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Gaza Disowned: The Pope, Israel and ‘Reconciliation’
Ramzy Baroud
“Gaza is not on the Pope’s itinerary, nor will it be. There will be no change in these plans. But I’ll say it very clearly, the Pope is absolutely not going to Gaza.”
Such were the astounding comments made by the Pope’s spokesman in Israel, Wadie Abunasser, prior to Pope Benedict XVI visiting Palestine and Israel.
As if there was no massacre in Gaza, no families entirely slaughtered, no human rights violated to match the record of the most grisly of crimes in modern history. As if Gaza were a mere irritant in the annals of human suffering. More, as if there were no Catholic flock in Gaza. To clarify, there are actually nearly 2,000 Catholics in Gaza, apparently not important enough for the ‘cut’.
Internet Threatened by Censorship, Secret Surveillance, and Cybersecurity Laws
Stephen Lendman
At a time of corporate dominated media, a free and open Internet is democracy's last chance to preserve our First Amendment rights without which all others are threatened. Activists call it Net Neutrality. Media scholar Robert McChesney says without it "the Internet would start to look like cable TV (with a) handful of massive companies (controlling) content" enough to have veto power over what's allowed and what it costs. Progressive web sites and writers would be marginalized or suppressed, and content systematically filtered or banned.
Media reform activists have drawn a line in the sand. Net Neutrality must be defended at all costs. Preserving a viable, independent, free and open Internet (and the media overall) is essential to a functioning democracy, but the forces aligned against it are formidable, daunting, relentless, and reprehensible. Some past challenges suggest future ones ahead.
When will world leaders show “cruel racists” zero tolerance?
Stuart Littlewood
"Lucky we're not in Gaza," I said to my surgeon last week, “or you wouldn’t have been able to fix my problem.”
I was lying in a hospital bed in England, thinking how many Palestinians suffer a similar illness but are cruelly denied treatment.
Not because there aren't the surgical skills - Gaza’s health professionals are very talented, I hear - but because the Zionist thugs whom our sick-minded political leaders call friends and allies have systematically blockaded medical supplies and equipment, especially these last 2 years, wiping out proper healthcare in the Strip and sentencing innocent men, women and children to death. Those they can’t vaporize or blow to bits with high explosives and phosphor they destroy slowly by starvation and untreated disease.
Only Cure for a Dying Earth May Be a Stewardship Revolution
Dr. Glen Barry
If Gaia, the Earth System, is alive, then it stands to reason she can die. And the fact Gaia has not yet succumbed in past mass extinctions is no indication, and certainly no guarantee, that when hit simultaneously, in a geological flash of time -- with climate change, deforestation, toxics, soil loss, scarce freshwater, dead oceans and more; caused primarily by over-population and inequitable consumption -- that Gaia will not pass from being.
Action, cut!
Eric Walberg
Pornography, feminisation of the enemy? Confused over what Obama’s view on Guantanamo and the backlog of torture images from Abu Ghraib? Join the club.
The centrepiece of United States President Barack Obama’s PR campaign to show the world the US is the nice cop was to end the military tribunals, which he called “an enormous failure” during last year’s presidential campaign, and close the infamous Guantanamo prison. This was Obama’s first major “achievement” upon assuming office.
Diplomacy, Militarism and Imagery
James Petras
Introduction
President Obama’s greatest foreign policy successes are found in the reports of the mass media. His greatest failures go unreported, but are of great consequence. A survey of the major foreign policy priorities of the White House reveals a continuous series of major setbacks, which call into question the principal objectives and methods pursued by the Obama regime.
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Stop the Press! This is what Israeli Democracy Looks Like
Nima Shirazi
Telling the truth can be dangerous business. Honest and popular don't go hand in hand. - Lyle Rogers and Chuck "The Hawk" Clarke, Ishtar (1987)
Last Tuesday, prominent Israeli journalist Amira Hass was arrested by Israeli authorities upon entering Israel from Gaza. Hass, a correspondent for the daily Ha'aretz, had been living and working in Gaza for months, reporting on the lives of Palestinians and revealing many devastating truths about the brutalized and besieged community.
Journalists are forbidden to enter Gaza, upon orders from the Israeli military. Clearly, where there are reporters, there may be reports. Where there are reports, there may be knowledge. And when there is knowledge, especially about the Israeli policy of constant aggressive oppression of the Palestinian people, there is sure to be outrage. Truth and dissent are the eternal enemies of history's oppressors, therefore it is no surprise that Israel wishes to suppress knowledge and publicity of its own indefensible actions.
The Attack on the LIBERTY: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship: A Book Review and Much More
eileen fleming
Four days before the forty-second anniversary of that other day in infamy, the release of The Untold Story of Israel’s Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship will reopen many wounds caused by the Israeli attack on the unarmed spy ship that navigated in international waters during the Six-Day War.
Acclaimed journalist and son of a survivor, author James Scott dedicated his extensively footnoted, compelling and dramatic account to his father, who lived to tell about it and the thirty-four sailors who did not.
BEHOLDEN TO THE BIG POWERS: ISRAEL, GAZA AND THE UN
MediaLens
On December 27, 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a massive assault on Gaza. 22 days later, around 1,400 Palestinians, including over 300 children, and 13 Israelis were dead; about 5,000 Palestinians were wounded. Israeli forces bombed and shelled schools, medical centres, hospitals, ambulances, United Nations buildings (including UN schools), power plants, sewage plants, roads, bridges and civilian homes. This was described in much of the press as hitting “Hamas targets” (e.g. David Gardner, 'U.S. accused of white phosphorus against Taliban', Daily Mail, May 11, 2009).
Earlier this month, the UN announced the results of an inquiry into attacks on its buildings and personnel in Gaza. It concluded that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) were:
| “involved in varying degrees of negligence or recklessness with regard to United Nations premises and to the safety of United Nations staff and other civilians within those premises, with consequent deaths, injuries, and extensive physical damage and loss of property.” (Donald Macintyre, ‘UN retreats after Israel hits out at Gaza report’, Independent, May 6, 2009) |
“I had a dream.” It was 2008 and Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States
Robert Singer
The world is engulfed in a global economic crisis of staggering ferocity rivaling four other financial meltdowns—which all began in the month of October. [1]
VP Biden and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker don’t remember any time when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world. The current crisis looks more like the collapse of the Soviet Union, on October 18, 1991, when Gorbachev signed an agreement forming a new economic community.
The economic stimulus package that President Barack Obama said was needed to create millions of jobs to pull the economy out of recession and “essential to avoid having the worst economic crisis in a generation turn into a catastrophe” isn’t working according to the April 2009 Jobless rate.
Making matters worse: a government “by and for” the American people may not be prepared for the social dislocation, economic despair and breakdown in law and order that is likely to ensue.
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