After decades of bitter conflict and the loss of thousands of innocent lives, Israeli and Palestinian forces clashed once again this week, with each side laying claim to a five-mile stretch of desperately needed cemetery space.

Fighting over the disputed territory, which is located on the easternmost border of the Gaza Strip, has thus far resulted in more than four dozen casualties. According to sources, the swath of cemetery space is being called the rightful burial home of both the Israeli and Palestinian people.

“Israel has always been the deathplace of the Jews,” said Moshe Abrahim, a religion professor at Bar-Ilan University. “My father was killed here, and his father and mother, and both of his uncles before him were killed here. To have this area occupied by Palestinian bodies is an insult to our great history.”

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Hitler Tamed by Prison: Released on Parole, He Is Expected to Return to Austria.

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It seems that executives from Blackwater Worldwide, the Bush administration’s favourite hired guns in Iraq and Afghanistan, are threatening to pack up their M4 assault rifles, CS gas and Little Bird helicopters and go back to the great dismal swamp of North Carolina whence they came. Or at least that’s how it is being portrayed in the media.

Shame on journalists for not recognising the noble work of the gallant heroes and patriots (who happen to be paid much more than US troops and have not been subjected to any system of law and who can leave the war zone any moment they choose) and forcing Blackwater to consider abandoning its (very profitable, billion-dollar) charitable humanitarian campaign in Iraq. Remember, according to Blackwater, it is not a mercenary organisation. It is a “peace and stability” operation employing “global stabilisation professionals“.

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The tentacle-like growth of clandestine advertising in American TV shows in the form of product placement has taken another controversial step with the introduction of McDonald’s products into regional news programmes.

Several TV outlets have begun to sell the fast-food giant the right to place cups of its iced coffee on to the desks of news anchors as they present morning current affairs shows.

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Antony Loewenstein says “not many Jews” agree that the 2001 UN conference against racism in Durban was an anti-Semitic hatefest (Letters, July 23).

I was a delegate and I don’t remember Mr Loewenstein being there when hundreds of Palestinians and Muslims were screaming in our faces “death to the Jews”. Nor when Palestinians and members of the Arab Lawyers League were handing out leaflets saying that if Hitler had done his job properly, there would have been no Israel and no Palestinian problem.

More importantly, he misses Anne Bayefsky’s key point, which is that Western values of free speech and support for open interfaith dialogue are threatened, rather than supported, by the UN Human Rights Council.

Alan Gold Leura

The headline on Antony Loewenstein’s letter, “Israel the aggressor must accept reasonable and unbiased criticism” could have been more appropriately worded “Israel must accept reasonable criticism”.

Each of us brings our bias, our opinion weighted with life experience, when we enter into conversation. As a Jew, I recognise mistakes have been made on both sides of the conflict in the Middle East. But to argue as Mr Loewenstein does that the “Palestinians are the eternally demonised people, occupied, starved and killed with impunity by Israel” only presents another “biased” perspective, not reasonable criticism.

In the past week, Israel has mourned the losses of soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, while Hezbollah and Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, have praised the release of the murderer Samir Kuntar. I hope Mr Loewenstein, in his ardent pursuit of human rights, would not condemn Israel while its neighbours dance in the street when murderers go free.

Reasonable criticism and a pursuit of human rights will come only when we acknowledge the mistakes of both sides. But when one nation mourns and others celebrate a vigilante with seemingly no respect for human life, I reserve my right to be reasonably biased.

Paul Jacobson Bondi

A few comments are in order. The issue of human rights in the Middle East is indeed a fraught one, but far too many Jews seem able to convince themselves that Israelis are on the side of angels and only Arabs are the terrorists. Hardly. The occupation of Palestinian land is a daily attack on dignity. Until the Western world understands the reality of Arab resistance to Zionist designs on the region, conflict will continue.

It’s amazing, in the letters above, how I’m chastised for not appreciating the Jew-hatred of the “enemy.” I’m well aware of it, having travelling around the Middle East a number of times. But Zionists refuse to acknowledge their responsibility for creating anti-Semitism, defending the occupation or remaining silent about it.

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Nearly two-thirds of Egyptian men admit to having sexually harassed women in the most populous Arab country, and a majority say women themselves are to blame for their maltreatment.

One female blogger, Cairo My Love, has a few things to say about this shocking statistic.

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Sport isn’t the only thing on the minds of multinationals in Beijing, writes Antony Loewenstein

Human rights issues? What human rights issues?

With only a few weeks until the start of the Beijing Games, this seems to be the message from corporate sponsors of the event. The New York Times explains:

“McDonald’s is running a ‘Cheer for China’ television ad. Nike ads feature China’s star hurdler, Liu Xiang, and other Chinese athletes besting foreign competitors. Earlier this year, Pepsi even painted its familiar blue cans red for a limited edition ‘Go Red for China’ promotion.

“The campaigns for Western companies are part of an advertising blitz the likes of which this ostensibly communist nation has never seen. Ads are papered over bus shelters, projected on giant outdoor television screens and plastered on billboards. Commercials even flicker at commuters as they zoom through subway tunnels.

“China, already the world’s second-largest advertising market, after the United States, is a dream for consumer product companies. ‘For most international brands here, China is the growth market for the next 10 years,’ said Jonathan Chajet, strategic director at Interbrand, which consults on brands.”

Despite pressure some months ago to persuade multinationals to boycott the “Genocide Games”, China’s nationalism is clearly too strong a factor to avoid (along with the potential of massive profits.) The International Olympic Committee is also behaving badly.

Arvind Ganesan, the Director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, told Harpers magazine last week that he was concerned about the role of multinationals in China and their deafening silence over abuses:

“…All of the companies claim to have some sort of ‘socially responsive’ policies and two of them, GE and Coke, are actually part of an initiative called the ‘Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights.’ They have made public commitments to be progressive companies when it comes to human rights, but they have been silent about the situation in China.”

And the reason why?

“Through NBC, GE has paid hundreds of million of dollars to broadcast the Olympics. Given how much it has invested as a sponsor, let’s see how critical they are going to be.”

It’s inevitable that some of the Western media covering the sporting events will also discuss human rights abuses. It’s important that dissidents are not forgotten in the rush to celebrate athleticism. Take the case of imprisoned Du Daobin, whose case has been highlighted by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ):

“Du, 43, a dissident writer and former editor of Human Rights Poetry, was sentenced in 2004 to three years’ jail for ‘inciting subversion of state power’ for publishing 26 articles in 2004 that were critical of the Government. The sentence was suspended to four years’ probation with two years’ deprivation of political rights.

“The IFJ has learnt that Du, a member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre’s Writers in Prison Committee, was detained by police in Hubei on July 21 for allegedly publishing dozens of articles under a pseudonym during his probation.

“The charge of ‘inciting subversion of state power’ has frequently been levelled at writers and journalists who publish articles critical of any aspect of Chinese government policy.”

Beijing is afraid of both aggrieved citizens reaching the capital to protest and any sign of trouble from the outside. There are reportedly 110,000 security personnel and more than one million citizens to protect the Games against alleged terrorist threats.

Unfortunately, at least one athlete, an Israeli settler, will be representing the worst aspect of human nature, namely the dispossession of Palestinian land, in her pursuit of a taekwondo medal.

Perhaps the most surreal story of the week was the news that some American participants are considering wearing high-tech masks to protect them from pollution. It may cause problems, however. “When you’re walking around with a mask on, you’re basically saying, ‘You guys stink,’ “ says Scott Schnitzspahn, performance director of the U.S. triathlon team.

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Supporters of Israel write as though the Jewish state is isolated and reviled around the world for no other reason than irrational anti-Semitism.

Nothing could be further from the truth. [Professor at York University, Toronto and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute] Anne Bayefsky (”Australia must boycott the next racist hatefest“, July 22) continues this unfortunate trend. She paints Israel as a poor, defenceless nation in the heart of the Middle East that is likely to be devoured by the Arab world’s uncontrollable racism. In fact, it is Israeli actions that have led it to become an international pariah. Do Zionists really believe expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank can continue without paying a high diplomatic and military price? Bayefsky criticises Durban I as “a notorious anti-Semitic hatefest”, a view not shared by many Jews.

The Palestinian peace activist Hanan Ashrawi told the conference its aim was “to give voice to the silenced, to give a reality to the invisible, to give recognition to the denied, and to give credence to the victimised”. The Palestinians are the eternally demonised people, occupied, starved and killed with impunity by Israel.

Although Durban focused excessively on the Jewish state to the exclusion of human rights abuses elsewhere, some Jews seem to think even raising the issue of Israeli rights violations is anti-Semitic. Participants focused on Israeli “apartheid”, much to the consternation of Western powers.

Earlier this month, a group of veteran South African activists visited the West Bank and concluded the situation there was worse than life for black South Africans under apartheid. Bayefsky, and Zionists like her, know that opinion polls across the world view Israel as the aggressor in the conflict. Since when does an occupier ask for sympathy?

Durban II offers the possibility for dialogue with the world’s powers over key issues of human rights. Australia, like other Western powers, should participate, but leave their pro-Israel grandstanding at home.

The Jewish state is clearly not the only nation worthy of condemnation, but it should not be excluded from the debate due to Zionist pressure or Holocaust guilt.

Israel is hardly in a position to dictate what constitutes democracy. After all, it actively discriminates against non-Jews and continues to expand settlements. Where is the Jewish outcry over that?

Antony Loewenstein Petersham

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Almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago, nearly as many print less national news, and despite new demands on newsrooms like blogs and video, most of them have smaller news staffs, according to a new study.

Who can really rely on the mainstream media anymore to understand the world?

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