The Islamist political party is struggling to maintain power and influence in the blockaded Strip, according to Time magazine. In so many ways, the Arab Spring needs to arrive in Palestine: When the islamist movement known as Hamas first took control of Gaza in 2006, the family of Ahmed Ayyash, a third-year engineering student at…
Showing all posts tagged Gaza
Independent Australian Jewish Voices newsletter just out
The following was sent yesterday: Dear friends, We are sending out our occasional newsletter and we would like to express our gratitude for the support we have received. In particular, we are grateful to various generous benefactors without whom our… activities would not be possible. We have recently joined the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network… (APAN), which “has…
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…
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…
Memo to media; Tony Blair isn’t a Mid-East expert, he just loves making money
Indeed (via the Guardian): Tony Blair is facing calls for greater transparency in his role as Middle East peace envoy after it emerged that he visited Muammar Gaddafi in 2009 while JP Morgan, the investment bank that employs Blair as a …£2m-a-year adviser, sought to negotiate a multibillion-pound loan from Libya. Blair also championed two…
UN Palestine vote does nothing for Palestinian rights
As the UN vote on Palestine nears, opinion in much of the Western media is to support the bid. A sense of ‘about time’ and ‘Palestine deserves to be a state’ permeates the coverage. Predictably, Murdoch’s Australian shows its ingrained hatred of Arabs in today’s editorial (with no mention of the occupation, which for the…
Britain’s capitulation to Israeli desires to remain above the law
The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights releases a timely statement that reminds the world that justice for Israeli crimes won’t be forgotten: On Thursday, 15 September 2011, the United Kingdom modified its universal jurisdiction legislation as a direct result of political pressure exerted by the Government of Israel, following the issue of arrest warrants…
Hold the tears; Washington’s ability to wholly back Arab autocrats in jeopardy
The Middle East is changing before our very eyes and this of course worries the Western powers that have become used to dictating terms to Arab dictatorships. The New York Times has the official view. Can you feel the loss of power and prestige? While the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring created new opportunities…