Israel
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 25-31 July
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 25 July to Sunday, 31 July from ForesightNews The week starts off with two high-profile court hearings on Monday. Former Egyptian Interior Minister Habib al Adly is scheduled to go on trial in Cairo on charges of ordering the deaths of protesters, but the hearing has been […]
Looking ahead to the week’s screenings and talks at Frontline Club
Monday’s screening Defusing Human Bombs takes us into Pakistan’s Sabaoon School, where young boys are rehabilitated and helped back into normal life after years of indoctrination at the hands of theTaliban and grooming for suicide missions. A year on from the first broadcast of The Baha’is of Iran, which coincided with further persecution of the community, BBC Persian will screening […]
Israel vs. Israel: Why some Israeli activists represent hope
By Helena WIlliams The first ever UK screening of Swedish Director Terje Carlsson’s film ‘Israel vs. Israel’ was shown at the Frontline Club yesterday evening. Responding to half an hour of questions from the audience, Carlsson emphasised the importance of peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians, saying that the four activists he focuses on in […]
Realignment in the Arab world – What does it mean for Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel?
Download this episode View in iTunes With a panel of experts and journalists we will be examining the political realignment taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. We will be asking what the shifts in Arab world mean for Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia: What is Israel’s likely response to the emerging democracies […]
The Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent on new tools for journalists
Harriet Sherwood reflects on life as a foreign correspondent after four months in Jerusalem for The Guardian. Here she offers an assessment of the new platforms available to journalists: "…in the digital age, there are other platforms to consider. I have flirted with Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Facebook. The former seems a useful […]
Gideon Levy in conversation with Jon Snow: why the media’s role in the occupation of Palestine matters
View in iTunes If you couldn’t be there in person, you can watch the whole thing here. With a protracted, complex and bloody conflict between Israel and Islamic forces in Palestine, the need for independent journalism has never been greater. Isreali journalist Gideon Levy says that when he started writing, “There [was] no one there to […]
Gideon Levy in conversation with Jon Snow
On route to Edinburgh Literary Festival Gideon Levy will be joining us at the Frontline Club in conversation with Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow. He will be discussing recent developments in the Middle East and his book The Punishment of Gaza. In which he documents Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and charts the events leading up to the assault of 2009.
Combatants for peace: Israelis and Palestinians fighting extremism together
Download this episode View in iTunes The intractable conflict between Israel and Hamas over territory, settlements, blockades and terror strikes can give outsiders the impression of a desperate situation. With no firm political, two-state solution in sight, will ordinary peaceful Israelis and Palestinians ever return to the kind of normal lives that we in the […]
Israel and Palestine: Combatants for Peace
Can Israelis and Palestinians work together for peace? Four men who believe that they can will be at the Frontline Club to describe their journeys from division and violence towards non-violence.
Israel and Palestine: Personal stories from Combatants for Peace, part two
Download this episode View in iTunes On 28 July the Frontline Club asks: is the best route to peace in the Holy Land to put down guns and start talking? Four members of the Israeli-Palestinian activist group Combatants for Peace will be on hand to talk about how they plan to do just that. Tickets […]
Israel and Palestine: Personal stories from Combatants for Peace, part one
View in iTunes Can Israelis and Palestinians work together for peace? Four people who believe they can will be at the Frontline Club on 28 July to describe their journeys from division and violence towards cooperation and understanding. Four members of Combatants for Peace will be discussing how, after years of violence they decided to […]
A lesson in information operations
That’s what Andrew Exum at the Center for a New American Security thinks the Israeli raid on the Free Gaza flotilla provides.
The blog as a weapon in an era of information war
I’ve been doing some research into the coverage of the Gaza conflict (back end of 2008, front end of 2009) on blogs. One of the English-language blogs that covered the war was the Muqata blog. The Muqata blog was started in 2005 by ‘Jameel’, a Jewish settler who had lived in Chomesh in Gaza before […]
Israel and Palestine: Personal stories from Combatants for Peace, part three
On 28 July the Frontline Club asks: is the best route to peace in the Holy Land to put down guns and start talking? Four members of the Israeli-Palestinian activist group Combatants for Peace will be on hand to talk about how they plan to do just that. Tickets and more information on that event […]
Round up: Marjah; war reporting; Facebook and the IDF.
