Mob violence, human rights and Pakistan’s blasphemy laws
August 27, 2012 | Or Avi Guy
Rimsha Masih, a 12-year-old Christian Pakistani girl has been jailed for allegedly desecrating Holy Scripture, after a local cleric claimed that she burnt pages of Noorani Qaida, a children’s textbook about the Koran.
On closer examination, it appears likely that putting the girl, and her mother, behind bars is claimed to be for their own protection. The case draws a sad picture in which one of the most severe implications of the blasphemy laws is “mob justice.”
Media Week – Time out; Growth is good; A quote without foundations
August 24, 2012 | Allon Lee
Time‘s Karl Vick (13/8) offered a simplistic account of the effect of the growing population of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem.
Vick implied that Jewish control over Jerusalem since 1967 has been bad for Christians and Muslims: “Millions visit the Holy City each year. Most are pilgrims to the signal sites of Christianity, though Muslims gather at their own great shrine above the Western Wall. Neither, however, are terribly welcome as residents. Since 1967, Jerusalem has become a resolutely Jewish city.”
Except that Jerusalem has been a majority Jewish city since the 1850s. Furthermore the 68,000 Palestinians living there in 1967 have quadrupled to 288,000 in 2012, with Palestinian Arabs now making up 37% of Jerusalem’s residents, compared to 25.8% in 1967.
Following attacks, Israeli leaders vow to stamp out racism
August 24, 2012 | Ahron Shapiro
Israeli leaders have responded with outrage at a pair of unrelated, racially-motivated attacks against Arabs last Thursday. Calls for swift justice, soul-searching and a new co-existence education campaign were voiced within the government, opposition and Israeli media commentators. Police responded with numerous arrests.
Iran’s NAM Extravaganza/ Al-Qaeda in Syria
August 24, 2012
Next week, Iran is set to become the president of the 118-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and host a six day Summit of the NAM in Teheran. As Golnaz Esfandiari of Radio Free Europe has reported, Teheran is going all out in an effort to use the Summit to attempt to ” shed its image as a global pariah” and ” gain much-needed support to counter Western pressure over its controversial nuclear program.” Meanwhile, despite urgings from the US, Israel and others not to participate, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has announced he will attend the Summit. This Update looks at the implications of the Summit for the NAM, the UN, and especially efforts to maintain international pressure on Iran to halt its illegal nuclear weapons program.
Incitement watch: Saudi cleric’s Blood Libel and PA honours terrorists while forbidding Jews from praying at holy site
August 17, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
The Times of Israel reported an official statement from the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday accusing Israel of “incitement”. The source of the alleged incitement was a call from opposition MK Aryeh Eldad, from the hard-line National Union party, demanding that Jews be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.
In an ironic twist, this statement was reported on the same day as reports emerged of a new mausoleum that the PA is building to honour the eight terrorists responsible for an attack on an Israeli hotel in 1975, which resulted in the deaths of eight civilian hostages and three Israeli soldiers…
On 20th anniversary of ties, Israel and India embark on second honeymoon
August 16, 2012 | Ahron Shapiro
As India and Israel celebrate their 20th anniversary of diplomatic ties this year, the number of cooperative ventures between the countries are expanding at an accelerating pace.
This week, Israel and India entered a fifth round of talks towards the creation of a much-anticipated free trade agreement.
Meanwhile, on July 31, Israel’s Consul General in India Orna Sagiv spoke before a large audience in Bangalore ahead of Israel’s opening next month of a Indian consulate in the city – India’s third most populous – joining Israel’s other consulate in India’s most populous city, Mumbai, and its embassy in New Delhi.
Iran and Saudi Arabia’s new push for gender segregation
August 15, 2012 | Or Avi Guy
Universities across Iran are reportedly closing their gates to women in many fields of study in an effort to suppress student activism via gender segregation. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia plans to create segregated women-only cities to prevent men and women mixing in the workplace.
Media Week – Low Blows; Acres of coverage; and Small steps and megabytes
August 15, 2012 | Allon Lee
Anti-Zionist writer Antony Loewenstein advanced his dream of a one-state solution on the Conversation (30/7).
Loewenstein wrote that for Israel the “occupation is a God-given right to populate land”, and claimed that the recent Levy Commission had “found that its decades-long occupation of Palestinian land wasn’t an occupation at all. The report granted quasi-legal justification for illegally moving Jews into the West Bank.”
The report did not endorse unlimited settlement building. It confirmed that legally the West Bank is disputed territory since no sovereign state was established there when the British left in May 1948, and various decisions by international bodies grant Israel legal rights in the West Bank. And, as the report noted, since 1967 Israel has adopted a “pragmatic approach” in the hope of encouraging peace negotiations about the future of the “the territories”.
Will they? Won’t they? The ongoing Israeli/American Iran question
August 15, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
An Israeli strike on Iran has been “imminent” for about two years now and commentators everywhere seem to be vacilating between alarm and dismissal. The volume of announcements, alleged leaks to the media, and public disagreement between various Israeli and US officials is leaving almost everyone scratching their heads over what is really going on.
The truth, as Elliott Abrams points out, is really anyone’s guess…
Syria’s Civil War after PM’s Defection
August 13, 2012
The defection of Syria’s Prime Minister, Riad Hijab, to Jordan and the rebel side earlier this week – the latest in a string of high profile defections from the regime – has raised speculation that the bloody civil war there has turned a corner. This Update focuses on analysis of where things now stand in Syria, and how the changing situation might affect Western policy calculations.
First up is an argument for changing policies in the wake of the latest developments in Syria in an editorial from the Washington Post. The paper notes the defection of Mr. Hijab and also an International Crisis Group report which makes it clear, correctly, that the regime is long past agreeing to compromise or agreeing to a “managed transition – while the longer the civil war goes on the less likely a democratic and pluralist government will follow.
