Kim Ghattas promotes the Jordanian prince

Kim Ghattas seems to like people in power: she promoted March 14 and Hariri family when she was in Lebanon, and later promoted in a forgotten hagiography Hillary Clinton, whose accomplishment as Secretary of State are really non-exsistnt.  Here, Ghattas promotes the Jordanian prince (who was put in his post at the UN by US and Israel) just for making speeches.  She even claims that he was instrumental in founding the lousy ICC.  But what is courageous about this prince? Has he ever criticized the Jordanian regime? Or its allies in the Gulf? Has he spoken against Israel? That would be courageous not criticizing Trump who is detested by the diplomatic community and the DC establishment.  Courage? Give me a break.

Zeal of the converts: converts to Islam and terrorism

I don't think that the generalization contained here is worthwhile: the numbers are too small to warrant this conclusion.

Western human rights duplicity

"Belgium’s foreign ministry wanted Saudi Arabia to know it had voted to elect the kingdom to the UN Commission of Women’s Rights, leaked internal emails have reportedly revealed." "Saudi Arabia was ranked third worst for gender equality in a list of 144 countries compiled for the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Global Gender Gap report. Yet it gained the approval of 47 of 54 countries on the UN's economic and social council. The British government has refused to deny that it voted in favour of Saudi Arabia's inclusion."

Palestinians are told to stop resistance & recognize occupiers

"Israel, meanwhile, is not required to recognize a Palestinian state or any Palestinian rights; Israel continues to use violence, not just with impunity but with weapons supplied by Quartet states; and Israel routinely tramples signed agreements and international law with its massive colonization of occupied Palestinian land."

Al-Qaeda claims it is fighting alongside US-backed coalition forces in Yemen

"The militias receive extensive funding and arms from the US-backed Saudi-led coalition, which has supported President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi with air strikes and ground troops since March 2015." (thanks Amir)

Mafia factions in the Syrian regime

Former governor of the Algerian Central Bank analyzes in Al-Akhbar Syria in 2011: he says that basically there was a conflict in the regime between two intelligence apparatus over their share of the loot from the state.  

Piling children (dead or alive) for photo ops

I wish that Syrian rebels and their supporters would stop the repugnant habit of piling children or parading them (dead or alive) for photographs used in propaganda campaigns. I have never seen a propaganda campaign by a government or group which used dead children as props like the Syrian rebels and their supporters. So distasteful.

Hillary as part of the resistance?

If Hillary Clinton is part of the resistance--as she claimed yesterday--I am part of the Zionist lobby.

Daily Trump report

Trump is still considering moving the US embassy. OK. Tomorrow he will still be considering it. OK. 

Hillary as a speaker

You would think that Hillary--since she isn't a candidate for any offfice--would be less boring as a speaker now. Not the case. And she is coming out with a book--more boring than her husband's account of his administration. 

I can assure Hillary that foreign interference in US elections was far less than her interferences in other countries' elections

Hillary Clinton points to foreign interference as one reason she lost the election, @ckmarie reports http://theatln.tc/2pFTu61 

Cringe worthy humor from Ken Roth:

Someone should just do a comparison of how many tweets of this human rights poseur are devoted to Venezuela versus how many which are devoted to Gulf regimes.

Kenneth Roth‏Verified account @KenRoth  16m16 minutes ago

Vying for Nobel Prize for Chutzpah, Venezuela's Maduro warns of "coup" as he undermines democracy with self-coup. http://bit.ly/2ps2HOQ 

Baha' Hariri and the Atlantic Council

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar: "Baha' Hariri Enters the Gate of Lebanese Politics through the Zionist Gate in DC".

The long American tradition of cuddling despots around the world: Jimmy Carter on the Shah of Iran

Source

As usual, Human Rights Watch resorts to through and scientific methods of documentation in its work on Syria

"Photos and videos of weapon remnants that struck Khan Sheikhoun on April 4 appear to be consistent with the characteristics of a Soviet-made air-dropped chemical bomb specifically designed to deliver sarin."  Can you imagine if HRW were to refer to "photos and videos which appear to be, etc" in its work on Israeli crimes?  Can you imagine Ken Roth allowing that to ever be released?  His favorite "pro-Israel funders" (as he calls them) would revolt.  

