This week from CounterSpin – “Barack Obama has either been currying favor with Muslims or extending an olive branch in the Middle East depending on which media you consume. We’ll talk with Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies about Obama’s major speech in Cairo, and the size of the gap between words and actions.”
Phyllis Bennis on CounterSpin (9:46): MP3
Paul Findley, member of Congress, 1960-83, author of They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby, presents a rather optimistic view of Obama’s Cairo speech and actions to date.
He believes Obama is a long-range planner heading for a showdown with the Israel lobby. I don’t share his enthusiasm for Obama or for the two state solution. After all, even if it happens, what type of two state solution can Palestinians really expect?
As a Capitol Hill insider with long, close experience with Middle Eastern affairs and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israel’s principal lobby in Washington, I believe I can explain why Barack Obama, as president-elect, chose Rahm Emanuel as his chief-of-staff and Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. I am not an Obama insider. This is my analysis, based on strong evidence that the president is a careful, long-range planner.
Continue reading “Paul Findley: Obama plans showdown with Israel”
Mahmood Mamdani is a renowned African scholar (of Indian origin) who was ranked by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world’s 100 leading public intellectuals. Earlier this week he delivered the following lecture at The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) to promote his new book Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror.
Saviors and Survivors (31:39): MP3 | Torrent
Questions and Answers (50:23): MP3
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More from board member Harald Eckert
According to Christian Today, ‘The European Coalition for Israel has launched a campaign to mobilise Christians ahead of the European Parliament elections which are to be held this week.’ As can be seen in their promotional video above, they’re abusing the memory of the Holocaust while perpetuating the myth that Iran threatens Israel with a nuclear ‘Holocaust’, all to boost the pro-Israel vote.
The other main European Israel lobby group, European Friends of Israel, are taking a rather more shadowy approach with no mention of the election on their website. Instead, they have links to a film on the Lebanon war of 2006, viewed through civilian eyes, Israeli civilian eyes, and another to an article on the erroneous Jewish Nakba.
The campaign aims at mobilising constituencies in all 27 member states to take an active part in the election campaign by educating themselves about the issues and by engaging in dialogue with the candidates.
Continue reading “Pro-Israel group mobilises Christians ahead of European elections”
Found below is Nora Barrows-Friedman interview with Diana Buttu on Flashpoints Radio. They examine the recent killing of Hamas activists in the West Bank while providing the context absent from mainstream media such as the BBC – that the PA works for Israel in crushing resistance to the occupation.
Six Palestinians dead in armed clashes between a Hamas resistance group and US-trained Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank, former PLO advisor Diana Buttu talks about how the PA is subcontracting the Israeli occupation and turning against its own people.
Johann Hari writes that We owe it to do right by the Kenyan victims of British brutality.
In a few weeks, a group of quiet, dignified elderly men and women will arrive in London to explain how the forces of the British state crushed their testicles or breasts with pliers. It was part of a deliberate policy of breaking a civilian population who we regarded as “baboons”, “barbarians” and “terrorists”.
They will come bearing the story of how Britain invaded a country, stole its land, and imprisoned an entire civilian population in detention camps – and they ask only for justice, after all this time.
Jim Lobe interviewed by Scott Horton on Antiwar Radio. His analysis in this particular interview is rather unimpressive. While Lobe’s reporting over the years has been indispensable, he is too optimistic in his analysis. Since at least the autumn of 2003 he has been announcing the demise of the neocons. Here as well his reading of the Obama-Netanyahu summit is overly positive. For a reality check see this interview with Jeff Blankfort.
Jim Lobe on Antiwar Radio (26:11): MP3
Jim Lobe, Washington Bureau Chief for Inter Press Service, discusses Hillary Clinton’s emphatic rejection of any kind of Israeli settlement growth, the Obama administration’s (first in a generation) hard-line on Israel, the low probability of a Palestine/Israel 2-state solution even with a settlement freeze and allegations that Netanyahu sees Iran as Amalek – eternal biblical persecutor of Jews.
Jeff Blankfort on Flashpoints Radio examining the recent letter to Obama that exposed the hand of AIPAC, and the neocon Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) essay calling for US military attacks on ‘partisan’ media.
Jeff Blankfort – Flashpoints Radio (18:25): MP3
Addressing the Summit of the Americas Obama explained “I didn’t come here to debate the past, I came here to deal with the future.”
Well the past is inextricably linked with the future and Chavez created a media sensation by forcing that past into Obama’s hand in the form of a handshake with a copy of Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. The book then shot to #2 on the Amazon bestseller list.
In case you missed all that excitement, the foreword by Isabel Allende, which is quite excellent, and a short extract of Eduardo Galeano’s work, In Defence of the Word, are included below to further entice.
Isabel Allende
Many years ago, when I was young and still believed that the world could be shaped according to our best intentions and hopes, someone gave me a book with a yellow cover that I devoured in two days with such emotion that I had to read it again a couple more times to absorb all its meaning: Open Veins of Latin America, by Eduardo Galeano.
Noam Chomsky examines the recently released torture memos and puts them in a historical context.
“Bush, of course, went beyond his predecessors in authorizing prima facie violations of international law, and several of his extremist innovations were struck down by the Courts. While Obama, like Bush, eloquently affirms our unwavering commitment to international law, he seems intent on substantially reinstating the extremist Bush measures.”
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