News Releases

  • Interviews Available: * Mideast * Venezuela

    SARAH ANNE MINKIN JOSHUA RUEBNER A member of Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel, Minkin will attend the National Rally in Solidarity with Israel today in Washington at the Capitol. She said today: “There is a growing Jewish movement in this country and around the world working for justice and peace for Israelis and Palestinians.” Ruebner, co-founder of the group, said today: “As Jews who love justice and peace, it’s offensive to us that, in our name, Israel is pursuing policies completely out of line with the truths of Judaism.” More Information KATHY KELLY, JEFF GUNTZEL Members of Voices…


  • Taxation Without Representation — and Representation Without Taxation

    BILL ALLISON Co-author of The Cheating of America: How Tax Avoidance and Evasion by the Super Rich Are Costing the Country Billions — and What You Can Do About It, Allison is managing editor at the Center for Public Integrity. More Information SCOTT KLINGER (via Betsy Leondar-Wright) Co-director of Responsible Wealth and a chartered financial analyst, Klinger is the author of United for a Fair Economy’s new report “Titans of the Enron Economy: The 10 Habits of Highly Defective Corporations.” He said today: “Enron’s profits in the five years ending in 2000 were $1.8 billion, which would mean $625 million…


  • Interviews Available: Mideast Crisis

    DIAA HADID Hadid, an Australian citizen, is assisting Ittijah, a Haifa-based network of Arab associations. With many phone lines in the West Bank cut, Ittijah is connecting media to Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. More Information NAJEH JARRAR Professor of sociology at An-Najah National University, which is in Nablus, Jarrar is currently in Jenin. He said today: “For 10 days, we’ve been under curfew, no electricity, no water, a shortage of food. The Israelis conquered the city four days ago and searched the houses one by one. Today they forced out the residents of the refugee camp. Some of…


  • Israeli Palestinian Conflict: Voices

    ALI ABUNIMAH Abunimah is vice president of the Arab-American Action Network More Information MARC ELLIS Ellis is director of the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University. He is author of Practicing Exile: The Religious Odyssey of a American Jew and a recent essay about this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (which is Tuesday) entitled “A Revolutionary Coincidence.” EMAD FRAITEKH Internet director for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Fraitekh is from Nablus. Two of his cousins were killed in Nablus when a missile from an Apache helicopter hit their home late last week. He is in contact…


  • Crisis in Middle East: Interviews Available

    JOEL CAMPAGNA Program coordinator on the Middle East and North Africa for the Committee to Protect Journalists, Campagna said today: “We are outraged by the Israeli army’s continuing attacks against journalists. Today’s incident in Ramallah, in which the army fired stun grenades and rubber bullets at reporters, is reprehensible. On several occasions in recent days, the Israel Defense Forces have opened fire on, or in the direction of, working journalists, in a clear effort to intimidate journalists reporting in the West Bank. These actions must cease and we call on the IDF to lift the restrictions now in place on…


  • U.S. and Israeli Policies: The Road Ahead

    SIMONA SHARONI Sharoni is professor of peace and conflict studies and Middle East politics at Evergreen State College and executive director of the Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development. An Israeli Jew who served in the Israeli army, she said today: “Sharon will probably do as much damage as he can before Powell gets to Israel next week, the same way he did before Zinni’s trip. Israel’s leaders have proven that they can go into the West Bank towns anytime they want. There should be an inquiry commission to investigate allegations of war crimes committed by Israel in the…


  • Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Interviews Available

    CHRIS TOENSING Editor of Middle East Report, Toensing talked this morning with Boston Globe reporter Anthony Shadid, who was shot yesterday. Shadid has written for Middle East Report. Toensing said today: “The bullet missed Anthony’s spinal cord by a centimeter. The talk of him being ‘caught in the crossfire’ is misleading. The circumstantial evidence is that an Israeli sharpshooter hit him. His jacket clearly said ‘TV’ on both the front and back. The Israelis slowed his treatment by trying to prevent his Palestinian translator from leaving Ramallah with him. Israel has demanded that all journalists get out of Ramallah. This…


  • Interviews Available on McCain-Feingold Law

    JOHN MOYERS Editor and publisher of TomPaine.com, Moyers wrote the recent article “Measuring the First Step: Campaign Finance Reform and the ‘Fannie Lou Hamer Standard.’” He said today: “At best, McCain-Feingold is a first step. It does nothing to get at the heart of the problem, which is that we have privately financed public servants. That’s oxymoronic. He who pays the piper calls the tune — we need to give candidates a clean money option.” More Information SPENCER OVERTON An acting professor of law at the University of California at Davis specializing in voting rights, campaign finance and property law,…


