The kind of perspective far too rarely heard in the West; William Dalrymple writes in the Guardian with an extract from his recent paper,… A Deadly Triangle: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India: The hostility between India and Pakistan, ongoing for more than 60 years, lies at the heart of the current war in Afghanistan. Most observers in…
Great review of “For God’s Sake” hits
Following this week’s release of my new book, For God’s Sake, one of Australia’s leading independent book chains, Readings, publishes a wonderful review: Religion, in its various forms, has delivered both immeasurable joy and terrible conflict throughout history. Currently, many ”˜neo-atheists’ predict the death of organised religion within a generation. In… For God’s Sake, four prominent…
My new book, For God’s Sake, arrives
My new book, For God’s Sake, is available from this week through Pan Macmillan. Here’s the blurb: Four Australian thinkers come together to ask and answer the big questions, such as: What is the nature of the universe? Doesn’t religion cause most of the conflict in the world? And Where do we find hope? We…
Standing up to Murdoch bullies over Palestine
Short and sharp letter in today’s Australian refuting the almost daily barrage against anybody who dares challenge Israel (some background to Jake Lynch here and here): Your campaign to equate the call for an academic boycott of Israel with anti-Semitism is an attempt, as sinister as it is absurd, to stifle an important debate. There…
What Ed Snowden’s revelations say about our so-called democracy
It’s the kind of story that necessarily interests the general public. Surveillance, leaking, US power and Wikileaks (note, for the record, in today’s New York Times yet another clear indication that the US wants to destroy/punish the vitally important website). Last week I wrote for the Guardian about the PRISM revelations by Edward Snowden and…
Why defending Wikileaks and Ed Snowden should be easy call
Stunning piece by John Cassidy in The New Yorker: More unnerving is the way in which various members of the media have failed to challenge the official line. Nobody should be surprised to see the New York… Post… running the headline: “ROGUES’ GALLERY: SNOWDEN JOINS LONG LIST OF NOTORIOUS, GUTLESS TRAITORS FLEEING TO RUSSIA.” But where are…
Israeli speaks of necessity of one-state solution
During my visit to Israel and Palestine last year discussing my book, After Zionism, I spoke in Tel Aviv to a large and mostly sympathetic crowd. One of the people in the audience was Yoav Haifawi, founder of the Free Haifa blog and advocate for the one-state solution. Here he is talking about why it’s…
When corporate press sees role as protecting US power not interrogating it
Remarkable interview with the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, key journalist on the Edward Snowden story, with establishment “reporter” David Gregory of Meet the Press yesterday. How unedifying and revealing that Gregory asks Greenwald whether he should be charged with a crime for being involved in the Snowden leak story. Once a hack who loves attending Washington…
Why Edward Snowden rightly fears Obama’s war on whistle-blowers
The last 24 hours have seen the incredible and inspiring journey of Edward Snowden from Hong Kong on his way to Ecuador. Wikileaks have been essential in the process. It’s encouraging, in the face of belligerence and illegality by Washington in its “war on terror”, that alternative forces and balances of power are able to…