3 blasts hit Thai capital, Iranians held – Los Angeles Times
February 14th, 2012
Four people are hurt in the incident a day after Israelis were targeted elsewhere.
REPORTING FROM BANGKOK AND NEW DELHI — Three explosions rattled downtown Bangkok on Tuesday, a day after bombers targeted Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia, and police announced that at least one of the suspects in Thailand’s capital is an Iranian national.
Israeli officials quickly blamed Iran for the afternoon blasts, which authorities said injured the Iranian and four Thais.
“I would like to ask the people not to panic,” Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said as security was stepped up throughout the Thai capital. “The authorities have now arrested an attacker.”
Thai police said an explosive device detonated in a home rented by Iranians in downtown Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Road area. Two men in the house managed to escape while a third reportedly tried to flag a taxi, which refused to stop given his bloodied condition. (more…)
Israel, Vatican: A Magdalene meeting point – Asia Times
July 13th, 2010
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LG14Ak03.html
Synagogue dig at Magdala. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
TIBERIAS – The breeze cooling the furnace-like lakeshore funnels down between hills behind, redolent of history like so much else in the Holy Land. One, an extinct volcano popularised as the ‘Horns of Hattin’, marks the site where Saladin defeated a Crusader army in 1187. Closer again is the cliff-face where over a thousand years before, Jews are said to have committed mass suicide rather than be taken captive by the Romans in 67 AD, 3 years before the destruction of Jerusalem and a better-known mass suicide at the Masada.
Downhill is the reed-laden lakeshore along the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus Christ walked. He may well even have preached in a startling new discovery 200m from the water’s edge at Magdala, thought to be the home-place of Mary Magdalene, 5km from Tiberias and around the same from Capernaum. A synagogue dating to the first century AD, possibly destroyed during the same Jewish revolt, has been discovered during excavations for the construction of a new Catholic pilgrimage center.
Like many other locations in the country, Magdala is precious to more than one religion. An image of a seven-branched menorah (a type of candelabra) found at the synagogue dig is apparently a replica of the the iconic menorah held at the Second Temple, nowadays reproduced on Israel’s coat of arms. The temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD , marking the start of 2000 years of Jewish dispersal prior to the formation of Israel in 1948. (more…)
An unbreakable bond? – Asia Times
June 28th, 2010
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LF29Ak02.html
T-shirt for sale in Jerusalem. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
JERUSALEM – In ‘The Great Divorce’ C.S. Lewis attempted to allegorise about a reality which he admitted he could not know, but tentatively hoped to suggest. The US-Israeli relationship, to most, seems like an unbreakable bond, and any potential divorce might be regarded as unimaginable.
But when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets US President Barack Obama on July 6, they will discuss a relationship that is on the rocks, despite an annual US$2billion in aid and – in keeping with the traditional parameters of the relationship – Obama’s repeated commitment to Israel’s security. Stirring things up in advance, Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Oren spent Sunday and Monday denying media reports that he told Israeli diplomats that a “tectonic rift” was emerging between the two countries.
The summit will be a reprise of a stillborn meeting originally scheduled for late May, which Netanyahu cancelled after nine Turks were killed by Israeli commandoes onboard one of the six boats attempting to breach the blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. In the aftermath, whatever Obama’s private thoughts, he refused to join the chorus condemning Israel. But American policymakers felt themselves to be caught between a rock and a hard place, and beyond this incident, there are divergent worldviews colouring thinking in both administrations. (more…)
Both sides of the wall – ISN
June 24th, 2010
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=117949
Simon Roughneen in Ramallah – It might be unwitting irony, but the coffee-shop overlooking central Ramallah tips its hat to an American consumer icon, in what might otherwise be deemed an outpost of anti-Americanism.
Inside Stars and Bucks, Ramallah. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Stars and Bucks cafe in downtown Ramallah is branded with almost the same colour scheme as the global chain, a hue pretty-close to Islamic green. Hummus and labaneh are on the menu should the customer want a more “authentic” experience than just downing a Middle East macchiato. Inside a mixture of western and Arabic-dressed women kept to their own tables, appearing inscrutable behind outsized sunglasses. Some men lounged on sofas, puffing on shishas while watching the Portugal-North Korea World Cup mismatch. (more…)
Israel in the dock — but what do Israelis think? – Crikey
June 22nd, 2010
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/06/22/israel-in-the-dock-but-what-do-israelis-think/
Tel-Aviv at night. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Simon Roughneen in Tel-Aviv – Israel has taken a hammering once more in much of the world’s media after the recent flotilla incident and due to the Gaza blockade. Despite the country’s uncompromising “siege mentality” image, a few days in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem suggests that many people are sensitive to what the world thinks. Gali Ginat is a reporter for Maariv newspaper, the second-biggest seller in Israel. She lamented that “it seems that the rest of the world hates us now”. And while the Government and the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) have mounted a vociferous defence of the country’s actions in recent weeks, many Israelis are not fully-convinced.
I spoke with Gal Lin at the Media in Conflict seminar organised by the IDC Herzliya, where he is a student. He said that “it’s almost a consensus in Israel that the execution of the operation to stop the flotilla was poor”. During the seminar IDF spokeswoman Lt Col Avital Liebovich fielded tough questions from Israeli journalists who thought the operation was a mess, and from Turkish reporters who questioned the official account of events.
After the flotilla incident and a Red Cross statement that the blockade contravenes international law as it involves collective punishment of one million Palestinians living inside Gaza, Israel announced that it would relax some of the blockade’s provisions. Most Israelis I asked about this said that they are happy for anything that could not be used against Israel by Hamas to be let through, as the Red Cross and others say that humanitarian conditions inside Gaza are “dire”. (more…)
Tensions remain despite pledge to ease Gaza blockade – Sunday Business Post/RTÉ World Report
June 20th, 2010
http://www.thepost.ie/news/world/coloniser-israel-relaxes-gaza-blockade-49972.html
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0620/worldreport.html
SIMON ROUGHNEEN IN JERUSALEM – Israel’s Government last week agreed to relax its 4-year long blockade on the
Gaza Strip, but the fallout from the recent flotilla incident lingers. With Israeli-US relations somewhat-frayed of late, US President Barack Obama called the move “ a step in the right direction”. Israel has come under intense international criticism for the deaths of nine Turks onboard the Mavi Marmara, one of six boats that tried to breach the naval blockade on May 31 last. Former Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble is one of two foreign observers to a committee set up to look into the clash, but described as a diversion by critics such as Turkey who want an international investigation.
Israelis call it a security fence, Palestinians call it a segregation wall. Pictured near Rachel's Tomb close to Bethlehem. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Israel maintains that its soldiers were set upon first by members of a controversial Turkish group known in English acronym form as the IHH. Israeli Defence Force (IDF) spokeswoman Lt Col Avital Liebovich told a press conference that video evidence proves that the fourth Israeli soldier to land on the boat was the first to open fire on the IHH contingent, after three colleagues were already attacked with iron bars. (more…)
