If Vidal Sassoon lived in Gaza, he’d be in hiding now for two reasons. One, because he’s Jewish. Two, because he’s a hairdresser who works in women’s salons. More here. Someone please remind me: wasn’t there something, somewhere about Hamas being moderate and enlightened?
Archive for the 'Hamas' Category
As readers of this blog know, Roger Cohen is not a wise man. His latest column in the New York Times gives further evidence of this.
Domestic U.S. politics constrain innovative thought - even open debate - on the process without end that is the peace search.
Continue reading ‘Roger Cohen And Wishful Thinking, Part 974′
In Iran, it’s a case of escalation, escalation, escalation. The Times of London reports that “Iran is working on testing a key final component of a nuclear bomb.” Meanwhile, the repression of dissidents takes on a crueller, uglier quality. If proof was needed that the chador is a symbol of humiliation, look no further than the photo of student leader Majid Tavakoli, forced to pose while wearing one by the regime’s thugs (a tactic that has backfired now that Majid’s male supporters are distributing photos of themselves adorned in the same garb.) Then there are the additional arrests of dissidents for allegedly tearing photos of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Islamist tyrant who seized power in 1979. Then there are the three young Americans arrested by the regime and now likely to face trial on espionage charges. Are we done? No. Hamas leader Khaled Meshal paid a visit to his paymasters over the weekend. And don’t forget Hugo Chavez; Venezuela’s answer to Robert Mugabe doesn’t want to feel left out, so he’s declaring fealty to the theocrats of Tehran too.
War, when practised by Israel, is frequently seen as having paradoxical consequences. The more often it inflicts damage and defeat on its enemies the stronger they are held to become. Never mind that Egypt and Jordan long since grew sick of defeat and signed peace treaties with the Jewish state, never mind that Syria, with the partial exception of the First Lebanon War, hasn’t risked a direct confrontation with Israel since 1973 and never mind that part of the leadership of the Palestinians accepts Israel´s existence; victory is still seen as making Israel weak and its enemies strong.
Just a couple of lines to recommend a lecture on the question of proportionality in war by Professor Jeff McMahan of Rutgers University. It’s worth the full hour and twenty four minutes of your time but in case you need a couple of teasers to tempt you I’ll throw you these; he thinks that certain classes of Israeli and Palestinian civilians are not entitled to complain if they are harmed by enemy action and that the idea of proportionality in unjust wars makes no sense. I found the lecture here.
Writing in the execrable Counterpunch, Gilad Atzmon, along with an apparently “adorable” friend of his, dreams of being taken hostage:
It’s three years to the day since Gilad Shalit was kidnapped and incarcerated by Hamas. The Red Cross has been denied access to him, his family has had no contact from him, no-one knows what his condition is or the circumstances he is being held in. Which is why the Israeli government will perhaps want to revisit all the options available to it, including the complete sealing of the border with Gaza (with the exception of, as Gilad’s father Noam has said, urgent medical and humanitarian requirements) until Gilad is released.
Antisemitism was a prominent focus of the American Jewish Committee’s Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. Among the speakers were John Mann, the British MP who has spearheaded the global parliamentary fight against antisemitism, and Bernard-Henri Lévy, the French author and philosopher who has never lost sight of the centrality of antisemitism in his dissection of Islamism and its related ills.
Mindful of his audience, Mann declared: “Let me quote from Rosa Parks: ‘As I got up on the bus I saw that there was only one vacancy, so this was the seat that I took.’ This world and past generations are full of Rosa Parks. People going about their everyday business quietly and with dignity. But people not prepared to be bullied and cowered and intimidated. No doubt a little scared, but those who do their bit by doing what is right.”
You can read the entire speech here and watch highlights of it on YouTube here.
And here are some highlights of what BHL had to say, again on YouTube.
Judge Fernando Andreu of Spain’s Audiencia Nacional court is investigating the assassination by Israel of Salah Shehadeh, a leader of Hamas, in 2002. The investigation has been described as “lacking the slightest degree of systematic rigor”, resting on an “opportunist interpretation” of the law and being based on a “conceptual error”.
Continue reading ‘Spanish Shehadeh Investigation “Opportunist”’
“What we’re missing in the George Galloway story is the George Galloway story,” begins Terry Glavin in this radio interview.” Terry then lists the cold facts which much of the Canadian media failed to pick up on. Have a listen.
This is a guest post by AJC’s Ed Rettig in Israel.
In late January, a Spanish magistrate decided to launch an investigation against senior Israeli leaders for crimes against humanity. Charges center on the July 2002 killing of Hamas military commander Salah Shehadeh (pictured,) perpetrator in chief of the Pi Glilot terror attack.
Karl Pfeifer draws my attention to this statement demanding the removal of Hamas from the EU terrorism list. Among those appending their signatures are New Left dinosaur Tariq Ali, King of the Not-In-My-Name Jews Ronnie Kasrils and uncomplicated antisemites like Greta Duisenberg, James Petras and Gilad Atzmon.
Viva, comrades, viva! I do hope none you forgot to send comradely greetings to Robert Mugabe on the occasion of his 85th birthday.
The Progressive Commentariat and the Palestinians
Many commentators who argue in favor of the Palestinian cause base themselves on an assumption which they never voice and which, perhaps, they are not entirely conscious. That assumption is that Israelis are morally superior to Palestinians and, in political terms, more intelligent than them. There follow a couple of examples of what I mean.
Continue reading ‘The Progressive Commentariat and the Palestinians’