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For much of the past two years Israel stood sphinx-like on the sidelines of Syria’s civil war. Did it want Bashar al-Assad’s regime toppled? Did it favour military intervention to help opposition forces? And what did it think of the increasing visibility of Islamist groups in Syria? It was difficult to guess.

In recent weeks, however, Israel has moved from relative inaction to a deepening involvement in Syrian affairs. It launched two air strikes on Syrian positions last month, and at the same time fomented claims that Damascus had used chemical weapons, in what looked suspiciously like an attempt to corner …

In the wake of having its illegal domestic surveillance dragnet exposed, laying bare (yet again) the utter duplicity and criminality of the U.S. ruling class, Washington is once again digging deep to conjure up a pretext for yet another war of aggression in the Middle East.

Using the tired menace of weapons of mass destruction, the White House Thursday claimed with “high confidence” that the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons, specifically the nerve agent sarin, against rebel fighters.

Washington’s announcement of “credible evidence” of chemical weapons use by Syrian forces, coming despite a dearth of actual …

Ongoing revelations by The Guardian and The Washington Post of massive, illegal secret state surveillance of the American people along with advanced plans for waging offensive cyberwarfare on a global scale, including inside the US, underscores what Antifascist Calling has reported throughout the five years of our existence: that democracy and democratic institutions in the United States are dead letters.

Last week, Guardian investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed that NSA “is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.”

That …

In an interview with the French TV station LCP, former French minister for Foreign Affairs Roland Dumas said:

I’m going to tell you something. I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria.

This was in Britain not in America. Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer minister for foreign affairs, if I would like to participate.

Naturally, I refused, I said I’m French, that doesn’t interest me.

Dumas went on …

The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.

Dov Weisglass, advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister in 2006

In 2005 Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza. Following this there were democratic elections which Hamas won. Since voting the “wrong way” the Palestinian people of Gaza have been subjected to a siege by Israel. The Palestinian people of Gaza are blockaded by land, sea and air by the Israeli Defence Force.

The EU and America have failed to do anything to stop Israel’s war against the Palestinians of Gaza. Most notable were the …

The Turkish Health Ministry issued a threat to take medical licenses to practice away from doctors who have been providing treatment to the protesters in Istanbul. They are also demanding the names of all medical volunteers including Emergency Medicine Technicians. This threat constitutes a violation of the human right of the protesters to receive treatment and the principle of medical neutrality.

Since May 27, peaceful protesters have been occupying Gezi Park in Istanbul, Turkey. The park is the last green space within the city and it was set to be demolished to build another of many shopping centers. What started …

The Lab is a new groundbreaking Israeli documentary film that redefines our entire understanding of the Jewish State, its aims, its identity and its global destructive role. I honestly believe that this film is the deepest and most important commentary on Israel.

In The Lab, Director Yotam Feldman exposes the Israeli military industry and its operation, he interviews some major protagonists within Israel’s ‘security’ trade. He elaborates on the role of the industry within the Israeli society and economy; in the last few years Israeli security exports reached an unprecedented level of $7 billion a year. A full 20% of …

It’s a pretty sad spectacle watching the US Congress toading up to the National Security Agency. With the exception of a few stalwarts like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and to a lesser extent Ron Wyden (D-OR), most of the talk in the halls of Congress is about how to keep the army of Washington private contractors from accessing too many of the government’s secrets (which need to be protected by government employees!), and about whether to try NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden for treason.

NSA Director James Clapper was able to lie bald-facedly to the Senate Intelligence Committee last week without even …

On July 1, interest rates will double for millions of students – from 3.4% to 6.8% – unless Congress acts; and the legislative fixes on the table are largely just compromises. Only one proposal promises real relief – Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s “Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act.” This bill has been dismissed out of hand as “shameless populist demagoguery” and “a cheap political gimmick,” but is it? Or could Warren’s outside-the-box bill represent the sort of game-changing thinking sorely needed to turn the economy around?
Warren and her co-sponsor John Tierney propose that students be allowed to borrow directly from the …

You strangle us [for decades] and then you criticize us for the way we breathe.

— Fidel Castro

Cubans came to our region as doctors, teachers, soldiers, agricultural experts, but never as colonizers. They have shared the same trenches with us in the struggle against colonialism, underdevelopment, and apartheid. Hundreds of Cubans have given their lives, literally, in a struggle that was, first and foremost, not theirs but ours. As Southern Africans we salute them. We vow never to forget this unparalleled example of selfless internationalism. We wish also to record our indebtedness to Cuban hospitality. In particular, tens of thousands of …

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For some years an international campaign has been gradually building – ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. The goal is a treaty banning nuclear weapons, a Convention such as the Landmine Convention and the Cluster Munitions Convention. It will follow the same process, and requires enough nations, supported by their citizens, to sign up to it, bring it into being and then to ratify it. Once ratified, the development, possession and use of nuclear weapons becomes illegal. The beauty of this approach is that it sidesteps the bogged-down Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in which states that have undertaken …

Unreported in the mainstream press is the dramatic long-term hunger strike by a group of Americans in solidarity with the hunger strikers in Guantanamo prison. The fasters include CODEPINK cofounder Diane Wilson (on a water-only fast since May 1), Veterans for Peace member Brian Wilson (May 12), and former president of Veterans for Peace, Elliott Adams. Below is an interview with Elliott Adams, who began his hunger strike on May 17.

Medea Benjamin:  Why did you decide to take this dramatic action, which entails such personal sacrifice?

Elliott Adams:  What is happening in Guantanamo is despicable. Just think about it: 86 prisoners …

The news broke this week that the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela has finished an audit of the April 14th elections and, according to an ABC report, bylined by Christopher Toothaker, “as expected it confirmed Nicolas Maduro’s 1.5 percentage-point victory.”

I was a supporter of the Bolivarian government up until very recently (as anyone who has seen my film, Venezuela: Revolution from the Inside Out, 2008, PM Press, will know). My piece about the Venezuelan guarimbas, or election protests, two days into my month-long journey through a …

A few years ago I was watching a boxing match on television that featured a black fighter whom I’ll call “Sam Smith,” squaring off against a white fighter whom I’ll call “ Joe Jones.” Although I’ve long since forgotten the boxers’ names, their weight class, and who won the fight, I do remember wishing I had a 10-pound barbell to throw at the TV screen.

Typically, boxers wear trunks that are readily distinguishable from each other. For whatever reason, that wasn’t the case in this match; both fighters were wearing shiny black trunks. Smith’s trunks had a narrow, light blue vertical …

The French were right: the best way to deal with the rich is to behead them – at least figuratively, if not physically. Opposing capital punishment does not mean that the ruling class; i.e. the rich, should be exempt from punishment or consequences for their crimes against the poor – it only means that unnecessary killing is unwarranted. By disenfranchising the rich, distributing their money to the people they have stolen it from, and ensuring that they will be powerless to commit similar crimes in the future, the guillotine can remain a bloody remnant of history, instead of a portent …