Yarmuk Camp

Did you notice that two years ago, all Zionists feigned concerned for the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk in Syria? And did you notice that Western correspondents in Beirut also joined the chorus? And do you notice now that they all are silent because it is clear that the Syrian "rebels" have now allowed ISIS to dominate the camp? My position has not changed or wavered: the Syrian regime AND the Syrian rebel groups are responsible for the suffering o the people of Yarmuk but the "moderate" Syrian rebel gang, FSA, is the one which really started the war in Yarmuk.

Migrants and impoverished Saudis are overwhelmingly the victims of executions

"Saudi Arabia is on course to execute record numbers of people in 2015, as human rights groups warn that migrants and poorer Saudis - who make up the vast majority of those put to death - are struggling to access justice.  According to figures released by the Ministry of Interior, 55 people were executed in the oil-rich kingdom in the first quarter of 2015, nearly two thirds of the total executed the previous year."

Wikileaks on sources of arming for Huthis

"Contrary to ROYG claims that Iran is arming the Houthis, most local political analysts report that the Houthis obtain their weapons from the Yemeni black market and even from the ROYG military itself. According to a British diplomat, there are numerous credible reports that ROYG military commanders were selling weapons to the Houthis in the run-up to the Sixth War."

After my American Government class yesterday a student presented to me this sketch of me

No one is doing more to address Middle East problems than the King PlayStation of Jordan

Another moderate Arab ruler

"The ruler of Dubai is set to build a personal six-storey super car park in London for his fleet of more than 100 luxury motors."

The First Saudi-Israeli War on Yemen

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar: "The First Saudi-Israeli War on Yemen (I)"

An unusual admission by an anonymous US military source about Yemen

""The initial evidence is actually that the Houthi advance has caused their (AQAP) external plotting to be sidelined while they figure out how they are going to deal with the internal vestiges of what appears to be an emerging civil war," the official told a small group of reporters.

"So, I think although our capability has been diminished, I wouldn’t suggest it puts us at greater risk right now."" (thanks Ibrahim)

Will GCC countries order their jets over Gaza?

" “We are not asking for so much; just a basic right. Our rights are not protected — not by the world, not by the Arab countries. Our lives are in God’s hands.” “My cousin wasn’t the first fisherman to be shot by the Israelis and he won’t be the last. There isn’t a fisherman in Gaza who hasn’t been shot at,” Emad said, adding that his son was injured when Israeli naval forces shot him in December."

U.S. to refuel Saudi jets bombing Yemen

"The U.S. Defense Department has cleared the way for American military planes to start refueling Saudi Arabian jets bombing Houthi fighters in Yemen as the U.S. deepens its role in the expanding regional conflict, U.S. defense officials said Thursday."

U.S. will train Ukraine's Nazi sympathizers

"On Tuesday, The Associated Press reported The United States plans to send soldiers to Ukraine later this month to train the country’s national guard, which includes groups expressly espousing support for far-right and Nazi ideology."

Notice that the UN gave a casualty estimate for the "last two weeks" to shield Saudi regime from criticisms

"Violence in Yemen has killed an estimated 519 people the past two weeks, 90 of them children, and tens of thousands are fleeing their homes, the U.N. humanitarian chief said Thursday, signs of the humanitarian damage being wreaked in the Arab world's poorest nation in the rapid escalation of its conflict."

Only in the US

"King County and SeaTac law enforcement are searching for a man who pulled a gun on a woman after accusing Muslims of being violent." (thanks Amir)

The Saudi regime declares war on Al-Akhbar newspaper

I knew it was coming. There is a media war by the Saudi regime and now they want to close down the only Arabic newspaper which publishes direct and explicit criticisms and attacks on the Saudi tyrannical regime.  It is open war on the one dissident voice in the Arab media.  The Saudi regime wants one point of view only, and the Qatari media now follows Saudi regime.

Saudi regime clerics declare Jihad

Let me guess: the US government and Israel don't mind this kind of Jihad. Senior Saudi clerics declare the war of aggression on Yemen as "Jihad".  Kid you not. (thanks Mariam)

"Moderate Arab regimes": Sisi media now refers to its enemies as "infidels"

Caliphate for Aleppo

Demonstrations in Aleppo calling for the restoration of the Caliphate and the collapse of secularism.  Liz Sly and Anne Barnard will spin that as another indication of the rise of the "moderate" Syrian rebels.

