From Shimon Peres to the Minister of Propaganda of the South African Apartheid Regime

(thanks Michele)

What if Palestinians were to call Israelis a 'demographic threat'?

From a reader:  "...there is another existential threat to Israel that diplomacy can far better address than the use of force. And I am referring to the demographic dynamic that makes it impossible for Israel to preserve its future... ...Force cannot defeat or defuse the demographic time bomb."

 

Video

 

democracy is at hands in Iraq

" "Al-Qaeda controls 40 percent of the desert area of Anbar province," said Sabah Karhout, the chairman of the Anbar Provincial Council."

Haim Saban on a very obedient president

From a reader:  " "MR. SABAN: Okay. (Laughter.) Very obedient President I have here today." 
Video

Apartheid and the prime minister

"Consider the Prime Minister. It's good that he sees fit to fly the flag at half mast today, certainly, but there's no record of him speaking out against apartheid when his words might have counted for something; instead, the only visible evidence of his position in South Africa is the all-expenses paid visit he made in 1989 under the auspices of an anti-sanctions lobby group."

This is what NATO can do to a country

"Since the revolution, militias formed to fight the regime of Muammar Gaddafi have morphed into private armies, led by charismatic warlords, their fighting and gangsterism bringing the country to its knees. Outside the capital, much of this desert country resembles a Mad Max film set, its highways crisscrossed by militiamen in exotic battle wagons featuring anti-aircraft guns and rocket tubes. Militia blockades have halted oil production, starving the government of cash. In the cities there is stagnation, violence, power blackouts and petrol shortages; this in the country that is home to Africa's biggest oil reserves."

Israeli nuclear weapons? What Israeli nuclear weapons?

""Hagel was challenged at one point during a question-and-answer session by a former Iranian nuclear negotiator over why his address failed to mention Israel's possession of nuclear weapons. Hossein Mousavian, who is now a scholar at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, told Hagel he "didn't mention a single word about the major threat of nuclear bombs in the region, which is Israel." Hagel replied by noting that Iran is in violation of "many United Nations resolutions." Israel is widely understood to possess nuclear weapons but declines to confirm it.""

a Faustian bargain

"In Tehran lies the possibility of finding a way out of perpetual war. Although by no means guaranteed, the basis for a deal exists: We accept the Islamic republic, they accept the regional status quo." (thanks Amir)

You want bogus Arab surveys? This one claims that Saudi King has united the Arabs

"Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah tops the list of personalities who have succeeded in uniting the Arab people, according to a survey conducted by the Organization of Arab People and Parliaments.
This is not the first time King Abdullah has topped the list of Arab political personalities.
In 2013 King Abdullah was chosen the most influential personality of the year by Forbes Magazine.
Lt. Gen. Abdulfattah Al-Sisi, Egypt's current defense minister, came first place in the leadership category." (thanks Yago)

Suppressing evidence? US would not do that

" "In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad." (thanks Regan)

By the way, did you know?

Did you know that Syrian rebels are still making claims of Chemical and biological attacks by the Syrian regime? How come the Western media have stopped airing those claims? I mean, they are still appearing in the Arabic (oil and gas) media.

The dictatorships that you like

"Suppose a hundredth part of this merciless onslaught had been directed against Western targets rather than against Shia Muslims, would the Americans and the British be so accommodating to the Saudis, Kuwaitis and Emiratis?" (thanks Michael)

Arab refusenik? Are you kidding me?

Look who this Zionist publication call an Arab refusenik?  The vulgar Egyptian playwright, `Ali Salim who is as sophisticated and talented as the script writers for C and D comedies in the US.  And how can he be a refusenik when this man has been sponsored and supported by the regimes of Sadat and Mubarak?  The word refusenik was used to refer to dissident intellectuals who sparred with the regimes of Soviet and Eastern Europe.  Salim is a product of the dictatorships of Sadat and Mubarak, although his viewed are despised by the population.  The writer does not mention that this refusenik is a propaganda tool of Prince Salman and his publications.  Refusenik my...potato. (thanks "Ibn Rushd")

Hizbullah's dispicable apology to the Bahrain tyrant

Al-Manar TV, the official Hizbullah's TV, presented an official apology to the tyrant of Bahrain to avoid an Arab governmental ban on Al-Manar TV.  Al-Manar gave an apology for its coverage of Bahrain, as if there is some apology to be made about sympathetic coverage of a non-sectarian political uprising against a tyrant.  Will Al-Manar TV also apologize for its hostile coverage of Israel as well?

death squads

"What emerges is both the scale of covert killings by US special forces — running 20 raids a night at one point in Afghanistan — and the unmistakable fact that these units are operating as death squads, whose bloodletting is dressed up as “targeted killings” of terrorists and insurgents for the benefit of a grateful nation back home."

