On Tuesday morning clashes erupted between Palestinian protesters and Israeli military and police forces across the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians hurled stones at police and burned tires and trash bins in several areas of East Jerusalem. Dozens of Palestinians were injured and many were detained.
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Monthly Review Magazine
Iran Is Paranoid and Israel Is Not (You’re Kidding, Right?)
“A country whose political culture is characterized by paranoia.” What country would that be? Israel, which has claimed victim status through seven decades of vicious land grab? The United States, which has devastated Iraq pretending to look for imaginary weapons of mass destruction? No, argues neoconservative Michael Eisenstadt, staff analyst at the pro-Israel Washington Institute […]
Manifesto of the Second National Summit for the Re-Foundation of Honduras
Establishment of the First Popular and Democratic National Constituent Assembly Manifesto Gathered in the city of La Esperanza, under the auspice of the sign of hope, women and men of 17 departments of the country met, coming face to face with Honduras again, to look at each other, debate, and reinforce through dialogue our knowledge, […]
Obama and Cuba: The End of an Illusion
“The times we live in reflect that in Latin America and the Caribbean the confrontation between historic forces is getting worse.” — Raul Castro On February 23, 2010, incarcerated Cuban Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after a prolonged hunger strike, despite the efforts of Cuban medical personnel to treat him and prevent the ending of […]
The Iran Threat in the Age of Real-Axis-of-Evil Expansion1
It is intriguing to see how whoever the United States and Israel find interfering with their imperial or dispossession plans is quickly demonized and becomes a threat and target for that Real-Axis-of-Evil (RAE), and hence their NATO allies and, with less intensity, much of the rest of the “international community” (IC, meaning ruling elites, not […]
Headline: “Saudis Deny Discussing Pressure on China over Iran with US”
Sometimes headlines really do convey powerful messages. That was certainly the case with an AFP story, which appeared late last week under the headline, “Saudis Deny Discussing Pressure on China over Iran with US.” The story was prompted by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ visits to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last week. […]
Thailand: Hundreds of Thousands Take to the Streets to Demand Democracy
Hundreds of thousands of Thai Red Shirt pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets of Bangkok and other cities over the weekend. This was a show of force to prove the strength of the movement and to dispel any lies by the royalist government and the media that the Red Shirts are not representative of the […]
George Papandreou
Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | | Print
France: Multiple Voter Punishments
“It’s necessary to campaign on my record,” Nicolas Sarkozy had told UMP leaders in the regional elections, before prudently beating a retreat when polls revealed the darkening sky for the party. Despite the same old cliché repeated by UMP spokespeople according to the dictate of the Élysée, the fact remains that voters clearly rejected […]
Nahr al-Bared Camp: Checkpoints and More
The Nahr al-Bared refugee camp still has not recovered from the devastating war in 2007 during which it was destroyed. The Lebanese Army has been keeping a tight grip on the camp and the 20,000 displaced Palestinians who have returned so far. The army’s siege seriously hampers the camp’s economic recovery, as access is restricted […]
Frank Lumpkin, a True American Hero
Frank Lumpkin. Photo by People’s World. A few days ago Frank Lumpkin died, a true American hero. I am still grateful that I was lucky enough to know not only him but his whole big fighting family! I was fresh out of Harvard, a red diaper New York radical in 1949, set on working in […]
NPA Statement on the Night of the First Round of the Regional Elections
Two major lessons emerge from the first round of the regional elections The magnitude of abstention by millions of youth, workers, and the unemployed, who mostly wished to register their rejection of the political parties that have alternated in power and that are responsible for aggravating their conditions of life. The vigor of […]
“Our Surplus Is the Deficit of Our Partners”: Interview with Heiner Flassbeck
Economist Heiner Flassbeck holds the German wage policy responsible for the problems of Greece. Neither the drastic Greek austerity program nor the proposed European Monetary Fund can help the euro zone out of its difficulties. Instead, Heiner Flassbeck calls for higher wages in the Federal Republic of Germany in order to cope with the […]
Zimbabwe’s Land Reform Is Common Sense
Zimbabwe’s land issue has generated unprecedented debates both within and outside the country. The debates, which followed the dramatic occupations of white farms by rural peasants in the late 1990s, are generally polarised between those who support radical land reform and those who support market-orientated reforms. The former stand accused of supporting Mugabe’s regime […]
Iraq: Arabian Rights
Jon Stewart: “The votes are officially in. How did it go?” Reporters: “Bombs ripped through parts of Baghdad today”; “Insurgents bombed a polling station and lobbed grenades at voters. . . .”; “A rocket killed seven people”; “Dozens of explosions”; “Bombs and mortar attacks”; “Some counted as many as fifty in Baghdad alone. . . […]
Biden’s Israel Debacle Puts Obama’s Flawed Middle East Strategy in the Spotlight
Vice President Joseph Biden set out to massage U.S.-Israeli relations this week, but instead ran up against the reality of Israeli politics, manifested in the Netanyahu government’s announcement of the construction of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem. The result, as described by the normally rhetorically sober Financial Times, has been to expose “an emasculated […]
The Greek Tragedy and the European Crisis, Made in Germany
It is sad and surprising that among the deluge of comments and letters on Greece in the European papers in the last few weeks, not one has gotten the most crucial point about the crisis. Most commentators treat Greece’s domestic problems and those of other southern members of the European Monetary Union (EMU) as if […]
New York Times Calls for “Payback,” Psychs Up for Assault on “Entitlements”
An article in yesterday’s New York Times, from the Business Section, titled “Patchwork Pension Plan Adds to Greek Woes” is the latest in a series strikingly titled “Payback Time.” A friend of mine used to like to say: “The New York Times is the voice of the enlightened bourgeoisie.” This article conjures up that phrase. […]
Israel: Burying Peace in Palestine
Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay. This cartoon was featured on the home page of Rebelión on 13 March 2010. | | Print
Sans-Culottes
Michael Sonenscher, Sans-Culottes: An Eighteenth-Century Emblem in the French Revolution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008. x + 493 pp. $45.00 U.S. (cl). ISBN 978- 0691124988. Michael Sonenscher begins, “This is a book about the sans-culottes and the part that they played in the French Revolution” (p. 1). Actually, there are no revolutionary sans-culottes […]
