[SPECIAL NOTE: IN ALL ARTICLES I POST TO MY BLOG, WHEN A NATION'S NAME IS MENTIONED IN ANY CONTEXT, I SPEAK OF THE NATION'S GOVERMENT, ITS POLITICAL LEADERS, NOT ITS CITIZENS! I DON'T KNOW A ATION'S CITIZENS; I CAN SEE WHAT ITS GOVERNMENT DOES!]
THIS IS UNPRECEDENTED IN THE MIDDLE EAST...ARAB NATIONS SUPPORTING ISRAEL!
Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirate and Saudi Arabia are seen as supporting Israel's crackdown on Hamas.
EVEN IRAN LAUNCHED TIRADES AGAINST HAMAS THIS PAST WEEK!
Only Turkey and Qatar seem to support Hamas.
SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL AS HAMAS IS SEEN AS WORSE THAN THE JEWISH STATE
FROM AL JAZEERA, THIS REPORT:
Why Arab regimes have abandoned the Palestinians in Gaza.
02 Aug 2014
Of all the complexities surrounding the reaction of the world to the horrifying spectacle of Israel's severe criminality in Gaza none is more perplexing than the complicity of most governments throughout the Arab world. What makes their political posture particularly bewildering is the degree of ethnic, religious, cultural, and historical commonality that creates such close ties of identity among the peoples of the region.
...solidarity at the level of Arab governments is now a distant and ironic memory.
King Hussein's Jordan, Mubarak's Egypt, and the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, [are] formally cool, or even hostile [to Hamas and Palestinians].
Syria, and to a degree Iraq, are politically hostile.
Taken together these considerations make it morally distressing and politically mystifying to observe that almost every Arab government has seemed either to be flashing a green light in Israel's direction or pointedly looking away.
The core explanation of Arab complicity has to do with the Arab governments hating and fearing the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), of which Hamas is viewed as a branch, far more than they resent Israel...
Hamas in this sense is seen as an acute threat to the kind of future preferred by these Arab governments. First of all, it has historical ties to the Egyptian MB, the parent organisation that has kept the flame of political Islam burning...
Sunni Hamas crossed sectarian boundaries by having its closest political ties with Shiite Iran and Hezbollah, and the Alewite regime in Syria, and although these relationships have grown weaker in view of recent regional developments, their very existence further alarms the Sunni supremacists in Riyadh.
Ayatollah Khomeini, while in Paris just as he was about to return to Iran from exile to lead the new Islamic Republic, said again and again during the meeting, "This is an Islamic revolution, not an Iranian revolution." He went on to observe that the dynastic regime in Saudi Arabia was decadent and oriented toward the West.
The explosive emergence of the Islamic State group (formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) reinforces Ayatollah Khomeini's central message. Its proclamation of a new caliphate is precisely in line with this type of thinking. The whole carving up of the Arab world into a series of sovereign states is seen from these perspectives as an imposition of European civilisation, destroying and destabilising the only true political community, that of the Islamic Umma.
A PREVIOUS ARTICLE BY AL JAZEERA BLAMED CULT BEHAVIOR IN THE MIDDLE EAST FOR ALL THE VIOLENCE THERE:
28 Jul 2014
Throughout the region [of the Middle East], groups and sects are set upon each other, Sunni vs Shia, Israeli vs Palestinian, Muslim Brother vs liberal. In the vicious and unforgiving cycles of violence in the region, someone at some point has devalued the other and contributed to inflammation.
Cults are unacceptable, while cultures derive from respected traditions and define us. The reality, however, is that, under certain conditions, cultures that perpetuate dependence on a leader and lack of dissent will lead to distrust and conflict.
In the region today, national, religious and sectarian ideologies that sharpen the difference between them and us are rampant. Whether inspired by outside manipulators or not, the trap exists. As long as any group or nation perceives itself as fundamentally superior, they will wish for advantage over others. As long as they are compliant on the inside, they will distrust what is outside.
Most importantly, a cult mentality explains why many in the region enact the most grotesque acts against their enemy, "they are not us, they are not even them - they are nothing". The overwhelming trend is to prevail rather than cooperate. As someone from the Middle East told me recently, "when the wolf lies down with the lamb, we want to make sure we are the wolf."
Without mastering this very human tendency, we will remain in turmoil, hoping for a rare leader to save us, or wishing for common ground without knowing why we are unable to reach it. Or, we will simply fight it out to the end of days, as is happening throughout the Middle East.
Voltaire said, "to learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise".
We can be proud of our groups and depend on them, but there must be a limit to their influence, a place where identity stops, and another aspect of being human begins.
Whether victim or oppressor, we need to depart from the prison of violence that cults proffer, and become masters of our own house. Then, another reality may appear. As Deikman succinctly states, "there is no Them, there is only Us."
