Does Australia have the strength to show weakness like Israel?
October 19, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
Interviewed last night by ABC Lateline‘s Ali Moore, former Haaretz editor David Landau, who once infamously told then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he wished to see Israel “raped” in a US intervention forcibly imposing a settlement to the conflict, expressed his horror at the “weakness” that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is displaying to the world. According to Landau, Netanyahu did so through his sudden reversal of his previous refusal to agree to a prisoner exchange for Gilad Shalit.
I find myself in a strange and invidious situation because I’m not naturally of the right. I’m very much of the peace camp of the side of the sort of, so to speak, political spectrum that’s always encouraged dealing with the Palestinians in the hope of making a final peace deal with the Palestinians, yet I find myself frankly horrified and, as an Israeli, also mortified by this shameless turnabout by the prime minister, Mr Netanyahu…
[Post continues]
How international NGOs failed Gilad Shalit
October 19, 2011 | Allon Lee
In the wake of Gilad Shalit’s release overnight from captivity in Gaza, major international NGOs have come in for criticism for not publicising his illegal incarceration by Hamas, an organisation on whose behalf these same NGOs have tirelessly campaigned to pressure Israel to lift its legal blockade of Gaza.
Iran’s alleged Washington plot re-examined
October 19, 2011 | Tzvi Fleischer
As noted in the last Update, the recently exposed alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the US at a Washington restaurant – and commit a number of the other terror attacks in the US – is a big story which has provoked much commentary and analysis.
Some of that analysis, such as by former CIA agent Robert Baer on ABC-TV’s “Lateline” has cast doubt on the story, arguing the alleged plot, as outlined, appears too amateurish and slapdash to be the work of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp.
What price to free one man?
October 18, 2011 | Allon Lee
As the five-year hostage ordeal of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit draws to a close, we offer up some of the standout commentary from the last week on the merits of the deal reached by the Israeli government with Hamas.
The tension in the debate concerns the personal interest and the national interest and how these two forces interact have caused intense heartache and headaches for Israel.
Palestinians prisoners to be released – many with blood on their hands
October 18, 2011 | Sharyn Mittelman
Israel released the names of the Palestinian prisoners to be released in deal to free IDF soldier Gilad Shalit who has been held captive by Hamas since 2006. The prisoners include some of the most notorious terrorists perpetrators against Israel including individuals involved in the Sbarro and Café Moment suicide bombings, murderers of Nachshon Wachsman and the video taped October 2000 lynch of IDF reservists Vadim Nurzhitz and Yossi Avrahami in Ramallah.
Yesterday, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected four petitions against the prisoner swap deal to free Shalit. The petitions were filed by the Almagor Terror Victims Association and relatives of Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks.
Post continues
Media Week – Fraser Strikes Again; Wakim’s Rant; Perspective on Gilo
October 14, 2011 | Jamie Hyams
There has once again been a plethora of pieces about the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN. Probably the most misguided was by Malcolm Fraser in the Age (4/10). Dismissing as “thin” the sensible argument that agreement should come through negotiations, he disturbingly claimed that Western opposition to the Palestinian bid was “because of the lock that Israel has over the policies of too many Western countries.” His “two major stumbling blocks to peace” were not Palestinian intransigence, but Palestinian division and “the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, the daily diminution of what might become Palestine.” In fact, building in settlements since 2003 has only been within the existing settlement boundaries, so there has been no diminution of land.
A Deal on Gilad Shalit/ Egypt and the Copts
October 12, 2011
As readers are hopefully aware, the big news out of Israel is the approval given overnight by the Israeli cabinet to a deal that will see long-captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit released by Hamas in exchange for more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners. (The reported details of the deal have been summarised by AIJAC’s own Sharyn Mittelman.) Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s statement on the Egyptian-German mediated agreement is here. AIJAC’s statement on this news is here.
Breakdown of Iranian attempted assassination of Saudi official on US soil
October 12, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
This morning (Australian time), US Attorney-General Eric Holder announced that two men had been charged with attempting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US and, more significantly, doing so on behalf of the Iranian government. The two men were Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalised US citizen of Iranian origin, and Gholam Shakuri, who is believed to be in Iran. Incredibly, Arbabsiar cooperated with the US authorities once arrested and so much of the information on the assassination plot was collected from his testimony.
Naturally, the Iranian government has denied the allegations and blamed a Zionist conspiracy.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called the claims a “prefabricated scenario” and a “ridiculous show…
[Post continues]
In 1949, who wanted a Palestinian state? Only Israel!
October 12, 2011 | Allon Lee
It won’t stop the revisionist propaganda underpinning the Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence campaign, but newspaper accounts from 1949 prove that the nascent State of Israel supported the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza and opposed the land being absorbed by surrounding Arab countries.
