November 2011

Routine life under Israeli military rule

by News Sources 11.23.2011

TPM reports: In an exchange in Iowa on Friday, Rick Santorum defended Israel’s right to build settlements in the West Bank — saying that it is fully part of Israel, having been conquered in the 1967 war, and that as a result all of the people in the West Bank are Israelis, not “Palestinians.” This [...]

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Israel and ‘pinkwashing’

by News Sources 11.23.2011

Sarah Schulman writes: “In dreams begin responsibilities,” wrote Yeats in 1914. These words resonate with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who have witnessed dramatic shifts in our relationship to power. After generations of sacrifice and organization, gay people in parts of the world have won protection from discrimination and relationship recognition. But these changes [...]

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New winds in Mideast favor Hamas

by News Sources 11.23.2011

The New York Times reports: For years, the imposing black gate that sealed the border between Egypt and Gaza symbolized the pain and isolation that decades of conflict have wrought on this tiny coastal strip, especially under Hamas in recent years. But recently, the gate has come to represent a new turn for the increasingly [...]

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Jordan seeks Palestinian respect by offering Hamas a new home

by News Sources 11.23.2011

Zvi Bar’el reports: Jordan’s King Abdullah is not an innovative leader. But last week he surprised Arab leaders and the whole world by becoming the first Arab ruler to call on Syrian President Bashar Assad to resign. “If I were in his shoes, I’d step down,” he told the BBC. This declaration set off a [...]

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Vestiges of old order stifle birth of a new Egypt

by News Sources 11.22.2011

Anthony Shadid writes: If the demonstrations that culminated in February were an uprising against President Hosni Mubarak, the revolt today is against his legacy. “This is the real revolution,” said Mohammed Aitman, helping at a first-aid clinic in a turbulent, roiling and, at times, ecstatic Tahrir Square. The vestiges of Mr. Mubarak’s order —the military, [...]

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Obama reserves the right to use torture

by News Sources 11.22.2011

Eric Lewis writes: As a candidate in 2008, President Obama stated categorically, “We’ll reject torture — without exception or equivocation.” During his first month in office, he made good on his pledge, signing an executive order prohibiting torture or inhumane treatment. There is no reason to doubt that the order has been followed. This was [...]

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Occupy Seattle protester claims police caused her miscarriage

by News Sources 11.22.2011

The Guardian reports: A pregnant woman who was pepper sprayed during the Occupy Seattle protests in the US claims she had a miscarriage five days later as a result of injuries allegedly inflicted by the police. Jennifer Fox, 19, claims that she was also struck in the stomach twice – once by a police officer’s [...]

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News organizations complain about treatment during protests

by News Sources 11.22.2011

The New York Times reports: A cross-section of 13 news organizations in New York City lodged complaints on Monday about the New York Police Department’s treatment of journalists covering the Occupy Wall Street movement. Separately, 10 press clubs, unions and other groups that represent journalists called for an investigation and said they had formed a [...]

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Egypt military accused of using banned chemical warfare agents against protesters

by News Sources 11.22.2011

Al-Masry Al-Youm reports: The Euromediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) on Monday condemned the targeting of peaceful protesters in Cairo with internationally banned gases. The Geneva-based group said it was rallying an international condemnation against these violations. The EMHRN strongly condemned the targeting of peaceful protestors by the police and the armed forces as well as [...]

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Inside the corporate plan to occupy the Pentagon

by News Sources 11.22.2011

Adam Weinstein reports: With time fast running out for the so-called deficit supercommittee, the mammoth amount of government money spent on the military has become a prime target in Washington. But the main focus isn’t on big-ticket weapons projects or expensive wars—it’s on retirement benefits for the roughly 17 percent of soldiers, Marines, sailors, and [...]

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Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor

by News Sources 11.22.2011

George Monbiot writes: In the documentary series which finished on Friday evening, the heiress Tamara Ecclestone set out to prove that she isn’t “a pointless, quite spoilt, really stupid, vacuous, empty human being”. This endeavour was not wholly successful. Channel 5 showed her supervising the refurbishment of her £45m home in London, in which she [...]

