Tag Archives: Israel

Barack Obama, Chickenshit, Israel, Palestine, U.S. Foreign Policy

Caca Del Pollo Diplomacy: Chickenshit as New Codename for Netanyahu?………

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Chickenshit? What took you so long, lame duck?…………..
Ever since Barack Obama became U.S. president Mr. Netanyahu (his groupies in America prefer Bibi!) has been going out of its way to disrespect him, in his own house. Which means disrespecting the office of the president and disrespecting the United States.

There is a pattern: whenever there is a high level American-Israeli meeting or visit, there is an announcement of new settlements in the West Bank or Jerusalem, or the expansion of existing settlements. It is like flicking a middle finger in Mr. Obama’s face even as he provides support to Israel. It is probably not racist, probably not, although he never did it to Bush. Nicolas Sarkozy, who can hardly be called anti-Israel or antisemitic, once dismissed him as a ‘liar’ into an open microphone.

Adding insult to injury, Netanyahu reportedly has had the habit of doing much of his American diplomacy with Congressional and Senate members, mainly Republicans. They would deal, nay connive, directly with a leader of a foreign country to undermine official American foreign policy.
Mr. Netanyahu is a petty hack and political hustler, for all this strange mix of  American groupies who seem to consider him some kind of Guru Noir. He has managed to patch together a cabinet of the extreme right, with strong support from Jewish Wahhabis and settlers. In other words, he has no other choice if he wants to remain in power.
Chickenshit? Probably yes, almost certainly yes. But it is worth it to him. As someone in the U.S. Congress might say these days: those who are not chickenshit finish last come November. In Israeli power struggles, and every other November in the USA.
Chickenshit? Hell yeah, why not………

A great succinct American term. I have been trying accurate Arabic and Persian and French and German translations for it. Spanish sounds the most plausible and most exotic for now: caca del pollo.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Iraq, Syria

2. ISIS Blame Game: Arabs and Israelis……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Reference my last post on the American blame game for the Caliphate of ISIS (it almost does not sound so ridiculous saying it now: Caliphate of ISIS). Arabs diverge somewhat about the blame for Iraq and Syria. The blame for the Caliphate of ISIS is put squarely on everyone else:

  • The Arabs outside Iraq, even those on the Gulf, still blame the American invasion of Iraq. Some of them even blame the Desert Storm campaign of 1990-91. Most of these same Arabs tend to forget that the invasion of 2003 and the earlier campaign were launched from their own territory, not from San Diego or Tehran. That they were all active participants, from Abu Dhabi to Cairo.
  • The oil princes and potentates who meddle the most in Iraqi affairs quietly blame America. Loudly, from Riyadh to Abu Dhabi to Doha, they blame Iraqis and other outsiders like Iran. Cheekily, they also blame the sectarianism that they themselves have unleashed inside Iraq and across the region.
  • Mr. Netanyahu has largely stayed out of this conflict in Iraq and Syria. Why muddy the waters when your enemies are at each other’s throats? Largely out, but not completely out, no doubt. But he probably blames Iran for it all, prescribing a permanent blockade of that country as the best way to solve all world problems, from Iraq and ISIS to Ebola to global warming.
  • Many Arab princes and potentates agree with Netanyahu, but most other Arab who are not princes and potentates violently disagree with him.
  • The Qataris still blame Hezbollah and Iran and maybe Russia, but they are also angry at fellow Arabs who side with opposing Islamist factions. They seem to have lost the overt battle over which Jihadist group will dominate the armed Syrian opposition.
  • The Emiratis (of UAE) feel like they have spent tens of billions (possibly hundreds) on Western weapons, and that they should at least go on record as having used them. So, they sent one woman and probably a couple of mercenaries to bomb some silos in Syria. The woman pilot’s family and tribe typically disowned her once they got the glad news.
  • The Saudis blame everybody else except their own policies, their ideology, and their money and Jihadi volunteers. They also sent a couple of pilot princes to bomb some silos in Syria as a well-publicized contribution to the war against their ISIS progeny. No report yet if any woman was involved for media PR coverage.
  • One funny Manama source reported to me that Bahrain offered to volunteer to send its foreign minister. She believes he was so relieved that the offer was rejected.
  • Stay tuned……….

Cheers
MHG

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Humor, Israel, nuclear Iran, POTUS

Mutually Painful Visits: Nuclear Humor and the Annual Likud Finger in Obama’s Eye………..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Ref. my post yesterday about Netanyahu poking, yet again, another finger into President Obama’s eye even as he visits with him. Doing it again to the man who, probably correctly, called him ‘a liar’ into an open microphone a couple of years ago. That finger in the eye was, yet again, the announcement of another settlement construction while the Israeli potentate visits Washington (or while American officials visit Israel). It always happens around these mutually painful friendly visits: like the proverbial clockwork. You can take it to the bank, if you are the type that for some perverse weird reason actually trusts and likes his/her banker.