Saudi Atomic Engery Commission

The Saudi regime assembled the committee of Senior `Ulamah (scholars of religion) and asked them to work on the production of a nuclear weapon.

Burhan Ghalyun praises the leader of Nusrah Front

The so-called liberal and secular elements of the Syrian exile opposition are so bankrupt and so irrelevant that they are now reduced to insisting that Nusrah Front represents the best hopes for the Syrian people.  Don't you wish on those people to praise those terrorists to have the opportunity to live under the rule of those Bin Ladenites?

Saudi regime uncovers a diabolical plot

According to the Saudi regime paper, the Saudi-led war on Yemen foiled a diabolical Huthi plot to Shi`itize all of Sana by 2017. Can you imagine?

All options are on the table

You have to know Arabic to appreciate this: American officials are prone to say: all options are on the table. But the word for option (khayar) is very close to (khiyar) which is cucumber.  ha ha

A Call to Resist Saudi (and US) Aggression in Yemen by an expert of Yemen

"Saudi Arabia, the only modern country named for its ruling dynasty, is an absolute monarchy that is anti-democratic, illiberal and intolerant. Already by March 11 of this year, according to Amnesty International, the Kingdom had executed forty-four people, many of them foreign nationals, often by beheading, and frequently for relatively minor drug-related charges. Sometimes decapitated bodies were hung, crucifixion-style, over busy intersections. The press is heavily censored, peaceful protests are banned and rights advocates face draconian sentences. A liberal blogger, Raif Badawi, was sentenced to public flogging and remains in prison despite an international outcry. Women have the status of minors, unable to drive, travel or otherwise function as adults without the supervision of their fathers, husbands or sons. As elsewhere in the Gulf, menial jobs are done by migrant workers, who in many cases are little more than indentured laborers...Mindful of the arms-for-oil bargain, Western powers overlook deplorable human rights violations for the sake of a more than seventy-year-old petro-security complex. In January President Obama led a large, high-powered bipartisan delegation of thirty American politicians to Riyadh to express condolences over the passing of the late King Abdullah and swear allegiance to the new King Salman. The president and other members of the delegation—which included former Secretaries of State James Baker and Condoleezza Rice, Senators John McCain and Mark Warner, Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and CIA director John Brennan—had all visited King Abdullah and members of his government many times before. Other world leaders also paid their respects.

It is customary for the United States, other North Atlantic powers and, through them, the United Nations Security Council to defer to Saudi concerns in Yemen. American drone assassinations, in particular, have been rationalized in terms of ensuring Saudi security. It follows that the United States is augmenting the current Saudi-led campaign with logistical and intelligence support, including live surveillance feeds from unmanned drones.

Saudi Arabia has meddled incessantly in Yemeni politics since at least the 1960s. All the Gulf monarchies opposed the revolutionary movement then against British colonialism and the sultans it supported in what was then South Yemen. The Saudis financially backed restoration of the Zaydi imam, who had been overthrown in 1962 by republican officers backed by forces from Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt. When revolutionaries came to power in what became the People’s Democratic Republic in the South and secular republican officers prevailed in the North, the Saudi government and various princes paid stipends to friendly clients in both parts of Yemen as a way of influencing domestic politics. The radically anti-Socialist Islamist party known as Islah was founded in North Yemen with Saudi encouragement by two of the country’s most prominent conservatives, both known for close ties with the Saudi Kingdom: the fanatical Salafi preacher Abd al-Majid al-Zindani and the late sheikh of the Hashid tribal confederation and long-time Speaker of Parliament, Abdullah bin Hussein al-Ahmar.

Saudi Arabia opposed Yemeni unification in 1990, cheered on Southern secessionists during the 1994 civil war and funded Salafi mosques and schools throughout the country. In fact, it was the ostentation of a large Saudi-funded Salafi institute in the town of Dammaj in Saada province that sparked the local Zaydi revivalist movement initially called the “Believing Youth,” but now known as Ansar Allah, or simply the Houthis. The 2004 arrest by then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s men of the movement’s founder, Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, and hundreds of his followers who were protesting in Sana sparked the first of six wars between the Saleh regime and Houthis in their Saada homeland. In 2009, Saudi warplanes targeted Houthi strongholds; according to Human Rights Watch, there is “credible evidence” the Saudis used cluster bombs."

