To read more, click here.
Just Journalism Newsletter 
27 August 2010 VIEWPOINT: Financial Times blames Israel for conflict 
Carmel Gould argues that International Affairs editor David Gardner fails to recognise joint responsibility for lack of resolution.AP misrepresents Israeli flotilla probe co-operation 
While the article is correct in stating that Israel is refusing to co-operate with the Human Rights Council's inquiry, it simply notes at the end that 'Another UN panel under New Zealand's ex-prime minister Geoffrey Palmer and Colombia's ex-president Alvaro Uribe is also examining the incident'. It does not include the fact that Israel is co-operating with that inquiry, which was established by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon - as reported in this AP article. Israel has also set up both a civilian inquiry with a wide ranging mandate, monitored by international observers, including Lord Trimble, and a military inquiry to investigate the incident.
Neither does the article give any indication as to why Israel, despite both holding internal inquires and participating with external ones, is not co-operating with the UN Human Rights Council. The UNHRC has condemned Israel more than any other country, and voted in 2006 to make an examination of alleged human rights abuses by Israel a focus of every session. It has been criticised by Ban Ki Moon and his predecessor, Kofi Annan, for placing too much emphasis on Israel and Palestine.
To continue reading, click here.New in The Weekly Standard: 'Will Obama Try to Save Iranian Shiva Nazar Ahari?' 
Iranian authorities first arrested Shiva Nazar Ahari in 2001, when she was seventeen. Her 'crime' was attending a candlelight vigil in Tehran that commemorated the victims of 9/11. Since then, she's taught Iranian homeless children and Afghan refugees' children. In 2006, after she became the spokeswoman for the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), Ahari was kicked out of university, whereupon her troubles really began.
She was re-arrested in June 2009 and sent to Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, where she spent 33 days in solitary confinement. The cells are so small that a short person can't even stretch her arms or legs. One informed observer has described them to me as 'human coffins.' Despite being verbally threatened by Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's prosecutor general, who told her she'd be murdered if she didn't stop working on human rights campaigns in Iran, Ahari persevered. She was released in September 2009 on $200,000 bail and promptly resumed her defense of political prisoners. A month later, she paid a visit to the gravesite of Sohrab Arabi, a nineteen year-old student who'd been arrested in June 2009 for protesting Iran's sham presidential "election" and was subsequently shot in the chest while in state custody.
To continue reading, click here.UPDATE: Lebanon refugees story widely reported 
This week, The Guardian, Financial Times and BBC Newswebsite have highlighted the bleak outlook for the refugees in Lebanon and the Palestinians' desire to improve their rights as residents.
Coverage of the plight of Palestinians outside of Israel is rare, and the BBC's 'Lure of the homeland fades for Palestinian refugees' about a group of Syrian Palestinians who have no desire to return to Israel is even rarer: 'The right of return for Palestinian refugees is a major sticking point in the upcoming US-sponsored Middle East peace talks, but some younger Palestinians - having never laid eyes on their ancestral homeland - say they do not actually want to go back.'Donating to Just Journalism Just Journalism is a not-for-profit organization and relies entirely upon the generosity of our supporters. If you wish to make a donation, please contactdonate@justjournalism.com for more information. For more information about Just Journalism, or to contact us, please visit www.justjournalism.com 
Friday 27 August 2010
Yesterday's opinion piece in the Financial Times written by the publication's international affairs editor David Gardnerencapsulates perfectly the problems Israel will face in the coming weeks when direct negotiations with the Palestinians restart, and possibly, break down. 'A poisoned process holds little hope' reads more like a charge sheet against Israel than a reasoned analysis and is striking in its capacity to reverse historic truths and omit key facts.
At the centre of Gardner's peace process universe is the occupation, which he claims 'killed Oslo' and remains 'the heart of the question'. His evidence for the occupation scuppering the Oslo process is simply that settlements grew a lot between 1992 and 1996. In a show of presenting the other side he adds: 'Many Israelis will point to the perfidy of the late Yassir Arafat, who wanted to talk peace but keep the option of armed resistance dangerously in play.' But it was not just '[m]any Israelis' who blamed Arafat - President Clinton, who brokered the talks, as well as key negotiating aides, blamed him too. In terms of according blame for what Gardner terms, 'the Oslo intifada', Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas himself stated recently that the second intifada was 'the worst mistake of our lives'. Who's blaming whom here?
An Associated Press article, published in Wednesday's Independent under the headline 'UN official criticises Israel over Flotilla probe' states that Israel is not co-operating with the inquiry led by the United Nations Human Rights Council into the flotilla incident. However, it does not explain that Israel is working with another UN inquiry, also mentioned in the article, and that Israel regards the UNHRC as politically motivated against it.
In light of the re-arrest of Iranian dissident Shiva Nazar Ahari last December, Just Journalism Executive Director Michael Weiss looks at the history of her harassment and incarceration by the Iranian authorities and calls on the American government for action on her behalf. Click here to read the whole article in The Weekly Standard.
Last week Just Journalism picked up on the new Lebanese parliamentary bill to improve employment rights for Palestinian refugees and discussed the wider issues this development raises about their status throughout the Middle East. The bill was announced last Tuesday 17 August and the British press have been awarding the story some attention.
Posts
