Geography Archives: Middle East

  We are writing to ask for your support for a mural on 24th and Capp St that is under attack by Zionists.  The mural depicts related images of struggle by indigenous communities against forces of imperialism, racism, and economic oppression.  Its major theme is breaking down walls — those in Mexico, Palestine, Iraq — […]

St. Louis — A young man from Palestine and another from Israel riveted 400 U.S. military veterans to their seats last week in this city on the Mississippi River.  What captivated the audience was their recent decision to put down the guns they’d pointed at each other for years. The two members of Combatants for […]

“WAR . . . huh . . . yeah What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.” — Edwin Starr‘s No. 1 Hit, “WAR,” 1970 Edwin Starr’s antiwar blockbuster hit Number 1 less than a year after the Vietnam Moratorium brought millions of us into the streets in October 1969. Nearly forty years later, we are […]

(PU) Former Vice President Richard B. Cheney was found dead today at the Daniel Ellsberg Reeducation Center for War Criminals and the Psychopathically Challenged.  Using twine he had pilfered from a macramé class, Mr. Cheney apparently hanged himself after a particularly grueling group therapy session in which participants were asked to go deep within themselves […]

  In recent months Iran has made large strides toward mastering nuclear technology.  Alarmed by these advances, the Bush administration and its European allies have stepped up their hostile actions and threats, specifically: Attempting to prevent the entry into service of Iran’s first nuclear power plant at Bushehr.  The Bushehr reactor will use nuclear fuel […]

This week marks a year since the end of hostilities now officially called the Second Lebanon war by Israelis.  A month of fighting — mostly Israeli aerial bombardment of Lebanon, and rocket attacks from the Shia militia Hizbullah on northern Israel in response — ended with more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and a small but […]

A Cardinal Principle of Modern Liberalism The basic assumption of modern liberalism is that freedom is involved in an ongoing, all encompassing struggle against a dangerous enemy, totalitarianism.  The existence of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were and still are presented as the quintessential totalitarian formations.  Liberal thinkers stress that totalitarianism is on the […]

If someone can silence whatever he or she doesn’t like, we are all going to be in big trouble soon. While everyone is on holidays, a new blow to online free speech has taken place, and I would like to share it with you and ask for help. Last Friday, my blog was shut down […]

[O]ccupation proceeds from the same ideological infrastructure on which the 1948 ethnic cleansing was erected  [. . .] and in whose name there take place every day detentions and killings without trial.  The most murderous manifestation of this ideology is now in the Territories.  It should and must be stopped soonest.  For that, no expedient […]

Sermon delivered August 5, 2007, at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. It may be the fate of humans always to believe that we live at the most important time in history, that our moment is the decisive moment.  But even factoring in this tendency toward collective self-centeredness, it is difficult to ignore that today we face […]

International Statement for a Middle East Free of All Weapons of Mass Destruction Despite the unfolding tragedy in Iraq and the dangerously spiraling crises in the Middle East, another war of an unprecedented scale, this time against Iran, is looming near.  The environmental and human cost of this war would, by comparison, dwarf the suffering […]

حسن جمعه عواد الاسدي رئيس اتحاد نقابات النفط Hassan Juma’a Awad al Assadi, President of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU), spoke to over 200 people at Friends Meeting House in London on Wednesday, 18 July 2007.  The IFOU represents 26,000 workers across Iraq.  They have struck three times against the privatization of Iraqi […]

Iran is the new Nazi Germany and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new Hitler.  Or so Israeli officials have been declaring for months as they and their American allies try to persuade the doubters in Washington that an attack on Tehran is essential.  And if the latest media reports are to be trusted, it looks […]

Farid Esack, a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School, is the author of Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression and On Being a Muslim: Finding a Religious Path in the World Today.  A former national commissioner on gender equality appointed by President Nelson Mandela, Esack was active in the […]

The July 2007 elections ended with results beyond the expectations of most observers.  We will watch for possible coming earthquakes. To explain the AKP’s election victory, in addition to the AKP’s own tactics and policies, exogenous factors should be taken into consideration.  These include the large vacuum at the centre right and center left of […]

Ayub Nuri, a Kurdish man from Halabja, was a fixer for the Western media in Iraq (he is now based in New York City, having received a scholarship from Columbia).1  A fixer, in the words of Nuri, is “a journalist’s interpreter, guide, source finder and occasional lifesaver.”2  Local fixers, more or less, shape what foreign […]

  Ahmad Sa’adat, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, is one of over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails.  These political prisoners, men, women and children, are activists, organizers, and political leaders of the Palestinian people. Sa’adat’s trial is scheduled to […]

L’Irak a créé la surprise, dimanche 29 juillet, en battant l’Arabie Saoudite 1-0 en finale de la Coupe d’Asie de football, à Djakarta. Le capitaine de l’équipe, Younis Mahmoud, a inscrit le but de la victoire à la 71e minute pour offrir à l’Irak un succès inespéré.  C’est la première fois que l’Irak, véritable sensation […]

Debates concerning the “Socialism of the 21st Century” are experiencing an upswing at the moment.  However, this century will initially be rather one of capitalism than socialism.  Not because there is once more an economic recovery.  Prosperity and crisis alternate constantly in capitalism, but behind this up-and-down process are tendencies towards an extension and further […]

George Galloway gets suspended from the Commons even as the investigation into the Al-Yamamah deal (which may implicate the UK government in Saudi money laundering for terrorist cells: Simon Jenkins, “Who Exposed This Colossal Bribery? Why, the Feral Beast,” Guardian, 13 June 2007) gets scrapped.  Galloway notes: “The Serious Fraud Office investigation into BAe was […]