Month: July 2006

Critical reading of pro-Israel House resolution

Americans, remember this come the fall elections:

On July 20, the U.S. House of Representatives, by an overwhelming 410-8 margin, voted to unconditionally endorse Israel’s ongoing attacks on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. The Senate passed a similar resolution defending the Israeli attack earlier in the week by a voice vote, but included a clause that “urges all sides to protect innocent civilian life and infrastructure.” By contrast, the House version omits this section and even praises Israel for “minimizing civilian loss,” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The resolution also praises President George W. Bush for “fully supporting Israel,” even though Bush has blocked diplomatic efforts for a cease-fire and has isolated the United States in the international community by supporting the Israeli attacks.

The resolution reveals a bipartisan consensus on the legitimacy of U.S. allies to run roughshod over international legal norms. The resolution even goes so far as to radically reinterpret the United Nations Charter by claiming that Israel’s attacks on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure is an act of legitimate self-defense under Article 51 despite a broad consensus of international legal scholars to the contrary.

In short, both Democrats and Republicans are now on record that, in the name of “fighting terrorism,” U.S. allies—and, by extension, the United States as well—can essentially ignore international law and inflict unlimited damage on the civilian infrastructure of a small and largely defenseless country, even a pro-Western democracy like Lebanon.

The rest is a deconstruction/critical analysis of the House resolution. It’s worth remembering that there were 24,000 Lebanese-Americans in Lebanon when the war started, and that Congress encouraged indiscriminate Israeli bombing that put them in grave danger.

Also see this by Praktike, who highlights that House Democrats, by trying to get Iraqi PM Maliki to withdraw his criticism of Israel’s war or ban him from addressing a joint session of the US Congress (a rare honor, yes, but one that serves US propaganda interests more than Iraq’s or Maliki’s). So basically Dems are (yet again!) undermining American interests for political point-scoring against Bush (Praktike’s reading) or to yet again prove their slavish loyalty to AIPAC (my reading).

A lightning history of the Suez Canal, part I

Yesterday, 26 July, was the fiftieth anniversary of the 1956 Suez war, when Israel, Britain and France conspired to invade Egypt and bring down the Gamal Abdel Nasser regime.

It reminded me that a couple of years ago I wrote a short history of the Suez Canal for a publication on Egypt. I’m reproducing it here in two parts — one is below and the other will be online tomorrow. I can’t claim any original scholarship, it’s all cribbed from popular history books in English and French (so blame them for any mistakes.)

Continue reading A lightning history of the Suez Canal, part I

1000 demonstrate in support of resistance

Due to some time constraints I won’t be able to post a detailed report on today’s pro-resistance demo, that started at 6pm and ended roughly around 8pm. However, I uploaded some photos of the protest and assaults by police-deployed thugs that I hope you’ll check on my flickr account.
I’m totally disgusted by the chocking police presence, and the increasing dependence of our security forces on plainclothes thugs to “keep law and order” during demos.
At least one journalist and several demonstrators were also assaulted, but I don’t know their names. Those I could recognize included dpa journalist Jano Charbel, Ahmad Droubi, who were hit in the face and the head by baton-wielding thugs, as well as Malek.

UPDATE: I’ve just spoken with Aida Seif al-Dawla, the chairman of the Egyptian Association Against Torture. She said she was brutally assaulted by plainclothes thugs as the demo was coming to an end. She received several punches in the stomach, sides, and chest.

UPDATE: Here are more protest pix from Mohamed el-Taher’s blog.

And now for some dark humor

Should blowing off little girls’ faces be limited by international agreement? Aqoul gets hold of a leaked conversation by Israel and Hizbullah. My laugh-out-loud moment:

Hizbullah: Look this isn’t rocket science—
Israel: Actually, it is….
{Pause}
Mediator: Should we bring in the rocket scientists?
Hizbullah: Um, uh, . . . is there a . . . um . . . Farsi translator here?

Just read it.

Arab, European and American media attitudes to war

Interesting note on Arab, European and American media attitudes to the war by Jonathan of the Head Heeb writing on Moorishgirl (ah, the incestuous world of liberal Middle East blogging!) I agree pretty much with his explanation, except that I don’t think the American media’s coverage, in Jonathan’s words, is supportive of Israel’s cause and tactics

because American thinking tends to conflate the concepts of just cause and just tactics. The default American opinion is that if someone starts a fight, the other party has the right to finish it by any means necessary, which means that to many Americans, the only significant fact is that Hizbullah struck the first blow.

There might be some insight about the American psyche there, but I would say the main reason is years of well-organized pro-Israel PR campaigns carried out by the main pro-Israel think tanks in DC (and the absence of equivalent pro-Arab think tanks) that has shaped much American political and media thinking about the Arab-Israeli conflict. And on top of that you have to add the not insignificant number of well-established, fundamentally pro-Israel publications in the US such as the New Republic, New York Sun, New York Post, Commentary, the Forward, and arguably the New York Times. This media reaction is not just the result of a “just desserts” attitude but the long-standing presence of almost automatically pro-Israel publications in the American media.

Kifaya report on corruption

Yes, it came out a while back, but I thought I’d put up a PDF version with all the font problems resolved for people who had trouble reading the MS Word version. I have merely skimmed it so can’t really comment on it, except to say: Kifaya people, presentation counts. A little clearer formatting and a table of contents on a 200+ page report would help encourage more people to read it.

Click on the thumbnail below to download.

Kifaya Corruption Report
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Chirac backs immediate ceasefire with no conditions

Jacques Chirac, whose political slush fund was financed by Rafiq Hariri for years, says he has a plan to save Lebanon in this Le Monde exclusive. (Why is Le Monde giving him this statesman role when they’ve been bashing him for months and at times want him to resign?) Doubt it will amount to much — the French have abdicated too much on their Middle East policy to have real influence now — but it’s a positive step that European leaders are beginning to change tack.

He says it’s not constructive to expect Hizbullah to be disarmed by an international peacekeeping force, and that it’s something the Lebanese government, doesn’t want to here about regime change in Damascus, calls for dialogue with Iran, calls for an immediate ceasefire and an international bail-out for Lebanon. He says: “It’s a essential that there be a ceasefire. It’s the precondition [for further negotiation on soldiers, disarmament, etc.”

Documentary on Moroccan women on PBS

There was a documentary on PBS about Moroccan women on last night (sorry to be only telling you now, but it might repeat.) It looks interesting, if generally buying into Moroccan govt. PR.

I have a long article coming out soon about Adl wa Ihsan, the largest Moroccan Islamist movement. (It might be delayed a bit considering there’s other priorities in the region right now.) When it comes out I’ll publish a transcript of a long interview I did with Nadia Yassine, who is featured in the documentary. She makes for a very interesting Islamist.