There is so much fascinating analysis over the UN Gaza report. A choice collection below: Amira Hass in Haaretz: Like the Serbs of yore, we Israelis continue thinking it’s the world that is wrong, and only we who are right. Israel struck a civilian population that remains under its control, it didn’t fulfill its obligation…
Showing all posts tagged Hamas
Peace and justice won’t come to Palestine by simply wishing it
Following my article in last week’s Canberra Times, I’m informed by reliable sources at the paper that Jewish academic Dvir Abramovich demanded a right of reply because I had “unfairly libeled… Israelis as extremists.” Yesterday his piece was published and it’s a masterful piece of saying nothing in 800 words. Empty words and slogans, two equal…
What the Gaza war has done to Israel’s image
The fallout from the UN report on Gaza continues. Two pieces have particularly caught my eye. Here’s Norman Finkelstein on Democracy Now!: Well, the report is the last in a large number of reports that have been issued on the Gaza massacre. There were two significant reports issued by Amnesty International, five reports issued by…
Israel murders Arabs in Gaza and then asks for a cuddle
The UN report on Israeli massacres in Gaza has received the predictable Israeli response. Victimhood, victimhood and victimhood. Over 1400 Palestinian civilians were murdered but we’re supposed to feel deep empathy for the Israelis. Nice try. Perhaps the most priceless comments were from President Shimon Peres: The report in practice grants legitimacy to terrorism, premeditated…
Abuses in the name of Zionist security
Yet more evidence that the recent Gaza war was a travesty: A United Nations fact-finding mission investigating the three-week war in Gaza issued a lengthy, scathing report on Tuesday that concluded that both the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity. The four-member mission, led…
Talking to Hamas is the only way
If true, very good news indeed. A Middle East policy that deals with reality, not Zionist wishing thinking: High-ranking officials from European countries hold talks with Hamas on a weekly basis despite an EU ban on diplomatic contact, a spokesman for the group has told EUobserver. “We meet a lot of them from France, from…
Truth proves elusive in a confusing trouble spot
My following book review appears in this week’s Sydney Morning Herald Spectrum section: Fit to Print: Misrepresenting the Middle East By Joris Luyendijk Scribe, 241pp, $29.95 “A journalist who limits himself to the role of middleman,” writes Dutch reporter Joris Luyendijk, “is actually siding with the team that is best able to influence the news…
Jews occupy Arabs because they’re a threat
Following my article in the Canberra Times this week outlining the harsh realities in the West Bank and Gaza, this letter is published in the paper today: Antony Loewenstein (”Drop rose-coloured views to lift Gaza peace hopes”, September 9, p11) claims that Hamas is boycotted because Israel and the West refuse to accept its election.…
Minute by minute planning to bomb the Islamic Republic
Amos Harel in Haaretz on the supposedly normal plans to bomb Iran: For an Israeli attack to be considered, Israel would need the tacit approval of the Obama administration, if only in the sense that it looks the other way. This is due above all to the necessity of passing through the Iraqi air corridor,…
Many young Jews don’t see Israel as the promised land
The New York Times publishes this weekend a feature on the “pro-peace and pro-Israel” lobby J Street (a group I’ve mentioned many times here.) The piece is important, for no other reason than it tells the world that not all Jews subscribe to the fanatical Greater Israel mindset. Sure, the writer talks about the “very…