be just

As Jews we say "Birthright" trips must end As the summer months approach, thousands of young Jews from more than 60 countries prepare to participate in the  Taglit-Birthright  program. Since 1999, Birthright has brought 340,000 young Jews to Israel on free ten-day trips. In the midst of the fervor to sign up for this bi-annual program, we have launched the website Renounce Birthright ( renouncebirthright.org ) with the aim of providing a space for potential participants to engage with critiques of Birthright and of  Zionism .

The wrong kind of Caucasian - Opinion - Al Jazeera English Chechens and other Muslim immigrants from the former Soviet Union are human beings. They are not walking symbols of violent conflict. Do not look to a foreign country to explain a domestic crime. Look to the two men who did it - and judge them by what they have done, not from where their ancestors came.

The Persecution of Lynne Stewart April 22, 2013 " Information Clearing House " -" TruthDig " -  Lynne Stewart, in the vindictive and hysterical world of the war on terror, is one of its martyrs. A 73-year-old lawyer who spent her life defending the poor, the marginalized and the despised, including blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, she fell afoul of the state apparatus because she dared to demand justice rather than acquiesce to state sponsored witch hunts. And now, with stage 4 cancer that has metastasized, spreading to her lymph nodes, shoulder, bones and lungs, creating a grave threat to her life, she sits in a prison cell at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is serving a 10-year sentence. Stewart’s family is pleading with the state for “compassionate release” and numerous international human rights campaigners, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu,...

Something's Rotten in Boston: Who's Investigating the FBI Investigators?:   Something's Rotten in Boston Who's Investigating the FBI Investigators?: By Dave Lindorff April 22, 2013 " Information Clearing House " -" This Can't Be Happening! " - I’m not a conspiracy-minded person, but something definitely stinks about this whole Boston Marathon bombing story. From what we’re reading about the case, the FBI had for two years been investigating Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26-year-old older brother killed during a shootout between police and the two brothers, Tamerlan and 19-year-old Dzhokhar. They had interviewed Tamerlan in his home, warned him they were watching what he ate, what he looked at on his computer, etc. They knew he had gone to Dagestan and Chechnya.

America's War on Islam 2.0 April 22, 2013 " Information Clearing House " -   Waging war at home or abroad requires enemies. America creates them when none exist. Post-9/11, Muslims were targeted for political advantage. Post-Boston bombings, America’s war on Islam continues. Muslims are “war on terror” scapegoats. Washington’s Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia wars rage. It’s the wrong time to be Muslims in America. They’re persecuted for their faith and ethnicity. At times it’s for their activism, prominence, and/or charity. They’re dehumanized, spied on, set up as patsies, hunted down, rounded up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail, restricted in their right to counsel, tried on secret evidence, convicted on bogus charges, given long sentences, and treated ha...

Government Should Stop Its Own Violence First Here’s another thing we know: This was a crime, not an act of war. Even if a foreign organization or country was behind the heinous deed, the bombings in no way could have been calculated to conquer the United States, overthrow the government, or destroy our society. Violence intended to murder, injure, and terrorize is evil — but in itself it is not an act of war.

Video: Israeli soldiers use handcuffed Palestinian teen as human shield as they fire at protestors Israeli soldiers used a handcuffed Palestinian teenager as a  human shield  as they fired at protestors in the occupied West Bank village of Abu Dis on Friday.

U.S. Intel Chief Says Iran Isn't Building Nukes. April 19, 2013 " Information Clearing House " -" WAIA " - In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday March 12, 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper reaffirmed what the U.S. intelligence community has been saying for years : Iran has no nuclear weapons program, is not building a nuclear weapon and has not even made a decision to do so.

How Not To Respond to the Boston Marathon Bombings - Duly Noted

A Tax System Stacked Against the 99 Percent About 6 in 10 of us believe that the tax system is unfair — and they’re right: put simply, the very rich don’t pay their fair share. The richest 400 individual taxpayers, with an average income of more than $200 million, pay less than 20 percent of their income in taxes — far lower than mere millionaires, who pay about 25 percent of their income in taxes, and about the same as those earning a mere $200,000 to $500,000. And in 2009, 116 of the top 400 earners — almost a third — paid less than 15 percent of their income in taxes.

If Autocratic Regimes in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the Gulf are Acceptable, What’s Wrong With Assad’s in Syria? The present arrangement, however, is interesting. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other gulf emirates, finance the insurgency in Syria. Turkey provides its territory for the Free Syrian Army to operate from, while the US, the UK and France provide the military hardware. It’s bloodletting financed by the Muslims, inflicted by the Muslims against their kin, using weapons supplied by the western powers. 