Is this a problem?

"There are eight cases and 21 defendants in front of the International Criminal Court, and every last one of them is from Africa. Now the continent’s leaders are debating whether that’s a problem."

This is amazing: the US government wants the leader of a foreign government (Israel) to use his influence with members of the US Congress

"The United States wants Netanyahu to signal to pro-Israel lawmakers in Congress that he is willing to give talks a chance."

This is the peace process

"Since the latest round of negotiations began...Israel has demolished 159 Palestinian homes, killed 23 Palestinians and moved forward on constructing 5,992 new apartments in West Bank settlements."

This is how the Washington Post referred to history of racial domination in South Africa: from their obituary of Mandela

"To a country torn apart by racial divisions",  And those divisions had no cause: they just fell on the lap of the people there.

Sanctions against Apartheid South Africa

When the US was being pressured by public around the world to impose sanctions on Apartheid South Africa, many (Democrats and Republicans) in the US Congress demurred and protested and argued that we can't impose sanctions on Apartheid South Africa because that would "hurt the people that we want to help" in South Africa.  How come not a single Democrat or Republican, or liberal or conservative in the US media, argued that sanctions against Iran (which punished a company for mailing a printer's cartridge to Iran) would hurt the people of Iran? Not one.

Look how Zionists routinely conflate Arab Gulf dictators with the Arab people

"Neither Arab nor Israeli can quite fathom Obama’s naivete ".

This is how the American press treats repression by Gulf dictatorships

"Rights groups say the case is only the most recent example of the extreme sensitivity of Persian Gulf monarchies." Extreme sensitivity?  If this repression was by the Iranian regime, would the New York Times refer to it as "extreme sensitivity"?

This is how the New York Times in its obituary of Mandela refers to the history of racial domination and cruelty in South Africa

"he seemed to have genuinely transcended the racial passions that tore at his country", 1) Racial passions? Is this a euphemism for racial hatred? 2) when it says "racial passions" it makes the history of South Africa blameless, that there is no one side that is victim and another that is guilty.  3) By racial passions, the New York Times wants to romanticize the racial hatred of whites in South Africa. 

Call the police: Mandela was a communist

"Although he denied it throughout his life, there is persuasive evidence that about this time Mr. Mandela briefly joined the South African Communist Party, the A.N.C.’s partner in opening the armed resistance. Mr. Mandela presumably joined for the party’s connections to Communist countries that would finance the campaign of violence. Stephen Ellis, a British historian who in 2011 found reference to Mr. Mandela’s membership in secret party minutes, said Mr. Mandela “wasn’t a real convert; it was just an opportunist thing.” "

Reagan on Apartheid South Africa

" "Can we abandon a country that has stood by us in every war we've fought, a country that is strategically essential to the free world?" Reagan asked in a 1981 CBS News interview. The Reagan administration invited senior South African security officials to the United States, violating a U.N. arms embargo, and the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have imposed economic sanctions on Pretoria. Reagan also had Mandela placed on the U.S. international terrorist list, where the anti-apartheid leader remained until 2008." (thanks Amir)

Mandela with leaders of the Algerian revolution

"In this picture you can see Nelson Mandela along with Samora Machel, Agostinho Neto and some leaders of the algerian Front de Libération Nationale: Houari Boumediene, Mohamed Boudiaf, Ahmed Ben Bella, Rabah Bitat etc."

American tributes to a terrorist?

