What the evening news conveniently forgot to mention...as of yet

Wall Street Journal's Farnaz Fassihi reports:

Iran arrested opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, along with their wives, and transported them to a prison operated by the Revolutionary Guards in Tehran, family members said.

Advisers to the opposition leaders said a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards who is sympathetic to the opposition movement confirmed the news of the arrest and the leaders' whereabouts. They said he told them they were taken to Heshmatieyh prison, a high-level security facility inside a Revolutionary Guard military base in eastern Tehran.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, leader of the Green Movement

And the Financial Times:

The two leaders have been unable to see their children over the past week and their food was reported to have been provided by the security forces. Their children had expressed concern that the two couples had been relocated in recent days when there were no lights in their houses.Reports of the arrests come ahead of a protest called 

by the Iranian opposition for Tuesday in protest at the unofficial house arrest of the two leaders.  

Will be interesting to see how the media plays this story out...In the meantime, Joe Klein of TIME's blog, aptly commented:

The disconnect between the barbaric regime and the eminently civilized people I've met there is the greatest of any country I've ever visited. I hope the day is near when this terrible government is ended. I fear, though, that it will have to happen from within--through an enlightened leader who allows gradual reforms--rather than from the streets.

~nana tea~ 

Confronting the Misinformed Over Lattes. Venti-Size.

Last week, my journalism professor ('News Writing and Reporting') asked the class to conduct some man-on-the-street interviews. The purpose of the assignment was to practice interviewing, quoting and attributing; the first and easiest place I could think of for some quote-gathering was Starbucks at 34th and Park-- easily one of the most eclectic mixes of coffee-drinkers in the area.

The usual spot.

We were to pose several different questions to the unsuspecting latte-sippers and web-surfers, including the asking-for-it open-ended, "What do you think of the wave of protests sweeping the Arab world?"
Eric, a gray-haired young man sporting a Calvin Klein-sweater and dark denim, told me that he's ecstatic about the Arab protests. "These people aren't only rising up against their own government," he said excitedly, motioning with his arms from his bar stool, "but also defeating the US and its backing Mubarak!"   
Interesting.
"The [Egyptians] are role models for us in America. There are a lot of lessons for us here: I hope the new leadership will correct other imbalances in the area, and inject a whole new context of ethics into the region."
Very interesting. 
I nodded, jotting down every word. "Inject a 'whole new context of ethics'? In what sense?"
"That is, into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said somberly.
Apparently the only issue throughout the whole Middle East that so bothered this fellow New Yorker was Israel. Not the millions of women across the region who continue to be oppressed. The journalists who are denied the right to speak out about crucial issues and most terrible injustices. The homosexuals who are refused to live as they please, minorities who are refused to pray as they wish.

How tragic: that a people's honest fight for freedom and democracy has become inextricably tied to an issue completely unrelated to it, thanks to media portrayal. Up till now, "Middle East" in news headlines was more often than not a code word for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For the first time ever, the world's and the media's "absurd obsession with Israel has been laid bare", as Nick Cohen writes so well this week in The Guardian. Now, the lives of millions of Arabs have been brought to Europe's attention.
Israel's left-wing daily Haaretz echoes, in some ways, Cohen's views. Bradley Burston thanked the Egyptians for jolting not just the world but the Israelis out of fixed ideas. "It is beginning to dawn on my people, the Israelis, that freedom for Arabs may have nothing to do with annihilation for Jews," he wrote. And he's right: perhaps these recent protests really have nothing else to do with Israel, other than the fact that Arab citizens might be able to "influence the trajectory of their countries' development" -- a development which can only be positive for Israel, if it proves to be true and democratic.
It seemed to me that my friend Eric was seeking to draw lines that didn't really exist between two issues, making the exact mistake he has been drawn to make by the news outlets. 
"I was just reading about the latest headlines, on the J-Street website," he pointed to his open laptop screen proudly, clearly proving his worldliness. 
I marveled at the objective choice of news source.
Towards the end of our conversation (which lasted for a whole fifteen minutes, much longer than it was supposed to), I closed my notebook and asked him pointedly if it struck him at all wrong that, with all of the injustices being committed throughout the Middle East these past few weeks, the only issue which the UN Security Council has convened to discuss was the Israeli settlements.
"Really?" he said, surprised. "Didn't they meet to discuss...Egypt?"
Mhmm. Actually, they didn't.

