Legacy of Violence - A History of the British Empire. Caroline Elkins. Vantage Books/Penguin Random House, New York, 2022. This is an amazing history, one that should be on the…
In his essay “Genocidal DNA - Depravity, Evil and Cowardice in the ‘West’ as well” [1] Jeremy Salt presents an interesting thesis. The line that stood out, apart from the…
There have been many achievements by Israel in the last four months of their genocidal attacks on Gaza. After reading and watching many websites the following achievements are notable. First…
The Arabs - A History. Eugene Rogan. Basic Books, New York, 2009. Revised 2017. While the genocide has raged on in Gaza I have been reading Eugene Rogan’s large work…
It should be obvious by now for those with any level of critical thinking skills that the Israeli-US narrative on Palestine and Gaza in particular is made up of lies,…
The tree lights shine, the decorations sparkle, the delicious smells of baked goods and roasting food fills the room. The evening of Christmas Day, the presents are all unwrapped and…
I can see the photos: the faces of children haunted by chaos beyond their control; their faces of pain, the silent cries and screams of injuries and fear; parents’ faces,…
The BDS movement in relation to Israel provides a peaceful means to help end the power of Israel in the Middle East and a means to pressure Israel to either…
As the slaughter in Gaza continues, the western nations remain comfortably at ease with their wealth and privilege. Unfortunately I have to make the same accusation towards the various Arab…
As the massacre of Palestinian civilians continues a widening global outrage to Israeli atrocities is growing. Commentators, mostly as asides, have wondered why the areas being bombed and attacked are…
The world’s attention has turned to the slaughter in Gaza as the Israeli military-political system enacts its brand of ethnic cleansing and genocide on the Palestinian people. The U.S. pretends…
Grand Delusion - The Rise and Fall of American Ambitions in the Middle East. Steven Simon. Penguin Press, New York, 2023. It should be obvious that U.S. policy in the…
Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts - Feminism Inter/Nationalism & Palestine. Nada Elia. Pluto Press, 2023. London. Interestingly this work by Nada Elia - Greater Than the Sum of…
“The 1619 Project - A New Origins Story”. Hannah-Jones, Nikole et al, Ed. One World, (Random House), New York, 2021. The American narrative - and other stories Most of the…
Imagining Palestine - Cultures of Exile and National Identity. Tahrir Hamdi. I. B. Taurus, (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc), London, 2023. [1] In her recent work, “Imagining Palestine”, Tahrir Hamdi has made…
Glory to God in the Lowest - Journeys to An Unholy Land. Donald E. Wagner. Olive Branch Press (Interlink Publishing group, Inc.). Northampton, Massachusetts. 2022. In “Glory to God in…
The Arc of a Covenant - The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People. Walter Russell Mead. Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2022. In today’s world a…
The Hundred Year War on Palestine – A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017. Rashid Khalidi. Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2020. With the writing of…
Advocating for Palestine in Canada – Histories, Movements, Actions. Ed.: Emily Wills, Jeremy Wildeman, Michael Beuckert, Nadia Abu-Zahra. Fernwood Publishing, Halifax/Winnipeg, 2022. Different groups advocate for Palestine from a variety…
For a short while, at least as announced by the mainstream media, Canada found itself described as a “peacemaker” among the countries of the world. This was an image promoted…
Light in Gaza - Writings Born of Fire. Ed. Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing,, Michael Merryman Lotze. Haymarket Books, Chicago, IL, 2022. The actual history of Gaza can be readily researched…
Michael Lynk is the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied after the 1967 nakba. He is Associate Professor of Law at Western…
“I liked history better when it was in the past.” There are several implications of this kind of statement. For people living in benign territories, ones that are not subject…
Non-sovereign nation Start at the top: Canada is not free and does not control its own sovereignty as a fully independent country. Much of this is by choice as an…
Public Intellectual - The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim. Richard Falk. Clarity Press, Atlanta, GA. 2021. Writing an autobiography after experiencing the greater part of a century as a public…
Giants - The Global Power Elite. Peter Phillips. Seven Stories Press, New York, 2018. Abby Martin’s interview with Peter Phillips was the instigator for reading Peter Phillips’ now slightly outdated…
A recent seminar from the group “Visualizing Palestine” served to present four graphic representations of environmental problems within Israel/Palestine [https://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/between-rising-tide-and-apartheid?v=large] The graphics are self-explanatory and need no review here -…
The American Trap - My Battle to Expose America’s Secret Economic War Against the Rest of the World. Frédéric Pierucci (with Mathieu Aron). HOdder & Stoughton, London, 2020. It becomes…
The U.S.’ Summit for Democracy has come and gone without too much fuss. It was a strange little show with the leader of the so called ‘free world’ - being…
Consider living under a set of laws decreed by a racist theocratic dictator calling for ethnic cleansing, slavery, and cultural genocide if not outright genocide. It would probably not be…
International Brigade Against Apartheid. Ed. Ronnie Kasrils. (With Muff Andersson and Oscar Marleyn). Jacana Media, Auckland Park, South Africa. 2021. When reviewing a book already given high testament by the…
