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Content about Social Issues

April 27, 2013

A Catholic monastery and convent outside Bethlehem lost a seven-year legal battle against the construction of Israel's "separation barrier" across its land.

A Catholic monastery and convent in the secluded  Cremisan Valley outside Bethlehem lost a seven-year legal battle against the construction of Israel's "separation barrier" across its land on April 24.

April 18, 2013

Long-term hunger striker Samer Issawi called for "rage and solidarity" to mark Palestinian Prisoners Day. 3,000 detainees in Israel's prisons refused food to mark the day.

Long-term hunger striker Samer Issawi on April 17 called for "rage and solidarity" to mark Palestinian Prisoners Day. "Greetings to all without exception.

March 9, 2013

The Israeli high court dismissed an appeal by an "unrecognized" Bedouin village demanding access to water. A land titling plan for the Bedouin is being blocked by the military.

On Feb. 20, the Israeli Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by residents of the "unrecognized" Bedouin village of Umm El-Hiran in the Negev demanding access to drinking water. The Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel filed the appeal on behalf of the village's 500 residents.

February 22, 2013

Residents of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa are appealing to Israel's Supreme Court to halt construction of a highway that will divide the Arab district.

Residents of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa will appeal next week to Israel's Supreme Court to halt construction of a highway that is to divide the district, community activists said at a press conference Feb.

February 20, 2013

Israeli firm SodaStream bills itself as eco-friendly by obviating the need for soda bottles—as it illegally operates on stolen Bedouin and Palestinian lands in the West Bank.

The Israeli firm SodaStream made a splash earlier this month when its ad was bounced from the Super Bowl—alas, for the wrong reason.

February 14, 2013

Hundreds of neo-Nazis attempted to march on Dresden to crash commemorations of the 1945 Allied bombardment, and were blocked by a human chain of thousands of anti-fascists. 

In what has now become an annual ritual, a group of hundreds of neo-Nazis attempted to march on Dresden's city center to crash commemorations of the 1945 Allied bombardment of the eastern German city, and were blocked by a human chain of thousands of anti-fascist activists. Some 13,000 anti-fascists linked arms in a chain stretching for

January 11, 2013

Palestinian youth have established a protest encampment in E1 Corridor, where Israel plans to build settlements linking Jerusalem with the Ma’ale Adumim settlement bloc. 

Palestinian activists have established a protest encampment in the E1 Corridor, a piece of land where the Israeli government plans to build new settlements linking Jerusalem with the Ma’ale Adumim settlement bloc.

December 15, 2012

Legal action is threatened against Hungary's far-right Jobbik party after lawmaker Marton Gyongyosi called for an official "list" of influential Jews in the country. 

Hungary's far-right Jobbik party is radicalizing as fast as it is being mainstreamed. Prime Minister Viktor Orban belatedly condemned Jobbik lawmaker Marton Gyongyosi's call to create a list of Jewish politicians—the day after some 10,000 demonstrated in Budapest to protest the proposal.

November 14, 2012

Israel's armed forces launched multiple air-strikes across the Gaza Strip, after killing Ahmad al-Jaabari, the head of Hamas' military wing the Qassam Brigades.

Israel's armed forces launched multiple air-strikes across the Gaza Strip Nov.

November 9, 2012

Noam Chomsky, writing on his visit to Gaza, gets numerous facts wrong. But worse is his acceptance of the "two-state solution," a betrayal of secular-democratic principles.

Noam Chomksy is held in such God-like reverence by the leftoid legions we get a kick out of calling him out on the things he gets egregiously wrong.

October 25, 2012

A right-wing "Identity Group" seized a mosque in Poitiers, issuing a "declaration of war" against the "Islamization" of France—weeks after a bomb attack on a kosher shop in Paris. 

The interminable divide-and-rule game between Muslims and Jews worldwide goes on, with the latest maddening development in France.

October 10, 2012

Greta Berlin of the Free Gaza Movement appears to have been caught in an egregious anti-Semitic faux pas. The responses fall into the usual three broad categories: principled repudiation, cynical exploitation, and kneejerk rallying around the perpetrator...

Here we go again. Greta Berlin of the Free Gaza Movement appears to have been caught in an egregious anti-Semitic faux pas.

