Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

Play with fire, you might get burned though.

enemies of Pakistan, enemies of Islam and enemies of humanity

Saying that your opponents are shitheels doesn't mean you aren't a shitheel yourself. It's strange how many people fall into that fallacy.

since when is Pakistan in the Middle East?

haha that occurred to me too but figured it wasn't worth arguing about

Same here

idk, seems at least doubtful to me that the ISI decided it would be a good idea to assist the taliban with a revenge attack against them by killing over a hundred of its own citizens

xxp i've always included pakistan in this thread since MENA is obv a term of art and there are many reasons to include pakistan in it - i guess the en vogue name now is MENAP to include afghanistan + pakistan. i didn't see anyone discussing it elsewhere tho, so i'm not sure why it would be a problem to bring it up here.

imago bumped the mumbai attack thread

Yes, highly unlikely they were involved, which is not to say they have always been unsympathetic to militancy. Akhtar is seen as a shift away from that, though, and there is no love lost between them and internal militant opposition.

killing over a hundred of its own citizens

But the Taliban have killed thousands over their fellow Pakistanis over the years?

of not over!

MENA is obv a term of art and there are many reasons to include pakistan in it
I have literally no idea what this sentence means, or why Pakistan would fit better with the Middle East than, idk, the rest of South Asia. Americans.

xp that's about the ISI, there is no motive for them to attack their own citizens, this is baseless speculation about a horrific attack

for the same reason that the IMF has included it? persian, turkish + arab language relationships, religious affinities, political + economic dependence

like, i think it makes at least as much sense to discuss it in this thread as it does in a mumbai thread!

this is really smart:
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/legal-foundations-islamic-state-mara-revkin/

I always thought the word "terrorists" was kind of meaningless or at best incomplete as applied to IS. They're more like a nascent mini-empire, like the mongols or something. I wonder when the last time this happened was historically - an army sort of spawning out of nowhere and conquering significant territory.

This reads like an episode of Homeland or something:

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/18/-sp-the-race-to-save-peter-kassig

Suppose it's not new, but I stumbled upon the latest issue of 'Dabiq', a sort of glossy magazine for Al'Qaida/IS sympathizers. PDF here.

It's such a surreal read. There's a foreword in which the man who held people hostage in the Sydney cafe is lauded. Then there's a lengthy piece of advice for 'soldiers of Islamic State'. A section called 'Words of the Enemy' (featuring Bibi etc). And a section called 'Meltdown', about the financial markets, currency, an almost marxist anti-capitalist manifesto yet justifying IS introducing their own curreny, supposedly written by John Cantlie, who's held hostage and has featured in the most recent IS videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUST-Wdqn80

New video by John Cantlie. Getting ever more surreal. Can't help but look or listen for hints or nods, but that would probably be too dangerous. One odd thing around the six minute mark is that his notebook is consistently blurred out.

excited for hurting's superior MENA titled thread for the new year

International Criminal Court? Everyone knows that Tel Aviv, like Washington, is a crime-free zone.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/03/israel-tax-payments-withhold-palestine-international-criminal-court

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.635096

Israel has a right not to join the ICC if it doesn't want to but that's absolutely shameful behaviour.

for those in the UK interested in choral singing/chanting and photos of Syria from before the current fighting, Jason Hamacher of LostOrigins.com will be speaking in Cambridge January 5th

ARADIN Christmas Concert
Monday January 5 from 19:30 to 21:00
The Epiphany, ARADIN fundraising concert with a surprise, at at Great Saint Mary’s Church, Cambridge, 7:30-9p.m, Monday 5th January 2015

ARADIN supports education and cultural preservation of the minorities in the Middle East, in particular Christian communities.

Tickets: £12.00, (£10.00 concessions). Tickets can be purchased at the door or at the shop of Great Saint Mary’s).

* Special guest, Jason Hamacher, founder of Lost Origins Productions, a production house that explores ancient civilisations to discover unique stories from the past and present, will be joining us to give a testimony on his research into Syrian and Armenian chant.

