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 […]
Did Israel go too Far? The Massacre at the UN School/ Refugee Center
By Juan Cole Sharif Abdel Kouddous reports for The Nation from Gaza on the Israeli shelling of a UN school that killed 16 and wounded 200, even though the school’s coordinates had been given to the Israeli military. Despite Israeli water-muddying, there isn’t any doubt that the Israelis struck the school, nor is there any […]
Night of Destiny in Palestine: A Third Uprising?
By Juan Cole A new element entered the current Gaza war on Thursday, as Israel shelled a UN school full of displaced persons taking refuge there and large protests broke out in the Palestinian West Bank. The shelling of the UNRWA school, which killed 15 and injured 200, was a war crime. The UN had […]
Gaza War Devastates Israeli Tourism Revenue, Points to Fragile Apartheid Future
By Juan Cole A Hamas rocket hit and destroyed a house in Yahoud, a town only a mile from Ben Gurion Airport in Israel on Tuesday, raising severe alarm in among the international airlines and leading most of them to cancel flights to Tel Aviv. The US Federal Aviation Administration called for a 24 hour […]
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