Commitment, staying power, moral thunder and presence distinguish the third in our panel of Mondo Award Judges: Helena Cobban, founder of Just World News.
And Helena is entrepreneurial. She has broadened her empire lately with a new publishing company, Just World Books, which has already got an impressive list in Laila El-Haddad, Chas Freeman, Reidar Visser and Joshua Foust. Notice the sweep and diversity. A builder and communitarian, Helena has done more than anyone to help forge the new bonds of community between east and west that are essential for any progress in our seemingly intractable relationships throughout the Middle East. Boundaries do not exist for Helena.
I know Helena mainly as a great reporter. I trust her completely and have been reading her essential website Just World News since I first discovered blogs in ’03.
Helena is also undersung; her pickups are so far ahead of the curve that by the time the herd is on to them, she’s on to other parts of the unjust world. Here’s Helena circa November 25, 2009 in CSM:
Washington – President Obama urgently needs to distance Washington from the provocative – and illegal – actions the Israeli government has been undertaking in Jerusalem.
He needs to do this to save the two-state solution that he supports between Israelis and Palestinians. He needs to do it, too, because it will help protect US troops around the world. Jerusalem is a core concern for many of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims, and with US forces now facing tense situations in several majority-Muslim countries, Washington has a stronger need than ever to keep the goodwill of the peoples of those lands.
This is one of the main findings from a study-tour of the region I co-led earlier this month. In Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and the West Bank, strongly pro-US leaders underlined to us the importance of Jerusalem to their own political fortunes and those of other American allies throughout the Muslim world.
Hmm…didn’t Petraeus mention something about this in his Statement to Congress last spring? Didn’t Biden blurt out something quite similar in his explosion over settlement expansion in EJ last spring?
No wonder she’s got a resume as long as your arm. She is on the UN M.E. advisory committee of Human Rights Watch, is the former Executive Director of CNI/CNIF, and spent years in the MSM trenches as a Beirut-based correspondent for several western sheets. My point? We’re Lucky Ducks!
Welcome Helena, it is such an honor to introduce you as one of our Judges.
Now send us your ENTRIES for Mondo Awards Week today. No excuses!
Helena joins Susan Abulhawa and Omar Barghouti on our spectacular Panel of Judges. Stay tuned as we continue to roll out these Rock Stars in alphebetical order in the days ahead.
