My latest New Matilda column is about the recently released Winograd Report in Israel and what it says about the institutional failures within the Jewish state: The release last week of the Israeli Government’s Winograd Report was designed to reveal the failures of the Lebanon adventure and hold military and political leaders to account. Prime…
Showing all posts tagged Lebanon
Teaching the Jews what matters
Writing in the aftermath of Israel’s Winograd Committee on the failures of the 2006 Lebanon war – though it sadly ignored the pernicious role of Washington in perpetuating the conflict – Haaretz’s Tom Segev asks: To what extent have 40 years of occupation affected the ability of the Israel Defense Forces to protect the country?…
Let the corrupt fall
Israel’s Winograd Commission has reported on the 2006 Lebanon war and concluded “we are all guilty.” The fact that the Israeli leadership is likely to survive the report reflects the dysfunctionality of the Jewish state. Clearly launching an immoral and futile war and massacring innocent civilians is all in a good day’s work for Ehud…
The rise of fanatacism
Al-Qaeda is now fully esconced in Lebanon, according to leading Middle Eastern writer Nir Rosen. The Iraq war is spreading like a cancer.
Going with Hezbollah
US historian Norman Finkelstein, Lebanon, January 7: After the horror and after the shame and after the anger there still remain a hope, and I know that I can get in a lot of trouble for what I am about to say, but I think that the Hezbollah represents the hope. They are fighting to…
Killing the non-Jews
Jonathan Cook, January 4: It apparently never occurred to anyone in our leading human rights organisations or the Western media that the same moral and legal standards ought be applied to the behaviour of Israel and Hizbullah during the war on Lebanon 18 months ago. Belatedly, an important effort has been made to set that…
Throw away the key
“Whoever uses cluster bombs in an area where civilians reside is a criminal in my mind. He should be put on trial here first, but if not here, then at the International Court of Justice.” Former Israel Education Minister Shulamit Aloni, referring to former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz over claims that Israel used cluster…
Two sides to blame
Kenneth Roth, Haaretz, October 28: The way a government or armed group responds to a Human Rights Watch report says a lot about its willingness to curb abuses. Does it grapple seriously with the findings or simply dismiss them? Human Rights Watch encountered a bit of each when we recently released reports on why civilians…
I love the taste of Persian blood in the morning
The rhetoric against Iran seems to be increasing by the day. As if the situation wasn’t complicated enough, now we have evangelical Christians almost begging Iranian Jews to leave because their situation is apparently life-threatening: Evangelical Christians in the U.S. have brought dozens of Iranian Jews to Israel in recent months, offering cash incentives and…
They’re only Lebanese, after all
Israel remains an inspiration to the world: Ninety percent of the land contaminated by cluster bombs in South Lebanon should be cleared by the end of 2008, the United Nations Mine Action Coordination Center (UNMACC), said on Wednesday “A number of factors caused the delay in clearing all the 38 million square meters of infested…