The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
SEPTEMBER 16 marks the 40th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the killing of around 3,000 Palestinians at the hands of Lebanon’s Phalangist militias operating under the command of the Israeli army.
Four decades have passed, yet no measure of justice has been received by the survivors of the massacre. Many of them have died, and others are ageing while they carry the scars of physical and psychological wounds, in the hope that, perhaps, within their lifetime they will see their executioners behind bars.
However, many of the Israeli and Phalange commanders who had ordered the invasion of Lebanon, orchestrated or carried out the heinous massacres in the two Palestinian refugee camps in 1982, have already died. Ariel Sharon, who was implicated by the official Israeli Kahan Commission a year later for his “indirect responsibility” for the grisly mass killing and rape, later rose in rank to become, in 2001, Israel’s prime minister.
RAMZY BAROUD assesses the notable shift of US public opinion away from a carte blanche for Israel’s actions in the Middle East
While international attention focuses on ceasefire frameworks, Israel is openly advancing plans for a permanent expansion of its control over Gaza, writes RAMZY BAROUD
RAMZY BAROUD looks at how entire West Bank communities have been shattered, their social and physical fabric deliberately dismantled by Israel to enable its formal annexation
SWEE ANG, the founder of Medical Aid for Palestinians, is a big believer in the power of small actions, and she is the living proof it works, writes Linda Pentz Gunter


