The Weak Foundations Of Arab Democracies

An excellent analysis by Timur Kuran in The New York Times:

"THE protesters who have toppled or endangered Arab dictators are demanding more freedoms, fair elections and a crackdown on corruption. But they have not promoted a distinct ideology, let alone a coherent one. This is because private organizations have played only a peripheral role and the demonstrations have lacked leaders of stature.

Both limitations are due to the longstanding dearth, across the Arab world, of autonomous nongovernmental associations serving as intermediaries between the individual and the state. This chronic weakness of civil society suggests that viable Arab democracies — or leaders who could govern them — will not emerge anytime soon. The more likely immediate outcome of the current turmoil is a new set of dictators or single-party regimes."

Outrage: UK Training Saudi Forces Used To Crush Dissent In Bahrain

Here are some gems of justification from the UK about their ministry of Defence training Saudi troops in crowd control, some of them were used in Bahrain:

“This is the shocking face of our democracy to many people in the world, as we prop up regimes of this sort,” Edwards said. “It is intensely hypocritical of our leadership in the UK – Labour or Conservative – to talk of supporting freedoms in the Middle East and elsewhere while at the same time training crack troops of dictatorships.”

The West's mission in the ME is not about demcoracy but about changing hostile regimes to friendly ones. And even if Arabs implements democracy overnight, the West won’t be pleased.

“An MoD spokesman described the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, as “key partners” in the fight against terrorism. “By providing training for countries to the same high standards used by UK armed forces we help to save lives and raise awareness of human rights,” said the spokesman.”

What? Aren’t these the same people who are portrayed by US embassy cables as cash machines for Islamists terrorists? And up until recently by the hundred millions?

And last but not least:

“Labour MP Mike Gapes, the former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said British military support for Saudi Arabia was about achieving a “difficult balance”.
“On the one hand Saudi Arabia faces the threat of al-Qaida but on the other its human rights record is dreadful. This is the constant dilemma you have when dealing with autocratic regimes: do you ignore them or try to improve them?”

"Why Palestinians Have Time On Their Side"

I agree with most of what Mr. Goldberg writes here, although I do not agree with his main premise, his concern for the survival of the state of Israel as a Jewish state. But is it possible that people like Netanyahu don't see things the way Mr Goldberg sees them? It is quite possible that Israeli politicians, like other politicians in other countries, see only for the short term and think in electoral terms, so this is why they are locked in a short term vision. And while Israel could not afford to be a country like others, it is acting like any other country. Does this mean that they don't see Palestinians as an existential threat, as Mr. Goldberg sees them (and this is quite racist because he is alluding to Palestinian demographic and rights as an exitential threat to Israel)? Of course they see things the same way but they think that as long as they have international support, they will deal with any threat, or any pressure to engage in peace and concessions, the way they dealt with until now: more bloodshed and brute force while Israel will explain to the world that its existence as it is now: without peace, without definite borders, without justice for Palestinians, and with brute force and political instability in the region, is a natural an biblical right for the Jewish people that tremples any other right. And it will take another holocaust for the world to understand.

Meanwhile, Palestinians should take their matters in their own hands, strictly speaking.

By Jeffrey Goldberg

If I were a Palestinian (and, should there be any confusion on this point, I am not), and if I were the sort of Palestinian who believed that Israel should be wiped off the map, then I would be quite pleased with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s performance before Congress this morning.

I would applaud Netanyahu for including no bold initiatives that would have suggested to the world that Israel is alive to the threat posed by its seemingly eternal occupation of the West Bank.

In fact, I would make support for Netanyahu the foundation stone of my patient campaign to dismantle the world’s only majority-Jewish country. I would support not only Netanyahu, but the far-right parties of his governing coalition, the parties that seem uninterested in democracy and obsessed with planting more Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

The settlements would have my wholehearted backing. I would encourage my brother Palestinians to help build settlements at a brisk pace. I would ask the Israelis to build an even more intricate system of bypass roads on the that would connect Jewish settlements to one another and to Israel proper. I would ask my ostensible allies among the Arab nations to provide interest-free mortgages to Israelis in Tel Aviv, so they could move out to the settlements for some fresh air and a little more yard. And, while I was at it, I would insist that my leaders abort their campaign for United Nations recognition of an independent state of Palestine.

