Iranian actress lashed for Australian movie appearance: there are more where she came from
October 11, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
The Australian Government has rightly condemned the Iranian decision to punish Iranian actress Marzieh Vafamehr with 90 lashes for participating in an Australian-made film that was critical of the Iranian regime. In a sense, however, Vafamehr is lucky that her “crime” had an Australian connection – this was enough to muster international support for her situation and will hopefully lead to her receiving better treatment. Unfortunately, the reprehensible abuse in Vafamehr’s case is just another episode in the Islamic Republic’s constant suppression of any dissent or criticism.
As noted in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal by American-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi, who was arrested in Iran in 2009 but freed under international pressure, while foreigners with international backing tend to be quickly released by the Iranians, Iran’s hundreds of domestic political prisoners are rarely as lucky.
Just after my release from a Tehran prison in May 2009, an Iranian prisoner wrote an open letter entitled, “I wish I were a Roxana.” Haleh Rouhi, a follower of Iran’s minority Baha’i faith, was serving a four-year sentence for antiregime propaganda, although she said she was simply “teaching the alphabet and numbers” to underserved children…
“Price Tag” crimes continue in Israel; near-universal condemnation expressed
October 10, 2011 | Or Avi Guy
In recent weeks, “price tag” crimes, committed by right-wing extremists, have intensified in Israel. Those acts included burning mosques in the West Bank and spraying them with graffiti, setting private Palestinian vehicles on fire, breaking into an IDF military base and sabotaging army vehicles in the base’s auto-shop and leaving threatening graffiti at a left-wing activist’s residents in Jerusalem. While the police and Shin – Bet are investigating these incidents, last week’s signalled yet another red line crossed as price tag acts were committed within Israeli town inside the 1967-lines (the “Green Line”), and fierce condemnations were expressed from all sides of the political spectrum.
AIJAC UPDATE – The political and moral costs of the failure to sanction Syria
October 7, 2011 | Tzvi Fleischer
Today’s Update looks at Syria, Iran and Turkey against the backdrop of the veto by China and Russia of sanctions by the UN Security Council against the Assad regime in Damascus for its ongoing violent crackdown against anti-government protesters. The resolution was supported by nine members but, significantly, Lebanon, which occupies a temporary seat on the Security Council, abstained from the vote, as did South Africa, India and Brazil. After the vote the EU indicated it intended passing its own sanctions against Syria. Meanwhile Turkey’s PM Recep Erdogan continues to use the Syria issue and relentlessly attacks Israel for his own regional ambitions. We offer a number of articles that reveal the changing dynamics in the Middle East that are are not receiving sufficient attention in Australia and elsewhere.
Iran’s Holocaust denial and 9/11 conspiracies becoming “stale”
October 7, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
In an amusing slip up captured by Foreign Policy‘s Colum Lynch, Dr Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been photographed sitting behind the Israeli desk. As Lynch notes, Iran rejects Israel’s existence to such an extent that Iranian representatives are not permitted to utter the word “Israel” and rather refer to the “Zionist entity”, making the photo (above) sadly ironic.
In fact, Iran seems to have been making the headlines a little over the last two days. Continuing the trend of leaving the important issues to the last minute, Iran’s nuclear program is again on the agenda while the world’s leaders are still gathered in New York. Graham Allison argues in today’s Washington Post that the US should take-up the offer Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made at the beginning of last month to stop enriching uranium in exchange for being sold pre-enriched uranium…
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PLO ambassador goes nuts in Brazil and calls for Israel’s destruction
October 7, 2011 | Allon Lee
The PLO ambassador to Brazil, Alzeben Ibrahim, has told a group of Brazilian university students that “Israel should disappear,” according to a Portuguese-language media report.
Explaining the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock
October 6, 2011
AIJAC Senior Policy Analyst Jamie Hyams interviewed on ABC News24 (28/9/11) explains why Palestinian intransigence and not Israeli settlement building is the real reason peace talks have not resumed since 2008.
He also discusses why the announcement of approval for a proposed application to build 1,100 homes in the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo does not warrant international attention or condemnation.
Russia and China veto Syria sanctions
October 5, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
After weeks of controversy over a Palestinian statehood bid of little real consequence, some in the UN have been attempting to shift their focus onto one of the many situations in the world in which innocent people are being killed on a daily basis. To this end, the UN Security Council attempted to pass a motion to prevent Syria’s ongoing crackdown on dissenting citizens. Initially, the European countries were attempting to sanction Syria through imposing an arms embargo. As Foreign Policy‘s UN correspondent Colum Lynch reports, even a watered-down version of this that merely condemned Syria and did not call for any tangible sanctions was vetoed by Russia and China…
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AIJAC UPDATE – The Principles and Principals of the Gilo Housing Project
October 5, 2011 | Tzvi Fleischer
Today’s Update looks at last week’s controversial approval for a proposed plan to build 1,100 homes within the boundaries of the Jewish suburb of Gilo in Jerusalem. Gilo lies just over the Green Line and is now home to 40,000 Israelis. As Commentary‘s Jonathan Tobin explains, Gilo is a symbol for many Israelis, having been a target for numerous terrorist sniper shootings during the Second Intifada and “was the laboratory where Palestinian terrorists sought to discover whether they could force Jews into abandoning their homes. They failed”.
Hamas calls for Palestinian ‘Resistance’
October 3, 2011 | Sharyn Mittelman
The latest news on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has focused on the announcement of the planned construction of new homes in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Gilo, which is located over the 1967 Green line.
Meanwhile, on October 1, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal also made an announcement that is a serious blow to peace efforts, yet this announcement was barely reported by the media.
Meshal told an international conference in Iran called the ‘5th International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada’, that: “Palestinians must resort to resistance no matter how costly it is, until Palestine is free and Israel is destroyed”. Hamas’ founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel and a Palestinian state in all of the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
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Media Week – Statehood Stand-off; ABC’s Boycott Boost
September 30, 2011 | Jamie Hyams
The Palestinian unilateral move for the UN to declare them a state again produced a vast array of media comment. The Australian (19/9) featured pieces by Israeli Ambassador Yuval Rotem and head of the General Delegation of Palestine Izzat Abdulhadi. Abdulhadi gave a history of the peace process that somehow omitted the offers of a Palestinian state and the Palestinian terrorism. Instead, he claimed, “Negotiating in good faith for 19 years, Palestinian people have not achieved freedom and independence in their own state, nor the end of the Israeli occupation.”
