Turkish media comment on the journalism of Al-Arabiyya

"A claim by Saudi news channel Al Arabiya that two Turkish pilots were murdered by Syrian intelligence after their plane crashed June 22 is “absolute nonsense,” a senior Foreign Ministry official said yesterday as other ministry officials referred reporters to the findings of an autopsy the TurkishGeneral Staff performed on the pilots’ bodies.  The documents were also dismissed as “not credible” by a Turkish military expert. The two Turkish pilots, who were thought to have perished when their jet was shot down by Damascus, were actually rescued, interrogated and murdered by Syrian intelligence services, secret documents released Sept. 29 by Al Arabiya purported to show. The document that was allegedly sent directly from President Bashar al-Assad’s office to Brig. Hassan Abdel Rahman, the chief of Syria’s Special Operations Unit, reportedly first ordered the concerned parties to treat the two pilots, Air Force Cpt. Gökhan Ertan and Air Force Lt. Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy, according to the protocol of war prisoners.  The documents then suggested the possibility of transferring them into the custody of Syrian ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. “Based on information and guidance from the Russianleadership, [there is] a need to eliminate the two Turkish pilots detained by the Special Operations Unit in a natural way, and their bodies need to be returned to the crash site in international waters,” the document said. Speaking with the Hürriyet Daily News on condition of anonymity, the senior ministry official described the report as “absolute nonsense.” " (thanks Hikmet)

attacking Gypsies in France

I am told that the Frenchmen who set a camp for Roma people on fire the other day were of Arab descent.   Is this a case of the despised attacking the more despised?

Hired by the pro-Israel Iranian terrorist cult group

""Crowds and supporters of the Iranian Mujahidin-i-Khalq, an anti-Tehran cult, were bused in from far and wide. I asked a black American wearing a yellow vest with pictures of the cult's leader why he came. "They paid me to," he replied. The mujahidin, formerly listed as terrorists by the US, had just been taken off the list thanks to Israeli help. Israel has supplied the mujahidin with fake nuclear 'evidence" of Iran's alleged weapons program. The muj, in turn, passed on the doctored info to US intelligence.""  I have seen that near the White House last year.

King PlayStation of Jordan said that he left the country on a working trip

The man is busy.  (thanks Laith)
PS A reader sent me this:  "the second paragraph talks about his security people attacked journalists who took pictures and demanded their sim cards. next day press headlines said, "get out, king abdullah".

PS I am just told that the site for the story has been banned in Jordan. 

UAE repression: not in the US press

"" Thrown out of the UAE this summer with no explanation, journalism professor Matt Duffy believes his criticism of the country’s media laws, vocal support for free speech and authorities’ increasing fears of Arab Spring contagion may have been behind the move.
His wife, Ann Duffy, who worked in educational policy for the Abu Dhabi Education Council, had already had her contract terminated, also with no explanation provided, in June.
“When you live in a country like the UAE, and I think probably most Gulf countries, these kinds of stories are pretty common. You know people suddenly being dismissed with no explanation, so we were always kind of aware that something like that could happen"" (thanks "Ibn Rushd")

The clan does not approve

King PlayStation of Jordan appointed a new ambassador to Israel. But the clan of the new ambassador does not approve. (thanks Laurie)

not a race for the exists

""The retreat of western forces from Afghanistan could come sooner than expected, the head of Nato has said as he conceded that the recent Taliban strategy of 'green on blue' killings had been successful in sapping morale." "Rasmussen stressed that any accelerated rate of withdrawal should not be seen as 'a race for the exits'.""

Of course, no chance that you will read this in the Western press

"Youssef fled her home near Damascus three months ago, and like other refugees in Taamir, she is now seeking help from a seemingly unlikely source: Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ally Hezbollah.
This was the first day of Hezbollah’s drive to provide free medical care for Syrian refugees. It had ensured a strong turnout by hanging banners in refugee-strong areas that read: “To our brothers, the Syrian people: Hezbollah invites you to a day of free health care – health checkups and free medication.”"  To the story I say: better late than never.  (thanks Abbas)

Lebanese Security Official

Whenever you read stories in the Western press attributed to Lebanese security official as in--"A Hezbollah commander and several fighters have been killed inside Syria, a Lebanese security official said Tuesday"--you know it is Ashraf Rifi, an employee of the Hariri family who heads the Internal Security Forces and who sits on the Board of Prince Nayif University of Security Sciences and Torture.