Entanglement

My goal: To hopelessly, ineradicably, entangle the two peoples wedged between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Then I would wait as the Israeli population on the West Bank grew, and grew some more. I would wait until 2017, 50 years after the Six Day War, which ended with Israel in control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. I would go before the UN and say the following:

"We, the Palestinians, no longer seek a homeland of our own. We recognize the permanence of Israeli occupation, the dominion of the Israeli military and the power of the Israeli economy. So we would like to join them. In the 50 years since the beginning of the ’temporary’ occupation, we have seen hundreds of thousands of Israelis build communities near our own communities. We admire what they have built, and the system of laws that governs their lives. Unlike them, many of us live under Israeli military law but have no say in choosing the Israelis who rule us. So we no longer want statehood. We simply want the vote."

And this, of course, would bring about the end of Israel.

Apartheid State

Either the Jews of Israel would grant the Palestinians the vote, at which point their country would lose its Jewish majority and its identity as a refuge for the Jewish people, or it would deny them the vote, and become an apartheid state. The latter option is untenable, of course: Many Jewish Israelis would be repulsed by this thought; other nations that already consider Israel a pariah would now have just cause; and Israel would lose its last remaining friend, the U.S., because no American -- including and especially young American Jews -- would identify with a country reminiscent of pre-Mandela South Africa

If Netanyahu had been thinking strategically, he might have realized this when he went before Congress this morning. And he might have done something bold: Acknowledge that the age of Jewish settlement is over. He did mention, fleetingly, that certain settlements would be set adrift in a theoretical peace deal. But he seemed unaware that he was delivering a speech that could easily have been given 10 years ago.

It is not 10 years ago. Israel is now 10 years closer to achieving full pariah status. And -- in part because the Palestinians lack the patience to pursue a strategy of gradual, irreversible entanglement -- a moment of truth for Israel is rapidly approaching.

UN Vote

The Palestinians are seeking a UN vote in September on independence. They will prevail in the General Assembly, though not in the Security Council Barack Obama, with whom Netanyahu just picked a fight, will have to spend a good amount of political capital to stymie the Palestinian campaign, even though he appears to have nothing but contempt for Netanyahu’s lack of vision.

But American opposition to this unilateral declaration will be in many ways immaterial. Israel will soon enough be seen by most of the world as the occupier not of disputed territory but of a foreign country. The Palestinians will wake up to find that a General Assembly vote did not, in fact, give them true independence. And then there will be an explosion.

The Palestinians who are watching Yemenis, Libyans and Syrians fighting for their freedom will soon be inspired to once again take up their own fight.

Existential Threats

Netanyahu, who understands the existential threat posed by Iran, does not seem to understand the nature of this other existential threat. His five predecessors as prime minister -- including Ariel Sharon, whose heart did not bleed for Palestinians -- understood it. President Obama understands it, too.

"The number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of both Israel and the Palestinian territories," Obama told members of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, on May 22. "This will make it harder and harder, without a peace deal, to maintain Israel as both a Jewish state and a democratic state."

An eternal truth of Middle East politics is that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Lately, though, this has become an Israeli specialty. If Israel misses the chance this year to set the Palestinians on a course toward independence, it will jeopardize its future as a Jewish democracy.

A Magnanimous Vision

Yes, it will be dangerous for Israel to return to its 1967 borders, or anything close. The potential merger between Hamas and the more moderate Fatah is cause for despair, but it should spur Netanyahu to try to split the moderates from the radicals by offering a magnanimous vision for peace. He should realize that it will be fatal for Israel to maintain control over millions of Palestinians who seek what the people of Yemen and Libya and Syria seek: freedom.

Absent any hope of progress, the Palestinians will do what they can to undermine Israel. But all they have to do is wait.

US congress controlled by Israel

At the beginning of the video a pro-AIPAC activist snatches the camera from a reporter.

