People of US & World Must End Israeli Impunity! Cynthia McKinney, OpEdNews, May 31, 2010 I am outraged at Israel's latest criminal act. I mourn with my fellow Free Gaza travelers, the lives that have been lost by Israel's needless, senseless act against unarmed humanitarian activists. But I'm even more outraged that once again, Israel's actions have been aided and abetted by a US political class that has become corrupted beyond belief due to its reliance on Zionist finance and penetration by Zionist zealots for whom no US weapons system is too much for the Israeli war machine, and the silence of the world's onlookers whose hearts have grown cold with indifference. ... Cynthia

Rob Kall, OpEdNews, May 31, 2010 Israeli Naval troops invaded a Turkish humanitarian aid boat with 600 civilians on board, part of a flotilla of six boats in international waters, and, according to Turkish NTV, killed 15 and wounded 60 humanitarian activists bringing aid to Gaza. ... Israeli

IDF says 10 killed, 2 commandos wounded as troops tried to board; ships towed to Ashdod port. Avi Issacharoff & Anshel Pfeffer, Associated Press & Reuters, May 31, 2010 Israel Navy troops opened fire on pro-Palestinian activists aboard a six-ship flotilla carrying aid destined for the Gaza Strip before dawn Monday, killing at least 10 people and wounding several others, after the convoy ignored orders to turn back. The Navy later towed the ships to Ashdod port. The Israel Defense Forces said its troops were to forced to react after they came under fire from the activists while intercepting the convoy. ... Israel

Yaakov Katz, Jerusalem Post, May 31, 2010 Defense officials say soldiers attacked with rocks and knives upon boarding ships, protesters stole soldier's weapon in escalating violence in Gaza waters. IDF Navy commandos encountered fierce resistance early Monday morning as they boarded international aid ships on the way to Gaza to break the Israeli blockade of the Strip. According to defense officials, upon boarding the ships the commandos were attacked by activists with rocks, knives and metal pipes. The soldiers responded with crowd dispersion measures. At one point activists succeeded in stealing the weapon of one of the soldiers, leading to an escalation in violence. ... Flotilla

Mark Karlin, OpEdNews, May 30, 2010 If you were to draw an oily line from the first exploitation of oil in the Middle East by the British in 1901 (they were in the process of converting their then world dominating naval fleet from coal to oil and were in desperate need of it) to the overthrow of the secular democratic leader in Iran, Mohammed Mossadeq, in 1953, to the Iraq War, to the criminal environmental catastrophe in the Gulf, BP would have been there. ... From

Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons. Chris McGreal, Guardian, May 24, 2010 Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons. The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes." ... Revealed

Documents reveal how then-defence minister Shimon Perez tried to sell South Africa's apartheid government the bomb. Chris McGreal, Guardian, May 23, 2010 This is the secret memo by South Africa's military chief of staff, General RF Armstrong, asking for nukes on the Jericho missiles. It has been revealed before, but its context was not understood. We now know the memo was the direct result of a meeting between PW Botha and Shimon Peres, and the basis of Botha's demand for nukes. This memo was uncovered by Peter Liberman and published in the Nonproliferation Review. ... The

Reut Institute Admits Critics Have Many Valid Points. James Marc Leas, CounterPunch, May 21, 2010 While a report by an Israeli think tank has been widely condemned for advocating that the Israeli government use its intelligence services to attack and sabotage non-violent human rights advocates, the report is worth detailed study because it is chock full of admissions of illegitimate features of the Israeli government it desperately seeks to protect. The report, “Building a Political Firewall Against Israel’s Delegitimization,” is the product of a year of research by a team of Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute investigators and includes contributions from more than 100 individuals ... Israeli

Peter Schworm, Boston Globe, May 18, 2010 In a vitriolic address to the United Nations in 2006, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela assailed US foreign policy and called President George W. Bush the devil. He then held up a copy of Noam Chomsky’s “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance’’ and urged the audience to read it. Sales surged, catapulting the scathing critique of American foreign policy onto bestseller lists and the renowned and widely reviled MIT linguist into the media spotlight. The 81-year-old scholar, who has drawn praise and scorn over a second career as a political dissident ... Barring

Boston Globe Editorial, May 18, 2010 Israel’s Interior Ministry made a bad mistake Sunday in denying Noam Chomsky, the MIT linguist and longtime critic of Israel, entry into the occupied West Bank. The decision undercuts Israel’s reputation as a rare haven for free speech in the Middle East. Chomsky was headed to the occupied territories to deliver a speech at a Palestinian university. If Israel felt his presence in the West Bank was somehow dangerous, its decision to keep him out should have been made by the Defense Ministry, not the Interior Ministry, and only on the grounds of a threat to security. ... By

Victor Grossman, Portside, May 17, 2010 Wily media experts hunted breathlessly in the big congress hall for a split, either between delegates from East Germany and West Germany, between party currents of "Realo" realists versus "Fundi"- Fundamentalists, or maybe between personalities; just any old split weakening or even crippling this nasty young interloper which was causing so much trouble for Germany's four traditional parties. In Rostock, a port city on the Baltic Sea, 558 delegates gathered for the second congress of the party, founded just three years ago, called Die Linke, The Left. It had been a hasty marriage ... East

MIT professor turned away at Jordan border. Peter Schworm, Boston Globe, May 17, 2010 Noam Chomsky, an outspoken voice on the political left and a fierce critic of Israeli foreign policy, was denied entry by Israeli officials into the West Bank yesterday, where he was scheduled to deliver a lecture at a Palestinian university. Chomsky, a renowned linguistics professor at MIT, was seeking to cross the border between Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but was turned away after being questioned for several hours. He said authorities did not provide an explanation, but told him they would send a written account to the American Embassy. ... Chomsky

A Study in BP-Style “Pragmatism.” Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, May 16, 2010 On stage, it would be farce. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, it’s bound to play out as tragedy. Less than two months ago, Barack Obama flew into Afghanistan for six hours - essentially to read the riot act to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whom his ambassador had only months before termed “not an adequate strategic partner.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen followed within a day to deliver his own “stern message.” While still on Air Force One, National Security Adviser James Jones offered reporters a version of the tough talk Obama was bringing with him. ... Obama

Interior Ministry seeking IDF approval to let American professor just into West Bank; rights group: Decision characteristic of totalitarian regime. Amira Hass, Haaretz, May 16, 2010 Professor Noam Chomsky, an American linguist and left-wing activist, was denied entry into Israel and the West Bank on Sunday. No reason was initially given for the decision, but the Interior Ministry later said immigration officials at the Allenby Bridge border crossing from Jordan had misunderstood Chomsky's intentions thinking initially he was also due to visit Israel. Chomsky, who is on a speaking tour in the region, was scheduled to speak at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank ... Noam

Laurent Etre, l’Humanité, May 15, 2010 The world economic crisis has ended the taboo on referring to Marx. More and more works are being published on the author of Das Kapital, and the press is publishing special sections on him. A discussion with Edgar Morin, the philosopher and sociologist, emeritus research director at the CNRS who holds honorary doctorates from many universities around the world and with André Tosel, the philosopher and specialist in Karl Marx and Marxism, professor at the University of Nice. Although all of the many publications dedicated to Marx lately are not of the same quality, one can nevertheless only be surprised by this sudden increase in interest in him. ... Back