One Saudi columnist dares to mildy criticize the ugly sectarian rhetoric of Arab oil and gas media

Dawud Shiryan writes.

Saudi proxy war on behalf of Israel

"The Saudis, while not even mentioning the Tiran and Senafir islands at the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba, which they lost to Israel in the 1967 war, have embarked on a massacre to discipline and disable Yemen so that the Bab al-Mandeb Strait remains a safe outlet for Israel to the Indian Ocean. This is nothing but a proxy war on behalf of Israel,” it said."

IT is not the first time Saudi regime fights Arabs on behalf of Israel and US

"Perhaps the most successful joint Arab military effort was the 1990-1991, Saudi-led campaign against Iraqi forces in the Kuwait war. Saudi Prince General Khaled bin Sultan commanded a Joint Forces and Theater of Operations "parallel command" to the American commander General Norman Schwarzkopf."

Violations of UN Charter & international law by powerful states

"The intervention by the Saudi’s and the GCC continues the international lawlessness that the U.S. precipitated with its War on Terror over the last decade and a half. Violations of the UN Charter and international law modeled by the powerful states of the West has now become normalized resulting in an overall diminution of international law and morality over the last 15 years. The double standard and hypocrisy of U.S. support for the Saudi intervention in Yemen and Western and U.S. condemnations of Russia’s regional security concerns in response to the right-wing coup in Ukraine will not be missed by most people."

Saudi war in Yemen & Bahrain won praises from the West

"Who, after all, could forget the last time the Saudi monarchy was called upon to defend local stability, when, in 2011, its national guard, joined by hired mercenaries from Pakistan, rolled into Bahrain to help the country's ruling Khalifa monarchy crush a mostly peaceful protest movement? Indeed, Saudi insistence on the sanctity of global order and stability might surprise more than a few, seeing as its fingerprints can be found on decades of uprisings, insurgencies, and acts of terrorism. The monarchy's reliance on a radical class of Wahhabi clerics to ensure its hold on power has resulted in chaos all across the globe, and the kingdom has spent billions of dollars to push its rigid — and often violent — interpretation of Islam to every corner of the world, from West Africa to the far reaches of northwest China." (thanks Amir)

The glorious Western revolution and causes

"The number of fighters leaving home to join al-Qaida and the Islamic State group in Iraq, Syria and other countries has spiked to more than 25,000 from over 100 nations, according to a new U.N. report."

Exclusive: Al-Arabiyyah publishes exclusive pictures of Yemeni president in Sanaa

This exclusive picture posted on Al-Arabiyyah website shows the Yemeni stooge, `Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, as he addressed the crowds in Sanna after his victorious return.

When Saudi princes volunteered to resist colonialism

There is a photo exhibit in Saudi Arabia on King Fahd (one of the worst Arabs of the 20th century along with Anwar Sadat and Yasser Arafat).  This picture claims that Prince Salman and Prince Fahd volunteered to defend Egypt during the tripartite invasion of 1956. 

Scientology

From my atheist perspective, all religious beliefs are equally laughable and quite unscientific.  But what bothers me is that some American Christians act as if Scientology beliefs are more crazy than, say, Christian beliefs. 

The sect of Salih

When Salih was getting Saudi cash and serving as a stooge for US and Saudi regime, he was referred to as Sunni in Saudi media. But when he rebelled against the Saudi regime when the latter abandoned him, he suddenly became Shi`ite.  (As for Netanyahu, he is Sunni in the Saudi media).

