Over the past four decades Israel has defrauded Palestinians working inside Israel of more than $2 billion by deducting from their salaries contributions for welfare benefits to which they were never entitled, Israeli economists have revealed. A new report, “State Robbery,” to be published later this month, says the “theft” continued even after the Palestinian […]
Geography Archives: Iraq
A Busy Few Weeks on Board the Bomb Iran Bandwagon
Is Iran capitulating to pressure or was the uranium transfer deal never the issue in the first place? It’s been a busy few weeks on board the bomb-Iran bandwagon. It wasn’t quite gunboat diplomacy, but President Obama sent missile “defence” equipment to the Persian Gulf, a move Iran dismissed as a “puppet show.” The Pentagon […]
Arab Politicians Face Rising Tide of Persecution in Israel
Leaders of the Arab minority in Israel warned this week that they were facing an unprecedented campaign of persecution, backed by the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu, designed to stop their political activities. The warning came after Said Nafaa, a Druze member of the Israeli parliament, was stripped of his immunity last week, clearing the […]
Republicans Sell Soul to Pat Robertson
(PU) In an oak-paneled conference room somewhere in Manhattan’s Goldman Sachs building, the Republican National Committee today signed over its soul to the Reverend Pat Robertson. “They had a soul?” asked a reporter at a press conference shortly after the signing. “Oh yes,” explained RNC chairman Michael Steele. “You see, the legal reality of corporate […]
The Future of Islam and Democracy in Iran
Despite the systematic efforts of many commentators and media outlets to represent what is happening in Iran as a wholesale revolt against everything the Islamic Republic stands for, a sober analysis reveals that we are witnessing the renegotiation of political power in the country. The protagonists represent different wings within the system; the contours of […]
Iran and Obama’s State of the Union Address: Back to the Future?
In a State of the Union address that devoted less time or attention to foreign policy than any recent counterpart, President Obama provided disturbing evidence as to the ongoing strategic regression of his administration’s Iran policy. Obama has moved, during just one year in office, from relatively forward-leaning expressions of interest in engaging Iran on […]
After the Great Financial Crisis and the Great Recession, What Next?
John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and author of The Great Financial Crisis (2009, with Fred Magdoff) and The Ecological Revolution (2009) — both from Monthly Review Press. This interview was conducted from Dhaka by Farooque Chowdhury (editor of Micro Credit: Myth Manufactured, 2007) for MRzine and Bangla Monthly Review. It is part […]
From the “Iraq Liberation Act” to an “Iran Liberation Act”?
As we noted yesterday, Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass has attracted considerable attention with an opinion piece in Newsweek entitled “Enough is Enough: Why We Can No Longer Remain on the Sidelines in the Struggle for Regime Change in Iran.” As we reflected on Richard’s arguments, we recalled another high-profile piece of policy […]
From Realism to Regime Change: Questioning Richard Haass
Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, has attracted considerable notice with an opinion piece out now in Newsweek arguing that “the United States, European governments, and others should shift their Iran policy toward increasing the prospects for political change” in the Islamic Republic — in sum, that the United States […]
Should Climate Activists Support Limits on Immigration?
Immigrants to the developed world have frequently been blamed for unemployment, crime, and other social ills. Attempts to reduce or block immigration have been justified as necessary measures to protect “our way of life” from alien influences. Today, some environmentalists go farther, arguing that sharp cuts in immigration are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions […]
Securing Disaster in Haiti
Nine days after the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on 12 January 2010, it’s now clear that the initial phase of the U.S.-led relief operation has conformed to the three fundamental tendencies that have shaped the more general course of the island’s recent history. It has adopted military priorities and strategies. It has sidelined Haiti’s […]
Colored Revolutions in Colored Lenses: A Comparative Analysis of U.S. and Russian Press Coverage of Political Movements in Ukraine, Belarus, and Uzbekistan
This study compared The New York Times‘ and The Moscow Times‘ coverage of the political movements in three former Soviet republics. Data analysis revealed a clear pro-movement pattern in The New York Times’ reporting. The U.S. newspaper used more pro-movement sources than pro-incumbent sources. Overall, The New York Times depicted the protesters favorably and […]
On the Liberal Hope for the New Middle Class’s Capitalist Revolution in the Muslim World
Vali Nasr. Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World. New York: Free Press, 2009. 320 pp. This empirically informative yet analytically defective book labors to dissect the complexities of political and economic development in the Muslim world, strongly focusing on Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, […]
The Oliver Kamm School of Falsification: Imperial Truth-Enforcement, British Branch
An important and perhaps growing feature of official and strong-interest-group propaganda is the resort to personal attacks and flak to keep dissidents at bay and inconvenient thoughts out of sight and mind. This has been notable over many years in the case of pro-Israel propaganda, where we can observe a positive correlation between upward spikes […]
Time for Progressives to Jump Democrats’ Sinking Ship
Republican Scott Brown’s defeat of Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts’ Senate race proves it’s time for real progressives, activists, and independents to dump and jump the Democratic Party’s sinking ship of state. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, expecting a different result. Every electoral cycle people who consider […]
Debating the Strategic Significance of Iran’s Natural Gas
Following on from our recent post, “Iran, the Competition over Eurasian Natural Gas, and the Revival of Classical Diplomacy in the 21st Century,” we want to draw readers’ attention, first of all, to a very thoughtful comment on that post from Ed Chow, our friend and colleague at CSIS. Ed generously notes his agreement with […]
The Obama Administration Moves toward Regime Change in Its Iran Policy
In one of our posts surrounding our January 6, 2010 Op Ed in The New York Times, we noted that “analytic views of Iranian politics since the June 12 presidential election have important implications for the debate about U.S. and Western policy toward Tehran.” In particular, buying into the proposition that the Islamic Republic is […]
Stop-Loss
Listen to “Stop-Loss” “Army Specialist and Iraq war veteran Marc Hall was incarcerated by the US Army on December 11, 2009, in Liberty County Jail, Georgia, for recording a song [“Stop-Loss”] that expresses his anger over the Army’s stop-loss policy. Stop-loss is a policy that allows the Army to keep soldiers active beyond the […]
Media Battles in Latin America Not about “Free Speech”
For at least a month now in Ecuador there has been a battle over regulation of the media. It has been in the front pages of the newspapers most of the time, and a leading daily, El Comercio, referred to the fight as one for “defense of human rights and the free practice of journalism.” […]
Long Live Palestine
Lowkey (born Kareem Dennis, 23 May 1986) is a British musician, poet, playwright, and political activist of English and Iraqi descent. Check out Lowkey’s MySpace page: . For bookings, email . | | Print
