In my book The Blogging Revolution I examine Tehran’s various methods of censoring the web and torturing online dissidents. That campaign is only getting worse and Western firms are complicit: Iran’s mullahcracy inevitably recalls the latter days of the Soviet Union. But — at least until the very end — the Soviet censors could clamp…
Showing all posts tagged Iran
Repeat after me; no Twitter explosion in the Islamic Republic
I’ve written before about the hyped media campaign last year that falsely claimed the civil unrest in Iran was a Twitter Revolution. In fact, many of the Iranian Twitter accounts were being run from inside the US. So how many hacks will read this? But it is time to get Twitter’s role in the events…
No, anti-Semitism isn’t (mostly) behind the current campaign
Radio Farda is the Iranian branch of Radio Free Europe and receives millions of hits monthly by discussing issues the Islamic Republic would rather keep hidden. I was interviewed last week about the Gaza flotilla (though I should note, for the record, that I think real anti-Semitism is a tiny reason behind the current campaign…
Give us something to love, please, pleads Zionists
One of the undoubted successes of the Gaza flotilla has been highlighting the humanitarian crisis inside the Strip. It’s real; I saw it with my own eyes last year. With news that Iran may escort further aid ships to Gaza – let’s not even think about how Tel Aviv would deal with that – it’s…
The threat of female flesh in the streets of Tehran
Life for young people in Iran is a constant struggle and I deeply admire the men and women who challenge the hard-liners regressive view of human rights and decency: Iranian authorities have begun police patrols in the capital to arrest women wearing clothes deemed improper. The campaign against loose-fitting veils and other signs of modernism…
BDS gets noticed by Murdoch press
This piece in the Wall Street Journal highlights a serious problem faced by Israel and its Diaspora supporters: Israel’s bungled attempt to stop the aid flotilla from reaching Gaza also highlights how an increasingly forceful strategy by Palestinians and their supporters to turn to boycotts, international isolation, and relatively nonviolent protests is confronting Israel with…
Thank God Israel stopped those 700 terrorists
What is a man to do who simply loves Israel like a fine wine, an aged cheese, a voluptuous lady? Over to you, Murdoch man Andrew Bolt: Jihad was also the spirit on the Mavi Marmara as it sailed for Gaza. Those on board refused offers by Israel that they dock at an Israeli port…
We’re sailing into unchartered waters here, people
A fascinating piece (via Mondoweiss) from the realist website Stratfor: [Exodus author Leon] Uris…used an amalgam of incidents to display the propaganda war waged by the Jews. Those carrying out this war had two goals. The first was to create sympathy in Britain and throughout the world for Jews who, just a couple of years…
Replace Israel with Iran and wonder what would happen
Salon’s Glenn Greenwald has a pithy Twitter comment: I wonder what people would be saying if Iran had intercepted a humanitarian ship in int’l waters and killed 15 or so civilians on board.