Latest articles
by Gilad Atzmon / July 30th, 2014
IDF’s colossal defeat in Gaza this week leaves Israel and Israelis with just three political and personal options:
1. Mass expulsion – ethnic cleansing of the entire Palestinian population from territories controlled by Israel. Such action may sound unreasonable or even phantasmic, but it is actually consistent with Zionist ideology and has many supporters within Israel and within the current Israeli cabinet. Moreover, oppression and brutality are embedded within Jewish political culture and even within the culture of the Jewish Left. ((It was Stalin’s ‘willing executioners’ who wiped out millions of Ukrainians in the name …
by Ramzy Baroud / July 30th, 2014
To some, US secretary of state John Kerry may have appeared to be a genuine peacemaker as he floated around ideas during a Cairo visit on 25 July about a ceasefire between Israel and resisting Palestinian fighters in Gaza. But behind his measured diplomatic language, there is a truth not even America’s top diplomat can easily hide. His country is very much involved in fighting this dirty war on Gaza that has killed over 1,050, injured thousands more, and destroyed much of an already poor, dilapidated space that is barely inhabitable to begin with.
US economic and military aid …
The Moral Failure Of The West
by Paul Craig Roberts / July 29th, 2014
Readers are asking for my take on the Israel-Gaza situation, and, believe it or not, Oxford University’s famous debating society, the Oxford Union, invited me to debate the issue.
I replied to the Oxford Union that I was unprepared to take responsibility for the Palestinians without undergoing the extensive preparation that an Oxford Union debate deserves and requires. Unless things have changed since my time at Oxford, one prevails in a Union debate by anticipating every argument of one’s opponent and smashing the arguments with humor and wit. Facts seldom, if ever, carry the day, and sometimes not even wit and …
by Kim Petersen / July 29th, 2014
by Roger Tucker / July 29th, 2014
It is only right and fitting that a proper response be made to the OpEd written by Moshe Feiglin, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, and head of the Manhigut Yehudit (“Jewish Leadership”) faction of Israel’s governing Likud party, entitled “My Outline for a Solution in Gaza” and published in Arutz Sheva on July 15th, 2014.
1. An international commission should be established to bring Israel and its supporters to account for its ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, dating back to the first terrorist attacks on Palestinian and British targets in Palestine by the Irgun and other Jewish terrorist organizations …
by Jonathan Cook / July 29th, 2014
I really wonder what it says about the Guardian or its readers that it publishes an article like this one by Yuli Novak, a former Israeli air force officer. The discourse, even on the left, is still so degraded on the issue of Israel-Palestine that this seems to pass for progressive thought.
I am also appalled that I almost find myself pleased that this former soldier, an insider, is telling us that Israel is acting immorally in its current attack on Gaza. But in doing so she bolsters a patently ridiculous mythology that, for most of its history, Israel had a moral army – the …
An interview with Nicolas Krameyer of Amnesty International France
by Angola 3 News / July 29th, 2014
Amnesty International France and La Boîte à Bulles have published a 128-page French language graphic novel entitled Panthers in the Hole. The book’s co-authors David Cénou and Bruno Cénou present with visual art what Amnesty France describes as “la tragique histoire des Trois d’Angola” (the tragic story of the Angola 3).
Robert H. King, Herman Wallace, and Albert Woodfox are the trio of Black Panther political prisoners known collectively as the Angola 3. On October 1, 2013 Herman Wallace was dramatically released from prison after 41 years in solitary confinement. At the time of his release, he had …
In the mainstream media, silence
by Kate Bond / July 28th, 2014
Most people know Geneva as the hub of the UN. Slick and cosmopolitan, it is Switzerland’s second most populous city, with a population of 200,000 and a patchwork of nationalities. A massive forty per cent of its inhabitants are foreigners. Understandably, given its central role in international affairs, it is no stranger to the world stage, but on Saturday you’d have been forgiven for overlooking it. Why? Because, like millions, Genevans turned out in their thousands to condemn Israel’s attacks on Gaza and the mainstream media ignored them.
