Articles by ICH
We found 2475 results.
Pro-Anti
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2020
What is an anti‑Communist?
→ read full articleCompanions
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2020
Vaclav Havel recommended:
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BREAKING: Israel Bombed Beirut
Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam תיקון עולם - TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2020
4 Aug 2020 – Exposure: Israel blew up a Hezbollah ammunition depot in the port of Beirut, but did not know in advance that a nearby warehouse contained a huge amount of ammonium nitrate. The government, overwhelmed by the scale of the carnage and destruction, was quick to deny Israeli involvement – even before anyone in Lebanon blamed Israel.
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The Coronavirus Is Airborne. Keep Saying It.
Michael A. Fisher | Slate - TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2020
31 Jul 2020 – It’s a jarring message, and the right one.
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‘Floating Bomb’: How the Beirut Blast Was Predicted
Michael Safi, Andrew Roth and Martin Chulov | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2020
6 Aug 2020 – The Lebanese prime minister on Tuesday [4 Aug] blamed the explosion on 2,750-tonne store of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in bombs and fertilisers, stored at the port. Media reports from 2014 claimed a vessel carrying that load was impounded at Beirut’s after making an emergency stop in the city and being denied permission to leave by customs authorities because it was deemed unseaworthy. In a letter published by a journalist, the ship was described as “a floating bomb and the crew is a hostage aboard this bomb.”
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Trumpism: What Will 2020 Bring?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2020
8 Aug 2020 – During the height of the Cold War when it was viewed as disloyal and compromising to show a sympathetic interest in Marxism or sympathies with Soviet ideology, someone at the U.S. military base at Frankfurt distributed to the soldiers stationed there, a handwritten version of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution, in the form of petition.
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Theoretical Note: John Maynard Keynes vs. Milton Friedman
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2020
The thesis of this note is that what is most important about Keynes was that he called attention to staggering features of the basic structure, namely the chronic insufficiency of effective demand and the chronic insufficiency of the inducement to invest. What is most important to extrapolate from Keynes survives the falsification of some of his empirical claims.
→ read full articleA Solution to Keynes´ Problem
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2020
Don´t leave anybody high and dry, bored, and hungry, tempted to join a gang to have fun being bad! Homo sapiens should transition to the day when humans will devote themselves to fun and funded intrinsically worthwhile activities –sports, music, science, philosophy, dance, religion, scholarship, gardening, yoga and so on—while advanced technology produces more and better goods and services, and creates more surplus to transfer.
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With John Lewis in Stockholm 1969
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2020
1 Aug 2020 – Moved by the iconic recognition of John Lewis’ exceptional courage and perseverance on behalf of human rights, nonviolence, and opposition to American militarism, I recall a weekend spent together in Stockholm. We were the two invited American speakers at a conference opposing the American War in Vietnam.
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Is the United States a Failing State? A Failed State?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2020
22 Jul 2020 – To ask whether the United States, the world’s dominant military power, is ‘a failing state’ should cause worldwide anxiety. Such a state, analogous to a wounded animal, is a global menace of unprecedented proportions in the nuclear age. Its political leadership is exhibiting a reckless tendency of combining incompetence with extremism. The November elections will send a strong signal as to whether the United States is failing or has failed.
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Nikola Tesla (10 Jul 1856 – 7 Jan 1943)
Biography and Michel Chossudovsky – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2020
Very few people know who Nikola Tesla is. They have heard of the Tesla electric car, but generally the broader public is unfamiliar with Nikola Tesla, the Serbian scientist and his path breaking inventions in electricity and wireless technology. Many of his inventions were stolen by US corporations. Wireless technology was in large part based on Tesla inventions. He contributed to the development of the alternating-current electrical system that’s widely used today and discovered the rotating magnetic field (the basis of most AC machinery).
→ read full articleLearning Now from Gandhi
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2020
12 Jul 2020 – a faithful and highly accessible presentation of Gandhi’s essential thought and practice as applicable to the rather overwhelming set of circumstances that amount to gathering storm clouds. Such a darkened sky hovering over the present is intended to call to our attention the severe threats to the human and ecological futures all beings on earth confront, whether or not they are aware of these unprecedented dangers.
→ read full articleCorruption
Howard Richards - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2020
16 Jul 2020 – We are not trying to sell you our theory, but we do have a theory. It says that modern western civilization is no longer viable. It says that humanity needs to work together to solve its physical problems drawing on ethics that are not modern, not western, and in some cases have never existed anywhere and will need to be constructed in the future. We call our theory ´unbounded´ and ´realist. ´
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The Microsoft Police State: Mass Surveillance, Facial Recognition, and the Azure Cloud
Michael Kwet | The Intercept - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2020
14 Jul 2020 – Microsoft is knee-deep in services for law enforcement, fostering an ecosystem of companies that provide police with software using Microsoft’s cloud and other platforms. The full story of these ties highlights how the tech sector is increasingly entangled in intimate, ongoing relationships with police departments. Microsoft declined to comment.
