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"If you think you understand Lebanon," a friend counseled me as I prepared for my first trip to her native land, "somebody's just explained it badly." Six days in Lebanon confirmed her wisdom. They also confirmed that the United States can ill afford to neglect this tiny, beautiful, strife-ridden country, which is in the Arab world but not entirely of it, and which since the 1980s has served as a battleground in Iran's quest for hegemony in a region critical to vital American national security interests. . . .
In discussing Lebanese exceptionalism, one mustn't slight Beirut's famous nightlife. In the evenings Sunni, Christian, and Shia put aside political differences to dine on fine food, and to drink and smoke until all hours. There is nothing in the Middle East quite like the exuberant cabaret-style nightclubs where patrons begin to trickle in around 10, dinner is served at 11, and near midnight the curtain goes up on a succession of performers who effortlessly interweave Middle Eastern, European, American, and Latin American music. Soon patrons pour out into the aisles or hop up on chairs, tables, and even bar counters to dance. . . .
[T]he June 2009 elections turned on the single issue of whether Lebanon would submit to Hezbollah and the political authority of Syria and Iran, or build a free and democratic state. Despite eking out a narrow parliamentary majority, the March 14 coalition could not form a government for five months because Hezbollah blocked it--formally, by means of the powers it obtained through the Doha Agreement, and informally, through threats and intimidation. The newly announced national unity government gives 2 of the 30 ministerial port-folios to Hezbollah politicians. . . .
For Hezbollah . . . resistance does not refer merely to armed struggle against Israel's occupation of this or that piece of land, or even the battle against Israel's very existence, but a fight to the death against the claims of liberty and democracy in Lebanon and throughout the region in the name of Islamic law as dictated by the Iranian mullahs.
Peter Berkowitz, “Going Backwards in Beirut,” The Weekly Standard, November 21, 2009
If you sit down with Itamar Marcus, you had better brace yourself for a jarring refresher course on Mideast reality. That's especially true if you tend to think like the current administration--if you believe, for example, that the Israeli-Palestinian impasse is all about borders and settlements and that the construction of 900 housing units in southern Jerusalem "could end up being very dangerous," as President Barack Obama said last week.
If it's "very dangerous" to construct Jewish housing in a city that Israel will never, ever relinquish, what should we call the effort to brainwash children into believing that Israel itself doesn't exist?
How should we describe the claim that not only East Jerusalem — captured by Israel in the 1967 war — belongs to the Palestinians, but that every other Israeli city, from Haifa to Ashkelon, belongs to them, too?
"In the world inhabited by Palestinian children," Marcus tells me, "there is no Israel." And if you give him time, the director of Palestinian Media Watch (palwatch.org) in Jerusalem will subject you to a barrage of depressing evidence for his contention. . . .
Do any Palestinian textbooks acknowledge the existence of Israel, I wonder. "No," Marcus replies. . . .
Remember, we're talking about textbooks chosen by the Palestinian government led by the allegedly moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, not the overtly jihadist Hamas. . . .
Naturally, Jews poisoned Yasser Arafat, too — or at least that is what children are told.
In a TV tribute to Arafat earlier this month, one youngster unconsciously presented the essence of this paranoid vision: "He died from poisoning by the Jews. Well, I don't know what he died from, but I know it was by the Jews."
The talk in Israel, explicit and open – including in the country's leading daily, Haaretz, last week – is about a war in the coming spring or summer. The skies will have cleared for air operations, Israel's missile shields against short- and medium-range rockets will at least be partly operational, and the international community, led by President Obama, will palpably have failed to stymie Iran's nuclear weapons programme. And the Iranians will be that much closer to a bomb. . . .
It is clear – and should be by then to all but the most supine appeasers – that the diplomatic approach is going nowhere, with the Iranians conning and stonewalling and dragging their feet, all the while enriching more uranium. And Tehran is laughing, as it were, all the way to Armageddon. Ahmadinejad and the mullahs know full well that the west will never impose the only sanctions that could work (a complete boycott of Iranian oil and cessation of the export to Iran of all products).
Benny Morris, “Obama’s nuclear spring,” The Guardian, November 24, 2009
U.S. intelligence officials worry the Syrian border with Iraq will become a terrorist safe haven like the Pakistani tribal areas, an intelligence review stated.