Fighting the Taliban in Marjah, Afghanistan. There was an interesting little sub-plot in this article in The Times about the aim of protecting and winning over the population in a counterinsurgency operation. On the one hand these US Marines were being asked to exercise some level of restraint: "The new rules of engagement, dubbed “Courageous […]
IDF soldier blogs from the front line
A blogging American-Israeli combat soldier has been deployed to the West Bank. According to his blog, 25 year old Danny Brothers has finished his training with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and is serving in "al-Madina al-Muqaddasah" – a pseudonym for the city where he is stationed. In recent posts, Brothers describes his first foot […]
IDF Twitter feed breaks 179 day silence
Rather intriguingly the Twitter feed for the Israeli Defence Force, @IDFSpokesperson, has offered the world a tweet for the first time in 179 days. Clearly IDF Spokesperson was getting back into the swing of things because the first one was quickly followed by a second at around 6pm Israeli time: "IDFSpokesperson 106 aid trucks and […]
Tensions rise but Lebanon’s only invasion is by tourists
The sun is shining and Beirut’s streets are busier than ever. Thousands of Europeans and Americans have gambled on the New York Times’ recommendation, Arabs from the Gulf have tightened their belts and chosen to vacation closer to home, and CNN is running reports on Beirut being the best party city in the world. Times […]
Winning a battle, losing the war: an odd tribute
Despite having only been in Beirut for a few days, I decided to jump ship on Friday and head for Damascus for the weekend. I won’t bore you with a tourist’s guide but it was three days of great food, magic carpets and mint lemonade. On Sunday morning, though, I ditched the white-socks-and-sandals combo, left […]
Reporting from Gaza
Was it liberating to find themselves without the BBC working alongside? Was it a daunting resonsibility? link Just two of the questions Judith Townend at journalism.co.uk proposes to ask Al Jazeera journalists Sherine Tadros and Ayman Mohyeldin at 2pm GMT today. The reporters were the only English language reporters in Gaza during the Israeli attack […]
(Not) contacting the IDF through social media
In my post about the Israeli Defence Force and their use of social media during the Gaza conflict, I said I was trying to chase up the IDF for a comment or response to it. I, for one, would be interested to hear their take on it. Several emails have met with no response, so […]
How the IDF fell off the social media bandwagon
I’ve been thinking for a while about how the Israeli Defence Force used social media during the conflict in Gaza and I’m not at all convinced the campaign was successful. Yes, the IDF was right to engage with the Internet and social media. But the way they went about it was questionable. I have two […]
LIVE: Gaza – missiles and messages
Click To Play The media’s role – or lack of – in the recent Gaza conflict is up for debate at the Club tonight. We start at 7pm GMT / 11am PST Thurs 5 Feb. If you can’t make it to the club in person, do please tune in to the Frontline Club live channel. […]
Gaza media coverage – ‘You can’t cover a war from one hill’
I’ve been writing another chapter of the PhD over the last month and I find it’s all too easy to get distracted, so I pursue a ‘close all unnecessary tabs in browser’ policy. This means there’s less blogging but I do get some ‘real work’ done! The other day I finally got a chance to […]
Live Obama Middle East talk tonight
View in iTunes How will President Barack Obama tackle the Middle East and the United States relationship with the region? That’s the question up for debate tonight at the Frontline Club. We start at 7pm GMT / 11am PST tonight Tues 27 Januray. The event is sold out. If you can’t make it to the […]
Spoiled crybabies
So, all those Foreign correspondents who couldn’t get into Gaza despite the Israeli Supreme court ruling and many, many attempts are nothing but a bunch of “spoiled crybabies”. That’s the word according to Daniel Seaman, director of Israel’s Government Press Office in a statement issued on Sunday, “Israel did not want to endanger the lives […]
Inside Gaza
There have been many harrowing images of the effects of Israel’s military operation in Gaza. But few have come through the lenses of western photographers. One man who does have a record of life amid the danger is Flickr user nineteenseventy6. I stumbled across his Flickr stream the other day after following a link posted […]
CNN vs. Joe the War Correspondent
I said I wouldn’t say anything more about Joe the War Correspondent. And I won’t. But, CNN’s Rick Sanchez does have something to say to the war correspondent who thinks “media should be abolished from reporting”.
Reuters bureau hit in Gaza
Reuters journalists in Gaza report that an Israeli missile or shell hit the 13th floor of the Al-Shurouq Tower in Gaza city this morning. A journalist working for an Abu Dhabi television channel on the 14th floor was injured. Reuters evacuated the bureau which is located on the 12th floor, A camera in the office […]
Gaza media coverage – BBC bits and bobs
Just a couple of other things I picked up today from the BBC. 1. Here’s Robin Lustig’s blog again, writing from a point of view on Gaza. “You want to know what it’s like in Gaza at the moment? It’s Hell on earth. But that’s nothing new – it’s always Hell on earth here. Since […]