Monthly Archives: May 2011

Arab Media, Israel, U.S. Congress

What some Arabs Saw in the US Congress, Bibi….

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Some Arab media headlines after the Netanyahu speech to a joint session of the US Congress:

“Eulogy for a Hezbollah-controlled’ Lebanon”

“Netanyahu in Congress: America falls on her knee before Israel”

“US Congress looked like a third world parliament heaping accolades on the Great Leader”

“Netanyahu speech was a speech of fear” (Saudi Asharq Alawsat, one of the few that tried to put a somewhat positive face on it)

Some of my own (ArabiaDeserta) live tweets (the last are first):


“Shit! some of these guys are gushing, you’d think they’re shaking hands with John the Baptist hisself…” Me

“Okay, I know the Dome of the Capitol is covered with a thick layer of bull, a lil more than in a normal session…” Me

“There may be some health reasons for all these “standing” ovations (how do you spell r-e-l-i-e-f)..” Me

“Hmm.. Did he just lie? didn’t the Ottomans and British allow freedom of worship in Jerusalem?….” Me

“Now the ijits clapping for annexation of East Jerusalem…..” Me

“I think Congressmen who stood for the “Judea and Samaria” remark wanted to give their brains a rest from the weight…” Me

“Clever #Netanyahu, stupid #Congress: he quickly changed the subject from Palestine to #Iran….” Me
Cheers
mhg


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Culture, France, US Foreign Policy

How Americans Ruined a Great French Game: DSK, BHL, Le Livre Du Visage…………

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“Two French women are filing legal complaints against a junior government minister they accuse of sexual harassment, apparently encouraged to speak up after the recent arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn on sex crime charges. Gilbert Collard, lawyer for the women, said he had submitted the complaints against Georges Tron, the civil service minister, to a public prosecutor this week and he confirmed to Reuters the accusation was sexual harassment. Tron’s lawyer, Olivier Schnerb, dismissed the complaints and said he had been instructed to respond by filing a defamation complaint in return. Tron, who was quoted by Le Parisien daily as saying the accusations were “incredible”, told Reuters he had informed Prime Minister Francois Fillon about the matter………..” France 24

Leave it to those Les Américains to do it again: ruin a great French cultural tradition. First it was the chewing gum they brought with them to the beaches of Normandie, then the music of Rock and Soul (Josephine Baker was just an early outlier and not mainstream in France), then their subverting language through Jerry Lewis films, then the Internet. Facebook? Why not Le Livre Du Visage? Wait, there is even more…….
Now they have set out to destroy an even greater French tradition: men taking their sexual pleasures wherever they find ‘them’. In that they had the help of a black African Muslim woman who did not see a good white thing when it happened to her, could not just lie down and try to enjoy it. Poor, poor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn: who will it be next? Bernard-Henri Lévy?
Cheers
mhg


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Cairo, Egypt

The Self-Hating Semitic Nazis of Egypt……………….

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“A group of Egyptians have announced their intent to establish a Nazi party with “a contemporary frame of reference,” an independent Egyptian news website said on Wednesday. Al-Badeel, a leftist news portal, quoted founding member Emad Abdel Sattar as saying the party would bring together prominent figures from the Egyptian society. The party’s founding deputy is a former military official. The party believes in vesting all powers in the president after selecting him or her carefully, Abdel Sattar said, adding that preparations are underway to choose the most competent person to represent the party. The Nazi party operated secretly under former President Hosni Mubarak, whose regime prevented party leaders from carrying out their activities freely……….”

This is a hoot. Truly comes under wtf. An Egyptian Arab Nazi party? What next: a Jewish Nazi Party? At least no one can accuse them of being anti-Semites since they are Semites. Maybe these Egyptians are self-hating Semites. Could they be Salafis? Salafi literature is full of hatred of Jews, Christians and anyone else who is not Salafi.
Egypt had many pro-Nazis during World War Two, but they were pro-German rather than “Nazis”. Actually they were just Egyptian nationalists because their country had been under British occupation and domination for over sixty years at the time. Anwar Sadat had some contacts with the Germans at the time, was pro-Nazi. They thought, no doubt erroneously, that the Germans would free them.
This is the most wtf item of the day, so far. There is still time, it is only 8 AM out here in the PNW.
Cheers
mhg


