Geography Archives: Middle East

  Shlomo Swirski, Economist, Adva Center: The government cut its yearly budget for four consecutive years.  The cuts were very severe.  They hit the school system, universities, the health system, and, more than anything else, the social security system.  So, within two years the level of the poverty rate for families jumped from 17 to […]

  A coalition of nearly 20 Jewish groups, ranging from the right-wing David Project and the Jewish National Fund to the liberal J Street, is distributing a misleading statement condemning a Student Senate bill at UC Berkeley.  The ground-breaking bill calls for divestment from companies that profit from the perpetuation of the Israeli military occupation […]

Dear Friends, This letter is being sent to you by citizens of the state of Israel who are active in various Left groups and on a variety of topics throughout Israel/Palestine, including human rights, ecology, peace, support for refugees, social justice, workers’ rights, feminism, and queer struggles.  We are struggling within our country and our […]

Comrade Khalida Jarrar, member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, called for the development of a united Palestinian strategy that strengthens Palestinian resistance and rejects the failed and dangerous path of negotiations with the occupation. In an interview on April 8, 2010 with Jerusalem News Net, Comrade Jarrar […]

Obama Administration officials have been touting for some time that they have Russia “on board” for a new United Nations Security Council resolution imposing sanctions against Iran over the nuclear issue.  We, of course, have been arguing for months that, while Russia would probably end up supporting a new sanctions resolution, Moscow would not support […]

  Turkey has its own vision on the issues of international security.  On Iran, the Middle East, and nuclear proliferation, it has made itself the voice of the Muslim opinion which sees Israel as the chief troublemaker.  A member of the NATO and candidate for the European Union, led since 2002 by the “moderate Islamists” […]

  (Phone Message) “Hey, Justine, I just wanted to say, ‘Come back safely.’” May 16, 2007.  Tomorrow morning, my son and I leave for Iran. (Phone Message) “Hi, Justine, I want you to be careful and maybe not mention to people that you’re Jewish.” (In-flight Announcement) “. . . We do ask you to respect […]

“Hundreds of workers have showed up in order to demonstrate, calling for raising the national minimum wage, which remains unchanged from 1984 and stands at 35 Egyptian pounds [$7 per month], which is bloody pathetic to be honest.  And workers today are calling for raising it to 1,200 Egyptian pounds, which is a very reasonable […]

Why bother with moral persuasion when you can just threaten to take over government . . . everywhere? On March 18, UC Berkeley’s student senate voted 16 to 4 in favor of divesting from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation.  A week later, in a move oddly predicted by AIPAC’s Jonathan Kessler at AIPAC’s […]

In his column, the Washington Post‘s David Ignatius presents an important piece of reporting about the Obama Administration’s approach to Iran and the Palestinian issue.  David opens his column by citing “two top administration officials” as telling him that President Obama is seriously considering putting forward an American plan for a two-state solution to the […]

The “Cedar Revolution” of Lebanon and the “Orange Revolution” of Ukraine were democratically brought to an end.  A “Green Revolution” in Iran that Washington hoped for has turned out to be just a figment of its geopolitical fantasy.  And now there goes another color revolution. It is clear that the political revolution in Kyrgyzstan caught […]

  EXCERPT: Introduction This document was created by the community of Isha L’Isha—Haifa Feminist Center.  It began as a process of examination and re-conceptualization of the term “security” as we, feminist women in Israel, experience it.  Over the past five years, Isha L’Isha has been discussing and dealing with issues related to women, peace and […]

  5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time […]

Today — Tuesday, April 6, 2010 — the Obama Administration will proclaim, as a matter of declaratory policy, that the United States claims the prerogative to use nuclear weapons against the Islamic Republic of Iran, even as Iran remains a non-nuclear-weapons state.  The Administration will make this declaration as part of its much anticipated Nuclear […]

A group of Jews and Arabs are fighting in the Israeli courts to be recognized as “Israelis,” a nationality currently denied them, in a case that officials fear may threaten the country’s self-declared status as a Jewish state. Israel refused to recognize an Israeli nationality at the country’s establishment in 1948, making an unusual distinction […]

Author’s note: This is a response to Claudia Rosett’s “Turkey Tilts toward Iran,” published on 26 March 2010 by Forbes.com. Forbes columnist Claudia Rosett — who just so happens to be “a journalist-in-residence” with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a neo-conservative think tank — feigns her regret for having to report a “disturbing talk” […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | | Print

The Fifth Five-Year Plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1389-93, 2010-14), still under review by the parliament, has a clear goal for reducing inequality in five years — a Gini index of 0.35 for income.  This is a substantial reduction from the high level of inequality that has plagued Iran in recent years.  The […]

“I don’t own a gun.  I don’t own any weapons and I’m not prepared to own any. . . .  My only weapon of defense is that I won’t leave this place.” — Abu Sagr, Al-Hadideya, Jordan Valley Trailer Philip Rizk is an Egyptian-German freelance journalist living in Cairo, Egypt, where he is currently completing […]

During the House debate over the Kucinich resolution calling for a timetable for military withdrawal from Afghanistan, Rep. Bob Filner, chair of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, pointed out that hundreds of thousands of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have gone to the VA for service-related injuries. The video of Filner’s statement […]