Readers are no doubt aware that President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was overthrown by a coup d’etat on the 28th of June and that he currently languishes in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. They may also know that the coup leaders organized a national election on Sunday and that - in a paroxysm of stupidity - the government of the United States seems set to recognize it as valid.
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This is a guest post by Kenneth Bandler of AJC.
Wrapping up his whirlwind Latin America tour, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must have been very pleased that he had cancelled his previously planned visit to Brazil in May. No doubt his host, Brazilian President President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is similarly delighted. Each is enjoying international attention as leaders in their respective regions of the world.
“Strange things happened to me in Germany,” writes Z Word contributor and veteran anti-fascist Karl Pfeifer in Ha’aretz. Strange, yes; also ugly, also unacceptable, also antisemitic and most definitely, as we reported earlier this week, a form of the blood libel. Yet, with the exception of Benny Weinthal in the Jerusalem Post and the German paper Jungle World, the appalling victimization of an 81 year-old Holocaust survivor has gone unnoticed. I would ask Z Word readers to do all they can to raise awareness of this matter, if only because it illustrates where leftist antisemitism - a phenomenon all too often denied - can lead.
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President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has just completed a visit to Brazil. He was warmly welcomed by President Lula and generally glad handed and back slapped throughout his stay.
This is a guest post by David Adler.
“My children were crying on top of my wife’s body.” That’s one of many quotes from survivors featured in “Terror in Mumbai,” a new HBO documentary narrated by Fareed Zakaria. It’s solidly in the running for the most profoundly disturbing hour of television I’ve ever seen.
Continue reading ‘“My children were crying on top of my wife’s body:” Remembering Mumbai’
Our regular contributor Karl Pfeifer has been targeted by a particularly insidious form of the blood libel. “To accuse me, to have participated in a ‘massacre’ is part of a projection customary in many German circles. The best-known and by far the most widely held example of projection of guilt is the defamation of Israel as the ‘Nazis of today.’ This is one of the most objectionable forms of antisemitism after Auschwitz,” Karl writes. Read his full account here.
Hugo Chavez has been namechecking those great figures past and present who inspired him.
In a speech to international socialist politicians, Mr Chavez said “Carlos”, a Venezuelan, was not a terrorist but a key “revolutionary fighter”.
Mr Chavez also hailed Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
Mind you, given that Venezuela in ten years could well look like Zimbabwe does now, I guess there’s a logic to it.
It all rather makes you want to sing the chorus of this song.
This a guest post by Jay Adler of the sad red earth.
Since I posted my first installment of Who Will Watch the Watchers, Richard Landes over at The Augean Stables has very ably pursued the same focus on Human Rights Watch, and more deeply too, emphasizing two issues: the resistance to criticism and the increasing role of postcolonial ideology in driving the agenda, not just of HRW, but of other human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International.
I don’t think so, as I argue in this op-ed for the Jerusalem Post.
Yaghoghil Shaolian, the Jewish teenager arrested for taking part in the Tehran electoral protests in June, has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison, accused of espionage. An international effort to protect the Jewish teenager’s rights in jail has intensified in recent days.
It’s good news. Dare I say, it’s great news. Here’s Ha’aretz (the typos are theirs:)
An academic boycott of Israel in Norway was averted on Thursday, when the executive board of the University of Trondheim unanimously decided to reject the controversial move. “The vote resulted in total victory,” said Professor Bjorn Alsberg, a member of the board of the Trondheim-based Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Alsberg, a chemistry professor, led a campaigned at the Norwegian city against the boycott.
Read the rest. Meanwhile, here’s a note from Kristian of the truly excellent NIJ blog, left in our comments, but deserving of the widest possible audience:
“What we just have seen is as rare as it is beautiful, with people standing up against an organized network of resourceful people who have been demonizing Israel for decades. This was a Norwegian thing and in the end, only Norwegians could solve it. Yet we could not have done so without all the international support. My heartfelt thanks to all of you.
Stay beautiful!”
Well, it’s finally out. Anthony Julius’s epic, sweeping account of English antisemitism, “Trials of the Diaspora,” can now be purchased online. Advance praise has been generous. No less than Philip Roth describes the book as an “essential history…written by a man with the extraordinary fluency, staggering erudition, scholarly integrity, intellectual acumen and moral discernment of Anthony Julius.” As long-time Z Word readers will know, Anthony honored us by allowing us to publish early drafts of some of the chapters in his book. You can read those selections here. And then go and buy the book.
A few developments in recent days could reasonably lead one to conclude that, come Thursday, the Board of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) will vote against the proposal for a blanket boycott of Israeli academia, culture and research. Perhaps most significantly, as relayed by the indispensable NIJ blog, Norwegian Minister of Higher Education and Research Tora Aasland, a member of the Socialist Left Party, “sees a boycott as a violation of legal practice.”
Continue reading ‘NTNU Boycott Campaign: Will They or Won’t They?’
Israel must negotiate with Hamas and its refusal to engage with these legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people shows that it’s not interested in a settlement of the conflict. So says the chorus of the kind hearted. I’ve argued against this view here and here, among other places. Guess who has now come up with a proposal for Israel to negotiate with one its most determined enemies? Shaul Mofaz, that’s who.
Below is a statement from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) opposing the proposed academic boycott of Israel at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
Our friends and colleagues at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim will soon be voting on whether to initiate a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Faculty members in Norway have already spoken out eloquently and on point about the reasons to defeat this proposal. Because the decision has the potential to have an impact on debates at academic institutions in many other countries, we would like to join our many Norwegian counterparts who oppose the action.
Continue reading ‘US Professors Oppose NTNU Boycott Campaign’
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