The Jordanian Minister who had shot his sister because she married a Muslim: Christian "honor crimes" don't get Western media coverage

Still waiting to see if any Western media, which usually are super sensitive to the plight of women--only overseas and only if repressed by Muslim men--will cover the story of the Jordanian Minister, Malik Haddad.  As you know, Jordanian King appointed Malik Haddad (a wealthy businessman with ties to the prime minister and the ruling elite) as Minister of Transportation in the new cabinet this week. A Jordanian reporter posted on Facebook reminding readers that Haddad had in fact killed his sister three decades ago for marrying a Muslim man.  He only served five years in jail and was paroled by King Husayn (your friend).  The reporter who posted reminding people about Haddad, was I am told pressured by the palace and had to delete his post. But it was too late, and the Minister resigned.  If this was a Muslim Minister who killed his sister for marrying a Christian, it would have been made into a movie of the week, and the New York Times magazine would have led with a cove story.  

Guess which of them is campaigning as the candidate of "working people"?

Western correspondents in Beirut and emotionalism and sentimentalism

When Palestinians are killed by Israel, I have over the years asked Western correspondents for their lack of outrage at Israeli crimes.  And I often receive the same answers: that they adhere to certain bogus standards of journalism where they can't express any emotionalism or sentimentalism about conflict they cover. Yet, in the last few months I have discovered that Western correspondents in Beirut are capable of plenty of emotional coverage (in their media or on twitter) provided that culprits of crimes are not aligned with the US.  So they can easily express emotional outrage at Russian and Syrian regime crimes but never at US and Gulf regime crimes.  So they have emotions, after all, albeit they are fake emotions and only employed within the confines of US foreign policy interests.

Kenneth Roth and the Foreign Policies of Human Rights Watch

Somebody should do a study of the foreign policies of Human Rights Watch by reading their reports (and the language of the reports) coupled with looking at the tweets of Kenneth Roth. It becomes rather clear that dictatorships aligned with the US get far better treatment than dictatorship opposed to the US.  Their Israeli bias is too obvious to even point out.  But Roth for example is riling about Venezuela and the need for a referendum when he is silent about lack of any representative systems in Gulf regimes.  He also never uses the word "slaughter" to refer to Israeli crimes or to crimes by US and its allies in the Gulf, but uses it only to foes of the US around the world.  But I like that Human Rights Watch does not even try anymore to feign non-political standards.

There is another smart Hariri son, and it is not Sa`d

"Ayman Hariri, a billionaire businessman and son of celebrated Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, recently revealed that, over the course of the last 16 years, he has been compiling one of the world's most impressive collections. Dubbed 'The Impossible Collection', Hariri's hoard contains some of the rarest comic books out there, including the finest quality edition of Action Comics #1, which marked the first appearance of Superman."

What I love most about mainstream Western journalism: this meticulous methods of documentation with diverse sources--case of Nicholas Blanford

From Basim:

“I think the most important [threat to the agreement] is that the Syrian government has not relinquished its goal of recapturing all Syria in the medium- to long-term,” says Robert Ford, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington and former ambassador to Damascus.

George Sabra, a Syrian opposition politician, accused the Syrian government of attempting to control the flow of aid to Aleppo and other areas, voicing pessimism that the cease-fire will last.

Despite the cease-fire’s gloomy prospects, a key consideration toward pushing the diplomatic process forward would be to remove Syria’s civilian population from the firing line, says Fred Hof, director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

“It’s hard to get the opposition to go along with something that they suspect and know that the regime will take advantage of to find a military solution to the conflict,” says Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Peace.

“The US needs to think about two issues if it wants to manage the war – punishing the Assad regime for cessation-of-hostilities violations while not striking Russians. Second, working with neighboring countries to consolidate their spheres of influence into buffer or safe zones,” says Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“It’s all down to the US doing something or not…. I think the US clearly is entering a period of 'coma,' or hibernation, with the presidential election,” says Yezid Sayigh, senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut."

