Columbia Journalism Review--for humor and entertainment

"Having interviewed Hezbollah fighters for the last six years, Sulome had unique access to the upper echelons of its militants, including that specific operative’s family members. Over the course of her reporting, Hezbollah members told her they had contingency plans to strike government and military targets on US soil and that they had surface-to-air missiles, which had not been reported before."  I am shocked that they have not told her yet of their nuclear weapons program.

I have said it before: Zionists are the biggest enemies of free speech in the US and Europe

"The American Civil Liberties Union won an early victory today in its federal lawsuit arguing that a Kansas law requiring a public school educator to certify that she won’t boycott Israel violates her First Amendment rights. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law while the case filed in October proceeds. It is the first ruling addressing a recent wave of laws nationwide aiming to punish people who boycott Israel. The law, which took effect on July 1, requires that any person or company that contracts with the state submit a written certification that they are “not currently engaged in a boycott of Israel.” The ACLU is also currently fighting a case filed in December against a similar law in Arizona."

Sultan offers a rather shallow comparison of the Saudi deposit regime with the other Gulf despotic regimes

"Perhaps one area where the smaller Gulf states can claim some advantage over Saudi Arabia is with regard to a more open nightlife. However, the size and diversity of the new opportunities that Saudi Arabia offers may very well start to eclipse the appeal to some of a more liberal nightlife that other Gulf states provide."  And he even adds: "Perhaps one area where the smaller Gulf states can claim some advantage over Saudi Arabia is with regard to a more open nightlife. However, the size and diversity of the new opportunities that Saudi Arabia offers may very well start to eclipse the appeal to some of a more liberal nightlife that other Gulf states provide." What kind of role?  Reading this one gets the impression that it was written by a staffer at the World Bank with little interest or concern for human rights and gender equality and also the lives of Arabs in Yemen, Palestine, and elsewhere.  There is. no mention of Saudi-Israeli alliance.  This is an article that the UAE censor can approve.

This is typical of US hypocrisy: list of Russian oligarchs

If only the US bothers to name and shame US oligarchs before botching with Russian oligarchs.

In the New York Times a democratically elected leader who is a leftist gets worse coverage than the Saudi despot

the case of Bolivia 

Prisoners of Muhammad bin Salman

This is a new trend in torture and imprisonment in the era of Muhammad bin Salman. Those who are and were arrested insist after their release that they were not really prisoners...in their prisons and that the mistreatment that they suffered was not really torture.  

How the New York Times phrases Israeli orders to kill Arab civilians

Look at this: "In the wake of the Nahariya atrocity, Raful Eitan, the I.D.F. general, gave the regional commander Avigdor Ben-Gal a simple order: “Kill them all,” meaning all members of the P.L.O. and anyone connected to the organization in Lebanon."  Members of the PLO? There was no card carrying membership of the PLO. All Palestinians considered themselves members of the PLO. And if you add "anyone connected to the PLO in Lebanon, you have more than half the Lebanese population added to the Palestinian population in Lebanon. This explains why this order was translated into the murder of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians in Lebanon. This is the nature of Israeli terrorism which Arabs won't forgive and why most won't settle for anything less than the dismantlement of the racist terrorist state of Israeli occupation.

Killing Yasser Arafat: Mossad propaganda in the New York Times

The story in the New York Times (which is part of a book which is coming out) is a typical Mossad planted story in US media.  Notice that there is an attempt to show that humanitarian consideration went into planning to kill Arafat. The most fervent effort by Israel to kill Arafat was in the summer of 1982 during the savage siege of Beirut.  As I lived those times, I remember how whole apartment buildings would be bombed by concussion bombs from the air ON THE SUSPICION that Arafat was in the building.   I remember that there were hundreds of people who were incinerated by Israeli fighter jets merely because they lived in apartments where Arafat was suspected by dumb Mossad agents of being there.  There massive sites of bombing that people visited and knew that this was due to wrong Israeli intelligence.  But in the article somewhere toward the end they mention this group:  "With Eitan’s blessing, Ben-Gal appointed the man he considered the I.D.F.’s top expert in special ops, Meir Dagan, to lead the efforts in south Lebanon. The three of them set up the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon From Foreigners." The story says in passing that "hundred of people were killed" by them. But this is what they don't tell you: this front specialized in car bombs in crowded neighborhoods.  They would plant car bombs in West Beirut for purposes of sheer terror.  I would estimate that the number of innocent victims killed by this group was in the thousands and not the hundreds.  This is the record of Israel which many Lebanese and non-Lebanese Arabs won't forget. These are part of the war crimes for which Arabs hold Israel responsible, in addition to the illegal occupation of Palestine--all of Palestine.

