Almost beyond farce: As he did at a rally he led in Washington last year, Mr. Beck gave out awards at his Jerusalem rally. One went to the settlement of Itamar and the Fogel children who survived a horrific Palestinian attack on their home in March that killed their parents and three siblings. More incongruously,…
Showing all posts in June 2019
When Gaddafi danced romantically with head of “rebels”
Bernard Avishai reminds us: There are reports that Qaddafi and his sons are surrounded. I confess that I feel a certain sadness for Saif-al-Islam’s tragic fate. During the early 2000s he tried to lead his father, hence, his country, into something like a liberal and globalist reform, studying classical liberal texts at LSE, and hiring…
Concern for Tamils in Sri Lanka isn’t a new worry
A newly released Wikileaks cable from early 2007 shows how the US was allegedly worried about Colombo’s attitude towards Tamils from years ago and yet during its brutal civil war against the minority tacitly backed the bogus “war on terror” that saw tens of thousands of Tamils murdered. If only Sri Lanka had oil, like…
Lesson from London riots; don’t trust governments to react rationally online
Evidence for the prosecution: Analysis of more than 2.5m Twitter messages relating to the riots in England has cast doubt on the rationale behind government proposals to ban people from social networks or shut down their websites in times of civil unrest. A preliminary study of a database of riot-related tweets, compiled by the Guardian,…
If Israel was a mature country, it would welcome Arab revolutions
But, as Robert Fisk writes, Zionism only wants “democracy” for itself, screw the Arab masses: Israel, which has been so skewed and immature in its response to the Arab awakening – why on earth did its leaders not welcome the Egyptian revolution, opening their arms to a people who showed they wanted the democracy which…
With Serco in charge, abuses are guaranteed
Another day and another serious allegation: A former Serco employee at Curtin Detention Centre says treatment of detainees by some staff members was “outrageously brutal” and they were bullied constantly. Seven asylum seekers were flown from Curtin and put in isolation on Christmas Island on Tuesday night because of increased tensions at the remote centre,…
BDS isn’t akin to Nazi Germany and damn those who say so
My following essay appears in New Matilda today: Equating the BDS movement with Nazism is both offensive and outrageous. So why aren’t members of the Jewish community speaking out on this, asks Antony Loewenstein Joseph Stalin changed his name and so did New South Wales Federal Greens MP Lee… Rhiannon. Stalin, writes Alan Howe, executive editor…
The tangled web of so-called freedom in Libya
So here’s how it works. Find a dictator, love him then hate him, bomb him to smithereens and look for unique business opportunities. Asia Times: Think of the new Libya as the latest spectacular chapter in the Disaster Capitalism series. Instead of weapons of mass destruction, we had R2P (“responsibility to protect”). Instead of neo-conservatives,…
Jeremy Scahill urges caution on Libya and warns of blow-back
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New Wikileaks cables on Israel/US/Palestinians that show Arabs aren’t liked
2008: Yadlin replied that the Palestinians are only Israel’s number four threat in the IDI’s assessment, following Iran, Syria, and Hizballah. Although the Palestinians are not the IDI’s top concern, Yadlin said he would answer the question by noting that it will take time to marry Netanyahu’s approach to Fayyad’s. If the parties attempt to…