Michael Collins isn’t a name that will mean much to many readers of this blog. For present purposes it will suffice to say that he was a key figure in the War of Independence that led to Ireland winning its freedom from Great Britain. He was shot dead in an ambush during the Irish Civil War 88 years ago today.
Continue reading ‘Michael Collins, 88 Years and Burying the Past’
Many of the grand myths of our own time - Israel as the ultimate rogue state, U.S. policy as a hostage of the “Israel Lobby,” the Palestinians as the iconic symbol of human suffering - draw on a much older tradition that, just twenty years ago, most people regarded as a matter for historians, not chroniclers of the present. It was these myths which effectively licensed Oliver Stone’s remarks. If there is a lesson to be drawn from L’Affaire Stone, it is that he did not - and this is why his apology is really by the by - act alone.
From my latest piece for The Huffington Post.
Actually, he doesn’t so much exonerate himself of it as offer himself as a candidate for recognition as being righteous among the gentiles:
But my own diligence against anti-Semitism, in all its forms, in my own church in particular, is well-documented and has gone back decades.
Continue reading ‘Andrew Sullivan Exonerates Himself of Antisemitism’
Though the AMIA massacre occurred on July 18th, 1994 the official commemoration of its sixteenth anniversary took place on the 16th. In these two stories covering the events that took place you’ll find Guillermo Borger, head of the AMIA community organization. the one directly affected by the attack, praising the “good performance” of the present administration with regard to the investigation into the attack and lauding Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s “bravery” in calling for the extradition of the Iranian fugitives in her speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations.
One might say that it’s a political form of money laundering; just as one would wash shady banknotes through an offshore bank, so can the most bloodstained of reputations be cleansed just by engaging in a publicity stunt billed as a humanitarian gift to Gaza’s Palestinians.
My latest piece over at The Huffington Post.
My latest contribution to the Huffington Post, on Hezbollah’s foray into the rapidly-burgeoning flotilla industry, in full here.
Instant universal condemnation of Israel, with no criticism of Hamas, after the flotilla clash with Israel’s navy, has not helped those who truly seek peace. Rather, the world has further emboldened Hamas in its rejectionist stance. “May 31 was and will be a turning point,” Haniyeh declared. “It marks the beginning of the delegitimization of the Zionist project in our country.” The Hamas leader, for sure, was not speaking only of Gaza.
A flavor of my op-ed for Fox News, which you can read in full here.
Just a short note to say that I’ve started writing over at the Huffington Post. You can read my first piece, on Iran and the UN Human Rights Council, here.
The dominant narrative of Zionist storm troopers massacring innocent peace activists on the Mavi Marmara is now so well established that no amount of evidence supporting Israel’s version of events is likely to make any difference. Still, it seems to impossible not to comment on this series of photos published by the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
I’ve read some suggestions that the Israelis have been manipulating our perception of the events that took place on the “Mavi Marmarma” by only releasing those images that suit their narrative. Let’s assume that’s indeed what’s going on. However, I haven’t seen suggestions that the material released is faked. At worst it would appear to be incomplete. This being so, it seems impossible to deny that some passengers chose to attack the commandos as soon as they set foot on the vessel and reasonable to suppose that this decision bears some relation to the decision taken by the Israelis to fire on them.
I’m just back from seeing Bruno Dumont’s Hadewijch and a very interesting film it is too. The reason that I mention it here is that in his review of it Luciano Monteagudo, one of the nation’s best known film critics, describes the character Nassir as being a Palestinian immigrant when there isn’t a scrap of evidence in the picture to suggest he’s anything other than an Algerian, or perhaps the son of Algerians.
6. El País (ii)
Juan Miguel Muñoz is the Jerusalem correspondent for El País and nobody who has followed his coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict in recent years can have been left in any doubt as to his views on it. There’s a brio and a frank partisanship in his writing that’s absent from that of his British colleague, Rory McCarthy of The Guardian. Between the 9th and 22nd of March El País ran a story almost every day from Muñoz, devoted either wholly or in part to the developing crisis.
Continue reading ‘Biden’s Visit in The Guardian and El País IV’
3. The Facts
The controversy arose from the fact that during a visit in early March from Vice President Biden, Israel announced its intention to build 1600 new housing units in a part of the city of Jerusalem captured from the Kingdom of Jordan during the Six Day War. Given that Biden was in the country to make encouraging noises to both sides in the then approaching proximity peace talks, the timing of the announcement was unfortunate to say the very least. Biden himself immediately condemned the move while Secretary of State Hilary Clinton described it as “deeply negative” and David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, described it both as an “affront” and an “insult”. Michael Oren, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Sates, is alleged to have said that the row amounted to the worst crisis in US-Israeli relations in 35 years, though he later claimed to have been misquoted. Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed that he was unaware that the announcement was to be made during Biden’s visit, expressed regret about its timing and set up a committee to ensure that such a decision would not be made public without his approval in the future. The Palestinian side reacted by threatening not to participate in the proximity talks.
Continue reading ‘Biden’s Visit in The Guardian and El País II’
1. Introduction
The purpose of this piece is to compare some aspects of the coverage of the recent diplomatic tension between the United States and Israel arising from Israel’s announcement of its intention to build new homes in a disputed part of Jerusalem during the recent visit to Israel of United States Vice President Joe Biden. The Guardian, of London and El País, of Madrid were the newspapers chosen for examination because they are usually regarded as leaders in the advocacy of liberal and progressive politics in their respective countries and progressive and liberal opinion in some democratic nations has in recent years taken a sharp turn against Israel. Putting it very roughly, when Israel was frequently involved in large-scale conventional warfare and expanding the territory under its control it was generally seen in sympathetic terms. Now that it has withdrawn from huge extensions of territory conquered in war, made comprehensive peace deals with two of countries that border it and abandoned fantasies of remaking the map of the Middle East to suit its proposes, it is increasingly seen as a uniquely evil state, illegitimate from birth, perverse in its policies, cruel in its behavior and ruled by a nefarious ideology, Zionism.
Continue reading ‘Biden’s Visit in The Guardian and El País I’
1.
Readers with good memories will recall the appointment of Jorge Palacios, a disgraced former Federal Police officer to head the city of Buenos Aires’s first autonomous police force. To put it mildly, it wasn’t an idea that prospered. Palacios was obliged to resign when indicted on charges of being involved in the cover up of the AMIA massacre and is now in prison while being investigated on charges of organizing illegal wiretaps. Among those who had their phone conversations illicitly listened in on was Sergio Burstein, a well known campaigner for justice for the families of the survivors of the AMIA attack.
Continue reading ‘Israeli Embassy Controls Buenos Aires City Hall’
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