-old mother …
A gray three year-old SUV blows a tire, skids into the break down lane, then flips over twice. Its four passengers are smothered in air bags. There is silence.
A driver who witnessed the entire incident from a hundred yards behind pulls over, checks out the situation, shrugs, then gets back on the highway and drives away. He is late for a speech he is scheduled to deliver on “Living Well is the Be All and End All.”
A second motorist, on the opposite side of the road, pulls over as well. Observing the accident scene and the first driver’s actions, she …
In recent years, the conception of the psychopath has gained a new upsurge of interest. Popular culture’s sensational image of Hannibal Lecter in the movie Silence of the Lambs and notorious killers like Ted Bundy have long cultivated public fascination. Now, awareness is spreading beyond these portrayals of outlandish criminals. More people are beginning to recognize the existence of socialized psychopaths who are not so outwardly violent.
Psychopaths walk among us, quietly blending into society. They could be corporate CEOs who exploit their workers, politicians who lie to get elected or Don Juan-like womanizers who inspire love to play with others …
The British government, whose foreign policy is overtly hostile to their Russian counterpart, declared last week that their investigation into the killing of a former Russian intelligence agent in London nearly a decade ago concluded there is a “strong probability” the Russian FSB security agency was responsible for poisoning Alexander Litivenko with plutonium. They further declared that Russian President Vladimir Putin “probably approved” of the act. The British investigation, which was likely politically motivated, seemingly raised more questions than it answered. But American corporate media were quick to use the accusations against Putin to demonize him, casting him as a …
Seven years ago this month and three days after Barack Obama assumed the presidency on January 20, 2009, the first drone strike of his administration took place–in a small village in the region of Pakistan known as North Waziristan. It targeted the family compound of Faheem Qureshi, fracturing the young teen’s skull and destroying one of his eyes, while killing, among others, two of his uncles and a 21-year-old cousin. The White House’s intended target, it was later revealed, was not, nor had he ever been, present at the site. About ten months later, the Norwegian Nobel …
David Cameron’s Spurious Defence of British Veterans
by Lesley Docksey / January 25th, 2016
The PM is right to draw a line in the sand, to protect the freedom with which the military has to operate…
— General Lord Dannatt, ex-Chief of Staff
Prime Minister David Cameron is getting himself all wound up about the nasty slurs on ‘our brave boys’; ‘our brave servicemen and women who fought in Iraq’; ‘the people who risk their lives to keep our country safe’; the veterans of Britain’s illegal invasion of Iraq. Of course, they must ‘act within the law’ etc… Except they didn’t.
The said ‘brave servicemen’ are in danger of being taken to court over their abusive treatment, …
The fact that a majority of Americans support a single-payer, or Medicare for all, health care system is not news. Or at least it ought not to be news, especially to veteran political journalists.
But enter the vaunted PBS Newshour, which bills itself as “one of the most trusted news programs on television.” (In fairness, that’s a medium not eliciting much in the way of stiff competition.)
On Friday’s broadcast, during the program’s weekly left/right debate segment, featuring New York Times columnist David Brooks on the right and Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus (seen burnishing her “progressive” credentials here) on the “left,” the topic of discussion …
I feel it’s necessary to respond to Roger Harris/Chuck Kaufman’s recent article in Dissident Voice (and elsewhere), not because they inaccurately depicted my own personal political perspective on Venezuela (which, indeed, they did), but because I think it’s important to point out a very significant division in the Left in general that their article only obliquely refers to. This division is largely ignored, and I think it has profound consequences that need to be considered if we on the left hope to have any relevance in the future. I hope readers will bear with …
On 26 January, one of the saddest days in human history, will be celebrated in Australia. It will be “a day for families”, say the newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch. Flags will be dispensed at street corners and displayed on funny hats. People will say incessantly how proud they are.
For many, there is relief and gratitude. In my lifetime, non-indigenous Australia has changed from an Anglo-Irish society to one of the most ethnically diverse on earth. Those we used to call “New Australians” often choose 26 January, “Australia Day”, to be sworn …
George Jonas died on January 10th in Toronto. The Hungarian born Canadian writer, who was a brilliant and successful journalist, broadcaster, essayist, librettist and poet, died at age 80. No cause of death has been given, but he had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Jonas, who was well-known throughout Canada, was the subject of numerous newspaper obituaries and fond remembrances there. (See 1, 2, 3).
In the United States, Israel, and among Jews throughout the world, the name George Jonas is solely recognized as the writer of the 1984 book, Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli …
I’m learning one thing good,” she said. “Learnin’ it all the time, ever’ day. If you’re in trouble or hurt or need – go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones.
— Ma Joad, from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
Decades ago I was scheming about how to get homeless people out of their dilemma. The mountain they have to climb is steep. If you’re on the street, it’s pretty hard to move from there to a good job, because you don’t even have a place to shower or wash your clothes. Many are mentally …
Coercive Engineered Migration: Zionism's War on Europe (Part 4 of an 11 Part Series)
by Gearóid Ó Colmáin / January 24th, 2016
Austrian intelligence officials have reportedly revealed that US government agencies are paying for the transport of migrants to Europe. On August 5th, 2015 Austrian magazine Infodirektreported:
It has come to our knowledge that US organisations are paying for the boats taking thousands of refugees to Europe. US organisations have created a co-financing scheme which provides for a considerable portion of the transportation costs. Not every refugee from North Africa has 11,000 Euro cash. Nobody is asking, where is the money coming from?
