DDGD –
October 20, 2015
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Today’s Post is brought to you by: The International
Foundation for Global Anger Management: does our horrendous failure to achieve
our goal make you angry? Good. Let’s manage that for you!
Editorial Comment
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What does it tell us when Israelis cannot tell the
difference between an Arab,
an Eritrean
and a Jew? What conclusions can we draw from the Palestinians’ continued
failure to see the hypocrisy in their willingness to target Israeli civilians,
including women and children, and their criticism of Israel when it does the
same? Yes, the scales involved might be different, but is it a matter of scale?
Does murder becomes bad only when it’s mass murder? But, then, some
Palestinians attackers seem more than willing to commit mass murder should they
have the chance.
Where will all this lead? What can bloodshed beget but more
bloodshed, and fear more fear, hate more hate, and incitement counter-incitement?
In a state where Israelis themselves can't tell the
difference between a Jew, an Arab or an Eritrean, the only way left to break
the cycle of folly and violence, that only solution left that makes any sense
is the one that must counter-intuitive to all, the one from which all have been
running for all these decades, the one that called for more integration, not
official separation into two states that could never live at peace, it’s the
one-state solution, one federal state, with bicameral assembly and specially
tailored electoral laws that balances demographic realities and communal
rights, with Jerusalem as its capital.
In this sense, I agree with Gideon Levy’s call for
“equal rights for all”.
Indeed, “One state is already here, and has been for a long
time. All it needs is to be just and do the right thing. Who’s against it? Why?
And, most important, what’s the alternative?”
Bloodshed, that’s what.
But my logic here is not just about the 600,000 settlers in
Palestinian territories that will never be evacuated, and whose presence
already moots the issue of two-state solution. There are other realities that
moot the issue as well: the intimate ties between the Palestinian and Israeli
financial and economic institutions, without which the Palestinian state can
never be viable. At this stage, Gulf States are incapable of providing
long-term funding for infrastructure development and economic stimulus. They
are dealing with their own financial and economic woes and security challenges,
domestic and regional; they are too distracted by the current upheavals to be
counted on for long-term planning.
Meanwhile, an Iran that is eager to fill the place of Gulf
Arabs has its own agenda, one that calls for transforming the Occupied
Territories into a battlefield. Such development, which seems to be taking
place as we speak, will only pave the way for a disaster, perhaps another
full-scale Nakba. And the world will do nothing to stop it. Just ask the
Syrians what the world, including their regional and international allies, has
done for them. No, separation is not going to work.
But if the Palestinians truly want to seek integration,
then, their methods cannot be violent. Their choice of methods has to send a
message of forgiveness, acceptance and a sincere willingness to move on and
open a new page. Only such a message cannot resonate, in time, with Israelis.
The struggle won’t be easy of course, and the current government in Israel may
not become responsive anytime soon. But, nonviolent struggles are meant to be
waged over an extended period of time. And there are no guarantees as to when
the critical turning point will take place, but recent history does show that
more of the same will beget more of the same. Aren’t we tired of the same old
same old? It’s time for change, for positive thinking, and iron wills, time for
inclusive visions and long-term planning. We have spilled enough blood to
satisfy the lust of a trillion vampirical gods, and their self-appointed
messiahs. It’s time we stopped bleeding each other, of treating each other as chattel.
Briefly Noted
|
We
Break It, You Own It: Russia’s Logic in Syria. I think Putin’s strategy is
more like: I break off a piece for me to keep, you, the United States, Europe
and Nato, can own the broken remainder.
While
Saudi Arabia commits to fighting extremists abroad, King Salman's government
tacitly endorses its own fanatical preachers. What’s new? The Al-Saud’s
alliance with the Wahhabis is how they have been maintaining their legitimacy
since the founding of their kingdom. They are not going to undermine these
vital relations at this stage when they are facing serious security threats
both at home and from Iran, and when so many pundits and officials are talking
about a looming breakup of the kingdom. In fact, all factions competing within
the Al-Saud family now will be trying to woo the Wahhabi establishment. For all
those who often dabble in real politick to be appalled by Saudi attitudes is
quite baffling. Not that I defend this attitude by the Saudis. I am just
saying: what’s new?
“Assad
must go!” These three little words present a huge obstacle for Obama on Syria. No, they don’t actually. This administration walked
away from its established red lines before, and it seems about to walk away
from that one too, as Kerry is set to embark on a new round of diplomacy on the
matter. The reality is the administration has its own sense of priorities and
it stuck to it; it don’t corner itself, it just cornered the Syrian
people.
AP
Interview: Iran preparing for 'tsunami' of tourists. Indeed, because
nothing feels sweeter than pouring your hard-earned money into the coffers of a
homicidal autocratic terrorism-funding regime.
