News:
- Israel and Mexico swap notes on abusing and controlling indigenous people
- The Real Scandal: Spying on Journalists Is Legal
- About "Patri-olic" Americans: Dead Men Do Tell Tales
- Spycraft in Moscow
- Kerry Pushes Dual Peace Bids on Middle East Return
- Israel, Hawking and the Pressing Question of the Boycott
- "Journalist not found": Newseum has expunged Palestinians murdered by Israel from its website
- The Claims Don't Add Up: Syria Has No Reason to Use Chemical Weapons
- FBI files reveal Anti-Defamation League (ADL) spied on Arab students
- Boston Becomes Toxic
News 
Opinion & Analysis
Opinion & Analysis
The Missing Analysis
Below are commentaries and analyses from highly diverse sources that we feel are informative, intelligent, and deserve wider distribution. While we feel that each contains useful information and valid perspectives for readers to consider, that does not imply that we agree with each and every statement they contain.
Tuesday, 21 May 2013 17:35
Israel and Mexico swap notes on abusing and controlling indigenous people
Written by Linda Quiquivix
Electronic Intifada - Earlier this month, Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca, Mexico's newly-appointed secretary of public security in Chiapas, announced that discussions had taken place between his office and the Israeli defense ministry. The two countries talked about security coordination at the level of police, prisons and effective use of technology ("Israeli military will train Chiapas police," Excelsior, 8 May [Spanish]).
AntiWar.com - According to Peter Scheer, a lawyer and executive director of the First Amendment Coalition (FAC), "the real outrage about the Justice Department's use of secret subpoenas for the phone records of Associated Press journalists is that…it was probably legal."
The wigs may seem silly, but Moscow's exposure of CIA espionage is serious business. The American Conservative - It is tempting to regard the recent arrest of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Ryan Fogle in Moscow and the subsequent outing of the station chief as symptoms of a decline in the Agency’s capability to run operations in a high-risk, high-security environment. This was by no means the first such success for post-Soviet Russian counterintelligence directed against the two countries,…
Monday, 20 May 2013 18:22
Israel, Hawking and the Pressing Question of the Boycott
Written by Ramzy Baroud
Counterpunch - It is an event "of cosmic proportions", said one Palestinian academic, a befitting description regarding Stephen Hawking's decision to boycott an Israeli academic conference slated for next June. It was also a decisive moral call which was communicated on May 8 by Cambridge University, where Hawking is a professor.
Monday, 20 May 2013 17:25
The Claims Don't Add Up: Syria Has No Reason to Use Chemical Weapons
Written by Patrick Cockburn
Counterpunch - "I am not afraid of anything except for God and poison gas," said an Iraqi officer who had fought in the Iran-Iraq war. "It's like a ghost. You have no defence against it." Though not a target of poison gas as a member of the army using it, he knew what it did to its victims.
AntiWar.com - A number of articles about the Boston terrorist attack that I have read recently reminded me that what is either kept out of the media or otherwise hidden is often more important than what actually appears. One was a feature article entitled "Ron Paul Slams Boston Police. Has he Gone too Far?" by Peter Grier of the normally sensible Christian Science Monitor. The remainder were also related to the Boston Marathon, a discussion…
Wednesday, 15 May 2013 16:57
On Nakba Anniversary, Refugees Make Almost Half of Population
Written by CNI
WAFA - On the eve of the Nakba (catastrophe) 65th anniversary, the refugees make almost half of the total Palestinian population, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said Tuesday.
Wednesday, 15 May 2013 16:44
Israel's Samson Complex: Netanyahu Rebuffs Peace with the Arab World
Written by Jonathan Cook
CounterPunch - Washington's reputation as an "honest broker" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in tatters after four years of indulging Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's intransigence. The Obama administration desperately needs to resurrect a credible peace process.
CounterPunch - Al Jazeera Stream contacted me a few days ago asking if I would participate on a show commemorating the Nakbe. I would be the only Palestinian, the producer said, "to balance things out" amidst various Israeli voices. Here's the exact excerpt of the email:
Wednesday, 15 May 2013 16:21
65th Commemoration: Ongoing Nakba and Secondary Forcible Displacement
Written by CNI
BADIL - Of the 11.4 million Palestinians worldwide, 66% are forcible displaced, (refugees and internally displaced people) and over half live in the Shatat (forced exile). Instead of an event relegated to history, the Nakba continues into its 65th year – the central source for the annual increase of these displacement statistics.
