Step by step, BDS grows: Palestine human rights campaigners today welcomed news that the UK’s fifth biggest food retailer, The Co-operative Group, will “no longer engage with any supplier of produce known to be sourcing from the Israeli settlements”. The Co-op’s decision, notified to campaigners in a statement, will immediately impact four suppliers, Agrexco, Arava…
Role of Taliban central in Afghanistan (whether the West likes it or not)
Intriguing interview in The Daily Beast that highlights the internal struggles within a movement that has beaten the US and its allies in Afghanistan: Not so long ago,… Agha Jan Motasim… was one of the most important men in the Afghan Taliban. That was before he was sacked as head of the ruling Quetta Shura’s political committee—and…
Former Israeli intelligence head slams Netanyahu et al
This is a pretty remarkable set of comments by a former senior member of the Israeli elite. No commentary required: Former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin expressed harsh criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Friday in a meeting with residents of the city of Kfar Sava, saying the pair…
“Israel appears enclosed in a bizarre egocentric bubble”
Doron Rosenblum writes in Haaretz: In the eyes of foreign observers, or people with more critical vision, Israel already looks different: perhaps like an impatient and hysterical military man with a skullcap on his head from an army of occupation, who is threatening or threatened, it is not clear which, and is prepared to land…
Damn Abbas and get silenced in Palestine
So this is the US and Israeli-backed Palestinian government the occupied should be loving? Dictatorship Inc. Shameful. Good reporting by George Hale in Maan: The Palestinian Authority has quietly instructed Internet providers to block access to news websites whose reporting is critical of President Mahmoud Abbas, according to senior government officials and data analyzed by…
What Afghanistan truly needs
My friend Benjamin Gilmour, film-maker and writer, is in Afghanistan. Here are some of his reflections (which match much of what I heard during my recent visit): How can we bring development to Afghanistan if we don’t have security? It is still the question put to us by backers of our longest war, and we…
Peacefully resisting in Israel is now illegal?
Welcome to “democratic” Israel. +972 magazine reports: Reports started flowing in at around 22:30 p.m. through text messages and phone calls. Some 15 activists from… Zochrot (“Remembering”), an Israeli NGO dedicated to preserving the memory the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) among the Hebrew-speaking public, had gathered in the group’s offices on Ibn Gabirol Street in central Tel…