I came across the protest by accident as I made my way home. …
by Gilad Atzmon / July 28th, 2014
As one of the first to predict an immanent Israeli defeat in this round of violence, I was delighted to read this morning that Zionist mouthpiece Jeffrey Goldberg admits that Israel has lost the war. “Why Is Israel Losing a War It’s Winning?” asks Goldberg. The Jewish State is a regional super power, its lobbies dominate Western politics, it is technologically superior, so what could have gone wrong?
Jeffrey Goldberg, a veteran Israeli concentration camp guard produces a few uniquely amusing arguments that deserve our attention.
He writes, “In a fight between a state actor …
by James Petras / July 28th, 2014
Chaos reigns and spreads as enraged leaders in the US, Europe and their clients and allies pursue genocidal wars.
Mercenary wars in Syria; Israel’s terror bombing on Gaza; proxy wars in the Ukraine, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Somalia.
Tens of millions of refugees flee scenes of total destruction. Nothing is sacred. There are no sanctuaries. Homes, schools, hospitals and entire families are targeted for destruction.
Chaos by Design
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by William Hanna / July 28th, 2014
Israel should have exploited the repression of demonstrations in China, when world attention was focussed on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories.
— Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to students at Bar Ilan University (from the journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.
On Saturday (Jewish Sabbath) 27 December 2008, while the gutless and hypocrisy-ridden West was still preoccupied with its seasonal glutinous overindulgence and goodwill towards all men — except Palestinians — Israel yet again proceeded to “defend” itself against 1.8 million virtually unarmed Palestinian civilians who for some 60 years had been waiting for a state of …
by James Hoover / July 28th, 2014
The August 2014 Scientific American article, “A New Kind of Inheritance” got me thinking about the tragedies of autism and similar developmental disorders. Autism is a fearsome condition which seems to have no attributable cause and no effective treatment. In too many cases, children are sentenced to a disability that thwarts a promising life, including extra care needs by parents, and communication disorders.
In other words, its cause and cure have stumped science, helping to launch suspicion and distrust of once accepted common practices, such as, for example, vaccinations against diseases like measles and smallpox. Looking for its cause and fearful …
by Robert Hunziker / July 28th, 2014
America’s single most pressing issue for the foreseeable future is a changing climate, more important than immigration, health care, or the ever-present wars because those can be fixed. The changing climate cannot be fixed. Once broken it stays broken, and it gets worse and worse until life becomes unbearable, too late to fix.
In that regard, it is believed that a small nucleus of people is behind the climate denial movement in America, and they have been successful. The U.S. Congress has thumbed its nose on the climate issue whilst its in-house deniers talk about how “the climate always changes” and …
by Harvey E. Whitney, Jr. / July 27th, 2014
In response to John Andrews’ reflections upon my most recent article “The ‘People’s Thesis’ in Environmental History the History of Ideas, and its Relevance to Cultural Studies”, it is apparent that Mr. Andrews did not comprehend the meaning of the people’s thesis but also asserted that the people’s thesis was a construction on my part. The term “people’s thesis” is a construction, not unlike when one names a group of objects that are equilateral, isosceles, and obtuse, “triangles”. Not all constructions are bad (more on that in a moment) and what “the people’s thesis” refers to, the specific …
Don’t expect to live much longer
by Paul Craig Roberts / July 27th, 2014
European governments and the Western media have put the world at risk by enabling Washington’s propaganda and aggression against Russia.
Washington has succeeded in using transparent lies to demonize Russia as a dangerous aggressive country led by a new Hitler or a new Stalin, just as Washington succeeded in demonizing Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Qaddafi in Libya, Assad in Syria, Chavez in Venezuela, and, of course, Iran.
The real demons–Clinton, Bush, Obama–are “the exceptional and indispensable people” above the reach of demonization. Their horrific real crimes go unnoticed, while fictitious crimes are attributed to the unexceptional and dispensable …
The School of Kindness Project
by John Andrews / July 27th, 2014
One of the main reasons that so many millions of basically good and decent people at first volunteered, and then complied with being conscripted, to take part in one of the greatest mass abominations in human history, known as the First World War, was ignorance. The vast majority of those people were not stupid people, they were merely victims of an ancient and unspeakably evil political system that had always seen fit to ensure that ordinary men and women never understood that as far as their great trusted leaders were concerned their lives were of no more importance than the …
by Walter Brasch / July 27th, 2014
A group of white gun-rights advocates plan to sling rifles, shotguns, and semi-automatic assault weapons onto their bodies, and walk through a Black neighborhood in Houston.
