Obama administration and Israel sitting in a tree…

Sigh: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday defended Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and its decision to intercept the pro-Palestinian flotilla bringing humanitarian aid to the coastal territory, though he did not go so far as to defend the Israel Navy raid that killed nine people two days earlier. In an interview with…

A few simple steps for Israel to win back friends (measured in decades)

Note yesterday’s editorial in Murdoch’s Australian broadsheet. Defensive, seemingly pained that the beloved Israel had acted so brazenly and less defiant as usual. Next step, backing a targeted boycott campaign (ok, I can dream): The Jewish state must reassure the world it wants peace In boarding vessels intent on breaking the Gaza blockade the Israeli…

“We would never tolerate this from our enemies”

The letters in today’s Sydney Morning Herald. Hear the rising anger about the pass Australia and the West in general have given Israel for decades. Public opinion is shifting. Feel it: I am sick of the PR spin. I am sick of the tired justifications, I am sick of the diplomatic niceties and double standards.…

And now the blame game begins

An Israeli journalist reports that many in the local press there didn’t report (self-censorship? government censorship?) that many in the military establishment supposedly opposed the military action before it was launched near Gaza.

The Washington way is to embrace its Jewish friend and hold tight

Washington’s aim in life seems to be to protect its little mate, Israel. Sweet. Here’s a quote from a few days ago that can’t be forgotten: “The situation is that they’re so isolated right now that it’s not only that we’re the only ones who will stick up for them,” said an American official. “We’re…

When we learn that occupation isn’t really occupation

This is going around today, by Lebanese-Australian writer and academic Ghassan Hage: I don’t write poems but, in any case, poems are not poems Long ago, I was made to understand that Palestine was not Palestine; I was also informed that Palestinians were not Palestinians; They also explained to me that ethnic cleansing was not…

Post flotilla news, including boycotts, violence and gutlessness

Another hectic day. Some news, views, thoughts, ideas and outrage follows (though Australian Jew and sometime Independent Australian Jewish Voices writer Michael Brull has a good round-up). We’re starting to hear the voices of activists who have been (finally) released by Israel. It ain’t pretty. Here’s some testimonies that detail the brutality of the Jewish…

Protecting Israel by the usual US suspects

Just in case anybody thinks the American, corporate media is doing a decent and fair job reporting the Gaza flotilla massacre. They’re not. And watch this interview with Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, where even the suggestion that Israel may be in the wrong isn’t accepted by host Eliot Spitzer: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news,…

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

Site by Common