No country voted against Saudi Arabia on UN women's rights panel

"The Swedish government, with its proclaimed "feminist foreign policy", has been under pressure to reveal how Sweden voted when the UN elected Saudi Arabia to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in April." "Out of the 54 member states in the Ecosoc council, where the vote was carried out, no country voted against the nomination, 47 voted in favour and 7 abstained." (thanks Amir)

There is alas one decent politician in Arab politics: Salim Hoss (88) on hunger strike to show solidarity with Palestinians

"Lebanon's former Prime Minister Salim Hoss, 88, Tuesday joined a hunger strike with more than 800 Palestinian prisoners to express solidarity with their cause"

Obama literally bowed down to Saudi Despot: but liberals did not notice and still assume that US never dealt with dictators until Trump came to office

Genieve Abdo and Arabic

So a colleague informed me that Genieve Abdo actually does not know Arabic and can't read it despite her use of Arabic words in her book.  Apparently she relies on research assistants for her Arabic.

Syrian rebels shooting at demonstrators: this won't result in outrage in Western media

So "moderate" Syrian rebels of Jaysh Al-Islam (sponsored by the moderate dictatorship of Saudi Arabia) shoot at demonstrators and killed some in Eastern Ghuta. This won't register in Western media.  

Battles between Syrian rebels

Notice that Western media don't bother to cover the blood letting in East Ghuta between various Syrian rebels.  

Philippine leader in DC

It is rather odd: DC establishment and media are up in arms about the visit by the elected president of Philippine but never raise a stink about visit by Gulf autocrats.

The Palestinian composer, Mohammed Fairouz, puts Israeli poetry to music but...

it did not help him. He still was detained at JFK yesterday.

The foreign policy establishment in DC

Having bombed, now Trump is being declared "normal".

Director of Human Rights Watch officially denies that Israel (in 1948 Palestine borders) is guilty of racism

Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth)

4/29/17, 11:38 PM

Apartheid debate isn't about:
1. Israel at home but occupied territories
2. Peace "process" but endless occupation bit.ly/2pguO3j

Saudi news

A man sentenced to death for atheism. If this was in Iran, it would have been on the front pages f Arab and Western newspapers.

Bret Sphenes and the New York Times

This is not satirical: "With Bret Stephens Hire, New York Times Fills Long-Empty Pro-Israel Void on Columnist Roster". (thanks Basim)

David Ignatius: or what the press releases of Jordanian and gulf intelligence services should read like

"Ignatius columns on Saudi Arabia break down roughly into two groups: straight reporting mixed with spin and concern trolling, and outright press releases documenting the dictatorship’s spectacular reforms. First the latter:"

Huffington Post is Arabic is quickly distinguishing itself as one of the worst news website in Arabic--despite the stiff competition

Here, it claims that Hasan Nasrallah has a private wealth of $250 million.  It cites "some news websites".  You click on the link, and it takes you to the Gulf-funded Mossadist Mujahdi Khalq organization.  The site then cites "Saudi newspapers" (which as you know adheres to the highest standards of journalism), which in turn cites "US intelligence reports".  But not even Israeli and US media make that claim. Welcome to the Huffington Post Arabic.  

The role of DC think tanks in the production of propaganda: the lousy book by Geneive Abdo on "The New Sectarianisms"