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Words of Wonder/Get Up, Stand Up (Music Video of the Week)
Keith Richards, et al. | Playing For Change – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2020
A ‘Song around the World’ featuring Keith Richards [Rolling Stones] with a number of worldwide musicians on his Reggae song, ‘Words of Wonder’. Ending with Bob Marley’s ‘Get Up, Stand Up’. A truly delightful musical experience. Enjoy!
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(Norsk-Norwegian) Kampen mot koronavirus – er vi i ”krig”?
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2020
Noen omtaler kampen mot koronavirus som krig, definert som en væpnet konflikt mellom to eller flere parter, enten folkegrupper eller stater. I likhet med væpnede konflikter har koronapandemien også ført til store lidelser, og en rekke land har innført portforbud. Forfatteren analyserer årsaker til den raske, globale spredningen av koronaviruset, og diskuterer muligheter for å skape en mer menneskelig, mindre sårbar verden.
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Poems, Pandemics, and Preservation
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2020
3 Jul 2020 – With the help of a friend I taught myself to write poems in a haiku form following classic Japanese guidance. Poetry has long been a place of sanctuary for me, and in recent months it has also offered me the pleasures of ‘lockdown therapy.’ I hope I am not abusing readers by posting a sample, and hoping others will be drawn to join an invisible community of haiku lovers.
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Post-COVID Prospects Assessed
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2020
8 Jul 2020 -This text is a slightly edited interview on post-COVID prospects that was published in Mutekabiliyet, a Turkish student online journal, July 3, 2020.
→ read full articleNikola Tesla (9/10 Jul 1856 – 7 Jan 1943)
Nikola Tesla and Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research,
6 Jul 2020
25 Aug 2018 – Very few people know who Nikola Tesla is. They have heard of the Tesla electric car, but generally the broader public is unfamiliar with Nikola Tesla, the Serbian scientist and his path breaking inventions in electricity and wireless technology. Many of his inventions were stolen by US corporations. Wireless technology was in large part based on Tesla inventions.
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The Politics of Kneeling: A Tribute to Colin Kaepernick
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2020
22 Jun 2020 – Of course, there have been many Kaepernick moments that stretch back to the era of slavery, and forward to Rosa Parks’ 1956 refusal to go to the back of the bus sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott , King’s 1963 letter from the Birmingham Jail, and the death of George Floyd, some more resonant than others, but none have been enough to remove the dark stains of systemic racism from the fabric of daily life in America, and elsewhere in the world.
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Family Tradition
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2020
A daughter observed her mother prepare a Christmas ham. Before she put it in a pot in the oven, she cut off a piece on the left and right and threw them into the garbage.
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Failing to Succeed
Michael Brenner – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2020
28 Jun 2020 – In a time of quarantine, isolation and anxiety, most literate isolates already have plowed through Decline & Fall, War & Peace, the complete set of Shakespeare’s dramas, and the Iliad. So, now the choice is between you and Paradise Lost – which is not everybody’s cup of tea. Widespread social disorder can be the expression of various conditions: civil war, sectarian strife, economic collapse, natural disasters, external incursions, etc. All of these situations are explicable by the application of some kind of causal logic.
→ read full articleThe Right to Food During the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Time of Bio-Ethical-Ecological Crisis
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2020
14 Jun 2020 – Even before the Coronavirus Pandemic, humanity faced an unprecedented challenge in the coming decades that threatened the foundations of life itself, and yet, up to this time societal reactions have been disappointingly weak and evasive, aside from a few voices in the wilderness.
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Not Just “Cops”: It’s Time to End the Entertainment Industry’s Anti-Black, Pro-Police Programming
Rich Benjamin | The Intercept - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2020
20 Jun 2020 – “Cops,” the longest-running reality TV show in U.S. history, was recently canceled after more than 30 years on air. The Paramount Network announced its decision to pull the plug on the seminal reality show after protests over George Floyd’s death and police brutality. The cancellation is barely a first step, however.
→ read full articleRepudiating the International Criminal Court
Prof. Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2020
Even Orwell would be at a loss to make sense of some of the recent antics of leading governments. We would expect Orwell to be out-satirized by the U.S. actions to impose penalties and sanctions on officials of the ICC not because they are accused of acting improperly or seem guilty of some kind of corruption but because they were doing their appointed jobs carefully, yet fearlessly.
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The Corruption of Science. The Hydroxychloroquine Lancet Study Scandal. Who Was Behind It? Anthony Fauci’s Intent to Block HCQ on Behalf of Big Pharma
Prof Michel Chossudovsky | Global Research - TRANSCEND Media Servicer,
22 Jun 2020
10 Jun 2020 – The Guardian has revealed the scandal behind the hydroxychloroquine study which was intent on blocking HCQ as a cure for COVID-19. “Dozens of scientific papers co-authored by the chief executive of the US tech company behind the Lancet hydroxychloroquine study scandal are now being audited, including one that a scientific integrity expert claims contains images that appear to have been digitally manipulated.
