Articles by Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service
We found 365 results.
Wartime Journalism: Mohammed Omer on Gaza
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2015
Omer’s prior reporting earned him the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2007, recognizing the excellence of his reportage on Gaza (‘a voice for the voiceless’). After receiving the award in The Netherlands, Omer on his return home received a brutal reception at the Gaza border by Israeli security guards being beaten so severely as to endure serious injury that required specialized surgery.
→ read full articlePondering Jonathan Pollard’s Release
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2015
Loyalty to the state continues to be the north star of conventional patriotism. For the citizen pilgrim solidarity with an emergent eco-humanist insurgency is the keystone of 21st century political community and ethical responsibility deserving precedence when in conflict with nationalist and tribal affinities.
→ read full articleEco-Insurgency, Tribal Vision, and Ultra-Nationalist Geopolitics
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2015
Thinking hopefully, the Anthropocene Age may soon witness the first species insurgency against the eco-tyrannical elites of the world, who have become the suicidal guardians of our neoliberal market forces joined in an unbreakable alliance with dominant forces of tribalism and nationalism. In moments of despair, the end-time hegemony of this unbreakable alliance are likely to retain control of species destiny.
→ read full articleAlliance Blackmail: Israel’s Opposition to the Iran Nuclear Agreement
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2015
JCPOA imposes more restrictions on Iranian enrichment capabilities and stockpiles, and on inspection and monitoring of compliance, than has been imposed on any country in the course of the entire nuclear era. Left out of consideration altogether was the nuclear weapons arsenal of Israel acquired with Western complicity and by covert means, as well as through operations outside the Nonproliferation Treaty regime, which is used to tie Iran’s hands and feet.
→ read full articleUN Gaza Report Part I: War Crimes during Israel’s 51-Day Assault on Gaza
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2015
Exactly a year ago, for 51 days between July 7 and August 26 Israel carried out its third major military assault on Gaza in the past six years. This last one, code named Operation Protective Edge, was the most vicious, killing 2,251 Palestinians, of which 1,462 were civilians, and included 299 women and 551 children, as well as injuring 11,231, a number that includes 3,436 children, 10% of whom have permanent disabilities, and another 1,500 have been orphaned.
→ read full articleUN Gaza Report Part II: Israel’s Counterinsuurgency Apologist, Colonel Richard Kemp
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2015
On June 25, 2015 the New York Times published an opinion piece by Kemp assessing the UN Report. What I find scandalous and perverse on the part of this self-claiming authoritative media source, is to publish such a harsh and partisan dismissal of a prudent and overly balanced report without any kind of offsetting piece.
→ read full articleReading Claudia Rankine on Race
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2015
What Claudia Rankine shares and teaches is that every African American citizen must live with the existential concreteness of racism while even the most liberal of American white citizens live with only an abstract awareness of their own unconscious racism or, at best, their rather detached empathy with the historical victimization of our African American co-citizens.
→ read full articleThe Undisclosed Second Paradox in Michael Walzer’s ‘The Paradox of Liberation’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2015
My contention is that Walzer’s paradox dissolves as soon as the claim to categorize Zionism as a mode of ‘national liberation’ is deconstructed while the second paradox, which dwells on the moral and political interplay of what transpires when the liberation of the self is organically linked to the dispossession of the other, remains to be explained.
→ read full articleIs the Middle East America’s to Lose?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2015
I was appalled by the embedded colonialism of a recent issue of The Economist [June 6-12, 2015], “Losing the Middle East.” Any doubt about the intent of the magazine is removed by displaying a bedraggled American flag on the cover accompanied by the sub-title “Why American must not abandon the region.”
→ read full articleTurkish Elections: It’s Not Just Erdoğan!
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2015
9 Jun 2015 – The Turkish general election on June 7th ended more or less as the polls predicted. Turkey has been put back on the shelf and yet relieved that the AKP was again supported by a significant plurality of Turkish citizens in an impressively free and fair electoral process.
