August 2009

August 11, 2009

Resigning from Cohen and Amnesty | Pulse

  Renowned Irish composer and novelist Raymond Deane on the reasons why he has chosen to resign from Amnesty International. We encourage readers to follow Deane’s example.

Activists leafletting a Leonard Cohen concert in Liverpool

    When I first – and belatedly – began fretting about human rights and political injustice in the wake of the 1990-91 Gulf War, I joined Amnesty International and started writing letters and cards to political prisoners and to a variety of Embassies...
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Anti-Zionists: The New Heretics, by Jeff Gates

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”– George Santayana
  How quickly we forget. With the Inquisition still fresh in memory, America’s Founders embraced democracy as a means to protect liberty from the manipulations of faith. That’s why facts were enshrined at the core of self-governance grounded in the rule of law. The duplicity at the heart of the U.S.-Israeli relationship puts that founding principle at risk...
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9 Aug 2009

Obama and the Israel Lobby, Part One: Origins of Power | Counterpunch
  The power of the Israel lobby is the subject of intense dispute in the U.S.  Seldom is an issue so passionately fought over, as critics of the lobby incite the furor of activists committed to protecting the U.S. and Israel’s “special relationship.”  The Israel lobby includes groups such as the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, among many others...
3 Aug 2009
The View from Gaza
  Six months after the Israeli offensive in Gaza, Antony Loewenstein went to see how its people are coping under Israel's continuing blockade

    The no-man’s land you must cross to get from Israel into Gaza is a 500-metre stretch of sand. We — myself and the porter helping with my bags — walked along it, between bombed buildings on both sides of the road. When I reached the Hamas checkpoint, my passport was briefly checked and my cases looked over, and I was inside. Compared to this, Israel felt like another planet. The drive from the checkpoint into Gaza City, a relatively short distance, quickly reminded me that I was in Hamas-controlled territory. The group’s flags flapped in the wind. Buildings had Arabic writings spray-painted across their fronts. The rubble-strewn roads were littered with rubbish and broken up by speed humps. The place looked old and broken...