Reality television 24/7. Just watching what happens in the Middle East on a casual basis, where left and right become interchangeable. The “banality,” and general casual attitude that is embedded in the psyche of the culture with regard to violence, racism and excessiveness always seems to mount back, loop back to that many sided word, “resistance.” Just invoking the word is a pretext and justification all gift-wrapped in one. But not everyone can be resisting. The old-line Zionists have moved on to post-Zionism leaving many in the lurch, and with regard to the Palestinians, the other Arab states simply don’t have the capacity and resources to absorb them. With regard to Hagai Amir, another case of someone coming out of prison more radical and dangerous than when he went in…
(see link at end)Hagai Amir, brother of Yitzchak Rabin’s murderer Yigal Amir, granted his first interview since his release from prison to the anti-Zionist, left-wing website 972, and attacked the Rabin Family, as well as, among others—the settlers. The interview followed a lengthy correspondence between reporter Ami Kaufman and Hagai Amir on Facebook….
—Jerusalem police are investigating an Arab man’s claim that he was attacked on Wednesday night by Jewish youths just for being an Arab.
Ibrahim Abu Ta’a, 28, an east Jerusalem resident who works at a local hotel, claims that he was the victim of a racist attack. According to Abu Ta’a, the assault occurred as he dropped off a co-worker after leaving a work event. As result of the attack, Abu Ta’a was left with a broken leg.
Abu Ta’a said that after the work event ended, around midnight, one of his female colleagues asked him to accompany her home as she was intoxicated. “I was with two Jewish friends from work,” he said adding that “when we got to her apartment, a group of seven or eight Jewish youths, aged 16-20 asked us what we were doing there.
“When they heard my female co-worker say ‘Ibrahim, don’t talk to them,’ they began beating me on my leg with an iron rod.” Read More:http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4278330,00.html image:http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Migron+settlers+begin+leaving+homes+says+Israeli+army/7180627/story.html
Kaufman asked if Amir thought Netanyahu could bring about change for the good, to which Amir responded: “No one can change anything now. It’s too late.”
Kaufman: Too late for what?
Amir: A slow yet steady disintegration of the state.
Kaufman: Which will end in a bi-national state? The end of Zionism?
Amir: It depends how it ends. If they reach an agreement on a bi-national state, then Jews will be able to live here. But if there is no agreement, it will end like it did with the crusaders….
—Former Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan (second from right) participates in a demonstration in the West Bank city of Nablus in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners who are still on hunger strike: Samer Barq 105 days, Hassan Safadi 75 days, Ayman Sharawna 65 days and Samer Issawi 34 days. (photo: Ahmad Al-Bazz/Activestills.org)—Read More:http://972
com/a-week-in-photos-august-30-september-5/55244/
…Amir then defines a Jewish state—unlike simply the state of the Jews, which he believes has no right to exist—is a state that cherishes Jewish values: Shabbat, Torah study, etc.
Both Hagai and his brother, Yigal, have been conducting many conversations with Hamas prisoners, including higher ups like Ibrahim Hamed, head of the Hamas in the West Bank, and Gaza-based Hassan Salameh.
Kaufman: Did you agree on anything?
Amir: On the important things we didn’t agree, of course. Too much blood has already been shed. From their point of view there is no way this state can be here. And I no longer know if Jews as individuals will be able to live here. Anyway, the atmosphere was relaxed, they respect us and we respect them and it is clear we are enemies on the outside, but for the meanwhile there is a ceasefire.
—A 150-page report by Heidy Rehman on the Saudi petrochemical industry should be sober reading for those who think that shale oil and gas have solved our global energy crunch.
…
The basic point – common to other Gulf oil producers – is that Saudi local consumption is rocketing. Residential use makes up 50pc of demand, and over two thirds of that is air-conditioning.
The Saudis also consume 250 litres per head per day of water – the world’s third highest (which blows the mind), growing at 9pc a year – and most of this is provided from energy-guzzling desalination plants.
All this is made far worse across the Gulf by fuel subsidies to placate restive populations.
The Saudis already consume a quarter of their 11.1m barrels a day of crude output. They are using more per capita than the US even though their industrial base as a share of GDP is much smaller.—Read More:http://www.boston.com/news/specials/pope/articles/a_concerted_effort_to_reach_out_to_other_faiths/ Read More:http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100019812/saudi-oil-well-dries-up/
Regarding the struggle to preserve the settlements, Amir told Kaufman: “I would fight (literally) shoulder to shoulder with those Jews on their land if they themselves were willing to fight for their homes. But this is not the case, unfortunately.. 99% are not willing to fight, as you saw in the disengagement. It was clear to me back then that this is what would happen, They are simple bourgeoisie, not tough rebels. In my opinion, you fight for a home with a weapon in hand. He who is not willing to hold a weapon is not fighting for his current home, but for his next one.”
Amir told Kaufman that during his interrogation, “they took me to see the funeral to put mental pressure on me. Of course, this did not work. The Rabin family was never really moved by the blood of the murdered on the Altalena, whom the head of their family murdered. They knew how to live well in his midst. Therefore, the crocodile tears they cry do not move me. This family has earned a living quite well from this whole story. If it wasn’t for us nobody would have heard of them. The blood of the Oslo murdered is a thousand times more dear to me than the tears dropped for the one who killed them, with help from the Arabs.”…
—Even the United Arab Emirates (UAE), long regarded as a beacon of stability, seems beset with anxiety. Six Emiratis have recently been arrested, taking to 56 the number of activists detained since the fasting month of Ramadan began on July 20th. The UAE news agency said the first 50 had plotted to destabilise the country and to “distort its shining image before the world”. An American professor of journalism, Matt Duffy, who encouraged his students to debate such issues as press freedom, was recently expelled from the UAE.
