Israeli human rights group B’Tselem on driver Muhammad Id’is who claims he was beaten at an Israeli checkpoint this month. This is his testimony: I live in Beit ”˜Amra, which is next to Yatta. For many years, I have been transporting workers from the communities near Yatta and a-Samu’ to Khirbet Jinba, from which they…
Showing all posts in June 2019
HuffPost goes nowhere in Palestine
Yesterday I discussed Arianna Huffington’s love affair with Israel. Her latest post is even worse, a rose-coloured view of a country she clearly imagines exists but does not. Care to travel down the road to the occupation, Arianna? It’s hard to spend any time with Israeli President Shimon Peres and remain pessimistic about the possibility…
Could we please just pray daily for Israel?
Following my article in yesterday’s Crikey about Saree Makdisi’s recent visit to Australia, the following letter is published today: Josh Landis writes: I don’t get it. What does Crikey see in Antony Loewenstein and why are his rants continually published? The latest offering says almost nothing. Summary: 200 people including about five Jews turned up…
How spiritual is your Judaism?
Jews at the famous Burning Man festival? Jewish identity manifests itself in the strangest of places and yet it makes perfect sense. How we define ourselves in the 21st century is up for grabs. Oddly fascinating (though I can’t help but wonder whether the Middle East was never discussed):
Iran, Michael Jackson, and Generation X
My following article appears in the Asia-Pacific Magazine The Diplomat: Our writer argues that his young tech-savvy peers, celebrity fixations aside, are increasingly engaged in global issues like this summer’s riots in Tehran. The violent June uprisings in Iran ricocheted around the world. While young, old, conservative and liberal Iranians protested the stolen election win…
Murdering Arabs is actually a problem
If the US fails to hold Israel to account, those with international law on their mind may: A senior prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague said Monday that he is considering opening an investigation into whether Lt. Col. David Benjamin, an Israel Defense Forces reserve officer, allowed war crimes to be committed…
Can Fayyad make a difference?
My latest New Matilda column is about the favoured Palestinians in the West: ‘Moderate’ Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad may be popular with western leaders, but under his watch the gulf between rhetoric and reality is growing, writes Antony Loewenstein The Western-backed Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, was… interviewed earlier this month on… ABC Radio National’s… Saturday Extra.…
How to ruin the chances of Middle East peace
Michael Shaik, from Australians for Palestine, writes in Murdoch’s Australian: In 1973, Ariel Sharon announced his intention to make a “pastrami sandwich” of the Palestinians by building strips of settlements across the West Bank, “so that in 25 years’ time, neither the United Nations, nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it…
Ahmadinejad is a man with a serious dislike of Jews
Following Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent foul speech on “Jerusalem Day” about Jews, Israel and the Holocaust – he’s been welcomed to New York this week with Iranian protests -… Juan Cole digs deeper into his words to reveal an even bleaker picture: For him to suggest, as he does here, that anti-Semitism was justified…
Saree Makdisi: Obama won’t solve the Middle East crisis
My following article appears in today’s Crikey: After… Tuesday night’s Sydney Ideas lecture by Saree Makdisi, professor of English Literature at the University of California and nephew of the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said, chief executive of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, Vic Alhadeff, asked a question. He wanted to know why Makdisi…