All Blog Posts Tagged 'Middle' (131)

Book bloggers love Omar Yussef

Since the first of my three Palestinian crime novels was published in early 2007, I haven't been short of terrific reviews in the mainstream media. After all, The New York Times said I'd written "an astonishing debut novel" and every outlet from The Sunday Telegraph to The Sowetan has raved about the books. But I'm always particularly pleased when I get good write-ups on individual book blogs. It makes me see the series is building a grass-roots momentum. So two recent reviews were very… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 20, 2009 at 5:25pm — No Comments

Video: Reading from THE FOURTH ASSASSIN

The next in my series of Palestinian crime novels THE FOURTH ASSASSIN will be out early next year. Meanwhile I've made a couple of videos to introduce the book. In this one, I went up onto the roof of the Austrian Hospice in Jerusalem's Old City to read from Chapter One of the next… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 16, 2009 at 9:51pm — No Comments

West Bank settlers and memories of Sharon

The current edition of Details has a terrific investigative piece about the youthful extreme segment of the Israeli settler movement. It's by my chum Matt McAllester who spent five years based in Jerusalem as a correspondent and returned earlier this year to probe deep into this largely inaccessible (to foreign journalists, at least) fringe of Israeli society -- a fringe that… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 15, 2009 at 11:01pm — No Comments

Whose Abu are you?

Here's my latest post on the International Crime Authors Reality Check blog:

In the West, our names tend to be pretty nailed down and unvaried. Unless you’re the child of some Hollywood goof who named you Moon Unit or Pilot Inspektor, you’re likely to share your name with many other people. Take me, for example. The family name Rees accounts for 15 percent of Welsh people – not to mention people descended from Welsh immigrants… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 14, 2009 at 12:38am — No Comments

Israel: Less corrupt than Somalia!

Seems even those holding the keys to the Holy Land need reminding that thou shall not steal. By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost

JERUSALEM — In its international survey of corruption, Transparency International (TI) ranks Israel a respectable number 33 out of 180 countries.

Pity the poor people of Somalia (rank: 180), because the graft… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 14, 2009 at 12:30am — No Comments

New Republic: The Samaritan's Secret a 'wonderful detective thriller'

In his New Republic blog, the magazine's honcho Marty Peretz rightly rails at the failure of the Fatah Party to agree on anything at its conference this week in Bethlehem -- except that Israel killed Arafat. Rails because, of course, that's not going to reform this corrupt bunch of villains who're currently clogging Manger Square with their swanky… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 7, 2009 at 4:37pm — No Comments

A bloated, stinking mass of Ariel Sharon

The aptly-named Ariel Sharon Park

Opinion: Israel’s biggest garbage dump is being redeveloped — and renamed.

By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost

TEL AVIV — A bloated, stinking mass that everyone would have preferred not to have to see, but which nonetheless was thrust upon them. A sight that shamed the people of Israel and ought to have been marginalized, but which was… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 6, 2009 at 4:38pm — 2 Comments

Poetry from the ‘driest’ book of the Bible: Yakov Azriel’s Writing Life

A few years ago I was at a literary conference near Tel Aviv. I found an eclectic mix of writers on the panel with me. I’m a crime writer. You wouldn’t expect me to be paired with a writer of poetry who takes his inspiration from the stories of the Bible. But as Yakov Azriel read his poetry, I sat beside him… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 5, 2009 at 8:12pm — No Comments

Just like the (good?) old days

With US diplomats roaming the streets of Jerusalem, it's like the intifada never happened.

By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost

JERUSALEM — It’s like the intifada never happened.

American diplomats mobbed the streets of Jerusalem this week. Even Iran point man Dennis Ross, whose sad-sack demeanor was a frequent feature of the Oslo peace… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 1, 2009 at 1:28am — No Comments

The ex-husband’s trenchcoat and Zoe Ferraris’s Writing Life

Fiction—and lately in particular crime fiction—can take us deep into alien cultures, through the emotions of the characters who act as our guides, translators and social commentators. The more alien the culture, the bigger the challenge to a Western author. Zoe Ferraris took on Saudi Arabia, one of the most closed cultures… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 28, 2009 at 10:12pm — No Comments

Omar Yussef for President of Palestine!

