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…
Category General
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…
Rupert Murdoch, in his own words, showing contempt for law and decency
Great journalism by Britain’s Channel 4:
Tony Abbott’s foreign policy would be as clueless as George W. Bush
My following article appears today in the Guardian: In April 2010, as the war in Afghanistan was raging and US president Barack Obama… “surged” 30,000 more troops… into the country, Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott suggested that under his leadership, a Coalition government would have considered increasing involvement. “The government should explain why it’s apparently right that…
Introductory passages in For God’s Sake
Following great media coverage over the last week for my new book, For God’s Sake, with Jane Caro, Simon Smart and Rachel Woodlock, here’s an extract by me from the introduction. Please buy the book! Birth is a beginning And death a destination. Rabbi Alvin Fine This poem has remained with me since childhood, when…
How much does religion cause violence and war in the world?
This week sees the official launch of a book I’ve co-written, For God’s Sake. Today the Guardian runs extracts from one of its chapters, Doesn’t religion cause most of the conflict in the world?, by all four contributors: Rachel Woodlock (Islam) Religion is powerfully motivating and belligerent humans fight over it. Heck, religion has caused…
Edward Snowden in his own words
As the saga continues, and Ecuador now claims it was a “mistake” to assume the country would help the NSA contractor, the following statement, released via Wikileaks, has appeared: One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty…