“Palestinian efforts to join U.N. agencies beyond its cultural arm are “not beneficial for anybody” and could lead to cuts in funding sure to affect millions of people, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon warned Thursday. In an Associated Press interview, the U.N. chief reiterated the world body’s support for a viable, independent Palestinian state — but lamented the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to join U.N. affiliates before the U.N. itself………”
Moony seems to be in a hurry here, effectively taking sides. Effectively telling the Palestinians not to bother applying beyond the UNESCO. It is odd that a UN secretary general takes sides so quickly. Luckily Moony is just a top international bureaucrat and his opinion is unlikely to sway anyone except the already-swayed. Unlike other previous UN secretaries general, I have no doubt that Moony will easily win a renewed term. Especially now. Cheers
mhg
BFF Lara and Yuri “The Tunisian government has issued an arrest warrant for the widow of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in connection with a corruption investigation into the “International School of Carthage”, the Tunisian state-run news agency reported on Monday. The International School of Cartage was founded by Suha Arafat – wife of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat – and former Tunisian First Lady Leila Ben Ali Trabelsi, wife of ousted Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. In 2007, the Tunisian authorities withdrew Suha Arafat’s Tunisian nationality…………..” Interesting: Yasser Arafat spent many years flying around Arab capitals like a King Lear, kissing kings and potentates and dictators (he had no choice; these were the only kinds of Arab leaders available). He did end up in an enclave or hamlet in the West Bank. His widow prefers more amenable pastures to the available bit of “Palestine” she talks a lot about. Somehow the Palestinian leadership, the PLO and Fatah, caught the usual Arab ruling-classes bug: they got fat and rich and distant. As corrupt as any other Arab potentates, dictators and absolute tribal monarch.After Oslo, once the aid money started flowing again. Cheers
mhg
“On October 13, 1881, a short time before moving to Palestine, Eliezer Ben Yehuda held what is thought to be the first modern conversation in Hebrew with two friends at a Paris café. That moment became the impetus for Ben Yehuda’s at times tortuous revival of the language, which for centuries had been relegated solely to the written word. Upon his arrival in Palestine later that year, Ben Yehuda began testing his belief that Hebrew formed the sole common lingual connection between Jews of all backgrounds. Indeed, although taught only as a written language, he succeeded in holding basic conversations in the long-lost language from the moment he stepped off the boat in Jaffa…….. One of the most serious obstacles to the modern revival of the language, however, continued to pose problems for the education that was being endowed on the first generation of Hebrew schoolchildren. Having been relegated to the written language of religious texts for so many centuries, Hebrew lacked many of the modern words necessary for mundane and simple conversation…………..”
Ben Yehuda was what we might call a ‘Salafi’ in the Middle East (perhaps a little stretch here). A Salafi is someone who goes back to precedents and predecessors and follows what he (never she) believes they would have done. That is a true puritan Salafi, a Salafi on paper, unlike the Salafis we have around the Gulf region who are extremely opportunistic. They wouldn’t be able to revive anything, let alone a dormant language. The modern Salafis often refer to Jews as “descendants of pigs and monkeys”, which tells us what they truly think of the old Prophets (all of them except one). They also come close to worshiping tribal polygamous princes, but that is okay, they also like the polygamy part (well, one aspect of it) and they like the funding. Ben Yehuda was a bright Jewish “Salafi”, what we have in our region are mostly dumb and bigoted and primitive Salafis who have nothing useful to contribute. They do cause a lot of harm. I suspect that the late Imam Mohammed Bin Abdulwahhab (of Nejd) was probably the last truly Salafi cleric, although no doubt he was also as bigoted as the more recent version. He also gave us Wahhabism and this whole “effing” Salafi movement that is much more harmful than, say, the Ba’athists. (I am not going to repeat my old info about distinguishing the Arabian Imam Mohammed Abdulwahhab from the late great Egyptian singer and musician Mohammed Abdel Wahab who as not a Salafi, probably didn’t know wtf the term meant). Cheers
mhg
“The Palestinian leadership yesterday accused the US Congress of inflicting “collective punishment” upon its people by holding up almost $200m in aid earmarked for the West Bank and Gaza by the Obama administration. The freeze on funds earlier allocated for the financial year which ends today is the first concrete Congressional reprisal against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to come to light since he angered US legislators by pursuing his application for full UN membership last week. The unpublicised block has been in force since August and was imposed in response to the then planned UN recognition bid,………”
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is often accused by its opponents of doing the bidding of the United States government and the Israeli Likud government. Apparently the PA felt that its authority over Palestinians was slipping, it had to do something to slow this trend. In a desperate move it applied for UN recognition. It did this just at the beginning of the U.S. electoral cycle and in a year when extreme right-wing Republicans control the U.S. Congress, with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a well-known right-winger and avid Likudnik, as head of the Foreign Affairs Committee. They might as well have elected Bibi Netanyahu as chairman of the committee.This is not a time when most politicians in Washington show any courage for peace, if ever. Cheers
mhg
“Israeli officials: Palestinians routed, about to fold” YNet News (Israel)
“French president Sarkozy says UN will not vote on Palestinian state this year, promises a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli impasse within a year” Reports
Yesterday italmost looked like the Palestinian “authority”, never known for its backbone, had surrendered again. Reports quoted American and French officials that ‘negotiations’ will resume to reach a solution within one year. Sounds familiar? Remember 2009, when the new and “extremely naïve” Obama administration started negotiations with Israelis and Palestinians with a solemn promise that they will solve everything within one year. At that time I wrote here “forgetaboutit”. One year? It is too short a time to reach never. The Jewish people have a mantra that they repeated during their long Diaspora , especially at every Passover Seder: “Next year in Jerusalem”. It kept them focused on the promise and the goal, which they eventually achieved. Now the Palestinians will have to adopt a new mantra “Next year in New York” or maybe just “Next year at the UN”. Except it won’t be next year, or the year after, or any other year after, as long as the Likud and its right-wing allies rule the roost. Cheers
mhg
““I totally understand the frustrations the Palestinians have. We are all frustrated in this situation. We want to see progress toward peace, toward the two-state solution,” Blair told Reuters Insider in an interview marking the 10th anniversary of the September 11 al Qaeda attacks on U.S. cities. “The problem is you have always got to say, well what happens the day after (a bid for U.N. recognition)?'” the former British prime minister said. “Any gestures that are done by way of unilateral declaration, they are expressions of frustration and they may be understandable for that reason but they don’t deliver a Palestinian state,” he said………”
Tony Blair is consistent in his approach to the Israeli-Palestinian peace. He believes in a four track policy to achieving that peace: (1) keep him as the special envoy (btw: whose envoy is he?), (2) stop attempts at UN to declare a Palestinian State, (3) resume negotiations, and (4) start a war against the Iranian mullahs (wtf). I am not sure how another Western war in the Middle East will help the peace process, but Tony is strongly for it and often mentions it. Maybe because it pleases his Middle Eastern benefactors and friends, or maybe he has always had a love-hate, poodle-banshee relationship with George W. Bush and the American neoconservatives. Maybe it is a New Labor thing. Tony has now joined the Western campaign to stop a United Nation action on a Palestinian state, although he doesn’t say at whose behest. I suspect Tony is also angling for a Nobel Prize (in Peace not in WMD). If the Palestinians, all of them, and the Israelis, all of them, reach a real peace deal, not a half-assed one like in the past two decades. Why, Tony will finally step out from the shadows of W, finally become his own poodle, so to speak. But he won’t get it, even in the highly unlikely event of a peace deal between the Jewish fundamentalists of Likud and the Muslim fundamentalists of Palestine. (I bet some of you did not know that the PA of Fatah is on its way out, to be replaced with more Hamas types. It is an unfortunate byproduct of the current Arab turmoil. Not that I’ll miss the corrupt schmucks of Fatah anymore than I like the fundamentalist quasi-theocrats of Hams). Cheers
mhg
“Qatar has acquired a reputation for sharp, quick responses to crises in the Arab world and for modern and unorthodox thinking. It is undeserved. Qatari diplomatic activity is designed to advance the interests of the tiny country and of its ruling family. Its adoption of the Libyan opposition, for example, is not based on any principle (such as liberty, democracy, or free elections), for the Qatari government and its TV station, Al Jazeera, have been notably silent about the crisis in Bahrain. There, they have backed the royal family and the Saudi-led GCC armed presence………Backing the royal family in Bahrain, supporting Hamas but then giving some money to the PA, and financing the rebels in Libya shows Qatari flexibility, but not courageous leadership. What does Qatar seek, beyond influence? Influence for what?……………..”