Palestinian dissociation from Mahmoud Abbas

Palestinians have been circulating and signing a document of dissociation form Mahmoud Abbas.  It is amazing that in all the fawning coverage of Peres in US media, none really covered the depth of anger and contempt of him by Arabs (young and old).

Those activists in Syria

Regarding my post yesterday about "activists" in Syria: and those activists are all residing in rebel-held areas, or what are called by Syrian "revolutionaries" "liberated areas".  But should not those activists be located in government-held areas as they aim to overthrow the government? But my question to Western correspondents (and to Amy Goodman of DN) is this: how do you obtain their phone numbers? Is there a Directory of Syrian Activists? Or do some media centers and opposition outfits which supply with those numbers? But do you trust those who supply you with the numbers? How do you verify that they are indeed activists and not rebels, or not people lounging in hotel lobbies in Istanbul?  How do you know?

The farce which is called the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: the source of much of Western reporting on Syria

To my mind, the Syrian Observatory has been discredited from early on, not only due to its Qatari regime (and other) funding, but due to its comical reporting on Syrian casualties and developments. I remember in one case, they changed the estimate of the population of a town three times in a few days.  But yesterday, the Observatory, as it is called, released its estimate of Syrian casualties of Russian bombing of Syria after one year.  Now, I am fiercely opposed to Russian and US bombing of Syria and believe that Russian and US bombs kill innocent people--and unlike Syrian "revolutionaries" I believe that what is needed is less and less US bombing, and not more and more of it), but this struck me.  The Observatory claimed that Russian bombing in one year killed 9364 people, including 3804 civilians--906 of them were children.   Now how on earth can the Observatory (based in London with "correspondents on the ground" we are constantly reassured in Western media) reach this specificity in estimate of casualties? What is the methodology, especially given the multiparty interventions in Syria? How can the Observatory know for sure whether the person was killed by Russian bomb, or Syrian regime bomb, or US bomb, or French bomb, or Danish bomb? Curiously, the Observatory also claims that Russia killed some 2746 fighters of ISIS.  Does that not make Russia the single most effective killer of ISIS then, according to the numbers of Syrian Observatory?  Someone helps me please.

PS I would not be surprised if the Syrian Observatory releases its estimate of tables and chairs damaged by Russian bombs.

Saudi regime unleashes its anti-Semitic venom in response to JASTA

According to this Saudi regime media personality, this is how Saudi regime explains JASTA. He says: "Congress is controlled by the Jewish lobby, and a large percentage of wealthy Jews in the US are from the Jews of Isfahan." I am quoting verbatim.

This is how the US ignited the Lebanese Civil War (5)

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar: "This is how the US Ignited the Lebanese Civil War (5):  The Emergence of the role of the Lebanese "Merchant of Death" ".

How US media report on Arab reactions to Shimon Peres

It is very hard for US media to concede the extent of Arab deep detestation of Shimon Peres. On the few occasions when they make a passing reference to Arab reactions, they belittle to the point of saying: they object to his settlements policy, as it if the root of their resentment against him, and as if Arabs speak the language of State Department spokespeople.

Palestinians are circulating this on social media

It says: "O, ugly face.  I attest to God that I detest you.  You have broken our backs, and hijacked our victory, and aided our enemy, and turned our friends against us, and blackmailed our people, and starved our folks, and besieged our lands.  You have dropped our cause, and accepted humiliating  and permitted debacles.  You betrayed Gaza, and prevented dignity.  Your grey hair is a shame, and your face is fire, and your goodness is lowly, and your evil is revenge.  The tongues of adults, and children have cursed you, o jack ass".  (It all rhymes in Arabic except the jackass bit at the end).

This PA officer was fired yesterday because he posted on Facebook against PA participation in funeral of Shimon Peres

There is a storm over Mahmoud Abbas participation in the funeral of war criminal, Shimon Peres

Even the "Youth of Fath" at Beir Zeit are protesting this humiliating participation.

