An Old Kind of Change

With the ongoing wave of transformative change sweeping across the Middle East, we hear the voices of the usual suspects calling for Israel to join the wave and sign away a major chunk of its territory, before it's too late.

Yes, you heard that right! While millions of Arabs are rising to kick out the same kind of autocrats who western liberals have been siding with over any issue rather than with Israel, the same western lierals are calling upon Israel to create the same kind of archaic, cleptocracy that Arabs are finally trying to rid themselves off. 

Why should Israel do it? So when the citizens of 'independent Palestine' do away with Abbas, they will nullify any written agreement because 'Israel should have made peace with the Arab people, not with their dictators'. The same line of argument goes for Syria. Assad's Alawite autocracy will fall from grace this generation, so why should Israel simply shit away it's most important strategical asset?

Truth be told, the land for peace paradigm is dead. The Palestinians are looking at a dimilitarized autonomy for many years, not a state. 

-QP

Dan Carlin: Common Sense

Dan's latest episode of his current affairs has been out for a few days, but unfortunately I haven't found the time to blog about it.

In this episode Dan talks about the turmoil in Wisconsin, where the governor's attempt to weaken/destroy the public unions, has been met with a wave of theatrics that is undemocratic to say the least. Canadians, imagine that every single member of the Conservative caucus fled across the border to New Hampshire to avoid voting on the new budget!

It seems that Dan agrees with the Republicans on this issue, but can't really bring himself to admit it. So he attacks the Republicans for using demagoguery in order to weaken their political opponents (the public unions are unashamedly Democrat) and refusing to look at the area that really needs cuts, Defense. While Dan is write to a large extent, it doesn't take away from the current issue. Public unions do need busting. They have become such an influential player in the domestic politics of many countries and they are sucking at the public teat. Dan's comment on police officers notwithstanding, as they are not under Gov. Walker's plan.

Video - Fierce Battles in Barga

A New Kind of American Assertiveness

The Obama administration has been receiving quite a lot of flack with regards to their conduct on recent upheaval in the Middle East.  Some of my favourite writers, such as Barry Rubin, have been claiming that the administration is completely oblivious to the ways of the Middle East and are incapable to get a clear read on it. It's hard to argue with the facts...

But what would you say to the idea that the administration, and American foreign policy in general, simply does not care for the ways of the Middle East and don't care to get a clear read of it?

So the execution is not smooth? Who said they care much for a smooth execution?

Doesn't history show us that American foreign policy is cynical and self serving?

So now I will tie it to what's been going on in the Middle East recently.

Mid-afternoon Coffee Snack

Yehudit Ravitz - Shir Lelo Shem

Video - Gaddafi's Goons Fleeing Like Rats

Mid-afternoon Coffee Snack

Dani Litani - HaLaila

A Petition to the German Government

This open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Guido Westerwelle has come to my attention. It expresses dismay at Germany's recent UN vote against Israel. The petition has so far garnered 3,500 signatures and they are targeting 10,000. While many of the signatories are just concerned German citizens, it includes some respectable journalists and intellectuals.

If you know any German citizens that wish to maintain their country's modern role as a friend of the Jewish people and the state of Israel, please bring this petition to their attention.

It was translated by a native German speaker and further edited by me:

To: Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle

The Arab world is burning. But the UNSC has nothing better to do than to debate for three hours Israel's settlement policy with the goal of label them as illegal.

You, honorable Ms. Merkel, and you honorable Mr. Westerwelle have promised the world that Germany will not disappoint when it occupies a seat in the UNSC.  But now, you support a resolution that is part of the propaganda war of the Palestinians, instead of prompting the Palestinians to negotiate with their peace partner Israel a mutual agreement in regards to the future borders of the Palestinian state.

This makes it clear that Germany does not measure up to its own expectations with respect to its position as 'Friend of Israel' exactly when it is called upon to back years of lip service with concrete actions. Here, one would expect Germany's equivocal 'No!'.

However, by consenting to the UNSC resolution you support the one sided conviction of the only democracy in the Middle East based on the falsification of history.

Video - Live Fire Against Libyan Rebels

This video is from yesterday in Derna. The title says 'Peaceful Demonstrators'. I don't know, a heck of a lot of them seem to carry pretty large rocks. They are not peaceful demonstrators, but rebels. Rebels against a brutal, insane dictatorship, but still rebels.

I wish them luck and international assistance.

-QP

Mid-afternoon Coffee Snack

Rmi Kleinstein - Tapuhim u'Tmarim

Video - Gaddafi's Mercenaries in Action

Spring Time of the (Arab) Peoples

Anyone who has followed my blog with respect to the recent wave of unrest in the Arab world, must have realized that I tend to liken the current it to a very important hinge-point in European and world history, the popular revolutions of 1848 otherwise knows as 'Spring Time of the Peoples'. In that year, a wave of popular unrest swept most of the continent after a successful revolution toppled the French constitutional monarchy.

Robert Zaretsky, a Texas based history professor, also likes this analogy:

The dead weight of brutal and autocratic rulers; a young and professional middle class deprived not just of liberty, but jobs; a deep and persistent economic crisis; and a revolution in communications that renders traditional borders obsolete and, finally, the bursting of the dam that unleashes a surge of revolution that sweeps across a continent: these conditions describe not only North Africa and the Middle East today, but Europe in 1848. If nations from Tunisia to Bahrain are, in fact, reviving the so-called “springtime of peoples”, the winter of political disenchantment may not be far away.
The backgrounds to the two series of revolutions are eerily similar. The Great Recession of recent memory was a blip compared to the economic depression, known as the “hungry years,” that flattened Europe in the 1840s. Disastrous harvests pushed up grain prices across Europe; city dwellers, spending more on food, bought fewer commodities; industrial and commercial activity slowed to a near standstill.

Scary Video from Libya

Tripoli - Gaddafi's forces spraying bullets at rebels. 

Israeli Arab Sheikh Threatens an Uprising

Israeli Arab Sheikh Abbas Zakhour, who until recently occupied a seat in the Knesset, Israel's national parliament is warning that unless discrimination against Israel's Arab minority stops, a similar type of popular uprising as seen in the Middle East recently is imminent.

This is coming from a person who merely last year traveled to Libya to kiss Gaddafi's ass to the dismay of many Israelis. While some of the Israeli Arab leaders who traveled to Libya last year expressed reservations regarding the visit (at least retroactively), to my Knowledge the Sheikh hasn't. 

It's important to note that individual members of Israel's Arab minority have access to far more political and economical rights than any other Arab individuals in the Middle East. That's without mentioning the large number of affirmative action programs that was legislated by the state in recent years.

Are things perfect? No... but it's mostly because of douches like the Sheikh who wants to push his constituents towards petty ethnic warfare rather than represent their many (legitimate) aspirations in the Knesset, which is what he was elected by them to do.

If anything, I think Israeli Arabs should enact a similar day of range against their own community leaders, who would rule just as a typical Middle Eastern autocrat were they given the chance.

-QP 

Obama on Libya - Live

The POTUS is now addressing the world about the recent events in Libya.

Will it be another vacuus, empty speech as usual? 

We shall see!

'We condemn the violence in Libya... blah blah blah... Not only us, but even the Arabs!'

The Libyan government must be made accountable, and held accountable. This must be an international effort. HRC (which ironically, Libya is a proud member of) will be convened in Geneva and Obama is sending Hillary there.

'This is a change driven by the people...'.

Overall, not anything dramatic or substantial. The administration is maintaining its firm line of supporting the protest movements in the Middle East.

However, no mention whatsoever of Muammar Gaddafi. Not outlining the type of change that America concretely wants to see.

I hope that this means he is sending Clinton to bitchslap the Europeans who have been in bed with Gaddafi for about a decade now.

First Taste of Middle East Instability Reaches Israel

In the last few hours several 'Grad' rockets have hit several towns in the northern Negev. Most notably, Be'er Sheva has been hit for the first time since operation 'Cast Lead' just over two years a go.

I bet western liberals feel very proud of their unconditional support to the 'democratic' revolution taking place in the Middle East. Well, what we will actually be seeing very soon is much more instability, more conflicts. The only thing we will probably not see much off is real democracy in the western sense. That is, a democracy that runs on the principles of individual rights, freedom of expression and mutual coexistence of citizens with varying, often contradictory desires.

Sorry, the 'people's desire to wage holy war on the infidels' does not cut it as a democratic aspiration.

Mid-afternoon Coffee Snack

Hemi Rodner - Geula

Late Afternoon Cofee Break

Barry Sakharoff - Halaliot

Insane Tweets from Libya

I was always weary of what's found on Twitter regarding any event in the world, let alone what's happening in the Middle East right now.
This tweet has to take the cake:

 Confirmed caller from Tripoli: African mercenaries are African jews trained in
Israel #Libya #Egypt #Tunisia #Algeria #feb17

Yep. This is the kind of quality news streaming out Libya via the celebrated social networks. If you didn't chuckle when reading this tweet then it's pretty much imperative that your brain leaked out of your rears, some time a go.

Sadly enough, this is not comedy, but it's really what's going on in the minds of the alternative, democratic leadership of the Arab world.

Seif El Islam Addressing Libya

Boy, do lengthy, delusional speeches run in the family!

Seif El Islam, who until recently was the favourite to inherit the crown, is currently delivering a lengthy, tedious speech which I am following through Al Jazeera.

Basically he is blaming the entire situation on foreign influences, African migrant workers and on drugs and alcohol. Amazing!

He spent most of the speech addressing Libya's social and historical background and making predictions of where it is headed, if the current government is toppled. He is making the grimmest of predictions, promising tribalism will fracture Libya into multiple states. It will be worse than Yugoslavia and the division will be deeper than North/South Korea.

On the positive side, he is promising to work on a constitution and work together to create the second 'Jumahariya', or people's republic.

He is counting on the people's fear of chaos, hunger and tribalism to establish himself as the leader. Basically, he is telling the demonstrators that if they want to make gains, they must work with him.

Very self serving, don't you think?

-QP