IRAN: Appeal for Greek journalist's release

The parents of detained Greek journalists Iason Athanasiadis today issued an appeal for his release in which they emphasized his love and respect for Iran, according to the Athens News Agency. 

 “His work serves no purpose other than the fair and humane coverage of life in the many countries where he has worked," Polymnia and Georgios Athanasiadis said in the statement .  “He has a particular love of Iran, and a deep respect for its cultural and religious traditions.”

Although the circumstances remain murky, Greek officials have confirmed that Athanasiadis was detained in Tehran last week while covering the outcome of the disputed Iranian election for the Washington Times.

Earlier this year, Athanasiadis was in Los Angeles to launch an exhibit of more than 50 of his documentary photographs at the Craft and Folk Art Museum called, “Exploring the Other: Contemporary Iran through the lens of Iason Athanasiadis.”

 He told the Times, "I wanted to use this opportunity to show how varied Iran is — what it's really like. A lot of people don't know that Iran is the birthplace of Sufism, the most lenient form of Islam."

The museum has joined in the appeals for Athanasiadis’ release.

“Iason sought to humanize a nation and its people largely demonized in the corporate press by living amongst Iranians, learning fluent Farsi, and respecting the culture and history of the nation,” the museum’s executive director, Maryna Hrushetska, said in a statement. “ His poignant photographs and reporting demonstrated the highest standards of journalism in a great time of media bias.”

— Amber Smith in Los Angeles

This post has been edited from an earlier version.

Image: This photograph was among those in the exhibit “Exploring the Other: Contemporary Iran through the lens of Iason Athanasiadis," which ran from January 25 - March 29, 2009 in Los Angeles. Two young snowboarders with matching scarlet highlights throw caution to the winds as they sail up the Shemshak ski-piste on a Shah-era lift in the mountains behind Tehran. Islamic regulations are more laxly enforced at holiday resorts such as Shemshak and Kish Island. Credit: 'Craft and Folk Art Museum'

IRAN: Roxana Saberi speaks, aftershocks continue

Thin and pale, but nonetheless overjoyed, Roxana Saberi today made her first public appearance since her release from prison Monday after more than three months in detention. Saberi's apparently free to leave Iran for the U.S. But the after-effects of the Iranian American journalist's arrest and stunning release from prison will continue.

Saberi appeared before reporters in front of her north Tehran apartment building for no more than a minute or two, making a brief statement:. 

"I’m of course very happy to be free and with my parents again.and I want to thank all the people all over the world -- which I’m just finding out about, really -- who, whether they knew me or not, helped me and my family during this period. I don’t have any specific plans for the moment I just want to be with my parents and my friends and relax."

MIDDLE EAST: Arabs assail new Israeli government

Perhaps no one summed up Arabs' disillusionment and frustration with the new Israeli governmentof  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman better than writer Talal Awkal in Thursday’s edition of the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Ayyam. 

“If the outgoing government, which claimed it was committed to peace, continued building the racist Separation Wall, set up more military roadblocks, taking their number up to 650, sped up its efforts to Judaize Jerusalem, and expanded the construction of settlement housing units to unprecedented levels, what can we expect from a government of which Netanyahu and Lieberman constitute the main pillars?” Awkal wrote. 

Awkal was not alone in his wry, despondent assessment of the new Israeli team. 

Reactions from across the Arabic press show how recent statements made by Netanyahu and the controversial Lieberman have been taken as confirmation of what they describe as Israel’s expansionist agenda. 

ISRAEL: Screen artists strike

Many successful revolutions begin with a takeover of television or radio studios. This week in Israel, these weren't armed rebels interrupting a live TV broadcast, but local artists.

TV journalist Guy Zohar presents "The Day That Was", a nightly light news wrap-up program. In the country's news-heavy media, the show is refreshingly low key. The set is minimal and the lighting dim, almost intimate. Perched on a bar stool -- the only furniture on the set -- Zohar offers a slightly offbeat take on the news. 

