This November saw Palestinians gain membership to UNESCO; a human rights report from Israel suggested Israeli medical professionals were facilitating torture; Iran remained the main focus of Western powers; and Sarkozy had a memorable outburst over Netanyahu's lack of trustworthiness.
Media lenses are once again focussing on Iran amid concerns of its 'nuclear capabilities' and its purported threat to surrounding countries. As always, the hype encompassing the on goings in Tehran, by both world leaders and media alike, is fast reaching boiling point, with commentators predicting that some form of direct action as imminent.
French President Nicholas Sarkozy was overheard calling Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, 'a liar'. In an extraordinary exchange with none other than US President Barak Obama, Sarkozy was heard stating, 'I cannot bear [Netanyahu], he's a liar' to which Obama replied: 'You may be fed up of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day!'
Goldstone first began his efforts to 'restore his tarnished Zionist credentials' vis a vis the Washington Post, however, if he thought that his Zionist 'friends' would welcome him back with open arms, he was greatly mistaken.
Earlier this month, two international boats, the 'Tahrir' and 'Saoirse', attempted to break the naval siege surrounding Gaza. The new 'Freedom Waves' flotilla initiative was made up of 27 international participants, including Greece, Ireland, Canada, America and the UK.
Two human rights groups have jointly publish a report called 'Doctoring the Evidence, Abandoning the Victim; Involvement of Medical Professionals in Torture and Ill Treatment in Israel'. The report accuses Israeli medical professionals of failing to document and report evidence of injuries sustained by Palestinian detainees as a result of ill treatment and torture at the hands of Israeli security personnel.
PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, met with his factional rival, Khaled Meshal, in Cairo this month to agree details of a possible Palestinians unity government.
In an address to the Israeli parliament this month amid renewed violence and protests in Egypt, the Israeli Prime Minister has stated that Arab countries were regressing and that the Arab Spring had become an "Islamic, anti-Western, anti-liberal, anti-Israeli, undemocratic wave."
Earlier this month, Palestinians were accepted as full members of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) despite pressure from the US, EU and Israel. It won the vote by 107 to 14 with countries like France, China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa voting in their favour. Britain abstained from the vote.
In "The Last Jew in Zagare" Roger Cohen was "pondering the Zagare-Zionism link". Zagare is "a small Lithuanian town", the site of a massacre of Jews during the Second World War; Cohen's grandmother came from there; his grandfather came from a nearby town whose Jews were herded together with those from Zagare for execution by the Nazis "and their Lithuanian accomplices". What is the Zagare-Zionism link? "What emerged from the Holocaust - from the agony of every little Zagare - was the success of Zionism. Benny Morris, the Israeli historian, has written, 'As the pogroms in Russia in the 1880's had launched modern Zionism, so the largest pogrom of them all propelled the movement, almost instantly, into statehood'."
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