South Sudan – Implications for Israel and Palestinians?
July 19, 2011 | Allon Lee
Amid the cheers over the birth of the new nation state of the Republic of South Sudan, some commentators are noting the largely overlooked significance of what has just occurred, not least for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process eventually leading to a two state solution.
Compared with South Sudan, Palestine is the French Riviera. This raises serious questions about the moral justification for the Palestinians to take extreme stands that make compromise so difficult, while they continue to act as a bottomless drain on the ultimately limited resources the developed world can provide in aid.
The Arab Spring remains mild in Jordan
July 18, 2011 | Geoffrey Levin
Despite mass violence in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, and leadership changes occurring in Egypt and Tunisia, Jordan has remained relatively quiet, with only limited protests and few deaths. As the Guardian points out:
Jordan has seen sporadic unrest since January but only on a small scale. Opposition demands – supported by youth groups, civil society organisations and Islamists – are for changes within the framework of the Hashemite monarchy. King Abdullah has pledged to pursue reforms that would allow the formation of future governments based on an elected parliamentary majority but gave no date. The slogan “the people want the reform of the regime” was in striking and deliberate contrast to demands elsewhere for the “overthrow” of rulers.
But does a recent act of police brutality signal a shift in Jordan?
Media Week – Boycott Precedents; Nuclear Naivety; This is News?
July 18, 2011 | Jamie Hyams
In his column in the Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph and Adelaide’s Advertiser (6/7), Andrew Bolt vented his disgust at the attempted picketing of a Max Brenner shop by pro-Palestinian activists. He wrote, “[In Australia] I never thought I’d see people picketing shops because their owners were Jewish…I’ve seen pictures of Jewish shops attacked before, of course, but they were in black and white, in another country at another ghastly time.”
Darshan-Leitner takes on Gaza flotillas
July 18, 2011 | Allon Lee
Israeli civil rights organisation director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner has written a good primer in the Jerusalem Post on why the blockade of Gaza is legal and how flotilla activists are likely breaking US law.
Pursuant to the Oslo Accords … the Palestinians agreed that the Gaza coastline would be placed under Israeli control and that no foreign ships would be allowed closer than 12 nautical miles from the shore.
Israel demanded this out of concern over widespread import of conventional and unconventional weapons into Gaza.
Military works to maintain control as Egyptian democracy hangs in the balance
July 18, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
Following renewed unrest and a large public outcry against what is perceived as reluctance to dismantle the old regime, the Egyptian interim government is set to announce a major reshuffling of its cabinet today, with several senior ministers – including the Finance Minster and the Foreign Minister – resigning over the weekend. This comes shortly after the Government backed-down from an attempt to postpone elections. As The Washington Post‘s Ernesto Londono reports:
The expected exit of more than half of the Egyptian cabinet’s members comes amid complaints that the interim military rulers have been slow to enact meaningful reforms. Activists say that the generals have failed to dismantle the power structure that remained largely intact when President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February…
“Flotilla to Syria” a reality, but not what you think
July 18, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
Sometimes, a news item comes along that seems far too convenient to actually be true. For a Middle East commentator, it’s very rare to have clear-cut proof of something that you have been saying all-along. Today, however, is one of those occasions.
As noted in this post, the organisers of the (now mostly defunct) flotilla have worrying links to Hamas in Gaza. While there is undoubtedly suffering in Gaza, much of this can be attributed to its Hamas regime, which maintains control through torturing and murdering dissenters and censoring the press, while forcing Gazans to live in a perpetual state of war by refusing to negotiate with Israel or even recognise Israel’s existence and renounce violence. It was, therefore, a no-brainer to point-out the hypocrisy of a group trying to make a political statement against Israel while cavorting with a far less savoury regime and ignoring much greater suffering elsewhere.
As a result many commentators – from Australian comedian Sandy Gutman to yours truly – have called for the flotilla activists to prove their self-proclaimed “humanitarian” intentions by going to Syria…
Palestinians’ message quashed by media bias
July 15, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
Writing in Foreign Policy, Rachel Shabi has interviewed a number of Palestinian activists and, unbeknownst to her, unearthed some startling and oft-overlooked views. Shabi found the activists to be disillusioned with the current Palestinian leadership and the direction in which they are headed – particularly on the upcoming UN statehood bid which, as they point out, is purely symbolic and will achieve few practical outcomes.
“September is a moment of truth for us,” says Diana Alzeer, a 23-year-old social activist from Ramallah who cites the revolution in Egypt as inspiration. “We see that a dictatorship of over 30 years was gone in two weeks. So why not for Palestinians?”
Different Voices
July 15, 2011 | Jeremy Jones
On Monday, ABC Radio’s The Spirit of Things broadcast a fascinating interview with Sharon Rosen and Suheir Rasul from the Jerusalem offices of a peace initiative called Search for Common Ground.
Sharon Rosen: Search for Common Ground is an international conflict transformation organisation that was founded 29 years ago by an American; his name is John Marks. It has now developed into the largest conflict transformation organisation in the world, with 37 offices in 25 countries. And the Middle East program, which was basically focussing on Palestinian-Israeli relations, began in 1990 and the actual office in situ on the ground in Jerusalem was opened in the year 2000. I became the acting director of the Jerusalem office in 2008 and Suheir joined me as co-director in 2009.
Syria’s Iraqi refugees flee Syria, highlighting regional changes
July 15, 2011 | Geoffrey Levin
While Turkey has attracted much media attention for its willingness to take in Syrian refugees in the camps it has set up near the border, many Syrians have fled to other neighbouring countries such as Iraq. Thousands of Iraqi refugees who fled Iraq for Syria due to the war are now fleeing Syria, heading back to their home country. Agence France-Presse reports:
Hayat Saad, legal officer at the Baghdad Refugee Centre, said “every day we deal with between 60 to 70 cases of families who have returned to the country…Daily, about 20 come from Syria — the largest contingent — followed by Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Libya,” she added.
AIJAC UPDATE – How the 2011 flotilla flopped/The controversial “anti-boycott” law
July 15, 2011
AIJAC’s latest email Update looks at why and how the 2011 Gaza flotilla gambit fizzled out. In contrast to 2010’s headline-grabbing political stunt that acted as a Trojan Horse for the Turkish Islamist IHH charity resulting in needless deaths and injuries, this was no replay.
