Portside

The International Trade Union Confederation, comprised of over 300 national trade union centers from 167 countries, has spoken up for Palestine. The AFL-CIO has not.

Why is dreaming of return laudable for Jews but pathological for Palestinians? Since World War II, the international bodies that oversee refugees have developed a clear ethical principle: People who want to return home should be allowed to do so.

The facts are too scarce, and the stakes are too high, to jump to conclusions. We cannot flourish as a society if a single accusation out of the blue upends an election overnight and ruins a 30-year career in politics.

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A biography of protean intellectual Edward Said situates the advocate for Palestinian statehood as a deep political thinker and skeptic of identity politics would both excoriate the crimes of Israel and the US and denounce Arab despotism.

Activists refer to a “Palestine exception to free speech” in North American universities.

The industry bemoans benefits, but workers don’t want jobs where pay is low and risks high, say Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, and author Mark Bittman.

Different palaeolithic populations around the world might have developed a crucial toolmaking skill independently. No mysterious migration required to explain how chipping technique appeared in different continents.

Drug possession is the No. 1 reason people were in Cook County Jail last year. That’s been the case for the better part of the past decade. Since 2006, people have been booked and released more than 100,000 times for possession, according to jail records. And during that same time period, taxpayers have spent $778 million jailing people on the lowest-level possession charges.

So far, 121 countries have signed the treaty, and 154 voted in favor of its adoption in April 2013 in the General Assembly. The successful entry into force of the ATT will be a big win for arms control campaigners and NGOs, who have been fighting for the regulation of the arms trade for more than a decade.