Israel

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show comments on this week’s Israel election. The takeaway? If being critical of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is “anti-Semitic,” then half of Israel turns out to be anti-Semitic. Netanyahu’s Likud/ Yisrael Beitenu party combo did very poorly. The Daily Show with Jon StewartGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & […]

Israel

Netanyahu Emerges Weakened, But Most under Israeli Apartheid were Disenfranchised

Juan Cole

Early returns for the Israeli elections suggest that turnout was high in secular areas like Tel Aviv and in some Palestinian-Israeli districts, whereas it was low in conservative strongholds. As a result the combined Likud coalition with Yisrael Beitenu only got about 31 seats (the Israeli parliament has 120). Likud is a far rightwing party […]

Israel

America’s Guns, at Home and Abroad (Engelhardt)

Juan Cole

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com Given these last weeks, who doesn’t know what an AR-15 is? Who hasn’t seen the mind-boggling stats on the way assault rifles have flooded this country, or tabulations of accumulating Newtown-style mass killings, or noted that there are barely more gas stations nationwide than federally licensed firearms dealers, or heard the renewed debates over the […]

Iraq War

Netanyahu 2002: Iraq has Centrifuges ‘the size of Washing Machines’ to Produce A-Bomb

Juan Cole

Israeli PM Binyamin “Chicken Little” Netanyahu tried to scaremonger about Iraq in 2002, as his contribution to the Anglo-American war of aggression on that country. “there is no question whatsoever,” Netanyahu said, “that Saddam” was seeking nuclear weapons. He said that Israeli intelligence reported to him that Russian scientists and North Korea were on site […]

Africa

South Africa: Label West Bank Squatter Products; Israel: You Apartheid State!

Juan Cole

Having Avigdor Lieberman as a foreign minister is one of the worst things that could happen to Israel. I was in Brazil last year this time when Lieberman visited, and parliamentarians were saying they would not meet with him because they consider him a racist. He has a long record of saying offensive and chauvinist […]

Israel

Israeli President Peres Smacks down PM Netanyahu on Iran Attack, Supports Obama

Juan Cole

For the past couple of weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, have been making strident noises about a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. It is hard to believe that the far right wing Israeli government actually would be so foolish as to mount such an […]