→ read full articleFIFA Scandals Are Worse Than Bribes
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jun 2015
The Palestinian Soccer Association was persuaded by Blatter to drop its charges, with a renewal of previously empty pledges to ameliorate conditions confronting Palestinians coupled with a surely ironic plea to keep ‘politics’ from intruding on ‘the beautiful game.’ As if the humiliations and constraints imposed on the Palestinian teams were not political!
→ read full articleAmerica at Its Best Is Strange
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2015
America even at its best is a strange place, alive with contradictions, a Teflon political culture that has an unshakable faith in its innocent and virtuous national character and its overall impact on the world, impervious to the ghosts of slavery and of ethnic cleansing of native Americans that should be tormenting our sleep and darkening our dreams, comfortable with its robust gun culture, and with its promiscuous reliance on rogue drones engineered to kill on command and on the brutal happenings that take place in black sites immorally situated in countries whose leaders agree to avert their gaze from the dirty work taking place.
→ read full articleParodies of Parity: Israel & Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2015
Peace will come to Israel and Palestine, and be sustained, if and only if the oppressor becomes ready to dismantle its oppressive regime by withdrawing, not merely by disengaging Gaza style. So long as this is not so, direct negotiations and these periodic calls issued by Washington to resume direct talks have one main effect–to free Israel to realize its ambition to establish ‘Greater Israel’ while keeping the Palestinians in chains.
→ read full articleThe Semantics of Struggle
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2015
What is not helpful, actually diversionary, is to respond as if the struggle was between good and evil, and that is what happens as soon as the insurgent challenger is labeled ‘a terrorist.’ Such language exempts the defenders of the status quo from self-criticism and considering accommodationist tactics, proscribing negotiation and assessment of grievances.
→ read full articleApartheid and the Palestinian National Struggle
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2015
American citizens have a special responsibility for the long ordeal of the Palestinian people. The Jewish philosopher, Abraham Heschel observed “[f]ew are guilty, but all are responsible.” The Legitimacy War scenario gives each of us ample opportunities to exercise our individual responsibility. We owe the Palestinian people and ourselves nothing less.
→ read full articleThe Geopolitical Right of Exception at the United Nations
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2015
Overcoming the geopolitical right of exception would require its repudiation by the United States, in particular, through a recognition that it is incompatible with a peaceful, just, sustainable, and more participatory world order. This geopolitical right is also a vehicle of influence by private sector corporate and financial interests contrary to the global public interest.
→ read full articleWeakening and Discrediting the UN: The Mission of Israeli QGOs [Quasi-Government Organizations]
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2015
This is the full text of my presentation at the conference “The Israeli Lobby: Is it good for US? Is it good for Israel?” National Press Club, April 10, 2015. Although there were many illuminating presentations during the day, I would call particular attention to the memorable remarks of two highly informed Israelis, Gideon Levy and Miko Peled.
→ read full articleArmenians 1915: The Genocide Controversy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2015
According to the great American novelist William Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” This year being the centenary of the contested events of 1915 makes it understandable that was simmering through the decades has come to a boil, with the anniversary day of April 24th likely to be the climax of this latest phase of the unresolved drama.
→ read full articleChange versus Continuity in the Philippines
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2015
When I asked how was it possible that the Marcos past has been so cleanly erased from the contemporary blackboard of Filipino awareness, I received various answers: “They have lots of money” “They never lost popularity in their home province where lots of development took place while Marcos governed ” “The past no longer matters; it is the present that counts” “the oligarchy still rules the country and includes all leading families regardless of their political affiliations.”
→ read full articleIran’s Nuclear Program: Diplomacy, War, and (In)Security in the Nuclear Age
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2015
Iran is expected not only to forego the option to acquire nuclear weapons, but to agree to a framework of intrusive inspection if it wants to be treated as a ‘normal’ state after it proves itself worthy. As indicated, this approach seems discriminatory and hypocritical in the extreme.
→ read full articleStalking Netanyahu’s Victory: Palestine and Iran
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2015
My immediate reaction to the outcome of the Israeli elections is that for Palestinian solidarity purposes, it was desirable for Netanyahu to receive this electoral mandate. It exhibits as clearly as possible that the long discredited Oslo ‘peace process’ is truly ‘discredited.’
