On the eve of the Geneva talks, I’ve got a piece on the The Hill newspaper’s Congress blog. Have a look.
Archive for September, 2009
“While no one here would argue that Israel and its supporters played no role in Mr. Hosny’s defeat to a Bulgarian diplomat, many people said that his failure was at least as much a sign of Egypt’s long, slow slide as the center of Arab culture, thought and influence. They said the defeat might represent a rejection of Muslims and Arabs, but perhaps more importantly a rejection of their authoritarian leaders.”
A fine report from Cairo by the consistently excellent Michael Slackman, here.
Yes, you read the headline correctly. A very smart Canadian initiative here.
Over at the CST blog, Dave Rich has an absolutely superb piece examining how racists of both leftist and rightist varieties will vilify a person not because of what they say, but because of what they are called. Barack Hussein Obama. Michael Abraham Levy. Rahm Israel Emanuel. Go and read it. And then savor the Woody Allen clip at the end - perhaps the greatest stand-up routine, like, ever?
This is a guest post by ganselmi.
At the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, President Obama revealed what Western intelligence agencies have apparently been aware of for some time: that the Islamic Republic has been constructing yet another secret nuclear facility - this time near the holy city of Qom, where, presumably, the proximity of so many sacred shrines would give second thoughts to anyone planning airstrikes. Earlier this week, Iranian officials admitted the existence of this pilot facility in a short, typically cryptic document filed with the IAEA.
Continue reading ‘Iran’s Nuclear Program: Learning from the Qom Revelation’
Honest Reporting has a useful summary of media coverage of the news that Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, is already considering a war crimes investigation of one IDF reserve officer, Lt. Col. David Benjamin. It’s called “lawfare:” harassing Israeli politicians and military figures with dubious, politically-loaded charges of war crimes.
Meanwhile, Ocampo, Richard Goldstone and others jumping onto the “Israeli war crimes” bandwagon would do well to read Richard Cohen’s take on the context of the Gaza operation in the Washington Post:
In her address to the General Assembly of the United Nations yesterday, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner performed the annual ritual of asking Iran to extradite to Argentina a number of its citizens wanted in connection with the 1994 AMIA massacre in Buenos Aires. She did the same last year and her predecessor Néstor Kirchner did likewise in 2007.
YouTube would appear to have acknowledged its error in pulling the new AJC film on Iran by reinstating the link. So here it is again. Hopefully, this time, it will stay there.
While he was attempting - through means both fair and, apparently, foul - to secure the post of Director-General of UNESCO, former Egyptian cultural minister Farouk Hosni did all he could to play down allegations of antisemitism.
Now that he’s lost in his bid, he’s making openly antisemitic comments.
Daniel Levy has his say on the Goldstone report here. What might the title of the piece mean? It’s got quite a new age ring to it so perhaps we shouldn’t expect too much by way of a specific diagnosis of what’s supposed to be ailing Israel. It does, however, reflect a common way of thinking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a framework which sees everything through the lens of the doings, plans and - above all - the faults of the Israelis. There may be a lot of dead Palestinians as a result of the Gaza Campaign but, it would appear, the priority is for Israelis to heal themselves. And remember now that Levy is not exactly a Likudnik, he’s as dovish as they come and sees himself as a fierce critic of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.
UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 22: Our video - which showed scenes of executions in Iran - has been censored by YouTube following false accusations that we violated its “community guidelines.” You can now see the video here - a safe domain which cannot be touched by the Iranian regime and its craven apologists.
Here is the latest film I’ve made for AJC as part of our new campaign.
Lisa Goldman has drawn my attention to a reaction by David Landau to the Goldstone report on Israel’s campaign in Gaza and I take the opportunity to do the same for readers of this blog.
Bob from Brockley has compiled an engaging list of links, so do go and have a look - highlights include Adam Holland on how Counterpunch is spreading the blood libel, a selection of bloggers on the latest twists involving the boycott movement and the opportunity to listen to some wonderful Punjabi Sufi music from Pakistan. Shana Tovah and Eid Mubarak.
“Not Gaza, not Lebanon — our life is for Iran,” chanted the demonstrators, as they turned the Iranian regime’s annual Quds Day march into a protest against the tyrannical mullahs who show the same zeal in repressing the Iranian people as they do in supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.
As Basij militia thugs laid into the protesters, Ahmadinejad stated - again - that the Holocaust is “a lie” based upon a “mythical claim.” This latest bout of foulness came just a few hours after he declared that “we do not see any need” for nuclear weapons. I don’t know about you, dear readers, but I’m reluctant to accept any assurances from a Holocaust denier.
This is a guest post by Fabián of La Fusión.
There is a common misconception that the Gaza Strip is “one of the most populated places on the planet”. Sometimes this is said because people want to emphasize the plight of the “overcrowded” Palestinian people, accuse Israel of stealing most of “Palestinian” land, and sometimes it is said by others to remark that in case of war in the Gaza strip, there is no chance of fighting it without hitting civilians, since the Palestinians are, as if were, living one over the other.
