Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

Yeah, how dare he object to missiles being stored in schools, fuck that guy. I do appreciate the UNRWA policy of turning the missiles over to the authorities, though. Very sensible.

BTW, the more this mess continues, the more outright anti-Semitism (that is, no doubt as to intent) I keep encountering, which makes me even more uncomfortable than re-reading the Hamas charter made me feel. I fully support a Palestinian state, but fuck all supporters of Hamas and whatever it is they claim to want.

Of course I'm not cool with rockets hidden in schools. I need to walk you through the irony of Israel calling on the international community to act?

There's double irony, because it was in a UN school, and then the UN turned the missiles over the the Palestinians! So it's Israel asking the international community to intervene in the international community intervening.

Has anyone ever seriously broached the idea of the UN, er, occupying the region as a peacekeeping force?

kurdish oil odyssey http://graphics.wsj.com/kurdish-crude-journey/

http://blogs.rollcall.com/the-container/ted-cruz-sees-obama-economic-boycott-of-israel/

ted-cruz-sees

"Ted Cruz Sees" is the new "Alan Keyes Is Making Sense"

been thinking about ISIS

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bsx6Zd6CEAEO-NW.jpg

despite all their talk about sykes-picot & restoring the caliphate there's something very modern about them. there are quite a lot of imams who like to wag their fingers at ~internet islam~, and ISIS are masters of its militant & extremist form. they fit v well into the media narrative about sectarianism and they've managed to claim ownership over the loss of govt control in mosul, harnessing anti-maliki sentiment while being a figurehead for something else. when they did a similar thing in fallujah & ramadi at the start of the year they weren't properly differentiated from al-qaeda in the western consciousness & didn't get the same sort of coverage, but now the impression you get from the media is that they're somehow running the north of iraq with ~6000 people.

I think their inflated image is not so much due to scaremongering about them as the irrational muslim Other, but because they've got lots of members who've grown up online (& mb as many as 5% from western europe) & operate in a way which is very familiar.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image1-500x321.jpg

they churn out so many strong images (in most weeks they'd have all the coverage), some obviously ending up reapproapriated, even making it as far as the church of england's twitter profile pic - http://www.ndf.fr/files/avatars/483/9717fe0f33210f2e1f9af4d7d6013817-bpthumb.jpg the magazine I linked to upthread is p amazing as an artefact, they're ruling social media & they advertise themselves to donors just like a modern corporation would. they're recognisable as an uncanny shadow that adopts the tactics of their professed enemies. i'd like to know what actual solutions to sunni grievances are being dreamed up by maliki & allies/the US right now though

I'm sure someone could make an argument that all salafi islam in the sayyid qutb vein is modern in a sort of counter-enlightenment sense but idk much about it

as edward said would doubtless have it, and without wishing to determine which of those is newton and which is leibniz, its probably safe to assume that she could come up with that pose independently and without any exposure to the western internet

i'm arguing medium>message, why would she be posing if not for v similar media? etc.

cant believe anyone would have come up with idea of presenting themselves with their weapons and ideological tracts prior to the internet

the medium defines the form of whatever presentation; posing for a photo is different from a boast or a story everyone tells about you or w/e & plays differently to western ears. or eyes in fact. I am not aware of any pre-internet islamic radical group doing any comparable posturing but I'd be v curious ofc

do u really want to argue for some causal precedent there beyond the banal kinship that caused some Good Point Well Made polemicist to conjoin those photos? there are a certain number of obvious things that ppl do when confronted with a camera, when their argument is 'cause' and 'praxis' in two tenable items this is what you get

one looks like a tumblr type confessional into the void and the other is framed like those suicide commando photographs from the pre-tumblr second intifada, replete with the printed drape and framing of hamas or whichever sponsor

lol amirite

http://i.imgur.com/LoVwiE6.jpg

Reem Raiyshi a mother of two from Gaza, poses holding a Quran, the Muslim holy book, and a machine gun in this image released by Hamas and taken at an unknown location in the Gaza Strip in recent days. Raiyshi was named as the woman who blew herself up Wednesday at the major crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip, killing at least four Israelis and wounding seven others. (AP Photo/Hamas HO)

Died: January 14, 2004

idk what causual precedent you are imagining & objecting to. ISIS are just much more prominent & proficient w/ media than al-shabab, boko haram et al. al-qaeda had a friendly media group but ISIS have founded two of their own. their presence in the media belies their actual military/political clout & I'm suggesting they're good at shaping their own media narrative

