Harry's Place

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency pays for the education of 200,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza strip.
It has produced a new history book designed for 13 year-olds which it wants to introduce into schools. The book contains, as history books do, a chapter on the Holocaust.
The Gaza strip is run by Hamas.
You can, of course, guess [...]

Sergei Mikhalkov, one of Stalin’s favorite propagandists, has died in Moscow at 96.
Among other things, he is known for writing and rewriting the words to the Soviet (and then the Russian) national anthem three times to suit the political line of the time.
In 1943, Mr. Mikhalkov, a young author and war correspondent whose poems were [...]

The Independent reports on the 40th anniversary celebration of Colonel Qaddafi’s seizure of power in a coup:
With 24 hours to go, Tripoli has taken on the frenetic aspect of a city hosting the Olympics. Scaffolding covers the main avenues as lakes of whitewash are slapped on to exposed concrete in last-minute sprucing efforts.
Thousands of people [...]

This is a guest post by Fiyaz Mughal of Faith Matters
There I was on Thursday the 27th of August standing outside Radegast station in Lodz in Poland. For this was no ordinary station nor stopping off point. It was the last railway stopping off point before Jews, gypsies and homosexuals were transported to the concentration [...]

“Al Quds Day” (“Jerusalem Day”) is an annual march for Israel haters, held worldwide on the last Friday of Ramadan. It was established by the Ayatollah Khomeini.
In London the march takes place on the weekend. It is organised by the self-styled Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC).
The IHRC is a Khomeinist group which campaigns [...]

Writing at The Guardian’s Comment is Free, Victoria Brittain lauds The New York Times for a special issue of its Sunday magazine highlighting women in the developing world as key agents of ending world poverty.
Fourteen years ago, in Beijing, the New York Times journalists covering the UN conference on women said openly that they had [...]

Liane Hansen of National Public Radio interviews photographer Norman Gershman, author of Besa: Muslims Who Saved Jews in World War II.

I’ve been spending probably more time than I should looking at the British newspaper clippings from George Orwell’s diaries of 70 years ago. But I’m glad I saw this from The Telegraph of August 28, 1939 (click to enlarge):

Is this self-satire? I fear not.

Am I a liberal spelling elitist for linking to it? Possibly.
(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)
And for a refreshingly different view of Obama, watch John “Glossy Uncle Tom” Pilger address the International Socialist Organization (more or less the equivalent of the SWP in the UK, despite their tragic split) in San Francisco.

(Hat [...]

This is a cross-post from Ben Cohen of the Z-Word blog

Writing in the execrable Counterpunch, Gilad Atzmon, along with an apparently “adorable” friend of his, dreams of being taken hostage:
“In my dreams I was also held hostage, and very much like in the case of the above dream, I was quick to announce my support [...]