Microsoft should not fund Israeli spying on Palestinians
November 6th, 20190 The act of Palestinian activists covering their faces during anti-Israeli occupation rallies is an old practice that spans decades. The masking of the face, often by Kufyias — traditional Palestinian scarves that grew to symbolize Palestinian resistance — is far from being a fashion statement. Instead, it is a survival technique,...
She deserves our support: Betty McCollum wants the U.S. to stop subsidizing torture of Palestinian children
October 23rd, 20190 In December 2018, a 17-year-old Palestinian teen, Ayham Sabah, was sentenced by an Israeli military court to 35 years in prison for his alleged role in a stabbing attack targeting an Israeli soldier in an illegal Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Sabah was only 14-years-old when the alleged attack took place. Another alleged...
The last lifeline: The real reason behind Abbas’ call for elections
October 16th, 20190 The call by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for elections in the occupied territories is a political ploy. There will be no true, democratic elections under Abbas’ leadership. The real question is: Why did he make the call in the first place? On September 26, Abbas took on the world’s most important political...
Administrative torture: Free Heba al-Labadi, a Jordanian citizen in Israeli prison
October 9th, 20192 On August 20, Heba Ahmed al-Labadi fell into the dark hole of the Israeli legal system, joining 413 Palestinian prisoners who are currently held in so-called administrative detention. On September 26, Heba and seven other prisoners declared a hunger strike to protest their unlawful detention and horrific conditions in Israeli prisons....
The Africa-Palestine Conference: Why South Africa must lead the way
October 3rd, 20190 On September 16, I visited South Africa, a country where many Palestinians have always felt welcomed, if not overwhelmed by the degree of genuine and meaningful solidarity. While having the honor to address many audiences in six, major cities, I have also learned a great deal. An important and sobering lesson is that while apartheid...
Apartheid made official: Deal of the Century is a ploy and annexation is the new reality
September 23rd, 20190 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is moving quickly to alter the political reality in Palestine, and facing little or no resistance. On September 10, Netanyahu declared his intentions to annex swathes of Palestinian land adjacent to the Jordan River, an area that covers 2,400 square kilometers, or nearly a third of the...
With friends like Israel, who needs enemies?
September 20th, 20190 In April of 2018, the Associated Press reported that the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that it had detected unauthorized cellular phone surveillance devices operating in Washington, DC. Commonly known as “StingRays,” the devices are designed to mimic cell phone towers. Essentially, when a StingRay is activated it...
‘Justice is indivisible’: Screams of Israa Ghrayeb should be our wake-up call
September 13th, 20190 The death of Israa Ghrayeb has ignited furious reactions regarding the so-called “honor-killings” in Palestine and throughout the Arab world. It also wrought confusion with respect to the jurisprudential foundation of such crimes, which are often committed in the name of protecting the honor of the family. Israa, a 21-year-old...
There’s cause for both concern and optimism when it comes to democracy
September 3rd, 20190 Sometimes, you wonder if the world is doomed to descend into autocracy. Certainly, that’s what the coverage of the past few years suggests. We read about the nations that are already there, like China and Russia, of course, and Saudi Arabia and Iran. Or about countries like Hungary, Turkey and Poland that are nominally...
Jewish settlers rule the roost in Israel, but at what price?
August 25th, 20190 Israeli Jewish settlers are on a rampage in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. While settler violence is part of everyday routine in Palestine, the violence of recent weeks is directly linked to the general elections in Israel, scheduled to be held on September 17. The previous elections, on April 9, failed to bring about political...
Democracy won’t die if we don’t let it
August 23rd, 20190 Democracy’s premise is that ordinary citizens can make solid decisions on complex issues. But this basic principle and the structure of laws and practices erected over the centuries to safeguard it are being questioned as rarely before. It’s not just that political leaders in various Western democracies seem to have little regard...
Our grandparents need doctors trained abroad
August 22nd, 20190 By G. Richard Olds, M.D. America's population is aging rapidly. And that means demand for health care will explode in the coming years. By 2030, one in five Americans will be older than 65. Nearly 80 percent of those seniors will suffer from two or more chronic diseases. There aren't enough U.S.-educated doctors to treat all these...