*causal

this is just what happens when someone follows a story through twitter as assumes that the war is conditioned by twitter in their appreciation of it is, 'media prominence' doesnt have any proven relation to capacity, and in any case your evidence for it is the most risible macro shit on the whole internet

the radical possiblitiesdo for wahabbism was brokered by the .rm clips of daniel pearl having his head cut off years ago, that isis have a load of your-moms-facebook level shit on social media probably connotes little more than that their members derive from urban arab populations or occasionally from the_west rather than the most remote and backwards and pre-technological areas of somalia or the sahel

ugh 'the radical possiblities of what the internet can do for'

of course it's due to who their membership is, & the extent to which they are distorting/dominating coverage of iraq is, I think, v significant. charles tripp & others have been quite dismissive about their role in the iraqi politics, and if the media excitement is v overboard it's pretty interesting to look at how they've done it

they havent done this so much as all sorts of concerned commentators have written this for them, they are hypemen in the same manner as any other chancers who ever got some opportunistic success against an already defeated failed state

this 'uncanny shadow that adopts the tactics of their professed enemies' is just doing the same shit as literally anyone fighting a phantasmic insurgency would do in 2014, this isnt some sort of devillish inversion of the innocent smoothies twitter feed, it p much is the innocent smoothies twitter feed, the same technology and the same memetic banality reifiying a hollow victory

cutting off daniel pearls head off, even if he was already dead at that point as some claimed, was something novel radical perhaps even meaningful but this isn't any sort of rupture at all

theres also the ~problematics~ of 'they're ruling social media' when what you are talking about is not so much their undoubted prominence on the social media version of what in a pre-social media age was called 'the arab street' but just the usual white people nonsense, the church of england or whatever, western people surprised and titillated by the other adopting their methods and tipping their hats in delusory identification

anyway its strange we are pondering this imponderable shit right now because prompted by a completely separate context i was mindful earlier today of skimming through 'bourdieu's secret admirer in the caucusus' for what i remembered to be some quite insightful arguments about the notional radicality of radical islam post-80s

its a very good book and i thank you for the recommendation

xp ^most of that goes w/ what I'm saying. the use of necessarily lowest common denominator cheap memes does not seem v fitting for the caliphate, but no one seems to care. when they were involved with the anbar uprising a few months ago they were billed by the press as 'al-qaeda linked terrorists' and then given more credit for the collapse of govt control than might have been fair, but now they're the only non-FSA anti-assad group in syria anyone in the UK can name. all their english language stuff is v obviously aimed at sunni muslims in the west, I don't get a sense of Other in that, but we're going in circles now

derluguian drew some comparisons between radical islamic groups and western ngos (in terms of what they offered to poor & disenfranchised caucasians) that I appreciated but half expect you to complain about now. the way he brings the different levels together in that is very satisfying, & I'd love to read something similar

why would the caliphate not be cheap and nasty? it is an imaginary caliphate after all

that they managed to achieve a separate brand identity is entirely contingent on their vapid and ~spectacular~ success in the field

this 'billed by the press' again gives undue attention to the lazy western news organizations and their misidentifications, everything here is happening in the gulf between western expectations in reality, nothing in the field

why wouldn't they have english speaking fellow travellers who can circulate pdfs and net art? there is a limitless supply of people who will do this work for them, it seems trite in the extreme to be think it notable that this would be happening

derlugian draws instructive parallels borne of extensive fielwork and scrupulous attention to western biases

im not so much saying you are wrong, rather that the parallels you draw are entirely obvious to the extent that it seems surprising anyone would bother to make them and that it is wrong to attach any great weight to them or think them formative

why would isis' web presence not act like a corporate recruiter? why would they not read malcolm gladwell? it would be more noteworthy if they didnt, this presumption of difference is naive

of course I'm glad for georgi that he has earned yr esteem, but the expectations I alluded to are more to do with the hectoring tone of our webchat than any idea that comparisons might be drawn between it & his published academic work

if yr going to assume the title of caliph as a v premature and desperate bid for legitimacy then you are surely hoping some of the grandeur of its historical & religious import will rub off on you, mb to counter-act yr own frailties. idk, it's so patently ridiculous or, more generously, aspirational, that perhaps no one imagines it is taken at all seriously.

the difference presumed is between ISIS and their peers&rivals, who have not cultivated their own media presence to as great effect. there's no single innovation & their tactics follow on from some of their predecessors, but I'm far from the first to note how unusually focused ISIS are on propaganda. yes, of course the interest was about their presentation & how this is picked up. I don't have any theory on what the relationship between a group's profile and political or material influence might be, how much difference, if any it makes, to their operations, but I think it is one of the more significant issues surrounding their activities, especially as a way of informing how you read western coverage of them

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/24/what-jihadists-are-doing-in-syria-and-iraq-while-gaza-grabs-the-headlines/

this past weekend's death toll in Syria was greater than what took place in Gaza. By some accounts, the past week may have been the deadliest in the conflict's grim history

In total, more than 600,000 Iraqis were driven from their homes in June alone, a direct result of the Islamic State's dramatic advance through the country.

Are the Jews involved, Y/N?

The author's response:
In the face of these traumas, some construe the heated attention on casualties in Gaza to reflect a kind of anti-Israeli bias. That's a bit much: the thorny Israeli-Palestinian crisis has animated debate for decades in ways the upheavals further east just don't. No one, for example, is trying to make excuses for the loss of civilian life in Iraq or Syria. But many more should be aware of how alarming the situation has grown.

