The Advocate of Prince Turki would like to set the record straight

""All this talk of cooperation between the Arab Gulf states and Israel in the face of Iran's expansion is neither logical nor realistic. Indeed, the relationship between Iran and Israel is as stable as it has historically been between the Persians and the Jews."" (thanks "Ibn Rushd")

the nukes in the room

"How can the U.S. and Israel deal with proposals for non-proliferation and a nuclear free Middle East when they still refuse officially to acknowledge that the region is not nuclear free -- and hasn't been for the past 50 years?" (thanks Amir)

Ask not what you can do for your potato

For years, many in the US and in Lebanon have maintained that JFK's statement, "Ask not what you can do for your country etc" is taken from a saying by Kahlil Gibran (or Jubran Khalil Jubran as we know him in Arabic).  And I have argued for years that it is not true and that Jubran never said that. The closest is an essay by Gibran titled (The New Era) in his book Al-Bada'i` wa-l-Tara'if and has this (my translation):  "A politician who says to himself: "I wish to benefit form my nation"? or an enthusiastic passionate person who whispers to himself: "I seek to benefit my nation"? (p. 101)

Bandar

Hamid Algar sent me this:  "Has anybody noticed that Bandar is the Urdu for "monkey"? "

Netanyahu and American visas

From a source:  "unfortunately you cannot attribute this to me. but you may know that the young Arab Idol star from Gaza, Muhammad Assaf, was recently in the US and performed. What is not known is that Benjamin Netanyahu personally intervened with the State Department to try to prevent him from getting a visa, because of one of his pro Palestine songs".

Tim Arango of the New York Times explains differences between Sunnis and Shi`ites

"Mr. Davutoglu dressed in black, a symbol of mourning that is central to the Shiite faith".  According to Mr. Arango (who is steeped in knowledge of Sunnis and Shi`ites alike), Sunnis dress in yellow, which is a symbol of mourning that is central to the Sunni faith.  What do we do without those scholars who double as foreign correspondents for the New York Times?

Did you know that the US government has the right to convene a loya jirga in Afghanistan? It is part of the Afghan tradition

"That has certainly been the case of the five loya jirgas summoned in the past decade. The first of those, an emergency jirga in 2002, elected Hamid Karzai as president. He was also the choice of the international community, which supported him for interim leadership and had effectively convened that loya jirga. "

PS The "international community" is one of the secret identities of the US.

America's favorite physician in Pakistan

Do you think that the US government (which has championed this doctor and called for his release) would allow him to practice medicine here in the US?  "The murder charge stems from a complaint over a teenage boy who died after Afridi performed surgery on him for appendicitis in 2006 in Pakistan’s remote Khyber tribal area."

This is no revolution (in Syria)

"To say Syria is now a disaster is a massive understatement. This is a sectarian civil war which could continue for a decade if the regime's enemies, led by the brutal Saudi tyranny, continue to wage their proxy war on the country. The mostly widely-relied-on body-count, that of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (a group which is close to armed rebels, and whose reliability I have questioned in the past), now states that 120,000 Syrians have been killed. The Syrian Observatory claims that the majority of these are combatants. It also says the majority of these combatant dead on have been on the pro-Assad side. The fact of this imbalance is conveniently ignored by western media reporting, which continues with its untenable narrative about about a revolution of unarmed Syrian protesters which only took up arms after being shot down by the evil Assad regime. If that was true, why do even the Syrian Observatory's figures not bare this picture out? There was never a revolution in Syria." (thanks Asa)

International Relations Theories of Gen. Dr. Engineer Salim Idriss: the object of hope and confidence of the "secular" branch of the Syrian "revolution"

In this clip, Dr. Englineer General (that is the title he uses in Arabic) kid you not--theorizes that his researched explanation for Russian foreign policy toward Syria is that Putin and Lavrov have both been bribed by Rami Makhluf.

loya jirga: then and now

When the Taliban assembled a loya jirga, all Western media mocked it and ridiculed it.  But when Hamid Karzai assembled his loya jirga purely to accord a fake political legitimacy on his security agreement with the US, Western media treated the event with utmost respect and even pretended that the unelected cronies of Karzai are somehow representatives of the Afghan people. In fact, I would argue that Karzai is more anti-democratic than the Taliban.  

