April 2010

The tyranny of law

by Paul Woodward 04.09.2010

When the question, is it right?, is made subordinate to the question, is it legal?, we succumb to the tyranny of law. Once in a while a rare individual when confronting a contradiction between these two will refuse to be tyrannized. Anat Kam might be just such an individual, though as Richard Silverstein (who has [...]

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Is the US getting ready to push Israel to declare its nuclear status?

by Paul Woodward 04.09.2010

[Updated below] Whatever else can be said about the strained relationship between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, one thing is clear: Obama seems intent on keeping Netanyahu off balance. On Tuesday, Netanyahu announced he would be returning to Washington next week to attend Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit. Just days later, he had changed his mind, [...]

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A presidential death warrant

by Paul Woodward 04.08.2010

American soldiers have to be trained how to kill, but for American presidents killing comes naturally. Anyone who aspires to become president must surely ask themselves: am I willing to end someone else’s life, be that an individual or perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions of people? After all, even though it’s [...]

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Look in the mirror Avigdor

by Paul Woodward 04.07.2010

“The problem is not Turkey, the problem is Erdogan,” Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, told Ynet on Monday. Sorry Mr Lieberman: it’s you — not Turkey’s prime minister — who has a serious image problem. How many other countries in the world have a foreign minister who would best serve his county’s interests by staying [...]

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Michel Warschawski interview

by Paul Woodward 04.07.2010

Michel Warschawski is a writer and journalist and founder of The Alternative Information Center, an internationally oriented, progressive, joint Palestinian-Israeli activist organization. At the end of the war on Gaza, Warschawski wrote this: Absolutely Not! Not in Their Name, Not in Ours Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Gabi Ashkenazi and Ehud Olmert–don’t you dare show your [...]

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Wars of excess

by Paul Woodward 04.06.2010

Tom Engelhardt writes: Whether it’s 3.1 million items of equipment, or 3 million, 2.8 million, or 1.5 million, whether 341 “facilities” (not including perhaps ten mega-bases which will still be operating in 2011 with tens of thousands of American soldiers, civilians, and private contractors working and living on them), or more than 350 forward operating [...]

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The over-rated middle way

by Paul Woodward 04.06.2010

“Obama to take middle course in new nuclear policy,” a headline in the Washington Post declares. There are a few instances where “middle” signals danger — he was driving drunk down the middle of the road — but generally speaking, middle is supposed to be good. But when the Post tells us Obama is going [...]

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Lies and cover-ups in the name of force protection

by Paul Woodward 04.05.2010

When a leaked US Army report recently revealed that the military regards Wikileaks as a potential force protection threat, the leak not only exposed the army’s fears but it also shed light on the breadth of this concept: force protection. From the Pentagon’s perspective, protecting American troops and making sure they stay out of harm’s [...]

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Karzai’s troublesome independence

by Paul Woodward 04.05.2010

After Benjamin Netanyahu was recently insulted by President Obama during his March visit to Washington (Obama declined to offer him dinner), Israeli commentators struggled to make an appropriate comparison and for some reason thought this was treatment that the head of a small African state might expect — the rather transparent implication being that Netanyahu [...]

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Keeping up the war effort

by Paul Woodward 04.05.2010

What’s the key to making sure the US “prevails” in Afghanistan? Making sure that American taxpayers remain sufficiently ignorant and indifferent about what’s happening over there. The news that US soldiers apparently gouged bullets out of the bodies of pregnant women will likely be yet another story that does little to interrupt the torpor of [...]

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The Israel lobby’s curious defense of an alleged Somali war criminal

by Paul Woodward 04.04.2010

Yousuf v. Samantar is the first human rights suit arising from abuses committed in Somalia under the brutal regime of Siad Barre. It is currently pending before the Supreme Court, where an odd coalition of defenders has filed briefs on behalf of the defendant, Mohammed Samantar, a prime minister under Barre and an alleged war [...]

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Israel’s censorship scandal

by Paul Woodward 04.04.2010

Judith Miller reports: You’ve probably never heard of Anat Kamm. Few people have. But for nearly four months, the 23-year-old Israeli journalist has been under house arrest in Tel Aviv for allegedly stealing and leaking secret Israeli defense ministry documents to a journalist from Ha’aretz, one of Israel’s leading dailies. Kamm would love to tell [...]

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US funds help arm the Taliban

by Paul Woodward 04.04.2010

The New York Times reports: Since their offensive here in February, the Marines have flooded Marja with hundreds of thousands of dollars a week. The tactic aims to win over wary residents by paying them compensation for property damage or putting to work men who would otherwise look to the Taliban for support. The approach [...]

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Post-election massacre in Iraq

by Paul Woodward 04.04.2010

The Washington Post reports: Gunmen pretending to be Iraqi security forces and U.S. soldiers killed at least 24 people here, shooting some and slitting others’ throats as they moved from house to house, officials and residents said Saturday. The victims of the hour-long incident included women and children, but most were members of the Awakening, [...]

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Palestinian aspirations are clear, but what does Israel want?

by Paul Woodward 04.03.2010

Gideon Levy writes: Does anybody know what Benjamin Netanyahu wants? Has anybody ever understood what his predecessors wanted? Where are they headed? And where are they leading us? One after another, Israeli politicians have been asked these questions, only to reply with the standard rejoinders: “You don’t expect me to answer this question” or “Let’s [...]

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Activist leaders targeted in East Jerusalem

by Paul Woodward 04.03.2010

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Belgium moves towards public ban on burka and niqab

by Paul Woodward 04.03.2010

The Guardian reports: Belgium today moved to the forefront of a campaign to restrict the wearing of the Muslim veil by women when a key vote left it on track to become the first European country to ban the burka and niqab in public. The home affairs committee of the Brussels federal parliament voted unanimously [...]

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Gen. McChrystal: We’ve shot ‘an amazing number of people’ who were not threats

by Paul Woodward 04.03.2010

Justin Elliot reports: In a stark assessment of shootings of locals by US troops at checkpoints in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in little-noticed comments last month that during his time as commander there, “We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been [...]

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The Pentagon’s doubts about Israel began with its creation

by Paul Woodward 04.02.2010

By Mark Perry, April 1, 2010 In early February of 2006, I submitted a book proposal about the wartime relationship between Generals George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower to a group of New York publishers. I had worked on the proposal for nine months and believed it would garner significant interest. Two weeks after the submission, [...]

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Gideon Levy interview

by Paul Woodward 04.02.2010

In an interview for Electronic Intifada, David Cronin spoke to Gideon Levy — a columnist for Haaretz who can reasonably be described as the conscience of Israeli journalism: David Cronin: Have you completely rejected Zionism? Gideon Levy: Zionism has many meanings. For sure, the common concept of Zionism includes the occupation, includes the perception that [...]

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One-state realism

by Paul Woodward 04.01.2010

Dmitry Reider reviews sociologist Yehouda Shenhav’s book The Time of the Green Line. That the notion of a one-state solution may be gaining some traction among diverse Israeli groups will be disturbing news for two-state solution dead-enders like J Street, though in this particular instance, Shenhav’s own vision may itself not garner wide appeal: a [...]

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Hillary Clinton channeling the neocons

by Paul Woodward 04.01.2010

In an interview on Canada’s CTV on Monday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about her reaction to a suicide bombing in the Moscow subway that day: Question: We’ve had a terrorist attack in Moscow, dozens of people dead. Is this localized, in your view, or is there a wider implication? Clinton: Well, [...]

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