My following investigation appeared in Australian publication Crikey last week: The private security compound is on the outskirts of Kabul, along the road to Jalalabad, a notorious strip of highway, the landscape is predominantly industrial, with shipping containers set against a string of mountains on the horizon. Several logistics companies sit behind these concrete walls”‰—”‰this…
Showing all posts tagged human rights
Krugman on not writing about Israel/Palestine
Short but powerful piece by Paul Krugman on his New York Times blog: Something I’ve been meaning to do — and still don’t have the time to do properly — is say something about Peter Beinart’s brave book… The Crisis of Zionism. The truth is that like many liberal American Jews — and most American Jews…
We are America and civilised and that’s why we outsource everything
What does austerity mean in reality for Western democracies? Privatisation, privatisation and privatisation. Welcome to slave labour with a corporate smile (via TomDispatch): Sweatshop labor is back with a vengeance. It can be found across broad stretches of the American economy and around the world.… Penitentiaries have become a niche market for such work.… The… privatization…
Arabs need to be closely monitored (apparently)
Interesting and disturbing sign that racism against Arabs is a normal affair in Israel: My friend and I posed as ignorant tourists in the Old City of Jerusalem and asked an ex-IDF soldier some questions about the current situation in Israel/Palestine. Just to emphasise we are not ignorant on the conflict nor do we indorse…
How far my people are falling; racist right embraced by Zionist mainstream
The current trial in Norway of far-right murderer Anders Breivik is a disturbing reminder of his horrific crimes last year. I was involved in an e-book in 2011, On Utoya, that aimed to deconstruct the event and place it into context of the growing connection between hardline, Zionist supporters and the European racist Right. This…
G4S, like a cancer, spreads to Palestine
The role of private security companies operating globally is a massive problem that is rarely addressed in the media. I investigated the role of G4S in Pakistan recently. The BDS movement in Palestine is also going after the same firm for very good reasons: Today, on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, we the undersigned Palestinian civil society…
What’s a rogue Zionist state to do when faced with so many “illegal immigrants”?
Build the world’s largest prison to house them (via the Guardian): A vast detention complex is rising from the sandy grounds of Ktzi’ot prison in the Negev desert, close to… Israel‘s border with Egypt, which will become the world’s largest holding facility for asylum seekers and migrants. When it is completed, at an initial cost of…
In no healthy definition is Israel a democracy
Israel has a rather massive image problem that won’t be solved by more money on PR. This Haaretz editorial… says such violence isn’t an aberration, it’s part of the occupying system: From time to time the news media or human rights groups film an Israeli in uniform using excessive force against human rights or peace activists…
Radio Adelaide on Holocaust Remembrance Day and Israel 2012
I was interviewed this morning by Radio Adelaide… on the issue below and modern Zionist politics: The April/May period marks a very important time in the Jewish calendar – it is Yom HaShoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Hebrew, Yom HaShoah… directly translates to the ”˜day of calamity, devastation or ruin’; and since 1953, it is a…
This is not what courage looks like over Israel/Palestine
There really isn’t much to be added to this short but incisive post by Phil Weiss on Mondoweiss except to agree with his sentiments; the lack of guts by so many mainstream American intellectuals to comment on Zionism and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, as it’s seen as negatively affecting the career. Grow a pair,…