Columns/Opinions

By Arjan El Fassed– The Electronic Intifada On Wednesday July 22 1987 at five in the afternoon, Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali parked his car in southwest London, and walked a few meters towards the offices of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas where he worked. He was shot in the head by a gunman, dressed in a denim jacket, who walked calmly …

By Jonathan Cook Yesterday I had an idea for a short story to explain the unrelenting insanity of the occupation for ordinary Palestinians. Tell me what you think. In my story, there is a Palestinian family, let’s call them the Jaabaris, and they live next to a Jewish settlement, let’s call it Kiryat Arba, close to Hebron deep in the Israeli-occupied …

By Ramzy Baroud Francois Hollande is not a popular president. No matter how hard the ‘socialist’ leader tries to impress, there never seems to be a no solid constituency that backs him. He attempted to mask his initial lack of experience in foreign affairs with a war in Mali, after his country enthusiastically took on Libya. While he succeeded at …

Israel’s claims of an imminent threat of Hizballah attack are not credible. More likely it wants to subdue the Lebanese militia so that it has a free hand to manipulate the Syrian battlefield to its advantage Al-Araby – 22 January 2015 By Jonathan Cook Israel has good reason to fear that the Lebanese militia Hizballah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will seek dramatic revenge for the killing of …

By Jonathan Cook Israel has been having its own internal debate about the significance of the Paris killings this month, with concerns quite separate from those being expressed in Europe. While Europeans are mired in debates about free speech and the role of Islam in secular societies, Israelis generally – and their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular – view …

Schools are the places where our kids learn a lot of skills and values. Freedom of speech is one of them. Our schools now are trying to suppress our kids and stop them from speaking their minds. They should be free to express their opinions without bothering with others feelings, truth, taste, etc. They should be able to say whatever …

By Salam Kareem This is the reality, and I don’t mean individuals who are connected with the group called Isis. I mean that fascists and bigots are everywhere. They all share the same principles and ideology. Yes same ideology. The ideology of hatred and intolerance. the ideology of forcing their ideology on others. The ideology of violence. The ideology of …

By Richard Silverstein– Tikun Olam Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government seems to be the only one possibly in the entire world that unabashedly adores Israel’s current Likud government.  It’s a slobbery political love affair embarrassing to behold.  Not only does Harper support Israeli policy, he represses any hint of official Canadian interest in Palestinians. In fact, there are many …

By Ramzy Baroud It is still not about Islam, even if the media and militants attacking western targets say so. Actually, it never was. But it was important for many to conflate politics with religion; partly because it is convenient and self-validating. First, let’s be clear on some points. Islam has set in motion a system to abolish slavery over …

by John Chuckman We hear much about bloody events in Paris being an attack upon western traditions and freedom of the press, and I am sorry but such claims are close to laughable, even though there is nothing remotely funny about mass murder. It certainly is not part of the best western tradition to insult the revered figures of major …