→ read full articleNetanyahu: The Day After
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Mar 2015
4 Mar 2015 – My reaction to Netanyahu’s theatrical performance yesterday in Congress led me to recall that the deepest thinkers turned against democracy in ancient Greece because of the susceptibility of the Athenian citizenry to demagogic oratory from opportunistic politicians. Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides all became sensitive to the degree to which the rhetoric of demagogues contributed to the decline, and eventual downfall, of ancient Athens.
→ read full articleCommentary on Netanyahu’s Visit to the United States
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Mar 2015
2 Mar 2015 – It is far too simple to be merely outraged by the arrogant presumptuousness of tomorrow’s speech by the Israeli Prime Minister to a joint session of Congress two weeks prior to national elections in Israel. The Netanyahu visit has encouraged various forms of wishful thinking.
→ read full article‘Lawfare’ and Liberation
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2015
In opposition to a law-oriented foreign policy for the United States are arguments of ‘American exceptionalism.’ Such arguments condition its applicability to American behavior and insist on the implementation of international law in relation to the alleged unlawful conduct of adversaries (e.g. Russia involvement in eastern Ukraine)
→ read full article(Italiano) Quando un terrorista non è un terrorista
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2015
Ciò che la polizia di Chapel Hill, nella Carolina del Nord ha inizialmente pubblicizzato nel mondo come ‘un litigio per un parcheggio’, è stata l’uccisione deliberata di tre giovani e devoti studenti musulmani americani per mano di un assassino, ‘nuovo ateo’ di nome Craig Stephen Hicks, motivato ideologicamente. Quello che The Economist chiama senza esitazione ‘terrorismo a Copenhagen ha implicato il tentativo di sparare a un vignettista danese che ripetutamente deride il Profeta e le convinzioni islamiche e ha implicato anche l’uccisione con arma da fuoco di una guardia di sicurezza ebrea davanti a una sinagoga.
→ read full articleWhen a Terrorist Is Not a Terrorist
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Feb 2015
What the Chapel Hill police in North Carolina initially pitched as ‘a parking dispute’ was the deliberate killing of three young and devout Muslim American students by an ideologically driven ‘new atheist’ killer named Craig Stephen Hicks. What the The Economist unhesitatingly calls ‘terrorism in Copenhagen’ involved the attempted shooting of a Danish cartoonist who repeatedly mocks the Prophet and Islamic beliefs as well as the lethal shooting of a Jewish security guard outside a synagogue.
→ read full articleInterview with William Schabas, Former Chair, UN Commission of Inquiry for 2014 Israeli Attack on Gaza
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Feb 2015
Interview with Prof. William Schabas, recently resigned under pressure as Chair of the Commission of Inquiry appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to Investigate Allegations of State Crimes associated with Israel’s military attack on Gaza, code named Operation Protective Edge.
→ read full articleOn the North Carolina Killings
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
14 Feb 2014 – A short interview on how to interpret the ghastly murder of three young Muslims living in the North Carolina university town of Chapel Hill.
→ read full articleMy Tribute to Serena Williams
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Feb 2015
By returning to Indian Wells Serena Williams has made the double point of at once acknowledging the pain of her past victimization and the healing power of forgiveness.
→ read full articlePope Francis, Salman Rushdie, and Charlie Hebdo
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
The Associated Press reports that despite present tensions and the public celebration of free speech the government in Paris has “ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism, and glorifying terrorism.” But no message by the French government mentioning ‘hate cartooning’ or the surge of ‘Islamophobia’ in the country.
→ read full articlePope Francis and Religious Cosmopolitanism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jan 2015
It has never been more important to counter the widely disseminated view that religion is ‘inherently’ responsible for political extremism, and more destructively, to blame Islam as a religion for sociopathic violence when the culprits are Muslim. True, religious doctrine can be twisted to serve any values, however demonic, as can secularist thinking.
