Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

1800, that is

In the first round, with a voter turnout of 46%, the results were split between five major candidates: Mohamed Morsi (25%), Ahmed Shafik (24%), Hamdeen Sabahi (21%), Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh (18%), and Amr Moussa (11%), while the remaining 2% were split between several smaller candidates. The elections set the stage for the divisions that were to follow, along Islamist and secular lines, and those opposed to and those supporting the former political elite. Islamist candidates Morsi and Fotouh won roughly 42% of the vote, while the remaining secular candidates won 56% of the vote. Candidates Shafik and Moussa held positions under the Mubarak regime and won 35% of the vote, while Sabahi was a prominent dissident during the Sadat and Mubarak regimes.

Following the second round, with a voter turnout of 52%, on 24 June 2012, Egypt's election commission announced that Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi had won Egypt's presidential elections. Morsi won by a narrow margin over Ahmed Shafik, the final prime minister under deposed President Hosni Mubarak. The commission said Morsi took 51.7% of the vote versus 48.3% for Shafik.[2] Morsi was sworn in on 30 June 2012 and was later ousted in a popular uprising or coup on 3 July 2013.

I'm only going on Wiki here but I'd say you could say the MB has both broad popular support and broad popular opposition.

It is interesting that secular candidates combined had the majority in the first round but Morsi won the second round -- maybe the higher turnout was disproportionately MB. I think the MB is better organized than other parties in Egypt and probably has good "get out the vote" ability.

there was definitely popular demonstrations against morsi, but a lot of pro-morsi as well. the millitary shot at them: 600-1200 dead. arrested thousand of islamists, sentenced more than 500 to death. the new government is a military dictatorship based on violence and killing it's opponents. it's not better than mb.

and mb is obviously better organized, was always going to be. there was no political infra-structure in the country, but a religous one. i haven't seen sisi opening the country up, so when he falls in thirty years time, another islamist movement will be ready to win the election.

Also an urban/rural divide, I believe. So after the election the protests were from urban liberals against the MB. But I may be misremembering.

if anything i think this war did more damage to bds than help - since the bds actually does need the PR, and the PR for pro-palestinian demonstrations were really bad

Idk about this at all. I wouldn't be sure the organised protests registered particularly strongly in the popular imagination either way. Irrespective of any official BDS movement (if an 'official' movement exists) there's undoubtedly been a hardening of opinion and not just on the left. European leaders have been far less measured than normal, centrist and centre-right newspapers far less sympathetic. I'd expect, at the very least, more pressure on governments in relation to arms sales and more cultural and academic institutions willing to shun events with Israeli government funding behind them. The London Jewish Film Festival has just been barred from its normal venue because they refused to hand back Israeli state funding. I wouldn't necessarily expect a massive increase in the number of people actively backing a wider boycott but I wouldn't be surprised if those opposing one struggle for sympathy for the foreseeable.

i guess i think that making a case for a hamas "victory" here requires more than the possibility that some anti boycotters might struggle for sympathy in the future

It's tough to see this as a Hamas victory. Politically, I suspect Israel is more isolated now than it was six months ago, though. To what extent that helps Hamas isn't clear but I can't really see even broadly sympathetic leaders like Cameron and Merkel having such a free hand to back Israel in public, make state visits, etc.

I don't think anybody argued this was overall a Hamas victory, though, that is a complete non-issue. The original article said that Hamas didn't have a single win, in it's attempt to spin it as an Israeli victory. I argued against that. I don't think anybody has won.

Fwiw, I do think bds has gotten more 'salonfähig' in the Netherlands. In a country where any criticism on Israel used to be seen in a anti-Semitic light, it's getting more accepted to criticize Israel (not "the Jews") for its war crimes. Which is a great thing, and not a mere 'distraction' in light of pr.

On the other hand anti-semitism is roaring its ugly head too, namely at demo's, though it's in small numbers. It's usually a small group of people bringing this (and ISIS flags, wtf) to the streets. Been a whole debate on wether ISIS flags and swastikas (brought to underline the "Israel = nazi germany" 'argument') should be allowed. (I'm against the banning of any flag or symbol myself, let the scum let themselves be known imo)

Lol "this swastika doesnt represent naziism ir antisemitism, it represents Israel and how much we hate the Jews because THEY'RE the nazis!"

yeah that makes sense

Lol yeah I know right.

fwiw baroness warsi, conservative peer & first muslim to sit in the cabinet, resigned from the government today over its handling of gaza. her letter of resignation is here, don't read the comments http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/08/baroness-warsi-resigns/

Wait, is a Baroness a title or position? Or is that her name?

It's a title. She is still a Baroness.

BTW, I've noticed a bit of ignorance/propaganda making the rounds, namely that Hamas did not fire any rockets at Israel until Israel reacted to the three teens getting killed. But unless I'm mistaken, rockets from Hamas are a pretty regular thing, albeit typically significantly lower in numbers than during this current engagement.

afaik, rockets were normal, but they weren't from hamas. and even idf has said this.

equating Jews with Nazis is basically an attempt to legitimize the suffering of one group by delegitimizing the suffering of another. In internet rabbit holes, it's usually only one more step from there to "European Jews aren't even real Jews (Khazars)" etc. and then one more to "the holocaust is exaggerated." The holocaust is one of the major historic reasons that Israel exists whether or not it "justifies" its existence (let alone the Nakba). Claims that Jews should not have gone to Palestine, when there weren't exactly a plethora of other options are frustrating at best. Claims that Jews should not have expelled large numbers of Arabs in 1948 are legitimate, and there has to be some kind of redress in any political solution.

xp in very recent history, that appears to be true, but it's also not the first time Hamas fired rockets, which, before iron dome, did manage to kill at least a handful of civilians, hit schools, etc. I can't speak to the degree to which Hamas can control whether other groups fire rockets.

of course. but nobody is claiming that hamas didn't fire records in 2009. that is not what we're talking about.

And in 2010, and 2011, and 2012

and 2014 before July:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2014

I assume Hamas is essential to smuggling in and distributing weapons. If any handful of dudes can get their hands on rockets ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zf8YUOpfKI

Making one people give up land to other people, to build a new nation on someone else's turf, creating a country for people of one religion is ofcourse a historic mistake. Creating Israel was a huge mistake. I don't really understand why there weren't any other options, as you put it Hurting. What about the option of living where one wants or destined from?

To my knowledge, Israel is the one and only country artificially created to be inhabited by people of one certain religion. While after the holocaust I can definitely understand the notion to find a safe place for kin, essentially wanting to have a country just for people of one religion, by default sets you up against both people with other religious beliefs and the people who's land you needed to make it happen.
And 65 years or so down the line, it leaves a sinister bitter taste in my mouth. People of Jewish belief shacking up in one place singles them out, just like they were once singled out - individuals automatically seen as part of a group - made into the evil ones and genocided. Why should Jews not live in any country they damn please just like every other religious person can live in, mostly, every country on earth? By crowding together in a fabricated state like Israel, the impression is given to the world that people of this particular belief deserve a nation of their own. While I wish every Jew a safe place, I don't think that was the way to go.

Today, a broad core of Israelis do not tolerate and discrimate against people of different religious beliefs, of different skin colour. All because the generations in power today were raised on the belief that Israel, the nation they were born in as Jews, is primarily for Jews. People of a different religion have been born generations long into the reality that they are oppressed, that the guys of one religion stole their land to shape a nation for their own own religion. Is it surprising there is so much hatred there? Basing a nations reason for existence on one's religion is the worst idea ever.

Tl;dr: Fuck religion. Every demented, batshit insane version of belief in some supreme being that is cooler and better and stronger than your supreme being.

lbi I only got a couple paragraphs in there but

Your vision is lovely but ahistorical. At the times of largest Jewish immigration to Palestine, Jews most certainly could not live anywhere they damn well pleased. Even countries like the US that accepted Jews were unwilling to take large numbers of Jewish refugees during the holocaust. So it's really nice to sit around talking about what was the "way to go" back then, but there weren't actually a lot of other "ways to go" actually available. In any case, that was the way the british empire, and the United Nations, and the Jewish emigrants to Palestine themselves, went, and now the state is there. The region is full of states entirely or almost exclusively for one religion, I don't hear anyone discussing still whether they should exist. I live in the U.S., not Israel. I'm lucky enough that all of my family came here at times when large masses of immigrants were being accepted into the country, i.e. well before the holocaust. I'm happy to be here and I have no intention of living anywhere else including Israel. But Israel is a reality now. I oppose the occupation, I oppose the settlements and would happily see them dismantled. I just don't think whether Israel is a country is up for discussion anymore.

And for what it's worth, the clearly stated goals of Hamas are to replace a Jewish state with an Islamic state in the entire land. I can't stomach people of my religion who say "god gave us the land, it's all ours." That doesn't mean I can stomach Hamas.

and 2014 before July:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2014

― Mordy, 6. august 2014 00:42 (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I read through that list, and none of those attacks prior to july names Hamas. 'Gaza Militants', Islamic Jihad and Ansar Bait al-Maqdis. Josh claimed that people said something due to 'ignorance/propaganda', which, no, people says it because it's true. You guys aren't proving otherwise, you're just saying other things are bad as well. Which is beside the point.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4536174,00.html

or you're specifically looking for hamas rockets prior to the kidnapping?

sorry, i've been fasting so i'm a little light headed

just imo but this thread was p good when it was shakey, josh and mordy having the type of discussion I don't get to read on Facebook and eh not as good since then tbph

he, sigh... Yeah, the original post was this one:

BTW, I've noticed a bit of ignorance/propaganda making the rounds, namely that Hamas did not fire any rockets at Israel until Israel reacted to the three teens getting killed. But unless I'm mistaken, rockets from Hamas are a pretty regular thing, albeit typically significantly lower in numbers than during this current engagement.

