On May 12, 2013, Nathan Blanc was sentenced to a tenth term, of 28 days in prison. He had been released from military prison on Sunday, May 5, 2013, after serving a 20-day term for refusing to serve in the Israeli Army.  So far he has been sentenced to a total of 178 days in prison (including the current sentence). The time has come for a national and international campaign to FREE NATHAN BLANC! We call gro ...

American academic Noam Chomsky has lent his support to a British Liberal Democrat MP, who criticized the Israeli regime's violent treatment of Palestinians. Earlier in January, Bradford East MP David Ward accused “the Jews” in Israel of having failed to learn lessons from their persecution by the Nazis in World War II by continuing to “inflict atrocities” on Palestinian people “on a daily basis.” Chomsky sa ...

The interesting thing about a piece of good news that defies apparently established prejudice, discrimination and even a state of undeclared war is that it can “shock” us out of our acceptance that “things are the way they are”, people hate, fear, exclude and attempt to destroy others in all kinds of conflicts. This we call “normality” and it seems to validate a creeping belief that human nature is rather n ...

World without Wars and Violence Statement Once more the Middle East, centred on modern day Israel and Palestine, is in a situation of war and we find it again necessary to take a position. We base our position on the following points that seem relevant to us: Although this conflict may be about control of territory, there are outside interests involved who are making large amounts of money at the expense of ...

As some kind of ceasefire inches its way ahead with the help of surrounding interested parties the 'you started first' usual rhetoric from both sides involved in the present round of missiles exchange between Hamas and Israel leaves everybody none the wiser about: Why? Why now? What do they expect to achieve? Who else is pulling strings? Will it stop?  Is there a long term solution? What can we do? As for w ...

In the last of our exclusive "Expanding the Debate" series, we bring you highlights of our coverage of last night’s final presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney, with the added voices of third-party candidates. As Obama and Romney faced off for the last time before the general election, we once again broke the sound barrier by inserting Jill Stein of the Green Party and Rocky Anderson o ...

By Uri Avnery*, TRANSCEND - My first reaction to Binyamin Netanyahu’s exhibition of comics at the UN General Assembly was shame. Shame that the supreme elected representative of my country would stoop to such a primitive rhetorical device, bordering on the childish. (One Israeli commentator suggested putting him on a rug with a lot of paper and Indian ink, and letting him play to his heart’s content.) He wa ...

In March 2012 we reported on a new project between Israelis and Iranians to oppose the sabre rattling rhetoric of their leaders: We Love You. This initially run as a Facebook initiative and it has been growing and developing. About a week ago 70 buses rode the streets of Tel Aviv carrying their message for peace. Faces of young Iranians and Israelis saying to each other "we love you". Many put their own lin ...

In a message implicitly addressed to Iran for its repeated threats against Israel and which might also have been indirectly referring to Tel Aviv’s reported plans to launch a military attack on Iran, the UN chief condemned in Tehran “threats by any Member State to destroy or delegitimize another.” Taking note of the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran’s nuclear programme, ...

The Israel public has been bombarded with hawkish statements regarding the situation with Iran and the drum roll of war is echoing in the ears of every Israeli citizen, according to local peace and disarmament campaigners. The Israeli government has made it clear that war with Iran is at the doorstep, according to an International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons’ report. “The image the government was po ...