ISIS has apparently issued a fucking fatwa calling for female genital mutilation.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28466434

Cool, as long as we don't have to protest or divest or throw bricks through windows.

In other news:

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/07/24/-ISIS-order-female-genital-mutilation-in-Iraq.html

ISIS fatwa in Mosul calling for circumcision of all women and girls between 11 and 46. And you thought they couldn't top the demand that all Christians leave, convert or die! Oh, these guys ... at least they're not lowering themselves to the depth of Israeli depravity.

xpost

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/air-algerie-plane-disappears-from-radar/2014/07/24/7b977d0a-1317-11e4-ac56-773e54a65906_story.html?tid=recommended_strip_3

josh your sarcasm kabuki is so rapid itt that i have no idea what your opinion actually is. kudos.

Sorry, honestly, as per perhaps this thread or maybe the other thread, and probably both, I've been a bit on edge and defensive and uneasy lately.

What the fuck happened to the kind of war where it was just dudes marching at each other in a straight line?

have we talked about how crazy this is yet?
http://www.timesofisrael.com/150-palestinians-surrender-to-idf-in-gaza/

How dare Israel publicly humiliate these alleged Hamas fighters like this.

i'm not sure if i'm surprised bc it demonstrates a level of self-preservation that i generally don't associate w/ hamas, or just cynical that they are so quick to surrender themselves while demanding that the civilians under their control martyr themselves for the cause.

I watched a documentary about the second intifada last weekend ("Arna's Children") and there's a scene where you see a group of Palestinians talking about the Battle of Jenin--one of them was a fighter who was among the first to give himself up, and the others are mocking him for it. The dialogue something like

"You could have kept shooting! I had to give up or die, they had killed everyone else with me--"
"It would be better to die than be the first to surrender."
"And what did the rest of you do as soon as I gave up? The shooting stopped, as soon as I gave up you all gave up."
"Well because we had lost our best fighter, obviously."

despite the emphasis i've put on the arab street's hatred for israel, this has definitely been a trend this year:
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/180254/if-you-want-to-find-support-for-israel-read-the-newspapers-in-cairo

i've seen similar stuff in al-arabiya too (which has run some really fantastic stuff as of late and is def worth following imo - better than al-jazeera which has been shit since becoming al-jazeera america) re saudi arabia, egypt, even turkey (despite ertogan's rhetoric to the contrary), even PA - abbas has made unprecedentedly critical remarks of hamas this go-around.

http://www.itv.com/news/2014-07-24/itv-news-witnesses-aftermath-of-un-school-attack-in-gaza/

UN gave Israel coordinates of where the schools were located where civilians and children were hiding from the shelling. Israel bombed away anyway. Same with the children on the beach. The bombing of a hospital. It's indefensible and appalling.

NYT says it's unclear who hit the school and apparently Hamas is not letting them investigate the site:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/world/middleeast/despite-talk-of-a-cease-fire-no-lull-in-gaza-fighting.html

The local director of the United Nations agency operating the shelter, in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, initially said the cause appeared to be an Israeli strike, and many Gazans presumed Israel’s military was responsible.

But United Nations officials said later that they could not be sure, and Israeli military officials said errant Palestinian munitions might have been the source. The Israelis denied having intentionally targeted the school and said they had warned the United Nations three days earlier that the school should be evacuated because the surrounding area was a combat zone.

[...]

Mr. Turner said he had few details about the strike in Beit Hanoun, because when he went to investigate, “we got a hostile reception.”

With Friends Like These, ISIS Is Doomed

“All we are doing now is just a liberation,” Abu Mustafa says. “After the liberation of Baghdad the Islamic state will be finished. The Sunni rebels are only using them against the corruption of the government.”

This is a view more common than one might expect among the Sunni Iraqis who have taken up arms against the government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, although it rarely is voiced so brazenly from inside the capital. They look at ISIS not as a religious prophecy come true or an end unto itself but as a weapon that will be used up after it is has done their work.
“They stay together only to fight the enemy,” and that is Maliki, says Najim al Kasab, an Iraqi political analyst with contacts among the Sunni insurgent groups. “The main force keeping them together is Maliki himself. If Maliki is replaced, the Sunni armed groups will turn on ISIS,” Kasab says.

Terrible clashes in the old city of Jerusalem right now. I fear for a third intifada :-(

(Ps Mordy, Israel claimed attack on school just now: http://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenkel/at-least-13-palestinians-were-killed-inside-the-un-school-wh )

If they did, it's not in the link you posted, which reads: "Israel’s military spokesman said it was investigating the incident and did not have an immediate comment."

Sorry, I didn't see the tweet at the bottom:

IDF@IDFSpokesperson Follow
Today Hamas continued firing from Beit Hanoun. The IDF responded by targeting the source of the fire.

12:34 PM - 24 Jul 14
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