When the
father of the Ukrainian Revolution is a Pashtun Muslim who left Kabul as a
child and came to the country as a refugee, and when one the main
cartoonists who worked at Charlie Hebdo is of a Syrian Muslim background, I
think Europe really needs to revise its attitude about the “Migrants Crisis”
and the threat that migrants, refugees and refugrants allegedly pose to
national security, identity and values, focusing instead on the talents they
bring to the field and the opportunities they can create.
Russia
reportedly used drones for the first time in its aerial operation in Syria
killing one person and injuring several in the town of Maar Shimareen in Idlib
Province (Arabic). Will chemical weapons be next? Meanwhile, a Russian
company close to the Kremlin used drones
rather differently: to celebrate Russia its military prowess in Syria.
Assad
Cousin Sparks Backlash With Washington Speech. Ah Congress, if there is anything
more dysfunctional than the current administration foreign policies, it’s you.
Canada
to end airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, new Prime Minister Trudeau says. And the
legacy building begins. What next? Joining the Russo-Iranian Alliance.
Blitzer
To Chafee: You'll Look Silly If You Don't Drop Out Soon. Where did Blitzer
learn his interrogation, I mean interview techniques, from the FSB? Oh, that
makes sense. Blitzer is a Russian agent.
Qatar
is looking for alternatives in Syria. Five years on and everybody is still
doing that. Meanwhile Russian propaganda machines are still doing this: Qatar
Threatens Military Intervention in Syria.
Iran
Sending More Military Advisers to Syria, Official Says. Today military advisers,
tomorrow political administrators, as a colonial presence is being carved out. After
all, what’s the point of doubling
down on a hack like Assad, if one did not have bigger goals? But, then,
Iran is only fighting to protect its national interests!!!
MigrantSuffocations in Truck Near Hungary Reveal Tactics of Smugglers. Tactics of
the smugglers are the least that these suffocations reveal: the reveal
revelation is about the world’s indifference, cynicism, inhumanity and
hypocrisy.
If
An Islamist Had Stabbed Cologne Mayor, Germany Would Have Been Furious. True.
There is a malaise here that requires serious attention. While so many of us fear
the potential violence that refugees might bring with them, it is the violence that
their presence will invite from us that we should fear more. The real problem lies
in host communities much more so than with the refugees.
The Surreal Adventures of Pu Bear
|
Assad
Makes Unannounced Trip to Moscow to Discuss Syria With Putin. Can anyone
watch the video of Putin and Assad encounter and not come out with the
impression that, at this stage, Assad is nothing more than a puppet? The
meeting which Assad attended accompanied only by his personal interpreter who
only took notes, comes as another demonstration of Putin’s strength and another
proof that he is the man of the hour in Syria now. Not even Iran was able to
produce such a stunt. Assad is finished, though he seems to remain under the
sway of his delusions.
The full interview also
shows Putin stressing the need for a political process that includes “all
political forces, ethnic and religious groups.” For “Ultimately,” he said, “it
is the Syrian people alone who must have the deciding voice here.”
In his reply, Assad ignores this and focuses exclusively on
fighting terrorism, and on the rebuilding Syria’s shattered economy and
infrastructure post-conflict. But his “defiance” here, if that is indeed the
right term, is reminiscent of that of a petulant schoolboy standing in front of
an amused headmaster who continues
his relentless pursuit for achieving Primakov’s dream “about reviving
Russian power in the Middle East and globally,” enforcing “a change, fraught
with danger for Russia and the United States both, that could alter the balance
of power in the region and beyond.”
Jihadopolis
|
So, who’s fighting the Islamic State? Those
allegedly nonexistent moderate rebels in cooperation with Kurdish rebels,
despite the lack of guns and money.
“For us, Russia, Assad, or ISIS, is
no difference,” said Abu Isa ar-Raqqawi. “Wherever you have the regime, you
have Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. “Many of Assad’s
regime’s officers were embedded with Daesh.”
But, the U.S. is reportedly planning on working with these
groups. Considering the above sentiments expressed by Abu Isa, sooner or later,
these fighters are bound to extend their fight to Assad, and that will put the
U.S. in a proxy war situation with the Russia, unless American officials plan
on betraying these rebels.
Meanwhile, Raqqa
is being slaughtered silently.
“In sum, and as a result of
tracking and monitoring the overall of Russian raids, we find that the number
of strikes reached nearly / 36 / raid in addition to the fall of two missiles
from long-range missiles, noting that these raids didn’t effect on ISIS
directly, where the sum of ISIS killed members was little comparing with the
total martyrs among civilians, The death toll from ISIS was/ 4 / members while
fell out of the civilian about / 70 / people. On the other hand, two sites
belonging to ISIS has been targeted while the number of civilian places that
have been targeted about / 22 / position. (Sic)”
And more
Jihadists are being fashioned from the ashes of Russian air strikes, even beyond
the borders of Syria.