  • Interviews Available: Perspectives on Arab Summit

    AS’AD ABUKHALIL Associate professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, and research fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, AbuKhalil is author of the just-released book Bin Laden, Islam, and America’s New “War on Terrorism” and The Historical Dictionary of Lebanon. He said today: “The Arab people are not holding their breath over the results of this summit. Twenty-five Arab summits have been held in the name of ‘liberating Palestine’ while the plight of Palestinians continued to worsen and while Israeli occupation expanded. The U.S. government may be holding its…


  • Bush’s Latin America Trip: Interviews Available

    LARRY BIRNS and ALEX VOLBERDING Birns is director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and Volberding is a research fellow there. Birns said today: “Bush’s trip is more about ginning up enthusiasm for the ‘war on terrorism’ and the ‘drug war’ than aimed at promoting meaningful progress at democratization and human rights. Bush’s heralded $5 billion in aid carries stiff conditions mandating that recipient countries accept the Treasury Department’s economic game plan and is almost insignificant given the magnitude of world poverty — over 40 percent of the population of Latin America lives below the poverty line…. Bush’s call to…


  • Palestinians Cancel Christmas Celebrations Amid Gaza Devastation

    “The president of the Council of Local Evangelical Churches in the Holy Land, Munir Kakish, said the decision came due to ‘the thousands killed — and in prayer for peace.’ He added that ‘we will only hold traditional services and devotionals on the meaning of Christmas.'”

  • Israel’s Killing of Alareer

    “Israel ordered Refaat Alareer’s assassination after he derided Israeli claim of babies burned in an oven as a hoax. He was right, but died for it.” Silverstein cites an anonymous Israeli official who claimed: “Because of the joke, the war cabinet decided that Alaeer is an ‘Amalekite,’ and ordered Shabak & IDF to find and kill him.”

  • Changes to Census Bureau Data Collection on Disability

    The Census Bureau announced potential changes that could result in the undercounting of the number of disabled Americans by 20 million people.

  • Israel, Starvation as a Weapon and Inaction by ICC

    “‘Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions.’ is a WAR CRIME. cc @KarimKhanQC.”

  • Taking Israel to the World Court for Genocide

    “Huge swathes of neighborhoods and five-generation families across Gaza have been obliterated. Over 15,000 people have been reportedly killed, including 6,000 children, and countless others buried beneath the rubble of demolished buildings. …”

  • Congress Conflates Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism

    “It is now less credible to think of Israel as a safe place for Jews as Jews, in an ironic twist. And the more extreme measures Israel wreaks on Gaza, supposedly for Israel’s safety, the more imperiled by association Jews outside Israel will be.”

  • Pay Gap for Scientists with Disabilities

    Scientists and engineers with PhDs who have long-term disabilities earn, on average, $10,580 less per year than their non-disabled peers.

  • Escalating Disease Coming from Israel’s Assaults: “Predictable”

    “In early 2023, an estimated 97 percent of water in the enclave was unfit to drink, and more than 12 percent of child mortality cases were caused by waterborne ailments. Diseases including typhoid fever, cholera, and hepatitis A are very rare in areas with functional and adequate water systems. …   “We can’t help but…

  • Israel says Self-Immolator is Driven by Hatred, Wants Funding for Ethnic Cleansing, Biden Sends Israel More Deadly Weapons

    RICHARD SILVERSTEIN,  [email protected], @richards1052       Silverstein writes at Tikun Olam. He recently wrote the pieces “Israeli MKs, Messianic Evangelicals Lobby Congress for Ethnic Cleansing,” “Netanyahu Plan to ‘Thin Out’ Gaza Population to ‘Bare Minimum’” and “Israeli Claims of Hamas Sexual Assaults Lay Its Credulity on the Line: Rape claims part of anti-Hamas propaganda campaign.” In his most recent piece, Silverstein writes:…

  • Pro-Peace in Palestine Protests in Biden Hometown

    Following talks with Blinken, Israel has resumed bombing of Gaza, including the south, where Israel told Palestinian civilians to go in what UNICEF spokesperson James Elder is calling “a war on children.” An Israeli spokesperson states its forces are unleashing “the mother of all thumpings” on Gaza. The Israeli +972 Magazine published the piece “‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of…

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