• Columnist Faisal Al Qasim says the Arab regimes are are more brutal than the Zionists:
But is the Arab media still able to satirise Israeli barbarism with the same vigour after it has witnessed what Arab dictators have done to their own people? Isn’t it a bit silly to bombard the Israelis with criticism and keep quiet about savagery against unarmed demonstrators?
No snippet does justice here. You gotta read the whole thing.
• Abbas knows his UN gambit will fail but is nevertheless pushing ahead anyway to save face:
On Saturday, a senior Palestinian official said Abbas has concluded that a statehood push at the U.N. would not advance the Palestinians’ cause.
Abbas’ initiative, he said, will be compromised by the fact that the Palestinians first have to seek support from the Security Council before going to the General Assembly, where the Palestinians are more confident of obtaining majority support.
The Palestinian leadership has concluded that the most they could wrest from the U.N. General Assembly would be a non-binding affirmation of previous resolutions stating that the Palestinians have the right to a state, he added.
• Gaza has most Facebook users per capita in the world. Meanwhile, The Media Line covered a Ramallah conference where Palestinians kvetched about their inability to capitalize on social media for their cause:
The Palestinians’ other problem may also be an overload of national politics. Unlike Egyptians and other, whose right to organize and express themselves politically was severely constrained, Palestinians have been fighting an open and upfront battle against the Israeli occupation for decades.
Call it resistance fatigue.
• Now Lebanon posted a very graphic YouTube video of Syrian soldiers surrounding the bodies of dead protesters:
The soldiers are seen equipping the bodies with weapons and ammunition to make it look like the protestors were armed. They are also laughing at the dead men and calling some of them “dogs” and “despicable.”
At least one other soldier can clearly be seen taking pictures with his cell phone.
I’m struggling to understand: When IDF soldier Eden Abergil stupidly posted some very tasteless photos of herself posing with arrested Palestinians, the result was an utter media circus. Without defending isolated trophy photo incidents in the IDF, why do I think Big Media’s going to overlook this far worse Syrian video?
• Now that the US has decided to boycott Durban III, the NY Daily News calls on the White House to take its protest one step further:
Now Washington must work with Canada and Israel to get as many countries as possible to join a boycott. For Durban II, Italy and Australia didn’t attend at all, while Britain, France, Finland, Spain and Denmark walked out when the garbage spewed forth. Start with those nations and try to persuade as many as possible to turn their backs.
• For commentaries worth reading, see Salim Mansur on UN diplomacy and Dore Gold on defensible borders.