― Josh in Chicago, 6. august 2014 00:12 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It sorta pissed me off to be called ignorant/propagandistic, and then people did neither back it up or back down. But I stand corrected: Hamas began firing rockets at june 30th, which indeed is before july...

x-post, obviously.

Hurting, I never said the idea of Israel is up for debate now. Its indeed a reality, and I won't take anything away from that now. I just think it was a mistake to create it the way it has been created. But if I gave off the impression that i believe Israel should cease to exist or something, that is not what I intended to say at all. Hope I at least have that little credit here.

xpost I didn't mean to call you propagandistic at all, so sorry if it came off that way. I meant that I keep seeing it pop up in social media a lot, this, oh, Hamas was just lying low until Israel etc.

The region is full of states entirely or almost exclusively for one religion,

Not only are a huge number of states entirely or almost exclusively for one religion, that's in part because they often pushed their own undesirables (incl. Jews) out. More to the point, at least a couple of these countries were created through the exact sort of arbitrary/diplomatic/messy process that birthed Israel. Every country has arbitrary borders established by blood or war or sometimes even diplomacy.

I'm actually fascinated by the relative stability of India. The Muslim minority there still numbers, what, 150 million? And yet the country is democratic and not totally rife with conflict and extremism, *despite* having its own religious/strategic/border pressure point created by international meddling. Haven't heard a lot about Kashmir lately, have we?

one of the hbo vice eps was in kashmir and was pretty intense - worth checking out

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/world/middleeast/indian-tv-crew-shows-rare-video-of-rocket-launch-from-gaza.html

India is awesome one of my favorite countries. Not without its serious problems but

Hamas has also been building tunnels into Israel for attack purposes during this pleasant period of not firing all that many rockets.

I hate these arguments, they lead nowhere. Israel is or has been at war with Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions for 66 years now, who's more responsible for the latest chapter is almost irrelevant -- did the murders of three teenagers warrant mass arrests? Did the mass arrests warrant rockets? Did anything warrant the murders in the first place (although they were not by Hamas)? Do the rockets and tunnels warrant mass bombing? Does Israeli "security" warrant taking more territory? Do Hamas militants blend in with civilians? If so, does that make killing the civilians ok? Does the fact that rockets were fired from near a UN shelter warrant bombing several full ones? Is it just the fog of war, and if so, is it ok to say, "well, what can we do, it's the fog of war?"

I believe that Israel in some sense "started it" if you go all the way back to the beginning, and hence has a responsibility to not give up on trying to end it. I think Israel is a bigger obstacle to a resolution than the Palestinians are at this particular moment, and have been for some time, and yet I am wary based on the short and dense history of the conflict.

I hate the situation there in a deep way. I hate the paranoia of being a small minority in the world with a history of being persecuted. I hate seeing the suffering of ordinary people who did nothing to deserve it, and I hate feeling like I am either for the suffering of others or against the ethnicity/religion I happen to have been born into.

Sorry for again being dramatic but I haven't been able to think about anything else for maybe two weeks now, I'm not sleeping much, I can't concentrate on anything.

Just started watching that Vice thing and already it underscores what irks me about the Israel debate. You quickly have a summary about how, after Indian independence, Pakistan was created specifically to be a Muslim state, about how Kashmir is an occupied territory, about police brutality and killing, Pakistani militants, accusations of terrorism, secret underground tunnels, etc. But not a lot of people on the street up in arms about Kashmir.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nzm2CidMpM

Be warned: they subtitle Indians and Pakistanis speaking perfectly clear English.

My sister in law crossed this World's Most Dangerous Border on foot with her friend maybe 10 years ago.

thread hurts my head but thanks for that post hurting

weeeell the Israel of Kashmir is India, so

i refuse to watch that vice thing

Vice thing isn't terrible, just steps on its toes to be worse/more smug than it needs to be.

All of the Vice things do that but most of them are good reporting in spite of it

I'm actually fascinated by the relative stability of India. The Muslim minority there still numbers, what, 150 million? And yet the country is democratic and not totally rife with conflict and extremism, *despite* having its own religious/strategic/border pressure point created by international meddling. Haven't heard a lot about Kashmir lately, have we?

Outside of Kashmir there were 1200 (mostly Muslims) dead in religious violence in 1992, same again in 2005, a couple of hundred a year since then, Hindu neo-Fascist party recently elected as government, etc. India has tended to have one party (Congress) in power that has actively pushed the cause of communal unity but discrimination has always been rife and there's a huge push-back from the influential far-right against efforts to stop it. Lack of stability in Pakistan probably goes some way towards explaining why there has been less of a call for Kashmir to join it in recent years.

Also Pakistan dialled down the support when the separatists kept trying to kill its own President.

The problem with the Israel issue is not religion, but nationalism. There's a deep and horrific irony to the fact that nationalism caused so much suffering so the solution was: nationalism. But here we are and this is what's happening.

curious about what folks think about this piece, written by a friend of mine