Census 2020 will impact our communities and futures
August 17th, 20190 The 2020 Census will officially take place on April 1, 2020. That may seem a ways off, but the stakes of the census are high. We cannot afford a moment of complacency. People of color, along with other groups including seniors, students, and rural residents, have been under counted by previous censuses. This not only affects...
Paul Findley: A man of courage
August 17th, 20190 Paul Findley, one of the most remarkable Congressmen that the U.S. House of Representatives had produced since the Second World War, passed away on Aug 9. He was 98-years-old. He was first elected to Congress in 1960 from a district in Illinois once represented by Abraham Lincoln, his immortal hero. Findley was elected 11 times...
The war on innocence: Palestinian children in Israeli military court
August 10th, 20191 On July 29, 4-year-old Muhammad Rabi’ Elayyan was reportedly summoned for interrogation by the Israeli police in occupied Jerusalem. The news, originally reported by the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), was later denied by the Israeli police, likely to lessen the impact of the PR disaster that followed. The Israelis are not......
Israeli house demolitions are the true crime — not BDS
August 3rd, 20190 Israel is at it again. It remains consistent in engaging in one of its favorite activities: Stealing Palestinian land and tormenting Palestinians. On Monday, Israeli bulldozers, escorted by hundreds of Israeli soldiers, demolished no less than 16 residential buildings containing around 100 apartments in the village of Sur Baher, which...
How Biden’s secret 2002 meetings led to war in Iraq
August 3rd, 20190 Even though former Vice President Joe Biden’s favorability has declined following the first Democratic debate, he remains largely considered the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination by many mainstream media outlets and pundits. Early in the first debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders mentioned how Biden had supported the......
Miss Michigan World was rightfully dethroned for insensitive tweets
July 27th, 20190 Kathy Zhu, a Chinese American student at the University of Michigan, was recently dethroned as Miss Michigan World by pageant representatives regarding tweets which they considered to be religiously and racially “offensive” and “inappropriate.” As we believe in freedom of speech, which includes issues that are contentious and...
National polls don’t mean much. Here’s why.
July 22nd, 20190 "Here we go with the Fake Polls," President Trump tweeted on July 15. "Just like what happened with the election against Crooked Hillary Clinton." He's complaining about several polls that show him losing the national popular vote to various Democratic presidential aspirants, in some cases by double digits. He has a point. In 2016,...
Let’s not just focus on elections, but on how we elect
July 22nd, 20190 A few years ago, I was at a polling place here in Indiana where a long line of people stood waiting to vote. A woman recognized me and called me over. “Why is it,” she asked, “that you politicians make it so hard and inconvenient to vote?” I thought of this the other day when I read the news reports about presidents Trump and...
It’s time for a return to civility
July 20th, 20190 I cannot stand by and say nothing. I hope some friends are reading this morning, because I can feel the ugly rhetoric that may come back at me. But really, "Send her back." That is the chant at a presidential rally. Making hate and division the central point of any presidential campaign is so thoroughly bothersome to me, I cannot......
What does it mean to “love your country?”
July 20th, 20190 President Trump said last Monday that the four democratic "progressive" congresswomen have to love our country or leave it. However, the word "love" is vague and is capable of many meanings. The Oxford Dictionary defines love as "an intense feeling of deep affection for someone." Loving one's country can carry various things to...
Ending America’s endless war
June 30th, 20190 The United States has been at war for too long. Even today, we seem to be preparing for a new war with Iran, which would be the worst yet. Earlier this month, President Trump ordered thousands of additional U.S. troops to the Middle East to confront Tehran and its proxies. And we recently learned that the Pentagon had presented the......
How long can the federal debt keep rising?
June 27th, 20190 A few months ago, the federal debt we have accumulated over the past decades crossed the $22 trillion mark. That’s a record. And it’s surely not going to be the last. According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, annual federal deficits over the next decade — the deficit is the annual figure for how much more Congress and...
Opposition research: It’s not Trump’s fault that politics is a “dirty” game
June 27th, 20190 In a June 12 interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, President Trump freely admitted that he would listen to foreigners offering him “dirt” on his political opponents. “I think you might want to listen,” Trump said. “There isn’t anything wrong with listening .... Somebody comes up and says, ‘hey, I have......
