Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Peter MacKay, who recently traveled to Afghanistan, is planning a larger visit to the Middle East region, with the stated aim of promoting “peace and dialogue”. Conservative Party Foreign Minister MacKay will arrive in Lebanon and Palestine in the coming days. Tadamon! Montreal issues this appeal in an effort to highlight the Conservative government’s role and position as an imperialist player in the Middle East. Canadian intervention in the region is best illustrated by the Conservative government’s open support for Israel’s brutal assault on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and by Canada’s ongoing military presence in Afghanistan. Read more about Appeal to Oppose Canadian Foreign Minister's Visit to the Middle East
When I published my book Blood and Religion last year, I sought not only to explain what lay behind Israeli policies since the failed Camp David negotiations nearly seven years ago, including the disengagement from Gaza and the building of a wall across the West Bank, but I also offered a few suggestions about where Israel might head next. Making predictions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be considered a particularly dangerous form of hubris, but I could hardly have guessed how soon my fears would be realized. Read more about Israel's Dark Future
WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (IPS) - The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) may have effectively closed up shop two years ago and its key neo-conservative allies in the administration, such as Scooter Libby and Douglas Feith, may be long gone, but the group’s five-year-old Middle East strategy remains very much alive. This is not the “Wilsonian” strategy of transforming Iraq into a model of democracy and pluralism that will then spread domino-like across the entire benighted region of autocrats, monarchs and theocrats whose oppression and backwardness have, in the neo-con narrative, been the main cause of anti-U.S. Islamic extremism. Read more about Democracy Languishes, but Neo-Con Strategy Lives
For years the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been mired by a series of failed peace negotiation, enmeshing Israeli Jews and Palestinians in a seemingly intractable struggle. Even 59 years after the creation of the state of Israel the quest for Jewish security has not been realized, while Palestinians – those dispossessed in 1948, 1967, and the 3.8 million living under Israeli occupation – have not seen a just resolution to a conflict that has marred their history and shaped their identity. The international community, including many Israeli and Palestinians, still subscribe to the notion that the two-state solution is the only way to settle the conflict. Read more about Offering an Alternative Vision: "One Country" Reviewed
On Saturday evening Barbara and Grant invited me to a prayer meeting. Before going there we drove over into Israel to pick up an American woman, Joanne. On the way back we passed a group of Palestinians standing at the side of the road. ‘Stop!’ Joanne cried. ‘I want to witness. Stop! Stop!’ Barbara rammed on the brakes. ‘I’ve got some leaflets with me,’ Joanne explained. ‘Whenever I see Palestinians I give them leaflets so that they can learn about the word of the Lord.’ She brought a sheaf of papers out of her bag and opened the door. I jumped out after her, keen to witness this ‘witnessing’. Joanne was thrusting her leaflets into the hands of the Palestinians, speaking to them in English about the love of Jesus. Read more about From the Mouth of the Lion's Den
There is a misperception in various world locales of Washington’s debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Namely, that substantive debate exists at all. In fact, the debate in the power corridors of Washington is highly constrained, almost non-existent. Should we engage with President Mahmoud Abbas now or require him to leap through several more hoops — including civil war — first? Serious argument on the injustice of Israel’s long-running occupation simply does not take place other than at the margins. The reason for the silence has become increasingly clear with the publication of President Carter’s courageous book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. Read more about Debate? What debate?
Today, Palestinian refugees outside the occupied territories and Palestinian exiles feel completely excluded from the body politic and national debate currently taking place in the occupied territories. They listen to the feuding emanating from the territories in helpless dismay. They watch those on the inside who are caught up in a carefully engineered web of power struggles and passionate rifts that seem incomprehensible in their intensity and misdirection. This fragmentation in the Palestinian political process has long been in the making. Read more about Palestinian refugees and exiles must have a say-so
Throughout much of the Arab world, Hezbollah is being celebrated as the champion that was, at long last, able to establish a victory over invincible Israel and its omnipotent western backers. In the Middle East, Hezbollah’s victory has energized movements against imperialism and its system of client regimes. In Canada, Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. It is thus illegal to “participate in or contribute to, directly or indirectly, any activity” of this Lebanese political party or even to urge anyone to act in a way that could be construed as benefiting Hezbollah. Read more about Selectively Terrified
OAKLAND, California (IPS) - It hasn’t been the easiest year for Israel. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s strongly criticised Israel in his new bestselling book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, and a recent international consumer survey found that Israel has the worst “brand name” of any country in the world. Finally, The Sunday Times of London reported this week that the Israeli Air Force may be preparing to use low grade, tactical nuclear weapons to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities. So perhaps it is not surprising that Israel — whose international image is of a country in continuous conflict — would engage in a serious long-term effort to reshape global perceptions of itself. Read more about Israel Looking for an Extreme Makeover
With his new book, former President Jimmy Carter has been vilified by the pro-Israel lobbying industry in the United States with the frequent intimation that he is anti-Semitic. Yet even this furor demonstrates the hard limits which the debate still faces. In defending himself against such attacks, Carter has been careful to stress that he is only talking about the situation inside the territories occupied in 1967, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “I know that Israel is a wonderful democracy with equal treatment of all citizens whether Arab or Jew. And so I very carefully avoided talking about anything inside Israel,” he said. Read more about Hard limits and long-observed taboos
