Bleary-eyed from watching the Iowa caucuses last night. They started at 3:30am Israel time. C-SPAN carried the Urbandale caucus live, showing a bunch of people in a hall putting bits of paper in a hat, followed by the 300ish voted being counted and announced. What happened next – when most people went home – means […]
Why Mahmoud Abbas is like Yoko Ono
Is Mahmoud Abbas the new Yoko Ono? I ask because it seems very much like he’s trying to break up the Middle East’s very own Fab Four. In 2002, roughly 18 months after the start of the Second Intifada, the USA, European Union, Russia and the United Nations came together to form the Quartet on […]
Some legal consequences of UN membership for Palestine
Today the Palestinian Authority’s request to be accepted as a UN member state will be submitted to the Security Council. So far, this has proved a good tactical move to embarrass Israel. Strategically, though, in the long run it could make life harder for Abbas and the PA. Guy Goodwin-Gil has already pointed out that […]
Yvonne Ridley, peanut allergies and the truth
Cross-posted from the Fair Play Campaign Group. I’ve been having a Twitter argument with Yvonne Ridley. I know I shouldn’t. This is the second argument I’ve had with Yvonne. The last one was in 2003 or 4, when I was at university. She came to speak at Bristol University as part of an official ‘response’ […]
(Bad) ideas to stop the looters
People have lots of ideas about tactics that should be used to quell the mobs. Some of the most common ideas, though,aren’t very good. This is because we keep talking about the “riots”, but what’s happened the last few days aren’t really riots. They have no political cause, no demands, no agenda. They have no […]