Category Archives: Israel

UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis “Executed” US Citizen Furkan Dogan

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel, Journalism and Media, Obama Administration, Palestine, Turkey


Furkan Dogan, a 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was aboard the Mavi Marmara when he was killed by Israeli commandos. (Photo: freegazaorg; Edited: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

by Gareth Porter, t r u t h o u t Monday 27 September 2010

The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively, for the first time, that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.

The report reveals that Dogan, the 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was filming with a small video camera on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara when he was shot twice in the head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot and that he was shot in the face at point blank range while lying on the ground.

The report says Dogan had apparently been “lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious, state for some time” before being shot in his face. Continue reading UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis “Executed” US Citizen Furkan Dogan →

Leaves from an old Bible Atlas #1

Bible and Holy Land, Israel, Orientalism, Palestine, Photography

Perhaps there is a geographical inclination gene in my ancestry, since I have always loved Bible atlases. Many years ago my father was given a copy of Jesse Lyman Hurlbut’s A Bible Atlas, first published in 1910; his volume was a 1947 revision. But for the most part I assume the photographs were taken around the turn of the 20th century, give or take a decade. The author lived from 1843–1930 and as early as 1882 had published a Manual of Biblical Geography, the perecursor to this atlas. The 1910 version is archived online. There is also a website devoted to maps from his 1904 Story of the Bible.

So here I begin a thread of photographs of the Holy Land from at least a century ago. Let’s begin in Tiberias … Continue reading Leaves from an old Bible Atlas #1 →

Ottoman Haifa

Archaeology and Antiquities, Bible and Holy Land, Israel, Orientalist Art, Ottoman Empire, Turkey


William Henry Bartlett, Mount Carmel Looking towards the Sea, engraving,
collection of Dr. Y. Rimon, Haifa

The Haifa City Museum in Israel is sponsoring a special exhibition entitled “Ottoman Haifa: Aspects of the City, 1516-1918” from August 29, 2009 – October 2, 2010. The curator is Ron Hillel. Details are provided at the exhibition website, with the description copied below.

During the Ottoman period, many marked changes occurred in Haifa and its environs. The foundations of today’s city were laid, economic, social, and religious. Even though Ottoman rule ended less than 100 years ago, the general sense is that all this happened in the remote past. This exhibition is intended to revive that heroic era, to make it tangible.

The exhibition follows Haifa’s development during the Ottoman period. The city’s growth is linked by indissoluble bonds to its technological and economic progress. Its development is documented in geographic illustrations and maps and with the invention Continue reading Ottoman Haifa →

Economisstep

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Immigration Issues, Israel, Journalism and Media, Yemen


The Economist is generally considered one of the better journalistic bright spots for periodical subscribers. The editors lean to the conservative side, but usually provide articles with the background and rationale to make informative reading. However, a short article released in the latest issue is misinformed and borders on propaganda. There is no byline, at least in the online edition I read, but the writer is poorly informed about Yemen. It is true that Yemenite Jews have suffered because of the political actions of Israel. Like most Arab nations, Yemeni Arabs tend to side with the plight of the Palestinians. Yes, they are exposed to a steady stream of anti-Zionist news, but the government itself has protected the Jewish community. Most Yemenis do not swallow the government propaganda whole and there is still a great deal of respect for the Yemenite Jewish tradition in Yemen. The distinction between “Jew” and “Zionist” does exist.

Even if the author visited Sanaa and Jibla, he has totally missed the amount of unrest among the population. To state “Yemenis rarely protest publicly against their own miserable circumstances at home” is quite naive. Continue reading Economisstep →

Mearsheimer at The Jerusalem Fund

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Conferences and Talks, Israel, Obama Administration, Palestine, Scholars

Edited Transcript of Remarks by Professor John J. Mearsheimer
Transcript No. 327 (29 April 2010)

To view the video of this briefing online, go to
http://www.palestinecenter.org

The Palestine Center
Washington, D.C.
29 April 2010

Professor John Mearsheimer:

It is a great honor to be here at the Palestine Center to give the Sharabi Memorial Lecture. I would like to thank Yousef Munayyer, the executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, for inviting me, and all of you for coming out to hear me speak this afternoon.

My topic is the future of Palestine, and by that I mean the future of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, or what was long ago called Mandatory Palestine. As you all know, that land is now broken into two parts: Israel proper or what is sometime called “Green Line” Israel and the Occupied Territories, which include the West Bank and Gaza. In essence, my talk is about the future relationship between Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Of course, I am not just talking about the fate of those lands; I am also talking about the future of the people who live there. I am talking about the future of the Jews and the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, as well as the Palestinians who live in the Occupied Territories.

The story I will tell is straightforward. Contrary to the wishes of the Obama administration and most Americans – to include many American Jews – Israel is not going to allow the Palestinians to have a viable state of their own in Gaza and the West Bank. Regrettably, the two-state solution is now a fantasy. Instead, those territories will be incorporated into a “Greater Israel,” which will be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa. Nevertheless, a Jewish apartheid state is not politically viable over the long term. In the end, it will become a democratic bi-national state, whose politics will be dominated by its Palestinian citizens. In other words, it will cease being a Jewish state, which will mean the end of the Zionist dream. Continue reading Mearsheimer at The Jerusalem Fund →

Islamic Folk Astronomy #5

Afghanistan, Anthropology/Sociology, Folklore and Proverbs, Israel, Palestine, Yemen

The Pleiades Conjunction Calendar

One of the indigenous calendars from the Arabian Peninsula is based on the monthly conjunction of the Pleiades with the moon. The moon conjuncts with the Pleiades about once every 27 1/3 days. This conjunction was visible monthly from autumn through spring and occurred about the same time each year; thus it coincided with the main parts of the pastoral cycle on much of the Arabian Peninsula. According to Abû Laylî (in al-Marzûqî 1914:2:199), these conjunctions began at the time of the autumn wasmı rain. This observation is still found among contemporary Sinai Bedouins (Bailey 1974:588). Ibn Qutayba (1956:87) noted that when the moon conjuncts with the Pleiades on the fifth day of the lunar month, winter goes away. The new moon coincides with the Pleiades during the month of Nîsân or April during the naw’ of simâk. This was considered to be one of the most fortunate star movements in the sky, perhaps because of its unique annual character. Shortly thereafter the Pleiades disappears from view at the start of the heat. Continue reading Islamic Folk Astronomy #5 →

Blame it on Lady Gaga

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Gender and Sexuality, Israel, Journalism and Media, Music and Dance, Palestine

Why is the “Muslim world” angry with America, asks columnist Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal? Well here are your two choices:

Pop quiz—What does more to galvanize radical anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world: (a) Israeli settlements on the West Bank; or (b) a Lady Gaga music video?

If your answer is (b) it means you probably have a grasp of the historical roots of modern jihadism. If, however, you answered (a), then congratulations: You are perfectly in synch with the new Beltway conventional wisdom, now jointly defined by Pat Buchanan and his strange bedfellows within the Obama administration.

Of course, how could it be Israeli policy. It must be the loose women and jazz singers that really upset Muslims, because that is what Sayyid Qutb said way back in 1951 after visiting Colorado (if only they had shut down those speak-easys in Boulder, who knows!). Yes, here is what Qutb, the “intellectual godfather of al Qaeda,” said:

“The American girl,” he noted, “knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs and she shows all this and does not hide it.” Nor did he approve of Jazz—”this music the savage bushmen created to satisfy their primitive desires”—or of American films, or clothes, or haircuts, or food. It was all, in his eyes, equally wretched.

Qutb, notes the columnist, was also anti-Semitic, and blamed the Jews for being at war against Islam. And, to seal the argument for Stephens, here is the real beef (or cheesecake or kosher wine) because: Continue reading Blame it on Lady Gaga →

The Petraeus briefing

Israel, Obama Administration, Palestine

The Petraeus briefing: Biden’s embarrassment is not the whole story

by Mark Perry, Foreign Policy, March 13, 2010

On Jan. 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM’s mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) “too old, too slow … and too late.” Continue reading The Petraeus briefing →