Media Week – Five star hotel, one star article; Gymnast for Palestine; Palestinian UN-truths exposed
September 12, 2011 | Allon Lee
The Age (27/8) ran a profile by Guardian Middle East correspondent Harriet Sherwood of Gaza’s only five-star hotel. Adopting the usual kid gloves on Hamas but iron fist for Israel approach the Guardian excels at, Sherwood blamed the blockade for the hotel’s lack of guests: “At times there have been long delays in getting imported supplies through the tightly controlled crossing from Israel into Gaza”.
The blockade was co-enforced by Egypt on its shared border with Gaza until recently but the article ran in Britain last month at a time when Egypt had supposedly lifted the blockade. Failure to mention either of these facts, suggests alarming ignorance, partisan bias or both.
A Slogan without Reality for an Argument without Merit
September 12, 2011 | Tzvi Fleischer
The Canberra Times today published this letter which I wrote in response to a particularly ill-informed piece by former Australian Ambassador Peter Rodgers arguing for an Australian ‘yes” vote on the Palestinian bid to have the existence of a Palestinian state unilaterally recognised at the UN…
I think the letter does a reasonable job of answering his main argument, which is based on the historically absurd assumption that Israel is refusing to recognise Palestinian aspirations for statehood. But I did want to say a little more about the point I make in the second paragraph about the supposed Zionist slogan quoted by Rodgers “A land without people for a people without a land.”
Ahmadinejad commemorates 9/11
September 12, 2011 | Tzvi Fleischer
While the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks were being commemorated around the globe, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chose to participate in the remembrances in his inimitable and subtle way – that is, by re-iterating his belief that it was all a US plot to have an excuse to kill Muslims.
Europe and the UN resolution on a Palestinian State
September 9, 2011 | Sharyn Mittelman
The European Union (EU) is divided on how they will vote on the upcoming UN resolution to recognise an independent Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines.
This weekend, European foreign ministers are set to meet in Poland (the current president of the EU) in a final effort to find a unanimous position on the Palestinian UN resolution. However, it is clear that there are stark differences between the 27 members of the EU.
(Blog Post continues)
9/11 Ten Years Later
September 9, 2011
This Update is devoted to three different pieces reflecting on where the world now is, ten years after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks – both in terms of the current understanding of those events and in terms of the their consequences.
First up is noted journalist and author Christopher Hitchens, who reflects on the understanding that he think needs to be preserved of those events ten years ago – primarily that they were very simple, or at least should be understood in very simple terms. He take strong issue with the idea that it is the job of intellectuals to always introduce complexity into discussions of events – in this case, he says, these efforts end up as “as half-baked obfuscations or distractions.” He continues to argue that what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 was ” a direct confrontation with the totalitarian idea, expressed in its most vicious and unvarnished form.”
What Time is it? Certainly not time for Palestinian Unity…
September 8, 2011 | Tzvi Fleischer
It has s become increasingly clear in recent months that the Palestinian Unity deal signed by Hamas and Fatah in May is not leading to a lot of unity…
The extent of the ongoing differences between Fatah and Hamas was starkly highlighted in a recent dispatch from Reuters. Apparently, Fatah and Hamas cannot even agree on the time of day – literally.
“The People Demand Social Justice!” but how will they get it?
September 8, 2011 | Or Avi Guy
“Dear government, share in the joy of your people, who will be hitting the streets again, en mass, Saturday night…. share in our joy. You have an opportunity, possibly the last one, to join the people and start marching. If you do not- if you dare not- you shall stay there alone, behind” wrote Stav Shaffir, one of the leaders of the social protest in Israel, just before Saturday night’s rally, the last demonstration in this phase of the social protest that swept Israel this summer.
On Saturday night 400,000 Israelis filled the streets in the largest demonstrations in the history of Israel. After 50 days of demonstrations and marches and after dozens of tent sites appeared across the country, the demands for “social justice”, solutions to the housing problem and to the sky-rocketing cost of living, were heard loud and clear.
Never let the facts get in the way of a good polemic
September 7, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
Fairfax journalist Paul McGeough has written an op-ed in this morning’s Sydney Morning Herald on the recently released “Palmer Report” – the UN investigation into last year’s flotilla incident. As we noted yesterday, the report, while critical of Israel’s operational response, essentially vindicated Israel’s blockade of Gaza and was very critical of IHH, the Turkish Islamist group that organised the flotilla. A flotilla participant himself, as well as publicly sympathetic to its aims, McGeough had this to say on the first 3/4 of the report:
The panel headed by former New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer sharply criticises the flotilla organisers and suspects their motives – why so many passengers, why so many journalists, why so little aid? It stops well short of “they deserve what they got” but it describes the flotilla as a “dangerous and reckless act . . . exposing a large number of individuals to the risk that force [would] be used . . . and people [would get] hurt…
[Post continues]
The Palmer Report into the Gaza Flotilla
September 7, 2011
Over the weekend, the UN’s Palmer Report into the Mavi Marmara maritime incident last May was published – the full report is available to read here, a good summary of its key provisions is here. That report – which takes Israel’s side on most questions relating to the Gaza blockade and the background to the incident – has led to an intensification of the crisis in Israeli Turkish relations – with Turkey expelling the Israeli Ambassador and threatening to cut off trade relations. The response of the Israeli Government to the report – it was accepted with some reservations – is here.
Iran’s latest nuclear gambit
September 6, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
According to recent reports Iran may be attempting to strike back at the West for the alleged cyber warfare that it has been suffering in recent months. As AP has identified, Iranian involvement may be behind recent attacks on US internet giants, as well as the CIA.
AMSTERDAM — Hackers who broke into a Dutch web security firm have issued hundreds of bogus security certificates for spy agency websites including the CIA as well as for Internet giants like Google, Microsoft and Twitter, the government said Monday.
Experts say they suspect the hacker – or hackers – operated with the cooperation of the Iranian government.
While these hackings serve as further proof of Iran’s persistent belligerence to the West, it is not only in the US and Europe that public opinion has been turning against the Islamic Republic…
