Author: issandr

Fundamentalism in Israel’s army

It’s been a while since I agreed with Christopher Hitchens on anything else than the theory of evolution:

“Peering over the horrible pile of Palestinian civilian casualties that has immediately resulted, it’s fairly easy to see where this is going in the medium-to-longer term. The zealot settlers and their clerical accomplices are establishing an army within the army so that one day, if it is ever decided to disband or evacuate the colonial settlements, there will be enough officers and soldiers, stiffened by enough rabbis and enough extremist sermons, to refuse to obey the order. Torah verses will also be found that make it permissible to murder secular Jews as well as Arabs. The dress rehearsals for this have already taken place, with the religious excuses given for Baruch Goldstein’s rampage and the Talmudic evasions concerning the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Once considered highly extreme, such biblical exegeses are moving ever closer to the mainstream. It’s high time the United States cut off any financial support for Israel that can be used even indirectly for settler activity, not just because such colonization constitutes a theft of another people’s land but also because our Constitution absolutely forbids us to spend public money on the establishment of any religion.”

Hat tip: Mango Girl.

A message from the Israeli tourist board

I can’t resist interjecting some facts for prospective tourists for Israel who are lured by this video that’s lately been aired in the US:

Actually, if you visit Israel, there is a good chance that YOU WILL DIE.

It’s not just the suicide bombings, stray rockets, crazed bulldozer operators and various types of assassins. It’s also the head-fucked IDF soldiers, rabidly anti-gentile Jewish fundamentalists, settlers and crazy Russian mob types. Even if they don’t kill you, they are generally rather unpleasant: just look at the customer service at those electronics stores in New York City. You know this is the place where Armageddon Hill is located, and where the Messiah is set to fight the undead armies of the Anti-Christ. Why take the chance when the Bahamas are sunnier, France has better food and Morocco more oriental exotica than you could possibly ever need?

And on top of it there’s a chance you’ll be given a full-body cavity search at the airport. No really, that does happen. Frequently. That doesn’t happen in Mayorca, does it? Or Buenos Aires.

“No one belongs here more than you” they say at the end of the ad. Well, why not let millions of ethnically cleansed Palestinians have a go first, and come back when they’ve sorted that out.

P.S. I remember the old ad, “Have a ball… in Israel” was a much better jingle, especially to the tune of “Hava Nagila”. Great song, that.

Qatar

I’ve long been fascinated with Qatar’s foreign policy in recent years, which appears to be driven by a need to hedge its bets (hosting a US military base, good relations with Iran, funding al-Jazeera, pissing off the Saudis every now and then…) and the personalities of its emir and his cousin the foreign minister. Here are some recent articles that highlight how perilous the acrobatic acts from Doha are starting to look like, particularly as we see a major Egyptian-Saudi push for “Arab unity” at the upcoming Doha summit (unity, that is, behind the Egyptian initiative to reconcile Hamas and Fatah, with the latter having the upper hand.) All this as gas prices plummet and sovereign funds pause to take stock of the global financial crisis…

That last article points out Qatar is still set to see high GDP growth and is secure as the world’s first supplier of liquified natural gas. Still, if European demand significantly weakens, and the infant world LNG market hits its first glut.

One thing that’s still not clear to me is the answer to the question — beyond remaining secure from Saudi influence – what does Qatar want?

Not just a slogan on a T-shirt

Lawrence of Cyberia goes through those hilarious Israeli army T-shirts and matches them with the war crime behind them:

Abu Dhabi’s investment in manufacturing

Interesting take in the FT on Abu Dhabi’s goals in investing in major manufacturing companies:

“But what makes Abu Dhabi unlike not just its sister and competitor emirates but pretty much everywhere in the Arab world is its peculiar devotion to manufacturing.

Much of its oil wealth is being used to start industries from scratch: in cars and aerospace, components and chips. As well as Daimler, it has invested in companies such as GE, Rolls-Royce, EADS and Advanced Micro Devices. This may look quixotic, yet invariably these stakes come with local training and manufacturing commitments.

Along with reform of local education, the goal is to use manufacturing to create skills and a culture of innovation – much more than to establish new branches of old industries. This at least tries to offer an alternative to the usual model in the Gulf – where the public sector employs the bulk of nationals – or the trading company model common in most other Arab countries.

Some 40 years ago, the Syrian philosopher Sadek al-Azm wrote a famous critique of the mind-set underlying serial Arab defeats. Arabs, he said, have become removed from the social and economic processes that make innovation and scientific breakthroughs possible. Abu Dhabi, it seems, wants to create, not just consume.”

If you have the cash and a taste for risk, this is a great time to mop up depressed stocks in companies that are fundamentally sound or have a great body of unique know-how. I’m still curious to see exactly how Abu Dhabi is convincing these companies to set up manufacturing centers in the emirates, and whether that makes sense (in trade logistics terms, it just might…)

That crazy Israeli sense of humor

Links for March 21st

Links from my del.icio.us account for March 21st:

This is Israel

Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques – IDF fashion 2009 – Haaretz – Israel News:

“Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children’s graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques – these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. The slogans accompanying the drawings are not exactly anemic either: A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription ‘Better use Durex,’ next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A sharpshooter’s T-shirt from the Givati Brigade’s Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull’s-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, ‘1 shot, 2 kills.’ A ‘graduation’ shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, ‘No matter how it begins, we’ll put an end to it.’

There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, ‘Bet you got raped!’ A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies – such as ‘confirming the kill’ (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim’s head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants. “

Oh but they do try so hard to avoid civilian casualties…

Links March 19th to March 20th

Links from my del.icio.us account for March 19th through March 20th: