The Independent on Sunday: Adam Werritty, the man at the centre of the Liam Fox cash-for-access scandal, has been involved in an audacious plot to topple Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was claimed last night. The self-styled adviser to Mr Fox, whose close personal friendship with the former defence secretary led to Mr Fox’s downfall,…
Showing all posts tagged Iran
Rest easy, Israel, the storm has passed, keep on occupying
What’s that about an Israeli media bubble? You say there’s nothing to worry about? Sorry what? Occupying Palestinians is fine? Rising racism against Arabs best avoided? Yes, of course it is. Guy Bechor writes in Yediot, the country’s biggest paper, that Israel is now emerging from a down-turn and even falsely claims Australia has outlawed…
The out of control drone future
So this is where our supposed civilised world is heading. A disturbing piece in the weekend’s New York Times: At the Zhuhai air show in southeastern China last November, Chinese companies startled some Americans by unveiling 25 different models of remotely controlled aircraft and showing video animation of a missile-armed drone taking out an armored…
The desperate plea for Israel to hang onto land forever
It seems I’ve upset a man who rather likes Zionist occupation and dislikes my recent ABC piece on the UN Palestine bid and BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] against Israel. In this week’s conservative Spectator magazine, a column by Rowan Dean, headlined, “Three words you’ll never hear from Loewenstein and his BDS pals”, rehashes every…
The ongoing pain of Iranians to find a better life without the mad mullahs
A new Iranian film, Asghar Farhadi’s Nader and Simin: A Separation, captures the painful moment: The grim irony at the heart of Farhadi’s film is that the angst and perplexity are the fruit of a “sacred” republic of ideals. Here is the signal failure of the ideological state that Ayatollah Khomeini set up thirty-two years…
Palestine statehood bid signals long struggle ahead for equal rights
My following piece is published today on ABC’s The Drum: Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas returned from New York to occupied Ramallah on the weekend as “an Arab leader of significant standing“, according to writers from the liberal Israeli paper Haaretz. The Abbas speech in front of the United Nations, calling for the international body to…
We cannot forget ongoing trauma in Bahrain
While Washington and much of the West turns away, citizens must continue raising their voices. Anthony Shadid writes in the New York Times: Activists trade stories of colleagues forced to eat feces in prison and high-ranking Shiite bureaucrats compelled to crawl in their offices like infants. Human rights groups say 43 Shiite mosques and religious…
My reaction to 9/11 didn’t turn into desire to murder Arabs
I was interviewed last week by Radio Farda, Iranian Branch of Radio Free Europe, on my attitudes toward 9/11 and the subsequent decade. My answers were translated into Farsi so my English responses are below: 1) Do you remember how and where you got the info on 9/11? I was in Melbourne, Australia and I…
Memo to New York Times; you have no idea about the Middle East
Angry Arab: While watching the scenes in Egypt today [protestors breaking into the Israeli embassy in Cairo], [New York Times columnist] Thomas Friedman, should have tweeted this to himself: I am so clueless. … I have no idea what is going on in the Middle East. … I was sitting in my suite at the Marriott and…
This is what Israeli isolation looks like (and Washington can’t do much)
Tony Karon in Time.com shows what happens when you brutally occupy another people for decades; the world gets sick of it: Israel’s fallout with long-time ally Turkey is no isolated spat that will be repaired any time soon; it’s a dramatic illustration that no amount of U.S. backing can prevent the growing international isolation resulting…