Jonathan Cook

Israel’s air strike on northern Syria earlier this month should be understood in the context of events unfolding since its assault last summer on neighboring Lebanon. Although little more than rumors have been offered about what took place, one strategic forecasting group, Stratfor, still concluded: "Something important happened." From the leaks so far, it seems … Continue reading “Why Did Israel Attack Syria?”

This week marks a year since the end of hostilities now officially called the Second Lebanon war by Israelis. A month of fighting – mostly Israeli aerial bombardment of Lebanon, and rocket attacks from the Shi’ite militia Hezbollah on northern Israel in response – ended with more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and a small but … Continue reading “In 2006 Lebanon War, Most Crimes Were Israeli”

Iran is the new Nazi Germany and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new Hitler. Or so Israeli officials have been declaring for months as they and their American allies try to persuade the doubters in Washington that an attack on Tehran is essential. And if the latest media reports are to be trusted, it looks … Continue reading “Israel’s Jewish Problem in Tehran”

The boycott by Israel and the international community of the Palestinian Authority finally blew up in their faces with Hamas’ recent bloody takeover of Gaza. Or so argues Gideon Levy, one of the saner voices still to be found in Israel. “Starving, drying up, and blocking aid do not sear the consciousness and do not … Continue reading “Divide and Rule, Israeli-Style”

Israel’s supposedly "defensive" assault on Hezbollah last summer, in which more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed in a massive aerial bombardment that ended with Israel littering the country’s south with cluster bombs, was cast in a definitively different light last week by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. His leaked testimony to the Winograd Committee … Continue reading “Olmert Reveals the Real Goal of War in Lebanon”

The scene: a military checkpoint deep in Palestinian territory in the West Bank. A tall, thin elderly man, walking stick in hand, makes a detour past the line of Palestinians, many of them young men, waiting obediently behind concrete barriers for permission from an Israeli soldier to leave one Palestinian area, the city of Nablus, … Continue reading “Apartheid Looks Like This”

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 … Continue reading “Israel’s Dark Future”

There is an absurd scene in Palestinian writer Suad Amiry’s recent book Sharon and My Mother-in-Law that is revealing about Israeli Jews’ attitude to the two other monotheistic religions. In 1992, long before Israel turned Amiry’s home city of Ramallah into a permanent ghetto behind checkpoints and walls, it was still possible for West Bank … Continue reading “Israel’s Purging of Palestinian Christians”

The era of the Middle East strongman, propped up by and enforcing Western policy, appears well and truly over. His power is being replaced with rule by civil war, apparently now the American administration’s favored model across the region. Fratricidal fighting is threatening to engulf, or already engulfing, the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Iraq. … Continue reading “End of the Strongmen”

The problem facing the Palestinian leadership, as they strive to bring the millions living in the occupied territories some small relief from their collective suffering, reduces to a matter of a few words. Like a naughty child who has only to say “sorry” to be released from his room, the Hamas government need only say … Continue reading “The Trap of Recognizing Israel”