Geography Archives: Middle East

  “My friend told me to call Israel the ’48 lands while in Gaza.  Here’s one of many reasons why, and why a one-state struggle is the right(er) struggle.” — Max Ajl Targeted Citizens, written, directed, produced, and edited by Rachel Leah Jones for Adalah, surveys discrimination against Palestinian citizens in Israel.  With the participation […]

“In the police you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos.” –George Orwell, Shooting An Elephant and Other Essays “. . . the […]

  EM: Over the last couple of years you have been working on the question of religion from a series of perspectives: philosophical, political, sociological, moral, and cognitive.  In your Yale lectures from the fall of 2008, you approached the challenge of the vitality and renewal of religion in world society in terms of the […]

The United States was founded as an “infant empire,” in George Washington’s words.  The conquest of the national territory was a grand imperial venture, much like the vast expansion of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.  From the earliest days, control over the Western Hemisphere was a critical goal.  Ambitions expanded during World War II, as […]

Earlier this week, journalists highlighted U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Poneman’s statement that the Obama Administration had “offered to facilitate Iran’s procurement through the world markets of the medical isotopes its citizens need,” but that “Iran’s leaders apparently prefer to reject the most responsible, cost effective, and timely options to ensure access to medical […]

As an organization that focuses on the critical role of the United States in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jewish Voice for Peace is deeply concerned by the ongoing activities of U.S. organizations whose 501c3 (non-profit) status enables them to raise money from American donors to support and maintain settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. […]

The picture we usually get of the Iranian poor in the media is one of two extremes: the wretched of the earth, or the equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens.”  (If you remember, Reagan attacked the meager US welfare system by inventing a group of people who did not even exist: pink-Cadillac-driving, children-producing, unwilling-to-work black […]

The standing of Iran’s so-called Green Movement is a deeply serious matter, with potentially profound implications for America’s Iran policy.  Since the Islamic Republic’s June 12, 2009 presidential election, it has become widely accepted among Iran analysts in the United States and the Western political class more broadly that the emergence of the Green Movement […]

Boston University is planning a “celebration” of Howard Zinn on March 27th. I dare think that this is a proper moment for the university to address the need to reverse the grievous discrimination against Zinn, who taught political science at BU for over two decades and yet retired with a paltry junior faculty salary. John Silber, BU’s president at the time of Zinn’s tenure, repeatedly denied any salary increase for him, voted on unanimously by the faculty committees at BU. In one instance, Silber wrote an opinion letter justifying his unilateral decision against pay increase for Zinn by labeling Zinn’s books as “nonsense” and bereft of scholarly value.

  Athens, Greece, 11.03.10. — Tens of thousands of trade unionists and anti-capitalists demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government’s austerity measures.  People explain why the have taken to the streets. “Today’s 24-hour general strike was called by GSEE and ADEDY (private and public sector unions).  They are demanding that working people not […]

To All Academics, Artists and Entertainers: Israel Needs Your ENDORSEMENT! Doug Minkler: “Corporations want artists to glorify their wars, their products & their philosophies.  I make posters for my own preservation, that is, planetary preservation.  My prints are inspired not by rugged individualism, but by the collective humor, defiance, & lust for life exhibited by […]

Barely three months have passed since the controversial bill that authorizes the government to target its massive subsidy program became law, and it is already stalling.  The government has asked the parliament to lift the $20 billion ceiling on spending from the revenues that it hopes to raise from selling energy at higher prices and […]

On Tuesday morning clashes erupted between Palestinian protesters and Israeli military and police forces across the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians hurled stones at police and burned tires and trash bins in several areas of East Jerusalem. Dozens of Palestinians were injured and many were detained.

On March 10, the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere held a hearing to chart the course of their agenda in the Western Hemisphere over the coming year. On March 12-15, the National Popular Resistance Front in Honduras (FNRP) held a national meeting to pave the way for a Honduran Constitutional Convention, even in […]

“A country whose political culture is characterized by paranoia.”  What country would that be?  Israel, which has claimed victim status through seven decades of vicious land grab?  The United States, which has devastated Iraq pretending to look for imaginary weapons of mass destruction? No, argues neoconservative Michael Eisenstadt, staff analyst at the pro-Israel Washington Institute […]

After the new Qatari administration announced that 250 employees in the widely read IslamOnline news website (IOL) would be laid off, hundreds of employees, editors, and journalists started an angry sit-in.  The situation escalated rapidly when the administration threatened to call state security to break the sit-in, but employees confirmed they will continue their open […]

  “The times we live in reflect that in Latin America and the Caribbean the confrontation between historic forces is getting worse.” — Raul Castro On February 23, 2010, incarcerated Cuban Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after a prolonged hunger strike, despite the efforts of Cuban medical personnel to treat him and prevent the ending of […]

It is intriguing to see how whoever the United States and Israel find interfering with their imperial or dispossession plans is quickly demonized and becomes a threat and target for that Real-Axis-of-Evil (RAE), and hence their NATO allies and, with less intensity, much of the rest of the “international community” (IC, meaning ruling elites, not […]

Sometimes headlines really do convey powerful messages.  That was certainly the case with an AFP story, which appeared late last week under the headline, “Saudis Deny Discussing Pressure on China over Iran with US.”   The story was prompted by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ visits to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last week. […]

Jon Stewart: “The votes are officially in.  How did it go?” Reporters: “Bombs ripped through parts of Baghdad today”; “Insurgents bombed a polling station and lobbed grenades at voters. . . .”; “A rocket killed seven people”; “Dozens of explosions”; “Bombs and mortar attacks”; “Some counted as many as fifty in Baghdad alone. . . […]