→ read full articleRevisiting Meeting Ayatollah Khomeini in January, 1979
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2020
10 Jun 2020 – This post is a slightly modified text of responses to Javad Heiran-Nia’s interview questions that was published on 2 Jun 2020 in Mehr News. From the Iranian publication I received some criticisms to the effect that I failed to associate Ayatollah Khomeini’s legacy with the repressiveness of the policies and practices of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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The “Greedy” Monk
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2020
A Buddhist monk had a great talent as a painter, but he always demanded a down payment before he began to paint, and charged high prices. So he was known as the greedy monk.
→ read full articleThe Police May Pull the Trigger, but It’s the System That Kills
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2020
Fifty years ago I published my first book, Rebels in Eden, an exploration of mass political violence in America focusing on the uprisings in Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore and Washington. Acknowledge racism? Yes! “Defund” the police? Certainly. But none of this will get oppressed communities where they want to go unless America’s capitalist order is transformed or redirected toward the satisfaction of human needs.
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(Français) Israel: Géopolitique de Gangsters et Projets Mafieux
Richard Falk | Investig'Action - TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2020
28 Mai 2020 – Richard Falk été rapporteur spécial des Nations unies pour les droits de l’homme dans les territoires palestiniens. Il analyse le plan d’annexion de pans entiers de la Cisjordanie présenté par Benyamin Netanyahu et soutenu par les États-Unis. Un plan qui témoigne d’un mépris flagrant pour le droit international. Pas étonnant de la part de responsables politiques qui se comportent comme de véritables gangsters.
→ read full articleArms Control & Disarmament: A Failed Marriage
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2020
25 May 2020 – The linkage between contagious disease and climate change is too evident to ignore altogether: The falling price of oil, the declining carbon emissions, the global imperative of cooperation, uneven vulnerabilities, and the relevance of justice and empathy. With respect to nuclear weapons hazards and their possible use, there is a growing disconnect between risk and behavior, a combination of nuclearism prevailing among the political elites of the nuclear weapons states and public disregard.
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The Darkening Sky over Palestine: Storm Clouds or New Dawn?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2020
28 May 2020 – If, de jure annexation will go forward, then the sky is likely to emit thunder and lightning. When the storm passes, nothing will seem changed. Annexation is being discussed as if a game changer yet ‘annexation’ has already taken place in the form of settlements, the separation wall, denial of building and residence permits to Palestinians living in Area C, and long-affirmed Israeli sentiments of biblical entitlement solidified by continued tradition of affirming the territory the British administered as ‘Palestine’ between the two world wars as ‘the promised land’ of the Jewish people.
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Global Capitalism, “World Government” and the Corona Crisis
Michel Chossudovsky | Global Research - TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2020
24 May 2020 – The World is being misled concerning the causes and consequences of the corona crisis. The COVID-19 crisis is marked by a public health “emergency” under WHO auspices which is being used as a pretext and a justification to triggering a worldwide process of economic, social and political restructuring. Social engineering is being applied. Governments are pressured into extending the lockdown, despite its devastating economic and social consequences. What is happening is unprecedented in World history.
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Snowden
Michael Brenner – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2020
Edward Snowden’s book is not a ‘coming-of-age’ saga. It is necessary to say that at the outset. One of the peculiarities of our times is the penchant for rendering everything in terms of so-called ‘human interest.’ The most profound events, the most penetrating analysis, the most stirring ideas – all are reduced to personality. Whether it is the personality of the author, a representation of the subject, or some background character.
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Ethics and Governance for Digital Disease Surveillance
Michelle M. Mello and C. Jason Wang | Science Magazine - TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2020
11 May 2020 – The Question Is Not Whether to Use New Data Sources but How – Digital epidemiology—the use of data generated outside the public health system for disease surveillance—has been in use for more than a quarter century. But several countries have taken digital epidemiology to the next level in responding to COVID-19.
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Planetary Transformations: A Progressive Quest
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2020
20 May 2020 – Below are three texts: a paper by the widely respected writer and progressive scholar, Val Moghadam, which describes what it might mean to have a left transformative movement of planetary scope; followed by a short explanatory essay by Paul Raskin, who exercises intellectual leadership of the Great Transition Network. The third text is my comment on Moghadam’s paper.
→ read full articleHacking COVID-19
Michael Brenner – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2020
23 May 2020 – Hacking is back in the headlines. The Chinese are accused of breaking into the computers of unnamed American labs – corporate &/or non-corporate – doing research on a coronavirus vaccine. The operative words are ‘China/Chinese’ and ‘hacking’. The two go together like gin & tonic.