“There is nothing so whole as a broken heart.” Last week (2021-11-04), Independent Jewish Voices (IJV - Canada) presented a webinar (“From IDF to IJV”) telling the story of three…
Canada was born of empire and still thrives within that milieu. It is the progeny of French and British imperial quests in the ‘New’ World and is accompanied by its…
Canada’s recent election proved mostly that Canadians are more or less set within their provincial agendas. The ruling Liberals gained three seats, the Conservatives stayed the same, the Bloc Québecois…
Twenty years and more ago climate talk concerned long term global warming effects not really occurring until mid-twenty-first century at earliest with most problems occurring toward the end of the…
A word can have strong meanings associated with it, and depending on its use, can be interpreted from different perspectives. Recently I heard a citation from Michael Ignatieff, Canada’s contribution…
Except for Palestine - The Limits of Progressive Politics. Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick. The New Press, New York. 2021. “Except for Palestine” is a remarkable little book. Within…
In the Shadows of the American Century - The Rise and Decline of US Global Power. ALfred W. McCoy. Haymarket Books, Chicago. 2017 Reading “In the Shadows of the American…
Lawrence in Arabia - War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Scott Anderson. Anchor Books, Random House LLC, New York, 2013. Every very seldom often…
After the Apocalypse - America’s Role in a World Transformed. Andrew Bacevich. Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company. New York. 2021. The contemporary apocalypse as seen by Andrew Bacevich in…
After the most recent Gaza war I was asked to make a presentation to a local service club concerning events in Israel and the Middle East. The presentation started with…
Economic history is not a truly scintillating read. However, to understand how our society is arranged economically as it is today, “Goliath” provides an interesting background into the people, policies,…
War: How Conflict Shaped Us. Margaret MacMillan. Random House, New York. 2020. I almost did not finish reading “War: How Conflict Shaped Us”. It is not worth reading, but I…
On June 13, 2021, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put out a statement welcoming the new Israeli government and outlining Canada’s support for all things Israeli. The full statement is…
The current situation of Israeli house demolitions in Sheikh Jarrah is highlighting the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their indigenous lands in order to protect the demographic dominance of…
The Crash of Flight 3804 - A Lost Spy, A Daughter’s Quest, and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil. Charlotte Dennett. Chelsea Green Publishing. London/White River Junction,…
Engaging the World: The making of Hamas’s foreign policy. Daud Abdullah. Afro-Middle East Centre (AMEC), 2020. Hamas has been a strongly maligned actor within the western mainstream media. The concise…
I have just watched Michael Moore’s latest Rumble podcast [1] in which he asks the question “What is it about us?” while referencing the Columbine massacre and relating it to…
The Lion and the Eagle - The Interaction of the British and American Empires 1783-1972. Kathleen Burk. Bloomsbury, London/New York, 2018. The 200 year historical span of Kathleen Burk’s “The…
Decolonizing Palestine - Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial. Somdeep Sen. Cornell University Press, New York. 2020. A book that has a very narrowly defined title often fails to…
Most recent works on the United States accept that it is an empire, perhaps not in the traditional landholding sense, but in the extent of its power and control of…
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has actively supported and succeeded with implementing its definition of anti-semitism in various countries, regions, and cities around the world. The definition itself is open…
Hatemonger - Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda. Jean Guerrero. William Morrow/HarperCollins, New York, 2020. While browsing the History/Politics section of a local bookstore the number of…
Black Wave - Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unravelled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East. Kim Ghattas. Henry Holt & Company, NewYork, 2020. Among…
Train of thought To start with, here are some recent quotations that weigh heavily on the negative aspects of the US$ and its role as the global reserve currency, also…
Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies - Critical and Lyrical Essays. Edward Curtin. Clarity Press, Atlanta, Georgia. 2020. In the introduction to “Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies…
In an op ed titled “Losing Both Elections” Gwynne Dyer sees Trump’s presence in the White House as exposing the U.S.’ racism leading to its being “extinguished”, a “necessary evolution…
Understanding the War Industry. Christian Sorensen. Clarity Press, Atlanta, Georgia. 2020. For reader’s wondering about the state of the U.S. economy this work by Christian Sorensen provides a small encyclopedic…
How the West Stole Democracy From the Arabs. Elizabeth F. Thomson. Atlantic Monthly Press, NewYork, 2020. Having just read The War That Ended Peace [https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-war-that-ended-peace-book-review/] the title How the…
On a recent hiking trip I took along Margaret MacMillan’s pre World War I history, “The War That Ended Peace - The Road to 1914” (Penguin Canada, 2013). It is…
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