Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

turkey-egyptian tensions:
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/2014/07/26/Egypt-to-summon-Turkish-envoy-over-Erdogan-comments.html

Well, Erdogan otm. Though it's obviously kinda rich coming from him. Made me remember there was an analysis of Turkey in my newspaper this week. Apparantly there is talk of Erdogan making peace with the Kurds, in hope of creating an alliance with the Kurds in Iraq and perhaps Syria as well. He's definitely ambitious.

this seems pretty sharp to me from a strategic pov:
http://www.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2014/07/25/the-gaza-war-when-strategies-collide/

Really useful piece. Too many people think this is about or only about Israel vs. Hamas (at best). But it's really always been a much bigger picture conflict, quietly aligning the conflicts and strategies of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Iran and more. I think the same elements dragging this thing out are the same elements keeping this from blowing up into something much bigger and uglier and more deadly. The likes of SA and Egypt have always been about stifling radical dissent rather than outright battling it, if possible, and watching what has happened in Iraq and Syria and Libya is yet another reason they'd probably like to see this limited to Israel.

Yeah, that was really good. Interesting and scary about Ben Gurion, hadn't thought about that. I do thin this is slighty off-putting though:

It’s also worth noting, from the standpoint of very-long-term Israeli interests, that the willingness of the Saudis and Egyptians and their friends, even silently and tactically, to align with Israel is a promising sign that Israel may someday be accepted in the region. Israel has been given a chance to audition for the role of a tacit ally of the Sunni Arab world against both Sunni and Shia radicals; it doesn’t want to blow this chance and its desire to build its relations with neighboring Arab states may outweigh its concerns about annoying Europe or even the U.S.

I don't think the Saudi and Egypt dictatorships should be thought of as representing 'the Sunni Arab world'. That alliance could perhaps finally do something about Iran, but it could also be a complete disaster.

Anyone here have any opinions on Foreign Affairs? Was considering subscribing for a year to try it out.

i recently sub'd. i found that there were too many articles i wanted to read. there's a lot of chaff tho.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/world/middleeast/iraq.html

Lede: "BAGHDAD — Wielding the threat of sectarian slaughter, Sunni Islamist militants claimed on Sunday that they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite members of Iraq’s security forces, posting grisly pictures of a mass execution in Tikrit as evidence and warning of more killing to come."

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/israelgaza-conflict-the-secret-report-that-helps-israelis-to-hide-facts-9630765.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/28/opinion/david-grossman-end-the-grindstone-of-israeli-palestinian-violence.html

i really like that piece

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/28/as-israel-enforces-its-buffer-zone-gaza-shrinks-by-40-per-cent.html

This is what "just war" looks like, I guess:

Eran Efrati

6 hours ago · Edited
.

In recent weeks I was on the border of Gaza and getting reports from soldiers in the Gaza Strip who leak information out to me. I am in the process of publication of two big stories in major U.S. newspapers, but there are some things I can share with you right now: Soldiers in two different units inside Gaza leaked information about the murdering of Palestinians by sniper fire in Shuja'iyya neighborhood as punishment for the death of soldiers in their units. After the shooting on the Israeli armored personnel carriers, which killed seven soldiers of the Golani Brigade, the Israeli army carried out a massacre in Shuja'iyya neighborhood. A day after the massacre, many Palestinians came to search for their relatives and their families in the rubble. In one of the videos uploaded to YouTube, a young Palestinian man Salem Shammaly calls the names of his family and looking for them between the ruins when he is suddenly shot at in his chest and falls down. A few seconds after that, there are two additional shootings from snipers into his body, killing him instantly. Since the video was released, there was no official response from the IDF spokesperson. Today I can report that the official command that was handed down to the soldiers in Shujaiyya was to capture Palestinian homes as outposts. From these posts, the soldiers drew an imaginary red line, and amongst themselves decided to shoot to death anyone who crosses it. Anyone crossing the line was defined as a threat to their outposts, and was thus deemed a legitimate target. This was the official reasoning inside the units. I was told that the unofficial reason was to enable the soldiers to take out their frustrations and pain at losing their fellow soldiers (something that for years the IDF has not faced during its operations in Gaza and the West Bank), out on the Palestinian refugees in the neighborhood. Under the pretext of the so-called "security threat" soldiers were directed to carry out a pre-planned attack of revenge on Palestinian civilians. These stories join many other similar ones that Amira Hass and I investigated in Operation Cast Lead. The death toll that continues to rise is steadily reaching the numbers of the massacre of 2009.
More than 1,100 have been killed in Gaza, at least 80 percent of them civilians. Today it is cleared for publication that at least 4 soldiers were killed by a rocket in a gathering area outside of Gaza, and another soldier was killed in Gaza. They join 43 soldiers that have already been killed. We know that more acts of revenge will come soon and it is important that we not stay silent. This is the time to take to the streets and to social media. Demand from your representative wherever you are to stop supporting this massacre and to immediately boycott the state of Israel until the occupation ends, the blockade is lifted and Palestinians will be free. We all want to be in the right place at the right time when history knocks on our door, and history is knocking in Gaza right now. You need to decide on which side you want to go down in history.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/gaming-israel-and-palestine#axzz38r5V2UJx

This is a fairly chilling way to put things:

For the Israelis, the point of the operation is that they are willing to carry it out at all. The Israelis undoubtedly intend to punish Gaza, but they do not believe they can impose their will on Gaza and compel the Palestinians to reach a political accommodation with Israel. War's purpose is to impose your political will on your enemy. But unless the Israelis surprise us immensely, nothing decisive will come out of this conflict. Even if Israel somehow destroyed Hamas, another organization would emerge to fill its space in the Palestinian ecosystem. Israel can't go far enough to break the Palestinian will to resist; it is dependent on a major third-party state to help meet Israeli security needs. This creates an inherent contradiction whereby Israel receives enough American support to guarantee its existence but because of humanitarian concerns is not allowed to take the kind of decisive action that might solve its security problem.

ugh

http://www.thenation.com/sites/default/files/droneygazacolorlarge.jpg

I don't get it.

....

it's a drone

easier:

@DennisThePerrin
For your next cookout, consider using a Palestinian child as charcoal. You already paid for it! #USA

why is that drone strawmanning

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/28/israeli-military-most-moral-no-more-outrage-indifference

power plant was a military target eh

I don't see how that can be interpreted as anything other than an effort by the IDF to inflict damage on the civilian populace/cause a humanitarian crisis

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/183496#.U9gDuFZ1ZfO

the transcript sounds fake to me tbh, but they should release the recording and let us decide if it's real or not

my friend points out that obama commonly uses the idiom "ball is in your court" which makes him think it's legit

interesting

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/29/5949289/the-10-funniest-parodies-of-the-obviously-fake-obama-netanyahu-phone

In other news, apparantly ISIS is fighting back Assad's forces in Syria now, using equipment looted in Iraq. I don't have an english-language article on that, though.

I don't have the heart to post a link to the ISIS video that surfaced today. ISIS killing dozens of people in barbaric fashion. They aren't 'just' killing, it's straight-out genocide.

thanks for not posting it. i've had my fill of gore from this week for probably the rest of my life

OBAMA: Bibi, this must end. BIBI: Iran cannot acquire nuclear weapons. OBAMA: But— BIBI: Just kidding, this is the machine. Leave a message!

I lol'd

yeah, i laughed at a bunch of those

You don't want to see it, trust me. But I did feel the need to mention it. That this is out there. That this is actually happening.

The thing is: it's not even 'gorey' in the literal sense, It's systemic, cold executing of human beings. I've no words for it.

Xxp

An Israeli's take: not gory, but strenuously succinct:
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/israels-other-war

whole scenario is creepily reminiscent of American climate at the beginning of the second Iraq war

my friend points out that obama commonly uses the idiom "ball is in your court" which makes him think it's legit

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 29, 2014 8:35 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

right--a few people noted the stiffness of the language as a tip that it was a fake, but all that suggested to me was that O, if not Bibi, was speaking very deliberately--that seems pretty likely given the gravity of call like this?

you guys are kidding, right?

there's no way that transcript is real

An Israeli's take: not gory, but strenuously succinct:
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/israels-other-war

― dow, Tuesday, July 29, 2014 5:18 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A pretty major Israeli writer afaik

Seconded.

The transcript reminds me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7MQAkDjYDM

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nRoJAQRVxdA/U9gErEKzvVI/AAAAAAAAfbM/nrMMsW_iPwQ/s1600/gabriele.png

case closed

even stevens imo

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/gaza-another-un-school-hit-in-further-night-of-fierce-bombardment

15-20 more dead, 90 injured, after the bombing of another UN school.

The Israeli govt spokesman on BBC Radio 4 today came THIS close to saying "shit happens" about the school bombing. It confirmed my feeling that, while the IDF isn't deliberately killing civilians (as some claim), it just doesn't give a shit how many civilians die in the process of battering Hamas. The IDF claims that human-shield casualties are Hamas's fault but if a Hamas gunman infiltrated Israel and used Israeli hostages as human shields there is no way they would be gunned down to get to him. The security forces would take responsibility for their welfare. This just isn't happening in Gaza, which suggests to me that the IDF is doing nothing more than pay lip service to proportionality, so these are war crimes. I can no longer see any reason why they wouldn't be.

they bombed a fucking power plant, how was not directed at the civilian population

I think they give something of a shit about it but not enough. I think you would see even higher casualties if civilians were always being indiscriminately targeted. I don't buy the "Hamas is using human shields" rationale, but it's still a non-barracked militia in dense urban areas.