Category: Gaza

When a Ceasefire is Not Enough

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Sojourners Magazine: The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan was an avoidable tragedy. The disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region has been populated since at least the second century B.C.E. by Armenians, one of the world’s oldest Christian civilizations. The  Muslim Azeris and others have lived there and in neighboring areas for centuries as  well, and the region was ethnically mixed (albeit majority Armenian) when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991…

Will the Flotilla Attack Be Our “Kent State” Moment?

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Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 7, 2010;
also CommonDreams, ZNetwork & Baltimore Nonviolence Center blog

Israel’s attack on the unarmed flotilla last weekend could be a “Kent State moment.” When white middle-class students were gunned down on a college campus, it woke up a whole new segment of American society to police killings of minority students. Similarly, while the Israeli military has been killing Arab civilians for years, now that they have attacked European and American peace activists it has created a whole new dynamic. [source]

U.S. Support for Israel Mirrors 80s Support for El Salvador Junta

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Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies
June 3, 2010; also Huffington Post & ZNetwork

It’s like the 1980s all over again. During that decade, the Reagan administration – with the support of Congress – sent billions of dollars worth of unconditional military and other support to the right wing-junta in El Salvador, just as the Obama administration is today with the right-wing government in Israel. When Salvadoran forces massacred 700 civilians in El Mozote, Congressional leaders defended the killings, saying that the U.S-backed operation was “fighting terrorists.” Similarly, when Israel massacred over 700 civilians in the Gaza Strip early last year, Congressional leaders defended the killings for the same reason. [source]

Israel’s Latest Violation

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Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 2, 2010; also Antiwar.com, CommonDreams, Huffington Post, OpEd News, Truthout & ZNetwork
Every time Israel’s right-wing government engages in yet another outrageous violation of international legal norms, it is easy to think, “No way are they going to get away with it this time!” And yet, thanks to the White House, Congress and leading American pundits, somehow, they do. Israel’s attack on an unarmed flotilla of humanitarian aid vessels in the eastern Mediterranean — resulting in more than a dozen fatalities, the wounding of scores of passengers and crew, and the kidnapping of 750 others — has so far proven no different. [source]