The profile of Habash in Jadaliyya

"-"If Syria Is working to get some support to join the settlement process, then the masses will curse the Syrian regime just like they are cursing the Egyptian regime now." 10 September 1975."

Thomas Friedman was praising Jordanian rule only a few months ago

"Can it last? Doubts grew in September when the Jordanian parliament passed a law curtailing freedom of expression on the Internet and giving the government broad powers to block websites it deems inappropriate.  “The law is so vague you could drive a truck through it,”says Abdelmajeed Shamlawi, chief executive officer of the Information and Communications Technology Association of Jordan. The law, which was passed a few days after demonstrators took to the streets in Amman to protest an anti-Islam video that originated in the U.S. and was broadcast on the Internet, was deplored by groups such as Human Rights Watch as an instance of state censorship.  On a scale of 1 (most free) to 7 (least free), Jordan scores 5.5, or “not free,” according to the Freedom in the World 2011 report published by Washington-based Freedom House." (thanks Nir)

This won't appear on the front pages of US newspapers: culprits were not Muslims

"Suspected hardline Israelis scrawled pro-settler graffiti and religious insults on a monastery outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City on Tuesday, police said, in the latest of a series of attacks on non-Jewish sites.""  Don't you like the description of "suspected hardline" Israelis? If they were Muslims, they would have been described as "genocidal terrorist Muslims who should be killed".

The Omani revolution

I am looking forward to a new book (to be published by Oxford University Press) on the Omani revolution by Abdel Razzaq Takriti, who worked on his PhD dissertation on the topic at Oxford.  Abel Razzaq was one of my wonderful hosts at Oxford University a few years ago. 

They want to be spared the glorious revolution

"Now, as opposition fighters say they plan to take the city from the forces of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, civilians are pleading with the fighters to spare them the violence that would ensue."

Canadian forces

""A Canadian Forces member from western Manitoba has been charged with bestiality and circulating obscene matter, according to RCMP.""

Changes in Syrian regime media

This week marks a departure for Syrian regime TV media.  The official Syrian regime has decided the more sensational and blunt style of Dunya TV (which like Saudi news media follow the style of Fox News).  It carried two biting editorials against Muhammad Mursi and Khalid Mish`al.  But the Syrian regime is consistently cowardly: they go after easier targets.  You would not see direct attacks against the Saudi King because Bashshar--according to my theory--still hopes for under-the-table deal.

The polish of Jihadi videos??

"Several analysts said that the video appeared to be staged and that it lacked the customary form and polish of jihadist videos."

This rather very ironic headline says it all

"U.S. Abandoning Hopes for Taliban Peace Deal"

Look at this arrogance: by "politics" he means the opinions and demands of the natives

"“You cannot let politics dictate what platform you use,” said James Schoff, a former senior adviser on East Asia affairs for the Office of the Secretary of Defense."

On this day in 1187 in Palestine

On this day in 1187, Jerusalem was liberated by Arab armies.  There was no Obama or Bush to rescue the crusaders.  There will come a day when there will be no Obama or Bush to rescue the Zionists.  Stay tuned.

Think about it: Lebanon and Palestine

Lebanon was founded as a national home for the Maronites by the same forces that would sponsor the creation of a national home for the Jewish people.  This was a project that reflected the aims and wishes of the Maronite patriarchate and its sponsors in the West.  Look at Lebanon today: the project--simply put--failed miserably.  Lebanon today is far from what it was intended to be.  Apply that lesson to Palestine and safely predict the fate of Zionism.  Its fate is sealed.

Look at this sectarian mischaraterization of this great man

"Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) - In constant struggle with his Jewish identity".

