I was taking a look at the Twitter account of MEMRI, which was founded by a "former" Israeli intelligence official. It is a joke really: a compilation of the utterances of Arab/Muslim kooks, crazies, buffoons, and fanatics. It gives such a distorted image (through often unreliable translations by its Lebanese right-wing staff) of Arab politics and media. This is like devoting a website to translate into Arabic the utterances of US Christian kooks, crazies, and fanatics.
Monday, February 01, 2016
arming war criminals
"The federal government has faced repeated requests to justify the shipment of weapons to Saudi Arabia, a country notorious for its atrocious treatment of women, dissidents and prisoners." "In this deal, the Canadian government is the prime contractor, responsible for delivery of what are believed to be hundreds if not thousands of combat vehicles to the Saudi Arabian national guard. As The Globe and Mail first reported, LAVs sold to the Saudis will be equipped with anti-tank missile cannons and medium-calibre machine guns."
European peacekeepers keep raping African children
"Six more children in the Central African Republic (CAR) have accused European soldiers of sex abuse, the United Nations said on Friday, with one official saying such abuse was "rampant" there. The European Union, Georgia, France and another unnamed European country are investigating the alleged crimes, including rapes, mostly committed in 2014 in or near a camp for displaced people next to the airport at Bangui, CAR's capital."
Emails expose close ties between Clinton & accused war criminal Kissinger
"In a June 2009 email titled “Startegy memo,” Clinton mentions an upcoming dinner she will be having with Kissinger — along with Cold War-era statesman and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who pushed for the U.S. to arm Islamic extremist mujahideen militants in Afghanistan in order to fight the Soviet Union, giving rise to al-Qaeda and the Taliban."
Israeli death threats against Swedish foreign minister
"Swedish security officials are investigating Israeli death threats directed at their foreign minister Margot Wallström." "Wallström has raised the ire of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for suggesting that there should be an investigation into Israel’s frequent killings of Palestinian youths that human rights groups term extrajudicial executions." (thanks Amir)
Wahhabi preachers in China
"The new generation, which was much more engaged and influenced by Saudi Arabia, began to contest the knowledge of the older generation. You had a lot of excommunication within the [Muslim] community, people were saying to each other that they were not real Muslims." (thanks Basim)
Egyptian cartoons
Egyptian cartoonist were pioneering in the Arab world: they were the first to draw political cartoons. When As-Sayyad magazine launched in Beirut in 1943, its publisher Sa`id Furayhah, had to import cartoonists from Egypt.
This guy is a human rights commission member in Saudi Arabia
This Wahhabi cleric is a member of the Saudi government sanctioned Human Rights commission and states that the "deviant" doctrine of Shi`ism is infidel.
Satellite US media outlets in the Gulf, and satellite US universities in the Gulf
Someone should write an article about this: when US universities open up campuses in the Gulf, they immediately forfeit the original mission of the university and serve the political interests of the tyrants of the Gulf, and they ensure that speakers invited to the campus don't in any way offend the host tyrant. Someone should similarly do a story about those Arabic news sites of US news sites: from Huffington Post Arabic to CNN Arabic: those news sites are mirror images of Gulf regime media, and most likely they receive subsidies from Gulf regimes (I am not sure about the arrangement between the Qatari regime and the Huffington Post but there was an arrangement between the two entities through a company close to the Qatari regime).
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Huffington Post Arabic Qatari regime gets more sophisticated
Here in this feature, they say that Putin looks like a dog. That is the level of sophisticated of this Qatari regime website.
Having liberated the women of Afghanistan through cheering the Bush and Obama wars, the New York Times wants to liberate women of India
How patronizing this tone is. I wish that the New York Times devotes space to victims of male violence here in the US: 23 women are killed by husbands or boyfriends PER WEEK here in the US.
Lebanese University Law school and racism against Syrian people
Let me explain Syrian negotiations in Geneva for you
Saturday, January 30, 2016
On Human Rights Watch and Israel
From comrade Eyal: "I don't follow Kenneth Roth, but his comment you quoted annoyed me for a
different reason than yours:
What about the the deeply discriminatory regime in the 1948 territories? _That's_ where you have "deeply discrimatory regime". The West Bank is under _military_occupation_, with shooting at civilians, road blocks, confiscations of land, destruction of houses and agricultural areas etc. etc. Describing the problem in that situation as a "discriminatory" aspect of the regime, be it deep or shallow, is itself a white-washing of reality."
Hair helmets from the 1960s
Have there been medical studies of the harmful effects on women of those hair salon's helmets from the 1960s?
The US-Saudi war on Yemen
It is not noticeable how Western governments, correspondents, media, human rights and relief organizations have gingerly and kindly treated the Saudi/US war crimes in Yemen?
US-UK-Saudi coalition bombings has forced pregnant women to give birth in caves
"People won’t drive to the hospital at night – they are scared that their headlights will give them away in the dark and they’ll be bombed. And patients don’t want to stay overnight in the building as they know that all too often hospitals are targets. The medical staff don’t want to stay either. This is the third time we’ve had a hospital or clinic where we work attacked in Yemen, but altogether 130 health facilities have come under attack since the conflict began last March." "People are more afraid than ever. Since the attack, there have been no deliveries in the maternity room – pregnant women are giving birth in caves rather than risk coming to the hospital."