THAT DOES NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT ALMOST ALL THE ARAB WORLD IS SICK OF HAMAS AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD.
August 1, 2014
"This is unprecedented in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict," says CNN's Ali Younes, an analyst who has covered the region for decades. "Most Arab states are actively supporting Israel against the Palestinians -- and not even shy about it or doing it discreetly."
It's a "joint Arab-Israeli war consisting of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia against other Arabs -- the Palestinians as represented by Hamas.
One of the outcomes of the fighting will likely be "the end of the old Arab alliance system that has, even nominally, supported the Palestinians and their goal of establishing a Palestinian state," Younes says.
"The Israel-Hamas conflict has laid bare the new divides of the Middle East," says Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. "It's no longer the Muslims against the Jews. Now it's the extremists -- the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, and their backers Iran, Qatar and Turkey -- against Israel and the more moderate Muslims including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia."
"It's a proxy war for control or dominance in the Middle East," says CNN's Fareed Zakaria.
Hamas, which has controlled the Palestinian government in Gaza for years, is an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood. To many Americans, the brotherhood is familiar for its central role in the power struggle for Egypt. But it's much larger than that.
"The Muslim Brotherhood is international, with affiliated groups in more than 70 countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE," says Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Arab Spring showed the region that uprisings can lead to the Brotherhood gaining power. So it's a threat to the governments it opposes.
"Israel's ongoing battle against Hamas is part of a wider regional war on the Muslim Brotherhood," says the Soufan Group, which tracks global security. "Most Arab states share Israel's determination to finish the movement off once and for all, but they are unlikely to be successful."
"From the perspective of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and some other Arab states, what the Israeli Prime Minister is doing is fighting this war against Hamas on their behalf so they can finish the last stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood," Younes says.
"Arab governments and official Arab media have all but adopted the Israeli view of who is a terrorist and who is not. Egyptian and Saudi-owned media are liberal in labeling the Muslim Brotherhood as 'terrorists' and describing Hamas as a 'terrorist organization.' It's a complete turnabout from the past, when Arab states fought Israel and the U.S. in the international organizations on the definition of terrorism, and who is a terrorist or a 'freedom fighter.'"
The monarchies of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan have called on Hamas to accept the cease-fire proposal as is.
"Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE all see the destruction of Hamas as of benefit to their internal security as well as to regional stability."
"The Saudis and the Egyptians are now more scared of Islamic fundamentalism than they are of Israel," says Zakaria.
"The Saudi monarchy is more worried about the prospects of Hamas winning, which would embolden Islamists in other parts of the Middle East, and therefore potentially an Islamist opposition in Saudi Arabia."
Iran has long supported Hamas, supplying it with weapons. And Meshaal used to be based in Syria.
But that changed. In 2012, Meshaal left Syria as the country's civil war deepened -- a decision believed to have caused a breakdown in his relationship with Iran as well, says Firas Abi Ali, head of Middle East and North Africa Country Risk and Forecasting at the global information company IHS. Tehran is aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Now, Syria -- Israel's neighbor to the north -- is locked in a brutal, multiparty civil war, with Islamist extremists hoisting severed heads onto poles. The war, believed to have killed more than 115,000 people, is just one of the many developments emphasizing how many "fault lines" there are in the region, Richard Haass, president of Council on Foreign Relations, told "CNN Tonight."
"There's fault lines within the Palestinians between Hamas and the other part of the Palestinian Authority. You have Sunnis vs. Shia. You have Iran vs. Saudi Arabia and the Arabs. You have secularists vs. people who embrace religion in the political space."
ARABIC NEWS SOURCES DAMN HAMAS!
07/30/2014
Amazing though it might sound, hatred for Jews, thinly disguised as opposition to Israel, appeared to be more intense in Western capitals than ANYWHERE in the Muslim world.
ONLY A FEW DOZEN PROTESTERS SHOWED UP IN KUWAIT OR QATAR!
On Tuesday, leading Arab columnist Shamsan al-Na’ai took Hamas to task for putting its interests “as a political movement” above that of the Palestinian people.
“Hamas would have done better to tackle the task of improving the lives of the people,” he writes. “Instead it has spent resources on rockets and missiles that are like children’s toys in the face of Israel, which is the region’s major military power.”
He castigates Hamas’ leaders for exposing “the ordinary people of Gaza” to the violence of war while they themselves are “hiding in the security in their secret bunkers.”
Another ARAB columnist, Amal al-Hazani, notes, “I have a difference with Israel on a number of issues, but agree with it on a number of other issues, including the Iranian nuclear program and Bashar al-Assad’s crimes.”
She continues: “Hamas doesn’t care what human cost its missiles might inflict. Its sole aim is to fan the fires of war.” She then recalls that Hamas has been caught red-handed placing 20 missile launchers in a school run by the UN refugee organization.
