Category Archives: news

Misreading Tehran: What We Got Wrong – By Reza Aslan

Surprising candour from a Mid-East commentator on the popular media’s essential inability to properly understand the (in)significance of last year’s protests in Iran. Misreading Tehran: What We Got Wrong – By Reza Aslan | Foreign Policy. The spontaneous protest movement … Continue reading

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Pax Ottomanica? | TomDispatch

Tomgram: John Feffer, Pax Ottomanica? | TomDispatch Posted by John Feffer at 5:06pm, June 13, 2010. … You know that something strange is happening when the usual crew of neocon critics takes out after Turkey — yes, Turkey! — a country … Continue reading

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NY Times features Tony Judt op-ed on Gaza

Tony Judt writes: THE Israeli raid on the Free Gaza flotilla has generated an outpouring of clichés from the usual suspects. It is almost impossible to discuss the Middle East without resorting to tired accusations and ritual defenses: perhaps a … Continue reading

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Dyer on breaking the Gaza blockade: try again

Syndicated Canadian columnist Gwynne Dyer writes: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for an end to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Britain, France, Germany and Russia have done the same. After Israeli commandos killed nine peace … Continue reading

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Cole on Haiti, history and the media

Informed Comment: Milne: Haiti’s poverty is treated as some ­baffling quirk of history…when in reality it is the direct ­consequence of ” . . . colonial exploitation. Saturday, January 23, 2010 Milne: Haiti’s poverty is treated as some ­baffling quirk … Continue reading

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Hussein Ibish: one-state ‘outcome’ is not a one-state ‘solution’

Is Hussein Ibish a level-headed pragmatist key to Palestine’s future, or a Washington socialite unwittingly co-opted by an intellectually bankrupt mainstream? I don’t know…it’s a loaded question, but it got you reading. In any case, he does a impressive job … Continue reading

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LA Times prints Neve Gordon: “Boycott Israel”

Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in … Continue reading

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TTBOOK Radio: Iran After the Revolution

A well-assembled podcast on post-Revolutionary Iran. Juan Cole (of Informed Comment) makes some fairly astute observations, beginning about 42:25 mins in: Iran After the Revolution (2009-04-17).

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Cole on Obama’s Af-Pak rhetoric

Obama’s domino theory The president sounds like he’s channeling Cheney or McCain — or a Cold War hawk afraid of international communism — when he talks about the war in Afghanistan…

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Ethnocentrism + armed testosterone

This disturbing, if unsurprising, news echoes the efforts first launched by Noam Chayut and his Breaking the Silence project, affording Israeli soldiers both a suitable platform and the requisite anonymity to voice their honest recollections of time spent serving in … Continue reading

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