~grande cappuccino. whipped cream of course.~

Dinosaurs of International Relations Still Looking for Israeli Sharks

Minister Ayalon makes a compelling argument in the Huffington Post this week. He urges readers to "wake up and face the very real problems affecting the Arab world", and to stop "quixotically searching for Israeli sharks and vultures in every Middle Eastern event".

One would think that the recent events in Tunisia, Cairo, Yemen and elsewhere would demand soul-searching and humility on the part of these talking-heads who pontificate from their comfortable think-tanks and self-appointed analyst positions in Washington, London and Brussels....Nevertheless, they cling to the tired and discredited claim that building a few of apartments in Ariel is what drives the so-called "Arab street" to distraction. For those who don't read Arabic, many of those demonstrating in their capital cities wrote slogans in English to give a voice to their frustrations that the rest of the world could understand. 

I didn't see any signs about settlements, the Palestinians or the stalemate in the peace process on the streets of Tunis, Sanaa or Cairo. The few signs that did mention Israel were so monstrously antisemitic that they can be dismissed as the rantings of those who can not tolerate a Jewish presence anywhere in the Middle East and are hardly interested in any sort of peace process.

Bravo, Mr. Ayalon. Let world leaders wake up to the real issues that face the Arab world and all of us.




~glass of shiraz~

On the UN Security Council and Israeli Settlements

UN Security Council is expected to vote some time this month on a resolution denouncing Israeli settlements, and though Mr. Obama himself "does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements", the administration is expected to veto the resolution.
Sen. Hilary Clinton has stated (quite justly and objectively) that "New York is not the place to resolve the longstanding conflict and outstanding issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians."
Though some, such as Josh Ruebner for the Huffington Post, have an issue with the Obama administration's attempt at objectivity and commitment to remaining unbiased:

Its absurd threat to veto the upcoming Security Council resolution condemning Israel's settlements demonstrates U.S. contempt for international law and its inability to be a credible "honest broker" for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

'Settlers'

Since when has condemning Israel and favouring one side over another been part of the job of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking? To expect the American government to solely deny Israelis the right to live in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, without establishing conditions for the Palestinian side, is to support a role as dishonest broker, and to vote for such a resolution would only further isolate Israel from the rest of the world. 

A friendly member of the UN.

I'm confident that the United States, despite everything, will continue to defend Israel from the UN's unjust allegations. Let us not forget that the 'United Nations' is an organization which is comprised of Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, UAE, and Yemen. 
Let us also not forget that, even with the UN enforcing resolutions, the PA has shown that they are refusing any offer of a settlement freeze, if it requires them to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. 
Seems like just another UN attempt to rush to condemn Israel, without actually taking note of either side's concerns and interests.

~nana tea~ 

Humanity, By the Pixels

World Press Photo recently announced the winners of its 2011 photojournalism contest. A non-profit organization based in the Netherlands, World Press Photo supports the development of photojournalism internationally, by holding this annual contest and exhibition, by organizing workshops and classes such as the Joop Swart Masterclass, and otherwise. 

A few which caught my eye:

A man and a boy, displaced by floods, walk through flood waters on August 22, 2010 in the village of Baseera near Muzaffargarh in Punjab, Pakistan. This photograph is part of a series that took the 1st Prize for People In The News Stories of the 2011 World Press Photo Contest. (Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

In this photo released by Word Press Photo, the 1st Prize Contemporary Issues Stories by Ed Ou, Canada, Reportage by Getty Images, shows four Somali refugees en route to Yemen sleep in the desert after traveling all night on muddy roads and in pouring rain, Somaliland, March 15, 2010. (AP Photo/Ed Ou/Reportage by Getty Images)

Amit Sha'al, Israel. Altneuland.

