In 1948 some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled; hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were ethnically cleansed and destroyed. The refugees and their descendants are today divided between Jordan (2 million), Lebanon (427,057), Syria (477,700), the West Bank (788,108) … Read More »
Thanks Geoff for alerting me to Israeli PM Netanyahu’s slap down of army deputy chief of staff Major-General Yair Golan – and to Golan’s boss, Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, standing by his man. Last Thursday Golan likened “nauseating processes” within … Read More »
Thinking people can go into a tailspin of despair when confronted with the stark truth they’ve overestimated the power of reason. Yesterday self righteousness, pack instinct, unthinking emotionalism, malice and rank opportunism swept reason aside in the Labour Party. Before … Read More »
Yet again an opponent of Israel’s repressive policies – indefensible to a growing number of once staunch defenders – is castigated as ‘antisemitic’. Now it’s the turn of Malia Bouattia, daughter of Algerian refugees and newly elected President of the … Read More »
Saeed just sent this piece from Middle East Eye on oil and gas aspects of the Syrian horror. It’s one-sidedly silent on the designs of the west, and speaks of Russia’s “imbalanced reactions” to having one of its planes shot … Read More »
Yup, Syria again. Hate to be a bore but there are worse things. Like conducting air strikes, in my name and yours, on yet another Muslim country based on a narrative so far-fetched in its fairy tale reductionism that those … Read More »