Article Archive

How They Stole The Bomb From Us

An article by Uri Avnery on the Iranian Bomb. The irony in the new American intelligence report about the 2003 halt in the Iranian efforts to produce a nuclear bomb. "Gone is the excuse for an American military attack on Iran, the dream of the Israeli government and the neocons. Gone is even the pretext for more stringent sanctions." How They Stole The Bomb From Us

"Unrecognized" Palestinians

Global Research published an article by Stephen Lendman about the over 150,000 Palestinians living in the Galilee and the Negev desert in villages which were delegitimized by Israel in 1965. "Israel denies all Palestinians their basic rights. However, those living in so-called "unrecognized villages" face a special threat - demolition of their homes, loss of their land and possessions, and frightening displacement that will make them refugees along with millions of others in their own land."

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy

John J Mearsheimer,Department of Political Science, University of Chicago, and Stephen M Walt, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University published this research paper in March 2006. They discuss the impact of the US uncritical support for Israel in the context of Middle East foreign policy and the influence of the "Israel Lobby" on that policy.

Panel: The Israel Lobby and the US Response to the War in Lebanon

Panel discussion including speakers John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, at the National press Cluc, Washington, DC, August 28, 2006.

Walt/Mearsheimer Reply

Authors of The Israel Lobby, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, reply to questions about their article, in the London Review of Books, 11, May, 2006.

Israel's "new Middle East"

Article by Tanya Reinhart. The "new Middle East" has been a dream of the Israeli ruling military circles since at least 1982, when Sharon led the country to the first Lebanon war with precisely this declared goal. Hezbollah's leaders have argued for years that its real long-term role is to protect Lebanon, whose army is too weak to do this. They have said that Israel has never given up its aspirations for Lebanon and that the only reason it pulled out of Southern Lebanon in 2000 is because Hezbollah's resistance has made maintaining the occupation too costly. Lebanon's people know what every Israeli old enough to remember knows - that in the vision of Ben Gurion, Israel's founding leader, Israel's border should be "natural", that is - the Jordan river in the East, and the Litani river of Lebanon in the north.

Learning from Its Mistakes

Hizbullah seems to learn, however Israel appears to make the same ones over and over again. What else can Israel do to Lebanon? It has bombed comprehensively, destroyed the country's expensively restored infrastructure, laid siege to it and sent its troops back in. Israel still insists that it will destroy Hizbullah...

A New Middle East

An analysis by Robert Malley in the recent New York Review of Books,of the new situation in the Middle East resulting from the election Of Hamas in Palestine and the success of Hezbollah in the recent conflict with Israel in Lebanon.

Nations and Narratives

Article from The Economist, November 2, 2006 about the new book by Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. He argues that the first step toward solving the deadlock between Israel and Palestine should be Israel's confession of a deliberate campaign to expel nearly 800,000 Palestinians in 1948.

Jimmy Carter and Apartheid

Review of former President Jimmy Carter's Book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid in the NY Review of Books March 29, 2007.

Can American Jews unplug the Israel lobby?

As Bush's unbalanced Mideast policies careen from disaster to disaster, people who don't toe the AIPAC line are beginning to speak out. By Gary Kamiya on Salon.com March 20, 2007

Terrorized by 'War on Terror'

How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America, by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Sunday, March 25, 2007 The Washington Post

Carter and the Swarm

Article by Israel Shamir on the publication of Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. "It's not that Carter said anything we did not already know about Palestine. Before Carter, we already knew that the Zionists had established a racist apartheid regime in the Holy Land where Jews have rights, and goyim have duties. Before Carter we knew a native Palestinian has no right to vote, move or work freely in his land -- that he is locked up behind the twenty-foot wall. Before Carter we knew that the US support allowed the atrocities to occur and the apartheid regime to entrench. But what we did not know was that there are prominent Americans who would dare the wrath of organised Jewry and spell it out loud."

