Thomas Johnson - The Blog

David Bullard To many it was unthinkable Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris and won a second term. In the run-up, American and other commentators were incredulous that the two would be so close given who Trump is and what he stands for. But here we are again. In his column Tuesday November 4 on Politicsweb, David Bullard wrote that while he's not fond of either Trump or Harris, he'd vote for Trump because he has job experience as president. (He conveniently excludes that Harris is vice-president.) He then attacks Harris for her policy of giving $20,000 to black Americans to start a business, which Bullard describes as a "handout", not help. He also criticises other proposed measures for the LGBTQ+ community in a derogatory way. But these were not Harris's only proposed policies. But it suits him that it was. Harris did not spark the imagination of many people, American liberals and around the world, particularly for siding with the status quo on Palestine. But Trump...

  Politicsweb's James Myburgh digs deep for a convoluted defense of Israel   People have drawn political and ideological lines over South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the ICJ in the Hague. Western countries, with the exception of Ireland and possibly Norway, the rightwing and Jews are against it while the global South, Russia and leftwing support it. Almost without exception there's hypocrisy on both sides.  Neither side has questioned the escalating tit-for-tat violence committed by Israel and Hamas. But as a fully recognised state and regional military and economic power, Israel bears greater responsibility for its actions. Its refusal to recognise a two-state solution, its occupation and settlement of the West Bank, Netanyahu's past facilitation of Hamas because it suited his political agenda and greed for power and disproportionate responses to Hamas attacks, which is causing far more Palestinian than Israeli deaths, indicates the scales are against Isra...