Israel explains why it kills Palestinians

"During the same period, 24 Palestinians have died at the hands of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In each Palestinian death, Israeli officials say, security forces were responding to a potential threat."

Are Syrians invited to this US Institute of Peace's Shindig?

"PeaceGame Participants include: Peter Ackerman, Henri Barkey, Esther Brimmer, Daniel Brumberg, Ambassador Maura Connelly, Ambassador  Paula Dobriansky, Andrew Exum, Nelson Ford, Ambassador Edward "Skip" Gnehm, Karen House, Lise Howard, Ambassador James Jeffrey, Ambassador Ted Kattouf, Mark Katz, Kemal Kirisci, Steven Koltai, Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, George Lopez, Kristin Lord, Colum Lynch, Firas Maksad, Robert Malley, Sharon Morris, Robert Mosbacher, Jr., Ambassador George Moose, Mouaz Moustafa, Manal Omar, Carina Perelli, Kenneth Pollack, Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, David Rothkopf, Paul Saunders, Mark Schneider, Jeremy Shapiro, Randa Slim, Julianne Smith, Andrew Tabler, Ambassador William B. Taylor, James Traub, Robin Wright, Casimir Yost, Radwan Ziadeh."

Sen. Feinstein explains Islam

"There is a real displaced aggression in this very fundamentalist jihadist Islamic community, and that is that the West is responsible for everything that goes wrong and that the only thing that's going to solve this is Islamic shariah law." (thanks Michele)

Returning Iranian loot?

"Officials believe it was looted from an Iranian cave and imported illegally. It was seized by U.S. customs in 2003 and stored ever since in a shroud of cotton in a federal warehouse in Queens. " (thanks Basim)

He was innocently spying

""Gross, a 64-year-old Maryland native, was detained while distributing communications equipment to Jewish groups in Cuba under a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID]. He was convicted in 2011 of crimes against the Cuban state and sentenced to 15 years." "At the time of his arrest, Gross was on his fifth trip to Cuba, where he had been subcontracted to secretly distribute Internet equipment to the island's small Jewish community under a U.S. democracy-¬building program."" (thanks Amir)

church scandals in Lebanon: notice the severe punishment

"The Catholic Church can breathe a sigh of relief this time: for once, it isn’t them.


Just two months after the Maronite priest Father Mansour Labaki was found guilty by the Vatican of sexually assaulting three minors (and given the typically severe punishment of “prayer and penitence”), the head of a Greek Orthodox monastery in Koura, Archimandrite Panteleimon Farah, has been discharged by Mount Lebanon Bishop George Khodr and sentenced to isolation inside his monastery for committing “practices contrary to Christian life and the monastic calling” – later revealed to be the molestation of youths." (thanks Laure)

So were the nuns kidnapped in Ma`lula?

From Ali, Angry Arab's chief correspondent in Turkey:  "For Guardian, Syrian 'opposition fighters' 'seize' nuns... So what are the meanings of kidnapping or abducting according to their unique dictionary?
PS: Even kids perfectly know that Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra attacked the Christian town of Maloula..."

Joseph Massad on suffering

Comrade Joseph:  "Thus, it seems to me that if one cannot criticise Israel's use of the holocaust without condemning anti-Semitism at the same time, lest the anti-Semites use one's criticisms to justify their rhetorical or physical attacks on Jews, it stands to reason that given the history of the use of the holocaust to justify Israeli and Zionist crimes, one should not be able to speak about the holocaust without condemning Israeli and Zionist crimes either, lest one's invocation of the holocaust be used by Zionists to justify their on-going crimes against the Palestinians. "

Ahmad Fu'ad Najm: his place

It is a sign of the quality of Western media coverage of the Middle East that they don't appreciate the popular significance among the youth (and among the old) of the leftist poet, Ahmad Fu'ad Najm. His name and poetry are everywhere this morning on Facebook and Twitter.

The Middle Eastern Cuisine application: a rip-off

Somebody please tell Sima Osman Yassine and Sadouf Kamal that there IPad application, Middle Eastern Cuisine is a ripoff.  After you buy "the full version", you are prompted to buy the full version every you open the application.  So you buy it, and the application does not remember that you did.  

Battle fronts in Tripoli

Look how Jabal Muhsin (the predominantly `Alawite area--or in the language of Western media: the area where people share "the religion of Bashshar Al-Asad") is surrounded from all sides. (As-Safir)

Syrian rebels did not kidnap nuns: they merely "moved" them

From Hikmat:  "I believe that you'd appreciate NBC news description of the kidnapping of the nuns in maaloula as "moving".  Incidentally, Lebanese racist, right-wing newspaper, An-Nahar, used the same word in Arabic for the kidnapping.  

Ahmad Fu'ad Najm dead

Egyptian folk poet, Ahmad Fu`ad Najm is dead.  His popularity among the Arab youth for over four decades has been significant.  

Potatoes in the Middle East

If there is no such course being taught anywhere in the world, I am willing to teach a course on Potatoes in the Middle East. I can do it, if I put my mind to it. Like the first month we can slice potatoes. The second month, we can just stare at potatoes in class. The third month we can just eat potatoes. And the fourth month would be about Potatoes and terrorism. And the last month would deal with the religious impulses of potatoes. I just need to find the right textbooks, though. Let me work on it.

Loveday Morris and propaganda, again

You have to read this: notice that she makes no mention that `Irsal is now a haven for the Bin Ladenites of the Syrian "revolution".

"men of the people" in the American political elite

Read this first before you read this passage:  "But Campbell said the U.S. delegation later learned that their Chinese hosts were concerned that “the contrast between the extravagant trappings of Chinese leadership style and Biden’s man-of-the-people approach was unfavorable.”"

How the Pentagon judges Afghan public opinion

" the Pentagon said in response to questions that the endorsement of a follow-on force by a gathering of tribal elders that Karzai convened in late November “indicates overwhelming support from the people of Afghanistan to continue the partnership that has brought us this far.” "  Yes, there is no measure of Afghan public opinion than the collection of US occupation cronies appointed to the council by the chief puppet of occupation himself.  If the Afghan public is overwhelming in favor of occupation, why are US troops needed in the country in the first place?

national interests, stupid

"Bass’s charges rest on a singular focus on human rights at the expense of U.S. national interests"

Americans and rich people

"Forty-three percent of respondents said rich people are more likely than the average American to be intelligent, and 42 percent believed that the rich worked harder than everyone else. The good rich! But 55 percent said wealthy people were more likely to be greedy, and 34 percent thought they were less likely to be honest. The bad rich."

less famous sayings by Alexis de Tocqueville: American love of money

"“I do not mean that there is any lack of wealthy individuals in the United States. I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold.”"

(Medicine for the Poor and Destitute)

Medicine for the poor and destitute.

Arab/Islamic science in Europe

"With us ther was a Doctoour of Phisyk
In al this world ne was ther non hym lyk
To speke of phisik and surgerye,...
Wel knew he olde Esculapius,
And Deyscorides, and eek Rufus,
Old Ypocras, Haly, and Galyen,
Serapion, Razis, and Avycen"

Chaucer, Canterbury Tales.

Threats of genocide against `Alawites in Tripoli don't bother Western human rights organizations

"The so-called anti-Assad ‘axis leaders’ in the Sunni-majority Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood issued a statement threatening to target the Alawi-majority Jabal Mohsen residents until the head of the pro-Assad Arab Democratic Party, Ali Eid, was handed over to authorities. “All Jabal Mohsen residents are a target until the criminals from the Eid family involved in Tripoli bombings are handed in to authorities,” the statement said." (thanks Basim)

forgotten Gaza

""The UN issued a report last week saying Gaza is becoming uninhabitable and the humanitarian conditions are deteriorating – sadly that is true. We wake up to terrifying sonic booms and try to sleep while the Israeli navy is shelling. Simple things like daily running water and a full day of electricity have now become luxuries." "Our life lines – the tunnels from Egypt – have been severed. Without them we don't have a consistent flow of food, medicine and fuel.""

Syrian regime media fabrications

I can't keep up with the fabrications of the two warring sides of the Syrian conflict. This alleged letter by King Faysal is fabricated by Syrian regime media.  

"terror" in the French revolution and Israel

I have had enough with your talk about "terror" in the French revolution.  During the reign of the Committee, the number of victims were a very small percentage of what the Israeli terrorist state managed to kill in a few months in 1982 in Lebanon.  The terrorist state of Israel killed some 20,000 Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians mostly civilians.  

a petition to the UK government

Activists in the UK have been asking me to sign this petition.  I won't on at least two counts.  We want an apology to erase the historic crime of taking over Palestine and forcibly expelling its population? Are you kidding me? And toward what end? To service the "peace process"?  Are you kidding me again.  An apology?  

Israeli deliberately target journalists but Western journalists still find that to be cute

""The Foreign Press Association on Sunday accused the Israeli army of "deliberately targeting" journalists after soldiers fired rubber bullets and threw stun grenades at photojournalists clearly identified as press.""

socialist lies

""Late October, French President François Hollande expressed his indignation over the revelation of the National Security Agency's spying on major European leaders and citizens. New documents revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to French newspaper Le Monde, however, show a completely different reality. Indeed, the General Direction of Exterior Services (DGSE), the French intelligence agency, works closely with the NSA and its British equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)"" (thanks Amir) 

Thomas Friedman has a big mouth

The Gulf affair in Abu Dhabi in which Shimon Peres addressed (via video) the foreign ministers at the invitation of sons of Zayid and Saudi princes was supposed to be a secret, but Friedman publicized it and now the GCC officials are frantic in handling the embarrassment. 

Max Fisher on why Israel is a victim: this man makes Thomas Friedman sounds like Hegel

"Tehran actively supports the Gaza-based militant group Hamas and the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, both of which have long records of attacking Israel and killing Israelis."  You are supposed to read this and sigh: poor Israel.  He also meant to say that Israel has a very short record of attacking Tunisia, Sudan, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria and killing Arabs.  Very short record.  Is this guy for real?

Propaganda to go: Max Fisher on Israeli nuclear weapons

"Of course, many Westerners would likely argue that Israel's weapons are morally and historically defensible in a way that an Iranian program would not be, both because of Israel's roots in the Holocaust and because it fought a series of defensive wars against its neighbors. "Israel has never given any reason to doubt its solely defensive nature," said Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, summarizing the American position. "Israel has never brandished its capabilities to exert regional influence, cow its adversaries or threaten its neighbors.""  Run that by me again? How did you go form the Holocaust to Israeli nuclear weapons?  So if the Jews of Europe were to be threatened again, Israel would throw the bomb in their defense?  Have you taken basic courses in logic, ever?  

After two days in Saudi Arabia, Thomas Friedman shares his observations

"King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who in Gulf Arab terms is a real progressive, remains widely popular". (thanks "Ibn Rushd")

Wahhabi analysis of International Relations

This is the dumbest analysis of international relations that I have read this season: written by a columnist in the mouthpiece of Prince Khalid bin Sultan:  "Beyond that, it is not difficult to recognize cultural sympathy--American and European, Right-wing and left-wing--for Persians more than for Arabs, and for Shi`ites more than Sunnis".

"فوق هذا، ليس من الصعب استبيان عاطفة ثقافيّة، أميركيّة وأوروبيّة، يمينيّة ويساريّة، تستسيغ الفرس أكثر من العرب، والشيعة أكثر من السنّة"

it is a borderless world alas

""A 'borderless world' they call it, as they try to persuade the world to drop national borders and 'go global'. Everybody, that is, except the US, UK, (and 'little Israel'). So when China asserts that it is a sovereign state, the White House, Pentagon and their friends go ballistic.""

All what you have done to our people is registered in notebooks

""Israeli police officers shot and killed a Palestinian laborer in the Petah Tikva area, north of historic Palestine, after chasing him. The police also kidnapped 20 of the workers."" (thanks Amir)

His Last Speech: Maximilien Marie Isidore Robespierre (1758–94)

"THE ENEMIES of the Republic call me tyrant! Were I such they would grovel at my feet."

BBC Whitewash

""In keeping with the BBC theme of a kindly Israel, reporter Tim Whewell reports that "Israel has built towns specially for them [the Bedouin], and is now building more." Since that report in January, as international outrage has grown against what will be Israel's single biggest act of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians since 1948, the BBC's news programs have fallen silent on Prawer.""

One Palestinian child has been killed by Israel every 3 days for the past 13 years

"One Palestinian child has been killed by Israel every 3 days for the past 13 years"

Saudi foreign policy

I really strongly recommend that you read the chapter "Saudi Arabia and the 1948 Palestine War: beyond the official history" by comrade Madawi Al-Rasheed in Eugene Rogan and Avi Shlaim, eds., The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. (the second edition, by Cambridge University Press).  It sheds light on real determinants of Saudi foreign policy.

Look at this news in Saudi media

"Suspected Ethiopian illegals attacked a Saudi man and engraved a Christian cross on his chest with an edged piece of metal before fleeing the scene on Saturday, media reports said." (thanks Mohammad)

Rod Nordland is furious that anyone would be upset by American shooting of civilians at Afghanistan

This non-expert of the Middle East who covers the Middle East is outraged that Karzai (for his own political reasons) would express outrage at regular stories of US murder of Afghan civilians.  So what he does is that he basically expressed his own views and put it in the mouth of "Afghans" (see the headline) or to puppets of the US in the Afghan government.  "The disparity in the Afghan president’s reaction has been rued by American officials here, but little commented upon, to avoid a messy diplomatic squabble in an already troubled alliance. Now it has started to draw criticism among many Afghans, who complain that their president has been looking for excuses to besmirch the Americans and delay signing a vitally important security deal with them, while overlooking equally serious or even worse abuses attributed to the Taliban.

In short, many Afghans have begun asking, Who exactly are our enemies here? The Americans, who underwrite our government and military but now say they will be forced to withdraw in 2015 without a security deal? Or the Taliban, who have a history of killing officials even remotely connected with the government — a policy that has apparently begun to claim the lives even of some independent relief workers?"  Is this a foreign policy dispatch or an editorial? If the purpose is to serve US national war interests it does not matter really. But wait: Mr. Nordland did base his generalization on a survey of the Afghan people, here it is:  "“We were so shocked by the president’s decision on postponing the signing of the B.S.A.,” one high-ranking official said..." 

The first American Anarchist

It is agreed that the first American anarchist was Josiah Warren.  But the last biography of the man was written in 1906.

Some are saying that this is Sisi from an Egyptian movie starring Mahmud Yasin.

death sentence to Camp David

This is from the engineering school at Alexandria University and the students were chanting: "Tomorrow the revolutionary people will certainly apply the death sentence to Camp David".  (thanks Hossam)