The next item was 2008 crime stats and car thefts. "So, if you have a Subaru, you'd better chain it to a post," he was saying, when three young women barged onto the set in mid-item.

"Oh dear," said the startled host, usually understated.

The three women opened their jackets, revealing not what you think. Taped to their shirts were handwritten signs: "original productions -- or close."

ISRAEL: Pre-election press roundup

The voting  begins in just over 12 hours -- about 9 p.m. Pacific time.

Right-wing Likud party chief Benjamin Netanyahu holds a slim lead over Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's Kadima party, according to the latest polls -- slim enough that many are considering it neck-and-neck.

The once-mighty Labor Party, led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, is a distant third and hoping to fend off ultra-nationalist Avigdor Lieberman.

Lieberman's sudden rise is this election cycle's primary obsession. The Moldovan immigrant struck a deep chord with his call for a loyalty oath to the Jewish state by all of Israel's 1.4 million Arab citizens. 

LEBANON: The Daily Star is back on the newstands

The Daily Star is back on news stands across the country as of today.

Lebanon’s only English-language newspaper, famous throughout the Middle East, has resumed publishing after it was forced to shut down by a court order in mid-January.

“We were forced to exit, and now we are back on the highway,” the newspaper’s publisher and editor in chief, Jamil Mroue, told the Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper, which until 2006 was distributed throughout the Middle East alongside the International Herald Tribune, has been entangled in a financial crisis for months.

The shutdown was ordered last month by a court after negotiations with a Lebanese bank over a debt of $700,000 failed.

“The judge lifted the ban,” Mroue said. “There are new investors interested, and we are preparing the ground for them.”

LEBANON: Arab world's most prominent English-language newspaper closes

The Arab world's most storied English-language newspaper has suspended publication because of financial woes, the publisher told the Los Angeles Times today.

Lebanon's the Daily Star, which is distributed throughout the Middle East inside the International Herald Tribune, has been in trouble for quite some time. Still, nobody expected the fall of Lebanon's only English-language daily so abruptly.

One morning last week, without notice, the Daily Star was simply no longer available on newspaper stands. And it has not been published since that date, Jan. 14. The website has not been updated either.

The decision to shut the newspaper was made by a court order after months of financial hurdles with a Lebanese bank over a debt amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, the newspaper's publisher and editor in chief, Jamil Mroue, told The Times today.

There were no indications that the sometimes-controversial paper was closed because it broke a taboo or offended a politician, as is often the case in the Middle East.

IRAN: Wary Tehran press welcomes, warns Obama

The Iranian press voiced skepticism today about President Obama and his vow to change the way the U.S. does business in the Middle East.

Typical were the sentiments of the conservative Jam-e-Jam daily, which praised the American people for their vote, but expressed doubt that anything would come of it.

"The American people showed their true feelings by voting for Obama and have clearly announced that they want change," the paper said. "However, because of the nature of the political structures of America, it seems that Obama cannot do a lot."

Kayhan, the hard-line conservative daily, doubted Obama's proposal to hold direct, unconditional talks with Iran would bear fruit, saying that certain interests in Washington and Tehran might not allow it.

"The Zionists believe that any talks between Iran and America, especially when no pre-conditions are set, is a full-scale disaster, because it will implicitly recognize uranium enrichment and, by prolonging the duration of talks, can give time to Iran to push its nuclear activities to a point of no return," it said.

"However, talking to America is considered a red line by the Iranians at the moment," it continued. "Perhaps we have to wait for Obama to stress more words like cooperation and relations, and to see whether he supports the reformist groups and helps reinforce opposition networks into a united front."

MIDDLE EAST: Cautious hope that Obama would bring peace to the region

Arab media welcomed the inauguration of President Obama on Tuesday. But they cautioned that Arabs should not raise hopes too high that Obama would bring peace to the region, at least not before his new administration is tested on the ground.