Why Israel Won't Accept a Two-State Solution

Article by Bernard Chazelle, professor of computer science at Princeton University. "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often narrated as a morality play...Let's quit the blame game and focus, instead, on what's feasible and what's not...The two-state solution has its appeal...Unfortunately, 40 years of history have gamed the system against the two-state solution. Once the only realistic road to peace, it is now a challenge likely beyond Israel's ability."

Forget the Two-State Solution: Israelis and Palestinians Must Share the Land. Equally

Saree Makdisi writes "There is no longer a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Forget the endless arguments about who offered what and who spurned whom...all that matters are the facts on the ground, of which the most important is that -- after four decades of intensive Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories it occupied during the 1967 war -- Israel has irreversibly cemented its grip on the land on which a Palestinian state might have been created."

For Some Palestinians, One State with Israel is Better Than None

Article by Richard Boudreaux and Ashraf Khalil, in the Los Angeles Times, May 8, 2008. Sooner or later the growing burden of occupation and threat of Islamic extremism will make Israelis receptive to the idea of a combined state that protects the rights of Jews. Frustrated by years of failed peace talks for a two-state solution, some are giving up hope of independence and pushing the idea of a single democratic state with equal rights for all.

Why Israel Won't Accept a Two-State Solution

Article by Bernard Chazelle, professor of computer science at Princeton University. "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often narrated as a morality play...Let's quit the blame game and focus, instead, on what's feasible and what's not...The two-state solution has its appeal...Unfortunately, 40 years of history have gamed the system against the two-state solution. Once the only realistic road to peace, it is now a challenge likely beyond Israel's ability."

Forget the Two-State Solution: Israelis and Palestinians Must Share the Land. Equally

Saree Makdisi writes "There is no longer a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Forget the endless arguments about who offered what and who spurned whom...all that matters are the facts on the ground, of which the most important is that -- after four decades of intensive Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories it occupied during the 1967 war -- Israel has irreversibly cemented its grip on the land on which a Palestinian state might have been created."

For Some Palestinians, One State with Israel is Better Than None

Article by Richard Boudreaux and Ashraf Khalil, in the Los Angeles Times, May 8, 2008. Sooner or later the growing burden of occupation and threat of Islamic extremism will make Israelis receptive to the idea of a combined state that protects the rights of Jews. Frustrated by years of failed peace talks for a two-state solution, some are giving up hope of independence and pushing the idea of a single democratic state with equal rights for all.

Remarks to the National Council on US-Arab Relations

Talk delivered to the Council by Ambassador Charles W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.) on 31 October 2008, Washington, DC, concerning foreign policy in West Asia.

Carter and the Swarm

Article by Israel Shamir on the publication of Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. "It's not that Carter said anything we did not already know about Palestine. Before Carter, we already knew that the Zionists had established a racist apartheid regime in the Holy Land where Jews have rights, and goyim have duties. Before Carter we knew a native Palestinian has no right to vote, move or work freely in his land -- that he is locked up behind the twenty-foot wall. Before Carter we knew that the US support allowed the atrocities to occur and the apartheid regime to entrench. But what we did not know was that there are prominent Americans who would dare the wrath of organised Jewry and spell it out loud."

Born in Sin

Article from Haaretz by Gideon Levy about the "death" of the Israeli peace camp. He states that it "was born in sin and died because of a lie: It was born as the legitimate son of the sin of occupation, and died the illegitimate son of the lie that 'there is no partner' with whom to negotiate on the other side...Today, we must painfully admit that it was struggle that did not produce much."

A Declaration of U.S. Independence from Israel

Speech delivered by Chris Hedges, former New York Times ME bureau chief at the Nassau Club in Princeton, NJ on May 22, 2008. The speech was well received to a packed room.