Bibi has received today more standing ovations in the US congress than BO, some allege the number was 28 for Bibi and 25 for Obama when he last spoke to the US congress. People at Syria comment were joking that the people's assembly in Syria gives its president Bashar the same treatment, except that he is not the president of a foreign country. The only thing that was missing in the US congress today for Bibi to have the same treatment as Bashar El Assad was someone reading him poems.

Video link thanks to FLC.

Watch here the ignorance of AIPAC delegates about Palestine and the Palestinians, from Max Blumenthal.


Veni, Vidi, Vici: Netanyahu's pyrrhic victorious speech at the US congress according to the Israeli press.
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Further Israeli-Saudi Links in Lebanon

The Lebanese have arrested a pro-Saudi shia cleric for spying for Israel. It seems that they have been monitoring him for some time before his arrest.

Here is a collection of the deeds of this cleric:

Lebanese Shiite Scholar Muhammad Ali Al-Husseini Criticizes Hizbullah for Threats against Israel

Mohamad Ali El Husseini/Lebanese Shi'ite Scholar Muhammad Ali Al-Husseini Slams Syria, Iran, Hizbullah

And his own page at Islamic counterterrorism.org

Israeli soldiers break silence on brutalities

Routine harrassement and humiliations of Palestinian civilians.

It is important to note that the website of breakingthesilence.org is actually shut down*. It is also important to note that, even though the soldier speaks about Israeli supreme court rulings, those rulings have no significance whatsoever, they are never respected when they contradict what the IDF want to do and most of the time they are a tool of the occupation.  The whole edifice of the occupation rests on internal Israeli rulings tailored to make this occupation look as legal...So it doesn't matter for them to disrespect rulings made by the supreme court because they know that other rulings made by this same supreme court actually facilitate the occupation which is in itself illegal.  The Israeli supreme court is a mascarade of rights (please note that the word 'mascarade' means 'mask', 'disguise' and it is of Arabic origin).


* I did not write the correct address: It is breakingthesilence.org.il (Thanks to a message left on my twitter account by https://twitter.com/#!/Hsmicro)

A Historic Moment In The Golan On The Anniversary Of The Nakba

In this video you see Palestinians who came from refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon crossing to the occupied Golan.



More here

Picture gallery here on Nakba protests

The ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians or the never ending Nakba

Source: ISM

While we are still desperately concealing, denying and repressing our major ethnic cleansing of 1948 - over 600,000 refugees, some who fled for fear of the Israel Defense Forces and its predecessors, some who were expelled by force - it turns out that 1948 never ended, that its spirit is still with us. Also with us is the goal of trying to cleanse this land of its Arab inhabitants as much as possible, and even a bit more. After all, that's the most covert and desired solution: the Land of Israel for the Jews, for them alone.

...The cry of the dispossessed has now been translated into numbers: 140,000, only until the Oslo Accords. Students who went to study at foreign universities, businessmen who tried their luck abroad, scientists who went abroad for professional training, native Jerusalemites who dared to move to the West Bank temporarily - they all met the same fate. All of them were taken by the wind and expelled by Israel. They couldn't return.

Most amazing of all is the reaction of those responsible for the policy of ethnic cleansing. They didn't know. Maj. Gen. (res. ) Danny Rothschild, formerly the chief military governor with the euphemistic title "coordinator of government activities in the territories," said he heard about the procedure for the first time from Haaretz. It turns out that not only is the cleansing continuing, so is the denial. Every Palestinian child knows, and only the general doesn't. Even today there are still 130,000 Palestinians registered as "NLR," a heartwarming IDF acronym for "no longer a resident," as though voluntarily, another euphemism for "expelled." And the general who is considered relatively enlightened was unaware.

This is an absolute refusal to allow the return of the refugees - something that would "destroy the State of Israel." It's also an absolute refusal to allow the return of the people recently expelled. By next Independence Day we'll probably invent more expulsion regulations, and on the next holiday we'll talk about "the only democracy."

Nakba: A remembrance

Ali Abunimah: the falsifications of the New York Times about the Nakba

Angry Arab: Our pledge to the Palestinians

Jadaliyya: They won't destroy our determination.

