Geography Archives: Israel

Responding to the Israeli voices and actions noisily advocating a preemptive strike against Iran, Ha-Aretz columnist Uzi Benziman (July 21, 2008) writes, “Before bombing Iran, it would be best [for Israel] to solve the conflict with the Palestinians.  By the way, there does appear to be a link between the two threats.”  While Benziman doesn’t […]

Adam Hanieh, “Palestine in the Middle East: Opposing Neoliberalism and US Power: Part 2,” MRZine, 19 July 2008. Over the last six months, the Palestinian economy has been radically transformed under a new plan drawn up by the Palestinian Authority (PA) called the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan (PRDP).  Developed in close collaboration with institutions […]

Adam Hanieh, “Palestine in the Middle East: Opposing Neoliberalism and US Power: Part 1,” MRZine, 19 July 2008. Neoliberalism, the “New Middle East” and Palestine In the late 1960s, with the definitive collapse of British and French colonialism in the Middle East, the US rose to become the dominant imperial power within the region.  Because […]

In 2006, things seemed to be going badly for the U.S. military efforts in Iraq.  The Iraq war became a top issue in the 2006 Congressional elections in the United States.  It is generally agreed that the Republicans did poorly in those elections, largely because the U.S. electorate had become disillusioned with the viability and […]

The popular perception of the recently skyrocketing oil price is that there is an oil shortage in global energy markets.  The perceived shortage is generally blamed on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries (OPEC) for “insufficient” production, or on countries like China and India for their increased demand for energy, or on both. This perception […]

On Wednesday, July 16 the House Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs will meet to mark-up the FY’09 International Affairs budget.  Included in the budget is the so-called program to “promote democracy” in Iran, the regime change slush fund. The FY’09 International Affairs budget request (also known as Function 150) includes $65 million […]

  On Monday, May 12, 2008, at 10:00 a.m., in an operation involving some 900 agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed a raid of Agriprocessors Inc, the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse and meat packing plant located in the town of Postville, Iowa.  The raid  — officials boasted — was “the largest single-site operation of […]

He receives us at the door, at the entrance to a one-story house located on the hills of Damascus. No protocol, no security measure: we are not searched, nor are our recording devices inspected. “Here is the house where I read, where I work. There are only this room, a conference room, and a kitchen. And, of course, the Internet and television. My wife Asma often comes here, too. Here I am productive; at the presidential palace, that is not the case.” For nearly two hours, he covers all topics, without evading any question. He takes obvious pleasure in discussion and uses his hands to emphasize his arguments.

July the 3rd marked the 20th anniversary of the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by the US-guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes, killing all its 290 passengers. The timing of the shootdown in 1988 and the circumstances surrounding it were significant in that they contradict the US government’s official position describing the incident as wholly […]

  A side-by-side comparison of the two countries’ conventional military capabilities demonstrates the overwhelming superiority of the United States. It is time to inject realism into discussions about U.S.-Iranian relations. Hyping the threat about Iran obscures the bottom line: Iran does not currently represent an existential threat to the United States or its allies, and […]

  July 5, 2008 Management at Lev Leviev Diamond Polishing Company (LLD) in Windhoek, Namibia is threatening to fire 153 diamond polishers who have been on strike since June 19th protesting abusive managers as well as overdue job appraisals, promotions, wages and outstanding overtime pay.  The company, owned by Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, whose companies […]

Dear Senator Obama, We the undersigned may have different views on U.S. foreign policy with respect to Iran.  We all, however, are deeply concerned about the stories in the press in the past few weeks suggesting that the Bush administration might be considering a military strike on Iran, that it might give a green light […]

Our overall assessment is that the conference was an overwhelming success. Over 400 people from many parts of the country and Canada attended, including a bus of 44 — mostly youth — from Connecticut (see breakdown by states below*).  The conference met its main objective, which was to urge united and massive mobilizations in the […]

President George W. Bush and his neo-con coterie made it a point of pride that their relationship to regimes they did not like was one of toughness, not of soft-soap diplomacy.  In his State of the Union speech in 2002, Bush denounced the “Axis of Evil” — composed of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — […]

Oil prices rise and rise.  New record on Thursday: a barrel (159 liters) of oil costs more than US$145 for the first time.  In the event of an attack on Iran, prices could really explode.  Yesterday, the Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Abdallah Salem El-Badri, warned.  “It would be […]

A cease-fire went into effect in Gaza, offering some respite from the violence that has killed hundreds of Palestinians and five Israelis in recent months.  It will do nothing, however, to address the underlying cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Intermittent spectacular violence may draw the world’s attention to the occupied Palestinian territories, but our obsession […]

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict often inspires a sense of powerlessness.  What can average Americans do to bring an end to this decades-old conflict when our leaders have failed so miserably? And what good is speaking out about Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land as the primary obstacle to peace when even former President Jimmy Carter and Nobel […]

In his book entitled Silence of the Poor, French writer Henri Guillemin said that those who were the foundation of the victory of the Revolution of 1789, the urban and rural poor, including women, were excluded from politics by an electoral law giving the right to elect and be elected only to citizens who could […]

Afshin Rattansi, former producer for Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN International, and Bloomberg Television, is currently based in Tehran, working for Press TV. | | Print

Tarek personally asked me to review his book, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State (CM).  With a book being favorably reviewed in the Canadian (and US and UK) media, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Huffington Post, the UK Guardian, and the Asper-family owned newspapers (Ottawa Citizen and […]