How to assess the Huthi Movement

I have been reading for a while the literature of the Huthis and their origins and their inconsistent and a bit changing ideology.  There are a lot of misconception. They can't be considered Shi`ite and they agree with the Zaydi regard for at least the first two rightly-guided caliphs (an important belief among Shi`ite twelvers), and they don't believe in the missing 12th Imam (a major tenants of the Shi`ite twelvers).  They can be regarded clearly from a leftist perspective as a reactionary conservative movement.  I find nothing to like about their rhetoric. Having said that there is a rule in Arab politics: no matter how much you hate a regime or a movement the Saudi regime will prefer a WORSE alternative to it, whether in Syria or in Yemen.  They manage to produce a worse alternative always. Finally, the current alliance between the Huthis is and Salih (the former stooge of US and Saudi Arabia) is the worst kind of unforgivable opportunism).

UPDATE: Anti-war movement in Saudi Arabia

I received this message from a Saudi dissident inside the kingdom.  His Facebook account was eliminated as soon as he sent it.  It talks about a preacher who was arrested for calling for an end to this war.

PS Some are suggesting that none other than Prince Talal is behind it.  I don't know.

""طائراتنا الشجاعة تقصف اليمنيين ..  منذ بدء العملية وحتی الآن لم أرَ جثة جندي حوثي واحد. فقط أشلاء نساء وأطفال ومدنيين أبرياء. وهدم للبيوت والمستشفيات والمرافق الخدمية . ** علمت أن طائرات بلادنا الشجاعة قصفت مخيما للنازحين اليمنيين في اليمن بمنطقة حجة . ** طائراتنا السعودية الباسلة قتلت عشرات اليمنيين الأبرياء في مخيم للنازحين تابع للأمم المتحدة . ** ماذا بعد اعتراف وكالة واس بأن طائراتنا قصفت البيوت في اليمن ؟!! لقد ساء وجه من لا يستنكر من المسلمين ** المضحك . قناة العربية تقول ان علي صالح سعی لجعل الحكم وراثي في اليمن من خلال تنصيب ابنه أحمد . يبدو أن الحكم في السعودية جمهوري انتخابي . ** سلمان أمر السيسي العمل علی إنزال الفضائيات المعادية للحرب علی اليمن من النيل سات وسيتحمل تكاليف فسخ العقود . ** الطيران القطري يقصف بوابات سجون في اليمن لمساعدة سجناء القاعدة على الهروب . ** ونحن نخسر المليارات لقصف أطفال ونساء اليمن. سعر برميل النفط يرتفع لينعش الاقتصاد الإيراني ** ونحن نقصف أطفال ونساء اليمن . أصدقاء إيران يتقدمون في هذه الأثناء باتجاه قلب تكريت شمالاً. وقلب عدن جنوباً. مبروك انتصار العاصفة !!! ** للعلم، وفق اتفاقية الحماية الأمريكية. ممنوع علينا تشكيل قوة برية للقوات المسلحة يتجاوز عدد أفرادها 20 ألفا. لذلك نحن مضطرون لشراء مرتزقة . ** قبل أن تحرروا أرض غيركم . تعالوا حرروا جزركم الثلاث في الخليج . لماذا لا تذهب طائراتكم لقصف القواعد الإيرانية في الجزر الإماراتية ؟ ** عندنا مثل يقول (أبوي ما يقدر إلا علی أمي) . إذا كانت مشكلتنا مع إيران ليش ما نروح نضربها مباشرة بالعاصفة ؟ ليش نضرب الضعفاء في اليمن وغيرها ** من قيم الجاهلية . اكتب مقالا ضد اليمن وأيد الحرب ثم تعال القصر لتستلم شيكا ماليا . ** كل قيم الجاهلية تم استحضارها في الحرب ضد اليمن . وعلی رأسها إعادة افتتاح أسواق النخاسة لشراء "العبيد" من باكستان ومصر ودفعهم للقتال بالنيابة . ** تماشيا مع موضة الشرعية والعواصف الجاهلية. أقترح علی قطر وتركيا تشكيل تحالف لشن (عاصفة مرسي) لإعادة الشرعية إلی مصر. ﻷن مرسي غيران من هادي ** سجلوها. إن حصل رد عسكري يمني ضد بلادنا. فبعد الرد بأسابيع تفرجوا علی إرهاصات تقسيم بلادنا . وعلی إحتلال قطر للبحرين. هذا هو المشروع الأمريكي ** سجلوها . صوروا هذه التغريدة واحتفظوا بها . سلطنة عمان سوف تعلن رسميا إنسحابها من مجلس التعاون في شهر شعبان كحد أقصی . ** إعتقال الشيخ محمد راشد المالكي في مكة ﻷنه دعا الله في مجلس بأن تتوقف الحرب ووصفها بالخاسرة علی الطرفين. فأبلغ عنه أحد المخبرين فتم اعتقاله . ** أشلاء الأطفال في اليمن بقذائف طائراتنا ستتسبب في لعنة على بلادنا وسيلاحقنا العار طول التاريخ. أبعدوا المراهقين عن الحكم قبل فوات الأوان. ** إن لم يتم تحكيم العقل فوراً، فإن الاسابيع القادمة ستشهد تطورات خطيرة في مناطق مختلفة من بلادنا، وهذه وفق معلومات استخباراتية موثوقة. ** من بطولات دولتنا السعودية الثالثة . حشد الجيوش لضرب شعب عربي مسلم فقير ماديا. غني في أخلاقه ودينه وحكمته . وشهد له الرسول بالإيمان والحكمة . طائراتنا الشجاعة تقتل اليمنيين!""

