Stephen Lendman

Some observers call Washington a city of scandals. Lots of intrigue reflects daily life in the nation's capital. Elected and appointed officials come and go. Most often it's uneventful. Other times once powerful figures fell from grace or scandals affecting them rose to the level of affixing a "gate" suffix on what happened. Watergate, Whitewatergate, Iran/Contragate, Koreagate, Travelgate, and Troopergate among others come to mind. Perhaps Petraeusgate will enter the lexicon of political scandals. You read it here first.

Forget resignation over extramarital sex nonsense unless state secrets were compromised. Lots of elected and appointed Washington officials had affairs. Many likely have current ones. Resignations don't generally follow. Newt Gingrich survived sex and ethics scandals. He resigned as House Speaker after the Republicans faired poorly in 1998 off-year elections. In 1999, extramarital sex defrocked Speaker-elect Bob Livingstone. He could have stayed, but opted to become a high-paid DC lobbyist. Extramarital affairs didn't defrock past notable officials. They included Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Buchanan, Grover Cleveland, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower (during WW II), Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton. Unconfirmed rumors also surfaced about GHW and GW Bush. Jimmy Carter once admitted to having "lusted in his heart," but never let it go further than that.

More »

Yvonne Ridley

Israel squirms and wriggles like a worm on a fishhook over the Turkish trial into the deaths of nine unarmed humanitarian aid volunteers on board a ship bound for Gaza.

Tel Aviv has called the hearing in Istanbul a "show trial" with no legal foundation or meaning at all since, rather predictably, the four military commanders at the centre of the brutal air and seaborne assault are being tried in absentia.

In a 144-page indictment, the four stand accused of inciting murder and injury, and prosecutors are seeking multiple life sentences for the top brass group which includes the former Israeli military chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

I sat and listened in a hushed courtroom as the trial opened on the first day with a number of survivors recounting the military assault on their aid flotilla in May 2010 bound for besieged Gaza.

They came from around the world and included a former US Army colonel, journalists and peace activists who witnessed the massacre onboard the Mavi Marmara.

They told how live ammunition was fired at them killing nine and injuring countless more; how hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, laptops, credit cards and other valuables were stolen never to be seen again.

More »

Nahida Izzat
Poetry for Palestine

RE: The Return of Ali Abu-Fighter - Ali Abunimah, the Chicago-based, American-Palestinian activist, is, once again, on the attack. In the last few months he has launched campaigns against some of the most prominent pro-Palestinian figures such as Prof. Finkelstein, Prof. Chomsky, Greta Berlin, Col. Ann Wright and myself. But now he seems to stepping one gear up. - Gilad Atzmon

Through many years of work with Palestine solidarity, I came to realize that the movement is heavily infiltrated by Jewish (Zionist and anti-Zionist) activists[*], thus affecting at core level the path, aims and strategy of the movement. They also have managed to influence many in the movement including some Palestinian "intellectuals".

Through this infiltration they were able to obliterate the concept of LIBERATION and remove it completely from the vocabulary.

Some other consequences of allowing such element at the heart of solidarity is their STEERING the movement towards a favourable position when dealing with "israeli"-Jews.

They aim to block intellectual discussion, suppress Academic Freedom, obstruct rational and scholarly debate, filter vital information and smother serious research that examines four main identifiable problems:

1) The problem of the ideology of Jewish supremacism (by accusation of anti-Semitism)
2) The problem of global Jewish-Zionist networking and lobbying. (by accusation of anti-Semitism)
3) The problem of idolizing the Holocaust (which is used as a tool to further Zionists aims) (by accusation of Holocaust denial)
4) The problem of manipulating world policies through False-Flag operations. (by accusation of being a conspiracy theorist)

More »