The Pessoptimist

Jew in Arabia, goy in Israel

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Saudi toll in fight against Houthis is 73 dead

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Saudi Deputy-Defense minister prince Khalid bin Sultan shakes hands with Saudi troops near theYemeni border.  AL-KHOBA/JEDDAH: Saudi Ara...

Egypt blocks Gaza Freedom March

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Egyptian authorities rejected a request by international activists Monday to stage a scheduled march to the Gaza Strip through the Egyptian...
Saturday, December 19, 2009

US helped Yemen attack Al-Qaeda members but killed civilians instead

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Tribal leaders from the Yemeni region of Arhab. WASHINGTON — The United States provided firepower, intelligence and other support to the ...
Friday, December 18, 2009

Ashton said what had to be said

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'East Jerusalem is occupied territory together with the West Bank. The EU is opposed to the destruction of homes, the eviction of Arab ...
Thursday, December 17, 2009

Olmert, last year, offered a state without Jerusalem

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Haaretz  Today published the “map for a permanent solution with the Palestinians” that was proposed by the former Israeli Prime Minister, E...

Houthi rebels say US planes took part in bombardments

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Demonstration in a southern Yemeni town. The  crowd is holding a poster with a picture of a protester who was killed in a pr...
Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Bedouin 'not yet ready' for democracy, 61 years after birth of the state

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Amram Kalani (in the middle with kipa and microphone), appointed chairman of regional council of Abu-Basma, visits a school in one of the ...
Saturday, December 5, 2009

Israels genuine efforts to get the Palestinians back at the table

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It is really moving to see how serious Israel is about the ten months building freeze on the West Bank (Jerusalem excluded) and not touchin...
Monday, November 30, 2009

Swiss have learned nothing since 1940

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The Swiss will never learn. This Sunday they voted 57,5% for a ban on further minarets in their country, on top of the four they already ha...
Friday, November 27, 2009

Germany: general.minister and ass. minister resign over Kunduz bombing which killed civilians

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A German general and and an assistant minister of Defense have resigned because they did not tell the truth about a bombardment early Septe...

Eid mubarak

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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

New wave of arrests among students in Iran

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Students meet during the protests against the rigged presidential elections in June.  Scores of Iranian students have been arbitrarily a...
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Abu Pessoptimist
This blogname was derived from a satiric Arabic novel by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby. In the ''The Secret Life of Saeed The Pessoptimist'' he uses absurdism as a weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. I consider it to be an example for how events in Israel/Palestine best can be approached. The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. In a way that is also still my motto. My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. In 2018, I concluded the study 'Arabic language and culture' at the University of Amsterdam. I started 'Abu Pessoptimist' in January 2009 out of anger about the onslaught of that month in Gaza. The other blog, The Pessoptimist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)
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