Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai’s much publicized remark last week about Gaza facing a “shoah” — the Hebrew word for the Holocaust — was widely assumed to be unpleasant hyperbole about the army’s plans for an imminent full-scale invasion of the Strip. More significantly, however, his comment offers a disturbing indication of the Israeli […]
Geography Archives: Middle East
SAMWU Condemns the Actions of Israel
7 March 2008 The South African Municipal Workers’ Union has vowed to intensify its campaign to force municipalities in the country not to have any trade dealings with Israel. SAMWU firmly believes that Israel is an apartheid state that needs to be isolated and the perpetrators of human rights violations, prosecuted. The union utterly condemns […]
COSATU Condemns Israeli Attack on Union Office
6 March 2008 The Congress of South African Trade Unions is appalled at the destruction of the headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) in Gaza, by two one-ton Israeli F-16 missiles. One person is dead, 37 are injured, mostly women and children, some of them in critical condition in hospital, and […]
The Politics of Non-Proliferation
If there was a time when Iranian analysts and decision makers would question the benefits of continuing to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, it would be now. The IAEA has allowed systematic US intervention in Iran’s nuclear file, paving the way to a third round of sanctions against Iran’s nuclear programme. But while […]
Gaza: Missile Goes Down a Union’s Throat
GAZA CITY, Mar 4 (IPS) – Two F-16 missiles were all it took to bring down the five-storey headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU). The Union, established in 1965, is one of the forerunners of the movement calling for an international boycott of Israel, and imposition of sanctions on it until […]
Talking Immigration with Mr. Block
The comic strip adventures of Mr. Block first appeared in 1912 in publications of the Industrial Workers of the World. With his thick, cubic head, Mr. Block, the creation of IWW cartoonist Ernest Riebe, typified a classic type of US worker: scoffing at the idea of working-class solidarity, Mr. Block always sided with his employers […]
Colombian Military Incursion into Ecuador Sparks Regional Crisis
On Saturday, March 1, Colombian military forces attacked an encampment of the FARC, the largest Colombian guerilla group, across the Ecuadorian border. The strike, in violation of international law, reportedly killed up to 20 guerrillas in their sleep. Among those killed was Raúl Reyes, a top FARC commander. The attack has sparked a regional crisis […]
A Secondary Patriarchal Bargain: Women, Welfare, and the Egyptian State
Iman Bibars. Victims and Heroines: Women, Welfare, and the Egyptian State. London: Zed Books, 2001. x + 330 pp. Bibliography, index. This sensitively written and thought-provoking book is based on the author’s fieldwork in seven poor neighborhoods within the Cairo-Alexandria conurbation. Even though a systematic survey was conducted in one of the research sites, the major […]
Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel
In the strange world of Israeli academia, an Arab college lecturer is being dismissed from his job because he refused to declare his “respect for the uniform of the Israeli army.” The bizarre demand was made of Nizar Hassan, director of several award-winning films, after he criticized a Jewish student who arrived in his film […]
The U.S. Occupation of Iraq at the Pivot
Max Elbaum will be on two panels at Left Forum 2008: “The State of the Anti-War Movement” and “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Legacy of ’68.” — Ed. WAR/PEACE AT THE PIVOT If the U.S. can be forced to withdraw completely from Iraq, many more positive changes become possible. But if the U.S. continues its […]
Cracks in the Edifice
Left Forum 2008 Each spring in New York City, Left Forum gathers intellectuals and activists from around the world to address the burning issues of our times. The theme for 2008 is “CRACKS IN THE EDIFICE.” We will examine the context of an empire in the throes of collapse and discuss the possibilities for social […]
The Failure of Human Rights Watch in Venezuela and Haiti
The way Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Haiti and Venezuela in its 2008 World Report reveals an underlying assumption that the U.S. and its allies have the right to overthrow democratic governments.1 The Venezuela section of the report said nothing about ongoing attempts by the U.S. to overthrow the Chavez government. It is a […]
Why Another History of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict?
James L. Gelvin. The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. x + 294 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliographies, glossary, time line, biographical sketches, index. Those who have noted, but not read, James Gelvin‘s The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War may well ask themselves, “do we need another […]
Meeting Resistance: Iraqi Insurgents Speak for Themselves
Meeting Resistance: A film by Molly Bingham and Steve Connors. Now showing at various locations. For a schedule, go to: www.meetingresistance.com. Available soon on DVD. Meeting Resistance is that rarest of discourse in the contemporary world — the true voice of the victims of US imperialism — edited, of course, as any coherent documentary must […]
It’s the Empire, Stupid
The status of the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt remains unsettled. Egypt is under heavy pressure from both Israel and the United States to reestablish control and seal the border. In an uncharacteristically blunt criticism of the regime of President Husni Mubarak, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified before the House Foreign Affairs […]
Reviving the Iranian Revolt
At the height of the Iranian revolution in the winter of 1979, French philosopher Michel Foucault described what he was seeing in Tehran as “perhaps the first great insurrection against global systems, the form of revolt that is the most modern and the most insane.” “Islam,” he wrote, “– which is not simply a religion, […]
Interview with Shahla Lahiji on Women’s Presence in the Labor Market: No Vocation Must Be Prohibited for Women
Shahla Lahiji is the first Iranian woman who succeeded in getting a publisher’s license registered in her own name. She founded Roshangaran and Women’s Studies, a publishing house, 23 years ago. Lahiji sees herself in a kind of living history on the question of women’s labor, for her mother was the fifth woman who […]
Real Muslims, Real Lives: An Enchanted Modern by Lara Deeb
Lara Deeb. An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon. Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics Series. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. ix + 263 pp. Illustrations, footnotes, glossary, bibliography, index. An Enchanted Modern by Lara Deeb is an important book that illustrates and explores the lives of real, modern, Muslim women. Published […]
Walking Away: The Least Bad Option
Except for a hardy band of neo-con optimists and the official apologists of the Bush regime, almost everyone is agreed today that the United States has gotten itself into a nasty, self-wounding mess in Iraq where it is fighting a drawn-out guerrilla war it cannot win. At the same time, a very large number of […]
Dror Ze’evi on the Sexual Discourses of the Early Modern Ottoman World
Dror Ze’evi. Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourses in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. xiv + 223 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. According to one tradition, the Prophet Muhammad once ordered a handsome youth from the tribe of ‘Abd Qays to sit behind him, so that he (the […]
