Just a line to guide readers towards Phoebe Maltz’s excellent blog and, more particularly, to this excellent post in which she savages the latest parcel of pomposity emitted by a columnist well known to regulars at this bar.
Archive for April, 2009
It’s a farce, it’s a shambles and it’s a disgrace. At the UN’s anti-racism parley, the world’s leading Holocaust denier stood up and launched a vicious stream of lies against Israel, Zionism and the Jewish people.
Now Germany’s withdrawn from the Durban Review Conference. “This decision was not easy,” said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (pictured). “As in Durban in 2001, this conference could be abused by others as a platform for their interests. We cannot accept that.” Meanwhile, strident editorials in both the Telegraph and the Times demanding a British pullout.
Cards, dominoes, whatever gaming analogy you choose - it’s collapsing. After the US decision that the UN’s Durban Review Conference was beyond redemption, The Netherlands and Australia have now followed suit.
“It now seems certain these remaining concerns will not be addressed in the document to be adopted by the conference next week. Therefore, with regret, the United States will not join the review conference,” said State Department spokesman Robert Wood. More here.
Oliver Kamm makes an attempt to defend Jeremy Bowen in this post. After giving the background to the story he says that,
On all that I have seen, Bowen’s reporting from the Middle East has been informed and scrupulous.
An anti-racism parley with a Holocaust denier as keynote speaker. Welcome to the UN’s Durban Review Conference. Apparently, the Swiss President might be rolling out the red carpet.
I was struck recently by that fact that myself, Eamonn and the other contributors to this blog rarely comment upon or examine the medium that we use. Perhaps this has something to do with why (from the truly brilliant xkcd):
This is a guest post by Jonathan Hoffman, co-Vice Chair of the UK Zionist Federation
The BBC is a unique institution. It is the largest broadcasting organisation on the planet (with an annual operating expenditure over £4 billion) and it is a public service broadcaster. The former gives it tremendous power. Even in the internet age, more people almost certainly relied on the BBC than on anyone else for their information about the recent Gaza conflict.
Roane Carey is strongly opposed to an Israeli attack on Iran and gives the following reasons to support his opinion:
It would, as a start, serve as a powerful recruiting tool for extremist Islamist groups.
How many people, who weren’t previously thinking of doing so anyway, would throw in their lot with terrorism as a result of such an event? No doubt some would. Would their numbers be such as to constitute a strong argument against such an attack? I doubt it.
1.
Are you Jewish? You are? Ok, pay attention because David Hare thinks that something terrible may be about to happen to you,
“If we do not find the path to honest cooperation and honest negotiations with the Arabs, then we have learned nothing from over 2,000 years of suffering and we deserve the fate that will befall us” is what Albert Einstein said.
Leading figures in the Dutch Labor Party - the second-largest party in The Netherlands - want to impose sanctions against Israel if, as Ha’aretz puts it, “the new government in Jerusalem thwarts the peace process with the Palestinians.”
In his latest interview with Der Spiegel, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is by turns ingratiating (”By the way, thank you once again for coming. You are Germans, and we think very highly of the Germans,”) haughty (”You are journalists, not representatives of NATO, which is why I will not explain my position to you in this regard,”) petulant (”Besides, I didn’t even want to meet the Italian politicians,”) and conspiratorial (”Mr. Obama’s biggest problem has to do with domestic policy…the new US president is under pressure from these groups.”) And yet, for all those swings of mood and tone as well as those dark hints - no, he doesn’t specify which groups, but you can guess - an unmistakable clarity emerges.
“Omidreza Mirsayafi was Iran’s first known casualty in the skirmishes between bloggers challenging the Islamic regime and authorities striking back with the tools they know best — imprisonment and intimidation.”
More on the trials facing Iranian bloggers here.