“Al-Qaeda tied to Iraqi Ba’athists in Syria?” UPI, November 25, 2009
In Yedioth Ahronoth, Alex Fishman wrote that the Israeli government is facing a dilemma as it contemplates releasing hundreds of prisoners in return for Hamas releasing Gilad Shalit, because many of those were sentenced to multiple life sentences for taking the lives of Israeli men, women and children, and because these people are not just “prisoners with blood on their hands,” but are “prisoners who are drenched in blood up to their ears.”
I want to ask here, if everyone who had blood on their hands in Palestine were to be imprisoned, would anyone remain in the government of Israeli fascists, and the officers of the neo-Nazi army of Israel, outside of prison bars? . . .
The rate of Palestinians killed at the hands of the Israelis is a Nazi rate par excellence; yet, these numbers are not the whole story: The Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons are true freedom fighters, whose lands were stolen and still are, and their lives destroyed, all while the robbery and the destruction still persist. As for the murderers from the Israeli side, they are nothing but war criminals that hide behind religious myths that have no basis at all in history or even geography.
Israel today is a despicable and hated state, a racial segregation state, or apartheid, and a separation wall that only has its match in the fallen Berlin Wall. No one likes Israel, including many Jews who refuse to be a party to its crimes. . . .
Historically speaking, Israel never existed, and its supposed prophets are nothing but fictional figures in biblical myths. The state of Israel was established in our time for the sole purpose of sheltering the world Jewry from racism and anti-Semitism, after the Christian West murdered half of Europe’s Jews. However, Israel has since committed crimes tantamount to the Nazi crimes targeting the Jews, and after being supposedly the sanctuary of Jews from anti-Semitism, it has become the first and most important motive behind anti-Semitism in the world today.
Jihad el-Khazen, “Killing them is not only justified, but a warranted duty,” Dar Al Hayat, November 25, 2009
Human Rights Watch founder Robert L. Bernstein has been roundly criticized for arguing that his own organization, which by its repeated reports suggests that Israel’s human rights record is so reprehensible as to warrant heightened condemnation, has unfairly demonized Israel. To get a first-hand account of this ongoing argument, I arranged to accompany my son, a documentary filmmaker in Israel, on a recent appointment to tape an interview with Bassem Eid, the general director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. . . .
Eid spent many years working with B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group that focuses on Israeli abuses in the territories. My son and I were pretty sure what we would hear: the usual catalogue of complaints about Israel’s barriers to travel, humiliating searches and police harassment. But although Eid is critical of Israel, and in particular its West Bank settlements, this is not at all his focus. It turns out that he formed the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group when he concluded that a major element in the abuse of Palestinians — the abuse of Palestinians by the Palestinian Authority — was being overlooked. And on this subject, he is an expert.
To Eid, Palestinians’ self-inflicted abuses are more serious than any by Israelis. He describes the human rights situation in the Palestinian Authority as “very disturbing,” and marked by “illegal detention ... political arrests, [and] torture inside the PA detention centers.” Eid, who himself has been arrested by the PA, says he has seen the signs of torture on the bodies of Palestinians held by the PA. He notes that the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza present an “equal picture,” and that there is “no difference” between them. Each uses imprisonment for years, without trial and without charges, and torture against opponents. Each is deeply corrupt, looking after personal interests “to build themselves rather than to build the infrastructure of the Palestinian state, rather than to build the society itself.”
Gregory R. Smith, “Palestinians’ Self-Inflicted Abuse,” Jewish Journal, November 25, 2009
The slaughterhouses and slaughtering units at the holy sites are geared up today to start their work for the Day of Sacrifice or Eid Al-Adha.
The mayoralty has prepared five units for slaughtering in the Al-Mu’aissim area with a capacity of 1.5 million head of sheep, camels and cattle. The units have the latest equipment and technology.
The mayoralty has prepared five units for slaughtering in the Al-Mu’aissim area with a capacity of 1.5 million head of sheep, camels and cattle. The units have the latest equipment and technology.
“Five locations can slaughter 1.5m heads,” Saudi Gazette, November 27, 2009
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