The overwhelming influence of any one media owner, Rupert Murdoch or otherwise, should always be opposed, even if in this case commercial fears probably beat ethical considerations: Fleet Street’s highly factionalised newspaper industry today set aside historic differences to join forces in an unprecedented assault against the power of Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire. The companies…
Nobody said US Jews didn’t also want to exclude Palestinian rights
Sigh: An overwhelming majority of American Jews believe that the goal of the Arabs “is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel,” according to a recent poll released by the American Jewish Committee. Approximately 76% of respondents in the AJC’s fall 2010 Survey of American Jewish Opinion agreed with a…
The Left challenge
George Monbiot in the Guardian: Progressives, [WWF’s Tom Crompton] shows, have been suckers for a myth of human cognition he labels the enlightenment model. This holds that people make rational decisions by assessing facts. All that has to be done to persuade people is to lay out the data: they will then use it to…
Moving forward? Australia’s relationship with Israel is dire
My following lead essay appears in the Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings: I first discovered the importance of the Israel/Palestine conflict in my early teens, in Melbourne. I remember sitting around the Sabbath table with my parents and cousins, discussing the events of the week as we consumed schnitzels, soggy vegetables and chicken soup.…
The Greens are evil says yet another Murdoch man
So this is how a Serious writer commentates in a Serious newspaper. Christopher Pearson in Saturday’s Australian: To consolidate their own position as parties for grown-ups, Labor and the Coalition should always speak of the Greens as the infantile party: resolutely irresponsible, innumerate and a threat to the economy. They should also be pointing out…
How many Gandhis do you need in Palestine?
Yes, Palestine is creating countless Gandhi-style activists but Israel continues imprisoning them all. The threat of a good example, such as Abdallah Abu Rahmah.
Yes, Australia imprisons children
This is how Australia treats refugees, including children, when they come seeking asylum; under lock and key for months and longer:
Because Ahmadinejad fits a necessary hole in the enemy gallery
Roger Cohen writes in the New York Times that the world (and Israel especially) needs to not frame Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the devil incarnate but that’s exactly what the Zionists must do; the new “Hitler” has arrived: Ahmadinejad is a one-trick pony. His thing is double standards. Ask about the Iranian nuclear program,…
Speak in hushed tones around the Great Leader
Yet another example of the lack of bravery in the Murdoch press in Australia, so keen to dish out dirt but afraid to listen to criticism. It’s an empire built on Rupert’s largesse and when he goes…
The right of return can never be given up
Akiva Eldar in Haaretz: Netanyahu knows full well that any Palestinian leader who recognizes Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people also acknowledges that the Palestinians do not have any rightful place there. In other words, it is tantamount to an up-front concession on the right of return.