Yesterday, within hours of President Trump and PM Netanyahu announcing the details of their peace(-less) plan, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) took swift steps to draft and win support for a letter (PDF) that roundly criticized the contents of the plan. Even more significantly, among the first 12 signatories he gathered for the letter were … Continue reading U.S. Democratic senators swift to oppose Trump-Netanyahu plan
I had this piece published at Mondoweiss yesterday, which explored the many parallels between the militant form of excusivist ethno-sectarianism known as Hindutva, as practiced by Indian PM Narendra Modi. Then today, they ran this piece on the “Story of Christmas”, which was a re-run of the version I published under a different title at … Continue reading Two pieces on Mondoweiss, on Hindutva and Christmas
The smart, experienced Arab-American community leader and activist Abdeen Jabara and I are engaged in, I guess, a spirited discussion over at Mondoweiss of the value of Michael Fishbach’s latest book, The Movement and the Middle East: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Divided the American Left. I spent a long time working on the review of … Continue reading Discussing Palestine and the US radical movement of the 1960s & ’70s.
These four privileged older white guys have all sought (and been granted) exposure in the corporate media recently. Paul Wolfowitz, one of the prime architects and advocates of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was given this fine platform on the NYT’s opinion page in order to criticize Pres. Trump’s recent decision to withdraw (or late, … Continue reading What do Paul Wolfowitz, Dan Kurtzer, Aaron Miller, and Prince Andrew have in common?
A few months ago, my friend Chuck Fager invited me to contribute a chapter to an anthology he was preparing under the title Passing the Torch: When Quaker Lives Speak. Chuck suffered some bad medical things in recent weeks but he persisted with the project and ten days ago the volume went up for sale … Continue reading On thinking about writing a memoir
Washington DC, May 7 -At some level, you have to feel sorry for the members of the American corporate media reporting on the periodic clashes between Israel and the resistance forces in Gaza. Reporting in any situation of war or civil conflict is a harrowing, high-stake business. You have some amount of fear about your … Continue reading Thinking fast and slow in reporting Israel-Gaza fighting
Washington DC, April 16 — Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails won a small but significant victory April 15 when the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) agreed to several key demands voiced by 400 prisoners who had been on an open-ended hunger strike. Under the settlement, the IPS agreed to provide three-times-weekly access to (supervised) payphones so … Continue reading Palestinian prisoners win a notable battle
This week, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro became the second prominent rightwing world leader to step up his support for Jerusalem being Israel’s capital, thus joining President Donald Trump in showering Benjamin Netanyahu with diplomatic gifts in the run-up to Israel’s April 9 election. Inside Jerusalem itself, the Israeli government’s push to encircle, suffocate, and expel the … Continue reading Palestinian Jerusalem faces a ‘Fourth Wave’ of Israeli assaults
London, March 19 -Last year, Israeli soldiers on the perimeter fence with Gaza killed 189 unarmed participants in the “Great March of Return” (GMR), and injured more than 7,500 more, many of them seriously. In connection with the GMR protests, four Israelis (all of them serving soldiers) were reported injured. None were killed. And now, … Continue reading Beating Israel’s ‘But Khamas!’ ploy
The Gaza protests will mark their one-year anniversary on March 30. For 50 weeks, the Gaza Strip has seen thousands of residents taking part every Friday in the creative mass protests called the “Great March of Return.” Might this well-organized nonviolent action mark a new trend in Palestinian politics? If it does, it would not … Continue reading Gaza the crucible
