Naranj

One of the best places for (real) traditional, old-fashioned Middle Eastern food is Naranj in Damascus, Syria.

Angry Arab in the cockpit

I was in the MEA plane on the way to Beirut.  I was going out from the restroom to return to my seat.  At that point, the co-pilot was emerging from the cockpit.  He greeted me warmly and said that he was a big fan.  I thanked him.  Thereupon, he insisted that I join him in the cockpit.  I explained that I have a terrible, multi-dimensional fear of planes and that I would be too nervous and that I may puke on the flight control buttons.  I returned to my seat.  A flight attendant then came to my seat, and said that the two pilots are insisting that I join them in the cockpit.  I proceeded to enter the cockpit, and sat on the third seat behind them.  The chair was not comfortable and it does not recline.  I expressed displeasure and threatened--yet again--to puke on their devices.  The view from the cockpit was so wide but I was too nervous to enjoy.  The pilot was then explaining to me how things work and how they know something was wrong.  I asked him to not explain how things go wrong, as hard as they both tried to reassure me.  As we began our descent on Beirut, i basically closed my eyes completely.  The pilot would sometimes turn back toward me to talk, and I would nudge him to look straight ahead and focus on the plane.  That is my story.

Ahmadinajd's visit

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar:  "Ahmadinajad's Visit:  Divorcing Lebanese Shi`ites"

"clearly Muslim"

"He said he was let go for "telling the truth" about his feelings of nervousness when he sees people he thinks are clearly Muslim on airplanes."  I have a feeling of nervousness towards people who clearly had a reputation for sleaze and sexism in the newsroom of the Washington Post.

This is the Israeli "left" mind you

"Member of the Israeli Knesset, Nitzan Horowitz, spoke of his opposition to the proposed boycott of Israeli citizens and institutions and slammed the idea of single binational state as a “recipe for failure and civil war” in London this week:" (thanks Daniel)

This is not in the East

"High School Cheerleader Kicked Off Squad for Refusal to Cheer for Her Rapist"

Disgrace unto the nations: Israel

"Another neighbor called an ambulance. Kristien Garrett was taken to Barzilai with cramps, and hospitalized overnight. She has now been discharged on bed rest.  The lawyer for the family, Nicole Maor of the Israel Religious Action Center, said that they had been subjected to racial abuse by the police officers, who reportedly yelled at them: “Afro-Americans, darkies, we don’t need you here.” (thanks Sarah)

bigots on the loose

"Campbell Soup Co., the Camden, N.J., food giant, has been fighting a grass-roots boycott of its products after its Canadian subsidiary rolled out a line of soups certified as halal, meaning they're prepared according to Islamic dietary laws." (thanks Fahd)

Only Maronites can apply to this job

This is an actual ad for a driver--a Maronite driver only.

Don't think that Arab writers and academics are free of the trash "Arab mind" approach

"The Arab mind suffers from three "prisons" that have prevented the Arab world from reaching its full potential, Egyptian liberal thinker Tarek Heggy told a rapt Maghreb audience on Saturday (October 16th).  Speaking at the Faculty of Arts in Tunis, Heggy identified three things which keep the Arab mind constrained: "conservative religious thought, backward educational curricula and hysterical fear of the other"."   Later Heggy I am sure said that Jamal Mubarak is the best form of an Arab mind.  (thanks "Ibn Rushd")

When James Zogby tries to analyze the Arab world

I always tell the story when in 1992, Zogby took to the Washington Post to support the appointment of Martin Indyk for a senior Middle East policy position in the Clinton administration.  "I called him up and said to him: I don't mind that you make a fool of yourself in the US, just don't do it on behalf of Arab-Americans."  He now wants to analyze the Arab world for you:  "Myth three: The Angry Arab. There certainly are some angry Arabs, but most people say they are mostly concerned about their families and jobs. They like watching movies and TV shows. You know, they're people."  Like people with concerns about families and jobs can't be angry--POLITICALLY.

Iran and Saudi Arabia

I have learned that Saudi Arabia has spent close to $1 billion in the last Lebanese parliamentary election, while Iran spent around $100 million.  Syria set aside $50 million to spend but was snookered by the Saudi government which urged Syria to agree to a pledge that neither Syria nor Saudi Arabia would spend any money in the Lebanese election.

Saudi reforms

"Yet the changes remain, in many ways, cosmetic. King Abdullah has championed international dialogue between religions, for instance. But when Saudi schools reopened in September, parents were surprised to find that in the new, “reformed” religion curriculum, supposedly purged of bigotry as part of a post-September 11th initiative to promote a more tolerant Islam, students are still taught that it is wrong to say hello to non-Muslims."