Risking their lives to save lives: Gaza's first responders When thousands of Palestinians poured into the streets of the  Gaza Strip  after the announcement of a ceasefire with Israel on the night of 21 November last year, they found many of them flooded.

I was at work when I heard bombs exploded in Boston Marathon event. As a Marathon runner and human I felt who could've done such horrific act in the most peaceful event. But, bombs exploded people obliterated in many part of the world yesterday as well. Human being spends billions every year to kill each other for the purpose of dominating each other rather than making peace. For me the tragedy of Boston is all related to tragedy in Iraq or Syria or any war zone, it is the extension of hatred on all sides of the factions to use such bombing to kill more people, and clamp down on civil liberty. The country is already spending close to a billion dollar on fiscal year we are on and this would give more impetus to the supporters of "military industrial complex" to spend more. As I always said, war is terrorism, we are all waging terrorism against people. To fight terror with terror wouldn't help anyone except the news media the hate mongers and weapon manufacturers in sho...

Gilad Atzmon: Controlled Opposition – From Goldstein to Soros and Beyond Controlled Opposition – From Goldstein to Soros and Beyond By Gilad Atzmon April 13, 2013 " Information Clearing House " - Jewish power is the unique capacity to stop us from discussing or even contemplating Jewish power. It is the capacity to determine the boundaries of the political discourse and criticism in particular.

Guess Who Is Not Coming to Margaret Thatcher's Funeral   Guess Who Is Not Coming to Margaret Thatcher's Funeral The importance of Margaret Thatcher's warmongering is reflected in the Falklands theme of her funeral arrangements -- something Tony Blair does not seem to regard as "tasteless". By Lindsey German April 12, 2013 " Information Clearing House " -" Stop The War " - Tony Blair has denounced as ‘tasteless’ those celebrating the news of Margaret Thatcher’s death. "Even if you disagree with someone very strongly," he said, "at the moment of their passing you should show some respect." He may of course be thinking ahead to his own eventual demise and fearing that the scenes of partying will be reproduced on a much wider scale. Blair's demand that we all show respect for the dead is somewhat hard to take from the man incriminated in the deaths of  hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians .

Pervez Musharraf Gave US Permission To Murder People In Pakistan By Jon Boone in Islamabad and Peter Beaumont April 12, 2013 " Information Clearing House " -" The Guardian " -      Pakistan 's former president  Pervez Musharraf  has admitted giving permission for the CIA to launch drone attacks inside his country, directly contradicting repeated claims by the Pakistani government that it has never authorised drone strikes.

Israel destroys West Bank community center, arrests 20 Large slabs of wood lay scattered on the brightly tiled floor. Ripped posters were still clinging to the walls by bits of tape. A handful of computer hard drives were ripped out, and lay haphazardly on their sides. The electricity wires were cut, and broken windowpanes let in what little light entered the room.

Syria’s Nusra Rebels Pledge Loyalty to al-Qaeda -- News from Antiwar.com Yesterday’s announcement of a merger between Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the key Syrian rebel forces, and al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was discussed today by the Nusra leadership, which insists that they have always pledged allegiance to the al-Qaeda parent group .

WikiLeaks: Vatican Dismissed Pinochet Massacre Reports As 'Communist Propaganda' By Peter Finocchiaro April 09, 2013 "Information Clearing House" -"HP" -  Gen. Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship was responsible for the deaths of as many as 3,200 people in Chile in the 1970s, but the Vatican dismissed reports of bloodshed at the time as "communist propaganda," according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks on Monday

George Galloway “Tramp the Dirt Down” Before Thatcher, every primary school pupil received 1/3 of a pint of milk every morning. For some it was the difference between breakfast and no breakfast. I was sometimes one of those. I grew up in a brief period of social democracy in Britain, being dosed by the state with free cod-liver oil, orange juice and malt to build up my strength. Having been born in a slum tenement into a one-room attic in an Irish immigrant area, I needed all of that and more. And like millions I got it, until Thatcher took it away.

 David Corn: Bursting the Thatcher Bubble

The US Plans to End Chávez’s Rule: Documents released by WikiLeaks explain in detail former US ambassador’s strategy to undermine Chávez’s regime.

The right of return is a core issue for Palestinians; let's realize it This weekend a group of area students including myself will be hosting a groundbreaking conference at Boston University addressing the complex realities of the implementation of the Palestinian refugees’ Right of Return . The goal of this conference is to shape a new narrative that is focused on how to bring about return from a practical standpoint.