Geography Archives: Israel

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said earlier this week that the Islamic Republic is prepared to stop enriching uranium to the nearly-20 percent level required to fabricate fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), if others agree to provide new, finished fuel for the TRR, in line with the Joint Declaration that Iran negotiated with […]

  In international politics, if an action seems reckless or callous and the ones taking it are not certified loonies, usually it’s because it was made to look that way, on purpose.  To send a message. Take Israel’s attack in international waters on a civilian flotilla that resulted in the death of nine Turkish passengers. […]

FYI, on 22 July 2010, the worst lunatics in the mad House introduced H.RES. 1553: Expressing support for the State of Israel’s right to defend Israeli sovereignty, to protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, and to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of […]

The issue of “blood diamonds” has once again made the news: Farai Maguwu, Director of Zimbabwe’s Mutare-based Centre for Research and Development (CRD), languishes under the long arm of Zimbabwe’s laws on alleged charges related to his research on Zimbabwe’s Marange mines.  According to a confidential 44-page report produced by investigators mandated by the Kimberley […]

What is the British government’s role in the conflict?  It is officially committed to the international consensus two-state settlement, but what has our record been in practice? It’s been awful.  Britain doesn’t have an independent role — it just does what the US tells it to do.  On the other hand, the struggle is easier […]

  “At all times throughout history the ideology of the ruling class is the ruling ideology.” — Karl Marx Lynne Stewart is a friend.  She used to practice law in New York City.  I still do.  I was in the courtroom with my wife Debby the afternoon of July 19th for her re-sentencing.  Judge John […]

  Day One of the ICAHD Work Camp, July 19, 2010 Rubble covers the tile floor at the site of the demolished home we are beginning to rebuild in the East Jerusalem section of Anata, a Palestinian town divided between occupied “East” Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.  Activists from the United States, Britain, Germany, […]

  Executive Summary: This report concludes that military action against Iran should be ruled out as a means of responding to its possible nuclear weapons ambitions.  The consequences of such an attack would lead to a sustained conflict and regional instability that would be unlikely to prevent the eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran […]

There is one video Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, must be praying never gets posted on YouTube with English subtitles.  To date, the 10-minute segment has been broadcast only in Hebrew on Israel’s Channel 10. Its contents, however, threaten to gravely embarrass not only Mr. Netanyahu but also the US administration of Barack Obama. […]

  Paul Jay: One of the moments of the war that we hear, as we’ve been in Beirut, people talking about is one point during the war where Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, is making a speech and tells people to look out to the sea. Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General, Hezbollah: Now . . . […]

When the Soviet Union was in terminal crisis in 1990 and the prospect emerged of the United States establishing long-term domination of the international political system, the influential Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer sought to capture the character of the unfolding geopolitical era. The term he used became a buzzword in then-emerging neo-conservative circles, and […]

Joseph A. Massad.  Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan.  New York: Columbia UP, 2001.  Paperback, 396 pages, ISBN: 0-231-12323-x. In Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan, a book that is painstakingly researched (there are almost 75 pages of end notes alone), Joseph A. Massad explores and analyzes the roles […]

July 14, 2010 After an unofficial nine-month “moratorium,” the Israeli government has returned with a vengeance to its policy of demolishing Palestinian homes.  Yesterday, July 13, six homes were demolished in East Jerusalem. In Jabal Mukaber, the homes of the Tawil family (15 people) and the Masrawi family (six people) were demolished.  In Beit Hanina, […]

The spur of the Arab Peace Initiative can’t move the wooden horse of negotiations on the path of peace, tethered as the horse is to the Israeli position. Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 30 June 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text […]

“Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned . . . everywhere is war.” — Bob Marley, “War,” 1976 (lyrics adapted from a speech by Haile Selassie I at the UN in 1963) Every few months the specter of a new American war in the […]

  The countries comprising the “Vienna Group” (i.e. USA, France, and Russia, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA) have expressed their “Concerns about the Joint Declaration Conveyed by Iran to the IAEA.”  Iran has repeatedly declared that the Tehran Brazil-Iran-Turkey Joint Declaration was never intended as a final binding document, but as a basis […]

Norman Finkelstein is one of the world’s foremost public intellectuals writing about the Israel-Palestine conflict.  He is the author of many books on the topic, most recently Beyond Chutzpah, an exhaustive account of Israel’s human rights record, and This Time We Went Too Far (reviewed in New Left Project), an analysis of the Gaza massacre […]

The United States and its Arab and European allies are hard at work to eradicate Iran’s small nuclear program, ignoring Israel’s big fat nukes. Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 30 June 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text above is an interpretation […]

The West is worried about Turkey.  Its spokespeople fear that the West might have “lost” Turkey since its Prime Minister, Recep Erdoğan, associated himself with President Lula, proposed to act as intermediary between the West and Iran, and, later, reacted with determination against Israel’s violent raid on a boat sailing under the Turkish flag and […]

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States last week was capped off on Sunday with the broadcast of a previously-taped interview on Fox New Sunday.  The interview covered a range of important topics, including the state of the U.S.-Israel relationship and prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace.  But it is the Prime Minister’s remarks […]