On November 18, I received the sad news: my Moroccan friend and teacher, Abraham Serfaty, passed away in Marrakesh, Morocco. Serfaty was a well-known Moroccan communist dissident and an anti-Zionist Jewish Arab. He died at the age of 83, after a long illness. My relationship with Abraham started four decades ago with a small book […]
Geography Archives: Israel
A Letter from Tel Aviv: The Right in Israel Is Playing with Fire
I am in Tel Aviv. 70 km away from the fires, I cannot even see the smoke cloud above the Haifa area, which is moving into the sea and may reach Cyprus before it comes to me. The pictures on my plasma TV are, however, very saddening. You see tens of thousands evacuated from […]
WikiLeaks, Iran, and the US’s Arab Allies: What the Corporate Media Are Not Saying
The corporate media are reliable and consistent. They consistently focus on the sensational, and they reliably take the position of the US government. So, it should come as no surprise that the recent release of US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks is being covered with much sound and fury, signifying little. On the sensational and gossip-mongering […]
Contrary to Media Spin on WikiLeaks Release, Iran Is Hugely Popular among Arabs
The media spin on the latest batch of WikiLeaks revelations gives the impression that, next to Israel, it’s the Arab states that are most energetically pressuring the U.S. to attack Iran. In terms of the real threat to Iran, that’s definitely putting the cart before the horse. In the first place, the Arab governments mentioned […]
WikiLeaks and Iran, Take 1: Obama’s Legacy Will Be Change You Can’t Count On
November 29, 2010 We will be writing about the WikiLeaks documents and Iran throughout this week. As we sort through the cables that are available so far, the first major point is that, as even the New York Times‘ quasi-neoconservative David Sanger and his colleagues noted in their first story on the documents, the Obama […]
Israeli Intentions regarding the Iranian Nuclear Program
Reference ID Date Classification Origin 05TELAVIV1593 2005-03-17 14:02 SECRET Embassy Tel Aviv This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available. S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 001593 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/14/2015 TAGS: PARM PREL MNUC […]
To Sanction, or Not to Sanction — That Is the Question
A hallmark of the Obama administration’s Iran policy has been a dual track approach to its contentious nuclear program: diplomacy, and pressure on the regime. An improvement, to be sure, over President Obama’s predecessor’s policy — essentially all pressure and no diplomacy — but pressure, the Iranians have stated time and time again, will not […]
Palestine 2011
Struggling as I have for the past decades to grasp the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and find ways to get out of this interminable and absolutely superfluous conflict, I have been two-thirds successful. After many years of activism and analysis, I think I have put my finger on the first third of the equation: […]
Gates’ False Iran Premise: Sanctions Will Not Sow Internal Discord and Change Iran’s Nuclear Calculations
Since returning to government service to take up his current position, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been a sober skeptic about the wisdom of military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets — under President Obama as well as under President George W. Bush, and regardless of whether such strikes would be carried out by the […]
Squeezing Iran: The European Connection
Negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program are due to start again shortly, and once again the European Union is called upon as a “mediator.” This is no minor challenge. With Iran insisting on discussing Israel’s nuclear capacity and the United States preparing a tougher uranium swap agreement, a deal seems as far away as ever. Nevertheless, […]
What the Republican Victory Means for US Foreign Policy
Paul Jay: Certainly President Obama had more support for the war in Afghanistan from the Republican Party than he ever did from within his own party. But might this mean increased pressure for a more aggressive stance towards Iran? . . . What’s your take? How do you think this election might affect US foreign […]
The War on the Resistance in Lebanon Enters Its Fifth Phase
“We have overcome four phases [Resolution 1559, sponsored by France and the United States, imposing the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon; the French temptation, i.e. Jacques Chirac’s offer of power in exchange for disarmament; Israel’s July War, backed by the United States, against Lebanon in 2006; the 5 May 2008 decision of the Lebanese government, prodded […]
Israel’s Self-Destruction: Reunifying the Palestinian Nation
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, is in the United States this week, but few observers expect an immediate or significant breakthrough in the stalled peace talks with the Palestinian leadership. In public, Mr. Netanyahu maintains he is committed to the pledge he made last year, shortly after he formed his right-wing government, to work towards […]
After the Midterm Elections: Hawks Up the Pressure for Military Action and Obama Sets Iran Up for More Sanctions
Tony Karon has another sharp piece this week, entitled “Israel Pressed for a Tougher U.S. Line on Iran.” For some time now, we have been forecasting an intensification of pressure on the Obama Administration, by Israel and pro-Israel constituencies in the United States, for U.S. military strikes against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. It appears that the […]
Young Jews Disrupt Netanyahu at Jewish General Assembly
November 8, 2010 — Young Jews challenged leadership at the Jewish Federation General Assembly in New Orleans. They disrupted PM Netanyahu’s speech to say: “Israel’s actions delegitimize it, not those working to put an end to its violations of international law.” YoungJewishProud.org is a project of young leaders of Jewish Voice for Peace. | […]
Can the United States Save Itself in the Middle East?
Last month, the New America Foundation and the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST) sponsored a conference in Washington, entitled “Cutting the Fuse: Moving beyond the War on Terror.” The conference was sparked by the publication of a new book by CPOST’s director, Robert Pape, and James Feldman, entitled Cutting the Fuse: […]
Certified Right-Wing Extremists Set to Take Control of House Foreign Affairs Panels
In the early years of the past decade, two hard-line Cold Warriors, closely associated with radical right-wing Cuban exile groups in Florida, occupied strategic positions in the U.S. foreign policy machine. Otto Reich, former head of the Reagan administration’s “black propaganda” operations in Central America, and Roger Noriega, co-author of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, took […]
The US to Gaza Initiative and the Hillel Controversy at Rutgers
Last night I attended a fundraiser for the US to Gaza mission that intends to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. It was an incredible success. About 350 mostly young people had crowded the hall, most of whom stayed on past 10 pm to listen to the invited speakers. The presence of so […]
Che Guevara’s Daughter Meets Hezbollah’s Number 2 Leader
11 October 2010 — The daughter of the celebrated revolutionary Che Guevara, who is currently visiting Lebanon, met on Sunday the number two leader of Hezbollah after visiting southern Lebanon where she received a plaque in homage to her father and the martyr Imad Mughniyeh.
Iran War Talk: “Once the Military Option Is on the Table, It Never Goes Away”
October 28, 2010 Today, Marc Lynch — a professor at George Washington University who blogs at Foreign Policy — published a timely piece entitled “Keep the Iran War Talk Quiet.” As Marc notes, “there’s some hope that Iran will return to nuclear talks with the P-5+1 in Geneva on Nov.15, even if they probably will […]
