Gaza, Israel, Palestine

Fools of Hamas: Making Netanyahu’s Job Easier, Somali Dollar………….

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“Hamas yesterday declared itself bolstered by the Arab Spring and the exchange with Israel of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, as the group mounted a show of strength with tens of thousands attending a lavishly staged rally in the centre of Gaza City. Gaza’s ruling Islamic faction bussed in supporters from across the territory for a mass rally to mark its 24th anniversary at which their leaders’ rhetoric laid heavy emphasis on continued adherence to armed struggle and the eventual “liberation” of the whole land, including what is now Israel. Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza’s de facto prime minister, told the rally: “We affirm that armed resistance is our strategic option and the only way to liberate our land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the River [Jordan]. God willing, Hamas will lead the people… to the uprising until we liberate Palestine, all of Palestine.”……….”

Hamas is in no position to liberate anyone. The fact that they had to trade one scrawny Israeli soldier for over one thousand of their people tells it all: an exchange rate of a thousand to one (like the dollar or euro to the, say, Somali or Bengali currency). This type of statement only feeds the hostility and belligerence of the American GOP right-wing, and possibly many Democrats as well, who are against a Palestinian state even in Gaza and the West Bank. Yet Mahmoud Abbas is quoted that Hamas had promised him to accept a solution based on Gaza and the West Bank.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Politics, Iraq, Terrorism

As the Last American Soldiers Leave, Iraqis are at it Again………

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“An arrest warrant has been issued against the Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi late Saturday for being the mastermind behind the recent bombing targeting the parliament, spokesman of Baghdad police operations said. The car bombing which took place on November 28, was an attempt to assassinate one of the members of the parliament, he added. According to the Iraqi government, evidence pointed at al-Hashimi’s embroilment in the parliament blast incident after deriving confessions from four arrested Islamic Party members……… Hashimi was the head of the Islamic Party, a political party representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq, in 2004, but in 2009 he announced that he is no longer a member of the party. Instead, he created the Tajdeed movement, which is considered to be one of the political parties component of the secular Iraqiya block. Meanwhile, the allegations against Hashimi came hours after the Iraqiya bloc which won most of the votes of Iraq’s disenchanted Sunni Arab minority Walked out of parliament………..”

A serious charge: Tareq al-Hashimi doesn’t look like a master terrorist. Lucky for Iraqis, they have three vice presidents.

Iraqis couldn’t seem to wait for the last departing American soldier to cross the Kuwait border before they started at each other again. All this may give senator John McCain and Lieberman (Joe not Avigdor), and Gingrich and Romney, the excuse they need to re-invade Iraq and restore a Republican order.

It is interesting how roles have shifted in post-2003 Iraq. Early on the southern provinces were talking about ‘federalism’ while the likes of al-Anbar tribals and former Ba’athists were against it, claiming that it would lead to fragmentation. Most neighboring Arab despots were also against it: the usual Arab obsession with centralized authority. Now it is the likes of al-Anbar tribals and former Ba’athists who are calling for “federalism” with some of the neighboring Arab media cheering on.
Cheers
mhg


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Egypt, Middle East Women, Muslims, religious police, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

Salafi Cleric Compares a Woman’s Face to a Vagina: Sexy Eyes and Oral Wahhabi Outrage…………..

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Maybe the heading of this posting should be “What’s new pussy cat?”

Arab media report that Shaikh Abu Itzhac al-Huweini, a famous Salafi cleric with whom I am not familiar although he is considered some kind of authority by many, has compared a woman’s face to her vagina. The shaikh opined that a woman who exposes her face is like one who exposes her vagina in public (her said nothing about fellatio, though).
This is not the first time opinions like this are expressed by Salafi Wahhabi shaikhs. Only a couple of weeks ago the Saudi religious police (Commission for the Propagation of Vice) threatened, again, that women who have sexy eyes should cover them in public or they would face punishment. They didn’t exactly define “sexy eyes”, but said something about eyes that are too tempting. Now that is lowering the bar in an extremely horny society. I think that in repressed Saudi Arabia, especially in the grim Nejd region, any part of a woman, including an exposed toe, would generate orgasmic outrage among some of these guys.

