The Balfour Declaration & British Mandate — His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing…

The Israelis — But I think for the ultimate peace and security of the situation it will probably be necessary for Israel to give up this conquered territory because to hold on to it will only exacerbate the tensions and deepen the bitterness of the Arabs. MLK, Jr. responding to questions about the…

The Arabs — The Arabs Why did the Arab nations reject Zionism and the Balfour Declaration? Surely the answer lies in basic Muslim antisemitism, extemporized by the Prophet himself. The foregoing Sahih Muslim hadith is a classic, beloved of both AIPAC and Hamas, which included it in their charter: “Judgement Day will not come until…

“So, women had more rights fifty years ago than today?” — Asked my wife this morning after hearing of the leaked Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade. Brilliant at math, she dislikes figuring in her head. She asked, “How old would Roe be today?” “Forty-nine,” I replied. “So women had more rights fifty years ago than they do today?” I…

Is it really time to take out the trash? — “The US Constitution is not good,” says Harvard-educated legal correspondent for The Nation and frequent MSNBC contributor Elie Mystal. It was “hastily edited in the margins” by slave-owning white men who shared power with only the greatest parsimony, if at all. “Why, he asks, should he give a fuck about…

New Mexico cops weaponize medical procedures — On the early evening of January 2, 2013, 53-year old David Eckert drove his Ford pick-up truck out of the Deming, New Mexico Walmart parking lot. …

Lincoln and the Dakota War of 1862 — Three members of the San Francisco Board of Education were recalled by a vastly greater number of votes than put them into office in the first place. …

Anti-racist writers race the SF Board of Ed & Neo-Confederates for gold in the silly stakes — I’m writing in response to an article by one of Medium’s best and most prolific anti-racist authors, and also the growing tendency of progressives in general to downplay Lincoln’s contributions to the liberation of slaves. The Medium article argued Lincoln wasn’t a white savior. Why the qualifier? We know he…

Was the SCOTUS’s most infamous ruling really off the mark? — …They had no rights the white man was bound to respect… I see this quote a lot, especially in the writing of anti-racists. But far-right, “race realists” cite it, too. It’s from paragraph 36 of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s infamous 1858 rejection of Dred Scott’s bid for freedom. That…