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.
I wasn’t there. Only 100 people were. More from Gene here, who says that the banning of Saddam Hussein’s former poodle from Canada “has turned what certainly would have been a quickly-forgotten tour into a cause celebre – much to Galloway’s delight, I’m sure.” True on one level, but I still think the Canadians were right to invoke their law, and send a message to this craven apologist for tyrants that supporting terrorism doesn’t go unpunished.
Canada has banned the rabble-rousing anti-Zionist, pro-Saddam British MP George Galloway entry on the grounds that he is a threat to national security. Apparently, Galloway is livid. Good. Let him steam, because this was the right action to take, even if The Guardian can’t believe this is the Canadian government’s own decision - it was, as the footnote to this piece makes crystal clear - since Galloway’s vile statements were “drawn to the attention of the government by a Jewish group.”
Continue reading ‘Banning the “Infandous” Galloway: Well Done, Canada!’
This is a guest post by Doug Lieb of AJC, editor of the new blog Durban Countdown.
Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories - previously known for his doubts about what really happened on 9/11 - has just come out with another novel theory.
Twice in three days now, Hamas thugs have stolen humanitarian aid transported into the Gaza Strip by UNRWA, the UN agency which caters to Palestinian refugees, via the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel.
This week marks the seventh anniversary of the brutal kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. In the gruesome video which culminated in Pearl’s beheading by a gang of Islamist terrorists in Karachi, Pakistan, he was heard saying, “My father’s Jewish, my mother’s Jewish, I’m Jewish.”
Continue reading ‘Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil’
Reza Aslan, a California-based academic, has been speaking to Jimmy Carter about the Middle East. It is the kind of interview which all politicians dream about. Aslan bolsters rather than challenges Carter, leading him to his favorite topics and themes with dutifully worded questions. Two of Carter’s answers actually commence with the words, “That’s exactly right.”
Continue reading ‘What Carter Can Learn from the Erdogan Outburst’
This is the final of three guest posts by Henry McDonald, who has covered Irish politics for the Observer and Guardian newspapers, examining the flaws in the frequently-drawn comparison between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Islamist terror groups like Hamas. The posts are drawn from the final chapter of Henry’s recent book, Gunsmoke and Mirrors - How Sinn Fein Dressed up Defeat as Victory, available here. You can now read the entire piece or download a handy PDF version over on the main Z Word site.
The narrative of the Irish peace process suggests a leadership driven by entirely practical concerns, willing when necessary to dump old ideological certainties in the pursuit of limited goals. Dissidents jibe that Sinn Fein’s entry into and embrace of the parliament at Stormont would be akin in the Middle East to Hamas entering the Knesset. In that at least the dissidents have a point.
Continue reading ‘The Limits of the Northern Ireland Analogy (3)’
This is the second of three guest posts by Henry McDonald, who has covered Irish politics for the Observer and Guardian newspapers, examining the flaws in the frequently-drawn comparison between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Islamist terror groups like Hamas. The posts are drawn from the final chapter of Henry’s recent book, Gunsmoke and Mirrors - How Sinn Fein Dressed up Defeat as Victory, available here. You can read Henry’s earlier post here.
Irish republicans throughout the generations have never lacked physical courage in pursuit of their goals. They have however been subject to certain boundaries imposed by their own particular background and culture. Throughout the hunger strike the prisoners’ supporters insisted that their fast for political status was not slow drawn out suicide, which for centuries was regarded as a sin in Catholic theology. It seems puzzling none the less that a political movement that produced activists willing to starve themselves to death for a cause would regard still suicide bombing as anathema.
Continue reading ‘The Limits of the Northern Ireland Analogy (2)’
This is the first in a series of three guest posts by Henry McDonald, who has covered Irish politics for the Observer and Guardian newspapers, examining the flaws in the frequently-drawn comparison between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Islamist terror groups like Hamas. The posts are drawn from the final chapter of Henry’s recent book, Gunsmoke and Mirrors - How Sinn Fein Dressed up Defeat as Victory, available here.
It was arguably the most unlikeliest of places to illuminate the chasm between Irish republican and Islamist terrorism. The ‘Star Letter’ of the January 2008 edition of the British toilet humour magazine/comic ‘Viz’ counterposed the terrorism of the IRA and Al Qaeda.
Continue reading ‘The Limits of the Northern Ireland Analogy (1)’
Below are excerpts from the agenda of the new Obama-Biden Administration on Pakistan and Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This is a guest post by Doug Lieb of the American Jewish Committee, who is currently participating in a solidarity mission to Israel
Many Jewish Israelis have not-so-distant roots in, and close connections to, Europe and the US. And Israel is - as detractors who cry ‘colonialism’ sometimes point out - something of a Western democratic outpost in the heart of the Middle East. So why the seemingly yawning disconnect between the way many Western political and media elites see Israel, and the way mainstream Israelis see themselves?
When Israel acts to defend its civilian population, as it is doing now with the Gaza operation, there is a weary inevitability to the discordant voices comparing the Jewish State with Nazi Germany, or making the related argument that Israel should, in the light of modern Jewish history, simply know better.
Below, Eamonn subjects Sara Roy’s apologia for Hamas to a thorough critique. I don’t want to repeat what he’s said; merely to add some context from today’s news from Gaza.
Via Engage, an excellent piece by Howard Jacobson on a particularly insidious example of the “diminished responsibility” theory of terrorism.
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