Syrian expert Joshua Landis comments on the latest news from Lebanon (and the apparent withdrawal of Hizbollah troops from the streets of Beirut): By pulling back from the city it so easily conquered and by turning over its strategic centers to the Lebanese army, Hizbullah has been gracious in victory. It has not pressed its…
Showing all posts tagged Lebanon
The changing of the guard
Robert Fisk in the London Independent on the current crisis in Lebanon: Another American humiliation. The Shia gunmen who drove past my apartment in west Beirut yesterday afternoon were hooting their horns, making V-signs, leaning out of the windows of SUVs with their rifles in the air, proving to the Muslims of the capital that…
The Israeli Diaspora soul-searching
My following article appears in today’s Online Opinion: During Israel’s recent bombardment of Gaza, the Australian Jewish establishment reacted with unreserved support. Israel’s leading human rights organisation B’Tselem reported that the majority of Palestinian victims of the onslaught were civilians. David Knoll, from the New South Wales Board of Deputies, wrote that, “Israel is using…
Avoiding realities
Israelis ambivalent at 60th celebrations. As it should be, illegally occupying another nation and people for decades. (Of course, leading Zionists simply mouth platitudes about Palestinian “terrorism” and conclude that Palestinian independence is an impossibility. They may find themselves overwhelmed soon enough.)
The Zionist land grabs go on
Following my joint op-ed in yesterday’s Age newspaper, the following letters appear in today’s edition: IT IS refreshing to see the truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Opinion, 31/03) discussed in such a dispassionate manner. No emotive rhetoric denouncing the other side’s horrors but conveniently ignoring their side’s horrors, but simply the facts as they really…
How occupation has corrupted Israel’s soul
My following book review appears in today’s edition of Sydney’s Sun-Herald newspaper: Israel and the Clash of Civilisations Jonathan Cook (Pluto Press, $42.95) The September 11 attacks on New York and Washington caused the Western media and political elite to seriously examine their behaviour in the Middle East. Most concluded that maintaining client states was…
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…
An accidental war
My latest New Matilda column is about the recently released Winograd Report in Israel and what it says about the institutional failures within the Jewish state: The release last week of the Israeli Government’s Winograd Report was designed to reveal the failures of the Lebanon adventure and hold military and political leaders to account. Prime…
Teaching the Jews what matters
Writing in the aftermath of Israel’s Winograd Committee on the failures of the 2006 Lebanon war – though it sadly ignored the pernicious role of Washington in perpetuating the conflict – Haaretz’s Tom Segev asks: To what extent have 40 years of occupation affected the ability of the Israel Defense Forces to protect the country?…