issandr – Page 65

Links for February 2nd

Links from my del.icio.us account for February 2nd:

Mondoweiss: Mondo Exclusive: Google map of Israeli settlements from leaked database – Map shows spread of settlements in West Bank.

Balancing the bias – Middle East Forum – I hate to link to the hate site that is Middle East Forum, but take a look at this: "Georgetown’s Program for Jewish Civilization (PJC) offers an alternative for students seeking to avoid the academic weaknesses that have so infected Middle East studies." Yes, that's right, let's learn about the Middle East in Jewish Studies programs.

Renditions Buffoonery—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine) – A correction to the LAT article on Obama continuing rendition program, makes difference between GWB's "extraordinary rendition" program and Obama's wish to return to a normal rendition procedure that ultimately delivers abductees to a criminal justice system (although this was used in the 1990s with renditions to Egypt, it led to torture anyways and trial in exceptional courts.) I've mailed Scott Horton about this.

National Union candidate: Kahane was right – Israel News, Ynetnews – Wants expulsion of Israel-Arabs to Turkey or Venezuela.

بوابة جريدة الشروق – Website of the new Egyptian independent daily al-Shorouk, which appears to be positioning itself between al-Masri al-Youm and al-Ahram – journalistically conservative, in the tradition of the British broadsheets or the pan-Arab press. Also available in PDF!

Links February 1st to February 2nd

Links from my del.icio.us account for February 1st through February 2nd:

Pro-Palestinian groups call boycott on Israel – Yahoo! News – At World Social Forum, activists trying to stop Mercosur-Israel trade deal.

Dans la tête de Amr Moussa – The Amr Moussa Davos shuffle – should he stay or should he go now?

How democracy loses its footing in Middle East – Idiocy and narrow-mindedness of a kind only achievable a former New York Times journalist.

Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool – Los Angeles Times – Gitmo out, but rendition still in.

FT.com / Columnists / Jackie Wullschlager – Saatchi and Middle East art – Argues that Saatchi has been unable to do inernationally what he did with the Young British Artists, and that his Middle Eastern picks are particularly bad, especialling the paintings. Interesting in the context of the massive interest in Arab and Iranian art in recent years.

Almasry Alyoum | Egyptian Scientist Discovers Bacteria To Purify Sewage In Seven Minutes – This story reminds me of Angry Arab's rants against al-Nahar's Lebanophilia. Sounds cool, though.

Emily Jacir and her “controversial” art

I haven’t seen any of Emily Jacir’s art in person, but I thought it sounded pretty fantastic when I read this article about her last summer. She’s a young, successful Palestinian artists whose work is conceptually sophisticated yet politically engaged (one of her pieces tackled the assassination of Palestinian intellectual Wael Zuaiter in Rome in 1972; in another piece, “Where We Come From,” she fulfilled the wishes of people in the Occupied Territories who couldn’t get permission themselves to leave).

So I’ve been pretty excited that an exhibition of her installation about Zuaiter, “Material for a Film,” will be opening at the Guggenheim this Friday (she won the Hugo Boss Prize, given out every year by the Guggenheim).

Continue reading Emily Jacir and her “controversial” art

Links for January 31st

Links from my del.icio.us account for January 31st:

Livni Slams Olmert Peace Plan, ‘Won’t Divide Jerusalem’ – Defense/Middle East – Israel News – Israel National News – Livni won't divide Jerusalem.

Israel National News – This is the site of the Israeli far-right – it has a widget showing recent electoral polls, with parties separated by their attitude to peace. Yisraeli Beiteinu is ahead of Labor is most polls, Likud several points ahead of Kadima.

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 01/27/2009 | Israeli troops killed Gaza children carrying white flag, witnesses say – "The evidence we've gathered in two of the cases so far is exceedingly strong," said Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch working in the Gaza Strip. "All the research so far suggests they shot civilians that were leaving their homes with white flags."

Spanish FM: We’ll act to prevent war crimes probes against Israel – Haaretz – Israel News – Why is Spain changing this law now for Israel when it has been active for years regarding other countries?

My terror as a human shield: The story of Majdi Abed Rabbo – Middle East, World – The Independent – The tale of a Fatah man in Gaza who said he was forced to collaborate by the IDF, act as a go-between to Hamas fighters.

ISRAEL: Elections, and the prophecy of pot | Babylon & Beyond | Los Angeles Times – Israeli green party wants to legalize pot so Israelis don't have to buy it from Arabs, thinks Hamas and Hizbullah will then just have to get stoned: "They'll smoke it. They'll smoke it, David, and be calm. Because a good Arab is a calm Arab. "

Police On My Back – Eric Alterman – a liberal pro-Israel American commentator on the media – has an excellent takedown of The New Republic's resort to accusations of anti-Semitism and worse on critics of Israeli policy.

TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Saddam-Qaeda Conspiracy Theorist Surfaces Writing Iraq Reports For The Pentagon – Laurie Mylroie, who said Saddam was behind 9/11, still getting Pentagon contracts until recently.

Hamas needs to be part of peace process: Blair – Yahoo! News – Very conditionally.

Dennis Ross is So Very Special – Mattthew Yglesias that Ross, to be envoy to Iran, advocates not having envoys to Iran.

El Masri

Someone has just alerted me to the fact that Wikipedia now has an entry for اللغة المصرية الحديثة (“modern Egyptian”). The entry is, appropriately enough, written in Egyptian Colloquial. It explains how “el Masri” has its own syntax and includes ancient Coptic, Turkish and European words.

It had to happen

Well, I have held out forever, but this morning I finally did it…I joined Facebook.

I had to, after reading yet another article (in the New York Times Magazine) about the way social networking software is sweeping across the Middle East.

The story focuses on the April 6 Facebook group that was established last year to plan a general anti-government strike, and currently has about 70,000 members. While this is clearly an interesting development, the article’s title–“Revolution: Facebook Style”–promises more than it can deliver: last April, despite the Facebook mobilization, there was no strike to speak of. (Meanwhile, like almost all US media coverage, the piece barely discusses the numerous labour protests that have been going on in the country for years, and that did culminate, on that day, in anti-government rioting in the city of Mahalla.)

I enjoyed the article because of the lively portraits of the online activists and of “Facebook Girl” Esraa Rashid, and some of the details about their relationships and disagreements.

That said, I wonder why they don’t send someone who speaks and reads Arabic to do a story of this kind, since the #1 thing it requires is hours and hours of reading posts and comments online, getting a sense of the tone and scope of discussions. I for one would have liked it if the piece had quoted the online-discussions more.

Heads Ripe for Plucking

I’m sorry I didn’t pick up this macabre but intriguing-sounding book when I was in Cairo. Instead, I stumbled across it at the Complete Review. There’s also a longer review from Al Ahram in Arabic.

Another Arabian Nights review

The London Times has a long, quite positive review of the new English edition of the Arabian Nights (posted on earlier). It includes a good history the Nights’ various translations and publications and discusses the stylistic choices made in this last edition in some detail.

Links for January 29th

Links from my del.icio.us account for January 29th:

‘Just World News’ with Helena Cobban: If there is a viable two-state solution in Israel/Palestine… – Argument for the two-state solution, based on the very official Arab Initiative rather than Geneva and other informal proposals.

‘Just World News’ with Helena Cobban: Why this American peace diplomacy is different – Cobban says give Obama a chance, and argues he's taken middle east policy outside of Rodham-Clinton's hands, and says he should make a clear statement to influence Israel's elections.

Middle East Report Online: The Continuity of Obama’s Change by Mouin Rabbani and Chris Toensing – Change? Hard to believe in.

Nicholas Noe: George Mitchell should start by listening to ordinary Lebanese and Palestinian people | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk – Noe argues Mitchell needs to talk to Hizbullah and Hamas.

CIA Station Chief In Algeria Accused In Two Sex Assaults – washingtonpost.com – Gross.

Links for January 28th

Links from my del.icio.us account for January 28th:

Inanities: MAFEESH 7AD A7SAN MEN 7AD – Super funny.

Host of UN Holocaust memorial skips event after U.S. Jews threaten walk-out – Haaretz – Israel News – Pathetic.

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: “Your Era, O Bin Baz” – Angry Arab on fomer Saudi mufti Bin Baz, who makes it at the very top of my shit-list, the retard pedophile bastard.

Magharebia.com | Al-Qaeda denies rumoured Algeria “Black Death” outbreak – Black death rumor may not be true. I never worry about being sick, but am terrified of the plague.

Report: Gaza detainees held bound for days – Israel News, Ynetnews – "We were handcuffed and blindfolded. They put us in a three-meter deep ditch with some 70 other people," Majdi Muhammad Ayid al-Atar, 43, from northern Gaza described in his testimony. "We spent two days there without any food, water or blankets. They also didn't let us go to the toilet. Afterwards they moved us to another ditch. The soldiers kept beating anyone who dared ask for anything," he recounted.

Hamas slams France for sending frigate to Gaza – Yahoo! News – If the Israelis need foreign ships to enforce arms embargo, why do they talk about tunnels so much?