A Pioneering Palestinian Film Offers a Quantum of Solace

For those who question the capacity of rap to deliver powerful positive messages of social change, Slingshot Hip Hop supplies an answer

Slingshot Hip Hop ends with a pan-Palestinian concert in the West Bank—minus the one rap group Israeli officers wouldn’t let exit Gaza. Even in their absence, the other groups maintain optimism: a belief that things can change, including people's minds. ...

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A Pioneering Palestinian Film Offers a Quantum of Solace

Sleepwalkers

We are once again proving ourselves to be the dupes of violence

My deepest fear—and not only for Israel and Palestine, but for many other parts of the world where political responsibility is being undermined by the narcotics of outrage and resentment—is that our political life is currently locked in a downward spiral thanks to which options appear to be more and ...
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Sleepwalkers

Reflections on the War between Israel and Hamas 

Voices of sanity are in danger of being drowned out by the rhetoricians of all-out war

For a long time many civilians, Israeli and Palestinian, have suffered, as their leaders have failed to bring about a civil, peaceful, and at least modestly just end to a long and violent conflict. I feel for them all, and particularly for the children who have grown up knowing nothing ...
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Reflections on the War between Israel and Hamas 

20 Years of U.S. Occupation Was Brutal in Afghanistan—And So Will Be the Exit

Alongside the relief of ending the longest war in modern American history, we need to acknowledge the horrors of what we are leaving behind in Afghanistan

_____ When a reporter in early July asked Joe Biden a question about the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. president sniped back, saying, “I want to talk about happy things, man.” Biden revealed, perhaps unintentionally, that the situation in Afghanistan is anything but a happy topic. It might have been one ...
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20 Years of U.S. Occupation Was Brutal in Afghanistan—And So Will Be the Exit