The role of think tanks in DC has changed. Their ties have also changed.  Brookings for example hosted academic work in the past and was relatively politically courageous in defying in the mid-1070s the DC consensus about Palestinian rights (mildly of course, or slightly).  William B Quandt produced work on Palestinian nationalism while Jerry Hough produced work on the new generation of Soviet leadership.  Hicham Sharabi produced a book early in the 1970s on Palestinian "guerrillas", based on research Sharabi conducted in Jordan.  The role of think tanks have changed: they have become all tied to Gulf regime funding and subsumed under the umbrella of the Zionist lobby. The 1991 US war on Iraq was the watershed: since then, the new alliance between Gulf regimes and Israel started to form, and Israeli opposition to US arm sales to Gulf regimes ended.  They both collaborated to work against Palestinian interests.  Furthermore, Gulf funding was no more controversial.  This was the time when the Clinton administration under Martin Indyk officially killed off the entire contingent of Arabists at the US government.  Robert Kaplan's book on them was more like an obituary.  For that reason, and out of desperation for funding. think tanks because largely vehicles for Gulf and Israeli propaganda.  Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs said (after announcing more than $ 10 million in donations to Brookings) that the think tank will help paint a "rosy picture" of Qatar.  there are similar arrangements with other think tank. Look at the Hariri Center at Atlantic Council: they tweet around the clock on various aspects of Middle East politics (but always from the AIPAC standards) and yet not a word about Palestinian affairs. Not a word.  So Geneieve Abdo (who was a resident fellow at the Hariri Center) published a book a few months ago about The New Sectarianisms: The Arab Uprisings and the Rebirth of the Shi`a-Sunni Divide.  I honestly can't think about a worse book in recent years.  It is rather shocking.  This was published by (the New York branch) of Oxford University Press, although the contents of the book are to academic production what tomatoes are to Tabbuleh.  She tries hard in the book to sound original and the results are rather comical. She tells the reader early on that the most consuming political and intellectual issue among Arabs/Muslim is the question: Who is a true believer and who is a non-believer (p. 1). Only someone who has not read one Arabic article or book by Arabs would make this claim.  This is someone who clearly knows what she knows about the region from what she reads in Western media and in MEMRI video clips.  Her book is so brimming with Gulf propaganda that she maintains that the Middle East region was dominated by "Western-style nationalism" (p. 4) until the Iranian revolution erupted.  Yes, Geneive: Saudi and Gulf regimes were in fact Western-style democracies until the Iranian revolution spoiled the fun.  She expresses surprise that Western analysis did not pay attention to religion in the region until recently (I am not kidding, she said that, p. 6).  She also justifies Gulf oppression because she said that they fear democracy simply because they fear She`ite domination (p. 8).  But wait: she then talks about intellectual and academic currents. Here, she says that Western analysis suffers from disregard of the role of religion in Arab politics.  With the plethora of books on Islam since the 1970s, and the heavy dosages of theologcentrism in Western analysis and scholarship, Geneieve wants you to pay more attention to Islam and religious analysis of the region (p. 9).  But Genieve even ventures on issues relating to Islamic history: watch her here: "The history of the Sunni-Shi`a rift is, essentially, a history of the present" (p. 10).  I mean if this does not impress you as philosophical and historiographical, nothing will impress you.  And then she takes case studies of sectarianism: there isn't a world that could not have the stamp of approval from the nearest Saudi embassy and consulate. Look at her section on Lebanon: she mentions Nabil Halabi (a Salafite advocate and the head of what he calls the Lebanon Coordination Committee of the Syrian Revolution, as "a human rights lawyer" (p. 91).  This is like identifying Ayman Dhawahiri as "a medical expert".   Here entire Lebanon section is a compilation of the talking points of the Hariri press office.  On p. 94, she manages to interview a man she identifies as "a founder" of the Lebanese Armed Forces, i.e., the Lebanese Army.  So the Lebanese Army was founded (by the French as Legions of the East) back in 1916.  So let us assume that this founder of the army was 20 at the time, so he is now over a hundred years of age.  If only she named that man for us.  She then interviews the spokesperson of the Alawite Arab Democratic Party, `Ali Fudda. She attributes terrible sectarian anti-Sunni sentiments and expressions to him, which surprised me.  He never speaks in sectarian terms despite his position in a predominantly a Alawite party in Lebanon.  So I asked him when I first read the book months ago about that, and he categorically denied and he even posted on Facebook an official detail in which he said that what Genieve attributed to him was false and untrue.  She even maintains that "many Shia" associates "all Sunnis with Wahhabism". She provides no evidence or example here (p. 97), but that is the nature of her documentation. Either flimsy or no evidence at all.  She identifies that Hariri family chief of security, Wissam Hasan (the man who sponsored Salafi and terrorist groups in Lebanon and Syria and who more than anyone else in Lebanon is responsible for spilling blood in Tripoli and in Syria since 2011) as "a respected Sunni security chief" (p. 98).  She talks about one day of May 7, 2008 as "the Karbala' of Sunnis" (here she cites an MP in the Hariri parliamentary bloc, p 101).  When she talks about Alawites in Lebanon, she cites a man who appears on her pages as a historian when he is really another MP in the Hariri parliamentary bloc (Ahmad Fatfat, p. 108).  She talks about Salafites who are sympathetic to Al-Qa`idah in Lebanon in rather glowing terms (and she does not even mention that they are funded by Gulf regimes).  The worst part of her book is her reference to Sheikh Ahmad Al-Asir (a man who sits in Lebanese jail and has been sympathetic to Al-Qa`idah and ISIS): she claims that Shi`ites manufactured and distributed a toy which produces anti-Sunni invective.  Asir (before his arrest) made that claim in a speech, and all Lebanese media at the time investigated the claim and brought those US-manfactured the toys and showed that they produce English words and have nothing to do with Arabic. Even Asir related conceded that he was "in error" but Genieve repeated the outrageous claim (p. 112).  But like most Western correspondents she assures readers that Hizbullah losing support among She`ites: her source her (and elsewhere) is a pro-Hariri journalist (p. 114).  In the section on Bahrain, she clearly and ceagorially identifies with the repression and autocracy of the ruling dynasty.  She tells you that they crush opposition because they are afraid of Iranian intervention (p. 118).  She adds that Iranian propaganda is rather scary to the democratic regimes of the Gulf.  But she found evidence of Iranian intervention in Bahrain: she found out that a Bahraini cleric had studied in Iran. Imagine. The horrors.   And when there is no evidence, Genieve fabricates evidence: she basically claims that Iranian and Hizbullah media conceded that they were behind the Bahrain opposition protests.  Imagine.  This is what is being produced by Gulf-funded think tanks in DC.  