What could possibly go wrong with that?!
The march through Houston’s Fifth Ward is planned for August 16 to “educate” Texans about their rights to openly carry firearms.
To deflect criticism that the march is racially-insensitive, the testosterone-enhanced group, apparently with straight faces to hide its freeze-dried minds, says all it wants is for racial equality.
It says because the state charges $250 for a gun permit, it unfairly discriminates against Blacks who have twice the poverty rate …
Are Ukraine and Gaza both part of the same war?
by William Boardman / July 26th, 2014
The same day that Israeli tanks crossed into Gaza, to continue killing civilians and the occasional Hamas fighter, MSNBC decided to ignore the Israeli invasion in favor of wall-to-wall coverage of the presumed shoot-down of Malaysian Airliner MH17 over eastern Ukraine. Why would MSNBC make a choice that looks so much like propaganda?
The last time the Israelis invaded Gaza, in 2009, more than 100 Palestinians died for each Israeli killed. The 13 dead Israelis were soldiers on the attack, the 1,400-plus dead Palestinians were mostly civilians with nowhere safe to go. That hasn’t changed much.
The last …
As US Empire fades, we must choose our path forward
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / July 26th, 2014
World history is filled with empires, e.g. the Roman and Byzantine empires, the European colonial empires, various ancient Iranian empires, the Arab Caliphate and Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union to name a few. These historic empires have one thing in common: they no longer exist. As the lifecycle of empire wanes, rather than being a benefit to the home country, sustaining empire becomes more expensive than it is worth.
While the US economy and military remain the largest in the world, the economy is faltering and losing its vitality. Chalmers Johnson, a CIA analyst who became a critic of the agency …
by Stuart Littlewood / July 26th, 2014
Today in London crowds are gathering to vent their anger in a mass demonstration and march to Parliament to “stop the massacre in Gaza” and call for an arms embargo against Israel. This follows last weekend’s huge protest outside the Israeli embassy and campaigns against the BBC’s pro-Israel bias in reporting the assault on Gaza.
There is growing resentment among British people at being endlessly shamed by their government’s complicity in the mega-injustices and non-stop crimes inflicted on the native people of the Holy Land, exemplified by Whitehall’s attempts to whitewash Israel’s latest genocidal offensive.
And on this the 19th day of …
by Walter C. Uhler / July 26th, 2014
“In the period from July 14th to 19th, 2014 we witness a catastrophic increase (of 3473 people, or 47%) in the number of deserters in the units of the Army and the National Guard – in comparison with last week’s numbers (1847 people, 25%).? Apart from that, during the stated period the number of missing in action had increased as well (1344 people, 47%, last week – 344 people, 10%).
This phenomenon is connected to increased activity of the enemy in the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions as well as to the increase in the number of casualties in the ranks …
by John Andrews / July 26th, 2014
A recent essay by Harvey E. Whitney, Jr., titled “The ‘People’s Thesis’ in Environmental History,” opens by saying that it’s “chic” to analyse “history and/or ideas” with a “prominent platform” to something called the “people’s thesis”.
It’s a bit difficult to comment accurately on the piece because the expression “people’s thesis”, which the writer suggests is his own construct rather than some commonly understood expression, isn’t clearly defined. Therefore, given the absence of this fundamental piece of information, making sense of his argument is problematic. So ordinarily I wouldn’t bother to try. However, reading the article gave me a …
by Dan Lieberman / July 25th, 2014
The media emphasizes the emotional aspect of tragedy, and the public responds with tears and regrets, rarely giving attention to the illogic that caused the tragedy. When illogic is a governing factor in the violence against people, it elevates the calamity to a criminal action. Feeling sorrow for the victim is warranted but insufficient; thought must complement emotion and enforce justice against the perpetrator.
