Skip to main content

Middle East: The week that was...and changed things

Let it not be said that the last week has not only been tumultuous as the world has watch the attack on the humanitarian-carrying boat being attacked by the Israelis - and the fall-out.

The Guardian tries to put into some context in "Gaza flotilla attack: A week that changed Middle East politics":

"Israel's relationship with its closest Muslim ally, Turkey, has been pronounced fatally wounded. A succession of European leaders, including David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, have lined up to pronounce Israel's long-term embargo of Hamas-run Gaza as unsustainable and indefensible. Most serious of all for Netanyahu, Israel's closest and most assiduous ally, the United States, has also endorsed that view, going out of its way to reveal that it had warned Jerusalem to show restraint when dealing with the six-ship convoy.

Behind the inevitable bluster, the real question many Israelis are now asking is: how did it come to this? The answer is that the bungled raid on the Mavi Marmara has been a powerful catalyst for the escalating sense of repugnance at Israel's policy of collective punishment of the 1.5 million residents of Gaza, while sharply underlining the perception of the intransigence of Israel under Netanyahu. It has also exposed how slow Israel's leadership has been to appreciate the profound changes that it faces on the regional and international stage – and how it should respond to them."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-dependent allies for l

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?