An End Foreseen

Article by Uri Avnery reviewing an insightful book by William Polk, "Violent Politics" in which the author compares insurgencies, from the American Revolution to the wars in Afghanistan. He concludes that they all have more in common that differences: "That is an iron rule: an insurgency supported by the public is bound to win, irrespective of the tactics adopted by the occupation regime." He discusses this from the perspective of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Neoconservatism Dies in Gaza

Excellent article by University of Michigan professor, Juan Cole. The recent Israeli offensive has put the final nail in the coffin of the Bush administration's Middle East fantasy. By Juan Cole

Israel's righteous fury and its victims in Gaza

Article by Ilan Pappe, from the Electronic Intifada, January 2009 discusses the deceit of the Israelis over the assault in Gaza as a continuation of the dehumanizing Zionist ideology..."the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the oppression of the Palestinians in Israel during the days of the military rule, the brutal occupation of the West Bank and now the massacre of Gaza."

Israel's Lies

Henry Siegman writes in the London Review of Books about the Israeli misrepresentations associated with its assault on Gaza.

Israeli Palestinians: The Unwanted Who Stayed

Article by Jonathan Cook in The Link about the unequal treatment of the Palestinians living in what is now called Israel.

Israel Has Managed to Lose Again

Report by Gilad Atzmon stating..."Though Israel has proved beyond doubt that it is rather capable of conducting large-scale genocide, it also proved that its military forces do not have the answer to Islamic resistance."

Punishing the Palestinians

Article by Ralph Nadar citing the blame that the US Congress has for 60 years launched at the Palestinians for all hostilities and their consequences rather than at the Israeli government. He notes the most recent vote of 390 to 5, blaming Hamas for all the civilian casualties and devastation in the brutal Israeli attacks in Gaza.

The One-State Solution

Article in Newsweek by Sari Nusseibeh Newsweek. A two-state solution was a compromise. But talks have gone nowhere, so many Palestinians are giving up.

Navy Vet Who Foiled Israeli Attack Honored

Story from Consortium News about the Navy veteran who prevented Israel from murdering all 294 aboard the USS Liberty in 1967. The honor comes 42 years late. Thirty-four US personnel were killed when Israeli aircraft deliberately bombed the "virtually defenseless intelligence collection platform prominently flying an American flag in international waters." The incident has been covered up until only recently, but it is still not discussed widely.

How to Talk to a Right Winger

Gideon Levy in Haaretz, May 28, 2009 notes that MK Tzipi Hotovely states she has an alternative to the "two-state solution", but like other right wing Israelis, doesn't seem to be able to articulate what it is...

Netanyahu's Two-State Goal

Post by Saree Makdisi on the Huffington Post about Netanyahu's recent non serious offer to the Palestinians of a state lacking in definite territory, without control of its own borders or airspace, no real sovereignty, and disarmed. "What Netanyahu was saying to any Palestinians foolish enough to accept his terms is that if they want to stick a flag in their archipelago of little impoverished islands of territory and call it a state, they can go right ahead."

Arab World Sees Settlement Row as Test of Obama's Credibility

Article by Akiva Eldar. The clash on the settlements between the Obama-Clinton administration and the Netanyahu-Lieberman (and Barak) government is not some petty haggling over expanding a kindergarten in Ofra or adding a balcony in Ma'aleh Adumim. It's an argument on the legal status of the West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem's Jewish neighborhoods and the sovereignty issue in the territories.

Maybe We Should Take the North Koreans at Their Word

Tad Daley writes in Tikkun, that Pyongyang has consistently said that its nuclear weapons are intended to deter aggression. And, indeed, they do. Also a forward comment by editor of Tikkun. Tad Daley is the Writing Fellow with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the Nobel Peace Laureate disarmament advocacy organization. His first book, Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World, is forthcoming from Rutgers University Press in January 2010.

Why does the US think it can win in Afghanistan?

Article by Robert Fisk. "And Obama and McCain really think they're going to win in Afghanistan – before, I suppose, rushing their soldiers back to Iraq when the Baghdad government collapses. What the British couldn't do in the 19th century and what the Russians couldn't do at the end of the 20th century, we're going to achieve at the start of the 21 century, taking our terrible war into nuclear-armed Pakistan just for good measure. Fantasy again."

Abandoning the Iron Wall: Israel and :The Middle Eastern Muck"

Paper by Ian S. Lustick in Middle East Policy. Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania writes about the change in Israeli tactics toward the Palestinians and other Arab neighbors.