The Palestinian president has accused Israel of “international terrorism“, saying its assault on Gaza constitutes “more than a holocaust”. Mahmoud Abbas’s comments on Saturday came as more Israeli air raids brought the total death toll over four days to 86 people, at least a third of which have been children, according to medical sources:
Showing all posts tagged Hamas
Let the countdown begin
Tick, tock (courtesy of Forward): Israel is in a diplomatic and military jam that keeps getting worse, but has no obvious solution. It is rapidly approaching the demographic tipping point, when Palestinian Arabs outnumber Israeli Jews in the land now under Israeli control. When that happens, Israel will find that it has become a minority-rule…
The Gaza life
While Amira Hass discusses the Gaza breakout that never happened, Prof. Abdelwahed from the Department of English in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at Al-Azhar University of Gaza reveals life via email in the Israeli-controlled strip: 1- We have been without electric power supply for almost two days. 2- Gaza authorities have run out…
The hardest word
My following essay appeared on February 19 in the Israeli publication, Haaretz: Newly-elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologized last week to tens of thousands of Aboriginals known as the ‘stolen generation’, who as children were forcibly removed from their families by the government until as recently as the early 1970s. The apology was…
Blogging the differences away
Away from the politicians and commentators, an Israeli and a Palestinian talk online: They used to meet in Sderot. It seems like ages ago. They were a group of Palestinians from Gaza and Israelis, most of whom were from Sderot. A siren could go off at any moment, but they continued to try to understand…
Gaza’s next top model
Militant chic hits the Palestinian territories: Of all the strategies thought up by Hamas, this was perhaps the least expected. In an apparent publicity drive in Gaza yesterday, the Palestinian Islamist movement handed out copies of a glossy magazine showing off gunmen from its armed wing. On the shiny green cover was a black-masked fighter,…
Little to celebrate
David Grossman, Salon, February 11: Today, Israel is an intolerably opaque place. The public atmosphere is turbid, sometimes horrifically so. This did not, of course, begin with Ehud Olmert, nor during the last war. For many years we, the Israelis, have been sunk in internal strife, to the point that we have lost our ability…
Pea-brained Zionists
Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, February 10: What is Israel’s military strategy in Gaza? That is a question no one raises anymore. There is no strategy. There are retaliatory measures to react to Hamas’ mood.
Complicit in silence
My following article appeared in yesterday’s Guardian Comment is Free section: During the current Israeli siege of Gaza – correctly described by Saree Makdisi as “strangulation”, Israel’s ambassador to Australia issued a plea for understanding the Jewish state’s position. The ambassador, Yuval Rotem, argued that, “the people of Gaza are not the enemy”. He also…