Geography Archives: Israel

Across the Middle East, the Bush-Neocon post-9/11 project faces failure. In the last month alone, Washington has had to endure one humiliation after another: In Lebanon, the pro-U.S. government (prodded by Israel and/or Washington) announced a set of steps aimed at Hezbollah.  Hezbollah and the broader Lebanese opposition movement — which together represent the majority […]

The rhetoric about a “clash of civilizations” and a “war on Islam” has found its way easily into Arab intellectual discourse, where it has taken solid root, along with other similar “concepts” (or what I’d rather call “non-concepts” — like the term “terrorism” — since they are extremely vague and yet ideologically loaded) that were […]

Three all-German congresses were held this past weekend, all important but very different. The bad news first: The beautiful old city of Bamberg hosted the national congress of the National Party (NPD) — the main neo-Nazi party.  All attempts to bar it from the city’s Congress Hall foundered on a Bavarian court decision, since the […]

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s May 21 announcement that Israel and Syria will soon begin indirect negotiations in Istanbul, mediated by the Turkish government, should not have surprised anyone.  As Olmert told the Israeli daily Ha-Aretz (May 22, 2008), “exchanges [with Syria] have been ongoing for a long time.”  What seems to have changed is […]

Hezbollah is the big winner in the accord on Lebanon signed in Doha, Qatar. But everyone — including Washington — is welcoming this asymmetrical compromise. Why? Hard bargaining is underway. . . .

In the Middle East, neither the worst nor the best is ever certain. But what happened in Doha, the capital of Qatar, on Wednesday, at 3 o’clock in the morning, is a historic event. The accord putting an end — for now — to the political crisis that tore Lebanon for the past eighteen months (and many more in fact) contains a tough lesson for the West: its weakened friends in Beirut had to bend themselves to the force of Hezbollah and its allies Amal, another Shi’i party, and the Christians led by Michel Aoun. The Party of God will enter the government without laying down its arms, as a minority with veto power.

The relative decline in violence in Iraq that Bush, McCain, and other supporters of the war have attributed to the “surge” appears to have reversed.  Al Qaeda and others in the Sunni resistance began stepping up their attacks at the beginning of the year and Moqtada Al Sadr’s Mahdi Army has been battling US and […]

Attention all unions, workers, and rank and file activists working in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for justice: You are invited to a three-day conference to help build and share strategies to support the movement for Palestinian rights in our workplaces, our unions and our communities. Friday, May 30 to Sunday, June 1, 2008 in […]

We, South Africans who faced the might of unjust and brutal apartheid machinery in South Africa and fought against it with all our strength, with the objective to live in a just, democratic society, refuse today to celebrate the existence of an Apartheid state in the Middle East.  While Israel and its apologists around the […]

  Anyone walking a month ago along Rothschild Boulevard, one of Tel Aviv’s central streets, was probably surprised to see some 200 Arab women along with Jewish artists and intellectuals, marching to demand the right to work in dignity.  Only a couple of days after the attack in Jerusalem, these women made their presence felt […]

It has been a week of adulation from world leaders, ostentatious displays of military prowess, and street parties.  Heads of state have rubbed shoulders with celebrities to pay homage to the Jewish state on its 60th birthday, while a million Israelis reportedly headed off to the country’s forests to enjoy the national pastime: a barbecue. […]

“Even after fifty years of living the Palestinian exile I still find myself astonished at the lengths to which official Israel and its supporters will go to suppress the fact that a half century has gone by without Israeli restitution, recognition, or acknowledgment of Palestinian human rights and without, as the facts undoubtedly show, connecting […]

Israeli Independence Day 2008, marking the sixtieth anniversary of the rise of the Jewish State on the ruins of Palestinian society, should be cause more for sober reflection and reevaluation than for celebration.  True, Israeli Jews have much to celebrate.  Only a few weeks ago the shekel joined the fifteen strongest currencies in the world, […]

  A few hours after yesterday’s press conference of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, opposition fighters occupied the offices of the pro-government Future Movement of Hariri in Beirut, and battles focused on the Koraytem palace (Saad Hariri residence), which was hit by rockets, the Sérail (seat of the Siniora government), and the home of […]

  Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton US Presidential Candidate c/o MSNBC.com Your Excellency, In one of your recent campaign interviews you stated that: “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran. . . .  In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on […]

As Israel prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary, the weak and internally divided government of Ehud Olmert persists in pursuing counterproductive policies detached from all regional and global realities except the guaranteed support of the United States.  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice soldiers on in her starring role keeping the theatrical performance known as “the […]

This time the message was delivered by the Pentagon’s own premier educational institute.  The opening line of a report released April 17 by the National Institute for Strategic Studies read: “Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle.” The document goes on […]

The shameful exposition by the American presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton of her genocidal intentions towards Iranians was tragic proof of the dehumanizing impact of warmongering on an elite Western mind.  It is said that humanity is the first casualty of war, and this has been made starkly clear, not only by the murderous boasting of […]

For some time now the rising cost of food all over the world has taken households, governments and the media by storm.  The price of wheat has gone up by 130% over the last year.1 Rice has doubled in price in Asia in the first three months of 2008 alone,2 and just last week it […]

It is surely no surprise to readers of MRZine that, in a presidential election race in which an African-American man is not just the front-runner for the Democratic Party nomination, but has a strong chance of winning the White House in November, racism has been front and center.  Four years ago, in his keynote speech […]

Nicolas Sarkozy has gone out of his way to sound pro-American.  He made a special visit in 2007 to Kennebunkport to have a cozy meeting with George W. Bush.  Since neither spoke the other’s language, they must have had translators.  So perhaps I might be allowed to try to translate what has been going on. […]