Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch
HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.
Archives by Tag 'Israel'
The “unbreakable alliance,” which will be confirmed by the upcoming visit of President Barak Obama to Israel, will disqualify the United States as an honest broker of peace in the Arab – Israeli conflict in Palestine, a Palestinian veteran peace negotiator says....
When one looks at scenes of fleeing refugees from Syria via images of their squalid refugee camps and hears their pleas for solidarity, mercy or for God’s help to end their suffering, one finds eerie similarities between their experiences and those of the Palestinians, ...
Golan Heights
It is late afternoon and I am standing on top of an active, although temporarily abandoned, I...
The sole contribution of Ya’ir Lapid to Israeli folklore so far is his saying that he would not join a move to block Binyamin Netanyahu, since this would mean joining forces with “the Zuabis”.
This needs explanation to a foreign audience. The Zuabi family is ...
For those of you thinking of taking out Australian citizenship, a word of friendly advice: don’t. It doesn’t matter that you have no aspirations of going in the footsteps of David Hicks, who became the unshakeable totem of paranoia and vengeance on the part of the A...
Former anchorman and middle-class darling Yair Lapid stunned the Israeli political scene in the recent elections. His party, Yesh Atid (There is a Future) won 19 seats, second in size only to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Lik...
Tel Aviv.
“Compared to the Knesset it could have been, this is a very good Knesset!”
I heard this, in so many words, from at least ten former Knesset members and others, as we were drinking orange juice in the Knesset foyer. I could have said it...
With its air strikes against targets inside Syria last week, Israel announced its formal entry into the Syrian crisis. The Israeli targeting of Iran has thus entered the Syrian theater.
According to ...
The timing of the Israeli air raid early on January 30 on a Syrian target, that has yet to be identified, coincided with a hard to refute indications that the “regime change” in Syria by force, both by foreign military intervention and by internal armed rebellion, has...
Amman, Jordan.
The human chain stretched into the distance each way; representing the path of Samer Al Issaw’s daily struggle and physical agony, a path of dignity and courage; and a path of our own helplessness and shame; every demonstra...
Murder, she said; No, not the popular song, not Brecht’s Arturo Ui (rhymes with phooey), not Chicago’s SouthSide gangland variety, but the real stuff of modern times: cold-blooded, methodical, depraved, the peculiar mix of militarism-ideology-practical realism, ...
“VAE VICTIS!” was the Roman cry. Woe to the vanquished.
I would alter it slightly: “Vae Victori”, Woe to the victor!
The outstanding example is the astounding victory Israel won in June, 1967. After weeks of approaching doom, the Israeli army beat th...
Watching the Senate Armed Services Committee interact Thursday with former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel-President Obama’s candidate to be secretary of defense-was a profoundly depressing experience.
Hagel’s performance in his “confirmation...
Panel at Cooper Union NYC led by Anne-Marie Slaughter, 28 September 2006:
Tony Judt: I just… I’d just like to say one very quick thing about [the difficulty of getting anything critical of Israel into the mainstream media]. When I submitted an ar...
For 112 years, the Jewish National Fund has played a central role in the on-going displacement and dispossession of Palestinians from their land and homes. The JNF was instrumental in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 and continues to play a central role in maint...
It’s a news article! It’s a news analysis! It’s an op-ed! The Times’ is at it again in Gaza. Fares Akram’s recent piece about Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s visit to the Strip can’t quite make up its mind about what it is. It’s clear, howeve...
It was the night of the optimists.
Tuesday at 10.01 pm, a minute after the ballot boxes were sealed, the three TV news programs announced the results of their exit polls.
The dire predictions of the pessimists were scattered to the winds.
Israel has n...
This is the way the results of the elections are being presented in the Israeli press:
Centre Left Bloc Right Bloc
...
If Palestinian leaders only knew how extraneous their endless rounds of “unity” talks have become, they might cease their enthusiastic declarations to world media about yet another scheduled meeting or another. At this point, few Palestinians have hope that their “l...
Words matter. They shape perceptions and understanding, both of past and present events and of future possibilities, and, thereby, can shape future events.
The UN General Assembly’s vote of November 29 overwhelmingly recognizing Palestine’s ...
Nazareth.
When the Palestinian leadership won their upgrade to non-member observer status at the United Nations in November, plenty of sceptics on both sides of the divide questioned what practical benefits would accrue to the Palestinians. The doubters ha...
Yves Engler’s The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy is partly a f...
In a recent article in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, columnist Rafael Castro ...
I find Chuck Hagel eminently likeable. I am not quite certain why.
Perhaps it’s his war record. He was decorated for valor in the Vietnam War (which I detested). He was a mere sergeant. Since I was a mere corporal in our 1948 war, I find it elating to see a non-c...
Damascus
This observer has learned from time in this region that if one wants to learn what is happening on the ground politically and socially it is fine to speak with government officials, journalists, long tenured academicians, NGO’s, and people on th...