My following article is published on US website Mondoweiss: It is easy to frame the conflict in Israel and Palestine as inherently unique. In many ways it is – decades-old occupation, US-supported racial discrimination and failure of Western journalism to hold the powerful to account – but other struggles have eerie similarities. This year Sri…
Showing all posts tagged Iran
Iranians won’t stop shouting against oppression
While Iran erupts again with protesters against dictatorial rule, Reporters Without Borders finds massive attempts by authorities to shut down modern communications (a futile act, and only temporarily successful, that shows its desperation): The Iranian censors targeted the new-generation media with renewed energy. The authorities have responded, blow by blow, to demonstrations in recent months…
Iran needs freedom from all of us
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kills dead the hopes of the Iranian democracy movement: “Iran is silencing all sources of information. Using the power of the Internet and of Twitter against the Iranian regime is a tremendous thing that the United States can do.” The prime minister added that the “deep hatred among part of…
Does J Street realise they are backing an increasingly likely war against Iran?
So-called progressive Jewish lobby J Street has a slight identity crisis. Last week it was willing to criticise ongoing settlements in the West Bank. This week, the tough cop routine rolls out: J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby, today announced its support for Congressional passage of the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009. “J…
Chomsky on a Middle East that must revolve around Iran
Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali recently spoke at The Imperial College Political Philosophy Society in London in association with Palestine societies at UCL, SOAS, Goldsmiths, LSE, Imperial and Kings on Palestine and the region in the Obama era: the emerging framework: Chomsky: Palestine and the region in the Obama era: the emerging framework. from ICU…
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…
Madness predicted in the Middle East with Israel keen to attack Iran
This story in the Washington Post is revealing. America is essentially saying it has no issue with Israel bombing Iran and it can’t stop her, anyway. Who the hell runs the show over there? Two weeks before President Obama visited China, two senior White House officials traveled to Beijing on a “special mission” to try…
Seymour Hersh wants to take on power and be challenged on it
Leading American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, an enemy of sedentary reporters and lying governments, speaks to the New Statesman: Is it always a journalist’s duty to report the truth, even if it may damage innocents? I’m a total First Amendment Jeffersonian. It’s their job to keep it secret and my job to find it out…
Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran (says Jewish historian)
Israeli historian Benny Morris, a man with a serious dislike of Arabs and Iranians, yesterday unloaded in the UK Guardian and urged nothing less than a military strike against the Islamic Republic. Once again, a leading Zionist voice defines his ideology as nothing other than violence and devastation: The talk in Israel, explicit and open…