~mint tea~ 

When Protests Aren't Enough

Dr. Oz-Salzberger, Israeli writer, historian, and professor at the University of Haifa, had a good point this week in Newsweek. Though comparing the Egyptian protesters to the ancient Israelites is a bit of a stretched reading of the Bible, she has it right when questioning our haste in interpreting the ensuing revolution as the catalyst for a true democracy: 

Democracies do not emerge fully equipped from ordinary people’s heartfelt protestations. Democracies need honest legislators, professional judges, incorruptible civil servants, and unbiased public-opinion makers. Such institutions will not grow out of the cracked pavement of Tahrir Square alone.

It's amazing to see that Western leaders continue to think that majority rule is the key to establishing a peaceful nation and stable government; anyone who has studied recent history and current events will tell you that a government ushered in by 'majority rule' can be far from moral or democratic. Gaza overrun by Hamas, Lebanon by Hezbollah, Iran by Ahmadinejad and even Russia by Putin: all of these governments were instituted with elections of sort. Elections that are, in Dr. Oz-Salzburger's words,

pseudo-democratic processes where majoritarian rhetoric trumps substantive democracy.

Of course Egypt needs new leadership, and one chosen by a fair vote: all of the regimes in today's Arab world are in need of new, incorruptible and moral leaders. 
But let us be wary. Let us not get too carried away with rash statements, with the rosy image of democracy and the freedom we think it will inevitable bring -- not every riot turns into a Boston Tea Party and not every revolution leads to a star-spangled banner.


~nana tea~

Of Time Travel and Politics

Pushkinskaya Ulitsa, Kharkov, Ukraine

I just got back from a ten-day trip to Ukraine, and the second I got off in Borispol Airport in Kiev, all I could ask myself was whether it was a plane that I had taken there, or perhaps a time machine:

...it takes me a good two hours to stop shaking when I step out in Borispol Airport in Kiev.  Perhaps it’s the drab colors of the place, the fur hats, the archaic trolleybuses, the same Slavic features and grim expressions: why, it’s exactly as I had imagined. 

But it seems like little has changed in politics as well as the streets of the former Soviet Union.  Yesterday the Guardian reported that its Moscow correspondent, Luke Harding, has been expelled from Russia, for writing that Russia under Putin has become a "virtual mafia state".

Little has changed:
Lenin still stands tall above Freedom Square
in the center of Kharkov.

After spending 45 minutes in an airport cell, [Harding] was sent back to the UK on the first available plane – with his visa annulled and his passport only returned to him after taking his seat. Harding was given no specific reason for the decision, although an airport security official working for the Federal Border Service, an arm of the FSB intelligence agency, told him: "For you Russia is closed."

Bravo, Putin. You've only further confirmed the accusations hurled against you.


~plain Lipton black~ 

AOL buying The Huffington Post?

For $315 million, at that. 


Talk about an "unlikely pairing of two online media giants".


NYTimes reports.


~blueberry~ 

Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen...Next up, Iran.

Iran's opposition leaders, Moussavi and Karroubi, called for a peaceful rally today in support of the fight for democracy ensuing throughout the Arab world:

“In order to declare support for the popular movements in the region, in particular, the freedom-seeking movements of the people of Egypt and Tunisia, we request a permit to invite the people for a rally."

Their Facebook page now has over 13,000 fans: an all-too low number for the type of rally they wish to hold.
The NYTimes quotes a young opposition supporter asking why the Arabs could stand firm, "while we [Iranians] got scared and ran away". 
Perhaps because Mubarak, no matter how corrupt and unjust a leader, is no Ahmadinejad, and his young soldiers, unlike the army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, support the people and not a regime.





~written with the help of a cup of blueberry tea~