ISRAEL: AN INTRODUCTION,
FORTHCOMING JANUARY 24th, 2012
Five Minutes for Israel doesn’t usually do recommendations but knowing the GLORIA Center and without yet reading a word I can definitely say that this will be something that every one serious about the Israel/Palestine/Arab/Muslim/Super Power conflict will want on their shelves or on their hard drive or e-book reader, or whatever. I was going to say every Israel advocate but I confidently predict that if you are not one now you will be (or too nutty to be reached). Knowing Professor Rubin, this will be a good read.
“What’s unique about Israel: An Introduction,” said Professor Barry Rubin, the book’s editor and one of its authors, “is that it is the first book to provide a comprehensive picture of modern Israel including land and people, geography, society, economy, and culture, as well as its history and politics.
“This book is a milestone that, for the first time in the short history of the study of modern Israel, will act as a guide for readers to learn about the Jewish state. It is good for use in courses or for the general reader and also as a textbook for high school and college level courses.”
Edited by Barry Rubin, Director of the GLORIA Center, Editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journaland a leading historian of the Middle East, Israel is organized around six major themes: Land and people, history, society, politics, economics, and culture. Finally, Israel: An Introduction provides useful reference lists by topic for those who may be inspired to read further.
The book is a significant contribution to Israel Studies at large. Its official publication date is January 24, 2012. Israel is already being pre-sold and promoted to hundreds of institutions in Israel, the United States, and worldwide.
GLORIA has launched a campaign to encourage the book’s use for Israel education by the Israeli government, Jewish community organizations, Jewish and Israel studies programs at major universities, and the general public.
It is available in paperback and in digital e-book format on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the iTunes bookstore.
The GLORIA Center is open to receiving potential ideas for involvement or support from readers like you. If people are interested in purchasing copies of the book, writing a review, scheduling an interview with the editor or author(s), or have other general inquiries please contact Adam Briscoe or Gregg Roman.
The GLORIA Center invites people to inquire about inspection copies (for classes) and bulk orders.
Readers can pre-order the publication on Amazon.
The GLORIA Center is also on Facebook and on Twitter.
Readers can obtain updates on all the center’s articles and publications at http://www.gloria-center.org.
The GLORIA Center is a research institute focusing on international affairs, combining traditional high-standards of scholarship, timely analysis, and new technology to produce the most accurate possible view of issues and events.
Nothing is more likely to lead to violence and bring a negotiated settlement even further away than the Palestinian Authority using the ‘authority’ of UNESCO to deny Jewish access to joint holy sites under the excuse that they are protecting them.
Why This Is Important
Palestine’s admission as a member of UNESCO on 31 October 2011 is illegal – since the two-thirds majority of members required to admit Palestine under articles II(2) and II (3) of UNESCO’S Constitution is 129 – not the 107 member States that actually voted for Palestine’s admission.
The decision will cost UNESCO over $100 million per annum in funding and seriously affect UNESCO’s ongoing programs for the universal benefit of humankind.
UNESCO has failed to rebut this claim or accede to my† request that it urgently obtain an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice
† The ‘my’ in this case is not Five Minutes for Israel but the creator of this petition Sydney lawyer, David Singer.
Over the lifetime of this blog I have frequently been highly critical of the BBC bias and recommend highly the Biased BBC blog.
I have been less critical of the Guardian bias (because I so rarely read it) but nevertheless recommend the CiF Watch blog.
Now I’m delighted to note that Reuters, so often noted for fauxtography, repeating unchecked Palestinian claims as fact and yes, bias has a blog devoted to it as well: Reuters Middle East Watch. Definitely worth keeping an eye on it.
RMEW* exposes errors, bias, and propaganda in Reuters Middle East Reporting. It is not a “blog” as such but rather an open, public,evidentiary database documenting Reuters’ violations of its own Trust Principles, Handbook, and generally accepted standards of professional journalism.
The next two recommendations are not media specific but concern the retelling of stories, over-and-over again. This isn’t a charge of plagiarism although that happens nor the ubiquitous filling in space with background straight from Wikipedia. It relates to repeating stories one year to the next. How often can shed a tear for the last Christian shepherd? Why does it sound so familiar? Perhaps In Bethlehem, shepherds watching their flocks by night are a dying breed from 2010 gives a clue?
A rebel group of Jerusalem-based reporters has reacted to the decade-long tradition of Bethlehem holiday stories by refusing to accept any holiday cheer this season. Refusing editors’ requests for “Christmas in the holy land” tales of Palestinian woe and tourist shows, the group has announced it will refrain from filing any articles until an actual news event occurs. “We are doing this for the good of our readers. Who, if they have any memory whatsoever, will recall that we have written the exact same Bethlehem story for the past four years,” said a spokesman for the group. He continued that the decision was also financial, hoping to save the dying newspaper industry the cost of commissioning a new piece when they could just rewrite the previous versions. One journalist, who asked to remain anonymous, said the rebel group was trying to quell more extreme elements who called for a torching of all olive-wood products made in Bethlehem, and the expelling of shopkeepers who whined excessively.
Finally and not unrelated. It’s not just text that gets recycled. It’s also photographs. Watch Video documents photojournalism ‘machine’s’ coverage of East Jerusalem and West Bank below. Among other things it confirms my opinion that at least part of the reason Israel/Palestine is so obsessively covered is the ease that journalists can pretend to be covering wars with very little real danger or inconvenience that might come from real combat photography.