Palestinian-Israeli conflict for beginners.

The museum of Palestine.

Nakba day protests in pictures



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Katherine Marsh reporting from Damascus

The name is a pseudonym for a Guardian journalist reporting from Damascus. He or she was the one to report the fabricated story of the Syrian security shooting the 9 army personnel in Banias.

She raised my curiosity because her misrepresentation of the Syrian uprising, lack of analysis and depth (more american style journalism than European and British journalism) as well as her flagrant bias, were unusual to read in The Guardian, and were matched only by the bias and the spin of Al-Jazeera in their coverage of Syria.

Katherine Marsh might be the cause of the 'arrest' of Dorothy Parvaz, the Al-Jazeera reporter who disappeared after landing in Syria on April 29th or she might be Parvaz. Clearly the Syrian authorities must have been infuriated by Marsh's reporting from Damascus. They must be desperately searching for Marsh's real identity.

It is of course pure speculation to assume that Parvaz and Marsh can be the same person. But let's imagine a situation where Marsh, fearing a crackdown from the regime, leaves Syria for few days to reenter it as Dorothy Parvaz, official reporter for Al-Jazeera. Or let's assume that Parvaz's arrival to Damascus while the regime is cracking down on hostile reporters is either bad judgement or a provocation from Al-Jazeera since Al-Jazeera could rely on anonymous sources and on Katherine Marsh who has been steadily reporting from Damascus.

Here are some elements:

Her page at Journalisted does not list her articles published in The Guardian between April 25th and April 30th.

This is how Journalisted works (why some articles can be missing is at the end of the page)...

Her articles continue to appear in The Guardian but this doesn't mean anything. To protect her, The Guardian can present articles written in the same way since her signature is a pseudonym.

I hope Dorothy Parvaz is OK. I hope that, if she turns out to be the Katherine Marsh of The Guardian, that the Baath regime won't be stupid enough to make of this journalist a cause célèbre. After all, katherine Marsh's reporting is full of bias and incitement, to cover for the lack of analysis and it is not received well by readers, except for the security shooting the army personnel story posted on April 12th which was linked to 39 times. However, blog links to her articles dropped dramatically after her story was proved to be wrong. Each news channel has its own strategy to attract audience, Al-Jazeera's specialty during wars is to provoke governments and by doing so to appear as an information hero Al-Jazeera: it also makes for a good publicity. And while the Qatari channel's direction has its hands tied by the Gulf monarchies that host and finance its operations making it no different from other news channels in the Arab world, they strive to use their journalists in spectacular missions to enhance the image of their journalistic independence. Remember the journalist in Baghdad shot by US forces from a helicopter on a roof building? And the 'Control Room' documentary that followed?

Well, Al-Jazeera is no hero, they have adopted the official line and politics of Gulf monarchies and are praised for their coverage of Lybia, Yemen and Syria by no other than US senator John McCain. Their bias in covering the recent Arab uprisings is well documented now. Dorothy Parvaz must be liberated and Al-Jazeera prevented from spinning its image as defender of Human rights and press freedom only outside Gulf monarchies. I hope Syrian authorities understand, that by keeping Parvaz, they are serving Al-Jazeera's spin.

OBL Dead

Osama Bin Laden is dead killed by a special unit of US forces in Pakistan. He was killed in his compound located in an urban area 30 miles from Islamabad.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan must have known about his whereabouts during all these years. Saudi Arabia is in a difficult position now in the ME, with all those revolutions at its door, and badly needs US protection for the survival of its backward monarchy. Bin Laden is the price for this unconditional protection.

Bin Laden leaves behind him a trail of murders, wars, violence and multiple religious sectarianisms: Muslims versus Christians, Sunnis versus Shias. He discredited Muslims and Arabs all over the world and served well the US and Israel's imperial interests in the 'greater middle east area'.

UPDATE
US special forces told to kill, not capture, Bin Laden.

