At the 2011 Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism, awarded at a ceremony in London on 2 June 2011, Jonathan Cook was one of three winners. The other two were Umar Cheema, of the International News of Pakistan, and Charles Clover, of the Financial Times. Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, won the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.

The judge's citation reads: "Jonathan Cook's work on Palestine and Israel, especially his de-coding of official propaganda and his outstanding analysis of events often obfuscated in the mainstream, has made him one of the reliable truth-tellers in the Middle East."

Read more...

By Mordecai Briemberg
February 1, 2011

http://rabble.ca/news/2011/02/falling-arab-dictatorships-and-israeli-government-panic

The walls are crumbling. The walls behind which dictators indulge in decadent opulence while "their" people are mired in wretched circumstance. The walls behind which "leaders" secretly sell -- for personal gain -- the rights of the people they claim to represent.

Across North Africa and the Middle East, across the Arab world, for decades dictatorship and deepening corruption, firmly supported by imperial powers, seemed beyond challenge. Today, once "stable" regimes are now facing a popular reckoning.

From the vantage point of Palestine, there are three new dynamics.

September 15, 2010

“We find it appalling that the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver is sponsoring an appearance by Alan Dershowitz, who is an outright apologist for anything and everything that the State of Israel does, to open its annual fund-raising campaign,” says Bob Rosen, spokesperson for the Vancouver chapter of CanPalNet, a Palestinian solidarity organization.

“Dershowitz played a central role in the campaign to get Norman Finkelstein dismissed from the faculty of DePaul University because Finkelstein criticized Israeli behaviour and their treatment of Palestinians,” explained Stephen Aberle, a spokesperson for Jews for a Just Peace.

“We would like to ask those who are supporting Mr. Dershowitz by attending his appearance in Vancouver whether they support his efforts to muzzle academic criticism of Israeli policies, and if so, why?” continued Carl Rosenberg, spokesperson for Independent Jewish Voices. “We think that it sets a dangerous precedent when academics are dismissed because of their political positions.”