Skip to main content

Editor-at-Large of Beirut Star "speaks"

Rhami Khouri is the Editor-at-Large of the Beirut Star newspaper - published throughout the Middle East together with the IHT. He has written this op-ed piece, published in The Age:

"The Israeli attack that killed scores of elderly people and handicapped children in the southern Lebanese town of Qana early on Sunday has triggered reactions that collectively may prove to be a turning point in the fighting, and perhaps even in the 58-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict.

......sentiments of rage by Lebanese citizens are the core of wider political feelings that may soon be translated into novel, and potentially historic, diplomatic action. This was reflected most dramatically on Sunday morning when Lebanon's Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, and the Speaker of the Parliament, Nabih Berri, told a news conference that, in view of the massacre at Qana, the Lebanese Government had nothing to discuss except an immediate and unconditional ceasefire."

Khouri's views accord with most informed opinion. Just check out, for instance, Tony Walker in the Fin Review this morning - unfortunately not on line. Read the Khouri piece here.

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...

Palestinian children in irons. UK to investigate

Not for the first time does MPS wonder what sort of country it is when Israel so flagrently allows what can only be described as barbaric and inhuman behaviour to be undertaken by, amongst others, its IDF. No one has seemingly challenged Israel's actions. However, perhaps it's gone a bridge too far - as The Independent reports. The Foreign Office revealed last night that it would be challenging the Israelis over their treatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding and the use of leg irons. In the first investigation of its kind, a team of nine senior legal figures examined how Palestinians as young as 12 were treated when arrested. Their shocking report Children in Military Custody details claims that youngsters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, have their wrists bound behind their backs, and are blindfolded and made to kneel or lie face down in military vehi...

Wow!.....some "visitor" to Ferryland in Newfoundland