Archive for January, 2007

“Opposing Israel’s settlement of the West Bank or treatment of Palestinians “is, in itself, not anti-Semitic,” he writes; it is questioning Israel’s right to exist that crosses the line.” I beg your pardon? How is that so? What if one is opposed to any state based on religious exclusiveness? What if you are opposed to [...]

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

This is what the US has done to Iraq. I know. I know. You call this “liberation.” (This is the center of Ramadi.).

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

A Saudi singer criticizes (Hariri and Saudi-funded) Lebanese TV stations for banning her video clip because it featured an image of Hasan Nasrallah.

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

This is a poster of the cult leader in Iraq. His group is named Jund As-Sama’, and thus should be translated as Soldiers of the Sky (and not Army of Heaven as has been the standard translation in Western newspapers). The poster has the headline “Judge of the Sky” but I don’t know if this [...]

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

“Ms. Miller had said that her memory of the June 23 meeting was jogged only when she accidentally discovered a shopping bag full of notebooks under her desk in the Times newsroom.” Please don’t be cynical. These things happen. In fact, just last week, under my desk, I found an old shopping bag in which [...]

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

I am not making this up. Yesterday, I watched before falling asleep–yes, Arabs sleep–a hearing on C-Span for the new commander of CENTCOM in the US Senate. During the hearing, Sen. Liberman said–I am almost quoting varbatim–that while it is true that people in the Middle East are very critical of the US, they have [...]

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

It is insulting to the major Lebanese factions, in the opposition and in the government, that a resolution to the Lebanese crisis is being arranged through negotiations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Do you want those two regimes to speak for you? I certainly don’t; not on any issue. And if the two regimes impose [...]

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

“Israel Defense Forces soldiers seriously wounded a six-year-old Palestinian girl on Wednesday, during the arrest of a wanted Islamic Jihad militant in a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus.” Notice how Haaretz tries its best to almost justify this act of terrorism by Israel.

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

My sources tell me that mini-Hariri is visiting Moscow on business, and not–as is announced in Hariri media–to save Palestine, Lebanon, Tibet, and Dharfur.

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

It is without exaggeration that I say that since WWII, there is not a single civil war, anywhere around the world, in which the US was not involved in some capacity. In this civil war, the US/Israel is a major player: “The United States is considering expanding assistance beyond Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Presidential Guard [...]

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

“The neocons have learned nothing from five years of catastrophe”

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

A British report want bad humans to have less children

Posted on January 31, 2007 by As'ad

“US ‘victory’ against cult leader was ‘massacre’” (thanks Mouin and Muhammad)

Posted on January 30, 2007 by As'ad

Having been born to a Sunni mother and a Shi`ite father, I don’t buy the stories that Sunnis and Shi`ites always loved one another. I am too aware of the tensions. But those social tensions were never as politically exploited–and effectively–as in present-day Arab world. I found the Sunnis of Lebanon (and this is from [...]

Posted on January 30, 2007 by As'ad

When Saudi media try to be sensitive. Hoping to imitate the (sensation) ostensibly sensible Western media, Al-Arabiya TV chose to do a report yesterday on sexual abuse of children in Sudan–yes, you have to select a country on bad terms with the US for such reports. The report was as you would expect from Geraldo-style [...]

Posted on January 30, 2007 by As'ad

So this Israeli historian, who also seems to engage in prophetic predictions a la Bernard Lewis, admits that Israel possesses nuclear weapons but states that they are “unusable.” He may have a point. I mean when did Israel EVER use weapons in its possessions? When?

Posted on January 30, 2007 by As'ad

Lebanon is a country where people think that even if it is hit with an earthquake, it must be a message from God that Lebanon is special.

Posted on January 30, 2007 by As'ad

Saudi media love to highlight news of Israeli contacts with Qatar. Qatar, of course, loves to normalize relations with Israel to appease the US. When I met with the Amir of Qatar three years ago, I asked him about those contacts, and he downplayed them to me. But he did not deny that he is [...]

Posted on January 30, 2007 by As'ad

Sometimes I can’t believe how nice American troops in Iraq are. I really mean that. Look at this: US troops are still willing to help although they had surrendered sovereignty to the Iraqi people themselves, and Iraq is now an independent and sovereign country. “American Apache attack helicopters and F-16s, as well as British fighter [...]

Posted on January 30, 2007 by As'ad

I like this division of labor at the New York Times. Michale Slackman writes about serious political issues of Lebanon, and Hassan Fattah writes about…fortune tellers, soothsayers, and crackpots in Lebanon. In fact, I am expecting Fattah to write about all those Lebanese who “invented cures” for cancer. But then again, I was first disturbed [...]

Posted on January 30, 2007 by As'ad