Links for 11.07.09 to 11.09.09

✪ Israeli Asks Abbas Not to Step Down - NYTimes.com | What a weird headline: the Israeli in question is the president of Israel, Shimon Peres (aka Skeletor, Evil Lord of Destruction). Not that knowing this makes the whole thing any less weird, although it is telling to see how much the Israelis like Abbas.

✪ Fatah al-Islam Connected to Israeli Elements- Lebanese Security Source Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English) | Really: Fatah al-Islam, connected to the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Americans, the Saudis and now the Israelis. I am beginning to wonder whether it even exists.

✪ The Dark Side of the Bright Side -- In These Times | I love Barbara Ehrenreich's books.

✪ The Associated Press: Islamic critics blast Beyonce on eve of Egypt show | Muslim Brothers attack "nudity concert".

✪ 23 CIA Officers Convicted in Italy, in Abstentia | For extraordinary rendition of Egyptian man.

✪ Middle East Bloggers: The Street Leads Online - Reports - Committee to Protect Journalists | CPJ report on bloggers in MENA, especially the rising use of emprisonment against them: "Individual bloggers face enormous threats; the medium as a whole faces significant challenges. Increasingly, governments are creating new laws to regulate the Internet and amending old ones to encompass online expression. Already authorities are exploiting the isolated nature of bloggers and the lack of institutional protections for online journalists. As the Iranian regime exhibited this year, governments are willing to take severe measures when they perceive a threat to their power."

✪ Holiday sales could launch e-book readers as mass-market must-haves | If you're interested in ebooks, this is a pretty good piece on the state of the industry. Has anyone tried Kindle downloading in Egypt? Is it restricted?

✪ Japanese contractors owed billions by Dubai firms - The National Newspaper | Dubai is a bad debtor.

✪ Waq al-Waq: The Big Question for Saudi Arabia | Who runs Saudi Arabia's Yemen policy?

✪ Obama's Failure in the Middle East | Stephen M. Walt | KA-POW: "I never thought I'd write the following words, but is it possible that Obama's handling of the I-P peace process might actually end up being worse than George Bush's?"

✪ Berman’s Response to Goldstone on House Gaza War-Crimes Resolution « The Washington Independent | The assholes who run Congress reply to Goldstone.

✪ Report: Mossad hacked Syrian computer to uncover nuke site - Haaretz - Israel News | Basic snooping software found super-classified info? Either this is not true or the Syrians are mega-stupid. But since the allegation is that Syria had a secret nuclear research facility, I'll lean towards the former - this was all bullshit from the beginning.

✪ ATTACKERMAN » Somewhere, Khaled Meshal Is Laughing | Obama messed up doubly with Goldstone as well as backing down on settlements. What's a Palestinian leader (any of them outside Hamas) to do?

✪ Lebanese opposition agrees to govt line-up: Hezbollah

(AFP) | Cabinet crisis over?

✪ Clinton has 'productive meeting' with Egypt on Mideast peace process - washingtonpost.com | Hosni Mubarak loves nothing more than being made to feel important. Clinton's entire trip to Cairo is about this: "Clinton attributed the apparent softening in Egypt's position as a response to her personal diplomacy, conducted over visits to four capitals in the region over the past five days. "I thought it was a very productive meeting," she told reporters traveling with her after the news conference, adding that it "shows the value of consultation and listening and sharing ideas and hearing the other side and putting forward your views and explaining.""

Comments

[alle]

Israeli Asks Abbas Not to Step Down – NYTimes.com

I also reacted to that. But I think you see this a lot in US newspapers nowadays: they dumb down the headlines by cutting out foreign names that all readers may not be familiar with. Another current example from the NYT, about the Uighur-Han violence in China's Xinjiang province this summer, here transformed into some anonymous "ethnic rioting" in "a western regional capital" reported by "a State news agency":

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/world/asia/10xinjiang.html?ref=world

You have to read three paragraphs before they mention any names -- it feels almost insulting, while it could hardly help attract readers. And please don't get me wrong: I say this as an admirer of US broadsheet journalism generally.

[arabist]

I know what you mean: it's the al-Ahram style of journalism. "A prominent personality in a high institution said yesterday that certain regional powers are conspiring to promote a specific agenda." Translated version: "An advisor to the president said yesterday that Iran is using Hamas to damage Egyptian interests."

[alle]

Yes! It really makes my skin crawl. Most annoying cliché: hasba masadir i3lamiya, which is apparently Arabic for "it said so on the Times website".