Some US wars around the world

Egyptian revolutionaries

From comrade Zaid:  "this video is a demonstration by egyptian revolutionaries on the second anniversary of the massacre that took place in November 2011 in Mohamed Mahmoud Street, which is just off Tahrir Square and on the way to the Ministry of Interior.  At that time, in November 2011, the revolutionaries had confronted the police after a series of abuses and provocations that took place throughout 2011.  The fighting took place over a period of days; dozens of protesters were killed and hundreds were injured.  After the changes that took place during the summer of 2013, it has been very difficult for revolutionaries to gather enough momentum to put on a show of force.  The second anniversary of the massacre that took place in november 2011 in mohamed mahmoud street was the first occasion in which the revolutionaries took to the streets in significant numbers since the summer of 2013.  They destroyed a plaque that the police and the military had erected that day in honour of the people that they had killed two years before, put up banners condemning the military, the police, the MB and the fuloul (the defunct NDP).  In the current climate, this took significant courage - they are a real source of inspiration."

NGOs as tools of foreign governments

""Indeed, in its own obtuse, authoritarian way, Putin's Russia has got a point about NGOs – they are increasingly tools of Western governments, or at least of Western prejudice, lending themselves very well to elitist campaigns to 'civilise' or simply harangue Eastern and Southern nations that are judged to be doing politics, environmentalism or human rights wrongly.""

Wikipedia: behind the pages

"The free encyclopaedia, which contains more than 30 million volunteer-authored articles in nearly 290 languages, called in lawyers after discovering that 300 "sock puppet" accounts - created using false identities - could be traced to a single public relations firm." (thanks Amir)

Afghan refugees in Iran

Human Rights Watch (the human rights arm of the US Department of State) has condemned Iran for the mistreatment of Afghan refugees.  But why no condemnation of mistreatment of Syrian refugees in Lebanon? Is it because the Human Rights Watch office in Beirut is politically aligned with March 14 which is notorious for its racist thought and practices?

NATO intervention in Libya: the academic groupies

Look. Some leftist academics supported NATO intervention in Libya, but just as Thomas Friedman claimed (falsely) that he had not supported the American invasion of Iraq, those are now pretending that they had not supported the NATO intervention.  People remember.

High note and low note in Saudi Arabia

"The year is not ending on a high note for three men in the Saudi dynasty whose fingerprints were all over the military coup in Egypt – Prince Bandar, the current intelligence chief; Prince Muqrin, the intelligence chief he replaced, and an aspiring crown prince; and Khalid al-Tuwaijri, president of the royal court and the king's gatekeeper..."  (thanks Nu`man)

Who rules Saudi Arabia

It would be fair to say that since the incapacitatation of King Fahd in the 1990s, the Tuwayjiri family (which has run for years `Abdullah bin `Abdul-`Aziz) has been running the kingdom.  Even the personal life of the King (before he was king), has been governed by the family.  They for example were the ones who prevented him from marrying the love of his life, the Lebanese singer, Samirah Tawfiq.

PS Yes, for the umpteenth time.  I do have sources in the Saudi royal family, believe it or not.

The Islamic Front (of gangs and bands in Syria)

Burhan Ghalyun (whatever happened to this Qatari puppet?) celebrates the announcement of the formation of "the Islamic Front" and consider this a step toward democracy and secularism.  Ha ha 

Scandal at AUB: a cover-up in the making

I have reported before about the scandal at AUB: I was hoping that there would be enough courageous faculty to undertake the necessary steps in order to investigate and to bring the entire case to the campus community.  There were early suspicions early on that certain Americans on campus were allegedly involved, and that they were later involved in the attempt to suppress any news of the story.  Typically, the AUB president appointed a commission to investigate but it was clear that the mandate was based on a false premise: that violations of the privacy of faculty, students, and staff at AUB is a right and prerogative that the AUB president can exercise at will.  The story first was reported (I am referring to the unreleased official report on the matter which was leaked to me):  "that the Internal Audit (IA) Office had obtained copies of the contents of faculty and staff email accounts on portable hard drives, and that these accounts could be accessed by the IA staff outside the confines of the IT Data Center. "  But the president made it clear in his assignment to the committee does challenge his right to violate the privacy of the staff, faculty, and students on campus.  Here what the official statement said:  "Additionally, the Group will review the university’s current technical environment as it relates to the need to protect the privacy of data while conducting highly targeted confidential access to the university’s e-mail database and archives by authorized individuals granted such access by the President".  How on earth could the members of the committee of the faculty accept such a language in their assignment?  How could they agree that the president can conduct "highly targeted confidential access to the university's email database"?  And the committee did not even bother to investigate whether the president has cooperated with the US government in responding to requests for "access to the university's email database and archives".  They did not bother.  Based on the report (still not released) this was an official whitewash.  The report spoke of new rules and regulations and there was no mention of investigate or of disciplinary action.  The AUB lived up to its reputation: an arm of a Western colonial power that treats the natives at AUB as individual without rights and without privacy.  

