Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

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/

Who wants to bet Dick Cheney flies over to attend Abdullah's funeral.

I'm not watching this video fwiw but hey great friends of the US amirite

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/21/middleeast/saudi-beheading-video/

my eurocentrism led me to believe all monarchial systems had pretty clear rules of succession. whoops!

He had suggested to an American counterterrorism official that electronic chips be implanted in detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

He said it had worked with horses and falcons, to which the American replied, “Horses don’t have good lawyers.”

truly a force for moderation

the American's reply is worse i think

whole exchange is disgusting, the American wink-wink "joke" included

Getting worse in Yemen:

Yemen Government in Limbo Amid Uncertainty Over President’s Resigation

Yemen could easily become a worse humanitarian crisis than Syria. Sana'a was already [running out of water](http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/aug/27/solution-yemen-water-crisis) when it had a semi-functioning government.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/yazidi-militia-makes-public-request-for-israeli-help/

ISIS in the Sinai, Yazidis on the right, here I am...

In Washington Post neo-con Editorial page editor Fred Hiatt's mind Obama's not trying hard enough to find the moderates throughout the region that the US should support. Not that I approve of US support for Saudi and Egyptian dictators or that I approve of the handling of Libya and elsewhere, but Hyatt does not seem to recognize just how difficult it is to find those moderates :

“After decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be,” the president said.

So what happened? The Arab Spring didn’t go as hoped — and the United States began to lose the war. An al-Qaeda offshoot shockingly conquered large swaths of Iraq and Syria. Libya descended into civil war. Yemen, which Obama cited just last year as proof of his successful strategy, is on a similar downward spiral. The Taliban is gaining ground in Afghanistan. Boko Haram is carving out another space for barbarism in Nigeria.

When Obama is questioned about this picture, he generally stands up his favorite straw man: “If the assertion is, is that had we invaded Syria we would be less prone to terrorist attacks, I’ll leave it to you to play out that scenario and whether that sounds accurate,” he said during his recent news conference with British leader David Cameron.

But that is not the assertion. What critics suggest is that Obama should implement the strategy he outlined in a speech at West Point in May: not a U.S. invasion, not a subcontracting of the war to heavy-handed dictators, but “a network of partnerships from South Asia to the Sahel” with moderate forces committed to fighting extremism.

Unfortunately, Obama has put little meat on that strategy. He toppled Libya’s strongman, then abandoned the country. He pulled all advisers out of Iraq and vows to do the same to Afghanistan. He emphasizes drone strikes, but with little of the institution-building that would engender cooperation over the long term. Help for Syrian moderates has been promised again and again for four years, with little to show for it. And instead of building public support for what must be a long and difficult effort, Obama barnstorms the country boasting that “our troops are coming home.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fred-hiatt-obamas-troubling-counterterrorism-allies-dictators/2015/01/25/56ad3d76-a288-11e4-9f89-561284a573f8_story.html

big suicide bombing in pakistan today - shiite target

I'm reading Lawrence Wright's "Thirteen Days in September" now (about the Camp David negotiations) -- Mordy (or anyone else) have you read it? Thoughts? So far it seems very pop history in style, and maybe indulges in some speculation about motivations, but very good nonetheless.

this is the one that just came out last year? wright is an engaging writer, but i haven't read it yet

yeah that one. friend lent it to me, I enjoy his writing a lot (have read Going Clear and a lot of his New Yorker work).

Jordan pilot hostage Moaz al-Kasasbeh 'burned alive'

ISIS hijacking UN aid to Syria, slapping their logo on it

all these hostage murders... what do they think they're achieving, exactly? so far, no one meets their demands, they kill the guys in a brutal fashion, rinse and repeat. I guess it keeps them in the headlines/furthers their notoriety but it seems kind of pointless from a tactical standpoint. If anything it just sharpens the resolution of their opponents, I would think.

helps w/ recruitment i'd guess

saddened to live in a world where that's a successful recruiting tactic

In this case, it is

The horrific hostage murder strategy is probably subject to the law of diminishing returns by now. But it is interesting to note that beheading individual westerners gave them greater attention and notoriety in the USA than when they were massacring hundreds of locals as they captured cities in Syria and Iraq.

idk what's interesting about that we have a long history of not giving a fuck about people who are not US citizens