Following yesterday’s announcement that Australia will be expelling a Mossad agent after Israel’s abuse of passports in the murder of a Hamas official, one of the country’s leading Zionist bodies, AIJAC, released this almost comical statement. Remember, dear readers, murder isn’t murder when Israel is pulling the trigger: The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council said…
Showing all posts tagged Iran
Solving the Iran “crisis” really isn’t that difficult (if we want to)
A handy reminder by Noam Chomsky from 2008 that the corporate press have a particular interest in mouthing US foreign policy goals (and all this is relevant in light of the ongoing irrational hatred against the Islamic Republic): To take another illustration of the depth of the imperial mentality, New York Times correspondent Elaine Sciolino…
Liberal Zionism debates what Judaism should be in the 21st century
I’m coming late to this essay but there’s a long piece in the New York Review of Books by Peter Beinart talking about the failure of American Jewish elites and the wider Zionist community to understand the real effects of blind backing for Israel. Arabs are openly loathed and yet liberal, American Jewry is walking…
ABC TV broadcast on internet freedom and anti-censorship
I recently debated in Sydney on the motion that governments shouldn’t censor the internet. ABC TV broadcast the discussion and our team included a robust explanation on the principles of free speech. An edited version of the debate was broadcast tonight on ABC Radio National Big Ideas:
Removing this man without due and fair process shames Australia
With this decision, Australia once again shows itself to be far outside the parameters of international law, making security assessments based on a system completely lacking transparency. I once spoke at this Sydney Islamic centre last year and found an important space to engage Muslims on issues related to the Middle East and re-defining the…
Daddy Zionist, tell me about the day we fought Tehran
What fun-loving Israelis do on the weekend, imagine war scenarios with a nuclear-armed Iran: A nuclear-armed Iran would blunt Israel’s military autonomy, a wargame involving former Israeli generals and diplomats has concluded, though some players predicted Tehran would also exercise restraint. Sunday’s event at a campus north of Tel Aviv followed other high-profile Iran simulations…
Europe tells Israel a few home truths
Here’s a reality check for Israelis drunk on American support: Excerpt from column, Ben Caspit, Maariv Friday… Political… Supplement, May 14 2010 [page 2] Speaking of bulldozers, [Israeli politician Benyamin] Fuad Ben Eliezer was in Brussels last week, on a one-day working trip, including meetings with many senior European officials from the EU and the European Parliament.…
Israel and Iraq questions provide double whammy in Auckland
I’m currently at the Auckland Writer’s Festival. Wonderful event. Speaking to hundreds of people every day – mainly about the Middle East but also on the importance of alternative voices online – and the one message that keeps on coming up is how rarely dissenting Jewish perspectives or those critical of Israel appear in the…
The one-minute explanation for the “war on terror”
Lessons on terrorism that every American should know:
As long as Israel remains an American obsession, things will decline badly
Josh Landis @ Foreign Policy thinks that Russia is looking at the Middle East with added interest and I wonder why: So long as America’s No. 1 foreign-policy goal in the region is to hurt Iran and help Israel, Russia will be drawn back into the region and a new Cold War will take shape.…