Abuse is alright when directed at them

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is grilled by German magazine Spiegel Online. There is no doubt that his country deserves to be challenged on its gross human rights abuses, but would the journalist ever challenge Western politicians in the same way? Of course not.

The case for Ahmadinejad’s sanity?

Blogger Andrew Sullivan on Iran’s supposed suicide wish: Jeffrey Goldberg provides a long list of the Islamist’s statements on Israel. It’s a good complement to this. Reading them all, it becomes quite clear to me that Ahmadinejad does indeed want Israel to cease to exist, but equally clear that he is not speaking of dropping…

Jews are getting the image of being afraid of debate

My following article appears on the leading US blog Mondoweiss: Jeff Halper, Israeli/American peace activist, retired anthropologist and head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), writes in his recent book, An Israeli in Palestine, of the moment he became a “critical Israeli”: “I first became aware of being an ”˜Israeli in Palestine’ on…

The pointless screaming of Zionists

You didn’t hear that the New York Times is accused by Zionist fanatics of being pro-terrorist, anti-Israel, pro-Ahmadinejad and soft on extremism? That’s because the usual suspects are increasingly irrelevant and shrill. There is more than one kind of Judaism in the modern age.

We’ve got to keep on talking

Lebanese Chess is a fascinating blog written by a Lebanese Australian. His recent post is titled, “A week of speeches“: Khatami, Halper and Loewenstein … three public speakers at Australia’s main political university, the Australian National University (ANU), in a week. I went to see them all, and nothing much out of the three surprised…

Time for an awakening

Nasrin Alavi, Open Democracy, February 2: A campaign in mid-2008 in the Islamic Republic of Iran against “bad hijab” – scarves worn in a way that reveal a woman’s hair and thus violate the country’s rigorous public dress-code – saw many women arrested and an even larger number cautioned. At the time a university student…

Don’t act like we do

William Blum, in his latest Anti-Empire Report, gets it in one: Just leave them alone. There is no “Iranian problem”. They are a threat to no one. Iran hasn’t invaded any other country in centuries. No, President Ahmadinejad did not threaten Israel with any violence. Stop patrolling the waters surrounding Iran with American warships. Stop…

Welcome to reality, world

Writing in the Asia Times, M K Bhadrakumar explains the ways in which Iran is slowly but surely being brought back into the international community and rightly assuming its place as a leading power: Anyone familiar with the complex ways in which Persians express their heart’s desire will agree Ahmadinejad’s response within hours of Obama’s…

The Jewish state likes being alone

Saudi Arabia is a brutal dictatorship run by crooks. Despite this, however, it remains a close friend of the US and “ally” of Israel. The recent war against Gaza may have changed all that, writes Prince Turki, chairman of King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh. He has also been director of…

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