Geography Archives: Israel

  Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, April 17, 2011, the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat salutes all of the over 5,700 Palestinian prisoners inside the Israeli occupation’s jails, and calls upon all those concerned for justice and freedom to join and build the largest possible international movement to secure the freedom of all Palestinian prisoners, and of […]

We return from a recent trip to the region persuaded that the main question engaging people with respect to the “Arab spring” is no longer “who’s next,” but rather “how far will Saudi Arabia go in pushing a counter-revolutionary agenda” across the Middle East?  Whether Saudi Arabia is really capable of coping with the momentous […]

The reconvening of the UN in late September and the possible recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders may be a crucial political moment in the struggle for Palestinian liberation — or not.  Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has characterized it as a looming “diplomatic tsunami” for Israel; Ali Abunimah, a prominent Palestinian-American […]

  The murder of human rights activist, Vittorio Arrigoni, is a tragedy for his family, for those of us who knew him, and for the Palestinians who loved and admired him.  The Steering Committee of Freedom Flotilla 2 condemns this senseless murder and the people who are behind it.  They took the life of one […]

Palestinians across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank will join today in mourning slain activist Vittorio Arrigoni.  People will gather both in the Al Manara square in Ramallah and at Al Jundi al Majhoul, the unknown soldier park, in Gaza City.  Mourners will be received by the ISM and local popular committees and BDS […]

  International Solidarity Movement activist Vittorio Arrigoni was kidnapped in Gaza today.  News sources in the Gaza Strip say that the kidnappers are members of a Salafi group.  In a YouTube video, the group threatens to kill Arrigoni in 30 hours, counting from 11 AM in Gaza (10 AM in Italy), if the Hamas government […]

Today, our friend and colleague, Vittorio Arrigoni, a journalist and human rights defender working in the Gaza Strip, was kidnapped by Salafists, members of a very small extremist group in Gaza. Vittorio has been active in the Palestine cause for almost 10 years.  For the past two and a half years, he has been in […]

  The US left and progressives have been preoccupied about what we can do to impact events in the Mid-East, particularly obsessing about what we can do to counter US intervention.  In general, it is good to want to act, not just talk or analyze, in a crisis situation. However, despite the valiant and necessary […]

It has finally sunk in that the Egyptian military are not on the side of the people.  Egyptians are up against a military apparatus that is maintaining the status quo “system.”  In other words, we are confronting a global neo-liberal regime whereby the Egyptian government would follow the instructions of the powerful: protect Israel, obey […]

Gilbert Achcar defends the recently “UN-authorized” imperialist intervention in Libya on the ground that general principles may require exceptions in concrete cases.  “Every general rule admits of exceptions.  This includes the general rule that UN-authorized military interventions by imperialist powers are purely reactionary ones, and can never achieve a humanitarian or positive purpose.”1  This kind […]

The full extent of the ramifications of the extraordinary developments in Egypt since the beginning of this year — for Egypt itself, for the Middle East, and for the world — will not be clear for some time.  At this juncture, though, it seems virtually certain that post-Mubarak Egypt will have a much more balanced […]

  Juliano Mer-Khamis embodied the uncompromising struggle for freedom and for dignity.  With his brutal murder the Palestinian struggle has lost a brilliant, charismatic, and courageous fighter for justice and freedom.  Both parts of his life’s work were seamlessly joined.  His art was inseparable from his political commitment.  The dignity and humanity which his art […]

Could it be that Syrian refinery workers thought it wise to warn imperialists not to descend on Syria to liberate their oil and jobs from them in the name of liberating them from Bashar? — Ed. Tartous, Syria, 29 March 2011 Cf. “Syria is the only significant crude oil producing country in the Eastern Mediterranean […]

Joshua Landis: Well, this [speech delivered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on 30 March 2011] was a classic hard-line speech.  It was a nationalist speech.  It was an us-against-them speech.  And he rallied the nation.  And that’s what he sought to do.  He was fairly relaxed.  He made some jokes.  But he said this is […]

The Empire admits: without Al-Jazeera, they could not have bombed Libya. How did Al-Jazeera, once dubbed the ‘terror network’ by some and whose staff were martyred by US bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, end up becoming the media war propagandist for yet another Western war against a small state of the Global South, Libya?  We […]

COSATU has reiterated its position in support of the legitimate and genuine struggles of the people and workers of the Middle East and North Africa for democracy, human dignity and social justice.  In doing so, we however, seek to exercise caution in the manner Western powers claim to be advancing the struggle for democracy in […]

Note that Algeria has backed the Gaddafi forces while Egypt has sided with the rebels in Libya, going so far as to arm them. — Ed. MOSCOW, March 20 (Itar-Tass) — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov leaves for the Middle East on Sunday under the conditions of the political crisis in the region and the […]

The Tunisian revolution has wiped out the Ben Ali system, and the Egyptian revolution is about to eliminate the Mubarak system after the fall of the president.  No doubt, the epoch of unlimited domination in the Arab world is coming to its end.  After decades of despotic, patronage-based regimes, the Arab peoples seem determined to […]

  Former Palestinian female prisoners as well as wives and daughters of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails held a sit-in in front of the office of the international committee of the Red Cross in Gaza on the occasion of international women’s day. . . . Families of prisoners seized the occasion and called on all […]

The politics of plunder imposed by the United States and its NATO allies in the Middle East is in crisis.  This was inevitably unleashed with the high cost of grain, the effects of which are being felt with more force in the Arab nations where, despite their enormous oil resources, the shortage of water, arid […]