French government officials have also been caught selling life boats to refugees in Turkey. France’s France 2 Television …
Al-Hussinieh was the first quarter in Damascus and its countryside to witness a reconciliation which allowed its residents to return and live there.
The reconciliation process took 3 months to be achieved, and it followed a bloody three-year war in the village which led locals to evacuate it because of the clashes between the Syrian army and armed groups, but now, after the reconciliation, life is gradually getting back to normal.
Today, I want to speak about the once-in-a-generation chance we have, together, to improve the way we enhance the cause of human rights, freedom and dignity.
— David Cameron. Speech on the European Court of Human Rights, January 25. 2012
In June of 2014, speaking in his official residence,10 Downing Street, Prime Minister David Cameron gave a speech on business:
“Britain has huge creative clout around the world …From Asia to America, they’re dancing to our music, watching our films and wearing our designers’ latest creations”, he trilled.
He omitted to say “and dying under our bombs.”
In December, United Nations High Commissioner for Human …
The Paris Attacks, the current flood of migration, and the incidents in Cologne on New Year’s Eve: it is hard to tell fact from fiction these days; the lines separating these incidents become increasingly blurred. What they have in common: they illustrate the supposed threat under which we all live. The German media does not get tired of stressing and discussing the ungraspable foreign threat. However, beyond engaging in discussions deliberately inciting public fear of terror, and discussions that either condemn or romanticize the refugee, the crucial point is to see how these incidents create dynamics that will fundamentally change …
The latest Oxfam report on poverty and inequality in our dysfunctional world makes a depressing read. It shows that the chasm between the richest 1% and the rest of humanity has considerably widened in the last few years. One statistic that is truly shocking is the number of people whose wealth is equal to that of the poorest half of the world’s population (3.6 billion people); this number has gone down from 388 in 2010 to 62 in 2015.
These 62 people have a combined wealth of a staggering $1,760 billion, averaging $28.387 billion per individual. What …
Anybody who thinks they can buy me doesn’t know me.
–Hillary Clinton, The Hill, January 22, 2016
Hillary Clinton may still win the Democratic Primary race when the final votes limp through. But if she does, negativity and evasion will be her masters. Oh, and the motor of finance.
Clinton shares with her husband an insatiable appetite for speaking fees. Her words, and presence, are up for sale, and there are organisations and companies happy to throw money the way of Clinton Inc. This is a system of collusion that seemingly has no end, but at its core is …
Hundreds of displaced Syrians have been able to return to their homes in a district in southern Damascus. This comes as part of a reconciliation deal between the Syrian government and foreign-backed militants. Press TV’s Mohamad Ali has more on the story from the Syrian capital.
Part 2: Turkey vs ISIS: Where's the New Caliphate Now?
by Eric Walberg / January 22nd, 2016
In Part I, Erdogan’s mounting dilemmas—ISIS terrorism, Kurdish resistance, Assad’s Syria alive and well—showed how his bid for regional hegemony has gone awry. His pact with the ISIS devil, as long as they target Kurds, just made things worse. Davutoglu’s dream of a “common history and a common future” for the Middle East under Turkish guidance is now in history’s dustbin. The Turkish plan for a “global, political, economic and cultural new order” in the Middle East remains in the hands of the US and, of course, Israel.
Israeli rationale
Israel has been noncommittal about Syria since the uprising …
“Hate” is a word and an emotion which should be used as sparingly as possible, to be saved for only the most despicable forces, conditions, and beings. I dislike liver and onions, driving on black ice, and ear infections, but hate war, poverty, and corporations. Hatred is reserved for only those people, places, and things which threaten Pachamama and the future existence of all life forms. At least two of my relatives would strongly disapprove of me including corporations on my hate list, but neither of them pays any attention to my thoughts or ramblings anyway. One is a rising …
Tribal children in the African rainforests have been paid in glue to sniff, and alcohol, in return for menial work, a new Survival International report has revealed.
The report found instances of market traders in the Republic of Congo plying children from the Bayaka tribe with glue in 2013, in exchange for cleaning out latrines.
In Cameroon Baka tribespeople, illegally evicted from their forest homes, are often paid in five glasses of moonshine in exchange for half a day’s manual labor. A combination of poverty and depression caused by the theft of their land forces many to turn …
Terrorism has many forms and many faces, but the most terrible of them is cold cruelty.
We are asked to believe that terrorists consist of dirty lunatics, running around with bombs, machine guns and explosive belts. That’s how we are told to imagine them.
Many of them are bearded; almost all are “foreign looking”, non-white, non-Western. In summary they are wife beaters, child rapists and Greek and Roman statue destroyers.
Actually, during the Cold War, there were some white looking “terrorists” – the left-wingers belonging to several revolutionary cells, in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. But only now we are learning that the …
