Mocking Muhammad Is Not Hate Speech

To stop Islamist violence over perceived insults to Muhammad, I argued in a FoxNews.com article on Friday, editors and producers daily should display cartoons of Muhammad "until the Islamists get used to the fact that we turn sacred cows into hamburger."

This appeal prompted a solemn reply from Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim website, who deemed it "irresponsible and beyond the pale." Why so? Because, as she puts it, "The solution to escalating violence and hate speech is not more hate speech."

A crucial alliance

Egyptians celebrate the victory of Mohammed Morsi in Egypt's
(June 24, 2012. Photo by AFP)

Israel should extend its military cooperation anywhere it can strengthen its alliance with Egypt.

"Peace between the two countries has been, and still is, an interest common to both peoples," read the condolence message from Israel's Foreign Ministry to Egypt after the attack on the border this week. Indeed, we have a key common interest in rooting out terror from the Sinai. This week's tragedy has led to what neither Israel nor Egypt dreamed would happen since the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978.

Tests hint at possible Arafat poisoning

Nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera discovers rare, radioactive polonium on ex-Palestinian leader's final belongings.

It was a scene that riveted the world for weeks: The ailing Yasser Arafat, first besieged by Israeli tanks in his Ramallah compound, then shuttled to Paris, where he spent his final days undergoing a barrage of medical tests in a French military hospital.

The Ignored Palestinian Protests: Where's the Coverage?

Palestinian policemen scuffle with protesters opposing a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Sunday, July 1, 2012. A scheduled high-profile meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz has been postponed indefinitely, a senior Palestinian official said Saturday. The rare high-level talks would have been a step toward resuming formal peace negotiations, although expectations were low that they would produce any breakthrough. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)

Normally, the Western media giants deem Palestinian protesters clashing with security forces newsworthy. Normally, the media takes a keen interest in all developments and setbacks regarding Israeli-Palestinian talks.

And so, the media's total lack of interest in recent Palestinian demonstrations against talks with Israel is noteworthy on two counts. Over the weekend, and continuing today, Palestinians have been demonstrating in Ramallah and in other West Bank locations. On Saturday, seven were arrested. Ten were hospitalized, including a local journalist beaten as he tried to cover the events.

Iranian President arrives in Brazil fearing isolation

The brazilian rejection of the iranian claim sparked a
yellow sign behind the scenes of the diplomacy.

The decision of the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, to reject the request of the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for an official meeting during the Rio +20 soured the relationship Brasilia-Tehran, which had narrowed the friendship between Ahmadinejad and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, say diplomats gathered at Riocentro. Behind the scenes of the conference, the mood among delegates Iranians could not be worse, though, officially, Tehran diplomats strive to show tranquility.

'Son of Hamas' arrives in Israel

Photo: Deborah Danan

Mosab Hasan Youssef, son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Youssef, arrived in Israel Wednesday evening from the US. Despite receiving an official invitation to visit the Knesset from Deputy Minister Ayoub Kara (Likud), Youssef was detained at passport control for over three hours of questioning before eventually being allowed to proceed.

Israel's Conflict as Game Theory

The arab-israeli conflict in a
complex game.

Two men—let us call them Reuben and Simon—are put in a small room containing a suitcase filled with bills Israel has to change certain basic perceptions in order to improve her chances in the negotiations game with the Arabs, totaling $100,000. The owner of the suitcase announces the following: “I will give you the money in the suitcase under one condition…you have to negotiate an agreement on how to divide it. That is the only way I will agree to give you the money.”

68% of Arab-Israelis prefer to live in Israel

Some 80% of Arabs living in Israel blame Jews for the Nakba, but 60% of them are resigned to Israel as a state with a Jewish majority, the Index of Arab-Jewish Relations for 2011, conducted by Prof. Sami Samuha of the University of Haifa shows.

The full results of the survey, which Samuha has run annually for the last 30 years, are due to be announced at a university conference on Thursday.

U.S. study: Iran has enough uranium for five nuclear bombs

Iran denies any plain to and says its aims are entirely peaceful.

Iran has significantly stepped up its output of low-enriched uranium and total production in the last five years would be enough for at least five nuclear weapons if refined much further, a U.S. security institute said.

