This is bizarre: Sabbah, a Palestinian blogger, is getting emails from an official at the State Dept. responding to her his criticism of US policy (which she equates with state terrorism.) The official (apparently from the Afghan bureau) is using his “state.gov” email address. Surely not official policy?
[Thanks, SP]
Ya Issandr,
Haitham Sabbah is male.
The official may have been breaching office protocol by using his State Gov e-mail. On the other hand, he was firmly within the line of the US gov’t so I doubt he’ll get reprimanded.
Of course, we can also turn this issue around and say “Great, finally the US gov’t is reading Arab bloggers and even communicates with them on issues!”
I find H. Sabbah’s immediate assertion that he is on “the watch-list (black-list) of the U.S. Department of State” silly. Of course gov’t institutions read blogs. As well as they should. H. Sabbah is very active and may be regarded as somewhat prominent (he also writes for GlobalVoices).
The actual incident, however, was nothing bu two hard heads butting against each other.
–MSK
http://www.aqoul.com
Ha. I thought this was the female first name Sabbah. I’ve read Haitham’s stuff on global voices,, I did not realize that was him.