All Souls’ Night By W.B. Yeats Midnight has come and the great Christ Church bell And many a lesser bell sound through the room; And it is All Souls’ Night. And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel 5 Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come; For it is a ghost’s right, His element is […]
Archives for October 2014
Unprecedented Damage to Gaza & its People can’t be repaired with Just more Aid
By Sara Roy, Harvard University In the near three decades that I have been involved with Gaza and her people, I have never seen the kind of physical and psychological destruction that I see there today. In all Gaza’s long and tormented history, there is no precedent for its extraordinarily dangerous position in 2014. The […]
“Pilot Program” of Segregated Buses banning Palestinians in Israel
AJ+ “The defense minister [Moshe Ya’alon] … hasn’t issued a blanket ban but believes integrated buses are “a recipe for a terror attack.” So he’s launched a pilot program of segregated buses between Israel and the West Bank for “security considerations.” AJ+ “Israel Bans Palestinians From Riding Buses”
Afghanistan’s Women: After 13 Years of War, the Rule of Men, Not Law
By Ann Jones via Tomdispatch.com On September 29th, power in Afghanistan changed hands for the first time in 13 years. At the Arg, the presidential palace in Kabul, Ashraf Ghani was sworn in as president, while the outgoing Hamid Karzai watched calmly from a front-row seat. Washington, congratulating itself on this “peaceful transition,” quickly collected the new […]
Far Right Extremist Avigdor Lieberman says Swedish Recognition of Palestine will Strengthen Extremists
By Juan Cole There was a time when people like Avigdor Lieberman were not welcome in Israeli politics, or, indeed, in Jewish circles in the United States. Dogged by accusations of corruption (though acquitted in the Israeli courts) and widely considered a racist and flamethrower, Lieberman has emerged as Foreign Minister, a powerful cabinet post. […]
This day in History: Madrid Arab-Israeli Peace Conference (a Process that Netanyahu later Boasted of Derailing)
The Madrid peace conference convened October 30, 1991, hosted by President George H. W. Bush and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, aimed at initiating a peace settlement between Israel and the Arabs. Bush senior warns that if Israel and Palestinians don’t make peace, sooner or later “weapons of mass destruction” could be deployed in the Middle […]
Jerusalem tensions over al-Aqsa Mosque turn bloody as Far Right-winger is Shot
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Right-wing Jewish activist Yehuda Glick was shot and injured at a rally in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening, Israeli police and medical sources said. Glick was reportedly shot in his upper body at “close range” at an event outside the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, where a number of Israeli members of […]
GOP Voter Suppression: Comedian Louis Black says F#%! it!
ACLU “At a photo shoot with ACLU’s Voting Rights Project Director Dale Ho, ACLU voting rights ambassador Lewis Black gets so f#%!in’ tired of politicians trying to deny people the right to vote. The ACLU is fighting against bad voter suppression laws across the country. The rules of voting are still in flux in many […]
The Kurdish 3rd Way: Democracy is “Radical” in Northern Syria
By Karlos Zurutuza (Inter Press Service) Garbage collection is among the many duties of the Democratic Self-Management in force in the three mainly Kurdish enclaves of northern Syria. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS AMUDA, Syria, Oct 28 2014 (IPS) – There was never anything particularly remarkable about this northern town of 25,000. However, today it has become […]