"Moderate Arab regimes": King PlayStation

"Here too, electoral rules tilt the playing field, in this case in favour of loyalists to the ruling Hashemite family. In particular, the rules for electoral districting give greater representation to thinly populated rural constituencies than to dense urban ones, where Jordanians of Palestinian origin dominate. King Abdullah, unlike Mr Mubarak, has twice exercised his prerogative to dissolve parliament."

Religious laws in the US

"In the United States both secular and religious arbitration are firmly established, operating under a Federal Arbitration Act that gives robust standing to the procedure but also allows the parties to counter-appeal to ordinary courts on certain grounds (though America’s church-state separation stops courts hearing arguments about doctrine). Christian and Jewish arbitration is well-organised. The Muslim variety is lower-key and less formal, but so far not (barring outbursts from tea-partistas like Ms Angle) especially controversial."

Actuality--to use the language of Hegel--of the Zionist Idea

"Liberal Israelis fear that these measures may import the Arab-Israeli conflict, which had been largely confined to the territories occupied by Israel beyond the 1948 partition line, into Israel proper. Adding to the psychological barriers, the Lod authorities have erected physical ones. This year they have finished building a wall three metres high to separate Lod’s Jewish districts from its Arab ones. And where the Arab suburbs are cordoned off to prevent their spread, Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, encourages building for Jews to proceed with abandon.  His foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, on the coalition’s far right, champions building quarters for soldiers’ families in the town. The equally chauvinistic interior minister, Eli Yishai, who heads an ultra-Orthodox party, Shas, grants building permits for religious Jews. A series of gated estates are sprouting across the city reserved for religious Zionists. “These blocks will ensure Lod stays Jewish,” says Haim Haddad, the town’s chief rabbi, one of the first to move into a new estate.  By contrast, old Arab houses are under threat of demolition. Now and again, bulldozers demolish a couple, stressing Arab vulnerability. A study by a liberal Israeli group called Shatil (“Seedling”) estimates that 70% of Arab homes in Lod lack legal status. Many municipal services, such as street lighting and rubbish collection, stop at the boundaries of Arab suburbs. Sixteen kilometres (ten miles) from Tel Aviv, Israel’s richest city, sewage flows through some of Lod’s Arab streets.

Once mixed districts are separating. Ramat Eshkol, a housing estate built for Jewish immigrants in the ruins of Lod’s old Arab city, bulldozed after the 1948 war, is today a squalid slum, housing mostly Arabs. Piles of rubbish make it grimier than refugee camps in Gaza, the blockaded Palestinian territory 35km to the south. Gangs cruise the streets. The local community centre has been shut for the best part of a decade, says its last employee: the Jewish Agency, a welfare organisation, does not want it “overrun with Arabs”.  Crime is rife. Police have uncovered caches of semi-automatics and grenades. At present Lod’s Arabs aim them largely at each other, waging clan turf wars and carrying out honour crimes. But Jews fear they could yet turn on them. After Lod’s eighth murder this year, Mr Netanyahu said he would stop the city descending into Israel’s “wild west”. He briefly sent in the border guard, Israel’s gendarmerie, reviving Arab fears of dispossession anew. Lod’s 120-strong police is Muslim-free.  Tension and fear increasingly mirror the West Bank. Arab locals refer to the Jewish newcomers as mustawtineen, meaning settlers. They also suspect the municipality of denying them services, to prise them out by stealth. Jews say that “the Arabs” pose a security threat because they could fire mortars at planes landing at Ben Gurion airport nearby. Some suggest raising bands of vigilantes. “I feel safer in Kedumim [a national-religious West Bank settlement],” says an Orthodox Israeli woman who has just moved her family of six into a new national-religious housing block.  Voting patterns reflect the divide. Arabs who once voted for Jewish-led parties now vote for Arab ones, if at all. A growing number veer towards Islamist groups that fill the vacuum left by the municipality with their own services. The most extreme consider co-operation with state institutions to be kufr, or unbelief. Jews, too, are attracted in growing numbers to hard-right parties. In the 2006 election Mr Lieberman’s “Israel is Our Home” took 22% of the vote, twice its national average."

California dreaming...

...high in the skies

Agents of Innocence

I have mentioned this book before: it should be read by all interested in Middle East studies.  It is written by Washington Post columnist, David Ignatius.  The book is supposedly a work of fiction but I can tell you it is a true story of the political career of Bob Ames, and his relationship with the PLO.

They really heart the state of Israel

"Andrew J. Shapiro, assistant secretary for political military affairs at the State Department, said the administration had looked at the regional balance of power in the Middle East and "concluded it would not negatively impact Israel's security interests or Israel's qualitative military edge." Israel recently signed a deal to buy 20 U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets."