Hot off the Arab press

What citizens of other countries are reading about the Middle East.

By COMPILEDTHE MEDIA LINE
American-developed radar 521 (photo credit: Avishai Teicher/Wikimedia Commons)
American-developed radar 521
(photo credit: Avishai Teicher/Wikimedia Commons)
Where Israel failed Palestine, Gaza, December 1
Writer Tareq Masarwa says that The Jerusalem Post reported on an American-developed radar on Israel’s Mount Keren, which exposes targets 2,900 miles away.
Tehran is only 1,000 miles away from that area. This radar, which can discover any rocket seconds after it is launched, exceeds the ability of any Israeli radar by seven minutes, and proves the scale of American intervention in Israel. The calculations are in the hands of Washington, and Israel can’t attack Iran if the US doesn’t provide the radar’s information. This could be due to the pressure applied on the US president from the Israeli and Jewish lobbies’ threats. The Israeli prime minister is working to win cooperation with the Republican opposition and the extreme Christian groups to thwart the Geneva agreement. Israel is not capable of threatening the Iranian nuclear facilities on its own, and wants the US to launch a war on Iran. Israel can’t control the American decision forever. Zionism played a role in pushing the US into World Wars I and II, among other things, while we Arabs failed to get anything from Washington when it comes to the Palestinian cause.
As if we became the Jews of the Jews? Al-Ayyam, Ramallah, December 1
The Palestinian problem is rooted in the soil, maybe since Theodor Herzl or the destruction of the two Temples (the Zionist narrative), or the time of the Canaanites or the Phoenicians (a Palestinian narrative). Lately, the news covered the roots of the problem as news items. For example, French President Francois Hollande linked the settlement freeze and “freezing” the Palestinian right of return. The “Jewish right of return” to Israel is granted immediately, with financial incentives and historical-political-ideological justification. The comparison between the Holocaust and the Nakba (the Palestinian “catastrophe” of 1948) as two human catastrophes, leads to the rejection of the comparison between Jewish and Palestinian rights. Historian Benny Morris wrote a book about the refugees’ problem, and said that Israel should have exercised ethnic cleansing. Did the Holocaust play a central role in creating Israel, or was it the White Paper of 1939?
Forbidden and permissible crimes Dar Al-Khaleej, Sharjah, December 3
The Foreign Press Association says the IDF targets the foreign press. If the army does this to foreigners, it does worse to Palestinians – who threaten Israel just by existing. All of the Israeli crimes are documented by the UN, and by every paper that dares to publish the truth. Most importantly, the West is aware of these crimes and sometimes expresses its sorrow, at a time when Israel acts very aggressively. The rules are different when it comes to a real act to hold officials accountable, or to condemn Israel in international bodies. What is ironic is that the Europeans, who committed crimes against humanity in Africa when they occupied it, are not ready to confront these crimes. The West claims that those accused of war crimes have to be taken to court, but no one thinks of suing the Israeli war criminals. Obviously these countries have two types of crimes: forbidden and permissible. The FPA put the West to a difficult test.
Israel wins and Palestine loses Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, Ramallah, December 2
Palestinian culture was defeated in the second most important book fair in the world, says writer Adel Abed al-Rahman. The Israeli president, alongside 30 Israeli writers and academics, participated in the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico. With 30 books translated from Hebrew to Spanish, Israel was the guest of honor. The ethnic-cleansing state becomes a guest of honor in a book fair, while the Palestinians and Arabs are in a deep sleep: they haven’t been active in supporting the international campaign against Israeli participation in one of the most important cultural activities. The Avvaz-led campaign that started on November 26 via a petition failed to collect 2,000 signatures. Only 450 people signed it. At the book fair itself, the Arab presence was weak, and all of this shows that the national cultural movement is not in good shape. Acknowledging the defeat is important, as we must learn from it.