Tuesday, 14 May 2013 12:24
The organization behind illegal West Bank outpost construction
Written by Chaim Levinson
Haaretz - Theoretically, the Civil Administration - the Israel Defense Forces body responsible for infrastructure law enforcement in the West Bank - should have jumped into action now that seven permanent dwellings are under construction in the settler outpost of Mitzpeh Danny (10 kilometers east of Ramallah). The outpost, established 15 years ago, is entering its final development stages after a lengthy period in which the settlers lived in trailers, flimsy structures and all kinds…
The New York Review of Books - In a recent public letter to President Obama, Elie Wiesel urged the President not to "pressure" Israel to cease settlement activity in Jerusalem. According to Wiesel:
The American Conservative - The New York Times is reporting that the CIA has been paying Afghan President Hamid Karzai millions of dollars every month. The money, which Karzai has acknowledged and described as an "easy source of petty cash," does not go directly to the president but instead is delivered in bundles of $100 notes via bags or even suitcases to the presidential office, where it is distributed by the Afghan National Security Council.
The American Conservative - Media reports of CIA preparations to use drones to target al-Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria, should the post-Assad situation warrant such an intervention, are only party correct. The plan to use drones under certain circumstances is in reality part of the much larger CIA program in Iraq that parallels the program being set up in Afghanistan.
Friday, 03 May 2013 08:17
Legal fight continues against NYPD spying on Muslims: an interview with civil rights lawyer Jethro Eiesenstein
Written by Alex Kane
Mondoweiss - Jethro Eisenstein has battled the New York Police Department's (NYPD) civil rights violations for 42 years. Now, the civil rights lawyer is taking the fight to the NYPD's expansive program of spying on the Muslim community.
Haaretz - The English expression is "elephant in the room." It refers to that huge obvious thing which, in spite of its size, nobody dares talk about or call by its name. In the era of slavery, black slaves were the elephant in the room. In the Victorian period it was sex. In the socialist world the elephant in the room was the human urge for competition. In early Zionism it was the Arabs. Almost…
Tuesday, 30 April 2013 09:27
As Jews we say "Birthright" trips must end
Written by Aviva Stahl, Sarah Woolf and Sam Elliott Bick
Electronic Intifada - As the summer months approach, thousands of young Jews from more than 60 countries prepare to participate in the Taglit-Birthright program. Since 1999, Birthright has brought 340,000 young Jews to Israel on free ten-day trips. In the midst of the fervor to sign up for this bi-annual program, we have launched the website Renounce Birthright (renouncebirthright.org) with the aim of providing a space for potential participants to engage with critiques of Birthright and of Zionism.…
Monday, 29 April 2013 08:40
Israel gives up white phosphorus, because 'it doesn't photograph well'
Written by Idan Landau
972mag.com - A certain air of nostalgia dominated Maariv’s headline last Thursday: “Due to criticism in the world, IDF parts ways with white phosphorus”: just like the old Galil assault rifle and the old two-way radios that generations of soldiers grew familiar with. A couple of years ago we learned the IDF was giving up its cans of preserved meat (the kosher version of SPAM). Now, it’s white phosphorus that we say goodbye to. [Twilight. The IDF and…
Monday, 29 April 2013 08:36
‘I know you have another email address, give it to me’ (Deported at Ben Gurion)
Written by Frank Barat
Mondoweiss - “Write your email addresses, your mobile phone number, your house phone, the name of your father and the name of your grandfather on this piece of paper” were the first words the Shabak officer told me when I sat in front of him in his office.
Friday, 26 April 2013 09:06
Hunger strike marks "turning point" in fight against Israel’s deportations, says rights group
Written by Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
The Electronic Intifada - Hind Ibrahim Abeyat has spent most of her life separated from her father. “Every house in Palestine has someone in prison, a martyr,” the 19-year-old said from her family home in Abeyat village, near Bethlehem.
National Summit to Reassess the US-Israel "Special Relationship"
The public is invited to a nonpartisan symposium Nov. 8-9 that will examine the impact of the US-Israel relationship on Americans. Panels will include top military, diplomatic, intelligence, academic, governmental, and economic experts, as well as former Congressional representatives. Read more