Interviewing activists in Syria on Democracy Now

This baffled me. That Amy Goodman still, like the Western correspondents in the Times and Post talk to what they call "activists" in rebel-held areas.  What does that mean? There was activism in Syria during the early months of the uprising before it became a civil war with outside intervention from all sides. Do they mean that you can live in Nusrah-held area or other rebel-held areas and be an activist?  An activist for what? democracy and feminism in Ghutah?  What does that mean? And how do they obtain the phone numbers of those "activists"? This like saying that the Syrian regime allows activism and dissent in its areas.  It is sad that even leftist Democracy Now does not deviate ONE BIT from the mainstream media narrative on Syria.  Not one bit.  From Democracy Now to WSJ, passing through the Economist, they all sound the same.

The real picture of Saudi Arabia

"Mohammed bin Salman’s treatment of domestic affairs seemed as headstrong as his treatment of foreign ones. Apparently in return for sanctioning the youngster’s accumulation of power, the clerical establishment secured the dismissal of the country’s first female minister, appointed in laxer times by Abdullah, the late king. Religious police resumed their raids on private premises. A young female accountant told us how they had detained a male colleague sharing her office, in violation of their codes. A spring festival in the south was shut down after prepubescent girls joined in a folkloric dance. McDonald’s revamped its fast-food franchises, and renovated signs segregating their counters and seating areas by sex.

At literary salons, writers recounted stories of people jailed for blaspheming. Some were fed watermelon to fill their bladders, they said, and then had their penises tied. In November 2015 Ashraf Fayadh, a Palestinian poet raised in Saudi Arabia, was sentenced to death for voicing religious doubts. “I am Hell’s experiment on the Planet Earth,” he had written in his offending volume of poems. (After much international protest and a worldwide reading of his poems, a panel of judges upheld the verdict of apostasy but commuted the sentence to eight years in prison and eight hundred lashes.) “For the first time in my life, I’m truly afraid,” a news editor told me. The dearth of names in this review is testimony to how nervous even prominent figures have become."

Begging US Congress to not upset Saudi Arabia

"Obama and CIA Director John Brennan practically begged Congress to refrain from the override, to no avail. Senate leaders said they might consider legislation limiting the bill’s scope if it provoked strong foreign reaction. Perhaps we have become a country where Congress has to go over a cliff before it thinks about a parachute. That has been the case with budget issues, and now foreign policy."

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now

It seems that Amy Goodman and the Saudi Foreign Minister see eye-to-yet on Syria. Those two are the last people still speaking about "a Syrian revolution".  

JASTA

How many of those pundits angrily denouncing US Congress for passing the JASTA bill are affiliated with DC-based think tanks which are funded (partially at least) with Saudi and Gulf money?  I like how angry the folks at Center for Strategic and International Studies are.  No, the best part is when they interview "experts" affiliated with Gulf lobbies in DC without identifying them as such in  US papers.  

When Christians engage in "honor killing" in the Middle East, it never gets reported in Western media

So 24 hours after the buffoonish King of Jordan appointed Malik Haddad as a Minister of Transportation in his new cabinet, Haddad had to resign.  Why? Because people on social media reminder Jordanians that back in 1980, this minister (who comes from a Christian family) had killed his own sister because she married a Muslim man.  He served only 5 years in jail.  When asked about the matter yesterday, Haddad said it was a "personal matter".

Don't forget that Obama is also bombing Somalia and bombs are also falling on the "wrong people"

"An airstrike in northern Somalia killed as many as 22 troops overnight, local officials said Wednesday, and one region said the United States had been duped into attacking its troops.  Galmudug’s security minister, Osman Issa, said 22 of his region’s soldiers were killed in the strike, adding that the rival neighboring region of Puntland had requested it on the pretext that the men were al-Shabab militants.  “Puntland misinformed the United States and, thus, our forces were bombed,” Issa said.  In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman told reporters that the United States had carried out a “self-defense airstrike” after Somali troops faced fire from militants as they tried to stop an explosives-making network.  Capt. Jeff Davis said that nine al-Shabab militants were killed in the strike but that the Pentagon was looking into reports that the strike could have killed others."

