I Never MENA Hurt You; I Never MENA Make You Cry 2017 (Middle East, North Africa, and Other Geopolitical Hotspots)

Heavy airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition pounded Yemen’s capital overnight, targeting Sanaa’s densely populated neighborhoods in apparent retaliation for the killing of the former Yemeni president by the country’s Shiite rebels, residents said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/yemens-chaos-deepens-after-rebels-killed-ex-president-saleh/2017/12/05/4ccf0f62-d982-11e7-a241-0848315642d0_story.html?utm_term=.f879da77609a

NYT says the capital recognition is going forward

This is going to get ugly really fast.

based on what? threat of days of rage? they also raged bc israel put metal detectors at the temple mount.

based on apartheid

trump declaring that the US recognizes that jerusalem is the capital of israel will get ugly really fast because of apartheid. okay genius.

since the last u and i discussed this have you bothered looking into the issue at all or nah not really

based on what? threat of days of rage? they also raged bc israel put metal detectors at the temple mount.

― Mordy, Tuesday, December 5, 2017 7:22 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That, for starters, but that's not what I meant. This wrecks the whole process and sends ripples through the whole ME. It'll undo the extremely fragile 'not all-out war' phase we're in. USA is now officially out as middle man for any kind of talks (perhaps they were already, perhaps it's for the best etc). I suspect you can see why this will have huge repercussions.

Time for Russia to step up to the plate.

russia recognized w jerusalem as the capital months ago

presumably there were no threats of violence bc no one thinks russia cares. you only threaten violence when you think threats of violence can force the policy you want.

Russia recognised West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in the context of a future agreement that saw East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestine, iirc. It’s not recognition outside of the context of the peace process.

“We reaffirm our commitment to the UN-approved principles for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, which include the status of East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state. At the same time, we must state that in this context we view West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said in a statement.

in this context

The statement starts by condemning unilateral moves and ends by saying the status of Jerusalem needs to be decided by bilateral talks.

What I'm seeing about Trump's statement is that it'll be very similar saying something like that the final borders and status of Jerusalem will need to be determined in negotiations.

If Trump says that he will recognise West Jerusalem as a future capital, after the two state solution has been implemented, and not that he is moving th Embassy there immediately, I’m sure there will be a sigh of relief in a number of places.

it's trump he'll probably say something confusing that satisfies no one imo

Here’s hoping!

welp

BREAKING: President Trump calls on Saudi Arabia to end Yemen blockade immediately, citing humanitarian concerns.

— The Associated Press (@AP) December 6, 2017

Huh.

...let's see if they stick to that for more than 48 hours, I guess?

fwiw predicting the future is tricky business but i doubt this jerusalem thing becomes a huge deal. maybe there's some rioting, some casualties but predictions of broad destabilization around the middle east imo are overblown

Yeah, that never happens.

what never happens? broad destabilization around the middle east? it happens but normally bc you've overthrown a government or fomented a revolution not bc you make a symbolic speech

The Middle East being so stable at present.

The Arabian spring began because a fruitseller set himself on fire.

what are you guys arguing exactly? that this is going to make syria/iraq worse? that it'll destabilize egypt or turkey? i'm seeing a lot of hysteria out there about the ramifications of this speech but not a lot of clarity about what those ramifications will be. i doubt any governments fall bc of this.

I mean, I agree, it's probably just a 5% chance that this leads to Hezbollah taking over Lebanon, I'm just lolling a bit about that being the standard to measure this.

hezbollah are not going to "take over lebanon"

if hezbollah took over lebanon this would be like the 20th cause imo. you'd first look at syria, iran, the saudis, etc. obv any major shift in the middle east would be overdetermined but idk ppl have been anticipating trump starting ww3 since last nov. once his term is over do u think they will apologize for fearmongering?

what are you guys arguing exactly?

I'm agreeing with you. On this point.

Yeah, I agree, this probably won't lead to any governments falling. It's still utterly stupid. Going above the heads of the Palestinians is one thing, if it was a part of a good plan towards peace, but the plan seems to let Kushner and MBS do their thing together, and then rely on people hating Iran. It's not going to work, because nothing what either of those two idiots does ever works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

relatedly so many ppl on social media claiming that this is the death knell of the peace process many of whom have said the exact same thing a dozen times over the last decade

the peace process has been long dead. this just makes it harder for people like abbas, "moderate arab" states, and the US to keep pretending they don't know that.

if you'd like but no one learned anything new today that they didn't know a year ago

I agree. But that doesn't make the whole thing less idiotic...

