By Cathy Stripe Lester On August 5, Michigan taxpayers will be asked to vote on Proposition 1, which is being presented in commercials as a way to “help small businesses and create 15,000 new jobs … without raising taxes!” If that sounds like a conjuring trick, it is – smoke’n’mirrors, my friends. And if you […]
Boycott of Israel Spreads in European Civil Society over Gaza War, Could Cost $5 bn/ yr
By Juan Cole The ill-considered and remarkably brutal Gaza war likely will give further impetus to the Boycott, Sanction and Divestment movement by Western civil society to pressure Israel on its illegal actions toward the Palestinians. A thoroughgoing such European set of sanctions could cost Israel as much as $5 bn a year and more. […]
Are Israelis and Zionists really talking about a Final Solution of the Palestinian Problem?
By Juan Cole The Times of Israel published and then removed from its site an essay by Yochanan Gordon that openly called for genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. A cached version is still on the internet as of this writing. Gordon’s logic, if one wants to dignify it with that term, is that Hamas […]
Gaza and Soweto
By Juan Cole On June 16, 1976, some 20,000 students rose up to protest in the slum of Soweto on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Here is a summary of the June 18 NYT article on the repression of the protests: “Rioting continues for 3d day in Soweto, black township outside Johannesburg, with rioters, mostly young, […]
Israel Bombs Gaza back to Stone Age: Razes only Power Plant & Plunges Strip into Darkness
By Juan Cole Israel launched a 7-hour campaign of intensive bombing of Gaza on Tuesday, destroying its only power plant. Gaza can no longer generate its own electricity. Without electricity, the water purification plants cannot operate and the drinking water ends up being mixed with sewage or salt water. Without electricity, patients on life support […]
Gaza: Palestinians “Philosophical,” Israel “foils Foreign Infiltration” during 1957 Occupation (British “Report”)
By Juan Cole This British “report” suggests that Palestinians in Gaza were all right with being militarily occupied by the Israeli army in 1956-1957 before an absolutely furious President Dwight Eisenhower forced PM David Ben Gurion to withdraw. (Israel, Britain and France had jointly launched an unprovoked war of aggression on Egypt in late October, […]
Unlike Iraq, Iran, Libya, N. Korea, Israel has Impunity from Defying UNSC (Gaza Ceasefire)
By Juan Cole The United Nations Security Council is theoretically a sort of sovereign in international law. If it designates a regime like that of Gaddafi in Libya as a threat to international peace, it can deputize the nations of the world to remove it. One major exception to UNSC authority is Israel, which routinely […]
Israel’s Gaza Campaign Endangers US Security: Why Obama & Kerry are Furious
By Juan Cole The United States as a great Power is facing a large number of challenges in the Muslim world, and Israel’s Gaza campaign is endangering both American diplomacy there and the very security of the US. Given the series of setbacks for the US in the Middle East, in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and […]
Gaza: Why a ‘Cease-Fire’ is Not enough
By Juan Cole When ordinary countries fight wars they have war aims. In World War II, the US wanted to defeat Germany militarily, but then to help it return to democracy and to economic health. By 1947 the US would actually be spending a lot of money on Germany’s well-being via the Marshall Plan. Israel […]
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