Category: The Middle East

On seeing Palestine as Cuba

 This morning, a friend wrote this: Please don’t misunderstand me, largely because of [others], I now have much greater compassion for the plight of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.  You-all have helped me see the other side of the coin, the one not easily available here because of the apparent pro-Israeli bias in our news …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/12/31/on-seeing-palestine-as-cuba/

Gila Svirsky

 Have you yet read Susan Nathan’s “The Other Side of Israel?”  I must confess that I was a bit disappointed in the short presentation by Gila Svirsky yesterday.  The experience was no doubt influenced by the snubbing (whether real or just perceived I cannot say) of my Palestinian friend who tried repeatedly to ask a question …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/09/22/gila-svirsky/

Book review

 I’m almost finished with Charles Pierce’s “Idiot America — How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free” (Doubleday, June 2009).  Just read the chapter on the 9-11 fiasco and the “sexing up” of the Iraq war and I’m so angry right right now that I feel compelled to share the following links …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/08/30/book-review/

Movie review: District 9

 Anybody else watched this sci-fi flic yet?  The first aerial shot of the alien ghetto reminded me of the refugee camps we used to see along the road to the Beirut airport.  Besides being thoroughly entertained, did anyone but me see an  Israeli/Palestinian connection?  I did a quick Google search and found that there are a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/08/29/movie-review-district-9/

Tortured logic (a letter/editorial submission)

 For the sake of argument, let’s suppose torture works… For the sake of argument, let’s also suppose that 9/11 was inevitable.  Let’s suppose that it wasn’t a circus of errors and missed opportunities and hot pursuits that were allowed to grow cold.  Let’s suppose that the CIA and the FBI were a model of harmonious …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/04/27/tortured-logic/

All along the watchtower

 Having just finished a book that extols the virtue of harmonizing right-wing elements of Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity (see http://tinyurl.com/b3levz and http://tinyurl.com/ahashg), I found the following Fisk commentary on papal perspective most interesting.  And more than a bit alarming…  http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-examine-the-popes-words-and-theres-only-one-thing-to-conclude-1634266.html and/or  ttp://tinyurl.com/avwuz3  Fisk’s last paragraph And what do I make of all this? Well, I don’t think the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/02/28/all-along-the-watchtower/

Gideon Levy: Waltz with Bashir

 Since this movie has been much talked about, on this list and among Oscar buzzers, today’s review by Gideon Levy in Haaretz offers a perspective I’ve not seen elsewhere: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1065552.html  “…the film is infuriating, disturbing, outrageous and deceptive. It deserves an Oscar for the illustrations and animation – but a badge of shame for its …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/02/21/gideon-levy-waltz-with-bashir/