The new international media for a changing world – The new international media for a changing world
JONATHAN COOK
We are on the brink of a series of self-inflicted catastrophes, from which humanity will be exceptionally lucky to survive. There is a path ahead, but being able to see it and understand where it leads will require—at least for most Westerners—a great leap of imagination. It will force us to let go of many of the things we have been taught to identify with. It will demand that we realize that our most cherished values are, in fact, harmful.
MAHMOUD ASLAN
Minab and Tehran (Iran)
Mohammed Shariatmadar stood before the rubble of the Shajareh Tayyiba girls' primary school in Minab, southern Iran, on Saturday morning, unable to take in what he was seeing.
Her six-year-old daughter, Sara, a second-grade student, was one of dozens of girls who died when the school was bombed in the early hours of the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran.
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SHAHAD ALI
As the Israeli army launches the first phase of its latest military operation in Gaza City—aiming to completely occupy the area and displace its approximately one million inhabitants southward—the city has descended into an endless hell. Night after night, relentless and terrifying explosions rob us of sleep. Entire neighborhoods are being invaded and demolished, forcing families to flee to an uncertain fate, while bloody massacres have become a grim part of daily life.
For a moment, these cruel scenes remind us of the first months of the war, when Israeli forces, for the first time, forced the city's residents to flee south under the threat of a ground invasion. The sky then looked the same as it does now: gray and covered with thick smoke, signaling imminent danger. People's faces reflected the same unbearable anxiety and fear, only now the concern is more acute: we fear that this time we will be forced to leave Gaza City forever, never to be allowed to return.
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CHRIS HEDGES
For decades, Israel has been playing tricks. It signs an agreement with the Palestinians that is to be implemented in phases. The first phase gives Israel what it wants – in this case, the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza – but Israel routinely fails to implement the subsequent phases that would lead to a just and equitable peace. In the end, it provokes the Palestinians with indiscriminate armed attacks to get them to retaliate, defines a Palestinian response as a provocation, and abrogates the ceasefire agreement to reignite the killing.
If this latest three-phase ceasefire agreement is ratified - and there is no certainty that it will be by Israel - it will, I hope, be little more than a pause in the bombing of the presidential inauguration. Israel has no intention of stopping its merry-go-round of death.
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JOSEPH CAMILLERI
Trump's electoral victory is not the momentous or unexpected event that many have made it out to be. It is, however, an unmistakable sign of a society in slow decline in which frustration, anger and bewilderment are reaching epidemic proportions.
The inevitable question is: how did this man manage to be re-elected President of the United States?
This is, after all, a man who was twice impeached as president, who rejected the outcome of the previous election. He is known to have repeatedly lied to the electorate before, during and since his first presidential term. This is a man whose business dealings have long been under a cloud, and who is widely accused of deceit, abuse of power and sexual misconduct.
Read moreCAITLIN JOHNSTONE
Right-wingers dissatisfied with the American political status quo have been pushed to support a politician who embodies that status quo as much as any other president, mistakenly thinking that they are fighting a battle against the establishment in doing so. And this is reflected on the other side of the imagined partisan divide in American politics, with people making entire identities out of disdain for Donald Trump and acting as if this makes them brave revolutionaries.
As Gore Vidal once said:
“It doesn’t really matter whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat. The genius of the American ruling class is that it has been able to make people believe that it has had something to do with electing presidents for 200 years, when it has had absolutely no say in the candidates or the policies or the way the country is run. A very small group controls almost everything.”
JEFFREY D SACHS
Since 1992, every president has left the United States and the world closer to nuclear annihilation than his predecessor. The Doomsday Clock read 17 minutes to midnight when Clinton came to power, but only 9 minutes when he left. Bush reduced the clock to just 5 minutes, Obama to 3 minutes, and Trump to just 100 seconds. Now Biden has reduced the clock to 90 seconds.
Biden has led the United States into three devastating crises, any of which could end in Armageddon. Washington seems to be single-minded these days: more funding for the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, more weaponry for Taiwan.
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NATASHA LENNARD
In recent days, massive police operations have occurred on campuses in Manhattan and across the country in response to peaceful student encampments. Students gathered to share food, hold space for talks and rallies, and demand their universities divest from Israel.
I have been reporting on political dissent and police violence for 15 years, especially in New York. Compared to Tuesday night in Columbia, he had never witnessed at a protest site a use of police power so disproportionate to the type of demonstration taking place.
Read moreJEFFREY D. SACHS AND SYBIL FARES
The two-state solution is enshrined in international law and is the only viable path to lasting peace. All other solutions - continuation of Israel's apartheid regime, a binational state or a unitary state - would guarantee the continuation of the war by one or both sides. However, the two-state solution seems hopelessly blocked. But it's not like that. Here is a way.
Peace can come through the immediate implementation of the two-state solution, making Palestine's admission to the United Nations the starting point, not the end point. UN member states will have to impose the two-state solution, rather than wait for another Palestinian-Israeli negotiation to fail.
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