PS The title of the book from which this was excerpted is "The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations".  Targeted assassinations when most of those "operations" were actually car bombs and bombing by fighter jets? It should be titled: Israel secret history of murdering and incinerating civilians in the hope that Arafat was among them.

Meet the spies injecting Israeli propaganda into your news feed

"It should be a big wake up call to all defenders of free speech and human rights when a peaceful civil society campaign is targeted by spy agencies responsible for hacking, torture, kidnapping and murder in Palestine and around the world." “I want to create a community of fighters,” Vaknin-Gil said soon after her appointment to the strategic affairs ministry. She said she planned to “flood the internet” with Israeli propaganda that would be publicly distanced from the government."

Germany's record-breaking arms exports

"Angela Merkel's government has approved over €25.1 billion ($30.9 billion) worth of weapons sales since taking power in 2014. This puts the current administration, a coalition of Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), above any other German government in modern history, public broadcaster ARD reported on Tuesday."

WaPo editor blames lack of U.S. leadership for famine caused by U.S. leadership

"Obama and Trump have logistically and politically supported the Saudi-led bombing and blockade of Yemen that caused the famine." (thanks Amir)

This is why the film by the silly Lebanese director got nominated for the Academy Awards: no mystery there

" "Three years ago, while I was watering my plants, I got in a fight with a Palestinian guy because the water was falling on him. And I told him, 'You know, [former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon should have wiped you all out.'"  Can you imagine if he were to say that about, say, Jewish people? Or blacks? Would he still be nominated and would he still be bragging about his bigotry?  

A history of Western rewards for Arabs: Nobel Prizes

Is this a coincidence?  Anwar Sadat got the Nobel Prize for Peace when he visited Israel.  Naguib Mahfouz got the Nobel Prize in literature after he declared his support for peace with Israel.  Ahmad Zuweil received the Nobel Prize for chemistry after he had visited Israel and accepted an award there.  Muhammad Baradei received the Nobel Prize in Peace after he had visited Israel. And of course Yasser Arafat received Nobel Prize in peace after he signed a peace agreement with Israel.  

Regarding the Lebanese film at the Academy Awards

This is a call for all pro-Palestinian activists in the US: the Lebanese film which was nominated for the silly Oscars is a racist anti-Palestinian movie directed by a right-wing normalizer.  

By Sudanese cartoonist, Khalid AlBaih

Arabs are circulating this photoshopped Netanyahu selfie in India

Thugs who raise up arms against a government not aligned with the US are portrayed as heroes: imagine if he was rebelling against a pro-US regime

Look at this heroic account. They even dared to compare him with Che Guevara.  

This is for the history books: New York Times maintains that George W. Bush was "neutral" on the Arab-Israeli conflict

"Though George W. Bush, then the president, encouraged both inclusion of Muslims and neutrality on Israel".

Is there a difference between the writings of members of Saudi lobbies in DC and this article by a Princeton professor?

Read this account of the heroic MbS and his attempt to reign in the royal family to spread democracy, justice, feminism, and even the American way.

It has to be said: the Jordanian King is furious with US foreign policy in the region

Study shows prevalence of unreported Islamaphobic incidents against Muslim women

"Since June, she has been documenting and studying the everyday experience and impact of Islamaphobic violence faced by 21 Muslim women in the GTA [Greater Toronto Area] — these range from being yelled at, sworn at, spit at and experiencing physical and sexual assault. Of the 40 incidents they shared with her, police were involved in only three. The rest were not reported." "One woman, part of Ahmad’s study, described how a man intimately grabbed her and said “what if I did this, would your dad come over and beat me up, or would he, like, you know, bomb my house.” " (thanks Amir)

Does Lebanon have an official (unified) stance vis-a-vis the existence of Israel?

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar: "Does Lebanon have an official (unified) stance vis-a-vis the existence of Israel?"

False report about a Muslim woman in hijab being attacked in Canada?

Those who make false reports of religious or gender or ethnic attacks should be punished because they damage the real cases of real victims of attacks.  Now there is doubt about the veracity of the earlier report which I had posted.

