Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s communications chief, Ron Dermer, tells the Melbourne Age that his country has a PR problem. Why can’t the world just love us (and our hatred of Arabs)? It is not enough for Israel to say that it wants peace. You must also say that you are not a thief. We…
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A good definition of being Jewish
Naomi Klein, a hero for backing a global boycott against Israel, said in Ramallah last week: There is a debate among Jews – I’m a Jew by the way. The debate boils down to the question: “Never again to everyone, or never again to us?… [Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free card…There is…

Iranian rape inc.
The reality of the Iranian uprisings is still being written but this piece in the Nation is pretty good. What ordinary Iranians suffered is painfully recounted by an 18 year old man: “I was kept in a van till evening that day and then transferred to a solitary cell where I was kept for two…

The importance of nuance
I mentioned last week the case of imprisoned Greek journalist Iason Athanasiadis, currently being held in an Iranian jail on spurious grounds. Salon has published a feature about this fine man: Iason’s detention is especially ironic, given his love of Iran and his understanding of its people and culture. His on-the-ground reporting in the aftermath…

The not so secret hand of Washington
Yesterday I met here in New York with the Mondoweiss boys. Plans are being hatched, but in the meantime, Iran came up: Surprise. Max Boot at Commentary wants Israel to bomb Iran now. So does John Bolton, speaking from the fever ward, the Washington Post op-ed page. The former ambassador says the Tehran revolt has…

Why would anyone who can get along with Arabs want to exalt the two-state solution?
Mondoweiss writes: The other day I wrote that now that non-Zionists are finally gaining a voice in the discourse on Israel/Palestine, we have to bring our bat and ball– positive ideas about how to solve things in the Middle East, not just a litany of Palestinian suffering. I’m planning to have a rolling roundtable on…

Rupert craves clueless revolution
Guy Rundle writes for Crikey: Should Antony Loewenstein sue Greg Sheridan for libel? In his rather hysterical article in yesterday’s Oz, Sheridan slates various people for failing to condemn the actions of the Iranian government with the vociferousness with which they condemn Israel. Leaving aside the fact that Israel claims its legitimacy from the West…

The threat of good food
Another side of Gaza, where cooking and politics meet: Food and cooking in Gaza have changed radically in the last few years since the whole area has been under siege. The borders of this tiny strip are entirely closed, allowing only humanitarian shipments of basic foods to enter–flour, sugar, salt, oil, pulses–and even these are…