French racism
"But perhaps what is the most troubling aspect of French racism is its double standard. While opposing the hijab is so normalised even game show host openly criticise it, discussing the Jewish skull cap or kippah is an absolute no-no. Anti-Semitism is understandably unacceptable, the problem is anti-Arab, anti-black racism however is perfectly normalised with pundits regularly making remarks that would simply be unthinkable for Jews."
US-trained military officials face prosecution for atrocities
"According to declassified US military documents from the National Security Archive at George Washington University, 12 of the 18 former military leaders facing charges in Guatemala were trained at the School of the Americas in Georgia."
Human Rights Watch director is worried about Israel's image
He would never talk like this about repression by Iran or Syria or Cuba: that he is worried about their image problem.
| Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) | |
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Hard for Israel to build image when it maintains deeply discriminatory regime on West Bank.
| |
The Saudi-led, US-blessed coalition is waging a military campaign that treats civilians and civilian structures as legitimate military targets
"The Saudi-led coalition is waging a military campaign that treats civilians and civilian structures as legitimate military targets; in May, for example, it declared that the entire Sadaa governorate was a military zone. Coalition fighter jets and artillery have repeatedly hit homes, roads, bridges, schools, gas stations, markets, medical sites, ambulances, supply trucks and displacement camps, killing upwards of 2,800 civilians, according to the United Nations, and wounding many more." "But the U.N. Security Council, through Resolution 2216—authored by Jordan, co-sponsored by the U.S., the U.K., and France, and passed last April—provided diplomatic cover for what we’re seeing today." "In effect, it provided a license to bomb at will and enforce a widespread blockade of goods entering the country."
Palestinian journalist imprisoned by Israel
"Mohammad al-Qiq is on the verge of death. The 32-year-old Palestinian journalist was imprisoned by Israel without charge or trial. In protest of his extralegal administrative detention, al-Qiq has refused food for more than two months. This week marks more than 65 days on hunger strike."
Racial terrorism and racial inequality in the U.S.
"The US government should consider paying reparations to the African-American descendants of slaves, a United Nation working group says." "The group also recommended establishing a national human rights commission and publicly acknowledge the trans-Atlantic slave trade was a crime against humanity. Chairwoman Professor Mireille Fanon-Mendes France said the committee were "extremely concerned about the human rights situation of African-Americans". She said: "The colonial history, the legacy of enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the U.S. remains a serious challenge as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent." "
William Quandt and his new book
One of the signs of the decline and disappearance of Arabists in the US government and punditry in Washington, DC is the new book by William Quandt about Camp David: I could not believe that the cover page has the headline "Forward by Mark Indyk". Why would a knowledgeable real expert of the Middle East--politics aside--like William Quandt needs the blessings of an Israel lobbyist. I am sure that Quandt knows that Indyk was first recruited by the Clinton administration for his closeness to the Zionist establishment and not for his knowledge of the region. But it is a sign of the times: one of the last remaining Arabists seeking legitimacy from an Israeli lobbyist.
Racism of Megan Kelly
" “The neighbors said they saw men going in and out of the garage,” she countered. “They saw packages being delivered. They saw Muslims, and they did not think that was enough to call the cops. Do you?” It was a jaw-dropping moment of pure, unadulterated racism. Kelly’s argument was that behaviors that would never raise an eyebrow if performed by white Christians — receiving packages, having friends over to your house — become suspicious and reason enough to call 911 if being performed by people you suspect are Muslims." "Not that any of this should be a surprise. Kelly has a long and ugly history of saying racist things that manage to be even more stupid than they are offensive." (thanks Amir)
From the statement of "moderate" Muslim (and other) clerics in Marrakesh
I never understand the difference between "moderate" and "extremist" clerics of any religion. Religion breeds extremism. Here is from the final section of the statement of "moderate" Muslim clerics/kooks and it stated: "the conference called upon the representatives of the various religions, sects and schisms to fight off the forms of contempt of religion and insults to sanctities". Clerics of other religions were there, and they are all as bad as the rest.
The reactionary president of Tunisia
The reactionary president of Tunisia (a graduate of the dictatorships of Bjouquiba and Bin Ali) says that "we resist the far left because it is more vicious than extremist Islam".
Correction: It is official: the lady of the Syrian "revolution" in Kafar Nubul (which never shows women) is veiled
anti-clerics sentiments among Arabs
I have predicted in Arabic on social media that the day will come soon when Arabs will chase and drag Muslim clerics from their beards and turban in the streets of Arab cities. Arabs need some inspiration from the anti-clerical element of the Mexican revolution but that revolution has been rarely studied or covered in Arabic.
this is what the West means by "moderate Islam"
"'Tsunami of money' from Saudi Arabia funding 24,000 madrassas in Pakistan"
Arab Public Opinion (4)
My weekly article in Al-Akhbar: "Identity and Foreign Policy: A Look at the "Arab Index" for 2015".
PS This is the last in a series.
PS This is the last in a series.
Syrian officials
Syrian officials are corrupt murderers until they defect: and then they become pure, democratic, and modern.
When Italy's Prime Minister ordered the covering up of nude statues in Florence for Muhammad Bin Zayid, there wasn't one expression of outrage
"PM covers nude statue to spare Sheikh's blushes".
Friday, January 29, 2016
Socialism?
Bernie Sanders is perceived as a socialist when his entire agenda is directed toward the middle class.
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