Striking prisoners are no Gandhi-esque resisters
May 22, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
Before the deal that ended it last week, the recent Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike in Israeli prisons was being presented as some kind of grand, Gandhi-esque “resistance” movement, pitting peaceful Palestinian “political prisoners” against cruel Israelis. This is certainly the impression that Randa Abdel-Fattah attempted to give in her recent piece on the subject.
As with many claims in the sadly still-unresolved Arab-Israel conflict, this general narrative is little more than a propaganda exercise, aimed at winning undeserved sympathy for people who are far from innocent.
Professor’s irrational criticism of Jews crosses the line
May 10, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
NORWEGIAN professor Johan Galtung, an “off-site lecturer” at the University of Sydney’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, recently exposed himself as one who irrationally criticises Jews.
Galtung’s previous commentary on Israel was indistinguishable from the general line followed by CPACS and other academics in the dubious “peace and conflict studies” discipline that he is credited with founding.
What’s wrong with the ‘Black Box’ view of terrorism?
April 17, 2012 | Tzvi Fleischer and Sharyn Mittelman
Rachel Woodlock’s latest contribution to the debate about terrorism following the crimes of Mohamed Merah in Toulouse last month is unfortunately a good illustration of the problem we were trying to call attention to in our initial response.
She clearly is very uncomfortable with anyone discussing the extremist ideology that motivates individuals like Merah. Moreover, when the issue is raised, her response appears to be to relate any such discussion to “anti-Muslim stereotyping.”
Israel’s silence on Syria isn’t a conspiracy
April 10, 2012 | Ahron Shapiro
The question has arisen over Israel’s position on the appalling situation in Syria, where the lives of over 9,000 civilians have been claimed in a crackdown on protesters and an insurrection by opposition groups.
Some commentators have unfairly interpreted the Israeli government’s comparative silence over the bloodshed compared to other regional and Western countries as cold indifference, others as calculated.
Bizarrely and contradictorily, Israel has been criticised by some commentators for wanting to keep the current government in place and by others for seeking to topple it.
Passover reminds that slavery is not just ancient history
April 6, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
On Friday night, while the Christian world is celebrating Good Friday and the rest of Australia is celebrating a four-day weekend, the Jewish community in Australia will be holding the annual Passover seder, marking the beginning of the week of Passover.
The story of the children of Israel’s escape from Egypt is well-known – there was even an animated movie about it – yet Jews are called upon to recount the Exodus each year in its entirety as if it were we who had left slavery in Egypt towards freedom in the Promised Land.
Emanuele Ottolenghi: Iran regime change only hope
April 3, 2012 | Emanuele Ottolenghi
A cold war will quickly turn into a hot one unless drastic action is taken.
As the drumbeat of war mounts in the Middle East, people wonder if an Iran-Israel war is inevitable.
Iran’s rhetoric about wiping Israel off the map continues unabated – as does its quest for nuclear weapons. Israel views the combination of Tehran’s relentless rhetoric against the Jewish state with a nuclear weapon as an existential threat…
Jihadism, Antisemitism and the truth about the Toulouse murders
March 30, 2012 | Tzvi Fleischer & Sharyn Mittelman
When is a hate crime not a hate crime? Apparently, when a self-proclaimed “Islamic warrior” seeks out an obscure Jewish school, and shoots dead a teacher and three small children simply for being Jews – at least according to some reactions to the massacre that occurred in Toulouse, France on 19 March.
Rather than compromising, Hamas is gaining confidence
March 21, 2012 | Colin Rubenstein
Over the past weekend, over two hundred rockets were fired into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, injuring several people, sending up to a million Israelis to the bomb shelter, and canceling school for approximately 200,000 students. Israeli air strikes targeted the Popular Resistance Committee (PRC) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – the groups responsible for the rocket attacks – killing 26 Palestinians of whom 22 were terrorists, many hit in the act of firing rockets.
The facts and the hearsay on Israel
March 19, 2012 | Ahron Shapiro
Terror sponsorship has been around for as long as terrorism.
It’s a phenomenon that has been widely recognised, which allows a group to use terrorism as a tool while insulating themselves from direct responsibility. As an added benefit, in some cases it allows for additional logistical possibilities in planning a terror attack.
Naturally, nobody should be fooled: a terror sponsor who provides planning and support for a terror attack is as responsible as those who are sent to pull the trigger.
The problematic Palestinian unity government deal
March 9, 2012 | Colin Rubenstein
While the fractured rule of the Fatah-dominated PA in the West Bank and the Hamas-led Gaza Strip has been an obstacle to a two-state peace solution with Israel, it does not follow that this move towards Palestinian unification will improve the chances for peace. On the contrary, though the prospect of a functioning Palestinian unity government is by no means assured and indeed looks like being postponed yet again, even if it can be realised, any such government may carry with it dangerous implications…
Angelic Arabs and murderous Jews add up to televisual propaganda
February 16, 2012 | Jamie Hyams & Tzvi Fleischer
PROPAGANDA comes in many forms. The British/French mini-series, The Promise, recently shown over four consecutive Sundays on SBS TV, is a particularly insidious example. It tells the story of a British girl, Erin, just out of school, who stays with the family of her closest friend in Israel during the second intifada.
She has taken the diary of her grandfather Len, who served as a British soldier in mandate Palestine from 1945 to 1948, so the action switches between the British battling the treacherous Jews in the 1940s and the brutal Israelis oppressing the Palestinians today.
Tough targeted sanctions needed against Iran
January 20, 2012 | Colin Rubenstein
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report released in November 2011 provides the strongest evidence to date that Iran has undertaken research and experiments geared towards developing nuclear weapons. And just last week, the IAEA confirmed that Iran was enriching uranium up to 20 percent, a major step toward weapons grade level, at an underground site at ‘Fordow’, a once-secret underground site revealed in September 2009 by the US, France and Britain.