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Bill McKibben, Keystone XL, and Barack Obama

by News Sources 11.22.2011

Jane Mayer writes: Last spring, months before Wall Street was Occupied, civil disobedience of the kind sweeping the Arab world was hard to imagine happening here. But at Middlebury College, in Vermont, Bill McKibben, a scholar-in-residence, was leading a class discussion about Taylor Branch’s trilogy on Martin Luther King, Jr., and he began to wonder [...]

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Rebecca Solnit: Ms. Civil Society v. Mr. Unaccountable

by TomDispatch 11.22.2011

When it set up its campsite at Zuccotti Park, Occupy Wall Street was facing in only one direction: toward the financial heart of the planet two blocks away. The police, who promptly surrounded the encampment and organized their own occupation of the neighborhood, were in a sense facing in the other direction: toward Ground Zero, [...]

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Egyptians challenge military rule

by News Sources 11.22.2011

The New York Times reports: Huge crowds of protesters filled Tahrir Square in central Cairo on Tuesday and battled with the police in nearby streets for the fourth straight day, braving an increasingly lethal crackdown to demand an end to military rule. Each day the crowds have grown; on Tuesday, a day after the civilian [...]

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Israel’s slide towards fascism

by News Sources 11.22.2011

David Newman, dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion University, writes: It has become almost second nature for Israelis to view the Arab and Palestinian residents of the country as citizens with lesser rights than those of the Jewish majority. But the ease with which those rights have been denied, is [...]

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Glenn Beck receives ‘Defender of Israel Award’

by News Sources 11.22.2011

The Zionist Organization of America gave its first “Defender of Israel Award” to Glenn Beck on Sunday. The award was presented by American billionaire casino magnate and backer of Benjamin Netanyahu, Sheldon Adelson. Beck, in his acceptance speech, said, “I am a proud Zionist and an obvious defender of Israel. I speak the truth and [...]

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Jordan starts to shake

by News Sources 11.22.2011

Nicolas Pelham writes: To measure the sturdiness of King Abdullah of Jordan against the tide of upheaval sweeping the Arab world, go to Tafila, an impoverished town tucked into a sandy bowl encircled by the Moabite Mountains 110 miles south of the royal seat of Amman. Outside the courthouse where four youths recently awaited trial [...]

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Libya’s toughest test may be building an army

by News Sources 11.22.2011

The New York Times reports: The marching can hardly be called crisp as the new Libyan National Army takes form in daily drills at an abandoned air force base here. The soldiers do not yet march in step or even keep their formations straight. Some answer their cellphones when they should be taking orders. Some [...]

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Life after occupation

by News Sources 11.21.2011

Arun Gupta visits Mobile, Alabama and Chicago, and asks: Can an occupation movement survive if it no longer occupies a space? Emily Schuler, a Mobile native and college student, says the Occupy movement made her rethink her place in society, calling it “one of the best things that has ever happened to me.” Schuler says, [...]

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How the Pepper Spray Cop could change the trajectory of Occupy Wall Street

by News Sources 11.21.2011

Megan Garber writes: This weekend, a series of photographs — images of a riot-gear-wearing cop shooting a group of students in the face with pepper spray — made their transition from journalistic documents to sources of outrage to, soon enough, Official Internet Meme. Perhaps the most iconic image (taken by UC Davis student Brian Nguyen, [...]

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The Serpent’s Egg hatchlings in Greece’s postmodern Great Depression

by News Sources 11.21.2011

The Greek economist, Yanis Varoufakis, writes: It will prove George Papandreou’s ugliest legacy: that his last-minute childish maneuvering to maximise his waning hold on power (while negotiating his eviction from the PM’s job), has brought into the new ‘national unity’ government four self-declared racists (some of whom are neo-Fascists and one a neo-Nazi of some [...]

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Israel shuts liberal radio station in attempt to silence criticism of right

by News Sources 11.21.2011

The Independent reports: Israel has closed down a dovish Israeli-Palestinian radio station in what its backers say is a politically-motivated decision to silence criticism of the Jewish state. The Communications Ministry ordered the Kol Hashalom station, or All for Peace, to shut down earlier this month for broadcasting into Israel illegally. But Danny Danon, a [...]

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Lobbyists plan to defend Wall Street and attack the Occupy movement

by News Sources 11.21.2011

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy MSNBC reports: A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program “Up [...]

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