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censorship, Culture, GCC, Iran

Iranian Mullahs and the Beauty of Satellite Dishes…………

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“Iranian police have launched a new crackdown on satellite dishes which, although illegal, are still a common sight on rooftops across the Islamic republic. Tehran police confiscated more than 2,000 satellite dishes in a single day last week in a battle against receivers which let Iranians see a huge range of uncensored entertainment and international news not available on state-controlled channels. “The police’s priority is first to confiscate dishes which are visible … and confront the owners,” Tehran-e Emrouz daily quoted Tehran’s deputy police chief Ahmadreza Radan as saying……..”

Iranian mullahs allow their women to continue driving cars and ride motorcycles. But they hate satellite dishes for the openness to the world that come with them. The Saudis are more open about international media than the Iranians: satellite dishes are not banned anymore (three fourths of the population would go crazy without them and may pour out into the streets of Riyadh and Jeddah and cause major trouble). There was a time when Wahhabi nuts, the religious police, went around trying to destroy satellite dishes, but that was in the past. There a was a time, up to the early 1990s, when satellite dishes were banned in other GCC Gulf states as well. But the Persian Gulf War (1990/91) and the CNN coverage of it put an end to that. In my hometown, I don’t recall any new law allowing satellite dishes after 1991, just as I don’t recall any law banning them before that. It was just government fiat. Satellite dishes, that were once exclusively used by potentates, suddenly became commonplace.
The official position seems to be: Iranian mullahs know they can’t ban dishes, they are just trying to make them less visible on rooftops. The logic is not a logical one, since everyone knows they are there, everyone has them, and the mullahs have them as well. Maybe it is the aesthetics they care about.
It is a losing battle that they should give up, just as their neighbors on the Gulf did many years ago. After all, anyone can watch television channels over the Internet, and Iran cannot ban the Internet: the mullahs would have a true revolution of the young (and the old) on their hands if they did. So, give it up Ali and Mahmoud: it is a losing battle.
Cheers
mhg


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Cairo

Egypt’s Salafis as the Snake in the Garden of Revolution………

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“Salafi leader Gamal al-Marakby has rebuked members of the Shia community in Egypt for intending to form a political party, declaring that Salafis will oppose the move. “We will fight them,” he said. “They should not be allowed such a thing.” Marakby revealed that the Shias also intend to publish a newspaper, which he claims will be financed by Iran. “The Shia have bizarre beliefs that contradict Islam and the Sunni faith,” he added. Shia leader Mohamed al-Dariny, for his part, criticized the Salafis. “They terrorize all who are against them and want to pull us into backwardness,” he said. “We are Egyptian citizens, and we have the right to form a party for ourselves.”…………..” Almasry Alyoum

The Salafis of Egypt stood by during the peak of the Revolution, even as their Saudi masters tried to keep Mubarak in power. Just as they stand by the repression in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, issuing fatwas in support. They have already picked serious fights with the Coptic Christians of Egypt, ending with the burning of houses of worship and many deaths. Now they are picking on another segment of Egyptian society: they want to disenfranchise the tiny Shi’a community. Mr. Mubarak liked to throw Shi’as in prison occasionally for ‘being who they are’ or maybe to keep his regional allies happy.

A bit of my version of history here: Egypt reached its peak Islamic glory under the Shi’a Fatimid Dynasty. Cairo is still called the Cairo of el-Mo’ezz (after a Fatimid Dynasty ruler), and al-Azhar was established by the same dynasty. Someone once said that Egyptians are Sunni by name and practice but still Shi’a by heart: that is probably true. I think the Egyptian (Sunni) Muslims probably have more in common with Arab Shi’as than they do with the Salafis, including Saudis, for example. Including a deep respect for history reflected in shrines and place names (Seyyda Zainab and  Hai el-Hussein as examples) and visitations of cemeteries.

Egyptian heritage and culture is much more complex, more advanced, than the simple exclusionary Wahhabi tenets of some Salafi shaikhs: it encompasses Islam, Christianity and what came down from the oldest civilization in the “Western” world. The Salafis would also probably cancel “Sham Ennissim”, the Spring Festival that has roots in pre-Islamic and pre-Christian and pre-Ptolemaic days.

