Syria’s Conflict: The fog of chemical war
May 9th, 2013 | by Trent Lee
In Washington and Ottawa, signs of political unwillingness and inaction for Syrian intervention are beginning to show. All signs suggest
Browsing the "Middle East" Tag
Palestine Upgraded at the UN, Degraded by Canada and the U.S.
December 3rd, 2012 | by Quiet Mike
Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza and the West Bank last Thursday to celebrate their historic, but symbolic victory at the United Nations. In a vote of 138 – 9, the general assembly decided to grant Palestine non-member observer status. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank likened the overwhelming majority vote to a Palestinian birth certificate. The world knows that Palestinian independence can only come through negotiations with Israel, but the vote was a huge step as it acknowledged the legitimacy in the international community of a future Palestinian country
Another Election – Another Assault on Gaza
November 19th, 2012 | by Quiet Mike
In the run up to American Elections on November 6th, Palestinians and Israelis enjoyed relative peace for weeks. Israeli airstrikes and rocket launches in Gaza were nonexistent, just the way it had been four years earlier. Back in the summer of 2008, Egypt brokered a truce between Hamas and Israel. The armistice lasted until Nov 4th, the same day as Barack Obama’s first election victory
Three Jews and a Palestinian in Parc Lafontaine
August 9th, 2012 | by Rana Alrabi
I listen to the three women around me in the bustle of Lafontaine park on the first evening of August. Each, in turn, shares their upbringing, their feeling about her Jewishness, stories from grandparents who survived World War II's holocaust, their awakening and relationship to the word Zionism and to a place (or to a state) called Israel, and their comprehension of everything they have been told as 20-something-year-olds in Montreal
The Iranian Nuclear Winter
January 16th, 2012 | by Quiet Mike
The winter of 2012 is still less than a month old and if you had turned on a television since the New Year, you’d have found two seemingly different stories being covered on the news networks. The first being the Republican Primaries that got underway a couple weeks ago, the other would be Iran. In the past, I would have said that sabre rattling and a looming American election went together like peas and carrots
Israel: Losing Friends by the Hour
September 5th, 2011 | by Quiet Mike
The Israeli Government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seems to be on a one way ticket to oblivion. His right-wing hawkish stances are jeopardizing peace in a region where the Arab Spring is still going strong heading into autumn. To make things worse, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been protesting Israel's socio-economic problems. The UN recently released its report into Israel's raid
Let’s play the CPCCA game, you only have to give up your freedom of speech
July 24th, 2011 | by Jason C. McLean
Well, the freedom to speak out, protest and criticize injustice just got a whole lot more complicated in Canada. The Canadian Parliamentary Commission to Combat Antisemitism released its report and to the surprise of almost no one, it opted to pretty much redefine criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, instead of proposing ways to deal with real instances of antisemitism
Breaking bad
July 18th, 2011 | by Taylor Noakes
Famine is one of those things that seems to be poorly understood by Westerners. We've largely equated the word with a mere desire to eat. We have a wretchedly poor comprehension of what it means to not only have nothing at all to eat, but as to how long an individual can exist on infrequent and woefully small quantities of food. The answer is painfully long, that is, a human can survive for a very long time on extremely small quantities of food and water. They who do and there are a great many on our pathetically
Fighting propaganda with critical discussion: Canadians are awakening to the tragedy of Palestine
July 17th, 2011 | by Ethan Cox
Reading Ha'aretz, one of the largest Israeli daily newspapers, is a fascinating experience. Here in Canada those who criticize Israel are dismissed as anti-semites, terrorists even. Rather than defend international law and UN resolutions, our Conservative government calls the participation of Canadians in the Freedom Flotilla 2, such as the five activists we profiled earlier this month, an unnecessary "provocation". Meanwhile, over in Ha'aretz, Netenyahu is called out for his "bullshit"
Another Bosnia?
July 10th, 2011 | by Benjamin Heazle
When Ratko Mladic was arrested it was as a weak, pathetic and exhausted creature. At sixty-eight years old, if the accused war criminal is (rightfully) convicted of the atrocities committed at Srebrenica, it will be not as the figure of pure evil who oversaw the murders of some thousand Bosnian Muslims, but rather as a tired old man with far too few years left to begin paying for his crimes
To Gaza with Little Love
July 4th, 2011 | by Quiet Mike
A year after the first freedom flotilla set sail for the Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of nine activists at the hands of the Israeli IDF, the world awaits the departure of Freedom Flotilla II. The flotilla of ten boats includes two cargo ships transporting nearly three thousand tons of aid, and eight other passenger boats with citizens of dozens of different countries. It was supposed to set sail at the end of June. Over the last week or so, it has been mired in sabotage
Unlikely Sailors: An inside look at the people on the Canadian Boat to Gaza
June 27th, 2011 | by Tomas Urbina
On May 30, 2010, the Mavi Marmara led a flotilla of six ships and nearly 700 people across the Mediterranean Sea on a mission to deliver humanitarian aid to a blockaded Gaza. The flotilla was confronted by the Israeli military, whose soldiers shot and killed nine people on board the Mavi Marmara. One year later a flotilla of 10 ships and over 1,000 delegates from 20 countries, including France, Germany, Italy and the U.S., will sail to Gaza in late June. For the first time a Canadian boat, the Tahrir, will be part of the flotilla, transporting 50 people, including Canadian and international delegates and members of the media
Netanyahu: Not a Man for Peace
May 30th, 2011 | by Quiet Mike
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it abundantly clear last week in his speech to the American Congress that he has no desire to negotiate for peace. Although Bibi's talk drew several standing ovations in front of American lawmakers, few were smiling back in Palestine or Israel. In his speech Netanyahu quickly dismissed virtually all key Palestinian demands for peace. He first shunned
On Israel: Obama is Right and Wrong
May 23rd, 2011 | by Quiet Mike
Last Thursday, US President Barack Obama gave a stirring speech on the "Arab Spring" and America's policies toward it. Unfortunately the only part of it that made headlines was his comment calling for any peace deal between Israel and Palestine to be based on the 1967 borders. His annotations angered Zionists, Republicans, right wing Jews and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What Obama said however was nothing new; negotiations based on the lines of
Libya and the Two Faces of the West
March 20th, 2011 | by Quiet Mike
Over the last few days western countries have started to enforce a UN mandated no-fly zone over the skies of Libya. French jets fired on Libyan tanks, while over a hundred cruise missiles were launched from British and American warships in the Mediterranean. The offensive was started almost immediately after an emergency summit in France was attended by 22 nations and organizations including: France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Canada, Spain and of course the
Al Jazeera: The News How It Was Intended to be Seen
March 7th, 2011 | by Quiet Mike
American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently cited Al Jazeera for fine news coverage while at the same time criticizing the American media. She claimed that the United States was losing the information war by not reporting the real news, while Al Jazeera was "changing peoples' minds and attitudes" by reporting on important issues
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