Provoking trouble on the Lebanese side

Israel continues to meddle inside Lebanese territory, a violation of international law: The detonation of Israeli surveillance devices near the southern village of Houla represent a success for Israel against archenemy Hizbullah, while also raising pressure on the Shiite group and further eroding the security situation in south Lebanon, a number of analysts told The…

Is a Shia revolution the best way forward?

The founder of Conflicts Forum, a site that discusses Islamism in all its form, is interviewed by Mother Jones. Alastair Crooke is an intriguing fellow: Crooke understands today’s Middle East as similar to Sarajevo in 1914, where a random event could precipitate a cascade that changes the world. Someone will overreach—Israel, Syria, Lebanon…­—and then everything…

Israel always wants peace but shame about those neighbours

Jerusalem Post editor David Horowitz reminds us that peace in the Middle East will never happen because Israel’s “enemies” are ready to strike again. Zionists, to the barricades! Endless war awaits: In the coming year, despite the current tranquility, Israel’s best and brightest may have to act again in order to protect us. Listen to…

The Iranian people won’t be silenced

During yesterday’s Jerusalem Day “celebrations” in Iran, this happened: By midmorning in central Tehran, dozens of opposition supporters in green T-shirts and wearing green wristbands – a color symbolising the opposition movement – marched with fingers raised in the V-sign for victory and chanting “Death to the Dictator.” Others shouted for the government to resign,…

American Radical; a key film about Jewish questioning

American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein has just been screened in the US for the first time: The film-makers have given me a preview screening of the film. It’s a powerful work, revealing the history of Finkelstein himself and his leading critics. In many ways, I feel deep sympathy for Finkelstein, a man who…

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,…

When killing Iranians is your primary Jewish goal

The singular aim of Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick (a woman with form) is depressingly lacking in foresight, originality, morality or legality: What can Israel do to prevent Iran from further expanding its nuclear capacity and block it from emerging as a nuclear power? The answer to this question is the same as it has…

Don’t provide cover for no Middle East progress

This headline in today’s Independent is unintentionally hilarious: Israeli moves give Blair hope of rebuilding political trust The idea that Tony Blair is taken seriously in the region is ludicrous. Arabs have not forgotten his support for the Iraq war and 2006 Lebanon war. Besides, the so-called progress between Israel and the Palestinians is virtually…

The chances of Washington seeing sense (hint: very low)

Joseph Bahout, professor at Sciences-Po Paris and researcher at Academie Diplomatique Internationale, writes in Bitterlemons: Obama’s Middle-East sherpas would be well advised to get quickly rid of three illusions regarding a Lebanese-Israeli process. Any serious authority in today’s Lebanon is one that will not ignore Syria’s own progress in talks. Any talks that ignore Hizballah…

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

Site by Common