August 15, 2012

The new Socialist president of France, François Hollande, is emulating his reactionary predecessor Sarkozy in his response to a new uprising by immigrant youth—and setting up Jews to take the hit.

Well, if you thought that France getting a new Socialist president, François Hollande, was going to mean a retreat from the Franco-dystopia that unfolded under his reactionary predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy—time to think again.

August 9, 2012

Calling the accused perp in the Oak Creek massacre "insane" misses the point in a fatal way. His atrocity was a political act, and the reply must be political, not therapeutic.

The Aug. 6 massacre of six worshippers at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis. is revealing in its reactions from across the spectrum, but let's start with Mitt Romney.

August 2, 2012

Romney's notorious comments in Jerusalem were not only deeply racist to the Palestinians, but played into the anti-Semitic trope of the shrewd money-grubbing Jewish "Shylock."

You knew this was gonna be bad, but racist—and anti-Semitic?

June 4, 2012

Amid a wave of anti-immigrant protests and harsh new laws, Israel's Interior Minister Eli Yishai complains that most of the "Muslims that arrive here do not even believe that this country belongs to us, to the white man."

A new law granting Israeli authorities the power to detain "illegal migrants" for up to three years took effect June 3, following a wave of Tel Aviv protests over the influx of African migrants who cross into Israel along its border with Egypt.

May 3, 2012

The demolition of a mosque near the Golden Temple of Dambulla—a Buddhist cave-temple in central Sri Lanka—bears echoes of the 1992 destruction of the Ayodhya mosque in India, which ultimately led to the Gujarat genocide.

It sounds like an oxymoron, but it is starting to smell that way.

April 30, 2012

Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called for a new intifada to support the more than 4,000 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, hundreds of whom started a mass open-ended hunger-strike two weeks ago.

Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called on April 30 for a new intifada to support Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, who started a mass hunger-strike two weeks ago. The Hamas premier urged Arab and Muslim nations to intervene to support detainees, in remarks at a rally for prisoners in Gaza City.

April 2, 2012

In the wake of last month's kill-spree in southern France, lines across the blogosphere are drawn predictably, indicating the near-complete polarization and lack of any dialectical spark in contemporary thinking on the question of anti-Semitism.

Here we go, yet again. In the wake of last month's kill-spree in southern France, lines across the blogosphere are drawn predictably, indicating the near-complete polarization and lack of any dialectical spark in contemporary thinking on the question of anti-Semitism.

February 29, 2012

WikiLeaks and Anonymous team up to target Stratfor, winning favorable alterno-coverage. Predictably, nobody is talking about WikiLeaks' continued silence on charges of complicity with grave human rights abuses in Belarus.

The two most annoying icons of the rad left, WikiLeaks and Anonymous, team up to target the equally annoying 

February 18, 2012

There are doubtless many good reasons to oppose Henrique Capriles Radonski, the bourgeois politician who is challenging Hugo Chávez for Venezuela's presidency. His Jewish background is equally assuredly not among them.

It is really, really a drag to have to do this, but we really have no choice.

January 12, 2012

In a move assailed by civil rights groups, Israel’s High Court voted to reject a challenge filed against provisions of the Citizenship Law, which bar Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs from receiving citizenship or residency.

Israel's High Court on Jan. 11 voted to reject a challenge filed against provisions of the Citizenship Law, which bar Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs from receiving Israeli citizenship or residency.

December 21, 2011

Did Tom Friedman vindicate the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis by writing that Bibi's standing ovation at Congress was "bought and paid for" by the Israel Lobby? Well, no...

In what is a practically choreographed media spectacle, a prominent pundit spouts off about the power of the Israel Lobby, Walt and/or Mearsheimer cheer him on for vindicating their thesis that powerful Jews control the American empire, while neocons and the self-appointed guardians of Jewish interests assail him for anti-Semitism.

December 17, 2011

The simultaneous mainstreaming of the seemingly opposed phenomena of anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism appears contradictory—for those whose thinking lacks dialectical spark.

The simultaneous mainstreaming of the seemingly opposed phenomena of anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism appears contradictory—for those whose thinking lacks dialectical spark. Even though it is now only the most hardcore fringe elements of the radical right that espouse both, do not be deluded.