Media Week – McDonald’s harm; Palestinian racing story the pits; Highly speculative speculation
January 27, 2012 | Allon Lee
The Sydney Morning Herald‘s Hamish McDonald (Jan. 21) came away from a recent visit to Israel with the view that the country’s “old liberality” is being whittled away by the right and the ultra-orthodox.
The latter, he wrote, “are 20 per cent of the population, breeding three times faster than more secular Jews.” In fact the ultra-orthodox are 11 per cent of the Jewish population. He also wrote that they “are spilling out into the lands occupied since 1967, whittling down the territory held out to the Palestinians for their future state.”
Wrong again. Settlements themselves take up no more than 1-2 per cent of the West Bank, a fact Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accepted as true last November 3 on Arabic Radio As-Shams…
Palestinian-Israeli relationship: the good, the not-always-so-bad and the ever-ugly
January 25, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
Two news stories emerged today, both reporting positive steps forward in the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. The first of these concerns an online conference being held by a group called YaLa-Young Leaders, designed to bring people together from both sides and have a productive conversation about the conflict, hoping to form some genuine reconciliation efforts.
As Kel Si Loos reported in the Miami Herald, the group has been attracting a large number of members from the Middle East and…
The truth behind the “water libel”
January 25, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
The claim of Israel maliciously depriving Palestinians of water, in order to steal more for its own citizens, has been often repeated amongst Israel’s critics. To Jerusalem Post blogger Petra Marquardt-Bigman, the accusation is reminiscent of Medieval accusations of Jews poisoning water supplies:
I think of it as the “water libel” because it often echoes the medieval accusations that Jews were poisoning wells.
Most recently, it surfaced in a formal report by the French parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, which described…
One year on: how much has changed in Egypt?
January 25, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
The New York Times‘ Lede blog is commemorating the one year anniversary of the beginning of the Egyptian revolution through a post containing reflections by an Egyptian activist, interspersed with footage he took from the protests in Cairo on 25 January last year. The piece is quite moving and manages to recapture the sense of optimism and determination that was being felt at the time:
Although the battles would continue later that evening and over the following days, we all knew that something profound had just happened. There was a raised collective consciousness amongst us…
How different to the feeling now?…
New US and EU sanctions on Iran/Islamists in Egypt and the Palestinian territories
January 25, 2012
This update looks at the latest sanctions imposed by the US and European Union on Iran’s oil industry and Central Bank; how an Islamist-controlled Egyptian Parliament will affect the country’s ties with Israel; and the chances of Hamas winning Palestinian elections mooted to be held in May.
Positive Palestinian racers profile couldn’t avoid token Israel swipes
January 24, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
This weekend’s Fairfax papers included a report on an all-female Palestinian racing team by Ruth Pollard. While the piece was an interesting read overall, there are one or two small inconsistencies that are worth noting. In addition to this, there were a number of instances where the Age inserted small changes to make the tone of the article seem more anti-Israel. Some of these have been noted below.
Pollard profiles Noor Daoud, a Palestinian woman who won an Israeli formula-three competition last month. In the interview, Daoud explains how it is that she can no longer drive on the road.
”It is not the first time I have driven 200km/h – I lost my licence in 2009 when…
Iran “not developing a bomb” clarification
January 20, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
Earlier in the week, Overland editor Jeff Sparrow interpreted remarks from US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that Iran is not trying to develop a “nuclear weapon”, but a “nuclear capability” to mean that Iran’s nuclear program is entirely legal. While Sparrow was using this quote to help support a perverse conspiracy theory involving Israel, for reasons unknown, trying to dupe the rest of the world into punishing Iran, Panetta is not the only official to have stated that Iran is not developing a nuclear weapon. In fact, Panetta himself has made it clear that Iran could have a nuclear weapon within a year, were it to make the decision to build one. Furthermore, Reuters reported yesterday that Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said something similar, albeit in more detail…
International Parliamentary Union apologises for Hamas invitation
January 19, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
According to a recent AP report, after facing criticism from Israeli Knesset members for hosting two Hamas MPs at its recent conference, the International Parliamentary Union (IPU) has reportedly apologised to Israel.
Israel objected because the militant group has killed hundreds of Israelis in attacks over the years. Hamas is considered a terrorist group by the EU. and U.S.
The union’s secretary-general, Anders Johnsson…
On the danger of being a human rights activist in Gaza
January 18, 2012 | Allon Lee
It is lucky that freedom of speech is not the main selling point for Palestinian statehood because the stabbing of a human rights activist in Gaza who dared criticise the Hamas government and resistance groups would undermine the enterprise’s bona fides.
Mahmud Abu Rahma, international relations director at the al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, was “stabbed multiple times by several masked attackers on Friday evening”, according to an AFP report.
Iran’s nuclear program: covert action, Fordow, policy options
January 18, 2012
This Update offers threes pieces related to recent news on the ongoing crisis over Iran’s nuclear program.
First up, former security adviser to the British government Andrew Cummings explains the rationale behind the campaign of covert action against Iran, as epitomised by the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist last week. Cummings argues that those who assert that such moves are dangerous fail to understand that the alternatives are even more risky and fraught.