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Mango Trees
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2020
A very old man was planting mango trees. Someone asked him,
→ read full articleThe Humans and the Viruses: The World Economic Forum and the Coronaviruses
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2020
Let me suggest, first, that there is a plausible explanation at the heart of our failure to live out the best of human nature, and that the current pandemic shows how crucial it is to change it. And, second, that the smartest of the business leaders are realizing that their own fate and the fate of all of us depends on replacing the essence of capitalism with an ethics of solidarity.
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The Coronavirus Pandemic, Sanctions on Iran, and the Maladies of World Order
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2020
12 May 2020 – The U.S. depends primarily on its military capabilities to punish and coerce those states that it regards as hostile to its global ambitions. Iran (and Venezuela) is the current leading example, as victimized by ‘the maximum pressure’ approach based on threats and punitive sanctions. In contrast, China has brilliantly extended its influence and increased its prosperity by reliance mainly on non-military instruments of expansion including trade, investment, and foreign assistance. The two global states exemplify an encounter between hard and soft power foreign policies.
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Why Bombs Made in America Have Been Killing Civilians in Yemen
Michael LaForgia and Walt Bogdanich | The New York Times - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2020
16 May 2020 – President Trump sees arms deals as jobs generators for firms like Raytheon, which has made billions in sales to the Saudi coalition. The Obama administration initially backed the Saudis too, but later regretted it as thousands died.
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Gangster Geopolitics and Israel’s Annexation Plans
Richard Falk | Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2020
13 May 2020 – The Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank shows a shocking disregard for international law.
→ read full articleU.S. Policy toward Israel/Palestine in a Deglobalizing World: A Pre-Pandemic Perspective
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2020
7 May 2020 – The text below is from my presentation at the TRT World Forum, 21-22 Oct 2019. What strikes me now is how different the world seems only six months later due to the surreal impacts of the Coronavirus Pandemic on all aspects of perception and assessment, the totality of dislocating developments, and the heightening of an existential appreciation of the precariousness of individual and collective experience and of the radical uncertainty clouding our expectations of the future.
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Mystery of Snails with Iron Shells That Survive Inside White-Hot Volcanoes
Michael Havis | Mirror - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2020
9 May 2020 – A team at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has decoded the genome of the volcano-dwelling scaly-foot snail, which can live in remarkably hot temperatures.
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Coronavirus Found In Semen of Young Men with COVID-19
Peter Ellis, Mark Wass and Martin Michaelis | The Conversation - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2020
7 May 2020 – The study involved 38 patients undergoing treatment for severe COVID-19 disease. Fifteen of the patients provided a semen sample during the acute phase of their illness and 23 shortly after recovering. In four of the 15 patients with acute disease and in two of the 23 recovering patients, SARS-CoV-2 RNA was found in the semen samples.
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COVID19 and the U.S. Left: An Ignored Civil Rights Crisis
Michael Lesher | ZNet - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2020
5 May 2020 – Dissecting the left-right inverse polarization of responses to COVID-19 lockdowns.
→ read full articleAcknowledging Disorientation after COVID-19: Beyond Horizons of Fear and Doubt
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2020
3 May 2020 – More than earlier crises of my lifetime, including the Great Depression, World War II, 9/11, the COVID-19 pandemic illuminates as never before, how precarious and uncertain is the future wellbeing, and possibly survival, of the human species. The concreteness, immediacy, and haunting uncertainties of the pandemic is quite terrifying on its own, but its heuristic pedagogy seems applicable to a range of potentially catastrophic threats of global scope, most obviously climate change, biodiversity, nuclear weaponry.
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Planet of the Humans | Full Documentary, Earth Day 2020
Michael Moore – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Apr 2020
21 Apr 2020 – A documentary that dares to say what no one else will in this Earth Day: We are losing the battle to stop climate change on planet earth because we are following leaders who have taken us down the wrong road–selling out the green movement to wealthy and corporate interests.
→ read full articleWorld Order and COVID-19 Pandemic
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2020
19 Apr 2020 – I am aware of the greater strength and role of cooperative movements in European countries, a residue of the socialist movements of the prior century, that give rise to more spontaneous approaches on local levels to immediate threats to well-being, exhibiting both less trust and less dependence on governmental undertakings. Furthermore, European health systems are more evolved, fewer people left out, and more sense of public responsibility, although some deficiencies also emerged.
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Door by Door the Cuban Government Delivers Immune Boosting Medicine to the People
Susana Hurlich | Resumen - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2020
Taking the Concept of “Solutions-Oriented Peace Journalism” to New Heights
→ read full articleRanting in a Time of Plague
Michael Brenner – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2020
14 Apr 2020 – Overriding all else is the spectacle of a President, DULY ELECTED BY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, who is a malicious psychopath with not a single redeeming trait. A physical, intellectual and emotional spectre, he has gathered around him a witch’s coven of scoundrels, crooks and crackpots as bereft of mind and ethics as he is. This man is viewed favorably by 46% of the public. THAT REALITY ECLIPSES EVERYTHING ELSE. What Have We Learned?