Refugenics
|
In
Defense of Christendom: Having ignored its inheritance, Europe wonders why its
house is falling apart. What? Where? How? What the Hell! How can a Muslim
population that will amount to less than 5%, even after taking in millions of
Muslim refugees cause such an existential crisis in Europe? Europe’s crisis is
self-made and had more to do with the relations between rich and developed and
poor and underdeveloped states within its borders than any amount of refugee
influx. What’s seen as a major crisis is in fact merely a symptom of a larger
structural problem for which European states bear sole responsibility. As for Turkey,
her 75 million Muslims and the promise of joining the EU, the process will not happen
overnight, and bridging the development and democracy gaps needed as a necessary
step in this direction will help curb whatever negative fallouts that might
emerge from this integration.
*
Christians
can’t ignore the suffering of Muslims. While acknowledging that Sunni
Muslims have a lot of soul searching to do in regard to the rise of groups like
the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda in their ranks, no matter how small their
demographic footprint might be, Michael Gerson makes a strong argument for why
Christians need to do more to help Syrian refugees:
“To respond to the Syrian refugee
crisis, Christians must overcome their discomfort with Islam and their belief
that conflict among Muslims is none of their concern. Is the Christian faith
merely a cover for tribalism? Or will it demonstrate its essence in service to
the refugees of another faith who did nothing to deserve their fate?”
*
Unpromising
Choices in Syria. Treating the Syrian Crisis from the angle of the refugee
crisis, and the need to save Europe from all those invading hordes of unarmed
desperate civilians, as Philip Bobbitt writing for Stratfor suggests, would legitimate
the call for establishing a safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish border and would
require the introduction of NATO troops to safeguard it, but it will not resolve
the Syrian crisis and will not stop the bombs. The safe zone will be nothing more
than a large detention center, not unlike those in so many African nations
where conditions are appalling despite the fact that these centers are being
run by UN agencies.
If we truly want to do something about refugees, than, the war
itself needs to be brought to an end; there is no way around this. As
the BBC’s great correspondent Kim Ghattas argues, drawing on her own
experience as a survivor of the Lebanese civil war, what we are dealing with is
not a “refugee crisis,” or European crisis, but a “Syrian war crisis,”
“the result of four years of a
descent into hell and a conflict that U.S. President Barack Obama dismissed as
“someone else’s civil war.” He was convinced that the war could be contained
within Syria, but he was wrong. And that’s why this also is, and remains, a
global leadership crisis.”…
…By reducing the discussion on
Syria to the battle against the so-called Islamic State, the West distorts the
narrative of the conflict. When U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that
the group is “obviously the most significant player in the massive migrant
crisis that’s sweeping through Europe,” he overlooked that the bulk of the
refugees are leaving rebel-held areas being bombed daily by Assad’s forces or
are leaving government-controlled areas to escape forced conscription…
… Obama said, “This is not some
superpower chessboard contest.” But that’s how it feels for those on the
receiving end of the violence, with a traffic jam of fighter jets of all
stripes in the skies over Syria. That’s how it felt to me as a child in Beirut.
And when a U.S. official reacts to
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s involvement in Syria with apparent glee at
the quagmire awaiting the Russians, saying, “Knock yourselves out,” it’s clear that closing the
empathy gap between the West and the rest remains an elusive task.
There is no undoing what the war
has now done to Syria. War, I have come to learn, never leaves you. It lies
dormant within you all your life, but you can overcome it and thrive once the
guns fall silent.
Indeed, it is the Syrian people, not
Europe or the U.S., who are actually paying the price for the failure in
Syria.
Shhh! Behind the Scenes
|
European
Oil Companies Steal a March on U.S. Peers in Iran: Americans look on as
Europeans compete to snag best oil and gas fields. By working directly in
Iran, perhaps even in the Black Sea itself, the Europeans might still find ways
to decrease their reliance on Russian Gas. But they still have to find cheaper
transportation alternatives.
Quote of the Day
|
“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no
longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.” ― Robert Tew
Perhaps this is what Syrian refugees are doing: walking away from where
their humanity has ceased to be respected, and they can no longer be happy not
to mention safe.
Tweets of the Day
|
#BREAKING
At least 45 people have been killed in Russian air strikes in the north of the
Syrian regime stronghold of Latakia province
— Agence
France-Presse (@AFP) October
20, 2015
—
Joseph Bahout (@jobahout) October
21, 2015
Kate
Middleton toasts China's Xi on his UK visit but not everybody is happy
he's there:
https://t.co/d69wz7L0ly
pic.twitter.com/vgJSa9hQBl
—
CNN International (@cnni) October
21, 2015
Video(s) of the Day
|
“Drone footage shows fierce clashes between Syrian Army
& US-backed Islamic terrorists”
Artistic Delirium
|
By
Syrian Allepan photographer, currently residing in Beirut, Lebanon, artist,
Ammar Abd Rabbo
Cartoons
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