BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A rights group Monday condemned an Israeli drone attack on Gaza that killed a Palestinian worker for a human rights organization the day before, a statement said. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that an Israeli drone attack killed 43-year-old Anwar al-Zaanin, a staff member of al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, […]
Archives for August 2014
“Good Morning, Afghanistan!” Robin Williams entertaining the Troops, 2007
“A Life Overseas”: Robin Williams (1951-2014) was one of the acts for the 2007 USO show here on Kandahar AirField. Alert: Profanity. Robin Williams At Kandahar AirField May Mr. Williams rest in peace.
Gaza and the Palestine Crisis in History: World War II
By William R. Polk At the outbreak of World War II, both Palestinians and Zionists enlisted in large numbers — 21,000 Jews and 8,000 Palestinians — to help the British in their hour of need. But both kept their long term objectives firmly in mind: both continued to regard British imperialism as the long-term enemy […]
The Long Knives Come out in Baghdad
By Juan Cole The coup-like atmosphere created by Nouri al-Maliki’s stationing of his troops at the Green Zone, checkpoints and bridges in Baghdad on late Sunday backfired on him with Iraq’s parliamentarians. Nearly half of the members of his Islamic Da`wa Party (Islamic Call or Mission Party) in parliament defected from him. Most of the […]
Party of Palin? Why Almost No Scientists Are Republican
Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks: “”A large majority of the public (76%) and nearly all scientists (97%) say that it is appropriate for scientists to become actively involved in political debates on controversial issues such as stem cell research and nuclear power. Among the public, substantial majorities of Democrats (80%), independents (76%) and Republicans […]
Nightmare in Iraq
Joe Stork via Human Rights Watch Fearing for their lives, more than 150,000 Yezidis fled Sinjar and surrounding villages to mountains north of the city on August 3, 2014 when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attacked the area. Some young and elderly are dying from the harsh conditions. I visited a Yezidi […]
Gaza and the struggle for Palestine: the 1930s
By William R. Polk Annoyed but not deterred, the British Colonial Office decided in the 1930s, as it was then also doing in India, to crack down hard on the “troublemakers.” It put Palestine under martial law and brought in 20,000 regular soldiers to be quartered on rebel villages, blew up houses of suspected insurgents […]
Palestinian Education: another victim of Israel’s Gaza War
By Aimee Shalan and Samer Abdelnour Al-Shabaka is an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to educate and foster public debate on Palestinian human rights and self-determination within the framework of international law. This policy brief is authored by Aimee Shalan and Samer Abdelnour. Aimee Shalan is the director of the Friends of Birzeit University, […]
Iraq: Is al-Maliki Preparing to Make a Coup?
Nouri al-Maliki, who is seeking a third term as prime minister of Iraq in the teeth of widespread opposition, abruptly began acting like a strongman on Sunday night. He went on television to denounce President Fuad Masoum for not having appointed a prime minister yet, even though Sunday was the constitutional deadline for him to […]