Back to the usual whining about the Iranian “nuclear threat”. Unlike the Iranians, Netanyahu has never said he doesn’t want nuclear weapons; he has never sworn not to pursue them. You know why? Because he has no sense of humor. He is so humorless you’d think he is Jordanian, not Jewish. But I forget: Israelis of all faiths are almost as humorless as the neighbors surrounding them. Could be something to do with the current neighborhood and perhaps with the earlier also humor-challenged Slavic neighbors.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Iran, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine, US Foreign Policy

Shifting Limelight: Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Nuclearless Iran, Congressional Wildcatters……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Where is Benyamin Netanyahu?
Where is the Iranian “threat”?
Where is the nuclear watchdog IAEA (Amano who?)?
Where is Waldo?
Accelerating and competing events in far-flung places like Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Hong Kong, and the regional mayhem caused by the well-financed wild Salafi Abus, possibly others, have sucked the air out of these normally reliable stealers of limelight and world attention.
For Netanyahu, it can be a double-edged sword. He likes the attention being diverted from Israel and its illegal settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem (annexation, including East Jerusalem is illegal according to international law and the UN, regardless of what the wildcatters in the U.S Senate and Congress think).
All these shifting world headlines have emboldened Netanyahu, enough to, yet again, poke a finger in Barack Obama’s eye even as he visits with him. That finger came in the from of reports about new plans for more illegal settlements in East Jerusalem while he was visiting in New York and Washington.
Yet Netanyahu does not like attention moving away from Iran and toward his landgrab. He professes loudly that he worries they will move closer to the nuclear weapons they do not have, the weapons they swear they do not want to develop. Unlike Israel. He also wants any attention on the Middle East to focus on Iran and not on the Palestinian land issue. To have his cake and eat it too (or vice versa).
At the UN, there was not much extensive coverage of his annual speech (I assume he gave his usual speech). Clearly there were no funny Looney Tunes cartoon drawings and amusing graphs of the type he used in past years. The same cartoons the anchor ladies on CNN and MSNBC and Fox had swooned over in the past.

Yet he is stirring again, pulling his many strings in Washington, warning against complacence. Complacence is a dangerous thing, be it about nuclear proliferation or illegal annexation.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine, Uncategorized

Palestinians Welcome Israeli Settlers in East Jerusalem…….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“Israeli police guarded Jewish settlers as they moved into seven homes in a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Tuesday while stunned and angry Palestinians looked on, aware that there was little they could do. The homes in Silwan, which sits in the shadow of Jerusalem’s Old City, were purchased by Elad, a pro-settlement group that uses funds from Jewish supporters in the United States and elsewhere to buy properties in Palestinian districts……….”This is a government by the settlers for the settlers,” said Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief peace negotiator, calling the move an attempt to erase Palestinian identity…………..”

It says here the Palestinian properties were purchased by the Israeli pro-settler group. So, they were bought and paid for. That means someone in Jerusalem, some Arabs, got paid, and no doubt generously, for the properties. It is not the first time. They are selling these properties to the pro-settler groups. Unless I am missing something, some facts, here. It takes two to tango, no?

Okay, in this case maybe it takes at least two to tango.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Israel, MENA, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Will Netanyahu Visit Riyadh or Will the King do the Ghazwat Jerusalem?……….

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“No, the surprising cooperation and doors that might open to which Netanyahu referred, seems an allusion to key Sunni countries in the region, particularly Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. Just a day before the prime minister’s comments, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah issued a statement read out on Saudi television about the situation in Gaza. Incredibly, Abdullah decried the “collective massacre” in Gaza, but did not pin it on Israel………… Abdullah’s words were real-time proof of what American political scientist Walter Russell Mead wrote last week, that “the battle between Sunni Arabs and Israelis is no longer the most important issue on the table for key Arab governments as well as for Israel……………”


The alliance, I called it a coalition, is in place. It has been forming for some time, it was awaiting the advent of Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi to return Egypt to it. Now that the Egyptian Tahrir Uprising has totally failed: he is in place. The Al Saud and their Al Nahayn sidekicks had wanted Egypt back, which they have now bought back. They have also wanted Iraq back (demographically not possible) and Syria back (their chances were ruined by their Wahhabi militia allies) and Lebanon back (demographically not possible).
A coalition of convenience, between arguably the most democratic (it still is, even with the plight of the Palestinians under occupation) and most aggressively militarized country in the Middle East and two of the least democratic countries in the Middle East, possibly in the world (Saudi Arabia and the UAE).