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a think-tank which tracks Iran's nuclear programme closely, based the analysis on data in the latest report by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which was issued on Friday.

Israel fears Iran talks will be nothing but a middle eastern bazaar

In the photo: IAEA chief Yukiya Amano.

Following the meeting between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran, optimistic reports have been circulated that Iran is finally surrendering to international demands regarding supervision of their nuclear program. IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said after the meeting in Tehran on Tuesday that despite some remaining differences, a deal has been reached that will allow his organizations to restart its work of supervision in Iran. This work has been suspended for four years due to Iranian refusal to cooperate.

Photojournalism: What’s Behind the Image?

Pictures speak a thousand words?

Ever wondered what the real story is behind the news photos you see every day? Sometimes photojournalists capture a tense moment with perfect timing, but other times the action is staged.

That’s what Italian photojournalist Ruben Salvadori realized when he was covering Palestinian protests in Judea and Samaria.

Top Commander Reiterates Iran’s Commitment to Full Annihilation of Israel

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Maj.-Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi said threats and pressures cannot deter Iran from its revolutionary causes and ideals, and stressed that the Iranian nation will remain committed to the full annihilation of the Zionist regime of Israel to the end. He told a defense gathering in Tehran on Sunday, “The Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel”.

The top military official reminded that the Iranian Supreme Leader considers defending Palestine as a full religious duty and believes that any kind of governance and rule by anyone other than the Palestinians is an instance of usurpation.

Sources: Fars (Iran) / Israel: Daily Alert

WATCH: Police investigating clash between settlers, Palestinians

The video footage was transfered to Judea and Samaria
District Police for investigation.

Judea and Samaria District Police is investigating a confrontation over the weekend between Israeli settlers from Yitzhar and Palestinians from the nearby village of Asira al-Qibliya.

Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem on Sunday released video footage that shows Palestinians hurling stones at the settlers who respond by firing live rounds. Israel Defense Forces soldiers witnessed the entire incident, but did nothing.

Jerusalem: 4000 Years in 5 Minutes

Watch below a documentary on the history of Jerusalem.

The Ceasefire is open to the opinion of its readers. If you have another position related to the issue discussed above, submit your article for editor@cessarfogo.com . After evaluation and approval of the submitted material, it will be submitted for publication.

Time magazine asks whether 'King Bibi' will make war or peace

What will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu do with his newfound political power — make war or peace? That's the question being asked on the cover of Time magazine's latest issue, as it tips its hat in recognition of "King Bibi" and his unprecedented political position after "conquering" Israel.

"The Palestinians won't have a better partner than me. I can make things happen and bring a sustainable peace," Netanyahu said in his interview with managing editor of Time, Richard Stengel. Netanyahu went on to explain that "peace treaties don't guarantee peace," adding that the Israelis and Palestinians have competing and incompatible narratives.

Can Islamists Be Liberals?

"What if democracy does not serve liberty?"

FOR years, foreign policy discussions have focused on the question of whether Islam is compatible with democracy. But this is becoming passé. In Tunisia and Egypt, Islamists, who were long perceived as opponents of the democratic system, are now promoting and joyfully participating in it. Even the ultra-Orthodox Salafis now have deputies sitting in the Egyptian Parliament, thanks to the ballots that they, until very recently, denounced as heresy.

Uncovering Early Islam

The year 1880 saw the publication of a book that ranks as the single most important study of Islam ever. Written in German by a young Jewish Hungarian scholar, Ignaz Goldziher, and bearing the nondescript title Muslim Studies (Muhammedanische Studien), it argued that the hadith, the vast body of sayings and actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, lacked historical validity. Rather than provide reliable details about Muhammad's life, Goldziher established, the hadith emerged from debates two or three centuries later about the nature of Islam.

1967 All Over Again? by Benny Morris

Israel’s new coalition echoes the unity government that came together on the eve of the Six Day War

Top: Levi Eshkol and Moshe Dayan touring the West Bank in September 1967. Bottom: Benjamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz during a joint press conference at the Knesset in Jerusalem on May 8, 2012. (Top Israel National Photo Collection; bottom Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images)

One thing’s certain: Tuesday’s sudden and dramatic expansion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government—he now has the support of 94 Knesset members in the 120-seat house—considerably strengthens Netanyahu’s mandate to take what commentators insist on calling “historic steps.” But it is unclear whether the cooption of Shaul Mofaz and his Kadima faction makes an Israeli preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities more likely or more remote.

