Aaron Lakoff is a communications student at Concordia University in Canada and a member of Not In Our Name Concordia, a campus-based anti-Zionist Jewish group: The Israel/Palestine debate has been a controversial topic at Concordia in recent years. However, there is a point when discussion on a controversial issue can be used as a pretext…
Showing all posts tagged censorship
The Islamic Republic doesn’t trust its own citizens
When a regime is frightened of its own people, it’s a sure sign of decline and fear: Recently, the Islamic Republic of Iran Intelligence Ministry announced that in order to counter Internet activism in Iran, senior officers will be trained. The minister of the intelligence counted internet activism as a new… challenge for the regime. The…
BDS is the new anti-Semitism
The issue of targeted boycotts against Israel are growing by the day (see here and here). Muzzlewatch documents just the latest sign of panic within the Zionist establishment in the US. No answer to Zionist expansion and racist policies in Israel? Not to worry, just retreat into a bubble and hope the occupation magically disappears…
Twitter is so not Beijing’s bag
China, we are listening, can you hear us? When Barack Obama told students in Shanghai last week that he had never used Twitter, there were two responses. In the west, surprise from some of his 2.6 million followers. And in China, reportedly, a surge in queries on Google China: “What’s Twitter?” On the mainland, it…
The ghost of Bill Gates in the shadow of helping the Communist Party
My book The Blogging Revolution thoroughly examines the complicity of Western multinationals such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in assisting online censorship in oppressive regimes. Nicholas Kristof in his blog on the New York Times discovers how shocking this situation has become. Lesson for the day; never trust the word of corporate executives (especially when…
Academics should not be too critical of Israel, demand Zionist enforcers
Jewish dissenters beware: Right-wing groups in Israel want to create a climate of fear among left-wing scholars at Israeli universities by emulating the “witch-hunt” tactics of the US academic monitoring group Campus Watch, Israeli professors warn. The watchdog groups IsraCampus and Israel Academia Monitor are believed to be stepping up their campaigns after the recent…
Some transparency in the life of Gaza
The Gaza based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights have put out two press releases over the last days (here and here) condemning the Hamas government’s suppression of free speech and association in the Strip. This shows once again that Gaza isn’t a true police state (despite profound problems with accountability and democracy) but a place…
Ilan Pappe is not Zionist enough for Germany
Ilan Pappe is one of Israel’s finest historians. He kindly endorsed my first book, My Israel Question. Sadly, some Jews, this time in Germany, remain petrified over open debate. Will they ever learn? Anti-Zionist historian Prof. Ilan Pappe, one of the most important “New Historians”, was scheduled to speak last weekend at the Pedagogical Institute…
When Jewish poets are far more honest than our leaders
The ability of Jews to speak freely about the Middle East is hardly guaranteed. Even poets were cancelled from the recent J Street conference for daring to be critical. One of those poets, Kevin Coval, writes: Since the second Palestinian intifada I have thought, written and spoken about these issues, but over the course of…
The Havana blues aren’t fun these days
Yoani Sanchez is one of Cuba’s most famous bloggers. She faces constant harassment for simply writing and being critical. Here’s the latest example of Castro’s goons attacking Sanchez and her friends.