"A Marine Was Assaulted. Her Commander Said She Deserved It For Wearing Running Shorts."

"Ariana Klay was raped by her fellow Marines. What followed was a horror show where she was intimidated by her superiors, maliciously harassed, and victimized again by the military branch she volunteered to serve in.

At 3:45, her husband explains how lucky he is. At 7:06, she explains how her leadership failed her. At 7:50, she lays out the facts for how to fix it. And at 9:25, she explains why she isn't a victim."

sexual assault in the military

"Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has secured support from nearly half the Senate, but not enough votes, for her proposal to give victims of sexual assault in the military an independent route outside the chain of command for prosecuting attackers."

It is official: the Washington Post finds a German citizen to tell the US that NSA spying is fine and dandy:

"Knabe said the consequences of the Stasi’s excesses were far more devastating than anything associated with the NSA. “They forget what it’s like to live in a dictatorship versus a democracy,” he said of people who say that the NSA has behaved like the Stasi. "  So no big deal then.

Netanyahu's propaganda style

"Netanyahu last week tweeted a PR-style infographic opposing the deal that the United States and other countries are negotiating to lift some sanctions on Iran. He called it an “important message” and urged his 188,000 or so followers to share it. The graphics were a tad cartoonish.  We assumed that one illustration was meant to be a mushroom cloud, but it looked a lot like a tree. And another one was . . . a missile, right?   Still, it seemed an improvement over the poster depicting a bomb that he paraded last year in front of the U.N. General Assembly. “Netanyahu’s bomb cartoon is the Middle East equivalent of Clint Eastwood’s chair,” columnist Jeffrey Goldberg  tweeted at the time.  We decided to check our amateur critique against a professional’s. So we asked Alberto Cairo , an expert on graphic design and a University of Miami journalism professor, to analyze Netanyahu’s resentations.  The professor indicated that if they had been the works of one of his students, they would have received failing grades.  First, he says, the initial problem is content: Such visuals are often used in the PR and marketing world, and they are a far cry from “real” infographics, which are journalistic products that he calls a “visual representation of evidence.”   And then there are the aesthetics. Netanyahu’s are “just ugly and badly designed,” Cairo said.""

Let me get it this straight: so Israel which has the nukes fears Iran, but Iran which does not have the nukes does not have to fear Israel?

"Israel, of course, also wishes to avoid war. But Israeli leaders have more to fear than do Americans from a bargain that leaves the bulk of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure in place, even temporarily."  1) Avoid war? Israel has been lobbying for war for years, but the admission of American officials of the Bush administration. 2) Does Iran have reason to fear Israel at all? 

Royal Whitewash commission of Bahrain

"The commission was imposed by the US administration to whitewash its ally in Bahrain, which was causing it considerable disgrace. " (thanks Jaafar)

Israel's mention

Even when Western media ranks toilets, they have to bring Israel into the list.  (thanks Michele)

PS Not that Israel does not fit right into the subject matter.  Of course, not.

Anne Barnard's hero

From Ali:  "When Anne Bernard penned the eulogy for Tawhid leader, she "forgot" another article which is published by her newspaper and showing the cruelty of the Tawhid brigades: They useses captives as suicide bombers:
https://twitter.com/ornekali/status/402370483745599488/photo/1

internet as a weapon

"The internet backbone — the infrastructure of networks upon which internet traffic travels — went from being a passive infrastructure for communication to an active weapon for attacks." "It appears that the NSA and GCHQ were the first to turn the internet backbone into a weapon".

The Egyptian Nazi: what about Zionists?

"He said the center was alerted to Mr. Jan’s ties with the Nazi party after Eric Trager, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, raised the issue in a series of posts to Twitter.   “This was new to us that he had a background like that and as soon as it came to our attention he was immediately disinvited,” Mr. Esposito said. “We had no idea that there was this issue out there.”"
I have one comment on this story: I don't mind at all disinviting this Nazi, but I wish American college centers would also move swiftly to apply the same ban on Israeli Zionists.  (thanks Yusuf)

"you people"

An Arab professor at a major medical school in the US told me this story:  "A number of people in Beirut gave me mail to deliver in the US [back in 1980]. The immigration officer at JFK in NYC proceeded to methodically open them one after the other. When I protested her act as an invasion of privacy, she calmly answered that there is "no privacy protections when it comes to  you people". It was the first and last lesson I ever needed about privacy and its protections."