My latest post on the International Crime Authors Reality Check blog:

Unlike the Palestinians (who don’t have one), Palestinian politics is in a real state. A civil war that’s been bubbling and sometimes burning for two years plus. No government in Gaza because Hamas, which rules there, is isolated. Accusations by a top PLO official that current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had his predecessor Yasser Arafat… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 24, 2009 at 7:28pm — No Comments

So what, and who, really killed Arafat?

Poison? By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Yasser Arafat’s body lies in the back of the presidential compound, beyond the parking lot, in a mausoleum of stone and glass. Two guards in ceremonial uniforms that seem out of place in the camouflaged guerrilla world of Palestinian militias watch over the angled stone marking the… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 24, 2009 at 12:13am — 1 Comment

Dessert wars in the West Bank

It isn't only McDonald's that offers to supersize its food. In the most violent town in the West Bank, the local specialty is a hot cheese and syrup dessert called qanafi. Last month a Nablus baker made a qanafi that weighed 1,300 kg (1.3 tonnes). After the townspeople recovered from the sugar rush, a real estate developer put together a team this weekend to make a 1,700 kg qanafi that was 74 yards long.

The intention is to repair the image of a city damaged by nine years as the most… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 20, 2009 at 1:44am — No Comments

As The (Palestinian) World Turns

Searching for a new script to get Hamas and Fatah to cooperate.

By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Soap operas usually block out scenes with two cameras, one for each of the glaring opponents. The editor switches between each actor as they snarl and sneer. As for the plot, you can tune in every few months and… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 19, 2009 at 4:45pm — No Comments

Nasty nargila and biblical heat on video

My favorite little coffee shop in Jerusalem’s Old City is just inside the Muslim Quarter, behind the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where Jesus is believed to have been crucified, buried and resurrected.

Once you’ve sucked on the tobacco in this café, even hanging on a cross with nails through your hands and feet would be a relief. It's like smoking a… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 14, 2009 at 10:23pm — 2 Comments

Rabbis: No pie for Jesus!

Her methods may be kosher, but in Israel baker Pnina Konforti faces a bigger commercial obstacle: She's a Messianic Jew.

By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost

GAN YAVNEH, Israel — I always thought that by following kosher laws religious Jews only missed out on certain flavors and debatable delicacies. Turns out that by turning their back on “treyf”… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 13, 2009 at 4:57pm — No Comments

Washington Report: Omar Yussef novels 'rich in intellectual complexity'

The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs has a forthcoming review praising my series of Palestinian crime novels "rich not only in character but in intellectual complexity." I blush to report that WRMEA Managing editor Janet McMahon and Don Neff, a famed predecessor of mine as Jerusalem bureau chief for Time Magazine, say I'm "a wonderfully subtle writer with a deep understanding of Palestinians and their culture." Well, actually I haven't blushed since I… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 12, 2009 at 7:01pm — No Comments

Israelis riot, thanks be to God

Orthodox Jews face off against secularists in the Holy Land — a sign that all is well. By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost

JERUSALEM — Ultra-orthodox Jews have been rioting the last few weeks against a parking lot the municipality wants to leave open during the Jewish Sabbath, leading to dozens of arrests and quite a few moderate to… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 4, 2009 at 5:27pm — No Comments

Photos of the Jerusalem you don't read about in the newspaper

My friend Ilan Mizrahi has published a wonderful book of his photos about Jerusalem -- not the conventional Jerusalem of suicide bombs and the Dome of the Rock and praying Hassids (though he covers that, too). Ilan, who was born just down the road from where I now live and is as "Jerusalem" as they come, aims to capture a side of the city populated by the poor, the drug abusers, the beggars: the scavengers who make it a real place, one that's more interesting than anything you'd ever imagine… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 3, 2009 at 5:28pm — No Comments

Poets central to Palestinian culture

My favorite Palestinian poet is Taha Muhammad Ali, a quietly bumbling presence when he reads his poems, but a deceptively intelligent writer. The warmth and intelligence of Taha’s readings drove Adina Hoffman, a Jerusalem-based writer, to plan a biography of the poet (… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 1, 2009 at 5:52pm — 2 Comments