"I was shot by an Israeli sniper."--Anthony Shadid

Shadid was shot by the sniper in 2002 while reporting from Ramallah.  Compare this to the way the shooting was covered by the NYTimes (this convenient aloofness from key facts has also been noted by As'ad AbuKhalil).

"He was no stranger to injury, harassment and arrest. In 2002, while working for The Globe, he was shot and wounded in the shoulder as he walked on a street in Ramallah [ital. added], in the Israeli-occupied West Bank."

The Shadid quote [starts at about 41:30 in the interview] is from a fascinating interview conducted by Chris Lydon with lots of commentary by Anthony Shadid about Iraq,  how well or poorly Americans understand the Middle East, press bias, the chimera of objectivity, and his career.

[This 2002 piece by Sherry Ricchiardi titled "Bullying the Press" is relevant.]

Resurgent Arab Islam need not be unsettling

Resurgent Arab Islam need not be unsettling

By Emile Nakhleh and Augustus R. Norton

[Cross-posted with "Informed Comment: Global Affairs" and Boston Globe's "The Angle", where it was first published December 11, 2011]

In the wake of the youth-directed “Arab Spring,” which rocked the Middle East to its core and felled autocratic governments in several countries, Islamic political parties are poised for an historic resurgence across the region — and that is neither surprising nor necessarily alarming.

Popular mass demonstrations, “Days of Rage,” have been the hallmarks of the season that dislodged dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and exposed the fragility of fierce but unpopular regimes across the Arab world. Youthful demonstrators in quest of dignity, hungry for jobs, and fed up with corruption formed the vanguards.

But because Arab rulers did not allow serious opposition parties, the best organized opposition groups were often Islamist movements. While they did not launch the Arab Spring, they lent resilience and discipline to the demonstrations. These movements are deeply insinuated in the contours of daily life in Arab societies, and now are emerging as early victors in what Arabs are calling al-sahwa (the awakening).

The successes of Islamic parties inspire consternation and alarm in some US policy circles. Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution worries that these parties will not embrace democracy. Like former Israeli defense minister Moshe Arens, he suggests that the Arab Spring is likely to become a long Arab Winter as Islamic parties gain power and then thwart hopes for substantial reforms and freedom. But these groups are not the extremists that critics fear, and Islamist political parties deserve the opportunity to deliver on the mandate they’ve been granted at the polls.

Bahrain government targets al-Wasat, a respectable newspaper and the only independent paper published in Bahrain

Al-Wasat has already been the target of physical attacks.  On Sunday, Mansour al-Jamri, a serious, moderate and important voice for reform, was replaced as editor by the paper's board over charges that news articles had been fabricated or plaigarized.  This was apparently the quid quo pro for the paper being allowed to resume publication.  Government linked papers detailed the plaigarism charges.

[Added] Two Iraqi journalists working for al-Wasat expelled from Bahrain.  Also see this helpful post on the government's effort to quash al-Wasat.

Imagine a little editing

Israel's Barak, U.S. Envoy Mitchell Discuss Expansion of West Bank Settlements: Mitchell apparently stands firm, unlike the softer rendering of the settlement issue by Glenn Kessler or the Wapo editor .

As published"
"There are more than 120 settlements in the occupied West Bank that are legal under Israeli law but not internationally. The Fourth Geneva Convention, which Israel ratified in 1951, forbids an occupying power to transfer 'parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies,' but Israel disputes that this provision applies to settlements. Israel seized the West Bank and other territories in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war."

A less equivocal editing:
There are more than 120 settlements in the occupied West Bank that are illegal under international law notwithstanding Israeli claims to the contrary. The Fourth Geneva Convention, which Israel ratified in 1951, forbids an occupying power to transfer 'parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.' Israel disputes that this provision of the Convention applies to settlements, but no major government shares Israel's view. Israel seized the West Bank and other territories in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

John K. Cooley--R.I.P.

One of the great old hands has died. Younger readers will not know this, and older readers may have forgotten, but there was a time when the Christian Science Monitor was a giant of a paper for its foreign coverage. More than three decades ago, the paper was a broadsheet published six times weekly. In those pre-Internet days, people in the U.S. interested in following events in far away places would have a mail subscription to the Monitor. The paper never rivaled the NYTimes in circulation, but it had a loyal readership of informed readers.

I remember walking through the corridors of the State Department in 1975, when I was there on a fellowship, and outside every office you would see the discards of the day's papers for recycling. There would typically be copies of the Monitor right there in the pile with the Times and Post. One reason the paper was so popular was that the paper had great correspondents of the caliber of John K. Cooley. He was a Middle East hand, and wrote fairly and honestly about a range of topics, especially developments in the Arab-Israeli zone. His "Green March, Black September" is a seminal account of the fedayeen (to use his spelling), but his old Monitor accounts of the some of the marking moments of the 1970s also remain invaluable.

He deserves a moment of quiet thanks for his contributions.

Appreciation for John K. Cooley | csmonitor.com: "We're sorry to report that longtime Monitor correspondent John K. Cooley has passed on. John distinguished himself in the Middle East, where from the 1950s onward he reported on virtually every movement and conflict in that region – from Algeria to Afghanistan, from the rise of Arab nationalism to the Sept. 11 attacks. He later worked for ABC News and as an opinion writer. He's the author of several books, including 'Green March, Black September: The Story of the Palestinian Arabs,' and his latest, 'Currency Wars.'"

A 2002 piece by Cooley.