The role of mainstream media in the West to shield the public from the realities of Israeli occupation is legendary. Occasionally there is a breakthrough, such as this 2010 piece on American 60 Minutes on East Jerusalem. Yesterday the same program and the same reporter, Bob Simon, returned to the subject and covered Christians leaving…
We are America and civilised and that’s why we outsource everything
What does austerity mean in reality for Western democracies? Privatisation, privatisation and privatisation. Welcome to slave labour with a corporate smile (via TomDispatch): Sweatshop labor is back with a vengeance. It can be found across broad stretches of the American economy and around the world.… Penitentiaries have become a niche market for such work.… The… privatization…
Top leader of Hamas speaks to leading American Jewish newspaper
Now this is interesting. Forward is granted an “unprecedented” five hour interview with… Mousa Abu Marzook, Hamas’s second-highest-ranking official. Here’s one explanation from an Israeli journalist: What [Abu Marzook] really wants is for Jewish Americans to convince the Israelis that Hamas is not like an animal. Perhaps, but the content is revealing. This is not, despite…
Our education legacy in Afghanistan is mired in corruption and nothingness
Shameful: Hayatollah is supposed to be teaching history and geography for grades six to nine at the Kahrezak Secondary School, located 60 kilometres from Chaghcharan, the provincial centre of Ghor province in central Afghanistan . But when asked to identify Ahmad Shah Durrani, the first king of Afghanistan, the 22-year-old teacher replied with a smile…
This is what military contractors think of journalism in the US
A disturbing story that reveals the danger real journalism poses to the vulture capitalists in our “democracies”: A USA TODAY reporter and editor investigating Pentagon propaganda contractors have themselves been subjected to a propaganda campaign of sorts, waged on the Internet through a series of bogus websites. Fake Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created…
Clear intent for CIA to commit terrorism in Yemen
Just think about the ramifications of this first paragraph in a Washington Post story: The CIA is seeking authority to expand its covert drone campaign in Yemen by launching strikes against terrorism suspects even when it does not know the identities of those who could be killed, U.S. officials said.
Arabs need to be closely monitored (apparently)
Interesting and disturbing sign that racism against Arabs is a normal affair in Israel: My friend and I posed as ignorant tourists in the Old City of Jerusalem and asked an ex-IDF soldier some questions about the current situation in Israel/Palestine. Just to emphasise we are not ignorant on the conflict nor do we indorse…
The kindly Washington gift to dysfunctional Pakistan
Today’s Pakistan is a nation with various sources of power but the intelligence services, ISI, are who truly controls the place. Dilip Hiro writes in TomDispatch about who has been largely funding this degradation since 9/11: It is common knowledge that Pakistani judges, fearing for their lives, generally refrain from convicting high-profile jihadists with political…
Zionist Diaspora perpetuates mass Israeli paranoia
Ilan Pappe writes in the Electronic Intifada about irrational hysteria that envelops today’s Israel: Being part visitor and part inmate in the ward [Israel] I found solace in three books, each one of which tells us how best to keep our wits even when the most armed and aggressive state in the region has replaced…