Category: Middle-East

  • Angel of Peace

    That unbelievably silly and vainglorious man has done it again. The so-called Middle East Peace Plan, so blatantly in contravention of international law, makes it ever more obvious that the rest of us need to get out of NATO double quick before western civilization implodes as a result of the US’s continuous disregard for the…

  • Time for disengagement

    I don’t think I’d like to live in Iran. In fact I’m sure I wouldn’t. I can’t stand religious single-mindedness, which in my eyes is tantamount to intellectual self-mutilation. However, maybe I am underestimating the country. Though scripture is one of the subjects taught in Iranian schools, a description on the British Council’s website gives…

  • Cockroach rhetoric

    I assume we have all heard exclamations such as “He treats her like an animal!”. I have even read somewhere that Amazon treats its workers “like animals”. However, more and more often, I find that this sort of juxtaposition of animals and humans is not quite to the point. I suggest substituting the word “animal”…

  • Norway on the UN Security Council?

    Norway is campaigning for a seat on the UN Security Council. However, the country has a problem in that respect: the nature of its relations with Israel. Israel and Palestine have been locked in a conflict that has been at the crux of the unrest in the Middle East ever since Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, but…

  • CAPERNAUM

    Nothing I can say or write, nothing anybody can say or write, can hold a candle to what the Lebanese film director Nadine Labaki has managed to record in Capernaum, which received a long standing ovation and the Jury Prize when it was shown at Cannes this year. I am certain that no kid, not…

  • Ship to Gaza

    The Gaza Strip is populated by nearly two million people and is often referred to as a “prison”, as it has been subjected to a brutal Israeli blockade for 12 years. The blockade is in contravention of international law. The humanitarian situation for the inhabitants of Gaza is nothing if not desperate. I know of…

  • SHAME!

    Norway is a country that claims to be peace-loving, humanitarian and certainly not racist. While Hungary is being hounded by other EU nations due to its animosity to refugees, and Poland is being hounded for its disrespect of the justice system, Norway is not hounded by anybody. However, in all practical terms, Norway has virtually…

  • The proverbial “none”

    Crime fiction never seems to go out of fashion, as opposed to just about everything else, so we all know that to find the culprit we have to examine who had the means, the motive and no alibi. Whether or not he or she confesses is neither here nor there, as we all know, so…

  • Jerusalem

    The website of El Pais had an unusual headline this morning, one that seemed to suggest an alliance between the Pope and Iran: “El Papa e Irán se unen al intento de evitar que Trump lleve la Embajada a Jerusalén“. Later in the day, El País changed the headline, but the fact remains that Iran…

  • Lost causes

    There are at least two interesting aspects of Naomi Alderman’s what-if novel The Power. One is that if women, somehow or other, miraculously gain the upper hand and get used to calling the shots, they will be no better, though possibly not much worse, than men are now. The other is that this novel is…