Paul R. Pillar – Israel Wants More from US

With most stalemated international negotiations, the reasons for both the impasse and the continuation of talks are easy to understand. A range of possible agreed outcomes exists, with some more favorable to one party and some more favorable to the other, and with each side naturally trying to get as good a deal as it can. For each party, there …

Richard Gale and Gary Null – The Vaccine Dilemma: Unsafe at Any Dose

The CDC and advocates for mandatory vaccination consistently repeat a dangerous mantra that finds no warranted basis in medical science.  This monolithic industry, now a massive network of private and government institutions, state senates, and supported by a compliant media, want us to believe that science has finally settled the debate over vaccine safety and efficacy.  All the data is …

Jonathan Cook – In Israel, an ugly tide sweeps over Palestinians

In Israel’s evermore tribal politics, there is no such thing as a “good” Arab — and the worst failing in a Jew is to be unmasked as an “Arab lover.” Or so was the message last week from Isaac Herzog, head of Israel’s so-called peace camp. The shock waves of popular anger at the recent indictment of an Israeli army …

Jeffrey Cohan – Judaism and Veganism: Time for a Reunion

A DIVINITY STUDENT from a Presbyterian seminary approached me one day and made a surprising comment. “I’m so impressed,” he said, “with the emphasis that Judaism places on treating animals with compassion.” I didn’t know whether to kvell (feel pride) or to cry. Kvell, because all levels of Jewish texts, from the Torah on down, express incredible sensitivity for the welfare of animals. The divinity …

RICHARD HARDIGAN – Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine: Home Demolitions on the Rise

According to the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, an Israeli NGO, the Israeli government has demolished 28,000 Palestinian structures since the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began in 1967, resulting in the homelessness and suffering of untold numbers of people. There is little ambiguity about the morality of this form of ethnic cleansing, and even most Israeli legal …

Chuck Spinney – How Israel Killed the ‘Two-State Solution’

The radical Israeli settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron present what is certainly a candidate for being the ugliest face of Israel’s creeping annexation of the West Bank. And, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has reached a point that renders the so-called Two State Solution an impossibility. The situation also recalls what General Yigael Yadin, Israel’s …

Marjorie Cohn – Sanders and Clinton: Palestinian Defender vs. Israel Apologist

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 that Israel’s actions during the 2014 Israel-Gaza …

RAMZY BAROUD – The Logic of Murder in Israel: A Culture of Impunity in Full View of the Entire World

“Whether he made a mistake or not, is a trivial question,” said an Israeli Jewish man who joined large protests throughout Israel in support of a soldier who calmly, and with precision, killed a wounded Palestinian man in al-Khalil (Hebron). The protesting Jewish man described Palestinians as ‘barbaric’, ‘bestial’, who should not be perceived as people. This is hardly a …

Goldman Sachs is funding Hebron settlers

For years American taxpayers have been bankrolling Jewish-only illegal settlements in the West Bank with hundreds of millions of dollars funneled through tax-exempt non-profit organizations (we’ve covered the issue on Mondoweiss since 2008). One of the organizations which is a frequent recipient of these donations is the Brooklyn-based Hebron Fund which supports Hebron’s settler community. Haaretz reports that Goldman Sachs has a “clear pattern” of giving to Israeli rightwing …