Who conrols the Yarmuk Camp?

The PLO confirms that ISIS now controls Yarmuk camp. Do you remember when advocates of the Syrian "revolution" were asserting that only moderate and secular and feminist armed groups were in control of Yarmuk camp?

Another world exclusive by Nicholas Blanford: the Syrian Army has been decimated

"Alongside the exhausted and decimated Syrian army, the IRGC is employing its own forces as well as a patchwork of Shiite paramilitary militias drawn from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to battle the mainly Sunni rebels across the country."  Would you hire this guy to serve as a correspondent for an elementary school newspaper? Honest?  (thanks Basim)

The caption says: "And always remember, boys, that the Gulf gives us money because they love us...Now jump".

Israel is elated about the Saudi war on Yemen

"Some Israeli politicians express deep satisfaction. Others seem elated about the Saudi attack on Yemen." "Israeli governments have a reputation for supporting dictators."

US pushes democracy agenda in the Middle East

"The move comes as the U.S. is also heavily supporting the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen, also involving some of the region’s worst tyrants (also known as: the U.S.’s closest allies). So the U.S. is, as usual, standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the region’s most oppressive regimes, whose survival at least partially depends on the abundant U.S. largesse they receive, once again provoking that age-old mystery: Why do they hate us?"

Cheering for war

Tawakkul Karman has been so cheering for war on her country that she now really deserves a special Nobel Prize for war. Wait: is that not the same as the Nobel Prize for peace?

US welcomes the formation of an Arab mercenary force

"The United States supports Arab plans to create a unified military force to counter growing security threats in the Middle East, and the Pentagon will cooperate with it where U.S. and Arab interests coincide, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday." "So I think if they are willing to do more, in this case with respect to Yemen, then that is a good thing because ultimately it is their region. ... The willingness of the parties there to step up and do more for stability in the Middle East is a good thing," Carter said." (thanks Amir)

Crimes of your rebels in Syria

"Almost 40 people were either shot, burned or stabbed to death by the militants during an overnight attack on Mabuja, 60km (40mi) east of Hama, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on 31 March 2015. Mabuja is home to several minorities including Christians, Alawites and Ismaili Muslims."

Saudi regime and Arab regimes

Take this as a rule: all Arab regimes are lousy and have abysmal records on human rights but it is also true that no matter how bad an Arab regime is, the Saudi regime manages to support a worse alternative to it, unless the regime is under the total control of House of Saud. In the 1960s, the Saudis supported the Imamate regime which had banned education for girls. 

Sudanese Air Force brags about hitting at Rawafid (pejorative word for Shi`ites) targets

Things move fast in the Middle East: only weeks ago the Sudanese regime was accused by House of Saud of Shi`itizing the Sudanese people.

How a native can win the Nobel Peace Prize from the White Man

Just count those natives who won the Nobel Peace Prize: they have been particularly war mongering.  Tawakkul Karman is a recent case. She just flew to Saudi Arabia to confer with the Saudi regime about the glorious war on her country. She has been cheering the war but she deserves the Nobel Prize because she only supports wars that the West approves of.