Cheers
mhg


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Afghanistan, Apartheid, Israel, Middle East Women, Religion

Rosa Parks of Jerusalem, Shikses of old Alabama and Free Afghanistan………

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“It was supposed to be just another regular Friday morning for Tanya Rosenblit. Tanya had to get from her hometown Ashdod to Jerusalem for a meeting there. On the way, Rosenblit experienced one of the most intimidating stories of religious coercion I’ve seen lately: She was told by a Haredi man to get to the back of the bus, or nobody was going to go anywhere. And what do you think Rosenblit did? That’s right – she stayed put. And she took pictures of the whole ordeal and later wrote about it on Facebook……… At the next stop, Orthodox Jews started mounting the bus. At first, they just stared at me, but said nothing and moved on to sit somewhere in the bus behind us. Only one passenger decided that he preferred standing on the stairs near the driver, although there was plenty of space. I didn’t mind that, and focused on the music in my ears. But then, another one entered the bus, but instead of entering, he prevented the driver from closing the door. He looked at me with despise, and when I took off the earphones, I heard him call me “Shikse”, which means “whore” in Yiddish. He demanded I sit in the back of the bus, because Jewish men couldn’t sit behind women ………….”

Not exactly a Rosa Parks story, that of Ms Rosenblit: it probably happens all the time in the new free Afghanistan, been happening since the Taliban came to power after the American-Saudi liberation of that country in 1989. The term “shikse” does not mean a whore in the USA. Among American Jews I knew back East, “shikse” was a not-nice term meaning a non-Jewish girl, often very anglo-looking. But then, among the fucking fundamentalist Haredis in Jerusalem, who are like the fucking Salafis in our neck of the woods, the term probably does mean something like a “whore”.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab League, Arab Revolutions, Syria

A Syrian Mini-Civil War, or is it a Civil Mini-War……

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“The armed insurgency against the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has become more organized in recent weeks, with defectors launching attacks that have become bolder and in some cases more sophisticated, according to activists and residents inside the country and in exile. The latest attack took place on Thursday at dawn, when military defectors killed at least 27 soldiers, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in one of the largest attacks yet on troops loyal to the government. The observatory, which is based in London and has a network of informants inside Syria, said in a statement that clashes erupted in and around the city of Dara’a, where the antigovernment uprising began in March. It said the attackers, armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, hit two checkpoints in the countryside and a military base inside the city, suggesting a level of coordination that had not been seen there before………”

The number of government soldiers killed each day now is approaching the number of the ‘opposition’ or ‘protesters’ killed each day. That is a sure sign of a transformation of the Syrian uprising into a civil war. It seems to be heading that way.
Surely Mr. Assad should make an iron-clad deal to get the hell out of the place: he and his family and his Ba’ath Party have looted enough of the country. He can settle in some other place: UAE or Iran or Europe, with some guarantees of not being prosecuted. After all, most Arab leaders currently in power should be prosecuted, and nobody is prosecuting them. I don’t particularly like most of the forces that could replace the secular Ba’ath, but history will have to run its course.
Cheers
mhg


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Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Arab Counterrevoltion, Espionage, Finance, Hezbollah, Iraq, Latin America, Lebanon, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, WTF

Mel Brooks and Oliver Stone of Persia: a Taliban-Hezbollah-Colombian-Iranian-alQaeda-Mexican-Texan-African Network………

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“The court action, filed in Manhattan federal court, seeks nearly half a billion dollars in penalties from three Lebanese financial organizations — the now-defunct Lebanese Canadian Bank and two Beirut-based money exchange houses — and 30 auto dealers in the United States. The $480 million in penalties is the sum of the drug proceeds that are alleged to have been laundered; the government is also seeking to freeze and seize assets traceable to those companies………… Thursday’s complaint offers fresh details about the workings of what it says was a scheme to launder South American cocaine cash and Hezbollah’s own money, naming the American-based auto dealers and people it says were Hezbollah operatives. For example, the action charges that Oussama Salhab was a Hezbollah operative in Togo who ran a network that transported cash from cars sold in Benin on flights to Beirut. Prosecutors say he worked with Maroun Saade — suspected of being a member of the Free Patriotic Movement, a Lebanese Christian political party allied with Hezbollah — who has been charged in a separate case with aiding the Taliban………”