Israeli Mossad terrorism in Lebanon: the failed assassination attempt in Sidon: and US "revelations" about Lebanese intelligence spying WORLWIDE

Is this report about Lebanese intelligence spying worldwide not comical? Is this report really motivated by US/Israeli displeasure with Lebanese intelligence accomplishments in uncovering Israeli terrorist networks in Lebanon? And does the US with its global spying (human and electronic) in a position to present Lebanese intelligence as a threat to the privacy of citizens worldwide? Don't get me wrong. There is no accountability for the work of Lebanese intelligence networks and each is loyal to a different leader or even country (Saudi Arabia in the case of Fir` Al-Ma`lumat), but there isnot much accountability for US spy agencies either.   In other news, Lebanese intelligence apparatus (the one which is closest to Saudi regime and US) uncovered the Israeli terrorist network behind the planting of a bomb in Sidon targeting a teacher.  Do you notice that none of the Western media covered this assassination attempt because the culprits were Israeli? Will this lead to an international tribunal or are Israeli assassinations and bombing exempt from international scrutiny? 

Nine billionaires have more wealth than the poorest 4 billion people

"Ahead, nine of the world's wealthiest people — according to Forbes' Billionaire List — that have more wealth than half the world's population."

Border agents kills migrants by destroying water bottles left by humanitarian groups

"Border patrol agents working in the Arizona desert routinely destroy or vandalise containers of water left for those attempting to illegally cross into the US, condemning them to "suffering, death, and disappearance", according to a coalition of humanitarian groups." "Over the last two decades, the remains of at least 7,000 people have been recovered in the US borderlands."

Coverage of Ahed Tamimi obscures Israeli violence & occupation

"For example, none of the above-mentioned articles mention the risk of Tamimi being seriously harmed in Israeli jails. Yet UNICEF charges Israel with subjecting Palestinian youth to “practices that amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention against Torture.” These include children “being aggressively awakened in the middle of the night by many armed soldiers and being forcibly brought to an interrogation center tied and blindfolded, sleep-deprived,” and “threatened with death, physical violence, solitary confinement and sexual assault, against themselves or a family member.” " (thanks Amir)

How the conflict between various Gulf regimes is being manifested in the US

Basically, Qatar and its rivals are responding this way to the conflict: 1) they sign more vast arms deal with the US to ingratiate themselves with Trump. 2) they ingratiate themselves with the Zionist lobby and make more gestures for normalization with Israel.  3) They invite Zionist journalists and writers to go there and write glowing articles about them. 4) they distance themselves increasingly form the Palestinian problem.

Liz Sly does not know Arabic and does not even know the basics of the country that she is covering

Look at the ignorance (and typically lies and fabrications) of Liz Sly in Beirut.
She does not know the basics of the sectarian distribution of Lebanon. How lazy is that? "“around half of Lebanon's population is Christian”". I have not seen that absurd claim made by a Western correspondent since the 1970s. I swear. Also, Notice that Liz Sly only mentions right wingers and pro-Saudis as victims of government repression when leftists were targeted as well. “The renewed focus on the boycott laws also coincides with a wider clampdown against free speech”. She does not mention the case of the communist poet or my case for that matter. Only pro-Saudi right-wings and enemies of BDS are the favored victims for Western correspondents. Another lie by Liz Sly who can’t read a word of Arabic. This woman in question in fact called for assassinating Nasrallah:“In early January, the courts issued an arrest warrant for a television presenter, Maria Maalouf, after she criticized Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah.”This is a lie. The call is from secular leftist civic groups who support BDS: “This latest prohibition illustrates what appears to be a growing appetite on the part of the Lebanese authorities for implementing the country's often arbitrary censorship...” Liz Sly doesn’t mention that the so-called “free-speech advocates are in fact champions of the Saudi regime: “Free-speech advocates in Lebanon noted the irony of banning a movie whose plot promotes press freedoms”. They ban artists who perform in Syria. Look how Liz Sly refers to the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon: “Israel during its 2006 war with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement”. Yeah. All those killed were Hizbullah including women, children, ambulances and houses.

The modesty and austerity of the Netanyahu's

Godard on Spielberg:

"Yes. Most of the time there is no mystery at all, and no beauty—just makeup. Schindler’s List is a good example of making up reality. It’s Max Factor. It’s color stock described in black and white, because labs can’t afford to make real black and white. Spielberg thinks black and white is more serious than color. Of course you can do a movie in black and white today, but it’s difficult, and black and white is more expensive than color. So he keeps faithful to his system—it’s phony thinking. To him it’s not phony, I think he’s honest to himself, but he’s not very intelligent, so it’s a phony result. I saw a documentary, not a good one, but at least you get the real facts about Schindler. [Spielberg] used this man and this story and all the Jewish tragedy as if it were a big orchestra, to make a stereophonic sound from a simple story."