Incidentally, Illia Yefimovich from the embedded video is also the photographer who captured the famous stone thrower knocked over by car shot. I blogged about it in Set-up,stoned and skittled. With what you have seen here, what version do you believe: photgrapher just happening to be on the spot or photographer arranging a ‘scene’ that will sell?
Around about this time, when Christmas and Hanukka fall at about the same time (this year the eight days of Hanukka and the twelve days of Christmas actually overlap) the arguments about whether Hanukka is the Jewish Christmas rise anew. There’s a mea culpa here. As a child in culturally Christian Australia I happily pocketed the Hanukka gelt† and Christmas presents from the various service organisations my parents belonged to, without guilt.
Anne Frank - Palestinian?
The Christmas-Hannuka connection did get me thinking, however. Why, if the Destroy Israel Lobby, BDS, Arab money, some Christian groups, the ‘extreme’ ‘Left’ etc. has co-opted Christian iconography to attack Israel, don’t they co-opt Jewish imagery from this festival. They have already appropriated Holocaust imagery without embarrassment. An Internet search will find Anne Frank the Palestinian and young Palestinian victim of the Warsaw ghetto with arms upraised.
The Hannuka story would on the face of it be an ideal addition to the Palestinian narrative. A small group of ‘indigenous’ citizens take on the might of a foreign occupying army – and win. Can’t you just imagine Arafat as Judah the Maccabi? Can’t you just imagine the Palestinian hero in a keffiyeh, as Simon stabbing elephants? Surely there’s some way of fitting the ubiquitous Hanukka menorah into the story‡?
So why don’t they do it?
Are you surprised that I have several theories?
Denying any Jewish connection to this land is more important than yet another piece of imagery. The Hanukka story, combined with supporting historical evidence is yet more proof of Jewish connection. Only Muslims and Christians are permitted. At least Christians are until no longer necessary for PR.
The name is a problem. I always knew him as Judah or Yehudah but even Judas (as in the Apostles) is problematic. Sounds too much like Judea. This is solvable of course. Most of the Old and New Testament prophets have their Arabic equivalents.
Jewish holidays are simply too unfamiliar - regrettably even for the Jews.
Chanukkah Candlelight, Pana Nichuirc, A Girl, A Blog & Life In-between!!!, Saturday, December 17, 2011
The Syrian Greek King Antiochus IV Epiphanes*
† Literally Hanukka gold. It can mean gifts but is just as likely to be round pieces of cheap chocolate covered in gold-coloured paper to resemble coins.
‡ After much searching I did find a menorah as the cannon on an Israeli tank.
* Coin of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. English: Left: Head of Antiochus IV. Right: Zeus Nikephoros enthroned. Greek inscription reads Antiochus, image of God, bearer of victory
Appeal for UNESCO to Cancel Its Election of Syria to Human Rights Committees
Shocked that the UNESCO Executive Board, on 11 November 2011, elected the Syrian Arab Republic to two committees dealing with human rights—the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations, which examines communications relating to the exercise of human rights, and the Committee on International Non-Governmental Organizations, which is charged with overseeing the work of civil society and human rights groups within UNESCO;
Having considered the recent findings of United Nations Human Rights Council investigators that the Syrian regime has in the past year committed crimes against humanity, including the murder of 5,000 of its citizens, the torturing of children and rape;
Recalling that earlier this year, after United Nations Watch revealed that Syria had cynically submitted its candidacy for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, a global protest campaign emerged with the support of Human Rights Watch, the Syrian Human Rights Committee, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, and numerous other NGOs and UN stakeholders, helping to successfully defeat the candidacy of the Assad regime;
Guided by the principled opposition expressed by the UNESCO Director-General herself, Ms. Irina Bokova, who has stated that she “does not see how the Syria can contribute to the work of the committees”;
Declaring that each day that the Syria continues to sit on the aforementioned UNESCO human rights committees constitutes an affront to the memory of the innocents who continue to be killed by the Assad regime, and casts a shadow upon the reputation of UNESCO, and of the United Nations system as a whole;
We, the undersigned Members of Parliament, human rights organizations, civil society representatives and pro-democracy dissidents and activists, do hereby appeal to the UNESCO Executive Board to urgently remove the Syrian regime from the aforementioned human rights committees, and to publicly apologize to the victims of the Syrian regime for having elected it in the first place.
The Festival of Lights is with us again. Plenty of friends are coming to light the first candle and I have been allocated my traditional sous-chef role of grating, slicing and dicing. Blog following if I have some time, today.
We have often stated that the world doesn’t hate Israel. Most of it either doesn’t know we exist or doesn’t care as they have more immediate problems. Yaakov Kirschen, is calling for assistance in approaching 1.3383 Chinese … The Dry Bones Project (DryBonesProject.com) needs funding to carry out its unique strategic plan … a way to use graphic novels to engage and enlist the Chinese in a common struggle; the battle to reject the willful denial of history, and to strengthen China/Israel relations.
If you could be the fairy godfather/mother please contact. If you donate have thousands of dollars lying around but can donate to a unique ‘thinking outside the box’ project in Israel advocacy don’t be shy.
Dry Bones China Project
† We are honoured that Israel’s iconic cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen of Dry Bones fame permits us to use the cartoons that embellish every Five Minutes for Israel.
11 January 2012
2 January 2012