I wonder what Mel Brooks is up to these days? Is he teaming up with Oliver Stone? Could those two be working on something like this, this topic of my piece here?
Is it just the holiday season or is the world going crazy around me? At least from my current perspective in the Pacific Northwest it seems like many heretofore otherwise sensible people are going mad. Look at all this:

  • Hezbollah alliance with the Taliban (across fourteen centuries of separation, across five nations of separation)?
  • Iranian alliance with al-Qaeda which is the mortal Wahhabi enemy of the Shi’as (including Iranians and Iraqis and Lebanese and Bahrainis and Pakistanis and all others)?
  • Iranian and al-Qaeda alliance allegedly but ridiculously improbably going way back to the 1990s, mostly via the good offices and miraculous guesswork of Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia?
  • Iranian-Mexican Drug Cartel-Texan Nutcase alliance to blow up a restaurant in Georgetown and its famous clients just because it serves mediocre food to smug bureaucrats and charges too much? This last one allegedly courtesy of the DEA and the U.S. Department of Justice, and possibly Mujahideen-e-Khalq, among others.
  • Iraqi-Iranian-Syrian (wtf?)-Lebanese alliance to conquer Bahrain as a prelude to conquering the rest of the world and forcing Rick Santorum and Rick Perry to become Muslims and make the Hajj to Mecca?
  • Lebanese-Columbian-Taliban-Hezbollah-Maronite Christian plot to make money from a new triangular trade but without the rum and the African slaves.
  • Hezbollah-IRGC-Wehrmacht-Goldman Sachs…….. oh zut, sorry. Got carried away.


WTF is going on here? Is everyone going paranoid or are all of these plots real? Should we start looking under our beds each night for Iranian mullahs and Lebanese Shi’as? Are the Wahhabi princes now financing the hated Shi’a militants as well? Or is it just that the ‘plots’ are thickening?
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Corruption, Culture, Saudi Arabia

Arab Monarchies and Illusory Legitimacy: Oil and Opium, Mars or Uranus………

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“In many of the region’s monarchies, while the king maintains ultimate control, power is more diffuse and thus the top leaders are able to deflect some criticism. Monarchies have so far proven to have greater legitimacy in the eyes of their countrymen than have the faux-republics. That doesn’t mean that they are immune to unrest, as we have seen in Jordan and Bahrain, the latter though is anomalous in that a Sunni minority rules over a Shiite majority. But they are better positioned to manage it. Saudi Arabia’s unique status as the “custodian of the two holy places,” Mecca and Medina, also confers legitimacy on the kingdom’s rulers. As the birthplace of Islam, and with an official religious establishment recognized well beyond the country’s borders, the Arabian kingdom ultimately exercises authority through religion and through the ruling family’s alliance with the Wahabi clerical establishment. But the Saudis are not taking any chances, and throughout the region’s uprisings, the royal family has employed a combination of sticks and carrots to help ensure domestic tranquility. Saudi troops have been deployed in force to deter any possible unrest. Thus far, any domestic turbulence has been contained to the Shia areas of Saudi Arabia, far from the majority Sunni population areas……….”

Actually being in control of the Mecca and Madinah in Hijaz does not necessarily bestow any ‘legitimacy’ on any ruling clan. It is an illusion and propaganda being perpetrated by Saudi media and their friends. They conquered the Hijaz during the 20th century from the Hashemites, the traditional custodians who roots are in Hijaz. More recently, they decided to give their kings the title of “Servant of the Two Holy Shrines” for propaganda purposes. They get the legitimacy from their tribal connections (bribes and intermarriages) as well as the ruthless repression of dissent.

Many leaders and politicians and ‘opinion-makers’ show respect and deference to the princes, but only because they control huge petroleum resources and huge amounts of money that belong to the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula. It is the money, stupid. They may respect the old king, but they know better with the rest of the princely brood. Let me put it this way: if Saudi Arabia had the resources of, say, Afghanistan, then the U.S. and French presidents would treat the king just as they treat Hamid Karzai. Unless they liked to smoke opium.

In general most Muslims and Arabs know how corrupt and avaricious and rapacious they are. Many of their subjects feel the same way, but are afraid to express it. I can be wrong: it is possible that they are almost as popular as the rulers of Bahrain are with a majority of their people. You know how much popularity that means, unless you’ve been living on Mars or the Jovian planet of Uranus throughout this year.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Human Right, Saudi Arabia

Bahrain’s protest movement was per capita one of the largest anywhere in the region

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“Bahrain’s protest movement was per capita one of the largest anywhere in the region, with at one point more than half the population joining the demonstrations………. By far the greatest hole in the GCC’s resume remains its most direct and active intervention: Bahrain. The GCC’s, and particularly Saudi Arabia’s, role in helping the Bahraini regime to crush its political challengers in March and beyond succeeded in buying short-term survival. But it came at the cost of a generation of deep societal fragmentation, alienation and rage. The scope and sweep of the Bahraini regime’s repression of its population this year has long been reported by the media and by human rights NGOs, but now has been officially acknowledged and graphically detailed by the BICI report. The sectarianization of that conflict, as the minority Sunni regime moved to delegitimize a broad-based democratic opposition as sectarian Shia and Iranian pawns, poisoned not only Bahrain’s politics but also every other Gulf country with significant Shia populations including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In short, what happened in Bahrain was the kind of short-term success which carries the seeds of long-term instability……..”

Yes but the rulers do not give a fig (or a rat’s culo) about “societal fragmentation”.  They want to remain not only in power, but to remain in control of the resources which they can then continue to loot. As for longer term, they can’t see below their bloated gluttonous belies.
Cheers
mhg


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Israel, Palestine, Religion

West Bank Churches on Fire: GOP to Expel Palestinians and Bomb Iran…….

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“Member of the Revolutionary Council of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), Dimitri Diliani, Tuesday held Israel fully responsible for the settlers’ attack on a church near the Jordanian border, under the watch of Israeli soldiers. Diliani said in a press release that the Israeli army evacuated the church at one o’clock in the morning, after more than four hours spent by the settlers in damaging the church and its contents. The attack on the Orthodox church , located a few kilometers east of Jericho, came after strong opposition from Jordan against demolishing Magharbe gate ramp in East Jerusalem. Diliani said these settlers’ attacks are a result of the Israeli government’s policy that encourages such terrorist groups to attack Palestinians and their holy sites. He said that the extremist group vandalized the church and its contents under the watch of the Israeli army, damaging the church’s crosses, doors and windows…………..”

If this church desecration had happened in an Arab country, the Republican candidates would have headlined it during last night’s Iowa debate. Rick (big hat, no cattle) Perry would have called for his usual “boots on the ground”. Gingrich would have called for painful sanctions, to start with. Rick (Pretty Boy Floyd) Santorum would have called for expelling all Palestinians from planet earth and the immediate bombing of ……Iran.
Cheers
mhg


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Afghanistan, Pakistan, Women 100

An Epidemic of Rape: American Women, Congolese Women, Afpak Women………….

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“An exhaustive government survey of rape and domestic violence released on Wednesday affirmed that sexual violence against women remains endemic in the United States and in some instances may be far more common than previously thought. Nearly one in five women surveyed said they had been raped or had experienced an attempted rape at some point, and one in four reported being beaten by an intimate partner. One in six women have been stalked, according to the report. “That almost one in five women have been raped in their lifetime is very striking and, I think, will be surprising to a lot of people,” said Linda C. Degutis, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the survey. “I don’t think we’ve really known that it was this prevalent…………”

Shocking statistics. Who would have thunk it. Most people think the things happen in places like the Congo or Pakistan or maybe parts of Sweden
Cheers
mhg


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Multidisciplinary: Middle East, North Africa, Gulf, GCC, World, Cosmos…..