→ read full articleTriple Jeopardy for Palestinian Prisoners
Prof. Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2020
The allegation of Triple Jeopardy arises from the failure to suspend or mitigate prison condition in light of the Coronavirus Pandemic, and the related failure to take responsible steps to protect those so confined from contracting the potentially lethal disease. A virtual death sentence hangs over every single Palestinian prisoner, and in an especially acute form with respect to particularly vulnerable Palestinians living in crowded unhealthy prisons.
→ read full articleA Prayer in the Time of Pandemic
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Apr 2020
8 Apr 2020 – Affirming spirituality as the power over life and death I aspire to achieve
this spirituality that is nothing other than the blending of love and mystery
cherishing wonder at a precarious precipice, respecting knowledge
In Time of Pandemic Praise for the UN
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2020
3 Apr 2020 – What the COVID-19 experience made clear was the importance of information to virtually every person and governmental body on the planet, and the degree to which the WHO and its Director General were quickly established as a valued source of reliable and trustworthy information. Establishing public trust and informational reliability become paramount goals, and WHO and Tedros Adhanan Grebreyerus, its Director General, have risen to the occasion, gaining media credibility and worldwide respect.
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Investigating Israeli Criminality at the International Criminal Court (ICC)
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2020
Amicus Brief submitted to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on 16 Mar 2020 in the jurisdictional phase of a proceeding in which to initiate such a legal proceeding and whether the ICC has jurisdiction, that is, legal authority to investigate and possibly prosecute such alleged. As the Prosecutor indicated, the facts at her disposal indicate a basis for accepting Palestine’s request for an investigation of alleged Israeli criminal conduct.
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Why Nation States See Themselves in a War against a Virus and Forbid Any Normal Life
Michael Kuhn – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2020
30 Mar 2020 – Is it really all happening or are we living in a science fiction? Within a few days nothing is as it always was. Everybody must go home and without any objection and all this carried out as a veritable state action, always staged and carried out by the foreign ministries of the states with the right publicity for the people at home and the other states abroad, telling everybody that after all, ‘it’s not about health issues, but about state affairs between states.’
→ read full articleA 21st Century Worldview: Interviewing Ahmet Davutoğlu
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2020
28 Mar 2020 – Interview that I conducted with the former Turkish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, published in Middle East Monitor on March 23-24, 2020. His responses to questions 18-20 concern the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on the world. The interview is long, yet a worthwhile overview how the most important intellectual political figure in Turkey views global and national reality given the shape of recent developments.
→ read full articleThe Struggle against Coronavirus: Are We at “War”? How Will It Change the World?
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2020
Like a wartime enemy, the virus is portrayed as a maleficent external threat, an alien force that endangers one’s homeland and personal security. Associating the biological threat with a political adversary, the American president labeled it a “Chinese virus,” while Chinese leaders have insisted that the virus was manufactured at the Pentagon’s biological warfare facility in Fort Detrick. This game of blame-the-adversary is absurd, of course.
→ read full articleExplaining the ‘Asian Miracle’
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2020
20 Mar 2020 – A timely aspect of Nayyar’s book is the emphasis he places on the importance of effective state/society relations in explaining the remarkable growth experience of Asia. Such an insight seems relevant to the degree to which various governments are effectively managing responses to the challenge of the Coronavirus pandemic. It would seem at this stage that well-managed autocracies do better than most democracies, and much better than poorly managed democracies that embody capitalist structures, priorities, and values.
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COVID-19: Present, Past, and Future
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2020
17 Mar 2020 – A few days ago when WHO officially declared the COVID-19 a ‘pandemic’ a Rubicon of consciousness and global governance was crossed. Hundreds of millions of individuals around the world are coping physically and mentally with what that word never before used in my lifetime means for themselves and those they care most about. The mental dimensions of self-isolation may turn out to be a big challenge almost as big as the disease itself.
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Pompeo’s Remarks to the Press about the ICC
Michael R. Pompeo, US Secretary of State – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2020
17 March 2020 – US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo officially trashes ICC and makes threats against ICC staff and their family members.
→ read full articleCruelty or Humanity?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Mar 2020
12 Mar 2020 – This is my foreword to Stuart Rees’ exceedingly important study of the role of cruelty in politics, a mystifying dimension of human experience, which is illuminated by integrating the insights and reflections of poets with the narration of political policies. This fusion gives this book a quality of originality as well of practical relevance.
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Tokyo Olympics: How Coronavirus Is Hitting Preparations
Kari Brossard Stoos and Heather Dichter - The Conversation,
16 Mar 2020
12 Mar 2020 – The World Health Organization’s decision to officially recognise the coronavirus outbreak as a global pandemic means organisers are facing difficult decisions on whether to go ahead with major sporting events. There were more than 124,000 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, in 118 countries, and more than 4,600 documented deaths by March 12. This is a problem for sports events around the world – not least the Olympic Games, scheduled to start in Tokyo at the end of July.