All the Gulf monarchs spend fortunes on public-relations firms and lobbyists. According to Bahrain Watch, a pro-democracy lobby, the kingdom has paid at least 15 such firms in the United States $33m since its uprising started more than a year ago. —Read More:http://www.economist.com/node/21562256 image:http://thekeytoeternity.blogspot.ca/2011/03/big-money-in-motion-billions-of.html
Amir told Kaufman, as, apparently, he had done several times before during their exchanges on Facebook, that he did not regret the Rabin assassination.
“Of course not,” he reiterated this time. “It didn’t just happen out of the blue. We thought about it for two years, we acted according to the Jewish halacha, and one must not regret doing a mitzvah.” Read More:http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/yigal-amirs-brother-rabins-familys-crocodile-tears-dont-move-me-they-profited-quite-nicely-from-the-murder/2012/09/03/
ADDENDUM:
And lest we forget Syria….(see link)…The commanders put the number of rebel fighters in the city at 4,000 to 5,000, an estimate that appears exaggerated. One military analyst on the scene put the number at considerably fewer than 1,000.
Among them are at least a small contingent of Islamic militants. The Al Nusra Front, a group reportedly linked to Al Qaeda, has a banner proclaiming its name hanging from a building that appears to be its headquarters in the Kalaseh district. On Wednesday, a menacing-looking guard with an AK-47 and a black head scarf covering his face waved off inquiries.
Despite the war, Aleppo seems to have no shortage of food. Business was brisk at Alshafi, a popular ice cream shop, and the other day, someone was selling goldfish from a tank on the same street. A few blocks away is a bustling produce market where stands are overflowing with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and other produce from surrounding agricultural districts.
Many people appear to go about their business normally even as the fighting rages, though for many, a resentment against the rebels seems to lie just below the surface.
“They are terrorists and vandals,” said one man, who declined to give his name, fearing retribution. Most rebel fighters are not from Aleppo. Many are from villages and towns hit hard by the fighting. Some express a muted resentment that Aleppo residents have not, in their view, embraced the rebellion with sufficient enthusiasm.
Given the city’s relative affluence, the bread lines and piles of uncollected garbage have been major irritants for residents. Trash has been left to smolder at numerous street corners, giving off an acrid smell that permeates the city. On Wednesday, to the delight of some residents, a bulldozer was finally collecting piles of garbage in one district.
In a bid to consolidate control, rebels have begun setting up a police force and justice system. Commanders working out of a former kindergarten building boasted of a major coup: a feared shabiha, or government militiaman, had been captured. A tribunal had sentenced the alleged militiaman, Ahmad Assab, to death. The execution was to be a public event, to be held Wednesday at 4 p.m in Sukkari Square. Word soon spread.
Several thousand people gathered at the square. Rebels in all style of revolutionary garb and brandishing various arms arrived on motorcycles and in vehicles; some fired their weapons into the air. A festive atmosphere prevailed . But crowds in a war zone can attract trouble.
Soon, mortar shells were falling nearby, sending people and cars scrambling away in panic. The crowd and the fighters scattered. The execution was postponed. The thud of incoming mortar rounds echoed across the square, a soundtrack now all too familiar to the people of Aleppo.Read More:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-syria-aleppo-20120906,0,5057890.story
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And that bastion of freedom known as Saudi Arabia. But hey!, they’re on our side….(see link at end)…Ahmed al-Gizawy, the Egyptian lawyer detained in Saudi Arabia, attended his trial Wednesday with his hands and feet shackled and denied charges that he attempted to smuggle 21,000 tablets of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax into the country.
“The prosecution says I was arrested at 5:30 AM whereas I was arrested at 1:30 PM on my way out of the airport,” Gizawy said, requesting a representative of the Egyptian consulate in Jeddah to attend the trial.
“I do not blame the Saudi authorities. I do blame the media that made of me an enemy of the Saudi people,” he said.
The prosecutor showed Gizawy a picture of himself sitting in front of a group of milk cans that the prosecution claims was taken upon Gizawy’s arrival to the airport. Gizawy countered that it was forcibly taken seven days after his arrest.
The session was adjourned to 26 September.
The prosecution had requested the death penalty in the first hearing of the trial on 18 July.
Gizawy’s arrest had sparked angry protests outside the Saudi embassy in Cairo in April, leading Riyadh to recall its ambassador, who returned to Cairo a week later after a high-level Egyptian delegation visited Riyadh to assure the Saudi authorities of Egypt’s commitment to the good relations.
Saudi Arabia is a major aid donor to Egypt, and closely coordinated with Egypt and the United States on policies during Mubarak’s rule that lasted 30 years.
International human rights groups often say Saudi trials are conducted unfairly, a charge denied by Riyadh.
The Saudi judiciary usually gives the death sentence for murder, rape and drug trafficking convictions. Convicts are beheaded in a public square.Read More:http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/gizawy-attends-saudi-trial-hands-and-feet-shackled
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