I’m honoured to be launching Donna Mulhearn’s first book, Ordinary Courage, which primarily examines her role as a human shield in Iraq in 2003: Murdoch Books and The Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at The University of Sydney are delighted to invite you to the launch of Donna Mulhearn’s first book, Ordinary Courage To…
Showing all posts in June 2019
What is happening to the war-scarred children of Gaza?
I’ve been publishing the compelling stories by Australian Donna Mulhearn during her recent trip to Gaza. Here’s her latest and last reflections: Dear friends, The children concentrated hard as they drew the blood spurting out of bodies, the helicopters firing bullets onto people below, the aeroplanes dropping bombs. They also drew weary palm trees, grey…
Memo to Jews close to God; porn and online gambling are your friends
The intention of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel to ban access to an open internet in Israel isn’t going too well: Are Israel’s Haredi religious authorities losing control of their followers? In December, leading Israeli rabbis launched a new push to curtail Internet use among ultra-Orthodox Jews, emphasizing that their longstanding ban on Web surfing applied…
Jessie Boylan reports on the wild lands of Sinai and Gaza
I posted a few days ago a wonderful essay by Australian photo-journalist Conor Ashleigh about his experience in Egypt and Gaza during the Gaza Freedom March. A colleague Jessie Boylan was with him and she has also filed a compelling travelogue on the journey.
Is the internet actually helping authoritarianism in Iran?
Web contrarian Evgeny Morozov (I use that term with affection) argues that web tools such as Twitter and blogging are not really assisting dissidents in Iran but are in fact making it far easier for the regime to crack down.
Canadian students lead the way on BDS
Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) Carleton in Ottawa, Canada, have released a stunning video explaining why their university should divest from companies intimately involved in the Israeli occupation. It’s just the latest example of civil society taking up the issue of Palestine when governments and the elites continue backing gross human rights abuses in Palestine.…
Why protesting Petraeus is so important
I mentioned here recently the protest at Georgetown University against visiting speaker General David Petraeus. Soon after I received the following email from a participant of the action: I am writing to thank you for mentioning last week’s protest of General Petraeus on Georgetown’s campus in your blog. As one of the students involved, it…
Why our commentator class love to love war
Salon’s Glenn Greenwald rightly concludes that the responsibility-free media class that advocates “for more wars that never touch their lives” should be treated with the contempt they deserve (while, in contrast, somebody like Howard Zinn, who opposed wars, is side-lined or even ignored by the mainstream): I’m periodically criticized for an… “angry” tone in my writing,…
Much of the world doesn’t believe Israeli arrogance anymore
The revealing statement by the Israeli government to the UN: You are worrying about the humanitarian rights of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. You should be worrying about one Israeli who is being held there.
Tony Blair will always be remembered for supporting colonial wars
The evidence given by Tony Blair to the Chilcot inquiry in London over his decision to invade Iraq showed a man utterly incapable or unwilling to understand the gravity of the decision. The hundreds of thousands killed, the lies told in the service of war and the criminality of the entire enterprise. Many in the…