Arab Spring Spurs Palestinian Journalists to Test Free Speech Limits

Mahmoud Abbas

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Yousef Shayeb, 37, a Palestinian journalist from Ramallah, published an article in a Jordanian newspaper this year charging officials at the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Paris with corruption and espionage. In an interview here last week, he said that he had imagined people might thank him for his exposé. Instead, he spent eight days in a Palestinian Authority jail.

Jamal Abu Raihan, a Palestinian blogger, has been in prison for three weeks, after he posted a satirical column lampooning the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as a donkey on a Facebook page he ran titled, “The people want an end to corruption.”

Leading candidate in Egypt presidential race calls Israel peace accord "dead and buried"

The agreement is a "ink on paper whose period of
authority is over".

The leading candidate in Egypt's presidential race said on Sunday that the Camp David Accords should be consigned to the shelves of history, describing the agreement as "dead and buried."

At a mass rally in southern Egypt, Amr Moussa, who is currently ahead in Egypt's race for president, spoke of the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, saying that "the Camp David Accords are a historical document whose place is on the shelves of history, as its articles talk about the fact that the aim of the agreement is to establish an independent Palestinian state."

Pro-Palestinian or Anti-Israel?

Pro-Palestinian groups and individuals in the US and Europe are doing Palestinians injustice by devoting all their energies only against Israel. There is a feeling in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that most of these groups and individuals are more interested in campaigning against Israel than helping the Palestinians.

Being pro-Palestinian does not necessarily mean that one also has to be anti-Israel.

The pro-Palestinian camp in the West should raise its voice against violations of human rights and media freedoms under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. In the past few weeks, six Palestinian journalists, bloggers and cartoonists were arrested by security forces belonging to the Palestinian government in the West Bank.

Ailing woman journalist arrested, Government decrees new media controls

Sentenced two months later to 11 years in prision on charges
of collaborating with the Human Rights Defenders Centre.

Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns the arrest of Narges Mohammadi, a journalist and spokesperson of Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi’s Centre for Human Rights Defenders. She was detained in the northern city of Zanjan on 21 April after receiving an intelligence ministry summons and was transferred to Tehran’s Evin prison to serve a six-year jail sentence.

Gaza's Hamas rulers to introduce Hebrew

Many Palestinians see Hebrew as the language of the enemy.

High school students in the Gaza Strip may be taught Hebrew, the main language of Israel, beginning next year, according to a senior Hamas official in Gaza.

Gaza Strip Education Ministry undersecretary Ziad Thabet said Monday the government still needed to approve the decision, but it was likely to go ahead, and the government was already trying to find and train Hebrew teachers.

Thabet said students should be introduced to as many languages as possible. Hebrew is currently only offered as a university course in Gaza. Many Palestinians see Hebrew as the language of the enemy. However, Hebrew used to be widely spoken in Gaza, particularly by those who worked in Israel before it started, a decade ago, to block laborers from entry amid escalating violence.

The Associated Press

The Ceasefire is open to the opinion of its readers. If you have another position related to the issue discussed above, submit your article for editor@cessarfogo.com . After evaluation and approval of the submitted material, it will be submitted for publication.

The Arab Spring: Youth, Freedom and the Tools of Technology

The United Nations Human Rights Comittee afirmed that
bloggers have the same protections as journalists. 

Wielding mobile phones and computers, the young activists across the Middle East have altered the way the world approaches popular mobilisation, social networks and Internet freedom.

The Internet can be a transformational force for societies and individuals, allowing for organisation on a mass scale and the free flow of information. However, we must remember that the Internet and social media are tools that do not bring change themselves, but act as facilitators in spreading the ideas. 

Predicting Middle Eastern Politics

"I doubt the Muslim Brotherhood has had a victory but
tather see the parliamentary elections as basically fraudulent."

The Australian: In Egypt, Islamist parties now hold about 80 per cent of the seats in parliament. Given the majority of demonstrators in Tahrir Square were liberal secularists, has Egypt's Arab Spring been hijacked?