"Former South African President Nelson Mandela is to be removed from a U.S. terrorism watch list under a bill President Bush signed Tuesday [July 1, 2008]." (thanks Basim)

This Lebanese lied in Canada in order to justify his spying against Hizbullah

"When the Israelis later pulled out, parts of the Christian community — which had collaborated with the invaders — came under attack from the Muslim majority. Roland never forgot."  Of course, that did not happen and even Israeli collaborators and torturers for Israel were left scot free. (thanks Ken)

When Sa`d Hariri eulogizes Mandela

From Elias:  "Saad Hariri released a statement today commemorating the death of Nelson Mandela, which contained the following sentence:

“بلغ مانديلا من العمر حدود المئة، وبقي حتى اللحظة الاخيرة من حياته قطعة نادرة من الذهب الأسمر التي تلمع في ارجاء البشرية، وتقدم في كل يوم أمثلة حية عن قيم الصفح والمصالحة والاعتراف بالآخر، وإنزال العقاب المعنوي والأخلاقي بكل المفاهيم التي تجعل من الانسان وحشا ضاريا يخوض صراع البقاء بروح التسلط والاستئثار والانتقام”.

“Mandela nearly reached the age of a hundred, and remained until the last minute of his life a rare piece of brown gold glittering over humanity..."  In fact, it is even worse.  He could not say "black gold" because that means oil in Arabic, so he went with "brown gold" thinking that it is less offensive.

Mandela with the leaders of the Algerian Revolution

From Houari: "From left to right: Hocine Aït Ahmed (partly hidden by the helmet), Kaïd Ahmed (in military clothing), Mohamed Boudiaf, Djelloul Melaïka (the man with a moustache), Rabah Bitat, Ahmed Ben Bella, Nelson Mandela (between Bitat and Ben Bella), Commandant Nasser (in uniform), Hamilcar Cabral (Portuguese Guinea), Houari Boumediene, Abdelaziz Bouabdallah and Taïbi Larbi.

They are watching a military parade".

Apology to my Al-Akhbar (Arabic and English) readers

Regarding my critique of the new draft of the Egyptian constitution which appeared today in Al-Akhbar (and earlier in an English shorter version in Al-Akhbar English), I received this message from an Egyptian jurist (and I am very grateful to her):  "In regard of post on the currently proposed Egyptian constitution, you do not seem to have analyzed the latest 2013 draft, but instead mistakenly analyzed the 2012 draft that got approved by referendum during Morsi's tenure then abrogated this summer.
Here are the links:

2012 draft (later adopted as the 2012 constitution):
2013 draft (currently proposed constitution):"

PS I am fully responsible for the mistake and blame a certain rashness in my personality.  It is one of some 14 or so flaws.

King of Jordan

In all the turmoil and the dramatic developments in the Middle East region, there is a most under-reported story.  The most unreported story in the Middle East is the extent to which the King of Jordan is the most insignificant player.  There is no role in the entire landscape for him whatsoever.  He is never mentioned in any discussion on any matter.  I don't like his father one bit but at least he was a player--on the side of Zionists but a player nevertheless.  Yet, it amuses the hell out of me that he is treated with respect and reverence here in the US.  It is not that he is mocked by Arab youth,  I am struck that he is not mentioned at all.

Spreading democracy through arms sales to democrats

"Since 2007, the United States has sold more than $81 billion worth of arms to Gulf countries, including some $10 billion announced by Hagel earlier this year on his first trip to the region as defense secretary, the official said."

American tributes to Mandela?

President Ronald Reagan was among those most opposed to the [Anti-Apartheid] bill, and when he finally vetoed the measure over its support of the ANC, which he maintained was a "terrorist organization," "In fact, in 2000, he [Dick Cheney] maintained that he'd made the right decision. "The ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization," Cheney said on ABC's "This Week." "I don't have any problems at all with the vote I cast 20 years ago.'' "

Cash foreign policy

"Examples of failed efforts, according to the paper, include a proposal to pay $6,000 dowries to Afghan men to keep them off the battlefield".

Socialist France invades, humanely

"French military patrols in the central African nation began overnight, France's defense chief said Friday, as troops arrived in the capital Bangui. "The operation has effectively started," Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Radio France Internationale. The goal of the mission, Le Drian said, is to provide "a minimum of security to allow for a humanitarian intervention to be put in place." "

Where is Turkey now?

"Turkey's popularity in the Middle East has dropped sharply over the past two years, an opinion poll showed Wednesday, reflecting Ankara's sometimes controversial foreign policy strategy."

positively shaping audiences perceptions and attitudes towards the United States

"Through the prism of operations in Afghanistan, the author examines how the U.S. Government's Strategic Communication (SC) and, in particular, the Department of Defense's (DoD) Information Operations (IO) and Military Information Support to Operations (MISO) programs, have contributed to U.S. strategic and foreign policy objectives. It assesses whether current practice, which is largely predicated on ideas of positively shaping audiences perceptions and attitudes towards the United States, is actually fit for purpose."

