Human Rights

By Mel Frykberg | — RAMALLAH, West Bank, May 24 2015 (IPS) – A decision by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to segregate buses in the occupied West Bank has backfired after causing an uproar in Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, and political damage on the international stage. This came as Israel faces mounting international criticism […]

Christianity

Conservative, Catholic Ireland 1st Country to vote in Gay Marriage

contributors

Channel 4 News | (Video) – “Support for gay marriage in Ireland reaches 65 per cent with just the final votes to be counted – a resounding yes which forces the hugely influential Catholic church into turmoil after it opposed the change.” Channel 4 News: “Ireland votes to legalise gay marriage”

Apartheid

World Bank Warns of Total Collapse of Economy in Gaza

contributors

IMEMC | — The World Bank will be presenting a report to the bi-annual Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) meeting on May 27, 2015 in Brussels that highlights the Gaza Strip’s economic status under Israel’s blockade. In 2014, Gaza’s unemployment rate reached 43%, the highest in the world. The youth unemployment in Gaza is at […]

censorship

TPP and Fast Track Harm Web Creativity and Users’ Rights: Tech Companies to Congress

contributors

By Maira Sutton | (Electronic Frontier Foundation) | – In a In a joint letter to Congress released this week, more than 250 technology companies and user rights organizations say that the extreme level of secrecy surrounding trade negotiations have led to provisions in agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that threaten digital innovation, free […]

Apartheid

Digital Militarism: Israel’s Occupation in the Social Media Age

contributors

by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary — Q & A with REBECCA STEIN: Digital Militarism: Israel’s Occupation in the Social Media Age (Stanford University Press, April 2015), by scholars Adi Kunstman and Rebecca Stein, has been called “a pioneering book, showing how information and communication technologies have turned into wartime arsenals, and the Internet and […]

Apartheid

Israel: Court Permits Discriminatory Evictions of Palestinian-Israeli Villagers

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – Arab Villages in Israel, West Bank Face New Displacement (Jerusalem) – Separate Israeli Supreme Court decisions issued on May 5, 2015, open the way for state authorities to forcibly evict residents of two Arab villages from their homes. The inhabitants of both villages, one in Israel and the other in […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syrian Opposition, Caught between Assad & Extremists, Despair at World’s Neglect

contributors

By Haroro J. Ingram with L. T. Anthony | (The Conversation) | – Syrian civilians are trapped in the middle of a holocaust: prizes in a ruthless contest for popular support and cannon fodder mercilessly slaughtered by forces with little regard for human life. Despite many groups being implicated in actions targeting civilian populations, the […]

Apartheid

Israel Pushes Negev Bedouin Palestinians into a Corner

contributors

By Ari Heistein | (Informed Comment) | – Israel’s latest move to demolish a Bedouin village and replace it with homes for Jewish citizens is no surprise to anyone familiar with the state’s policies in the Negev. Beginning in the 1970s, the State of Israel launched a campaign to push the Negev Bedouin from […]

Apartheid

Who does Jerusalem belong To?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – Far right Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu commemorated Israel’s “Jerusalem Day” with a speech in which he said, “Jerusalem was always the capital of the Jewish people only, and no other,” and warned that Muslim terrorism menaced it. Jerusalem, Daru Shalem, was founded sometime between 6500 and […]