→ read full articleNow What Do We Do?
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Mar 2020
Accumulation for its own sake, far from being assumed to be the normal goal for property owners should not be a legitimate goal at all. Markets are created by communities. Property rights are created by communities. They should be regarded as morally legitimate if, when, and to the extent that they function to meet the needs of human communities and of the larger earth community of which we human beings are members.
→ read full articleEvasions, Accidents, Engagements, and Fulfillment: An Autobiographical Fragment
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Mar 2020
2 Mar 2020 – This post is something new for me, an autobiographical fragment written at the request of an online listserv as a suggestive model for academics at the start of their careers as diplomatic historians. I publish it here. It was found unsuitable for publication by the group that made the initial solicitation for unspecified reasons.
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(Castellano) Mas Cordura, Menos Violencia, la Organización Ilimitada
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
2 Mar 2020 – La apuesta de este bosquejo es: Si uno comprende que la estructura cultural básica (junto con las leyes de la física, química, biología y otras ciencias naturales — todas ellas resumidas en la ecología) es el poder causal que más determina el rumbo de la historia; entonces uno comprenderá que la metodología de organización ilimitada es una metodología (no la única) apta para cambiar el rumbo de la historia.
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Staatenlos—Stateless
Michael David Morrissey – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
Renouncing citizenship is not easy, either, and it has become expensive. A fee of $450 was introduced in 2010, and raised in 2014 to $2350. You have to have filed faithfully to the IRS every year and prove you have been in full “compliance” for at least the past five years, regardless of whether you earned any of your income in the US. If not, or if you are worth more than $2 million, you will have to pay an “expatriation tax.”
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World Game
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
Buckminster Fuller, the US architect, designer and philosopher, designed a “world game,” in which the players assume the role of heads of state, and their goal is to meet the needs of their people for food, housing and education.
→ read full articleHow Sanders Wins and Governs–Winning and Losing in 2020
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
24 Feb 2020 – Anyone sensitive to the American political scene has become aware of an emerging collision between surging citizen support for Bernie Sanders and the lamentations of portfolio (stocks & bonds) driven Democrats who purport to question Sanders’ electability, and even if they now most reluctantly acknowledge the robustness of his electoral challenge to Trump, contend that he will be never be able to govern given his left agenda and considering the likely embitterment of the DNC establishment.
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Tariq Ali Speaks Out on Assange’s Case and US Wars
AcTVism Munich – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2020
In this 4 Feb 2020 speech in a public rally for Julian Assange at the Royal National Hotel in London, author, writer, filmmaker and public intellectual Tariq Ali speaks about Julian Assange and contextualizes his case by focusing on U.S. wars pointing out the double standards observed when it comes to the application of international law. Ali emphasizes the importance of collective action around the plight of Julian Assange.
→ read full articleWeaponizing Lawfare in the Philippines
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2020
22 Feb 2020 – Rodrigo Duterte, despite leaving by now a long trail of blood-stained abuse, retains an approval rating of more than 80%. As in the United States, we ask the question that prompted the leading thinkers in ancient Athens to abandon democracy—‘how can we trust the citizenry if they are drawn to support demagogues whose policies are self-destructive for the political community?” If not, the people, then whom? Surely, not the financial oligarchs. Plutocracy is not the answer.
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Compassion
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2020
Mother Teresa was bandaging an old man with an advanced stage of leprosy.
→ read full articleMeeting Grand Ayatollah 41 Years Ago
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Feb 2020
15 Feb 2020 – In February 1979, along with two others, I had a meeting with Ayatollah Khomeini. The post below is an edited text of an interview by two Iranian journalists, Maryam Khormaei & Javad Heiran-Nia, which was published a few weeks ago in Iran. As few Westerners had such an opportunity to meet the leader of the Iranian Revolution in a relatively relaxed atmosphere and for an ample length of time, there seemed interest in Iran and elsewhere in my recollections of that meeting.
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The Golden Age of White Collar Crime
Michael Hobbes, Matt Giles, et al. | HuffPost – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Feb 2020
10 Feb 2020 – Elite lawbreaking is out of control. This is the grotesque story of an existential threat to American society. One of the most conspicuous aspects of white-collar cases is the doting, near-veterinary care with which judges try to prevent defendants from facing harsh punishment. 32% of American managers said they were comfortable behaving unethically to meet financial targets. –Ernst and Young Global Fraud Survey
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Arendt, Eichmann and the Banalization of Blame
Michael Brenner | HuffPost – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Feb 2020
Hannah Arendt, who originated the term “banality of evil” in her provocative writings, was not interested in explaining Eichmann’s blandness per se. She had more profound thoughts to convey. He was a symbol of something much deeper. Her forcefully argued conclusions that ordinary people can commit horrific crimes created a furor – a blazing fire of argument and recrimination whose embers smoldered for decades.