The peace process wasn't a literal peace process any more, hasn't been for a long time. Instead though, it did maintain a status quo, and not an insignificant one at that: to keep Israel (ignoring every resolution and happily building away new settlements, oppressing Palestine but not "hard enough" for the West to act upon) from demolishing Palestine further, and on the other side to prevent a third intifada, of rockets flying into Israel.

Fact is that this is an unwanted, rash and ill-thought through (if at all) intervention. Israel won't mind. But the rest of the world looks on in dread. Because that fuckup of a president of yours put the cat among the pigeons with this utterly useless provocation. And for what?

It's one thing to fear major repercussion because of this. I agree that might be a bit overblown. But it's another to act all "what's new? nothings gonna happen! be cool ppl! nothing to see here! been there done that," a position you seem very keen on to take. Bit too keen imo. Saying this won't have big consequences doesn't mean it's not an absolutely cuntish thing to do for a US president. It's something he, nor the US, nor anyone benefits from (apart from maybe dollars from Israel for mr. Trump himself but who knows right?). It achieves nothing, doesn't give him any leverage or hand he did not have already. It only sparks the flame of instability. Because that's what Trump does. No new war in the Middle East because of it? Probably. But it's not something to shrug off and sneeze at either.

(that was an xp to Mordy, but I think you got that Fred)

it's true i think it's much ado about nothing. i think trump and his critics would prefer everyone think otherwise.

i mean we'll soon find out who was right so it doesn't make much sense to argue esp since you seem to agree ""Saying this won't have big consequences doesn't mean it's not an absolutely cuntish thing to do for a US president."

We're not arguing iirc. Just strikes me as odd as to why you'd make a song and dance about something you think has zero implications and does not matter one bit in the first place.

i thought i said that upfront? it's bc i've seen a lot of ppl online say hysterical things about it. like that it would spark ww3. ppl on this v website!

idk why you'd call what i wrote a "song and dance" btw i think i've been extremely straight-forward. i'm projecting what i think will result from this. i'm not making any argument about what i think should result or what i hope results or what i think a good resolution would be etc. there are arab writers i'm reading today that say the exact same thing.

Idk your last ten (?) posts here are all 'I don't see anything coming from this'. Which you are entitled to, obv, it just feels a bit like driving home a 'nothing happens' (nethack flashback) point over and over. Which is, I agree with you, "projecting what you think will result from this".

"We'll see" indeed...

And for what?... It only sparks the flame of instability. Because that's what Trump does.

this is otm

today on NPR Up First, the framing was exclusively WILL THERE BE ANOTHER INTIFADA? THIS ONE GUY WE INTERVIEWED SAID THERE WILL BE AN INTIFADA! HAMAS WANTS AN INTIFADA! WILL PALESTINIANS WAIT FOR A PEACE PROPOSAL BEFORE THEY START INTIFADA-ING?

— techno-serf (@worldfleshdevil) December 7, 2017

yep. also the frame Cory Booker, Sanders, and other dems used. The “but Trump will unleash the scary Arab!”, “inflame tensions” “Now is not the time” line is the safe liberal take because it’s a process objection that avoids addressing issue of apartheid and land theft. https://t.co/Kj20JLohBt

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) December 7, 2017

Jerusalem: More journalists than protestors after Friday prayers https://t.co/bQZ55JMlCE

— Björn Stritzel (@bjoernstritzel) December 8, 2017

This is interesting:

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/saudi-arabias-crown-prince-identified-as-buyer-of-record-breaking-da-vinci-1512674099?__twitter_impression=true

Prince Mohammed, known by his initials MBS, was identified as the buyer of the 500-year-old painting, “Salvator Mundi,” in U.S. intelligence reports, according to people with direct knowledge of the information. American officials have closely watched the activities of the 32-year-old, who is trying to portray himself as a reformer determined to root out corruption in the oil-rich kingdom.

The story is completely false - the painting was bought for the new Abu Dhabi Louvre by the UAE - but there appears to have been an attempt by (someone in) US intelligence to undermine MBS with a planted story, unless the WSJ made it up themselves, which seems unlikely. Not sure if it should be read alongside the Yemen tweet earlier in the week as a warning to play ball.

African refugees not welcome in Israel or Europe. African Refugees arriving in Libya mistreated

https://psmag.com/social-justice/understanding-libyas-slave-trade

While most migration in Africa is within African countries, after Israel's fence went up, many asylum seekers turned to Libya and the sea...

The number of asylum seekers reaching Italy's shores plummeted in 2017...

In 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that all Syrian asylum seekers would be allowed to stay in Germany independent of their first country of contact. The move was celebrated by some as a watershed moment. What received less attention was that these asylum seekers amounted to a little under half of those in the country at the time; other asylum seekers, including many from Africa, were stuck in the unstable purgatory of the undocumented.