Israeli innovations in the toilet… and everywhere else
August 1, 2012 | Andrea Nadel
Israel’s internal and external challenges often make headlines around the world. Israel’s contributions to improving living conditions for people the world over, however, are finally starting to get the world’s attention. Here are just a few recent examples which caught our eye.
Olympic opening ceremony reveals hypocrisy of the IOC refusal to honour Munich massacre victims
July 31, 2012 | Sharyn Mittelman
As expected, the Olympic opening ceremony was held on July 28 without a minute’s silence to honour the memory of the eleven Israeli athletes, who were brutally murdered by members of the Palestinian terrorist group ‘Black September’ forty years ago at the Munich Olympics.
However, many were disgusted by the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) refusal to agree to such a tribute and provided their own remembrance of Munich. In support of the cause, during the American broadcast, Bob Costas silenced his microphone for five seconds to honour the Munich victims. In another show of solidarity, some 30 members of the Italian Olympic delegation held a moment of silence at the entrance to the Israeli delegation’s residential compound in London.
Hamas courts Egypt’s Morsi, weighs Gazan independence
July 31, 2012 | Ahron Shapiro
Hamas officials, who had responded with elation over the election of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Muhammad Morsi to Egypt’s presidency in late June, have come calling in Cairo twice over the past week, seeking to collect on Morsi’s campaign promises to open Gaza’s border to more trade and easier freedom of movement.
Bulgaria attack underscores the absurdity of Israel’s exclusion from new Counterterrorism Forum
July 25, 2012 | Or Avi Guy
Kochava and Yitzhak Shriki were supposed to be celebrating right now. They recently found out that after years of fertility treatments their greatest wish was being granted – 44-year-old Kochava was finally pregnant with their first child. They were on their way to a short summer vacation in Burgas, Bulgaria. A few hours later, the Shriki’s dream has turned into a horrible nightmare when a suicide bomber exploded near a Bulgarian airport, right next to tourist buses packed with Israelis on their way from the airport to their hotels. Seven people were killed, five of them Israeli. One of them was Kochava.
Incitement watch: popular Egyptian comedy show, “I hate the Jews to death!”
July 24, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
In his book The Flight of The Intellectuals, Paul Berman noted a pivotal point in Arab antisemitism during the WWII-era alliance between Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Palestine. One of Husseini’s greatest “achievements” was to take Nazi anti-Jewish tropes and not only translate them into Arabic, but to put them in terms that made sense to the Muslim Arab population in the Middle East.
Decades later and the depth and degree of antisemitism in mainstream Arab discourse has become extremely confronting. A quick glance over all of our posts tagged with “antisemitism” will show how common this phenomenon really is, and for those of us who watch constantly see this material, the volume is unfortunately enough that we become a little desensitised to it.
That said, there will be times when anyone will be jolted out of their complacency. For this writer, the below video did the job…
A new phase of the Syrian civil war?/ Countering Iran’s “3D”s
July 20, 2012
This Update features some additional material on the changing situation in Syria following the bomb blast there on Wednesday which killed and wounded several leading regime figures.
First up is noted Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami, who looks at the ethnic reality of the Syrian state behind the recent killings and the current stage of the civil war. Ajami stresses that the Assad regime remains rooted in the Alawite minority, and the latest killing of some key regime players – two important Alawite commanders, and the much-less important Christian defence minister – illustrates how this regime has brought this minority both spoils and peril.
Libya, Post-Election/ Tide Turning in Syria?
July 19, 2012
This Update focuses primarily on the aftermath of the election in Libya earlier this month, but also looks at the apparent turn of battle in Syria, with rebel forces now engaging in extended battles with the regime in Damascus and a suicide bombing overnight killing several key regime figures – including the Defence Minister and President Assad’s brother-in-law – and wounding others, including the Intelligence Chief and Interior Minister.
Media Week – Remembering Shamir; Grave doubts; Over the top
July 19, 2012 | Allon Lee
Ruth Pollard in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald (2/7) asserted that former Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir’s “most criticised decision…was to undermine the 1987 agreement on Palestine reached by his foreign minister Shimon Peres and Jordan’s King Hussein”.
Contrary to Pollard’s implication, the agreement would not have created an independent Palestine but seen a resumption of Jordanian rule over the West Bank.
Pew Survey of Middle East reveals complex and sometimes conflicted feelings about democracy
July 18, 2012 | Andrea Nadel
The Pew Research Centre’s Global Attitudes Project has just released the results of surveys it conducted throughout the Middle East in the wake of the “Arab Spring.” The surveys reveal some interesting insights about attitudes in the Middle East in the wake of the recent uprisings, including how Middle Easterners weigh democracy, Islamism, economic strength and political stability in their own societies.
The seriously deadly fun of Palestinian summer camps
July 18, 2012 | Allon Lee
Hamas and its rival Fatah-run Palestinian Authority (PA) have learnt well the old dictum “Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man”, with both groups running annual summer camps that prime the next generation of Palestinians to hate Israel and become desensitised to terrorism.