Spielberg

The HBO documentary on Steven Spielberg is really a dishonest hagiography. It was particularly bothersome that they cited praise for Spielberg by famous New Yorker movie critic, Pauline Kael, when Kael later harshly criticized Spielberg and said: ""he's become, I think, a very bad director.... And I'm a little ashamed for him, because I loved his early work". That never made it into the documentary.

11-year-old Muslim girl terrified after man cuts her hijab as she walked to school

"Toronto police are investigating an attack on an 11-year-old girl whose hijab was repeatedly cut on her way to school, heightening pressure on Canadian governments to take further action against attacks on Muslims. An assailant, in two attempts within 10 minutes, cut the girl’s hijab using scissors while she was walking to school with her brother on Friday, a Toronto police spokeswoman said." "The attack comes as Canada approaches the first anniversary of a deadly shooting in a Quebec City mosque that killed six people at prayer."

Spielberg

Forget about the destruction of art and creativity in film which Spielberg is responsible for, as Jan-Luc Goddard said years ago.  He donated $1 million to the Israeli state in reward for its war on Lebanon in 2016.  So naturally the Arab League banned Spielberg and put him on the boycott list, although the boycott is not observed by the normalizing potentates of the region.  Can you imagine the US allowing a film directed by someone who donated 1$ million to Bin Laden? I would be the first to protest that director.  But please: be ware that Lebanese journalists who work for Saudi princes are very upset because they believe Lebanon should have the full freedoms enjoyed by people in the Saudi democracy.   Do you know that Spielberg's favorite "artist" is Norman Rockwell? Enough said, as far as I am concerned.

This in the US--not in Shithole countries

"These shocking viral videos show a woman left at a Baltimore bus stop on a cold night in just a hospital gown after being discharged from hospital and dropped off by four security guards. The videos show the woman, who may have mental health issues, in a state of distress struggling to stand or speak. She was wearing a hospital gown with no underwear, and just socks with no shoes. Her belongings, including a pair of trainers, were dumped in two plastic bags at the bus stop." (thanks Amir)

Iranian people are telling Fox news that they want tighter US sanctions and they want Israel to bomb them at once

Read all about it.

The headline says: "Iran Violated Yemen Arms Embargo, U.N. Experts Say - The New York Times"

And the story includes this sentence in passing: "The United Nations panel’s report did not say Iran had supplied missiles to the Houthis."  Who cares about evidence really.

Before Trump

Before Trump the US was widely admired and loved around the world, so argues the Times.

It dumbs you down to respond to Thomas Friedman but...

Regarding this silly column here: 1) he acts like Saudi Arabia was a secular democracy until 1979 and the revolt in the Grand mosque. He times that as the beginning of his stint as a Middle East correspondent.  Unbeknownst to this guy who does not read what he does not witness that Saudi Arabia was leading a reactionary fanatic camp against Arab progressive and communist forces for much of the Cold War.  2) He basically says that the progressive movement in Iran is led by the people while the progressive movement in Saudi Arabia is led by the...Prince.  3) he cites people he talks to among the entourage of the MbS as if modern and reform-minded Saudis necessary share the vision of the Crown Prince.  But then again: this is Thomas Friedman.  

The role and personality of Trump

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar: "The Role and Personality of the American President: Fire and Smoke".

Alan Dershowitz and his services to the Qatari regime

This Gulf conflict has become a competition in Zionism between the lousy ruling dynasties.

Saudi regime making progress in Yemen

Look at the byline of this author.

Documentation of Iran protests in the New York Times

"However, protests reportedly flared in the city of Ahvaz on Monday night, a resident said in a telephone interview"

These are the Palestinian children Israel killed in 2017

"In addition to those 14 shot and killed during 2017, a child died of wounds sustained in an Israeli drone strike years earlier. Another was killed by Israeli ordnance while grazing livestock. A baby living in temporary shelter, his family homeless as a result of Israeli bombing, died of cold exposure. Palestinian children also died because they were unable to secure permits to leave via the Israeli-controlled Erez checkpoint for medical treatment unavailable in the besieged Gaza Strip."

Western media and DC think tanks are not drooling over protests in Tunisia

Just compare DC media and pundits reactions to Iran protests versus their non-reaction to the Tunisia protests.  How stunningly different.  But then again: it is all about Israel.  Israel approves of the regime in Tunisia which UAE installed with Western support and excitement.