Geography Archives: Middle East

  • Cadet Bush at West Point: Screw That Chin In, Beanhead!

    Mister Bush, you deserve a good reaming for your performance at the United States Military Academy graduation on Saturday.  Post around to my room for some character guidance. Come in, wackhead.  Slam up against that wall!  Suck up that capacious gut!  Shoulders back!  Pop up that puny chest!  Fingers along the seams of your trousers!  […]

  • Canadian Union Takes Important Step against Israeli Apartheid

    At the annual convention of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario, held 24-27 May 2006 in Ottawa, the union passed a resolution of historic importance.  Resolution 50 — adopted unanimously by the 900 delegates at the largest convention in the union’s history — expressed support for the global campaign against Israeli apartheid.  The […]

  • Join Us with Simultaneous Protests against Boycott of Elected Palestinian Authority

    On Saturday, June 3 at 7 PM, a coalition of Israeli peace groups and movements will hold a protest march and rally in Tel-Aviv. We will protest against the boycott of the Palestinian elected authority, against the siege and starvation of the Palestinian people, for negotiations without preconditions — to sum it up, against the […]

  • Iranian Cold Warriors in Sheep’s Clothing

    Erik C. Nisbet & James Shanahan, “MSRG Special Report: Restrictions on Civil Liberties, Views of Islam, & Muslim Americans,” Media & Society Research Group, Cornell University, December 2004 Actual mass murderers are higher on my watch list than those who just think or shout hateful beliefs.  But you would be mistaken if you thought the […]

  • Two, Three, Many Olympias

    There’s a great tradition amongst the world’s citizenry that is perhaps best expressed in the words spoken by the late Berkeley radical Mario Savio.  During the Free Speech actions of 1964 that were aimed at the University of California’s repressive administrative dictates against student and staff political activity, Mario said:  There’s a time when the […]

  • Ontario’s “Sharia Law” Controversy: How Muslims Were Hung Out to Dry

    “A lie can travel halfway around the world,” the American writer Mark Twain once said, “while the truth is putting on its shoes.”  That statement could apply to the recent phony debate over “sharia tribunals” in Ontario. Odds are that if you consulted the average man or woman in the street on the matter, you […]

  • “The Caiman”: Moretti Faces the Soul of Italy [“Le Caïman”: Moretti face à l’âme italienne]

    Par quel étrange paradoxe Le Caïman, qui est moins personnel que Je suis un autarcique (1976), moins drôle que Sogni d’Oro (1981), moins virtuose que Palombella Rossa (1989), moins émouvant que Journal intime (1993) ou moins romanesque que La Chambre du fils (2001), se révèle-t-il le film le plus fort réalisé à ce jour par […]

  • The Shah: America’s Nuclear Poster Boy

    Back in the good old days, the regal Shah served as the poster boy for US power companies selling nuclear reactors TO A SKEPTICAL AMERICAN PUBLIC! Click on the image for a larger view. Based in Washington, DC, Rostam Pourzal writes about the politics of human rights for Iranian expatriate journals. MRZine has published his […]

  • Iraq, Iran, and the New World Order

    The present crisis concerning Iran’s nuclear program cannot be reduced to merely the ongoing rivalry between Tehran and Washington.  Rather, it reveals all the new parameters of the post-Cold War world order that American strategists want to avoid. Iran’s Machiavellian diplomatic brinkmanship has succeeded so far, not only because the Ahmadinejad administration is exploiting the […]

  • First Working-Class Film and Video Festival in Turkey a “Resounding Success”

      The first international working-class film and video festival titled “Against Neo-Liberalism, 20 Countries and 40 Films” was held in Turkey in early May 2006 — a resounding success.  Over 8,000 attended the various film screenings, and, for the first time, working people in Turkey had an opportunity to see the global struggle of other […]

  • Circling the Wagons and Building Walls:Washington’s Immigration Policy

    So Bush and company want to put thousands of armed troops on the border between the United States and Mexico.  The supposed reason for this move is to stem the flow of immigrants coming into the US from the south.  I have a feeling that this move will be probably popular in Congress and amongst […]

  • LETTER TO KOFI ANNAN: Steps Taken against Iran That Are Not Taken against Israel Lack Credibility

    May 18, 2006 To: The Honorable Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations Re: The Iranian threat to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Your Excellency, Iran’s nuclear projects acquire an alarming significance with Iran’s recent threat to withdraw its acceptance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Middle-East is a volatile region. […]

  • Good Neighbor Senator Sessions Walls Out Mexico . . . and Robert Frost

    “The Senate fence measure was embodied in an amendment offered by Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, who borrowed from the poet Robert Frost.  ‘Good fences make good neighbors,’ he said.  ‘Fences don’t make bad neighbors.’” —  New York Times, 17 May 2006 What Senator Sessions knows is of no interest to me.  It must […]

  • The Sewing Factory in Gaza, the Administration in Tel-Aviv, and the Owners in New York: Israeli Industrialists’ Strategy in the Global Supply Chain

    The aim of this paper is to try to understand the Israeli industrialists’ strategy in the globalization process in the course of the recent years.  The new strategy was implemented in the days of the first Intifada (the Palestinian uprising) in the late 80s.  At that time voices were heard in the Association of Israeli […]

  • The Nakba: Then and Now

    On the 58th anniversary of the Nakba, or the “Catastrophe,” prominent Palestinians share their thoughts on the day when more than 700,000 of their brethren became refugees.  The Institute for Middle East Understanding asked the panel, ranging from business leaders to comedians, what comes to mind on the 58th anniversary of the Nakba and why […]

  • Haunted House

    Maryla Husyt Finkelstein, the author’s mother, after the war in Austria.  She was in a Displaced People camp. Every night as we watched the news on television my mother would avert her eyes and raise her hand to block the screen when scenes from Vietnam flashed across it.  After a few moments the question would […]

  • The Man from the Middle Ages

    Some people knew exactly what to think about the letter Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent to U.S. President George W. Bush.  Since they had already pegged Ahmadinejad as a Holocaust-denying, Israel-threatening, nuke-hungry lunatic, it was no stretch to see the letter as exactly the sort of thing a Holocaust-denying, Israel-threatening, nuke-hungry lunatic would write, even […]

  • Hope under Siege

    You and your friends are invited to attend the San Francisco debut of HOPE UNDER SIEGE, a collaborative photo exhibition depicting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and people.

  • The End of Genocide

    In an age dominated by brute force and overwhelming military power — in other words, any age at all — it is hard to remember that the simplest addition to our vocabulary can change the world.  This was what Raphael Lemkin accomplished in 1944, when in a study on the Nazi occupation of Europe he […]

  • “Hispanic Quebec” Makes Its Entrance [L’entrée en scène du «Québec hispanophone»]

    En ce Premier Mai 2006,  des milliers et des milliers de Latinos se sont absentés du travail et de l’école, ont manifesté dans les rues des principales villes américaines et ont fait grève de consommation pour protester contre le projet de loi HR 4437 sur le contrôle de l’immigration illégale et faire reconnaître leur apport […]