Author: Medea Benjamin

A nuclear deal with Iran could be a game changer for US foreign policy and for the Middle East. The P5+1 (the U.S., China, Russia, France and the United Kingdom, plus Germany) and Iran have been developing a comprehensive agreement that would freeze Iran’s ability to create a nuclear weapon and start the process of sanctions relief.

If it succeeds, this deal would dramatically decrease the probability of another costly war in the Middle East and could usher in an historic rapprochement between the US and Iran after 34 years of hostilities. US-Iranian collaboration against extremist groups from ISIL to Al Qaeda could help damp down the fires raging across the Middle East.

Key US allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, oppose the deal. Both nations harbor long-standing hostilities toward Iran and both want to preserve their preferential relationship with the US.

But the American people, frustrated by over a decade of US involvement in Middle East wars, support the initiative. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that 6 in 10 Americans support a plan to lift international economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.

Continue reading “US Lobby Groups Try To Squash Iran Deal Despite Public Support”

Israel Defense Forces violently intercepted the Swedish boat named Marianne in the early hours of June 29 to prevent it from landing in Gaza, using tasers against unarmed passengers. The 18 passengers, whose mission was to break the siege of Gaza, were taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod and the non-Israelis will be deported from Ben Gurion Airport.

The Marianne was originally part of a flotilla comprised of four boats with 48 passengers, including human rights activists, journalists, artists, and political figures representing 17 countries. Three of the boats returned to ports in Greece.

The passengers are an impressive group. Among them is Dr. Moncef Marzouki, former President of Tunisia who came to power after the 2011 popular uprising, and Dr. Basel Ghattas, a member of the Israeli Knesset from the Joint List, a party representing Israel’s Arab citizens and the third-largest in Israel’s parliament. On one of the boats that returned to Greece are two US citizens: retired US Army Col. Ann Wright and USS Liberty veteran Joe Meadors.

Continue reading “While the Flotilla Didn’t Make It to Gaza, Israel Didn’t Win”

South Korea’s Jeju Island is a popular tourist destination full of spas, resorts, golf courses, sandy beaches, waterfalls and hiking trails. But if you really want to get rejuvenated, skip the tourist hotspots and go directly to the village of Gangjeong to support the extraordinary community that has been opposing the building of a naval base since 2007. You’ll get your morning exercise at 7am bowing 100 times facing the base, praying for an end to its construction. You’ll get spiritual nourishment from the noon mass outside the base (no religion necessary). And if you really want to feel like royalty, join the activists in their daily ritual of sitting in plastic chairs blocking the base entrance, then having the police gently lift you up in your chair and cart you away so the cement trucks and traffic can flow in and out of the base. When the traffic ebbs you grab your chair and scurry back in place – starting the ritual all over again. Want aerobic exercise? Join in the jubilant dancing and drumming that liven up the protests. Want good food? The village cooks at the communal kitchen make fantastic, healthy meals with heaps of fresh vegetables and homemade kimchi.

After a long journey to cross the DMZ from North to South Korea with a group of 30 peace women, some of us – including Nobel Prize winner Mairead Maguire and retired Colonel Ann Wright – stopped on Jeju Island and fell in love with this community of farmers, fisherpeople, city officials, small shop owners, florists, artists, poets, students and grandmothers. Over the years they have attracted peace activists from the mainland and internationals, including members of the Catholic Workers, Veterans for Peace, Amnesty International, and prominent figures like Gloria Steinem, Oliver Stone and Korean-American activist Christine Ahn.

The struggle dates back to 2007, when the South Korean government began construction of a $970 million naval base in Gangjeong, a village of less than 2,000 people on the southern tip of Jeju island. The government had tried to build the base in two other villages but was thwarted by widespread protests – especially by the haenyeos, the island’s women divers renowned for spending hours in the chilly waters harvesting conches, abalones, and other marine wildlife, as well as for their history of fierce resistance to Japanese occupation.

Continue reading “Pave Paradise, Put Up a Naval Base: South Korean Activists’ Extraordinary Struggle to Save Jeju Island”

The George W. Bush administration famously dubbed Iran, Iraq, and North Korea the “Axis of Evil.”

The White House accused that ominous-sounding triumvirate of funding terrorism and developing weapons of mass destruction. The goal was to garner public support for the “war on terror” that’s devastated the Middle East and militarized U.S. foreign policy.

After a decade of disastrous military interventions, the Obama administration has been experimenting with a different way to deal with adversaries: diplomacy. Already this approach is bearing fruit with Iran and Cuba. Now it’s time to chart a diplomatic roadmap in another region with long-festering hostility: the Korean peninsula.

Sixty-two years ago, the United States and North Korea signed the Korean Armistice Agreement to stop the horrific fighting between the U.S.-backed South and the Soviet-backed North that was responsible for the deaths of nearly 4 million people.

But a peace treaty never followed. Border tensions, war games, skirmishes, infiltrations, and defections continue to divide Korean families and keep the peninsula on the edge of conflict.

Continue reading “Crossing the Korean DMZ for Peace”

A very angry Senator John McCain denounced CODEPINK activists as "low-life scum" for holding up signs reading "Arrest Kissinger for War Crimes" and dangling handcuffs next to Henry Kissinger’s head during a Senate hearing on January 29. McCain called the demonstration "disgraceful, outrageous and despicable," accused the protesters of "physically intimidating" Kissinger and apologized profusely to his friend for this "deeply troubling incident."

But if Senator McCain was really concerned about physical intimidation, perhaps he should have conjured up the memory of the gentle Chilean singer/songwriter Victor Jara. After Kissinger facilitated the September 11, 1973 coup against Salvador Allende that brought the ruthless Augusto Pinochet to power, Victor Jara and 5,000 others were rounded up in Chile’s National Stadium. Jara’s hands were smashed and his nails torn off; the sadistic guards then ordered him to play his guitar. Jara was later found dumped on the street, his dead body riddled with gunshot wounds and signs of torture.

Despite warnings by senior U.S. officials that thousands of Chileans were being tortured and slaughtered, then Secretary of State Kissinger told Pinochet, “You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende.”

Continue reading “Who’s the ‘Low Life Scum:’ Kissinger or CODEPINK?”

On January 9, two days after the massive Paris march condemning the brutal attack on freedom of the press, a young Saudi prisoner named Raif Badawi was removed from his cell in shackles and taken to a public square in Jeddah. There he was flogged 50 times before hundreds of spectators who had just finished midday prayers. The 50 lashes – labeled by Amnesty International a "vicious act of cruelty" – was the first installment on his sentence of 1,000 floggings, as well as ten years in prison and a fine of $266,000. Badawi’s crime? Blogging.

The father of three young children, Badawi hosted the website known as Free Saudi Liberals, a forum intended to promote a lively exchange of ideas among Saudis. Badawi wrote about the advantages of separating religion and state, asserting that secularism was "the practical solution to lift countries (including ours) out of the third world and into the first world." He accused Saudi clerics and the government of distorting Islam to promote authoritarianism. Unlike the Saudi rulers, Badawi cheered the Egyptian uprising against Hosni Mubarak, calling it a decisive turning point not only for Egypt but "everywhere that is governed by the Arab mentality of dictatorship."

In mid-2012, Badawi was arrested for his blogs, including an article in which he was accused of ridiculing the kingdom’s religious police, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. He was also charged for failing to remove "offensive posts" written by others. The prosecution originally called for him to be tried for "apostasy", or abandoning his religion, which carries the death penalty.

Continue reading “‘Flogging for Blogging’ Official Saudi Policy”