Iran and the Huawei controversy
April 2, 2012 | Sharyn Mittelman
Recently the Australian media has been focused on news that the Australian government blocked the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from participating in the national broadband network (NBN).
While most commentators are discussing the cyber security concerns, few are raising Huawei’s questionable activities in Iran – with reports that Huawei empowered the Iranian regime to track dissidents during the 2009 demonstrations.
Global march to hypocrisy takes shape
March 30, 2012 | Ahron Shapiro
An annual Palestinian day of protest commonly known as Land Day has been rebranded this year as the Palestinian camp seeks to maximize international exposure to their agenda with a “Global March to Jerusalem”, scheduled for later today, March 30.
What groups are behind it? There is growing evidence that Iran has a significant role behind the event, as GLORIA Centre analyst Jonathan Spyer wrote for PJ Media this week…
On the way to an Islamic constitution? The Muslim Brotherhood tries to hijack the Egyptian transition to ‘democracy’
March 30, 2012 | Or Avi Guy
As a step in the transition to democracy in Egypt, a body was formed to draft a new constitution prior to the presidential elections (scheduled to be held in May). This constitution is set to determine major issues such as the role of religion, the balance between the President and the parliament’s authority and minority and women’s rights.
It was always expected that heated debates would emerge around the content of the constitution. However, according to recent developments, the first political crisis regarding the constitution revolves around the make up of the panel itself, and that debate makes it clear that for all their assertions about having reformed and their expressed desire to govern Egypt in a democratic and pluralistic manner, it appears that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is determined to use their political clout to Islamise Egypt.
Aussie ex-pat brings Murray-Darling spirit to Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians
March 29, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
On a family rip back to Australia, Gidon Bromberg, an Australian environmental activist now living in Israel, picked up a copy of Chris Hammer’s book The River: A Journey Through The Murray-Darling. Bromberg was inspired by Hammer’s description of the process that led to the Federal Government passing legislation in 2007 to protect the river basin; so inspired, in fact, that he decided to bring Hammer to Israel and attempt to replicate the feat and help the long-suffering Jordan River.
Bromberg has written about this in today’s Jerusalem Post…
Power shortage fuelling anti-Hamas sentiment in Gaza
March 29, 2012 | Ahron Shapiro
A fuel shortage in Gaza Strip has created some genuine hardships in the Hamas-run entity, affecting power generation as well as transportation.
The crisis has produced a rare glimpse into the state of play between Hamas, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, as each side has begun blaming one another for the situation, with no role for Israel, except for Hamas to conspiratorially smear against its political opponents.
UNHRC green-lights Goldstone II: The settlements
March 27, 2012 | Ahron Shapiro
We’ve seen this movie before.
Coming soon from the same producers of the discredited Goldstone Report on the 2009 Gaza War – the UN Human Rights Council – is a sequel: A “fact-finding” mission to investigate the impact of Israeli settlements in the West Bank on Palestinians. Co-sponsors of the resolution that authorised it include Syria and Iran.
Toulouse school’s decision to cut security may have implications on Australia
March 27, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
In this post last month, I argued that the Jewish community in Australia does have the unfortunate need for security at Jewish schools, which remain a target for terrorists, a statement that I later affirmed after the Toulouse attacks. This was to rebut statements made by former Australian Jewish News editor Dan Goldberg, reported in The Age in January – well before the attack in Toulouse – suggesting that the money could be better spent elsewhere:
[Former AJN editor Dan] Goldberg suggested the rising costs of security were helping push up education fees so that ever more money would be spent on protecting ever fewer children…
Road to Toulouse paved with incitement
March 23, 2012 | Ahron Shapiro
The massacre of three students and a teacher (and father of two of the children) at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France has understandably prompted condemnations and statements of outrage from world leaders, diplomats and pundits that have followed similar anti-Semitic atrocities in the past.
Some analysts, however, have discerned a troubling equivocation in some of these responses. By failing to acknowledge the underlying antisemitism and anti-Israel incitement that fuelled the attack, the commentators said, a festering hatred is allowed to persist, and the next attack is only a matter of time.
The Aftermath of Toulouse
March 23, 2012
With the self-confessed murderer, a 23-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origins named Mohamed Merah, now having been killed by French police, this Update looks at the aftermath of the horrific shootings of three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, earlier this week. (Some chilling details of the murderers actions at the Ozer HaTorah school, as revealed on security camera footage, are here.)
On Toulouse shootings, Sydney Morning Herald editorial writers fail to read their own coverage
March 22, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
The Sydney Morning Herald editorialised this morning on the possible identity of the Toulouse shooter and pondered what group he may have been affiliated to. Curiously, these questions seem to have been answered just three pages earlier.
…As to whether he [the shooter] is a deranged loner or a fanatical terrorist acting for some group is unclear. While this week’s school attack was an atrocity against Jews, anti-Semitism alone does not seem to account for last week’s murders in which the paratrooper victims were dark-skinned, hailing from either Muslim North Africa or the West Indies. One notion is that the gunman thought he was striking a blow for the Palestinian cause – French paratroops have served in Afghanistan…
