We’ve already dealt with the ludicrous notion that Israel has acted disproportionately on numerous occasions. Let us now turn our attention to another argument that has been repeatedly used to criticize Israel in recent days and of which there’s a perfect example in this piece by Rami G. Khouri in El País.
Continue reading ‘Gaza: Victories, Defeats and Continuing Conflict’
Last week, I debated Ahmed Bedeir on Florida station WMNF. Earlier today, I debated him again. You can listen to it here, about 23 minutes into the broadcast.
This is from the indispensable It’s Almost Supernatural - essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how the Middle East conflict plays out in South Africa.
Every war has its domino theory; the worry that fighting in one region will spread to another. Macedonia in the case of Kosovo, Kenya in the case of Somalia, the West Bank in the case of Gaza. Except that the West Bank - at least from the vantage point of the Stars and Bucks café in Ramallah - seems almost disinterested in the Gaza conflict.
Mahmoud al Zahar, one of the principal Hamas leaders in Gaza, delivered a blood-curdling speech in which he stated that Islamists had the right to murder Jewish children anywhere in the world in the light of Israel’s operation in Gaza. “They have legitimized the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people,” he said.
Continue reading ‘Hamas Tries to Appear Reasonable (and Fails)’
Via NickM, another demonstration - this time in Anaheim, California - of the “Jews-Should-Know-Better” argument, another assertion that the fighting in Gaza is the equivalent of the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews and millions of others.
Having not long ago decided to expel Human Rights Watch from Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez has now decided to send the Israeli Ambassador packing too. The Foreign Ministry statement announcing the decision is a monument to both pomposity and bias and I’m only going to translate the last paragraph.
One of the more sinister aspects of the academic boycott campaign against Israel in the UK was its demand that Israeli academics take a disloyalty oath: that in order to engage in international collaboration with other academics, they had to first disavow their government. That tactic has now been imported to Canada.
Continue reading ‘Israel Academic Boycott Urged by Canada Labor Leader’
El País occasionally deigns to run an op-ed piece not totally unfavorable to Israel. Today is one of those days and André Glucksman, the leading French philosopher, gets to extend himself on the supposedly disproportional nature of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Continue reading ‘André Glucksmann on Proportionality in Gaza’
This is a guest post by Michelle Sieff of the American Jewish Committee.
What do former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton and Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi have in common? They both argue that the two-state solution is impossible.
Over at Open Democracy, Vera Gowlland-Debbas - Professor of Public International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, no less - would have us believe that Gaza is comparable to the Warsaw Ghetto.
Before today, I hadn’t come across the name of Brian Cloughley. But he’s writing for online rag Counterpunch - which stubbornly insists upon its leftist credentials despite being a fount of antisemitism - in terms that are indistinguishable from Klansman David Duke.
Just a line to draw readers attention to a post at the blog of the European Journal of International Law by Marko Milanovic on various legal issues raised by the current conflict in Gaza. He pays particular attention to the question of proportionality.
Shah Zaman Khan runs the press operation for the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. And he is expressing what might be politely called “eccentric” views about the Mumbai atrocities in December - views which would doubtless be echoed by many of those who joined the pro-Hamas demonstrations in various cities over the weekend.
Continue reading ‘Conspiracy Theorists Link Gaza with Mumbai’
Karl Pfeifer exposed Israeli anti-Zionist Professor Moshe Zuckerman’s claim that “400,000 civilians” had been killed in Gaza - made during in an interview with Deutschlandradio - here. An editor at the radio station now says it was a “bad mistake.”
Continue reading ‘German Radio Denies Gaza “Big Lie” Accusation’
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