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Month: October 2013

Whatever Happened to Peace Talks? Israel Gets Building While Negotiations Go Nowhere
By Jonathan Cook Whatever happened to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? You could be forgiven for thinking everyone packed up shop a while ago and forgot to inform you. There’s been barely a peep about it […]

Is the U.S. Losing Saudi Arabia to China?
By Daniel Wagner and Giorgio Cafiero Saudi Arabia’s declared intention to pivot away from the U.S. in foreign policy implies a shift toward Beijing, which predates both the Obama presidency and the Arab Awakening. While […]

Drying up Ideological Wellsprings of Arab-Israeli Conflict
By Nicola Nasser Gradually, awareness that de-Zionization of the US and European foreign policy as well as the internal policies of the State of Israel has become a prerequisite for peace in the Middle East […]

Lebanon Haunted by Ghosts of Civil War
By Ramzy Baroud Throughout the years, Lebanon’s demographics have experienced periodic influx. But in the last two years, the demographic shift has become overwhelming due to the influx of Syrian refugees in desperate need of […]

5 Prisoners Transferred from West Bank Jail to Gaza Crossing
Israel transferred five Palestinian prisoners to a Gaza border crossing from the Ofer detention center in the occupied West Bank late Tuesday, ahead of their expected release. Twenty-six prisoners were due to be released late […]

PLO: Israel’s Stance in Talks Harshest in 20 Years
Israel’s negotiating position with the Palestinians in US-sponsored peace talks is the toughest it has taken since before the 1993 Oslo Accords, a senior Palestinian official said on Tuesday. “The current Israeli negotiating position is […]

Israeli Airstrikes Target Northern Gaza
Israeli airstrikes targeted the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, Israel’s army said, in the first airstrike on Gaza in over two months. “In response to the numerous rockets and mortars launched at Israel in the […]

Egypt Tunnel Closure ‘Costs Gaza $230 Million Monthly’
Egypt’s closure of tunnels used to smuggle goods into the Gaza Strip has caused monthly losses of $230 million to its economy, a Hamas official said Sunday. The “closure of the tunnels caused heavy losses […]

Talking Nonsense about Apartheid: How Come Uri Avnery Knows So Little about Israel?
By Jonathan Cook – Nazareth Yes, I know. Uri Avnery has achieved many great things as a journalist and a peace activist. He has probably done more to educate people around the world about the […]

Protests across West Bank Violently Dispersed by Israel
Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian demonstrations across the occupied West Bank on Friday, leaving several Palestinians injured and dozens suffering from excessive tear gas inhalation. Israeli forces opened fire with tear gas canisters, stun […]

Containment of Holocaust Education: Lessons Unlearned
By Zarah Louis In England, The Holocaust has been a compulsory theme in the history curriculum since 1991 and it was the first European country to make it so. So seriously is this taken that […]

Susan Abulhawa’s My Voice Sought The Wind – Poetry Review
By Vacy Vlazna Susie Abulhawa, Palestinian poet, exile, mother, lover, friend, stands naked in My Voice Sought The Wind; her collection of trenchant and beautiful poems replete with honesties and literary seductions. Reading her poems […]

UN: Palestinian Refugees in Syria Face ‘Extreme Vulnerability’
Top UN official Jeffrey Feltman emphasized Tuesday the “extreme vulnerability” of Palestinian refugees in Syria as fighting there escalates. Speaking at the Security Council, the under-secretary for political affairs also called on member nations to […]

General Abdel-Fattah Sisi is No Colonel Gamal Abdel-Nasser
By Hasan Afif El-Hasan Nasser had first-hand experience with the 1948 war in Palestine when he and his infantry battalion were besieged by the Israelis, and he was wounded in a place called Fallouga. The […]

Does Harper Support JNF’s Racist Land Use Policies?
By Yves Engler In Canada it is illegal to restrict the sale of property to certain ethnic or religious groups but many of our business people and politicians promote an organization that does exactly that […]

Sectarianism: Redrawing the Map of Middle East
By Ramzy Baroud The warm waters of the Gulf look quiet from where I am sitting in Doha, but such tranquility hardly reflects the conflicts this region continues to generate. The euphoria of the so-called […]

Hamas Military Wing Says It Dug Tunnel into Israel
The military wing of Hamas on Monday claimed responsibility for a tunnel built under the border between Gaza and Israel. “This tunnel was made by the hand of the fighters of (Izzadine) al-Qassam and they […]

Hamas Prime Minister Denies Involvement in Egypt and Syria
The Gaza Strip’s Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has denied reports that his group was involved in fighting in the neighboring Egyptian Sinai or in Syria. “We did not interfere in the affairs of any […]

Israel and the Erosion of Democracy: An Australian Story
By Samah Sabawi A few months ago I signed my name as co-defendant to a possible legal action threatened by an Israeli law firm, Shurat HaDin, targeting two Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) […]

High Court Rules: It is Impossible to Be Israeli
By Neve Gordon For years when I travelled abroad, people would often inquire about my name and nationality. I, of course, would answer without hesitation: “I am Israeli”. Recently, however, I learned that there are […]

The Descenders: Why Are So Many Jews Leaving Israel?
By Uri Avnery Those who are interested in the history of the Crusades ask themselves: what brought about the Crusaders’ downfall? Looking at the remnants of their proud fortresses all over the country, we wonder. […]

Canadian Natives Resist: ‘What the Frack?’
By Eric Walberg This week’s anti-fracking protest has put Canada’s First Nations at the forefront of Canada’s political life, injecting spirit back into our moribund political scene. Canadians watching the evening news were shocked by […]

Peace Now: 70 Percent Rise in Settlement Construction Starts
New settlement construction starts rose by 70 percent in the first half of 2013 compared with a year earlier, an Israeli NGO said Thursday, describing the increase as “drastic”. According to figures released by the […]

Even the World Bank Understands: Palestine is Being Disappeared
By Jonathan Cook – Nazareth Two recent images encapsulate the message behind the dry statistics of last week’s report by the World Bank on the state of the Palestinian economy. The first is a poster […]

Al Jeel Al Jadeed: Musical Call for Unity by the ‘New Generation’
By Tariq Shadid There are several ways of expressing a desire for change, and one of these can be through the arts. In the current turmoil of the Middle East, there are also voices that […]

South vs. North: Yemen Teeters between Hope and Division
By Ramzy Baroud On Oct 12, tens of thousands of Yemenis took to the streets of Eden in the South of the country, mostly demanding secession from the north. The date is significant, for it […]

Israeli Factor in Syrian Conflict Unveiled
By Nicola Nasser More than two and a half years on, Israel’s purported neutrality in the Syrian conflict and the United State’s fanfare rhetoric urging a “regime change” in Damascus were abruptly cut short to […]

Israelis Turning Blood into Money: The Lab Review
By Vacy Vlazna Warning! The Lab contains war-porn and hard-core evil; watch and weep. Yotam Feldman’s documentary, released in August, is one of the most important exposés of the obscene rationale and execution of Israel’s […]

The Peace Poets Write from Kabul
By Luke Nephew The Flight from Dubai to Kabul: It’s a flight full of Afghan people and soldiers. And me. And surely a handful of other curious characters. The tension is palpable in the waiting […]

Re-assessing Political Islam: Part II
By Eric Walberg The Pinochet-style coup in Egypt in July 2013, 40 years after the Chilean coup, gives pause to reconsider Islamic political strategy. It took Chile 25 year before Pinochet was arrested (ironically, in […]