October 2023

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 22 Sep 2008. Israel and Palestine met for peace this weekend or, rather, so did positive parts of their civil societies, under the good auspices not of Italy’s government but of the Regione Toscana, in Pisa, where a tower is leaning but still standing. The theme was the European Union as a mediator. With the Israeli government in a permanent coma, the Palestinian house split against itself, the US and Israel sharing the bad karma of being built on stolen land, pushing the inhabitants into bantustans or worse, with Annapolis, the naval base, of course, failing to navigate the waters. Washington’s voice was absent in Pisa. There were other voices, of hope and future, with wonderful joint projects. But peacebuilding is not sufficient. We need also peacemaking – a political solution – and peacekeeping. And here the EU enters: not...

Gerhard Schroeder’s revelations about why negotiations broke down last spring are even more depressing than you might think. Why did the US/NATO world want the war to continue when it could have been stopped long ago? Tarik Cyril Amar* October 26, 2023 In a much-cited interview, ex-German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has stated that a compromise peace to end the war in Ukraine was well within reach when negotiators met in Istanbul last spring. This deal would have meant an end to NATO’s long march east, Ukrainian neutrality, international security guarantees, and domestic arrangements to reintegrate the separatist territories in the Donbass.   Ending the war so quickly would have made a great difference, as even a few basic figures will show. While key data remains secret and estimates are contested, it is certain that Europe’s largest conflict since World War II has led to several hundred thousand military casualties. Figures for...

David Hearst October 26, 2023 TFF Associate professor Farhang Jahanpour in Oxford writes: “Anyone who wants to learn the truth about what is going on in Gaza and Israel should watch this short video which not only deals with the carnage in Gaza but also puts forward a solution to the conflict. David Hearst is not an “anti-Semite”. As he says in this video, half of his family were killed in the Holocaust. He is as an eminent author and journalist dealing with the Middle East with an honourable record of fairness and impartiality. He is the Editor in Chief of Middle East Eye. We must listen to him. The continuation of this long conflict will only cause more death and misery for Arabs and Israelis and more conflict in the Middle East and beyond.”

Richard E. Rubenstein October 23, 2023 Everyone knows that the United States is the world’s leading military power, with an annual “defense” budget approaching one trillion dollars, considerably more than the arms budgets of the next 144 nations combined. The U.S. employs more than 3.5 million active military and civilian personnel and maintains more than 750 military bases located in some 80 nations around the world. The nation’s most profitable and fastest-growing manufacturing sector is the military-industrial complex, which employs more than 4 million workers and supplies approximately 40 percent of the total weaponry used by the world’s armed forces. In the production and deployment of nuclear weapons, of course, the U.S. is absolutely dominant. Originally published at Transcend on October 2, 2023 All this is common knowledge. Yet, in the heartland of arms production and preparation for war, there is virtually no debate about militarism. Only a handful of...

Todd Hayen October 23, 2023 We have finally reached a point in the advancement of our technology where we no longer can believe anything we see or hear. I mean, we can if we want to, but we can also choose not to, because the presentation of anything in a photograph, a video, or an audio recording, is no longer reliable evidence of reality. Originally published at Off-Guardian Soon we will not be able to rely on what we see right in front of our face when we are taking a walk in what we believe to be the real world. In fact, we don’t have to wait for this, it is already here. Holographic technology can already deceive us into believing something we see occurring in our own perceived reality. Many say the planes flying into the World Trade Center were holographs. Maybe they were. The technology probably exists to do...

Screenshot from AlJazeera, October 20, 2023 October 20, 2023 This is a shortened version of a must-watch Mearsheimer lecture. You may enjoy his clear-eyed vision as if it was given recently. However… Professor Mearsheimer gave it at the March 24, 2017, Israel Lobby and American Policy conference. One indicator of good versus bad research is the degree to which predictions turn out to be right. Most Western researchers on international affairs whom decision-makers take inspiration from must, therefore, be incompetent, if not lousy, scholars…. Or they listen only to themselves in confrontational echo chambers populated by group thinkers. Be sure they do not listen to the likes of John Mearsheimer.

I assume that most readers here know me as a peace and conflict researcher and as co-founder and director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF. However, since 2009, I’ve also worked as an art photographer, done projects, and arranged almost 30 exhibitions in my studio here in Lund, Sweden. See more on Oberg PhotoGraphics. I grew up with contemporary art; it’s always been an essential, joyful interest of mine. And in 2002-2003, I found out that I could reach people not only with texts but also with images. Back then, I went on fact-finding in Iraq and interviewed some 160 people at all levels and also took photos with an early digital low-resolution camera – of people, cafées, nature, streets, children, cultural places, museums and… life in general, nothing special. It was merely snapshots made between meetings in an otherwise quite tight meeting schedule. Upon my...

Maria Popova October 19, 2023 “To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control,” philosopher Martha Nussbaum concluded in considering how to live with our human fragility. And yet in the face of overwhelming uncertainty, when the world seems to splinter and crumble in the palm of our civilization’s hand, something deeper and more robust than blind trust is needed to keep us anchored to our own goodness — something pulsating with rational faith in the human spirit and a profound commitment to goodness. Originally published at The Marginalian That is what Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872–February 2, 1970) explores in the out-of-print treasure New Hopes for a Changing World (public library), composed a year after he received the Nobel Prize, while humanity was still shaking off the dust and dread of its Second World War and already shuddering with the catastrophic...

Palestinians search the rubble of destroyed buildings following an Israeli strike, as battles between Israel and the Hamas movement continue for the sixth consecutive day in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on October 12, 2023.© Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images This is the text of TFF PressInfo 723 sent out earlier today. I suggest that you subscribe to our free about-weekly newsletter here. In civilisational terms, war is a backward, primitive thing; it solves no conflicts and creates no security – only hate, which fuels more war. It’s a system or structural evil – much more than a human evil.   Equally primitive and uncultured is, of course, the type of black-and-white, simplified narrative: there is only one evil party – the Palestinians and Hamas. The war has only one cause, and we need neither history nor conflict analysis to understand anything. Further, we don’t need sym-...

A discussion with Oksana Boyko about violence and war where the focus is on principles, ideas, concepts and ways of thinking. A delightful exchange of views that would be difficult, if not impossible, to have in similar leading media in the NATO/EU countries. For once, actually, the focus is on how to think about peace…

Deeply moving and concise statement by Yanis Varoufakis October 8, 2023 The Nobel “Peace” Committee should have rewarded Julian Assange for his long service in fighting wars – by revealing how they are master-minded and fought with no connection to official explanations and narratives. It would then also have done something for the freedom of expression and human rights – including this hero’s right to live in freedom. But the NATO Norway Committee consists – in violation of the wish of Alfred Nobel – of former parliamentarians (and not of experts in peace as he mentioned) and has, therefore, no wish or ability to reward dissidents in the West or people who devote their lives to fight also US/NATO wars – as did Daniel Ellsberg. Shame upon the Committee! And thanks from our hearts to both Julian and Yanis. Jan ObergTFF director and editor of The Transnational

It’s about fighting against evil/Putin/Hitler and fighting for democracy… NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg admits that Russia was motivated by NATO to invade Ukraine. Video creator Matt Orfalea shows how often we were told that the war was absolutely “not about NATO”… October 3, 2023 There is no need for an intro or comments to this short documentation of lies by high-level people and mainstream media. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic… Always help spreading this tag #NOTONATO, thanks!