There will be a prayer vigil before the concert between 6:45-7:15pm. in particular for the Christians in Iraq and Syria. All welcome.

http://www.haaretz.com/1.635316

Israel has requested that US legislation to block all aid to Palestine if they attempt to bring any action in the ICC is enforced.

Earlier Sunday, Foreign Ministry Director-General Nissim Ben Sheetrit said that Israel’s response to the Palestinian bid at the ICC would be much harsher and more comprehensive than freezing the PA’s tax revenues. Ben Sheetrit made the remarks at a conference held in Jerusalem for Israel’s envoys to Europe.

“Israel is about to switch from defense to attack mode,” he said.

Sheetrit said, however, that unlike in the past, Israel will not launch a wave of settlement construction in response to the Palestinian moves. He also added Israel had no interest in undermining security cooperation with the PA or to cause its collapse

However, an order has just gone through to move an army base in the West Bank with a view to expanding settlements there.

Hilarious.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/05/middleeast/forgotten-in-aleppo/

great sisi speech:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/01/04/we-are-in-need-of-a-religious-revolution/

Yeah, let's def hail the guy murdering thousands of religious opponents, that guy is def progressive on these matters.

Thousands? Without a citation I have a hard time believing Sisi has murdered any more than hundreds of religious opponents since he took office.

all hail sisi

Yeah, let's def hail the guy murdering thousands of religious opponents

― Frederik B, Monday, 5 January 2015 21:27 (16 minutes ago)

sure but in the longrun this move might be even more helpful

I'm sure the Egyptian religious community is gonna take notes from Sisi rmde

the madawi al rasheed book about the house of saud i just read largely downplayed the role of qutbism and the muslim brotherhood in fomenting the salafist turn in arabia post-80s, which is the primary formative influence on al qaeda

egypt hasn't really contributed that heavily to worldwide jihadism in most respects relative to the size of the country, despite all the admiring notices they get for headline names like qutb or qaradawi from people like adam curtis

the muslim brotherhood are primarily a containable domestic yobbery threat now and sinai is obviously full of agitation and money from across the border

feel like egypt is maybe regretting negotiating so hard to get the sinai back

Thousands? Without a citation I have a hard time believing Sisi has murdered any more than hundreds

> 1600 killed in street protests, at least 1200 political death sentences, though to my knowledge only 8 executions (for non-political offenses) in 2014.

ty

2015 thread?

Looks like there is disagreement on a name and what countries can be included.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/13/world/middleeast/joan-peters-journalist-who-wrote-on-israeli-palestinian-conflict-dies-at-78.html

https://twitter.com/Mudar_Zahran/status/558251192548352002

Death and discrimination comes later?

he's hilarious - look at his timeline. "Mudar Zahran is a Jordanian Palestinian politician and the secretary general of the Jordanian Opposition Coalition"

https://twitter.com/Mudar_Zahran/status/558206642723246080

Never heard of the Houthi in Yemen till the other day

WASHINGTON — Only months ago, American officials were still referring to Yemen’s negotiated transition from autocracy to an elected president as a model for post-revolutionary Arab states.

Now, days of factional gun battles in the Yemeni capital have left the president a puppet figure confined to his residence. The country appears to be at risk of fragmenting in ways that could provide greater opportunities both for Iran and for Al Qaeda, whose Yemeni branch claimed responsibility for the first Paris terrorist attack this month.

The latest Yemeni crisis raises the prospect of yet another Arab country where the United States faces rising dangers but has no strong partners amid a landscape of sectarian violence. Although the Houthi rebels who now effectively control the state are at war with Al Qaeda, they are also allied with Iran and with Yemen’s meddlesome former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/world/middleeast/yemen-at-risk-of-fragmenting.html

King Abdullah has apparently died.

rip big man

good riddance

Heard on the BBC, former Prime Minister Blair calling him a reformer because more women are in universities now. Then the Amnesty International guy responded that while that was good, most of those women were likely from well-to-do families; plus the human rights issues remain horrible there and women can't drive, etc.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/23/saudi-arabias-king-misremembered-man-peace/