By Jonathan Cook - October 11, 2008

No one is more surprised than Shlomo Sand that his latest academic work has spent 19 weeks on Israel's bestseller list - and that success has come to the history professor despite his book challenging Israel's biggest taboo...Dr. Sand argues that the idea of a Jewish nation...is a myth invented little more than a century ago.

By Frazer Merritt - November 4, 2008

After eight long years of incompetence and shameful blunders under neoconservative rule, I never thought I'd see this again in my lifetime: a presidential ticket that espouses major tax cuts for big corporations and the filthy rich, across-the-board deregulation, oil drilling to solve our energy crises, denial of climate change's causes, expansion of market-based healthcare, and kooky religious attitudes towards science and the fate of the world.

by Frances Russell - October 10, 2006

Despite their professed Christian beliefs, many theological and social conservatives have a strong 'survival of the fittest' streak. They want a hierarchical society with heterosexual white males at the top.

By HOWARD LISNOFF - October 31, 2008

Chris Hedges...describes how the religious right has grown in the U.S. and how its fascistic tendencies have been incorporated into mainstream debate...Pro-gun, pro-death penalty, anti-environment, anti-choice, anti-gay, pro-business, anti-consumer, pro-globalization, anti-union, anti-civil liberties, anti-immigrant, anti-veteran, and pro-war are just some of [the] positions that have made their way into the Republican Party’s platform and their current campaign for the White House. The fundamentalists are profoundly anti-intellectual, interpreting the Bible literally and condemning science unless it has immediate benefits for them...[Their] attacks on government, except in the case of the war-making power of the government, exposes their hatred and disdain for open democracy and open dialogue.

By ALLISON KILKENNY - October 24-26, 2008

Her name is Helen, a Muslim woman in her mid-twenties. She's scared to talk to me even though I've told her that I will change her name for my article so the authorities will have no idea who she is..."I'm an easy target for this kind of thing," she says, gesturing to the hijab secured around her head.

Washington's vicious persecution of innocent Muslims.

October 18, 2008 - Znet

As individual Jews come under increasing pressure to unite behind their 'leaders', Brian Klug puts the case for disunity..."Either tolerate having your Jewish identity taken from you - or take it back...Breaking ranks is an ancient Jewish custom."

October 6, 2008 - Ynet News

Zealots accused of beating [a] Jerusalem woman for allegedly consorting with men, torching store[s] selling MP4 players, fearing devout Jews would use them to download pornography. 'It's very similar to what you hear about in countries like Iran,' says novelist Naomi Ragen...

By Syed Saleem Shahzad - October 2008

The attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on 20 September, killing some 60 people, was compared to 9/11 in Pakistan and could be a turning point in the conflict in this region. President Bush has authorised ground operations against Taliban bases in Pakistan, which has now become the main theatre in the ‘war on terror’. Meanwhile, the neo-Taliban, operating an al-Qaida franchise there and in Afghanistan, have controlled the escalation of guerrilla resistance in a sophisticated military strategy based on the conduct of the Vietnam war.

By Nikos Raptis - Znet Commentary

The core characteristic of a Taliban is that he is a professional religious "believer". That is, he makes a living by pretending that he "believes" in paradise, etc. The core characteristic of Sarah Palin is that she is a professional religious "believer". That is, she makes a living by pretending that she believes in paradise, etc.

by RALPH BENMERGUI - Globe and Mail Update

As a Moroccan Jew...I have always seen more of what we have in common with Arab Canadians than what drives us apart...My family shares food, song and culture with the Muslim Arab world...What I find so offensive about politicians taking sides with or against me as a Canadian Jew is the notion that the solutions lie in picking sides. Instead of peace, Israel and its neighbors are encouraged to fight to the death while our politicians join the schoolyard mob, egging one side or the other on to total victory [and]...total defeat.

By Marjorie Cohn - September 12, 2008

[Sarah] Palin is a radical right-wing fundamentalist Christian who would love to create a theocracy. She believes we are living in the "end times" which will result in a bloody inferno from which only true Christians will be saved...Those who don't accept Jesus as their savior will burn in Hell, according to Palin's brand of theology...As Governor of Alaska, Palin asked her congregation to pray for the natural gas pipeline, which she characterized as "God's will." She thinks the war in Iraq is a "task that is from God."

By JONATHAN COOK - August 25, 2008

Over the past four decades, Israel has declared nearly two-thirds of the West Bank as “state land”, seizing it on a variety of pretexts and transferring much of it to the jurisdiction of settler councils. According to the figures of the Israeli group Peace Now, the settlers are in direct control of more than 40 per cent of the West Bank.

By Robert Jensen - August 10, 2008

One of the common refrains I heard from progressive people in Pakistan and India during my month there this summer was, "We love the American people -- it's the policies of your government we don't like"..."You shouldn't love the American people," I started saying. "You should hate us -- we're the enemy"...[T]he stakes today are too high for those of us in the United States to accept these kinds of reassuring platitudes about hating-the-policy but loving-the-people of an imperial state. It is long past time that we the people of the United States started holding ourselves responsible for the crimes our government perpetrates around the world.

By Jason Kunin - August 19, 2008

The problem...is Zionism. Any opposition to Israel rooted in Zionism can only seek to mitigate Israeli apartheid and racism, not end it, because apartheid and racism are what Zionism - and by extension, the Israeli state - are all about. Zionism is rooted in the fundamental premise that the state be a Jewish state and that it occupy the physical space of an ancient Arab Christian and Muslim culture. Because it is impossible to achieve these two goals simultaneously without violence and racist oppression, you cannot have a genuine peace movement that is Zionist.