→ read full articleWhy International Law Is Crucial for Human Wellbeing
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Feb 2020
If we are attentive to current events, as the media reports war/peace issues we would quickly conclude that invoking international law in these high profile settings is to be out of touch with how sovereign states go about pursuing their most important economic and political interests, which in areas touching on security is by trusting their defensive capabilities and alliance relations, and not by believing that as long as their actions and policies stay on the right side of the law, they have nothing to worry about.
→ read full articleTrump/Netanyahu Diplomacy: Orientalism by any Other Name
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2020
1 Feb 2020 – This so-called contribution to ‘peace’ requires Palestine to give up its most fundamental rights, and accept a permanent condition of subjugation and victimization. It is framed in such a one-sided pro-Israel manner as if designed to ensure its instant and overwhelming rejection by Palestinian government representatives and by Palestinian public opinion.
→ read full articleA Rationale for Unbounded Organization: A Path to Positive Peace
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2020
This is a proposal for a pragmatic, functional and realistic framework for talking, thinking and building institutions.
→ read full articleMaking the Earth Charter Happen: A Necessary Utopia
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2020
7 Feb 2020 – Twenty years ago Kamla Chowdhry, one of the founding members of the Earth Charter Commission asked, “How can we ensure that ethical and spiritual values get a fair hearing with the economist, technologist, and the industrialist? How do we weld economics with ethics, and have a technology with a human face?” Answering those questions remains central to our efforts today for a more just, sustainable and peaceful world.
→ read full articleThe Decline of International Law: Reflections of a True Believer
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Feb 2020
27 Jan 2020 – There is widespread agreement that international law is experiencing a sharp decline in relevance when it comes to foreign policy, especially in the eye of the public. At first glance, this seems surprising. The impression of decline derives from high profile issues of governments acting without regard for international law, especially in the area of peace and security.
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On the Eve of the Release of Trump’s ‘Deal–Farce of the Century’
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Feb 2020
28 Jan 2020 – Interview by Rodrigo Craveiro from the Brazilian daily Correio Braziliense –
Craveiro: Why are Palestinian leaders rejecting to talk with president Trump about this new peace plan?
‘Good’ Deeds?
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Feb 2020
A scout master asked three little scouts what good deed they had done today. The first one replied, “I helped an old lady cross the street.”
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Interview with Football Leaks Whistleblower Rui Pinto ‘This Football Mafia Is Everywhere’
Nino Seidel and Michael Wulzinger – Der Spiegel,
3 Feb 2020
2 Jan 2019 – In an interview, Rui Pinto, the Portuguese young man who kept the industry in suspense over revelations from Football Leaks, discusses his life in anonymity, the explosive power of his documents and accusations that he is a hacker.
“I am not a hacker, I am a whistleblower.” – Rui Pinto
Contesting Nuclearism: Management or Transformation? An Urgent Challenge
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jan 2020
22 Jan 2020 – This essay calls attention to the generally unappreciated tensions between managing nuclear weapons and eliminating them altogether. It stresses the crucial point that management inevitably produces a structure of ‘nuclear apartheid’ that is to some extent ‘legalized’ by way of the Nonproliferation Treaty of 1961, and depends for implementation, not on law, but on geopolitical muscle, including war. This geopolitical pattern of NPT enforcement has been mainly undertaken by the United States, but is generally supported by most of the other nuclear weapons states.
→ read full articleFacing the Global Crisis
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
16 Jan 2020 – This is an amplified version of an interview published on 7 Jan in the online journal, Global Policy. As the interview was conducted in Dec 2019, it fails to address the various disruptive consequences of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, including the violation of Iraqi sovereignty, Baghdad being the site of the drone attack, as well as the risks of war arising from an escalating tit-for-tat cycle of actions and reactions.
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The Art of Listening
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
Dr. Bernard Lown, Professor of Cardiology emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health and co-recipient with Yevgeniy Chazov of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize as Chairman of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, said that he once toured a hospital as a young intern with other interns observing their professor.
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America, an Empire on Its Last Leg: To Be Kicked Out from the Middle East?
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research,
20 Jan 2020
7 Jan 2020
• A US president committed to war crimes,
• A failing “War on Terrorism” narrative,
• Weakened military command structures,
• Failing alliances,
• Sleeping with the enemy,
• Unpredictable foreign policy analysts,
• Deception and mistakes.
At this juncture: The US’ most powerful weapon remains dollarization, neoliberal economic reforms and the ability to manipulate financial markets.
With Costs Approaching $100 Billion, the Fires Are Australia’s Costliest Natural Disaster
Paul Read and Richard Denniss – The Conversation,
20 Jan 2020
17 Jan 2020 – It’s hard to estimate the eventual economic cost of Australia’s 2019-20 megafires, partly because they are still underway, and partly because it is hard to know the cost to attribute to deaths and the decimation of species and habitats, but it is easy to get an idea of its significance – the cost will be unprecedented.
