An amazing thing happened at the prime-time Democratic debate in Brooklyn on Thursday. A few days ahead of Tuesday’s delegate-rich New York primary, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders dared to criticize Israel. Rival Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, stood firm as an uncritical apologist for Israel. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Sanders to explain his assertion… Read more »
Although President Barack Obama said he opposes “endless war” and “America’s combat mission in Afghanistan may be over,” he announced that the 9,800 US troops presently there will remain. Obama had previously stated that he would cut the US force in half, but he has decided to maintain the current troop level until 2017. Seventy… Read more »
A new whistleblower has joined the ranks of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou and other courageous individuals. The unnamed person, who chose to remain anonymous because of the Obama administration’s vigorous prosecution of whistleblowers, is a member of the intelligence community. In the belief that the American public has the right to know about… Read more »
By Art Heitzer and Marjorie Cohn Millions of Americans believe that President Obama has normalized relations with Cuba and ended over 50 years of U.S. efforts to strangle its economy. They might have been puzzled when the United States stood up against every other nation save one, in opposing the UN General Assembly resolution which… Read more »
Although the 2016 presidential election is a year away, the media is abuzz with the candidates – the Republican and Democratic candidates, that is. When CBS’s Stephen Colbert posed comedically with a collage of the 18 or so declared hopefuls, the Green Party’s candidate, Dr. Jill Stein, was noticeably absent from his photo. Only outlets… Read more »
One year ago, on July 7, 2014, Israel launched “Operation Protective Edge,” a massive assault on the Gaza Strip. For 51 days, Israel bombarded Gaza with more than 6,000 airstrikes. Many of them hit residential buildings. Tawfik Abu Jama, a father of eight, told UN investigators, “I was sitting with my family at the table… Read more »
As Israeli voters went to the polls, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared he would oppose the creation of a Palestinian state. In what The New York Times called a “racist rant,” he also proclaimed, “right-wing rule is in danger” because “Arab voters are streaming in huge quantities to the polling stations.” James Besser, Washington correspondent… Read more »
As President Barack Obama presented his proposed Authorization for Use of Military Force(AUMF) to Congress, he declared, “I do not believe America’s interests are served by endless war, or by remaining on a perpetual war footing.” Yet Obama’s proposal asks Congress to rubber-stamp his endless war against anyone he wants, wherever he wants. Obama has… Read more »
Book Review: ‘How Human Rights Can Build Haiti’ Fran Quigley, Vanderbilt University Press (2014), 223 pp. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. It has suffered a devastating earthquake followed by a deadly cholera epidemic, both set in the backdrop of a history of oppression by corrupt rulers and foreign exploitation. In… Read more »
Three weeks after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) published a report detailing how the United States has failed to fulfill its legal obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Convention). The CERD report was scathing in its… Read more »