In Lebanon, Israel Is Only Sowing the Seeds of More Bloodshed and Terror
The Nation | 18th October 2024
The history of Israel’s incursions into Lebanon are a series of lessons in futility and the arrogance of power. If only anyone were paying attention. The Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza is appealing for fuel to run its generators amid a siege and evacuation order by the Israeli military that threatens the lives of its patients, including more than a dozen children in the Intensive Care Unit. At the southern end of the Strip, the Mohammed Yusuf al-Najjar Hospital was forced to cease operating by Israeli military pressure—depriving Gaza of its only kidney dialysis unit. Elimination of hospitals has become a normal aspect of what the United Nations calls Israel’s “concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system.” It is worth reflecting not only on the two hospitals’ fates but also on their names: Kamal Adwan and Mohammad Yusuf al-Najjar. They tie Gaza to Lebanon, where I was living on…
Read more →From the ashes: a ground-breaking account of an underexamined horror
Times Literary Supplement
Armed gangs of men and boys rampaged through the Christian Quarter of Damascus for eight days and nights in July 1860, burning, looting, raping and murdering. Colonel Charles Henry Churchill, who had served as vice-consul in Damascus before taking up…
If Joe Biden Really Wants to Celebrate Press Freedom, He Should Free Julian Assange
The Nation
Joe Biden will celebrate World Press Freedom Day tomorrow. But it is a safe bet that he’ll have nothing to say about Assange or Imran Khan, both behind bars for defying the US. President Joe Biden’s eloquence, such as it…
The US Government’s Plot to Murder Julian Assange
The Nation
While dictators kill troublesome journalists with guns and missiles, democracies can afford to be more patient. But the end result is the same. In most of the countries whose wars I’ve covered over the past 50 years, journalists were fair…