In the war on Gaza, commentary has evaded logical analysis and presented causes and actions as gut reactions to unforeseen events. Logic, the opposite of emotion, may seem cold and indifferent, but syllogism, “a formal argument in …
by Ellen Brown / July 25th, 2014
One thing to be said for the women now heading the Federal Reserve and the IMF: compared to some of their predecessors, they are refreshingly honest. The Wall Street Journal reported on July 2nd:
Two of the world’s most powerful women of finance sat down for a lengthy discussion Wednesday on the future of monetary policy in a post-crisis world: U.S. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde. Before a veritable who’s-who in international economics packing the IMF’s largest conference hall, the two covered all the hottest topics in debate among the world’s central bankers, financiers and economists.
Among those hot topics …
by Thorsten Pattberg / July 25th, 2014
BERLIN – Following German media’s recent campaigning against massive USA/CIA/NSA spy activities in Berlin (and the Pentagon’s prosaic indifference) evokes what the Germans call ‘Fremdschämen’ –the feeling of shame for the embarrassment of others: What were the Germans thinking, anyway? That they were special? Equal? Bosom buddies, perhaps, on a par with the world’s sole superpower?
The Emperor Is Naked
The background story is swiftly told: After Edward Snowden, the US dissident, revealed secret documents in June 2013 about the greatest surveillance scheme in the history of mankind, it is now certain that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had …
by Paul Craig Roberts / July 25th, 2014
Despite the conclusion by US intelligence that there is no evidence of Russian involvement in the destruction of the Malaysian airliner and all lives onboard, Washington is escalating the crisis and shepherding it toward war.
Twenty-two US senators have introduced into the 113th Congress, Second Session, a bill, S.2277, “To prevent further Russian aggression toward Ukraine and other sovereign states in Europe and Eurasia, and for other purposes.” The bill is before the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Note that prior to any evidence of any Russian aggression, there are already 22 senators lined up in behalf of preventing further Russian …
by Daniel Borgström / July 25th, 2014
The Sunday, July 20 FREE PALESTINE rally gathered at the Justin Herman Plaza, near the Ferry Building in San Francisco. I got there as it was beginning, shortly after 3 p.m. The crowd already appeared to number a thousand, and more were arriving. People kept streaming in. By 4:15 p.m. when the march began, the plaza was brim full. So how many people does it take to fill that plaza? I wondered. Thousands, obviously — but how many thousands?
After the march I looked online for estimates from various other events at the plaza and found an article about the …
Baghdadi, Obama, Netanyahu, Porashenko and Abe
by John Stanton / July 25th, 2014
You know, they’re schemers: Schemers trying to control their worlds. I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are…You know what, you know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go according to plan: Even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that like a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all part of the plan.
— Heath Ledger’s Joker, The Dark Knight, 2008
They did not repent of their murders, their sorcery, their immorality, or …
by Paul Haeder / July 24th, 2014
Here is what the DNA of many Jewish Israelis is all entwined with, whether academic (sic), politician (sic), businessman/woman (sic), with or without dual USA-Tel Aviv citizenship (sic) – bombing clinics, women, children, developmental disabled, quadriplegics, the blind, wheelchair bound, tinker-tailor-hummus salesman, student, granny, the blind, deaf, bedridden, journalist. That is the legacy of syphilis, the seeders of Native American blankets, the gas chamber designers.
Palestinian homes are imploded hourly, with drone-guided illegality, help from USA military and academic institutions, the rotten smell of the devil coming in to view, oh how we are waiting for Hugo Chavez’s ghost to admonish …
by Kim Petersen / July 24th, 2014
I just read a piece by the antiwar activist and writer David Swanson who I usually find to be quite right-on. But his recent piece left me scratching my head. What was Swanson smoking when he wrote “The Palestinian Right and the American Left”?
He begins: “Chris Hedges says that Palestinians have the right to self-defense in the form of rockets, without including any consideration of whether the rockets make the Palestinians more or less defended. There is, after all, a reasonable argument that the rockets are counter-productive and endangering, rather than protecting, Palestine.”
I agree with Hedges, and I have …