→ read full articleRichard Jackson: Terrorism, Torture, and the Problem of Evil in Our Time
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Jan 2015
Richard Jackson, a professor of peace studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, has written a probing political essay that takes the form of an imagined dialogue between a British interrogator and an Egyptian terrorist who is apparently thought at the time of their conversation to be the mastermind of an imminent attack on Great Britain.
→ read full articleThe Irrelevance of Liberal Zionism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Jan 2015
Frustrated by Israeli settlement expansion, excessive violence, AIPAC maximalism, Netanyahu’s arrogance, Israel’s defiant disregard of international law, various Jewish responses claim to seek a middle ground.
→ read full articleRemembering 2014 (Badly)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Dec 2014
A posture of cynical hopelessness or despair worsens prospects for positive future developments, however empirically based such a negative assessment seems. All of us should recall that those who struggle for what seems ‘impossible’ today often turn out to be the heroes of tomorrow.
→ read full articleThe Dead End of Post-Oslo Diplomacy: What Next?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Dec 2014
The Oslo framework was an unseemly tacit assumption that the Palestinians would be willing to carry on negotiations without complaining about the Israeli violations of international law, most conspicuously the continued unlawful settlement activity.
→ read full articleAlkarama Human Rights Award to Shireen Issawi
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Dec 2014
Geneva, 13 December 2014 – A letter written from an Israeli prison by the recipient of the award Ms. Shireen Issawi, a brave, resolute, and inspiring human rights defender who has dedicated her professional career as a lawyer to the long Palestinian national struggle for freedom, human rights, and self-determination.
→ read full articleMemoir Sketch: Championing Lost Causes
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Dec 2014
To contemplate death without the metaphysical painkillers of an imagined afterlife is to be finally alone. In a sense learning to die is equivalent to learning to live alone, and takes courage and fortitude.
→ read full articleGaza 2014 Compilation
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Dec 2014
A POMEAS Compilation of Writings Relating to Israel’s 50-Day Attack on Gaza
→ read full articleRemembering Yoshikazu Sakamoto (1927-2014)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Dec 2014
I am sharing these words of appreciation, and hope that anyone from Japan who comes across this text will contact me, especially if they have a way of putting me in touch with either Yoshi’s family or Japanese media. I would like to believe that ‘an American appreciation’ of Professor Sakamoto, an important public intellectual, would be of interest to those who knew and admired him.
→ read full articleTwo Interviews [of mine] on Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Nov 2014
14 Nov 2014 – Two recent interviews seek to assess the Palestinian national movement as it is unfolding at this critical time.
→ read full articleLooking Back on WW-I One Hundred Years Later: Four Mixed Messages
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Nov 2014
Dorothy Brown Memorial Lecture, Auckland, New Zealand, November 8, 2014
→ read full articleWhy Foreign Military Intervention Usually Fails in the 21st Century
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Nov 2014
We have reached a stage in the political development of life on the planet where civilizational and species survival itself depends on the urgency of building an effective movement against the war system that remains indispensable to sustain hierarchy and exploitation, wastes huge amounts of resources, and dangerously diverts problem-solving priorities.
→ read full articleOslo Is Dead! Long Live Oslo! The UK House of Commons Supports Diplomatic Recognition of Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Oct 2014
On October 13 [2014] the House of Commons by an overwhelming vote of 274-12 urged the British government to extend diplomatic recognition to Palestine. At first glance, it would seem a rather meaningless gesture. It is a non-binding resolution.
→ read full articleDid Israel Commit Genocide in Gaza?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Oct 2014
In a special session of the Russell Tribunal, Israel’s Operation Protective Edge was critically scrutinized from the perspective of international law, including the core allegation of genocide through testimonies by legal and weapons experts, health workers, journalists and others who experienced the 50 days of military assault.
→ read full articleQuestioning Sweden’s ‘Bold’ Diplomatic Initiative
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Oct 2014
The new center-left Swedish Prime Minister, Stefan Lofven, in his inaugural speech to Parliament indicated on October 3 [2014] the intention of the Swedish government to recognize Palestinian statehood.
→ read full articleChanging the Political Climate: A Transitional Imperative
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Oct 2014
The most daunting challenging of adapting to the realities of the anthropocene era is achieving a soft transition from state-centric world order to a geo-centric reconfiguring of political community to enable the emergence of effective and humane global governance.
→ read full article4+ Logics of Living Together on Planet Earth
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Sep 2014
It is misleading to describe ‘world order’ as consisting exclusively of sovereign territorial states. This misimpression is further encouraged by the structure of the United Nations, whose members are states, and only states.
→ read full articleSteven Salaita and Zionist McCarthyism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Sep 2014
The outcome of the Salaita case will exhibit the current balance of influence as between Zionist McCarthyism and academic freedom. That such a struggle should be in doubt is itself a national disgrace that suggests the worrisome fragility of academic freedom as reinforced by the potency of money and regressive ideology.
→ read full articleTwo Types of Anti-Semitism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Sep 2014
This second type of supposed anti-Semitism is a tactic deployed to discredit critics of Israel by insisting that criticism of Israel and hatred of the Jewish people should not be distinguished.
→ read full articleRussell Tribunal Session on Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Sep 2014
On September 24 [2014] a special session of the Russell Tribunal will examine war crimes allegations against Israel arising from the 50-day Operation Protective Edge military operation that commenced on July 8th.
→ read full articleThree Questions for Hamas
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Aug 2014
Whether wittingly or not, the international diplomacy of the West has produced dispossession, violence, and seemingly irreconcilable conflict with disastrous and tragic consequences for the indigenous population of Palestine ever since the end of World War I.
→ read full articleStrange Regional Alignments in the Gaza Massacre
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Aug 2014
Neighborly Crimes of Complicity in Gaza – The abysmal failure of the Kerry induced talks showed definitively that Israel has lost all interest in a diplomacy that promises the Palestinians a viable and independent sovereign state at the end of the road.
→ read full articlePalestinian Open Letter to UNSG Ban Ki-moon on Gaza
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Aug 2014
Open letter to Mr. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon: stand for law and Justice or resign!
→ read full articleCruelties of Ceasefire Diplomacy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Aug 2014
Devastation and violence has continued in Gaza, with Palestinians deaths now numbering over 1000 (overwhelmingly civilians) and Israeli deaths latest reported at being 43 (almost all military personnel). Such casualty figures and disparities raise questions of state terrorism in a stark manner.
→ read full articleJoint Declaration on International Law & Gaza – Final List of Endorsers
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Aug 2014
With only a voluntary effort the Joint Declaration on International Law in relation to the Gaza Attacks by Israel has elicited an encouraging response from legal experts from around the world, including some of our most distinguished colleagues. Others without formal legal credentials have also indicated their support, and expressed their desire to endorse the Joint Declaration.
→ read full articlePalestinian Recourse to the International Criminal Court: The Time Has Come
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jul 2014
The political plausibility of invoking the International Criminal Court to investigate allegations of criminality directed at Israel increases with each passing day.
→ read full articleWhen BBC Calls, Don’t Answer
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jul 2014
That is, don’t answer, if you are a certified critic of Israeli policies and practices.
→ read full articleGaza Interview
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jul 2014
[Prefatory note: This is an interview with a knowledgeable Greek journalist covering a range of issues associated with the Gaza ordeal] – “Blood on American Hands”: Richard Falk on Palestine
→ read full articleNo Exit from Gaza: A New War Crime?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Jul 2014
As the casualty totals continue to mount while the world looks on in stupefied inaction, the attacks go on; at the very least, from a humanitarian perspective, there should be a global outcry demanding that children, mothers, and those sick and disabled be allowed to leave the Gaza Strip until current hostilities end. Yet this is a gap in international humanitarian law and refugee law.
→ read full articleTormenting Gaza
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Jul 2014
There is so much regional turbulence at present that it is unlikely to hope for anything more than scattered verbal denunciations from authorities in the region preoccupied with other concerns, but given the gravity of the situation, attention needs to be refocused on the Palestinian ordeal.
→ read full articleA Tale of Two Cities: Istanbul and Rome
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jul 2014
Symbolically and culturally Istanbul deserves to be privately christened as the global capital of the 21st century. It is only world city that qualifies by virtue of its geographic and civilizational hybridity, Western by history and experience, Eastern by culture and location, Northern by stage of development, modernism, and urban dynamism, Southern by affinities, outreach, and partial identification.
→ read full articleRemembering Fouad Ajami
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jul 2014
For me Fouad Ajami’s legacy is that of ‘sleeping with the enemy.’ And it is an enemy that is politically, morally, and legally responsible for millions of deaths, displacements, and devastating losses.
→ read full articleShifts in the Climate Change Debate: Hope and Suspicion
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jul 2014
The intense lobbying efforts by climate deniers, reinforced in the United States by a right wing anti-government tsunami that has paralyzed Congress, succeeded in blocking even modest market-based steps to induce energy efficiency.
→ read full articleObama’s Legacy: “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff”
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jun 2014
Cautioning against militarism at West Point President on May 22nd Obama in a speech mostly notable for its reassertion of what might be best understood as imperial nationalism of global scope declared the following:
→ read full articleProsecuting Syrians for War Crimes Now
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jun 2014
Is justice served when the authority of the ICC is invoked as a political instrument to influence the outcome of a civil war? Why was there never any initiative to pursue leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom during the course of the Iraq War, which also included many incidents that seemed to qualify as crimes against humanity? Double standards?
→ read full articlePope Francis Visit to Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jun 2014
Pope Francis’ visit to the Holy Land raises one overwhelming question: ‘what is the nature of religious power in our world of the 21st century?’ ‘Can it have transformative effects’?
→ read full articleOn Citizenship in the 21st Century
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 May 2014
Reading Robert Paehlke’s carefully crafted essay on global citizenship provides the occasion both for an appreciation of his approach and some doubts about its degree of responsiveness to the urgencies of the present or more specifically its adequacy in relation to the call for ‘transformative vision and praxis’ that lies at the heart of the ‘Great Transition Initiative.’
→ read full articleCitizens versus Subjects in a Democratic Society: The American Case
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 May 2014
In my understanding silence is passivity as a way of being. Silence can be much more than the avoidance of speech and utterance, and is most poignantly expressed through evasions of body, heart, and soul.
→ read full articleArmenian Grievances, Turkey, United States and 1915 (I)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 May 2014
The Turkish government has reiterated its offer to establish a joint commission composed of Armenian, Turkish and international historians to establish an authoritative narrative. The idea that core concern is ‘historical’ misses a main point that such a traumatic series of events need to be interpreted from multiple perspectives, including that of international criminal law.
→ read full article‘Genocide’ in 1915: Law, Language, and Politics (II)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 May 2014
I am arguing that the historical argument should be put to rest, and that the issues that need to be resolved relate to the legal questions surrounding the applicability of genocide, as well as the related semiotic and political questions associated what be called ‘the politics of genocide.’
→ read full articlePalestine: Why the Peace Talks Collapsed—And Should Not Be Resumed
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 May 2014
It is important that world public opinion reject as meaningless the diplomatic charade of peace talks while the fate of a people continues to be daily sacrificed on the altar of geopolitics.
→ read full articleThe New Interventionists: Civil Society Activists
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Apr 2014
Debates about intervention are inevitable in an interdependent world order in which ideals of territorial sovereignty clash with the interests and values of hegemonic political actors. There are no either/or solution for the dilemmas posed. What seems preferable is a contextual assessment tempered by humility arising from the experience of past interventions.
→ read full articleNonviolent Geopolitics: Law, Politics, and 21st Century Security*
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Apr 2014
In this short essay, my attempt will be to articulate a conception of a world order premised on nonviolent geopolitics, as well as to consider some obstacles to its realization.
→ read full articleThe Obsolescence of Ideology: Debating Syria and Ukraine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Mar 2014
To insist that the left/right distinction obscures more than it reveals is not the end of the story. To contend that ideology is unhelpful as a guide for action is not the same as saying that it is irrelevant to the public debate.
→ read full articleWhy Do I Persist?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Mar 2014
I have been asked recently why do I persist in working hard for the things that I believe in, knowing that I will die in the next several years, and am almost certain not to be around for the catastrophic future that seems to cast its dark shadow across the road ahead, and can only be removed by a major transnational movement of the peoples of the world.
→ read full articleBreaking Free: Choosing a Better Human Future
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Mar 2014
I have long believed that prospects for a hopeful human future depend on radical and visionary feelings, thought, and action… Citizenship, then, becomes enacted in time and is not conceived only as a dimension of space as, for instance, in opting to be ‘a world citizen.’
→ read full articleDecember 2013 – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Mar 2014
5 Mar 2014 – This is my last report as Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine as my term is coming to an end after six years. The mandate is important as a source of information pertaining to the realities of occupation from the perspective of international humanitarian law and international criminal law
→ read full articleSyria: What to Do Now
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Mar 2014
It is not only that the interventionists, and perhaps the anti-interventionists are motivated by a convergence of humanitarian/moral considerations with geostrategic ambitions, but that the nature of these hidden calculations are discussed in governmental circles behind locked doors and transcribed in secret policy memoranda.
→ read full articleOMAR: Uncovering Occupied Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2014
OMAR is the second film directed by Hany Alu-Assad to be a finalist among foreign language films nominated to receive an Oscar at the 2014 Academy Awards ceremony on March 2nd.
→ read full articleA Meeting with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini 35 Years Ago
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2014
Khomeini by insisting on all or nothing against the Shah did create an Iranian transition to a new political order. In contrast the 2011 militants in Tahrir Square were content with the removal of Mubarak and promises of reforms, and ended up succumbing to a counter-revolutionary tsunami that has reconstituted the repressive Mubarak past in a more extreme form.
→ read full articleAn American Idol: The United States Should ‘Govern’ the World?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jan 2014
This post consists of a much expanded text of an opinion piece that was published by AJE on January 18, 2014; it seeks to discredit imperial and neoliberal claims that the United States is a benevolent hegemon, providing global public goods to the world as a whole, including supposed geopolitical and ideological rivals.
→ read full articleImperiled Polities: Egypt and Turkey—Two Visions of Democracy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jan 2014
The recent disturbing political turmoil in Turkey and Egypt, each in its own way, is illustrative. In both countries there are strong, although quite divergent, traditions of charismatic authoritarian leadership, reinforced by quasi-religious sanctification. Very recently, however, this authoritarian past is being challenged by counter-traditions of populist legitimacy.
→ read full articleThe Emergent Palestinian Imaginary
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jan 2014
It is often overlooked that as early as 1988, and possibly earlier, the unified Palestinian leadership has decisively opted for what I would call a ‘sacrificial’ peace. By sacrificial I mean an acceptance of peace and normalization with Israel that is premised upon the relinquishment of significant Palestinian rights under international law.
→ read full articleBeholding 2014
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2014
2013 was not a happy year in the chronicles of human history, yet there were a few moves in the directions of peace and justice. What follows are some notes that respond to the mingling of light and shadows that are flickering on the global stage, with a spotlight placed on the main war zone of the 21st century—the Middle East, recalling that Europe had this negative honor for most of the modern era.
→ read full article2014: International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2014
In a little noted initiative the General Assembly on November 26, 2013 voted to proclaim 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
→ read full articleSamer Issawi, Hunger Strikes, and the Palestinian Struggle
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Dec 2013
For the last three years Palestinian prisoners unlawfully detained in Israeli jails have been engaged in hunger strikes to protest administrative detention, imprisonment without indictment, charges, and access to allegedly incriminating evidence, abusive arrest procedures…
→ read full articleNorthern Ireland and the Israel/Palestine ‘Peace Process’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2013
I visited Belfast the last few days during some negotiations about unresolved problems between Unionist and Republican (or Nationalist) political parties, I was struck by the absolute dependence for any kind of credibility of this process upon the unblemished perceived neutrality of the mediating third party.