Only in America?

White Americans love to hear an non-white immigrant tell them "only in America". No, in every country there are exceptional "successes".  

Daily Telegraph and anti-Semitism

Notice how Zionist publications try to associate pro-Palestinian activism with repugnant anti-Semitic expressions.   Once again: anti-Semites don't belong to pro-Palestinian activism and should be categorically excluded and shunned.

It is fair to say

That the degree of American sympathy with the Syrian people is directly proportional to the degree of one's support for Israeli aggression and occupation. Coincidence?

You know how sincere US sympathy with Syrians is when the most hateful enemy of the Palestinian people feigns sympathy with Syrians

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (@RosLehtinen)

4/28/17, 11:30 AM

Watch my Q&A frm #Syria hrng: #Assad responsible 4 #ISIS - it can't be defeated while this butcher remains in power: youtu.be/Skf2-C3_ha0

Look how the same statement is marketed differently between two media

From Basim: Saudi: "Syria’s Assad tells interviewer: ‘Yes, you are now sitting with the devil’

Russian:  "Yes, from a Western perspective, you are now sitting with the devil. This is how they market it in the west," Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told teleSUR's Rolando Segura in an exclusive interview from Damascus ..."

The Defense Minister of Australia is identified as Defense Minister of France in Ar-Ra'y newspaper of Jordan

Notice the front-pages of Jordanian newspapers.

Director of Saudi lobby introduces Muhammad bin Salman to WINEP

He says that Muhammad bin Salman is LBJ, JFK, Thatcher, Churchill, Netanyahu, Reagan, Jackson, Trump and Peron all combined in one: "This is because Saudis are looking to the 31-year old Deputy Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to ensure equality. Despite the many challenges, he is attempting to undertake LBJ-like social reforms and Thatcher-like economic reforms in a country that is infamously resistant to change".

Palestinians face Israeli-imposed water hardships

"High up on Israel’s list of fabricated and otherwise shamelessly embellished achievements is that of having allegedly “made the desert bloom” promptly after setting up shop on usurped Palestinian land in 1948. Never mind that Palestine wasn’t exactly a desert - or that “blooming” techniques involved mass slaughter as well as plenty of ecological devastation." (thanks Amir)

Is it me? Leonardo DiCaprio and the bear

In the scene between the grizzly bear and Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie The Revenent, which I tried several times to watch but was never able to finish, I must confess that I found myself rooting for the bear against DiCaprio.

Implicating Syrian refugees in a crime in Germany?

From Jörg in Berlin: "There is again a bizarre scandal about Germany's "deep state": "Franco A. is suspected of being a staunch right-wing extremist, full of hate for foreigners and prone to violence. Furthermore, at the end of 2015, he established a secret identity as a Syrian refugee. One of the theories investigators are pursuing is that Franco A. had hoped to implicate refugees in the act of violence he was planning."

Is this guy running for office? He so reminds me of the Clintons

"I have a Christian wife; I have twin sons, one of whom is convinced he's Jewish, and one of whom, after he read the Ramayana, was like, "That's it, I'm Hindu." I have a two-year-old boy that we just assume is a reincarnation of the Buddha in some way. So every Sunday, we get together and share one particular religious story, whether it's of the Buddha or Ganesha or from the Gospel, and then we pick some value to learn from it, and then we, as a family, put that value into practice in our home and in our lives." This so strikes me as charlatanism.  

Bernie Sanders among the 100 senators who signed the letter of Israeli occupation and aggression

This should be remembered by all those who tried to beautify the lousy record of Bernie Sanders--the one who suffers from the same disease of political cowardice which afflicts all members of US Congress especially when it comes to Israel. Notice that the signatories don't shy away form threatening and blackmailing the UN on behalf of Israel.  All UN agencies are judged purely on the basis of their services to Israel. (thanks Eyal)

Obama's speech for Wall Street

Don't be unfair to the man. I heard that he will be reading the Communist Manifesto to the audience.

Macron: what a candidate

Watch this segment of a speech by Macron. What a lousy candidate. How uninspiring.  Hillary Clinton (who has no charisma whatsoever) has more charisma than this man. This guy has less oratorical skills than Cicero of the Syrian opposition.  But as a friend always says: never underestimate the propensity of the French people to prefer the most boring candidate.

Qatari regime misogyny

This blogger on Aljazeera website has an article titled "I won't marry a working woman".  He says that among the many reasons is that he can't "enjoy her cooking and her summaries of what she read in his absence" if she is working outside the home.