When propaganda advocacy trumps scholarship: Thomas Pierret actually proclaims the secularism of the Saudi regime

Thomas Pierret is one of the most knowledgeable scholars on Syria.  He is very well-trained in his field, and has a command of his subject.  Yet, in the last two years, he has allowed his propaganda passions for the Saudi- and Qatari-funded Syrian opposition groups to influence his judgement on matters related to Syria.  Look at this outrageous passage here:  "Concerns for domestic stability, and more particularly distrust of political Islamic movements (including politicized Salafis), also encouraged Saudi Arabia (as well as Jordan, after months of hesitation due to fear of Syrian retaliation and of political change in the region) to support the least Islamist, and generally least sectarian, segments of the opposition. Among the opposition abroad, Riyadh tried to counterbalance the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood by supporting a coalition of former Baathists (Riyad Hijab, Mustafa al-Asad), secular intellectuals (led by Christian opposition leader Michel Kilo), tribal chiefs (Ahmad al-Jarba), and secular-leaning representatives of the Free Syrian Army (Luay Miqdad)."  My response? Well, 1) Thomas knows Arabic and should have noticed that anti-Shi`ite rhetoric of the Saudi regime has in fact increased over time and not decreased.  2) His evidence for the secularism of Saudi policies is in fact just silly: just because Saudi intelligence hired Michel Kilu or the Luay Muqdad of the Fee Syrian Army does not make the regime secular.  This fundamentally sectarian regime has never shied away from hiring, recruiting, and buying off leftists, communists, socialists, fundamentalists, Nazis, rightists, Salafis and whoever else might be useful for their cause.  There is a tiny communist gang in Lebanon which is funded by the Saudi intelligence service: does that make the Saudi regime communist?  Better evidence for the argument, please. 3) Thomas failed to note that Saudi policies toward the Syrian opposition are largely motivated by competition with Qatar and the recruitment by Bandar of Michel Kilu was basically an attempt to take away elements of the opposition from Qatar.  It is part of the competition between the two dynasties and this game played out in Lebanon as well.  4) Saudi Arabia had funded the Contras in Nicaragua in the past, because the US requested such funding.  What does that mean? That there was a shared ideology between the House of Saud and the Contras of Nicaragua?  5) It is rather sad to see a fine scholar being swayed in his judgement by the propaganda agenda of the Syrian exile opposition.  Lastly, when I read this I could not help but remember this section From Thomas Pierret's rigorious and well-researched book, Religion and State in Syria  (where the author's arguments are far less unreasonable than in his recent pronouncements on Syria):  "Sheikh Ahmad Mouaz Al-Khatib has not only been incredibly helpful and generous, but he also taught me much about human values"--this about the Qatari-controlled Islamist preacher who railed during the years more against Facebook and masturbation than against the Asad regime, and who had praised Saddam Husayn for "standing up to the Jews".  Enough said.

PS It is hilarious that Thomas bragged about Saudi support for Lu'ayy Al-Muqdad who is largely known for his inconsistent and contradictory statements in Arab media, and who has been known to deny his own denials.  This is a man (Muqdad) who is known as the sidekick of Lebanese MP, `Uqab Saqr (a man who is only known as the side-kick of Sa`d Hariri--who in turn is only known to be the side-kick of Prince `Abdul-`Aziz bin Fahd).  Secular bunch alright. 

Saudi propaganda outlets now have investigative journalism

From King Fahd's brother-in-law's famously sleazy news station:  ""Decoding the Brotherhood’s mugshot smirks"" (thanks Basim)

a victory for liberation everywhere: US occupation forces will retain the right to 1) enjoy immunity from prosecution for war crimes in Afghanistan; and 2) retain the right to break into Afghan homes

"And United States Special Operations forces will retain leeway to conduct antiterrorism raids on private Afghan homes — a central American demand that Afghan officials had resisted and described as the last sticking point in negotiations. "

American war crimes in Afghanistan are merely alleged

"along with Karzai’s angry rhetoric against the alleged misdeeds of his American backers".

Hamid Karzai on the British royal family

"He also spoke about his love for the British royal family, recalling that Prince Charles once invited him for a weekend in Balmoral: “He is a good man: tremendously hospitable . . . Camilla an excellent lady.”"

Arab wealth put to a good cause

From Krim: "Boeing took an early lead in the biennial expo, signing up Etihad Airways PJSC for its new 777X wide-body as well as for more 787 Dreamliners. Emirates followed with a purchase of 150 777X valued at about $76 billion, plus an option to buy 50 more. Airbus then confirmed a deal with the largest Middle East airline for 50 A380 super-jumbos valued at $23 billion."