The Economist strongly lobbies for Al-Qa`idah in Syria

"The main purpose of the JFS tactic of distancing itself from al-Qaeda was to reassure other less extreme outfits that it shares their patriotic ambitions and does not have some wider jihadist agenda. It is apparently working. In Aleppo, the sense of abandonment by the West has driven more moderate groups into the arms of JFS. "  So according to the Economist, the Jihadis of Al-Qa`idah who swore allegiance to Bin Laden, don't really have a Jihadist agenda. But the second part of the passage is classic: so secular and democratic and feminist rebels, simply join Jihadi terrorist organizations because they feel abandoned by the West.  So if the correspondent of the Economist in the Middle East feels abandoned by the West, will she also join Al-Qa`idah alas?

US media did not dare to mention any negative aspects about the career of Shimon Peres (not that he had any positive aspects)--not even what was mentioned in Israel

Here at least the Economist, which usually lousily rarely deviates from mainstream media in its coverage of the Middle East: "Rabin called him, aptly, “the tireless intriguer”. Though politics obsessed him from childhood, driving out (some said) all other interests, he was wooden on television and was perhaps too fond of aphorisms (“You can turn eggs into omelettes, but it is very difficult to turn omelettes into eggs.”) Personal political relationships were difficult. His closest ally was Moshe Dayan, but the adoration he bestowed on the dashing former general was not reciprocated. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, appreciated his talents, but would not confide in him...Throughout his career he was ribbed for his vanity, including plastic surgery..."

PS New York Times called his silly aphorisms poetry and philosophy.  

NYT: U.S. military intervention in Syria is not intervention

"Since 2014, according to official Pentagon figures, the US has carried out 5,337 airstrikes in Syria. According to the monitoring group Airwars, these airstrikes (along with a few hundred strikes by US allies) have likely killed between 818 and 1,229 Syrian civilians. Nor is direct US military intervention in Syria limited to aerial attacks. In May 2015, the New York Times (5/16/15) reported on a combat raid by US Delta Force commandos in eastern Syria." "The Times, for its part, is engaging in some kind of linguistic contortion of its own to make none of this qualify as “direct military intervention in Syria.” Presumably it has something to do with the airstrikes and special forces not being aimed at the Syrian government of Bashar Assad, but at the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS—a rival to Assad’s power in Syria that the US is semi-officially at war with, even as Washington provides arms and training to other armed groups trying to overthrow Assad."

U.S. sends more soldiers to Iraq

"The addition of more than 600 additional troops in the coming weeks will bring the force management level to 5,262 U.S. troops as of today, said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, director of Pentagon press operations."

"The U.S. military activity in Niger is not isolated"

"The files obtained by The Intercept attest to the importance of Agadez for future missions by drones, also known as remotely piloted aircraft or RPAs. “The top MILCON [military construction] project for USAFRICOM is located in Agadez, Niger to construct a C-17 and MQ-9 capable airfield,” reads a 2015 planning document." "The U.S. military activity in Niger is not isolated. “There’s a trend toward greater engagement and a more permanent presence in West Africa — the Maghreb and the Sahel,” noted Adam Moore of the department of geography at the University of California in Los Angeles and the co-author of an academic study of the U.S. military’s presence in Africa."

US & EU sanctions are punishing Syrians

"The sanctions and war have destabilized every sector of Syria’s economy, transforming a once self-sufficient country into an aid-dependent nation. But aid is hard to come by, with sanctions blocking access to blood safety equipment, medicines, medical devices, food, fuel, water pumps, spare parts for power plants, and more." "Around the same time, the CIA began directly shipping weapons to armed insurgents at a colossal cost of nearly $1 billion a year, effectively adding fuel to the conflict while U.S. sanctions obstructed emergency assistance to civilians caught in the crossfire."