Abrams sounds truly pissed at the Qatari oligarchy, but he is right overall about the hypocrisy. I have to agree with him on this one, although it is the Palestinian statehood thing that riles him up the most. Abrams asks: “Influence for what?” He forgets all about Rome. Long ago, in this galaxy, a small farming community around the upstart town of Rome gained influence and power gradually as it beat regional rivals. Within a couple of centuries, the Roman upstarts defeated Carthage in three (Punic) wars and became undisputed masters of the Mediterranean and half the known world (from Spain to the Euphrates River). Is it possible the Qatari dynasty is seeking to take over the (Persian-American) Gulf? Or maybe they just want to merge with Bahrain (minus al-Khalifa and the Saudi occupation forces, of course). Is it possible they want to conquer the known world? Ich weiss nicht. Cheers
mhg
BFF “In a blow to Palestinian unity efforts, a meeting in Cairo planned for this week so that the leaders of the two main factions could announce a new government has been called off for lack of agreement on a prime minister, Palestinian officials said Sunday. The meeting had been set for Tuesday with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Khaled Meshal of Hamas. Mr. Abbas’s Fatah faction announced the cancellation in the West Bank, and Hamas officials here confirmed it……Mr. Abbas has been pushing hard to keep in place Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is widely admired in the United States and Europe………” Mr. Salam Fayyadh (his name means Overflowing Peace in English) may be “widely admired in the USA and Europe”, but he is not widely admired where it counts, among the Palestinian people. Nor was he elected to any position. Should the Palestinians give a “fick” who admires whom in the “international community”? Absolutely not. The “international community” also professed admiration for Mubarak and Bin Ali and Saleh until the end, as they have for the absolute tribal despots in Riyadh and Manama. I wrote here at the time that the Palestinian “unity” deal will most likely not last. It will not happen until there are new elections and all parties abide by the results: that means whoever wins the elections, Hamas or Fatah or Likud or Shas, will form the Palestinian “government”. Like all Arab parties and regimes, whoever loses the election will not accept the results. Haven’t we seen this Palestinian film before? Cheers
mhg
BFF “Palestine to merge with GCC when liberated. The Palestinian government seeks support from the GCC countries to resolve their long-standing conflicts with Israel and wants to merge with the GCC bloc when liberated. Dr Khairi Al Oraidi, Ambassador of Palestine to the UAE., addressing the media on the occasion of the Nakba or catastrophe day at the embassy premises on Thursday, said: “I believe in the important role which the GCC countries have been playing in the region socially and politically.” So, if Palestine or any other country becomes part of the GCC countries, it will be a great support for them especially for the people of Palestine, the ambassador said. Palestinians mark Nakba Day to remember the 63rd anniversary of ‘Nakba’ or ‘catastrophe’, a term Palestinian refugees use to describe their expulsion from their homes and towns when Israel was created on occupied Palestinian territories in 1948……..”
Okay, this should run its course soon. First Jordan, then Morocco, and now Palestine-of-the-future. I do believe the GCC summit in Riyadh opened the door for this new #FunnyGCC laughter-fest, and deservedly so. Time to stop: we already look, and sound, like the idiots of the international community (for elaboration read my blog post of yesterday and other posts of earlier days). The GCC leadership, the secretary general, that close friend and retainer of the Bahrain regime, ought to hold a news conference and explain to the peoples of our region WTF the GCC leaders meant, if anything, with their strange statement about Morocco and Jordan. I joked in one of my tweets that Benjamin Netanyahu may apply as well, but afterwards I realized that he is not an Arab ruler. Netanyahu would have to get the approval of his Knesset and his people first. And he knows it, he is not a total schmuck (that would be Lieberman, both of them). Dommage. Cheers
mhg
Rattlesnake Ridge 
BFF
