Murdoch media market-cornering bid resisted. Fleet Street has put aside its rivalries to unite in opposition to a bid by Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp to completely take over Sky television, the Guardian reports.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/11/murdoch-bskyb-british-media-unite
The Daily Mirror, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph have joined forces with the Guardian to urge the British government to block Murdoch's bid, seeing such an expansion of Murdoch's British holdings as a vast media trust that would threaten democracy.
Israel's cabinet is under fire for approving a measure that would require new, non-Jewish citizens to take a loyalty oath to a "Jewish and democratic" state,
reports the New York Times.
The bill comes amid controversy surrounding the five-month detention of an Arab Jewish activist.
According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the bill would counteract those who are trying to weaken the relationship between the Jewish people and their homeland.
"The state of Israel is the national state of the Jewish people and is a democraticstate in which all its citizens — Jews and non-Jews — enjoy full equal rights," said Netanyahu. "Whoever wants to join us has to recognize us."
However, Ahmad Tibi, an Arab lawmaker, said the bill is "prejudice against its Arab minority," and serves to "solidify the inferior status of Arabs by law."
My comment: Enforcement of loyalty is always a risky proposition. There is a difference between permitting people access to classified data based on concerns about their past and insisting that people believe certain things, at least publicly. In other words, a loyalty oath is likely to be used as a censorship law: You made statements implying that you are disloyal and so the state will punish you.
No matter what Netanyahu claims, this is not a democratic situation.
Jewish Peace News issued this:
No positive evidence supporting accusations against Ameer Makhoul.
On May 8th, Jewish Peace News posted news of the arrest or, more precisely, abduction, of human rights defender Ameer Makhoul, "Director of Ittijah – The Union of Arab Community-Based Associations – … in the dead of night, while he and his family slept in their home in Haifa." The arrest of this "Israeli citizen [and] … high-profile activist … [was] placed under a gag order … Israeli reporters, news outlets and even blogs" were forbidden from writing about it. On June 20th, JPN followed up with a letter from Makhoul, composed after he "had spent 3 weeks in prison without access to even pen and paper, not to speak of lawyers, family visits, due process, humane and legal conditions."
Makhoul has been in prison for five months now. Amnesty International has described his imprisonment as: "pure harassment designed to hinder his human rights work.” His trial is viewed by many as "a message to Palestinian citizens of Israel ... formulated by extreme right wing parties in the current Israeli government" that have targeted Makhoul as "a legal, legitimate, and effective voice of a politically disadvantaged group – Israel’s Palestinian Arab citizens. This, I might add, is the same government that is now poised to demand that applicants for citizenship (predominantly Palestinian ones) take an oath of loyalty to the "Jewish and democratic" state.
For further background and details on Makhoul's abduction, detention incommunicado, and on what the Committee for the Defense of Ameer Makhoul describes as his "tortuous interrogation" – deprived of sleep and crucial medical care, see: http://freeameermakhoul.blogspot.com/.
For months now, Makhoul has been standing trial for alleged espionage, after being told in 2009 by Israel's secret services that if he failed to tone down his political and human rights activism, they would “tailor a file for … [his] disappearance and prolonged separation from his family.” Trial sessions have been attended by representatives of the EU and the Netherlands.
The update below, from Janan Abdu, underlines the bogus nature of the charges against Makhoul, citing (among other things) the September 16th "testimony … of Yeshai Cohen, the expert police computer investigator who confirmed in court that he found no incriminating evidence against Ameer despite the fact that he had been under surveillance for one and a half years before his arrest including over thirty thousand phone calls."
The Committee for the Defense of Ameer Makhoul is now "working to mobilize legal and medical international observers for the trial … and to raise funds to cover lawyer fees and related expenses." Detailing how solidarity and painstaking work has crumbled the original gag order and successfully challenged aspects of Makhoul's imprisonment and trial, they add, "We need your help to make our efforts even more effective … At this critical moment, we ask for your direct involvement in the campaign for his freedom. Ameer’s trial is scheduled to proceed Tuesday October 5th. The time is now for you to get involved."
Rela Mazali
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