Abdul-Rahman al-Rashed, CEO of the satellite TV network al-Arabiyah, also hits Hamas for “deliberate provocations without regard to the human cost of its policies.”
He argues that if Palestinians want Israel to get out of their land they can’t, at the same time, dig tunnels to sneak into Israeli itself.
Such sentiments have found an echo among IRANIAN commentators. Sadeq Ziba-Kalam, a Tehran University professor, told reporters Monday that there can be no “sentimental blank check” for Hamas.
Iranian economist Shahin Fatemi also questions those who try to exploit the Palestinian issue for their own political ends.
In a Tuesday column, he lambasts the Tehran leadership for fanning the flames of war instead of helping calm things down when the entire Middle East is plunged into instability.
Efforts by the Khomeinist regime in Tehran to organize mass marches against Israel have failed. In some demonstrations, the official slogan of “Death to Israel” soon gave its place to other slogans, including “Death to the dictator.”
Indeed, the security services “advised” President Hassan Rouhani to stay away from the crowds and simply publish his planned speech.
A number of other demonstrations, notably in Kuwait, Amman and Qatar, attracted no more than a few dozen people.
YOU MAY NOT HAVE READ THAT SAUDI ARABIA, IN 2010, GAVE THE GREEN LIGHT TO ISRAEL TO CROSS ITS BORDERS TO STRIKE IRAN.
THIS ARABIC NEWS REPORT CONDEMNED SAUDI ARABIA FOR DOING DO:
http://mideastreality.blogspot.com/2010/06/western-newspaper-claims-saudi-arabia.html
“The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way,” said a US defense source in the area. “They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [US] State Department.”
Sources in Saudi Arabia say it is common knowledge within defence circles in the kingdom that an arrangement is in place if Israel decides to launch the raid. Despite the tension between the two governments, they share a mutual loathing of the regime in Tehran and a common fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “We all know this. We will let them [the Israelis] through and see nothing,” said one.
The Saudi regime is an absolute disgrace to humanity, to the Islamic religion and the Arab world.
What prevents a US/Israeli attack on Iran has never been Saudi opposition, but the reprisals Iran would be able to conduct in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Gulf and other places. Barack Obama's new emphasis on increasing hostility with Iran increases the necessity, for defensive purposes, that Iran strengthen its options for reprisal.
Iran spent many years ruled by the Shah on behalf of the United States. A lot of countries have been in colonial relationships like the one Saudi Arabia has with the United States, and if maintaining this relationship was not necessary for about five million Jewish people in Palestine to have a secure state, Saudi Arabia and Jordan would likely have become independent with most of the rest of the colonized world in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
A democratic Arabia would certainly build its own capacity for nuclear power and would have no interest in maintaining Israel's regional monopoly. Saudi Arabia is not [???] threatened by Iran having a modicum of nuclear weapons capability. However, what indirect colonial monarchs do is provide a local face and a knowledge of local symbolism and sensibilities. If Arabia was ruled by a US administrator it would be willing to participate directly in any attack, but the cost would be that the people of the country would be more likely to revolt. It would be more offensive to the people ruled.
The monarchy is a way to strike a balance between obeying US instructions while not inciting localist passions. The Saudi government, according to the Times, has practiced not shooting Israeli planes as they flew over Saudi territory, but does so unofficially, while maintaining symbolic and non-effective opposition to Israel.
The nearly 30 million people who live under this US-dependent monarch pay the price for there to be a Jewish majority state for five million Jews in Palestine just as the 1.5 million people under siege in Gaza, the over 60 million Egyptians who live under dictatorship and the over 70 million Iranians who are under economic attack by the West.
The Voices of Gazans That We Never Hear
08/01/2014 Here's something you probably haven't heard of: the protest that never really came to be, nipped in the bud, killed before it was even born. On July 29, 20 Palestinians in Gaza were reportedly executed by Hamas for treason, making a total of over 30 in two days. If you're wondering what "treason" means -- it means they protested against Hamas because of the destruction Hamas' repeated refusal for ceasefire was causing. Hamas calls it treason, but daring to speak and protest is the real reason.Real data as to public opinion in Gaza is scarce. Still, there are a few hints of true voices coming out from the dark. An anonymous poll taken in Gaza just before Hamas started firing rockets into Israel, was aired by the Washington Institute on July 15th. It shows that the people of Gaza are worn out, sick of the Hamas brutal regime. More than 70% said they support a nonviolent resistance, and think Hamas should maintain a ceasefire with Israel. When asked who in their opinion should lead Gaza, a solid majority favored Abbas and PLO, and only 15% named Hamas leaders, Mashaal and Haniyeh. In this piece, a Palestinian journalist, who preferred to stay anonymous for obvious reasons, said the only reason Hamas is still in charge is because of its iron fist and ruthless military regime.
Another research by Orit Perlov for the INSS that was aired last week, set out to find the Palestinian voices that seep through the social networks. Her findings were very similar to the Washington Institute's, and surprised many, Israelis as well. According to her study, the Gazans do not want the Hamas leadership, but feel protesting won't get them anywhere after seeing where it's gotten protesters in Syria, Iran, Bahrain and Iraq. The Gazans want to survive, and it seems that protesters everywhere simply end up getting shot.
Another voice that's been heard lately belongs to the Green Prince, Son of Hamas - the New York Times bestseller written by the son of one of Hamas' co-founders. Mosab Hassan Yousef could not bear to continue taking part in the fanatic brutality, destruction and lies. He was disowned by his family, exiled to the west, threatened by savages and lost everything he had. Years later he wrote a book in which he tells the truth about Hamas' destructive goals, and its merciless system which exploits Palestinians for its leaders' selfish needs, while feeding Palestinian children from the age of 5 with the twisted ideology that worships death.
But these voices are few, especially during these horrific days in Gaza. Right now, the voices coming out of Gaza are filtered by Hamas. One can assume the story of the execution, although tweeted by some, was not voiced by too much media for lack of ability to get confirmation. Hamas, a terror organization which uses torture and ruthless violence not only against Israel but against its own people, doesn't have a big moral problem about lying or keeping information from the international press. And what about the Palestinians? They gravely understand what happens to those who think it's wise to protest.
It's easy to see that the Palestinian anguish is only directed at Israel, never at Hamas, although Hamas is the official regime in Gaza. Hamas is the one calling the shots, refusing ceasefires and promising to fight to the death, although its leader doesn't fight. He's comfortably hiding with his family in Qatar, sacrificing Palestinian blood from a fancy hotel.
The Gazans are suffering beyond comprehension, but Hamas is counting on their photos to regain the legitimacy it has nearly lost completely in the Arab world. It only allows the Palestinians to speak of the Israeli occupation as their problem, relying on the fact that people tend to forget that Gaza has not been occupied by Israel since 2005. Gazans have been free from Israeli occupation for nine years, but as long as Hamas remains in control and calls the shots, they will be very far from being peaceful or free.
REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS RECENTLY STATED THAT THEIR JOURNALISTS ARE BEING THREATENED BY HAMAS IF THEY REPORT WHAT THEY ACTUALLY SEE.
A WALL STREET JOURNALIST REPORTER WAS SO BADLY THREATENED THAT WSJ PULLED HIS STORY.
A PALESTINIAN-BORN FRENCH REPORTER WAS WORRIED HE WOULD NOT GET OUT OF GAZA ALIVE.
A GERMAN PHOTOGRAPHER WHO SHOT SOME OF THE SCENES OF HAMAS' EXECUTIONS OF GAZAN CITIZENS IS STILL AFRAID FOR HIS LIFE!
HAMAS WAS CAUGHT ON YOUTUBE AND FACEBOOK INSTRUCTING ITS FOLLOWERS TO NEVER SHOW MISSILES BEING LAUNCHED FROM SCHOOLS, MOSQUES, ETC.
IT ALSO INSTRUCTED SOCIAL MEDIA BLOGGERS HOW TO MAKE THINGS LOOK WORSE, HOW TO MAKE ISRAEL LOOK LIKE THE CAUSE OF THOSE DEATHS CAUSED BY HAMAS.
"Anyone killed or martyred is to be called a civilian from Gaza or Palestine, before we talk about his status in jihad or his military rank. Don't forget to always add 'innocent civilian' or 'innocent citizen' in your description of those killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.
"Begin [your reports of] news of resistance actions with the phrase 'In response to the cruel Israeli attack,' and conclude with the phrase 'This many people have been martyred'
"Avoid publishing pictures of rockets fired into Israel from [Gaza] city centers. This [would] provide a pretext for attacking residential areas in the Gaza Strip. Do not publish or share photos or video clips showing rocket launching sites or the movement of resistance [forces] in Gaza.
"To the administrators of news pages on Facebook: Do not publish close-ups of masked men with heavy weapons, so that your page will not be shut down [by Facebook] on the claim that you are inciting violence. In your coverage, be sure that you say: 'The locally manufactured shells fired by the resistance are a natural response to the Israeli occupation that deliberately fires rockets against civilians in the West Bank and Gaza'..."
"Avoid entering into a political argument with a Westerner aimed at convincing him that the Holocaust is a lie and deceit; instead, equate it with Israel's crimes against Palestinian civilians.
"Do not publish photos of military commanders. Do not mention their names in public, and do not praise their achievements in conversations with foreign friends!"
DECEIT, DECEIT, BRUTALITY AGAINST ITS OWN, KILLER OF INNOCENTS....THIS IS HAMAS!
AND THE ARAB WORLD IS WAKING UP TO THE FACTS....HAMAS MUST GO!
