The Saudi-led, US-backed carpet bombing of Yemen receives no coverage in US media while the bombing is taking out everything that stands including homes, government buildings, hospitals & clinics, & this food storage warehouse. The bombing has gone on nonstop since March. Thousands have been bombed to death, thousands injured, nearly two million displaced & made homeless.

This barbaric siege isn’t about Houthi & al-Qaeda fighters; it’s about bombing the Yemen uprising in 2011 to smithereens–& it is intended as a warning to peoples everywhere that this is what’s in store for them if they attempt a revolution against tyranny. Yemen has become a wasteland of rubble, a killing field like Gaza & Syria.

By whose authority does Mahmoud Abbas speak? He calls himself president of the State of Palestine but there is no such state. He was elected head of the Palestinian National Authority, formed out of the Oslo Accords to preside over the surrender of Palestinians. But his term in that treacherous capacity ended in January 2009. So who the hell is he talking for if not the most conservative forces in Palestinian society? Surely he doesn’t represent those involved in Intifada on the front lines of struggle against Israeli occupation.

Helen Mirren loves Israel–despite apartheid, carpet bombing of Gaza, & extra judicial executions of protesters. Thus she detests BDS, the boycott of Israel. When interviewed before receiving her achievement award from the Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Mirren said she agreed with British Zionist figures, including JK Rowling, who signed an open letter last week opposing the cultural boycott of Israel & calling for cultural engagement “as a way to promote peace between Israel & the Palestinians.” Mirren said that quite earnestly whilst Israel is engaged in a violent pogrom against Palestinians.

For the second time this month Amnesty International condemned Israel for a “clear pattern” of extrajudicial executions of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem & West Bank. Since October 1st up till yesterday, 64 Palestinians (mainly teens) have been shot dead by Israelis while eleven Israelis have allegedly (& questionably) been killed in “stabbings & shootings” by Palestinians. To explain the glaring disparity in fatalities, Israel reports that 37 of the Palestinians shot dead were “assailants armed mainly with knives” but hasn’t provided a shred of forensic evidence & buries the bodies in secret.

Using his Nobel Peace Prize face rather than his toothy grin face, Obama authorized sending 50 US special forces (psycho killers) to Syria to “advise & assist the Syrian opposition” in its fight against ISIS. No indication of how many mercenaries will be sent.

The US is on a slippery slope heading straight to another war. And it isn’t even yet sure who the “enemy combatants” will be. Or at least, we aren’t

Build the international antiwar movement. No US wars!

Some people will do anything to grab an honorific but actress Helen Mirren waxed genuinely enthusiastic about Israel when she was feted with a career achievement award at the 29th Israel Film Festival in Beverly Hills on Wednesday.

In her effusive speech declaring love for Israel, she said she worked on a kibbutz after the 1967 war & attributed her acting success partially to Israeli influences. She praised the developing Israeli film industry so perhaps she figures she can get work there when Hollywood has cast her aside as too old. Or she’ll be good in propaganda films making apartheid & ethnic cleansing look stylish.

When Pope Francis speaks on Catholic faith & morals, no one would utter a peep of criticism. His comments would be respected as part of religious freedom, even with all the monarchical trappings of the Vatican. But when he enters the political arena, he is no longer speaking ex-cathedra as the Catholic pope & he has to face the music of his politics just like everyone else–especially since his views on several political questions are less than infallible.

October 28th was the 50th anniversary of “Nostra Aetate,” or “In Our Time,” a 1965 declaration on the relation of Catholicism with non-Christian religions. The document was intended to change the rancid intolerance of the Vatican toward Jews, Muslims, Hindus, & Buddhists–an intolerance that led the Vatican to shameful collusion with Nazis during WWII under Pope Pius XII.

Pope Francis dedicated his general audience on Wednesday to touting “In Our Time” & invited representatives from non-Christian religions as honored guests. A large contingent was present from the World Jewish Congress (WJC) who had called their annual conference in Rome to coincide with the anniversary of the declaration. The WJC, headed by Ronald Lauder, is one of the most powerful Zionist groups in the world.

The Vatican’s hateful relations with other religions needed to be changed so commemorating a shift from blaming Jews for the death of Jesus–which for centuries fed hatred & persecution of Jews–to ecumenism is entirely laudatory. But Pope Francis didn’t leave it at that. His homily not only condemned anti-Semitism but he claimed attacks on Israel’s right to exist are a form of it: “To attack Jews is anti-Semitism, but an outright attack on the State of Israel is also anti-Semitism. There may be political disagreements between governments & on political issues, but the State of Israel has every right to exist in safety & prosperity.”

What he didn’t address in his homily was the right of Palestinians to exist in safety & prosperity. And he didn’t utter a peep opposing Israel’s current pogrom against them. He did however lament the rise of terrorism & fundamentalism. Now whose terrorism do you think he might be talking about? Israel’s against unarmed Palestinians? Or was he referring in veiled language to the “stabbing Intifada” alleged by apologists for Israel’s pogrom?

WJC president Ronald Lauder praised the pope for his comments about anti-Semitism. Of course he did! It was a propaganda coup to have the pope equate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. He said Francis “inspires people with his warmth & his compassion. His clear & unequivocal support for the Jewish people is critical to us.” Of course it is–although not everyone is inspired by his lack of compassion for Palestinians. That’s why the pope said it–to align the Vatican with apartheid Israel against the Palestinians. Unfortunately just like Pius XII did with fascism against Jews.

The pope can sing that humble pie stuff till the cows come home but if he turns his back on Palestinian justice in a Bernie Sanders-style political maneuver, we have every right to excoriate him.

Photo is WJC president Lauder (on left) with Pope Francis & other WJC officials at Vatican on Oct 28th, 2015.

(Photo from WJC)