AxisMundi Jerusalem
Inside Israel and the Palestinian Territories
“Big Brother” bumbles into West Bank
It’s a reality television show whose contestants are isolated from the outside world, but “Big Brother” in Israel has managed to set off yet another controversy over Palestine policies.
Cameras at the studio-cum-commune outside Jerusalem caught Edna Canetti, a 54-year-old liberal activist, telling fellow residents over the weekend she wanted to see a peaceful popular campaign against Israel’s West Bank occupation.
“It bothers me that you’re silent. What’s needed is a revolt,” she declared after refusing to play along with a challenge in which contestants were divided into two groups — “rich” versus “poor” — with a plexiglass barrier between them.
Shifting to Middle East politics, Canetti said Palestinians should similarly tell Israel: “Shove your laws … We’re not going through that checkpoint and we’re not showing you IDs … This is our land.”
The remarks were in themselves unremarkable for Big Brother, an international franchise whose dramatic formula is based on the premise that very different people, cooped up together for weeks, will grow fractious. Yet while Canetti’s assertions met with bored or exasperated shrugs inside the Big Brother house, they found a far angrier audience on the Israeli far-right.
Michael Ben-Ari, a lawmaker from the National Union party who has himself been the subject of public censure after urging Israeli military conscripts to refuse orders to evacuate Jewish settlers from the West Bank, accused Canetti of sedition.
“Mrs. Canetti is, in effect, encouraging Arabs to rise up against the State of Israel, the violation of Israel Defence Force (IDF) troops’ orders, and even open insurrection,” Ben-Ari wrote in a complaint that his spokesman said had been mailed to the Justice Ministry along with a demand for a criminal investigation.
In Bilin…every Friday
Click below for a multi-media ’essay’ on the weekly protests staged in the West Bank to protest the barrier Israel is building in and around the West Bank. Israel says the barrier prevents Palestinian attacks in its towns and cities. Palestinians say the barrier is a land grab as much of it is built on land they want for a future state.
The More Things Change…
When I was studying Arabic, my teacher insisted on using newspaper articles from the 80s about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The students would always complain–they were studying Arabic to be in touch with the pulse of the Arab streets. They wanted to read articles from today’s news, not twenty years ago. She would always joke, “and you think the news here changes?”
Glancing through the Palestinian daily paper, Al-Quds each morning, I’m reminded of that her cynical stance.
Printed daily in the corner of Al-Quds’ Op-Ed page, is a copy of an old front page. The front page of that same date twenty years ago, to be exact.
Here’s a copy of the front page from a few days ago:
And here’s a copy of the front page on the same day, twenty years ago:
from Global News Journal:
Austrian far-right leader isolated over Israel stance
Senior figures from across Austria's political spectrum have condemned the head of the far-right Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, over his party's European election campaign directed against Israel and Turkey.
In an advertisement in the newspaper Kronen Zeitung, Freedom opposes the accession of Turkey and Israel to the European Union. Although Turkey is in EU accession talks, Israel is not.
Heinz-Christian Strache prepares for a TV discussion in Vienna, Sept. 17, 2008. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader (AUSTRIA)
"What is the most distasteful and despicable is the style," says Ernst Strasser, the conservatives' candidate in next month's elections for the European Parliament, referring to Strache's campaign. "This style is abusive. He vilifies other religions and ethnicities."
According to Chancellor Werner Faymann, Strache is "a hate monger, a disgrace".
"It makes absolutely no sense for Israel to be mentioned. Israel is not a candidate for accession. There isn't even an accession process. The only reason to mention Israel is to serve anti-Semitic prejudices. It is disgraceful."
I do not quite get it. Mr. Fayman may object to Strahe’s style (although words are more important),but certainly, Strache is not the first or the only one who is objecting to “Israel and other ethnicities”. Not that that is the most important, to begin with.
If Austria in general is not enamoured by far right, and only “senior figures from accross Austria’s political spectrum” are condemning Strahe’s rude words against Israel and Turkey, how come, then, that Mr.Heider who exuded much more directly expressed hate of almost anything “not Austrian”, got such a wide following, not to mention the most elaborate state funeral that I have ever seen; the politicians, the Church, the young and the old in their full splendor, flowers and candles and all the paraphernalia of the pomp. Why such a big deal about Strache, then.
Peace and love between all men – except journalists and security, of course
Pope Benedict has left the Holy Land bequeathing a message of peace, tolerance and love between all religions and peoples.
We hope that message also filters through to the eternally fractious relationship between journalists and security men – which gets even more strained when a high-profile visitor like the Pope is in town.
Months of elaborate preparation went in to ensuring the Pope’s visit was safe and successful and also to ensure journalists got controlled access to major events to tell the stories their readers and viewers want to see.
This planning process is hostage, however, to a simple dichotomy which pits journalists against bureaucrats and security officials.
In the eyes of the security men, journalists are bothersome, quarrelsome and disobedient and need to be coralled (even though that process is often like ‘herding cats’). Notions of a free press and unlimited access take a back seat to security concerns.
In the eyes of the journalists, security men are unthinking automatons with no common sense or an appreciation of the (self-)importance of journalists – and they need to be challenged and confronted whenever possible. The elaborate coverage restrictions, security sweeps, shuttle buses and byzantine pool regulations are, of course, both ridiculous and the main obstacle between the journalist and his/her exclusive, prize-winning story.
from FaithWorld:
Who wrote the pope’s speeches for this trip?
Who wrote Pope Benedict's speeches for this trip? Why do his speeches to Muslims hit the spot and those to Jews seem to fall short? Does he have two teams of speechwriters, one more attuned to the audience than the other?
We don't know the answers (yet) but a pattern suggesting that has certainly emerged. Look at what he had to say today in Bethlehem to Palestinians, Christian and Muslim:
- To Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas: "Mr President, the Holy See supports the right of your people to a sovereign Palestinian homeland in the land of your forefathers..."
- To Palestinian Catholics at Mass: "In a special way my heart goes out to the pilgrims from war-torn Gaza: I ask you to bring back to your families and your communities my warm embrace, and my sorrow for the loss, the hardship and the suffering you have had to endure."
- At Aida refugee camp: "I know that many of your families are divided – through imprisonment of family members, or restrictions on freedom of movement – and many of you have experienced bereavement in the course of the hostilities. My heart goes out to all who suffer in this way."
- On the Israeli-built wall: "In a world where more and more borders are being opened up – to trade, to travel, to movement of peoples, to cultural exchanges – it is tragic to see walls still being erected... How earnestly we pray for an end to the hostilities that have caused this wall to be built!"
These comments stand in strong contrast to his speech at Yad Vashem, which was so abstract that his Jewish audience -- and commentators in the media -- were openly disappointed by it. They called it lukewarm, said he avoided speaking clearly about the Holocaust and said nothing about the fact he himself is German. He skirted the contentious issues that strain Catholic-Jewish relations, such as the possible beatification of the late Pope Pius XII or the recent lifting of the excommunication of an arch-conservative bishop who denies the Holocaust.
The latest gaffe came yesterday when his spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, flatly denied to journalists that the German-born pope had ever been a member of the Hitler Youth (see our story). He was reacting to repeated mentions of this in the media and possibly a comment to that effect by the speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin. But the pope, while he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said in a book over a decade ago that he had been enrolled in the Hitler Youth by force. Reporters who had the book back in their office bookcases quickly found the quotes on the internet. Within hours, Lombardi had to eat humble pie and admit the book was right after all.
Coming after the uproar over the case of the Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson, where Vatican communications were chaotic, one has to wonder why some speeches work and others don't. Just imagine if Pope Benedict had added a line to his Yad Vashem speech saying there was no place in the Church's ministry for Holocaust deniers. Or cut and pasted that line from his speech in Auschwitz in 2006: " I come here today as a son of the German people." It would have been so easy. It would have been so effective.
Fr. Lombardi told us yesterday that Benedict had said all these things before and couldn't be expected to repeat them all in every speech. To criticism that he didn't mention the total number of Holocaust dead or the issue of anti-Semitism at Yad Vashem, he said the pope had spoken about them on his arrival at Tel Aviv airport -- hardly comparable to the Holocaust memorial as a place for a solemn statement. And his reaffirmation of the Vatican's support for a Palestinian homeland was also just a repetition of what had been said before. By these arguments, he could have skated over that issue today, but he didn't. Today's speeches had far more sense of the occasion and the location.
Brian Charles, you don’t seem to recognise the distinction between news reports and blogs. News reports are in the news section of this website and follow the rules of objective news you mention. Blogs are different. They’re meant to be an interactive discussion of the news. Of course we mention news events in them, but the purpose is to discuss or expand on them.
Secondly, what is the problem with asking who writes these speeches? Is that somehow sacrilegious? The pope delivered these speeches in public, not only knowing but wanting them to be covered by the media (by the way, in his farewell remarks at the airport he thanked the media for covering the trip). If you think that asking this question is somehow insulting because it implies the pope doesn’t write his speeches himself, you should know it’s usually the Secretariat of State that prepares these texts anyway. He might draft the most important ones himself, but we don’t know which ones those are. My question is who is involved in the process and why there is such a divergence according to the audiences addressed.
On Her Majesty’s Service with a Licence to Blog
Dust off your tired old cliches of British diplomats being either crusty old relics of the Empire or dashing James Bond-types working undercover to keep the world safe.
We are encouraged to learn that modern British diplomats are *gasp* just like you and me.
They blog, they post their pics on Flickr. Some might even Tweet, like their Israeli counterparts.
Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Israel, Tom Phillips, announced today that he will be starting a ‘new monthly, online column’ - which is almost a blog, right?
There’s an e-mail address which I imagine will allow for some reader feedback but no ‘comments’ section at the end of the column, more’s the pity.
But Ambassador Phillips’ new media ‘props’ are not limited to his quasi-blog…this man even has his own Flickr page where you can admire pictures like the one below of him being, well, ambassadorial.
In honour of the Ambassador’s sterling ‘social media’ efforts we have added his column to the blogroll on the right of our page.
Send in the drones
Israel’s economy is, in large part, mirroring what is happening elsewhere in the world – with job losses, factory closures and all the other symptoms of the global financial meltdown.
One sector though is defying all the odds.
Elbit Systems – an Israeli company that makes electro-optics, airborne systems, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and command and control systems – announced this week a record 4th quarter with profits rising 32.6 percent and strong forecasts for continued growth in the year ahead.
Their results presentation gave the company a chance to show off some of its latest technologies as you can see from the video below.
While the credit crunch is forcing governments, companies and individuals around the world to rethink spending across a huge range of goods and services, defence spending seems to be immune.
A ‘pop-psychologist’ would probably have a field day interpreting this trend, in an uncertain world where many of the basic pillars of our society seem to be tottering and the natural instinct to protect and defend comes to the fore.
actually if you would hav read your history properly, jews were actually killed even more by the romans, it was under muhammed they found refuge and saftey although there were still persecuted by other arab tribes who not only opposed but also muhammed himself. so it might suit you better if you learned the intrecacies of history and not generalize people as one. which is why there the world seperates judaisim from zionism, it is an insult to blend the two together. and u say that americans have accepted their wrong doings? really, how so? by moving the indians onto unhabitiable land, where they can’t grow anything, don’t have proper access to water and medical and educational needs, much like how the zionists are doing to the palestinains. fundamentalist muslism hate everyone including other muslims, much how like fundamentalist jews hate everyone else, christians, arabs, and even other moderate jews (it was a jew who assasinated yitzak rabbin). let’s also not forget how israeli forces have bombed and killed thousands of women and children in palstine and lebanon because they refuse their right to exist. why should pakistan have a need to have any diplomatic ties with israel? what purpose will it serve them? none what so ever, every country has a right to choose who it is they speak with, u know kinda like how the U.S and israel refuse to talk to iran, or the democratically elected Hamas in palestine. israel openly talks about bombing other countries and has done so and now with the israeli version of the taliban taking over the government in israel, they openly talk about ethnic cleansing of the arabs. so who really is the extremist and terrorist?? i am including a link to a documentary which interviews many israeli jewish human rights workers exposing the truth for the crimes israel commits, perhaps you should find the truth about your own country before trying to tell someone else what to do.
http://www.occupation101.com
Foreign Affairs
Israeli newspapers are abuzz this morning as they mull over the possibility that ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman could be appointed foreign minister in the government that Benjamin Netanyahu is working to stitch together.
The strong showing by Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel our Home) party in last month’s election – where it won the third most Knesset seats ahead of the Labour Party - has put the Moldovan-born former nightclub bouncer turned bureaucrat in a strong position in the lobbying for top ministerial posts in the new government.
With Israel’s coalition building process such a tortuous and drawn-out affair, speculation, much of it wild, about who will get what job is inevitably rife in the local media.
As we reported yesterday – Netanyahu has ruled Lieberman out as a future defence minister, one of the top jobs in an Israeli government.
Lieberman is also understood to be interested in other key jobs for himself and his people including Justice, Interior and Internal security.
His aides, though, play down talk of all this horse-trading and deal-making.
“He has said he wants the defence portfolio, but he has also said cabinet positions are not a deal-breaker. What’s really important is that we agree on basic policy lines,” Yisrael Beiteinu spokeswoman Irena Etinger said.
‘ultranationalist’? Lieberman is a psychopath. His comments on the Palestinians are too obscene to repeat here. Only in Israel would a person of his stature be considered a statesman. To everyone else, he’s simply a terrorist in a cheap suit.
This vile racist needs a straight jacket, not a ministerial post.
Because it’s there…
Despite living in a region steeped in so much history – history central to the beliefs of billions of people around the world – we at AxisMundi would like to think we have an eye on the future as well.
With that in mind – we opened a Twitter account today http://twitter.com/reuteraxismundi.
We are the first to acknowledge we’re not sure why we did this. We also admit that there’s something of the herd mentality here if the number of people we have seen announcing on Facebook “I finally broke down and opened a Twitter account” is anything to go by.
But we have already seen Twitter and other social networking platforms like Facebook or Second Life become ever more popular forums for people interested in our region to express their opinions or share information.
The Israeli Consulate in New York famously hosted a Twitter debate during Israel’s recent offensive in Gaza which gave rise to comments like this from the team of ‘tweeters’ at the consulate (pretty grammar it ain’t but isn’t that part of the point?):
repeating the link to David Schlesinger’s blog on Twittering:
lolol, gotta love that “only symbol of freedom and liberty in the middle east” israel. what a “great” shinning light of democracy. all paid for by the american tax payer.