"Etihad, whose transaction with Boeing is valued at $25.2 billion, will become the premiere operator of the Dreamliner, with 71 in total on its order book, and CEO James Hogan ...
Hogan later unveiled a second order, this time with Airbus valued at almost $27 billion, including for 50 A350 wide-body aircraft as well as 36 single-aisle A320 family jetliners"

So, the grand total:

Boeing: $125 billion
Airbus: $50 billion

Imagine that kind of money invested into Arab countries, into infrastructure and education, instead of fueling destructive civil wars in Syria and Iraq, instead of bankrolling that imbecile Saddam, instead of brothels and casinos."

Syrian refugees: marketed for a reality TV show

From an anonymous source:  "I thought you may be interested to know that you can now experience life in Za'atari in the comfort of your own home. It appears that Yahoo UK and UNHCR have teamed up to create a series depicting life in the camp. Check out the link here:

Also, I have been informed that an Italian NGO is doing some sort of reality series in Za'atari where contestants can live the life of an aid worker in the camp, however I haven't yet been able to independently verify this. Once I do, I will let you know.

FYI - I have quite a few contacts in the camp (staff (local and int'l), residents and others) as I did spend 6 months working there as a....  (until the end of July). It was through one of these contacts that I heard about the reality show and she is to send me information to confirm it. I will forward to you upon receiving

***if you do share, i prefer to remain anonymous.

Just an update on the Italian reality show I mentioned that was filmed in Za'atari.

I just met a woman here in Jordan working with the Italian NGO, Intersos. I inquired about the reality series and she confirmed that it was Intersos who was working on this and it was already filmed. It is due to air on Rai1 (uno), Italy's most important television network (according to her). The show is called "The Mission" and places a famous Italian pop (?) singer, Al Bano, in Za'atari camp where he will live the life of an aid worker. I also found out that this is some sort of series as episodes were already filmed in the Congo and South Sudan.
The filming of the series was apparently heavily criticised by Intersos staff here in Jordan (as I hoped it would).

All information on the series online appears to only be written in Italian, and the only information I could find in English are some blog posts. You can check this one out for some more details:

Just another way to exploit the most vulnerable, supported by UNHCR no less."

Heroism of the Fee Syrian Army

From Ali, the Angry Arab's correspondent in Turkey:  "Story challenges with the one of the biggest lies of all times: "FSA are moderates but Al Qaeda linked groups are radicals" Here we have the story of Yakubiye village of Idlib, close to Turkish border, where local christian population was attacked by FSA.

"She says jihadists weren’t in her predominantly Christian hamlet of al-Yakubiye in Syria’s northwest province of Idlib. FSA fighters from neighboring Sunni Muslim villages were the problem." www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/19/syria-s-christians-flee-kidnappings-rape-executions.html

 You know they also torched a Husseinieh here and uploded the related videos as if it was a great victory

and the honeymoon continues

"Israel may now be able to look more to Saudi assistance and intelligence in efforts to undercut Hezbollah, which has fired rockets into Israel and waged a 2006 war."

Buddhist mobs--yes, they do exist

""A year after Buddhist mobs forced almost all members of the minority Rohingya Muslim community from this northwestern Myanmar city, creating a state-sanctioned sectarian divide, thousands of children while away their long, empty days in dusty displacement camps."" (thanks Amir)

The British ambassador in Lebanon

The British ambassador in Lebanon wrote a most colonial-inspired, patronizing message to the Lebanese people.  I commented on it in Arabic on Twitter. He responded to me and thereby gave me an invitation to express him my true feelings.  

The journalistic methods and prejudice of ANDREW E. KRAMER of the Times

First his journalistic methods:  "But drawing on a mix of Twitter messages, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, scattered Western news reports, and Uznews and other opposition websites, it seems clear..."
His prejudice:  "She then went on to dismiss Ms. Karimova as “different.”   In a conservative Muslim country, she has a point."  You see, Muslim women can't be different.

The farce of Israeli supreme court

"Israel says it uses the tool of administrative detention in cases when there is not enough evidence to prove guilt in court but the detainee is deemed to present a security danger, or in cases when the exposure of intelligence information in court could be harmful to the country’s security.

In their ruling, the Supreme Court judges said that based on explanations about Mr. Barq’s background and activities they had received from Israeli security agents, including what they described as continued attempts by Mr. Barq to recruit others from the West Bank to his cause, it was necessary to keep him in detention. "