Middle East Watch

476 Article

• How surrendering Palestinian rights became the language of "peace"

  27 January 2010, by Joseph Massad

  The 1993 Oslo agreement did not only usher in a new era of Palestinian-Israeli relations but has had a much more lasting effect in transforming the very language through which these relations have been governed internationally and the way the Palestinian leadership viewed them. Not only was the Palestinian vocabulary of liberation, end of colonialism, resistance, fighting racism, ending Israeli violence and theft of the land, independence, the right of return, justice and international law (…)

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• The Case Against Tony Blair

  1 February 2010, by Patrick Cockburn

  The case against Tony Blair has revolved too much around his good faith and too little around his competence. The placards held up by protestors on Friday as he gave evidence should have read “sucker” and “dope” rather than “Bliar”.
  Amateurs have a fluency denied to professionals because they see no “ifs” and “buts” which would interrupt the flow of their argument. Books proving that Bacon wrote Shakespeare are often highly articulate and have great narrative pace because their authors see (…)

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• Un député arabe israélien anti-sioniste pour la première fois à Auschwitz

  27 janvier 2010,

  Mohamed Barakeh, un député arabe israélien, fervent anti-sioniste, s’est rendu pour la première fois à Auschwitz, pour le 65e anniversaire de la libération du camp d’extermination nazi, afin de "se rendre compte sur place de ce qu’a été la Shoah". Le chef du Parti Hadash (communiste), dont les membres sont arabes et juifs, fait officiellement partie d’une délégation de 13 députés israéliens venus participer aux commémorations à Auschwitz-Birkenau (sud de la Pologne). "En tant qu’homme, je (…)

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• Gaza par la bande

  7 janvier 2010, par Marion Dumand

  Dans « Gaza 1956, en marge de l’Histoire », Joe Sacco mène l’enquête sur le massacre de Palestiniens à Rafah et à Khan Younès durant la guerre de Suez.
  À peine une note de bas de page. Les 3 et 12 novembre 1956, des centaines de Palestiniens furent massacrés dans la Bande de Gaza par des soldats israéliens. Qui s’en souvient, qui s’y intéresse ? Qui même le sait ? Le journaliste et dessinateur Joe Sacco. Lui va sauver in extremis ces morts des oubliettes, va gratter la mémoire, chercher (…)

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• Coherent Arab statehood is inevitable

  23 January 2010, by Rami Khoury

  The epic story of the modern Arab world – largely untold in our societies and unappreciated around the world – has been the quest by ordinary men and women for reforms allowing our societies to break the chains of three dominant trends plaguing us: autocratic political regimes, a seemingly permanent state of post-colonial distortion and dependence, and an inability to tap our human and natural resources to match Western or Asian developmental bursts that have left us coughing in their dust. (…)

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• Guerre

  21 janvier 2010, par Gideon Levy

  Traduction de l’hébreu : Michel Ghys
  Article imprimé par Changement de société à partir du site de la Campagne Civile Internationale pour la Protection du Peuple Palestinien : http://www.protection-palestine.org/
  Ils ont pris position face à face : armés et prêts à avancer. Tendus vers la confrontation armée et prêts à donner leur vie pour leurs valeurs et leur foi. Deux peuples, deux nations, deux armées dans une rencontre inévitable : la guerre. Pardon, vous avez dit « deux armées » ? (…)

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• War by any other name

  16 January 2010, by Gideon Levy

  Words, it is true, do not kill; but words can ease the work of killing. From the dawn of the Israeli occupation in the territories - by now an ancient dawn - or perhaps from the very establishment of the state, or maybe even from the revival of Hebrew, the language has been mobilized in active reserve service. There has been a permanent emergency call-up and Hebrew has never doffed its uniform. War after war, doublespeak after doublespeak, words are on the front line. They don’t shed blood, (…)

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• ماذا لو هنأنا جارا مسيحيا؟... الفكر العربي يلتهم نفسه

  بقلم د.طيب تيزيني

  جاءت الانباء من الدوحة تعلن ان الشيخ الدكتور يوسف القرضاوي رئيس الاتحاد العالمي لعلماء المسلمين، دعا في خطبة الجمعة قبل اكثر من اسبوعين وفي مسجد عمر بن الخطاب، الى منع تقديم التهاني للمواطنين المسيحيين بمناسبة اعياد الميلاد، ناهيك عن المشاركة في احياء »الطقوس« الدينية المسيحية من قبل هؤلاء وغيرهم. والحق، انها دعوة لافتة في ظروف يعيشها العالم العربي وتتسم بكثير من مظاهر الحطام والانحطاط والتفكك، وبقليل من مظاهر العقلانية والاستنارة والانسانية.
  فبالاعتبار التاريخي، يمكن استعادة النموذج (…)

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• Twilight Zone / Waltz in Batir

  14 January 2010, by Gideon Levy

  Reader Nidal Zeghayer, 22, sent me an e-mail. He’d read what I wrote about Highway 443 and wanted to tell me about the other separation roads Israel is paving around his village of Batir, between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. "Will you come see?" he asked. Something about his writing style led me to accept his offer. When we arrived in his village, he was waiting outside, wearing stained clothing: He’s in the midst of helping his father paint their house.
  Zeghayer is a fourth-year sociology (…)

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• An Outrageous and Pathetic Weapon Against BDS: Stop Instrumentalizing Anti-Semitism!

  23 December 2009, by Michel Warschawski

  Every time the State of Israel is confronted with substantial international criticism for its political behavior and its violations of basic international standards, it counter-attacks by using the infamous tool of accusations of anti-Semitism. One remembers the campaign on anti-Semitism launched by Ariel Sharon and his friends throughout the world, Jews and non-Jews, after the murder of Muhammad al-Dura in Gaza in September 2000, in order to create a diversion (in the very words of Roger (…)

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