Shimon Peres oversaw a bloody massacre in Lebanon, among many other massacres and war crimes on his resume

"From April 11 to April 27 that year, under the leadership of then prime minister Peres, the Israeli military launched 600 air raids and fired about 25,000 shells into Lebanese territory." "About 400,000 Lebanese civilians were forced to flee their homes in the war. Roughly 800 civilians sought refuge in the U.N. compound in the southern Lebanese village of Qana because Israel was bombing their homes. “Most of the civilians at the U.N. compound were women, children and elderly people who were too poor or otherwise unable to get transportation out of the areas of shelling,” the Center for Constitutional Rights noted in a fact sheet. In one day alone, more than 100 Lebanese civilians were killed in an Israeli attack on a U.N. compound. Nearly half the victims were children, and U.N. personnel were wounded. The incident is now known as the Qana massacre." "An Israeli magazine later published an interview with a military officer who called the victims “just a bunch of Arabs,” adding, “A few Arabs die, there is no harm in that.” " (thanks Amir)

Young Arabs on social media prepared a "black list" about the Arabs who participated in the funeral of Shimon Peres

Of course, American Zionists can't get to admit that Arab detested Shimon Peres, so they now stick to the mantra: that he was "complicated"

"The Israeli-Palestinian issue is not high on the region's agenda these days, amid other wars and crises, noted Michael W. Hanna, a Middle East expert at the New York-based Century Foundation. "Besides, Peres left behind a complicated legacy," he said."  There is nothing complicated in war crimes and those who commit them.

Those civilians in a bomb shelter in Qana (where my aunt lived) were ordered murdered by Shimon Peres

So according to Thomas Friedman (which has been his theme for years), Israel is forced to be brutal by the brutality and savagery of Arab "neighbors"

"He knew that the Middle East was not Scandinavia — that Israel faced merciless enemies and that the Jews could carve out and sustain their own state in such a region only if they, too, were merciless when they had to be. "  So they let her do it.  Arabs made Israel commit all those war crimes and massacres over the years.

Invocation of the word Holocaust about Syria

Many in the West have consistently argued that it is anti-Semitic to throw casually the word "Holocaust" to describe current evil in the world.  Personally, I avoid using the terminology out of respect for the solemnity of the victims of the Holocaust. Yet, over the last few weeks, US journalists and Syrian supporters of the "revolution" have been casually describing the horrors of Aleppo as "holocaust".  How come that does not produce charges of anti-Semitism?

How US Zionist media just don't want to concede that Arabs hate and despise Israeli war criminal, Shimon Peres

This is what the Times said: "Mr. Peres was seen as a more complicated figure among Palestinians, who remembered his role in advancing settlements in the West Bank and in ordering a brief but intense military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1996 that led to civilian deaths."  No, Arabs don't see him as "complicated" at all. They hate him and despise him.  And no, it is not only about settlements and the "brief" war crime in Lebanon. It is about a long career of war crimes.  As Minister of Defense, he ordered countless bombing raids on civilians in Lebanon in the 1970s.  To say that Palestinians view Peres as complicated is like saying that Jewish people (and others) view Hitler as a complicated figure.  

The New York Times is so protective of Shimon Peres in its obituary that it didn't want to mention that his wife had left him

This is what the times said: "Mr. Peres was married to the former Sonya Gelman, who shunned the spotlight to the point of refusing to move into the president’s house when he took his last public post."  It implies that she did not move into the apartment because she shunned the limelight, when Peres had admitted that she had left him.

