The Pessoptimist

Jew in Arabia, goy in Israel

Monday, November 1, 2010

Hostage taking in catholic church in Baghdad ends with 52 dead

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A policeman stands guard in front of the Our Lady of Salvation church in Baghdad (Reuters, file photo). Fifty-two hostages and police we...
Sunday, October 31, 2010

Hanin Zoabi to Electronic Intifada: no chance for a two-state solution

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There is now "no chance" for a two-state solution in Palestine. So said Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian member of Israel's parli...

Caterpillar suspends shipment of D9 bulldozers to Israel

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According to Sydney Levy of the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) the Israeli press is reporting that Caterpillar is withholding the delivery of...
Saturday, October 30, 2010

Suicide bomber kills 25 Shiites at cafe in Kurdistan

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A suicide bomber has killed at least 25 people and injured dozens in a town north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials say.The attacker is believed t...

Yemen even more under scrutiny after discovery of 'ink-bombs' on their way to US-synagogues

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It is clear that the traffic to and from Yemen will be even more under scrutiny and that the US and the West in general will be even more in...
Friday, October 29, 2010

Human rights defender Singace, blogger Abdulemam + 23 others on trial in Bahrain

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The trial of 25 Shia Muslim opposition activists has opened in Bahrain, five days after a tense general election.The activists have pleaded ...

Hariri urges all Lebanese to stop cooperating with Special Hariri Tribunal

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Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday called on all Lebanese to boycott the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), ...
Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Kahane' fascist Kach movement is still very much alive in Israel (1)

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Arabs protesting against the demonstration of the 'Land of Israel Movement' demonstration are teargassed. (Picture Al-Jazeera) Su...

Kahane's fascist Kach movement is still very much alive in Israel (2)

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Hundreds of Land of Israel Movement activists and supporters of the radical movement Kach held a memorial service on Tuesday to mark 20 yea...

Kahane' fascist Kach movement is still very much alive in Israel (3)

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For the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the death Meir Kahane t he following comic appeared last week on an Israeli website called the ...
Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Ex-Shin Bet head and ex-minister Dichter cancels visit to Spain out of fear for arrest

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MK Avi Dichter (Kadima) was planning on taking part in an international peace summit in Spain over the weekend, but was forced to cancel o...

Tareq Aziz, Saddam's hypocritical defender, sentenced to death

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Saddam Hussein's longtime foreign minister Tariq Aziz was sentenced to death by hanging Tuesday for persecuting members of Shiite re...
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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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