Arab Media Watch condemns the appointment of extremist Avigdor Lieberman as Israeli deputy prime minister in charge of strategic threats.

"One can't escape the irony of Israel condemning far-right politicians such as France's Jean-Marie Le Pen and Austria's Joerg Haider, yet accepting in its own government someone who advocates war, murder, violence, land appropriation, settlement activity, dispossession, racism and political disenfranchisement against Arabs," said AMW chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi.

"Lieberman's appointment dangerously heightens an already tense situation in the Middle East, and flies in the face of any notion of seeking a just and lasting peace with Israel's neighbours. Media portrayals of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert courting Lieberman and his political party to shore up his shaky coalition government do not explain that this was certainly not Olmert's only choice. There are parties and politicians in parliament with less destructive agendas, to say the least."

Following is a profile of Lieberman, highlighting his extremist views:

Arab Media Watch commends the United Arab Emirates' decision on 25 October 2006 to naturalise around 10,000 stateless people of mainly Iranian and Asian origin.

At the same time, however, AMW urges the media to focus its attention on the expulsion by Niger of potentially tens of thousands of Mahamid Arabs from its Diffa region to neighbouring Chad, which is hit by civil war and neighbours the dire situation in Darfur.

23 October 2006

Arab Media Watch and the Council for Arab-British Understanding commend the Guardian, the Independent and the Daily Mail for their extensive coverage of the Lancet's report of 655,000 Iraqi dead since the 2003 invasion.

However, given the magnitude of the figure and the credibility of the source, both organisations are deeply concerned at the relative lack of coverage in the other national newspapers.

From the Council for Arab-British Understanding
12 October 2006

The Foreign Office's 2006 Annual report into Human Rights was published today. Conspicuous by its absence, was any mention of Israeli human rights violations in Lebanon during July and August 2006, while criticism was reserved for Hizbollah alone.