The NY Times reports that China and Iran have prepared a far-reaching commercial agreement that would offer Iran $400-billion in investment over 25 years in return for selling China a large proportion of the oil it produces over the same period (at a sharply discounted rate): The partnership…would vastly expand Chinese presence in banking, telecommunications, […]
Annexation and Its Ship of Fools
Israeli annexation of the West Bank, which the Netanyahu government has tentatively scheduled for implementation today, July 1st, has a cast of characters that can only be called a Ship of Fools. In a piece I published recently at Middle East Eye, I called it “a sham.” Everyone from Donald Trump, to Jared Kushner, responsible […]
This Time Trump Went Too Far: Facebook Caves on Refusal to Police Political Ads
Mark Zuckerberg made a deal with the Devil when he decided to cozy up to Donald Trump. He hired Joel Kaplan to be his political enforcer, a former Bush administration official known for his cozy relationships with Beltway conservatives. Kaplan, as media reports have acknowledged, plays an inordinate role not just in Facebook’s lobbying efforts […]
Facebook’s Two-Faced Approach to Censorship
Most journalists and human rights activists who write or advocate for Palestinian rights–or who criticize Israeli apartheid and Occupation–have confronted censorship on social media platforms. Though Facebook seems to be a more egregious violator of free expression, Twitter too engages in censorship of political speech. Today, NBC News reported that Facebook had suspended or deleted […]
