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NEWS BRIEFS
The Syrian authorities cancelled a May 25 conference on press freedom organized by Mazen Darwish,..... |
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Gaza Has Its Version of Rocket Scientists |
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By Mark Steyn
January 5, 2009
 So how was your holiday season? Over in Gaza, whether or not they're putting the Christ back in Christmas, they're certainly putting the crucifixion back in Easter. According to the London-based Arabic newspaper al Hayat, on Dec. 23 Hamas legislators voted to introduce Sharia — Islamic law — to the Palestinian territories, including crucifixion. So next time you're visiting what my childhood books still quaintly called "the Holy Land" the re-enactments might be especially lifelike.
The following day, Christmas Eve, Samuel Huntington died at his home at Martha's Vineyard. A decade and a half ago, in his most famous book "The Clash Of Civilizations," professor Huntington argued that Western elites' view of man as homo economicus was reductive and misleading — that cultural identity is a more profound behavioral indicator than lazy assumptions about the universal appeal of Western-style economic liberty and the benefits it brings.
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Anti-apartheid Icon Suzman Dies |
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 Helen Suzman, a celebrated South African MP and anti-apartheid campaigner, has died at the age of 91.
Ms Suzman, a member of parliament first for the United Party and later the liberal Progressive Party, was an outspoken critic of apartheid.
For 13 years, Suzman, the daughter of Lithuanian Jews, was the only MP to openly condemn South Africa's whites-only apartheid regime.
She was made an honorary dame by the Queen in 1989.
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By Jay Bushinsky
December 31, 2008
Below the political surface here one can detect apprehension and worry about President-elect Barack Obama's intention to engage the Islamic Republic of Iran in dialogue.
The overriding fear is that Israel may have to pay the price -- that the U.S. may tolerate Iran's nuclear ambitions and rule out the military options that could be executed by the American or Israeli air forces.
President Mohammed Ahmadinejad's rhetoric about destroying the Jewish state and rejecting the Jews' right to self-determination in any part of pre-1948 Palestine is taken very seriously by most Israelis be they government leaders or rank and file citizens.
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McKinney May Try For Gaza Again |
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By Richard C. Gross
The Washington Times
December 30, 2008
 The father of former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, Georgia Democrat, said Tuesday his daughter may try again to take medical supplies to war-battered Gaza.
The father, Billy McKinney, one of Atlanta's first black law enforcement officers, quoted his daughter as telling him by telephone Tuesday that an Israeli patrol boat three times rammed a mercy vessel carrying her, 15 other activists and medical supplies to Gaza.
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Obama Dolls and Other Distractions |
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By Sarah Honig
January 1, 2009
As an inveterate doll collector, I still vividly remember the cloying supposed look-alikes of Jackie Kennedy and dynasty-princess Caroline, spawned for quick profit during those long-gone Camelot halcyon days. For months I've been suspecting that neo-Camelot Barack Obama counterparts are already being sculpted and readied for production. Malia's and Sasha's crude likenesses will soon appear in vinyl or low-grade porcelain, I kept prophesying to anyone who reluctantly lent me a tired ear.
But my prescience impressed even me. German toymaker Marcel Offermann, in collaboration with the very veteran Schildkroet firm, stole the thunder of American entrepreneurs and their Chinese subcontractors. Offermann and Schildkroet didn't wait for the inauguration. Not even the election. So overpowering is the Obama mystique in Europe that the candidate was crowned victor early in June, when his commercial plastic representation joined other Offermann celebrity dolls, like Princess Di, Pope Benedict XVI, Angela Merkel, the Dalai Lama and Mozart.
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By William Katz
December 16, 2008
A funny thing happened to the governor of Illinois on his way to becoming, check one, 1) ambassador to France; 2) a major union executive; 3) the recipient of a large cash gift given for his many outstanding years of public service. The governor, not noted for his deep intellect, failed to consider the possibility that the feds were tapping his phone, even though he was already the target of a federal probe.
One of the most discouraging aspects of this story is the public reaction. True, there is some outrage over Governor Rod Blagojevich's behavior, but there is mostly bemusement, and the stuff of late-night comedy. That's too bad, because corruption is not only a national story, it is a tragic international story. It is one of the most important factors in holding back the progress of what polite society calls "developing nations," a phrase that is often more optimistic than descriptive. It's not a story that is well reported, or consistently reported, in the mainstream media. If it were, we might treat it more seriously.
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By Caroline Glick
December 25, 2008
Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seems to have noticed.
On Tuesday, Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Shari'a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, it legalizes crucifixion.
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By Nibras Kazimi
December 18, 2008
A young man with press credentials hurls a pair of shoes at President George Bush in Baghdad, prompting a feeding frenzy from the most hardened Bush-haters out there: the western press corps that covers the Middle East. They misclassify the man as a fellow “journalist” and dub the channel he works for an “independent satellite station.”
Figuring out the “who, what and why” of the story would ruin all the fun: who is this guy, what is his journalistic record and who funds the station, are inconveniences these other journalists covering him would rather work around. What is most relevant is how audiences they already know to be sympathetic to anyone humiliating Bush are reacting to the imagery, imagery which is admittedly very newsy stuff. But mining for sound-bites from a predictable crowd means that the news cycle is a vacuous loop, one stage accentuating another to give a hyped version of the truth: Bush is hated, and that’s all, folks.
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By Khaled Abu Toameh
December 17, 2008
"This is not Israel, where you are allowed to see a lawyer."
Over the past two years Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been subjected to a systematic campaign of intimidation that has resulted in the death of some and the detention of others.
The campaign, which is being waged by both Hamas and Fatah, has received almost no attention from human rights groups and advocates of the freedom of expression throughout the world.
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By Mark Steyn
December 8, 2008
Rabbi Holtzberg was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of Bush’s foreign policy.
Shortly after the London Tube bombings in 2005, a reader of Tim Blair, the Sydney Daily Telegraph’s columnar wag, sent him a note-perfect parody of a typical newspaper headline: “British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow’s Train Bombing.”
Indeed. And so it goes. This time round — Bombay — it was the Associated Press that filed a story about how Muslims “found themselves on the defensive once again about bloodshed linked to their religion.”
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PA Bars Al-Jazeera Journalists From Mukata |
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By Khaled Abu Toameh
December 7, 2008
The Palestinian Authority has decided to ban a number of journalists from entering the presidential Mukata compound in Ramallah.
The decision is aimed at punishing the journalists because of their criticism of the PA leadership or for reporting about the activities of Hamas leaders.
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