Israel and apartheid South Africa

"Wasn't Israel one of the most powerful friends of Apartheid South Africa? Was Mandela "a man of vision," "the father of his nation," "a humble man," "a freedom fighter," and "a man of vision" when the State of Israel solidly supported Apartheid South Africa? Did Ronald Reagan, America, and the West, in general, see Mandela as "a freedom fighter"? Directly or indirectly, didn't Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" speak to this closet relationship between Apartheid South Africa and the State of Israel?"

rehabilitation of Mandela

"Mandela spent most his adult life treated as a "terrorist". There was a price to be paid for his long walk to freedom, and the end of South Africa's system of racial apartheid. Mandela was rehabilitated into an “elder statesman” in return for South Africa being rapidly transformed into an outpost of neoliberalism, prioritising the kind of economic apartheid most of us in the west are getting a strong dose of now."

Sayings by Mandela that will NOT be mentioned in the Western press

"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings."

"We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians". (thanks Amir)

And now a word on the "secular" (read sponsored by Bandar bin Sultan, these days) branch of the Syrian "revolution": the case of Suhayr Al-Atasi

I have been receiving information as of late about rising corruption regarding the management office of Suhayr Al-Atasi.  It is funny that early on in the Syrian "revolution", when groupies of the "revolution" in the West were still insisting that the "revolution" was entirely secular and that Islamists had no role whatsoever in its affairs, the name of Suhayr Al-Atasi was always invoked as "the real leader" of the "revolution". Well, after mounting criticisms of corruption by her, Ms. Atasi has resigned after petition against her was circulated.  Let me reiterate: I know of no opposition movement--not even the Ba`th--which has committed more war crimes, thuggery, kidnapping, torture, subservience to foreign intelligence services, deception, religious bigotry BEFORE reaching power than this Syrian exile opposition.  It is even worse than the Ahmad Shalabi's "revolution" and I thought the man was the inspiration for the Syrian "revolution" in exile.  

The kidnapped nuns

I don't have time to provide many links (please do the job for me) but I have seen enough to nauseate me: did you see how the Western media made such a big effort to justify and sugar coat (this is the first time ever that I use that expression) the kidnapping of the Ma`lula nuns by Syrian rebels/thugs? Notice that the language used was that they merely (I think that this is the 3rd time I use "merely" today in the blog it is like reckon in the Economist--I complained to an editor at the Economist about the word "reckon" and she promised me to bring it up in an editorial meeting but I see no results) "moved" them or that they "took" them or that they "transported" them.  And the video released by the kidnappers/rebels today was quite obscene: no videos of that sort should be shown.  If I am ever kidnapped don't air a video of me in captivity and know that all my words were uttered under duress, damn it.  And Lebanese TV reporter, Josephine Deeb, who knows Ma`lula well and know the nuns, noticed that they had no crosses on them and added that the head nun always had a cross around her neck.  It guess the cross offended your rebels. 

Mandela: the comedy show has begun

I mean, what is with all those Western media and government tributes to Mandela? Is this excess in emotional expression supposed to make us forget that the apartheid regime was sponsored and supported for decades by the "West" and that the "West" did not turn on the the apartheid regime until it could not longer survive, very much like how they turned against Mubarak after he was no longer in office. Who are you fooling? I came to the US in 1983, and the American liberal and conservative press was fiercely hostile to Mandela at the time.  

Previous assassination attempts on Hassan Laqqis by Israel: tell the correspondents of the New York Times and WP who are obsessed with absolving Israel

It has been quite illustrative how the Beirut offices of the New York Times and the Washington Post proved this week, yet again, that they are mere propaganda outlets for the pro-Saudi March 14 groups in Lebanon.  In writing about the assassination of Hassan Laqqis, they simply regurgitated the rumors and lies of Hariri press office.  They were so keen on absolving Israel of responsibility, forgetting that none of the Syrian Jihadi or non-Jihadi groups have ever heard of Laqqis, and that his work was so secretive that only the US and Israel knew of him, among the enemies of Hizbullah.  Now, the Israeli press have all but confirmed Israeli responsibility.  How foolish do those correspondents feel?