Daniel Pipes: No, because the liberals of Tahrir Square did not force Mubarak from power. The military took advantage of their mass demonstrations to dispatch a president it had had enough of, in large part because of his intent on handing power to his son, Gamal.

Julian Assange interviews Hezbollah leader on talk show premiere

Julian Assange made his debut as talk show host Tuesday as the first episode of "The World Tomorrow" aired on Russian TV channel RT. Assange's first guest was a bit of a "get": Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Hezbollah militia. The leader of the Syrian-backed group, which is classified as a terrorist organization in the U.S. and Europe, rarely gives interviews outside of the Lebanese Al-Manar TV channel, which is closely affiliated with Hezbollah.

U.S. Withdrawal a Blessing and a Curse for Afghans

"They don’t want more fighting and for that reason they will
accept any puppet government the U.S. will impose on them"

Though the United States’ announcement to pull its troops from Afghanistan by 2014 was celebrated by most Afghans as the imminent end of a protracted and controversial foreign occupation, there are lingering questions about the outcome of such a withdrawal.

Specifically, experts and lay people alike are asking whether it will make the country safer for democracy or more vulnerable than ever to violence and extremism. Others are sceptical that the country will ever be free of U.S. presence in a geographically strategic country, close to Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia. 

Iranian officials claim Israeli-backed terrorism team busted

Bombs, machine guns, military communications
gear and other equipament were reportedly seized.

Iranian state media reported Tuesday that a team of terrorist "devils" backed by Israel had been identified and arrested by Iranian security forces.

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry claimed it had busted "a major network of terrorism and sabotage," saying the group was planning attacks on Iranian targets, PressTV reported.

Tunisia's Youth and Their Fight for Freedom of Expression

After the fall of the Tunisian dictator, the debate
about censorship on the Internet resurfaced.

In Tunisia, a new debate is taking shape. Long suppressed by the authoritarian regime of former President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia's free expression movement for many years existed on the fringe, comprised of bloggers, software developers, media aficionados and expats whose frustration at Tunisia's Internet censorship and surveillance regime – in place for over a decade – fomented their activism.

Drone Technology Takes Off

Wars in the fourth dimension.

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) held its conference this month in Israel for the first time. Do future wars by land, sea and air belong to robots? The modern battlefield pushes troops to their limit. Infantrymen haul heavy loads on their backs which hinders their combat performance. 

What if...Hamas controlled Gaza had human rights?

The Ceasefire is open to the opinion of its readers. If you have another position related to the issue discussed above, submit your article for editor@cessarfogo.com . After evaluation and approval of the submitted material, it will be submitted for publication.

Freeing Childhood From Prisons

98% were subjected to physical
or psychological violence...

Hamza has memories no 17-year-old should. "I was desperate. I didn't talk to anyone. I didn't want to go outside the house. I was very nervous. I'd be irritated with the simplest matters." Last year, Hamza was arrested in the middle of the night on suspicion that he threw stones at Israeli settlers near his school in the West Bank. He tells IPS that he was handcuffed and blindfolded, and beaten on the way to interrogation.

Ceasefire Presentation

An alternative viewpoint.

Greetings to all readers.

This is a inaugural post of Ceasefire, a page dedicated to the transmission of information related to conflicts in the Middle East.

When we look at that region, what we see? In most cases is not a hope that appears in focus, but death, disillusionment and lack of resolution for routine problems. The Ceasefire is a project that started in May last year, initially written only in Portuguese, whose materials and information were more related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Over time, the ideas were maturing, the situations addressed became more clear... and what once seemed an approach limited and somewhat biased, became broad and of diverse opinion.

Commenting from the Arab-Israeli conflict to the other in the Middle East, the Ceasefire opens up to you readers one more way of information that aims to promote, above all, the peace. I hope you can make good use of the content to be available here.

For those who understand Portuguese, access the original project: www.cessarfogo.com

A big hug,

thank you for your cooperation,

Jônatha Bittencourt.

The Ceasefire is open to the opinion of its readers. If you have another position related to the issue discussed above, submit your article for editor@cessarfogo.com . After evaluation and approval of the submitted material, it will be submitted for publication.