Egyptian Education and the attacks on Coptic Christians
June 29, 2011 | Sharyn Mittelman
In post-revolutionary Egypt, Coptic Christians have been increasingly attacked in aseries of bloody clashes. In March, armed thugs bulldozed a church allegedly over an illicit relationship between a Coptic man and a Muslim woman. This led to riots and clashes that left thirteen people dead and 140 wounded. No arrests were made and no one was charged.
Egypt’s Christian minority community accounts for some 10 percent of the country’s 82 million people and they fear further incidents of violence and persecution.
A new report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE), suggests that the attacks against Egyptian Coptic Christians are largely fuelled by the Egyptian school curricula, which is laden with anti-Semitic and anti-Christian sentiment. IMPACT-SE is calling for Egypt to reform its curricula in order to comply with UNESCO standards.
“Narratives” and what happened in 1948
June 28, 2011 | Tzvi Fleischer
One of the key questions that always comes up in debates on the Middle East are the details of what happened during the 1948 war. Among Palestinians and their advocates, the whole war is generally presented as a Zionist plot to steal the land and expel its indigenous inhabitants – which was understandably resisted by both Palestinian militias and the armies of neighbouring Arab states. This is the Palestinian “narrative” and more or less what is meant by the common use of the word Nakba, “catastrophe”, for the events of 1947-48.
But as US statesman Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously quipped, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to their own facts…
An Australian Hamas operative?
June 28, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
An Australian man who was arrested in Israel recently has now been formally charged with spying for Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation both in Australia and in Israel, and has faced an initial court hearing.
As reported by the ABC:
Eyad Abu Arja was arrested along with his wife when he arrived at Tel Aviv airport in March, and has been in custody ever since.
Almost lynched in East Jerusalem for being Jewish
June 28, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
Initial reports emerged yesterday of an Israeli delivery driver who narrowly avoided being lynched by an Arab mob. This follows a similar incident last November, when four students, including one Australian tourist were stoned by a mob after taking a wrong turn and driving through an Arab neighbourhood. Melanie Lidman has now written the rather shocking full story of yesterday’s incident in The Jerusalem Post:
Nachson was going towards Ma’aleh Adumim to deliver a package for his delivery company, Cheetah, when he attempted to make a shortcut near the Hadassah Har Hatzofim Hospital to avoid traffic.
FLOTILLA II – An end to the Humanitarian Pretence?
June 28, 2011 | Sharyn Mittelman
Haaretz is reporting that senior Israeli officials have received information that organisers of the Gaza flotilla may be bringing chemical substances on the ships to use against Israeli soldiers to prevent them from boarding the ships.
Barak Ravid reported that the senior officials also said that Israel had been notified that several extremists among the Gaza flotilla participants had recently claimed that they intend on “shedding the blood of IDF soldiers”…
This latest reports also only strengthen the case that the Freedom Flotilla organised by the Free Gaza Movement is an unnecessary and potentially dangerous provocation with no humanitarian purpose…
Dr. Michael Rubin speaks with Alan Jones
June 28, 2011
AIJAC guest and Middle East expert Dr. Michael Rubin spoke with 2GB’s Alan Jones in Sydney on the current situation in the Middle East.
The Truth about Kosher Slaughter
June 28, 2011 | Geoff Levin
The Sunday Age has recently published two articles, an editorial, and a blog post alleging that Kosher slaughter causes undue pain to animals, advocating legislation that would effectively end the production of kosher meat in Australia.
While the articles repeatedly claimed that unstunned slaughter means an inhumane “up to 20 seconds” of pain for sheep, this conflicts with many expert opinions that confirm that Kosher slaughter is ethical, painless, and humane.
The truth about Gaza’s “humanitarian crisis”
June 28, 2011 | Allon Lee
As Sharyn Mittelman noted earlier today, the evidence is overwhelming that the planned Gaza flotilla is much more about creating a political confrontation with Israel than about ameliorating the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Turkey makes waves as UN flotilla report allegedly backs Israel
June 27, 2011 | Allon Lee
Israel is being offered a chance to improve its parlous relationship with Turkey – but at the cost of softening criticism of Ankara in the UN report on the Gaza flotilla clash in May 2010 that resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish citizens on board the Mavi Marmara.
What do the Palestinians want?
June 24, 2011 | Or Avi Guy
Even a quick look at various Palestinian officials’ statements over the past few weeks can reveal an inconsistent and somewhat confusing picture of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) official policy regarding the alternatives of negotiations with Israel and their plans to try to get UN recognition of Palestinian statehood in September.
