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Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.



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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement



SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris





SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018



SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018





SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018




SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017






SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017



SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017



SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017




SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017



SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017



SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017



SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017



SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017




SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017




SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven




2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.



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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.


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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

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"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.





Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.



JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

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Palestinian Prisoner Hunger Strike Marks Renewed Emphasis on Nonviolent Resistance

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Posted May 9, 2012

Interview with Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Palestinian American activist and author of “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment”, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

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Even as Israeli government leaders continue to press their case for military action against Iran, targeting their nuclear capability, they continue to ignore the issue of Palestinian rights as their occupation of the West Bank marks its 45th year. In President Barack Obama's last meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, neither man even raised the Palestinian issue. But Palestinians themselves are moving ahead with campaigns of nonviolent resistance, including prisoner hunger strikes, promotion of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign and other creative responses.

During a recent convention of the United Methodist Church, delegates voted against two proposals to divest church holdings in companies which support the Israeli occupation. Even though advocates of divestment lost the debate, supporters of Palestinian rights assert that the church vote shone an important light on the issue. Currently, over 1,500 Palestinians are on hunger strike in Israeli prisons, including two who are near death, as they protest their incarceration under administrative detention without charge or trial. Ten of the jailed hunger strikers have been hospitalized after maintaining their fast for 70 days.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus, spoke with Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Palestinian American who lived for many years in the U.S., but returned several years ago to his family home in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem in the West Bank. Qumsiyeh, author of “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment” and a leader in the popular resistance movement, was arrested last November with several other Palestinian activists after they boarded a bus bound for Jerusalem, where they legally are not allowed to travel. He discusses the importance of various forms of nonviolent direct action in the struggle against Israeli occupation and oppression.

MAZIN QUMSIYEH: Political prisoners are always centers of the problem, because they are the ones paying the price for these forms of resistance. Also sometimes just paying the price without any resistance because Israel keeps, for example, hundreds of people in their prison who have not done anything and certainly have never seen a judge, even. There are hundreds under administrative detention without charge, without seeing a judge. So those people become the focal point of the resistance, and popular resistance or nonviolent resistance certainly extends into the prisons, and the hunger strike is a prime tool of using this method to pressure the occupiers to at least give them some decent treatment, in this case, allow family visits. Israel prevents family visits for hundreds and thousands of Palestinian prisoners, regularly.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What's the status of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement? As you know, an effort by some members of the Methodist Church to divest of some corporations involved in the occupation just failed.

MAZIN QUMSIYEH: Well, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement continues to grow and is very successful, and the evidence for that is the paranoia by which Israel and its Zionist supporters around the world treat any attempt to even mild divestment or boycott attempts similar to what happened in South Africa. The latest example of this is the horrendous attack on the Methodist Church, which wanted to divest from three companies that invest in the occupation – Motorola and Caterpillar and one other company – American companies that really support the occupation. Caterpillar, for example, supplies bulldozers that are specifically designed for the Israeli army against their own policies and against ethical practices and against international law. Israel uses these bulldozers to destroy Palestinian houses, to uproot olive trees, and to basically even kill residents of this area. They even used a Caterpillar to kill an American citizen; Rachel Corrie, who was a 23-year-old student, went to Rafah and tried to stand in front of a bulldozer to stop the destruction of a Palestinian house. This is common practice, to use this equipment made in America and paid for by our taxes – because the U.S. gives Israel billions of dollars every year – that use American taxpayer money to pay for these things.

BETWEEN THE LINES: When you said there was a horrendous attack on supporters of divestment in the Methodist Church, what do you mean by that?

MAZIN QUMSIYEH: Well, there was a lobbying campaign that was done against the United Methodist Church for their even mild resolution of divestment from those three companies that invest in the illegal occupation of Palestinian land. And this pressure on the U.S. Methodists partially succeeded with some of them, not all of them, and certainly there are at least three Methodist communities that have already divested. And there was also success in the sense that all this education and debate and the fact that many Methodist priests (sic) and other officials of the church were subjected to attacks, called anti-Semites, called names and so on – many of these people who were attacked unfairly for standing up for human rights have become even more determined to pursue justice and human rights. If Israel and its supporters around the world who support, basically, the violation of human rights, think they can intimidate people or silence people by their methods of coercion and intimidation and lobbying, then they are highly mistaken. I think they see that there's actually growth of the people who are actually opposed to these policies.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Another example of nonviolent direct action was the freedom ride that you and several other Palestinians participated in late last year, boarding a bus in the West Bank headed for Jerusalem, when Palestinians are barred from such buses. And you were all arrested. Have there been any more such rides?

MAZIN QUMSIYEH: Well, we have been trying to come up with new ideas, and the latest ideas after the freedom ride on the bus we came up with is this "Welcome to Palestine" campaign you may have heard of. About 1,500 internationals tried to come to Ben Gurion airport (in Tel Aviv, Israel) and declare openly that they're coming to visit us in Bethlehem, in Palestinian areas. And Israeli authorities extended their jurisdiction to European airports and demanded that airlines around the world cancel reservations, and some airlines complied with these Israeli threats and intimidation, and this actually turned out to be good for us. As I said, every time Israel supporters try to use intimidation and coercion, they just prove our point that this is not a democratic country it claims to be, but is a country of thieves and thugs, basically, and a fascist country that silences free speech. And this was shown amply by this action, and we are now planning additional actions along these lines that expose Israeli apartheid for what it is.

Visit Mazin Qumsiyeh’s website at Qumsiyeh.org.

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