Egypt is now another traditional Arab military oligarchy, its fate sealed with Al Sisi engineering a victory of 97% out of the few Egyptians who bothered to vote earlier this year. The goal: on the one hand aimed at maintaining the status quo of pre-2011, and on the other aimed at pushing back the eastward expansion of the mullahs away from the Mediterranean.
Don’t expect Netanyahu to land at Riyadh anytime soon: no such invitation is likely. If he did, he might bring along a bunch of lawyers with claims to Jewish property confiscated at Madinah and Khaybar some fifteen centuries ago. The Saudi king is unlikely to fly anywhere other than Morocco, or maybe to some medical facility in the West.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Gaza, Israel

One Israeli View of Gaza and the Others………

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“Illouz: Where you see human beings, Israelis see enemies. In front of enemies, you close ranks, you unite in fear for your life, and you do not ponder about the fragility of the other. Israel has a split, schizophrenic self-awareness: It cultivates its strength and yet cannot stop seeing itself as weak and threatened. Moreover, both the fact that Hamas holds a radical Islamist and anti-Semitic ideology and the fact that there is rabid anti-Arab racism in Israel explain why Israelis see Gaza as a bastion of potential or real terrorists.…………. The nature of Israeli leadership has also changed. The messianic right has progressively gained power in Israel. It used to be marginal and illegitimate; it is now increasingly mainstream. This radical right sits in Parliament, controls budgets and has changed the nature of discourse. Many Israelis do not understand the radical nature of the right in Israel. It successfully disguises itself as “patriotic” or “Jewish.”………………”

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestine

When a PLO Representative Dissembles for Hamas………

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Speaking of Hamas and Israel. Saeb Erekat of the Palestinian Authority was on MSNBC this morning. He was asked about potential Israeli negotiations with Hamas and its refusal to recognize the existence of Israel. He responded by claiming that: Hamas is part of the Palestinian government, “the PLO, as he put it”. Since PLO recognizes Israel, therefore so does Hamas. No problem there, is there? Clearly that was bullshit; even Erekat himself did not look to believe what he was saying. Once the dust of this Gaza battle settles, there is no certainty that Hamas and the PLO will be on speaking terms. Not if the Saudis and Generilisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi have anything to do with it.

Just to make the point that dissembling is part of the war. This does not justify the destruction and massacres being committed against the Palestinian civilians of Gaza by the Israeli IDF (which is not exactly very ‘D’ these days).

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Gaza, Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy

Spineless in Gaza: One Barbaric Kidnapping of a Prisoner of War, Thousands of Civilized Killings………

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“The Obama administration on Friday condemned “outrageous” violations of an internationally brokered Gaza cease-fire by Palestinian militants and called the apparent abduction of an Israeli soldier a “barbaric” action. The strong reaction came as top Israeli officials questioned the effort to forge the truce, accusing the U.S. and the United Nations of being naive in assuming the radical Hamas movement would adhere with its terms. The officials also blamed the Gulf state of Qatar for not forcing the militants to comply……………”

Watched a CNN news program (too) early this morning. The topic was Gaza. The guest-pundits agreed that the “kidnapping” of an Israeli soldier was a “game-changer”. The media here loves to use terms like “game-changer” or “red-line”. The guest-pundits agreed the “kidnapping” of one Israeli soldier during battle would shift world opinion about the massacres and destruction visited by Israelis on the people of Gaza. I wondered what shell these pundits live in, that they are so insulated from the world outside Washington and New York as to presume they speak for it.

The capture of one soldier presumably in battle was called “a barbaric act” in an Orwellian twist by a spineless White House that has been silent on thousands of Palestinians killed and wounded, tens of thousands made homeless by Israeli bombs. Are we talking about a new “master race” here? In the U.S. media and especially in the once-hallowed halls of Congress, this may be the case. Nay, as far as Congress is concerned this IS the case.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, Israel

Israel and Hamas and Egypt as a Perennial Follower…….

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“After the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last year, Egypt has led a new coalition of Arab states — including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip. That, in turn, may have contributed to the failure of the antagonists to reach a negotiated cease-fire even after more than three weeks of bloodshed………………”

He is wrong of course about Egypt having “led” a coalition. A battered unstable Egypt is not “leading” any coalition on anything these days. In fact Egypt has not led independently on any regional issue since the day Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981. It has gotten worse in the year since the military coup of 2013. Under the military rule of Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi, Egypt is being led, in regional matters, by a couple of Persian Gulf absolute tribal ruling families, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab .There has been a drive by the princes and potentates, and the Israelis, to inflate the appearance of a leading role for Al Sisi. This is self-serving, given the historical importance of Egypt and its size as the largest Arab country which can be put to good diplomatic and public relations use. That and its potential role as the host country of the impotent League of Arab Nations.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]