Reactions: 'Sunni Hamas condemns killing of Arab holy warrior'. Palestinian resistance movements are all corrupted by Saudi Arabia's money. Deprived of support and having to sustain a harsh occupation, Palestinian leaders turn to the wrong country, wrong ideology and wrong man...Ismail Hanyia's statement on Bin Laden is confirming what zionists say about Hamas. How dumb of him to call Bin Laden 'Arab holy warrior'. We need an Arab spring in Palestine now!
Sunni Lebanese Muslim preachers, Saudi kooks and Hariri tools, hail Bin Laden for attacking at the heart of the US. These people feel no shame. Bin Laden was fabricated by Saudi Arabia and the US, then served to us, and we should feel relieved at his death, not mournful and not a bit proud about his criminal enterprises.

Some perspective:

Angry Arab on the celebrations.

Angry Arab on OBL and his sponsors.

More from Angry Arab (this is an extract and I took the liberty to put it in paragraphs, it is known that Angry Arab doesn't like paragraphs):

Now, turning to the US, I also believe that in the wake of any US military operation, we are fed a large amount of lies, fabrication, sc fi scenarios, and exaggerations.  

I mean, other than Bin Laden has been killed by US troops, I am skeptical of the rest.  

Let us begin with the one about that Bin Laden received a "Muslim burial at sea."  I mean, do they think that Arabs/Muslims are idiots?  Burial at sea? Is that a new military term for tossing his body from the air?  Burial at sea? Who are you kidding? Just say what happened: most likely, soldiers scrawled slogans on his body, and then yelled: Allahu Akbar, you motherfucker, and then tossed his body in the water.  

Then the story that I instantly wrote about yesterday: the notion that the find was the product of painstaking hard work and research by US intelligence agents. I remember that we were told how US intelligence agents in Iraq did a family tree and complicated charts of the relatives and bodyguards of Saddam to locate him.  Later we learned that: a bodyguard of Saddam turned himself in to US troops and asked for the bounty.  There is now a beginning of insinuations US troops found him due to a tip.  Here is the beginning of the story in the US press.  First we were told that a courier was spotted by US agents.  Now we are told that Pakistani agents were the first to spot him.  

We were first told that a man in the compound took a woman as a human shield and that she was killed.  When I now hear a "human shield" story, I know that I am about to be lied to by Israeli or US military to justify yet another killing of civilians.  Later we were told that Bin Laden was the one who took a woman as a human shield.  I am sure that the human shield story will disappear later. Just remember the original early story of Pat Tillman: I mean some in the US military are experienced in movie scripts.  

To their credit, Politico has noticed the various inconsistencies and lies and the changes in the early accounts.   And `Abdul-Bari `Atwan of Al-Quds Al-`Arabi, who knew Bin Laden and liked him says in his editorial today that an aide to Bin Laden said that he requested that his bodyguards shoot him if he ever faced killing by enemies.  `Atwan leans to that theory for his killing: that his own bodyguard shot him.  I think this is very likely and may emerge later.  Is that why the body was thrown in the sea? Because Americans want to believe that an American bullet killed him?  Does this matter? Well, yes.  

The US has lied so much that it is understandable that it is not believed by Muslims especially that Arabs/Muslims can't celebrate the American celebrations of their killings, even if the person killed is Bin Laden: who may not be loved by Arabs and Muslims (and who clearly failed to win support among the masses) but any US president is hated more than Bin Laden. That is the key element to help you understand the complicated Arab/Muslim attitudes to Bin Laden and his death.  This explains the stupid foolish statement by Isma`il Haniyyah who called Bin Laden "mujahid" (holy struggler).  

Oh, and now Fox News is giving credit where it is due: it crediting torture for locating Bin Laden.  

And the stupidity can be seen in Arab media too: New TV who I generally like, yesterday aired a report on the possible successors to Bin Laden.  It said that Abu Zubayda is the most likely to emerge as the key commander of Al-Qa`idah. Can some one tell New TV that Abu Zubyayda won't be able to assume his duties because he is sitting in Guantanamo? 

Why Bin Laden might have been dead for years and why the US chose to announce his death now.

The Israeli-Saudi alliance and the counterrevolution in the middle east

Israeli officials want a public commitment from Washington to protect the Saudi regime should it come under threat.