As I was witnessing how Israel lost European support last week ahead of the Palestinian statehood bid at the UNGA, I felt like it reminded me of something. But I couldn’t remember what. The day after the vote, it dawned on me. As I was watching my daughter play with her kindergarten friends during a Hanukkah party, I saw exactly what the Europeans looked like. I witnessed my kid and her friends quickly decide on something, and then change their mind instantly to something opposite - you know, the usual kindergarten peer pressure. It reminded me exactly the European show…

While commentators say the vote is merely symbolic, at least for Palestinians and the international community, the vote could be a game-changing  kind of symbol. One week ago, the request to the UN General Assembly to grant Palestine status as a non-member observer state looked like a poor stepchild of the highly anticipated first “UN route” just over one year ago. The buildup to September 2011 was long; yet until about a week ago, it wasn’t even clear whether the current vote would really happen. The 2011 application for UN membership turned into an anticlimax. This year, the dark-horse diplomacy…

The Arabs are backward and Muslims want to destroy the world. And then there was that diagram. Comedian Amer Zahr breaks down Netanyahu's UN speech. By Amer Zahr This week, Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech in front of the General Assembly of the United Nations. As a Palestinian, I tuned in. It’s my duty. Plus, I say the guy’s name at least 3-4 times a day (I won't tell you how), so the least I could do was to listen to his speech. He started innocently enough, referring to how Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, their…

They serve as Netanyahu's echo chamber, they divert attention from the real issues at hand and they disguise political desperation as internet-activism. Memes shouldn't be more than inside jokes, but nowadays they seem to lead the conversation.  On Thursday night, Ami Kaufman posted on this site a collection of memes dealing with the Looney Toons bomb Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used during his UN speech. Posted before any other local or international news source, it was one of the most successful items our site ever had (over 3,000 likes and counting). But did these memes aid the public debate, or truly criticize…

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (or should I say Bib E. Coyote?) had a lot of people worldwide holding their stomachs with laughter as he held his Looney Tune ACME bomb above the UNGA podium. The Israeli meme artists, as usual, were quick to respond. Here are a few (I may update as the creativity surges):  

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his much-anticipated speech at the United Nations General Assembly today. He started off by leaning casually on the podium and surveying the people in the hall. At one point he punctuated his speech with the idiomatic expression, "Yeah, right!" He gratified his fans on Twitter by lubricating their virtual drinking game with several much-anticipated references to the Holocaust (#drink!), radical Islam (#drink!) and - most of all - Iran (#drink #drink #drink). In fact, Iran inspired Netanyahu to draw a diagram so that his simple-minded audience would understand how close that state was to developing…

SAVE THE DATE: September 23, 2011. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will give his “truth” speech at the UN General Assembly. The “truth” will actually be the annihilation of a two-state solution, and thus with it, the end of Zionism In October 2010 I started writing the “Wild card” campaign. To make a long story short, it was an effort to convince people of the need for  the U.S. to support a unilateral declaration of independence at the UN. The reasoning behind the campaign was that a unilateral declaration would not immediately bring about a Palestinian state, but that American support…

Israel's new ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, gave a fumbling interview to Haaretz, illustrating the panic growing in Israeli diplomatic circles ahead of September. The vote won't bring the Palestinians a state - but rules of the game have plainly already changed, before the vote even happened. The summer will be spent largely aligning pieces for the big September showdown at the UN. Luckily for the Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian statehood, the Israel effort to stop the General Assembly will be spearheaded by Ron Prosor. For those of you who haven't had the guilty pleasure of following Prosor's…