Far too many in the media get excited when yet another US official talks about restarting the “peace process”. It’s all smokes and mirrors and largely irrelevant to facts on the ground, ever-expanding Israeli occupation over Palestine. Here’s Jeff Halper, founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions: How do we respond to Kerry? I…
Showing all posts in June 2019
Julian Assange on fighting reach of the superpower
Typically tough piece by Julian Assange, published in the Guardian, that outlines the risks faced by every citizen around the world and why trusting state power is a fool’s game: The original cypherpunks were mostly Californian libertarians. I was from a different tradition but we all sought to protect individual freedom from state tyranny. Cryptography…
Why truth about Sri Lankan brutality scares the perpetrators
The powerful documentary, No Fire Zone, tells the harrowing story of the final days of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009, where war crimes were committed by all sides. But the Colombo government refuses to take any responsibility for the murder of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians. The film-maker, Callum Macrae, recently visited…
Force-feeding detainees at Guantanamo Bay is terrorism
Devastating short film that demonstrates the brutal reality for countless prisoners under the Obama administration: As Ramadan begins, more than 100 hunger-strikers in Guantánamo Bay continue their protest. More than 40 of them are being force-fed. A leaked document sets out the military instructions, or standard operating procedure, for force-feeding detainees. In this four-minute film…
Repeat after me, you have no privacy online ever
If we have discovered only one thing recently with the revelations of Edward Snowden, it’s that the US has established an all-seeing and all-hearing surveillance apparatus that knows no bounds. This investigation in the Washington Post adds to this picture: The U.S. government had a problem: Spying in the digital age required access to the…
Talking For God’s Sake on Weekend Sunrise TV
What an interesting morning. Today all us writers of the For God’s Sake book appeared on Channel 7’s Weekend Sunrise program. It was strange watching this segment back and noticing that under my name on the screen it read, “Jew”. It was a unique opportunity to explain that Judaism and Zionism aren’t the same thing…
ABCTV News24’s The Drum on asylum seekers, Wikileaks and Edward Snowden
I appeared on ABCTV News24’s The Drum on Friday night (video here). We discussed the foul use of vulnerable asylum seekers as a political tool in Australia, claiming those coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Sri Lanka or elsewhere are just economic refugees. The facts are the complete opposite. I strongly defended the importance of NSA…
Only a matter of time before Palestinians rise up
Gideon Levy in Haaretz in commanding style: One day the Palestinian people will rise up against their occupiers. I hope this day comes soon. It’s true that this scenario seems unrealistic right now. The Palestinians are still bleeding from the second intifada, which only brought disaster upon them (and the Israelis). They are divided and…
Rupert Murdoch, in his own words, showing contempt for law and decency
Great journalism by Britain’s Channel 4: