by Jared Sacks | Apr 15, 2026 | Article, Iran, Israel, Opinion, Politics and Movements: International, Reprint, War, Zionism
This story originally appeared in Mondoweiss on April 15, 2026. It is shared here with permission.
The state of Israel and its propaganda machine (officially called “Hasbara”, Hebrew for “explanation”) has long claimed that Jews across the world are under existential threat from terrorists and antisemites emanating from the Muslim world and their “far-left” allies. This narrative asserts that Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran hate Jews simply for being Jews; that they seek the destruction of all Jews; and that their opposition to the Israeli regime is driven by this anti-Jewish hatred. Hasbara further posits that Israel is the only guarantor of Jewish safety – and that without it, we are doomed to a repeat of the Nazi Holocaust.
Yet, in the name of Jewish safety, Zionists have colonized Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed its population, and constructed a regime of apartheid to manage ever-shrinking bantustans in the West Bank. In the name of Jewish safety, Israel has annexed Palestinian land and, as part of its Greater Israel project, sought further expansion into Syria and Lebanon. In the name of Jewish safety, Israel has jailed over ten thousand Palestinian political prisoners, turned Gaza into a concentration camp, and has recently adopted a law applying the death penalty only to Palestinians, while Jewish murderers and rapists are defended, even celebrated, by its parliamentarians instead of punished.
Finally, in the name of Jewish safety, Zionists have transformed the overwhelming majority of Jewish religious and cultural institutions into de facto embassies and propaganda arms of the Israeli state.
Because it presents an obvious threat to the Zionist colonial project, the long and extraordinary history of Jewish anti-Zionism has been suppressed, with its proponents sidelined or ostracized.
Diverse Jewish cultures –
by Sam Carliner | Apr 15, 2026 | Article, Iran, Military, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, War
by Julia Conley | Apr 14, 2026 | Article, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Reprint
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on April 14, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
The former president of a top international human rights watchdog views the United States’ monthslong campaign of bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean as a clear-cut case of “murder,” he told The Intercept Monday, but he warned that pressure from the Trump administration may stop the body from investigating the Pentagon’s actions.
Juan Méndez, a former president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, noted that a month after the IACHR held a hearing on the boat bombing campaign, officials “may well feel that this is a very delicate situation, and if they take the initiative, they’re going to incur the wrath of the United States.”
The hearing last month was the first of its kind and included testimonies from the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, International Crisis Group, and Ben Saul, the United Nations special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights. The groups presented evidence that the US has been violating both domestic and international law by bombing vessels that it has claimed—without making any evidence publicly available—are involved in drug trafficking. Nearly 170 people have been killed in dozens of strikes, and legal experts worldwide have asserted the US is violating international law and has committed extrajudicial killings—potentially making those involved in the strikes liable for murder.
The hearing was followed by a statement from Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesperson, who said the IACHR had “strayed far outside its mandate” by looking into the boat attacks—as the family of one man killed in a bombing requested it to—and accused the ACLU of trying to manipulate the body.
“The United States calls on the
by Jake Johnson | Apr 13, 2026 | Article, Iran, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Trump, War
by Jane Slaughter | Apr 13, 2026 | Article, Economy and Inequality, labor, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Unions
This story originally appeared in Labor Notes on April 6, 2026. It is shared here with permission.
In 2011 Frank Bardacke published an 800-page history of the Farm Workers union: Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. It opened many eyes to the reasons the UFW became a shadow of its former self.
Bardacke starts the book with an epigraph, a quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “O what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down…”
Bardacke was a farmworker in the fields of the Salinas Valley for six seasons in the 1970s. When he decided to write his book years later, he went back to his carpool co-workers, finding them still at work in the fields. In 1994, the union had been thoroughly defeated for nearly 10 years—but his old friends were afraid even to mention its name where the foreman might hear.
I interviewed Frank Bardacke after a New York Times investigation revealed evidence that Chavez had sexually abused young girls who were volunteering with the union, and the allegation that he had also assaulted union co-founder Dolores Huerta. –Jane Slaughter
Jane Slaughter: The revelations about Cesar Chavez as a sexual predator: many people have said they were “surprised but not shocked” or “shocked but not surprised.” How did you react?
Frank Bardacke: The abuse of Ana Murguia was rumored at the time among UFW staff, primarily at the La Paz headquarters. Many of the rumors originated with Ana’s stepmother, Kathy Murguia. But people just didn’t want to hear it. They didn’t want to look into it very deeply because Cesar was one of these
by Brett Wilkins | Apr 13, 2026 | Article, elections, Europe, Politics and Movements: International, Reprint
