El Páis of Madrid is a wonderful newspaper. In the lead editorial of today’s edition it fearlessly condemns the supposed assassination by Israel of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
As well as being legally reprehensible and morally unacceptable the policy of selective assassination, or to put it another way, the dirty war only contributes to the illusion that there are alternative solutions to the one that Israel will sooner or later have to face: an end to the occupation and the opening of talks with the Palestinians on the basis of a two state solution.
Continue reading ‘El País, Pots And Kettles’
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As readers of this blog will be well aware, Juan Miguel Muñoz, is a man of constant sorrow. He’s the Jerusalem correspondent of El País and over the last couple of years it has fallen to him to report on the daily outrages against the conscience of humanity committed by Israel.
However, in this piece in today’s edition of Spain’s most popular serious newspaper he seems a bit more cheerful. The world, as he sees it, is finally waking up to the reality of the many evils that allowing the Jews to govern themselves has brought upon the world. His analysis, however, doesn’t resist serious consideration.
Continue reading ‘Freedom for Juan Miguel Muñoz!’
There’s an editorial in today’s El País about Gaza and Israel’s policy towards it that offers a nice mix of rank prejudice and preconceptions masquerading as analysis.
Continue reading ‘El País in Gaza’
Juan Miguel Muñoz write in El País today about the efforts threats to arrest Tzipi Livni if she visits London. He says that
Worried Israeli leaders are resorting to ferocious diplomatic pressure in response to legal incidents like this in Europe.
Continue reading ‘More Of The Same From Muñoz’
You remember all the fuss at the start of the year about Israel’s supposedly disproportionate use of force in Gaza, no? Well, unless you are a close student of Afghan affairs it may have escaped your attention that last Thursday Spanish forces killed 13 members of the Taliban without suffering so much as a scratch on their own side.
Continue reading ‘Because Wars Are Either Won Or lost’
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”’
It is possible to be very critical of Israel and its actions without being antisemitic; the Spanish writer Jordi Soler proves it in this op-ed published in El País, part of which I translate below. You could argue with some of his points and not everything is phrased in the most judicious manner. Nevertheless, the attempt to offer a harsh critique of the actions of the Israel while simultaneously separating himself from the mile-wide streak of antisemitism in many similar critiques is as noteworthy as it is laudable.
Continue reading ‘The Barbarian Streak in Spain’
Lluis Bassets a journalist at El País. Not just any journalist either, he’s the newspaper’s associate editor and is in charge of its op-ed section. Naturally, he also has own blog on the paper’s website. There you can read stuff like this.
Continue reading ‘El País and the Satan-Nation’
In an article in El País, José R. Ayaso sets out to clarify the use of such terms as “Jew” and “Hebrew ” in Spanish. In principle this is a laudable project, as one often comes across such barbarisms as “the Hebrew army” in Spanish language media.
Continue reading ‘Gaza, Antisemitism And Carelessness With Words’
Not everyone in Buenos Aires has lost their marbles with regard to Gaza. Writing in Perfil Jorge Castro says that,
Continue reading ‘Israel’s Objectives in Gaza’
Writing in El País about the breakdown of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel Ana Carabajosa says,
Continue reading ‘Spain’s Most Prestigious Newspaper’
Writing in El Mundo’s Middle East blog, Sal Emergui works himself into something of a lather about the 21 days in prison recently dished out by the Israeli Air Force to one of its members who had allowed himself the luxury of an unsmothered yawn during a speech being delivered by the commanding officer of the Ramat David air force base, on the occasion of a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
Continue reading ‘Jews Behaving Normally’
There’s an excellent article by Alejandro Baer in today’s El País about the contrasting treatment given to the news of Kristallnacht on the Francoist and Republican sides during the Spanish Civil War. Baer, a social anthropologist at Madrid’s Complutense University, sets out in detail the approval and indeed glee with which the news was greeted on the Francoist side and compares this with the condemnations expressed by the media on the Republican side, as well as noting the solidarity expressed with the victims by Spain’s legitimate government and the support offered to them, even as the Republic’s own death agony approached.
Continue reading ‘Kristallnacht in Civil War Spain’
Juan Miguel Muñoz of El País writes here about Tzipi Livni getting the thumbs down, at least for now, from Shas in her attempts to form a government in Israel. There isn’t a particular quote I could translate that would serve as a good example, but Muñoz’s article is suffused with disgust at the influence Rabbi Ovadia Yosef exercises over Shas in particular and in Israeli politics in general.
Continue reading ‘Divines’
José Manuel Sánchez Gordillo is a member of the regional parliament of Andalucía for the United Left/Greens/Andalucía’s Call party and mayor of the town of Marinaleda. In this story in today’s El País, the paper’s Jerusalem correspondent Juan Miguel Muñoz describes how, while returning home from Israel after accompanying a number of Palestinian children back to the West Bank after a holiday in Spain, he was “humiliated” by the security procedures at Ben Gurion Airport and subjected to “every kind of mistreatment, including being obliged to take off his shoes, having his belongings searched in an abusive manner and being questioned at length about his activities.”
Continue reading ‘José Manuel Sánchez Gordillo and Pseudo-Martyrdom’
