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A year ago I applied for the job of Occupied Territories correspondent at Ma’ariv, an Israeli newspaper. I speak Arabic and have taught in Palestinian schools and taken part in many joint Jewish-Palestinian projects. At my interview the boss asked how I could possibly be objective. I had spent too much time with Palestinians; I was bound to be biased in their favour. I didn’t get the job. My next interview was with Walla, Israel’s most popular website. This time I did get the job and I became Walla’s Middle East correspondent. I soon understood what Tamar Liebes, the director of the Smart Institute of Communication at the Hebrew University, meant when she said: ‘Journalists and publishers see themselves as actors within the Zionist movement, not as critical outsiders.’

This is not to say that Israeli journalism is not professional. Corruption, social decay and dishonesty are pursued with commendable determination by newspapers, TV and radio. That Israelis heard exactly what former President Katsav did or didn’t do with his secretaries proves that the media are performing their watchdog role, even at the risk of causing national and international embarrassment. Ehud Olmert’s shady apartment deal, the business of Ariel Sharon’s mysterious Greek island, Binyamin Netanyahu’s secret love affair, Yitzhak Rabin’s secret American bank account: all of these are freely discussed by the Israeli media. (more…)

It’s almost impossible to comprehend the hypocrisy behind American actions in the Middle-East. U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice—a woman whose grasp of Middle-Eastern issues was made acutely apparent during Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon in 2006 (birth pangs, remember?)—recently appealed to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on behalf of the Palestinian civilians currently being bombed into a powder by the IAF.

“I am concerned about the humanitarian condition there and innocent people in the Gaza who are being hurt. We have to remember that the Hamas activities there are responsible for what has happened in Gaza … But, of course, we are concerned about innocent people and we are concerned about the humanitarian situation,” she said after the one-hour breakfast meeting. <<< more

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Israel issued a warning to Hamas on Sunday that the organization would be responsible for any injuries or deaths resulting from a mass demonstration against the blockade of Gaza held yesterday.

If necessary, IDF artillery will fire warning shots at open areas, and should the protestors continue their advance, troops will employ riot dispersal methods.

As a last resort, snipers will open fire at protestors legs. The orders were approved by senior General Staff officers as well as Defense Minister Ehud Barak. <<< more

Of course, it is ridiculous to claim that Hamas would be responsible for the killing of innocent civilians authorized by the Israeli military, but the logic of the blockade encourages these inanities. We are also meant to accept that Hamas is actually responsible for the international economic boycott on Gaza as well as for the severe shortage of food products and power resources. (more…)

When Hassan Sheikh Hijazi first opened his flower farm in 1991, it flourished. “We had a very good family business,” he says. “We exported hundreds of thousands of flowers to Holland – and from there our flowers were sold across Europe. The traders knew our flowers were good quality - and Gaza was open for business.”

With its mild coastal weather and well drained soil, the Gaza Strip is an ideal location for commercial flower farming. There are more than a hundred small flowers farms across the Gaza Strip, and they employ some 7,000 farm workers between them.

The majority of farms are located around Beit Lahia in northern Gaza; but Hassan Hijazi and his family live just outside Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, where they have a small flower farm of 24 donums (a donum is around 1,000 square metres). They grow carnations and chrysanthemums. After more then seventeen years as a commercial flower farmer, Hassan Hijazi is now head of the local Rafah Flower Farmers Union. (more…)

Yes, that’s right… My MYSQL database was recently switched from Linux to Windows, at which point harmonicminor.com ceased functioning. After several weeks of aimlessly messing around with it, in the end I was told that Wordpress does not work on Windows servers.

So, we moved back to Linux and that was that. Everything should be fine again. Sorry for the hassle, but stayed tuned.

Tags: Wordpress, Windows, Linux, PHP, MYSQL, Database, Blog, Website, Files, Computer, Kris Petersen, harmonicminor, neonmeatte