→ read full articleThe Palestinian National Movement Advances
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2013
The Palestinian shift toward Legitimacy Wars is a recognition that in this kind of conflict the decisive battles are generally not won by the side with the superior weaponry and technology but rather by the side that prevails in the realm of ideas and symbols of just cause.
→ read full articleEscaping the Abusive State: After Snowden
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2013
We can and must do better, above all as citizens engaged in the protection of the sort of society we wish to live in; without civic activism of a militant character we can wave goodbye to the promise of genuine democracy.
→ read full articleNelson Mandela’s Inspiration
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2013
Fifteen years ago I had the extraordinary pleasure of meeting Nelson Mandela in Cape Town while he was serving as President of South Africa. His journey, like that of Gandhi, was not without its major disappointments.
→ read full articleClashing Views of Political Reality: Chomsky versus Dershowitz
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2013
The book is much more than a comparison of two influential voices, one critical the other apologetic, with respect to the Israel/Palestine struggle and the subordination of private liberties to the purveyors of state-led security at home and abroad.
→ read full articleTwo Forms of Lethal Polarization: Egypt and Turkey
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2013
I am arguing that these instances of polarization amount to a deadly virus that attacks the body politic in countries with weak constitutional traditions, especially if such societies are beset by economic disappointment and significant regional and global hostility due to ideological and political tensions.
→ read full articleInvisible Horizons of a Just Palestine/Israel Future
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2013
4 Nov 2013 – I spent last week at the United Nations, meeting with ambassadors of countries in the Middle East and presenting my final report to the Third Committee of the General Assembly as my term as Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine comes to an end.
→ read full articleMalala and Eartha Kitt: Words that Matter
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2013
I connect Malala and Eartha Kitt in my mind because both seized the moment to speak truth to power, probably sensing that it meant they would never be invited back [to the White House], and for Eartha Kitt it was worse than that. It seems almost certain that neither of these fearless women would have been invited in the first place if their intentions to speak out had been known in advance.
→ read full articleReport of SR on Occupied Palestine to UNGA, 29 Oct 2013
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2013
In the present report, while noting the continuing non-cooperation of Israel, the Special Rapporteur addresses Israel’s Operation “Pillar of Defense” and the general human rights situation in the Gaza Strip, as well as the expansion of Israeli settlements – and businesses that profit from Israeli settlements and the situation of Palestinians detained by Israel.
→ read full articlePost-Intervention Libya: A Militia State
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2013
We can only wonder whether Libya as of 2013 is not better understood as a ‘militia state’ rather than a ‘failed state,’ which seems like an emerging pattern for societies that endure Western military intervention. The parallels of Libya with Iraq and Afghanistan are uncomfortably suggestive.
→ read full articleIsrael’s Politics of Fragmentation
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2013
If the politics of deflection exhibit the outward reach of Israel’s grand strategy of territorial expansionism and regional hegemony, the politics of fragmentation serves Israel’s inward moves designed to weaken Palestinian resistance, induce despair, and de facto surrender.
→ read full articleIsrael’s Politics of Deflection
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Oct 2013
It seems clear that international law supports Palestinian claims on the major issues in contention: borders, refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, resources (water, land), statehood, and human rights. Then why not insist on resolving the conflict by reference to international law with such modifications as seem mutually beneficial?
→ read full articleThe Westgate Mall Massacre: Reflections
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2013
The Westgate Mall Massacre: The Rage of Fanaticism – Imagine deciding on the life or death of any person, but particularly a child, by whether or not they could name the mother of Mohammed or recite a verse from the Koran. Of course, even fanatics have a certain logic of justification that makes their acts congruent with a warped morality.
→ read full articleThe Violence of Psalm 21
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2013
Psalm 21 and the Human Predicament – If a religious text nurtures morally unacceptable impulses that are acted upon either consciously or sub-consciously in political domains, how can these adverse influences be repudiated without purporting to claim a hegemonic status for a secular reader?
→ read full article