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Iran Jet Disaster Setup
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich and Finian Cunningham | Sputnik – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
14 Jan 2020 – The 19-second video published by the New York Times last week showing the moment an Iranian missile hit a passenger jet has prompted much social media skepticism. Questions arise about the improbable timing and circumstances of recording the precise moment when the plane was hit.
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2020 U.S. Presidential Elections: Reflections outside the Box
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
14 Jan 2020 – Four Reflections on What Would Help Democrats Defeat Trump
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The Prosecution of Julian Assange, the Destruction of Legality and the Rise of the National Security State
Richard Hoffman | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
15 Jan 2020 – It is worthwhile to consider briefly the lawless character of Assange’s persecution by Britain, the United States and Sweden. Since the beginning, Assange has been subjected to endless procedural abuses and political interference in the legal process. Virtually every customary precept, practice and procedural protection, which an accused is traditionally afforded, has been discarded in the effort to railroad him. The disintegration of the democratic system and the rise of the national security state are hallmarks of the deepening crisis of imperialism.
→ read full articleOpen Letter to Members of the U.S. Congress
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jan 2020
8 Jan 2020 – I listened to Trump from my own perspective and with an attempt to hear his words as if I were an Iranian living in Iran. I found the statement belligerent, and formulated in an imperialist/hegemonic language, avoiding a diplomatic sequel, and instead resuming the ‘maximum pressure’ approach involving threats and further intensified sanctions and other coercive moves that will bring additional suffering to the Iranian people.
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Welcome to Hawaii’s ‘Plastic Beach’, One of the World’s Dirtiest Places
Liz Barney and Michelle Broder Van Dyke – The Guardian,
13 Jan 2020
10 Jan 2020 – Hawaii has long evoked images of a Pacific paradise but Kamilo Beach, located on the Big Island, presents a starkly different reality.
→ read full articleChanging Perceptions on Homosexuality
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jan 2020
Until the mid-1970s, Swedish law defined homosexuality as a disease.
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The Sham of Corporate Social Responsibility
Robert Reich – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2020
31 Dec 2019 – Boeing recently fired CEO Dennis Muilenburg in order “to restore confidence in the Company moving forward.” Restore confidence? Muilenburg’s successor will be David Calhoun, who allowed Muilenburg to remain CEO after the first 737 Max crash and the jetliner posed an unacceptable risk of accident. It caused the deaths of 346 people. Muilenburg raked in $30 million in 2018. He could walk away from Boeing with another $60 million.
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(Italiano) Che cosa muove l’antisemitismo? Forme fasulle e reali
Richard Falk | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2020
30 Dicembre 2019 – Solo il tribalismo più estremo può spiegare l’etichettatura di coloro che si oppongono al trattamento abusivo di Israele nei confronti del popolo palestinese come “antisemiti”. Consideriamo l’incapacità di Aung San Suu Kyi di condannare l’abuso da parte del Myanmar dei Rohingya come il lancio delle nuvole più scure sul suo Nobel Premio per la Pace. È un insulto agli ebrei e agli altri semiti consentire ai sionisti di imprimere solidarietà alla lotta palestinese per i loro diritti fondamentali come antisemitismo.
→ read full articleForgetting 2019
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2020
31 Dec 2019 – At this age, having exhausted prose options, I indulge myself during holidays by sharing poems that seek also your indulgence. I searched 2019 for some glimmers of good news, and felt stymied. Of course here, there, everywhere there were glorious private exceptions.
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Latin America: The Conservative Offensive and the Return of Class War
Antoine Pelletier interviews Franck Gaudichaud | CETRI – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2019
15 Dec 2019 – Several countries in Latin America are currently experiencing very powerful class conflicts and extremely violent repression on the part of reactionary forces and the state. The following is an overview of the situation in various countries and the dynamics of their struggles.
→ read full articleThree Cheers for the Cheerfully Deluded!
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2019
Let’s hear three cheers for the cheerfully deluded! Instead of telling them that their dreams are very likely to be disappointed, let’s change the world to make it possible for more of their dreams to come true. Soul medicine. What is not possible in pure neoliberal markets is possible in impure African and Latin American markets. Public policies and human sympathy can rescue not only the bodies of the poor, but also the dignity of the poor.
→ read full articleWhat Drives Anti-Semitism? Fake and Real Forms
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2019
Only the most extreme tribalism can explain labeling those who oppose Israel’s abusive treatment of the Palestinian people as ‘anti-Semites.’ We look upon Aung San Suu Kyi’s failure to condemn the Myanmar abuse of the Rohingya as casting the darkest of clouds over her Nobel Peace Prize. It is an insult to Jews and other Semites to allow Zionists to brand solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for their most basic rights as anti-Semitism.
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