Fact rather than Fable in the Iraq Debate
October 10, 2006 | Ted Lapkin
It is late-October of an even numbered year, and that means it’s election season in the United States. And it also seems to be the season for the deployment of pseudo-science in a bald-faced campaign to sway AmericaÂ?s choice of leadership.
The problem of squaring a circle
September 30, 2006 | Colin Rubenstein
Both Israel and Palestinian politics are currently in a state of flux. The conduct and consequences of the war against Hizbollah have seen a very intense debate in Israel. The future of the current ruling coalition, elected in May, is meanwhile very much up in the air. Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced a couple of weeks ago agreement on the imminent formation of a new Fatah-Hamas unity government. However, continuing disagreements over the government’s platform have left him unable to bring it to fruition so far.
Corrupt regimes are the source of extremism and terrorism
September 20, 2006 | Colin Rubenstein
After five years, we have avoided some of our worst post-9/11 fears. We have seen Bali, Madrid, London, Mumbai, and many smaller attacks by terrorists driven by the same Islamist totalitarian ideology that inspired the September 11 atrocities. But despite some attempts, there has been no successful attack on a similar scale since then. Moreover, the nightmare scenario – a terrorist attack on a major Western city with non-conventional weapons – has not come to pass.
Hezbollah’s new battle at home
September 3, 2006 | Ted Lapkin
IF LOVE means never having to say you’re sorry, that principle should apply with redoubled force when the emotion in question is hate. So when Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah publicly apologised for igniting the recent Lebanese conflict, his boasts of victory over Israel began to ring a tad hollow.
How to stop another war
August 21, 2006 | Tzvi Fleischer
WITH the smoke still clearing from Lebanon and northern Israel, the crucial question is whether the post-war resolution will remove the sources of the violence. Otherwise, the world will witness a similar round of conflict in another few months or years, with all the suffering that will entail.
Al Jazeera comes to Australia
August 15, 2006 | Colin Rubenstein
So will Al Jazeera give Australians a new perspective on the Middle East? Joining us now in Sydney to discuss this is Media analyst Dr Adel Iskander who is visiting from the American University in Washington to talk about his latest book, one of the first studies of Al Jazeera, “How the Arab News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East”. Also in Sydney, Dr Colin Rubinstein from the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Committee, who has been critical of Al Jazeera saying it maintains a consistent anti-Israeli bias in its broadcasts.
A good resolution, but can it be put into lasting effect?
August 15, 2006 | Colin Rubenstein
THE principles enunciated in UN Security Council Resolution 1701 on Lebanon, passed on Friday, are a positive step towards a sustainable end to the bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The overarching problem, unfortunately, is that this resolution appears to lack adequate mechanisms to implement those principles.
Hezbollah stands in way of peace
August 14, 2006 | Colin Rubenstein
When the Hezbollah-Israel war began in mid-July, many in the Arab world made some startling comments. “The operations of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are in the interest of people of Arab countries and the international community,” wrote the editor of the Kuwaiti Arab Times. Milder statements in the same vein – blaming Hezbollah for the violence – came from across the Arab world, including the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.
Just the facts, Maam
August 11, 2006 | Ted Lapkin
The proposition that political argument should be built on an accurate factual foundation is neither revolutionary nor controversial. Or so I thought. But Melbourne University Publishing’s (MUP) Louise Adler seems to think that factual exactitude is a secondary issue where anti-Israel polemics are concerned. She sidesteps any real mention of the inaccuracies that pervade Loewenstein?s work, dismissing any such complaints as mere manifestations of a malign Zionist conspiracy to demean his book. But in retrospect, Adler’s lack of critical judgement on Israel-related topics should come as no surprise.
Have the strength to defend your views
August 10, 2006 | Ted Lapkin
FOR someone who accuses Israel of suffering from an exaggerated sense of victim-hood, freelance journalist Antony Loewenstein (whose work appeared in Perspectives on Monday) is afflicted by his own case of raging paranoia.
Antony Loewenstein’s Reign of Error
August 7, 2006 | Ted Lapkin
After only a week on the bookstore shelves, it seems that Antony Loewenstein’s My Israel Question is undergoing a second print run. This might indicate that the book is going like hotcakes. But according to Neilsen?s Bookscan, which keeps tabs on book sales nationwide, only 318 copies were sold during that period.
War as an extension of politics
August 7, 2006 | Ted Lapkin
General Patton once observed that you don’t win wars by dying for your country; you win them by making the other poor bastard die for his. But Hezbollah has turned that pearl of military wisdom on its head. These jihadists are trying to defeat Israel, not by killing Jews, but by engineering a slaughter of the Lebanese populace.
