USA

NOVANEWS Mearsheimer: the lobby can’t hide the fact it is siding with Israel against the US president  John Mearsheimer at LRB says one great thing about the contretemps is that it has forced the lobby out into the open, taking a stand against the US president and still claiming that it is operating in the American interest: Siding with Israel against the United States was not a great problem a few years ago: one could pretend that the interests of the two countries were the same and there was little knowledge in the broader public about how the Israel lobby operated and how much it influenced the making of US Middle East policy. But those days are gone, probably for ever. It is now commonplace to talk about the lobby in the mainstream media and almost everyone who pays serious atten...

NOVANEWSRasmussen poll, reported by Jay Bookman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 49 percent of Americans believe that “Israel (should) be required to stop building new settlements in occupied Palestinian territory,” while only 22 percent believe it should not. That represents a strong endorsement of the position taken by the Obama administration. An even-more overwhelming percentage of Americans — 75 percent — believe that “Palestinian leaders (should) be required to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state” as part of a peace agreement." But here are the most troubling numbers from Israel’s perspective: In the poll taken March 15-16, 58 percent of Americans said they consider Israel an ally of the United States, while 32 percent consider it somewhere between an ally and ene...

NOVANEWS Max Blumenthal, The Electronic Intifada, 15 March 2010 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11134.shtml One night about two weeks ago, while I was walking down Bleecker Street in New York City's West Village, I crossed paths with Norman Finkelstein. He was wearing a light jacket and eating a banana, seemingly impervious to the bitter wind and heavy snowfall pouring from the sky. I told Finkelstein that a YouTube clip of him parrying attacks from Zionist student activists during a speech he gave at the University of Waterloo was gaining popularity online. "Well, that scene hasn't been very good for me," he remarked in a near whisper. The YouTube clip was an excerpt from American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein, a riveting 2009 documentary that has just opened in US th...

NONANEWS "The episode, titled "The Greatest Story Ever D'ohed," includes scenes of Homer and Bart at the Western Wall with their Zionist tour guide, who will be voiced by British comedian Sascha Baron Cohen, of Borat and Bruno fame."

NOVANEWS  America Going Bankrupt State by State by Jeff Davis The next stage of the Obama Depression is beginning now–the financial collapse of individual states. USA Today reports: “Residents eager to get their state tax refunds may have a long wait this year: The recession has tied up cash and caused officials in half a dozen states to consider freezing refunds, in one case for as long as five months. States from New York to Hawaii that have been hard-hit by the economic downturn say they have either delayed refunds or are considering doing so because of budget shortfalls. New York, hit with a $9 billion deficit, may delay $500 million in refunds to keep the state from running out of cash, says Gov. David Paterson. Hawaii’s Department of Taxation says some residents may not see state i...

NOVANEWS I recently looked at the archived version of the Chicago Tribune article, "Barack Obama: The First Jewish President?" and decided to Google the title. Below are links to two of the articles that came up. "Some Chicago Jews say Obama is actually the 'first Jewish president' " by Natasha Mozgovaya in Haaretz. "Barack Obama: 'America’s First Jewish President' " by James Petras. Labels: Jews, Obama, US politics

 NOVANEWS The Jewish Forward newspaper is unhappy (sure, it’s pitifully weak, but unlike the Australian Jewish News, Israel can occasionally step out of line): There were the expected handshakes and bear hugs, the slaps on the back and supportive words amiably expressed before the media. Just what ought to happen when Israel welcomes the vice president of the United States, the second in command of its greatest ally and the highest-ranking official of a still-new administration to visit Jerusalem. Then, dafka, the proverbial stab in the back. Hours after Vice President Joe Biden declared that there is “no space” between Israel and the U.S., the Israeli government announces the approval of 1,600 new housing units in contested East Jerusalem, expanding the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood for ultr...

NOVANEWS Surprise, surprise. So the real issue with the UN Goldstone report over Gaza isn’t really the innocents killed, it’s that the recommendations could be used against the West (via the Forward): In Congress, New York Democrat Gary Ackerman, chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, is one of those leading the new argument against the report. Ackerman stressed, in a February 25 Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with Clinton, “It’s not Israel that I raise the concern about.” He said he was worried about the implications of Goldstone’s report for the United States. The number of civilians killed by America’s military in Iraq and Afghanistan is “certainly a number multiplied by some huge multiple compared to the number of civilians that were killed as Israel ...

NOVANEWS Some CNN's work on the Middle East is more propaganda than news. Hell, the former CNN Beirut Bureau chief (I have it from many Lebanese sources now, confirmed), Brend Sadler (whose work have been criticized and mocked here before) has left the network and has been allegedly doing work for mini-Hariri in the realm of propaganda and PR. (There are a few excellent people at CNN but I won't name them bec I don't want them to lose their jobs). Look at this propaganda about the Bahraini autocracy?