Remembering Eric Hobsbawm

My colleague, Maria, sent me this:  "I think this is one of the strongest and best-articulated statements I have ever read: It is from E. Hobsbawm in his memoirs "Interesting Times" in reference to what he referred to as "the burden imposed by his mother" when he asked him to "never do anything, or seem to do anything that might suggest that you are ashamed of being a Jew":

"... It has been enough to define my Judaism ever since, and left me free to live as what my friend the late Isaac Deutscher called a 'non-Jewish Jew', but not what the miscellaneous regiment of religious or nationalist publicists call 'self-hating Jew'. I have no emotional obligation to the practices of an ancestral religion and even less to the small, militarist, culturally disappointing and politically aggressive nation-state which asks for my solidarity on racial grounds. I do not even have to fit in with the most fashionable posture of the turn of the new century, that of 'the victim', the Jew who, on the strength of the Shoah (and in the era of unique and unprecedented Jewish world achievement, success and public acceptance), asserts unique claims on the world's conscience as a victim of persecution. Right and wrong, justice and injustice, do not wear ethnic badges or wave national flags. And as a historian I observe that, if there is any justification for the claim that the 0.25 per cent of the global population in the year 2000 which constitute the tribe into which I was born are a 'chosen' or special people, it rests not on what it has done within the ghettos or special territories.... it rests on its quite disproportionate and remarkable contribution to humanity in the wider world, mainly in the two centuries or so since the Jews were allowed to leave the ghettos, and chose to do so. .... We are ... 'un people en diaspora'. We shall, in all probability, remain so. And if we make the thought experiment of supposing that Herzl's dream came true and all Jews ended up in a small independent territorial state which excluded form full citizenship all who were not the sons of Jewish mothers, it would be a bad day for the rest of humanity-- and for the Jews themselves." (24-25)"

Today, in history: liberation of Jerusalem

"Saladin’s army included some 200,000 fighters, who faced a defending force of some 160 Christians. Over the course of six days, the tiny Christian force held off the Muslims, causing them significant casualties, until Saladin’s army began an assault from the Mount of Olives, to the east." Yes, Zionist writers.  The 160 Christian crusaders killed 100,000 Muslims, I am sure.

Aljazeera's coverage of Syria

Mr. Michel Kilu, a leading Syrian opposition intellectual, has just discovered that Aljazeera provides a lousy coverage of Syria and that it engages in blatantly sectarian agitation.  Better late than never.  (thanks Mirvat)

When a 1000 people protest against Putin in Russia, it is front page story in the Times. This one is buried in passing and hasn't been covered by any US newpspaper

"However, both Washington and Tokyo are facing an unusually strong pushback from many of the 1.4 million residents on Okinawa, including a large demonstration and acts of civil disobedience of a sort not seen here in decades. A rally last month drew as many as 100,000 people, the largest anti-base demonstration on the island since a similar-size one that followed the rape of an Okinawan schoolgirl by three American servicemen in 1995."

You will only read such a stupid sentence in a US newspaper

"If he had not been a lifelong Communist he would be remembered simply as one of the great historians of the 20th century.”"  It was said by Tony Judt, no less.

Muslim Brotherhood in Power: Foreign Policies of Mubarak

My latest blog post for Al-Akhbar English: the Muslim Brotherhood in Power.

Lozenge in English (losange in French)

If you look up the Entomology of Lozenge, you are directed to French for the word, Losange.  I am talking about what they call as the "throat lozenge".  While reading a book on Harun Ar-Rashid, I encountered the word in Arabic (but clearly of partly non-Arabic etymological origin) listed as one of the sweets in the Baghdadi royal court.  Sure enough, it is listed in Lisan Al-`Arab with a root from lawz (almond), which entered into many of the early Arabic desserts.  It is pronounced as Al-Lawaziynaj, and related to Qata'if. 