Jordan and free speech in the New York Times

Comrade Joseph Massad wrote this response (I cite with his permission): "This article by Hiber’s Lina Ujaylat is true to the liberal commitments of her organization. What is frustrating, however, is the offensive appeal to an American imperial and liberal audience about the question of free speech without bringing in similar limitations in the US. Had she published the article in Arabic in Jordan, that would have been fine, but choosing to publish it in the NYT places an ethical responsibility on ‘Ujaylat, which she did not shoulder.  Anyone who is familiar with free speech issues in the United States knows the limitations on so-called “Hate Speech” in US juridical practice and on opinions that call for the violent overthrow of governments or support for terrorism. In addition, the idea that all views are allowed in the New York Times itself where self-censorship on questions related to “defense” or “national security” is routine, let alone views that are always banned from national newspapers, especially as pertains to Israel, is naive at best.  Had Lina coupled the limitations in the US, both legal and extra-legal, with her important, though by no means original criticisms, of Jordanian government and legal practice, she would have been more convincing in situating Jordan with the US and other liberal countries in limiting free speech —after all, the difference in practice between liberal and conservative dictatorial countries on speech is a difference of degree not of kind— and would have made an ethical intervention rather than a naive and West-worshiping appeal to white imperialist liberals (of course, had she compared Jordan to Israel on the questions of limitations on free speech, as she knows well, the NYT would not have published her piece at all). "

Foreign policy establishment

"For this reason, having the bulk of the mainstream foreign-policy establishment in her corner may not be a great asset for Clinton, and that impression increases when one reflects on how that establishment has behaved in recent decades."

Don't hold your breath

"Like all U.S. presidents, Hillary Clinton would undoubtedly strive to keep the United States No. 1 in the critical areas of global power, and no doubt she’ll talk a lot about America’s global responsibilities, “exceptional” character, and indispensable leadership, blah, blah, blah. But if she’s smart, it will be mostly talk, and not a lot of action, while she focuses on fixing our crumbling infrastructure and repairing our fractured politics. And make no mistake: Those two tasks are a hell of a lot more important to America’s future than trying to determine who’s going to run what’s left of Syria or who gets to pretend to be in charge in Kabul."

Shimon Peres and the 300 Bus Affair

"We must remember the defense minister who flew his helicopter over the settlement of Sebastia to the settlers’ cheers, his dirty political conniving against Yitzhak Rabin, his opposition to the attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, the Iran-Contra affair, spy Jonathan Pollard, Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon, his political defeats, and his desperate clinging to power at all cost. There were also the self-aggrandizing shows he put together, his recommendation letters for white-collar criminals and his ties to shady tycoons and machers. There was also his obsession with himself and the countless broken promises. “His head is in the sky but his feet are stuck firmly in the mood of the day,” someone close to him once said. His light cast many shadows. In 1986, just as he was handing over the premiership to Yitzhak Shamir, Peres met with the Shin Bet’s outgoing deputy head, Reuven Hazak. In the months before, Peres worked tirelessly to cover up one of the most serious affairs in Israel’s history: the Bus 300 affair."

Joseph Massad on Arab Orientalism

An interview with comrade Joseph on Arab Orientalism in UAE's Al-Ittihad.

According to Roger Cohen, Palestinians forced Shimon Peres to commit war crimes

"The killing in Gaza of a leading Hamas operative in January 1996 led to a wave of horrific Palestinian suicide attacks against Israelis over the next two months. These weakened Peres; they undermined Oslo."

Peres and Begin

In Israeli, before this Western festival of eulogies, Peres was also remembered from being the one Labor politician who "mainstreamed" Menachem Begin.  

The real Shimon Peres

This uniform bizarre image of Peres which is being constructed and promoted by Western media has no connection with reality. Read the opinion of none other than Rabin in Peres: he called him a liar and non-trustworthy.   

Who speaks for the Arab people? Well, an Israeli historian of course, according to Roger Cohen of the New York Times

In several days only, I have come across numerous instances in Western media in which readers are informed of what Arabs think, by asking Israelis to speak for them.  This is another: "As the historian Avi Shlaim has written, the Palestinians “regarded Rabin as much more reliable than Peres because with Rabin yes meant yes and no meant no, whereas with Peres both yes and no meant maybe.”"  Of course, Rabin was as despised and distended as Peres.