The official start of Obama’s presidency takes place while the Arab world continues to boil over the Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip, which ended with a shaky cease-fire this week and left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead.

The Arab satellite news channel Al Jazeera said in one of its reports this morning that Obama’s call for a new phase of relationships with the Muslim world based on “mutual interests” was a “positive message that inspires hope.”

The report noted, however, that his mention of the Muslim world was “swift” and might not denote Obama’s real intentions, which could be revealed only with time. 

Obama’s inauguration trumped the news from Gaza on the satellite channel, which has dedicated its entire air time to the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis in the last few weeks.

ISRAEL: Censorship, criticism and morale, Gaza Operation Media, part 3

Censorship has successfully kept reporters out of Gaza, and self-censorship by the Israeli media has been equally successful in keeping disturbing news footage to a minimum. But the absence-breeds-solidarity policy is beginning to be questioned, as is the affordable measure of criticism allowed to be expressed during wartime.

Last weekend, poet, novelist and long-time peacenik-with-an-attitude Yehonatan Geffen published a column in Maariv harshly criticizing Israelis' indulgence in self-pity, sparing no vulgarity telling civilians as well as the home-front command exactly what he thinks they can do with themselves. You have problems? Deal with them, he wrote. Those in Gaza don't have a home-front command to relieve their children's distress. The bluntness infuriated Oded Tira, a former chief artillery officer in the Israeli Defense Forces and chairman of Israeli industrialists, prompting him to buy a full-page newspaper ad and tell Geffen he had crossed red lines and can go do the same himself.

Later on Israel Radio, Tira explained that he doesn't reject criticism but that Geffen's column went way beyond that with a blunt and vulgar mockery that had no place in public discourse at a time like this. Besides being distasteful, Tira found Geffen's piece to undermine solidarity -- the public resource most needed to win a war.

An interesting exchange followed between Tira and Carmela Menashe, the radio's veteran military reporter, about journalism, censorship and morale.

Shut out of Gaza, she brought a bit of Gaza to the radio and broadcast a phone conversation she had with Kamal, a Gazan acquaintance of many years. Kamal said he and his family have had no electricity or gas for eight days. Loud noises were audible throughout the conversation, Kamal said it was gunfire from helicopters. "What have my children done to deserve this? What have I done? ... Can you hear it?! They're firing at us, ashkara ... No, I can't see any Hamas people around outside. There's nothing around. Leave the house?? How can I leave the house? They shoot at us inside." A baby screamed in the background.

"I ask all the leaders, Hamas, Israel ... to solve the problem with diplomacy, not with wars that kill innocent people and waste life on both sides. Haram, really." More firing, this time closer, another crying child. "Another one! Right under my house! What can I tell you, Carmela. Where can I take cover? You tell me. Save us. What do we care about such [political] things, it's not our fault."

There is a feeling in the public that it's uncomfortable, even forbidden to talk about this because there's a war going on and it spoils something in the consensus, the reporter said. "But children are being killed; there is a civilian population there. Hamas doesn't care about them and hides behind them, but we must bring their voices to the public. ... I am a journalist, not a politician. I need to do my job."

Tira agreed that a sober view of reality was needed, but added that people get hurt in wars and that this is something those who initiate it must take into account. He didn't object to the interview with Kamal being broadcast, but questioned what such things did to solidarity.

Menashe ended the discussion by saying it wasn’t her job to keep up public solidarity or morale.

Note: This radio discussion took place Monday morning. Tuesday morning, the reporter already broadcast voices of soldiers she had spoken with inside the Gaza Strip. The army had let her and at least one other Israeli reporter in.

-- Batsheva Sobelman

Photo: A banner outside a shopping mall in Mevasseret Zion, Israel, says "IDF, the people of Israel are behind you!" It is signed by Bnei Akiva, a religious youth movement. Credit: Batsheva Sobelman