If conditions do not change quickly by the time of the U.S.-promised veto of Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly on September 20, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could explode into a new uprising with hundreds of deaths. The recent attack of Palestinian extremists on a bus in the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat and the eager over-reaction of Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu is a harbinger of what is to come.
After 42 years of Muammar el-Qaddafi, it is now long overdue for the Libyan people to determine their own destiny.
Nearly 20 percent of the constituents of Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) live under the poverty line, and nearly 15 percent are unemployed. During this August congressional recess, Rep. Jackson, Jr. should be at home, meeting with constituents and proposing to them how he will help them cope with their difficult circumstances. Instead, the politician is proudly gallivanting around Israel, in one of three separate congressional delegations heading there this month on all-expense-paid junkets organized by the American Israel Education Foundation.
At a certain point, the issue of Israeli government support of settlers to the exclusion of the average Israeli will rear its ugly head in Israel’s protests.
Events in Libya and Syria have again brought to the forefront the question of armed humanitarian intervention or the “responsibility to protect.” Is it ever legitimate to supersede the principle of national sovereignty with a military intervention aimed at protecting citizens from their government? And if the answer is yes, what circumstances would justify this course of action and how should it be carried out?
When you destroy someone’s property, you usually have to pay compensation. The United States is responsible for much of the destruction that has taken place in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. But instead of offering compensation to the Iraqis, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) has demanded that the Iraqi government pay the United States compensation in dollars for the cost of U.S.-led war. The Iraqi response was to kick Rohrabacher out of Baghdad.
The Israeli government spends twice as much on the average settler in the Occupied Territories as it does on the average Israeli citizen.
After the killing of Libyan rebel military commander Abdul Fattah Younes, the future of Libya is more in doubt than ever.
There’s not much that a smaller power like Iran can do when the West assassinates one of its own except roll with the punches.
Something tender about skin
and muscle framed by ancient stone.
The pyramids behind us in silhouette,
solid, rooted, entirely diagonal.
The night deepened,
the city’s glimmer distant.
Fadi drew on his smoke.
Do you support Israel?