PRESS ROOM

274 Article

• Moral bankruptcy in Libya war

  1 April 2011, by Hamid Dabashi

  In Gabriel García Márquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) one of the outlandish (literally) antics of the General of the Universe is the selling of the Caribbean Sea to Americans who have kept the demented monster in power. "Your excellency, the regime was not being sustained by hope or conformity or even by terror, but by the pure inertia of an ancient and irreparable disillusion, go out into the street and look truth in the face, your excellency, we’re on the final curve, either the (…)

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• Palestine and the Power of Civil Society

  21 March 2011, by Ramzy Baroud

  The global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and other related campaigns were aimed at exposing Israeli transgressions against the Palestinian people and galvanising international solidarity. What is so uplifting is to see how their achievements have far surpassed these initial aims. The campaigns have animated, accentuated and actually legitimised Palestinian civil society — a notion that long stood outside the official paradigm acceptable to Israel, and which (…)

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• A Middle East without borders?

  5 March 2011, by Mohammed Khan

  The modern geography of the Middle East was carved out by British and French colonialists whose sole interest was in sharing the spoils of war between themselves and in maintaining their supremacy over the region in the early part of the 20th century.
  The contours of the region, with its immaculately straight lines (see maps of Algeria, Libya, Egypt and Sudan) are much the same today as when they were first drawn up, despite decades of cross-border encroachment and conflict.
  Never has an (…)

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• Intifada Beyond Palestine

  25 February 2011, by Ismael Hossein-Zadeh

  Remember the neoconservatives’ plan of “domino effect” following the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq? It was supposed to be followed by the toppling of other “unfriendly” heads of “rogue states” such as those ruling Iran and Syria who do not cater to the US-Israeli interests in the Middle East. It was not meant to threaten the “friendly” regimes that rule Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain and their cohorts that have been firmly aligned (…)

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• The Libyan Labyrinth

  22 February 2011, by Vijay Prashad

  In 1969, Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi (age 27) surprised the aged King Idris, then in Turkey for medical treatment. Inspired by the Free Officers in Egypt, Qaddafi and his fellow Colonels force-marched the fragile Libyan State and even more fragile Libyan society into socialism. Libya’s main product was its oil, and by the time Idris was deposed the country exported three million barrels of oil per day. Scandalously, it received the lowest rent per barrel in the world. Idris feasted on the (…)

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• US vetoes UN draft on settlements

  19 February 2011,

  The US has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israeli settlements as "illegal" and called for an immediate halt to all settlement building.
  All 14 other Security Council members voted in favour of the resolution, which was backed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), on Friday.
  Mark Lyall Grant, the British ambassador to the UN, speaking on behalf of his country, France and Germany, condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "They are illegal (…)

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• The US as Israel’s Enabler in the Middle East

  16 February 2011, by Kathleen Christison

  About ten days ago I had a particularly interesting discussion about Israel and its relationship to U.S. policy in the Middle East and to the events swirling there now, in Egypt and throughout the Arab world. My interlocutor is one of the most astute commentators, particularly on U.S. policy, in the alternative media, but he made it clear that, to his mind, Israel does not play a role of any notable relevance to what the United States is doing in the region.
  I would say that he has a bit (…)

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• Is the army tightening its grip on Egypt?

  14 February 2011, by Robert Fisk

  Two days after millions of Egyptians won their revolution against the regime of Hosni Mubarak, the country’s army – led by Mubarak’s lifelong friend, General Mohamed el-Tantawi – further consolidated its power over Egypt yesterday, dissolving parliament and suspending the constitution. As they did so, the prime minister appointed by Mubarak, ex-General Ahmed Shafiq, told Egyptians that his first priorities were "peace and security" to prevent "chaos and disorder" – the very slogan uttered so (…)

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• The Middle East does not need stability

  10 February 2011, by Gideon Levy

  This so-called stability encompasses millions of Arabs living under criminal regimes and evil tyrannies. By Gideon Levy
  When a tank enters a residential neighborhood, sows fear and destruction, and the local kids throw stones at it, what is this called? "Disturbing the peace." And what do you call the detention of those stone-throwers, allowing the tank to continue on its way without any more trouble? "Restoring order."
  That is how we have shaped our disgustingly laundered language to (…)

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• Palestinians Can Only Watch As Egyptians Are Living Their Dream

  11 February 2011, by Gideon Levy

  In the Jenin refugee camp this week, there was one man who looked like he had been hanged. A rope tied around his body, he rocked back and forth for several long moments - bearing a striking resemblance to the effigy of Egypt’s president strung up in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. But in Jenin, it was the bad servant of the evil queen who was hanged - in a performance of "Alice in Wonderland," based on the story by Lewis Carroll at The Freedom Theater. The audience cheered when they saw the hanged (…)

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