The 'clash of civilizations'

According to a poll released earlier this year, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah is the most admired leader in the Arab world. The second most popular Arab leader is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and the third most popular leader among Arabs is, surprisingly, no Arab - it is Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Given this line-up, one thing is obvious: an Arab leader who wants to win the hearts and minds of his (no need for /her) fellow Arabs doesn't have to govern well and doesn't have worry about the economy, jobs, health care, education, civil liberties or human rights - instead, what counts is that an Arab leader is perceived as standing up to the West, in particular the US and Israel.

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Mohammed Omer's 'truth'

How does it feel for a young Palestinian journalist from Gaza to accept an award named after the legendary journalist Martha Gellhorn? Gellhorn is widely regarded as one of the most outstanding war correspondents of the 20th century, but it has been said about her that "she switched off her sympathy when it came to the sufferings of Arabs. She was entirely committed to the cause of Israel [...and] remained deaf to the Palestinian case."

That is perhaps not an entirely fair characterization, because in her famous 1961 report on "The Arabs of Palestine"  Gellhorn was by no means "deaf" to the plight of Palestinian refugees - indeed, she left no doubt that she wanted to see their problems addressed and solved as quickly as possible. But as a reporter in Europe during and after World War II, Gellhorn had seen refugees before, and she did not hesitate to point out the "unique care and concern" and "the unique publicity" reserved for Palestinian refugees. She also did not hesitate to argue that the "unique misfortune of the Palestinian refugees is that they are a weapon in what seems to be a permanent war [...] Their function is to hang around and be constantly useful as a goad."

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The inevitable reaction

"What, exactly, is a decent person supposed to think?" That was Bradley Burston's question in an emotional piece published on the website of Ha'aretz shortly after an Arab resident from the southeast Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher killed three and injured dozens in a bulldozer rampage on Jaffa Road last Wednesday. A day later, a Jerusalem Post editorial critically reviewed what the international media were suggesting their readers should think about this terrible attack.

Among the reports and commentaries highlighted in the editorial was a piece that had been published just a few hours after the attack on the Guardian's website under the title "The inevitable overreaction." Once you start to read this piece, you quickly realize that, just a few hours after the carnage, the verdict was already clear: any Israeli reaction to the attack would be an "overreaction", because if Israelis found themselves "targeted by terrorist killers", there was an obvious reason: "Occupation breeds terror" - and if this was not a good enough explanation for terrorist attacks, there was still another one on offer: "the relentless oppressive tactics employed by successive Israeli governments since the very foundation of the state." As the first comment posted in response to this article aptly noted: "Before the dead are cold and buried their murder is 'explained' away. How sad."

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The question of Iran's intentions

The question what Iran is really up to has been passionately debated for quite some time and there is still much resistance against the conclusion that Iran's nuclear program has clear military purposes. Most people who debate this question have of course no access to classified information, and even most pundits who write about the subject ultimately form their opinions based on "common sense" - and what passes as "common sense" inevitably depends heavily on political views. There is also the very fundamental question of how well Western commentators really understand the Middle East, because even knowledgeable analysts may be tempted to look for developments that fit their broader world view. Arguably, there are two main tendencies to look at the world: one is to look for differences in foreign lands, the other is to look for similarities.

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'Boycott Israel' bigotry

It may seem quite unusual that union members would want to boycott their colleagues in another country, but some members of Britain's largest academic trade union, the University and College Union (UCU), are apparently resolved to make it something of a venerable tradition to call for a boycott of their colleagues in Israel at their annual conference. As The Jerusalem Post reported last week, the UCU once again presented and passed a motion that urges union members "to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating." Since it is "Israeli colleagues" who will have to prove to their British counterparts that they are "morally kosher", presumably British academics will be equally suspicious about Israeli Jewish academics and Israeli Arab academics - perhaps the whole exercise is about something like "non-discriminatory discrimination"?

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Keeping the oldest hatred young

Anti-Semitism may be "the oldest hatred", but there is absolutely nothing old-fashioned about the way it is 'marketed' to appeal to the youngsters of today. The Hamas-version, or rather perversion, of "Sesame Street"  - a children's program entitled "Tomorrow's Pioneers" - made international headlines last year and even "earned" a lengthy Wikipedia entry when a Mickey Mouse look-alike named Farfour glorified "resistance", "jihad", and the killing of Jews. It was probably the unexpected international outcry that got Farfour "martyred" after just two months on the screen, but in the show he is beaten to death by a cruel and greedy Israeli official who wanted to "steal" Tel Aviv from the hapless Hamas mouse.

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Rewriting history for the "nakba"

"I wish Israel the very best on its 60th . . . And to be fair to the Palestinians, I wish them a very happy Nakba day." This sarcastic comment (#1356747) by a reader of the Guardian's "Comment is Free" site was clearly meant to mock the all-out media effort to provide an "even-handed" coverage of Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations by adopting the "nakba" narrative that postulates that the establishment of Israel was inevitably a "catastrophe" for the Palestinians.

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Hamas is known for that

If it wasn't such a serious issue, it could be quite funny to read that, not long after spending hours with former President Carter talking about peace, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal declared in an interview on Al-Jazeera television that for his group, any cease-fire with Israel was just "a tactic in conducting the struggle... It is normal for any resistance that operates in its people's interest... to sometimes escalate, other times retreat a bit. ... The battle is to be run this way and Hamas is known for that." Well, Mashaal is right: Hamas is known for that; Hamas is also known for its charter, its vile anti-Semitism, and its often re-affirmed goal of "liberating" all the land west of the Jordan.

For his part, former president Jimmy Carter is known for his belief that no view is vile enough to deserve ostracism. As a Forward editorial put it: "During nearly three decades as a freelance apostle of peace, the man from Plains has built a record marked by grand gestures, modest accomplishments and a few big goofs that somehow fail to pierce his halo. In office and out, his actions have been driven by a desperate desire to do good and a misplaced confidence that his radiant good intentions could bring out the hidden good in others."

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Don't dare to care!

Are you Jewish? Are you an Israeli, or would you describe yourself in any way as pro-Israel? Are you an American?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you better 'don't dare to care' about the suffering in Darfur. Just ignore that this Sunday, April 13th, marks Global Day for Darfur, with protests planned around the world to highlight the terrible plight of the victims of this ongoing conflict. Some estimates say that close to half a million people have been killed in Darfur in the past five years; more than a million, maybe even two million people have been driven from their homes, and every day, scores of women are raped and abused. But there are people who cynically claim that to campaign against this horrific violence is just "Darfurism", which "is central to the US/Israel agenda in the remaking of the Middle East; it ... also figures in the global resource wars. These are the reasons why Google and [the] Holocaust Museum have thrown their weight behind [the] Darfur propaganda project."

Perception and reality

A cynic might say that it was a contest we used to win hands down: most dangerous, most disliked, most dreadful - as long as it was a poll asking people who's the worst of them all, Israel was sure to score first place. One of the most widely reported of those poll results was a European survey back in fall 2003 which ranked Israel as the greatest threat to peace in the world.

Last year, a global BBC poll showed that when asked which countries "have a mainly negative influence in the world", Israel was again ranked first, but the same poll this year ranked Israel "only" second - which means we switched places with Iran: they came in second last year; this year, they snatched the "bad-guys-award" from us...

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