The Salafis, like Wahhabism itself, are an anomaly in an Egyptian society that has been always ‘multicultural’ and mostly tolerant of others. They are now like the proverbial snake in the Garden of Revolution.
Cheers
mhg


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Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon

Pro-Saudi Lebanese Shi’a Cleric Charged as Israeli Spy……….

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“News agencies have named Mohamed Ali al-Husseini as the suspect, but the authorities have not officially confirmed his identity. Sheikh al-Husseini is known to be critical of Hezbollah, the Syrian-backed Shia militia and movement. Several prominent Lebanese figures have been arrested over the last two years, accused of being spies for Israel. The suspect was picked up at his home in the city of Tyre, in the south of the country, report said. He leads an organisation called the Arab-Islamic Resistance . ……”

““Military intelligence officers last Saturday arrested the head of the Arab Islamic Council Mohammed Ali al-Husseini on charges he was conspiring with the Israeli enemy,” the National News Agency reported. Husseini, a Shiite cleric known for his staunch opposition to Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, was arrested during an army raid on his home in the southern coastal city of Tyre, it said. The Arab Islamic Council is a small group of Shiite Muslims whose aim is to “reclaim Shiite decision-making from those who have hijacked it in the name of our confession,” or Hezbollah, according to its mission statement……….”

This cleric Mohamed Ali al-Husseini is a regular guest on Saudi television channels, especially the semi-official Alarabiya. His writings have also been all over Saudi semi-official newspapers like Asharq Alawsat. He was widely known to have been financed by the al-Saud, he and his ragtag organization. He is a severe critic of Hezbollah and an advocate of the House of al-Saud. The Saudis, and by extension some elements in the USA, were promoting him as the Shi’a alternative to Hezbollah or Amal (actually both) in Lebanon.
I have repeatedly told in this blog that he was a hopeless case: hardly any Shi’a in Lebanon would listen to him: I suspected that even some of his “followers” took the Saudi money and voted for Amal or Hezbollah. He himself and Saudi media and some Gulf media used to call him the “Religious and/or Political Guide of Arab Shi’as”. Even the al-Khalifa of Bahrain invited him to the country last February or March on the idiotic assumption that the people of Bahrain would listen to him. I wrote last year that if this guy runs in a Lebanese election he might get a handful of votes and that even his own wife may not be among them.
Apparently the Lebanese reportedly have been gathering evidence against him as an Israeli spy. The plot thickens: an al-Saud ally who spies for Israel. Who would have thunk it?
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Occupied Bahrain, US Foreign Policy

Bahrain Website Reports on American-Khalifa Contacts………..

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A new Bahrain news site (Miraat al-Bahrain) reports from diplomatic sources that the Bahraini government knew two days in advance what President Obama was going to say about Bahrain. It reports that the US State Department notified the al-Khalifa regime of the contents. The report says the delegation led by Deputy Sec of State James Steinberg reached four points of agreement, and four points of disagreement, with Bahrain. It says the points of agreement included the right of the regime to enforce “stability” and to call in Saudi forces, and to agree that Iran has a hand in the unrest. That means the US administration summarized the demands of Bahrainis largely into an Iranian plot.
The main point of disagreement was about who are the opposition. The US saw the opposition as all the various political parties and civil organizations, many of whose members are in prison. The al-Khalifa regime saw the “opposition” as its own toadies (Salafis, Muslim Brothers, and others) who are now left as the only members of the ‘parliament’. The regime now defines its own supporters as the opposition. The regime wants negotiations done inside and through its own parliament while the US wants negotiations done on a round table. There was also disagreement on why all those (Shi’a) mosques were vandalized and destroyed.
I did speculate here last week that the American visit just two days before the speech was to reassure the al-Khalifa regime. I also speculated that Mr. Jeffrey Feltman has been in Manama so often that he may qualify to form his own pro-regime mercenary militia. I was barely kidding.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, Culture, Saudi Arabia, Women 100

Is the Saudi Women Drive-in Protest DOA?……….

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“On Facebook and Twitter, activists had launched a campaign calling on women in Saudi Arabia who hold international drivers’ licenses to get behind the wheel on Friday, June 17, and drive their cars to protest the country’s ban on women driving. Their call is a daring initiative. Women who have defied the ban in the past have lost their jobs, been banned from travel and denounced by members of the country’s powerful extremist religious establishment. The women say their planned move is not a protest nor an attempt to break the law, but rather a bid to claim basic rights as human beings……….”

That is where these women are wrong, when they say they are not trying to protest (or even break an arbitrary rule). Protest is a God-given right. Every one of us, man or woman, was born protesting, along with the proverbial slap on the behind. They are protesting, they are asserting their right to protest, as they should. Rather than pull back and try to water down their demands, they should expand them. Arab despots, like all despots, only understand the language of firmness. They can smell fear and hesitation. Think of Egypt, think of Tunisia.
(Nevertheless, I now suspect that this Saudi drive-in may fizzle, as much as the men’s protest in Riyadh last March did. Opponents are gaining voices on twitter. That expected drive-in may be DOA: dead on arrival).
Cheers
mhg


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Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Terrorism

Mullah Omar and Bob Dylan on SNL………

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“Afghanistan on Tuesday said it has received reports of reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar being killed, but they have not been confirmed. “As spokesperson of our security office announced, we received that kind of reports but they are not confirmed,” Afghanistan’s Minister for Information and Culture Sayeed Makhdoom Raheem on Tuesday said. The Afghan intelligence agency had on Monday said that Omar disappeared from a suspected hideout in Pakistan and has been out of contact with his commanders for days…..….”

The Taliban have denied that their leader, Mullah Omar is dead. I suspect that they are right. A death requires certain ceremonies and procedures that can’t be hidden except maybe in North Korea. If Mullah Omar is dead, and not in North Korea, we will know. But there is speculation about his fate, as there has been in past years, especially in late 2001. I suggest that Mullah Omar, if he is alive, end all this speculation at once by appearing on Oprah or The View. If these venues are considered unmanly chick shows (they are), then he can go on Piers Morgan to prove that he is alive. If he objects to Piers Morgan, then maybe he can do an SNL skit (Sarah Palin did). It would be sad if his death is confirmed on Bob Dylan’s birthday. Although I doubt that he ever was a fan.
Now if he had a Twitter account……
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Culture, Saudi Arabia, Women 100

Saudi Women, Saudi men: the Drive-in…..

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“One woman’s effort to end the ban on her gender being able to drive in Saudi Arabia is catching attention around the world. And on Morning Edition today, the editor of Jeddah’s Saudi News said that Manal al-Sharif’s campaign is gaining some traction in Saudi Arabia…….” NPR News

A Saudi woman was arrested yesterday, for the second time, for driving a vehicle. Saudi Arabia is the only country that bans females, that is ‘human’ females, from driving cars (I suspect women in Qandahar can’t drive either: so you get the picture). That is not the news. The real Saudi news is that Saudi women are organizing a drive-in, and it has a chance of success. If many women join.
Success is always a matter of how many come out to defy authority. Last March there was a campaign for protests in Saudi cities to call for freedom and reform. Only one man reportedly showed up in the capital Riyadh to publicly protest and he has not been since his arrest that day. Khaled al-Jehany is unlikely to be in a mood to protest again, if he is released. Defying authority has always been a taboo in Saudi Arabia: religious fatwas and the usual instruments of a police state have been effective in keeping people from defying the authority of the princes and their Wahhabi ulema (clergy) allies under Shaikh Al Al Shaikh.

It is the numbers, stupid. The more who heed the call for protest, the more chance of success. At some point there is enough of the people out (men, women, or otherwise) that the authority has to give in: that was the lesson of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya (almost), and Bahrain (almost). The numbers defy age-old fears. On their coming drive-in day, Saudi women may come out in huge numbers and drive. They may be able to achieve what the men have failed to do: defy authority and win. That is what authority fears: that it will be forced to relent through public protests, that is why they sent tanks into Bahrain. They want any “reform” to be bestowed by the ruler, not a right taken, wrested, by the people as it should be.
I am always for anyone or group that defies any authority anywhere in the Middle East (except the Salafis who always side with repressive and corrupt authority): from Rabat through Riyadh and onto Tehran.
 
(Go for it ladies: you may be the ones who finally break that wall of fear).
Cheers
mhg


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