A reader emphatically recommends this piece by Marty Peretz in The New Republic. In a few short paragraphs, three grand themes emerge; the enormity of the genocide in Darfur, which is being documented as it happens; the minor importance, by comparison, of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and the unctuous discourse of Arab leaders who wax lyrical about Palestine while backing up the genocidaires of Khartoum.
Look at this leaflet and see if you can work out the omission.
Some scholars and activists are making the case that the “mingong” - migrant workers who gravitate to the wealthy cities from poor inland provinces - are subjected to a form of apartheid in the People’s Republic of China enabled by the hukou system.
In 1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, one of the leading postwar film directors and writers in Germany, wrote a play entitled “Garbage, the City and Death.” Set in a desolate urban landscape of prostitutes and seedy nightclubs, the play cemented Fassbinder’s infamy largely because of the inclusion of a character named “The Rich Jew.”
There’s a long interview with Sari Nusseibeh in Ha’aretz. He says he still supports the two-state solution, but time is running out:
Continue reading ‘Nusseibeh: Time is Running Out for the Two-State Solution’
Female passengers aboard the two ships travelling to “break the siege of Gaza,” be warned: should you get there, showing any flesh will be frowned upon by the Hamas masters of the territory.
Eamonn was saying in an earlier post that he hadn’t seen any left-wing demonstrations outside the Russian Embassy in Buenos Aires protesting events in Georgia. It’s a safe bet that there’s the same degree of invisibility in other metropolises.
This is a guest post by Contentious Centrist
The reactions to the death of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, as always when a controversial figure passes away, can be arranged along a continuum, from the most rhapsodic to the most satirical.
“While current hostility to Jews in the UK is frequently packaged as ‘progressive’ political comment, its origins are in traditional social attitudes that have been integral to Britain’s history for centuries.” So concludes Shalom Lappin in a new paper entitled “This Green and Pleasant Land: Britain and the Jews.”
Howard Rotberg is a Canadian novelist. I have to confess that I’m not familiar with his work, but this extraordinary story brings to mind one of the great novels of the twentieth century.
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