Israeli investigation explains the tragic incident which killed four children on a Gaza beach
June 12, 2015 | Allon Lee
Israel’s military chief legal officer has closed an investigation into the IDF shelling of a Gaza beach on July 16, 2014 that tragically killed four Palestinian children, finding they were the victims of mistaken identity.
This tragic incident, which was captured on video by journalists, became the most frequently used by critics seeking to tar all of Israel’s operations in Gaza as deliberately targeting civilians without justifiable military purpose.
Turkey’s election/How Iran will use its nuclear deal windfall
June 12, 2015
Today’s Update features some comment on Sunday’s dramatic parliamentary election result in Turkey – with the ruling AKP party and its increasingly authoritarian leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan suffering a major setback. Plus, it also contains some important new analysis of the likely regional effects of the expected monetary windfall Teheran is expected to get as a result of any nuclear deal.
Sophie’s House of Cards
June 11, 2015 | Allon Lee
Government authorities around the world demolish illegally built dwellings all the time.
Only when it involves Palestinians in east Jerusalem does it become a major news event – according to the ABC’s new Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill.
President Obama’s recent statements on Israeli-Palestinian peace/ After Abbas
June 5, 2015
US President Barack Obama has been talking quite a lot in recent weeks about his relationship with Israel and his aspirations for Israeli-Palestinian peace. This includes an interview with American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, an address to a Washington-area synagogue, and most recently, an interview with Israel’s Channel 2, the country’s leading TV station. This Update deals with some reactions to his statements on Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects in particular.
Greens Leader is right about potential Australia-Israel cooperation on water
June 5, 2015 | Glen Falkenstein
“Israelis are at the forefront of innovative technologies around that (water saving). Why wouldn’t we be learning from some of the new technologies that the Israelis have developed? … If only Australia took a leaf out of their book.”
IMF report exposes Palestinian culture of entitlement, Gaza realities
May 29, 2015 | Ahron Shapiro
The International Monetary Fund’s latest report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee of foreign aid donors on the state of the economy in the West Bank and Gaza, released on May 18, is revealing on many levels.
While the report duly notes that the PA’s economy is complicated to some degree by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, it determines that there is nothing preventing the PA government from building viable national governing institutions based on strong tax revenue levels – in fact, that of “an average upper middle income country”, no less – provided it follows IMF fiscal recommendations it has thus far failed to heed…
The Iranian worldview in a nuclear deal
May 28, 2015
This Update features three articles which both provide information and raise questions about the Iranian worldview – and how this might inform efforts to negotiate and then police and maintain a nuclear deal, which Iran and the P5+1 countries (US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) are trying to finalise before a June 30 deadline.
The fall of Ramadi and Western policy/ The last words of a leading scholar of antisemitism
May 22, 2015
This Update offers two highly-informed expert opinions on the fall of the strategic Iraqi town of Ramadi to ISIS forces last weekend, and in particular, what this dramatic development says about current US strategy for fighting ISIS and shoring up the Iraqi government.
Will the ABC and SBS ignore mounting allegations against Al Jazeera?
May 15, 2015 | Ahron Shapiro
By suing his employer earlier this month for negligence and supporting blacklisted Islamists in Egypt, Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy, has highlighted what AIJAC has been saying all along – that Al Jazeera, as a politicised tool of the Qatari monarchy, bears considerable responsibility for the misfortunes of their journalists in Egypt.
Israel’s new government sworn in/ “Breaking the Silence”
May 15, 2015
This Update features pieces analysing aspects of Israel’s narrow new governing coalition and cabinet – sworn in overnight. It also includes an important comment on the recent “Breaking the Silence” NGO report on Gaza, which has received so much international publicity, including in Australia.
