There are two persistent myths about the aim of Israel's onslaught on Gaza: the first that it is an entirely defensive move, a way to end the rocket fire of Hamas; and the second that it is designed to restore the army's credibility after its failure to cow Hezbollah...
RAMALLAH - Israel has committed war crimes and should be prosecuted in an international court, says Raji Sourani, head of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza. "The repeated bombing of clearly marked civilian buildings, where civilians were...
Consumed by coverage of the Nov. 4 presidential election, US mainstream media ignored a key Israeli military attack on a Hamas target that some Palestinians claim marked the effective end of the ceasefire between the two sides and set the stage for the current round...
Updated at 5:27 p.m. EST, Jan. 8, 2009At least 13 Iraqis were killed and 15 more were wounded in the latest attacks. More politically motivated assassinations are taking place ahead of upcoming provincial elections, especially in Diyala where many residents want parts...
RAMALLAH - At least 42 Palestinians sheltering in a UN school in the Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza City were killed Tuesday afternoon after two Israeli tank shells exploded outside the school. Hundreds of terrified Palestinians, desperately trying to escape the...
Updated at 4:00 p.m. EST, Jan. 7, 2009Reports of violence were light on the final day of Ashuraa. Many reporters are on holiday. Overall, at least three Iraqis were killed and 11 more were wounded in overnight violence. The DoD reported that one U.S. soldier was...
A new year, and a new president – plenty of grist for my prediction mill, or, at least, for the obligatory January "predictions" column. Not that there's anything special, really, about it: all punditry is prediction, in an important sense. Every time a writer...
It may finally be 2009, but in some ways, given these last years, it might as well be 800 BCE. From the ninth to the seventh centuries BCE, the palace walls of the kings who ruled the Assyrian Empire were decorated with vast stone friezes, filled with enough dead...
Our interventionist foreign policy stands ready to be put on a new course with the new administration. Unfortunately, it seems the new administration is likely to continue the mistakes of the past. I've often discussed interventionist foreign policy and the resulting...
Until mid-2007, there was a serious political obstacle to a massive conventional war by Israel against Hamas in Gaza: the fact that Hamas had won free and fair elections for the Palestinian parliament and was still the leading faction in a fully legitimate government....
