Twenty years ago, the US warned prematurely of the ‘birth pangs’ of a new Middle East. Now they have arrived in full force – and they will not end in Iran Jonathan Cook (19 June 2025) Western politicians and media are tying themselves up in knots trying to spin the impossible: presenting Israel’s unmistakable war of… Read More The violent new world being born is going to horrify you
The reports on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction decided that the US invasion of Iraq could start. Today, we know that these weapons were fiction, an image produced to justify the war. Discussing Hannah Arendt and the Viet Nam war, Cathy Caruth shows that this type of political imagery has a long tradition in the… Read More Lying and history: Hannah Arendt and the Viet Nam war (2009)
“If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam” – M. L. King “Civil disobedience arises when a significant number of citizens have become convinced either that the normal channels of change no longer function, and grievances will not be heard or acted upon, or that, on the contrary the government… Read More Seyla Benhabib: Breaking Silence, Hannah Arendt, and Martin Luther King
Guy Debord’s Comments on the Society of the Spectacle issue #19, 1991 As late as 1979, Guy Debord could write about his 1967 book of theory, which is entitled The Society of the Spectacle: “There is no a word to be changed . . . . [Since 1967] the spectacle has done nothing but meet more exactly… Read More Guy Debord’s Comments on the Society of the Spectacle
Linda Hoaglund NB: The artwork here has an ominous, surreal beauty; and it touches the soul. To me, it reflects what is happening in Gaza today, where ordinary people are burnt like grass and the world looks away. Hiroshi is now 92 years old, and was 12 when the firebombing destroyed Hamamatsu, his native town.… Read More Japanese Protest Art in the 1950’s: the forgotten reportage painters
Whether inept, driven by survival or corrupt, they are unfit to lead their countries, let alone make decisions that imperil the whole world Simon Tisdall This was not inevitable. This is a war Israel chose. It could have been prevented. Diplomatic talks were ongoing when the bombers took off for Iran. Israel’s continuing, illegal, unjustified… Read More Trump, Netanyahu and Khamenei – three angry old men who could get us all killed
We have previously written about the debates over the political relevance of the Enlightenment today, drawing on Antoine Lilti’s critical review of the histories of Jonathan Israel. We present the English translation of his essay, which has import far beyond any disciplinary boundaries: Viewpoint Magazine David A. Bell: The Uses and Abuses of Enlightenment: AV lecture; January 2025 ***… Read More How Do We Write the Intellectual History of the Enlightenment? Spinozism, Radicalism, and Philosophy
Israel’s prime minister sees himself not only as the protector of Israel, but the saviour of the West. This, he believes, is how he should go down in history, writes former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas. Mr Netanyahu can brag all he wants about how he has changed the course of history and how he has saved… Read More Israel’s attack on Iran proves Netanyahu is an unhinged messiah
Kieran Setiya reviews Christoph Schuringa’s A Social History of Analytic Philosophy IS THE FORM of philosophy dominant in English-speaking universities covertly resistant to radical thought? Does it present as the work of pure reason what is in fact the function of an ideology complicit in oppression? In A Social History of Analytic Philosophy (2025), the philosopher Christoph… Read More The Politics of Apoliticism
Tom Segev, one of Israel’s most renowned historians, has broken a decades-long silence. On his 80th birthday, he declared that Zionism—Israel’s founding ideology—was a mistake. In a deeply personal interview with Haaretz, Segev said, “Zionism is not such a great success story. It also doesn’t provide security to Jews. It’s safer for Jews to live… Read More Israeli Historian Tom Segev at 80: “Zionism Was a Mistake from the Start”
After the truth-shower 