The Iran agreement appears to be wildly unbalanced, with Iran agreeing to extremely stringent restrictions on its nuclear rights in return for relatively vague assurances regarding the relaxation and eventual lifting of the sanctions imposed upon it. It is difficult to believe that Iran would have agreed to such terms unless both (1) the unanimous […]
By John V. Whitbeck. Middle East Eye – After the breakdown in the six-day “pause” to permit negotiations on a long-term Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and the resumption of Israel’s onslaught against the caged people of Gaza, concerned people everywhere are wondering how the conflicting demands of the two sides can possibly be reconciled when each side feels […]
By Mohammed Omer. John Whitbeck’s comment: Transmitted below is a brief personal witness statement from Gaza by my distinguished young friend Mohammed Omer. Some of you may recall Mohammed’s article, which I circulated on March 29, regarding his excruciatingly difficult experience exiting Gaza with his seriously pregnant wife. I later had the pleasure of seeing […]
John Whitbeck’s commentary: Transmitted below is an appeal by Hanan Ashrawi to the “international community”, which, between the disintegration of Iraq and the excitement of the World Cup, appears to have lost all interest in Palestine, the fundamental human rights to which the Palestinian people are entitled and the abuses to which they continue to […]
John Whitbeck’s commentary: Transmitted below is a rare item of good news. This accomplishment of the Palestinian national football team is particularly remarkable in light of Israel’s long-running practices of destroying Palestinian stadiums, preventing players from travelling (including between Gaza and the West Bank), imprisoning or “administratively detaining” them and, in recent incidents, intentionally shooting […]
Author’s note: Transmitted below is today’s AL JAZEERA ENGLISH publication of my latest effort to encourage Europe to do something useful to end the occupation. This article previously appeared in print in the JORDAN TIMES (Amman), the KHALEEJ TIMES (Dubai) and, in Arabic, AL-QUDS (Jerusalem), the leading Palestinian newspaper (http://www.alquds.com/news/article/view/id/504568). If Arab and Muslim states, […]
John Whitbeck’s commentary: According to the FOREIGN POLICY post transmitted below, the U.S. government, notwithstanding its traditional hostility to international law in general and the International Criminal Court in particular, has decided to support a UN Security Council resolution authorizing an ICC investigation into alleged war crimes committed on Syrian territory – but only subject […]
John Whitbeck’s commentary: Transmitted below is an encouraging JERUSALEM POST news report. Until now, it has been widely assumed that John Kerry had fully and irrevocably bought into Bibi Netanyahu’s “Jewish state” gambit for ensuring the failure of the current ”negotiations” while shifting the blame to Palestine. Since the Palestinian negotiating position is fully consistent with international […]
John Whitbeck’s commentary: Transmitted below is an encouraging article on the European Parliament’s overwhelming (534-49) vote condemning the U.S. government’s lawless global assassination program, President Obama’s primary means of demonstrating to his critics that he does truly believe in American “exceptionalism”, and calling for criminal accountability for those complicit in the program. By Tyler Cullis. […]
“SodaStream makes some dispensers in the biggest of Israel’s West Bank settlements, illegal under international law. It is disingenuous to romanticise settlement enterprises. The occupation imprisons thousands of the Palestinians’ young men, gives their land and water to settlers, demolishes their houses and partitions the remaining territory with scores of checkpoints and segregated roads…” John Whitbeck’s commentary: […]