اللَّوْزِيْنَجُ من الحلواء شبه القطائف تُؤْدَمُ بدهن اللَّوْزِ، والله أَعلم" (لسان العرب)

The precarious monarchy

"While protests and demonstrations in Jordan have been small and relatively peaceful compared with those in other countries in the region, the royal court's continued intransigence could lead to further unrest, including violent clashes with security forces.  In what was widely seen as an effort to stamp out criticism of the royal court, the Jordanian parliament – which consists mainly of conservative pro-regime members – recently passed a controversial press and publications law that requires online media organisations to register and obtain licences from the authorities.  In addition, online publishers will be held accountable for comments posted by readers on their website and they will be prohibited from publishing comments that are not strictly relevant to the published article (how this is to be determined is far from clear). This law is clearly designed to limit the dissemination of political commentary that may be critical of the regime.  Although the royal court has in recent months proposed changes to the constitution and the electoral law, these have largely been dismissed as a cosmetic exercise since the king will retain the power to dismiss parliament at will and the proposed new electoral system is still rigged in favour of regime supporters.  In addition, the majority of Jordanians (ie Palestinian-Jordanians) will be significantly under-represented in the parliament. The leading opposition group in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front (IAF – the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood) has vowed to boycott legislative elections planned for early next year and has called for a mass rally to take place in early October."

mourning the dead in Qatif

Your beloved Saudi kingdom of horror

"Sixty percent of Saudis are 20 or younger, most of whom have no hope of a job. Seventy percent of Saudis can not afford to own a home. Forty percent live below the poverty line.

The royals, 25,000 princes and princesses, own most of the valuable land and benefit from a system that gives each a stipend and some a fortune. Foreign workers make the Kingdom work; the 19 million Saudi citizens share the Kingdom with 8.5 million guest workers.

Other fault lines are getting deeper and more explosive. According to House, regional differences and even “regional racism” between parts of the country are “a daily fact of Saudi life.” Hejazis in the West and Shiites in the East resent the strict Wahhabi lifestyle imposed by the Quran belt in the Nejd central desert. Gender discrimination, essential to the Wahhabi world view, is a growing problem as more and more women become well educated with no prospect of a job. Sixty percent of Saudi college graduates are women but they are only twelve percent of the work force. You can hear some of their angry voices in this book."  I should note that the author of the book, Karen Elliot House, has had a long infatuation with Arab potentates. (thanks Ali)

Roma Camp set on fire in France

""Residents of a housing estate in the southern French city of Marseille forced a group of Roma (Gypsy) families that had installed themselves nearby to move on, before burning all that remained of their encampment, local press reported on Thursday.""

record of the US Empire

""In his seminal work "A Century of U.S. Interventions," based on the Congressional Records and the Library of Congress' Congressional Research Services, Zoltan Grossman chronicled 133 U.S. military interventions by the most active military in the history of the world, between 1890 and 2001. Similarly, William Blum's study "A Guide to the World's Only Superpower," covered 67 interventions between 1945 and 2000 that, according to him, resulted in the deaths of 13-17 million people. In his book "The Fall of the U.S. Empire – And Then What?," European intellectual Johan Galtung listed 161 incidents of American overt political violence between 1945 and 2001, including 67 military interventions, 25 bombings, 35 political assassinations (or attempted ones), 11 foreign countries that were assisted with torture, and 23 interferences with elections or the political process abroad. And all that was before the 9/11 attacks.""

armoured tea

""In the last few weeks alone, Taliban fighters have succeeded in storming Camp Bastion in Helmand province and destroying $200m worth of aircraft. So many American and allied soldiers have now been shot by Afghan soldiers and police that US advisers are under orders to wear full body armour when having tea with their local allies."" (thanks Amir)

Army of spite

"Dima, the doctor, who lives on the western side of Aleppo, said she believed that the fire had been started by incendiary bullets from government snipers. But she blamed the rebels for approaching the old city, which she said had no government target, and said they seemed more concerned with the number of areas they could seize than with their tactical importance. “They are not the army of freedom,” she said. “They are the army of spite.”"

Qatar: buying Hamas (which has been for sale for a while now)

"In a boost to Gaza's Hamas government, the Gulf state of Qatar said on Sunday it opened the first diplomatic office in the isolated territory since the Islamic military group took power five years ago. Qatari officials said the office is not a formal embassy. Instead, it will oversee hundreds of millions of dollars in aid projects Qatar is funding." (thanks Basim)

A Lebanese student rejected from a German course

There is a global entrepreneurial competition in Germany where young students from around the world were supposed to meet over weeks and discuss population explosion.  So a student from Lebanon applied (and he is Christian, lest you think he was Jihadi) and he was accepted.  But while he was getting his papers ready, he received a note from the German sponsoring organization informing him that he would not be invited after all because a video on his Facebook shows a burning of the flag of a democratic country.  He explained to the interviewer (on OTV in Lebanon) that indeed when he was 17 years old, during the war on Gaza, someone tagged him with a video of a protest in which a flag of Israel was burnt. 

