Engage Hamas today or face guaranteed Middle East “peace” failure: The United States is sending a succession of envoys to engage with Hamas but lacks the bravery to talk to the Islamist movement openly, its leader, Khaled Meshal, said in an interview with the Guardian.
Showing all posts tagged Zionism
The how and why of boycotting a nation like Israel
The Guardian music blog publishes an interesting discussion about the rights, wrongs and issues over musical boycotts (South Africa, Israel etc): Last week, Elvis Costello became the latest, though probably not the last, musician to pull out of a concert in Israel under pressure from various groups calling for a cultural boycott of the country…
Israel opens fire on Gaza flotilla
If true, this is going to get much uglier: Israeli forces have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the country’s siege on Gaza, according to a Turkish aid agency being quoted by Turkish media. At least two people were killed and more than 30 people injured, the report said early on Monday.…
Battle of Big Thinking presentation on the Middle East
Back in March I spoke at Sydney’s Battle of Big Thinking about “Israel/Palestine reframed through the blogosphere”. My talk is now online: Antony Loewenstein – Israel/Palestine reframed through the blogosphere from APG Australia on Vimeo.
Deutsche Bank takes a stand over Israeli apartheid
What happens when Israel believes it can simply continue occupying Palestinian land. And note the welcome bravery of a German company who can reasonably expect a massive guilt trip over the Holocaust: Following pressure from critics, Germany’s largest bank has divested from the Israeli firm that supplies technology for the West Bank security fence. Deutsche…
Gaza Flotilla sails into a positive outcome
As the Israeli army approaches the Gaza Flotilla – great images, team, unarmed civilians versus Zionist soldiers in camo – it’s once again pitiful to see the ways in which Israel supporters are all about PR and spin (there’s no crisis in Gaza etc) rather than realising that this is a battle they will never…
Perhaps Israel would like to silence Gazans permanently
The Gaza flotilla continues its merry way toward the Strip before the inevitable provocation by Israel (so much for Gaza being an independent territory when Israel says it has the right to stop the ships landing on the shore). The cost of the Israeli operation will be millions of shekels. Such money well spent. Gideon…
Assad and Meshaal speak (and we should listen)
The idea of journalists speaking to our “enemies” happens so rarely that it’s refreshing to see the exception to the rule. Too many media hacks fear being labeled as unpatriotic. Surely blindly backing the state, any state, is unhealthy. So, here’s Charlie Rose interviewing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and gives…
How Palestine remains central to the Muslim world
Al-Jazeera English reports on the (mainly) Turkish contingent of the Gaza Flotilla on its way to the Strip: In a separate but related item, Turkey’s rise as a major power is being noted across the Arab world.
A writer loathed by the Zionist establishment
My following article appears in this week’s Green Left Weekly: American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein Directed by David Ridgen & Nicolas Rossier Baraka Productions Review by Antony Loewenstein Jewish critics of Israel are as old as the ideology itself. Zionism was regarded by most Jews in Europe as an idealistic delusion before the…