Another day in the life of occupied Palestine: A coalition of human rights groups led by Physicians for Human Rights …– Israel, HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, and Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement today sent a letter to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, in response to…
Showing all posts in June 2019
A Middle East history very easily forgotten
The organisation Zochrot is a group of Israeli citizens who work to raise awareness of the Nakba, the 1948 Palestinian catastrophe (I’ve written about this wonderful group before). Here’s their latest email, proving that at least some Israeli Jews are very aware that Israel was built on the bones of another people: Tour of the…
SBS Radio interview on Israeli discrimination in East Jerusalem
SBS News Radio reports today: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas for the first time since taking office in March, in Washington today. U-S President Barack Obama is hosting the talks at the White House. It comes at a time when peace moves are stalled, despite intense U-S efforts. As…
Only nice views in Israel, please
Free speech in Israel? In their deluded dreams, writes Amira Hass in Haaretz: A new report from Adalah shows how the courts and police attempted to stamp out opposition to Operation Cast Lead. “This is a time of war, and every incident harms the people’s morale.” This was not a sentence in a right-wing journal,…
J Street can’t quite bring itself to see Israel for what it is
The supposedly progressive new pro-Israel lobby group J Street is getting heaps of mainstream traction. But post the recent UN report on Gaza, its statement is shamefully weak: J Street has reviewed the Goldstone report in its entirety over the past several days. J Street agrees with Israelis, such as Minister Isaac Herzog, that some…
Hamas says it wants to come in from the cold (yet again)
How much longer will the world continue to demonise Hamas? The head of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip has told United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon that the group supports any steps leading to the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, according to the Palestinian news agency Ramattan. The letter…
Afghanistan is a war with no end
Raja Anwar’s The Tragedy of Afghanistan (Verso, London 1988) has this revealing quote: In Afghanistan, settling a blood feud is an unemotional and impersonal act. It is like a sacred obligation which must be fulfilled. According to one Pashtun saying, ”˜a Pashtun curses himself for his hastiness even if the murder he has avenged took…
Introducing Saree Makdisi to Australia
During last night’s Sydney Ideas event with Sareee Makdisi, I gave the following introduction: Sydney Ideas 22 September, 2009 Excavating Memory in Jerusalem Professor Saree Makdisi, US academic, author and Middle East analyst Seymour Centre, Sydney University An introduction by Antony Loewenstein During an interview with the Boston Globe in 2008 during the release of…
The Israeli Jewish bubble
Back in July, Joseph Dana and I walked the streets of West Jerusalem to check Israeli public opinion towards Arabs, Barack Obama and settlemets. The main message? Leave us Jews alone. Racism was everywhere. Now Al-Jazeera has pounded the same area and heard virtually similar comments. At what point will Israeli Jewish racism be exposed…
And Israel wonders why it is so hated
A day in the life of a Palestinian in Gaza: Abu Wael, my white-haired host in Beit Hanoun, so gentle and soft-spoken, sat and graciously urged his guests to eat more of food that he grew with his own hands on his northern Gaza farm, while he spoke of his grief. The farm used to…