How dare Turkey object to Western theft?

"An aggressive campaign by Turkey to reclaim antiquities it says were looted has led in recent months to the return of an ancient sphinx and many golden treasures from the region’s rich past. But it has also drawn condemnation from some of the world’s largest museums, which call the campaign cultural blackmail.  In their latest salvo, Turkish officials this summer filed a criminal complaint in the Turkish court system seeking an investigation into what they say was the illegal excavation of 18 objects that are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Norbert Schimmel collection.  Last year, Turkish officials recalled, Turkey’s director-general of cultural heritage and museums, Murat Suslu, presented Met officials with a stunning ultimatum: prove the provenance of ancient figurines and golden bowls in the collection, or Turkey could halt lending treasures. Turkey says that threat has now gone into effect.  “We know 100 percent that these objects at the Met are from Anatolia,” the Turkish region known for its ancient ruins, Mr. Suslu, an archaeologist, said in an interview. “We only want back what is rightfully ours.”"  Now, I support Turkish claims but I also call on Turkey to return what it has looted from lands that were under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

Deleting women in Saudi Arabia: hillary praises Saudi reform

"Ikea is being criticized for deleting images of women from the Saudi version of its furniture catalogue, a move the company says it regrets. Comparing the Swedish and Saudi versions of the Ikea catalogue, Sweden’s free newspaper Metro on Monday showed that women had been airbrushed out of otherwise identical pictures showcasing the company’s home furnishings. The report raised questions in Sweden about Ikea’s commitment to gender equality. The country’s trade minister Ewa Bjorling didn’t criticize Ikea directly but told Metro that you can’t delete women from society." (thanks Sultan)

The West is absolute and unconditional freedom of speech only when Muslims are offended

"France's Catholic Church has won a court injunction to ban a clothing advertisement based on Leonardo da Vinci's Christ's Last Supper. 
The display was ruled "a gratuitous and aggressive act of intrusion on people's innermost beliefs", by a judge.  The church objected to the female version of the fresco, which includes a female Christ, used by clothing designers Marithe et Francois Girbaud. The authorities in the Italian city of Milan banned the poster last month. The French judge in the case ordered that all posters on display should be taken down within three days. The association which represented the church was also awarded costs." (thanks Omar)

Pathetic attempts by House of Saud to appease the US (and Israel)

Look at this silly pathetic story.  Al-Arabiyya has this headline:  "When America honored the Prophet 77 years ago".  You read the story and realize that they are talking about the stone engraving of Muhammad on the wall of the Supreme Court of the US.  In fact, this is the only known statue of Muhammad anywhere around the world.  And far from honoring Muhammad, the statue constitutes a blatant offense to Muslims beliefs and sensibilities.  But it tells plenty about House of Saud's attempt to please the US at every corner.  Over the decades, Muslim organizations around the world have petitioned the Supreme Court and pleaded that the statue be removed.  And year after year, the Supreme Court refuses and it does not care about whether Muslims were hurt or offended or not.  Imagine if this was an offense, for example, to the beliefs and feelings of the Jewish people.  I bet that a special sessions of US Congress would be held, and money would be denied to the Supreme Court pending the correction.  I won't be surprised if I read this story on Al-Arabiyya about the drone attacks by the US in Muslims lands: The US deals effectively with diabetes and heart disease among Muslims by killing them from the air.  Did I mention to you that Arabs call Al-Arabiyya "Al-Ibriyyah" (The Hebrew one)??

Ibn Battutah, the plagiarizer?

I need more evidence than this although there were parts of the account that always struck me as too imaginative: "Most notable are however the striking resemblances to various writings of his era, primarily to a pilgrimage account written by a certain Ahmad Ibn Jubayr. Pages of this work were either slightly reworked or copied word for word: "Many of Ibn Battuta's accounts do not provide us with his immediate travel impressions at all, but rather confront us with his skill as a plagiariser," says Elger.  In this context, Elger also has a plausible explanation for why Ibn Battuta repeatedly mentions the generosity he was shown by all the rulers he encountered."

