British journalist Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth, is an example of the necessary skepticism individuals should display when writing about Palestine. Occupation can’t be hidden. In a new interview, he says: This is a Palestinian grassroots initiative that cannot be bought off by Israel in the way the Fatah leadership was bought off by Oslo.…
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Spreading the word across Indonesia
Post the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, that finished last night in wonderful fashion, I’m now here for this tomorrow night: “Global Voices in Borobudur” will bring ten writers from around the world and five Indonesian writers to the world’s largest Buddhist temple at Borobudur to present their work on October 13, 2009, as an…
Israel controls the process from start to finish
The sound and feel of utter failure. Washington’s so-called power is deemed irrelevant once again: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to open the Knesset’s winter session on Monday with a diplomatic speech that, despite two meetings in the last three days with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, is not expected to include an…
Debating the role of the US in a majority Muslim country
A few days ago I spoke at a session here at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival with Fatima Bhutto that discussed the role of Barack Obama in the world. An Indonesian blogger argues that Bhutto and I were too skeptical towards the US President and we shouldn’t expect the US to solve the world’s…
Perhaps Jews can kill Arabs for the sake of peace
The New York Times on some Israeli responses to the devastating UN Gaza report: Not surprisingly, Israelis in southern Israel have little patience for the international condemnation, and there is not much soul-searching under way. “People scoffed” at the Goldstone report, said Sasson Sara, the owner of a newspaper store in Sderot, the border town…
Who is an American Jew and where are you?
The future of American Jewry? Less liberal, more Orthodox and maybe more pro-Israel with the involved Jewish crowd (though growing numbers of young, American Jews are opposed to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land): The ranks of secular and religiously liberal American Jewry will be greatly diminished by the end of this century, leaving behind a…
Middle East peace will only come through work, not pretty speeches
Haaretz: The differences between Israel and the Palestinian Authority appear to remain substantial even after a series of meetings with the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. Positions may have even hardened, with no breakthrough imminent, despite U.S. President Barack Obama’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize is…
Not buying the Obama “dream” in Indonesia
The following article appears in Saturday’s Jakarta Post: A discussion about writers’ views on the United States President Barack Obama and on the Middle East peace process stole the show during the third day of the annual Ubud Writers and Readers Festival on Friday. Speaking at the discussion were Benazir Bhutto’s niece, Fatima Bhutto, Australian…
Does it matter that Israelis will feel isolated?
The boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel, growing in global strength, is slammed in the supposedly progressive Israel Policy Forum: It is not uncommon for musical groups and artists that play in Israel to be boycotted. Recent concerts by Madonna, Depeche Mode and Paul McCartney all underwent the same treatment—and all came to Israel…
What we are doing to the people of Gaza
Mohammed Omer writes in the New Statesman: As the 456,000 schoolchildren in the Gaza Strip start their academic year, they face chronic shortages of everything from paper, textbooks and ink cartridges to school uniforms, school bags and computers, the result of the Israeli blockade. At the same time, severely overcrowded classrooms are having to accommodate…