My latest New Matilda column is about the recent Israeli elections and the issues of Jewish identity: Do the results of Israel’s recent election really point to significant changes in the Jewish state? According to most regional analysts, the results of Israel’s recent election signal a profound shift to the right. But a deeper reading…
Showing all posts tagged Egypt
Talking Palestine in Ubud
I’m currently in Ubud, Bali after being invited by the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival to conduct an event tonight. The following article appears in the current edition of the local paper, The Bali Advertiser: 2009 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival presents Antony Loewenstein author of “My Israel Question” and “The Blogging Revolution” Just as…
Simply more futile silencing
Just another shocking act by a friendly US ally (and dictatorship): A German-Egyptian activist has been detained north of Cairo during a rally in support of Palestinians in Gaza. Philip Rizk has been an outspoken activist on Palestinian issues and lived in Gaza for two years. He previously worked on aid projects with Canon Andrew…
It will happen, eventually
Robert Baer, a former top Central Intelligence Agency operative, offers some advice to the hapless Israelis and Americans: Hamas is an idea. Hamas is not an organisation. Hamas is an idea, and unless the Israelis go in and force 1.5 million people into Egypt, they will never subdue Gaza. They can go in and they…
What to do about US-backed despots
Online dissidents in authoritarian states such as Egypt thrive on sites like Facebook, according to Harvard University’s Ethan Zuckerman, because, “the government can’t simply shut down Facebook, because doing so would alert a large group of people who they can’t afford to radicalize.” It is the Dictator’s Dilemma, an issue I cover extensively in my…
Extremism rises from the ashes
Alastair Crooke, The Guardian, January 19: …The 22-day war has changed the parameters in the region: it has produced an unparalleled, overt challenge to Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the formal structures of Arab political power. The Doha informal meeting of heads of state on Friday gave legitimacy to the Palestinian resistance movements, called for…
Our close drug-running friends
Declassified U.S. documents show that the CIA and former U.S. ambassadors were fully aware, as far back as 1990, that the military in Colombia – the third largest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel and Egypt – were committing extrajudicial killings as part of “death squad tactics.”
The net effect
The following essay about the web and my book The Blogging Revolution, by Richard King, appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on January 3: Good, bad or a bit of both? Richard King asks whether the internet serves us, or we serve it. Perhaps new technologies meet with suspicion because of the perception they extend…
Bring your own presents
A wedding invitation that perfectly captures the current “love” between Israel and Egypt. From one US-backed dictatorship to a US-backed client state. Feel the love.
The cards are shifting (and Israel missed the press release)
Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, January 4: Hamas, as it turns out, has a single definition for victory. Like Hezbollah, Hamas knows that a few hundred rockets will not crush Israel, but rather serve as critically-needed leverage to establish its presence as a prominent and active decision-making force in the inter-Palestinian arena. This goes beyond Hamas’ standing…