School of the Americas in Baghdad

"President Obama continues to tout the withdrawal of troops from Iraq on the campaign trail as one of his foreign policy accomplishments. The other being the extrajudicial assassination of Osama bin Laden. But not all American troops are out of Iraq. Some have stayed behind to “help out” and they operate under the civilian umbrella of the gargantuan U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The catastrophic failure of reconstruction projects due to fraud and corruption and the disappearance of tens of billions of dollars in and from Iraq have been documented by journalists and investigated by Congress. But in all fairness, one should never overlook the success stories no matter how minor. The Al-Nahrain Center in Baghdad is one.
On June 17 the Iraqi Prime Minister cut the ribbons to inaugurate the al-Nahrain Center for Strategic Studies. But he did not mention the role of the U.S. Embassy in funding the project in his speech, nor did he inform Iraqi citizens of the scope of its activities. He stressed the role to be played by the War College and the National Defense College, both of which are linked to the al-Nahrain Center, in “training strategic cadres to build the state, internally and externally.” Two days later, on June 19, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a press release that was relatively less laconic than Maliki’s speech about the nature and actual goals of the center. Here are some excerpts from the release. I have bolded the revealing parts:
“. . .The center was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, in coordination with the Government of Iraq, as set out by the Strategic Framework Agreement. The June 17 opening ceremony launched a three-day Iraqi Regional Security Seminar featuring presentations from scholars and experts from Iraq, the U.S. and other countries.  The seminar’s objective was to define strategic relationships and reinforce the commitment to partnership and cooperation between Iraq, the U.S. and regional partners.
The center. . .will facilitate regional dialogue and serve as a basis for partnership building between Iraq and other nations throughout the region. The $15 million complex, with funding from the U.S. Embassy, was completed in two years and represents Iraq’s commitment to professional development and strategic studies for senior Iraq officials. The complex features first-class conference and meeting facilities, video teleconference capabilities, classroom buildings, and a student center, complete with a library, auditorium and coffee shop.
Senior Iraqi leaders will receive education in areas such as defense economics, civil-military relations, leadership and management, regional security issues and strategic resource planning.  The center will also engage academic partners, both regional and international, to facilitate out-of-country military-to-military exchanges for training and development. . .The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was honored to support this initiative.”
It is truly heartwarming that this project, unlike hundreds of others that had to do with Iraq’s infrastructure and vital services and needs such as electricity, potable water, hospitals. . . etc, was completed efficiently and on time. Here you can watch a video of the facilities right before inauguration. American military personnel can be seen at 1:28 to 2:20. Here is an earlier video from the DVIDS (Defense Video and Imagery Distribution System) about the project.  In a country that had the highest level of literacy in the developing world by 1980, illiteracy has now jumped to 20 percent. Iraq’s higher education system is in shambles and the number of fake diplomas in Iraq is in the thousands. So why the urgency and who are the “cadres” Maliki is referering to in his speech? Those who are already practicing “state building” in Iraq and have distinguished themselves in corruption and pervasive violence, but need further training from American experts or regional counterparts? And what is exactly meant by “external state building?” The language in the press release and the code words (military training, strategic and regional cooperation. . . etc) are reminiscent of the discourse and practices of the notorious School of the Americas (SOA). The 60,000 alumni of the SOA went on to terrorize and massacre civilian populations in their countries and have included eleven military dictators from Noriega (Chile), Galtieri and Viola (Argentina), Alvarado (Peru), to Suarez (Bolivia) and others who became “some of the worst human rights abusers in Latin American history.” Although the SOA was closed in December of 2000, it reopened in January 2001, but under a new name: the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC)." (thanks Laleh)

Eric Hobsbawm is dead

"An unrepentant Marxist, he acknowledged the failure of 20th Century communism but said he had not given up on Marxist ideals. In April, he told fellow historian Simon Schama he would like to be remembered as "somebody who not only kept the flag flying, but who showed that by waving it you can actually achieve something, if only good and readable books"." (thanks Turgul)