Ilan Pappe: The gist of the Israeli narrative is simple: this is an Iranian-like revolution helped by Al Jazeera and stupidly allowed by US President Barack Obama, who is a new Jimmy Carter, and a stupefied world. Spearheading the Israeli interpretation are the former Israeli ambassadors to Egypt. All their frustration from being locked in…
Dispatch from East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah protest
David Shulman documents the daily ethnic cleansing: It took the Planning Committee of the Jerusalem City Council less than fifteen minutes to approve plans for the next wave of evictions in Sheikh Jarrah. We knew it was coming. Six large Palestinian families—some fifty souls– are to be expelled from their homes, the houses will be…
Dershowitz joins Assange team
Loathing Palestinians is clearly no barrier to assisting the US case of Julian Assange: Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz has joined the legal defense team for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The announcement–which came via a Tweeted… press release Monday afternoon–took place a… day ahead of the first showdown over Wikileaks in a U.S. courtroom: a hearing set…
Happenings inside the Egypt elite are anything but democratic
The leadership is scheming, refusing to release political prisoners or investigate the stolen billions of Mubarak. And Omar Suleiman, the torturer in chief loved by America and Israel, remains a very powerful figure. Some Arabic media translated here and here.
Only an Israeli or American openly boasts about crimes
Jewish American blogger Richard Silverstein has the news: Haaretz has just published a story that will certainly disappear due to gag order. … In it, Anshel Pfeffer writes that Gabi Ashkenazi prepared a video celebrating his achievements as chief of staff, which was screened at a party marking his final day on the job. … What is…
We see the Iranian call for freedom
“Mobarak, Zine [al-Abidine Ben] Ali and now it’s the turn of Seyd Ali [Khamenei]”
Sensible American writer who doesn’t loathe political Islam
Roger Cohen in a very powerful column today in the New York Times: Perhaps the most effective antidote to 9/11 will prove to be 2/11, the day Hosni Mubarak conceded the game was up with his 30-year-old dictatorship and left town under military escort for the beach. We’ve tried invasions of Muslim lands. We’ve tried…
ABCTV News 24 on Egypt and Wikileaks
I was a guest on last night’s ABCTV News 24’s The Drum alongside Sue Cato and the Daily Telegraph’s Joe Hilderbrand (video here). One of the main areas of discussion was the Egyptian revolution and just how good it felt. I argued that it was vital for us in the West to understand that Egypt’s…
Because Iran deserves to be truly free
I stand in solidarity with the brave Iranians protesting today against a brutal police state.
Who says Abu Ghraib is bad for business?
Private contractor CACI provided some of the torturers at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. So it therefore makes sense, following the rules of crony capitalism, that a rebounding economy is suiting CACI just fine: CACI, an Arlington County-based defense contractor, hired 3,500 people in its last fiscal year and plans 4,000 hires this year. It has…